Riding The End (L3 | Archived | Fantasy/Sci-Fi)

[SiberDrac]

There was a muted curse as Nine felt a bullet from the machine gun shatter his leg below the knee. Luckily, this worked out for him.

"I thought all mammals died if you submerged them for long enough..."

"Skimbleshanks!"

"Oh he's fine! He's even thrashing!" Nine reassured the little girl with a simple smile. In front of him, a dark red sphere was jiggling and occasionally breaking open as the irked animal inside it attempted to escape. By this time, its lungs were full of liquid and fairly soon, it would collapse from the exhaustion of drawing in the incorrect fluid, but until then, it was vastly intriguing to Nine, who had just attempted and failed to perform a double bypass on a young Fae girl's pet cat. When he realized it was dying, he decided to entertain himself by surrounding the unfortunate feline in a bubble of water from a nearby stream.

It was still alive.

What Nine didn't know, but would learn after he cut open the cat's chest and realized that, in fact, it was waterlogged, was that because there was so much blood leaking into the sphere of water and because of the open wounds, the cat was actually effecting gas exchange (albeit not nearly as efficiently as usual, and would soon die both from exhaustion and low blood pressure) from the surface of the sphere to its blood vessels.

What he did know was that the closest experimental organism was the quaking little girl next to him. He slit her throat with a reassuring grin.

This time, having learned the dangers of inhaling water, Nine was rather calmly simply defying his body's urge to breathe. With simple water magic, he channeled the blood flowing out of his veins to the surface of his sphere (a technique that many trials, an accident, and further experimentation had proven was necessary) and actively pumped fluid back into him. If he was careful, he would be able to maintain blood pressure and oxygen flow, while at the same time remaining a nebulous target to his enemies.

Immediately upon being shot, the eyes flowed over to the source and tendrils of wind picked out his attacker. Within moments, a form of echolocation had identified the man's mouth, and a thick pulse of air forced its way down his throat.

And then everything got significantly warmer. Saturnine's abilities were not such that he could turn the flamethrower on this woman, and he was already feeling the strain of maintaining his current spell. And would need to maintain it if he was to survive with so much of his foot missing.

Therefore, the water that had vaporized rapidly condensed into ice needles the instant they were behind her, and found their way to her throat. With a heaving sigh of relief, Nine ensured the flamethrower was thus pointed away and let his sphere collapse as he fell into a sprawled position, blood and eyeballs covering his form and a small sphere of bloody water still surrounding the mess that was his shin. With a furious howl, he beat the earth on either side of him, summoning a dome of thick rock around himself.  

[Venom3001]

"Offworlder scum!" Theridan spat, rising up from feigned incapacitation. Thwokthwokthwokthwokthwokthwok. The AK-47 man stumbled back, several bolts in his torso. The swordsman flicked his arm out, a shield fanning out in front of him, jets of plasma spraying at the edges at the bolts hit it.

Phallo got to his feet and lunged, tackling the rifleman and tearing the AK-47 from his hands. He raised the stock over the human's head.
Thwunk!
Thwunk!
Thwunk!
Thwunk!
Phallo rolled away as the other human thrust the plasma sword at him, then fell on his a** clutching his torso as the swordsman fired offhand shots from the hip at him - no blood, but probably bad rib damage. Theridan drew his sword but didn't bother with the shield - the plasma sword would superheat it and warp the metal anyway.  

[Isa-sama]

((Dang. No one's going to make this easy on me, are they? xd ))

The flamethrower fell to her knee thanks to Osiris' well-aimed shot. And it was rather fortunate for her as well, because she'd heard something forming at the back of her head and suddenly hit her helmet. When she looked, she found broken ice shards. "Cover me!" At least now she knew that when the ice formed, it would make a sound. She could prepare herself for that.

While Nine stayed inside his earth dome, the machine gunner tried to cover the hurt girl from the Fae. He threw a grenade at the dome and it stayed right beside the wall. It wouldn't take too long before the bomb exploded.

