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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


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    Halloweenfest 2018 - Part Four
    #1
    The bottle of cheap liquor rolls across the floor, empty and forgotten as Jack relaxes in his old recliner. He tries to put his cigarette out in the ash tray but misses at first, thumping the butt into his side table instead. A lazy ‘hmph’ leaves his throat before he tries again. After putting out his cigarette, he drags himself up and leans both hands on the cauldron to see what’s become of the game he had forgotten about. He squints and the triangles of his eyes become two blocky lines, clumsily carved and messy in their execution. His mouth forms a tiny frown with equally poor formation. Jack is too drunk to understand what’s happening for a moment and so he simply watches for a while as his monsters tear apart Beqanna and its inhabitants.

    Wait.
    Oh no.
    Oh jeez.

    He pushes himself off the cauldron and scrambles for his cloak, spilling the entire festive potion to the floor. His clawed hands tie a loose knot to keep the clothing on him and then he’s rushing out the door with a handful of fairy wings. This kind of screw up is going to require some pretty big magic to fix, he thinks.

    Meanwhile, the clouds gather in front of the moon with alarming speed. The minions raise their heads and freeze in place as they watch, wait. A few of them mumble to one another but they dare not speak above a whisper. The fog that Jack had gathered before grows even thicker before a ferocious wind sweeps through and clears it all away. Even the minions are shivering as they begin to back away into the shadows that had protected them before.

    The decoys he had placed before slowly rise up on thin limbs and clawed hands. Their expressions turn angry and their carvings are sloppy, each with a knife plunged into the side of their head. Autumn frost emanates from the clones and the flora nearby turn red and orange. Each copy reaches up to grip the handle of the kitchen knife with a clawed hand before roughly yanking it from themselves. The fire within them turns a bright blue as Jack takes control of them and points the tip of his blade at his players.

    The games are done, we’ve had our fun. Now it’s time for you to run,” he says as he steps forward. His minions turn to ash as they make their retreat, swept away in the biting wind. The spirit’s strides are long and fluid despite his intoxication. There’s no time for more inventive rhymes, he knows, as the real hunt begins. The Jacks of the shore simply walk across the surface of the water while others fall from trees like horrible spiders. Some skitter across cave walls and dangle from ceilings. A few discard their knives in favor of the strings of Halloween lights, wrapping them around their knuckles with sick grins. Each of them fully intends to wipe this occasion from existence and destroy any evidence of their shared shame.



    Jack is drunk and VERY ANGRY now. Each clone is basically the real Jack, but split up so he's not as powerful as he normally is. Your character should be warmed up from attacking or fleeing from the minions, so treat this as you would a challenge with another character. Explain the why’s and how’s of each attack and keep in mind any damage you might’ve taken in the last round. If you’re not a fighter, try to reason with Jack while evading his attacks. He is a very powerful magician so you won’t be able to kill him. Begin to formulate your plan of escape for the next round.

    Only five players will move on to the final round, so pay close attention to your grammar and readability. This round ends on 11:59pm CT on Sunday.

    @[Zoryn], you were 2 minutes late on your reply, so I’m sorry to say you’ve been cursed. For the next two real life weeks, Zoryn’s eyes, mouth, and nostrils will be illuminated by fire like a jack-o’-lantern’s. His features keep their natural shape, though. It won’t hurt him as they produce no real heat, but it looks really creepy and he might terrify his children. (If you’d like to keep this curse and make it genetic, let me know and I’ll ask Cassi.)

    Jack O'Lantern
    O! Ghostly friend, thy hair's on end! What fearful fate do you portend?
    Reply
    #2

    (A river. A mermaid. A hazel.)
    (A bloodied shoreline. A sunset. A beacon.)

    A single, razor-clawed finger draws a centreline in blood down her naked belly from the bottom of her ribs to the tops of her hip bones; a teaser, she thinks, of what comes next, because that same finger could have spilled her innards the first time if it had only wanted to. They were cruel, these flickering shadow-monsters. It’s why they chose the faces of people she’s known. It’s why they’ve become all the things that are important to her. It’s why He waited, hovering above her, with a wicked sneer and his claws drawn back as though in the next second he would bring them down on her with enough force to craft that first true incision.

    They wanted to see her squirm first.
    They wanted to feed on her fear.

    But they won’t find it. She’s counting craters on the surface of the moon illuminating them, because it brings her peace to remove herself rather than watch them spill her insides out. She’s singing, still, even when there’s no room for mercy in the vacuous black of their eyes, because she can feel the ache of her lullaby in her heart and it feels as though its drowning her fear. It hurts to bleed, to be cut open, but its been so long since she’s felt at home in her own skin. She feels it now, like its her own, like it belongs to her again. A shame, she thinks, to be reunited with her own thoughts and body just in time for it all to be taken again.

