International Defenders: Midsummer Gathering(IC)

[Malgrave]

Erika stepped into the warp gate without hesitation, despite being told that the Silverdalean artefact wasn't related to anything constructed by the Ancients she couldn't help but feel that it was at least partially inspired by her ancestors, and so she was perfectly braced for any possible feelings of nausea when she exited the portal. Instead of feeling sick, however, she just felt a sense of annoyance, the appropriate bond or the chain of command hadn't been established adequately prior to the instigation of the mission, and the Malgravean didn't take kindly to being ordered around by someone who thought it was appropriate to upon fire upon a potential threat without taking time to adequately analyse the situation, still she recognised that it was important to rescue any civilians from the danger zone.

"I'll get on it," Erika said, briefly muttering a few words of encouragement to herself in Malgravean Ancient before she sped off to assist the citizens in the square, aiming to take a singular citizen far away from the danger zone before picking up a new target and repeating the process until every civilian was safe, of course, the rather aggressive style of some of the foreigners in the team now meant that her plan involved having to potentially avoid stray bullets from her own side but she was hopeful that her recent abilities gave her the power to avoid any potential friendly fire incidents.

[New Dornalia]

OOC EDIT: George RPed with permission of Rohane Alista.

IC:

WIth one foot after the other, La Caballera stepped through the warp gate into a scene of urban chaos. There really wasn't a better word to describe the sight of a ghostly van and its rider--a skeleton clad in the faded garments of punk rock, likely trying too hard to imitate Sid Vicious--using depressing beats to smash everything and chase after a taxi. The people and ponies were fleeing, and the very streets reverberated with the sounds of chaos and doom. La Caballera winced. She was more of a Cassowary fan herself, so the sounds of undead cursed punk rock were not proving particularly pleasant.

Even worse was that she had but minutes to get out of the way of the speeding van. Dear God, that speeding van....time was of the essence--and luckily, her training and augs gave her a bit more expertise in regards to say, leaping out of the way while shooting at things. No big deal.

So, with a deft leap, La Caballera leapt to the side, behind an abandoned car. Even with her relatively heavy paramilitary gear, the neko rolled and stuck the landing with a perfect cinematic landing. The car wouldn't do much against enemy fire, but considering she was facing a zombie using depressing music? That was the least of her issues. Looking over at The Last Roman--the really shouty guy from beforehand, who was now opening fire on the van--she also saw at least one of the other heroes moving to get people out of the way. Good, sensible strategies. But first, a reminder.

Picking up her radio--and dialing into the Last Roman's frequency, La Caballera said, eager to get in a few pieces of advice, "Okay, friendo. We have to stop the van. That's smart. Just be careful and watch where you're aiming. Please. There are civilians running around and the last thing we need is collateral damage."

Then, over the comms, George's voice--clearly exasperated from the shenanigans going on--could be heard saying over open frequencies, "And tell gundick and that sniper over there we are not killers!"

La Caballera, more wondering how he got ahold of her frequency, shrugged and said to the Last Roman and also to Junghwa, "What our man just said. Anyway."

La Caballera then quickly darted from car to car, keeping chase until she found a good blocking position between a group of fleeing civilians and the crazed undead van. Then, La Caballera raised her rifle--and hopefully magic bullets in 7.62x51mm NATO, to compensate for her own poor magic skills--La Caballera began firing at the van with shots aimed at the engine block and the tires, trying to focus on not killing the driver. It would be sheer fantasy if she could hit the tires, but she figured on at least doing some damage--enough to disable the vehicle. She figured her augmented senses would help out here, a lot.

[Rohane Alista]

George followed through the gate, hoping to get ahold of his “teammates” before they did anything too stupid. He took in the situation as he came out of the portal, dread rising in the pit of his stomach. Already at least two members were positioning themselves to break orders and kill their targets. He’d have to pick one or the other to interfere with and trust his teammates to stop the other.

Luckily for him, he’d always had the ability to react well in crises, and he thought quick. This made the solution obvious: he might not be able to move other people with him yet, but the obvious move was to interfere with the sniper. The other crazed gun maniac, the Last Gundick or whatever, was close to La Cabaret anyways. It was likely too late to stop the snipers shot, and George couldn’t hope to guess who her exact target was, and it was possible she might shoot for the van, though the guitarist on the weird rock thing was generally a good guess. So he’d just have to be faster than the bullet to all of them.

