Bedside Manner (Open RP)

The Urban Fellow of Merry Wit pretty much allowed himself to be tackled and started fooling around with Rosalind. The super soaker was discarded to be left lying in the middle of the bridge.

The candles atop the cake turret started burning a pure yellow glow easily discernable from the red one they had cast earlier. Its rocket thrusters fired, and suddenly both Jase and Balgair had a cake with a turret between the first and second layers floating right in front of them. It smelled DELICIOUS, as if it had JUST been baked. The little automatic party-blower blew itself with a disconcerting "Pethewn!" noise. The burning candle-flames were rapidly flickering between orange and red. It could almost have been said that the cake-turret thing was LEERING at them, but that was crazy.

Then again, they were both already saying and thinking as much. They should have expected that.

Her attempt to slowly land beside the ruined car was cut short by the pendants machinations ...

Great arc’s of power tore from Dire’s body as the pendant sort magical energies ..

For half an instant her whole existence seemed to fade out , the dark swirling shields around her failed and fled , and she dropped like a stone , ragdolling off the car's roof , landing in a heap at the feet of the Others there.

Deep, deep in the thoughts that held her together minds worked arcane will , and more magic flowed into Dire lament .

With a soul shattering cry of pain she arose , her body did not seem to bend in the way bones would allow , more liquid like she became erect ..

The shinny black eyes stared large at those gathered beings on the bridge , the arc’s where cut off as the swirling darkness once more cloaked her form .

“ not this time , we have become learned in the ways of power ..” her voice was a broken , cracked hiss , the tone rising and falling beyond the metre of speech ..

“ who does this .. who ! “

Once more crystal spines start to grow from her flesh , each pulsing with magic , and each dripping a fluid of arcane venoms …

((Am I seriously the only person who ever notices when people are getting sprayed with bullets? ))

Acid didn't answer the were-human, at least not right away. The slugs that struck his left shoulder blade, right side, and left calf made sure of that, spinning him about and into the car, his back hitting the trunk. If he hadn't retained the presence of mind to strengthen his force bubble with by additional a dispersive layer then and there, the congressman probably would've ended up Swiss cheese. Oh yes, he was very much still in the reptilian's grip, the bullets not having penetrated his resilient hide. Unfortunately, lack thereof didn't mean they suddenly packed no impact force. Assault rifle ammunition tended to take the wind out of someone even if said someone wore body armor.

"Hey, Rosie." the Khelari huffed as he stood back up, feeling somewhat awkward in his current position (not something he'd put in his log, that was sure), "Fancy meetin' you here."

He let off the struggling congressman with one hand, instead stretching it in the direction of Balgair and her mercenaries, and erecting an additional energy barrier between them and himself. With all this commotion, it was getting a little difficult maintaining the force bubble in a state he wanted. From the looks of it, he'd already flung someone he hadn't wanted to, which meant he couldn't keep it up for much longer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by _Essex_ "Magical Artifact, class 5E, Ace." she commented. "Some kind of ...I can't imagine it would be a power limiter, or a power enhancer, at least not for him. Well, without more study of it. I don't suppose we can get Mr. Operetta Drama Government Guy to shut the hell up, can we?"

By now, Acid had noticed the arcane energies building as well, said streams of power straining his focus on the bubble he protected the area with beyond the breaking point. He had to take it down, and so it went, vanishing into nothing in the night air. Unfortunately, that also meant nothing dispersed said energies any longer, granting them free passage to the congressman.

Now he had to be quick. The tip of his long, whiplike tail shot up, wrapping itself about the necklace that held the man's pendant in an attempt to rip the thing from his neck and fling it off the bridge. At the same time, the Khelari did something like likely even Rosie hadn't seen coming.

He bit Congressman Alistair Wolfe II on the side of his neck like a vampire!

Meanwhile, a certain monstrous mechanoid didn't much appreciate a specific group of mercenaries haggling its boss like this. Turing its attention toward Balgair's crew, the assault bot's arm covers moved once more, closing off its cannon barrels even as the machine's arms switched to other nozzles.

The heavy stomp of metal feet reverberated through the pavement as the mechanical monster set course for the mercenaries, stretching an arm ahead and spraying a gout fom its plasma-based flamethrower toward the troop. Depending on their combat experience, the men may have noticed it wasn't actually targeting them, but more the area just ahead of them in the direction of the reptilian. Still, plasma packed a good amount of radiant thermal energy, which meant things got pretty hot for them...

Of the mercenaries Balgair employed, Moose and Knuckles were, as their names implied, not the brightest of the bunch. They made up for their dull wit with excessive enthusiasm, but that did not spare them when Acid's large robot doused their area with flame gel.

