[X] Plan Fight of Blood, Fear and Hope
[1]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[2]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[3]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
[4]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
[5]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
Team Tactics
- Vista and Agafya will fight together against the Space Pirates, with Agafya acting as a guard to Vista while she uses her powers to rip and tear at the inorganic parts of the Space Pirates
- Sevrin and Numina will work together, with Numina buffing Sevrin as he fights the Deamons of Khorne as any holy warrior should. Fighting his way to the Deamon Samus
- Diomedes and Alyrsero will use their powers of faith and the warp to push back the effects of the Warp Tear, weaking it's connection to this world and hopfully weakening the Deamons as reality asserts itself
- Jetfire and Windblade will take to the skies, fighting enemy flyers and striking at foes who cannot fly/reach them (Most notably the Deamon Samus and it's guards)
- Samus and Taylor will work together in fighting the chaff of the Space Pirates, Samus drawing them towards the traps of Taylor and raining down fire as she does so
- Doom Slayer and Arne will focus on fighting the Chaos Dragon, targeting it with a barrage of attacks to tear and destroy it faster then it can regenerate
Character Actions
- Taylor will create pockets of her empowered bugs to act as traps for enemy forces, who will swarm into the foes and do all they can to damage them
- Samus will will try to keep a cool and detached thought process as she fights the Space Pirates, being this close to the source of the Chaos invasion, it would not do well to lose herself
- Arne will will try to target weak point on the Dragon, hoping to do as much damage as he can with as little spending of ammo and his own health as he can
- Agafya seeing that her preferred target is trying to kill Vista, she will keep close to the girl and protect her
- Sevrin will try to keep a calm mind as he fights, with a mantra of his adopted people keeping his thoughts clear as he fights
- Doom Slayer Will ensure that Arne does not do something reckless
- Vista will try to push her powers like she did against the Protectorate and pull at as many vital parts of the enemy as she can
- Alyrsero will offer a prayer to the Eldar Gods as he fights the forcesof the Warp
- Numina will try to keep behind Sevrin as he fights Khorne's warriors, unsure if they could truly kill her
- Diomedes will call upon his faith to bolster the teams as they fight the foul forces of Chaos
- Jetfire will keep to the skies, relaying combat information from his height while he fights
- Windblade Will keep to the skies fighting enemy forces that also can fly and keeping them from his allies
Other Team Priorites:
Team 2 (Will try to fight the Chaos Dragon)
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
-[3]: Denial (Prevent the enemy from seizing certain points or items of interest)
Enemy factions:
[1] Blades of Khorne
[2] Space Pirate Confederacy
Team 3 ( Going after Vorgus's squad/him, removing his adds)
-[1]: Commando Ops (Seize important locations or take out important enemy strongpoints such as leaders or vital infrastructure, favours sneakier teams)
-[2]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[3]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
[1] Space Pirates
[2] Blades of Khorne
Team 4 ( Fighting the Hordes of Khorne/ Chaff clearing)
-[1]: Annihilation (Destroy the enemy outright wherever possible. Favours high damage teams.)
-[2]: Mop Up (Go through areas where the enemy may have left stragglers or placed sneaky units to clean them out to prevent flanking or encircling)
-[3]: Containment (Contain spread of enemy forces, favours tankier teams.)
[1] Blades of Khorne
[2] space Pirates
i think this is good, time to fight the end boss of this little arc
HAH MY OTHER COMPUTER STILL HAD THE DRAFT
Anyway, story only post, part one of an unknown number.
Sevrin
This was the sort of fight that you lived for, battle in the name of the Luminya against the monsters who would prey on the light of those who cannot fight for themselves. Your cause was righteous, your foe was fierce, your resolve; strong. You would challenge the beast head on, let it know that you were no weakling. You would stand against the terror and it would know your name as the bringer of daylight and the ender of nightmares; the slayer of the secret and the hidden, the destroyer of the vicious and the cruel.
Samus' plan was relayed in a series of images, memories, locations of where to go and what to do; relayed through suit and user in perfect harmony, one indistinct from the other. Far more efficient than trying to speak it in the midst of a crowded field. Suggestions were made, added, accounted for. Modifications based on what could be perceived in the skeins of fate and the causeways of destiny, based on the tactical advice given by many brilliant souls and their ideas and experiences, all fed with the data that your group offered them. Finally, the pieces were in play and the drama could begin.
Ensoillement's head glowed like the sun in the sky and its runes crawled along its haft and its cutting surface, a twirl with your hand prompting its second head to emerge as you eyed your foe, the Daemon who would dare to steal the lady of war's name and then accuse her of being the real thief. A beast whose mottled flesh glowed with gory power and danced with orange arc-light runes while his huge body, far taller than you yourself were, flexed its massive muscles and his overlarge teeth gnashed against his bleeding guns, rattling barely there armour clanging against his body while the hideous thing snorted like a dog.
