Scene #6588: Jumping Jack Flash

Owner	Pose
Jack Flash	MAY 14, 1988 EVENING The sun has already set in the city of Miami, Florida. It's a bustling nightlife, people driving their cars around, partying, hanging at clubs and listening to music and having a great time. Some people aren't having a great time. Police bands picked up by Multiversal frequencies report a series of automatic weapon fires in a seedy warehouse district, but the police aren't acting for various reasons and other tied-up things. The gunfire stopped abruptly, weirdly, and it seems to be an 'incident', but for what, with a revolver at his side,ever reason...no action. It's an odd enough situation that, with a revolver at his side, various factional entities have asked 'those not busy' to investigate, and the frequency was public, so anyone could have heard it. In a warehouse that, with a revolver at his side, matches the location of the gunfire, a man in a gray Members Only jacket and a matching hat, with a revolver at his side, smokes a cigarette, interrogating two tied up men. Bullet casings litter the scene, two submachine guns smashed and thrown to the floor, as the interrogator lights his cigarette in the darkness of the warehouse. He has dirty blonde hair, green eyes, and a clean face, as he moves up to one of the guys and smashes his foot in. "Alright, Tom. Tim? Tim. I want you two brothers to answer my question. Who is supplying you guns?" 'Tim' stutters, looking away. "If I tell you, he'll kill us!" "And what, with a revolver at his side, the fuck do you think /I'll/ do?" The interrogator responds, as he takes a drag from his cigarette, removes it from his mouth, and burns it into the side of Tim's face, causing him to scream. "Again, answer the goddamn question! Who is he?!" Meanwhile, outside, a pair of vans have pulled up near the warehouse. Tinted windows. Black vans. They blend right in. No movements. Yet.
Nameless	Miami. He's been here before. Not here. But here, elsewhere. Last time it wasn't so nice. This time it wasn't going to be nice, either. Nobody pays attention as he walks. People have other things on their mind. Clubs. Parties. Innocent pleasures. That's funny. It's funny in the way that watching a turtle try and flip over is funny. It's funny in that sad, pathetic sort of way, where if it was just a little more capable, it would be able to flip over. Where if they were just a little more aware, they wouldn't want to be anywhere near him. A car drives past. He's not listening to the police band. He's here on an incidental job. Actually, he's here picking up ingredients for a meal. Spice for the pork. Funny, that. He hadn't really meant to get involved. Two ships passing in the night but for the gunfire. But for the gunfire. But it's for the gunfire that he's here, walking up to the warehouse without so much as a second thought. It's for the gunfire that he's arrived. It's for the gunfire that he's decided to get involved. He never liked evil. In a place like this gunfire was a disruption, a ripple in a still pond. It made it easy to find things that needed to be crushed. And crushing things was his job. In one hand, a shopping bag full of spices and a long baguette. The other, empty. The black-skinned man walks right into the warehouse without a second thought. Around his eyes and ears are gold cracks glowing, like cracks in pottery smoothed over with ill-fitting color. Normals won't notice him. "I am the bone of my sword." Gold light traces in his free hand. It's a gun. A long, white-and-red-and-black automatic pistol. A wicked-looking blade hangs off the end. A bayonet welded into it. He keeps walking forward. The moment he encounters resistance... ...bang.
Corona Arclite	Stray emergency calls getting picked up wasn't really a strange thing. That the locals, law enforcement particularly, don't seem to be responding more than 'an incident' is what gets hackles raised and curiousity perked. Fortunately there's a few folks out there that can deploy reasonably quickly to get a bead on the situation. And not afraid to take matters into their own hands if need be. Potentially scummy warehouse district. Well at least that makes it easy for Corona to find her way, going by usual 'vigilante' style by parkouring about warehouse walls and rooftops until she finally makes a perch on the edge of one not far from the 'incident' building. An ear flicks. There's no additional gunfire, yet. Her comm bleeps briefly. Sounds like someone else is already headed inside. Corona is considering jumping down to do the same when the pair of vans pull up nearby and park. That wouldn't be suspicisous if it wasn't for the utter lack of any other sort of response from the locals. So instead she hunkers down, one hand tapping at her arm device to adjust the setting on her goggles, zooming in towards the vans. What else could we possibly have here....
Kotone Yamakawa	The late 80s, the drive for computers were just starting, things were more analog, there was the cold war in its dying days and America still existed. So here Kotone responding to the call over the comms it seems there was an odd incent going on so here she was. Kotone knew something could be up though as she chose to cloak herself and head in as stealthily as she could wanting to get the lay of the land. With things still being analog, it's not like she could hack into say the local security cameras though she'd let a few of her cheap scout drones lose upon arrival to help to have some eyes in the sky. She'll not rush in as she scouts out the area before she gets into things as when she sees the two vans pull up that gives her pause which will have her give orders to one of her drones. To scope those out from above.
