| Hot Time in the Old Town, Tonight | |||||
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| What: When a host of imps attack an old map and rare books store in the middle of an evening street fair, an unlikely team of heroes step up to keep the good citizens of New York safe. | |||||
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It's a remarkably nice evening. Spring has finally arrived, the temperature hovering somewhere in the mid-fifties still, the sky clear. Though it's not easy to see beyond the light haze of the city and the lingering light of sunset, there are hints of stars beginning to appear in the sky. The moon hangs as a cat's claw crescent just above the rooftops of the buildings somewhat distant.
This evening, there's a neighbourhood street sale promoted by the local business association, causing all sorts of stores to erect kiosks and set out sidewalk displays. The cops have actually blocked off vehicle traffic from the area, to accommodate the increase in foot traffic. This particular area is filled with eclectic shops that are known for selling unusual, rare, and sometimes very hard-to-find products -- from imports to local and hand made one-of-a-kind stuff. Thus, this evening's market is a great place to pick up usual ingredients for various projects, track down cheaper versions of the latest tech (some of which, true, kinda fell of the back of a truck), rare books, maps and other such oddities. All of which means that people who mightn't usually find themselves in such an environment have an excuse to be around.
For her part, Amanda Sefton finds the evening market event to be a welcome surprise. There are several things the witch needs to pick up for her latest venture... and who knows what else she might find along the way.
Val Armorr is at the market as well, though he has no money to purchase things. For him it's not about buying, it's about the experience. Mingling with the people from this era, learning the lingo, the public opinion of things. That as well as gauging just how advanced they are technologically, to tell if they are ready for the advancements his compatriots can bring to the table. And the resounding answer thus far... is no.
Right now he is simply walking around, ignoring the looks he gets for walking around in a martial arts Gi for a tech show. Perhaps he is a tourist. They have no idea...
Nice thing about her status as a senior, Cessily can pop off down to New York whenever she wants. Salem Center's nice and charming, but sometimes you just need the big city around you. Not to mention that Cessily has a paper to write. Mutants and Mutant Society, and observational study. That's what puts the silver girl out as a silver girl, moving through the street sale slowly. she wears jeans and sneakers, and a rather cozy looking pea coat, fashionable enough a year or two ago. She's got a little notebook discretely stuck in her coat pocket, but seems to have been distracted by looking at the various tchotchkes and knick-nacks as she browses.
Wait, an open market? Seems like a great idea to Nate. But then again, almost anything mildly interesting seems a good idea to Nate. People watching remains a main hobby, and checking weird junk he does not need. But since he has now a salary from the Halo Corporation, he can afford to purchase stuff he won't ever use.
Normally this kind of event would be a little crowded for Domino. Still, for a collection of rare and unusual it does hold some promise. Word has it that one of the shops in the area had a collection of old maps of the city. Really old stuff, buried pieces of paper which reference buried city streets and tunnels. Setting up a private sale would have been best though she hasn't won any favors with this seller. First come, first served. So, with her car safely parked outside of the blocked off streets (she got an -awesome- parking spot, too!) she picks her way through the crowd with hands stuffed deep into trench pockets and blacked out shades hiding her eyes.
Val isn't the only one that's dressed oddly in the area, though the other is...rather less noticeable just due to much smaller size. There's a youth walking barefoot very slowly through the crowds at the market, dressed in a simple robe. The child's moving very slowly, without much of a clear sense of purpose...browsing, after a fashion, though the kid never picks anything up or steps in for a closer look. Just stares blankly at each stand in general, item-by-item from a few feet away, for minutes at a time, and then moves on. As the kid passes near a table selling antique maps, these seem to draw some interest...not that the expression shows it. The kid steps closer to that table, staring at the maps.
The nice thing about New Yorkers is that, generally, they tend to ignore people that dress funny. Between all the superheroes that swing, fly, run, hop, jump, teleport, or otherwise tumble their way along the storied streets and the mind-yer-own-business vibe most really big cities inevitably cultivate, it's pretty likely neither Val nor 157 are given more than an odd second look or two at best. Cessily gets more attention because, really, how many people typically see a girl apparently made of liquid metal wandering nonchalantly along the sidewalk as a matter of course? She's especially attractive to children and sci-fi nerds that are hooked on old Terminator movies... or even the tv show. Because, really... hot young woman with the whole liquid metal thing going on? Yeah. Yet another nerd fantasy waiting to happen.
Poor kid. None of the others are quite that conspicuous.
Looks like that map shop is a popular destination, however. Old maps of the city as well as obscure and out-of-print books detailing its history are the most prominent display in front of it. An older man sits on a lawn chair by the store door, watching both inside and outside the shop.
Amanda's own steps lead her there. She's not actually exceedingly surprised when she notes Domino, incognito as she is, heading for the same place. "So," she says to the other woman, drawing along side her, "exactly what are the odds?"
Val Armorr stops at a booth next to the maps that 157 is staring at, picking up a peice of electronic vaguery and examining it. Just the receiver to a Bluetooth unit out of it's casing, but it holds Val's attention for a few minutes at least. Finally he sets it down and moves on. But catching sight of Cessily, he stops fully. A liquid metal girl. Interesting to say the least. There was a young man who could turn himself into metal back in his time.. but it wasn't constant... Leaning against a lightpost, he watches her for a few minutesm and if she looks... well he'll just smiles and offer a wave.