Even before the stream finished deploying, Moose and Knuckles had been caught on fire, and were employing the traditional Stop Drop and Roll method that they remembered watching on Sesame Street.

Harder to see, and with more mind of taking cover behind large objects, Ocnar and Sev were spared being set directly alight, but ceased firing to duck behind a ruined car. Taking the opportunity behind cover, the two special ops soldiers tried to stealth away from the robot.

The remaining mercenaries gave up on their shooting when Acid Zero and the congressman dissapeared, the large Commando running over to Balgair, noting with worry that she was incoherent and babbling about crazy people.

"Oh Fooey." The massive mercenary commando said. "Better get Boss to the chop shop."

Picking up their bruised leader, Samwise noted another man unconscious by their leader. Pointing, the commando directed the medic to pick up Charlie.

To the four mercenaries getting slapped around by giant robots, Samwise commanded, "We are leaving. Now, where is that hospital?"

Squinting worriedly at the flashing cake, Jase stayed seated and brought up one of his arms in a ninjutsu hand sign.

As everyone else left the still defocused Dire shook her head , and peered , as if short-sighted , around the bridge ..

kicking a downed Thorn minion she politely swore , ..and followed up with a sub vocal chant , her black eyes shinny as she spins on the spot , to face the direction the pendant had take the Congressman ...

“ no escape today , we are coming ...”

..as if with no effort Dire moved upwards and with gathering speed moved toward her target , not so much flying but more akin to sliding through the air ..

as she travelled she drew from the Nothingness a long wand , dark metal twisted and oddly curved , it glistened ..

“ if silly people want to play ..we will show them the broken rules ...”

with a spurt of speed she neared the pendants location , the dark magics of her shields trailing a long plume behind her ....

"Ptooie!" Acid spat the blood on his tongue out and onto the ground like so much rubbish, looking utterly reviled and reflexively attempting to cleanse the muscle by lapping it against his teeth before remarking to the congressman, "Yuck! Okay, you taste as bad as any other human. Relax. That's a good thing, trust me. Means you're not infected. I think. Maybe. You've got a weird flavor in you there. Gonna have to take a closer look. But first, where the heck are we?"

He looked up at the building. A hospital. Great. He hated hospitals, especially the way they smelled. Something about this one was odd, though. Like there was something missing...

No lights.

And then he felt that.

"Oh really?" he said to someone that seemed to exist only in his imagination - at least to an outside onlooker - unless he for some reason addressed the building itself, "Well, we'll just see about that. Two can play this game, you know."

A sleight of hand to the inside of his jacket, and the scaleless reptilian had retrieved a vial that contained a substance that greatly resembled mercury. Just about the only thing that suggested it was anything different was the fact that when his thumb's claw flicked the container open, the liquid inside became horribly agitated, escaping from the thing almost right away. Less than two seconds later, it had disappeared in the congressman's neck wound, and judging from that bloody bite mark swiftly starting to close, its purpose was fairly apparent. Acid still didn't release the congressman, however.

Instead he placed a call.

Returning the now-empty vial, he fished a rather large, clunky-looking cellphone from his pockets, dialing a number and putting the receiver to his ear. It didn't take long for the line to connect.

"Hey, Ace?" he inquired, apparently getting a positive response, for he continued, "It's Ace. Yeah, me. Say, can I borrow James for a couple of hours? Yeah, I've got this deal here I could really use his nose for. Excellent. Right. Coordinates are...hang on a sec'. Just in case..."

A press of a button later, he spoke into the phone again, but to at least the congressman's great surprise, not a sound came out of the Khelari's mouth. Well, not exactly. Rather, none of them reached the man's ears until the scaleless reptilian lowered the phone away from his ear again, smirking toothily at the sky above.

For there it began.

"Quick as ever." he gave a chuckle as the clouds grew darker and the firmament began to stain, the red of blood and black of coal coalescing into the sluggish cyclone whose eye slowly grew directly over the hospital. The glimmer of crimson lighting flickered through the thick towers of dark vapors, not quite arcing, but also not waning as normal. All the while, the beat behind the display gradually quickened, the music that now came through steadily rising in volume. It was without a doubt real, audible to all about, though only very few knew the meaning of mechanics behind the display.

"Once upon a time, not so long ago..." Acid mused, dialing another number, and then returning the phone to his ear as the call sought out the other end.

Rosie...

The dog wrestled with the UFMW (tm) for a bit before...a mysterious buzzing sound came from her collar. With a poof of smoke, she popped back into view, noogying the boy with a grin.

"Hang on a sec, Rosie's gettin' some love." she said, tapping one of her tags and activating the comm.

"Yello, Rosie here, whatcha got for me?"

Just then, she glanced around, noticing that things were not as they had been. EH. Getting distracted by kids would do that. But who cared? Little kids were WAY more exciting than politics.