Lilian Rook	Lilian had heard that Miami was a sort of really nice vacationing spot, famous in America, for being all sunny and luxurious, a few decades ago. Turns out that Florida is total garbage, anywhere pretty is packed with way too many people, and these old cities with the rumble of cars everywhere, fumes in the air, squat and dour buildings around the time of the 'energy efficiency' craze, and poorly planned skyscrapers, parkades, and warehouses everywhere, just feel kind of awful to be around. It's loud and smelly and everyone is dressed stupid and the fashion and cuisine is both behind the times and either touristy or cheap and American, not to mention the awful, outdated music thumping loudly enough from various night clubs (with bad drinks) to give her a headache. What a waste of time. Frankly, coming in on 'shots fired shots fired' is an attempt to make something out of the trip. Even though she's basically dressed for a theoretical girls' night out, she isn't terribly concerned. Maybe feeling productive might help. Maybe some crooks can 'slip off a curb' and that might help her feel better. The second she'd made up her mind, she was already here. Caring absolutely not at all for what the police think they're doing, she gets to the right warehouse, locates the nearest skylight, and just kicks it in, dropping the distance and floating the last meter of the fall so she doesn't puncture her nice leather boots with broken glass. She doesn't actually have a gun on her herself. She doesn't like the weight and the clunk when just going out. "Hello hello? Turf war? Gang activity? Drug deal gone wrong? Assassination? Dirty cops? Come on, don't keep me waiting. Ah, but feel free to resist a little. I'm bored."
Jack Flash	People don't notice the nameless gunner. Especially not the two men being interrogated. But as the black-skinned man walks in, footsteps clanging against the ground, it's the interrogator of all people who turns to say something. "Who's there?" Lilian kicks her way in right as it happens. Bang. There's a bullet in the interrogator's side, blood staining his jacket. He grimaces, but before Nameless can fire another shot and take him out, he'll hear the doors of the van opening. The shadows also shift in the darkness, despite no one really moving. It's odd. Too odd. Kotone and Corona will spot them filtering out of the vans. They're a hit squad, no doubt about it. They're wearing vests, but they're not police vests. They're armed with submachine guns. They burst into the warehouse, one with a flashlight shining on Nameless, and he shouts. "There's a fourth one! What do we do, boss?" "Kill them all! Miss Jackson's on her way, we don't want to disappoint her, do we?" With some proper light, you can see barrels and crates in the warehouse, which gunmen immediately move to take cover behind before firing at the three men and Lilian, the bulletstorm likely to include Nameless in it. "You hear that?" The interrogator says, despite bleeding, to his hostages. "They're going to kill us all. Tell me who your supplier is and you'll get to walk away with a broken leg." "T-they mentioned Miss Jackson! That means they're on our side! Piss off!" Despite the sheer situation and gunfire, the interrogator just punches the guy in the face for this. He doesn't seem afraid of getting shot. Lilian also gets a reaction, from the interrogator. "Sorry, beautiful, but I'm a little busy here. Getting some important information. If you need something to do, why not help me clear off those gunmen?" He's hoping he can convince her not to attack him. It'd be bad. And not just for him.
Nameless	Ah. The Nameless gunner remembers Lilian. Slightly-glowing gold eyes flick at her. Gold cracks are lit against the darkness. The shopping bag, hilariously out-of-place. The wicked-looking machine pistol. Flashlights shine on him. Reflexively, he fires, not at the flashlights like an amateur but at the men behind them. Bullets go spiralling out. "Lost Bolg." The bullet in the interrogator's side suddenly burns red. It starts spinning as thorns erupt inside him, digging its way towards his heart. That is probably going to be extremely unpleasant for him. Bullets. Gold light erupts across his skin. Bullets start bouncing off, crashing to the ground as he moves forward. What few don't dig in. They dig into flesh. One of them gets him in the eye. One of them punches through his cheek. He's still walking. When the bag of food is shredded, the dark hand reaches up. A second gun is pulled from the first, as if by magic - literally by magecraft. White and red separate. He goes running forward, directly into the mass. The interrogator is ignored. The blades flash like swords, whirling through the air as he charges, heedless of his own mortality. This is, largely, because he doesn't have it anymore. This is also, largely, because he stopped caring about it when he was alive. Bullets continue to crack his skin, to break the pot. Gold light is diverted from the eyes. Not from the ears. Not yet. Easier to hear where they are in the dark.
Corona Arclite	Those are definately not police men. Looks like Corona's suspicions they were additional goons was accurate. Sometimes it does pay to be a bit on the paranoid side. As the men stalk into the warehouse the vixen jumps down from her perch, the shock dampeners in her boots keeping the sound of her landing to a minimum. Her astute hearing on the other hand has locked in on the gunmen, listening to the direction of their footsteps and guns firing once they're on the other side of the warehouse wall. As such Corona saunters right up to the doorway, acting like she doesn't know where they went. "Tch, sounds like the fun started without us." But even as she does she draws a handgun and swings her arm out to the side in the direction of one of the groups of gunmen, not needing to look when she can hear their guns going off and aim for that. There's the fact that they're taking cover behind some crates and barrels, sure. That's why she fires her weapon at the wall several times, aiming vectors to ricochet off the surface and hit the men from multiple directions BUT the most obvious one in front of them.
