The Siren's Call (Pinnacle & Siren) [Double XP]

Pinnacle nodded, speeding over to her at an impossibly fast pace, and then, using similar speed, circled her, fending of any attackers as he did so.

"Almost done? I can't keep up this pace forever, at least not in this world." He said, kicking some more of their assailants into crumpled masses as he spoke.

Siren didn't let her concentration waiver for a second, even though she did manage to catch wind of what the man was saying and cataloged it for later discussion. "I'm almost done! Just a little bit longer!!" She gnarled her teeth as she forced the earth to rise up into a sort of wall, blocking off the undeads' escape route.

"Ok, I'm done!" She whirled around in time to cut the head off a zombie with her blade arm before sending several more flying with a psychic push. "We need to find out how these guys are coming back and stop it! I'll cover you, and you try to find out!" With that, she grabbed two more soldiers and threw them back down the holes they crawled out of.

Outside the boundaries of the fields, a figure in a dark cloak could be seen reciting some sort of eldritch language from a black tome, and a circle lined with runes surrounding them...

Pinnacle began to walk briskly over towards the man, approaching him quickly, but nowhere near his top speed, choosing instead to approach him at roughly 3x regular human running speeds.

The occasional zombie did indeed rise up from the Earth beneath him to grip his legs but he walked on as if he were being gripped by beings of graphite that broke apart at the slightest application of force.

When he got within range, the bands of "cloth" at his side and those around his arms snapped forward, some constricting the man's mouth, arms, and body, and the others stealing the book from his hands.

Bringing the book to himself, Pinnacle flipped through the pages at blinding speeds, instantly absorbing the information within before holding it at his side, his arms still free. He placed a hand on the book and his hand glowed a florescent blue, causing the book to burst into intensely hot flames, reducing it quickly to little more than smoldering ash and cinders.

Pinnacle then flexed the cloth-like tendrils that held the cultist, lifting the man from the ground. "Sleep." He said, then discharged a shock through the long arms of "cloth" that held him in the air, enough to incapacitate him.

Having confirmed through his full gaze of the electromagnetic spectrum that he had indeed put the man out of commission, he turned and began to walk back towards Siren, still holding the man behind him, suspended in the air.

Just as Siren was about to be assaulted from all sides by nearly a dozen undead at once, they suddenly froze in place and then began to collapse to the ground one after the other. It was almost like someone had flipped their "off" switch. The alien hero relaxed a little and lowered her blade arm, looking over to see Pinnacle returning with an unconscious cultist in tow.

"Good work, man," Siren complimented him but her smile stiffened a little at the sight of the cultist, "It's unfortunate he couldn't stay conscious long enough for us to get some answers, but at least we stopped this madness before it got out of hand."

However, not even a few seconds after saying that, the earth once more began to shake and rumble, throwing Siren to her knees, "W-What the?!!" She looked around for the source only to see a large portion of the field splitting open and an ear-splitting roar to echo from its depths as the eyes of the fallen corpses suddenly glowed an eerie green light and proceeded to crawl towards the new ravine, letting themselves be swallowed down into the depths.

Siren could feel the earth giving way beneath her so she took to the air and watched the scene from above, "Oi, you got any idea what's going on?!"

"The book had something to say about this." Pinnacle says, rising into the air himself, the unconscious cultist in tow. "Long story short, He seems to have summoned an ancient eldritch horror from a twilight dimension of complete and utter madness devoid of conventional life for us to say 'hello' to... Lucky us, eh?" He added.

Pinnacle rose higher into the air as the dimensional tear in the Earth continued to grow wider and wider, and a dark shape loomed behind its face, lurking in the depths of the dark and foreboding parallel dimension.

"I know the secrets of the book; I can close the dimensional tear, but I'll need to concentrate! I believe we can weaken it enough for me to send it back if we work together." He said, standing at the ready in the air. He detached one of the cloth-like tendrils that held the cultist where he was and left him floating in the air, suspended by its coils around his body. The long band then carried him further away as Pinnacle hovered above the widening dimensional chasm, prepared to fight the emerging mass of shadows that seemed to be invading a world that was clearly not its own.

The thing that came forth from the tear in reality was a seething mass of tiny dark organisms, totally alien in nature, which spiraled and whirled around as if debris suspended by a moaning wind.

