Scene #7313: The New Normal

Owner	Pose
Karian Icefang	It had been far too long since Karian and his brothers had seen action of any kind. They had been handling the establishment of the 'Sons of Fenrir' chapter. But here they were, ready to help. Immidiately, the marines would be moving to help get civilians towards the police and other emergency workers, while Karian himself would talk to whomever was in charge for details.
Tina Natsumi	This was not how Tina expected to visit New York again. How many years has it been? Too many, but the city couldn't have changed this much in such a short time, could it? Or maybe... Right. This is a different New York from her own. As the confusion fades from her face, Tina spins her revolver around by the trigger guard and catches it a few times before heading into the parking lot designated as their meeting point, her gaudy and stereotypical cowboy hat and matching boots giving away her status as someone from out of state. Also, actually looking straight ahead while she's walking. "Well, this is a fine welcome out here, ain't it? I was hopin' to grab a sandwich on the way over, but..." As she keeps spinning the revolver in one hand, she tips her hat back with the other while eyeing the old man cautiously. "You the one responsible for this mess out here?"
Adaruhn	When the alarms sounded, the reaction was something akin to routine. The denizens of this world's New York City are well acquainted with the city's own Local Alert System, pamphlets for which are unfailingly distributed to newcomers and public service announcements mandatorily broadcasted on radio and TV. They are a fact of life, and obedience is efficiently normalized and swiftly enforced by police, firemen, and the disturbingly occasional national guard dispatch. Tests happen often, and compliance is unfailingly, vigorously enforced outside of the most pressing emergencies. The constant, deafening horn, eventually slowly descending in volume like a falling aircraft, indicates that "a localized peacetime disaster is incoming or currently in progress". Something like a massive gas leak, or a crashed fuel truck. Reason to evacuate to the closest shelter or leave the threat zone outright. As if prescient, policemen and firemen appear to lead families out of their homes, most carrying large bags prepared for this exact eventuality. Abruptly, the ground shakes. Many stumble, some fall. The impersonal, robotic voice of the PA system chooses that moment to speak. "THIS IS NOT A DRILL. UNUSUAL SEISMIC ACTIVITY DETECTED IN QUADRANTS DELTA-THIRTY TO ECHO-THIRTY ONE. ABNORMAL PHENOMENA SUSPECTED. ALL NON-RESPONDERS WILL BE EVACUATED TO OUTSIDE OF THE EXPECTED AFFECT AREA. RESIDENTS IN THE SURROUNDING QUADRANTS, STAND BY FOR FURTHER WARNINGS." There is a sudden panic and rush as organizational efforts collapse into an effort to run as far away in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. Transport trucks load people in. The ground shakes again. Atop a building, an old man with unnatural gray skin observes proceedings, holding a phone to his ear and tapping his foot to the concrete. His hoarse voice seems to echo oddly with the wind, an effect likely lost through the microphone of his Nokia. "Yes. The parking lot between fifth and- yes, beside the pharmacy. I have to insist on a present liaison, some of my co-workers aren't necessarily so acquainted with communications technology. Yes. That will do. Ciao." Unceremoniously, he flips the phone closed and his visage seems to drift with the wind, dissipating into a darkish haze. The haze seems to soar through the air at an arc, falling at a mostly empty parking lot near the center of the danger zone, the meeting point communicated to the Paladin network. The old man reforms there, squinting at a watch that hadn't been there one incarnation ago. His eyes glow a deep red, and he smiles. What a great way to meet new people.
Tamamo	A car with the Paladin stamp low on the side drives against all direction of emergency personnel, with limited respect for traffic signs, perhaps partially owing to the armor only subtly indicated by its low profile. It doesn't quite reach a parking spot, instead stopping in the middle of the lot. The man who gets out, wearing military dress uniform, hurries to open the passenger compartment, from which emerges a figure remarkably more out of place for the century and locale. New meetings! New experiences! Questionably natural disasters! With these motivations, and a very concerned flavor of excitement, Tamamo no Mae arrives in all her archaically Japanese glory. Those billowing sleeves can't have been in style since around the Heian period, though they might make a comeback. She doesn't look especially concerned for impending earthquakes, though that owes more to purposefully calm countenance than anything else. Letting the driver get back to the vehicle, she nods to the familiar Tina, the rather less familiar (though she's heard his voice) Karian, and then focuses her attention fully on Adaruhn. Her studious gaze goes a few degrees past inevitably expected curiosity, though still a polite distance short of analysis. "A pleasure to meet you in person. I am Tamamo no Mae, as I may have said some time before. Please, at your leisure, inform us of the nature of this situation, if you would."