”Ok, first is lead guitarist,” George thought, already gone. Literally the same moment as the thought he was on rock, giving the lead guitarist of the band a sharp shove to knock him over. ”Next is singer,” was all that crossed his mind as he was next to the singer, as harsh a punch as he could throw sending the skeleton-man reeling, falling out the passanger side of the van, and then George was off to the bassist, sweeping the legs out from under them and causing them to follow the singer. ”Only the drummer left,” George paused a fraction of a second before teleporting himself to right behind the drummer, pulling him from behind and out of the van that he left to his compatriots to stop.

As soon as he was done, George teleported himself away and back to where he’d first appeared. He was already exhausted after using his power so quickly in succession, even if he’d done relatively little. But looking at the scene, he saw what anyone else would see: the members of the band suddenly going flying or falling over in all different directions, their instruments coming unplugged, falling over from the force, or going spilling out of the open van. Mere seconds later, there was a crack and hole in the floating rock just beyond where the guitarist had been standing.

”A job well done,” George thought to himself, going to a knee and panting as the exhaustion of his powers swept over him stronger. ”I have at best one more jump before I need a rest. I should offer my services as a coordinator so this doesn’t happen again,” the Rohanian told himself as he switched on the comms he was glad he’d grabbed out of his room.

“Alright, listen, I can’t teleport other people, and I’ve just used my power too much too fast to have more than maybe two very short jumps left in me, so I’m going to get an oversight position and help coordinate, if you all will agree to listen to me for now,” George rapidly informed the rest of the team. “And tell gundick and that sniper over there that we are not killers! If you have to shoot at least shoot to disable! I’ve interrupted their performance anyways, so use that to destroy the equipment permanently!”

As he finished George charged up a jump and set himself on top of the closest tall building to the site, looking over the situation so he could offer direction when and where needed or wanted.

[Legokiller]

Silver City

Just as the Brass Sage swiftly created a magical ritual circle to call out a special sword-wielding friend, the firearm assault on the van caused the tires to pop! The vehicle started to lose control towards a tree, but thanks to the Malgravean kitty’s efforts, they got people out of the way! Heck, even the shot and thrown out skeletons screamed before they crashed into the ground and broke apart in a bony mess!

Before people can call it an easy victory, the scattered bones of the skeletons shooked wildy as they started to fly back to each member of the group! Each bone easily fitted into their sockets, with even some of the broken pieces too. But as that happened, the dusty bones fell off from the shot leather jacket Drummer skeleton with broken sunglasses that revealed the enraged ghostly fires inside of its eye socket. “Not groovy, man!” The skeleton cried out.

“Totally!” The Guitarist stood up and looked at the drummer. “Woozer nick, guy banged up!”

“Hella!” The Drummer raged. “ We better show these punks that disrupting the music is not rad!”

“Yes indeed!” The Singer spoke up. With a pull of the Guitarist strings, the surrounding place started to grow darker as the clouds above the park darkened with lightning crackling down. “The music will never die as it is eternal! As I, Metal Skull, will call upon the Fans of the Damned!” With Metal Skull’s cry, a shadowy portal opened up. All a while, the Drummer and Pianist conjured up a outside stage for their skull theme band to be set upon!

Now, the portal was not just any shadowy and cloudy portal, but one that led to another dimension called the Land of the Dead! The roaring cheers by the crowd of skeleton fans burst out of at least two dozen exited from the crowd to support their undead band! “Let get this party started!” Metal Skull screamed as the horde goes after the heroes. At best, it was a distraction and can be easily dealt with. At worst, to slow them down as a storm of bones that they toss to hit the heroes!

The Brass Sage ducked behind a tree as she opened up her book to summon forth her maiden warrioress, a light elven pale warrioress known as an Azata, with a frost-steel blade embedded with the strength to slay the undead. “Eir, lead me your aid!”

“Right.” She replied as she swiftly slashed down the first Skeleton fan at ease, and parried the other improvised weaponry of the fans. As the battle truly begins, the hard heavy metal tones began to play out!

[A m e n r i a]

"Tch, how soft." Junghwa simply scoffed at George, then reloaded her rifle with another bless bullet. She aimed it at the bands instruments this time. In quick succession, golden rings appear around the Black Widow's barrel and a silver bullet is shot. If any skeleton dared come closer to her teammates, Junghwa would deliver a non-lethal shot to them too.

