[DEAD] Stand Against The Darkness: A Magical Girl Quest

[Khona Moshr]

[X] Investigate.

 

[Nevill]

*sigh*

And we were having such a great time, too.

[x] Investigate.

Well, it's a family flaw. Go poke your nose in another catastrophe, Jen. You didn't have enough nightmare fuel to last you a lifetime yet.

Episode title fills me with dread. It is only a matter of time before the Sin Chosen decide to get back at us and start looking us up. Or actively messing the city up. Except maybe Jake, because that'd be too much effort.

Unlike the Sins, they are perfectly sentient and I can believe in their ability to mount a response.

It's a fair way away, bot visible from where you are

Click to shrink...

'not'?

Threadmark says "Episode 3: Revenge: Part 1", but it's the 4th episode.

 

[veekie]

[x] Investigate.

 

[wingstrike96]

[x] Investigate.

 

[Kadmus]

Spoiler: AN

Vote results:
[X] Investigate. - 4 votes.

I did roll the fight out. It was uncomfortably short.

Part 2
Monday, Week 3

You take off at a dead sprint, aiming towards the nearest place you can duck into cover for a few seconds and change while more explosions ring through the night air. Years of hide-and-seek in the neighbourhood have taught you the best spots, and it takes all of two minutes to transform and take to the skies, bouncing from rooftop to rooftop like a heavily-armoured rubber ball.

There's no way you can ignore it, when you get right down to it. You're doing this – all of this, the pain and the blood and the killing – because you want to help. You want to make the city a better place, where you don't need to be afraid to walk down the street. You wouldn't really be you if you ignored the obvious distress you can hear.

And it is distress. There's a column of smoke rising from your destination, and the screams are disappearing with every explosion. Not fading out, not getting less panicked and fearful, but cutting off. By the time you're close enough to make out what's happened, there are no more screams.

The explosions came from a police station. There's a police car embedded halfway through the second floor, and another has been shoved through the entrance, leaving long knives of broken glass scattered over the stairs. The air is filled with the eerie wailing of a dying police siren, the notes long and distorted and warbling. You can hear the crackling of flames, see the smoke rising from all the broken windows and the long, melting gouges in the police station walls.

Most of all, though, you can smell the blood. It runs out of the station, around the car, and trickles down the marble steps in a viscous red waterfall. You can see the people – the remains of people – scattered around the area, littering the streets like so many broken dolls. A child's tantrum, writ large and made all too real. Police officers and civilians and handcuffed criminals alike, no-one living remains within eyesight.

You stare down at the scene with mounting horror, hands shaking uncontrollably, and clench your jaw. You try not to meet the glassy, staring eyes. Accusing you. Too late. You don't look at the men and women and children taken to pieces and left to bleed.

You've always been good at lying to yourself.

The next explosion fills you with relief. For all that you don't want to see another atrocity like this, it gives you the chance to stop whoever did this. You launch from the rooftop you stopped on like a bullet, homing in on the noises, an erratic pattern of resounding booms that make the glass you pass rattle. You cross the distance faster than you've ever moved, and it seems like you might get there in time.

You can see the burning strikes as they fly through the air, searing deep, melting wounds into the building, each one preceded by an explosive detonation. You see the change from attacking the building to sweeping the streets clear, a series of flaming arcs that soar down the street until they impact on a building.

You can see who's doing it.

You manifest your axe and take one final leap, swinging it overhead with both hands to come down on your enemy. She doesn't see you coming, can't see you coming, she's too busy screaming and laughing and swinging a pair of enormous, barbed scythes around like they're conductor's batons. Your axe hits her in the collarbone, right next to her neck, and cleaves all the way down to her hips.

She spins, faster than you can react, tearing the blade from your hands, and grins at you. She's tall, so much taller than you, and broad enough it makes Angel look like a skinny wimp. Her tank top doesn't conceal the gaping wound you've dealt her, and you can see her ribs and lung and intestines through the near-bisection, but she just smiles.

"Chosen," she rasps, her smile widening until it literally starts to split the skin of her face. Her eyes are bleeding. "Thought the ones who killed Liv would be more of a threat."

She throws one scythe into the air, and reaches nonchalantly around behind her to try and work your axe free. It seems to be stuck in her pelvis, and she just smiles ever wider as you flinch away at the sound of cracking bone. She finally tears it free, more blood erupting from the wound – the wound which should have killed her a dozen times over by now, the wound that's not stopping her from holding a scythe bigger than you are in the arm on the injured side.

