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TotL: Gamma Emission: Staking a Claim
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 Quote: she might approach Onyx to ask how she is able to make her relationship with Sellsword work. Seeing as he isn't particularly immune to rads, and they Oh, come on. You know that Sell-Sword, like Batman, must clearly have a device on his utility belt and a protocol for that. =D -- Acyl  Acyl Wrote:And acquiring such a device/plan would greatly reduce the stress in her life. So general protection measures they use to get their freak on is data well worth knowing (the details don't have to be shared).Quote:she might approach Onyx to ask how she is able to make her relationship with Sellsword work. Seeing as he isn't particularly immune to rads, and they seem to have something going on.Oh, come on. You know that Sell-Sword, like Batman, must clearly have a device on his utility belt and a protocol for that. =D But I think that if* Decay works her way though all 5 guys left and still hasn't gotten any satisfaction, asking Onyx about her sex life will not be something she considers 'out of bounds'. *this point has yet to be determined. In fact I'm going to try and work on that right now. If my record is any indicator I'll be a month before I'm finished. -Terry ----- "so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today" TF2: Spy  Quote: Acyl wrote:Not offhand, but he'd probably know a variety of...um..."less than legal" folks with experience. You'd be surprised what MAD SCIENCE can do when you offer the MAD SCIENTIST a proper chance to SHOW THEM ALL that it can be done. Knowing Sword, he'd pick one that was absent-minded, take the only prototype and the specs, and then make a mint off the patent fees and royalties. --- "Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay waste."
Tales of the Legendary
[A Hero Sandwich Production] Smouldering Decay: Staking a Claim (pt 6.3) Given my back to back failures with Gamma and Superball, I decided to take a little more cautious approach with Flaming Wreckage. I'm a firm believer in learning from one's mistakes, but that is a little hard when you don't know what went wrong. Gamma said I scare her, what I can do scared her. But I'm not any different than her deep down. We are both magical, she has just stuck her head in sand about it. From what she told me that night she has focused almost exclusively on the effects of her powers and not the causes. Not that her work has been wasted, she can emit across a much wider range than I can. And if my inebriated memories are anything to go by, she has a level of fine grain control that leaves me in the dust. But none of that tells me why I scare her. She laid down the what, when, and where but not the why. And I'm honestly afraid doing even more damage if I ask. Superball skipped out in the middle of dinner, leaving me with very little clue as to why. He certainly seems to show a surface interest in the female members of whatever team he is on, but whenever the conversation drifted towards sex he was quick to steer it onto other topics. Maybe he's still in the closet and overcompensating. But he would certainly be breaking several stereotypes, his costume most of them. Whenever I end up cornering him about bailing on me I'll have to bring that up. I won't out him to the others, but he shouldn't have agreed to dinner and drinks if he wasn't going to have any desert. And not being able to talk to either of them about what happened, means that I'm likely to commit the same errors all over again with Flaming Wreckage. So a little slower pace than normal is called for. I need to learn what he is like, how open to a relationship he is. Because if I keep screwing up like this, no one I could possibly be with would want to be with me. In this case being cautious meant being content with battery operated stress relief for a few more days, rather than inviting him out for a beer and proposition. It also meant accompanying Kentucky Smith and Flaming Wreckage as they tracked down a local mystic the Circle of Thorns had kidnapped. I never understood why the Thorns insisted on kidnapping mystics when they were supposedly such great mages themselves. All it did was elevate them from 'one of many hostile groups in this city' to 'hostile group of the moment who is targeting our people' in the eyes of the MAGI. And that lead to the inevitable contacting of heroes, and the beatdown we were in the process of introducing them to. For most of the fights I hung towards the back and made sure that none of the Thorns we ran across could scamper off and warn their friends. I would think a group that professed to be magicians would have the common sense to fireproof their robes, but I guess not. At least they had the intelligence to 'stop, drop, and roll'. And that suited me just fine. If they were busy rolling around on the ground they weren't off getting reinforcements. Aside from making sure our arrival was not anticipated, I played medic and tactical support while Kentucky and Wreckage played hammer and anvil. It was a role they obviously has some experience with, and it showed. Kentucky would charge into a group and catch their attention with his fists and his mouth. If he wasn't punching someone he was insulting them. Not that I understood half of what came out of his mouth, if it was actually in english. Wreckage would follow him in and bring fiery pain to them once the Thorns had turned their backs. Where my own powers with flame and smoke were more suited to wide area effects, range and large numbers were the only areas I bested Wreckage. He has a tight control over his fire that I doubt I could ever match. Wrapping himself in flames and letting them out in punctuated bursts that left our enemies unconscious and smoldering. I even saw him swinging a sword of fire once or twice when his foe was outside of arms reach. By the time the Thorns realized that Kentucky wasn't the real threat it was too late. Whenever we ran across a larger group in the caves I would make sure to subject the Thorns to my own flavor or radiation. They fell that much quicker when lightheaded and unable to block or attack with anything resembling their normal accuracy. Of course there were always the archers or mages who preferred to hang back and fling spells or pointy sticks in our general direction. I was tempted to sic my imps on them once or twice, but this mission wasn't classified that high of a threat level. And both the police and the Hero corps frowned on excessive force. So I had to make do with flinging burning ash in their face, and beating them about the head and neck with my axe while they were trying to remember how to breath. I got a strange look from Kentucky and Wreckage the first time that happened. I smiled at them and pulled my axe out of the mages shoulder. "What? I'm not helpless in melee." Wreckage murmured "I guess not." before