1609/The Bloody Tide

The Bloody Tide
Date of Scene:	19 February 2015
Location:	Void - Deeper Void (West)
Synopsis:	San Francisco is overrun by undead squids. While Crimson deals with the source of the problem, everyone else keeps the horde from destroying the city's population.
Cast of Characters:	286, 601, Lyria Mason, 701, Reiji Arisu, 707, Corona Arclite

---

Crimson Sea (286) has posed:
    San Francisco is a town with a lot of beachfront property. This afternoon, under the sun and the surf and the sand, there's a lot more commotion than usual. It began when a sea creature with the body of a man and the upper torso of a squid slouched out of the sea, stinking like rotten seafood, and attacked a volleyball game. Shortly after that, more misshapen, obviously dead mutant monsters began to emerge, driving people from the beach.

    The water itself is no longer reflecting the blue of the sky--It's a pure, light-absorbing black, only broken by the white of the surf and foam crashing against the sand. There's some enormously heavy evil power out to sea, in the approximate location of ... the Obsidian Hammer, the oily metal hull of Crimson Sea's unstoppable warship. But, going by the radio, she's not the one RESPONSIBLE for this,

    Monstrously mutated sea creatures begin swarming out of the sea and past the beach, lurching their way into the city proper. Their approach is random and unguided, though they seem to be gathering around particularly large examples that will be given more detail as people get closer to them. For now, it seems like the Sushi Swarm is following the people fleeing it, which happens to be leading the horde towards various famous San Francisco landmarks and other big tourist destinations.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
Mutated sea creatures? Terrifying things from beneath the deep and two steps left of human ken? It's starting to sound a lot like fish-men! Though Shinra doesn't typically deal with anything too distinctly Innsmouth-y, it seems they've made an exception today.

    So many of the civilians are fleeing the sea that it can be hard to catch the people rushing /towards/ it. One among them breaches the swarming crowds, clutching what appears to be a hand-held weapon rack in one hand. His nose crinkles a little bit as he emerges from the crowd, and whips a small sword from his arsenal lightning-quick.

It is, incidentally, crackling with electricity when he divides one of the bloated, corpses.

"Zombies," Reiji mutters, sheathing Chirai again. "Could be worse. Could be hungry ghosts. Wish they didn't stink so bad, though."

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"HIGH SPEED XIAOMU!!!"

That exuberant cry comes in parallel to Reiji, as a certain Chinese sage fox races into the fray next to her partner, the rings atop her staff jingling with every step, even after she disappears into a cluster of monsters -

And the monsters start collapsing due to sword injuries a second after that. Most of the wounds seem to be lined with frost, probably melting quickly given where we are. Xiaomu herself emerges from the fray as the last of the monsters falls dead, flicking blood off her sword before sliding it back into the staff. "Didn't have time to grab any grenades," she comments to Reiji. "How're you on ammo?"

Caster (701) has posed:
Caster is not, as a rule, given to becoming involved in direct combat. But while the call has gone to ELIMINATE these monstrosities... She has to admit she would like to examine them, take them apart a little bit, maybe get some samples of that black stuff for her potions... And so, a red-haired, dusky-skinned woman in a short purple tunic, a golden veil over the upper half of her face, and a thorny golden crook-staff in one hand, is flying in the air high above. She looks down on the enemy with glowing red eyes, and cat-like or reptillian vertical pupils. Their smell repulses her, and that alone is almost enough to make her turn around and leave right now. But she didn't come all the way out here for nothing.

"Hmph! These mad dogs need to be put down." she calls out mainly to no one, and then points her staff at the masses below. Then she unleashes a curse. A curse, ordinarily, does not take on a physical form that does direct physical damage. It's USUALLY a spell that causes something to happen to the victim, but not in the same way that, say, a bullet would. For a Servant in the Caster class, things appear to be a bit different. Because a black and red ball of prana flies from the shining golden staff like a fireball. Wherever it strikes, an explosion of force will be unleashed that leaves a crater in the ground and may cause significant damage to enemies there as well.

"Begone, filth! You are unworthy to look upon me!" she cries out as she prepares another curse sphere.

Lyria Mason has posed:
There were people arriving, Reiji was just one of the first to arrival as Lyria follows up Xiamou in her own arrival, she seems to be armed with a pair of pistols that were firing elemental shot, while physical they were charged with elemental power. At the moment it was lightning as she takes shots at several of the monsters. She's also not alone either as several small mechanica spiders follower her along with a larger serpent like one.

"Seek and destroy protocalls!"

The drones work together the smaller ones trying to freeze enemies while bigger serpent like one will be going for the killing blows.

"What cursed seas hold such things?!"

