2331/Storm Elemental Chasers

Storm Elemental Chasers
Date of Scene:	27 May 2015
Location:	Galianda
Synopsis:	Kyra takes the new Afterus kids for a test drive with a good ol' monster hunt on the rooftops of Ramuh.
Cast of Characters:	626, 787, 788, 789, 790, 791

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Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Coordinates for Galianda's gate have been passed to Sarah in advance for what is promised to be a ROUSING ADVENTURE versus STORM ELEMENTALS. Any additional 'Kyra laughing at people getting electrocuted' that might happen during the adventure is purely incidental.

    Kyra Hyral meets Team Chaos Theory on the other side of the gate, which opens directly onto the massive, configurable bridge known as the Great Span. Upon the Great Span, the seven plates to varying degrees, making it pretty clear that this world isn't one of the giant spherical earthballs found throughout the Multiverse. Kyra herself is all too happy to be the escort along the length of the Great Span, which does not take as long as one might expect on foot due to haste lamps flanking the edges of the big bridge. Along the way, the Afterus kids can be expected to be gawked at and occasionally asked to pose with someone for a selfie from random strangers-Noa and Epica especially because it becomes very clear very fast that everyone here is human.

    EVENTUALLY THEY COME TO RAMUH, a plate entirely covered by a massive city that looks like Tokyo and New York City had a lovechild that was somehow conjoined triplets. It stretches far into the sky and in many cases the sky itself cannot be seen, blocked off by complicated layers of gutters and other rain diversion systems. It takes entering a building, riding a very long elevator, and exiting to the roof to finally see what could be spotted from afar on the Great Span: Ramuh is blanketed in a perpetual stormcloud.

    Fortunately for everyone here, it isn't raining. Occasionally, the rumble of distant thunder can be heard. "We should have about a few hours before another downpour starts." Kyra notes. "The wind gets pretty bad when that happens so we're not gonna want to be on the roof."

    The building that Kyra has chosen seems a little bit bigger than the ones in the immediate area. No logo or name can be found on it, suggesting that it's a public building of some kind-maybe a sector hall. The roof doesn't look like it has a large amount of visitors despite there being access. There are no railings on the edges or around the massive spire in the center but there is a very tasteful-looking metal-engraved high voltage sign on the spire. If one was feeling brave, they could jump to a neighboring building-it's only a little bit of a drop. Getting back up without switching buildings from the bottom might be difficult.

Victor Ellsworth (790) has posed:
    "Wow this is kind Of like the Bifrost Isn't it? That rainbow Bridge from mythology? I mean it Isn't rainbow but this Seems very similar in concept, You know?" Victor chirps in, walking in the rear of TEAM CHAOS THEORY as they cross through the Warp Gate. Victor's appearance is in his desc though and the player's already too lazy to repeat it. His cards (orange back, with a yellow sun) have already been set in a holder on his belt, for easy access.

    He will spend most of the way to Ramuh admiring the view and asking pointless questions to Kyra, mostly about the scenery and the physics involved. Nothing she can't answer, though. He's not a scientist or anything like that, so he can't exactly push the boundaries here.

    Once on the roof, he makes the mistake of looking down.

    "Wow this is a Lot higher than I Expected. I feel kind of Uncomfortable now. These things Are not going to try to Push us off the roof are They?"

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
Sarah, being super proactive for being a fatalist, has ensured that as many of their group as she could drag out of their holes is helping Kyra out on this thing. For one, safety in numbers is a thing. For two, keeping people together helps them all get better at once. Third: If she has to put up with Victor, everyone else does too.

Thus it is that the Gloomtrain sidles along the Great Span, looking out over the bridge and making occasional comments about how much it must suck to fall (or 'fall') off.

When they reach the stormy heights, Sarah looks around at the environment and shuffles to one side ann another, looking down off the roof into what amounts to a bottomless pit of neon and lightning for all intents and purposes. She looks back up and quietly rejoins the others. "If these things are intelligent at all they will use every method in their power to kill us. After all, we're trying to kill them."

She looks to Kyra, and nods. "So is this where we're going to be making our stand? Is there any preparation that we should be making?"

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    Taking pictures with IZZY HYLAND proves to be strange and challenging. The picture can be taken just fine, but for some reason while the lens is on him, the screen of the camera always shows something else. Usually something way more interesting than Izzy himself, actually. It's as if Izzy is a window to other people's secrets, and the camera allows someone to look through those windows for a brief time. Interesting (and sometimes disgusting) though this is, the only thing any actual photograph shows is just him... and whoever he happens to be with.

