Hocus Pocus (open challenge)

[Surpanakha]

(OOC: I didn't realize I was THAT unpopular. ^^; Somebody, reply!! .. pwease?)

A high-pitched cackle echoed in the cold night air. It had a feminine timbre, but was oddly sonorous. The woman whose throat from which this unearthly cacophony was voiced ambled slowly down the carelessly etched, gravelly trail, chortling away to herself as her feet dragged along the ground.

Not that it seemed possible for her to manage a walk with greater speed: her back was stooped forward unnaturally. She now strained her neck upward to see, though for the casual observer, it was best if she kept her glance directed away.

She had the most perfidious appearance - her face was ossified, and the withering skin of her cheeks had creased into distinct wrinkles. Her eyes were swollen, their glistening whites taking on a sick red hue. Her nose was long, hooked, and positioned awkwardly; her mouth thin and crooked into a heinous smile. Dirty gray locks swept down her back in a tangled mess.

A low rumble sounded from her stomach. Her pace slowed, then ceased. "Surpanakha grows hungry again."

She heaved a sack from over her shoulder, and the creature clinging to it abruptly hopped down. Livyatan scampered into a nearby bush and returned promptly, a small rodent clamped between his jaws.

"You too, eh?" Suri sat cross-legged beside the path. Chuckling, she turned her attention to the rattling contents of the bag she had been carrying. They had come across a quaint little village on their way whose residents had provided just what she needed, but their generosity was beginning to abate. Still, what was left could make for a small gift for her Queen.

Sticking out his tongue in reply, Suri's companion once again clambered onto her back, noisily devouring its catch.

[Sanis Prent]

(I could make out her stooped form, about three quarters of a mile away. The liquid crystal rangefinder scope picked her out of a thicket on a village trail, hobbling toward the town. She looked as if a stiff breeze would knock her flat. I scratched the back of my head. Why an entire village would pay for her to be taken out was beyond me...but I was never one to ask questions. One last equipment check, and I returned my shell gun to its loop holster, and adjusted my spacer's jacket over it. With that done, I removed the rangefinder from behind my ear, tucking it into my pocket...and began to walk down the road.)

[Surpanakha]

Livyatan's ears perked and he stared in the direction from which the winds blew. There was a new scent in the air. He licked his bloody hands, then tugged at Suri's hair.

Prey.

Sorsha would be pleased with the demon's last hunt; but then again, farmer types were almost too easy to subdue, what with their silly little superstitions and all. Not that their myths were far off from the truth.

Surpanakha, conversely, paid no mind to this new presence and instead overturned the sack. An assortment of what appeared to be human bones clattered to the ground.

Squinting, Suri raised one into the glare of the moonlight and slowly turned it, examining it from different angles before placing it back atop the pile and picking another one. This carried on for some minutes until, satisfied, she extended a black talon and began scratching the surface of the chosen bone.

[Sanis Prent]

(Reaching the base of a slight ridge, I found cover in a low thicket. Reaching in my right pocket, I removed my Duronian handblaster...a devastatingly hard-hitting weapon with five shots. Tapping a button on the side, the elegant gun's normally snub barrel began to elongate to nearly two feet in length. Steadying the barrel in the crook of my bent right arm, I drew a bead down the road, toward the old woman, who was stooped over something on the ground. There was no glory in this. There was no honor. Then again, I'd never been so choosy.)

KRRTOW!!!

[Surpanakha]

"AAAAAIIIIIII!!!!!!!"

With a piercing screech, Suri leapt into the nearest tree by the trail behind her, her companion darting into the dense undergrowth. She had heard the blast being fired, smelt the scorching of the air it penetrated. Nothing that fast or that powerful existed in nature.

What magyck was this??

Her eyes bulging in their sockets, she glanced down at the spot where she had been only a second ago. The immediate area had been incinerated, as had the collection of bones. Her precious, precious bones...

The grin on her face rapidly warped into a snarl: her Queen would be very disgruntled at this loss. There remained one, the same that she had started work on, settled in the topsoil at the base of the tree. Suri had dropped it in her frenzy.

Twisting her body around so that she faced the tree roots, she quickly scaled down the length of the trunk and reached for the bone, eyes narrowing as she looked ahead.

There was movement, but not enough to make any valid deduction. Clutching at the bone, she unsheathed a throwing dagger from inside her gown and hurled it into the darkness, targeting the spot from whence this strange incantation was performed. That done, Suri hurriedly scrambled back up to the higher branches of the tree.

