@thedmanOh what an exciting day this must have been!... somebody ceased the care about that the moment chunks of metal starts blowing clean through his ship.
"I know we expected those to be weapons, But wow! There's some punch in those things!" He closely monitored the actual effects of the shells that pierced the hull...
"Hooo! The penetration power on these things!" Luckily, aside from missing more than hitting since they couldn't see the ship they were shooting at or that it wasn't as wide as the signature it was producing, it seemed they were designed for targets with a lot more 'metal' and armor than his poor wooden air-ship, they often punched clean through with minimal actual damage, but the volume of shots, and the occasional one that found something just durable enough to explode, told him they wouldn't last long even then.
"We don't have time to finish charging, fire what we can and throw up the shields as soon as it's away, Deflection calibration."There was a deep
*THRRRooouuuummm~* as the ship's lone weapon fired it's special pay-load and he witnessed a spear like wad of condensed changeling magic, pocked with many different colors, soar towards the ship... Something pinged him though, from his second "Yer dukeness! We're detecting some kind of psychic building up inside the wreck that doesn't mater the rabid ones attacking it. It's no threat to us right now, but I thought you oughta know." Well that was a curiosity wasn't it?! It brought a smirk to his lips
"Well, whataya know? they might just be more capable of dealing with them than I thought." It was a moment more before the sea-green glow of the shields tinted his view of the world below... and the sudden prevalence of explosions made it difficult to see through it all.
The shells found a far more durable target target now, though the shield itself was only moderate, the field around it aided in deflecting the trajectory enough so that the explosions, though suddenly countless in number and doubtless more accurate, didn't make it to the hull of the ship itself.
@thedmanSpecialist Lee was in for an interesting experience, indeed the bullets did nothing, they seemed to go right through the things, they reacted like their bodies opened holes for the rounds to go through harmlessly before closing back up behind them.
However, as the psychic lash crossed the distance to it's target, the horrid creature seemed to disintegrate well ahead of it's contact, progressively turning to dust and vanishing entirely... 'along' with the hole it had been clawing through the debris, similar could be said for several other nearby creatures, though they seemed to only partially vanish due to the attack targeting something else...
unfortunately, it got their 'direct' attention, something came to perceive him as a threat and began focusing it's effort... or... 'their' efforts? It'd be hard to guess how effective it might be given that the individual pressures were neglible, but dozens of psionic forces began focusing their attention solely on him, causing the creatures pouring in to seemingly multiply out of numerous fresh holes in the walls, even the ventilation, regardless if it was too small. it might be strange to the others on the bridge that they were suddenly utterly ignored, but how would Mister Lee handle it?
@thedmanThe adjutant was slowed a but by attempts to discover what was causing the crew to panic so easily, there were actually a great many things it had to focus on in this conflict, not the least of which- *Warning Siren* "Warning! Sergeant! The concealed signature has decloaked and discharged an unknown energy weapon on the ship, defensive fire ineffective, Impact in 5, The signature...4,has raised shields...3...2...!" It was a long few seconds until the ball of energy finally landed and... The ship seemed to be unaffected...
In-fact, in the vehicle bay, the sergeant and his men could see as it harmlessly passed through the hull, evaporating the creatures that had been clawing their way in and leaving a trail in it's wake, it was hardly even the size of a beach-ball, but the creatures it passed near evaporated wherever it was nearby... then it reached the ground beneath the ship and finally detonated, sending a wave of dull blue-green light radiating out from the point of impact that similarly evaporated the creatures in the vehicle bay entirely... it hadn't cleared the ship entirely, horror-ridden reports still came in from many parties, but those nearer to the vehicle bay reported that the creatures had all vanished... along with the holes they had crawled out of.
Indeed, the vehicle bay itself looked to be unscathed now, the walls were all intact and there were no more of the horrors or the holes they had ripped in the hull... although, there were countless bullet-holes now decorating the vehicle bay...
Perhaps of more importance, there now appeared to be something much more physical attached to the shoulder of his armor, hissing angrily and gnawing at the visor of his helmet... It was smaller than the horrors had been, with a faded gray body full of holes, some bleeding green-slime like fresh bullet wounds. This one was clearly alive unlike the strange crawling beasts, with featureless blue eyes staring into his helmet, and slavering over him hungrily. It was not the only one either, there were a couple dozen of them scattered around the marines and goliaths, each one trying almost desperately to get as close to those inside the suits as they could, and each one pitifully ineffective at so much as scratching the armor... Honestly, the things sounded like dying hornets, buzzing and growling angrily but doing little.
