Villain's league (IC)

[techmaster-glitch]

   Alarms and sirens were going off in all parts of the city. Police, firefighters, and ambulances were all pitching it to fend off this threat to their city. But they would eventually be overwhelmed if they didn't have any help.
   That's where Quaddle came in.
   He zoomed on his golden disks around a corner. A mob of mutants faced him. He pointed his staff at them and roared several powerful words. A flood of golden liquid light spilled out of the staff and washed over the mutants. Instantly, they were all on the ground in throes of agony--but they were changing. In about seven seconds, they had all turned back into a crowd of humans in tattered clothes. He amplified his voice: "All of you, get out of here! Evacuate the city, now!"
   But in the air, Quaddle was very worried. The spell had taken more energy from his staff than he thought. I've only got enough juice left for another shot like that, then I'll have to recharge. There must be hundreds of these mobs throughout the city! Oh well, I must keep going.
   He zoomed again.
   After turning a few more corners, he came across a massive police and S.W.A.T. barrier trying to hold back a tide of mutants. Quaddle quickly altered his form underneath his robes, he now looked like a strong, well-kept man in his late thirties, early fourties. The authorities would have a better time believing that than his favored form of a teenager.
   He flew over the barrier and cast the spell again. Once again, the crowd of mutants turned back to normal. But now Quaddle's staff was almost completely drained.
   He floated down to the police and S.W.A.T. units, identified the senior ranking officer, and landed in front of him.
   "Sir, listen to me, and don't interrupt, we are pressed for time. You must begin evacuations of every non-infected civillian in the entire city."
   "The entire city?" The man said, baffled.
   "Yes, the entire city. Call your high command and tell them. Also, try to begin hearding the mutants toward the center of the city. That's important. I don't care how it's done, just do it. No time to explain."
    With that, Quaddle went back into the air with his disks. When he turned the next corner, he went up, up, up, and through the window of an office building. And not a moment too soon. The magical energy in his staff drained at almost that moment, and his disks faded.
   Then, he stood the staff upright and placed his hands around it. Red energy crackled to life from his body, and began pouring into the staff. He wanted enough energy to cast his mutant reversal spell a good number of times, maybe around ten. For that, he needed a good three, maybe four minutes of charging. Fourtunately, it doesn't neccesarily have to all be at once. He just decided how many times he wanted the spell, gauged how much energy it took, and mentaly told himself how long he would need to charge to reach that.
   Four minutes wasn't even much time, and the city was so big it would take an anti-miracle for someone... unscrupulous to have spotted him.
   But the longer he stayed in the city, the more likely it became for someone to run across him.

[Boog]

The Van screamed around corners with its creator leaning back in its drivers seat, hands behind her head. It was sniffing the air, tasting the asphalt. Searching, searching, closer...
There! I have found the sought thing! The van thought (in its little not-quite-sentient way), feeling a rush of joy at the prospect of doing as required. It wanted Mommy to be happy. ALL of Anastasia's biological creations were psychologically programmed with a sychophantic love for her. It got them to do what she wanted regardless of their survival instincts. Mommy will be so very, very PLEASED!
Anastasia recognized the slight change in the sound of the Van's engine, an edge that was either a purr or a hunting growl, and smiled. "I'll leave it up to you. After all, I know it's been a while since you've had any really fresh meat that wasn't from the biovats," yes, she doted on the Van a little. Even those who happily perform illegal experiments on children could feel the joy of having something to look after like a pet.
She simply watched through the windshield as the Van charged, planning on going straight through the crowd of recently cured convicts to the building, which it would climb up. It would then splatter (and possibly eat) the red man inside. I'm allowed to eat the sought thing! Yay for eating! Yay for things sought! FOR THE GLORY OF MOMMY! It's "engine" giving a feral sounding scream rivaled only by its tires on the street, the Van surged forward.

