Inside 63

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

Fayyaad nods sagely, then... drops off the roof of the building. This seemingly suicidal manoeuvre starts making sense when one sees that he does, in fact, have a carpet under him. A flying one.

After plunging downwards, he sharply changes direction by about ninety degrees, flying above the raiders. He leans slightly to his left, flicking his hand and sending a sweeping jet of flame towards the enemy.

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

Suddenly, fire.

One of the raiders is caught in the face by the fire spray, collapsing to the ground and screaming in pain as he tries to put it out. Another sees this and evidently decides that sticking around the pyro isn't the best idea and bolts, running for the outside of the alleyway. It's unclear if he's going to keep running, or if he plans to do something odd.

There's not much time to contemplate that as, just as he's about to get struck, everything immediately around the leader goes cold, the heat of the flames apparently melted away in the sudden freezing aura that envelops him. He raises a hand up, and a half-frozen jet of water launches seemingly from his hand at Fayyad.

Guess that's why he's the boss.

The woman keeping the barriers up spots an opportunity, in the pistol dropped by the burned raider. The barrier on that side drops and she runs for it, the leader distracted by Fayyad for now. One of them on the other side, though, yells out. "She's going for his gun!"

Fayyad needs to keep him occupied just a little longer.

[Fenric]

[Fleeing the Hunters]

Serra frowns as her ears pick up the approaching trucks and she glares in their direction, then with a poof turns into a bat and flies up and after the fox, trying to trail him from above.

And not a moment too soon! There's a sharp crack and a bullet screams past that is so heavily enchanted with holy energies it stings as it goes by even though it misses by a decent margin.

Drak is easy enough to track: he's not trying to escape Serra, after all. He dodges toward the Red Zone, seeking out narrow streets and alleyways to hinder motorized pursuit.

---

[Carousel Court]

Arlem scoops up the hairs with a smile. First, they're soft and fluffy. They just have to cheer you up. And it's proof that she got this far - even if something happened after that. But most importantly, it's great for tracking someone down, physically or magically. A deep breath-
-but what else was here? The shapechanger first pays attention to the mental echo (a strain in space-time alone might just go unnoticed), examining it, figuratively looking it over. Was this intentional? Just feelings left on the walls by nearby events?

No... it's newer, and different. A Domination effect of some sort has been used much more recently than the battle.

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

Fayyaad's carpet swerves wildly, narrowly avoiding the jet of cold water. He almost falls off, but manages to hold onto it at the last second. Not good. He sees what the woman is attempting, and tries to perform a distraction. He circles around the area, sending a jet of fire at the ganger who cried out and a wide, inaccurate spray at the other ones. Neither attack is very likely to hit, but it might just occupy their attention.

[ThirdEmperor]

[Skyway - Crystal Gardens Park]

The golem's tangle of arms are thrown back, but the roar does nothing to remove the noose slowly tightening around his neck. Where it's already touched him, the gloop refuses to be peeled away, and any force great enough would have to tear the armored collar of his suit as well.

But the golem has its own concerns. It head spins round, following the incoming fire, and the sticky strands connecting it to the cauldron go taut. Like an elastic band snapping back, the golem flings itself backwards and lands in a protective curl around the pot. Electra's little blasts of plasma sink into the bubble of pitch, tearing away great chunks of tarry matter.

[Nova_Eclipse]

Electra continues firing at the pot as she changes direction, striding carefully back towards the griffin, hoping to keep the creature occupied long enough for her to get close to him. She continues to sweep the weapon in her left hand back and forth, but now also slightly up and down, firing it along with the one in her right whenever it's lined up for a shot on the pot, or the bubbled-up monster surrounding it. The plasma blasts from the weapon in her left hand are weaker, a darker blue in hue than the ones from the gun in her right, and the shots don't seem to explode with as much force when they connect. She curses quietly to herself as she pulls an internal data display up into a corner of her field of vision.

Wonderful, that little trip through the portal damaged more than I thought. I don't think I'm going to be able to keep this thing busy for very long, she muses in her head, continuing to advance. I just hope together we can take this thing down...

