[b][i]Chapter One, Desperation in Lingayen, Part Eight[/i][/b] [b]Lingayen Beach, Municipality of Lingayen, Lingayen Gulf - 9/25/2022, 17:15 UTC+8[/b] Noel nodded, saying, "Of course, you can -" before he was blinded full-on by the flash of light from Huo Ren's spear. As he stood blinded by the light, Noel said to Nemo, "You have a healing ability, right? If you can use it, do it now so I can get my eyesight back faster!" Meanwhile, the head-to-head battle with the Zodiac's Dragon was going... debatably well. As Fukyuko stumbled away, shins scorched by the grazing blow of Huo Ren's superheated spear, the man in question smiled grimly and made to pursue. Allowing his spear to slide down his grip, he extended his effective reach. Blinded and disoriented, the Japanese princess would have no feasible way to dodge his follow-up. Cruel amber eyes snapped to the incoming pale-haired bodyguard of the princess, and Huo Ren's continence darkened at the continued interference. "Safety?" he hissed all too coldly at her words. His spear's edge flared again without warning or build-up, instead of a mere flash, a continuous near-searing sheen glaring off its length, heatwaves billowing oppressively out from his position. "Know your place in a battle between the Strong, [i]insect[/i]." His right arm readjusted his grip on his spear, the blow he had been aiming for the princess beginning to redirect towards the incoming bodyguard, as the heat intensified explosively, the very sand beneath the nearby fighters' feet seeming to glow searingly. A violent explosion of hissing sand erupted behind Huo Ren, a ringing thump of impact thundering out in time with the dying eddies of a sharp shriek and flash that had torn through the air overhead faster than the eye could blink. With a spray of crimson mist, Huo Ren... went flying, his entire body abruptly ragdolled away from the impact site, tumbling for a brief, uncontrollable moment through the sands. Spitting sand furiously, the sun wielder staggered to a sense of composure on his knees, his spear having been flung away to pierce the war-torn beach like the grim gravestone of a battlefield from a medieval time. The heat was no longer quite as oppressive in the immediate area, but that didn't mean the sands weren't still hotter than the hottest desert wasteland. "What?!" His face screwed up in equal parts fury and confusion, Huo Ren boggled... at the sight of his suddenly absent left arm, nowhere to be seen, a trail of crimson following his tumbling path. Snarling, his amber eyes seemed to glow with an inner fiery wrath, even with his spear out of hand, as he glared at the barrier... and the shadow writhing within. "[i]Traitor-![/i]" Even despite his injury and disorientation, in the absence of his own light and having been bodily spun around by the prior blow, the incoming flare of Nico's presence could hardly be missed. The speedster blazed across the heated sands like a lesser comet, the oppressive heat from below searing into his soles with every step closer. For while he was protected from his own flames, the same did not hold true for others. Even so, he persisted, but the hesitation and hotfoot stepping the oppressive heat would naturally create was enough. Huo Ren's spear disappeared from where it lay out of his grip. He wasn't fast. No, not by far was he quick enough to physically avoid Nico's attack, especially not severely injured and nearly prone. He was a living artillery, best suited to backline support, a commanding position. Frontline fights, for all that he could crush lesser foes in mass with the best of them as any A-Rank worth their salt could, pit him against a dedicated frontline fighter or two… and even he had to admit, he was in a spot of trouble. His opponent was charging him head-on, so naturally, Huo Ren responded as any half-competent spearman would. His Noble Arm reappeared in a flicker beside him with one hand gripping the opposite end of the shaft from the head, the functionally instantaneous dispelling and summoning process his only practical way to respond to such a blazingly fast opponent. And so, he repositioned it exactly in Nico’s path, right into his momentum, his straight-forward charge. Huo Ren’s spear, propped up and beginning to glow with heat, was now inches away from impaling Nico upon his own momentum. Success or fail, Huo Ren grit his teeth in fury and [i]spat[/i]. From