Only two things registered in those two seconds of sheer horror as Angela thrusts out her claw in a desperate attempt to grab Reeves from afar. The first, is that Valosterla is a monster made manifest, with an inhuman, feral grin on her face as the blade moves, and a manic gleam in her eyes. This is no sane woman. She has murder and carnage baked into her very soul.
The second, is that no matter how much she wills her telekinetic grapple to pull Reeves away in time, it’s not enough to keep him unharmed. There’s the sickening slice of flesh and that manic laughter as Valosterla’s blade hits home, and Reeves staggers backward to her–and he’s split across the abdomen, blood leaking profusely.
Joey screams. Kyle fires his autobow, along with Levine and Nick. Drenar does that weird teleport thing and levels that shotgun he’d picked up, his hands gleaming with silvery light. The shotgun blast knocks her backwards with the kinetic enhancement, but does no damage. He’s already in motion and keeps pumping rounds to get distance, forcing her past the doorway.
“Bitch, you just couldn’t --CRACK-- leave well enough --CRACK-- alone, could you?!” Drenar roars in between shotgun blasts. Val is still staggered and the armored knights close and try to engage him, but a kinetic blast from him knocks them all off their feet. He drops the shotgun and pulls Luminari to meet Val’s downward clash. Angela puts pressure on Reeves’ wound, trying to stop the bleeding. She puts out a low-level kinetic field, and blood pools but slows just beneath that magical barrier. Joey dashes over to her, regen potion in hand having broken past the instant horror.
“Oh what’s this, is it someone new? You’ll soon join my collection, too!” Val cackles in that manic talk, and Drenar blocks a series of hefty strikes through deft maneuvering. The crimson blade shears through the steel frame of the door and damages the wall with deep score marks. The next swipe is met with one in turn and he locks blades with her, straining to his breaking point, and a silvery sheath wraps around his body. But when she sees the sword, she gasps. “Where did you get this–”
He doesn’t bother with a retort and grabs his dagger with a snap of his wrist, and it flies to his hand, already in a slicing motion. The blade lances into her thigh past a narrow gap in the armor and she staggers in pain. He uses the opportunity to blast her backward with a scream of telekinetic fury, and she’s sent flying to the floor, metal scraping across polished marble. He ducks behind the open bulkhead and screams out, “SEAL IT NOW!”
A blast of violet energy is Val's rebuttal attack that misses him and gets through the doorway. The globule breaks apart in a cloud of burning black and purple sparks, stinging her scales. She manages to shield Reeves from the attack with her body, but he's still in danger.
Drenar doesn't waste another second before slamming the whole bulkhead door down with enough force from his kinetics that it buckles the metal on the floor. Kyle flings a canister of a yellow substance that splashes on the metal doorframe, and turns molten bright before rapidly dimming and cooling. The lock is now a fused mess, and there’s a thunderous pounding sound on the other side.
Drenar stows his weapons before dashing back to them, and Joey grabs medical supplies out of her bag and pours the regen potion over the deadly wound. Reeves is screaming for his life, and Angela holds him still with as much gentleness as she can. Drenar puts a compress on the wound, working in tandem with Joey.
“You–need–to run!” Reeves gasps in a brief moment of clarity. That pounding sound at the door is getting insistent, and Joey motions to Angela to apply pressure to the wound with a field compress. She can see intestines damaged, a clean yet brutal slice, and blood flow slowing, but not stopping. This level of viscera–it’s not something she’s seen in person before, and it leaves her insides roiling. Even as a dragon.
“Reeves, I am not running without you walking out of this room!” Kyle pleads, even as he empties the magazine and loads another into the autobow. “Joey, how long do you need?!”
“He’s hurt bad Kyle, regen potions don’t scale for this level of trauma! I can get him patched up, but he needs a medical team, or he’s going to die!” Joey’s back in focus, trying to get him patched up and keep that blood flow contained. “Angela, I’ve got him, keep our backs covered!”
“Done!” She’s a whirl of scales and deadliness, and the barricaded door on the south side is glowing bright yellow. Someone is burning through the door with intensity, and she taps the headset on her ear crest. “James, I need a target assessment, how many are on the far side?!”
“Little problem, I lost the feed on that side, the golem got hit by gunfire or something! The camera feed is a bad angle, but at least ten guys, a Valencian Red is cutting through the door!” That part was pretty obvious given the rosy glow coming from the metal bulkhead, and she extends her claws, and Nick and Levine draw next to her by the cover, weapons drawn. She’s ready for this, while Drenar keeps the door closed on the north side, and Julia is standing next to him, weapon trained on the door and plasma arcing off her skin.
“She killed Lavernius.” That’s the only words Drenar needs, and he wipes his bloodstained hands on a spare rag he grabbed from a desk. Enemies are approaching from two directions, and they can’t move. “Everyone who isn’t combat-effective, move to the next room!" she roars out.
