Breaking cover, they sprinted for the helicopter as the wind kicked up dust and sand that stung their eyes.
Leta looked back just as she saw the Drow taking another arrow from the Witch and pulling back on the string.
“Look out!” She pulled Hayato down just as an arrow went sailing over their head and landed in the dirt just a meter or so in front of them.
‘Gada? Do I have enough in me for Storm Hammer?’
[Affirmative.]
Leta rolled over as the Drow let another air loose.
She didn’t think about her actions; she just lifted a cement mixer and hurled it at the duo, knocking the arrow from the air and sending the mixer to crash against the Witch’s shield.
“Hayato! Grab that arrow on the ground! We need to figure out what this is. Get to the helicopter!”
“Are you insane?!” He shouted as she turned her back to the Sect and faced the pair.
Leta used her spear to direct her movements as she picked up a generator and chucked it like she was playing lacrosse, taking out another arrow.
“Get that bird in the air! I’m bringing this place down. Just do it!”
The roar of the chinook drowned out “Dammit to hell, Leta!” as she sprinted for cover behind a forklift, ducking just as another arrow whistled past.
The rotors screamed as the helicopter strained for lift, kicking up a blinding cloud of sand and debris.
Through the swirling dust cloud, she spotted muzzle flashes and heard the insistent ‘tat-tat-tat’ of the crew at her back return fire against the remaining Drow.
“Talk to me, Gada. What are my options to block those things?” Leta didn’t bother screaming into her mind to ask.
[Creating a debris field around The Host may offer some protection from projectiles. While The Host does not have enough mental fortitude to do so and also utilize Storm Hammer, gathering storm particles and the use of Magician’s Hands might be able to create cyclonic activity that could produce such an effect.]
She eyed the construction equipment still laying about. “Could the building collapse on me?”
[Cyclonic activity will surely rupture structural supports to the building and cause collapse. However, the center area of the building where the Host is standing would not be caved in thanks in part to the open design of the stadium’s pitch.]
“Side effects?”
[Use may affect The Host’s personality and mental capabilities. The permanency of effects may vary depending on how long The Host utilizes the abilities in tandem.]
“Can I do it while calling down the lightning like I did on the hill?”
[Affirmative.]
“Hell, yes!”
An arrow pinged off the forklift she was hiding behind, the bolt splitting into two as the pieces went sailing.
“Shit! Okay.” Leta drew a deep breath and looked upwards, her eyes burning with an otherworldly blue light as she reached out to the energy lurking in the clouds above the stadium. It felt like a dangerous game, coaxing a monstrous creature from its hiding place, and she knew, with chilling certainty, that this beast was ravenous.
‘More…’
She drew down the rumbling storm, summoning it to blanket the entire sports complex. The angry ions clashed and mingled, electrifying the air as thunder echoed overhead.
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From his vantage point near the Chinook’s doors, Atreus could barely discern the gathering tempest in the late-night darkness, but he felt its ominous presence in the charged air.
“Oh, shit.” He exhaled as his eyes went from the thundering clouds above to Leta’s glowing form as the surrounding aura grew brighter and brighter.
His heart sinking in his stomach, he pushed past rows of crew seated on either side of the plane towards the cockpit.
“Get us the hell out of here!” He pulled one of the pilot’s headphones back to shout, “She’s about to destroy this entire area!”
‘He’s moving.’ Leta’s mind felt heavy, her thoughts muffled and sluggish as she heard the distinct ‘ping’ of another arrow hitting her cover, this time from a new angle. She saw the duo shifting to her left, attempting to flank the forklift that shielded her.
‘I need more.’
Numbness settled over her like a shroud as she looked upwards. Heavy drops of rain began to splatter the ground, their dark marks on the concrete taking on a sinister appearance in the night, as if the very heavens and gods above were bleeding.
The wind changed, shifted abruptly, whipping around her with growing intensity with Leta at the epicenter as she coaxed two different pressure systems to converge above her.