    Then, before the yellowed moon clouds roll, and as a deeper darkness settles in around the violent scene on the river Glassheart can no longer count craters to distract herself from the bony hands at her wrists, and ankles - from the thing that feels like Carnage even if she’s never met him; from an inevitable demise. He brings his hand down like a hammer, and she feels his claw in her belly. She doesn’t hear her song end. She doesn’t hear herself screaming - but she is.

    This is not the end, she thinks.
    And it isn’t - at least, not yet.

    Because then a collective shudder and resounding hush moves over their horrifying, flickering, wailing bodies like a wave breaking on the shore. Even He, with his claw deep inside her gut and ready to pull her open as easily as if on her belly there was a zipper, withdraws his hooked claw, quivers and settles. One by one the faces of the ones she knows disappear, and the monsters become shadows again. They leave her wrists, her ankles, and as quickly as they had come they are gone - floating back across the river, retreating into ash as a cool wind suddenly sweeps across the shoreline.

    One by one the faces disappear, and they become shadows again. They leave her wrists, her ankles, and they float back across the river and into the shadows, retreating into ash as a cool wind suddenly sweeps across the shoreline.

    Adrenaline helps her find her feet immediately, even through the wound to her gut that spills blood like those creatures had spilled disease. She looks out into the haze, clutching her wound with one hand in an effort to mitigate the bleeding. She would breathe a sigh of relief, only she isn’t stupid. This isn’t over. Something worse is next. Something much worse. She doesn’t know it, but trembling and damaged, waiting for an inevitable destruction - she and her mother are mirrored images. She should have listened. She should have kept running.

    Now she waits with bated breath for the next event to unfold.

    (A river. A mermaid. A hazel.)
    (A bloodied shoreline. A sunset. A beacon.)

    And Glassheart is not kept waiting long. It begins with the rattle of leaves from the trees on the shoreline, next, the ground seems to pulse, and here and there the orange pumpkins she’d discovered at the start of her dream begin to pull themselves up from the ground like reanimated corpses. Some have maggots that drip from their eyes, and some have heads that are squashed and over-ripe. They all wear dramatic capes. They all have thin, twiggy limbs with gnarled, clawed hands and knives jammed violently into the sides of their angry faces. They’re all horrible. They’re all seeing her.

    Suddenly there are thousands of carved out eyes peering out at her.Some pop out of the ground quickly like gophers, others fall from the branches of trees and break apart just to collect themselves together again at the bottom. They move towards her and when they do frost blankets the earth, and plants wither and green becomes orange and red and violent. When they reach the river’s edge they hover a moment, congregating, and then when their fires turn blue like the water they collectively reach the knives in their heads, withdraw them, and point them at her.

    “The games are done, we’ve had our fun. Now it’s time for you to run.”

    There isn’t time to formulate a grand escape plan. The shoreline, littered now with monsters, isn’t a viable option - assuming that she did manage to flee and hide while bleeding out, they would surely follow the trail of dripping blood as easily as the monsters before them had followed the pearls. No, she’d have to try the river. She’d have to swim for as long as she could before she, inevitably, lost consciousness. She doesn’t think about the gaping hole in her gut, or about how the water would thin the blood spilling out of her and hasten her demise. She just plunges into the rapids, and the pumpkin creatures close in from either side.

    The water changes colour with her blood. She doesn’t notice that there is something more to it besides that, that the ever-clumsy Jack has once again accidentally doused the world in even more magic without knowing it. At least, not at first. When the icy water hits her skin she only feels the cut on her belly burning, like something is seeping into her through the hole. Then the change is fast, and cruel. Gills tear slits into either sides of her neck, just behind her ears and her fingers grow a gentle webbing between them. The worst, however, is the feeling of every bone in both of her legs breaking and then reforming; they fuse together to become one, and her pink skin and sequin skirt are replaced by teal scales and a true mermaids tail. She has become a true mermaid.

    And just in time.

    From either side the pumpkins are closing in. The massive throng moves slowly, but each step they take makes the river narrower with the frost that they bring. First they block downstream, and with everything left inside of her she tries to swim faster, to escape in the opposite direction but she’s bleeding, and she’s bruised, and she’s swimming upstream, and before her they stretch out for miles and miles and miles. They close the path almost immediately; tighter and tighter they circle, until all that’s left unfrozen of the river is a little pool in its centre.

    This is not the end, she thinks.
    And it still isn’t.

    Because she realizes then, while waving her long, scaly tail back and forth in order to tread the water in the pool, that a new world has opened up for her; one that gives her what she needs when she needs it. So she imagines harnessing the water all around her, and all at once she can feel in her bones that its working.

    The river water spirals up and out of the pool in its centre. Glassheart swims at its peak. It spins, and spins, and spins - faster with every rotation - and if she’s lucky, this might create a wind that will blow the loosely tied cloaks around the bodies of the pumpkin creatures. Some might just swirl around them and entrap their bony limbs, others might catch cloaks with the pumpkins cloak next to him and tangle together (She doesn’t know it, but Jacks natural clumsiness and penchant for making mistakes put this strongly in her favour). And then, while the wind is at its peak she raises millions of water droplets up from the river beyond the hordes of villans and releases them overhead. It is her hope that in conjunction with the wind and the pumpkin’s natural frosting abilities that the water will freeze on impact and leave the creatures tangled in their cloaks. It wouldn’t hold them long, if at all, but it might be enough.

