2544/Bat into hell!

Bat into hell!
Date of Scene:	28 June 2015
Location:	The Maw
Synopsis:	Giant Moogles and Demons and Viera Bikini Girls! Oh my!
Cast of Characters:	626, 640, 817

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Asteroth (817) has posed:
The unified Hells are rather inconvienently located within the multiverse, both geographically and in terms of warpgate access. It makes it a rather long trek to get into them, or out of them. This makes sense in many respects from a practical, sensible, common-sense point of view. Unfortunately for the peace-loving citizens of the multiverse, none of those rather good reasons matter to the Confederacy. The gap in the warpgate network has made it...more difficult then necessary to get demons and magic users into and out of the Hells, and to facilitate this, two Confederates have been ordered to set up a waystation, complete with an artificial Warpgate, in the Maw, to make it easier for the Confederacy to conduct commerce and traffic, magical and otherwise, into and out of the various Hells.

So, Asteroth is here, in one of her uglist guises, the one she uses mostly around other demons to 'put on a good face' so to speak, with a contingent of imps, minor devils, and lesser fiends, in one of the layers of the Maw. The various winged fiends are digging and excavating into the side of the Pit, carving out a massive outcropping and fortifications leading down from the layers above, while Asteroth tries to get a connection going first to the surface, and then to the Hells, with the help of another Confederate.

Echo (640) has posed:
     Having made the comment about being interested in setting up an easier way to dip into the nether realms Echo had been given the mission to go along with Asteroth in their little endeavor to help setup the artificial warpgate. Why was Echo helping with the heavy lifting? Well, an underworld area represented a lot of potential for developing the greater dark arts, that would be a good guess, anyway.

     Echo herself appears in a cloud of the dark shadow bat familiars she keeps with herself, which seem to fold out from dark motes like origami before fluttering about and taking on a purple-ish sheen. "I'm not exactly the most well-suited to set up a warpgate like this, I can't say I've ever done it before, I /love/ the look you have, by the way," Echo smiles and bows her head as she curtsies to Asteroth.

Asteroth (817) has posed:
Asteroth has some familiarity with demonic portals, summonings, and the like, but has not set up a warpgate like this before, either. "Thank you." she says. "Its a work in progress. I like the wings, by the way. Always stylish." She glances around to where some fiends are trying to set up defensive fortifications. "I have not done this before, exactly, but I do have an...affinity, with the subject matter, and the destination. I think as long as we can manage the basic magics of the connections themselves, the various minions, and the supplies from the Confederacy should handle the rest. Assuming the Union doesn't interfere, of course."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Unfortunately for the pair, the Union very much does NOT want the Confederates to gain easy Hell access. Once a proper conduit was set up, it'd be extremely hard to eradicate especially when any demon from Hell could come to its defense. Stopping the magic from solidifying the connection was the best way to prevent this. However, this particular location and this particular event came to the attention of the Union a little too late for the full-fledged, proper response to get deployed.

    Only a dozen or so soldiers come with the advance contingent, none of them Elites but all with some passing familarity with demons. Among them, however, is one of the few mages they could grab at the time most suitable for potentially undoing demonic magic.

    That mage would be Kyra Hyral. She seems vaguely put off by this sudden request for help since she hasn't worked with any of these soldiers before though it was apparently on her to get close enough to disrupt the magic. And though they wanted to be stealthy in their approach, it was quickly realized that given Kyra's overwhelming magical field, going in undetected was probably not going to happen.

    So Kyra doesn't even try as they move in, the white mage in the highly uncomfortable position of being 'on point'. "Hey! Hold it!"

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Ah yes, it can be a delicate process and any disturbance could--" bam, a dozen soldiers... and what appeared to be a white mage crashing the hell-party? Aww, and they were so close to getting the netherworld gateway up.

     "It would appear we have company," Echo snapped her fingers, the various bat familiars wheeling around her into attention at the gesture, with Echo looking to Asteroth and then gesturing back to where the warpgate-crashers had emerged.

     What these non-elite but likely highly trained demonic specialists were perhaps not trained for was the sudden appearance of a crowd of viera bikini-girls carrying stacks of pizza and six-packs of brewskis in their hands, looking quite adamant that they should join them. Of course, they appeared from clouds of smoke where the bat familiars had just been...

     "Hey there boys, come over here, we have beer! and pizza!" the various girls of varying skintones (from dark to light) with their curvaceous bods and long hair ranging from red to blonde, they really were wearing just two-piece bikinis, and also high heels. Because.

