[center][h1]Abigail Cho[/h1]
[h2]Lost Haven, ME[/h2][/center]

Abigail shrieked as bricks were blown out from the wall above her, stumbling as she made her way down an alley with a few other people. Dust choked the air, which was probably all for the better, as it might obscure the invaders aim at their little group. She couldn't [i]believe[/i] her luck in this shit hole of a city. First she ran into [i]the[/i] Hannelore, then she's sent to find some source of fucking [i]zombies[/i] or some shit, and then she finds freshly murdered thugs and a damn [i]monster[/i] butchering people. And [i]now[/i], here she was, being chased through the city by goddamned [i]alien invaders[/i].

Another burst of [i]something[/i] flew through the air, impacting somewhere ahead of them. She gripped the arm of a little girl who was still with them, keeping the child on her feet instead of falling into whatever they were stumbling through. Abigail's head swam with ringing terror and confusion and anger, the results of an entire city being suddenly invaded and people being murdered in the hundreds. Worse was what she was fairly certain were the [i]invaders[/i] emotions, cold and slimy in her brain and making her feel like reality wasn't where it should be. 

She had woken up today thinking she was going to at least find either a paying job in the city or, failing that, start investigative work on what the Psychopomp Queen wanted her to do. She hadn't even had her morning whiskey, in what she tried to convince herself at the time was a positive step even though the lack of substances in her blood meant she was more open than ever to this damned combat zone of a city. So of course, mid morning when the whole city suddenly seized up in terror, she had fallen to the floor and hadn't been able to get her thoughts straight since. She was barely even [i]conscious[/i] at this point, mindlessly running with others in groups that were being picked off a little at a time. That disturbing thought crossed her mind, that she was just a rabbit in a trap, right as the building at the end of the alley collapsed from another blast, though she couldn't tell where that one had come from.

She felt the horrible wave of terror and death from in front of her, and stared wide-eyed as she realised that her and the little girl where the only ones left alive. She scurried, dragging the child with her, behind a pile of rubble and crouched down, hugging the girl below her and weeping uncontrollably in panic, gasping to try and catch her breath and silence it. The girl wasn't too much better, and it was probably that which led the alien trooper to walk over to their terrible hiding place. She couldn't read the facial expression as she looked up, but she could feel the cold menace as the shoulders moved, lifting its weapon to aim at them.

In her horror, her mind called out, across the realms she had access to, pleading for someone, [i]anyone[/i] to come help her, not for herself, but for everyone who shouldn't have died today. And a chilling silence dropped into her mind, terror and pain washed away. Time seemed to stand still, in her eyes, as slowly the Veil dropped and she was looking at...[i] something[/i]. Her mind refused on all levels to recognise whatever it was in front of her, for its own sake.

It spoke in the sounds of stone grinding together, of tidal waves and earthquakes, the crumbling of burning timbers, the whispering fall of ashes in a burning city, but her mind translated well enough. “[b]YOU HAVE CALLED. WE HAVE COME.[/b]” She shuddered under the mental weight of the presence.

“Please,” she asked, knowing what she might be doing. “These people are going to die, and I don't think they're supposed to. Something's wrong here.”

The image in front of her shook. She could almost feel...amusement? “[b]YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF FATE IS FLAWED, MORTAL CREATURE, BUT HERE YOU MAY BE CORRECT. WHAT DO YOU SEEK FROM US, THE ONLY ANSWER TO YOUR CALL IN TIME ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING?[/b]”

“I don't know. I've always been a bridge, never a fighter. Even here, while I have fought, it was to make or break connections. I can't fight, I don't know how in my own world.”

“[b]AHHH. YOU SEEK POWER FROM US. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME ONE SUCH AS YOU HAS COME. WHAT DO YOU OFFER TO US?[/b]”

Abigail froze. Things like this were dangerous even when she was in a position of [i]strength[/i]. Here, desperate and needing help, she was so much worse off. But she couldn't do [i]nothing[/i]. If for no other reason than she didn't want to die quite yet. She could guide others but she wasn't ready for this side of the veil yet. She could feel other things, other beings, coming to her call, but they were far off, too far to help, much as the thing had said.

“Give me your name, and I will act as a conduit for [i]you[/i], though not permanently. I will let you through me into my world, to fight this menace, and in return I will grant you the same bridging thrice more in my life. I can refuse any time, but I [i]must[/i] grant you three.”

The entity in front of her paused, suddenly stopping any and all motion. She could almost make out the edges of what her mind did not want to understand.

“[b]THIS IS ACCEPTABLE, MORTAL. GRANT US PASSAGE NOW AND WE SHALL USE YOU TO REMOVE THIS STAIN FROM THE TIMELINE WHERE WE FIND IT. THE DEAL IS STRUCK.[/b]”

[hr]

Time unfroze, but now Abigail found herself only watching through her own eyes. And, through whatever mechanisms governed her power, she didn't even feel the waves of terror anymore, as if she had earmuffs over her mind. The girl under her screamed, the alien raised its weapon, she could almost imagine she could see the energy building to wipe the pair out of existence...

