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 Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:25 am
((Paul, the Ghoster isn't there right now. He left the van through its floor to start collecting humans while it was still driving. Also, the Ghoster has been put in charge by mutual agreement by those who contributed personnel to the assassination.))
One at a time, thirty scared-looking human children became visible in front of them, with similar smoke-and-ripples to when the Ghoster became tangible. The Ghoster himself floated up from beneath the ground with a semiautomatic shotgun in one hand and a box of shells in the other.
"To insure that if a Masker had remote support, his ally can't take the fall for him with remote magic, you're going to kill them with marked shells from this shotgun," the Ghoster stated. He placed the box of shells atop a trash can, loaded several shells into the shotgun, and tossed the gun to the nearest demon. "One moment. Renard. Suppress the noise."
"Of course, sir," the man who had been the Ghoster's footrest in the van said with a nod. The first demon promptly shot one of the children in the head. The Ghoster nodded with approval as the now-headless child slumped to the ground. The demon handed it off to the next one.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:31 am
((maaaaaaan, i feel so lame and mundane now. gonk
i think i want to bring Marco in, Venom. PM me an entry point?))
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:45 am
((1. Oh. Well... I'm too lazy/don't have time to edit, so Fyrin just knew he was coming. Or guessed, not knew.
2. Yes, I get that. He's in charge, and it's been a sort of agreement. But Fyrin really hardly cares about him.))
Fyrin grimaced behind his bandages. Children? This man was sick. For a moment Fyrin couldn't help but compare the Ghoster to himself; then he decided to make efforts to see the children weren't dead for good. His third eye flicked open, and he spotted the child's soul, just beginning to depart from the kid's body. Unfortunately there was no head, and therefore the kid had no chance of revival, normally. For a moment Fyrin considered resisting, but he didn't; no good in that, the Ghoster would be all over him. As if Legion wouldn't be angry enough.
All Fyrin could do was hope that the next demon would shoot more for the chest than the head.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:50 am
<(You can't just unmake something, that's impossible.)>
"Empathic link...why not kill the host of your link? Unless you're the host, that wouldn't be very good to kill yourself."
<(No dear it wouldn't.)>
"How'd you even get an empathic link anyways?" Agnese asked, more interested in her guest than her grandmother.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:07 am
The next demon moved among the children. He had sharp features and an animal manner to his movements. He abruptly wheeled on one child, a crying brunette girl that he had just passed and began to beat it with the shotgun.
"Gennady. The bullets, if you will," the Ghoster snapped.
"Oh, right," the demon agreed. He struck the child to send her sprawling to the ground and executed her with a shot to the neck. A satyr-like demon grabbed the shotgun and began to pick out his victim. The Ghoster gestured for the demons who were "done" to move off to the side.
Power corrupts, indeed.
--
"So our goal is understood, yes?" the Demon Hunter detachment leader asked her team. Marco and his half-dozen or so allies, whom he hadn't had time to acquaint himself with, nodded.
Find the demonic warlords' agents in the city. Kill them. Capture at least one to demonstrate their involvement to the Blademaster and demand action. Meet up with the detachment of Warlock Hunters if absolutely necessary; if not, remain independent.
"All right. Scout for now and for god's sake, call for backup if you see anything suspicious. All right?"
--
"According to Legion, one of the values of ordinary humans is that a small percentage of them have a natural magic-empathy - they can feel and learn magic techniques by establishing involuntary empathic links with other casters. I picked up a bit of mind-rape and third-eye ability from him and... I guess the link is still there, even though I couldn't feel him casting earlier. Which means the extinguishing that just happened was something huge...." Takeshi mused.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:56 am
Fyrin's grimace deepened. This child could be saved. Her neck was badly mangled, but even conventional doctors might be able to save her. Might. Fyrin caught hold of the soul as it began to seep from her frame, then slammed it violently back into the girl's brain. A split second of conciousness passed, and then she was dead again, a dormant spirit trapped in her own mind. The sad thing for her was that she might be able to see what was about to occur to the rest of her compatriots. There was little Fyrin could do about that; he could only do so much.
Fyrin and his crew were the final ones to pick victims to kill. Fyrin sighed, slowly accepting the now-empty shotgun, then accepting five shells from the Ghoster. He loaded them in quietly, then looked around the children, trying to find someone who looked tough enough that Fyrin could temporarily kill him or her without getting frustrated with himself. Finally he fixed on someone who looked good enough - another girl, perhaps thirteen. She was standing straight up, shoulders back, an infinity stare glazing her eyes. The giveaway of her fear was her quivering arms and watery eyes. Fyrin sighed, then bent over near here, bringing the bandages around his face almost against hers.
"Listen and say nothing. My men and I are forced to kill some of you due to constraints beyond my power to change. Do you have a family?" he asked her suddenly. She nodded tightly. "Are any of them here?" She indicated four others - two teenagers, a couple years older than her, and two even younger children, perhaps one 8 and one 10. Fyrin nodded slowly. "You'll see them again alive. Please relax; this is hard enough for me as it is." With that, Fyrin slapped the bolt release on the shotgun, walked a few paces away, gathered himself, then twisted around quickly and killed the girl with a single quick shot to the chest. Immediately he caught the soul, thrusting it back into her brain as he had the other. She would be alright; her wounds were fatal, but would be easily healed. CPR would probably work, even delivered a couple hours from now.