    The others have most likely PREPARED for being in a place like this. Not Izzy. He's actually left behind as much of his equipment as possible, and his shirt has been tied around his waist instead of actually worn. Notably, Izzy is built like a tank. This kid must spend a ludicrous amount of time at the gym.

    ... But as for what Izzy is DOING, he seems to be having a blast. Kind of quiet though, considering what a loudmouth he is normally. It's because he's trailing along at the back taking pictures with his iWear.

    "THIS IS THE MOST ALIEN PLACE I HAVE EVER BEEN. AND I'VE BEEN TO DERSE. DID YOU KNOW THAT CARAPACE PEOPLE EAT ORE SOMETIMES?" He shouts to no one in particular. Not the Derse of their session. The one that's in orbit around Afterus.

Epicea Chelid (787) has posed:
    The rain never bothered her a-ny-way~

    This is the theme of one Epicea Chelid, who had wandered the slicked stones and streets and hyperlanes of rainy Ramuh... with her eyes closed. Sarah manages to lead her around, and Epicea is preturnaturally good at dodging mishaps and falls, as her head bobs and nods, and she quietly makes little burbly noises, or snorts, or makes weird light snoozing noises.

    She's sleepwalking, but it works out for her.

    At points she looks like her hands are 'treading water' but she's not, obviously, in water, she's wandering with the group.

    As Kyra starts talking to give the briefing, she starts groaning lightly, and at Izzy's SHOUTING RIGHT NEXT TO HER, she finally snaps her eyes open, looking around. "What? Huh? I'm awake, I'm awake! Uh... This is that... one job, right? With the things and the stuff? Yeah, yeah, I'm on board, no problem, let's shove off and make for..."

    "Huh, we're here? Sweet. Napped through the transition."

Noa Nuquerna (788) has posed:
     Ramuh is the biggest city Noa's ever seen.

     Of course he takes the time to A) tag it with some spraypaint somewhere and B) hang up one of his WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS posters. It's part of the job. You have to remind people of these things. It's *principle*.

     Noa is dressed as he always is - his leather jacket, his leather pants, his cape, the spikes on his shoulders, a belt around his waist, and a belt bandolier-style over otherwise-bare chest. He probably has more metal on him than anybody else in the group, and he's rapidly suspecting he might regret that decision.

     Oh well. YOLO.

     "Cool. Gonna hit Lightning in the face."

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Epicea's napping antics lead to a number of pretty awkward selfies from the locals. Those not polite enough to ask might snag one. Noa? Yeah, Noa, in addition to pictures, will even get some compliments on his 'historically accurate' costume of...well, nobody can seem to remember the guy's name.

    "Push you off? Nah, Storm Elementals don't use physical attacks that often. Now if the wind started picking up, you might have to worry about that." Kyra says a little too cheerfully. "I wouldn't be too worried. If you fall, I'll cast Float on you so the fall won't kill you." At that, Kyra unshoulders a massive weapon off her back that looks like a very pimped-out grenade launcher. The GLEAMING GRENADIER'S CURE-ALL is, in fact, an alchemized weapon if anyone's able to tell. "Well Sarah, if you got any pre-fight buffs, I'd put 'em up now. Anything that'll lessen the effects of offensive magic would be helpful."

    She shrugs, "I could put something up but I'd rather not. I want to see how you guys roll. I'm just here for backup in case things go wrong." With her free hand, she gestures at the spire. "I saw some reports earlier so I think the elementals are on the other side of the spire. If not, we'll have to hop around to other buildings to check. Sure, it's a /little/ bit of tresspassing. But we're doing a public service. Hell, if we remove Storm Elementals from the roof of any corporation, /they/ should be /paying/ us." And just on the tail of saying that, Kyra pulls out a headband-like object which, of course, goes on her head once she pushes her hood back. "I'm gonna be recording this, by the way. For science. I don't know if I'll put it up on my Mogtube channel though. You guys go ahead, I'll be over there, ready to healbomb if it's needed." she hefts the CURE-ALL onto her shoulder.

    Sure enough, once Team Chaos Theory circles around to the other side of the Spire, they are confronted by three blue-hued Storm Elementals double the size of a beach ball. They peel away from the base of the Spire and immediately aggro on the group, two of them attacking whoever happens to be up front at the time with some slightly underwhelming Thunder attacks. Normally this would be Izzy but since Izzy's left most of his gear at home while Noa has worn metal armor, both spells head for Noa instead. The third decides to make everyone miserable by laying down a wide-spread hit-everyone-in-the-party Thundara.