turning back and kicking one of the thorns that was trying to get back up. When we finally got to the chamber where they were holding the kidnapped mage Kentucky peeked around the archway for a minute before turning back to us and speaking in a low voice "Ok, There are five behemoths constructing something around Amata. I can't tell what it is exactly from here, but it isn't done yet. And I don't want to wait around to see what happens when they do finish setting it up. It also looks like the Thorns we arrested earlier were telling the truth, because Movian is in there overseeing the construction." "Anything special we need to worry about?" Wreckage asked with a glance towards the chamber. "Amata is chained to whatever they are building, so getting her loose is the first priority. Decay, you'll need to keep our robed and winged friends away from Wreck while he frees the hostage. I'll try and keep the Movian's attention until Amata is out of that construct, after that it's standard operating procedure." Wreckage gave a "Sure thing Doc." while I had to feel dumb and ask the obvious question. "Standard operating procedure?" Kentucky just smiled and said "Beat up the bad guys, break anything that looks important, try not to get hurt." "Oh, that I can do." "Good, If things go sideways get the hostage out first, I'll play rearguard." Kentucky said as he made his way back to the archway. Wreckage and I followed behind him. He certainly knew how to make an entrance. Rushing up to Movian and his cadre of helpers, Kentucky loudly proclaimed "You call these magic runes? I've seen epileptic rikti monkeys carve better designs!" I didn't pay much attention to the response he got, aside from noting that it sounded rather angry. I was concentrating on one of the behemoths that had just picked up a large glyph covered stone. By the time it noticed Wreckage leaping up to free our mystic, the behemoth was glowing a sicky green, and his companions weren't looking their best either. Keeping the focus needed to turn five behemoths into slow glowing punching bags meant that I couldn't throw around the fire and ash as quickly as before, but that shouldn't be necessary when they had problems walking straight. The Behemoths surprised me by not turning towards me, the usual reaction to my aggressive radiation. But instead making their slow crooked way towards Wreckage as he crouched over Amata. Cursing under my breath I ran up to the group and split my focus long enough to summon rings of fire around the five. Now that the behemoths where immobilized and enfeebled I felt safe enough to stand in the middle of the group and watch for signs they might need additional restraints. Of course it wasn't more than a minute before something hit me in the shoulder hard enough to spin me half around. I heard arrows clatter to the ground around me as I caught sight of a group of archers in the doorway. They were readying a second volley as I ducked around the behemoth I was standing next to. "Hurry it up!" I shouted in Wreckage's general direction as I checked my shoulder. The lack of blood was a relief, the armored shoulder pads had done their job. My impromptu cover roared in pain as the second volley impacted, but that was about the only thing the behemoth did besides stumble around and take swings at me so slow I didn't have to think about dodging them. I heard Wreckage shout back "Working as fast as I can!" as I leaned around the behemoth I was taking cover behind to get a good look at archers. They were grouped in the doorway in two rows, the front row kneeling. While this was bad new because it showed competence on their part, it was also good because it meant they were in a nice tight group. I summoned my axe and swung it hard into the back of the behemoth's knee. This dropped it to the ground, losing me my cover from the arrows. But it also meant I could focus on the archers without worrying about catching an unlucky claw to the head as I stopped paying attention to it. The archers were readying a third volley, but they wouldn't be fast enough. I concentrated on a spot in the middle of the group and heated and compressed the air until I couldn't keep a grip on it any more. The shock wave of hot gas stunned the group, but it wouldn't last for more than a minute. Turning back to the behemoth at my feet I pried my axe out it's knee and hopped over to the other side. The roar this time was slightly muffled by the floor as I hamstrung it's other leg. I took a quick glance around to see what was going on. Kentucky was deep in a mob of thorns, but he was giving much better than he got, on both the verbal and physical front. Wreckage had broken three of four chains that binding Amata. Reenforcing the flames surrounding the five behemoths made me feel slightly worn out. Nothing dangerously low, but a warning sign at least. Figuring that once our mystic was free the amount of problems I would have to deal with would drop rather sharply, I made my way over to Wreckage. He was muttering a constant stream of profanity at the chain as he pounded on it, And while it was glowing red, it wasn't breaking. "Need help with that?" I asked as I walked up. "I have nothing better to do for the next 45 seconds or so." Wreckage glanced at me, then at the behemoths that were still held in place. "The stupid thing is magical, I can heat it up, but it won't break." He offered by way of explanation. "Magic I can handle." I responded as I hefted the axe and sunk half my remaining energy (not all that much) into the runes that were carved into it's surface. Once the axe started to hum in my hands and Wreckage had taken a step back, I brought it down on the red hot chain. The chain split with a satisfying crack and the faint smell of ozone. As we helped Amata to her feet I told Wreckage "I got her, go take care of the archers, they'll be really pissed in about 30 seconds." Wreckage grinned and said "Oh they'll be pissed long before that." as he ran towards the group. Amata was a little unsteady on her feet, but seemed to be awake and aware. "You ok?" I asked as she followed me back to the hamstrung behemoth. It was still struggling feebly so I kicked it in the head and sat down on it's shoulders as it slumped to the ground again. "Uhh, yeah. I'm ok." She seemed a little taken back by my chosen perch, but relaxed once a she saw a few fireballs come no where near us. The four behemoths that were still upright were more likely to hit each other then us. I was able to relax and catch my breath a bit as I watched Wreckage make quick work of the archers. A glance over at Kentucky showed him still surrounded by a group of thorns, though it might have been a little smaller than last time. The one thing I cold see was that the thorns looked distinctly frustrated and worse for wear, while Kentucky was still happily throwing fists and one liners with equal abandon. my attention was drawn away from Kentucky when the