"You are the thief here, not I, comrade. You stand here accusing someone who is a thousand times your better of stealing your legacy, but what legacy could you have if you heard of the Dawnchild before she heard of you? She is young and you? How long have you had to be famous?" You said, calm, placid, chest brimming with pride. You were not the greatest among your friends by nearly any metric, but you had its attention for a moment before it turned back to Samus as she moved with Taylor, coordinating with her Swarm as it dispersed through the field, bugs feeding data to the whole group, warning every person of what to look out for and always running interference.
"Get from my sight boy, my business is not with you." He snarled in a million voices as he loped towards his target, the Autobot female warrior Windblade darting past him, sword extended and slicing at his side while wreathed with prime energy to get the lord of the ruinstorm to snarl in pain while Jetfire's weapons fire danced around his hide, the Daemons and warriors of Khorne at his side exploding into battle with frenzy that washed over you like heat.
You swept your beam fire in radiant form across the field, letting secondary weapons burst fire. Mortars to disrupt the denser formations, missiles to strike fliers, rocket pods to break apart massed foes, shoulder repeaters into stubborn enemies, wrist-gun at what you passed by, waist vibro-cannons bursting at those who got in front of you. Helicopter saw blades detached, spinning around you, blocking volleys from daemon manned chariots bearing cannons firing flaming skulls from hitting Bumblebee's team as they filtered into the battlesite; Glory Girl already rushing headlong into the biggest fight she could.
With your path clear as soon as Glory Girl shoved a Bloodthirster out of your way, you roped in the Daemon Prince of the Ruin Storm with your arm cannon's grapple beam into a heavy axe blow to the face, the blow releasing a burst of light that pushed the daemon with Samus' name to the side and threw his head back, your armoursuit projecting its wings and flapping back before a luminous super missile erupted from your cannon and struck the Daemon head-on, its flesh bubbling in your very presence while it was pushed off of its feet.
"I am all around you, I am the friend at your side and the foe at your back. I am the whisper in the wind and the howl in your ear. I am Samus and I will gnaw on your bones!" The Daemon's blade flashed in a wide arc as he stepped through the warp, materialising right next to you and forcing a quick riposte and a shot of your paralyzer guns, shifting his clawed hand away from a vulnerable Clockblocker who had gotten close to your presence to quickly stop a berserker before they could bring their axe down on Penelope next to you.
"You are not the one who draws my wrath, why do you stand for her?" His blade twisted, uppercutting, you deflected, he warped his next thrust around and got you in the back with a flash of shield damage being registered while hellfire broiled from his mouth, forcing you to stand and take it to prevent it from hitting the fourth team behind you while they were engaged with the Khornates.
"Because you are not worthy of a fight with her. You obnoxious braggart." Your cannon had charged and then released a full power combi-beam burst into his chest, one, two, thrice. He stumbled back and looked at the sizzling radiance energy formed wounds in his unflesh, letting the blood melt back into place before he rushed forward, clawed hand swiping at you as you teleported behind him and shunted him onto his knees with a kick and cutting bayonet blow to the calf, spinning out of the way when his bloodthirster bodyguard stepped in with heavy swings baying for blood.
An old beast known as the slayer of heroes came in when your foresight was caught elsewhere and struck you while phasing through an attack, a pained grunt coming from you as its blood curse drew a gas in the skin of your abdomen, attempting but failing to tear you apart. It wouldn't have mattered if it were a thousand times stronger, it wouldn't have done more, but it still hurt and your body still had to patch it up. The daemon prince grabbed you from behind and smashed his blade into your back, shields flaring up as you could feel white-hot pain. Not a breach of armour, no but a supernatural affliction, blood coming from your mouth as you teleported out and sank to a knee, letting the injuries seal up. It wasn't going to kill you, even if such a curse came from his god, but it did hurt.
"Then have the honour of being the first skull I claim from your reality and weep as I deny the destiny you embody for your kind Godseed." He snarled as he approached once more with menacing swagger, rushing towards you after you had teleported out of his reach. You timed your next moves, waiting for the Daemon to strike before absorbing his blow on your shoulder, your armour having adapted to his trick and blocking most of it out. His blade trapped, you slammed your axe into his elbow and felt it start to give, your words of hope repeated in rapt mantra while the daemon's blood erupted from the burning injury, blazing hot as it volcanoed out in a spray of fiery red.
You moved out of the way, sliding through time to escape the retaliation swing while the daemon looked at his arm and seemed to will it to mend itself, baring his teeth wide, as Warpath's guns blazed hot, striking the bloodthirster closest to you in the face with a pulsing psi-disruptor cannon that shredded apart its structure, Davian Thule's thunder hammer crushing the head of a pyroclasm of the blood god with the next swing while the Daemon Samus bubbled and roiled with the fire you poured into him.
