[Quiet Man Cometh]

Tarja was rapidly growing impatient with the banter between Sin and her “son,” but the demon’s sudden lunge for his mother, and subsequent burrowing beneath her flesh, was enough to rattle her perceptions, more-so than their shift in surroundings. Then the birthing began, and the great hounds that spawned from Sin’s coils made howls of their own.

She’d had enough with speeches.

Barely paying attention to the Kadia and her psychic tornado, Tarja focused the tiny particles in the air around her, in the stone, in the blood spewing from wounds, coalescing and weaving them into a shield around her. She would only have this one attempt. Time was a fleeting luxury, and the speeches were done.

When the darkness surged forth, she reached back with her mind, grasping the particles in the air surrounding the hounds, urging them into more rapid movement, movement beyond even her own psychic vision. Shimmers of heat begin to waver in the air around the hounds, around Sin.

Dust and hanging shrouds smoldered in the heated air, smoking and coiling, flash fires erupted and extinguished in the blink of one eye. Lev would have time, if he needed it, before Sin was cooked through. Tarja wasn’t so sure about herself.