Zagreus

[trustycrowbar]

Date & Time: Late in the timescrew
Location: 2nd & Main, The Singularity Timeknot
Characters: Gordon Freeman, The Doctor, AND YOU.
Summary: Time may be endless, but we're gonna kick anti-time's ass.
Warnings: Weird science, timeline-eating megamonsters, violence, graphic imagery.

The singularity sat and silently twisted in unnatural knots as the combatants start to amass around it in the early light. The spheroid on Main Street is large enough to take up the entire intersection. Clearly showing day, night, snow, summer in some parts and smokey with filth in others, like blood-spattered crystal, it constantly shifts in chaotic patterns from smooth to gnarled and faceted, shredding the feeble light of the sun into component colors better left undescribed. Gordon set down the tech box he'd carried from the Hold and looked over the numbers.

They're more than he'd expected, but fewer than he'd hoped.

"There are the temporal stability devices I mentioned last night." Gordon begins without prelude, reaching into the box and retrieving a strange, LED-studded thing about the size and shape of an old audio disc player, with a strap to secure it. "Everyone gets one. Turn them on before you jump in and be sure to keep it on you at all times. If you stray out of a six-foot radius of these things you're subject to the ravages of the singularity's dilation field."

He waves back to the singularity, which pulses eerily behind him. "The Doctor is in there. I found this out last night; he's still not completely disassociated from Zagreus. That makes this a rescue mission as well as a full-on assault."

"First objective: find the singularity and throw this stuff into it." He retrieves a large vial of something black and churning. "This is Zero Matter. Whoever's fastest, take it. But if you hold onto it for too long, it might start to... alter you, so don't hold onto it for too long. Second objective is to find the Doctor, and get him the hell out of there. Third: Take out Zagreus, any way we can."

"This isn't going to be an easy fight. The temporal potential of billions of ruined timelines is behind that thing. Pay attention to your surroundings and use them to your advantage; no matter how insane it gets in there remember that if something is a hazard to you, it might be a hazard to him."

"When everyone's ready, we head in together. Good luck everyone."

Comments

[demonbloodblade]

[Meliantha checks her pistol, then her sword. A brief moment to make sure everything is properly in place, and then she swings a satchel over her shoulder.]

Some smoke bombs and gas bombs and a few other toys. With a little luck it's help us tell real from illusion.

[trustycrowbar]

[After that potion, he's not going to doubt her. Not now.]

We might need it.

[demonbloodblade]

[She attaches the stabilizer to her belt, turns it on, nods to Gordon and walks in. No weapon in her hands, but very confidently, she enters the vortex.]

You can't get screwed now, Doctor, you still have to yell at me five years ago.

[trustycrowbar]

...Yell at you? Why would I--no wait, nevermind, I'll find out eventually.

[In a way, the knowledge that he's going to be supremely pissed at her later gives him hope that they'll make it through this.]

[shoesfitperfectly]

If any answer was made, it might be drowned out in the sudden snowstorm. A snowstorm about... ten feet wide. On the other side of it is thick, smelly fog. And on the other side of that is what feels like a crisp autumn day. The light continues to be barely enough of anything to even see by, save for the spinning, crackling nucleus.

It wobbles dangerously, and tendrils snap from it, carrying telepathic sound with them.

~~...--careful, he's--...--quickly!--...~~

[demonbloodblade]

Whatever happened to Meliantha in the time between where she came from and now, one thing it did was make her already strong will even more indominable. She sets herself and walks through the snow as if she doesn't feel it. (And perhaps she doesn't.)

And she pushes through the fog, grimacing at the stench, but still, pushing on.

When she steps through into the autumn, she starts to talk, a bit more audible now.

"...Sure, you'll yell at me, especially for what I said to Pidonus, but then you'll also take a bunch of us to, what was it, Halloween in Manhattan, and no one stares at us. And you'll be the one to slap some sense into me when I lose my eye and point out what it could have been. So you're going to get through this. If you can hear me, you are going to get through this. Because, Doctor, you never stop fighting against the dark. You picked a few of us up from after this, because you needed help, and you did the one thing almost no one ever did when they needed my help."

She reaches over her shoulder, drawing her sword, and the gem on the eyepatch glows, redly.

"You said please. You showed me respect. And when it was over you said thank you."

The sword crackles with lightning, and with fire, and there is rime on it, and it hums.

"But that hasn't happened yet. From what you told me, it might not ever, because of how time travel works."

She draws herself up into one of her battle stances, and moves forwards, prepared.

"And if I have anything to say about it, it's going to have the chance." Then she clears her throat.

"I am Meliantha of Helm, and the Doctor is under my protection."

And then her voice thunders:

"LET. HIM. GO.

[trustycrowbar]

His suit beeps a warning as he passes through the chill of the snowstorm, eddies of supercold gas kicking up flakes of frozen water and methane swirling around him. He almost feels he should leave this to Meliantha, but that would be stupid. Only dolts in old movies do that. No, instead he unholsters his pulse rifle from the selection system hatch on his back, sighting it and taking aim at the dim, faint ball of light as the flakes begin to clear.

...He's had to do longer shots. Now if only the damn snowflakes wouldn't stick to his glasses--

The dull, thudding pulses of energy blast out of the snowstorm, hurtling his way.

[demonbloodblade]

The blade is huge - two-thirds Meliantha's height. It shouldn't be possible.

But she moves it like a giant holding a butter-knife, and manages to block some of the pulses - not all, that's not possible without the reflexes of Barry Allen (which she lacks) - but enough to make it easier for Gordon to keep focusing.

And she smiles. Anyone who can see her can see her teeth, jagged fangs instead of teeth, and she yells at the ball of light, "Is that all you have, Zaggy? C'mon, give me a challenge!"

Because taunting it is so smart... (unless your goal is to give other people a chance to get through.)

[shoesfitperfectly]

Zagreus grabs reality. Yanks it. Twists it. Meliantha's stabiliser flashes wildly and manages to keep her grounded but that doesn't mean it isn't painful.

However, all that energy-ball firing leaves the centre of the light nucleus open. One can see it, right where the swirls of energy fail to come together.

[demonbloodblade]

Meliantha grits her teeth until her gum bleed, because she will not scream. She will not. It hurts, oh, it hurts, but she's not going to scream and give Zagreus the satisfaction of hearing it.

She reaches into her satchel and pulls out one of the grenades, a blue one that shimmers, gently. Then with her considerable might, she throws it like a Major League pitcher right at the shimmering center.

Her job, as she sees it, is as distraction. And she figures ANYTHING, even a being of anti-time, is going to be distracted and very, very disturbed in its working as fifty cubic feet of water springs into being when the grenade explodes.

And then she follows the grenade in, activating another trinket. If she's not out in three minutes, the loss of the water breathing spell will be the least of her worries.

[shoesfitperfectly]

The water definitely throws Zagreus off his stride. The nucleus tightens again, then changes. Gains a form. Something more easily defended than a swirling ball of light. That form looks like the Doctor, if the Doctor were a being made entirely of energy.

And as soon as he notices her charging him, he grabs reality again, reversing gravity and sending the water thundering back at her as though out of a fire hose.

((Whups, he's got a form, now, time to drag everyone kicking and screaming to the next thread.))