Eternal Rains (IC) [M] - Closed

[e_voyager]

the wolf had not responded to his prattling even to tell him to shut up. that was not a good sight but still it was a shoulder wound that he saw could be tricky but it was well withing his skills to fix. he would just have to do it step by stop so the blood by repairing the blood pathways with a hemostat spell followed by replenishing the blood supply to lower danger of shock. both could be done at once but he was not ready to do that in the heat of battle.

Epyon was about to begins a healing spell  when he was ordered to move it. after a moment feeling the bullet's  zip past it felt like or or two impacted in his body. Epyon realized he had two choices. on he could bodily lifted the wolf and move away for the action risking the wolf getting even more wounded or he could hope the wolf was tougher then he looked  and try to bring this bottle to and end quickly so that  if he was still alive they could treat his for the injury which while serous was not immidietly  life threatening. not that he could say the same about the bear.  the decision made he's have to trust the wolf to survive on his own for a time and try to help the others

Epyon with his pole back out headed to where he'd seen the bear heading hoping he wasn't too late. if the bear got shot up too much he might die before he'd be of use to him as anything but a distraction.

[Boog]

Ty slammed to the ground when he heard the first shots ring out, pressing himself down as though irregularities in the pavement could conceal his bulk. He took in everything he could as fast as he could.
Some large creature, insect-like, wreaking havoc upon those from the pub.
A wolf screamed, fell to the ground bleeding. The mythos' head pivots toward the source of the shot. Men in suits. Groups of men in matching suits were very, very dangerous things. And these ones had guns.
The succubus sent back buy the bug's punch. More screams, more panic, the group from the pub being forced back.
What was the civilized thing to do?
Not helping never even occurred to Tyrannus. Nobody corrected him on that aspect of the concept versus the practice of civilized behavior.
There is too little to hide behind en route to the guns, and I cannot turn aside bullets. However, without the bug then the other able fighters present may be capable of something useful on that score.
But the men in suits could kill so many before that...
Better take care of the bug fast.
He got to his feet, perhaps too fast judging by the twang somewhere in his knee. He wasn't as young as he used to be, but technically nobody was.
Already charging, still low to the ground. He did his best to avoid the panicked people around him, the sight of them blurring as he focused more intently on the objective.
The slam of the insectis' fist impacting the ground. Annihilation of the cobblestone street around her, the light and scent of magic. Time this right...
The cracking destruction almost beneath him, leap... Something like a long jump, still barreling forward toward the bug.
Tyrranus' jaws parted in a roar as he aimed to collide with his target head on.

[Aisha deCabre]

All around Aisha, everything literally erupted.  After she let fly her arrow and leaped to the ground, it was shaking beneath her feet...no doubt the others felt it too as she heard screaming and cries of surprise, as well as several bodies flying out of the way.  It felt enough like an earthquake that instinct told her to dive under something.  That, she ignored as spikes of earth jutted all across the battlefield...thankfully she was still a safe distance away from the fray as the insectis was still getting rounded upon by others.

Then, gunfire.  Round upon round of bullets that tried to tear into the group without the slightest hint of remorse...explosions of thunder to the ears of the demon.  It didn't matter what it took...these animals were going to have what they wanted back at any cost.  When she found it safe to glance around the building at one point, she found that her target was still standing.

She ducked back behind the stone wall as ricochets took chunks out of it, the claws on her feet gouging the ground in frustration as the sky was also lit by fireballs.  How in HELL could I have missed?!  Unless I didn't...tonta, they're using a gods-damned magic barrier!  I could use my own magic, but...I want my wings to be useful later.

Then she grabbed another arrow out of her arsenal...but this one was different.  Back in her last mission she had enchanted almost half the quiver of the things with poison...fast-acting, nerve-numbing, skin-burning, and sickening...to drop down strong things who also used magic.  She had only one left now, with a glowing green tip to distinguish it.

Dieties of fate, all I need is ONE opportunity...

Bow in hand, she quickly darted from her hiding place and ran across the land-side of the docks.  Still drenched in the shadows, and in the chaos possibly unseen by those who weren't looking for her specifically, the jaguaress ducked behind another pile of crates and watched the state of things.  That arrow was going to be for the barrier-holder, if she could help it.

[SpottedKitty]

Fal'taq smiled grimly as he noticed the green-clad mage send up a counter to his fireball... just too late. He hadn't really expected that attack to do much damage, but taking out one or two of the gunmen with it would be a pleasant bonus. The smile vanished, though, as he felt the Insectis woman's counterspell through his feet rather than hearing its effects — deliberately or not, that Earth-blast had completely neutralised what was supposed to be his main attack. With an angry snarl on his muzzle, he instantly turned his attention back to the fight surrounding the huge chitin-armoured figure just in time to see the curled-up form of Witt come flying at him.

The mole barely had time for an incoherent shout of outrage as he threw up a hasty shield. Not quite quickly enough, though: while the hedgehog bounced off harmlessly (to Fal'taq, at least), the shield spell wasn't properly anchored yet. The force of the collision sent the mole tumbling backwards until he thumped against something solid.

Even with his glasses dangling from one ear and the breath knocked out of his lungs, he was still ready to strike back. Taking a hasty sight on the blurred yellow-and-black form he could just about see in the middle of the fight, he launched a salvo of magical bolts, each one capable of blasting a fist-sized chunk out of normal flesh and bone. He'd never tried this particular spell against such a heavily armoured Insectis, though.

For good measure, he sent another bolt or two in the direction of that idiot mage. Well, it was someone or something green and in roughly the right place, anyway: it was hard to tell without his glasses.

[Stygian]

Had she been able to, the hooded figure would have sworn. As it was, she simply made a low, hissing and rasping noise through her throat, stepping over the canine. Ragged and disheveled as he was, he might as well have been a drifter. But his clothes were a bit too well-made for that. And she had seen where he had come from and what had happened. Still, it was all the more reason not to get involved...
   She was just about to start off, when she lifted her foot, and it slicked slightly to the ground. A strange footprint was left in the redness of the blood, as it started diluting into the rain that wet the stones beneath them. She looked down again, peering at the wolf and the wound to his shoulder. It wasn't in a vital section of his body, nor did it seem to have gone through the joint; it was too off-center for that, and if that were the case his reaction might have been quite different. But bleeding as profusely as it was, it could only have hit a major artery. Which meant that if no one tended to him quickly, he would bleed to death in minutes.
   She looked around. Of course no one else had noticed... Cursing herself, she bent down, and with a strong grip rolled the wolf to the side, starting to lift him and carry him off. One might have thought critically about what she thought she could do, out in the rain and with no medical instruments or bandages to help the man, but in her grumbling determination she would simply make do.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt's voice trailing behind him, he bounced off the shield, up into the air, and into a nearby building, fortunately narrowly missing breaking the glass. By impacting with the wall.

