[quote=@PlatinumSkink]Amelie reacted instinctively. What the knight said to Kael just before firing tipped her off and she was able to manifest a Redirection Orb in time. She turned wide-eyed in confusion as she reached forward, making it obvious she was the one creating the Redirection Orb in front of Kael. The orb took the arrow and sent it crashing into an adjacent building. . .

From the corner of her eye she noted Hiecro turning for her. She didn't have the time to manifest a new Redirection Orb. With no other counter-plan available to her, she'd try to throw herself aside, if she at all got the time to react.[/quote][quote=@Bright_Ops]With a roar he charged forward, intent to ram the woman out of the way of the arrow aimed at her to ensure that she got knocked out of the way, praying to the Lady that his armor would deflect the arrow enough to protect him.[/quote]
[@PlatinumSkink][@Bright_Ops]
The bolt [i]was[/i] partially deflected by the armor upon contact - but the cylindrical tip also splintered into a dozen metal shards that then scattered. A few managed to slide right past Fortune's frame like a stream of water, while a good few managed to splatter directly across his left gauntlet and the lower-left side of his chestpiece - and another two somehow managed to strike Amelie regardless. The metallic splinters liquefied harmlessly on impact, strangely carrying no appreciable kinetic stopping power - although that was a faint relief only, as the gleaming, molten shards of silver then began to spread and expand. Amelie's wards did seemingly nothing to halt the spread of the metal, though thankfully having been hit only by two shards they failed to even envelope the full front of her shirt, slowing and stopping at around half a foot in diameter.

...Before the pool of metal then began to sprout the same jagged, eerie spines of metal every other puddle of the spreading metal elsewhere had grown after the strange shift of gravity, resulting in several half-inch long spines jutting straight through her garments and into her chest.

Fortune was in an even less enviable state. As the liquid metal spread rapidly across the surface of his armor, there was a keening, shearing sound of metal crumpling or being rent - just like the sound the crossbowman's large bolt had made while electroplating the limousine. 

Thankfully for Fortune, the shards that clung to his chestpiece were relatively few, and did not manage to spread far enough to pose a threat to him. Even when the pool of metal adhered to his chest began to sprout spines, they failed to penetrate through the reliable plate. His gauntlet was a different matter however - the entirety of it was wholly enveloped in gleaming silver in an instant, the metal locking each individual finger in place and completely ruining his chainmail underneath, rendering it more immobile than if it had been thoroughly rusted through. Then the metal spread to his exposed flesh beneath, and his world turned to pain as though he had dipped the whole of his arm into a blacksmith's forge. Even as his arm's surface tissue began to die, muscles and nerves began to scream in his head as his skin was fused to the interior of his armor.

[quote=@Doc Doctor]That very bullet was heading straight for the heart of Hiecro's partner, Donny having aimed the revolver across his body, bulletproof vest easily enduring the frightening heat of the chamber flare. . .

Donny quickly fired a second time without cocking the hammer. A few more pounds of trigger resistance, but that was the price to pay for a double action revolver. The next bullet had a date with Hiecro's head.[/quote]
[@Doc Doctor]
The bullets both neatly flattened themselves into crumpled studs on impact that then fell harmlessly to the ground.

[i]The bullets both neatly flattered themselves into crumpled studs on impact that then fell harmlessly to the ground.[/i]

The lack of any other kind of reaction was so preposterous and comical it was almost unbelievable. Neither of the police knights were even staggered - as if all the kinetic power from the bullets had been somehow completely negated. Hiecro, whom Donny had attempted to shoot in the face through what almost certainly was not a plexiglas visor, did not even appear to have suffered from any whiplash at all. The result defied any kind of explanation. The magnum rounds should have been able to penetrate the armor and have knocked both of the knights flat on their backs three feet back. The magnum rounds should have been able to penetrate [i]three[/i] suits of armor in a row.

Hiecro, who had looked very briefly confused, and then shocked, adopted an expression of primal fury. "You're dead!" She barked, and brought the crossguard for her compound crossbow up and around to clobber Donny in the gut with a brutal haymaker from the right, which became all the more worrisome when a long, silvery bayonet sprouted from a port below the guard as the police knight moved to impale Donny on the spot. If he managed to evade the attack, Hiecro would simply proceed to chase after him, raising her pavise in front of her while she pulled her right arm back for another jab. If he somehow deflected the blow, Hiecro would somehow impossibly resist having her momentum redirected beyond her arm being moved and proceed to bowl Donny over by smashing her pavise directly into his body.

Her partner seemed a bit slower on the uptake. "You [i]shot[/i] me!" He said, a stunned expression on his face, his eyes as wide as dinner plates.

[quote=@Cruallassar]Kael starts back in surprise when the crossbow bolt is fired at him...and is rather relieved when the redirection orb appears in front of him and deflects the shot.[/quote]
[@Cruallassar]
In the brief moment between surprise and reaction, Kael's life briefly flashed before his eyes - and he saw another world where there had been no redirection orb - where his body lay, hideously contorted and completely covered in silver, with jagged spines erupting from every scant centimeter of his flesh.

[quote=@Cruallassar]A flash and bang suddenly ring out as her partner is shot, but with a little experience with that now...it doesn't affect Kael drawing his arrow and firing it at the female knight's eye between the slit visor, as before. Unlike before however, this time he tries to angle the arrow so the broader end is parallel with the slit, which should let it pass cleanly through...regardless of a second shot from Donny.[/quote]
The second female pavise knight reeled back in shock and pain, letting out a blood-curdling scream as Kael's arrow tore right through her helmet's exposed slit visor and penetrated her eye as she dropped both her compound crossbow and pavise shield, the implements clattering to the cobblestone street. Unlike the time he had fired at the crossbow knight earlier, this was a perfectly clean shot - the arrow had lodged all the way in the woman's eye, and had doubtlessly pierced her skull. She was already dead - leaving only Hiecro and the male pavise knight to contend with.

Kael felt a faint prickling sensation at the back of his left heel - a harmless prick from one of the spines that was jutting from his twisted, screaming body on the pavement behind him, contorted in agony and shining brilliantly in the morning sun. The cold from the oddly chill sunlight washed over him, as though something had trod over his grave. Where the deceased doppelganger had come from was not apparent, but the flash of that other world leapt to the forefront of his mind.