The homunculus took cover behind the tree as hostile infantry focused a good portion of their fire towards her. Not exactly knowing what was going on in the wider scheme of things, Scarlet decided to take a glance towards the agents who were pinned down behind their cars. They seemed to be in a bit of a jam themselves, but Scarlet's actions seemed to relieve some gunfire from them. Once Faye gave Scarlet the thumbs up, Scarlet did a little salute herself before tucking herself closer to the tree. One of the male agents fired his handgun from the cover of one of the cars, and managed to hit two targets, judging from the distant grunts she heard from behind her. While there was much less gunfire heading her way, it was enough to keep her pinned down behind the tree. Small geysers of dirt and grass erupted from around her as the gunfire sporadically continued. Her back was up against the tree trunk, her plate carrier making the sharp edges of the tree bark more comfortable against the flat SAPI plates. A mass of splinters exploded from her left as a large round embedded itself into the tree, some of the wood leaving some scratches into her exposed arm. Shit, that was a close one. Scarlet thought to herself.

Despite her situation, she is now feeling... powerful. The little voice telling her that she was going to die was now having a more positive tone. Saying that she'll survive. That she'll get out of this, and that she will be able to overcome this. I've been in far worse situations, and I've gotten out of all of them the same. Scarlet grinned just a little. She felt like she can stand up, and stand against their enemy. She felt badass. Aside from the gunfire and some of the spells, she could hear... singing? It was coming from far ahead of her, behind a large stack of sturdy-looking wood. Scarlet immediately deduced that this is probably where Michael and his friends were. And just as she did, a small pillar of blue light shot up from behind that area, followed by three more. Yup, that's Mikey alright. Scarlet thought to herself with a proud smirk. However, a realization set in. Those faint pillars of light gave away Mike's position, and some of the more nefarious individuals down on the road might use that as an opportunity to toss explosives in that direction. She can't let that happen. With newfound resolve, Scarlet stood up. She checked the remaining rounds in her magazine, she had plenty left. No need to reload. She shot another quick glance towards the agents, and heard Faye shout.

Before Scarlet knew it, chaos erupted amongst the standing enemy force. Many of them fell, briefly incapacitated by a cone of something. Judging by the wounds she could see from afar, it seemed as if a lot of unseen projectiles were launched in a cone of sorts. The gunfire that surrounded her tree immediately stopped. After seeing a small explosion in one of the biker's hands, Scarlet's gaze turned to the one responsible. She couldn't help but smirk a little in Faye's direction. While much of the enemy slowly stood back up, only one remained on the ground. Taking advantage of this situation, Scarlet switched her AUG back to semi-automatic fire and popped out of cover. Taking aim at a healthier biker who brought his aim towards Amanda, she double-tapped him in the chest... POW-POW! and down he fell. The ground seemed to tremble slightly, and right after that, the ground itself crumbled apart beneath the biker's feet, slowing their ability to stand back up. Their weapons fire became much less accurate as the ground below them destabilized. The android-robot woman continued bringing her large battleaxe into targets closest to her, evening the odds by whittling down their numbers. At first, the enemy seemed to have the element of numbers and surprise on their side, but unfortunately for them, the OMR agents are competent and know what they're doing. Predictably, the advantages of very favorable terrain, some basic maneuvering, decent marksmanship and good force variety all very easily win out against large numbers, small surprise and a considerable volume of fire. They got this. Scarlet thought to herself.

Her mind returned to Mike, and her gaze returned to the four subtle magical beams that came out from the stacks of hardwood. Scarlet checked around her, just to make sure that they weren't being flanked by another hostile QRF (quick response force). She ignored the scream of the hostile mage from behind her, keeping her eyes on the surrounding areas. Scarlet's instincts told her that now would be a perfect moment for the enemy to start coming out from the trees, but so far there's no movement or noise coming from any other direction. She brought her AUG up to her shoulder, taking aim at various points that she could see. Nothing worth noting anywhere. Her back was still against the tree, as there was no good cover anywhere else in the area, other than some smaller trees, the two houses and the cars that were quite a distance away from her. She figured that she'd hold her position here.

Scarlet sighed, and outlined her next course of action in her head. "Alright, so-"

BOOM-BOOM-BOOOM!!! A mass of explosions immediately attracted Scarlet's attention to the first house, bringing her aim towards the hole that Amanda left behind. Given that this is where most of her friendlies were concentrated, she quickly brought her muzzle down. She heard the shouts from the remaining bikers from behind her, which sound like some various forms of strained and fearful goodbyes. Before Scarlet could turn towards them, Amanda walked out of the building as if she owned it. Amanda spoke, and while Scarlet could barely hear her from this distance, the cease in gunfire made the acoustics a little easier for her. All she could make out was eldritch abomination and aim for the head. She quickly turned to what remained on the road, and sure enough, a monstrosity stood in the place where the mage was at. Scarlet looked at it through her sights, and had a better look at the thing.

