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He'd felt this once before. On the field beside the Haunted House, when the elder horseman had swatted them all flat with no more than a wave of his hand. Except this time, it was personal, personalized, and Jordan was frozen in place by the inward crush of gravity, squeezed relentlessly inwards, air crushed out of his lungs and body held in an invisible vise.

The panic seeped in slowly at the edges of his consciousness, his anger pressed out bit by bit to make room for the ballooning hot feeling of anxiety that grew larger and larger in his mind as second by second the world crumpled inwards and he couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, drowning on dry land, out here in the desert where nothing good had ever happened, not for any of them, and there were little threads of black creeping into the corners of his field of vision bit by bit by bit and the need for air overwhelmed even the pain of things breaking as he folded slowly to the ground, collapsing into the sand.

Ferros was hissing a high distressed note somewhere, somewhere that felt far away where he couldn't reach and his weapon couldn't reach him. The hiss grew louder and louder, the rumble that accompanied it went erratic and slow, pulsed, stuttered, died altogether as Ferros tried to protect him and couldn't. The blackness was closing in on him, and Ferros couldn't help him breathe. He felt the dragon tangling up with the edges of his mind, frantic and desperate, hanging on with everything he had. It wasn't enough. He couldn't breathe.

As the blackness descended and everything shrank to a single pinpoint of light, he realized, faintly surprised, that this was it. This was all there was. This was how Hunters died, one of many ways. Two years. Pretty good for a Sun.

He felt a brief flicker of regret that it had to be here, that he hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to his guys. That they hadn't had the ceremony yet. Sorry, he thought faintly, and then the world went away.

Ferros screamed, a terrible rusty tearing-metal sound, though there was nobody to hear. All the world had gone away, and he was left alone in the dark, all his senses gone, mind raw and bleeding from the instant in which his human had been torn away from him. I will not, he howled into the darkness, and reached out and out and out, hunting the one mind that fitted into his, forever and no time at all, until he stretched and thinned and snapped, everything that he was disintegrating like a fall of sand.

Jordan lay half-buried in the sand, loose-limbed, broken, his eyes open, glassy, empty. The index finger of his right hand was bare.

[ biggrin ED]

There was never any time for surprise when the world went to s**t. There was heartache, agonizing and pure, and it remained with him every second he watched Mimsy get eaten like a popsicle. Sure, there was a chance for pain; if only because it stuck with you even as you moved in to do your job. Robert felt his way down to the injured, peeling off Jake's coat to get a good look at the wound. He felt useless, despite what little training he'd had so far. This was why he was working with Sunny. It was moments like this, where he didn't want to feel useless, anymore.

But until then, he did what he could. His hands pressed down on the wounds, until the bleeding slowed. Then he pulled out a bandage, and started wrapping it, while mumbling a quiet word of comfort. But his voice was distracted, and shaky. In his mind, all he could see was Mimsy's face, and it stung his eyes with tears that he didn't have time to shed.

It was a blessing that he hadn't turned to see Jordan fall. He would not have been able to help Jake, or himself, then. As much as he thought he was ready for moments like this, he would never be ready to see Jordan fall. But it was waiting for him, just behind him. Waiting for its time to come.

Oh. Maybe he should let Mark do the work. Right. Deryk nodded to Kat and Ryan, then took position to try and cover his back.

"G-got it!"
HP: 50
Defending Mark for: 7

It only took a second, a breath of time, for the s**t to hit the fan. Sure, Eris had been enough to start... but she had been mostly just playing.

Then everything started to crumple and fall.

Ceres was glad that Bix was still close by, because her grip on him tightened as she watched the mess terrified. "...I..." Then Mimsy died... quickly followed by a second hunter she knew not the name of.

And all she could do was watch. Watch as more fell, as the horsemen who were scary enough on their own, turned into something MORE.

What... was she thinking? She clutched on to Bix, a little tighter. Sure they were hunters, sure they had powers... but that did not mean fear drove her actions."Bix, i need to go help." She said, pushing away from him, staring up once more. "....I need to heal, can you please NOT take...any needless risks? More than... usual?" While she cared for this man deeply, and she wanted to only protect him... her instincts drove her to protect more than one. The group as a whole, and Jake in the corner seemed to need it the most.

Her injured ankle was screaming at her as she placed pressure on it, her own pace wobbly. Causing her to mess up at her attempt to help.





Ceres Kentley
HP: 50/50
Target: Jake
Healing: woops none
Charge: 3/3
Runics Availlable: Torch, bandages

What can fall will only get stronger.

Jordan's body twitched. At first it seemed like the sand was moving. Insects. Bugs. But none of that sort, just greys, just invisible greys, just the remainder of Invictus's attack that folded once, twice into each other into fog and began to seep into the fallen body.

There was no pain for someone already dead.

Perhaps the only one who hurt was Ferros, who had fallen into tablet form and then in a moment of lucidity as he was re-awoken realized that his former owner was-

- It happened almost instantly the fog stemming from Invictus, the Insanity, snapping him up, devouring him, body and coat and lifeless eyes and tablet-

- What can fall will only get stronger.

It was a mockery of what he once was, perhaps, not a terrible amalgamation of both dragon and once-Hunter, grey and faint, and yet tainted with Invictus's own presence as if the attack, the death blow had planted a parasite in the deceased body and it had finally bloomed, cracked open to reveal a twisted metamorphosis-

- The body was Invictus's puppet now. It moved as he obeyed and because the Heir of Conquest obeyed Insanity, it too obeyed mindlessly as well. There was no life in the former Hunter's eyes other than that of yellow. It raised crackled claws, skin shedding into scales, it rose and heaved and spewed fog and greys - just greys -

- And sided with the horsemen who were very much one of its own.

Everything seemed to happen so fast, and before the Moon knew it Stormy was gone. He felt a quick surge of bile burn the back of his throat - this scene had played out once before in his mind, and at that moment he realized that what he'd seen in the desert hills of Afghanistan that night not so long ago was an exact replication of what was happening here.

He wasn't going to leave anyone behind this time. Not again. No more regrets. He would try and make it right, at least in his own mind, and in the blink of an eye he was kneeling to scoop Stormy's body up in his arms. He made it a few feet before he saw Jordan and Candace in the din of battle, and his steps faltered as he watched the Sun morph into something horrible and terrible and malformed.

He didn't let Stormy go.

As the crowd of more capable hunters converged on Jake, Lucky had a chance to stumble back and away from the bloody scene and toward a different one.

He didn't have that innate sense of danger the other more experienced hunters had. He had just enough sense to stay low and all but crawl toward the remaining body. Mimsy's body. Maybe he looked dead already, covered in Jake's blood and nearly incoherent.

Not like this...

She still felt warm, but the fingers he pressed to her bloody neck couldn't find a pulse. Convinced himself it was all the blood, that she was still okay, underneath it all. She had to be, because this wasn't right, this wasn't supposed to happen, any moment now she would finally take a breath, because she couldn't be -

Lucky picked up one of her ravaged wrists and saw the flesh cut through to the bone. It fell from his fingers with a sudden shock. He froze, for a long moment, as if his brain had completely shut down on him. And then moved, slowly, automatically. With a tremor in his hand he pulled a roll of runic bandages from his jacket and set to work, staring straight ahead, the sickening smell of blood and sand in his nose as he clamped his jaw tightly shut. He just sat there, covered in blood, weaving the glowing bandages around Mimsy's fatal injuries, refusing to acknowledge the one truth right in front of his face.

HP: 35/40
TARGET: Mimsy
HEALING: 11 but nope still ded
Using: Runic Bandages : (