@Ponn@Majoraa@ERode The gemini agents were surrounded, they needed a way out.
Anyone who practiced chess would tell you that you always needed to put some pressure on your opponent. Being too defensive allowed your opponent to spread out and surround you, promising a difficult, if not impossible, end game. Ashley may have opened the window to allow her backup a shot inside, but by this point the cowboys had figured her out. The moment she attacked, she was vulnerable for the briefest of moments. When she stretched out her arm to fire, one of the cowboys grabbed her arm and pulled her off balance. Another cowboy grabbed her shield while she stumbled. Ashley wouldn’t relinquish her shield so easily, but with her arms pulled out to either side, there wasn’t much she could do to protect herself. One of them gouged her shoulder with a beer bottle, another delivered a straight punch directly into her kidney. Then her melody went off to shield her from the next few blows. A punch to the stomach, having a bottle broken over her head, hopefully her backup would fire soon.
The situation around Estelle was plenty chaotic. But regardless of what the other agents were saying over coms or what sort of chaos was erupting around the bar, her objective remained consistent. She had to get those teenagers out of here. Everything else was a distraction. Estelle kept her goal in her mind and moved.
Estelle’s Dai-Katana was a potent tool for defense, and one that could make for some fairly absurd situations. But when the ward and chair collided, it didn’t quite have the effect that Estelle desired. The ward operated by taking an incoming force and redirecting it with an equal and opposite force, at least when it was physically struck. The drunk biker wasn’t a monster, and wasn’t swinging with
nearly enough force to lift his own body high enough to get swatted by fan blades. The stool flew out of his drunken hands and pierced the particle board ceiling. Dante hadn’t been keeping up with maintenance, so the stool was more than enough to bring down the rotted truss that the fan was attached to. Spinning blades fell, the bikers stumbled backwards, Estelle slid forward as the entire mess crashed down behind her. It wasn’t as “fun” as what she had envisioned, but the end result was the same: The teenagers had a clear shot.
After Estelle relayed her orders, she set off to distract the goons left at the bar. She knocked over a table, prepared a melody, swung her fist… and something wrapped around her neck.
The dryads had indeed
not rooted her legs a second time. Instead, the shapeless fey creatures decided to reach across the room to coil their tendril-like vines around her. One snagged her neck and tugged her backwards over the table she knocked over moments before. The fan that had fallen earlier may have been a threat to the bikers, but it wasn’t much to a group of monsters. But before she was sling-shotted backwards, she managed to reach out a finger and touch the Mage’s shoulder. The resulting mana-burning field caught the dryad sitting next to him.
The mage up until this point had remained seated. He was just keeping his head down pretending not to be there while these other bikers beat the snot out of each other. The Shadow Wizard Money Gang didn’t have that many members after the Shadow Government switched over to recruiting espers only. Now all they had were their bikes and their spells.
”Hey man!” The wizard pointed at Estelle with a finger that had no less than three rings on it.
”Keep me outta that shit!” Otherwise, he made no other motion towards the esper that was getting dragged backwards towards a mob of angry drunk bikers. The dryads sitting next to him were not as merciful, and rushed towards Estelle even as the bikers took turns trying to kick her, with a few making a move for the sword she was holding.
At least the girls were moving now. All but one had taken the opportunity to retreat with their unconscious friend. While the stubborn one remained by the jukebox, the other three carried their unconscious friend towards the front of the diner. The last obstacle in their way was all the bikers near the front door.
And then there was Finn. Bound, choking, and about to get the beating of his life. Despite his age, he could see what was going on around here better than everyone. Everything was turning to shit, and someone had to do something about it. They couldn’t play nice anymore. It was kill or be killed.
Fuck it.
His body erupted with a melody, sending arcs of lightning into anything and everything nearby. The cash register went on the fritz, the lights blew out, but most importantly, the vines around his body loosened up. The dryads screeched out animalistic sounds, but they had been paralyzed by the attack. How fitting that the first thing Finn cut would be made of wood? Their vines, their bodies, Atropos sawed through them in seconds. The dryads howled their last as Finn was sprayed with sap and blood. He’d do it this time. He’d save everyone.
With a “Nyah!” a bolt of violet energy flew through the window and landed next to some of the cowboys. It exploded into a chromatic display of hearts, clouds, and horses, and managed to put four of the cowboys to sleep. It would take Violet a bit to neutralize the entire bar, but at least now Ashley could use one of her arms again. The cowboy holding her wand was fast asleep.
The wizards were far less amused with this display.
”Holy shit! That boy ain’t fuckin’ around!” One of the three at the back of the diner pointed out.
”That bitch attacked my boy by the counter too. If we wait too long, we’ll be next.””Know what I’m thinkin’?””Level four fireball?””Fuck yea!”The three wizards stepped out of their cubicle. One of them grew a fireball in the palm of his hand while the other two traced symbols in the air.
@VertigoThe nerd continued to stare in disbelief as the “oni girl” left his room. It wasn’t clear if he didn’t hear her, or was in such a state of shock that he couldn’t physically react. Upon leaving the room, “Viper” had a similar reaction. They gave Ciri a thousand mile stare as she told them to to stay out of her way, more or less.