Lilian Rook	"I doubt it. He'd have to know to wait here, and thus be an exceptionally arrogant idiot to think it were a good idea." Lilian replies to Tina. "Besides, do you have ears? Or feet? The warning is concerned with seismic activity. That means underground." She takes a short second glance at the cowboy hat. "Or is that a New York joke. I assume you'd know the city better than I do." Clearly, 'out of state' doesn't register at all. Cowboy hats are America, and this is America, thus Tina must belong. If she's this confident about swaggering around in boots, it must just be how New York is in this time period. Still, she might catch her mouthing 'It's filthy.' under her breath. She's arrived in the same car as Tamamo, apparently prioritizing something on the ride rather than an instantaneous response. Despite that, this is an emergency, and called by someone she han't determined to be full of shit yet, so she has dressed the part, neck to toe in the lightweight model of the Immune battlesuit, wire-thin lines already very faintly aglow. Despite that, there's precisely one gun clipped to the thigh hardpoint, barely two cases across, and she steps out of the car with the long, extremely plain black scabbard of a sword in her hand like a cane. "And, assuming a minimum level of intelligence, it isn't an earthquake. So there's something we have to deal with here." Extending her arm to her side like a falconer, an unusually large, pitch black crow flies almost silently to it. She scans around the area for a few seconds, then points upwards to a vantage of her choice, and the uncanny familiar takes off to survey the scene from the air. "So I want to know what it is, where it is, and save myself as much time as possible." She doesn't say 'our time'. Snapping her fingers in the man's direction she says "You. At your earliest convenience. Everything these responders know." It's not really phrased as a question.
Karian Icefang	"We can split the bill, so to speak. I'll leave my brothers here to help secure the area, should whatever is in the sewer get past us." Karian says, a few hand gestures that has the rest of his men moving to set up a defensive line. "But I agree that we should take on whatever's down there."
Adaruhn	The old man offers a dainty wave to the arrivals, smiling despite the scrutiny aimed at him. He's dressed in fairly stereotypical, literally and figuratively beige sixties business dress, becoming of his somewhat venerable appearance. Clashes a bit with the gray skin, but maybe that's the point. It's difficult not to feel uneasy looking at him, on a level beyond appearance- a tingle on the instincts, something Wrong. "I happen to be the one who called this little meeting of ours, shady as I may be. Apologies for not preparing a better rendezvous, I had very short notice. We should have some time before the cards start to fall." As much as the atmosphere doesn't initially seem to get to him, the snap of Lilian's fingers brings a much stronger edge to his smile, the expression stretching his face in a way that seems uncanny, if not blatantly inhuman. He won't be forgetting that. "The local federal authority should be sending an envoy quite soon, but I doubt he'll be of much use. The paranormal incident agents are... secretive. Only open with what they deem necessary. Here is what I've been told." With a snap of his own, the sound of which seems to linger, a mist seeps from his fingers that fills out a large square on the ground, the sides about a meter each. It solidifies into a dark near-liquid, that ripples with pale waves as he recounts what he's heard. Apparently, there has been a shifting seismic pattern that, as measured by the prefecture's suspiciously precise instruments, follows a curve of constant length that seems to be following a path in the sewers. Something writhing beneath their feet, quite possibly able to burst out at any time. "It isn't like anything I'd expect to find in the city's sewers. And the only person likely to know won't be so forthcoming. They likely expect us to just wrangle whatever comes out of the ground, if it comes to that. I am more proactive. I suggest we take to the sewers, unless anyone has a better idea."
Tamamo	"My, a sewer excursion? I cannot claim great enthusiasm for seeing the worst this city has to offer, and yet, it would be far more dangerous to wait above ground. Had we the means of tracking this thing, whatever it may be, without descending to its level, we might at least lessen the time spent below ground. Without knowing much of the nature of the beast, however, I feel little confidence I could manage such without paying the difference." Tamamo tilts her head. "Do we know aught else of this nature?" Tamamo has even less idea of how to tell sections of the USA apart than Lilian does, and is therefore unable to call Tina out on her crimes of dialect. Instead, "Oh, yes, a pattern in its motion would be useful. The paths of the sewer are somewhat limited, I should hope." Anything to not have to get NYC-filthy, but if needs must...
Tina Natsumi	Tina's confusion returns when Tamamo greets the strange old man, and the gears are obviously turning in her head as Lilian gives a breakdown how not-the-culprit this old man is. There's an awkward pause before Tina finally snaps her fingers, catches the revolver's grip in mid-spin, and taps it against the brim of her hat in one well-practiced motion. Nailed it. "Heh... O' course! This is just how New Yorkers say howdy in... Brooklyn." She puts on a rather shitty attempt at a Brooklyn as she says that, definitely not trying to play her mixup off as intentional all along. She laughs a bit too hard for a few more moments, then clears her throat and slips her phone out of her pocket. "O' course it can't be a simple earthquake. Something traipsin' around in the sewers probably ain't gonna smell great, though." She struggles with her phone's menus a bit, tapping and sliding at the front screen a few times before slipping it into her jacket's breast pocket. She tenses up briefly at the mist coming out of the old man's hand, but soon gets a more curious look when it becomes more of a liquid in nature. After making sure the camera is facing frontwards and poking above the top of the pocket, Tina takes one more breath before putting on her most obnoxiously Hollywood cowboy voice yet. "And there we go... Howdy, y'all! FreedomWithFries here, and we're gonna be savin' New York City from paranormal weird shit! We've got..." She starts rotating slowly to get a good shot of each person in the group, glancing down briefly to make sure the phone's camera is actually poking out properly. "Sun goddess! Magic marine! Space Wolfenst... Wolf! And today, we're gonna be goin' into a sewer level." "... Maybe. Or. OR a fishing minigame. You said it's got a path, right? If we can predict where the critter's headed next..." Tina taps a finger to her chin before slipping her phone out of her pocket again. "We could maybe open a path for it to come up to us rather than us goin' down to it. Lure it out with somethin' meaty or shiny." She snaps a picture of herself (complete with a brief pose for the camera), and the air shimmers behind her as a gleaming red, white, and blue robot appears behind her complete with stars and stripes decorating the whole thing. "I reckon this'll be shiny enough for a lure, yeah?"
