[] Aerial barrage
-[] Drop a Wide Area Search and a Bursting Flare Shooter aimed at the ground in front of them to gather data and provide cover while getting some height on them... a hundred or two hundred meters should do.
-[] Call Sam, ask her to teleport here and bring up the Recursion Field.
-[] Once she's here and you get information about these guys abilities and numbers, attack. Sam will cover you.
--[] Light them up with as many Flare Shooters as you can.
--[] If there is more of them or they seems actually dangerous, don't hesitate to use Temporal Sludge and Solar Wrath.
Civil War 8.10
Everything was going so well before this last week. You were mostly adjusted to life in Philadelphia. You had a couple of friends through Kayleigh, not to mention Vista and Dragon. You had stood triumphant over the Dragonslayers. Then it all went to hell. Your dad is in critical condition, Mexican cartels are trying to take over, you're getting interrogated by Alexandria, you have to live in an apartment that isn't your home with people who – regardless of how nice they are – aren't your family, and your dad wakes up only not to recognize you. And
now these idiots are trying to shoot you out of the sky?
They picked the wrong day to pull this shit.
«
Sam!»
You rise in the sky, the deep red of Wide Area Search already forming at the end of your staff, when it happens. A wave of not-color sweeps towards and through you, and the eruption of orange light above you occurs right before the wave hits. You blink at the still, lifeless neighborhood that remains, confusion now warring with anger. This… this looks just like Recursion Field. How in the world are you in a dimensional barrier?
The Blaster of the group does not give you the time to ponder, and when the blasts again break upon your shield you can't help but wonder. Orange spheres, duller and redder in color than your own. Could it be another Shooter spell? The very idea is ludicrous, but between this and Recursion Field—
A brief whir is all the warning you get before another blast swings around from behind and slams into your left shoulder. A grunt from your right heralds the descent of your Guardian Beast just in time to tank the hit. "Who are these guys?" Samantha asks.
You do not know, and you don't think they'll tell you if you ask. Wide Area Search drops, and you follow it with a set of Flare Shooters. These bullets are special, though, their code just a little different than you're used to. While they fall, you rocket upwards until you are a couple of hundred feet up. This should keep you out of range of their attacks while you make a better plan. Your mask adjusts for the night's darkness just in time for your Shooters to hit the rooftop on which your attackers stand and explode, each tennis-ball-sized bullet suddenly turning into a two-foot circle of fire and fury. Those explosions should put them off their game for a few seconds.
The three visible men jump into the air to escape the attack, and you groan. Of course they're capable of flight. Because this fight wasn't enough fun yet.
A very familiar triangle of light appears below one of the men, and almost before you can react he is suddenly in your face. His thick sword crashes against your shield in a spray of sparks. "
Cdyht tufh!" he barks.
«
Belkans?»
A flick of your wrist sends a quartet of Flare Shooters at him, but you don't stick around to see the result. One Blitz Action later and you are a solid hundred feet to the side, well out of his range. Between the bullets, the flight, and the casting triangle, there is only one possible conclusion: you have been attacked by mages. Your revelation is punctuated by frantically dodging a spray of Shooters you didn't see coming from below until it was almost too late.
«
BELKANS!»
Perfect Storm's scream of hate echoes in your mind while you continue your game of keep away with the sword-wielding mage. You only have a few abilities from the Extinction Knight template you had your Device install into your Linker Core, and that is enough to know you do not want to fight someone like that hand-to-hand. You flood the air between you with Flare Shooters, all of them set to explode with crippling force if disturbed. Hopefully the impromptu mine field will keep him off you for a second. «
Storm, what's wrong?»
«
Belkans. Savages, murderers, monsters. Kill them, Mistress! Kill them before they kill you!»
The Belkan knight flings himself higher in the sky to fly around your mines and winds up putting himself square in the path of Samantha's haymaker. He clears a swath through the mine field with his body, and you don't expect he's going to come back from that quickly. "You okay?" she asks immediately.
"Okay so far. You?"
"They're good," is Samantha's reluctant reply. That worries you. Your Guardian Beast is strong, but as the Dragonslayers proved, she is far from invincible. Then you have to throw up two shields to block yet another pincer attack. Is this what it's like for people fighting you? If so, it is extremely frustrating.
Wide Area Search finishes its deployment with a ping, and you blink in shock. Has it only been twenty seconds? The screen pops into view just as the two remaining melee mages rush at you, one carrying an axe and the other a spear. Samantha takes up a defensive position in front of you, intent on blocking anything coming at you. You, meanwhile, move a shield to your back and focus on the screen.