[New United States of Columbia]

The Last Roman glowered as he watched George teleport all over the place, not allowing him or Junghwa to harm their targets.
“Liberal pansy ass.” he muttered harshly under his breath, turning his attention to the lead guirtarist and drummer, who seemed to be opening a portal to Hell or Oblivion or whatever these undead nightmares were coming from. His mouth strectched to a wicked smile. If only he had his power armor. If he had it, he would have been more than happy to slice the skeletons to pieces, grind their bones to dust beneath his boots, and literally crack their skulls in two. Seeing the portal, he remembered a mission of his in New Orleans. Back then he was fighting some guy who was really into evil Voodoo shit, summoning “friends from the other side” as those evil spirits were called. It was the last time he underestimated his opponents.

Well, that was what he thought. He aimed down the scope of his modified AR-15, the “modern day musket”, and held his breath. He took a keen interest in offing the “Metal Skeleton”, cut off the head, and the band would break up, he hoped. It also would probably “shut” the portal, that was his hope at least, since it appeared from his perspective that Metal Skeleton was the only one holding it open.
“Hey! Pale face!” Tobias shouted, hoping to get the skeleton’s attention.
He looked up to see the Dragoon “flying” overhead, looking for civies to save and remove from the crossfire between the Defenders and Soulmusic.
“Dragoon!” He shouted as loud as he could so his voice could be heard over the cacopheny of battle “Mind giving me a hand with paleface here! He’s got a portal open to Hell and seems to be trying to summon his undead fans!”
He then squeezed off several shots, aimming for Metal Skeleton’s... er, skull, before dashing behind a van parked on their side of the road for cover before firing more rounds at the walking corpses.

[Malgrave]

Erika sighed as she took a momentary break from the ensuing chaos, the scientist was quite grateful for the actions taken by the Dornalian to minimise the risk of any stray bullets hitting her or the people she had been working hard to rescue but she was still annoyed at the rather aggressive attitude displayed by other members of the team, and she made a note to ensure that everyone knew what roles they'd be performing before the next mission. In addition to annoyance, Erika could also feel herself becoming tired, as a Malgravean she had undergone basic training with the Territorial Defence Force and intermittent readiness training as part of the TDF Reserve but travelling at such speeds with an additional passenger clearly wasn't considered by the planners that had first created the fitness regime for the conscript force.

"I am going to try and steal one or more of these instruments, so please don't shoot me," Erika said with a frown as she unbottled a rather strange looking liquid, something she had developed recently in order to replace some of the energy that had been drained from her body by her earlier speedy antics, "...ancestors give us strength."

After finishing her drink Erika once again moved forward with an incredible burst of speed, the Malgravean neko was hoping to approach the band members from a rather awkward angle (for them at least) and use the element of surprise and her newfound abilities to steal one or two of their instruments, and cause them to fall slightly off balance, of course the Malgravean also recognised that the element of surprise would wear away quite quickly after the first few attempts, and so the small neko planned to assist Brass Sage and her newly arrived assistant in tackling the skeletal hordes, although she also maintained a close watch on any of the other member of the group and prepared to assist them if they got into any serious trouble.

[Rohane Alista]

George watched over the scene unfolding, keeping an ear on the comms and an eye on the battlefield. He was far enough away that the music only very faintly reached him, which was probably a blessing if anything the Brass Sage had said was true. As he surveyed the situation, George decided to try putting his “experience” to work. Even though it largely came from strategy and board games.

“Erika, the easiest is probably the drummer. Just need to get the drumsticks from him,” he stated over the comms in response to her plan of action. “Plus he’s a little isolated. Also I need something else to call you, probably. Like, a codename or something.”

As George pondered what else he could call her, he watched La Cabaret and The Last Gundick shooting the skeletons, or at least trying to. They didn’t seem very coordinated. He couldn’t see Crazy Chick anymore at all, which was worrying, and Silver Dragoon seemed to be just jumping around at semi-random. It became clearer and clearer the team needed at least some direction.

“Dragoon, you’re mostly a melee fighter, right? Can you try to take on the guitarist? See if you can smash the guitar, especially,” George began giving instructions from his vantage point, hoping to increase the efficiency of his compatriots. “La Cabaret, Last Gundick, focus your fire on the singer, and try to destroy the speakers if you can. Try to stop him from being able to catch his breath… if he needs to breath. Do you think they need to breathe somehow? I kinda wonder.”

