"Uh... Mami, Homura, mind if I try something first?" you ask, shifting slightly uneasily under the Witch's gaze. Shouldn't birds mostly have side facing eyes? You seem to remember something about forward facing eyes being the mark of a predator.
Even as you think that, though, the Witch seems to lose interest and turns away, shuffling idly on the metal box. Mami, beside you, relaxes infinitesimally, and replies, "Go ahead, Sabrina."
You whip your warhammer in a circle and plant it head down in the marble in front of you, and raise both hands in front of you, leading with your left hand half curled into a fist. You decide to try removing a wing first; cripple the Witch's mobility, hopefully.
To your senses, the Witch is a malevolent, amorphous mass of Grief. But you instinctively know that
this is the right wing, and you grab and
tear. You clench your left hand fully into a fist, and twist viciously, as if hauling back on a rope. Your right hand pushes forward, shoving violently against the main mass of Grief.
Feathers slough off the Witch's wing, collapsing in sprays of ash, and the underlying layers of ash wither away to dust, leaving behind a brachiate webwork of shrivelled veins as you tear away the Grief that gives it animation and form. You instinctively coalesce the Grief into the roiling, curling wings hovering behind you.
The Witch screams, a reverberating and utterly
alien ululating noise that slams against the three of you in a hurricane of sound. The shriek warbles louder and louder, conveying despite its alien nature
pain beyond comprehension.
You... might have hurt it, you think.
The Witch slams one great clawed foot down on the metal box, and the Barrier pulses white, sending you staggering. By the time the Barrier returns to its natural form, the Witch is
much closer and rapidly thundering toward you, one wing flapping furiously while the traceries that are all that remain of the other wing twitch spasmodically. Mami and Homura are already leaping clear.
"Sabrina!" Mami shouts in alarm when she sees that you're not moving. You shake your head, though, and shout back, "I got this!"
You spread your legs and cross your wings in front of you, bracing yourself against the Barrier itself.
The Witch bears down on you, still screaming and crescent beak opening wide to swallow you up.
The beak slams down on you.
And bounces off your shield.
You take the opportunity to rip the Grief out of its beak, and are showered by fine ash as the beak collapses.
The Witch pinwheels comically, thrown off balance by its sudden lack of a beak. The sharp cracks of gunfire sound, barely audible above the unceasing scream of the Witch, making the Witch jerk as it's riddled by gunfire from both sides.
You hop backwards, wings of corruption flaring wide to boost you further than you'd normally be able to jump.
Ribons emerge in a flare of golden light, and bind the Witch's feet in place. Homura flickers out of view for a moment, and a rain of metallic objects appears around the Witch's wounded head for an instant before detonating with dull whumps the decapitate the Witch.
The screaming halts abruptly, and the decapitated corpse topples to the side in the agonizing slow motion of a collapsing building.
It vanishes before it hits the floor. A metallic clinking makes you turn around, and you note that the metallic box the Witch had been perching on has turned into a Grief Seed.
The Barrier ripples, beginning to break up, and you release the wings of Grief into the swirling vortex with a relieved sigh. You retain a hold of the Grief marble still sitting in your pocket, however, as well as the small amount of Grief you'd drained from Mami and Homura earlier.
Mami whirls on you, the moment the Barrier dissolves and you find yourself standing in front of the derelict building. "Sabrina! That was reckless! You almost had your head bitten off there!"
You tilt your head, slightly bemused at that, and out of the corner of your eye, you can see Homura turning away slightly.
Huh?
"I... was reasonably confident that I could block the Witch?" you offer, lamely.
"Confident or not, don't do that again unless you have to!" Mami says. Her usually half lidded eyes are slightly wild, and you feel somewhat sorry that you'd apparently worried her so much.
[] Write-in
- [] Conversation, cleanse, what next?
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Aurora, the Witch of self destruction. Her nature is apathy. She damages the keystone of her own Barrier, making it inhospitable even to her own Familiars.
Please specify what you guys want to do next. If it helps, it's about 4:30-ish PM right now.