Long Dark Drink-Time of the Soul [Hadyn x Quinn]

[Dark]

If Hadyn hadn’t been looking right at her, he would have missed it—as it were, he could barely keep his eyes from sliding away to focus on something less nausea-inducing. After several painful seconds of trying to focus on her—and failing—he crossed his eyes. It seemed to relieve some of the symptoms; though it was still unlikely that he would have seen her if he hadn’t been looking for her in the first place.

Concentrating on the fuzzy blob that was his opponent, he reached for the ability he’d chosen especially for the occasion. It was rather gruesome, and not something he opted to use on any sort of regular basis. Somehow, it fitted the circumstances.

He choose her limbs—forcing her to grow a second head would have been amusing, but he didn’t particularly feel like dealing with the fallout—and willed them to double in number, to make a pretty little set. They would flail, and twitch, and trip. And Hadyn would laugh.

A drunkard bumped into the wall—and Hadyn—causing him to stumble out from the shadows. The horrible clanking noise followed him, as did the consequences of using that particular ability--dizziness and fatigue. No matter. He’d accomplished what he wanted; the spell had been cast.

Amazing Ability:] He is now able to cause an opponent's body to mutate when he concentrates on them. He can either cause their limbs to double in amount, or cause them to grow a second head. Mutating their limbs is easier for him and he will feel weakened and slightly dizzy, most likely unable to injure them further, but will be capable of tying them up or inflicting minor wounds. The extra limbs that the opponent grows will not respond to their brains and will flail about on their own, causing them to stumble and fall or practically do battle with their own entangled limbs.
Getting them to grow a second head takes all of his concentration, if anything distracts him, being injured or touched, he will lose the ability to perform the spell that day. However, if he succeeds, a second head, just like their own will sprout from their shoulders and take over half of their body. It will remain on them for a full hour, impeding their progress and trying at all costs to stop them from hurting Haydn, though it will not hurt them badly, just impede them. It will also shout insults and do its best to embarrass the actual opponent. After he succeeds at this attack he will be very weak and tired, twenty minutes after setting this in motion he will have to sleep!
The limbs will last on the opponent for an hour as well before vanishing.
He can perform this spell once per month and though it will exhaust him, most opponents will be terrified of the effects.

[Shinigami]

Quinn twitched as she felt the foreign magic working its way with her. Not only that, but magic that was changing her, warping her body when she was so used to being the only thing that could alter herself. Well, her self, because there were other Jokers out their that could change shapes too. But what the hell was happening?

And then...a wrench and a twist and she tripped and ended up on the floor, startled and staring at four arms and four legs and a pair of tails, all of which looked like hers, aside from the fact that she'd had only half the number when she woke up this morning. The new set of limbs were twitching spasmodically and thrashing about, apparently bound and determined to get in her way.

She started giggling.

This was awesome! She was twitching, and it wasn't like she could change this way on her own, because she was limited only to the shapes of other, actual Cards. And as far as she knew, there weren't any existing Tulgey/Torquehelm mixed otters with bells on that happened to have double the usual number of limbs. Well, aside from her right now, anyway.

With each twitch and thrash, her bells rang out again. Her preoccupation with the whole highly-amusing situation was enough, however, that she remained completely and uttely oblivious to the clanking crash as the mixed-breed managed to fall out of wherever he was. It might not have been exactly what he intended to happen, but at least the spell had managed to thoroughly distract the blurry - and now very giggly - otter.

[Dark]

The response was not the one he had been hoping to achieve, and Hadyn felt his blood pressure spike as she twitched and trashed, giggling the entire time. And those damnable bells; the headache that had been threatening clawed its way to the surface.

Dealing with crazies was like tossing a wild card into the mix; add crazy into any equation and it would turn out different every time, none of which would have been expected or predicted. Hadyn hadn’t thought that far ahead.

He growled, angry at himself for always walking into things so blind, and angrier still at her for turning a bad day worse. Rage simmered under the surface of his skin, making him itch.

