| Leaving Metropolis | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summary: Spanning over a week of almost nightly RPing between me and Arthur on a duplicate of Cale's house on MU, Johnny C and Samantha Bogard competed the Metropolis chapter of their lives... Who: Johnny_C, Samantha, Dragonmaster_Cale, Cassandra, Trinune When: The week of June 20th 2004-July 4th 2004 Where: The Charis Home, Metropolis |
Johnny stands much like he has the past few days, staring out at the view from Cale's house. Looking down upon MU much like he once did his own city with Devi the night she put his situation into perspective, he finds it easist to think from such a standpoint. Leaning against the balachony with a half eaten sandwich on a plate beside him he stares off vacantly ignoring almost everything around him.... There's a faint clink from behind Johnny, metal falling against metal as Samantha stops in the doorway from the upstairs living room. "Cale-sensei said you'd be here..." she murmurs, swallowing as she reaches up with one hand to brush back the right side of her hair, tucking the ebon strands back behind her ear to save them from being billowed by the breeze. Johnny turns suddenly hearing Sammy's voice, luckly he's too focused on the fact that it's her to notice she said Cale and not Carla... Cale's been lying to people again. "S-Sammy? What the hell happened to you?" Johnny's still covered with patches of dryed blood and his clothes are baddly torn revealing deep gashes beneath them from the fall upon the jagged rocks. Moving so suddenly, he grabs ahold of the railing with both hands and accidently pushes his plate over the edge. Upon hearing the plate shatter he glances over the edge and sweatdrops, "I hope I don't have to pay for that now..." Samantha gives a small smile, and a loose shrug, before she wanders out onto the balcony proper.. the fingertips of her left hand trailing against the doorframe until the last possible moment. "I been around... some stuff happened with Tri-chan an'.." she tails off with another shrug, coming to a stop a couple of feet away from Johnny, folding her arms across her chest. "It doesn't matter. I'm glad yer okay, though... I don't exactly get how come yer here... I.. I.." she looks down, closing her eyes as she feels something well up from deep inside, "I was ready to kill him... kill Benedict, for what he d-made me do to you.." Johnny rolls his eyes a bit at that last comment, "Dunno about all that... just wish you hadn't... damnit!!" Kicking the floor he glances back over the ledge to stare down at the city again. Taking a deep breath he starts over, "You do know what happened to me, right? What's going to happen to me? Damnit... it's not fair..." Samantha blinks, shifting a little nervously. She's physically fine, but she's obviously a little rattled emotionally... not unhappy, just disorientated more than anything else. "N-no.." she stammers out, reaching up with one hand to toy with the crystal pendant around her neck, "I don't know much... all I know is," she smiles warmly and looks over the balcony too, gaze going a little more distant, "I got my pop back, an' you had something to do with it. An'.. I got you back too. An' also that.. we won, and it's over." Johnny chokes back a laugh and shakes his head. "If it was over, I wouldn't still have these..." Reaching to his sides he pulls out and twirls the two black daggers Sammy had become far too familiar with recently. After a quick gesture to display them he resheaths them and turns back towards her, "I don't know what the hell happened. But he's not dead. I'm not sure he can be... Your dad was a fucking miracle, if he hadn't showed up, what's left of me would have been lost for good, I'm sure of it. Not that any of that matters. I was only trapped in that fucking place because of you... I... I don't mind so much, you know? Just that now I'm not going to be allowed to die... Fucking bastards that are in charge think I'm too much of a hazard to everyone and I get to look forward to some fucking world where I can't die... no one can... fucking eternal bullshit..." NNY's eyes have begun to water, feeling a tear drip down he wipes his eyes and looks back over the city forcing himself to smile, "...but it's all good I guess. You two got reunited and the world becomes short one homacidal maniac... plus I got to watch that prick get what was coming to him for fucking with us..." Glancing down at half-eaten sandwich he sarcasticly adds, "Everythings just peachy... Happily fucking ever after..." Samantha tilts her head to one side, a frown cutting into her brow. She looks like she wants to make some other movement, but is holding herself back... she's tense to say the least. "But.. why would... we be short.... of you.......?" Her voice goes to a barest whisper on the last two words, and she stretches the last syllable out in a soft hiss before falling silent at last. The frown deepens on her brow, her shoulders hunching inward as she hugs herself more tightly. After a few moments she whispers, "You've gotta go back... haven't you?" Johnny lets out a deep sigh and looks back over his shoulder, "I'm only here because Terry convinced Cassandra I'd be more help if I was here physicly instead of just trapped in that fucking void..." Looking up at the sky suddenly for a moment he then turns towards her and leans on the edge of the balcony. "Too be honest, I don't know what's going on anymore. Supposedly my 'transition' to this new world was gonna take some time, and my spirit needed to stay near you to help with Benedict... well, that's over. I'm still here. I'm kinda hoping she forgot about me, but I know I'm not that lucky..." Crossing his arms he looks down towards the floor, "But yeah, in a nutshell, I gotta leave soon... My fucking babysitter is gonna come pick me up and wisk me away to some fabulous hell on earth. Right now..." Sighing he looks his friend in the eyes, "...I think I'd prefer just not existing anymore... I feel like the whole of existance doesn't want me. Like I'm being pawned off from one world to another. It's not fucking fair..." Samantha listens unmoving, and actually unbreathing for the most part... when Johnny is done she drags in a long, slow breath. Then releases it in a sigh, puffing out her cheeks. She shakes her head, "No... that's not how this goes, it's not how it ENDS!" She practically screams the last and spins away, presenting her back to Johnny. One hand flies around behind her right hip, fingers curling one by one around the hilt of her tanto. But she doesn't draw the blade, just grips it firmly. Her other hand curls to a fist in front of her, her sapphire gaze - shimmering now with uncried tears - focusing on the whitening slender digits. "It's not how it ends... I fought too hard to lose you, I've fought too hard to lose anyone..." her tone is more determined now, voice relatively steady but distant, the girl obviously making an effort not to let out too much emotion right now. "When does she come?" Johnny sweatdrops at his friend and stares silently for a minute trying to grasp what he's witnessing. Rubbing the back of his head, he smirks, "Um... I don't know how to tell you this, so I'll just repeat myself... I don't have a clue..." Instead of lowering his arm, he lifts the other one up and locks his hands against the back of his head, "No one tells me logical crap like that, not that staying here is alot better..." Putting his arms down he glances at the city again, "I can't even go down there to get a change in clothes... You have any idea how bad it would be if they realised I was here? Oh look, there's that guy that went nuts and killed all those people, let's serve him drinks when he comes in here..." Despite the sad tone to his voice, he begins to laugh at that thought, "Oh yeah... nothing bad would happen from that..." Samantha blinks and looks down past her fist to the floor. "Yeah.." she whispers, "An' I'm sorry.. can't help thinkin' this is my fault." She laughs shortly, and shakes her head, "Mainly coz it is, I guess." She pauses, releasing the tanto from her grip as she reaches around and yanks off the glove from her left hand. As the thick leather padding hits the ground her hands return to their positions. She draws in another long breath then turns around once more to face Johnny, drawing her tanto now in one smooth motion. The metallic sound rings out as the blade comes free, and she brings it around in front of her, setting the gleaming edge to the wrist below her clenched fist. She fixes her determined gaze on the back of your head, eyes narrowed just slightly and blazing with steely fire. "Johnny.. for what it counts... when she comes.... I'll fight her. I'll get you back, I swear." The next sound is a quiet tearing as she draws the knife across her wrist, drawing a thick flood of blood that washes down her arm and begins to drop in glimmering beads to the ground below. Johnny raises an eyebrow and leaps toward Samantha reaching for the hilt of her blade, but of course it's already too late. Staring at her from less than a foot away he blinks, dumb founded, "What the fuck are you doing?? If your trying to kill youself there's much better ways of doing it, and much better reasons that this... Why can't you just fucking be glad your dad is back, huh? What the fuck is wrong with you??" Samantha watches the bright crimson wash with a slight smile. After a few thick droplets have scattered across the floor of the balcony she looks up. "I won't die... I'll be fine." She says this in a strained near-whisper, and as the last word dies on her lips the purple gem at her collarbone begins to glow with a warm light, soon filling the surrounding area with a soft purple haze. She smiles again, and lifts her shoulders in a shrug.. keeping the left arm in place as she wipes the tanto blade on her leggings and calmly sheathes it. "I just wanna get her attention, an'... I wanted you to know I meant it. I.." she looks down, smile dying to be replaced with a frown, "I've made a lot o' stupid promises that I haven't kept, to you and to others... but this time I mean it, really.. I'll fight her when she comes, an' even if I don't win then I'll make sure they never forget me. Not in a million years... I can't promise what I do'll make a difference, but I c'n promise I'll do it. For you, to make up for everything I ever said and didn't do, and for everything I put you through all coz you promised my pop you'd watch out for me." Johnny tries to fight it, but grins at her words, "Sammy... the only thing you ever promised me that you didn't come through with was a clean pair of clothes..." Looking down at himself and his ragged torn clothing laughs, "...and I could really use them right about now, by the way..." Johnny reaches up and puts his hand on her shoulder. Which in itself is amasing since he's not wearing his gloves, "Look... your dad is my friend, you are my friend... of course I'm gonna keep a promise to either of you no matter how baddly it might piss me off from time to time... Hell, your about the only friends I have that I'll actualy call a friend to their face." Taking a step away and looking out over the view yet again he shakes his head, "...and I can't let you fight her. Your dad would never forgive me if I let you, and I'd never forgive me... You know, it's not fucking fair... NONE of it is... it's just a bunch of BULLSHIT!!!!!!! ...but it's not your fight... it never was... you didn't get me caught up in your conflicts, I did. I left the states to get away, I was ready to just keep running... Well, we reap what we sew I guess... If I'm gonna be this fucking universe's whipping boy, then so be it..." Pulling out his daggers he glares up at the skies... "But this fucking boy ain't gonna just take it without a fight... YOU FUCKING HEAR ME FUCKERS??? ARE YOU WATCHING ME RIGHT NOW????" Laughing he turns back towards Samantha and grins, "Besides, your not allowed to kill yourself... that's my job... I choose to let you live, remember? You asked me to decide and I did. If your gonna die, it's gonna be by my hands... and that ain't gonna be today..." Samantha's eyes widen and she watches Johnny unblinking... even when the hand is laid upon her shoulder she remains motionless, before finally a grin steals across her own lips as he turns around to make the last part of his speech. She nods and lowers her arm, letting the blood now run downward, pooling at the tips of her fingers before falling to the floor. "Well then.." she murmurs, her voice catching then and she clears her throat - in a more mature way than her usual 'ahem', and tosses her head. The gem fades a little then, as if her own renewed confidence is doing part of its work for it. "Yer right, an' I know you are.. but I just made a promise." She lifts her other hand, scritching lightly behind one ear, and she gives a one-shouldered shrug. "Which means I gotta do it. Doesn't mean.. we can't do it together, right? If you're only here coz of.. her.. then mebbe you can't do it anyway." She shrugs again, and lowers her hand, hooking a couple of fingers through the waistband of her tights. Her gaze finds Johnny with a renewed light burning there, not a cold light but one full of emotion.. full of vigour.. and seemingly ready for anything. "We'll do it together. I guess.." she grins again, and shifts her posture so her back is perfectly straight - the girl completely ignoring the pulsing pain in her freely bleeding limb. "If y'like, I'll even promise not to die. Coz I meant what I said back there too.. all that time ago..." Johnny's smile widens as he listens to the bleeding girl, "Alright then... I can't say no to that... Well I could, but..." Shaking his head he laughs, "...anyways, you know what I mean. Ok, so what do we do in the meantime? Can't just sit around watching paint dry. You know of anything we can do to prepare for something like this? For all we know she's watching us right now waiting to see what we're up to...." Shrugging his shoulders he glances back at the view of the city once more, but only briefly, "Maybe if your dad is still here he might be able to think of something...?" Samantha gives and a grin a nod in response to Johnny's first words. Then she strolls over to the balcony's edge, resting her right hand on the rail and peering down through the clouds. "He's gone.." she murmurs, "He went to find Jack earlier on, prolly be back later I guess. 'Til then, I dunno... but I know Cass isn't in me any more. That link broke when I killed you, she released me." She glances sidelong at Johnny with a sudden frown as a thought dawns, "You know.. I only went after Benedict because of you, right? I didn't have to...." Johnny stares confused at Samantha, "Um.... wait. No, he was gonna come after you anyways.... she said that -that- was why I had to stick around. That you needed my powers to defeat him so I got stuck in that fucking hell hole while some part of me was in the daggers..." Staring out again he shakes his head and hits the railing in frustration, "THAT FUCKING BITCH LIED TO US!!!!" Samantha quickly shakes her head, "No, that's.. not it. See, when I..." she winces faintly, realising she keeps saying this so flippantly, "Killed you, there was enough left over to make sure what was gonna happen, didn't happen. Far as I c'n tell, that guy was a lot stronger before we fought him the other day. Or.. maybe just.... different.." she blinks and tilts her head to one side, taking in and letting out a few breaths as she pauses. She starts speaking again after a slight shrug, "Either way, I dunno if she was lying.... but I've been used more than enough, even so. What's she like? I mean.. really?" She glances sidelong at Johnny, "You did meet her, right?" Johnny blinks and shrugs at Samantha, not quite understanding the question, "Um... Yeah I met her... seemed about the same as when the bitch was inside you. Alright, she put on this whole innocent act after I bitched her out and told me that she was trying to help me... but leaving me alone like that? With my screwed up head? Good god... the things in my head don't need a way to manifest themselves. Bad enough the Doughboys took on lives of their own and disapeared. I spent a solid month just watching myself kill everyone I'd ever known over and over again... I don't want to re-live that... I-I want to trust her, but I can't believe that I -have- to go when she so casualy let me just walk out of there... I really think she was just using us for that stupid war. I think that's all it was for her, we where just pawns... I can't help but wonder if she didn't expect things to turn out the way they did... like maybe she thought I'd get destroyed along with Benedict or something... I don't know... it's all stupid..." Sammy turns away again halfway through this speech, looking out across the clouds towards the city. Her hand continues to drip blood at her side, though the rate has slowed thanks to the efforts of the girl's gem. The fingers of her other hand drum softly, rhythmically against the railing on the balcony. When Johnny tails off, she gives a slow nod, "Yeah.. it is. An' it's not just you who's been used." She pouts a bit now, her fingers going still and instead gripping at the wide rail, "She's helped me a coupla times, but.. the stuff that never woulda happened without her, it's...." it's her turn to tail off, as a shiver breaks down the length of her spine. Her