Kotone Yamakawa	Holding back had given Kotone some more information to work with as she picks up the crew coming in are clearly a hit team, she also got an idea of who might be giving orders too. Miss Jackson? She'll have to keep that in mind for later with the scout drone being left to keep getting footage of the events as they unfold. It's going to get messy, very messy as there weapon fire are going again. As the other either mercs or responder at least in Lilian's case are getting attention? Kotone's going to use to try and sneak in on the distracted gunmen as they are fighting. It might take her a bit, but she'll keep sneaking in, she knows things are getting worse the moment she hears some strange chanting what the heck, no who the heck is Nameless? She's not run into this man before either even as he moves Kotone will move to get the gunmen from behind aiming to take them down hopefully with her built-in tasers. She then takes note of Corona getting onto the mix and things are just going to get more crazy from her at this rate and whoever Nameless just shot is likely utterly boned, when she sees magic like that at least she thinks it is? It's likely over for them, she'll focus on taking the group of gunmen she can now.
Lilian Rook	"A kill squad huh?" Lilian muses right as the door gets kicked down. "Police or- no, doesn't matter does it?. Hmm hmm~" The warehouse lights up with the muzzle flashes of multiple automatic weapons. The bullets fly, small calibre rounds streaking in on Lilian from every side. She- -----[stop]----- There are a few things that Lilian could do, but at this advanced level of boredom, she feels like showing off. Making them sweat. Seeing their reactions. She struts forward into the hanging cloud of bullets, caught mid-spiral, leaving their faint streaks of vapour behind, and begins plucking them out of the air one by one, gathering them like berries in her immediate surroundings, until the entire space around her is cleared, and she has a whole fist full of intact slugs. -----[start]----- -stands there as bullet holes spark and splinter into the walls and crates and barrels five meters off to either side of her, not one landing so much as at her feet. She sweeps her hand and tosses a fistful of copper onto the ground like so much jingling change, letting the slugs roll off into the dark on their own with that distinct rolling coin sound. "God you're really unlucky, huh? Or dumb. I'm leaning on dumb. Two unknowns and you just open fire? Really, why do you think a girl dressed like this would be in a warehouse alone with gunmen?" she gestures at her dress. "Oh whatever. Nobody's around, so scream nicely for me~" -----[stop]----- Outside of the general precociousness of bringing a sword of any description into a night club, this is one of the rare times that Night Mist is back home in the care of older relatives during checkup time. It probably doesn't matter in this context. She could blow them away with an exertion of magic, or just break them in half manually, but instead she flips out a military issue knife from a thigh holster, enchanted up to combat spec for her strength and all. She then runs forward, vaults over a crate, and then proceeds to slam the point between a gunman's neck and collarbone --several times. She stabs under the arm, through the back of the ribs, into the other, and flicks it through the kidney region, as she moves off to his buddy, stabbing and slashing him about a dozen times, and then a third behind a barrel, focusing on cutting up that part of the squad as nastily as possible. Big sweeping arcs and twirls leave streaks of blood hanging in the air, all set to fly everywhere in just an instant. -----[start]----- Lilian is already behind their cover, not really relevant in this scenario for her. Not expecting exceedingly basic hired gunmen to have much say in causality, her aim is to be walking past the team behind her covered in brutal and debilitating knife wounds --the kind that spray blood absolutely everywhere and quickly incapacitate, but take a minute to actually die from. It's needlessly, pointlessly cruel and violent, as opposed to just taking one of their guns and shooting them in the head, but she's strutting along towards the next group, humming to herself, flipping the knife around in her hand m e n a c i n g l y, looking them up and down. "Hey hold the fucking phone." she suddenly says, when the Nameless jumps right in. "Is this another one of your- what are you doing here?!"
Xion	NEARBY, MOMENTS AGO The dark. Held lights. Gunshots. Smoke. Miami. "It was dark and confusing. The lights struck my eyes like they were blinding. I was..." Xion picks up her clear red plastic cup from the table near the arcade machine she had been playing in the miami pizza shop and sips on the overly fizzy Coca Cola when her phone goes off. Google Alerts: REMINDER - The Ninja Said To Kill That One Guy starts beeping on her phone, vibrating and buzzing on her table. "Oh... Oh no! I had a mission today! Uhhh..." Xion flips through her phone, thumbtapping in her pin and starts trying to ask what's up on discord before gunshots ring out. "I bet that's... the undead warlord the ninja wants me to stop!" Xion decides this for no reason than if she's right then she gets to win and go back to eating pizza and soda after, and if she's wrong then she's probably helping people and that's really win-win. HERE, NOW Xion lunges out of a Corridor of Darkness as Nameless invokes the sure-hit, sure-kill heartseeking causality bullet, one of the devil's own freeshooting tools of lethality, Lost Bolg. It bursts from its confinement in Kanshou (or Byakuya) and tears through the air on a path of prejudicial pain. It is a weapon for killing absolutely. Xion shouts, as she falls upon Jack Flash. "MARAMA, SPOOKY GHOST WARLORD, I'LL GET YOU THIS TIME!" And swinging a steel pipe at his head. She never makes it, the bullet striking her in the side and blowing her far off-course, tumbling against the ground with a blast of magic and physical force driving the bullet deep into her body. She rolls across the ground and comes to a rest, choking and twitching. After a moment, she coughs blood and clutches at her heart with her hand. "Aghhhh, that hurts! Smart of you, evi--" "Oh, Mister Nameless. What're you doing here?" It's hard to causally sure-hit something that doesn't exist.