Angrily, he reached for a shot glass left abandoned on a nearby table—he pushed, flooding it with explosive energy—and hurled it at the nauseating mass of out-of-focus, twitching limbs that was his opponent. It wasn’t the best toss—animal form was rather restrictive, especially when it came to holding and throwing objects—but there was enough force behind it to suffice. He hoped it hurt.

Kinetic Ability:] Once a week, he is capable of pushing a thick charge of mental and kinetic energy into small objects not living, the size of his palm or smaller. These objects can then be hurled, jammed places, or attached to weapons and slung at people. The objects will explode when they are met with force with enough power to knock Cards ranked 10 and under off their feet and cause rather nasty bleeding gashes. Also enough to cause Queens to Jacks to either be pushed backward and to have any and all experience their ears ringing for at least thirty seconds.
If jammed and left somewhere, they will act as a live grenade the instant his hand leaves them. There will then be a thirty second pause before the object explodes of its own volition. He can charge up to three objects per week, either separate or all together.

[Shinigami]

She twitched a bit and flopped, still highly entertained by this new change to her body. How long would it last? This would be awesome to show off to other people!

Of course, her thoughts were pulled back to the current situation sharply and abruptly by a shove of force that pushed her back along the floor several feet, all eight limbs skidding, and left her head ringing. She felt mildly woozy, but shook it off, though she couldn't yet shake off the ringing, because ow. That had been large. What had hit her?

Glancing around, she caught sight of a shattered glass of some sort lying on the ground near her, and eyed the spill of broken glass, looking in the direction it had to have come from. The fire-colored thing. She staggered back to her feet - a task made difficult by the thrashing limbs and the fact that she stepped on a few pieces of glass, and then dropped down into her own Animal form in hopes that it would help with the balance thing. It didn't, not really.

Fuck that.

Her body changed, the white vanishing under a sweep of sand-colored fur, orange-red stripes coming into being as the multi-limbed Tulgey-Torque Otter vanished into the bulk and mass of a fully-grown, combat-ready Hisstor Tiger. It was a particularly intimidating Card she'd seen once, and the only reason she'd managed to get away was because none of the Cards in that particular tribe (clan? family?) had been Diamonds or otherwise able to fly. She'd beaten her falcon's wings for the sun as quickly as she could. On the other hand, his shape was particularly suitable for a battle like this - especially because it didn't come with extra limbs.

With a battle-cry, she leaped for her opponent, claws out and aiming to land fully on the bulk of his torso, her own not-inconsiderable weight following behind.

_{Joker's Ability: She can take on the form of any other card except for another Joker. Her eyes remain the same always, however, and if she stays in another's form for more than a day, she will automatically return to her own form.}

[Dark]

Hadyn felt panic skitter along his spine as he stumbled back. The bitch had changed her shape—and he wouldn’t believe it unless he’d seen her do it; he’d picked a fight with a fucking Joker. She had to be a Joker, because he didn’t know of anyone else that would be able to change their shape like that. Fuck fuck fuck.

Hadyn had managed to piss her off good and proper now, and he watched in morbid fascination as she traded one form for another. A tiger: bulky muscle, sharp teeth, and sharper claws. It was more a knee-jerk reaction than anything that had him reaching for another ability as she lunged; she was almost on top of him when it activated. Hadyn, still stumbling back, fell in a tangle of limbs.

Gravity went on holiday, twisted, and reversed. The ceiling was now the floor, and another ability—one that he couldn’t ever seem control—had mist billowing out and congealing along the ceiling, bitterly cold and cumbersome.

Hadyn kept his eyes towards the ceiling as he righted himself. That had been too close, and he struggled to control his erratic breathing.

Peep Power:] He now has the amazing ability to reverse the gravity of an area for one hour. This spell does not effect him and causes his opponent to be flung upside down in the air and suspended there. This spell only works when inside a closed area and will not work outside to fling an opponent in the far reaches of space <3
The opponent can still move about and fight, but they will lose their balance constantly and feel far heavier than they would on the ground, blood will also be quickly draining to their head and may cause some with lesser stamina to pass out.
The mist power that he possesses will also be activated instantly upon using this spell, even if he has already used it for the day, it will be activated again with no effort and will fill the room with dense, cold fog.
The fog will congeal along the ceiling and become thick and cold, the opponent will be able to to slog through it but will find it difficult.

