[Nexus] Inside 39

[Reinholdt]

[Totally Safe Park]

Broguth looks up over his tinted glasses at Reinholdt, "Very well, if you believe so," he states calmly, and stands. He extends a glowing finger to tap Reinholdt on the forehead, and if it connects, the catgirl will find herself returning to being a catboy over the next ten seconds.

"Of course I believe so." She says. Regardless of if she actually, truly believes so or not.

Then... ten second transformation sequence screen! Hooray!

Reinholdt breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank you." And is now back to being more confusing with the other Reinholdt than ever.

[Halae]

[Totally Safe Park]

Broguth nods, sits down and picks up his newspaper, "If you know anybody that would like to experience the feeling of being the opposite gender, send them my way. I'd be happy to oblige."

[Reinholdt]

[Totally Safe Park]

"I'll be sure to recommend you to all of my friends." Reinholdt says, before the catboy turns and heads towards Trog's. Crazy, psycho, shapeshifter.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Red Zone Alley]

The falling mass appears to be making an effort to surround Sally.

She glances around, then back up at the sky.
Must continue to make the environment suitable for an advantageous fight.

Her solution to making the present situation advantageous?
Walk out of the alley, towards the street.

Once more, to give her foe only one avenue of attack.
One that she can look into and casually fire back towards.


[Loch and Key]

"Oh good. I think I can find some dresses appropriate for the occasion."
Something far less flattering than what Jezebel is planning, undoubtedly, but probably more easy on the eyes than her current business attire.

Feia finishes putting the food she had been holding into her mouth, shaking her head slightly.

[The Alexandrian]

[Red Zone - Alley with Clarissa]

Yeah. Fighting in the alley would have been a very bad idea. Tendrils surrounding a person is never good.

The street is sort of out of Clarissa's tendril grappling range, though. Luckily, the tendrils aren't the only thing Clarissa has going for her right now...

Her combat form is readying itself high in the skies above... When she falls back down to earth, then the real bloodshed shall commence.

"Why?"

The air around the shattered computer screen shudders eerily. It's a simple question, about the most verbose Clarissa will ever utter when she gets all riled up like this. A sensational response could probably convince Clarissa to stand down.

I get the feeling that avoiding conflict is not what the "little girl" has in mind at the moment, though.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Red Zone Alley]

The question shall be taken as pertaining to Juan, at least for Sally.
"Tools of the Warp are a threat to continuation and must be eradicated."

Avoiding conflict...what a silly thought, for a harvester of souls.

That poor dilapidated computer will likely be receiving an uncomfortable dose of gauss energy in the next few seconds.

[The Alexandrian]

[Red Zone - Alley]

The busted computer screen is utterly obliterated and the goo that was hidden within is eradicated all to heck!

That really upsets Clarissa. There can only be one soul reaper around these parts!

Two of the tendril-masses hidden behind the metal trash receptacles begin sucking the nitrogen out of the air and other substances around them! What could they be planning?

Meanwhile, Clarissa, wearing the same as she did before her initial ooze transformation with an assortment of new features (which aren't actually that new to the character at all (they've all been revealed already)), attempts to noiselessly drop down onto Sally's head, attempting to knock her over and potentially crush Sally's metal skull with the tennis shoes upon her feet, relying on momentum as the primary driving force behind this assault. Sally may be able to tell that Clarissa appears hollower than before.

One of the expendable tendrils tucked away in a crack in the ground attempts to emit white noise to help mask battle Clarissa's presence.

"What...are...you?"

Clarissa is setting records today! She normally won't speak this much in battle form, as I've previously stated!

[Chaotic Bob]

[Red Zone Alley]

Poor Clarissa.
There are more than a few soul reapers already present.

She is also going to find impact with Sally very unpleasant.
What she had been hoping was only a metal skull appears to be metal all the way through, of a particularly dense grade.

Hitting her like that will be almost identical to landing on an extremely hard metal statue, albeit one that moves.

Sally will stagger downwards, falling to a knee and hands with the impact, but retaining grip on the warscythe as she folds.

"I am a forerunner."
No breath to be knocked from lungs, she is perfectly capable of continuing to speak.
More concerning however, will be a sudden heaviness descending on the air, spreading outwards from the girl towards the near environs.

A pressure, exerted upon minds and thoughts.
To most, it would be nothing more than uncomfortable.
To those with minds spread apart, controlling or communicating with others, it will seek to isolate them, shut down their power.

In the case of Clarissa, try to restrict her mind to one particular aspect of her horror-persona.

[The Bushranger]

[Erin's Emporium]

[/B]
"That might work. I don't know, really. Do you have any experience with Chaos beasts?"