"Ew."

The thing was rather ugly. It retained its masculine humanoid shape, but he lost his leathers and just about everything else. His skin was chromatically black and reptilian in nature, with his face now a scary-looking void with only two glowing dots for eyes. And even worse, he had all kinds of creepy and gross-looking tentacles coming out of his back. He definitely took on a lot of characteristics from The Abomination, and even with Michael's powerful chanting, the perverse energy that the monster carried with it still put fear deep into Scarlet's mortal soul.

"So that's what jawas look like under their hoods, huh?" Scarlet quipped in a vain attempt to bury her fear. She watched as Amanda closed in and engaged it. They matched each other move for move, blocking each other's blows as they made their attempts. Their new priority target was now occupied with its new priority target. Now was their chance to take it down, secure the area and complete their objective.

Given the fear that she was most certainly feeling, as well as her experience with dealing with scary beasts and monsters in her past deployments, Scarlet had a gut feeling that this thing was going to be a hard target, and that her 5.56mm rounds aren't gonna cut it for this guy. Bringing her AUG back onto 'safe', she desummoned it into her tactical bag of holding. When her hand returned to her bag, she felt a strange painful sensation as she put her gun in her bag. She pulled her gloved hand out and examined it, seeing some dead skin already begin to peel off. "Damn..." Scarlet gulped when she looked at her hand. She immediately looked for safer places to move to. When her gaze went upon the agents, she immediately noticed that Faye wasn't reacting well to the monster's presence, and saw the strange magical effects that she was experiencing. The energy Scarlet was feeling might actually be real, and it could be affecting her bag. She gulped, now feeling the urgency of this situation.

She continued looking around for suitable areas to go. Any other place that provided good solid cover wouldn't've allowed her to engage the target. However, the second house provided the elevation necessary. She looked for ways to get onto the roof, finding a nearby tree stump that would allow her to hop on the edge and climb up. While the roof itself didn't have much in terms of cover, if she were prone the triangular slopes would make her a very difficult target. With that, Scarlet immediately dashed from cover back to the second house. Finding a tree stump, Scarlet leaped onto it, and used it to propel herself up to the top edge of the building. "Gah!" Scarlet grunted as she almost bounced off the edge, but thankfully, she held on. Bringing her leg up, she climbed onto the top of the building and crawled onto roof. She looked around for any signs of traps, but there didn't seem to be any. The roofing was somewhat clean. She crawled up to where she needed to be, using the slope of the roof itself as terrain cover as she got herself into position.

Once Michael's empowering song stopped, fear was now fully settling into Scarlet. Her hands trembled as she remained prone on the roof. "Shit... shit shit shit..." Scarlet almost whimpered, barely even getting a good look at the monster. This must be what Faye was feeling right now, except without all of that magic going on. However, looking to her side, she saw Michael. He already seemed to gain his will to fight, and shouted at the target. "I, Shaman Crane will not let you remain!" Michael shouts with hard resolve in his voice. His voice awakened a fire in the frightened homunculus' soul, and while her fear remained, her paralysis slipped away. He carves some runes into the ground, cluing Scarlet that now was the time for her to fight as well.

Reaching into her tactical bag of holding, she grasped onto the large barrel of her light fifty and brought her anti-materiel rifle out into the world. She ignored the pain that it caused, as well as the dead skin and blisters that started to form on her hand. She followed it up by bringing out a full five-round magazine of .50 BMG armor-piercing incendiary rounds. With a gentle shove, the magazine clicked into the well, and with a firm push, the bolt was sent forward and the gun was ready to fire. Using the spine of the roof as leverage for her gun, she made minor adjustments to her scope as needed and disengaged the safety. "Fall!" Michael shouts as he swings his tomahawk, sending a huge bolt of fire towards the target. The illusory rangefinder built into the scope gave her the distance from her target, 208 meters. Factors of travel time and bullet drop had to be taken into effect here, but they were only minor. All she had to do was aim for the head. "Fall!" Michael cried out as he sent a slashing gust of arctic wind at the target's chest. Her crosshairs fell upon the head of the monstrosity, and with a calm sigh, the homunculus squeezed the trigger.

"From Cleveland with hate, motherfucker!"

DOOOOOOOWWWWW!!! The feisty lovechild of a cannon-like BOOM and the barrier-piercing CRACK echoed through the compound as the large 50-cal bullet soared through the sky towards its target. Traveling at 2850 feet (853 meters) per second, it would only take less than three tenths of a second for the armor-piercing incendiary round to reach the abomination's head.

@AWACS

.....
.....
.....>// Execute Combat Subroutine
.....
.....
.....>// Analyzing
.....
.....
.....
.....>// Enemy movements too erratic. Execute Combat Subroutine Delta.