Dire stepped from the air to the ground , moving to the side of Acid ..

She gesticulated with the wand , demanding attention ..

“ ok you , what ever you are , Why ..and no sly answers ..Why !”

Her long torn coat swept the ground as she matched around Acid to get a clear view of the Congressman ...her bare feet making no sound.

Shaking the blood matted hair from her face , Dire peer hard at the Congressman ..

“who is this one ? And why are the Thorns hunting him ..”

now swinging the mace more like a 4 by 2 Dire slide a step back and glared at Acid ..

“well ?”

"Eat him?" Caemgen asked, horrified. "Oh hell no!"

Pulling the kid fully of the ledge, Caemgen gently pushed him towards the door that led down from the roof.

"Go back inside now, kiddo. You'll be safer there," Caemgen said and then without pausing to see if the kid complied or not Caemgen lept over the side of the building.

Wings spreading out to control the fall, Caemgen kept his eyes on the scene below him, quickly considering the best way to dispatch of the hungry *******. Halfway to the ground, time seemed to slow down...

Slowly, even as he continued to fall, green and orange looking electrical sparks began to build up around Caemgen. The sparks become arcs of magical electricity as the wound further and futher around him.

"Hey!" Caemgen shouted into the air. "I was doing like you asked!!"

And before his complaint was finished being shouted the magical electricity disappeared, taking Caemgen with it.




((Sorry peeps, that's Caemgen exiting the story stage left... Two posts resulting in four pm's correcting my missteps tells me I should probably sit back and learn the ways of the land before I jump in. I'll still be following this though to do just that... And to see just what is going on inside that there hospital!))

The two special ops soldiers, Sev and Ocnar, dragged Moose and Knuckles out of the water. Standing them up with a glower unseen behind their masks and goggles the two charred mercenaries tried to look chagrined, but only managed sheepish.

The medic, Rick, handled Charlie off to Moose, and began to move towards the hospital, his small machine gun on point. Ocnar and Sev filed in behind him, forming a stack that approached the hospital as their commando carried their delirious boss behind them.

"Could just be a concussion." Rick said as they crossed the street, "But there's some blood back there, just to..."

They held up as they approached, noticing the same lack of lights that Acid Zero noted. Cautious to a fault, the mercenaries slowed down outside, also taking in the evidence of whatever Acid had called in for back up.

Samwise considered starting the fight they had back on the bridge, but without Balgair to deploy her kit and provide tactical coordination, they'd probably get crushed.

So, the commando ignored the reptilian and the hero confronting him. The massive soldier walked up to the doors and tried to push one open with his boot while the other mercenaries formed a defensive ring around him.

Dire's demands for attention were met with but a sour eye from the Khelari, the displeased wrinkle of the scaleless hide above the ridges of that eye's socket practically saying 'can't you see I'm on the phone here?'

Verbally, he didn't even so much as acknowledge her presence, instead telling the Dread Trio's premier individual-demolitionist as he regarded the congressman's amulet, the necklace of which now hung about the curled tip of his tail, "A mystery. Maybe two. Don't know yet. Either way, I need two more noses, and I was hoping you'd be one of them."

In the skies above, the crimson cyclone kept on spreading, soon adding an anticyclone to its eye, which began to glow just a little bit brighter than the rest of the otherworldly phenomenon as the music that came through continued to increase in both volume and tempo...

The woman in black finished her story and not a moment too soon: her head jerked as she sensed something.

“So he’s here.” She said aloud, to no one in particular. “Then perhaps—“ she hesitated, as if disappointed by something, “—I will no longer be in pain. Once justice has been served there will be no more need for this madness.” The woman softened for a moment, her features almost returning to her guise adopted for this series of events.

The children stood listlessly in front of her, arranged like a terracotta army. There were four of them but unlike their adult counterparts, frozen in terror and subordination near the doors to the morgue, their faces were blank. But they were under some kind of spell, to be sure.

The woman dismounted the gurney and walked slowly and purposefully to her, as yet, untamed captive. She stood over him and he stared straight back.

“Feeling a little woozy?” she mocked. “Sleeping Dust will do that to you- oh but the men in the next room already know that, don’t they Doctor Carson?”

“It was necessary. They had become suspicious.”

“What about the good Matron? Is she suspicious yet? Does she realise the kind of man you are?”

“I…I don’t know what you mean—“

The woman smiled her cruel smile and slapped the Doctor across the face. It was with a surprisingly hard force, considering her diminutive frame.

“I’ve spent months planning this, Doctor. I know who you and the good Matron work for and I also know about power. The Congressman offered you power, didn’t he? Not magical power – no that’s not what you’re in this for – political power, the power to rule, to practice without question.”

