Ethereal Death Water

[Oneal812]

Well then. That was a thing that happened. I hope this doesn't become a reoccurring theme. I'd rather not get evaporated by magical glasses of water. The people raiding the building must be close by now so I can't dwell on it for too long. Time to get things going over here.

"Sure, I'd love the help."

We both go around shooting and cutting holes into specific points on the bodies. Namely the limbs, hands, torso, and head while covering up the more obvious wounds with their cloaks. Once we finish putting in all the holes with a few extra in one of the bodies for mouth control, I get Seryu to lift up all the corpses. Seras got me quite a few of these guys so Seryu won't be able to travel well. In fact, with the amount of them I wouldn't even be able to bring them with us. They will only be able to attack and move efficiently in this room. Well, That might not be a bad thing.

"You guys go on ahead and get behind them, I have an idea. Seras, can you stay here?"

[Touch of Ruin]

OOC: Intro to mine and Oneal's secondary characters, as well as co-written.
-----------------------------------------

The inside of the Star Platinum casino was smoke filled and loud noises. It had many tables playing various different games, and each table was absolutely packed. At one of the poker tables, sat two rather interesting men. One was dressed rather blandly with a white cloak, and the other was wearing a large trench coat, top hat and dark clothing all around. It was these two figures who seemed to be dominating the poker game. Which considering the other men at the table were tied to the local mafia, may not have been the best course of action.

“And yet another round goes to me it would seem.” The man dressed in black smiled and as he flicked his wrist the chips slid towards him. Small things like this had been happening for the majority of the night and no one was quite sure why. When questioned, the man simply spoke the age old rule of a performer, “a man must never let his secrets out.”

This continued for a while longer, each round either going to the man in the black coat or the one dressed in white. Understandably, the mafia members gradually became more and more agitated as they saw their money moving to the other end of the table consistently. Eventually getting fed up, the mafia members stormed out of the casino in anger, pushing over patrons and nearly breaking the door off its hinges.  The man dressed in black turned to his companion and smiled.

“Well that was a rather profitable venture. Shall we go cash in our winnings old friend?”

The cloaked man turned back and shrugged. “Might as well. Everyone with anything worth getting just left. Pretty mad/10.”

Standing up, the two men walked over to the front desk and poured their chips onto the table. There was quite a lot there, as they had been playing for most of the day. After collecting all of their money into a briefcase, the two men stepped outside of the casino and right into another group of men who were, not to anyone’s surprise, the same men that these two had just destroyed at the gambling table.

The man in black smiled and tipped his hat. “Evening gentlemen, here for another round?”

“We came for our money.” The largest of them replied.

Without waiting for a reply, two of the men walked forward and grabbed the white cloaked man.

“Now we have one of you, where’s the money before we rip him limb from limb?”

Chuckling slightly, the man with the top hat simply drew his hands from his pockets.

“Id let him go if I were you, otherwise things won’t end well for you.”

The five men laughed and started to holler, mock and make a large amount of noise in the direction of the black dressed man.

“And what the actual fuck you do think you can do to us?”

Without responding, the man simply flicked his wrists and the two men holding the white cloaked figure flew into the buildings surrounding them with a sickening crunch.

Smirking, the man drew two pistols and aimed at two of the other men. “That.”
 
As the men rushed him, the black dressed man simply fired four rounds into each of them and leaving their chests looking like red Swiss cheese. The last man, who was unsurprisingly the boss, snarled and drew a large rifle.

“Who the fuck are you two?”

Tipping his hat, the black dressed man replied.

“Me? Oh my name is Saul Vorhölle. And this man, well right now his name is not important.”

With another flick of Saul’s wrist, a large tear appeared in the sky and a steam roller dropped on top of the mafia boss.

The white cloaked man turned towards the steam roller slightly taken back.

“Are we breaking this out already? I mean, I’m ok with it but that thing is really hard to get in there!”

Saul glances at the cloaked man with an expression of pure annoyance.

“Am I messing this up Saul? Right, were being cool. Cool… Uh… What should I say?”

Saul’s expression remains unchanged.

“Ok, I’ll just do the thing…”

Jumping in-humanly high up into the air and plummeting at just as much of a ridiculous speed into the steam roller, the white cloaked man kicks the ignition on and pummels the top at high speeds. Once it is about to explode, he delivers one last blow while jumping off and landing silently beside Saul. After the steam roller explodes the mafia boss is left in a crater outside the casino.

“I don’t think there is really any point in hiding this anymore Saul. Anyone who knows is going to be dead by the end of this.”

“Eh, go ahead. I’ll be going on ahead. Don’t fall behind.”