Conspicuous. It's her burden. Even if, in this outfit, it's really just her face, neck and hands that fall into that category. She shoots a few looks back, and takes a moment here and there to make some notes. Yeah, this'll be a good paper, she can tell. Cessily pauses and makes a face at a little boy who's been staring at her. It's meant to be goofy, hands up at her ears, gesturing, grinning widely. The boy breaks into a scream and goes running to find his parent. Cessily frowns and she hunches deeper into her coat, slinking around the map table.
Nate has seen Cessily a few times at Xavier, so his glance at the metal girl is not one of surprise or awe, but the faint frowning of... what was her name again? "Cessily," he greets, "hello, I am Nate, from the school." Where he hangs out irregularly and does not seem to do anything useful. He smirks at the fleeing child. "Skittish one, probably not a real New Yorker."
Wait--what? Domino's not expecting that sort of question out of the blue, barely having a chance to get started on the search proper when she's instead looking back at Amanda. "One in three hundred eighty-five thousand four hundred nineteen," she almost automatically replies. "Assuming we're both here for the same reason. Remind me to buy lottery tickets today."
There seems to be a slight problem, however. Those old city maps? Hot items today. There's way more people here than she had been counting on. The odds of getting the right set of maps before they're gone are rising by the minute. Also, some kid's screaming and running away--Hey, Dom knows those two! There a school outing around here today, or something? If either Cessily or Nate happen to glance her way she'll pass a wave along, though her primary focus remains in procuring the appropriate maps.
Now that the two are joining forces once more, she asks Amanda "Manage to find anything of interest yet?"
Staaaare. The metal girl, and the screaming she causes, go completely unnoticed by 157. The long-haired youth in the robe's got his attention totally focused on the maps, peering down at one of the streetmaps so motionlessly that one could mistake him for a statue...well, if he were made of metal like the girl, which he isn't. "Analysis: Geographical and navigational information sources designated 'maps'," he says, quietly, in near monotone. "Alert: Information sources in error. Discrepancies exist between information sources and information records in memory." He looks over at the old man watching the shop. "Explanation required."
The old man blinks in mild confusion at the long-haired boy's query. "Explan--? They're old," he says. "Outta date. Some of 'em are antiques, kid. Valuable pieces of history!"
The sound begins from within the map store. It's kind of a crackling sound. It's also a sound that precipitates a shriek by a span of less than a heartbeat. The old man in the lawn chair rises, startled by the scream -- since it's coming from inside his shop.
A well-dressed woman in her mid-thirties, one of those yuppie types that likes to collect antique-y type stuff as accent decor for her high-end condo, comes running out of the shop as fast as her red stilettos can carry her. She carries with her the scent of burning paper as smoke is drawn from within toward the open door.
Worse than the smoke, however, is the fireball that explodes against the lintel of the door, just inside the shop. The shop bell that hung above the door breaks off and tumbles out of the door onto the concrete sidewalk with a jarring jangle.
"Does that qualify?" Amanda quips back to Dom, ducking instinctively as the fireball hits the old smoked-glass window and shatters it.
As the glass shatters, more people on the street become aware of the disturbance and begin reacting with confusion... for this brief moment, at least.
"Where iiiiiiiiiiissssss it!" The voice that calls out from the back of the shop has a high-pitched, sing-songy sound. Kind of like a demonic version of Alvin and the Chipmunks. "We know it's here soooooooomewhere!"
Val Armorr pulls his gaze from Cessily, and a breif glance at the computer kid, but then he's moving, not away from the fireball, but making a beeline for it, or rather.. it's source. Val has been studing ancient warriors.. those lost to to various tranfers from stone to parchment to paper to analog to digital to quantum streaming of his time. A man called Achilles of Greece. A warrior, unbeatable... untouchable on the battlefield. But his shield depicted scenes of peace. A farm, livestock.. dancing under the stars. A tranquil existence within the chaos of the battlefield.
So it is with Val, his calling is the art of his fists, called to fight when he has to, to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Two toed tabi shoes carry him across the pavement and a slide over a car hood, lands him on the sidewalk adjacent to where the fireball originated, and he takes cover behind the wall. "Come out.. Or I'll drag you you. We don't need to fight, make the right decision."
"Oh!" Cessily startles. "Hi, Nate," she says, smiling just a touch at Nathan. "What's brought you down here?" she asks. "Old maps? Or a...." KABOOM! Maybe technically it's a 'FWOOSH!' "What....oh no!" she declares, rushing towards the firey store. She stops just in range of the heat. "Damn, all those maps...."
"No, I stumbled into this place by chance," replies Nate, turning to see the old maps... right as it fireballs. "Just paper, but there might be people still inside." He rushes forward, until the heat and smoke give him a pause. Stopping to think a second, he calls upon his telekinesis to protect himself, and then his telepathy to check inside, trying to avoid touching the likely panicky minds outside.
A lot of things can happen when there's an unexpected fireball. And scream. Most people stop whatever they're doing and turn toward the direction of the sound with wide eyes and gaping mouths.