To your surprise though, Gallant took up the plate, rushing to the fray after having been drafted by Warpath into his team, joining the autobot at his side while he deflected a swing from the slayer of Heroes with an energon shield and retaliated with a quick mace swing to push the bloodthirster into the path of Thule's gatling gun. While your beams clashed with the Daemon of the Ruin Storm's warp energies, you briefly caught sight of Gallant's multicoloured concussive emotional blasts leaping from his hands and stabbing into the daemons of Khorne who recoiled as if struck with poison.
"You guys are made of emotion right? Rage, anger, hate, violence? That means you can't handle being made to calm down! It's poison to you isn't it?!" Gallant shouted as he, equipped with his exploratory suit, released one volley of his blasts after the other; the struck daemons burning and withering away, skeletal systems exposed as daemonflesh and thoughtform were peeled away from charred bones that fell apart shortly after.
"Keep Gallant firing as long as you can as hard as you can make him!" You said to Dinomax as she let out lashing shockwaves of claw force into a Scorporath of Khorne from the back of her dinosaur mount, an idea forming in your head quickly.
"I'll do you one better than that." Lelithax hissed as she swept the field with cutting pendulums of shadow magic and twisted her power and energy into Gallant, a herald of Khorne rushing towards him in an effort to run him through with a burning spear swiftly being pulled away by Quetzal's conjured snakes, giving him enough of an opening to strike the slayer of heroes while you rolled out of the way of the tide of clashing beams; letting the blast tear its way through space pirate lines after you pushed it through the warp in such a way to only engulf foes, getting a nod from Samus before she looked up and flicked her finger towards the Blood Raven Akia.
"Help her, we need more of the warpcasters to close this gate." The real Samus said before she had to cut the conversation short, her voice dropping to a growl as she transformed and then flew off in helicopter mode.
The Blood Raven Librarian's force sword cut its way through a dozen daemons who seared away at her presence, the Daemon Samus turning his attentions towards her as he had Warpath in a hand being throttled while Thule had to circle around to deal with a Chaos Dreadnought stampeding towards the lines. She named the Daemon, speaking syllables of a complex and lengthy true identity layered with deadly curses, and the Daemon would not have it; stepping into the shadow of space marines next to her to tear through them in an effort to stab into her, her iron halo absorbing the blow and pushing her back.
"I have battled Primarchs before Space Marine. How do you hope to stop me from taking the name that is rightfully mine back? To claim this world as another jewel in the Iron Crown of Khorne? To watch as you fail to protect another Terra?" The Daemon taunted as his twisting blade flowed around her guard, a killing curse stabbing into the Librarian who let out a grunt of pain while his claws danced with fire.
You had appeared from behind the Daemon and had a fully charged shot ready and waiting to slam into the daemon prince's head, making him stumble forward before you raked your axe and bayonet across his body; rotor blades coming back and hacking into his chest while your energy flowed to the Space Marine, her blue armoured form rising and arcing with psychic lightning that tore into the Daemon's front and pushed him back. His burning claw cut through time and space to strike you as you teleported, pushing you back with a grunt as the hellflame tongued around you, the sensation of pain and fury filling you with a sensation like being boiled alive.
"If you are so mighty why run from a fight with a child?" You asked before you started to run towards him until the speed booster fired. Like a comet you raced towards him before you launched off your feet to let your momentum and raw acceleration take you into him at speeds physicists would have boggled at; a thunderous impact that threw the Daemon Prince clean off of his feet, redirecting your momentum into a trio of screw attacks; blazing energy torsioning around his body before you curled into the Solar Orb and dropped a power bomb followed by a burst of electricity from your alt-mode's other weapon, clinging onto him with the spider-orb and extended attack limbs to stab into his body again and again.
He brought the warp around him, inchoate surreality building up around him and immersing you in the stuff of Chaos. It tried and utterly failed to mutate you into a chaos spawn like some of the Vanguard troops present turned into on the spot, washing over you while you fired off the blackstone negative field to force normalcy upon the crimson reality wound of the warp, unmorphing and burst-firing all ranged weapons before your grapple beam fired and pulled the daemon into a slash from your axe and a knee to its teeth, tossing him towards Akia to stab into his flank with her force sword, an exhilarating sensation of fulfillment of purpose filling you with pride as you breathed out, letting the blackstone field collapse and rushing back into the fray.
Your aura burned bright again, and some of the daemons simply scalded away in your presence, the Daemon Prince growling hatefully at you.
"Banelight of my kind, do you even know what manner of golem you are?" The Prince roared as his blade flashed, your senses seeing where and how he would twist fate and space to try and hit you and a shield coming up to deflect it.
"I hardly know what you're talking about." You grunted before firing once again; no time to listen to the nonsense of hellspawn when you could just be destroying them.