Corona Arclite has posed:
Contrary to what many might think upon hearing her describe her job, it didn't mean Corona Arclite had to stay in one place and defend it. Quite the opposite at least when it came to the wry foxgirl, who preferred to take the 'best defense is a good offense' approach when she can. Which means sometimes she has to go out and take care of the problem before it gets someplace it could be a bigger danger.

Like zombie mutant hordes lumbering out of the sea and onto the beach and city.

Cue an engine roaring over the moaning of shambling hordes as Corona roars onto the scene on her motorized ride, headlamps gleaming like a pair of eyes from the control unit shaped like a bull skull. It resembled a large, steampunked three-wheeled style of motorcycle; except instead of a front wheel it had a tread pod.

When she comes speeding onto the scene and sees a cluster of sea-zombies ambling along in front of her, Corona doesn't slow down; if anything she SPEEDS UP by the way plumes of green flame erupt out of the oversized exhausts. At the same time Corona pulls a secondary lever, and a pair of blades slide out on the sides of the afforementioned track pod in front as the steam machine just tears right into the shambling cluster of evil.

Crimson Sea (286) has posed:
    The Sino-Japanese Tag Team clears themselves a goodly place to work around the steps of the history San Francisco Library, with Xiaomu and Reiji in fact opening the way for civilians to charge into the building's relative safety. Hot on their heels are more creatures. Clearly dead sea life, mutated by whatever ungodly power into Things That Should Not Be. They advance steadily.

    That Road With All The Turns Up The Hill is where Caster's horde is scattered or pulverized by the bolt of magic she produced for them to contend with. The slope gives her an advantage aside from her flight, as they seem to shamble more slowly uphill. While the creatures don't seem to use any strategy, the ones not destroyed simply pick themselves back up and resume their approach. A few layers deep is a hulking thing like an enormous hermit crab which clinks with chains with every step it takes.

    On the boardwalk leading up to Fisherman's Wharf, Teresa has established herself in a way that shows her skill with the blade and her intent to make the stench of rotting fish about fifty times worse. Her victim collapses, oozing things best not described, and is immediately trampled by the squid-and-fish-and-shark-and-crab mish-mashes behind it. In the distance, her trained eye should have no trouble picking up what looks like the outline of an enormous, hulking warrior covered in bony armor. It is, in fact, a giant monster crab in the approximate shape of a man.

    Various creatures are frozen by Lyria's magic near the City Hall, and then shattered to pieces before they can thaw. It's an effective tactic so far, though with the numbers, it may be a heavy demand on her magic. On the plus side, freezing them is minimizing the stench.

    Meanwhile Corona cruises main street. It's a right bloody awful mess and someone is going to have to clean that up. The creatures she rams with her cycle's blades almost seem to burst into putrid fluids and rotted meat. The crowd is so dense here, chasing after the city denizens, that it can be hard to tell where she's going. Which is why she stands a pretty good chance of ramming into this area's 'kingpin'.

    Meanwhile, out to sea, the Silent Wolf of the Crimson Sea invokes her essence. After a moment, the sound of a guitar, accordian, and her singing voice echoes throughout the <span class=" bold_bg_r fg_n ++ ity.
    chr">I come to you from another time</span>
    With a message that everyone will die
    At the hands of undead squids from the waves
    They'll crush your skull and eat your face!

    I've saved the past from vikings
    But the future is unclear
    So we'll join up sides again
    And save the world with beer!

Corona Arclite has posed:
Sea zombie ichor splatters across the front of the machine as run down corpses thud across the bottom and scrunch beneath the heavy back wheels. Good thing Corona has her goggles on! Though as she gets farther into the mass she hisses and crinkles her muzzle. "They also smell right aweful. Even compared to normal rottin' corpses." Then grabs her bandana and pulls it up over her mouth and nose as well. Peyoo!

Doesn't help that the things are more or less throwing/falling on her machine to try and get to her. Realizing the horde is a bit thick just to plow through she does let up on the throttle a little. If only to stand up on the steam-bike instead, kicking a zombie away and then putting one booted foot on the controls to keep the steady. She pulls the Forge Sweeper from it's sling, cocks what looks like a sawed-off with a drum magazine, and levels it in front of her.

Then the 'drum' lights up with a blue-green glow, proving to actually be some sort of energy generator as it hums and with each pull of the trigger Corona pumps out a scatterblast of fiery plasma into the undead masses.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
"Got enough, I hope," Reiji replies to his partner as he draws not one, but two weapons. The first is a long, gently curved blade, half of its length tinted cinnabar red by some arcane process. The second is... A perfectly ordinary* shotgun? Well, these are zombies. "Wish you had those grenades though. They'd come in handy right about now."

    His gaze flickers towards the rest of the horde as they continue to pour in, "We'll just have to make do somehow. Both of you, form a defensive perimeter. Don't let them get into the building!"

