Titan's Fall

"Under... City. Says the Rune-Priest," muttered Yue. "It was changed to Nethercroft at the end of the beta," she replied, with a note of skepticism, glancing at Zolya through narrowed eyes. "Figures they'd miss an NPC in the update. Sloppy programming... but that means I need to go-" Her words were cut off by the clank of a magnetic grapple on her back, and she staggered a few steps forward as it hit her,

"Uh!"

Yue was suddenly yanked off her feet and sent hurtling through the air, sending a wave of nausea and dizziness washing over her. She felt her body impact something vaguely, and the last thing she was consciously aware of before the side of her head smacked into they cyborg's chest was taking a deep breath.

Her eyes rolled around and fluttered open, focusing on the cyborg glassily as he reached out to touch her face. She slapped his hand away and shoved his chest with preternatural speed, pushing herself off to the ground roughly. Her landing wasn't graceful, but she still managed to get a foot underneath her: enough to quickstep a few dozen meters away. Yue spun back to face him as she landed, letting the momentum carry her across the ground a short ways. She pressed her thumb down firmly onto something in her palm, allowing a long hilt to spring out into her hand, with a wide cross guard unfolding at one end. She flicked her arm out and the two meter tapered blade slid into existence from a sheath of white light.

The blade thudded heavily to the ground, shattering the ruined earth. She paused, seemingly to catch her balance, as she brought her face into her free hand for just a moment before grasping the hilt of the greatsword firmly. The blade began to hum gently in a high, almost crystalline tone. There was a tension in the air, like an invisible force coiling around her... and then she moved.

It all happened in a blink. The sword flashed as she swept it up over her head into a high guard. The air split with a thunderous CRACK, ripping a frictionless path of momentary vacuum between her and the cyborg. In that split second before air rushed in to fill the gap she was on top of him, bringing the sword bearing down towards his head. She curved the blade down to her left along his anticipated dodge trajectory, smashing roughly through the glowing barrier and biting into the earth. The savagery of the strike gouged the terrain far beyond the physical reach of her blade and sent dust and debris hurtling throughout the battlefield.

Static assailed his vision. His eye flickered, his palms splayed across ruined earth.

”Y… you..."

He grunted, a voice quaking with something deeper than pain. What once was his right arm had become a frayed mess of fibers and tubes, spitting translucent fluid from the elbow. His chestplate was sundered deep, and purple metal gave way to torn, artificial flesh. He laid there, unmoving, at the mercy of the Templar he had dismissed.

"You're… faster than I thought…," He admitted, his voice partially garbled from the onslaught of blunt force trauma his chassis endured, a pool of semi-clear lubricant forming beneath him. Stronger too, he left unsaid, catching sight of Aegis' ruptured barrier from his peripherals.

Raudd smiled as Alex dropped his dome around the three of them locking locking the two aspects of destruction in with some very unlucky prey. However that smile soon dissipated as the creature decided it was a good idea to have their head explode with a deafening sound and releasing some horrid smell strong enough to even overpower the smells of burning human that were coming from him. "God, does he smell. You better be careful trying to eat him later, or he might make you toiletbound for a week." He joked to Alex before the creature spewed his intentions to not become food and threw itself towards Raudd.

It then clawed at the dome seemingly trying to figure out if it could break it, which of course he had already experienced to be quite futile the only thing that Raudd imagined could take more damage without giving a damn than those barriers was probably their wielder itself. The panic that the creature experienced and made very clear with both actions and a vocal threat. Raudd was almost at the point of losing interest in continuing the onslaught of axe strikes on the now rather pathetic creature when it showed a rekindled fighting fervor as it seemed intent on drowning the both of them and perhaps even trying to take him earlier by way of clawing. The creatures claws had sunk deep into his flesh before he had the chance to throw the creature off leaving him with some serious bleeding wounds stacking with the various other bits of harm he had been collecting throughout the fight.

"Come on, fight me you little stinker." he said with genuine glee showing on his face, finally something that wanted to fight to the death. His axe and shield at the ready trying to keep up with the creature now going about like a bouncing ball covered in razor blades. At this point though he did not care about using that shield as any form of protection though rather he allowed whatever clawing that came at him to happen, opting to use the shield as a bludgeon to bring the creature down faster as the raising water level might actually pose a slight problem for Alex if he wasn't careful about it.

Zolya on her end found herself faced with an equally stubborn creature, a templar with an unstable mind, she seemed to still be adamant about being in a game apparently. However before she could retort to what the templar exclaimed to her the cyber ninja took it upon himself to provide his kind of metal 'support'. Something which resulted in him getting rather brutally smashed by a sword strike far beyond normal human means. "So tell me, is that sword also something that exists in that game of yours? And what about the Cybernetics you just cut through? Or maybe the name of these places will jog your memory, Titan's Fall and the United States of America?" She asked the confused templar while maintaining a certain degree of distance through understanding that if she were to be rushed distance wouldn't make a damn difference. As such she took a secondary line of defense skipping through her book to the best potential defensive spell at her disposal.

March 11, 2045, 5:42 A.M. - Plategap, Corporate Kingdom, Texas, U.S.A

The draft rising up from the gap ripped at Máire's hood, the metal grating creaking beneath her weight as she stepped out onto the disused maintenance walkway spiderwebbed between the plates. She tugged the cloth back into place, eyes flitting back and forth as she scanned for fresh energy signatures matching what she wanted. Drones hummed in the distance, scanning the rest of the sites Pendrake had provided while Máire walked into the thickest of it.

The readings filled her HUD like smog. Whoever had been here had been here a lot. Pendrake hadn't lied when he said the plate gap had the highest concentration.

"Arcanist, do something to clear out the older readings," she instructed, one hand tracing along the height barricade.

Sairyn grunted from the other side of the comms, followed by rapid tapping on what was presumably a slate. He slurped noisily at the bottom of his drink through a straw for a long moment before anything else happened.

Gradually her HUD started to clear as staticky energy traces faded from her vision. That was better; it wasn't quite a path, but it did give her a direction to move in.

"That's everything that I can filter out. Everything that's left has a strong enough signature to have been made within the past twenty-four hours. When the Investigators get there I can narrow it down further," he explained, as a formation of Tracers shrieked past. Quite a few of them had flocked around the area, holding vigil lazily overhead as they waited for the drones with more advanced sensors to catch up.

Máire took the rusted metal stairs down two levels, squinting slightly as a blanket of thick cloud cover filled the gap, making her eyes sting. The metal beneath her groaned and swayed in the updraft flowing up from the crater below, causing her cloak to whip and billow around her. Ultimately she abandoned trying to keep her hood in place.

She reached the first of the readings, reticle spinning in the corner of her vision as the data was relayed back to the tower. Two feet from the walkway, in open air; Máire felt it was safe to assume their suspect wasn't visiting this place for the view.

Movement from the left. Máire's hand twitched, a small cloud of silver dust puffing into the air around it, hidden by the clouds forming from the crater below the plate. She took one step toward the source of the noise, then another; visibility was becoming an issue, and without confirmation of engagement…

Well, she supposed Templar protocol did have its uses. "I am Cruaidín Catutchenn with the Templar Order. You are walking into a pending investigation; by authority of the Tower, step forward and identify yourself."