[Deathkeeper]

Skyway- Crystal Gardens

Nick's armor will buy him some time, but he grunts in annoyance. Looks like Electra found a weakness, but he can't afford to help right now by blind-firing at the thing. He needs to keep himself alive, and simply firing blind would be a good way to get an onlooker killed.
As such, Nick focuses on the problem at hand, or claw, and draws a single feather of his wing along the side of his neck, magically enhancing it into an incredibly sharp blade as it passes through the sticky strands. He's fairly sure this isn't going to work, but the worst he can imagine is that the feather sticks and he needs to pull it out.

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

Well, that keeps them from yelling at the boss more, at least, as the raiders behind the barrier scatter to avoid getting torched. Their boss, having had his attention focused on Fayyad already, apparently didn't hear them very well over his own water jet, and while it's only a moment later that he notices the barrier is gone, that moment is enough.

He turns in time to see her diving for the gun and tucking into a roll, coming up on one knee with the pistol aimed right at his center of mass. Three shots ring out, each punching a new hole in the orc's torso, with deadly aim befitting a professional rather than someone who managed to blunder into this mess.

He looks down at himself, and the air in the entire area goes cold, the effect most pronounced closer to him. Knowing he's dead already, the orc pours his power into one last spiteful attack, flash-freezing himself and exploding in frozen, mercifully unrecognizable gore. Realizing what's about to occur at the last second, his killer raises a barrier between herself and the incoming stream of morbid, icy shrapnel. Whether it holds is another thing entirely, and in her rush to survive she's putting all her effort into that one. The barrier keeping the other group away drops, and if they weren't already running from incoming fire, they'd be rushing for cover from the explosion. Fayyad having the advantage of flight, he can probably get to a rooftop and look to see what's happened, if he realizes the orc's plan in time to do so.

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

Fayyaad keeps circling above the battlefield as the person to whose aid he came shoots the gang leader. He's on his guard when the orc starts focusing his power, but he doesn't expect him to explode. As such, he doesn't quite anticipate it quickly enough. He takes his carpet to a nearby rooftop, but the last stretch of his escape is rather desperate, leaving him sprawled there, under his carpet. But while he's a little worse from the wear, the explosion itself didn't seem to catch him.

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

When Fayyad next looks, the scene is an utter mess.

Icy shrapnel is all over the place, embedded in the ground and walls. One of the remaining gangers is shredded on the ground, and the one that was on fire is now decidedly dead as well, as evidenced by the blood and his silence. The others who retreated don't seem interested in coming back, with their boss dead.

The woman's survival is immediately evident not from the fact that she's still standing, but by the lack of icy gore in the area covered by the barrier she threw up, and the collection of it where the barrier was. She slowly lowers her hands, one holding the gun, the other having been held up in the direction of the barrier. "Why do they always...?" She stops and shakes her head, and looks around for Fayyad. "Ugh. You still alive? Don't think they're coming back."

[ThirdEmperor]

[Skyway - Crystal Gardens Park]

Oh no Nick. Oh no. A tiny little hand leaps out as his wing draws close, followed by dozens more. Thin as thread. He'll have a split second, barely any time at all, to yank his wing away before it's grabbed and pulled into the mass of gloop around his neck. He might not have time to catch the hand rising out of the splattered pitch behind him, slithering towards for the griffon's hindleg.

With each blast of plasma that sinks into the main mass of the creature, the whole of it shudders violently and shrinks, losing mass in the burping explosions and hisses of foul steam - but it's not helpless. Not yet. With one great belch, it launches a blob upwards, up and towards Electra. Even before it touches the ground it shatters into a dozen smaller drops, scattering down upon the park like an airburst.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[Skyway - Crystal Gardens Park]


Electra turns slightly towards the pot as the blob contracts, but doesn't let up her fire. Her left arm freezes for a moment as she notices something moving towards the griffon from behind.

"MOVE!!" The command is screamed with authority born from decades of commanding other soldiers in combat. A half-second later, the blob launches, and reflexes take over. She leaps forwards and fires her EAS for a split second, rocketing on a tangent towards a point past the pot, twisting her lower body into a low sliding tackle to help arrest her momentum, hoping she's put just enough distance from where she was to avoid whatever form of grenade attack was just lobbed at her. She stops shooting as she does this, as her attention is fully focused on not running into anything and controlling her movements, particularly her arms so as not to disrupt her balance, but still keep her fields of view where they need to be.

[Zefir]

Well this turned sour quick.

The mages move slow. Adir is anything but. As Zefir turns to look, Adir is grabbing him by the arm and trying to haul the other fellow backwards. Out of the encroaching circle of mages. If there's anything he's ever learned, it's not to get surrounded. The stag is quite strong.