But it was not truly the wind that groaned, rather, it was the whirling mass itself that moaned and shrieked in an otherworldly fashion.

"Oh yeah, I feel totally honored. Seriously, this is EXACTLY how I wanted to spend my Halloween!" Siren rolled her eyes, "And if you didn't catch my tone, I was being sarcastic!" The horror that lifted up out of the abyss left her speechless though, and more closely resembled something H.P. Lovecraft would dream up. Against any other mortal, the sight of it would likely either send them running, or drive them screaming mad.

However, neither hero were the typical type of mortal and as Siren glanced back at the city, where people started to fill the streets and gawk at the sky which had become as twisted and warped as the ground itself, they knew that this beast needed to be stopped and sent back to whatever pit it had crawled out of.

Well, this might be it, partner..." Alan remarked in their shared mind, "I got no idea how we're gonna stop this thing, bu-"

"Oh no, we are NOT even gonna entertain the thought of us dying!" Aurora cut in abruptly, "Listen, you and I have been through way too much to let our  story together end because of some lovecraftian wannabe! We're gonna turn this thing into calamari and then we're gonna go eat some calamari!...Preferably deep-friend...Now put on your big boy pants because we're going monster hunting!"

Alan couldn't help but chuckle a little at her words, "Alright...let's do this!" Siren glanced over to Pinnacle, "Hey, no matter what happens from here...it's been a pleasure to fight by your side," With that, she zoomed towards the creature, her body contorting and distorting, while also growing in size and stature, until it resembled something much more fearsome and deadly:

Spoiler:

Transformed, the mighty dragon let loose a devastating sonic scream on the eldritch horror.

The eldritch horror's body shook, and a large portion of the cohesion of its form, maintained as it was by its millions of smaller members that made it up, was blasted apart as it was hit with all the full concussive force of Siren's scream, and it seemed for a moment as though that single hit had defeated the monster.

However, it's body, if you could call it that, began to reform as its myriad components all swirled back into place.

"Unfortunately, the book never mentioned how to kill lovecraftian horrors for when you manage to summon one." Pinnacle said, blasting a ray of intensely hot light at the nightmarish thing before them.

As the light hit, the thing screamed in pain. "Thankfully, I can see the genetics of its tiny components. It likes it cold. Let's turn up the heat for it, shall we?" He said, firing off a few more rays of heat.

The horror lunged at Pinnacle, but he was able to easily outmaneuver the clumsy elseworld hive creature. "Should be easy to dodge. This thing is massive, but fairly slow." He added.

"That's good to know, at least," Siren acknowledged as she flew around for a better vantage point, "Let's split up and try to flank it. Divide its attention between us," The monstrosity's body seemed to bubble before a barrage of tendrils exploded out from its form and flew towards Siren's direction. Her dragon form dived downwards to avoid the first before forming blades on the end of her tail to swing and slice through several of the appendages.

Getting its fangs to grow out, she coiled herself around one of the tendrils and bit down while more blades and spikes formed along her to gradually constrict and crush the tendril until it finally fell off. Apparently, the eldritch horror didn't like that as it swung one of its giant hands  around to grab her and start trying to crush her in its grasp. Siren growled in pain before looking around for something to use. Seeing a bunch of cars, she focused and used her telekinesis to rip the gas canisters and spark plugs out of them before hurling them into the monster's body, causing a terrific explosion to go off and making it roar in pain as it was forced to let go.

The thing seemed to roar, if you could call it that, it was more like an otherworldly cry of madness, and more strange beings crawled out of the tear in reality.



"Just perfect. More friends for us to say 'hello' to." Pinnacle said, sarcastically, before adding in a more serious tone: "The big shadow monster one is their hive mind; if we kill their alpha, they'll all be out of commission."

Pinnacle then began to whirl around rapidly like some kind of human top, his bands of "cloth" slicing through multiple foes as he spun about.

"Great...as if this evening couldn't get any worse," Siren growled as she glared up at the eldritch horror and got the impression it was glaring right back. Nodding to her partner's advice, she resumed her attack,only for another tendril to burst from its body and ensnare her before slamming her into the earth hard enough to create a small crater.