[techmaster-glitch]

   After several minutes, Quaddle finally cut off his flow of energy into his staff. It was at that moment when he started hearing thumps, rumbles, and crashes. The floor even started to quake slightly. What now? Quaddle thought. He put the orb-end of his staff to his forehead and closed his eyes. Suddenly his vision was elsewhere, floating around and though walls, searching for the source of the distubrance-
   Something was making it's way up the stairs of the building. Quaddle didn't even want to know what it was. When will these biological depravities end? Big, dumb, and FUGLY AS ALL HELL. He thought. However, since the "thing's" brain was quite primitive, he was partially able to read the instincts, and to a small extent, it's thoughts. At the moment, it seemed to have one thing on it's mind: Splattering Quaddle. This gave Quaddle an idea.
   The room he was in was a large one, containing many desks, and took up most of the floor. Smiling greatly, he gave two mighty swings of his staff. Everything on his floor of the office building simply flew to the side walls. Then, Quaddle moved to one of the whole-story window-walls. He opened one up, and stood in front of it, facing the stairwell entrance. Now there was a completely straight path from the entrance to Quaddle.

[Boog]

The Van was trying for subtlety. While it couldn't think, it COULD hunt, and a vehicle growing huge, muscular, veiney legs and climbing up the side of the building (easier though it may be) would attract unneeded attention. Mommy wanted to keep a low profile. That means entering the building from the inside, and not roaring unless it was going really fast.
One more flight of stairs and it could eat the sought thing. It blinked the seatbelt light at Anastasia, who took the hint and buckled herself in. The rabbit stroked the horror's dashboard once, provoking another croon before it went silent. For a few minutes it waited. It didn't move, it didn't breathe, it barely even thought. Until the TIME. Right when the prey stopped smelling of wariness and started smelling of mild discomfort.
Then it truly MOVED.
Wheels were a nice way around, and it had taken Anastasia AGES to find a way of growing a biological wheel. However, the creature still preferred not holding its legs in. Its legs shot out, huge and muscular red/pink/grey veiney tree trunks, its claws (four on each foot, arrayed like the points of a compass) folding down over the wheels in midair. These same claws reaching above it, reaching the ceiling where they dug in to ricoche the Van to the side of the entrance, ensuring that it and the Sought Thing were parallel to the window. The sought thing could fly and it could not, so it couldn't simply rush it without ensuring it would not go through the window. It opened it's four part mouth to scream a challenge. Were a biologist to see it that alone would be another testament to Anastasia's craft; the esophagus that was closed until needed, the humanlike eyes remaining inside the mouth and seeing through the "headlights," the connection to the nasal passages under the "hood" that produced the enginelike noise, the writhing mass of prehensile tongues, the TEETH... Something made for the purpose of killing, with intimidation being a convenient bonus.
Anastasia stroked the creatures dashboard again with a soothing noise, and then rapped her finger against the steering wheel once. The creature tensed, ready to strike...

[techmaster-glitch]

   Quaddle was standing in front of the open window, not really wary, just mildy cautious, but mostly confident. Then, all the disturbance stopped. Inexplicably. Oh for crying out loud, what NOW? he thought, irritated. He placed his staff to his forehead and did the same thing as before.
   But before he could locate the thing again, it made itself very obvious. It had come from the entrance, the rushed to the side, and faced Quaddle. Then it roared.
   Well well, Big Dumb And Ugly's not as Dumb as I thought... Normally, Quaddle would have complimented Anastasia, but at the moment, he was just mildly irritated.
   "I don't have time for this." He said. With that, he jumped backwards out the open window, conjured his disks, which went under his feet to support him, and zipped off.

[nikename2]

Daemon was whisking silently through the alley ways, blood and graffiti splattered all around each one, keeping an eye up on the heavens as he went. Then he stopped abruptly on a fire escape, he could hear a faint voice in between the buildings. Although it was distorted from the cityscape, there was no white noise in the voice, like you would normally get when using a megaphone. It was probably him, and even if it wasn't he could question whoever it was before doing them a "favor". Daemon then jumped in the direction he heard it from and wall kicked his way through the alley ways.

"Liz, I think I got a lead on him, I can't see him yet, but I'm sure he's close by.", Daemon said through the makeshift comlink. He then jumped down toward a cross section in the city street, there were blood smears and tire tracks covering the road. A massacre... "I'm at the junction of Dr.King blvd. and Jefferson ave. It should be somewhere to the east from where you are at the moment, try to make your way over and let me know when you have a visual. Knight One Out."

