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Owner	Pose
Calvin Nash	PREVIOUSLY: Junior: CALVIN! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR EVER-LOVIN' MIND?! Calvin: It'll be aight. Junior: NO HELL IT WON'T! THAT'S HELL BIKER! Calvin: Well. NOW:     Calvin's foot has the pedal practically glued to the floor. His face is a stone mask, eyes locked on the cracked and crumbling interstate. But that doesn't get him, or any of you, out of the way of the hornet's nest he's kicked. BGM     Trees whip past you as the suspension bounces, an army of green-brown early Fall soldiers standing in silent observance of the chase. The buildings of old, forgotten Macon are in the rear view, fading fast, but Hell Biker is gaining.     In a scant few seconds, he's cleared the gap, pulled up alongside the driver side door of the Jeep, his eyeless sockets boring holes into the side of Calvin's head. He takes his right hand off of his flame-wheeled chopper's handlebar and holds his palm out level with the road, waving his gloved hand down--the universal symbol for 'roll the window down.'     Calvin does--though it was hardly necessary. Even those of you with Junior in the truck can hear him perfectly clearly. And why couldn't you? The Interstate is his, in this moment.     In the truck, Junior, sweating bullets, spits a swear and takes a hand off the wheel to place it on the dashboard. He mutters through a series of mystic incantations like a prayer, each one suffusing the vehicle with light of a different color. "Tarukaja, Makakaja, Rakukaja, Samakaja, Sukukaja, oh, fuck, oh, shit, oh, fuck, oh shit..."     "Heeeey, Jethro," says the biker demon to Calvin, his words crisp and clean above the roaring air despite his lack of tongue or lips--his voice is raw and guttural, as if somehow voices could have road rash, a baritone as suited to a wrestling ring or a roadside dive as to this chase. "I never *seen* a turn signal like that before." His tone drips with bloodthirsty, challenging intent, disguised as facetious 'interest.' "You wanna run that by me again?"     "Sure thing, boss," says Calvin, offering him another middle finger. "Get a good look at that right there." Junior: CALVIN!     The biker bellows his response. "I *thought* you had a death wish!" His roar drops to a growl as he points a gloved finger at Calvin. "I'll tell you what. You and your boyfriend back there pull over and give me those fuel cells you Marshals use to keep those cages rollin'. I'll kill you both nice and quick, and I'll only play with your buddies a *little bit.*"
Calvin Nash	Calvin's mouth twitches downwards at the corners, as whatever impulse drove him to insult the demon again takes hold.                                Calvin - Threaten                                     "No, I'm 'on tell *you* what. You so much as scratch the paint," Calvin calls over the whipping, buffeting wind rushing past the open window, "And I'll snatch that helmet off your head and crack you like a wishbone. Now get your sorry ass off my Interstate 'fore I *give* you somethin' to bitch about."                                       Fail                                           "YOUR--" Hell Biker's leg shoots out like a piston--as does Calvin's arm, opening the door of the Jeep to use as a battering ram. A crack like thunder sounds as the Fiend's hellish strength collides with Calvin's layered bolstering magic--purple cinders fly from the point of impact, and similarly-hued streaks race outwards across the vehicle's frame. Even with his protections in place, the suspension rocks in a way that invites a pit into the stomach.     "Heh! So the hick's got some tricks. Well, so do I, fucker!" His hands gun the accelerator and the bike surges ahead as Junior accelerates to try and pull alongside Calvin.     "SUCK ON SOME FUMES, YOU PUFFED UP REDNECK PRICKS!"                            Hell Biker - Hell Exhaust                                 The bike's tailpipe spews a bilious black cloud that seems to envelop the entire interstate. It seeps through even the windshield of both vehicles, cloying and choking as it passes. It's mercifully brief--but passing alongside the departing fumes is a spray of multicolored cinders. Junior: He *cough* stripped our magic, *hack* Calvin! Calvin: I know it.     Calvin doesn't seem nearly as concerned about it as he should be. "Y'all buy me some time and I'll run Analyze on 'im," Calvin says into the radio. He flips open his COMP, driving with his knees while he keeps the wrist-mounted computer level with the windshield as Hell Biker brakes to get back into close range.     Junior isn't the driver that Calvin is--but today, he has something Calvin doesn't.      "Futaba! Keep the truck steady a second, I'm 'on get us some help!" He flips up his COMP and tap-tap-taps a command in...
Khosa	LAST TIME Khosa was having a perfectly nice conversation, for certain values of nice, about the world as it is. Though she had been about to read Calvin the riot act for suggesting using death magic on *any* plant, even kudzu, even as a joke or a theoretical example. That's the kind of thing that'd get you killed where she's from, and deserve it. He could see it if his eyes were on her instead of the road; she'd been bristling, drawing herself up as best she can while seat belted into the back seat of the Jeep. NOW Khosa has more urgent things to worry about, what with the sudden escalation. Not that she objects to flipping off a bully, but it does mean the situation's changed... You and your boyfriend back there pull over and give me those fuel cells you Marshals use to keep those cages rollin'. "All that," Khosa says from inside the jeep, pitching her voice loud enough to carry, "and you're just a bandit at heart? The way they were talking about Fiends I was expecting something different!" Khosa starts to move, is caught by her seatbelt which immediately clicks to maximum extension, and gets her to struggle for a moment to undo it when it suddenly doesn't even have as much slack as it should have a moment ago. It's in this condition that the black cloud catches her. It's *vile*; her expression screws up in distaste and she tries not to breathe for a few seconds. Spots catch in her eyes and stinging cinders in her nose, and when she speaks again her voice is a little raspier. "You want some time? Okay. 'scuse me," Khosa adds to her fellow passengers, and opens the door on the far side from the Hell Biker. At speed. It's harder to open than it should be at that speed and Khosa has to push a little to open it far enough to squeeze through it. She gets her hands on the top part of the door frame and pushes herself *up* as she goes through, jackknifing so instead of ending up on the road, she ends up on the roof of the Jeep, crouched down against the wind and the momentum and any maneuvers Calvin might have to perform. "HEY," she yells, crouching with hands and feet both on the roof. She makes a scooping gesture with one hand, and a chunk of the battered interstate's pavement lifts as they pass as if she'd yanked it up at a distance - turning Hell Biker's own speed against him as she pulls it up for him to drive through.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine holds her breath through the exhaust clouds, and briefly squeezes her eyes shut for good measure. She doesn't strictly need to breathe, except when she's trying to speak. But it's still uncomfortable for her to go without it, and she's by no stretch immune to contaminated air, so the smog of Hell leaves her blinking away tears. She wonders briefly if the magic-stripping element of the Biker's attack affected her own defenses, but trusts that hers rely not on a presence of defense, but an absence of target.     Once the cloud disperses Madeleine takes a deep breath in, both to take in the clean air and to prepare her next move. As she blows out, a stream of frigid mist rushes past Calvin and out the driver's-side window, sinking low to the pavement and coalescing into a rapidly forward-growing sheet of ice. With the Jeep's velocity as a starting point, the ice - which Madeleine is careful to keep next to the Jeep and not in front of it - creeps up toward the Biker, hopefully convincing the fiend to prioritize speed over offense while Madeleine can keep up her breathing rhythm.
