[x] Try to patch things up with one of the other Chosen.
- [x] Miz.
I want to make our arrangement more permanent. Besides, she is the one wavering on the fight with the Sins, we can't afford her drifting away after an experience like that.
Eventually I want to ask Leliel this (maybe people have more ideas?):
[ ] Interrogate Leliel.
-[ ] Chosen. Why we were selected? What is the principle behind it?
--[ ] How do we become stronger?
--[ ] Are we the first ones to fight the Sins? Did we have predecessors besides the two who got killed?
-[ ] Rules of magic. How does it work, and how it affects us.
--[ ] How come Light knows so much more about it? Can we match her knowledge?
But now probably would be a bad time. No idea on the second action. Maybe Shadows. Maybe Emily, since we are talking memories and goodbyes.
[x] Nothing. Save the favour for later.
No need. She asked not to bring her near the Sin, and Angel is confident that we could take it without her. Besides, she is much more useful for her knowledge of magic that I notice no one else has... except for maybe Shadows. Somewhat frustrating, considering that we too should be able to throw some magic around.
By the way... since it was mentioned that one of the Strengths of Lust's Circle was that it doesn't have cover, can we negate it by bringing cover with us? I am pretty sure the girls are strong enough to commandeer a truck or something equally massive to protect themselves from explosives, and move it inside the Circle.
Bringing cover with you is certainly something you can do - you guys might want to start coming up with strategy ideas now so you can have them relatively discussed by the time it comes to voting on them. Feel free to suggest stuff you think you can do but I haven't made explicit for this sort of thing, too; I'll let you know if it's feasible or not.
Well, its biggest weakness is that it doesn't move much, meaning it can't dodge massive area damage.
If we think we can prepare an equivalent of magical grenades beforehand, it'd be neat. We could drive a truck into it and then blow it up for good measure, if we think it'd make a dent. Or we could design a magical ritual not unlike what we did to save the boy or Light did to help the city, only inverted so that it causes maximum harm. Basically, sit in self-made cover, design diagrams with Lust in the center, have it Ion Cannoned by the combined magic of the four since it isn't going anywhere.
Just to clarify, and to make it easier to avoid misunderstanding, in this setting/rules set:
'Magic' is pretty much anything you do while transformed. Melee, ranged, special abilities - all of it falls under magic.
'Sorcery' is anything you do that falls outside these effects. This is stuff like the two rituals Light helped with/orchestrated.
In general, anything you can do with your normal magical powers - like your hex, or Angel's area of effect defence power - should be done with those instead of with sorcery.
You can use sorcery to attack, and it's a higher difficulty attack which you can attach a status effect to, which is pretty good - but there are risks. The main risk being that if the target succeeds their resistance roll by more than 4, it bounces back on the caster. Additionally, it requires 2 rolls to affect the target - you have to successfully cast the spell on a difficulty 16 (possible, but unlikely unless you're specced into it; Light can get that on ~ 58% of her rolls for off-the-cuff sorcery, for example), and then you have to make an attack roll to hit the target. 'Big risk, big reward' is what I'd class it as.
Shadows can likely pull it off with difficulty; she's a magic/attack hybrid build.
Pre-prepared sorcery grenades, I would say, are a pretty good idea! They'd be a harder number to hit to cast successfully, but you could pre-prepare them and that removes a couple of the big negatives of combat sorcery. I'd want you to choose an effect - area of effect or localised damage - and your degree of success would influence how many you could make, but they would very much come in handy.
Cover is also good - it acts as a sort of ablative hit point system, and something to hide behind while you recover a little will be invaluable.
Do not forget that Lust will be fielding a bunch of minions. Minions which explode. Cover is good. Area of effect to kill them before they explode is also good. You do not have an indefinite healer on the field with you - make sure you read Shadows' healing move in detail before planning around it.
I will also add that 'mundane' sources of damage do not do anything to Sins, Sin-Eaten, Sin Chosen, or, indeed, the Chosen themselves. This is something that all the Chosen are implicitly aware of, but which I may not have made explicit in the story, but it is something to keep in mind.
Finally, to put the specialisations of each of your assets into short descriptions:
Champion - Sustained, mounting damage. Amplify Magic + Hex is brutal after several stacks. Also the best direct combatant - 2d6 + 9 to hit. Squishy, though - low everything not 'hit them with an axe' rolls.