George quickly shook his head. “Focus, focus!” he told himself mentally, continuing to analyze the situation. His past as a nuclear engineer was becoming useful now, as his experience in quickly analyzing danger and changing information was put to full use. At least he wasn’t part of the chaos, or else he’s probably struggle to be of any strategic use at all.

“Alright, uh… Sniper Girl, I forgot your name, sorry. Anyways, try to destroy their equipment and keep them pinned in where our frontline soldiers can keep the pressure on, yeah? I’m trusting you to not let them escape,” the Rohanian continued, hoping she’d even listen to him, especially after he forgot her name.

“And lastly, Brass Sage. I uh, don’t really know what you can do so I guess help wherever. Maybe more intel if you have any would be useful. What exactly are each of them capable of, and potentially weak to?”

[Dyste]

For the first part of the fight, the Silver Dragoon focused her time on rescuing civilians and acting as a target in order to try and focus attention away from the less agile members. "Your tour is over, evildoers, as the Silver Dragoon hits the spotlight!" And other cheesy lines seemed be distracting the band to some degree, but it wasn't enough just to avoid everything, she needed to go on the offensive.

But then came the skeleton fans as reinforcements... she gave a smirk, "Oh my, I think this venue is getting a little crowded. I'm afraid we'll have to show you out!" When a few of the fans began throwing bones her way, a weapon formed in her hands, a spear. Spinning it in front of her, she was able to parry all the projectiles in her way. "Look, I appreciate your adoration, but there'll be no encores for this number!" With a thought, the spear transformed into a whip, allowing her to lash out and grab a few skeletons by the waist, pulling them in. She leaped into the air, turning her weapon into a comically oversized hammer, and crushed the fans beneath it. "Quite the smashing performance, if I do say so myself."

She was about to do the same to another set, before she got the message from George, "Ah, a good idea, we should take out the leaders instead of the small fry." Leaping into the air, dodging a sound blast from the guitarist, "You shred that axe quite good, evildoer..." before turning her weapon into a massive battleaxe and she was landing, "While my axe? IT'LL SHRED YOU!"

[A m e n r i a]

"You order me, weakling?" in a flat, emotionless tone was the only verbal response George got from Junghwa. However, she did as he asked. Kneeling, she kept shooting at the undead musicians, attempting to hit their instruments and provide covering fire while trying not to shoot the fast neko and the dramatic warrior.

"Catgirl, Dragoon, if I can't destroy their equipment with silver, I'll try using explosive bullets. You'd best stay out of the way when I load them."

[Legokiller]

Silver City

“I’m a summoner, a magic user to be exact.” Brass Sage clarified. “But the undead band should rely on their instruments as Darkness Enchanted them with magic power-”

Brass Sage halted the quick and easy lecture as members of the team went ahead, and did just that. The Guitarist’s electric and jam-packed guitar strings were exposed as the bullet punched a hole into it. The blast of sonic attacks at the heroes not only stopped but malfunctioned as it went right back at him! With the added Silver and Holy bullets, the Guitarist screamed, “Hallelujah! I’m going to rock star heaven! Oh sweet- aaaah!”

The skeleton crumbled into flying bits of bones and was shattered across the stage when the Silver Dragoon delivered the final blow from her battleaxe! Just as Metal Skull dropped his jaws, the speedy Neko snagged the piano from the Pianist. With that, the skeleton was depowered! As the Malgrave Neko tried to steal Metal Skull’s microphone, the skeleton smooth crime danced around as he dodged and caused a musical sheet pattern-like shield that surrounded him. The true nature became clear as the Last Roman’s shots were deflected away the moment it touched it.

“That was a mistake dude! As my fans will-” Metal Skulls eyes popped as Brass Sage swiftly prepared pinkish light energies from her arms and blasted a wave at the skeletons. As the bony fans were sliced and ultimately washed away, they felt a strange but burning pink energy of positivity. The great spell was too much for the skeleton fans, and the crowd of undead bursted into bonedust.

“That’s it! Play the Roaring Dragon!” Metal Skull called out. When the dummer tapped his sticks three times and started to jam the earaching audio boxes, phantom-like blades and a swirling car size dragon rushed out of the stage! Anything that got in the way would be chomped down and sliced up by the animated song projections!

