Magus would think back on this moment later, imagine that there were
a lot of smarter things to do than let go of the sword, close her
eyes, scream and flail around in the air. Like: She should've just
cast a featherfall spell or something. She should've done some kind
of acrobatic maneuver that would make her more likely to roll along
the ground and survive the fall with less injuries. But, in the
moment itself, it wasn't really possible to do anything approaching
thinking. Her thoughts at the time were just the ineffable
emotion of sheer terror, but if anything could be put into
words, those words were probably just I'm gonna die!
She was able to regret her poor decisions, however, because she did
not actually die. Instead, someone came running in the direction
she'd been flung, made a flying leap into the air to grab her into
their arms, and then fell still holding her in a sharp downward arc
to a particularly rough landing. Her rescuer's feet hit the ground
with enough force to shake her, and then their arms (with the awkward
way they'd caught her) weren't wrapped tightly enough to keep her
from being tumbled out of them by this jolt and onto the ground in a
brief sideways roll. Overall, it hurt, but she was basically
fine, even able to slowly sit up groaning.
Remedy was standing over her by that point, holding a metallic arm out to gently place on her forehead. "Hold still a sec!" She recognized the voice from the point of their initial landing as the recently-introduced Karis, but didn't turn her head that way to confirm in an effort to follow the advice. The metal forming (or maybe covering?) Remedy's hand was cold, but a soothing sensation emanated out from the point of contact, vanishing off the worst of the pain from the awkward landing.
Remedy was standing over her by that point, holding a metallic arm out to gently place on her forehead. "Hold still a sec!" She recognized the voice from the point of their initial landing as the recently-introduced Karis, but didn't turn her head that way to confirm in an effort to follow the advice. The metal forming (or maybe covering?) Remedy's hand was cold, but a soothing sensation emanated out from the point of contact, vanishing off the worst of the pain from the awkward landing.
"Holy..Magus, you've gotta pull out, kid!" Karis came up
closer at this point, and with her Stand pulling her arm back, Magus
felt free enough to turn her head to face her.
"Uh, what do you mean?"
"You're completely exhausted is what I mean! Stop pushing yourself and get out of this fight before you break something I can't fix!" she said, pointing emphatically in the opposite direction from the giant monster they were fighting. Actually, they were fairly far away from it already thanks to the trajectory of Magus's recent involuntary flight.
"Uh, what do you mean?"
"You're completely exhausted is what I mean! Stop pushing yourself and get out of this fight before you break something I can't fix!" she said, pointing emphatically in the opposite direction from the giant monster they were fighting. Actually, they were fairly far away from it already thanks to the trajectory of Magus's recent involuntary flight.
Remedy offered her a hand—the non-metallic one—and Magus took it
to slowly stand up, trying to object. "But I.."
"No buts! You can't even lift your wand-sword-thing, right? You've fought super hard today, and I get that, but if you keep acting like you're fine you're gonna collapse at the worst time for everyone! Got it?"
"No buts! You can't even lift your wand-sword-thing, right? You've fought super hard today, and I get that, but if you keep acting like you're fine you're gonna collapse at the worst time for everyone! Got it?"
"I cah..." She was cut off by a sudden need to gasp in a
deep breath. As the air came in, she started to come down out of a
massive burst of adrenaline and actually feel things again:
Despite the recent healing, her body was thoroughly sore, every
muscle worn to near its breaking point. There were some tears
staining her cheeks, and a few still coming down. She was shaking.
"Aaaauuugh..y-yeah,
you're right. Sorry..thanks for saving me."
"Not a problem!" Karis gave her a thumbs up. "Get some
rest and you can fight again tomorrow." She turned back toward
the hecatoncheires, Remedy already running ahead of her in that
direction.
Magus took another slow, slightly jagged, deep breath and started
walking, against some moderate objections from her legs. If they kept
that thing pinned the way they had been so far, then maybe the
restaurant everyone had eaten at would be a good place to take
shelter. Maybe she could even watch the rest of the fight from a seat
inside. That wasn't too far to walk...