Fyrin then handed off the shotgun to one of his men, staring sadly at the girl's body. Why had he made that deal? he wondered, as each of his men went out to talk to their own victims.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:44 pm
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:29 pm
((Actually, Siber is not the empath - Takeshi is.))
The Ghoster nodded in approval at the executions and looked at the four or five extras. "Good. I'll make my proof and Renard will finish off the leftovers." Renard nodded and took the shotgun from Fyrin's servant. He passed it to the Ghoster, who, with one hand, shot an offhand, perfectly-aimed shot through the head of a sobbing young boy. He tossed the shotgun disinterestedly to Renard, whom he clearly trusted.
Renard nodded at the Ghoster, His purple eyes met Fyrin's momentarily, and he whispered in a sobbing boy's ears. The boy looked up at him hopefully before the shotgun ripped his torso apart.
"I trust we are all satisfied at the lack of Maskers among us?" Renard asked, reloading the shotgun and tossing it into his shadow. There was a general murmur of consensus. "Excellent. Assemble into groups of four and begin scouting. The Vampires and Werebeasts have a strong presence here, so be cautious of them. The Vampires, in particular, we believe have helped hide Legion in his present weakness."
The Ghoster turned back to them. "Be cautious for Clockwork Knights and cyNet3 as well. I doubt any of us are too keen on getting phase knives in our ribs or quicksilver in our blood. At least, those among us who have those."
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:44 pm
If Renard could've seen Fyrin's expression, there was a decent chance he would be frightened. As it was, the only evidence that Fyrin was angry was a vague eminence of fury from the eyeslit in the bandages. Fyrin dropped by the child with the torn apart chest. He was too badly damaged for conventional healing, and yet there was his soul, intact... it seemed such a shame to lose him. He'd have to call someone magical. Who would be able to answer the call? Fyrin wasn't sure; he had to do something. Reaching behind him, he ripped a tiny piece of the bandage from the flying tails. He enchanted it briefly, and then dropped it into the gaping hole in the child's chest. As soon as Fyrin was at least a quarter of a mile away it would activate, hopefully sending out a signal strong enough for someone, anyone, to pick it up. Hopefully Legion; two birds with one stone.
Fyrin sighed. "Who wants to split off and go individually? I want to keep some of my men with me," he told his group. P90-man raised his hand.
"You can go ahead, I'll hang out with these chumps," he said, casually waving the raised hand at the groups behind him. "If anything goes wrong, though, lemme know and I'll catch up." Fyrin nodded, then set off on foot. He didn't exactly blend in, but he had one little trick up his sleeve - a good old little mind-bender that would hopefully cause people not to look twice. Anyone magical... that was a different story. If someone did notice anything suspicious about the group of four, though, they'd be a warlock, and Fyrin would have someone to go after.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:14 pm
"Nobody will split off and go individually," Renard said. His eyes met Fyrin's and a chill went down Fyrin's spine. It wasn't malice, or hate, or even the cool collectedness demonstrated by many upper-level demons. It was a total lack of anything recognizable. "Anyone alone may be replaced by a Masker and anyone in a small group may get their whole group wiped and I would rather we not do this every time we convene."
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:31 pm
"That's not the point," P90-man informed Renard. "What he means is that I'm not hangin' with them. I'm hanging with some of you foolios, so we're in groups of four. That cool?" he inquired. His accent was one of an annoying sort; he sounded like a teenager with a grown man's voice. He cracked his neck briefly, and his eyeslots glared against the sun, turning a sudden evil red. He shrugged. "Do we have any idea where we're going?" he inquired of Renard.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:18 pm
"******** if I know. 'Lieutenant,' my a**, Ghosty-boy doesn't tell me s**t," Renard answered. His face remained unchanged, but Fyrin noticed a distinct lack of outside noises. Renard had personalized his sound barrier to them. "You mind if I go with you guys? My spell to heal those last midgets I had to finish off, it kicks in maybe ten minutes from now, and it's gonna look awfully bad for all of us if anyone's still here. We volunteer for body disposal, we can take them away, light a couple trash bags on fire and heal them up. Neat trick with their souls there, by the way."
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:28 pm
<(I probably couldn't help you defend against that sort of invasion)> Ana said <(Not to mention any more mental stress might send you into a padded room.)>
(>You are so amazingly confident in me..<)
But back to the matter at hand, "So if I were to use a healing technique you'd be able to pick it up? Also, you don't plan on 'mind raping' me do you? Because quite frankly there's enough forced invasion into my head."
Agnese's tone turned slightly 'Beverly Hills Girl' as she spoke, her head even taking on the typical tilt.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:37 pm
"I don't use that. It's invasive in a way I'm not comfortable with," Takeshi replied. "As for the healing technique... well, I get the most out of my own disciplines, necromancy and elementalism, but I could pick up simple healing with time, yes."
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:58 pm
<(No. No he will not be watching and copying my techniques. Techniques and castings that I spent ages working on and figuring out and fine tuning! And no healing is ever 'simple'...I don't know how many times I've told that lot...)>
(>Chill Woman! I asked if he could, not if he would.<) Agnese couldn't help the giggle that escaped her.
"I don't suppose Haru was a good patient was he?" Agnese said through giggles. Ana was still cursing about difficult patients and her insults were becoming more graphic and creative by the second.
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