Masks 2

Ken tells Polybius to shoot the dolphin.

Ken is stick of the puns.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Bigass dimensional breach? Check. Otherworldly entity reaching through it at an alarming rate? Check. Big dolphin monster? Check. But you know what? Theraea wasn't a fighter, and there was only one way to put a stop to this threat, as far as she could see. That breach needed to shut.

Theraea powered her amplifier to the maximum safe levels. If there was ever a time for maximum power, it was now. And hell, if that wasn't enough, she knew how to disable the safeties. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. Focusing everything she possibly could, and hoping desperately that her friends could handle the fighting, Theraea reached out toward the breach and began the truly daunting task of trying to seal it shut.

Oh. Maybe. Maybe this wasn't a good idea.

Right uhh Maria went and MOVED since she figured she was dead if this came to a close range fight. Boomstick out for the dolphin monster if she got too close, seemed like. Maybe getting that rude boy out of the way first would be wise...

Haha, okay, no, Theraea couldn't actually close that as it was. It needed to be weakened, and as far as Theraea could see with her special eyes... Siren was the conduit through which the Song was channeled.

"This isn't closing until the song is disrupted!" She called out. "We need to do something about that!"

Theraea began looking for opportunities to disrupt what Siren was doing! She tried hitting her with a field of slowed time, see if that helped things at all.

Siren charged in on her dolphin, weaving through the waves, but found herself slowing down a bit. Theraea's magic worked against the Magic of the Deep, so it didn't do as much as it could, but it was still making an impact.

And then Maria dodged, firing at the dolphin. It didn't do much.

What DID do a lot was Polybius unloading her entire arsenal into the approaching dolphin. Lasers and bullets tore through her poor mount, and by the time she reached the bubble, poor Stormy was out of commission.

Fortunately, Yasmine actually swam FASTER than Stormy and was able to dodge any further strikes if she so wished. So long as she stayed in the water, of course.

Really, there were a lot of options.

Sam looked to Maria.

"Hey what if we got her to, like, charge out of the water into our bubble?"

He dug out a grenade, considered it, flash backed to an earlier warning, and tossed it aside.

"She seems to hate you a lot but if that don't do it, I could talk about how much I love Seaworld while moonin' her."

He pulled out a caramel, shrugged, and ate it.

"Hey Jim, need a knife? Ngh, candy tastes weird... this lady has a lot of knives!"

He dug around for a revolver in the World's Most Dangerous Gramma Purse.

Finn DRAWS HER GUN. It's a totally mundane glock, but it'll have to do until Siren closes the distance.

She's not gonna unload just yet, just try to track Siren as best she can.

"The moment she makes her move, we've got her! She has nae got any ranged capabilities, right?!" ...Right???

God, Finn hoped that was a 'right'.

Okay, firstly, Zil sets Candy on the ground! She's probably well enough by now to stand on her own, and Zil would make sure of that!

After though, she's done playing chill and nice! Zil's mad. Real mad, in a real simple way. This was stupid, this thing needed to die, and it had taken an awful lot of people while it was busy not doing that.

So, it's time to get real, real heated. She channels all that anger into her stomach, prompting it out into her limbs and glowing bright through her eyes, hands, and those vents along her body!

"Hey, fish bitch!" Even the inside of her mouth glows as she calls out, pointing Sword Tim at Siren and following her path. "Fuck you!"

And she's gonna go ahead and see if she can help Theraea. Psyche! Not going for Siren. She's gonna try to shoot fire at this damned portal breach tentacle thing instead, praying she's got the magic kinda flames that can get through water.

Siren tumbles off Stormy's back as the dolphin-monster shuddered in its death throes. Oh man. Oh man, STORMY. These corp fucks would stop at nothing.

She holds its poor head for a moment as its mouths lolls open and the light goes out of its considerable number of eyes. They were going to pay for this.

Wheeling around, she closed her eyes and HOWLs, in the strange melodies of the Deep. She's calling for reinforcements. Then, she's going to charge the bubble, aiming for Theraea this time instead of Maria. Her boss has told her what a Weaver is, and it seems dangerous. If she goes fast enough, she can go through one side of the bubble and out the other!