Steel wire rose up, gripping the legs of a charging beast. Another
one tripped, and wire twisted up around its midsection to keep it in
place. A third made to run by the first, when the wire holding that
one's legs struck out to grab just one of the free one's limbs and it
came scraping along the ground to a halt.
"Last one, and I'm outta traps!"
"'Kay!" Ning raised her sword, firing a spark into the sky
from its tip and bringing it down as lightning once, twice, three
times. Over the noise of the thunder, she shouted: "You want me
to keep 'em busy so you can set more, or change tack?"
"I'll start bindin' em myself. We're near done here anyway." The three of them were looking fairly indistinct, and with her lightning strikes hitting it first and hardest, the one with its midsection bound screamed pitifully and fell apart.
"I'll start bindin' em myself. We're near done here anyway." The three of them were looking fairly indistinct, and with her lightning strikes hitting it first and hardest, the one with its midsection bound screamed pitifully and fell apart.
"Got it!"
The other two broke free and came after her, sweeping their legs down
to try and hit her; she jumped and flipped away from them. Sam's
knife struck one of them in the eye, then was pulled out again by
some wire wrapped around its hilt trailing back to its owner. Its
voice rumbled out angrily as it turned to charge at her, and she
tossed the wire sideways to twist itself quickly around its legs as
it ran at her. Ning threw her sword at the head of the monster still
attacking her and ran to clap her hands across the flat of the
knife's blade, holding on to it to pull the wire taut and bind the
thing into place while running some electricity through her hands and
into it.
Letting go of the other end of that line, Sam ran to intercept the
other one as it charged for Ning, forming some wire to throw up and
to one side to grab it around the throat and then yanking it in her
direction as hard as she could, sending it tumbling over onto its
side and sliding a long way forward across the ground.
Clark could feel her wife's power flowing into her, an immense
strength entering her body. Her ears picked up the sound of Magus
falling and Karis catching her; she was worried about that, but
couldn't drop her focus now. Between herself and two puppets, she was
busy weaving a long rope of blue string together, the needle at one
end of it and her own hands at the other. Petra had caught on to what
she was trying to do and put some unusually solid walls in the way of
the hands that had tried to interrupt her work at the price of having
to give up several more steps to it herself. And now Clark was ready.
She raised her hand—the one not busy controlling puppets—and
directed the needle forward. It wove the rope up over the monster's
many left arms, next to its head, and down again. The rope then wound
itself down below those arms, arced up again, and repeated, winding
itself around half of the thing's limbs before twisting up to go
around behind its neck and repeat the process, pulling the other half
of its hands into a tangle with it. Naturally, the hecatoncheires
resisted this, thrashing around and trying to break itself out of the
bindings, but the carefully-wound string refused to snap, and with
the full benefit of Rory's strength, Clark was able to keep a grip on
her end of the rope.
The needle came back to her, and she grabbed it and the rope in both
hands, letting her puppets collapse onto the ground motionless in
order to focus all of her effort on holding it taut. "Rrrrgh..."
"Yeah, yeah, that's it!" Petra cheered, backing away as the
gargantuan monster began to topple forward. She raised the ground
under its feet and lowered what it was falling toward, taking the
opportunity to give the ground an unpleasant, spiky shape for it to
land onto as she went. "Come on, big guy! Not so tough without
all those arms, are ya!?"
It simultaneously screamed and roared back while it collapsed
forward. "Taunting..not...helping!" Dr. Quinn
grunted. At least Zeno was arcing some arrows into its face from one
side. Karis and her Stand had come up to a little bit behind Clark;
she seemed at a loss for how to be useful in this situation, which
was understandable.