And then she felt it. All along her skin, in her [i]bones[/i], though she had no physical control over her body, the thing was coming through. A tentacle, a [i] real fucking tentacle oh god a fucking tentacle[/i] rose out of her now upraised hand, shedding black drops of [i]something[/i] as it moved. It lashed out, wrapping around the weapon and tugging it out of line to blast down the street. The alien's face registered shock just before another writhing limb, and another and [i]another oh god how many[/i] poured out from her sleeve and her fingers, lashing and wrapping the alien and suddenly ripping him apart in a shower of gore. Another three of the things grabbed the girl and dumped her, screaming, into a dumpster to hide, as Abigail was lifted up, standing, amidst a roiling ball of tentacles that seemed almost to absorb the light that touched  them.

The entity in control of her body paused, grinning to itself. Abigail was suddenly outside of her own body, looking at her own face, which had horrifically sharpened teeth and was crying wispy motes of darkness from space-black eyes. It spoke directly to her immaterial presence in its voice from the other side. 

“[b]IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE WE HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS SIDE OF REALITY. YOU ARE A BLESSING, YOUNG MORTAL SHAMAN. AS AGREED, WE WILL END THIS THREAT OR AID IN ITS END, AND THEN WE SHALL RETREAT. YOU KNOW THE THINGS YOU WILL SUFFER SHOULD YOU TRY AND RENEGE ON OUR AGREEMENT.[/b]”

And she did. Sudden knowledge of unspeakable things stretching into eternity dropped into her mind with no warning, as her body was born along , half walking and half being thrust along the alley by the seemingly endless multitude of tentacles. They seemed to disappear into her sleeves and skin and reappear as needed. And amongst them she felt bony spurs and claws, beaks, and eyes, all hidden in a shadowy mist of some sort. She regretted immensely her choice, now, but it was too late for regrets. She was just along for the ride at this point.

The tide of formless mayhem slammed through a group of aliens with shuddering glee, bodies being ripped apart, chewed, or flung away in no discernible pattern. Through that group was some sort of vehicle, which was seized by it's parts and ripped asunder with deafening shrieks of metal. And then her body and it's “escort” smashed through three walls, what she thought might be an apartment or something else, and then they were through to a street. Her body was raised onto a platform of limbs, leaving her relatively exposed except for the shadows dripping off of her like rain, and the black eyes looked about for targets. Several shots flew past her, and with a jerk of motion she was moving down the street. Tentacles seemed to stretch however far they needed to to grab a lightpost, car, or other heavy object to pull the mass along, while clawed limbs and spiked talons sheared into the asphalt and nearby building to move her. She crossed two hundred yards in less than ten seconds and fell upon another group of invaders. Their shrieks of terror rang in her ears, but she felt the creature possessing her shudder with joy at the sounds. [i]What the hell had she let into her world!?[/i]

Whatever had been shielding her reception broke away, though unlike when she had control of it, it was [i]directed[/i]. She could feel the thing using her senses to track across the city, though she wasn't sure what it was looking for until it found it. A spot where the invaders were scared and hurt. Somewhere there was fighting. So it as being attracted  to conflict. She had let loose a nightmare, and one far more powerful than she had bet on answering her. While that was a risk, she hadn't exactly had a whole lot of choice in the matter. She wished a psychopomp would show up. Maybe Hannelore could tell her what she had just agreed to.

She felt her body get hauled out and along the streets, smashing through or throwing away any obstacles with contemptuous ease. The worst was that she could feel all of the extra [i]bits[/i] as if they were also a part of her, and they were [i]revolting[/i], but at the same time she could feel the sensuous joy the thing was having as it romped through the city. They crossed some sort of university grounds, and it leapt high through the air, catching a passing Star Wars looking thing like a dog with a frisbee, only in a massive set of razor-barbed spider-like legs and crushing it to pieces before they hit the ground and continued smoothly along the green grass. 

Through two more alleys, over a building ,and across an intersection, limbs always seeking and finding things blindly but unerringly accurately. Eyes opened in the mass that surrounded her, which she was shocked to find wasn't all that large. She had been trying to keep herself separate, but it was like trying to ignore her own hand. Her initial horror had stopped her from analysing exactly what she was dealing with, and her mind had filled in blanks, but now her perceptions were growing uncomfortably accustomed to her new state of being.

The tentacles were long, or short as needed, and insanely strong, but except when used for locomotion, they weren't exceptionally thick, and while many were rapidly spinning in and out of existence round her, there only seemed to be a few solidly in the world at a time, the rest fading in or our at the moment. They seemed mostly to gather at her wrists, or her sleeves. She was disturbed to find that she could feel the shadows in her own clothes as acutely as the limbs that weren't hers, and was unaware of whether they emerged from her own human flesh or the darkness. Two to six stayed near her waist, and the clawed limbs and other [i]bits[/i] seemed to gather near her legs, giving a vague humanoid shape to what she realised was her own human body, just wrapped in shadows like a thick cloak that drifted and dripped behind her now. Her face was still revealed, and the thing piloting her was grinning like an idiot, with a mouth that seemed far too wide with too many teeth, despite still fitting on her face just fine.

Ripping through a store from back to front, her new limbs snaked out onto another street, this one [i]filled[/i] with invaders. Some seemed petrified, others scattered from other attacks. It didn't matter to her possessor. All of them were rent into parts in a shockingly short time, the rear of the column wiped in less than a minute in the same way a cat might assault a fragile toy, or a dog a pillow. As the screams died away, the thing in her body raised itself up again, laughing in its horrible voice as Abigail saw though her own eyes down the street to where some of the world's most notable heroes stood against a giant machine like the finale of some movie.