Victor Ellsworth (790) has posed:
    "Seriously, they eat Rock?" Victor glances towards Izzy, surprised by the RANDOM IZZY TRIVIA MOMENT. He didn't know, now he does! It's not that he hasn't been to Derse, it's more he hadn't studied their diet. Figured they just... ate people food. Never paid attention.

    "Sure, that sounds Fine. I will trust In your ability to cast Float. I assume it does What it says on the Tin," Victor then answers Kyra. He will follow TEAM CHAOS THEORY as they go around the spire, once they do; and only once they spot the Storm Elementals does Victor draw from his belt-holder.

    Seven cards; five for his hands, two for his per-action refresh.

    Hand: Red Joker, AH, AD, 7D, 8D

    Fortunately, the would-be Mage is at the back of his group; Izzy and Noa are the tanks, as it were, and he knows to stay in the back. It's difficult to avoid the wide-spread Thundara though, so the teenager is electrocuted! Lightly. Stings like hell either way.

    "Wow these Guys are assholes, do You really just have to Deal with this crap On random rooftops? Like RPG random Encounters except they happen Even in cities?"

    Two cards are flung, the TEN OF HEARTS and the EIGHT OF SPADES, towards the elemental who flung the AOE spell. The 10 inflicts crushing damage, the eight slashing! The ten is a bit more powerful than the eight.

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
Sarah shrugs for a moment. "I don't have anything like that." she says. "I'm sure we're all going to handle this with our usual grace and flair." She then pauses for effect. "Any by that I mean none."

She shuffles the team over in the direction indicated by Kyra, and they encounter three STORM ELEMENTALS.

As everyone prepares to engage in some STRIFE, Sarah produces her JENGA STACK from her PUZZLEKIND STRIFE SPECIBUS, which is a worn pile of short balsa blocks in an orderly pile. They're balanced on her hand, which might be a feat in terms of actually trying to use this in some kind of a POTENTIALLY STORMY SITUATION.

The zap of the thunder attack, in fact, makes her DROP THE STACK, causing it to fall apart in a pile all over the place. Sarah looks down at it, aggrieved. "Well, that was bound to happen."

She moves to plan B. Her ENIGMA MODUS unfolds, and she stores the JENGA STACK in the MODUS, the CAPTCHALOGUE CARD locking up with code reels and scrambling the image on it.

Why would she do that? That's not where it's supposed to go if she wants to use it as a weap-

Suddenly, a BUST OF PARACELSUS is ejected from her Modus, the heavy stone object flying towards the nearest STORM ELEMENTAL.

Why does she have a bust of a Swiss German Renaissance-era toxicologist and botanist? Who the hell knows?

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    The thing about Izzy is that he doesn't do gear. There's a reason for this, though it's a reason that nobody has really come to understand, not even Izzy himself. Fundamentally, the basis of his title-to-be is that of "Nothingness". By equipping himself with nothing, he is providing himself with the most power and protection that he is capable of mustering. Thus, the party-wide Thundara strikes him and... leaves him a bit crispy! But it seems like his MDEF is pretty damn high, actually.

    "RUDE." Izzy declares, elaborately sliding beneath Victor's thrown cards and coming back up once they've made contact -- or missed their mark -- to swing several powerful punches at the area-of-effect elemental. Yes, he is really engaging a floating ball of electricity the size of his head in a fistfight.

    Unfortunately, he has no area-of-effect, because he hasn't learned Razor Gale yet.

    "THIS PLACE IS CRAWLING WITH SORCERY AND MYSTERY. THERE'S NO WAY, THEREFORE, THAT IT ISN'T CRAWLING WITH UNNATURAL BEASTS THAT HUMANITY MUST CONTEND WITH IN THE COURSE OF EVERYDAY LIFE. THE MUNDANE HAS NOT YET SETTLED AND PURGED THE MYTHOLOGICAL FROM THE TAPESTRY OF THE WORLD. ISN'T THAT RIGHT, MISS HYRAL?" Izzy converses casually while skirting to one side of his chosen elemental, allowing ranged support to still reach it even though he's engaged in melee. "AND YES, SOME CARAPACE PEOPLE EAT ROCKS. SOME OF THEM ONLY EAT RED THINGS. OTHERS EAT MEAT. CARAPACE PEOPLE ARE VERY, VERY SILLY."

Noa Nuquerna (788) has posed:
     Lightning sucks.

     Noa is not fast enough to dodge lightning. Noa is not even close to fast enough to dodge lightning. So he gets zapped. There's a nasty, loud BRRRZZAAAAP that runs through the air as Noa gets blasted, a smell slightly like cooked meat, and....and some seriously frizzy Elf-hair, which lasts for all of a moment before falling back to normal. Even elf *hair* stays pretty.