"Oh, yeah? Maybe this will help, then!" Standing a
few meters away from the head of the giant now lying face-forward on
the ground and thrashing violently, Petra raised a pair of giant
rocky fists from the rubble all around her and used them to punch its
multitude of faces again and again and again—until Clark's ropes
finally began to give way and snap apart. She noticed this, and
quickly rolled the broken earth around and under it up into arches
around and atop its body, pushing down from their tops to try to keep
it pinned that bit longer. She also started backing away again,
recognizing that no matter how much effort the two of them put
into keeping it down, it'd get up eventually anyway.
Cynthia ran for the spot Rowan had indicated, throwing a few small
sparks of fire at the two monsters who'd just revived themselves up
off of the ground to get their attention on her. Both of the
quintuplets in front of Rowan recovered and started trying a
coordinated attack on her; she moved smoothly around them, placing
them between herself and Cynthia, and began to push them back with
some calculated strikes in between maneuvering out of their attacks.
Fay swatted at her opponent a few times with her staff, the last
strike a particularly strong one that knocked it over onto its
side—also in the redheaded vixen's direction.
The effort to get the two monsters' attention went a little too
well, both of them sweeping out to flank Cynthia from either side.
She raised her sword and took a few careful steps back, watching for
one or the other of them to strike. Fay ran up and blindsided one of
them with a hard strike to its side, knocking it over, just when they
had both raised their hands to try a simultaneous attack. With that
one down, Cynthia had no difficulty moving out of the way of the
other one's slashes, keeping her distance and catching anything that
came too close with her own sword—letting the monster's weapon
clash against it and lose all momentum, then dropping the sword out
of the way and resummoning it into a better position to handle the
next strike.
The one Fay had knocked over a moment ago got up and chased after
her, and she entertained it for a moment, blocking its strikes while
baiting it to stick close to Cynthia's position. By now Rowan had
pushed her two opponents into the same close range with the redhead,
and she took an opening to slash one through, stab the other and kick
it down, then slam the flat of her blade into the front of the first
one while it was still reeling from the slash.
All five quintuplets were within a radius of just a few yards from
Cynthia. Fay darted away, quickly getting herself far away from that
radius, and called behind her: "Do it now!" Rowan was
already out of range and taking several rapid steps backwards just in
case.
Cynthia let go of her weapon and raised her hands, sparks in her
palms erupting into streams of fire that flowed out into a towering,
whirling inferno, like a miniature hurricane made of fire. "Burn!
Burn away! Die and never come back!"
Her angry shouting seemed to egg the fire on, making it burn hotter
and whirl faster, and by the time it suddenly swept back in toward
her, seeming to pull itself directly into her body, the five-bodied
monster was already completely gone.
She felt briefly winded from the effort of doing this, and bent
forward with her hands on her knees, panting heavily for a second or
so. Rowan came close and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are
you fit enough to keep fighting?"
"Hff..yeah. Heck yeah!" She brought herself upright. "Let's go take down one more a' those things!"
"Hff..yeah. Heck yeah!" She brought herself upright. "Let's go take down one more a' those things!"
"That's the spirit," Fay remarked, starting off toward
Rowan's car.
The gargantuan humanoid beast pushed itself upright as it snapped the
last of Clark's bonds, and then it fired all of its arms out at once
yet again. With Magus out of the fight, there was one less target for
it to concentrate on, forcing everyone still present to do quite a
bit of running and dodging around. It hit all of Clark's
still-surviving puppets in one way or another—stabbing one, picking
one up and tossing it back into its mouth, biting another with a
snake-head-hand. Remedy got cut nearly in two near the end of the
barrage, and one of Clark's dodges put her in a poor position,
leading to a hand knocking her hard in the side and sending her
flying briefly through the air. She thought quickly, summoning a
puppet about where she was headed just so it could break her fall,
and then quickly hopped back onto her feet, dusting herself off.
"You seem uh, a lot less injured than expected," Karis
remarked, hurrying to Dr. Quinn and bringing Remedy back out with a
noticeable but not intolerable amount of effort.
"Borrowing Rory's power," Clark said. "Pumped it all to defense once I was in the air. Don't worry about me—check on Zeno."