Futaba Nuki	The threat posed by the group's pursuer isn't immediately apparent to Futaba at first. She's got her eyes on the road while perched in the back of Junior's pickup, she's enjoying the feeling of the wind whipping her hair and scarf back, and she didn't even see anyone following them moments ago. That makes it even more surprising, then, when she sees the Hell Biker pulling up beside the Jeep, but the threat still hasn't registered yet. Instead... "Yo! Sick fit." The ninja calls out to the biker with an approving nod and two-fingered salute, then glances over at Junior as she notices him running through all those incantations and seeming rather stressed about this sudden visitor. "Uh. You okay there, J?" Listening to the exchange between Calvin and the biker make it much more appararent what's going on, though, and she punches a fist into her palm as things start heating up between the two almost immediately. "Oh, are we doing this? Alright, alright! Didn't think we'd run into the guy Calvin mentioned this soon, but let's do it!" Sadly, Futaba is not a truck nor is she a bike, so her current options would probably be to transform into something fast for this high-speed battle. Bringing up her hand as the Hell Biker pulls up in front of the vehicles, Futaba widens it out to disperse some of the exhaust from the rear of the pickup, but still chokes on the exhaust that makes it through when she flinches at those colorful cinders singing her hand and leaving plenty of light burns.. "That smarts... Wait, who're ya callin' a redneck, boner boy?!" Futaba snaps back, holding in a snicker moments later at accidentally adding an unnecessary syllable there. That gives her an idea on how to respond, however, as she stretches her arms out into a pair of large wings. She's about to leap off the back of truck, too, when Junior gives her some stage direction to work with. "I'm on it! Steady, steady, what'll keep this steady...?" Extra wheels? Not really, if the road sucks inconsistently. Stronger shocks? Probably, but that's kind of hard to figure out on the fly without ever doing it before, especially with the road conditions being what they are. Looking from side to side, however, reminds her that she's already turned her arms into wings, so... She makes them even bigger. Still perched on the back of the pickup, Futaba turns her legs into large clamps, grabbing onto the sides of the pickup. "Steady truck, coming up!" The first flap of those new wings turns out to be the strongest for two reasons: Futaba needs to actually get the truck a few inches off the ground, and also because she's trying to just blow the Hell Biker right off the road. She'll start maintaining a steady altitude of maybe a foot off the ground afterwards to try and keep the truck steady, too!
Angela	Angela, on the screen, stares at Calvin as he picks a fight with a Hell Biker. She doesn't say 'HAVE YOU LOST YOUR EVER-LOVIN' MIND' but her expression is decidedly unpleasant. She doesn't know what a 'Hell Biker' is--she barely knows what a ''Biker'' is--but it certainly doesn't feel like this is an aggressive act chosen to dissuade the Hell Biker from attacking them so much as the opposite--an aggerssive act chosen to incite. "Is our company that dull?" She asks rhetorically. ''Calvin offers another middle finger.'' "M..maybe this is how work with Hell Biker is supposed to go?" ''Yeah, no , it's not like that apparently. Or at the very least it didn't work.'' "Cinder, Agents, prepare yourselves." Angela says before leaning back in her chair and playing minesweeper on her computer. Angela, being someone who doesn't breathe and also isn't anywhere near the battle, easily avoids the Hell Exhaust attack. The Agents aren't so lucky. Random and Rook hack and wheze from hte fumes whereas Cinder, a little more expreienced with Elite nonsense, pulls up a protective face mask which isn't perfect, but she keeps her head low to minimize the 'ugh' of it all. ''Y'all buy me time and I'll run ANalyze on 'im'' Angela sighs. Neither Rook nor Random are in good range to keep The Hell Biker busy, but Rook rolls down the window and keeps looking for an opportunity whereas Cinder does the same and swings out a wave of flame from Fourth Match Flame towards the Hell Biker. It's what she's got. "SUCK ON FIRE GHOST RIDER!" Cinder shouts back, getting way more into this than everyone else on the LobCorp team.
Natsuki Nuki	LAST TIME... Natsuki had, almost-grudgingly, started to really rather enjoy the trip. She just hadn't been on a cross-country drive before, and even a few hours in a car was more than she had enjoyed all before. Certainly she had flown once she gained that freedom, but there was something about driving along as a passive enjoyer of the terrain and not an active traverser that the human-faced and tiger-eared young woman found especially pleasing. Being besides several people and engaging in conversation about homes had put her in a thoughtful mood, besides, and Futaba being in the other car had left that mood mostly positive. Unlike Khosa there was nothing risingly-offensive to respond to, and the casual slinging of death curses around was something she was comfortable with. So, relaxed into her seat and sprawling to gaze out the window at ruined Macomb, Natsuki and her snake-headed tail followed the terrain at different spots, rises of civilization and falls of devastation, when Hell Biker appeared. Peeling her own eyes to the side, she catches Calvin giving the skeletal rider the universal 'greeting'. THIS TIME, Rolling down her own window and swinging her whole body up and out of the vehicle to sit on the windowframe and stick her head up and tail down out of the Jeep's side, Natsuki grips to the inside with the tension in her legs and a hand on the grip bar inside the upper window. When the Hell Biker comes rumbling up like bad leather weather and the rumble-roaring thunder of the infernal combustion engine, Natsuki gets a good look at the ghost rider and sneers at the Fiend. 'You wanna run that by me again?' "You hard of seeing, bastard?! Or just dumb?!" Natsuki challenges at a Sukeban rising growl-shout. "Check this one, see if you get a good look!!" Natsuki follows the door'ed Hell Biker with a firmly presented middle finger of her own, before bringing it up to pulling down her right eyelid with thumb held out and sticking her tongue out the left side of her mouth - clearly calling the Hell Biker a loser visually as well as telling him to fuck off. Multifaceted semaphore! As Calvin jackknifes in his maneuvering, Natsuki clamps onto the Jeep-side and hangs out wide as the Jeep skids, bouncing as he levels out and reaching up her hand to steady Khosa on the roof. She looks like she's got it, though, so with a smirk up at the roof-riding psychic, Natsuki returns her gaze to the Biker... As they drive right through a cloud of thick smog. Sputtering and spitting as she's sludged with the glitter-grit of carbon exhaust and stinking fumes, Natsuki sweeps out her hand into the smoke and takes hold of the trailing cloud of smog like pulling the mist as a carbon-clearing blanket behind them. The choking elements catalyze in the cloud, looping in trails of black that churn with electrical crackles before Natsuki pulls the whole blanket forward to whip the mass towards the Hell Biker. As a great dark-smoking whip of wet, smoggy clouds, the storming mass flashes with a forking-flash of explosive lightning towards the possibly-skybound Fiend. "Choke and die again on it, road punk!"