With the 'threat' of the ship's weapon firing on them passed, the adjutant pinged once more *Beep* "It appears these creatures are capable of cloaking from visual sensors and-" *Bwwooop!* "Warning, Unknown Psionic Wave-length detected in reaction to Specialist Lee's Psionic Counter-attack." *Beep* "Unknown Psionic Wave-form detected approaching the ship, It appears to be targeting the Bridge." *Bwooop!* "Warning, Unknown life-forms detected in the ship's air-space numbering in the hundreds... matching those left in the vehicle bay... They have been engaged by additional unknown life-forms." *Bwooop!* "Warning! Larger Seismic disturbance detected!"
The ship was suddenly rocked a bit by something that actually 'did' slam into the hull from the outside, how it had enough strength to affect it should be questionable, but -*Beep* "Source determined, Larger variants of unknown life-form are attempting to dislodge the ship from the mountain... One has been engaged by another unknown life-form of considerable size." It was starting to sound like a proper battle had broken out on the outside of the ship in the mere moments after the disruptive blast had landed.
@rangingwolf@wanderingdragonIt was quite an onslaught! There were bits of wood both clean or burning flying this way and that from the destructive force of the mercenary's defense meeting the forest's unyielding fury, the night became filled with the terrifying sound of burning timber-wolves the likes of which only the oldest Equestrian's could remember hearing before.
The beast that had only moments before returned to it's charge lurched and howled in tremor inducing fury as half of it's muzzle was engulfed in flames, it didn't let this stop it's charge, even if it had more trouble coordinating it's motions half blinded, as long as it had legs it wasn't stopping, even with the additional blasts of flame coated it's front side and countless peppering bursts of incendiary ammo started new fires here and there and there. It didn't quite register what was going on when it had been slowed down, but the grenades that struck caused it to stumble and have to re-assert it's path... that was, until the flare struck, chunks of burning wood were sent flying the beast finally lost it's footing entirely, the ground shaking violently as many tons of wood and plant matter slammed into the ground and tumbled over itself to a stop, and once it slowed it revealed the missing portions that lost one of it's legs and the broad portions that were missing from it's mass...
it revealed something deeper inside of it that glowed a bright sickly green, a stony object roughly the side of a person and pulsing steadily, though view of it was partially obscured by the smoke and fire still spreading over it's wooden pieces, and was suddenly more thoroughly obscured by the sudden whirl-wind surging into place over it... something that would normally suffocate a flame more than feed it, with the volume of air movement refusing it feed, but the nature of the fire that burned it combined it's volume allowed it to gain more air from the whirlwind's circulation rather than losing it, quickly inviting a new ethereal howl that didn't quite fit the one it had made before...
It was about this point where what appeared at first to be a living lightning bolt blistered past the group of bipeds that had dodged the wolf's charge, it zipped back around a few times all in a remarkably short time before it became slow enough to see and... some kind of winged quadruped in a strange suit became clearly visible as the blur faded, electricity noticeably crackling between it's various limbs, and made lots of noises at them.
" AAHAHAHHAHAH! You poor buggers have no idea what you're actually doing do you?! An impressive effort either way, and 'thank' you for making it so much more exciting! but you should stop making it angrier before you make my 'boss' mad, heeeehehehhehe... Oh! and look at that!" It suddenly pointed to the side, indicating for a bare moment where the forest's countless vines had been circumventing the desctructive nature of the clash and had started spreading along the ship's hull and were trying to push it further so that it would fall off of the cliff.
"Heeeeheheh, better handle that fast!" Almost on cue the forest itself seemed to release another distance shriek of fury and the tree-line came alive again... this time, with a vastly more voluminous array of vines and roots trying to close the distance.
Alas, they'd likely only be able to hear a spree of high pitched excitable flute-like noises that just barely matched it's mouth motions... Then it was gone in a flash, the streak of light bolting back up into the sky... Those who tried to follow it to look up would be able to see something else above the battlefield, though it was small and distant, it looked oddly bright and fiery... Those well versed in earth's 'ancient' history, might actually recognize that for some reason it had been wearing a mask reminiscent of plague doctors from an era nearly forgotten in the space-faring future.
"Wasn't it just terribly nice of them to give us a head-start on the tornado?""Don't get cocky Ruby... But yes, it is astoundingly lucky timing on their part, as they appear to have only just 'really' pissed it off, hopefully Amber's distraction kept them from capitalizing on it's core being exposed... now focus!""Aye!"Amidst the whirlwind that was growing hotter with the expanding flames, there was a sound not unlike a wooden explosion and a flash of green-light, and the burning chunks of the beast were sent flying loose into the whirlwind to be blown away, while an eruption of vines surged out of the obscured core, snapping out to snatch up whatever debris it could, the trees the tornado had ripped up, the bits of smaller timber wolves, dislodged rocks or broken stone... The damage done had been quite extreme and whatever this thing really 'was' didn't like being exposed.
