Character Lounge

[Stygian]

Sathariel ran straight through the shop, knocking some shirts and a box out of the hands of a surprised attendant, and out into the street in front. She didn't stop, but immediately rushed through the somewhat dense crowd gathered up in front and headed for some stairs a couple of hundred metres ahead. And behind you, in the storage room, the backdoor crashed in, the huge man from the gang and the lean leader standing in the opening.

   "No, we're inbound for ground level," Stygian said to Karl, and revved the engine a bit. "In case of an emergency, there are no exits. You're along for the ride, so smoke 'em if you've got 'em!"
   With a nasty laugh, Stygian pushed the lever forward. There was a clack as bolts released, and then they fell.
   The shaft started zooming by at breakneck speed. The car's weight and shape meant that it kept accelerating, pushing air away like a big bullet. Stygian gave the engine a bit of gas. The tunnel just kept going and going. It took some time, moments that seemed like minutes, before you saw something. The car's lights fell on an armored wall up ahead, racing against you. It was barely in view for two seconds, looking as if the car would slam into it. Stygian laughed crazily.
   Just an eyeblink before the car would have smashed into the wall and been turned into a fireball of scrap metal, it split, admitting the car through. The tunnel started curving, and the car's wheels skidded just a bit as they touched the smooth ground, and then caught up with it. Then, Stygian pushed the pedal to the metal, and they were thrust down into their seats when the tunnel made a relatively sharp upturn, evening out. Another door up ahead split, and they emerged into another tunnel, this one sloped and lit from an opening up ahead. The car made a small jump, and then quite gently landed on the side of a motorway tunnel, going slightly down. Stygian made a sharp left turn, and zigzagged in between the much slower moving other cars present, who honked and blared at them, and slowed while going down an off-ramp. The heavy vehicle skidded as he ducked into a lane, and started weaving his way through the cars against the exit down into town.

[Joat]

“Cyborg? Shapeshifted? Alien?” May asks as she follows.



Valencia is actually beginning to improve with Link.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel followed Sathariel down the street, trying to keep an eye simultaneously on both her companions. She didn't know if Sathariel had any destination other than away in mind and May was small enough that Mel worried she would either get lost in the crowd or not be able to keep up with Sathariel's pace. Or wander off if something distracted her.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha clenched her teeth slightly as she stared ahead down the ramp and into the dark tunnel that they were about to be plunged into.  The soles of her feet were digging into the floor to pass for makeshift brakes and her fingernails (which she sorely wished were still claws right then) clutched the back of her seat.  The almost slow-motion suspense coupled with the adrenaline rush was almost surely going to make her dizzy...especially when she heard Stygian's laughter.

And then, she heard the release...and they plunged.

The transformed human yelped loudly, the upward draft from the drop working to press her back right to the fabric...in the same way as a coaster uses speed when going into loops, the force was enough to keep her there without a seatbelt.  But even with that fact, the element of fear was still there.  Her eyes were closed tightly and she fought to keep her stomach from churning.

As the car finally leveled and turned, she was still bracing herself for dear life, spitting to get the hair out of her face.  Aisha opened her eyes then only to see them rushing towards a wall.  "WHOOOOAH!" she cringed, awaiting an impact that to her infinite relief never came.  The honking noises of the other cars brought her out of that trance. 

She sat up while the car swerved and, after releasing an uneasy but slightly crazed laugh, shouted with some amount of anger to Stygian, "Are you full-blown friggin' NUTS!?"

[Gareeku]

Noticing Aisha's nervous look, Gareeku smiled reassuredly at her, placing a hand on hers. However, the adrenaline was beginning to pump in his veins as he turned back to the view of the tunnel now in front of him. Taking a deep breath, Gareeku braced himself for what was about to commence. It was then that the car was released from its position as Stygian pushed a lever.

"Ohhhh shiiiiiiiit!" Gareeku yelled at the car plummeted down the tunnel, the force from the sheer velocity pushing him back into his seat as his eyes went wide. The speed was incredible; Gareeku could hear the air whistling past the car as it plummeted, feeling like his heart was about to appear in the back of his throat. Seeing the approaching wall, a look of panic suddenly appeared on his face, shutting his eyes for what he thought would be the end.