Sitting up, Siren saw the mob of terrors surrounding her and snarled, "I don't have time to deal with the likes of you," Morphing her arms into tendrils with serrated blades on the end, she whipped them all about her as they attacked from all sides, sending several flying into the air while others were cut in half. She shot out of the crater like a bullet and zoomed towards the head of the giant. Its body bubbled again before releasing a barrage of dark spheres.

Siren morphed her arm into a shield to help weather the assault and with a thought, spikes formed on the shield's front, allowing her to ram into its "face" full force before morphing her arm into a giant blade and stabbing it in the head. They were forced to hold on tightly as the beast roared in pain and flailed every which way before managing to eject her. However, she didn't give an inch as she let loose yet another sonic scream.

The "face" of the eldritch thing was once more obliterated; blasted into its component parts with the full force of yet another devastating sonic scream. The thing was forced further into the tear for a bit as its swirling mass of tiny component creatures composed themselves, seemingly attempting to reshape into the hideous horror once again.

"That's the way! Force it back into the bridge between our two worlds and I can seal the tear and shut the monster out for good." Pinnacle said, having temporarily stopped his whirling vortex of death technique, though, he wouldn't be likely to refer to it as such himself.

Suddenly, instead of the shadowed horror reverting to its original, terrible form, it burst into a seething storm of tiny terrors, raging through the air in an attempt to invade the very bodies of its assailants.

Pinnacle stretched out his arms wide, as if welcoming the creature to try, as it began to press its way inward.

"You heard the man! The more we pound on it, the more time and energy it uses up to fix itself!" Aurora cheered on her partner as they kept up the attack, morphing their limbs into blades and soaring along the surface of the creature, hacking and slashing to leave deep cuts in its form...or at least that was the plan till the horror whipped out yet another trick.

Exploding into a swarm of micro-horrors was not something Siren anticipated and that moment of surprise cost them as many of the things started forcing themselves down her throat and into her body. Already Alan could feel his mind going cloudy,like he was lost in a daze. "Alan! No matter what happens, you gotta fight it! Don't let it-" Aurora's voice was silenced before she could finish though.

Lost in the midst of a realm full of black mist that was slowly decaying around him, Alan began to panic and looked around him frantically, "W-Wha...what's going on?! Hey, where's Aurora? Oi, whatever you are, get out of our head!" However, that's when he started to see his younger self, surrounded by a bunch of older kids who were tormenting him, "What the..."

"Hey, give that back!" Alan's younger self said as he tried to grab a comic away from the big kids only to get shoved to the ground.

"Hey, check out this loser! He's still reading comic books at his age!" said the older kid, laughing at him, "Oh, and what's this? Wonder Woman comics? My Little Pony? Man, you're pathetic!" He then proceeded to tear them up which left the young man devastated, both his younger and current self, as the others laughed and walked off.

Alan always knew he was a little different than other kids, but being reminded of this scene...made him feel weak in his knees. It was at this point in his life he learned there were just some things society wouldn't accept or even try to understand.

Ebo sanama yalavrudi, neva keyivij. Ebo ayanathsidha game taseda yimaena yutuya.

It took a few seconds for his mind to process the words: Your mind is weak, else creature. Your will shall bend to mine.

The shadow of the horror moved in to try and consume him, to take him as its vessel, and for a moment, it looked like it had won....

Only for Alan to say one word, "...No..." It stopped as the young man forced himself to stand, eyes staring at the ground, "I said...No..." When he looked up, the horror actually seemed to flinch at the glare being given to it, "You really think...you can break me?!!! YOU?!!" Before it could move, he actually reached out and grasped the thing by the neck and started choking it!

"You have no idea who I am, do you?!!! I know I'm not like other people, and I'm fine with that! I don't care if others want to judge me, because I am who I am!!! And that is NOT something to be ashamed of!!!" The creature tried to pry him away but he held tight and squeezed with all his might, "I am Alan Parker, and with my friend Aurora, we are The Siren! Nobody controls us!..and you...ARE NOTHING!!!" He threw the creature away as the darkness began to crumble....

Siren gagged and spewed out the dark terror, a great howl of agony echoed from its scattered pieces as it began to feel something it thought only humans felt....fear.

The thing let out another otherworldly scream and the hideous creatures that had crawled forth from the rift all charged towards the siren, leaping and biting and tearing at her in a kind of mad frenzy... Apparently, she had angered the Eldritch shadow monster.

