Masks 2

Finn WOULD say she's okay to assuage Zil's concerns, but she's too busy coughing up blood.

Esen looks down the spear and chokes on her blood. Is this how her life will end? Is this it? The world around her grows distant with the pain and blood loss. She feels Finn pulling off of the spear as if her nerves were covered in molasses, and collapses to the ground, the other woman having been the only thing keeping her upright. She stares out at a dimming battle-scene and tries to breathe, to keep breathing, to keep herself alive. She barely moves, any twitch sending the pain of impalement through her again, no less painful than the first time.

Esen doesn't notice Zil at first, but finally something tips her off to the movement and she looks up. She knows that pulling off of the spear is a bad idea, but when she sees that Zil's trying to heal them she grunts and tries to snap the spear ends off with a tendril slice. That'll make it much easier to get out.

Cadence screams a normal scream for once and gets up and rushes without thinking to people's aid. She will calculate the distance needed and throw down smoke bombs in a cross area around the wounded but not over them. Like a seabear circle. Cadence is going to go to the people that got hurt and give them first aid and if they need it, medigel. If any fish person crossed into the smoke cover she was going to scream to kill.

"Screw it," Sam grabs a half-dead artillery Shrimp, cuts a hole in its stomach, sticks his hand in, and tries to hihack it, firing it like a heavy gun, aiming at the tentacles.

"Still open to helping dunk a bomb in that rift if we need to!"

"I mean... I could overload my-" Vwoop. "-reality anchor and toss it in?? But I-" Vwoop. "-have no idea if that would actually-" Vwoop. "-do anything. I might be able to-" Vwoop. "-close it myself if I can just get close enough!"

Ah, teleportation.

Hackerman, hugging his black box, continues to shoot the horrifying tentacles with the gun in his other hand.

The helmet was cold, and too tight, and white-hot with pain. Somewhere in the corner of Siren’s mind she was screaming. She had been screaming for thirty years. Helpmehelpmehelpme-The voice in her head is so big she feels dwarfed by it, shoved into its shadow. FuckyouyoutentacledbastardfuckyouforeverIswearwhenI’mfree-

Then the Voice stops, and she’s finally screaming with her actual voice.

“AaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA-”

Flashes of memory come back, each one bringing a new wave of agony. Cheerleading practice in high school, the first time she put on that shiny white costume, the first time anyone treated her like a hero, the feeling of ice-cold water and the complete dark of the Deep. She tumbles sideways, landing sprawled on the slimy stones of the temple city. It's slick with water and blood. Her spear is gone, left inside the guts of two of her enemies –

Rescuers –

Heroes-

Heroes. They were heroes. And that made her…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

Siren curls up into a ball and just goddamn screams. Cause, fuck.

If there was ever a go time, it was now. Theraea, realizing that Maria was probably pretty content to lie on the ground and focus on Air, moved into action! And that action was... carefully moving Maria closer to the rift so that the air would reach it, while trying to avoid the tentacles.

"Um, cover me, please! Sorry, Maria, um, I hope this is okay!!"

Finn pulled the spear out of herself and Esen cut it out of her own body. Interestingly, the spear regenerated its handle once it struck the ground.

Not that anybody noticed this, as both Esen and Finn quickly collapsed to the floor as Zil feverishly tried to heal them. Her fatigue was at its limits, and she was struggling to even keep them alive at this point. Next to them, Siren crumpled to the ground in overwhelming grief.

Sam went to Nocturne and La Chat, finding that Nocturne was already applying medigel to La Chat's wounds. He instructed Sam to help the others, since the two of them weren't exactly the team's heavy hitters anyway.

Candy threw down smoke bombs and began unleashing full-powered focused screams into the fish, rupturing their brains over and over again as she protected her parents, Zil, and the other wounded! She herself was barely standing, and probably had a few cracked ribs. The Demon stood beside her, harpoon torn out of her shoulder, stabbing, blasting, slashing, and bashing down Fishmen with impressive displays of combat magic and swordplay.

Sam mutilated a dead artillery shrimp, but wasn't able to get a handle on the mechanism. Jim defended him as he worked, cutting down Fishmen.

Finally, Theraea began moving Maria along, trying to get closer to the rift. Ken covered her with his pistol, clutching his black box tightly.

The tentacles, though, kept slamming down, launching up debris and making it difficult to progress. A few bits even struck Thereae, and Ken received a bad cut on his forehead from a flying chunk of rock.

