OOC: There will be a post here in a minute. Placeholder so Devious can't skip out on me. <_<
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
OOC: And by 'minute' I meant 'several hours'. >_>
BIC: Archlich stared up at the ying and yang shadows, his eyes narrowed to tiny pinpricks as he cast back through his long memory to divine what spell the dragon had put into play. Regrettably, he had never had much chance to study the arcane secrets held by the more powerful dragons and as such he only knew that the spell was very, very powerful and likely very, very deadly.
His guess was confirmed when the wave of magic and light washed over him in an instant, his eyes flickering as his bound soul attempted to finally escape its physical coil. But the sheer willpower it took to break the boundaries of death as he did, to become the first lich in existence, and to survive the endless years in the meantime served him well. At war against his very essence, Archlich held on for the necessary seconds to keep himself from being utterly destroyed.
The runes on his armor blazed with red light, brighter than before but seeming to do the opposite of illumination. Instead the shadows around him grew thicker and darker, beginning to seem bottomless as he flooded the area around him with pure negative energy. The energy was burned away almost as quickly as it bubbled up, but Archlich had dumped almost the entirety of his strength and will into this last ditch effort.
"I will remember your name, wyrm," he choked out, voice wavering only slightly despite his momumental efforts. "If you do not die here I will come for you and rip the still-beating heart from your chest."
Falling to one knee, the lich gasped out one final word and vanished, sped away on his last dregs of energy. Behind him the bubble of negative energy collapsed, withering away like a dying plant subjected to the heat of an inferno.
****************************
He re-appeared at the edge of the anti-magic field keeping Teivos, Wolfgang, and their small force in one piece. Falling forward to lay half in and half out of the field. His rune marked cape fluttered fitfully, still partially caught in the etheric winds outside the protective boundary but otherwise he lay still as a corpse.
***************************
"Tiny little thing aren't ya," grunted Combat Toy as it escorted the VB officers half-leading, half-dragging Isabell into the Molvia.
The massive assault bot waved off the two humans and wrapped one equally gigantic hand partially around the young hero's waist, lifting her up to eye-level with its glowing sensor strip.
"Guess they breed em small on Primal Earth," it continued, turning her around to check and make sure the power inhibitor cuffs were secure and operating. "You have a name, Tiny? We'll need something to put on your tombstone."
Toy Dispenser, meanwhile, had ceased his pacing and casually flicked one wrist, encasing Zeo and his ice block inside a solid detention field. Now floating a few inches above the floor, the tank would be much easier to move once they reached Teivos' HQ and delivered him and Isabell into the more secure cells there.
"Three minutes," remarked the spider-legged Toy Bot, presumably how long until they reached their final destination.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
((Heh. And okay, was waiting for Cham to add something, but I guess he doesn't have anything to, so I should probably go ahead. 
))
"Come on already!" Vlasta turned back to Torcher and Pyra as his troop crested the crater's rim, "We don't have all-"
It was then that he spotted Archlich, the undead arcanist having apparently arrived before the M7A7 had moved off, the chaos all around and his position having denied notice. Now that Teivos had spotted the man, however, he wasted no time sliding back down into the crater, Wolfgang at his heels, darting over to the seemingly fallen magus.
The former looked to the latter, but the cyborg only shook his head. He'd just gotten someone back on his feet. It would be a little while before he could do so again. True, Archlich was undead, which could've meant that adding pain instead of taking it away would have a positive effect on him, but since Wolfgang got that idea from video games, he opted for caution in putting too much faith in it.
Thus being, Vlasta but holstered his pistol, scooped Archlich up and onto his shoulders, then gave a nod to the cyborg and climbed the crater wall again. A tough and hardy infantryman, it didn't take him long to do so, and once everyone had gotten out of the shallow hole, he ordered a speedy sprint up the street and away from the dragons.
Coincidentally enough, this was also the direction in which lay a certain clothing store. However, that was still around a bend and at a decent distance...
--------------------
tátna Zbrojovka
On the massive runway that jutted from the State Weapons Factory high above the waves below, several regular units of the Pozemna Armada had already assembled, some waiting for the arrival of Toy Dispenser and his captives, others preparing to depart in further Molvias to assist their Sovereign.
The former didn't really expect things to go any different than usual, namely that the android would be taking them to the semi-cylindrical 'office building' that towered over the rest of the 'city' clinging to the cliff (it was an illusion of course; tátna Zbrojovka was a block complex, fully supported in itself), specifically to the holding cells for prisoners of value a few levels below the Sovereign's office, which occupied most of the top floor.
Of course, if Toy ordered differently, no one would question it. He was Armádny Generál. He had authority, and that was to be obeyed. True, the Pozemna Armada didn't drive out free thought in favor of obedience to orders, but if a superior officer commanded something that wasn't grossly unreasonable, PA personnel generally had no business countermanding - especially if that order came from a General, like Toy Dispenser.
In other words, until Teivos got back (or unless another high animal wanted something with them), he just about had free run of the prisoners within reason, and could easily order the regular detention block guard to step out for a while. They might not have liked the idea of leaving an important officer 'alone' with such dangerous people, but they would certainly do so despite disagreements...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
"And you think she wouldn't [censored] us over at the first possible opportunity?" Famine hissed to Griffin, turning back to him. "Look, she's in uniform. She's obviously working with someone else somehow already. And there's no way in hell I'm trusting a posse of street thugs, especially out here."
"Famine, brah," War shrugged to his associate. "I mean, think about it. She's pretty obviously not on this guy's list of favorites."
"Yeah, and we don't need any more heat than we're already pulling."
"Truth." War nodded. "Besides, we need to get moving."
Griffin probably had seen by now that the Mercenaries really preferred working with each other. They kept a good combat rhythm between them, and it could be assumed that they were used to only fighting alongside close allies.
Halting further discussion on the issue, Famine and War led Griffin forward and towards a bend in the road...
