IK vs PA Multi-Battle - City Hall

[Lionheart]

James eyed Zack still, lifeless form and realized that his surge of righteous fervor had come too late. His thoughts turned to remorse and then anger. His remorse was for the many comrades he had seen slain before him in the many cruel years of war that he had been a part of. His anger was directed towards both the archer, for slaying Zack, as well as at the street fighter himself for disobeying James’ orders and leaping headlong into death because of it. But even though the youth had chosen his own fate, James could at least avenge him and see to it that the fatal favor was paid back to the Ixian Knights in full.

Before his blade could strike out and end the young archer however, a second blast akin to the one that had struck him in the church went off several feet away in the midst of the second combat going on in the council chamber. James barely had time to look over in surprise before the blast wave and ensuing shrapnel hit him, lifting him several feet off the floor and peppering his unprotected face with sharp bits of debris. As before, his heavy armor took most of the brunt of the attack, which was itself muted by its distance from him, but James had already been beaten almost to his breaking point by the day’s events and this was the final straw.

The Amran felt his righteous fury abate as he crashed into the opposite wall, leaving him weak and barely able to lift himself up. The pain in his head increased until the knight could barely see through it, and what little he could see down the dark tunnel that his vision had become gave him little hope. The entirety of the council chambers had become naught but glass shards, spattered blood, and surging magical energy.

Wait a minute, he blinked slowly. The recognition had little time to dawn on James’ shattered mind as the second bomb in the council chamber went off. Fortunately for him he had already been thrown well clear of the explosion’s main area of effect, but the council chamber itself hadn’t been quite so lucky. The timbers above the council chamber, devastated by a series of exploding magical shields and bombs, groaned painfully. James did the best he could, clawing his way towards some local elder’s personal chambers as the roof of the council building collapsed behind him.

Awash in a sea of dust and grit from the cloudy mess that the falling roof created, James lay limp in the personal chambers, wracked with coughing until his consciousness, mercifully, gave out.

[Max Dirks]

Dirks froze when he heard the voice behind him. After a moment, a light smirk appeared on the criminal’s face. The owner of the voice must be at least 30 feet away. No weapon the man possessed could cross the distance between the two faster than a bullet from Dirks’ Beretta. “Okay, I’m setting it down now.” Dirks bent over and set the vase on the ground. He stood back up, holding his arms over his head. “You're making a terrible mistake, you know?”

As soon as the words escaped his lips, Dirks had dropped forward to the ground. While falling, he reached into his chest holster and withdrew his ‘patented’ Beretta. Immediately after hitting the ground, Dirks rolled and took aim at the man. Two shots were fired, but only one came from Dirks’ gun. Neither shot hit its mark, nor did Dirks dare to fire again. Instead, his eyes widened as they fell upon his assailant’s semi-automatic pistol. “...Nice Toy.”

Instantly Dirks was on his feet, running for anything to serve as cover. Though it had been a long time, Dirks was no stranger to gun combat. The idea was to keep moving, keep firing, and pray you don’t get hit. As Dirks ran, he emptied his entire clip at the gunslinger, who had practically mirrored Dirks’ actions. Eventually Dirks came across a barrel next to the church. He dove behind it just as one of the gunslinger’s bullets tore by his head.

Once protected, Dirks took an inventory of his ammo. His ‘patented’ Beretta had been completely depleted, and he only had two bullets left in its twin. Cursing, Dirks peaked over the barrel. He could no longer see the gunslinger. In fact, he could no longer see much of anything. A sharp pain tore through Dirks’ head, almost as though he had been shot. Frantically, he felt all around his head searching for an entry wound, but found nothing. The pain grew more and more intense and Dirks fell to the ground. Was this some kind of psychic attack by his assailant?

At that moment, the ground started shaking. Or maybe it was just Dirks. A roar erupted from up the street as the shaking became more intense. Dirks looked up to see at least 50 zebras stampeding up the road. He watched them pass, and then violently shook his head. “They aren’t real.” Dirks mumbled. It didn’t matter though, Dirks melon was completely fried. Still convinced this was some sort of attack, Dirks forced himself to his feet and leaned over the barrel. All he could see clearly was the vase he had just set down. Though he doubted the disease would spread quickly enough, maybe it would limit the man’s hold on Dirks’ brain. Dirks extended his arm, took aim, and fired. The first shot missed the vase entirely, but the second hit home. Instead of merely breaking the vase and spreading the oil around though, the second shot released the Tap.

