Hawkins was frozen at the news Lucas was basically dead already. He stared at the constantly shifting monstrosity, his eyes narrowing.
Without a word he began to move forward, his body gradually darkening, the dark grey shabbiness of his coat subtly shifting to pure midnight black. Soon enough, all that was left was a pure black silhouette with a paper white mask.
"Whatever you are. You have just brought about the death of a good person I respect. I think I can safely say that any chance of negotiations are over."
With that, his arm straight out, he fired. Bullets of pure darkness pierced the blue slimy form of the Devourer, the creature rumbling in irritation and mild pain. It formed a massive claw and swiped at the Shadow Agent. Hawkins, with inhuman speed, moved to be just a hair width away from the attack.
The monster gurgled and shot out six more pseudopods, each ending in something reminiscent of a scorpion's sting, Hawkins weaving and ducking between each one sent, until the last one headed straight for him, and hi lowered himself nearly perpendicular to the ground in a falsh, the attack soaring over him.
As the claw cast a shadow over him, he seemed to disappear along with it, the creature forming eye stalks in confusion trying to locate the aggressor.
"Behind you."
The stalks were blown apart by a pair of shots placed dead center. The creature made a sound that was a mixture between a pig squealing and a clogged drain.
"Attacking the more fully formed parts hurts more, doesn't it?"
The creature just sent more attacks toward him, stings and claws and snapping jaws forming and melding together like a bad fever dream by John Carpenter.
Hawkins faded from perceptibility, reappearing besides Lucas.
"As successful I've been at enraging it, I have a feeling it's still perfectly capable of accomplishing its mission. We need to take a renewed strategy."
"Well, I'm open to ideas!" - Said Lucas.
"Think... What do we know about the Enemy?" - Said Hawkins as he fired another black shot.
"They are beings of potential that fear... Definition..." - Said Lucas. She then smiled. She didn't smile because she had found a way to save the universe. No. She smiled because she had found a way to hurt the creature that had killed her. To make it pay. Dearly.
Hawkins very nearly paused at what transpired next.
"ENEMY!" - Lucas shouted, with sadistic glee, at the creature.
The being recoiled.
"WRETCH! IDIOT! You fear definition, don't you? Tough luck you had to fight me! I'm gonna die! Yes! But YOU WILL GO FIRST! I WORK with definition for a living, and now I'll work with it for YOUR DEATH!!" - Lucas positioned herself and twirled her sword.
The being hissed, and, like a cornered animal, readied another move.
"Definophobe!" - The being recoiled again - "Yeah, mofo, I can create words too! And if I so choose, THEY define YOU! YOU'RE DEAD! DEAL!!!"
The being made of potential seemed to... harden a bit, getting more defined, thus easier to hit, with each word.
Clever.. - Thought Hawkins. His shots now actually seemed to be causing the creature lasting damage. It's Blue gooey mass would burn and tatter at the combined attacks from Hawkins' gun and Lucas's strokes, the angel screaming words at the creature with a good degree of that kind of depraved pleasure one can only derive from revenge. Every slice she made seemed to take away more of the creature's amorphous mass.
Hawkins leaped ahead, grabbing the Time Devourer's attention. "Mind if I have a try?" He asked loudly and clearly.
He pointed at the creature. "Time Devourer, I define you as thus: a large, amorphous life form capable of replicating the physical features of other flesh and blood creatures."
The creature shrieked at the attempted description.
"Approximately twenty cubic feet in size! Lacking in any observable central nervous system! Lacking in any observable empathy!" He continued.
Hawkins voice grew louder and more certain.
"An insidious creature with an inherent desire to destroy everything! A disgusting aberration of nature!"
The creature jostled and quivered in rage and pain.
"Contemptible! Nightmarish! Unsightly!"
Hawkins was now punctuating his assault via definition with gunfire.
"Formless-merciless-mindless-thoughtless!"
Hawkins ran up ON TOP of the creature, placing his gun directly against what could best be approximated as it's temple.
"A terrible monster that makes BLAM little BLAM girls BLAM cry!"
The creature howled in pain as Hawkins backflipped off of its form.
Lucas took a step back, having watched Hawkins' sudden snap of anger. She herself didn't let up in defining the devourer, as she changed her sword into a lance. The free lance so rife with symbolism that Neruite created for her, back when rescuing her from that nightmare a few days - a lifetime - ago.
Hawkins suddenly rose from Lucas' shadow, and looked at the lance.
"Lucas. I don't know if this will kill the creature, or simply weaken it enough for us to send it to Earth, but I have an idea..." - He said - "Keep your lance still..."
Lucas obliged, still shouting definitions at the creature to keep it down.
Hawkins said nothing as he placed his hand on the weapon, inky blackness moving over it completely.
Might as well let her have one last moment of glory... - Thought Hawkins, somewhat sadly.
A dual tech, CT-style. The Devourer is nearly down. Might as well go out with a bang.
"YOUR HEAD ON A PIKE!" - She made a quick, animesque pose, then, ever the otaku, called her attack, the name made up on the spot - "SHADOW IMPALER!!!"
She flew at the creature, charging right under its now-more-defined "eyes", and pierced the creature's flesh. The dark energy that was stored in the lance got fully released into the creature, and the being screamed...