[Shinigami]

Mid-leap and she could almost feel him beneath her claws, flesh squishing and bones crack and whoah, what, what, huh? The entire world tipped and wavered and twisted and then she was falling up, and she was sure she wasn't on any sort of hallucenogenics to cause that sort of shit! She hit the ceiling as if she was landing on her back, breath huffing out of her as she lay where she was for a few seconds and tried to figure out what in the merry-hey-ho was going on.

Then there was cold all around her, a thick slogging mist like in the depths of the Glacier, and she instinctively changed to match it, pale fur changing to dark as the red stripes turned blue. Obviously, there was a Solandrian tiger somewhere, because she had the shape now. Ebony eyes looked around, realized that the ceiling was now the floor but she was getting a bit of a bloodrush because hey, she was upside down.

Quinn twisted to try and get to her feet, claws automatically gripping the wood to hold her upright/onto the ceiling. Trippy. This whole thing was trippy. Looking "up," she saw the fire-thing on the floor-ceiling, and snarled loudly. She might be on the ceiling, surrounded by all this cold that was seeping through even the thick Solandrian coat, but she was still in a tiger's shape, and one of the things that tigers could do was jump.

Feeling more and more woozy by the second, she decided to ignore the higher thinking that was being affected, and just go for him as fast as she could. Quinn tucked her hindquarters under her and leapt straight "up," seeking not to maim, but mostly to just grab ahold of him and either bring him "down" with her, or else to hang off of him like the demented idiot she'd been accused of being at times.

[Dark]

Hadyn had really hoped for a few more minutes to collect himself—his head hurt, and it wasn’t helping the slightly woozy feeling he had going on, and he was tired—but he’d once again underestimated the tenacity of crazies, because she jumped. He wouldn’t have been overly concerned—if it were anyone else, he would have thought it a humorous, though pointless, attempt—but he was part feline himself, and he knew what ridiculous heights they could jump. The sheer muscle of her current form, not to mention the crazy, made it all too likely she would succeed in reaching him. And she did.

He sidestepped, but not fast enough, and one set of claws hooked into his shoulder—the shoulder without the guard, of course, of course, should have stepped the other way—and for one brief moment he felt himself being hauled up as gravity caught up with her again. Ever the tiny bit hysterical, he wondered what would happen since they had opposing gravities; would they reach the middle of the room and hover there, neither force wanting to give?

And then his flesh was tearing—he choked on a sob—torn near to the bone, and he fell, shoulder in ribbons.

[Shinigami]

She dug her claws in when she could, growling as only one paw caught hold, the other swinging wildly in mid-air. Then gravity - even if it was the magically-reversed gravity that was currently holding her to the ceiling - regained its hold on her and began pulling her "down" again. She tried to hold on to him as she fell, felt him start to come off the floor, and her ears went back in vindictive pleasure. Yes. Her victorious moment was cut short when flesh shredded under her claws, tearing and rending as she fell.

Her landing on the ceiling was a bit more graceful than her initial ascent to it, as she managed to stay on her feet this time. It was pobably helped by the fact that she was already oriented properly, and if she could think straight instead of her thoughts being consumed by the instinctive bloody death, kill, maul, she'd probably be grateful for that.

Instead she watched him fall, clanking filling the room, and knew that while he was down for now, he wasn't out. Any thought of other possible magics he might have were ignored, but she knew there was one that she had that would make this fight end quickly. And it wasn't like he'd be moving all that much, right?

Leaping again, as high as she could go, she lashed out with heavy paws. Not to grab this time, though. She activated her innate Joker ability to phase through flesh in order to hopefully send her claws seemlessly through his body, aiming to hook and tear his heart from his chest. A quick end, to finish him off so that she could return to what was Hers.

