The Barrens

The large steely limb wrapped around her gently and the Cloak fell all around her. "He deserves a moment," Charles' own voice was evident in the depths of emotion that penetrated the Cloak's vocalizations. But the arm did not pull her as it might have done easily. Instead, it simply slipped away as did the folds of tattered black cloth, flowing off of her body and slowly gliding on its silent way through the door, somber and sad.

Meanwhile, upon the ground below, the man lay, clutching his head, pulling at his own hair as he gave vent to his anguish. White knuckles and the muscles in his jaw were tightened as he allowed the cry upon his lips to rip free. His eyes were clamped so tightly shut against the world to keep out the reality of what had just happened, what he had done. And the flowers fell with him.

Iyana flinched away from Charles involuntarily. The... creature he was proving himself to be was starting to unsettle her. Normally, it wouldn't, but it was the fact that she was willingly following him like a kitten on a string. She couldn't make head or tail of it. However, seeing the man fallng into his own personal well of despair, she turned, once more following Charles out of the situation. She pulled off her glasses, rubbing her eyes. This was certainly turning out to be a long day.

A skeletal hand reached out and pulled the door closed behind them. "I'm so sorry that you had to see that," it was Charles' voice, just Charles, "I'm sorry that I had to do that. I..." His voice trailed off into the dark. Had one been able to see his face, they would have viewed a grimace of pain, perhaps even anger. He doubled over with a hiss like anger, leaning his hand against the wall to support him. He moved several steps down the hall, stealing away to compose himself. He made it to a doorway and, pressing his back against the frame, lowered himself to the ground. "I need help, Grey. I need some support," he appeared to be babbling to himself incoherently, "You know, we could leave. You and me, just walk away. They'd never be able to find us now. We wouldn't have to fix things any more. We could just... Live a life, here and there. We could find some girls that are good for us, start ourselves families. Can you imagine what that would be like, Grey?" He was crying. "I don't want to have to do this any more, Grey. It's what I was made to do, and I don't want to do it," his voice was shaky at best.

"If you hadn't, more would have died," the voice came from the direction of the closed door. Charles' head turned to look up tearfully. There, illuminated by his violet fire which danced up and down his limbs, stood the man, his own eyes stained with tears, but speaking with a steady voice and holding himself up with a strength he had not possessed a little while ago. "I can't take you to her," Charles was distraught. "I know," the man spoke with such incredible sadness and acceptance, a horrifying finality, "That is how it was meant to be." How could someone so wronged be thanking the man who had wronged him? "I wanted you to follow," he said, "Because I needed you to do what I could not." Charles only nodded, silently, biting down the tears which wished to flow. "I know," he croaked hoarsely, "We knew. This was the way it had to play out if it was going to be right." It didn't make him any happier. "You knew?" the man seemed surprised. Charles nodded again, tapping his head, "I saw it coming." The man looked on, a bit shocked. "Then... The man that I killed..." he looked as if he might be sick. "Isn't dead," Charles shook his head from side to side this time. The man and his flames were flabbergasted. He too hit the wall and slid down to the floor. "Thank God," his whisper echoed down the black hall.

Iyana stood, confused, between the two men. She glanced between the two, not fully understanding what was going on. Charles seemed to be going insane and the man that had killed Grey was saying that he wasn't dead after all. It was starting to get a bit much for the young reporter. She ran out of the corridor, seeking a place to get her thoughts in order and have a look at her ratings.

Once back in the overlarge section of the temple, still strewn with the blocks of stone from the fight earlier, she sat down in a fairly hidden place, pulling out her PDA. She unwound herself from the garment that Charles had given her, shaking out her hair. Her ratings had gone up 7,2%. For once, she wasn't thrilled by this. Her mind was too confused.

Stalking, swift and shadowy, a form darted into the temple, sweeping through the light deprived wells of shadow which hid behind every pillar and block of rubble. Invisible, it had caught sight of the woman after dancing about the great hall, dodging from one hiding place to another. Its head arose from where it hid, darting back and forth to make sure that nothing else was there, before locking a bloodied gaze upon her. It was a quite hideous sort of visage with gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes. The greenness of its skin did not add to the effect of general decay and morbid impressions. The eyes were large, despite being sunk so far back, and had a hungry, haunting look to them. Surrounding that was an absolutely disgustingly greasy mop of dreadlocks which hung all about it hither and thither. The thin, dried lips parted for just a moment revealing a jagged line of grayish teeth in an foul imitation of a grin. Then it darted back down into the shadows with a hiss.