*whump*

"Ooof. Ah, crap. Not again..." He unrolled, blinked, and growled - halfway up the second floor, upside down, and stuck to the wall. And attempting to catch his breath. His knives flicked out, cleaning the blood or possible blood off them by stabbing briefly into the walls, then vanished back into their hidey holes. He glanced down at the scene, then planted his boots on either side of his head and attempted to work himself loose, accompanied by a stream of curses - as expected.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

When the ground shook and the boxes she had taken cover behind began to shake Penny decided to move to a spot behind a shack. Frankly the shack looked less sturdy than the crates but at least it was nominally attached to the ground and theoretically less likely to fall over. As she did she cursed all the show-offy creatures and their tendency to sling both magic and their other freaky natural abilities about. Not that there had been any discretion to this adventure to begin with but if there was a single living or non-living soul in the city who didn't know their location by now she would be surprised.

[Snuggles]

Anton was very please to see the Jackal up but was very badly hurt. When she started to move away from him he touched her. As soon as he touched her a very pleasant warming feeling filled her body as some of the pain started to go away. In addition, she feels new strength growing in her a very powerful feeling that she could lift or throw anything rushing through her. He giggled as he felt the affects start to move through her body. "Now go get her. I will see to your wounds more after the battle." Then the smile left his face as he felt a split second before it happened and jump letting his wings do some of the work and takes to the air. Ok now this is unexpected who is she? and as he looks more at the battle at hand. Who are they?. He starts to visibly cast another spell in mid air.

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

As Izria's fists split and pummeled the ground, throwing up great jagged chunks of rock and mutilating the earth itself, Keaton let out a panicked shriek and started to backpedal, her feet and hands working in dismantled motion to propel her as far away as possible. Injuries to her stomach considered, however, she didn't make it far before the pain immobilized her and she dropped onto her back again in an unceremonious lump. Some of the snaking grooves lacerating the ground crawled past her, cleaving in crooked trails through the cobblestones. Shuddering, Keaton tried to get up again, albeit more gingerly, and heaved again, coughing up another, viscous lungful of blood into her hand. Coughing was becoming less frequent now so she supposed she was getting better, but regardless, it was still not a pleasant experience. Not when she was still evacuating her chest of blood.

The more careful technique worked. Keaton managed to lift herself to her feet, staring with clear anxiousness at the Insectis. For now, she seemed to be distracted from her goal of retrieving Keaton and dragging her, kicking and screaming, back to the Sabanethei headquarters in favor of eliminating her adversaries. Good old Izria, always thinking with her fists instead of her brain.

Keaton didn't have to suffer in silence for long. Anton seemed to realize the severity of her situation and touched her, something which normally would invoke a strong reaction from the frequently deranged jackal. Strength and healing surged through Keaton's body, mending her internal wounds and weaving together the torn and battered muscle and bone... at the end of the spell, Keaton breathed and collapsed against the ground again, coughing. It wasn't out of pain anymore, but out of vestigial shock which still gripped her. Before she could glance to Anton he rocketed into the air and out of sight, leaving her to try and tug herself back to her feet. Her hands groped for Catastrophe, which was strapped to her back, and seized it, thrusting the spiked end into the ground and using it as leverage.

---

...Izria:

Izria withdrew her fists from the ground and clapped them together with an earsplitting crack, still brandishing that manic smirk on her monstrous features. With the strange, variegated, black markings that trisected Izria's eyes, it almost looked like oily trails of ink were running down her cheeks, further accentuating the madness of her grin. Openly satisfied with how she had disposed of the spine-covered hedgehog, she would have focused on working to extricate her legs from the now-partially splintered ice encasing her legs if it wasn't for the swift interception of the (now invisible) Cross's tentacle, which effectively wrapped around her waist and held it in its tight, ethereal grip.

Izria's compound eyes, if such a feat were possible, seemed to go even wider as she stared in abject shock at the pressure applied to her waist seemed to increase. Around Izria's waist was where the chitin seemed to weaken, so it was an easy target for blades and such, if they could infiltrate the leathery exoskeleton protecting her innards. Izria shrieked out another, infuriated battle cry and grabbed at the invisible something looped at her waist, feeling her hands close around something very solid, and squeezed, forcibly wrenching and twisting at the thing until it could possibly relinquish its grip -

- out of the corner of her compound vision, Izria could see Paige leaping at her from over the pinnacles of stone, wielding some sort of weapon she couldn't immediately make out. No, she didn't stop to absorb the sight - Izria felt herself react instinctively. She wrenched again at the tentacle on her waist and whipped it, attempting to sling it - and consequentially Cross with it - at the approaching wolf, hopefully, if she succeeded with this maneuver, send her invisible and visible adversaries flying.

In the middle of this attempt, however, Izria felt something big - bigger than her - barrel into her back and send her flying, the world spinning and rushing past as she was forced forward. The only thing she heard as a precursor was an immense roar, something Izria was amazed she had neglected. Perhaps she had been blinded in her rage again. Shrieking out a very nasty unmentionable as she rapidly cursed her circumstances, Izria attempted to twist herself around into a more comfortable position as she braced herself for the impact against the ground, but failed. Izria was not flexible. With a heavy thud, she slammed against the earth, inches away from a dangerously sharp pike of stone jutting from the pierced ground.

Izria stirred where she was. Her head was swimming. She wondered if she sustained some sort of trauma to her head, but dismissed it as some form of disorientation. It hurt. Thrusting her foot into the ground, Izria started to shove herself back onto her feet, but became burdened with the weight of her exoskeleton-armor. Her wings started to flap and buzz excitedly behind her, assisting her with the effort of climbing to her feet. With a shove, Izria managed the ascent, kicking forward with a punctuating buzz of her wings, and started to whirl around to face her enemies.

Halfway around she noticed the bolts jumping at her, and she screamed something else which was entirely unprintable.

One bolt struck Izria right against the shoulder-plate. Fortunately, that was a more durable part of her armor, and it didn't result in any crippling pain - though the burning sensation was still agitating as she watched the normally impenetrable armor become scorched and dented from that close acquaintance with the fiery projectile.

The second bolt was more reliable in its mark. It smashed Izria in the chest, which was also protected. Izria let out a choking sound and heaved, feeling something balloon in her throat as she fought away the urge to vomit up her previous meal. The armor also suffered from a large indentation and turned a hideous, charred black.

The remaining bolts, Izria saw plummet straight for her head. With a scream she flung her fists up in a cross-shaped formation before her skull, and she felt a great searing pain as the short-lived blitzkrieg of fire, flame, and electricity surged at her forearms, scorching and searing the flesh, sending abominable pain sparking through the senses protected beneath Izria's chitin and making her knees buckle. With a loud sigh, Izria relented, uncrossing her forearms and withdrawing them, staring with profound shock at the armor. Like the other places on her armor, the chitin was dented and twisted, like someone had pummeled away at them, and was exuding great trails of smoke and ash.

