[center][h3]Vs Mom[/h3]
Level 10 Nadia (89/100)
Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Omori’s [@Majoras End], Ganondorf’s [@Double]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1766[/center]

After the thunderous outcry shook the room, it took Nadia only a quick moment to recover from her terror, and as she scrambled back onto her feet her face was close to beet-red. She was flush with a potent cocktail and fury and embarrassment, directed almost as much toward herself as whatever nebulous, amorphous entity lurked just beyond this archaic chamber’s ghastly confines. What good was her plucky, happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care attitude if she kept letting herself get spooked by cheap scares like this, after all?

On the other hand, she knew it wasn’t worth fretting over. Before her eyes, tumors of twisted flesh oozed from the cracks in the floors and walls, swelling into malignant growths large enough to give birth to yet more odious monstrosities. Some tightly clutched weapons like staves or claws close to their chests, a feeble attempt either to preserve the facade or hold fast to some semblance of long-lost humanity, while others veiled themselves as best they could beneath tenebrous robes. At the feet of the warriors groveled unclothed thralls, their infested skin sloughing from their bones as they plaintively clasped their hands, gibbering in ecstatic delirium. The Cultists' skin stretched into humanoid shapes, with scraps of clothing and armor shuffling into their proper places, but Nadia knew what they were. Eldritch horrors or not, they were just more enemies to kill, and now they stood before her, bloated and squishy like so many overripe tomatoes ripe for the harvesting. The feral hardened her claws and gave voice to her rage, her instinctive hatred of these things that should not be. “You’re mincemeat!” she snarled, less a pun and more a promise.

Then Mom’s leg crashed down from above, forcing Nadia and all the other Seekers to scramble for their lives. A blood-propelled dash got her out of harm’s way, and in a flash Nadia wheeled around to take revenge on the loathsome limb. With her hands on the ground she used [url=https://i.imgur.com/nictM28.png]Fiber Upper[/url] to extend her segments upward with lethal force. Negating contact damage through that invincible reversal technique, she plunged her feet deep into the leg’s grotesque outer layer of sagging adipose tissue, then kicked her legs into gear to drill even deeper. A guttural grunt echoed through the room as the leg rapidly began to rise, and Nadia hurried to snap her legs back down in a spray of torn flesh.

Nadia hopped to her feet. With the Seekers spread out, the Cultists were converging on their targets, with the thralls pushing themselves along behind their ascended masters. Yet they seemed to move just a little slower than they ought to–or else Nadia herself had been made faster. It felt -and sounded- like Sectonia wanted this freakshow dealt with quickly. “Comin’ right up.” Nadia smirked, pulling out one anchor to twirl on its chain as she withdrew her new Bait Launcher from where she’d stuffed it in her hoodie’s inside pocket. “Meat your maker!” She took aim and fired at an incoming Brawler, and though the steak that slapped against his golden mask barely registered, the tiger that poofed into existence behind him was another matter. With a roar it reared up and swiped with its massive mitts, gouging out chunks of squirming, beady-eyed flesh from the Brawler’s exposed back.

[i]”Hnnnngh.”[/i] Rumbling like an upset stomach, the Brawler turned to [url=https://i.imgur.com/xF8FwWw.png]block[/url] the remainder of the big cat’s vicious onslaught. Nadia’s anchor then swept in, cutting into the fresh open wounds on the cultist’s back. His quivering muscles squealed, signaling for Nadia to double down, but as she reeled in her anchor to hurl it like a javelin, the thrall on support duty made his move. He placed the Brawler under guard and threw himself into the projectile’s path, allowing the anchor to lodge in his chest cavity with only a rattled groan of protest. Behind him, the Brawler pushed the tiger off, and it quickly disappeared. Before Nadia could do something, a growing shadow beneath her heralded the arrival of Mom’s leg, and the feral hastened to backdash out of danger.

Not in a great position to attack with her anchor pinned down, Nadia clicked her tongue and decided to use the leg as cover. She reloaded the Bait Launcher at record speed thanks to Sectonia’s speed boost, but as the massive leg in front of her retracted, she saw her opponent reach down and grab her anchor’s chain for a mighty, two-handed yank. “Wagh!” Nadia cried in surprise and dismay, her eyes wide as she flew through the air straight toward the monster’s outstretched hand. Acting on instinct, she released a blast of blood to change her flight path, but the Brawler’s limb metamorphosed, growing explosively into a distended tentacle to chase her down and snatch her from the air. “Mmmph!” she yowled, her face buried in pulsating eldritch meat. She carved into the mutated limb with reckless abandon as the Brawler reeled her in, sensing that she’d be able to cut loose a crucial second before being pulled into clawing range, but her enemy didn’t wait. Instead his other arm erupted too, growing a serrated tusk, and the next second it rammed straight through her midsection. For a brief moment she struggled, her screams muffled, before the brute ripped downward. Nadia’s top and bottom halves parted ways, the latter hurled behind the Brawler in a stream of blue blood. Her arms went limp, but by their handiwork the end of the cultist’s tentacle gave out the next moment, allowing the catgirl’s body to plop down on the ground.