There has to be some way of turning the tables on your attackers.
Two in front of you, which you already knew. The surprise is that there are not two but three people below you all clustered together. The mage Samantha took out, the shooter, but who is the third? Maybe the leader of this bunch. The Blaster and the leader together make too good a target. "Sam, watch my back for a sec. I need to take care of their gunman."
You spin around, dismissing the shield to open up your line of fire. A purplish-black bullet flies at the stairwell where the three figures are hiding, but even before Temporal Sludge has fully deployed you pop a few cartridges. Fire swirls into a miniature sun, and a focusing ring forms a foot farther down. "Solar Wrath!"
The bright orange laser slices through the building, the four stories collapsing on top of themselves. You hold back a wince. That was not quite what you had in mind when you fired the spell. You were hoping it would only roast the roof, but it looks like you're a little more upset than you thought you were. Once this fight is over, you'll need to check on them and make sure they were not buried in the rubble.
Blue light shines down on you, and you conjure a shield with not a second to spare. A wide beam of blue slams into the shield, cracks already forming, and you and Samantha both dodge to the sides when the shield breaks. Your left arm screams in pain as it is scoured with a sandblaster. Now out of the way, you take a quick glance to find that your jacket's sleeve has been shredded below the elbow and your forearm is red as if sunburned. You glare at the purple-haired mage above you. He wants to play with bombardment magic? Okay. You'll play.
His overlarge pistol unfolds into its axe form, and he flings himself at Samantha.
You move to pursue him when you hear a sharp
ting and jerk to a halt. Around your left wrist is a ring of the same reddish-orange magic as the bullets, and despite your efforts you cannot pull yourself free. The Blaster must have survived after all. A second handcuff appears around your right hand, and now you are getting worried. This smells like a set up.
Orange sparks streak past you from all around, not just around you and the fighters but even along the ground. The neglected screen for Wide Area Search fizzles closed. You follow the sparks down and watch them merge into an ever-growing ball of mana that is already as big as your living room. It looks like the one spell in your arsenal you have never tried out, the one that is so powerful it would probably wipe out an entire neighborhood.
It looks like Ragnarök.
"Oh shit," you mutter as you desperately try to pull yourself free from your bindings. This is going to hurt.
The mage's shout is drowned out by the roar of the mana beam coming at you like a runaway train. The attack hits, and you scream. Your entire body is on fire, knives slashing through every inch of you followed by the raw impact of that much magic. The shackles shatter, and you tumble blindly through the air.
All bad things must eventually end, and so too does the spell. You fall several dozen feet before you finally catch yourself with a hover. Even that much is a strain. You feel like you just went ten rounds with Hookwolf, and your Barrier Jacket doesn't look much better. Your jacket is gone while there is barely enough left of your shirt to preserve your modesty. Your skirt is little more than a belt. One knee-high boot has been reduced to a sneaker, and the other is missing entirely. Perfect Storm, thankfully, is still mostly intact, but the tines of its head are glowing as though from heat and a spiderweb of hairline cracks crisscross its jewel.
Samantha screams, but unlike yours hers is one of complete and utter rage. You catch a glimpse of a black haze surrounding her before she's off, her Battle Frenzy turning her from overprotective ally to unstoppable berserker.
Okay Taylor, new plan, you decide. Your Barrier Jacket can't take much more of this abuse, so you need to get off the field and into the shadows. If you can sneak around and throw up Wide Area Search again, you hit the unknown bombardment mage below from the shadows and then focus your efforts on the axe-wielder, leaving the knights to Samantha.
"
Durchstechen." You whirl around at the feminine voice and find the swordsman from before not even a foot in front of you. An intense tearing pain takes root in your chest, and you glance with a grimace down to see a shaft of metal coming out of you.
Oh.
"
E's… E's sorry
," he mutters, his expression just as shocked as yours probably is, though you're sure yours is a good deal more pained. You can't help but wonder why Perfect Storm decided now was the best time to start translating again. He backs up, pulling three feet of reddened steel with him. Without his weapon supporting you, you tilt backwards and fall.
Your chest doesn't hurt so much now, which is a relief, though you're pretty sure the blackness rolling in is a bad thing all on its own…
This chapter was originally going to feature Taylor dying, with plan for the rebirth mechanic to kick in and start the next arc. That plan has now been changed because I like not getting my head bitten off by all and sundry.