     "Karin--" He lunges, then, into the swarm of undead chasing after those hapless innocents. The red blade glints, then /erupts into flame/, cauterizing fire leaping from the weapon as he dances into the swarm, filling the air with swirling, magical cinders.

    "--Hollywood!" Reiji roars as he levels his shotgun at the crush of sea-life. Clouds of shrapnel blast into clusters of the ambulatory dead as he depresses the trigger of his shotgun in-between sweeping arcs of Karin's cleansing flames.

    The essence of flame and wood mix and mingle as he weaves and strikes, building a conflagration of incinerating essence that rapidly begins to heat the air around him. It seems that this world adheres to elemental interactions similar to the ones back home! Or maybe it's just that his weapons operate on their own internal logic.

Either way, it might be a bad time to be a zombie right now.

(*Hollywood is a normal shotgun, if normal shotguns were magical bullet-multiplying superguns)

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason is seeing what strain things will be on her, yet? It is going to help with things, right? She's going to do her part and she's more than willing to give what she can to help stem the tide. Her spell shots contiune but the then she holsters one of the pistols and pulls a grenad eit's a rather aweful thing it emits a sonic pulse on a number of the monsters but it's worse than that. It's some of the worst of the Corp Sponsored boy bend music she could find from her world.

Caster (701) has posed:
While impressive elemental sword fighting, full-body freezing and then shattering, and monster battles on motorcycle are all going on, Caster is still dealing with these... THINGS. She would be much more likely to appreciate Crimson Sea's interesting song under other circumstances.

When they pick themselves back up and keep going, the monsters cause Caster to be torn between utter revulsion and anger. She covers her mouth with one hand and hurls the second curse sphere into the midst of her foes, but she sights an enormous crab-like beast with chains all over it. Just throwing out curses isn't enough for this lot. There is much she could do with very little prana, but it would not necessarily be enough to fend off the enemy in question. So, upon obtaining permission from her Master, she raises her golden stave, a construct of concentrated magical energy that represents part of her legend as a Servant, one of her Noble Phantasms, and uses some of her personal prana, in combination with her Master's reserves.

See, there is this major continental fault that extend 810 miles through California. Those tectonic forces just keep building up and building up and building up over time. It would be better to just trigger it and get it overwith, in Caster's opinion, but she is not out to try to sink half the west coast into the ocean or anything. Instead, since she already has the means, she just taps into the San Andreas Fault a teensy weensy little bit...

A huge magic circle forms across the area beneath Caster. The buildings all around the city begin to tremble, objects falling from shelves at the tremors continue to increase in intensity. While it's centered on Caster's location, the repercussions can be felt all throughout San Francisco, as That Hill With All The Winding Roads suddenly, violently, becomes, 'That Hill With All The Broken Roads And Gaping Chasms Into The Depths Of The Earth'.

"Be ground to a pulp, foul beasts!" Caster spits out ferociously.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Xiaomu nods to her partner, although the accumuliating horde has the lion's share of her attention at this point. "Can't go back to Tokyo for 'em now ... so, I guess we'll just have to give these things a one-way ticket to bullet hell!" She plants her staff next to her - and it stands upright, without actually being propped up by or embedded in anything; that frees her hands up to reach into her vest and draw her handguns, Silver and Platinum. "Come and get it, you stinky sea cucumber-brains!" she calls out to the oncoming swarm of monsters ....

And she starts filling the air with bullets. They're relatively ordinary bullets, it's just that there's a lot of them. ... Considerably more than two clips' worth of bullets, in fact, although Xiaomu's rate of fire is only what you'd expect from trained trigger fingers on semi-automatic sidearms.

(It's also possible that some of that 'training' has come on video game shoulder buttons, not just firearms.)

Either way, Xiaomu's shooting the undead hell out of the approaching monsters, and without taking much time to think about it, she's focusing her attention on about one third of the incoming monsters, trusting Reiji and Lyria to handle the remaining two thirds. If Xiaomu has to widen her focus some more - say, Lyria thinning them out with her grenades and whatnot, and Reiji and Xiaomu split what's left in half between them - then she can adapt smoothly enough to do exactly that.

Crimson Sea (286) has posed:
    The energy pulse from Corona's Forge Sweeper shreds a goodly portion of creatures in front of her bike. This does a good job of clearly the way. It also exposes the hulking shape of what looks like a professional wrestler in a crab-themed outfit. It is, in fact, a mutant crab monster with huge claws for hands and oily black ichor seeping from between the armored plates of its body. And it seems that, at least after piercing so many bodies already, the Forge Sweeper's rounds only seem to make it angry. Unleashing a burbling roar, the monster Kingpin charges the bike, leading with its spiked shoulder.