As the battle raged on elsewhere in the room, the Brawler stood there for a moment so the thrall could heal him through grisly rite. He picked out his next target: that little boy would make for a fine appetizer. Neither he nor his attendant noticed the feral’s blood boiling up, taking on a familiar form, until the copycat buried her forearms like drills into his back. The thrall looked up just in time for an axe kick from Nadia’s lower half to smash his head into the ground. A frenzy of stomping ensued, and the Brawler turned to finish what he started, only to find his movements even slower than usual. A wincing Nadia was propping herself up on one arm just enough for her Night Light to bathe her repulsive enemy in its restrictive glow; with the other she leveled the Bait Launcher at him once more. “You’re crazy strong…” she muttered, grinning. “But I’m not half bad myself!”

With a squeeze of the trigger, another projectile steak brought about the tiger’s return. While it laid waste to the cultist’s back, Nadia put her halves together again. Once the Brawler fell to his knees she moved in with a flip kick into Curtain Shredder, finishing it off. Keeping an eye out for Mom, Nadia took a quick breather. “Ugh.” While the new separation point in her gut alleviated her impalement and subsequent bifurcation a whole lot, it still hurt, and after its brush with the Brawler’s despicable flesh she didn’t want the blood she put into her copycat back. She suddenly facepalmed. “Damn it, I could’ve just used the tongue monster instead.” Around the room, Mom’s protuberances suddenly arose again, sending forth a fresh wave of cultists. Nadia sighed, her eyes settling on the spirit of the rapturous cultist thrall with Strikers on her mind. “You were healin’ that thing, weren’t ya? Nearly undid all the work I put in. Well, unless ya wanna get squashed, you’re gonna heal [i]me[/i] now. Got it?”

The spiritbond completed, but before Nadia could so much as gather up her anchor, an ascended Witch looked her way. Flesh snaked across the caster’s arm and scepter as she wove Fate’s Pull, opening a rift next to the feral. A tentacle burst from the shadowy pit and grabbed Nadia, then tossed her straight toward the new quartet of enemies. Something about that attack crawled painfully through the wrinkles of Nadia’s mind as she tumbled along the ground, forcing her to clutch her head as she staggered to her feet. A Brawler leaped at her with an overhead slam, but she pulled off a Fiber Upper in time to turn the tables. Her copycat ran after the Brawler as he sailed away, leaving her with just two enemies on hand. Still, she was too close, especially to that fearsome Priest whose flesh visibly writhed beneath its soot-covered robe.

Nadia backdashed and assumed a defensive stance with her anchors, her Night Light turned outward to intercept anything that got close, then flung one anchor at the Witch. She deftly dodged out of the way, and the Priest began to move. Desperate, Nadia aimed a wide-ranging swipe at the two of them with her other anchor, and while it clipped the Witch it flat-out stopped when it reached the Priest. To the thief’s horror a pink tentacle emerged from its sleeve to wrap around the anchor, holding it in place. At the same time, the Witch grabbed hold of the other anchor. All of a sudden, Nadia found herself caught, stretched between her own weapons. A crumbling sound bade her look upward, and sure enough, Mom wasn’t about to let this sitting duck lie. The giant red heel plummeted toward her.  “Grrrrrah!” Nadia could neither tug free nor dodge as long as the monsters had her bound, so she did the only thing she could: the limbo. That let the Night Light slow the leg down just enough for her to take drastic action. The next second, the leg smashed down.

As the dust cleared and the leg withdrew, the cultists searched for a blue stain on the floor, but instead they found Nadia. She crouched against the wall where she’d rolled, being healed by her new Striker. Confused, they peered at the anchors in their grasp. The chains were slack, and from the drum on Nadia’s waist dangled two severed metal links. “Screw it. Long-range just ain’t my style.” she spat, her breath ragged. She stood to her feet and fired the Bait Launcher, freshly reloaded. She put the gun away as a steak plopped down between the Witch and the Priest, then sharpened her claws. “Time to earn your stripes!” In a flash the tiger appeared to wreak havoc once again. With a smile Nadia dropped to all fours, wiggled her tail, and launched toward the action like a cat out of hell.