She brings her arm back around, your axe now held in it, and tosses your weapon back to you. You snatch it out of the air. Her scythe drops from the sky a moment later, landing in her outstretched hand, and she twirls it casually.

"You just going to stand there, little girl?" she says, raking her scythes against one another, making a horrendous screeching sound. "Or you going to try and stop me? There's a lot of cops in this town. I don't die tonight, there's going to be none tomorrow."

You snarl, gauntleted hands clenched tight around the haft of your axe. "Wrath, I guess?"

"Cynthia, weak girl," she says, and lashes out with one of her scythes to send a tongue of flame towards one of the few unscathed police cars. The sound is loud enough to make your teeth rattle. "You killed my friend."

"And you've just killed dozens of people," you growl, letting the fire inside you boil out to erupt over your body. "I'm gonna enjoy killing you."

"Good!" she says, and laughs, sounding genuinely pleased. "That's why we exist! Now stop taking, and start fighting!"

She spreads her arms, scythes pointed out to either side, and starts to giggle. You launch forwards, axe coming around and up to smash into her side just under her ribs, cutting her clean in half. Or it would have, if her body acted like a normal human body. The cut is there, it's bleeding and you can see clean through her in the two-inch-wide rent you've put through her entire torso, but she's still standing there, smiling insanely and giggling.

"Wrath is good, weak girl," she says, taking a step forwards. "But it makes you careless."

Her arms blur, and one scythe hits you in the collarbone hard enough to punch through your armour like paper, and the other buries itself into your side. She steps around you, dragging the blades through your flesh without resistance, and finishes up by kicking you in the back just hard enough to send you toppling to the floor.

The pain finally hits, and you can't even scream, too busy trying to hold your guts inside while the Sin Chosen looks down at you and laughs. Her wounds are closing, your blood on her scythes sinking into the black metal, and she looks you over like a bird of prey assessing a rabbit.

Your hands scrabble at your abdomen, pressing against the gaping wound torn through you. Your breathing comes in short, bubbling gasps as one lung fills with blood. You taste it on your tongue, frothing on your lips with every exhalation. The pain stabs into you fresh with every motion you make, every inhale, every exhale.

"This won't kill you, weak girl," she says slowly. "Oh, I want to kill you. I want to take all of you Chosen and hang you up by your entrails so you choke to death on your own intestines. But wrath is a continuous state, weak girl. If I kill all of you right away, the wrath burns out. I like staying warm, though. So I'm going to hurt you. Over and over and over again. I'm going to make you hate me. And then your wrath will feed me. I'm going to kill every cop in the city, and you're going to lie there and bleed. Then your friends will suffer, because there will be no-one to hold back the tides. Your family will die, because there will be no-one to stop it."

She leans in close, and you can feel the blood drip from her eyes onto your face. It's barely a footnote, considering the agony you're in, but it's still something that makes you feel unclean. Your breathing is coming in short, pained gasps as you struggle to get enough air into you with only one functioning lung, and your arms are clamped against your stomach, trying to keep your insides inside.

"Cultivate your wrath, weak girl," she hisses. "You've got a lot of it within you. You'll nurture it and feed it and when you finally face me again you will no longer want to kill me. You will need to."

She straightens back up and smiles again.

"F-fuck you," you pant. "Not- not gonna- gonna do what you want."

She shrugs. "Well, there are four more of you. How many will come to try and stop me tonight?"

You fling your left hand up and out towards her, spraying a storm of black ash and embers that bite into her flesh, and her smile only widens, even as you whimper from the sharp pains that jolt through you.

"We will see," she says, and begins to stroll away, spinning her scythes to casually dismember the bodies all around you.

You manage another two blasts of gnawing fire that cling to her before she's out of range, and then you collapse fully onto your back with a low gurgling moan. It's pain and disgust and self-hatred, all in one sound as your blood mixes with the blood of a dozen other people on this ruined street. She's right. This isn't going to kill you.

You just need a minute.

What do you do?

[] Get someone to fix you up and warn the others about what's happening.
- [] Who?
[] Change back. Damage to your transformed self doesn't carry over to your normal self, you know that. Warn the others what's happening.
[] Write in.

 

[Nevill]

Well shit.

Lifestealing scythe and insane attacking stats. Took us down in one hit? Yeesh.

I don't know if we are going to make it without sorcery. If we could figure something out on short notice, we may have a chance of stopping her. But we'd need Light for that, wouldn't we?

Color me stumped about what to do. We have two people to choose from if we want to fix ourselves, but what comes next? The city is ripped apart on our very eyes, so... do we intervene? But what can we do to fare better?

