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After the plume of flame would fade away into a cloud of sulfuric smoke and raise up into the night sky, Rain would lift his head to look back. He had successfully pulled Brown out of there, but the woman he had moved to grab... she had been right in front of him, and she just... vanished. He didn't know what happened, but there was no trace of her now.

He looked back at the destroyed vehicle, and swore under his breath. 'Well, that's just great. That's just freakin' great. Now what are we supposed to do?!'

Everyone else who was in or on the truck was gone. The gunfire Maximos was creating had died out, and he couldn't hear anyone's voices. Though the distant sounds of approaching, heavily armed soldiers was drawing nearer. It sounded more like an extermination squad than a rescue team by this point.

As the smoke would begin to clear, a small glimmer of hope revealed itself: the trailer, although heavily scorched, was still intact. If it had given to the explosion, the entire block probably would have gone up in flames.

"Let's salvage what we can from this situation, Boss Man. Looks like we're hoofing it from here." Helping Brown to his feet, he would lead the way (cautiously) to the trailer. As much as he wanted to, he would not call out from the others; he had to use the cover of smoke to conceal himself, and vocalizing his location from any potential threats coming to investigate the explosion was just a bad idea.

Several.

He said, his eyes meeting Cris and giving him a stout nod. The shortest and most direct of actions, matching a short and direct answer. Maximos was all for friendliness. And while he was recovering, there had been a rather large explosion and from what he saw, all the individuals who had powers were currently here in a dark and decidedly empty alleyway, leaving Joesph Brown, and Rain Yupa by themselves in the open. This seemed unwise and so the sooner they could return, the better.

His head turned toward Grace as he turned to face the exit out of the alleyway.

No, thank you. We should get back to the others, the alley is cleared.

He paused, for a moment, waiting for any voiced objections or issues with this course of action. And then made his way to the exit of the alley, and back to the main street. At which point he would head for the truck, or at least what remained of it. When Rain and JB emerged the group would be able to formulate a proper plan of action.

Joseph was forcibly yanked out of the truck, and that was about it. Sure it wasn't the most pleasant way of going about things but he could realise that somehow this was for the best. The exploding truck punctuated this idea of "for the best".

"Well." Joseph rose to his feet not long after Rain only to brush the dust off his jacket, "That was just fantastic. Just... Fantastic."

The head of the company followed Rain as he cautiously went towards the flaming wreckage. Course that wasn't all he did. While all this was going down he reached into his coat pocket to pull out a now rather wrinkled package of gum, clearly marked "nico-quit". Seconds later he was chewing it.

"I think plan B is in order, the plan that states 'there goes our rescue vehicle, maybe we should get out with our own asses in tact rather than John Ramboing it up." The gum went back into his pocket, "I rather like that plan so I'm gonna flesh it out a bit. We get what we need, make sure everyone's clear, set some remote bombs, huff it a bit, then blow the rest of this truck sky high to make sure that crazy elf people are coming towards it and not us."

"Then, and this is the optional part, we find out what that..." His words were set to a backdrop of gunfire and marching, "Soldiery sound is. Preferably from a distance, as it could be more crazy elf things only this time with guns. There choice of arrows and magic the past two times says no, but hey, better safe than sorry."

Well, they were to stay. Descant was quite wary of a bunch of guys in powered suits stomping through her city, for she was but a poor, ol' girl who couldn't really dent someone with the suit of a Teminatus surrounding them. She thought about her options and what was playing out.

To get through to that many people and whatever sensors there may be, she'd need at least some humans for backup. Having them act as meat shields would be great as well. How much time did she have for that?

She could shapeshift and go with the flow, an option that was looking more and more desirable.

She could stay and get shot, but that hurt like hell. Eh, maybe not.

Indeed.

He responded, more to his status amongst the living than anything else. His mis-matched eyes turned to look down the side of the truck where the others were presumably approaching.

Yes, I agree. With any luck Owle and Mr. Kalis have found a safe escape. Lets move for the gate.

There just wasnt much more than that to say, Rain and JB could the cities status as good as anyone else here. It was time to act.

Finally.

The operation seemed a success, but there were still pockets of resistance lingering about and causing trouble, not to mention a legion of powered-armored troops stomping around. The original plan had been to blitz the town with the squads of undead, drow, and golems, but they weren't expected to all survive in one piece. As it was, only half of one such group remained, since the remaining drow that had initially attacked were already gone. Reinforcements had been lined up and ready to go, waiting for the black obelisk to be raised, but the dimension lock prevented them from teleporting into the heart of Barton sooner. But now that spell had expired.

"Finally..." Alexander grumbled when he felt the magic of the dimension lock dissipate. "General, send the signal for reinforcements and lock this place down. I leave you in charge."

The high priest burst into a swarm of bats before the lich could even respond, flying from the stadium back to the airship still hovering above town. The lich pulled a scroll out of his robe and unrolled it, reading the words of power scribed on the parchment. The obelisk standing erect where the fountain used to be suddenly flared with a violet light, charged with energy. The area immediately surrounding the obelisk was now under the effects of a desecration spell; empowering the undead and weakening any mortals stepping within a 30-foot radius of it. A portal large enough for a tank to roll through also opened on its southern side.

Vengeance began to ascend into the air, darkness swirling around it as the vessel cloaked itself in a veil of black clouds. The airship took off silently, leaving the scene and heading south.

((Let's see if we can wrap this up, fellas. I'm sure y'all are just as eager as I am to do so smile ))

"Steel... magic... wha?" Rain started, giving Maximos a O.o look. After a brief pause, he figured it out. "Oooh, a ride! Yeah, no problem. Gimme a sec."

He diverged from the group, scouring the nearby alleyways until he found what he was looking for. A zombie. Or rather, several zombies.

BAM! WHACK! THUD! SLAM! CRACK! CLANG! THUMP!

The defenses of a few mindless undead would prove negligable to someone adept at taking apart his opponents with a series of strikes. Yes, they couldn't be "killed" quite as easily as they were now, but their bones, the very bones that provided their bodies the structural integrity necessary for locomation, were no less brittle. And most of the important ones were shattered now.

Rain sauntered back, shaking his right hand a bit as if to shake off an inconvenient pain. In his left, he held several sets of keys. He hit several buttons on the chains, to no avail until the last one, where a car down the street suddenly flashed its lights, the doors unlocking.

"Bingo. Let's ride, my friends."