Daemon walked out into the street and squated down to inspect the tracks. He then rubbed his finger on the blood marks and sniffed it. "They must have died no more then a few moments ago. This blood is still very red and fresh.", Daemon thought as he rubbed the blood off on his shirt. The tracks led into nearby building that had a large gaping hole in the entrance. It was still very quiet though, aside from some sirens he could hear off in the distance. Daemon walked up toward the broken entrance, he was then startled by a audious bellowing roar, coming up from above on the left side. He cocked his arms and rushed towards that side of the building, looking up at the windows. Then he saw him, flying off yet again.

"Coward....if you were smart you would finish what you started...", Daemon thought as he propped himself against the building, ready to spring. "I found him. He's up in the air again near the junction. I'm gonna try to bring him down."

The reality around Daemon's feet pulsed outward subtly, a split-second later he was rocketing upwards into the air towards Quaddle with the velocity of a F-4 Phantom Jet. Aiming both arms outward at him, Daemon began firing furiously at him.

[techmaster-glitch]

   Not ten seconds after jumping out the window and zooming off, he heard a blast from behind him. He started to turn in air--and two machineguns sounded. Quaddle quickly brought his staff around, spinning it to generate the shield he did earlier, but just a second too late. A few of the bullets zipped by him, some went through his cape or robes, but several shot through parts of his body. Quaddle wasn't human, he was a Guardian, and such trivial wounds barely caused him pain, or even immediately consequential injury. That didn't mean he didn't have to fix it eventually, though. The rest of the bullets were blocked by the shield.
   "I though I ditched you, loser knight!" And in a split-second, Quaddle's mind processed exactly what Daemon had done. Does this fool of a Black Knight have a suicide wish or something?!? Daemon had made several stupid, critical, and rather obvious mistakes: he did not have his armor; thus he was unprotected, and he had done only a straight power-jump at Quaddle; thus he had zero maneuverability. He could not dodge anything Quaddle decided to throw at him...
   "I don't have time for you right now!" Quaddle stopped spinning his staff (a few more bullets got to him) and swung it towards Daemon. A single beam of white light, one foot in diameter, lanced at Daemon, just as he was a mere several yards away. It struck him square in the gut. It was nothing more than a forceblast-spell. Daemon's direction was reversed completely, flying back towards the ground at the same speed he jumped up. The initial spell does little damage, but that's not what it was for... Daemon impacted into the ground, leaving a good-sized crater. No, really.
   "You have no idea what I can do! I'm not even using half my power against you! These are basic spells! Yet you still kamikaze? You are an absolute fool!" Quaddle sent one more spell down at him, to slow him down and teach him a lesson. This one looked like nothing more than an innocent ball of multicolored light, and it fixed itself in front of Daemon's face. As soon as he looks at it, it would flash. Blindingly. As in, he'll be spending several minute rubbing sparklies out of his eyes.
   "Chew on that for awhile!"
   Quaddle enhanced his disks, turned around, and was zipping obove the streets at twice the speed he was going earlier. Hopefully, that would keep pursuers off his tail. He healed himself and fixed the holes in his robes as he went. He continued looking for mutant mobs to patch up.

[nikename2]

"Hehehe.....HA HA HA HA!!", Daemon laughed as he lied there in the crater, his clothes tattered, but still not a scratch on him, the cellphone though was destroyed. Something was overtaking him, in the back of his mind, parts of himself long since forgotten. "I think that struck a nerve, hehe."

He then opened his eyes, a glowing ball of light was infront of him, and immediately it bursted brightly. Daemon looked away quickly, gripping the sword on his back. He then opened em up again, but he couldn't see anything except the blinding light, his body trembling. Then the darkness in the back of his mind triggered. He couldn't contain the unrelenting rage building within any longer as he felt the entirity of his being begin to burn. Daemon's hands ignited in shadow flame, his eyes lit up in bright white radiance and began to burn as well, his vision remedied. Immediately he unsheathed his void blade, within seconds it too was enveloped from the pyre burning in his hands. Daemon jumped up out of the crater, looking onward in the distance. He could still see him, but he was very far away, on the otherside of a river that cut through the heart of the city. Daemon made a broad swift swing with his weapon, unleashing a shockwave of darkness that cut through all the buildings infront of him causing them to collapse. He then began walking towards the river, every now and then slashing at the buildings around him as he went, destroying the cityscape in his wake. Although their exchange was sent into intermission, the battle within Daemon's mind flared on. The darkness, raging against the light. To his body though, only vengeance mattered now. He was Wrath incarnate.   

