[center][h1][color=silver]Annabelle Irons[/color][/h1] and [img]https://i.imgur.com/eEH78vK.png[/img] and [h1][color=red][i][b]???[/b][/i][/color][/h1][/center] [hr] The pale-skinned magical girl felt the thrum of an Overcity Shift in the air, stretching into the air and enveloping her like a blanket. The girl's red eyes shot open wide with a look of sheer horror, but there was little time to respond before the shift would have moved her. She'd asked the Beacon girl to channel that ability to help, not shift both of them like this! Would they both even be shifted, at this point??? If they could have just cut the tie between the Soth and the body, then it would have stopped the Horror being able to- [center][h3]~???, The Overcity~[/h3][/center] -...what? Annabelle found herself on one knee next to Summer, sweat running down her eyebrows as the two stood in a...rather interesting scenery. Far off in the distance buildings could be barely made out. For a moment, at least, Annabelle felt her mind drawn towards the surreal scene. [center][hider=A Maiden In A Moonlit Dream] [img]https://i.imgur.com/i23DSNm.jpg[/img] [/hider][/center] It was a field of flowers, and the two girls were upon the flower-crowned hill overlooking it all. It was more like a snow-white sea really, alien yet familiar in shape...but softly glowing under what looked like a lovely moonlit sky here. Then as a gentle breeze came in, they began shifting and rustling very lightly under the silvery light. Their inky black stalks were so slender, fragile-seeming nature, as if any mere movements might snap them in twain. Their flowers too seemed to be expanded into a delicate array of five petals, stretching up as if to reach up to the sky to embrace it. [color=silver]"Ah!!!"[/color] The void-touched girl felt a tug at the connection, the one which had been zapping her life out and funneling it and her magic into that of the corpse held in her right arm's chains. But...this was going down not in the way she had ever expected. It was like a surreal pain, not the usual tug of her life and magic being drained, and Annabelle's chain arm began to flicker seemingly in and out of the Overcity. Wait...that arm had come here too?! It was an odd phenomenon to be sure. Yet also too, seemingly, had come the thing they were still holding at that. A sheet covered, magically modified corpse lying atop the white flowers and in the grip of Annabelle's chains. But the body too was flickering seemingly in and out of the Overcity, like Annabelle's chain arm itself. Though whilst the nerve endings attached to that chain arm were firing off for Annabelle, a pain comparable to the draining of her life and magic, magically Annabelle could feel something...strange going on. [color=silver]"Ha....ah....you might've just...AH!!!...saved us all with that..."[/color] Annabelle spoke to Summer with some exasperation, but also the ever-obvious pain she was feeling, in her voice. However, a small smile was coming to her face as well, as if something really good had just happened. [center][h3]~Flying Platform, The Graveyard, Penrose~[/h3][/center] [color=crimson][i]'....Oh?'[/i][/color] The partial manifestation of Soth seemed to evoke a very human, and in this sense rather alien for it, emotion in its voice....surprise. Albeit calm surprise, but surprise. This was to the end that it stopped attacking Amaryllis and Alicia, more intent to focus on the odd thing that was going on at the moment. Amaryllis and Alicia could, if they but looked behind themselves, witness what this fragment of a Greater Horror was seeing. Annabelle and Summer were gone, but Annabelle's chain arm was seemingly frozen in the air and flickering in and out of existence to the naked eye. The same went for the corpse itself that the chains were attached to, Amber's body and the chains seeming to reappear and disappear like a strobe-light effect. This was what was very visibly worrying their opponent. Yet the Horror's disposition seemed to shift slightly more before it began to speak again. [color=crimson][i]'Well, this is a most frustrating, but also enlightening and interesting, turn of events. There would be no way you mortals would know how to do this purposefully, but this what is called a 'spatial flux'. It is a mere side effect of trying to shift a spatially grounded object with multiple karmic ties attached to it. A rather rare display if cosmic events, but... My vessel is being torn between this world and the Overcity, in other words, because that fool of a girl shifted herself and my sacrifice tied to this corpse into the Overcity.'[/i][/color] ...wait a second, why was Soth stopping to say this to them? [center][h3]~Park, The Overcity~[/h3][/center] The darkness magical girl summed up some of her strength as the flickering began to continue. [color=silver]"...The body is stuck between the Overcity...and our world. I think. I can still feel the life and magic...being zapped out of me...but its erratic. My former boss' attempt to connect to it feels the same. Yet without his altar...we can stop him here!!!"[/color] Annabelle let her smile grow, her withering and more corpse-like form perhaps being a tad creepy in doing this, before sending a surge of magic through her chain arm towards the body. It felt erratic, and frankly was a struggle, to do so, but her heart was screaming an exuberant 'yes' at the same time! This was her chance...no, this was THE chance they had to stop this once and for all! She could manage it now, in this scenario, with just this little magic she had left at this point. [center][h3]~Flying Platform, The Graveyard, Penrose~[/h3][/center] The sky above the flying platform seemed to shimmer with more spatial rips and tears now, before finally it tore open a bit. A torrent of disgusting, vile aura poured out of it from the sky, down upon the platform and grounds of the graveyard below. It was a power most vile, most gut-wrenching, and very much the true presence of a Horror. The hole to their world was not yet open to unleash a greater Soth. But it seemed Soth was, in this case, tearing a hole into their world physically rather than using up sacrifices this time. A much slower process, and still incomplete at this moment. If any looked through the rips and tears, they would only see and alien, blood-red sky and endless amounts of writhing black masses of eyes and tentacles. [color=crimson][i]'I shall merely have the rest of my whole tear my way into this realm faster, then, to strengthen my link to the vessel! This farce of a 'battle' shall be ended, and i shall-!'