“Zameren’s almost at the bulkhead, he pulled a small team to cover you guys! You need to move!” James states with authority. A resounding thud from the north door indicates Val is not letting up, and those words…there is something utterly inhuman about her, with those words.
“Come to me, my fellow scaled kin!
‘Tis your time to meet the reaper!
Dare not miss this chance at mercy,
Or worse, make this a three-peater!”
“Seriously, what in the name of Gaia is wrong with this woman?!” Julia screams out. Angela can’t focus on that insane drivel, because the barrier door is finally melted through, blobs of molten slag dripping down and pooling on the polished floor tiles. A set of dusty red claws heaves away at the softened metal. Nick and Levine launch a volley of fire through the door, but it pings off arcane barriers. Several armored soldiers fire in blindly, while Kyle readies an autobow round with a glowing red tip. It kind of looks like he’d–
She wraps protectively over Nick and Levine’s position and gets out of the way as he lines up the shot and fires the deadly round, just as the Valencian tries to fire a ray of fire into the room from an outstretched claw. The blast hits with full force against the dragon's chest and he staggers backward, bleeding and wounded, even with the arcane barrier taking the full brunt of it. Levine flings a few fire orbs into the opening, and they detonate with a burst of intense heat that hits some of the stacked-up soldiers. It’s as if they don’t understand how grouping up in close quarters is a deadly bad idea.
Nick has other plans and hefts out Matilda, and swerves to the side as the Valencian launches another fiery ray–this time Angela can deflect the attack with her barrier, setting the floor on fire but not causing immediate danger. It sears the scales on her palms even so, and she winces, and exhales a frosty blast as the Valencian barges forward, bearing the brunt of her freezing breath. Rime frost traces across his armor scales and coats his limbs, but it shatters at the motion. The attack does not slow him down completely. He launches after her and tries to pin her down, but she’s not having it.
She puts out a charge of kinetic energy to her claws, after having figured out how to direct her kinetic strikes to parts of her body the previous night. Careful experimentation that had allowed her to gouge concrete with no effort. She slices and cuts deep trenches across his abdomen while protecting herself, keeping those deadly talons on his legs from disemboweling her. Dragon claws are magical and seem to be less affected by the armor scales ability to resist physical blows. The Valencian snarls and tries to shed incendiary particles, burning her, but she holds on and redirects him, keeping him clear of hurting the others.
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Nick takes aim and fires point-blank with Matilda. The barrier flares with several hits, and then bursts in a collapse of golden sparks. Two rounds go deep into the dragon’s belly and it screams in pain. She takes the opportunity to open up several other gruesome wounds, unrelenting in her focus to make this monster bleed for the lives taken tonight, and to prevent further bloodshed. But now he’s in a fight-or-flight throes of survival, overwhelming her strength and biting down dangerously close to her neck.
She screams in pain and flings him off after a raking blow with her wing claw gets him in the eye, and he recoils, clutching the wound. Nick has already reloaded by this point, and fires the heavy rifle into the abdomen and chest of the dragon. Armor scales crack and are pierced, and it lurches from the impact, followed by focused fire from Levine’s deadly marksman rifle. Whatever magical effect had been imbued on his rifle, the glowing blue tracers pierced into the softer scales, dealing more damage.
She clutches at the raw wound of the bite on her shoulder–any closer, and he’d have taken a chunk of her neck. The wounds prove too much for her foe and he collapses, moaning from the pain. The fall of their dragon is enough to force the knights back into cover, with Kyle being merciless in his barrage of autobow bolts and Levine’s deadly precision. Their draconic foe gurgles and is bleeding on the floor, dying. She dares a glance back at Joey, keeping Reeve's stable with the help of one of the other female mages, locked in utter focus.
“Okay, I’m all set, but we need to get him a medical team or this won’t hold!” Joey barks out, fury etched in her eyes when she surveys the carnage. She looks at Angela and vaults over, a regen potion in hand and getting the worst of the bite wound sealed and protected, even as it itches and burns and she barely lets out more than a whimper. “Angela…it’s okay. You bought me enough time.”
Heart of a warrior, this soul-touched. That’s the second time that Samarina has said that in the last few hours, and she ponders its meaning. Her contemplation is short-lived as a wrenching sound of metal being sheared gets her attention. The bulkhead to the north is buckling from an onslaught of blows, and there’s a maniacal cackle from the door. Val is back in fighting condition, and has transformed into her dragon form.
“Come out, come out, you little kin!
It’s just me, the big bad dragon!
Wrap your souls in a deathly shroud,
pour your blood into my flagon!”
“Drenar, get everyone out of here, I’ll cover your retreat!” Angela shouts out and points to him with a bloodied claw. “We need to keep giving ground, we need to stall for time!”