"Borrowing Rory's power," Clark said. "Pumped it all to defense once I was in the air. Don't worry about me—check on Zeno."
"Sure...uh, wait—" She glanced back and forth. "Zeno!
Where'd you go?"
"Present—"
"GAAH!"
"Present—"
"GAAH!"
The bow-wielding vixen's voice had come from about two feet behind
Karis, a thoroughly unexpected position, making both her and her
Stand jump briefly.
"Sorry 'bout that. Had some help." Zeno gestured to one side, where Warp was now standing.
"Sorry 'bout that. Had some help." Zeno gestured to one side, where Warp was now standing.
She waved. "Oi, just arrived. Any of you feel a tug, let me help
you out, right?"
"Got it!" Petra yelled back. "Keep me on the ground if
you do. Where's the rest of your party?" Warp gestured off to
the left, where Hugo and Tora were running up.
Nico was walking at a slower pace behind them, tossing some seeds
into the already-tilled ground. "Someday," she remarked
wistfully, "our wallets will feel the pain from all this rampant
destruction of infrastructure."
"Joke's on you lot, I got nothin' to pay taxes with," Warp replied.
"Joke's on you lot, I got nothin' to pay taxes with," Warp replied.
"Heads up!" Karis yelled, gesturing—the hecatoncheires
was striking its hands out again.
Hugo turned and raised her shield; Nico letting herself be warped
just behind the shield maiden to grab her in a hug from behind. Hugo
had to jump or move aside once or twice, but had no difficulty doing
so even with a ride-along. Tora easily did some acrobatics to dodge
around the arms striking out her way, and Zeno did her best imitation
of the same with the occasional light-shield. Warp waited with her
arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently, for an arm to get close,
then teleported just to one side of its strike. She ultimately
repeated this process some ten or eleven times before the assault was
over. Petra focused on blocking the attacks aimed at Clark and
herself, affording the former another opportunity to make puppets and
weave more rope.
"How exactly do we hurt somethin' that big?" Tora
said. "I mean, I could try an' claw these hands,
but—nope, they're gone again." She'd taken half a step toward
the nearest hand, its spearlike end stabbed into the ground, before
it abruptly retracted away.
"Head's a weak point, but don't wanna get too close to that either," said Zeno. "More targets dodging seems to be a helpful distraction for the rest of us. Just throw your claws when you've got a clear shot." Hugo, meanwhile, had already started with her usual sort of attack, grabbing onto the beast's loud cries and reflecting them back in at its head, concentrated and amplified into sonic impacts. Nico had hopped off her back once it was safe and waved at Warp to teleport her to the opposite side of the beast so she could lay down some more trees, focusing primarily on buffing everyone's agility and resilience.
"Head's a weak point, but don't wanna get too close to that either," said Zeno. "More targets dodging seems to be a helpful distraction for the rest of us. Just throw your claws when you've got a clear shot." Hugo, meanwhile, had already started with her usual sort of attack, grabbing onto the beast's loud cries and reflecting them back in at its head, concentrated and amplified into sonic impacts. Nico had hopped off her back once it was safe and waved at Warp to teleport her to the opposite side of the beast so she could lay down some more trees, focusing primarily on buffing everyone's agility and resilience.
"Oi, where's the hat girl?" Warp asked.
"Restaurant behind us," Karis replied. "Not injured, but—overextended. Can't fight any more for today."
"Restaurant behind us," Karis replied. "Not injured, but—overextended. Can't fight any more for today."
"Long as she in't dead, anyway," she nodded.
Clark focused on weaving her rope, fanning a few puppets out to
either side with finished segments of it on their hands. When the
hecatoncheires struck again, they all tossed the rope into the air at
once, and it whipped upward, quickly twisting itself through the air
to catch the monster's outstretched arms and tangle around and
between them. Most of the puppets sacrificed themselves in this
maneuver, and Clark herself had to move around carefully, relying on
Zeno and Petra placing some shields to block for her, in order to
stay grounded and pull the ropes taut without getting hit by any of
the hands. When it tried to pull its hands back this time, she pulled
against it, grunting with the effort of keeping its multitude of
limbs bound and outstretched for that little bit longer. The free
ends of its limbs flailed violently, making it too dangerous for
anyone to get near them—but it was subdued enough for everyone else
to make some ranged assaults.