his lips, an eye-searing burst of blue flames spilled forth like a tsunami in the direction of Fuyuko and Rin. Thankfully, the stream was thin enough at the start that it could still be dodged narrowly by both girls, even if it would still result in nasty burns just from the proximity. Like the Dragon he was bestowed with the title of, Huo Ren exhaled powerfully. Veins of effort and strain bulged on his forehead, and his own skin reddened and flaked from the heat that he had not the concentration to fully protect himself from. The stream of blue fire then blazed white-hot, crashing into Ari’s weakened barrier in a tidal wave of destruction. Superheated sand shone like the sun all around, as the glowing barrier shuddered… cracked… and then [i]shattered[/i]. “[i]Finally,[/i]” he couldn’t help but muse. His role to play was almost done. Just one final stretch, one last push through the pain and pests, and he could stop wallowing in the dirt with these insects and their traitorous [i]Snake[/i]. The plan was almost complete. He could sacrifice a little dignity now… to revel in absolute victory later. After all, he was [i]The Dragon[/i]. He was [i][b]The Strong[/b][/i]. And a Dragon would allow nothing less. [hr] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/jTF3TpV.png[/img] [h3][color=f7941d]Callie[/color] / [color=00aeef]Henri[/color] / [color=8F00FF]Nil[/color][/h3] [@Nimbus] / [@Chiro] / [@Gerlando][/center] [hider=Team Callie Collab] Horror. It seized her, clawing at her through the tiredness, freezing. So many people, first around her, then [i]gone[/i]. No cause visible, and this power fit with [i]none[/i] of the Zodiac. They had not taken that next step quickly enough. And so when Sophist made his suggestion… [color=f7941d]“No!”[/color] Callie [i]roared[/i]. She looked back at Lingayen, searching rapidly for a temporary position.[color=f7941d]“You’ll crush anyone who’s still alive - do [i]not[/i] tell me you can’t think of better than that!”[/color] [color=f7941d][i]Not happening. Not on my watch.[/i] Never [i]on my watch.[/i][/color] [color=00aeef]”I suppose I could try and revert this mass to its original state,”[/color] Henri suggested, [color=00aeef]”get them out that way… Or maybe not. Too many variables.”[/color] Sophist, however, was already lifting up a large section of earth and soil, digging out a Philippine Marine who had been buried as he did so and letting them float beside Callie and her team. Then he spoke, even as he did it again, and again, and a fourth then a fifth, lifting four more buried soldiers out of the earth as fast as possible lest the enemy buries them deeper. “[i]There[/i], thought of something better than that.” [color=00aeef]”That works, too,”[/color] Henri admitted while taking a guard point. An interested pair of blue eyes looked at the marines being dug out, then at Sophist [color=8F00FF]”You can…”[/color] she said trying to gesticulate something being lifted up [color=8F00FF]”get out the enemy?”[/color] Sophist responded with a nod and said, “Yes, yes I can, if I can move fast enough.” [color=f7941d]“Then we do that!”[/color] Callie turned her head back, portal already forming to evacuate the soldiery. [color=f7941d][i]Need to be fast - no telling their snipers’ positions and we’re [/i] horribly [i]exposed here.[/i] “Nil, more staves - blast away any cover left the [i]moment[/i] they appear. Then you rush ‘em, Sergeant - can portal if needed.”[/color] Setting her jaw, she slotted Charter into position on her rifle. [color=f7941d][i]Then, if the blasts haven’t done it… Old-fashioned lead will.[/i][/color] Callie's warning to Sophist not to use his powers in such a manner rang true... but not for the reasons she might have suspected. No... it was far worse. Sophist had dug into the sands, his gravitational powers wrenching free a couple of hostages, allied soldiers. It wasn't hard to find them. The enemy Arms Master had left them buried beneath the sands entirely but left them each a singular breathing hole, pock-marking the beach and hillside with a smattering of entrances akin to gopher burrows. Why had she left the soldiers intact? Possibly as an insurance policy. Effective hostages one and all. It would seem a safe bet on the enemy's part that this area would not be subjected to artillery strikes of either the mundane or Noble Arm variety so long as the hostages remained. It was a