This constant log of combat subroutines and analyses was present on the edge of Amanda's vision as she duked it out with the Abominable thing that was formerly a biker mage. It may look like that the battle was evenly matched, but Amanda was already seeing that she alone could not take down the monster, his movements are getting quicker and quicker, and the pressure on her servomotors becoming more and more intense.

She predicts that, should the fight last more than 15 minutes, her chances of victory will be reduced to less than 30%, it's currently 65%.

Crap, this is not good she thought, barely dodging a particularly hard punch, her robotic eyes can see the air currents rippling at the aftereffects of that punch. She know that she would not want to be on the receiving end of that punch.

And the situation didn't seem particularly promising from her admittedly limited perspective either, Faye was panicking, seemingly an almost natural reaction to the sheer presence of the Eldritch Abomination in front of her, Micheal was chanting some stuff that was slashing the abomination with wind forces and snow, making sure to make herself move a bit far away in order to make the Shaman do the dirty work, making a dent, but not by much.

But what she didn't expect though, was the reaction from Scarlet. A 50 cal reaching for the abomination's head... now that could be a killing blow if there ever was one. The bullet impacted the thing's head, breaking off the carapacelike armor and revealing the human face underneath it, and while the thing was a bit disoriented. Amanda let go of her axe, and made a jump, before aiming her right fist squarely for the head.

And gods be in her favour, it landed square.

She can visibly see the eldritch energy leaking out of the thing. Good, at least she was making progress, and it seems that the head is where most of the mana reserves are being stored. Visibly weakened, seriously pissed, but possessing nowhere near enough strength to eke out the same performance in the last 5 minutes of intense fighting.

Honestly it felt more like 5 hours from Amanda's perspective.

"Ah... Good job Scarlet!" She responded towards the Homonculi. Giving her a thumbs up "Can you pepper him some more? I think that we got this one in the bag. Don't constantly aim for his head though, I think that we can capture and interrogate him or something."

The gunfire and screams coming from the street sounded muted from Morgana’s position; not because of distance, she had only retreated as far as the rear of the house when the bikers had returned after all, but because of the sound dampening effect she had placed over herself. It didn’t stop her from hearing the worst of the fighting, since it wouldn’t do to be taken by surprised because she’d completely deafened herself, but it did help to take the edge of a little.

How had she ended up in this position? That was a question she seemed to be asking herself a lot today; crawling around an abandoned warehouse was one thing and even interesting in its own way, a nice change or pace, but fighting? Defusing mines? She needed to have a nice long talk with whatever bastard had recommended her for this mission once this was all over and done with.

Assuming she didn’t get shot first that was.

Or blown up.

A tingling in her left arm alerted her to the presence of demonic magic in the area, the ward she had drawn into her clothing there activating automatically; hostile demonic magic specifically, since she had keyed the wards to ignore the non-hostile kind seeing as how a few of the researchers in her department were demons themselves. It was annoying to have her wards go off every time Lab 3 needed to run an experiment. Unusual for humans to be able to wield that kind of thing though; even more unusual for a biker gang to have their own mages, but she supposed if they were dealing with international arms smugglers they shouldn’t be surprised when they had some fire power.

No pun intended.

Hopefully the others would be able to deal with them. She felt a little bad for leaving them all to deal with it themselves, but she wouldn’t be much use in a fight. It wasn’t her forte. If they needed someone to decipher something one of the six languages she spoke, or throw together a ritual, or create a ward to deal with some kind of cursed object, then she could help them.

Through the sound dampening effect she heard a particularly loud and harrowing scream from the other side of the building, before a shiver quite literally ran up her spine and multiple wards activated at once. Morgana stepped away from the building right as something crashed into it from the street-side and half of the mines inside erupted at once.

“Shit.”

She rushed around the building, hurrying back to where the fighting was taking place and already drawing lines and shapes in the air with a glowing finger as she ran. It seemed demonic magic and arms dealing weren’t the only kinds of dangerous things these bikers liked the dabble in; no, they had to play around with the corpse of the thing that broke the moon into pieces. Idiots.

“There’s nothing I hate more than mages that chase power over understanding; especially when so few of them understand what true power really is.”

By the time she made it back to the others they seemed, against all odds, to actually have the situation under control; the android, the shaman and the mercenary were hammering the abomination with everything they had and were managing to do some damage. She continued drawing her circles nonetheless, dragging her work through the air with her as she slowly added more and more complexity to the design; circles within circles within circles, creating a larger pattern out of smaller ones, each part building towards something greater, something bigger, something infinite.

She found herself standing behind one of the cars they had arrived in, with a less than stellar looking Faye at her feet and a constantly warping collection of stones and glass shards around her feet. Right, her sensitive magical senses were probably playing havoc with her right now. With her free hand Morgana removed the witch’s hat from her head and immediately felt the wave of eldritch magic wash over her, digging into her brain like a railroad spike even when she wasn’t looking at the transformed mage directly. She placed the hat down on Faye’s head. “Here. Pour some mana into the brim; it should block some of the effects.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something flash towards the beast, Amanda flying in to punch it in the head. She waved to get the android’s attention. “Amanda! Keep that thing busy for another minute or two and I should be able to seal it.”

