[X]: Act immediately, giving the Nazis no time to kill hostages.
[X]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you. -this goes for both of them
[X]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
This is the most aggressive plan I could think of which that isn't suicidal, hopefully taking the Nazis out before they can hit any hostages
I doubt anyone really cares to follow along, but it helps me with a new quest to do reaction posts, so I'll be dropping bits of commentary as I catch up.
I kind of saw this coming from the intro, just because having Gray Bird around seemed too good to be true. It still lands pretty well, though. The idea of ending a dream like that is well worn for a reason.
Samus' Notes: These people must be freezing out here in completely non-climate controlled clothing. It'd be really rude to keep them waiting, but is it right to interact with people this lowtech?
Arne's Notes: Police...of course. I don't like the way they're looking at me. Do they think I'm some kind of monster? They aren't hostile yet, but I should be ready for anything.
[x] while the rest of the team will will act as Bastions, since we aren't taking a turn to scan in order to sus out the situation, I know this is a conversative strat, but we don't know what we don't know, and it seems the Nazis are banking on whatever is in the faculity to create a 4th Reich so we have to conserve our strength or else this little slice in the multiverse will fall to Nazis and I don't want say the center cannot hold but if we make the wrong choice, welp we're screwed.
[X]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you. -this goes for both of them
[X]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
Okay I swear, no more giga-updates after this. Relative stats will be added later but as I said, they don't really matter and can generally be grokked by scan log descriptions. Next post will be under 3k words not counting scan logs and vote text and the voting for it will be much shorter to represent the frantic pace of a boss fight better. Which will apply to all fights hence.
I really need to cut down the amount of stuff that happens per post holy fuck. Sorry, this is the last time I do this.
The Thule Society is the Weltreich's primary method of enforcing control over the supernatural or mystical, formed out of an esoteric brotherhood devoted to volkische mysticism in the years before Adolf Hitler's takeover of Reich Earth's incarnation of Germany and then absorbed into the Nazi Hierarchy at the urging of Heinrich Himmler. Despite the initial patronage of the SS, the Thule Society has come to diverge from the organisation to carve out its own state within a state within the Weltreich, and its Mystikiststaats have come to serve as exclusive power bases for its sole usage. The Thule Society delves into dark magic and the art of binding unholy entities to the Reich's service; confident in its ability to force "Mephistopheles to be Faust's slave" and is wholly convinced of the spiritual superiority of the Herrenvolk over other races of humanity and most alien species save for the Nictus.
Addendum: Due to the Thule Society's obsession with bloodline purity and concentrating the Mu lineage that serves as the basis of the Sourcewell Metaverse incarnation of humanity's access to magic into "purer" sorcerers, most Thule society mystics have significant inbreeding and most are forced into arranged marriages in an attempt to breed superior magic users. The results of this project are of dubious value after more than a century of mage breeding and have fractured the Thule Society into the pseudo-aristocratic Mage houses. Houses infamous for their high rate of fratricide and long running familial rivalries.
Samus' Notes: Using the arcane arts for this kind of purpose is absolutely unconsciable! I'm not going to let them continue to abuse mystic rites and arcane gifts in this way! And forcing children to marry cousins just to "purify" the blood is absolutely disgusting! I can't believe people like this are allowed to exist! And to work for such racist agendas it's just...absolutely beyond the pale!
Arne's Notes: Even in timelines where they actually were onto something, the Thule Society remains a bunch of rotheads. Dangerous, cruel, and tyrannical rotheads, but nothing in their skulls but poison. We're going to need to put a stop to all of this, nothing they're doing can be allowed to continue. Every profanity will be avenged, every dark rite dispelled.
The Fifth Column was founded on Primal earth within the Sourcewell Metaverse by the government of Fascist Italy to serve as a pan-fascist superhuman task force that would cement the alliance between Italy and Germany in the leadup to the second world war. While its leader has been the Italian man Ridolfo Uzzano, close associate of Mussolini; or more correctly, the merging of the Nictus known as the Dirge of Entropy and Ridolfo into the composite entity Requiem; much of the remainder of the leadership of the 5th Column was made out of Germans, and in the post-war era; out of Americans, Spaniards, Britons, Canadians, Argentines, and other ethnicities deemed racially acceptable to the 5th Column's leadership. The 5th Column rejected the surrender of May 8th 1945 as illegitimate and has continued to wage the second world war against the countries of Primal Earth ever since, making use of a stable of superhuman soldiers, metahuman recruits, advanced technology, and seemingly limitless funding to continue to fight the conflict in a prolonged guerilla and terrorist campaign primarily aimed at the victors of the second world war, the post-war governments of their former home countries, and nations deemed strategically useful. With their partnership with the Nictus as well as a large number of esoteric resources and hidden pocket bases, the Fifth Column has proven to be virtually impossible to permanently destroy despite its hostility to most of the rest of Primal Earth.
Recently however, Requiem has come to swallow much of his pride and make overtures of fealty towards the Weltreich and its associates; an association of Fascist Countries that successfully conquered their timelines and began to expand outside of their native dimensions under the general leadership of the Weltreich; the Cosmic Axis. All sharing the partnership of the Nictus Shadow Conclave. This seems to be heavily driven by his continuing conflict with the also Fascist but more Italian styled Paramilitary organisation known as the Council, which is partnered with another faction of the Nictus who seek to determine which strain of Fascism is best. Tensions also exist with the Imperial Wind that continues to fight the second world war on behalf of the Japanese Empire despite the official surrender and dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Military; with the Fifth Column largely regarding the Imperial Wind as "crafty asiatics". The Cosmic Axis is reportedly, no more unified due to the Nictus' apathy towards forcing cooperation amongst their allies so long as they don't overly interfere with their plans.
However, despite this, the 5th Column remains a highly dangerous organisation. Far more organised and well resourced than the Gesellschaft, the 5th Column has come to increasingly dominate the Gesellschaft in their shared partnership with the Weltreich. The 5th Column has also taken to increasingly tapping into more esoteric sources of power to ensure that its soldiers are able to keep up with the steadily growing ceiling of power among metahumans and metatechnology assisted entities and to prepare for a future catastrophe known as the Coming Storm that the 5th Column believes will beget the dnd of humanity and the Kheldians and Nictus across all known realities if certain measures are not taken. The 5th Column of course, believes that only its ideology can save the pureness of humanity from the oncoming apocalypse.
Samus' Notes: Still fighting world war two seventy-five years after its end? It'd almost be pathetic if they hadn't killed so many people refusing to accept defeat. But I'm here now, and it must be for a reason. With luck, they won't get to have seventy-six years of tormenting innocent people to avenge their defeats. I just know that I can do this. I have to.
Arne's Notes: Mom's notes on guerilla warfare made note of how far-right insurgents differ from other political orientations. The reliance on in-groups fearful of out-groups as opposed to general mass appeal, the heightened reliance on terrorism and repression to establish dominance. These people are going to fight to the bitter end, until we crush the entire beast. Fine by me I guess.
Samus
"No time to lose, we need to rescue them now!" You say, clenching your fist and extending your arm-sword and setting your visor opacity up while you immediately start charging up an attack with your arm cannon, letting your seeker missiles designate up to five targets for your super missiles. A massive alpha strike to be sure, but you needed to quickly throw them off balance before they could stop Winterpyre's spell of teleportation or disrupt Nightcaster and Eudaimonica's laying out of enhancing magics. A nimbus of magical energy circled around you, and your eyes studied the gestures and incantations the two primal Earthers were making.
"Izamyros, Kazylimra atimaxas imatir!" Nightcaster said with emphasis despite the quietness of his voice, your armour quickly translating the Mu-Ven tongue into something you could understand as threads of darkness began to weave around the group once again to reinforce the decaying tendrils of magic from his prior spell.
"Shroud of Night, guard my friends from harm!"
"You really think we're friends?" You said with an eager note as Nightcaster briefly stammered beneath his hood before Eudaimonica put her hand over his masked mouth and nodded.
"Duh, you're pretty cool so far uh...Aine." Eudaimonica said, taking a scant second to recall what you said your codename now was. You might change it later...you definitely needed to settle on one at some point. Secret identities are weird.
"Okay okay, let me focus." Nightcaster said as he made the next incantation. With the Chozo genetics grafted into your helix, you could see things most couldn't. Like the way the mystic energy flowed around him in tune with his gestures and how it wobbled with his words. The differences in the blue and black energies used by Nightcaster and the Green and Orange power used by Eudaimonica. Shadow, fire, and hellpower mingling together.
Eudaimonica approaches her magic more like a cheerleader, encouraging the spirits she partners with to "do their thing!", encouragement and praise coming freely from her. "One two three four, I want you to set the score!" She said in a demonic tongue, asking the demons she had pacted with to wreathe you all in fiery defences. "Five, six, seven, eight, Nazis we really hate!" She said as she set up a few contingent spells that would explode into hexes to weaken the foe when the right conditions were met, all dancing around her twin wands that she procured and beat at the air with like drum sticks or pom poms.
Nightcaster though, seemed to be more of a stage magician, heavily focused on the performance despite his shadowy spells. "Don't look away now, but with a wave of my staff and an alakazam! Paerseval kasevrani elemptior hazakal irath! Become a foe the enemy can ill perceive!" He said, bringing out a Blackwood staff with a white tip and blue runes running across it, swinging it around like a conductor and sending out his next wave of spells outwards.
"So that's magic you say?" Assault said, rubbing his chin.
"Yeah, my mom was a medicine woman and my dad was a shadow-warlock and I was born under a lunar eclipse at Halloween and conceived at witching hour!" Joseph said with a proud smile beneath his mask as Ethan just...nodded like that made sense to him. Not doubting so much as not quite understanding. It made perfect sense to you honestly, though you were surprised that strong magic was available so early in the timeline compared to you when it was a far rarer gift among humans.
"Same here but parent genders were reversed." Alice said with a satisfied smirk as she finished the last of her incantations. The spellcasters in the group each laid down runes of protection and spirit wards, spells you identified as being meant to defend against methods of locking down the squishies, provide some additional durability, and guard them against various forms of mesmerizations or mental attacks; even keeping them on their feet in the face of attacks meant to knock them around.
So interesting...you just had to ask them to teach you everything they knew about their craft! You were sure you'd be able to figure it out once you got a chance to play around with it. Oh the possibilities...being able to use your magic much earlier than you were expected to. You could do so much good with it...ahhh. You couldn't wait to get started..and maybe they could point you to someone to help with your psychic abilities too.
You were interrupted from your train of thought by Irinna cracking her knuckles and putting her helmet back on. "We are done with prep yes?" She said. Oh you definitely liked the attitude she had. That sort of energy and the fire within her waiting to scorch something ahead of her as she slammed her knuckles into each other and stared ahead.
"Alright, I'll take lead. Arne, can you take the hits? You have the easiest time restoring shielding. Everyone else; hit them as hard as you can." You said, surmising the situation quickly. You'd come up with the deeper details on the fly once you got into the thick of it. A bit of improv was good at countering foresight in your experience, and with the number of mystics among the Nazis; you were betting that they had more than a few who fit that particular description amongst them.
"Yeah, I can take it." He said with the confidence of someone who regarded pain as simply an old friend. You frowned a bit at that. His cavalier attitude towards getting hurt as if his own health wasn't worth worrying about. But then, he also gave you looks when you put yourself ahead, putting yourself at risk. Always complaining whenever you took a hit for him. Two of the hardest to harm warriors in the universe and the two of you had a hard time seeing each other take the smallest scrape.
"Well, miss, if you're calling the shots. Can you give us some stuff to do? Or are you just letting us go hog wild?" Ethan asked.
You closed your eyes and let the distant sight take you to what you wanted and needed to see, meshing it with your intellect and quickly working through the complex problems of battlefield command. You wouldn't make a detailed plan, you just needed to point people in the right direction. The rest would come to you once you were actually there. Maybe if you were more patient you could figure out how to do the Chozo habit of planning things out thousands of years in advance, but right now...ahah there we go.
"Alright, Arne; you make the biggest possible mess you can, head right into the centre between those guards." You thumb to where two of the Knightly guards were standing, burly armoured brutes that stood about eight feet tall. Eudaimonica; Nightcaster, hang back and send three fourths of your forces out, keep some in the backline to support and cover." You said, letting them prepare to file out into the positions you indicated with pings to Eudaimonica's phone, getting her to nod after a quick glance.
"Assault, Battery, Molotok; mid-line; plug any gaps you see, Winterpyre, Caustos and the uh..." You looked at the Wolf-like umbral beast as she panted with a longue purple tongue, curls of black smoke wisping off of her body as she looked excitedly ahead for any action.
"Jackie Noir!" Nightcaster said as he patted the rhinoceros sized wolf. You felt like he was referencing something with that name, but you weren't exactly sure what. The Earth Bet adults didn't seem to know it either, Arne gave you a shrug when you looked at him while Eudaimonica whispered something about how "it keeps happening" to Nightcaster while Irinna made a prolonged "eyyyyy" of recognition and Serp made a double handed facepalm that made you glad for the zone of silence that prevented the Nazis from hearing you all blabber...you were so lost.
"You'll take the frontline behind Arne and I. Serp, keep Eudaimonica and Nightcaster guarded, you've got the more ranged loadout. Everyone got it?" You said, getting some nods in response.
"I'll go first." Arne said as he looked over to the scene of the hostage situation as Pyre made the last gestures of his spell.
"You'll be alright, right?" You said as your visor had not stopped desginating the seeker missile targets since you started talking. You knew he'd probably be fine, but you just wanted to hear him speak confidently. It was nice to hear him not doubt himself for a change.
"I mean...we've both had way worse." Arne said.
"Worse than diving into that mess?" Assault asked.
"Oh definitely." You gave a thumbs up.
"Man who raises you two?" He said with a snort.
The air exploded with magic as Winterpyre's spell snapped into motion like a whip, lashing and grabbing the hostages just before a tall, burly man in a fifth column outfit could rev up a rotary gun and hose them down to make an example of them, his bullets hitting nothing and an exclamation of confusion coming from him before you made the signal and sprinted down; Arne already taking lead of the pack and firing off his speedbooster.
Consolidated Enemy Scan Logs
(Like this but all black)
The Ubermensch are some of the deadliest soldiers of Primal Earth. Enhanced by arduous but effective techniques perfected since the 30s, Ubermensch are augmented to a degree that even five Elites in tandem cannot match their raw physical might. Surpassing even Nacht Elite Obersts, the Nacht Ubermensch Soldat is a peerless soldier of special operations and stealth assault. They make use of some of the very best weapons available to the 5th Column as well as highly sophisticated cyber-armour that assists their stealth operations. They do not have any particular weaknesses, but their defences are weakest against psionic attack. Possibly as a result of backdoors installed to ensure compliance. They also have a lower threshold for emergency teleportation, likely due to their perceived value.
Addendum: Comparisons to other 5th Column personnel show that many 5th Column soldiers are chronologically displaced. 5th Column records indicate heavy usage of bases located in "temporal sinkholes" that allow them to recruit from eras in the past or future in pockets of warped spacetime without risk of disrupting the timestream. Dating shows that many personnel, particularly those who reach Ubermensch rank, are from a number of points in the Roman Era and have a high concentration of magical energy in their bodies.
Samus' Notes: The Fifth Column's Eagerness to mould people into monsters is...honestly what did I expect from people still fighting world war two?
Arne's Notes: I...these people bring up bad memories. Skull-helms, giant super-soldiers...Why do so many of the worst things remain so consistent?
(Like this but all Black)
Lower level commanders of the Nacht Divisions, Unteroffizers surpass their lower rank and file significantly and are armed with higher-grade equipment out of the laboratories of the 5th Column. Unteroffizers of the Nacht Division who have achieved Ubermensch status are masters of small unit tactics and surgical operations meant to disrupt and confuse their enemies and achieve goals with minimal resistance. Each is not merely superbly trained, but is a longtime veteran of service in the 5th Column and as such the fascist organization is loathe to send them to the field without multiple mediportation failsafe. Nacht Unteroffizer Ubermensch are extremely competitive with one another, seeking to climb up the ranks and continually plotting against their compatriots. They have little regard for the fate of their rivals, and cannot be intimidated by harm dealt to allies of equal rank due to seeing them as obstacles in their path to power.
Samus' Notes: These people carry themselves like Space Pirates. Just...awful energy and demeanour. I can't see their eyes through their helmets, but I can tell that the way they regard the world is full of that same evil mindset. Strong and weak. Conqueror and conquered. I need to be strong enough to put a stop to them.
Arne's Notes: After seventy five years of underground warfare against the winners of world war two, I can't imagine that their special ops skills are anything short of impeccable. Just how far does their net spread? Can two people even unroot something that goes this deep?
(Like this but all black)
The Obersts of the Nacht Ubermensch are some of the most trusted and dangerous field operatives of the special forces division of the Fifth Column. Commanders of shadowy far-right terrorist cells and made of those whose deeds have garnered them immense favour from the 5th Column's shadow warfare wing, each one represents an investment of many years by the Column to create. Each one is steeply indoctrinated in the ideology of the column and is considered virtually wholly politically reliable, though each has his own goals for advancement within the organisation and frequently plots against his fellows. This is encouraged among the Fifth Column not only due to social Darwinian management philosophies, but also to ensure that the Nacht Division is never given an opportunity to use its permission to engage in independent thinking to plot against their superiors.
Every Nacht Ubermensch Oberst is augmented to a tremendous degree and is able to tear into the tank armour in use on most of Earth Bet with their bare hands like foil. Even without their armoured and shielded uniforms, they are able to withstand a degree of punishment that makes engaging them without careful preparation extremely inadvisable for most of Earth Bet and much of Primal Earth. Each is also given their pick of some of the finest mass produced weapons of the 5th Column and can be expected to be a wily and versatile combatant. It is highly recommended to force them to engage yourself or similarly durable combatants to prevent them from gaining opportunities to target more fragile team mates. Means of quickly removing them from a fight such as freezing or electrocution also are quite effective.
Samus' Notes: Focusing on them should be a major blow to the overall command structure of the Fifth Column. There can't be that many of them and each one takes so much effort to produce.
Arne's Notes: I've seen the way these people look at people they consider beneath them on Cylosis, from Weavel, from Trace...this kind of mindset needs to be destroyed, immediately.
Powerful lieutenant grade robots surpassing the fighting capabilities of Primal Earth standard main battle tanks and conventional Mekmen, Wolfpacks can also serve as lower officers due to their intelligent A.Is that are utterly loyal to National Socialism's tenets and doctrines. Armed with energy blasters and missile launchers as well as deadly melee instruments and overwhelming brute strength, Mark I wolfpacks are most vulnerable to concussive and electrical weapons, but are varying degrees of resistant to most other forms of damage. They are also rather cheap to produce and will usually come in substantial numbers as the 5th column regards its robotic auxiliaries as disposable.
Samus' Notes: Creating life for the sole purpose of expending it remains profane and disgusting. How could you program something able to understand and comprehend the world and just...toss it into the battlefield to die like a remote controlled drone? I hope I can free them some how. Make them wake up to how they're being used.
Arne's Notes: It's a shame that so much talent is wasted on a cause so vile that twists their work with so many inefficiencies. All because they exist to be a servitor class, not to have any ideas or real independence of their own. I feel sorry for them...being used like a tool by the people who put them together...it reminds me of...best not to think about that now.
