[center][b][h3][color=#ff8566]Sister Sophia[/color][/h3][/b] vs [b][h3][color=826644]Queen Clotho[/color][/h3][/b] 
Round 3
The whispering woods  – the Forest King
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Sophia ran through the corridors as she fled from the monstrosity, her gait hobbled from the wounds she had received from bludgeoning damage, the howls of the beast following after her as she reached the hatchery she had punched into. She traveled past the corpses of its workers and threw herself out of the gap, drawing both her bolt pistols. She smiled, as she turned and fell backwards from the hole, firing both the bolt pistols, losing the final round in each, one slamming into the chamber, the other reaching the base of the tree a few moments later. Both thumped into the wet wood and then detonated, igniting the promethium she had spread before entering, a flame pistol tank worth in the chamber and an entire tank worth of jetpack fuel at the base.

The burning fuel ignited the vast old tree, spreading upwards from its promethium fueled birth to consume the living wood of the forest king as Sophia used the last of her jetpack fuel to land some what safely and begin leaving the dungeon behind her. She would resupply as the swarm was busy with the fire and if it did not take Clotho with it then she would go back up there and finish the job.     

There were a few problems with this plan. First the bugs who had survived her attack on the surface entrance had seen where she had gone to resupply. As a result there were a mass of the bugs who were currently unaware of their masters mutation standing guard over the supplies she needed to finish the job. They became aware of said fate when half way up the tree, where the inferno in the spawning room had spread, the bark buckle, cracked and then splintered outwards in a hail of burning wood into the woods below as [url=http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/carnogeist.png] a giant scorpion-esque beast[/url]  that had once been Clotho plowed through the walls of the throne room. The [url=http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/sizes/size-carnogeist.png]colossal[/url] scorpion creature began to descend the burning tree, its many eyes hunting for Sophia as it seemed to ignore the flames attempting to consume its flesh. The fire was spreading outwards now into the surrounding wood, the fire at the base and the burning wreckage setting the foliage and surrounding trees ablaze, the beginnings of a truly colossal wildfire in the making.

[color=#ff8566]“It’s so beautiful!”[/color] the sister is almost in tears as she gazes at the inferno
[sub][sub][i][color=#FFD700]Is pyromania requirement to join the Ecclesiarchy? Actually don't answer that. Just start running[/color][/i][/sub][/sub]

No matter how wonderful the flames where, she needed to get away, try and find a different supply cache or better terrain because for the moment all she had on her where her two chain knifes, these twin blades paled in comparison to the task she needed to undertake. She fled, her step unsteady as she attempted to get away from the encroaching flames and hunting xenos monstrosities, her flight joined by the meany as of yet unseen animal denizens of the forest, who took to the air or fled their burrows as the flames threatened to consume them all.

[hr]

She wasn’t sure how far or long she had been running, but she was losing ground, the heat and smoke were threatening to overwhelm her, the sound of the raging inferno and worse, the screeches of Clotho, were drawing nearer. Most of the creatures had either escaped or fallen behind so it was to her surprise when a majestic stage, huge and with a coat of white as pure as her now sullied armor had been, appeared from the woods before her and lowered itself before her, as if offering to carry her.
[sub][sub][i][color=#FFD700]I was going to get you a pony, but you're much too heavy for that. Mount up, I’ll guide it somewhere safe[/color][/i][/sub][/sub]

She cautiously approached the seemingly docile creature, sitting herself on its back and grasping its antlers for support as it got back up and fled with her onboard. Sophia for the first time in her flight looked back and saw just how close to death she had come. Behind her was a massive advancing wall of red and orange, the flames consuming the woods, to anyone outside the massive plume of smoke would probably be noticeable throughout the city if the fire itself was not visible. Even more concerning was the crashing and splintering of trees as Clotho's new form smashed its way through the woods barely a hundred meters from her both were still gaining on them, even with her new mounts speed she did not expect to outpace either of them for long. Despair began to set in, though she was not doomed quite yet.  While she rode she acquired a long, sturdy, straight branch, too this she bound her two knives at the end using the chain that held the holy symbol around her waist, forming a sort of improvised lance. Two whirring blades and a symbol of the Imperium against a colossal beast.