A vibrant blue light erupted from the vase. Any mage in the vicinity would be hit with the same sharp pain Dirks felt in his head. Ancillary to the psionic effects, the shockwave blasted off the top of City Hall's chimney. It fell away from the combatants onto the ground at the far end of the building. Though Dirks could not see it, hot air escape from the broken brick, heating Dirk's oil to dangerous levels.

((The bunny of Victor firing the guns is approved by Letho. FYI, Dirks was an unreliable narrator for the majority of that post, because he was taken ill by the ‘psionic’ connection explained by Sei’s post in the farm. Earlier, Sei cast the spell “If I would” on Victor. Because Victor followed Sei to City Hall, the random effect of the spell was set in motion. Sei used a number generator and came up with 7, 9, 9, 10. Anything above 7 is usually harmful Sei, so I made it so the result would have killed Sei. He used a word generator that contained the words “zebra, melon, arm, and tap” which I integrated into my post. The ultimately “random” action caused by the “If I would” spell was that the vase created a magical shockwave that would attack all mages in its path. The Zebra's weren't real))

[The Cinderella Man]

Usually, gunning people down boiled down to prioritizing your targets. Victor had been in countless shitstorms where his foes came at him with sticks and swords and spears and shields, and the most difficult thing he had to do was decide which one could get to him soonest and then put a hole in that particular enemy. Everything else was just repetition, the heartless act of adjusting the aim, pulling the trigger and see life blown right out of people. It was almost unfair, like a finger-of-death spell that some wizards supposedly had in their arsenal, only Victor had about a dozen of them per clip.

But shooting an elusive, moving target was an entirely different prospect, more so when that target had the audacious idea to shoot back. The first shot actually caught Victor with his pants down and his ass hanging out, the gunfighter not expecting Dirks to dodge and fire in such quick succession. If the criminal took a fraction of a second more to steady his hand, he probably would’ve had a clean shot at a mostly stationary Victor. But as it turned out, the shot zipped about a foot to the side, and then the dance began. Dirks went left and Victor went right and the bullets went everywhere, the thunder of guns sending them around like angry hornets. There was very little calculation to their movement; there was scarcely a time for a rational thought when every resounding shot could be the last thing you hear in your life. Every time Victor adjusted his aim and thought he lead his shot just perfectly, Dirks changed direction, pivoted, backpedalling and constantly firing. Such was the rapidity of the criminal’s shooting that for every one bullet Aicha unleashed, his opponent seemed to fire two, forcing Victor to roll to the side, scramble back to his feet, strafe to one side then the other. The dirt and gunsmoke filled his lungs, their taste thick and bitter.

In the end they both wound up a clip short, but none worst for damage. Dirks managed to duck behind a barrel, possibly to reload, and by then Victor was at the main entrance to the City Hall, back against the open door with Aicha billowing thin string of smoke from her barrel. Her slide was all the way back, the magazine spent in the mayhem. The empty clip slipped out after a soft click, but when the gunslinger reached for his coat pocked for a spare, he found nothing but lint. Some twenty feet from his position, a pair of clips lay in the dirt, the .45 caliber bullets giving off a faint sheen that seemed to mock their owner. Victor considered making a dash for them, but the moment he set foot from the protection of the doorway, a bullet zinged past his foot.

Bastard has me covered, Victor thought, looking at Aicha with a frown before he showed the pistol back in its holster. He still had a couple of shots in his sawed-off, but he could never shoot Dirks at this range before getting two or three holes as a memento. No, he had to close the distance, and do if fast before his opponent repositioned, and the best way to do it was through the City Hall.