Izria let out a furious scream and pumped her fists, forcing her body back in motion. "You little SHITS!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her screeching voice slicing and cutting into the air, "You fucking little SHITBAGS, I'm going to kill EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!"

And with that, Izria started to flutter her wings - no, not flutter them. They were rippling, seemingly slicing and cleaving through the air as they rapidly started to escalate in speed, accelerating to the point their gossamer bodies became nearly imperceptible against her back. A most grotesque screaming noise started to drill into the air, abjectly offending and nearly unbearable in volume, apparently produced from the movement of her wings. Around her, the air started to spark and distort, twisting rapidly, and with a roar Izria flexed her abused muscles, and the tautly dwindling air came alive. Bladed bands of electrified air thrashed and whipped at the ground, tearing up the stone and grinding away to reach the bare soil, reducing the layers of pulverized cobblestone to nothing but detritus. Izria leaped into the air, soaring a few feet, before she slammed back down, her feet colliding with the earth with a loud crack. Another disorienting ripple, reminiscent of the less powerful one heralding her rampage before, raced through the ground...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Setting Cog down on the back steps of a house and propping him up against the door a little, the cloaked figure bent down and began feeling around the wound on his shoulder. Was he still awake and just shocked, or was he out of it? She could not know right then, but she presumed that he was unconscious for convenience's sake. Gloved hands held the wolf down, then reached inside her clothes for something, and then one of the gloves came off. Claws could barely be seen, as the figure pulled back his shirt, and then began feeling around his wound.
   The bullet seemed to have made a good job of tearing up the wolf's flesh, and was still inside. That made it all the more hard to heal him. So unless she used something more than just claws and string and bandaging, he would probably bleed out there anyway. Shit. Why did everything have to be so bothersome? Well, he didn't look like he had money, and she would feel a little bad about it, but she was sure she could extort some little favor or thanks from him afterwards. That was, as long as his friends wouldn't have been happy to see him dead. You never knew, especially not with creatures.
   Next, disregarding any pain that the man might have felt and in a lack of tongs at the moment, the figure dug in with two wickedly clawed fingers and surprising precision, picking at the bullet. Meanwhile, she fumbled out something from within her cloak, a vial or bottle the top of which could barely be seen between the gloved fingers of her left hand, beside a large cotton pad.

[Tapewolf]

At 900, this was far from the first time Cross had used a tentacle attack.  Unless you went straight in for the kill, they usually tried to hack at it or something.  It looked like the insectis was trying to use the tentacle to flip him around, so he stretched it out to give her more slack.  At the last minute he quickly unwound it, retracting it back and down his sleeve once more.

Then the insectis did her freaky ground magic thing again.  Cross wasn't happy about that at all, but it looked like it was time to jump again.  As he did so, he noted the black marks on the insectis' chitin.  It looked like fire was a good approach, so but there was one refinement.  He sent a shower of them to the creature's frail, gossamer wings.

The only problem with doing this was that he'd just highlighted his position, but that was nothing that a few short leaps couldn't cure...

[Cogidubnus]

 The Harpist seemed to stiffen as soon as Sheebus went after him, his head nodding downwards as he looked at the charging reptile through a curtain of black hair, his white eyes peeking out prominently through the ebony strands. He didn't seem to even move, his body simply going rigid as his feet slid together loosely and his hands clapped onto his guitar. The piece of wood that Sheebus had thrown sailed through the air, intent on damaging his guitar, or perhaps breaking the strings.
It twisted in the air, once. The Harpist strummed sharply, immediately beginning to pick out an eerie, lilting melody from his instrument. The air itself seemed to warp around the guitar.

Without warning, the plank split from end to end with the grating sound of splintering wood, nearly exploding outwards in two pieces. It's momentum utterly canceled, it dropped limply to the mudded cobbles beneath it – ands somehow Sheebus felt something cut across his shoulder, slicing through his clothing to leave a tiny, bleeding furrow.
The Harpist, eyes closed, continued to pick deftly at his guitar, his hands speeding up and down the neck of his instrument as they produced that eerie, somehow exotic, and yet infinitely familiar song.

Something sparked off the lizard's Katana, nearly knocking the thing into mud beneath it, and at the same time he felt something whistle straight past his ear, leaving only a cold, wet sensation behind it. The Harpist strummed – and something slammed into Sheebus's chest, knocking the air from his lungs and pushing him backwards. The Harpist played faster yet, the dark-haired jaguar seeming to fall into a reverie of sorts, his claws picking deftly at the strings in an echoing, chilling harmony.
If Sheebus looked closely, and looked hard, he could almost see the notes that the Harpist played. If he looked a little more carefully, he could even see them as they flew for him, the very air around the jaguar responding to his song – as Linos played a dirge, the sky played with him. Dozens of knives of air flew for the Reptile.

The Harpist was truly in a reverie, to the degree that he almost did not respond to Mask's mockeries – in point of fact, one could see a moment of concern pass over the musician's face before he opened those milk white orbs, and seemed to stare very carefully at where the illusion sat. He blinked, almost tilting his head.
"What are you?" he seemed to say, before he fell into the reverie of his deadly melody again. His head still tilted this way and that, however, and the light of recognition seemed to play across his face – although one could not be certain he was not simply getting lost in his music.
He shook his head softly, and turned his attentions to those battling his compatriot by the inn. His opponents did not need to hear him to feel his power. He played his dirge, his melody, even if only the sky could hear.
Dozens of ethereal knives, spears, and bits of sharpness flew towards those battling the enraged insect, unfooled by illusion and invisibility. Tricks to fool those who depended on sight. In the land of the blind, this Jaguar was truly, King.

* * *

The green-robed mage's eyes grew wider and then narrowed, his hands whipping through an incantation even as he scrambled backwards for distance. Badly-aimed as they were, those bolts could cause havoc no matter what they hit...
Both hands began to glow with a purplish, eldritch light, and moving quickly he braced himself and stuck both palms forward, intent on grabbing both of Fal'Taq's bolts of magic – and palming both of them, was promptly thrown backwards, landing roughly on the cobbles and sliding backwards on the slick stones. Both bolts spun in his hands uselessly for a moment before flying up into the air, where the exploded like a pair of demented fireworks. The mage cursed. It had been his best robe, but...
  The white fox cursed again. Something was fiddling around with his shield. Getting into an exchange of fire with these fools was exactly what he wanted to avoid. He slid onto his feet, looking intently around for someone spellcasting...

The gunmen, not completely stupid themselves, turned their gunfire on the strange little mole that had just knocked their mage down. The wooden walls around Fal'Taq began to quickly splinter under the hail of bullets.

