[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISM1z9BSED0][img]https://i.imgur.com/5B3hkEZ.png[/img][/url] [sub][@Izurich][@Crusader Lord][/sub] Merry fired round after round at her assassin, using the sound of her footsteps to direct her aim. Though approximating the distance of a nearby threat was not the same as firing on a distant one. But it was hard to be logical when your blood was boiling. It could be reasoned however that firing had a higher chance of hitting than not firing. Though that chance diminished when you had a monkey on your back. Merry was knocked onto her chest when Lilliah dove on top of her. Shortly afterwards, a sniper round flew over her back. This was followed by an RPG, which veered off course due to the wind storm and slammed into the ceiling. Bits of timber and tile were thrown about in a furious shower from the floor above. [b]”Not now, Beuford!”[/b] The grenadier chewed out the rocket gang member. [b]”One of our hires is right there! Have some common sense!”[/b] [sub][sub][b]”I just really wanted to fire a rocket, it’s why I took this job in the first place.”[/b][/sub][/sub] The Gemini agents seemed to be in the clear for the moment. The gunmen weren’t going away, but they couldn't see the agents. They were out of sight below the window frame. With all the sounds going off, Merry had lost track of Viper’s footsteps. She may have escaped, she may be dead, but Viper would soon confirm it was neither of those. A dull, yellow mist formed down the hallway. Not long after it appeared, it rolled in and subjected the agents to its effects. The agents would feel their muscles start to stiffen up. They could feel weakness setting into their arms and legs. Breathing was more difficult, and even their consciousness was starting to fade. Worse was that the cloud seemed to be moving, trying to remain on them at all times. Gunmen to their backs, Viper out of sight, and a yellow mist that permeated the area. A troublesome situation to be sure, but how would they deal with it? [hider=Important notes on “Chernobyl’s Lantern”] [Silver ????][?????][Full Extend][Piercing][Zone][If Foe][Paralysis] The melody appears to be a full 20x20 zone that moves through an area. It pierces walls and cover, and slowly inflicts paralysis on anything it touches by way of radiation poisoning. It’s not clear how the fog is following the agents, as Viper has been out of sight since after using her blink melody. There were no marks placed, and you’d know if you triggered a trap note, which this wasn’t. Neither agent has arcane defense to speak of, giving them about 4 seconds before they succumb to its effects. Will they stop the cloud from following them? [/hider] [hr] [sub][@SilverPaw]@TheGMbby[/sub] Upon Lerox’s request for information on blood mages, Fritzi was quick to reply. Being a magic researcher, such questions were often easy for her to answer. [color=#bd71e8]“Tip one, don’t bleed near them. Tip two, all their spells are dark blessings which require rituals to activate. If there’s a ritual circle nearby, destroy it. Alternatively, keep their hands apart if that’s not possible.” [/color] Jaqueline had seen a red circle glow in Lada’s cell before. A closer inspection would reveal a circle made out of salt encircling the blood mage. Rottweiler's grip tightened on his baton. [b]”I’ll get out of your way when I’m dead.”[/b] When their weapons clashed, the rust particulates signaled that Jaqueline was preparing something. What, however, was not something that anyone could discern. The proverbial jack in the box kept Rottweiler from getting too aggressive. [b]”A powerful one this time, huh?”[/b] As the melody surged into her weapon, he went for another deflection. He shoved the pick aside with his hand, momentarily knocking Jacqueline off balance. With his opening created, Rottweiler rushed in and swung his baton at her rib cage. She felt pain, but it wasn’t the bone crushing hit she might have anticipated if he was powered up. [b]”Wait...”[/b] Rottweiler examined his hands, only to see that the red glow that his body had bathed in was gone. Touching her pick was enough contact to trigger the melody, and it had ripped his enchantment to tatters. [b]”Heh! This feels a lot less fair now.”