     Also, it leaves Noa laying on the ground, smoldering.

     Ow. He's not dead! He's just...lying here for a minute.

Epicea Chelid (787) has posed:
    Lightning does, indeed, suck, and Epicea doesn't like lightning. Beyond the pain, they make her all frizzy and burned and /energetic/. Spasmy! IT FEELS LIKE EFFORT, ENTERING HER BODY! This is the very worst thing, the double triple worst and she hates it.

    But, luckily, as she was trying to wake up, hopping lightly from foot to foot, she stops on her right foot as the bolt of Thundara strikes her, passing through her, and causing her to spasm and buckle down, groaning.

    "Stupid... sparky... things!" She pulls out a large fluffy pillow from hammerspace, fluffs it once, and slings it...

    At Noa.

    "Hey, jerk! No nappies! We're working, and only /I/ am allowed to nap on the job!" She hollers. In actuality, she's waiting to see if physical attacks work, or if they'll have to engage in Shenanigans. Also, she's sour that Noa is taking 'a break'.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Yep! Pretty much!" Kyra says a little too cheerfully back to Victor. Unless Kyra's white magic decides to give everyone the middle finger but that seems super unlikely to happen at the moment. "Random rooftops, random alleys, random sewers." Kyra ticks the places off with her fingers then adopts a PSA voice: "Random Encounters can strike at any time! Stuff like this figures out how to adapt to environments, even the ones we change." Yeah, she sounds serious about this. "-what, no buffs? Nobody has buffs? You're support, right Sarah? Are buffs not a thing on Afterus?"

    Elemental 3, the horrible Thundara caster, is struck by two of the cards and vibrates, sparks shedding but the elemental retaining its shape. Victor may astutely notice that the ten of hearts appeared to shed more of the elemental's mass than the eight of spades-much more than would account for the numeric difference between the two cards.

    In perhaps a similar showing of 'proper means of attacking a Storm elemental', Sarah's launched bust of Paracelsus will fly at the center mass of the Elemental, clearly strike it as a sizzling show of sparks will show, then fly through the other side of the monster, blackened and covered in cracks all over. It's launched at an entirely different speed, as if the elemental spit the bust out. At the same time, the second elemental has appeared to have lost half of its mass.

    "What the fuck?!" Kyra can't help but interject at that.

    Izzy proves that he is enough of a man to punch lightning. Going bare-fisted on the third elemental has mixed results: actually punching it reveals that there is some 'give' with the action up to a point where force emitted by the elemental rather than physical mass prevents Izzy's fist from sinking any deeper. Punching it bare handed also kind of feels like sticking a finger into an electrical socket. It's a course of action that could lead to mutually assured destruction were it not for the head start on damage that Victor has provided. With Izzy as a target so close, this particular elemental directs a bolt of Lightning at him directly.

    Now that Noa is apparently 'down', the other elementals seemingly ignore him as a target-mostly. The first elemental chooses to unleash another single target Lightning at Izzy while the second is the one that'll cast the Thundara against everyone.

    "Ah, shit, already?" Kyra, meanwhile, standing FAR back out of AoE range for Thundaras, levels the CURE-ALL at the fallen Noa only to hesitate as Epicea hurls a pillow at him, assuming that it's some kind of Afterus Healing Thing.

    Or Epicea could be about to teamkill with a pillow. In Kyra's defense, she wouldn't have known.

Victor Ellsworth (790) has posed:
    More AOE! Victor whines, because it's kind of difficult to dodge lightning. Now mind you, he can get lucky. Very lucky. Lucky's the name of his game. The slightest hole in the spell's pattern; he could, theoretically, alter the odds. Make it more likely that hole is what'll try to collide with him. Could. But he's not that good yet.

    That means Victor just gets electrocuted again. "How do You people deal with This on a daily basis?! This Sucks! These Guys are kind of Assholes!"

    He draws two more cards! He grins.

    "IZZY, DUCK! HEGEMONIC SLASHER!"

    The two cards he drew are thrown immediatly, towards the elemental targetting Izzy. If the teenager ducks, he SHOULD be able to avoid the lightning blast headed for him easier, and the cards are going to impact with that elemental (if it can't dodge, anyway).

    Jack of Hearts and Jack of Spades.

    The two cards have some pretty powerful crushing+slashing spinning whirlwind action going on there, plus a bonus for being A PAIR. It's slightly less scrubby than his usual attacks. Sadly, Victor is still a scrub, so. You know. The effectiveness may certainly not be what he hopes for.