A figure stepped out of the mist, dark cloak billowing around them. They were slender, with high heels that stepped between the gaps in the grating with practiced ease, and a saber strapped to their waist.

And an Italian comedy mask hiding their face.

They lingered only for a brief second, stepping back into the mist with a mechanical giggle that was almost swept away in the gusts from below. Máire didn't hesitate; she thrust her arm out, a sword ripping forward only to fly through empty air. Her HUD blinked as a new distortion reading popped into her vision, followed by the alert of another. She leaned against the railing, looking for where it was.

There, below. Máire threw herself over the edge of the walkway, air whistling briefly past her ears before she hit the path below her. The metal groaned and swayed dangerously from the impact, but Máire steadied herself only briefly before standing and casting her gaze around for the masked killer.

"Hier entlang."

Another sword tore through the fog, and two more energy signatures blinked into her HUD. The murderer was heading downward, toward the bottom of the plate gap. It almost seemed to Máire as if they were leading her toward something. No, away from something? It didn't matter; let them play their game.

Máire leapt again. She spotted the masked figure from the air, and two more swords shot out at them only to collide fruitlessly with the perforated metal grating. This walkway groaned from her landing as well, louder than the last. The killer stood further along the same walkway, a little past the center of the gap. Máire stood slowly, then began walking deliberately in their direction, pulling one of her swords free as she passed. The other vanished in a puff of metal sand.

"Are you having fun?"

"Du bist nicht?" She giggled, beckoning with a single finger.

Máire tossed the sword ahead of her, aim going wide just enough that the tragedy killer could avoid it by just turning to the side. Their face may have been covered, but Máire could smell that smug grin. She darted forward, keeping low as another blade appeared in her hand.

Only for the ground to fall out from beneath her. She threw out a hand to catch herself, her sword vanishing into dust... then something in her eyes flickered, and she made a fist, throwing her hand back instead. There was an instant's hesitation, a brief, anticlimactic silence, and then the sword she'd thrown before ripped through the back of the tragedy killer's thigh and followed Máire down the hole in the walkway, bursting into metal dust before it made contact with her chest.

And Máire let herself fall.

J-3 leapt through the crack in the blindingly bright-blue attacker's bubble-dome. Leapt with a burst of speed that was easily outdone by the first prey and her strange trance-hypnosis.
J-3 could see, smell even, that Yue was behaving much differently than before. She had been stumbling and nearly bumbling, catatonic whilst standing...

But now she moved with purpose, and perhaps more importantly, predictability. Sort of. She was moving without true focus, without really taking anything in, and J-3 could somewhat tell. And if J-3 could, then the rest of the attacker-prey here could as well. And if they could, then they also knew that this wasn't something that could be eaten headlong with ease.

So J-3 leapt into the air, ink bubbling under their skin and around their neck, wrists, and shoulders, as a pair of massive swooping wings erupted into existence. They also grew new organs from about their wrists, and their neck. What looked like over-full whoopee cushion sacs, but leathery. And tipped with what appeared to be four- for want of a better word- nipple-esque nubs.

J-3 then began to circle around the battlefield, a pair of tiny arms forming just below the sac on their neck, as they squeezed, pushed, and pulled, on the sacs. Ropes of silk, thick as a finger, started leaking from each of the sacs, as J-3 slowly went about the process of creating... Something, out of the silk.
Now was not the time to leap in without hesitation, now was the time for watching and waiting before properly attacking. After all, maybe the other hunter-prey could weaken her.

The killer watched Maire fall for a long moment, the featureless black and white eyes of the mask narrowing slowly. Clearly the returning sword had caught her by surprise, and she drummed her fingers on the rail idly while the fingers of her free hand ran gently across the edge of the damage to her suit. After a while she sprayed the blood spatter on the catwalk with an unmarked can from a pouch on her belt, causing it to dissolve. One of the wasp-like Investigators swooped at her from above, blorting angrily (probably about destroying evidence).

A pair of gunshots rang out nearly on top of one another, blowing out the drone's visual receptors. A Tracer shrieked past, jettisoning something from its underside, which was intercepted by another bullet almost before it cleared the bay. She poised at the edge of the catwalk, ready to shoot down any other encroaching drones when she flinched, a confused face flashing across the mask. The rail had shocked her, and as she repositioned herself away from it, tendrils of electricity began to reach out towards her lazily. Her cloak began to billow upwards as she hastily looked around to find the source. The killer seemed to zero in on something in the distance and let four rounds fly.

The catwalk was engulfed in a bright flash, and then static consumed the screen. Sairyn pushed the floating data-slate to the side, so that one of the other dozen or so synchronized slates orbiting him could take its place. This one was a showing a view from much farther away, looking down on the slagged and smoking catwalk which was still glowing red.

"No special move call-out? That's going to hurt your views."

"Didn't want to tip my hand too early, Sai-guy... not that it mattered, I think she got away."

"This one is going to be hard to pin down," confirmed Sairyn as he was rolling back the footage frame by frame to try and confirm the hit. "Eleven frames. Killer reflexes," he chimed, clearly impressed.

"Did'ja see that quickdraw? Holy smokes! Think it was an automatic?"

"Mmm... two shots, .18 seconds is within the feasible human spectrum for that being a semi-automatic, or even a revolver. I'm still looking for an angle with a clear view of the weapon. The good news is there's only a handful of people on the planet that can shoot at that level, so if we can identify the gun we might be able to get a list of suspects," he explained.

"Whatever she's packin' has some serious reach. She hit me dead center four times, and I had to be over two-hundred meters away. If it weren't for these armored underoos," Ion paused for a second, then made a fart noise into the microphone. "Dead Ion."

Sairyn blinked, and then rolled the video back and shuffled the slates until he had an overhead view from one of the approaching Investigators. He watched Maire fall into the chasm, then a drone approached the suspect. Two shots. He slowed the video down: this is when he'd ordered the Tracer pack to drop a comm-buoy into the chasm so he could retain communications with Maire. The suspect swiveled towards it, pulling a weapon from a hip holster and fired. The gun was back in its holster very nearly in the next frame. He shifted the view focus to the buoy and rolled the video back again, rolling the point of the bullet impacting the device back and forth several times before pausing to scratch at the stubble on his chin with a concerned expression. The impact scatter was frozen on the screen in front of him, and the debris was spreading forward along the flight path of the device... perpendicular to the angle of the shot, as if the bullet had curved 90 degrees.

"Uh. I think the suspect can translocate bullets as they are leaving the barrel."

"Bull. Shit. I don't even think Chief can do that. She's the best blinker in the org... as far as I know at least"

"Be careful regardless. Fly Cap in the area for a while in case the suspect returns or Maire makes contact, you're the closest thing I have to a comm relay for a bit since you fried every drone in the fleet."

"You did say 'don't hold back,'" he chuckled. "What's a few bruised ribs and some angry Corpos between colleagues?"

Sairyn blew a sign and cut him off, spinning the array of slates around him while he drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair in silent thought for several minutes.

"Sovereign, what would it take to extend the network below the plate line?"

"Are you looking for a timeline? Or a list of materials, sir?"

"General level of complexity," Sairyn quipped back. Smartass computer.

"It would be faster and require less materials to build an entirely new network. Even utilizing existing infrastructure in the plates, our current wireless broadband solution is not designed to carry strong signal to the surface below plate level from the nearest feasible access point."

