4559/Invaders From Beyond

Invaders From Beyond
Date of Scene:	16 September 2016
Location:	Paragon City <CoH>
Synopsis:	Heroes respond to a mystical disturbance... And face interdimensional invaders!
Cast of Characters:	1002, 1010, 774, Maya, 560

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War Witch (1002) has posed:
    Kings Row is a place that sees some occasional mystical activity. Largely, caused by the cult of mages known as the Circle of the Thorns sacrificing people on roof tops and performing strange rituals. However, something on a completely different level is happening this evening. As night falls in Paragon City, the glow of the blue force fields surrounding each city zone, called War Walls, giving their usual cool radiance, there is an upheaval. Ley lines that have been shifted ever since Unification into the Multiverse, out of place from where they should be, have formed gaps in the fabric of reality. Places where dimensions should be seamlessly melded have become unstuck.

    All it required was a sufficient power on THIS side to tear open the strained bindings... And let something through.

    War Witch was out on patrol, just finishing taking down some crazed surgeons attacking a homeless man, when she felt it. When EVERYONE felt it.

    And then portals started opening all over Paragon City moments later. Fear rose in those who had lived through the Rikti Invasion, worrying that somehow the aliens had returned. But these portals were different. Rings of electric white surrounding a hole like the void. And the things that emerged from them were definitely not Rikti.

    Monsters that looked like giant eyeballs with spike-covered bodies came first. Then came armored cyclops-like monsters, one arm larger than the other, and the larger arm covered in deadly-looking claws. Swarms of gremlin-creatures flap their way through the air, swooping down on the now-screaming civilians as they flee.

    War Witch doesn't know what these are. But her head throbs with the power of what's on the other side of those portals. And she knows she needs help.

    The distress call goes out as she leaps into the fray, swinging her flaming sword directly into the eye of one of the floating monsters as it attempts to fire a laser beam into a rescue worker.

    "Keep your eye to yourself, buddy!" she yells out.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt's desperately needed time to get back into things with Paragon City. Why not join War Witch on patrol for old time's sake? The towering rocket knight has been punching surgeons as well, dudes getting sent flying left and right just as portals open up. "VAS?"

    Yeah, no time to question things, Reiny, just get to punching bad guys! The knight does exactly that, charging towards one of the eyeball things, hammer brought down upon the alien being while Reinhardt bowls through the horde of smaller baddies. "Have at you, interstellar abomination!" He bellows dramatically, yet with the casual air that this is business as usual for him. It honestly is, knowing Reinhardt.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    The headache had been horrible, and had hit Dorian all of a sudden. He didn't know what it was. But then all hell seemed to break loose, and War Witch spoke of it on the radio. So Dorian figured it was that. "Teach me not to listen to my instincts..." he mutters.

    It's times like this Dorian wishes he could fly too. He still hasn't figure out that bloody jet pack. Besides, it only holds a little bit of fuel and isn't refillable, so he doesn't like to use it when he doesn't have to. Besides, it threatens to scorch his cloak, and he can't have that. He's close enough to where War Witch and Reinhardt are that he can get there on foot. Well, not completely. Fade Step is very useful for getting around fast.

    The familiar blue-white glow and feeling of a cold breeze in the area is indicative of Dorian's appearance near where War Witch and Reinhardt are fighting. The first thing he does? Make with the Barrier spells. Not on himself or the other heroes. On the civilians. It's a few extra seconds they can use to get out of the area without being hurt too badly.

    "No clues yet as to what's going on, I take it?" he asks as he finds War Witch. His tone isn't snide, but it's clear he expects there to be none just yet. It's starting out like a good old fashioned interplanar throwdown.

Maya has posed:
Maya wasn't sure just what was going on here. She wasn't sure but she knew she had to act fast as the call for help came out and she would be soon to arrive along with the others, and Maya thankfully can fly with the help of a long held little magical item. With her magic wings in place? She was airborn and moving to catch up with everyone else.

She was worried just what could be going on here? Who were they why were they attackng? Maya had no idea and she figured she would have more questions before the day was done.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
Emiya Shirou, registered as just 'the Smith' (through a combination of disinterest and wanting to confuse anyone who hears the callsign) with PPD, has recently returned to the force of periodic patrollers, though a certain incident may make trouble for him sooner or later.

    For now though, well, he's...

    He's rushed right the heck over the moment he caught wind of what was happening.

    ARROWS fly from the second story window of a building near a horde of the creatures! Or at least... they seem like arrows and hit like them, until one gets a closer look and sees that no, in fact.. A DOZEN SWORDS have been launched in the span of perhaps ten seconds with tremendous force, enough kinetic energy to punch a hole straight through steel!