The framework was already done, the shape that would become that things prison once she was done with it. All she had to do now was design the lock. “Now, which language should I use to put you back in your box?”

@Kumbaris@13org

---

Completely oblivious to what was happening around her, Faye was still trembling in shock, hugging herself and cowering behind the car. Due to being very sensitive to magic, the presence of an eldritch abomination a focus of dark energy so close to her could only be described as agonizing and maddening. She could feel the abhorent magic, it's chaotic flow, wriggling under her skin almost as if it was trying to corrupt her, her magic, her very being was rejecting and reacting violently to it.

Words and even thoughts failed to describe what Faye was feeling right now. While natural magic flowed through forests, rivers and deep within the earth like veins in a living being, Eldritch magic was different... It was so different from most other types of magic that it was incredibly hard to consider to even refer to it as a type of 'magic'. Whenever it was used, it was clear that it didn't originate in the same place as natural magic did. But what scared Faye the most was what she could feel behind that energy whenever there was a significant focus of Eldritch energy. It was almost as she could feel something behind that energy, the traces that that energy left, leading to it's origin... It was almost as it served as a small window unto the abyss and behind it... an indescribable feeling that there was something some type of entity watching...

"No... NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!" Faye shouted, as a wave of magic pulsed from her, making the objects that were warping and blinking around her to increase in velocity and with their patterns becoming more unpredictable.

At that very moment though, Faye felt something being put over her head and a distant voice saying something to her. Focusing on it, past the chaotic noises, the whispers and the terrible sense of foreboding from the Eldritch Energy, she could vaguely hear Morgana's voice, saying for her to pour mana into the hat.

Without thinking twice, almost as if purely on reflex, Faye grabbed the sides of the witch hat, pulling them down, trying to cover her ears as she cowered even more. As her magic unconsciously began flowing through the hat though, she could immetiately feel that it was blocking the eldritch energy from reaching her. While it didn't fully prevented her from sensing it, it was almost as if it greatly muffled it down.
Only a few seconds after she began pouring her mana into the hat, Morgana and the others nearby could clearly see the objects that were warping around Faye to slow down and after a moment to fall to the ground. Despite still being in shock, Faye as well seemed to be way calmer than before, her breathing was calmer and more stable.

@King Cosmos@13org

Perhaps the greatest news to come out of Morgana's mouth was her request to handle the beast for 1 or two minutes. Not necessarily a great expense for Amanda to work on, and considering the state of the beast, an easy enough thing to handle. Amanda can kinda reason that Morgana was probably conjuring up some spell to capture or kill the former human, and with a captive on hand. That opens up the possibility of an interrogation, probably making the case even closer to completion.

All of that makes a very happy Amanda, and she eagerly took to the task at hand. Now fighting hand to hand with the Mage, a spell from the mage, it's contents a vile concoction of eldritch energy and other despicable magicks from the Abomination, either avoided by the Android or deflected by her. Any ground that was hit by the ball of Eldritch Energy instantly turns the grass and the ground around a 5 meter radius dead, and Amanda's lack of magical affinity playing to her advantage, as any potential life sapping energy from the magical orbs was shrugged off by the Android as if they were nothing.

Amanda is counting her lucky stars right now. She is sure that someday her luck will run out.

Even with all the advantages she possesses over the monstrosity, and even with his weakened state. Her internal processors are screaming at her, and any vents throughout her body is venting out excess heat from the sheer processing necessities her body is doing right now.

The female android does look pretty steamy throughout the fight.

Her internal clock has also counted 1 minute.

"Hey Morgana!" Amanda shouted, barely avoiding a direct punch to her face. But not anticipating the second jab that hit her stomach square. As error messages popped out inside her eye, and as she struggled to get back up, her hair was grabbed at and her face was looking at the Abomination's. "You might wanna do something now!!!"

The crosshairs briefly leaped from the target's head after Scarlet squeezed the trigger, the recoil of the powerful weapon shoving hard into her shoulder. Sparks and flames flew from the "face" of the target, a small explosion blasting away a large chunk of it. The force of the round and its subsequent incendiary explosion snapped the target's head back a bit and caused him to stagger slightly. Despite that, the hostile mage did not fall.

"What the fuck...?" Scarlet barely uttered the words as fear sank back into her heart. What she just fired was the most expensive piece of firearms ammunition she had in her arsenal, running her up at $5.50 a round. Bullets capable of destroying entire engine blocks and downing small aircraft in one blow. She aimed for the head, and he was still standing. Scarlet's eyes widened in horror, now realizing exactly what she was dealing with. "No fucking way..." She gulped, and before she could figure out what the hell to do, Amanda immediately punched the thing square in the face. The monster staggered once again, and it looked like he couldn't stand up straight for a moment. The fear in Scarlet faded slightly as Amanda stepped into her scope and gave her a thumbs up. Amanda seemed to be saying something, and while Scarlet couldn't make out what Amanda was saying from the distance she was at, she was able to at least read Amanda's lips and connect the dots.