What does detransforming involve? Giving up and letting the others handle it?

I am also starting to get paranoid about the transform/detransform sequences. You'll never know when Jake is watching, and God help us if they learn our out-of-uniform identities. Most of us have families.

 

[Andres]

[X] Change back. Damage to your transformed self doesn't carry over to your normal self, you know that. Warn the others what's happening.

 

[Kadmus]

I will say that Cynthia is beatable - she's just very dangerous in a direct fight. You could definitely get the gang together and try to fight her, if that's what you want to do.

EDIT: I'll make clear here that even Light would be down for this; even she's not going to ignore something like this, since it isn't a Sin.

 

[veekie]

[X] Get someone to fix you up and warn the others about what's happening.
-[X] Shadows

 

[Nevill]

[] Get someone to fix you up and warn the others about what's happening.
- [] Who?

Click to shrink...

The choice of 'who' is who gets to heal you up as we warn the rest of them? Or just the ones we choose to warn?

If we want to intervene, we'll need everyone, and Light especially - for her illusions and healing. But she won't be coming to heal us here unless we spend our favor, which I already have plans for. So I am not sure whether my intentions are better reflected with
[x] Get someone to fix you up and warn the others about what's happening.
-[x] Shadows
or
[ ] Get someone to fix you up and warn the others about what's happening.
-[ ] Everyone, starting with Shadows
vote.

Inflict
Free Action, 1 Overcharge (Attack), 1/Scene

Use this after making a successful basic attack. Apply the Bound, Bleeding, or Stunned status to the target of that attack.

Click to shrink...

Can Angel choose the status type of this ability? For the moment, my plan is to Stun her (possibly combined with Hate the World for an assured and painful hit), then gang up on her and finish with All or Nothing & Fight for Friends combo. It needs to be a finisher, because if she lives after that, with all characters bunched up, we'll be open to a counter-attack, and if her nickname is anything to go by, it affects all adjacent targets. So we need all the girls with us for maximum overkill chance.

What do Bound and Stun effects do, anyway?

 

[Kadmus]

The 'who' is just who you want to heal you.

Stun reduces actions to 1 major action a round only, and Bound means you can't move. These may be innacurate, posting from my phone and don't have the PDF available.

 

[Kadmus]

I'm giving people another day to vote. Mostly because I'm not feeling well enough to write anything today .

 

[Nevill]

Well... hope you get better? And not just for the update's sake?

Not sure if we get more votes, that always happen when people are uncertain. I am not condifent in my own vote at all, and mostly doing it out of stubborness... that, and keeping in character with Jen's established traits. Had we not been in the situation we are in, and were we able to choose where to strike next, I'd be the most vocal in trying to keep us away from the Wrath Chosen, citing it a dangerous mission liable to get one of us killed. Yet here I am now, supporting the confrontation even though we will enter it wounded and/or with Shadows not on her full reserves.

...I don't suppose we can escape the national guard coming now, with what amounts to a city-wide terrorist attack hitting multiple police stations? That's hardly something the mayor can convince the people he can handle in-house.

 

[Kadmus]

Spoiler: AN

Vote results:
[] Get someone to fix you up and warn the others about what's happening. - 2 votes.
- [] Shadows. - 2 votes.

Part 3
Monday, Week 3

You lie there while the cooling concrete clink-clink-clinks and the molten glass drips down the front of the burning police station, hating that you've been reduced to this. Reduced to a helpless, struggling little girl again. But you have friends and allies who can fight in your place, who can plan and intervene and help.

You pull one bloody gauntlet off with your teeth, let it clatter to the ground, and manifest your mobile phone. You leave bloody streaks on the screen as you navigate to the numbers you need, but you don't care right now. The pain is too much, the desperate need to do something about this too great for you to worry about the tacky smears.

Shadows' phone rings only a couple of times before she answers.

"Hello?"

"Sh-shadows," you stammer, feeling more blood bubble up around your lips. "Need help. Seventh and King police station."

"Oh my god, are you okay?" she says, and you can hear wind rush as she starts to move. "What-what, um, what happened?"

"Wrath Sin Ch-ch-chosen," you burble. "Got me. Killing cops. Hurts."

"O-okay. Um, what- what else do you, um, need from me?"

"Call Angel. Let her know."

You start to cough, each one sending a red-hot poker of pain through your chest and abdomen; you have to turn your head to the side to vomit up a mouthful of clotting blood, and it takes a few moments before you're in a fit state to talk again.

"I'll talk-" you strangle another cough "-talk to Light and Miz."

