[Nexus] Inside 40

[Lady Serpentine]

[Blue Zone - Private Sector -Crier Pharmaceuticals - Building 3 - Streets]

Trium is peppered. Sort of. A few rounds hit, but most have their kinetic energy stolen by the ward that sprang up like around her like a green shell, presumably falling harmlessly to the ground.

As this is happening, Trium brings her blade down, and slashes up at Spec's legs.

[Halae]

Temple of Dalachrech

"Excellent. If you want to change, see if Gertrude has any spare clothes. They're not likely to fit you, but if you wear them it won't be as obvious that they're borrowed as mine would be." Gertrude is the six-and-a-half foot tall handsome woman with long red hair and green eyes that don't quite match human shades.

[Temple of Dalachrech]

I think we can handwave up to the ceremony. Kail will take Terrowin's advice and attempt to talk to gertrude about clothing. She'll wear pretty much anything (even a dress, if it's made well enough to try and impress Terrowin) but considering she's just under a foot shorter than gertrude, it may prevent much from being capable of being worn.

She'll show up at the sermon after that is taken care of.

[Gullara]

[Market Street]

The man emerges victorious from his mighty battle. No inanimate object will triumph over him! The man in question staggers to his feet. He's not the prettiest sort. He's gaunt with very pale skin. Deep shadows hang under his squinty eyes. He's a bit hunched over, and is wearing a set of blue and white striped pajamas. With a matching night cap of course.

He stares blankly at the pile of rubble before him. This is rather odd. He could have sworn he'd cleaned up that rubble last night. And fixed the ceiling too! There shouldn't be this much daylight getting into his room.

[OrchestraHc]

...

This is a car from the 1920s.

It doesn't have any seat-belts.

Anywho!

The talking taxi peels out for a few seconds before zooming off after the bag guys! The bad guys seem to realize what's going on pretty quickly as the top of the car in front of them suddenly opens up and a mobster pops out holding a tommy gun!

The man opens fire, spraying the whole area with cartoony bullets!

Not sure if those things are actually lethal or not.

Lucky Justin. If he did buckle up, he'd be unable to duck. As soon as a reprieve from the hailstorm of cartoony death opens up, he'll open up the window and begin shooting the tires of his pursuees with his laser pistol.

[Rebonack]

[Market Street]

The brass statue eye-lasers a nearby cart full of melons! The melons suddenly explode into a shower of pop-melons!

...

Is that even possible?

Certainly seems to be the case at least...

A few merchants seem to be getting fed up with the statue exploding their wares into crunchy bit-sized pieces. The line is totally drawn when a coop of hens is reduced to perfectly breaded pop-corn chicken.

Some guys shoots at the statue with a crossbow bolt! The bolt in question goes 'ping!'

Meanwhile, a large slab of stone is pushed aside and Dunastes finally pulls himself out of the rubble heap. She's... kind of odd looking. As one can probably tell by the alternating pronouns it isn't obvious whether he's a guy or a gal at a glance. Though more in the attractive sort of way rather than the Pat sort of way.

The next thing that might be noticed is the fact that Dunastes appears to be equipped with several snakes coming out of her otherwise white hair. As well as a pair of wings that seem mid-way between batlike and birdlike. Somewhat ominous looking armor. Weird glaive. And a general impression that he's glad she didn't get squashed.

Dunastes braces the haft of his pole-arm against the ground and pushes herself upright, eyes focusing on that dumb statue!



[Car Chase!]

Pew pew goes the laser gun!

Cartoony bullets and lasers. A meeting of two commonalities in animation. The back tires of the speeding car blow out right about the time that a bullet comes flying up to Justin, opens, and aims to deck him in the face with an extendo boxing glove.

[Gullara]

[Market Street]

Gah! Exploding wares! The man ducks and covers his head. Those wiry arms aren't meant for fighting. Or getting lasered. "What is this?! I never ordered any... whatever that is!" Quick! He dives behind a big old piece of rubble.

