Well shit

[has_a_cult]

Who: CHETHLETXIA, QUEEN OF THE COUNTERPLANES (AKA Ionae) and whoever else's night she's about to ruin
What: General mayhem
When: Middle of the night after everyone got back to the future
Where: Initially near the apartments
Warnings: Chaos, Destruction, Violence, General Horribleness


Ionae, safely home and heavily tanned after her trip to the 1880s, went to bed that night. It had been a long day. What with the time travel and all, she'd arguably woken up over a thousand years ago.

At some point during the night, there was suddenly a sound of furniture and walls smashing from Ionae's room, followed by an inhuman roar that probably woke up half the building.

Outside was a...thing. More than anything else, it looked like a huge eel. It was easily fifty or sixty feet long, but it had arms, horns, and elaborate wings. Behind it was a ragged hole in the wall of the apartments that had once been Ionae's bedroom. The creature roared again, slammed into the side of a building, shattering windows, then slithered down the street, moving faster than a man could run.

In so much as anyone could read it's face, which was snarling and drooling acidic saliva from a mouth with way too many needle sharp teeth, it looked...more confused than anything else.

Comments

[has_a_cult]

Turns out that smoke stuff, in addition to being hard as steel, is also HOT. He can feel it on his face, like a fire. His suit is protecting him from the worst of it, at least, but it does explain why all the humans are huddled in the middle of the cage.

Fortunately, steel is not indestructible, and Gordon has enough leverage that he can feel one of the smoke bars starting to give a little bit.

Chethletxia laughed. "To think, Ionae was starting to wonder if she was better off without this power! What do you hope to accomplish back there, human? Even if you escape, there is no where on this world you can hide forever from the Matrijati."

From the emphasis she put on the world "human", she clearly thought it a worse insult than "worm."

[trustycrowbar]

Damn, that didn't last long! And the bars are bending but they're not far-spaced enough to let anyone through! They'll be nothing but roasted nubs in a crater if He hooks the prybar in and throws himself back against the lever one last time--

"Power rerouted to strength augmentation."

In his suit, dozens of charged plates in his suit energize and slide against each other, and what was once a low-level augment just to keep wormy scientist-guys from collapsing under their own weight in the suit suddenly gains its own volition and applies double his own strength to the fulcrum of the cage. It bends open like putty and he's thrown stumbling back from the sudden change.

"What--?"

NO, no time to question, time to run! He stows the crowbar and takes to his feet, making a large, slow arc around the Matrijati and creating a nice big distraction with a grenade thrown and missing on purpose. Well, okay, sort of kind of hitting on purpose. She's a twenty-five foot eel, she can handle a goddamn pineapple grenade or two!

[has_a_cult]

She didn't especially care about the captives, but she prepared to do something no doubt awful to them.

When, unexpectedly, something blew up by the side of her head. The grenade didn't do any obvious damage, but it sure surprised her. She whipped around to glare at Gordon, and the very act of the glare made the HEV suit start piping warnings about unsafe heat levels. "You really are intent on making a nuisance of yourself, aren't you?"

[trustycrowbar]

The captives taken care of, his secondary objective becomes a priority; actually living through this.

A quick look around to assess cover; a ramp downward to a caved-in underground parking lot and buildings, and since he'd rather NOT trap himself in a hole to be roasted he takes off in an augmented sprint to the dilapidated stone building.

[has_a_cult]

In response to Chethletxia's will, the building tore itself to pieces before Gordon reached it, collapsing right before his eyes to a pile of debris.

"There's no where to run. But hey, you got those other people to temporary safety. Let that thought warm your last moments."

She inhaled, no doubt about to breath fire or something, but hesitated. The three years as a human were little more than an eye blink compared to the uncountable millenia she had spent on the Counterplanes, yet somehow those three years, in all their powerless misery, stood out more to her than anything else she had ever experienced...

Gordon's "last moments" were starting to stretch out. Soon they would be his last minutes.

[trustycrowbar]

He backpedals when the building collapses, still completely exposed. In the quickening haze of adrenaline it's hard to measure time, but even he could tell she was hesitating. And he thinks he has a notion why...

"What... what about that mission? We worked together, but your name was Ionae and you were just as mortal as I am! Do you even remember what that was like?!

[He's by no means given up on his bid for cover, and checks for a statue, a low stone wall, SOMETHING...]

[has_a_cult]

Random things around her started to explode in a direct materialization of her anger as she roared "Ionae was nothing! An aberration that never should have existed! I am Chethletxia! I am a Matrijati!"

[trustycrowbar]

He ducks out of instinct. The buildings weren't safe. The ground wasn't safe. But he wasn't about to believe her, there had to be somewhere he could get to that had a margin of safety--

"But, you know what it's like to be human! Constantly on the verge of oblivion! Grateful when someone pulls you from that void to extend your miserable little life a little longer!"

He plucks another grenade from his selection system while on foot again, tossing it under a metal plate and leaping atop it to explosively catapult himself to another building's second story.

"And now that you're immortal you say you'd extinguish as many of them as possible, but you don't really want to! Because somewhere in your mind you at least have a notion of value of a human life!"

[has_a_cult]

This buzzing fly was really getting under her skin. Chethletxia roared and, eschewing her magic, simply PUNCHED Gordon into the pile of debris.

She glanced around the plaza. Burning buildings, shattered streets, a few dead bodies...

It was a good start, but it somehow seemed off and she couldn't tell why. She slithered off down another side street to continue trying to figure out why she was here.

[trustycrowbar]

That fly makes for a reasonable example of projectile motion, as he bashes against the building behind him and falls a story and a half to the ground below with a sickening crunch.

"Warning: Major fracture detected. Morphine administered. Seek medical attention. Vital signs critical..."

"Ngh..." He twitches and attempts to move but croaks in pain as the suit's internal air bladders suddenly inflate to splint broken limbs. With effort he pushes himself up, even more effort to stand, and with a pain-envenomed snort of a laugh he starts to haul himself back to the labs. Slowly.