blood-soaked hand flies to her brow, reddened fingers clutching the side of her head as her teeth grit, a soft whimper escaping. (You..!) Johnny glances at his friend and nods his head. "Yeah, I know where your going with this... Look, we need a plan. We ain't gonna just get up and blindly charge at her when she comes to finish things. Bitch left me to rot when the things in my head took over, she was so quick seal me away... she don't care if I live or breathe and she only acted like she cared about you 'cause she fucked things up with you." Scowling he glances off at the city again and shakes his head. "She's fucked up things for both of us... the both have. I don't think either one is any better than the other. So, I say we get off our asses and get ready for this shit... The roof here would be perfect, you wanna vent off some steam?" Looking back at Samantha a mischivous grin moves accross his face and he guestures towards the easily accessed roof. "We don't have to you know, especialy if you got a better idea. I think we need to get things straight with your dad, I can't exactly go looking for him, so how about we 'pass the time' the right way, eh?" Sammy shivers again as she pulls her hand away from her head.. the movement sending a thick spray of blood slicking off into the air away from the balcony. Lowering the tensely curled fingers back to her side as if forcing them, she glances at Johnny and nods, "H-hai.. alright..." she forces a small smile, before her hand jerks at her side, and the smile turns to a grimace. Her hair shifts about her shoulders, the black depths seeming to flow around for a second. Sammy shivers again as she pulls her hand away from her head.. the movement sending a thick spray of blood slicking off into the air away from the balcony. Lowering the tensely curled fingers back to her side as if forcing them, she glances at Johnny and nods, "H-hai.. alright..." she forces a small smile, before her hand jerks at her side, and the smile turns to a grimace. Her hair shifts about her shoulders, the black depths seeming to flow around for a second. The effect is like watching the ebbing tide, and at the last possible instant a thin line of platinum runs down the silken mass, disappearing once it reaches the tips at the girl's waist. When this single second is over, the hair is settled and everything seems normal. Samantha offers a slightly more normal, much bolder smile and then glances up toward the rooftop, "So how're you supposed to get up? I mean, I don't wanna go clamberin' around in someone's house..." she waves vaguely, then rubs at the back of her neck. Johnny stares confused at the display but decides not to dwell on it too much, seeing weird things is pretty common place these days. Shaking his head a second he shrugs and hops up onto the wide balcony railing. "Like this, looks like it was designed to to this... Maybe Carla comes up here to sun bathe or something..." Smiling a smile that would get the sane locked up he turns and hops up onto the roof easily, clearly this isn't his first time to do this... The Charis Home: Roof
Sammy springs up onto the roof in one smooth movement, landing in a crouch with her left blood-soaked hand flung out to the side for balance. This sends another scarlet spray into the night, but it's old blood now.. nothing fresh drips from the pale flesh. Straightening up the slender nekogirl glances at Johnny and promptly blushes, the fingers of the other hand twining in her hair as she glances off to the side, "Um.. by the way, I er.. never said sorry for hittin' you back there.... I thought you were losin' it so I... um..." Johnny blinkblinks having no idea what she's talking about, "Look, I dunno... I've slept a few times since the last time I saw you and I don't really know what happened anymore... That's kinda why I try not to sleep. I can never tell what was real and what was in my head. If you'd done something to make me mad, I'd have already come after you about it. So, no harm done. Now here, I want you to do something..." Reaching to his side he pulls out one of his two daggers and twirls it around before turning the hilt to Sammy, "I know you where using them, I felt it... I wanna see what you can do with them. I'll take one, you take one. I think whatever was in these things might still be in them or else I think they'd not look so damn much like the pair I made. Plus, we're gonna need all the power we can come up with. These blades are supposed to be able to cut Benedict, and I'll bet they can cut Cassandra too..." Sammy blinks in turn as she extends her hand, fingers curling around the dagger's hilt. Another shiver starts up from the base of her spine, and she tenses before quickly pulling the blade towards her. Her red left hand comes up too, and she clasps the hilt to her breast in both hands, the dagger's tip at her stomach. Looking at Johnny wide-eyed as the shiver breaks, her shoulders shaking, she nods twice in quick succession. "I'll bet they can," she murmurs, and glances down at the rooftop, her eyes narrowing to slits, "I'll bet they can. An' yer right, I used 'em... I took them off you while y'were still warm..." she spins away and strides along the edge of the roof, bandaged feet falling within two milimeters of the incline as she makes her way. As she walks she keeps the weapon clasped against her, little black tendrils working down its length and onto her fingers. Where dark meets crimson the blood hisses and bubbles, dissipating into the air in tiny gouts of steam. "Although I dunno if I.. used them, so much as they.. used me..." she turns at the far corner of the roof, looking back over her half-turned shoulder with a feral grin. Her eyes flash, and her hair shifts to a darker shade of black, the ebon mass becoming deeper in tone, oppressive even. Johnny pulls out his other dagger and twirls it around in his hand while he watches her walks away. As Samantha turns and grins he tightly grips the dagger's hilt in his hand and drops down into a readied stance. Smiling that wicked grin of his again he chuckles... "Good, now here we are. The ol' Yin and Yang phenomenon... A good turned bad and a bad turned good. We've both been used, kicked, stabed, and killed... Now look at us, both of us used by two dieties who need to be taught a lesson. Can you feel the darkness drawing into you from the daggers? Can you feel the air change around them? I'll teach you a trick if you teach me one... that fair? For me this is easy, for you it's diffrent. Your not a waste lock, but you could be if you let the dagger take you. Your dad would kill me if I let you do that, but right now that don't matter. If you concetrate on that darkness building up from the hilt of the blade you can feel it trying to claim you... like a dark skin..." His eyes narrowing he laughs and his body goes black suddenly, the air around him chills quickly and his eyes begin to burn a bright white. The air seems to return to normal but it has grown stale. Like the life is suddenly gone from it's pressence. "...now i don't think you can turn black, but I think you can do something close... maybe that whole ki thing you always talk about... let's see it..." Sammy's grin widens and she kicks into a dramatic somersault, ki rippling off her back and shoulders as she comes around.. blue-white tendrils dragging out into the cloudy gloom over the edge of the rooftop as she lands with feet spread apart, left hand flung out towards Johnny with fingers curled around an unseen globe, and the dagger out at her side, tip angled slightly downward and bitten at by jagged black lightning. Her hair is suddenly hit by a gust, and pale blue light soars from the roots to the tips, before becoming golden and breaking off in waves down her body. On striking the ground it dissipates with loud fizzing crackles, scoring the rooftop to ash. "Y'mean this..?" She asks, lips turning up a startling crimson against the blackness and the energy fireworks. A smile curls onto her expression then, and her eyes narrow further, the barest slits of blazing blue as they focus across on the young maniac. "This is gonna be fun..." her right hand tightens on the dagger's hilt, and suddenly the dark stuff on the blade screams up her arm, engulfing the slender limb and turning it rapidly to the colour of Johnny himself... darkness total and absolute enshrouding her arm. Johnny begins to laugh from the amusment of it all, "...damn, you do catch on quickly don't you? Alright then." Pushing up with his feet he suddenly lifts into the air and floats there. Looking back at Samantha his laughter becomes a chuckle and soon he stares quietly at the girl with a simple grin on his face. "...here's the rules. 'Cause I can feel it, your gonna need a reminder... This is Cale's place, so no tearing his house down. We're not gonna kill each other. That would be stupid. No leaving this roof. And if anyone is stupid enough to come up here, we team up and teach them a lesson about interfering... sound good to you?" Sammy smirks and looks off to the side, "Rules? Didn't think you were one for rules..." she gives a giggle.. the sound without its usual softness and instead tinted with something bordering on madness, far darker a sound than one would ever expect from the nekogirl. Then she does a thing even less expected, her lips parting just a little as she spits, sending a small ball of saliva scattering down to the rooftop. As it hits and splatters outward, ki fizzles under its base and causes the stuff to dissipate away. "But alright.." she then murmurs with a one-shouldered shrug, not breaking the stance she has assumed. The bloody fingers of her left hand twitch, and with a forbidding thumping crackle a ball of blue-white energy bursts to life near her palm, slowly rotating between the guiding influence of her fingertips. Johnny holds his free hand straight out to his side and manipulates the darkness surrounding him into the shape of his lost hooksickle. Spinning it around twice he grips it tightly and pulls it close to his chest, his other hand holding the dagger straight out towards Samantha, "No, I'm not one for rules... but we can't kill ourselves if we're gonna kill the bitch... Now, here's a tip.... you can't always brake the rules, but you can bend them..." Laughing he seemingly drops down into his own shadow and vanishes. Suddenly he comes flying up behind Samantha, his hooksickle's blade turned towards his friend. With a quick effortless motion he swings the weapon outwards and accross to bring his arm back to his side, thus cutting the girl's back nearly in half. Assuming the strike hits of course... Sammy gasps as Johnny vanishes, but it's the gasp of delight - given in expectance of true battle, and not in shock or fear. The darkness around her arm throbs as if alive, and she turns to meet the strike, pivoting on the very edge of the rooftop and bringing the dagger in close to her body, blade pointing down and angled to catch the hooksickle. As she makes this block she throws her bloody hand forward over her right arm, and hurls the gathered ball of ki towards Johnny's stomach, "SHOUKEN!" Rather than her usual clear and loud cry this is marred with violent intent, intent of murder even.. and she pumps an extra burst of energy into the ball as it leaves the solace of her fingertips, blazing out into the night air as it goes for the blackened maniac. Her eyes flash to match its motions, from their narrow slits. Johnny's eyes widen as the energy tears through his chest, spilling the blackness surrounding his body out into the night air. Looking down at the gaping hole within him he gaps, "...how could you...?" As the maniac's shadows begin to fade into the wind the true maniac rises back up from his shadow still on the opposite side of the room and charges at her while the girl's back is turned. As he brings his dagger down into her shoulder blades he completes the sentence, "...fall for you own trick?" Sammy stands frozen as she sees the.. shadow clone begin to fade. Her hand's fingertips curl to a fist, the last traces of built-up ki working off into the air above.. then they are whipped away into nothing as she half-turns, sensing the apparition behind her. But not quick enough. Johnny's words come to her through a burst of searing pain as the dagger enters her body with a spray of blood. The blood is marred with blackness like that enshrouding her other arm - the arm she now brings around bearing her own dagger, with a feral scream of pain and anger, to slash at the maniac's side. Johnny growls in pain as the weapon finds it's way into him. Then, seeing the manic look in the girl's eyes he decides to use the situation to his advantage. Focusing all his intentions and built up anger into his dagger, he tries to cause a feedback loop using the darkness around him. He's a waste lock after all and feeling a flood of negative emotions is no big deal for him anymore... he hopes the same isn't true for the girl holding his other dagger. After a second or two he kicks his boot out towards her stomach as he tries to pull away, perhaps adding a bit of insult to injury in the process... "Nngh!" Samantha grits her teeth as she takes the kick to her stomach, her now bloodshot eyes widening alarmingly as she struggles to maintain balance. As one bandaged foot keeps its grip on the rooftop the other slips back dangerously... TOO dangerously as with a clink it brushes the nearest tile to the edge and veers over, unbalancing the girl. She seems to be keeping balance, but then.. her eyes widen further if possible, and an 'eep' breaks her throat before she pitches backward... the darkness around her arm suddenly whipping out in a dark mass of tentacles and soaring in the air above Johnny's head before spooling rapidly downward towards the roof's edge. Johnny panics watching his friend go over the side. oO(...she went over the side, all bets are off...) Leaping head first over the side he thrusts his hands out hoping to catch the girl somehow before she might hit the ground screaming up towards her. In the back of his mind something about all this is nagging at him. Like it's not quite what it seems to be. Just to be safe he grips his dagger tightly, but turns the weapon so that the blade is not sticking out towards Samantha just so if she doesn't really need help, he'd be ready... Sammy would seem to be gone.. there is no catgirl visible in the clouds below, and no sound parts the air after her initial surprised exclamation. However, those tentacles of darkness are still there - thinner as they dart off into the darkness below but much thicker, seemingly stronger where they now fly down level to Johnny a few inches away from his flank. It would appear they are due to follow the girl in her descent, but then suddenly they rear up, lengthening and thickening both at an alarming rate, and then the mass comes down in a whiplike motion, with breathtaking force, towards the maniac's flattened back. A dark chuckle sounds shortly after.... Johnny feels the energies shift and haults his decent in mid air. Turning his dager slightly he prepares to slash at the tentales the moment they come into range. Suddenly feeling insipred he shoots upwards and begins to allow his darkness to pour from his body like ink from a squid. Blacking out a good sized portion of the sky he comes to a hault and turns, throwing both his hands forwards. As if being called by his guesture, five hooked chains shoot out of the darkness towards his friend and the maniac begins to laugh histericly. "Good, good... let's see that bitch stop us now!!!" The slash parts the tentacled mass, literally.. the whole separated from a hundred pieces into two hundred. Then as Johnny makes his leap the darkness from all around flows into the broken space and the tentacles are repaired.. whole once more. They rear up for just a moment before thundering down after the five hooked chains, separating out one by one.... some twining further up the chains as others go after the hooks themselves, plunging likewise into the gloom. The dark chuckling, horribly familiar, continues. And on the far side of the rooftop the shadows deepen, and clouds flow from the skies towards a single point. Johnny suddenly screams. The thrill of the excessivly moribd events has awakened that darker part of him once again. The rush of the kill, the rush from the darkness pouring inside of him, and that laughter... much like the one he used to hear in his own head, echoing out from the lungs of his friend. His troubles and his past forgotten he takes off towards the center of the roof, letting whatever becomes of his chains and hooks happen. Landing and cackling he throws his hands up into the air and changes once more. The darkness surrounding him suddenly changes from shadows to blood... The dark red flowing liquid surrounds his body a moment and then crashes down upon the roof revealing the maniac looking revived and refreshed. Even his clothes are normal once more. The shadows pouring out of his dagger flow out around his arm and quickly swirl around him as if trying to reclaim him once more. Instead, he shakes his head and the blackness pulls back, looking almost like he's wearing a living coat. His eyes still bright white and his hair seeming to blow from some unfelt wind he cracks his neck and levitates up into the air slowly throwing his arms out to his sides as if creating a parody of Christ on the cross. Looking