Domino's got a different idea in mind.
A free distraction is a free distraction, the instant the store owner gets out of his seat and turns to go into his shop she uses the moment to nonchalantly grab a handful of the old documents, completely at random, then tuck them inside of her coat. These are not the maps you are looking for.
It also places her hand in just the right spot to draw one of her sidearms, which is why she had reached into her trench to begin with, honest.
"I believe the judges are willing to accept that answer," she says back to Amanda as that creepy voice screeches from further inside of the shop. "Sounds like we've got a discriminating rodent in th--ere," she hesitates as some guy goes -running- toward the shop, already issuing demands for surrender. With a frown Dom glances to Amanda once more, thumbing toward Val while mouthing 'who is -this- guy?'
"Statement: They are old. Out of date. Some of them are antiques. Valuable..." And then there's the smoke, and the shriek. 157 doesn't even pause for a moment. "...pieces of history. Analysis: Statement flawed. Erroneous information is not valuable. Recommendation: Information sources should..." And then there's the fireball. "...be disregarded. Locate geographic information sources containing current information." And /now/ he finally looks over at the shop window that got blown out. "Alert: Potential threat." Pause. "Query: Where is it? Error: Additional data required to answer query. Identification of 'it'."
"Is it here?"
"No, it's here!"
"That's not it!"
"Over here?"
It begins to sound like the whole cast of The Chipmunks has gone over to the dark side and has set up a party in the map shop. *PAFT!* A corpulent figure about three feet tall -- easily as wide as it is tall -- looking much like a toad masquerading as a pumpkin (or maybe the illicit love child of Yoda and Jabba the Hutt's midget sister) appears outside in the middle of the map table 157 had been studying in a cloud of acrid smoke and crackle of flame. It looks directly at Val. "Fight? Fight? No fight. Just need the book. All the books. The right books! Do you have the books?"
"Can't fiiiiiiiiind it!" The sing-song voice comes from within the store. There's another crackle of energy. Lights still on in the shop explode in a shower of sparks. "Can't find it!" repeats petulantly, over and over -- from different corners of the store as electricity arches, fire flares, and, in the far corner of the front window, frost appears momentarily on the glass (before the heat melts it).
Of course, the sudden appearance of the demonic critter outside the shop, not to mention the sounds of the explosions and destruction within, quickly changes the confusion on the street into outright panic. People scream and scatter. Some cry out about terrorists, others something about devils, and still others shriek about mutie freaks. (Some things are inevitable.) Sure, there are the few wanna-be heroes (of the mundane, non-powered variety) that move toward the chaos -- regular people wanting to keep others from harm, but only adding to the confusion.
Like Dom, Amanda blinks as Val charges the door. She shoots the mercenary a beats-the-hell-outta-me shrug in answer to her question. Then, the critter explodes onto the table and she swears, her European roots showing. "Oh, bloody hell. Not again!" And, gee. There are more of the little bastards. Thank God she's not the only X-Man here, this time.
Nate's scans reveal there are at least three more people trapped inside -- one in a back stock room, one behind a counter not far from the cash, and one trapped amidst the blazing shelves. Those are the recognizably human minds, at least. The number of inhuman minds, however -- not so much readable as detectable -- appears to be multiplying by the minute.
"My shop!" The old man wails, his thick glasses slipping from his nose as he stumbles out of the way of the heat and smoke and crazy creature burning on his display table. "They're destroying my shop!"
Val Armorr is nothing if not quick on his feet. He straights and steps back from his cover spot as the demon midgets appear. "I know where the books are. But you have to follow.." He trails off, ducking as a light above him explodes. "Me... Peacefully. No destroying things. Do we have an arrangement?" He inquires calmly. One might think he dealt with strange and wonderful things everyday. He pays no mind to those running up, or those running way. They're not in danger yet.
Cessily hunches and shucks off her coat, tossing it on the pavement as she moves towards the fire. Her body loosens and looks almost melty as Cessily jumps over the sill of the now-broken window, fighting to look through the smoke. "Hello!" she calls. "HELLO!?" she calls again, to whomever might have been trapped. "Come on, this way," she says, going in deepern and apparently spying somebody in the smoke.
"Great, an invasion of pyromaniac midgets," comments Nate with a growl. Fire is not much of a problem when protected by his TK shield, but he still needs to breathe and see, and smoke makes it hard. Still, he dives into the shop, trying to find the person among the burning shelves, which he suspects is in the most danger, and pull him or her out under forcefield protection.
As one of those good samaritans rushes forward to try and help he's promptly cut off by Domino holding her arm, gun and all, out to catch him flat across the chest. "Sorry kiddo, live fire exercise underway." It's punctuated by a black nailed thumb clicking the hammer back, sights remaining leveled at a downward angle toward the pavement.
Sounds like there's people stuck inside. There's a surprisingly convenient showing of X-Folk, including telekinetics and whatever the heck is behind Amanda's forcefields. Baddies are quickly multiplying. Coming up with a plan is, amazingly, not very difficult.
"I've got you guys covered."
Not that she's going to share it with the rest of the class, apparently. Guns are good for suppression, drawing and disorganizing enemy focus. Makes it easier to get the civvies out of the way, right?