The end, however, never came, as Gareeku found out when he opened his eyes. By now the car had touched the ground as the tunnel curved from its previously vertical position. It would be a few moments later that the car was suddenly on a motorway. Seeing that the heart-stopping ride had passed its peak, Gareeku laughed as the adrenaline contuined to pump furiously in his veins.
"Oh hell yeah!! Woo!!" Gareeku cried out as he laughed. It was safe to say that the wolf-turned-human loved his adrenaline-inducing rides. Hearing Aisha, Gareeku gently wrapped an arm around her reassuredly.

[e_voyager]

Boogey finished letting the room materialize and sank into one of the newly formed chairs.
"Yeah, me again. I delivered your message but things got... complicated. Methinks you should have a word with your husband."

Starlight nods and sits down facing Eric. "Eric" she says her eyes almost down cast. "I'm sorry but i can't stay. not this time" several emotions play over Eric's face. "Starlight. you know i love you but you also know i want you to be happy." Eric seemed at a loo of words then E nudged him "I think that i can bring your body back to a life of you choosing if you wish but i don't want to force anything on you. you would be free to live or not live as you wish." Starlight looked sad. "I know you love me Eric but i can't go on. not like this.  my parent are, so are my siblings and most of their children. All of them gone some in accidents or sickness. many of are dead of old age but the are dead not the less and i should join them in the next world." "I know. i did not mean to keep you here and i know that i can't keep you here not if you don't let me but still. I don't want you to hate me but i don't think i can continue without you" this time Eric did start crying and E understood. he too cared for Starlight though he did not love her. well not like Eric did. Starlight read forward and grabs his hands. she whispered. "then come with me" E was stunned. he looked at Boogey and opened his mouth but could not voice his question. still he had to know was it possible?

[Boog]

The way a mind works isn't always as a series of places you can move through, despite metaphors it may shape itself into. It has no real parts other than what's biological; all concious thoughts bleed into all the others and into the subconcious. Boogey saw E's unasked question float by not unlike a plastic bag in the breeze.
"Possible? Yes, but not always ethical," Boogey sighed, "Eric is essentially a thought like me, but not complicated enough to leave your head, expand upon himself or manipulate other thoughts. He's just a bit more complex than the idea of a person; technically, he has a soul. This is good, because it makes him easier to 'send on', but that's still fairly tough. And don't expect me to do it; I'm not too big on euthinasia," He leaned further back into the chair and closed his eyes, "Because that's what it would be; killing him to send him on with his wife. His 'lifespan' has been prolonged as well, so it may be the same sort of thing as with Starlight, but if you can't send him on his merry way on your own, E, I am most certainly not putting a claw through him to help. Basically, for you both to move on Eric would have to shut himself down; not quite forgotten, since you're to a degree a personality, just silenced. Of course, depending on your philosophical views you've moved on already, and this is just a soulless memory of you. And since your mind is in parts mechanical, you could just find his file and dump it in the trash E." Boogey opened his eyes, "And of course you haven't even gotten into philosophical possibilities, your own preconceptions about the nature of 'passing on' that we'd be working around in your mind, wind chill factor... But as stated, possible"

[e_voyager]