Miz - Extreme longevity. She's the hardest to hit, and the hardest to permanently harm. Rolling (usually) 2d6 + 10 for defence will do that for you. Terrible offence - the Sin Chosen fight was an amazing fluke.
Shadows - Limited healer, incredible burst damage with a cost. She can drop 1d6 + 18 damage in melee, once a fight, or 1d6 + 16 damage at range once a fight. Synergises really well with Champion due to also having Hex. Can be squashed flat by a mean look if she isn't careful, though.
Angel - Survival and damage combined. Not as tough as Miz, or as lethal as Champion or Shadows, but still plenty dangerous. All about getting in close, hitting hard and not dying immediately. She can burn Relationships for health, which is a good short term thing but awful long term, and is the best at locking down an entire zone and whittling down everything in it.
Not going to lie - Light will help immensely if you get her on board for future fights. She's the specialised healer, and she's really, really good at healing.
Will girls be having their Fallouts during the day that we are taking off? We have accumulated some Overcharge during the last fight.
Also, it's bugging me that we have Witch as our specialization, yet the only direct damage spell we have is Hex. Amplify is the other, and quite useful, but it doesn't do anything by itself. Kinda hard to figure what our role is - not a support, not a tank, but a weird hybrid... we can do good DPS, but then we aren't hexing stuff. Probably would fare beter with Angel's Reflect. Why didn't she use it during the last fight, I wonder?
Can we use our favor to make a second attempt at conversing with Light (and her trying to listen for once), or is Jen averse to that?
I can't help but notice that a lot of things they are doing on a 'favor' basis really oughtn't be. Like, saving a boy, or trying to ease the pressure on the city should not depend on how much they like the person asking.
If they had more people with them during the ritual, maybe things would have gone better. I know we'd do this if Angel, Shadows, or even Miz came to us with the request, and they wouldn't have to owe us anything. I don't know about the relationships between the rest, but by the looks of it, Light is the only one not on board with the concept of a team.
Yeah, everyone will be going into the fight on 0 Overcharge.
Reflect didn't get used in the last fight because it requires a successful attack, IIRC. Hexing has been less prominent as every fight so far has lasted less than 3 full rounds - that's not a huge amount of time to build up damage from the effect, especially when the enemies don't have that much health.
The favour being used to give you a chance to convince Light might work after you've beaten a Sin. As it stands, she's not going to give it consideration right now, and Jen knows that.
WRT favours etc. - all the girls got into this for selfish reasons, when it comes down to it. Angel and Shadows are nicer and more likely to co-operate because you're doing things they agree with. The situation would be turned on its head if you wanted to not fight the Sins, with Light and Miz your primary allies, Shadows a possible to be swayed, and Angel in violent opposition.
You can use sorcery to attack, and it's a higher difficulty attack which you can attach a status effect to, which is pretty good - but there are risks. The main risk being that if the target succeeds their resistance roll by more than 4, it bounces back on the caster.
Interesting. Does that apply to everything related to sorcery, including the sorcerous grenades? That is, if they resist, it will come back to bite us even if the grenade detonates nowhere near us?
My thought was to make a truck such a 'huge moving grenade'. If we can't combat-cast sorcery with Sin as a target (too dangerous to do inside the Circle), then change the target to something we can move and drive it right into the Sin for massive damage. But if backlash is a possibility we can't get rid of, that is definitely an argument for not throwing anything at enemies that we ourselves can't survive. I just thought the enemy being immobile offered some unique opportunities.
Do buffs/debuffs that normally apply to magic apply to sorcery as well? That is, does Amplify affect it? Or Shadows' Fight For Friends?
Vote results:
[X] Try to patch things up with one of the other Chosen. - 5 votes.
- [X] Angel. - 3 votes.
- [X] Miz. - 5 votes.
Part 11
Friday, Week 2
The night passes slowly, but it does pass. When you aren't running across the city, putting out fires literal and metaphorical, you think. You'd like to spend time with your friends, with the people who matter the most to you, but you can't justify it. The upcoming fight isn't just life-or-death for you, but life-and-death for the species, and you need a team for that.