Calvin Nash	Check this one, see if you get a good look!!     "HAH! I *like* you. I'll kill you last, fucker!" All that and you're just a bandit at heart?     "Ohoho, I'm a lot worse than a bandit, sweetheart," comes Hell Biker's response, audible and clear as ever. "I don't want your shit 'cause it does me any good--" Even though it arguably would, given those 'fuel cells' are powered by magnetite. "I want it 'cause it fucks YOU over! I'm dirt, babe, a real son of Earth--and I'm dragging you and your shithead friends down WITH ME!"     Madeleine's ice has the intended effect--Hell Biker might be the type to revel in his own shittiness, but whatever shittiness he has is in his heart, not his driving skills. He throttles down on the accelerator--why wouldn't he, when he's already shown he can attack from the front as easily as the side? The rear view mirror of his bike shows Khosa and Natsuki in miniature, nimbly climbing to the roof...                                 Junior - Summon                                     Hell Biker's head twitches, a soft grunt as he shifts his attention a little to the right within the mirror, watching as a cloud of manifest data in green binary swirls and disperses. In its place is SLEIPNIR, the eight-legged horse of legend, white of coat, with his yellow-green mane and tail blowing in the wind as he easily keeps pace with the truck even as Futaba begins to lift it a foot off the ground.     "The hell are those bozos doin'..."     "Agents! Sit astride me and I shall carry you thither," he says, motioning with an upwards flick of his crescent-horned head towards Hell Biker. He's fast enough to do it too, Rook will find--that's gonna be his opportunity to get in close, if ever there was one. HEY!     And his 'eyes' find the road again a second too late. Natsuki's cloud of lightning crashes into him, the initial damage done with a spectacular lance of lightning across his body. "DEKUNDA!" Some sort of negation spell manages to restore his vision--and almost in time, too. Almost.     "What the f--" His reaction speed is impressive, almost avoiding the pavement wall with a quick lean to the right and a guiding motion on the bars. Almost.     The gust from Futaba's wind forces him upright and diagonally -through- the wall of pavement Khosa raised, shattering it with his bike and his body, leaving him none too happy for it as he breaks through.
Calvin Nash	In the Jeep, Calvin's fingers race across the keypad, his knees amazingly keeping the Jeep on track as he multitasks. He reaches across the front seat and opens the glove compartment, procuring a ratty cable that looks like it's insulated solely with spotty old electrical tape. One end into the Jeep's radio console, one into the COMP, while he keeps the wrist computer leveled on Hell Biker... .load analyze                                 Calvin - Analyze                                 Analyze v. 2.3.2 developed by Trina McElwain 'Hell Biker' Affinity: Fire, Death Threat: Severe Notable Techniques: 'Hell Exhaust,' 'Hell Spin,' 'Hell Burner,' 'Hell Throttle' Accurate, durable, agile and strong. Favors physical attacks. Will dispel ailment spells, spells of the -kaja and -kunda families. Counters attacks with fire and death affinities.     It's displayed on Calvin's COMP, but the cable has the Jeep's radio play it via a crude text-to-speech voice so the others can hear it.     "Well. Ms. Natsuki counters Hell Exhaust, so we got that covered, at least," says the man who created the problem. "Wait, shit--Cinder," He looks over his shoulder to warn Cinder, but it's too late.     Hell Biker is struck by it and seems to come alive after almost colliding with a stained and crumbling guardrail. He barks a laugh and revs his engine, shooting a conical blast of fire that sweeps across both vehicles behind him as well as Sleipnir, before popping a wheelie and falling back between the two vehicles (and horse).     Junior rolls his window down and signals to Futaba to slow up, just a bit--just enough to put his window level with Cinder's.     "Here!" He's leaning inadvisably out the window, held in only by his seatbelt and Futaba's grace, offering a loaded revolver to her. The wooden grip has a carving of a dog and the initials L.L. on it. The front of his truck is blackened by the flames and his arms sport concerning-looking burns, but one thing that can be said of Junior is that when the chips are down, he gets his head in the game.
Calvin Nash	"Ohhh no you don't!"                              Hell Biker - Hell Spin                                  Hell Biker maintains the wheelie as he loses speed, lowering his back end and reversing the wheelie to the back wheel instead--where he then guns the accelerator and lets its strength, plus his own inhuman strength, carry the bike into a spin, bouncing between the vehicles and threatening to ram them off the road with each dent-hammering impact. Each strike of his spin rocks the vehicles, to say nothing of the momentum transferred to the occupants.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine, on the passenger's side of the Jeep, is close to the spinning cycle's points of impact. As the flaming wheels pound against the side of the vehicle her window cracks, then shatters inward, showering her with what was probably not the original automotive glass. She snarls in pain and unbuckles her seatbelt - there'll be time for picking little shards out of her clothes later - for now, there's VENGEANCE to be had!     One thing stands between Madeleine and vengeance, however - a lack of space to move! She needs to join Khosa on the roof of the Jeep but there's no clear way to exit through her seat's door without receiving a battering from the flaming wheels of the spinning motorbike, so she glances around for other options. Khosa and Natsuki are both using their doors in various ways, so those are out, but - ah. Madeleine pulls her legs up onto her seat without even a "sorry for the upholstery" and squirms over the center console into the middle back seat. From there it's a quick bit of gymnastics to get into the trunk area, where she retrieves Drogrung and works the interior latch of the trunk door.     Opening the back of the Jeep, Madeleine gulps as she sees the shredded, icy road speeding away in front of her. Well, nothing for it! When the Jeep's back door has finished lifting she reaches out to grab awkwardly onto the ledge it creates, and relies on her strength-to-weight ratio to allow hauling herself around the overhand, boulder-climb style. Once she's on top of the Jeep she grabs onto the roof rack and kicks the back shut lest the Hell Biker get any ideas about messing with the vehicle's interior.     From up top she has just what she needed: a vantage point. It's not a stable vantage point, jostling around as the bike continues ramming into the two Assembly vehicles, but Madeleine knows to keep low to maintain her balance as she readies her spear. An ordinary wooden shaft would probably just break under the motorcycle's assault, but the wood of Drogrung's haft is tough as dragon-scales - because that's what it is, really. She raises the weapon and plunges it down, aiming for the handlebars of the bike to force it out of its perilous spin.