    Reiji's magical shotgun of wood and fire blasts a sizable hole through the shambling horde approaching his position. Those that aren't incinerated simply explode. The ones that don't explode are bowled over. These are then peppered by Xiaomu's guns and many of them are rendered to a state where getting back up is impossible. Something roars in the back of the line, though, and what looks like a misshapen squid on a man's body sweeps aside a cluster of its own minions. While it has all of the arms one would expect a squid to have, surrounding its neck like some insideous beard, the two 'tentacles' have been replaced by huge toothy eels. It is not friendly, snapping at both heroes at once as it storms towards them.

    Caster, meanwhile, rips open that famous picturesque hill. Mutated sea creature zombies spill into the chasms before they get the sense to stop. Those that don't tip over start milling around, looking for a way to get across. The hermit crab monster covered in chains, however, is this area's Kingpin. When it can no longer advance, it slams its claws down and swings the tip of its shell back, then forward. One chain comes loose, swinging for Caster. It's trying to hook her and reel her in...!

    Elsewhere, a crab-like creature appears in the distance while Lyria is freezing seawater-covered undread mutants. It's approaching, dragging something that scrapes like metal behind it. While clearly itself a mutant crustacean, despite being dead, it's incredibly colorful with many antennaes and huge, bulbous eyes on stalks.

    Meanwhile, Crimson's voice seems to carry with it a boost to morale and good spirits. Like a proper sea shanty.
    We're class! You're not!
    Let's kill some squids and make them rot!
    With Pirate-powered murder skills
    The Future's where we get our thrills!

    A shot to the heart with a flintlock gun
    Or mash their brains with a bottle o' rum!
    We're class, you're not!

Corona Arclite has posed:
The plasma shotgun was the most potent at closer range so with so many targets to mow through it was little surprise that the energy shots just fizzle off the huge crustacean-mutant's chitinous armor. Corona gives a snort behind her bandana. "I swear, every time I step outta Brimsteel the varmints just get uglier and uglier." Corona gestures with the shotgun. "Com'n, ya hog grubbin' sidewalker, ya want some come and ge--"

Then the crabby monster charges. "--ah sheeeet." The foxgirl leaps off the steam-bike just before the monster slams into it, sending it careening down the street in a clattering of steel and copper. Hitting the pavement and tumbling to a stop in a crouch, Corona grabs her hat with one hand as she gets up and shakes some zombie goo off of it before replacing the bronze plated stetson back on her head and giving it a straightening flick along the brim with two fingers. "Reckon I'm gonna need a bigger gun." The sawed-off is flipper around and reholstered in its sling.

Only to drop a metal form at her feet and kick it in the direction of the crab-monster. As it comes to a stop prongs snap out to anchor it to the ground and the rest of the contraption unfolds with the click-clack of metal and whirring of gears into a sizable gatling turret. Despite looking like part of the mechanism is made out of an old barrel it spins to life rather effectively and once up to speed starts belting out sprays of fire from it's eight spiraling barrels at the giant crabcake and whatever zombies are still lurking about him.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Xiaomu's handguns finally click on empty chambers as Frankensquid comes lumbering towards them, not giving the sage fox time to pull out fresh magazines. Oh well, she doesn't need them - yet - she just has to stop the big guy in his tracks. "Reiji, get ready!" she calls out to her partner, holstering one of her guns and grabbing her staff as she holsters the other one. "Sage Fox Sorcery," she calls out as she raises her left hand, light sparking from her palm. And then ...

"XIAOMU WAAAAAAAAAVE!!!!"

A sphere of mystical force appears, aimed and intended to lock in around the lumbering squid-eel thing and hold it firmly in place. Xiaomu's attention is pretty thoroughly fixed on her target, as if it's her own force of will pinning the monster where it stands. (And, well, it could be, given her magic.)

Lyria Mason has posed:
This is where thing are getting nuts she sees the crab-like one comming for her. One of her drones pings an alert at this point thankully she's got some warning about the huge thing as it's comming for her. She turns and opens fire, drawing her other pistol again.

"Back to Depths with all of you!"

the snake like drone starts moving and attempts to intercept the huge crab thing, in a close up battle!

Caster (701) has posed:
Though she is concealing it outwardly, using her own prana was more than a little draining. Causing earthquakes is not exactly petty sorcery. But she is spared most of the weakness that would result because she utilized the nature of her local environment to amplify an otherwise small-scale effect. When the chain comes flying at her, she tries to fly out of the way quickly, but was somewhat caught by surprise. She doesn't have the same Agility parameter as other Servants, even if she's still tens of times faster than a normal human. When she is snared and drawn in, Caster, for a moment, seems to be trapped! She is gritting her teeth as she tries to resist! But then the morale boosting effects of Crimson Sea's song reach her, and her snarl turns into a teeth-baring smile. Then she vanishes from the chains, dissipating into a mass of glowing red ember-like motes of prana.