”Hmm…”Ciri sent off her gorilla to find a hiding place, and then she looked down the stairs while asking her friend for a time. But before she got a response, she could hear the familiar “boom” of a shotgun being fired. Ciri turned just in time to see her minion fall onto its back with a giant hole in its chest. Moments later, the gorilla’s body melted into a puddle of inky darkness and dissipated.
The SPAS-12 was a famous gun, largely due to its appearance in movies and videogames. But it was made at an interesting time when the french police force wanted a gun that could do
everything. Part of that everything was the specific use case of being fired with one hand while driving a squad car. It’s not difficult to see why they eventually moved on to more specialized guns that were lighter and easier to maintain. But for an esper, being able to hold a shotgun in one hand and another weapon in the other was a rather nifty trait to have. There was no time to cast a melody, and the barrel was already being swung in Ciri’s direction. She had to take cover.
She dove back into the nerd’s room. He must have been thinking of watching her down the hall, because he was in the doorway when she decided to dive back in. The shotgun went off again, and Ciri fell on top of the nerd, pinning him to the ground.
”Uh…” He remained very still as his eyes examined everything in his immediate surroundings.
Then Ciri got a message back from her friend. He couldn’t actually speak, but the sounds she got back let her know he was saying something along the lines of “He’s slippery.” She could hear another wall break down as the dragon dove back outside, this time lunging out of the hotel and falling into the street. He grabbed onto the adjacent building with his fingers, but this was less to get a hand hold and more to slow his descent. As soon as he was on the ground, he started running out of the alley.
Ciri might be able to try and settle the score with the esper here, but her friend wouldn’t be able to stop the fleeing dragon all by themselves. She didn’t have long before the mysterious esper came through the door.
@The World@Nakushita@TaintedMushroom@FamishedPantsJustin threw his melody towards the window frame. The glowing ball of electricity might not have struck as fast as a lightning bolt, but it was much faster to get out there, which was what he needed to not become a human torch. However, that slower speed allowed Bobo to react to it. Her eyebrows went up as she stepped away from the window, just as Justin’s projectile bounced to its final resting place. Before he was doused in liquid napalm, he had appeared on the balcony with everyone else. But he wasn’t behind Bobo, he was in front of her.
”Glad you could finally join us.” she grumbled. And with that, all of the espers were inside St Bianchi Church.
Marrie had too many monkeys on her back, so she went intangible, briefly turning into a cloud of fog to get Nova off of her. The nun fell onto her feet, and Marrie attempted to wrap the chain of Apexer around Nova while also poking Lenore with the melody charged tip of her knife. But that was a little counterintuitive, wasn’t it? Apexer had great reach, but with the chain wrapped around Nova, she could only ever get eight or so feet away from her. Nova dug her heels into the ground and took hold of the chain weapon. And pressed her back against the chain. Marrie might have been able to stab Lenore, but she was already running after Mika and Sovereign. She looked over her shoulder and winked as she further distanced herself. Apexer blasted mist out of the edge of its blade as the melody dissipated.
Shotguns were traditionally loaded with standard buckshot, but Asher’s Hatred was only ever loaded with slugs and hellfire. They weren’t particularly accurate, especially when fired on the run, but at this range Asher would have to be a stormtrooper to miss with both shots. One of the shells punched a hole through a construction worker’s chest, right while he was stumbling towards some cover. He finally collapsed near Marrie, wounded but alive. But it was at this distance that she could see why they had such strange head gear. They weren’t wearing goggles, their eyes had been replaced with
cathode ray tubes. Her memories of her first operation in Pax surfaced.
Meanwhile, Asher engaged the other gunman in some guntana. He kept his firearm in his hands, but used it to block the incoming blow before kicking Asher in the chest. Though this did more to push himself backwards than it did push Asher away. He’d bought Asher some time to act, but he looked like he was arming his underbarrel grenade launcher.
"I feel like I’ve been taking crazy pills!"— Mika FangFor everything that was going on, Sovereign seemed pretty chill with it. Even now, she was cracking jokes and moving like
a lunatic with a sword wasn’t trying to end them. That would have been a surprise, but she chose to work for Oros after she cut off her arm. Maybe this level of insanity was necessary for espers. At the very least, being helped to her feet was one of the more pleasant experiences she had when it came to an esper touching her. With a groan, she forced Angelie out of her head.
I really wish there was a way I could write that without inviting more punsSuddenly, and without warning, the balcony where Justin was standing suddenly collapsed. It was as if an invisible swordsman had cut through the wooden structure beneath him. No sooner had Justin made his way in did the floor give way beneath him. There was barely time for a quip at Bobo. As he fell, Lenore extended her hand, and a bean of blacklight hit him. As soon as Sovereign started firing, Lenore and Justin
switched places, and she was now firing on someone who owed her a comic.
"Okay." Mika sighed.
"I’ll take Lenore, you get the gunmen." Mika growled before charging towards the sadistic nun, who only smiled back at her, black sword in hand.
Nova took a pull of her cigarette, and suddenly the area around her became
very smokey. Marrie could feel her chain come loose, as it was no longer around the smoking nun. Though now she couldn’t see anything, and the smoke was only making her weaker.
Bobo pointed off the balcony.
”You still have ammo, don’t you? Keep shooting!”It wouldn’t be long before they started firing again. This time they had men on every level, leaving few places to hide.