    His hand has not changed.

Noa Nuquerna (788) has posed:
     Noa finds himself hit in the head with a pillow.

     This does little for his mood. The pillow is hard and unpleasant, and probably just a little soggy. He grabs the pillow, and, immediately, a little devil appears out of nowhere to pluck the pillow from his hands. The devil vanishes.

     The sogginess does not.

     Noa stands up and unhooks the belt around his chest. "I was not taking a nap!" He shouts, taking it in both hands. "I got *hit* with a *lightning bolt*, you self-absorbed mouth-breather!" Mouth-breather is probably a serious insult for a fish, he sort of hopes as he starts spinning the belt. It grinds across the ground, trailing sparks. That might even be slightly distracting for the lightning elementals!

     Kyra's cure-all receives a wave of his hand over his shoulder as thanks as he advances on the monsters.

     Then he throws the belt outwards to hook it around the thing's neck, loops the belt through the buckle, and closes it as if to choke the monster.

     He's not trying to choke it. In his hands, as emotionally-charged as he is right now, the belt is practically a guillotine.

     Also, leather isn't very conductive.

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
"Why did you people not listen to me! I told you to not wear conductive stuff, gods!" Sarah yells. Of course, her rubber-soled shoes aren't helping at all anyway because this is MAGICAL LIGHTNING and not REGULAR LIGHTNING. Magical lightning doesn't give a damn.

Sarah realizes this somewhere around the second area Thundara, and she is zapped again, falling over with a sizzling noise. "Ugh. Of course it wouldn't have mattered if I wore protection." She mutters.

Her face twitches in irritation and subtle anger, as if something was about to boil over. "Fine, if we're going to get shocked anyway... I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU PAY!"

"Nope! No buffs here!" Sarah calls in response to Kyra. "I'm just a kid with a crappy weapon! But who cares, right? THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED!" With a sudden manic energy, Sarah leaps bodily onto the a large Galiandan sign that reads eloquently: 'DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!'. She doesn't seem to care about warnings as she rips the sign off of its mounting brackets and CAPTCHALOGUES it, staring with deadly intent at the elementals.

The ENIGMA MODUS, overloaded, disgorges an UMBRELLA, which fires towards them like a spear.

But it doesn't end there. Sarah leaps forward, running towards where the BUST OF PARACELSUS fell, CAPTCHALOGUING it again. The MODUS overloads once again, spitting out A FILING CABINET OF UNETHICAL RESEARCH.

She just keeps going, as a JUNIOR BOTANIST HYDROPONICS SYSTEM, a PILE OF DETERMINISTIC PHILOSOPHY, a LARGE BOX FULL OF MARBLES, a FOLK GUITAR, a JENGA STACK, and a SET OF BETTY CROCKER COOKBOOKS join the objects being hurled across the rooftop.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    "OUR POWERS AREN'T ACTIVE YET. WE'RE NOT REALLY SURE WHEN THEY WILL BE. PROBABLY NOT UNTIL OUR GAME BEGINS. SO NO, NOT REALLY ANY BUFFS TO SPEAK OF. THE IMPORTANCE OF THEM AREN'T LOST ON US, THOUGH!" Izzy explains to Kyra, simply. Though, there's definitely something vaguely supernatural about them. This kind of voltage should probably be killing or at least seriously inconveniencing "regular" people. Electricity crackles around the barely-armored young man, causing him to jerk and spasm and sizzle... but it doesn't bring him down. Once he's done flailing around, he rights himself.

    The Third Elemental has demonstrated that it there is a point beyond which Izzy can "grasp" it and not simply pass through its form.

    So, without warning or explanation, he reaches right the fuck out and tries to grab the little bastard of an electricity ball and SUPLEX it into the roof with force that can only be described as absurd. Not at all coincidentally, he's quite well synchronized with Victor.

    Assuming the Elemental doesn't wriggle its way free of this absurd maneuver, its landing and release point will be perfectly set up to receive the HEGEMONIC SLASHER attack.

Epicea Chelid (787) has posed:
    Epicea finds herself out one of her pillows.

    Noa has never done this before.

    Nobody has stolen one of her pillows before.

    This was a stroke of good luck for most of the cast - or in, perhaps, Sarah's case: simply the avoidance of doom.

    There is one quiet moment, where Kyra asks if there's some sort of buff that they can cast. "No. We don't do that. We just kind of... do normal stuff? Like GIVING! ME BACK! MY PILLOW!!!" She hollers, going up to Noa and stomping around. She's mad. "Hey! Hey! Hey! Give it back! It's /my/ pillow, it's not yours, my comfort!"

