Open Season: St John ((Big ***** warning inside))

Schmitt leaped and propelled himself forward vanishing in a bright flash and reappearing seconds later from a psionic rift once more, aiming to barrel into the machine harder this time, shield extending into a circle with a sharp point in the centre, aiming to pierce the robot's midriff with the charge, "We need to work together!" he yells to the vampyres and Blade

Erez'Zul closed the window the second the Countess stopped speaking, his mood had turned from confusion to mild annoyance, that the Countess would let someone use her name like this, and if the robot failed, so too did the Court, another failure on an already long list.

Repair the robot? Who did she think he was? he had no business among technological terrors, though perhaps he could help it against its attackers...
His train of thought was immediately lost as Pious shouted his declaration to the robot, a smile forming on his face.

He once again bellowed for all the hear
"Destroy this place, take down everything in your path and let nothing stop you! So commands the Countess!"

He quickly flew down to the smouldering school, walking through the flames as if they were air he walked towards Pious, a superior smile on his face.
"If you wish to die again..."
A blade of flame erupted from his hand, holding it tightly as if it were made of metal he pointed it towards Pious.
"all you had to do was ask"

He lowered the blade, the flame dissipating in the air.
"But never think for one second it would stop us, we are like a plague, and there is no cure, you may patch up this worlds wounds but eventually we find a way to seep through.
Without you the Nighthunters will fall....perhaps we could save you for the very end, as you are quitting now, right?"

Erez'Zul started laughing, his eyes turning to the giant robot again, the whites of his eyes burning a bright red.

Erez'Zul watched as the stranger appeared in front of him, his interest in this new enemy was extremely low.
As the blade went to pierce his flesh, his body erupted into a dark electrical mass, the blade simply slicing through it, electricity surging through the blade to its holder as Erez'Zuls eyes watched the man.

"Yes...i am superior, im am a Templar of the Countess, and i will not be stopped by a lowly creature such as yourself!"
Raising his hand the flames around him began to flicker towards him, bringing his hands down hard on the ground it erupted in a fireball surrounding himself and unless he had avoided it, his opponent.

Lucard watched Leon and Erez' confrontation, smiling to himself, up on the burning ruins on the school. He had a lot of anger to work off here. Raising both his pistols he shouted at Leon "Well Hello again Leon! Tell me, can your children dodge as well as you can?". Lucard smirked darkly and opened fire with a hail of bullets at the younger DeFeurard's, mixing in a snareing trap of dark magic to hold anyone attacking the giant mech in melee in place.

++++

Blade rebounded off the machine, his blood covered armour sending blood spraying in all directions as he spun in the air. He recovered quickly however, but noticing the missles released, he turned his focus to protecting what remains of the area, slashing at the missles as they flew up, doing his best to stop them before they could cause more harm to the civilian populace.

Erez'Zul began laughing at his would be opponent, eyeing the sword once more.
"And again you believe a sword can hurt me? You truly are blind, i am not a mere man such as you! My power is..."

He stopped mid-sentence as the robot began to attack, he heard the words spoken by the robot and yet still he felt uneasy about its true purpose.
Regardless the Countess wanted it in one piece, and so he strived to keep it that way.
Waving his hand a wall of flames sprouted from the earth to distract his foe, launching sideways into the air he flew a few metres behind the vampire now shooting fireballs at the missles.

His main purpose for moving was to avoid the missles intended target, the school and of course, Pious.
This, he thought, was just a bonus.
The air around him darkened as a ball of black energy formed in his hand, aiming for the back of the man shooting fireballs he threw the dark energy at him, a cruel smile appearing on his face.

Marie was caught full on by the fussilade, punching her clean off the titan. She landed, backflipped with the momentum, and came to a skidding stop with one hand drawing clawed grooves in the pavement. She looked up, eyes burning, even as the bullet wounds healed themselves.
"Oh, so you want to die? Be my guest!" she snarled, jumping and teleporting in the same instance. While the darkness snares lashed and mewled where she had been, she threw herself at Lucard, teleporting behind him, beside him, around and about him, all the while lashing out with both blades.

Lawrence heard the shout, turning his attention away from his work momentarily to consume the bullet in a rolling wave of fire. He spotted Erez'Zul at the same time, eyes glowing as he chanted something quickly under his breath. The energy missile didn't dissapitate, but it did curve enough to arc past Lawrence without touching him. He then turned back to his work.

Leon simply strode through the fire, before teleporting above Erez'Zul.
"It's the blind leading the blind, when you think that I am just a man," he laughed, aiming to land on his target from above, and failing that he would resort to his sword. "You and Lucard both, thinking we're push overs. You really think I'd have lasted long in this city with a regular sword, hmm?" Not waiting for a reply, he set upon his opponent, throwing a fireball of his own in Erez'Zul's face.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Erez'Zul let himself fall straight down, pulling his head back so he was level with the ground, his back facing the floor.
He blew fire from his mouth again, consuming the fireball and heading straight for Leon.
As he hit the ground he exploded in a mass of dark electricity, flying across the ground and forming a few feet away.

Standing tall again his body became whole once more, a scimitar of flame erupting from his hand.
"Then by all means lets see how well you handle your blade!"
Slicing at the ground beneath his feet, a circe of blue fire shot from the ground, a wall nearly 10 metres across all around Erez'Zul and if he didnt teleport, Leon.
"My blade can slice through Steel as if it were butter, lets see what yours can do"
He outstretched his arm, facing it in the direction of Leon.