[/b] But Rottweiler and Lerox wouldn’t have time to exchange quips. The convicts had fled their cells and were fighting everyone. The agents, Rottweiler, other convicts, all were fair game. As if they were zealots trying to appease the blood god by spilling as much crimson as they could. Jaqueline and Rottweiler were too preoccupied fighting each other to notice the mob surging towards them. Two smaller men jumped onto Jacqueline. One tried to bite through her shoulder plate while another went to gouge at her eyes. Rottweiler was shoulder tackled into a wall by a giant brute. Those blessed by the blood seemed to have amazing fortitude. But without it, even a mundane bum rush was enough to knock him off his feet. After he slammed into the wall, the former police officer drove his foot into the giant’s family jewels. Even a murderous rage couldn’t keep someone on their feet after something like that. Rottweiler would be free before long. While Jaquiline was getting swarmed, Su’s mother like instincts kicked in. Keeping the empowered brute out of the fight was important, but there had been a tip in the scales with her fellow agent’s latest gambit. She ran to her ally as fast as she could. But before departing, Su looked over her shoulder and tossed a stone. It caused many more stones to roll after it and harden into a wall over the exit. They wouldn’t have any backup, but she wasn’t going to let a group of rowdy convicts escape on her watch. With that settled, they had to push for the goal. Su charged with her shield up, plowing through any of the convicts who stood in her way. She could shoot some of them, but opted for the less bloody option due to their opponent's power. When she got to her ally’s position, she grabbed one of the convicts and threw them off of Jacqueline. [color=peachpuff]”I got back!”[/color] Which was probably “I’ve got your back” in Chinglish. She had placed herself between the angry mob and Jaquiline, refusing to let another inmate get their hands on her. But just ahead was Lada, who was without a body guard. The spilled blood across all the prisoners was starting to surge to Lada’s side in the form of giant coagulated tentacles. They flew towards the knight’s position as giant spikes. It was a clear attempt to impale her. The blood mage remained kneeling, her hands clasped together, begging her god for their dark blessings. [hider=specs] [center]32 | Female | Gemini | Steel Gaze Bipartisan | Handgun, Greatshield | Physical | Bullet Window Dragon Breacher | Kevlar Vest Debris | Wind | Locally Sourced [Storm , Flight ], Push, Pull, Build, Purify, Restrain, Damage DAMAGE: D | SPEED: E | SENTINEL: C | 500 [Bronze projectile][build] = 80 PHYSICAL: D | ARCANE: D | CHAOS: E | 212[/center][/hider] [hr] [sub][@OwO][@ERode][/sub] While Sofron had very potent melodies, his instrument did not seem to have the same kind of power. Elroy was one of the most powerful freelance espers, and even he only had access to a single diamond glamor. The few espers that managed to surpass Elroy’s power were well known, documented, and tracked. Anyone would know if they came face to face with Oros the Mad or the Iron Queen of Pax Septimus. They were tracked down to the very city they inhabited. But some old butler guy who needed to introduce himself was likely just a veteran esper; Powerful, but beatable. Klava was able to duck before the butler’s shoulder connected, causing him to fall right where she wanted him to. Her entire body was burning up, and her vision was failing. Not because of the tear gas, but because Sofron’s flames were doing normally irreparable damage to her eyes. Her silky white skin was turning red and covered in blisters. Her kimono would bake and adhered to her flesh in time. A normal human would cry out in pain and not have the will to remain in a burning inferno. But Klava had a will that was harder than steel. She could feel her attack connect. The familiar if morbid sensation of a blade sinking into flesh. It worked its way between his ribs before the hilt of her blade bottomed out against his flesh. When Klava pulled her blade free, there should have been a nasty wound in its place. As gruesome as the attack was, it was an act of mercy. The butler could end this any time they wanted by reverting to their true self. That would end the melody, prevent them from bleeding out, and save everyone. But this was America after all. While hesitation meant defeat, sentiment could lead to folly. A fact Klava became aware of when she felt a hand clamp over her thigh. [color=0099a6]"I hadn’t realized storms were so gentle."[/color] Placing her knee on Sofron’s head was enough to get in a free stab, but it did nothing to secure either of his arms. With a shove, Klava rolled into the wall where she managed to make an indentation into the sheetrock. The butler scrambled to his feet before searching for his next target, content to let Klava cook in Balewulf. While Apollo was able to stand outside of Sofron’s melody, the tear gas had become so thick he couldn’t see either esper. The eye watering substance was making its way towards him, leaving the melody’s confines. But soon enough, Sofron emerged from the smoke. There was a small cut in his shirt above his stomach. There was a wound there, but it was closing right before his eyes. Instead of the relaxed stance he had before, Sofron’s teeth were grit, and his eyes were red from exposure to tear gas. He had to be blind now, but the butler’s ears may have picked up on the sound of a fire extinguisher glass breaking. His breathing was raspy. It was hard to tell if he was this way exclusively from the tear gas or if the hole in his chest also contributed to it. With a warcry that sounded like the hiss from some long dead wraith, Sofron spread his arms and charged towards Apollo. His arms became wreathed with fire as he neared his target. [color=0099a6]"Baleful Embrace!"