The stag has already drawn his small pistol by now. The tiny semi-auto is aimed skyward... if only for the moment. "You all need to stop trying to get behind us. First person I hear mumbling voodoo gets a bullet in the throat," he threatens, very calmly.

[Park of Seasons - Central]

"wOahhh" Zefir says as he is dragged by the stag. He hardly magaes to stay up, after all he is a normal man. Whatever Normal means in terms of nexus.

The mages stop as Adir threats them. The purple robed man holds his hands up defensiv. He immediatly casts a shield in front of him, Invisible for the bare eye and without any words.

"What" "is" "this?" The twin mages in red robes ask.
"I don't know." the woman replies. "I saw many people in the city with simular things. It must be some kind of weapon. A wand or so."

"Whatever it is, this guy threaten us with it." The gnome replies. He's obviously in a bad mood or maybe just easy to get mad.

"This is nothing between you and us, antler man. Neither did he gave us an answer to our request." The purple robed man speaks up, addressing Adir directly. "This man has done things in his past. Things he either pay with his service or pay with his life. Are you sure to be part of it? "

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

When Fayyad next looks, the scene is an utter mess.

Icy shrapnel is all over the place, embedded in the ground and walls. One of the remaining gangers is shredded on the ground, and the one that was on fire is now decidedly dead as well, as evidenced by the blood and his silence. The others who retreated don't seem interested in coming back, with their boss dead.

The woman's survival is immediately evident not from the fact that she's still standing, but by the lack of icy gore in the area covered by the barrier she threw up, and the collection of it where the barrier was. She slowly lowers her hands, one holding the gun, the other having been held up in the direction of the barrier. "Why do they always...?" She stops and shakes her head, and looks around for Fayyad. "Ugh. You still alive? Don't think they're coming back."

"Mostly," the tiefling calls back. He then floats back down on the carpet. He bears the marks of tumbling across the rooftop, but he doesn't seem seriously hurt. "Now, what did I just stumble into?"

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"A 'friend' I was with shot their cannibal, said it'd sort itself out, and teleported away, leaving me to run and get caught in this. Probably figured someone would show up. I would've been fine, too, but the bastard wouldn't leave me a laser," the woman explains, idly turning the gun's safety on, examining it, and looking unimpressed. "Really hate him right now, and I'm glad someone showed up and all, but who are you supposed to be?"

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"I am Fayyaad ibn Haashid al-Zafar," the tiefling says with a bow. He seems to have regained his composure quickly. "And adventurer and swashbuckler. I ran into your situation entirely by accident. Unless that friend of yours can predict the future, I can't see how he could have predicted that."

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"I don't think he can do that, but based on what I know, reasonable probability isn't much of a thing around here anyway, so..." She shrugs. "Hell if I know, man's all kinds of bizarre, but I wouldn't be here without him, so I assume he knows what he's doing, even if I have no idea what's going through his head. But enough about Three. Don't suppose you know anyone in need of a former aspiring businesswoman and hardlight barrier-wielding stealth commando? And don't ask about the odd combination."

[Mee]

Parking Garage

The creature Naku made eye contact barely even notices the swords spinning around it. It's too focused on pulling a grenade from one of the pouches on its armor - surely this human can't dodge an explosion. But instead of throwing it, it drops the grenade as the summoned swords plunge into it. It gurgles a few moments before the plasma grenade detonates, leaving only about two-thirds of a body.

Meanwhile, the woman tries to get control of her breathing as she fires another three shots from her pistol, each aimed at a different creature. Each shot takes out another one, with the same precision as the first. But when she sees the swords all around that other woman and the glowing eyes and she loses her nerve, dashing behind a truck. "What the hell is going on?" she mutters.

Parking Garage

Naku sheaths her physical blade, and goes into a very distinctive half crouch, and pauses for a heartbeat, focusing on the strike she's about to deliver.

Then, in an explosion of speed forward, she rushes one of the gorilla things. She covers the distance in the blink of an eye, and draws into an upward strike. The creature goes flying straight up, and Naku jumps after it. About twenty feet off the ground, she catches the creature, and follows her first strike with a rapid flurry of other slices. She finishes killing the creature by spinning in the air, one leg extended. She catches the creature with her heel, hard enough to throw its broken body back down to the floor, and smash it through two more floors under where the skirmish is going on.