Ah..hmm. These guys are looking for a book. That..wouldn't happen to be the same book she had to track down for her last contract, would it..? No, those odds are downrignt astronomical. Somehow, knowing that doesn't put her mind at ease any.
Attention turning to Val, she says "I think these guys are a little beyond peaceful negotiations!" Still, destruction aside, they haven't openly attacked anyone just yet... She won't shoot first. But, Cessily's already inside. Dom's still going to be there to help out, she's not far behind!
This is one confusing situation...and 157 is just kind of standing there right in the middle of it. He's not running towards the shop to help out, but he's also not moving away. Instead, he's staring straight at the little critter that showed up on the table before him. "Analysis: Subjects searching for materials. Subjects engaging in destructive acts while searching. Subjects likely to destroy materials in process of search. Recommendation: Cease destructive acts." In a roundabout way, he's saying the same thing as Val, minus the "I'll help you" part. "Identification required: Subject species." He points at the little imp-thing on the table in front of him.
157's not wrong. But it seems the creatures don't much care if they destroy everything else in the process. Illogical? Highly. But, that's what you get with creatures of chaos like these.
"The Master says we must fiiiiiiiiiind it!" the corpulent critter says to Val. "We must find them all! Show me! Show me where it is!" It's not so much of an arrangement to the creature, as it is a demand. And Val's only got that one creature's attention -- not all of them. The others continue their search with what might fairly be described as gleeful enthusiasm.
Indded, within the shop, a conglomeration of creatures cavort across the bookshelves. They come in all sorts of different shapes and in sizes ranging from a single foot in height to nearly four feet. Some are thin and wispy. Some are fat and ugly. (Okay. All of them are ugly.) Some spout flame. Others spout electricity. Others spout ice... or water when it touches the flame.
An overweight, balding man with horn-rimmed glasses cowers beneath what was once a display table. The books atop it are smoking and his glasses are broken, hanging askew across his nose. He hears Nate's call and sticks his head out briefly. "Help! Over here! Help me!"
The clerk behind the counter -- a high school kid trying to pick up extra cash for his college fund -- hears Nate's cry as well. "This is nuts, man!" he calls out, panic in his voice. "Get me outta here!"
There's not very much noise from the back stock room at all... just a lot of smoke.
"They're lesser imps," Amanda calls out to the various mutants, metas, and heroes trying to lend a hand here. "Elementals and spellcasters. They don't do peaceful anything!"
The front window blows out as one of the imps takes issue with it. Those inside the store are saved the pain of flaming backdraft by Cessily, who moves quickly to attempt some form of damage control.
Those outside the store are saved the pain of flying glass shards by the magical shield Amanda erects with a burst of magical energy and a single arcane word.
The fellow Dom stops with a wave of her gun quickly begins to back pedal. "There are people caught in there!"
Of course, there are also people running down the street, as imps slip around Amanda's shield and start spreading out onto the road.
Val Armorr starts to move when the window explodes, but being saved by the sudden appearance of the magical forcefield he turns his attentions back on the imp. His ruse doesn't work unless he grabs all of them and holds thier attention. So he improvises.. His foot comes up, held in the air for a moment than crashed down with force enough to snap a couple of stacked two by fours, onto the imps forehead, hopefully dropping the thing. If they don't do peacefully.. and the one telling him that just saved him from being shredded by glass... perhaps he need not feet bad about dispatching them.
Not peaceful anything? His kind of people! But Nate still has a couple civilians to get out, so imp-smashing is going to have to wait a minute. "Alright, come here!" He grabs the kid with a telekinesis and levitates him out, dragging the fat man behind him too, and stumbles out of the shop coughing. Stupid smoke. That still leaves someone in the back room. So he checks telepathically to see if the imps are there too.
There's people inside? "Yeah, I'm aware of that."
Imps. Domino had her suspicions. Maybe she's jaded after hanging around Nightcrawler as much as she has been. So these guys aren't attacking directly, they're still causing enough trouble to attack -in-directly. Also, Amanda confirms that they're not ones to negotiate.
"That's good enough for me."
The first imp she comes eye to eye with gets a fraction of a second to stare down the large, black tunnel leading further into the mechanical construction of her outstretched handgun.
BLAM!
She's officially made her stand, an identical sidearm promptly filling her other palm as she twists about, picking two more targets as the first shell casing pings off what's left of the checkout counter. "Everyone not fighting gets out, now!"
Consider it her paying the shopowner back for the papers she lifted. Cover fire for one, cover fire for all. Take time, mind the debris, pay attention to shot placement. The risk of collateral damage or friendly fire is ludicrously high around here!
Imps, imps, everywhere. A lot of the information that 157 has been studying is getting torched. "Analysis: Situation critical. Information sources damaged and destroyed. Information source value: Unknown. Priority: Retrieval of remaining information sources." Suddenly, he starts speaking rapidly--what sounds like numbers, mathematical formulas, and words in some other language. There's a sucking sound and a flash of light, and a hole appears in the air--through which the inside of the shop is visible, near some of the shelves fairly deep in. Inside the shop, of course, there's a similar hole. The boy steps through, ending up inside the shop--heedless of the combat presently going on in there, and starts calmly looking at the nearby shelves for remaining intact tomes and such. For now, the portals remain open.