Angela	''AGENTS! Sit Astride me and I shall carry you thither.'' "Oh hell yes." Random says, kicking open the door and leaping up on top of Sleipnir. "C'mon, Justin! There's no way we can NOT do this...!" Random extends their hand and Justin Rook chuckles briefly before looking to Junior, "Thanks, man." And he takes Random's hand and is pulled onto the horse behind them, leaning against them for a moment. " But it's Random who gets the first crack at it. Holding onto Sleipnir with one hand, Random readies Our Galaxy in their hand, taking a crack at the Hell Biker's side with her EGO Weapon, the big galaxy embedded in the snowglobe like head of the weapon sparking and bursting with the impact as Rook protects their body with his own, his back sizzling from the flame. Meanwhile, when all you have is a stick that throws fire around, everything starts to look like tinder. Cinder yelps and ducks back down into the truck as a wave of fire is launched back towards her, using the vehicle itself as cover. "Fuck! Sorry!" She shouts. "Generally throwing fire at an Abnormality already on fire is not going to speed things along, Cinder." Angela chastizes. "It was mostly skeleton!" Cinder protests before Junior lends the Agents yet another hand. A revolver! "...." Cinder stares at him, horrified before remembering. "Oh right--Not a clerk anymore. Don't have to shoot myself in the head. Okay, thanks! I'll uh. I'll try it." She takes aim and pops a shot off and misses totally! But maybe next time.
Khosa	Khosa doesn't really need Natsuki's hand up but takes it anyway to make sure she ascends without a problem. She grips a little too hard. But once she's up there, she's fine, apparently. Well, 'fine', for certain values of fine, given the whole Hell Biker attack. "What are you doing?" she yells back at the other vehicle, seeing Futaba pull it off the ground in a - you can't call it a glide, it's got forward thrust, though how it's getting that when the wheels aren't in contact with the ground is beyond Khosa. And then the wings *beat*. Damn, Khosa thinks. Flying so low to the ground. She's really pushing it. Khosa looks forward again, gripping the roof a little more carefully as she inches herself forward along it. "One of those assholes, huh," Khosa grunts, pulling herself forward with all four limbs as the Jeep hits a bump. "Not happy with your lot, so you try to make sure nobody has anything at all to make yourself feel better. We got words for that, you know." Khosa glances back again at the sound of horse. Now, Athas doesn't really have horses but she is fairly certain that they aren't supposed to have quite that many legs, so she assumes it's something supernatural. And it's on their side, so summoned - good, she doesn't have to worry about it. She turns back forward, still gripping with all four limbs. A wash of flame comes, and Khosa squints against it; she'd be at risk of losing her eyebrows if she had any, but her first instinct is to reach behind and pat at her single long tail of hair to make sure it hasn't ignited, and only *then* check her arms for burns. But then Hell Biker starts to spin, and she grins. She slides down slightly, hanging onto the side of the jeep as much as the top now, feet hooked into one of the window frames and hands on the roof, digging in in a way that will absolutely leave scrapes later. (She'll apologize.) *WHAM* goes the first impact of bike against Jeep. It's hard enough that Khosa is glad she's holding on with hands and feet to make sure she's in place, and also close enough that it lets her counterattack herself: *WHAM* goes something that looks like an anklyosaurus' tail more than anything else, a tail as thick as one of Khosa's upper legs, flanged near the end with bone ridges and knobs. It's aimed directly at the spinning Hell Biker to smash him over and bowl him away from the vehicles. The tail is Khosa's, the skin of her lower back near its base shading and rippling into red and black scales. She didn't have a tail before but she wields it like it's a weapon she's used to, taking sweeping strikes at the Hell Biker whenever he gets too close for comfort; half-crushing, half-shoving in an attempt to keep him away from the Jeep.
Natsuki Nuki	Hearing the readout of the Hell Biker's stats does less for Natsuki, leaning out the side, than the Hell Biker's own freak declarations about who and what he is. Worse than a bandit, a useless good-for-nothing punk. A bitter flame at the bottom of a bucket, the embers of spite - the exact sort of dead-end punk that haunted roadways. Snarling through a cough while her ears splay back above her head, Natsuki drags the stolen smog-mist of the Hell Biker's exhaust after connecting with the lightningbolt-snap of the whip. Calvin drives past the impact site and then the whole of it whips and drags from Natsuki's grip like a blanket in the swiftly-driven breeze upon the interstate. "Dirt doesn't drag, moron!" Natsuki's voice rises over the roar of engines as she's wheeled around in the vehicular melee. She's sharp, nevertheless. "Dirt gets walked on, run over!!" The status-negation effect causes Natsuki's balrog-esque whip of smog and lightning clear in an instant, sludgy suborned fiend-curse and chemicial exhaust both snapping loose in a wet slick and cleaning from her trailing cloud - leaving only storming mist and cold crackle, which Natsuki lets go with some disgust at getting counter-counter-countered. Natsuki has barely time to hotly cry some approval towards Khosa's growing *red and black* scaled tail, some whipped away version of "Samesies!" or "You too!" with grand cheer, before the impact that the Jeep is saved from isn't enough to keep her settled into her own perch, slung at top speed in the tumble out the side and crashing into the ruined roadside out of sight for a moment. Secondary explosion-like impacts sound out as what Natsuki is flung into further collapses and splinters in the lengthening distance. There is a moment for faint worry that really got the chimera woman, before the rearviews of Jeep, truck, and fiendish chopper each alternatingly catching glimpse of a roiling wall of mist approaching quickly. The ruin all about provides ample shadow and interstate-dark to give the smeared rearward impression of a great mass oof shapes in the dark, centipedes of mist falling over each other and reaching outward with curling limbs of smoke, a face within the stormhead too undefinite to be anything but hateful, monstrous. From the face-of-misty-limbs spits forth a tongue of bouncing smoke, and within, bounding on a collection of rapidly-scuttling arched arachnid limbs from her back, is Natsuki with a torn-backed jacket. The storm she has brought with her bites and killwalls at her heel, rising up like a tide she falls back and up the cresting wave of to surf the indefinite onrush of watermist and terrible airpressure like a solid thing. "Lower than even insects!" Natsuki invokes, and her voice booms as she rides her wave (that harmlessly passes over Jeep and Truck like a rather spooky mist) down onto the Hell Biker with a ripping strike of sharp limbs. Unfortunately, that bleeds off all her momentum with the falling attack -- but Natsuki is swiftly capable of roping herself via nimble-shifting limbs from arachnid to suckertipped cephalopodic tentacles that wetly lasso onto Sleipnir and land her on the many-legged horse as temporary rider.