     What trickery of the bat woman's was this??

Asteroth (817) has posed:
Asteroth is mildly surprised at the appearance of the viera girls. She glances towards Echo, and raises her eyebrows. I mean, she doesn't have eyebrows in this form, but she raises where they would be, nevertheless. "Interesting strategy." she says, with a hint of admiration in her voice. She begins humming under her breath, and after a few moments of this, a sword appears in her left hand. Its not made of metal or energy, however, but souls, converted into physical form and refashioned into metal, and then delicately hammered together in layers. It radiates dark and unholy magics. "I'll follow you lead on this one." she says to Echo. Hey, if the tactic works, she'd be more then happy to let the Unionites go. She orders the Imps and various fiends to wait and see what happens. The demons obey, but are obviously anxious to begin the attack, like pitbulls slavering at the leash.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "What the...YOU again?" Kyra half-scowls as she notices Echo here. "I should really be less surprised that-" Suddenly, their little party was surrounded. By bikini-clad viera tempting her escort with beers. A murmur of confusion erupts from the soldiers, at least half of them clearly starting to reach for the ladies. Kyra herself does seem mildly distracted by this for a few moments before she shakes her head. Viera /really/ weren't her type.

    "Hey!" she yelps to the others, "Guys! GUYS! Focus!!" she snaps her fingers, "Come on! That's clearly some kind of illusion! Come on! We've got demons over there!" Unfortunately, from the look of it, more than half of the soldiers are having trouble holding on to their willpower in the face of Echo's meddling. Not a good thing since the lower-level demons seem to be outnumbering them to begin with.

    At this point Kyra decides to attempt what she was brought along to do, white magic crackling over her fingers as she summons up the countermagic of her class. "Dispell!" In this case, the antimagic is aimed to counter what Kyra expects is an illusion spell of some kind.

Echo (640) has posed:
     But not just beer, beer AND pizza, and what man could resist such a temptation? Nevermind held by such busty and curvy dark and light skinned viera bikini girls!

     "Yes, yes, me again," Echo poofs next to Kyra, wearing a uniformly red set of bikini bottoms and top, so she blends in with the other girls despite her... well, battiness. She is of course wearing the red stiletto heels she usually does, ontop of that. "Why don't you take a load off and have a beer," she offers an already cracked one to Kyra, of course this one does have a rather suspicious sort of mist radiating off of it, and not just the sudsy foam or cold-appearance that a cold beer would have in the pits of hell. Literally, in this case!

     When the dispell magic goes off, there is a strange sort of effect going on where the magic causes the bodies of the viera girls and even on Echo itself to flicker in and out softly for a few moments, sort of a fade in, fade out. The bat woman seems to be hastily trying to obfuscate it!

Asteroth (817) has posed:
Asteroth leans back and purses her lips. Well, she said she'd follow the other Confederate officers lead. She may not agree with it, but she follows through on what she says. Always. She concentrates for a moment, and her ugly, terrible form shifts away, and a moment later, she's only 5'5", feminine, a pale-skinned, freckled humanoid woman with long red hair and batlike wings. Don't ask what she's wearing-ish. Sighing inwardly, she puts on a smile and heads for the men. "Now, now, boys. Think about what your doing here. Tresspassing. Private property." She bites her lip. "Do you really want to do that? We'd have to fight, and couldn't bring any more friends over. Wouldn't you rather be our friends instead, too?" She waggles her eyebrows. "Come and relax, and enjoy yourselves. When you get off-duty, say we magic'd you. Don't risk you lives." She raises her arms to the sky and stretches. "Sit back, and relax, and have some fun."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    This was getting ridiculous for the soldiers which each passing second of exposure making it harder and harder to resist the temptation of fun and relaxation. With that, Kyra grows increasingly agitated as evidenced by her continued shouting at the others. "Ugh, I wish there was another Elite with meaaaugh-!" she jumps, startled as Echo appears next to her with a cold, suspicious brewski. "No." she says, pushing a palm out at Echo's face. She's further galvanized by the flickering of the illusions-strange that Echo seems to be flickering too. If she could just concentrate on dispelling things-!

    As it flickers, the soldiers start to snap out of their daze, some momentarily stunned as they start to regain their barings. But then Asteroth starts in on the action and they look to each other, confused and with vaguely guilty expressions on their faces.