Sairyn snorted as he propped an ornate grimiore up in his lap and flipped idly through the metallic silver pages. Sovereign wasn't wrong though. The tower and the plates were all built with more or less blanket network coverage in mind. hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables were spiderwebbed throughout the structure, and practically every building on the plate superstructure had at least one access hardline where a wireless network point could be set up. Below plate level, however, was never intended to be living space: when the structure of the tower was conceptualized, the Union wasn't even sure the space would be inhabitable at all, so they just decided not to bother with it. Being off network had it's advantages, however if anything fell down there, regardless of the reason, it was effectively lost. He paused on a schematic and stared at it for a long time.

Project Sovereign.

"What if I just took you with me?" He mused aloud, with a raised eyebrow.

"I suppose, if you could find a way to fit an entire tower level inside your pocket, that I would be able to interface with whatever was connected to your personal network, communications included. Although, I don't think my creator would appreciate you running around with his 'magnum opus' in your pocket," replied Sovereign. Sairyn suddenly stopped drumming on the arm of his chair and flipped to the Grimiore's index. After a few moments of searching, he pulled an entry off the page and flicked a mannequin with an unfinished black Templar duster hanging on it into existence with a flash of white.

"Sovereign."

"Yes sir?"

"Remove this conversation from the record."

When the creatures head popped violently and caused everything to smell utterly disgusting, Alex tried to remain calm. When the thing voiced it’s desire not to be eaten, Alex realized that it was sapient and eating it was most likely out of the question now.

Then the damn thing got out of the dome from a crack that had formed on its surface and became began to do . . . . Gross things while Cyber Ninja tried to fend off the violent Templar.

A rather loud and irritated growl escaped the armored hero’s throat as everything happening reached a boiling point for him. ” You know what? After being bored out of my mind . . . Realizing I’m NOT getting a free meal, getting skunked, and having ALL of this go to hell, I think I’m done with today. And I’m DONE PLAYING AROUND!”

In a sudden motion, Alex lifted his right leg and stoned down with enough force to shatter the ground underfoot and shake the ground decently. Then the dome exploded. Telekinetic energy burst out as the dome shattered on command, sending a short but strong wave of energy outward, kicking up more dirt and debris in the process.

Aegis’s form glowed blue through the dust cloud as he layered his armored form in extra plates covered in spikes and blades, all the while simple spears and swords began to manifest and orbit around him. He slammed his fists together with a thunderous crack and slowly began stomping towards the beast. Alex snarled out his words in a tone only a few people present had the pleasure of hearing in the past. ” No. more. Games.” Alex was officially done and royally pissed off.

Using her sword as support, Yue pushed herself unsteadily up to her knees after been thrown roughly several meters from Aegis' exploding barrier. She pressed a hand against her ear as if to ward off the ringing, her shoulders lurching as she vomited up her breakfast of coffee and pills. For a long moment it appeared as though she'd fallen unconscious, but she lurched to her feet with zombie-like vigor, turning her head to gaze upon Aegis with an empty expression. She exhaled slowly to the bottom of her lungs, her breath forming into an unnatural mist that pooled at her feet. She muttered something that was lost to the the din of Aegis' stomping and then took a deep breath.

A deep pulse reverberated throughout the chasm, like thunder but with no sound. The ground at her feet splintered and cracked, and the mist that had formed around her began to swirl violently around her as she dug her feet into the earth. She swung the claymore horizontally across the battlefield and the creature's raining threads were blown away by a vicious shockwave with a thunderous CLAP! Yue carried the sword's momentum into a high guard and it sang an intense crystalline note as some invisible force pulsed through it. The ground tremored as her presence suddenly pressed oppressively against the combatants, like being under the full intensity of the desert sun during the hottest part of the day.

In her vaguely conscious dream-state she appeared transfixed for a split moment. For her, time had crawled to a near standstill, and the resonant tone of her sword drowned out all other sound. The crimson aura which normally flickered close to her skin while using her powers burned white hot, and she squinted against the glare reflexively. It roared around her and vibrated in her bones, billowing up into a massive pillar as though she were standing on a vent of energy. Somewhere inside the fog, a voice was screaming distantly, cautioning restraint... telling her she shouldn't be using this power on "people."

What she saw before her, however, was someone who had grown spikes and thorns that were glowing with "demonic" energy.

"Amonkira, Lord of Hunters... grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift. And should the worst come to pass... Grant me forgiveness," she prayed... Paladins existed to purge demonic forces from the world. Whatever the cost.

Yue stepped forward, letting the sword drop to gain momentum before she swept it forward and up into a crescent, landing back in the high guard. The sword bit into the earth and carved through it effortlessly, unleashing a narrow shockwave that ripped through the terrain at Alex. She pushed off, riding in the vacuum wake behind the blast. A quick step at the last second diverted her trajectory out of the wake and into the path she anticipated he would dodge to. Her boots slid across the earth, struggling to achieve traction for a fraction of a second, though her body was already cocked to deliver a diagonal slash as soon as she had solid footing.

With the creature slipping through the cracks within the arena walls that Alex had provided for them it the man had finally lost his cool. That wasn't a good thing, stops him from acting rationally in a calm and calculated manner... Might need intervention. But first there was that creature doing... Something incredibly nasty again. By now Raudd was contemplating whether getting a sewer pump truck and using that to just remove that nasty ink stain would have been a feasible solution, not that it would do any good now that it was airborne.

As the dome exploded Zolya could barely react in time by activating the spell she had at the ready casting her very own though inferior version of Alex's barriers. Though one would only be able to tell by the kicked up dirt and dust giving the barrier a very light dusting of browns. As the dust cleared Zolya had a good view of the brain damaged Templar acting up towards Alex, before she could really figure out what to make of it Raudd spoke up, "Zolya, get out of there! Go back to the Garden I'll take care of these hotheads!" Which was enough to help her make up her mind and with her pack of animals in tow she made her exit as fast as the deer could manage.

From the sounds that came from the templars direction and the shockwave that followed her sword swing she seemed like someone completely different than before almost seeming possessed to some degree... Nope, nonono. Those are dangerous thoughts you know that, she's just in a frantic mania. At least the shockwave blew those nasty threads away, but the heat she now seemed to exude wasn't exactly pleasant like he was sitting in front of a blast furnace in the middle of summer.

Then she spoke up and her words or rather prayer sounded rather ominous given that she was looking rather directly in their direction. "You shouldn't pray to powers you don't understand." Raudd cursed under his breath before retracting the axe's energy blade, slicing a templar into shreds probably wasn't a great idea after all and he was going to need a stick to beat her with.

She launched another shockwave their way kicking up the dust and dirt that barely had any chance to settle from the previous shockwaves once more. While he wasn't able to intervene with the shockwave hitting Alex Raudd had read her follow through attack from her stance at the end of the swing. Jumping forward into the projected path of her sword strike he attempted to deflect it away from Alex with his shield. However even with him putting all his weight behind that deflect the strike still broke through and sliced him up pretty badly nearly taking off his arm and slicing through his torso pretty badly.