"....Ah. Yes, I do. Hm, an axiomatic weapon might work a treat then. I think we have some in stock."

[The Alexandrian]

[Red Zone - Alley]

That does suck! Fortuitously, Clarissa has no bones to break, but the dense metal still does its job darn pretty well, sending the monster smashing straight to the ground with a sickening squelch as she pings off of Sally like a .38 bullet bouncing off of the armor of a Sherman! She crashes into a trash can or two as she skids a couple of feet into the alley in an excrutiating fashion, leaving a gigantic smear of living ooze in her wake.

On top of that, Clarissa's mind gets scrambled up like an egg! Let's see what facet of the whole is expressed *rolls die*.

Sloth? Seriously? Oh how cruel fate can be, toying with humans as though they were nothing but a bucket of Lego bricks to be carefully built up one moment then savagely torn asunder the next!

And the partioned mind makes controlling the tendrils impossible...

If only Clarissa wasn't so lazy! At current, she won't get off her duff for anything less than a big, fat slice of pizza. She does roll onto her back, though feet nearest Sally out of all of her body parts.

It also might be worth noting that she is gripping a circular, metal garbage can lid against her chest with her right hand.

"Why don't you take a load off and tell me about all the destruction you'll soon be ushering forth? I'll just close my eyes and take a nap. We'll resume the fighting when I wake up later."

"So just be cool and don't attack me."

*Headdesk.*

[Zefir]

[Anywhere]

A man, who is obviously a farmer, runs around in Panic.

"MY fields!" he shouts all the time..

[Morty]

Dance Studio

"Hmm..." Wolfy ponders, and after a moment, gestures at a mat on the ground. "Lay down and I'll do your back. I'm sure you'll find someone who can appreciate you fully some day."

I hope so too, Reelshka says, without much hope, before lying down on the mad. Seems her nervousness is mostly gone at this point.

[Gray Zone Alley]

Rot narrowly dodges the- what? The trooper got a name?!

Filimon's bullets snag the rat in the side, slowing the vampire down long enough for Anatolij's blade to swing down. Rot gives a horrid screech as he's cut in half, and then both halves burst into ashy dust.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Good riddance, Anatolij says.
You know he'll be back Sarge, Filimon responds. He always comes back.
In response to that, Anatolij just shakes his head and they both go to help Gniewomir the battle cleric with the bombs. The sappers should be done with the other ones as well by now.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Red Zone Alley]

Sally's body trembles slightly, shortly before she pulls herself back up to a standing position, using the warscythe roughly like a walking stick.

She shakes her head slightly, possibly clearing some cobwebs, before rather slowly and purposefully moving towards where Clarissa lies.

"You are harvest. That is all of import."
Hopefully Clarissa isn't feeling too lazy.

Because Sally is definitely about to ignore her request to not attack her.

[The Alexandrian]

[Red Zone - Alley]

Sally would naturally purposefully stride toward Clarissa. If Sally isn't careful not to step in the trail of goo Clarissa left behind, she might find that she has fallen into a very sticky trap.

If Sally steps in the goo, she may find her feet glued to a very elastic material which is extremely springy and stretchy, up until it reaches the point where it has extended a good foot or so above its origin point, after which it will attempt to snap back to its original position with some force.

The stream of goop would be easy to avoid, however, if one chose to step around it. Only the shortest path leading to Clarissa is painted with the stream of goop.

Hedge, hedge, hedge your mad bets!

Clarissa, meanwhile, bounds to her feet, a sinister grin crossing her face, a hitherto unseen evil brushing against all of her features.

She attempts to charge Sally, improvised garbage can lid in her left hand. Her right arm extends into a fine, sharp, strong, rigid spear of flesh encased in shards of silicon.

Hollower still Clarissa grows as she attempts to execute these actions. She attempts to wallrun until she is within striking distance of Sally (so as to avoid her cellular adhesive), and then she attempts to stab Sally full force with her spear! If she can manage to bore a teeny hole in Sally's chest, she might still win this battle, though her sloth prevents her from expending energy in anything but extremely short bursts at the moment!

Curse you sloth!

[UncleWolf]

Dance Studio

Wolfy grows back to his normal size and straddles her back to give himself better leverage, putting more weight behind his paws and claws to work out any kinks he finds.

[Morty]

[Dance Studio]

Wolfy will find quite a few kinks. Reelshka's muscles are pretty tense - working at GLoG can be stressful at times. She's definetly enjoying the massage right now, though. The werewolf will also note that her skin is slightly thickier than a human's; a bit leathery. At some point, she seems to fall asleep.

[TechnoScrabble]

[Red Zone]

"Nightmares? Really? I don't think I was scared back there, so I have my doubts about that." Kyinde shook her head. "This is getting tedious. If you're not going to cooperate, we might as well just look for that lady on our own."