Futaba Nuki	"You hard of seeing, bastard?! Or just dumb?!" "Hey now, don't be too hard on him. The poor guy doesn't have any eyes!" Futaba calls out in-between steady flaps of her wings, fighting just to keep Junior's pickup steady just beneath her. It doesn't give her much room to maneuver, but she adapts to the situation rapidly, leaning over ever so slightly to help Junior along so he can get that gun passed to Cinder while the Hell Biker gets his own bearings straight and keeps laying on the insults. "I don't want your shit 'cause it does me any good-- I want it 'cause it fucks YOU over! I'm dirt, babe, a real son of Earth--and I'm dragging you and your shithead friends down WITH ME!" "Really livin' it down, not a thought for whoever this'll affect, huh?" Futaba's eyes shut for a moment as her thoughts start to wander, and then she bursts out with a bright laugh abruptly just a moment later. It's different from her usual mischeif-making laugh, too, sounding more gut-heavy and rumbling right in there from her core all the way to the car she's still holding mostly-steady. This isn't someone that should, or even can be reasoned with. "That's just fine with me... Alright, Hell Biker! You wanna throw down and drag us down through the dirt to your level? Bring it, and we'll show just how down and dirty we can get and bury your boney ass!" She boasts as she braces herself for the motorcycle rushing straight at her, covering herself in insect-like layered plates solely for the purpose of not eating complete shit when he inevitably slams right into her. The impact alone cracks several of those plates and knocks others right off, drawing a hissing groan from Futaba and revealing that she can still very much feel everything that happens through her transformations. She nearly loses her hold on Junior's pickup, too, but reinforces it with an extra trio of spindly-looking legs that practically wrap around it from below and slide along the road to keep it somewhat suspended and stable. "Freakin'... Sit still for a sec, why don't ya? I got something for you!" Futaba's body warps further as those wings become thicker and more leathery while more arms... No, octopus-like tentacles burst out of her sides, shooting forward towards the rapidly-spinning Hell Biker. With two quick twists of her hips, the tentacles swing around the rider and his machine, trying to wrap him up and get tangled up in the machine in one big mess of suctiony appendages. In retrospect, it might hurt her more than it hurts him, but it's the best way she can think of to slow him down.
Calvin Nash	Calvin doesn't mind a little damage to the upholstery--really, there must be some kind of way the Marshals keep these things in working order, and presumably it's easier to do that than it is to bring one back from the dead. Ugly, back at the HQ, should be proof enough of that, clinging to life stubbornly for almost as long as Calvin himself has.     As a matter of fact, when he sees her climbing through the back, he advises, "I got you, one second," and pushes a button on the center dashboard to pop the tailgate for her. It can't be denied that despite the bumps, despite adjustments to avoid crumbling guardrails and sparse wrecks spread out across the road, Calvin is damn good at keeping the Jeep under control, even when Hell Biker rams it. He'd rather the vehicle take the brunt of the suffering than his allies, which is a point dubiously in his favor (there would, after all, be no suffering to take if he'd just turned off the Interstate when the alarm went off).     Madeleine therefore has--not perfect, but surprisingly good footing to attack Hell Biker from. Dirt gets walked on, run over!!      "EXACTLY! Which is why I want you down here with me." Not happy with your lot, so you try to make sure nobody has anything at all to make yourself feel better. We got words for that, you know.     "You'd be unhappy, too, if you had any goddamn brains! You and me, all of you--we got the same 'lot.' What's there to be happy about, huh? In life, you're either gettin' fucked or doin' the fucking."     "That's the way it was before the bombs, and that's the way it is now--especially now that there's no bullshit to get in the way! There's no more fireworks to cheer on how many sons we sent home in boxes, no more daily commute to think about how much we'd love to kill the other folks on the road, no more late night TV to tell us how good we'd have it if we could just wait a little longer to be the guy doin' the fucking."     "We were so close--so GODDAMN close to getting what we deserved. Fuck God! Fuck Lucifer! And FUCK the Assembly! Killin' each other, pissin' on the graves, just like we always drooled about doin', 'til nobody's left. THAT's what we deserved! But then you ####### had to start trying to put shit TOGETHER!" Hell Biker's spin is stopped by the meaty impact of Khosa's tail with his helmet, splitting the lacquer and drawing a grunt from him as the bike lays down sideways across the roud, digging a gouge into what scant intact segments there are and ripping up what otherwise remains.      He rights himself and attempts to ram into the side of the Jeep following his unhinged misanthropic rant, but is stopped short by Drogrung, the clash sending sparks flying up from the impact of weapon and motorcycle. He grunts with effort, putting his strength against hers in a primal struggle that'd be just as appropriate in an arena or on horseback.     "For what? Huh? So we can pretend again? I dunno if you guys are stupid or a bunch of fuckin' con artists--but looking at you makes me wanna paint the ROAD with your GUTS!"     The clash is broken by Random's attack, the weapon striking him dead on and forcing him out of his intention to grind the Jeep against cement guardrails. He snarls and kicks Sleipnir in the ribs, hard enough for there to be an audible crack.     The blast of LL from Cinder rises above the trio of engine growls and the whipping winds, as does the angry 'ptchoo' of a ricochet against the passing of a rusted-out automotive corpse.
Calvin Nash	"Don't sweat it, Cinder!" calls Junior. "Focus!" That wasn't a command or request--rather, wiping blood from his lip after an impact from Hell Biker, he points a finger-gun her way and a little glimmer of golden light traces from his index to her hands. For just one shot, her aim will be true--very much so, says the bridge between her hands and her eyes, felt at the back of the neck.      "What in the hell we 'sposed to do, you moron?!" Calvin hollers back at Hell Biker following the rant. "Just sit there and wait like bumps on a log for some sumbitch to come up and kill us? Your mama shoulda swallowed. Shit--" A look in the rearview reveals the trailing Natsuki. Taptaptap. .summon 1      Khosa feels a sizeable psychic emanation, on par with the one Sleipnir made when Junior summoned him.                                  Calvin - Summon                                        Chernobog, he of darkness, ill fate, destruction and the winter, materializes along the ripping-past Interstate. He looks into the driver's side window for instruction, with eyeless sockets peering out from beneath the wide brimmed 'cap' of a dark purple mushroom fused with his pale blue skull.      "Get after Natsuki 'n make sure she's okay, then give us a hand," Calvin shouts over the whipping wind.      "She would appear to be fine," intones the skeleton, who doesn't run so much as glide a few inches from the ground, his deathly black robes flapping in the air behind him. His skull nods gently towards Sleipnir, now tugging her along like she were a waterskier after she tore tatters into the Fiend's leathers. "So," says the deathly spectre, lifting a gleaming silver greatsword, "I shall ward him off as you asked."
