Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Oct 28, 2009 20:58:42 GMT -6
"Holy shit, was that fucking lightning!?" the man in the passenger seat blurted as Maku purged himself of the gravel in his cuts.
"At ease, lieutenant," Apek told the guy. He then glanced at Maku as he listened to the question. "ETA is 20 seconds," he said. "We have a chopper in the sky, keeping an eye on the guy and his nanoswarm." He glanced at Maku. "Or whatever it is," he added.
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Oct 28, 2009 21:07:06 GMT -6
Maku smirked at the reaction from the man to his right, then nodded at Apek's estimate. "Perfect. Regardless of whether it's a nanoswarm or something else, I really don't think we want that cloud to get back to the dude in the armor."
Maku broke away from the conversation abruptly, heading to the rear door of the APC. He waited until he felt Apek put the brakes on as they reached the building, then opened the door and hit the ground running. Glancing around quickly, he noted a fire escape with a set of stairs raised up in the locked position.
Running to the ground beneath it, he looked up towards the roof before placing his hand against the wall. A bolt of energy flowed down his arm and along the wall, leaving cracked concrete in its wake before leaping to the latch that held the stairs up. The metal fractured instantly, and the stairs lowered to the ground just as Maku leapt onto them, making his way to the roof.
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Post by Shard on Oct 28, 2009 21:18:55 GMT -6
Shard dug his claws into the roof, leaving long gouges in the concrete before he leaped forward with all the strength of his new legs. His tail broke off cleanly above Drixel's hand, and he bounded away from the angel in a wide circle, turning to face him just as the final cloud made its way to its master.
This transformation was more drastic than any of the others, as the cloud flew to Shard's head and shoulders. The massive crystals on his shoulders grew sharp and curved towards Drixel, joining across his back as the spikes down his spine grew in an upwards curve towards his head. His head was completely encased, the crystals merging and growing over one another to form an almost-canine muzzle, full of razor-sharp teeth.
All that remained of the cloud split, forming two pointed horns on Shard's new beastly head, while the rest repaired some of the lost section of his tail, leaving it about a foot long with a curved blade at the end. The black crystal beast seemed to bark at Drixel once before breaking into a full-on charge, horns and spikes and teeth all pointed at the angel.
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Post by drixel on Oct 28, 2009 21:29:01 GMT -6
Drixel watching in horror as Shard changed into something more horrible then he could imagine. more shock set in when he noticed shard was bull rushing him. there was no way for Drixel to one and only one thought entered his mind.
Drixel quickly placed his hands on the roof and tried his best to bring the whole building down as safe as possible. he could feel the foundation start to shake and crumble. Drixel tried to coat him self from bits of concrete but was hit before it could fully cover him. the blow sent drixel flying into the air out of control.
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Post by Shard on Oct 28, 2009 21:44:24 GMT -6
Shard's horns hooked around Drixel, keeping the angel from his teeth, but pulling and throwing him free of the roof with a mighty upward toss. The toss lifted Shard's front legs (for that was now the best description for what once had been a pair of heavily armored fists) off the roof. As the angel flew away spinning, Shard let loose another excited roar, one interrupted only by the buckling of the damage concrete as his claws landed.
In a cloud of dust, the beast fell through a widening hole to the floor below, breaking one of his elbow blades and one of his horns in the fall. As the beast recovered from its fall, it shook off the broken concrete like a dog shaking water from its fur.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Oct 28, 2009 21:54:17 GMT -6
"Shit, there he goes," Apek said. "Okay, perimeter around the target! Go! Go! Go!"
The strike team quickly readied their wapons and evacuated the APC, creating a perimeter around the building that held the guy whose armor just ate the nanoswarm.
"Keep your weapons trained on the target," Apek said, following Maku toward the fire escape on the building adjacent to the target. He saw Maku rest a hand on it, and the concrete cracked until the stairs on the fire escape fell. Maku climbed quickly up it, but Apek hardly noticed.
"How the hell did he do that?" Apek said, when he heard a crumbling by the building.