    She flails her hands at Noa, and gets ELECTRIFIED for it, bzzzzzap!

    Now smoking, and blackened, and her norns two smoking points curling from her brow, she starts shaking Noa. "Give it back! Give it! This is it, right? You, being the adversary? DO YOU WANT TO BE MY ENEMY?! DO YOU WANT TO GO?!? YOU WANNA FUCKING GO?!?!?!?!"

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    "HANG ON, TIME OUT. WE'VE GOT SOME ISSUES TO RESOLVE BEFORE WE FINISH THIS." Izzy signals to the ELEMENTALS, in spite of having just tried to suplex one of them. He holds his hands up in a 'T' position, briefly. This is COMPLETELY FRUITLESS, but Izzy is the kind of guy who will do something profoundly pointless as a courtesy to mindless animate lightning.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Normal, untrained people would be getting smoked by these things. Team Chaos Theory might be a bunch of noobs but they do have Predestination Death Games Academy for Gifted Ecto-Youths to their credit. It seems to have at least adequately prepared them for Random Encounters.

    Kyra spends a moment considering life without being interrupted by monsters. "...hmm, it'd be a lot like living on Chocobo full time..." she reflects before speaking up a bit louder: "We grow up studying them and fighting back! It's not that big a deal! Though I /guess/ people /usually/ hunt Storm Elementals in specialized rubber suits. That stops the majority of spell spam."

    Oh.

    Epicea's swat to Noa, turns out, is not some kind of form of healing and thus Kyra starts aiming the CURE-ALL again until Noa waves it away. The elf will quickly find that he's attracted the Noa's also going to have trouble hooking around the neck of one of the elementals because they really have no neck to speak of, being giant floating balls of lighting. But since their mass does give, the belt will find purchase around the spherical shape of the second elemental. In one large yank, the elemental splits in half. The top half tries to salvage some of the mass of the bottom half but the bottom drops away, the electricity grounded, leaving a half-sized elemental before Noa.

    If Victor was looking for something to completely blow the elemental out of the water via a two of a kind, he'd find himself only being half-pleased. But on the bright side, after the whirlwind vices around the third elemental, it's now only half the size it previously was, now a blue floating beach ball of lightning.

    Sarah ganks the warning sign, further adding to the WTF factor Kyra is feeling with her fighting style. An umbrella flies at the second (tinier) elemental and passes through it without all that much damage from the look of it, besides creating a hole through the elemental that fills rapidly afterwards. The umbrella flies over the edge of the building, getting some good airtime. Soon a ton of other random crap is now filling the air, not all of it hitting, nor all of it really doing a terribly large amount of damage-except that file cabinet. The FILING CABINET OF UNETHICAL RESEARCH cruches the second elemental underneath its weight, the sparks of its mass spreading out from beneath it, then dying out on the ground. One down, at least.

    Izzy grabs the third elemental by the ball-again, something a normal person would not do unless they enjoy hugging electric eels in water. The elemental doesn't try to free itself since 'being grappled' is not a situation that these creatures really comprehend. Nor can it really appreciate the beauty of a suplex as Izzy rocks back and smashes the elemental down, effectively grounding it and dispersing its existence. A scattering of stones spreads across the rooftop when it happens, colorful and of many shapes and sizes that might belend in with the marbles that Sarah ejected. Two down!

    The remaining one doesn't seem willing to comply to Izzy's request to hold off until the Noa and Epicea drama is resolved. Nay, robbed of its fellow elementals, this one seems more willing to unleash the Thundara spam-centered right on Noa and Epicea, in fact.

    "Holy shit, you guys!" Even Kyra starts yelling at them, "Get it together before you're fried to death!"

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    Izzy Hyland immediately drops his rambling into his computer-contacts when his request for a time out is not complied with. He keeps his distance from the remaining elemental, rising from his resting position following the suplex, and stares towards the one that's left balefully. It really is quite rude not to comply with a simple, polite request as simple as the one he made. "HEY. HEY YOU, NO. THAT IS VERY, VERY INCONSIDERATE." The thing is still attacking people, this time aiming the majority of its wrath towards Epicea and Noa. They're not that far away though, so the Prince of Void is zapped once again.

    By this point, he's been electrocuted a quarter of a dozen times. His hair is standing on end, he's burned all over but most especially in his hands, sweating from the exertion of grappling with the elemental... which really was a bad idea. Not to mention, he has spasms all over.

    "I SAID."

    Izzy accesses his sylladex. A goddamned BAZOOKA drops out onto his shoulder. He aims it at the remaining lightning elemental.