[The Alexandrian]

[Blue Zone - Private Sector -Crier Pharmaceuticals - Building 3 - 27th Floor to Street-Level]

Spec's legs are sliced up! With any luck, that blade didn't cleave through any of Spec's bone marrow. That'd really hurt to patch up. Of course, legs are much less critical than, say, the heart, so these losses should be fairly negligible. Spec throws her left hand backward with a precise and powerful jolt of force. The warm Uzi departs from her grasp, soaring through the air above, clattering harmlessly against patch of bristly carpet fibers nearest the door. A black, spherical object rolls out of Spec's sleeve as well. It is beeping like mad. That is not a good sign. Spec's lower extremities bust through the remains of the window, reducing it to nothing more than cubes of safety glass raining down upon her like so many grains of salt evicted from their shaker. Moments before her upper body exits the building entirely, her right arm darts backward as she attempts to slice a sufficiently damaging gash in Trium's closest leg.

Of course, feel free to interrupt Spec's assault at any point. Spec shouldn't be too far from the window at the onset of this post, but that fact shouldn't carry much weight in a scuffle occurring in an absurdly confined space such as this.

[Rebonack]

[Market Street]

"We're alive, yay!"
"I was afraid the last thing I would see was your ugly face."
"Shut up!"
"No, you shut up!" chatter several of Dunastes' head-snakes.

She does his best to ignore them for the time being. Other things to focus on! Like the statue blasting cucumbers into pop-cumbers! Seems the statue in question really like exploding food-stuffs.

Dunastes places one hand flat on a large piece of rubble before making a throwing motion at the statue! The chunk of rock decides to play nice and go flying through the air toward the automaton.

...

Statue just lasered the rubble.

Exploded it into a shower of pop-rocks.

"Really...?" she mutters incredulously.

"I knew that would happen."
"You should have tried harder!"
"I'm hungry, when are we going to eat?"

[Reinholdt]

[Bast's Temple]

If Rein wakes up at some point, he'll find that Arel has left in his sleep. Off exploring perhaps? Oh boy, the Nexus is dangerous!

OH NO!
Reinholdt... doesn't worry himself that much over it. Now that she can see, it's far less concerning really. If she were still blind, that'd probably be an issue. But trying to hide her away from the Nexus sure is a bad idea and running around to try and find someone that could be who knows where is perhaps equally ludicrous. Besides, she probably has some special fallen angel super powers that Reinholdt, a pretty much powerless cat, doesn't have.

He leaves a note saying he's going to head to Mallside to pick up a few things in case she comes back. Like a new toothbrush and whatever else he finds that seems appropriate. And that's what he goes to do!

[Gullara]

[Market Street]

"You there. Boy..? And snakes! Get down. It would be a shame to have those nice body parts of your zapped." The man calls from his hiding place. Good thing all this convenient rubble is around. It's good for not getting zapped.

[Rebonack]

[Market Street]

Dunastes shoots the fellow in pajamas a look. Is he serious? There's obviously something wrong with the statue. When he had stumbled on it not too long ago it was just melting stuff in a bid to kill her. But now it seems intent on making tiny edible things. Obviously something is wrong with it. Maybe...

"I bet it broke!"
"We should strike now! Rawr!"
"Yeah, that's a good idea! I'm sure it won't explode us into tiny pieces of meat."

"Right... You keep hiding. I'll stop this thing," Dunastes calls out as he charges toward the statue! As he dashes she runs his hand along the ground, causing a chunk of stone to rip out of the road and hurl itself toward the statue with her on top of it!

The statue's eyes light up once more and blasts the stone to pop-rocks right as Dunastes leaps off, glaive held high!

*SHLUNK!*

With a ponderous groan the statue topples over backwards with a spear sticking out of its face.

"We did it!"
"I knew we could!"
"That was my idea."
"I was helpful!"

[OrchestraHc]

[Car Chase!]
Even if it is just a boxing glove, moving at their current speeds could break Justin's neck. Or at least, that's what he thinks. He's new to thinking like a Loony Tune. While the bullet is winding up it's punch, Justin takes the opportunity to pull back into the car to dodge the Punching-Bullet in question. Unless of course the bullet was smart enough fly in to the open window to beat him up. But that would be ridic... Uh-oh

[Gullara]

[Market Street]

The man peaks out from behind his rock. Would you look at that. It's dead. He hesitantly leaves his cover and makes his way over to it. He pokes it with his bunny slipper clad foot.