"I would step back if I were you, you know." He said jokingly to the templar knowing what was gonna come. It wasn't quite death by a thousand cuts... He was pretty sure this last one would have been fatal no matter what, but with all that stacked up damage he was kind of waiting for it to happen... Eventually. As his senses started to fade the last he heard was a dull thud, the sound of his body hitting the floor. No sooner than he had hit the floor did his body and his blood that was practically all over the place by this point began to dissolve into an all too familiar angry bloodred sparking mist.

Pooling together at the point he was just standing moments before in a matter of seconds revealing a perfectly intact Raudd as the cloud condensed back into the flesh, blood, metal and fabric that had been. Immediately after becoming aware of his surroundings Raudd took the moment of confusion he had clearly caused to lunge at the Templar attempting to give her a good smack with the blunt rod that was the unactivated axe, while at the same time throwing a ball of condensed angry red cloud to the creature in the sky intercepting a decent couple of threads it was trying to spread once again, setting them ablaze before dissipating into thin air. "Round two out of infinity, let's go."

Well. This was going to shit rather quickly.

J-3 had been in the process of getting together a web of spider silk, with strands as thick as three-corded ropes combined, but now…
The first prey item was demonstrating that it was NOT easily contained. Shockwaves and blindingly fast movements aside, she was acting a fair deal too sporadically…

Or so the polymorph thought. She was focused on one target, at the moment— Maybe two now that the fourth prey item threw himself into—

Or… He could… Just come back to life. That was certainly on the list of things that J-3 had no real plan for. This whole hunt was turning into a cluster fuck, and why couldn’t it ever be easy!?

For J-3, this was just becoming more and more of a situation in which, perhaps, leaving was the better option. And considering that the invulnerable titan was tanking hits from the immensely powerful … Whatever she was? Templar? Templar.
Didn’t matter. She was far and above more powerful than J-3 was willing to deal with.

Or even really could. Water couldn’t stop what she was doing, and considering the juggernaut was looking solely at J-3, now was the time to go. And so J-3 kept spinning their web, spiraling about in the air above the battle field, before diving down towards the third prey item, the woman on the beautiful delectable animals. The web was thrust towards the woman, not in an attempt to catch her in the web, but to give it to her as a weapon.
“Take this. Use it. Bye. Not gonna be food today. Nope.”

And then, on dragonfly wings that blur into motion, J-3 is speeding off towards the Undercity proper, dropping out of the air and taking on a far more mobile land form instead.
Then, with legs like a cheetah, the claws of a lizard, and the body of a starved dog, and a long, barbed, whip-like tail… J-3 disappeared into the city.

Because fuck everything behind them right now. Better to hide and be safe. They could hunt again, sometime soon.

In his frustration and tunnel vision towards the shapeshifting creature, Alex hadn’t been paying attention to the Templar. That was a mistake he wasn’t going to hear the end of any time soon if Dean still had eyes on the scene.

He heard the thunderous crack and had pivoted on instinct, his conjured weapons forming a wall around him as he bracing himself for what Alex had assumed was gonna be the templars massive sword. Instead he hit shoved back a few feet from the residual force of a shockwave . . . and was met with the sight of Einherjar being cut down by the Templar. Entropic energy already crackling around him.

Shit. I owe the guy a few drinks after this.

The barrier weapons quickly melted together and formed into a sizable wall between Alex and the resurrecting Viking. Alex really wasn’t wanting to take a chance at his bodies durability against that angry red stuff. ”Crazy Viking. You could have given me a warning instead of getting yourself killed again.” The wall quickly faded out as Alex squared up and got ready to jump in with Raudd. ”Infinity for you maybe, some of us need rest. Then again-” Raw psychic energy flared around Alex, contrasting with the cracking red mist. ”I could do this all day.”

Without warning Alex was suddenly thrown to the left in a flash of blue. A blue pillar that had suddenly extended from the ground fading as quickly as it had manifested to launch Its wielder. This continued in rapid succession, effectively pin-balling himself around by taking advantage of his own durable body. This culminated in Alex effectively blindsiding the Templar woman with a shoulder check, right into a quickly closing bubble that would soon have dozens of layers added to it.

Unfortunately Alex didn’t really have the skills to control rapid movement as he had achieved and had face planted after impact. Well, at least it had seemed to have worked. Taking a moment to get up, he noticed that the shapeshifter had seemed to have decided to bug out, probably in a literal sense too. Probably a waste to go after it now anyway. He would check on the others after the current issue was resolved. Speaking of which~

After dusting off his armor, Alex glanced at the hopefully restrained Templar and saw her still moving. There was a good chance she wasn’t going to be very coherent any time soon. Which left only a few options on how they could deal with her. Still being rather fed up with recent events, Alex opted for the . . . . Bluntest option. Stretching out a hand towards the bubble, Alex began forcing it to shake. Rather violently. Just for a short period of time. He would stop moment to moment to check and see if the Templar had stopped being conscious or not. In the meantime though . . . ”Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep please!!.”

"Revenant!" hissed Yue. She vaulted backwards and away from the crimson sparks, using the greatsword as a fulcrum to get more distance. She landed in a low guard, dragging the point of the sword through the earth to bleed off the momentum. Her eyes flashed, now singularly focused on Raud as he charged her. Yue caught the haft of the axe with the cross guard of her sword, and with a breath her body was alight.

It was like charging a brick wall. She planted firmly, splintering the earth beneath her feet and scooping Raud up onto the flat of her blade. Pivoting on her heel, she spun him over her head once before ejecting him from the battlefield with significant speed.

"Target CC'd," she muttered, scanning the arena for the Warden.

He was gone. With a flare of energy everything slowed to a crawl so she could re-orient herself on the battlefield: the Warden was a dangerous target to lose track of. Yue checked on the Viking, who was suspended mid-air in escape trajectory. Unless he could fly she didn't have to worry about him for the moment. Creature... fleeing. The Shinobi, terminated and the Rune Priest appeared to be moving to safety. Yue turned the other direction and found the Warden mere feet from impacting her and closing lazily. At the speed she was perceiving things that meant he was moving quite fast! She flinched, feeling the Earth give way like sand beneath her feet as she tried to sidestep him... unfortunately the terrain wasn't able to support the force of her sudden movement.

"Well then..." she quipped. There was no avoiding it now. Yue twisted to put her sword between them and let her body go slack at the moment of impact. The force knocked the great sword from her grip and sent it whistling through the air. After a tangible moment it embedded itself half way into a rock. She flailed gracelessly for a split second before twisting to land feet first against one of the Warden's barriers. Her momentum pressed her into a crouch, energy roaring in her ears as she coiled to retaliate. It flared around her, scattering dust and splintering the ground as she cocked her arm back...

And then she slipped.

All the buildup was suddenly gone as one of her feet slid out from under her on the slick, glass-like surface of the barrier and she tumbled like a rag doll to the bottom. Whether it was the initial impact her head made with the bottom of the sphere, or the violent shaking afterwards that knocked her unconscious isn't clear. Regardless, when Alex checked next she was still.

When Alex finally stopped shaking the Templar she was not moving at all. For good measure he forced the bubble to collapse around her and conform close to her body, like vacuum sealing something in a bag. It wasn’t skin tight of course and air could still pass through, but she couldn’t so much as wiggle more then half an inch in any direction. . . That and the barrier fields were still considerably thick, giving the Templar the appearance of an action figure still in its plastic.

