RE: Grand Battle Season 3 Game 1! Signups are open!
05-21-2013, 11:50 AM
Despite its grace and strength and surfeit of ways to kill whatever was bothering him, Jetsam didn't like this body. While the pangolin could stop and think and re-evaluate and do whatever else a pangolin wouldn't (Chaos smiling on such chicanery), the dracodactyl was all animal. Cunning and loyal and savage animal, but slings and bows and white lightning striking the rational spires of its mind all reduced the beast still further. For one thing, animal instinct told Jetsam to go for the first guy who shot him. Midday's collar disagreed, parsing unwillingness to go straight for the mage as a wilful accessory to sabotage, and shot another bolt of pain through the cognizant centre that would've suggested killing Gareth first anyway.
The dracodactyl screamed, lobbing a haphazard acid splatter in nobody's direction. It squirmed under Tock's hook, lashing out and seizing some hopefully-extraneous widget in its jaws.
Jetsam ate steam, which hurt. Distractingly so. Tock followed it up with a faceful of piping-hot fist. By the tin man's good luck, it was the side Ursus forced into confrontation with Midday's bedchamber wall, and the 'dactyl reeled and hissed and was having trouble staying upright.
O'Keele aimed this time for the legs, but that unnatural head snapped round and intercepted the arrow with a bolt of venom. With no time for the heroes to marvel at this, the monster found its feet, sprung with a cat's impunity and seized the archer's ankle. They scrabbled and screeched and tried to gouge each other's eyes out until Tock grabbed the creature by its ankle, wherein it kicked the metal man's arm clean off at the shoulder.
“GARETH,” roared O'Keele, “FINISH THE SPELL!”
O'Keele stabbed Jetsam in the foreclaw and the latter retaliated with a bicycle-kick, braining the ranger with Tock's arm and bringing the trio crashing to the floor. The bird-dragon found its feet first, its acid strike only missing O'Keele because half its legs were busy keeping Tock pinned.
None of this was especially to Gareth's liking. By preference, he'd rather squash spell-gobbets, hell, cough more of them up himself if it was an alternative to this. With few better options, Gareth paged through the book to find his aborted spell. A lucky page opened to a list of directives Ruinam's former inhabitants used in aerial combat, and the mage gave one a crack on the grounds it looked way more pronounceable than the shutdown sequence.
“Caelus lδcerta delphiniums blu...”
Jetsam's attention snapped to Gareth, the magic-infused command smacking directly upon the currently-dominant bestial portion of his borrowed brain. “What did you just-”
The runes on Jetsam's collar flashed a deadly white that shot straight through his retinas and out the other side of his head. He shrieked, recoiled, and as the laughter faded so too did Jetsam's capacity for reason.
The pain was the mage's doing. The mage was on the other side of the room. Between Jetsam and the mage stood an archer with an arrow nocked, and a one-armed tin man.
Arrows would hurt him. The mage already had. Already would. Do it again. Kill him first.
The dracodactyl hissed, and charged, and caught one arrow in its teeth and another in its shoulder and kept running, spat the arrow out, bowled the minnow over and caught it in his jaws before it could hit the ground or shed a glove or ever do him harm again.
Gareth screamed. Jetsam made a noise in his throat, bile and loathing rising and hacked upon the mage's shoulder where his teeth still ground on clavicle. He barely needed to move to dodge O'Keele's arrow – more a lazy curl of the neck what raised the mage's pitch to something histrionic. The dracodactyl spat its catch on the ground, silencing it, and appraised the ranger and the robot.
O'Keele was shaking. Gareth hadn't been - wasn't, he had to correct himself - much older than Alex. That he was a defector from Midday's army was a secret to her. O'Keele suspected Tock knew, though the archer was too good a man to ever ask and find out. It had come down to O'Keele to impart some suitably father-figurely speech when Alex announced the plan to storm Ruinam and the kid nearly bailed on them.
There was dread in O'Keele's heart and a cementing realisation that they shouldn't have separated. He'd said, at the dock, what he'd felt at the time were situationally appropriate goodbyes to Alex. She'd hugged him, thanked him for his realistic take on the situation, scolded him for not having enough faith in the team. They were all ready for this – even Gareth, he'd pull through; she'd kill him if he choked now. He'll be fine because you're looking out for him. We'd all be back together in no time. Not here, but home.