"I'm, um, I'm on my way," Shadows says, sounding on the edge of tears.

"Not going anywhere," you say, looking down at your ruined body.

Shadows makes a sound like she's holding in a sob, and you hang up. You've got other Chosen to wrangle. Light is next, because you'll need all your strength to deal with her. She picks up after only a couple of rings, too, and you can hear wind rushing by in the background; she must be on the way somewhere already.

"What."

"Wrath Sin Chosen," you rasp. "K-k-killing all the cops in the city."

"Shit!" she yells, and you an hear an explosion off in the distance, strangely echoed at a delay on the other end of the phone. "What did you do?"

"Killed Lust. Killed Lust's Sin Chosen."

She sighs, a heavy, gusty sound that drowns out the wind and the sound of distant explosions. "Okay. Okay, I can help fix this. If the police are gone, the city won't last very long. The Sins will accelerate. You are all idiots!"

"Talk shit later," you growl, and stifle another cough that sends a spasm through your abdomen. "Work on a plan."

"Fine! I bet you got carved up doing something stupid like trying to stop this Sin Chosen thing all by yourself, too. Do not think I cannot hear you asphyxiating on a punctured lung!" she shouts, and you can just imagine her holding the phone in front of her face while she scowls at it. "I will be in touch to coordinate."

She hangs up before you get a chance to complain. For once, she's got you dead to rights.

You scowl at that thought, but the agony of your body soon replaces that expression with a grimace. Last call you need to make, and you hope Miz is willing to talk to you after the shit that went down on Saturday. Her phone rings for a very long time, and you're just about to hang up when she picks up.

You hear an explosion down the phone, close enough that it washes out the speaker in a rush of static, followed by a set of one second interval gunshots.

"You poke this bitch or something?" Miz says, sounding remarkably calm. "She seems kind of pissed."

"She's killing-" your mouth quirks up in a bloodstained grin as you see Shadows approaching over the rooftops "-killing cops. Said sh-she's gonna kill all of them."

"Yeah, I got that impression. One sec." There's another explosion, but the constant gunfire doesn't let up for an instant. "I'm not really doing anything to slow her down, here. She's just ignoring me while I put holes in her."

Shadows drops to the street and flinches as she sees just how gruesome the scene is. She looks down to see her feet in a puddle of blood, and her face twists in disgusted sorrow. When she sees you, she actually covers her mouth with both hands and goes even paler than she normally is.

"Hold on," you say, and gesture to Shadows with the hand you're holding your phone in. You daren't move the other one, for fear of spilling your guts onto the street. "Little help?" you say, voice weak and gurgling.

Shadows shakes herself, and her face sets into a solemn mask as she steps forwards. She raises both hands, and the shadows all around you move at her command. They flow over you like a cool blanket and start to pull your wounds together. You feel the sting of a hundred tenebrous needles digging into either side of the wound across your abdomen to stitch it together, but it's better than the alternative.

"We got a plan to deal with this, Champion?" Miz says. "'Coz she's just about done murdering everything. I am not cool with all the murder, here. Like, this is seriously not a good thing that I'm watching."

You move your hand away from your abdomen as Shadows' hands move like a conductor's washing more waves of shadow over you to fill in your injuries with layer after layer of not-flesh. You push yourself upright, smiling at the lack of pain, and then climb back to your feet.

"Not yet," you say, walking over towards Shadows. "But we should meet up and try to do something. She carved me up like a Christmas turkey when I tried to stop her, and shrugged off being cut in half."

"Whoops!" Miz says, sounding faintly surprised. "There goes the arm. Uh, yeah, I'm pulling out now. Okay, please stop- look, I'm running away, okay?"

You can hear the amusement in the Sin Chosen's voice down the phone. "Very well. You are an incredibly dull girl. Weak girl, coward girl, I know you can hear me. Know that I will make what my master did to the fairy girl look like kindness. Come face me if you dare. I win either way."

"Miz? Miz!" you say.

"Yeah, she just- she just walked away. Hold on a minute," she says, and you hear a scuffling sound followed by a wet slap. "Okay, that's reattached. That is my arm, too, which is-" she lets out a slightly hysterical giggle "-let me fucking tell you, there's a lot of arms here to choose from!"

You mouth the word 'Angel' to Shadows, and she whispers "Meeting up with Light." back. She looks incredibly pale and distinctly nauseous, and her hands are shaking, so you wrap a comforting arm around her shoulders. She leans into you and wraps both arms around your waist, shuddering.

"We're gonna hook up with Light and Angel and figure out what we can do. You still in?"