"What would you want her for?" the bogeys grin at the still cowering couple.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Red Zone

I wanna know why you're looking for her. Demon Queen has calmed down by now.

[PurityIcekiller]

[Red Zone]

Kyinde nodded to Demon Queen "Exactly!" She turned back to the bogeys. "You have a reason to look for her specifically, don't you? Now, anyone you're looking for has to be important somehow, and I'm curious as to how. If we don't find it out from you, we can find it out from her."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Red Zone Alley]

Oh dear.
Sally appears to have been fooled by this peculiar goo trap.

She glances down at her feet, trying to wiggle them a bit, shortly before looking back up to see that Hey, Clarissa's moving again!

The little metal-on-the-inside girl looks rather blank as her opponent performs her fancy wall-running, preparing to strike.
It's not like she can run away, so what else is she going to do?

Oh yes, tilt her warscythe's pointed tip forward slightly, like a pike against an oncoming horsemen charge.
Which also serves as a rather beautiful tactic for aiming a blast of that molecule-sheering gauss energy at Clarissa.

Wonder if she can change direction mid-air to avoid being pulled apart or impaled?

[The Alexandrian]

[Red Zone - Alley]



This is going to hurt like heck!

You see, Clarissa had premeditated the gauss energy bombardment. That was what her garbage can lid buckler was designed to counter. Unless the gauss energy was directed at Clarissa's legs, it will probably find a metal garbage can lid waiting to meet it as the energy ripples through both space and time concurrently.

Hopefully, that hideous lid will prevent Clarissa from being completely wrecked by the gauss energy, so long as she releases the barrier moments before the energy strikes, which she attempts to do.

Clarissa's plan sort of falls apart after that. Even she knows that being impaled by that warscythe is going to leave her bedridden for at least a week, possibly more.

This is really going to hurt, isn't it? Clarissa should really have analyzed her opponent better.

Nothing to do now. Here it comes.

Clarissa braces herself for impalement. She probably ends up with a warscythe lodged in her chest, leaking profusely. And just what is flooding out of her, one might ask. It's a river of dead cells, probably the ones damaged when Clarissa crashed to the ground so hard.

Of course, this impalement is both distressing and a boon. Sally appears to draw most of her power from the warscythe. It is now well within Clarissa's reach. If only Clarissa could wrench it out of her grasp somehow...

Regardless of whether Clarissa's silicon-flesh spear hits its mark, Clarissa will attempt to take hold of of the warscythe with her now shaking left hand and then desperately trying to rip it out of Sally's hands and through her (Clarissa's) own fleshy torso, attempting to plant her feet on the "little girl's" abdominal region to gain better leverage for doing so, if the momentum transfer that must probably occur when Clarissa slams into Sally's warscythe and probably her metal frame doesn't knock the weapon right out of Sally's hands or send her tumbling to the ground. It's a sort of last ditch effort. Clarissa knows that she can't smash through a thick, solid, sapient hunk of metal. She has to turn its own weapons against it if her own survival is to be the outcome of this little war.

Did I say that Clarissa might be recovering from this most grievous injury over the course of a few week? That was flawed data, incorrect information.

Clarissa might be out for a month thanks to this little stunt.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Red Zone Alley]

And now we are left with a peculiar goo-woman impaled on the weapon of a little machine girl, trying to wrench it free, whilst an arm-blade stabs through part of her chest.

This probably looks rather peculiar to outside observers.

Sally doesn't seem to care though.
Slightly more preoccupied with the blade stabbed through her and the various actions attempting to steal her warscythe, while she stands firm against the impact.

For the record, there doesn't appear to be any fluid at all, from the stab wound.
Just a clean pass-through.
This leans back faintly towards the metal statue analogy.

Which leads to the next point of interest.
She doesn't seem to mind being stabbed either.
Instead, she's snapping her free hand forward to grab at one of Clarissa's ankles (since they're so obligingly close by), while pushing her weapon even closer to the woman.

Turns out that yanking a weapon away from someone partially relies on resistance.
Can be a little disorienting when you yank and over-judge the amount of necessary effort. Somewhat...balance ruining.

The result Sally appears to be hoping for, is that she ends up clutching one of Clarissa's feet while the woman ends up flopping over backwards from pulling on the weapon far harder than strictly necessary, simultaneously allowing the little girl to retain a somewhat easy grip on the weapon.

[TechnoScrabble]

Red Zone

"Lady pissed us off. Tried to beat Mike with a flashlight," the bogey shakes his head, "Poor Mike. You cut his head off before he could get revenge."