Large and powerful robots with the firepower and durability to take on entire companies of Primal Earth standard main battle tanks on its own, Wolfpacks Mark IIs also possess A.I sophisticated enough to serve as commanders for 5th Column soldiers and are built already utterly indoctrinated in the 5th Column's nazi ideology. Armed with a wide array of energy and missile weapons as well as potent power claws and enormous strength and durability, a Wolfpack Mark II is a somewhat ponderous but powerful combatant best dealt with via concussive or electrical weapons to overcome its resilience towards edged weapons, cold, heat, corrosion, and psychic assault.
Samus' Notes: These machines are geniuses! So much capacity for strategic and tactical thought, political philosophy, even engineering! And yet...they're just fodder! Given life just to die. Why do so many people have such a hard time accepting the value of life born of metal rather than flesh? It's not right!
Arne's Notes: I'd like to take one and reprogram it, there's probably shackles placed on the A.I to prevent it from coming to other conclusions that would be inconvenient to their makers. Maybe some sort of malware...might be a project for later, Samus would be a huge help there.
Subject is not genuinely undead but is instead the product of a carefully planned supersoldier regimen designed to transform a soldier of the 5th Column into an intelligent predator. While imbued with a number of unnatural abilities, Vampyr Soldats remain living beings even if whether they can classify as human is a measure of debate within the Column. As such they do not have any special vulnerability to light based weapons, but are able to make use of a number of dark energy-based attacks and mesmerising powers inspired by Vampiric lore. They also heal swiftly and have greatly enhanced strength, natural claws, unnaturally resilient tissue and tremendous reflexes, and can even cast forth negative energy for distance-based attacks. However, heat-based weapons negatively affect their ability to regenerate and their psychic attacks have less effect on the strong-willed.
Samus' Notes: Why go through all this trouble to look so ugly? To sacrifice so much of yourself to become a monster that eats people?
Arne's Notes: Further research suggests the creator of this program took up the moniker of Nosferatu so I'm guessing the 5th column is lead by old movie buffs.
Simple creations of necromancy that imbue a still fleshy corpse with dark magic to force a false-life state into the body, Necromantic Zombies are virtually mindless and clumsy. They pose very little threat even to normal human combatants without significant augmentation, and even then their lack of strategic capability, tool usage, and even basic dexterity means that well armed humans should generally be able to keep them at bay for substantial durations of time. However their immunity to pain, their overwhelming desire to consume the flesh of their former living compatriots, and their instinctual aggression makes them terrifying; as is the quickness of those slain within proximity to Necromantic energies to rise again as more zombies or even greater varieties of undead. Zombies have little willpower of their own and are incapable of sensing pain, but sufficient dismemberment or tissue disruption will interrupt the flow of magic that keeps them animate and cause them to collapse again unless reinvigorated by magic. Disintegration or sufficiently violent dismemberment will prevent further reanimation. Even without armour, Thule Zombies pose no threat to you.
Samus' Notes: Ameut most gracious, give those whose bodies are defiled so cruelly your mercy. Ameut the gravekeeper; take these lost into your garden.
Arne's Notes: Need to take out the necromancers to put them down as fast as possible. Can't waste time with destroying corpses they'll keep on reanimating and rebuilding.
Wights, often called Grave Knights, are higher-grade forms of the undead who retain the majority of their mortal intellect and have an enhanced sort of power through their unloving nature. Though requiring more effort to properly raise into unlife, the Thule Wights are valued elites among the unliving who serve the society for eternity until their true death. Wights are charged with dark energy and will pass it on upon contact, and lack the stiff and slow motions or the mindless rage of either zombies or skeletons. Wights are entirely unhindered by their state of decay and many willingly allow their flesh to rot off completely or strip it from their bones for hygeine's sake; while others prefer mummification. Most Thule Wights are raised from ancient warriors and as such make use of enchanted melee weapons and old armour, striking almost exclusively in melee. Hard hitting and resilient, Wights are most vulnerable to solar, pyronic, or luminal weapons and to anything blessed by spiritual traditions opposed to necromancy. They are also weak to undiluted life energy, and struggle with airborne opponents.
Samus' Notes: Please, forgive me for what I am about to do to those who have violated your sacred rest with unholy sorceries.
Arne's Notes: Most of these bodies are centuries or even millennia old. I can't imagine having your rest violated after that long...
Degenerated creatures caught between life and undeath by exposure to dark magic and cannibalistic acts, Thule Ghouls are branded by the Thule Society and disposed of as shock troopers with little regard for their long term survival as most of them regard the Ghouls as disgusting degenerates not worthy of their company. Typically gathering them from famine-stricken areas under Thule Society rule beset by Nazi hunger policies meant to slowly starve undesireables to death, Ghouls instinctually obey those who can use the proper magic; and after the years of conditioning that the Nazi regime has given to their kind, members of the Nazi hierarchy as well. Thule Ghouls will never attack members of the NSDAP or those otherwise considered to be protected by the Hierarchy unless forcibly compelled to magically. Ghouls are no longer fully living and will continue to fight until motor function is destroyed. Centre of mass or head shots are fast ways to deal with them. While their claws carry many virulent diseases, they are poorly suited for fighting armoured combatants, and you yourself are immune to their pathogens.
Samus' Notes: There has to be some way to cure these people of their affliction. There's always a way to help these people, I'm not going to accept that these people are lost forever.
Arne's Notes: This isn't living. Better to be dead than to be like this, may your next life be better.
Unlike the Vampyr, the Thule Vampires are indeed, genuinely undead. Animated by dark magics and possessed of "the red thirst", a need to consume blood, Thule Vampires are ironically considerably more attractive by conventional standards than their artificial counterparts. While lacking in the sheer magnitude of carefully engineered abilities and honed supersoldier prowess of their counterparts; Thule Vampires make use of dark magic in addition to enhanced physiology, and being undead are able to ignore injuries that would debilitate lesser beings. Able to heal swiftly and recover even more swiftly with access to blood, Thule Vampires are also able to; as with all true vampires; spread their affliction with the "blood kiss". Vampirification exaggerates all personality traits to a caricature of the person's former self, and while continuity of consciousness is maintained; becoming undead can be a radical shift in personality. Thule vampires are most vulnerable to light based weapons, strong displays of faith in positive causes, silvered weapons, bio-energy, and impalement through the heart with an object that can keep the corpse pinned. Fresh blood to consume enhances their regeneration, vigour, and power.
Samus' Note: I never really understood the appeal of vampire romance novels as much as yllamir and solveig seemed interested in them. Looking at an actual Vampire I...I think I'm going to pass on that. As pretty as their faces are I can't stop looking at how awful what's beneath is. Evil spirits wearing too perfect corpses devouring the living. But well, I did write about killing Nazi Vampires when I was a much younger girl, so this should be fun!
Arne's Notes:
Thule Necromancers are the still living practitioners of the Dark art of Necromancy who work for the Thule Society; making ample usage of undead servants to assail their opponents and reinforcing them with dark magic. While their offensive abilities are somewhat limited compared to Dark Mages who more exclusively focus on the destructive side of Dark Energy, their ability to quickly swarm a battlefield with enemies should not be underestimated. Necromancers are also infamous for their ability to reanimate their own dead and the fallen on the battlefield, and will also knit undead warriors back together continually so long as they are still on the battlefield. They also provide a wide range of augmentations and hexes to enhance and hinder allies and enemies, and with some time to make the proper incantation; can cast more powerfully damaging spells. However, Thule Necromancers are relatively weak combatants and will not last long if singled out in melee or by ranged firepower.
Addendum: Not all of the magic used by the Thule society is properly native to the Sourcewell Metaverse. Acquire additional examples to study to determine the true origin point of the magic. Preliminary analysis suggests strong emotional and ideological component and a windlike nature.
Samus' Notes: This absolute profanity cannot and will not be allowed to stand! How dare they defile the dead with so little regard for their wishes? How dare they pilfer souls from their rest with such abandon!? Is there anything this Weltreich won't lower itself to?! That not even their victims can know any peace after their lives are snuffed out?! If Old Bird were here he'd show these creeps what magic in good hands can do! Certainly far more than this...abomination!
Arne's Notes: To disrupt the cycle of reincarnation and Slauganth this way is just...obscene. Every dead creature they call on that didn't ask to be called is a miserable wretch begging for release.
Imbued with the powers of sinister magics by the Thule Society, the Volksritter are clad in rune encrusted armour and wield potent mystic weapons; primarily swords, shields, polearms, and other such retrograde tools. Despite their seemingly archaic weapons however, the Volksritters are formidable combatants due to the amount of magic charged through their bodies and implements, allowing them to contend with much higher technology foes and to demonstrate truly superhuman feats. Volksritters are most vulnerable to electrical weapons able to conduct through their armour into their bodies, it is advised to prevent allies from closing in melee with them unless they are able to withstand runic edged weapons. Volksritters are powerful combatants who can withstand great punishment, and their runic armour deflects most cold or darkness aimed their way. Each is considered a martial champion of the Thule Society, and will fight with skill honed over the course of at least fourteen years of training starting at the age of seven in shadowy subdimensions filled with monsters.
Undead animated by the Thule Society, Skeleton Warriors are the bones of the dead given false life through dark magic to serve the Necromancers of the Thule Society or other organisations within the Weltreich and thus the Reich as a whole. More nimble and agile than zombies and considerable more dextrous, skeleton warriors are also more difficult to put down; with their bones given additional resilience by the energies flowing through them. Skeletal warriors fight with the weapons they were familiar with in life, and when lacking in any orders to follow will pursue a virtually instinctual desire to kill any life forms they encounter. Skeleton warriors are most vulnerable to concussive impacts and blunt force but are resistant to electricity and cold. Skeletons are easily reanimated endlessly by dark magic unless disintegrated sufficiently due to the thaumatological connections that necromancy has with bones. Skeletons also retain remnant memories of fighting skills they had in life, and are entirely without fear. They are far more dangerous than zombies, but are of nonexistent threat to yourself with or without armour.
Unliving fragments of souls tethered to existence by Thule Society sorcerers, Thule Shades are merely fragmentary portions of the souls of the lost, driven mad by their incompleteness and seeking to replace the warmth they have been deprived of. They make for reliable fodder who cannot be harmed by many weapons reliably and are able to bypass many forms of conventional defences; though your armour and progenitor physiology will prevent their phasing efforts. As incorporeal undead, Thule Shades cannot be harmed by elemental weapons with the exception of light elemental weapons with your current upgrade suite. Target them with the power beam modified by an augment beam only to cause damage to them. Thule Shades are able to phase wholly out of this plane of existence, requiring X-Ray or Multidimensional analysis to properly track. Shades are very weak to light-based weapons and cannot sustain themselves in brightly lit conditions.
Wraiths are a higher form of incorporeal undead than shades, though they remain beings with extremely warped personalities due to the noxious effects of the necromantic magics used on their souls. Wraiths are also incapable of withstanding bright lights, particularly those of stars, and are weak to light-based weapons as well as magical weapons and attacks, your non-elemental weapons, and your progenitor physiology. However, Thule Wraiths will ignore the defences of much of your allies, and will seek to drain portions of their souls and body heat to fill the sensation of emptiness that constantly gnaws at them. Eudaimonica and Nightcaster's spells are able to allow your allies extra defence and attack against Wraiths, and Wraiths for the most part require melee to engage with foes capable of withstanding their fear aura or terror inducing shrieks. Lesser combatants can be killed simply through the wraith's fear abilities, but most prefer to finish combat with their draining touch. Wraiths however, lack in durability and anything capable of harming them will dispatch them quickly.
A collection of Weltreich psychics under the banner of the Soldaten der Geistes (SDG) division who rule the Geiststaats of the Weltreich, Geistiger Krieger serve as mid-range psionic warriors often seconded out to other formations of the Reich to lend them their psychic powers whenever these divisions cannot provide their own psychics. Geistiger Kriegers make use of a combination of powerful psionic control abilities as well as many forms of direct mental assault, including short ranged psychic melee attacks such as psionic blades and psionic defences. Geistiger Kriegers are best dealt with via overloading their defences via rapid-fire attacks. Singular strong attacks are likely to be deflected by them.
Arne
Move in quick, draw in as much fire as possible and give everyone else a bit of breathing space. Absolutely routine. You did this against Prince Trace's Principate Guard, you could handle a bunch of downtimers just fine. You smashed into the first Volksritter in your path and left behind nothing but dust. You bull rushed the first of the Thule Vampirs in your sight, obliterating her body too, as well as the bodies of several other Nazis clustered around her before you collapsed into the psychosphere and dropped a corrosion pulse bomb or three after boosting into the nearest mass of Nacht Elites; teleporting flashes informing you of enemies no longer caring to be in this battlezone.
It seemed that the room was rather larger than you expected, a great chamber with a high ceiling large enough for an air battle to be waged, divided into subchambers; seemingly serving as some manner of lobby with the expectation of having to hold the attention of something rather big. What were clearly meant to be sniper nests were now occupied by new tenants. Corpses were strewn about, the remains of the security team here, and the occasional fire was still burning here and there. There were some rec areas too, likely for people to wait while their security passes were being okayed by the checkpoint.
Another thing that was clear was that this place was crawling with vast numbers of undead who had been called forth from hidden dark dimensions. Some were busily eating the remains of the security staff. Others clearly rose from the security staff and other personnel deemed disposable. The Thule Society clearly was somewhat loathe to commit its living members, or they had already moved on to carry on their work elsewhere. Most of the fresh undead were simple, dumb shambling zombies, still bleeding from the injuries that killed them. It seemed that they lacked the time or skill for more complex creations, but it also seemed that the enemy's psychics had up and left the field in a hurry.
You steeled yourself for battle against the risen spawn of the grave and made ready for the rotting wave to crash upon you. They could barely make you out, and their attempted suppressive fire was clumsily aimed, often hitting their own undead while coils of weakening magic flowed out from Eudaimonica and Nightcaster, making it all too easy to knock over their minions like matchsticks.
You uncurled, a higher ranking 5th Column Vampyr, a Mesmerist it would seem; lashed out with extended claws at you. Your starbeam quickly put his aspirations of mixing it up with you to an end, a charged shot catching many of the Vampyr's squad in roiling starmatter that exploded in miniature novas. With their resilience against heat being negatively affected by Eudaimonica's melting magics, a whole swathe of enemies fell over as the bouncing star globs vaporized everything they touched before scattering into new targets. The true Vampires disintegrated virtually on contact with the beam; unable to handle miniature suns or prismatic light; while enemy return fire skimmed off of your pyromancy augmented shielding.
Five pyro-super missiles followed suit from Samus; each of them charged for maximum impact. A hefty chunk of her super missiles to be sure, but the explosions from each charged super missile detonating in a thermal apocalypse were nothing short of awe-inspiring. The brief spread of ignition materials followed by a spark that at first pulled inwards and then billowed outwards with supra-atomic force. A thermobaric detonation for the far future of warfare.
Had the containment fields not limited the gluon-plasmic thermobaric shockwaves the explosions probably would have emptied large portions of this facility with the overpressure and the violent vacuuming in of oxygen so forceful it imploded internal organs; even ripping them out of some of the Vampires' mouths. As it was, it was more than hot enough to leave nothing but burnt shadows in the ground where many a foe stood. Your armour's visor systems had cancelled out the bright flash and you looked around to see that there was plenty of fight to still be had.
You could already hear Zurvduat's beratement for not ending the fight already.
Samus Super Missile Count: 19/34
The chaff was largely cleared out, but it seemed much was preserved by a quick spell to shunt their forces into an ethereal plane where the blast wave would harmlessly pass them over; rematerialising shortly afterwards with yourself caught in the thick of what seemed to be a sea of hostiles.
Elmorni would have told you that it would be best to avoid getting surrounded like this in the first place, but would have understood as your adoptive mother did her best to. Zurvduat would have struck and berated you as your adoptive father nearly always did when you failed his impossible standards. But you had neither of them in mind. You turned to another part of the Adoptive Family of Alimbics that raised and nurtured you after Cylosis' fall.
The Palatine Mind of course, that wondrous A.I who would have given you quite succinct advice. "When surrounded by an ocean of softer foes who cannot immobiliser you; part the waves."
A Spectre with clawing ghostly hands reaching towards you had its chest obliterated by a power-prism beam shot, the bouncing light scattering its way through many more foes as you got to work.
You didn't shout a battlecry, you just made a gentle benediction to a Grendakal War Deity; Tharif; and to the spirit of your mother and father for guidance.
The zombies were the first in and the first to die, your Prism beam bounced between them with abandon; burning and disintegrating the fodder to the ground while Samus rushed around, the massive bulk of Winterpyre following suit and sending enemies flying like so many bowling pins; inhuman screeching being heard as the Demon Prince engulfed many foes in hellfire alongside Caustos and Jackie's own breath weapons, lesser magic spawn swarming in to get to grips with the spawn of dark magic and nazism.
You stood upon a pile of dust, your sword severing a Thule Vampir into sizzling halves and then destroying the head in a follow up sweep to scythe down half a dozen more of its counterparts. Battery bulldozed through living Soldaten, electricity rippling from her as she briefly got close to you.
"You shouldn't stay here." You said as you moved to intercept a necrotic spell lobbed her way; the black bolt of energy sizzling against your shielding and hissing as it tried to eat away at it further. She didn't seem to listen though, uppercutting a ghoul into the ceiling as it tried to sink its rot dirtied teeth into her, a flurry of fists coming from her smashing the skeletal hordes that followed behind the ghoul to powder.
Energy Count 08(96)
"Just passing by, don't worry kid." She said, though you recoiled at the patronization even while pulling one of the Wolfpack Robots into the way of a barrage of ubermensch missiles, holding the towering machine steady just long enough to then throw it right back at the Ubermensch; knocking them and a horde of the unliving aside while Samus gunned down a swarm of specters trying to surround assault as he found himself engulfed by wave after wave of clumsy zombies unable to find purchase through his kinetic field. With a shift of his legs he sent the undead automatons flying and swung Molotok on through like a Cannon Ball.
"Then get going!" You said with a hint of irritation beneath your voice as you pressed through a tsunami of skeletons, smashing through the bones sent into the air and tearing your way to the nearest necromancer. You took a hit from a Vampyr's dark energy bolts while dodging around lobbed spells of enervation, not letting it slow you down as you tore through the triad of corpse thieves.
Energy Count 08(94)
Your cannon clicked and its systems set themselves to missile mode and you filled the air with warheads. A hundred missiles unloaded in less than a second, a huge chunk of your arsenal right then and there, but the results were nothing if not spectacular as the rocket contrails streaked through the sky and exploded in the midst of your foes. To your surprise though, one of the Ubermensch Obersts who was struck by many of the missiles simply stood up after being thrown across the room and cracked his knuckles even after taking a half-dozen of your standard missiles. The Oberst leapt at you and struck you as your plan to get everyone's attention worked a bit too well.
Missile Count 75/170
Energy Count 08(92)
Another blow as you tried to focus on your foresight to determine who was heading over to you, this one to your head.
Energy Count 08(88)
"Your missiles hurt. My fists will hurt you far more." He said as he unleashed an esoteric martial art augmented claw strike that threw you back several meters until you brought yourself to a halt.