    "TIME. OUT!"

    Who the hell gave this idiot a bazooka?!

    A predictable explosion follows, centered on the current location of the remaining elemental.

Victor Ellsworth (790) has posed:
    Only one left! And Victor's not in the line of fire, for once. He will, however, not let that elemental interrupt the quarrel. Because it's god damn hilarious, for one. And two, they're not friends, but they're valuable allies and that's worth protecting them. Even if it's doubtful the last elemental could KILL them.

    The teen draws two more cards, shuffling his hand around.

    "Full house! Fuck it I will Come up with a Name later attack!"

    He throws five cards, aimed to intercept the lightning spell. The Aces of Hearts and Diamonds, the Seven of Clubs and Diamonds, and the Red Joker, acting as another Ace of Hearts. God bless the fact they double as wildcards. The five-cards attack creates a small storm of crushing, explosive and piercing damage. It won't harm anyone, but it might be enough to dampen the spell! At least, enough for Noa and Epicea not to get fried.

    Izzy is more than capable of handling the elemental, so.

    Remaining in Victor's hand: 2C, 8D.

Epicea Chelid (787) has posed:
    There is a curious sensation that prickles all across Epicea's skin, as she has Noa by the shoulders and shakes him. She shakes and she shakes, and dimly, she's aware of sensation lightly washing over her.

    Oh. It's pain. It's mind-boggling lightning-induced pain prickling every pore, burning her clothes, filling her lungs with agony and ozone, and lighting her hair on fire.

    But she doesn't recognize it, as she shakes Noa. And shakes him. And continues to shake him, and conducts her electrical pain into him. "Give it baaAaaaAAAack!" She yells, as she smoulders with electrical fire.

    And then, behind her, where the elemental was SHOCKING THE SHIT out of her, there's a massive RPG explosion where Izzy fires an annihilatory blast and Victor uses the power of the Full House.

    This is probably why Epicea finally gets reprieve from being turned into a fried fishcess, and slumps against Noa, beating him lightly with her closed fist onto his chest.

    "Give it... back... give it... back..."

    Her face is sort of smooshed into his leather-bound chest. "Your chest is... really comfy... is something burning? You should... take care of that."

    Then, soft snoring sounds begin to emit from her, as she continues to lightly whap against Noa's ADVERSARIAL CHEST.

Noa Nuquerna (788) has posed:
     Noa is shaken, furiously. An argument over pesterchum culminates in his annoyance spiking to truly herculean levels, *and* culminates in his determination to beat the crap out of all of these people following suit. It's absolutely ridiculous, how-

     LIGHTNING.

     BRRRRZZZZZZZAP.

     Lightning rolls over Noa's body, jumping directly to the metal bits (and probably mitigating a lot of the already-mitigated damage done to Epicea, in a frustrating turn of events) on his shoulders. Lightning crackles between them like a Jacob's Ladder before electricity rocks him to the core, completing the circuit with the Fish Princess. The lightning gives him a nasty shudder, but thanks to Izzy and Victor, he gets to not only stay alive, but stay up this time.

     "Hey, calm down, fi-"

     Noa goes silent as Epicea falls asleep against his jacket. He stares at her for a moment, and at the gentle whacks of her hands, then points over at Izzy.

     "You wanna do something about this?" He offers, "Because I'm seriously tempted to just sidestep and let her fall."

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
"No wonder why you guys are so badass!! It's like you're permanently living in a Session!!" Is the response to Kyra. Meanwhile, Sarah knows things these lightning bolts things don't. Like how Izzy actually has a real weapon that he breaks out when something is exceptionally rude to him. Thus it is that she ceases her bombardment of the elementals, and busily gets her stuff CAPTCHALOGUED again, sticking her JENGA STACK back into her SPECIBUS as intended, as well as putting the SIGN and the PILE OF STORM PEARLS that dropped into another STACK so they don't go flying.

After all, if the building was meant to explode, then they may as well make sure the loot is handled.

She doesn't bother attacking, Izzy and victor have this. Picking up piles of crap is time consuming.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    "YEAH OK."

    Izzy puts his bazooka away in his sylladex and moves over to take Epicea from Noa, draping her over himself in a fireman carry that he doesn't seem to have any trouble at all maintaining. She's actually a bit taller than him, but he doesn't really seem to mind this minor complication.

Noa Nuquerna (788) has posed:
     Noa proceeds to snap his fingers. A little devil shows up.