behemoths roar changed in pitch. I glanced over my shoulder to see Wreckage flambeing it. The archers hadn't lasted very long. "Don't tell me your worn out?" Wreckage playfully taunted me as he moved onto the second behemoth. "I'm not worn out. I'm being strategic in my resource usage." I shot back at him with a smile. "If you want me to stop making these guys resemble marshmallows just say the word." "Nah, I think Doc would get mad at us if we took much longer." "He looks happy to me." I said with a glance over to Kentucky as Wreckage finished off the second demon. "He's starting to taunt them in other languages, that's a warning sign." Wreckage said. "You know he's mad when he stops speaking english altogether." "Ahh, good to know." I said as got up off my impromptu seat. While not as relaxing as it could have been, because I still had to keep the demons glowing like nightlights. I no longer felt like I would run out of energy before the fight ended. While Wreckage took down behemoth number three I kicked the prone one in the head for good measure and threw some hot ash in the face of number four. Not that choking it some more was strictly necessary. But it's always easier to take a large threat down to my size when they are too busy clawing at their own face to block a cheap shot to groin. The behemoth fell to it's knees and bent over slightly when my boot connected. It's hands clutched at the more recent source of pain. This allowed me take a nice big swing at it's head. Of course I know swinging my axe like it's a baseball bat is not the 'proper' or 'correct' way of doing things, and it's gotten me chewed out by various combat instructors. But nothing else comes close to one-shotting threats this big. As I was prying the axe out if the deceased behemoth's skull, Wreckage put the last one out of it's misery. He shot a cheery "Come on slowpoke." over his shoulder as he bounded over to the group surrounding Kentucky. What were previously screams of frustration from the thorns quickly became screams of pain as Wreckage laid into the closer section of the mob. I settled for bombarding the thorns with hard radiation, as the tight grouping made it possible to hit almost all of them at once. The group of thorns didn't last long against our combined asault, and Movian fell quickly after his minions. His inane (or is that insane?) chatter about how 'we would be destroyed' and 'he would have his revenge' didn't even faze me anymore. The threats really start to lose their bite when you hear enough of them and nothing ever happens. Kentucky looked around and saw that we were the only ones left standing, "Well I guess that's it." He said as he slapped arrest beacons on the thorns at his feet. "Decay, can you make any sense of what they were trying to do with that thing?" I took another look at the half constructed thing in the center of the room before replying "Nope, sorry. It's outside my area of expertise. I recognize a few of the glyphs, but nowhere near enough to make an educated guess." "I don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything, and I want to know what they were trying to do to me as much as you guys do... but can we get out of here?" Amaata interrupted before Kentucky could start a closer examination of the construction. "Oh, yeah, sure. Lets get you down to MAGI for a checkup." Kentucky said as he snapped a few pictures on a small camera. "They might have a better idea who to talk to about this." ----------- Amata was being held in the hospital overnight for observation. MAGI hadn't found anything wrong, but wanted to make sure she didn't have a delayed reaction from the aborted ritual. Which left Wreckage and me without much to do. Kentucky had gone off to see someone about the pictures he took. I got the feeling he would have been happy to have my input on the topic, but I really didn't have much of a clue. And I had my sights set on the other puzzles at the moment. I wanted to go get a beer, but settled for coffee instead. Wreckage was a nice guy, easy to talk to. And one beer could easy lead to five or six with good company. And five or six beers could make me forget about my plans get a better idea about him before I tried to jump his bones. Which meant that we were seated in a semi-deserted corner of a coffee shop talking about a variety of things. "I get the whole fire bit, but what's up with the axe?" Wreckage asked. "You don't really look like a lumberjack." I laughed. "You never saw me when I was getting started. I looked like an Eco-Terrorist that got caught in a fire" I said as I summoned the axe and placed it on the table between us. "This baby used to belong to a banished pantheon. I was in the hospital getting my initial physical for the Hero Corps when they attacked, I never did find out why. All I know is that one minute I'm half dressed and sitting on a cold examination table, and the next a six foot tall undead hulk is smashing down the door. "Of course I'm scared half out of my wits, and starting to think I might have been safer back home. But I'm not entirely helpless, so I pull the one trick I knew back then and give it a face full of hot ash. Of course back then my controll was so messy I barely managed to keep it together across the three feet to the door, and I almost set fire to my sleeve in the process. But it does the job, and the husk is pawing at it's face trying to figure out what is going on. The good news is, it dropped the axe it used to bust down the door. The bad new is, it's still standing in the doorway. Fortunately I now had an axe." I said patting my axe. "It took a lot longer than I would have thought to dismember a dried out corpse. I was still making sure it wasn't going to get back up when the heroes showed up to 'save' me." I smiled and leaned back in my seat. "They were a little surprised at first. But they let me keep the axe. Upgrading it with a variety of runes and glyphs has become a bit of a hobby for me." Wreckage glanced at the axe then back at me before saying "Well that's one way to start your career." I took a sip of my coffee, ok at best, and asked the obvious question. "So how did you get started?" Wreckage stared into his coffee for a minute before looking back at me. He shrugged and said "It's a bit funny, really, You could say I had a wake-up call. I ended up getting a license pretty much by mistake... I'd been planning on leaving town." He paused to swallow the last of his coffee. "I wasn't... exactly on the right side of the law." Well this was interesting, I had figured him for just one more hero in a spandex bodybag, but he apparently had a bit of colorful history. And as much as I hated it, I had learned something from those damn spycraft classes. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, even more when you minimize their failures and inflate their accomplishments. "So what, you were a minion who grew up in the isles and had an attack of conscience while on a job here?" I said. Picking the bottom of the barrel meant that almost anything they ended up being looked better in comparison. "No! Nothing like that." Wreckage quickly answered. "I was... I was in a gang." He said after a moment. He seemed to curl in on himself as he said it. "The Outcasts, actually. I'm not proud of it anymore... all I can say is I was young and dumb, y'know?" "Well your smarter than everyone who is still in those street gangs." I said with a smile, Wreckage seemed to relax a bit when I didn't immediately condemn him. "It took a lot more than the threat of jail time for the gangs to smarten up back home." I spent a moment lost somewhere between the dregs of my own coffee and my memories before continuing. "Kinda sad how many never thought to stop fighting for their own square foot of turf when everything else was crashing down." I shook myself out of my memories and smiled at Wreckage again. "It's good to hear that you smartened up. You're heads and shoulders above the rest, most of them would never figure out there were bigger and better things in life until it was far too late... But enough about the past." I said, once again putting a smile back on my face. It never seemed to stick when I talked about what once was. My libido was all to eager to suggest the *perfect* way to cheer me up. And after watching Wreckage exert himself for the better part of an hour the metal images had focused to a photo-realistic quality. "It's safe to assume your going to stay on this case for a while?" "Ya! Of course." Wreckage was quick to answer. I jotted my number on the bottom of a paper coaster and slid it over. "Well let me know when something develops, I have a few things I need to take care of. But I am definitely interested to see what comes of this." I said, and I knew my smile had more than a hint of naughty smirk. But I had to make an exit before the caffeine and endorphins in my bloodstream convinced me to start ordering my coffee irish. I stood up and dispelled my axe, leaning over the table a bit as I waited for his response. Wreckage had a confused expression on his face for a moment as he glanced between me and the phone number. Then he smiled and looked at me, though I didn't miss the short pit-stop his glance took at my cleavage. "I'll be sure to call if something comes up." My smile was a full on smirk at this point, but I refrained from saying anything as I walked out of the coffee shop. My hips as bit more swing in them than strictly necessary, and I know if I opened my mouth something a lot more colorful than simple innuendo would come out. Things were definitely looking positive. I figured I had enough time to blow of some steam in the shower, and grab a quick nap, and then refresh the protective spells on my armor while I waited for the phone to ring. ---------- Done for now, I had to break it off here because more conversation would mean more innuendo. And more innuendo would have Decay making 'bad' decisions  Next bit will be more thorns bashing by Kentucky/Wreckage/Decay, followed by Decay listening to her libido. ETA: corrected grammar errors. -Terry ----- "so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today" TF2: Spy Quote:glowing punching bags meant that I could throw around the fire O RLY? I feel so sorry for Decay, though at this point, I'm half waiting for the 'next shoe' to drop.. since obviously, she's not allowed to be happy. "No can brain today. Want cheezeburger." From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
*sigh* the grammar errors keep slipping through, no matter how many times I read over it.
-Terry ----- "so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today" TF2: Spy
Ok everyone, here is the next bit. Proving that (contrary to popular opinion) Decay can be happy, it just takes a while to get there.
Tales of the Legendary [A Hero Sandwich Production] Smouldering Decay: Staking a Claim (pt 6.4) The warm pleasant feeling I had stepping out of the shower only had a little to do with the fact that I was now clean. As I toweled my hair dry, I briefly considered attempting to dry myself with my powers. The idea didn't last long, seeing as how it would negatively impact any chance I had with Wreckage. The last time I had tried to dry off with my powers I had ended up with half a head of hair. Thankfully it had been back when I was still a big fan of hats and bandanas, so I don't think that many people noticed. Experimentation would have to wait until my hair was already savaged by some mission or another. It happened every couple of months, normally while fighting the Devouring Earth. Long hair was something I had tried to maintain a when I first got started as an official hero. It didn't last, too many enemies saw it as a handhold. Besides, shorter hair did a much better job of hiding the damage. Shaving my legs used to be an in-the-shower activity, and a not insignificant one at that. Now it took all of thirty seconds to run a flaming hand up and down both legs, as well as finish off the few stragglers that had survived my earlier shower activities. It was a little strange that my hair burned while was skin didn't, they were both dead cells after all, but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. My own prepping for tonight done, I left the bathroom and did a quick once-over on my armor. I always used to wonder about the reasons behind some of the outfits the heros wore, and now I had an outfit almost as strange as some that I as seen pass through the ER. It started with a mesh bodysuit inset with black leather panels and an abbreviated cape. The leather panels served two purposes; first being public decency and support, second being a convenient place to embroider runes of armoring. They won't stop a bullet, but they will stiffen up into a solid plate if hit with a arrow, fist or sword. I had tried the same runes on a pair of pants and a jacket once, it worked really well until I got knocked down into a pile of caltrops. Then the pants and jacket froze up, and I couldn't move. My teammates at the time thought it was hilarious. The short cape, and I almost hesitated to call it that, barely reached the middle of my back. It wasn't a fashion statement. It's main purpose was to create drag and keep me upright in the air, as the rest of my outfit was far from aerodynamic. With a skirt that acted like a wind-scoop and pair of shoulderpads making me top-heavy, face-planting wasn't outside the realm of possibilities if I caught a crosswind. On top of the mesh and leather was a skirt, and an abbreviated top; these were simply for decency in the case the mesh ripped. Jumping over the streets of Skyway while holding my suit together with both hands was not something I wanted to repeat, ever. They were also made out of the toughest cloth I could get my hands on. They itched horribly if worn on bare skin, and laughed at my washing machine. The original light