The imps aren't quite so fragile as to be dispatched quite so easily -- even by a veritable combat god. But that doesn't mean it isn't beaned really good. Were this a Loony Tunes episode, little yellow canaries (spouting something about 'puddy tats') would be twittering around its head. "Ooooooohhhhhhh..." it groans. There is blood on its pumpkin-and-green skin, however. As it slowly refocusses, it growls. "THAT WASN'T VERY NICE!" (Like it's got a right to talk?) It waves its stubby arms and wiggles its fingers in arcane gestures and, presently, the old man's lawn chair transforms itself into a strapy, metal-mouthed monstrosity that launches itself at the elite martial artist.
"Holy shhhhhh---!!" The young man yelps as he's pulled invisibly from behind the counter. The balding man stumbles, letting out a squawk like a school girl when he's physically dragged toward the semi-shielded entrance. There are definitely imps at the back of the store. And the human presence back there is growing threadier by the moment.
BLAM. A small imp falls, half its skull missing when the bullet tears through it. Its blood sizzles on the pavement. But, hey. At least it's definitely confirmed the things can be killed now. The sizzling lasts about three seconds before the body crumbles to ash and blows away in a previously unapparent breeze.
As the imps start to circumvent her shield, Amanda leaves Cessily, Nate, and the stranger in the gi to deal with the store itself. She turns in an attempt to corral the little buggers on the street. Stepping off the sidewalk, she begins chanting very, very quickly, her fingers flicking as she gestures sharply and traces arcane signs in the air. The black asphalt starts to curl and rise, quite literally trying to form itself into a corral.
There are actually a remarkable number of tomes that aren't burning or in immediate danger of destruction when 157 steps through his portal. Most of them are either inconsequential to the creatures, outside their immediate path of devastation, or on shelves they simply failed to reach. There are piles within store where some tomes were obviously thrown in the haste of the search. Those burn. But the books that have not yet been examined are remarkably whole.
Val Armorr focuses. He see's the chair monster.. but he also knows the imp is the things creator. So in the split second before the thing reaches him mid leap, Val throws himself hard, straight backwards into the ground, allowing the snapping jaws to pass right over him. But he coils and snaps right back up like he landed on a trampoline, and with the direct threat behind him, hopefully still tying to work out where he went, pauses for a moment to collect himself. Glabella, a pressure relief split of the frontal bone of the human skull. He allows himself a few assumtions based on gross anatomy. Aim and ~CRACK!!~, his fist.. more importantly, two extended knuckles hit the imp right between the eyes, intending to put it's lights out.
Meanwhile Nate curses quietly. Gunshots? Oh look who is there. "Domino. There is another civilian trapped in the back. I am going to get him out. He dives into the shop again, and runs past 157, into the stock room. If he can, he shots a few imps along the way with low power telekinetic blasts. Low power meaning they are not strong enough to break the walls, but certainly strong enough to know out a normal human.
Gotta pick up the pace, Domino. People in trouble--BLAM!--innocents to save--BLAM!--yadda yadda...
She may have been reluctant at first but she's definitely changed her mind now. As the sprinklers rain cold water down across a partially blazing store she's spinning and twisting about like a madwoman, practically dancing through the ever-evolving combat zone whether the obstacles be static or animate. There's some kicks, there's a couple imps that get smacked by the solid weight of her guns mid-swing, but mostly they just get themselves perforated.
One even gets interrupted by the blade of a ceiling fan when it gets neatly clipped from above, a distraction which proves to be the tiny spawn's undoing an instant later.
Back of the store, back of the store, get to the friggin' back of the st--Oh hey, Nate's on it. "Gotcha covered!" she calls out while diving across the debris-strewn floor, snapping a shot off behind her shoulder which tears another imp in two.
What the heck is that creepy kid with the portal doing, anyway? Eh, so long as they don't get in the way!
Who knows if 157 even knows about the human presence he's standing rather nearby, deep in the store as he is...but whether he does or not, he's not looking for people. Instead, he's almost mechanically pulling tomes off the shelf, turning, and reaching out through the portal to drop them on the ground outside. It isn't easy for him--he's a pretty small kid, and those are pretty big books. It isn't long before he attracts some attention from the imps, though, and one heads his way and sprays a few shards of ice at him. 157 steps back to try to dodge, but doesn't fully make it--an ice shard cuts along his arm, but it doesn't look too serious. "Alert: This unit has sustained injury. Severity: Low. Initiating defense." The thing comes around for another shot, and 157 speaks rapidly again...this time, just as the ice shards come in, a portal forms in the way. The exit? Behind the imp. The shards stab right through the thing from behind. Spotting another coming his way, 157 picks up (with quite a bit of effort) a rather large and hefty tome that has already suffered enough to render it pretty much unreadable. Another little bit of rapid speech, and he drops the book...into another portal, which exits over the thing's head. Heavy book impacts imp head, knocking it silly.