The storm roared its approval, the wind intensifying to the fury of a tropical cyclone, sending loose objects swirling through the air. Smaller machines were caught in the tempest’s embrace as debris hammered against the remaining support columns, the building groaning under the immense stress. A boom lift twisted and buckled, and tendrils of cloud reached down from the sky, coiling into a double helix, like two serpents answering their master’s summons.
‘Yes, more…’
The tendrils expanded, spinning faster and faster until they reached her, creating a circle of debris and energy in a three meter radius around her.
[The Host has learned the skill Cyclone.]
Alarms wailed on the Chinook as the tornado attempted to draw it into its vortex. The normally stable helicopter listed precariously, struggling against the storm’s relentless pull. Inside, the crew screamed in terror as they watched the tornado tug at the Apache through the open doorway, the attack helicopter fighting desperately to break free from the wind’s grip, which threatened to flip it end over end.
Through the thick veil of the tornado, Leta blazed with an almost nuclear intensity, her halo of power a dazzling spectacle as she stepped out from her hiding spot.
She became one with the System, her consciousness dissolving into its vastness. The sting of sand whipped up by her own power, the deafening roar of the storm like a hundred colliding trains—all sensory input vanished.
All she could see - all she could feel - was the cold apathy of the storm.
It was a force beyond morality, indifferent to life and death.
The millions of taxpayer dollars required to rebuild the ravaged city were irrelevant to its existence.
Even the struggling aircraft attempting to escape its grasp were insignificant to the surrounding tempest.
Its sole focus, its only drive, was the release of the raw energy that sustained its existence.
A handful of foolish Drow, blinded by bloodlust, vaulted the fence and charged onto the pitch, intent on attacking her.
“Away,” she whispered, turning her spear like a key in a lock.
The air just beyond the tornado’s edge crackled with static a split second before bolts of lightning, vastly more powerful than any she had ever wielded, cleaved the air, striking the reckless attackers. In the space of a heartbeat, they were transformed into a horrific scatter of body parts, their internal organs glowing like hot coals as smoke billowed from their smoking remains. Their final glimpse of the world was the swirling chaos of the storm clouds above, a terrifying manifestation of divine retribution.
‘Where are you?’
Her white opal eyes turned slowly, scanning the mezzanine until they found the Drow and the Witch at the precise moment the Drow loosed another arrow.
The arrow, buffeted by the wind, wobbled in its flight before striking a jackhammer that had been lifted by the tornado’s powerful updraft. Both were then swallowed by the swirling vortex, disappearing from view.
‘There you are.’
Leta aimed her spear at the Drow as a barrage of lightning slammed into the building, the intense heat consuming the surrounding oxygen, making the air thick and difficult to breathe.
A loud groan echoed, followed by the sharp crack of metal as the supports of the glass sunshades buckled, causing the roof structure to collapse in a cascading chain reaction.
Falling debris was immediately drawn into Leta’s tornado, forming a massive cloud of dust and fragments that rained down over the complex.
‘Are they dead?’ Leta asked, blinking slowly, her expression serene amidst the chaos, as she scanned the ruins of the roof and the stadium’s side.
From the settling dust, another arrow hissed towards her, only to be intercepted by a stray compactor before being sucked upwards into the swirling vortex.
‘Found you.’
As the dust was sucked into the atmosphere, she could spot the Wraith still lingering behind the Drow and the Witch, having enveloped the pair in its shadowy embrace before depositing them precariously on top of a section of collapsed rooms two stories above her.
“Good,” Leta said softly, looking up at them with a calm expression. “Nothing to hide you from the sky.”
She then rose into the air, her gaze fixed on the heavens, drawing in even greater power. To the Mundane onlookers on the rooftops, she resembled an avenging angel rising into the sky, her halo of power intensifying, her body shimmering with a silvery blue luminescence.