orange color was slowly darkening to a umber over time as it got impregnated with soot. A set of shoulder pads hooked into the mesh top. They were my most recent hobby, black metal and leather, these could stop a bullet. Unfortunately the also couldn't cover all the much, due to being heavy, expensive, and inflexible. If I could turn a shoulder into a blow with these on I might be send back a step or two, or even on my ass, but I wouldn't be losing an arm any time soon. I still wasn't sure about my decision to engrave the runes on to the backs of the metal plates, where they would be covered by the leather backing. On the pro side it meant that they could get scratched up, dinged, and dented without having a detrimental effect on the runes. On the con side it made any sort of maintenance a real pain in the ass. I was happy to note that the arrow from earlier had only added one more small scratch in the surface. A nice sturdy pair of cowboy boots served as footwear, steel toed for kicking, with good ankle support. Instead of gloves I would wrap my forearms in long strips of cloth. I had yet to find a pair of gloves that were durable to survive more than a week and didn't interfere with my dexterity or abilities. Nine times out of ten the cloth wraps wouldn't last more than a night, but they provided a nice testbed for enchantments that might eventually work their way into the more permanent outfit. Topping this whole amalgam off was a pair of lab googles. Because it didn't matter how immune I was to heat, getting soot and cinders in my eyes still hurt. And when I have a habit of reducing a significant portion of my foes clothing (or the foes themselves in the case of DE) to soot and smoke, having eye protection was mandatory. When I had started to wear this getup I wasn't sure I would stick with it. But it has a style of its own, and one that has grown on me. Once I was assured that nothing had been damaged in the fight, I piled the ensemble off to the side. Going over the armor after every fight wasn't something I always enjoyed, but it was something I always did. Delaying my nap by ten minutes wasn't always something I liked to do, but I did it anyway. Expecting the armor to stop a blow and being unpleasantly surprised was a lesson I only had to learn once. If I had time to sleep, I had time to check my gear. Satisfied that my outfit was in good shape, even if it was in a pile on my bedroom floor, I crawled into bed. I wasn't tired enough to pass out for a full eight hours, but grabbing an hour or two during the downtimes was always a good idea. My pleasant, and increasingly frustrating, dreams were interrupted by the phone. One hand groped around on the bedside table until I found the phone. "Hello?" I said, still not a hundred percent awake. "Decay? Doc thinks he figured out what th' thing was the thorns were constructing, and wants to make sure it's not part of a set. You wanna join us?" Wreckage said. I almost answered 'No, but you can join me' before finally settling on "Yeah, sure, I'll be there in five minutes." I emerged from the covers and sat up before asking "Where should I meet you?" "North end of Perez Park, by th' gate to Steel." "Ok, see you soon." I said, shrugging off the last vestiges of sleep. I glanced at the clock as I started to put on gear. Only an hour and a half since I had come home, Kentucky wasn't wasting any time. That was either good news or bad depending how much warning the thorns had. Good if we were capitalizing on surprise, bad If we were rushing in because they moving to another location. Once I had put the mesh under-layer on, I shrugged into the skirt and top. Shoulderpads were hooked into place while I stomped into my boots. I was out the door a little more than 2 minutes after Wreckage had called, goggles in one hand, arm wrappings in the other. I launched myself in a ballistic arc towards the Perez Park gate. Taking the green line to Steel and then using that entrance would be easer, but slower. The trip across Perez was about as quick as I could hope for. I only fell through the canopy once, and I didn't run into a group of thorns or clockwork itching for a fight. Catching sight of Wreckage and Kentucky as I arced through the air, I was able to relax a bit. Kentucky was keeping a lazy eye on the skulls loitering nearby; Wreckage was leaning against the info terminal watching the entrance to Steel. Both of them looked in my direction as I approached. I had yet to get the hang of traveling, or at least landing, silently. Wreckage greeted me with a smile and said "That was fast." At least they weren't stressed, which was a good sign. I smiled back at him and ignored all the subtext my libido was trying to inject into his greeting. "What's the situation?" I said as I walked the last few feet. "I compared notes with some of the MAGI, and they came to the same conclusion I did." Kentucky said. "The one we found was definitely part of a set." He pulled out a map of the zone with a large red circle on it. The three caves in that circle had been marked with x's. "It will be in one of these caves. The bad news is we're not sure which one. The good news is they haven't kidnaped another mystic yet, so we may be able to get the drop on them." I looked at the map as he spoke, trying to correlate the overhead view with the mental image I had of the twisty pathways. Nothing clicked right away, so I figured I would just follow Kentucky's lead. "Any preference on where we start?" Kentucky gave a quick look to Wreckage, who just shrugged, before pointing at the nearest one and saying "No reason to trudge through these woods any longer than necessary." As we trekked through the winding passageways I kept trying to come up with something to say to Wreckage that wouldn't sound like a blatant come-on or meaningless small talk. Unfortunately my usual collection of quips was running dry. I couldn't banter about the magical artifact, as he had deferred all talk on that subject to Kentucky. Talking about either of our pasts was not the sort of pre-fight pep-talk that anyone needed. And discussing tactics? that would be more of a joke than the weather. All three of us preferred the simple plans. Simple plans worked: Kentucky rounded them up, I softened them up, and Wreckage knocked them down. Simple plans were easy to adapt if something went sideways. Thankfully it wasn't all that long before we reached the first cave. Kentucky made a brief check to match the serial number stenciled on the door to one he had written down on the map, and we made our way inside. The first sound I heard when entering the cave was the tic-tic-tic of clockwork. It echoed up from the depths of the cavern before us, the sound stretched and distorted by reverberations until I couldn't tell if there were three or thirty of the mechanical annoyances around the corner. "Well this is unexpected." I said as we crept along the tunnel to the first major