[lucas marcone]

Red anvil came upon the city on silent wings. There was nothing but chaos, and from what she could make out a small battle between a man in red and a severely pissed man with a really big sword. She came in low. No need to attract attenton untill needed. That was a mistake. a mutant burst out of a window and latched on to her, both plummeting to the ground. When she hit Red knew she had her job cut out for her. she threw off the mutant and lit her hands in fire. "May God's grace guide me." she said quietly.

[Angel]

Daemon's plan made sense; it was the only thing that could be done without needing to factor in the zombie-things much. Liz nodded and stared as Daemon jumped off the building. Thank God I don't have to do that...

He walked over to the side of the building, kicked off his shoes and socks, and jumped. After he'd fallen a little ways, he turned around and stuck his hands and feet to the side of the building. Then he crawled the rest of the way down as quickly as he could. Man, am I glad I'm a lizard.

Then Daemon's voice crackled from Liz's phone, informing him of the knight's location. Liz ran fluidly from shadow to shadow, slashing mutants who came near him with a steel blade. He was about five blocks from Daemon when he heard that Quaddle was close by. Then he heard a lot of noise, and what sounded like Quaddle shouting. He listened as best he could, sprinting in Daemon's direction. The red-cloaked mage flew right over Liz's head, but he heard a splintering sound from the phone.

"HE BETTER NOT BE DEAD, BASTARD!" Liz called after Quaddle, not caring whether he heard or not. There was smoke up ahead coming from a huge crater in the ground. Liz screeched to a stop when ... was that Daemon? He looked different somehow...

Daemon faced a row of buildings and sliced them apart with a pure shockwave. Liz screamed and jumped back. "Are you alright?!" he yelled to Daemon, but he didn't seem to hear the gecko. He just walked off in Quaddle's direction, right past Liz.

Liz stood there for a moment, then jogged to the side of the street and crawled along the walls, watching Daemon to see what he'd do.

[nikename2]

"Your friend can't hear you now, Liz.", a voice echoed within Liz' mind. "Right now he is at the complete mercy of his own power. Had he not been wearing those gloves, he would have been lost right about now."

The reality around Daemon shimmered, the visage of two small boys appearing behind him, the same he had confronted before. Daemon couldn't sense them at all, he just kept walking. The boys looked up at Liz, their eyes glowing blue. "You're the only one who can see or hear me right now."

They then looked back at Daemon, and vanished, reappearing seconds later on top of the building Liz was crawling on. "You should get going, your other friend may require your assistance." They both gestured towards the building Quaddle flew out of, then vanished again.

Daemon gazed up at the heavens, and raised his burning blade over his head. He began twirling it again like he did before, except this time the darkness flowing out of his blade began to swirl chaotically around him. He was lifted up and then enveloped by a tornado of darkness. The boys appeared before the tornado and held out their arms, their eyes glowing brightly. The tornado coalesced into a ball of pure shadow, and engulfed them.

"I'll explain this later to you, if he survives. Until then take this, you may need it to fight him."

The orb of darkness shimmered, out shot an obsidian amulet. Liz caught it, then the orb vanished. "As long as your wearing it, nothing he throws at you can hit you. Be warned though, it will not save you if you fight him hand to hand. Farewell...."

[lucas marcone]

Red anvil gave the mutant a good right hook and it landed awkwardly a few feet away. She flew off before more could over come her. Then she saw a lizard, they both appeared to be chaseing the red person and she knew the red man was helping, so he must be a cause of trouble. She flew at him ams streached out and covered in flame.

[Angel]

Liz wondered for a moment how and why he should wear a now-invisible orb that two mysterious children had given him, but then a flaming woman flew toward him. He unstuck his hands and jumped off the wall, landing and generating a copper spike in one hand.

"I don't have the time for this!" Liz shouted, running towards the building Quaddle had flown out of. What did they mean, my other friend? Is someone else here too? And who was that?

[lucas marcone]

"Why do they run?" Red muttered to herself. Then she proceeded to follow him. "If you tun your self in, it'll be much easier on you!" she shouted.