((actually, I've just been too tired to post. It's been one of those weeks >.<
As always, if I screw up on people-placement, let me know. Oh, speaking of which, I'm pretty sure that the Archlich teleported out, Devious))
As the battle raged in the sky, Sun Tzu seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, the phenomenal speed granted by his Interceptor overarmour granting him an excellent view of the battle as a whole. He barked out a series of rapid commands, and the weather began to shift, black clouds swirling down into the sky like ink being dribbled into a bowl of water. A pair of jets tumbled out of the sky almost straight down as their kinetic energy was torn from them, rendering them incapable of flight.
At the weather control stations, couplings sparked and overloaded as the technicians found that their weather manipulation abilities had been badly blunted within the area of Yinglong's spell; weather manipulation via technology was, after all, unnatural.
Ying and Long, the black dragon's component parts had rounded on Teivos the instant the Archlich was dispatched.
"No!" came a sharp mental command from Sun Tzu.
A wordless protest from the dragon, cut short by the elder tactician. "You are injured, and badly. We cannot restore the balance if it has been pushed still further out of order by the death of another guardian. I am dispatching a team of under-Sorcerors to stabilize you and assist you on your retreat."
A grumbling acquiescence from the dragon; she did not like it, but she understood the old sorceror's reasoning. A gentle glow arose as her two parts softened in outline, beginning to blend back together.
A single Lightning Blade appeared before Sun Tzu in a flicker of speed as he dealt with Yinglong, and saluted briefly. Sun Tzu returned the salute, and asked "Are you ready?"
"I am ready to die for our people!" the blademaster responded, practically vibrating with the kinetic energy stolen from the jets by a quartet of Swift Steels.
"Good. Your sacrifice will be remembered. Now go."
The Lightning Blade nodded, and gestured. A trio of Spirits materialized, attending him, and the blademaster screamed an electric scream.
Lightning stabbed out of the sky from all points of the compass, gathered on his blade for an instant, then roared down in a cascade of raw blue-white energy thicker than some of the surrounding buildings. In the heart of the electric inferno, the Chinese magician rode the lightning, racing the bolt to the ground.
Flickering into existence at ground level between one heartbeat and the next, his katana traced a pictogram in the air, a single rune that gathered the energy as lightning roared out of the sky, shaped it, focused it...
Windows three blocks away exploded into flying shards as the thunder from a lightning bolt that filled nearly the entire street that the Dark Sovereign stood upon screamed out. On the buildings closest to the point of impact, walls burst into flinders at the unleashed sonic boom.
When the air cleared, the Lightning Blade had been driven to one knee by the sheer force, blood trickling from his ears. Nevertheless, he staggered to his feet and blurred forwards, terrible blade at the ready, his eyes fixed on his target.
((EDIT- Oh, bugger... I just realized that I totally forgot about your guy, Brawler. Will edit that in later on- have to leave in twenty minutes))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((Np, in the meantime...))
Pyra looked up with concern to where her Brawler was still taking on the spirits one after another, seemingly still riding the boost he'd been given by the cyborg. She obediently followed Teivos out of the crater, as did Torcher. But both were reluctant to move anywhere far from their leader.
The rest of the squad met up with them, four others who hadn't had to make an emergency exit, each looking at the other grimly as the chaos still raged around them. The sight of the Overmages seemingly laid low was sobering.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
Unfortunately, Sun Tzu assumed too much with regard to the weather. The regulators put in place by the Estertosians operated no more or less 'naturally' than the manipulations of his own force. Since Yinglong's spell didn't interfere with the former, it of course had no effect on the latter either. Sadly, they still couldn't stop something as relatively small as someone calling down lighting, but it did leave the F-22s on an even playing field.
After all, they were perfectly capable of phenomenal speeds themselves, being termed supersonic fightercraft for good reason, and could thus match the CPSR forces at their own game quite decently. In fact, when Sun Tzu split off several sorcerers from the aerial battle, a number of fighters did the same, taking up pursuit.
On the ground, Teivos had just gotten everyone out of the crater when a wave of lightning tore through the air, and of course their formation, flinging them down the street like so much debris. The second layer of MPDAS armor might have been shield-emitting, but was restricted to electromagnetics, which meant though it held off the lightning fairly well, heat and pressure weren't exactly classifiable as moving charges, resulting in people ending up all over the place - and if they weren't armored, likely with a few very nasty burns.
Vlasta for one belonged to the former category, though unfortunately found himself with a slash across his abdomen before he even hit the ground, and thus ended up not on his feet, but on top of Archlich, though thankfully on his back, and not in that way.
The second slash from the lightning katana, however, was met with a boot to the head - or more accurately, the tip of one to the chin. Tsaigon teeth grit as human ones cracked, and the Lightning Blade went to the ground while Teivos helped his kick out with a knee and jumped to his feet again.
Spitting bloody fragments of bone and enamel, the man coul clearly see the char-edged cut he'd made through the black baggy shirt...and that it hadn't gone through the silver-gray armor plating below. There was a blackened scratch on it, but not a hint of blood.
"What, you think it that easy?" Vlasta flashed a wicked grin, not quite managing a smile. Keeping his teeth together helped him get over pain, but he wasn't about to show that to an adversary, instead turning the reaction into a psychological weapon.
Regrettably, at that point came the distraction, for Teivos realized where he'd been flung to: right to a certain bend in the road, and now glancing at a very confused-looking griffin that he'd been looking for a good while.
For just a moment, he forgot all about the Lightning Blade, just staring in disbelief at him and the Horsemen, trying to make sense of what the heck had just happened...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Valerie couldn't care less whether the mercs and Griffin or the bikers followed her or not. At the moment she was beyond caring about anything other than her current objective, simple as it might be. For if she let herself care she'd have to feel the pain of all her lost friends, so casually erased by the Sovereign's forces. One more reason to hate them, but she didn't have time for hate or grief right now so she resolutely pushed both aside in favor of losing the uniform and then getting the hell out of Dodge.
To that end, she reentered the clothing store and sifted through the piles of destroyed and semi-destroyed clothing for something both inconspicuous and still in one piece. She remained oblivious to the fact that the Sovereign himself and his entourage were approaching. Not that there was any gaurantee they'd look inside and notice her there, but if she'd known she would have hidden anyway.