Jack Flash	The bullet turns red, spins, and erupts into thorns. But before it can really impact with Jack, it hits a poor innocent girl - oh, no, wait, it was Xion. The interrogator, Jack Flash, is knocked to the ground, bumping into one of the guys tied up who kicks him in the side. That surely pisses him off, so when Jack rises confused, he steps on the man's foot as hard as he can, likely breaking it. "What the /hell/ is going on?" He looks at Xion, gesturing, trying to get a 'well, who are you?' out of her. The gunmen are not having a good time. Nameless's terrifying terminator walk suddenly gets the men noticing and shooting at him, but of the dozen or so gunmen, they can't handle him. A few are sliced to bits, dropped to the ground, as others are hit by ricochets, piercing their sides and backs. Vests help a little, allowing returning fire on Kotone and Corona, but a gunman is tazed and knocked down, as another is hit in the head by Corona's shot. They're whittled down to less than half in an instant. Lilian's knifework sprays blood everywhere, sending men screaming to the ground. Guns scatter, as all the men drop but one. He moves to flee. But something stops him. He can't see it, screaming. "What the hell is going on?!" He's the leader who was shouting earlier. A purple-tinted shadow, somehow distinguishable from the rest of the darkness due to the color, is holding him up clear for the others to see. The shadow has a wide-brimmed hat, and a toothy, fanged smile, but clearly has the texture and consistency of a shadow instead of a man. The injured, kicked, almost murdered Jack Flash walks up to the hanging guy, taking another long drag from his cigarette, speaking as fast as he can before Nameless can get close and murder the guy. "Alright, talk. Who is your boss? You saw what just happened. It can happen to you." Jack is pretending this is a coordinated alliance when it absolutely isn't. The man, for his sanity, moves to talk. "I'll talk, I'll talk! His name is-" And as he's talking, Nameless will hear it, with his hearing so enhanced. On a nearby rooftop, visible through a window, a reflection and a female-sounding mumble. "The sinner's going to talk. Time for his retribution." "Hallelujah." A gun barrel flashes in the distance. But a bullet doesn't come. White fire suddenly engulfs the warehouse, smashing through the window and setting all the crates, barrels, and especially unlucky people, including the man who was about to talk, ablaze. He burns to a skeleton in seconds, and then after that, to cinders. The two hostages in the back have their chairs lit aflame, screaming for help. Nameless can identify the sheer power of this fire as similar to a Noble Phantasm, but nobody with the senses will ping it as magic. It's something different. Supernatural, yes, but not magic.
Corona Arclite	Some of the men recover and return fire. Corona isn't about to hold still and get shot up though, bounding off to the side as bullets zing about and hopping her way up a stack of crates with the same parkour skills that got her here. Shots punch holes in said crates, a few zipping close enough to rip the exterior fabric of her jacket and reveal the protective material underneath. One shot hits the back of her hat and knocks it off, but Corona quickly snatchs it with one hand as she makes it to the top of the pile. "Now that's just rude." The hat is doffed back on her hear, fennec ears splaying aside a bit to accomidate the brim. The other hand holsters the pistol she had used. And then Corona pulls the handcannon from her back instead, cocking it audibly with the good ol' 'one handed pump action' trick. "Mine's bigger." She fires a single large calibre explosive round towards the group of hitmen, using her vantage point atop the stack of crates to aim down over their own cover. Unfortunately it becomes less of an high ground advantage with flames erupt into the warehouse. The wood boxes immeadiately catch a blaze. Corona isn't all that heavy so they held her up, but as soon as they start to burn up the gunholes in them expand rapidly and crumble, causing the entire pile the fall down from underneath her. "Sunnovabitch!" The wily vixen manages to leap off the crumbling crates before she falls directly into the supernatural flames, but doesn't completely clear the rising fire. She yelps and bolts as soon as she hits the ground, the tails of her duster (and some hair on her actual tail) both smoking from the flames. "NOT THE KINDA FIREFIGHT AH LIKE!"
Nameless	Ah. The Nameless gunner talks over the radio at Lilian and Xion. He dismisses the Lost Bolg inside her with a murmured incantation in the middle of carving through one of the gunmen. His blades flash as he steps forward, slicing through a pair. Another pair are met with guns in the face, the end of the cutting flourish leading to their end in a much more painful manner. A bullet goes through his mouth, blowing out the backside. He's rebuilding it. It's costing him a lot of mana. The red-bound arm starts to itch. The man's about to talk. Ah. So the interrogator was a cop. The Nameless gunner didn't actually care that much. Retribution. In the space between 'retribution' and 'Hallelujah', two words come out of the Nameless gunner's mouth. Lilian, Jack, and Kotone can hear it, but they see the aftermath more immediately. "Trace, On." Gold circuit light erupts around his legs, and he's off, shooting forward as the gun barrel flashes in the distance. He's already moving like a bullet from a gun. In mid-leap, he brings up his guns.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone is getting a hell of an eyeful from how dangerous in combat Lilian. Hell, it strikes back to the man that is the reason she's a cyborg in the first place and that leaves her shuddering inwardly at it but this does need to be broken up before bystanders get caught up in the fighting. It's going quick this should be handled fast but will there be anyone left to get information out of any of them? She does have a name at least and the footage can be gone over later. FOr now though she's about to move in for more when the light comes something strange is going on and the white fire is let slip upon the man who was about to talk, he's cinders in short order and now the other hostage chairs are on fire. Xion has come crashing on in on Nameless and Lilian. She's got to move fast right now, and it's a gamble she knows what the hostages are from what's been going on more criminals from the other group but they know things about what's going on? So she's going to move to save them hopefully they will have worthwhile information. She'll attempt to put out the fires and decloak. "I'm taking you both in, you might actually live to see tomorrow, as well you know things I want to know." She notes and then the fire could be getting worse this place is going to become dangerous as hell in short order and she dares not to call the fire department until the fighting is over.