Energy Count 08(80)
You took a claw from a Vampyr Kommandant, the supersoldier's gaze upon you a vicious sneer as you shot a charged shot through another pile of zombies, clearing out rotting minions in the way of Molotok as she fell onto a knee trying to stop the Halberd of a Volksritter from touching her face Battery slugged the knight off his feet and helped her up. The time you had bought her came at the expense of more high grade foes surrounding you, an Axe finding its way into your back from one of the Knights as you were finding it harder to move without getting into someone's threat range.
Energy Count 08(64)
A sphere of death magic struck into you, a command to die bolstered by spellcraft attempting to weave its way into you. Your progenitor physiology and armour blocked that out altogether, but the amount of deathly magic flowing into that sphere launched forth by a cabal of Thule society casters was still enormous, and your shielding was both lacking in all that many resiliency upgrades and in special defence against such spells. The energy sizzled as you fired off a charged super missile in their direction, letting it scatter them around and vaporise others while you tried to get moving again, knocking away two of the Kommandant's adjutant and throwing the Vampyur himself out of your path with a duo of super missiles.
Energy Count 07(88)
You let the super missiles fly out at a heightened pace, machine gunning them out of your cannon in a burst of nine. The wolfpack robots in your path were reduced to smithereens, their escorts obliterated with similar wrath and fury. Still so many of them...you wish you had something to modulate the explosive radius of your missiles, especially when you noticed that Serp was in trouble as he faced a batch of Ubermensch on his own, downing one who disappeared in a flash, but rocking back on his heels from a volley of rotary gun fire.
Super Missile Count: 20/34
"Serp, down!" You said, looking to Caustos as their body thrashed its limbs of fire. The fire elemental's wild displays of heat made it stand out amidst the crowd of summons as Demons, Shadow Creatures, and Fire Elementals did battle with Nazis and the living dead, and you got an idea as Caustos called forth a rain of fireballs from a portal above.
"Caustos, hit the rocket troops, I'm going in." You said, pulling your attention away from cutting down what felt like the three hundredth ghoul with another sweep of your blade, your beam coming out so constantly in an attempt to clear out the chaff undead, robots, and soldiers you could see the heat distortions in front of your cannon. You redirected your beam fire, charging up and then releasing a shot to strike the first Ubermensch who stumbled briefly before you hit them with a second charged shot as the bouncing prismatic-star blast ricoheted around, incinerating the undead with tremendous vigour as they couldn't stand the solar light.
One of the rocket troops made a rather satisfying alarmed shriek before he detonated, his body teleporting out while you looked for a way to help Serp. Too far away for your Shock Coil, but close enough for your beam to shoot at one of the Necromancers reanimating the horde of skeletons trying to hack away at Serb after he had smashed them with a volley of enhanced fiery grenades that had reduced them to ash. More of the dead crumbled and you sighed with relief even while flipping around, shifting between forms and dropping explosives. He'd be safe, but a Wolfpack Robot's cannon striking you dead on mid-leap reminded you of just how much attention was on you; laser-sniper fire scalding into your shielding from hidden elites afterwards.
Energy Count 07(55)
You shot at the wolfpacks with your super missiles and then bombarded the snipers with the follow up burst; not even looking at the results while your sword stabbed into the chest of another Vampir who crumbled hissing and cursing at you after surging more dark energy into your shielding. So many incoming hits, so many enemies just digging into you as you fought your way towards Serp; rushing through the fire fields made by the elementals that were driving back many of the Nazis.
Super Missile Count: 15/34
Energy Count 07(39)
You charged in, jumping over a Volksritter and hitting him head on with a charged ice missile to encapsulate him in frost mid-swing before smashing him apart with a kick; grabbing his weapon before it could disappear with the mediport flash and throwing it into the eye of a Vampyr who had Serp pinned after he hacked apart a row of mekmen with his sickle, pressing through the burning shield around him and smashing aside a Demon. The Vampyr stood up and staggered with howling pain as the sword dug into his eye, flailing backwards before you slammed your fist into his back hard enough to shatter his spine and blocked a nictus missile lobbed Serp's way with your chest, scooting backwards a bit and panting as the dark energy rolled off of you.
Energy Count 07(28)
The Vampyr's attempts to get back up as its skeletal system regenerated in seconds and smother you in darkness were interrupted by Eudaimonica's whip curling around his neck and a sudden snapping sound as Battery tugged on the whip after running by it in a way that made you cringe reflexively. This time at least, the Vampyr teleported out while Eudaimonica sent forth some regenerative energy your way.
"Siggy don't let this be a biggy, just shine a bit brighter you knight!" She said as you drew in quintessence from fallen foes to restore some munitions and replenish the rest of your energy. You smiled a bit, it was...corny you supposed, but the cheer made you feel good about yourself. The enemy's numbers were thinning at least, filling you with two sensations...you didn't want this to be over already, but having to draw so much attention from everyone else was taxing your reflexes as you constantly moved out of the way of every incoming blow, getting tagged now and then from sheer mystically guided volume. It wasn't physically tiring, but your armour informing you that you had put down a four-digit count of foes and they were still coming was a bit disheartening. Not even the good sense to withdraw.
Super Missile Count: 30/34
Missile Count: 128/170
Energy Count 08(99)
"Sigtyr, Ghosts behind you!" Samus shouted as she looked to Nightcaster; busily engaging in a magical duel with a dozen mystics of the Thule society; clashing energies roiling in the sky like snakes wrestling with one another. No dice...but his Dark Servant...she whistled towards the shadowy mass of living darkness who was busy with sending forth a wave of inky tendrils to pull down Soldaten and Zombies alike and crush them into the dirt. You turned around and gritted your teeth; preparing the appropriate weapon for the situation.
Samus
Energy Count 07(97)
Missile Count: 105/175
Super Missile Count: 20/34
Universal Ammo Count: 160/240
The tricky thing about fighting the undead is that it was rather easier to get them back up and going than it was with the living. And your own beam weapon wasn't quite the absolute bane of just about everything unliving that Arne's was; due to being based on the Spazer and Electro-Wave beams. The Spazer Beam's bright light components did have an extra benefit, but it didn't mesh together quite as well as the Star Beam and Prism beam against the unliving. The sight of skeletons powering through incidental electric shocks that don't disintegrate them is getting rather tiresome. On the other hand, the machines that the foe brought have fallen before you by the hundreds; so you suppose it balances out.
"Winterpyre, anything you can do to..." You paused as you flipped over an Ubermensch trying to catch you with his fancy fisticuffs that you found rather flashy but perhaps not the most overly practical of movements. You shot him in the back with the Cryolyte and moved on, letting him and his friends stew in the icy cold that was now their prison. "Get the two into the fight?" You said, looking at Arne hacking through some of the ghosts with his arm-sword set wholly to Prism and Power beam mode. At least he seemed to be handling himself alright, that was good to know.
"Certainly young warrior, but if you would but give me a few moments while I am indisposed with this conflict." Winterpyre boomed as he smashed one robot headfirst into another, freezing a horde of zombies where they stood to shatter them with a hard clap of his hands and the resulting shockwave. When dark magic was thrown Ethan's way as he was trying to catch his breath after finding and then shoving a piece of chair through a vampire's chest; Winterpyre threw forth a wall of ice magic to block the bolt of destruction and then shoved the glacier wall forward to flatten the offending sorcerers, roaring in triumph.
He cracked open the earth and reached his h and through, dragging the two out of their confinement proofed against her prior mass teleportation spell and then tossing a fireball through the portal to send a pack of Wights scattering, shrieking and burning.
"Good day to you mortals, this may not be in your usual purview, but my young friend has made request for your assistance." He said in as polite a voice as possible while he grabbed an Ubermensch and flung him through a wall, the Demon Lord's minions rallying around him as corroding, burning, and freezing magics were thrown ahead of them as a curtain of firepower.
"I...are you the back up?" The Blonde One asked, her accent clearly German. With a closer look, her costume was relatively simple, a red and orange coloured tactical outfit with some extra armour gilded armour plating, clearly a few injuries here and there that Eudaimonica helped heal up before passing you a thumbs up, and some tears in the outfit's arms while bullet proofed vest had clearly seen better days. She was quite fit, and based on her appearance, probably in her mid twenties with a physique honed by a lifetime of conditioning and training, her blonde hair allowed to run past her shoulders plain and straight and her face covered by a half-mask with polarised lenses over the eyes that protected the upper half of her face, a flight oxygen mask she had detached; probably to protect against inhaled attacks; while her head had a military style helmet covering much of the rest.
"No I don't believe you summoned us." He said.
"Hey there! You can call me Aine! We came here to...investigate reports of nazi build up." You said, trying to figure out what you could and couldn't say on the fly before giving Battery some warning of an incoming barrage of missiles before, at your signal Arne jumped into their path and shook his head once he hit the ground; returning fire with his shock coil to lash through the Nacht Elites who had tried to paste the woman.
Arne Universal Ammo Count: 237/240
"Well...help is help." The redheaded one said, your suit informing you she was likely from the American southwest based on her accent. Her outfit seemed to have virtually no intention of protecting her, rather seeming to focus on being stretchy and elastic. Her form was heavily toned, even rather powerful, a two piece with an apparently discarded jacket, her red hair in a pony tail, and it seemed that she had either lost or had disposed of her gloves and boots. Though the way her skin shifted and rippled suggested that it might be because she might have altered her form in a way that damaged them, specially given that the damage to her outfit matched about where her musculature would have shi-you were staring...bad. You shook your head.
Gold Render is a Striker type Parahuman noted for her ability to damage most targets on touching them through violent spatial distortions. While this effect would have greatly reduced effect on your tissue and armour and would simply be registered as shielding damage, it lacks most limitations that these sorts of abilities have; with a low level version of these powers being used to offer Gertrude Braun defence against most projectiles and attacks, distorting space to cause them to miss or simply not connect. However she has a limited number of "tokens" to expend on this power every six seconds, the more damage she wishes to inflict the more energy she will have to expend; and exhausting her six-second store will lead to her defences failing entirely until recharging is complete. Esoteric forms of durability still protect against Render's abilities, and regenerative powers are ideal at surviving what she can dish out. She can imbue throwable objects with her Rending effect, usually making use of frisbees for control and distance. One of her most noted weaknesses though, is to gas attacks should she not have advanced warning of them, as her defences are usually permeable to gas to allow her to breathe. She's patient and relies on setting up the finishing blow in fights, rarely rushing in until she's got the touch needed to end a fight lined up and conserving her energy as best she can to avoid running out at the wrong time.
Gertude Braun was triggered by a sudden collapse of a building she was in at an early age by bright lights descending from a series of UFOs engaged in a dogfight overhead Wilhelmshaven. The trigger effect allowed her to escape the confinement, but the deaths of most of her family forced her into a long stay in the foster care system for a period of many years before being formally adopted into the Weiss Family. In that time, she was also taken care of by the state, which provided her with some degree of training and a salary for her work as part of a parahuman youth outfit dedicated to fighting superpowered criminals. But with the often gruesome effects of her powers when using them in combat should she not withhold from affecting organic tissue, she has struggled to gain much in the way of acclaim and always fights with a hand tied behind her back against most enemies outside of the endbringer fights she was often brought to due to the near certainty of her survival and ability to reliablydamage them. Something that frustrated her until she graduated out into a professional career that eventually brought her to the attention of the makers of the current facility where she found a new lease as a security officer following her hiring out by a Mysterious Benefactor.
Originally from Nevada, Betty Hargreave was triggered by being bitten by a rattlesnake without anyone around to provide her with the treatment necessary to preserve her life. In agonising pain for hours, the extradimensional shard bonded with her and provided her with the ability to adapt to pressures and situations; gradually growing more and more adapted to certain tasks and against certain threatening stimuli over time and repeat exposure; though adaptations usually come with trade-offs that require her to reset her adaptations for differing tasks. Rated as a Changer by the PRT, Betty gained a substantial deal of acclaim due to the versatility of her powers and excellent combat record even when holding back her ability to prevent herself from undergoing particularly visually unpleasant transformations due to the tendency to disturb people as well as the possibility of damaging her costume which is not protected from changes in size, the formation of sharp spikes, acidic secretions, or other adaptations she can make. However, her primary weakness has always been enemies who can present her with stimuli that would require contradicting adaptations to counter. She's boisterous and ready for a brawl however, confident with her abilities and eager to get into the thick of things.
Her adaptations also allow for an immensely accelerated healing factor, drawing from mass she doesn't have through alternate dimensions to keep her functional. It also makes her extremely difficult to kill for good, as her body will adapt to function with the missing organs while attempting to regrow them. Atomization or induced cellular degeneration is believed to be necessary to kill her for good as her regeneration can function from even extremely disrupted remains; though the more damage she has suffered the more time she needs to recover; and equipment lost will remain lost. Additionally, while difficult to kill; she is still possible to incapacitate through freezing, suddenly being rendered unconscious, being grappled, or removed from the battlefield. Her offensive ability is also generally inferior to her defensive ability, especially with her reluctance to undergo particularly extreme transformations. However, her ability to stand up to any of the endbringers and simply take their hits on the chin unless knocked out swiftly has made her a worldwide asset, leading to her recruitment to the cause of protecting this facility by a Mysterious Benefactor.
Right, then you had your ideas for where they should go. "Gold Render, take out the enemy knights with Battery. Sidewinder, help Sigtyr take hits." You said, analysing the situation briefly and then looking at them as Caustos turned into a fire tornado behind them and whirled their way through a whole horde of the undead who simply disintegrated into dust in the inferno generated by their swirling movements.
"...Hot." Gold Render said, making you tilt your head. Was that just a statement of the obvious or did they actually find that attracti-
Sidewinder slapped her across the head and shook at her. "Not the time for puns." She said, adjusting her thief style mask and looked at the situation before nodding at you.
"Come on, go!" You said while Molotok crashed next to you and made an audible "oof" upon impact.
"Very rude that man is..." Irinna complained, picking herself up and waving to you before she darted off again.
"Molotok, can you take out those last few snipers?" You said, seeing some of the Nacht soldiers lining up shots while you shot away some of the incoming wraiths, dispersing their forms with precision and grit and muttering an apology for each one slain.
"Ah yes, people with guns. Normal. Can do that! Should be much better than running from...ghosts. They are ghosts right? Trying to not think too hard about stuff I don't understand." You nodded and pushed her briefly out of the way before shooting a charging wraith; recoiling at its shriek that made Irinna cover her ears and grind her teeth before it vanished.
"Yes. Don't worry about them, we can take them. Just, take out the snipers. We can handle that." You said, trying your best to be inspiring and not sure if you managed to get past awkward and stilted. Irinna simply laughed in a way that made you a bit confused before running off, pushing herself with a kinetic burst to tackle straight into one of the Nacht Elites targeting the group.
"Anyone else need help?" You asked, trying to identify how things have changed so far and feeling a strange mix of...good but also disappointed when most everyone said they were fine for the moment, letting you bounce between some of the remaining enemies.
You dragged a necromancer into the air with the grapple beam and slammed him through some of his own zombies in between raking across the field with beam fire to cut down softer enemies as the magic duel that Nightcaster was engaged in ended in a spectacular blue, black, and white fireball of backlashing magics that vaporised an entire cabal of necromancers at once; causing countless undead to start to fall apart or go feral and directionless with their control networks cut. You made use of the opening, firing off your blink pack jumping into some now exposed knights and smashing into them with a shoulder check and pushing the lead one back far enough for you to line up a charged shot into them. Nine orbs of electricity slamming into their body and making them vanish in a satisfying pop.
You spared only a moment to glance back while you vaulted over the next knight's halberd swing, missiles clicking and coming out in a five shot rapid burst that pushed the foe backwards and set them up for a super missile to the back after blinking behind them; the obstacle clearing out of the way to let you see how your plan was going so far.
Samus Missile Count: 100/175
Samus Super Missile Count: 19/34
"Hey, you two; one second! Lemme do a trick for you!" He said as he made a rapid fire series of gestures that seemed to tire himself out a bit before casting out a quickened version of his usual suite of protections, shortly followed by Eudaimonica doing the same. A sight so heartwarming you barely even noticed the sword being driven into your back shielding by a knight as it caught you mid-leap. You grunted, but your adaptive systems had reduced the impact to a shadow of its former self.
Energy Count: 07(96)
You grabbed at the Volksritter's right hand with your left hand and then stabbed the sword into the Ritter's own throat, pulling back just as they mediported out and then swinging your own blade in a sweep with enough violence to hack through the pollaxe of another volksritter before yanking him in with the grapple beam eyefirst into the sharpened knee of your boot. Blinking out, you smiled as the Vampires; unable to see through the shadows Nightcaster protected you with, flailed around, trying to sniff you out as you looked back at Nightcaster.
"Are you doing alright?" You asked, seeing that the boy was slowing down, lurched over with his hands on his knees while he lazily cast a spell of Shade summoning again, barely even getting the gesture right and slurring the words a bit until he managed to replace some of his lost minions. Soldaten grabbed by them screamed in alarm as the shades leeched at their warmth, but you could tell that he was sweating from a brief glance at the colour of his scart.
"Yeah that'll....last ya...I can...do this all day...gonna, haaaah need to...pop some blues..." Nightcaster said taking out some blue square packaging and cracking them open to let a wash of fresh stamina flow into him. He stood up refreshed, giving you a thumbs up while his Umbral Beast Jackie grabbed a Panzerhunde by the neck and snapped her jaws until a popping sound was made, tail sweeping aside some ghouls before a sharp yelp came from her as a Volksritter stabbed his halberd into her.
"Jackie!" He shouted in alarm even as Eudaimonica shouted some words you were...pretty sure you shouldn't repeat in polite company about the man's parentage and mother before he found a hellfire whip wrapped around his neck and Nightcaster's staff smacking into his face. The sound of the umbral wolf's pain made your heart drop briefly, and you resolved to avenge it, shooting rapidly into the Volksritter until he vanished and leaping off to press your boot on the head of one of the vampires and smash it into the floor with a resounding crack.
"Is she hurt?" You asked, looking at purple blood oozing from the Umbral Beast's shoulder. A monstrosity of shadow magic it may be, but that halberd had drawn dark blood from it, and the creature was whimpering between her snarls and howls at her foes. However, a shadowman with a hat and some manner of plague doctor mask stepped from the darkness, tipping his hat to you as he infused fresh darkness into the wound, pulling from the shadows around you.
"Keep better care of her boss. I'm going around patching up enough injuries as is." The Shadow Doctor said, ducking beneath a clumsy swing from a Zombie and pulling out shadows from the skull of three skeletons and then launching them as darts into the Zombie's head until it ruptured. Such a fascinating creature...you wondered if he had a name, even as you completely thinned out a rank of skeletons until the remainder began to collapse after the disruption to their magic you had inflicted upon them.
"Hey, do you have a name?" You asked, the Doctor turning his head towards you while he grabbed at a Nacht Elite and did something that made the Elite stop struggling after screaming intensely for a few moments.
"Doctor Black will suffice." He said, adjusting his hat and looking ahead.
"You should handle your...hrm, partner would be the professional term." He said, dusting himself off while Nightcaster offered him a fistbump and received one in turn.
"Will do, keep doing that, you're great at it!" You said, grinning beneath your helmet and giving him a thumbs-up as an Uberoberst tried to deck you in the head with his fist, impacting and pushing you a bit to the side.