Brass Sage quickly spoke in a Vallan tone to leap up in the air and manage to fly up in the air to avoid the attack! “My apologizes, but the skeletal band are depended from their musical instruments for their magical powers. If you can do what Celeritas did and remove it, they’ll be powerless.” Eir meanwhile did her best to dodge, while getting some cuts, and remove the few remaining skeleton fans.

[Dyste]

The Silver Dragoon, after landing on the guitarist, withdrew her weapon into her armor, and struck a pose, "You should consider it an honour to have been defeated by the Silver Drag-" her one-liner was cute off, however, when Metal Skull and the drummer launched their counterattack! She just barely jumped out of the way of the attack! "Whimpering Wyverns, that was a close one!"

Landing nearby, she noticed some of the drummer's attacks were aimed specifically at her, as she leaped out of the way again, going side to side to avoid the attacks, until one of them hit her helmet, causing it to fly off! Anyone who was looking in her direction could see flaming red hair in a ponytail as she dived around the blades to retrieves her helm. "If you've all gotten a nice look, how about we deal with this thing? As it so happens it's focusing a lot of effort on me, but there's only so much attacking to go around for it! If we can get its focus divided, it can't attack all of us, and it'll give us the chance to land a crucial blow!"

[Rohane Alista]

“Alright guys,” George came back on the intercom, continuing to observe from on high. “I think we need to disrupt the music first. If anyone’s got any… I don’t know, super powerful screeches or something… not is the time. I have a special request, Erika. Can you run up the sides of buildings? I want to give you something really quick. I think it could help turn around the fight,” he finished, opening his bag, glad he’d left it in the meeting room on accident.

He found what he needed near the bottom- a long distance receiver paired to his phone. It was really meant for parties, but George couldn’t think of any reason it wouldn’t work just as well if used to disrupt the performance of the skeletons.

As he was digging he noticed Dragoon become the focus of a large series of attacks, knocking off her helmet. Whoah, he thought to himself, that is some really pretty hair. And I should focus. George observed to see if there was any obvious sign to warn where the swords were going when he saw it. They seemed to swerve based on which drums were being played.

“Alright, Dragoon, listen up. I figured out how to predict where the blades will be coming from but I’m awful at musical pursuits so it might take me awhile to lock down the pattern. I don’t know if you can see it, but the drummers patterns on the drum set seem to dictate them. Hell, if anyone else figures out which patterns mean what before I do feel free to call them out, but I’ll try and get it.” As he said this, George pulled out a notebook and began writing down the patterns. Hopefully this wouldn’t take too long...

[Malgrave]

Erika paused for a few moments in an attempt to regain some of the energy that she had spent over the past few minutes, as part of the TDF Reserve the Malgravean was required to maintain a certain level of fitness, but she hadn't factored in these types of missions when she had created her fitness regime and the speedy neko was starting to feel a bit drained of energy.

"In theory? Yes. I've just never tr--" Erika said her comment, and attempted rest cut short as she had to leap into action to dodge another series of attacks by the skeleton band, "I'll see you shortly."

Erika muttered a few words to herself in Malgravean Ancient as she prepared to meet her new Rohanian colleague, of course, she had told him that it was theoretically possible for her to run up the sides of buildings, and that was true but simulations tended to differentiate from the real world, especially given Erika's earlier use of her abilities.

In a flash, Celeritas took off towards the building currently occupied by George, a rather uncomfortable feeling forming in the neko's chest as she transitioned from running on the ground to running alongside the surface of a building.

"I heard that you wanted to see me," Erika said with a casual wink, her calm demeanour ruined a few moments later as she doubled over from sheer exhaustion, "Is it okay if I just take the stairs down?"

[New United States of Columbia]

Alex’s eyes widened as he ducked back behind his current piece of cover. He hadn’t seen magic like that before: A shield that deflected gunfire. Well, that meant nothing if one had heavy artillery-something he currently lacked. If only Silverdale accepted American Dollars...