    "What's GOING ON out here?! More monsters!"

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    The eyeball that War Witch hits doesn't have quite the same reaction as another big might have to having a flaming sword shoved in its eye. In short, while it takes damage, it doesn't appear that the eye is any more damaged than if she had hit it in, say, its spike-covered back, nor does it seem more distressed or less able to see. That giant optical organ blinks rapidly a few times and then it just turns its gaze on her, with scorch marks still lying across its pupil. So even their eyes are armored. Great.

    War Witch takes an eye beam to the stomach, hurling her back with considerably more response than the eye gave to her attack. "Aaaaghh!" she lets out. Then Reinhardt comes charging through, smashing aside the flapping little monsters and knocking aside the eyeball monster, on his way to smash a second of the giant eye-creatures.

    It seems the gremlin-things and the eye creatures have no particular way of getting through the barriers Dorian is putting up, helping the civilians get indoors or out of the area. War Witch is having trouble getting to her feet, as green rings around her arms, legs, and torso seem to be weighing her down. A side-effect of the blast she took? So they don't just deal damage, they also debuff? Ugh. "Don't know... But whatever's on the other side of those portals is worse news than these monsters, and I still don't know just how bad THESE are. Shutting them down here is the best we can do right now. Answers will have to wait!" She aims a hand and ice-beams a cyclops thing in place as it charges Dorian from the side. It struggles against the ice she is pouring onto it, resisting the ice magic and CONTINUING FORWARD for several feet before finally coming to a stop. So they're ALSO resistant to slowing effects, or maybe it's the ice. ALSO GREAT.

    The sword arrows that Shirou is raining down on the enemies seem plenty effective, though the Brutes stagger less under the impact of them even as they explode or slice through them. Many of the Natterlings seem to flee when they get injured, rather than stick around to fight. But others, less injured, give in to anger instead of fear, and... Merge together into larger Natterlings which then begin flying for the arrow-launcher rather than waiting for him to take them down from afar!

    Maya faces a mess of those same Natterlings as she flies into the air, as well as being chased down by a couple Watchers which fire energy beams after her from their eyes. One of them flies close enough that its tooth-lined eyelids try to close on her leg to 'bite' her.

    'Ugh' can not be repeated enough times.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    REinhardt hits the beast like a truck, and hits a second one along the way! He grabs the beast he collides with as he skids to a stop, growling as his metallic hand grabs the cycloptic monster by a tendril. Squeezing hard enough to crush a normal human being, Reinhardt gets a good handful of the creature's tentacle as he brings his hammer down upon it, then flings the monster towards a horde of the goblin things.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    Dorian becomes aware of the cyclopian horror charging when War Witch fires off ice at the thing. And Dorian turns to look and realizes it's not stopping. He aims his magic under the beast. "Bloody rude," he comments, a displeased hiss entering his voice. He scowls at the thing. "When someone freezes you, obviously they want you to STOP!" And with that last word, he raises his hands up as if pulling something from the ground, and an explosion of flame goes off underneath the cyclops.

    It's only then that he takes a moment to answer War Witch's explanation. "Quite right. Take out the trash first, chat later." Though he's not taking his eyes off that cyclops-thing. He's not convinced that it's no longer a threat, explosion or not. And he's also not straying too far from War Witch until she seems able to move. He doesn't want to leave her a sitting duck.

Maya has posed:
Maya isn't even sure what to make of these thing as they come at her. She doesn't care really they feel like horrors that have no place belonging in this world. She start to channel magic into one of her cards and there seems to be an unseen wind about her as maya keeps chanting and putting magic into said pair of cards. A Green glow comes form one and the other comes bright red a moment later the Naterlings and Watcher would find a massive burst of flame coming towards them, though at Maya's perial she's caught by the beams.,.. and bit several times in the leg. Which she struggles to keep aloft due to.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
"Not a chance, monsters!" Shirou VAULTS from the open window straight at the flier, casting his bow aside in what's probably a very surprising move!

    They probably aren't expecting that. He hopes.

    For all his impetuous-seeming ferocity though, Shirou's skill isn't diminished a bit. KANSHOU AND BAKUYA form in his hands and he SOMEHOW manages to enter a somersault-downwards-SLASH that he hopes to then manage a landing from...

    Unfortunately raining Natterling pieces if all goes well...