Before the flames were about to catch up and consume them her mount broke into a clearing centered around a shallow lake that barely came up to the knees of the stag, yet took up a considerably large area, one large enough to easily hold the burning colossal scorpion that was Clotho, who breached the surrounding trees moments afterwards. This was it, as the flames surrounded the small wet area of safety, there was no more running.

If it weren't for how covered in soot and gore the warrior woman’s armor was and the improvised nature of her lance she might have looked like a shining knight on her noble steed facing down a dragon. As it was the mounted battered and bloody Seraphim goaded her stag to charge head first at the colossal scorpion monstrosity, screaming her lungs out in a wordless, furious, battle cry while opposite her the scorpion creature charged, its 3 months roaring. The two met in the center of the shallow pool, Sophia steering her mount to the side at the last second, racing alongside the beast and stabbing the eyes on its left head with the improvised chain lance as she raced past the surprised Chotho, gouging out the eyes, slashing one of the spindly legs that supported the colossal beast but failed to penetrate the beast's hide. Their momentum carried both combatants to the opposite sides of the  pool and the two turned again to face each other like jousters at a medieval tourney. 

They charged again, Sophia noting that the wounds she had inflicted were already healing she dodged to the other side this time, slashing off another of the beast's legs but  still bouncing harmlessly off its cartilage. But this time Chotho reacted faster, the head on the scorpion tail chasing down after her steed, biting its hips and hauling the struggling beast with her atop it into the air. Sophia fell towards the central eye as the deer was cast aside, its body infected by the mutagens that the bite had inflicted upon it.

The eyeless mouth caught her by her left arm, its teeth just managing to pierce through her armor, the sharp points poisoning her as they found flesh and the corruption toxing began to be pumped into her slowly, the taint slowly claiming her arm. She was as good as dead, trapped there, the second mouth approaching to bite at something more vital as the first held her there. She screamed in agony but found strength, she had to finish this now or she would died. If she died she would fail her divine mission, and such a prospect was inconceivable. She knew with the certainty that others would call delusional that as the emperor's servant in this holy task she would succeed in killing this beast. She drove the improvised spear towards the central eye of the monstrosity, logic and reason dictated that she would cause only a superficial wound that would quickly heal, that the blade would never get deep enough to strike anything important and then she would be devoured. But she had faith, faith that the Emperor would give her the strength to succeed, faith so strong that in the maddening realm of the warp, the Sea of Souls, the immaterium and home to that tiny shard of the Emperor's soul that had been watching her, that faith shone like a beacon, it dominated and changed the warp and in so doing, changed reality for the two are reflections of one another. Next to her heart the phylactery reacted to her emotions, her desperation, fury and faith and she entered her frenzy, the stick with knives tied to it shining as it became a power spear, her fule-less jetpack becoming the pair of angelic wings it mimicked and a halo erupting behind her head in a divine golden glow.

The shimmering blade, a marvel of a lost age of technology, passed through the chitin and flesh of the monster as if it were made of paper and jelly, the blade and shaft sinking into the beast, finding what little remained of Chotho’s original body and stabbing her, the blade slid between the wire that held her phylactery. She withdrew the spear, with the phylactery dangling from a cross like section just below the blade, as the monster screamed and flailed, dropping the angel from its grip even as the mutagen regrew the damage it had suffered. Rising on her pristine wings the angel flys away, out of her foes reach as she removed her helmet. Her eyes were a shining bright white, her face expressionless as the dropped the lance and pulled her own phylactery out. When she opened her mouth it was not Sophia’s voice that emerged.

[color=#FFD700]"ok. so now I just..."[/color]

The angel fumbled about to retrieve the two phylacteries while also holding onto a spear and a helmet, all the while afflicted by mutagen in her left arm, and tried to plug the two together. With the power from the frenzied phylactery lost the immense scorpion became unable to sustain its own body and collapses, its corrupted form beginning to rot almost instantly, it’s blood and flesh tainting the water it has fallen in. Around them the fire has passed, leaving nothing but burnt husks of trees and ash in it’s wake.