The flamethrower found herself standing beside the machine gunner who was by the edge of the forest. At least this way the two had some sort of coverage. And coverage they would need because Ashling chose this time to come running out of the lake drenched in water.

The Trent ripped out a tree from beside her and started swinging it around the trees. "Oh s**t." Both the flamethrower and machine gunner aimed at her. The flames were caught by the bat, but the bullets started getting lodged at her legs. Of course Ashling was exaggerating; the combination of the two humans were definitely enough to take her down. She doused the fire in the lake and returned to fighting the two - it was hard without a partner there though. Hopefully, Nine would be able to help her out soon.

Osiris found he never had a chance at going after the flamethrower a second time; a sniper was carefully shooting around his location. He would not be able to help Nine or Ashling from here he was. However, he COULD provide some sort of help for Theridan and Phallo. The rifleman that was with the swordsman had gotten his helmet cracked thanks to Phallo's actions. He heard the swordsman order something to the rifleman - and now the rifleman was trying (more like stumbling confusedly) to escape from the situation.

Of course, it didn't take but a few steps before the rifleman fell and promptly died. Several arrows and a discombobulated mind would do that to a person.

Theridan and Phallo found themselves facing off the plasma swordsman. "Your group is very interesting. And you've managed to kill some of my men. I'm impressed." The man's face grew dark. "And for that you'll be punished. But I'll make you a deal." He smirked. "If you can somehow manage to injure me, I'll let you and your little friends go." Seeing Theridan's raised eyebrow, he explained, "I simply want worthy opponents. Let's see if you elves are worth my time."

-------

((Bayer and Blackbird, I promise to edit in your fight sequence here.))

While the Trent and swordsman didn't know what Trajan was saying, the rifle user understood EXACTLY what was about to happen. "Run." He may have looked calm, but his voice held a tremor of fear. Neither of the other elves questioned him - in fact, the Trent outright ran in the opposite direction of what the humans went.

When DuPont started to creep around, he found that there was nothing around. Huh. How weird. Suddenly he found something through the scope - there was a Rancor kneeling beside a fallen person. This would be the PERFECT time to get the two elves out of the way, but he faltered under the sound of a gunshot.

He'd watched as the gun-using Rancor shot his friend in the head. He made a cross on his chest - the salute for Rancors. With that done, he climbed a tree, and DuPont watched as they started running in a different direction. It seemed they didn't want to fight.

Huh. Weird.

If they'd chosen to go look at the dead Rancor, they'd have seen that the swordsmen had gotten badly wounded thanks to Trajan's frag. It had been a mercy kill.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Osiris, shrugging and telling himself that it couldn't be that easy, threw a fistful of knives at the plasma-sword dude's back, ranging from the base of his neck to his Achilles tendon, each one pinpointed on a vital or debilitating point like the spine or leg arteries.

Zuberi, meanwhile, crept quietly behind the machine gunner. Though he didn't want to fight, he wouldn't just sit around and let them hurt the nice tree lady. He aimed, steadied, and fired a shot that caught the man in the back. Though he was armored, the impact from a .45 magnum was certainly enough to blow the breath out of his lungs and leave a huge bruise. The man, of the mindset that he would never go down without fighting, was spinning to fire on Zuberi.

The boy panicked. The recoil had been immense, but he was already learning to control it. He brought the revolver down, aimed hastily, and fired. The man's face disintegrated and Zuberi disappeared into the underbrush again.  

[Isa-sama]

The swordsman smirked. "Oh come now, this is too easy." He kneeled and held his shield to cover his back while keeping his sword in front of him prepped for attack. Once Osiris' knives fell away, the swordsman brought out his shield and started using that to block the two Trows' attacks. "Don't make this so easy - I might have to trade fighters and see if the others are any better." Theridan's sword fighting suddenly got faster, and it made the human smirk. "There we go. Much better."

