Monday's Turmoil 9
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Four seconds to portal closure.
She couldn't let that happen.
The floor bulged under her feet, pushing her upwards one point three decimetres precisely. The tunnel was falling apart, reality itself disintegrating at her touch. Echoes of her essence already permeated the floor, collapsing its carefully arranged structure like a house of cards.
She could use that.
If she crouched there, injected one mote, patterned for stasis, angle nineteen slash one seventy—now—one side of the bulge lurched downwards, putting her on the side of a hill rather than its top. It'd erupt in a moment, but that was okay, because it'd launch her towards Fumi at fifteen meters per second, and she flashed with golden light the moment the disintegrating fabric of reality she'd so rudely frozen went nuclear.
Chaos-repelling pattern, just for a moment—
Not enough to fix anything, barely enough to matter, but reality screamed in protest at the foreign impulse and she catalogued every flicker of rainbow light, every slight lurch of non-euclidean space.
Heart pounding, don't look back, don't think about the portal that's darkening and pinching shut, or the low-frequency roar of the—Botis, Goetian spirit, roar frequencies suggests low-bandpass portal—caste mark flickering into life, burning brighter with each additional observation as the sheer quantity of essence she used escaped the limits of perfect control.
First thing, grab Fumi—
The demons surrounding Fumi were running away, but they were low-rank spirits, more suited for labor than combat. Not able to survive in this environment. Not responsible for Fumi's safety.
One fell, and the floor didn't break his fall until he was in it to his shoulders—his yell didn't stop the others—neither did his screams, when he fell—was sucked down further, in a manner suggesting active effort.
Fumi was left on her own in a circle of still space whose perimeter gradually grew brighter, occasional glimmers of light charting the true, spherical border of her defences. Eyes wide, calculating the precise point she'd hit that sphere at. If she had to she could stop even in midair, here.
One of the demons tried to stop, fighting off the grasp of a second, but two more joined in and pulled him along. Not mechanical, not eusocial; varying personalities, some prosocial—she didn't want to know.
Two seconds to portal closure.
Ideally she'd screech to a halt right next to Fumi, but before that happened she'd need to synchronise with the reality bubble Fumi had around her. Chaos-Repelling Pattern on its own wouldn't work. Adjusting for demonstrated interface behaviour, probability of accounting for both aspects is—still too many unknowns, but she didn't have a choice. Disrupting the field keeping Fumi alive would be the worst possible outcome, so she'd have to risk it on their surroundings.
Her eyes were getting blurry… no, the air was getting blurry. Ineffective as photon media. She clenched her jaw, and took the risk.
Her expanding field of enforced reality met Fumi's, merging with barely a flicker. The tunnel she was standing on wasn't so lucky; she managed, just barely, to lock down the area she'd taken direct control over, but that wouldn't undo the damage outside.
Less than two seconds, so even if she was able to pull the same trick again—carrying Fumi—they wouldn't get there in time. The tunnel was collapsing, the red streamers of energy she'd seen in the floor denser now, and brighter, and bending the walls inwards.
That was okay. Space was warped, warping more with every moment, and she could take advantage—bend the area in front of her, stretching space until the portal was close enough to touch. That would let her keep it from closing. She couldn't walk through a metric warped that badly, but she didn't need to; there would be plenty of time to get there the normal way. She just had to get a few meters closer first. So she leaned downwards, preparing to pick up Fumi, and…
A few meters away, in the wrong direction, the demon that had gotten stuck looked at her. It was trembling—moaning—mouth slightly open, though it was really more of a muzzle. The tunnel wasn't as damaged in that direction, but that hadn't stopped it from getting trapped. No, worse—it was being eaten, though what exactly was eating it escaped her at the moment.
She felt an impulse to save it.
It was ridiculous. Insane. They'd kidnapped Fumi, and she had already agreed to help kill thousands like it, but they hadn't hurt her—she could tell, from the moment she got close, that Fumi was just asleep—and now it was very likely going to die, because of something she'd done. There wasn't that sense of not-quite-there-ness that she'd had from Samael, no feeling that there was any more to the beast than what she could see, and it was already grievously hurt—it had lost an arm, at least. If she left it, it would die.
If she didn't, she wouldn't be able to make it out in time.
She glanced between Fumi and the demon, feeling horribly conflicted. A few steps in its direction, that was all it would take, but they'd be trapped—or maybe not trapped, she didn't know what would happen if she forced her way through where the portal had been after its collapse. Insufficient information. Didn't know what would happen to her, for that matter. She had an army to hold off, she really shouldn't worry so much about any single person—let alone a single demon…
[ ] Follow the plan
[ ] Follow your conscience
A/N: In case you're wondering, this is what excellencies look like from the inside. Well, at least that particular one.