That was when the undercity Spartan finally let out a sigh of relief. A solid blue block formed behind him before he sat down with a loud thud, lifting a hand towards the others present. ”I’m taking five, just give me a moment guys.” He really wanted to just take off his helmet, that was about the second Dean’s voice cracked in his ear through his comms. ”Well, that was a thing alright. Too bad we aren’t getting a free meal. Might as well let the hunters try their luck with n that thing.” There was a pause on the other end before Dean posed a very important question. ”Why the hell is a Templar even down here and what are we gonna do about her?”

Alex paused and looked up towards the “ ceiling” above. ”That, is a good question indeed.” He finally got back up a moment later, giving Einherjar a nod before looking over at The resident Runecaster. ”Freya, would you be amazing and make sure the Ninja is in some semblance of one piece? I’m gonna make sure I didn’t accidentally snap the Templar’s neck.” Turning to face the contained Metahuman, Alex gave a mental command and forced her over to him. His hand passed through the barriers like they weren’t there to begin ever so gently slapping Yue’s cheek to try and rouse her. ”Rise and shine sleeping beauty. Please don’t be dead . . . . . though you might wish you were given where you are.” the idea that he was potentially gonna have to explain a lot to someone that spent their entire life topside would definitely be a process. That was if he hadn’t somehow killed her from brain damage or something.

After coming into contact with the templar Raudd had a bit of a deja vu moment, it was a very familiar feeling he experienced more than a few times... No, not exactly Aegis didn't have the strength to just chuck him into the sky, even with his barriers. For the moment though he had a nice view of the battlefield below, not that the battle went on all that long with Aegis pulling out one of his signature moves. Such a shame he was finally done with his warming-up and now there was nothing more to do.

"I'll see what I can do." Zolya replied as she walked over to the crumpled mess of electronics and synthetics that was the ninja. "Let's start with that fluid leakage... Where did I have it..." She mumbled scouring through the pages of her book. It wasn't a spell she used much as most other spells did everything it did better, but in cases like these 'harden' surpasses any other. A few casts of the spell later the lubricant flow was stopped at the broken points, the other problems were a lot more annoying. Maybe the chassis would be okay if that dent was hammered out and some welding, but what about the leaky stuff underneath, not to mention that arm... Yeah, that would need an expert to put that back together and a boatload of new parts probably.

As Zolya was busy with her recovery operation Raudd made his return to terra firma with a splat like an overripe tomato, before the usual cycle of regeneration brought him back to his feet. "Could you not belly flop next time, it sounds really gross." "And risk surviving the impact? Never... Eh need help with that puzzle?" Raudd replied as he moved over to Zolya as she began picking up the pieces of wrecked arm and loose bits of crumpled robot. Hmmm, how much do you think he'd be worth at the recycling center?" "RAUDD!" "what? I'm just joking. Anyways let's just throw him onto the back of a deer and get him to my place, I might be able to put him back together... Partially, that arm I'm not gonna mess with." He said as he lifted up the heavy chunk of metal and gently laid it on the back of one of the deer.

"Alex let's bring her to my place, with the artificial sunlight and greenery it might be the most topside looking place in the Undercity. A less alien feeling place would probably be helpful for her state of mind." She suggested to Alex as she directed a couple stags over to him. "Go call a few more for me." She instructed one of her ravens.

---

Yue's eyes fluttered open, though she immediately pressed them firmly shut with a grunt as [Light] stabbed at them, deep into her skull.

She overslept?

The throbbing numbness pulsing down her face and throughout her body reminded her that she was supposed to be in considerable pain.

She over-trained.

Yue sat up... tried to at least, her body wouldn't move, not even to scratch her nose.

"Ugh," she grunted, eyes still closed. She fell asleep in the resistance suit again. For a while she just lay there, feeling [Light] press against her eyelids and drive that dull ache through her sinus cavity before she slowly drew a deep breath and drew out her strength... carefully! Careful now... She could already hear Sairyn's nagging. "I'm not replacing that wall again," he would snip. Though when she still couldn't move even after reaching their normal training threshold she gave a confused squeak.

Fell asleep in the resistance suit... on its highest setting?

Yue groaned... and after what felt like hours of deliberation she decided that calling Sairyn for help was out of the question. She'd never hear the end of this. Showing up a couple hours late could be blamed on her addiction to Final Odyssey but if Sairyn had to come find her it'd be worse than if she'd just called... the nagging. The improved joints weren't supposed to just fail randomly while under stress, so the suit should restrain her enough to prevent another "wall incident" with her neighbor.

Fuck it. Full power.

Yue drew breath, reaching deep inside her core for that simmering crimson star she normally kept under tight regulation and undid the limiters restricting its flow... and braced herself. The build up was slow at first, but her muscles burned as the tendrils of fire slithered through her body and re-activated dormant connections. She felt her body lurch against the restraints, and a crack slowly spread in the plaster of the wall next to her bed as it was pummeled by the unseen force of her strength.

Yue sat up. Slowly. The creak and groan of the restraints loud in her ears as it was brought near its breaking point. She could feel microscopic cracks spidering their way through the casing, then filling in almost immediately, reinforced by... something, as though it were trying to compensate... Tinker tech. She rested her face in her hands, unconsciously squeezing her eyes against the [Crimson] as it pressed against everything in the room. It pushed uncomfortably against her closed eyes and she grunted at the annoying repeated slam of shutters through the open window as the [Crimson] blasted through the opening like a pressurized tea-kettle.

Wait. Shutters? Her apartment didn't have shutters. She examined the layout of the room a little more closely as shown by the [Crimson] through her closed eyes.

"Unfamiliar ceiling..." she muttered after a long time.

"Seems she's waking up." Raudd said to his sister through the open doorway. "Just in time for tea then, I managed to get my hands on a very nice citrus melange." Zolya answered pulling the kettle off the boil pouring the hot water into a nice glass teapot with a tea infuser waiting in it.

As she grabbed enough cups for all those gathered to put on the carved wooden tray in front of her she heard some commotion form the other guest room, followed by her brother grumbling in annoyance. "Shit, now I'm gonna need to redo that wall." Zolya walked as fast as she could to the guest room without making a mess out of the tray she was carrying only to find the Templar somewhat sitting upright in the bed. "I thought you had her restrained with your barriers? How in the world did she get up?" She asked Alex, but before Zolya had even finished speaking something rattled the shutter like a sudden surge of high pressure just passed through followed by a remark from Raudd "Brute force." Even with the normal high saturation of indifference Zolya could sense the tiniest bit of annoyance and awe in the words of Raudd.

It was then that the Templar opened her mouth for the first time after her psychotic event. Maybe she had been expecting something more serious, but it seemed all expectations were misplaced with the words that followed. "Have you been waiting for a chance to say those words?" Zolya replied to the Templar garnering a bit of a puzzled look from Raudd. "But I'll have to disappoint you you're still in Titan's Fall, albeit you're below the plates superstructure." She said as she poured a cup of tea for all those in the room.

"So, what brings a Templar to this place? Though I can't imagine you voluntarily dropped down through the plates superstructure. there's better ways down." Raudd asked as he grabbed himself a cup of tea and a cookie from the tray.

Yue flinched against the restraints at the sound of voices, sending a crack through the barrier that shuddered into the floorboards.