    She doesn’t wait to find out. She’s pouring blood like she’s pouring magic, and so she uses what’s left of her to change the form of the spiral of water. It becomes two horses, and she finds her home on the back of one that she imagines to be gold. And she wills them to charge forwards from the river, hopefully collapsing then evading the army below.

    (A river. A mermaid. A hazel.)
    (A bloodied shoreline. A sunset. A beacon.)

    Glassheart

    i'll always love you the most

    Reply
    #3

    Ilma
    And there's a lesson waiting to be learned
    the firestarters always get the burns
    and the good guys never get the girl

    On the damp, cold, Taigan forest floor, the white-skinned woman hugs herself, tears dried up at the messed-up scene before her eyes. Swaying with fatigue, she’s cold to the touch, should anyone want to test that theory. There might be one or some who would, if they were here. Like the henchman coming up behind her while the other two were fighting to have her live her deepest fears – for her loved ones to fight and kill one another – and the only reason her throat isn’t slashed open by the one behind her, is because Jack has started to work his magic.

    Which is something she honestly just doesn’t notice for a while.

    The moonlit clearing is no longer moonlit, but eerie; if it wasn’t eerie before, that is: with the sea mist between the trees, or the ravaged scene with dead bodies and pumpkin mash and a destroyed display of treats. It is certainly eerie now. Now, the moon is hiding behind a body of dark clouds, casting irregular shadows over herself and the frozen figures that surround her.
    Finally, she looks up and around. Takes in the changing scene.

    More fog is surrounding her; more than it had before, more than was to be expected, even in Taiga. The thick mist hides the shadows, as they are retreating. But she has the feeling that it’s not over by far.

    It’s only just beginning.

    She shivers, though not from the cold; she hasn’t felt the cold for a while now, occupied by other events. Something is coming. She knows this in the same way that she knows Llowell is safe and happy, just travelling. She knows it in the same way that she knows that Svedka is trying to master his newest ability. She knows it by the feeling of eyes on her back, the way the hairs in her neck rise slowly.

    She doesn’t want to turn around. She really doesn’t. But she has to. So she stands, slowly turning. She doesn’t want the something to catch her off guard.

    He still does.

    She steps back, almost falling as she does, her newly-human foot caught in the hem of her dress. His head… it’s not natural, she knows it even in this new form of hers. He has a knife (the term is new to her mind, but it is there nonetheless). She instantly knows it’s sharp and dangerous and could take a life. Her life.

    The games are done, we’ve had our fun. Now it’s time for you to run.

    She’s having no fun at all. But when he comes for her, she frantically doges dodges him anyway. Leaning sideways, the knife nearly catches her fair skin of her arm, but she uses the too-large momentum of her dodge to step aside. ”Fun? Fun? There’s been no fun in what you’ve done!” Oh god, can she really only speak in rhyme now? Honestly, she hasn’t tried speaking yet, so perhaps it’s true… she just has to test it, she supposes.

    Her side-stepping had her dodge once, but obviously that’s not enough. He had wanted her to run, however, and that is the one thing she refuses to do. Perhaps she can distract him long enough, or grab the knife from him, or…

    She ducks at the very next attack, stretching her arms forward and pulls on the thin sticky legs. She’s not sure if he’ll fall down at all, but at least he’d be distracted enough for her to speak to him. ”A game you say, it is we play? Excuse me if I’m not that swayed. From home you took me, far away! All this, to kill me? I say nay!” Rolling through the pumpkin-and-fruits mess, she scrambles to hands and feet again. ”You’ve no idea of what you’ve done! This is your mess, not mine, moron!” At that, she gestures over the area, but the minions have already vaporized, so there’s not much more of a mess to show for than the scattered treats.

    And herself, of course. On her hands and knees, she looks up at him in anger, as he advances a third time. But it will be the last. She’s done. ”If you must kill me, make it quick. Take a mother from her kids... know it’s you that makes me sick.” She hurls the worlds at him, and for good measure, she adds the first best thing that her hands can grasp.

    and shooting stars cannot fix the world
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time
    Reply
    #4

    She ducks her head beneath the water when the wind comes to sweep the fog away in a single, violent gust. Under the ocean it is warm and quiet and so delightfully peaceful in comparison to the wild world above. She considers leaving this foolish game behind in favor of fraternizing with the sea turtles or exploring the coral reefs she's only ever looked at from above. When she turns her head to look out to the deepest water, a strange and heavy longing rises in her heart. It tugs at her soul the same way the current does her body.

    There is something out there, somewhere deep that has never seen the sun. 

    It calls to her.

    North does not look away from the deeps until a shadow falls across her face. The monsters are somehow walking across the water now, a dozen pumpkin-headed figures with knives in their shadow hands. She watches curiously, strangely not very afraid. She feels untouchable here...
     