Calvin Nash	Futaba's plan to tangle the biker up works better than she might have feared and worse than she could have hoped--it does hurt him, and does keep him from starting it up, but it also puts her limbs in prime range of his fiery attacks. The tailpipes and the engine superheat at his beck and call, burning until he can secure a gap to race forwards.       "Not everybody can keep up with me--let's see if you assholes last through THIS!"                            Hell Biker - Hell Throttle                               The Fiend rockets down the interstate, surging way ahead of the party before braking with his foot. His strength causes the tattered remnants of asphalt paved long ago to shoot into the air, raining down as distracting projectiles before he turns the brake into a hard U-Turn and races through it. "YEEE-HAW!"      Popping a wheelie, there's a tangible energy about him--a daredevil streak that says he's here from Hell and wants to take you for a visit. If he had eyes, the whites would be visible; lips, and they'd be pulled into a manic, murderous grin. The shapes of his wheels are suggestions, streaks stretched out through the air as his figure is likewise blurred, his scarf like a red lightning bolt whipping this way and that.      Kicks, elbows, punches--aimed at vehicles, the bike popped off of a guardrail to get him into the air. But they don't burn this time, not even the wheels. His extreme speed carries not fire, but the certainty of death, making several attacks until--                            Chernobog - Counter Death                                  The flat of Chernobog's sword finds Hell Biker as if drawn by magnetism, batting his bike out of the air and coming around for a deadly thrust that puts the blade briefly through the biker's stomach, halting his high-speed assault.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	The certainty of death is something Madeleine is intimately familiar with. After all, it happens to her on a semi-regular basis thanks to her curse. So when the Hell Biker's attack comes with all the weight of the Reaper's hand behind it, Madeleine does her best to get out of the way. Even so a few of the many blows strike home, nearly casting her free from the roof of the Jeep. Something in Madeleine's wrist makes an uncomfortable sound as it breaks, a sound blessedly muffled for most by the roaring of engines and shouts of battle. Madeleine curses, slings Drogrung in bow form over her arm, and switches to holding onto the opposite end of the roof rack with her good hand.     As long as he's on that bike, the Hell Biker has an advantage. The road is his turf, high speed his comfort zone. Something has to change - and Madeleine thinks she knows how to change it. Shoving off from the roof rack, she *leaps* through the air, soaring an unexpected extra few meters by briefly freeing herself from the bonds of gravity, right into the path of the Hell Biker's leaping assault. It looks like she's not going to come out of this in one piece...     Until Chernobog's blade stops the Hell Biker short for a moment. It's just long enough for Madeleine to land *on the bike*, behind its infernal rider. Wrapping her broken-wrist arm around his neck in what would for a fleshy being be a choke-hold, she digs her good hand's fingers into the rider's empty eye sockets and pulls, straining with all her might to remove Hell Biker's skull from the rest of his body.
Angela	''In life, you're either getting fucked or doin' the fucking.'' Angela nods her head absnetmindedly. And she has some interest in the Hell Rider's words. It feels familiar--at first. Then the Hell Diver speaks of omnicide and Angela sighs, disappointed, and turns back to minesweeper. She's so fucking bored of all this. She has few hands in the game and she trusts Cinder and some of the most veteran of veteran L Corp agents can handle themselves without instruction. Indeed, she imagnes they are better at handling this battle than any instruction of hers could help with. Random laughs with nervous excitement as she feels the CRRRACK of their EGO Weapon against the Hell Rider (Random repeats the name a few times because they're worried they are going to get it confused with Hell Driver or Hell Diver and Random prides themselves on accurate reports). #-1 FUNCTION (ANS9) NOT FOUNDYou're up, Captain." Random asides to Rook, briefly giving him a peck on the lips in the moment. Nonon would approve but Random's not usually like this. With all the support they have, it feels easy to be brave right now. A chill of certain death (and several punches and kicks) passes over Cinder and she shudders, closing her eyes as she attempts to focus up. ''Don't sweat it, Cinder! Focus!'' Cinder takeds it as a command anyway as well as a buff. She takes careful aim with her revolver as she leans against the window. A Natsuki has joined the Sleipnir party. Rook startles a little because that's a PARTNER right by his ass. "Hey--uh--sorry for fraternizing a little during work hours. Just trying to get the right moment..." He readies his giant mace with a giant skull on it, his hot pink armor providing him with considerable protection. But... Cinder opens fire. The bullet goes straight for the skull of the Biker, hoping the force of the bullet will push the head of the biker closer to Rook-- --who takes the opportunity to swing Penitence, skull first, towards the biker's head. "Hey." Rook says. "We may all be sinners, but however you fake you think repentance and trying to build a future are--it's still something worth doin'."
Khosa	Khosa gives a big ol' thumbs-up to Natsuki in response, even if she couldn't make out the exact words. (As to why her scales come out mottled red and black: it's not out of any particular desire to match, it's just how she learned to do it first and so when Khosa isn't thinking much about her colours it's still what she gets. Some of the others have seen her do it before, even if Natsuki hasn't.) Having inadvisably removed her hand from the Jeep, she decides to commit all the way to pull herself back up on top of it, crouching rather than clinging. She's getting a feel for how it moves, and bare-footed, she can grip with her toe-claws (she has those too now). It's not perfect but as long as she keeps her weight low it should be okay. She hopes. As long as she doesn't slam into Madeleine. So Khosa keeps her new heavy tail away from the other Jeep rider as she looks around - as Natsuki goes flying. Khosa winces, but the result wasn't what she expected at all; a creature, shifting spider and tentacular limbs, riding the storm. "...Damn," Khosa says, impressed despite herself. She's really being shown up in the shapechanging department by the magical yokai beasts, huh. She feels helpless up here; this isn't how she wants to fight, on back of the Jeep. She can't move around right, she can't brace against it properly, and she can't just get off and run - Khosa's fast, but she's not *that* fast. At highway speeds (let alone whatever illegal speeds Hell Rider hits) she'd be left behind in moments. She can only hit him when he deigns to get close enough to her to reach. But maybe there's one way she can pull this off... "Yeah, you know what? You're half right. We all get the same lot, and the world's pretty shit. I'm not even *from* this one and I get that. The world's dying all the time. Maybe it's already dead and we're just hanging on. Maybe we are too stupid to give up!" Khosa really doesn't think she's going to change Hell Biker's mind. She's more trying to needle him, keep him angry and focused on her. "Or maybe it's *our* world - worlds - and we're just too damn stubborn to let some assholes take it away from us." She pauses for a moment, and then says, with emphasis, "You parched-mind streak of shit." Harsh words won't save her from assault, of course. What does save Khosa - to an extent - is her natural resilience. The touch of death doesn't bite her deeply; her own vital energy, her own *control* of her own vital energy, is enough to hold off the sense of looming Hell. It is not enough to stop her from chunks of asphalt as she rises up on the back of the Jeep, balancing carefully as she shifts again. Muscle builds across her upper body - that's why she wears a loose vest over a wrap, so she doesn't punch holes in it as often as Natsuki already did. She bulks as scales spread across her back, giving her a hunched look - And then she leaps. None of the non-Athasians have ever seen a jhakar, but it's what Khosa was thinking of when she shifted this way. To their eyes she just looks like a monster; a hulking half-reptilian humanoid, all bulky muscle with thick limbs, a hump of muscle, scales and a razor-sharp crest over her shoulders and upper back. She's still identifiable as Khosa; her head is mostly unchanged (though the scales continue up the back of her neck to part of her head) and she's still dressed the same way. She isn't terribly graceful in this form. It doesn't glide through the air. It hits like a cannonball as Khosa aims herself at the Hell Rider, tries to clamp on with all four limbs and her teeth, and simply worry at the Fiend until she's thrown. And when she *is* thrown, she hits the road, bounces like rubber (because she was expecting this, and preparing for it) and tries to revert from the shape of the half-jhakar fast enough to grab onto the *other* truck.