Zuberi's attack worked amazingly well. "Gunnie!" The woman screamed as she saw that her friend die by the hands of a child. That split second of distraction was enough for Ashling to swing her bat at the woman and throw her to the side. The woman flew off close to Phallo and Osiris. It could have been a good chance for Osiris to kill the woman, but the sniper finally revealed himself to grab his knocked out friend. The two hid behind the trees.

Perhaps now Osiris could come out and do something.

Ashling had no idea where Zuberi hid, but she was thankful for the help. She'd seen what he'd done and how lucky he'd been not to get shot in the chest. A few close calls on his arms, but nothing more than that.

Now she prepared to go and find the stupid fleshbag woman. How DARE that woman burn Ashling?

Zuberi was in too much pain to notice (not to mention the mental trauma), but someone had stolen the machine gun off the dead man as soon as Ashling ran off to the others. The human would have been easy to miss if it weren't for the knife that was currently in his eye. "********' elf, I'll **** his **** up to hell--" No, this was not a happy one-eyed human. And he seemed to have a personal vendetta against Osiris.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

The Druid missed nothing, and as soon as the sniper revealed himself Osiris assaulted his position with loads - loads - of knives. As in, if that sniper continued to hold Osiris down, he would find that he was getting at least a dozen unwanted piercings.

Of course, that wasn't all. He was already gone into the air, taking owl form and disappearing into the darkness under the trees. Before anyone could locate him, he was already touching down silently behind a certain one-eyed, angry, angry man, who he had located by his mutterings of rage while Osiris was in owl-mode. Without giving the man a chance to do anything, Osiris decided to use another of his tactics: Spring Mists.

He sidearmed a handful of knives, and by the time they had landed he was already gone. Like the condensed air of a spring morning, it vanished as soon as it was noticed. When the newly-made cyclops turned to see what he hit him, there was already a line of knives coming in fast from his right, at his neck. Of course, even if that was blocked, there was a moment of calm before knives would come in from the front - as Osiris dropped from above to land a crunching kick to the man's face.

Undoubtedly throwing the man off-balance, Osiris would follow up with a few quick jabs to the face and throat, then get the man on the ground and disarm him. Maybe literally.  

[Isa-sama]

The sniper was faster than Osiris expected him to be - that tends to happen when one underestimates an opponent. He rolled rather quickly to dodge the knives and grabbed the fallen female before hiding behind a tree again.

Attack number one failed.

As for the attack on the one-eyed man, that also did not do as well as Osiris had expected. Because the Druid had forgotten one very important thing - this man was a sniper. And snipers tended to notice everything about their surroundings. Especially when releasing knives (because that made a sound). Before anything could happen, he fell to the floor and started rolling away. It was very fortunate for the cyclops because he had just missed a stomp from Osiris' foot.

"Bang." He unleased his newly possessed machine gun on the damn Druid that freakin' cost him his eye. Before Osiris knew it, he felt pain along his arms and legs like none before - however, he hadn't died. Why was that?

Then man slowly got up and continued aiming at Osiris; he was purposely shooting at non-vital places. "You will pay for my eye." By now, Osiris was on the floor writhing in agony. He was however lucky not to have any bullets stuck in his body. Except now he couldn't move his arms or legs. They hurt too much.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Of course, when one becomes so focused on revenge and having the target of your anger right in front of you, they tend to unconsciously block things out, no matter how well-trained they are. This was a fact of life that every soldier was always warned of, but rarely had the chance to heed.

Zuberi heard the gunshots and saw Osiris go down. As the soldier advanced on the Druid, Zuberi moved in behind him, even more quietly than Osiris had (since he had Stealth). He raised one of his guns and opened fire on the soldier. That done, he drew the other and continued.  

[Isa-sama]

Of course, with all the fighting going on, people tend to forget simple things here and there. So when Zuberi snuck behind the man and raised his gun, he only got two shots out before the gun was empty. He never learned that you had to refill guns with bullets for them to continue working. It left him confused and scared - how could he make the gun work?!