The chair monster careens into the bricks around the door frame, getting tangled up in its own snapping nylon tentacles. The master imp goes toppling back as Val's knuckles connect unexpectedly with its forehead. It rolls off the burning table and bounces onto the sidewalk. Its eyes roll back in its head and its skin begins to split like that of an overripe tomato. Out of that tomato, however, grows an amorphorous blob of red and purple sinew that whips and wraps about itself until a hulking brute with horns, wings, hooves, and an unfortunate resemblance to the Minotaur of Crete. No axe, fortunate, but ham fists and black talons for fingers. It roars a challenge at Val, lowers its head, and starts to charge.
Powerful as he is, Nate's progress to the back stock room goes relatively unimpeded -- relatively in the sense that his TK blasts are sufficient to knock the imps out of the way and Domino's hail of well-placed bullets are enough to put them out of everyone else's misery. Chances are good that the stock clerk will be saved... if in for something of an extended hospital stay. One hairy little bugger that's a little bigger than the rest leaps for Dom when the mercenary's back is turned and her attention is distracted by 157.
Amanda's magic wraps a large portion of the imps outside in a pretty solid asphalt and concrete dome. A few of the more talented of them start *PAFTing* out in puffs of brimstone and fire. "Oh, no you don't!" she growls at them, flinging magical bolts to knock them out of the sky, off the cars, and into the gutter. "Only one demon I know is allowed to do that and you're not him!" Besides... they're not even good immitations of him. *PAFT*? That's not anywhere near as respectable as *BAMF*.
Outside the store, the old man wipes his thick moustache and pokes his glasses firmly up his nose, scrambling out from under the cover he'd taken as 157 starts tossing product out of his store. He scrambles to collect the books and move them out of the line of fire. Maybe, thanks to the weird kid with the robot act, he might not loose everything after all. "Yeah!" he cheers as the ice imp is skewered. "Take that, ya lousy bastid!"
157 is his new hero.
The chaos of the scene is incredible.. fire and ice and people screaming.. but while everyone else deals with foot tall midgets throwing pointing things.. Val's turns into a demon minotaur, musclebound and angry. His eyes narrow, his asian features making them all but vanish into slits on his face. His breathing tightens, in through nose, out through the mouth. Rock hard abs.. dangerously sharp horns, wings to make it airborne, Razors on it's fingertips... but then a smile creases his lips. A single anatomical oversight in it's transformation. The cows head. The soft and plushy nose, sensitive as hell. And that's exactly what Val aims for. When the thing get's near he adopts a Muy Thai stance, and cocks his leg like the hammer of a gun, and when the thing is in range he fires, driving his knee into the things nose with the force to make a Daxamite take notice.
Even though things tend to fall into place for Domino, there's the occasional price to pay. Things which happen outside of her line of sight are much less likely to get affected by her power, or at least to a lesser extent of its peculiar wrath. As she's spinning around and ejecting an empty magazine into the face of another imp her all-out massacre of the devilish little creatures gets momentarily interrupted as something shreds through the heavy layer of her trench, biting into the tough but thin armor beyond.
"Nauh!"
Their blood is acidic. Or corrosive. Or -something- unpleasant. Ventilating its temple at point-blank would not be her best option while standing. She can't lose her coat, that's got her new (old) documents in it! And..y'know. It's also concealment for all of her toys. What's left? Stop, drop, and roll. Order doesn't matter.
With a purely savage sound she throws herself into a sidelong roll, driving the back of her shoulder straight into the piggybacked imp so her full weight bears down onto the one angled focal point. Its claws broke into her armor, she can feel it with the landing. Still, it beats the alternative!
Also, gravity pulls things -downward.- Her other pistol comes back over the top of her shoulder, the bore disappearing behind jagged teeth. The next shot to clear the chamber is muffled by comparison, another of the hellions sent back into dust.
We're good, everything's good, the situation's gonna be fine--I'm out of ammo. Reload break!
"Threats eliminated," 157 says, and turns to resume putting books through the portal. Unfortunately, the imps aren't done with him, and one comes charging in with its claws at the ready. 157 dodges clumsily--claws ripping a few minor cuts in the chest area of his robe, but missing the boy himself--tripping over his own feet in the process and falling over onto his bottom. The imp whirls around and charges in again...only to run through a portal that pops up in its way, exit eye-level with a table, and slam face-first into said table. Slowly, 157 picks himself up off the ground, takes another book, and puts it through his original portal, letting the others close.
The demonic bull spins horns over hooves in the air as Val's knee connects with its snout. It lets out a howl of rage and pain that's cut short when the wind is knocked out if it by its landing. Spread across the concrete, its wings flex, hardly helping to lever it up. Stunned and struggling for breath, it only manages to rise about halfway. Desperately reaching out a hand toward the martial artist, its claws extend, sharpening into spears aimed at skewering him through the gut.
The demons in the store scatter around Domino as she uses her momentum and body to piledrive their buddy into the floor before shooting his brains out. "Fiiiiiiind da boooooook!" one of them howls, scuttling away from her. Others take up the cry, repeating it like a cacophonous mantra and swarming over the shelves.
With the monsters on the street more or less under wraps, her attunement with the city giving her ample energy for this fight, Amanda moves back toward the store. She spares a glances for Val and the Minotaur as she steps through the broken front window. As much as she doesn't want to leave the kid alone with the monster, it occurs to her that shutting down whatever portal might be allowing more of the buggers to appear might be a good idea. With luck, Cess or Nate will be able to aid him if he gets into trouble.