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    Reinhardt fights with one of the Watchers, grabbing hold of its very sharp spikes and throwing it into a mass of Natterlings, which shriek and scatter. The Watcher didn't much care for getting smashed and thrown around, and lunges back into the fray, spinning and firing quills from its back in a cone of rotating monster-drills at the armored hero! A Brute leans forward and fires an energy beam from its crystalline eye at the same time, coordinating its attack so that Reinhardt has to defend against multiple attacks from multiple directions! He has that force field of his... But it only guards one way!

    The combination of ice and fire appears to have been enough to defeat the Brute that was charging Dorian. War Witch manages to shake off the effects of the slowing effect (or it wears off on its own), allowing her to move relatively freely again. Her ice seems to damage them, just like her fire sword. That Brute just didn't respond ideally to freezing effects. So she decides to take a page from Dorian's book and use a new trick of hers. She relies on her fire sword, only icing opponents other than the big Brutes, and when the latter gets too close to her, she sets the air around herself on fire briefly to flash-fry them and hurl them away. It requires a lot of precision to not catch herself on fire too, but that's why she's been working on it so much lately.

    Maya's flame magic takes out a whole swarm of the weaker monsters, the Natterlings falling out of the sky, while the handful who survive go screeching and chittering out of there, fearful for their lives. The two Watchers, continue to burn even as they give chase, until they apparently suffer enough damage that each one's eye turns to stone, and they fall out of the air as well to crash on a rooftop somewhere below.

    The one that bit Maya also takes damage but was closer to her than the others, and so is doggedly pursuing her even as it smolders.

    Shirou's fancy sword work cleaves through the combined Natterling, and then lands... Right as a Brute comes charging in from his side, attempting to slam him through the a pawn shop's security-grated window and the display cases on the other side. He might react in time to avoid it and cause the Brute to suffer that fate instead, but it's clear that it was watching him from the street while he fought, and then positioned itself to capitalize on the downfall of its own ally. So they aren't just bizarre, with dangerous powers, but also cunning and ferocious too. Though cunning does not necessarily translate to actual intelligence. The Natterlings, for instance, seem more animalistic, fleeing when they feel their death is near rather than fighting a hopeless battle.

    There are more of these monsters all over Kings Row, in the streets, in the skies, so and so forth, but more heroes are responding as well. Horus flies into the area, announcing his presence with green energy beams from the skies. Apex is grappling with a Watcher's eyelids while using its spiked back to slash at other monsters, essentially turning the creature into an improvised weapon before side-kicking it in the eye when it seems about to fire its optic beam.

    Blue Steel has left the front doors of the PPD headquarters to bash heads, Lilac Lascerator is here firing poison spines into the massed enemies, and a hero in a U.S.A.-inspired outfit is swinging around a flag pole that seems to generate a flexible laser or plasma flag, red-white-and-blue, that he is swinging around and using both as a pole weapon and to cleave through enemies.

    They're probably going to get more reinforcements as the battle goes on. Which is good, because they need them. And most of all, they need to close those portals.

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt roars with effort as he brings up his shield, trying to deflect against the laser beam fired upon him. "I can do this ALL DAY, BEASTS!" He taunts, trying to reflect the beam towards the Brute's energy beam towards its Natterling and Watcher comrades. Something hits Reinhardt's arm from the shoulder down, and he frowns as he realizes he's been hit with a torrent of quills fired at him. "NNgh! Testy little things..." He grumbles, trying to pry a spike loose from his wounded arm. This used to be so much easier with Mercy around.

    Blood running from his arm, Reinhardt strains and focuses the reflected beam before he activates his boosters, flinging himself towards the Brute to smash right into it with a shoulder-check from Hell. Imagine a semi-truck that was the size of two smaller semis glued together, going at maximum speed towards an unlucky victim along the highway, and you've got the gist of what is gonna happen if Reinhardt makes impact.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    Once War Witch is free of the odd immobilization effects, Dorian nods. He notes to her, "Do be careful. I've no desire to see what sorts of shapes these things could twist you into, or cut out of you." Yes, his humor's a bit dark. But it's true! And he has to cover his worry somehow. That said, he heads into the fray again, to see where he can do some good.

    Enough of these things, Dorian's going to resort to crowd control. He will do this by using Static Cage, that ability that he uses to keep enemies in a small area for allies to attack, and priming Fire Mines in the area.

    Side effect of this is that he might be holding some of them in place for a nearby ally to fire on. Just don't go melee in the Static Cage. Dorian's spells don't discriminate, and if an ally gets in the cage or atop the Fire Mine glyph, it's going to affect them as well!

    And if anything gets close to him, it's going to get an unpleasant eye-opener, literally -- the knowledge that Dorian's not just a squishy mage-type, and is fully capable of swinging that staff with enough force to break human bones. Of course, these things AREN'T human, but it's a safe bet that getting bludgeoned isn't going to feel real great.