Good job. Pepper him some more. Don't aim for his head, I think we can capture him.

Scarlet smirked. Immediately detaching the magazine from the rifle, she puts it back into her tactical bag of holding and replaces it with a new magazine full of far cheaper .50 caliber full metal jacket rounds. Some new patches of dead skin and blisters appeared on her right hand, but not nearly as much this time. The pain seemed to have subsided too. Either the target's strange eldritch powers waned, or Scarlet was getting more used to it. She couldn't tell. A firm push clicked the new magazine into place, and with a gentle tug upwards and a firm pull back, the spent casing of the previous round flew out from the receiver and rolled down the roof. The homunculus sent the bolt back forward and brought it down, chambering another round. Scarlet's eyes returned to her scope, and she quickly reacquired her target.

In Scarlet's intense focus, she remained oblivious to the almost chaotic events happening to her right. As Faye got a handle on her ability and Morgana prepared a containment ritual of sorts, Scarlet tried her best to get a bead on her target. With it constantly moving in erratic patterns to better fight Amanda, it was hard to keep the crosshairs on his limbs. While aiming for his center of mass might help, Scarlet considered the idea too impractical, feeling that it was a better idea to cripple his mobility instead. Her almost perfect headshot earlier was only possible because he stood still for a few moments. And there weren't too many trees in the way, like there are now. Now if you can stand still again for me, that would be fan-fucking-tastic... Scarlet thought to herself as she maintained her aim.

It appears the target did just that when he managed to grab Amanda's hair. The abomination stood still for a moment while the he and the android shared a deathglare of sorts. Amanda appeared to be struggling, and right now she was in trouble. One good shot should give Amanda a chance to be freed from the target's grasp, and hopefully give her a chance to counterattack. Scarlet quickly adjusted her aim from his right knee to his right shoulder, bringing the crosshairs right above his bicep, or what she could assume was his bicep anyway. Once again, Scarlet steadies her aim, takes a deep breath, and squeezes the trigger.

DOOOOOOOWWWWW!!! The loud echoing crack of Scarlet's Barrett once again rang through the compound. In three tenths of a second, a large 12.7mm full metal jacket round would reach the abomination's shoulder.

“That could not have been one minute already.”

Arabic.

The language she chose was Arabic.

Her finger moved rapidly through the air, drawing out lines of scrawling script that filled in the empty spaces of the ever expanding pattern, stopping only to swipe her hand across the entire span of the circle to add another wall to the prison.

The world was a vast place, filled with innumerable civilisations and cultures, each with their own languages and histories and philosophies. Their own magic. Every culture in history had developed their own forms of magecraft at one point or another and most of the time they did so almost independently of each other; there was some cross pollination of ideas of course, knowledge carried with traders and travelling scholars or simply stolen when one culture decided to take from another, but for the most part everyone found their own way through the arcane.

While academically these stumbling discoveries of magic from early civilisations were interesting, it led to a lot of useless repetition; the wheel reinvented a dozen times over. These were the commonalities, the same spells invented everywhere because everywhere had need of them; healing, scrying, the ability to do harm and the ability to protect against harm. And sealing. Every culture needed to be able to seal away the dark things that should be kept out of the light of day; those that couldn’t find a way to do so definitely didn’t survive. The differences in magic came from what each civilisation prioritised or found important enough to dedicate more time or effort too; sometimes influenced by the culture that they had sprung from, but sometimes out of necessity. Magic from Britain for example had become a subtle thing over the centuries, influenced by the increasingly hostile environment it found itself in; even after magic was revealed to the world at large that had remained the case.

Morgana finished another line of script with a flourish as she completed the first of three incantations; reverse. Then she cut her hand across the pattern again to draw a line, forming a triangle within the circle.

She chose Arabic, because mages from the Middle-East had always been particularly, unusually good and creating seals designed to leash, command or even control being more powerful than themselves. Why? Because of the Jinn. Spiritual entities, neither good nor evil, that for millennia had been invoked, conjured, sealed and commanded by various mages and rulers. While they weren’t the only culture to deal with creatures of that nature their presence in the region and their influence on Arabic culture had necessitated the creation of magics to deal with them.

Another line of script flew into place as it was completed, the second incantation of three; protect. Another two slashes of her hand in a ‘V’ shape added two more straight lines on top of the triangle.

Demons, angels, spirits, even lesser gods; all could and had been sealed before. Eldritch power was something unlike any of those things though. It was a world apart, a dimension apart, from anything any cultures ever had to deal with sealing away, rendering centuries or even millennia of knowledge obsolete. It had only been six years since the Abomination was destroyed, since they could truly begin to study it and begin to adapt new magic to its foreign nature; only six years to reinvent an entire branch of magic to deal with something incomprehensible.

