[Twi] Twilight IV: No More Heroes! (Now also lynching Sword of Truth!)

[industrious]

The Midnighter

The Midnighter begins weaving between the anticipated and calculated shots, making sure to steer clear of both the ground defenses and the fight between Robert, the Ghost Riders, Kirby, and the Abomination.

"Veidt. We've taken down Sabertooth, and are about to do so with Abomination. We'll need Jenny to disable the defenses."

Sam

Sam's pain finally recedes enough for him to pick himself off the ground. Yelling out a wild, amateurish war cry, he charges Aro from behind, swinging his scythe at the man's waist as he does so.

[nanobot_swarm]

Travis says, "No, he stuck his arm through my chest and then I died. Why?"

[darkblade]

Dead Vipers

"So all of you were killed by that Aro guy too?" Elle asks. "Is there anyway out of here?"

***

Deadly Vipers

Bill looks down slightly. "I am going to die here but there is no need to rush into it. Kiddo, get that Sam kid to safety he didn't ask to be in this fight."

Beatrix lowers her weapons and goes to help Sam. She doesn't plan on leaving him to die alone but he is right, Sam needs to be gotten away. Regardless of how many he kills as long as Sam gets away Aro doesn't win.

"Now may we finish this one-on-one Aro?"

***

Kirby and Ghost Riders

"KIRBY SMASH!" the Nightmare screams as it proceeds to leap onto the Abomination's head and start twisting.

Blaze lowers his chain and backs away, trying to call Adrian. "Adrian, I don't know if you saw it but that pink thing biting the Abomination is bad news. It was able to absorb our hellfire and use it ourselves in aid of our favourite denarian."

[Draxx]

Adrian
Ozymandius, who has been watching the proceedings, inclines his head. "Jenny, I am going to send you down now. Be very careful, we will need you again in a minute. He replies softly, and opens a door. "Do your best to deal with the defenses. Some of them are no doubt protected or insulated against your interference, but every bit you can destroy is appreciated."
"Anderson, go down and cover her. She is still vulnerable to bullets."
A portal opens.
"Yes, Ghost Rider, I did see him. I am in fact surprised, as I sent him into orbit myself. But do not engage him. You do not seem to be the target of his aggression, and we are on a schedule."

He then stares at the others. "I am ready to send you down now." He says, particularly to Jules and Sanya.
"Bendix and Osbourne can wait, and so they will. I am sending you down to deal with your demons. While you are down, I will gather information. The other two have been far more careful, so we do not know who they have with them, or what assets they can use."

Anderson
The priest, who does not recall exactly when he stopped being an agent of divine punishment and started being a glorified superhero, steps through the portal, in front of Jenny Sparks.

[Cracklord]

Kirby
As a pink puffball, you don't have any muscles, as such. At least, usually you don't. But bids of you bulge and other bits are pulled taunt, in a manner a very imaginative observer might say suggests a defined musculature in the right light. You continue to glow green, and you feel... mighty.

Travis
"He ate you." She replies, and somehow you are convinced. She seems to know what she's talking about.
"You're part of him now. This is the inside of his soul. He devoured us all. And now your life sustains him." She replies. "Sooner or later, he'll be killed again, and then he'll use one of you as fuel."

Bill
"You have balls, I admit, but I wonder." Aro replies, stalking forward. "Is it courage that makes you hold your ground, or bravado? Will you hold no matter what, or is it merely your ego talking? Or is it just that you value her life so much more then your own?" He says, still smiling.
"You must tell me. I want to know!"

Midnighter
It's hard work. With all the superpowers these days, people are adapting. And whoever is using this gun clearly has a lot of practice shooting people.

[Colesign]

Sanya

"Hai." Sanya replies to Ozymandias, then pulls the bag of coins from his duffel (which Heinkel currently has), and hands it to Veidt.

"Keep this safe and untouched until we return. These Denarii have date with Vatican vaults."

He prepares for combat.

Archer

He follows after Anderson, blades materializing.

[industrious]

Sam

He's managed to get off the floor, though he's still pale. On the plus side, he looks better than he did twenty minutes ago.


Midnighter

The Midnighter dodges three more rounds, triangulating the snipers position, then throws a shuriken poisoned with curare back along the bullet's point of origin.