[Angel]

Who the hell is she and why does she care what I do? Liz thought. He had realized by this point that maybe she wouldn't attack him. Unsure of whether this was really the smartest thing to do, he stopped and spun around to face the woman, every muscle in his body taut in case she tried anything and he had to run again. He noticed that she looked like a very beautiful representation of the devil, with crimson hair, dark eyes and red skin. His eyes met hers and he spoke calmly.

"Turning myself in would be boring, ma'am, and much worse than my current position. Once they figure out what I can do, they'll never leave me alone. They might ship me to a lab and have me dissected to see how I can do such things. They might even kill me to keep the economy safe. And I can't have that happen. I'm not done living yet, and I can't force my family and loved ones into such a mess." He smirked a little. "Besides, the world is already in chaos - I'm just making it more obvious."

His half-hearted smile faded. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to keep my co-workers safe." He walked quickly toward the building again, waiting to see if she'd chase him.

[lucas marcone]

Every muscle in her frame bulged as she swung her forearms into the side of the building. The area around the impact caved noticeable and the whole building shook as if an earth quake had hit."You should have thought about that befor you broke the law!" Her arms felt a slight bit tender after that.

[Boog]

After that chase the end was rather anticlimactic. Anastasia pulled out her gun and fired a few shots at Quaddle as he escaped, but she was no marksman and her shots went wide by quite a bit. Daemon hurdled by soon after, further confusing and frustrating the rabbit. Where in the bouncing hell did he-? Bah, gift horses.
Now there was simply the issue of how to get down. On the one hand, after managing to keep a low profile so far it seemed stupid to just have the Van clamber down the building. After all, they wanted to make the incidents seem unrelated and the Van would be recognized. Then again, Daemon blasting by for everyone to see could have sent that plan to hell anyway.
"@#$% it, the stairs aren't meant for things of your weight anyway..." She drummed her fingers on the dashboard, and finally reached a compromise. "Break through some floors to get down, get out when we're closer to the ground." The Van hurried to obey, bringing one claw down with as much force as it could.

--

It wasn't fast, but eventually the Van (Its legs scrunched back into the wheelwells and its mouth closed, once more from the outside a normal van) drove through the second floor window in a stunt that would bring a tear to the eye of any Hollywood director. Landing on its back wheels first, it fishtailed and tore off down the road to follow Quaddle. As it did it noticed another Red Thing and, assuming it might be important, pointed Anastasia in its direction with one of the dashboard blinkers. She glanced out the window as the Van approached Red and Liz to get a better look at what was going on near her. Liz is fighting... A human twizzler? Must be doing good if she's on fire...

[Angel]

Liz stopped yet again, but only because he could feel the shockwave from the red woman hitting the building. She had power, there was no question of that; but would she use that power on him or not?

He turned once again, taking a few steps toward her. "I respect your strength, and admire you for trying to change my ways. But I'm not going to. And recent events have led me to believe that one of my friends is in that building. Since I can't have you keep interrupting me - " At this he stopped talking and abruptly swung the heavy end of the spike at the woman's side.

[lucas marcone]

Bad move. Being as tough as she is she was barely affected and she wrapped both hands around liz's arms and ripped him off the building. She looked him square in the eye. "I don't care if you change or not you're still going to jail. I just said it may be easier." with that she threw him to the ground.


*OOC she has him lifted so his feet are only inches off the groung but she throws him torso first down*

[Angel]

Liz barely had time to register the surprise about such a heavy weapon having no effect on the woman before she grabbed him by the arms and threw him down. His back scraped against the rocks and other debris in the road. He wasn't hurt too seriously, but it still stung like crazy.

"Rrgh...ngah...okay..." He stood up slowly, gritting his teeth and looking more than a little pissed off. "I wasn't gonna use this attack... but it seems nothing else might work against you." He tossed off his jacket and side-stepped quickly till he was standing ten paces away from the building he'd been crawling on. He was still facing the woman; he made sure of that. Then, without making any clever comment at all, he curled up into a ball and began spinning in place rapidly.

Darts made from almost every kind of metal conceivable flew out of Liz's skin, and he could hear glass breaking, car alarms going off, and a few people screaming. Best hope they run away... He was trying to concentrate the darts on the woman, but since he couldn't really look up, he hoped for the best.