_{Joker's Ability: She can reach inside of a person without actually cutting them open, once per week. This can make her an uncanny healer...or a formidable opponent.}

[Dark]

The wound hurt a lot less than it should and while he would have liked to attribute the lack of pain to endorphins, he was fairly positive that he was going into shock. Hadyn struggled to regain his feet—grunting and snarling as his body worked against him—just in time to see her jump again. He wouldn’t let her get anywhere close this time.

The shoulder plate he’d found in the bazaar all those years ago came in rather handy in a tight spot, and he used it now to avoid the grasping claws. Even partially crippled, with the ability boosting his speed, he was more than fast enough to easily evade her. Hadyn had thirty seconds before the price of using the it caught up with him, and he planned on using those precious seconds wisely.

He paused for a moment, waiting for gravity to drag her back up towards the ceiling, but not quite—the building, though old, was well-built and had thick, sturdy beams to support what he knew to be a heavily arched exterior—and reached for the ability he wanted. The roof shuddered, almost indecisively, and then collapsed; it broke the pre-existing spell, but it didn’t particularly matter. The sudden reversal would send her plummeting, and the heavy beams and other debris would take care of the rest.

Hadyn used what was left of his speed-boost to clear the path of the rubble, and promptly collapsed, wheezing. Black spots swam at the corner of his vision, and he knew he has lost too much blood. He chuckled to himself, feeling fuzzy.

Shoulder Plate Ability:] Once placed on, every hour the owner is now able to for thirty seconds move three times as fast as they would normally be able to. After the thirty seconds pass though, they will feel horribly winded and have to either pause or feel as though their lungs are collapsing.

Jack's Ability:] Once a week, he is capable of causing one roof to fall in. The downside is that this only covers up to ten feet of roof and that it will not automatically avoid him, though he has advanced warning and can leap out of the way if he's fast enough.

[Shinigami]

Missed! Such a fast little thing, all squirmy and bloody and should have been under her paws and torn apart and why wasn’t he?! She should have his heart in her grasp now as he bled out upon the ground and died like he should have.

She gathered her legs under her for the landing, intending to leap up again as soon as she touched down, but that didn’t happen. The landing, that was. Which really didn’t help her mental situation, because first gravity turned around and she was on the ceiling, and now the ceiling was gone and gravity had reversed itself again, or turned the right way around, because she was falling up again.

This time, however, the ceiling was falling with her, which was a rather deadly prospect that she rather wanted to avoid, because it was bad.

Cognitive thinking wasn’t her strong point right then, but she knew that a small shape to try and dodge the debris would be a bad idea, because she’d just get crushed and squished, and no one wanted a squishy Joker. Except for the guy trying to kill her. He wanted her dead.

Instead of trying to dodge, she curled up tight and reached for her most protected shape – a heavily-armored beetle she’d met in the Selkie Lakes. She fell, feeling the rubble covering her and burying her and slamming against her armor-wings. Fortunately the pieces were all big and broad to distribute the weight instead of small and sharp and pointy, because that could have been even worse.

Once everything seemed to have settled, she tried to recover herself, feeling woozy both from the fall and the nearly-being-crushed, and most especially from the fact that all of the blood was going the proper way now, draining out of her head. But that meant that she could think again. She tried to shift, noting that the rubble was too heavy for her to move on her own. But the small spaces were an opportunity for her. She shifted again, this time to a little midget mouse with glass spikes on her tail that she’d seen once in the Court of Hearts, or maybe it was the Court of Clubs, or somewhere. The rubble creaked alarmingly around her in the space she’d freed, ready to fall in and fill the gap, and she dove for the largest of the holes as fast as she could, ignoring the rock and wood scraping against her and pressing the breath out of her at points as she tried to get out nowowowow. She was bruised and squished by the time she "escaped," tumbling onto the ground in a tiny heap of red and purple and blue.

_{Joker's Ability: She can take on the form of any other card except for another Joker. Her eyes remain the same always, however, and if she stays in another's form for more than a day, she will automatically return to her own form.}

[ooc: *waves to you from Denver International Airport*]