Theraea's mind raced, searching for a solution to all this. Overcharge her reality anchor and hit Siren with it? Maybe. If it didn't work correctly though, she'd be wasting her most valuable survival tool and possibly causing some Reality Mayhem. Beat up Siren, hope that making her unconscious weakens the connection? Risky, and not Theraea's area of expertise, but with this group? Maybe it'd work. Try to set up another reality pulse, and then hit the portal while things are momentarily disrupted? Maybe that would-

Oh shit Siren's coming okay hang on that's not good.

Theraea, seeing an angry Siren charging right at her, teleport-dodged out of the way!

Goddamn Weavers.

Siren adjusted her course at the last minute, targeting Maria.

"That's the plan-" Maria called to Sam, slightly offended about his feelings on those caramels, man. "Uhh, gonna make that a lot easier, so watch my baaaaaAAA SHIT-"

That's what you get for starting to write an hour before the update, dummy!

Instead of doing that other thing, Maria was going to TRY AND DODGE AGAIN OH GOD. She'd pull the bubble toward Siren and throw in a sideways current at the edge to try and throw her off course, as she attempted to not get assaulted in this dangerous game of dodgeball!

Sam, having to act under pressure and not having the benefit of Dudetime when HE isn't the one being attacked, panics and flicks the first old-lady-candy he can with pinpoint accuracy at Siren's mouth as she charges. It's probably a caramel.

Oh god now she's going toward Maria! Theraea reached out and tried to slow Siren before she got there. Could she get that done in time? Unsure, but she'd certainly try.

Theraea reached out, trying to slow Siren down, but she was just too fast in the water. She was like a human (humanoid?) torpedo! Zil, meanwhile, tried to shoot fire at the chasm. Unfortunately, her fire WAS stopped by water. It didn't go beyond the edge of the bubble! Damn it!

At the same time, Sam was rummaging around in Maria's pack. He did find a revolver, as well as a caramel. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to throw the latter before Siren came charging through the edge of the bubble. Finn opened fire reflexively, missing the extremely speedy Fishgirl. Maria tried to throw Siren off course too, but the girl was too strong a swimmer. With blinding speed, she impaled Maria with the Spear of Oceanus as she went by, pushing her off just as fast before she went out the other side. Sam was knocked to the ground, and Maria was bleeding profusely from her fresh, deep abdominal wound. It had gone through her back and ruptured several organs, but had missed her spine.

Then the bubble collapsed again as Maria's concentration vanished under extreme agony.

Fuck, okay. Fire, even from her, is just fire. Lame, but expected.

THIS is her time to shine, though! Trauma? Oh, that's what Zil's best at. Specifically the physical sort! Of course, she's only ever healed a wound on herself this bad before, so this would be a fun experiment!
Rushing over to Maria, Zil stoops down, examining Maria's torso. If any organs had fallen out, she'd go ahead and just...put those right back where they belonged.
Then she pulled out duct tape and-

Just kidding!

She smiles as she looks at Maria, setting those big, glowing hands on her horrible, gaping wound and setting them to GENTLY WARM. Just like Abuela's tortillas. Not that she could feel anything through the shock right now.
"Hey, hey, hey! Look, you're gonna be okay. We sorta need you for this. So, uh. Keep everyone safe, okay? Not that you need to be told that. You're...super good at it. Okay. Hold tight! Bite something that's not your tongue!" Only it comes out, blub, blub, blub.
Then, she's going to put all of her focus and energy into her hands, focusing on knitting Maria's torso back together. Starting with the organs. She knows all the bits that are supposed to be there, and she closes her eyes to imagine each part individually in her head, re-stringing sinew after, figuring how much blood might be there...

Though she knows the consequences of this, too! It was going to drain her hard, and if she had enough energy to not pass out like what happened last time, she'd turn back into a tiny woman, if only to make it easier for someone to move her.