Your team, as much as you've been trying to tape one together with hope and dreams, is not one. Shadows is on your side, you think, swayed by the simple fact that you've extended an amount of friendship. Angel agrees with your goals, but after yesterday, you don't know if she agrees with you any more. Miz is, as ever, a bit of a mystery. She reacted poorly to what happened, fled the scene as soon as she could, despite being the one who seemed most eager to kill the Sin Chosen herself.
You text her, asking to meet up and talk, and she responds after a few minutes with an agreement. You race the rising sun across the rooftops towards your destination, a small, half-destroyed coffee shop. Miz is sat at one of the outside tables, helmet resting on the table, nursing a huge mug of some sort of cream-topped, chocolate-sprinkled drink. She gives you a tired, wary smile as you approach, and gestures to the tipped-over seats around the table.
"Pick a chair, any chair," she murmurs. "Not the best shop in town, but I saved their asses last night, so they said I'd get some free drinks."
You shrug awkwardly and right one of the chairs, seating yourself carefully so that your armoured weight doesn't break it any worse than it already is.
"You know, I always thought you were one of those, like, super-uptight girls," Miz says casually. "Despite all the angry axe stuff. Like, no drink, no drugs, no fun?"
A worn-looking woman emerges from the shop carrying another drink much like the one Miz has got. She gives you a glass-brittle smile and sets it on the table in front of you in much the same way as someone would approach an armed bomb.
"Always thought it would be me who, you know, did the deed first," Miz continues, not looking at you. "Never thought it would, like, really bother me that much?" She laughs. "Shows what I know."
"I didn't do it because I wanted to," you say, watching the woman retreat. "Look, you make a deal like that you – you have to honour it."
"Do you? Do you really? What, are we in the fucking middle ages now, with blood oaths?" Miz asks, not raising her voice, sounding almost bored, but you can tell it's affected. "We should have got the information and then left her. Out of our hands, up to her what happens, right?"
"Hey!" you snap, slamming your hand down on the arm of your chair for emphasis. "We did that to her. We took that from her. Like she said, the least we could do is own it. You were half-ready to just gun her the fuck down anyway, what are you getting so pissy about?"
"See, I know I'm not a very nice person," she says, pausing to take a gulp of her drink. "I ignore horrible shit that goes on around me 'cause it makes my life easier. It's really easy to do, too, 'cause if I'm not doing it, it doesn't matter. I'm just, you know, re-evaluating you, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes."
You blink in confusion. "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"
"Okay, I thought you were one of those wannabe goody-goody kids. You know the sort, act all nice and pretend, but not actually do anything nice?" She shrugs. "Should have figured otherwise with the sleepover thing, but, you know, I was sleep deprived and desperate and it was kind of a transactional thing, anyway. Okay, I'm getting away from my point. The point is, you're... what's the word... an idealist. You actually, legitimately think things like, I dunno, promises to execute a chick who couldn't force you to do jack shit are valid? I don't get that."
"So you weren't bothered by the- what I did, but the reason I did it?" you say, incredulous.
"No! Fuck no. I mean yeah. I mean, like, both- you cutting off some woman's head was fucked up, okay? It was fucked up, and it was totally unnecessary," she says, raising her voice. "She told us what we wanted. Less than what we wanted. We didn't owe her anything, she was the enemy and then she was nothing and it was- like, it was just not necessary. She even said she was only doing it to fuck with us!"
"What, I shoulda just left her to fucking claw her own throat out?" you say, scowling. "Made her crawl to the hospital so she could die in pain and miserable? At least it was quick."
"But- right, okay, she was the enemy. She knew the risks, getting into a fight with us, and she took them anyway. You think she couldn't have run away? She went for Shadows, and kept going for Shadows instead. If I wasn't there, Shadows would be dead, and that would have been on the Sin Chosen, right? So why does she deserve any fucking respect once she's beaten and done? Take what we needed from her, and leave her to her fate, is what I'm saying," Miz says, not angry but... frustrated? "It didn't matter if she lived or died, then, because it wouldn't have been on us."
"That's fucked up," you say softly. "You're fucked up, Miz. That- that'd still be us killing her. It'd just be slower and more painful and all around a shit thing to do to another human being."