Lilian Rook	"Apology accepted. You could have stopped at the word 'federal', honestly. There's a seismic event and they're sending precisely one agent. The way you've described it doesn't inspire confidence that he'll be a hyper-competent troubleshooter. Now, there's one more important question to answer." Lilian is going on about this as if it were an inspection site and she's already sick of the ineptitude of a foreman she's never met, at the same time as affixing the sword to her back, as well as adjusting her hair to fold it one extra time before re-pinning it. "When you say secretive; do you mean they won't share their asinine job secrets, or that this whole sort of thing is a secret? Is there a 'masquerade' in effect here? It seems like the people here are certainly used to being herded around, back and forth, but I'd like not to make any assumptions." The professional dialogue is interrupted instantly for her to say "Never call me a marine again if you value your ability to walk." to Tina, sharp as plunging a knife into her back. "It's already bad enough that we're dealing with sewers. Again. If it's still moving around down there, it's searching for an ideal place to emerge; we gain nothing by waiting for it. At the same time, it'd be best not to have to deal with it in those quarters. I'll have it brought above ground on my terms." Still apparently allergic to the word 'our' here, Lilian turns on her heel, makes a vague waving motion with her hand, and disappears. Below ground, she descends gently from above, and makes certain to land on a maintenance path instead of anywhere near the water. Barely needing to touch the wall to judge its suitability as a surface, the tip of an extended index finger shimmers with heat, and she drags it swiftly back and forth across the stone, scoring shallow, angular marks into the concrete, quickly planting a pair of runes behind her. From there, she begins tracing the routes in the direction of the ripples seen in the inky magic surface on the parking lot, moving ahead at high speed. In this enclosed environment, sound and vibrations will travel a considerably greater distance than above, so she frequently stops to focus her senses at crossroads, magically reinforcing her hearing and touch especially, placing her fingers to the ground, to track it by the echoes and tremors.
Adaruhn	The old man lets out a dry chuckle at Tina's "flawless" save, deciding to shelve the issue for later. He squints at the phone she pulls out, eyes widening and grin stretching for a brief moment to truly inhuman proportions as she introduces everyone to the audience. Mildly put off by being left out, but nonetheless eager to seize the opportunity, he calls out to her. "You're filming? Don't stop, but make sure the agent doesn't notice when he arrives. It'll seal his lips like glue. But we can use that to our advantage later." Giddy at the thought of blackmailing a federal agent, but not actually understanding what "streaming" is, he turns to the space marine with his previous, less terrifying smile. "See if you can have your men spread out. If there are cracks, it is in our interest to hear of it immediately. And, ah. Better one caught at the epicenter than a couple, if you catch my meaning." He frowns. Further away, the civilians seem to have mostly evacuated, a few drifters being pushed around by what is now mostly a garrison of national guard soldiers. A single agent in a motorbike flashes his ID at the lines of enforcers, and comes ever closer to the parking lot. The old man smiles, tensing at the arrogance on display and biting back an insult. Oh, yes, he definitely won't be forgetting this. "With Unification, the men and women tasked with national secrecy now have a highly convenient, omni-functional scapegoat for all the things they've been concealing. Getting him to admit to the institution knowing of this beforehand will be like pulling teeth. We will likely be cast as foreign meddlers, part of the problem." He tries to object, but merely sighs as the paladin disappears into the ground and sends out an arcane scan. The paths of the sewer follow something like the paths of the roads, with quite a lot of diversions and subsections. Blatantly, beyond the writhing of the great thing in the sewers, something is wrong: there are other things beneath. Too spread out and unmoving to be fleeing people. Beyond them is the monster, at least a hundred meters in length, not much smaller in diameter than the tunnels he struggles through. It moves languidly, seemingly aimless, but not particularly difficult to track. Unceremoniously, the agent arrives, parking near the sidewalk. Wearing a plain black biker's suit without much in the way of padding. A plain, black-haired and pale-skinned man in his late thirties, he walks over with his helmet under his harm and a large pistol at his waist. "Paladins," he speaks, voice cold, curt. "I'm here to-" He instantly notices the phone with an exposed camera, seemingly ignoring all the other weirdness, space marines included, if he can help it. "Are you filming this?"
Karian Icefang	Karian nods and his men go about, searching for any cracks. When the agent arrives, Karian turns to him. "Focus on the task at hand. Inform us of the situation."
