Welcome to Gaia! ::

When the party arrived the King would exit the helicopter, along with his two guards, while the pilots stayed behind in their seats. Nothing else worth noting was going on. As they arrived, the King would speak.

Well, I've kept up my part of the bargain... Now, what do we need to discuss?

It was clear the decision that the King had to make, now. These undead were once again trying to destroy and corrupt everything that he and his people held dear. Their darkness was spreading like a plague. They were gathering allies. Soon, their number would be too great to handle for Lament and its allies alone. Here was a chance to possibly cripple the tide of darkness that threatened to overflow and destroy their way of life...

The King's eyes narrowed in barely checked rage as the officer was slaughtered. He knew the radio in the chopper had just broadcast the words of the general to every man, woman, and child in Lament, and to every soldier in the Lamentian Guard. He knew it had broadcast the stifled cry of the Officer to all of them as well. The threat was now known by all. The people of Lament knew exactly the kind of battle that would be fought soon.

Already, civilians in the Outer City had started to be evacuated to the Inner City where they would be protected by the energy shields and the mighty guns of the fortress city. The main guns were already loaded with the first rounds that would eventually have to be fired. Troops positioned themselves just behind the city gates, armed with powerful tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers, Humvees, and a plethora of other weapons. Defensive turrets on the walls were already manned with the same SPR Rounds that Raven Industries had used in the other cities,as well as every item in Lament's arsenal.

The King looked to his guards, sighed, and then looked to the General, carefully controlling his rage. He knew that his people would rather be killed than become the very scourge that had tried to destroy their city twice before. Believe it or not, Lament had become terribly good at defeating the undead. This plague was terrible, and they would fight as hard as they could to defeat it once more. The King spoke calmly, knowing he was in a terrible situation. But he had good faith that he and his men would come out unscathed...



And the King would return to his helicopter, as the guards leapt on board, the engines starting and the doors slamming shut in less than three seconds. Of course, a simple switch had been flipped the instant the King began to speak by one of the pilots of the helicopter, his hand hidden from view, and a pulse of energy erupted through the small area. They knew the King's answer before he had to speak it, and would take the initiative before the enemy had a chance to strike. This blast of energy would instantly eliminate any magical forces in the area for a range of about thirty feet in all direction. Any undead would have the un-life sucked out of them as the negative and dark energies that had kept them animated would be stripped away, leaving them as nothing but corpses. Not only that, the energy would seem to infect the area, preventing any magical energy from being used for quite a long period of time.



A high-yield MDM had been strapped to the helicopter's underbelly, and had been wired to release a pulse of Anti-magical energy upon activation. As for the helicopter itself, it had also activated a new technology at the same time. Magic Diffusion Shielding used the same concept as the Magic Diffusion Mines, however a generator continued to create the field, thereby protecting the vehicle surrounded by these shields from any and all magical energies or attacks. Mages would lose their target locks as their magical energies could not lock onto the target. Magical energies would be dispersed and cause no harm to the target. And magical shields would be drained instantly by the generated forces.

Lament had only experimented with Magical Diffusion Technology before, but they had progressed and improved upon it since the last undead attack on their city. And, as the helicopter left, the main guns of the city would simultaneously resound in a thunderous bang as the first few shots of war rang across the open plane. The massive artillery cannons unleashed a titanic firestorm of death streaking across the sky towards the forces in the distance. When these shells detonated, they would release a massive AMP, eradicating any magical energy in the area of the shell for a range of approximately ten city blocks. The explosion from the detonation of the round itself would be capable of destroying targets at a range of two-hundred feet in every direction.

Any magical attacks that attempted to stop the rounds would fail as the AMP wiped out all magical signatures in the AMP wave, and would keep them out for approximately eight to ten hours. Any undead would be destroyed by the dispelling effect on their bodies as well. After all, these rounds had come into use to destroy undead AND magical elements in one fell swoop, and leave them helpless when backup arrived. They were NOT undead OR magical friendly.

The Dead-men heard the King's words, and instantly responded. The bone mage attempted to pull the bones straight from the King's body, however something stopped him. At the same time, the fire mage attempted to blow up the helicoptor. It seemed there was a problem.

Thanos looked towards his warriors, nodding at them, and then moved. As he ran he replaced his helmet, and took after the King, his sword already drew. He would ignore the Guards, so long as they didn't get in his way. His warriors would already be moving for the Guards anyway, and on mounts they would be very fast. The Dead-men intended to kill the King now, they had always known the King would disagree.

As for the magical pulse killing the Dead-men, this had no effect on them. It seemed the King had made a fatal error in assessing exactly who the Dead-men were. They were not corpses brought back to life, they were the opposite of life. The creature anti-thetical to a human. As a human lives and breathes, a Dead-man walks and dies. They are not bound to the plane by any magical energy, nor controlled by such a force. The only thing the magical field would knock out would be a small crystal inside the mages' and Thanos' head for the time they were in the magical field.