-----------------
"Hey!", Isabel protested as the various bots shoved her along. "I'm going willingly, there's no need to be so rough!" Not that it had any effects on their actions. As the assault bot grabbed her she stared calmly back at it. A number of emotions reflected in her eyes, but noticably absent was one in particular - fear. For whatever reason, she wasn't afraid of them in the slightest. The inhibitor cuffs on the other hand reported a minor fluctuation in their effectiveness, but nothing outside of acceptable margins.
"Now why would you be putting my name on a tombstone?", she answered when they asked. "Surely I'd be more useful to you alive."
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
((... argh. Devious, I really wish you'd warn me about some of this stuff, instead of just going 'nope, that didn't actually happen' long past the point where I can edit my old post -_-
And you appear to have completely forgotten about the ghosts waiting invisibly to phase through your planes and behead all your pilots >.>
)
"Nothing worthwhile is easy." the Lightning Blade spat, jaw injury and thick accent combining to make him borderline unintelligible as he leapt to his feet. "Your death, tyrant, is of such worth as to make this a battle for the songs of ages."
With that rather melodramatic statement, the blademaster darted forwards again, trailing electric fire. Dazzling light roared around him, blinding any incautious enough to stare too long as he gathered the lightning to him to strike again.
If the Sovereign's eyes cleared in time, he would see a blade stabbing with impossible speed straight at his face.
------
In the sky, Burning Brawler found himself attracting the attention of several of the airborne CPSR; terrible winds roared towards him as many of the more melee-oriented CPSR magi bore down on him, claws bared, iron-hard fists clenched, and razor-sharp thorns protruding.
A pair of Bronze Leopards were the first to reach the fireslinger, claws flashing as they closed, one on each flank. Behind the Brawler, a Copper Serpent waited silently to gather him into his lethal embrace, ready to pierce him through with dozens of spines the instant an opening was found. And finally, an Iron Hands closed rapidly, ready to dart forwards as soon as there was room between his comrades.
------
Aboard the transport, Flashpoint Zeo breathed out, a narrow line of invisibly superheated plasma slicing through the ice around him to test the limitations of the detention bubble he found himself in.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Famine yet out a shocked yelping sound, as though he'd been about to shout and the words had been scared right back down his throat. He moved quickly, almost instantaneously, to stand behind Griffin with both of his SMGs pointed past his head at Teivos. War stood boldly in front of both Grif and Famine, blades held wide in an aggressive stance.
"F-Fancy meeting you here." Famine finally managed to choke out. "For the record, I didn't want it to go down like this." Although his weapons weren't aimed at Griffin at all, the creature would none the less no doubt feel intense nervousness. Despite most likely never having heard of Famine's notoriously bad track record of double-dealing in this kind of situation, and his spotless record of executing all of his hostages post negotiation, Famine was pretty obviously not your average hired gun. The PPD had an extensive file on this "Global Terror Threat" and his casual disregard for negotiating procedure, and indeed, life. This was a man who'd taken down an eight lane highway bridge to cut off pursuit.
Granted, in this situation, Famine had better options.
But the Horseman was strained already.
And then all of a sudden the guy they were trying to negotiate with was getting stabbed.
"Nope!" War grunted, teleporting forward and blocking the lightning assault with his suddenly and inexplicably active energy blades. "Can't negotiate when they're dead." He added on as an afterthought, pushing forward against the other swordsman.
Vlasta's initial reaction - after stopping in his flinch back from the sword, of course - was one of stunned silence. He was simply at a lack of words to enunciate the myriad of questions this situation had suddenly thrown into his mind, not the least of which being: 'what the heck just happened?!'
Near as he could tell, Poseidon's kidnappers had just saved him, which in and of itself already destroyed his earlier theory, and the other discrepancies just kind of crashed in after that. In short, he was back to square one. Again. He freaking hated being back to square one!
"Negotiate?!" he exclaimed incredulously on impulse, though he did have enough presence of mind this time to actually make sure War had the CPRS operative in hand, the two swordsmen indeed going at one another with quite the impressive fervor, "What?! Who are you people?! You kidnap Poseidon right out of-!"
"Um, Griffin." the nervously grinning griffin gave but the lightest chuckle with a raised finger, stopping Teivos' shouting then and there, the Tsaigon for a moment reassuming his former expression.
"...what?"
"Um...I'm not Poseidon..."
"What are you talking about?" Vlasta wondered with a skeptic visage, sweeping a hand to his side to signal his by-now back up guard to stay their weapons, which they of course did. Well, minus Wolfgang, who had apparently gotten lost somewhere, "Of course you are. I wasn't sure at first either, but your DNA's a perfect match."
"Well..." the griffin reached into his fire-red mane, self-consciously scratching his neck, "...yeah, it would have to be. See...I'm his clone. Name's Griffin. So...hi..."
At first, Teivos only raised an eyebrow, scrutinizing the situation. Finally, he spoke again with a slight nod, though more to himself at first, "Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Explains a few things too. But...why would someone clone a photographer? And why would you and your...whatever go and kidnap him?!"
Though the question was clearly directed at Famine, Griffin felt things had become too hectic for anything long-winded, taking the word with an outstretched hand, "Nono, you've got it all wrong, um, Sir. They didn't kidnap me. Oh geez, what did I start...?"
((Forgot to add this earlier: Cham's informed me that his dragon's nonnatural-messer-upper-spell is still in effect, but not as strongly as before. So anyone not protected from it, your gear and clothing is apparently degrading...or something...I dunno, I didn't really get the details. 
))
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
A brief flicker of dull blue light reflected off the ground as Vlasta avoided the Lightning Blade's first blow. A boney hand reached out past the trio of clashing swords and clenched tightly, as if grabbing something. Abruptly the Lightning Blade's speed and power dropped to normal levels as the kinetic energy granted him vanished, torn away by the armored skeleton at his feet.
"Your song will be sung by your next of kin," spat out the lich, his eyes blazing.
Opening his hand, Archlich released the energy, using it to power a spell bound to his armor. A nebulous blue light shot out from him in a wave in all directions, passing harmlessly through Teivos, War, Griffin, and Famine, but blasting the ground around them clean of debris and the Lightning Blade with a force equivilent to a point blank tank shell.
