RP [Phoenix Team] - Through The Cries

Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Ground Floor, Pachinko Machines
The two new arrivals were quick to scoot away from Breyja's submachinegun fire, while the grenade-carrying goon tossed the pinless explosive towards Breyja's position, using an underhanded lob to avoid hitting the Raiken with it and likely blowing himself up. The sword wielding goon moved to attack Ravnir, but was intercepted by a chunk of crumbling masonry, concussing him and leaving him knocked out, probably bleeding profusely and sporting broken bones.

The one who had a hand grabbed his companion's longsword off the ground and charged towards Ravnir with the blade in hand, thrusting towards their midsection. It was a practised technique where a running thrust with a blade could easily dispatch a human - and the fearless goon tried to apply the same logic here, aiming low and for the softer belly scales. Meanwhile, the grenade he threw landed on the counter, bouncing and landing beside Breyja.

Far from ideal, as the ideal situation was to have no grenade to deal with at all, but the Maidenhand's ballistic shield could soak the worst of the blast if she braced properly or made way and got out of dodge.

Snuffles saw Luca with the collar of a man's shirt in one hand his fist in the other. Having floored the other goons in the span of around thirty seconds by playing dirty and reversing impulsive and undisciplined swings, Luca emerged victorious in the scuffle. "Fine, fine," Luca sighed, throwing the bloody nosed goon into a pachinko machine and hustling away - at least the Chelti could call him out on his joy for a brawl - there was a mission to do after all.

Heading up the stairs with Snuffles, Luca got Rumia's incoming transmission loud and clear. "Awesome work Shadowcat, take her to the roof and extract on the next couple of streets over." He said, before realising that the 'target' had to be going. "I'm gonna sweep the rest of the place and see what comes tumbling out. Call this number in the meantime-" Luca listed the telephone for Harumi's business - and not the front-of-desk line "-and tell them the good news. They'll send someone to pick up the target ASAP."

As Luca and the Chelti were heading up the stairwell, they could hear a trilling voice, reptilian, something like a bird and a raptor yelling at something echoing from another floor. Perhaps a very angry parrot was taking egress with the noise he was making downstairs.

Luca paused at the noise and listened for it, hearing it a floor above the one he and Snuffles had walked in on. "What's that noise?" Luca whispered, pointing up and making out what was being verbalised. Furrowing his brow, he noticed that there were repeating patterns, rising and lowering timbres. He slowed his pace and begun skulking up the stairwell, drumming his fingers against the foregrip of his shotgun. "Is that a spell?" He wondered, scowling.

Now a whole new world of possibilities opened up to Luca - mages seldom liked being interrupted in the middle of rituals in his experience, reacting with anything from fire bolts to dead flesh, or curses. "Shit, might be worth calling Harumi's crew anyway..." he mused, looking over to Snuffles as he followed the sound of the spellcasting down a dilapidated corridor on the third floor, residential rooms disused while the lights of fire exit on the other end of the hall blinked. Mildew had eaten portions of the carpet - the place was one of neglect, but somewhere, something malicious and precise was unfolding.


Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Floor 5, A Disused Bathroom
Collapsing out of her bindings and teetering a little before standing up, Harumi looked down at herself as the synthetic ropes fell to ribbons at her feet and light synthetic and organic flooded in through the holes and the window. The only thing that stuck out when the rescuer spoke was 'Vadrali', and they didn't give the mooks a name as the witch looked for a way to thank her rescuer. "Thank you, Vadrali." She said, voice hoarse as she held onto the chair for support.

"We should hurry." Harumi indicated towards the door out, then back up through the hole Rumia had carved out of the ceiling. "We have to get out before the Rolaan realises what's going on - nowhere in this building will be safe." There wasn't really a 'before', though. Not with around a thousand kilograms of Raiken throwing any pretence of subtlety out of the raid Phoenix Team was undertaking.

♫ Yakuza 0 - Misery Comes On Beat ♫

As Harumi was heading for the door out of the bathroom, a rumble filled the building from high up as its masonry and brickwork were shifting as if alive - pushing the doorframe into the door it held, squeezing both into matchwood as bricks begun overtaking the gap haphazardly before arranging themselves - mortar and all into a solid wall. Twirling around to reach for the window, Harumi and Rumia were greeted with more bricks - swarming and crumbling into irregular shapes which still adhered and made mortar - displacing the window pane and shattering it into shards on the floor.