The next moment, its feral, emaciated, body was hurtling towards Iyana and her PDA. A battered, rusty, bloodstained knife was clutched firmly in its left hand, one of the fingers even grasping the blade, adding to the bloodstains. It emitted an absolutely hideous shriek of joy which gurgled out of its throat as it came forwards, eyes wide and shining, mouth contorted into an unbelievably macabre smile.

Iyana slipped the PDA back into her belt. She leant her head back against the stone she sat against, her eyes closed and trying to make sense of what she had just seen down below, between Charles and the other man.

The shriek made her jump to her feet, ripping her pistol from its holster. Without stopping to ask herself what it was, she fored two shots, aiming for a double tap, one bullet to the chest and another to the head. Her eyes took in just exactly what she had shot, suppressing a shudder. The creature was, to her mind, grotesque. She shook the thoughts from her head.

A recoil and burst of some nasty fluid followed spurts of blood to mark the stones behind. With a ghastly death rattle gurgling out of its throat, the monstrosity hit the sound with a sickly wet thud. It lay there, unmoving, blood leaking out onto the cold, flat rock. By all rights, she had made two rather clean shots, any human would have stood no chance against an excellently executed kill like that and neither had this ill prepared nightmare come to life. A call rang out through the halls behind. It was Charles yelling Iyana's name. He sounded worried. Who wouldn't be after hearing that blood curdling scream followed up by gunshots? And, after all, they were still in some giant's crypt full of what might as well have been the contents of Hell regurgitated into the living and breathing space generally reserved for more well mannered peoples. The sound of running accompanied the shouts.

It was then that the thing, shot down as it was, missing a great deal of blood which had moments before been inside of it, and more generally dead than alive twitched. It wasn't much, just the shoulder blade sort of hunching, and then the back kind of shrugging a bit. What was really worrying was when the action was repeated in a more violent manner. And then, the other shoulder decided that it needed to get in on this defiance of natural processes action and made a clean escape of the skin altogether. As the flesh and its papery thin covering tore away, the skeleton began to rise up and away on its own. Pulling itself out of the body, the bones, held together by loose remains of tendons and ligaments, rose back up into a standing position. A bullet lodged square in the forehead of the terribly deformed skull. Teeth pulled into a perpetual snarl barred a hiss which skittered out of non-existent lungs. The second projectile which the woman had fired could be seen clearly, lodged in the spinal column, where it had come to rest after shattering one of the ribs, which was now hanging by a thin thread of the material contained within. It was red, and not altogether pleasant to look at directly. It's mouth opened into a silent roar as it raised a bony claw high into the air, intent on bringing it down upon the woman who would be its demise.

Iyana lowered her pistol, taking deep breaths. She cautiously stepped forwards, keeping her finger on the trigger and the mouth of the gun pointed at the ground. She nudged the dead body with the toe of one boot.
"I'm fine, Charles!" She yelled back to the man she had left back in the corridors.

The reporter turned her back, about to holster the pistol when she heard something. Something solid moving in something wet. Not wanting to see, Iyana slowly turned on her heel, turning her gaze to the thing she had just killed. It was moving. She had to swallow several times before the urge to vomit died down enough for her to yell out several choice swearwords. She started to raise her gun before realising that her previous two shots were there. No way was her little gun going to make any sort of impact on this creature.

The reporter scrambled back. The bile was rising in her throat again. Still holding her gun, she turned and fled towards an area of the giant temple where the blocks of rubble started to get bigger, higher than a person. She hastily climbed one such block, taking aim. If bullets didn't kill it, it might slow it down.
"Charles!" She yelled out. "On second thought, I'm not ok!"