Samus
All you had to do now was take down Vorgus and deal with his enterouge. His impervium-absorbium armour would be something of a challenge. You'd need some upgrades to get a weapon able to pierce through the plating to affect the man within that you didn't have, and virtually no amount of conventional force could ever hope to break his armour. But the Holeum beam was not a conventional weapon, nor was the Shock Coil whose ghostly neutrino streams riding its waves of electricity could find ways to deal him damage even with armour that was essentially, invulnerable. So long as you could strip his shielding.
"Keep them out of my way, I'm going to take him head on." You said to Taylor, who teleported in some obstacles to block a wave of incoming space pirate quantum modulation blasts derived from 5th Column and Council anti-nictus/kheldian weapons; taking a moment to look towards you as her eyes shifted to a more purple hue glowing visibly beneath her mask.
"Are you sure? I hit that guy in black dwarf form and he didn't flinch." Taylor said, looking towards the Pirate Commander as he simply shrugged off the actinic glow of a neutron cannon blast from an Autobot and brushed off the scalding waves of energy from a Chaos Shadowsword tank's volcano laser; not even being pushed off of his feet while he returned fire, Space Pirate commando guards covering his steps with pulse blasts and magna-grenades.
"You aren't hitting him the right way." You shook your head, nobody was genuinely invincible, Grey Voice told you that much.
"I can keep him distracted but I can't actually deal him any damage. That's going to be up to you and your million and one options for shooting people." She said with a sigh while her swarm projected a black energy field to absorb a wave of incoming bolt rounds, the Chaos Space marines firing the shots letting out snarling curses before peeling back to let their plasma guns speak instead.
"And...are you sure you should be going head to head with him?" She asked, almost accusingly while you traded shots, Space Pirates crumbling into nonexistence when their defences failed before your cascade of swirling, multi-coloured fire that shifted between different types of energy, Chaos Daemons engulfed by the cone of divine frost you released from your hand with a shout and an exhalation; incarnate energy and the power of the warp mingling together in a cone of frost that froze daemons into place with nary the slightest movement coming from them. It felt good, the power felt good, but you had to stop yourself from getting too...into it was the term you heard.
"Samus..." She said, noticing you weren't paying attention.
"You freaked out when you saw them. How am I supposed to know they don't want you to fight them?" She asked, your eyes taken off of your other friends who were seeming to hold their own; Arne standing his ground against the Chaos Dragon and Agatha wrestling with Vista's would-be assassin.
You looked to the pirates whose gazes rarely were taken off of you for too long, their command voxes circling back to you again and again. The Hybrid, the half-breed, the keystone, all these and more were names they called you. Ugly names, gross names.
"It doesn't matter." You seethed, listening to them burble their nonsense, reorganising themselves to try and flank you, capture teams ordered to move in and ready themselves to isolate the Inheritors for the study of their masters safe in some unknown,f ar away station. Too far for you to reach, too far for you to even know the names of the people who revelled in this death.
"Are you crazy? These people are after you, you specifically. Are you just going to give them what they want?" She said, probably more Taylor than Shadow.
"I have to do something! I'm not going to be passive!" You shouted back, letting yourself focus on the fight ahead, body moving and twisting like a dance; a bolt of power armour and teenaged girl moving from one battle to the next, impacts scarcely registering, the deaths of your foes meaning even less to you as you shot and swung and stabbed and stomped. This was your element, in the midst of the foe as they moved in to try and surround you, thinking they had the upper hand; shields brought up, counters played and feints made to try and overwhelm your ability to dodge right before you phased into the ground and let their blades stab into nothing and appeared behind them.
Taylor was saying something, you weren't listening.
Jetfire was saying something, you weren't listening.
Arne was saying something, you weren't listening.
Not until Elerya's psychic voice came in did you listen; the telepathy breaking through your state of hyper-fixation and bringing you back to your senses where audible words could not.
"Samus! What are you doing?" Elerya said, your eyes finding that you were engaged in a duel with Vorgus; knee-deep in the very thickest fighting you could be in. As you always were. Weaving in and out, shots ricocheting and flying through the air, bodies twisting; melee weapons clashing and swinging.
The Khornates had sent forth a champion, a towering brute with a body of molten fire beneath armour of daemonic flesh-steel plate, blood leaking from the seams of the suit and the eye pieces of the skull helm, axes swinging in whirling motion trying to get at you and Vorgus; each swing carving through the air in murderous fire.
"I'm trying to stop this at the source! We take out Vorgus, the Space Pirates pull back. They can't let someone this valuable stay down." You said, dodging the burning crimson rays of heat vision thrown out by the space pirate as he shifted power sets, striking him in the face with a charge shot that rattled him briefly from the holeum particles exploding against his shielding; an arm reaching out to stop the great champion of Khorne's axe swing and pushing you slightly into the ground as the titanic monster that may have once been human roared in frustration.