over the ongoing swirling shadows he calls out, "I've waited too long for this, dear friend... WE have waited to long for this... There's been much practicing going on while we where trapped in that void... Now, dear friend... Let's up the stakes a bit more, shall we? You win, you get to keep my dagger... I win, and... heh... well, let's just say it won't be very pretty..." The clouds gather there in front of Johnny, black masses vying with one another against the skies. Then they slowly part, with a sound like thunder, and standing there is... Samantha. Her eyes flash in the gloom, sapphire lights blazing through the mist left behind by those clouds, and she raises her own dagger to her lips, planting a gentle kiss upon its tip. As a smile breaks soon after, the dark material from the blade courses across the crimson flesh and then onto the paler stuff of her cheeks, before drifting into her hair and darkening it even further... the silken mass now not even that: just a void, dark as space and darker, all-encompassing. "Who exactly do ya think yer talkin' to, Johnny?" She asks, a sweet lilting chime in her voice.. and she takes a step forward. Meanwhile behind the maniac those tentacles rise again, all bearing chains gathered from the air.. and these they fling towards him, five of his own hooks now bearing down on him and shrouded with blackness. As they release their burden, the tentacles soar into the sky around the rooftop and encircle it with a black wall, soon blocking out the view on all four sides. Johnny glares his eyes at the form of his friend and lets out a deep animalistic growl... In one quick motion he puts his hands together and for a brief second seems to hold the dagger similaniously with both hands. He then pulls his hands apart ripping apart the dagger in the process. Turning towards the oncoming hooks and chains with a dagger in each hand - one white, one black, he casts out his 'coat' which spreads acrross the roof of the building forcing everything to appear as one massive black void. As the hooks come in close, Johnny leaps forward and tries to dodge his own weapons leaving them aimed for their original target. One of the hooks manage to catch his arm and it tears through his coat and into his skin sending a mist of blood into the air with it. His eyes glaring once again he spins his daggers and twirls them above his head. A grey mist flows out of him seeming to be searching for a way to reclaim the chains and help guide them a bit better. This would seem to be of no use as any daggers missing their target vanish into the void that was once the roof... Sammy remains perfectly motionless as all this occurs, though her smile widens noticeably as the blackness she has already created is added to by her.. friend? She blinks suddenly, completely forgetting to dodge the incoming hooks as she remains motionless. At the last possible instant though... she does nothing. But the hooks do not land, they part her form, her darkened figure twisting and warping grotesquely to let the missiles pass through. On the other side they do indeed vanish, and the chains remaining behind pass through smaller holes as Samantha's form returns to its proper shape. She flashes a grin, teeth showing up stark white in the darkness. "Well, ain't this fun? C'mon.. let's see who c'n use this stuff better. I was havin' fun before!" The last syllable comes out in something of a grunt as she half-turns and shoves the dagger forward.. black tendrils streaming down her arm, into the blade and then flying off its tip. Erratic screams rip out with ear-bursting force, though they seem not to bother the girl, as two dozen midnight spears are created from the black energy and rip away all around Johnny, one or two going right for him but others taking off in seemingly random directions, screaming around the cordoned-off rooftop. They don't stop at the edge either, but turn and shoot through once more at a different angle... those that still miss - though eerily avoiding the girl that sent them - will then pass into the walls as the hooks and chains have already done. Johnny drops down into the void beneath him as the wave of spears fly towards him. Coming up beneath the girl's feet he locks his arms around her legs and tries to drag her down into the darkness with him to drown her in them. Letting go of her about halfway down he tries to impale her throat from both sides with his daggers as he demands in a voice thats begining to sound more like the voice of several people speaking at once than his own. "JUST WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?????" The spears of ebon power complete their chaotic dance, and dissipate away into the walls.. that unearthly screaming leaving with them though the echo remains for a few long seconds. Underneath the cloak of the floor, Samantha's eyes widen as she is held by Johnny and.. that question comes. A sickly grin cracks onto her lips, and blood streams from the corners of her eyes as she chuckles darkly... the daggers slamming home into her throat as the sound comes and causing it to become a gurgle, more blood gushing from her mouth. She coughs, spluttering crimson into the darkness where it is eaten up immediately. Then, she turns her head around.. all the way around.. to look at her friend behind her, "Who.. do I look like...?" she chokes out, before another fit of coughing breaks out, blood breaking out in spattering torrents from her throat. Johnny stares in disgust at the thing looking him in the face and pulls his daggers back before kicking the thing away. Lifiting himself up above the level of the roof he looks down at the -thing- and glares, his voice returning to normal, "...like something that should have died along time ago. I don't know what the fuck you are.. or what the fuck is going on, but I've had enough of this. This game, is stupid... The girl is not a puppet. Hasn't she suffered enough? And as for this fucking box we've made around us... You forget that -I'm- the one with the wastelock.... I could take this darkness right now. All of it... perhaps you too for that matter. You also forget that your dagger there is apart of mine. That means with one word I could take it from you and leave you with nothing... Now talk you mother fucker. You wanted an audience, well you fucking got it... what have you got to say?" Sammy's ravaged form tumbles to the darkness, and hangs there.. no thump accompanying the fall and... no movement. She goes totally still for a few seconds, then slowly rotates. As she comes to a stop in the ebon air she rises up to just off the level of the roof, floating steadily there. Blood drips from her wounds and then dissipates as it did down inside the inky depths... she smiles that sick smile again, face soaked in blood, all apart from those eyes which still glimmer brightly. Whatever's inside isn't unfamiliar - she seems like.. herself, totally and completely but for her recent behaviour. She speaks again, her own voice, still craziness in there but it's still very much her. "I haven't got a lot... to say." She pauses to swallow back a wash of blood, then floats a little higher, a little closer to Johnny. The dagger still in her grasp drifts free and soars towards him rapidly, stopping near his own hand. "What is there to say? I mean.. you challenged me, an'... seems like I lost, right?" She offers a little grin, then drops to the 'floor', landing in a crouch with a pained gasp as her wounds snag. Not that she should even be alive... and it doesn't seem to be the gem keeping her that way. The gem isn't even there. Johnny stares confused as he looks down upon his wounded friend... "S-Sammy? Wait... no way..." His guard dropping he cycles back through his various transformations until he returns to normal, conviently with his clothes still intact. Going immediatly to her side he ignores the true second dagger as it floats and grabs the girl by the shoulders to hold her up to his face, "No no no no no... this is a dirty trick if it is one! Your not allowed to die. You promised... Your not allowed to die yet... You didn't loose, I just didn't know what was going on anymore... come on! COME ON!!! Listen to me!! Snap out of it Sammy..." Sammy winces as Johnny's hand comes down upon her shoulder, leaning away from the contact. "Snap outta what..?" She asks in a bleary murmur, and turns her gaze up to yours... her eyes bright but shot through with red and black lines around the pupil. No fresh blood streams from these optics, but traces remain from before, crimson tear-tracks running down her face on either side. Her chin and neck are liberally soaked with the stuff, and strands of black-within-black hair cling there, also drenched. "There's nothin' wrong with me," she continues, giving a small, sad smile.. her eyes reflecting the emotion therein. Regret, sadness, fear... hatred? Wait. As the smile reaches its zenith her right hand soars upward, blurring from view as it goes for the maniac's stomach, palm outward and blazing with ki. The energy is released in a sharp burst, a spear of blue-white power unleashed in an instant. "Gomen nasai..." The blast rips through the boy easily with his body powered down and already broken and bruised from a few nights before. His pupils retract and with one last excell of air he drops to his knees staring at Samantha confused and lost... He blinks at her once and then falls over onto his side and stops moving... Sammy leaves her hand extended for a moment before with a grunt of exertion she places it to the ground, with the other which is still caked in half-dried blood from her vow earlier, and pushes herself upright. She wobbles back and forth two, three times, then stabilises herself, bracing the right hand to her hip. "Ha! Y'see.. I never meant to die. But I never swore I wouldn't kill you, right?" She grins as she looks down at the apparently unconscious maniac, and reaches with her left hand for the hilt of her shortsword, loosening it a little but not drawing it.. yet. Johnny lays still, blood flowing freely from his open wound. Not seeming to breathe or even twitch the maniac shows no signs of life at all... Sammy gives a cold smirk, though her eyes still glint with a sadness, and in one smooth motion she drags the mithril blade free. It blazes in the darkness of the rooftop as her ki streams up its length with a thousand electric crackles raising in unison. "Can't say how sorry I am..." the girl murmurs quietly, her voice a near-whisper, and then lifts the blade, curling her other hand's fingers over those already gripping the beautifully wrought hilt. "Seeya, Johnny.." She brings the sword up over her right shoulder, pausing for an instant to adjust her footing before she brings the blade down, the energy streaming to its edge and lining the sharp metal with power... the fatal cut aimed for the fallen maniac's neck. Though the slash takes no time at all, it seems to last an age, the moment where friend decides to take the life of friend hanging in the air. Then with a sound it's over. The sound of clashing metal, the high-pitched ring breaking out with startling clarity. "No." A single syllable spoken quietly, but the insistent force in the female tone could shift continents.. shift worlds. This is a voice used to command, and used to having those commands obeyed. And standing at an angle from the slender nekogirl, whose gaze now flashes to meet that of this intruder, is an equally slender girl... clad in polished chainmail all over, gauntlets and boots also, but her head is left uncovered - revealing a mass of waist-length platinum blowing in the eerie wind all around, and blazing blue eyes. The face is a beautiful one, more than beautiful, but there is vicious intent within, a cold emotionless edge as sapphire gaze meets sapphire gaze. "No.." the word comes again, losing the edge of command and becoming.. sad, full of compassion for the broken thing on the dark floor. Samantha grits her teeth and pushes hard against the ornate longsword stopping the movement of her own blade... but it stands firm. Johnny the nearly decapitated maniac lies motionless and broken upon the floor... The look of shock still upon the maniac's face as his severed head stares out at nothing. His body still freely flows blood from it's wounds, blood that is growing black from the severity of the damage done to him, but his daggers - still at his sides - have begun to pulse with a strange glow from the appearnce of the woman standing off to the side of him. Still in shock and not responding to anything, NNY's face twitches as his few longer strands of hair blow into his souless eyes... "But.." Sammy stares at Cassandra fiercely, speaking in a sharp hiss through gritted teeth, "He's... mine!" On the last she gives her shortsword a dramatic shove then suddenly withdraws it, pulling the hilt close to her right hip... the pressure the goddess exerts in turn causes her longsword to whip upward. It's a wonder she keeps her balance but she does, spinning with the momentum and coming around with a flourish a few feet away.. the chain links of her armour glittering in the white aura surrounding her slender body as she stands with feet spread wide apart, left hand forward with fingers pointing towards her opponent and the right held outward, sword extended. "I said no.." she whispers, her gaze narrowing as it once more finds that of her Blessed, of Samantha. The nekogirl slips back half a pace, then falls into a similar stance of her own, except her fingers are curled. The dark energies course beneath her flesh, filling her veins with an evil power and this is very much visible - a myriad traces of black running through her. A wind begins, strong and fast, and her black-in-black hair is hurled wildly around her. "An' I said.. he's mine..." she shifts her footing then blurs forward, flickering into full visibility in front of the shining goddess and aiming a vicious slash towards her left shoulder, throwing her left hand beneath her right arm and firing off another spear of ki similar to that she felled Johnny with... but this is coloured shades of black, and not her usual blue-white. Cassandra's eyes flash in a way reminiscent of the girl attacking her, but there is so much more within those eyes. And at the same time.. so much less, a depth of experience fuelled with a strange naivety. But this will be missed in the action as she meets Sammy's blade with the tightly wound chain links on her forearm, wincing as holy-wrought steel pops and buckles beneath ki-charged mithril. The hand she meets with the hilt of her blade, the burst of energy scattering around the grip and dissipating away as the sword's hilt comes into direct contact with the neko's slender fingers. There is a bright flash and she is flung back, midnight black trailing around her in a tendrilled mess as she thunders away from the goddess, crossing the rooftop's limits in the barest fraction of an instant - it's all over too quickly to follow, and then Samantha stands half slumped against the wall of the darkness, her bloody left hand sizzling, the flesh crackling away. Looking down at it she chokes and sends a fresh torrent of blood tumbling down her front.. black blood, black as the veins visible beneath her skin. Cassandra straightens up, flipping her longsword's hilt back into her hand, and nods slowly.. sending a glance to Johnny's body as she calmly mutters, "I thought as much.." Johnny suddenly blinks as the unseen darkness flowing from Samantha is pumped into his wastelock. Letting out a gasp he starts to breathe again and struggles to catch his breath. Reacting to his set of black and white blades, the darkness within his own self begins to stir and almost immediatly the blood flowing from his chest solidifies and becomes that black knotted material that healed several of his wounds back when they first went up against Seraph... Johnny raises up and holds himself steady with one hand as he surveys the goings on on the roof. Seeing Cassandra he quickly draws back, smearing a line of blood accross the floor in the process, "N-n-nooo..... not yet.... n-not now..." Cassandra blinks quietly at Johnny, shifting grip on her sword. As her fingers tighten a burst of white light thunders forth from the chain gauntlet, and snakes out to wind around the blade from base to tip... sheathing it in light. "Not yet what..? Now isn't your time.." the goddess states, not lifting her voice over the din of winds, as opposite her that same wind is generated by Samantha's dark power, her own blade lit with that odd black ki she used moments before. The nekogirl pushes herself upright and points her charred, red-smeared hand across at her opponent, "She's come, Johnny!" She hisses out, yet more blood flecking her already soaking lips, "She's come to take you away from me..." she starts forward slowly, body moving without its usual agility, her tail flicking back and forth slowly, cautiously. Cassandra shakes her head and draws back, gripping her holy blade in both hands and staring towards the crazed girl. She says nothing. Johnny stares between the two women confused. Cassandra may have used them, but she hadn't lied before. Perhaps she was telling the truth. Looking over at his crazed friend he remembers the blast to his chest while his defenses where down and absentmindedly rubs the very sore black spot on his chest. Wincing slightly he glaces over to where the other Dread