    Until a hand descends with shocking speed, breaking through the ice-crusted water, and opens the side of her face with a knife. She shrieks and the sound cuts through the water. The waves heighten in what seems like approval, like mother frothing yes, child, yes.

    North can taste her own blood as it thickens the water around her. It has a strange effect, emboldening and enraging her. She bares her sharp teeth with a hiss, feeling less and less herself. Salt water pours into her wound, replacing the blood that streams out of it. The magic in her blood hones her into something fierce. Here and now she is a god. She stares at the stupid pumpkin faces above her, twisted by the water and moonlight between them, and they make her so, so, unbelievably angry
     
    In an instant her song changes from a lure to a fishhook. She wants to jab that fishhook through their ears, into their empty pumpkin skulls. With all her soul and all her magic, she screams.

    They crouch in attempt to cover their ears, but hers is not a sound carried by the air. There is no escaping it-- you strap yourself to the mast, as sailors once did, and endure the song, or else give yourself to the mercy of the deep, dark sea.

    The thing that makes North who she is, that silver flame of wit and pacifism, she can feel it growing smaller and smaller. It becomes all but swallowed by the dark magic in her veins. When she speaks, it is not her own voice she hears. "Come closer, fuckers. You're playing my game now."

    One of the pumpkins throws himself into the sea, still clutching his triangle ears. She is on him in an instant, sinking her teeth into a skinny dark leg and tugging it sharply underwater with a strength she did not know she had. They twirl together downward, North biting down hard and shaking violently.

    It takes less then a minute. When she is finished, a pumpkin head bobs idly, almost peacefully, to the surface. A tattered black body follows in a cloud of inky blood. North screams again, a terrible sound, and watches the pumpkins that remain. She has forgotten the tricks, the treats, the prizes. She has forgotten herself entirely to the metallic taste of blood in her mouth.

    It is a violent coming of age.

    N O R T H
    Reply
    #5

    Decimate

    A tranquil calm was bleeding into him, dimming his eagerly hateful attitude and replacing it with a weary quiet. He was still gradually spilling blood, liquid beryllium over midnight indigo skin, and his wings were drooping and nearly dragging along the earth.

    Suddenly, the shadow wolf at his back froze, its dark face upturned to the sky. Decimate paused to watch it over his shoulder warily with a slow blink. The blood on his coat began to itch as it was drying, but he didn't feel much pain anymore. At the beast's continued silence, he spared a glance at the sky too. He still felt no fear; he seemed incapable of such an emotion. Tired, he could feel. And did.

    He was still just a child, after all.

    As he watched, the clouds swept before the moon swiftly, gathering together and blocking the light further. Somehow, the fog thickened more than it already had been. He frowned indifferently, dropping his eyes to the giant wolf of shadow again just as it grew anxious, paced nervously, and dissipated with a haunting howl that lingered long after its disappearance. The melancholy sound sank into Decimate's skin, deep into his young bones with a vibrating chill. There was finally a subtle sense of foreboding.

    A creature he could only assume was this Jack rose from the ground to his left, neatly demanding Decimate’s level gaze as he turned his little body to face the mage. The fog cleared with a rush of wind, gently stripping his costume along with it, taking his weaponed claws and powerful wings, his dragon fangs. His hip still bore the mark of panther claws, but the rest was returned to his natural state. He was just a boy again on little hooves. Just a terrible boy. And it was just the two of them now.

    Finally.

    Decimate just wanted to end this so he could sleep. He didn’t have the energy to care that he was left defenseless now, a child without teeth to bite with. He ached and he hurt, and he wanted to go home and curl against his mother’s side. He wanted to feel her horns massage his lanky neck as she nuzzled him. He supposed he'd even allow his twin sister to wedge in against him. She would help keep him warm as he napped.

    As mirrors of this creature came to life, Decimate realized he'd been wrong. It wasn't just the two of them. There were many of this Jack, all echoes of a single entity. They even looked just the same, moved in sync with one another as each one reached up to grab a blade lodged into their heads. Their glow shifted to bright blue, and the tip of that weapon turned to point at him behind angry faces.

    Decimate was not too tired to enjoy this. He barked out a laugh, a single chuckle that swiftly turned to many, his small shoulders shaking. Oh, god. Really? He was so exhausted and he was laughing, mirthful tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. This couldn't be real. This had to be the biggest joke of them all.

    “The games are done, we’ve had our fun. Now it’s time for you to run.”

    Hah! He doubled over with laughter, crying out helplessly and sniffling, wiping the moisture from his cheeks with a rub of his shoulder. This guy was seriously going to try to look tough now? No, this was a joke. That would be impossible to do when thus far all Jack had done was stutter and fumble, nervously botch his own games. Now, suddenly, he was something to fear?

    Oh, no. Sorry.
    Decimate couldn't manage that one.
    This was definitely a joke. A trick, rather than treat.

