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OP
OP
Ryees
Imperishable Fractal
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2014
- Location
- Central US
Consternation—however one would interpret that on this dementor's brain-like head—stuttered the creature where it stood, its many hands pausing as a strange and unknown spell evaporated its summoned glass birds into dust. Somewhere in its figure, unease set in, with that spell, and it had begun to cast a new one when Olivia's next spell had just completed.
It balked, then, as the ghostly elephant rumbled forward, tossing its head defensively in defense of its master. The winter-night camaraderie contained within its bellowing shouts had the dementor's arms clawing at its head, trying to drown out the sounds and stopstopstopstopstop that elephant from boring into its mind, all to no avail. But unlike the cloaked figures of the dementors at Azkaban, it did not flee. Its instincts did not stray to Flight, but to Fight.
With a million-voiced shriek like a chorus of tortured souls, it charged forward towards the onrushing titan of the savanna, and they met headlong. The elephant was not a dumb beast of the plains, at least not in this setting; its mind linked back to Olivia's, shared her knowledge an experience of the minutes leading up to this battle. So as the dementor's lanky arms reached overhead to aim for a spell at it, the phantom elephant shifted right in an entirely unnatural slide, made possible by the energy it drew from its caster. It skated left under the dementor's front arms, then jettisoned forward, piercing its tusks into the flesh of the nightmonster's middle-right arm.
Sherlin lost track of the other people in the classroom and leaned forward intently.
It was largely undocumented what happened to a dementor when a Patronus attacked it, for they unilaterally fled from the charm in the practical world and chose to live to dement another day. This simulated environment followed the natural rules of the world: What happened within would happen without.
The tusk rent the inky flesh of the dementor, but only for a moment. Like parchment in a bonfire, that flesh seared and rippled, disintegrating into ash at the barest touch. That disintegration started traveling, then, the arm of the dementor crumbling to dust and then traveling upwards until...
...one black arm grabbed the base of the damaged one, tearing it from its own body.
In the seconds it took for the arm to fully disintegrate, the dementor took its unraveling arm and swung it sharply downwards at the elephant like a hammer to a nail. Evaporating black met emanating white, and all involved were splashed into a cloud of gray-black mist. The creature thought itself clever, to have used its broken arm to attack its Patronus assailant, and in the moment it had seemed to work. But it was with horror that the beast realized its middle arm, protruding from its back, was also slowly unraveling at the fingertips. The taint of the Patronus had progressed up its broken arm, and jumped to its attached limb. And so too was its rear-end slowly falling to ash, as were the tips of its strangely human toes.
With its existence sealed, it turned its hatred back to Olivia. The brain-like tendrils that made up its head started to wriggle, then unravel. Like a demented flower opening to the sun, those veins pulled apart and lengthened, revealing underneath another startlingly human feature: A face, twisted and blackened, missing its eyes and teeth, that gaped its skull-like mouth and rent out the same deep, bestial howl the dementor had screamed before.
All arms and stumbling legs, it bounded forward, crossing the space in a tumble of failing, flailing limbs. Its body collapsed a few meters away from Olivia, but the tendrils that made up the petals of its black-flower head moved of their own accord. The ones that touched the ground crawled forward like snakes, while the topmost bands drifted downwards like anemone-spines. The shield at her front flashed here, flashed there, blasting some of those tentacles into fleshy pulp, but the defense was frontal while the assault was radial. A pair of tendrils snatched up Olivia by the ankles, and the moment that creature touched her, her connection to magic was Silenced. Two tendrils snaked up her legs, while others pawed at her arms, driving their way up her body and into the rips and tears of her clothing, finally finding her most sensitive—
Click.
Sherlin heard the mechanism trip, and nodded silently to himself. The cabinet doors burst open, and Olivia followed suit just as Helen before her as she was ejected from the cabinet up onto the tile in a heap. Once again, her clothing was tattered, more aggressively than Helen's was before her. Sherlin bent at one knee in front of her, shooting a glance like a gunshot to the frat boy brigade, who finally seemed to be getting with the program as they averted their eyes.
It balked, then, as the ghostly elephant rumbled forward, tossing its head defensively in defense of its master. The winter-night camaraderie contained within its bellowing shouts had the dementor's arms clawing at its head, trying to drown out the sounds and stopstopstopstopstop that elephant from boring into its mind, all to no avail. But unlike the cloaked figures of the dementors at Azkaban, it did not flee. Its instincts did not stray to Flight, but to Fight.
With a million-voiced shriek like a chorus of tortured souls, it charged forward towards the onrushing titan of the savanna, and they met headlong. The elephant was not a dumb beast of the plains, at least not in this setting; its mind linked back to Olivia's, shared her knowledge an experience of the minutes leading up to this battle. So as the dementor's lanky arms reached overhead to aim for a spell at it, the phantom elephant shifted right in an entirely unnatural slide, made possible by the energy it drew from its caster. It skated left under the dementor's front arms, then jettisoned forward, piercing its tusks into the flesh of the nightmonster's middle-right arm.
Sherlin lost track of the other people in the classroom and leaned forward intently.
It was largely undocumented what happened to a dementor when a Patronus attacked it, for they unilaterally fled from the charm in the practical world and chose to live to dement another day. This simulated environment followed the natural rules of the world: What happened within would happen without.
The tusk rent the inky flesh of the dementor, but only for a moment. Like parchment in a bonfire, that flesh seared and rippled, disintegrating into ash at the barest touch. That disintegration started traveling, then, the arm of the dementor crumbling to dust and then traveling upwards until...
...one black arm grabbed the base of the damaged one, tearing it from its own body.
In the seconds it took for the arm to fully disintegrate, the dementor took its unraveling arm and swung it sharply downwards at the elephant like a hammer to a nail. Evaporating black met emanating white, and all involved were splashed into a cloud of gray-black mist. The creature thought itself clever, to have used its broken arm to attack its Patronus assailant, and in the moment it had seemed to work. But it was with horror that the beast realized its middle arm, protruding from its back, was also slowly unraveling at the fingertips. The taint of the Patronus had progressed up its broken arm, and jumped to its attached limb. And so too was its rear-end slowly falling to ash, as were the tips of its strangely human toes.
With its existence sealed, it turned its hatred back to Olivia. The brain-like tendrils that made up its head started to wriggle, then unravel. Like a demented flower opening to the sun, those veins pulled apart and lengthened, revealing underneath another startlingly human feature: A face, twisted and blackened, missing its eyes and teeth, that gaped its skull-like mouth and rent out the same deep, bestial howl the dementor had screamed before.
All arms and stumbling legs, it bounded forward, crossing the space in a tumble of failing, flailing limbs. Its body collapsed a few meters away from Olivia, but the tendrils that made up the petals of its black-flower head moved of their own accord. The ones that touched the ground crawled forward like snakes, while the topmost bands drifted downwards like anemone-spines. The shield at her front flashed here, flashed there, blasting some of those tentacles into fleshy pulp, but the defense was frontal while the assault was radial. A pair of tendrils snatched up Olivia by the ankles, and the moment that creature touched her, her connection to magic was Silenced. Two tendrils snaked up her legs, while others pawed at her arms, driving their way up her body and into the rips and tears of her clothing, finally finding her most sensitive—
Click.
Sherlin heard the mechanism trip, and nodded silently to himself. The cabinet doors burst open, and Olivia followed suit just as Helen before her as she was ejected from the cabinet up onto the tile in a heap. Once again, her clothing was tattered, more aggressively than Helen's was before her. Sherlin bent at one knee in front of her, shooting a glance like a gunshot to the frat boy brigade, who finally seemed to be getting with the program as they averted their eyes.