"Target in motion!" he heard, and he turned just in time to see the man in armor clear the building, and now all of a sudden with horns and strange feet, and it was a flying tackle all the way across-
The armored guy crashed into a guy with bird wings, who actually looked like an angel.
"Okay, this is getting really weird," Apek said as he tried to keep an eye on whatever was happening up there.
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Oct 28, 2009 22:13:06 GMT -6
Maku continued up the fire escape as Apek shouted orders to the other men in the APC. He could hear their boots pounding the pavement even as he turned onto the next set of stairs. Then, a tremor shook the building, and the fire escape with it, forcing Maku to stop and grip the handrails to steady himself. There was a moment of uncertainty where he thought the escape might fall free of the building, but then it settled.
Just as he was about to continue, however, a loud crash to his immediate right drew his attention. Glancing through the window, he saw a shaft of light illuminating a cloud of dust, and within it, something large, black, and moving. He gave an audible gulp, even as the sight of the creature sent another flare of pain to his shoulder.
Not wasting any more time, he jumped to the landing he'd just left, pressing his hand against the wall. A spiderwebs of cracks and black lightning appeared on the surface, and with a strong push, he collapsed a small section of the wall, making himself a doorway. As soon as the debris stopped falling, he ran through.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Oct 28, 2009 22:25:33 GMT -6
Apek could only stare in awe as a puff of dust emerged from the building, accompanied by crashing sounds. Maku then, using some kind of magic or something that Apek could only guess at, blasted himself a doorway in the side of the wall.
"Orders, sir?" one of the soldiers asked, now facing Apek.
"Create a perimeter around this building," Apek said. "And stand fast. I get the feeling something big is gonna happen." He then looked up at Maku's doorway. "Damned if I know what it's gonna be," he muttered quietly.
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Post by drixel on Oct 28, 2009 23:34:16 GMT -6
Drixel regained control and hovered in the air above the building. after the dust had settled he could see that shard was still moving. Drixel took what concreat he had on his body, forming a large ball over his head and with a oomph threw it down into the hold that shard had created.
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Post by Shard on Oct 28, 2009 23:41:46 GMT -6
Shard's attention had just turned to the young man walking through the hole in the wall when the concrete hit. Thanks to Drixel's angle, the mass of concrete, easily 4 feet across, hit him sideways more than it did down. But still, the damage was done.
There was a crunch of bone as his still-human ribs cracked with the impact, injuries intensified by the roll the strike sent him into. He was knocked about 20 feet to the left from where he'd originally landed, and the dust kicked up by the impact obscured his vision. By the time he stood, heavily favoring his right side, he'd lost sight of the boy. Where Shard might once have been frustrated by this, the beast he'd become only felt rage.
With a roar that hurt his injured ribs, the beast sent out a brief shower of crystals in a ring around it, breaking the windows on that side of the building and embedding in the walls and support columns in the space.
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Oct 28, 2009 23:52:55 GMT -6
Maku jumped as the concrete ball slammed into Shard through the hole in the ceiling, regaining his senses in time to leap behind a nearby support column. A minute later, when he heard the creature roar, he felt his heart skip a beat.
Damn...this isn't gonna be easy. If I could get him outside, the guns would help, In here, though, it's just me, and this body can't go toe-to-toe with that thing. I've gotta get him into the street, and hope Apek and his boys know who to shoot.
He began forming a plan, but his thoughts were interrupted by a wave of black crystal shooting past him. He felt thudding in the pillar, and guessed the concrete had just saved his life. Too bad he'd have to destroy quite a bit of it for his plan to work.
Glancing around the pillar, he could barely make out the shape of the beast through the dust. He thought he was behind it. Well, hoping's gonna have to be enough this time around. It's now or never.
He pushed away from the pillar, starting in a crouching run before breaking into a sprint, reaching the wall as he planned, but moving the dust enough to betray his position in the process. Without taking time to think, he crouched down, using the drop to put his left hand on the ground, and his right on the wall facing the street.