[Sanis Prent]

(The dagger hit perilously close to me, its hilt wobbling like a tuning fork as its blade half buried itself in a nearby tree stump. It showed a deceptive strength and skill from the old lady that suprised me. Now, my dirty deed didn't seem so bad, in retrospect. In the fray, she had fled into the nearby thicket. I tapped on my microdeflector generator, and as it powered on, I unhinged the breach of my shell gun, sliding in a yellow shell and a green shell. With that done, I waited for movement.)

[Surpanakha]

Panting, Livyatan lowered himself on his haunches, his thin arms hanging limply by his side. The dumb creature's wide mouth clamped shut. Where was Surpanakha? In the tumult, he panicked and fled, and it was only now he realized that he had wandered too far from their resting place.

If he was capable of expressing himself vocally, the demon companion would have whimpered and wept pitifully. He was lost. But wait - what was that glinting over there, by the bushes?

All other thoughts rapidly escaping from his mind, Livyatan bound over to where the object lay. It was his master's blade, and it was embedded in a tree stump. Hopping up next to it, he firmly pushed his feet against the wood and tugged at the hilt of the dagger. His gaunt, frail hands slipped from the effort, and he tumbled back.

Livyatan blinked. From where he had fallen, he could clearly make out the form of a human, crouched next to the stump. He was obviously in deep concentration, but what interested Liv most was the instrument he carried in his arms.

Pulling himself to his feet, Livyatan extended a long, slender finger to touch the device.

[Sanis Prent]

(I didn't know if it was a companion or a pet. Either way, I didn't like the look of it. With a quick swivel, I levelled off my weapon at it, squeezing off the shot in the right barrel. The tensaweb spread out from the evaporated shell casing upon firing, enveloping the creature and knocking it back considerably as it buried its durasteel pitons into the ground, immobilizing it. Suspecting a distraction, I whirled around again, scrutinizing the area of thicket the old woman last darted into.)

[Surpanakha]

Whether or not he had intended to - and in light of the creature's attention span, it was undoubtedly the latter - Livyatan had provided the demon with just enough time to narrow the distance between herself and the source of magyck. Of all things above ground, Suri found trees easiest to navigate: travel by foot was too protractive and exhausting. And, fortunately, this rural district had woods aplenty.

Hopping adroitly from the branch of one tree to that of another, Surpanakha came to a halt. The diversion had lasted long enough, and now the warlock was again concentrating on tracking her down.

Suri peered into the darkness again, tilting her head sideways. Warlock? This human's garbs were of the most peculiar fashion. But what else could he be? Ordinary humans lacked the spiritual capacity to conduct such power without extensive teachings in some magyck or other.

Not that it made any difference. He had destroyed her bones, and that was warrant enough for striking back.

She leaped off the branch she had settled on, her bare feet kicking against it with added force. This caused the leaves to rustle blatantly - hopefully that would somewhat attract his attenton, if only to allow her to land silently, concealed within the foliage of a tree directly behind the human.

Breaking off a particularly hefty-looking branch, the demon jumped down from the tree, aiming the makeshift club at the human's head.

[Sanis Prent]

(Seeing movement in the trees, I snapped up my weapon, unloading a shell into the woods, which burst in a spray of pressurized incindiary jelly, bathing the area in searing fire. But the attack came a few seconds later, as the woman somehow managed to get the drop on me, coming down hard with a large wooden stick. The high velocity of her swing met the interference of my microdeflector, but the force of the impact sent me sprawling a few meters. I came up to my feet, dual blasters in hand, and unloading shots at a breakneck pace)

[Surpanakha]

Hot. That was the first thought that occurred to Suri as her feet touched ground. Hothothothothothothothot...

"FRELL YOU!!!"

The earth was scorched, and the human landed a few meters away. She had escaped the attack, true, but the demon's heightened senses couldn't distinguish much of a difference whether it struck her or not.

As the man clambered to his feet she caught sight of him extracting from his garments some sort of polished metallic object, one in each hand. After the preceding charade, Surpanakha needed no further warning concerning the fatality factor of this wizard's strange magick and the medium through which it was conducted.

Just as his finger pressed down on the trigger of the weapon, a wall of fire wrapped around Suri's hunched form. The shots that followed were absorbed by the blaze.

The blasts continued as the human seemingly aimed randomly into the space immediately before him; but now, two crimson eyes peered down at Sanis, nestled in a body of pure flame as the fire breathed with life.

((OOC: Grah, sorry about that buddy. :x I'm blind. If it still sounds weird, just let me know. :)))