Jenny Sparks

Jenny leaves through the door, and enters the battlefield. Whistling at all the defenses Wilson has been able to bring online, she turns herself into electricity, and begins to follow the current, wreaking havoc on the electronic and electrically powered devices as she does so.

[Cracklord]

Archer and Anderson
The sniper begins to shoot you.
Archer's unmatched vision can see him perfectly, a man in kevlar with a single eye, and a palpable aura of competency.

Midnighter
You miss, or he manages to dodge. Either way, he's shooting at Jenny now instead. Which means your supposed to go through the killing ground.

Jenny
One by one, the charges fizzle and pop, So much fine tune engineering destroyed by your surge of power that overwhelms the circuits.

Hawksmoor and Light Yagami

Spoiler

Show

It is at this terrible, terrible moment that things get so much worse. Jenny Quantum appears behind Hawksmoor and taps him on the shoulder, her eyes narrowed and lips pursed.
"We have a problem." She says, and promptly aliens arrive in a flashy spaceship to hand her the award for the biggest understatement of the universal year award. Well, not really, but once she explains what she means you wouldn't be surprised if one did.
Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander was the sole survivor of the sword of truth world, as he had drained the remaining sisters for power like human batteries upon arriving. He had then gone out with the intention of learning as much as he could about this world. He had appeared in Manhattan.
The results are terrible.
Zedd is wise in his way, intelligent anyway, as while he is a student of human nature he is so eccentric and dependent on his companions outside of wizards keep he can barely function or survive without leaving mayhem in his wake. He was prone to spending his time sleeping naked outside beneath the stars, watching the clods, kidnapping animals, imbuing them with sentience and talking to them, eating enough in a day for an army, and flirting shamelessly.
Taking on a pseudonym he had often used in the past, he observed passersby shrewdly, and noted his robes would not let him blend in. Which of course was the point of them, but while he enjoyed his status he observed that he should make a effort to blend in to the crowds. At last settling on some clothes he felt would make him look dashing, he transmuted his robes into replicas and moved on.
The second thing was to attain some wealth, which he promptly did. No shortage of metals, no shortage of money.
And finally, he had to get somewhere to stay.

Imagine the surprise of a hotel clerk when a old man, dressed as a stereotypical pimp, complete with the gold chains, coat, platform shoes, hat and cane, strode in with the regal majesty of an emperor, banged what appeared to be a solid gold 'stop' sign on the table, introduced himself as Ruben Rybnik, cloud gazer extraordinaire, took her hand, kissed it in an old fashioned, courtly gesture, and demanded he be given the finest room. She couldn't help it. She burst out laughing.
His assumption was wrong regardless, thanks to the planetary organization gold has been synthetically produced for years and is now essentially worthless, bar as a conductor or insulator. But then, even in his own world Zedd was hardly well connected to reality.
More to the point, he was also very proud, touchy and sensitive, like many wizards. He burned the hotel to the ground, and was promptly arrested. Coming from what amounts to a totalitarian state, he was very respectful of authority, and went along quietly to be placed in the cells on suspicion.
He finally had enough time to sense what was happening in the world, his senses detecting the disturbance of an immense magical undertaking, and he smiled.
Thee hours later, things became bad. Zedd is sitting in the garden of Ancestral memory, whistling a jaunty tune to himself as he sharpens a knife and uses it on the trussed, bound and unconscious form of Habib Bin Hassan, who is strung up, upside down from a tree, catching his blood in a bowl.
Zedd has never done this before, but he knows the theory. He knows more about magic then anyone else alive. Bar Habbib, of course, but that was only temporary.
So much depends on confidence. He himself was powerful enough to do nearly anything, although he was nothing at all to The Doctor. Not even an inconvenience at the best of times. But if you understand how the power works, you can work around it. Which Zedd has done.
He didn't delude himself. He'd caught the shaman unprepared. But it didn't matter.
He would skin him, and draw the power from his body as he did so.
And Zedd would become it's new vessel.

[darkblade]

Kirby

Kirby continues to pumel the Abomination's head with abandon. As it does so it chants in a silly sing-song manner, "SMASH! SMASH! KIRBY SMASH!"

***

Ghost Rider

"Understood, but the moment that thing steps in my way I am shooting it." Blaze says as he moves closer to the Abomination.