The King was once again sadly mistaken in his assumption over these creatures. He had never encountered a Dead-man before, and so clearly still had things to learn about them. Their culture revolved around the perfection of the body, the elimination of life from a body was the first part of this procedure, the second was the elimination of most systems associated with life, that could be reasonably disposed of. That would be the digestive system for the most important part, meaning that while humans had alot of space inside their bodies taken up by organs, the Dead-men were pure muscle.

This led into the second fact. The Dead-men had little sophisticated technology in terms of guns, grenades and tanks. They made up for this fact in armour. The armour a Dead-man uses is quite possibly the most effective armour for stopping a piercing attack, and has medium effectiveness for a slashing and blunt attack. The Dead-men didn't come to war to get slaughtered by superior technology. What they lacked in offensive weaponry, they made up in defensive armour. So, as soon as the Guard's opened up fire, they would find their stream of bullets, which would not all strike the same place, due to the nature of fire of an automatic weapon and Thanos' running speed, had very little effect on the running Dead-man.

Thanos had never expected to live through this encounter, his loyalty was to his Emperor, and what was a body to one that had an eternal soul. He would simply have to drift around the aether until a new host body was provided for him. Even if by some miracle, a bullet penetrated the armour, it would not be enough to stop the running man. He would move until he was literally dead, the same way a crack addict would move until they physically died.

The bullets would of course tear Thanos armour apart over time, making it effectively useless for battle, but as previously mentioned, Thanos didn't expect to see this battle, he had one job in mind. The Elites' mounts would fall quickly, they had no armour to protect them, but by that point the Elites would easily have covered the distance to the King, they being only seperated by 10 ft. It was a poor decision for the King to come so unprepared, in the middle of an open field.

As soon as Thanos was within range of the King, he would jam his sword straight at the King's midsection, aiming to pin him on his sword, and prevent further movement. Should he miss, he would cover the distance to the King, and then break his neck with his own two hands, dropping the sword in the process.

As for the grenade, if the guards truely wanted to throw a grenade while the Dead-men were literally within feet of them, and in Thanos case, around a foot, they were welcome too. It would simply kill all of them, something none of the Dead-men cared about. They had one objective, and only one, to ensure the King did not make it out alive.

In reference to the crystals, although it mattered very little now, seeing as they were all going to die, they themselves had no magical properties, and only served as a conduit for magic, the crystal was simply convienient, it could have been a rock for all it mattered. The magic was coming from a location far, far in the North, and as the MDS never specified it worked over a large distance, the magic in the crystal would be cut, but once again, it could just be reactivated by the mage still in the Empire, who still had complete control over their abilities.

----

On the field the mages began to target any airbourne shells as soon as they were fired. The moment a shell could be seen, it would be obliterated by incredible heat from those within the army. The mages had been preparing to obliterate the shells as soon as they were fired, and as soon as they were seen, that is indeed what was done. The metal on the shell would melt, and whatever explosive device was inside too, would melt. This would of course cause the MDM to go off, but that was while the shells were still much closer to the city, meaning that any magical devices close to the city that weren't shielded would most likely be deactivated, by the 10 city block radius of deflection.

The army itself began to march, it still being a very long distance away from the tower. As the army neared any specific watchtower, a cloud of plague would be summoned by the Necromancers into the towers and surrounding area. It was perfectly deadly to the humans, having a similiar property to Sarin nerve gas, but to Dead-men, harmless. Within the army, siege machines were prepared, and their special loads prepared for firing upon the tanks.

Grenade + Armored doors closing after being tossed = no damage to The King.

Magic + Anti-magical rounds exuding anti-magical energy = no damage to shells.

"Infection of Area" by MDM + crystals = No reactivation.

Simply put, the mage at the Empire could try all he wanted, but the crystal itself was infected with the energy, which would prevent magical forces from flowing through it. It would be like a lamp. The cord had power going to it, and the bulb was there, but the bulb was burnt out. No magical forces would work on the crystals for the next 8-10 hours. The king was protected by his armored helicopter transport, which was protected by the anti-magical field. Simply put...



Time had to go on. They might as well forget the King anyway. He didn't control the armed forces. He just made executive decisions for the city itself. Several Generals within the city made decisions on armed forces, with the King usually overseeing them. He did not have any direct impact unless he disagreed with the decisions made by the Generals. A new ruler could easily be appointed after his death anyway. It was an exercise in futility on the part of the Dead Men.

They were on the home turf of Lament, and the Lamentian Forces had the upper hand. Explosive bullets would eradicate the dead men like the plague that they were as they approached the Watchtowers. MD Grenades would be thrown from the watchtowers as white flares went up into the sky as they were attacked. The grenades would have the same property as the MDM's, just to a small area of effect of 3 meters in all directions. The SPR fire rounds would instantly incinerate any solid or fleshy objects they came into contact with. Lament could thank Raven Industries for those babies.