Tina Natsumi	"Take two, take two... Magic knight." Tina corrects herself after Lilian's reply, still laughing lightly and just loudly enough for the microphone to catch. At hearing about the warning about the agent and only recoiling slightly from the old man's inhuman grin, she furrows her brow briefly before snickering and nodding towards him. "Sounds like a plan! I'll give ya the permalink later tonight." She doesn't explain what that is either, of course. When the agent does arrive, Tina doesn't turn off the phone. Instead, she just stuffs it a little further into her pocket and makes sure to line the camera up with a semi-conspicuous hole cut into the pocket so it can keep recording without poking out completely from the top. Only then does she finally turn around to face the agent, giving him a brief tap of the revolver against her hat in greeting. "Makes sense... 'fraid that's just the way things're gonna be. As long as we get the job done and keep everyone safe, though, ain't nothin' to get too worked up over." She murmurs in a quieter aside to the old man, straightening up just a bit once the agent approaches and asks about the filming. "What, this? Nah, nah. It's how I keep my buddy here functioning." She lies without even skipping a beat, reaching over to give the America-themed robot Persona a clap on one of its armored legs. "Like a magic wand, but I can scope out all the good pizza places in reeeeeal time." She says that last part like some sort of hokey magician, of course. "Anyway. Time to get to huntin', yeah? We can walk and talk, right?" She starts moving, but pauses to turn right back around to the agent. "You got any leads on where our target might show up next?" If she's given a location, then she'll start moving there with Uncle Sam taking the lead! If not, or if there's questions directed her way specifically, she'll stick around.
Tamamo	After confirming the location of the barely-fitting sewer creature with Lilian, Tamamo looks about to orient herself. Unfortunately, the landmarks of New York aren't the most familiar to her. "Miss Natsumi, you have a map of this area upon your phone, yes? I should appreciate some assistance in following Lilian's directions. We must find an appropriate place to begin our preparations."
Adaruhn	The agent squints at the characteristic depth and glint of a camera lens, conditioned by his training to pay attention to the slightest possibility of an information leak. After a few seconds, his total lack of knowledge about Patriotic Magic Robots wins over his suspicion, and he just glares at the streamer like he's onto her, and turns to the others. "As I was saying, I'm here to help you assess the situation. As I'm sure you understand, information the system's warning and intelligence systems has to be kept under strict confidentiality, due to the threat of foreign aggression or terrorism. As such, I'm sorry to say we'll have to work on a need-to-know basis." Visibly, he tenses at the mention of "other things" in the sewers, but skillfully smooths it out after a moment of hesitation. "I'm not sure reconnaissance is advisable. Whatever it is is strong enough to crack the underground apart, it isn't safe to go down there. You'll be trapped under rubble." As he speaks, many of the figures start to move, most coming together in a single path away from the epicenter, some staying still or moving erratically.
Karian Icefang	"That's nothing new. I and my brothers exist for those kind of suicide missions....and we've yet to die." Karian says, a knowing grin on his face exposing fangs. But he quickly gives a look over his gear before nodding, standing at the ready.
Lilian Rook	Before Lilian moves out, for the first, and potentially only time in the whole exchange, she spares 'the local' the fleeting ghost of a sympathetic tone. "I'm familiar with their kind. If it turns out that we desperately need something from him, I'll take care of it." Tracing the sewer routes, the first thing that gets Lilian's attention isn't the tremendous mass squeezing itself around the tunnels, but the numerous other disturbances scattered widely around. The first thing was already expected; the rough size and shape of what they were tracking here was fairly obvious the minute the situation was explained. The latter is new, and potentially a problem. When called for an update by her allies, she stops for a minute at a four way intersection to use her radio. "It's hard to miss. Unfortunately, it looks like there are plenty of other disturbances down here. Ideally they're not eggs. Or nodes for a broader scale attack. I don't have its movement data over the last hour, so I can't tell if it's been leaving them behind, or if they're unrelated." She spares a glance at the dimensions of the sewer. "The good news is that it can barely fit through these tunnels. It won't be able to turn around on me; it'll have to complete a four corner circuit to point the business end in my direction. I already know exactly how I'm going to get it out of the ground, but first I need to make absolutely sure of what those things are. I'll send you all a location. Tamamo, if you would, as many containments and curses as you can, please. I'd recommend the wolflord -- well, whatever he is now, keep his men at least a block's distance, and form a perimeter." There's just a brief delay in the transmission. "Cowpoke can play her Fortynights or something. She can figure it out." Choosing her particular crossroads for corresponding to a place above where there should be a relatively large open space, Lilian transmits her coordinates to the Paladins' local net. While she has some time with the others getting into position and the mystery creature shuffling and slithering around seemingly without a direction in mind, she moves to each of the four corners of the junction, opening one of the two cases at her hip, withdrawing and inking the edge of a tool halfway between a scalpel blade and a fountain pen, and preparing more precise and elaborate runic markings. Ogham invocations of mist and shadow, and Futhorc calls to the sea. When satisfied with the integrity of her four point array, she makes her way to the closest of the unmoving objects she'd detected before, coming up on it quietly and scouting from a distance.