“Do not die here Angie, you fall back when we’re clear! Nick, Levine, stay with her!” Drenar shouts out, and Kyle gets the bulkhead door to the west open, past the shredded remains of the lab and into another connecting hallway of bright white granite tiles and wisp lights, and decorative plants adorning in small alcoves. This place won’t be untouched by violence and ugliness for long, she thinks grimly. “Julia, get Reeves, help Joey carry him!” They manage to get Reeves onto an office chair and secure him with an extra set of bindings–with a lack of a stretcher, it’s all they can do for now.
A pair of black claws begin rending the metal of the door, and that manic mistress begins singing–an ugly song tinged with darkness.
“You all should have run, fore I woke!
Your carcasses shall be my toy!
Your death will bring me great pleasure,
Shrill screams shall bring forth odes of joy!”
I know her! The murderer!
Angela winces at the full force of Samarina’s might, locked away in her soul, and she feels a tremor through her body that comes from nowhere and everywhere at once. She is the one who hunted my children! She preyed upon and slaughtered them, she cannot be allowed to live!
Angela doesn’t know where this strength is hiding, but she shares in Samarina’s righteous fury and tenses her claws, eager to put this would-be goddess in her place. The bulkhead bends and tears from her onslaught, and Nick calmly reloads Matilda–likely his last magazine, and Levine has primed a few green-tinged orbs. They’re ready to bolt if need be because Hellkite black fire will absolutely incinerate them, as they take cover by the corner.
“Hellkites have some of the strongest regenerative capabilities of all dragon species, Angela. It’s either all or nothing against her,” he cautions her, even as he gives the weapon charging handle a mighty tug. “Val also has immense barrier capabilities. Do not underestimate her, try to evade her energy attacks. Your scales will only resist her energy somewhat."
Another set of claws rip through the door and tear it away, and Val is there, leering at them with a toothy grin on her draconic face. She’s three meters tall of deadly beauty, with midnight blue scales, and that blood-red feather mane and accenting feathers on her wings and limbs. She regards her foes with a maw of sharpened teeth. “Didn’t like my singing? Not everyone does.” She glances at the pile of dying men and the dragon bleeding out on the floor, and grunts. “Looks like the fight has not been as one-sided as I thought it would be.”
“You’re a monster who brings ugliness and destruction everywhere you go, Val.” She stands to her full height and tenses her body like a living coil of steel. “There is no beauty in who you are, or what you do.” She hears a gentle humming sound that she’s heard before–a shard of mana in a canister. It’s the same one that Joey had shown them earlier as a sample taken near Drenar’s home, and it’s humming with power. She must have dropped it in her haste to stabilize Reeves. She can feel that vibration in her whole body, however faint. She reaches down, and grabs the canister.
There’s a trickle of power in this small piece. A whisper of something greater than herself, and she doesn’t know what it means. All she knows is that it is calling to her, singing in a crystalline chime that no one else seems to notice. Val tilts her head and grips her horns gently before cracking her joints, looking amused at this standoff. “You’re just a child. You’re not even fully grown, girl. Do you think you can take me on? Me? Do you have any idea how many of my kind I’ve slaughtered over the past several hundred years?”
“Taking count of those you’ve murdered isn’t glorious. It’s just sad how little you value life.” Angela takes a deep breath, and wonders what will happen if she touches this crystal. Something strange has been happening every time she gets close to a mana crystal, there’s been a buzz of energy that surrounds her. Drenar’s dagger. Luminari. Something is connecting her to all of them, and she has no idea what it means. “There must have been a time when you could create something beautiful, before you decided to poison the arts with your own brand of death and destruction. What drove all the joy out of your life, Val?”
The fact that she’s got her talking, and not immediately going to the killing, is telling. Val frowns at her, peering closely at her with ruby-red eyes that almost seem to possess their own inner light of vile energy. “Fates. You sound like that preachy dead goddess who was supposed to protect this world, according to all those pathetic mages and Kin. You even look like her, too. Well, minus the eyes.”
She doesn’t know what that means just yet. Val however, takes one step forward, claws tensed on the pristine tiling that brings bright light to the room. Her talons screech and rake across the polished surface in an eerie manner. “Still, looking like a goddess, and being one, are two different things, girl. You’re just a nobody worth remembering corpse in a long line of corpses I’ve left in my wake, between where I am…and where I’m going to get what I want,” she adds with a click of a forked tongue, and a sneer of her snout.
You don't stand a chance against her, Angela. Not as you are. Sam's warning isn't lost upon her.
Then I guess it's time to find out why these crystals are calling to us. She stands defiantly against this living nightmare, regarding her with a determined face, and she grips the canister tightly. She's done with running from these monsters.
“My name is Angela Shalinde. And I want you to remember that name, because it’s not going to be the last time you hear it.”
She cracks the canister apart in her claw, and things get strange.