damned_institute | Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

Shutting up and running was probably a good course of action. Unfortunately, the hair currently continuing to wind itself around the both of them had other ideas. Inasmuch as a spirit of vengeance had anything resembling an idea -- the hair already on Junpei's arm continued to wind around him, seeming to lengthen as it did. Although Evangeline was able to slice through the estrands around her ankles, they simply continued to spread up her legs like a grotesquely fast-growing plant, twining together around her knees instead.

In fact, there was so much hair on Evangeline by now that she seemed about to disappear into the mass, strands apparently multiplying at an increasingly rapid rate and wrapping around as much of her body as possible.

And then Junpei reached a hand into Evangeline's hair.

And a hand reached out in return, grabbing his. A hand that seemed, like the hair, to have originated from Evangeline's head: a hand that was a pale blue-grey, the colour of the long-dead, but wrapped almost delicate fingers around Junpei's with crushing strength.

Anything Evangeline had been saying past the shut up and run never registered. As soon as that cold, clammy, dead, creepily-strong hand that came out of Evangeline's head grabbed his, Junpei freaked out.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The hand wasn't letting go, the hair kept trying to consume his arm, so Junpei did what any sixteen year old human male would do. He ran.

Bolting down the hallway toward the center as fast as his youthful feet could take him, the teen effectively dragged Evangeline by her hair as a good bit of it had been in his hand when the otherworldy one grabbed his in a death hold.

Ohshitohshitohshitohshitgottagetawaygottarunfuckthisnononolemmego!

A few seconds ago she would have been shouting at, or more likely tripping up or otherwise assaulting Junpei for dragging her along like this. But the steady profusion of the hair, far faster than she could cut it away, had focused her mind with a marvelous suddenness on the issue of what, exactly, was going to happen when it reached the critical mass necessary to completely engulf her and how she was going to stop that from happening.

Moving away was one possible solution, so Junpei was spared her attentions. A few bumps here and there, the pain of being pulled by her hair... nothing, really. An insult to dignity, but that was what she had just stopped caring about as the issue of survival took its all-encompassing hold. Magia Erebea and the Taiindou, discorportation... the powers that had best ensured her survival for so long were barred to her. There was nothing she could do but attack the manifestation of the curse that had taken hold of her, the hair itself, and her knife had already proved inadequate to the task.

Instead she fought against the fatigue that had come with her regeneration attempt to evoke her simplest magic, the arrows of ice, and channeled the intense cold into the black strands. At least as a puppeteer she had plenty of experience in this sort of application...

If cutting didn't work, perhaps freezing the hair solid would impede its progress.

Junpei's rapid retreat was doing something the spirit didn't want: it was dragging both him and Evangeline away, towards an area beyond the spirit's influence. Beyond the realm of her hatred, where there would be no way to satisfy the need to kill, the need to wreak vengeance on the living -- to make them hurt and fear as she had. For that she needed them to be where her blood and her curse had sunk into the very air, and as the boy ran they were leaving it.

No, the spirit did not want that at all -- the hand grasping Junpei's abruptly vanished as if it had never existed, and the hair began to multiply furiously, wrapping in long thick skeins around Evangeline even more rapidly than before.

Until the ice struck. For a moment the strands that were trying to capture Evangeline were frozen, brittle enough to be broken as if it were real hair, and then suddenly, all of it vanished. Just like the hand, as if it had never been there, leaving Evangeline and Junpei free to run. For all of a second: in the next, hair exploded downward from the ceiling, a writhing, sinuous mass dwarfing what had been on Evangeline.

And in the centre of the mass was the head and shoulders of a woman, but a woman long dead, flesh blue-tinted grey and mouth opening to a rotted black interior, eyes rolled back in her head. Certainly dead, but from the masses of hair that built the twisting shape of her body rose hands, reaching out to grasp anything that came into contact with her -- hair, skin, clothes -- as she lunged towards the patients with a speed that was almost graceful.

Junpei did not stop when the hand released his, though it did make him jerk harder on Evangeline's hair when the level of resistance changed. The next thing he knew, his hand was really, really, really cold and ice coated it just like a bufu spell. Man, was he glad he wasn't weak to ice. Akihiko would have been screwed.

He looked back to see the mass of hair vanish and then the Great Big Hairy Monster dropped out of the ceiling. Whatever had come up with the Hair Blob from Hell was getting some major props assuming Junpei managed to survive it. And Evangeline didn't kill him herself afterward for having such a freak-out.

And then he saw it - the dead face, the shoulders, the hands. Suddenly, the thing was no longer an Undefined Fucked-up Object with a hair fetish. To Junpei, the manifestation put a form to the terror he'd been experiencing. It gave him something he could relate to. This thing was now just another big-ass Shadow during the Dark Hour on a full moon night.

Tower Arcana. He'd dealt with one before and he'd do it again. He'd stared down those thirteen major Shadows and lived to tell. He'd taken their shit and tossed it right back at them with the righteousness of One Big Damn Hero. So, he'd just have to teach this drain clog what it was like to mess with Junpei Iori.

With a surge of courage and determination that only Big Damn Heroes possessed, Junpei stopped in his tracks. In the moment with that thing horribly close and Junpei swallowing his fear, he forgot Evangeline was some kind of demon and instead just a young girl about to get eaten by the Big Bad. With all his strength (which was far more considerable than his lanky form indicated) and the momentum he'd accidentally put into her, he practically threw Evangeline down the hall away from the evil hair menace.