"Fucking- yeah, I'm still in. Sure. I'll meet up with you guys. Not like we can't find where this crazy bitch is," she says, sounding calmer. "She's leaving a really obvious trail."

You grind your teeth at that. "Yeah. See you in a few."

"Mm." She hangs up.

Shadows sighs and lets go of you. She takes a step back and wipes at her eyes, and forces an insipid smile onto her face.

"Thank you," you say, studying her face. She looks like she's holding it together, for now. "Thank you so much."

The smile grows a little. "It-it's, um, it's fine. Come on, let's, like, let's go."

You nod, and take one final look around the place where you very nearly died. There are dozens of others who weren't so lucky, and the street is littered with body parts and cooling gouges. Your skin is sticky with drying blood, and you can still feel the phantom sensation of a pair of cold metal blades puncturing you.

You set your face into a frown, and take off, headed towards the meeting point.

What's the plan?

[] Distract the Sin Chosen. You can pull her away from her objectives with a good fight, lead her out of the city.
- [] Plan?
[] Kill the Sin Chosen. All five of you together should be able to do this, despite your differences.
- [] Plan?
[] Evacuate as many people as you can in front of her.
- [] Plan?
[] Write in.

 

[Alchemist767676]

[X] Distract the Sin Chosen. You can pull her away from her objectives with a good fight, lead her out of the city.
- [X] Try to lead her out of the city alongside Light, for healing, while Miz, Shadows, and Angel set up an ambush.

 

[Nevill]

I forgot. What is Light good at? Besides healing?

We asked her about her magic before, but I don't remember if we got anything concrete. I somehow thought she had illusions/defensive magic, but can't remember if I extrapolated it from her element, or actually read it somewhere.

What is the intention behind the option to distract Cynthia? How does it differ from the option to kill? Both end in a fight, and if we are fighting, why not go for the kill? I mean, if she is still standing after the fight is over, why not go back to killing people?

Or is it that she won't fight with the intent to kill unless we don't? If that's not it, then we lead her out of the city... and then what?

 

[veekie]

[X] Kill the Sin Chosen. All five of you together should be able to do this, despite your differences.
-[X] Light to pin her down with magic while Shadows heals, saving enough power for her finisher once the opponent is immobilized. The rest of you form a fighting rotation, two of you attacking her at a given time while the third recovers. Press her and keep her too busy to hit the casters

She's doing this specifically to piss everyone off. We're more likely to be distracted than she is

 

[Nevill]

Shadows can't pin anyone down with her magic. All she has is Hex and Heal.

She also has certain issues with violent people and self-confidence, if we go by what Light said. But she has the single most damaging attack, if only available once per battle.

Angel could pin her down with a status effect like Bind or Stun, and Shadows could attempt to finish her off while Miz should cover Shadows (that girl is made of paper, I swear). That'd be my plan if we go for the kill.

 

[Kadmus]

Light is about 4x as effective a healer as Shadows, with a couple of support talents and is probably the only Chosen who can use offensive sorcery with a chance of success.

 

[Nevill]

About the distract option. Let's suppose we find a plan. How do you imagine it working?

Right now I don't understand our goal there... we should lure her out of the city, and... disperse? damage her enough for her to run away?

Can't plan if I don't know what I am planning for.

 

[Kadmus]

The distract plan is an option for you to take if you think it's best. You'd be drawing her away from her targets basically to give people time to react.

 

[Nevill]

...I keep playing scenarios in my head, and I just can't see it working. We need to distract her with a promise of violence, but any violent contact would be short, since either we kill/chase her off, or she literally mows us down. If we try to play tag with her (we don't have good long-ranged options, our magic has range of 2), there is nothing stopping her from ignoring us and killing people... which neither Jen or Angel can ignore. Basically, as veekie said, she has more potential to distract us than we do her.

Taking hits while trying to get out of the city would also suck majorly, and detract from our combat readiness.

I don't feel like she left us any other choice but to confront her.

[x] Kill the Sin Chosen. All five of you together should be able to do this, despite your differences.
-[x] Reduce her mobility and attack power - Angel should excel at it if she spares no expense, - then attack her with everything you've got.
-[x] Boost Shadows to the maximum, then finish Cynthia off with All or Nothing. If she doesn't, it's curtains for us.
-[x] Shadows is instrumental to the plan. Whatever else may happen, one of us should always cover her from lethal attacks. Probably Miz, since she's built for it.

Shadows has Boost (Free Action), Fight For Friends, and All or Nothing (Free Action)
Angel has Hate the World and Inflict (Free Action).
Light can help us hold our guts together.