[/color] [hr] [sub][@FamishedPants][@mantou][/sub] Protector opted to ignore the main target in favor of dealing with “Kumambamon.” The close distance meant that the mascot’s (?) cattle prod was a danger to Aria. But agent Silhouette was there to deflect the blow with his knife and run through the restrained guard with his sword. The bomb suit offered little protection from swords above the trauma plate on their stomach, which Sil avoided. [b]”Dayum.”[/b] He said, looking down at the wound. [b]”Don’t think I’m walkin’ that one off.”[/b] There was no time to exchange words. The yellow gas was creeping up the stairway, and neither esper wanted to inhale it. Samuel took protector and walked past Mamba, but not before slitting his throat out of mercy. But they had a dilemma now. The top of the stairs was set aflame, and the yellow gas was spreading to their position. It might have been possible to run through the non-magical flames, however... The floor erupted with a bang. Bits of carpet and timber filled the air and almost knocked the two espers down the stairs. but the Protector's shield was there to push away the incoming debris. While they weren’t visible, Adder and King Cobra’s voices could be heard from the floor below. [b]”Did you get them?”[/b] [b]”I don’t fucking know, just gun down anything that tries to come down that hole after us.”[/b] The sound of another round being loaded could be heard. [b]”Using the zip lines as a rapple was still a good idea, right?”[/b] [hr] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oMNwI4Gyq0][img]https://i.imgur.com/rtlB6LL.png[/img][/url] [sub][@The World][@Hammerman][/sub] Marrie had a good plan, foiled by one problem. The speed of a stone’s throw was easy to intercept when her target was surrounded by loyal subs willing to die for the cause. Thinking that it was another destructive spell, one of the more-undressed honey-worshippers leapt to his Queen’s defense, taking the projectile right in the chest…only for Marrie to teleport there instead, the windstorm that surged around them causing even the Queen herself to retreat backwards. At such a close range, there was no way for him to stop Marrie from plunging the Apex Predator into his chest, but at the same time, there was no way for her to stop him from spasming out a final shot from his super soaker. Honeyed water splurted over Marrie’s torso, staining her with accursed sweetness before his death caused the expiration of the spell. More debris rained down from the rampant destruction of the warehouse, a falling beam crushing another sub underneath and reducing the Queen’s sting troopers to merely four. Between the magical bullshit occurring and the physical destruction that was practically happening everywhere, she ground her teeth together. If all here died, no one would be alive to tell of her cowardly retreat! [b]“Drones! Pin that wretched assassin down!”[/b] she cried, before forming a triangle with her fingers and rotating it around in a vaguely mystical manner. What true practitioner of the mystical arts, after all, had just [i]one[/i] spell up their non-existent sleeves? Marrie, Tetrad, and the bossbro would all feel something over their bodies, originating from the parts that were stained by honeyed water. It expanded at a regular pace, the watered-down honey turning into something that was so dense in honey it could only be considered a crystallized sludge that dragged their bodies down and [i]restrained[/i] them, some more effectively than others. And as consequence of that, Marrie found herself about to be mobbed by four whole ass grown men while at the corner of her focus, the bulldozer rumbled with ferocious might, intent on crushing the entire fivesome under the power of AMERICAN industry. Tetrad, of course, didn’t fare all that well either. Her spell slowed by her Special and her body slowed by the hardening honey, she made an easy target as the spear-ape hefted his spear back and threw it at her with the finesse of an Olympic athlete. [b]“Banana PEEL!”