"Hey, Ugly!" Johnny says pulling his bike up close to the fighting monsters.

"How about both of you come quietly and we won't have to do this the hard way?"

***

Beatrix

Beatrix helps Sam up the stairs and out of the lower floors where Bill and Aro are starring each other now.

"How are you doing Sam? Can you make it out of here alright? I don't want to leave Bill down there alone."

***

Bill

"A little bit of all of them I suppose. Do you mind moving this along though? If I have to die down here I'd perfer it to be by the sword and not of old age. We don't both have the luxury of immortality."

***

Dead Vipers

"Right, thats a great way to spend eternity." Elle rolls her eyes. "Vampires aren't even supposed to exist, I am going to kill Beatrix again when she gets in here."

[doliest]

Light
Light listens almost impassively as he listens intently before snapping at both Sammuel and Ryuk, simultaneously

"Ryuk, will the death note kill this man? Does he still count as a man?"

'Will the Death Note kill this man? Can my fate manipulation? Just how much power does he currently hold.'

For Light, this is the epitome of fear; he's dropped all pretenses to Sammuel and...well...he treats Ryuk like garbage normally. He can guess just what this man can do now, and more importantly, what he may do to Light and the world he wished for. All this piled on top of the situation in Japan was frankly tearing at Light.

[Cracklord]

Light Yagami
His place in the spiritual world protects him from the note. But the manipulation could. In terms of power, he controls the entire world, and the life and essence of every being upon it. From the mightiest to the meekest.

Bill
"That's where you are wrong." He says, gliding closer, and tapping your blade gently with his. "We just established that killing you doesn't hurt you. And it just so happens I'm short two men."

Ghost Riders
Abomination, down an arm that will take months to grow back and being pummeled relentlessly by his (and everyone's, literally) worse nightmare, is far from lucid, thrashing at Apollo and trying to claw Kirby off.

[industrious]

Hawksmoor

"Great."

Hawksmoor is powerful. If there was one good thing about all his abductions, it was that they had given him the ability to make a difference in the world. To make a finer world.

"Jenny, I need him outside the Garden. I'll be useless there, unless there's a nice metropolis hidden inside the rosebushes."

The Midnighter

The Midnighter breaks out into a sprint through compound's former defenses, trusting Jenny and his computer to get him safely through. He could do it.

Jenny Sparks

Best thing about being electricity was that it was very, very hard to disrupt. You can't stop a bolt of lightning with bullets. Jenny reforms inside the compound.

Sam

"Probably."

He isn't going to be sprinting, but he can manage a brisk sort of stagger.

"Here. Take this. It should help."

He presses the retracted scythe handle into her hand.

"Push the button, and you get a scythe. I don't know exactly who made it, but I know where it was made. Handcrafted in the fires of Perdition by the iniquitous and the vile."

[doliest]

Light
'Then for the good of all, what must be done shall be done.'

With that, Light looks over at Hawksmoor, "I could try to move him. Let it never be said that I do not have a few....tricks up my sleeve." Light thinks over his plan with a smile; it was tantamount to suicide, but it just might work.

[industrious]

Hawksmoor

"Listen closely. Make sure that the Doctor is not killed. Got it? Or this little situation you have going in Japan is going to seem like a walk in the park."

[doliest]

Light
"I will do my absolute best to ensure that." That's a lie. Light's main goal and absolute best is stopping Zedd. If killing the doctor accomplishes that, he'd do it in a heartbeat.

[Cracklord]

Hawksmoor
"I can't move him until he leaves the garden. The place is too..." She waves a hand. It's a signal Jenny has taken to using, and it means 'you can't comprehend six of the verb tenses, so I'm giving you the cliff notes. "Disruptive. If I try, I could bring him from five minutes in the past, or twenty in the future. All that magic makes it hard to be sure which or when. I might drag in an alternate version of him, or any number of other problems."

The Midnighter
Dodging traps that would make Indianna Jones retire, you stumble across the killing ground, throwing yourself out of the way of all manner of things.
You're half way through when you have to duck to avoid a thrown car.
Sabertooth is loping after you, on four limbe, trusting his sense and healing factor to get him through.
Not good. A fight here would be impossible, even for you. Landmines with remote detonation are hard enough to avoid when dodging bullets without having to fight off a feral guy like him as well.