ruthless, cruel strategy that took complete advantage of the assumption of the opposition's morality... where the enemy might have little to none. That said, a hostage scenario was only as good as your willingness to carry through with the implied threat. The moment the third hostage left the earth, the ground rippled. A spear of glass -no, something more akin to a fusion between a spear and a sword, unnaturally smooth, slid from it like warm butter and cleaved the briefly relieved soldier in half in a shower of gore and entrails, painting the earth below crimson. That was far from the end of it. The screams of horror from the two rescued soldiers were joined by a muffled chorus, as every last breathing hole slammed shut, the earth beginning to writhe. From above, Sophist and Callie through her sight of her Noble Arm could see a portion of the ground shape into a cruel facsimile of a face, a shark-like smile spreading far wider than any human flesh would allow. A hand formed as well, extending a single pointer finger up at the sky. It waggled chidingly. The churning earth... began to bleed crimson, a chorus of muffled fleshy crunching and sickening, shrieking grinding of dirt and glass rippling into the otherwise dead-silent air. A new formation "above" the "face" shifted into a counter, the number going from 247... to 207. The implication was clear. The blood and viscera. The new sea of crimson earth churned sadistically as if maniacally bathing in their own capacity to inflict horror, lapping up the blood of their victims and spreading them as far and wide as they could manage, surely to the torment of the remaining trapped within. The price for saving all 5 people... had been 40 hostages murdered in as horrifically painful and brutal a manner as the sands could manage, 8 lives for every 1 saved. Why that number? It seemed almost arbitrary. Was it chosen at random? Who could say? Regardless, for that singular indiscretion, the heroes... now had Tian Fei's attention. Sophist had no idea what to do and was not afraid of admitting such, “I need a tactician - my specialty is in the occult!” Suddenly, a voice broke in through the comms; female, authoritative, and also lightly accented, although the language used was clearly English and more importantly, understandable, “You have one, soldier! And these are [i]my[/i] men and women you just screwed over, so you’d better listen to me!” The voice then lightened in tone, “Chief Master Sergeant Lorena Cabral of the Philippine Marines here. Been listening in from Lingayen Town. And I have a plan. Sergeant Janssen - the soldier with the Anti-Magic bubble - can probably go around finding my soldiers so that they can be freed if he had a metal detector and some way to move fast. But at the same time, Sophist cannot fly him around as he uses Magic to fly.” She then mused, “We still have helicopters and the enemy air force has retreated before the Viets’ ace pilots; we also repurposed civilian drones for surveillance and emergency cargo transport. Volunteer Lindman can make portals, thus speeding up the time we can send a helicopter with a metal detector here.” [color=f7941d]“Negative, ma’am!” [i]Oh God God God God - how do they have[/i] that [i]precision of control -[/i] “I can’t move something that big, not fast, and even if I could I think whoever this is might just pick others of them to kill!”[/color] Trying to swallow down the panic, the [i]bile[/i]... [color=f7941d][i]We need to find them. We need to find them[/i] now.[/color] Callie gritted her teeth. With the earth still shaking, there was a chance she could plunge her vision beneath the ground… But searching hundreds of places would take far too long. [color=f7941d]“Anyone we have with a detection Arm‽ They I could get here!”[/color] CMS Cabral replied, “No one in the area, sadly. We can get one from Trinidad Academy itself, but even then…” [color=00aeef]”All right,”[/color] Henri spoke, [color=00aeef]”let’s think clearly. The armsmaster will react with hostility to us trying to save the marines but also keeps them alive for now, so there’s at least some use for them. What do we know of this Tian Fei? What is their reach? Does the arms master need to be close by to enact the earth shaping, or could they be on the other side of the city, for all we know?”[/color] [color=f7941d][i]‘Tian Fei’ - of course, [/i]of goddamned course.