Energy Count 07(92)
"God damn extradimensional! What are you doing interfering in our business? This is to save far more worlds than you could possibly imagine!" He snarled as he swung again,your arm going out to check his swing while your cannon was sweeping through more and more enemies; exploding particles going in all directions and his gut getting a headbutt from you. While he lurched forward, you jumped onto his back; freezing his squad behind him with the cryolyte before pulling him off his feet and onto the ground.
"So you know something don't you?" You said, voice colder now. "Assault, Serp, get ready to disable this one once I get him closer to you."
"You can't make me talk hero." He growled, trying to kangaroo kick you only for you to teleport out of the way. His laser rifle flared to life, being used to sweep around while you raced ahead of his aim, baiting him into carving through a horde of wights threatening Battery and Gold Render. As Gold Render dealt with one of the Ritters and Battery suplexed one of the rights, plenty of undead trying to come to grips with them found themselves sawed in half just at the right moment, Battery looking up in confusion as a Mekmen she was preparing to kick into fell in half.
You teleported behind him again, smashing into his superhuman back to throw him forward, only for him to recover and turn around with a haymaker of his own this time getting his fist caught in your hand before you shoved him towards a waiting Assault who smashed him over the head with a steel chair hard enough to shatter the entire object, knocking him around with a loud CLANG that let Serp fire off a containment foam grenade that ensnared the oberst in rapidly expanding sticky pink goo.
"God damn you and your wretched team!" He shouted as he tried to tear off the foam with strength to throw tanks like toys, only to find that the foam expanded more and more as he tried to remove it.
"Make sure he's in a state to interrogate." You said as you blinked again, finding yourself in a position to drive your blade into the back of a Vampyr Kommandant, lifting him into the air and away from Arne and Betty. Shooting four super missiles into the remaining pack of Vampyrs as Arne finished off the last Necromancer with his shock coil, you dropped the Vampyr down while Sidewinder pulled the head off of a remaining robot. And for a moment, everything was silent.
Samus Super Missile Count: 15/34
Arne Universal Ammo Count: 229/240
"Hey, are you okay?" You asked, getting an affirmative nod out of him as he stood himself up straight out of his combat reflex position.
Arne
You stood amidst a field of the broken and the defeated and felt pretty good about yourself as Samus offered you a hand for you to pull each other in and give a gentle headbutt to one another. Your total counter for defeated enemies in this arena alone had increased to the thousands; most of them undead. Only the uberoberst remained, struggling against the foam that had sealed even his colossal strength for the time being; though he'd likely break free soon. He was an almost four meter tall behemoth; and taking him down seemed far too easy. Too simple. You had traded dozens of blows with him, he kept on recovering from them and pushing through.
For Samus to take him down so quickly seemed...something was amiss here and you didn't want to find out what it was in the wrong circumstances. Though on the other hand, was there such a thing as good circumstances for a trap?
A loyal and veteran member of the Nacht service of the Fifth Column for decades named Hermann Mannfred Vogt; Vogt has enhanced his biology with a combination of technology, magic, and organic engineering to turn himself into a fitting and unwavering example of the Uberobersts that serve as some of the 5th Column's most dangerous and reliable field commanders; below only those whose rank is high enough to place them into the Generalship of the organization. His strength is astonishing, and rises the more excited he gets or the more he hates a foe or values an objective; along with his durability and regeneration. Though he is outranked by the Generals of the Fifth Column, this is only because he refuses to leave field ops and wishes to remain where he can fight and make full usage of not only his strength and large arsenal, but also the wide array of combat techniques and skills learned over the years. He has also taken the sometimes dangerous route of ensuring that his intelligence is augmented as much as his body, braving the risk of personality alteration and meddling by the neurosurgeons to become an example of aryan perfection in body and mind.
With weapons teleporters, he can make use of a very large arsenal of weapons, and his powered armour not only provides the standard suite of power suit capabilities, but also fits an advanced command and control system that allows him to coordinate soldiers throughout the battlefield as if he were playing a video game. A task he can manage while focused on other high concentration jobs such as personal combat or engineering. Vogt's armour also self-repairs alongside him, and is extremely resistant to being disabled by EMP or electricity and is treated with a great deal of defences against magic. This allows him to wade into most confrontations with little worry or risk, and with the ability to shift thousands of tons with his raw muscle alone, his arsenal, skill, and power have allowed him to carry out countless missions.
Vogt is a dedicated Nazi and has been raised from birth in the ideals of the 5th Column and regards himself as impossible to subvert. While for the most part this is largely true, it does lead to a certain arrogance to his demeanour that can allow information to slip from his tongue when he deems those he's speaking to to be too inferior to figure out his actual meaning or make use of the information he offers. While resistant to most forms of damage, brain death will still suffice to end the fight due to the memory loss associated with it and the need to have his memory restored from back ups. He is also significantly prone to speaking at length whenever prompted, often distracting himself with his monologues.
Samus' Notes: He's lucky that he has information we need or I'd be happy to see just how good biopods are at repairing the body compared to restore stations. He's got the arrogance of someone who's never learned any humility in his entire life and everything about him just reeks with hubris.
Arne's Notes: There are so many people like him in the shadow group on Cylosis and at that space station. Buried in secrets and conspiracies, thinking they're above everyone else, and drunk on their own raw power. Gods willing, there will be less people like him shortly.
You turned your eyes towards Samus, looking a bit down at her and smiling as she stood a bit on her tiptoes. Every year the height difference between you two grew as she was approaching the tail end of her height growing years while you were still in the peak swing of yours.
"You think we can get anything out of him?" You asked, the both of you drawing in scattered quintessence pickups to put your ammo and energy back up to full.
"We have to. He's the best chance we have of understanding why they're here in the first place." She said.
"Yeah...but well...I'm not good at interrogating?" You said.
"Oh come on Ar-err Sigtyr you can always get answers out of well...me! And I'm really hard to read!" She said.
"Uhh...well...you like me, he doesn't." You said as she shrugged and made a little chuckle.
"I guess so. But come on, it's something we have to well, learn how to do and you know. Better start now than never right?" She said, her composure relaxing as she came out of the combat high. The battle focus dissipating and being replaced by the goofy, awkward girl you knew outside of the clarity of violence.
"Hey I happen to be great at interrogating." Ethan said as he stepped up to the Oberst as he struggled against his confinements.
"Should we let him do that or should we step in?" You asked, Samus seeming to freeze a bit when she realised everyone was looking at her. She nodded and walked towards the Uberoberst as he snarled beneath his helmet.
"Well hey there big guy, thought you'd prefer to talk to me, mister fellow white male. Gotta say, really nice work on the whole moving an entire army without anyone noticing thing. Now that's a hat trick that would have the PRT pissing itself if I've ever seen it." Assault said, leaning a bit closer towards the Oberst but not close enough for him to headbutt him.
"Ah so they send the babbling wisecracker to try to get secrets out of me?" He said, and you could see Samus clenching her fist and felt the warmth of her anger. And to be honest, the way this guy seemed so confident even in this situation was pretty infuriating in and of itself.
"Yeah I talk a lot, some people even call me annoying. Isn't that right Battery?" he asked before she flipped him the middle finger in response before looking back at the Oberst and pulling out one of the steel chairs to sit down, chuckling and shaking his head.
"She digs me."
"Were my hands free I'd dig you all the way into a grave. And your usage of American slang in Deutsch is abominable. I will hear no more of it." He said in flawless English, changing the language from German at the drop of a hat to try and catch Assault off guard, only for him to roll with it and shrug.
"Do you have a name or are you just another Oberst?" Samus asked, approaching him as he turned his helmeted head towards her, and then towards you in a way that made you flinch as brief memories of cylosis dug their way into your mind's eye. The callous glare, the skull-like rebreather, the immense stature of this nearly four meter tall behemoth of a man with muscles that could crack open the glacis of a tank-like an eggshell.
"Uberoberst Vogt, Nacht Division, Fifth Column, proud servant of the Weltreich and the Cosmic Axis. You are wearing alien armour." He said, making Samus flinch a bit and gasp slightly beneath her helmet before he looked straight at you and spoke. "As is he. Your armour reacted to the technology of the statues and the Nictus can smell the extraterrestrialness that clings to you like stench on rotten meat." He said confidently as you felt the urge to raise your arm cannon and shut him up.
"I cannot claim to understand the hieroglyphs near the bird statues, but I do recognise your sihlouettes on them. You are prophecised to come here, aren't you? From the same reality that those relics came in." He said with a voice so poisonously confident you wanted to smash his head in.
"Whoa, how does some Column clown like you know that much?" Nightcaster said as Doctor Black walked to his side, the summoned Shadowman dusting off his hands while the young wizard rode upon his umbral beast.
"The Column knows a great deal Paragonite. I'd advise you to focus on finding a way to go back home before we put how secure the FBSA's database of minor secret identities really is to the test. Can your spells protect your entire family I wonder? Your friends? Maybe there's something in your internet search history you'd rather people not know hrm? A teenage boy gets up to many scandalous things." He said before Samus slapped him hard enough to create a shockwave that echoed across the room, a pained grunt coming from him as he adjusted his jaw beneath his facemask.
"Torture doesn't get answers Fraulein, you should know that." He said, smugly confident even now as he seemed to be much less hurt than he was letting on, your eyes narrowing beneath your helmet.
"Stop faking it." You said, catching him on his wounded gambit as he let out a sigh and shook his head.
"And I was having such fun too. Shame." He said before Serp approached him and offered him a soda from the vending machine and tilted it towards him.
"I offer this to you freely, Tovarisch." He said with a smile beneath his helmet.
"Hahahahahaha! You get the communist slav to play nice with me? Are you people stupid or are you just that naive?" His laugh was unpleasant and made your stomach do knots, but it was starting to awaken something much less pleasant in Samus.
"Hermann." You said, getting him to glare at you in a way so cold you could almost imagine the icicles forming on your armour.
"Hermann Mannfred Vogt, age fifty-three, born to Eva Weiss Kohl and Paul Werner Vogt." You said, hoping to catch him off guard and turn the tables by showing him that he wasn't as secretive as he thought he was.
"Expecting me to be impressed?" He said, trying to regain his composure.
"I'm expecting you to shut up." You snapped back with only the barest hint of irritation in your voice.
"What did they call you? Sigtyr? Going around with the name of Odin and speaking with an impeccable nordic accent. What a waste it is that we have to fight you." He said, but Samus beat you to the response.
"He's not joining you, ever." She hissed.
"Celtic furor, wonderful aine, absolutely splendid." He snorted before you decided to push your advantage.
"You don't know who provided the funding for this facility do you? It's part of why you're here isn't it, to find out?" You said, noting that not one of the scan logs you were able to pick up could provide any details as to who provided the surely enormous amounts of money needed to set this place up.
"Clever."
"You've allowed yourself to be captured. So I'm guessing you need us to do something. Open this vault I guess? Do you even know what's on the other side?" You said, gesturing towards it and then looking back at him.
"Maybe they don't think he's important enough to know?" Samus offered.
"Hrm, he's just a Colonel I guess. Couldn't have that much clearance." Battery offered before you sensed a flash of anger from the Oberst.
"That vault contains treasures that these idiots don't even understand the proper usage of! They think it's just another alien artifact to lock away, to poke at according to instructions they don't comprehend! Godhood lies on the other side of those doors, more certain than any number of xenos black boxes!"
"So...a power granter?" Molotok said.
"No and yes." Winterpyre said, snorting as he approached the Uberoberst and snorted out coils of green corrosive hellfire.
"Wait, which one is it?" Assault asked.
"Now that Vogt has volunteered the information. Yes, I sense shards of truly old power in there. That is your primary objective isn't it? The power of the Incarnates. Fire of the Gods; here in a different metaverse through means unknown to me." The Demon Lord said, his deep voice crackling with internal fire.
"We talking metaphorical power of the gods here or what Beelzebub?" Golden Render said.
"Not one of my names but I'll let it slide. But no, I mean it very viscerally. Incarnate power is one of the primary ingredients of divinity. A path to greater things than even standard metahuman powers. Which makes the rest of this raid..." He said before Samus stopped him.
"A distraction."
"You all must think you're terribly clever for figuring out that one. And after all your giant robot friends have gone and tied themselves down. Pity you couldn't figure it out sooner. Oh well, I've stalled long enough. My pick-up should be arriving soon. Now, to telepo-" He said before Winterpyre snapped his fingers and made infernal incantations to open a gateway beneath Vogt.
"What the f-" He shouted before fiery chains grabbed at him; erupting into fire that seemed to burn at the soul rather than the flesh while low pitched laughter and the smell of sulphur filled the air. The screams of the damned echoed throughout the air and monsters beyond counting leered at their new guest as visions of citadels in hellblasted wastes and rivers of fire filled the eyes of all who looked into the portal. The realm of the Demon Winterpyre, the Chillblaze. The now damned man clearly recognised his now inescapable fate and screamed as the chains began to reel inwards while demonic hands reached out for him, chanting his many sins into his ears and pulled him into a green and orange fiery abyss with cackling demons slavering to greet him, his screams of sudden realization silenced as a beast of molten metal and chains dragged him rather literally into hell.
"...Miss, please don't do that...ever... with that projection of yours...at least where I can see...like...fuck." Battery said as everyone alternated between staring at the Demon, staring at Eudaimonica who offered a shrug, and then staring at the ground where the Hellmouth was briefly opened.
An upgrade was left behind from his powerful lance laser rifle, something that only recently caught your attention as you decided to quickly claim it for yourself and the nearby Samus before anything else could happen.
The Laser Lancer is a continuous fire subweapon that consumes universal ammunition at a rather rapid rate, but is both pinpoint accurate and propagates far faster than many enemies can dodge when aimed well. The rapid heating effect of the laser will burn, cut, and explode its way through most targets, and as a light weapon, the Laser Lancer is also quite effective against light sensitive undead, though less so than true luminal weapons. It is primarily considered a pyronic weapon, and can be charged to temporarily fire a much wider and more powerful Laser Lance known as the Macrolaser. A number of design flaws in the original weapon have been corrected for your usage; eliminating the wind up needed to fire the weapon, the heat build up, and diminishing efficiencies at long range due to diffraction.
Samus' Notes: Hrm, this seems like it should be very useful. I'd need to improve my UA stockpile though to get the best use out of it. Find something to let it penetrate through enemies and cover too...
Arne's Notes: Hrm, so basically a longer ranged shock coil that won't feed back energy into me but can't phase through obstacles as well? Interesting. I'd like to mess around with it a bit at some point.
"She does that. They don't get like, tortured or anything...they just get spooked, it's like summer camp except not fun. So...basically summer camp." Was all nightcaster had to say before the lights began to dim and darken while electricity started to gather in large quantities and all the hairs on the back of your neck began to stand themselves up as the distant sight warned you of an incoming fight.
------CAUTION------
THULE SOCIETY COUNTER-META TEAM
Schwarze Hexarchie
Samus
They came a group of six seemingly on their own, but their menace exceeded that of the army which preceded them, and one need only look at them to tell that six could easily become more if they so desired to fill the field with bodies. At their centre was a fourteen year old girl dressed as a rather stereotypical witch, her scarlet red hair extending well past her shoulders, fierce green eyes full of mischief, left hand clutching a staff that crackled with electricity and was capped with a large emerald grasped in a claw on either end. Long boots and a splendid red coat completed her look along with black gloves, her countenance too young and pretty for the Thule society Swastika armband she wore around both arms or the corrupted Nordic runes she wore as lapels; speaking of the glory of Volk and Vaterland.
"Ta-da! We're all here everyone! You can thank me whenever you like!" She said, seeing all this as just a game and clearly enjoying herself based on the way she was flashing a performer like grin as everyone got into fighting positions.
A monstrous bat like creature was the next to catch your eye, the shape of their leathery wings which stretched for fifteen meters and complemented a body some ten meters tall giving you a brief fright as you found yourself briefly at the site of the pyre of K-2L; waist deep in the dead and smothered in smoke as the malignant purple beast ahead delighted in his savage cruelty. Barbed tail and fingers covered in blood and teeth dirtied with the fruits of a crimson feast. Fight or flight, kill or be killed, to the end to the death.
But the roar of the creature was wrong, they were not the self proclaimed cunning god of death, just an undead monstrosity and you snapped back to reality, realising you had been just standing there as Arne stepped back and clenched his teeth, gasping slightly before you grasped at his hand; the two of you calming down slightly. You were still tense, still afraid, you didn't want to be here, but you had to be. It had to be bested if that power the demon spoke of was to be kept out of the hands of the beasts who held the vampire's leash.
Vampiric fangs emerged from their mouth, their body alternating between walking upon their wings in a quadrepedal stance or stomping along like some kind of predatory dinosaur, quilled tail lashing behind them. They were cunning, but the savagery in their eyes was all animalistic, lacking the true forward-thinking sophontic cunning that made the beast of your nightmares so fearsome. Their ladel like tongue slavering for blood as their rider stepped down.
A monster in the shape of a man, worse than even the creature he was riding on, clad in unholy plate and wielding a sinister sword in one hand and a powerful shield on the other, his eyes burning a sinister red through the openings in his drake winged helmet as a predatory growl emerged from his throat. Dark power congealed around him, spite and disdain radiating from him as he looked at the Demon Lord as perhaps the only worthy challenge in the whole group.
"So you are the group that has caused us so much trouble. It would seem that our hired help was not able to best you then. How very much like them to disappoint us in this way. Nevertheless, you do not face the dregs of the Column or the Gesellschaft, but the wrath of the Thule Society and the Nictus, red and raw. Something not even the Demon Lord you cavort with could hope to stand against." He says with a voice that was deep and menacing yet smooth and pleasant. A seductive, fatherly sort of evil promising power and grandeur if one would but succumb to him and what he offered as his eyes lit up with starker flames.
"You presume a great deal, bloodsucker." Winterpyre snorted as a man in a much more conventional caped and armoured costume stepped forward, your visor informing you that this man shared his body with another. A Nictus Nightspawn, one of the alien benefactors of the Reich that you've heard a bit about so far but were now confronted with the stark reality of. A beast wearing a man as a glove, the shadowy monster within stalking forward, walking around at the edges while a forlorn looking ghost white woman floated nearby him as his burning purple eyes studied you all a little closer.
"How a team such as yours was formed is beyond me. But now that you know of our purpose here, you won't be getting any farther."
"Why do you want to hit Brockton Bay?" You said, walking in pace with him with your arm cannon out.
"Our reasons are not for you to question. Only know that these worlds are to be the site of a war far beyond the imaginings of these single planet dwellers. You can either join the only side that will guarantee humanity's future, or you can perish with the rest." He said with his self-echoing and malevolent voice that sounded like someone whispering into a megaphone.
"Like hell you're hitting the Bay." Assault growled.
"Things are already in motion. Even if this goal is denied to us...there are other things we desire here. And there are things your city is built atop you would never rest well knowing about." The ghost said while the Witch made a "blah blah blah" motion with her hands.