Finally, the hole in the ceiling started reassembling itself, and the two women and three incapacitated men (plus one unaccounted for) were locked into a dark cell - ribbons of light slowly fading as mortar seeped into position. Harumi clenched her teeth - she recognised the threats all around her now - thanking her lucky stars that she was considered valuable.

A voice filled the room from below, as if from the floorboards themselves. "Thought you could distract and swindle me where it hurts, then?" A distinct trill belonging to a croaky, wizened rolaan could be heard projected at Rumia and Harumi. "Well, nuts to that, I say! Cut your way out of this one, Shadowcat! Hua hahh... haghk-koff." That distinct, wheezing cough and the newly introduced flavour of magic in the air were very familiar to Shadowcat - It was a former EAD person. Codename: Geomancer.

As the words sunk in, Rumia could hear a brick wiggling and mortar dust spilling onto the ground - before it was thrust hurtling and whistling towards her violently, intending to kill the Vadrali. Harumi meanwhile had more names to juggle as she ducked and covered her head. Vadrali Shadowcat? Who was this mysterious new protector, and how were they going to get out of this situation? More importantly - how did that damn Rolaan know her name?


Southern Palms, Witchwood, A Twisty Road
Yttrium had eventually returned to the road where the Team had left their vehicles and other means of transportation, trekking as poutily as she could through the terrain. As she approached the roadside curve, she noticed flashing red and blue lights lighting up the coniferous trees.

Scared of reprisal, the crude gingerly pushed a bough aside and stepped onto the road as carefully as she could. "Hello...?" Yttrium asked as she looked around, releasing the bough and letting it snap back behind her. She found Luca's bike, Breyja's bike, and Snuffles' halftrack monster machine parked by the roadside, with the overturned limousine still laying in the forest. Two police vehicles had parked on either length of the road, cordoning two lanes of the road away with holographic projections of traffic instruction.

Three policemen, a detective and a pair of Units were present at the scene, and inspecting the crashed limousine, taking photographs and examining forensices. All attention turned to the new arrival, as Yttrium found herself flustered by the sudden attention. Eventually, she was sat down and explained to that there was a crash here. Trying to be helpful, the Crude filled them in on why three unidentified vehicles and Raiken tracks were around the scene of an upturned vehicle.

"...so yes, we're good guys here. We're looking for the witch too."

A Maidenhand policewoman with her hair in a tight bun and a notebook and pen in her hands furrowed her brow and blinked at the towering Crude as she took the last of Yttrium's statements. "Uh huh, interesting. And you say your companions leapt through a magic portal and left you behind?" The Unit supervising was watching the proceedings with professional bemusement.

"I guess I did." Yttrium nodded. Luca had taught her to cooperate to a point with the police - as the 'problem solver' job was considered unpalatable towards law enforcement. "Why?"

"Do you know where this portal went? Have you been able to get in contact with them?"

"No? I don't think my friends did either... ah - And yes!" Yttrium remembered calling Luca immediately after she realised she was left out in the wilderness. "They didn't tell me where they were though..." As she was giving her statement, Yttrium noticed a car carrier trailer truck pulling up with squealing brakes into the cordoned area.

The truck door opened and a mob of four Chelti came spilling out as did crumpled Dentist's Delight wrappers. The aliens spotted the Phoenix Team's bikes and grabbed them by the handlebars, wheeling them away. As the truck idled with a Chelti sitting at the wheels and poking their head out, the whole thing appeared to be shaking, and the engine sounded herniated. This was 'fine' for the Chelti, positively luxuriant even.

Yttrium stood up with a start, stomping one of her hydraulic heels into the ground, "H-hey! That belongs to Lulu!" She called out, trying to make a threatening display by putting her hands on her hips and standing with her legs apart.

"Am Snuffles' cah-zins!" One Chelti addressed the flustered crude as his companions rolled the bikes up a ramp and secured them with straps, securely as could be before hopping back in the truck. "The Snuffles am ask we take bikes, we take you, back to station!"

Sparkles coalesced across Yttrium's inky skin, and the corners of her face seemed to turn up into a smile. "...can't say no to that!" She happily responded, clambering into an empty space on the trailer and locking herself in. "Ready!" With that, the Chelti truck started reversing back onto the road and away, blasting hardbass and coughing a cloud of smoke into the air. When the police tried to stop them, the Unit intervened.

It was Phoenix Team business - professional blunt instruments were at work.

 

Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Floor 5, A Disused Bathroom
Rumia didn't even move to dodge the brick - instead, her strange coat-being that consumed a man earlier turned inside out, flinging the form of him straight into the brick and knocking it out of its trajectory, while she tch-ed dramatically.