    With each wild giggle, he could feel his energy returning a little at a time. At every glance around he took, he could only laugh harder, sounding more and more like the little boy that he was. Each small copy of Jack was desperately trying to raise their scare factor, grabbing knives or twisting lights around their fists like knuckle guards.

    "Okay, stop," Decimate pleaded between breaths, his abdomen hurting from so much laughing. He sucked in a big gulp of air to settle them, held his breath until it burst from his lips regardless with another round of giggles. "Stop. I can't take it!" Oh god, this was hilarious! What a treat, after all.

    The ground suddenly shook under him. He spread his slender legs for balance, his amusement snatched away and his eyes on the earth. Large, golden spikes thrust up in rows beginning from Jack and lining straight to Decimate. Another threatening rumble introduced another row, and another, as they came closer and closer to him with clear purpose.

    He turned and ran.

    He was a fighter, but how could he fight a magician? He was only a small child. He didn't have any magic. For a demigod, he was not at all powerful like his sire. Not even like his mother with her regenerative healing and dangerous horns. He was nothing, and it burned his defiant eyes with bitter frustration and fresh tears. For that brief moment only minutes ago, he'd almost felt a sense of power.

    But he was nothing.

    He must have been making too much progress, gaining too much distance towards safety, because without warning there was a wild, hurricane-level torrent of wind. It threw him back towards the spikes, his scream drowned out by the roar of it. By luck alone, he landed between two stabbing shards, immediately curling his neck and foreleg around one to hold on and keep from being shoved into another gleaming spike. He was too safe again, though. Too fearless.

    The gusty storm faded away to make the next attack possible. He could hear his ragged breathing in the eerie silence, very cautiously releasing the spike he'd been desperately clinging to and looking around. There wasn't a single sound, a single movement. There wasn't anything but him and the darkness.

    A blinding explosion erupted a few feet in front of him, sod and debris flying from impact and pelting into his face and across his chest. He startled back a few paces, blinking through tears and the flash that wouldn't leave his vision. His heart raced, then nearly jumped out of his chest when another explosion struck nearby. There was no warning, no sounds to this new threat.

    He took off running again, little mouth gaping and eyes scanning the sky for the next fireball, or meteor. The speed in which they appeared made it impossible to know for certain where and when they would strike, twisting his intent to dodge them into a fatal gamble, a blind man through a minefield.

    All he could do was run.
    All he had were his tired legs and this silver blood still trailing from open wounds.
    Because he was nothing.

    can the killer in me tame the fire in you?

    I am sick of the chase but I'm hungry for blood

    Reply
    #6
    Sick satisfaction rushed up Dizzy’s arms and through her veins as the striped lance squelched into the demon’s chest, piercing him through and tearing an enraged scream from his throat. He didn’t, unfortunately, listen to her command and just up and die, but still. It was a fucking cathartic moment, alright? Probably it was for the best that ominous clouds rolled in front of the moon and the fucking Krampus asshole stopped giving a shit about her and her delicious fear.

    The fog thickened, only to be swept away by sharp, biting wind that fucking hurt it was so cold on her bare skin. Demon bitch was distracted enough by the pole in his chest and just being generally terrified of whatever scary shit was coming next that Dizzy shrugged and walked over to her damn dress and put it back on. Bring it. At this point, what was there even left to be scared of? Obviously something big, ‘cause Krampus was backing away all shivery-panicked, but honestly. It was a nightmare. Get over your shit, Special K.

    What was the worst that could happen?

    One of the jack-o-lanterns that had made up the audience for her performance rose, his face twisting into a sloppily-carved expression of rage. He reached up, pulled a carving knife out of his head, and the fire inside him burned hotter, shifting from orange to a wicked blue. He pointed the sharp blade at her and spewed some more shitty poetry reminding her he was in charge and the Big Bad of this fever dream. Point taken, duly noted, et cetera.

    Krampus took off toward the river, and Dizzy just sighed and finished straightening her dress. If she were smart enough to run when things got bad, she wouldn’t have gotten herself into quite so many messes already, so. At least she’d gotten a good warmup in, and while she’d gotten a little lazy since her change in careers, she’d taken a fair few self-defense classes in her stripper days. A girl’s gotta be at least reasonably safe, after all.

    She’d never really been the best at listening to the if at all possible get yourself _out_ of danger side of things, and this was a nightmare and a fucking pumpkin-headed flaming magician, soooo. She slipped off her sexy heels, took on a fighting stance, bounced a little on the balls of her feet to adjust and balance. And then fuckin’ waved him forward. Come on, then. Let’s dance.

    He did so, charging and swinging that damn knife, sharp and trailing a few dangling bits of pumpkin, the stringy inner flesh that clung to seeds and made a mess all over the kitchen. And those years of classes helped her dodge, using her arm to deflect the blow and guide it away from hitting her, from slicing through blue flesh and finding the still red blood beneath.