“Sure thing!”

As Saul starts to exit the area the white cloaked man lifts up the mafia boss, who is impressively still hanging on to life. The white cloaked man throws up a bundle of knives that all fly towards the mafia boss finishing him off for good.

The white cloaked man turns around and starts walking towards Saul.

“Got em boss.”

Saul smiled and patted the white cloaked man on the back.

“Good job Veryon, now let’s go find a place to rest up. Tomorrow should bring more fun.”

[Primusa]

Why do these people keep insisting on altering the plans at the last minute? I transmit to Arthria: "They've altered the plan, I'm only bringing Elena to the roof". She sounds furious: "Such Doofuses. OH MY GOD, were they even here yesterday!?" I'm a little bit confused, "What does that even mean?" She replies: "I mean, they weren't even here yesterday, so they couldn't know the layout of the plant well enough to stage an attack effectively from the inside. Whatever, just bring Elena up to the roof already". I comply with this, and fly Elena up to the roof where the three of us take a position looking through the skylight where we can see their progress at breaking through the web, and wait for the right moment to jump down behind them.

[Youmu Konpaku]

The plan has been altered, and it looks like it'll only be me and Ezekiel going up to the roof. Looks like Seras and Virgil are going to stay back and do... some other thing. They've probably got something logical planned... right? Right...? 

Ezekiel and I run out, flying himself and me to the roof. As we are in the air, I take notice of something. Minus the insect parts... he looks kinda hot... I think I might even be falling for hi- nope, couldn't keep a straight face. Thought I was serious? Hell no. I'm not getting into harem territory here.

Landing on the roof, we are now overlooking the hostiles, waiting for the right moment to strike.

[Touch of Ruin]

Looking over at Virgil, Seras nodded and had the plan explained to her. 
"Yenno what? Thats so fucking dumb its bound to work. Lets do it! Where do you need me?"

[Oneal812]

Everyone else has left to do their part of the ever changing plan. I've already told Seras the plan, now we just need to get into position.

"We could probably get a good vantage point from the other hallway. All we need to do is distract the people following us long enough for the others to get behind them. We can't rule out the possibility that they know this is a trap. They seem organized enough where they could notice. Also, if we are there, we can fall back further into the building and get out elsewhere if something happens." 

Lifting up all the bodies and making sure none of the limbs are going to fall off when they start "talking" I double check the area.

"To be honest, that's starting to look like the only option. That good with you?"

[Touch of Ruin]

Seras made a goofy hand gesture in attempts to act as a ring leader. 
"Sure why not? Better than nothing. Shall we get this puppet show on the road?"

[Contemplator]

OOC: no, no no no, No NO NOOOO, YES!YES!YEAHSSSS!!!! Youmu! Don't do that!  My heart can't take it.

And on another note, I'm not sure if it's my move yet or not, are you all done setting up your plans? Can we break in now? I can't go ahead on my own and post something big like that without consulting both GM's though so we can probably have a post out tomorrow. Also out tomorrow will be some adapting character sheets and hopefully a note refreshing and better explaining Qilong's powers and his realm, which I am now calling The Fifth State, because saying the word "non-solids" again and again was really bugging me.

[Youmu Konpaku]

-POV: Zane--

Zane continues working at slicing through the web after giving the commands to his troops, to which they comply immediately. A small section flash their lights towards the still-webbed hallway, while another section runs out to reinforce the various entrances.

"This is getting to be more troublesome than I thought," Zane thought to himself. "I could cut this a lot faster if I... no. I don't know who's watching, if anyone at all. I don't want to take the risk. At least not yet."

The remaining troops split up into two more groups; one to watch Zane's back at the entrance to the hallway, and another squad to follow him.

--POV: "Dandy Man"--

The waiting continued to be uneventful, but shortly after he had decided this, a small group of soldiers came in through the entrance they were waiting at.

"Howdy," he casually greeted them.

"What are you doing?!" The squad leader furiously asked.

"Sitting here as backup. I've got the control room guarded by the others."

"Do you even-" he was cut off as the card-carrier put both hands on the squad leader's shoulders, and looked him intensely in the eyes.

"It's under control," he stressed. "Contain the calamity that is your mammaries."

The squad leader just gave a sigh of frustration and went further into the building, meeting up with the larger team sent to reinforce the front entrance.

--Front Entrance--

The two squads arrived almost simultaneously, one at the front door, and a smaller one near the back. They had now noticed the numerous corpses which Seras and Virgil had been... using in their plan. Without question, the two squads open fire on the two.