[/color] Her mind hadn’t even made the connection, caught up in the fates of those around her as it was, but now the lesson rushed back - an earth manipulator, obviously, powerful but not well-known outside her home country, nor her abilities beyond the general understanding of Noble Arms’ limits. Callie gave a nod to Henri, taking a moment, letting herself breathe. [color=f7941d][i]Focus now. Focus.[/i][/color] [color=f7941d][i]How do we beat that?[/i][/color] “Maximum range is the size of a major city, but I have reason to believe she’d be in the very hills you’re in.” Cabral’s voice. [color=f7941d][i]Right, affecting a huge area targeting everyone spread out to Lingayen’s West - very likely to be somewhere…[/i][/color] [color=f7941d][i]If she - no, she might -[/i] what other options do you have? [i]You[/i] have [i]detection and it’s[/i] you.[/color] [color=f7941d]“Sergeant, get ready,”[/color] Callie intoned, just loudly enough for him to hear above the din of battle. [color=f7941d]“May need you to run, disable, or both, on my signal.”[/color] Then she placed Charter to her eye, near-instantly forming a portal directly before it - tiny in size but still offering a window to high above the hillsides. Another deep breath - only another pulse of tiredness but still an unfriendly reminder of the greater weariness setting into her bones. Callie pursed her lips. From here she could see the devastation of the quake, the fallen trees, the few buildings out here reduced to rubble… In all likelihood, Tian Fei was likely somewhere close to the middle but that was still far too large to search systematically, especially in the chaos. So Callie did what she had learned to do: she focused on the bond between herself and her Charter, letting her mind, her instinct and her intuition join with it, with the moment, with the vision through it. It would guide her to the answer. [color=f7941d][i]Choking our soldiers? If she still needs to breathe, hers is the only opening left. She can choke on[/i] that.[/color] Though she may have thought so confidently, such was easier said than done. As her vision encompassed a good portion of the landmass west of the gulf proper, she could see the mountains now quaking dangerously. The rumble of a crumbling world could be heard for miles. Meanwhile, the western beaches were beginning to lurch and ripple, looking from above to be closer to liquid waves of gold and sickening crimson than any granular substance. It was like a strange earthen tide, waxing and waning as if building up momentum, preparing to lurch over the large channel that separated it from the lone remaining central battlefront. It seemed as if Tian Fei’s main assault was beginning. Had she finally gotten ready? Or had the provocation spurred her to start early? Hard to say. Simultaneously, all across the sandy, shifting expanse and the majority of western mountains, something equally strange was happening. Sand and earth writhed, veins of the beach crawling into and up the hills and mountains, sliding in betwixt rapidly forming fissures. From those glittering silicon waves and rivers formed… panes of glass? Indeed, glass. Much like the blade that had rent a human body in half with terrifying ease, but instead more closely resembling unsupported windows. Huge square panes of glass were rising from the mass of sand, 15 feet on a side. The excruciatingly sharp vision of Callie’s Noble Arm could practically see the fusion in motion. Completely sans heat or infrastructure, silicon shifted states freely at its new ruler’s command, crystalline structures morphing and aligning to join in unholy matrimony. A terrifying show of precision and fine manipulation. Macro and simultaneously micro control over not just earth in the traditional sense, but minerals as well. In fact, extending that thought, would that not mean she could control metals as well? After all, they came from the earth too… But that show could hardly distract Callie from her goal. The holes that had allowed their soldiers to be found had closed up, and no matter where she cast her gaze, it seemed… Tian Fei’s had too. It was an incredible gamble. The enemy, in order to not give away their position, likely had enclosed themselves as well, most likely with a much more robust supply of air than her victims. That was what Callie’s intuition screamed. And if that weren’t the case… There was an intrusive little thought that