"I should have known it was your parlor tricks the moment the target mentioned a Rolaan, Geomancer." Rumia sighed. "But you know, there *is* a reason you've never worked with me. I've never needed your disgustingly primitive spellcasting because I don't need a rock to be moved to get into. . . or out of a place."

Rumia's Force, now coated in shadow from its inversion while the insides were silvery and solid, fluttered over to the pair of women and wrapped around them. Instantly, the outline of the coat faded from what little vision remained to the men in the room. And then, Rumia's voice echoed one last time, "Really, putting a stealth mage in a room full of darkness. How stupid are you?"

Over voice comms, the rest of the party could hear Rumia say, "Target extracted. The rest is up to you, Phoenix."

 

Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Ground Floor, Pachinko Machines
"Raaaaaaaaargh!" The man yelled in a throaty warcry - not bad for a human, but it needed more grunt. They lunged towards Ravnir as they dared them to keep their balance, and as the Raiken's mighty foot came down and shook the foundations of the gambling parlour, the charging man tripped - sword clattering at Ravnir's feet. For the Raiken, it would've been a suitable toothpick maybe. Another lift of the foot could've easily crushed the prone man, but he was scrambling out of the way between Ravnir's legs and leaving his sword behind.

Just behind them and over the counter where the grenade had landed, there was a sharp bang which shook the room - lights falling out of fixtures immediately above as shrapnel peppered the plaster walls and pachinko machines. Breyja's shield was plastered in scores of jagged fragments, peek-a-boo glass fractured into uselessness while the edges of her shield were shorn off, and some fragments had been travelling fast enough to leave dents that could be felt on the opposite end of the shield, if not puncturing straight through it.

The counter beside her was smashed into matchwood, to reveal a tarnished, thick steel backing over a wooden veneer. Perhaps this wasn't the first time a firearm had been discharged within the establishment, and the owners took measures to protect themselves. Even so, it probably wasn't going to be the last time, nor was such a measure intended for a grenade. Either way, Breyja could have had a much worse time being next to a grenade and a hard place.

Rumia's ghostly Force whisked her downwards and through the strands of shadow, cracks and crevices between floorboards as form incorporeal sifted through perfect darkness. Following the shadows cast by the stairwell, something didn't feel right as her Force took her into defined shadows cast by the emergency lights - soon drowned out completely as the downstairs pachinko machines shone brightest. There was additional weight, a sluggishness that felt like someone was stepping at the back of a long cloak, tugging and pulling at her Force as its effectiveness diminished in the lights of the parlour.

"You think me ignorant? A common assumption from the likes of you." Geomancer's voice seemed to cling to Rumia's, cloying in her feline ears and at the edges of her force - someway and somehow, Geomancer was following them, sight unseen. "The reason you were a solo act was because nobody could stand you, Shadowcat." Suddenly, Rumia's cloak felt as though it had been pinned in place - a rune-imbued security brick had punched through the ceiling tiles, and stuck the Force against a wall, effectively peeling Rumia's veneer of invisibility away and revealing them and their ward.

The Shadowcat was planning to extract Harumi at ground level further away from the action to ensure safety - an EAD tactic for hostage situations, but it seemed she was back in the spotlight. "Oh, this isn't good." Harumi remarked as she looked around the room, spotting Breyja on the floor with her destroyed shield and Ravnir with a suited man at his feet. She gulped - were these really the heroes Momma sent? Where did she hire the ... the ... Raiken?

The Rolaan's voice could now be heard translated through security speakers in the corner of the Pachinko room. "Don't you know how many stones a human can surround themselves with? Don't you know how similar each of them are? They're scalable." Around the room, the sounds of masonry, including that from the wall Ravnir had burst through were starting to clatter, clunk, and shake menacingly. "I'm going to summon my-AAGH!

A loud bang rung out from the stairwell, followed by gunfire and shouting. The Man in Red and/or the Chelti were obviously at work. "You - you motherfucker you! But it's too late!" The Rolaan could be heard cursing. Even so, the bricks were already in motion - shifting like a loud sand dune which was chipping and shattering into red dust and coalescing back into solid blocks as the limey mortar spiderwebbed throughout the molten rock as a large humanoid form approximately eight or nine feet tall started to emerge and extrude, sculpting itself into a bludgeoning brute - another EAD mainstay for Geomancer.

Two eyes of ruby peered at Ravnir as the creature swung a heavy, brick filled fist at the Raiken. Breyja had time to get up - but she wasn't sure how to deal with a threat this large with her SMG alone. "You wanna fight me then, Phoenix?!" Geomancer's voice could be heard, positively pissed. "I'll entomb and fossilise you before I tell you!" Someone ought to tell him he left the speakers on. Little did the Team know though - help was on its way.


Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Floor 3, Disused Corridors
A couple of moments earlier.
Luca pulled the lever down on his shotgun as it hung by his side, verifying the presence of a chambered cartridge as he stood in front of the door where the noise was coming from. Rumia's call over radio was responded to with a curt "Understood. Keep them safe" into his earpiece as he tuned out to think about what was behind the door. He felt a shiver go up his spine as the anticipation of what could be behind the door filled him with questions.

To answer said questions of what could potentially kill him, Luca reached for a familiar cylinder with a pull ring. A concussion grenade - one of his favourite tricks for enclosed spaces or Sourcian derived threats. He shook it enticingly at Snuffles, and took the phone with his other hand. "Yo. We've got your woman. Send your backup for help with extraction and cleanup - we got a hostile mage." He whispered through the mouthpiece of the strange phone. "Be seeing you."

He looked for the key to hang up up the phone, eventually giving up and passing it to Snuffles. Luca turned his attention back at the doorway - he could hear rising chants from a phlegmatic, yappy raptor thingy. He could recognise bits of the language as conversational Rolaan. Something about being ignorant, and something about single person stage plays. Whatever - there was a spell hiding there somewhere too - and that's what concerned Luca the most as he pulled the pin stood back with his free hand on the doorknob, preparing to drop the conc inside and interrupt whatever it was.

Pushing the door open and dropping it on the other side of the doorway, he and Snuffles stood to either side of the doorway before the bang sounded a moment later and flashes could be seen painting beneath the door clearance. Luca was the first to breach by pushing the door open with his shoulder and leading with his rocksalt loaded shotgun, bellowing to emphasise his shock and awe approach - especially when the situation was unknown.

The room had been repurposed from a condominium, saving someone the misery of living in such an awful building. The floor was covered in a layer of topsoil and gravel while the existing wooden and tile floor, and kitchen had been torn out. The most obvious target was standing inside a liquid-chalk magic circle and rune-infused flatstones was lizard-like snout poking out from a series of billowy, earth-coloured robes contained by overlapping red and blue sashes, with small claws on the floor and a tail poking out the back of the robes. The polar opposite of the other type of lizard-like alien Luca and Snuffles knew of - furtive and magical instead of huge and, uh, also magical; Somehow. Okay, bad analogy.

♫ Nuclear Throne - Big Dog Theme ♫

The concussion grenade hadn't seem to have affected Geomancer at all - as a glassy veneer contained shards of the cylinder which had exploded, and the burning magnesium elements which preceded the flash and bang were suspended in place. "You - you motherfucker you!" He chirped at Luca, positively pissed, "but it's too late!" Unwilling to let this insult stand regardless of context (too late for what exactly, he wondered), Luca fired at Geomancer - rock-salt shattering against the shield and sending ripples through its form.

Luca fired again at the shield - but leapt and rolled away to the right as a brick flew through the room at him. Standing up, he noticed that sharp rocks were embedded in his jacket, and that the ground itself was hazardous - the soil beneath his feet roiled as he looked for stable areas of ground to retreat to. Luca grapplegunned up to the ceiling of the room, anchored by his right fist and his legs as he pointed his pistol at them with his spare hand.

The hardlight generator across his shoulders had been activated - afterimages of Luca were left in his wake as he moved now - eager to be mobile. "You wanna fight me then, Phoenix?!" Geomancer barked as they watched him light the room up in fiery brilliance.

"That's the gist of it." Luca replied, nodding in earnest as a moment of tense calm pervaded the fight - there were questions he wanted answered - there was more to this. "Why are you working with Driver, though? What has Tanhauss offered you?"

Geomancer was atop a roiling mass of dirt, sitting atop it cross-legged while his magic shield followed him, shimmering and scintillating. They started weaving something between their fingers, magical murmurings into a pebble they flicked at the dirt ahead of them. "I'll entomb and fossilise you before I tell you!" Luca repositioned quickly, as a spike of rock and concrete shot out of the soil and into the ceiling from where the pebble had landed. Luca returned fire with his pistol.

Having missed its mark, the shaft crumbled into gravel, and Luca was on the move to avoid whatever else Geomancer could muster from beneath him. "I'll have it my way, then." He said, grapplehooking the wall on the opposite side of the room and skating across the topsoil to stay ahead of the sharp gravel chasing after him. "Snuffles, vai vai!" Roughly translated: Go go go!