* * *

  As soon as that figure stuck her claws in the wolf's shoulder, Cog's entire body seemed to convulse, the wolf giving out a high-pitched whine and trying to shift away from the pain – his eyes snapped open, the yellow pupils dilating wide before his strength ran out. He stopped moving, and his voice simply turned into a groan beneath the its ministrations. He sucked in a ragged breath.

"Stupid..." he seemed to cough out before leaning against the wall. His head thunked against the rough wood.

* * *

Sheriff Jonathan 'Boney' Yarborough had just got done eating a lunch of a rather tasty mustard-and-ham sandwich on Rye, and was preparing to take a short afternoon nap before heading out home when the screen door slamming loudly into the wood woke him with a start and made him tumble roughly onto the floorboards beneath him. He stood quickly, smoothing out his shirt as deputy Wilson, wide-eyed, ran breathing heavily into the back office.                                                                           
"Sheriff! Sheriff! Sun-uv-a-BITCH sheriff, but there's about twenty odd idiots down by the docks shooting and blowing the shit out of -everything-. I swear sheriff it's...it's a real -mess- sheriff. Almost a damned riot"

Boney blinked for a moment, tilting his head backwards, and then adjusted his belt, shaking his head and grabbing his hat. "Well, if that ain't a mess, it'll do 'till the real mess gets here." he said, grabbing the old six-chambered revolver off the wall and heading out the door. "Call the SWAT, Wilson, and then get your ass out there. I'll see what's going on."

  It only took a moment to make the necessary calls – after explaining the situation again in the same calm, deft tones that he'd used to tell the Sheriff, Deputy Wilson was just about to go out the door, when he paused. Thinking fast, grabbed the key to the armory off the sheriff's desk and unlocked the gun cabinet. Wilson wasn't known for his discretion or good judgment, and after looking through the forest-green closet for just a moment grabbed the largest gun that he could see and ran after the Sheriff.

Wilson had, in fact, just grabbed a .60 caliber multi-coiled electromagnetic rail gun of debatable effectiveness. Generally heralded as an antiaircraft device, the gun was capable of blowing holes in the sides of ships and generally through several buildings at once. More than likely Wilson would not be able to even stay standing firing the weapon. More than likely it wouldn't matter, as anything that -was- still standing after firing the weapon wasn't meant to be destroyed by gods or by men.

[Lushin]

Sheabus fell back to one knee and drove the tip of his katana into the ground after the hit to the chest. He coughed up a bit of blood and shook his head. He stared at the Harpist then at the blades of air flying at him. He used his katanan to keep his vital areas from being hit but he took multiple hits to the arms and legs.
"Damnit damnit damnit. What did I get myself into with this shit"
He got back to his feet stareing at the Harpist. When it seemed he was turning his attacks on the group Sheabus charged the Harpist, instead of keeping the tip low he held his sword more acrossed his chest. He was intent of stoping the Harpist.
"Well "mom" if you really where a demon I sure could use some of that power"

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Glancing up at the incoming ripples in the air, Witt redoubled his struggles with the wall, and finally managed to wriggle his spines free - translating his problems with being stuck in one place into a nice easy problem of being fifteen feet above the street, and unattached to anything - and just in time.

"Oh, ..." *WHUMP* "Shit. Ow." He rolled to one side, painfully, into the shade of a stack of crates.

Over his head, just missing him, the various knives and shards of air hammered into the wall, showering him in splinters and fragments of wood. He paused, shielded from the action by the crates, and ran a hand over the back of his head... and found a patch of somewhat flat, shorter quills.

He started off disbelievingly, "My spines? He shot my fucking spines!" Rather more vehemently, "Oh, that is IT!" He rolled over, and started a stream of abuse at their attackers, getting more worked up as he went along. "You rat-arsed bastard, I'm gonna turn you into a gods-forsaken RUG when I catch you! Yeah, you, mister Guitar Hero! You and your band of mooks are gonna get MINCED when I get my paws on you, you piss-ante bastards! And your Green Goblin, I'll carve my initials on his arse!" He glared over the top of the crate, and spat in the direction of the green-clothed mage. "Yeah, you, you shiny little git, I'm gonna hang your tail in a bar! Your arse is gonna be fucking laminated, shredded, and pasteurised!" He reached into his coat, and pulled out a pair of larger daggers, shook them, and leapt over the crate, rolling forwards into a dead run at the Goblin and the two remaining Mooks, keeping low.

[Cogidubnus]

 The very fact that the short, spiny fellow could be heard over the roar of his weapon was indication enough of the level of threat that the hedgehog posed to the group - and glancing worriedly at the charging rodent, his gaze hidden by his shades, the rat swung the gun around to send a spray of bullets in the general direction of the big-mouthed hedgehog before returning to try and take out that crafty mage in the alleyway.

* * *

As if in response to Sheebus's threat, the guitarist simply picked and strummed all the faster on his instrument, his hands moving quickly and gracefully over the strings. Plucking out that smooth, almost hypnotic song, the jaguar somehow sent yet more distortions after the lizard, intent on overwhelming him. It was apparent that he wasn't going to run out anytime soon, if such a thing were possible. They whistled darkly through the air.

[e_voyager]

Epyon looked at the carnage. This was just short of war. Epyon realized he might need his sai to fight but he wanted to avoid that. Magic weapons tend to attract magical enemies and hist staff was bad enough at doing that. Deciding on discretion he tried to circle around unnoticed to get behind the gunmen so that he could attack them on there blind side the problem with this was that if either of them managed to shoot him at point blank range well it might wind up with a mob on the hunt for undead again but he'd risk it. running swiftly he heard Witt's  stream of impassioned and descriptive dialogue form in font and too the left of him and he circle behind the gun men. the gunman didn't like what the hedgehog had to say and had decided to use his weapon as a rebuttal before returning his attention to the others. in the moment after he launched his attack at Witt Epyon rushed him swing his pole in an curving arc in the on crashing the rat to the ground.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt's eyes widened as the rat swung around, and his arms flicked forwards, throwing both daggers at the two Mooks, aiming for their necks, as the rest of him flung itself sideways, rolling rapidly behind some boxes on the other side of the street. As Witt flattened himself out on the floor behind the boxes - and the shots from the rat shattered the top of the boxes and the wall behind him - he swore, vociferously. He'd seen the daggers bounce from the shield just before reaching safety.

"I liked those, dammit. I've got to get me something with range."

He shuffled through his various pockets, looking for something dangerous to use in the attack.

Or at least more dangerous than marshmallows, which is apparently about all the knives he had on him were worth, so far.

A constant stream of curses and abuse followed his search...

[Lushin]

Sheabus continued his charge even as the the waves came at him. He used his sword to block what he could but was still taking some big hits. He was putting everything he could muster into this attack.