[lucas marcone]

He was rewarded by sounds of agrivation. "UGH Ow! sonova OW!" Red ripped a piece of blacktop out of the road about as big as two fists. She chucked it but good at liz. "You'll put someone's eye out!" she called. Then started ripping the darts out of their shallow resting places.

[Angel]

Liz stopped when he heard sounds of pain in the red woman's direction. He uncurled and stood, seeing, to his dismay, that it had only worked a little. The needles were stuck in her, but he had been hoping they'd pierce a little farther than that. She wasn't even bleeding that much! He tried to dodge the pieces of road she threw at him, but they bounced off his forearm.

"OWW! JEEZ!" Liz shouted, his other hand going to his arm immediately. "I was hoping to put out more than your eye, lady!" he yelled at Red. "What the hell are you?!"

[Miaka]

Roulette obligingly got into the car with Dile Lass, smiling, as usual. The ride went by without much trouble, for the first few moment, at least... A small buzz from Roulette's pocket, and she paused in her somewhat idiotic ramblings to pick up.
"Church of England, cake or death?" a large smile on her face, as she waited for the boss to respond, and, once he had, her face fell.
"Right, right... Damn, I'll let them know." She hung up, and glanced at Dile Lass. "Get Croc, we need to get back to the states. Something's gone down, some dude with a staff or something, Daemon, Liz, and Anastasia might be in sme trouble, some flaming red chick just popped up and has been being a bit of a pain." She sighed. "Damned heroes, always getting in the way... Either way, the Boss is pretty worried about the dude with the staff... He's leaving his building."

[techmaster-glitch]

   Quaddle had flown around the city for some time. He gladly noted that the police and firefighters were doing as he said, and the mutants were getting hearded toward the center. They came in much larger groups, and Quaddle was able to take out more of them on one blast. He had almost half the mutants converted by now.
   But it was still taking too long.
   His staff was getting low on charge after seven clensing blasts, he would need to recharge soon. There's got to be a better way to do this... All my amplification devices are still in my hideout...Wait! Of course!... oh, that's going to take a lot of power... but I think I can do it!
   The center of the city had higher buildings and skyscrapers. Quaddle darted up to near the top of one. Once inside, he quickly cast a scry-spell again. Better keep an eye on the Pawns... and what he found surpised him greatly.
   Dameon was gone, but Liz was fighting...someone. Quaddle had no idea who she was, but The enemy of my enemy is my friend doctrine kicked in. I better pick her up when I leave here...
   He turned off his scry-spell and began charging again. This one was going to take a little more time, about seven minutes. Before beginning the charging, he cast a spell on himself to magically extend his spatial senses. Now, if anything were to come near his little building, he'd know about it well ahead of time.

[lucas marcone]

As the car rolled to a clunky stop infront of her house/citadel/throne type thing Dile Lass turned to Rouletee and spke to her very ernestly. "Croc is hurt and I'd rather not risk him being worse off for the wear, and I've my country to attend to... I have a very important meeting. I can't send my military because at the moment the U.S. finds out they's squish us like a bug. This is on your sholder for now Rou but I know you can handle it. I have a private jet on the roof take it and PLEASE bring it back in one piece."



*************************

Red and Liz seemed to be at a stand still. She had strength and he had speed, though they were about equal in the brains dept. "I don't know who you are, but you have to stop makeing things around here worse." Red ripped the window of a news paper dispenser off and used it like a sheild should he try his little dart trick again. She bagan walking to him at a stady and moderate pace.

[Miaka]

"When y'all can, please, head over, If the boss thinks he needs to leave, we're in trouble." Roulette nodded. "Until then, I'll see ya. I'll try to give a call every once in a while to let you know how we're doin'."
--

The Boss was already well on his way- he'd 'forgotten' to call Roulette until he was most of the way into Michigan already, and now, was watching the destruction from a ways away, leaning out of the open door from his limo. He nodded once or twice, a half-smile on his mouth.
"Good, good..." He motioned over one of the small robots that had been in his building- how he was able to bring then was a wonder to anyone.
"Do me a favor." He said, not bothering to look at the little thing. "Go and find our opposition, let him know that I'd like to talk. Purely business, no hostility." The robot gave a small noise- I suppose it was of agreement? And sped off towards the city.