E 's helmet sensor blinked as he shifted through Boogey's words and began to try to sort out what form what mean while Eric smiled. now he had something to say. " you are partlsyu correct to say that i am a memory of myself Boogey but that is not the whole truth. Yes i am a soul or at least a life force but like Starlight here i am not a file of the system. none of us other E's are truly files expect DGE and that's because his file is a data backup. Starlight myself Erebus and the dragons all read as energy anomalies in E's system and we cannot simply be purged as you would have it. still the ideal of moving on with my love to the next life is tempting. during in my four thousand years of life death has never been a kind friend to me"  "Boogey i think he may be right i have examined all my files that involve him and there are memories of his actives not his past and they certainly don't extend back 4000 years"
Eric turned to E. "you are still young E but i'm sure you felt it before. you can not have lived this long with out tapping the collective existents some where in the past. the rage of the dragon. The skill of a blade warrior. The calm reflection of a philosophers. we have been all there things and more. For 300 years before i met Starlight i wish for death final and unending but it never came. i would die and if i refuse to reclaimed my life before time ran out i would be replaced. Not dead but not living. It is a sad state but the same can and likely well happen to you. you remember me became i was still trying to hold on when my time ran out after my hyper space accident robbed me of my body but not my soul, my life force. it was that very life fore that became the seed of what you would become because though  i was dead my soul was not to be destroyed. it became your first body as it changed frequency. if Erebus had not interfered when he did you may have spawned you own form instead of being capture by Wily"
E looked doubtful as he pauses his calculations "what are you telling me Eric?" " i was not the first of my kind nor will you be he last. there are others i remember them. 6 called themselves E  as little as a million years before you came into Being. if you were those beings or not i don't know but i do know this. " Eric pause and  E clearly saw the serious ness of his next statement in his face. "once you've experienced your first true death E no not body destruction but death be it soul erasure or the total melt down that you felt forte go through then you'll understand that we are not a normal entity. then you'll know why i wish to move one with the love of my life and my lives before this one." E looked are Eric. He seems to be lost in thought and his thoughts were hard to understand. " someone in our memories maybe they were of our line maybe not but some one we once knew and argued with said that immortality at any price was too high a price to pay. " E seemed to glace over and it appears subtitles change in the face. "was the response 'mortals worry about not living enough yet they fail to realizes that them that die are the lucky ones.'? "  "and" Eric prompted "it is not dying that hurts' as Xane once said. 'it is dying out of turn that hurts' "  Eric nodded. " Well done not tell me E. is it out turn to die?"
"what" E was stunned and his collations lost.  ":why ask me?" " Boogey could find a why to send of off he said so himself but he won't as he is uneasy about doing so that leaves you" "but if you are souls then can't you leave of your one accord?" "maybe she could leave without help but i'm not so lucky. I am bound the entity that you are like you yesterday is bound to your today." Eric sighed " even if I managed to leave of my own anytime you search for me or call on me i will be yanked form my place by her side to this place were you are." " what if i erase all memory of you?" "that won't work you'll remember in your energy matrix soul just like i remember the ones before me" "can't we at least try?" " try what? the temporary body thing? that would be hard on Starlight and i can't face it with out her"  Starlight  seemed to impose herself between the two . "boys boy's calm down. I'm sure there is a way to do this."  Boogey's PDA Beeps Rapidly and E looked at Eric who still had not lowered his defenses.   

[Stygian]

Stygian laughed back at Aisha, eyeing the pen-sized scanner set into a panel before him, and then throttled up again as they passed into a straight lane. The car's turbine and electric drivetrain engines screamed in chorus as they were pushed back into their seats. Other cars and motorcycles swooshed by at much lower speeds.
   "Yeah!" Stygian shouted. "And I've got papers on it too!" He laughed, and made another turn, trying to get to where the signal was strongest, even though the scanner was by no means pinpoint precise, and they would still have to search through a large area.

   Sathariel kept on running, only looking over her shoulder very quickly every now and then. Climbing the stairs had gotten them up on a square of some kind, about twenty metres above the street they had been walking along. Up ahead, some people were busily scurrying past, coming out of the entrance to what must have been some sort of train station, judging from the suspended tracks that ran out from the large building on one end. Next to it, a tall structure with what seemed like a large number of tubes centred around a tall pillair, surely hundreds of metres high and linking to a huge platform above, stood with its doors open. It seemed to be some sort of elevator. Sathariel headed straight for it.
   That's when the two motorcycles skidded in on the square. From down the stairs, Mel could hear a shout as their pursuers shoved people out of the way.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

It looked like even in her mad dash Sathariel was keeping in mind their need to go up if the thing ahead was indeed an elevator. Mel couldn't help but feel this was a trap but couldn't figure out if she was sensing something or if it was just her normal conviction that all elevators were evil deathtraps-in-waiting. No help for it today, she was grounded until she got her proper body back. She could only hope for the timing to work out right.

[Aisha deCabre]

"Oh, I bet you do..." Aisha muttered with a slight laugh as she got her composure back, pushing some messed-up strands of hair back into place, her adrenaline toning down just a little bit although her feet were still digging into the floor of the car.