Well, Cadence cannot deal with THAT, that’s for sure. It’s kind of out of her league so she’s going to press herself against the ground and be the least threatening target. Searching her pockets for something to help her breath, she will come upon a couple of her specially designed ear plugs for her own powers and think. Hey, let’s put them in and see if the song will be less bad at least.

Coyote is going to be fine right...? Zils helping her at least right?

Sam was knocked to the ground.

SpoilerShow

Sam shoves the gun into his belt. Sam then grabs ten knives. A Roman gladius. Fistful of caramels. A knitting needle. As he hits the ground he's looted like a quarter of the gramma purse.

Laden with knives and old shitty pistols, Sam sits up, sees Maria splorch onto the ground, takes a deep breath, and is then impacted with a wall of water.

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Sam decides not to loot more of the purse and uses this time to plan. He looks about, squinting through the wall of water. Siren went... that way. She was fast. He MIGHT be able to dodge her but it'd be dangerous. But Coyote needed attention, and he was all out of medigel. Couldn't that one lady... heal? He thought she mentioned that at the party. Sam tenses his legs and picks a direction to swim...

He starts instantly to swim towards Stormy's remains, drawing an old gladius he didn't have a couple minutes ago. He proceeds to flip Siren off, cut the head in half, and maintain eye contact on her, hoping he'll be able to dodge in time. Well, in Dudetime.

As Siren went in for the stab, you know? Maria didn't even look that freaked out. Her expression said less oh no! I'm gonna die! and more... God damn it. Not again. Oh. Was she on the ground-AAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!

Maria had no idea why the thought of Abuela's tortilla's went through her mind. That must have been some more weird magic bullshit, but she kinda appreciated it? One of the nicer things to come back into Awareness on. As she noticed what the hell was happening, she tried to help! By shoving her blood in the right space, if it was close enough to move it without losing all the little Bits inside. Tricky one, blood.

She also like, didn't get up. Pushed some air down from the top of the cavern if it wasn't too far away to grab, but otherwise she put the two of them in, well, their own private bubble! All soggy and shit, Maria put her hands on top of Zil's, squeezing all friendly-like. "I'll thank you nicer later. Can't outrun her. So-" The bubble started expanding from them, "Think we need to focus her down. Gonna level the playing field now, so be careful, and maybe make sure these dorks keep'er off me, ok? Think Aura's got that helmet..."

Maria gave this sweet lass a quick squeeze, and then just. Zoned out, her hands folding gently over her stomach. She looked like she was going to astral project through the ceiling, but instead of doing that, she just focused on the basics. The basics, for this fight, being getting Siren as far away from the water as she possibly could. The bubble shot out from them, and without needing to focus on dumb things like shooting, strategizing, and keeping herself on two feet, she was free to do that a whole lot better! Time to stop being Coyote The Fighty Person, and develop this place into an arena they could actually go toe-to-toe with Siren in. Whoosh!

Fuck. Fuck!! She wasn't fast enough, she was utterly out of her league, and there was nothing she could do. What was she thinking, tagging along with real heroes like Coyote? Even her fellow newbies were functioning better than her-- fuck, even that weird half-competent cowboy seemed to be managing things better!!

This knowledge sank in quickly, and Finn internalized it even quicker. She wasn't as fast at moving as Siren, but she was a hundred times faster at accepting depressive viewpoints and incorporating them into her perception of herself. No time for moping though! There's work to do! So she was too weak for this, incapable of hurting this stabby fishlady, but she could maybe at least slow her down.

Holding her breath as much for the coming impact as for the potential water returning, Finn rushes over to Coyote's side, claymore held at the ready. She focuses on trying to replicate that spell from earlier - sword into frost, sword into frost!! Even if she can't do anything else about this, even if it ends with her impaled worse than her hero, there's no way she's backing down now! She stands, sword in hand, trying to ready that spell again and readying herself to act as a human shield if worst comes to worst.

Ken gets into the seawater because he's just a nerd who exercised more than other nerds. He floats in the gunked-up blue (I'm pretty sure the water is DISGUSTING at this point), clinging onto his faithful drone like an overexpensive piece of shipwreck until Maria brings (relatively) dry land back up again.

