[color=lightgreen][center][h3][i][b]Day 1: 17:30:05 The World's End Pub Village of Pristupin, Libor Province Republic of Polavia [/b][/i][/h3][/center][/color] [color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Shots Fired[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color] Oksana being carried turned her face into a near growl, as she was thrown to the side and Borys started giving Felix shit, letting go. She didn't intervene, no answer out of him was satisfactory. Felix didn't much appreciate it either, but he was just more blunt. "Go fuck yourself, Borys. Aren't I just lucky you're too shitfaced for me to find out if you taste better than a horse. Bastard." Felix wryly smirked, knowing he could contain himself, but after a couple of shots, he was significantly looser. He slid a shot to him, in the international sign of "I didn't like what you did, but I'd drink with you anyway". The sight of Keodis's chair snapping as if on cue added to that, a bit of peak comedy to make this already messy shitshow get even more complex. The massive man on the floor, Felix offered a hand, sighing, passing his glass to the fallen man, who had been spectating. A giant of a man, who carried a load of armour and went in and where a lion wasn't working out to do surgical work, he would be employed to liberally pepper the area in question in UXO. If pyromaniacs were addicted to setting stuff on fire, he was fairly sure Keodis was addicted to explosions. His craft just pushed that a little further along. "You were saying?" Felix chuckled, pulling him up, Oksana even chirping in. "Yes, Keodis was good. And I saved him, yes. He kicked in doors, blew up lots of shit, detonated a lot of people. You know, I saw you die lots. Worst one was that mortar round. I couldn't see that out of my dreams in week. All that armour, he was like...." Oksana put her hands up, before making an explosion noise, talking at both the team and Keodis. The arrival of Rowan, who sidestepped the mess seemed to make things a little more orderly. Felix had good memories of Rowan. A wild witch, but no less professional, competent, versed. Cerebral, she was a clever one, but no less versatile. With the shots in their hands, a collective clink, even from Oksana, who kept a scowling face, Rowan's reaction making it clear what most thought after clearing the shot. "Yeah....it sorta gives me a hint that it is like paint thinner, you know?" Felix commented on that point, Oksana shotting the rest of hers. "Everything in the regime has two uses...be careful, Rowan, molotov doesn't just need a cauldron to make, just some personal sacrifice" She giggled in her accented self, now getting more rat-arsed herself, allowing this luxury. Felix heard what Rowan had to say, knowing it was an obvious question, but the answer was maybe more simple, coming back to it about how he got here. "Got nowhere to go because despite the investigation suggesting command knew I should have been fed, I still fucking 'ate a horse, didn't I? And I had more than enough years behind me to justify that being at least a written warning, not this. So here we are. I guess the village is the first one off the road on the way from Kralovec to Novy Jork, so we all made similar choices. Has cheap accommodation, and it's far enough inland that it keeps us out of the way. Chance is a fine thing....every village must be full of Reactor mercs in northern Polavia looking for a drink and maybe a way back. Guess we're filling the void by having money to burn, and bars to fill. Like on the Liboli border all over again." Felix replied, looking around to the others, hearing their responses. Screwed, fucked over, and generally, with nowhere to turn. This had been, by most likely, the place they'd wanted to go. Out of Kralovec, not so deep in the woods they'd barely speak the language, but also, on a bus route. Public transport was crap in Polavia, but the buses, as carbon monoxide making as they were, got people where they needed to on the muddy tracks. Midway through Keodis's reasons, the Polavian Watcher-Witch bolted upright. "Shit!" Oksana seemed to snap out of nothing, and yanked the bottle the group were pouring shots from, throwing it as hard as she could away, with an almost olympic-level discus throw of spinny vodka bottle in flight. And then throwing herself over the bar. When a seer does that, you immediately have to think it's not ending well. Before Felix even had a chance to yell, suddenly watched everything started getting blurry. The bottle was in mid flight, soaring towards a particularly bald, particularly bankrupt looking drunk man at a big table full of big drunk men. And then it.... ////////////////////////////////////////////////////-/-/-//-----------------------------------------///////////////////// [i]Stopped. Everything did. The barman pouring an amber gold pint. The television on the far screen displaying smoke and pyro on a football game in the capital. The light flickered, as every single pint drunk, shouting match, yelling across the bar, went dead, pitch, silent. Spit in midair. It felt cool as fuck if you glanced for a second, but the crafters would realise, they could move, nobody else could.