OOC: Sorry for the delay in post. We've had some communication issues lately, which should hopefully be fixed soon.

[Touch of Ruin]

Seras laughed and dodged behind cover. Apparently their puppet show would have to wait. With a rather disturbing glint in her eyes, she began firing back at the soldiers with her rifle while yelling profanity and insults in their direction. The disturbing part is that she was calling out to them in the voice of the man she had tortured nearly to death.
Looking over at Virgil she called out.
"We didn't even get to try eh? Well why don't we put some more holes in this lot and have another go at it?"

[Primusa]

Hearing the commotion going on near the front of the plant, as well as the fact that they're almost through the webbing, Arthria says: "Well Ez, it looks like it's time you and your new friend got going". Wow, for some reason it seems like Arthria really does not like Elena, I'll have to ask her about why that is later though. It seems rather uncalled for in my opinion though, this is the first time they've even been in close proximity in person. Anyways, I quickly fly Elena down to ground level behind the rear entrance. Before the men guarding it can react, I jump on one of them using grasshopper limbs and sink my fangs (Sydney Funnel-Web Spider) into his neck. Between the sheer size of the scaled-up fangs, as well as the massive quantity of venom injected at once, it's guaranteed to be an instant kill. Let's see what Elena has planned for this situation, it would be troublesome if I had to tank a ton of bullets because of my early engage.

[Oneal812]

Well then, it looks like being subtle is out of the equation. I'm not sure if we will be able to take all of them out before they fully close in on us. Well, they are only human, and I don't think we really fall into that category any more. Maybe we can just mentally scar a few of them and get them to off themselves. Hopefully this group isn't as tenacious as the exploding water man. Noticing that Seras had managed to hit a few of the front line men in the arms and legs I initiate plan 47. I lost count of how many times we switched but that seems about right. Using the old corpses from last time I make some crawl over to the soldiers. I could make them run, but that would be less spooky. Some of the soldier started to back up when they saw the corpses getting closer, but a few were so focused on us they didn't see them get all the way to their legs. Thanks FOV 70. Having 2 corpses grab each one of the soldiers legs, I get them to pull as hard as they can to keep them on the ground. After that, I get Seryu through all the new wounds on the living soldiers and pull as hard as I can away from the ground. The few soldiers that I managed to catch got what ever limb had been injured torn form their bodies. Now all I have to do is wait for them to bleed out and get the old bodies to make some new holes in them. Time to rinse and repeat.

"This will be kinda like a puppet show. A really evil puppet show were everyone dies, but a show none the less."

[Youmu Konpaku]

As we wait, I can hear the faint sounds of something going on at the front of the plant. Looks like Virgil and Seras have company. And now since we can freely kill the hostiles, I'd imagine that's got Virgil excited. So in any case... it's fiiiiiiiiine.

Arthria tells Ezekiel that "you and your friend should get going," with an angry emphasis on the word "friend" which seems pretty unbecoming for a god. Wait... could she be...? ...No, it can't be...

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Kristal's voice transmits into my head.

"Yep... the tsundere is strong with this one," I think to myself. I had to use all of my might to stop myself from laughing out loud. Still, I barely know Ezekiel. What, does she think I'm going to spontaneously make out with him in front of her? Ah, well. Those are thoughts for another time.

Ezekiel flies himself and I down to the back entrance. Without hesitation, he jumps at one of the guards and delivers a spider bite directly into his neck. Now it's my turn.

I had been charging up some energy since we were waiting, and I intended to use that here. I kept Kristal in his bow form, and quickly took my shot with precision, launching the energy I had stored. A bright golden arrow fires from it, leaving behind a faint glimmering trail from where it had originated. It tears straight through the chest of the soldier standing beside the one Ezekiel had taken down. It continues its flight afterwards, ripping through several more soldiers before finally embedding itself into the body of one of them. They had significantly less troops now. Now, what'll happen next?

OOC: Reaction post ETA: Unknown. Please bear with us, as Contemplator should hopefully be getting his internet fixed.

[Contemplator]

Sorry everyone, my laptop is less than perfect and for the last few days has both repeatedly kicked me on and off the internet for no reason and refused to turn on at all. This with a few phone problems has seriously affected communication and planning. Still the laptop's been fine today, so hopefully we can get a new post up soon.

[Youmu Konpaku]

--Back Entrance--

Zane quickly turns around to see one of his men get bitten by a man with spider fangs, and several more of his men get cut in half by an arrow which just now has stopped its rampage and embedded itself in the chest of a soldier which had been standing behind him. His men were either dead, or severely wounded, the latter screaming in pain and agony. There was no doubt, they would bleed out in under a minute, and they would hardly be of use now. “Brilliant”, Zane thought to himself. “Those two up ahead are going to ruin everything unless they’re killed now. I’m at a disadvantage here unless I do something to create distance, and get back into the open. Now there’s no choice, I’ve got to do it.”