Dagger still floats in the air waiting for someone to claim it and then back to Samantha. It's at that moment that his mind finaly assembles itself coherently and he begins to finaly understand what happened, "Oh shit... now I know why Terry's little girl is always so distressed..." Forcebly reforging the two negative daggers in his hands into one solid weapon again he casts his hand out towards the floating blade and summons it back to him. Pushing himself up off the ground he wipes his forehead off with one arm as he glances over at Cassandra, "...you know you coulda just told me she was a wastelock too... That explains a hell of alot, like how the hell you got inside her... goddamnit, if I'd only known that sooner..." Sammy laughs, tossing her head in the unearthly winds. She speaks just as Cassandra opens her own mouth, cutting the goddess off sharply, "He's a clever one, huh?" She flashes a grin and strides forward, coming to within six feet of the slender blonde woman before drawing to an abrupt halt, sword held at her side. "Johnny.. we gonna do what we talked about or is it a bit late?" She shifts grip as Cass did previously, sending a dark burst from her fingers to refresh the energy already coursing on the bare mithril. The goddess says nothing again, sending the briefest of glances towards Johnny before lunging forward, whipping her sword up and over in both hands.. curling into a somersault with the momentum, her speed at least the match of the slender nekogirl's, and slashing her dark opponent from stomach to neck as she comes around, missing the fountain of black blood by an inch before landing in a crouch a couple of feet back from her starting point, sword held defensively in front of her. The holy energy remains pulsing in the bloody gash, and slowly it is enveloped with darkness, the girl's clothing stitching back together also. But something remains.. wrong.. the ribs still crunched and shattered, and giving her an odd look - bones wanting to jar out from flesh that will not let them. Sammy grins again, and bends down to retrieve her blade - dropped in the attack. "Nice try.. but you've put me through enough. Y'can't hurt me.. not like that." Johnny stands dumbfounded by the scene he is whitnessing.... although this might be his only chance to stop Cassandra he looks towards the moster that was once his friend and bites his lip. oO(Terry would never forgive me if his daughter stayed like this, this is my fault...) Letting out a -deep- sigh he drops down into an attacking stance once more and uses the full power of the daggers to syphon in as much of the surrounding darkness he can gather. The black walls begin to fade and even the drying blood upon the floor seems to be thining. Johnny looks up at his friend, spiraling down down into her own darkness and forces his eyes closed one last moment, oO(...this is my fault!!!) Re-opening his eyes he glares at Samantha and demands, "SAMANTHA!" Cassandra remains totally still, her breathing regular as she stares at the quickly healed form of her Blessed. "So it's come to this at last.. I thought to avoid-" she stops as Johnny makes his exclamation, unconsciously drawing back in her crouch, booted feet scraping the blackened floor as she moves back. In contrast to this relatively calm reaction, the nekogirl gasps heavily, and spins on her heel.. rather than falling back, falling forward with a series of quick strides. She covers the distance between her and Johnny and with a feral growl draws her blade back, bringing it forward in a vicious, but poorly aimed slash, "NO! SHUT UP!" Johnny easily avoids the careless slash after watching her charge after him. Glaring at the neko-demon he growls, "I don't take orders from you..." Before he can finish his statement his body goes completly black once more and his eyes literaly burn with a ferocious white light that seems to boil inside his eye sockets. With his mind completly focused for once, he charges forward and goes to backhand the girl in the face with all the strength and speed he can gather. "I've caused you to be tainted... that FILTH inside you has to come out or your no better... than me...." Pulling his arm back quickly he charges into a tackle trying to drive the girl from her feet... Samantha stumbles after her unmindful attack, almost falling.. but she uses it to her advantage, spinning with the momentum of the stagger and avoiding Johnny's backhand. "I said SHUT UGH!" The last comes as she is caught with the tackle and hurled to the floor, her head smashing with a painful crunch against the ground. "AAARGH!" Across from the pair, Cassandra hops to her feet and slips over, spreading her light to the battle between friends. The sword she raises in front of her, pressing the blade to her lips softly.. a gesture similar to one earlier performed by the nekogirl, and as her soft crimson lips come away the sword vanishes, in a burst of striking white light that spreads to the whole area... affecting everything but the combatants as it attempts to suck away the darkness. Johnny looks off to the side, his body still facing Samantha, as he glares at Cassandra and points one of his daggers in her face, "STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THIS, BITCH!!! THIS IS MY BATTLE, SHE IS MY FRIEND, AND THIS IS MY FAULT!!!!!" Turning his attention back to Sammy he growls once again, "I FUCKING TOLD YOU, SAMMY! Your fate is MINE TO DECIDE!!! You turned yourself over to me, and I DEMAND you listen to me... that shit inside you has to come out NOW!!!!" Charging forwards once again he swings his daggers down over his head to impale her to the gound if she doesn't make an effort to stand up first... Samantha is already on the move when Johnny begins to yell, scrambling to her feet and drawing back into her stance. As he runs towards her she spins to the side, half-turning away so that her back is facing him at an angle, and lashes her right hand out to the side and back in a blur... slamming a backhand charged with black ki towards one dagger-gripping hand. Whether or not this connects, she drops to a crouch and spins to face Johnny again, carrying on with the turning motion and whipping off an uppercutting slash from shin to shoulder with her charged shortsword as she turns through three hundred and sixty degrees. Johnny cringes as his hand is hit and leaps back whitnnesing the girl continue to spin. His daggers, still hungrily trying to absorb as much of the energies as possible almost shimmer as the girl's shortsword slash up towards them. Luckily the maniac is now just out of reach of her blade and he hurridly throws out one of his shadow-hooks from his arm to attempt to knock the weapon away from her... Samantha comes around with a feral grin, uncaring as her slash hits nothing but air. At least she's fighting... with the grin broadening she leaps up, angling her body to avoid one shadowy hook and then whipping her blade two-handed down through the chain of another. She spins under the next with insane speed, faster than she's ever been before, and whips off lightning fast shadow-charged cuts at any other which comes even near to piercing her. Then she straightens, chest rising and falling.. all around the dark walls have faded to almost nothing as Cassandra's spell works its way around.. the light dissipating also and leaving only the natural moonlit skies. Sammy glares towards the goddess, now apparently ignoring NNY, and points a slender digit towards her, "Stop that! We gotta win this.. an' we can't win if you pull that kinda thing!" She screams and lunges forward, raising her sword to make an attack on the blonde-haired woman... her own ebon bangs streaming out behind her. Johnny nods his head at Samantha and then turns his focus on the goddess. Frowning briefly at her should her eyes lock onto his face, he drops his head a second and then looks up smiling, "Yeah... your right...." Following behind the neko-girl he starts to run up to her side to join her, his dagger drawn away from Sammy and swinging in a large arc towards Cassandra's ribs. However, following through completly with the motion he mocks the girl's upercut a few seconds before and goes to inplant the dagger into his friends ribs, "...we can't win..." Cassandra offers a slight nod as Johnny frowns... and she turns her gaze to the crazed girl charging towards her. "Be at rest..." she whispers, lifting one hand in a sweeping motion across her face. In front of her white light glitters in a broad beam, just briefly, past and through Samantha... and when it passes it leaves traces like shaken salt upon the girl's blackened form. She screams and stumbles in her charge, which she starts to turn as Johnny approaches... having the same idea as the maniac, and whipping her sword towards him. With the stagger though it goes miles wide, the tip embedding in the rooftop and sending up chunks of it into the air as an explosion resounds - the force of the built up energies. This leaves NNY's dagger to slip smoothly between her ribs.. and a startled choke breaks from the girl's throat as she freezes. "Well done," Cassandra whispers, turning away with a stifled sob. Her shoulders quake once before she brings both hands up in front of her chest, weaving some new spell... Johnny stares into the eyes of his friend and whispers, "...I'm sorry..." as he uses all of his focus to draw the darkness from her body through the blade of the knife. At the same time he stabs himself in the leg with the other dagger to silence the bloodlust surging though his body. Closing his eyes he tries to feel for the focal point within the girl where the darkness has gathered, trying his best to find it and draw it out into him if at all possible... Samantha hurks, coughing up another swathe of ebony fluid as the knife shifts inside her. The blackness begins to flow from her limbs.. but slowly, and much of it lingers inside, seeming not to want to move, having no desire to. Her entire body convulses, and she hacks once more.. red and black pouring forth in equal quantities now. Her eyes find Johnny and widen, the girl mouthing a silent, 'Why?'. As she falls motionless, staring blindly towards her friend as darkness continues to be dragged from her, Cassandra turns.. bearing in her hands a many-pointed star. She turns the object around on invisible strings, speaking a few arcane words in her own language... and her blue eyes blaze, two rays gleaming forth for an instant as they focus on the side of her Blessed. "Johnny.. step away from her.... you've done enough." Johnny pulls out his dagger carefully, but then waves it at Cassandra's face flinging a line of blood at her, "DON'T FUCKING TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!!" Turning towards her he takes a step closer slowly, "Your just as much to blaim for this SHIT as ME! You just SHUT THE FUCK UP, I know what I'm doing..." Tilting his head at her as the newfound darkness takes ahold of his mind he grins manicly, "...while we're on the subject, how about you and I have a little talk... you know I've about had it with you making decisions for me and my friends. YOUR NOT WELCOME ANYMORE!!! DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME??? ...it's time you got the fuck out of here BEFORE I MAKE YOU LEAVE!!!!" With each sentence he takes another step closer until he is just at arms reach, "...giving out orders, making people into pawns for your fucking war... YOUR JUST AS BAD AS HIM!!!!!" Samantha's body quivers again as the dagger is pulled free... and with a moan she slips heavily to her knees, purely red blood now rushing from all her wounds. And the gem? It's still not there.. and with those injuries it could mean the worst. Which is exactly what the shining goddess is thinking, as she shakes her head sadly at Johnny, reaching up to wipe the angry smear of blood from her pale cheek. "I'm sorry, I can't leave.. if I do..." she tails off and brushes past the maniac, extending one hand as she controls the star of magical energy with the other, guiding it out towards Samantha through careful twitching of her fingers. Johnny turns and stares at Cassandra, his blood boiling, "Just what the fuck do you think your doing? ..don't fucking ignore me!" Staring at her as she goes to help Samantha he starts to charge forward, but something in his mind tells him to stop. Growling he stabs himself again and screams as the pain rips through his leg. "MOTHER FUCKING COCK SUCKING BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Panting as his rage subsides a bit he glances down at his leg and watches the shadow-blood bind itself to the wound once more. Then he turns his gaze towards Cass and Sammy as he now silently watches them... Cassandra nods to Johnny, "Say what you need to say.." the whisper brushes past her lips as her eyes close slowly, eyelids flickering then while she loses herself in concentration. The fingers on her left hand twitch more rapidly, and the glowing white star soars down towards the back of the gasping nekogirl, who is now clawing at the floor desperately, fighting off the instant of death... "Take her wounds, Simira.. I will pay the price in the future, as agreed." The goddess states, raising her voice a little higher than a whisper this time and opening her eyes to glance heavenward. They close again, and both her hands clench to tight fists... the star above Samantha expanding outward, generating a staggering aura. Not just holy power, but magical and.. a hint of darkness too. Either way as the initial burst of blinding light fades the girl upon the floor is left wreathed in the stuff, obscured from view as the spell works upon her. "There," Cassandra states with a small, exhausted smile, looking sidelong at Johnny, "It's done. Would you desire the same treatment? I'm not here to claim you.. I came because I was called..." Johnny blinkblinks at the specticale around him, "Called? What the fuck do you mean by that? Who the fuck called you here?" Taking a deep breath he resheathes his weapons and the darkness around him fades returning his body to normal. "...and why would I want you to do whatever you just did to her to me? Tell me what the fuck is going on... PLEASE!" Running a hand through his hair he he lets out a sigh and shakes his head, "...I just want to know what's going on. I'm sick of being an outsider to my own life... please, what the hell is happening...?" Samantha groans and shifts as the light around her slowly fades... her wounds are knitting together should you look down, flesh twining with flesh and then slowly sealing, more growing where it has been broken away. She is incredibly pale even so, the blood loss has been great to say the least. Cassandra glances down at this progress, then looks at Johnny with a curt nod. She turns away and takes a few short steps before coming to a halt, looking away across the rooftop, and into the clouds as her earlier spell works away the last of the darkness. At her side, that ornate longsword appears again, the runes gleaming on its shining surface. "Well.. why would you think I'd come? I came to help, but.. there were selfish reasons to." She hangs her head, blonde hair falling on either side to cover any glimpse of her face. "After this, she'll be clean... but of all of us here she is not the most soiled, not the one most touched by the darkness of my foe." She looks back over her shoulder, and there is a concerned frown on her brow, sadness in her eyes, "I hate to ask, I know you don't trust me. But I need to do the same to you... it might not be pleasant. It's that, or you live with this inside you for eternity. I can either do that," she points down towards the girl, then nods to Johnny, "Or I can lock Him away with the demons already inside you. What should it be, Johnny?" Johnny begins to laugh, "Oh fuck.... you think some bullshit like that is really going to help me?? You wanna turn me into something else? FUCK YOU!!!!" Laughing again he takes a step back as though his legs where being drained of their ability to stand somehow from his laughing. "When I started to fall, when I started to go down into madness, where was these kinds of offers, huh? You think I -like- being screwed up like this? You think I -want- to be broken inside? I want to be shut down. I want to be fixed...." Looking up suddenly his energies flare and his body grows black once more, "BUT I WANT TO BE ME!!!!!!!!! NO ONE BUT ME DECIDES WHAT KIND OF DECISIONS I MAKE!!! NO ONE GETS INTO MY HEAD AND STARTS RE-ARRANGING THINGS!!!" Taking another step forwards his hands go to the hilts of his daggers, "NO ONE FUCKING ASKED YOU HERE, BITCH!!! NO ONE FUCKING WANTS YOU AROUND!!! CAN'T YOU GRASP THAT CONCEPT, OR ARE YOU TOO FUCKING SCREWED UP IN YOUR OWN SELFISH, ONE-SIDED, ARRAGANT VIEW OF THE WORLD TO REALISE THAT????" Cassandra doesn't move an inch... she stays stock still, watching Johnny over her shoulder. Her bright platinum hair continues to shift in the breeze. "Okay.." she says after a pause, watching the maniac carefully through wide blue eyes, "Nobody asked for me to be here, I know.. you both want to kill me. It might be possible." She gives a shrug and looks away, off towards the edge of the roof again, "I honestly never thought about it. On my world, I'm the strongest bar two or three others... here, I'm not. Here there's a few as powerful as me, some moreso. Between you and Samantha, you could well beat me." A crooked grin slides onto