The chain falls from the now intangible Servant. When next Caster appears, it is above and behind the crabby Kingpin. She thrusts her golden stave forward, and another magic circle appears, this time right underneath the 'boss' monster. That entire section of the street then proceeds to begin to rise and tilt, trying to drive its burden towards the crevasse. Of course, this monster seems to be more intelligent than the others, so perhaps it can realize it is under attack and move off the ground being manipulated or in some other way defend itself or even counter-attack!

Caster can feel magic being used elsewhere in the city, and knows for a fact that others are fighting these things. Wasting prana taking them out might not be in her best interests. Better to mulch one of the stronger ones and then pull out.

But can she really do that? She is not entirely heartless. And the people of this city, while not her own, and of no real importance to her, do not necessarily deserve to die. Is there something she can do for them while at the same time benefitting herself?

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Karin and Hollywood smolder with lingering embers as Reiji's kata comes to a smooth end. He slips away from the shattered horde, leaping back to where he had left his portable arsenal. With an abrupt click, both weapons snap back into proper place along the rack. "Good work," Reiji says, "Keep it up. We press on when we've cleared out this part of the horde. If we don't cut this off at the source, then we'll be overru-"

*RRRRRUUUUMBLE*

    Reiji frowns. He turns on his heel just in time to see a hill being /ripped apart/ right down the middle. Also, there's an earthquake. An earthquake on top of a zombie invasion. California's had better days. "What the fu-"

    He doesn't exactly have much time to finish that sentence when suddenly there's a /horrible squid-headed monster/ snapping its eel-tentacles at him. Reiji hisses a curse and brings his weapons up to intercept the bite, but Xiaomu's intercession gives him enough time to actually dodge it completely. "Tch. Thanks for the save," Reiji answers-- and then immediately does something unwise for most people, and rushes TOWARDS the thing with the giant chompy tentacles and the tendril-face.

    "Alright you son of a bitch," he mutters as he throws a /mighty flying knee/ at the monster's midsection, using the recoil to land about a foot away. "Let's do this. Blaze, Karin--" With a click, the katana comes away again, filling the air with a flash of flame. "--Roar, Chirai!" Another click, the wakizashi joins it in his left hand, crackling at his side as the rest of the arsenal clatters to the ground.

    He takes a single step forward- then seems to transform into a whirling dervish of flashing steel, spilling clouds of fire that whirl and crackle with arcs of lighting. Karin and Chirai dance together, carving arcs of elemental wrath into the hopefully immobilized squid-monster, with a notable focus on severing its many tentacles and the eel-heads especially.

    Once again, the elemental wheel turns as he attacks. Chirai's lightning carries through the eddies of flame, sweeping the wild fire along tight, electrical currents. Flame consumes, and with its ashes, feeds the earth!

Crimson Sea (286) has posed:
    Luchacrab is too busy charging to really stop when a gatling gun turret starts pelting it with bullets. The chitinous armor covering its body also protects it somewhat, though the fact that it's already dead helps. Chunks of bony plate and blackened flesh spray to the side each time the monster is struck. The gun is much more effective on the critters around him, shredding soft-bodied mutant zombie fish monsters quite handily. Once it's close enough, Luchacrab sweeps its downward-held arm in an upward arc, with the intent of knocking Corona's bike away--if she doesn't do something to stop a bull in armor!

    Lyria's monster Kingpin reveals itself by rearing up on multiple sets of legs, its arms tucked up under its body. It seems that even the hellish force that mutated these monsters could not find any way to perfect the most horrific denizen of the sea other than to just make it bigger. This is a Mantis Shrimp. After showing itself, it leans down and strikes the back of one of its minions, turning the mutant zombie fish creature into a projectile aimed right at the troublesome mage.

    Caster's Kingpin, Chain Hermit, feels the ground starting to tilt underneath it. Rather than scuttle away, it raises its legs and strikes them down, digging in. With other creatures sliding past it and into the gorge, the crab's entire body swivels and it hurls out another length of chain. This time, rather than trying to catch the sorceress, it's simply whipping at her time and again, using numerous chains hooked to its spiny conch shell.

    The Kingpin near the library, we'll just call it Captain Eelface, is pinned down mid-approach by a spiritual barrier. With a hissing sound it strains against its restraints. Finding itself unable to break them, the tentacles lift up to expose its beak, which spews a jet of murky black ink towards Xiaomu's face. This might get it loose, but it's already too late when Reiji whips out a multi-elemental finishing move on it. There's a searing, sizzling, sparking noise and the monster stops moving. Smoking, it slides apart into various stinking chunks.

    And all the while, Crimson Sea's voice eggs on the slaughter.
    From the past we have returned
    We're here to make those bastards burn tonight!
    Fueled by rum and lust to kill
    We have the power and the will to fight!