maybe… Tian Fei hadn’t bothered remaining amongst her meat shields at all. What if the entire horror show was a glorified and [i]quite literally red[/i] herring? After all, her range was clearly enormous. Why in the world would she have to comply with common sense or tactics? If that was the case, then the mountains themselves… Where there were ample hills, crevices and large greenery abound to impair line of sight… why couldn’t Tian Fei hide her own breathing hole in a place near impossible to locate…? In any reasonable time, at least. Sergeant Cabral then said, “Qingshe. The former ‘Snake’ of the Zodiac can make us a Super Sonar which can detect underground anomalies, right? We have her give us that then we blast her deep enough to -” [/hider] Thunder sounded on the horizon. Clearly sensing something untoward, Sophist whirled around with a look of unadulterated panic on his face, his attention entirely redirected from the rolling earth below. Shrieks of punctured air ripped closer, as the Egyptian thrust out his hands, a wave of force distorting the air. It happened so fast that only the telekinetic seemed able to respond in time. The first hit sent him reeling, as an artillery shell winged his barrier and thundered into the sands below with a massive plume of silicon. The only grace was that it hadn't been a high explosive shell, as Sophist staggered, before firming himself against its friends. Far too fast for him to even consider grabbing the shells themselves mid-flight, he could only defend, as half a dozen more pounded into his defenses. A stream of blood dripped down his nose, but he held, maintaining his secure grip on Callie's team, shielding them behind himself from the sudden assault. Not for long. A harsher shriek approached, and Sophist could only shake himself to clear his foggy, strained senses in horror. A missile. One had managed to approach in the time the shells had kept him busy. A hand flung out, bleeding energy from the deadly projectile. But it was too close already-! Too fast-! There was too much energy to bleed it dry before- -A shift redirected it somewhat, but the missile corrected. He firmed his barrier. He- Thunder and fire rang with the impact, as four Arms Masters tumbled through the air. Miraculously, Callie's team had seemingly come out only singed and with potentially ringing ears, but Sophist... The Egyptian hurtled senselessly. Unconscious. A nasty burn crawled across the right side of his body, and his legs... were nonexistent stumps. It was quite likely his Noble Arms had saved him, so long as his body remained intact and undisturbed from further harm. But there was no doubt that it was he who was in need of saving now. And as Sophist went, so too did his gravitational hold upon Callie’s team, sending them plummeting towards the earth. By fortune or perhaps foresight on the telekinetic’s part, however, the fall was not long, hardly 20 feet up. And moreover, the landing zone was, for better or worse… a bit softer than packed earth. Callie, Nil and Henri found themselves flopping into the writhing intermittently gold and crimson sands of the western beach, barely missing landing atop the bladed edge of one of the panes of glass below. The waves of sand were surprisingly soft -even if not exactly comfortable- to land upon, and the lurching motions… Well, it was not a place for anyone without sea legs. Though the roiling motions of the sea of silicon continued unfettered, it was more than obvious that the impact of the four Arms Masters hadn’t gone unnoticed. The sands in their near vicinity shuddered, pulsing like a sonar that had finally spotted prey. And then… a rising noise began. The panes of glass currently stabbing out towards the sky began to [i]vibrate[/i]. And with that vibration soon came a warbling, discordant noise, fit to rattle bones and set teeth on edge. A high sound that pitched up and down, before stabilizing into something ominously comprehensible: speech. Words that could be heard crashing from and against the mountains, as silicon [i]sang[/i]. [color=ed1c24][b][i]“Ah~! tHeRe YoU aRe~![/i][/b][/color] There could be no doubt. They were sitting in a sea of imminent death. Only moments and a lack of quick thinking would seal their doom. So far, this was their darkest hour. [@SkyHresvelg][@The World][@Aisede][@MagusDream][@Lewascan2][@Sniblet][@Conscripts][@Senhara][@Creative Chaos]