[center][b][u]March 11th, 2045 - 14:20pm - Paradox - Outskirts - Stoneworks Region, Texas, USA[/u][/b][/center]

[hr]

[url=https://youtu.be/PU1KSRx70cU] The first thing it did was stare.[/url]

J-3 felt the battle-fury-calm settle over it. The eyes of its form stared. And stared. And stared.
Ink pulsed slowly, warping its shape until it settled on an old face. 

A woman’s shape, five feet and some change in height. Average weight. Average build. 
Soft features, rounded cheeks, slightly upturned nose. 
Hispanic in origin? Perhaps Hawaiian. 
A small scar centered on her cheek; burn? Acid burn.
Blue-green eyes. 
Black-brown hair. Well maintained.

It settled on the framework of what J-3 thought of instinctively. It pushed forward, rising up to stand on somewhat equal level with [s][Hurt-fear-HATE-FLAME-BURNINGBURNINGBURNING][/s] her.

The shape they took blinked once.
The tunnel behind them, and the air before them, shuddered and dimmed for a moment.
Mana swirled into a spiraling symbol behind it.
A simple circle center.
An intricately woven two circle core.
A massive spider web of lines and [WILL-SHAPE] between the three.
[INTENT] pressed onto the mana. Onto the spider web.

[url=https://youtu.be/SqFaCDvHxU4] It’s skull spread open like a flower[/url], revealing a golf-ball sized sphere. It was water, swirling and whirling around so hard upon itself that it churned.

J-3 screamed. A true woman’s scream, spliced through with a buzzing cicada and the strangled cries of some reptilian song-bird. 

A toothpick thin line blurred into existence. Sniping forward with the pressure of a small lake behind it, a beam of saltwater lanced itself forth, sweeping towards the [HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE].

Ink spread as the shape screamed and weaved [MANA-KILL-AQUA-SHEAR]. Four extra limbs formed. Behind the shoulders, two heads, skinless and made purely from bone and sinew atop a similarly macabre necks.
Jaws snapped open, revealing an additional two, larger, baseball sized, spheres. 

Blurred water rushed forth, small bursts of pressure so high it impacted stone like a hot knife through butter. 


It reacted.  Faster than it should be able to: [Mana] simply doesn't move like that.  ID met the aqua-jets with her fist, which ignited the air with a pulse of opressive heat.  The water boiled as it impacted, or seemed to at least, and screamed as billowing steam rushed back towards J-3.  There was a tangible shudder through the bubble swirling around the Stoneworks as the force of her mana slapped against it; an invisible shockwave setting the rocks a-sizzle as it chased the lance of pure light and heat ripping out of the steam, reducing rocks and sand to bubbling glass.

It moved as it wove. Darting to the left with a strength and speed that belied it's form.
J-3 stopped screaming, and rushed forward with abruptly formed, venom laden fangs. A twinned pair of tails flailed in the air behind it, the tips club-like and bony.
The spell work vanished... Before the air shuddered again. [MANA] pulsed, and the spells reformed, and fired again. Short bursts like that of a sprinkler. 

If a sprinkler could shatter stone like high-powered drills.