"And that, right there, is your problem," she says, leaning forwards and pointing a finger at you. "She wasn't another human being. She was the enemy, and whatever happened to her after we beat her would be her fault."
"I- I don't- that's just so fucking wrong," you say, almost lost for words. "On, like, every fucking level, that's wrong. We put her in that position, she was our responsibility."
"No, what is our responsibility is killing the Sins, right? That's your whole 'thing'," Miz says, waving her fingers in mocking scare quotes. "And, like, that's admirable! They're fucking up the city, fucking with us – I get wanting to put them down so they don't do it any more. I mean, I don't get risking shit like you seem to want to, but that's not my problem." She sighs, and slumps back in her seat, rubbing her temples. "Fuck it. I'm not, like, invested in this. Can we just move on? We're not going to agree on this, but I'm still going to help you fight. That's why you came here, right? To make sure I'd be there for the Sin fight?"
"I wanted to clear the air, make sure nothing was still festering," you say, perplexed by Miz's sudden about-face. It's just so antithetical to the way you do things it's thrown you for a loop; you expected her to dig in and start screaming, not suddenly give way. "But if you're- I still think that the way you're looking at things is deeply fucked up -"
"I mean, does it really matter?" Miz interrupts, staring sullenly at her mug. "We aren't friends, Champion. I'm not going to, like, deliberately fuck you over, that's against my best interests, but we don't have anything in common, and we don't even really like each other. But I kind of don't give a shit? Like, I can work with people I don't really like. I was working with Light for a while, and she's even more of a stick-up-her-ass chick than you are. Who knows, maybe I'll change my mind once I get to know you better."
"What, that's it? We say all this shit and you... just drop it?" you say. "Why did you even fucking bring it up in the first place?"
"It isn't worth the effort to argue," she says. "I told you already. I go with the flow. You're the river, right now, you know? I'm just bobbing along."
You cover your face with your hands and let out a frustrated, muffled scream.
"See? That's why I don't bother arguing too much. Just stresses you out."
You snatch up your drink, down it in a few swift gulps, and storm away.
It was delicious.
You spend the next hour or so roaming the city, trying to channel your frustration by burning off some of the furious energy, but you're not sure it works very well. You're still simmering when you get in touch with Angel to arrange to meet her, too. You sincerely hope that this meeting goes better than the last one. Or... worse? You don't know what happened with Miz, there. At least she's going to show up.
Angel's sat on the roof of the biggest hospital in town, staring out across the city with half-closed eyes. She looks like she could fall asleep any moment, and you don't blame her.
"Hey," you say, dropping down to sit on the edge of the roof next to her.
"Hey," she says. "Sorry about ditchin' you yesterday. Just kinda a shock."
You sigh and lean back, supporting your weight on your hands as you look up at the sky. "Yeah, I get that. Just had a, uh, discussion with Miz about it."
"Miz ain't the problem," Angel snorts. "So long as she shows. Lemme tell you a story, Champion. Give you an idea why it was a shitshow yesterday."
"Fuck, I don't need a story to know that," you whisper. "I know it was fucked up."
"Yeah, you need to hear this," Angel says, flopping onto her back. "This shit's kinda personal, okay? So no interrupting."
You let yourself collapse too, lying next to her on the warm roof and staring up at the cloudless sky. "Least I can do, Angel," you say, not looking at her. "I just want us to be good."
There's a rustle as Angel rearranges her wings for comfort, and you can hear her hum her agreement. "Okay. So, I got a best friend. We've been together since I can remember, you know? Since I could fuckin' walk, I've known her. Like the sister I never had."
You nod. You know all about that, she could be describing you and Emily at this point.
"She was so energetic and happy, all the time. I'm pretty high energy, I know that, but she was enough to wear me out," Angel continues, her voice low and sorrowful. "Then it all started to change. We were, what, ten? Eleven? Shit, it's been so long, I hardly remember when she wasn't like she is now. So when we're eleven, she starts getting tired. At first, it's just a little. She doesn't run as much any more. She can't keep up right. But it keeps getting' worse and worse, and she gets more and more tired all the time."
You hear a sniff, and a glance to your side shows that there are tears rolling down Angel's face.