**************************
The plasma Zeo breathed sliced through the ice as easily as breathing, but the detention field absorbed and disapated the energy in a muted flash of light and a fluid-like ripple over the surface of the bubble. Toy Dispenser's wrists glowed slightly as if in sympathy and he moved back to the field, looking at Zeo through it.
"I had been wondering if you were actually incapacitated," he said, voice crackling. "It is good that you aren't, questioning you would have been difficult. Waste as much energy as you wish, you cannot escape my detention field."
"And we've got even better [censored] at the home base," chortled Combat Toy before it stomped over to the exit ramp, still holding Isabel in one hand. "You ain't ever getting out of there."
"Speaking of..." remarked Toy Bot, pushing itself up from its crouch to scuttle over next to Combat Toy. "We have arrived."
"tátna Zbrojovka has okayed our landing, General," crackled the pilot's voice over the Molvia's intercom. "They have medics on-station to pick up the wounded."
"Acknowledged," Dispenser replied, crossing his arms as the large helicopter drifted to the ground, thumping lightly as it landed.
Almost as soon as it touched down, the rear ramp was lowering and men wearing uniforms with the red cross on them were hopping in, flowing around the robots like a stream around breakers to get at the dozen or so wounded men that had also been on board. After the initial rush had passed, Combat Toy moved out, leading the way with the other five drones, Toy Dispenser, and Zeo in his floating detention field following behind.
Stretched out on the runway before the group was a small army, or at least a sizeable portion of one. A company or two of tanks and at least a couple battalions of infantry were assembled in the half-light of dusk, waiting to board the flight of Molvias and fly off to assist their Sovereign. As the group walked, the loading looked to be proceeding smoothly, infantry filing into the holds followed by a light tank. Once a flight of copters was full, they lifted off and took to the sky, joining the formation of other helicopters drifting in neat ranks up above. Several new Molvias swept down to replace the full ones and the process began again.
"Commander," stated Toy Dispenser as his group neared an approaching squad of armed men surrounding a Caldok with much higher rank badges than anyone else in sight.
"Generál Dispenser," the alien returned, nodding as he paused and then fell in step with the android, his men taking up guard positions around everyone as they kept moving.
"Kind of you to come and welcome me back personally, Hzerg," added Dispenser, turning to look at the slightly shorter alien. "I assume everything here is under control?"
"Embarking is proceeding smoothly, Generál," replied Commander Hzerg, glancing toward the ranks of men. "The vanguard is ready to deploy immidiately and the rest of the battalions will be ready to move with half an hour."
The group was now nearing their destination, a massive semi-cylindrical building (about a fourth of the complete cylinder was missing) bristling with satellite dishes and antennae. Aside from the armed guards and turrets surrounding it it could almost be mistaken for a typical office building back in Paragon City.
"Well done. Keep the ground troops in reserve at the moment but commit the air superiority craft," Dispenser ordered as they came up to the front doors, bullet-proof glass sliding open at their approach and a pair of men saluting the group as they exit. "Warn them they will be heading into potentially the worst turbulence they will ever encounter."
Hzerg nodded and stood to one side as Toy Dispenser and his drones filed onto a large elevator, Isabel and Zeo placed near the back.
"How long will you be remaining, Generál?"
"Until the Dark Soveriegn returns. In the mean time I shall question these prisoners."
The Caldok saluted once more before the doors slid shut and the elevator began rumbling up and up and up.
OOC: I probably made a mess of Devious' army with that, but ah well. It looked cool.
EDIT: Anything made out of materials not found in nature is degrading back to its constituent components. Alloyed metals are melting and seperating, artificial fabrics are dissolving, concrete is turning into gravel and muck. That's how I understood it working. Archlich's mere presence emits a form of stabilizing influence, so PC equipment will degrade much slower near to him. 
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
[ QUOTE ]
Anything made out of materials not found in nature is degrading back to its constituent components. Alloyed metals are melting and seperating, artificial fabrics are dissolving, concrete is turning into gravel and muck. That's how I understood it working. Archlich's mere presence emits a form of stabilizing influence, so PC equipment will degrade much slower near to him.
[/ QUOTE ]
OOC:
Packing Penuts (Styrofoam) does not dissolve, and it is entirely artificial. In fact, styrofoam is considered a LITERAL application of the term "waste of space," since after being made it is either impossible *I think anyway* or at least incredibly hard to covert it back into anything else.
..........You filthy liar. 
Yeah, I said all that just for the last line. That was horrible. Sorry.
Burning left little room for any sort of 'sneak attack.' On the tail end of the powerboosted rage Wolfgang had given him, the VB officer was a whirlwind of explosive flames as the CPSR closed in.
He found himself spending more time trying to blind them with great flares than do any real damage, knowing that pausing for even a moment to do some real harm would result in a stronger injury for him.
Still he found an Iron Hand coming up to his side, hoping to strike him from just beyond his field of vision. Burning dropped from the sky then, letting the swing go right over his head as he plummetted. He caught himself again just before reaching the ground, seeing the Copper Serpent in hot pursuit.
A tiny orb of flame nestled on the tip of Brawler's finger, pointed at the CPSR and the others around him. Just then, Burning felt his knees buckle, the shock from being critically wounded to revitalized and then some and then the sudden draining fo the power making it very hard to focus, even breathe. He quickly let the little orb fly before collapsing to the ground, unconcious.
It was a small thing, hardly discernable from all the glowing, red ashes swirling about the destruction. But as it came near the pursuing CPSR, the orb expanded to an incredible inferno of searing fire in the blink of an eye.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
((Yeah, Khell pretty much has it the way I had in mind for the Ying/Yang bomb that Yinglong cast. Don't worry about it too much if you haven't yet- if you managed to avoid the initial effects, you probably won't be bugged too much by the ongoing ones- it needs a certain amount of 'momentum' (for lack of a better term) to do any serious damage))
The Lightning Blade's eyes widened briefly in fear as his imbued power was torn away, then widened still further in disbelief as the lich simply returned it. Pictograms mystically tatooed across his body glowed briefly as he reabsorbed the kinetic energy, once more moving at impossible speeds.