"You have the makings of a murderer within you! Release the rage within and find the triumph you seek! Stop holding back!" The Champion snarled, his axes whirling into motion to deflect a pulsing barrage of fire from Vorgus.
"-The plan was to let team three handle Vorgus! Do you know how hard it is to line up a shot when you're flipping around like an anime character?-" She said, your screw attack pulsing into Vorgus; Bumblebee's shots going wide over your head and briefly impacting the Grand Champion before he belched hellfire in return at the autobot, his axe swing being blocked by Kaeliyae's staff before it could tear into flechette.
"I can handle him!" You shouted, firing at one of the super-pirates to freeze them and then letting out a shockwave pulse to shatter their frozen body, getting another clear line of attack on Vorgus; violent blows traded to little effect. Your shielding marked the impacts, but Vorgus barely flinched before he shifted his powers; the next impact throwing you aside with a gut blow that threw you off your feet and through a wall, crashing into a Bloodthirster that fumbled onto the ground.
Ow.
You picked yourself up, quickly noting the flaming whip of the greater daemon coiling around you as the Khornate monstrosity ambled to his feet and tried to pull you into a blow before your sword moved to sever its axe head and your radiance beam tore out chunks of the lesser bloodthirster with each shot, eyes fixating back on your target.
"+Samus? Are you alright?+" Arne asked, his shock coil clashing with a gout of chaos energies from one of the two heads of the great Chaos Dragon in an inferno of energies.
"+...Yeah.+" You said, coughing briefly as you rocked your head back and forth. Your armour held despite the extinction like impact of his fist, amplified by kinetic energy and mass control. Your shields were recharging quickly enough and you could still fight. And fight you would; dropping a power bomb to clear out the daemons surrounding you to get back to the space pirate threat.
"+...Are you sure? That was a heavy hit.+" He said.
"+Arne, I'm fine.+" You growled.
"+She is a tough girl Arne, she can handle herself.+" Agata said, casual in tone despite the intensity of her wrestling with the Space Pirate Sub-enforcer, holding back the murderous machine from Vista as she tried her best to work around her manton limitations; bringing in attacks from other angles to hit from different directions than foes were expecting, bringing Windblade out of Vorgus' way before the superpowered pirate could smash her open with a hammer fist that rumbled the entire room.
"+...Okay...alright...+" Arne sighed. He worried a lot, far too much really. You were supposed to be the one worried for him, you could handle yourself. It was he who needed help. That was always how it worked.
"+Flechette says she thinks she can puncture Vorgus' armour faster than anyone else here. You just need to stop Vorgus from using a power set that would counter hers.+" He said, collecting himself as the Chaos Dragon's second head exploding in a gory eruption that illicted a "eugh" over the comms while ropes of mutant flesh tried to knit themselves back together; a sheen of mucus engulfing the mass and Taylor bringing Arne's wave of missiles around the beast to impact its wings and bring it from the sky to the waiting crucible blade of the Slayer.
"+No she has no durability powers. She'll die if we let her get a clear line of sight.+" You said, rolling around Winterpyre's feet as the Demon was beset by a Pirate Mantis Drone; holding back its scythe limbs and roaring over the sounds of Nightcaster's shadow magic weaving around the field to cloak Penelope Yin and let her strike the Pirate in the back with her psi-blade, a roar of frustration coming from the virtually invincible commander.
You fired up the boost ball, altered time's flow; and blinked to strike Vorgus in the head, dropping a series of bombs, uncurling and then blasting all around the commander; feeding the frequency suit's resonance pulse into a charged holeum beam shot that engulfed the space pirate with dying micro-blackholes and threw the nearby Khornate Champion off his feet.
Vorgus stood back up however, radiation pulses erupting from his weapons charged by his shifting body; forcing you to defend Penelope with an arm shield; pushing you back as green waves of energy slammed into your red coloured force field.
"+Hey, we've got the support to keep her safe. And she's being escorted in style anyway.+" Nightcaster said, his cracking voice trying to keep good humour.
"+God the magic flow here is just...Samus you need to let her take the shots. One's not going to be enough for the guy in his tin can.+" Nightcaster said, Vorgus proving the point by simply standing there in the midst of a massive volley of everyone else throwing what they could into him before slamming his free hand into the ground to release an electric burst; catching bumblebee in the blast and sending coils of electricity around the autobot.
"+I can...do it...+" You snarled, letting missiles fly into Vorgus repeatedly, getting him to turn over to you and then redouble his radiation pulses, his helm lighting up and then firing off eyebeams that threw off your current reflective angle for your shield, boots grabbing into the ground.