chamber. The clockwork were normally far more interested in man made construction, where they could pull wiring and metal support beams from the buildings. "At least we aren't walking into a fight." Wreckage pointed out as we rounded a corner. The entrance to a larger chamber could be seen ahead, even if the contents were still obscured. I didn't realize it until Wreckage mentioned it, but the sounds we were hearing lacked the distinct noises of combat. Of course Kentucky had to be pessimistic. "Doesn't mean there wasn't one. We might not be the only ones the Thorns disturbed with their ritual." The sight that greeted us as we entered the larger chamber was both strangely normal and scary at the same time. About two dozen clockwork were slowly disassembling the scaffolding that used to stretch from one of the room to the other, about two thirds of it was now just lose timber. The clockwork had even pulled out the nails that held the boards together. Everything from Cogs to Line Oscillators to Tesla Knights swarmed over the the structure, making sure to get every last piece of metal. I looked at the walls and in the lumber piles, searching for the dark smears of dried blood or ash that would indicate a fight with the thorns had taken place. "I'm not seeing any thorns." I said after a few moments. "That doesn't mean they haven't been forced back, deeper into the cave." Kentucky countered. "If they are, then we have plenty of time." I said in a whisper. "They aren't going to be dragging any hostages through here. And as much as I want to find out what the hell is going on, I'm not about to step foot in that room." As if to punctuate my statement one of the cogs finally succeeded in tearing a metal bracket out of the ceiling, more than a few rocks followed it down to the floor. Wreckage gave me a confused look, this must have been the first time I had ever suggested running away from a fight in his company. I answered his unspoken question with one of my own. "Have you ever been in a cave-in?" Wreckage blanched a bit before stepping back to be even with where I was standing, a few feet from the cavern entrance. Kentucky started at the celling for a few moments before nodding. "Your right, risking a cave-in before we even know if the thorns are here is a bad idea. But I'm calling it in." "Feel free." I said quietly. Tension I hadn't even realized I was feeling leaving me as I no longer had to fight in this death trap. The walk to the cave entrance was blessedly short, and Kentucky was on the phone before I even got out the door. "This is Kentucky Smith. I'm with Flaming Wreckage and Smouldering Decay at cave 34-2263 in Perez Park. Mmm-hm, yeah. No sign of the Thorns, but we did find some clockwork acting very strange. When you send some people to check it out make sure they have a force fielder or someone with an earth affinity on the team -" I didn't catch the rest of his conversation, Wreckage put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a concerned look. "You're right, I haven't been in a cave-in. But I'm guessing you have?" I leaned into his hand and took a breath before letting it out in a sigh. "It wasn't a cave, but I don't suppose that really matters. Back home, I was in a building that almost collapsed. Half the ceiling dropped in and I almost bought the farm when some of the equipment blew, but I made it out." I gave him a tight smile before continuing, "I'm not claustrophobic or anything. I just have a... heightened awareness of load bearing structures." I couldn't resists giving him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. We walked over to Kentucky. He had finished his phone call and was standing with his back to us, looking at his map again. I appreciated the appearance of privacy he gave us, even if he was close enough to hear every word we said. "Where to next?" I asked. Kentucky pointed out the closer of the two remaining caves on the map. "Hopefully we won't get more clockwork intent on aggressive structural remodeling." He said as we started towards it. Wreckage was quick to respond, "Nah, with our luck it'll be th' Lost setting up a beauty salon." I snorted in amusement before joining in. "The Lost would never set up a beauty salon, they only care about how pretty you are on the inside. It's got to be a Hellion daycare center." Kentucky smiled over his shoulder at us before shooting my idea down. "That wouldn't work, the Hellions would never setup a daycare center with that little natural light. It's going to be a Vahz mushroom farm." Wreckage kept a straight face long enough to shuffle along like a vahz cadaver and intone in a dead voice "thhee coolloorrs". That got all of us cracking up. I had to cringe a bit at that idea, even as it made me laugh. "Oh god, that's just what the world needs. Druggie vahz, so the next time you get puked on you get a contact high as well." "But if they're staring at the sewer walls all day, they aren't out kidnapping people." Wreckage said, seeing the potential silver lining in the concept. "So they are quiet for a while, what happens when they need to get their next fix?" Kentucky pointed out. "Hallucinogens and psychopaths, two bad ideas that go worse together." I said. The vahz were bad enough as they were, having them act like strung out junkies wouldn't help the problem at all. The conversation lulled for a moment until I snorted and punched Wreckage lightly in the shoulder. He responded with a questioning look and said "What was that for?" "Thanks to you I can't get the idea of a Pariah going door to door selling Avon out of my head." "So it's my fault you have a strange imagination?" He said with a smile. "Well your the one giving me ideas." I contested, "I don't think I should be held entirely accountable for thoughts you caused to run around in my head." "I give you ideas?" Wreckage said as he shot me a look that covered from boots to goggles. His tone of voice making it clear the opposite was far more likely to be true. "Oh, so you have noticed." I said with smile before leaning in and whispering "I could give you much more than just ideas." Before Wreckage could come up with a response to that Kentucky interrupted us. "If you two kids are done flirting, we have a cave full of thorns to apprehend." He said while pointing to a cave half way across the clearing we had just entered. I turned in time to see a robed figure sneak inside. A quick glance around the clearing showed a few hellions loitering around the far end, but no more thorns. Content that more thorns wouldn't see us sneak in, I made my way over the cave door. I was tempted to call Kentucky 'dad' for that jibe, but I hadn't fully nailed down the dynamic the two of them had. And I wasn't about to jeopardize the work I had done so far for a cheap shot. I ended up waiting for a minute after I entered the cave for the boys to catch up to me. I knew I was probably the topic of conversation, but to confront them