She couldn't let that happen.
The floor bulged under her feet, pushing her upwards one point three decimetres precisely. The tunnel was falling apart, reality itself disintegrating at her touch. Echoes of her essence already permeated the floor, collapsing its carefully arranged structure like a house of cards.
She could use that.
If she crouched there, injected one mote, patterned for stasis, angle nineteen slash one seventy—now—one side of the bulge lurched downwards, putting her on the side of a hill rather than its top. It'd erupt in a moment, but that was okay, because it'd launch her towards Fumi at fifteen meters per second, and she flashed with golden light the moment the disintegrating fabric of reality she'd so rudely frozen went nuclear.
Chaos-repelling pattern, just for a moment—
Not enough to fix anything, barely enough to matter, but reality screamed in protest at the foreign impulse and she catalogued every flicker of rainbow light, every slight lurch of non-euclidean space.
Heart pounding, don't look back, don't think about the portal that's darkening and pinching shut, or the low-frequency roar of the—Botis, Goetian spirit, roar frequencies suggests low-bandpass portal—caste mark flickering into life, burning brighter with each additional observation as the sheer quantity of essence she used escaped the limits of perfect control.
First thing, grab Fumi—
The demons surrounding Fumi were running away, but they were low-rank spirits, more suited for labor than combat. Not able to survive in this environment. Not responsible for Fumi's safety.
One fell, and the floor didn't break his fall until he was in it to his shoulders—his yell didn't stop the others—neither did his screams, when he fell—was sucked down further, in a manner suggesting active effort.
Fumi was left on her own in a circle of still space whose perimeter gradually grew brighter, occasional glimmers of light charting the true, spherical border of her defences. Eyes wide, calculating the precise point she'd hit that sphere at. If she had to she could stop even in midair, here.
One of the demons tried to stop, fighting off the grasp of a second, but two more joined in and pulled him along. Not mechanical, not eusocial; varying personalities, some prosocial—she didn't want to know.
Two seconds to portal closure.
Ideally she'd screech to a halt right next to Fumi, but before that happened she'd need to synchronise with the reality bubble Fumi had around her. Chaos-Repelling Pattern on its own wouldn't work. Adjusting for demonstrated interface behaviour, probability of accounting for both aspects is—still too many unknowns, but she didn't have a choice. Disrupting the field keeping Fumi alive would be the worst possible outcome, so she'd have to risk it on their surroundings.
Her eyes were getting blurry… no, the air was getting blurry. Ineffective as photon media. She clenched her jaw, and took the risk.
Her expanding field of enforced reality met Fumi's, merging with barely a flicker. The tunnel she was standing on wasn't so lucky; she managed, just barely, to lock down the area she'd taken direct control over, but that wouldn't undo the damage outside.
Less than two seconds, so even if she was able to pull the same trick again—carrying Fumi—they wouldn't get there in time. The tunnel was collapsing, the red streamers of energy she'd seen in the floor denser now, and brighter, and bending the walls inwards.
That was okay. Space was warped, warping more with every moment, and she could take advantage—bend the area in front of her, stretching space until the portal was close enough to touch. That would let her keep it from closing. She couldn't walk through a metric warped that badly, but she didn't need to; there would be plenty of time to get there the normal way. She just had to get a few meters closer first. So she leaned downwards, preparing to pick up Fumi, and…
A few meters away, in the wrong direction, the demon that had gotten stuck looked at her. It was trembling—moaning—mouth slightly open, though it was really more of a muzzle. The tunnel wasn't as damaged in that direction, but that hadn't stopped it from getting trapped. No, worse—it was being eaten, though what exactly was eating it escaped her at the moment.
She felt an impulse to save it.
It was ridiculous. Insane. They'd kidnapped Fumi, and she had already agreed to help kill thousands like it, but they hadn't hurt her—she could tell, from the moment she got close, that Fumi was just asleep—and now it was very likely going to die, because of something she'd done. There wasn't that sense of not-quite-there-ness that she'd had from Samael, no feeling that there was any more to the beast than what she could see, and it was already grievously hurt—it had lost an arm, at least. If she left it, it would die.
If she didn't, she wouldn't be able to make it out in time.
She glanced between Fumi and the demon, feeling horribly conflicted. A few steps in its direction, that was all it would take, but they'd be trapped—or maybe not trapped, she didn't know what would happen if she forced her way through where the portal had been after its collapse. Insufficient information. Didn't know what would happen to her, for that matter. She had an army to hold off, she really shouldn't worry so much about any single person—let alone a single demon…
[ ] Follow the plan
[ ] Follow your conscience
A/N: In case you're wondering, this is what excellencies look like from the inside. Well, at least that particular one.
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