The tornado’s winds cleared the darkness from before her shield and Tarja could see now that the flames and heat were doing nothing to the hounds that remained. She could not drop her shield, as broken pieces of the tower spun wildly about and the flames consumed much of the air, but there was nothing else she could do.
The dust, the heat, the ruin, and a welcoming party of Hell’s rejected. If there was a threshold to her focus, Tarja felt she was getting close, and close was just enough for one of the hounds.
A small psychic stumble, perhaps an eye-blink in reaction to sudden light, and her body armour was shattering, thick teeth puncturing cloth and skin as hot breath rolled over her flesh like her own blood.
Tarja roared, a mixture of pain and anger. She snarled as though she meant to bite back, but instead fisted what she could of the hound’s taut hide and mentally hurled the beast into the turret wall. Teeth still clenched savagely to her arm and shoulder, Tarja was carried with it until both smashed through stone and mortar, daylight flooding in through the broken wall, dust and debris flying out of it.
The hound hit first. She felt the impact when her body snapped over beast’s ribcage. The hell-hound lay on its side, snarling through teeth still holding her useless left arm, attached to a shoulder hanging low from a broken collar bone. Forcing herself as upright as she could manage, Tarja mentally impacted the side of the hound’s head, accompanying each telekinetic pulse with a blow from her fist and a string of curses.
One tooth broken.
Two.
The hell-hound was rising to its feet.
Three.
Popping sounds Tarja barely heard echoed a short distance away, and the hound’s hide began to ripple, undulating with small crater impacts and eruptions of blood. Bloodied jaws opened and Tarja fell back onto the dirt. The hound swung its massive head to face the bullet shower, turned and bellowed. A cloud of dark fell from its mouth again, this time towards the incoming infantry vehicle, machine gun turrets on rapid fire. It dispersed easily, but the hound was no longer behind it. It was in the air. Dirt scattered in Tarja’s face as its claws ripped into the terrain and it launched itself high, easily to the height of the broken wall they had come through, and towards the vehicle.
The front of the vehicle slammed into the dirt as the hell-hound landed on top of it, suspension groaning as spinning wheels kicked up more dirt and dust. It wrapped its jaws around the edge of the roof and bit down, then it began to pull. Metal shrieked, bolts popped as it heaved at the armour plating. It opened a hole large enough to fit one paw and thrashed about, swiping wildly at the soldier's inside as it forced its body side to side, metal plates warping and buckling as it shouldered it's way further in.
One of the guns stopped, the remaining weapons aimed towards the hound's back, boring holes into its spine. More gun fire sounded from inside the vehicle, punctuated with deep, wet growls and watery breathing. Head and shoulders buried in twisted metal, the hound started to stagger, its body sagged and its snarling dropped to a low, monotonous growl.
Lying flat, Tarja collected her wits and gathered her breath.