"Damnation, not organic." He squints at Dunastes critically. "A skinny one aren't you?" He tries to pinch his/her bicep between his fingers. "I'd need at least three of these to craft a proer arm."

[Rebonack]

[Market Street]

Dunates gets poked at!

She doesn't seem to like it very much. Which is understandable of course. The scientist? in pajamas might find his hand getting thwacked away. Of course... given that Dunastes is wearing armor that might not be terribly comfortable.

"Hey, hands off," he objects. "And what are you talking about?"

"Yeah!"
"Bet he's crazy."
"Athena probably stole his sanity."
"Athena's a jerk!"
"Wait, this isn't Moecia. Where are we?"
"I'm still hungry!"

[Car Chase!]

Nope.

Looks like the punchin' bullet just whiffed pretty hard. Which is fortunate. That could have caused some real damage!

The tire-shot car has skidded off the side of the road and into a lamp post! Several armed thugs are presently staggering out.

[Gullara]

[Market Street]

"Ouch." The man hastily snatches his hand back. "I'm the one asking questions here! You can't just go around breaking down people's walls in the middle of the ni- Er day? Why hasn't Mundo woken me up? Anyway, you can't go asking questions when you're in my home!"

[Rebonack]

[Market Street]

Dunastes requires about two seconds to determine that this isn't anyone's house.

It appears to be a market place of some kind. As one might guess from all the market stalls spread around here and there.

"This isn't your home," Dunastes reasons. "And it isn't a run-down temple of the Titans in Moecia either."

"Yeah!"
"So there!"
"I feel pretty!"
"You LOOK ugly!"

"So I think you should take a few moments to gather your thoughts before you start accusing me of anything."

[OrchestraHc]

"Buzz by, then turn around," Justin says to his... driver? "I'm going to take a few shots at them while they're staggered then I can go for what I need." With a sudden bit of realization, he apologizes to the Taxi. "I'm sorry, by the way. You probably didn't intend to get mixed up in this nonsense."

As the car zooms in, by, and past the thugs, Justin lets out as many shots as he can. Normally aiming for faces and arms. Can't shoot at something you can't see with guns you can't hold, after all.

[Rebonack]

[Car Chase!]

"Whatever, Mac. This is gunna cost you extra," the taxi replies before zipping past the thugs rather quickly!

The thugs are then shot at by lasers! Of course, everyone knows that cartoon lasers never kill anyone. They just blast them backwards or drop their weapons.

Everyone knows that!

A few cartoony bullets are fired back, but they seem to be having trouble firing very straight.

And wait!

What's this?

Someone else is climbing out of the car!

Looks like a really short cyclopes in a really tall gangster hat!

[Gullara]

[Market Street]

"I don't have time to gather my thoughts. Too much work to do. I have eight experiments to do today and I've already overslept by hours. So if you'd just scur-" He pauses, blinks, then looks around. A frown creases his face. "Odd. I could have sworn I fell asleep in my room last night."

[Rebonack]

[Market Street]

Dunastes really has no idea what this guy is talking about for the most part. What's an experiment, anyway?

"Uh huh. And I could have sworn that I was looking for some important Titanic artifacts in a ruined temple. But here I am standing in the middle of a market place with a confused man in a ridiculous outfit."

Several of the snakes snerk at that comment.

"Must have been some sort of curse that sent me somewhere else..." she mutters as she kicks at a stray chunk of marble. "That would certainly explain the change in scenery... But who would have cursed the temple...?"

Probably the goddess of spite.

That would totally be like her.

[Gullara]

[Market Street]

The man, who suddenly gains the name Mazitch, looks down at himself. "This isn't an outfit. It's pajamas." He says indignantly. "All my clothes and equipment and my tower and... Well it's somewhere, that's for certain."

He peers around suspiciously at the surrounding people. "You don't think werewolves took it, do you? No, that can't be right. They would have just ate then killed me."