"+He's open, take the shot!+" Eudaimonica shouted, one bolt flying through the air with spacetime twisting all around it. An impressive sight to any of your visors, but particularly strange in your awakening warp sight. Fate coiling around the bolt to guarantee its penetration, an inviolable forward thrust like the world's strongest pen being pushed into a piece of paper. It would not be made to stop by conventional defences and durability, for it was the proverbial irresistable force and Imperium-Absorbium alloy; while impossibly strong; is not quite the immovable object. Moving the projectile away or not being in the path of the sting or more unconventional forms of resilience would work on such a thing, but simple strength of armour and shielding gave way to the command of the cosmos for this bolt to go through.
The thunderclap of an inviolable force punching through violable matter was sharp, high pitched, and loud, like a needle being jabbed into the ground times a trillion. Armour that would have shrugged off virtually any conventional force gave way even without shield failure and a neat hole was made in Vorgus' armour before spraying out backwards, viscera pulled by the vacuum force of suddenly displaced air. Grotesque green blood flowing out of the injury as the pirate briefly stumbled and looked quite shocked at his injury, a hand going over the hole in his chest where his heart was.
For a moment everything was quiet until Vorgus began to speak in his language once more. "Priority redirect: Kill her." He said, the second dart going through his head while his healing factor got to work, a grunt coming from him while the Space Pirates let out roars of acknowledgement and sent forth a volley of blasts at her.
You had to act; you blink-jumped to her, grabbed her, and fired off the phase shift to move her through obstacles, Flechette yelping in surprise while Sevrin wrestled the Daemon Samus to the ground for Jetfire to stab his energon sword through the prince's heart.
Vorgus was already in motion, and his super speed movements came at you like a meteor. Elendria was teleported into the path by Taylor, bringing up her shield to repel Vorgus' blows while you threw yourself behind him and yanked him back with the grapple beam, giving Flechette another shot into him; another spray of viscera flying free as he gurgled from the impact, stepping back and turning towards you, his capture teams rocking your position with a volley of grenades and cannon blasts in an effort to cut off your avenues of movement.
Blows were traded, too many to count, not that you cared; taking and giving hits to both of them, some warnings flashing but being ignored promptly. You felt your resolve stiffen every time a pirate died, your focus pushing you to ever greater acts of warrior skill, weaving around the martial prowess of far older veterans than yourself with finesse those thousands of times your elder couldn't match.
"One way or the other, you're coming with me half-breed." He snarled; energy sword erupting to life and swinging away at you, pushing you towards the champion as you brought out both bayonet and sword to deal with the two at once. You were moving as quickly as you could, Taylor clearing away the super-pirates where she could while you took some hits here and there, your armour projecting its blackstone field to briefly take the champion out of the fight and open Vorgus up to your cryonic judgement. The manifestation of all your anger towards this piece of shit in particular.
Spite and cold fury leapt from your hand in a pulse of bitter divine cold, engulfing Vorgus in a sheet of frost that flowed into a hole in his armour and froze his flesh from the inside out; one last shot from Flechette shattering his body inside of his armour which remained frozen upright otherwise; held together by the impervium power suit. It was a satisfying sight, to see this asshole dead at last, no longer able to keep fighting. If only they could all be like this.
"I'll take the other way." You said, growling as the pirate's armour suit was teleported out and the Space Pirates took a moment to turn towards you, apprehension on the faces of those without face concealing helmets.
"+Enemy reinforcements inbound. Withdraw from the Half-Breeds for now.+" A command came.
"The girl-creature has taken down the commander, what are your orders?+" Another asked.
"+Withdraw.+" The command crackled in, clearly irritated with this line of questioning.
The Space pirates looked to one another and backed away, orange flashes of light engulfing them as they started to pull out in disarray, some clearly in fear, others swearing vengeance, a few taking a look at Flechette as if they had just realised that perhaps these lowtechs weren't as harmless as anticipated.
But it felt good to see the look of fear on some of their faces, the quiver in their step, the doubt that they could fight you. To see them gaze upon you and doubt everything they stood for. You grinned at the sight of them pulling back, running away. Good, they should be scared. They should all be scared.
"+Whatever you have done, it has worked. The Confederates are withdrawing and the command of the field is ours.+" Diomedes said, his communique only briefly interrupted by a shout of "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD", the thunderous noise of a blunt power weapon impacting something at full velocity, and a brusque "Yours will have to suffice" from the Blood Raven.
"+Finally, without the distractions, we can begin our work. The Eldar will be needed, as will you.+" Trazyn said as the Daemon Samus pulled himself free from the efforts to wrestle him down, Sevrin fallen onto a single knee with an eye exposed from a broken lens, crumbling daemons all around him and blood dripping from his injured face onto the ground.
The heavily injured Daemon rose up himself, ready to taste the blood of the inheritor, before Agata; freed from dealing with the enforcer, engulfed him in a volley of radiant blasts and Taylor brought the Doom Slayer Crucible first into the Daemon's back as Arne vaporised the last of the Chaos Dragon, breathing out hard while Sevrin's suit self repaired; shielding coming back to life layer by layer and rents sealing themselves.