We'll be home soon.
Tock had been making a sound in his throat like a struggling ignition switch. Before he or O'Keele realised it, Tock was running, bellowing, vengeance and vented heat gathering in his remaining arm. Of course he'd known. You didn't let a Earthen into your chassis without figuring out a few things about him, and Tock's mechanistic morals had eventually spat an output in the mage's favour.
Tock leapt. Jetsam ducked easily, craning easily from the prescribed arc of Tock's fist.
Tock leapt right over the dactyl, whirred a prayer to the Forge that Gareth had soldered this up right. His fist went glunk, sprang off the end of his arm, and uncurled at the last minute to clamp upon Jetsam's shoulder.
Someone dimmed the lights. The hand's rapid ticking stopped, Gareth's sigyls cleared for syntax and loaded into the local fabric of reality. A bubble of what looked like plasma forced its way into existence in the narrow space between metal palm and feathered arm. It burst with a musical note, and the dactyl was lit up from within with a roiling, crackling, violet inferno. Jetsam collapsed under the point of impact, a reaction more in line with being hit by a battering ram than a punch. His vision swam and sparked and felt on double-fire like the rest of his body and mind, and if he was screaming Jetsam wasn't aware of the fact. Everything was fading to white, though it was actually Tock spewing a screen of steam to retrieve his companion.
The metal man got as far as realising this'd be difficult with no hands when the shadow appeared. Gareth sobbed.
Ursus.
The bear raised his paws, Inks on the back flickering one to the next like lightning, a dozen different routes to earth themselves upon his hunched shoulders. What little fur he had stood on end, sigyls the colour of fresh ink lighting up down the bear's flank as he raised a foot, and stomped the earth.
The lights went out, the rocket fist powered down, even the Flux Core whined in protest at the rather comprehensive Nullify spell Ursus had launched. Tock froze, still bent over Gareth, then keeled over silently and toppled upon the mage. Part of his jaw landed in Jetsam's field of vision, which mostly consisted of floor, fog, and the ambient glow of the generator. There was the twang of a bowstring, and a growl more annoyed than homicidal. Jetsam felt Ursus approach, and raised his head just fast enough for the bear to pin it down again.
“I have mere minutes, hunter. Do not interrupt.”
The bear gripped a little tighter, then ran a claw up the dracodactyl's neck, drawing blood. Jetsam was too exhausted to do more than flinch, bracing himself for another jolt from the collar. He only received the scratch of bear claw on stone floor, Gareth's ragged breathing a ways off, and the thrum of the Flux Core.
“Dracodactyl blood was the most potent Ink in the last Age, before Ruinam fell.” Ursus continued to sketch, forming concentric semicircles of tight-packed sigyls that ran out from the collar like ripples on a pond. “With it, even her Ladyship's toys can be overruled. The Core reprogrammed. Ruinam to tear apart from itself, cast to the winds as dust.”
The collar began to glow, at first a cold crimson illumination but which quickly graduated to red-hot. Jetsam just felt simultaneously tense and numb, and it was only the numbness that faded out of existence with the collar, replaced with a perfect hovering circle the colour of his blood. The headaches had subsided, and he managed to sit up.
“Did-” Ursus seemed surprised as Jetsam that he managed to get a word out, “did you break-”
“Overruled it. Her Ladyship will receive only images she favours if she scries you. You and Ruinam both are wasted on her. Doubtless like you were on your old masters.” The bear scrutinised his handwriting again, and satisfied, Ursus struggled to his feet.
“Ursus.” O'Keele was practically begging by this point. “Are you betraying Midday?”
“Now kill the ranger,” growled Ursus, already making tracks for Gareth. Jetsam didn't move.
“My punishment if I refuse?”
Ursus laughed, indistinguishable from his growl. “None. Kill the ranger, then help me with the core.” The bear raised his wards against the Flux Core's heat, already using spare droplets of dactyl blood to begin his bastard craft.