Eventually the monster snapped her ropes apart once again, and Clark
staggered forward slightly from the force of it all, bending forward
and panting heavily for a moment. "You okay there, doc?"
Karis said, keeping an eye ahead with Remedy while giving Clark a
concerned look.
"Hfff...holding together, but..haahh...even while using Rory's power, I don't think I have quite the same stamina," she said, and slowly straightened up. "Don't know that I can pull that trick a third time."
"Hfff...holding together, but..haahh...even while using Rory's power, I don't think I have quite the same stamina," she said, and slowly straightened up. "Don't know that I can pull that trick a third time."
"Hey, no need to push yourself too hard," Petra said
from the front. "We got this, and more help's on the way!"
Emma quickly capitalized on the Shiva's prone position, twisting
thorned shadows up around its limbs with Minus while Plus called down
a few strikes of lighting from the air above it. It broke its way up
through its bonds and roared, swiping its limbs violently around in a
whirl of blades that connected with nothing. Minus tossed some spores
up in the air, Plus carried them to its body on a brief gust of wind,
and then she co-opted them as her 'weapon' to make a group of
miniature point-explosions centered on them, hitting it all across
its body as they landed on it.
The monster was starting to look indistinct, but it was also
positively enraged. Still swinging its blades around like a gigantic
food processor, it began charging blindly in a
direction—unfortunately, that direction led toward Rory and the
building she was standing in front of. "You strong enough to
block that?" Light asked.
Dr. Quinn shrugged. "Probably—unless it knocks me away with a sword."
Dr. Quinn shrugged. "Probably—unless it knocks me away with a sword."
She sighed, lightspeeding to behind it and drawing two of her blade
to drive halfway into the back of its head and slash out to either
side. It shuddered violently, twisting around and trying to hack up
whatever its most recent source of pain was, but she'd already moved
herself well away from it.
Emma sent some fireballs, knives, and small bolts of electricity into
the Shiva's side as it resumed its blind charge in this new
direction, and Rory ran up behind it, vaulting into the air and
punching it square in the center of its back to knock it tumbling
forward onto the road. It convulsed, readying to push itself upright
again, but another concentrated laser and two or three lightning
strikes from above were too much for it, and it began to dissipate
for good.
One slow step after another, the giant monster continued its advance
against all of Petra's best efforts to stall it. Now Clark couldn't
delay it any longer by binding it, and mostly focused on giving it
puppets to attack instead of her fellow vixens. It didn't even look
all that injured, its body seeming just as solid as it had
been when it first landed. Karis's impression was that all of
the "boss-level" mist monsters were like this, their bodies
lasting far longer than any welcome one might imagine them to
have. The problem was that it was starting to back them all up
against a wall—and while destroying that wall was technically an
option with nearly everyone evacauted by now, it wasn't a very good
one. She thought Magus might've even gone in there, and she was in
maybe not the best condition to flee a collapsing building.
Zeno noticed this issue, too. "Petra, it's getting too close to
the buildings! We've gotta circle!"
"Uh—not much to circle onto—everything's collapsed,"
Petra pointed out.
"Then make more ground, stupid!" Karis answered.
"Then make more ground, stupid!" Karis answered.
"Little busy, but—okay, fine!" She started shifting the
ground behind the monster, pushing it closer to their position and
shoring up the broken land to its left and right into something a
little more standable. "Listen up—next strike, we scatter.
Nico, Clark, Karis—head right. I'll go left with Hugo and
Tora...and uh—Warp, you do whatever!"
"Always have." She tossed her knife in the air, caught it,
then threw it forward, teleporting it from right in front of her to
an inch away from one of the beast's eyes, landing the blade square
into it.