[techmaster-glitch]

   After a good solid several minutes of charging, Quaddle finally figured he had enough energy stored. He jumped out of the tower he was in, and floated down to the bottom of the street. It was near the center, but mostly empty (as Quaddle had cast a clensing spell on it earlier). He walked to the middle of the street, and began to weave a powerful, yet relatively simple spell. This spell was going to chew up a great amount of energy, as it's range had to be huge.
   After thirty seconds, he had what he thought he needed. He raised his staff high above his head. The staff-orb flashed blue, sending invisible tendrils of magic all throught the city.
   Everywhere in the city, gems, jewels, and crystals simply floated into the air of their own accord, and began flying through the streets. The windows of jewelry stores shattered as a torrent of shiny things sped through them. Gems set into rings, necklaces or anything else simply detached themselves from their metal bands, leaving them behind.
   In the center of the city, Quaddle stood as his magic did it's thing. Rivers of gems paraded toward him. He held out a hand, and the sparkly things converged above it, becoming a rather pretty multicolored micro-maelstrom. It got bigger and bigger as more and more gems flew to it.

[Boog]

The Van rolled to a stop near Liz. The window rolled down slowly without Anastasia's interference. The Van knew what she wanted.
"We have bigger fish to fry, Liz. The other one's able to screw up everything we've gotten done here so far. Way more work than I'd like down the crapper," The Van's back doors swung open, its interior dark in contrast with the light coming in from the windshield. However, one got the impression of movement back there... "Come on. We can leave the girl for later."

[lucas marcone]

"No! I won't let you." Red picked up the pace to a mediocre run. "This ends here!" However Red was mistaken as Liz had plenty of time to hop in and leave.


*********************
"Take care Rou hate to see you get hurt." Dile Lass said as she climbed out of the clunker.

[techmaster-glitch]

(OOC: Holy shit, this went on far longer than I expected. Apologies again for the uber-long post, I was telling myself I would never do it again, but...gahhhh. Sorry.)

   The three would notice that the rivers of gems had stopped flowing. It seems they were all now gone...

