The scales! She had to show Faustite the -- wait, why were they fading?
She squinted, staring at the scales as they went from the bright and vivid color they were to something considerably duller and less interesting. Now, why was it doing that? She supposed that was part of the reason why this mission was so tricky; they had to collect the scales, but they had to collect the scales without them losing their magic as a consequence.
Hm.
She saw Ransomite nearby her poke one of the scales at his feet--one of the still shining, still iridescent scales--with his--were all lieutenants cursed with such sad weaponry?--Christmas ornaments and decided that maybe he had the right idea. She bent down, pulling her thumb and her pinky fully into her glove before picking up one of the scales, making sure that only her glove was touching it.
Perhaps this was a very bad idea. She hoped that protecting her skin would prevent any negative side effects.
Prehnite cried out as the scale embedded into the meat of his shoulder - cut into cloth and flesh alike. Slid like a hot knife through butter. Whatever grip he’d had was gone, lost on the creature, lost on his weapons. Left them speared into the things hide as he hit the earth and bled for it.
Every twitch of fresh motion seared like fire though his veins as he curled over the injury. Made to tug errantly at the scale, a dazed aborted gesture. Thought better of it once he felt the pain and made to put pressure on the wound instead.
Prehnite hissed, a reedy noise that covered a snarl when he moved his hand to check the bleed. Lost all sense of himself when it came away black ichor, tinted green, the seepage ran like silt through his fingers. Warm grit beneath his nails - like quick sand.
A monstrous spill, instead of fresh, red, human blood.
Inhuman sound as he screamed - horror and loss commingled into a single noise while his body became foliage. Sprouted leaves, then thorns, and vines from his flesh. Dripped iridescent purple liquid from his maw. Snap dragon and Venus fly trap in one. A plant of the earth - yet human. Spined thrashing thing.
Himself and not - and how many times had he seen them and marveled? How fascinated with their kind was he - stunning youma. Every thought of wonder cut loose in an instant, as he became the very thing he’d so long admired.
Faustite heard it before he felt it — the solid thrum of steel struck hard enough to vibrate. Felt it a second later, in how the forceful strike tremored up through his bones, into his teeth. The way his body protested from the inside, crackled and spat. He'd stumbled back with the hit, and only when he was sure that he wouldn't fall or be struck by an errant limb did he dare look down.
The scale broke through part of the grate, bent it inward. He seized it with one hand, both hands, yanked, but it was firmly embedded in its twisted wreckage of metal, leisurely licked at by the flame that was his life force. Faustite watched lava coil over and drip down the thing like a fresh wound, even as he tried hopelessly to dislodge it.
He felt hot — too hot. Like he was tangled in one of Taenite's firestorms. But he'd seen it, watched it go by before it was swallowed up by the spectral flash of Kamacite's magic, and all the claws and orbs and violent goings-on of other senshi magic. He looked down again, tugged on that scale, watched his hands gain hairline cracks with all the force he leveraged against it.
Cracks? Faustite paused. Those cracks climbed higher, climbed him like a vase, and where they widened, magma showed. Pieces of him melted or fell off in brittle chunks, all destroyed porcelain. His breaths quickened, he backed up. Felt liquid heat pooling in his boots. Tried to call a name, but spat lava in a steaming arc. Choked on fire.
The human parts of him came undone, like so much thread. Skin gave way to lava gave way to fire, until his original form was no more than a pool of lava at his feet.
Faustite stepped out of his own shoes, all fire given shape by leftover metal. Blackened pieces of self reformed hands, and lengths of soot and smoke intimated a cape. Only half his face remained, but he hadn't needed the upper half, he found. Saw and thought and felt without it. Felt — he felt free. Breathed a crispy sigh of smoke into the violent air.
guine
an attempt was made to say kama's name, but it came out too crispy
The hand against his chest was a stark reminder of the last time Roselite suffered a panic attack, and what Captain Bloodstone had done to help him. Roselite took Benitoite’s hand and held it there, even if it was awkward, even if he wasn’t used to touch, because it was the least he could do to help.
When Benitoite’s spear was summoned, Roselite winced. “Sir, I don’t… I don’t think anyone is winning yet.”
Not as far as he could tell, at least. Roselite kept the youma in his field of vision, never turned his back on it, aware of its presence at all times, aware of its danger, too, but he could not say for certain whether it was weakening or dealing a crippling blow to their own forces.
