Sojourner, Pt 7

The Chimera's Telekinetic jaws clamp down further on your psionic energies, biting deep into your aura. Sharp pains stab your thoughts from every direction, which worsens by the second. You feel the Chimera's jaws thrash around in violent attempts to literally strip you of your powers.

You sense your energies get tugged and pulled toward her violently, though you physically can't seem to resist. Though you fight back as best you can, you can practically feel your body getting dragged closer to her, outside. You do your best to fumble your way onto your feet and stumble behind cover just to the side of the doorway.

Psionic energies seem to press you into the wall, and call at you from the doorway right next to you, beckoning you to continue moving forward, to stop resisting.

Still, you hold firm. Your heart drums heavily in your chest, soundly rejecting the notion of being devoured.

A hint of anger and a spike of frustration radiates from the Chimera, and you feel her pouring even more of her energies into her Devour. You then feel her violent tugging at your psionic energies with even more fervor. Each one comes with such sharp pains that they nearly smother your thundering heart.

But she has clearly reached her limit, and is unable to literally tear your energies away from you. At least, not while you're conscious and fighting back. Not while you're hanging on with everything you've got.

Well, not quite everything. You take a deep breath, then pull whatever you can towards you, centering yourself.

When you exhale, you Surge outward once again, this time with overwhelming amounts of determination and persistence, as much as you can muster. With Noir's help, your psionic energies swell and harden, pushing against the Chimera's Telekinetic jaws with ease.

You can practically feel her struggle to continue to clamp down on you, but that resolve weakens as a furious few seconds pass. The Chimera attempts one last violent gnashing and tearing and pulling, but gets no further than before.

In fact, she loses a bit of her grip, which causes her to shriek in irritation. A moment later, she withdraws her attack with a huff. She screams a long, discordant note at you right afterwards, as though to chide you for being unwilling prey.

It's accompanied by a deep sense of frustration.

"That's your problem, lady," you try to quip. But you're too lethargic and too dizzy to say it in any meaningful way. You just kind of mumble it out, along with a half-cocked laugh.

You don't think she even hears it, but whatever. You're proud of it.

A sharp pain shoots across your mind, reminding you to ease up on your powers. Which you do quickly.

You lessen your psionic defenses immediately, but then slowly refocus everything towards strengthening your physical body. Just in case she decides to switch things up and swat your head off instead, or something. You're not exactly in the best shape right now, and don't really wanna know what she'll do next.

The effects of her debilitating Burst take a couple more seconds to finally lift from you, taking the lethargy and weakness away. At the same time, your own Temperance fills you with energy, allowing you to stand back up on your feet. Albeit shakily at first.

Once you feel confident enough, you step out of the doorway and take in a huge lungful of air, taunting the Chimera and revitalizing yourself at the same time.

She shrieks at you one more time, then circles cautiously. A twinge of fear and agitation shoots through her, but they're soon enveloped by her overwhelming hunger. It seems like she's thinking of a new strategy, a new way to attack you, somehow.

Your Third Eye tells you that her splinters shift and move over and over, as though she's unsure how to approach next.

It strikes you that she's likely at her weakest right now, and could be incredibly vulnerable to attack. But you've no idea how - you've already tried your Surge, and that didn't quite finish the job. You could try it again, but you're certain she'll have safeguards in place.

You need to do something else, something new. And quickly, before she attacks again. Before you can attempt it, whatever it is, you sense a burst of raw Telekinetic energy erupt from Noir.

She pours a great amount of energy into her Temperance to shoot forward and slash her claws at the Chimera. At the same time, she puts the remainder into her Telekinesis, shaping them like huge versions of her claws.

You learned how to use TK! you cry out. How'd you do it so fast?!

Fight now, talk later!! Noir cries back in response.

You immediately do your due diligence and transfer as much of your own spare energies into her, through the Network. They work to reinforce her powers, make them more potent. You literally sense her Telekinetic claws harden and enlarge as a result.

And as her energies had woven into you when you attempted your Surge, your energies now weave into hers, as she attempts her two-pronged attack. Noir decisively rakes the Chimera with her physical claws as her Telekinetic ones slash at its psionic energies.

The Chimera's skin splits and breaks, as does her aura. Blood and energy spray out, causing her significant pain, enough for her to back away and scream in pain. Though you could say it's more of a wail than anything else.

She then shrieks aggressively, with all her focus on Noir, as though warning her not to attack again. You sense that her every synapse is on high alert. No doubt, Noir's TK claws are potent as all hell.

Noir takes little heed at the warning and slashes at the Chimera again, causing more gushing wounds to appear on both her forms. She screams again, causing a spike of fear and anger to wash over her. Both are soon drowned out by her hunger, but it has clearly weakened to some degree.

The both of you are chipping away at her, surely. But she's still much stronger than the both of you, and she could lash out with something that could end you. Neither of you know what else she's capable of, and neither of you probably don't want to know.

You've got to end this as fast as possible.

No, go for the Threads! you tell Noir. She can always refill her aura, but you can cut her down through her Threads!

I can't see Threads! Noir tells you. Just… show me where to attack.

You grit your teeth, unsure exactly how to accomplish that. You're certain that simply telling her something like 'a dozen centimeters above her' wouldn't be enough, especially since they're constantly in motion. No, what you need is a way to highlight the Threads, to make them visible somehow.