"Look, we're here for a fight aren't we?" She said, a miserable wretch like creature in a gas mask that crawled on too many legs that seemed to explode into stilts at odd angles, hellish wailing and dozens of screams emerging from it in muffled form between rapid fire filtrated breaths; its body periodically melting into the shadows while the eyepieces of its gas mask constantly burned a sinister white. The trench coat and stahlhelm it wore seemed overly well fitting for something so obviously inhuman, its head twisting and cracking at grotesque angles while it screamed in a dozen languages; all as incoherent as each other. The girl seemed to flinch at that, and everyone was clearly giving it considerable berth as the stand off continued.
The Kheldians are an energy symbiont species native to a star in the Sourcewell Metaverse with a natural lifespan of roughly ten years, however, they can indefinitely extend this through the process of melding. The melding process composites the abilities of the Kheldian itself and the host; as well as their personalities and identities into a new individual referred to as the merged. During the period of being merged, the composite will usually take on a new name and have a wide array of powerful abilities including enhanced durability, flight, gravity alteration, energy projection and manipulation, increased reflexes and strength, the ability to self-regenerate through energy expenditure, and even shapeshifting by assuming the form of prior hosts that the Kheldian had. When a Kheldian and a host separate, both resume their prior identities, though they retain memories of the merged personality's actions and will relapse into the merged personality if they ever recombine. Aging after maturity ceases after melding, allowing a merged entity to sustain themselves seemingly indefinitely so long as the host lives.
Kheldians are most vulnerable to quantum fluctuation weapons specifically designed to disrupt their energy form, causing tremendous damage to the energy body of the Kheldian and debilitating injury to the host that requires significant power or preparation to resist and avoid swift defeat by. However, Kheldian mergers are considered some of the most versatile and consistently powerful metahumans in the Primal Earth Dimension and are never to be taken lightly. Kheldians primarily seek out traditionally heroic hosts, preferring the company of the noble and pure-hearted; with mergers typically being called Peacebringers on Primal Earth. The Kheldian government is well known as an intergalactic socialist republic, with no concept of private property amongst Kheldians and mutual aid and common planning of resource use to ensure all have their needs met being hallmarks of the Kheldian Community. Kheldians prefer to resolve matters democratically, but do elect delegates when needed.
The Kheldian Community has been locked in a millions of years long civil war with a fascistic splinter of their society known as the Nictus who modified themselves into beings of darkness and gave themselves the ability to merge without consent and consume life force. The Kheldian-Nictus War has been the focal point of Kheldian society for its duration, even above attacks on both by third parties who seek to utilise their power for their own ends or simply be rid of them.
Samus' Notes: It's a shame we aren't meeting too many of these at the moment though, such an interesting society. I'd love to just have some conversations with them, their experiences would be so different! I'm wondering if any might want to merge with me...it'd be an interesting experience. But I still have so many other things to do and see. Not sure if I could take on another aeon long war on top of everything else. Maybe Arne would be good with a Kheldian? It'd sure help him to deal with Zurvduat's abuse. On the other hand, both of us have a lot of painful memories to share; I wouldn't want to pass that on to anyone else, would it be as hurt as I am when it remembers K-2L? And to be at war for so long...there must be so much pain in so many of their veterans to see that much death.
Arne's Notes: I don't think they'd be too interested in me. It seems like a fascinating culture, but could I really meet their criteria for a good host? I'm still just...trying. I don't think I'm actually there, still so many pieces to put back together. An interview with one would be very interesting though, just the...idea of such a mutable sense of self must result in some really unique perspectives. I feel concerned though, that an entire class of weapons exists just to counter this species' physiology. Is the divide in their own species that serious? But I'm glad that despite the length of their war they seem to have held onto the better parts of their society. But what can we do to put an end to that magnitude of hatred?
The Nictus are an artificial species derived from the Kheldians from the Sourcewell Metaverse. While the ability to meld with another being into a new composite entity remains present in both the Kheldians and the Nictus; the Nictus are differentiated by their modifications to allow themselves to take over a body without consent and to drain energy. The transformations have also transformed them into beings of negative energy and darkness as opposed to the luminous natures of the species they branched off of. Nictus have mirrored versions of Kheldian abilities based on darkness and crushing usage of gravity as opposed to light and repulsion. The Nictus prefer to partner with fascists, viewing their ideology as compatible with the Nictus worldview and philosophy of the Path of the Dark, where all life exists to feed and bolster the strongest and the fittest who are able to enforce their will on the weak. This is mirrored in their own heavily stratified hierarchy.
Nictus also give themselves and their hosts the ability to teleport, and typically a Nictus merging that is done unwillingly sees the Nictus completely take over the host. Nictus hosts retain enhanced abilities but typically have a lesser focus on raw, direct offensive power; relying instead on versatility, debilitation, and rapidly alternating between forms to keep a foe off balance. They are also able to drain many forms of energy, even using it to spawn temporary controllable entities of dark energy from slain opponents. However, they also remain vulnerable to quantum weapons like Kheldians. Some Nictus however, reject the Path of the Dark and instead return to Kheldian values of consent and oppose the Nictus Conclave; becoming Warshades. Whereas Kheldians primarily seek hosts who fit more traditional definitions of heroism, Warshades are more likely to seek out those of a rougher cut in their opposition to evil; but remain committed to defeating tyranny and the Nictus Conclave.
The Nictus define themselves in opposition to the Kheldians and their philosophy and society. The Nictus-Kheldian war is one of the longest and oldest in the Sourcewell metaverse and has seen many planets and civilizations utterly consumed by it in their relentless battle to the annihilation. The Nictus have rebuffed every overture of peace by the Kheldians, their leadership being content with nothing less than total victory, and have gleefully moulded many species towards their own ends to wage their war and build a vast and powerful empire under the Path of Dark.
Samus' Notes: I...feel certain premonitions about the idea of darkness derived creatures possessing things against their will or beings that feed off of life force. None of them good, and everything about these creatures gives me an unpleasant feeling. Such a monstrous set of abilities in the hands of something so evil. I shudder to think of what their plans for this dimension would entail. But I'm going to put a stop to them! Just wait! As for the warshades, it's good to know that evil is a choice for the Nictus rather than anything inherent. I'm glad a lot of them can find redemption, but I don't think either of us would suit a Warshade.
Arne's Notes: I think I would have more in common with a Warshade than a Kheldian. Assuming one would have any interest in merging with someone still trying to pull themselves together...but the thought of a species that specifically modified itself to violate consent makes me feel so gross. To change yourself to violate another being in that way is abominable. And to devour life force of other beings just to sustain your own life is so monstrously selfish. I'm hoping an end can be put to the Empire as a whole. We can probably at least stop whatever they want with these two versions of Earth. That'd be a start.
Dunkleskind is a monstrous creation of Reich Earth's meddling in Dark Magic and its willingness to disregard any ethics or risks when it comes to the pursuit of power. Born of the stiched together souls of dozens of Children with talent in dark and shadow magic, Dunkleskind was infused into an artificial body that writhes in constant pain; kept loyal by continual psychic assault into its senses by a number of implants distributed throughout its body, infusing it with loyalty to Nazi ideology and hierarchy. The spawn of the Thule Society's works, Dunkleskind turns its pain into rage and an instinctual usage of dark magic patterned off of the talents of Bose Hexe who regards the creature proudly as the fruit of her labour.
Dunkleskind is virtually immune to further pain and as such is extremely difficult to stagger when struck. They are able to melt into the shadows to avoid attacks, teleport into dark places not occupied by objects, or extend shadows for usage as weapons, though this is reliant on their ability to concentrate on the proper targets. They can also mould shadow to form armour and heal themselves, leading to them being more vulnerable when brightly illuminated as this reduces the number of avenues they can attack a foe through. However as shadows grow starker in more intense light, while they can use less darkness under such conditions; the shadow they can use is more intense, allowing them to single out a target to a greater degree.
When slain, the Dunkleskind will leech life energy from nearby enemies to reanimate itself. While insufficient to cause damage, this will stun targets with weaker constitutions. Ensure that no allies are within its line of sight when it dies to prevent it from resurrecting itself to avoid disruption ot the team; and eliminate it before this ability is able to be recharged. Due to the Dunkleskind's savage temperament and animalistic demeanour, it also lacks much in the way of complex strategization and can be easily kited between multiple combatants, lashing out at the last being to injure it due to its relatively primitive decision making abilities. They are classified as a stalker, indicating a preference for melee combat, stealth tactics, some additional durability measures, and the ability to deal greater critical damage on surprised or unwary foes that they can access weak points of.
Samus' Notes: Hopefully it won't be suffering for much longer. I'm sorry for what we have to do now. But I won't be sorry for what I'm going to do to the people who made you this way.
Arne's Notes: I can just feel the pain radiating off of it. I can hear it screaming inside. Existing like this is worse than whatever death we can give it. Maybe it'll find a better existence in its next life.
Ermendrud Rotkopf von Horstmann is one of the many children of Idonia Jarvia von Horstmann; the human half of the composite known as Bose Hexe; and is regarded as her least favourite due to a number of factors; such as her being the product of a bargain with a Fae Prince captured by idonia in exchange for his freedom and her having scarlet red hair and brilliant green eyes instead of the blonde and blue pairing of all of Idonia's other children. Ermendrud is noted as a poor student of the tenets of national socialism and while a skilled and capable Witch, has never quite earned the approval of her Mother, particularly after her merging with the Nictus Cold Malice. Ermendrud however has strived for excellence in the fields of Electromantic magic in particular; though she dabbles in other fields. Her magical education is prioritised in descending order around battlefield control, attack, summoning, defence, and support. While versatile, she has clear preferences in how she uses her magic and is obviously more skilled in some places than others; and as such is generally considered a Dominator by Primal Earth's classification scheme for metahumans.
While capable of substantial damage output, much of her defence relies on preventing enemies from hitting back through offensive output or locking them down with her spells. And while her battlefield control abilities are potent, many of them either rely on her getting close to do her best work, and to lock down more powerful opponents requires either repeat castings or building up a charge of magic over repeat castings that unlocks a heightened state where her spells are considerably more potent. In this state; she is also virtually impossible to lock down herself and considerably more durable, making her more willing to get in close to do her work before retiring to the backlines and focusing on more isolated or distracted opponents. However, her spellcasting requires focus, stamina, and verbal-somatic gestures to cast properly. Interfering in her ability to preform the proper rites will limit her ability to cast her spells and if she should tire out; her ability to cast spells will diminish. Thus making her reliant on leeching energy from other sources for long fights or support metahumans feeding her with more energy.
In terms of physical strength, reflexes, and durability; she is broadly inferior to you and due to being a child of one of the leaders of the Thule Society; is a high priority for mediportation and will evacuate the battlefield upon taking any injury that draws blood. As a child, she also lacks in a great deal of emotional maturity and due to her extensive inferiority complex; handles taunts poorly. She is also ill-disciplined and rowdy and will often ignore the commands of her superiors to pursue objectives that she feels are more important. According to her mandatory social media profile's compulsory thrice daily posts, she keeps an Affenpinscher known as Donar as her familiar but rarely risks injury to him by bringing him to the battlefield. According to this profile, the Dog's name comes from the loudness of his barks and its tendency to wake her up at night by speaking to other familiars at her academy. He is however "the bestest boy".
Samus' Notes: Despite everything, I think she can be a good person if we just help her get free from her regime. She's too young to die for this kind of fight...but how can I free her without making her an orphan? Is it right to kill her mother to remove her influence over her? I'll need to think about it...something has to be done. Old Bird would know what to do, and I think I know what he would do now. Her family of blood might be terrible, but we can help her find a new one. I'm going to try.
Arne's Notes: A family that doesn't love you back, a home that never offers any comfort. Pushing yourself constantly to try and impress people who don't ever seem to care. Who am I describing? But, if it wasn't too late for me. Maybe it won't be for her? But what can I even say to someone like her? I still don't...know how to feel about my own adoptive family, what good can I be for her?
A native of Reich Earth and an observer from the Nictus sent to monitor their allies, Dammerungsmann was once Johann Kemmler, a young recruit in the Hitlerjugend before the Nictus known as the Unquiet Dusk; a spawn of the Nictus known as Cold Malice who forms one half of the composite entity known as Bose Hexe took over Johann's body at a young age following the death of their prior host during a pacification operation on a newly conquered world. The Unquiet Dusk, having the opportunity to alter Johann's body from prepubescence, quickly came to dominate Johann and subjugated his personality almost completely. Dammerungsmann is a powerful Nictus Nightspawn, and has all the abilities expected of a potent Nictus-Human merger. Abilities include gravitic manipulation (Alert: User lacks gravity modules, movement may be impeded), dark energy generation and manipulation, super strength, reflexes, and durability, the ability to self heal, usage of darkness to empower self, teleportation of self and others (Alert: Allies lack your immunity to forcible teleportation), and transformation into energy replicas of prior hosts; such as the Black Dwarf form for greater physical strength and resilience or the Dark Nova form for greatly increased firepower and flying capabilities.
Dammerungsmann is resilient against nearly all forms of damage, but has a weakness to Quantum modulation weapons (Alert: Only Arne has this weapon. Share upgrades with Samus immediately to increase number of combatants with viable weapons. This will require some time for the armour to replicate the upgrades and must be timed well), and is somewhat less vulnerable to corrosion and heat based attacks than he is to most other attacks. And while having a large array of ranged attacks, his lack of dedicated melee weapons gives you an advantage in close quarters with the arm-sword due to superior reach. If damaged sufficiently, Dammerungsmann will teleport out of the battlefield rather than fight to the death or mediportation. Forcing a battle without letting him flee will require a dimensional lock device or ability.
Another weakness is that Dammerungsmann's abilities are optimised for dealing with large numbers of opponents, forcing him to deal with one target at a time limits his ability to deal damage. He also has difficulty with maintaining his tempo of attacks due to his significant energy draw; typically relying on allies to give him small and harmless portions of stamina to keep his abilities charged. Removing him from the presence of allies also weakens him as the power he siphons from them is cut off; power usually corresponding to the role that ally serves; durable allies enhance his resilience, high firepower allies enhance his striking power and so on so forth. Separating him from his allies will decrease his ability to cause harm, but this can be difficult due to his ability to teleport. They are classified as a Nightspawn, indicating a highly versatile mix of abilities derived from unreformed Nictus physiology.
Samus' Notes: I hope Arne can pass me that Quantum beam in a hurry. And I'm really wishing we had the gravity boost right about now. I'm also wishing there was something, anything we could do to separate Johann from Dusk. Maybe if I had more data I could figure something out. But would there even be a lot left of him after all this time?
Arne's Notes: To have your entire life stolen from you like this to be someone else's puppet. To grow up without once being in control of your own thoughts and to mature without ever being yourself. Was this going to be my fate under Zurvduat? Could I have ended up like this?
A heavily degenerated Vampire of exceptional power that has regressed into an animalistic Chiropteran state due to Bose Hexe's magic to punish an unruly subordinate, Todesscheri retains their prior intellect, but their personality has been wholly subsumed into a violent bloodthirsty predatory instinct. While the transformation has dulled much of Todesscheri's former magical capabilities into simple augmentations or instinctual usage of detection spells and other direct aids for finding and dealing with prey without having to think about or make complex incantations. In exchange, their physical prowess has increased tremendously, as has their ability to absorb damage and regenerate it through many unnatural means of defense and contingent bursts of dark magical energy to knit themselves back together. An instinctual ability to push other undead into its service allows Todesscheri to serve something of a command role within the Thule Society despite their degenerated state.
A rather agile flier, Todesscheri is heavily driven by a ravenous desire to consume blood and will overlook heavily armoured or shielded targets to go after softer foes unless forced to engage with them to access easier prey. As an undead being, Todesscheri does not truly feel pain and will ignore most injury until destroyed. Even missing limbs will be rapidly regrown by Todesscheri even without a supply of blood to draw on, and so long as more blood is available, Todesscheri is nearly unkillable without the means to exploit a Vampire's weaknesses or raw firepower to incinerate them all at once. Todesscheri has access to tremendous strength and magically sharpened claws and can release powerful dark magic assisted shrieks that can be shaped for wide area bursts, powerful cones, or cutting beams of sonic pressure and death magic. Their effects can range from shattering to cutting to explosive shockwaves or even stunning attacks, and serve as Todesccheri's primary ranged attack followed by quills released from their tail or cutting shockwaves from their claws.
Light-based weapons, strong displays of faith, silver implements, and being impaled through the chest with wooden implements all serve as weaknesses for the Vampiric monstrosity. They are also remarkably poor at dealing with agile land targets, especially ones that assail their hearing and make their echolocation more difficult to use should line of sight be broken. Certain sonic frequencies do cause it to feel something akin to pain and panic, particularly of frequencies consistent with religious hymns spoken with true devotion. Todesscheri often serves as a mount for the Vampire Blutsspitze when they aren't bringing in other creatures to ride into battle or are not fighting on foot, and Blutspitze serves as Todesscheri's primary handler. Todesscheri will respond violently to attempts to cause harm to Blutspitze unless he directs them elsewhere, and will seek to intercept attacks aimed at him. Todesscheri only seems to fear Bose Hexe, showing a tremendous degree of fear and deference to the Nictus Nightspawn that is seen from virtually no other being without necromantic compulsion. They are classified as a Brute, indicating a focus towards receiving hits for team mates, a great ability to force enemies to focus upon them to the exclusion of other targets, a strong emphasis on melee attack, and some manner of ramp up where the longer and more intense of a fight they are in, the more damage they are able to deal.
Samus' Notes: This thing is suffering constantly, so much hate and...fury. It's so...awful. What kind of monster is Bose Hexe to transform anything into this? The way the wings move and the evil in its eyes make me...uneasy...but I can do this...I have to...I have to kill it. I need to.
Arne's Notes: Mother, Father, keep me from these winged beasts. Preserve me from fear, so I don't succumb in the worst moment. I see the leathery wings of a monster, but you are there...so I shan't fear. I shan't...
Once Baron Heinrich Werner von Geltmann, Blutspitze was a nobleman of the Holy Roman Empire in the 900s before an encounter with a Vampire transformed him into the ancient monstrosity Blutspitze in 987 A.D. Though eventually banished to Nifelheim by a priestess of Freyja in 1056 during a genocidal expedition to northern Scandinavia to purge pagan hold outs; he managed to survive and thrive. Wandering through other dimensions and preying on the inhabitants he could find, honing his skills until Weltreich sorcerers extracted him to serve a new Reich and leader. Heinrich swore fealty to the Thule Society, the Nazi Party, and the Reich and proudly serves as one of the Thule Society's most well regarded elites and generals. While his magic is almost entirely support and summoning oriented with just a few handfuls of ranged attack options, he is a durable and wily combatant with tremendous skill and monstrously enhanced physicality not merely due to his dark magic and nature as an ancient vampire, but also through his arsenal of enchanted gear. His plate armour, forged in a dark dimension is capable of withstanding sustained super missile fire from yourself and his weapons of choice; his lance and blade, are able to threaten your shielding with a combination of their magic and his raw power. His shield is virtually impervious to your current weapons, and will deflect any attack that strikes it back to the sender with doubled strength while recharging him with dark energy.