“It’s not a spider, Sir, butIreallydon’tthinkyoushould—”
Even rushing to say the rest, nearly tripping over the words, Roselite couldn’t get them out in enough time to stop him.
Benitoite’s spear flew toward the youma, and all those fighting it.
Something whooshed through the air and grazed the outside of Aquamarine’s shoulder before he could avoid it, slicing through jacket and skin; whatever it was came from behind and struck the youma, too, just after. Aquamarine stumbled and hissed from the pain, barely hanging onto his rapier.
Blood welled in the wound, warm and sticky against his skin, staining his sleeve.
Aquamarine followed the weapon’s path and discovered a familiar spear. The last time he saw that spear up close, it’d just slaughtered a hapless civilian
The rage that flooded through Aquamarine was almost blinding.
“Benitoite! Is there a reason your <******** spear just—”
The youma shrieked and released some of it’s scales, which came down upon them in a glittering shower. One of the scales struck Aquamarine’s wounded shoulder.
He hissed again, then shouted and swore and lost his footing, rapier clattering to the ground. On his knees, Aquamarine brought his hand to the wound, pressing first, stemming the flow of blood, then clutching, fingers tense, scraping at the spot the scale made contact. Mind spinning, his surroundings became a blur, senses failing one by one, unaware for the moment of the youma’s condition, or the continued efforts of his allies.
His swearing and shouting became snarling and wailing, high pitched cries that tore through the air. His skin became mottled and gray, putrid and rotting, his hair a long, stringy mess hanging limp from his skull. His lips pulled back, shredded and thin over sharp, elongated teeth.
Aquamarine hunched over, wheezing, each breath rattling through his throat. His gaze focused on one of his hands, fingers now long and thin, almost skeletal, topped with hard, black claws in the place of nails.
No, he tried to say, but it came out as a howl.
He looked up, searched through the crowd of moving bodies and flashing weapons, and managed to rasp out a single word, “... Jet...”
Cymophane looked up to watch the scales fall, with the result that he took one to the side of his face.
He swore in Russian, clutching at his face with desperate hands, hoping there wouldn’t be much damage, that whatever wound it left wouldn’t bruise too badly, or leave scars. How was he supposed to explain that to his subscribers? He might not always appreciate the way he looked the way his fans seemed to, but he still had his vanities! A cute face was really all he had going for him!
Then… something changed. Something… something happened. Cymophane whimpered and swayed, nearly crashing into Kamacite before curling in on himself. His skin felt so itchy he thought he might claw it off if that would bring him relief. Fur seemed to sprout through it, soft and spotted. His ears changed, shifted higher on his head, their shape more triangular. Behind him, a tail swished into existence.
Cymophane pulled his hands away from his face and stared at them, only to discover that they weren’t normal hands any longer, but some monstrous combination of hands and paws. He twitched his nose, rolled his eyes around to check what little his vision allowed him to see of his own face, and was astounded to notice whiskers.
Lieutenant Carnallite HP: 50 Damage: 3 (roll) + 2 (weapon) = 5 Attacking the cliffside, very, very carefully
There were youma coming. Too many youma. More than their teams could handle, probably, if they could even handle the one they sought.
Carnallite paused to monitor the cliffside. Another few strikes, then maybe…? How could they be sure? A few rocks came down — nothing significant, nothing to cause too much concern — but that could change at any moment, before any of them realized they’d gone too far.
That was the risk they’d agreed to take. No plan was foolproof. Their efforts were just as likely to fail or prove useless as they were to succeed.
Carnallite spared a grim look toward her two companions (Lavendulan and Amazonite), then briefly glanced in the direction from which they’d come. Something was happening over by Radon, but she couldn’t determine what. Between the battle opposite them and the youma surging up to the paths, there were more than enough distractions, more than enough chances for them to get in over their heads.
“A little more,” she said, more to herself than the other two, throwing her boomerang at the cliffside once again.
HP: 75 Damage: 1d8 Magic: * * * Spring Water Eruption! (3/3) * * * Raging Spring Water! (1/2)
DMG: n/a, using debuff attack
Fulgurite was not liking this.