Hearing Gareeku's exhultation, the panther-turned-human rolled her eyes jokingly.  "I wasn't scared," she smirked when his arm wrapped about her.  With a more relaxed sigh, she leaned on him while her gaze wandered about the car's barely lit interior and to the blinking sensor.

I hope that we don't have too big an area to search...Aisha thought, the size of the city still a figure in her mind as the momentum from the car's turn was felt by the ones inside.

[Stygian]

As one of the bikers closed on Sathariel, he swung out a hand and swept her up, holding her to him as if she had been light as a child. She kicked and screamed even as he slid to the side and stopped the motorcycle just in front of another alley at the entrance to the square. The other biker made a low turn and tried to come at Mel from the side, as the lean man with the gun and his huge companion came up just from the stairs.

   "We shouldn't be far now," Stygian said with a much less maniacal voice, eyeing a small screen. "Just tell me if you see anything disturbing, and we'll be there."
   At that point, a police car sped by in the opposite lane just when they had almost crossed an overpass over some maglev train tracks. Stygian looked, and then slammed in a sort of handbrake, turning the vehicle 180 degrees with a long powerslide. The car shook as they jumped over the concrete structure that separated the lanes, partly crushing it, and then raced after the police car.

[Gareeku]

Turned to Aisha, Gareeku displayed a smirk of his own.
"Oh yeah? I saw you, you were shaking like a leaf." he replied jokingly, scritching her side gently with the hand that was wrapping around her. Looking at the screens, Gareeku held on as Stygian made a sharp u-turn. He was rather the erratic driver, to say the least. What concerned the wolf-turned-human more, however, was the policecar they were now following.
"I hope they're not in any trouble..." he muttered with concern.

[Boog]

"For crying out loud E, what's up? You holding a sci-fi convention in your brain or something?" Boogey rolled his eyes and opened up the message, "This place is crowded."

[Joat]

May, resorting to desperate measures, begins chanting a spell. The spell is extremely powerful, so it might be pretty difficult to negate.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha took a second from watching the sensors to glance back at Gareeku at his joking statement.  She replied with her hand ruffling his hair, smiling with a short laugh.  "I was not."

The transformed panther started to nod and reply to Stygian about spotting something disturbing, when she saw and heard the police car racing past.  Caught off-guard by the distraction, she had to cling partially to the back of the seat to keep from flying off of it when the car turned and charged after it.

"Well, that might lead to something disturbing..." she muttered with a slight shaky voice.  Most likely, she wouldn't get used to riding in a car when Stygian is the driver.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel heard Sathariel scream almost before she realized what had happened. She couldn't even spot May as the crowd swept away from the oncoming second motorcycle. With no exits she was so trapped. Where were her large interfering brothers when she actually needed them?

[Stygian]

They were pushed to the backs of their seats as Stygian caught up with the policecar. Down below and off to the left, they could just see a near-empty square in front of a train station through the side of the forward screen. Something seemed to be happening down there. The next off-ramp was far up ahead.
   "Waste no time... Brace yourselves!" Stygian shouted. Then, he pulled full throttle, and the acceleration before seemed like nothing.

   The other motorcyclist came around the centre of the square at Mel much too fast and too low for her to be able to do anything. One could just hope she would be able to kick herself out of his grasp once he had caught up with her. She might have been able to sidestep, but with the other hoodlums coming up behind her, there really was no room to maneuver. It even seemed that some of the other thugs from before had broken from the spell and made their way along. And with the square cut off by the motorcycles, that meant they were trapped.
   Then, there was a loud crunching sound, and a deafening roar, as something big and black hurtled through the air and down on the square. The motorcyclist headed for Mel barely had time to look up before he was crushed by the huge black car that landed to the side of the square and skidded around, heading for Sathariel and the other biker. It stopped, a door quickly unlatched on its side, and there were two sharp bangs. The man holding Sathariel dropped listlessly on his bike, which tipped to the side. The next moment, Stygian leapt over the black car, holding two huge handguns.

(OOC: May's spell would have failed, since magic is entirely cancelled by now)

[Gareeku]

As the car accelerated, Gareeku was thrown back into his seat once more. Seeing what Stygian was about to do, the wolf-turned-human held on and braced him for the inevitable flight.
When the car landed, Gareeku was thrown about somewhat, luckily not injuring himself in the process.