After she does, Ken tells Polybius to shoot at Siren. He's so annoyed at the drowning and drowning again.

Okay. Coyote down. Don't think about that too much. Salvation is  SO CLOSE. If they can't breathe they can't fight. It wasn't the time for honour.

The sight of Stormy's poor limp head in the hands of that rude-ass cowboy gets her fishy blood boiling. Siren speeds around in a wide arc and lines up another charge as fast as she can before the bubble expands again - Ken, then Polybius, then Sam. Then...

BAM. Off like a shot through the water. The Streak would have been proud. (No he wouldn't.) She's going to try to slash at Ken's torso with the Spear, then punch at Polybius with her free hand, then impale Sam with her last burst of speed. Take that, dolphin murderers.

Okay, wow. That looked like it hurt. That looked like it hurt a lot. Theraea didn't know what to do about Siren, but there's one thing she did know, and that's that this had to stop. Nobody else was getting impaled today. Siren's not hurting her friends again.

Power coursing through her amplifier (what's a little Abyss in your system, anyway?), Theraea reached out toward... not Siren. No, she was too fast to stop until Maria had finished doing her thing. Theraea reached out toward Ken instead, yanked him out of the way with as much telekinetic force as she could without killing him. If there was time, she'd do the same to Polybius (though drones were more easily repaired than people), and then she'd hit Sam with a burst of speed! Time permitting. Sam was already super fast, so getting Ken out of the Death Zone was kind of the priority.

Sam would at least have a split second of seeing Ken or Polybius get sliced to anticipate the trajectory-

She's faster than the Streak, naw, he'd probably just have her suddenly in his face.

He tries to spin around Siren, throwing in an unskillful slice at her spear arm if he can. If he can't, he just focuses on not getting skewered.

Candy put in her ear plugs, but the song still seemed to be rattling her very soul! It was clear that the Song of the Deep wasn't just an audio experience.

Siren zoomed off through the water before zooming back! Barreling through the water, Theraea tried moving Ken and Polybius out of the way.

Unfortunately, Siren was quite nimble in the water, and managed to divert course to perform her attack anyway. She delivered a slash at Ken's torso (where the blow was helpfully diminished by his armor and Theraea's movement). Rather than cutting through into his organs, it hacked through his armor and left a gash diagonally across his chest. It'd probably leave a cool scar.

Polybius let out a laser blast as well, causing Siren to dodge before launching her fist through the drone. The hull, strong as it was, crumpled in half before the powerful blow. The drone was now useless, though Ken knew from his technical experience that the black box would still be intact. Better yet, he could probably salvage some of Polybius's weapons if he had a second.

Then Siren sped through the water towards Sam and delivered her strike. In that moment, time slowed down for Sam. However, time didn't slow down nearly enough to make him comfortable.

Dodging sideways and clumsily failing to slash, the spear actually brushed against his side as Siren went by him. It left a small cut, but he was still alive and relatively intact.

At that point, Maria was finally sufficiently healed by the actions of Zil. The alien had helpfully and dutifully knitted Maria's debilitating injury back together, though it had left her quite tired.

With great effort, then, Maria restored the bubble at a greater size than it had been before. Lying on the ground, helplessly focusing on her task, she managed to create an area two-hundred feet in diameter in which to fight. The Demon, as before, used a wind spell to fill it with air.

Siren swam fast to stay out of the bubble, where her powers would be far less useful. Fortunately, her reinforcements had arrived in the form of countless Fishmen, a dozen crab cars, six artillery shrimp, and a whole lot of lamprey hands, barnacles, and razorfish. More would be on their way, too, before long.

The Demon, Nocturne, and La Chat all rushed into position to protect Maria as best they could. Helpfully, the Demon conjured a magical shield while Nocturne threw out a lot of stun mines.

In the background, the entire group could also see that the tentacles were getting longer as time passed. The Song of the Deep was still bringing whatever creature that was into the world...