her lips, and she turns around fully, throwing her arms out to either side in a more elaborate shrug. She leaves the arms extended. "So try.. if you must. But know that, just then, I offered you a choice. I can reverse the harm I've done and let you remain here as you were, it will cost me but I can do it. Or.. you deal with the remains of Benedict inside you, forever bound to my world by that chain and forever bound to his evil." She lowers one hand to her hip, the chainmail clinking as she touches it. With the other hand she gestures at Johnny, "It's your -choice-, Johnny." Johnny's eyes glare down at the goddess as she talks down to him. His blood boils once more and all at once he screams, the darkness around him suddenly becoming a black blood-like fluid once more. Johnny doesn't go for the daggers, but instead thrusts his hands into the air and forms his double bladed sickle once more. Only now, it's a deep crimson red and the blades are more mangled and twisted than ever before. Johnny twirls it twice in the air and then brings it down infront of him. "My choice? MY FUCKING CHOICE???? BURN IN HELL YOU MOTHER FUCKING BITCH!!!!" Suddenly forcing his arms out straight before him the dark near-black blood flows from his feet and quickly cover the roof of the house. As the wind suddenly howls around them the blood actualy forms waves that crash on the opposite side of the roof like water in the tide. Johnny tears forwards towards Cassandra at full force, the deep red fluid seeming to part in his path. Getting just to Cassandra's feet, the maniac leaps into the air and twirls the sickle once before gripping it tightly and dropping down -into- the blood brining the blade targeted straight thru the goddess in an attempt to cut her in two... Cassandra lets a soft sigh part her lips as she watches Johnny.. and with a wave of her raised hand she summons a shield of light around the front half of her body... catching the worst of the blood, though she is still drenched by the stuff from behind, her mail dripping with thick red-black ichor. Narrowing her eyes as Johnny leaps she sweeps her hand away, drawing her sword in the other and dropping to a crouch. The shield shoots off to smash away the blood now choking the nekogirl upon the rooftop, and then falls down around her, keeping her safe from drowning in the stuff... as the goddess lets light flare from her sword, bringing the edge to block the powerful hooksickle and using the energy burst to hopefully turn the maniac aside. As contact is made.. assuming it is made.. she slips to the side and plows through the crashing ocean of blood, sprinting a short distance before kicking into a deft flip, more holy energy working off around her as she springs, and aiming a vicious flying kick - with her steel-clad foot - towards the maniac's original location, at the same time drawing back her longsword and then bringing it down at where she assumed her deflection would take him... focusing the energy along the blade into a deathly cutting edge, flooded with divine power. (Don't make me do what I so wished not to, demon child...) Johnny's scythe crashes into the woman's blade and Johnny pulls back quickly. Seeing her run a few steps back and preparing to leap, he spins the weapon around him as a shield of his own as he turns to face her. Seing her leap into the air, her foot extended, he laughs and falls backwards into the bloody mess. Despite it only being a few inches thick, the maniac vanishes into the substance in the exact way he did the darkness in his shadow form. Waiting for the goddess to land he comes screaming out of the fluid with his arms raised into the sky. At least it looks like thats what he does, assuming he suddenly grew to about 30 times his orignal size! The giant bloody head looks down upon the goddess and comes crashing down head first in what would be a massive body breaking headbutt where it really is body. The blood burries Cassandra, trying to drown her as the maniac comes screaming straight into the air from the fluid where the creature's head had existed previously. Tearing off into the sky he brakes his weapon in half forming two small hooksickles, one for each hand, that he crosses at his chest before coming tearing down towards Cassandra's drowning form throwing his weapons off to the sides to slash her deeply where ever he might be able to get a hit... Cassandra lands smoothly despite her attacks missing, and brings her sword up again in both hands.. ready for her eyes to widen alarmingly as the screaming kaiju-Johnny comes running at her. "In the name of the Creator.. bring me aid..." she whispers, and brings her blade around, up over her head where she grips the hilt in one hand and the flat in the other... light blazing around her even as the thing falls upon her... then she is crushed beneath its bulk, gone from view. As the head and the body turn to blood she is revealed again, standing in the exact same position, her form flimsy and ethereal.. transparent. "Nice try, demon child.." she murmurs, flashing a grin, then kicks into the air in a flip.. coming around to meet his attacks, deflecting the initial slices as she goes into a blur of motion, body and head still as her hands arc around her with the sword in a two-handed grip, creating a whirlwind of searing light and steel all around her slender form, her hair flying out crazily in the generated winds. Johnny is forced back by the winds generated from her bizare attack and lowers his head slightly to compensate for the wind in his eyes. Throwing the hooksickles at her he casts his arms out to his sides and screams, the blood making up his form begins to boil, turning even blacker than they already where... the steam like smoke that begins to pour off of him in waves begin to blacken the entire night sky like the front of a terrible storm. Lightning crashes and Johnny once more dives straight into the center of her attack, spinning blades or not. This time he's griped his daggers in each hand and turned them before him to impale her through the chest should she not move to counter the attack... Cassandra continues the raging storm of bloods until the last possible moment.. this sends both hooksickles ringing away in showers of red-gold sparks, thundering to the floor below where they land on either side of the shielded nekogirl. When Johnny approaches the storm falters, and is turned into a devastating upward slash from the still-airborne goddess, grin broadening as she meets Johnny's eye over the flashing blade, enough power there to disembowel one of Benedict's demons in a single blow. (But is it enough to fight the greatest of his servants? You could match even my Seratil, in his prime..) The daggers she ignores, going specifically to harm the maniac.. if she claims wounds of her own in this final bout, it will be for the greater good and she knows it. Johnny catches the blade in his side as it cuts deeply into him sending a sprey of blood into the air. Borrowing a trick from Sammy he throws his daggers towards the goddess's face as he clutches his side and begins to fall. Seconds before hitting the room he throws his arms out to the side and declares, "MINE!" His thrown daggers reapear in his hands and he looks up at Cassandra a moment before taking things a bit farther along than he'd normaly prefer. Out of the blood covered roof spawn two giant blood-inused shadow demons that roar up at the goddess before flapping their wings and taking off to greet her with their massive sharp claws. Johnny looks over at his protected friend and grins before casting his hand out towards her. Abbruptly dropping his arm down the ball of energy and the girl inside it drop down into the blood and out comes another shadow demon, this one in the shape of his friend. Looking up in the sky in unison Johnny and the blood-Sammy grin and leap into the sky to follow the attacking demons. The blood-Sammy pulls her sword back and swings to try to take off Cassandra's head while Johnny throws his daggers towards Cassandra once more... Cassandra pulls her blade back around from the slash, bringing it across her body as she recovers.. at the daggers coming towards her a faint wince crosses her expression. (Here we go again..) And both slam into her, one slicing off half an ear as she turns her head, sending the scrap of flesh trailing down from the skies to the rooftop... and the other lodges deep in her cheek, hammering out through the other side. She chokes with pain, and blood pours forth from her mouth and both entry wounds. She barely manages to move in time from the first volley of clawed attacks, bloodshot sapphire eyes widening as she shoots back through the air propelled by a burst of holy energy. Dropping the longsword to her side in one hand she touches the other to her cheek, the wounds closing up slowly where the dagger once sat.. then without a word she looks heavenward and streams upward like a shooting star, holy energy ripping off her in flaming torrents, ravaging the rooftop below and scoring vast rips in its surface. The she's gone from view but for a speck in the distant skies.... Johnny reclaims his thrown daggers once again as himself and his three creations each look up at the sky unsure of what to do. As always, he assigns a voice to everything in his head and the Blood-Sammy turns to NNY and asks, "So, um... is that it?" Johnny looks at the girl and scowls, "Good god, what do you think?? Would you run away in her situation?" The Blood-Sammy just looks and shrugs. One of the two demons looks over at her and begins to laugh while the other one shakes it's head. Johnny screams at the trio, "Good god, can't you all just shut up a fucking minute?" The creations ignore him and begin to fight amoung themselves and the maniac twirls his daggers once before driving the blades into the hearts of the demons, destroying them before looking up at the sky again. The Blood-Sammy flees and goes back to re-join the bloody roof, the bubble containing the real Sammy floating to the surface at the same time... Samantha stirs a little as her shield of holy power floats her back up to the level of the roof.. sitting atop the now cracked and broken tiles. A low murmur escapes her throat, incoherent, and she slips back into unconsciousness... at the same moment a flash resounds in the skies above, bright white light bursting against the midnight clouds. It is accompanied shortly after by the crack of thunder, and four lightning bolts tear from the heavens, starting aligned around the still-visible 'shooting star' and lancing down to strike at separate corners of the roof. Tiles shatter, throwing sharp debris in every direction and adding to the racket of the unnatural storm. "You may choose, or you may die here demon." It's the hiss of Cassandra's voice, but without any of its usual righteous calm.. instead she sounds truly angry, and also excited... it's doubtful there even -is- a choice any more. Johnny glances up at the heavens and laughs wickedly, "You fucking bitch... you fucking ass lancing bitch! FUCK YOU!!!!! I'm tired of being everyone's dog! FUCK YOU! Bitch, I was once called the angel of death... well, heh... I'm no fucking angel, but the fucking bell tolls for thee... YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME, COCKSUCKER?? BRING IT ON!!!" Throwing his arms out to the side he screams as his built up rage explodes around him. His shadows run with blood once more and soon a swirling vortex of chaotic energies runs around him like a tornado... Rocketing out of the top of the disturbance the maniac comes flying up towards his prey with his daggers ready. "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU????" Cassandra's voice follows Johnny as he leaps, unpleasant humour in her tone. "I'm fairly sure you can't completely defy gravity, little demon. I'm on my way..." And with that, the lightning strikes again, forking around the rising maniac and crashing down past him towards the very middle of the roof this time. Shards blow forth with tense pops, and come together, carried up in a raging whirlwind of sharp pottery straight at Johnny. Meanwhile above, that streaking comet can no longer be seen.. it has faded into the black abyss of space. Johnny continues to stare upwards, "IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT!!!!! Bitch, I don't need anyone's fucking rules..... I'm gonna RIP YOUR FUCKING FACE--!" With a loud scream the crazed maniac is attacked by the pottery and looses his concentration. Falling as the bits of the roof slice into him he struggles to regain control... Thrashing about he lets go of his daggers and actualy tries to grab for the bits of tile and glass trying to find something to grip onto.... Yelling out to his daggers, they reapear in his hands and in a moment of clarity manages to catch himself about an inch away from taking out most of the roof with his impact... Panting as the bits of tile fall down upon him once more, he wipes his forehead with his arm, clearly an unconcious guesture, and looks around glaring. "That.... was pretty cool... let's see if you can pull that shit again..." His focus broken he drops the extra few inches and hits the roof falling into a stumble as he looks around waiting for the next attack... "Oh, we're just getting started.." As she speaks this time, Cassandra's voice fades away to a barest whisper and then.. a prescence lifts from the rooftop. The winds all around pause in their passage for a second, causing what sounds like a sharp intake of breath from a thousand voices, then overhead the clouds suddenly part and light bursts out once more. It's a pinprick this time, a beam of pure white lancing down to the central point of the rubble-strewn roof. If your eye happens to follow the light to its starting point, that comet can be glimpsed again... approaching -fast- along the line of the holy beam. And it's hotter, and larger, than it was.. dozens of times in the latter and hundreds at least in the former. Even from so many miles away, its heat can be detected. Johnny glances upwards at the sudden brightness and glares, "...you stupid bitch... ARE YOU FUCKING TRYING TO TAKE OUT THE FUCKING CITY???" Panicing in his rage he glances around for something, -anything- that he might could use to help the situation... then he locks eyes on Sammy lying in the drying blood atop the roof. Laughing he looks upwards and shouts, "HEY! BITCH!!! ...YOUR ABOUT TO KILL YOUR PRECIOUS PUPPET OVER HERE!!!! DOESN'T THAT MATTER AT ALL?? YOU FUCKING HEARTLESS BITCH!!!!" Glancing down at the view of the city and back to Samantha he groans and mutters under his breath, "...damnit... I knew we shoulda waited for Terry..." The comet continues to hurtle onward as Johnny plays his hand, and shows no signs of stopping once he's done. If a natural phenomenon could smirk, you'd swear that's what the fiery inferno above now does.. the fiery inferno that in no time at all fills the sky directly above the home in the clouds. All in all it looks about the perfect size to crush the building. The closer it has gotten and continues to get, its heat blazing outward and making life on the rooftop intensely uncomfortable for anyone unfortunate enough to be there, the wider the beam of light at the centre of the roof becomes, and the denser.. almost a solid column of power sitting there now. And all the while Samantha lies beneath her cocoon.. seemingly undaunted, still unconscious and showing no signs of awakening. Johnny glances at Samantha, realising that the cocoon must be enough to keep her safe.... if only he had something like that, but it does remind him of something... Looking upwards, NNY glares, oO(Time to see how good this shit really is...) Closing his eyes he tries to focus on the energies contained within him, a hard thing to do in this heat... Despite the quickly vanishing time frame, a slow mist of shadows begin to pour from the maniac's body, drifting outwards and obscuring his form from view. Suddenly the shadows turn solid and drop down to the roof as a thick sludge. The substance flows outwards trying to cover every inch of the roof with it's esseance. The maniac reverts to blackness once again, as does the blood still left in pools about the rooftop. The blood becomes merged with the shadows and soon the entire area is covered in darkness. Johnny looks up and sighs ...oO(I hope this works...) Casting his arms out he lowers into the darkness as though he where trying to escape, but instead he leaves it open... a giant black hole to hopefully contain the attack and protect as much of the house as he can... Of course, the commet's destructive energies being abosorbed would be another story... Holy or not, if his plan works he might just stand a chance against the goddess... For now all he does is sit and wait, holding open the shadows and waiting for the moment to leap from the roof if it doesn't work... The maniac's timing is good.. though perhaps the slight slowing in the comet's path made it so? Either way just as he prepares for impact, it comes... and as light floods the entirety of Johnny's view he might get a glimpse of a figure silhouetted near the midpoint of the inferno - streaked and distorted by flames and burning white energy, but there... a slender feminine figure. The glimpse will only be fleeting though, obscured within a moment by the explosion that rocks the home wreathed in shadows. Rather than treating the shadows as a