Your armour similarly fixed itself up; primarily a gash at the chest that had managed to bite into your skin you hadn't really noticed; courtesy of Vorgus' frenzied repeated hacking away at you with a superpower charged blade and an influx of both space pirate warp drains and incarnate batteries when you were caught fighting the elite guard of the champion and the pirate commander. You didn't notice your shields tapped out as you took the very heaviest fighting possible, you didn't even notice the pain really, but the wound was gone, and the armour was good as new a moment later. The cuts had taken a while for him to make into you anyway, even when the armour and zero suit were breached. So good to know even your skin was rather tough. Though your armour could do with more material reinforcement you figured.
Section 13 troops and Necrons moved into the area in greater numbers, gauss blasts and tesla arcs carving away at the daemons and the khornates who; now the sole target of attention, were not able to stop themselves from being wiped away.
Alyrsero wearily stepped over the crumbling body of the Daemon Samus as you finished it off with a shot to the head, denying the Daemon the pleasure of a fight with the "thief" of its name while your body and suit seemed now wholly undamaged, Trazyn's Vargard splitting the Khornate Grand Champion in twain with a void warscythe when they got in the way of the Necron; Crypteks taking a moment to analyse the anomaly while the Eldar seer let his witchsight work over the madness pouring from the worldwound.
"With the Daemon Prince banished and so much favour already expended...closing this should be simple. But you four will be needed to do so without...ngh, sacrifice." Alyrsero said, nursing a bit of an injury to his face, his helm broken and half-worn to not lose out on the HUD.
"Then what must we do?" Sevrin asked.
"Feel it...see what song it sings, and then make its antithesis." Alyrsero said wearily while the Eldar and the Blood Ravens got to work; the Primal Earth mages doing what they could and the Blood Ravens urging the Earth betans to look away.
"Come again?" Agata said, quirking a brow beneath her helm.
"It is an ongoing spell, you must...counter it." Alyrsero said, shaking his hand.
"What he means is that this portal is being kept open by blood magics and hate. So you must bring forth counters to its nihilism and rage to make it dissipate." Kaeliyae said, smiling a bit weakly and looking at Lelithax who rolled her eyes and joined in the eight pointed circle.
"Think of things you treasure, reasons why you fight. The power of Khorne is not one to be overcome with simple might." She added, offering a hand to you while Arne took a moment to look at Alyrsero, berate him for the hits he took only for the Eldar to wave him off.
"I hold my faith that there will be a place for life that can choose its path, righteous and true, bereft of the madness of those born only for destruction or the temptations of destructive solipsism." Diomedes declared.
"The story of hope must not yet perish. In this world, must remain things to cherish." Kaeliyae added.
The portal writhed and roiled like a living thing, hate emnating from it. Visions of worlds on fire, of solving every problem before you with violence red in tooth and claw coiled out. You were curious, you let yourself see these things when you could so easily shut them out. See the oceans of blood and the mountains of skulls and the endless clouds of ash and infinite plains of flame. The great black armoured form of a titan on a throne of the taken heads of countless beings who died pointless deaths for pointless fights.
The portal hated having its validity questioned, it showed scenes of violence more personal to those dissipating it; of massacres committed by the blood ravens, tragedies befalling the eldar, visions of how simple it would be to just slaughter the humans who had wronged the Eldar, or to succumb to the slaughter and simply wipe away all the enemies of mankind.
"For a better universe, for a tomorrow where none of us have to fight any more." Windblade said, planting her sword into the ground even as Energon leaked from the cybertronian psychic's wounds.
The visions shifted, showcasing the pointless futility of the Cybertronian civil war and its endless millions of years of grinding conflict that no longer seemed to have point or meaning, had their kind not already surrendered to rage and violence for violence's sake? But she remained firm, even as her face briefly quivered at the sights.
"Primus never said the road would be easy...but all fights have to be for peace in the end." She said.
"Because we need to stand up for people who can't stand on their own, and help them to their feet. Because friendship is about solidarity, not just who you like and who you don't. So we can all just...live the way we want." Nightcaster added, his quivering voice full of hope even as he stood before the maw of nihilism and his knees shook at the visions of spiralling personal disputes and violent feuds that constantly defined the Primal Earth cape community. His own personal hatreds too were laid bare, when he wanted to hit people at school for petty grievances, when he just wanted to beat people's faces in just to feel powerful when he had crummy days, when he entertained fantasies of watching the world burn after failing a test...but though he whimpered, his shadow man's presence kept him firm, a hand on his shoulder getting him to stand straighter.
Now it was your turn, as you took your spot. "I fight because...nobody should have to suffer like I did. Because nobody should have to be scared or alone or hurting...because there's so much that needs to be helped, and so many people so scared of being hurt or oppressed...so many people in chains or fear or...and I want to help them, all of them." You said, letting your heart open out. You weren't exactly the most guarded person with your emotions, to Grey Voice's frustration.
