Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Gauntlets? O..k. Run from gauntlets guy.. gotcha." Her lips twitched at his comment about how to run, but she refrained from laughing.

Then she felt a nudge at the edge of her conciousness, and knew they were close. Now wondering at his other words she turned her eyes to him with a slightly quizzical frown.
"Oh dear. You wanted subtle? I thought you wanted them attracted to us... How deliriously boring, subtle isn't so much fun..."
She shifted slightly and sighed, closing her eyes as she focused again.
"Let me see what I can do..." She slid one of the shadows away from the others, the demon flat against the back wall of the building as it slipped around to the next alley. There she sent it careening towards a pile of trash cans, where it knocked them over with a loud commotion and dispersed to air. Then she took a deep breath and jerked all the shadows back, bottleing her power up inside again. As though they had hit the cans themselves and ran the other way, scared of being found, and the shadows were decoys lost when the cocentration was broken. Sweat beaded on her forehead from snapping them back so fast as pain splintered behind her eye before she shoved it away. No time for that now.

"Ow..." she said softly, after telling him what she had done.
"Maybe they will break up and go over there, or jump in here without looking, thinking we already saw them. Who knows how gullible they are."


old man.>

She trained her guns on the mouth of the alley, keeping her partner in her peripheral vision, while she slowly built a shadow out of sight behind the building. The conversation with her warlock soul lasted but a second, while even now she knew they would be reacting. She inched sideways to be behind the rusted ladder of the escape, well above the height of her partner as she tried to be subtle.


< I am quite sure you will have your moment as soon as he attacks or they do, because all hell will break loose then.>
yay..>
Chaos settled in to wait, drawing on years of training to be patient and absolutely still.

((Fair enough. But what to do? Choices, choices))

With all the commotion going on around him, Ted had quickly gotten disoriented and confused. No idea who was who, or what he was doing. Well, besides getting lost. {If you had listened to Takeshi, you wouldn't have gotten lost. But nooooo. You had to be a moron and go off on your own. Now look where it's gotten us. Lost.}

Not lost. Just tactically misplaced.

{You have no idea what that means, do you?}

Yes, I do. What's it to ya?

{Just wonderin where you got such a simple phrase as 'lost' to turn into tactically misplaced.}

Heard it from a travelin man, who said it once. Thought it made some sense for us now, don't you think?

{Actually, i do.} Ted just grinned.

"Paul, at least let me give you cover before you run off like that!" He finally tossed the smoke bomb he had been fingering for so long, aiming it over Paul's head and into the gaping mouth of the alley. He didn't know what the purpose of the diversionary technique had been, because it didn't seem to have done anything, which only worried him more. The bomb landed with an explosion of cherry scent and black smoke, completely enveloping the opening and Paul. Someone would be waiting for a charge like his, and magic, he had learned, was faster and more accurate than bullets when it needed to be. Waiting for the three seconds it should have taken Paul to get across the entrance, he finally released Sapphra.
"Mellinium," he whispered, and she appeared in the smoke, sapphirine eyes in her black, dryad's body shining out of the mist and finding her target. Siber didn't know where Takeshi had gone to, but whoever was hiding in the shadows was in for the fight of his (or her) life. Meanwhile, Siber leaned shakily against a wall. "Joe, I may need cover if anything attacks me; this took more out of me than I expected." He had not anticipated needing so much energy just to release her, after preparing for so long, and breathed shallowly while Sapphra advanced.

Chaos grinned, her mind calculating as smoke filled the alley. Unnatural eyes blinked in the smoke after a wave of power, as a man burst out of the smoke halfway into the alley. She stomped her foot and twisted as she stepped from behind the ladder. She intended to make them think that she was the only one in the alley, all alone. Some girl they didn't know. Suddenly her face went serious, eyes wide as she slipped over the balcony pretending to fall. She landed on her foot bending her knee and rolling. As she came against the wall of the alley she gasped and brought up her guns, laying a barrage of bullets in a line across the alley.
As the guy focused on her she opened her senses to call her shadows.

She choked on the thought and stopped immediately, reeling as she closed it off.
Suddenly she thought wildly, thinking up the best ways to keep takeshi undiscovered. She lifted her guns, this just as the echos stopped from the first blasts, blowing lines down the two brick building sides. Peices of brick and morter began falling around in the smoke in the alley as she ducked and rolled to hide behind a large trash bin and peered around with a grin.

Sapphra very calmly watched the bullets pass through her body as her opponent bounded around the alley. "Little girl, I don't think you know who I am," she murmured, smiling. She then lifted her lupine hand and fired a bolt of electricity at the trash can where she had seen the girl, blasting it backwards, and continued her advance. Siber shuddered again with the blow. I know you know this, my Lady, but please conserve as much energy as you can until I've recovered. His face went white, but he managed to push away from the wall. He bowed his head in concentration for a moment, letting the dizziness pass, then walked deliberately towards his dæmon's position. He had a trick up his sleeve if Takeshi finally had the balls to show himself.

Joe slid in smoothly between Takeshi and Saphra, smacking Takeshi's fire blast away with the back of his hand. He was, of course, supported by his magical wind, but the effect was still pretty cool. Roland pointed out as much to Joe.
Losing none of his momentum, Joe took a solid step forward and punched hard at Takeshi from point blank, smashing him in the chest with the concentrated power of wind and fire. "Eat that!" Joe said gleefully, pouring more energy into the attack as Takeshi was sent bouncing down the alley.

Takeshi rolled with the blow, gasping for air and laying out prone to give more accuracy and stability to his shooting. The wild spray of bullets forced Paul and Joe into cover.

He exerted as much force as he could into his necromancy, once more gaining control of his zombies, who now were flanking the hunters. He rolled sideways and blasted fireballs at Sapphra.

Takeshi's voice echoed in Siber's mind. A fresher body, one hardly recognizable as a corpse but stinking of formaldehyde, punched Siber in the face as Takeshi ripped into Siber's mind as fiercely as he could. A moment later, Takeshi's counter was interrupted by Paul pressing a gun to the side of his head.

"s**t," Takeshi commented, placing his pistol on the ground. Joe began taking care of the corpses. "Newbie! Get out of here!" he shouted. She was new to this form of combat, regardless of her prior experience, and she was outnumbered.