Maya has posed:
Maya is foing her damnest to take thes4 things down, there's some left but the swarm has been thinned out enough Maya can make not of it however Maya's still hurt and is bleeding from her injury. There's not much she can do about it for the moment. She is thankful however it seems the enemy s handled on her end for now. Yet there seems to more of them lurking about. Maya falls back to her allies as best she can and this time the lighting starts raining from her finger tips.

Emiya Shirou (560) has posed:
Time almost seems to slow down as Shirou lands, a fist moving straight for his skull!

    It's fatal. That strike will kill him instantly if it hits, screams his senses.

    That CANNOT COME TO PASS!

    His heartrate soars and determination boils over and every mental process in his soul factory churns up to a frantic pace. Magic Circuits light up and sizzle and a HUGE flash of light obscures the moment of impact as he clearly summons a weapon----

    And then comes the sound of thunder. The horrific sounds of PAVEMENT SHATTERING and glass exploding from windows. Car alarms going off as nine earthsplitting shockwaves roll down the street!

    It would take eagle eyes indeed to see just WHAT happened over there, but Shirou goes flying back as intended from the impact... except instead of splattering, headless, into a wall or somethig... his feet hit the ground first and he goes skidding just a bit awkwardly down the cracked pavement, away from the horrible crater that's been left behind.

    Clutched in one of his hands? An enormous... sword-club of sorts, of craggly rock. About twice his size...

    Those familiar with that particular weapon may remember the original was about twice THIS one's size, so it's been significantly modified.

    "Always know exactly how you'll survive the next five seconds!"

War Witch (1002) has posed:
    The heroes fight with eveything they have. Ice and fire, lightning and explosions, force fields and jet-powered tackles, healing for the injured so they can keep fighting and yet more firey explosions, and Shirou's amazing arsenal of legendary weapons with unique powers combined with his ability to shape them as he needs to. These all come together with the contributions of more and more heroes. Horu's energy beams and energy-shrouded punches and Apex's martial arts and quick thinking among them.

    It's not clear what exactly they did, what the trigger was for it, or even if it was something as simple as time running out for the monsters to accomplish whatever they were after, but the increasingly unstable void-tears in the air collapse, enemy reinforcements stop coming, and allied reinforcements continue trickling in to mop up the remainder...

    They still don't know what exactly caused this, but they'll find out soon enough that these invaders are popping up all over the city. So they'll have plenty of opportunity to find out.

Dorian Pavus (774) has posed:
    Dorian stays at range, so he'll have less to worry about from the physically-inclined beasties. He's hopeful that the portals close before too very much longer -- if he uses his magic too much or too strong a spell, it'll attract unpleasantness from the Fade....

    Though while he's not coming through this unscathed either -- simple probability indicates he's going to get hit at least once -- he's trying to minimize the damage he's taking via Barriers and just not being in range, recognizes that some of his allies aren't as lucky. Melee fighters, for instance, have to stay in range of these things. And with the heavier, stronger ones, that's a bad idea.

    The portals start to close, and Dorian begins to relax a little. Though not until he's dealt with the last of his 'company'. Sadly, Dorian knows no healing magic. He knows basic defensive spells, but healing is a little outside his capabilities. But he's not stupid enough to wade into a battle without any sort of healing. Though all he's got is potions, and he's only got a few of those. But he can spare them.

    Once he's done with his bit of these beasties, he heads towards the nearest of the allies, which happens to be Reinhardt. He draws the vial from his cloak and offers it. "Here. Bottoms up, big fella." His vernacular tends to slip into the informal when he's tired. And he's very much that. "It'll fix you right up."

Reinhardt Wilhelm (1010) has posed:
    Reinhardt brings his hammer down upon the survivors of his hammer-based assault, before the battle dies down for a while. He feels his shoulder aching, and notices blood staining his armor's shiny plates. "Hmf, not as fast as I used to be." He grouses to himself, but otherwise seems more concerned with getting his wounds taken care of.

    Aha! The mage guy, Dorian he thinks, is quick to provide something that might help with exactly that! Might not cure damaged joints and servos, but it'll do for the moment. "Ah, my thanks, Dorian!" he says, taking the vial and removing his helmet, tucking it under his arm with his hammer while he gives the bottle a swig. "And here I used to think healing potions were just a thing of role-playing games, I'm almost embarrassed." The German chuckles, before he politely returns the bottle after getting a big gulp. "You fought well today, but I get the impression we'll be more than busy today." He says, looking to the distance.

    Yeah, this is gonna be a hell of a patrol.