The exits slammed closed. Jetsam rose to his feet. He felt ok with this. Not furious, not resigned, not even bloodthirsty or resentful or tense or excited. The removal of Midday's “discipline” from the mental equation balanced things out again, making its absence by contrast so indubitably comparatively ok.
Things would be ok. Behind him came a noise like a beautiful metal skull full of beautiful intricate machinery being crushed under runically augmented foot.
The dracodactyl screamed, lobbing a haphazard acid splatter in nobody's direction. It squirmed under Tock's hook, lashing out and seizing some hopefully-extraneous widget in its jaws.
Jetsam ate steam, which hurt. Distractingly so. Tock followed it up with a faceful of piping-hot fist. By the tin man's good luck, it was the side Ursus forced into confrontation with Midday's bedchamber wall, and the 'dactyl reeled and hissed and was having trouble staying upright.
O'Keele aimed this time for the legs, but that unnatural head snapped round and intercepted the arrow with a bolt of venom. With no time for the heroes to marvel at this, the monster found its feet, sprung with a cat's impunity and seized the archer's ankle. They scrabbled and screeched and tried to gouge each other's eyes out until Tock grabbed the creature by its ankle, wherein it kicked the metal man's arm clean off at the shoulder.
“GARETH,” roared O'Keele, “FINISH THE SPELL!”
O'Keele stabbed Jetsam in the foreclaw and the latter retaliated with a bicycle-kick, braining the ranger with Tock's arm and bringing the trio crashing to the floor. The bird-dragon found its feet first, its acid strike only missing O'Keele because half its legs were busy keeping Tock pinned.
None of this was especially to Gareth's liking. By preference, he'd rather squash spell-gobbets, hell, cough more of them up himself if it was an alternative to this. With few better options, Gareth paged through the book to find his aborted spell. A lucky page opened to a list of directives Ruinam's former inhabitants used in aerial combat, and the mage gave one a crack on the grounds it looked way more pronounceable than the shutdown sequence.
“Caelus lδcerta delphiniums blu...”
Jetsam's attention snapped to Gareth, the magic-infused command smacking directly upon the currently-dominant bestial portion of his borrowed brain. “What did you just-”
The runes on Jetsam's collar flashed a deadly white that shot straight through his retinas and out the other side of his head. He shrieked, recoiled, and as the laughter faded so too did Jetsam's capacity for reason.
The pain was the mage's doing. The mage was on the other side of the room. Between Jetsam and the mage stood an archer with an arrow nocked, and a one-armed tin man.
Arrows would hurt him. The mage already had. Already would. Do it again. Kill him first.
The dracodactyl hissed, and charged, and caught one arrow in its teeth and another in its shoulder and kept running, spat the arrow out, bowled the minnow over and caught it in his jaws before it could hit the ground or shed a glove or ever do him harm again.
Gareth screamed. Jetsam made a noise in his throat, bile and loathing rising and hacked upon the mage's shoulder where his teeth still ground on clavicle. He barely needed to move to dodge O'Keele's arrow – more a lazy curl of the neck what raised the mage's pitch to something histrionic. The dracodactyl spat its catch on the ground, silencing it, and appraised the ranger and the robot.
O'Keele was shaking. Gareth hadn't been - wasn't, he had to correct himself - much older than Alex. That he was a defector from Midday's army was a secret to her. O'Keele suspected Tock knew, though the archer was too good a man to ever ask and find out. It had come down to O'Keele to impart some suitably father-figurely speech when Alex announced the plan to storm Ruinam and the kid nearly bailed on them.
There was dread in O'Keele's heart and a cementing realisation that they shouldn't have separated. He'd said, at the dock, what he'd felt at the time were situationally appropriate goodbyes to Alex. She'd hugged him, thanked him for his realistic take on the situation, scolded him for not having enough faith in the team. They were all ready for this – even Gareth, he'd pull through; she'd kill him if he choked now. He'll be fine because you're looking out for him. We'd all be back together in no time. Not here, but home.
We'll be home soon.