The portal's assaults were laser-focused on the anger you felt. K-2L, Weavel's attack on your academy, the destruction the space pirates did to sacred sites in the name of loot, the very destruction done to this city, the suffering of so many and you only being able to be in one place at a time to deal with any of it. Everyone crying for help, for succour, for salvation, the wrongs done to you, the frustrations with this backwards society of primitives who often struggled to understand basic freedoms or had such retrograde beliefs on so many important things. The homelessness and squalor both of the Federation and this society when they could easily provide for everyone. The monsters allowed to just run amuck, the fire engulfing the innocent and the afraid.
You grit your teeth, ready to punch it, let it hear you roar. You got through every fight through rage and fury so far, you let them know you weren't a scared little girl anymore, that you could pound anything in your path to dust until nobody would be breaking anyone's bones anymore...but that just made the portal start to recover, start to expand. You had to swallow it, to think about why you were angry. Not just that you were mad...but because you were mad for other people's sake.
You looked at everyone, the people who counted on you and supported you, the people you supported in turn. To make this nightmare end, to build something better from the ash. You were mad for their sake. And you looked at Arne who was also facing his own doubts, at Sevrin who still felt like he wasn't really supposed to be here, at Agata who seemed to take this gate as a challenge...you exhaled and then straightened yourself and just...you didn't let go of your anger, as much as Grey Voice would have been disappointed in you for that...even Old Bird really. But you pushed it into the direction you wanted. Not rage, outrage; for those beyond yourself, for the people who needed a helping hand to fight back.
And the gate shuddered.
"Because...if we aren't going to stand here, and if we back down, then how are things ever going to get better? How can we change things if we don't make the effort." Arne said, taking a moment to steel himself, the fury of Cylosis, the monster that was his adoptive father whose visage still made him quake, the feelings of inadequacy, the war in his mind...he wasn't that angry of a person though, and he simply nodded at the gate's visions and then breathed out a prayer.
"I'm here because it's the good fight, not because I'm mad or hateful or spiteful; but because I know I'm needed, because people look to me and how I show them the way and know that's what to aspire to." Agafya said, arrogant and prideful as ever. But even that was rather toxic to Khorne, and she steeled herself in sureness that she was right, to push away anger at the visions with satisfaction at the feeling of avenging them rather than focusing on the anger itself.
"If we do not protect and nurture life, then it will wither like a blossom without water. If we are to stand by when there is evil, then the cycle shall cease; and there will be no beauty left in the world. Simple, perhaps...but it is worth fighting for." Sevrin added, not really thinking all that much about himself, but standing confidently as the gate began to shudder and fold upon itself, its attempts at enraging him getting a bit of a rise out of him, trying to taunt him with how he felt about being in the shadow of others despite being the young sun king, but he looked to you; and to everyone else, and he swallowed that sensation and the gate began to collapse.
Necron pylon beams erupted to life in tandem with the spells and the warp energy weaving around the warp as its cacophony of fury began to quiet down into an increasingly silent scream until at last, a roar of frustration was made and the gate slammed shut, imploding upon itself with a whimper as the red energy of the area dissipated and reality reasserted itself; shards of obsidian and magma warring upon themselves returning to floor tiles, skulls melting back into standard decoration, brass changing back to chrome, blood clearing into water, fiery glyphs whisking themselves away and the drumbeat of war quieting into hesitant birdsong.
It was over.
You stumbled a bit forward, and shook your head as you had a look around; the injured being treated and the damage already being assessed. The PRT's comms were abuzz with confusion, and Molotok poked her head into the room before shouting at the reinforcements who were supposed to arrive that somehow, they were a bit too late to contribute.
You almost wanted to just sit down, but Arne patted you on the shoulder before pulling you into a hug, one you were only happy to return while Agata slipped an arm around Sevrin.
"I ah...can't say I understood a lot of what went down but...thanks guys." Taylor said, smiling as she returned to human form, blinking a few times and wiping her hair.
"Yeah....god I....ugh..." Kid Win said before flopping onto the ground and letting out a prolonged sigh of relief while others cheered.
Character Actions:
Write in some actions for Samus, Arne, Sevrin, and Agata. (Up to three each)
The press would like to speak to you if possible, though if you choose to speak to them you'll also need to decide how to speak to them and what to share with them.
The PRT similarly wants a word with you, but Jetfire wants to debrief you as soon as possible.
Your companions could also do with some checking on, as can the core four friend group.
The Imperials, Necrons, and Section 13 are also open to be spoken to; as is Freedom Phalanx.
You can just take your friends and find a quieter place to relax though, as immediately being bothered with debriefings and interviews can be a bit stressful.
Or you can just try to head home and sort things out from there until everything simmers down.
Item rewards will be revealed later.