There were more youma coming, and also, it seemed like more of them were becoming youma, somehow. They would need to put some more hurt on this youma if they wanted out of there, especially because they needed the scales, but he had absolutely no interest in being any part of it and desperately wanted to hightail it and leave these poor suckers on their own.
Of course, that sounded like a good way to end up with that ******** anglerfish again--
"Raging Spring Water!"
Fulgurite had no idea if it would have any effect, but he used it and backed up just a bit.
Quote:
Super Sailor Scout Attack: “Raging Spring Water!” Fulgurite clenches his fists and crosses his arms over his chest, before throwing them forward as he shouts his attack. A swirling bubble of water erupts from the ground and wraps around his opponent. The bubble holds independently for 30 seconds, filled with phantom swirling water that is colder than before, which can drain energy faster, leaving the target feeling tired and sluggish, making it much harder to fight back. They may feel the beginnings of the stages of hypothermia: weakened pulse, lack of coordination, slowed breathing, etc. The stronger the opponent, the easier it is to break free of the bubble, and the less it affects them. (Uses: Twice per battle. Duration: 30 seconds Range: Localized)
HP: 100 Damage: 1d10+4, hits assumed. Special: Can command youma, but it only works on certain youma. Roll 1d10; If a General's roll is an odd number, the youma will obey them. Quote Strickenized when this happens.
Damage: 6
Things were flying, and Titanite kept her head down, trying to focus instead on preparing to avoid the youma's counter-attacks, and maybe knocking the damned thing unconscious. It was a delight when a familiar bird-snake made its way to her. For about half a second, anyways.
Because Titanite was a nerd, and the appearance of this many youma made her think of Avatar, and that blue alien wailing something about Eywa having heard that blue alien guy as the monsters all came and trampled people. As the Negaverse was, technically, the invading force in this scenario...
Well, she didn't want to be trampled.
"Hello Bird-Snake!" Titanite greeted Quetzalcoatl politely as she punched the screamy bag of shiny scales in the side. "Thank you again for your help earlier- please tell me you are here to help us again now and you are not about to rip my face off."
The scales came off, but they faded to a sad gray color under her knife. Gray, when they were obviously supposed to be all magical. That couldn't have been what they were going for.
Sylvite had already fallen back a little bit, squinting, when the youma decided to shake its scales into people, all on its own. That was fine, she didn't think much about it except to sidestep the sparkly projectile that whizzed past her own face.
Except, a couple seconds later, people began to act weird. People began to be weird. They were growing vines. They were catching on fire. They were making lots of gurgling, awful sounds, and whatever disgust and horror that Sylvite had been holding back by a thread this whole time was getting really, really close to the surface.
She was shaking.
Okay. Okay. She wasn't dead. Everyone else wasn't dead, or even-
They just had to kill this thing before anything got really out of hand, preferably with something stronger than just a couple of knives. As she glanced across the battlefield, she saw a small cluster gathering under a cliff that seemed to be cracking a little bit, and needing to get away from the monster-making centipede crab, she found herself sprinting in that direction.
It didn't look like it was too, too close to collapsing, and when she saw a Lieutenant throw a boomerang up at the cliffside, she tossed one of her daggers up, too.
Only to notice that the people around here seemed to be talking about something, very carefully and seriously. Which made sense, if they were going to make a landslide it had better be calculated.
"Is someone, like, trying to get it over here?" she asked.
Sunshine Alouette
Hi cliff team!
Shanyume
Have a panicked impulsive Sylvite trying really hard to do the Smart Things the way she's supposed to
Noir Songbird
Now that more people are drawing attention to the cliff
Arsenolite hissed as the youma launched scales from its body. One of them embedded itself in his chest despite his best efforts to dodge and he pulled it out with a grunt. Well, that had hurt. A lot.
A wave of horror overcame him for a moment as his body began to shift and change. Before he knew it, scales had covered half his body and the tips of his fingers became claws instead of nails. Horns sprouted from his head and his ears changed into something more elfin. He licked his teeth and discovered fangs.
What the ********> he thought as the pain laced through his body. He shuddered, feeling... different. Good different. Powerful different.
Oh yeah. He could get behind this. He flexed his fingers, watching the claws glitter with a dark grin. Maybe he should consider being a youma instead of having one. Half-youma, anyway.
Racing forward with a half-mad laugh, he slammed his body weight into the cliff. He'd turn and fight the youma in a moment. First, he needed to be smart about this fight.