 

"When I say I am leaving, I am leaving!" Rumia hissed, sheathing her blade and scooping up Harumi in a bridal carry. The cat blinked and her eyes flashed, another spell - simple one, to calculate trajectories and paths with her current weight. Her Force vanished and the silver thread connecting it to her disappeared in a trail of glittering dust. The cat bolted for the main entrance - out of the two accessible exits, that was the furthest from the golem.

Though she knew the golem probably had proprogrammed instructions, Rumia considered the two Phoenix Team members to have things well in hand. Or well in hand enough that it'd stop the golem from pursuit.

 

Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Ground Floor, Pachinko Machines
Between the hulking mass of bricks and mortar and Ravnir's steel scales, the contest of strength versus strength could've been mistaken for a thunderstorm - each step and shove made by the fighters causing the building to shake. Ravnir and the Brick Golem were collar and elbow for a brief moment as they kept pushing and grabbing back and forth, both looking for an advantage or opening to drop the other.

Breyja could hear what sounded like stone and metal colliding as her hearing slowly begun to dribble back in from the ringing. Floor tiles were starred and cheap carpet was torn apart with each foot step, slide, and shove by the two combatants. Slaps and slams rung out as well, bruising Ravnir and smashing the golem. Looking over from her cover with her reloaded machine gun in hand, Breyja saw Ravnir manoeuvre himself under the arm and around the waist of the golem, grabbing onto the bricky construct.

In a burst of sudden motion and abdominal strength, Ravnir lifted and pivoted to throw the brick golem up and through the tiled ceiling, scrape the concrete substructure above, and then drop them on their head and shoulders into - damn near through - the floor. Ravnir had fallen with the motion, landing on his stomach while his opponent was 'face' up. It was highly likely the ceiling of the basement had several large cracks in it from where Ravnir had dropped the golem. Breyja had a clear shot for her AP round, but with the whole building shaking from the force of the impact, she had to steady herself first.

As Rumia ran through the aisles of Pachinko machines, she stepped over/upon the bludgeoned and half-unconscious mobsters Luca had beaten up earlier. The Force covering her escape with Harumi was being assailed by the flashing lights of the pachinko machines and the gaudy lights on the exterior of the building - though in such chaos like that unfolding behind the two, a casual observer could miss a cloaked figure making their way out.

Onlookers and pedestrians had stopped out the front of the building to gawp at what was unfolding and pinpoint the epicentre of the tremor that shook everything for a radius of at least a couple of buildings - interrupting the local population's daily routine. Some were reaching for telephones and calling police, the fire brigade, Units or whoever else would be keen to investigate an unexplained thud. The crowd at least provided an opportunity to blend in and disappear from the criminals.

On the road near the gambling parlour and Rumia's position, the Vadrali woman could see flashing lights in the distance. Police were on their way - but they'd prove more an impediment than a useful client. A different vehicle suddenly took a corner onto the street, screeching tyres and burning rubber before barrelling towards the parlour and coming to a halt - a black sports-utility vehicle with tinted windows, possibly bulletproof too. The civilians in the crowd made room for the vehicle as it approached, and a door facing Rumia opened up.

Two Maidenhand women were standing inside the vehicle, both sporting identical black uniforms with white accents, black hair, and brilliant blue eyes. They stepped out and looked around the crowd and into the parlour for any sign of their mistress. In the driver's seat was a pink-haired Maidenhand with feathers adorning her hair, looking out from the driver's seat. From beneath the cloak of Rumia's force, Harumi lit up as she saw her staff at her beck, call and rescue.

"That's them, my girls!" She whispered to Rumia. "Pile in, quick." A couple of moments later, another vehicle could be seen coming down the road, albeit from the opposite direction. A beat up car-trailer truck with three Chelti sitting in. Rumia recognised Luca and Breyja and the Chelti's motorcycles on the back, and the ditzy Sourcian who had managed to catch a ride with them.

Rumia's non-reaction to familiar items and a crude delivered by a Chelti favour caused Harumi to wonder just who was really behind the rescue - it couldn't have been the Raiken, or the other Maidenhand she saw inside, or only the Vadrali. It was clear the rest of Harumi's company shared concerns and were doing their part, but they were not alone in the slightest. Who could've brought these disparate ingredients together, she pondered, before realising she'd heard a name amid the commotion. "Who is Phoenix exactly? Where is he?" She asked Rumia.


Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Floor 3, Geomancer's Hideout
The heavy buckshot from Snuffles' shotgun blasted clouds of loose dirt into the air - disrupting the lines of the magic circle as the tight grouping of buckshot. The number of holes increased, and so too did the flow of dirt down into the building's substructure. Faced with a new arrival who was pointing some manner of scattercannon in their direction, Geomancer focussed their magic protection to stop a flanking attack.

Noticing a flicker in the glassy barrier, the Rolaan looked down and noticed soil starting to drain away from the room around the circle they'd drawn with a ring of alabaster gravel. More to the point, Geomancer realised they weren't the target - and instead it was their method of operation the Chelti was after.

Some of the countermeasures the mage had deployed were faltering since his medium had suffered damage - the abrasive and sharp gravel forgot to move as a whole and offered temporary areas of refuge to step on safely - shafts of stone crumbled as they shot from the dirt, instead showering Luca with gouts of rock and failing to do substantial damage. To rectify this, Geomancer tried to seal the holes with clay to stem the bleeding of his primary resource.

A couple of moments later, a quake rocked through the building, courtesy of Ravnir three storeys down - the impact down below travelled up the building and expedited the draining soil and disrupted the magic circle through which Geomancer exerted their will. "What - what was that?" Geomancer cried out, taken off guard by the sensation of an earthquake and losing his concentration. "How are you doing this?!"

Luca meanwhile had anchored his grappling hook to the roof off to the left of Geomancer's position, lifting off the ground and swinging in a tight curve inside the room, preserving his momentum and speed as he barrelled towards the Rolaan with his left arm held outstretched and aiming for the midsection of the Rolaan. Geomancer turned around to get an answer for his questions as Luca broke through the weakened shield and pushed Geomancer off their cushion of undulating pebbles and into the ground in a shower of glassy shards of mind-matter which melted away into dew.

The undulating pebbles fell apart and spilled through the holes Snuffles made shortly afterwards. Luca grabbed the Rolaan by the waist and lifted them up, turning them around in his arms as he stared them in their yellow, reptillian eyes. "Where's your band? Band where I can see it." Luca asked, getting straight to the point as he stood up with the struggling Geomancer. They indicated to a spot under the robe covering their left arm - Luca pulled their sleeve up to reveal an elaborate silver band which curled around the Rolaan's arm thrice in a helix pattern, squared off into hexagons.

Content that Luca had them cornered, he pressed on with his line of inquiry. "Good. Now, my turn to ask you a question: why are you working with Driver?"

"Driver?!" Geomancer squeaked, eyes searching and following his snout while he looked for an excuse. "You mean he's alive? I thought you killed him back in '65, like you did with Wrack!"

Luca didn't buy it - he stomped towards a wall and pinned Geomancer to it, letting their lizardy legs and tail kick and sway helplessly. "Don't play me; he's definitely alive, and he's calling former EADs - like you - to do dirty work." He explained his perspective. "I have two questions: One, What does he have to offer you that you didn't?" From his recall, Geomancer was on family leave during the worst of the EAD incident, and some of his internal files suggested the mage could be implicated in some unsavoury conduct, it was relatively clean. "Two, who blasted the woman upstairs off the road?"

Feeling the need to punctuate his demands with a threat, Luca looked over his shoulder to the Chelti. "Speak quickly, or I'll get this Chelti to boop your snoot." He addressed Snuffles, hoping they'd back him up.

 

Rumia practically dropped the woman in her arms into the van, sighing.

"Finally, exfil. You girls need to evacuate the premesis at once - No chances." Rumia told them, her Force disappearing from sight. "And to briefly answer question, Phoenix is a walking disaster area. I expect he'll have your captor either well-in-hand or dead by the end of this."

Without so much as a good-bye, Rumia about-faced and ignored the burgeoning crowd of onlookers and took up a stance in front of the building - scabbard tip meeting the ground, the whole thing perpendicular to the ground while its full length was revealed.. All of the magically sensitive of the nearby people could feel Rumia positively dumping energy into something as she braced herself.

 

(With Harumi back with her friends, @Jimmy has control of them again)

Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Ground Floor, Pachinko Machines
As Ravnir stood up and started to focus on casting a spell, Breyja used opportunity to reposition closer to the exit of the crumbling building, and strike at the Golem's other eye with her machine gun before making a tactical retreat - whatever the big guy had in store was sure to shake the place to its foundations.

The cheap tiles, wooden veneer, and beer-stained carpet which had originally made up the floor and skirting boards of the Pachinko Parlour were torn asunder by the creation of a column of rock from beneath the incapacitated golem. The being found itself smashed against the inner ceiling. It was ground down as its core was crushed against the ceiling.