"YOU CANNOT STAND AGAINST ME. YOU WILL FALL, YOU WILL BE FORGOTTEN, AND MY WILL SHALL BECOME REALITY."

And then, from the opposite direction, they heard another voice call out.

"STAND READY!" shouted a woman's godvoice. "AND RIDE!"

From the murky and cloudy waters came six riders, most mounted atop strange, colorful, ethereal horses as they rode side by side. Most of the riders were easily recognized from the party...

Lone Star, dressed in an armored outfit reminiscent of the blue, black, and white outfits he wore in his later days, wielding a revolver in each hand as he rode his ethereal horse. His pistols fired into the tentacles, and his old lungs yet out a howl. Mr. Smiley was on the back of his horse, aiming his pistol but not firing for fear of hitting his friends.

Earnest fired arrow after arrow as he rode in, perforating tentacles rather fruitlessly.

The Bronze Boz rode on the back of Earnest's horse, preparing to jump off the horse once they got in melee range and lay on the beatdown.

Darkmagic was there as well, clad in her own dark outfit, wielding two pistols as she rode in on Goldpony.

And finally, Chalchiuhtlicue ("Chalchi") led the pack upon an ethereal horse, lifting the water in a path as they went whilst launching fishmen and lampreys back as they rode. Lady Light flew in overhead behind them, glowing bright like the sun as she punched down occasional fishmen.

Once the reinforcement group was in range, Darkmagic loaded fresh clips into her pistols and began firing them into the allies. Healing bullets struck Esen, Finn, Zil, Nocturne, La Chat, Theraea, the Demon, and Candy. Esen and Finn's wounds rapidly began to heal while Zil felt her energy return. Theraea's wing returned to full functionality, and Candy felt her ribs mend back together. The Bronze Boz hopped off his horse and began to punch down artillery shrimp and car crabs, working alongside Candy to defend the wounded.

"Y'ALL ARE LUCKY WE REMEMBERED HOW TO GET DOWN HERE FROM LAST TIME!" Lone Star shouted. "LET'S KICK SOME FISH ASS!"

Chalchi's strength joined Maria's in pushing back the water, opening up a free pathway to the chasm...

"P- LONESTAR, DID YA'LL BRING ANYTHING THAT WOULD BLOW UP A FISHGOD?"

Sam yanks on the various nerve endings and muscles of the Artillery Shrimp, trying to either figure out where the artillery part started or convince his weird gun affinity power that this was just a meaty gun. He kept the danger-end pointed towards the rift.

" 'CAUSE THERE'S A PORTAL OVER THERE WITH AN ANGRY ELDRITCH EX BOYFRIEND IN IT... NOT MINE, I SWEAR!"

Lone Star opened up his saddlebags and threw Sam a repeating rifle with exploding rounds and a pistol belt with two revolvers. He also threw Sam an ammo belt for them.

"DIDN'T BRING EXPLOSIVES. PRETTY SURE WE CAN WING IT!" he shouted.

Theraea set Maria down. Gently, not just like dropping her.

"I can do something about it, I just... We need to keep the tentacles busy! And also keep everything else busy!"

Okay. Okay, eldritch monster coming through a rift in spacetime. No one else apparent with experience or means to slam portals back shut. Cool. Fine. Time to do this shit. Theraea ducked out of the way, jabbed her multitool into her amplifier, and turned it up a little bit more. You know, past the safe limits, because this wasn't exactly a situation that called for safety.

With that done, she made a break for the rift, focusing on dodging and hoping her (now) many allies could keep the heat off her. When she managed to get within range... Well, a door needed to be slammed shut. Time to do just that.

Picking off chunks of armor, Ken jumps on Sam’s shrimpcar and subsumes the poor crustacean’s mind with his own. He then tells the shrimp to shoot at his enemies not at them.

“You sure have weird friends, Blackstar.” He comments unnecessarily.

Maria existed once more! She kinda like, unzoned for a sec when Theraea picked her up. Cringing with one of the worse headaches she'd yet dealt with, she gave a thumbs up! She was about to zone back out as Theraea let her down- and then, holy shit, the mental strain went way down. OH. NICE. Maria got up, shaking her head and gritting her teeth. Time to take stock of what was happening...

People getting healed...
Siren not attacking...
Theraea had a plan...

...

Why in the world were they wearing CLOWN MAKEUP- Ok you know what who cared. Maria asked Sam if he needed that sword, and if he'd return it, then she'd join the fight! Time to watch out for Theraea as now SHE was the escort mission!

