Plug In Baby [Adelaide/Lazarus]

[Lazarus Carter]

5:34PM, GREENWICH MEAN TIME
FEBRUARY 2ND, 2012
KINGSFORD ESTATE PARALLEL
REGAL NECROPOLIS

"Take me straight to Hell."

The retort had come all too quickly. His hand had fell on her shoulder from instinct; and he didn't bother to even squint his eyes shut. Crossing was a simple, menial, trivial affair for Lazarus Carter now. "By all means." A haughty grin. A tilting of his head. The wallpaper she knew all to well began to peel around them. The exquisite brickwork began to crack and split. The crossbeams heaved and lurched, trickling down sawdust. The evening twilight perforating the windows almost shot the now-flickering bulb straight out and turned quickly to an off-crimson tint. The world was falling down around their heads. In moments the Kingsford Estate had been turned to barely a shadow of its proper glory. And they were in Inferis.

"That's something both of us can do." Laz stated matter-of-factly, retracting his hands and looking around, tugging at his Superdry bomber again, which had deftly turned from black to white with a moment's notice. He removed the trilby from his head and idly frisbeed it off onto the surface of a musty grand piano, folding up his glasses and attaching them to his collar. "It's called "crossing". Anything you're touching, wearing, holding - comes with you over here." Jerking a thumb to his jacket and then her freshly-altered attire... "Though some things change."

But alas the message hadn't gotten through proper yet. "Don't fool yourself, Adelaide." He threw his arms up into the air lackadaisically. "This might well look like your home, but it's far from it in truth." Laz wasn't really one for knowing about the interdimensional physics of it all. "Anything you leave here stays here. And everything that was here in the parallel comes over too - an environmental aspect - but it changes." He gestured to "her" shattered windows; the fallible masonry; the chipped paint. The place had gone from perfect to desolate in a split-second. It had fell into disrepair and ruin at a moment's notice.

With a shrug, he moved away from the chair and stretched out his arms somewhat. He was still tired from that damnable plane flight. "Welcome to Inferis, Miss Kingsford," He finished up and let his arms fall to his side, looking back to her. Here was the eeriest part of it all - for him, at least. It wasn't the desolate environment or the torturous atmosphere that made it creepy. Not the fact that it was inhabited by every manner of murderous and savage scum you could think of. "Hell's a lot closer to home than you'd think." But the familiarity.

A snap of both his fingers and the sleek chromed frame of the Nomads appeared once more. The welcome weight sat in his hands and his palms instinctively wreathed around the hilts in seconds, fingers through the trigger guards. "Now I'm presuming you've met some Demons before," She'd alluded to having been here before. Whilst he didn't have that much statistical or semantic knowledge of Satan's own little pocket dimension, this was where his real skill lied. Putting these fuckers in the ground - a second time. Story of his life. He'd tried it once. He was good at it. So he did it again. And again. And again. And he got stronger. "Cause if not, there's gonna be a fuck of a surprise in this for you."

Like anybody with two brain cells to rub together, he was certain she could grasp the concept of "Demons". Supernatural, undead entities comprised of coalesced souls that had done wrong in life. For human souls, that was the rule of thumb. Animal souls? Creature souls? Archaic souls? He wasn't so sure. Raising his pistols with a quick shake, he grinned off to her. "Say hello to the Nomads." That was what he'd known them as. Right from the start, Vulcan and Mars, his two twin eleven-millimetre hand cannons. "These are Evocations. If you're a Hunter, you'll have some." He shrugged, rifling through what he'd seen. "Swords, guns, fireballs, claws... different for everyone, near as I can tell." That was about as absolute as he got.

He'd seen a good range of abilities and equipment conjured from thin air - his Nomads were a perfect example - but he didn't know just where they came. To him, that was still an enigma. Idly, he had theorised upon it over bouts of insomnia where he powered himself using only Americano after Americano as fuel for the fire; Evocations were powered by Inferis, clearly, but for where the variation came? He figured it was from... within. Everyone was different. Everyone had on a microscopic level some genetic signature which could tell you everything about them if translated. Maybe part of that was code for a Hunter's Evocations, too. Or maybe it was all bullshit. Fucked if he knew.

"You follow so far?" He hoped she did, because he had a serious hunch that not-Adelaide's not-estate would probably have some unwelcome visitors that had been lurking for a century or two, essentially squatting in the dilapidated remnants of a house that, in an alternate dimension, was truly a marvel of architecture. And all this meant one thing; that she had better keep track of what he was saying, because the preface was slowly drawing to the close - Lazarus Carter's Demonology 101 was a lot more practical than theoretical, and sooner rather than later, he was gonna toss her straight into the fucking deep end.

[Adelaide Kingsford]

"By all means." Adelaide watched with a neutral expression on her pallor as Lazarus dropped a large, masculine hand onto her shoulder with a dangerous grin. In that moment, she could feel some kind of invisible presence gripping at her very soul, like a hand that squeezed a stress toy with all its might. Her pupils shrank to the size of tiny dots as she witnessed her mansion buckle and churn all around her, falling apart like a house of cards. The lavish carpets beneath their feet shriveled and frayed until nothing but scraps were left. Marble columns and floor tiles split open and cracked without any explanation. Lights flickered or burst apart, and her crystal chandeliers were eaten by rust and decay. It took less than ten full seconds for her manor to be reduced to a bleak, hollow shell of its former glory.

Never in my life... Stupefied, Adelaide directed her thousand-yard stare skyward and saw that the firmament no longer possessed the harmonious blend of oranges and purples associated with a beautiful evening sky. The color had been robbed, replaced with an eerie crimson tone and pillowy thunderheads of matching hue. The atmosphere of this ruined, desolate world was undeniably oppressive, and reeked of iron, almost as if it were permeated with blood. There was no mistaking it. She had come back to Inferis.

"That's something both of us can do." The sound of Lazarus's voice was loud enough to pull Adelaide out of her reverie and back to reality. Surrounded by all of this evil taint, and he could still keep some measure of emotional composure? She had to hand it to him; he clearly knew what he was doing. Maybe. As she turned to get a better look at the university student, her vision was assaulted by a big mass of purest white, all of which was centered around Lazarus's torso. His bomber jacket had somehow bleached itself, and was now totally absent of any coloration. "It's called "crossing". Anything you're touching, wearing, holding - comes with you over here." He motioned to his jacket with a single thumb, then gestured to her with the same digit, as if he were hinting at something. "Though some things change."

Adelaide tilted her head towards the battered and broken marble tiles, and just like Lazarus's vast white jacket had done seconds earlier, her vision was bombarded by a great deal of royal blue. The lawyer rose a hand over her mouth to hold back the gasp attempting to leave her small lips, then shortly removing it after feeling cold steel touch her skin. What was this? Her attire had changed again. She no longer wore the simple white blouse and pleated dark blue skirt that the teenager had seen earlier; replacing her earlier garments was an exquisite, blue-white dress trimmed in gold that seemed to reflect her taste in lavish apparel, although exaggerated to the point where she appeared more like an actual princess instead of just a regular rich girl. Silvered armour, polished to mirror-like perfection, was fitted over her arms, legs, and petite chest as well, detracting from the royalty look by adding a warrior appeal to the ensemble. The only thing that hadn't exactly changed was the way Adelaide's hair was styled; her flaxen locks still remained in that cute little bun.

Her astonishment at the sudden wardrobe swap barely lasted, however, as the wretched state of her mansion caught her attention once again. The solicitor couldn't help but stare blankly at the remnants of her home, wondering why crossing the barrier to Inferis caused such a dramatic environmental metamorphosis. "Don't fool yourself, Adelaide." She furrowed her eyebrows as her green eyes steeled themselves in their intensity. Looking at her abode in ruins only served to remind her of the earlier fiasco with Alex Stone. All of this bleakness was nothing new to her; she didn't need Lazarus to reiterate the obvious truth. "This might well look like your home, but it's far from it in truth." Even then, the imagery was still disheartening to a degree. And rightfully so; nobody ever got used to seeing their own dwelling in complete shambles, a sad and sorry state of disrepair like hers was now currently in.

"Anything you leave here stays here. And everything that was here in the parallel comes over too - an environmental aspect - but it changes." What a redundant way of saying that Inferis was a parallel dimension to their own reality. Ephemeral irritation aside, Adelaide stroked her chin with the metallic fingertips of her articulated gauntlet, somewhat intrigued by the metaphysics behind the predicament at hand, albeit still rather unused to the concept of standing inside the Christian iteration of Hell itself. "Welcome to Inferis, Miss Kingsford," Lazarus finally chimed out, dropping the name of this otherworldly dimension; a useful smidgen of information, seeing as she had actually forgotten its name. "Hell's a lot closer to home than you'd think."

"So I've noticed." She muttered almost mechanically, still juggling back and forth between processing the visual information around her and making sense of everything she was seeing and being told. The pungent stench of something permeated the dystopian parallel of her mansion estate, a scent Adelaide couldn't identify for the life of her, but one she concluded was repulsive irregardless. What was that foul odor!? "Now I'm presuming you've met some Demons before," Lazarus spoke again as two bursts of light were summoned from within his hands, dissipating just as quickly as they had come into view, revealing the presence of a pair of sleek, dark chrome handguns of massive frame and seemingly larger caliber. "Cause if not, there's gonna be a fuck of a surprise in this for you."

Images of the gargantuan, red-skinned monster that she and Alex had encountered a while ago replayed within her psyche like a movie reel; the more she concentrated on its characteristics, the more she was able to remember about it. Burly muscles. Lots of sharp, bony protrusions. A massive sword that glowed like molten magma. And those teeth. God, those teeth. "A former chauffeur of mine happened to be one," The lawyer cast an offhand glance to no direction in particular, reminded of Cornell's face. Just thinking about the whole incident still embarrassed her. And were it not for Alex's reckless heroics (given that he was grievously injured at the time), she would have probably went medieval on the beast that wore the skin of a man. "Long story short, he was promptly 'fired'." She concluded with emphasis on the last word, positive Lazarus would get the gist of its dark undertone.