The old man lets out a startled yeep as the boy saving his books is swarmed by more demons. But, he can't help but laugh as the aggressor finds itself forcibly introduced to the hardwood table. "You're awesome, kid!" he laughs with no little amount of his own glee. "Watch your back!"
Val Armorr makes eye contact with Amanda as she rushes by, but shakes his head, then shifts from Muy Thai to a dancing art loosly resembling capoeira. He leans to his left, then backbends and sweeps around to the right to avoid the claws, but in doing so he grips the thick wrist and wraps a leg around the arm, his foot firmly planted against the forearm where it becomes the elbow to prevent twisting away.. In an instance he's inside the minotaurs grip, and all he has to do is pull and twist. He's a strong guy, not superhuman.. but strong. That arm will hopefully snap right where his foot is planted.
These ugly little guys keep pouring in faster than Domino can put them down! Sooner or later she's going to be down to blades and a mad wish. Great time to come up with a new strategy. Thanks to Cessily and Nate, the civvie evac seems to be going quite well (go, team!) Karate Kid's fighting something particularly big and nasty, more power to that guy.
What would be really nice to have, though? A wildcard.
She can't easily end this invasion, but it could potentially be better contained if she found what they were searching for first. Problem is, she has absolutely no idea what it is or where it would be. Somewhere in these four walls. She can't even figure out the odds, the variables keep changing every second! So..pick a direction and commit.
One of her weapons goes into hiding as she dives down the aisles, guided purely by instinct. "Klaatu..verrata..not that way." Narrow it down. Where have they been, where -haven't- they been. The kid probably didn't find it yet or they would have swarmed him. -Go That Way.-
Like Indiana Jones about to lift the statue off of the pedestal she makes her choice, hooks her fingers onto the spine, then hauls it out into her arms. Hopefully she didn't just find Waldo.
More imps headed his way. Swarms, no, but the imps aren't very happy with 157, it seems. It's a good thing that 157 is actually pretty much incapable of feeling frustration. He picks up another fairly hefty book, and drops it into a new portal...which exits right above its own entrance, looping the book in a fall as it picks up speed. Three imps headed his way. The first launches a blast of flame at 157, and with a couple words he sends it through a portal...which comes out pointed at the second--who happens to be an ice imp. One down...messily. The third charges in with electrically-charged claws, and 157 waits until the last moment...then opens a portal right in front of himself that exits in front of the flame imp. The electric imp eviscerates the flame one. Two down. The electric imp pauses, looking about in confusion, and 157 speaks a few more words...forming a new entry portal just under the falling book, and an exit above the electric imp's head. The book exits at terminal velocity and smashes into the imp's head. Three down. 157 goes back to his shelves, slowly pulling another book, and putting it through the portal.
The bull's bones are heavy and thick, as are its muscles. However, its arm was also already hyper-extended as it tried to skewer the young man from the future -- not to mention made somewhat unwieldy by the nail extensions. Consequently, yes. Val does manage to crack its joint. The demon lets out an agonized howl. It tries to wrap its other arm about him, however, and give him a very unfriendly bear--erm--bull hug. 'Ware the fangs starting to grow out of its muzzle as its face changes into something more serpentine.
The book Dom lays her hands on is old. Really old. It has a leather cover that's definitely tattered. And the lettering on its spine is gothic script. Really, it looks like a Harry Potter prop. And, who knows? Maybe it was.
The imps, however, let out a mighty howl almost as if they were a single entity when a mystical pulse -- evident to folks attuned to magic or the ripples of reality -- shooms silently out of it. Yep. That caught their attention.
Amanda's head snaps around toward Dom as she senses that pulse. "Leave it to you to luck out on finding it!" she quips, somehow unsurprised by this turn of events. The imps start back pedalling away from 157 as three more of their comrades go down... and turning toward Dom, who holds their prize.
"'Giiiiiiiiiive' it!" the insane little critters start yipping over and over again, the whole tide of battle shifting now.
"Hold tight!" Amanda calls to her. She crouches and spreads her palm flat on the floor, magical energy shimmering out over the floor, its tendrils creating a circle around Dom and around the imps that assail her as Amanda begins chanting a banishing spell. (Let's hope Dom doesn't have demon blood.)
Val Armorr grunts, feeling the arm snap, but then the other one wraps around him. "Not really looking for a relationship right now. Let's just be friends." He says, turning into the gripping arm, and launching a punnishing barrage of short and brutal punches and elbow strikes into it's thick chest and upper abdominals. But as the fangs grow, he ducks under and grips the things own arm. He's not intending to pull it.. no instead he uses it as leverage, jumping slightly and wrapping his legs around the things shoulders, with the arm across his chest. With all his might he crunches, trying to force the snakitaur beast to bite itself.
Domino looks down at the book now in her hands with a fairly blank expression, "Huh. Figured it would have been behind glass. Erm..." It's one of those moments that happens so frequently in zombie media. Neena has alerted the horde. "Aw, fudge."
Her initial thought is to fling the book straight into the nearest portal by Boy Wonder not that far away. Out of the shop, closer to Amanda (hopefully,) and if anyone here can figure out what to do with the blasted thing, she'd be the one! Instead, right as she's about to make a mad dash across the store there's that eerie yet strangely familiar bubble of energy enveloping the area which she occupies.