The massive attack of the airship would be countered by a couple rounds of gunfire from the Main guns of the city. These were Light Rounds fired from the main guns. They had the effect of utterly annihilating any undead forces upon contact, and erupting out to a radius of five meters. However, these were the size of massive shells for the main guns, making the dispersal of the POSITIVE energy nearly a mile. The POSITIVE energy of the Light Rounds would cancel out the NEGATIVE energy of the shots before they could intercept the city walls.

Of course, not all of the main guns were needed to block the shots of energy. The other few would arc the massive Anti-Magical Rounds through the air to increase their effective firing range, and launch towards the massive flying airship. Now, the gunners didn't know about the teleporting effect of the ship's hull, however, they didn't need to. The shells were designed to explode after a certain time anyway to prevent tampering mid-flight. They'd teleport again and again until they detonated just off the hull of the massive ship, the anti-magical energy washing over the front section of the flying fortress and infecting the area, preventing magical energy of any kind of flowing through that section of space for 8-10 hours. If the vessel made use of magical energy for flight, weaponry, or propulsion, they'd be in serious trouble.

It didn't matter to the Dead-men the King was just a figurehead. The matter of fact was, that he was dead now. Unless the King was capable of getting inside his helicoptor, locking the doors, and having the helicoptor take off within the two seconds it would take for Thanos to cover the distance between the two of them, including the King's movement, then the King was a dead man.

Thanos would pierce the King through the heart, as the soldiers clearly would make no attempt to stop him, having been shooting at him for the last two seconds, unless they too were moving at a supersonic speed to be able to shoot into a group, and then get inside a helicoptor, in less than two seconds, which was unlikely, considering it would take about a second for their reaction times to go off to Thanos' charge, and then aim and shoot at him, and that was if their reaction times were perfectly impecable, and they were able to aim, and shoot at a fast moving target at a very close distance to them.

So, seeing as neither guard had thrown their body in the way of the King to protect him, the King was currently skewered on the Dead-man's sword. An unavoidable thing. Perhaps if the King had not relied on moving at speeds much greater than a human under physical fitness could manage, or indeed had relied on his helicoptor taking off in under a second, then he would still be alive. Perhaps if his guards had been willing to give their lives to save their kings, then once again they would have lived. The matter of the fact was, the King's timing simply didn't work out in this situation, and now he was dead. What happened to Thanos and the others at that point was irrelevant. Either the helicoptor would take off without the guards, and save their own life, or they would sit and wait for the guards, who at such a close distance would find themselves unable to use a grenade, and with bullets not working on the Dead-man General, to die, unless of course the guards had another trick up their sleeve.


----

On the field of battle, the Dead-men army watched as the cannon fire landed a rough 20 miles away from their position. As duly noted, the cannons had an effective killing range of 40 miles, and an ineffective killing range of 60 miles. Currently, the Dead-men army was 80 miles away, and thus only dealing with the watchtowers.

However, if the mages so chose to attack the shells, they would find no problem in detonating them with magic, as it was clearly stated:

So attacking them with magical energy before detonation would not trigger any sort of AMP, it would only be after detonation an AMP pulse was released. No mention of an anti-magical shell was given, it was simply stated an anti-magical pulse would be given off by the shells detonating.

As the front of the Dead-men army encountered difficulties with watchtowers nearby, the order to fallback was given. The Dead-man army would retreat to a distance beyond the watchtowers effective throwing range of an anti-magical grenade, and then wait. The mages in the army not affected by the few grenades thrown would then once again renew attacks on the watchtowers, trying to spread a plague gas among the firing level of the watchtower. The only real way to stop this would be to fire an anti-magic grenade within the watchtower, although that would be impractical, as it would stop all magical rounds within the tower from working. Quite a conundrum.

((Before this continues, what exactly makes an anti-magic round work. How does it cancel out magic, because if the device itself is magical to cancel out any other magic in the field, you have a problem, as any shells detonating close to the city, would immediatly fizzle out all other anti-magic shells.))

Oops, the guard dropped the grenade and blew up the helicopter. The whole thing blew up. The King, the soldiers, the pilots, and the little group of whacked out un-dead undead. ********. A minor victory for the bad guys. Some new guy took over the King's place as if nothing had happened, and some other guy took note to have a memorial service later for him. Things went on like usual. No major loss. Whatever.



The Lamentian Uniforms would prevent any real contact with the skin as well, making the gas virtually harmless. Though it was still an annoyance...

((This coming from the guy with the undead that aren't undead? lol wut? Anyway, the technology uses energy that distorts the magical leylines in the target body, preventing the use of the magical energy. Its sort of like a really big plug in the magical leylines. After 8-10 hours it wears off and the target can use magic again. The wave around the shell cancels out any magical energy in the air directly around the shell as well, which will fizzle out any spells trying to intercept the thing mid-flight. Any new rounds heading into the area aren't effected by the burst, as its designed to infect targets, and fizzle magic on the initial blast wave only. So, since the next wave of shots wouldn't be effected by the initial infecting force, they'd still be volatile with magical properties. I already thought about that supposed weakness a long time ago when I designed the shells. As such, I designed around it.))