The third incantation slid into position; seal. The drew the final line with her hand, definitively, as she drew the last line to form the second triangle on top of the first, pointing the opposite way so as to form a six pointed star. The Seal of Solomon, with her own touches to account for the fact that this wasn’t some genie she was putting back in its lamp.

Reverse. The flow of eldritch energies pouring from the knife the biker had embedded in his hand began to change direction, rushing back the way it came and heading back towards the artefact as it exited his body.

Protect. A ward of protection was placed between the artefact and the biker, preventing the flow of energies from starting up again once it had completed its journey. It wouldn’t hold forever, but it would prevent her work from being undone long enough for the third incantation to take effect.

Seal. The prison was placed around the knife, the walls closing down around it as the locks were put into place and the artefact was contained. This too was just a temporary measure, something to prevent the knife from being used a second time until a proper ritual could be put into place to lock the thing away forever.

Morgana kept her eyes open long enough to see her efforts take effect and then she collapsed.

@Kumbaris

@King Cosmos@13org@AWACS@BigPapaBelial

The call from the office came quick. A sudden surge of Eldritch energy was more than enough for Madeleine to be alerted. Nobody in the building was standing still the moment it happened, the receptionist was busy calling the Office's supervisor on what to do, field agents were quickly gearing up, and she herself quickly took a car and rode towards the building site. The Director herself has made it plain and clear that any sudden surge of Eldritch Energy must be priority No. 1 for the nearest OMR office, since the presence of Eldritch Cults throughout the globe was, rather worryingly, increasing in recent years.

Madeleine worries where Amanda and the group might be, sure, the average mage can deal with some medium burst of Eldritch energy, but if someone with Faye blood gets near it...

Considering that miss Hayward was among the group of investigators, she seriously worries that the Android might be in bigger trouble than she might understand.

The car just arrived into the battle scene just as Morgana passed out, and she sees Amanda currently handcuffing what looks to be a Satudarah Biker mage, cheerfully waving at her the moment she sees her presence.

"Hey! Just in time! I know that reinforcements from the office might come sooner or later, but I'm so glad that it was you Madeleine. Can you please put this guy in the back or something?"

"Uhh, sure. Just let me prepare the car for a sec." The demoness replied, setting up the various restraints already provided in the vehicle just for such an event. Don't let anybody tell you OMR vehicles are under-equipped.

With the guy eventually secured though. And as even more vehicles and agents came around and started properly investigating the two houses, de-facto relieving the current group. Madeleine asked Amanda the one lingering question present in her mind, the one thing she's sure Amanda would probably answer, but fearful in how she will answer it.

"Tell me something Amanda, did Faye uhhh... went berserk? The sudden appearance of the Eldritch Artifact and what appears to be the transformation of that biker into an Eldritch fusion seems to be very detrimental for Faye's overall health, right?"

"Well, you're in luck. Morgana over there." The android pointed at the doctor, being tended by several OMR paramedics "managed to do some thingamajig spell that channeled all the surrounding Eldritch energy from her, at least from what I gathered, it kept the girl's internal mana chemistry from going haywire or something, you might wanna ask her about it."

As agents started pouring in en masse towards the two houses, disabling traps and apparently bringing a ridiculous amounts of evidence by the bucketloads, the demonic woman approached Faye, her face concerned and her hands already preparing a bunch of spells set to stabilize her mana flow. "Child, are you alright? Do you need some help from me to stabilize your mana flow? I have centuries of experience with such things."

---

Faye didn't understand exactly what magic Morgana used on her hat, but it definitely came as a blessing to her at that moment. Even if she was in such close proximity to such a high concentration of Eldritch energy, she could feel very little of it. It was almost as if Morgana's hat served as a filter, keeping most of the eldritch magic away. That said, it didn't seem to filter only eldritch energy though. To Faye, it felt almost like wearing sunglasses at night. While she could still 'feel' other types of magic, she could clearly feel her magic senses being dulled down and 'muffled' in order to prevent the Eldritch energy to reach her.
While it was still possible for Faye to feel the faintest trace of the eldritch energy coming from the being Amanda and the others were fighting against, it was so little, so insignificant, thanks to the spell Morgana put on the hat, that Faye had almost no adverse reaction to it.

Faye had only partially recovered herself when the loud noise coming from Scarlet's rifle and the strong magic coming from Morgana, brought her back into reality. Having 'woken up' to such a chaotic situation was a overwhelming for Faye though. The loud sound coming from Scarlet's rifle, the complicated magic that Morgana was weaving, the thunderous roars coming from Micheal's attacks, everything was still too much for Faye to process still being mentally weakened an suffering the residual backlash from the exposure to eldritch energy. She could hear the sounds of Amanda struggling against the abomination, but Faye dared not to stare directly at it, even with Morgana's hat. Everything around her went on in a blur, the loud sounds of battle, the traces of magic, 'muffled' thanks to the spell on Morgana's hat. Confused and disoriented, Faye could only stand where she was, still recovering from the shock.