about it would be a sign of weakness and insecurity. So instead I waited for them to show up and listened to the sounds echoing up from the depths of the cave. When they did come in Wreckage smiled at me, but didn't say anything. Kentucky gave me a nod, but I couldn't pin down his expression. I didn't have all that much time to contemplate what they might have talked about, as we were soon cutting a path through the thorns. Strangely, making our way though a cave of thorns that wasn't expecting us was harder than one expecting heroes. Granted all the groups we ran across were smaller, but there weren't any choke points setup. And more than half our battles occurred because a group of thorns stumbled onto our location rather than vice versa. I found myself following Kentucky into combat far more quickly than normal. I had to make sure the group of thorns that just walked around the corner didn't contain one guy that never came around the corner, and was instead running off to warn others. Jumping into combat like that was exhilarating, I could easily see why Kentucky and Wreckage had as much fun as they did. But it was also tiring, as I didn't have their reflexes or constitution. More often than not I ended up with a broad collection of minor injuries, nothing that couldn't be healed, but I could tell I was going to be stiff in the morning. For more than one reason if everything went according to plan. After about twenty minutes of these short, sporadic fights a different noise was heard making it's way up from the depths of the caves. The banging of hammers and almost subsonic grinding of stone led us to a large chamber full of activity. There were three main groups in the cavern. The group closest to us consisted of three behemoths and a mage in green robes, they were extracting roughly hewn blocks of stone from the cave wall and carry them to the second group. The second group was a half dozen robed figures who were in the process of smoothing out the rough cuts made by the behemoths and carving glyphs into the stones surface. Complicated reasoning was not required to see where the finished stones ended up. The third group had a half dozen thorns in plain robes surrounding a much more extravagant figure. They were busy fussing over the final positioning of the stones and attaching several embroidered bands of cloth to the leaders robes. I couldn't make out exactly what he was ranting about, but I did hear the name 'Movian' crop up at least once, and the tone was far from complimentary. From what few bits of rant I could hear over the noise in the room, it was clear they were waiting to hear back from the group we busted earlier. "Well I have to hand it to you Kentucky" I whispered to him "you tracked these guys down before they even knew we took out the other half of their plan." "It wasn't all my legwork, the MAGI were more than happy to lend a seer to help track this down." Kentucky responded, "But it is nice to get the drop on these guys." "Any specific plan for this Doc? Or do we just hand out a beating on a first-come-first-served basis?" Wreckage asked, eager to get started. "Well Decay seemed to have so much fun last time with the behemoths, it would be a shame to deprive her of that." Kentucky said with a smirk in my direction. "I think we can make quick work of the rest and then help her finish them off." "Sounds like a plan to me" I said. Kentucky gave a quick nod to Wreckage and the pair of them were running towards the far end of the cavern. I turned my focus, and my radiation, on the closest group. The middle behemoth had barely gotten three steps towards Kentucky and Wreckage before it started to glow. It's roar of frustration as it turned towards me would have been amusing if it wasn't made while brandishing a rather large sledge hammer. I responded by summoning my own axe and throwing burning ash in the face of the closest one. It reacted predictably by dropping the hammer it was carrying and clawing at it's face. My attempt to immobilize the group with rings of fire was interrupted as shards of rock sprung from the floor around my feet. My boots shielded my from the brunt of it. But one particularly long spike ran past my boot and between the leather patches of my leggings, giving me a nasty cut on my thigh. The mage in green, who I had dismissed at the start of the fight as not being a threat, was making me pay for my oversight. He certainly had my attention now. I ran past the three behemoths and took a swipe at him with my axe. Instead of the meaty thunk I was expecting, I got a 'tink' and a few sparks as the axe grazed off the rock armor underneath his robes. He smiled at me and drew back one rocky fist. I dodged enough to take the first swing on my shoulderpads and didn't let him swing a second time. Grabbing two fistfuls of his robe I was able to do more that just create cinders and hot ash, the whole thing burst into flame. And he dropped to the ground with a scream, proving that there were definitely some areas that the rocky armor didn't cover. While he was rolling around near my feet I turned my attention back to the behemoths. They were slowly making crooked paths towards me but none of them were in striking distance yet. I concentrated for a moment and summoned rings of fire around the trio, to make sure that I wouldn't be interrupted. I took a moment to stop the bleeding on my thigh and picked up the my axe I had dropped earlier. I wanted to turn the mage into hamburger, but he might know something about whatever it is they are constructing here. So instead of beating him about the head and neck with sharp edge of my axe, I used the flat of the blade. It took a few more blows than normal, but eventually he stopped rolling around. I slapped an arrest beacon on him and looked over at Kentucky and Wreckage. Only the leader in the fancy robes and two of his helper were still standing out of the original dozen. They would probably finish up before I did. But I could probably finish off one of the behemoths before they were done. I walked over the closest of the trio and attempted my ash-to-face, boot-to-groin, axe-to-head combo. Step one worked fine, but I apparently didn't kick it hard enough in the jimmies. Because instead of clutching it's groin it blindly backhanded me. My pride was hurt more than my body as I got tossed into the wall. I Healed the minor bruises and scrapes from that as I approached for attempt number two. The behemoth was still pawing at it's face as I walked around behind it and hamstrung first the left, then the right leg. It made a satisfying thud as it collided with the ground. Even though it was blinded and crippled it did manage to roll around a quite a bit, so it took me a while to land a killing blow. As I was prying the axe out of the back of it's neck Wreckage's voice called out "Need help with those?" I looked over to see Kentucky shaking the mage in fancy robes by his lapels, and