    Hey Marty, it's your kids!
    They'll get devoured by undead squids!
    Lest the world be torn asunder
    San Francisco we must plunder!

Corona Arclite has posed:
On one hand Corona feels bad for her bike taking a beating. On the other hand, if 'Luchacrab' is trying to pummel it than the freak isn't trying to pummel her, and under the circumstances that's okay with her. She can build another bike more easily than we can build another her. Even if steampunk cybernetics would be kind of cool.

But we're gonna have to do something about that thick undead shell he has.

As the gatling turret winds down to cool off, Corona turns and sprints off to the side, jumping up to a building side and almost running a few steps along it before leaping off of it towards Luchacrab's backside. Grabbing onto his shell with one gloved hand and digging in with her heels, she activates the plasma cutting torch built into the other glove and uses it to try and slice through more of that tough outer coating.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason has to watch for a moment as the kingpin seems to be one with a whole lot of limbs. She's not even sure what the heck this thing is. She just knows it's a horrible shrimp like thing. It comes after her and down goes one of the spiders is off line and almot a loss. It's remains spark and sputter, while Lyria is forced back she flips away but isn't quick enough. She smacked and hits the ground hard, she tries to get up and that's when she the very ground for a moment turns against hte enemy causing a spike of earth to rapidly form trying to impale the monster. However this leaves Lyria open to follow up attacks.

Caster (701) has posed:
Caster is unable to really defend herself properly. She is using up a lot of her personal prana and she is just plain not GOOD at fighting directly. It's time to try to get rid of as many of these monsters as she can at once. As the chains strike her painfully every time she fails to dodge, she is forced to halt her attempt to shovel Chain Hermit into a ravine and pull up higher into the sky - higher and higher, and hopefully out of range of those lashing chains. When that fire lightning storm thing went off, the flame-haired sorceress was inspired with a plan. She just keeps flying upwards and upwards, until the city lies far below her. The entire time, her arms are held up above her head, her Noble Phantasm in one hand. This is going to use up an even larger chunk of her prana, but she refuses to tap any further into her Master's.

It would have been easier, however, if the weather were closer to what she needs it to be in advance.

A gigantic magic circle appears in the sky overhead, lighting up the entire city below. And then a half-dozen more such massive sigil-etched circles of glowing arcane energy form around the central one. The clear skies begin to become overcast. Dark clouds form from nowhere, filling the sky with ominous rage-black water vapor. Thunder rumbles from them as lightning leaps from one cloud to another, over and over.

"Taste the wrath of Zeus!" Caster calls down from high above, whether she can be heard or not. Then, channeling all that prana, she swings her Sorceress's Stave downwards, and lightning tears down from the six surrounding magic circles in a blinding, air-splitting, windows-shattering cacophony - and all six lightning bolts wind together just before impact, into a single column of blinding light that will leave after-images in the eyes of anyone who was looking when the hyper-violet-trimmed blue-and-white bolt strikes its target almost instantaneously with about 6 billion joules of energy.

Caster is going to be a bit winded after that, but all that electricity may wind up spreading from one wet body to the next if she's lucky, or perhaps only nailing the Kingpin that she was aiming for.

Overkill? Yeah, probably. But Casters like dramatics.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
It takes more than ink spraying in Xiaomu's face to break one of her sealing spells. Getting it in her *eyes*, on the other hand - well, she manages to keep Eelface immobilized long enough for Reiji to deliver the pyroelectrical coup de grace, but if he hadn't been on it already, that could have gone far more unpleasantly.

As it is, she has to pull a handkerchief out and wipe ink off her face (and, very carefully, out of her eyes). "Huh ... Y'know, Reiji, I think we're out of enemies for the moment."

- but only for the moment, it looks like. Xiaomu seizes the chance to reload both of her handguns, then goes to help Lyria, running around the Mantis Shrimp and its small-fry. "Guess I spoke too soon!" the sage fox adds, not-very-subtly implying that maybe Reiji could lend a hand.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Reiji's second kata ends with a soft 'click' of his twin swords returning to their sheathes. Captain Eelface's various bits collapse into a foul-smelling pile sometime between when he had started attacking and when he had finished. At least his swords would have cauterized most of that thing's wounds, otherwise this would smell even /worse./

    He dips to lift his arsenal before leaping away, back towards the library's main entryway. "Xiaomu," he calls, approaching his partner, "Are you alright? That blast of ink wasn't toxic, was it?"

     Reiji glances across the street, then nods as Xiaomu gently nudges him away. "Yeah. Got it," he says, unholstering his (unsettlingly large) 'holdout' pistol, "I'll be going on ahead. Catch up when you've caught your breath."