"You are arrogant, abomination. Or did you think me so poor a magus as to succumb to such a simple trick?" the blademaster sneered.
His hand traced a brief sigil, and a pair of the huge Infiltrator Spirits materialized, decloaking or simply teleporting, it was impossible to tell, and went after War and Famine, blades jutting from every opening on their armour.
The Lightning Blade himself lashed at the Overmagus with electric whips, a hurricane of blue-white fire whirling around the undead mage. The Dark Sovereign would have to wait for the moment, until the greater threat was contained, or at least deflected momentarily. The blademaster drew deep on Yinglong's power, his abilities reinforced by the bottomless well of magic he had on tap, and renewed his assault, a flickering blur wreathed in lightnings.
------
Some distance from the main battle, a quintet of sorcerors appeared around the re-merged Yinglong, attending her wounds, green light bathing her in a healing glow. The jets that had peeled off to follow the airborne CPSR wizards had found themselves stymied when all five simply vanished in a flare of silvery teleportational energies.
-----
Above, nearly two dozen of the CPSR forces vanished in the Burning Brawler's fireball before the last surviving Far Fire managed to divert the searing flames away from the Chinese magi. Sun Tzu frowned, and began directing his troops in a more defensive battle, dispatching a Swift Steel and the Copper Serpent who hadn't been vapourized by Brawler to join the Lightning Blade at ground level. They would arrive at their comrade's side in less than twenty seconds.
------
The ice surrounding Flashpoint Zeo vanished in a brief flash that flickered once, then increased geometrically in intensity. Within a matter of seconds, the detention field was a miniature sun, a whirling inferno of white-hot flame as the giant tanker burned off some excess energy, pulling deep on the endless celestial flames of the dragon within.
If there was even the slightest weakness in this field, he would find it. If there was not, transferring him anywhere would prove difficult, as dropping the field would have roughly the same effect as detonating a nuke. Isabel had already been marked 'safe', and would thus be exempt from the mystic flames. All others, though, would have a quite literal baptism of fire as superheated plasma erupted outwards.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Isabel looked around as the elevator ascended, unable to help admiring the view even as obscured as it was by the people in front of her. Something about large concentrations of firepower appealed to her. Unseen and unnoticed in their moving, a small warning light on the power-dampening handcuffs she still wore blinked on to indicate the devices were close to losing their effect over her powers.
You see, early in her career in Paragon Isabel had gotten herself captured by the Council. They'd put her in a cell equipped with a variant of this same technology, and she'd been imprisoned there for some time before another hero found her. After that incident, she'd gone to great lengths to make sure she wouldn't be so powerless to save herself ever again. Though making herself completely immune to the effect of such devices was next to impossible, what she had managed was a sort of immune response. The longer she was affected by the power dampeners, the more resistant to those effects she became.
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Valerie swore under her breath as she realised the clothing she was sorting through was still slowly unravelling. Whatever that spell had been, it must be ongoing. Hurrying herself along, she quickly redressed herself in a pair of baggy-looking black pants, a white t-shirt and a long brown trenchcoat beneath which she could easily hide her rifle. Probably no less conspicuous, but at least she wouldn't be pegged as a rebel on sight. She left the store in something of a hurry, but stopped dead in her tracks as she beheld what was going on outside.
After all, the Sovereign and several of his highest ranking officers fighting a bunch of Chinese sorcerors isn't something you see every day. Nor was it something she wanted to keep seeing for much longer. She turned and walked away, forcing herself not to break into a dead sprint until she rounded a corner and was out of sight.
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
((Nah Khell, you're fine. Nothing expressly illogical or anything there, so it's all good. Oh and Dogma, I think it's safe to say 10 minutes have passed by now, so if you'd like to move Egregore again, I think it's reasonable to do so. ))
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Actually, it was quite possible to tell, for Teivos' guard was quite capable of perceiving the presence of cloaked entities; even the magical sort. Of course, not that this mattered much, for until the Sovereign gave an order to countermand his earlier directive, fire would be held. Fortunately for Archlich, this did not extend to fistfights, and thus the Lightning Blade was mobbed.
The interceptor spirit gone for Famine (and with that, Griffin), however found itself in a telekinetic grasp within moments, the griffin's reflexive reaction to this thing coming at him giving a certain cyborg who'd taken sniper position more than enough opportunity to take it out of the picture. Vlasta gave a satisfied nod, though not in Wolfgang's direction, knowing full well the cloaked Caldok was already on the move again.
"Fine, we make this quick then." he then told the nervous griffin with a thrown finger, knowing well he had to keep his guard up, "You're not Poseidon. But you know him. If you know him, do you know Player? Babe? What about me?"
"Yes, yes, no." the Tsaigon's direct, commanding, yet amicable tone had Griffin in a snap, though he shrugged sheepishly when he added, "But...it's not like I caught your name..."
"Vlastislav Teivos."
"Teivos...?" the griffin thought hard, eyes squinting a bit, then finally going wide with realization, Vlasta's earlier thrust finger returned with excited repetition, "Yeah, yeah, I know! They told me about you! You were the guy Alan threw out of the recording studio! Army Metal, right?!"
Teivos made a face. That...wasn't quite the way of recognition he'd expected. Still...well...oh, what the heck, for now it was...
"Good enough." he gave a nod as his expression returned to normal, "Next: you wanted to leave the hospital? No why right now, just yes or no."
"Yes." Griffin nodded curtly, motioning to War, "I was scared and he w-"
"That'll do." Teivos declared with the held-up palm of a black-gloved hand, and turned to the soldiers of his guard - well, whipped in their direction, to be more precise, for just then one came flying by his side at the head of a lightning bolt, courtesy of guess who. From the looks of it, he wasn't the only one either.
"Weapons free." Vlasta commanded, drawing his own pistol again, and just in time too, for from the sky came another pair of CPSR operatives. This time, however, they were greeted with arm-thick, continuous lances of sun-hot plasma fire.
At the same time, the Lightning Blade had been let off of, by now beaten down, and the last Kazbek-armored trooper to join the new formation aimed her rifle down at his head to carry out the execution...