Once he let go of the girl, Junpei pivoted back as he pulled the evoker out of the front of his pants and stared the creature right in the eyes as it descended upon him. In a practiced motion, he put the evoker, looking like nothing more than a common handgun, to his temple.

"Burninate, you bitch," he said and pulled the trigger.

The sound of a high-caliber gunshot filled the hallway as Junpei appeared to shoot himself in the head. Instead of blood and brains splattering the wall, silver fragments came from the teen's head briefly before his Persona, Trismegistus (http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x189/atm1986/Trismegistus.png) formed in the hallway directly before him. The large bird-like being's head nearly touched the ceiling as it hovered off the ground. With a sweeping motion of the golden wings, intense fire engulfed the dead woman's main body as Junpei cast Agilao.

Burn, baby, burn.

Evangeline was tired, almost too tired to be mad when Junpei jerked her hair painfully. But it looked like she'd been successful, more than she'd hope; attacking the entire manifestation seemed to have canceled the curse entirely.

She was just beginning to work up some complaints for Junpei when the mass of hair reappeared, not on her again but above her, and diving. And, numbed by cold and the immense effort using her magic now required, she couldn't react in time...

But Junpei did for her, though she would never think of it in those exact terms, throwing her down the hall and out of harm's way... one harm, anyway; she only barely managed to avoid landing on her own knife.

...and then shot himself in the head. That part really did honestly surprise her. She was quick enough to realize that it was likely a ritual to call out the... thing that stood before him. Golem, demon...? No, something else. Magic of the soul...

Feh. He was still an idiot. The vampire worked her way into a sitting position. If he didn't win this, he was likely on his own; she would save the last of her magic to try to kill the thing at close range if it came after her.

Flame burst through the hall and caught on the hair descending from the ceiling, blazing up -- but without the distinctive scent that usually indicated burning hair. There was nothing but a clean burning smell, as if nothing more than wood were burning, even as the flames licked downward towards her shoulders, towards the uncomprehending stare on her face.

In this light there was something almost accusing in the expression, a furious hatred at anyone who entered her space and did not intimately know her pain, understand it to their very terrified marrow. It didn't seem as she felt the burn or was even deterred by it, even as ashes fell from the ceiling.

Still, her outstretched hand paused in front of the creature that had burned her before passing directly through it. The fire was dancing about her head now, lighting up her eyes in a way that almost approximated life. Still she continued, gaze fixed on Junpei in determined intent. Beneath the crackling of fire was the rattle of a long, extended dying breath, sounding without end.

With pale fingers, she reached out and touched his face -- almost a caress, a promise of vengeance -- and then vanished completely, as if she had never been there to begin with. Ashes fluttered to the ground, and the hall was silent.

Oh, Junpei understood pain - deep unrelenting, unyielding pain - that could shatter a person's psyche if they were not strong enough. It may not be the same thing, but perhaps it was close enough. Sometimes, Junpei wondered how he had even been strong enough to stay intact after his first intimate contact with death and the aftermath of that horrible November night.

So, it was with a steady gaze and heart that he stood his ground before the burning creature. Trismegistus had already started to fade when she extended her hand through the Persona, neither affected by the phasing, and Junpei held the evoker at the ready as ash fell about him and that hand came closer.

The touch on his cheek was cold, clammy and hella creepy as Junpei caught the intent behind it. Tower Arcana, he reminded himself as he suppressed the urge to shrink away from that touch. Before the phantom contact lasted long enough for his instincts to overtake his courage, the fire finished consuming the creature, so it seemed, as it vanished and ash settled on the ground.

That was when Junpei decided shuddering over the Shadow-ish thing's touch was okay. "Gggyuhh," he said as the shudder went down his back and he secured the evoker in the front waistband of his jeans. He took his hat off and brushed the ash off it before returning it to his head, only backwards this time.

Junpei turned away from the pile of ash, he decided someone else could sweep up (he didn't want any more little Tower Arcana bits clinging to him than he already did). Walking down the hallway in a somewhat hurried pace, he held his free hand out at a level where Evangeline could grasp it if she wanted help up in his passage to the center hall.

"Come on, babe. We are so not sticking around to see if that unholy drain clog is really gone or not," he said to the girl as his courage still held. He wasn't sure how much longer it would.

Evangeline, in what was probably a lucky turn for Junpei, managed to get to her feet on her own, though she looked a little wobbly. Needing his help after he'd already gone and done something that an unintelligent observer might construe as having saved her would no doubt have turned her massive ego against him.

"Hah," she half-laughed half-gasped. "Not bad."

Conspicuously, she didn't actually start walking just yet. Starting up her legs before she was sure they'd work didn't seem like a good idea.

Fine. Be that way, Junpei thought when Evangeline passed up his help. He was tempted to just leave her there and keep going now that he remembered she was some kind of demon and not a damsel in distress (despite her totally having been one for, like, a moment).

Stopping at Evangeline's shoulder, he gave a crooked smile. "Thanks. I'm not all talk," he replied while he waited for the demon-chick to decide she was ready to go. Hopefully, it would be soon because if that thing came back, Junpei was so going to throw Evangeline over his shoulder and book it.

"And incoherent screaming," Evangeline added helpfully. Technically she hadn't disagreed with him. Technically. After a few seconds of awkward stillness Evangeline took an experimental step forward, wobbled some more, and got on her way.

"So what's the artifact do?" she asked of the Evoker as they made their way down the hall. A little late to cover, but she'd take what she could get.

[[Heading down the hall into Main Hall, 2-Center. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/730364.html)]]

Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

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