[right][color=1462ba][i][h2]Mariette[/h2][/i][/color][color=57a345][h3][i]and Eli[/i][/h3][/color][/right]

Obviously, the universe couldn’t just allow her to hold her little ritual in peace. Even after it turned out the new girl was not, in fact, intending on interrupting during her kidnapping, someone else did. Now, Mariette had entirely expected Sonia to show up in some manner. The fact she had no counter for her was another thing entirely.

The sudden presence of the candlestick hurt far more than the fire that ignited on her dress, the pain causing Mariette to drop the mirror and jump out of the way before opening a portal right over her head through which water from the lake poured down over her and extinguished the fire on her dress. She was fine, the fire had burned off the dress of her shoulder showing her bare somewhat singed skin, but ultimately it was nothing that was going to stop Mariette. What WAS going to stop her, was Sonia’s candlestick, the light of which was causing the Shadows of Asengav to melt out of existence, descending into puddles where they left the area for Mariette to summon once again at a later time, but they couldn’t help stopping Sonia from saving Caroline.

… But it was too late. Asengav’s tentacles were curling around Caroline. Surely, even with her ability to switch dimensions, she couldn’t claim something in the grip of the interdimensional horror, could she? … Turned out, that didn’t matter, for a powerful earthquake which made it so Mariette had to stumble a bit to maintain balance.

[color=57a345]‘Wah!’[/color] Eli sounded out, stumbling back, focused on the scene since Sonia appeared. She was ready to fire, but that candlestick had even worse effect on her than it did on Mariette, preventing her from getting close.

The dust settled, and… gone? Dimensional rift, Sonia claimed? … Mariette glared at her, exhausted. Did that mean a third player was getting in on this? … Good lord, did Mariette not feel like that. She liked being the person in the background, manipulating things, and the thought that there was now someone watching and manipulating her was nothing short of humiliating. Sonia went off, and Mariette was left looking annoyed… 

[color=1462ba]‘…!?’[/color] … When suddenly a tentacle gripped her leg, pulled hard, and Mariette fell and hit her head into the shoreline.

[color=57a345]‘M-mistress!’[/color] Eli sounded out, worried once again.

[color=1462ba]‘…’[/color] Oh. Mariette confirmed what had happened with a dull stare into the sky. From the mirror planted on the ground, black tentacles leaked out, one which had stretched and gripped her leg. Twice now, Mariette had summoned Asengav and given him nothing but humiliation. While reasonable, Asengav was still a short-tempered horror that [i]hated[/i] when things went badly. It seemed Mariette was trying his patience, and he was most certainly the kind to show when he didn’t like when his champions weren’t performing. Slowly, the tentacle started dragging her towards the mirror, other tentacles moving to secure her from above…

[color=1462ba]‘… Keh,’[/color] Mariette sighed in annoyance, and a portal to her Hammerspace Handbag opened, dropping something into her left hand. She held it forward to Asengav’s tentacles, which momentarily froze, inspecting what Mariette was holding to him.

A deep red crystal, the one Justine had given her, supposedly able to call forth a monster more powerful than anything she had seen earlier. Mariette had been saving it…

Asengav naturally understood what the item was, and accepted her offering. One of the tentacles circled the crystal, and the one on her leg gave one final hard squeeze before letting go and sinking back into the mirror with the crystal, leaving a black tentacle-shaped mark on Mariette’s leg, a visual warning to remind that she had tried his patience. As the tentacles vanished, the mirror returned back to the transparent colour of mirrors, and the presence of Asengav disappeared.

Hopefully that crystal was actually what Justine had advertised it as, or Mariette may be in trouble. As in, the kind of trouble that would probably be her end shortly.

[color=1462ba]‘Tsk,’[/color] Mariette sounded out in annoyance as she slowly sat up and got up on her legs, Eli watching her with worried eyes. Mariette had been collecting injuries lately… 

She had, since that meeting with Justine;
had her body and clothes singed from exposure to the explosion Justine triggered,
gotten bruises on her arms and her dress tattered from debris of a building falling on her,
a red mark probably on her neck where Caroline had so harshly gripped her,
sand and mud rubbed into her dress where she had been thrown into it,
had her right shoulder of her dress burned up and the skin under damaged,
her left leg probably lost its black stocking and a black tentacle-mark squeezed onto it,
and she had to soak herself earlier to put out the fire.

Mariette did not look happy.

[color=1462ba]‘Wake up Suwako and go help,’[/color] she told Shade, giving her a glare with her not-eyepatched eye. Then, she turned to look at the scene.

Curie looked like the saw going to launch a fairly powerful attack, way over there. Mariette, while exhausted and in pain from the battle that had just taken place, prepared her magic to open a portal to take the attack when she blasted it and send it… at Doris will do, from a portal opening in her vicinity, and just in case it kept going have it continue on into Justine’s castle in that case. And if it wasn’t that kind of attack and it was just a widespread radiation-blast or something Mariette would attempt to open a portal as close to it as possible and put the other end to just launch the effects at the ground somewhere. In some way she wanted to portal that while she didn’t have to think about other enemies attacking her… hopefully.

She did still have small portals around her looking in a variety of directions just in case someone was intending on launching an attack at her.

Eli was still kind of recovering from her victory, and as such simply stood where she had been left, still tired and a little dazed. Mariette had not addressed her at all.