With that, Zane touched his hand to a pool of blood from a nearby dead soldier, and created many bullets out of it, which he proceeded to launch at Elena and Ezekiel with a speed on par with that of a machine gun. He quickly growls under his breath into his earpiece, “Jack, where the hell are you?”

As if on cue, the aforementioned card-carrying mercenary came out of the side door, and stopped as he came around the corner with Elena and Ezekiel in sight. He grinned wickedly, now having targets to fight. He pulled out a deck of cards, exclaiming, “How about a little game of 52-cut-up?!” He threw the entire deck at the two in a shotgun-type spread with astounding speed. “As long as I get paid…”

--Main Entrance--

Bursting into the room, the gunmen open fire, only to see after the smoke clears (imaginary smoke, it's an extra cost feature on guns these days,) that every single shot completely missed their targets. Seconds later, a miniature army of hands begins to crawl towards the men, pulling down a few too stupid or slow to escape. The rest watch in horror as these hands in turn rip off their comrade's own hands which join the rest slowly crawling towards the survivors. Taking in the scene for half a second, the men quickly spin around and run screaming out the main doors, cursing themselves for being nameless minions.

[Contemplator]

OOC: Just a small note, Primusa's web is still in place at the end of the hallway connecting Zane's party to Ezekiel's.

[Primusa]

Suddenly, a man from the hall somehow picks up blood, forms it into projectiles and launches it at us while simultaneously, a man throws a razor-sharp deck of cards at us from the side door. Damn it, I didn't expect this surprise attack. I'll be fine, but I doubt Elena could block such a vicious onslaught of projectiles with a mere shield. Acting quickly, with a cry of "STAND BEHIND EZ" I leap to her while simultaneously transforming into a massive crab. I manage to block all of the shots, but shout a massive cry of pain as the blood bullets punch 2-inch deep holes, and the metal playing cards lodge halfway into my back. Shit, that hurts. Fortunately, the blood and cards didn't penetrate anywhere near my vital organs, but it will render me incapacitated temporarily for a few minutes. Hopefully Elena has something planned for our counterattack, and that she does it quickly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
OOC: Emphasis on quickly.

[Youmu Konpaku]

Well, fuck. Counterattack. Before I can react, Ezekiel jumps in the way, blocking the shots. Well shit, now what am I supposed to do?

Thinking quickly, I toss a light singularity down the hallway to distract the blood-user, and then quickly turn Kristal into a machine gun. I prime the bullets with additional energy, and begin to gun down the card-carrier. Now, if only Seras and Virgil would get over here, we wouldn't be having such a terrible time with these two right now. The light should distract the blood user for a while, now let's see how the card-carrier reacts.

Show me your hand, Dandy Man!

[Touch of Ruin]

"Well we made em piss themselves and run! Good jo-"

As Seras was about to highfive Virgil, she hear the distinct sound of shit kicking off down the hallway. Unfortunately, that hallway was full of spider webs. Hmmm.... 
Stepping up to the wall, Seras sent a sonar ping through it. Smiling to herself she found what she was looking for- a part of the wall damaged by gunfire enough to shatter and NOT collapse everything else around it. Gathering up energy, she sent a sonic boom into the wall and blew a nice human sized hole into the adjacant hallway. Without waiting for Virgil, Seras sprinted down the hall sending out pulses to find the others. Coming up to them on the other side, Seras found a spot that was not essentiel to the structure and blew it inwards. Stepping forward with her rifle raised, she saw "Dandy man" with his cards. 
She smirked and began firing on him while thinking, "guys got magic cards... And magic hands"



OOC: she does know there is another person there. She does not know it is Zane.

[Oneal812]

Well, our fight turned out well, but I think Elena and Ezekiel are having problems. Seras already started to head over there mid high five and has cleared quite the path on the way. Following closely behind her we arrive at the fight. It looks like it was a 2 on 2 before we showed up. If they were having trouble with them then we had better watch out. Seras has started to engage one of them who has.. playing cards? Well then, that seems impractical. Leading Seryu into the room I start to cover the area where our team mates. Hopefully they can use this to escape.