Restrained? Barriers??

Time stopped. Two heartbeats... her heart was racing. The woman entering the room was suspended mid-step, and Yue could make out her shape in the [Crimson] through her closed eyes. Yue's eyes flicked left and right behind her hands, taking time to process the vague details she could make out as the [Crimson] illuminated pieces of the void.

Restrained. Unknown method. Intent: full body immobilization very likely. Unfamiliar location. Unfamiliar people.

Can move at a reduced level... likely unintentional. How long until her captor adapts and corrects?

Break free? Sudden release poses increased risk of self harm.

Further escalation of power increases risk of self harm.

Wait wait wait... The last thing I remember?

Falling, then the vivid image of her head striking the earth made her flinch again. That would definitely account for the body-wide pins and needles sensation she'd come to associate with pain. After that? It was all noise she couldn't clearly process for the moment. She mentally flagged it as 'unreliable' and moved back to what she could remember: encountering the killer during her investigation... and then suddenly being disoriented and in a foreign location. Translocation... If the murderer was a teleporter it would make the other crime scenes much clearer. Lots of things make sense now, and her pool of suspects just became much smaller: The number of teleporters that could translocate to a place not in their line of sight was relatively small.

Getting sidetracked... The woman had taken a step.

She's still talking. Shit, how much did I miss? She could be listing demands or crimes against nature! AAAAAAH!

OKAY! Okay. O.K.. She's holding a tray with food or cups or something... probably a knife. I'm about to get murdered. Calm down, calm down! Let's just... see what she wants? Right...

Yue exhaled slowly, letting her body gradually relax into the restraints so that they didn't accidentally crush her. The element of surprise was gone... maybe she should have opened her eyes or taken her face out of her hands first. That would have been smart. She held onto just enough power to press against the restraints and let the world ease back into real-time.

".......'re still in Titan's Fall, albeit you're below the plates superstructure," explained the woman.

"Undercity?" mumbled Yue from behind her hands. Ugh.......................... Yue's heart sank. There's no broadband down there. She'd miss the double XP event. All of her auctions would expire. This. Was. A. Disaster. She missed the rest of Raudd's question while her mind raced, though it only took a couple seconds for her to come back to reality.

"I was caught in an altercation with a teleporting suspect while on a murder investigation," her muffled voice replied. "What are you doing here?" or "Who do you work for?" Are good entry level interrogation questions, so it was a safe assumption.

Temujin - or what was left of him - laid on a nearby table, a pretzel of metal and muscle that barely stirred with life. His single eye flickered with a faint green glow, watching as the rogues talked with the Templar. ”Fre...ya..." he muttered, his voice lined with static. He paused. The words he would summon were unnatural to him. But they were only right. ”Thank...you."

Some time later, the doors opened, and a figure emerged, barely more than five feet in height and swaddled in an oversized marshmallow jacket over a body-hugging jumpsuit. She had a slight face, with brown almond eyes that looked around the room with great curiosity. Her long brunette hair was tied into a bun underneath a white cap, adorned with the symbol of a foreign bunny mascot. She was Ako, Temujin's mechanic, and one of the premier cyberware experts amongst the Rogues.

"I came here as soon as I can!" she said, holding a box full of tools in one hand, and a bag of snacks in the other. "So sorry. Temujin can be so troublesome," she greeted everyone inside. "Freya. Einherjar- oh!" She hopped back, narrowly avoiding a bump against the viking. The tall man was her stark opposite in size; big enough to drown her in his shadow. She couldn't help but feel intimidated.

A faint blush simmered on her cheeks, and smiled sheepishly as she backed away. Her eyes widened as she noticed an unfamiliar face… but a very familiar symbol. She gasped, then thought to herself in whispers, "That's… a Templar! Down here. In the Undercity…"

They seemed occupied with their own discussion, so Ako kept her head down and walked over to Temujin. "Oi, oi… you're in pretty bad shape, Mujin. What got you, some sort of undercity monstrosity?"

Temujin scoffed. ”No… I can deal with those. It was… the Templar." Ako looked towards Yue as she unpacked her tool box. Her eyes darted from Temujin, to Yue, then back again. At the massive cavity on his chest. "Oh."

March 11, 2045, 5:50 A.M - Undercity, Titan's Fall, Texas, U.S.A

Máire fell, fell, fell, fell. Wind whistled like the screech of a banshee in her ears, clawing at her face and clothing as cold atmosphere fought against the disruption of her descent. Buildings, rough and asymmetric, stabbed up from below to meet her, and she threw out her arms, blades rocketing through the dark to embed themselves in metal and stonework. Máire's fingers closed over invisible threads, reorienting violently upright as her speed ran grindingly downward until she wasn't falling at all, just hanging suspended above the filthy, smogged undercity.

A rooftop lay some twenty feet below her, covered in grime, an old ventilation fan spinning in noisome rotation. Máire wrinkled her nose at it, then dropped down to greet the structure as the blades holding her aloft vanished, silver dust returning to her bloodstream. "Arcanist, I need-" she cut herself off, finger to her ear as she noticed the reticle spinning in her vision.

No connection.

The words hovered in front of her, taunting in their neat sans serif font. Máire looked upward toward the plategap, so far out of reach down here. Distant flashing lights, nearly imperceptible through the dirty air, marked the faintest edge of the heavenly catwalk. And there - was something else falling after her? Her eyes traced its trajectory; it was small, arcing in its descent as the wind blew it from what must have been its intended course.

More blades shot out and she was pulled once more into the air, speeding after the wayward flotsam. Máire slingshotted her way between buildings, skimming the edge of the sidewalk and snatching her prize mere centimeters from impact with the ground. She skidded to a stop, ignoring the surprised reactions of those around her following her sudden cometfall into their midst. Máire held the object above her to catch the surrounding neon lights, her head tilting slightly in consideration. A bullet had impacted its side, cratering it and leaving what was once her best shot of maintaining communication down here as little more than scrap.

Pendrake must have ordered a drone to throw it down after her, yet the suspect… Strange. Wouldn't one have assumed a fall like that would kill her? Yet the so-called "Tragedy Killer" had made the effort to deny her connection with the tower, as if expecting otherwise.

Máire tucked the device away for the time being. It was unlikely she could find someone to repair it, but the bullet inside could still provide valuable evidence after she got back. Better for now to get her bearings… and look into her wayward charge.

March 11, 2045, 10:09 A.M - Undercity, Titan's Fall, Texas, U.S.A.

"Reticence" was a word which sprang to mind as Máire leaned against an old concrete wall, watching the people of this city pass by in the street beyond this alley. It was almost familiar how unwilling the population here were to speak to one they saw as law enforcement; eyes slid off with such remarkable swiftness the moment they registered her uniform, and lips seldom parted save to cast her a curse or two.

Not that she didn't understand.

Máire sighed through her nose, pushing away from the wall and pulling her hood up. She stepped back into the street, stepping swiftly between bodies as if they weren't even there. Reticles spun in her vision, scanning everything within her sight for the slightest hint of direction, but it was as if the city itself rejected her; so much junk data assaulted her eyes that she had to momentarily squeeze them shut to avoid a rush of vertigo. Máire didn't particularly care for the bottled paradise above, but at least the bleached-clean streets of the plate freed her from the burden of knowing just how many forms of residue covered the nearest building.