Quickly recomposing himself, Gareeku turned to Aisha with a smirk.
"Time to get to work." he commented, before  grabbing his weapons, strapping them to himself, and then leaping out the open door, grabbing hold of the assault rifle on his back as his did so.
Strafing across the square in a run, the wolf-turned human opened fire, careful not to fire upon Mel and the others.

[Aisha deCabre]

As Aisha watched the screens and the car started to speed up, a weight was suddenly present in her gut that seemed to say, "prepare for the grand finale to this ride..."  Listening to the instinct, she clutched the seats again and braced herself, feeling like her spine was pasted to the cushion when the thing accelerated to full and flew through the air.

Upon landing, Aisha almost flew forward and hit the seat, but thanks to her grip, it was nothing more than a very dramatic end to the ride.  Shaking her head a bit with an adrenaline-pumped smirk, she laughed back at Gareeku and grabbed her own equipment from the back and strapped them on with the vest.  "Now the fun starts."

Aisha leaped out of the other side and ran in behind the others, clutching her submachine gun and rushing around to protect Mel and the others while glaring at the remaining thugs that had surrounded them.  Among the sounds of open fire from Gareeku, she hoped that some would have the sense to give up.

"I suggest you run," she said with a very dangerous hiss in her voice and cocked the weapon.  She liked giving the quarry a chance to run...and liked it better when they didn't.

[Stygian]

Stygian snapped off bullets at high speed, diving to the side and ducking behind a fountain to the side of the square as his own volley was met by the retaliation of the much more numerous guns the thugs possessed. Still, two of them had gone down in burning bits, the huge thermite-charged bullets tearing through flesh like butter.
   "Mel! If you can hear me, get to the car as fast as you can! Run!" he shouted, while bringing out one of the cylinder-like grenades he had put on him. He readied his guns again, and prepared to dash.
   When support came from Aisha and Gareeku, the hail of bullets pinning the gangmembers and catching them off-guard, Stygian leapt out of his hiding place and practically loped on all fours, heading for them while blasting at them with a huge gun in his right hand, the primed shape-charge grenade in the other.
   "Take the motorcycles! We won't fit in the car!"

[Mel Dragonkitty]

After having a car drop on her attacker and the shots flying around it took Mel a second to realize what she had been told. She ran to the black monster, ducking the... everything... flying through the air. As she did she shouted, "Where's Sath? Where's May?"

[Joat]

Meanwhile, May grabs the gun from her pocket and opens fire on one of the gang members. She fires several shots until the gun is empty, not one of them hitting the gang member.

“May, drop the gun and high-tail it outta there. You can’t hit the broad side of a barn,” a divine voice says to May.

“Gee, I appreciate the compliment,” May responds aloud in a very sarcastic tone as she quickly flees to the shelter of the car.

*OOC: Aww… they are such good friends.*

[Gareeku]

It seemed that the decision to use strafing tactics working perfectly, as it seemed that his targets found him too difficult a target to get at. Hearing Stygian's call, Gareeku nodded, before quickly dashing into the fray.
"Let's go!" Gareeku said as he grabbed Sathariel's arm, dashing over to one of the bikes. It was then, however, that Gareeku cursed to himself.
"I don't even know how to drive one of these things!" he exclaimed in self-frustration.

[Aisha deCabre]

Watching Mel and the others rush to the car, Aisha was finally relieved that they were safely found.  It was then that she found the liberty to fire a few rounds off, the gun's loud exploding ringing in her ears and only adding to the intensity of the situation, at the rest of the thugs while using evasive maneuvers of her own.

She stopped upon hearing Stygian's orders, nodding in reply.  Whatever it took to get everyone to a safer place and out of this melee...she wondered in fact if the police were to get involved soon.  Marching over to a bike, Aisha heard Gareeku's curse and sighed loudly, more or less to herself at the fact that she didn't know how to drive one either.  "Well, now would be a good time to fake it, right?" she inquired and propped it up.

[Stygian]

Sathariel looked at Gareeku with shaky, wide eyes. She seemed almost completely in shock. So it came as a surprise to him when she laid her hand on his, and he suddenly felt like he was electrified for a moment. He twitched, and then, he realized, he knew all about riding these motorcycles. Even a bit about streetracing with them, in fact.

