Mate Kata

[Viola]

Follows off this post from the last thread and covers the fight so far from Viola's POV.

Weak fingers flicked against the alien white-clad hand closed around her neck, futilely trying to pry it away. Woozy blood loss, black patches filled her vision like pixels dying across a screen as the limited blood she had left struggled to reach her brain. The small beams of light that made it through were heavily distorted, yet oddly colourful, as the irregular droplets of tears bent and refracted them, making her sights shake and wobble. Was It speaking to her? She couldn't tell.

Viola didn't scream. Or even try to, although she doubted she could. Was she even breathing? A strange clarity swept through her mind, all burdens lifted from her shoulders. There was nothing she could do - why worry about it? Yet, as old as she was, there was so much she wanted to do. Here and back home, although she wasn't fussed about the latter providing she could regain her former strength. Had she been able to, she'd have cocked her head and stared straight into the clown's eyes. What was she to It? Food, or sport? She was hardly large enough to constitute a meal, and she'd certainly done a number on It. She gathered that It'd probably be dead by now if It had bloodloss to worry about.

Trust. Trust wasn't going to get her anywhere in this harsh world. That much was clear. And why would it? Reputation and respect were earned, friends were temporary until proven otherwise. Yet, as much as that had been her philosophy at many points in time, people always surprised her. Some were earnest, nice, selfish. A beautiful flower in a wild forest, standing out from a field of bluebells and orchids and thistles and weeds. Even roses had thorns. In short, people were complicated. People. Things. Sentient whatchamacallits. It. 

And hindsight was killer. Obviously now she was thinking about how everything would have gone perfectly had she never been injured. Or at least never shook Its hand. She fought well, but it was a loss from the start. 

It was odd. Soothing even. How long had the clown been strangling her? Minutes? Hours?

She wasn't breathing.

Oh.

A simple thought sprung from a very simple oversight.

Time had stopped. Or, at least, it was moving very, very, slowly.

Her own little eternity. Just before her demise. No pain. No vision. No senses. Just her and her mind.

What was the point? Even if she did turn her brain into a computer and try to mentally solve all the worlds problems, no one would ever know. If anything, she was a little too peaceful about all this. She didn't want to die! She was just powerless to stop the progression of events. This should be frustrating, terrifying. Like a little girl tossed in the dark.

She didn't want to go down with grace. She wanted to go down kicking and screaming, despite her magic not heeding her call. 

But Pennywise was so exposed. It would be so easy to make a sword appear right behind It and sever Its already wounded head.

...if she wasn't dying.

She couldn't see herself dead though. Normally she had an uncanny sense for those things. Little snippets of information from later in the timestream. Interesting.

Rambling.

Heh.

A habit of hers. 

Nothing would save her but herself. And, if she couldn't do that, it was time to move on. She wasn't sure how 'interesting' she was, but Omni had mentioned something about not fearing death.

She was scared.

Joking. Making a mockery of it. All distractions from her impending doom. As slow as she was verbally, her thoughts could jump a lot of hurdles very quickly even when not assisted by her manipulation of time.

It was time. Time. Time to...

...no.

She could stay like this forever. Unmoving. Trapped inside her own prison - but also keeping everyone else out. Immortal, yet alone. Just like always...

...well, almost always. A few token people caught her attention. All dead now though, as she'd waited for the next to inevitably push his or her way through her shell despite how much she'd refused to ever let anyone get that close ever again. Not to the point where their death would truly affect her.

Mauled by a monstrous clown. While it had already happened three - maybe four - times in the fight, this one felt a little more permanent. No redos. No take-backsies. This wasn't how she wanted to go, but from the looks of things, she didn't have a choice.

I don't want to.

It was almost indignant. Like a child refusing vegetables. 

Long and drawn out, but no one but her would even know. Yet, eventually, Viola finally found her magic relaxing.

A wave of sensations ran through her body once again. The pain, the pressure on her neck, the woozy spinning specs of her blurry vision. Almost immediately, she began thrashing with renewed vigour - or would have if her body would actually move. A moment later, a faint crackle met her ears and she actually felt the pressure release.

Untrusting, expecting it to simply be toying with her, Viola nonetheless tried to flail away, coughing and spluttering as air flowed through her burning throat. Unable to massage it, her only good hand cradled her stump as her single shoe went tippedy-tap against the Nexus floor while her other tights-covered leg skidded over the smooth ground, providing little traction.

So much blood.

But she was still alive... why? What? How? Where did It go?

Of course, she knew the answer to that last question, It was in front of her. But... why was It not closer?

Trying to seize the opportunity, a flood of mana ran through her near-empty veins, sending spasms down her spine. She coughed, hacking out a few specs of blood while the tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

Still hopeless.

A faint skidding noise woke her from her daze. Like the bristles of a paintbrush running over a canvass, although much smoother yet heavier at the same time. Turning her head towards the sound her heart missed a beat. People. Things. Maybe they could-

"H-help."

Pathetically, her dull, quiet, voice croaked out before she could even consider what to say. A loud crack rang out, causing both her to flinch and the clown to recoil further away. There were two of them, the woman and the ice-thing. Ice-golem, maybe.

Whatever their motives, Viola allowed them to take Its attention as the ice-person swiftly moved between them. With fuzzy vision, she could see little of any actual fight. Even the voices sounded distant to her ears. But, while it took time, she did manage to pry herself to her feet.

Sluggishly, Viola scrambled away, yelping and almost falling back off her feet. A fraction of a second later, a bolt of fire cracked into the ground beside her, leaving a trailing scorch of black embers as it broke up form the impact, skidding. Viola flinched again, this time from the actual attack rather than just her foresight, although neither hit. 

Pennywise would die to them both, she hoped, but at this rate, she'd be dead by then too, bleeding out on the ground. If anything, she was surprised to still be alive given how much blood she'd lost. She needed to get out of here. To somewhere safe. One of the gates on the horizon maybe - that was probably where the two monster hunters came from.

Before Viola could even think of acting on that choice, a wave of frost and snow filled her limited vision. She shivered, hugging her arm even more tightly. Dizzy, her head span. Where even was their fight? As much as it would have hidden her escape - if she couldn't see them they couldn't see her - travelling the wrong direction would just get her kill-

"Ooof."

Something small slammed into her legs. Gentle, but it still knocked her off balance and pushed the shaky air from her lungs. Strange limbs wrapped around her, swiftly hoisting her up and carrying her away at impossible speeds while resting her on something hard and sleek. Almost like a strange plastic, but it also felt a little bit hairy. With no energy to resist, Viola slumped. Anywhere was better than here.

Hopefully, whatever this thing was, it meant well.

I'm going to head off over to this thread with Kumoko. Viola has been 'saved' by the spider during Kopaka's snow storm thing. This was fun guys, but I'm out. Unless someone wants to chase me and the super speedy spider.