"And, like, this sounds super selfish, but, like, I was just figurin' out that I liked girls," she says. "And she was my first crush. Didn't last long, but I got both kinds of love for her, okay? So this girl, the most important person in the world to me, she's not just tired any more. She starts getting' shaky. Starts goin' blind. Doctors finally start thinking it ain't just growing pains." She sniffs again. "We're maybe fourteen, then. Takes 'em a while to figure out what the problem is. You know how many fuckin' things make you tired, shaky and blind? It's a lot of fuckin' things. It's not cancer, we figure that's great news. Not a stroke, either, which is good. Turns out it's multiple sclerosis. Big words for me, right? Know 'em by fucking heart."
You reach over and give her hand a reassuring squeeze, hoping it helps at least a little.
"And, right, it's one of those things you hear and don't think much of," she whispers. "Like, hey, it ain't cancer, it's gotta be better! Fuck, sometimes I wish it was just cancer. So, like, one of the symptoms of it, okay, and this is- it's like, this is really fuckin' hard to talk about, you know? So, my friend, she has a bad type. It's called 'Progressive-Relapsing', which means it just keeps getting' worse. She's in this place, right now," she adds, thumping on the roof next to her with her free hand. "Been in and out for years, now. So one of the symptoms is memory loss, right? Not like, always super bad memory loss, but little things. Like the name of your pet goldfish. Or what your best friend looks like." She laughs a little, a shaky, hoarse sound. "Not that it matters anymore, with the blindness. She can't walk. She can't feed herself, can't even go to the bathroom without help. It's- you ever seen that happen to someone you love? Seen 'em die, bit by bit, and never be able to help?"
You shake your head. "No," you whisper, a little hoarse yourself.
"So what I'm tryin' to say is," she finally manages, after a long pause to collect herself. "That coulda been my friend, yesterday. That's all I could see. You get that?"
"Yeah, I get that," you say, and you can see the hint of a smile form on her face.
"Okay, now that I've totally fucked my badass bitch rep," she says, scrubbing at her face with her free hand. "I think we're good. I mean, so long as I ain't creeped you out or nothin'."
"Fuck, Angel, that's- that's not a problem," you say, your voice cracking slightly. "You're still a badass, and you didn't creep me out. Shit, you reacted better than I would have, yesterday."
She sits up, and reaches into her costume to pull out a tissue, then blows her nose. "Yeah, well, it was kinda a shitshow all round. Best of a bad situation, right?"
You heave a long, frustrated sigh. "Yeah. Best of a fucking awful situation." You pause and sit up, leaning with your hands on your knees, carefully not looking at Angel. "She's your wish, right? Make her better?"
"Ain't hard to figure out, is it?" Angel says, copying your pose. "Don't regret it, neither."
"Pretty sure we might be able to do something about it before then," you say thoughtfully. "Once we know some more about the whole magic thing. You said it yourself, right? Might not even take a wish."
"Here's to hoping," Angel says, holding out a fist.
You bump your knuckles against it.
Saturday. The big day. Hell, the BIGGEST day, so far. Everything you could leverage is in place. Time to prepare to fight an existential threat to humanity. What preparations do you make?
[] Write in. Please discuss this so you can come up with a plan.
Relationships updated.
Apologies for the slightly late update - I finished work late and this is a bit of a monster chapter.
In a break from my normal update habits, I am giving people approximately TWO DAYS from now to decide on and vote on a plan. No proper update tomorrow – though I may write one with little interactions with Shadows, Emily and Ostin – to give you guys the ability to prepare for this.
To reiterate: VOTES WILL BE COUNTED AT APPROXIMATELY 18.00 GMT ON THURSDAY THE 11th OF JANUARY.
Can't wait until they realize only one of them gets to have a wish fulfilled. Of course it'd be Envy who has no other source of Eikons. Maybe it's the entire point of the Sin. We better forge relationships before that so we can decide these things without killing half the team. I don't think Angel would budge easily, but the rest likely have wishes that are no less important to them.
So far we've got sorcery grenades and cover. Any other ideas for preparation?
I have somewhat of a plan in my head about who is going to do what once inside... will be laying it out sometime today, it's not really complicated. But we might need a few more ideas about how to tilt this in our favor.