But how? If only you had a laser pointer… a psionic laser pointer.

Struck by an idea, you focus your Telepathic energies into a tight point in space. You make it sharp and loud and bright, like a multidimensional psionic 'hey!' You squeeze it into shape, until it's stable enough to maintain itself.

Then, you fling it at the Chimera's Thread, specifically at a stretch between two of its splinters. You clamp down once your Telepathic flare reaches the Thread, attaching it temporarily and creating a Telepathic beacon.

Can you sense that? you tell Noir.

The glowy dot that's moving around everywhere?

Yeah! Can you cut through it?

Noir doesn't reply, instead she focuses her psionic energies and pounces yet again to make another decisive attack. Although the Chimera evades with panicked haste and doesn't get slashed, it hardly matters. Noir pours most of her power into her Telekinetic claws, and slashes exactly where you're pointing.

You watch through your Third Eye as her razor-sharp claw slices neatly through the Chimera's Thread. The severed portion of the Thread turns gray and dead over the course of a few seconds, and the psychic splinter it is attached to begins to rise up and drift away.

The Chimera emits a shrill, pained scream, even as her own psionic energies fall by a noticeable fraction. She flails at the splinter both physically and metaphysically in a futile attempt to recapture the splinter itself.

You also see her Thread - the part where Noir had severed it - it too reaches up towards the slowly drifting splinter. It stretches as far as it can in an attempt to take hold of the severed portion of itself, but never quite manages with any attempt.

Soon, the splinter fades into nothingness, far beyond the Chimera's every reach.

She wails again, and you feel a sense of sadness fill her. It comes out in a soft wave that flows over you, filling you with some measure of guilt. After all, the both of you killed some cherished part of the Chimera.

Every part of her swells with that sadness as every single one of her splinters lament their loss. But that grief doesn't last. It turns and flips and twists in short order, transforming the grief into something equally primal and feral and raw.

A red darkness suddenly takes over its mind. It sweeps over the grief, swallowing it up whole. It also takes much of the endless hunger as it spreads outward, but never quite takes all of it. Still, it's more than enough - the Chimera becomes enraged.

Your eyes go wide and your heart thumps in your chest as she launches into a full-blown rampage. Her every power is now swelling with energy, fueled by her fury. She physically wrenches a gas pump from its housing even as pure Telekinetic energies slam down on the ground around her.

She literally pounds the concrete she's standing on with such ferocity that it cracks and craters with each impact. It's certainly strong enough to cause the ground to shake, even the one beneath your feet.

Alarm sweeps through you after a sliver of Foresight, and you duck down to the ground as fast as you can. A half of a second later, you feel a massive Telekinetic wave sweep across the storefront, right where you had been standing.

The earth seems to shake and shiver while the sky seems to fall above you. You protect the back of your head after you feel bits of glass and concrete rain down on you. It also comes with a terrible wrenching and breaking and crumbling sound that completely terrifies you.

Once it's all over, well most of it anyway, you quickly get back on your feet, ready to run or find cover or whatever. It doesn't matter - your heart is pounding and demanding action from you.

You then see the wrecked shop you were just standing next to. The Chimera had literally ripped a part of the roof right off and tossed it aside, into the trees close by.

Before, you wanted to use her anger to interrupt her hunger. But that plan certainly seems idiotic, now.

The Chimera herself is huffing from exertion, but is clearly far from her physical or metaphysical limit. Her blazing eyes spot Noir and immediately lashes out at her with everything she's got. She flings numerous Telekinetic waves at her and mercilessly pounds the ground under her feet, no matter where she runs or hides.

You pour as much as you can into Noir, to help boost her Temperance and get her out of the way faster.

Noir darts and dashes and dodges everywhere, always one step ahead of the Chimera's Telekinesis. Though she's able to stay ahead of it, the Chimera continues on relentlessly. Everywhere she runs to gets pounded flat moments later, and the entire service station starts to look more like a war zone.

Though the Chimera attacks wildly, you can sense a shard of determination cut into her rage. It quickly grows inside her, very nearly severing her anger in half. But instead of cutting too hard, it settles itself within. Because it doesn't hamper her, her senses sharpen drastically, allowing her to focus herself through her anger.

And right now, that's Noir.

The Chimera lashes out in an instant, faster than either of you can even think, much less react. She flings a raw Telekinetic wave at Noir and slams it right into her.

You can feel sheer overwhelming pain sweep across your body through the Network, as Noir takes the hit full-on. She's flung a half dozen meters away, to the other end of the service station itself, even as you stumble down to one knee.

You grip your chest, where the pain feels sharpest. Then you quickly tap into your Temperance, just enough to dull the pain.

Noir! you shout down the Network. Worry fills you, not knowing how hurt she is. Your anxiety lifts only slightly when you feel her thoughts pierce through the silence a long moment later.

Ugh, she groans. That really, seriously, truly hurts…

Lay still! Don't do anything in case anything's broken! you tell her.

Wasn't planning to.

Your thoughts are interrupted when the Chimera screams up into the air. You feel her sense of victory flow out of her in waves alongside it. They echo all around you, wrapping you with a chill.

The Chimera then slowly turns towards you. Though her rage has greatly subsided, it has allowed her hunger to once again take her over. But this time, she allows her rage to drive it, just as her determination drove her rage moments ago.

She takes a single step forward, then strikes.