    Kyra palms her face-with both of them at it, she'd have trouble overcoming combined magic. As the inactive guards start to mingle with the illusions, Kyra reaches into one of the pouches around her waist and withdraws a golfball-sized object. Huffing, she hurls it down at the ground in front of her, and it explodes into a cloud of smoke. The intention, of course, is to obscure the illusion entirely to lessen its effect.

    Kyra drops down to the ground shortly afterwards, crawling along on her hands and knees through the smoke in search of whatever enchantments the pair has laid down to start the waypoint.

Echo (640) has posed:
     Echo has to turn for a moment, to peer at the suddenly waifish and freckled form that Asteroth takes on, looking something more out of scooby doo than dark seductress of hell, at least to Echo's perception for a second there. "What the--" the bat woman blinked and had to jerk back from the sudden palm put outward to her face. Talk to the hand, she guesses?

     As the smoke bomb goes off, the viera bikini girls are just starting to get chatty with the men, and them BAMPF--smoke everywhere. "Ohhh Kyra-honey you're just jealous none of them were looking at /you/ that way, aren't you?" Echo says in a bit of a sneering mocking tone, the red bikini top and bottoms she was wearing seeming to grow roots and spread out across her body as it reforms back into the red lace dress she normally wore. Though it's clear for the moment that Kyra had ducked down and was out of sight--and there was already a lot of noise here, which meant Echo would have trouble locating her by sound... darn wily white mages!

Asteroth (817) has posed:
Asteroth sighs yet again. This simply isn't how things are handled in Hell. But, it is what so often works on living mortals. She shifts and changes again, and now resembles a 5'7" tall college-aged blonde in a blue cheerleading dress. Devil in a blue dress and all. "Hold on just one moment boys." she says. "Let me sing a little number and clear this smoke up."

Asteroth begins singing, and the voice sounds nothing like her demonic voice, or the voices of either of the two forms she's taken on. It sounds...celestial and radiant, ethereal and otherworldly. Her magical spells take the form of creative energy, since ultimately she's still an angel, albeit a fallen one. So she sings in Enochian, one of the primal languages of creation, and attempts to sing the very essence of the smoke away.

Meanwhile, the supplies have barely been uncrated, essentially. Asteroth and Echo had not gotten very far. Most of them are still in a crate labled "ARTIFICIAL WARPGATE SUPPLIES. PROPERTY OF THE CONFEDERACY."

And then, beneath those letters, a pink sticker with black wording labled "THIS SIDE UP"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The problem with a smokebomb going off is now everyone can't see-at least those standing up. Kyra remains below most of the smoke, which drifts upwards and will continue to do so after a few minutes seeing as it's not confined to a room. At Echo's needling, Kyra grits her teeth but she doesn't say anything in response since that'd give away her position.

    The soldiers start shouting to each other now, however, so they DO know where each other is-inadvertantly masking Kyra's movement in the process. Without the sights of the inviting girls around, it's much harder to maintain the enthrallment. This only lasts for a few moments before Asteroth's song sings the smoke away. The smoke itself is just normally produced smoke, created via one of Kyra's alchemical mixtures. There's nothing magical about it so it cannot resist Asteroth's power. The smoke disperses, leaving the soldiers exposed in their wakes though clearly in much more aggressive stances than before. Either the pair would need to get their illusions back up pronto or prepare for an actual fight.

    Meanwhile, Kyra's quiet exploration continues. She doesn't find any suspicious gate-creating magic about but she does come across their spell components still in boxes. Handily labeled too! A mischevious smile crosses Kyra's face as she digs into her pouches again, producing several dull red bricks of clay-like material. The white mage leaves the bricks of Galiandan C4 around the crates but doesn't detonate them yet-not until she gets a respectable distance away so she doesn't blow herself up with them. Getting away from the crates, of course, is Kyra's next order of business as she sneaks away.

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Okay there we go, that works a little better--" Echo, again, distracted from her task, trying to keep track of the white mage AND try to keep the glamour of her spell up despite the shouting. "Uhh, don't want to alarm you or your men here, Miss Asteroth, but I think we've been made here," Echo had tried to keep the illusion up as long as possibly, but now it had been fumbled to the point of decaying.

     One by one the Viera bunny girls would begin melting like wax figurines put in a bonfire, their faces and all of their features until they settled into an unrecognizable lump (or pool) at the union men's feet. Before they all eventually poofed and returned to the shadow bats they were made of, of course--flapping away.

     "KYRA--now long what you've done!" Echo sounded dramatically a lot more angry about this than she was, somehow.