The first thing that struck Victor the moment he entered was a wall of smoke, forcing a dry cough as he stumbled through the grey mist. The second was a headache the size of a boat. It shot from one temple to the other with such ferocity that for a moment gunfighter stumbled against the wall, reaching for his head with hands. He felt as if he just ate a bucket worth of snowcones and now they were paying him back with an icepick through his head. The hell... Bad goddamn whiskey... No time... Gotta move... The thoughts came in spurts, forcing their way through the pain, reminding him of Max and the barrel and the plan to take the criminal out. Somehow he shoved off the wall and covered his face with the crook of his left arm, pushing on through the ache and smoke, knowing he didn’t have to go far. The first door to the left of the entrance led to a windowless storage, but the next one was a large conference room that occupied the corner of the building. It had three high, arched windows, two opening to the front of the building and one looking down on the side alley. He approached the front windows as carefully as he could with a drummer banging against the insides of his skill, suppressing the instinctive need to cough, mindful not to disturb the curtains overmuch. The window closest to the main door of the building seemed to open just ahead of Dirks and his barrel, but the one closest to the corner gave Victor a clear shot at his target’s back. Well, not necessarily a clear shot, what with the gunman's eyes moistening from trying the keep the headache at bay.

Back again, a thought sneaked past the pain in his forehead as the barrel of his sawed-off shotgun slowly pushed the heavy red drapery aside. The latch on the window was locked, but it was old and loose and easy to move. Yet even as Victor gently moved it up, a draft showed against the window, pushing it outwards with such force that it almost went full circle before it slammed against the outside wall. There was no time to ponder on it anymore, no time for decency or courtesy or his goddamn conscience. The wind blew his surprise out just like the window and all it remained was to lean out and...

BLAM!!!

The sound of the shotgun was like an explosion of its own, only smaller and sharper, like the world’s largest firecracker. Whether the pellets turned Dirks into minced meat or missed completely, Victor couldn’t tell. Because even as he unloaded his shot and the shotgun spew smoke and fire out of its wide barrel, another jolt of pain went through his forehead. The headache had been subsiding gradually as he made his way through the building, but the sharp sound of the shotgun being fired inches from his ears brought it all back again, making him stumble back a couple of steps. Victor fell to one knee, trying to inhale deeply and getting naught but smoke for his effort and a cough that rattled his irritated throat. Only, once his cough calmed down, he realized that perhaps there was something else. Even through the headache and the buckshot still echoing in his ears and smoke filling the room all around him, he could've swore that he smelled petroleum.

((The headache is an effect of Sei's "If I could" spell, the effects mentioned in his post in the Farm))

[Abomination]

Draug was out of the room, the way in front of him tilted by his vision. Every time he blinked, blood dripped out of his eyes. Every time he breathed, blood spat out of his mouth. Every time he moved, blood spilled from his joints. He briefly considered taking stock of the smoky room to see if any body parts were available for his taking, but judging from Kyla's body the rest were likely just as roasted. Also, they didn't look like they had anything worth taking either. Maybe in a few years, but not now. The scene between Kyla and Sei mixed with his memories of her, from her point of view. That was the problem with absorbing memories. They were also the only thing retained after an assimilation, but they tended only to provide background information or long-term knowledge. A dull ache filled his head, a strange sort of pain that he couldn't associate with any part of his body. The pain grew and grew until Draug twitched with discomfort. It was as if the pain was being transmitted directly into his mind. Between that and the pain given to him by his body, for once he was genuinely feeling the hurt.

As he walked through the hall, he noticed James' kite shield among the scattered debris. He had no idea what had become of the knight, but now it didn't matter. The clump of flesh at the end of his right arm twisted and reshaped itself, visible knuckles protruding from the mass, followed by the division into fingers. He extended the fat fingers and thumb, the extra flesh receding back into his body as his new hand was formed. It was likely the last bit of body manipulation he could do for a while. He put the new hand to use by picking up the shield and sticking it onto his left side, the stickiness of his exposed flesh keeping it in place. It took the place of his left shoulder, but he could not really move it. He held it in place as he kept walking, letting his skin latch onto it like a steel trap.

"Daddy!" came a young voice from behind.