The cyclops felt the bullets hit his back and turned around. He saw a young boy pointing a gun at him. Before Zuberi knew it, the new machine gunner grabbed Zuberi's head and smashed it down against his knee. Then he brought the kid's head back up and with his hand on the forehead, pushed him down on the ground so that the boy would hit the back of his head and be knocked out.

Needless to say that the boy was knocked out. The cyclops didn't want to take any chances though, so he took the boy's guns off the body and started walking away.

He figured that Osiris would bleed out. The kid wouldn't do anything while unconscious, and it would take him AT LEAST an hour before he'd wake up again.  

[SiberDrac]

It was nice and cool inside Nine's self-made prison. Oxygen was going to be a problem, but at least for a few moments, he was safe. His leg still hurt something foul and it was going to start to smell if he didn't find a way to properly heal it soon, but at least he wasn't bleeding out. Benefits of learning how much water is in blood while finding ways to make jerky.

However, that fresh air did need to come soon, especially with the intoxicating bouquet of freshly spilled blood all over him. Cautiously, he opened a hole just small enough to see out. And then there was a grenade.

"Whoop!" sounded a whoop from the little mound, and a thick pseudopod of rock punched the grenade up into the air. The resultant concussion of the frag knocked the combatants for a loop, perhaps explaining the sudden sequence of undesirable misses and losses of balance.

Nine waited for the hail of shrapnel to finish tinkling against his prison, and then took another tentative look around. A one-eyed man shooting Osiris - eh, nothing to be worried about. Ashling tossing people around - nothing new. Zuberi getting bashed against a tree...

"That," Nine hissed, twirling his hands menacingly, "is unacceptable." With a punch of his slender arms, the leaves in the clearing began to stir. Currents of air drifted through the canopy, brushing the branches against one another in an unsettling, murmuring cacophony. Once the sound was indistinguishable from point to point, Nine brushed his hands together. The three humans who were still standing wondered briefly what had happened to gravity as their feet were taken from underneath them. Knowing this was threatening his final reserves, Nine wondered equally as briefly how many of them would be able to see the petrous quills protruding from the earth that had previously been beneath their feet - and was now beneath their backs.  

[Venom3001]

[[
(7:06:36 PM) Sesshie143: How close are you and Phallo, do you imagine?
(7:07:06 PM) NightmareDream14: BESTEST FRIENDS
(7:07:18 PM) Sesshie143: REALLY?!?!?!
(7:07:21 PM) Sesshie143: YAAAAAY.
(7:07:23 PM) NightmareDream14: YAAAAY
(7:07:27 PM) NightmareDream14: *Confetti flies into the air*
(7:07:34 PM) NightmareDream14: *Theridan and Phallo blow on noisemakers*
(7:07:47 PM) Sesshie143: 'Kay.
(7:07:59 PM) Sesshie143: Just checkin'.
(7:08:03 PM) NightmareDream14: Of course.
]]

Theridan and Phallo moved to opposite sides of the swordsman and began firing at him, being careful not to hit each other.  

[Isa-sama]

Ashling was heading towards the direction of the human trio when she heard the grenade go off. When it went off, she turned around to see the same earth dome that Nine had trapped himself in. But what about Zuberi? She had no idea where the boy had hidden himself. Whatever was happening, she figured the humans were already in enough trouble as is - they'd likely take care of the woman before doing anything else. With that, she turned to find the child. When he didn't pop out, she felt - for the first time - a little scared.

It would be hard to tell for anyone else, but to a Trent's eyes, Ashling's legs were shaking. The bullets and fire combination did a number on her. Still, she pressed on and looked for where Zuberi might have hidden himself. When she finally found him, she picked him up and turned him over. No signs that he got stabbed or shot. He's still breathing. Guess he's knocked out. She didn't miss the bloodied Osiris.

Again, she carefully picked him up and moved the two injured people close to the earth dome. Then she thought about it some more. That would be like sending lambs to a wolf. Nevermind. Stupid idea. She instead, hid them beside a tree near the lake - the humans would never get far enough to reach them there.