The hecatoncheires roared/screeched again as it flung its arms out,
and everyone moved. Petra rolled the ground along beneath her as she
ran, achieving a far greater speed than she could with running
alone—enough to dodge the arms slamming down at her and outrun a
couple that tried to catch her from the sides or behind. Warp focused
on keeping herself and Nico out of harm's way, and everyone else
dodged and/or blocked the way they usually did while making their way
to either side. Once the assault was over, Petra stopped, leaning
down and slamming her hands onto the ground to lift a bunch of loose
rocks and concrete up all around the beast before moving to a
kneeling position, raising her arms and making a tossing-forward
motion to send it all inward in a barrage.
It occurred to Karis at this point that her husband was probably
running low on energy. Out of all of the vixens, Petra was the only
one she knew who was seemingly never tired. She'd fought the
"Cynthia puppet" to a practical standstill and still not
seemed so much as winded—only a little bit singed. But..she'd had a
particularly rough day today. The earthquake and stone fist
business when she'd found Karis injured had probably taken more out
of her than usual, and now she'd been doing a majority of the heavy
lifting to stall their present gargantuan opponent. She seemed to
replenish herself by staying rooted on the ground, and now appeared
to feel the need to get a little lower onto it, like the usual amount
just wasn't enough anymore. She didn't seem to be out of breath quite
yet, but Karis was concerned that it might not be much longer before
she just ran herself dry and collapsed. After all, it was just like
Simon to feverishly overwork himself, all the while denying that
anything was wrong...
She'd more or less put Remedy on autopilot ('dodge please') while she
was busy getting away from the swinging, swiping, biting hands
herself, and her Stand had been lucky enough to survive this
particular assult, winding up over on the opposite side in the
process. It seemed like a good idea to at least check on Petra's
actual condition, find out how much longer they needed to hold out or
at least how soon her husband needed to be carried away from the
danger zone. Remedy came up and placed a metallic hand on the earth
vixen's shoulder, feeling for vitals.
There was some exhaustion showing, but it wasn't nearly as bad
as Magus had been for sure. Petra turned her head briefly to confirm
the source of something solid and cold on her shoulder and saw the
Stand. "Oh, hey—don't worry about me." She made a point
to pull herself back to her feet, one leg at a time. "I'm
invincible, remember?"
Remedy gave her back an annoyed look. "Don't kid yourself,"
Karis said—not too loudly, but fox ears would hear it anyway. "You
totally need some help right now."
Facing toward the monster again, getting ready for it to strike,
Petra was saying: "Well, it'd be nice if our boss would
show up—wha—?"
Remedy's metal hand was still on Petra's shoulder, and she'd placed
the other one—the 'human' one—on the other shoulder, while Karis
was talking. She didn't really think about why Remedy was doing
this—or whether she was telling her Stand to do this. The
thing that startled both her and Petra was that, at this point,
Remedy's body suddenly seemed to turn incorporeal, shifting into a
sort of translucent red-and-white fire, and rush into Petra.
The glow that Remedy had seemingly turned into persisted around
Petra, giving her a sensation of relief and empowerment. Karis's
power, such as it was, was temporarily at the other vixen's disposal.
Karis knew this because she was now getting similar feedback from
Petra to what she usually 'felt' from Remedy, only without the
ability to send commands back. Well, she could command her
Stand to pull herself back out of Petra, but she didn't really want
to issue that one right now.
"Uhh, apparently I can do that?" It was true that
Karis had wanted to in some way help her husband keep
going—but she'd less "had an idea and acted on it" and
more "stumbled into another unexpected aspect of her power".
A little like when she'd found out Remedy could continue to exist
when she was in human form, but also profoundly different.
"Feels great—keep it up!" Petra drew Remedy's
weapon and then let go of it, raising it into the air as though it
was some regular earth and having it toss itself into the monster's
face. The hecatoncheires attacked again at this point, its body
slowly turning in her direction, and she was able to go back to
stalling its movements and blocking its strikes with walls of raised
ground just like before.