    He swung again, and this time she wasn’t so lucky. She managed to dodge partway, but he scored a long slice along her abdomen, leaving strings of pumpkin guts dripping from her belly and clinging to the wound. Gross. “Fuck!” The cut was shallow enough that it didn’t gut her, but deep enough that yep, she found out she was right. Even in weird Nightmare Before Christmas dreams she bled red. Ugh, it hurt, too, wasn’t dream pain not supposed to actually hurt or some shit? Figured she’d get the defective dreams where pain was a real thing. Fuck this.

    Also why wasn’t he attacking her with like...actual magic? Wasn’t he supposed to be some big scary magic villain? Did he just want it to be more fun? More challenging? Fuck that guy. Or maybe it was just that he was clearly shit at magic so far, and trying to avoid fucking up even more. Fine. Cool with her.

    Apparently he got sick of the filthy knife approach, ‘cause he threw it aside and pulled out a string of creepy grinning pumpkin and skull lights -- ugh, how tacky. Figured. He lunged and caught her around the neck, pulling her to him and choking her. Tried to wrap the string of lights around her neck and strangle her too, the fucker, but she grabbed his pumpkin head and threw herself up and over, flipping in a particularly acrobatic move that usually ended with her halfway up a pole, clinging with her legs.

    She managed to slip out of the grip of his stupid fucking string lights with their stupid fucking smiles, but sorta forgot about the bright hot fire that burned in his damn jack-0-lantern head and managed to burn herself pretty good in the process. Bright side, it helped stop the bleeding from her abdomen. Less bright side, it hurt like a bitch. Ugh, shit, that was gonna leave a damn mark. He threw her down and she scrambled to her feet and took off running the same direction the Krampus-turned-coward fled, toward the river.
    Reply
    #7

    "One can never have enough socks" - Dumbledore
    "Unless one is a horse." - Revel

    His breaths are finally beginning to slow as he plops himself heavily against a tree, still scowling into the misty forest. With a sigh, he scratches his ear against the rough bark of the tree trunk before turning to look at Linda, his expression shifting from irritated to baffled. “Oh Linda,” he complains wearily. “Whatever are we going to do?”

    Linda, of course, has no response. There seems to be no further instruction from Jack. Not that he particularly trusts him anymore, the sly bastard.

    Which, as it turns out, is exactly the right response. Revel, for all his nonsensical ways, really can display some good sense from time to time. Because, as it turns out, Jack isn’t exaaactly the benevolent spirit we all thought him to be.

    From one moment to the next, the forest has gone from eerie silence to teaming with life. The wrong kind of life. Revel snaps upright, eyes widening as the pumpkins scattered throughout the forest begin to drag themselves upright on slender limbs, their jagged grins flickering from yellow to blue. Even Linda appears to want in on the action, rising up from her perch atop the trunk as she turns to face him, all while pulling a rather wicked looking knife from her gourd-ish skull. Oh hell. It seems this adventure in nightmares has only just begun.

    The games are done, we’ve had our fun. Now it’s time for you to run.

    Sound advice, Jack. Very sound advice. And Revel is not one to turn down a good suggestion, especially when his life is on the line. With a startled little meep, Revel’s hooves scrabble against the leaf litter as he stumbles backwards before turning and bolting.

    He doesn’t get far, unfortunately.

    And poor Revel, well, he’s a lover, not a fighter. The very thought of having to do a bloody dance with these Jack clones is alarming. What does he even do? He’s never trained for this! Where does one even hit a pumpkin to disable them? He doesn’t even know that answer on a horse! Forget about a thing that should be his dinner, not his enemy. And damnit, he’s definitely not hungry enough to eat all these pumpkins. He’d probably burst. And then die a gruesome death.

    Of course, the good news is he can’t really die. Not forever. But still, it’s a less than pleasant prospect. No one wants to be murdered, even if they won’t actually stay dead.

    Skidding to a halt before a line of pumpkin headed soldiers, Revel prances a bit in place, head so high it’s nearly in the canopy, his eyes round with alarm. He dodges a brave soldier who stumbles forward and slices at his shoulder with the serrated knife in his spindly fingers. As he twitches sideways to avoid getting stabbed, he nearly wallops himself in the head with a low hanging tree-branch. Good lord! See! Not a warrior! Should’ve noticed that damnit.

    “Erm, Jack?” he questions, twisting his head this way and that to keep an eye on the encroaching minions, dancing sideways until he is nearly pressed into a tree. “I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Y’know, I could be very helpful if you’d let me. I mean, just look at Linda!” He glances around, quickly spying the bewigged pumpkin as she advances on him. He cringes, pressing himself further into the tree, his bruised muscles protesting. Maybe not the greatest example. “But I mean like, for real! We could find you a real lady! There’s gotta be lots of great ones out there. I’m the best wingman too! ‘Haaaave you met Jack?’”

    At this point, he’s really just babbling, but he can’t seem to help himself. “Just think about it! You’d be missing out if you killed me!”

    The pumpkins surrounding him keep closing in, and Revel is nearly ready to panic now. A couple of the spindly creatures have even managed to gather themselves a string of lights. All the better to strangle him with, right?