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In the sky, another F-22 exploded when an interceptor spirit managed to do what its designation suggested. Part of a flight with predictable course, it had been an easy matter, unlike the relatively random hornet's nest further up. It even got a second, and its 'cousin' got another, but by then the rest were already past and locked on target.
Yinglong.
When the sorcerers they'd been following had vanished, it hadn't been difficult to guess where they'd be headed. Ergo, that was just the course this flight had set. It may have endangered them more, flying relatively straight like that, and indeed they'd lost a few, but now they fired, and their missiles came down. Considering the beating the dragon had already sustained, it was unlikely the sorcerers' healing spells carried enough potency to save her from this.
Of course, even if they did, the F-22s still had more missiles. Bombs too...
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Valerie got out of sight just in time too, for down the road already approached the main force the early Forward Battle Tanks had been the advance of. They were still far enough away not to notice her though, leaving her unbothered by the infantry-supported ULA MBTs rumbling across the loose gravel ground.
Still, the presence of that force cut off a direction to escape in, making the presently quickest way out of this sector the sewer system, an entry to which just happened to be in the alley beyond the corner she'd just rounded. Who knew, with any luck she may even have picked up some trace of the Egregore Device, and been able to follow him to the Kings Row district.
On the other hand, she may well have taken note of the fallen Burning Brawler instead, presently approached by Wolfgang Wolf in the cover of his thermo-optic cloak. The cyborg didn't know of Valerie's presence, having spotted only the descent of the VB officer after taking that shot at the interceptor spirit, and believing there to be no enemy presence where Burning had touched down...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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[ QUOTE ]
Oh and Dogma, I think it's safe to say 10 minutes have passed by now, so if you'd like to move Egregore again, I think it's reasonable to do so. ))
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OOC:
What he's doing in there would require a bit more than ten minutes, but what the hell.
BIC:
Egregore was working on new weaponry. Very simply, he had no stashes in this dimension that he could swap out with his current temporary power modules. So as long as he was going to be stuck with one certain set while he was here, he was going to make sure that set was POTENT. And that required making up an entirely new set from scratch, and for what he had in mind the materials in the warehouse would not be enough to cobble it all together.
He was in the sewers currently, cloaked just in case, and heading for this dimension's version of the King Garment Works. Very simply, one or more of those warehouses had to contain more military hardware he could use. So he was going to break into all of them and filch what he needed. A risky proposition, but Egregore had been remarkably pleased with how well his teleport-escape into the sewers trick had worked. He had his cloak, he had his SZVB cyborg disguise, he had his sap-stick and tear gas, and if everything went right to hell, he had teleporting into the sewers.
Egregore stopped at the junction right below the southernmost warehouse of the sector and teleported straight up, his module taking care to redirect his teleport in the event solid matter was present where he would be appearing. Schematics of the primal-earth version of the warehouse revealed he would be porting into a corner in the warehouse's main storage area. All that remained to be seen was whether the construction of this warehouse differed significantly from the one in primal Earth, and whether or not anybody would be in the same room when the Egregore Device appeared...
"Awwyeah, now for the good stuff." War beckoned, taunting one of the spirits towards him. Holding up his energy blades, he adjusted a setting on their hilt slightly, causing a rapid shift in frequencies of the blade. This had a rather kaleidoscopic effect, causing the blades to rapidly shift through colors in an attempt to sync with the oncoming spirit. War held his defensive stance, waiting for the beast to make its move.
Famine took a more direct approach.
As the spirit approached him, he reached to his knee and drew out a secondary sidearm, a large, high-tech looking pistol based off of an Arachnos model. Unceremoniously, Famine began to burst-fire at the oncoming spirit using the quickly apparent Ghostslayer rounds...
OOC: Archlich didn't emanate kinetic energy... He sucked up the energy, transmuted it to magic, and then used energy blast's Nova power, with the energy being pure magic, Archlich's gimic. But hey, I can roll with this.
BIC: Archlich was hit by the whips several times, blue light flashing in actinc flares off his armor, pushed back along the ground.
"Yes, I think you are," Archlich finally replied as his eyes pulsed briefly.
The energy Archlich had released and the Lightning Blade reabsorbed had been marked by him. Such was his mastery over the forces of magic that he could impress his will upon it at the most basic of levels. Anything he cast or made was his in a way no other mage could duplicate and he could make magic itself dance to his tune with the correct amount of will and effort.
Such it was that the energy the Blade absorbed turned in upon itself and corrupted his runes. Pain suffused his entire being as the magic burned within him and his limbs began moving with leaden slowness as the runes began acting counter to their normal purpose. Teivos' bodyguard found an easy target, as the Blade had to use up the corrupted magic before he could successfully channel pure magic into his runes. While he could still use Yinglong's power to cast his spells, they would avail him little as Teivos' troops cut him down before turning their attentions toward the other two.
"What a fool," remarked Archlich a second or two after the Blade died, turning to Teivos. "Have your men finish quickly. I am in no danger of death, but my destruction would surely follow yours and both would be entirely inconvenient."
Glancing up at the massive dragon still floating in the air, he cursed in an unknown tongue and turned his attention on the held spirit.
"Continue holding that shade, gryphon," ordered the lich as he walked toward it. "I require it to be still so that I am draw its lifeforce into myself."
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Toy Dispenser turned from the view and looked at Zeo with a tilted head, his wrists glowing brighter as they reinforced the field.
"Impressive," he said. "I had not expected you to be able to do such a thing. But how long can you keep it up, I wonder."
Straightening, he stepped around the field to stand in front of Isabel. He regarded her silently for a moment before Combat Toy stepped up to her side, reaching around her back to grip the dampening handcuffs, a cord extending from his wrist to transfer power into them. It was inefficient, but CT had power to spare and they weren't much further from the prison block.
"You as well," Dispenser said. "I am not sure how you are draining the cuffs, but I would suggest you quit wasting your effort. Every technological device in this building is mine to observe and wield as I see fit. Do not try my patience and I shall see to it that you and your draconian ally are in place to strike Teivos this evening."
"Once he finishes with the uppity slant-eyes, that is," grunted Combat Toy.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
[ QUOTE ]
Still, the presence of that force cut off a direction to escape in, making the presently quickest way out of this sector the sewer system, an entry to which just happened to be in the alley beyond the corner she'd just rounded.