"Say hello to the Nomads." The redhead shook his hands with a lighthearted smile, as if to attract the solicitor's attention to his collectively named firearms. Guns. Adelaide herself never cared much for them; while they were loud and bulky, she distanced herself from learning about them for a much more personal reason. They reminded her of her father. He always had an interest in them, and to a point, they were like a personal extension of him. They were memories she couldn't dwell on—not in public, at least. "These are Evocations. If you're a Hunter, you'll have some." Evocations? Mentally, she broke the term down into its base word, "evoke", which meant to bring or recall something, or someone, into the conscious mind. And all Demon Hunters had them? "Swords, guns, fireballs, claws... different for everyone, near as I can tell."

Swords? Delving further into her short-term memory, Adelaide could bring to mind the presence of a weapon that she had somehow managed to pull out of thin air during that ordeal. A sword, just like Lazarus claimed that some Hunters had possessed, that glowed with a blistering golden radiance that made the great red monster she stood up against cower in blatant fear. Was that an Evocation she had utilized then? "You follow so far?" Looking down at her armour-plated hand, the solicitor tried her best to remember the details of that glittering sword. Gold, lustrous gold, was the first to come to mind; then polished silver like a flawless mirror, blending in with that lustrous gold; then a shade of azure that matched her frumpy dress, accenting her blade in such a way that it made the weapon appear like more of a masterful work of art instead of an instrument for battle.

The longer she continued to ponder over the weapon's visuals, the clearer her mental image became until its form and shape sat within her mind with perfect clarity. As if by pure instinct, her fingers curled around open air until it gripped at a nonexistent force, which caused a narrow area of about four feet long to distort and ripple like water would after a pebble was thrown into it. Lines of aqua blue energy snaked and coiled beneath the lawyer's sabatons, forming complex patterns and arrays as Adelaide tightened her grip on the invisible force within her hand, resulting in the emergence of what appeared to be the hilt of an elaborately decorated sword—exactly like what she had envisioned within her mind! Her emerald gaze sharpened as she pulled outward until a blinding "beam" of golden light was withdrawn from the distorted space around it, which turned out to be the actual blade of this luminous sword in reality.

The leylines and the lighting effects slowly faded as soon as Adelaide pulled the magnificent weapon closer to her, inspecting its every detail with an appraiser's stare. Everything appeared exactly like she had pictured it. There was no doubt: this was the same sword she summoned weeks ago. This was her Evocation. And she couldn't help but crack a warm smile at the revelation that it was entirely special to her. Unique in every way. "Crystal clear." Adelaide finally spoke after what seemed like an eternity, admiring the detail and brilliance of her weapon.

[Lazarus Carter]

"Crystal clear."

One flashy and overexaggerated light display later: and a blade appeared. Lustrous and glimmering; a deep, strong blue in the hilt twining in with a golden trim that parted perfectly symmetrically, gem-laden pommel and all, to birth the perfect chrome of around a metre-long blade; it was truly spectacular. Bladed Evocations had been formed and forged of nothing before him prior to this; but there was something about the way Adelaide had conjured this sword, something about the weapon itself - that drew not only her own attention, but his too, a paralysed and immobile gaze as the pair of them, utterly awestruck, regarded the craft in all its graceful and elegant splendour. It reflected her: composed; symmetrical; well-ordered; yet pragmatic and visually appealing.

Lazarus' entranced gaze was only momentarily compared to the petite, golden-haired lawyer, who locked her emerald stare with it for far longer. His look curved into a determined grin, then a lackadaiscal nod of his head. "Now that's not bad," Sword. She was regal enough. He should have figured it. "But it's one thing to summon it." The redhead explained with a shrug, pausing - and as if by perfect coincidence, the echoes of shrill chitterings began to emanate from what sounded like upstairs. "To use it is another entirely." Click. Click. The teen eased back the hammers on his pistols, then locked red with green and inclined his head. "Get ready."

The exit from the ruined remnants of the music room was placed, grandiose as it was, equidistant upon the thick, yet, here, ruined walls of what was in another world the Kingsford estate. There was enough room for them each to take cover. In the courtroom and in the world of conversation, she may have been his superior: catching adversaries time and time again in the crushing grip of corporate logic, but here - he held one thing in Inferis that was worth its weight - or would have been, were it tangible - in gold dust. Experience. He had seen and fought Demons and lived to tell the tale. Many rookie Hunters with not a full month under their belt could say the same. Directing her to take up position on the right of the exit, he pressed himself to the left, and held Vulcan down, raising Mars to his lips to instruct her silence.

The grinding trills grew from above; they swelled dynamically til the volume perforated cleanly through whatever sonic barriers were affixed between this floor and the one above. They were descending; perhaps it was some impromptu patrol, of perhaps they sensed the crossing of two fresh anomalies they didn't yet understand the gravity of. It was not long before the creeping of light, bony feet touched down upon close ground; and Laz felt - still - his hair stand on end. This adversary was one he'd faced time and time again - but in silence it still bore something fearful in its aura for simply just existing in such an unnatural manner as it did. The Aviax.

Three of them were descending the stairs slowly - Laz looked to Adelaide and whispered another tactical advisory. "That's not all you've got in your arsenal," He hissed under his breath, jerking a thumb towards the blade, before grinning slyly. "These birdbrains are fucking stupid," Cocking his head, he tapped his temple with the barrel of his gun - an odd juxtaposition of symbolism, brain next to brawn, or, well, gunpowder - and kept that coy smile up. "Surprise 'em." That final accented hiss cut the silence before leaving it, albeit somewhat mutilated, as the light trio of Aviaxes landed - each facing outwards, two looking down the hall in the opposite direction and one towards them, in the corridor.

Though once she utilised the element of surprise - it was all but gone, an expendable, disposable, single-use asset: sneak attacks only worked once. From then on out, it was guns blazing, the fast track to all this - he'd help, because, as sure as he was that this was in his blood, his genes, as easily as he'd grappled with this and come out on top, he could have just been a lucky case, or had a knack for it. Adelaide was smart; and he felt like he was always patronising her by playing teacher when she probably had a good few years on him yet, but an annoyed ally was better than a dead one all the same. Their shrill cries lowered to nothing but foreboding chittering - Laz jerked his head in the direction of the small, utterly moronic "leader" of this crowd, who was "looking" with his bony little skill towards the door, and raised his pistols.

"I've got you covered." He whispered. "Go for it." It would take balls; but she needed the experience if she was going to keep doing this. And for all the silence and subtlety, that would probably be the day's last hushed message. Before long, mayhem would erupt in the halls of what had once been the Kingsford estate, and they would be able to retrieve no essence of stealth, even from these creatures, primal as they were.

[Adelaide Kingsford]

"Now that's not bad," Idle banter from Lazarus; a compliment, to be precise, aimed with laser precision at the blonde lawyer's sword of supernaturally symmetrical splendor. Alliterations aside, it truly was a remarkable piece of weaponry, crafted as if it were meant to be a work of art fit for display in a museum instead of an instrument forged for the purposes of bloody battle. Adelaide threw a glance over to the gun-toting Demon Hunter. "But it's one thing to summon it." Shortly after the teenager spoke, as if the element of coincidence was an actor that stepped in precisely on cue, her ear canals suddenly vibrated as piercing noises, which she mentally compared to the garbled twittering of a flock of tiny birds, echoed from several rooms over, originating close to the dilapidated marble staircase. "To use it is another entirely." Adelaide said nothing in response to Lazarus as he cocked the hammers of his futuristic-looking pistols. Instead, she visually made it apparent that she got the message by gripping the sapphire pommel of her blade, in synch with his dramatic gun cocks. "Get ready."

Following the redheaded man's lead, Adelaide rushed over to the opposite end of the entrance to the Demonic parallel of her Piano Room, shoulder pressed against the partially crumbling slab of plaster and chipped bricks, while her weapon twinkled and shimmered in the dismal light of the Necropolis. The subhuman sounds grew louder, more clearer, and the lawyer dressed like a warrior princess innately knew they were about to face off against creatures of a repugnant, horrifying nature. Things that shouldn't even exist, yet still did. Demons. She tensed her fingers, tightening her grip in the process, obeying Lazarus's gesture to keep silent. Adrenaline coursed intensely through her veins, her breathing was calm, and her mind steeled. She was focused.

She was ready.

"That's not all you've got in your arsenal," Lazarus whispered to her low enough to avoid inadvertently giving away their position, making a motion toward the corridor, where the creatures that made avian noises lurked and patrolled amidst the rubble and debris. "These birdbrains are fucking stupid," With utmost caution, Adelaide peeked from behind the wall and over to the cluster of Demons, surveying the situation as quickly as time would allow her to. Neglected refuse aside, the path to them was straight and clear. Three of them wandered about, their patchwork bodies spastic and erratic yet lacking any semblance of intelligence. Lazarus was right: they are dumb. Down to the last nuance, Adelaide was absorbing visual information at a frightening pace; truly, she was making the most of her harrowing analytical prowess, proving that even outside of the courtroom, where her skills could be exercised without restraint or remorse, the lady Kingsford was still a force to be reckoned with.

One of the wood-and-bones creatures seemed to alter its body, the skull nailed to its body where a face would be now aimed at the newbie Huntress; Adelaide, however, was quick enough to catch the sudden shift in movement and pulled her head behind cover once more to avoid compromising her location. "Surprise 'em." Thinking on Lazarus's suggestion, Adelaide closed her eyes, reviewing all she had seen within her mind, formulating the best possible course of action to take. She could do as the teenage gunslinger suggested and take them by surprise—or she could charge in and simply hack and slash them all to pieces; either way, these creatures in their ramshackle appearance and demeanor failed to come off in the slightest as cunning or predatory. Best not to count her chickens just yet and follow the advice of the more experienced.