Tamamo	The latecoming agent gets a pleasant enough nod from Tamamo at his impersonal address. "I am Tamamo no Mae of the Paladins, it is so." As opposed to a Tamamo of any other group, an occasional confusion. They have a location, and sufficient means to arrive there, though their quarry is at least slowly moving. The specific place of their arrival isn't too important to Tamamo, whether it's a lone manhole, an exposed drainage pipe, or even a bare section of roadway. The areas differ only slightly in their relevant geomancy, and she's bringing enough mystical muscle to flex so as to effortlessly override anything but a competent and concerted effort to interfere with her work. Curses and containment were called for, to which she had responded, "Of course." She withdraws sheaf after sheaf of bundled, old-seeming paper from within her sleeves, each strip scrawled with black ink within red prints. As the strings break, the papers fly out as if pulled on so many invisible fishing lines, plastering themselves against trees, the sides of buildings, telephone poles, and all along the ground in-between, forming a rough perimeter, the specific geometric requirements too arcane for casual analysis. Defining the area is likely the less interesting part of the process. The next set of talismans Tamamo pulls out don't fly, but instead burn up in the air in front of her, ash disappearing quickly into the air, the words she says low enough to disguise how quickly they're spoken. One after another, the effects overlay onto the kill box she's building. Shielding and containment. Detection-blocking. Mana-draining. Life-draining. Luck-draining. Fate-fraying. Sickness empowered to such levels as to nearly form into a coherent weapon. Sapping upon both physical stamina and mental acuity, perception and the drive of will. It's going to be a terrible place to be when all of those spells activate at once, for anyone she hasn't designated a non-target. "Oh, yes. Please stand well away from the field before we begin, if you please, or else be sure to tuck away one of these. A pocket would do well enough." She offers what looks like a cheerfully printed red bookmark with flower patterns, should anyone want one, though without explanation.
Tina Natsumi	Hearing Tamamo's question, Tina gives her a quick nod as she yoinks the phone out of her pocket and fiddles with it briefly to get the power of MAP going. "Let's see... Alright, Tamamo. This way! To get to where Lilian wants us, we'll be headed..." And she's off! Not particularly quickly, but at a brisk jogging pace. Uncle Sam lags behind just enough in case Tamamo, Karian, the old man, or the agent want to hold onto its bulky, yet surprisingly shock-absorbent lower half. She makes sure to take note of manhole covers she spots along the way, as well as any open drains. The agent's suspicions are largely ignored, thankfully, thanks to having a task in front of her. Otherwise, Tina might say or do something stupid even for her! "Fair, fair. But don't you worry, pard. We should be able to get this job done in no time with our eyes down there, our arms up here, and our brains..." She gestures wildly around her, then turns to give the agent a wink carrying the utmost confidence and bravado. "Everywhere. We got this." Upon reaching the actual location, Tina takes one of those offered bookmarks and tucks it into her pocket along with her phone, then puts Uncle Sam right to work! The Persona takes a knee and spreads its arms wide along the ground, providing full body and waist high cover should it be needed!
Adaruhn	As the agent seems to go on the defensive, the old man scowls at him, the glow of his eyes intensifying. "He knows what's down there, but he won't tell. No matter, we'll find out." The agent was already visibly put off by the space marine's bravado, and visibly steels himself, posture as straight as it can be. "That's why you wanted a presencial contact. You wanted to ferret out information from me. Understand that this could be perceived as a conspiracy to uncover state secrets." The old man stays silent, walking over to grab a bookmark. You can never be too sure, even though he doesn't envision himself being anywhere near the prospective magical blast radius. And below... Below, as Rook slowly approaches one of the nearer objects, waves of sewage go back and forth, the tunnel shakes, the creature's shaking making the area more difficult to traverse, but not impossible. The shaking obscures her movements, if anything. Suddenly, she hears a yelp and a particularly loud splash. A young woman's voice, cursing. "Fffuck, fuck! Never should've done this. Fucking sewer adventure. Fucking NY ness monster bullshit fucking-" Suddenly, silence. A sharp snap. The Paladin can see a woman in a face mask, the specifics of her clothing, other than it being a long shirt, pants and rubber boots, being covered by sewage. Holding an extendable baton. "I can feel you. Don't kill me. I know why it's awake. I didn't see shit. I won't tell anyone. I can help. Don't fucking kill me." Above, the national guard seems to give the Paladins free reign, the old man and agent going after the others at a mild distance. The agent speaks up, and the old man simply smiles at him, happy to let him dig his own grave. "Whatever this is- I can't just allow you to dump whatever paranormal energy that is into the city's sewers. There could be evacuation efforts, or, people stuck on the underside. I'm sure there's another way."
Tina Natsumi	"If you have another way to sort this out, we'd love to hear it. But you know..." Tina actually sounds irritated, even simmering as she turns back to the agent while approaching him with a suspicious glint in her eyes. "Shouldn't you know if you sent other people down there? Were you hoping we'd just go in blasting so you can pin anything that goes wrong on us? What would you tell the families if someone got flushed out with whatever's down there because YOU didn't bother telling us they were even down there in the first place?" She levels a rather furious glare at the agent for a few more seconds to let her own temper cool down, then goes right back to her usual chipper and on-brand cowgirl tone. "So! How many folks you got peepers on down there? And what kinda rodeo are we talkin' here? I reckon that's the kinda info the cavalry like us shoulda been told right at the start..." She's still visibly simmering, but her voice is as cheerful and saccharine-Texan as ever. "But let's not get bogged down in that biz and just focus on the now, yeah?"