While Karis tried to focus on dodging several more hands on her side,
she could feel a 'pull' from Petra's/Remedy's direction. It was a
request for the energy to keep flowing, seemingly not something her
husband was consciously doing but rather a result of her trying to
use the power she was feeling right now the same way she usually did
her own. She didn't resist the pull, and felt Petra's efforts taxing
her, too. She felt suddenly out of breath at one point and stumbled
to a halt just in time to be swiped in the side by a spear-hand's
shaft, knocking her over.
"Gah—owwwh..!" She tumbled briefly before
stopping, then sat up rubbing the hurt spot. Clark rushed up to her
with her own healing bulb.
"Hold still."
"Sure...haffh...that hurt way less than it should've, now that I think of it."
"You aren't badly injured," Dr. Quinn nodded, "just some minor bruising. You probably have some degree of 'damage resistance' in your powerset."
"Sure...haffh...that hurt way less than it should've, now that I think of it."
"You aren't badly injured," Dr. Quinn nodded, "just some minor bruising. You probably have some degree of 'damage resistance' in your powerset."
"That's good to know..hffh. Hey, don't take so much at
once!" she shouted at Petra.
"Sorry, sorry!"
Clark gave her a hand to help her up. Through Petra's perception,
Karis saw that their target was getting ready to throw its hands out
yet again—but it was stopped. Suddenly a bunch of giant tentacles
of water reached up from below, grabbing the thing's arms and legs
and holding it still. Rowan was standing there to the right of the
beast—Karis's right, what would've been behind it
originally—holding out both of her hands to maintain the watery
limbs. A certain redheaded vixen was walking up behind her.
"Yooo, boss!" Karis could almost physically feel her husband's relief.
"Petra, you need to be more careful about collateral damage,"
Rowan said, speaking like she was talking to someone in a calm, quiet
office environment. One of the tentacles reformed its end into a
dragon head, twisting up a little farther to bite the hecatoncheires
in the neck. "You hit a sewer main."
"I hit a sewer main? I hit a sewer main?! Uh-uh—that
thing hit the sewer main, not me!" she said,
pointing. "Hey Phoenix, go for the head!"
"I suspect she means you," Rowan said to Cynthia.
"Caught that." The redheaded vixen had already been busy
pulling a fireball together over a hand, and now that she had a
target, she sent it flying, landing it dead center and expanding it
out into an explosion which engulfed the monster's entire
head-made-of-heads.
"I cannot hold this forever, people," Rowan calmly
clarified, cueing everyone else to start throwing whatever they had
at the monster.
"Hey, Karis—she does need it more than me!" Petra suggested. Knowing how her husband thought, she was already preparing to pull Remedy out and send her over Rowan's way. Petra focused on picking up some more rocks and throwing it out at the thing; Cynthia continued hitting its head and hands with more fire, keeping a bit of distance between her flames and the water binding it in place.
"Hey, Karis—she does need it more than me!" Petra suggested. Knowing how her husband thought, she was already preparing to pull Remedy out and send her over Rowan's way. Petra focused on picking up some more rocks and throwing it out at the thing; Cynthia continued hitting its head and hands with more fire, keeping a bit of distance between her flames and the water binding it in place.
"Remedy can be a mana battery," Karis explained.
"Just—she'll put her hands on your shoulders
first."
"Understood." Rowan didn't flinch while the Stand grabbed onto her shoulders and then entered her, but breathed the slightest sigh of relief at the rush of power—something nobody but Karis caught, and she only did because of the 'shared perception' thing.
"Understood." Rowan didn't flinch while the Stand grabbed onto her shoulders and then entered her, but breathed the slightest sigh of relief at the rush of power—something nobody but Karis caught, and she only did because of the 'shared perception' thing.