[/i] Beads at the entry door brushed aside, the black outlines rushing in filled the void, unaffected by time coming to a halt. Time had frozen, one smaller witch at the back looking like her hands were out, eyes out, holding the bubble out to stop time itself inside the entire bar. Filling the room like a sort of vapour, affecting everyone....bar the team. The barman in surprise as to what was going on. The drunk locals on the further side of the bar watching the bottle smash into the biggest man at the table's male pattern baldness having head, the glass still splintering. The team moving forwards were fast, and no flashbangs were needed when they had a Holding Witch on their side. She'd frozen time, well, apart from anyone with a craft in the room. Handy when you needed to deal with a sensitive situation like this one. "Special Forces, hands where I can see them, get on your knees!" Felix heard in DSR-accented English, as the main man ran forward, Felix just laughing at this point with how done he was with this bullshit. Five operators total. They pointed guns at every single one of the party, Felix receiving a stock to the stomach when he didn't stop laughing at how shit his luck had truly been, standing aside from the team. Felix had also had a few shots in him, so that felt like it put him into misery once more, the vodka burning on the way up and making it hurt. Sobering fast, but making him want to be sick. But it sucked more that he was on the end of a fucking DSR raid. He'd gone up in the world. At this point, the team might have realised, maybe started thinking that they weren't giving off main character energy. Felix absolutely wasn't. "WIZ-TAC, this is Battlemage Actual, we've got HVT confirmed. Moving to arrest. We'll be twenty mikes to primary extraction." Felix, while on the ground looking around at the others, realising that while guns were pointed, the main one standing over him was bearded and bald. And he recognised him. WIZ-TAC, the DSR's Arcane Special Forces team, certainly had hired someone back he hadn't expected. "Turn and I'll fucking have fun shooting you in the head, kitty cat. Hands where I can see them! Everyone else, hands high or we'll open fire!" The bearded operative called, bald, the G3A3 in arms showing this was not an operative packing little heat, but an esteemed professional. "Harry? Fuck me. You guys really wasting taxpayer money on this bullshit?" Felix recognised him. That was a Reactor merc too. And now he was in WIZ-TAC again? Motherfucker. Felix felt one of the other operators put zip ties into his hands, presented forwards, knowing well, this was par for the course now. "Shut it, Lyons! We will waste taxpayer's money on whatever the fuck command says, so on your feet!" The voice of the bald, bearded operative, came back, the crystalline substance on his robe indicating some sort of talent with crystals, that not entirely coming to Felix in this immediate moment. Even if how surprised he was of all people...it was Hazza fucking Lerwick? The crystals started to bond in his zip ties. That was concerning. "No, like, I genuinely didn't think it would be you. Come on. How'd you do it, blood magic, using the others to make me drink....shit, or even getting them as help? Don't fucking kill them. I'll go easy." Felix sighed, realising that he could turn right now and eat him, the feeling was coiling inside him after all. Just take him. And hope the others had an idea. But then again, that might kill everyone. Not a great call. Man, he fucking wished he had a bit of Oksana's sight here.... The rest of the team had guns in their face too. Rowan being faced down by a thin, dark-haired operator with an M4A1 with the staff in it with a large ruby-like crystal in the end suspended by a light-wood like amber, a SOF helmet with full green MARPAT and a whole plume of flowers across her arm looking like some energy magic was up her sleeve. Keodis with a bulkier looking, dark-skinned dude with an M249 that appeared to look like he had something else up his sleeve beyond many gym sessions. And Borys was simply facing down a balaclava-wearing, red-eyed, robe wearing, MP5-carrying operator that looked like a stereotypical SAS breacher mixed with a warlock, looking like he could summon something. The witch at the back seemed to be the lightest armed, with a sleeveless robe, with a MPX across her bandolier, hands out, holding the bubble like she was blowing it out. "Just you, your actions. The honeypot worked." Harry seemed almost proud of himself, as Felix sighed. The house was far too cheap for a reason. It wasn't a vial of blood, not even a sample of something else. Felix replied in turn, taking a good look at his captor. "You're so unprofessional. Fucking doing it in broad daylight, you that brave?" Felix vocalised- Wwy wouldn't Harry just shut the fuck up on his victory lap? There was a rustle, the bubble holding for now, as the team were having guns kept close to them, making them think twice about reacting. They were probably realising they weren't here for them, but for Felix. Oksana clambered around behind the bar, knowing this was critical. What she'd done had been stupid, but then again, a raid was in nobody's interest. Even if it was just Felix they were after, actions were in motion she could see going badly, even with the horrid interference from that fucking witch's holding bubble, freezing time itself. And she was a fucking idiot for this, because all she saw was chaos theory in front of her. If she did this, it was going to go poorly. But she was enough vodka shots down to ignore concequences, and well, realise that the part of her that wanted this, made this clear, was that her drinking session was