void, the divine fireball treats it as if the building were still there but cloaked.. and the impact sounds from inside, only the shield of blackness likely keeping the Dragonmaster's home from destruction. For two or three minutes all there is, is searing heat.. and noise enough to burst eardrums a hundred times over.... Johnny almost not expecting it to actualy happen the commet rocks the building and absorbs into the darkness at the same instance. Almost caught off guard, NNY clinches tightly to his daggers and tries in vain to watch the cocooned body of his friend in the chaotic light... that's when it begins to effect him. An overwhelming energy from the potential destruction of the house. Much like the doughboys fed upon his own artistic intent, his wastelock tries hungrily to absorb the force of the impact into a form of energy the boy had never experienced before. Screaming from the electirfied charge throughout his very soul the maniac drops down to the ground... and now it's just that... once again the roof is beneath him, closing his eyes tightly he vomits from the overload to his spirit and tries weakly to fight the sudden nausea... It's another minute or so before anything can be seen through the rage of the heavens... and when it happens the heat lingers on, a haze bubbling through the air all around. Crouched at one edge of the black-sheathed rooftop is Cassandra, her hair settling slowly down around her. Against the surface of the shadows, the steel boots upon her feet begin to sizzle and hiss, metal popping alarmingly. Seems like the comet's holy fire managed to scald what is effectively nothing. "Impressive.." she murmurs, straightening up and looking out across the top of the void... her blazing blue eyes not searching for confirmation of life from the maniac - she can feel that well enough - but just.. roving curiously. Johnny stays still on his hands and knees trying to keep ahold of his conciousness and catch his breath at the same time. Hearing Cassandra's voice he glances up towards her and holds back the urdge to vomit once more. As he sits there an occasional cackle of energy, similar to the holy energy from the commet, runs over his form like a static charge. Finaly breathing almost normaly again he spits out a mouthful of the foul tasting bile and shakes his head, "You.... where you trying to.... kill everyone?" Pushing himself up on his knees he gives his best effort at climbing to his feet, but looses his balance and falls on his ass. Wincing he props his arm up and leans on it. "...what the hell.... where you thinking?" Biting his lip he pushes himself up on his feet and stands wobbling for a moment before directing his attention towards his hand just as another crackle of energy runs accross it. "...weird..." Cassandra gives a slight smirk at that, "No... my Blessed's quite safe. And I trusted you to attempt something to preserve the Dragonmaster..." she glances down at the void and lifts one foot to idly scrape across its surface. "This is nice work." She whispers, and nods her head, before turning her gaze back up towards Johnny. The cocky arrogance she has been displaying slides away, and she walks closer.. stopping a few feet away and breathing a soft sigh. "Now I have to finish this. You realise.. I can't let you remain, either... there's no choice any more. There can't be." She focuses her attention on the maniac's arm, falling silent and just staring at the phenomenon. Johnny blinks at her words and gazes back to his hand once again. Taking an extra moment to think about the look on her face and the words she had spoken he suddenly makes a connection. Suddenly smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary he looks back at her and begins to laugh mischiviously, "Oh no... no no no... You ain't gonna do a damn thing to me tonight.... I can see it in your face... You know exactly what the fuck just happend don't you, and that look on your face just tells the whole story... So, now... if my guess is right, I think I'm finaly getting your attention... wanna try that shit again?" Running a hand through his hair briefly he drops down into a defensive stance and for the first time summons his daggers into his waiting hands without a word. "Yeah, I deffinitly think I'm ready for round two..." Cassandra draws in a slow breath.. not removing her gaze from Johnny's arm until he drops into that stance. "You really have surpassed him... you've achieved what my Seratil never could, and now you think to take me too..." she whispers all of this to herself. And then looks up to meet the maniac's gaze, her bright blue eyes dull and distant.. her right hand strays to her hip, and the sword that is hanging there again. Mail-clad fingers caress the ornate hilt as she speaks, "If you truly desire to match against me, fairly.. god against god. Then... so be it. But know that I have had hundreds of years with this power where you have had mere minutes." She turns away and takes a few strides across the pitch-black void of the rooftop, fingers of her left hand now curling around the sword's hilt and drawing it slowly, gripping the blade's simple scabbard in her right. She looks back over her shoulder at Johnny, past a sweep of shining platinum. Her eyes flash. "This won't be easy.. and the loser, will truly lose everything." Johnny blinkblinks and stands up straight letting his arms drop weakly to his sides, "Wait... god against... WHAT??" Seeing her draw her weapon he begins to laugh whole heartedly, "You mean I...? I mean me...? You think that I'm a.... HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!" Wiping his eyes as tears begin to form the maniac shakes his head trying to get his laughter under control... "Look, look.... Cassandra? Your not even -from- this world... why the fuck do you care so much about -me-? Why am I such a threat to you? I mean, fuck... I'm just a screwed up head case who shoulda been locked up years ago... Hell, I wanted to be locked up years ago. But things change... I changed... I'm not gonna be pushed around and locked away anymore... I've seen enough of this fucking existance I'm cursed to living than I damn well please... I don't give a crap what kinda bullshit you wanna believe about me. If you lived one day in my boots you'd see where I'm coming from. I'm the fucking whipping boy of this goddamned existance, and I'm getting fucking TIRED OF IT!!!" As he speaks the cinged darkness on the roof draws back into him and begins to burn off of him like black flames. Glaring coldly he stares at the goddess with a look of pure hatered, "If you think I'm going to just sit back and let you decide my fucking fate for me you've got another thing coming... If I'm gonna go out of this world, it's gonna be kicking and screaming the way I came into it.... I'll fucking rip the reaper's jaw from his skull AND SHOVE IT UP HIS ASS!!! I'M THE ONE WHO'S GONNA DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS TO ME!!! NOT YOU!!! NOT ANYONE!!!!" Raising his daggers back before him the blackness burning around him turns blood red once again and for once the black blades of the hilts change with him... "YOU WANT TO FUCKING TRY TO MAKE ME GO WITH YOU? THEN YOU BETTER FUCKING KILL ME FIRST!!!!" Cassandra stays motionless throughout this tirade, glancing down just for an instant as the Dragonmaster's home loses it's shield of darkness... then she focuses back upon the boy. The moment his lips stop moving she flashes a grin, hiding the sadness threatening within her - pushing it away and replacing it with emotions remembered from mortal life, so long ago. "Why, that's just what I was planning on!" She hisses out, and spins to face Johnny, whipping her longsword the rest of the way from its sheath. The scabbard disintegrates into holy light as it is emptied, and she switches her blade to a two-handed grip, raising it above her shoulder. "As for god against god.." she narrows her eyes, "What you are not in name you can make up for, with power." She intones the last word with a slight excited shiver, and then shifts her footing slightly.. form blurring from view with a hiss of winds as she moves forward a few feet in a flash, emerging seamlessly in the same stance. "So show me. Show me what you've become! Show me how you plan to decide!" Johnny laughs darkly as he suddenly leaps forward and seemingly vaniahes. Appearing before Cassandra in a blood-red blur of motion the maniac tries to push the holy blade back with side of one dagger and he lunges with the other aiming for the goddess's heart. The dagger's glowing red blade pulsates with a unearthly heat much like that of the commet that had fallen only minutes before ensuring that the dagger would cut very easily should it find it's way to it's target... Cassandra tips her head to one side as Johnny vanishes, and swings her blade around in an arc from right to left... and upward, cutting through the blood-red blur as it appears. But the young goddess is no longer holding the blade as NNY's dagger comes in to intercept is, nor is she there to meet the contact with the other. She simply vanishes, though a hiss of wind would be heard were the din of battle not present. Appearing at the far edge of the roof, she raises one hand and releases five identical darts of holy energy from her splayed fingertips, grinning across the outstretched hand with a feral gleam in her sapphire eye. (I -will- defeat you, demon.. this is my vow, and it shall be done even if it takes my own existence.) Johnny sees in his mind exactly what he intends to do but before he can even get towards the goddess a blinding white blur suddenly cuts into him. Pulling back quickly he glares down at his wounds and stares as he feels the damage done, but due to his current form, he can't even see a diffrence. Looking back to try to find his target he spots the five darts of light coming towards him at an alarming speed, leaping out of the way with only seconds to spare he lands in a croutch and looks up to find her location before vanishing and charging towards her as fast as he can as he throws up his arms and goes to launch two hook/spears from his wrists, made of course of the same blood-shadow material as his real weapons are all long gone... Cassandra lowers her hand, the fingers closing again around the hilt of her sword... wait. Yes, the sword has returned - much in the same way as Johnny's dagger, after making it's cut it reappears in the goddess' mailed hands. She nods her head to the charging maniac and spins off to one side, bringing the longsword around in a gleaming arc to sever the first red-black hook in two. As energy flares she moves again, spinning in a blur to once again face Johnny past the second of the hooks as it soars past. She has no time for further action, but nor does she seem intent on taking any - she's on the defensive now. Johnny grips his daggers tightly, he never did let go of them after all... not that it matters anymore. As his attacks are cut off and avoided respectivly he turns the blades inwards once the goddess appears before him and goes to bring the blades into her chest assuming he can do it fast enough. In the process his trailing blood-shadow 'ghost' becomes just that and steps back a few feet before deviding in two. The two black ghosts dive off to the sides of the maniac and jump forwards trying to reach for Cassandra's arms to restrain her should NNY's daggers fail to connect... Cassandra blinks calmly as she brings her longsword up, letting energy sprout upwards off its edge and forge a shield of sorts in front of her - just for an instant as NNY's daggers blur in towards her. "You're not trying hard enough..." her voices floats to him as she moves, again leaving her blade up in the air as she disperses out, soaring away to one side... and flickering into visiblity in half the instant it would have taken to move, as one of the blood-clones catches her. Her eyes slam wide open and she spins into the hold, attempting to jar a mail-clad shoulder into the creature and then flip it over her back... The shadow creature manages to hold it's ground, but not because of any strength. The creature becomes a fluid once again and holds tightly onto Cassandra's arm and side like living rock that does it's best to keep her from moving while the second beast leaps towards her other side to repeat the actions of the first. Johnny turns to the side and laughs at the goddess, in his hands are not his daggers but a massive sickle, gripping it tightly with the tip of the blade pointed towards Cassandra, the maniac cackles, "Of course not... I gotta make sure you understand my lesson before I let you die..." Pulling the weapon back and over his shoulder he grins, "You have to realise how insignificant you are compared to the lives of the people you ignore yet claim to protect. These people don't even believe in people like you because you and your kind are always out playing with people's lives so fucking much that you never see how MISERABLE we all are.... So, for everyone you've used or ignored... I CONDEM YOU TO HELL!!!" His eyes growing wide, Johnny wings the blade down into Cassandra's chest assuming his creatures to their duty. If not, he swings in her general direction as he comes running towards her... Cassandra winces as the thing tails up her arm, and she seems to concentrate for a moment... letting the other envelop the second limb. "Nice.." she murmurs, and tosses her head, hair shifting as she looks towards Johnny. (My people? Does he even realise this isn't my world...? I protect another..) The thoughts flow through her head, but she has no time to voice them yet.. having to react with all haste as that scythe comes towards her. She closes her eyes and the unholy weapon meets.. the blade of her sword, which appears motionless in front of her, its edge catching that of the scythe's blade suddenly and throwing up a shower of sparks. "But not enough." As her eyes open again, and the blade shoves upwards, attempting to unbalance Johnny and moving seemingly of its own accord now, the goddess channels her power into her body, letting wreathes of holy magic thunder off around her limbs and torso, another sheath closing over that made by Johnny's creations, attaching and then concentrating its power... it comes away and she spins, armour unravelling with clinking sounds from her, armour coated in that stuff of Johnny's, and falling to the floor in a heap as she windbursts back to the edge of the roof opposite the maniac... finally bringing her blade back to her hand, whether or not its unbalancing of NNY was successful. Johnny is indeed thrown several steps backwards and casualy he just lets his weapon go so he can catch himself quicker. His gaze following the tainted armor and then the goddess on the opposite side of the roof, shaking his head he laughs, "Yep... obviously it isn't enough... BUT THAT'S NOT THE FUCKING POINT, IS IT YA BITCH? FUCK!" Stepping back and dropping down low once again he tries to think logicly, .oO(Alright, the bitch is gonna be as tuff as Benedict was... and we don't have a big fucking dragon this time...) With a grin he throws his arms out to his side and lifts up into the air. After rising about a foot and a half he looks down at his opponent and laughs, "You know... I had almost forgotten..." With a swirling of energies the maniac's shadow cast down on the roof below him begings to spread. It seems he no longer has to touch his shadow to manipulate it! The shadow spreads out as if attempting to consume the building once again, but stops just before leaving the rooftop. Seeming at first as if the shadow was becoming alive, a giant winged demon rises up from the darkness holding a black version of the very same commet Cassandra had tried to use minutes before. Shooting up into the sky the demon throws it's arms back and hurls the thing at the goddess before flying upwards and falling down into the darkness from which it came. The commet however, breaks apart just before it hits the roof, becoming a dense cloud of smaller shadow demons all of which aiming to recreate Johnny's previous attempt to hold the goddess still. Johnny himself hops into the open portal into darkness and vanishes.... the pool of darkness becomes alive and comes swiftly moving accross the roof towards the powerful woman.... Cassandra smirks coldly as she watches the display, shifting grip on her blade impatiently. "Demon, there's something you lack..." she begins, blinking as the great winged beast draws back its arms.. she appears fairly unbothered at the moment, watching with her lips pursed as the comet thunders down and splits apart. Her eyes widen anew and a grin starts on her lips, "And that's-" she disappears in a mini hurricane, a spray of wind, and flickers through the descending mass, emerging on the other side of the roof. "Grace.." she drops to a spinning crouch, slashing her weapon twice in arcs of energy, and scything two small demons from the air. One other gets onto her arm, but with a sharp burst of white she throws it off and kicks into a blurred skid, on her back across the rooftop. Because we forgot earlier, she's now clad in a simple white tunic and black tights, though those steel boots are still in place also. "True power.." she flips to her feet, words coming out in a gasp but audible enough, and spins twice full circle - barely detectable but for the blurring around her form - sending a deadly flurry of