"OOO-HOO, A TRIAL? WHY ELSE WOULD YOU BE HERE." Emuh said, suddenly there in midnight garb. Eyes—glimmering sharply against his face—appraised the hound. They blinked, and widened. Whorls of darkness seeped from the owl-beast's feathers, and he crowed eagerly, "NEW MAGIC TURNED TO OLD AND CONSUMED AND REMADE AGAIN!"
There was an audible smile as the looming figure whisked off, "GET ON WITH IT, THEN."
His figure faded into the dimness of the Place of Ascension, like he were a dying star exploding into a black hole. It churned and writhed in the void, reshaping to suit the test's needs.
—
When the unnatural darkness faded, the room had been transformed into a facsimile of Gemini—if the alien hound had ever seen it.
He was planted squarely in the middle of a hall of mirrors. There was room enough to take five steps to either side, and walk forward a few feet before he smacked into a mirror. Warped reflections followed him on all sides, squashed and stretched Sentinels copying his every move; though, sometimes... it seemed like one would move on its own, or shift out of sight.
... or was that a trick of the light?
The mirrors were an Oily-black. Iridescence swarmed their greasy, warped surfaces. Rattling, uneven breaths echoed throughout the hall, and there was the occasional shuffling of feet.
After a time, the footsteps grew more frequent and drew... closer.
@The Sentinel
The verbal demands went unanswered, but the shattering of crystal as the Talon wailed through it? Well—
Greasy shards fell across the floor with every quick, fierce, precise strike; with them, an increasingly foreboding cold and the rising sound of heavy, thumping footsteps. The halberd stabbed through the last mirror in the Sentinel's immediate vicinity, met its own (normal?) reflection, and gave off an echoing shriek of metal-on-metal.
Moments before the mirror broke, the Sentinel's reflection had churned and shifted; a black-hooded, stocky figure was staring back at him. It took a single step forward, shoving harshly with the haft of its halberd to unbalance him.
Cyan eyes—just two of them—glinted beneath the hood as it then raised the mirrored Talon over its head. The axe side swung down in a smooth arc, primed to strike a scaled shoulder.
@The Sentinel
Metal shrieked against metal once again, a relentless symphony for this potentially lethal dance.
The Sentinel's foot connected with his strange foe's stomach. It stumbled backward with a voiceless huff, driving the base of its halberd into the ground in an attempt to steady itself—and to put itself on the defensive.
Those graceless few moments were enough to afford the hound a chance to attack before it fully recovered and prepared to swing again.
1/3
The Black beast dodged beneath the point with unnatural agility and, indeed, the moment's lapsing from reality was a costly one.
It took sweeping strides forward, closing the distance. In one hand, it flipped its Talon so its elegantly curved point was at the head of its swing. It would not kill if it landed, but it would hurt if it hit home: hooking squarely into the Sentinel's right-hand ribcage.
It was a cruel, punishing attack.
The halberd smarted along the shaggy fur of a face, bones cracking. Dark blood wept from the fresh gash, staining the already-pitchy Talon in his hands. The figure snapped backwards from the momentum, head tilting back—back far enough for the black cloth to fall around broad shoulders. Still, though, there was not a sound from it.
There was an unmistakably canine face staring at the Sentinel, one eye milky and the other a dull blue. Scars criss-crossed the snout, Oily and wretched. If there'd been time to, he would've noticed that flesh seemed to slough off the spot where metal had met flesh. Dark bones glinted in the wetness.
Black moved to push forward, both hands on the Talon's pole and applying as much forward force as possible. It miscalculated, lost its grip, and found the weapon pressed against its chest. It staggered backwards, stumbling to get its balance and lean back on its halberd.
2/3