interrupted. She didn't give a fuck if it was DSR Special Forces, she had already started the chain reaction of consequences that would end badly for everyone once the team took Felix away. If they took him, they were getting their asses beat by the far end of the bar. So, Oksana was ready to face it. After she'd sorted a few things from her position out of the way. Standing from behind the bar, hands up, guns turning to her standing up, and knowing she had all eyes when they hadn't accounted for the lithe Polavian, she opened her mouth. "He's an asshole. But would you mind? We were just drinking. So...." She dryly commented, PB hidden tucked into her combat pants, on her back. Suddenly, the witch at the back started to look like she convulsed. "Idi Nahui!" Oksana yelled, in perfect, prim, Polavian, well and truly, a "Go Fuck Yourself" delivered in a manner that felt almost too cinematic. The entire bubble of time burst. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////-/-/-//-----------------------------------------///////////////////// And before anyone could do anything, the rest of the scream could be heard as the slow-motion events that the entire team had seen happen, now unfolded with the vodka bottle in contact. [h1]"BLYAT!"[/h1] The voice screamed at the far end of the bar. Blood pissed across the wall, glass exploding, vodka soaking. And as if by almost a convulsion, the special forces team raiding the bar had a bigger problem to deal with. A load of drunk Polavian workers who were having their drinking session, the bald man the bottle hit, who in this instance, looked so drunk with his square glasses on that he seemed like he was lumbering across with blood pouring out of him as if it gave him a warpath. The rest of his friends were sharing his aura. That wasn't magic, that was just Polavian drinking power. "Debil, don't fucking ruin a good thing!" Oksana yelled out to the raiding team, the spray of rounds from one of the operators smacking wood as she dived already harmlessly out of way, the barman yelling out as well, getting into cover as Oksana chuckled, already picking bottles from the fridge. Not for consumption. She had ideas beyond her sight, but her being drunk and able to see the future could see she wouldn't die if she did it right, and that the team would have time to react. "Shit, grab the asset and let's go!" Another voice yelled, as Felix barged into "Harry" from his knees to stun him even with a gun in point blank, running the other way that Oksana did as she threw herself over the bar and the others had their chance to get free, who smacked a vodka bottle into Harry's head, throwing the remaining bit at another operative who didn't realise that dealing with a seer came with her being able to see what moves in the future stopped her from being killed. "Smashing!" Felix yelled back, looking to the onrushing stampede of the other side of the bar wanting to pick a fight with everyone. Including the mercenaries. He peeled the zip tie open on a shard of glass behind the bar, looking at the scene before him. The crystals made it harder, he'd been lucky they hadn't hardened yet, but that felt like enough of a pain in the ass with the warm water and pure aggression he'd needed to channel to get them off while the team got to work. It was hard to tell what was real and what was fake- none of this made sense, so the only thing in a Polavian bar fight was maybe to try and not die. There was a mess of bodies, more Polavians who were sober even joining in, but most, were absolutely more drunk than even Borys. And that was saying something. They were mostly teethless, stupid, and worse, angry they were interrupted. Killing the special forces team was probably a bad idea. But running for now was a good one, at least disabling or knocking them out, as Oksana was kicked by the man that had Keodis covered from a stray leg, knocked hard into the floor in a moment her vision couldn't see due to the good old, being drunk and in the midst of the worst chaos theory she had experienced in a while, Felix running hard at him yet being interrupted by bleeding, drunk bald guy who came in flying with what was almost a drunk rugby tackle? Pushing him aside, Keodis's assailant was then pushed over, as he sprayed rounds but immediately had his LMG picked from him, before he got a kick in and shoved the men away, going for Keodis once more, and it looked like with a staff he carried on the side of his rucksack, he was able to influence and move objects. Telekinesis of some kind? It looked like it, though the stool he was dragging needed to pick up momentum before it smacked two of the men charging after him, before he had an open angle. The entire bar was in conflict, most of the special forces team disarmed...well, until, a massive bolt of reddish energy suddenly rupturing a wall from the M4-carrying witch with an elemental staff in her barrel and two innocent bar goers turned into mush, as that soldier had her M4 ripped out of hands and punched in the face by another drunk publican and was immediately set upon by at least three drunk bar goers. "We need to leave, right now!" Oksana yelled out, knowing that the situation had totally broken into shit. Where they were going? Oksana wasn't quite sure. She had a hand on her bag, and pulled it up into her shoulder, Felix barely clambering up and the two hoping that Keodis, Rowan and Borys had sorted themselves out. "Where we going?" "I have an idea!"