Asteroth (817) has posed:
"At last." Asteroth says, a note of relief in her voice, as she shifts and changes back into a 7 foot tall, wingless demon. Horrendously ugly, with ripped-open wounds on its back where wings should be, and maggots crawling just underneath that raw, wounded flesh. After a moment of humming, the sword reappears in her hands. "ATTACK!" she shouts, and the demons, like animals let off the bit, slather forward to attack. She slashes outwards with her blade made of human souls, and looks for the elite...

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Where HAD that white mage gotten off to? It's hard to tell until Echo starts screaming again in her overdramatic fashion, prompting her to peek out of her hiding spot. Seeing the illusions returning to the little shadow bats that powered Echo's magic brought a smile to her face. "Hah." she ducks back down again but does not stay there for very long.

    Asteroth's sudden change from attractive blonde with an angelic voice to full on horror from hell is a startling shock to say the least, though not one unanticipated by soldiers puporting to have experience with demons. They're not allowed to be shocked for very long as the minions of the demoness surge forward to meet them in combat. Although the demons have numbers on their side, the soldiers did come prepared with silver bullets, holy water, and other such objects traditionally associated with demonslaying.

    Spying Asteroth heading her way, she realizes that remaining cut off from the group would be bad, especially if the demon corners her. She waits a few seconds before murmuring a few words to remotely activate the alchemized explosives she put around that crate. The moment the explosion goes off, she makes a break for the rest of the group.

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Uh oh," Echo pales a little bit and would make herself scarce from the men, since she herself had gotten in on the bikini, beer & pizza action there. "I guess there is no use but to break a few eggs to make an omelette, or something like that--I BET YOU'RE REAL GLAD YOU BROKE MY SPELL NOW, KYRA-HONEY," Echo more or less shouts when she has gotten clear of the incoming fiery DEATH.

     Of course Echo realizes she still doesn't know /where/ the white mage had gotten herself off to. Whoops. They were wily critters, those white mages. Always shrinking off and disappearing, with their white mages and the bibbin and the boppin'.

     "Wait, what's that smell--" and suddenly Echo has a split second to dive for cover just before the explosive goes off. Cool bats don't look at explosions.

Asteroth (817) has posed:
The explosion goes off, destroy the supplies, and sending large cracks in the stone. Fortunately, when placing a portal of this sort, you don't want to place on on stone easily bombed or destroyed, so it holds firm, and everyone doesn't go plunging down the bottomless pit. Because that would be bad.

Asteroth, spotting the white mage, charges over towards her, singing in Enochian as she does so. Her voice, constrasting with her completely hellish, disgusting visage, still sounds ethereal and beautiful. As she chants, flames begin to creep up around her body, and spread out from around her. She completely ignores the explosion, except for a large piece of debree which careens towards her, which she bats away with a hand. "I said we could do this the peaceful way." she growls, slashing her sword as she attempts to block the route back towards the Heroic Backup.

Meanwhile, the demons fight the heroes. The demons are numerous, but, as the heroes realized, relatively vulnerable to well-prepared heroes in this regards, especially since certain demonic vulnerabilities are nigh-on universal, and demons are a fairly common Minion of Evil across the multiverse. Still, they are thousands of years old and skilled, so while numerous, vulnerable and weak, they put up a... .... hell of a fight.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Thanks for the distraction!" Kyra taunts back at Echo moments before the explosion goes off. At least the bat was addled enough! Another mad scientist cackle escapes her as smoke billows around the still fiery spot where the supplies once were. The smoke disperses once more with Asteroth's song, leaving still-flickering flames behind.

    Kyra stops suddenly as Asteroth brings her sword down in front of her, allowing her route to the others to be cut off instead of something more squishy and vital. She takes a few steps backwards, a hand digging underneath her hoodie as she reaches in and pulls out a very ornate-looking, large revolver. Something within the gun itself reeks with holy energy. "What, the peaceful way where I give up and let you guys open a portal to Hell here? I don't think so." She lifts the Luna's Resolve with her right hand to point at the flame-enwreathed demoness, firing off a shot from the weapon.

    The soldiers circle up with their backs to each other, forming a tight ring to keep the demons from flanking their numbers or worse, back attacking them. They hold up...alright, but they're not invulnerable, claws clipping through armor, wounds sliced open. Ideally, Kyra would get herself to the middle of the circle to provide healing backup but Asteroth has put a stop to that, limiting the amount of time they'll be holding out against the demons before they need to retreat-or worse.