Wreckage walking over sans shirt. I'm not sure if he lost it in the fight, or if he took it off cause he was hot, but I approved either way. It took me a second reply with a distracted "Yeah... sure." It didn't take Wreckage long to finish off the last two Behemoths, and I enjoyed the show. I also noticed a thin red line of aggravated flesh that ran from one hip to the opposite shoulder on his back, answering the question of how he lost his shirt. Once the last behemoth was a smoking corpse I called over "Hey Kentucky, I'm going to go take care of Wreckage if you have everything handled here?". Kentucky looked up from interrogating the head mage and glanced between the two of us before saying "Ok, I'll leave you a message if anything comes up." Wreckage looked at me, then at Kentucky, before saying "But I'm not hurt, and we still haven't figured out what those things do." Kentucky gave Wreckage a confused look "Wreck, Decay's about to jump your bones. I've got everything covered here. Go have fun." It took a second before comprehension dawned on face and he turned to face me. Before he could ask whatever question was on his lips I gave him a quick kiss and whispered "I want you" in his ear. Wreckage had enough time to call out a "Later Doc!" over his shoulder before I dragged him out of the cave and back to my apartment. I think I heard the mage say something about 'clueless heroes' before we left, but I was too busy making plans with my libido to care. I woke up with a sneeze. And my back instantly regretted it. I laid still to let the worn out muscles quietly relax and stared at the ceiling. The cause for my rude awakening was slowly drifting down. Soot. I could even taste it in my mouth. Apparently our activites earlier had been a little much for some of my protective wards. In the dim candle light I could see that some of the sheets had definite body-part shaped scorch marks on them. And the walls. And the floor. Wreckage -no, Chris, I reminded myself- had his face buried in the pillow and one arm thrown across my stomach. It felt good to just lie next to him. Nice on an entirely differently wavelength than last nights activities. The fact that I probably wouldn't have been able to getup without waking Chris was one more reason just to lie here and try to ignore the slowly falling soot. He had exceeded expectations in his performance last night and deserved his rest. Happy thoughts of last night were tempered when my gaze fell on the remains of my costume, or what was left of the leather and mesh bodysuit. The shoulderpads, boots, dress, and vest had all been easy to remove. If my distracted memories were anything to go by, they, along with Chris's pants, were in a disjointed path from the front door to the bedroom. The bodysuit wasn't easy to get into or out of. In my impatience last night I traced one burning finger from neck to navel, snapping through more connections than I could salvage. I couldn't get too mad about it though, considering what had followed. It just meant that the next version of the bodysuit needed a zipper. My lazy ruminations on costume design were interrupted when a flake of soot fell into Chris's ear. The warm weight of his arm left my stomach as he sleepily rubbed his ear, but his movements made me aware of a different warm appendage that was apparently ready for action again. I smirked as idea popped into my head. It couldn't taste any worse the soot already on my tongue, and it was about the nicest way I could wake him up. http://sofaspud-prime.livejournal.com/4570.html][NSFW bit behind the link] I didn't have time to do more than swallow before the covers were pulled back and Chis was looking at me with a sleepy smile plastered on his face. "Couldn't wait until I woke up huh?" I crawled up until I was level with him and laid down on his chest. "What? I just wanted to say good morning." I said with a smirk. Chris hugged me said "Oh I'm definitely having a good morning, but I don't think you spoke." "I would disagree. I pushed air past my lips and moved my tongue to produce sounds that conveyed meaning. Most people would call that talking" I said with a cheeky grin. Chris just looked at me for a second before dropping his head back to the pillow and admitting defeat "You win Lisa, it's too early for a battle of wits." He was silent for a moment before continuing "Why does it taste like I licked a briquette?" The memories of last night combined with the tactile sensation of lying on top of Chris brought a warm flush to my cheeks as I answered "I didn't think it would get quite so hot last night, the wards on the bed may need to be reworked." Chris looked at the ceiling and then glanced at the parts of the bed he could see "Just how much of the bed did we burn?" I buried my face in his neck and continued "And the floor. And the walls. And the hallway." "Oh.. yeah, I hope we didn't break anything?" Chris said with a worried chuckle. "Nothing that can't be replaced." I said with a shrug. I rolled off him and got out bed. "Come-on, lets wash the soot our of our hair and grab something to eat" I said over my shoulder as I made my way to the bathroom, perhaps that trick with the cold water would keep the shower from getting singed. Now that we were both awake I was starting to get ideas again, and if we didn't have to worry about the hot water running out I fully intended to try them all. ---------- Partial blame and lots of thanks to Spud for hosting the NSFW content, I wouldn't have been brave enough to toss that bit up if it hadn't been for the directors cut of Reunions Edit: removed extraneous verbage -Terry ----- "so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today" TF2: Spy Quote:As I toweled my hair dry, I briefly considered attempting to dry myself with my powers. The idea didn't last long, seeing as how it would negatively impact any chance I had Wreckage. she can has Wreckage! Quote:Catching sight of Wreckage and Kentucky as I arced through the air, I was able to relax a bit. Neither of them looked stressed or anxious. Kentucky was keeping a lazy eye on the skulls loitering nearby; Wreckage was leaning against the info terminal watching the entrance to Steel. Both of them looked in my direction as I approached. I had yet to get the hang of traveling, or at least landing, silently. Well, good to hear they weren't stressed. Well, good to hear they weren't stressed. Quote:Wreckage kept a straight face long enough to shuffle along like a vahz cadaver and intone in a dead voice "thhee coolloorrs". That got all of us cracking up. I giggled. Quote:behind the link Short and sweet - lucky Kentucky! I'm doing a freaking cheerleading routine for Decay at this point. "No can brain today. Want cheezeburger." From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
IHNTS, IJLS "Hellion Daycare Center".
-- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode. |
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