Flexing her fingers around the handgrip again, Adelaide hoisted her nameless sword so that the cross guard rested at breast level. "I've got you covered." She paced her breathing, allowed her muscles and her nerves to be consumed by the adrenaline that pumped and flowed throughout her tiny body. Her mind acclimatised itself to the weight of her armor, the way her dress felt and moved about, as if she were adjusting herself to the feel of a body that wasn't her own. She couldn't understand what was going on nor why, but neither did the solicitor make a coherent attempt to. It was just happening. And it felt natural, organic, hereditary, entirely instinctual; as if she was trained to do this right from the start.

"Go for it."

The signal was given, the penny dropped. In one movement, lightning fast and as graceful as water flowing in a stream, Adelaide felt herself swing around the wall and seamlessly entering a hard charge toward the Horrorhawks, carrying her regal sword to the right while its blade was pointed toward the ground. As Lazarus predicted, the Aviaxes completely failed to notice that an intruder was spying on them, watching them the entire time; in their shock and agitation, the scarecrow-like monstrosities emitted angry shrieks as they prepared to take on the woman that rushed them with an air of tranquil fury.

CRACK! CRACK! Two gunshots from Lazarus, discharged not even a second apart from one another, rang out from behind Adelaide and struck the Aviaxes furthest away from her; one bullet had only grazed the arm of one of the creatures, while another had firmly embedded itself between the second Bonebird's legs, right on the pointed end, hitting dead center in what could arguably be considered a nut shot (if it had the aforementioned genitalia to begin with). While the shots did little to actually incapacitate them, wounds were wounds, and they were aimed to strike where it hurt the most.

The woman's dressed flowed elegantly behind her, the metal of her sabatons clanking furiously in rhythm against the checkered tiles while her eyes focused on a large notch upon the closest one's body. The Aviax cawed fiercely as she approached before swinging its right "arm", riddled with spikes as well as a deadly-looking sickle attachment mounted directly on its end, in an attempt to end her life before she had the chance to react. In a fantastic and seemingly spontaneous course of action, Adelaide dropped to her knees and entered into a beautifully executed slide without warning nor hesitation, arching her back as far as she could while showers of sparks flew from the metal that protected her legs as they ground and scraped against the tiles; the Demon's many-pointed instrument of death missed her head and chest by mere inches as she simultaneously returned the attack with a horizontal, one-handed slice of her own, landing in perfect alignment against the notch on its "torso" and separating the Aviax from its legs in one fell motion—but not before allowing her entire body to maneuver in the direction of the momentum created by her attack so that her sword came in and sliced through its body a second time, at a slight upward angle this time, instantaneously killing the creature in the process as it fell to the floor in thirds with a pathetic croak.

Adelaide didn't have an opportunity to process what was going on, nor did she fully comprehend what had just happened; it was like her body had acted of its own accord, yet didn't. Like she was still in control of herself and her moves, but somehow knew just what to do in the heat of the moment. What she was currently doing at this very moment should have been logically impossible; she didn't have any, real experience wielding a sword. But now? None of that mattered. All of it felt like she had done it before; battled and sparred with numerous people in the art of the sword. It was like she had been born to fight.

The Bonebird with the grazed arm was the next to step up to the plate, letting off a harrowing cry in response to the death of its comrade as it clumsily brought its left arm down in a vertical chop. Adelaide was just on the verge of exiting her earlier coup de grâce as the attack entered her periphery. Barely seconds before the spiky appendage could reach the end of its swing, the newbie Demon Huntress yanked the golden sword up, gripping it with both hands this time around as she firmly planted her feet in place, spreading her legs out to help her absorb the full impact of the Hell minion's simple but fierce maneuver. CLANG! The impact was loud and furious, creating more sparks as metal collided with metal, yet the lady Kingsford stood her ground with an almost heroic posture, successfully defending against it. But the act of touching her sword with its limb seemed to produce a far more negative reaction than witnessing its comrade get slain before it; the Aviax screeched, sounding as if wallowing in pain, trying to retract its arm even though it had failed to cut through it.

Another gunshot from Lazarus, possibly made as soon as its attention was grabbed. CRACK! This time, it penetrated the skull nailed to the Bonebird's log for a body, ending its life as soon as it made contact, yet Adelaide followed up the assault with a diagonal slash to the right from the "shoulder", then one to the left across its body, cutting the Demon apart into fourths. The last Aviax was virtually given no time to react as the lady Kingsford, not once breaking her stride, leaned in so that she rushed her final foe and brought her sword up into a final diagonal strike, failing to split the creature apart as she did with the others but grievously injuring it regardless. In its fury, it attempted to swing around and hack Adelaide to pieces while she simply remained fixed in place, poised exactly like a samurai would be after delivering the final blow in an action film. One final CRACK!, and the birdbrain Demon would crumple over to the floor, lifeless and unmoving.

Silence fell on the ruined parallel of her mansion estate, but it would not last for long. Adelaide stood in place, glimmering sword hoisted as if she had been the one to cut down the last Aviax and not Lazarus with his guns, doing her best to process what had just happened. Did she do all of that? Relaxing her posture into a more neutral one, she took a glance at the corpses of the formerly-living Demons, then back at her sword, lacking any stains or gore whatsoever. The awestruck lawyer glanced back over to the redheaded teenager, literally unable to conjure any words to describe what exactly had transpired. One thing was for certain, though.

It really was a different experience altogether.

[Lazarus Carter]

A cloud of sawdust fell upon them and gunsmoke trailed up from the pair of pistols he held out in front of him. The final tattered Aviax fell to the floor; and Lazarus Carter grinned at Adelaide as she stood there, reorganised her posture, and as the echoes of his own gunfire faded she turned to him, unable to conjure speak but completely dumbstruck. That much was simple enough to see. "Colour me impressed," He murmured, lowering the pistols and grinning at her. Teamwork; she'd taken on the first one after a little help, he'd dispatched the second, and the third had been debilitated by her strike and followed up by some exceptional marksmanship - if he did say so himself. "You've got a knack for this, Miss Kingsford."

First timers weren't nearly this clean-cut. He narrowly avoided being eviscerated by a pair of Aviaxes himself only for a barrage of his own pistol fire - which had come, really, out of nowhere. He knew; he knew how it was. He'd never fired a gun before... this, and she'd probably never held a blade. But the muscle memory; the instinctive knowledge of everything from a complex revolving parry to an overhead riposte was all hers, a package deal, bundled along with the glistening blade. She didn't say anything still - so he stepped forwards, moving back into a lackadaisical slouch, letting his shoulders shrug down, and treating the Nomads as extensions of his own limbs.

"Hell of a rush, right?" He cocked his head and let his triumphant grin fizzle out down to an empathetic smile. Laz knew exactly how it felt. Fuck; his first time had been a lethal cocktail of adrenaline and instinct all packaged in with some supernatural reflexive ability. Even now his heart was still pounding. "Believe me, it's difficult to forget." For better or for worse, every time his heart fell upon those triggers, the very same thing happened; his blood turned to magma, coursed through his veins faster than the very bullets he fired, scorched a fresh path around his body and all the while simulated and emulated some form of eerie and purgative release. Killing Demons. It was the best therapy.

Cocking his head and looking to the bullet-ridden corpse of the last one, glanced still with a deep gash along the breadth of its rotten artificial "body", its almost skeletal structure of shredded wood and synthetic bone. He'd gotten there first; the shards of bone from the splintered "skull" upon the uppermost of the wooden pillars were spattered across the floor in front of them, tiny off-white daggers laying there. He whistled. She had been barely moments from hacking that thing apart. "Sorry to steal that one off ya," He nudged the last of the three fallen with his foot. The half-slashed wooden pillar between creaked as it rolled around, splinters from within gaping out in some pathetic imitation of a spiked maw. "But, hey, better him than you, right?" With that, he laid an encouraging hand on her shoulder and gestured for them to continue down the corridor.

Skirting around the remnants of the fallen birdbrains, he whistled an idle, freshly-composed ditty nonchalantly for a few moments, breaking it to continue talking to Adelaide. "Stay on your guard. Last ones are dead, but the others know we're here now. They're probably waiting for us somewhere. Best bet is to keep moving." So they could hunt the rest down, of course; Aviax dens were common, but something in his gut told him they had bigger fish to fry than a few of the wingless avian mimics on this particular day. "We'll head to the foyer. Probably a few we can take on waiting there."

Laz reached to scratch the back of his head. "If there are a lot of Demons holed up here, there'll probably be something pretty strong at the head of this place." He shrugged. "You know this place better than I do, but I'd say we head to the highest point in the building. An attic or something." Jerking a thumb towards their path, he inclined his head gently. Place looked as if it had really seen better days; the masterpieces that had lined the walls were now tilted and carved apart with claw and blade marks aplenty; the ornate and hand-crafted marble pillars were either torn in half or filled with crags and blast marks; the walls were lined with bloody clawprints and charred slashes. "Your show, Adelaide. Where are we headed after the foyer?"

For it would not be long til they turned the corner to come into the aforementioned atrium; and be greeted by a larger instance of Demonic fauna than Adelaide had thus far run amok of - and one that evoked rather... terrible memories for Lazarus.

[Adelaide Kingsford]

Adelaide blinked, awestruck mentality slowly fading back into a state of normalcy as her thoughts composed and restructured themselves like a self-regenerating organism. Still, she could feel the pumping of adrenaline throughout her petite body, the vice grip on her sword's pommel evidence that this sensation was present still. The encounter ended so quickly, but it felt as if time had dragged by in slow motion, even though it only lasted little more than several seconds. "Hell of a rush, right?" Still partially stupefied by recent events, she chose to, for the time being, simply abandon any endeavors to rationalize the actions and maneuvers she had just performed, figuring it would be better to do so outside of Inferis, away from the ever-present dangers. "That's certainly one way to describe it." The lawyer spoke at last, permitting her weapon-holding arm to hang loose and free now, treating the nameless sword like Lazarus did with his Nomads: as little more than a passive extension of her body. He smiled empathetically. "Believe me, it's difficult to forget."

