As Armen steps briskly through the halls, his boots clapping against the floor and echoing through the building, Mariette has to occasionally trot to keep pace with him. There were nuns every now and then that would pause their duties and watch as the man walked with purpose through their convent with Mariette in tow. They near the end of the hall and instead of going down the stairs to enter the church, they strode across the walkway balcony that hung in the back of the worship hall, given more seating for deacons or elders if they should require it. The balcony walk was clearly unutilized in nearly every manner save for extra storage, with boxes and burlap sacks stuffed and stacked in the back corners behind the extra chairs and seating. It seemed that this building was once meant as a community church, and either through its seclusion in the near-wilderness, or perhaps a new house of worship being constructed nearer the people, it was converted into a nunnery.
Armen's footsteps thump across the wooden plank balcony and echo deep into the church as they crossed it. They round the corner and begin walking up the hall to the lone door at the end. Dotting the wall on the western side of the hallway were portholes that allowed the evening sun the filter through and light the floor. At the other end of the hall to them was another nun setting down a plate of food for mother. The nun, whilst kneeling down to place the food on the ground, turns her head quickly upon hearing the heavy footsteps and sees the human attired for violence rapidly approaching, along with Mariette following as if she were a led horse.
The nun, apparently a border collie, cocks her head, confused, and stands to face them directly, voicing her concerned query: "Mariette? What is going on?"
Mariette quickens her steps to surpass Armen as she replies, somewhat frantically, "Collette, may you step aside for a moment? The human wishes to speak directly to Mother..."
Collette nods worriedly and steps her back against the wall, allowing Armen and Mariette to reach the door unobstructed. As they pass, Armen points at Collette and instructs, "Stay as witness." not bothering to receive any sort of acknowledgment from her, he continues to the door. Armen stops directly at Mother's chamber door and for a moment he hesitates. In his mind, he holds a silent prayer that he is wrong and that Mother would simply submit to arrest and be willingly escorted to the Holy Courts of the Inquisition.
Armen knocks the brassy knuckle plate of his armored glove onto the wooden door, speaking with an authority only begotten to a marshal, "Mother... Thou art requested to come out and face me directly as your accusal is bestowed to thee, with presence of two witnesses, by order of a holy knight of the Inquisition under the authority of Cathedral..." his voice echoes through the hall and time seems to stand still. He could hear Collette gasp as he announced his allegiance and pending accusation of Mother. Yet, nothing comes from behind the door for a time that feels longer than it likely is.
Then a barking string of words erupt through the door, "Why is that fucking man-thing beating upon my door!?" The voice that shouted was particularly gurgly, much unlike when she first spoke, almost as if she had too great an amount of phlegmatic humor in her throat. At her curse, Armen instinctively reaches to his waist and clasps his cross, feeling its warmth through the leather of his glove.
Collette and Mariette audibly gasp in sync, both at the sound of what was supposedly Mother's voice as well as by her wrath and curse flung through the door with such bile. Armen knocks again upon the door, but he knew that this would not end well for anyone. His hand gravitates to the leather-strapped handle of his blade and he grips it, ready to pull but not drawing the blade out. He knocks his fist against the door once more. "Mother! Come forth!" The silence that followed was unnerving, and the tension within the air was weighted with fear. The sisters both hovered close together, tentatively stepping back, further from the door. A guttural moan echoes through the door to them all, followed by an equally groaning voice of Mother, almost taunting, "You fucking bastard, you'll have to come and claim me. Like your hedonistic brethren did. Just like your kind: to trample and steal on only a whim."
Armen takes a breath of anger and glares at the door. Knuckles whitening as he clamps upon the handle, he unsheathes his sword, preparing for arrest of the tainted woman that lingers beyond the threshold. He gently pushes his knuckle against the door, yet it does not budge. Armen takes a step back and raises his knee to his chest, heel out. Sending the sole of his boot against the oaken barrier, once, twice, thrice. Each new crash inching the door away from its hold. On the fourth battery, the wooden latch on the inside snaps off against the wrought iron bar-locks, and the door violently crashed open and slams against the wall.
