Death stared out of the Inferius's eyes; the extra pressure that it was applying to her throat in order to stay off the ground in its legless state caused more blood to flow from the points where its nails were digging in. Celestia was still struggling against the creature, albeit not as strongly as she would like, when one of the students (Bel) knocked its head clean off. Celestia gave a little start in shock and relief as the creature crashed to the ground at last. Before she could move or even think about raising her wand, more Inferi had surged in front of her -- again blocking out all sight of what was going on in the clearing. A surge of frustration boiled in Celestia's stomach, along with the icy claws of renewed fear.

Her fears were not unfounded, as she was still surrounded by Inferi on all sides. Pain had become as familiar as breathing to her tonight; Celestia even began to vaguely think that she must have built up some sort of tolerance for the myriad gashes that littered her arms, neck, and back by now.

She was very, very wrong. Another Inferius torso came flying at her, and Celestia couldn't stop a scream from escaping her lips as the creature dug into her shoulders in order to keep itself upright. She didn't know or care what had happened to its legs. Her wand arm was shaking and her wand itself was not pointed anywhere useful at the moment. Useless. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Inferius that had been blinded by Skylar's spell began to claw wildly in front of itself; she was the only thing in front of it. Not all of its slashes connected with her flesh, but her left arm soon became a shredded mess and warm, sticky blood flowed freely.

The world swam before Celestia's eyes in various shades of red. The thought that she was going to die -- could already be dying -- flashed through the thirty-one year old's mind and for a moment she could only see an image of her parents, smiling and waving at her from their front porch as she prepared to depart for Hogwarts after Christmas. The professor couldn't have told you how much time passed between these injuries being inflicted and the moment when the Inferi suddenly released her and began to shamble back along the pathways. Her world was comprised of several types of pain that she hadn't known had existed before tonight and a despair that seemed to go bone-deep. However, her vision was no longer red as the second legless corpse had fallen away from her and crawled off with its fellows. Slowly, other colors reentered the world as some of the pain and pressure from the Inferi's various grips lessened by some degree. She was still covered in gashes that oozed blood all over her body, her left arm was mangled, and bone could be seen poking out of her left shoulder -- but she could mostly see the world around her, though it looked strangely fuzzy. She couldn't remember why that was good.

After some indeterminable amount of time, Celestia seemed to realize dimly that she was not being held or scraped by claws anymore. The professor forced herself to lift her feet and stumble forward -- only to immediately trip over some body part strewn on the pathways in front of her. Luckily, she didn't fall on any corpse parts. Her mind was on some sort of confused auto-pilot. She made a short, sweeping motion with her wand and the parts scattered in front of her simply Vanished as though they had never been. Her wand arm had several gashes that oozed yet more blood from where the Inferi had taken hold of it -- but compared to the agony that was her left arm, that pain was nothing. Vanishing was as natural as breathing to Celestia; it always had been. Still, darkness lingered at the corners of her eyes and threatened to encroach on the world.

She. Had. To. Stay. Conscious.

She couldn't remember WHY she needed to be conscious so badly, so she simply crawled forward on the ground as best she could, leaving a slimy trail of blood that leaked onto the grass behind her. The professor didn't stop until she had come up next to one of her students (Derf), lying prone on the ground. Her eyes were full of black spots and her vision went in and out of focus, which only added to her confusion. Her left hand reached out -- of its own volition, it seemed to Celestia -- towards the boy's wrist. Check for a pulse, a voice in the back of her head whispered. Yes. She'd do that. She could feel beating under the boy's skin.

But there were still two monsters standing near to the boy and she stared at them in incomprehension for several minutes. That far-off voice in the back of her head slowly jumped in to help her again; she had seen this mistake many, many times in class. And the thoughts echoing from the back of her head in the form of a voice reminded her that she knew what to do. Agony spiked down her wand arm as she forced the wand into the proper motions -- and completed the transformation that Derf had begun. Two burly Bullmastiffs stood where the rock-creatures had been seconds before. She had this feeling that they needed the dogs' help, though she couldn't have said for what.