Such a display of magic had the whole foundations tear apart, between Geomancer's concentration wavering as his hex over the building begun to fray, and the structural tolerances of the building finally coming undone catastrophically. Escaping was now the utmost priority, lest several hundred tonnes of pipes, concrete, bricks and metal came crashing down on everyone.


Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Third Floor, A Dusty Room
Upon being threatened by the Chelti, Geomancer shot Luca an incredulous glance - seeing that Luca was distracted by the abstract nature of Snuffles' threat. Perhaps it may have been too abstract. "What he means is, you're going to be very far from the ground..." The man in red tried to explain, unaware of the magic crackling around Geomancer's band.

A tingle shot up his arm - the wall Luca was holding Geomancer against begun to warp and deform, bulging out and spiderwebbing with molten mortar and brickwork, as if to envelop him. "Fool! This timely distraction will-" With that, Luca decided to escalate and cut to the chase, pulling Geomancer away from the wall as tendrils of it were trying to stick to him.

Pulling hard and trying to extricate Geomancer from letting a layer of armour trying to coalesce around them - there was a sudden snap as the tendrils of mortar cracked and broke apart - leading Luca and Geomancer to go tumbling backwards through a window - from three storeys up.

This coincided with a quake from below, catching everybody off guard. However, Luca hadn't lost his bearings as he fell back We're not far from the ground, but close enough he contemplated as he watched the shattering glass fly through his field of vision as the terrified Rolaan was screaming in his face. Looking beyond them, Luca realised that he was falling backwards, tumbling at speed with the Rolaan in his arms.

In the commotion back inside, Luca left something behind - Snuffles saw the hook for Luca's grapple stunner laying on the floor before it suddenly snapped up and out to the windowsill. The sudden stop and violent jerk made Geomancer slip out of Luca's grip before he collided with the building. Aw, shit. He sighed as he looked down and slammed hard into Briggs Pachinko Parlour.

He could see Yttrium in the back by the Chelti car trailer, watching the spectacle unfold with her hands against her cheeks and visible eye wide in fright - the ground was shaking and big booms coming from inside.


Brigg's Gaming Parlour, Street Level, Amid a Clearing of People
Harumi gave a suprised gasp as she was unceremoniously dropped on the floor of the SUV, but quickly she sat up and looked back at the building as major and impromtu restructuring went on inside. Then she glanced at Shadowcat.

"All it takes to do some witching, is a little preparation." She replied, reaching into the SUV and pulling on a pair of tight velvet red gloves intricately embroided with a thousand patterns and signs, she squeezed her fist to fit the glove properly and spoke The Word.

♫ TOPAZ GANG - TUXEDO PRINCESS ♫

Suddenly Harumi seemed very different from the dishevelled woman that Shadowcat had rescued a moment ago, in fact, she seemed to blossom with an aura of magic. As her fist opened again, baleful flames licked up her fingers without heat and she glanced at the building again. Her hair suddenly fixed itself to a perfect bun, and her dirt-stained and dusty clothes cleaned and stitched themselves back together as best they could.

"A pity Vadrali never worked out brand management." she said aloud, as her hand reached out towards the falling rolann mancer.

Sparkles swirled and the glowing ethereal bud of a rose flower snapped open underneath the falling, wailing rolaan mancer. With a puff of ethereal dust, the mancer landed within the flower, which rolled back over the little creature and trapped it inside the bud. A moment later, it shoved and moved around, but the rolaan was contained soundly.

Looking up at the trajectory the Rolaan had come from, she saw a man wearing red dangling from a hook coming from his right arm. He was covered in a thin layer of dirt and there was a bruise spreading across his face, peering through a swolen right eye as he looked down to Rumia to see where Geomancer had gone.

The man had lost track of them after slamming into the building. "Did anyone happen to see a screaming rolaan?" He called out to the crowd below.

"Lulu! He went that way!" Yttrium called out, leaning up over the crowd and pointing at the spectral flower that had sprung from the ground. "Is he a baddie?"

Harumi looked up at the man in red hanging from the side of a building with an ugly lump growing on his face and a torn-up jacket. Hardly a picture perfect first meeting, but fate was often unusual around heroes and witches.

Even in the chaos of the moment, her eyes met his for a split second, he flying through the air barely secured by technology, her using her power to control the fates of a few, the charm of her hair catching him full force by accident as her conentration focused upon him. Though the name "Lulu" meant nothing to her, she knew there was something about this fellow. As he squeezed his eyes shut from the charm, she turned her head to stop distracting them both and waited, hand upon hip, for him to do whatever disaster he intended this time.