     And then Reiji goes sprinting off towards the giant Mantis Shrimp while its back is turned. He snaps his golden pistol up and fires off a trio of quick shots, each one bolstered with the elemental energies of Metal to try and shatter the giant shrimp's shell. He slips Chirai out of its sheath, then, and goes to try and ram the electrified blade into the gaps between the monstrous thing's shell!

If they both connect, then the shrimp might find Chirai's lightning arcing to the slugs of metal that've been buried in its body, amplifying the electrical energies!

If they don't connect... Then, there might be trouble.

Crimson Sea (286) has posed:
    Luchacrab flips the bike, but promptly whirls on the person who had been riding it. Raising its claws, it slams them down in a show of force, then lumbers after her. It slams into the wall scant paces behind where she kicks off of it, then rips out a sizable hole in the brickwork when it turns on her again. It pauses, though, when it doesn't find the fox woman it was pursuing. Confused intitially, this gives Corona all the time she needs to activate her torch and start cutting into the armored hide. THIS is when Luchacrab notices where she is. Due to its armored shoulders, though, it can't reach its own back and so it starts thrashing around in an attempt to throw her off. And all the while, a torch made to cut steel makes short work of organic chitin armor.

    The Mantis Shrimp is impaled right through the center of its long body. However, it scrabbles with its legs and lifts itself up off the spike, then shambles right after Lyria again. Black ichor leaks from the huge hole in its body. Because this thing is already dead, remember! Seemingly no longer interested in using its minions as projectiles, it skitters after the Geomancer, its upraised hammer arms snapping out in an attempt to smash her.

    Chain Hermit, meanwhile, lashes a few times more at Caster until it realizes she's out of range. Finding itself nearly vertical due to the slant of the 'table' it's standing on, the monstrosity slowly makes its way sideways to the edge, digging its feet in with each step to avoid sliding down the chasm. And then the sky darkens. A mighty bolt of lightning strikes a sea creature with a body composed of mostly water--and a shell covered in highly conductive metal. It doesn't even have time to process the pain. The Chain Hermit simply explodes, splattering the entirety of its surroundings with cooked crab parts, rotten meat, and black sludge.

    The stench is phenominal.

    Shortly after smashing a hole through a building and a sidewalk, and also completely crushing the engine block of a parked car, the Mantis Shrimp is suddenly stabbed with an electrified sword. THAT gets its attention, the creature's body lurching up in shock with a shrill sound while it's peppered with bullets from further away.

    We're class! You're not!
    The refrain of Crimson's amp-up song hits the second bridge into its own chorus. Out to sea, dark clouds are forming unnaturally. What strikes the water aroudn the Obsidian Hammer could be called lightning, save the core is a black that sucks in light. The Void itself.
    Let's kill some squids and make them rot!
    With Pirate-powered murder skills
    San Fran's where we get our thrills!

    A shot to the heart with a flintlock gun
    Or mash their brains with a bottle o' rum!
    We're class! You're not!

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Reiji leans into Chirai, driving the shortblade hilt-deep into the terrible monster-shrimp. He growls, wedging at the thing's carapace to give just enough wiggle-room to fit Gold's barrel into the gap. He depresses the trigger. Once, twice. Being in this close is /really/ playing hell with his sense of smell though. "Xiaomu, Lyria," Reiji yells, "Finish this bastard off!"

    He doesn't see the dark clouds forming just yet. Reiji is too busy trying to kill something to pay that much attention. He does, however, feel something... off. The hair at the back of his neck is standing on end-- though that might just be the electricity in the air.

Or maybe it's the music. That could be it, too.

Caster (701) has posed:
"Tch!" Caster lets out. She has created an obstacle to further uphill progress by the monsters and taken out their central leader person... Crab... Thing. It might have been a crab but it was kind of like a people. Either way, she has expended enough of her energy for one day, and these monsters are revolting. "I feel nauseous simply looking at these things. The rest of these people will have to fend for themselves." Then she dematerializes into embers of prana again and is... Like... Out of there. Because they just really smell that bad.

Corona Arclite has posed:
When Luchacrab starts thrashing about like a mad bull Corona stops slicing with the cutting torch. If only so she can use that hand to grab her hat from her head and wave it in the air with a "Yeeehah!" as appropriate while hanging on with her other hand and feet. Because she's a cowgirl and it just wouldn't be proper if she didn't do that when the time was appropriate.

Once the hat is back on her head afterwards Corona reachs for her belt to open one of the assorted pouchs and pull out a cylindrical shape. She shoves it into the opening she cut in his shell. But then he thrashes past a street light that catchs Corona in the shoulder and knocks her off Luchacrab's back before she can trigger it. With a grunt the foxgirl hits the ground, rolling onto her back. "Now that ain't nice, interruptin' my work."