Siren's voice finally gives out. There's a battle raging around her, but her head's pounding too much to focus, so it comes in little flashes. New people arriving, including - who was that goddess? She's seen her before. The wounded had been SHOT but they seemed to be getting better. Tentacles were thrashing. A cowboy was now a clown. She really wished she could have made that scream last a little longer.

The floor was comfortable. It wasn't helping. That portal was still open (oh God, she'd opened it) and the oozing, ancient will of the Deep was still breaking through into their reality. The thought was paralyzing.

But she had to get up. The world hadn't ended yet, and if it was going to, she wanted to meet the apocalypse on her feet.

Siren forces herself up, stumbling under the ferocious pounding in her head! The Voice was still screaming about some fucking thing, the primordial destiny or some saviour tale based on her own embarassing teenage fantasies or SOMETHING. She'd seen its mind too, though. She knew which of the group that narcissistic eldritch bastard liked the least.

She drags herself, shivering and clutching her head, over to Theraea.

"What..." Her voice wasn't quite working right. Her teeth were shrinking back into something more human and it made it hard to talk. "What do you need? Can you get rid of it?"

"What can I do?" Please say there's something I can do!

Oh shit, she's good enough to talk now? That's good. That's very good, actually. Theraea looked back at her, a desperate sort of confidence in her eyes.

"I- I can get rid of it, I think. I just need to get close enough to force it shut, and... not get killed by it in the meantime. Can you- fight? Or... would your spear help? That's not going to get you back in its control, right?"

"I- I don't think so." She pauses. "GOD I hope not."

She can fight though. Well, maybe she can't , but she really, really wants to.

Siren's going to stumble over and get the Spear, trying not to trip on the blood puddle she caused. If the Spear will still take her - if Thiotza'ma hadn't corrupted it beyond salvaging, or HER beyond salvaging - she was going to try to defend Theraea with everything she had. She'll try her best to nonlethal the fish men and focus on the eldritch tentacles trying to smash them with bits of rocks. She knows all too well what the fishmen used to be, and also, fuck those tentacles.

Maria's wide-eyed and stopped for a moment, as Siren comes up to Theraea. Holy shit. It like. Worked. Probably. But she didn't wanna get in on that right now. So, while she was fighting, if she could tell what Siren was aiming to do? She would give her a hand, or rather, move the sections of water around them, so Siren could fight in her element. And thus, you know, maybe not die right out the gate, she was looking pretty rough there.

Siren picked up the Spear of Oceanus, still lying on the floor covered in runes. As soon as her hand touched it, the eldritch influence on the weapon seemed to fade. The runes disappeared, and it resumed its once-shining look.

Furthermore, she felt the power she'd been granted so long ago coursing through her. She could still fight. She knew she could still fight.

Which was good because her former master had a whole lot of fish closing in on them. Fishmen, Crabcars, Artillery Shrimp, Eels, Anglers, Lampreys, Razorfish, Barnacles, all of it closed in on them from every direction as Thiotza’ma shouted out at them.

"IT IS TOO LATE FOR THIS WORLD. HERALD OR NO HERALD, IT WILL FALL TO MY WILL. EMBRACE THE SEA OR BE WASHED AWAY!"

Nobody seemed ready to follow his instructions.

Siren, spear in hand, rushed into the water provided by Maria and quickly rushed ahead. She sped around the tentacles before charging into them, impaling one with her spear at breakneck speed and tearing it off before moving to another. Every time one of the tentacles got close, she punched it away with rather astounding force.

Finn and Esen still lied on the ground, recovering from their wounds. Even Zil was a bit dazed. They were getting better, though, and the Demon, Candy, La Chat, and Nocturne had taken it upon themselves to defend them until they got up. Fish closed in from all directions, but they weren't a match for the Demon's sorcery and swordplay, nor Candy's devastating screams.

Ken and Sam used the parts of what used to be Polybius, combined with a dead crab car and pieces of an artillery shrimp, to assemble some kind of mobile artillery platform. Standing atop it, they used it to deliver devastating volleys at the mass of eldritch tentacles coming from the chasm. While Ken did this, Sam kept the fish hordes off the car with his shiny new guns.

Darkmagic loaded lightning rounds into her guns, firing into the swarm of fish with great efficiency. Earnest shot what targets he could with his bow (sadly he didn't have Vigil's knack for trick arrows), while the Bronze Boz rather ruthlessly and efficiently beat down any fish that crossed his path. Jim was beside him, dodging enemy attacks and slicing off rather important bits with equal measure. Goldpony, still in their horse form and now without a rider, rushed around kicking, smashing, and slamming everything they could. It was actually very effective, as horses were large and particularly dangerous when made of metal.