Once the sensation had cleared, Luca begun reeling himself back down to ground level, noticing the safety lights of boxy, faceless construction Units drifting lazily into view from across the street. And here's the cavalry...

Balls of hardlight lanced into the alleys between Briggs' Gaming Parlour and the buildings around it, speckling the walls with blue light before it wove and solidified into smooth, white roots. In but a split second, the Units had taken a building on the verge of crumbling to collapse into a stopped state, where catastrophic damage could be delayed for survivors evacuating.

Breyja and Ravnir were looking at the ruined building from inside, gouts of dust were falling through the fissures - broken pipes and wires, walls and floor at an unnatural tilt to the street. Even so, with all the little things still bound by gravity, the 'whole pieces' of the building were stayed aloft, held together by hardlight. Some of the black-suited men who were waking up from being beaten down gawped in awe at the spectacle and wondered if they were dreaming.

The dream didn't last long as policemen and Units had swarmed in to ground level, grabbing them and dragging them out, cuffing them and tossing them into the backs of padded wagons. There was a lot of questioning to do, least of all for the illegal gambling going on.

Luca came down to ground level, hook falling down and reeling back into his arm as he approached Harumi, Rumia, and the van which had come to extract them. He straightened and popped the collar of his jacket to put on that cool confidence that made Rumia groan, smiling through the pain as he introduced himself. "Ladies~"

Harumi raised an eyebrow and put her other hand upon her hip. "Phoenix, I presume?"

As he smiled, a rivulet of blood had dripped down his nose and over his mouth. "One and only." He answered, wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve. "You must be Harumi."

Harumi sighed and reached into her pocket. "Men." she thought disparagingly as she cast a little helpful magic upon her little hanky.

"The one and only," She replied, striding up to him in a way that demanded no nonsense, making him raise an eyebrow in surprise. "Hold still, I'm not talking to you like this."

Gently the hankerchief came up towards his face, delicately it dabbed the muck of powdered mortar and sticky blood from his forehead. Not wiping it away, making it outright disappear with each little press, as Luca's eyes followed the delicate gloved hand and the towelette. Her other hand going to his chin and tipping his head about to her preference, her fingers were soft, her hand small now that he felt it against a stubbly jaw.

"I suppose I have you to thank for my rescue, yes? I am not ungrateful, but I must ask you to come to my abode so I can thank all of you properly. At least, one night of free drinks should help make it up a little, right?" She said gently as she padded his face.

Her hands gently pulled his face to look directly at her, blue eyes staring into his innocently. "That's a good idea, right?~"

Tired, battered, bruised, and with something so delicate around his chin, it seemed like a sealed offer, done and dusted without a second thought. Something, however, in Luca's tired eyes seemed to see through the suggestion. "Uh, sure," he broke away to look into the crumbling gambling parlour, frowning in worry "but I need to account for my team first, make sure they aren't squashed..."

"They're invited too. Tonight, then." she said, and leaned forwards, pecking him innocently upon the cheek just as the flash of a camera caught to moment for the papers. Luca jumped a little in surprise after the cameras had popped, Harumi smiled and released the man with a little wave and a smile to remember her by. "Until then, Phoenix."

As Harumi left, Luca patted the side of his cheek, blushing and looking down at the ground. His experience had told him not to become too emotionally attached to anyone, lest it came back to bite you - but after such tribulations and such trust thrust upon him, maybe he could lower his guard again - for her.

A stamping could be heard as Yttrium came through the crowd, having missed the moment between Luca and Harumi, looking down at the flower Geomancer was trapped in. "What are we gonna do about him?" She asked, noticing Luca was distracted. She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Oh! Oh, right. Him." Luca replied, approaching the ethereal flower, woven together with strings of starstuff, and the captor of one angry little rolaan. Luca reached into the flower and grabbed Geomancer by the tail, shattering the petals into glassy strands and making the rose collapse. Police and Units surrounded him and Yttrium, weapons pointed at the rolaan.

Luca gave them some background. "Hey guys, he tried to kill us with bricks and mortar, and is a former EAD. You know what to do." One moment later, a buttstock swung out from one of the police and clocked the dangling rolaan on the temple, knocking them silly. "Good choice." Luca dropped them and called out into the building: "Sound off!" He called out, for his team while the building was being held up by the Units.

Yttrium wondered if the extra temperature she saw in Luca's face was one of those blushes. What was he blushing about? And why was his face so clean?