     Noa starts beating it with the belt furiously. "COUGH IT UP!" He shouts, "COUGH UP THE FREAKING PILLOW! GET IN THERE AND FIND IT AND BRING IT BACK!"

Epicea Chelid (787) has posed:
    Epicea is tall, but she's easily tossed over Izzy's shoulder in a classic fireman carry, where she sort of hangs there, her smouldering hair not yet put out entirely, as she continues to pap pap pap against Izzy's chiseled lower back.

    The kid was built like a goddamn truck that was carrying tanks.

    Dude was stacked.

    He was the living embodiment of Shirtless Time, like some sort of gymrat dream.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Victor's gamble proves successful: damage is mitigated, mid-flight, in the Thundara that would have no doubt toasted Epicea and Noa (and everyone else, but mostly those two). The spell strikes at half-strenght, which while painful, is now significantly less painful. Kyra nods in appreciation of the countermagic. "That was good!"

    Izzy, who had struck Kyra as a bare-handed monk, fighter-type COMPLETELY SURPRISES Kyra by pulling out a friggin bazooka to shoot at the remaining elemental. Were the Storm elemental capable of emoting, it would be surprised as well. Surprised and exploded as opposed to just exploded. The explosion from the blast makes a wonderful blossom of fire and smoke on the top of the building though the building itself seems mostly unscathed except for a large sooty area on the roof. It'll probably wash off in the rain.

    Speaking of rain, the first few fat, wet drops start to fall. Judging by their size, it's the kind of rain that turns into a downpour very quickly. The wind also starts to pick up noticably.

    "Hah, I guess you could say that, Sarah. Very interesting test run though, it looks like you guys still have some, uh, issues to work out though-" she gestures at Noa and Epicea, then freezes, staring off at something in the distance.

    On the roof of a nearby building stands a woman in white and silver armor that has an odd 'poofy' skirt to it. Lining the skirt seems to be downward-pointing spears. This red-haired woman watches the group with her arms folded.

    Kyra quickly looks away and moves for the rooftop entrance. "Okay, so let's get back inside before the storm dumps a big one on us."

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
STRIFE COMPLETE. VICTORY DANCE. Sarah waves her hands around in some meaningless and yet complicated way in the background as pillows are handled and fish princesses are carried in. However, she stops, looking at Kyra, who is looking in the distance at the figure.

She looks back and forth.

And then she cups her hands, yelling at the figure, "HEY YOU, STOP SPOOKING MY FRIEND!! WE'RE BUSY UP HERE!!" She then turns, getting rained on as she follows Kyra, working on a code for her ENIGMA MODUS so she can /eventually/ extract that PILE OF STORM PEARLS and distribute the loot.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    Being quite oblivious, IZZY fails to notice the woman on a nearby building. Indeed, he fails to notice much apart from the fact that they are VICTORS in this small battle, and also that EPICEA is smacking his back a lot. That's only really a mild annoyance, and people do strange things in their sleep, so he's not really inclined to get pissy about it. He looks to the heavens as the rain begins to fall, issuing an exasperated sigh.

    "I'M GOING TO TAKE HER HOME BEFORE SHE WAKES UP JUST TO PULL OUT A KIDDIE POOL AND GO TO SLEEP IN IT. I'LL HAVE TO COME BACK FOR THE HEALING." He dips slightly low in a bow towards Kyra, "I'LL BE SEEING YOU LATER. THANKS FOR INVITING US OVER! WE SHOULD DO NORMAL THINGS TOGETHER SOMETIME. LIKE... UHHHH. DO YOU LIKE RABBIT ON PIZZA?"

    "... ANSWER THAT ON PESTERCHUM." He glances worriedly back at Epicea, and begins to head back the way they'd initially come at a fast clip. Izzy has a surprisingly good sense of direction, considering. There's still time to stop him, if somebody /reaaaaally/ wants to. Or if Epicea wakes up again.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra willfully lets herself be distracted by Noa beating a devil with a belt. That was hilariously violent.

    From the distance, it's hard to tell the expression on the woman's face. But she does turn slightly, suggesting that Sarah's sassing was heard. The woman lifts something to her ear-a phone maybe?-and doesn't move from her perch.

    "Guys-c'mon." Kyra says as the wind blows her hood against her face awkwardly. She motions for the others to walk ahead of her so she can swing the CURE-ALL down in their direction. Casually, she fires the large device, which expells a sphere of white healing energy that 'explodes' on impact into nice, relaxing healing energy. It also extinguishes any fires and removes electrical burns in the process.

    "Hey, you're welcome, Izzy. You guys did pretty good for noobs. You've got some Team Chaos Theory teamwork issues to work out though."