[/ QUOTE ]
Valerie was in no mood for a fight, let alone with one of the Sovereign's top guys. Which, with the tanks and other forces blocking all other routes away from the area, left her only option as sneaking down into the sewers to make her way out that way. So that was exactly what she did, trying to get through that entrance without attracting any unwanted attention.
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"I am not sure how you are draining the cuffs, but I would suggest you quit wasting your effort. Every technological device in this building is mine to observe and wield as I see fit. Do not try my patience and I shall see to it that you and your draconian ally are in place to strike Teivos this evening."
[/ QUOTE ]
Isabel had to resist the urge to laugh at him, the cuffs still reporting imminent containment failure despite the additional power. Which made sense, since they hadn't been drained at all to begin with.
"Forgive me if I don't take your offer so willingly, after how the last one went", she practically spat at him. "And for your information, every technological device along with everything else in this building is going to be mine to turn into a glowing crater pretty soon. Even if I wanted to stop interfering with your cuffs, I can't do that any more than I could stop my body try to fight off a disease." As if to accentuate her point, her eyes started leaking energy as the cuffs finally began to fail completely and Isabel's powers started to return to her.
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
((M'kay, gonna give Cham just a little more time then. And since everyone seems to have missed it anyway, just ignore Wolfgang sniping the spirit earlier. This is working out better anyway, so it's one retcon I actually don't mind. ))
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There were indeed people in the warehouse, which like the one he'd come from carried difference mostly in its security measures, intended to keep criminals from making nests of the things when someone wasn't currently looking. Currently however, the bulk of them stood inactive, what with workers and forklifts moving things to and fro throughout the warehouse. Apparently, in this world it belonged to some appliance firm, and they were doing a pretty brisk business. Not quite as much as the construction companies, but still - new buildings needed new appliances, and rebuilding a city meant there would be a lot of new buildings.
Military hardware, however, that Egregore wouldn't find here. Stuff like that was, naturally, stored in military installations. The closest one here happened to be a certain research institute in the Staetlov District, this Terra's version of Galaxy City...
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Wolfgang didn't even take note of Valerie, his cloak disrupted when he picked up Burning Brawler as gently as he could to minimize any further damage. This was of course mostly because once he had the man in his arms, the cyborg didn't stick around, high-tailing it back to the approaching tank formation to get the VB officer into medical care. Fortunately, every division's support group carried at least two field hospital vehicles.
Seeing this, Valerie waited until the cyborg had passed, then wrenched the lid off the manhole and climbed inside, of course making sure to close it again afterward. She was quite familiar with the sewer system's security measures, which thankfully were limited to checkpoints and robotic inspectors, neither of which posed enough of a threat to anyone competent enough to evade a few 'electronic eyes'.
Barring any hellaciously bad luck that might cause her to trip and fall right into a trip beam (virtually the same type used to make sure garage doors didn't close on stuff in them), the woman would be able to make her way through the sewers just fine so long as she didn't get careless. Who knew, with any luck she may even have picked up some trace of the Egregore Device, and been able to follow him to the Kings Row district...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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Yinglong turned a bleary eye up at the incoming fusillade of missiles and bombs, and shuddered once, a long ripple running down her long, long body. Then the dragon sneered. "Toys."
She might have been too injured to attempt any complex enchantments, but she had one ready-made close at hand. Or talon, as it were. An instant of concentration, and the bombs simply... fell apart... in midair as non-light gently flared white and black around each one. The planes in turn began to shudder- though further away, the bloom effect of the suddenly-intensified Will of the Tao splashing over them. While they were not affected as strongly as the munitions were, their outer skins were already roughening as they separated into incredibly pure clumps of base metals.
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The intensified spell washed over the conflict on the ground, as well. The Lightning Blade stiffened, his expression torn between utter agony and beatific rapture as the twisted energies were simply torn from him... along with his life force. His spirit fluttered like a candle in a gale, then winked out.
The half-shredded spirit that Famine had been shooting at and the one that Gryphon had been holding vanished as well, fading from existence. Those attuned to the supernatural might notice the astral plane becoming slightly emptier than before- the third Ancestor Spirit that had come with the Lightning Blade had also vanished.
The Copper Serpent and the Swift Steel who had been coming to aid their now-fallen comrade let out yells of shock and outrage as they too began to fade, their essence streaming downwards to spiral into a tight point above the Lightning Blade's corpse. The yells barely had time to change to laughter before they too were gone.
But the laughter was not. Rich, booming, and oddly hollow sounding, the laughing deepened until it was the bellow of a titan, a mad god unleashed.
Lightning flickered for an instant, and then, less than two seconds after the Lightning Blade had fallen, he was reborn. A phantasm nearly twenty metres tall stood over the assembled soldiers and metas, poison lightning bleeding from the mighty spirit like electric rain, shattering craters in the concrete and spraying superheated stone chips as if the Sovereign's forces were under a waterfall of fragmentation grenades. One whistled past Teivos so closely that he felt as if someone had tugged on his sleeve; even a brief glance would reveal a sizeable chunk of his shirt torn and burned away, and who knows what kind of damage to the armour underneath.
Then, without warning, the huge spirit moved, far faster than anything that size should be able to achieve, blurring forwards at more than six hundred kilometres an hour. The air took on a noticeable chill for dozens of metres in all directions, and all of the Dark Sovereign's forces not protected by an anti-magic field or their own spells felt their limbs grow heavy and unresponsive as kinetic power got drawn en masse into the spirit.
As it came, the Raiden Spirit threw out a titanic wave of lightning, barbs of sickly green roaring out, then another, omnidirectional blast of lightning spines, pentajoules of energy pounding along the Raiden's path, a rolling cloud of destruction carving a direct line to Teivos.
And behind the cloud, the Raiden Spirit came, terrible blades wreathed in lightnings jutting from each hand, poison lightning bleeding still. A practicioner as skilled as the Overmagus could undoubtedly see that this particular construct had traded stability for raw, unbridled power; it would detonate in a blast that would turn this area into a toxic, glassed-over crater in less than a minute. Of course, even the slightest tug on the weave that made it would most likely give an identical result, merely sooner.