Draug turned around, sensing a strange familiarity with the voice, but nothing was there. His weakened state, the meddling inside his mind, and Kyla's memories... was he hallucinating? Was he thinking of his own father? No, that couldn't be. He only had a mother. Another possibility, a thought of his own invention, emerged within his mind- A son? Why he thought of a boy and not a girl was strange, but it felt like it held some truth to it. He never thought about his life before his transformation into the elite super-ghoul that was bound with divine essence. There was nothing to think about, as his memories were blank. He couldn't even remember his time as a simple ghoul, driven entirely by bestial urges like the rest of them. He shrugged off this thought as he reached the exit to the city hall.

Unfortunately, it was far from peaceful over there. Several loud bangs he now recognized as gunshots had preceded his trek, which he distinctly associated with the man in the church. Kyla's memories told him the man's name was Max Dirks. Apparently this was a rather recent memory. Another loud crash occurred when something big fell onto the ground outside. Pressing his hand deeper on the kite shield on his left shoulder, he grimaced from the pain, a rare sign of showing an emotion. There was a faint light of humanity in his eyes. Stepping outside the city hall finally, he heard the sound of the shotgun, which was the loudest thing thus far. This caused him to reconsider his previous assessment. He was somewhat familiar with this type of weaponry, if only from what he heard in descriptions and his stolen memories. After all, when he spied on the man in the tavern he saw a weapon that could produce such a sound. Could that man be fighting Dirks?

As he walked into the street, he started limping towards the source of the sound. He reached into his throat, coughing and pulling out one of his remaining swords. If the tavern man won, having a few bullet holes in his body would be the least of Dirks' worries.

((Taking the shield approved by Lionheart. Draug stays in the City Hall area due to the others being here as well.))

[Max Dirks]

Within seconds of the psionic blast, Dirks’ headache subsided. It was as though any psychic connection between the criminal and his mysterious assailant had been instantly severed. What the hell just happened? Dirks wondered. The whole ordeal had left him rather disoriented. Still leaning over the barrel, Dirks still took a moment to re-evaluate his position. And naturally, that split second nearly cost him his life.

The buckshot caught Dirks square in the back. At a distance of no more than ten feet, the force of the blast caused Dirks to burst through the barrel and land face down in a mixture of blood, oil and spilled grain. “Urgh,” Dirks groaned. Most of the shot had caught Dirks’ chainmail vest, causing him to feel as though a thousand needles had simultaneously been jabbed into his spine. But his shoulder had been severely damaged. Unprotected except for his trench coat, the buckshot had shattered his right clavicle and he was bleeding profusely from the wound.

Unwilling to die in a pool of his own blood, Dirks forced himself off the ground. Finding it somewhat difficult to balance on one arm, it took Dirks a moment to rise to his feet. Once stationary, the criminal stumbled forward. The blood loss had made him incredibly lightheaded. Dirks moved to the corner of the building and stopped. There, near the entrance, was the strange creature that had rescued the knight earlier in the church. Not wanting to give away his position, Dirks slid against the wall to hide. The pain from the movement was intense. It was like reliving the shotgun blast once more.

A moment passed, and Dirks heard a faint “fuph.” Unsure of its source, he kept his eyes focused on the front of the building ready to attack anything that came around the corner. Then suddenly a large wall of fire burst from the back of City Hall. Unknown to Dirks, the broken chimney had heated the oil and set it ablaze. Dirks looked to his left and his eyes turned bright. “Oh shit!” he exclaimed.

Dirks forced himself away from the building and started running into the street. The flame quickly engulfed the place where Dirks once stood and passed around the corner. Holding his hand against his shoulder to stop the blood, Dirks turned just as the flame passed under the weird creature. The fire had now spread all the way around the building, and had caught the grain and kindling spaced throughout. Burning hot due to the oil, soon the entire building would catch fire, engulfing anyone still caught inside.

Stuck in the open and nearly out of options, Dirks wondered how long he could continue to hold off the scourge of Corone.

[Poison]

The first blast had thrown Poison off her feet. When she had hit the floor, she'd skimmed across it floor until her body hit the wall. She lay there a moment, then as she started to rise, shaking her head to clear it, the second blast filled the room and she was tossed against the wall once more. This time, she was far enough away that she was able to hit the floor and elude most of the shrapnel and glass shards flying about the room. Several shards grazed across her back and shoulders and she grit her teeth against the pain. She knew her back was likely a mangled mess. It certainly felt like it. She also knew she would heal, but it would take her some time.