She turned and RAN towards the human leader and two Trow. "Oh look. Your friend decided to join us!" He almost sounded happy while saying that. He'd been dodging and weaving around the arrows - he'd been very impressed with how the two Trow were working together. "Let's see how well the three of you work, hm?"

Now for the three humans that had supposedly tripped, they got off quite easily. The sniper did a back flip. The machine gunner spun around and landed on his arms (while he sustained some damage from the earth spikes, the earth was very weak due to Nine's tiredness). The flamethrower did a one hand back flip. The three humans turned to look at the injured elves. "Can I burn them now?" The flame thrower was prepping her weapon, ready to go after them. She started walking towards the dome.  

[SiberDrac]

(Lvl. 4, therefore: +1 Lightning, +1 Fire)

Nine lowered his lids at Ashling as she turned away. Dirty trick, putting Osiris so close to the kid. Now it would be harder to isolate one, especially given his distance. And luck? Luck was forHe did, however, watch his opponents with merry eyes. He was lying on his chest, half out of his little dome, and propped his chin in his hands with a giggle. "Fantastic!" He clapped like a little child.

At the sound of the clap, the thin layer of water beneath the flamethrower, left over from Nine's water sphere, froze solid. Inside him, with that last little usage, he felt a massive sigh of relief, as though an unseen lock had just fallen off. Nine grinned. The instant she fell, he slapped the wet ground and blasted electricity through it, intending to fry her.

Unfortunately, the best-laid plans, in one person's eyes, are not so well-laid in Mother Nature's. The high level of solute dispersed the little he could produce in his weakened state, and all that happened was that a few droplets of blood splashed onto his already-soaked face. Holding his head in a hand and tapping the ground frustratedly, he instead slithered back into the mound of stone and shifted it, so it opened behind him and closed ahead of him. If he heard them try to flank him, he was prepared to make a run for it.  

[Venom3001]

((Everything in this post is GM-approved. Even the backflip.))

As Ashling rushed the human, Theridan lunged forward, thrusting with the tip of his sword - the shield's retaliatory jets of plasma seared his arm through mere convection. Phallo released an arrow at the human's leg while Ashling swung a fist at him in an uppercut, tearing up dirt before coming up at his legs.

He jumped over the arrow, turning sideways and hopping off of Ashling's rising fist, twisting to face Theridan's upcoming volley of crossbow bolts. Theridan closed the distance and went for a jumping slash - the swordsman deflected it sideways and kicked Theridan, knocking him to the ground. Ashling's fist descended at him and he rolled sideways, bashing his shield against it to trigger its plasma burst. Phallo grabbed onto her wrist and asked to be lifted; she obliged, grimacing (as much as a Trent could). Phallo began raining arrows upon the swordsman as Ashling lumbered towards him. Theridan stood as the man turned to face that threat. Ashling's free fist came about at the swordsman as Theridan went for another stab.

The swordsman spun while standing, deflecting himself off the wooden fist with bare inches to spare, and simultaneously knocking Theridan's sword aside, grabbing it by the tips of his fingers, and jamming it into Ashling's hand; as she pulled back, Theridan lost his blade. Theridan pulled his crossbows out, reloading each one at a time, as Phallo distracted his opponent with his continued hail of arrows, also taking Theridan's sword when Ashling brought the blade up to him so he could remove it.

Theridan fired his crossbows, alternating each (and wasting even more of his bolts) in a wild spray of metal. What the swordsman couldn't dodge, his shield blocked. Phallo jumped from his perch atop Ashling, firing an arrow at his opponent as he descended before drawing his dagger and Theridan's sword, throwing the latter to Theridan while dropping his knee in a strike at the man, who swung his sword around but only managed to block Phallo's knee and knife with his arm.

Theridan caught his sword and threw himself into a stab at the man's face, who heard Theridan coming and dodged sideways, so that

it was so fast, so shallow a cut he didn't actually notice it until

"You're bleeding," Theridan panted.

The swordsman pressed the back of his hand to his cheek and came away with a single drop of red smeared against his knuckles.