It's silhouette in the whirlwind seemed to grow quickly as it dragged more pieces from the ground or that the whirlwind itself had picked up, and within moments had rebuilt enough to poke it's head out... Though now that wolfish muzzle had been augmented with something extra, though half of it was still wood and had escaped the burning to some degree enough to simply be replaced with more, other portions were replaced by big chunks of stone that made it look comically deformed in comparison to the wood... It couldn't manipulate the stone as well, and it was quite clear enough in the presence of those vines smothering the stone into place, and the far slower more ponderous pace of the one replaced leg that was now more stony as it reached out of the windy funnel...
That was about the time one might've begun to wonder why the wind wasn't being disrupted by the creature's addition of stone and size, perhaps it was the mysterious power of Qi that neither the natives or other visitors would understand... it may also have something to do with the two more streaks that had come ddown to join the tornado in it's rotations, though these had an appearance more akin to fire-balls with wings, taking up opposing sides of the tornado and maintaining a seemingly impossibly steep turning radius that spilled ever growing volumes of heat into the air, which was inevitably sucked into the funnel and soon grew to a volume that supported the fire pouring off of the 2 sources, and quickly it snowballed in intensity, spreading fire through-out the funnel and freshly engulfing the massive wolf creature, which howled anew as fire surrounded it.
This fire had the one thing that the Mercenary's fires didn't, though they had numerous advantages, instant ignition, plasmatic levels of heat, range, ease of use, all kinds of things, there was 'one' feature it lacked. Persistent production, though the fire would spread, it did not self-propagate in the way this was... Nobody could hold it against them, it wasn't like they knew that such a flammable creature in a world where fire could be conjured on a whim would've developed 'some' way to survive just being thoroughly set on fire, this attempt made sure there was a constant source of fire adding to the burn that was tearing away at it.
It wasn't long before the vines were burned away in enough volume that the rocky bits began rolling out of the tornado... It wasn't as fast to burn logs and whole trees, or blown them apart, but what tried to lumber out of the whirling wall of fire was essentially charcoal that refused to burn fully...
Finally that familiar thunder-clap returned as a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky right through the center of the Tornado, causing an explosion of wind that dispersed the fire broadly enough that it only released a wave of heat on those nearby, and the twin bundles of fire suddenly broke from the funnel, and in the next moment bits of burned wood soared through the air amidst a cloud of ash, while the big glowing core was sent flying off towards the ship. The twin fire-balls streaked off in the opposite direction, splitting off in opposite directions once more when they passed the perimeter of the crash-side and formed a semi-circle with their trailing fire that seemed to cause the forest's assault to recoil... The sources of the fire could be seen making quick U-turns at either end and doubling back to refresh the firewall.
@Rune_Alchemist@ninjaMost locals would have fled in an instant at the sight of such a creature, just incase it were a potential threat better handled by one of their rulers... Naturally, a visitor might not have this instinct, given that they were in a foreign land anyway.
It didn't matter much either way, he didn't attack at first, staring at it with an odd curiosity at it's initial reaction, did it recognize him and rightly fear/revere the danger he posed to it?
...
No, that couldn't be, the fear vanished, replaced with... curiosity? 'mirth'? Was this thing mocking him? It was making many unfamiliar noises at him, some of which seemed to resemble laughter...
His face contorted into a sharp frown... He would have none of this... He would show that all intruders should know fear!
In the next moment the blackness inside the castle erupted out through it's various holes... he didn't understand what had caused this damage, but retribution would be swift coming...
He also noted that the sun had begun to rise in the distance, quite rapidly, with the moon still high, a well known ancient sign of threat... He would fulfill his duties as always and 'deal' with the intruders!
His own shadow had blotted out what light came from the moon and the rising sun, driving the chasm surrounded land into a psuedo darkness, lit only by the countless stars dotting the black... and of course the moon that now seemed to loom closer by the moment... to say nothing of the far larger creature of night that now accompanied him, pouring out of the castle's damaged walls was a much greater mass off starry night-sky that loomed above even the castle itself.
It did not screech so much as send tremors through the air and ground around and beneath it... ground that did seem to actually be getting shredded and bunched up by it's massive touch...
There 'was' something else to be heard.... though it was a very distant sound, a kindof low ringing 'eeeeeeee' that seemed to be coming from somewhere unseen...
He however preened silently, surely ripping a great horror from her past would instill the fear he was tasked with, even if it was incomplete.
Something odd had to be at work... the night was quickly beginning to appear brighter, 'dawn' was breaking far faster than should be natural, though the actual sun-light was a ways off, the sky was taking on the colors of morning and the darkness of the environment was growing steadily brighter by the moment.