[Youmu Konpaku]

Zane:

Zane sidesteps to avoid the light singularity barreling towards him, but is blinded by the blast it creates upon impact. He covers his eyes with a hand, groaning. “Son of a bitch…”

His vision gradually improved, working its way back to its original state. He was able to faintly make out the arrival of Virgil’s mist spreading out on the outside. “My vision isn't good enough to charge out there. On top of that, it’d be downright idiotic to charge out there since the fog won’t help it to become any better. I've got to lay down a defense for now…”

He was able to make out a nearby pool of blood, and quickly reached over to touch his hand to it. With his powers, he created tendrils of blood which slid up the walls, and hiding themselves on the ceiling of the hallway. “Now to wait…”

Jack:

As bullets shoot towards him, Jack raises his hand upwards, causing a small wave of cards to jump into place around him which spin rapidly, shielding himself from the majority of the bullets. A few get through his shield though and you can hear him hiss in pain seconds later, any sight of him is quickly lost however when he suddenly disappears in the fog bank.

Looking around confused at his sudden lack of sight, Jack suddenly smiles, "Well this works," he chuckles, taking a step back and settling into a defensive posture.

[Primusa]

As the fog surges forward, surrounding both the hallway and the immediate vicinity of the rear entrance, I shift back into human form; metal playing cards clatter to the floor loudly. The injuries sustained in crab form have been translated into some minor cuts during the shift, and the playing cards were not anywhere deep enough into my skin to stay during the shift. Essentially, minor injuries sustained relative to the crab such as their attacks earlier translate into minor injuries to my human body once I revert back. Of course, the same occurs with major injuries as well, and applies to any transformation I undergo. The cuts definitely stung a bit, but I had been through much worse before, so this shouldn't pose a large problem in the upcoming fight. However, it does pose a problem that I can't see through this fog. To remedy this, I acquire beetle wings, equipped with heat sensors so that I can see everybody clearly through the fog. To prevent my eyesight and the infrared image from conflicting, I replace my eyes with insect carapace to get the best image. I can see that the card-man is alone in the fog taking a defensive posture, and that the blood-man is alone in the hallway. What's this? It appears that tendrils of blood are collecting on the ceiling of the hall. I can "see" it because the blood is warm and just taken from recently-deceased individuals. Rather than risk any of my allies falling into this trap, I decide to engage him and spring the trap myself. I fly to him while changing my arms into that of a Mantis Shrimp because they can be used both offensively and defensively, and just to be safe armor much of my body with crab armor while leaving my beetle wings intact so I can see what he's doing. Quickly landing in front of him, I attempt to deliver a fatal Mantis Shrimp blow to the chest, while being prepared to block his counterattack from the ceiling.

[Touch of Ruin]

Seras sent out another sonar pulse and tracked Faust's movement. Seeing he was almost on top of the second man, She kept her focus on Dany Man. Projecting her voice to Elena, Faust and Virgil she began to speak.

"Elena you keep Faust covered as much as you can. Its four on two and we have ranged and melee covered. Ill keep Mr Magic Hands over there busy and lets hope Faust can get rid of the other. If not,  Virgil you drop the smoke so Elena can get a bettter shot. Also if you could move in on Dandy man after he's sufficently distracted that would be nice. And don't worry they can't hear me."

Seras then switched out her regular rounds for some armor piercing. These babies went through body armor and occasionally APC engine blocks. They could handle cards. Taking aim at the man, she fired three shots. Two to the arms and one to the lower abdomen.
"Trump this."

[Youmu Konpaku]

Seeing that Ezekiel had now chased after him, Zane grinned, lashing out at him with the tendrils he had set up earlier. In addition, he quickly backsteps while creating a wall of blood to block the incoming strike. Once the hit has been absorbed, the wall of blood returns to its liquid form. Zane quickly dashes forward for a lunging strike to the throat.

[Primusa]

I avoid the blood tendrils by jumping back because I had been anticipating the attack to begin with, and he begins charging at me intending to attack my throat with his sword, or at least it appears that way looking at his heat signature. Because I can't actually see the sword in infrared I quickly return my eyes to normal while removing my wings and replacing them with more armor. Acting fast, I block the strike with one Mantis Shrimp arm while simultaneously delivering another strike with the other. His sword should pose no threat to me, hitting my arms and body with a mere sword would be like striking a solid boulder, it's just the blood that I have to be cautious about. Fortunately for me, I can do this all day, but I'm not so sure that he can. Since the blood was first exposed to the air, it should have started clotting and drying up. Perhaps it will become unusable for him if enough time passes. I have a possible strategy to deal with the blood in the short-term, but it's pretty risky, and I have no need to take that risk. Time is on my side, if I can sit here trading blows with him for long enough, that will give my allies enough time to deal with the card-man. After that, a four on one should be a pretty simple matter.

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