As Lazarus closed the gap between the two of them with a casual meander, Adelaide took a moment to inspect the aftermath of their latest kills—and in her case, the first three Demons on her tally chart. She could hardly believe that much of the damage caused to these creatures, now little more than corpses, were from the glittering blade in her hands. Thinking back on it, it elicited a negative reaction from one of these Aviaxes, even though the blade was only used for defense and had failed to do any actual damage to its body until after the redhead killed it with gunfire. Thinking on that reminded the solicitor of the Blood Sword incident two weeks prior, where the muscular red brute had responded the same way; the only difference between the two scenarios was that here, she accomplished something, whereas she never battled the first time around. Did this weapon have some kind of essence that Demons loathed, a sort of holy ambience?

Turning her eyes to the last Demon—the one she hadn't hacked into a multitude of pieces—her ears picked up on a whistle emitted by Lazarus. "Sorry to steal that one off ya," He joked, patting her on the shoulder in a lighthearted way, but a manner she felt to be somewhat patronizing. "But, hey, better him than you, right?" For a split second, Adelaide's eyes intensified into an offhand glare of irritation; this recent gesture, though amicable in practically every way, only reminded her of Alex Stone, who tried to justify his needless heroics with chivalry, even though the wounds he suffered at the time had nearly cost him his life. Of course, the feeling never lasted long, since the teenager wasn't treating her like a dainty damsel in distress, which was what really ground her gears up.

The two Demon Hunters, the newbie solicitor and the more experienced university student, opted to leave the dead bodies of Satan's minions behind and continue their venture through the dark reflection of Adelaide's mansion, all while Lazarus whistled an impromptu jingle to himself. She couldn't help but wonder exactly how he managed to maintain such a calm and lackadaisical demeanor in such an oppressive environment. Or, maybe he was rattled stiff, and was just skilled at hiding his anxiety from others. Whatever went on inside that head of his, Adelaide couldn't help but admire his attempts to break the air of thick tension with his spontaneous ditties.

Naturally, though, he'd go out of his way make sure the new blood was thinking on her toes. "Stay on your guard. Last ones are dead, but the others know we're here now. They're probably waiting for us somewhere. Best bet is to keep moving." Adelaide nodded silently in compliance, ears to the wind and her eyes focused on the wrecked and abandoned interior of the Demonic structure. "We'll head to the foyer. Probably a few we can take on waiting there." Wait, what? He wanted to fight these hellish monsters? Her mind became engulfed in a mixture of emotions, unsure of how to process his logic. On one hand, she needed the experience, and without it, she was as good at dead; on the other, Adelaide felt put off by his drive, his feisty ambition to slay these monsters that lurked in the shadows. Weren't Demon Hunters supposed to have been sound of mind and spirit, resolved in their quest to eradicate corruption and vice? The way she interpreted things, Lazarus's view of the situation made them appear like little more than glorified pest exterminators.

The two persisted in their sauntering through the corridor until they were only one room away from their destination, the foyer, the very entrance to the whole complex where the stairs were located. Adelaide darted the occasional glance here and there, taking mental note of all that entered her vision. Shattered and cracked pots topped off with plants long since neglected and withered. Shredded and torn oil paintings, some of them defaced with blood smears. Marble plinths and columns riddled with claw marks, cracks or massive dents. The occasional pool of dried blood on the floor. The whole place was invariably in shambles, completely disorganized and unkempt as opposed to its human world parallel, which she treated as a shining example of personal order and rigidity.

The solicitor cast a downtrodden expression in no particular direction. Even though she knew the ruined mansion was little more than a hollow reflection of her own, looking at the surrounding chaos did nothing to reinforce this reality into her rational mind. Instead, it evoked memories. Painful ones. The way the destroyed decorum was cast everywhere, how everything splattered and fell. It all reminded her of the day she returned from law school; how she came home to a manor thrown into disarray as if a great struggle had taken place. And one did. To avoid grabbing the other Hunter's attention and attracting unwanted pity, Adelaide closed her eyes and with a brief grimace, she steeled her thoughts on the matter at hand and returned to the present. Lazarus mentioned earlier that Hell was a lot closer to home than she believed it may have been.

He was right, but it was in a way he could never understand.

"If there are a lot of Demons holed up here, there'll probably be something pretty strong at the head of this place." The lady Kingsford's armored foot crunched down on something brittle, likely a shard of porcelain, grinding it into a fine powder with the step she took. "You know this place better than I do, but I'd say we head to the highest point in the building. An attic or something." Damn it. Her stern expression intensified a little; why was it that whenever she tried to let the past go, it just boomeranged right back into her head in some form or another? She fiercely clenched the hilt of her sword. "The library has a panel that leads to the attic," Adelaide replied flatly. More memories of that terrible night poured into her psyche, culminating in a vivid and gruesome scene that took place inside the mentioned chamber. She needed to remove herself from her thoughts, and chose to diffuse the recollections with something from her early childhood. Days she could remember on a more fond note. "My father would never let me venture inside without his supervision." She flashed an empty grin to the floor, reminded of a better time, when her old man scolded her for spinning haphazardly in his expensive office chair.

"Your show, Adelaide. Where are we headed after the foyer?" Earth to Adelaide. There's a Lazarus Carter on the line for you. Pulled back into reality once again, she shook her head, collecting her thoughts, then turned to the gun-toting man. "The library's located on the second floor, if your intentions are to explore the attic," She informed him, the pitch and timbre of Adelaide's voice still caked with that well-mannered, high-class atmosphere of hers. It was far from anywhere near condescending or snobbish, yet the way it persisted even in casual dialogue could put off anyone used to talking in the vernacular. The Hunters entered the foyer as she continued, turning mechanically while she pointed in the direction of the stairs. "We can take the staircase to—"

As soon as she turned to look in the direction her finger was aimed, the lawyer's throat seized up, cutting off all attempts to chat with the Carter boy. Her radiant emerald eyes snapped open, pupils rapidly shrinking into fearful dots, and the grip on her sword tightened entirely out of instinct—no, out of surprise. A truly massive creature entered their respective peripheries, completely stacked with large and sinewy muscles to indicate that it was a beast of monstrous strength, further evidenced by the immense weapons clutched between its meaty fingers; a cleaver-like blade, and a proportionately accurate sickle, more like the Grim Reaper's scythe when compared to the size of the rather diminutive human in its way. Feathers as orange as the flames of Inferis grew from its shoulders and upper legs. Perhaps the most characteristic feature this great Demon displayed was its iconic body structure: the upper half of a human-like being, and the lower half of a bovine creature. A Taurus Demon.

And it had found its next meal in Adelaide and Lazarus.

As if by complete reflex, defying any remote sliver of fear that ran through her body and mind, Adelaide gripped her nameless weapon with both hands and entered a staunch position, armored legs spread out and shaping her striking azure-and-gold dress to their forms. "Mind breaking the tension with some of your wit?" She asked while glancing over to the redhead, assuming he was fully prepared to do battle with the lumbering monstrosity. Tongue-in-cheek humour was arguably not her forté. Best leave that to the professionals, relatively speaking.

[Lazarus Carter]

"Mind breaking the tension with some of your wit?"

"Fuck." Was all Lazarus could think. The last time he'd gone up against one of these he was barely an inch or two away from his testicles being skewered and turned into an impromptu pickled snack, thrown in with the eggs and the onions. Demon Hunters hunted Demons - clue was in the name - but there were certain engagements that became slightly more daunting than others. For instance, his specialty was in Demons that died when you shot them. This cow fucker looked like he wouldn't oblige to that rule. So this would be exhilarating; it would rock him to his very core, but it would be a hell of a rush. The only thing he said, turning to Adelaide with a coy grin, as requested, was: "Anyone for steak?"

[INITIATE BATTLE THEME]

The minotaur-esque creature reared its head and unleashed something partway between a bovine snort, a primal, savage roar of an animal he'd never really heard on Earth, but generic all the same, and a semblance of what could have been, eons ago, before its fall, an almost human war cry, a bestial screaming within as it unleashed the full contents of what were presumably its demonic equivalent to lungs. As if on cue, a pair of entranced either side of the foyer's grand staircase gave birth to a low amalgamate of shrill, tinny shrieks, which escalated further and further in a cacophony that could only be trumped by a banshee, or nails on a chalkboard. Three more Aviaxes from each side. Lazarus was already finished loading two fresh clips into the Nomads - overpressure rounds, for a special, armoured target - and grinned, gesturing to the flock of approaching Demons that were converging on them, though not with their peak speed - as if they served more as a guard, a test, for their lumbering master.

"Keep the KFC rejects busy," Laz bobbed his head in their general direction as they rose their bony shackles and prepared - defensively, which was unlike the usual birdbrains - for an assault of some sort. "I've got business with Clarabell over there." Time to go Theseus. Moving right with a vigorous sidestep he brandished the pair of pistols as the rearing Taurus finished its greedy, split series of battle cries, and lowered its head, staring out over the field with a hollow an empty stare. It began to step forwards, descending the stairs - crushing the once-ornate granite of the foyer case beneath its feet with every movement, reducing them to little rocky craters - and dragged its scythe blades along the ground with a deadly screech. Laz winced as he moved. That was nails on a chalkboard, for lack of having an actual chalkboard.

In response, the redhead rose both his pistols and grinned. Only one thing for it. "Let's play, ya' heifer." With that, he began to unleash a barrage of rounds; a luminescent and vibrant collage of orange, synaesthetic bursts before Lazarus' eyes lit up in front of him and almost obscured his view. The minotaur's snorting became nothing between the continued gunfire; round after round after round moved forth from the barrel - and Laz' trigger pulls were halfway through eating through both magazines when he remembered a particularly useful fact from his combat with the mad whore. It was at this point that he lowered his guns, and made the executive decision to roll to the left - just in time for his vision to return proper, as the lowered head of the bovine behemoth let its vicious, charging horns shear through the air where the teen's midsection had been not five seconds ago.

"Huh." He remarked somewhat frantically. The Demon's head had, instead, met a nearby pillar at the other end of the foyer; with a rush of a fine, white, smog-like stone powder filling the room, as the floor trembled at a considerable extent, the top of the pillar dispensed a rain of falling chunks of marble, each roughly twice the size of his own fist. They landed in sequence upon the Taurus' back, each with a dull thud, and bounced off, seemingly not even tickling to the beefy girl. It was then he remembered the fact in full. His bullets hadn't even pierced the Taurus' hide when he'd taken the transformed Eris on.

This one, however, was unfortunately just as apt as the Megabitch's form had been, and turned towards him with a dull, resounding growl, which he could have sworn sounded just like a distorted moo dropped a few octaves and run through an amplifier. All the same it struck at his very core, and was both unsettling and foreboding, causing him to scrabble backwards rapidly in a manner not dissimilar from some sort of insect, and luckily pull himself up to his feet, as that same, resounding, dull, hoarse, bestial repetition of pants returned. It was the same one Eris had used. It was... laughter. Unfortunately there would be no reversion into a more... fleshy of forms. Not here. This cow was a hundred percent Necropolis beef - and it was not going down without a fight.

His breathing haggard as the Taurus ground out another once-beautiful tile beneath its feet into a fine silt-like substance as it cracked it with that dire, off-brown, sharp and twisted hoof; it raised its shoulders up with a muscular straining, and readied itself for another charge again as it snorted. But Lazarus felt the warrior within him well up; he dropped the Nomads and let his brow furrow, his crimson eyes shrink down to nothing more than slits. The synaesthetic took a long, thorough gulp of the warm, musty, trapped Inferis air, all of it down into his lungs, and with all his might unleashed a low-pitched, guttural roar, at the greatest volume, timbre, and dynamic he could.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The energy flowed out from his mouth in droves; and this time, it was not simply privy to his own starry, naive eyes. It was no longer a spectral energy only Lazarus could see; and formed before them all, an illusory, bright, amorphous and intangible mass before them, of energy. At first it was white; but with the longer he screamed what he knew wouldn't be his last, the redhead wove more and more energy into the ethereal swelling, and pumped it chock-full til it was a glimmering, vibrant, furious yellow, like an angry hornet without the black. As his voice began to tire, his throat began to feel sore from holding one consistent note, the shape refined. It hollowed into that familiar, circular-shaped disc of energy, still flowing, still moving, still revolving, the veins of bursting light visible before him. The ring was not simply a projectile, a particulate, a construct of energy; it was a part of his essence, triggered though unorthodox means for an assault purpose. It was alive.

And then as his voice stopped, and for a moment, nothing was there but a thrumming of the yellow energy ring and the ambience of Adelaide clashing against the Aviaxes, whatever had been holding it back swiftly dissipated; and allowed the Echo Trigger to come full circle. Formation complete, like a missile, the ring launched itself with a vicious speed and tremendous force of impact upon the Taurus Demon, a residual whine of equilibration shattering all the windows nearby that weren't already broken into a fine glassy powder. A smoke rose on impact and the Demon whined behind the screen, thudding its hefty form into another pillar, and causing it to fall down - completely - and release another white, powdery cloud, which only supplemented the screen behind which the creature was either dead, or recoiling from the attack.

And when it all cleared into the air, settled onto the ground, but a moment later, with the Taurus standing proud and vicious, baring both scythes in its hands, completely bipedal, with a low, bovine snarl rising in whatever sick excuse for a throat the twisted Demon had, it became apparent that "Clarabell", as Lazarus had dubbed it, was quite apparently not dead. The teen's response to this was more or less exactly what he'd thought upon his initial sighting of the creature. "Oh." He'd really hoped the Trigger would work. "Fuck."

[Adelaide Kingsford]

"Anyone for steak?" The lawyer torqued an eyebrow upward. Not... quite what she was expecting, especially from someone who seemed to perpetually radiated an air of casual bravado. But given the circumstances, she'd have to make do with what Lazarus gave her. As she watched the half-man, half-cow atrocity lurch its head back, Adelaide physically winced as it unleashed then a furious and primal bellow from the pit of its throat; an unholy and harrowing amalgamation of noises both human and animal, yet something on an entirely different and far more subhuman level than either. As the Taurus Demon reached the crescendo of its barbarous shriek, dissonant twittering notes and the tapping of claws against tile emanated from the foyer's left and right sides, growing louder and more atonal until six Aviaxes—three from each side—emerged from the nooks and crannies of the ruined structure.

Verdant irises and small black pupils daggers every which way, absorbing every shred of visual information that entered their owner's line of sight. Seven Demons were present; six small ones, and a very, very big man-cow sporting some impressive weaponry. On her side was... Lazarus, and his two guns. A neutral expression fell against her boyish features as she lifted her shining blade on high with a double-handed grip, bending her arms into a flawless perpendicular angle with a swift downward motion shortly after. "Keep the KFC rejects busy, I've got business with Clarabell over there." Adelaide forced back a light gasp that dared to escape her throat, then shot a nervous glance in the young man without word. Either he had faced one of these mammoths before and knew what he was doing, or he was completely bonkers and was trying to wing it, as it were.

The privilege of holding a team conference was not granted to the young lady, however, as Lazarus wasted no time in springing into action against the lumbering beast he so affectionately referred to as "Clarabell". Confound it all! Allowing instinct to take the reins once more, Adelaide felt her body kick itself backwards with a skilled and graceful leap, following up with several more bonds as she zigzagged away from the incoming Aviaxes like a blue-and-gold lightning bolt, sights wholly tuned in on the bovine monster's wooden lackeys, until she braked herself with a metallic screech, showers of sparks flying from beneath her feet as the armor protecting them scraped furiously against the floor.

One by one, the Taurus Demon's splintery playmates encircled around the lawyer while she slowly and cautiously twirled her body around, her ears assaulted by their high-pitched warbles and the harrowing taps and ticks of their bony little talons against the estate's ground. A glance to the left, then one to the right. Although there were only six of them, it felt like she was pitting herself against an entire army of the birdbrains. And while she and Lazarus had used teamwork to fell the last three, the lady Kingsford was certain that six on her own wouldn't be too big of an ordeal. She repositioned her arms until the decorative-looking sword was now held horizontally. Time to go to work

In a disharmonious union of chirps and tweets, two of the Bonebirds tapered off their Demonic gibberish with a horrifying shriek, then charged in simultaneously while their other squadmates strafed around the lady in blue. Bending her legs at an angle, Adelaide made no attempt to give the log-bodied fiends any quarter and leaped upward, rolling forward in the process as the Aviaxes breezed right underneath the evasive Demon Huntress's rather stylish-looking aerial flip, their spike-riddled arms hitting nothing but air. Her sabatons then made contact with the ground with a dull clang, less than a full foot away from the attackers, as the blonde lawyer twisted her body to the right, bringing the radiant sword with her in a mighty horizontal slice, letting its ornate blade carve freely and viciously into their torsos like a hot knife through butter. The first strike had certainly killed the monsters then and there, but Adelaide was quick to pivot her wrists and dextrously flip the weapon around to sweep it from right to left, cleanly tearing into and through their bodies once again. With a final, pitiful squawk, the Aviaxes were reduced to little more than a miserable pile of uneven sections.

Another scarecrow-bird attempted to take advantage of her blindside and leaped forward with an overhead chop, aiming straight for her exposed back; as if she had seen the tactic coming beforehand, Adelaide had quickly curled herself to the left and rolled out of the way as its sickle-bladed "hand" slammed into the tiles point end first, creating an indent as it embedded itself into the dusty flooring. "Hyah!" A powerful battle cry exited from her lungs and throat while she quickly regained her footing, stepping forward as the warrior woman—quite literally—executed the prone Demon with an upward vertical cut, effectively decapitating the creature as its now-headless body spasmed and jerked erratically, like a chicken would (hilariously ironic, if you thought about it) before it finally lapsed and gave itself up to Death's cold embrace. Three down, and three more to go.

Adelaide huffed, yanking her sword close to her while she returned to a standing position. Angry warbles from beyond her peripheral vision forced the woman to make a precise cut to the left. Clang! She had collided with another Aviax that tried to strike while her attention was seemingly focused elsewhere; and just like her first encounter, it had shrieked furiously as its arm made physical contact with her, but in stark contrast to the one she had blocked that time, this particular enemy reacted on a more hostile level and utilized both of its appendages to lay on the pressure, keeping her attentions focused on the advancing birdbrain even as her ears filled with the sound of Lazarus's guns and the rampaging Taurus Demon in the background.

One after another, her arms continued to pull and thrust her sword every which way, clashing and parrying each of the bone-and-wood monster's swift yet feral blows with such an amazing amount of reflex that her movements could only be described properly as being superhuman. Deep within her subconscious mind, beyond her seemingly stoic facial expression and her impressive mastery of the sword arts, she was formulating strings, complex strings, of defensive maneuvers and countermeasures until an opening was able to present itself to her. And when that opportunity came, she would take her shot.

Her gaze hardened as soon as she was able to spot a glaring hole in the Aviax's offense; with one last vertical parry and a fencer's thrust that shortly followed, the lawyer crouched just as soon as it made the mistake of taking a barbaric swing at her, with the intent to send her head flying off the dainty shoulders it rested on. Switching her right hand around so that she gripped her blade backhanded, Adelaide performed a well-timed, rising diagonal slice against the compromised birdbrain, effectively "pushing" her weapon through its body as the creature slid in half, instantaneously left behind to struggle for life until it could no longer do so.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The scream of titanic proportions from Lazarus had emanated throughout the great foyer, attracting not only Adelaide's attention out of sudden shock, but the remaining KFC rejects' out of an instinctual compulsion to eradicate the source of the noise. It was loud, and therefore, it must be the most threatening source. Unable to properly deduce whether or not the redhead was okay, the solicitor in blue entered a sprint after the last of the Taurus Demon's weak minions, eyes focused on them and burning with inner fire. She leaped forward, and before they could even think about entertaining the concept of attacking her comrade, she successfully intercepted their path with a deadly horizontal slice into both of their bodies, skidding across the floor with her ending stance rigid, fixed and firm as they crowed out with a last, pathetic squeal before they accepted their death, falling apart.

With a polished and well-executed flourish of her blade, the lady Kingsford sliced at the air before her as she assumed a more neutral posture once again, turning to face the sudden and rather huge cloud of pearly smoke that drifted through the Necropolis's filthy, humid air, settling to reveal from within the settling screen that the Taurus Demon had been pushed off its feet by some kind of unknown force, one that was somehow more powerful than it. Thinking back to the teenager's earlier screaming, she eventually deduced that he had utilized another Demon Hunter ability—an Evocation.

Unfortunately for the both of them, it was quick to recover from its staggered position, and was back on its hooves once more, seemingly unfazed by the redhead's attack. Clenching the nameless blade with both hands again, she glanced over to Lazarus, then back to the half-man, half-bovine monster, taking notice of the apparent lack of gunshot wounds, a telltale sign that his pistols had failed to damage the beast at all. A thought suddenly crossed her mind: would her blade, loathed by the Blood Sword from two weeks ago and the Aviaxes, have the same effect against this creature? "Provide me cover. I'd like to test a hypothesis I've been letting simmer for some time."

A bead of sweat rolled down her temple. Mere speculation hardly befitted a woman of the courtroom, a person who dealt in hardbound facts, logic, and principles. At this point, however, theory was all she had to work on. And if she didn't put it to the test, the Hunter and Huntress would quickly find themselves exhausted of all their options and left to the mercy of this walking slab of Demonic beef.

[Lazarus Carter]

The Echo Trigger had gathered the attention of both Adelaide and her prey as the shrill-voiced shrieking Demons dove upon him; he would have sustained grave wounds and probably lost an eye, or something, had the leader of the thin pack that he hadn't noticed nor had time to react to drawing on his flank been able to reach him with the sickle glinting in the pale light of the ruined manor. Instead; it fell to the solicitor's blade - as did its comrades, and for a moment, the pair of them stood there, panting. His breath seethed with a warm, acidic taste in his mouth; his saliva thickened as it did after a long run or a burst of sprinting.

His body was tired, but it had just been awakened - and soon he would recover. His mind was refreshed; apparently using these Evocations was a sort of mental, physical, and probably spiritual exercise. His audiokinetic energy blast had apparently been something that had done more damage than his pathetic overpressure rounds, having at the very least staggered the bovine colossus, unexpected or not. That was progress; he wasn't sure if this thing bled, but it had staggered. And if it staggered, they could... kill it? Hopefully? "Provide me cover. I'd like to test a hypothesis I've been letting simmer for some time."

At first Lazarus nodded; then as she dove off baring her blade high and ready to tear into the thing he actually registered her words; specifically the "provide me cover" part. All of the Aviaxes were dead, and the goddamn Taurus didn't even flinch from a gunshot - what was he supposed to do? "Adelaide!" He shouted after her. "My bullets don't do shit!" She might have been able to turn in time; and if the room wasn't filled with the cacophonous snorting of the Taurus and its low guttural rumbling as it stumbled to its feet and regained its imposing poster, she may have even heard him, but for the most part, it was too late.

It was then that the beast reversed its scythe so the blade faced away, and lowered its fist in a swing towards the lawyer; Lazarus winced from so much as watching it - this thing was strong enough to crack granite with its hooves and shatter pillars with its clavicles, and Adelaide was a delicate little thing, even in the battle-dress thing she'd donned here. If that strike made contact it was going to give her a real goddamn headache - but swiftly enough she bore the blade in front of her and retaliated. The lumbering punch was slow enough that she could bring down her blade into it - and the resultant show of events was rather startling.

The white-clad Lazarus at first grinned at his erstwhile comrade's success; but soon his smile dropped to a gaping hole in his mouth as he saw what the strike had done. "GHHHHHHRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH." Was the stifled, pained response the Taurus made, retracting its hand immediately and forgetting about the punch he could have crushed all of Adelaide's ribs with, and gingerly attended a deep gash into the top of its bovine hand as, before their eyes, the flesh began to sizzle and hiss. It was if it had suddenly been exposed to some powerful and divine heat as a few droplets of a harrowing, dark tint of maroon dribbled out into a warm slick on the floor - but for the most part, the wound had been cauterised by the heat that had seemingly emerged from nowhere.

Lazarus' eyes flashed to the blade but nothing special was happening; it was simply held there in Adelaide's grasp, barely bloodied and twinkling in the mansion's cold light. A simple sword had done what bullets and a concussive-explosive ring couldn't achieve: it had drawn this monstrosity's blood. "What in the fuck..." The white-clad redhead muttered beneath his breath, letting the Nomads dissipate, assuming Adelaide had this - but what he hadn't accounted for was that the young, inexperienced girl was just as stunned as he was by the blade's properties, if not more so. For the moment, the Taurus had been taken aback by the burning sensation in its hand; but it was a being of savage power, and in but a moment, it dropped its scythes to the floor with a relentless clattering and lunged forwards. In both its hands it grasped the blonde by her midsection and unleashed a bestial snarl into her face, its colossal fingers beginning to tighten its vicegrip before, inevitably, it delivered some form of killing move as it tore her apart.

The blood was running down from the creature's gaping hand and onto her battledress; it was now that Lazarus decided it was an apt time to intervene. There was a small niche behind the behemoth - when it had charged at him, it had just about missed the exit from the foyer into the barren wastelands of Inferis proper. The Echo Trigger had pushed it back into what was essentially an interior porch - and now it stood there like some agitated guardian, ready to tear his teammate in two. But the crimson-eyed Hunter wasn't having any of that shit.

Bolting immediately into a sprint, with a supernaturally augmented stride into the national athletic ability his muscles recalled in but a moment, a startling memory of a past life that rose familiar memories of starting guns and winning races. He had been a runner. Sport was in his blood; speed was in his blood; the taste of lactic acid in his mouth and the feel of it in his gut as he panted at the end of the hundred metres... it brought back memories that were a double-edged blade. He recalled them for the good and the bad; for how he loved to win, but how he hated to assign his life to a future he didn't so much as give two shits about.

He covered the distance between them in a few strides - and when there, held out his bare hands, moved to the right of the Taurus before it could even register his presence, and grasping onto its upper shoulder as a "pole" of sorts, used the amassed, superior velocity and momentum to vault himself around in a rapid spin, and turned his body in one fluid motion towards the back side of the hulking, bovine Demon and skidded against the cracked, once-ornate tiles of the not-Kingsford un-estate porch, and raising his hands as high as he could, aimed upwards at the creature's head, and willed with all his might, as he had many a time before, for the Nomads to appear in his hands, that familiar weight, so he could assail the creature with a storm of lead and either dissuade its attempt at killing his comrade or put the cow down once and for all.

But that wasn't what happened.

[ALTER BATTLE THEME]

The amorphous mass of light formed in his hands again as it had dozens - or possibly even hundreds - of times before. But this time they did not remain equidistant; they did not remain tilted slightly inwards; and as if acting of their own accord, the left shot forwards and almost out of his reach as the right retracted backwards and his elbow buckled to accommodate the new position, almost as if it was cradling what was appearing. A fresh cocktail of adrenaline surged through Lazarus' system and his blood pumped like liquid fire. He knew this sensation. This harrowing and stimulating sense of unknowing; it had happened, physically, like this, only once before, but he'd felt it a total of three times.

The light solidified; and in but a moment's notice he knew exactly what he held in his hands. Weighty; chrome; rigid... familiar. He knew exactly what he held in his hands; and he felt as if he'd held it in his hands all his life. It was intrinsically perfect - it felt like it belonged between his fingers just as much as the Nomads did. The barrel came into existence first; elongated, a dark silver, and hollow; then the pump beneath it, the ejector port, the rail on the side that held another eight slots for ammunition and the rail on the top that he could. Double-aught, twelve-gauge rounds; another bandolier appeared, like the one that had so many times around his chest - but this time around his hip. This gun... it felt... it felt powerful. His hands tightened around the pistol-grip of the compact weapon and his hand laid on the pump as if it had belonged there all his life. And finally, his finger coiled around the trigger.

Shotgun.

With a wild grin he drew back the pump until it locked into place with a resounding click and let it slide back forwards as one round had rolled into the chamber, that signature chk-chk letting the unwitting Taurus know that his arsenal had just been upgraded. The creature turned towards him, now, for the first time, looking over his shoulder and down the barrel towards Lazarus as a primitive snarl summoned itself in its throat and it readied to turn. First, it would tear the girl apart in front of him. And then it would pound the boy into an unrecognisable bloody mulch - and offer the pair of them to its false prophet a few floors above.

But Lazarus had other plans.

Grinning at the bestial face as it sneered at him and a wild orange hellfire raged in its eyes, "knowing" that his weapons did little to stop him, and would to even at this range, the Taurus was, fortunately for the two of them, one thing above all else: stupid. So in a language he hoped to whatever God was out there the thing could fathom, he uttered one lines recognisable throughout the endless echelons of nineties history. "This is my boomstick." A smile of pure, victorious conviction slipped onto his face as the thing moved to address him, still holding Adelaide static. And he squeezed the trigger.

BOOM. Squelch.

At first it just stood there with half of its head hanging off; the porch had been painted the dark maroon of the creature's blood, with dots of an unnaturally pale pink spotted in. A spray had coated everywhere outwards from where he'd fired the shot, up in the air and out in a fantastic splatter, though for a small gap where Adelaide had been held, her having taken a large concentration of the shed, clustered, spreading gore and viscera that coated one side of the foyer of a building that no longer belonged to her. The half-skull that remained, Lazarus' shotgun blast having removed both its eyes, the crown of its head and even apparently its nose, didn't move, simply affixed in place, but it took a few moments for the body to register that the Taurus was now infact dead.

Then it dropped to its knees; the clamping hands around Adelaide released and slumped down; and the Taurus Demon's torso fell forwards like a limp remnant of the powerful beast it had one been, revealing behind it its bright-eyed, ever-grinning slayer, reaching the ground with something halfway between a thud and a squelch, sending another spatter out with the impact of its landing, base of the head falling just before where the Englishwoman had, inches away from brushing her with a great, downwards, bloody smear.

Propping the shotgun onto his shoulder and arrogantly striding over to the comrade he'd rescued using the Taurus' body as an ironically red carpet, he extended a hand and grimaced a little as he scanned her up and down, before tilting his head. "Don't worry," He explained with a half-hearted shrug. "A light covering in Demon guts happens to the best of us." At least your clothes cleaned themselves when you crossed back, even if the rest of you didn't...

[Adelaide Kingsford]

The die had already been cast, and just like any professional gambling table, there was no altering bets once they hit the felt. Without devoting a second opinion to the matter, Adelaide flexed her wrists until her sword emitted a flicker of dazzling light off its reflective metal edge, then pushed into a speedy lunge, the wind that rushed around her ears drowning out Lazarus' distressed cry. The plan was to rush past the Demonic equivalent of Lizzie Borden's mother-in-law and into the exposed interior porch behind it, then swiftly jump onto its back and, to save on words, stab the bloody thing until it very well died.

But behind her rather simple strategy lurked a theory, a notion regarding the glittering sword in her hands. There was something about its existence, its very nature that the forces of darkness instinctively detested and loathed. When it first spawned into being, the sinewy-muscled Blood Sword flinched as if it were terrified. She blocked two Aviaxes with the weapon, and even though she failed to inflict damage, they reacted negatively. But she had yet to truly wound a Demon with it, and something that settled at the bottom of her gut urged her to put that premise to the test.

The affluent woman's eyes hardened into a resolved glare, homing in on the Taurus Demon and observing as it twirled its enormous sickle around its thick, blue wrist and into a backhanded grip with one deceptively polished motion, then watching it rear its fist back and then throwing it forth into a powerful jab. But this power-packed punch hadn't been aimed directly at her; Lucifer forbid she just sidestep the attack and continue on with her plan. In a rare act of predatory cunning, the rather beefy bovine aimed toward the floor—and directly where Adelaide would be, fueled by the intent to mash her petite body flatter than the world's thinnest sheet of paper.

But her instincts, strange and spontaneous as they were, flared up as fires would in a smelting furnace the moment the solicitor caught wind of the inhuman atrocity's true intentions. In a last second alteration of her initial strategy, she shifted her weight toward the leg currently behind her, using it to skid to a screeching halt against the tile floor. She clenched her fingers around the stunning sapphire pommel of her blade and put every ounce of her physical strength into her arms and shoulders to bring the ornate weapon over from the right and into a horizontal cleave.

But in that very split second, before her supposedly inferior attack would connect with the weighty thrust made by the taurine creature, Adelaide's vision went pearly white, and the Demon before her faded into the vast obscurity around her. A vaguely human-like shadow was all that served to replace the Taurus, and instead of seeing her own armored hands, she caught a mere glimpse of another figure's hands, blurred as they were, yet clasped between this entity's fingers was a sword unlike the lawyer's, clashing with this other mysterious being. Although something about the weapon "Adelaide" was holding felt... different. Like it truly was her weapon this figure was holding, but somehow, it wasn't.

The vision disappeared almost quicker than it had manifested, replacing everything that Adelaide's eyes had taken in before her vision went blank, and what happened next would undoubtedly take both parties—the Demon Hunters and the Taurus Demon—by complete surprise, for better or worse. Her ear canals flooded with a restrained snarl of aggravation from the feathery man-cow, a noise she had never heard it make up until this point, and the combined, malodorous scents of charred Demon flesh and flowing blood entered her nostrils shortly after. As her subconscious mind processed the evidence at hand while it simultaneously acclimated itself to the fight, it was able to reach a final verdict on the nature of her glistening jewel of a sword: it carried with it the touch of the Heavenly Host, innately crafted to exude the endless light of the Lord; it was made to act as an instrument of God's infinite will. Adelaide Kingsford's sword was that very glimmer of light amidst an endless blanket of shadow, a game-breaker being employed on the home realm of the opposing team. It was, for all intents and purposes, a holy weapon.

But it was during that moment of grand revelation, brief as it may have been, that the inexperienced Huntress had serendipitously granted the injured and quite reasonably pissed off Juggernaut enough of a window of opportunity to cast aside both of its hefty weapons and reached out to the prone woman, clasping its meaty fingers around her midsection in a deadly vice grip. As if a thousand weights were being closed around her all at once, the young woman could barely choke out an agonized yelp as she felt her tiny lungs being squeezed of all its precious oxygen, with unimaginable pain searing through her every muscle and bone; her fingers, unable to retain their grip on the bloodless sword between them due to the crushing force being applied to her waist, had unconsciously dropped it, falling until it landed onto the destroyed mansion floor with a metallic clattering.

Its strength was far too overwhelming for her to struggle against and free herself from its clutches, and the murderous snarl it unleashed as it continued to tighten its grip was more than enough evidence to signal to the distraught Lazarus that it had every aim to grind the young woman's entire skeleton into an ultra-fine powder. Adelaide's expression morphed into a desperate grimace for help, eyes glued shut against her will as her suffering intensified with every second that passed. Was this it, then? Was this how she would meet her terminal fate? Just like her father and mother did: at the hands of a bloodthirsty Demon?

Her vision had almost gone completely black as soon as the redhead made his dramatic arrival on top of the taurine brute's shoulders, her fading hearing unable to pick up on the threatening rack of a weapon that was familiar to everyone, even to a sheltered rich girl like herself, on a universal level. Shotgun. With her consciousness hanging by its last thread, Adelaide's unmoving body slumped over within the Taurus Demon's crushing grasp as the beast made the fatal mistake of turning to face the human that was now mounted on top of its impressive physique. One cheesy Bruce Campbell quote later, and Lazarus pulled the trigger with a killer's smirk.

BOOM. Squelch.

Blood and brains were sprayed practically all over the place by the resounding blast that spawned from the Demon Hunter's newer and certainly bigger gun, coating the abandoned foyer in a thin layer of meaty chunks and grey matter, now reduced to a vaguely paste-like texture and consistency; unfortunately for the royally garbed Adelaide, she was painted over with a large portion of the Demon's former head, the rich azure dyes and gold trimmings being stained a sickly-looking purple with splotches of green every which way. As soon as the newly dead creature's hands loosened themselves, the woman fell and tumbled to the mansion floor, merely inches away from her sword, and had struggled to crawl away from the falling corpse just before it hit the tiles with a reverberating, terminal thud, smearing bloody red streaks where her body had just sat.

Adelaide wheezed and coughed tumultuously, endeavoring to regain her breath as she tenderly pressed a hand against her lower torso as it throbbed and ached as though a dagger had been firmly planted into her stomach. "A light covering in Demon guts happens to the best of us." The blonde lady only winced in agony, seething through her teeth as she did so, as she reached over to retrieve her glittering sword nearby, gently scraping the metal blade over the floor tiles as she pulled the object close to her. She then leaned against the weapon as though it were a walking stick, using it to slowly lift herself back up on her feet; the solicitor wasted no time in returning a hand back to cradle the ache around her stomach, nearer the lower portion of her ribs, as she carefully and silently hobbled her way toward the foyer staircase, damaged with the massive hoof indentations made by the now dead Taurus Demon.

It felt as if though several of her ribs may have been bruised by the lumbering beast, but as long as they weren't broken, she felt herself able to manage, even if her pathetic limping made it appear otherwise. It wasn't the worst injury she'd ever suffered, either; that was reserved for an accident way back in her childhood, where she fell out of a tree and dislocated her left arm upon colliding with the earth below. A few bumps weren't enough to slow her down; if it was one thing she hated more than anything, it was being treated like a child. It made her feel incapable and helpless, especially in front of those she aimed to assist and help. And counting the fiasco that happened not even several seconds ago, she had been rescued from these monsters a total of three times. It was unacceptable for a Kingsford to show weakness to anyone, regardless of whether it was in the courtroom or somewhere around London. Her error of judgment had nearly cost Adelaide her life.

And it wasn't going to happen again.

[Lazarus Carter]

Without a word, Adelaide advanced towards the foyer staircase, gingerly cradling her ribs. Lazarus shrugged, letting the shotgun fall, and begin to sway, before taking a look at his handiwork and a nasal lungful of the cordite-laden, smoky air around them. God, he'd really redecorated the fucking place. It had been a real state before the pair of them had turned up, but he'd essentially doused the place with the - albeit limited - contents of Clarabell's uninteresting - though colourful - cranium. However, his teammate was clearly having some qualms about the entire affair, moving away without so much as a word; for some sense of faded guilt in tugging her into all this, her behest or otherwise, he sighed, and broke into a leisurely jog towards her. Things would lapse; for now at least.

"Hey." He spoke at first. There was no reaction. "Hey!" The American brought his voice up with a tone of considerable urgency as he lowered his half-run into a steady walk, and aligned his body with hers, keeping his pace in check. "Look, don't sweat it, Adelaide," In the midst of peril and in a room that was riddled with gunshots, rubble, blood, and muscle tissue, calming his erstwhile and newfound friends wasn't his particular talent; he was a dab hand at pulling the trigger - not so much aiming - and that was about it when it came to Inferis. Not momentary post-battle pep talks. "You start better than most, but you're never sure of your limits til you find them." It was the truth.

His abilities had taken a close call with multiple deep face lacerations to evoke themselves and prove not only apparent but useful. Another inch-deep gash in his back that had left an ugly, curved scar was testament to the fact that breaking yourself into this life wasn't a clean process. Demons were bloody creatures and hunting them was bound to be no less so. "You tried to take too big a target on and you got hurt for it." He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her as they began ascending the staircase and grinned in that little, cheeky way Lazarus Carter did. "Your wounds will heal." He took her attention and turned his head towards the fallen, messy, half-headed corpse of the late Clarabell. "Hers won't."

That was true enough. Well, except if there were any necromancers lurking by. Or zombies. Fuck, he'd heard about the Blight zombies. And he was in no rush to meet them. Any of them. "Long story short, you took something big on and you won," Lazarus rose the barrel of the shotgun, pointing it up to the sky - barely moments into holding it and the weapon felt like it just belonged. "You might not have pulled the trigger, but what I do, what you're gonna do, what we do isn't about taking the glory, it's not about chalking up another mark on the board to prove your experience." For once, he finished, and he curved his lips into a warm enough smile. Genuine. No hint of his teeth; no grin present. It wasn't much, but it's have to do. "It's about staying alive, through teamwork, or otherwise. And, my help or not, you're doing pretty well at that so far."

A slap on the back and he prodded the shotgun towards the stairs. "Your show, Kingsford," The legitimate smile that had shone through for what felt like a fraction of a second, barely a negligible moment in the collective years of those arrogant, exuberant, ignorant, and somehow completely casual and aloof grins he'd amassed that became the redhead's trademark. "Onwards to the library." The rest of their journey was relatively uneventful. The multitudes and vast swathes of Aviaxes seemed to have retreated elsewhere, or remained on the bottom floor, or elsewhere in the labyrinthine, Daedalean halls of the manor. It was sprawling; and it had a vague, eerie tone to it as the partners explored what felt like a relic, an outdated ruin that had been left since time immemorial to fester and play home to an infernal host.

The library door was one that Adelaide found their way to soon enough. It was up flight after flight of stairs; and though their plan had been nothing in particular, the skittering and chittering nearby, and every shrill offhanded whistle in the background made the pair feel like they were creeping through a nest of Demons - like they were - without actively taking a baseball bat to the entire affair and announcing their presence in some form of vulgar and grandiose manner for the fact that their last engagement had ended with the fairer of the two almost ending up a bovine chewtoy. Their journey was somewhat uneventful: but both felt barely a sliver away from kicking the beehive, waking the Demons, and inadvertently raising Hell at any given moment.

The door was grandiose: like the rest of them. Cordoned off at the end of a small corridor, with a vast, once-grand, and completely decrepit dilapidated wall before them, wrought of fine wood in turn melded with legendary masonry and perfect gilded ornamental craftsmanship. A spectacle on Earth, here the paint peeled; the wood splintered; the granite cracked; but between it all, there the door sat, the faded tint of its grandiose cream still somehow glistening in the perforating, sickly, off-red light that shone through the shattered, once-stained glass bay window behind them. It was the place they were headed, alright. Lazarus could feel it in his bones. He moved forwards instinctively to try the old brass handle of the left half, yanking it downwards, but it stuck and just made a noisy, echoing, click. "Locked..." He murmured, looking enviously at the gilded keyhole.

The gunman rose the shotgun up and planted the pump into his waiting, pale, cradling hand, spinning it towards the first upper hinge of the left half of the locked doors, before looking to Adelaide. "Can I shoot it down?" Chk-chk. He pumped the shotgun. The shell that had held the buckshot which had slain the Taurus Demon and flew off at every angle, coated with gore and viscera, bloody pellets presumably now embedded for some eternity in the halls, plinths, walls, and doors of the manor foyer. "I wanna shoot it down."

[Adelaide Kingsford]

"Hey." No response ever came from Adelaide, and was instead returned by nothing short of the silence that was quick to repossess the mansion atmosphere, followed by the soft, rhythmic clanking of her sabatons hitting against the floor. "Hey!" She knew where he wanted to go with whatever he had to say, and she wanted none of it. Only one option and objective rested on her mind, and one only: climb the scarred foyer staircase and reach its apex and head to the parallel of her late father's library, where her companion Lazarus could snoop around to his heart's delight. A glint of crimson entered her periphery and tried to actively match her clumsy walking speed; the blonde woman didn't bother to cast a glance in his direction, tempted as she was. "Look, don't sweat it, Adelaide. You start better than most, but you're never sure of your limits til you find them."

The solicitor winced momentarily, tensing the fingers against her abdomen while tightening the others that were wrapped around her sword's pommel. Another bolt of pain seared within her muscles and ligaments, and this one had nearly stopped the woman in her tracks. But where her aching ribs had failed, Lazarus would succeed by disregarding the personal space of his female companion via reaching out and cupping a hand over her tiny shoulder—but it was not the act of touching another without permission that would provoke the swelling frustration that lurked within Adelaide. "You tried to take too big a target on and you got hurt for it."

The pin had dropped. Suddenly halting her advance up the stairs, Adelaide deliberately snapped an angry glare right at Lazarus, shooting molten daggers from those green eyes of hers right into his crimson spheres. The pain inside her body that resulted from her carelessly quick movement had now brought her on the verge of breaking into tears, but her adamant nature prohibited her facial muscles from revealing that she could no longer bear any of it. Instead, she wanted her eyes, which were locked in that threatening stare, to describe the emotions that were boiling behind them. To tell the story for her.

Adelaide was new at this, and that much was as obvious as it got. She was learning about herself, recognizing her abilities as a Huntress—as well as her limits—and awakening strange and wonderful powers that laid dormant within her until now. All her teenage partner was doing was reminding her, incessantly, of this fact, and it was making her feel incompetent. Admirable as his attempt at sympathy may have been, he wasn't alleviating the guilt she harbored for allowing her better judgment to lapse like it did then; Lazarus was only complicating the matter further by trying to encourage a wounded Adelaide to abandon any "hard feelings" she was clinging to, and any prognostications made about her chances of being able to survive inside Inferis only worsened her doubts.

Not wanting to let it fester on her mind any longer than it already was doing, she tore her eyes from the redhead's and pulled the rest of herself away as soon as Lazarus thought it pertinent to reassure her with a gentle pat on the back; all that did was agitate the ache in her ribs, and she winced because of it. "Your show, Kingsford. Onwards to the library." What a contradictory closing statement. Whatever. With a deep sigh, Adelaide blinked slowly and returned to climbing the staircase, shaking her head as if though she were outwardly expressing disgust; the feeling was not aimed at Lazarus, the university student whom was doing nothing except behaving like a comrade should—but it was all directed toward herself, because she nearly compromised the entire excursion with her careless behavior. She had every right to be ashamed, but on an internal level, she now knew better than before. She had learned from her mistake, and that was that.

Moments passed, and within them the duo had completed their ascension of the abandoned mansion's staircases and successfully reached the floor which harbored the great library of her late father, Winston Kingsford. The trip had been uneventful, but it was a tense one all the while; Adelaide could hear the occasional chirrup of Aviaxes from everywhere around her, as well as the tapping of their bony little talons. Both Hunters were being stalked by the very real possibility of an assault made by the Demons that hid in the places they never bothered to look, yet they were spared such a fate regardless of whether it was by divine intervention or through sheer dumb luck.

It wouldn't be long before they finally approached their destination in the form of a grand wooden door; once the pinnacle of craftsmanship with its extravagant design and ritzy ornamentation, now reduced to a hollow semblance of its former luxury. As Adelaide's eyes fell upon a large, bloody smear that streaked underneath the massive portal, her heart found itself flooded with an apprehensive sensation that was all too familiar to her. The way the ages-dried liquid was proportioned and shaped evoked nostalgic dread; it was the exact same streak she saw on the night she watched her father slowly die.

Of course, she wasn't permitted to dwell on the resurfacing memories for long; Lazarus' noisy jostling of the door kept her anchored in reality. "Locked..." He then turned to Adelaide with that enormous shotgun resting inside his hands, aimed directly at the lock. "Can I shoot it down?" With one jerk of his arm, he racked the weapon and loaded a new slug into its barrel, its distinctive and equally threatening loading action echoing momentarily through the hall. "I wanna shoot it down." Resisting the urge to do a double take at his brazen request, the solicitor furiously shook her head. "Absolutely not! You'll only draw more attention to us," She explained in a harsh whisper, then turned to the keyhole with a pensive glance. "There should be a key somewhere nearby."

On that note, she carefully stooped low enough to use the hand that had been cradling her injured ribs to brush along the edge of the Persian rug that rested beneath the pair's feet, sweeping her fingers across the tattered and color-drained textile until they maneuvered across a slight bump that caught her attention. Within seconds, she slipped her fingers beneath the decorative mat and conjured forth an old-fashioned skeleton key, lightly coated in rust in spite of the apparent neglect it received but otherwise fully functional. "Here we are." Slowly, Adelaide lifted herself back into a standing posture and moved to hand the key over to Lazarus, then took a step back so that he may go on about his business. "I'm going to take a minute to recuperate. I'll be fine on my own, go in without me." The lawyer propped her posterior end against the wall next to the door, sword still in her grasp and her verdant gaze now kept focused on both ends of the corridor.

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