Damn Mystics and their magic...

Slowly, she got to her feet, leaning against the wall for support. The ceiling rumbled above her and she saw the cracks spreading quickly throughout the timbers supporting it. She looked around frantically for a place to hide and saw the knight making his way into a room. She followed him quickly, her face twisted in a grimace of pain at the forced movement. She reached the doorframe just as the council chamber ceiling gave way. She collapsed to her knees and only then did she notice the knight laying unconscious on the floor.

She stared at him for several seconds before she realized that her fangs had elongated. She needed to feed. It would help her heal more quickly if she fed now. But there was no time to waste. She could smell the wood burning and knew in an instant that she needed to get out of building. She crawled over to the fallen knight and shook him, trying to wake him. While she didn't care about the man personally, she was of the opinion that very few people deserved the painful end of burning to death.

"Wake up, Knight! The building is burning!"


She didn't try for long before she slowly got to her feet. The chamber had only one window that was miraculously still intact. She coughed as smoke was starting to fill the room. The heat from the flames consuming the building was becoming more and more oppressive. She took a chair and threw it through the window, grimacing as pain wracked her back as she did. She looked back once at the knight, licking her lips briefly. She could take a quick drink, but it would put her at a greater risk of being caught in the fire. Gritting her teeth against the pain in her back she bent and slid her arms under the knight's shoulders. She pulled on him trying to drag him to the window.

Come on, damn you! Wake up!

It seemed to take her forever, but she got the knight to the window. She panted for breath from the effort and coughed harder. It would not be long before the combination of the collapsed council room ceiling and the destruction the fire was causing to make the ceiling in this room also collapse. She looked through the window. It would be easy to abandon the knight and hope he woke in time to crawl out the window.

This would be a lot easier if he wasn't wearing so much damn armor...

Taking a deep breath she bent and lifted the unconscious man to a sitting position beneath the window. She might wind up banging his head on the ground outside, but a headache was likely far more preferable than death by fire. Trying to ignore the pain engulfing her back, she slowly lifted him until he was sitting on the windowsill.

"Out you go..." she said as she pushed him backward out of the window. She followed as quickly as she was able, then bent to drag him away from the wall. Little by little she dragged him across the small alleyway to the shade of the neighboring building. Panting and groaning against the pain in her back, she lay there, not daring to lean against the wall lest she injure herself further. At least now she and the knight were out of the building and a tiny bit safer. She could only hope now that anyone that found her would either be an ally or merciful and leave her be. She had no strength left to fight. She only wanted two things: a good drink from someone and then a very long nap while her back healed.


((moving to streets. movement of James is approved.))

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor wasn’t aware how much time passed until he willed himself back to his feet. Could’ve been seconds. Could’ve been hours. Pain had a nasty way of distorting time, making a minute seem like an eternity, especially when it was as implacable as the one wreaking the gunman’s head. But after a few moments spent on his knees with his head in his hands, trying to think of a happy place, it finally seemed like it was subsiding. Or maybe he was just getting used to that piece of metal stuck between his temples. Either way, it was enough to get Victor back to reality, and the reality greeted him like a cruel stepmother, all fire and brimstone.

The nose knows, Victor thought bitterly, remembering the scent of fuel from moments ago. Someone saw fit to light the petroleum – Letho suspected Dirks, naturally – and by now there was a wall of vivid flames blocking every window, the flames and black smoke slowly creeping inside. They ate away at the curtains greedily, then continued onto the tapestries and carpets and wooden wall cladding, turning the entire room into an oven. Or a Furnace, Victor thought, the memory of his time spent in the famous Corone prison of the same name flashing in front of his mind’s eye. The heat was the same as he remembered, pinching at his skin with a myriad of fingers made of hot iron and refusing to let go. Soon it would feel as if the skin itself was burning. He had to get out, get away, or die an agonizing death. He had seen people burned alive in the Furnace. There were few sounds as haunting as a wail of a man being burned alive.