Tamamo	"Now, now. We are not about to drop things into your sewers. It would be far safer to bring the problem to the surface, and contain it here, no?" Tamamo says, gesturing to the area surrounded by the still invisible, inactive barrier. From the perspective of secrecy, this is obviously worse, but she shows no sign of having given that any thought. "Now, as to how to bring it to us... Miss Natsumi, you suggested use of your mechanical partner for this task, yes? If other complications occupy Lilian, perhaps it would be best to continue with that plan." Tamamo remains less than keen on going on down there, herself, even given that she could stand in the center of the trap she's laid out without being harmed by it.
Adaruhn	The agent meets Tina's glare head-on, impassive despite the scrutiny. He seems to be ready to ignore her, maybe even turn around and disappear into a national guard transport. But after a few seconds, he relents, pinching the bridge of his nose before putting his helmet back on and giving it a knock on the side. His voice comes out through a noise filter, a specific disruptive frequency to make his voice almost impossible to record with any conventional device. Whether any devices in play are conventional is up in the air, but this is what he knows to do. "A fireteam, four gunmen, watching the creature`s movements. They should be dispersing by now. Three tracking other movements underground. Humans. And something that made identifying them with our devices significantly more difficult. Seven of mine, two to four unknown persons. They'll all be gone with the wind in minutes. Mine, at least. We've only caught one of theirs. Looking for something. It's likely that the confrontation woke up the entity."
Lilian Rook	People. Well, a person, but that more or less precludes what the other errant objects are. The tension releases from Lilian's posture. Her hand drifts away from the vicinity of her subweapon. The silence bleeds out of her footfalls, now straight and confident. It's a relief. People are easy. "Now now, the way you're talking, one would think you've mistaken me for an American." she says, ostensibly coming up from behind. "What you do from here isn't really my problem. Or at least, I doubt you even have the capacity to become a problem for me. This place is revolting and I have an important person waiting on me, so I don't particularly have the time to chase your friends around either." That's a lie. She always has the time. "So I'll make this quick." Her footsteps cut out. They've stopped. That's because she isn't moving anymore. But she has moved. Lilian is right at the stranger's back, arm extended to grip her baton wrist in her fingers, the other around her to grip her chin, both points of the hold unnaturally tight. It feels as if she could break her wrist with only a little effort. There'd been no noise. No rush of air. No tingle of magic. Just the sudden clench of fingers. "You're going to tell me your name, who you work for, what this thing is, and why it's awake. I'm even going to let you go, because I'm so busy, and I'm so generous. However, it'll be absolute child's play to find you, should you try to run away." Almost delicately, she slips her spare communicator into the woman's pocket, then pats on it. "Keep that on you. If you drop it, I'll assume you're trying to run~ If you activate it on your own, I'll assume you're trying to spy~ Once I've concluded my business, then we'll talk." Every word is spoken with a sort of confidence that goes beyond a demand, or an order, or even an expectation. There is a hair-raising uncanniness to each word, so absolutely unquestionably true that the human mind literally evades trying to examine or consider why. It's literally spellbinding. An enchanting, undeniable fact. Plus, after that, she disappears without a trace once again. Pounding feet away from that seems pretty unlikely.
Lilian Rook	It is the beast that Lilian is focused on, now. Taking the opportunity to scope out potential remote threats had concluded only something as 'harmless' as humans, and so she has quickly switched back to her hunting mindset. She advances towards the tail end of the monster, following its echoes rather than advancing on its vibrations. All the way up to a few junctions down. Clear of other people for at least several turns. Then, drawing her sidearm, Lilian uses her second case, taps out the magazine, switches and snaps in a second, and charges the weapon with a faint, electric whine. Unable to miss something of that size, she aims straight down the tunnel, and begins firing round after round of hypervelocity ammunition straight down the mystery monster's length. Lightning-blue flash erupts in sharp, cross-shaped flares, spitting charred black casings. The size of the thing doesn't particularly matter; she's trying to get its attention, and a couple dozen armour piercing bits of tungsten boring into its backside should do the trick. When she finally has its focus on her, and can get it to turn and give chase, the second part of Lilian's strategy unfolds. She falls back to the previously prepared crossroads at speed, staying close enough to the monster so that it doesn't seem to lose her, but far enough away to keep a respectable distance. Once she can lead it between the four corners of the marked junction, the runic array will activate; the old, Old magics, through the water, surging together and bursting upwards like the crash of the sea on the shore, filthy sewer water still solid enough to launch the head of something upwards like hitting a ramp. When hitting the ceiling, the bounded area, demarcated by signs in the concrete, proves itself completely insubstantial. Little more than a mirage. A giant sewer monster in hot pursuit is thus to be launched at its own top speed through the underside of the pavement and onto the street, phasing through the de-realized matter on the crest of the wave, and right into the trap.