"Keep shooting!" Charles' voice nearly broke into the screaming tones from panic.
"You know that could aggravate whatever she's shooting at more than kill it?" the man dashing beside him asked.
"Yes, I know, but she has a better chance of staying alive if she keeps shooting than if she tries to run," he gasped breathlessly as he put everything he had into just moving forward.
"How many bullets does she have left?"
Charles counted in his head for a moment, attempting to remember the tally. "Let's just hope that she has extra magazines," was all he said after he had done the math. And so that was what they did.

The bones made a rattling snarl as they began to ascend after her, their motions both deliberate and smooth, despite an odd creaking sound that accompanied them. They were either the movements of a predator that was stalking its prey for the final kill, or those of a marionette dancing about on the end of strings over which it had absolutely no control. Behind the bones which clicked and clacked up the rocks, the wet husk of skin began to sort of flap upon the ground, as if there were some wind intent on blowing it away like some macabre kite for it to fly into some distant tree. But... There wasn't any wind. Snapping flat, the skin and flesh took on the look of a crinkled peace of paper, cut in a roughly humanoid shape, that had been flattened out. Then, the morbid paper doll began to pull itself up off the ground, every motion a strange sort of folding and unfolding. The grotesque facsimiles of what might have once been a living creature resumed their intent chase of the woman, the skeleton grabbing towards her and its husk regaining its purchase on that rusty old knife.

The reporter paused to check her magazine, swearing again as she realised that she had only one more bullet left out of the twelve she had started out with. And of course, she hadn't brought spares. Never before had she needed to use more than one half of a clip, let alone a whole one. She holstered the pistol.

Scrambling onto another block, Iyana glanced behind her to see the skin of the creature starting to flap around by itself.
"Oh come on! Give a girl a break!" She yelled at the two entities. She turned back to climbing until her foot slipped from its hold. The woman fell from the block, squeezing her eyes shut as she waited for the inevitable impact with the ground. Thankfully, she mustn't have been as high up as she had imagined. She opened her eyes again. Light slammed into them until she snapped them shut again. Her glasses! They must have fallen off during the fall! Where were they?

As though shot out of a cannon, two forms rocketed forth from the depths of the cavernous room. One flung into the air above, it's dark blot accented by massive wings. The other streaked across the ground below through a path of violet fire. The man reached her first, just barely able to slam his body into her and redirect her from the ground. As they rolled, he wrapped her up in his coat. Above, Charles swooped down, hitting the bones with an incredible lot of force. They shattered apart at the ligaments with a sickening snapping sound and a serious of rather wet crunching noises as they rattled onto the floor. But the papery skin was still mobile, whisking towards the man on the ground, who had not moved but to pull himself up off of the young woman, remaining so that he might shield her eyes. He did not see the thing coming from behind him, and the Cloak was suddenly swept up as the bones picked themselves up again and began flinging into his tattered form.

For a moment, Iyana was winded, until her breathing quickened as she started to panic, unable to see. She felt comforted slightly by the presence of someone who seemed to be friendly. She could feel the gentle heat from a fire, guessing that it was the man who controled the purple flames. She flinched at the sound of crunching bones. Then another sound reached her ears.
"Behind you!" She yelled, pushing the man away from the flapping noise she could hear. With her eyes still squeezed shut, she attempted to stand and face the skin creature.

The boneless hide lunged for her, it's knife digging through the air with incredible speed. Between folding and unfolding, it could move with a great deal of momentum. Unbalanced, the man was several seconds too late. The papery doll's lunge made it as far as Iyana just a moment before the burst of flame blew it back. The thunderous guttering seemed to accompany the man's cry, "No!" He dove for the young lady, to make sure that she was alright.

The reporter felt the knife pierce her clothing and tried to spin away. The ice cold touch of the blade slashed through Iyana's skin, creating a deep gash from the point of one shoulder to the other. She yelled out, falling back. A rush of heat passing by her stopped her from trying to scramble back to her feet, fairly secure in the knowledge that the man would have burnt the skin creature to a crisp. Instead, she attempted to sit up, to raise the wound above the level of the heart. She breathed in gasping sobs, her eyes squeezed shut against the light, and now the pain.

He was upon her in moments, dragging her back until she could lean against one of the fallen statues. After that, he tore off his own coat, and between his fire and natural strength, separated several lengths. The cut was in a most awkward place to repair, but he made and effort none the less. "I'm sorry," he forced one of the wads of leather into the young woman's mouth, "Bite down on this. So you don't bite your tongue." He lifted a hand, which was engulfed instantaneously in that violet flame. Taking his index and middle fingers, he reached out to trace delicately along the line of the cut.