A spiderweb of cracks and lightning spread from his right hand across a wide section of the wall, a few seconds before a similar web spread from his left hand across the floor. With a helluva lot of luck, the wall would go first, then the floor would go, tilting as it did and dumping the beast into the street below.
As the cracks spread beneath him, he realized that, if it worked, it would take him too. He faltered for only a moment before doubling his efforts, hoping to make it happen before he could panic himself into stopping.
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Post by Shard on Oct 29, 2009 0:02:42 GMT -6
The dust in the air sent the beast into a brief coughing fit after the roar, forcing it to whimper as its injured ribs moved with the reflex. However, the sound of footsteps behind it took its attention away from the pain, and it turned quickly to see what poor thing had come so close.
Crouching behind it, the teen from before stared at the ground, one hand on the floor and the other on the wall nearby. A bestial grin spread across the creature's crystal maw, and it took a step forward, intending to devour the boy where he kneeled.
As it stepped, however, it felt a good bit of the floor come with it, and it found itself looking at the floor, much as the boy was. A number of cracks were fast appearing in the floor, and as it watched, black lightning seemed to jump between many of the cracks. A few of these small bolts leaped onto its paws, causing the crystal there to crack as well. The beast's head whipped up, roaring in rage and pain.
However, before it could move to strike its newest attacker, the wall to its right crumbled. Almost immediately after, the floor tilted to the right, towards the new opening, and began to collapse beneath its feet. It collapsed from the left edge towards the hole, and before the beast could focus itself to ignore its first instinct, it found itself stumbling out of the second story of the building into the street below.
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Post by drixel on Oct 29, 2009 0:09:28 GMT -6
Drixel saw more dust rise and shard had fallen out of the building and to the street below. Drixel quickly searched his bag to see if he had any remaining crystals, he was lucky to find one last small shard. Drixel thought and once more coated his body flying higher and higher into the sky.
Drixel then started to do a dive bomb attack. He had nearly had it with shard and if a head on attack would do any damage Drixel was going to take the risk. Drixel flew down as fast as he could, with his arms out above his head.
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Darzul
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Post by Darzul on Oct 29, 2009 0:13:17 GMT -6
Apek stepped back as he saw the angel (he assumed) above hurl a boulder into the building, and heard a massive crashing sound. He then saw a few shards of crystal protruding from the second story, almost as though a pin cushion had exploded.
He then ran further backward as the wall above him crumbled, chunks of concrete raining down. He then ran backward until things semed to settle, which only lasted about half a second before the floor also gave way. The creature in dark crystalline armor slid out, landing with a thud on the ground.
Apke hesitated only for a moment before deciding that if it was clad in black armor, and fighting an angel, it must be a demon. "Prepare to fire on my mark," he shouted to the crew.
Above him he caught a glimpse of glistening, and saw the angel was flying upward. It looked different, and now shone, and was now hurtling toward the ground toward the demon...
"Shit," Apek declared. "Get back! Incoming!" he roared before putting some distance between himself and the point of impact.
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Maku
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Post by Maku on Oct 29, 2009 0:26:26 GMT -6
Maku couldn't help but laugh as the beast fell out through the hole, just the way he'd hoped. However, his laughter was cut short as he found himself falling after it, just the way he'd feared. Using what little foothold he had left on the crumbling floor, he turned himself to land on his left side, hoping to use the injured arm to soften the blow.
This is gonna hurt like a bitch.
It did. A mesh of rebar had been exposed as the wall and floor fell, and when he finally fought through the pain enough to assess the damage, he found his arm skewered, likely through the bone, judging from the pain. He heard Apek's voice, but couldn't concentrate enough to understand the words. He turned his head in time to see Apek running from the creature, and as he turned his head back, his eye caught a flash up in the sky.
Huh. That explains where Drixel's been.
In contrast with the eerie calm that had overtaken his thoughts, Maku moved fast, or tried to. A burst of lightning shattered the rebar at the point where it entered his arm, freeing him from the mess at the expense of iron splinters in his flesh. At this point, he no longer cared about the arm. As he rolled away from the creature, his only concern was making it out of this alive.
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