She ran long fingers through her hair, considering her next move. There had to be some form of information network down here she could make use of, it was just a matter of finding it. Vigilantes, maybe? They might be unwilling to cooperate, but with the right encouragement… Well, it was certainly an available option.

March 11, 2045, 10:33 A.M - UnderCity, Titan’s Fall, Texas, U.S.A.

“…Keep your hands up you stupid FUCK.” Came the bellowed words. Two men were face to face with each other in a side alley, dirty air clinging to their skin like slowly peeling paint.

One was tall, with sunken eyes and stringy, greasy hair. His clothes were tattered and ripped, though the comm-link on his wrist was startlingly fresh and new. If it weren’t occasionally sparking against his pockmarked skin, it could’ve even been mistaken as brand new!

The other man was shorter, broader than his counterpart, and for someone so stocky, his was a narrow face. His clothes were far less tattered than the taller man, though he had no new tech on him beyond the undercity default. His eyes were glassy, rolling and darting about as he focused and unfocused.

The taller man, once more shouting and waving the long barrel firearm in his hands, shoved the shorter man back against the wall he had him cornered against. “Gimme the FUCKING Nitro! You FUCK. Cmon man, cmon! Stupid fucking IDIOT! Took some of MY ‘glass didn’t you?! HUH?! DIDN’T YOU?!”

And the shorter one gave no signs of recognizing anything around him, head lolling back slow and steady as he slumped to his knees. Once more did tall and shouts-a-lot scream, hands shaking violently on the gun he was holding. His eyes darted about, senses just barely taking note of the thumping music from somewhere. The club? Was there a club— Oh. He was right beside a club, or, some music house? What the fuck did it matter. It didn’t matter!


He took hold of the barrel of his weapon, snaking forward and using a now free hand to begin rifling through the pockets of the little shit-heel on the ground. That Nitro was his! HIS! He worked hard for it, and the Cult didn’t take kindly to idiots who lost their merchandise! And by their, he meant his! Because IT WAS HIS, YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND!
“WHERE. IS. MY. NITRO. YOU FUCK! YOU FUCKING FUCK! Idiot fucking maggot man WHERE DID YOU PUT IT?!”

His shouts were nearly muffled in the alley, quieter than the hubbub of the undercity around him. His fingertips passed by a plastic-something, coming back and snatching up the repurposed inhaler.
Sweet sweet victory.
The man cackled, nearly jumping with joy as he brought the inhaler up, pressed down, and took a deeeeep breath in. His eyes fluttered…

The world slowed around him, and as he opened his eyes again, his sight was filled with the wide open maw of some hideous monster.

Rows and rows of teeth, a tongue that split into four separate tentacles of spiny horror, and a pair of arms that reached out at him from the depths of a cavernous throat. The arms were skinny little things, covered in as many barbs as the tongue.
His thoughts ran slow for a moment, just a heartbeat. The muscles in his back, his legs, and his hips flexed.

And quick as a blink, the man narrowly avoided having his head snapped up. His mouth slapped open, an otherwise wordless scream ripping out of him.

The unholy lovechild of a crocodile, a centipede, and whatever eldritch nightmare has hands coming from its throat. There were too many eyes, and feathers in place of scales or fur. But most of all…

It was fast. And hell-bent on his life. This was made obvious as he turned, flexing the muscles in his legs to run.
And slipped. On a patch of mud that hadn’t been there before.
His face slapped into the ground, his hands moved like twin blurs, pressed on the dirt and trash covered ground, pushed him up— He was almost free! He was so close! The Nitro was pushing him faster, farther, and onwards! Onwards—

And into the grasp of arms that wrapped around his neck. Into the quartet of spined tongues that closed around his head.
‘How…?’ He thought, desperation pushing at his very being. ‘I should have been… Faster…! Faster…!! FASTER!!!’

And with a blink, the pop of air rushing to fill a now empty space, and a yelp, the man vanished.
And reappeared at the end of the alleyway.
He cackled with glee again, rushing out into the street with a speed that belied what exactly he had taken. He blinked from point to point, appearing up on the roof of a rough-shod shed. He turned to catch a glimpse of the creature, adrenaline spiking as he screamed his joy. It was gone! He was safe!

His eyes roamed the streets nearby, taking special note of a woman who was walking now in— Was— Was that a fucking Templar?! Holy shit! Holy shit! That uniform was so mythical! No one could mistake—
His thoughts came slamming to a halt. There was a numbness spreading through his veins, through his flesh. He looked down, finally, at his chest. At the spike of bone and flesh that was protruding from him.

And at the skewered heart on the end of it, ten inches away from him. Or at least the remains of a heart, ripped and shredded as it was. He made a final hiccup, watching as the spike grew four spines… And yanked backwards. His scream was cut short, but no less audible.

And the oily, inky bubble that swirled over where he had been, was easily visible.

The shape that the ink-bubble resolved into; a lanky, relatively tall, bronze skinned woman with luminescent blue eyes, was naked as a baby. She turned and looked over the streets below her, face cold and clinical. Before a swirl of ink pulsed from her skin, and covered her in a pair of brown and gold feathered wings. Then she was dropping out of view of anyone who could watch her.

Temporarily.

J-3 wanted to explore, and now that they— She— had had some food… She could, and would. To see what the world would offer other than some drugged up muggers. Hm.

Another guest made herself known to the others in the room, the mechanic who tasked herself with keeping the cyber ninja from becoming electronics scrap, though he certainly seemed to do everything within his power to attempt to make it happen anyways. She almost immediately apologized for Temujin's troublesome nature, though she seemed to mentally cut herself short as she almost ran into the comparatively giant among man. Who courteously offered a gentle smile after a little chuckle seeing her flustered reaction.

Having put the tray aside on a nearby desk Zolya spoke up "Would you like some tea?" Zolya asked Ako gesturing at the tray. When Temujin then told the mechanic of who turned him into an abstract art exhibit Zolya turned to Ako with a smile "That's right she smashed him pretty hard after he swooped her off her feet, seems you're no longer the only girl who's allowed to touch him that way." She said carefully mixing the joking and serious aiming for maximum damage on the girl.

Meanwhile Zolya was trying to get a rise out of the poor mechanic girl Raudd mulled a bit over the statement of the Templar trying to put the pieces together between chasing a teleporter and her falling out of the sky, not that it was all that hard to piece it together. "Hmm, that's rather troubling. A teleporter who's gone and committed murder and seemed to have no qualms about dropping a Templar down through the plate gaps to their deaths."

He scratched his head. He doubted she had any way of contacting those up above and alerting them about the situation, this deep down not many communication devices could pass through a decent signal without a direct connection. Meaning that if they didn't get her topside to report the situation soon the killer might make more victims which could turn out exceedingly messy if they decide to drop them through the plates as well. "It sounds like we need to get you out of the Undercity as fast as possible, before they create more victims."

He sighed realizing they would have to wait for Alex to return from his hunting trip before any action could be undertaken in the first place, that barrier might be cracked, but without Alex turning it off she wasn't going to be able to travel that distance. "That being said we'll have to wait for the creator of those barriers to return in order to release them, in the meantime would you like some tea? Or maybe some cookies, they may not quite have an uniform shape, but they still taste great."