Tina Natsumi	"Yeah, I figure we can use him as a lure if we need to go with a plan C. Just like fishin'!" Tina replies to Tamamo with a confident chuckle, checking her pockets briefly until her expression drops just a bit. "'fraid I don't have any bait on hand to go with the lure, though." A dramatic sigh and sagging of her shoulders later, and then Tina's bouncing right back in time to get some details about the agent's people. Taking note of the filter's effects, she gives the agent a knowing nod before relaying that information to her allies. "That's more like it! Alright, so now..." Now she's not quite sure what to do. "Can't really dive down there myself without leaving everyone up here without cover... Ah. Right. Bait!" Rebounding once more, Tina takes on the Herculean task of looking for a deli or meat market that's still open or doesn't have a particularly strong-looking door that she can bust open. Should she find one, she'll grab a slab of raw meat (or roast beef) and a knife, leave payment for it on the counter, then head back outside to start draping slices of meat onto the magic American robot.
Adaruhn	The monster doesn't seem particularly sensate at first, ignoring the whine of Lilian's gun. The colossal, dirty thing struggles through an attempt at making it past an almost right angle curve, its skeleton clearly not meant for it. Its shape isn't quite like any earthly creaturefeatures are obscured by the sheer amount of sewage, dust, and rubble it's covered in, but its scales glow a faint yellow-gold that makes it quite easy to track. Not quite a snake, with strange appendages folded against its length, spikes across its back scraping the roof. As its skin is pierced, it shrieks. It is a terrible, ear-piercing thing, something between a roar and the song of a dying bird, accompanied by a convulsive movement across its entire body-length, cracking stone and bending steel that screams along with it. Suddenly made free from its predicament by the destruction of the corner, it squeezes rapidly, irregularly through the tunnels, trying to circle around to find whatever caused it that terrible pain. The ground lurches, above and below, and the local sewer system starts to collapse, every violent movement made by the creature causing more of the tunnels to become so much rubble. When it reaches the trap, it is screaming, enraged. Its face is like that of an engorged goldfish with a terrifying maw, and as it runs after its prey It soars. The inglorious explosion of filthy water and residue is spread even farther by its wild thrashing. Of course, its length ends up limiting its ability to fly entirely out of the hole, and it falls limp, still roaring, its head slamming down on the street and crushing a van some poor bastard left on the sidewalk. The National Guard opens fire immediately, rifles singing in staccato as a dozen riflemen shoot at once. The bullets ricochet. An officer is hit on the shoulder and falls, the bullets stop. It starts to rear its head, and roars once more. It is very, very angry.
Tina Natsumi	So much for Plan C. Hearing the creature's approach before she can see it or feel it in the ground, Tina has just enough time to tie up the bag of meat and toss it aside to get her weapons back out. Pulling out a submachine gun out of Uncle Sam's back, she takes cover behind the Persona's torso while watching for the creature's ascent. And ascend it does. She joins in the barrage of gunfire at first, although the ricocheting bullets quickly has her taking cover instead of sticking around to get hit by a stray bullet. The constant pinging noise from ricocheting bullets bouncing off Uncle Sam's frame still reflects upon her in the form of a few welts and small cuts, but at least she doesn't get hit directly. "Can't shoot it. Okay, plan... This is still Plan A, right?!" She shouts out to her allies as she jams her first gun back into the Persona, then climbs onto its shoulder as one of the arms turns into a cannon. Said cannon starts dispensing lasers. It rakes the lasers across the creature's visible body first, then focuses in on the creature's head, especially on whatever might resemble eyes or ears on the thing.
Tamamo	Tamamo leaps back when the water bursts out, a sudden motion that looks uncannily impossible for someone who walks about in long robes. She lands an extra ten yards away with a clack, sewage splashing to either of her, but getting no higher than halfway up her wooden sandals. How fortunate. There's no additional talisman necessary to trigger the trap. Just a twisting and pulling motion that tugs at something unseen in her fingers, and instantaneously, criss-crossing lines that light up red, quickly shifting to a blazing orange, yellow, then incandescent white, covering the whole of the affected area, even crossing out into empty space as flickering lights where the ground on which they would have been drawn has been blown away by the thing's violent exit from the sewers. Every effect that follows is more or less simultaneous. Individual curses that would drain a human's life to an empty husk in a moment, that would rob all of one's ability to perceive the outside world, that would drive a victim to immediate suicide, that would leave one fully paralyzed and limp on the floor, that would drain away any of at least three flavors of magical energy, that would tear at the threads of Fate and bring chaotic misfortune, that bring hyperaccelerated sickness and decay that strikes as swiftly as the white-hot flames the spell circles resemble. Curses on top of curses without restraint, unknowing of which will be effective on this particular threat, caring only that it be destroyed in one way or another. None of these will be any danger to those outside the barrier, so long as they don't place one toe inside, or so long as they keep handy a favor Tamamo had already distributed.