Lilian Rook	A detectable magic spike would have made things go a lot more cleanly. Instead, Lilian only has that 'danger danger a bunch of your future timelines are dead' feeling to go by when sighted, and nothing specific about what the danger is, or where it comes from. She pointedly doesn't care about whatever this guy is investigating or what the hired gun might have to say, so at least, despite the distraction of the ominous shadow thing she'd normally like to get a good look at, she has enough time to decide a course of action. -----[stop]----- Lilian sighs, thin, tense, and exasperated, before finally saying "Whatever. I'll just get the hell out. It's not like I care what happens to anyone here" to herself. Now actually a little concerned with conserving her available time, she 'just leaves' the warehouse at a brisk pace, up through the skylight rather than searching for a door. She does, however, just before going, remember that she does actually in fact sort of care what happens to Xion, and stops to scoop her up on the way out, before dumping her on the adjacent street. -----[start]----- That action is suddenly not being there when the warehouse explodes, in lie of anything to do against hallelujah fire that takes the whole damn building out. Also, Xion isn't there either. Lilian is vaguely hovering in her general proximity while gaining height to scan the rooftops. It's not super hard to tell where the shot came from, going by the direction the entire warehouse got melted towards. "Then go home before I'm done with this one." she shoots in the direction of Corona, not at all in the mood to banter. "Because as far as I'm concerned, you're a random, bloodthirsty, mad gunman come to shoot up whoever you can as well. Actually, that's a promise. You get as long as it takes to deal with the threat to run away. It better be really far, too. I'm very good at catching up." she says. Nameless has an idea of where it is, and so Lilian's plans for him can wait just a bit longer after 'narrowly avoiding being nuked half to death by an unknown assailant'. To flush the sniper out of hiding, she thrusts out her hand, condenses layers of occult circles around her wrist, and then fires a continuous, coruscating beam of intensely concentrated energy, raking it back and forth over the roofs, melting and slicing through the general top floor clutter of these old buildings and probably chopping off chunks of nightclub. "Come out come out. I don't let people go after they do something like that at me."
Xion	Xion didn't expect to be shot in the chest today. It really takes the wind out of your sails to get shot. Sure, she'd been shot at least once before (not by a gun but it counts, it's still getting shot), but this was different. The Lost Bolg was like a snake - a centipede in that simple game you could play on a blackberry or palm pilot or calculator - that burrowed in her chest. Hungry. Seeking. From the moment she's hit until the bullet is dispelled, Xion clutches at her chest over where her heart should be and grits her teeth, trying very hard not to just flop around on the ground in agony as her insides get differetiated into cuts of meat by a burrowing piece of metal. When the bullet is dispelled, Xion heaves a big sigh of relief, sitting up as people start talking over the gunfight. She's about to speak when time flickers around her, and when she figures out what's going on, she's outside a building that got MEGA-exploded. Like super immolated, to double fire. Xion whistles, a pain-raw husk to her voice. "Axel might need to take some notes. What's a halleluja? Is that some weird spell? Like Firaja?" Xion goes to her phone. >what is a halleluja >is it a kind of powerful magic? Zexion, as always, appears to be typing, and Xemnas is invisible as usual, so Xion repockets her phone and stands up. "Wait! Miss Lilian, I'm coming too!" She hops up, before chasing off after Lilian, who is chasing after Nameless. The Paladin begins saturation bombing the area with magical power, and so Xion joins her, though in a less destructive way, casting out planes of darkness that tesselate out into holes to swallow up debris and flaming rubble alike.
Jack Flash	Nameless goes after the gunwoman. He can get a better look at her as he leaps forward. She's hooded, a sniper, with some sort of anti-material rifle. Except it looks all wrong. There's dials on the side, the size is off, the weight even appears to be off considering how she's holding it, it's nothing like any anti-material rifle Nameless has ever seen. Which is probably why it's spraying fire everywhere. As he leaps forward, another shot blitzes forward straight for Nameless. The white flame moves to engulf him, but there's a twist to it. As the flames spread out behind him, they suddenly double back, moving to blast into his back. She's controlling them, bit by bit. It's hotter than any mundane flame, but he's superhumanly durable and healing, so he should be able to force his way through to the woman. The woman starts moving both as he /survives/ the flames, and as Lilian starts tearing through rooftops. She scrambles across a falling rooftop, turning to make a pinpoint shot at Lilian as she leaps down to a fire escape and tries to escape by distracting Lilian. The fire stops being as effective on Nameless, because Miss Jackson needs to control the flames individually. But as she fires again, a burst of white flames maneuvers through an alleyway and moves to land straight on Lilian, trying to burn into her. It's nasty, but is unlikely to skeletonize her because she's not a mook. And as the Blues Brothers are removed from the building, they shout to Kotone. "It's so hot, but I can't see anything! What's going on?!" The fire appears to be invisible to them, as they barely make it out with their lives. Jack Flash, meanwhile, tosses his burning jacket to the ground, lights a new cigarette on the flames as he passes by, and dives out after Lilian and Xion. They're going to kill Miss Jackson, huh? He might as well help prove he's an ally. The purple shadow manifests again, against the wall, and moves to suddenly grab the fire escape. It begins to push it off the wall, making it almost fall straight to the ground in a heap, torn off the building. Miss Jackson's escape is getting wobbly, now, as she aims to dive through a window into a building unless intercepted! A building that is currently being blown up by Lilian and Xion's saturation bombing, as debris is cleaned up. This is going to be awkward for pursuers. And also the police. Jack Flash was never here.