Since she didn't need to dodge anything for the moment, Karis
carefully sat down and then lay back on the concrete, giving Rowan as
much power as she asked for. The demand wasn't too much at first and
didn't grow, but keeping it pumping into her seemed to get more
tiring the longer it went on, like holding a relatively light weight
up in one's hand for a long period of time. Everyone was continuing
their all-out assault on the giant monster, however, and its cries
began to sound increasingly desperate. Tilting her head up a little,
Karis could see its body starting to lose some distinction as it
thrashed around in its bindings. Not long ago, it had seemed
positively invincible—like a diamond wall they'd been barely
chipping away at. But maybe it wasn't as tough as it had seemed to
be.
Karis could feel herself coming to a point where she instinctively
wanted to pull Remedy out, like her own body (or something) was
warning her that she was approaching a breaking point. But before
that point actually arrived, she heard one last roar from the
hecatoncheires, and then it collapsed and fell apart, the black mist
forming its body briefly blocking out the sun as it blew away in the
wind. The demand for power from Rowan immediately vanished, and she
simply dismissed Remedy and remained lying down on the concrete for a
moment, feeling distinctly winded but, thankfully, not completely
exhausted.
Ever since the incident with the giant worm, Emma made a point to
keep her phone very close by while fighting things in vixen
form. In this case, Plus had it when it started ringing, and she
pulled it out quickly to look, finding that someone was contacting
her through the VI app. "Uh—hey. Ning?"
"Gem! You still with Light and Dr. Quinn?"
"Y-yeah?" Ning's voice sounded urgent—but like someone who had important news, not someone in imminent danger.
"Gem! You still with Light and Dr. Quinn?"
"Y-yeah?" Ning's voice sounded urgent—but like someone who had important news, not someone in imminent danger.
"Don't split up or untransform—we've got trouble!" By
now, the other three vixens present were looking her way, their ears
easily picking up on the conversation.
"A town out west of here had one of their vixens get swallowed
by a giant bird thing, and then it just took off into the air and
started flying. Then Clark and Rowan got messages from the Giver with
just a screenshot from a video of that thing taking off, and a set of
coordinates." Come to think of it, there was an echoeyness to
her voice that struck Emma as probably being someone using a car's
speakerphone to talk, and engine noises in the background too.
"That location's exactly where you are," Sam's voice
came through. "The one who got eaten has some sorta vacuum blade
powers, and it's somehow usin' that to help it fly at supersonic
speeds. Prolly be there in a few more minutes."
"We're on our way to help!" Ning added. "No trouble with the monsters on our end; I guess yours is already down?"
"Mm-hmn..."
"We're on our way to help!" Ning added. "No trouble with the monsters on our end; I guess yours is already down?"
"Mm-hmn..."
"Rowan said Light can use her power if you need it," Sam
said. "They've just finished up on that end, too." They
hung up.
"Welp. You heard the lady," Rory said. "I got my full
power back a minute ago, and I'm sure my husband won't mind sharing
his while we're at it."
Plus nodded. "But what do we do to keep it from flying too fast
to—" "—wait. What if..—" "—Light?"
"You think 'conversion' would help?"
"M-maybe?—" "—worth a shot?"
"You think 'conversion' would help?"
"M-maybe?—" "—worth a shot?"
"Okay," Light nodded.
Phew...Didn't mean to leave Magus hanging in midair for quite this long, but real life got in the way, and this episode was a beast to write. I originally thought I might have just one episode titled "All Hands on Deck", but it quickly became obvious that it was going to be way too long and the events being covered required two separate episodes. So, "All Hands" involves multiple monsters that have lots of hands, and "On Deck" features numerous instances of people and/or monsters "hitting the deck", as in falling/lying prone, for one reason or another. Even with the split, this episode is pretty long. I imagine, in comic form, the end of the previous episode would have Magus flying off to the right, and then the title page for this episode would show her coming in from the left with Karis and Remedy running along below her to catch her.
Someone predicted in a comment, back when Prism was introduced, that her powerset would be useful against a Nightmare. Actually, that was less a prediction and more a partial inspiration for what's going to come next. So, thank you!