Lilian Rook	"Gold? Why is it gold?" Lilian only murmurs the question out loud to herself, rhetorical as it is. "Reptilian. Aquatic? I've never heard of any kind of native American creature like this. Invasive then. I'll suppose we'll find out easily enough when it's dead." When it breaches into the intersection, Lilian clears the metaphorical blast zone of Tamamo's curse hell, and the literal blast zone of Tina's Uncle Sam, at top speed, easily escaping the beast's jaws with the way it ends up partially lodged in the gap. It's only the National Guard being there, deployed in the square unbeknownst to her in the meantime, that is a surprise. The minute they begin firing, and bullets begin flying everywhere except into the mysterious monster's internal organs, Lilian leaps to the top of a nearby lightpost, and weightlessly shoots off from the top of it, gaining several New York storeys over the thing at the center of the intersection, and away from where all the military ammunition is spraying. "Who the hell brought all of these extras here?! And it's not even the properly equipped kind! Get them out of my sight! Now! They're a walking disaster!" The point is illustrated without her having to continue by the instance of friendly fire that follows. She starts coming down. Slower than gravity should allow by far, then suddenly much faster than it should be capable of. Her hand snaps up to the base of the scabbard over her shoulder, snatching it from the hardpoint. The other grips the hilt of the blade and wrenches it free with a weird, singing shriek. Her fall is a straight down, lightning fast, even meteoric dive, right on top of the subterranean monster's head. She revolves once, twice, thrice to build up even more momentum, and plunges the point straight down through the flat of the skull with both hands. When gripped thus, the mirage of steel and leather burns away to reveal polished black magnetite and lurid red efflorescent etching. When it makes contact with living blood, scarlet light pulses down its length, and erupts into a blossom of three foot long bloody thorns in every direction. Missing the brain by guesswork is essentially irrelevant; the radial eruption of deadly spikes should hopefully take care of any error.
Adaruhn	The submachine gun certainly fails to penetrate the creature's surface, the intermediate-power rifle rounds not having fared much better. The monster isn't given much opportunity to take the initiative, the lasers causing it to recoil and quite literally lash out at a street corner building, hurting itself in the process. And yet, although its face is charred, one bulbous black eye lacerated and cauterized by the laser its scales are improbably durable, the humidity and trash helping it brush off some of the laser fire. Spotting Tamamo at the edge of his vision, the old man smiles and fades into a haze, scattered by a few stray bullets passing him by, the talisman following it by turning and fluttering as if blowing with the wind, even as it's contained into the strange, hard-to-look-at-without-shivering miasma. The agent is left alone, having taken cover behind an APC and currently holding onto his gun for dear life. Not that it'd do much. Even beyond the surge of visible magical energy, the effects of the myriad curses are palpable to anyone observing. The monster doesn't quite fall to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, its scales visibly shriveling up, and its eyes shrinking as it convulses once more, this time curling up violently into itself, shaking. Its bird-roar is weaker now, hoarse and shaking. The officer who was hit by a tumbling rifle round, courtesy of one of his own men, isn't out of commission yet, and seems to fail to pay attention to Lilian's caution. He yells to one of his men to try shooting it again, now that it seems weakenedhe is cut off as, one after the other, cars start ascending as if gravity simply had stopped working on them, robbing some of his men of cover. Whispers sound between the soldiers, who turn to each other in confusion and outrage- "Idiot". "I got a shot off on Lieutenant Mike, what a dumbass." "Shoot him in the foot this time!" Words that none of them speak, awed by the defiance of gravity, but that are heard nonetheless. The officer starts screaming incoherently at them, possessed by a wild burst of anger, and is taken away by a corporal with a medical kit. Everyone seems at a loss. No daring sargeant seconds the order. Of course, Lilian blows any potential course of action out of the water by coming down from her vantage point to deliver a single, impossibly lethal strike, unmarred by the magics around her. The nameless creature's skull, for the lack of a better word, falls apart, structure entirely compromised by the tensions introduced by the spikes, bones weakened by the myriad curses. It falls limp, and Lilian is likely aided in escaping its last attack by the fact that her weapon easily rips its way out of the ruined skull. The creature's fluids, even tainted as they are by sewage, are red but seem to reflect light in an odd way, separating colors into a rainbow like a prism. It seems to glow despite its weakness, for a moment, as the last of its life force flees its body. It is a Moment, and it is somewhat ruined by all the cars roughly falling into place, startling everyone who was entranced by the final blow. The old man reforms, this time holding a cane, atop the APC, tapping the gunner's helmet with the wooden stick. "Bet you'll be telling that story for a while."
Tamamo	Tamamo doesn't seem to have considered the problem of ricochet fire, but has been additionally fortunate enough not to be bothered by any, though some paths passed noisily close by. "Oh, my. I would have been quite put out if none of those curses had had the desire effect." She claps her hands together, smiling. "Well! This neatly resolves the incident, yes?" Ignoring the damage, et cetera. "Oh, Lilian! Are you well? All that sewer water cannot be good for you. Will you not come down? I have just the purifying talisman to clean every trace away." Only after she's finished fussing over that will she be likely to notice things like who else is or isn't injured, if no one complains in her direction.
Lilian Rook	Lilian wrenches the sword free of the very, very dead monster's skull. Swishing it once to her side, iridescent blood frictionlessly slides and free of it to splatter against the pavement. She steps dowm from its corpse, re-sheathing the weapon, and shaking off her hands. "If I have to see these idiots call in the military munchkins again, it'll be a different kind of story." she says. "I hope it isn't indicative of how things went on your end with whoever you were speaking to." "Still, I'd like to know what that is, and what just happened as well." She brings up her tactical map to re-check the location of the spare communicator. "I have a contact to ask, in just a little while. For now though . . ." Lilian hurries over to Tamamo, because she is very, very keen to stop feeling bloody and sewery.