Jenny Sparks
The second of the two famous assasains points a gun at you and smiles beneath his mask. "Hey. Cracklord wants me to kill you for some reason." he says cheerily, opening fire.

[doliest]

Light
Light nods, "All the more reason I remove him from the Garden, one way or another. Then we will have more options."

Robert
Robert charges directly at the injured abomination, intending to slam straight into him and take him out so they can move forward.

[industrious]

The Midnighter

The Midnighter reaches into his coat, and pulls out a pair of weighted bolas, tied together with barbed wire. Whirling them around his head, he hurls them at Sabretooth. Dodging them would lead him to a landmine. Not doing so would tie his feet together; he would trip, and fall into another trap.

Jenny Sparks

Jenny turns back into electricity, and arcs from bullet to bullet before she climbs into the Merc's gun, shocking the thing. She moves through his nervous system, and out his spinal cord. The process is...painful. For Deadpool.

Hawksmoor

"Light. Get him out of the Garden. No collateral damage."

[doliest]

Light
"Of course. Leave the magical to me and my friends, as long as you're sure you can ensure victory when we've removed him from the Garden." Light really would prefer to leave the actual fighting to them, though if a position to gain the necessary blood is presented to him, he will take it.

[Cracklord]

Jenny SparksDeadpool "See what I did there?"
The Merc with a mouth staggers, collapsing at the terrible thing she just did to him. "Medic!" He shouts as he regenerates, then attempts to stab her with his katana as he gets back to his feet.
"That was harsh, lady. You didn't give me any warning, or spend a few minutes charging up to give me an opportunity to see it coming. I mean, it's called professional courtesy. Yet it seems manners are dead and I alone uphold them in this day and age."

Midnighter
Sabertooth, unable to halt his momentum, lands face first in a bouncing-betty claymore landmine. His scream is music to your ears.
You're nearly at the end, and Slade is still targeting you.

Robert
Abomination is finally down for the count. You're calmer, but the changes do into go away. Because Abominations don't. It's a shame, but you'll grow into them.

[industrious]

Hawksmoor

"I'm the King of Cities. Put him in Metropolis. No. One of Metropolis's suburbs. Tell me where he is."

Metropolis. Current home of Supergirl and Power Girl. Backup was always a good idea. Was he being manipulative? Yes. Was he saving the world? Yes. The ends justify the means. Most of the time.

Jenny Sparks

She goes prone to avoid the katana; while she has had military training, it was by now seventy years out of date. She didn't want to take any unnecessary chances.

"Just go unconscious, you wanker. You talk too much."

She reaches into the Merc's brain, and attempts to short circuit it.

The Midnighter

He presses onward, avoiding mines by the slimmest of margins, and ensuring that Slade doesn't hit him. As he moves forward, he throws shuriken back; targeting mines in a pattern designed to clear a path for the others. The obscuring dust cloud was an added bonus.

[doliest]

Light
Light nods, "Okay, I just need to get to the gardens now."

'Where we will stage what will likely go down as the single most improbable battle of wits in history, eh Sammuel?

Robert
Robert, now far calmer, starts breathing again and looks over past the fallen monstrosity. Lacking a clear cut goal or assignment from Ozzy, Robert heads further into the encampment, intending to cut a swath of destruction from here to the target; then he could talk to Jenny about who he was. He got the feeling that not all of the anger had subsided yet.

[Cracklord]

Jenny Sparks
You don't find anything in his head to short circuit.
"Hey. Hey! Me plenty smart good! Wow, that took a lot more out of me then I thought." He replies, as he collapses. His healing factor has already compensated, he'll be back on his feet in under a minute.

Light
A portal opens. On the other side is an insane magician, who in minutes will transcend all earthly definitions of power.
And you are going to match wits with him.
I wish you well. But I will hold no regret if you die. For then, he shall be my next host.

Midnighter
The shots stop. Wilson is about to try something else, but you can't be sure what.
In a second, the ground lights up as the napalm reacts, lighting the ground afire. If you don't hurry, you'll be toasted to a cinder.

Robert
Fire. Lots and lots of fire all over the place.