white-gold darts soaring off around her like a divine porcupine.. peppering the air just above the roof with bursts of her power. "And..." she flips backward, coming around in the air just off the edge of the building, casting her gaze down towards the remaining shadow demons. "You lack the conviction to use my own power against me." She whispers this, and on normal ears it certainly wouldn't be audible, and she draws back her sword.. gathering energy there quickly and waiting for the creatures to catch up with her. Johnny glares coldly, "Grace... power? FUCK that shit...." Snapping his fingers all of his shadow creations liquify and drop to the ground suddenly, "Bitch, I've been killing off pieces of shit like you long before any of these fucking powers or any of this other bullshit.... in fact, if you gonna try to piss me off, you could just try calling me names and quit with the theatrics... GODDAMNIT!!! Do you not hear the chilling cries of the toaster pastries? Have you not seen the dark expanse of gooey centers screaming out for a chewy nuget filling? HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE DEPTHS OF MY NAVAL?" Ok, it works for his drawings and his rantings, why not try it and go for the same kinda bewilderment, right? The blackness enveloping the roof begins to move until it forms what appears to be black flames that lick accross it's surface. As the 'flames' reach high enough to hide the body of the maniac a flash of light erupts. Coming through the flames with a snarl on his face comes Johnny with his daggers ready to slice open Cassandra's stomach. He hopes the darkness is enough to hide his pressence until he hits his target... Cassandra rolls her eyes heavenward as the display of flames commences. "You never listen..." as light bursts out from within the inky, fiery depths she blinks and suddenly throws herself back a few more feet, throwing her left hand forward. "Do you?!" Though she can't see perfectly her gaze narrows and from her mailed palm flies forth a narrow shield of energy, flickering with light as it is brought into the path of the oncoming slash. As this does its work she sends a burst of power down the sword in her right hand and lets it curl off from the tip, gracefully arching underneath the goddess and then curling upward towards the maniac - the torpedo-shaped energy blast slow enough though that he will likely be gone by the time it reaches him. Unless he chooses not to be of course... Johnny's form comes to a halt just behind her and out of the reach of her slash. As a manical grin becomes visible on his face his body suddenly explodes into a mass of living wires and tubing. The cables whip around and latch onto everything they can, and thus the entire roof and part of the side of the house seems to come alive with the parasitic creatures. The Johnny-shadow vanishes as the attack runs it's course. In another flash of light the entire roof becomes electrified just to add insult to injury... Cassandra spins to face the maniac who is suddenly behind her, and flashes a grin. "Such an ugly child.." she murmurs, and lets the shield in her hand expand to surround her. Hovering as she is above and away from the roof, she ignores the electrification of its surface, and also the bolts that course across the cocoon of energy surrounding her - it does not touch her at any point now it is no longer a directed shield, and like the shield surrounding Samantha is unlikely to be breached against the user's will. She looks a little wearied though, chest rising and falling a little more heavily as she turns her attention from the now empty space to stare out past the pulsing energy field towards the crackling rooftop. She continues to speak, assuming Johnny is still there somewhere.. but doesn't bother training any effort on searching for him. "You know.. in here, you can't touch me. Not unless you had taken my advice. Now... I suppose it's too late." As she speaks, that torpedo of divine power curls lazily in the air some way behind her, working around in between the cables launched by Johnny. Johnny materialises amist the cabels beside the protected form of Samantha. Grining mischivously the maniac pulls out his daggers and stabs them into the shield trying to drain it of it's power. His face, however, remains staring upwards towards Cassandra and her energy attack, "Oh... I see... first you insult me, now you call me names? BITCH! WHO THE FUCK GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO JUST GO AROUND AND JUDGE EVERYONE YOU SEE, HUH? Telling me I don't have style and now THIS? You fucking cunt, if you only knew what syle was... YOU MIGHT SEE HOW FUCKING OBVIOUS THINGS ARE! ...after I get through with this..." Glancing at Samantha he grins and then looks back up at Cassandra, "...I'm gonna take care of you..." Cassandra looks down towards Johnny and shifts her right shoulder in a loose shrug, mail clinking around her. "It was grace I informed you that you did not possess. And every little thing you do proves this, but... do as you please with the girl, just give me one moment..." she says, with a smile, then closes her eyes. A few harsh words break from her throat and then her eyes snap open again, eyes blazing with pure white light. Lifting her left hand to her face, fingers spread out, she then looks upward. The shield around Samantha rapidly closes down to a barest flicker, which then drifts down into the girl's near-motionless chest... then it disappears. Suddenly a tiny ball of light hovers inside the cocoon with the hovering goddess. Nothing has changed about the slender nekogirl, not even a change in her aura apparent, but Cassandra lowers her hand and catches the floating wisp in between two fingers, then sends a curt nod towards the floored maniac. Johnny watches the shield around Sammy vanish and curses, "FUCK!" Kicking at the ground beside the girl he turns and glares upwards at Cassandra, his hate building inside him. "Alright.... THAT FUCKING DOES IT!!! I've had enough of these fucking games..." Stomping accross the roof in the direction of the goddess, the cables, the darkness, everything vanishes as he walks. His illusions being taken away as effortlessly as he created them. Reaching the edge of the roof and looking upwards with a snarl, the entire house returns to normal save for the physical damage done by Cassandra's attacks. ALL the shadows and darkness created by Johnny vainish completly and only the maniac in his normal form is left staring upwards with a out of place look of determination in his eyes. "Fucking bitch.... fucking games... FUCKING BULLSHIT! I've had ENOUGH of this!" His own eyes begin to burn with a bright red light. His short hair begins to whip wildly around his head. "YOU FUCKING BITCH... GET THIS STRAIGHT, WE DON'T WANT YOU! YOU AND YOUR FUCKING BUTT-BUDDY BENEDICT CAME HERE AND USED ME AND MY FRIEND FOR YOUR FUCKING LITTLE BULLSHIT GAMES! I tried to play along.... HELL I ACTUALY ENJOYED PARTS OF IT! But me and Sammy... we're both tired of this CRAP! She took up MY dagger of her own free will! SHE WANTS YOU GONE AS WELL... No amount of your fucking 'divine intervention' is gonna change things... YOU FUCKED UP BITCH! Now you gotta deal with me..." Raising his shoulders the boy pushes upwards into the air and slightly away from Cassandra to put the two on an even area. Crossing his arms accross his chest much like the position mummys are burried in, he clinches his daggers tightly and glares coldly. "I don't give a fuck about this world anymore... I don't give a fuck about anything.... but this is where I am now, this is where my friends are... I'm not giving that up willingly... You wanna drag this out, then come on. KILL ME! ...if you can...." Cassandra listens impassively, toying with the little whisper of light between her fingers. When Johnny is done she looks across to him for a moment then chuckles lightly, shaking her head. "That was no trick. That body is a dead one... it shouldn't even be in use, but part of my 'butt-buddy' remained and went to seek his vengeance upon you. No matter." She whips her right hand out past her and releases her grip on the divinely charged longsword. The blade rips out from the shield, leaving a momentary breach, and thunders down into the body of the girl on the roof. There is a sharp spray of blood as the point slices into the flesh over her heart, and the crack of bone as ribs shatter and finally... an explosion of energy, and the slender form becomes a pitiful pulp of blood - the effect is eerily similar to one demonstrated by Seraph so long ago. As the mess that once was Samantha settles on the Charis household, Cassandra turns her attention to Johnny again.. "As for killing you, demon, you are already dead. It is only by my will you remain here... I will offer no apologies for my actions though. Without your influence this would have been over a long time ago - I had the vessel I needed, and I had the means to destroy Benedict. Your relationship with the girl was unforeseen though..." she releases the wisp of light and folds her arms across her chest, staring seriously at the maniac as the thing previously between her fingers drifts down to her feet then dissipates in a fine mist. "Do you truly wish destruction, or would you prefer I am merciful? Answer -truthfully-, demon child." She lowers her gaze, hanging her head. "Answer truthfully.. for her sake, not for mine." Johnny glances backwards towards the body of Samantha as it is ripped apart by her attack. Shutting his eyes tightly in a vane attempt at fighting his emotions, a single tear runs down his cheek. After listening to the goddess's words he turns his head towards her again and opens his eyes into a glare once again, as he does his eyes continue to water. "You bitch... what do you mean she was already dead? She seemed fine to me..." Feeling saddness creep into his mind he winces and shakes his head. "If my friends are dead, then I'm left with what I began with... nothing... exactly what I wish to return to. I've tried to kill myself more times than I can count, and now... with this bullshit... I'd rather be destroyed than live in your happy-fairy world without the possibility of death! ...and if I have to try kill you to do that, then I'll gladly use these damn daggers for what they where intended for..." Cassandra blinks slowly as she watches, and listens, to Johnny. "You shouldn't cry," she whispers when he tails away, "She'll live well enough, I hold true to that promise. Depending on the state of my power after this battle it may not be possible for her to live here though... we shall see." Looking up she raises her hand and summons that ornate longsword back to her grasp, sending a burst of energy down its length. Light ripples off the sharp tip and then spreads to the sheath of holy energy around her. Within seconds it is a fragmented mist, and the goddess drops a short way down from her lofty position above the ravaged rooftop of the Charis home. Glancing briefly towards the pool of blood that once was Samantha she then looks back towards Johnny and nods her head, "The daggers were forged in Benedict's image but they were not created to destroy me... powerful they might be, but they will not be my downfall." She drifts back in the air, blonde hair rippling around her mail-clad shoulders, and raises her left hand. Energy gathers there quickly, white light shining out around the goddess but she does nothing more yet... waiting for the maniac's move. Johnny scowls at the goddess as she moves, his own form begining to blur as his body unconciously generates shadows to hide itself, but are quickly extinguished by Johnny's attempt to control them. His eyes continuing to water despite the anger that rages inside him, he yells, "FUCKING LYING BITCH! You speak nothing but LIIIIEEEESSSS!!!!! You never wanted to protect her... you never wanted to help me... YOU KNOW DAMN WELL THAT THESE DAGGERS ARE JUST AS HARMFUL TO YOU AS THEY WHERE TO BENEDICT!!! Forged in his image, my ass!! You've yet to see me not hold back. I was holding back because I KNEW that if I didn't THIS FUCKING FLOATING ISLAND HERE AND EVERYTHING ON IT WOULD BE RUBBLE LIKE THAT FUCKING TEMPLE THAT BENEDICT HELD UP IN!!!!! You ain't gonna pull the fucking wool over my eyes again... I'm done listening to you. IF YOU CAN BRING HER BACK, YOU BETTER FUCKING DO IT! So help me, if you can't... I'll make your little war with Benedict look like a FUCKING DAY AT DAYCARE!!!!!" Normally, Carla would of been up here in seconds when a fight was going on. However, that was before when she was linked to Trinune, who has been keeping a constant monitor on the fight, doesn't bother to let her know this kind of stuff anymore. Due to her insanity and all. Anyway, she's not stupid or anything, and she can sense magic, she's just not on 24/7 watch like Trinune is. Up she comes though, flying into the sky and a bit away from the roof. o O ( What the heck is going on? ) She wonders, she missed the whole Samantha being torn in half, though. "Oi!" She calls, to -both- of the combatants. Then, there's an eruption of blue lightning, crackling with thunder, forming into being is Trinune, standing above the pool of blood on the roof itself, her blueblue eyes staring down at it and Samantha's remains if they're still there. No, she doesn't do anything yet, but it's doubtful she'll stay that way much longer. Cassandra smirks at Johnny's words, looking down with an amused glint in her eye as she brings her sword around.. placing her glowing hand to the flat of the blade. "Demon, you-" she blinks and stops for a moment, her gaze sliding first to Trinune's apparition, then flickering across to Carla.. heeding her cry a little late, caught up as she is. "My apologies, but this is almost over.." the goddess murmurs, apparently too quiet to be audible to one so far off but Carla will find it reaches her ears well enough. "Then amends can be made." She raises her voice and looks defiantly across at Johnny, "As for bringing my Blessed back now.. why? So you may tear her into pieces as you threatened to do scant moments before? She has an excuse for her earlier behaviour... she had no idea what was happening or what her intent was. You know full well, you understand your madness even if you cannot fully control it." Johnny points a finger at Cassandra demandingly, "FUCK YOU!!!! I only tried to hurt her ONE FUCKING TIME!!!! None of the rest of them where real... I KNOW that now... I never tried to hurt her... I tried to teach her, to show her the error of her ways, BUT I NEVER TRIED TO TEAR HER INTO PIECES as you claim... FUCKING BITCH! I was fucking trying to free her from that fucking CELL you put her in... I can take care of my friends myself.... SHE DOESN'T NEED TO BE IN THE HANDS OF SOME FUCKING BACKSTABBING CUNT LIKE YOU!!!!" Throwing his arms open he allows his body to become engulfed in darkness briefly, but soon casts it off once again as he realises they'd been joined, turning his head towards Carla he sheepishly grins, "Um... sorry if we woke you up..." Turning his attention back to the goddess he lowers his head and prepares to charge after her, " ...now look what you made us do... HOW MANY MORE PEOPLE ARE YOU GONNA DRAG INTO THIS???" Dragoness Carla looks over to Cassandra, narrowing her eyes slightly, then looking over towards Johnny, then over towards Trinune and...Samantha's body parts, "..what...what's happened?" She says, her voice choking slightly as she listens to Johnny, then looks towards Cassandra, her eyes narrowing even more, "You...you killed her?" She says, her eyes widening, she's shocked...and her eyes start to get slightly wet, "No, no, no..." She says. Trinune isn't as vocal as Carla is, the sword kneels down in the former catgirls blood, her blueblue eyes looking over the remains. Her hand comes out and she presses it down into the crimson liquid, then lifts her hand up, turning the palm towards her face as the fluid runs down her hand. The edges of those eyes begin to shift, a bit of red and orange creeping in an the outer edges in a kind of swirling pattern, something that shouldn't belong in someone's eyes. Immediaetly, her head snaps across the city, and a brief flash of white light floods from her as she does a worldwide check for Samantha, because she's noticed something odd about this body, and she wants...yes, she wants to know if this is real or not, if she's dead. Cassandra shakes her head, "These people have been dragged into this spiral by the pact -you- made, demon, and the complications you have brought to this incident. Neither of us are innocent, and neither of us should be pointing a finger... the girl is not dead because of me, if that's what you believe. She died four days ago despite the efforts of Jack Karrde and I had to drag her soul in like a fish upon a line." Her eyes narrow to glimmering slits and she points the tip of her sword towards Johnny, keeping her other hand pressed lightly to its flat. "Stand fast, Johnny, and don't move any closer. It would take me all of a moment's work to trigger your journey to this dimension you hate so much, and then you might never see your friend again. The friend you -did- threaten, shortly before I broke her form apart.. and you, unlike I, did not know the truth." Johnny glares, " WE STARTED SPARING AND SHE TRIED TO KILL ME!!! THAT DOESN'T COUNT!!! ...and I did try to undo what I'd done... I tried to drain her