The more foes he is surrounded by, the more powerful his attacks become, and his aura of dread makes it difficult for foes to respond rationally when he has their attention, forcing them to engage with him when he approaches them and strikes them. He is also capable of moving extremely quickly, especially when on the charge; and grants his mounts some of his swiftness and vigour; while his shield enhances the defences of all allies close to him; while the more allies he has near himself the greater his defences become. He is virtually impossible to knock over, freeze in place, or otherwise lock down with control abilities and both himself and his equipment regenerate with unnatural speed even without using spells to reinforce his dark magic constitution; especially when he has access to blood to feed his unnatural hunger. Due to his magical equipment, he has enhanced resilience against heat based attacks and electricity and the ability to outright teleport short distances as well as enhanced resilience to magic. Due to being gifted with a Nictus shard by Bose Hexe, he also has some measure of Nictus powers such as Dark Energy projection and life drain; but he also has a weakness to Quantum Modulation weapons in exchange.
He retains most of the typical weaknesses of Vampires, and his arrogant demeanour and unbearable pride will lead him to rising to any challenge thrown his way. While close combat with him is suboptimal, he will easily tunnel vision on a single opponent; especially if they can provide him with a worthy fight. Both himself and his armour are weak to light based weapons and due to the nature of his banishing curse, he is particularly vulnerable to displays of faith and attacks made with sincerely made prayers before them. He is also specifically barred from striking lethal blows or inflicting long term injuries on children and cannot order anyone under his authority to do the same due to Freyja's curse. Violating this curse injures him as if he were in sunlight and should he ever slay a child by his hand or direct order, he would be destroyed. He may however, fight to render a child unable to keep fighting so long as it is done without maiming, or he may fight to destroy equipment. He is classified as an Overlord, indicating a spread of abilities split between Melee, Defence, Support, and Summoning capabilities with a particular emphasis on leading their forces from the front.
Addendum: Thaumatological analysis indicates that Heinrich is not necessarily the same variety of vampire as the others, showing similar deviations from Sourcewell Metaverse norms as much of the Necromancy utilised by the Thule Society.
Samus' Notes: If he can't fight to kill me, then I should try to exploit that. I can't let him get near the adults or he's going to slaughter them. Spirits and Gods of the Elders, watch over me as I put this leech back in the ground.
Arne's Notes: There are many things I imagined doing after turning fourteen. I'm...not entirely sure that fighting a vampire lord was on that list. But he's got plenty of exploitable weaknesses at least. I figure he's the actual leader of this team; so if I can just split him off from his group.
Once the Noblewoman Maria von Tirpitz in life; Maria dabbled extensively in dark magics in an attempt to save her county from the ravages of the thirty years war until she was burned to death for witchcraft at the command of a Protestant Witchslayer who then had the entirety of the town she was attempting to protect razed. The barbarity of her punishment for her efforts to save her people and the cruelty of the punishment visited upon those people trapped her in the world without any hope of passing on into the afterlife due to her rage against Heaven that would allow such a thing to happen in its name. Now the Wailing Queen, Maria would start to manifest in her old haunt when her murderer visited the field again at the helm of another mercenary army to ready to fight the Spanish. The outrage of her resting place being defiled by the same man made her manifest in ethereal rage and slaughter the man and scatter his army to the winds. And to this day, she still cannot bear to suffer the presence of Huguenots and while repelled by the symbols of most faiths to some degree depending on the faith of the user; Protestant religious symbols only serve to enrage and empower her.
Maria was then bound into the service of the Thule Society by Bose Hexe, who forced the Wailing Queen into the service of the Third Reich with her incantations. Though Maria resents her servitude, she is unable to resist the commands of one of the high mistresses of the Thule Society and as such now kills at the behest of the Weltreich's Nazi regime. She longs to free herself, but has little means of retaliating against the Thule society. And so she suffers her service in relative silence. Ironic given her name. Though she has been known to vent her rage against some German protestants now and then, the leash that the Thule society keeps upon her is tight enough to prevent her from causing any long term issues.
Her magics have only grown stronger and deadlier in undeath, and her ethereal body is difficult to harm while slipping past many forms of mundane protection; and while somewhat fragile to attacks that can connect with her, hitting her in the first place is difficult. Most dangerous however, is her banshee wail which can not only cause great damage but can also cause the weaker minded or willed to simply die outright upon hearing it; though your progenitor physiology, armour, and the magic of Nightcaster, Eudaimonica, Doctor Black, and Winterpyre will block it out. She is also a mediocre melee combatant against those who can both close with her and actually touch her body. She is classified as a Corruptor, indicating that her abilities are focused on ranged damage and support with relatively weak defences, little focus on summoning or control, and that she explicitly excels at taking down weakened opponents.
Samus' Notes: I feel so sorry for her, nobody deserves to go through what she's been through. I can only hope I can speed her way to the hereafter.
Arne's Notes: It's not often I feel pity for nobility, but I can't think of many other things to feel about her.
DUNKLESKIND HEALTH: ||||||||||||||||||||
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WEHKLAGENDE KONIGIN HEALTH: |||||||||||||||||||||
SITUATION
You are joined by temporary party members Gold Render and Sidewinder.
You are met with a BOSS fight in the form of a six villain squad.
The Weltreich wishes to access not simply the alien artifacts here but the INCARNATE SHARDS within the vault.
The makers of the facility do not seem to understand most of what they collect, doing so primarily at the behest of a MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTOR.
The Weltreich has plans on BROCKTON BAY to be launched at an unspecified point in time later.
This is the PRIMARY VILLAIN GOAL
All villains seem to be connected to BOSE HEXE
Most villains will RETREAT if sufficiently injured.
You can use NONLETHAL WEAPONS in the form of your paralyzed pistol if desired.
Tactics (Specify whether Samus or Arne can take them. Both can take the same action, which provides a bonus due to their strong cooperative bonds. The exception is lead, which only one character can do):
[]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you.
[]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[]: Tanking: Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[]: Support: Remain in a flexible position, support allies in their actions as situations arise and let them take the initiative; especially useful if you want Winterpyre to take the role of primary tank. Keeps allies safe and yourself reasonably out of harm's way. This helps build bonds with current team mates but does not advance leadership.
[]: Be tricky: Find alternative routes to outflank the enemy so you can surprise and pincer them between yourself and your friends, allowing them to be quickly swept aside. This keeps you the farthest away from your allies and minimises support benefits.
[]: Lead: Take a commanding position where you make use of your leadership skills to be a flexible anchor for the rest of the team, whereas tanking is mostly about absorbing hits and supporting is about keeping people's heads above the water and assault is about damage; leading is about guiding allies to their optimal usage. This helps build bonds with current team mates and advances leadership. This is the most flexible Action.
[]: Write in
Team Tactics (Battery, Molotok, Assault are versatile melee combatants who are capable of slipping by unnoticed. Nightcaster is excellent support, good crowd control and good ranged damage and good summons. Eudaimonica is good support, great crowd control, and good ranged damage with massive summons. Serp is an all rounder who can be committed to support, crowd control, ranged or melee damage, or even tanking without too much fuss. Summons from Nightcaster and Eudaimonica will respond according to their priorities. Doctor Black is great at summoning, crowd control, and support but has relatively lacklustre damage and due to being summoned by Nightcaster; if Nightcaster is incapacitated he will vanish. Winterpyre is enormously powerful at nearly everything but has much of his power bound for a number of reasons and is bound to Eudaimonica. Caustos is the best tank in the group and causes great melee damage and great ranged damage but is largely incapable of subtlety and is also bound to Eudaimonica. Sidewinder is a highly adaptable tank. )
[]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[]: Sneak: Thanks to Nightcaster's stealth magic, the team can be snuck into position to surprise the enemy with a sudden attack, though this limits other avenues of support that Nightcaster can give.
[]: Anvil: The team will be the anvil to Arne and Samus' hammer, letting the two do the most damage while keeping the enemy from escaping or properly reacting to them; this puts them at more risk though.
[]: Hammer: The team will take the role of being the primary damage dealers while Samus and Arne occupy the most attention. This puts them at less risk but means they have to be the ones who must be entrusted with the bulk of damage dealing.
[]: Steamroll: The whole team advances forward as one or as close to it as possible to seek to overwhelm the enemy with the most powerful possible advance. This has the highest risk but the highest damage to the enemy and if the steamroll is successful enough, the damage it does is risk mitigation in and of itself.
[]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[]: Write in
Priority (Which enemy needs to have the most focus put on them this round, rate from 1 to 6)
[]: Dunkleskind (Most damaging in melee)
[]: Hexenhammer (Crowd control, summons, and damage)
[]: Dammerungsmann (Extremely versatile and can fill nearly any role in a pinch, will constantly mix up forms and tactics, has a preference towards ranged attacks though)
[]: Todesscheri (Primary Tank, very hard to put down, very big and distracting, can cause a lot of hurt if it closes the distance)
[]: Blutspitze (Broad skilled anti-paladin type character; tanky and able to fill a bunch of roles)
[]: Wehklagende Konigin (Significant damage and supporting abilities)
Scheduled vote count started by Krasnyy Spartak on Dec 8, 2020 at 3:43 PM, finished with 13 posts and 5 votes.
[X]: Act immediately, giving the Nazis no time to kill hostages.
[x] while the rest of the team will will act as Bastions, since we aren't taking a turn to scan in order to sus out the situation, I know this is a conversative strat, but we don't know what we don't know, and it seems the Nazis are banking on whatever is in the faculity to create a 4th Reich so we have to conserve our strength or else this little slice in the multiverse will fall to Nazis and I don't want say the center cannot hold but if we make the wrong choice, welp we're screwed.
[X]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you. -this goes for both of them
[X]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
Do this for both Arne and Samus. They have good firepower and we're here to kill nazis.
[x]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
This helps keep everyone useful and seems like a solid generic action to take while Arne and Samus shred them.
[x]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[1]: Dunkleskind (Most damaging in melee)
[2]: Hexenhammer (Crowd control, summons, and damage)
[4]: Dammerungsmann (Extremely versatile and can fill nearly any role in a pinch, will constantly mix up forms and tactics, has a preference towards ranged attacks though)
[5]: Todesscheri (Primary Tank, very hard to put down, very big and distracting, can cause a lot of hurt if it closes the distance)
[6]: Blutspitze (Broad skilled anti-paladin type character; tanky and able to fill a bunch of roles)
[3]: Wehklagende Konigin (Significant damage and supporting abilities)
Never kill the tanks first. Shred damage and CC, then go from there.
hmm. My first thought is that we want to isolate Blutspitze somehow since he gets stronger the more foes he's fighting. Arne has to be the main fighter against Dammerungsmann since only his weapon can hurt him at fight start.
I agree with the target priority but I think I'll vote for Arne to take point with Samus and the Team running interferance to keep the enemy support and tanks out of his firing lane.
[x]: Ranged assault. (Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[x]: Tanking: (Samus) Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[x]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[1]: Dunkleskind (Most damaging in melee)
[2]: Hexenhammer (Crowd control, summons, and damage)
[4]: Dammerungsmann (Extremely versatile and can fill nearly any role in a pinch, will constantly mix up forms and tactics, has a preference towards ranged attacks though)
[5]: Todesscheri (Primary Tank, very hard to put down, very big and distracting, can cause a lot of hurt if it closes the distance)
[6]: Blutspitze (Broad skilled anti-paladin type character; tanky and able to fill a bunch of roles)
[3]: Wehklagende Konigin (Significant damage and supporting abilities)
[X]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
This helps keep everyone useful and seems like a solid generic action to take while Arne and Samus shred them.
[X]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[1]: Dunkleskind (Most damaging in melee)
[2]: Hexenhammer (Crowd control, summons, and damage)
[4]: Dammerungsmann (Extremely versatile and can fill nearly any role in a pinch, will constantly mix up forms and tactics, has a preference towards ranged attacks though)
[5]: Todesscheri (Primary Tank, very hard to put down, very big and distracting, can cause a lot of hurt if it closes the distance)
[6]: Blutspitze (Broad skilled anti-paladin type character; tanky and able to fill a bunch of roles)
[3]: Wehklagende Konigin (Significant damage and supporting abilities)
[x]: Ranged assault. (Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[x]: Tanking: (Samus) Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[x]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[1]: Dunkleskind (Most damaging in melee)
[2]: Hexenhammer (Crowd control, summons, and damage)
[4]: Dammerungsmann (Extremely versatile and can fill nearly any role in a pinch, will constantly mix up forms and tactics, has a preference towards ranged attacks though)
[5]: Todesscheri (Primary Tank, very hard to put down, very big and distracting, can cause a lot of hurt if it closes the distance)
[6]: Blutspitze (Broad skilled anti-paladin type character; tanky and able to fill a bunch of roles)
[3]: Wehklagende Konigin (Significant damage and supporting abilities)
"So uh...this is going to be new...you've got a plan right? Please tell me you've got a plan." Assault said, chuckling slightly nervously as the stand off continued for a moment more; Hexenhammer summoning a massive creature of electricity and storm clouds that seemed to blow its way into being, forming into tighter and higher and ever more humanoid clouds before its dark and stormy body congealed into the shape of a genie like figure without a distinct face save for a pair of eyes that crackled like lightning. A sight followed by smaller, human-sized vaguely humanoid clumps of living red and white electricity pooling beneath her and giggling like giddy children; just excited to be alive and have a chance to fight you.
A Storm Elemental Lord summoned from subdimensions attached to the greater multiverse of the Sourcewell, Der Donnerer has served Hexenhammer faithfully throughout the tenure of his service to her, using his awesome powers of lightning and all the elements within a storm itself to lay waste to almost anything he touches. As his form is primarily held together by magic, he has a degree of solidity despite being primarily composed of electricity, water, air, and dust. His affinity for Hexenhammer extends largely to the girl alone, and he has little fondness for Hexenhammer's mother, something that he does not go out of his way to inform her about to avoid the wrath of the Witch Queen of Thule. The Storm Elemental Lord is resistant to most elemental weapons and particularly to electricity, the extremes of temperature, or sonic vibrations; all of which they can freely utilise as weapons even without weapons.
However the Storm Elemental Lord is vulnerable to being drained of energy through methods such as the grapple voltage, the shock coil, and while resistant to conventional cold; anti-energy bypasses his conventional resistances by converting the energy that comprises his body into icy matter. He can however, draw exposed electricity from various sources to charge himself up further, and warm water or especially water vapour will feed him with extra power and regenerate the injuries his body has suffered. Freeze water before it can reach him to prevent this from occurring. Strong magnetic fields will also cause him some disruption depending on the intensity of the field. Donnerer is also vulnerable to being grounded into objects should his control over the shape of his body be sufficiently disrupted by damage.
Donnerer has little real loyalty to the Volkische ideology of the Thule Society or the Weltreich, and is primarily concerned for the safety of Hexenhammer, and as such will divert attention from accomplishing mission objectives towards protecting his summoner from harm. Distracting him is a matter of threatening his charge through any means, even non-lethal weapons or weapons he is vulnerable to. In addition, if Ermendrud is knocked out or otherwise incapacitated, he will no longer be able to maintain his form in this plane of reality and will be forced to return to his native subdimension.
Samus' Notes: Hrm, as long as Winterpyre keeps them busy we shouldn't have that much issue with him. But I feel kind of bad for having to fight someone mostly motivated by loyalty to his charge.
Arne's Notes: Fight well, brave guardian. Know that at least one person appreciates your valour.
Gremlins are a form of animated electricity that often serve electrokines or electromancers as pets, cannon fodder, or may spontaneously form from particularly unusual electric conditions. Electro-Gremlins are of course, resistant to electricity though not immune, and prefer to attack in close combat with electrically charged swipes and punches that hit as though they were solid. They can of course attack at a distance as well. Gremlins are most vulnerable to anti-energy or magnetic weapons or any sort of attack that disrupts their animus.
Samus' Notes: Aww, they're kind of cute for what they are honestly! I'd love to maybe...keep one?
Arne's Notes: Living electricity huh? Should be an interesting challenge to deal with. Wonder if I could summon some myself some day.
You weren't keen on having to hurt Hexenhammer seriously. She wasn't any older than you, and you felt empathy for her struggles with her parents and her lack of self-esteem. You conjured up your twin paralyzed pistols with a thought and a flash of blue light and quickly attached them to a shoulder mount as your armour readjusted itself to fit the temporary add-on, quickly forming a turreted armature over your left shoulder and giving your HUD a quick readout. You'd be able to detach it whenever necessary, but right now you needed both arms; your sizzling purple sword in your left hand shifting into a hilt grip from your wrist as you got into a combat stance.
"Samus, you've got that new adaptation module right?" You said over private comms between your armoursuits as you felt the air crackle with energy in a manner that you were rather doubtful most of your teammates could even perceive. Magic. A power in your blood but yet unmastered by you, almost taunting you with how you understood it but could not yet grasp at it in any but the most crude of manners. Father...Zurvduat believed you weren't ready for it, that it was something you should only try when you were a man. Was he right? No...you had seen plenty of people your age playing with it...he couldn't be.
"Yeah, I'll take their attention. Don't worry. The rest of you; advance. Durables out front. Focus on the screaming...thing first, witch second. Ghost next if you can hit her." She said, looking back at the group as they made ready.
"Ah, what of the scary man with the sword?" Serp said with a nervous chuckle.
"Haaah no do not take that guy on. More of us surround him; the stronger he gets. He can also take hits for days. Trust me, I know an Overlord type when I see one." Nightcaster said with a chuckle. "That shield? It'll bounce anything that hits it right back to you. Just stay out of his reach. Doc Black will try to keep him busy." He continued, the Shadowman looking down towards Nightcaster and raising one of his eerily luminescent eyes.
"You certainly have a lot of confidence in my ability to hold down a blender like that kid."
"Come on, you're an ancient spirit of darkness, we believe in you! Besides, Caustos can help right?" Eudaimonica said, looking to the Avatar of Flame which made a pyronic series of hisses and cracks that your suit translated into...words that made you blush beneath your helmet.
"Heeeey language!" She said before Heinrich pointed his sword forward and let loose a howling hunting roar followed by a rapid fire series of commands to "Advance! Lay the cretins low!" He demanded as his necrotic magics flared to life and swirled beneath his feet to conjure a troop of armoured wights bearing sinister magical weapons and a terrible hatred in their flame filled eye sockets, dark magic binding to them and strengthening them beyond their natural limits as he charged forward.
Thinking fast, you fired off an ice missile at his feet, freezing the floor in slick ice and sending him careening off to the side as he snarled with hateful spite towards you, your eye turning to where you last heard the screams of the Dunkleskind; dodging around a series of lightning cages thrown forward by Hexenhammer. Realising that the Dunkleskind was behind you, you turned and dodged one of its raking rapier limbs, the beast appearing from the shadows with its insane howling ringing in your ears.
The creature's misery was a powerful aura, demanding you to take pity on it and spare it retaliation. That it did not know what it was doing even as your blade parried two more of its arm sweeps before it chittered and disappeared once again; invisible both to your superhuman eyes and the thermal visor. But you were well aware of what this was; a placation effect trying to get you to lower your guard. Something that simply did not take effect on you through your progenitor defences, and you trusted your senses to direct you to jump behind Winterpyre as he slammed into Donnerer with enough force to create a shockwave across the room; giving you distance as Dunkleskind appeared to stab at where you just were.
You charged up and fired off a beam, hitting the monster in the chest and making it screech with outrage as the charged star-prism beam bounced outwards, pinging between many of Hexenhammer's summoned electric gremlins and the undead of Blutspitze; ending with ramming into Todesscheri's back with enough force to send it out of its dive towards Battery, letting her clock the monster in the face while you redirected your attention to the dark one; cannon spitting hot death towards the agile beast.