She walked to the back of the morgue and turned a corner, returning a minute later with a Gladstone bag. She tipped its contents on the floor revealing a small armoury of magical trinkets and charms.

“I must say I was tempted to join the Midnight Squad after seeing what kind of goods they had reserved for their members. No doubt there’ll be something in here I can use to break you.” The woman sifted through the contents of the bag, occasionally showing her cruel smile to her captive.

The Doctor was verging on utter panic, adrenaline coursing through his system. The sleeping powder was wearing off and he felt some life return to his limbs. He tried to stand up.

“Nurses! Children! Restrain the bad man!” The woman was quick and her slaves were fully under her control. It didn’t take long for them to pin the Doctor by his arms and legs against the wall.

The woman brandished an ornate dagger.

“Hold steady, Doctor. This won’t hurt a bit.”

The Urbane Fellow of Merry Wit laughed as Rosie noogied him, and then the cake flew over, its rocket-thrusters disengaging and the turret sliding back into the depths. The candles returned to a normal color, and the UFMW started gorging himself on the cake.

"Want some?" He asked Rosie through a half-full mouth. He seemed completely oblivious to the spectacle occuring in the sky.

Samwise looked at the receptionist, then down at Balgair, still cradled in his arms. The mastermind's eyes fluttered open but quickly shut as she mumbled, "Crazy..."

A frantic look that was unsettling on the Commando's over masculine features gave way to Samwise's worried babbling, "She took a nasy hit on the head. The other guy too." As if to indicate which one, Moose held Charlie out to the receptionist.

"She's saying nonsense and bleeding, and I'm not supposed to be in charge, and..." What do I do? She's the boss!

Sev and Ocnar took positions inside the doorframe, checking outside to what was going on there.

"We can pay. But someone has to fix the boss." Samwise finished.

Shyly, with his hands behind his back, Jase scooted closer to the group in front of the hospital. He kept his eye looking toward the bridge or at the floating ‘eye’ in the sky as he whistled nonchalantly. When he was finally arm length away, Jase just kept smirking to himself and looking off in the distance. His intentions seemed cryptic but innocent enough. After standing silent for a moment, rubbing his bare arm with a hand, he let his eyes trail to Dire and Acid.

“So…you calling your girlfriend or something,” he grinned to the raptor. “And what’s the matter with you?” he inquired Dire, “Dingo eat your baby? Don’t worry, you’ll get it back in a day or so.” Despite the situation, Jase seemed in a good mood and didn’t really pay much attention to the ailing congressman.

~~~~

Meanwhile, the young boy had made his way back into the hospital. He was already moving through the darkened hallways with an urgent curiosity. Still silent, he explored. For now, he was seeking out the basement level.

“hello” was Dire’s first reply to Jase ..followed by a hard stare from her , and then a “ no I never had one , ..Hmm more magic “

With a now distracted stance, Dire turned and floated into the hospital .

Ignoring the discussion occurring in the lobby she move slowly , casting her gaze around for a clue ..

“Down , it is always down ..” selecting the nearest downward stairs Dire descended ..

Dire stopped before the closed doors , around her the dark swirls of protection seemed to entwine tight around her slender form . She stared hard at the door , her face hardened , the blood splats covering her body seem to freshen and weep .

From beyond the doors Dire felt a voice’s power as it made a threat ….

..........."I can feel your pain, whatever you are. Children, nurses, you will attack the next person to walk through that door!"...........


Dire’s features twisted , her mouth became a snarl bent slash , and from between her bared teeth fresh blood seeped .

From the drawn back lips a whisper came , yet it was powered by such magic that it was clear heard across the hospitals floors ..

“ we are all victims here , un-pitied , lost to the carnage that is the world …Pain is all we have ,all we are , ..but now we have taken it to our hearts .. we are pain ..there is no more fear …only us..”

Stepping back a pace Dire gathered in magic from the “that place” , raw unfocused it rose like a wave ..stepping forward she struck the doors with be empowered hands , a torrent of rapid blows , dark energies ripping at the fabric of the doors , cutting shards of crystallized power rending the doors to ruin ..

Samwise gestured to Rick to take the receptionist's form, who quickly filled in the blank spaces. Most of the information he was putting in was false, excepting the pertinant medical information.

Over by the doorway, Sev and Ocnar looked out into street again. They shared a shrug, and went back to watching with their machine guns in their hands.

((Out of town for the weekend, move them to the waiting/treatment area if needed.))

((action is on hold for a little bit - not too long - RL has cropped up again, so whilst I chase it round the room with an inflatable hammer you may all relax and not have to think about political/magical conspiracies and villains with a Wicked Witch complex ))

((Ess, you there? Don't leave me hangin'. ))