of the waste that built up within her... BUT I NEVER THREATENED HER! YOU KNOW NOTHING OF WHAT HAPPENS HERE DO YOU?? I threatened her father while we where sparing, but it was just that.. you can't challenge someone without anticipating the outcome... she knows this as well as I did. IF SHE WAS HERE SHE'D TELL YOU SO HERSELF!! That doesn't count... HOWEVER YOU WHERE MORE THAN WILLING TO TAKE OVER HER BODY LIKE A FUCKING COSTUME AND LET HER DIE FOR YOUR STUPID DESIRE TO KILL BENEDICT!!! -THAT- IS FAR WORSE THAN ANYTHING I EVER DID TO HER..." Moving down closer towards the goddess, taunting her, calling her bluff, the maniac continues his rant, " What's more I don't give a fuck where you put me... IF I HAVE TO LIVE IN SOME FUCKING REALITY WITHOUT DEATH, THEN I'LL SIMPLY HAVE TO FIND A WAY TO BECOME DEATH!!! I'LL DESTROY ALL OF EXISTANCE IF I HAVE TO UNTIL I FIND THE ROCK YOUR HIDING UNDER AND RIP YOUR SOUL APART! ...you think I'm kidding? I took Benedict up on his offer BECAUSE OF YOU!!! You made me think that my friend betrayed me... and that there was NOTHING LEFT IN THIS WORLD!!! Did that stop me? FUCK NO! I knew whatever was in her was to blaim, and that's when I started to come for you..." Now only arms length away from Cassandra, "...so ask yourself this, you really wanna piss me off any further than you already have?" Dragoness Carla nearly falls from the sky, but she has enough sense to angle her wings so instead she lands in one of the larger and higher cherry blossom branches, staring at Cassandra as she speaks of Samantha's death, her entire body literally slumps, wings caving down, shoulders as well, her sweatshirt sags off of her shoulder, and her hands shakily reach out to take hold of a nearby branch, lest she fall to the ground, unable to keep herself up, "No..." She says, a light growl in her throat as she closes her eyes, it looks like there's a battle going on, but she really can't handle that her friend just died, it's not fair, it's not possible...and four days ago? How can that even be? Her eyes slit open, tears spilling down her cheeks slowly, "..who did it?" She chokes out, though it may be hard to hear over Johnny's screaming. Trinune meanwhile, not finding Samantha alive, stands up, her blueblue...no, make that blueorangered tinged eyes snapping towards Cassandra, "You will ressurrect her, now." She orders Cassandra, whoever she is, if she has a soul, Trinune has decided she'll be ressurrected. Or, wait, the swords hand, still dripping the catgirls blood, extends out, "Or I will take her soul from you." Slight pause, "Now." Her tone pulling away from it's normal general stoicness and getting anger flowing into it. As Johnny moves, Cassandra shakes her head fiercely.. almost sadness creeping into her eyes as she draws her hand from the sword's blade held before her. Keeping the weapon in place she flings the left hand out to her flank, fingers curling first around an imaginary ball and then heavenward.. white energy then licking off each slender digit towards the night skies above. (Her death was an accident... it could have happened to anyone. I can explain later... but you must explain to your blade, my Blessed is fine and she shall be restored. Here if possible.. and I would sacrifice my immortality to grant her that.) Her voice comes only to Carla, seeming to come from all around though in fact it is entering her mind - unless of course the Dragoness has blocked telepathic contact, in which case she hears nothing. While the maniac makes his speech, the goddess' lips move ceaselessly and silently, and any paying attention would note the rhythm there, it is the same one phrase repeated over and over. And when the boy stands in front of her she nods her head, shifting her body in the air and thus also the tip of the blade which will now be a hair's width from the boy's stomach. Her lips stop their movements. "There is still much you don't understand." She says simply, gaze searching for Johnny's and locking on... the goddess, the girl, offering a slight smile. Her hand remains in place, though something has changed in the spectrum of the energy working off the mailed fingers... it is more powerful, but also nothing to do with this dimension. For those that can sense such things, it is drawn from a place between this and another. Johnny stares blankly as her words echo into him. The sane, rational part of his mind has been struggling for control, and has been showing great efforts in not allowing himself to be blanketed by darkness as he normaly does, with a smirk he nods and look back into the goddess's eyes with a calm expression far removed from his ususal manic gaze. "Yeah, there is. I learned alot in that little hell of yours you put me in. But that doesn't change things... I want her back, now." Looking over his shoulder at Carla and Trinune he grins and looks back a little more confidently, "We all do... and I think I know what your doing... you let her die on purpose didn't you. You used her again so that I have to give in to your little demands in order to see her again. But, I won't get that chance because your gonna take me off to your fucking deathless HELL you've decided I have to go to." The maniac's eyes glaze over once again, and that look of crazed intent returns, "It's not going to happen that way. I'm not gonna go that easily. Sammy... a part of Sammy told me she'd be willing to give her life to help me from going to that hell... that means, whatever she was before you killed her... she was still my friend. And I don't want her to have died in vain. You can tell me this BULLSHIT about how it WASN'T REALLY HER, but you tried to HELP HER! YOU TRIED TO CURE HER FROM WHATEVER HAD HAPPENED! Otherwise you coulda just killed her from the start... If it's so fucking easy for you to bring her back, then it didn't matter what happened to her body, as you later proved by destroying it. Corrupted or not, that was my friend you slaughtered... and she wouldn't have wanted it to end this way. We'll find our own way to bring her back, even if I have to tear this world apart to do it..." Dragoness Carla's eyes look over towards Cassandra as the woman's thoughts go into her head. She really hates people who use telepathic stuff on her, thoughts are her own, but hey, it was information she wanted to know in the first place. Still, she seems a bit shaky on her branches, "Accident?" She growls softly, one of her sleeves coming up to wipe the tears from her face. "And..I -can't- control Trinune, and I can't explain things to her, she doesn't listen to me." She looks to Trinune, "Besides...I don't even know you, you could be lieing...and I'd as soon want her back anyway." She has no idea what Trinune would do with the catgirls soul, she didn't know Trinune could do anything. Then again, maybe the sword can't, she is insane. But, she'd rather have it in the hands of an insane sword she knows, then some woman she doesn't. Trinune, meanwhile, doesn't get either of the things she's asked for. The clouds in the sky, normally invisible from inside of the floating island, form into life, dark, black, and ominous. The blade disappears and reappears next to Cassandra, completly ignoring Johnny's presence, "No one dies anymore." She says, it's a statement of fact and truth, at least from Trinune's point of view, and her hand lashes out, to try and grab itself around Caasandra's neck if possible, and if she does...talk about grip...yes, Trinune's insane... Cassandra just keeps a level gaze upon the maniac as he speaks. For each of his words she can see making sense, there's a correction she feels a need to make elsewhere. Slowly, almost unconsciously, the fingers on her glowing hand begin to curl inward - one by one tightening into the mailclad palm. When Johnny finishes she shakes her head, opening her mouth to speak when suddenly she gasps and spins to the side.. her left hand kept rigidly out to the side, and the fingers ceasing their inward curling. "What-?!" She tails off before she can do anything else - the swordgirl fast enough to beat the goddess and the hand closes about her neck. Cassandra's teeth grit and her hands instinctively clench... the right only tightening further on the hilt of her sword, but her left hand... clenches to a fist. The energy shrouded there bursts outward, spreading to surround sword and goddess as they hover in the air together - the bones of Cass' neck slowly beginning to pop and buckle beneath the death grip of Trinune. But still the energy spreads... blanketing the area in light and silhouetting all within. Johnny keeps his eyes locked on Cassandra, as he finishes. Caught almost as completly off guard as the victim, Johnny backs away quickly and draws his daggers as the goddess's neck is suddenly crushed by the strength of the woman he'd seen in the company of Cale once or twice before. Not knowing what was going on at all he stares with his weapons ready should the swordgirl decide to come after him next. As he watches he glances quickly back at Carla as if expecting her to say or do something, but his attention returns to the struggle before the Dragoness can even return his glance. Dragoness Carla's eyes widen suddenly and she screams, "Trinune!" Loudly, lunging out of the tree and landing down on the roof next to Cassandra and Trinune. Well, not right next to them because of the magic going off and all, but you know, in the area, "Stop it! You can't just kill people!" She growls. Trinune shifts her eyes onto Carla briefly, then looks back to Cassandra, "Give me the soul before you die, now." She says, the blood palm extending out, apparently the blade figures you could just hand it to her or something, her grip continues its crushing, crackling down on the bones. She doesn't seem to have a problem in the strength area, that's for sure. Her eyes don't wince at the light, either, she doesn't have real eyes afterall. Cassandra's eyes find Trinune's, watering steadily now.. a stream of pained tears running down her pale cheeks. Blonde hair, blown around by the winds, drape against the tear-stained flesh and stick there, the goddess' usual perfect beauty spoiled by this and by the grimace of stubborn agony upon her lips. (I would, blade of the Dragonmaster, if I had a free hand... as it is, it's begun. I have no control over myself until the spell is complete... release me. This is but a mortal form and you will achieve nothing save triggering the girl's resurrection elsewhere. Believe me.) This time the thought is directed solely to Trinune, should she be receptive to such right now. Meanwhile the light no longer spreads.. and no longer floods from the deity's left hand. Instead it begins to seep in on a single point - brightening as it concentrates on this point gradually. And the one point it now moves towards? It is none other than the form of the maniac... and he will feel a sharp tug in every direction on every part of his body, the pull of a dimension he has long been anchored too - the pull of another form, identical to that he now inhabits but located so many infinities away. Johnny clenches his daggers tightly as his body begins to scream. Not so much vocaly as physicly. He does indeed feel the pull accross the great expanse of realities and much like the feel of dying and being revived the maniac struggles to fight it. "NO! NO!!!! FUCK NO!!!! YOU GOD FORSAKEN BITCH!!!!" Summoning every ounce of energy within him he unleashes EVERYTHING he has at the form of Cassandra through his daggers, it may not kill her, but if he's gonna go, he's gonna try to take her with him... His mind races with the energies that pour from him, every sad thought, every disapointment, every rejection.... his joys, his displeasure, and the horrors his mind created for him in the world he recently inhabited... the deaths of hundreds of people all created and destoyed on his whim. Almost more energy than he tried to use against Seraph upon their first encounter, only now directed at someone who -can't- absorb it... but as his conciousness is stolen from him by the pull of energies, he blacks out before seeing if his counter strike has any effect... Dragoness Carla leaps back from everything, her wings snapping into the air, "TRINUNE!" Is all she can scream out, hoping that the blade will listen to her and not crush the woman's neck! o O ( What is wrong with this city? Why is everything so...so cursed?! ) She thinks to herself, there really hasn't been much good coming out of this city, not at all. Trinune, who is quite easy to pick up telepathic communication if she wants too, listens to the woman's words. She stops the slow tightening of her grip around Cassandra's throat, deciding to believe what Cassandra says to her. No one's really lied to her blatantly before, so she just doesn't even think someone would be lieing to her anyway. At the explosion of power from Johnny, her hand snaps to the side, the one gripping Cassandra that is, attempting to simply lunge her up and off to the side, away from the explosion. She'll go ahead and take the pieces of the attack that's left, her clothing tearing and ripping in some areas and turning to look at Johnny, but before anything else can happen he's ripped into hundreds of pieces and sucked into another dimension. "Oh." She says, yes, she'll catch Cassandra before she plummets to her death if the goddess can't right herself in time from being hurled through the air by her neck, well, if she is hurled anyway. Cassandra's shimmering gaze finds Johnny now as his soul crumples under the assault of her spell... as she lets her eyes close, preparing for the death Trinune is intent on dealing she breathes a silent farewell to the girl she knows will now go with the maniac, to seek her own second body upon the compatible dimension located by the goddess. Even as she feels the flood of Johnny's final attack surface and soar towards her she knows it's already too late, knows the death of this form has come. She also knows.. for this mistake, and all the others, her life as an immortal is over. She's almost thankful that once again she can experience death as those she presides over know it, and then.. the wrenching pain comes, the final blissful cracking of her neck and-her eyes snap open. Her slender form suddenly seems to contain the constitution it would appear to contain, and not that one would judge from the terrible wounds she has taken and shrugged off this day. Her body flies through the air like a stricken ragdoll, trailing shining droplets as tears scatter off her cheeks. She goes into a freefall earthward... making no effort to right herself, not having the will to. Her light continues of its own accord to thunder in around the maniac's form, enveloping his cursed body and then imploding, folding in upon itself. When the light fades with a thunderous boom and a blinding flash, there will be nothing left within the maniac's body. It will be a soulless wreck, just a vessel. But it will remain, the one thing of this dimension allowed to remain as the soul is relocated, flying forth screaming to a new identical body that lies in wait in a distant country known as Whitecliffs... in a home a mockery of the one the boy knew in one of his many lives thus far. Dragoness Carla hovers in the air, watching Cassandra go flying, Johnny erupting, and Trinune, okay, Trinune's being her normal insane stuff. "No! Dang it!" She growls at all of this, it's all so insane! This city is so much worse than Neo Tokyo! She doesn't know what to do, she is about to go catch Cassandra, since people dieing isn't on her high list of good times, but Trinune teleports instead, fadeing out of sight and reappearing below the deadweight woman, catching her in her arms if possible. Moments later, an explosion of green magic erupts around the area in a gigantic green sphere, encompassing the entire island for a moment, granted, it won't bring anyone back from the dead, but everyone within the radius is going to feel like new, except Johnny, who's you know, dead and all, but, as you may have noticed Trinune only cares about a select few, and Johnny isn't on the list or anything. Cassandra gives the softest of grunts as she falls into Trinune's arms. The swordgirl might be astute enough to notice the goddess' weight comes to within a fraction of a pound to Samantha's... her hair falling in a tangled swathe around her in a way also reminiscent of the dead nekogirl. The blonde-haired goddess shifts a little, staring through dulled eyes up at Trinune, and murmurs some incoherent phrases before she falls from consciousness, the healing magic washing over her but finding no wounds left to heal... her own holy energies have already dealt with the rigours of the battle. Trinune stays floating there after the healing spell is done. She waits all of two seconds before a white orb forms into existence, about the size of a thumb, above Cassandra's forehead, then darts down to try and go through into her head, the opposite of a sleep spell, it's a wake spell, designed to make those asleep wake up, wether they want to come to conciousness or not, "Wake up." She orders, more or less. Carla meanwhile, lands down on the roof, looking over at Trinune and Cassandra, she doesn't say anything though, why? Because, Trinune is insane, and she likes to stay alive, even if she's pretty sure Trinune wouldn't do anything to her, or well, wouldn't kill her...well, best to just leave her alone for now. | |