The Mafia Queen (IC)

[CoraSpia]

George

George had just enough time to spot Kevin flying off into the distance before the lightning blasts streamed around him. What Kazo didn't know however was that he'd just pressed George's one and only button. It was the same button that Gamgee had pushed recently, and it had led to the scientist losing a hand as well as the lives of so many of his assistants. Anger bloomed on George Hamilton's face as he tracked Kevin's fall: not that he was worried that he might not survive it, there seemed to be some deeper reason than that. The wind around Kevin picked up and lowered the young boy gently to the ground, George's hand controlling the fall effortlessly.

"Well," he said in his most pleasant voice, "That was one big mistake."

Dodging the ring of fire that was starting to spread around the combatants, he concentrated on the uneven ground under him, feeling the parts where it connected. It was easy to sever those connections, to change the landscape into something somewhat different. The ground rumbled ahead of him and a huge section of earth rose into the air, swinging like a battering ram into the source of the lightning.

[Infected Mushroom]

Vel Kazo

Vel Kazo was still firing lightning all over the place when suddenly, a large collection of hard earth came zooming towards him, a series of hard-hitting projectiles.

Vel Kazo tried to react but he wasn't fast enough and was struck.

"YIAAAAAAA-"

Letting out a great cry, he was blasted backwards and off his boots, the force of the still-flying earth sent him off at a spectacular arc and he crash-landed into a large pile of trees several meters away. Groaning with pain, he attempted to stand up from the wreckage, since most of him wasn't armoured, there was now some serious wounding and profuse bleeding and a few pieces of the earth had lodged into him, thereby ruining the suit. He looked around for more metal to use but there was none nearby.

"Vel Kazo come in?" Pietro's voice was in his ear. "Vel Kazo what's your status?"

"I'm going to need some back up," he said into his unseen communication system. "There's a bit of a situation-"

As he tried to relay his coordinates, Vel Kazo raised a hand and looked for any enemies approaching, ready to blast out lightning once more though much of him was now wracked with a crushing pain. At present he could only see the trees and hills and they seemed to have developed an ominous, menacing character of their own.

[Kaledoria]

Lorelei

"Shit", Lorelei thought, while eavesdropping on the Mafia's communication channel. She had hoped to only pull this off after that Vel Kazo guy was dead. At least, now she had a better speech sample of him. She fed it into her program and adjusted the output. It took some seconds to compute, which Lorelei used to write a small virus that would go to Vel Kazo's comlink via the software-update function and switch the frequency, invisible for the user. She picked an unused frequency and set the tertiary channel for her radio to that, too, so she could continue hearing, what he said. But the main goal of this was, that he was no longer on the frequency, where the Lion's den expected him.

Lorelei listened to her message and added a little exhaustion to the sound and then pressed send. "Vel Kazo to Lion's Den. Disregard my last message. It ... one of them tried an illusion on me. Three attackers neutralized, a fourth one fleeing but don't worry, I'll get him for trying to fool me. I suggest you spread your eyes out into a wider circle, around the immediate area, just in case there were more of them nearby but not in the fight, who are probably running away now, too."

It was a gamble, the lightning strikes in the area could be seen through the trees and while a few more could be easily explained by Vel Kazo finishing the job, if George, Kevin and Shiroi took too long, the guys in the Den might still become suspicious.

[Infected Mushroom]

Inside Lion's Den/The Vault
Under the Earth

Pietro Gamgee

Inside the Lion’s Den, Gamgee felt a measure of relief. He was just about to send out another strike team, though it would leave the facility under-defended.

“He’s got em, three hostile down,” Gamgee turned around on his wheel chair. There was a rush of applause from the others.

“Scratch the reinforcement order. Now now… Eyes on the ball game,” he said, pointing (but there was a gleam of greed in his eyes). “I want the cannons ready to fire once Vel Kazo pushes what’s left of these hostile west into the firing range.”

“Yes sir!”

He turned and looked at the camera feeds. They were still trying to narrow down the enemies’ exact positions though he had some idea there was a group in the north of where Vel Kazo was engaged but further to the east of the strike range of the super canons.

Who are you? … Who are these friends you brought with you? European mercs, some kind of a resistance?

Ah well… I’ll find out soon enough.