Upon the door opening, Armen was met with a shadowed room, devoid of light, save for a few candles that littered the ground and melted on the floor. A putrid rank wafts out of the room and Armen nearly gags upon its smell as it violated his nostrils and stung his eyes. He takes a cautious step into the room, sword in guard. A quick scan of the oppressively dark room revealed little to him, save for the indiscernible black figure that sat in the center. Vaguely humanoid, but seemingly covered in cloak, huddled near the floor. There was a bed in the corner that was immediately right from the door, at the other side of the room. A lectern against the wall opposite the door, in between two bookshelves that were stuffed with tomes and liturgies from end to end. Finally a writing desk, with parchment and quills and spilled ink littering the top stood immediately adjacent of one bookshelf.
Armen announces, his voice reverberating through his helmet, "Mother. I place you under arrest for paganism and sacrilege. Your trial shall be held at Cathedral under the lordship of the Holy Covenan-" but his words were cut short as a haunting cackle erupted from the mass in the center of the room. Accompanied by Mother's sickened voice,
"You cannot win, fool. Their plan is in motion now. You're too late. You may have bested my child in the woods, but you will not stop the return of the Watchers, of the old gods." She stands up, and slowly turns to face him, her cloak falling away to reveal herself. The candlelight illuminated only part of her form, but enough to display her depravity.
Her lower jaw was broken in the middle, and pried apart, allowing her tongue to pass through it and dangle below her head, the missing flesh of her upper jaw had grown to encompass her entire snout. Her left eye dangled from is socket, held by a single thread of vein, while her arms were cut with cultic symbols engraved in her flesh. The rune of Baal and Ashtoreth etched into her chest, deep enough that the sharper corners of intact skin were peeling off of her ribs. Her arms were both snapped and the bones of either humerus were protruding from the biceps, like jagged thorns. Yet she moved as though there were no pain or breaking at all.
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Armen tenses his shoulders and he could feel his knuckles turn white as he gripped his sword. He shivers in disgust as he looks upon the beast that was once mother, now monster. He utters unto himself, "Lord, grant me your wrath so that I may rend this vile beast asunder in your name..."
Mother hisses as Armen mentions the Lord, "You fucking knave! You hold faith unto a god that has abandoned this world. His marble throne is empty and cracked through, and his fields barren! Child of man, you live a lie, and you shall become as dust. We shall send your children unto the stones and your own shall devour their flesh, and as a candle dies in a breeze, you too shall be snuffed away." She concludes her omen with an accusatory finger raised at Armen, much like the beast of the woods from afore.
Armen plants his heels into the floor, and keeps his sword ready, silently watching Mother in a tense stare between either of them. Mother cackles once more and sigils of demons glow from around the room. Their presence made apparent by the hellish red that emanated from them as Mother continues to laugh. When she throws her head back and bellows her mania, Armen seizes his chance and looks back through the doorway at the two sisters that stood in horror in the hallway, frozen in fear and quivering. "GATHER THE OTHERS AND FLEE THIS DEFILED PLACE!!" Armen's voice cuts through the air at them and snaps them back into attention. Finally able to shake each other from their own clutches, they take off down the hallway and out of sight. Knowing that there were no potential bystanders, Armen is able to quell his trepidation, now within his right to confront this thing with the extreme prejudice of his order.
He takes a single step forward, which garners the immediate attention of Mother, who, with a sadistic grin, pounces at him with a sickening speed. He ducks to his left and narrowly escapes Mother's flailed arm that swings near the right of his helmet, catching the orle's capelet and shredding a ribbon of fabric from it. Armen counters by curling his right shoulder in as Mother sails beside him and he jabs the blade up under her rib cage and through her spine. He knows it makes contact and separates her vertebrae, for as she flies past him in a blur, his sword cleaves through her spine and one of her vertebra is clung to the edge of his sword, like an axe that couldn't split a log. Armen quickly pries it off as Mother thuds against the floor. He spins around and sees that there is a clean cut through the right half of her torso, and a large pocket of voided flesh where the piece of spine was ripped out. Yet her harrowing laugh continued. She hadn't even gasped at the grievous wound suffered to her. Instead, using her arms, she rolls herself over, while her legs lay motionless on the floor; her upper torso was turned around of them, and she begins pushing her waist away from herself. Ripping the remaining attached flesh that connected her two halves, she stands upon her palms only, now lost of her dead weight.