Regardless, he was in this fight and if it got any more risky (such as, say, a voodoo mage summoning spirits from the flipside) he didn’t doubt his more... ‘primitive’ instincts would kick in. Civiilized citizen or not, humans were animals and when their life was on the line with no way out, they’d fight. For his country he did great, and terrible, things.
He heard a metallic clank and rapidly fired off a shot at the source of the sound, a draconic looking helmet. Puzzled, he looked up towards the sky and noticed it was Dragoon’s helmet. Noticing her flaming red hair, he made a mental note to tell her if she wanted to be in this fight, she better shave it off. If she got close with any would be melee fighter, if the tail was kept, it’d give the enemy something to grab and pull or manipulate to get an advantage and slice her open.

He heard George over the com-link. For a pansy “chocolate eclair spined” type, he seemed to at least be adequet in a support role. Hopefully he’d be able to crack that pattern their drumer used because he had an idea to crack it. It called for 5.56 hollow point that’d ‘explode’ when it pierced it’s target, turning into sharp little fragments. This firing position was compromised, seeing as the bullets were able to be deflected by that shield of theirs, so he relocated. Seeing an empty office tower he dashed into it while informing his teammates of his movement.
“Fifth story of evactuated office building. I’ll keep providing covering fire from there. Request info on potential weakpoints, over."

[Legokiller]

Silver City

While our heroes ran off to plan their next move, Metal Skull started to gloat. “Ha! Their bones are rattling in fear and fled before us!” He then looked at the pianist. “Diamond Skull, get your sorry bones together and bring out!” Metal Skull’s eye socket then sparkled. “The chair!”

As Diamond Skull bounced off stage to get something out of it, Brass Sage quickly nodded. “I can use my summons to help distract them. Light Elf go after them!”

Diamond Skull chuckled as he puts out a folded metal chair, and the sonic bast forced the Brass Sage to dodge! “Oh you think your little lass can stop me!” When the swordswoman charged over to deliver a saber slashing cut, the skeleton interrupted with its chair! A clang and a slice! The chair was sliced in half and the skeleton looked at the elven woman and then said “Oh dang man it-” Diamond Skull cried out in pain as the next sword attacks were so fast that it turned the skeleton into many chunks and magical dust poofed out of him!

“Useless moron!” Metal Skull then pointed at the swordswoman elf. “Get her!” The dummer’s attention loosen as the next swords forced Eir to block, and sonic waves from the singer staggered her! Brass Sage quickly landed and chanted as the swordswoman loses her grip. In a quick dodge, another flash of light appeared as a feline humanoid with a white furry lingerie and flesh leaped forward! “Another pretty mama?!” Metal Skull cried out a metal scream… which didn’t affect the neko at all!”

“Betcha didn’t see that one coming!” The neko creature taunted as another phantom sword forced her to dodge and another got her cut a bit. Brass Sage coughed as she made a little gap in her memory. “They’re distracted, go now!” She called out for the team. Thankfully she used another spell to deliver that message to the other guys’ ears to get the signal.

[New United States of Columbia]

Having retreated to higher ground, Tobias began to try and attract the band’s attention by firing potshots at the various members, taking particular intrest in the guitarist. If only he brought heavier ordnance or his power armor, he’d be able to get into melee with them. But he had to work with what he had at hand, which, judging by his rapidly depleting ammo supply, wasn’t much.
“Come on powder head!” He shouted at Metal Head, hoping to agitate him or, at least, focus his attention on Tobias and not Brass Sage, Silver Dragoon, or George “You got no balls to fight us while your minions do your dirty work? I’m twice the man you’ll ever be!”
And with that, he squeezed off a shot, aimming for the Metal Head’s skull, hoping to indeed turn it to bone powder.

[A m e n r i a]

Retreating did not stop Junghwa from repeatedly blasting silver rounds at her enemies. She was, after all, good at fighting at a distance. She didn't focus on one target. Instead, she shot different members of the enemy band, whichever seemed most likely to attack at the time.

[Legokiller]

Silver City


“You can’t be twice if you already a dead man!” Metal Skull crackled in gleeful laughter. The skeleton was so boisterous it his laugh that each of the bullets shot through his leather jack and broke apart his bones, he forgot to set up his defense. “Hahaha-” His skull fell down as his skeletal body burst into holy light and crumble into pieces. “Ahem, that’s all folks!” With one final shot from the Last Roman’s rifle, Metal Skull’s skull exploded into many chucks of fragmented bones, and he was no more!


The Drummer, seeing that the band was at the verge of defeat, whipped his drummer sticks and tried to escape! Sadly for him, Junghwa was able to snipe him down and with one piece shot, his skull exploded! With that… the terror of the Skeleton band was no more!