[Snuggles]

As Anton was looking around he saw something that brought back horrible memories. He had seen the pictures of the Harpist but never seen him in real life. He hear about this tune when he arrived at a town with a party. He would never forget what the town was like after the Harpist was done with it. He flew quickly to help Sheabus with the spell he had gained power for. A large force of energy hopefully blowing away the rest of the distortions that were coming at Sheabus so he could get through. Also, hopefully providing a distraction to the Harpist so landing on the ship would be easier. He then put up a shield that would try and protect Sheabus from other attacks of the cutting sound waves so he wouldn't get hurt as badly as he was before but lending himself seen by the harpist.

[lucas marcone]

Dani was overjoyed when he reached cover. The thick pillar of wood holding up the heavy roof never looked so, in a word, friendly. There were also two barrels there, but Dani had no idea of their integrity. Dani flopped himself behind the pillar with a bodily thud and a none too quiet whimper of pain. His shirt was soaked with the cold rain and warm blood, Dani didn't have much left in him. If the fight went on too much longer he'd have to hope to the Great Deity that he would just survive. Dani loaded his last shell and using the cover began unloading on the last two gunmen and the green dude.

[Tapewolf]

Cross was rapidly losing his cool.  The insectis was proving a problem, and now the others on the docks - until then a distraction - were starting to make their presence felt as a rain of sharp things fell all around him, perilously close.  This could be a problem.

Another problem was the carnage which their battle had caused.  At this rate the boats would be destroyed before they had a chance to board any.  The authorities wouldn't like this at all... whatever army this territory had would surely be on its way and they probably wouldn't care who'd started it.

If this gets any worse I'll have to grab Keaton and teleport back to base, he thought grimly.  It would be a shame, because whatever her plan was, it required manpower, and leaving the others to rot would jeopardise it.  Still, if things got out of hand, the information in her head - or indeed in her soul - would be good a consolation prize if he couldn't have her alive.

[Stygian]

The wolf struggled, but his wounded and emaciated strength was not even a bother to the figure, who simply held him still, stretching the wound in his shoulder until she could pinch the bullet between her claws, and draw the squashed slug out. As bad as the fact that it has unloaded all its energy into his flesh, and caused a great deal of damage to his shoulder joint was, it was also good because it had been stopped and held in place, so that the joint survived and removal was easy. Well, easy if you worked as quickly and 'carelessly' as she did right then. What she was doing was even less sophisticated than field surgery, she thought.
   The bullet was pulled clean from the wolf's shoulder with another gush of blood, and a quick examination revealed that it had simply squashed, not splintered. Good luck, that. Next, the woman unscrewed the vacuum-sealed top of the little bottle in her hand, wiped the blood away from Cog's wound and pinched it to stop the bleeding as much as she could, then poured out a good amount of chemically blue, viscous liquid onto it. The wolf was wracked with another convulsive shudder, more of a cramp this time. The substance burned and chilled at the same time like liquid nitrogen. But the effect was immediate. Since the substance was meant to seep into blood and aid the healing process, it reached all the way down into the cracks of the wound, beginning the regeneration at once. The icy pain turned into a dull throb in mere seconds as the wound closed up, and the figure immediately pressed the cotton pad to Cog's shoulder to keep it that way. Next, her fingers began working quickly, and parting his shirt she began twining something silvery-white all the way around his shoulder to keep the pad in place.
   Another shudder rolled through the ground, and the air was alive with cutting, hard sounds and ripples. The figure felt a pang of dizziness hit her, and fell forward onto Cog before she managed to steady herself with a hand against the steps. Getting up, she made another one of those rasping, hissing sounds with irritation. Her eyes darted around inside her hood while she swiveled around as quickly as she could. What was going on? The police were not on the scene yet, but she had no doubt they would be on the way, and packing all they could get with them. She should have just ran... Did she even know who she was supposed to help here?!
   Bullets spattered off somewhere quite close. She could see a mangy rat-figure holding a gun, when she shifted her position a bit. And then there was that huge damn wasp right in the middle of everything, making all that... It hurt just to focus on that one. She knew what she could do, but not what would be right. Moving more of that white substance between her fingers, she watched.

[Aisha deCabre]

At this point Aisha had grown very impatient with the noise.  Of all the living things running around, the weakest were her own comrades.  The rest were, as best as she could describe them, absolute monsters.

Ignoring the others--though the noise had escalated into such noticeable proportions that she was now keeping an eye out for someone to come barreling in with an intent to stop it all--the demoness huddled within her dark niche of a circle of crates and prepared her bow with the point of the poisoned arrow drawn back, watching the robed mage closely.  If someone could just take out the magic defenses between him and the gunmen...

Then the huntress perked.  He had tripped, trying to fend off several attacks at once.  Her eyes tried to search for any weakness to the wall...it wouldn't matter if her arrow was deflected again.  By now she had lost all fear of revealing herself to the group at some point...she could use her magic of poison to re-enchant her current batch of arrows if need be.  The bow raised...

Then the air screamed.  Aisha quickly drew back the weapon, her sensitive ears in such sudden pain that she almost released the projectile just to cover her ears.  But there was no time for even that, as it seemed the wasp had released another earth-shattering shockwave upon the group...twice as devastating as the last if not more.  All she could do was leap up again as the crates were blown away and shattered into several pieces all around her, splintering and embedding pieces of wood in her skin.

Thrown back and very nearly falling into the water, bleeding in several places, Aisha's expression was one of pure anger.  Oh that's it.  Forget the mage, that bruja has to go down.

From where she lay, and with a quick twang from the bow, the arrow flew...hoping to embed itself at least somewhere in the beast's armor and release the poison.

[SpottedKitty]

As he grabbed his glasses and put them firmly back in place on the end of his muzzle, there was only one thought on Fal'taq's mind. I am getting very weary of unwelcome surprises in this affair. He should have known better than to articulate that thought: with a deafening uproar of noise, the ground abruptly surged and heaved under his feet, nearly sending him tumbling again. A scream of outrage and raw fury seemed to come from the direction of the Insectis woman. Oh good, I've annoyed her, he thought, this day is getting better and better.

With his glasses back on, the first thing the mole saw clearly was the flashes and sparkles of the remaining gunmen all firing at him. And with better aim than most the Families could muster: he couldn't hear much over the noise, but he felt impacts on his shield, as well as splintering crashes from near misses in the wooden wall behind him. He was in no immediate danger, of course, so he mostly ignored it: he could keep his shield up under concentrated gunfire for hours if necessary. It attracted attention, though, at least until Witt started his charge and drew the gunfire towards himself.

A moment later, Fal'taq noticed a new player in the fight. Someone — not the mage in green — launched several spells at the others in the party. They appeared to be knots of distortion, with a razor-sharp cutting effect, as he could see from the ones that had hit nearer targets. That nagged at the mole's memory; he'd seen or heard of something like that before, but he didn't have the time to think about it too deeply. The things were very hard to see, but a group of them did seem to be coming his way. In fact they were close — very close — TOO CLOSE!