Victor stumbled back out of the room, one arm across his face, the other close to the wall as he felt his way through the smoke and towards the exit. Once he entered the hallways, the air cleared up enough for him to see more than five paces in front of him, but the smoke still harassed his lungs, making him cough as he went. To one side, he could see the main doors through which he entered minutes ago, or rather what was left of them. The entire breadth of the hallway was engulfed in flames, the double doors barely hanging on their hinges and burning eagerly. This was an old house, Victor concluded. Only old houses, with their wood dried and settled long ago, caught flame with such haste. His father told him that once, and old man Hector was an architect; he would likely know.

The gunslinger made his way across the hall, shouldered his way past another door and entered what looked like an office, but the window at the far end of it offered more of the same. He scrambled back, tried another, tried every damn door that wasn’t locked, but wherever he found a window, he found the fire as well, and every time it seemed closer to the door. Second floor, that was his only option, he thought. If he was lucky, he could jump onto an overhang or even a nearby building. But luck wasn’t a lady today. In fact, as far as Victor was concerned, luck had never been nothing but a bitch towards him. By the time he found the staircase amidst of all the smoke and fire and falling beams and lashing flame tongues, the entire length of it was burning, the fire spreading from a nearby window and up the carpeted floor.

“Son of a BITCH!!!” Victor exclaimed in frustration. He tried to brave the staircase all the same, but by the time he got to the second step, he felt as if he boots were melting and could smell his singed hair. No good, find another way, thoughts flashed in his head. The adrenaline from his impeding and very grueling death superseded the headache, allowing him to think a bit clearer. He surveyed the foyer quickly, noticed the entrance to a privy and almost immediately made a dash for it. The place didn’t smell half as bad as some of the toilets in local taverns, but it was still far from pleasant, smell of fresh shit on a warm day. The back of it was also burning by now, but what he was looking for was closer to the door anyways. He picked up two water basins, still sloshing with water, got them out in the hallway, then went into the female washroom and picked a third one. There were no more tapestries or curtains left untouched by the flames, but there was a huge flag of Corone hanging above the receptionist’s desk and Victor tore it down as fast as he could. Wrapping it around himself as best he could (and making sure it covered his head), he uplifted the three basins on his head. The fabric of the flag was relatively thin, but it held water better than his leather coat.

The gunslinger paused for a moment, a thought of how he could’ve been in Saddle Ablaze right now with a hooker in his lap mocking his current situation again, and then the charged down the hallway and through the front entrance.

The water helped, but not much. Victor kept his eyes and mouth closed as he sprinted through the flames, which meant there was no way to see that the doors were still hanging on its hinges, even if they were little more than charred wood and embers. He struck the left wing with his shoulder, feeling it burning right through his clothes and singing his skin. The left side of his face got lashed by the flames as well, the flag tearing from the impact against the door. But by the time he actually registered any of this, he was out in the streets, sprawling past another shambling figure and down the steps, falling into the dirt. He rolled a couple of times, tossed first the now burning flag of his body, then squeezed out of his leather coat. Finally the gunman rose, his body steaming from the evaporating water, his visage half-singed, his eyes filled with wrath borne out of pain. It didn’t take those angry eyes to find the cause of all this mayhem. The man that he had blew past wasn’t Dirks and didn’t look like much of a threat; in fact, Victor was almost positive he was actually a part of the Phoenix Ascendant. No, his target was a bit farther down the line, finally caught out of cover and out of bullets.

“Time to die, Dirks!” he bellowed, yanking the sawed-off free of its holster and aiming it at the wounded criminal. Max didn’t look like he was in a shape to put up a fight. In fact, to Victor he looked like a man with one foot in the grave and the other on some very loose footing. It was only courteous to offer him some assistance and put him in his rightful place.

So Victor pulled the trigger, hoping to send him on his way.

((I figure this should probably continue in the Streets, so for intents and purposes, Victor moves to the Streets))

[Abomination]

After both men passed by Draug, he continued limping out of range of the now-burning city hall and into the streets.

((Draug moves to the Streets. I'll make the real post there.))

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Closed