[right][color=57a345][h3][i]Eli[/i][/h3][/color][/right]

Eli gaze lifted into the sky as Caroline cried out within her loving embrace. She held on, as if she was holding her sister, her disguise leaking tears from her eyes. And then… as Caroline passed out, there was a voice in the winds…

[color=57a345]‘… Bye…’[/color] Eli muttered her reply, perhaps too silently to be heard by anyone. She sat down, still holding on to Caroline, as a silence encompassed the area from the immediate battle ending. Now, Eli simply sat there hugging Caroline’s limp form, resting her own head against the passed out vampire. It all… felt so peaceful now… … …

[right][color=black][i][h2]Mariette[/h2][/i][/color][/right]


Mariette spat, her neck in pain from where Caroline had held her. She pulled herself onto her feet with janky, aggressive movements, really not appreciating what she had just been forced through. Still… she had seen all that had happened. She smiled oh, so pleasantly, her form slightly hunched over due to still being in pain. 

[color=0054a3]‘That’s it, Eli… Now just hold onto her, just like that, for just a little longer…’[/color] 

A portal opened from here to within the Bastion, and from it Mariette used her arms to retrieve the large, frameless mirror that she had been gifted. She placed it against the ground leaning on herself, directed towards Caroline. The surviving Shadows gathered around, the amount of light in the area seemingly decreasing as they got closer. Of course, she still had portals linking to her eyepatched eye all around to see if anyone was going to try to interfere.

This, this was a decisive victory that Justine could not overcome. Now, Mariette would have wanted to flaunt it over her, but as long as Sonia could pop out of anywhere with her bane in hand it was way too risky. Mariette had to place this girl somewhere not even Justine could reach her. Besides… This worked [i]wonderfully[/i] for striving towards Mariette’s ultimate goal…!

[color=0054a3]‘Asengav… I have… an offering for you… Do treat it lovingly, he-he…’[/color] Mariette uttered with difficulty due to the pain to her throat, yet there was a strain of playful vengeance in her voice, and she even giggled a little from being drunk on pain and triumph. Eli blinked in realization, felt that perhaps this was a bit twisted, but it was also for their survival, and so she held on as ordered.

The mirror slowly darkened in colour, the Shadows around them seemingly getting small grins as the dark powers coalesced. The mirror now a portal directly to the ancient horror Asengav himself, in whose grasp Mariette could be certain Sonia could not rescue her from. Dark tendrils, some of them with grasping large shadowy hands on the tip, emerged from the mirror, seeking to lay claim to the girl in Eli’s grasp. As those limbs approached they would gently, almost affectionately, curl around around Caroline’s body. Eli’d let go at that point, pulling herself back as to not be accidentally snared up as well.

With Mariette and the Shadows all smirking at the scene, the dark arms would gently start pulling Caroline back into the depths of the dark portal.