Swearing nearly as loudly, if not as inventively, as Witt, Fal'taq fired off one last quick salvo of bolts back along the path of the cutting spells, fortified his shield as much as he could and threw himself to the ground. He landed face-first in a cold, wet, muddy puddle.

[Stygian]

The ground-wracking shock and the following explosion sent splinters of rock and wood flying. She wondered why she hadn't figured before. Of all the damnable creatures right there and then, the wasp was the one that was causing by far the most chaos. Putting that one out would at least stem the tide of the battle. And it might distract those who needed distracting long enough to let people get away from the scene.
   The figure looked up the wall underneath her hood. To her side, the two-story building with its slanted roof stood high, overlooking the docks and close enough to the fighting and the wasp that it was as good as ideal for giving her an overview for what she wanted to do. She might become exposed up top, but she could just drop down and out of sight. She passed one last glance over the wolf on the steps, then pulled off the glove still on her left hand and moved.
   As the figure's arm reached out, and the sleeve of her coat rolled back, a good bit of a black, slightly glossy and segmented hand, with obsidian claws tipping each of her five fingers, came into view. She placed her palm on the wall, then moved up and along with her other hand, and then her cloak moved as she followed with her feet. Effortlessly, she began climbing up the vertical surface as if there had been handholds right there instead of simply smooth, painted wood. In seconds, she was at the edge of the roof, and with an easy movement gripped it, and pushed off with her legs. In an unspectacular yet graceful movement, she flipped over and landed with her feet on the roof panes. She was at least twenty feet up now, probably a good bit more, and had the fight laid out for her as she crouched down on the edge of the roof. And underneath her cloak, she was already moving her hands, deftly and with hurried speed. Lengths of silvery strands began winding between her fingers. She had to get a good shot in...
   The moment came when the huge insect down before her finally made a quick break in her buzzing and thrashing to defend herself against the latest salvo of fiery bolts thrown by the mole mage down below. And the woman acted. Throwing her hands out and at the same time making long threads of white fire off from within her coat. The gathering of threads flew a few meters into the air, before practically springing out into a growing, net-like structure, that shot at the great yellow insect as if fired from a gun. And not wasting time, the figure threw her hands out toward the sides immediately after, sending one long and wide set of webbing against the rat with the gun and the strumming jaguar.

[Tezkat]

Edge crouched in the narrow alley. Bullets streaked overhead and pockmarked the wall behind him. A little close for comfort. He'd taken care not to leave them a line of sight, but his counterspelling attempts had been noticed. So much for the subtle approach. He modified his incantation in mid-cast, abandoning the slow unraveling for a more forceful attack targeting the weak points he'd opened in the arcane matrix. His illusionary cloak hid his body but couldn't conceal the mystic energies forming between his hands. Antimagical power coalesced into a ball of darkness crackling with electric indigo. Edge hurled it towards the transparent barrier. Veins of eldritch purple energy spidered out from the impact point. Only one of their spells would prevail.

Time to leave.

No sooner had the bolt left his unseen fingers than Edge was in motion. The invisible jaguar retreated deeper into the narrow alley, away from the retribution that was sure to follow his dispelling attempt. He leapt up to a window ledge and used it to propel himself even higher, bounding from one wall to the other as he climbed the narrow alley until he finally vaulted over the eaves to join his twin on the rooftops.

+ + +

The spectral jaguar replied with casual nonchalance, barely loud enough to carry over the roar of combat:

"I am but a black wind blowing through the eternal rains."

His coat whipped wildly about him, buffeted by the wasp's near-deafening wingbeats, but he himself remained perfectly still, as if standing in the eye of the storm. He allowed his dark blade to rest against his shoulder when the mobsters dismissed him and turned their attentions elsewhere. The jaded gangsters had responded to his over the top performance not with fear but something just as insidious. Confusion. Incredulity. Complacency. Powerful weapons in the hands of an illusionist. A wicked grin played across his rain-streaked features. Did they not recognize the scent of a predator?

Mask somersaulted off his pedestal of jagged rubble, landing on the cobblestones with a light splash. His blade whistled as he brought it up for another salute. Would they stake their lives on their judgment?

He charged.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

With the bullets splintering the flimsy shack Penny decided it was time to disappear. While the gunmen were busy with all the loud and loony creatures she would make a break for it. Lousy chance but her best one. Slipping out from behind the building the fisher tried to move from cover to cover towards the end of the lane.

[Paladin Sheppard]

The edge of Paige's sword was mere centimeters from Izria's leg, when Ty bowled them both over. Unbalanced Paige took a step forward to steady herself. She was about to renew her attack on the prone bug when she noticed the fireball spell headed their way. 'No one seems concerned about friendly fire around here...'Paige thought as she backfliped out of the way.

Now too far to impede Izria who was climbing back to her feet Paige was forced to shield herself from the lightning storm  the insectis' wings kicked up.

She also noticed the impacts of what appeared to be a sonic attack from the group of attackers from the harbor....

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

Struggling to maintain some form of stability despite the quickly escalating turmoil, Keaton decided to weave her way to the side and slip off into some sort of subterfuge until the situation became more manageable - or if she could organize a decent attack plan. At that moment Izria was enduring the attacks which were besieging her quite effectively, although it was hard to make out the towering, abominable insectoid from within her wreathing mass of disfigured pikes of stone and upturned earth. As long as she was distracted, Keaton was quite content. She just needed to figure out a way to run in and kill the bitch - everyone had some sort of efficient ranged weaponry, but Keaton needed a clear target in order to execute her own.

Out of the periphery of her hearing, amidst the smashing and cracking of splintered stone and the various destruction, Keaton heard it. It was almost amazing that she did, considering the amount of noise rampaging through the area. What was equally amazing was the fact what little Being authority that existed on Holiday hadn't dispatched any Adventurers to handle the threat, or sent their own police force. The buzzing quelled almost contemplatively as the slightest whistle penetrated through the bloodied fog filling Keaton's head. It took her a moment to decipher precisely what that odd sound was, but when she realized it, it hit her like a cannonball.

Music. Haunting, remarkably lilting, yet so very haunting.

I've heard that before, Keaton thought, at first numbly. Her thoughts detonated in an almost panicked screech, I'VE HEARD THAT BEFORE-

She could distinctly remember the Harpist, perched imperiously on the bench placed tantalizingly outside of the bars of her cell door, just barely out of reach. The bars protecting the door would normally never withstand a magical bombardment, which was why they had been fortified in the form of chains – dozens of them, crisscrossing and looping around every bar like dead, iron serpents, their linked forms originating from the complicated lock resting over the door. The chains themselves seemed to fade into an almost ectoplasmic outline as they entered the lock from every angle, softly beaming with the same, oppressive, angry red glow as the runic symbol on the front of the lock. Despite the near-obstruction of her vision due to the veritable spider-web of chains, she could see the Harpist's tattooed silhouette and the diminutive way his fingers plucked and tweaked at the strings of his strange, bewitched instrument, and could even more clearly hear the product of his musical ministrations. Through the murky air, the melody played, mockingly serene compared to Keaton's incarcerated state, almost slithering through the atmosphere and drilling into her eardrums. Almost trampling over the thunderous pounding of footsteps as a group of slanted shadows loomed into the chamber, but not quite – just accentuating it, like the chorus occupying a skilled orchestra.