Can she still shoot out of this shield? Actually, she's not going to press her luck that far. As the imps start getting rounded up in similar fields she pins the book tightly against her chest with one arm and levels the sights of a pistol their way with the other, staying her trigger finger. Here stands Library Merc.
"Yeah, -real- friggin' lucky, here!"
Well, the imps appear to have a uniform target now. That's good for 157...and even better for the store owner, as 157 can go about his work of fishing out books undisturbed. He gets several more while the work is going on, but unfortunately he does run into another problem. The shelves are tall, and he's pretty short...and rather uncoordinated. He looks up at the books above. Staaaaaaare. Problem. He takes a step back, and speaks quickly...a portal appears before him, and another in the air by the books. Solution. All the nasty business with the demons and the mercenary and the book she's holding and the mage casting a banishing spell and the minotaur snake thing attacking a martial arts guy...none of that appears to even be on his radar. He resumes unloading books...through one portal, into another and out. He's...clearly getting pretty tired, though it doesn't show in his expression. It's not all the portaling. It's the manual labor.
Val's efforts are rewarded as the demon twists itself the wrong way in an effort to escape. While its fangs -- and the poison they contain -- aren't likely to be fatal to itself, a vertebrae twisted the wrong way can be. The Karate Kid may not have the same strength the creature does, but the creature also isn't the brightest bulb on the tree. More than that, it's technically a lesser demon, and thus not nearly as durable as its greater brethren. Its jaw shifts, it gags as its throat collapses under the barrage of punches, and gasps once more for breath. It loosens its hold on Val, groping for its neck, but its head turns a little too far and... *CRACK*
Amanda's circle closes, its energy rises, and the imps caught in its radius find themselves punting back to the place from which they came. They howl in protest as they do -- not because they have failed to achieve their prize, but because the forcible way their master's erstwhile geas is broken by the transition actually hurts. Banished like this, they'll not trouble the mortal world again for some time... at least, not until the next summoning spell rips them from the bowels of existence and into the light of day once more. Thus, within a few minutes, Dom is left standing alone in the midst of toppled and burnt shelves, cold water sluicing down from the sprinklers above.
"Kid," the old man says through the portal to 157 as he takes the books from him and stacks them on the sidewalk, "if you ever need a job or somethin', you come see ol' Stan, here. I'll make sure you get set up right proper, y'hear?"
Val Armorr twists and rolls free of the corpse as it drops, then back up, hands ready for defence. But.. it's unecessary. He kneels and makes an arcane looking gesture over the demons body. "Adaten arveen, Adaten infinitum. Rest in peace warrior." He offers to the thing. Demon or not, it fought well. Desite it's motives. He rises to his feet, and steps over it's body, and into the bookshop to help if he's needed.
There should be relief in seeing all of those nasty infernals being whisked away. Instead, Domino's standing there staring onward with her gun no longer pointed at anything dangerous. "Well why the hell didn't you do that five minutes ago?"
Fingertips reach around the pistol to pull through her matted ratnest of black hair, not fully convinced that it's safe enough to step down from her guard. The book in question finds a temporary home beneath the trench to try and spare it any further water damage, but only long enough to hand it over to Amanda. This albino's been having some extraordinarily -bad- luck with printed material lately.
"I don't understand magic but I know that I want nothing at all to do with this thing. Take it, keep it, I don't want to see it again."
157 pulls the last book (that he considers even remotely usable) off of the shelf he's by, and looks over at the old man through the portal. He's silent for several moments, just staring towards him. Finally... "Statement: If you ever need a job or something, you come see old Stan, here. I will make sure you get set up right proper, you hear? Answer: Affirmative. This unit has heard the statement. Answer: This unit does not require a 'job'." He steps out of the portal on the outside of the shop again, allowing it to close up, and looks down at the books. "Analysis: This unit possesses insufficient strength to carry full quantity of information sources." He wasn't saving them for the old man, it seems...he was saving them for himself. He kneels down by the piles, looking through them.
Three seconds after the demon has expired, it crumbles into dust and blows away. Within the shop, there's not much left to do to help... unless folks intend to stay and help ol' Stan salvage what product he can. Nate and Cess have the civilians well in hand. The sound of sirens and emergency responders finally break through onto the street, their approach drowned out earlier by the noise of chaos and battle.
Amanda rises as Dom shoves the book at her. "Because," she retorts, "I was a little busy with the mess in the street." A beat. "Besides. They were too spread out before now."
Doncha like being bait, Dom?
Amanda looks at the book Dom handed her for a moment. Then, wordlessly, she slips it into her satchel and gives the albino a wry smile. "Lemme know if you find anything useful, later," she suggests.
Looking a little waterlogged, she steps out of the shop, through the window again, in time to hear Stan squawk a protest at 157. "What? No! Hey! You can't take all those! Not without paying for them first! I said I'd give you a job, kid. Not give you all my remaining stock!" So begins a doubtlessly fruitless argument with Logic Boy... the old man hardly all that rational -- whether or not he's in the right.
Helluva way to end a street fair, innit?