It was only after some time, when the reinforcements started arriving that Faye realized that everything was finally over. Slowly kneeling down and taking off Morgana's hat, she began looking around, situationg herself. Only to be surprised by the demoness she met back at the headquarters, Madeleine, looking at her with a concerned expression. Surprised both by her presence and the spells she was preparing, Faye flinched, falling down once again as she looked at her with a wary expression, only to be calmed by her kind words and soothing voice.

"I-I'm sorry! The Eldritch energy I-" Faye tried to say, a myriad of emotions flooding her mind. Feeling guilty for not being able to help, afraid for what she had seen and felt...

Breathing deeply and taking a moment of silence to order her thoughts, Faye looked at Madeleine again, silently nodding to her offer of help.

@13org@Kumbaris@King Cosmos@AWACS



Micheal panted, looking up at the abomination, several moments before the sealing begins. Not knowing it's about to begin. He thrusts his tomahawk into the air. And stomps onto all four runes. Bang...bang...bang...and on the fourth there's a woosh! Into which Micheal sweeps his tomahawk through, then with a throwing motion seems to throw a spectral tomahawk through the air. It twists and whirls through the air striking the abomination in the chest again. Knocking it off balance. From then Micheal stands and pants. He's no combat mage in anyway so it's taken alot of out him almost as much as the grand ritual at the warehouse. He watches and throws his free hand skyward as the sealing begins. A war whoop piercing the the air, "Return to the beyond dark fiend!"

After a time Micheal relaxes then looks around, some of the first people he sees are his three godly friends who are huddled up back behind the wood pile, looking ashen and fearful. Micheal lets out a breath then nods to them, "It's alright cousins. It's alright. It's gone." The three nod, all shaken to their cores. Micheal turns around checking everyone out. Spotting Scarlet, the new comer to the group nearby. He heads over to her, sliding his tomahawk back onto his belt as he goes. He nods to her, "Good shooting Nisim. I've seen people shoot while hunting, but you take the cake. I'm a shot with a bow, but your rifle work was amazing." He sighs, "Doing alright?" He gestures to the others, "The rest...seem to be okay."

He calls to Amanda, "Boss! How are we doing? And what does this all say about our search do you think? Think we're done?" He sniffs, knowing full well they are very unlikely to be done. His posse of dieties come out of hiding finally. micheal smiles and nudges Scarlet, "Even gods can show fear. In the face of something that other worldly. Last we faced something like that we did it from afar. This time right in our faces." He sighs, "Still draining."

@Martian@BigPapaBelial@King Cosmos@AWACS

With the fight over. Amanda was busy trying to get a handle of the situation, as one of the few senior agents available on the site the moment reinforcements have come in, she has seniority, and she uses that seniority of hers to coordinate and look over the evidence being brought into the OMR black vans. She saw a bunch of Computers, taking pictures of several ones that interests her, several documents and logs, highly interested, but she can research about them tomorrow or something, and of course, the weapons used as traps.

She almost forgot that the Canadian Shaman was calling her, and turned her head around after being super busy ordering agents around and organizing the chaos.

"Yeah! Wait a minute wait a minute." She pleaded, giving some last minute orders towards an Orc and a Dwarven agent to search for any abnormal mana surges in the area, before she quickly arrived to Micheal's location. "Yeah, I think that we're done for the day. I'm busy trying to clean up some stuff here, but we can go back to the Office, Debrief, and then I wanna go out to town and see the sights."

She then proceeded to saunder to where Morgana and Xaviron was. "Hey, after we debrief, you wanna join me in seeing the sights of Frankfurt? I heard that they have some real old museums, restaurants and what-have-yous around here. I think It's gonna be fun! So what'd you say?"

---

@13org

The demonic female nodded and outstretched both of her hands towards Faye. She muttered some stuff in a language Faye doesn't understand, and a burst of mana emanated from her hands towards Faye's torso.

Madeleine proceeded to move her hand, Faye physically feeling how the chaotic mana moves throughout her body, seemingly following Madeleine's hand movements. It flows out of her torso, towards her waist, before entering her legs and seemingly. Poof! out into thin air as the mana pools up around her feet and somehow escaping.

"The edges of the human body, like the fingers in your hands and feet, are excellent release points for magic." Madeleine explained, doing the ritual again as Faye felt her body's mana move along with Madeleine's rituals. "I sense that your mana flow is incredibly chaotic, a definite result from the battle with the Eldritch thing over there. Tell me, what were your experiences during that event in 1989? I think you know what I'm talking about."