Hopefully, we can make it work somehow. Shadows takes it personal when her friends are hurt, so if anything could motivate her to leap into the fray... Then again, a partner to shield her from the worst of it won't hurt.

Is there any way Light can help us so that Shadows could get close enough without being mauled?

 

[veekie]

[x] Kill the Sin Chosen. All five of you together should be able to do this, despite your differences.
-[x] Reduce her mobility and attack power - Angel should excel at it if she spares no expense, - then attack her with everything you've got.
-[x] Boost Shadows to the maximum, then finish Cynthia off with All or Nothing. If she doesn't, it's curtains for us.
-[x] Shadows is instrumental to the plan. Whatever else may happen, one of us should always cover her from lethal attacks. Probably Miz, since she's built for it.

 

[Kadmus]

Spoiler: AN

Vote results:
[X] Plan Alpha Strike via Shadows Bomb. - 2 votes.

Part 4
Monday?, Week 3

You and Shadows land at the same time, and immediately walk over to where the other three Chosen are standing on the warehouse roof. You can still hear the odd explosion, off in the distance, and the occasional flash of ruddy light filters through the gaps between buildings to remind you that, yes, there is a madwoman with superpowers tearing the city apart.

"Any ideas?" Angel says, her wings furling and unfurling compulsively. "I think we should just fuckin' rush the bitch."

Light looks up from the golden symbols she's drawing in the air and scoffs. "We should stay back and bombard her. Even you and the gilded fool can manage to throw a rock, surely?"

"Not the time,"you say, stepping between them. "She's fast, she's strong, and she went though me like I was made of paper."

Miz gestures to her sleeveless left arm. "Chopped me up pretty good, yeah. She's not too smart, though. I think we can lure her into whatever we want, if we give her good enough bait."

"Um..." Shadows says, standing up a tall and straight as you've ever seen her. "I, I, I can, um, if you can hold her still, and, um, like, if I can get close... it's risky, but, um, I have like a super attack?"

The four of you stare at her for a long moment, before another explosion shakes you from your surprise. She talked up, volunteered to fight, and said she had a 'super attack'?

"I believe you," Angel says. "Me and Miz can keep her busy."

You roll your shoulders and huff out a short flare of flame. "I can help out there. More people in the way, the more she has to go through, right?"

"You are all insane," Light says, looking from you to Angel to Shadows. "Miz, surely you can't be-"

"Sounds like our best plan so far," Miz says, cutting her off. "Bombarding her is just going to get us a face full of flaming scythe. I can take it, but you probably can't."

Light throws her hands in the air. "Fine! If you all want to trust the coward who can't even stand up during a fight, go ahead!"

"I- I'm not-"

"You curled up in a ball and cried while Wrath killed her," Light hisses, leaning in to stare Shadows in the eyes. "Forgive me if I have my doubts."

"Who is it that's killed a Sin Chosen and a Sin, again?" Angel says, sneering down at Light. "Oh, yeah. Not you."

"Can we do this after we fight Cynthia, please?" you say, rubbing at your temple in frustration. "Light, you're a healer, right? We're going to need you on support. Angel and Miz, you lead the way in, try to tie up the Sin Chosen. I'll do what I can to help out. Shadows, you get your super attack lined up and destroy her. If it doesn't take, we're gonna have to keep pummelling her until she stays down. We all good?"

Light tsks and turns her head away, but doesn't protest. Angel slings an arm over your shoulders and the other over Shadows' and gives you both a broad, fierce grin, while Miz simply studies her rifle. Shadows looks somewhere between elated and paralysed with fear, and you feel a sinking dread at the idea of going up against the Sin Chosen again, but you don't run from your fears. Not any more. You kick them in the face and then smack them with an axe.

"Okay. Okay, let's move. Call out when you spot her," you finally say, once you have your thoughts in order.

Angel chuckles and leaps into the air, leading the way on her faintly luminous silver wings. The four of you who remain follow, eyes flicking between your aerial observer and the city around you. There are sirens going off all around you, ambulances and fire engines and the odd police car racing through the streets towards one or another of the already destroyed police stations; they're too late, you all know that, and you can feel the rage and hatred congeal in your stomach at the thought of how many people must have already died tonight.

You know you're approaching the Sin Chosen because she's starting to leave a deliberate trail. Before, when she was attacking from surprise and no-one was aware of her actions or targets, she was simply moving from station to station without a fight.