“Well done team.” Brass Sage quickly chanted a few words for both her summons to be dismissed back to their home plane. With a quick show of holy light, the two beings were beamed up into the sky in a blink of an eye. “I advise we make our exit and find Spyglass. He should be down the street.”


By that moment, sirens from the police can be heard from down the street where few of the heroes lie, to a whooping news helicopter passing by the rooftop where the sniping heroes were at. A closer inspection of the scene was a few couple to possibly dozens catching the entire fight by video to photos behind cover. Others from down the street of the usual business looking ponyfolk and other beings’ glance some of the view as well. Amongst them was an Earth Pony in a brown trench and a Fedora who existed the taxi, and seemingly typing on his phone.


“Oh my gosh!” A young dazzling and sharp light pink long mane pony, who appeared straight out of the 80s with that goofy typical get up she wears, rushed over to meet the Silver Dragoon and Brass Sage. “Is this your new pal Brass Sage? Silver dragoon yes? The latest in line to serve the mantle?” The Earth pony mare started to get gigglish about it. “You were so cool back there! That includes the catty speedster, Mister Blinker, and their… well gun shooting pals too! I’m guessing you’re making a team, right?”

[A m e n r i a]

A breath of relief escapes Junghwa. With the threat gone, the people nearby were safe from harm, and if she were to be sued by the enemy's family she has both the Imperial Government and the Vatican to help her show that she was right.

The team was transported to a busy street, with people going about their business, viewing the recordings of the last fight, or both. Then came a talking horse, fangirling over the team. Junghwa just rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, you're a reporter? Fan blogger? Or something else?"

[New United States of Columbia]

The Last Roman sighed, collapsing against the window, exhausted and dropping his rifle by his side. While fighting gangs and criminal scum was not easy, he had not fought magical beings in quite a while, not since his time with the Task Force. He breathed heavily, counting in his head as he slowed before getting up, his body covered with the stink of sweat, his skin almost glistening due to the beads trailing down them.

Getting up he heard the sirens of police cars and the loud whoops of helicopters. The hairs on his skin stood up as he wondered if any of the nations intelligence agencies knew of him and his past, both as agent and as vigilante. If they did, he had a feeling he didn’t bring enough bullets. Looking outside he saw it was a news chopper and that, even if that wasn’t there, their cover was blown as beings of various races and species had already recorded the fight. He wasn’t one for the limelight.

Having headed back down to ground level, his rifle slung across his back, he had trotted down the stairs and into the light of day in the city. The sound of chatter and applause filled his ears as he looked around, spotting the pony that had gallopped toward them. He growled, annoyed. He had not been a member of any “Humanity/Terran First” parties or movements (not believing they were any good unless you wanted to help the Govt. make lists of people to be arrested, detained, and/or executed) but he sympathized and sometimes agreed with them. He strode over to the trenchcoat and fedora wearing Earth Pony, snatched the hoof usable phone from his hand, and glared at him.
“Next time, try not to look so damn conpicuous, imbecile, or I’ll drop you like the dead weight you are.”
He put the large and awkward phone into a spare pocket on his pants before grabbing Spyglass by the ear and dragging him off to a now empty café, waiting there with him while the other heroes soaked up the attention.

Having found a far corner and empty table with chairs for ponies and humans, he gestured for Spyglass to sit as he took a seat across from him, wishing the staff at the café had used chairs that were more comfortable. Once seated he kicked back his chair, crossed his legs up on the table, pulled down his ball cap, and seemingly slept while keeping an ear out for the others.

[New Dornalia]

In between the gunplay, rescuing civilians, and also stopping an undead rockband, it had been quite a fight. La Caballera had been in her share of extended battles. But none of them had involved much of the supernatural....although it did confirm that sometimes, teamwork was easier said than done. Especially with that Roman gentleman, and George. At least the baddies had been vanquished, and La Caballera had done her share. Although she hoped Brass Sage could get her some 7.62 NATO cartridges that could actually affect supernatural enemies.

That being said, there were other issues to deal with. One was the citizen that appeared and seemed to gush over their glorious acts. The other was the fact the Roman gent disappeared....along with Spyglass.