I don't think we really need to tilt anything more in our favour. We've reduced the major obstacle in our path and Lust doesn't really seem that strong. A head-on attack should work fine.
Maybe. There isn't such a thing as too many advantages. Angel and Shadows went in to scout and returned with half their health - you can't blame me for wanting to stack everything in our favor in our first major fight... especially when our dedicated healer is busy moping and brooding.
Anyway. When I am thinking of cover, I am thinking of something like this:
Reinforced concrete plates. Don't know what they use in America to fence off construction sites, but we probably can find something that is solid, sturdy, won't be knocked over by a shockwave, and most importantly, won't be missed much by its owners. I mean, it would be nice to have riot shields for armor, but I am not raiding a police station to get them. Not just yet, at least.
Cars could work, but they are a bit too brittle. Anything else?
[ ] Plan: Remote Assault
[ ] Preparations
-[ ] Raid a construction site or two to find something suitable to create a makeshift cover out of
-[ ] Prepare sorcery grenades. Split 50/50 between AoE ones and massive precision damage
[ ] Strategy
-[ ] Try to hex it from a distance. Amplify magic to have the effect mount up.
-[ ] Don't gang up on Lust in melee - it attacks all adjacent targets. If you want to melee it, make sure the one doing it has offensive/defensive buffs to go toe-to-toe with it
-[ ] If Miz can hit it with no problems (seeing how it's immobile), have her pelt it with bullets. Otherwise have her pick off the minions.
-[ ] Shadows is on support. Have at least one person nearby to watch her back, she is what gives you all staying power
-[ ] Watch your Overcharges. Switch gears/attack method if you hit 5 in any particular one, swap the role with another Chosen etc.
Essentially Angel (I think, since she has no ranged option) hacking it to pieces, Miz/Shadows/Jen killing it from afar or dealing with the minions depending on the situation and who is free at a given moment. Once Angel is hurt/overcharged (use that Reflect, goddammit!), she withdraws and Jen (who hopefully hexed it several times by then) takes over.
It would be nice to have Hexes for once prove more useful than they usually do.
The morning comes all too soon. You sit on the edge of a skyscraper roof and watch the sun start to claw its way above the horizon for a few minutes, taking a short break from your long night vigil, but it is not to last.
You have a job to do.
You're meeting the others at an abandoned lot near the red light district; close enough to work as a staging point, and far enough that you can't feel Lust from it. You and Angel scoped it out yesterday, after your little heart to heart. It's a little intimidating, how many places there are around the city you could use for this sort of thing, now, after only a few days of riots and violence. Abandoned properties, burned down buildings, and garbage-strewn bare concrete abound, alternately crowded with terrified and furious people or completely empty.
But that isn't your first stop. First, you have to... say goodbye. You stop over at your home, first, taking the opportunity to use the shower for what could be the very last time. You don't have the time to spare to cook your grandmother breakfast, but you do have the time to grab her in a fierce hug that she returns, confused. She watches you retreat out of the front door, concern clear on her face, but you smile over your shoulder at her and give her a little wave. You hope it's enough.
The next stop is Ostin's house. Things have been awkward, recently, but he's still one of your best friends, and you'd regret it if you left him out. His mother lets you in, directing you through to the living room, where he's sat, reading, on the sofa, sprawled out with his broken arm across his chest. You stare down at him, engraving the memory in your head.
"What, I got something on my face?" he says, smirking up at you. "Not seen you in a while, Jen. You alright?"
You roll your eyes and force a smile onto your face. "I was, until I saw you, dork," you say, reaching out to flick him on the nose. "How are you? No more trouble?"
"Trouble? Me?" he says, faking surprise. "Well, I never! It's all been perfectly quiet, yeah," he adds. "Pretty strange, really. All that stuff going on out there, and our block's hardly been touched. Must be lucky, I guess."
"Don't let me keep you from your book," you say, starting to walk off. "This was a flying visit. I'm off to see Emily."
"Oh, I see how it is. Abandoning me for your real friend."
"Absolutely." You flick his foot as you pass it, and he flails at you with his leg until you hop out of reach. "I'll tell her you said hi."
"Sounds good. Hopefully school'll be back on next week, or I'm going to be stuck in here for ages. Can't even play video games with this busted arm."