Now, you see slagged police cars and dismembered police officers every few streets. They set up road blocks and ambushes and tried their hardest to stop this terrifying killer, and all of them died for it. There are some points where it's obvious the Sin Chosen stopped and waited, letting the police empty their weapons against her to no avail, before she moved forwards to slay them. You can tell, because there are piles of flattened bullets in a loose ring around where she must have been standing.

You grind your teeth together as your hands clench into fists, and you feel your flames erupt from your skin. Light is glowing, bright enough she's becoming hard to look at. The flares of sunfire around Miz are growing more agitated and frequent with every fresh atrocity, and the long, flickering shadows of the city no longer follow the lights. They're being sucked into Shadows' wake, leaving the streets you pass eerily shadowless despite the street lights and fires. Shadows herself looks paler than you've ever seen her, her face tight with concentration and pain as she drags a score of streets worth of shadows behind her.

And then you find her. She's stopped in her march, standing dead centre of a wide road; at the other end from the one you and the others are approaching from is a line of police cars, with terrified, shaking officers crouched behind them. She looks across at the five of you as you approach, and you can see the sick smile on her lips as she casually twirls her scythes.

"Chosen! All five, I see," she yells, starting to walk forwards. "Come to try and hold back the tide. Coward. Weak. Clumsy. Useless. Frail."

She starts to laugh, her steady walk not slowing.

"The people will see what happens when children stand against gods," she says, smiling ever wider. "Come and face me."

Angel charges forwards, massive sword held at the ready, followed closely by Miz. You and Shadows stay close behind, weapons at the ready, and Light speaks a single word and gestures, and Angel and Shadows are linked by a glowing line.

You think, for a moment, that it's all going to work out. That the Sin Chosen spent all her power against you in that single brief instant of violence. She's just walking, and you have five people here ready to stop her.

She doesn't even seem to run. She's just there, swinging one scythe overhand, the muscles in her arm bulging grotesquely until they split the skin and blood runs freely. Angel doesn't get a chance to block; the savagely barbed weapon slams into her left shoulder and goes clean through, through both lungs and all the way out of her right hip. You hear the cracking of bone as it shatters through all obstacles, and Angel goes pale and almost collapses right there. But she stays up. She drops her sword and grabs the head of the scythe with her right hand, holding it inside her own body, while her left hand wraps around Cynthia's wrist to hold her firm.

The Sin Chosen bursts out laughing, loud and clear and delighted, and she swings her other scythe, ignoring that she's pinned on one side. Miz smashes the blow out of the way with her rifle and steps in to hook an arm around Cynthia's other shoulder, hauling her slightly off balance.

You charge in, axe aflame and swinging, just in time to catch the backswing from the free scythe. It hooks up under your ribs and you feel the tip of the blade catch against the roof of your mouth before you can even scream, lifting you clean off the floor with the force of the strike. Despite the pain, despite the shaking, bone-deep fear you feel at the repeat of the terrible injuries you've received, despite the fact that your head is forced back until you're staring almost directly up, you lock your axe against her throat and push, throwing her further off balance.

Shadows is right behind you, and she's not trailing shadow any more. No, all of the shadows – every shadow you can no longer see – are compressed at the tip of her sceptre. She's holding it over her head in both hands like a club, tipped in a sphere of total nothingness, so dark that the light seems to be drawn towards it.

"This is for Hannah," she whispers, all colour washed from her skin. "Fuck the Sins."

She brings the sceptre down with a scream, rage and pain and loneliness all combined into something that makes you shiver, even through the haze of pain. The sphere touches Cynthia's head, and her smile warps into a panicked, wide-eyed and silent shout in the single instant before she simply ceases to exist.

There's a clatter, and you realise that it's from you falling to the floor. Angel is down on the other side, and Shadows is on her knees, sobbing and struggling to breathe.

Well, that was one hell of a secret weapon, you think, trying to keep the pain under control. Before you can do more than consider if screaming in terrified agony is going to be the theme for this evening, warm golden light washes over you and the pain is gone. You blink and sit up, while Angel does the same. Miz gives all of you a mocking salute and saunters off.

"If this is the quality of fighting you have all been engaging in," Light says, hands on her hips. "Then I am extremely surprised you are not all dead already. We are done here. Good night."

She turns on her heel and starts to walk away, but you're not going to let her get the last word in.

"Thanks, Light," you say, genuinely meaning it. "This would've sucked if we hadn't had you along."

She stiffens, shoulders tensing, as though she's ready for you to sling an insult her way, but you're in no mood for that tonight. She doesn't relax until she's almost out of sight, and you can't help the tiny smile that finds its way onto your face at that. You sigh and lean forwards, resting your elbows on your knees, hands and head hanging loose.