The last observation came first, as La Caballera said, to the others, "Anyone know where our friend, Gun--er, the Roman went? He seems to have run off somewhere with our VIP. The guy in the trenchcoat. We may need to find him and get him back over here with the VIP, so we can account for everyone." As for the fangirl, Caballera extended her hand and said, "Well, ma'am, I can neither confirm nor deny we're making a team, but well, it's good to see this work was worth it."

[Dyste]

The Silver Dragoon landed after focusing all her efforts on dodging assaults to give the others their opening. While feeling a little exhausted, she nevertheless gave a victorious pose, complete with spear twirling and some more pyrotechnics, "And that, citizens, is what happens when the Silver Dragoon and her stalwart allies team up to save the day!" As she gave the peace sign.

She made her weapon disappear as she gave a bow to the Brass Sage, "It was my pleasure to aid the allies of justice in their quest to vanquish the forces of darkness from the land! Ah, but it appears the cavalry has arrived, hm? So we must make our departure to get to the next part of our mission... hm?" She has noticed the pony she presumed was Spyglass, and just as soon saw the Last Roman fuming. In spite of his ire, she knew that he, too, was making a mistake, just walking up to the pony like that instead of waiting until there was no media following them. If anything, The Last Roman was causing more attention than Spyglass was. Thankfully, she could cover for her ally's mistake with a little appealing to the media.

Using her pyrotechnics, she caused a small lights show to display behind her, as if she was at a rave. "Greetings, O worker of the fourth estate!" She said to the pink-haired pony, "Indeed, I am the latest in the line of the Silver Dragoon! Those of you who were aware of the Imperial War between Dyste and Great Corneria might remember the story of how my ancestor aided Dyste in stopping the evil Emperor's wicked ways. Like him, I too have justice burning in my very soul! But I knew that like him, I too could not stop these fiends alone, so when the Brass Sage gave her invitation to me, I knew that fate had greater things in store for me!" She hoped this would give Mr. Roman more time to take Spyglass away while she spoke to them.

[Rohane Alista]

George sighed and remained on the roof- not that he could’ve gotten down in a timely manner anyways. Staying out of the glaring eye of the media limelight was fine by him, however, and so he stayed out of view. With Erika up there with him, at least he wouldn’t get bored being alone, either.

Speaking of his rooftop companion, George looked over. She was clearly exhausted, just like him, and he sympathized. As apparently the only two of the group with actual legitimate superpowers instead of just rigorous magical or combat training, their abilities were most likely the most physically exhausting, or so George theorized… and trying to guide the group as eyes in the sky was even more difficult when half of them just wanted to kill everything.

George decided he could probably help at least the Malgravian, and turned and waved at her lightly. “Hey, thanks for the help, even if it ended up not totally needed. I’ve got a couple of bags of energy gummies here. They’re not exactly super useful, but better than nothing, right?” With that the Rohanian man tossed the woman one of his two bags, opened the other, and began eating some of them.

As he finished, he looked back over and wondered what Erika had done before unlocking her powers. He’d never met a Malgravian himself, but he’d heard they were similarly devoted to science as Rohanians were, and another scientist could only be a boon in his opinion. It was rather up front for him, but George decided the only good way to find out was to ask, after all, and he was too tired for coy bullshit at the moment anyways. “Mind telling me what you did in Malgrave? Like, what your job was. I’ll preempt the return question: I was a nuclear engineer in Rohane Alista.”

[Malgrave]

Erika was immediately thankful that she wasn't with the rest of the group on the ground, the presence of the national news establishment and law enforcement personnel threatened to unravel the secret identity that Erika had worked on for a few days, and being known to everyone in her homeland and the international community would make it practically impossible for her to continue her specific line of research back in Malgrave.

"Thanks," Erika said as she caught the bag of energy gummies, the neko figured it was both an acknowledgement of all the energy she had exerted and a peace offering so she was glad to accept it, "If we're being totally honest I am rather glad that you called me up here. I don't like the idea of being in the media spotlight. I am more comfortable allowing people that love the idea of being on superhero posters take the limelight," the neko said as she opened the packet up, the Malgravean much preferred the idea of being on a poster of scientific heroes anyway like the old Royal Institute posters she had when she was growing up, "Oh. I am currently a researcher at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Universal Technology, we had a small...containership issue one day and I found myself with these strange new abilities," the neko said before quickly adding, "You say you were a nuclear engineer? In nuclear power generation or research and development?"