[/i][/color] The partial manifestation seemed to stop cold, just as a tangible wave of magical energy passed through Annabelle's flickering chain arm. It was such that the girls on the platform could very much feel it as well. It felt like...Annabelle, which Amaryllis would be able to recognize as the same magic that had formed their mental link through the chain arm itself. Untainted darkness, magic not touched by Soth's endless abyss, and it was surging into the corpse it was holding onto still. [color=red][b][i]'HAHAHA!!! AH, HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!'[/i][/b][/color] From the smaller cracks in the sky this time, a far greater voice boomed loud into the air, where all of Penrose could hear. It sounded more...physical, more powerful, and more commanding than anything the partial manifestation of Soth had ever sounded like. Even the monsters of varying sizes in the city that Beacon was mopping up, who had been drawn out and in by the mess and Soth's summoning of forces, seemed to take pause as if stuck with utter terror. True, mortal terror for things that struck terror into others. However, the cracks in the sky also stopped growing, the distortions coming to a gradual halt as the voice laughed in sheer mockery and amusement. [color=red][b][i]'So my former champion has actually gone and done it! Mortals never cease to amaze, nor does the effects of my own power, and i must say my appetite to incarnate has only been intensified by this event. Haha!!! It was admittedly not possible without the help of others, and that particular accident of course. Still....this is the most amusement i have had in millennia! The struggles of mortal life shall never cease to entertain me since i began to look upon it with dull eyes, and this is proof of that not being a mistake it seems! So a great reward is in order. Specifically, your planet's current survival, and a chance for myself to watch from afar that [u]raw fury[/u] of humanity's to amuse me further!'[/i][/b][/color] [color=crimson][i]'What?!'[/i][/color] the partial manifestation of Soth spoke, looking up towards the sky with a look of actual shock in its many eyes, [color=crimson][i]'We are to manifest here! What is this nonsense you speak-?!'[/i][/color] [color=red][b][i]Heed my voice well, mere fragment of my will, mortals of this planet, the and magical girls of Penrose! I am the fullness of Soth, the Infinite Abyss, a great force of this universe that since the beginning that clears away the old and returns all to its origin! You may have this fragment of my will to slay as you all seem to desire greatly. It has ceased to amuse me after i allowed it to grow to this point, and it is now cut off from my whole's support. My walk among mortals, this shall occur elsewhere...somewhere less amusing. So sayeth i, the Abyss itself! Were this my whole, your world would have collapsed in an instant and been consumed into my void. But yea, my true coming is a great ways off yet, it seems, for this world.'[/i][/b][/color] [color=crimson][i]'NOO!!!!!'[/i][/color] the partial manifestation of Soth spoke, looking up towards the sky with a look of actual shock in its many eyes, [color=crimson][i]'You would cast us aside, on a whim, for your mere amusement more?! We are one! We...no...i cannot feel your power any more...I SHALL DESTROY YOU ALL FOR THIS!!!'[/i][/color] The presence of Soth's fragment seemed to shrink in an instant, now barely clinging to the platform to keep it afloat as it began to sink down towards the ground again at a steady pace. Only that power of Soth's true mass, the fullness the Abyss, seemed to still exert a passive and extreme magical presence in the area now. But the sky did not tear open more, the ground did not shake, and even the storm itself that had been generated before began to slow down and clear. The stink of a greater horror's true form hung strong in the air, but as for this fragment...it was virtually powerless now. Like a newborn baby left alone among wolves. [u][i][b]A prey item whose demise was to be watched from the cracks in reality in the sky above. [/b][/i][/u] [@t2wave][@MadManMoon][@Shifter_Master][@Ariamis][@PlatinumSkink][@Vocab][@FamishedPants][@Flamelord][@ERode][@DarkwolfX37][@Card Captor][@BrokenPromise][@DarkwolfX37] [center][hider=EVERYONE TAGGED ABOVE NEEDS TO READ THIS][b][h3]The battle to stop Soth's ritual has been won! The ties between him and the corpse are nonexistent, at the very least, and the whole of Soth seems to have been 'amused' enough to let go of this ritual...and this partial manifestation of him. And now, as it were, all that remains is to punish the evil that has been cut off from Soth's whole...fufufu... [u][i]Go To Town On It, using Finishers or with anything else as you so desire. The body, i can say, will be safe from this at the moment in its now starting-to-stabilize inter-dimensional state. My treat~[/i][/u] >:3 [u]However[/u], this is [u]not the end[/u] of our little climax in regards to the situation with the corpse itself. It isn't stabilized at the moment, and is still doing so. Summer also would find she cannot, at this moment, shift Annabelle or what is attached to her back. There is also Regina in her monster form to deal with, which shall be handled by Broken as they desire. [i][u]To those such as Helga and Su, etc, that are headed towards the platform[/u][/i]: Consider the platform to have landed by the time you who are traveling to it are posting this round as well, but know the body and chains/chain arm are still flickering in and out as we speak~[/h3][/b][/hider][/center]