Futaba Nuki	Once again finding success using her octopus-tangling technique, Futaba's about to start drawing the Hell Biker back in towards her when she notices that the aforementioned biker's bike is getting warmer. A little longer than that, and it becomes terribly, and the cooking flesh quickly results in more pained hissing coming out of Futaba as she's forced to release him before long. Those tentacles turn from flesh to jelly as they shlorp right back into the ninja's sides, putting her back on the defensive. "What you 'deserved'? What you deserve is a boot through your hole!" Futaba shouts at the Hell Biker as she continues half-gliding half-flapping along, looking and sounding put off by pretty much everything but his aesthetic. "Obsessing over killing folks... Dang, we couldn't be any more different. I don't know a damn thing about your wars, but I doubt I'd ever get along with a demon like you no matter how long I live. Heroes don't... Heck, regular folks don't fantasize about that kind of stuff, so don't go talkin' like you know how everyone feels!" Despite sounding irate about the Hell Biker's words, however, Futaba soon finds herself cracking a small grin. "Still, I'll agree with ya on one thing... Right now, all I want to is to grind your non-ass into dust! If you're that confident 'bout your speed, then you better not slow down until we're done!" Once again, the ninja seems to be excited to see what it is the Hell Biker can do even with all those insults flying and being rather clear about his motivations for being here. She's actually prepared for the barrage of flying strikes directed all over the place this time, too, strategically shifting her form from muscled flesh to a far more malleable jelly when he comes rushing in. The slimy mass of her torso absorbs those wild strikes and disperses aqll that concentrated force through her entire form to mitigate the pain better than she could have with a purely fleshy body. The Hell Biker still manages to slough off globs of translucent goop off the transforming tanuki, and she looks a fair bit smaller than before as she returns that slime to flesh so she can maintain her altitude, but... Well, it's better than bleeding all over the place, or getting bludgeoned half to death. With the tentacle maneuver not working particularly well, and with Junior's pickup still propped up beneath her, Futaba needs to find some other strategy to work with. Fire sword? No, Calvin's analysis showed that he's strong to fire. More tentacle bindings? No, the bike would just roast her limbs again. Digging deeper into the recesses of her mind, Futaba gets An Idea, and... "Hey, Junior! Take the wheel for a minute. I'm letting you down in three!" With that warning given, Futaba sets the pickup truck down gently before flinging herself forward with one more burst of speed from her wings. As she comes down and starts ninja-sprinting along  the road, the wings turn back into her arms, and she's holding onto a gleaming baseball bat. She points at imaginary stands in the distance, leaps forward once more to get ahead of the Hell Biker, and aims a mighty swing right at the bike's center mass with a brilliant flash of blue!
Natsuki Nuki	Natsuki hates pretty much every word out of Hell Biker's mouth, and his ability to return hits and drive punishment back into storm-riding chimeroid takes petty annoyance and lights it in the pitch and oil of spite. "Pa-THETIC hypocrite!" Natsuki insults across the road, "Lower than a highwayman, less intelligent than a worm! It's incredible you can drive at all, thinking about rutting with the crater you make in the side of the road! You nihilist!" Shouting invectives while trailed by a brace of serpents - four from the back and one from her spine. Clinging to Sleipnir with the wrapping of one serpentine limb, she awaits the street-mulching charge of hooves catching up with the biker ahead. "Your yankee navel gazing and pathetic pathos is that of the most ultimate of looo-sers!" Natsuki continues. "You want what *you* deserve? Hah? Fucking punk, drive that thing your nihilist loser ass doesn't deserve over here! I'll take good care of it -- once I bury you like you oh-so-whiningly demand!" One point at the onrushing Hell Biker with a hooked index finger flips over into a two middle finger salute with both hands, wild red eyes wide and serpentine tail low, gauging distance, coldly calculating terrain and force. One head was filled with the roil of spite and social one-upmanship - the other was only about the pounce. Ridden down by the hell of several enemy turns taken in a row, though, Natsuki loses her first pouncing angle when she lunges at the Biker when he kicks the great horse in the ribs and comes up short, snakes hissing and snapping out about her but not biting down before they're away and she's more tangled for her trouble. With comfortable driving outfit in black and yellow half ripped apart by the emergence of multiple extra limbs and an angry shouting look alighting onto Rook's back and frowning while multitasking. In her wake like floating ribbons the brace of snakes about her tracks the Hell Biker, but Rook gets all of her direct-faced attention. "Don't apologize for complimenting me. It'll make me think you weren't honest." Natsuki advises simply, as if suggesting pork for dinner. "Just one sec.". It's Chernobog's gliding motion into the path of the Hell Biker after the nihilist rider's Akira slide at the end of the interstate joust - and the resulting multiple dive and drive into beheading or bulldogging or bullet blasting - that is the obvious opportunity Natsuki takes advantage of. Rook, stared at by Natsuki the whole time, gets to see the four snakes smear and split apart into curtains of dark leathery flesh, the lower two merging and smearing up while the upper two extend and harden, webbing out scales like membranous bat- or dragon-wings and then the sail is taken by the wind about Sleipnir and Natsuki kite-snaps backwards, floating high on an updraft and momentarily disappearing into bad weather and dark clouds overhead only to drop, bolt-quick and wingless, back onto the interstate onto the Biker while they are ripped into and 'unhorsed'. Trading one horse for another, Natsuki angles to straddle the Hell Biker's bike and help boot them off with a sarcastic 'how could you be SO stupid' tone to her final striking words. It really was 'the Assembly' that got Natsuki convinced this demon was a fucking idiot."Curse your gods all you want, but the Assembly? Where do you think gasoline comes from?? Loser???" It's a very rhetorical question.
Calvin Nash	Heck, regular folks don't fantasize about that kind of stuff, so don't go talkin' like you know how everyone feels!     "Of course they do, ya fuckin' idiot," spits Hell Biker. "I used to be a human, stupid! When somebody went hungry and stole to eat, 'normal people' said 'fuck 'em, let 'em die.' But don't you worry, they said it nice and polite-like, so it don't count, does it?"     "When 'normal people' saw people that looked like them, shipped halfway across the world with the newest guns and planes and missiles, fighting people with homemade bombs and thirty year old guns 'cause that's all they had--who the fuck do you think they cheered for?"     "'Normal people' have all the fuckin' guns and knives and soldiers of the whole entire world behind them every fuckin' thing they say, or think, or do, or--" He adds with a mocking, faux-mushy affect, "~Feel.~ They decide what normal is and they get to use the weight of all that shit on whoever *isn't.*"     "I lived through that shit--and I'm supposed to give a shit now some idiots are making new 'normal' in three different sparkly fuckin' flavors? Fuck no--"     "Yeah, you are, you stupid sumbitch," Calvin retorts. "'Cause if you weren't so bent on settlin' the score you might see somethin' you fuckin like, for once in your goddamn life. So what if it don't matter? So what if this here's all we got before we go up in smoke? Who gives a shit?! I'd rather try somethin' and eat shit for it than sit with my thumb up my ass waitin' for death to take me."