    Nope nope nope. Hell to the nope. He’s not dying by strangulation. Lurching forward, he picks one clone that appears a little wobbly. Sorta. Maybe. Hell, he’d take whatever he could work with. The thing raises it’s knife and he smashes into it, teeth snapping wildly as he tries to find the scrawny, knife-wielding arm. When he feels his teeth close around something, he grips as hard as he can, shaking his head almost viciously before dashing forward, that tough vine still clenched in his mouth.

    Oh hell, it’s heavy. He drags it for a few more feet before dropping it and sprinting away. A faint slice across his ribs tells him he hadn’t escaped entirely unscathed. But with the adrenaline coursing through his veins as it is, the sharp cut and burning ache of his abused muscles are hardly enough to hold him back.

    At least, until he encounters another batch of clones blocking his path. Skidding wildly to a halt, he scrabbles for purchase (nearly falling flat on his rear as he does so) as he makes a sharp turn to the right. He bolts forward, only to be brought up short once again.

    Nearly panting now, he skids to a halt until he’s able to stumble into an aboutface. But hell and damnation, he’s surrounded again. “C’mon Jack!” he shouts desperately into the air, his breath harsh now as he skitters into a nervous pivot. “Just think about it! We’d make a fabulous team! And really, you don’t want to kill me anyway. Way too much work, for one. And I’d just keeping coming back, y’know? Then you’d just have to kill me all over again. And nobody wants that. I mean, do you really want to spend all of eternity trying to kill me over and over again? Sounds suuuper stressful. Just sayin’.”

    Hell, at this point, he’s willing to say pretty much anything. Bonus points for being true. Although, come to think of it, maybe he should be a little less honest. Channel his inner Dumbledore a little more. But who knows, maybe Jack likes honesty?

    Revel

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    #8
    “Now it’s time for you to run.”

    Her legs carry her towards the stream that separates Taiga from her home, the forest. The crisp water cools her burning and aching legs, but Faolin is not allowed to rest very long. Thick fog rolls across the riverbank, and then thickens as it starts reaching for the other river bank. Its approach is sudden enough to make Faolin retreat back into Taiga. Shit, hiding at home is no option any longer.

    Running is neither.

    When she turns around to see what her options are, an orange and green and blue creature drops from the sky. Not really the sky, as it must have been hiding high up in one of the redwood trees, but it could just as well have appeared out of nothingness. Finally Jack has come out to play, but this definitely is not a game Faolin is willing to play. For a moment she can only watch him, she stands frozen as he slowly approaches, her eyes roaming across its hideous features. What is worse though, is the blue light that seems to illuminate his features from within. It moves slow, though its long legs allows it to cross the distance between them faster than Faolin likes. And yet, she still stands frozen.

    A sudden cold gust of air is what snaps the bay woman out of her cryokinetic state. Just in time for her to dodge Jack who’s suddenly coming at her with high speed. The cold air must have startled him too, or perhaps Jack had realized that she wouldn’t be an eager prey after all. He had been faster than her to react, and as she jumps to the left, to skirt around him, the colourful-Christmas-lights-tail of his whip cuts into her right flank, and the unnatural heat of the lights leave nasty burns on her skin. They burn through her coat, blustering skin, which makes Faolin hiss.

    The pain is not enough to keep her from galloping away, however, Faolin does not keep her back turned onto the pumpkin monster for long. Collecting herself, and finding that sweet balance spot, she carries herself well enough to make a sharp turn, and slid into a stop. With each breath her sides rise and fall, and her nares are wide as she glares at him with narrowed eyes. Oh yes, she is scared, terrified even, but angry, very angry too. Her ear are back, and teeth bared, and at the same time Faolin stands there trembling. “This.. This is not how you treat a lady, Jack” she snaps at him, and she would’ve continued if he hadn’t swung his whip at her again. This time she has better luck avoiding getting hit, not only jumping towards the right this time, to keep her injured side away from him, but also slightly forward.

    Faolin does not turn her back on him this time, but instead rushes forward to exploit the weakness of his weapon. The whip is a medium range weapon, up close it would not be able to hit her in all ferocity, as its strength lies in the end of the cat tail. However, she has not expected the blow from his hand to be that strong, and it is Faolin’s mistake.

    As she tries to plant her teeth in his arm – the one holding the whip – it suddenly swings in her way. Instead of avoiding her teeth, which had intendent to rip a chunk out of his arm, so he wouldn’t be able to use his whip as well, he slams his arm right into her face. She recognizes the coppery taste of blood instantly, but she has gotten a big enough hit on the head to temperately stun her. Long enough for Jack to punch her a second time, sending her flying back. “Ouch..” is the airy sound that escapes past her lips as she lands on the ground. A bit dazed Faolin glances up, at Jack standing  over her (was it just her imagination, or has he become even bigger?) she is quick to snap out of her haze. Just in time she is up upon her feet and out of the way of the whip coming down, now held by two of Jack’s hands.