A park in the Grey Zone

There are several beehives in the park, all dangling from the tallest trees, supporting legions of bees as they go out and retrieve honey.
Or at least, it used to bee that way. Now, a horrible tragedy has struck the population of fuzzy little nectar lovers. The hives are full of holes, and smoke trails out of some of them. It's as if they've bee-n attacked by some horrible, tiny enemy.
One beehive, however, is more active than any beehive has a right to bee. One might find that, upon closer inspection, some of these bees are oddly shiny in places. That they have metal bits and pieces here and there, peg stingers and rocket wings and multi-lensed eyepatches. Why, these aren't normal bees at all! Following a single, unusually large bee who appears to be wearing a black tricorn hat, the swarm pours out of their hive and the park, and into the unsuspecting city.

IT BEEGINS.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Red Zone

Demon Queen looks at them for a moment before answering.

And I take it she caught you doing something like we caught you doing?

[The Alexandrian]

[Red Zone - Alley]

Clarissa does indeed lose her balance! She might end up with her hair and upper torso firmly entrenched within her own goo track! The irony and "unfairness" of it all! The spider caught in her own web!

Clarissa's spear arm likely shatters, quite possibly leaving a large portion of what once was Clarissa's forearm embedded inside of Sally's torso.

Clarissa thuds against the ground with a weak,

"Uurgh!"

What other noise is there to make when one is pinned to the ground with a warscythe in her chest?

This would likely be the end of Clarissa, if not for two critical little details she has identified as entirely beneficial to her own ends in this situation.

1. Her spear was able to ram through Sally's chest, suggesting that Sally's metal body is softer than silicon.

2. Sally is still in direct contact with one of Clarissa's limbs.

That shattered segment of flesh which may or may not be jutting through Sally's flesh begins its attempt to pull away from the center of Sally's body (to the left and right). With immense power and rigor, they are attempting to exert pressure on the left and right side of Sally's center of mass from within. They operate much like a car jack lifting a car off of the ground with a higher force and tension levels.

Clarissa's last chance at wresting victory from the hands of defeat rests in the principles behind erosion. She is almost certain that her preprogrammed "jack" will act as water does when it freezes inside of a crack in a boulder, splitting it open over time. The question here is how much time because it seems like Clarissa doesn't have much time left in reserve...

Clarissa's last chance at survival rests in the fact that Sally might be holding her ankle against her abdominal region. That fact might afford Clarissa the leverage and opportunity requisite for her attempt to viciously kick Sally's "tummy" several times in rapid succession!

Clarissa still has a shot at this! She does everything in her power to make it count before sloth completely shuts her down (in my next post).

[TechnoScrabble]

Red Zone

The bogeys look rather sullen.
"Yeah...We failed to kill her the first time, too. Sort of embarrassing, y'know?"

The woman in the couple finally snaps and screams.
"Just KILL THEM ALREADY! THEY KILLED RORKE!"

[KerfuffleMach2]

Red Zone

The woman yelling catches Demon Queen off guard. Needless to say, it was unexpected.

This gives the bogeys a slight opening, as her brain processes this new development.

[TechnoScrabble]

Red Zone

The bogeys take this opportunity, shifting back through the shadows of the shards pinning them to the wall and popping out in the alley across the street. They hop over several cars and lunge at the demon queen, claws bared and horns aimed so as to pierce her heart or at least give her a nasty gore.

[Lady Serpentine]

A park in the Grey Zone

There are several beehives in the park, all dangling from the tallest trees, supporting legions of bees as they go out and retrieve honey.
Or at least, it used to bee that way. Now, a horrible tragedy has struck the population of fuzzy little nectar lovers. The hives are full of holes, and smoke trails out of some of them. It's as if they've bee-n attacked by some horrible, tiny enemy.
One beehive, however, is more active than any beehive has a right to bee. One might find that, upon closer inspection, some of these bees are oddly shiny in places. That they have metal bits and pieces here and there, peg stingers and rocket wings and multi-lensed eyepatches. Why, these aren't normal bees at all! Following a single, unusually large bee who appears to be wearing a black tricorn hat, the swarm pours out of their hive and the park, and into the unsuspecting city.

IT BEEGINS.

A large, grey, mouse, no longer having any real purpose, as its creator abandoned it in Trog's, sniffs the air tentatively.

What's that buzzing?

[KerfuffleMach2]

Red Zone

Demon Queen isn't able to stop them moving back into the shadows. She was distracted.

However, she can sense them moving over the cars towards her. She'll twist on the spot, swinging her arms around her. Should cause them to get caught by her power and swung to the side. Same direction she's spinning.

((And we should probably wait for Purity before continuing from here.))

Park in Grey Zone

A taller woman with shoulder length brown hair walks the park, her hands in the pockets of her duster.

She hears the buzzing and looks around, trying to see where it's coming from.