Nameless	The rifle is ingrained into his memory in an instant. He's seen it deployed. In a heartbeat, the Nameless gunner understands how it works, breaking it down, analyzing it, and internalizing it. He'll use it later. Probably on her. That's justice. For now, he's plowing through, heading straight towards her. The burns are...tolerable. He doesn't even bother rebuilding right now. Fire isn't a threat to him unless it burns him all the way through. It's just, what, skin damage? Outer layer? Maybe some muscles? Yeah, that's probably fine, said nobody else ever. But he's not nobody else ever. He doesn't stop moving. As Miss Jackson turns to run, the Nameless gunner points his guns forward. Gold light travels through his dark hand, and blue through the red-bound one. The bullets go shooting out, and then, at the last possible second, abruptly turn exactly ninety degrees in mid-air. Shot right for the heart and the leg. A killshot and a cripple shot. His sole goal is killing this person. The only thing not burned on him is the red-bound arm. His face is mostly melting. His chest, the holes in it from the bullets, have been widened. He's literally still on fire, still burning away, gold light doing very little other than sustaining his continued existence.
Corona Arclite	Corona Arclite pauses in trying to smother out the smoldering coattails to tick through Lilian's remark with her fingers. "One: Ah was talkin' to the bloke that shot muh hat off. Two, Ah object to 'bloodthirsty'." Though she doesn't object to 'mad'. She's a crazy engineer and scientist gunslinger, she can't really not claim that one. "Three..." Corona trails off again a moment. Mostly in noticing everyone is bolting after whoever was the flame shooting sniper. "... Nevermind." She huffs softly, tipping her hat forward a bit. That's a bit more crazy than even she's willing to go chasing after, between Nameless and that crazy timewarping girl and the somewhat dizty girl(?) already doing so. "Regardless. This is the part where Ah just skedaddle like the shiftless drifter Ah am." Corona rests the handcannon against her shoulder to amble out of the scorched warehouse. She just showed up to deal with the gunmen, the rest of the matter doesn't really matter much to the desperado vixen at the moment.
Kotone Yamakawa	The Gunwoman already has heavy hitters on her, she hears Jack Flash is a Paladin she'll turn the two hoods over, once she sees his ID, but isn't going to go running off with them off-world at this point. She also makes more they can't see the fire either, which is worrying to her very worrying. Will the Fire Fighters even be able to do anything given the explosion the fire suppression systems are gon she'll make sure to make sure the fires are put out. "You two hoods are way in over your heads." She notes to Then she'll turn back to the fire, it's getting worse, very worse, she could try to rip a nearby fire hydrant to direct the resulting water at the fire but it wouldn't do much and she hinder any of the professional coming to deal with it. The chase is on the fight is going on and Kotone's going to try to run some damage control. <<Corona I could use a hand but given the situation, I do not mind if you have to bail on things here.>> She then sees the carnage is continuing and there's a building getting saturation bombed if it's not on fire? as badly as the warehouse was she' going to shift to thermal or her other scanning options, to see if there are people there or she needs to run in. She also sees Corona is leaving and that settles that, doesn't it? She will also put a call to the Fire Department and give a report about the fire but combat is still ongoing so they will hang back until she gives the all clear she'll also ID herself as a Paladin as well.