Behind him, a rattling, wheezing scream arose. The papery doll of a corpse had recovered itself, still burning, and was shrieking on its merry way towards the injured girl and her makeshift medic. His hand recoiled from her, careful not to touch her with the fire, but to pull away from the beginnings of the cut. Spinning up to a standing position, he extended his arm, still with those to fingers extended, in an imitation of a gun, and fired. The bolt missed, and the creature collided with him, attempting to struggle free and claim the young lady. Instead, a fist fight began between the two, the knife dancing about the form of the flaming man and flames licking away at the crinkled creature. Lunge and parry, hit and dodge, they were hard pressed, each fast, skill went up against instinct, and the battle managed to keep its own momentum up to speed. Neither could lower the other, the man protecting the girl, and the beast trying to push past him.

Iyana could do nothing but listen to the battle going on. At least, until an idea struck her. She bit down on the leather to stop herself from screaming as she pulled her gun from her holster, placing it on the ground.
Got to make a diversion... She planned in her head. She felt the block of stone behind her, pulling herself up to stand on it. She had to pause a moment to stop the pain overwhelming her. Turning in the direction of the sounds of the scuffle, she pulled the makeshift gag from her mouth.
"I'm up here you useless sack!" She shouted out.

The monstrosity had seen her moving and had worked near into a frenzy, and as she yelled, it went berserk, nearly running the man over in its crazed dash to get to her. It froze with that wicked grin locked on its face, sure that it had its prey. Now, it couldn't die, that was part of its nature. Things like that weren't meant even to exist in the underworld, and it simply wouldn't go there, no matter how hard it tried, but it could be disseminated into lots of little pieces that would find it slightly troublesome to come back together again. As the unholy fire gripped it, the creature in its single-mindedness didn't even realize that it had slowed, and even when the flame curled all around it and burned almost like a small sun until it was completely consumed by the infernal heat, that smile remained even until the face disintegrated into a cloud of dust. "Wraith!" the man shouted as he quickly groped up to wear Iyana was.

Charles was still battling against the bones which whirled in a storm around him. Unlike the man, he had no powers of disintegration and was thus hard pressed to deal with the indestructible entity. Yet, when it heard the call, the massive cloak turned , still being perforated by the marrowy missiles. "What is-" the booming voice cut short as the thing spied Iyana. With a roar, he shrugged of the creature for a moment, lunging forward to the stone upon which she balanced. The man had gotten to her and was wrapping himself around her for support, careful as he could be not to touch her wound. Charles, in his massive and metallic form once again lowered his immense wings to form a sort of spherical shield about her. It was dark within, almost airtight. Only the dim light of the violet flames illuminated enough for the eye to see.

Iyana sagged slightly against the man, grateful for his support. The pain in her chest from the wound made her want to scream with each breath. Despite the situation, her sarcastic humour reminded her to be glad that she was up to date with all of her inoculations. At least she wouldn't get tetanos. The light suddenly stopped stabbing at her eyelids, trying to find a way into her eyes, as a gentle whoosh filled her ears. Tentativly, she opened her eyes. She was still leaning against the man, whose violet fire illuminated the sphere with its dull light. She glanced up to see that the cloak Charles seemed to turn into was standing there, shielding them from the outside.
« Thank you, » She murmured, meaning the words for both of them.

"That cut doesn't look good," the man was looking very worried.
"You can fix it," the deep tone was almost emotionless, but one might have been able to detect a note of strain in it.
He shook his head, "I was going to, but... It'll hurt like Hell."
"Better to hurt like Hell than to find yourself there," the retort came short and sharp.
The man nodded, casting about. His strips of leather were resting at the bottom of the pile of rubble upon which they now perched, but the one which Iyana had spat out was still there. Bending quickly, he deftly scooped it up.
"Shall we try this again?" he held up the shred of his coat to her.

Iyana gritted her teeth, taking the strip and nodding her head. If the wound was sealed, then it wouldn't hurt so much.
"Let's get it over with." She said before biting down on the leather. She took as deep a breath as she could, preparing herself.