[OrchestraHc]

[Car Chase]
"I think that might be One-Eyed Pete," Justin says rather stupidly. "I was just expecting some goon in an eyepatch, not an actual cyclops. Drive by him and stop next to him when he goes down." Justin lines up a shot determined to knock the little guy off of his feet and maybe out of his conciousness. He fires, taking special care not to shoot that hat. He's got a funny feeling about it. You know, that funny feeling that goes "takeittakeittakeit"

[Lady Serpentine]

[Blue Zone - Private Sector -Crier Pharmaceuticals - Building 3 - 27th Floor to Street-Level]

Spec's legs are sliced up! With any luck, that blade didn't cleave through any of Spec's bone marrow. That'd really hurt to patch up. Of course, legs are much less critical than, say, the heart, so these losses should be fairly negligible. Spec throws her left hand backward with a precise and powerful jolt of force. The warm Uzi departs from her grasp, soaring through the air above, clattering harmlessly against patch of bristly carpet fibers nearest the door. A black, spherical object rolls out of Spec's sleeve as well. It is beeping like mad. That is not a good sign. Spec's lower extremities bust through the remains of the window, reducing it to nothing more than cubes of safety glass raining down upon her like so many grains of salt evicted from their shaker. Moments before her upper body exits the building entirely, her right arm darts backward as she attempts to slice a sufficiently damaging gash in Trium's closest leg.

Of course, feel free to interrupt Spec's assault at any point. Spec shouldn't be too far from the window at the onset of this post, but that fact shouldn't carry much weight in a scuffle occurring in an absurdly confined space such as this.

Trium's left leg is cut up rather badly, but Spec might find her wrist being grabbed with bonecrushing force by a chill, metallic hand. If so, Trium will shout "Kornil!", which will trigger a ward that will, if it works as intended, send an extremely painful jolt of electricity up Spec's arm.

[Gullara]

[At the Door of the Den]

Lightning raptors and Legion/Jasper do stuff over there!


Kirk kicks at the sandman's head, who responds snapping his other hand up to grab at the leg.
Grabbing that may be followed by yanking, in an effort to pull the fellow back off balance.
"Did you have to stab me in the eye?"

Meanwhile, the stunned raptor is shaking its head and pulling itself back up, its glow rebuilding.

Kirk lets his leg be pulled and catches himself on his hands when he falls. "I thought it was necessary." And with that, the drow lashes out with his free foot at the sandman's head and/or arm.

[The Alexandrian]

[Blue Zone - Private Sector -Crier Pharmaceuticals - Building 3 - 27th Floor to Street-Level]

"Nnng!"

Spec winces as her body is wracked and riddled with agony from both her hand being crushed with bone-shattering force and her body being being subject to what can best be equated to a weaponized form of electroshock therapy. Tormented by these two factors, Spec, with a stupendous heap of alacrity, attempts to extend her left arm upwards and clap her hand against any fleshy part of Trium's body she can reach. With any luck or logic, this action should negate the tortuous effects of Trium's complementary electroshock treatment by completing a circuit through which the electricity should be able to freely flow. If this is not the case, then Spec can only hope that some of Truim's own electrical barrage will be channeled into Trium's own body in an acceptably pain-sensor stimulating way. Metal is more conductive than blood, of course, so it would make sense for the electricity to zap or at least return to the nanobots within Trium's current form so long as they have been assembled out of metal, right?

Without pause, Spec will then attempt to kick off of the face of the building currently in contact with the majority of her body with the idea that it might cause Trium (who must be teetering on the brink of where the glass wall once existed) to lose her footing due to the addition of a sudden force tugging at her hand holding Spec's wrist, attempting to pull it out of the building. Given that Trium has already tied up at least one of her hands with supporting Spec at this moment in time, it might be difficult for her to recover!

Spec still refuses to relinquish her firm stranglehold on her light-katana. She needs that thing now more than ever.

If Trium happened to take hold of Spec's left hand in order prevent her from falling to her doom, Spec will simply thrust her blade aloft and attempt to lop off Trium's offending arm!

All in all, Trium might want to be extremely careful around that explosive device Spec tossed into the office before she attempted to begin her descent to the public streets below. It might be composed of a ludicrously high-grade explosive that might level the whole building! Conversely, it might just be a cherry bomb. I'd rather err in favor of the former, not the latter were I making this decision myself.