She could remember the Harpist just playing and playing, meditatively tuning out the murky surroundings of the dungeon with the dispassionate hum of his harp. Even when the people came down and the hitting and whipping started, he would simply be there, playing, always the same fucking tune, always the same fucking song, and always never paying attention to her no matter how loudly she screamed at him to get up and help her, oh dear god please.

Except for once. Once, she had jostled his concentration – apparently the screams had disorganized the practiced dancing of his digits. Prior to that anomaly she had no idea it was possible to disrupt the Harpist's sense of balance. He twitched, out of irritation, and then opened his milky, unfocused eyes, regaining the crooked posture of his fingers hovering over the harp's strings. He looked at her with a clarity which would never normally be bestowed upon a blind man, unconsciously selecting the next string.

Their eyes would meet. He'd smile.

Then he would close his eyes and simply continue playing, that shred of a second where she would think he would help her fading away, along with the rest of his music...

Oh God, help me –

I am the only God here, sweet Katherine. Pray to me.

"NoTaEk?"

Keaton felt her heart shrivel and curl up, dropping to the pit of her stomach like a petrified corpse with a resounding thud only she could hear. Instinctive rage swelled in her as she heard her being addressed by that infernal name nobody was allowed to call her, because it was her slave name, and it was what he used to call her, but as she whirled around to face the harbinger of that accused sobriquet, she froze.

Sitting in the darkness was an oddly thin, perfectly flat silhouette, almost reminiscent of the sort of figure one would see looming out of the corner of their vision, intangible and imperceptible, there and yet not. At first glance, it partially seemed to blend into the shadows it suffused itself in, the rest of its form peering almost like an alley cat around the corner of the damaged building. A small, feral owl, or at least a cardboard cutout of something resembling one, indistinguishable in exact species and almost abstract in appearance. The tiny shadow-owl merely stared at Keaton with its thin, slitted holes-for-eyes, canting its head with a microscopic movement to the side.

"SwEEt lItTle NotAeK, CaN yOU sEe Me?" it continued to ask in that distorted, disembodied voice.

Keaton didn't answer.

She felt something inside her break.

And she screamed.

---

...Izria:

With a flourishing plume of fire blooming between Cubi and Insectis, the flame easily snagged onto Izria's wings mere seconds before she was about to launch herself into the air again, creeping up the gossamer membrane in a tangled, writhing mess of smoke and fire. Caught off-guard by this sudden assault, Izria released an earsplitting screech of agony as the pain instantaneously took fold, her wings giving a few, useless buzzes as she attempted to throw off the fire, or fan it out of existence. Her misguided efforts proved useless. Whether or not Cross had revealed his location, Izria was far too distracted by the rapid disintegration of her wings to interfere.

In the next moment, another volley of magically-endowed firebolts lanced through the air in a rapid, torrential downfall, swiftly bombarding the beleaguered Insectis. A few of the firebolts missed their mark due to Izria's frenzied flailing, each inaccurate streak of flame striking the ground with a smoldering sizzle and a combusting burst of devastated cobblestone and soil, but the damage was done – Izria appeared to be thoroughly disarmed. Smoking and dented in various places on the right side of her body, she issued a hideous moan and allowed herself to crumple onto her back, dropping wing-first onto the windswept soil. The flame burst outward in one spectacular flare for a fraction of a second before it was murdered by the extinguishing presence of the soil and stone, vanishing within a bloating plume of smoke and smog.

Izria twitched on the ground. Her back felt too numb, smothered against the ground, for her to feel the blistering sensation of the blaze which had undoubtedly reduced her once-magnificent wings into mangled wrecks, and she felt oddly grateful for that. In her many years of working she had faced death countless times, but hadn't experienced this twisted caricature of numbness. For a second she almost recognized it as death, and had suspected that she was already claimed by the reaper, but one shuddering gasp, one choking effort to rally oxygen, and she was coughing up great gouts of ichorous blood. One retching noise and she forced her body to roll onto her chest, where she could allow the air to fan her wings. Wind whistled through the pockmarked outlines of smoldering membrane still present in her wings. Just barely she managed the effort. Alive, but injured.

And angry.

So angry.

Before she could act on that impulsive eruption of emotion, Izria felt herself be roped to the ground by the sticky stands and splatters of webbing splashing against her form, anchoring her enormous limbs to the rocks and gluing her to the ground. Spirals of the substance tangled up the scorched and lifeless broken frames of her wings, binding them together and reducing their pitiful twitching to absolutely nothing, and all she could do was scream in frustration as she was effectively restrained. Weak as she was, she could do nothing to resist other than give a few, miniscule twitches, her sinewy muscles vibrating beneath her rickety and scorched armor.

Within seconds Izria was utterly trapped beneath layer upon layer of webbing, a prisoner in her own nest of spikes and spires.

---

...Keaton:

"We have to get out of here! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!"

The Owl didn't follow her. It just watched her with something akin to incredulity (its one-dimensional features were incapable of projecting any sort of expression outside of the slightest shaping of its eyes) as Keaton scrambled away, her feet clawing at the ground and kicking up the residual chunks of cobblestone remaining on the mildewed and chiseled street. If Keaton had any religious appreciation left in her, she would have been praying like an elderly man on his deathbed, but since she had no piety whatsoever, she devoted all her energy into simply running away from the alley corner she had ducked into and rushing back into the open. Probably a crazy move, considering the fact she was the reason those Sabanethei fuckers were after her.

Through the absolute panic and terror which had seized her, Keaton realized that Izria seemed to have stopped. Did they kill her? Surprisingly, she was devoid of interest regarding her former tormentor's fate. Normally she would be more than happy to find out that Izria had been brutally desiccated by her new comrades, but she was far too distracted – far too horrified – couldn't think straight! She just had to get out of there, and take everyone else with her. As long as Izria was down she hoped they could easily evade the rest of her entourage, even if it was composed of a rather formidable group of characters.

Right now she was just focused on getting everybody to run. They had to get out of there, it didn't make any sense and she didn't know why she wanted to go, but she had to go, because the Owl had found her. Digging her heels into the ground, Keaton skidded to a halt, her body shaking and shuddering, hands balled up into fists at her sides.

---

The Harpist's song didn't only affect Keaton. As its hypnotic, eerie inflection drifted over the vestigial prickle of sea salt, electrified in the ozone-laden air, it reached the ears of all assembled in the group. It had an almost resurrecting effect, stirring dormant emotions and memories seated in their psyches.