Calvin Nash	Madeleine impacts with the bike and immediately attempts to rip his head off, interrupting his answer but not at all disappointing him. "Rrrgh... y'see?" spits Hell Biker, struggling with Madeleine to keep his head on his shoulders. He launches a vicious elbow and when that doesn't work, tries to peel her off by laying the bike down and letting the road take care of her. "THIS girl's got the right idea! FUCK MY HEAD RIGHT OFF! No bullshit!" Laying it down is grinding bits of his cracked helmet off, sanding it down--but he doesn't care, and punctuates 'bullshit' with another elbow.     But Madeleine is smaller than him, and while he might be strong, it can be pretty difficult to get a proper grip on someone who's shorter than you clinging to your back in the specific way she is. He settles for violently punching the road and forcing the bike back upright in an effort to fling her from his body, but that just puts his dome right in place for Cinder to put a bullet through it at no risk to Madeleine.     "Nice!" cheers Junior, right before Rook cracks the helmet completely off with Penitence. I'm letting you down in three!     "Got it," answers the truck-driving Marshal. He waits until the one count to gently ease on the gas, and makes a rocky but ultimately steady climb back up to speed, throwing another one-shot aiming spell, this time towards Futaba.     Hell Biker leans in to try and go after Calvin, but the Marshal is ready for the kick this time, opening the door and slamming it closed on the biker's ankle before hitting him with a magically-assisted punch square in the nose.     "Zionga!" Calvin's forearm is bathed in dancing tendrils of electricity, which surge forward together as a conical lance, piercing the Fiend's skull before he can wrench his ankle free.     Hell Biker retaliates by popping a forward wheelie and angling the exhaust through the window to try and incinerate Calvin, but he reclines the seat and the flames pass over him as the bike returns to the ground to gain lost speed.     Ratcheting the seat back up, Calvin microadjusts past an upside down rusted hulk of a car, narrowly avoiding swapping paint with rust.
Calvin Nash	Hell Biker can't capitalize on Calvin's moment of not eyeing the road, though--not with *two* people weighing him down. A snarl escapes him as she, too, hunkers down for a final struggle, and the bike's steering grows sluggish under the weight of three people as he slams into a guard rail to force the both of them off.      Futaba comes in after he manages to shake them both and sideswipes him as he's correcting, lifting him off of the vehicle and offering Natsuki a chance to take a seat just before it starts to lay down.      The rider fares much worse, with no one to steady him--skipped across the asphalt at-speed before he can utter any further vitriol to Natsuki, Khosa or Futaba, the three he seems to hate the most (or some kind of weird hate-admiration mix in Natsuki's case).     The skull comes loose from his body at last, loosened by Madeleine's earlier grapple, and he (and his bike) begin to disintegrate into their constituent emotional energy. Calvin and Junior slow up to get everyone regrouped and patched up, and to check the damage to the Jeep and the pickup. If Natsuki's interest in the bike is more than passing, now would be the time to weave it into her legend.      Calvin and Junior's COMPs both beep with an alert--the dissipating energy allows a more complete scan of the Fiend's structure, affording a new compendium entry. Hell Biker A human motorcyclist whose violent nature and hatred of himself and the world has turned him into a demon, lashing out so that everyone else will suffer as well.         Hell Biker is now available for fusion at the Shadowed Tabernacle.
Futaba Nuki	"Great. So you were a jerk as a human, and you're still a jerk now. Get over yourself." Futaba spits out in return as she spins the baseball overhead with a light flourish, then slides it back into her pouch of stuff. "If every human and yokai back home was like you, nobody'd ever have any peace. Good thing folks aren't so dang nuts about getting theirs like you are." She wrinkle her nose a bit as she looks down at the fallen biker's skull, inhaling deeply before letting out a quiet sigh. "... You're strong, though. Definitely seeing why Junior was so worried about running into ya now. " Futaba squats by the skull to watch it disintegrate completely, then closes her eyes as she goes through some quiet rites to pay some semblance of respect to what the... ... Wait. This guy probably sucked back then, too. She holds on that for a while, then just gets up and wanders back over to the vehicles while rolling her shoulders and wincing shortly afterwards. She practically throws herself into the pickup with another grunt, then extends her neck to look over at everyone. "Seed time? Might as well get movin' before he comes back or someone follows all those fighting noises, right?"
Natsuki Nuki	The Hell Biker is peeled off his motorcycle and sent flying free by tremendous collective effort, and Natsuki straddles the saddle and reaches two hands forward to take up the high antenna handlebars the rider leaves. In a mantle from her back, her membranous batwings flare out as she brakes, planting bootheels into the ground as the roaring chopper flamingly slides to a stop several dozen yards apart from Hell Biker's own fading moments. Feeling the Fiend's energy fading into the air herself, smelling the unraveling of magical particles and scenting an opportunity, Natsuki sits up and shutters her eyes. With a 'shuuu' of breath, Natsuki draws in the residual emotional energy of the Biker's loose wrapping, sweeping up the Fiend's energy like a searching final drink from the dregs of a bottle. Stoppering with a thoughtful pause and gulping as she lays out over the top of the motorcycle's body, Natsuki takes a moment to relax while the sinews and sailage on her back drapes across her to either side. Arms holding the motorcycle, Natsuki settles her cheek to the engine-body, feeling the rumble against cheek, chest, and thighs. As her wings draw back into her body as dark tendrils of meat and membrane, the gold-white blonde sits up, stroking her new chopper like a lover. Swinging heel onto the pedal, Natsuki raises hands to handlebars and hooks right index finger to brake and rev with roll of fingers in single motion. The exhaust blast-sputters and floods out a dark smoke, wheels snapping with a pilotlight crackle of electricity snapping the tyres back to ignition. Loosing the brake... --- Rumbling up at the back of the convoy, Natsuki carries on back to the group, rumbling up at a softly overtaking pace before pulling alongside and two-finger waving a V-for-victory posed set of fingers and a confident-fanged smirk. "I've wanted to try motorcycles for a while! Lucky for me we met such a generous loser on the road." She hoots, birdsong chirping of rich mirth almost - but not quite - drowned by her wheelie-ing engine-roar as she peels out ahead for a few hundred feet.