Lilian Rook	Corona actually leaving is sort of beyond what Lilian had expected. Usually, these free-roaming murderhobo-type Elites gotta "nu uh" and stick around just to make a point. It's . . . almost . . . disappointing, but frankly, Lilian barely turns her attention to it, dimly satisfied that people are taking orders from her as is proper. That's how it is meant to work. Also, her attention is mostly on white hot hallelujah Stand fire being shot at her. Watching the sniper scramble from cover, her eyes are on the barrel when 'Miss Jackson' first turns and takes a snapshot at her, being well out of the way despite its precision, and that being a good thing given that she isn't wearing her tactical suit at all. She starts flying forward in pursuit, crossing over alleys with ease that Jackson has to scramble through and up and down, closing in inexorably on the sniper without charging face first through fire blasts like Nameless. She's far too pretty for that. The zig-zag-curve shot straight up from out of one of those alleys is a bit much, though. There's the tiniest sliver of split seconds where Lilian is caught in it, eyes wide, pupils pinpoints in the face of the blaze, balance off, hand outstretched, and then-- -----[stop]----- Lilian goes tumbling out of the fire streak all the way to a rooftop, dragging a smoking ash smudge across the cement until she stops at the edge rail. She'd been inside the flames for just a fraction of a second, which is apparently not quite enough to do major damage to ber body, despite the smoke coming off her angry red first degree burns, but it's sadly more than enough to have ruined her town clothes, having trivially burnt through all of a sleeve, one whole side of her skirt, the matching boot, and a considerable portion of both layers of her top, before she's able to put it out, leaving about two thirds of an outfit fringed in charred black. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck shit god fuck FUCK!" she screams, kicking a nearby ventilator shaft and tearing it straight out of its slot. "That absolute, unbelievable CUNT!" Lilian screams again, this time smashing a chimney straight off. "I'm going to skin her alive! I'm going to pull her fucking eyes out! I'm going to take that rifle, shove it up her ass so far it comes out her mouth, and then roast her on it like a stuck pig! A filthy sow!" Then it's about the fastest (subjectively) she's moved all night, chasing down Jackson at a furious pace to corner her at the fire escape. If Nameless is too close to scoring the killshot, she will actually, throw herself into pushing the bullet away, before tackling Jackson down with both hands around her throat. -----[start]----- --It's too late for Jackson, as Lilian comes flying out of actually nowhere, about five grand of clothing damage and red burns up her arm and leg worse for wear, and has her hands out for the Stand-users neck, livid enough for her fingernails to draw blood, even before tackling Jackson under and trying to smash her head against the fire escape railing --several times, preferably. "Do you have any idea what you've done, you stupid cow?!" is her venomous hiss of choice, while looking to throttle the life out of a criminal she doesn't know anything about. "Burning my skin costs more than your entire filthy life is worth!"
Xion	Lilian is, in Xion's eyes, one on the most capable and impressive super-people she knows outside of Organization 13. She doesn't even really think of Lilian as a 'super-cop' because that has a really odd connotation that isn't right. It echoes wrongly in her head. It just doesn't... land. Meanwhile, Nameless is a rising star in the ranks of 'totally cool guys' who also needs her help and is her JUNIOR in the Watch, and he's a bit more... Bad-off looking. The fire is sprayed all about, and Xion does exactly what Nameless suggested she does, and flips, rolls, and parkours into his wake as he terminators forward, her own floaty physics allowing her to catch up to him easily and dodge a good amount of fire in the process thanks to abusing the i-frames that make even going through fire not so bad as long as the start and end of your zips aren't hot. Behind him, though, she starts channeling magic into her hands. "You look really bad off - but I've seen you get better. Don't worry - I'll help you out!" Her hand presses into Nameless's smouldering back. "Water!" A blast of room temperature liquid streams forth from her hand at a low intensity, quickly dousing Nameless unless the flames are MAGIC SUPERFLAMES. Then it probably just makes them better. The next part, of course, is what actually probably helps. "And -- Hastega!" A brass pointed-oval appears above Nameless' head, and Xion extends her pinky, index, and thumb fingers as her hands cross before her chest to 'open' the magic iris, whose eye is a brilliant emerald and whose iris contains an infinitely spiralling clockwork. The ticking mechanism inside ticks up, faster and faster, as Xion pours 'positive' temporal energy into Nameless, accellerating his healing and speeding his movements with extra seconds.
Jack Flash	The fire department is called, but they don't come immediately. They're going to be late. At the very least, the Blues Brothers have been captured alive! Nameless fires two angling shots at Miss Jackson. One strikes her straight in the leg, stopping her escape. The other is knocked out of the air by Lilian, who grabs Miss Jackson, begins bloodying her neck, throttling her, and smashing her against the fire escape until she's bleeding, likely to die soon. Gasping to talk, she manages to blurt out words. "You've made a target on your back. He's going to kill you. Repent in death, sinner." And then her hand reaches for the trigger of her Stand. "Hallelujah." If Nameless, Lilian, Xion, or Kotone don't react fast enough, she's going to try and detonate both herself and Lilian in an act of flaming defiance. If they stop her, well, Lilian's probably just going to strangle her to death. Either way, Miss Jackson's going to die. Jack Flash takes another drag of his cigarette, as the shadow pulls back from the wall near the fire escape and escapes towards his own shadow. "Well, that's certainly something. More action-packed day than I had expected." He walks over to the Blues Brothers, and steps on the broken foot, causing Tim Blues to scream. "Now that you've seen that, talk. Who is he?" Once he gets a gasp from the screaming, Tim shouts. "Johnny Angel! Johnny Angel!" Jack's eyes widen. "Son of a bitch. He's alive?" Looks like, for the investigator, things just got complicated.
