Day 9 – Mid Day
Fuyuki City – The Church
A haunted hill. A place of sanctity, despoiled. No trace of saintliness could be found here anymore, only a desolate empty box filled with naught but the cadaver that was once the Overseer. Despite the season, it felt unnaturally cold but not an artificial chill but the stifling grasp of the oldest emotion known to man. Fear. Standing in the centre of the room with the enemy having the high ground. Beautiful but terrifying, like a malevolent doll. A doll bent of death or worse. It was here that Yorkie would live or die.
The ominous figure raised its firearm directly towards her.
“Commencing capture protocol.”
[BGM]
“Shit–!”
Guns had a tell with a muzzle flash, crossbows were even slower yet still she could not fully evade. Throwing herself to the side the bolt scraped against her left side as she landed in some biological remnants of crushed liver and kidneys.
“What’s your problem?!” complains the rogue agent defecting from what must clearly be the same benefactor, laughter barely covering hysteria. “Don’t you know it’s rude to try and penetrate a girl before taking her out to dinner first?”
Sarcasm was the cowards lie. Fear against death however was perfectly natural, it meant you wanted to live. That desire to live brought action into motion.
Staying on all fours, she crawled to the end of the benches and ducked around the corner for cover, keeping her eyes closed focusing on her other senses.
The scent of a slaughtered carcass from the holy mother and the odour of sewage from the monochrome figure were overpowering rendering the sense of smell useless. Hearing was another story, as the figure approached, a slow and heavy thud of heavy weighted boots signalled their approach and delayed ka-thunk of the crossbow being pulled back and reloaded.
“One second, two seconds…”
Three seconds, that was the time it took to reload the crossbow. That could make all the difference.
“Projection… Force!” she wants to scream it out but it’s a slow growl
Dipping back around the corner from her cover to face the figure with it tilting it’s head slowly over to match. The figures face was masked so could not show any expression, Yorkie’s could show fear but she knew it’s power. Fear of growing close to someone after a life of solitude, fear of losing them, fear of failure and knowing when other people relied upon you those fears grew all the greater. The oldest fears were of death and the unknown. But fear did not define a woman, it was what you do in spite of your fear that denoted your bravery.
Yorkie bared her fangs and her face was pure steel as gazing into those empty sockets, the curse was cast and heavy iron fell in her hand. A lock, stock and barrel, creating the image of a western revolver.
“Hmmm?” A confused hum came from the figure, it did not comprehend the true nature of her power.
Perfect.
Yorkie pulled the trigger of the illusory gun and fired. Her aim was terrible but this was not an actual gun, it was an extension of herself. By cursing a given target one is granted control over their spatial and visual information received by its living target. By taking control of this information, one can install a new “reality” to the target – akin to (barely like) the placebo effect used in medical trials if the brain perceives it to be true it can have genuine effects. Therefore, these virtual realities super imposes upon the target will cause the body to react accordingly, causing illusory injuries to become genuine.
The spell rang true, as the gun faded from her grip as the spell ended, the figure jolted back a step. Looking down at it’s chest, it gave a slow pat out of curiosity as if it could not quite comprehend what happened. Yorkie was waiting for the blood to come out, show some signs of injury or weakness.
But there was nothing she could see.
The creature looked at its own hand in reaction to what just happened and tilted its head. There was no fear, only curiosity.
That was worse, there was no malice it this things actions, what happened to the nun, what was going to happen to her. They’d be no reasoning. Just that little head tilt that was international language for ‘fascinating’.
Shit.
She buckled back over and crawled around the corner, hearing the sound of the wooden benches behind her being crushed under heavy heel, destroying whatever little protection she had left. All she could do was crawl away like a stupid, little worm. Stupid, but not helpless. This figure may have proved itself to have been impervious to gunfire, however Yorkie hadn’t given up, she still had some elements of the environment on her side. There had to be something!
Yorkie retreated, sprinting away while the slow thud of heavy footsteps followed her. Gunfire wasn’t enough to slow this damn thing, she needed to make a wall. With simulated modern weaponry falling short, she’d need to rely on the elements.
“Come thunder, come lightning.”
Yorkie gestured to the light-bulbs in the room that would have provided an artificial lighting and after the initial spell earlier it was easy to simulate the sounds of thunder crackling in the beings head to draw its attention to them.
“Projection: Element!”
The second illusion projection spell of hers worked in a similar way to the first with the brain simulating effects upon the body. The lightbulbs crackled and glowed with energy before bolts of lightning struck at the ground. In the assailant’s mind’s eye the ground burned as a searing wall of flame burst out of the ground before it spread across the entire church. Yorkie could see the thing stumble back, swatting at small embers that had even started to spout up on it, having believed itself to start catching fire.
After a few feet, the flames grew and spread across the creature’s whole body but rather than screams of pain, franticly trying to put out the fire or anything for that matter. It just stood there, looking at her.
Watching, waiting.
The creature’s gaze fixed upon the illusionist, it raised an arm and fired a bolt from the crossbow. Bolt’s were slower and had an audible tell before firing, anticipating this Yorkie once again dove over to the right side to try and get close to the altar for cover only for the bolt to skim against her face, leaving a hot searing cut across her left cheek.
That bastard anticipated that!
Yorkie knew she had three seconds before that thing had reloaded so she rose to her feet, ignoring the superficial wound only for her to see the bogeyman to drop the crossbow.
One second-
She had already turned and frantically darted to the only available defence, looking over her shoulder only to see it quickly draw out a second one from under its cloak.
“Clever dick-”
Yorkie twisted around to prepare another countering spell but before she could, the next bolt shot out and pierced through her right hand, pulling her back flat on her ass and pinning the hand to the altar.
She screamed as the white-hot pain coursed through her whole being and the illusionist writhed in agony. With that, her concentration broke and the illusory wall of fire vanished. The flames on her assailant vanished and all Yorkie could do was look in terror as she heard those slow heavy footsteps approach and there was nothing she could do.
Quickly it was upon her and the figure loomed over her, reaching down and grabbing a fist full of her hair before yanking her up and finally speaking in a desolate empty voice that betrayed no emotion.
“Target neutralised, preparing for transport.”
Yorkie struggled, desperately kicking and scraping best she could at the dark figure but it didn’t move an inch. She could feel the sweat dripping off her, the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears as she used her free hand to wack at it’s face, knocking the figures mask free.
She saw a youthful face just about entering adulthood, one she knew intimately well. Striking blue eyes and handsome features that were marred by sickly pale skin and black veins ruining his looks, accompanied by blonde hair, a natural colour the former lover knew that he despised.
“A-a clone? A fucking clone!”
She looked at the half-dead face of Seigi Nomikata staring back into her eyes, no love, no hatred, nothing in those empty eyes.
“Preparing TERMINATION.”
The doppelganger swung his head down on Yorkie’s head and her nose exploded in a cacophony on blood. Letting go of her hair, Yorkie fell to the ground as she covered her face, unable to stop the outpour of her blood over her beautiful face. Through her fingers she saw the refraction of light, the rays of the sun reflecting off metal as something blocked out the light infront of Yorkie. She lurched to the left as the heavy object swung down where her head was.
And the axe the doll that worse Seigi’s face sliced clean through Yorkie’s right arm at the elbow.
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Originally Posted by Faux, July 20th 2019
A wise and beautiful woman who exudes an aura of grace. She is a sly, cunning, manipulative person who always gets what she wants, whether through trickery or ruthlessness. Her own fighting abilities are low, but she should not be trifled with. What does she ride? Men, of course!