Naku lands next to the hole in the floor a moment later, and the only movement she makes is to slowly look over at the remaining creature.

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"Not specifically, no," Fayyaad says. "If adventuring or mercenary work suits you, though, I've met some people in that business." He raises his eyebrow. "Is 'Three' that fellow's name?"

[Deathkeeper]

Skyway

A few things happen at once. First, Nick's wing snaps back and under the mechanical fold of his suit at the sight of the hand, he leaps to the right without looking at the sound of Electra's command without looking, and he gets very, very annoyed at that blob and its cauldron, and lobs a pair of plasma grenades at the thing, which explode swiftly into bright green bursts.

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

The woman shakes her head. "Not his actual name. Don't ask. Anyway, I'd...rather not have fighting as my job. Means to securing something else, maybe, but I'm not doing anyone's killing. They need someone dead, they can do it themselves," she says, bitterness and anger creeping into her tone.

Not again.

Then she glances at the bits of ice and shrugs, back to a neutral tone very quickly. "But if it just happens to be necessary like these maniacs made it, or things go badly during some other kind of thing, well, that's just the way things are."

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"That's fair enough, although I can't help you in that case," Fayyaad says. "I haven't been here long myself. Just a few months."

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"I mean, I'm not a pacifist, if something shows up in the middle of some...treasure-hunting or something like that and fighting breaks out, well, you do what you have to, I'm just not into any job where being paid just to fight is the whole thing. What about you, though?" The woman gestures to the fallen goons. "No proper mercenary does what you just did for free."

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"I'm not a mercenary. More of an adventurer," Fayyaad says. "I help people of my own volition. I signed up with that group because I have to earn my keep somehow... and because there was a very charming person recommending them. What I brought from home would have only kept me afloat for so long."

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"Really? I was under the impression people who like playing heroics wouldn't be all that big on merc bands with an open monopolistic agenda," she says, suppressing a laugh. Seems she knows more about the state of things than one might have thought, given how quickly she caught on to the organization in question. "Is the pay just that good, or were you absolutely broke?"

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

Fayyaad shrugs.

"I'm not broke, but I do need money, and their contract boards let me find ways to earn it. That's it, really. I owe them no allegiance beyond that." Sleeping with their lieutenant notwithstanding, but he's not going to mention that. "This far from home, I owe allegiance to no one but myself. Although I'm not the only one from my world here, as I've heard."

[ThirdEmperor]

[Skyway - Crystal Gardens Park]

The creature straightens up, although its leg goes in the blast of a grenade and a dozen more have to sprout to catch its fall. Its thin now, an elongated parody of a man, arms dragging nearly to the ground. More of it goes, each shot raining into its side from Electra tearing another chunk of tarry matter away in a flash of steam. In one great fist it holds the cauldron.

Like a pitcher it winds the arm back, the other withering away to nothing to feed the throw. Bounding forward, it lets fly, flinging the cauldron up and up and over the horizon - and the charge carries on as the last link breaks, the legs drop out from under it, the creature dissolves into a tide of pitch stumbling forth on a hundred spidery thin legs. Right towards Nick. Right towards the griffin who must have missed the arm sneaking up from behind him, as he certainly didn't respond, and might well find himself anchored as the creature comes crashing down.

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"Honestly, I didn't think about it much when I first learned about them, but they seem like they're already morphing into a crime syndicate like a lot of mercenary bands do when the work dries up, strong-arming anyone who tries to enter that market for themselves. Doesn't seem like a bunch you'd want to support." Now she's outright admitted she knows a decent amount about them, despite how much of a fish out of water she initially seemed. "But I guess there's worse around than mercenaries with dreams of being mobsters."

[Morty]

[A Bad Side of Town]

"You clearly know more about the politics of this place than I do," Fayyaad observes. "Have you been here longer, or done your homework?" He's cautious about politics himself. He ran from home because of politics, so getting into them in his safe haven might be inadvisable.

[Darkcomet]

[A Bad Side of Town]

The woman shrugs. "Sort of both. I've been here a while, but I've only been out on my own recently, having been...occupied until, oh, about half a year ago, and then I was stuck moving between hospitals for a while after that. Don't ask. But I got separate briefings before and after all that, so I've got the general idea. Don't suppose you want my rundown of the place?"