"Maybe I'll come over with Emily another day and we can play all your games while you complain about how bad we are at them," you suggest, hiding a wince at your automatic response. "Depends on the situation."
"You should. See you around, Jen," he says, waving his book at you. "Have fun with Ems."
You depart, and head to your final stop on this little farewell tour of yours. You hope you're simply being pessimistic, but you can't help thinking it. Emily's house is, like Ostin's, untouched by all the violence and madness that the city is descending into, thanks, mostly, to your efforts. You let yourself into the house as usual and can immediately hear Emily clattering about in the kitchen. You walk over and lean on the doorframe, peering into the kitchen as your best friend wrestles with a toaster, trying to get the handle to stay down so that her bread will actually toast.
"This thing never works right," she complains, glancing sideways at you. "You remember that time we tried to make smores in the toaster?"
"There is no way that's the same toaster," you say, amused. "Pretty sure we blew the fuses on that one, with the melted chocolate, and the dripping marshmallow-"
"And the fire."
"And the fire," you say. "Your house smelled like burning plastic for weeks. Still don't think your dad's ever forgiven me for that one."
She rolls her eyes and snickers at that. "Pretty sure he has. The paint incident, on the other hand..."
"That was all on you, Ems, and you know it."
"But you took the blame. I... what did I bribe you with, again? Was it the-"
You cover you face with your hands and groan. "Yeah. Miss Sparklefluff."
"And how is she?" Emily's grin is a cruel, terrible thing as she teases you about your brief unicorn obsession. Unicorns. Not even once.
"She's still on my wall, last I checked. Under, uh... I think it's the Kick Ass poster? The one I convinced the movie theatre to give me for free."
"Right, I remember. So, not that I'm sad to see you here," she says, jabbing grumpily at the toaster again. "Because I always love hanging out, but I get the impression you're here for something."
You roll your shoulders uncomfortably. "We're... going to fight one of the Sins today," you finally say. "I just... I wanted to see you before... just in case, you know?"
Your voice cracks a little as you speak, but you keep the smile on your face as best you can. Emily, having been your friend for as long as you can remember, doesn't believe it for a second, and abandons the toaster to come over and hug you. You lean into the gesture, hugging her back tightly, and you can feel the corners of your eyes start to prickle with imminent tears.
"Oh, Jen," she whispers. "You... I'm not going to tell you that you don't have to do this. I know you too well, you'd just say that you do."
"Yeah," you murmur.
"Just stay alive. Come and tell me all about it, and about how you kicked its ass, that's all I want from you. Okay?"
"I'll make it regret ever being created," you say, letting a little heat creep into your voice. "Don't worry about that."
She pinches you in the side at that, making you squeak in surprise and flinch, and you feel a smile start to work its way back onto your face. You both pull back from the hug, and you can see a matching expression on Emily's face.
"Give 'em hell, Champion," she says.
Your smile broadens, even as the tears threaten to return. "See you tomorrow," is all you say back. Emily gets in one more quick hug before you leave, and it's one of the hardest things you've ever done to let go of her and go out to face something that might kill you. But you do it, because the only other option is to cower in a corner and wait to die, and you wouldn't be you, if you could do that.
The trip across the city is quick, even burdened down as you are by a burned out car wreck. Shadows had mentioned that, with the lack of cover, bringing your own might be useful, and Angel suggested using some of the plentiful ruined cars that the riots have left behind. You'd each be bringing your own party favour for this, and you can see that Miz has held up her end as you approach the meeting place. She's sat on the top of a mostly-intact car, flicking idly through a magazine, and she ignores you as you land and deposit your own charred mess.
You wait in uncomfortable silence for a minute or two before Angel arrives, carrying two vehicles which she drops with a resounding crash.
"Shadows is bringin' some stuff for some kinda ritual," she says. "Somethin' about grenades? I dunno."
She swaggers over to you and claps you cheerfully on the shoulder, and you make small talk while you wait for the final member of your group to turn up. Shadows appears ten minutes later, looking harried and exhausted. She's got bandages wound around her arms from wrist up to where the cloth disappears under her outfit, and as she gets closer you can see that the shape of whatever's under those bandages isn't what you'd expect it to be; there are raised ridges and lumps barely concealed by the bandages, and Shadows' hands constantly twitch towards them.