Meanwhile, Pinnacle appeared to be struggling against the shadow monster's grip on him.
"You think that's enough? It's not nearly enough." He grunted. "It's going to take more than that to bend my will to yours."

He snuck a wink to Siren... Then the rest of the shadow monster roared and stormed over to pinnacle to force itself inside in its entirety.

At the same time, more and more of the splayed mouth monstrosities poured forth from the tear in reality linking their twisted world and that of the reality that one would call normal, shrieking and leaping at Siren as they climbed over each other to reach her.

Apparently, Siren had pushed the creature's patience to its breaking point as now the hordes were coming through seemingly without end. So many that even she found herself being pinned down. A look over at Pinnacle and she caught him winking at her before being engulfed by the horror that had tried to possess her.

Fighting back, she tried to sit up, only for the mobs to keep piling on her...however, suddenly some of the creatures began flailing around, like something invisible was attacking them. On closer inspection though, it became apparent that the specters of the fallen soldiers had joined the fight.

Siren knew now that she couldn't hold back anymore...and so she didn't. She let out a guttaral roar as her form suddenly exploded in size, throwing the mobs every which way, growing to colossal proportions as its entire lower body morphed to resemble a squid-like creature, her limbs gaining sharp blades on them as fangs formed in her mouth and her hair lengthened out with the ends becoming like tendrils. With a defiant battle cry, the hulking beast sweeped its arm out, destroying dozens of the horrors at one time.

It moved forward, flattening and tearing apart all that got in her way, having decided to fight the horrors by becoming one. Seeing the void, she gathered her strength and let loose a huge sonic scream that tore up the scenery as it headed for the void.

The concussive blast of force and sound thundered towards the rift in space-time and reality, annihilating the horrid, twisted forms of the creatures that had been attempting to pour forth from its depths, and alien screams ensued as their bodies were pulverized from the sheer power of the waves of sound.

When the Siren's call had ceased and silence fell, little more than mangled husks and lumps of twisted flesh remained of the monsters that had once assailed her, but above, the shadowed form of the eldritch horror had completely entered inside of Pinnacle, who appeared to be struggling more than ever against this force.

Then, he simply stopped, and held still in the air. "Come now, oh flayer of minds. You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you?"

"Tae! Enepon! Egabo attaemaek game ay! Egabo layisu attaemaek ev-"
("No! Impossible! Your wills are mine! All of your wills are- ")

The elsewordly thing never finished its sentence before a surge of fiery pain shot through it and it howled in pain, attempting to escape its host to no avail.

"I control every aspect of my physiology, else thing. EVERY aspect. My body is an inescapable prison. You would never have entered without my allowing it. Now, I think it's time we cranked up the thermostat." Pinnacle said, as his body began to be wreathed in a burning aura of blue energy.

The helpless horror let out an blood curdling scream; even from its place within Pinnacles body, the shriek was ear-piercing, and lasted almost a full minute before silence finally fell once again.

"Now, about that tear in reality..." He said, then stretched out his right hand towards the rift and began to incant in an arcane tongue. "Kiizurk hah! Gaal nirev! Lermilg od diistu daast! Noh yid luz krah raath! Nirst raad daariim hau zov neil!" The tear in reality started to groan and rumble. "Nirst stof xin nu hadmih, krah zork log din soz thov rublov!" With a final shuddering grumble, the earthbound world rift snapped back together, and Pinnacle floated down to the ground, surveying the gruesome landscape before him.

"Looks like we have some cleanup to do." He said.

Tiring from the constant fighting, Siren began to shrink back down to their original size, features reverting as they returned to normal, "Is it...over?" The heroine looked up to see the void finally being closed and then over to where Pinnacle stood. Despite her exhaustion and pain, she managed a small chuckle, "Good to see you still in one piece, man...for a moment there I actually thought you were a goner..."

However, at his words, Siren looked out over the field of corpses and destroyed scenery before giving a sigh of resignation, "Yeah...suppose we should get to work then..." After a quick breather, Siren got to work moving the corpses of the horrors down into the trenches that had opened in the earth along with the remains of the fallen soldiers before starting to seal them up. As the work went on, the soldiers' souls all retreated back to the earth or to the darkness of the woods, their pain and sorrow having been eased, at least for tonight.