    “Do you think killing us would help?” she snaps at him, having to pause as she pants for air as her constant evading of his attacks push her to the very end of what her body is capable of giving. “Without us, you have nobody to play with, or talk to.” Her little attempt to convince him to let her go – anybody else gotten mixed up in this mess she doesn’t care about – are spoken to him in between deep breaths and spins and jumps out of the reach of his Christmas-light-cat-tail. It seems to have little to no effect, as Jack simply grins at her, swinging his whip over and over again.

    Faolin realises that this is no use. This is a battle she’d never win, unless

    “These games are a flop,” she taunts him, backing away towards Taiga’s redwood forest. “You’re a horrible game master, you should find another job, perhaps you should just stick to being Halloween decoration.” Each jump, turn, and attack lead her to guide him deeper into Taiga.

    Somewhere behind her Taiga is on fire. And that fire she could use in her advantage. Oh yes, it would burn and hurt her too, but at least she is not made out of vegetal components, unlike Jack. He’d not stand chance against the hot flames.
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    #9
    Otrera continues to peer behind the outcrop rock within the cavern. The minions that were chasing her earlier are still enjoying the sweets she had previously laid out to lure Jack. However, they stop suddenly, raising their heads to look towards the sky. She cannot see what they see. The minions are obviously bewildered by whatever they are looking at, so Otrera leaves the cave to get a better look.

    Once outside of the cave, the filly looks at what they are seeing. All she can see from the sky are clouds rolling in a quick speed in front of the moon. The fog that remains from earlier catches her attention as it thickens. A ferocious wind sweeps through where she stands within Nerine, sweeping everything away. Her eyes widen at what is happening, along with a shock expression on her small child-like face.

    Her sister-minions even begin to slowly back away from where they came from. She isn’t sure why they are shivering, or why they are afraid. All she knows she is afraid too if they are. A cold shudder runs down her spine, making her hair stand up. Carefully, she allows her gaze to scan the fogless terrain around her.

    Suddenly the decoys come to life. Otrera jumps up with fright, squealing as loud as she can. All the decoys have angry expressions on their pumpkin faces. When the decoys move the earth around them changes. Some of them grab the kitchen knives from their heads and point them towards her.

    “WHAT!” She shouts out in fright, shivering from her hooves to the very tip of her ears. The games are done!? The fun is done!? She must RUN now!? Where?! Otrera continues to shiver. Her gaze jumps from one place to another, trying to count how many decoys there are. There are too many of them. She’s not going to be able to run.

    More of them begin to gather. Some are falling from the trees. Some of them are strolling towards her from all sides. She can hear them even in the cavern. Was there even a way out? She’s surrounded by all of them. All she knows is she needs to run.

    Otrera lets out a loud gulp.

    She has to think quick. What the hell could she possibly do!?

    However, her thinking has gotten her into even more trouble. One of the decoys was right behind her, ready to stab that kitchen knife right into her! Otrera leaps forward, moving out of time to get out of the way. “Jack! Jack! No!” She shouts at him. Her voice is shaking as she speaks to him. How could he do this to her? She’s only a child!

    The decoy of Jack again lunges at her. Otrera jumps out of the way again. Jack grumbles at her angrily. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” she cries out at him. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to fight or even come to sense of what is happening right now. First it was a game and now it was her death.

    All she can remember right now is she needs to run. Run, yes! She needs to run.

    Otrera quickly scrambles on her small hooves towards the forest, leaving the cavern behind her. If she runs fast enough (despite how stumpy her legs are right now) she might be able to make it away. Maybe she could get help. Her parents would know what to do. They would save her.

    The decoy of Jack follows her without delay. Otrera can feel Jack just behind her. He is determined to get his hands on her. Yet, she would not let this monster get her that easily. She had some time to think as she continued to run deep into the forest. Nerine was her home, and she knew exactly how she might get rid of him. Well, at least off her back maybe for a time.

    She begins turning and twisting around the trees that come into her path. She changes the direction of where she is coming several times. The filly is determined to find the item she is looking for. There was a lot of Halloween decorations around still, but once she saw those Halloween lights on the bush that was the item she needed. Otrera grabs the lights as she quickly passes by the bush.

    Jack lunges forward, trying to grab her with his open hand while the other knife is in his other. He grabs her right foreleg successfully. “No, no!” She screams. Kicking and squirming as much as she can. She tries with all her strength to get away from him. Jack lets out a pitiful laugh at her. It only encourages her more. She puts all her weight in her front legs and bucks at him, hitting him right in the gut. Jack yells out in pain and lets go of her at the same time.

    Quickly, she scrambles away from Jack. She has a good head start on him, which gives her enough time to set up her plan for escape. Otrera wraps one end of the Halloween lights around a tree trunk and then leads them to another tree trunk. Once finished she places herself right where Jack would see her. Hopefully, Jack would be too consumed with trying to get her and not notice the Halloween lights she has laid out to trip him.

    “Hey Jack! Over here!” She calls with obvious fear in her voice as soon as she sees him in the distance.
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