Diarmi knew he'd been quick enough - he hadn't been granted superspeed by any means, but the horizontal distance hadn't been that large either - and he knew he'd stood in the right spot, because, technically, the purple substance HAD landed in his hands. It was just that it ran through his fingers like water. Like warm, viscous, colored water.

More like blood, really.

Diarmi had never understood the cliche of "a shiver running down your spine" before that moment, but that sudden connection forced understanding on him. It didn't help that it wasn't clear if the bird monster had killed that lady or not, and if it had, what good had felling it done? What was-

He was disrupted from his spiraling thoughts by the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, extending from a bare, muscular, [i]translucent[/i] arm. "Look," the disembodied-no-longer voice said, now coming from a young man with a serious-looking gash across his stomach, barely covered by a bear's pelt (that, Diarmi realized, looked an awful lot like the one now slung over his own shoulder). He pulled himself out of his thoughts to observe the purple energy snaking about just above the asphalt and dive into - a man. Huh. Hopefully that stuff was interchangeable. More notably, it was now clear somehow that the man was alive. He couldn't put his finger on it - the man didn't have color return to his cheeks, it wasn't like he was now heaving for breath, he still wasn't moving. It was just that sort of instinct, the kind that told people whether or not they were looking at a corpse, and Diarmi knew he was not looking at a corpse. Good. He ran to retrieve his ax and quickly moved to cover for a fleeing civilian, wondering if he could throw his ax in such a way that it'd return to his hand. 

"-y!"

"Hrm?" The ghostly young man seemed curious about the cry, taking Diarmi's attention with him. Diarmi didn't regret looking - there was another fighter! She carried with her a massive sword, dressed more for battle than Diarmi - well, had been. He hadn't paid much attention to his own outfit change. (He missed his jacket and scarf, sure, but the bearskin was pretty awesome now that he reflected on it.) Wait, she was still speaking.

“Hey! Try and see if you can find something they’re bringing that purple stuff to!”

“Sure! That one has a ‘purple stuff’ with it!” And another voice! Diarmi turned to see another fighter! And she was fighting with [i]her bear hands[/i]. She was gesturing upwards, further down the road - ah, right, yeah. Still fighting. Be starstruck later.

"I got it!" He didn't have the quickstep the first fighter seemed to have (superspeed? Some kind of variation on that?), but he wasn't slow to begin with, and he could spare the energy. Besides, he was still trying to figure out if he could throw the ax like a boomerang, and that seemed to distress the injured spirit so maybe focusing on something else would be a good idea. He left the road, going up the sidewalk and up the buildings alongside it to keep from tripping over bird-monsters and Schrodinger's corpses. He made a mental note: this whole deal seemed to have afforded him some more stamina. Neat.

He perched on a building's ledge (if you could call that 2-inch-wide molding between stories a 'ledge'), watching the bird-monster to see where it was going. One hand clung to the corner of the building for balance as he crouched, trying to get a tiny bit closer to see and hear better, while the other clutched at the ax he'd been given. Several other bird-monsters had come this way as well. Oh, man, how many had there been? How in the world were three of them meant to clean all this up?

"This all feels familiar." Once again, the spirit knocked Diarmi from his spiraling. He kept quiet, though, doubting he had any way to speak with the spirit that couldn't be overheard. "I've done this before. Not this specifically, but fighting a battle like this. I think I recall it ending well, at least." Well, that was a surprisingly uplifting sentiment.

"Thanks, ghost," Diarmi whispered back.

"My name is Agmundr. Kindly try to remember it." Diarmi simply nodded in response, preparing to move with the bird monsters.