"We're alive, still," you murmur, barely believing it. "Fuck, if this is Monday, what's tomorrow going to be like?"

"Oh, you've fuckin' jinxed it now," Angel says, one hand still on her shoulder. "You need a hand, Shadows?"

The pale girl doesn't reply, too busy hugging herself and shuddering, so you and Angel pick her up between you and retreat away to somewhere quiet and isolated so she can calm down. It takes almost an hour before she stops looking like an exsanguinated corpse, and it's well past midnight by the time you finally manage to get home.

You collapse onto your bed and fall asleep immediately.


Tuesday. Yeah, school's out again. Plans?

[] Spend time with a friend.
- [] Who?
[] Hang out with one of the other Chosen.
- [] Angel.
- [] Shadows.
- [] Miz.
[] Investigate a Sin.
- [] Which?
- [] With who?
[] Investigate a Sin Chosen.
- [] Which?
- [] With who?
[] Hunt Sin-Eaten.
- [] What kind (Any but Lust and Envy)
[] Write in.

Spoiler: Combat Log

CYNTHIA VS LIGHT, MIZ, CHAMPION, ANGEL AND SHADOWS

Tactics: Shadows Alpha Strike Gambit.

ROUND 1

Angel, Miz, Light, Shadows, Champion in Zone 5
Zone 4 empty.
Zone 3 empty.
Zone 2 empty.
Cynthia in Zone 1.

Angel moves 1 zone to Zone 4.
Angel moves 1 zone to Zone 3.

Miz moves 1 zone to Zone 4.
Miz moves 1 zone to Zone 3.
Miz becomes Calm.
Miz activates Regeneration.

Light moves 1 zone to Zone 4.
Light uses Link on Shadows and Angel.

Shadows moves 1 zone to Zone 4.
Shadows moves 1 zone to Zone 3.

Champion moves 1 zone to Zone 4.
Champion moves 1 zone to Zone 3.

Cynthia activates Regeneration.
Cynthia moves 1 zone to Zone 2.
Cynthia moves 1 zone to Zone 3.
Cynthia uses Bonus Action. Takes 2 Heart Overcharge.
Cynthia uses Blast Strike against Zone 3.
Angel, Miz, Shadows and Champion defend.
Cynthia uses Boost against Angel. Rolls 24, rerolls 2 6s, gets 3 and 3. 30 total. Angel defends, rolls 12. Cynthia incurs 3 Fury Overcharge.
Angel takes 10 damage.
Cynthia earns 1 Momentum Token.
Cynthia uses Boost against Miz. Rolls 17. Miz defends, rolls 21, rerolls 6, gets 3. 24 total. Miz defends. Cynthia incurs 1 Fury overcharge. Miz incurs 1 Heart Overcharge.
Cynthia attacks Shadows. Rolls 13. Shadows defends, rolls 15, rerolls 6, gets 5. 20 total. Shadows defends. Shadows incurs 1 Fury Overcharge.
Cynthia attacks Champion. Rolls 20. Champion defends, rolls 12, rerolls 6, gets 5. 17 total.
Champion takes 9 damage.

Angel 8/18 0/0/0 Li.
Miz 18/18 1/0/0 Re. Cl.
Shadows 18/18 0/1/0 Li.
Champion 9/18 0/0/0

Cynthia 21/21 2/5/0 Re.

END ROUND 1

Zone 5 empty.
Light in Zone 4.
Shadows, Champion, Angel, Miz, Cynthia in Zone 3.
Zone 2 empty.
Zone 1 empty.

Light 18/18 0/0/0
Angel 8/18 0/0/0 Li.
Miz 18/18 1/0/0 Re. Cl.
Shadows 18/18 0/1/0 Li.
Champion 9/18 0/0/0

Cynthia 21/21 2/5/0 Re.

Shadows Fights For Friends: Angel.
Shadows Boosts. Shadows attacks Cynthia, rolls 22, rerolls 6, gets 4. 26 total. Cynthia defends, rolls 14.
Shadows uses All Or Nothing +12.
Shadows deals 21 damage.
Shadows incurs 2 Magic Overcharge.

Cynthia down.

AN: That was all legitimately rolled out. Shadows dropped precisely as much damage as she needed to OHKO Cynthia on her first attack. I was very much not expecting this in the slightest. Narratively great, though!

 

[Khona Moshr]

[X] Hang out with one of the other Chosen.
- [x] Miz.

We havent really hanged out with Miz.

And we have killed another sin chosen leaving between 4 to 5 simce I'm not sure envy would even make a chosen.