"That's right she smashed him pretty hard after he swooped her off her feet, seems you're no longer the only girl who's allowed to touch him that way."

Ako blinked. Once, twice, then many more times. A beet red colour flooded her face, and she shook her head, with such fervour that her bangs flapped about aggressively. "No no no! It's nothing like that. I like my men with a beard and a hearty paunch!" She stood on her toes (and still barely reached eye level with Zolya's bosom) as she held up a shaking finger. "And-and some kind of outdoorsy hobby!"

Temujin coughed. ”And I like my women… tall and buxom. With a good singing voice."

Ako nodded to affirm. "That's right- hey!"

"That would be preferable," Yue mumbled from behind her hands. Plus, the sooner she checked in, the less likely Sairyn would be to send an army into the depths after her. Based on the rumors she'd heard about this place, it probably wouldn't go over well with the locals. She did perk up visibly at the mention of cookies, though. Some comfort food would definitely go a long way towards easing her bruised pride.

"Cookies!? Round shaped is okay," she replied with a note of excitement, although she wondered why it mattered whether or not they were "unicorn" shaped. Suddenly being captive in a strange alien hellscape wasn't so bad. Now she just needed a half gallon of Cookies & Cream ice cream and she'd be all good for the afternoon.

The barriers had been weakened just enough at the joints from her attempt at getting up for her to move very slowly at a much more reserved power level. If they were offering her cookies then whomever had her restrained probably wouldn't mind... they were going to release her anyway right? She carefully moved herself into a more comfortable sitting position and took a cookie from the plate with calculated care. Burgundy eyes alight with anticipation, she raised the cookie towards her mouth in agonizing slow motion until...

*Tink!*

The cookie crumbled against the barrier covering her face.

"Phhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhh................." she deflated, with palpable disappointment. Yue went slack against the barriers once again (which was oddly comfortable), and was left to stare at the remains of the oddly misshapen cookie between her fingers.

It had been Alex’s suggestion to try and take any back alley and unmonitored routes to Freya’s. Though news that a Templar had fallen into the undercity would be some news, he preferred that they didn’t kick the hornets' nest and possibly send the various gangs and factions into a frenzy over a possible “crusade” coming down below. Though most of the others stayed out of rogue business as much as they could, keeping the woman “out of sight and out of mind” was the best way to go in the long term. Dean had hopped off the comms to see what he could figure out and try and play interference however he could. Because “The Horde will be the least of our problems if this blows up in the wrong ways.”

He unfortunately was forced to go back out and about when he expressed feeling a tad hungry. Most of the other rogues knew of appetite and Freya wasn’t all that willing to watch him clear out her pantry. He had been outside of the residential districts for a while now, leaving himself open for the local fauna. It was right around when Alex was thinking he was just gonna have to suck it up and go to a butchery that he heard a guy wrap roar.

The beast crashed through heaps of overgrown scrap as it charged him. A scuttling mound of chitin with a massive segmented mouth agape with dozens of nasty teeth. There were no visible eyes and for some reason there was a mound of tentacles writhing behind it. The thing was easily the size of a car. Alex let out a satisfied chuckle as the dumb beast closed in. ”Finally, meal time.” He took a step back and got into a ready position while bouncing on the balls of his feet, headless to the creature ready to try and devour him.

Right at the last moment before so much as a tooth even grazed his armor, Alex dashed to the side. Before the creature had time to correct its charge Alex had already pivoted with his hands raised, bringing them down along with the blade of an oversized sword of bright blue telekinetic light. The surprised squeal from the beast was literally cut off as it’s stubby head was lopped off in one swing. It’s stump of a neck seemingly not even bleeding while it’s body slumped to the ground. It’s head tried desperately to snap at the man that had easily slain it.
Alex was unimpressed. But he was just happy he had his free meal now. He proceeded to punt the dying head quite some distance before hefting the carcass. ”Don't know what you were, but I hope you taste like crab.”

As he was on his way back, he could feel his barriers holding the Templar in place straining and cracking. Not completely shattered though. The fact that his comms weren’t blaring with the others telling him she was escaping made him less worried. It was fine, probably . . . . Hopefully. He sped up a bit just to be safe.

He arrived from an entrance big enough for his “catch” to be brought in. There was no way he was preparing this outside to let vermin get any of the scraps. ”I'm back! And I got what I think is squid or octopus and crab or lobster. We’ll see.” he left the corpse to go check on everyone, eyes glowing with power ready to be released at a moment's notice. When he walked in to find everyone in one piece and the Templar up, he folded his arms o Te his chest and nodded his head at the restrained woman. ”Are we good to let her out?” he let the question hang as he took stock of everyone. Cyber Ninja’s mechanic was here so he was gonna keep his helmet on in the meantime. Finally he addressed the Templar directly. ”Sorry about the restraints, I kinda had to go overkill to be sure you didn’t try cracking anyone’s skulls there. How’s your head?”

Aaaaand there he was: the culprit. Her warden. The man between her and the only thing that felt right in this primitive, broadband-free hellscape... The man between her and cookie. Yue narrowed her burgundy eyes up at him. She immediately experienced a flash: an ominous silhouette, towering in the dust. Spikes of demonic energy bristling over its skin. Eyes seething with power. It hit her like a ton of bricks, and if she hadn't been already held up by the barriers she may have keeled over.

She examined him more closely as he was entering: Tall. Broad shouldered. Barrel Chest. Muscular. Brute? No... maybe just a Psycher that works out a lot? Brutes with Blaster/Shaker type abilities are incredibly rare. Blue eyes... Luminous(?) Was she the only one who saw that?

Her eyes flicking quickly across the room seemed to confirm that nobody else was bothered by Mr. Spends-Cred-On-Aura-Cosmetics-But-Has-A-Crap-Armor-Set. Ugh. Self-made for sure. Low to Mid Tier crafter. Final Fashion rejected. Wait. He's saying something.

Accelerated?? When did that happen?

Yue found herself coiled against the barriers with the [Crimson] roiling in her ears, ready to leap out and cleanse him the moment she was no longer restrained. What provoked such a visceral reaction? Did he do something in that fuzzy period between [impact] and consciousness? She forced herself to relax. It wouldn't do to be starting a fight here in the Viking's home... not when there were cookies at stake. Yue exhaled and slowly released the coil of power built up inside her, letting the world fall back into normal time.

".............. anyone’s skulls there. How’s your head?”

Skulls??!!!

This is just like the season one narrative in Final Odyssey where the big bad pretended to be one of the Adventurer's companions for like... the entire campaign. He even had a super useful camp-ability like [Cooking] to lure you into a false sense of security. Everyone thought I was crazy for re-speccing to Paladin because "ew, who wants to play a support-tank, lol?" Then bam! Demon-King. Nobody saw the warning signs, the innocuous Freudian slips, the oh-so-convenient way he always managed to not be around whenever something bad happened at camp??

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH! OK... let's not overreact here.

Play it cool, play it cool... He doesn't know that I know...

"Um. Foggy," she answered after a short, but noticeable delay. "I think I hit my head pretty hard when I landed. I... don't really process pain signals though," she paused again, for just a moment. He didn't need to know that. Stop giving up free information! "So, uh, I won't be able to tell if I'm seriously injured without an exam."