Mr. Smiley trailed behind, shooting what he could with his singular pistol. He wasn't particularly lethal, but this didn't get him down!

Maria unleashed a great many stabs, slashes, and water blasts as she advanced, also assisting Siren with her maneuvers. Elena landed beside her dear aunt, and fought beside her with a mixture of super strength and super durability.

Lone Star was still on his ethereal horse, and took a flank as he mowed down fish with a somewhat impressive amount of skill. Age hadn't slowed down his shooting much.

And finally, Theraea marched onward with her duty in mind. Siren and the artillery took out the remaining tentacles, and she descended down into the chasm as the others remained behind to fight off the horde.

Staring into the salty, indescribable depths of the whirlpool, she heard the Song of the Deep in her mind as the bandanna burned. She knew what she had to do. She just had to focus.

"I'M NAMIN' THIS SHRIMPY PETE!"

Sam had straddled a shrimp head on the new Polybius-bio-mech like a horse as he sniped Fishmen with abandon, occasionally twisting Kimberly in split second intervals to dodge harpoons.

"HACKY, WE SHOULD BUILD THINGS LIKE THIS MORE OFTEN!"

"Um... hello."

Theraea squinted, staring into the Deep and trying to tune the song out. Keep your thoughts ordered. Focus. Breathe.

"I'm Theraea. Ibuarska clan. Seventeenth spire. I-I don't know what that means to you, but you know what I am."

Go time. Theraea began to call on the Abyss, channeling wisps of Unreality through herself. Around each of her four hands, the air grew wavy, as though by intense heat - an effect that seemed to spread as she focused.

"What you're doing here is- I can't even describe how horrible this is. I didn't become a Mender just to stop people like you from- from bringing your selfish horrors upon entire worlds, but that's what I'm going to do! It doesn't matter what it takes, I'm going to fix the reality that you broke, the lives that you ruined! You act like you're some inevitable force of change, but you know what? You're just a cosmic bully, and- and I'm stopping you here!"

Inky-black, ephemeral wisps of Abyssal magic began to dance in the air as Theraea focused herself, using her own speech to take her attention off the Song. This was among one of the most difficult and strenuous things she'd ever had to do, but damned if she was going to give up. The featureless black pits of her eyes opened wide, staring into the whirlpool with absolute conviction.

"You- you call yourself the Voice of the Deep, but you know what? I'm from the Abyss. And it's a lot deeper than you."

And with that, what could be the last one-liner of her life, Theraea channeled everything she had outward, reaching out toward the rift and trying to force it shut. Because she was a professional, and this was what she did.

Well, when Zil finally gets her ass up she'll...maybe...do that fire stuff! To help! That's what she's got! That fire stuff and a bladed boomerang she will ALSO throw!
Hell yeah!

...Huh.

So she wasn't dead.

That was just starting to sink in. Finn had spent a lot of time thinking about death - or, trying not to think about it, maybe. When you were a P.I. in the grimdark cyberpunk future, you had to be ready to not wake up, or to get shot in some dark alley, or to be blackbagged and thrown in the sea, or used as a horrific science experiment. So in that moment - so close to death - she had been prepping for the end. Hoping this worked out; hoping Orla would be alright; hoping the revolution would make something better soon. Half-heartedly lamenting the fact that she wouldn't be there to see it. Half celebrating the fact that she could finally fucking rest.

...But here she was. Still breathing. Still able to fight.

Well... no use mourning a dirtnap untaken. There were things to do, now.

She lifts herself to her feet, takes her claymore in her hands, and grins. "Alright! Back intae the fray, then! Fer all the folk who've had their lives ruined by this bloated-ego elder-fuck! Fer all the folk we've got tae save still! I won't be stopped until I've bled all I can bleed!"

And she charges, swinging her blade wide, trying to channel lightning and ice through it in varying bursts!!!

Oh fuck!!! Thank goodness!! Backup AND healing! This is the best! It even cleared up her throat that was getting sore. Oh boy! Cadence is going to martial arts anything that gets close and fire, deep, belly shouts at the enemies, putting her all into it.

The important work was ahead, and Maria was just gonna keep doing her best to keep! Theraea! Safe! Enough cool lines had been thrown around, and this guy already knew her beef, ok? Gramma had work to do.