Lucard watched with mild amusement as the vampire girl's blades sliced through his phased out form. He had been slightly taken aback by her shrugging off of his specially designed bullets, but quickly had regains his composure and was ready to fight. Coming out of phase, Lucard began firing wildly in all directions, his vampiric speed making it seem as though it was all at once. He caught the girls blades with his pistols and attempted to use his petrifying stare to hold the girl in one place, so that he could concentrate his fire on her face.

Schmitt skidded as he hit the ground, the asphalt cracking as the energy dissipated into it, shield returning to normal, he propelled himself towards Pious, aiming to stand in the way of the missiles, or leap if he had to, just in case Lawrence failed to detonate them all

Lucard's head rolled backwards as the headbutt struck, he then grimanced at the sharp pain in his knee as Marie's boot collided with it. "oh my dear, what a rude and unlady like thing to do, still, it could be worse". He gave Marie a quick peck on her lips and then pushed himself away, firing at her as he flew backwards, laughing cruelly, as if he was playing some childish game with her. "come and get me if you want me girl". He flew over the burning ruins, reloading as he went, and dropped down on the over side, out of view of all but Marie.

Erez'Zul smiled at Leon.
He started walking in a circle around Leon, looking at his opponent properly for the first time.
"Flouncing around? I wasnt the one vanishing into thin air every few seconds, now let me see...sword, flames and of course...a vampire, ah..."

Erez'Zul continued circling his opponent, chuckling slightly.
"You would be the same man who fought Lucard, his hatred of you is quite obvious, why go for you when he can hurt you most by engaging your...children?"
His eyes flickered between the other two, one throwing fireballs around while the other fought off Lucard.

"If memory serves you spoke of balance last time you engaged the Court, yet you seek to protect the holy man, why? If there were someone here who indeed did upset your...supposed balance, it would be him"
He stopped in his tracks, raising his flaming sword at Leon.
"He hunts your kind without rest, among others....he slaughters them all, and so the darkness is wavering, his light begins to shine through, all i do is protect myself and those i deem worthy of my protection.!

He then pulled his sword towards his face, his own eyes at either side of the blade, a superior smirk on his face.
"In fact i came here to honor my own pledge, to protect the Court, that...abomination may wear our mark but it does not speak for us, contrary to the evidence presented thus far..."
Erez'Zul looked deep in thought for a moment before looking directly at Leon again.
"At the very least the Countess herself does not know exactly where it came from....SO! you either face me in combat....or destroy the creature while i deal with the Priest, the choice is yours..."

The missiles were stopped, but not without incident...

The thirst third were conventional, explosive missiles, they were destroyed before they were armed, either by flame or by sword. The second third of the missiles, released clouds of lingering gas upon destruction, greenish gas a mixture of cyanide and other deadly chemicals, but these clouds were also consumed by fire or simply buffeted apart by the wind.

The final third were filled with incendiary liquid, which when destroyed by the flames ignited, burning rain falling down towards the fighters and the machine.

With a titanic roar the machine attacked, a flow of super heated plasma launching from its hands, streaking towards Pious, too brilliant to look at and igniting things as it passed due to the intense heat.

Schmitt shook his head as he sprinted and leaped with full force behind the shield to slow it down, being propelled backwards with it and rolling as it hits the floor, grinding to a halt a few feet from Pious, the metal clad man groaned and tried to push the leg off of him, inable to do so due to it being so heavy and large...

Erez'Zul threw his blade into the air, the fire trickling into nothingness as he did, a look of dissapointment on his face.
"You dont really listen do you boy, why would i ever give an option if i was only interested in one answer? That...thing, that creation, has nothing to do with me and yes i suppose it could go after me but as you were otherwise occupied i suppose you didnt see the way i made my entrance to this...decrepid scene of death, the same way i could make my exit..."

Erez'Zul outstretched his arms to show he didnt intend to fight. He now looked darkly at his opponent.
"There is no balance in this world, it is a world of chaos, of anarchy, of shadows, and so the struggle will go on as it has gone on for so very long...this...'Open season' as you refer to it, has had no effect on anything...in the long run.."

He smiled again, that same superior smile he had used before.
"No....if there were a balance i believe it has been kept, the number of victims in this war has been incredible but the ratio of good and evil that has been destroyed throughout remains the same, your hunters have killed far more of us than we have of them, i can assure you of that."

Lucard smirked "a pity" and he turned and vanished into the ruins.

++++

Elsewhere, Blade had turned his attention back to the machine. Seeing Pious and Schmitt were ok, he shouted at the machine. "Hey you rust bucket! up here! Pious aint the big threat to the Countess, im the one with the guts to kill the ugly witch!". Blade took off at great speed, moving into close range and hacking at the machine with his lasor sword. As he did so, inside his helmet he spoke quickly. "EVA, MARTHA, can you hack into this machine?"

A feminine robotic voice replied "We can do our best brother, the uplink is ready to attempt contact at your command, MARTHA will jump and attempt to disable the machines weaponry"

"Do it" said Blade, still hacking at the Machines joints at an almost unseeable speed

Erez'Zul stood silent for a moment, shaking his head lightly as Leon walked away.
"Absaloutely insane...."
He then turned his attention to the robot again, watching it stand on one leg while still fending off his attackers.
Looking slightly to his left he saw where the other robotic leg had gone, on top of one of the Nighthunters, a silver clad man who seemed to have become trapped while protecting the priest.
He smiled and started walking towards them both, the ground around them both began to sizzle and smoke as the flames started to rise again, a blue tinge appearing at the top as they began to burn hotter.

Erez'Zul stepped onto the rubble that was once a school, he foot slowly positioned itself over one of the still burning corpses of children, hovering over its head he brought it down hard, splitting it open making a sickening noise.
"Reverand Pious Hunter...."
He looked at the man trapped beneath the robots leg and smiled before looking at Pious again.
"Its time you got your wish"