Tock had been making a sound in his throat like a struggling ignition switch. Before he or O'Keele realised it, Tock was running, bellowing, vengeance and vented heat gathering in his remaining arm. Of course he'd known. You didn't let a Earthen into your chassis without figuring out a few things about him, and Tock's mechanistic morals had eventually spat an output in the mage's favour.
Tock leapt. Jetsam ducked easily, craning easily from the prescribed arc of Tock's fist.
Tock leapt right over the dactyl, whirred a prayer to the Forge that Gareth had soldered this up right. His fist went glunk, sprang off the end of his arm, and uncurled at the last minute to clamp upon Jetsam's shoulder.
Someone dimmed the lights. The hand's rapid ticking stopped, Gareth's sigyls cleared for syntax and loaded into the local fabric of reality. A bubble of what looked like plasma forced its way into existence in the narrow space between metal palm and feathered arm. It burst with a musical note, and the dactyl was lit up from within with a roiling, crackling, violet inferno. Jetsam collapsed under the point of impact, a reaction more in line with being hit by a battering ram than a punch. His vision swam and sparked and felt on double-fire like the rest of his body and mind, and if he was screaming Jetsam wasn't aware of the fact. Everything was fading to white, though it was actually Tock spewing a screen of steam to retrieve his companion.
The metal man got as far as realising this'd be difficult with no hands when the shadow appeared. Gareth sobbed.
Ursus.
The bear raised his paws, Inks on the back flickering one to the next like lightning, a dozen different routes to earth themselves upon his hunched shoulders. What little fur he had stood on end, sigyls the colour of fresh ink lighting up down the bear's flank as he raised a foot, and stomped the earth.
The lights went out, the rocket fist powered down, even the Flux Core whined in protest at the rather comprehensive Nullify spell Ursus had launched. Tock froze, still bent over Gareth, then keeled over silently and toppled upon the mage. Part of his jaw landed in Jetsam's field of vision, which mostly consisted of floor, fog, and the ambient glow of the generator. There was the twang of a bowstring, and a growl more annoyed than homicidal. Jetsam felt Ursus approach, and raised his head just fast enough for the bear to pin it down again.
“I have mere minutes, hunter. Do not interrupt.”
The bear gripped a little tighter, then ran a claw up the dracodactyl's neck, drawing blood. Jetsam was too exhausted to do more than flinch, bracing himself for another jolt from the collar. He only received the scratch of bear claw on stone floor, Gareth's ragged breathing a ways off, and the thrum of the Flux Core.
“Dracodactyl blood was the most potent Ink in the last Age, before Ruinam fell.” Ursus continued to sketch, forming concentric semicircles of tight-packed sigyls that ran out from the collar like ripples on a pond. “With it, even her Ladyship's toys can be overruled. The Core reprogrammed. Ruinam to tear apart from itself, cast to the winds as dust.”
The collar began to glow, at first a cold crimson illumination but which quickly graduated to red-hot. Jetsam just felt simultaneously tense and numb, and it was only the numbness that faded out of existence with the collar, replaced with a perfect hovering circle the colour of his blood. The headaches had subsided, and he managed to sit up.
“Did-” Ursus seemed surprised as Jetsam that he managed to get a word out, “did you break-”
“Overruled it. Her Ladyship will receive only images she favours if she scries you. You and Ruinam both are wasted on her. Doubtless like you were on your old masters.” The bear scrutinised his handwriting again, and satisfied, Ursus struggled to his feet.
“Ursus.” O'Keele was practically begging by this point. “Are you betraying Midday?”
“Now kill the ranger,” growled Ursus, already making tracks for Gareth. Jetsam didn't move.
“My punishment if I refuse?”
Ursus laughed, indistinguishable from his growl. “None. Kill the ranger, then help me with the core.” The bear raised his wards against the Flux Core's heat, already using spare droplets of dactyl blood to begin his bastard craft.
The exits slammed closed. Jetsam rose to his feet. He felt ok with this. Not furious, not resigned, not even bloodthirsty or resentful or tense or excited. The removal of Midday's “discipline” from the mental equation balanced things out again, making its absence by contrast so indubitably comparatively ok.
Things would be ok. Behind him came a noise like a beautiful metal skull full of beautiful intricate machinery being crushed under runically augmented foot.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow