Beal seemed to have no hesitance in attacking the Dean's posse, but Isalien just stood there slack-jawed for a second, green eyes watery and wide. She saw the Dean grin and wave his fat fingers at her, but his eyes were cold and held an obvious warning: "cooperate or die" is what she read it as. That silent threat was the last straw, and she snapped. The wolves were locked in a battle with the man, which she was relieved to see as she sprinted past them, almost getting pummeled by the flying wolf corpse that ended up hitting the short magician. Ha! There was her first target, then. No way could he get that wolf off of him without help. Unfortunately, that also meant none of his power was available externally --not in a quickly accessible way, that is-- , leaving her with one other method of consuming it.
She heard the Dean's voice shout at the magician just before she touched her open mouth to the mage's, forcing his lips apart by pinching either side of his mouth with one hand like she was trying to make him look like a fish. "Put up your block! Put it up, you fool!" the Dean raged.
But it was too late. Every ounce of the magician's power was sucked from his being and filled a portion of Isalien's reserves, but instead of killing him with it, she went straight for the other mage and unleashed a quarter of her reserves onto his face. He screamed in agony and clutched his face, his neck, his chest, trying desperately to hold his skin together somehow. To say the least, he was too distracted to keep up any sort of shield, something that Isalien had bet on.
"You imbecile!" the Dean shouted, veins bulging in his neck. "You should have put up your block and barrier!"
Isalien listened to his cruel remarks while she gave the wounded mage the same treatment as the first, though she seemed to hesitate, not wanting to touch her lips to his bloody, raw ones. She did it anyways and was rewarded with more power than the first mage had given her. It made her smile when she pulled away and put him out of his misery with a quick, minimal burst of power to his neck and ducking as a spurt of blood shot at her. It would have gone over her head if he hadn't been falling to the ground, but in this case Isalien was bathed in blood down the right side of her face, neck and chest.
She grimaced, but seconds later turned to the Dean with a frigid, forced little smile. He tried to talk her out of attacking him. "Miss Murrik, you do realize that I have called for help, do you not? And even if you run, we know where you will go, back to your forest." His words were low and meant to sound calm, but he rushed through them and a bead of sweat dripped down his brow.
"Does being obese affect your intelligence?" Isalien asked, still stepping towards him. "My home is my own, made for my access alone. Just like no ordinary being can enter the realm of the lesser gods, none can enter my section of my forest. You only caught me because I was outside of those boundaries... You won't live to see me make that mistake again."
Her hand was outstretched, and the Dean looked furious, terrified, and incedulous.
The first warning should have been that his eyes were drawn over her right shoulder suddenly. The second should have been the smirk that twisted his mouth and filled his eyes with the same arrogance. Isalien quickly turned to see what he was so thrilled about and was instantly thankful that she had turned so fast. Had she turned slower, the bullet would have gone through her back instead of skimming across her chest before lodging itself against the far side of her left collarbone. It seemed to be caught in the underside of it. If it had been any higher it would have harmlessly bounced off the metal brace still stuck around her neck.
That stupid mage had gotten out from under the wolf's corpse somehow, though she had assumed he was too scrawny to, and was on his knees with a gun still aimed at her. It wasn't a normal gun. The wound hurt like in all the ways other bullet wounds did, though she briefly wondered if the delicate bone was shattered. But unlike most bullet wounds, this one felt of magic. It worked to her advantage well enough; its power was unused, still dormant, so she soaked it into herself. Still, she was irritated at the pain and wanted to brutally torture him without thought.
To fulfill her wish, she just raised her hands and let loose energy at the mage, who still had no power with which to raise his shields. The deterioration of his skin started at his chest and spread like water splashed against a marble floor. He shouted and cursed her, but refused to put down his gun. She felt large arms hold her in place, pulling her hands behind her back and pulling down, a move that made it feel like a knife was twisting in her flesh near her collarbone. The mage shot at her once again, this time with poor aim that only earned him a wound on the fleshy inside of her thigh, merely a flesh wound through fat and skin. But it stung like a bitch, which pissed her off even more, especially since her hands were held captive, and she sent out two broad waves of power at him, one at his face, and one at the hand holding the gun. He let off two other reckless rounds right before it hit him, and one of them she thought would go through her side, but instead she heard the Dean grunt. She didn't see where the other went just yet.
Isalien whipped around, stumbling away from the Dean when he released her. She glanced at the mage, screaming in pain on the floor and no longer a threat, and then turned back to the Dean. He was so fat and she so small that she turned out to be a useless shield for him; there was a small hole in his chest that was beginning to bleed profusely, but she knew it wouldn't be enough to kill him. For half a second, she wondered why a bullet she thought would hit her side had ended up in his chest high above her waist, but she threw the thought away.
Using the last of her store of power, she shoved her finger inside the wound and let the power explode out of her ruthlessly, contained to stay inside of his body. As his insides liquified, the Dean looked down at her blankly.
"You thought I wouldn't see your skin's shield?" she asked quietly, ripping her finger out of the bullet wound. "Oh, that's right... I forgot to tell you-- I can see magic and power. Idiot. And my name is Isalien."
For some odd reason, the Dean smirked at her as he fell to the ground and died. Isalien frowned and looked around. There was no other threats, and the man that was her sort-of-partner had just finished killing the last of the wolves. Confused, she looked down at herself to make sure she hadn't missed anything. One of the bullets had hit gone through her side, very near to the edge on the left. How had she not felt that...? She was certainly feeling it now, though she kept her paling face straight as possible. Other than the pain and lingering fear, she seemed relieved. Her entire battle lasted around thirty seconds, a very average score for her.
"... Don't smirk. I'm still alive, aren't I?" she muttered at the Dean's body before turning to Beal. She almost walked towards him, but decided to keep still for a while. "If we're going to leave, we should do it now before more enemies arrive. I may bring the entire school down on our heads if I fight anymore. Why doesn't it seem like any of that blood your own? Wolves are some of the meanest fighters, no one escapes completely unharmed."
She thought she heard footsteps approaching from somewhere, and just like that her heart started pumping fear into her again.
" Nevermind, it doesn't matter. Let's go. We should be able to reach my home within two hours and rest until they've stopped searching. Or you can go your own way once we get out of here," she suggested, already swaying down the hall the same way she had been led in when first arriving at the school, hoping the exit wasn't far. She wondered why there wasn't a huge amount of blood running from the wound on her thigh; she knew there was an important artery or vein on the inner thigh, but that bullet had missed it somehow. Maybe it hadn't gone quite deep enough. Whatever the reason, she was relieved. There wasn't quite as much desperation as there would have been if her wounds were worse.
((The shit has indeed become real. Finally finished editting in some details. Sorreh. What kind of moron forgets there's a femoral artery there... ugh... *facepalm*))