"I'm sorry," he whispered and held one hand up to cover her eyes. The other burst into flame. Slowly, carefully, he reached forward until his hand touched the hideous wound which stretched across her chest. Fire ignited against skin, burning the gash closed. The heat was incredible, and left a strange freezing feeling as he moved along across the incision. A grimace of concentration and worry strained his own features as he was only about a third of the way across. It was at that moment that their shield lurched. The sphere had been rocked. "Our friend is back," the Cloak boomed out as he attempted to gain stable ground after being assaulted yet again. The man's hand shook slightly and he instantly pulled back so as not to scar his patient any more than necessary. "Wraith, could you buy me some time?" he looked back. The cloak only nodded. "Shut your eyes tightly," the man said to Iyana as the metal cage opened and the Cloak spread its wings. Launching itself off into battle once again, the thing smashed into the recreated marrow beast.

Iyana locked her knees, determined not to let them buckle beneath her as the man started to burn her wound closed. She felt the sphere shake and squeezed her eyes shut, afraid of any light that may seep through the protection.
"What's going on?" The reporter asked in desperation, afraid since she couldn't see.

The sound of snapping bones met her question, as if to give their own answer. The popping sound made when they separated divided into just intervals so that it sounded almost like bacon sizzling on the skillet in the morning, only slightly more grotesque. It was a sound that would send shivers up death's spine. Which could be noted as he arched his back and shook it off.

"The wraith will give us just enough time, with any hope. Here, let's get you down so that you don't have to stand through this," He gently supported her with his arm behind her back and began to lower her to where she might lay in the rubble and dust atop their destroyed statue, careful not to set her on any jagged chunks. Maneuvering himself so that he obstructed as much light as possible, he once again ignited his hand. "Be ready. I begin again," he warned and brought his hand towards her injury once more.

Meanwhile, the Cloak Charles was viciously attempting to pound its bony enemy into dust, a goal with which he was having but limited success. Every one of his strikes was accompanied by more of the sickening crunching and snapping sounds so that it was almost like some completely macabre symphony or perhaps just a gory cacophony after all. The disintegrated pieces would reorganize themselves with unnatural speed and stand once again to fight, attempting in their own right to tear apart the Cloak. They saw even less progress than he did, passing through already existent holes in the void-like cloth which hung all in tatters about the freakish metallic frame. Of course, only the arms and wings were ever visible, and whatever was under the Cloak, if anything at all, could never be clearly made out. The ground shook as a mechanical fist slammed hard into the rock below, leaving its own small crater, but missing the disemboweled skeleton as it lunged for the Cloak's hood.

The Cloak went flying overhead. The man glanced up at it as it reached the height of its headlong arc through the air. "Almost done," he whispered consolingly as the breaking, crashing sound resounded throughout the hall. The marrow creature pulled itself towards the two figures, endangered as they were. "Just another minute," he said to her in his soft voice.

Iyana was focused on the pain in her chest, no matter how much she tried to divert her attention. Her eyes were tightly shut, and she could hear the breaking of bones. She kept as still as possible, not wanting to make the stsk the man was doing any more difficult that it needed to be.

He slipped. He really hadn't meant to, but his hand was shaking from the adrenaline pumping through his system and the creature behind them made a loud, mushing sound as the wet end of one of its bones hit the base of the statue. He stumbled and the flaming hand traced up her shoulder, sealing the rest of the wound, and scarring her right shoulder. He cried out, afraid that he might have badly hurt her, but before he could bring himself to check, the man swung about. His flame impacted the creature at the same moment that the Cloak barreled into the monster. It burst into a wet, powdery mess all over the floor.

"Quickly, we've got to be out of here before that thing pulls itself back together again! She'll need help!" The man shouted to the Cloak, indicating Iyana, as he examined his ill-ended handiwork.
"I'll carry her," the booming bass notes carried close to the ears as the dark, tattered being seemed almost to materialize at their side. It reached down to scoop her up somewhat roughly in the mechanical arms.
The man but nodded, quickly leading the way out through the tomb and into the murky sunlight which filtered through the clouds. Before they came so far, the Cloak swept part of the folds of itself over Iyana's delicate eyes.