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Kyra," Echo has the tone of a disappointed and furious mother in her voice when she chides the white mage from the air, idly flapping her wings to help clear some of the smoke and keep herself aloft and away from the fighting. "I had no idea you worked with /explosives!/" her tone immediately changed to that of disapproving to suddenly gleeful, clasping her hands together off to the side of her cheek as if she was overjoyed that the white mage girl could cause just so much destruction!

     "Such potentiality for destruction... a pity it's being used instead by the union, hrm," Echo put a slender, 5-digited and red nailed hand to her chin, perhaps a plan was forming. With a snap of her fingers, Echo creates a giant phantasmic... big moogle? It's the size of an elephant, the sort with very squinty eyes and huge oversized features, stomping through and clearing a path towards Kyra, through the demons and union-men fighting.

Asteroth (817) has posed:
The demons scatter before the big moogle. I mean, its tromping through them, and demons are not really known for cohesion or bravery - unlike the human soldiers whom are also taking them down. The giant...thing is really the last straw, so they move apart in all directions like...well, like Imps are prone to do.

Asteroth sighs, and tries to swipe in vein at the hero again. This is going downhill, fast. "The supplies have been destroyed!" she says, unnecessarily. "Retreat, demons! Over into the pit!" And, indeed, that does seem to unify them slightly, as they begin jumping over the edge, and into the bottomless pit. "You have not heard the last of us!" Asteroth vows, glancing at the Moogle and wondering what in the world it is doing, before diving over the edge herself, into the abyss.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I'm a chemist!" Kyra declares proudly, "We run on explosives!!" She's not really sure how to handle the /approval/ of the bat sorceress, but errs on the side of accepting the compliment for now so she can focus on defending herself from the large, scary demon. First order of business was getting out of sword reach, which she does by backing up. This doesn't bring her any closer to hte contingent of soldiers.

    But getting close doesn't seem to be much of a concern moments later when the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Moogle comes stomping in. The demons scatter and the soldiers scatter, one of the soldiers, who was evidently the leader, also calling for a retreat since they have effectively accomplished the mission. Turns out Kyra was NOT calling the shots here, being just a Union ally. She turns to see the giant moogle and...

    ...immediately pulls out her mPhone to take a picture of it. Once that's out of the way, she too runs.

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Damn item user," Echo sighs a bit, looking around at the various entities fighting. "It does no good to slug it out like this--those of you still remaining, if you follow me you should escape with your lives," Echo focuses and creates a spatial distortion behind her, which looked something like a rapidly blue-ish white whirlpool hanging in the air. She'd leave this open for the demons to fallback through along with her, if needed.

     The ground shakes as the huge over-sized moogle stomps around, not actually stepping on anyone and smushing them to death but it does knock quite a few demons and humans out of it's way. It looks rather like a couple story tall plush moogle, but goddamn is it scary nonetheless. "Are we hoisted by our own petard here, Kyra-honey?" Echo snickers and flits around the white mage here and there, before teleporting behind her and reaching over to let something go--something small and airborne, which soon makes it's home inside the girl's moogle-themed hood without her noticing. (Possibly.)

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The soldiers are /well/ on their way to retreating now, thank you very much! Though more will be sent in later to secure the area and prevent futher attempts to set up the waypoint. The last thing they want on their obituaries is 'crushed by giant plush moogle'.

    "NUH UH!" Kyra fires back, probably lying, as she runs the hell away "I STILL THINK ITS ADORABLE!!" She's way too busy with her running to turn and look at Echo or whatever she might be sneaking into her hood. The gun is hastily slipped back into its holster as Kyra works to activate her Chocobo summon matrix. In a flash of green motes, the yellow-feathered bird appears.

    Hastily, she leaps on it and kicks it forward, easily enabling her to flee the giant moogle.

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Yeah have fun with that," Echo laughs a little, retreating as well into the whirlpool distortion she had made to take herself and whatever demons wanted to come along with her out of the general vicinity. This is how the bat ran things like evacuations, you see. The giant moogle continues to plod along and follow Kyra for a time, before it gets bored, tired and retires into the depths of hell where it now works in accounting.

     Echo on the other hand, has flown off into that whirlpool, which disappears after a short time. Meanwhile, montage of the CRAZY AND WHACKY ADVENTURES as Echo and the remaining demons raid a 7-11 for hotdogs and roadbeers, get drunk, have a pool-party and freeze frame, stop and print.