[industrious]

Jenny Sparks

She goes over his body, and steals two of his guns. A pistol tucked into the back of her pants, and a submachine gun. Which she empties into his body. Half the clip in the groin, the other half spent in various joints. Kneecaps, elbows, shoulders, wrists...fingers.

She keeps moving.

The Midnighter

He starts really sprinting now. Over short distances, he can beat low-level speedsters. He lost to Quicksilver in the fifty meter dash. But two tenths of a second.

[doliest]

Light
Light walks through the portal into the garden, the calm smirk of one who knows he's both in over his head, and right in his area of expertise. It was all or nothing. It was show time; Light Yagami was going to save humanity, "Zedd was it? I believe it's time we had a chat."

Robert
Robert looks around at the large amounts of fire. That wasn't a good sign for him, as far as he good guess. With a shrug, he keeps going deeper. He was going to find the target and crush any remaining guards in his way. Come to think of it, where were the guards?

[Cracklord]

Jenny Sparks
The building, which on second thought you decide is a modified shopping arcade, is mostly deserted. Which means the grunts who do the real legwork are somewhere else.
According to intel, Savage is on the top floor, it what used to be a designer clothes store. Snob hill remains snob hill.

Robert
You slam through a concrete wall into what used to be a Starbucks cafe. A few terminals set up on tables, and a camera pointed directly at you. Nothing else.
Vandal is on the top room, you remember.

Midnighter
You make it with moments to spare, and pant, until you see Wilson. He knows your capabilities. And he's going to overwhelm them. To whit, he has a elevated position atop a bunker surrounded with razorwire. He has a weapon with a sniperscope. And said weapon, is a F*cking minigun!

Light Yagami
Zeddicus looks u, still sharpening the knife. "Oh, it's you. The boy... sorry, can't recall your name. Sit down, by all means." He gestures with the knife to a small, Buddhist shrine. "The one good thing about these things is that they're comfortable. Meaningless and foolish, the toys of those who cannot take charge of their destinies, but comfortable."

[doliest]

Robert
Robert looks at the camera's and monitors for a brief moment, before letting feathers grow onto his arms and across him, and taking to the skies. He was getting to the top floor, no matter what.

Light
"I'll stand. Business before pleasure, so to speak. My name would be more important if either of us expected this to last long. Since neither of us do, allow me to skip to the chase. I think you would find it in your best interest to surrender."

'And so it begins.'

[industrious]

Jenny Sparks

"Sparks to Squid-boy. Get everyone on the ground that's available to my position. We need to stay together."

Before she led the Authority, Jenny was placed in charge of Stormwatch Black. She knows covert ops. And she knows when to keep a group together, and when to separate. Her instincts told her to stay together.

The Midnighter

That...was definitely not good. The Midnighter doesn't have any cover that he can spot, so he remains constantly on the move, throwing shuriken at nearby mines to obscure Deadstroke's line of sight. One good thing about the minigun, was that Wilson wouldn't be able to move it easily. He knew exactly where the mercenary was at all times. The same couldn't be said of Slade.

As he does so, he takes his last nightstick, and hurls it at the side of the minigun's barrel, denting it. A jammed minigun was almost useless.

[Draxx]

There is a flutter of pages behind Wilson, and an enormous priest appears behind him, holding two bayonets and not smiling for a change. He is trying to let go of his wrath, afterall. "Come and see." Is all he says, and begins to go to work.

Ozymandius nods, and portals the others over.

[Cracklord]

Light
"Oh? If I was to surrender my boy, I'd live a bit longer. But then I'd have died a long time ago. The second you stop standing for what you believe in, you die."

Robert
You land on the roof. A fire exit is your only way in, unless you want to smash a whole through the roof and ceiling.

Jenny Sparks, Sanya, Jules and Trelane
Those people appear beside you, panting slightly. The others are already in the compound, dealing with the other problems.

The Midnighter
You miss. He is very, very good. Which explains his obscene fee. He continues firing at you, the barrels spinning as he continues his monstrous barrage.
Which stops abruptly.

Anderson
Slade drops his gun, useless in these close quarters, and draws a machete, preternaturally aware, and defending himself as best he can. Your as strong as him, and far faster then him, but he is able to anticipate your every blow and defend it, with ease.