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In the sky, Sun Tzu had turned to watch the ground battle with studied intensity, a thoughtful look on his face as he tossed something intangible up and down on one hand. At the slightest sign of Teivos' shield weakening, a secret, potent, if rather double-edged, blessing would be laid on the tyrant.
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Inside Toy Dispenser's detention bubble, the huge Tanker gave no sign that he had heard the android; indeed, given the window into hell that had been opened up inside the bubble, it was doubtful whether or not he even could. If anything, his flame intensified, changing in quality.
A fragment of Yinglong's Taijitu spell had been trapped within the bubble as well, and Flashpoint Zeo's celestial fires reacted with it, absorbing and changing it.
Now, if the bubble opened or gave way, everything unnatural in the area would be subjected to purifying fire- everything unnatural would be burned away, while those living beings present would find their general health improved, and that the natural world responded better to them, while those things that took man out of balance with the natural world would work poorly, if at all.
((Aargh... okay, hopefully that's everything, and we can wrap up this scene with the CPSR, and I can go back to playing... y'know, my actual character... and stop spouting horribly mangled taoist hippy philosophy >.<
Devious, the tug-at-sleeve thing is a gentle poke in the direction of the thing you mentioned- I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not it 'hit'.
Also, Khell, the double-edged blessing thing that Sun Tzu is going to try and drop on Teivos isn't anything that the Overmagus is likely to be able to perceive or interfere with- it falls more in the arena of divine intervention than arcane workings, and it's pretty damn subtle divine intervention, given that 'subtlety' is one of the founding precepts of the workings of the Tao.
Oh, and when I say 'poison lightning', I mean exactly that. The Copper Serpent got fused into this mix, so a lot of what's going on is a blending of Electric Blast and Spines attacks; if it hits, it'll poison the target as well as zapping 'em. It's magic, it doesn't have to conform to realistic physics ))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((M'kay.))
A titanic explosion rocked the ground. There was simply no other way to describe it. Pressure, heat, energy, crackling, toxic electricity, it all blasted out in all directions with due fervor, drawing a terminator beneath the matter.
Teivos found himself on his back at the edge of yet another large crater, head throbbing and wondering what by Zar had just happened. A searing jolt of pain upon his first movement (the practiced 'check' tensing of muscles) told him he was still alive, at least. He pushed past the pain and rose onto his elbows, giving the area a look around.
His bodyguard lay scattered, but moving, their Kazbeks having protected them more than his lighter armor had him, Vlasta only now noticing the mostly shredded remains of the loose black overclothes. The torso armor beneath was decidedly no longer silver, and judging by the stabs of pain and trails of blood coming from the patches of orange that showed through his hole-filled sleeves and pants, he'd taken quite the beating from that. Still, the question remained: just what had 'that' been?
The barrel of an M7A7 emerging from the crater's rising smoke gave him the answer, and he took it with a grim smirk. The hovertank looked dilapidated, but apparently it had triumphed over its opponent in the end, and just in time to give the CPSR's latest monster what-for and take it out.
As the characteristic beat of large rotor blades came closer, Teivos closed his eyes and let out a relaxed sigh, soon feeling the wind of the first descending Molvia cascade across the ground, through his clothes, and over his skin. Despite the many particles it carried, and his body's general state of pain, the net result felt somehow soothing.
All about the sector, in the air as well as on the ground, the forces Toy had seen dispatched from the State Weapons Factory came in with the same manner, engaging the CPSR's operatives. As he had ordered, the air superiority craft went in first, and though they hadn't yet been updated, their spell-countering abilities packed enough punch to match the field attempting to nullify their weapons. This time, they'd be getting through to Yinglong - and their orders stated shoot to kill.
Even Sun Tzu now had problems of his own, the attacking craft more than enough to not give him the chance of just hovering there unbothered anymore, even if he considered himself 'intangible'. If he could still maintain a direct sense of the power going to Teivos' Odcarovat, however, the fact that it had ceased operation would be self-evident. If he was looking for some manner of visual sign though, he'd have to toss his spell and just hope for the best. In either case, he had to do it before that Molvia set down, the man-portable unit on that helo still carrying the old code. If it got Teivos under the range of its protection, the sorcerer's chance was up.
Already, his guard formed up around the Sovereign, two taking him from either side as the machine came down, rear ramp coming open to deploy a division of Gerlach-armored infantry and a light tank. Covered by the vehicle, the soldiers joined Teivos' guard in retrieving those about and taking them board the aircraft - including on the Sovereign's orders Griffin, the strain of attempting to protect himself and those around him having knocked him out cold. Anyone else unable to move on their own received the same.
No sooner had the Molvia taken all those willing (or perhaps unwilling, but unable to do anything about it) on board than came the yell for immediate teleport back to tátna Zbrojovka. In a flash of light, accompanied by a clap of thunder from air collapsing into the vacuum it left behind, the helicopter disappeared.
Its arrival at the State Weapons Factory proceeded to logical protocol. Like Teivos, all those injured were rushed to the hospital. Somehow, this also included Burning Brawler, whom Wolfgang had by sheer luck been quick enough to stuff onto the helo...
((And yes, I am trying to kill (or if practical, capture) Yinglong. I'm not going to say why, just that I am. ))
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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((M'kay, gonna give Khell until tomorrow, then move things along if he hasn't posted.))
Griffin wasn't quite sure how to react just there. Should he call out to wait, or should he just leave her be? War and Famine certainly seemed to want to, and though he wasn't comfortable with the chem-merc, the swordsman had busted him out of that hospital. Hash-up or not, a person didn't just do something like that without having some genuine compassion.
Still, the woman seemed to know things no one else around here did, or if they did, they hadn't told him. This 'Sovereign' was of course the jumping point. That sounded like a title for a person, and a really important one at that. In addition, the mercenaries had conveyed that they'd upset the regime here. Were the two one and the same? And if so, what did this mean?
"I don't know, guys..." he told the Horsemen thoughtfully, "I think she knows stuff we could use..."
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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