"You alright, Shadows?" you say.
"Um, like, not really?" she whispers, eye darting around the empty lot. "But, um, not in like a way that, um, will matter here. We can, like, discuss it after the, um, the fight."
"If you're sure," Angel says, wrapping an arm around Shadow's shoulders for a quick side-hug. "We ain't gonna rush you. You said somethin' about grenades?"
Miz meanders over, tucking the magazine back into her outfit. "I like the sound of grenades."
"Um, I, um, like, it's a quick ritual? We can, like, pool some of our, um, power, and I think I've figured out, um, how to make something that'll explode?" Shadows stutters, shrinking in on herself under the weight of three curious gazes.
"You need a shape or anythin'?" Angel asks. "I can do shapes."
"N-no, we should be okay with, um, just a chant? It's, um, if it's explosions, then, like, something stable to, um, support the ritual would be counterproductive."
You and Angel exchange a glance, sharing your mutual confusion. Angel lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug, and you mirror it. "You're the expert, here," you say.
"Just tell me what to say," Miz agrees. "And, you know, let us know if you want any power or whatever."
"U-um, Angel's gravity will be helpful, to compress, and, um, you and Champion's fire. My shadows will, um, should, work to wrap it all?" Shadows says, sounding unsure. "So just, um, feed that stuff to me and I'll, like, shape it. We need, like, an off-tempo round? Um, clashing repetitions. So, like, we'll go clockwise, me then Champion then Angel then Miz, and, um, just repeat after me when I nod?"
"Whenever you're ready," you say, and the other two nod their agreement.
Shadows begins to intone nonsense sounds, not-words that nevertheless worm their ways into your mind. You couldn't write them down or tell anyone what they meant, but you can certainly repeat them. On her second time through the chant, Shadows nods to you at what feels like a random point, and you start to repeat the same unwords.
It takes perhaps five minutes before all four of you are chanting at odds with each other, the strange sounds clashing and intermingling to produce sounds that those combinations should never be able to create. You're pumping a thin ribbon of flame towards Shadows, and Miz's incandescent sunfire is doing the same, while the dust motes in the air all start to draw towards a central point between the four of you. Shadows' own shadows are writhing and threading through the air, thin tendrils looping around the disparate parts of the spell to collect it all together. Some of them snatch at what looks like empty air, but when they move a syllable is taken out of the chant without any of you seeming to remove it from what you are saying.
After a few minutes of this, there's only a single sound left in the chant, the first one, spoken by one of you every few seconds as you work your way through the required phrases. There's a jagged shape in the middle of the four of you, a sea-urchin made of shadows wrapped around struggling fire. Flares and flashes escape from between the tenebrous strands on occasion, and the object shakes slightly, even as it slowly glides towards the ground.
"I think we're ready," Shadows says, once it sets down. "Um, if everyone else is?"
You all exchange looks. None of you are ready to back out of this just yet, but none of you really want to be the first to say you're willing to charge head-first into the teeth of death.
"Today is a good day for somebody else to die," Angel finally says, smiling like a shark. "Let's go kill us a fuckin' Sin."
If you beat the Sin, you will become better, enhanced by absorbing some of its power. How will you improve?
[] You develop a better appreciation of the good things in life, and use that to push yourself forwards. (+1 Heart.)
[] You stoke the fires of wrath inside yourself to greater heights, using the power you've gained as fuel. (+1 Fury.)
[] You steal some of the knowledge from the Sin, gaining more comprehension of the obscure rules of reality, of the strange way things truly work. (+1 Magic.)
[] A little of Lust's pure power clings to you like an ethereal shroud. (+1 Charm.)
[] You fortify the bastion of your mind with the awareness bought of the foul deeds perpetrated by the Sin. (+1 Tenacity.)
[] Your cunning is sharpened by the whetstone of the Sin's experiences.(+1 Insight.)
[] Your flesh is soaked in the power left behind, making you harder to truly harm. (+3 Resolve.)
AN: My deepest apologies, but unavoidable circumstances mean I won't be able to write up the actual fight until tomorrow. Hopefully this will tide you over until then! Don't worry, there'll be more than enough to fill a big update with just the fight.