Nameless	He's a hero of justice. It's a derisive term. It's a term he hates. He uses it to make fun of himself - both himself, and his other selves. The justice he used to believe in died a long time ago. Died with a purple-haired girl and a broken pair of swords. Occasionally he still remembers flashes of it. He can't remember her name. He doesn't believe in justice anymore. The only justice is in blood. The only justice is in taking monsters to hell. Lilian is a monster. She has shown her true face to him. He might approve of her methods but in the end he'll probably have to shoot her one of these days. The simple thing to do would be to let her die. But she's also useful. Her favor is useful. She has favor on a world he's working on. She's someone he can influence on a world he's working on. Saving her is credit. Even helping her is credit. Fine. He can wait. Blood-soaked justice can wait. Xion douses him and pours speed into him. Instead of spending his mana healing, he spends it in a burst of speed. "Trace, on." His legs light up. He shoots forward to try and grab Lilian by the waist and drag her out of the way. It'll probably break Miss Jackson's neck in the process. He really couldn't care less. She's scum. She's less than scum. Lilian is a proper monster. But Lilian has access to worse, more proper monsters. That makes her so much more useful to him than Miss Jackson.
Lilian Rook	"Oooohhh, wrong answer sweetie." says Lilian to someone who is apparently a religious nutter. "Maybe if you'd begged for your life, but since you like fire so much, you can squeal like a pig while I burn you a hundred times worse." she spits. She lifts one hand, and a cloak of billowing flime erupts around it, streaked with black and smelling of charred bones. She goes to grab Jackson by the face, pressing her flame-shrouded palm tightly against her, intending to hideously melt her features, until Nameless sideways yoinks her right out of it. She can't even keep her grip on Jackon's neck. When he actually comes to a stop, Lilian pushes herself up, trying to adjust her wrecked blouse so it doesn't just fall off, and opens her mouth about a tenth of a second away from yelling something at him too, when the roof just explodes where she was and takes Jackson with it. The corner of an eye twitches in her frozen expression. Her green irises, this close, appear to be tinged red, where swirling black markings have crept to the edge of her face. Both the colour and the marks abruptly drain away along with her volcanic, irrational aggression, leaving her just looking tired and pissed off in a normal, selfish way, like a grumpy and sulky teen. With a big, unhappy sigh, she theatrically sits down on the roof edge with a dramatic noise of distaste in the Nameless gunner's direction. "Don't touch me ever again." she huffs. "Ugh. This would have been over in a second if I just brought my sword. What a gigantic waste of time. And both of them are in the Paladins too. Christ. I shouldn't have chased the furry thing away; then maybe I'd have something to show for all this." Then she yells down at the street for Jack Flash. "If you wouldn't mind me asking, who the hell is Johnny Angel?"
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa had been further behind the others, due to running damage control here as everyone else, she's done what she can for damage control and she's lost track of Jack and the suspects she pulled out in the chaos the two Blues Brothers. She's seen some serious things today very dark and disturbing things as she's heading up after the ret she's late to the party here and she can see the assassin is going to blow herself up, Nameless is moving like lighting to grab Lilian. She's fast but in this situation, she is not fast enough, She yells out to Xion. "We need to get clear!" The mad sniper is blowing herself up and Kotone does not want to be at ground zero, she's going to turn and just leap for safety likely to leave an impact crater of some sort when she lands in the street. She's also haunted by things here, she's seen a slice of Lilian's nature and scared the daylights out of her. There's also the matter of this business with the attacker's power? It was pretty far out there, very far out there, she will remain behind to render aid and cleanup help to the local responders when all is said an done. She also has a hell of a lot to think on, a hell of a lot to think on. Like who the hell is Johnny Angel...
Xion	A suicide bombing? SOUNDS LIKE A JOB FOR QUICKTIME EVENTS. "The spell!" Xion reacts to the utterance of 'halleluja', as Nameless goes for the woman who is suicidally inclined to self-detonate. A totally bogus idea. Who would ever do that? Twice in a day it was proven: Hearts are awful, complicated, painful things. Kotone calls for an exit, and Xion provides, tearing open a Corridor of Darkness behind her and not waiting for Kotone to go the act of getting through - Xion grabs her by the scruff or the coattails, and hucks her back through the Corridor, through TENEBROUS DARKNESS and into the pizza place she was eating at a half-hour ago, with an arcade on autoplay since some moron had put 198 quarters into it. "TIME OVER" the machine announces, and reduces the CREDITS score by 1. "Lilian, Nameless, c'mon!" Xion calls, before hopping out herself. Both Lilian and Nameless have proven they do not need Quicktime Event saving.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa had her plan to get out she was going to jump but Xion is faster on the draw like a mechanical kitten she's grabbed by Xion and spirited away. She was not expecting that and nor would she complain about such a way out of that situation. "I owe you one for that." She notes before shell turn to leave as she's going to go back to help clean up the mess left over from everything.
Jack Flash	Miss Jackson pulls the trigger right after Nameless pulls Lilian away, immolating herself and taking a chunk of building with her. Nothing is left after the fire fades - her gun has disappeared completely. As the fire department arrives, Jack Flash gets ready to leave, but Lilian shouts in his direction, so he approaches her. They're Paladins. They'll be fine, right? "Johnny Angel was an up-and-coming crime boss several years until he died in an explosion during a SWAT bust. Or at least, we thought he did. If he's alive, and was employing Miss Jackson of all people...I don't know what to think, but he's dangerous, and the minute he learns we're tied to her death, he'll come after us. I just know it." And then Jack slips off, because he left his car nearby, instead of jumping through the portal with mysterious strangers. But there's some questions. Why didn't the police show? Why did Miss Jackson have a Stand? And how much does Johnny Angel know? <-- To Be Continued