   Back in the center of the city, Quaddle was engulfed in a whirlwind created by the spiraling gems. His cape was flowing in the air, and bits of paper and rubbish were flying all around the street. But, the flow of incoming jewels and crystals began to taper off, and soon stopped all together. The vortex of sparkles slowed and became a lazy, peaceful, silent swirl.
   Satisfied that he had enough material, Quaddle motioned with his hand, and the gems gathered in a loose ball. He placed his staff upright under the ball, and it stayed there, standing on it's point. Quaddle made an upward motion with his hands--and he floated a little into the air.
   He didn't have to actually be touching his staff to draw upon it's magic, but he did have to be in fairly close proximity. As for what he was going to do, he needed the speed and precision of hand motions to guide the gems rather than the crude wave of a staff.
   Without hesitating, he set to work. He moved his hands in elaborate ways, and the gems, jewels, and crystals followed. He started by sorting them out. Then he made cupping and squeezing motions, and the gems began crushing themselves together. He made angular motions, and the clusters cut and shaped themselves. He began maneuvering the pieces into place, and fused them together. He continued the process of shaping them while simultaneously putting them together and fusing them. In no more than two minutes, he stopped and looked at his creation. Think a giant, massive crystal shaped somewhat like an angular umbrella with stained-glass colors and you'll get the basic idea of what he made.
   With the composite crystal still floating, Quaddle lowered himself back to the ground. The making of the crystal did take a noticeable amount of energy out of his recently charged staff, but it was the spell to retrieve all the components that drained the most. He checked the power level in his staff--did it still have enough for what he needed to do? He hoped it did, he didn't have enough time to charge again. He might be ambushed before he could begin the final phase.
   He made a high raising motion with both arms, and the giant gem flew straight up. It climbed higher and higher, until it was above the tallest buildings in the city. In anyone looked up, it would be almost impossible to miss the huge glint of moonlight reflecting and refracting through the crystal. He struggled slightly to keep it steady; it was difficult to control magic from such a great distance, until he affixed the gem on a magical axis of his staff.
   Quaddle placed his hands on his staff, which had remained in place the whole time. Without a second to waste, the staff's orb began to glow--then a huge, intense golden beam literally erupted from the orb and blasted toward the gem. No one could miss the beam.
   It shot up at a rapid pace, and in seconds, it hit the tip of the shaft of the umbrella-shaped gem, and stopped. Soft golden light began creeping up the shaft of the gem, got to the wide canvas-part, and spread. When the entire crystal was suffused with golden light, a great golden beacon in the sky, it too seemed to erupt.
   Liquid golden light spilled out of the gem downward, and began filling the entire city. The spell itself was powerful in its own right, but not something that could cleanse the entire city on its own. The crystal acted as both a focusing lens and an amplification devise.
   The light flowed through the streets, through the buildings, through everything. Anything with eyes would be seeing nothing but gold as the light washed over them, not even closing one's eyelids could stop it. It penetrated everything.
   As the spell washed over everything, it began to work itself. Every remaining mutant in the city (though no one could see what was happening) dropped to the ground, convulsing in agony. All mutated body parts retracted, becoming softer and normal.
   The spell, being so intensely amplified by the crystal, had several side effects. It essence, the spell itself was basically a reversal spell (to reverse the mutation) combined with a cleansing spell (to remove the mutagen from a body system), and retrofitted specifically to the mutagen. But the original effects and purposes were still there, normally negligible until the gem. Anything unclean was washed away. As it passed through normal people, the spell removed all foreign substances and toxins from their bodies entirely. Any drugs- prescription, over-the-counter, or illegal-were simply eradicated. If anyone had anything stored in their bowels or bladders, they would feel a tingling sensation as all waste products simply vanished from their insides. This also included half-digested food. Everyone would be raving hungry when this was over. Another side effect-thanks to the reversal part of the spell-being so intensely magnified, caused everyone to 'grow' one or two years younger. The spell also cleansed the streets, all dirt and trash wiped off, and the light also flooded the sewers, evaporating every taint. If anyone visits them later, they would find it as clean as a surgery room.
   All these effects, of course, extended to Red Anvil, Anastasia, and Liz. Golden blindness, empty but cleansing feeling, de-aging one or two years. This effect wasn't even confined to humans, all living organisms were affected. Mice, dogs, cats, birds, pets, strays, and The Van all felt these effects.
   The entire city, to any onlookers from the outside, was completely engulfed in a great golden half-sphere.
   But the whole time this was all happening, Quaddle was having problems.
   The crystal-gem, being a hashed together composite one, as opposed to a pure one, had difficulty handling the sheer raw amounts of magical energy it was magnifying itself. Feedback vibrations had shuddered down the beam to the staff, and had been shaking Quaddle. His staff was indestructible, it was crafted by the Elder Universe-Guardians themselves, as all Guardian Tools were, to be able to manage this kind of energy, but the crystal most certainly wasn't. If it imploded the wrong way, it could go off with the destructive force and range of an A-Bomb.
   And that would be very bad indeed.
   Quaddle attempted to stabilize the crystal, and it worked--for a few moments. Then the feedback came back, slightly stronger. Try as he might, Quaddle simply could not keep the composite gem high above him from fluctuating. If anyone could see the gem close-up, without all the golden light, they would see small black spots begin to appear, and grow bigger. The crystal simply could not handle the energy--it was beginning to burn out. The crystal gradually grew blacker and blacker.
   Down beneath, Quaddle could sense the problem, but didn't know how much time he had. If he went too long, it might go nuclear.
   But finally, he and the gem had enough. With a mighty roar that echoed throughout the city, and somewhat into the countryside, Quaddle yanked his staff, severing the connection.
   High above, the almost-totally black giant crystal shattered. Not into shards, but into blackened ash-dust. It vaporized into oblivion.
   The light that had filled the entire city slowly faded.
   Down below, Quaddle nearly collapsed. The strength needed not to sustain the spell, but to hold the spell stable, had come from him, and it exhausted him. The staff was completely and utterly drained. He shakily placed a hand on the orb of the staff, and tried to recharge it. He was a Guardian, his soul held a limitless reservoir of raw energy, he could assume many different forms at will, and he essentially had no vital areas and could take a fair deal more damage than any human, but his body was still mortal. It said "Nope, I've had enough", and Quaddle collapsed on the ground, struggling to stay conscious.

   Throughout the city, everyone else would stagger to their feet, feeling better than every before in their lives, a year or two younger, and empty and starving to boot.