Mother looks at Armen with lecherous eyes, despite having no flesh upon her snout, he could tell the smirk that would be there. "So...What do you think of Mariette?” she gabs wryly, “I see how good she would look being mounted. She is so enticing, wouldn't you agree?? You want her on her knees, don't you, ~Sir Inquisitor?~" she taunts at him.
He shivers and recoils at former mother's form and question, "Vile thing. I will enjoy casting you into death and hell," to which mother snickers with a wheezy chuckle, threatening: "I'm going to rip your tongue out and pleasure myself with it." Ignoring her vile words and taunting provocations, Armen brings his sword down to guard; though, angled down so that the point is at her now minuscule stature.
Mother's eye lights with glee as Armen positions his sword so low, like he had stumbled into a trap, and as if her arms were springs, pounces through the air and towards Armen's own head. With such unnatural speed, he is unable to raise his point and move to block her by his blade, thus, she clears his sword entirely and clasps onto his helmet, cackling and cursing as she tries to claw her way in.
Armen drops his sword as she lands onto his head, he hears her claws screeching as she tries to dig through his helmet. Her maniacal laughter only audible in between strokes of her nails against the steel. Blindly, he reaches up to try and grasp her enough that he might pry her off, but her entrails that dangle from her torso provide little grip and his gloves slip off with ease. With one arm trying to find purchase on her enough that he might rip her away, the other desperately stabs a fist upward, trying to wedge between her and his helmet.
With nothing working, Armen grips the bottom lip of his helmet with gloves covered in blood and bile, and swings his head against the nearest wall. Mother lets a surprised gasp as air is forced from her lungs and she begins to lose grip. Armen, again, swings his head against the wall, ensuring mother was smashed between his helmet and the stone. Mother curses against him as he bashes her upon it, "Fucking bastard!"
In a quick moment where mother ceases to clamber around his head, Armen is able to grip her wrist and wedge an arm between them both and successfully peel her away from him. He holds her out at arm's length, as she swings and dangles from her wrist, her loose arm flailing wildly trying to claw him. Armen grins at her through his helmet as he watches her struggle and rave. She feels his malicious smirk through the helm at her and ceases, looking at him with a curious glare.
Armen, seeing that now she is no longer flailing about, bobs her in the air tauntingly. With a sudden jerking arc, he swings her over his head as if he were a trebuchet and crushes her down into the floor. As mother lie there in a daze and groan, he switches his hands that grip her, and again, swings her around his head and into the floor. Again, again, and again he concusses her against the stone, each time she lands, more and more blood and flesh splat around her form. Leaving dark puddles and spatters all across the cobbles.
As she dazes against his assault, he finds a moment in which she uttered voiceless curses against him. He pauses and stamps his heel into her wrist as she writhes on the ground. With one wrist pinned underneath his heel, and the other gripped in hands furiously tight, Armen begins to pull her apart. She cackled as he stretches her to the limit, her arms that were broken and pierced by the snapped bone gave way soonest. The sinew and muscles of her heel-pinned arm pulling taught until, with a wet slap, snaps apart and she bounds into the air and sways like a plumb-bob. Again he swings her into the ground, faster now that she is without an arm. Again he brings her aloft, and sends her unto stone.
Mother, still lucid, yet barely, coughs a spot of blood onto his boots. Armen sneers in disgust, as he bends down to inspect his now muddied toe, "Thou've tarnished mine boots, a dire mistake." he tauntingly chastises as he lifts his knee up to his chest. With a crushing stomp, he plows his heel into her battered skull, a sharp snap of bone crunching underneath his sole and accompanied by the slopping sound of gray matter being pulped against the stone floor gave Armen a lash of satisfaction running up his spine.
He grinds his heel into the mess of bone and flesh as he drops the lifeless limb onto the ground. "Filthy mongrel..." he curses at the pulverized guts and flesh on the ground as he walks away, taking a moment to kick dust behind him. Armen retrieves his sword from the ground and wipes the crimson blade with the lower end of his tabard, then sheathes it back into the scabbard upon his hip.