Cross began to feel things, think of things that he'd forgotten about long ago. About Azrael and Wilson, and the dream of Har'Khun again - Keaton was too overwhelmed by the weight of her insanity and her rapidly-deteriorating emotions to confront the images of finding her father's dismembered corpse outside the ruins of her home. Witt relived his reasons for wandering, long ago - Cogidubnus, waking up one night in his own sheets, soaked tot he bone in blood - Epyon, of a time when he was yet alive, and could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin. Dani, of Jon's son, and the hope for the family there - Sheabus, of the time his parents were murdered. Fal'Taq, of the time his previous apprentice made him laugh. Paige, her mind turning to thoughts of loves, once precious, and long forgotten, abandoned to other conquests. Tezkat'l, all the pieces of him, remembered his days in the dark jungle, among only the wet, the rot, and the demons. With Sal, she recalled why she even had to leave that damn island in the first place, and with Penny, she remembered why she was hiding. Aisha remembered more clearly than she ever had before a sleepy village and the visage of a smiling man. Navarro remembered a time when his hands weren't stained with blood, and Anton remembered his mother's voice.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Cogidubnus]

 With song sweet as death, the Harpist continued to play his guitar, clawed hands plucking the string with feverish intensity as the crocodile rushed him, enduring all that the jaguar had to throw at him. An extraordinary feat of endurance and resolve, without doubt - and though that danger continued to loom, continued to grow larger and more threatening, Linos simply played. Sheebus raised his Katana to cut - Fal'Taq shot his spells - and high above, nearly unnoticed, a spider leapt to spread it's treacherous, sticky web. Beset from all sides, the harpist played. He drew his claws across all the strings, the notes ringing in the air unnaturally, together, as he strummed towards himself.
A drop of blood dripped onto the wood of the instrument, leaving a trail of dark.

Air coruscated around the black feline, a rippling, iridescent sphere of air that foamed around him, like the waves from the storming sea breaking upon the rocks just half a mile away. Sheebus's Katana hit, as did the bolts fresh from Fal'Taq's hands, and slapping wetly across the whirls of air, Salticia's web simply never reached the guitarist. The Katana hit the whirling sphere of force and shook down to the hilt, and stopped as though he had struck a wall of taffy with a stick. Fal'Taq's bolts tried to pierce into the sphere and stopped short, vibrating as they attempted to get to the musician inside it.
The Harpist strummed again, a loud, commanding note.

The sphere exploded outwards, the whirling, supercompressed air around the harpist exploding out, flattening the ground around him - Sheebus, valiant though his charge had been, was thrown high into the air, sliding to a stop almost where he had begun his attempt. The bolts that the mole mage had thrown bent strangely, looping around Linos as if attached to him by a string, and then bolting straight at Witt's head. They glowed with a purple, eldritch light. Salticia's web lay at his feet, stretched and distorted.
He paused, drawing out the final note - it seemed to pierce through the air, and with a small shake of his head, he continued playing again. Whirling razors filled the air once more, heading for Sheebus, and the creatures harassing Izria - he noticed the strange...not quite alive individual sneaking up behind Reginald, and knocking the rat out cold before he could respond.
His song continued, another drop of blood tracing down the strings. His hypnotic song built, sending knives and whirling daggers at everything that he could see - although none flew for the Jaguar charging for him, Linos seeming to not see, or simply ignore, the charging feline.
Some daggers seemed to fly where there wasn't anything at all, and he continued to play, his concentration unimpeded. He kept playing until a dagger larger than any he had conjured, a massive streak of blue, roared with the fury of a thousand suns through the streets. The Harpist fell over hard, blown from his feet, as the very walls themselves became whitewashed and the massive streak passed through the remaining weasel carrying a tommy gun - and caused him to evaporate, as if he'd never been.

In the distance, a small explosion could be heard.

* * *

Reginald cursed that damn mole, he cursed that hedgehog, but most of all he cursed the fact that he didn't have anything with larger firepower with him. Distantly, he heard the plink of shotgun shells as they impacted the shield their mage had constructed around them. He supposed it wouldn't be fair to condemn the mole for using the same tactics they were, but it didn't make him any happier about it.
His drum ran out. Hitting the eject button, he reached into his coat to pull out another one of the drums taped to the inside, when a jarring pain suddenly flared from the back of his head, and his world went white, then dark, dark black.

* * *

He'd run out of ammo just about when his compatriot had, and ejecting the spent case and reaching into his coat, the sound of a staff impacting flesh, almost next to his head, was impossible to ignore. The weasel stepped back and to the side, letting out a curse and scowling at the zombie. It took him only a moment to fish the next magazine out of his coat pocket, and it wasn't the first time he'd ever used the weapon either - he slammed it home with little fuss, and raised the barrel of his gun, aiming at Epyon.
He squeezed the trigger, and then-

* * *

The green mage spat out a curse as Edge's purple ball impacted the force-dome, and both spells crackled as spell tested spell. As hastily constructed as it had been, and as carefully as Edge had casted his, the outcome had been decided almost before the spells met. The force-dome flashed purple, and vanished in a eldtrich flame - but not before the Mage had heard the plink of shotgun shells impact the side of the now-vanished dome.
His hands whirled around, preparing another shield, a fireball, anything. His palms outstretched, he began to throw it at the bear hidden in the rubble -

He found himself blown to the ground, his ears bleeding as he screamed silently in the loudest sound he'd ever heard.

* * *

If Salticia had looked down, she would have seen that her patient, as damaged as he had seemed before, had flown from where he was sitting. A trail of footprints led through the muddy cobbles, headed in the direction that the Jackal succubus had run off to.

* * *

Boney peeked around the wooden corner of the building at the end of the lane, his eyes bugged in disbelief. There hadn't been a problem like this in years. Nobody, no family, no government, was stupid enough to cause this kind of trouble in this town. Dragons didn't usually cause this much damage.
He fingered the revolver in his hands, the sweaty digits slipping over the cool metal. He'd have to wait for the SWAT team, there was no question. Even that might not be enough...

An orange dot danced in front of the sheriff's eyes. He blinked, his head moving back from the corner of the wall, before he saw yet another orange dot from the corner of his eye. A third rested just above him, attached to the roof of a nearby building.
The Sheriff's eyes widened in recognition and horror. His gaze snapped to the side, in the middle of the street.

With orange dots to match those covered the buildings around him, Deputy Wilson stood in the middle of the street holding a massive rifle, almost as long as he was - the source of the dots. He was sighting in the weapon, aiming for something down the street. The sheriff's jaw dropped, and he started forward.
"Wilson, you stupid sunuvabitch, don-"

  Wilson fired, and the street inverted color for just a moment, bathed in iridescent white light, and shook from a sound louder than a thundercrack.