[h2]Maceroy Falthon[/h2]
“Ooh, looks like you’ve never met mister Grim Reaper,” she was saying, as if it were a valid point. Apparently, this woman was also uneducated; the scythe in the hands of the Grim Reaper was derived from the actual use of scythes as a metaphor for harvesting the dead, and the fact that fools like her managed to warp the image into “scythes are a great weapon” was annoying to the raven-like harpy. Helpful when facing off against such idiots, but ever so annoying.

Of course, the woman’s attempt at a backflip kick toward Maceroy’s hand was somewhat ruined by various factors, but it didn’t stop her from using his own magic-imbued talon as a point from which to flip away - albeit at the cost of destroying one of her shoes’ heels, which he figured would vastly reduce her mobility. Or maybe not, if most of the mechanism wasn’t based in the heel…?

In the meantime, it seemed the other harpy had for some reason saved Eve from taking too much harm from Utada’s projectiles, and subsequently avoided blinding by any form of flashbang attack. In turn, as Marie rocketed into the sky via the systems in her shoes- wait, when had she gotten a lance? There was nowhere for her to hide that… unless she had some ability to warp weapons in and away, the way HR-513 did? Or an extra-dimensional space to store them in… yes, either way, maybe his reality anchor would see more use than expected this day… the point was, he needed to go for her now, whilst she was distracted.

As she fired her grenades toward Utada, Maceroy took to the sky, the drill-body of the shock lance whirling at full speed and aimed in Marie’s direction as he sped towards her. Unfortunately, he was not fast enough to stop her from transforming her weapon and turning it in his direction. Fortunately, he [i]also[/i] wasn’t fast enough to keep Eve from charging at the rocket-propelled human at full speed, and surely that’d do some damage on impact, not to mention hurling the demonically-aligned fighter bodily through the air and totally throwing off her aim - both the point of the lance itself, and whatever weapon she’d transformed it into to try and kill him.

[i]That’s my girl.[/i]

With a brief moment of recalculation, another message rapidly sent to Utada - [i]Darken your vision if you can.[/i] - and a powerful flapping of all four wings, Maceroy closed the gap between him and his foe, zig-zagging to try and avoid her shots, only to abruptly light up like an insanely bright flare for a fraction of a second once within five meters of her. Marie, and likely everybody else within fifty meters other than himself, would be utterly blinded by his release of light, and whilst it’d be very obvious to anybody else who so much as looked in that direction, the light would also be nearly as blinding for a good distance beyond its “effective” range, for obvious reasons; within the effective range proper, even covering one’s eyes would be useless, as the light would pass through or around any solid surfaces within that fifty meter radius to reach them regardless, exactly as it was designed to do. In theory, there was no plausible way for Marie to stop that, let alone shut it down, and whilst that wasn’t exactly great for Utada or Eve either- Eve especially, who was far less likely to have anything to protect her vision with- he didn’t want to risk the mercenary getting to aim toward him again. It'd take at least a moment for her vision to recover, and by then, it’d be too late.

Maceroy’s intent, speculative as it was, was not to spear the human straight-on, but instead to move to whichever side of the mercenary she was not flailing her weapon on- or at least whichever side Eve wasn’t ramming into- and so to pass his own weapon through Marie’s body diagonally sideways - with but one hand holding it, since in this case, his own momentum would keep it relatively steady, and the other was necessary to perform a second action as it dug through his pockets. In theory, the noise of the drill itself would make it seem as though his body was still directly ahead of her, such that even if she managed to aim toward him again, she’d still miss him completely; the angle of the weapon ought to minimise the chances of her parrying his strike, if she could muster herself to try and do so; and the speed at which it was spinning would make tearing her in half, or at least mostly in half, all too easy, not to mention the surge of searing electrical energy that would simultaneously pass through her body as he hit the switch on the lance. At worst, she’d be paralysed and helpless, able to be killed with contemptuous ease; if he was lucky, she’d instead be finished off by the attack almost immediately.

That is, if all went well. If not, he had a backup plan - given the chance, he'd draw his free hand from his robes and try to slap something on the small of her back, in a position that would make it very difficult to reach with her bare hands, never mind any objects of the wrong length. A fist-sized spherical object made of metal, with a bright blue LED glowing on its topside; if it made contact, it would extend a large number of mechanical tendrils out across Marie’s back, each covered in maniple hooked suckers to try to cling firmly to her clothing and body, like those of a mechanical colossal squid. She'd also experience a severe pain in her spine, like something drilling into it (beyond any actual drilling sensations, rather) - though the sensation would be indicative not of a physical drill, but a spiritual probe tying her to the physical world, negating her Hammerspace completely.

If everything went according to plan, the enemy would be dead or disabled shortly after the Flare went off, bisected and/or unable to pull forth new weaponry from the nether-regions of thin air by Maceroy's attack. If not, his new position would depend on what else had happened there. It'd only be a couple of moments until then, though... but who knew what could happen in that time?

[@Lmpkio][@Banana][@The 42nd Gecko][@floodtalon]