[/b] he roared in triumph, moments before being clobbered by a light fixture and falling on his ass in a bloodied daze. He would not live to see the results of his throw, but Tetrad would currently live to feel it. Hot pain lanced into her back, a sharpened point digging past skin and fat, into the meat that composed the organism named Tetrad. Relief from pain came with Transplace though, yoinking her through the shattered window of the bulldozer and...onto the lap of a fifty-something construction worker? It must have been a matter of overlap, a matter of accuracy under stress. Aiming for the construction worker at the same instance that the hammer she had thrown at him would've overlapped with his silhouette made for a difficult shot, doubly so when it was a linear beam with no extra modifications stacked on. And thus, there Tetrad was, with an old man's beer belly jiggling like jellied fish against her own. His mouth opened and closed rapidly, forming the syllables for [b]“oh fuck oh shit”[/b] before his fat fingers began groping for his pistol. Now, the ultimate question of speed: was Mr. Butterfingers-Never-Fucked faster? Or was Honey-Slathered-Tetrad the queen of the quickdraw? … In a sad corner of the wrecked warehouse, Daniel Pinkerton, Harvard graduate and valedictorian of his MBA program, huddled underneath a shipping container. Off to the side, his tailored Italian three-piece suit laid, coated in honey crystals and bombarded by bees. Brown and yellow stained his white briefs, his face twisted in humiliation as he pressed his hard hat against his head and pressed his phone against his ears. … Standing as the only ape left, the brawler-ape looked at the two weapons of his fallen brothers: Spear and Hammer, then at the monstrosities that still wrecked havoc upon the Bastion that should have been their shelter away from the judgment of society. They were gone now, but the blood oath they made when they cast away their human skin remained, beating in his heart, telling him to fight on. He picked up the hammer and spear, gripped them tightly in his hands, and let out a breath. [b]“It’s peanut butter jelly time.”[/b] The final-ape has arrived. … Enjoying the symphony of wreckage, the mysterious operator of the wrecking machine continued to swing the black hammer of demolition back and forth, more and more of the warehouse caving in. What god heeded the concerns of ants? None. The countdown continued, the whirlwind of devastation growing closer and closer to the conclusion of this wretched play. [hr] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Pzx1NDTtI][img]https://i.imgur.com/OYSa6cT.png[/img][/url] [sub][@Majoras End][/sub] Lightning ripped down the length of Fable’s rapier. The damage note wasn’t dampened by an area effect this time, so the effect was much more pronounced. The moisture in the crabs bodies became super heated, and the escaping water blew their shells apart like little sticks of dynamite. The mass of crabs had lost one of its arms, but it was still able to follow through with its mean right hook. No matter how potent Fable’s magic, it didn’t change the fact that he had been tugged off balance and was stumbling. By the time he had regained his footing, he had no time to hop out of the way. He braced for impact, but there was only so much a thin rapier could do to soften the strike of a fifty pound crab claw. The uppercut connected. Fable was sent into the air, but was otherwise fine. Monsters did not obey the laws of physics. Despite being just crabs, the Crab Rave could wade through concrete barriers and buildings unimpeded. But espers bent those rules the other way, where monster attacks did far less damage then they should. Fifty pounds of anything to the chin would knock someone out, if it didn’t dislodge their head from their spine first. But Fable only had to deal with some momentary vertigo and a sizable bruise on his cheek. It looked like he had been bullied at school. Just one more reason why espers were the best ones to contend with monsters. But while Fable was soaring away from the mini rave, he was gliding towards one of the larger raves. It opened its four-hundred pound claw in anticipation of Fable’s arrival. Now this would hurt a lot more. But before Fable could decide on a melody to deal with the situation, a portal opened up in front of him. He had enough time to make out an elegantly dressed demi boy and Elroy on the other side. When he flew through the portal, he tumbled across the asphalt road before landing at Zir’s feet. That hurt more than the crab punch. [color=c9272c]“Nice one! Portal Witch!”[/color] Elroy gave his ally a big thumbs up. Mary huffed. [color=1462ba]“You’ve got the doctor, Elroy?“[/color] [color=c9272c]“Yup!”[/color] Elroy was already running straight for the chaos. Binky might have been given a momentary opening while one of the raves was distracted by Fable, but they were now totally surrounded. [color=baddab]”Is that the Immortal Volcano I hear?”[/color] [color=c9272c]“Autographs are after the show!”[/color] For reasons that were mysterious to most, Mary hadn’t acknowledged Fable aside from assisting his escape. Speaking of which, the Crab Rave divided when it came in contact with the portal. Part of the creature was attempting to force itself inside the portal, causing a slew of crabs to spill out the other side. They were shapeless and scattered, but that would change soon. It would just be a moment before another mini rave was created.