As she sits up though Corona pulls out her rivet gun revolve and fires off a shot, aiming to hit the explosive and set it off via forceful puncture since she didn't get to set the detonator.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"On it!" calls Xiaomu, tucking her guns away again and scooping up Suiren from where she left her staff-sword. Her attention, apart from juggling her weapons, is still on the Mantis Shrimp; specifically, she's looking for good weak points to exploit.

Well, even an undead monstrosity from deep beneath the waves can't do a lot when its brain is physically removed from the rest of its body, right? Xiaomu prepares herself to deliver a telling strike, dropping into a half-crouch as she grips her staff's headpiece with her right hand and the top of the shaft with her left ...

"SEIBAI!!!"

And in one blindingly fast movement, she lunges, draws, and slashes, adding enough ice magic around her sword to try and freeze the shell solid - to make it more brittle while she's cutting. If she doesn't nail the seam between natural plates of armor, at least she can hopefully *weaken* the armor enough to slash through.

It may still be up to Lyria to deliver the final coup de grace, though. Not that Xiaomu minds if that's what happens.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason oh dear the thing is now coming in at her and things are bad. She's made a mistake and very likely a ftal one, the Manti Shrimp has every intent to put her on the barbie it seems today. This is not quite set in stone as Reiji moves to act at this point he's able to get some what of a distraction long enough for Lyria to roll out of the way, and she pulls not a gun this time, her pistols have been drop in all the chaos. She does however have one weapon left a cutlass which she undeaths. The blade hums softly after she has pulled it free and she attemps to move in one mistake and she won't be so lucky this time, she just going to try to carve this thing up with the vibro cutlass of her own design.

Crimson Sea (286) has posed:
    With the Kingpins defeated, the remaining monster mutants are easily dealt with either by the police, the citizenry, or the Giant Freaking Holes left by Caster's earthquake. The only one that remains is Mantis Shrimp, who is currently being electrocuted AND shot at.

    Recovering from the jolt, the serpent-like crustacean whirls back on itself to glower at Reiji. Its hammer arms draw back with an audible cocking noise. And then Xiaomu slashes across right behind its head. The plates rip open right on the seam, freezing instantly. What flesh isn't cut crystallizes, and the entire beast locks in place. There's a cracking noise, and then the head completely snaps off. The rest of the body collapses, with no brain(?) left to control it. The whole thing oozes black ichor where it had been wounded, by swords and bullets and Geomancer spells.

    Giant Enemy Crab bucks off its assailent! Snarling in victory, it turns in place to face Corona once more, hunching down and slamming its claws into the road to prepare to charge. This exposes the planted explosive, which is summarily shot and instantly explodes. Luchacrab's upper body disappears in a spray of rotten flesh and black grease. Its legs remain, crumpling down.

    The stench is INCREDIBLE.

    Out to sea, the effects of the Void promptly disappear. Whatever it was Crimson Sea was doing is finished. The result is fairly immediate, as the shambling monsters remaining lose a lot of their aggression and start milling around aimlessly, not even defending themselves.

    In San Francisco Bay, the Hammer's main guns start popping off in celebration, bursting starburst shells in midair like fireworks.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
Reiji cusses as Mantis Shrimp recovers from its brief encounter with /electrical fury./ He reflexively reaches for his weapon rack to draw his shotgun, but will he be fast enough--

Whoop, doesn't matter. Xiaomu just beheaded the thing.

    Reiji hops to the side as the serpentine shrimp goes limp. He frowns, reaching to extract Chirai from the thing's ichorous innards. With a flick of his wrist, he whips most of the sludge off his sword. The rest is obliterated by a halo of crackling electricity shortly before he sheathes the blade. "Nice timing," Reiji says over at his partner, before turning to fight the rest of the horde--

    Only to find that the zombies are just kind of... Meandering, now. In the distance, he sees bursts of unlight glimmer over the bay. "Huh," he murmurs, "Well. I guess that means we've won?" Reiji looks to Xiaomu, "Alright. Let's clean up the rest of these guys before they come to their senses."

Corona Arclite has posed:
Okay, that's about all that she can take. Corona's nose isn't quite as strong as her hearing, but it's still stronger than your normal sense of smell just being a critter person.

As soon as she's certain the giant crab mutant is staying splattered all over the street she staggers over to the nearest alley, pulls her bandana from her face, and hurls in the nearest trash can.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"I don't think they have senses to come back to," Xiaomu points out, "but yeah, time to mop things up. I'm guessing we don't really want to drive them back into the sea, either ..." She considers briefly, looking around at the assorted collateral damage, particularly the holes and crevices and stuff that Caster's earthquake caused.

A few moments later, Xiaomu has started freezing clusters of undead into big blocks of ice, and is sliding them into the most convenient pits, one cluster of formerly-aquatic undead at a time. With some extra luck, they'll actually *shatter* when they hit the bottom, dramatically further reducing the chance of future rising-from-improvised-graves incidents.