I'm also going to go out on a limb here and submit that Spec's leg wounds are probably more severe than Trium's. I can't quite be sure of that, but Spec likely wouldn't have been able to chop up Trium's legs very well while sliding across a carpet floor (Rug burns! Ouch! They sting!).

[Lady Serpentine]

[Blue Zone - Private Sector -Crier Pharmaceuticals - Building 3 - 27th Floor to Street-Level]

All of that is successful, and it did form a circuit. Trium is pulled without resistance, reasoning that it's the fastest way down, and thus away from the bomb.

The heavily augmented woman yells "Hlotta!" as they start to fall, which will hopefully make it very difficult for Spec to move her muscles voluntarily, though they would still be moveable by outside forces.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Somewhere Else - Abandoned Apartment]

"I'm checking my map," she says. He'll still be able to detect the hints of heavy breathing and panic, but it's significantly less now, and well on its way to being eliminated entirely. "... Well that's helpful. We're apparently in an empty lot, standing about twenty feet off the ground."

What, you didn't think that snazzy armor didn't come with a HUD?

"We have to move, get down to ground level," she says, and begins moving towards the staircase, making sure to aim with her laspistol in her left hand while her sword is in her right, and will shoot pretty much anything that moves. She's fairly high strung.

As she checks her map, Del gives cursory checks to the open rooms, leading in with swift movements, gun-first and prepared for movement.
Quickly and simply establishing that, on this floor at least, they appear to be alone.

"Windows are all covered with boards, but unbroken. Whoever was here last was fortifying or hiding."
He quickly moves back to his companion as she moves to the stairs, taking up position just behind her and giving periodic glances behind, to hopefully deter followers.

Conveniently, they continue to be utterly alone as they descend the stairs.
A presents itself at the expected "0 feet from the ground" position, by Kaz's HUD, although the stairs continue to spiral down, towards a basement.

The door to the ground floor remains open, as with the floor they left, revealing another long hallway, although this one shows signs of recent construction.
At the far end is their exit, also standing open.

[At the Door of the Den]

"I disagree."
The sandman flicks his knife up into the air, with a trajectory that results in it falling approximately where Kirk's chest is now.

Right around as he gets kicked in the face.
The sand that makes up his head explodes outwards, much like...what happens when you kick a sand sculpture.

The rest of his body collapses, for a brief moment, before quickly trying to reform itself, randomly appearing fingers grabbing at Kirk's body as it does so.
It's not a perfect regeneration, clearly, and seems closer to terrorhorror territory than hit-man.

[Halae]

[Somewhere Else - Abandoned Apartment]

"We should check the basement," Kaz says, "I don't want something coming up after us, like that one time with the hellhound." she'll continue her descent into the basement. She's collected herself by this point.

[Gullara]

[At the Door of the Den]

Kirk's hand goes up and deftly catches the tossed blade. Unfortunately that's when fingers starts getting grabby. Suddenly he teleports away, taking his various sharp implements with him, and ends up standing several feet away. The drow is already reaching for something else as he appears.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Somewhere Else - Abandoned Apartment]

Del glances off at the exit as they move past it in the stairwell.
There's the immense temptation to simply...leave.
Ignore curiosity or caution probing them to check out the basement.

Surely they could get out and shut the door behind them, if necessary?
"We'll run the risk of being trapped, if there is anyone on the main floor."

At the base of the stairwell is the expected door into the basement proper.
This one is actually closed, although not locked.

A faint purple glow is beneath it, leaving Del with a faint, unidentifiable feeling of discomfort.
The hallway beyond is filled with this glow, which emanates from the only open door, a mere ten feet in.
There is a very familiar voice.

"Proximity report, mistress."

[At the Door of the Den]

The sandman's body flails at the air for a moment, as Kirk teleports away, before it calms and begins to take a more...sane take on a human body.
Slightly smaller looking though, and disfigured around the head area.

It'll take a moment.

Which works out, since Kirk is probably going to be horribly distracted for the next several seconds.
He seems to have forgotten about that other lightning raptor.

The one that's jumping at his back, glow faded, claws extended out to dig in and grip, and sparks of electricity jumping between them.