Xenia could see people attacking the cliff, in hopes of bringing it down, and her eyes lit with an idea. A terrible, awful, brilliantly stupid idea.
She remembered the way the youma had clambered to attack when Rakovanite pulled out a starseed, when they were exploring. She remembered how stupid and dangerous it had been. But there was no time for foolish worrying. There was time for bold, decisive action.
This was the absolute dumbest idea she had ever had, and she hoped no one told Wavellite or Bellite about it when she got back to the surface.
She booked it towards the cliff, and once she was close enough to lure some youma over, she reached into her chestr, pulled out her starseed, and held it in the air. "HEY! BIG CHUNGUS! COME AND GET IT!"
Strickenized
one (1) teenaged idiot with a starseed. what will she do next.
Basic Corrupt Diesel HP: IDK 25/50 XP (With Mauvian Gremlin + mentions for Rakovanite, Feldspar, and Calaverite to notate their presence - confirmed by Echos)
He’d stopped having fun a hot minute ago. Like- yesterday? Last night? It was impossible to tell with the warped time that existed in the Rift. A devastating shame, since Diesel had been excited: excited at the prospect for another mission in the Rift (the last one hadn’t scared him off), excited for an assignment with his friends, excited for the opportunity to show off and accomplish something. Danger? He wasn’t scared of danger. He’d expected a riveting time.
Now it felt like he’d successfully gotten to do exactly none of that. He was in the Rift alright, but everyone he knew had ******** off, and so much of this trip had been spent just walking. A brief scuffle, but hardly enough to flex at. He’d spent hours with only the company of a nasty cat, and then the mission picked back up, off to collect whatever materials they’d come out here for.
Diesel would typically be front and center for this. If he wanted to partake in a fight, he had to be. His magic was basically worthless from anything more than slapping distance.
But he still had that lingering sensation of uncomfortableness, some displeasure at being left alone and unincluded from wherever Rakovanite had gone, some sense of maybe concern for Calaverite’s disappearance, some grim sort of expectation that things weren’t as ‘lit’ as he’d expected they would be. None of it was what he'd wanted out of the trip. Though maybe he should just be relieved he wasn't traumatized by the scattering of deaths he'd already witnessed.
He almost didn't want to do anything besides just leave, but it didn't seem like anyone else could be convinced of that.
Diesel stuck with the group as expected as they engaged the scaly youma they'd come to find. He positioned himself at the front (despite the rumbling displeasure from his Mauvian tagalong) as his magic dictated. He was going to fight because that was why he was here, and he was pretty sure it wasn't optional in the face of something actively trying to kill him and every other agent and senshi in the group. The goal wasn't to kill it, but what the hell else were they supposed to do? Ask nicely for scales?
So he was going to throw everything he had at it-
Going to, until a wayward swipe caught him across the midsection, and flung him tumbling over pointed rocks and hard earth to smack into a solid stone cliff face, leaving him winded, bruised, and aching after one smack. Something rang in his ear, tore at his shoulders.
He didn't want to be here. His mind had already decided that, and apparently his body was catching onto the idea. Don't wanna be here, don't wanna help, don't wanna support.
And now Gremlin was gouging every single one of his claws into Diesel's skin, slinking quickly from the cover of his hood and down the front of his fuku to hunch down into the cover of rocks and debris that had piled up at Diesel's impact. Narrowed blue eyes glared daggers at him, and a muttered spit of, "Can't be trusted with my life," went unheard over the clattered sounds of battle nearby.
Somehow, that made sense to Diesel. He scooped the Mauvian up in one arm and shimmied himself behind the rock, out of sight of most everyone. He bundled Gremlin close to his chest, despite the feline's grumbled refusal, and only peeked out to see where everyone was at in terms of winning.
Not great, honestly.
Mostly clamor. Lots of distractions by other youma. Barely enough of a team focusing on the task.
From where he sat, he could even see Rakovanite standing up on one of the cliffs, with that redhead from the briefing- And Cala! Calaverite was with them! And they were staying put up there, away from the fight. Obviously no one knew what they were doing and nothing was cohesive. He should be out there with the rest of his group, but at the expense of being smacked around again amidst the turmoil, it seemed like it'd be safer to stay with Gremlin and just... wait until everyone else's stupid asses realized they were better off retreating.
