CECILIA

[fallenapple]

Characters: Cecilia the witch and her opponents
When: The entirety of Walpurgisnacht
Where: The entire Southeastern Quarter
Rating: R, for violence, character death, mentions of suicide, starvation, abuse, etc.
Summary: Adstring fights the unicorn witch

Comments

THE FINAL BATTLE WITH CECILIA

[fallenapple]

[snarkypotions]

Under the cover of the group's various defenses, Snape impatiently shakes a few strands of hair that had escaped from his ponytail out of his eyes, various cuts on his face and body still bleeding, though none are too serious.

"I trust that everyone knows what--" A blast of fire ensues from his wand and flies over Sebastian's shoulder to turn the familiars behind the demon into ash. "To do?"

At the nods from the perhaps not-so-ragtag group around him, Snape raises his wand high up into the air and swings it around, a large circle of flames engulfing them before pushing outwards, pushing their assailants back some so that they can all break into different directions.

[wingsandwill]

Castiel turns as Snape pushes back the familiars, back to the horrifying creature Kyoko has become, attention focused on keeping the familiars back as the others go forward. He's exhausted but no where near quitting, sword drawn in one hand and Dean's pistol in the other. Bullets are precious, but longer range than his sword, and he needs to conserve energy rather than using his grace when not otherwise necessary.

A sweep of his sword catches a few familiars that evaded Snape's fire, and a shot picks off one moving toward the others. He'll hold the creatures off for now, to see if the rest of the team can find an opening on Cecelia. Castiel could get close but isn't about to, unwilling to risk losing his sword until he's sure it's worth it.

[hisbutlerbound]

He gives an indignant little look over his shoulder at fresh ash now slightly covering his back, one hand moving up to collect the last bit of strands of fire. Much like he had before, his hand moved outwards to enwrap it, manipulate it and force it back near Snape, turning a few familiars to ash around the others, "Why thank you."

It was curt, slightly snide and to the point. "But yes, I am aware," and once again found that starvation, despair and need for revenge rather mouthwatering. He turned back towards the witch in the distance and remembered what had occured before, "Watch everything. Listen to everything. Even the ground will swallow you up if you let it."

[books_n_battle]

Jr. hovered well above the heads of the others, panting and squeezing the handles of his guns tightly. This aura of despair was hard on him, but he'd lived through the loss of what felt like half of his own soul before. He had things to do, people were counting on him. He couldn't stop here, no matter how hard pushing forward seemed.

Thanks to Fran, he didn't have a problem with ammunition, and roughly half a dozen rapid shots fire from his guns, each bullet finding its way into the head of a familiar moving too close to the group for comfort.

"Yeah, I got it."

[kill_joo_ded]

It was a bit late for recounting the plan. Killua knew the question was more rhetorical than anything else and so didn't bother answering. Instead he kept his eyes on the target. Not "Kyoko," not "what Kyoko had become." Just "the target."

He held out his hands about a foot apart, and sparks began popping in the air surrounding him, the rate at which they occurred rising until Killua himself seemed to be little more than a fleshy vessel for churning electrical currents. No sense in holding back. The faster he moved, the better their chances. It was that same reasoning that led him to tune out all of the attacks, the bullets, the spells whizzing past him and even the familiars themselves. He turned to Gon, looking for confirmation that when he leaped, the other boy wouldn't be more than a second behind. Once he got that, he wouldn't wait for anything else.

[fallenapple]

As the fighters approached, Cecilia turned to them and bared her teeth in her full, horrible glory. A weakly pulsating heart buried under organ mass and a decaying rib cage occupied the front of the creature, while an impossibly long scorpion tail was raised in the back, ready to strike.

However, it was clear that she was partially weakened. Her right arm had suffered more damaged than it previously had, even in its emaciated state.

Still, a piercing scream rang out from her middle as she opened her jaws wide, her wings following and extending to their full length. Instantly, hundreds more familiars dropped from them.

A second passed, and she lashed out randomly with her saber teeth, hoping to chew and tear apart whatever she could grab.

[checkmychainyo]

Kurapica had moved to one side after the flames Snape created as an opening for the group, and Kurapica's chain was raised, charged a powerful purple to those who could see his Nen. He'd already swatted aside two different familiars, but at Cecilia's piercing scream, Kurapica bent his stance and prepared himself for the witch's retaliation

[freecssofnature]

Gon's aura flared out brightly around his body, then focused, energy radiating from his fist. His mind leaped ahead, eyes on the creature's body, its movements. The tail was a threat; the wings were the source of her familiars, and that mouth --

"The arm!" he called to Killua, muscles bunching with readiness to leap. It was already damaged. Together, their attacks might cripple it, and weaken Kyoko; and once she'd been weakened enough, then they could capture her.

Find someone who could reverse the transformation, an Animus, anybody. The orchid demon had been the one to do this to the three girls in the first place. Maybe if they could force her to do it, they could get them back. But first, they had to stop her from hurting anyone else.

His jaw clenched, and the nen around his body leaped more brightly with determination.

[kill_joo_ded]

Killua nodded firmly. The arm. He didn't wait for any further signal, pushing off the ground. Rather than botch things up by trying to close at the offset, before he figured out just how the target moved and reacted, he raised one hand, pointer finger aiming at the creature like a gun barrel. Instantly, a lightning bolt shot forth from his finger, crackling toward Cecilia's shoulder in a jagged arc.

Narukami.

[fallenapple]

The attack hits on target, the witch stumbles, and her head thrashes and takes out one of the largest stained glass windows in the church. Glass explodes from the crash, almost launching itself at the fighters. Cecilia screams again, loud enough to create visible shock waves throughout the entire building.

The witch's anguish is reflected in the atmosphere. The vague feeling of despair that had just been a small tug at one's mind was now pulling on it intensely- almost to the point of choking it.

Though the scream ends, the despair does not, and the witch lashes out with her tail instead, making a wide sweep in an attempt to hit all of the fighters at once, all the while stumbling over her injured leg.

[wingsandwill]

Castiel's newly returned angelic hearing was a curse rather than a blessing at Cecelia's scream but he ignored it, as well as the flying shards of glass. There were no danger to him and his coat protected him from most of them anyway.

The shift in the air, though, the darkening pressure of the witch's despair... That caught his attention, his susceptibility to such things just making it worse, as he was suddenly overwhelmed by emotions he couldn't begin to sort through. So he didn't, falling back on an older tactic of simply trying to ignore it and focus on the task at hand by sheer force of will.

It wasn't particularly successful but he did regain his senses just in time to open his metaphysical wings and fly, seemingly disappearing and reappearing in the blink of his eye out of range of Cecelia's tail, taking a swipe at it with his sword in the process but unsure if he connected.

[snarkypotions]

Snape had already leaped up into the air at Sebastian's warning about the ground, dark eyes darting over the scene like a hawk's as he flew through the air searching for any signs of weakness. Another blast of fire was aimed at the witch's wings, an attempt at burning away as many of the familiars as he could and limit any ability of flight she had

[hisbutlerbound]

Sebastian knew better than to stay on the ground and he lept up as high as he could onto the most likely swaying lamps and chandels above when the tail lashed out at them, latching himself onto something he could work with. Now that he had something longer in his hands, a curved and somewhat flat knife, he wouldn't be caught so out of tack like last time. Crouching there with a well sense of balance, he watched, slashing at anything that came his way whether familiars or crosses