   Stygian had jumped up and kicked the leader of the thugs square in the face, then rolled back while letting go of the grenade. The directed blast of the shape-charge tore into the ones who had not yet found cover, sending them over the side and either down the stairs or off the edge of the square, tumbling to the ground.
   Then there came the sound of sirens from behind, and red and blue lights flashed. Stygian wasted no time to wait for the policemen, but ran back, still shooting to pin the other thugs to their positions. Then he turned and sprinted, looking at the progress of his companions. And he realized something. There had been only two bikes, and one was crushed. Gareeku seemed to have made good progress with one, but that still meant that there were too few spots to get everyone away.
   "Bloody Hell!" he shouted when he ducked back to the Mallet. "Someone! I'm the only one who can drive this, so someone has to take the elevator! Go! We'll meet right up there!"
   The thugs opened fire again, and so did the policemen who had just arrived.

[Joat]

May looked at how the situation was going. “Wait a second! I’m May Cottontail and May Cottontail is no coward!”

“Now how do I help the situation? Okay, May. Think… thiiink…” she thinks.

“You wish to help them and I wish for blood,” a voice says within her mind.

May gasps and her heart skips a beat. It is that voice. The voice that made her do the thing that will haunt her for the rest of her life. “No! Get away from me!” May yells.

“Very well. I will give you time. The day will come that you will come to me searching for power. Until that time, May…”

[Aisha deCabre]

Looking over the condition of the bike that she had pulled up, the transformed human let it fall over again with an annoyed sigh and tried to count where the others were.  Karl she hadn't heard from since they left the car, so she figured he was still there, waiting to help May and Mel...Gareeku and Sathariel were taking a motorcycle, it looked like...and Stygian was driving.

That left herself...

Suddenly, she jumped upon hearing the sirens approaching, barely hearing Stygian give the command on what they should do.  But when Aisha did, she gauged the distance back from whence they came, then turned back around.  "I'll meet you all at the elevator.  Running does it better for me than that heart attack you call a car," she smirked jokingly.  "Just make sure everyone's in one piece," she admonished, glancing briefly over to where Gareeku was when saying so.

Then, in her usual stealthy way, Aisha dashed through into the shadows, hopefully avoiding the sight of the oncoming police car.

[Stygian]

Stygian darted a look to Aisha, watching her run in through the doors to the elevator lounge. Then, when he heard the closing of the door on the other side of the car, meaning that Mel had probably gotten in, he turned to Gareeku.
   "Follow close on my tail!" he said, and then got in, slamming the door behind him. The Mallet's engine growled, and with smoke billowing from its wheels it skidded as Stygian turned it against the policecar blocking the road out of the square. They accelerated violently, and then tore through the other car as if it had been made of tissue paper. Stygian headed for the nearest vehicle ramp, dodging through the traffic to get up to the next platform level.

   For Aisha, the ride up was much more smooth. As with everything else, the interior of the elevator lounge seemed like a mixture of victorian and futuristic industrial design. There were at least a dozen individual tube-like elevators surrounding a main square one that seemed intended for vehicles and cargo, and whose entrance was from the inside of the train station. A woman with a slightly cybernetically altered, yet friendly appearance stood in uniform in a reception to the right, but there appeared to be no entrance fee, so it was just to step in.
   An elevator just opened to the right, and admitted entrance into the glassed tube.

[Gareeku]

Feeling the shock, Gareeku was even more amazed to find that, somehow, he now knew how to drive the motorcycle. Looking at Sathariel, the wolf-turned-human smiled at her to say thank you. Getting on, Gareeku then started up the engine, revving it a bit as he motioned for Sath to get on board. Looking over at Aisha, a look of concern was evident on Gareeku's face. However, he then thought of how talented a fighter she was, and smiled to himself in the knowledge that she could more than look after herself.

Listening to Stygian, Gareeku nodded his head in acknowledgement, revving the engine some more.
"Hold on tight!" the wolf-turned-human called to Sathariel, before speeding off after the car, weaving in and out of the traffic as he followed Stygian up to the next level.