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Break and reform, break and reform. This was unlike fighting a real hunter, unlike those fragile little nothings she'd attacked alongside War. But perhaps, it was very much like fighting against Hunters through the ages. Humans bred quickly and spread widely, adapting and changing at a pace their own Fears could hardly keep up with. They could be destroyed, and crushed, again and again...

But in the end, there they were, and the Hunters among them rising up again and again, collecting power. Taking advantage. Using Halloween...using Riley and all she cared for...to their own ends, for their own wars.

In the world-spanning cycle of destruction and creation, there could be changes. There could be motion and lives and bonds, there's could be advancement and victory. But here and now, Riley was killed. Riley reformed to be killed again. Riley was alone in her own personal cycle that was too brief and narrow to allow anything at all beyond her own destruction and reformation.

"Say please."

He dies. He returns. "You said again, my dear. We won't take that away from you ever again."

She dies. She returns.

"Which means we have before. And we can again"

She dies. She returns.

"Say please."

She was trapped. By a figment, a construct that only bore the resemblance of those who had harmed her. From within the shadow, a flash of white teeth grins over at her.

A black spot began to form in the corner of a mirror, soon dripping down like tar as more appeared. As Riley died and reformed and the shadow died and reformed in an endless, futile dance whose only victim would be Riley's own mind, the mirror dripped its black ichor until it was covered.

Though tired and weary, her hand pressed against the mirror she had been leaning against to push herself the blackened portal that called to her. It was hard not to answer it call, to go through it.

Maple emerged, shadows and darkness still lapping and dotting across her petite form replacing any speck of color with that of absolute black with trims and outlines of red. Her large brown eyes, now replaced with a glowing vermilion passed a regard towards the other, Hadiyya, and then looked upon the form of Riley in her endless cycle of death and rebirth.

There was hesitation. For this might have been a creature seeping with the power of revenge but this was still The Tower and this was still Maple. And there was uncertainty of what she was actually supposed to do to help. "Wh-what should I d-do?"

The whip struck out, crashing against Riley and the newcomers without hesitation and Riley was destroyed one more, but not before she saw how it washed against Yaya and Maple's dark forms and simply...did nothing to them.

The shadowy hunter kept smiling and said

"I can't do that," she answered Riley smoothly, glowing eyes on the whip wielding figure that had lashed out, yet had not actually struck herself or the other ghoul standing beside her. It had a single dark brow arching, head tilting delicately to one side, before the thunderous pounding of something large approaching drew her around to the mirror.

He'd been expected, but his appearance as he charged into the room to gore and throw the shadowed figure had her humming curiously. The corners of her lips twitched, half a smile, before she said in a soft, chastising voice. "You're late, sire."

She did heed that command though. Her hands lifting out from her sides, Hadiyya's lips split into a wide, wicked grin as the water began to flow faster and faster.

Those cool, caressing tendrils around RIley's legs would tug at the mindflayer. Gentle at first, then roughly enough to drag the other ghoul back and away from the shadow man, until the djinn stood between the two of them. With Riley safe, she was free to lash out. thick tendrils of water snaking up behind her like great, aquatic beasts, and as she flung her hands forward they'd follow, rushing at the shadow with all the force of a tidal wave.



[quote"Chirigami"]

This was her fight.

This was her fight, and she was being rescued from it, like some sort of.. weakling.

Riley had never been more infuriated with herself in her entire life, but there was a part of her, small and quiet for now, that awed at the power these servants of Merlin brought forth. She'd already formed her agreement with Merlin, but this - this was so much more.

She'd never wanted anything more than this show of power, in her entire life.

And she'd never wanted anything less than to be the one being saved by it.

The bestial form of the Black King turned its head and fixed a single burning blue eye on Hadiyya, answering her with a booming laugh. It was clear he delighted in the fight and the carnage - retrieving these lost things was beneath him.

And before the pitiful shadow of a creature could recover from the waves and the stampede, he descended upon the shadow again, throwing his weight and his horns and his claws into every attack. It was their turn to be torn limb from limb, gouged and impaled and crushed and beheaded, over and over again. Revenge in its purest form. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was all he lived for.