DUNKLESKIND HEALTH: |||||||||||||||||
TODESSCHERI HEALTH: ||||||||||||||||||||
Seeing it disappear once again, your attention shifted towards Hexenhammer as she sought to get close to you, her staff crackling with lightning while she charged energy into it, a mystic electric field providing her body with added strength, speed, and durability as she made a relatively inexperienced swing.
"Hold still boy!" She said as her lightning charged staff whizzed over your head, your thrusters pushing you back and the paralyzers firing off a twin bolt of charged shots into her, making her choke a bit on her breath as she came to a sudden halt.
A gremlin caught onto you, sending jolts into your suit as it transited through a wire and leaped onto you while you were in the process of relieving Eudaimonica and Nightcaster from having to deal with the wailing queen's howls, sending the spectre away in a hurry.
Arne Energy Count: 08(96)
WEHKLAGENDE KONIGIN HEALTH: ||||||||||||||||||||
You grabbed at the gremlin and crushed its electric mass with your hand, your blade shifting back into a wrist position as the Dunkleskind leaped forwards to jab two of its darkness shrouded arms into your back.
It hurt to say the least, A jolt of pain from your suit to warn you not to take hits like that again. You felt like someone had actually driven a knife into you and twisted, a grunt of pain coming out from you as you staggered forward. An Assassin's strike while you were distracted and a particularly unpleasant critical blow at that. That blow would have outright killed nearly anyone you've seen on this planet so far, and the beast seemed somewhat surprised to see you still standing.
Arne Energy Count 07(33)
This time you turned around, catching the Dunkleskind off guard with your superior reflexes and reaction time. A blade into its chest that made it howl before you fired your beam right into its proboscis; fully charged and then followed by a charged super missile to send it flying across the arena. You were lazy and complacent, you let yourself get set up for a powerful blow, you wouldn't let it happen again.
DUNKLESKIND HEALTH: |||||||||||||
Arne Super Missile Count: 31/34
"...Scheisse you're still standing after that boy?" Hexenhamer said, clearly having thrown off her stunning as she clutched her staff.
"How do you know I'm a boy?" You asked, she seemed uncertain, maybe you could strike a bit of an accord?
"Your voice Siggy." She said with a wink that you did your best to ignore. "It sounds so nice and smooth." She giggled before you; realizing she was distracting you, jumped out of the way of the massive arms of Dammerungsman rampaging towards you in Black Dwarf form.
"Assault!" You shouted as he threw off a wight and ducked beneath the five meter tall hulking form of the Nictus and grabbed at his leg.
"Yoink!" Assault shouted, redirecting the Nictus' knetic energy to send him careening into Dunkleskind just as they got back up; swearing all the way while the two smashed through about a dozen walls before the Dunkleskind howled as energy flowed back into it and a number of panicked security guards fired off futilely at it.
DUNKLESKIND HEALTH: EMPTIED
DUNKLESKIND: REVIVED
"What in Primus' name..." You heard a distant voice grumble, deep and heavy before the Dunkleskind was smashed right back into the arena through the holes it had made, smashing into a wall and then wriggling back into place as bones snapped into their proper form with sickening crunches and the Nictus teleported back into the fray, clearly angry.
The quantum beam was selected, striking Dammerungsmann dead on with a cloud like globule of subatomic darkness, vibrating with deadly oscillations and then slamming into him with a subsonic reverberation. The Nictus clutched at their head and screamed in two voices as the modulator pulled at the bond between symbiont and host. You felt briefly bad for using it, the agony of the symbiont crashing into your psychic senses like a wave, but the shifting Nictus' transformation into Dark Nova form and a dark beam that struck you while you laid down supporting fire on Todesccheri brought you out of that stupor, sizzling energy pushing you to the extremities of the room.
DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: |||||||||||||||||
TODESSCHERI HEALTH: |||||||||||||||||
Arne Energy Count: 07(01)
"You would dare strike me with such a weapon? Have you any idea who I am tinman? The power I can wield to destroy you and the shell you wear?!" He snarled with a degree of hatred you could just about smell. Rotten and bitter, just like the speaker themselves were.
"I've read your file. You aren't that strong, especially in this form." You said as you started to rapid fire the Quantum beam into him, getting more howled outrage from him as the beam began to eat into his conjoined form; the tendrils of the Nova body writhing and undulating while a sound like nails on chalk ground their way into your ears just before your last bolt was deflected by a magical screen set up by the Wailing Queen, who'd clearly been a bit worse for wear from fighting Samus.
"Cease your screeching already Nictus." Maria growled before Samus leaped behind her and stabbed her sword into her back and made her jitter and shake; her form briefly being disrupted as she let out a howl of her own.
WEHKLAGENDE KONIGIN HEALTH: ||||||||||||||||
DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: |||||||||||||||
Samus Energy Count: 07(94)
Samus Missile Count: 150/175
"Thanks." You said while looking to where most of the team had gone, busily trying to knock out Todesscheri as fast as possible as the horrid bat Monster was regenerating even after having a wing screwed off by Gold Render's touch. A swing was made and Render flew off to the side, Molotok trying her best to hold it back while Serp emptied yet another series of rounds into them.
"Running a little low on ammo here!" He shouted before a fresh wing tore itself free from Todesscheri's body in a display that made assault pale.
You rushed in, taking in some buff spells from Eudaimonica as she passed them onto you, your body wreathed with flames and your already fiery projectiles lashing out with more power; consuming Todesscheri's midsection as it was flung back; a burning crater in their chest as they howled.
Battery, wreathed in the same fiery energy; jumped out and tackled Todesscheri, trying to hold the beast steady and burn it into the ground before the monster let out its death keen and forced everyone without hearing protection to cover their ears; Gold Render outright dropping to the ground and screaming as she bled from her ears.
TODESSCHERI HEALTH: ||||||||||||||||
Samus
You moved into the heart of the fray, letting your new Laser Lance stab into the mass of wights and hack them down with a crimson pole of light, twirling as you shifted out of Dunkleskind's ability to see; letting Nightcaster's darkness hide you away while it growled in outrage, skittering into the distance.
Samus Universal Ammo Count: 230/240
Hexenhammer banished the Darkness with a spell of her own, pointing towards you and enveloping the area around you with crackling lightning. You had been working overtime with making sure all attention was on you as often as you could, and Hexenhammer's ability to lock down people; such as Molotok who was busily flailing on the ground after being caught in a cage of lightning or the frozen form of nightcaster; paralysed by a lightning bolt; was testament to that.
"So is the boy in blue your boyfriend? Such similar suits...hrm, I wonder who made them?" She said, thinking out loud as she pitched ball lightning packing enough juice to meet this world's energy needs for a human lifetime; a devastating sphere of lightning whose electric arcs sought to ground themselves into any nearby target. Your constant jumping from one place to the next prevented the lightning from connecting to you, bolts streaming into the ether as you outpaced and outturned them while she grunted with annoyance.
"Oh come on! Hold still you silly girl!" She shouted as she cast forth a bolt of neural disrupting electricity, once again seeing you dodge even after she had sent forth the spell to her amazement.
"Blutspitze she won't hold still!" Hexenhammer snarled as the Vampire carved his way through a mess of demons like a blender; the legions of shadows, shadebeasts, fire elementals, and demons tossed at the Vampiric Lord going down with seemingly no progress in stopping him as he and his undead hacked their way towards Doctor Black and Caustos.
Tendrils of black tried to grab at the Overlord while he turned his hateful gaze towards you and were quickly severed while you jumped to the side, let your blade extend and hacked into Todesscheri's neck; forcing them to let go of battery before they could sink their teeth into them and landing in front of the Wailing Queen to absorb the brunt of a death shriek. It hurt, you could feel the necrotic energy crashing against your shielding and attempting to worm its way towards your inviolable soul, but you had adapted to it by now and met her in the face with a charged spazer beam to send her back.
WEHKLAGENDE KONIGIN HEALTH: |||||||||||||||
"Useless." The Vampiric Overlord snarled as he split a Demonic Brute in twain with a sweep of his sword, hellfire tainted blood seeping into the Vampire and seeming to invigorate him as he moved with unnatural speed to close towards you.
He swung out at you, your own sword moving to intercept and parry him, the two of you testing supernatural strength against strength.
You stepped forward, and pushed him back to his surprise, his arm giving way and the snap of a bone warning him that something was amiss as he grabbed at his arm.
"What manner of girl are you?" He howled as black magic reknit his arm before you spun into a flip and kicked him hard enough to send him crashing into the Hexenhammer who let out a loud protest.
"GET OFF ME YOU HEAVY BASTARD!" She growled as she flailed and the Vampire Lord stood himself up, cracking his neck and batting Assault aside like a softball when he tried to sneak up behind him.
"Hey, what part of don't take on a vampire like that in CQC did you not get?" Doctor Black said as he threw forth a mass of black tar at the Vampire's feet; inky shadows dragging him to a crawl as he strained against the slowing effect of the magic while Nightcaster threw forth a dark Orb that engulfed the Vampire for some time.
"Haaahhh...that's not gonna...hold him..." He said, panting before Dammerungskind teleported behind him and grabbed him by the throat.
"I wonder, does your mediporter work?" He said before he grabbed at one of Joseph's hands and began to squeeze until he heard bones snapping, a gasp of pain coming from the boy.
"Nightcaster!" You shouted, rushing forward into a speed boosted tackle that slammed into the Nictus with enough force to throw him off his feet before he transformed into his crustaceoid black dwarf form and dug his feet into the ground. In his black dwarf form he was hugely resistant to damage, enough to survive even the speed booster which had torn through everything in its way so far. The buzzsaw energies that could easily carve through mountains met his dark nimbus as you expended the charge into a burst to force him to let go before you punched him in the face. Taking the speedbooster for that long clearly hurt, even with the Black Dwarf's armour; made for life on the Pulsars that served as the home of the species this form was born on combined with the dark aura of the Nictus; but he was more than ready to fight.
DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: |||||||||||
A fortress would have shattered at that punch, yet the Black Dwarf stood and simply spat ichor to the side before throwing his hands into the ground hard enough to create an eruption of black energies, catching you off guard and knocking you up for him to grab by the legs and then slam into the ground before stomping down on your back and trying to grab at an arm in an attempt to break it, finding resistance as you started to overpower his arm and pull it back into place despite his pulsar shaped strength.
Samus Energy Count: 06(74)
It hurt, as did the punch into your back, followed by another and another, and the immense weight of his body behind it just added to the sensation of every impact. This was a form meant to stand up at this height in the immense surface gravity of a degenerate matter star, the strength he had was phenomenal even if he was hardly fast.
Samus Energy Count: 06(34)
Molotok had moved into its next punch as he charged black energy into it and threw it down, taking his hand and grunting as she felt the energy flow into her, standing atop you and gritting her teeth while the Nictus seemed rather surprised.
"You ever see Kung Fu panda?" She said with a chuckle as she lowered a pinky.
"Skadoosh." The force of the accumulated nova punches that he had been throwing to build up to his finisher launched back into the Nictus and sent him off of his feet; flying up and then landing directly atop the Dunkleskind as it prepared to leap at Arne. The immense weight of the Nictus' dwarf form crashed atop the dark monster with a thunderclap, smashing it through the floor...and then several further floors down.
"Hahaha! Kid that was great." Assault said with a laugh before patting her on the back.
"That's also not how the scene goes." He smiled.
DUNKLESKIND: | | | | |
DUNKLESKIND WITHDRAWS
DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: | | | | | | |
DAMMERUNGSMANN WITHDRAWS
The sounds of someone screaming brought your attention elsewhere though, as Serp was being lifted into the air in the claws of Todesscheri while Arne was trying to zap the Wailing Queen into submission, Sidewinder doing her best to hold back Blutspitze as the Vampire tore off a limb and stabbed her through the gut; her body working overtime to recover the lost mass and adapt to his raw power.
With Eudaimonica caught in a magical duel with Hexenhammer that she seemed to be losing, the latter's electricity pushing back her hellfire, you leaped into the fray. "Gold Render, grab them!" You shouted at Gold Render as she was trying to hold back a tide of skeletons; yanking at her with your grapple beam and roping her directly into the path of Todesscheri as she let out a yelp of surprise.
Todesscheri was trying to get Serp into their mouth to sink their massive vampiric fangs into the boy, only to find Gold Render flying into their mouth. The creature let out a sudden series of hacking sounds of alarm before she burst out of their chest, Serp falling back down to the ground while Todesscheri fell back to the Earth, writhing and screaming with a fresh injury.
TODESSCHERI HEALTH: | | | | | | |
"Arne, we need to paralyse Hexenhammer, hurry!" You shouted as Hexenhammer's staff began glowing and the Witch's spells started to overpower both Nightcaster and Eudaimonica's combined.
"Augggh stupid...artifact level staffs...fucking...cheating ass...rich girl bullshit!" Nightcaster grunted as his own staff strained beneath the lightning of the teenaged witch.
"Sorry, I'll try to make sure they don't hurt you." She said with sincerity before Arne and yourself struck her with four paralyctic bolts that got her to grimace, look quite shocked, and lock completely up mid-air with a red flash around her before the magical backlash struck her and sent her out of the battlefield.
HEXENHAMMER HEALTH: | | | | | | |
HEXENHAMMER WITHDRAWS
"Wow...thanks...I...ow..." Eudaimonica said with a pant as Battery seemed to be having the time of her life, joining with Winterpyre by tackling Donnerer and trying to sap at the electricity coursing through the storm lord's body.
"Useless incompetents! Can you not best a smattering of children!?" Blutspitze howled with rage as he started to draw energy into his sword, red and black tendrils of dark magic flowing into his blade as he summoned a steed for himself to ride on; a vampiric nightmare clad in foul and evil looking barding, bat like wings stretched from the destrier's wings and blade shod hooves kicking into the air while his hand reached out to grab a new lance. The mount did not remain long in the world however, as he twisted his hand and made the horse begin to melt before it flowed into Todesscheri; barding and new strength invigorating the monster vampire as a third set of limbs tore its way from the chest, bladed arms like a mantis stabbing into the ground and its head elongating like a horse's skull.
With the Wailing Queen remaining and joining Blutspitze as he jumped on top of the head of the now far more monstrous bat, necrotic magic leaped forth and stabbed into the fallen undead across the room, twitching the viable back into unlife while the nonviable had their energy torn out and fed into Blutspitze in a surge of unholy energies while he let out a monstrous roar. You steeled yourself, looking back behind you.
"Is everyone able to keep fighting?" You asked, Nightcaster nursing his only recently healed arm with a grunt and nodding while Arne shifted position once more.
Arne Energy Count: 07(93)
Arne Universal Ammo Count: 220/240
"Fuck he's a two phaser." Eudaimonica said, making you squint a bit.
"Come on, don't lose courage now. We can take him down! Just, have faith." You said, trying to be encouraging.
"I will not have my prize denied by you simpletons." He growled as the newly mutated Todesscheri stalked forwards with a horrific growl.
An augmented form of Todesscheri joined by Bludspitze and the Wailing Queen with some abilities mimicked from leftover energy from the rest of Bludspitze's unit, Hollenmord fights with many of the strengths and few of the weaknesses of its compatriots while being assisted by Bludspitze and the Wailing Queen. Bludspitze's arsenal has also been added to with a cavalry lance able to project his magic in an offensive manner, adding to their overall ranged capabilities. Hollenmord demonstrates significant electromantic capabilities, the umbrokinetics of a nictus shard, and Dunkleskind's stealth abilities. Their regenerative abilities and physicality have also been augmented, as has their resilience thanks to the barding they are now fitted with. Hollenmord however, retains traditional vampiric weaknesses and the magical binding between their riders and itself will mean that damage taken by one of the trio riding upon it will be shared between all. Multi-shot, area of effect, or bouncing weapons will thus have greater damage.
Samus' Notes: Alright, that's what he was saving in reserve then. We just need to keep pushing at him and I think we'll get him out of the way for at least a little while. Let's do this. Last thing in our way.
Arne's Notes: Okay, so he's the last obstacle here then? I think we can overload his focus by coming at him from all sides, he can't cast spells in all directions at once.
SITUATION:
Dunkleskind, Dammerungsmann, and Hexenhammer have withdrawn.
Todesscheri, the Wailing Queen, and Heinrich have consolidated into HOLLENMORD.
Tactics (Specify whether Samus or Arne can take them. Both can take the same action, which provides a bonus due to their strong cooperative bonds. The exception is lead, which only one character can do):
[]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you.
[]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[]: Tanking: Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[]: Support: Remain in a flexible position, support allies in their actions as situations arise and let them take the initiative; especially useful if you want Winterpyre to take the role of primary tank. Keeps allies safe and yourself reasonably out of harm's way. This helps build bonds with current team mates but does not advance leadership.
[]: Be tricky: Find alternative routes to outflank the enemy so you can surprise and pincer them between yourself and your friends, allowing them to be quickly swept aside. This keeps you the farthest away from your allies and minimises support benefits.
[]: Lead: Take a commanding position where you make use of your leadership skills to be a flexible anchor for the rest of the team, whereas tanking is mostly about absorbing hits and supporting is about keeping people's heads above the water and assault is about damage; leading is about guiding allies to their optimal usage. This helps build bonds with current team mates and advances leadership. This is the most flexible Action.
[]: Write in
Team Tactics (Battery, Molotok, Assault are versatile melee combatants who are capable of slipping by unnoticed. Nightcaster is excellent support, good crowd control and good ranged damage and good summons. Eudaimonica is good support, great crowd control, and good ranged damage with massive summons. Serp is an all rounder who can be committed to support, crowd control, ranged or melee damage, or even tanking without too much fuss. Summons from Nightcaster and Eudaimonica will respond according to their priorities. Doctor Black is great at summoning, crowd control, and support but has relatively lacklustre damage and due to being summoned by Nightcaster; if Nightcaster is incapacitated he will vanish. Winterpyre is enormously powerful at nearly everything but has much of his power bound for a number of reasons and is bound to Eudaimonica. Caustos is the best tank in the group and causes great melee damage and great ranged damage but is largely incapable of subtlety and is also bound to Eudaimonica. Sidewinder is a highly adaptable tank. )
[]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[]: Sneak: Thanks to Nightcaster's stealth magic, the team can be snuck into position to surprise the enemy with a sudden attack, though this limits other avenues of support that Nightcaster can give.
[]: Anvil: The team will be the anvil to Arne and Samus' hammer, letting the two do the most damage while keeping the enemy from escaping or properly reacting to them; this puts them at more risk though.
[]: Hammer: The team will take the role of being the primary damage dealers while Samus and Arne occupy the most attention. This puts them at less risk but means they have to be the ones who must be entrusted with the bulk of damage dealing.
[]: Steamroll: The whole team advances forward as one or as close to it as possible to seek to overwhelm the enemy with the most powerful possible advance. This has the highest risk but the highest damage to the enemy and if the steamroll is successful enough, the damage it does is risk mitigation in and of itself.
[]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[]: Write in
Write in Suggestions:
[]: Write in any extra thing you want the team or characters to do such as finding wooden stakes for Todesscheri, holy symbols, praying, contacting outside help, or the like. You may pick up to three write ins.
