[CENTER][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210119/e22bd06ad7c8eb71800663bf01cd8627.png[/img][/CENTER] [hr] Alja was still reeling from their discovery of Enos' body when the demon's glare was fixed upon her, and she froze on the spot. The way it had just...tossed Aag aside like so much trash...she wondered then, in a rare moment of total fatalism, if that was the fate that awaited them all. She would've been prepared to fall back to the party again, regroup, come up with some kind of plan for the thing, honest. But something had grabbed hold of her mind when they were just outside of the demon's chamber and wouldn't let go. A shriek. [i]Luci's[/i] shriek. Her eyes had widened fractionally for a moment. Her stomach had leapt into her throat. She'd thought her heart stopped beating. And she'd took off running, and searching. THERE! On the other side of the chamber, she could see Luci. Just faintly--kneeling over Aaginim's broken, battered tin can of a corpse. Alja's lips parted and a faint gasp floated out. [color=D1FFFC][i]Luci.[/i][/color] And following her gasp was a scream at the top of her lungs; a scream to bloody her throat; a scream to rend the world: "[i][b][color=D1FFFC]LUCI![/color][/b][/i]" No response. And she was galvanized into movement, dashing straight for Luci. She didn't know what she would do. She didn't know what she [i]could [/i]do. More than likely? Nothing. But still...the image of Luci she'd etched into her mind back at the start of this whole thing--how happy she'd looked--she fixed that in her mind. Maybe Luci would never be person again. More than likely, she'd fall into a deep depression without Aag. And she might never come out. But Alja would be [i]damned[/i] if she let her go down that dark pit without a fight first. She was maybe halfway, scrambling across the jagged stones of the chamber's floor, when the demon lumbered in front of her, cutting her off. Her eyes snapped open, and her throat bulged. But what emerged wasn't a shriek, like when the administrator had announced...death. It wasn't a cry, like when she'd attacked the dire bat. It wasn't a scream, as it had been just a moment ago. No. What emerged from Alja's mouth was a [i]laugh[/i]. A curtain of red fell in front of her eyes. And her stride didn't break. Glacier Chain came off her back. She knew, in the back of her mind, that she was certainly going to die, as the demon's hand pulled back to strike her. But in that moment, with fury boiling in her blood, she didn't even care. And then the claw, so close to her, bounced away, and Graves emerged at her side, pushing it back as she stared for just a moment. Then, the red curtains returned. A wild grin came to her, and she [i]laughed[/i] again in the demon's face. [color=dc143c]"Nuke it! Nuke it with everything you've god damn got!"[/color] The laugh grew louder, then abruptly cut off. Her voice radiated a cold deeper than anything she'd felt. "[color=D1FFFC]You got it.[/color]" A bubble of purple light wrapped around her, and at the same time, she felt her strength grow. Her muscles were reinvigorated. It felt [i]amazing.[/i] Tundra Glass wrapped her flail, and it hummed a killing-song around her as she whirled it and [i]struck[/i]. The [i]THOOM[/i] reverberated through the room. Shards of broken ice, sharp as glass, sliced across her skin, but she paid them no mind. She ducked under the hand as it came back, slid underneath it, then struck again, Glacier Chain rising and falling with the force of a meteor. Another whirl and [i]crack,[/i] and a wave of ice slashed up the demon's side. It shattered on its skin--it didn't even seem to damage it--but she laughed madly all the same, even as exhaustion began to nip at her heels. It felt good. It felt [i]right.[/i] [i][color=d1fffc]Nuke it.[/color][/i] Leaping back, she began to spin her flail above her head. Slowly at first, then faster. And faster. And [i]faster.[/i] Her throat swelled again, and Alja unleashed a guttural, bloody-spittled [i]roar[/i] of pure [i]rage[/i] as the vibrations of her flail began to split the air. It shivered, and all around her, great needles of ice began to form. And though they started small--a crown of frigid swords around her head--they soon swelled, until the air around her grew cold, filled with the chilling sound of growing ice. [i][color=d1fffc][b]One.[/b][/color][/i] The crust of ice continued to grow, and her feet left the ground, suspending her in the air. She rose until she reached a height at which she could look [i]down[/i] at the demon instead of up. Her eyes began to gleam a frigid pale blue. [i][color=d1fffc][b]Thousand.[/b][/color][/i] With a blur of frantic motion, the fractured needles of ice hovering through the air suddenly solidified, arranging themselves into a dizzying array of spears that glecamed with a fragmented and terrible light. The glow in her eyes grew brighter, now; enough to notice from down on the ground as a swelling nova of icy light. [i][color=d1fffc][b]Shining.[/b][/color][/i] Another blur of motion; as one, the spears pulled back, taking up position behind her. Her eyes were entirely blotted out now, and the light that they cast ricocheted among the floating shards, casting Alja in a blazing corona. Her flail still spun. And then she [i]dropped [/i]as though carried by a thousand pounds, slamming her flail into the stones hard enough to crack them with a sound like thunder. [i][color=d1fffc][b]TEETH.[/b][/color][/i] And all at once, the spears descended.