Eudaimonica and Nightcaster should stay as supports for this battle. So far, the buffs they give out are pretty good. It looked like Battery benefited from the buffs the most. They can use the summons as distractions while Arne and Samus take pot shots at the enemy from a distance. Assault should be able to defend them.
[x]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
I feel like Hollenmord is going to be a much harder opponent to defeat than the other guys. Best not to take many risks.
[X]: Ranged assault. (Samus and Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[x]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
The team seemed to take some bad hits in the first phase so they should focus on defence and dealing with the chaff for now while Samus and Arne smash Hollenmord with as much fire power as possible.
[X]: Ranged assault. (Samus and Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[x]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
I think that this should be good, but then again, I'm incompetent, so who knows
[X]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[x]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[X]: Ranged assault. (Samus and Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[x]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
yea, the team looks somewhat beat up, and getting in close appears to be not the best of ideas, so this appears to be the best of our current options given the situation.
[X]: Ranged assault. (Samus and Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[x]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
Theme
HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 100%
Samus
"Keep at a distance, they're hurting." You said, clutching your arm cannon and steeling yourself, sucking in a breath as you charged up another super missile barrage. Five super missiles, all charged. The explosive force to shave mountain ranges down to size.
"I will protect them with my life." Winterpyre said with a hiss, steam curling forward from his nostrils as he conjured orange flame in one hand, cool blue frost in another, and noxious hellflame at the tip of his tail.
"Hey, don't worry, I'll keep them patched up." Doctor Black said, tipping his hat.
"I've seen these kids bring back the dead, I'm confident." Assault said as Doc Black attended to Nightcaster's arm as he grunted with a dull ache as the shadow magic was used to set and knit the bones back into place. Soothing sensations emanated from the Shadow Doctor as he recharged your shielding and, after sensing how your ammo worked; managed to refill that too; leeching energy from the undead to feed his spell. It took a bit out of him, and he seemed slightly less distinct afterwards, passing a bit into the background while Nightcaster gave him a thumbs up.
"Try not to die too often, resurrecting people isn't exactly easy." He said.
"Okay, I've got all ammo back to full. Let's do this." Serp said, locking in his HEAT grenades into his launcher before you had an idea, grabbing one of the ubermensch particle rifles and tossing it to Serp who fumbled briefly before grabbing onto it and accidentally pulling the trigger at Hollenmord, starting the fight as a powerful crimson packet of ions streamed down range; striking Hollenmord hard enough to briefly stagger them before they released a death shriek.
Caustos exploded into position, their fiery form writhing with arcane energies to absorb the killing sonic waves of the Banshee and the Vampire Bat before spitting it back in the form of a gout of fire as hot as a star and as wide as Caustos' truck sized body.
"Weak magics for a weak foe!" Heinrich snarled, twisting threads of foul magic and then binding them into a barrier made of blood coloured energies. Seeing your chance as Arne's shock coil erupted into the side of the beast, you took aim and fired, your missiles exploding out of your cannon in a rapid-fire set of contrails and burst shrieks. The vampire deflected one back to you, which thanks to the shroud of darkness you had been given by Nightcaster, passed by without harm, disappearing into the comforting embrace of shadow and never so much as detonating.
Samus Super Missile Count: 19/34
The explosion walloped across the room, Hollenmord letting out a pained shriek before the Demon Prince spat forth tongues of hellfire that clung to and crackled at the Undead's frame, hellish faces writing themselves into the air and cackling as the Vampire bat lurched forwards and brought the Vampire riding atop it in lance range of the Demon Lord, jabbing his cursed spear into the Demon's Shoulder and getting an unnatural and unearthly wail of anguish from the Demon Lord as cursed magics sucked away at its vitality.
"Winter!" Eudaimonica shouted, lashing her hellflame whip at Hollenmord's eye before they could start siphoning blood from the Demon Lord after sinking their teeth into his neck, pushing through many room shaking punches by the Demon and the earthquaking bite of Jackie Noir to their left leg. Hollenmord fell back, howling while a missile fired from a launcher grabbed by Serp was bounced back via Heinrich's shield, Caustos' body shifting to absorb the impact. The Bat's attempt at blasting the Demon with its shriek though, just gave Arne a chance to feed a charged shot into its maw paired with a quick burst of fifty standard missiles from you; the individual sounds of your missiles leaving your cannon not even being audible to many of your team mates.
Hollenmord Health: 93%
Samus Missile Count: 125/175
You ducked beneath the sweeping crimson ray fired forth from Heinrich's lance, charging and releasing your beam into a spread shot cascade of electric spheres that curved around and homed in on the mass of Hollenmord, striking its wing as it started to beat its wings and toss a barrage of quills in the direction of the team; prompting Sidewinder to move up and take the impacts, her body now covered in a hardened armadillo like carapace. She grunted as she was pushed slightly back, but Serp's retaliatory particle rifle fire got Hollenmord to hiss in displeasure as they took to the skies; augmented blasts making Hollenmord's armour glow in threatening colours.
HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 90%
Irina, Assault, Battery, and Gold Render moved ahead to keep the less close combat oriented members of the team from harm; diving into the mass of undead with flaming shields surrounding them and comforting darkness shrouding them. Enervating hexes duelled with empowering augments, and the dead hacked at the four with unliving vigour; shadows, fire elementals, and demons joining the melee with similar vigour. Another lance from the Vampire cut through the lines of the summoned minions, tearing apart demons, elementals and shadows while Hollenmord shrieked at the energy being thrown back in its way, augmenting magic latching onto the hurled bolts of energy to sizzle at its armoured hide.
HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 85%
You took the brunt of the Wailing Queen's howl as she turned her head towards you, the banshee's wail fraying at your shielding and pushing you back with the sound of death itself ringing in your ears.
Samus Energy Count: 08(72)
"Eudaimonica, augment!" You shouted as she nodded and made a gesture with her wand, sending out a wave of fiery magics that engulfed you and your allies; your armour reading out a substantial firepower increase just as Nightcaster managed to snag Hollenmord with a Tar Patch spell; dragging the monster bat to the ground as roping tendrils of ichor tugged at it, weakening their shared defences. You gritted your teeth and pushed through Hollenmord's death shriek aimed directly at you, just about avoiding another one of Heinrich's lance blasts and ignoring the sword impact of the Wights that managed to catch you while you cut through their ranks, not really paying the effort of dodging around the unnaturally fast revenants that much mind.
Samus Energy Count: 07(78)
Hollenmord opened their mouth again, only to meet five charged pyro-super missiles to the head.
The dead surrounding Hollenmord were reduced to stains on the ground, the explosion harmlessly passed by those deemed friends by the sorceries of Chozo mysticism, and you flinched briefly at the higher than expected power output of the missiles the three unliving combatants were thrown across the room.
HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 63%
Samus Super Missile Count: 4/34
Hollenmord's body shook without a head, a charred stump where its maw used to be and Maria's form seemed slightly more ephemeral than usual. Heinrich though, howled in frustration and called forth more magics, knitting Hollenmord's head back together with an expenditure of the mystic winds he was drawing on, infusing that same unnatural vigour into his mount who began to charge towards you fast enough to catch you off guard as you were busy trying to get Nightcaster out of the way of the Wailing Queen's barrage of death bolt spells. You slammed into the wall behind you and then went through, Eudaimonica's defensive augments bolstering your ability to take the blow but still not preventing you from being pushed off your feet.
Samus Energy Count: 07(53)
Arne
Arne Universal Ammo Count: 193/240
Arne Energy Count: 08(23)
You activated the berserker pack for the first time as Samus used her blink pack to move out of the way of Heinrich's rapid fire lance stabbing; charging forward and letting loose a charged super missile at their back. You knew that Heinrich would deflect it back at you, but under the Berserker Booster's power you didn't even break your stride when it impacted you; the detonation washing over you without effort as the Wailing Queen tried to bypass your durability to lash out at your soul; attempting to tear it from your body.
Arne Energy Count: 08(01)
The threads of magic dug into you, and found no purchase, the progenitor spirit within burning away her tendrils and sending feedback to her that made her wither slightly more while you charged forwards, grabbed Hollenmord by their tail and swung them overhead and into the ground before they could respond.
HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 60%
Your Shock coil erupted with greater power than before, fed by the Berserker Booster to be a torrent of guided neutrinos as wide as you were tall that ripped into Hollenmord's torso as their flesh began to regenerate. Your shielding recovered to full in no time, and one of Hollenmord's wings began to burn off before Heinrich's lance extended to smash you in the shoulder while you weaved your way around Maria's death bolts; a disintegrating demon below you testifying to their power.
Arne Energy Count: 08(97)
Arne Universal Ammo Count: 190/240
With the Berserker Booster though, you grabbed at Heinrich's lance and shoved it aside while he fired off his lance, turning it towards his minions and tearing them apart while Samus rolled into her Morph Ball, clung to them in spider-ball form and dropped a rapid fire series of bombs augmented by the magics of the demons and Eudaimonica; each erupting detonation gouging into Hollenmord and opening up a hole for Serp to exploit with the Gatling cannon he had just picked up.
Hypersonic railgun spikes tore into Hollenmord, the horrid monster dragging itself to a halt and throwing a quill that struck Serp in the shoulder and ran his arm through with a shout of pain; quickly getting Doctor Black's attention. You didn't slow down though, looking at Gold Render.
"Need me to touch him again?" She asked before you nodded and grabbed her with the grapple beam, yanking her into Hollenmord's path and twisting apart their tail with her warp-touch, diving back out of the way and letting her spacewarp field deflect the incoming sweep of a scythe arm from the monster only for the Wailing Queen to turn her focus towards her. Jackie Black's timely intervention; dragging her into a shadow realm and then back out into the material world; saved her from taking the full brunt of the death shriek; leaving you free to barrage the hellbeast with one super missile after the other.
HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 52%
Sensing an opportunity, the two of you stabbed into the creature with your laser cutters, your new subweapons quickly augmented by another casting of forging to bolster the damage output and Nightcaster's twilight spell drawing more defense and vitality from Hollenmord to reinvigorate yourself and Samus.
But a sonic shell of twisted magic enveloped Hollenmord, absorbing much of the laser impact while the Wailing Queen gritted her teeth upon the bat. You sighed in annoyance, trying to figure out how to bypass this new barrier. You had to keep the momentum going, Hollenmord could regenerate quickly and any time not spent hammering its healing powers was time that Hollenmord would have to recover.
HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 50%
Maria von Tirpitz's sonomancy barrier will reduce the effectiveness of most attacks made against Hollenmord, however the effect can be dispelled. Your magic casting team mates can disrupt the barrier, as can your armoursuit or blade in close proximity. Charged beam weapons will also weaken the barrier due to the techno-sorcerery of progenitor devices.
"Can any of you hit that barrier with some counterspell?" You asked, looking towards Winterpyre as he sucked the dark magic out of a pack of vampires threatening the team, guarding them with all the attention he could muster before turning towards you and nodding.
"Come, join me in seance." He cackled as he made his incantations; hellrunes writing themselves into the air.
"Yes, I do mean you two. You need to exercise that potential in your blood at some point!" He said, looking at you and Samus as you looked at the threads of magic being woven and reached towards them in your minds eye, your fingers making a few gestures while you and Samus danced around a flurry of deathbolts and blood lance strikes from Hollenmord; ducking beneath a wing sweep so fast that the shockwave it created could cut a dozen fire elementals in half and dig meters into the wall. Weapons fire kept on striking Hollenmord, irrespective of the barrier while you reached in and worked on instinct, letting your distant sight guide you.
It was clusmy, hardly as skilled as you'd like, but it was a start and you looked to Samus briefly for confirmation that you were ready to throw the spell at Hollenmord.
"Ready." She said, a smile forming beneath her helmet as Eudaimonica whipped the magic forwards.
"Come on team let's make that bat scream!" She said with the energy of a cheerleader, a sinewave of magic smashing into Hollenmord's defensive barrier and shattering the magic involved. You felt your heart soaring, you'd managed to do something that Zurvduat had always insisted you were years away from even attempting, and while it was crude, it was exhilarating, the arcane power at your finger tips, the sensation of the cosmos acknowledging you in such a way. You exhaled and smiled beneath your helm, pummeling the foe with the beam fire you were now free to make full use of, the whole team hammering into Hollenmord with the enhancements you had been given by the augment magic; making Hollenmord wail and shriek with every impact.
Hollenmord Health: 33%
Hollenmord dropped to a leg, allowing Winterpyre to wrap the foe in a vortex of cold, ice starting to form around the Undead trio before Maria channeled the energy into her staff.
"Cold on the dead? I would have thought a demon lord smarter than that." She said before she cast the cold into Sidewinder, freezing her over almost completely while making Caustos' flaming form flicker and wail in anguish; Doctor Black working overtime to throw up a shield of darkness to stop Hollenmord's death shriek from shattering Sidewinder immediately afterwards. Hollenmord's form glowed red, blood seeming to arc like electricity from its injuries as it started to thrash with fury and outrage, hate glowing in its eyes.
Situation:
SIDEWINDER: Incapacitated
SERP: Injured (Being healed)
NIGHTCASTER: Tired
CAUSTOS: Seriously Damaged
DOCTOR BLACK: Preoccupied with healing.
WINTERPYRE: Regenerating
SUMMONED ALLIES: Half-strength.
EUDAIMONICA: Summoning more.
All other team mates: Uninjured
HOLLENMORD is ENRAGED and will fight harder
Tactics (Specify whether Samus or Arne can take them. Both can take the same action, which provides a bonus due to their strong cooperative bonds. The exception is lead, which only one character can do):
[]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you.
[]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[]: Tanking: Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[]: Support: Remain in a flexible position, support allies in their actions as situations arise and let them take the initiative; especially useful if you want Winterpyre to take the role of primary tank. Keeps allies safe and yourself reasonably out of harm's way. This helps build bonds with current team mates but does not advance leadership.
[]: Be tricky: Find alternative routes to outflank the enemy so you can surprise and pincer them between yourself and your friends, allowing them to be quickly swept aside. This keeps you the farthest away from your allies and minimises support benefits.
[]: Lead: Take a commanding position where you make use of your leadership skills to be a flexible anchor for the rest of the team, whereas tanking is mostly about absorbing hits and supporting is about keeping people's heads above the water and assault is about damage; leading is about guiding allies to their optimal usage. This helps build bonds with current team mates and advances leadership. This is the most flexible Action.
[]: Write in
Team Tactics (Battery, Molotok, Assault are versatile melee combatants who are capable of slipping by unnoticed. Nightcaster is excellent support, good crowd control and good ranged damage and good summons. Eudaimonica is good support, great crowd control, and good ranged damage with massive summons. Serp is an all rounder who can be committed to support, crowd control, ranged or melee damage, or even tanking without too much fuss. Summons from Nightcaster and Eudaimonica will respond according to their priorities. Doctor Black is great at summoning, crowd control, and support but has relatively lacklustre damage and due to being summoned by Nightcaster; if Nightcaster is incapacitated he will vanish. Winterpyre is enormously powerful at nearly everything but has much of his power bound for a number of reasons and is bound to Eudaimonica. Caustos is the best tank in the group and causes great melee damage and great ranged damage but is largely incapable of subtlety and is also bound to Eudaimonica. Sidewinder is a highly adaptable tank. )
[]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[]: Sneak: Thanks to Nightcaster's stealth magic, the team can be snuck into position to surprise the enemy with a sudden attack, though this limits other avenues of support that Nightcaster can give.
[]: Anvil: The team will be the anvil to Arne and Samus' hammer, letting the two do the most damage while keeping the enemy from escaping or properly reacting to them; this puts them at more risk though.
[]: Hammer: The team will take the role of being the primary damage dealers while Samus and Arne occupy the most attention. This puts them at less risk but means they have to be the ones who must be entrusted with the bulk of damage dealing.
[]: Steamroll: The whole team advances forward as one or as close to it as possible to seek to overwhelm the enemy with the most powerful possible advance. This has the highest risk but the highest damage to the enemy and if the steamroll is successful enough, the damage it does is risk mitigation in and of itself.
[]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[]: Write in
Write in Suggestions:
[]: Write in any extra thing you want the team or characters to do such as finding wooden stakes for Todesscheri, holy symbols, praying, contacting outside help, or the like. You may pick up to three write ins.
Hmm. Honestly the current plan seems to be working. I guess for write-ins I would be in favour of getting Stakes and Holy symbols/praying. Also trying to couterspell/weaken the barrier would be a good thing for Nightcaster and Eudaimonica. What do people think?
Interesting quest. While I don't have any ideas for the immediate combat plan, based on what's been shown so far; 95% or more of Earth-Bet forces are going just melt when going up against anything but the bottom-tier mooks of the dimensional invaders.
Heck considering the various exotic/magical/multi-dimensional aspects of many of the weapons used (or just outright magic which would be an OCP for the Entities and Shards); I can see even Alexandria being shot to pieces if she tries to fight the invaders while running under the assumption that she is immune to their weapons.
And any Tinkers (aside from maybe Dragon and Armsmaster) will be of little help for up-teching etc since they aren't the super-scientists that say the two from the City of Heroes metaverse would be used to. Instead they're people with 'blueprints' (with bits left out and the Shard filling in the gaps so it works but can't be jailbroken) downloaded into their brains and a compulsion to build and use said items.
Worm superpowers are weirder and more esoteric than CoX powers on average with a greater number of strange and hard to counter effects that can bypass many normal defences but Parahumans tend to be much squishier than Metahumans and less versatile due to the rarity of multiple powers. It's the difference between a specialist tool and a broadsword. On the other hand Parahumans are often limited by unenhanced physiologies that can be improved easily by Metroid tech and most tinkers are limited by working with earth tech materials and would do better when given access to better resources.
Generally speaking, Metahumans will be better as tankers, rangers, or supports but Parahumans have a specialty most Metahumans can't quite match them at at similar power levels. Imp could outsneak Captain Mako and Taylor would overwhelm the control most naturopaths can use over insects.
The shards will also start to give out more of the power they offer due to being very interested in all these new abilities. Of course CoX has it's own malevolent extradimensional power source in the Well of Furies.
It's also worth noting that Primal Earth is also under threat. The danger it faces will be clearer when it's actually visited.
On the whole though, the Earths involved are in grave danger and only by coming together and through Samus and Arne's actions and the support of alien allies are they going to survive the Coming Storm. The Nictus and their fascist pawns are just a portion of the danger to come.
[X]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you. (Samus & Arne)
[X]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
Worm superpowers are weirder and more esoteric than CoX powers on average with a greater number of strange and hard to counter effects that can bypass many normal defences but Parahumans tend to be much squishier than Metahumans and less versatile due to the rarity of multiple powers.
Not to mention Worm-powers are kind of pre-built and can't really grow/modify outside of Second Triggers and Tinker creations. In comparison I'd imagine at least some metahumans can grow/expand their abilities. Like say the two magic users designing new spells or making new summon contracts.
Shards: "Can't have that, coming together means less conflict means less data. Gotta start jabbing the host brains to get this conflict train back on track."
And A Child Shall Lead Them. They just have to get past the locals silly insistence that since they aren't 'adults', they shouldn't be in charge and need minders instead.
[X]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you. (Samus & Arne)
[X]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[X] If anyone's religious start praying. Focus on good and righteous things. Certainly couldn't hurt.