"I was on Earth when that thing arrived. Part of the 'reserve force' in case something went wrong in the engagement. Even from that far away, I can sense the feeling of dread looming over my entire soul when that thing crashed on the moon. I've never felt that sense of dread in my entire existence, part of being a Demon and all that, but that... THING'S presence felt like an abberation. An abnormality in reality itself."

"I still don't understand how the gods managed to defeat that thing, the mental toll on their psyche must be immense from that battle. I think I've heard Siegfried himself saying that most deities are right now in therapy with each other. He visited the Frankfurt office once, and I overheard his discussions with the Office's director about Mental Health."

She chuckled a little bit. "Deities and Mental Health, who would've thought, right?"

Her head was killing her.

Thankfully that was the only thing Morgana had to deal with. With everything that had just happened she was lucky to be walking away from this with nothing more than a headache and some fatigue. Collapsing as she had was no big deal; she was simply feeling the effects of overtaxing herself in creating a three-layered sealing ritual on the fly while being bombarded with eldritch energy without her usual protections in place. Her own fault really; she may have cut a few corners along the way, made things inefficient and compensating for it by pumping more mana than was wise into it. Worth it in the end, the dagger needed to be sealed away.

Her seal wouldn’t last forever, but the last she saw the artefact was being placed in a containment box by some men in uniform. Might be best to check up on that herself later; make sure the technicians understood what they were dealing with.

Just as soon as the stars faded from her vision.

Luckily, even without her wards she wasn’t as sensitive to that kind of thing as the fae or demons were, otherwise things might have been worse; having magic be a core part of your being had its upsides, but also its downsides. Instead of going through what Faye had the sensation Morgana was feeling now was not entirely unlike a hangover, just without the fun part leading up to it.

It might be worth making a few more warded items once she got a chance, so she wouldn’t have to give her up hat should this happen again. She already knew the design for the wards, though they wouldn’t be much use for the non-magical members of the team and she had no idea how her circuits would work when activated by elven or shamanistic magic; fae magic either for that matter, though it seemed to function well enough under pressure. Rituals made by other people never worked as well as ones that you created yourself either, so the drop in effectiveness would need to be accounted for. Maybe a set of linked items that would all activate at once should she activate hers? That posed its own risks though and potentially outweighed the benefits of wards in the first place.

Something to think about.

Once the stars went away.

Amanda approached her as she was thinking and asked if she and Xaviron wanted to see the sights. “Are we tourists now? We just discovered that this arms smuggling ring may be dealing in eldritch artefacts alongside everything else they’re suspected of; is this really the time to be seeing the sights?”

Morgana had been planning on working after all this was finished, probably late into the night. Once she had checked in on the artefact to make sure that it was properly contained, which was not her job but she would be doing it anyway, she needed to re-key the wards on her clothes and purge them of any lingering energies, examine the circuits on her hat to make sure Faye’s mana hadn’t corrupted them in any way, then contact her lab back in England to check-up on her assistants and see how their projects were going. Not to mention the fact that she wanted to look into what she had found in the warehouse a little more; the teleportation circle had been on her mind since she saw it and she had a few ideas on how to go about finding out who made it.

She would make a start on all of that once this briefing was over. Just as soon as her head stopped…

Oh whatever, it could wait a day.

“Yes, fine. I could use a night off.”

@Kumbaris

As the Barrett threw itself into Scarlet's shoulder, the round it fired threw itself into the abomination's. In reflex, the target recoiled and released its grip from Amanda. With the android now freed from the monster's grasp, Amanda could possibly get somewhere safe while the others subdued the target. Scarlet quickly brought the target back into her sights, getting a good idea of what was happening through her scope. A spectral tomahawk originating from Michael hit the monster square in the chest, the force enough to knock it back a foot. Before the monster could resume its assault, something strange happened. The eldritch characteristics of the target all travelled back to a single point, as if it were all water swirling down a shower drain. The drain in question seemed to be the knife stuck in the target's hand. The target slowly regained his human form, and the knife that was stuck in his hand seemed to be surrounded by a strange bubble-looking effect. The target's knees gave out, and he fell to them. His weapons were far away, and a lot of guns were now trained on him. The moment the knife was neutralized, Amanda moved in for the arrest. The fight was over. Scarlet and her allies won.

The homunculus couldn't help but sigh heavily in relief.

Scarlet unloaded her rifle, and cycled the bolt. As her adrenaline started to fade away, the pain of constantly gripping the bolt and the pistol grip with all of the blisters on her hand slowly sank in. "Ow." Scarlet groaned as she shook her hand around a bit. The gun was now empty and back inside of her tactical bag of holding. The relevant ammunition was also stored away. This time, like normal, she didn't feel anything as she put away her weapon, other than the pain that came with holding a heavy object with a blistered hand. She watched as some new OMR vehicles arrived on scene. Unarmed again, Scarlet rolled onto her back and awkwardly scooted her way down from the top of the roof. Scarlet got to the edge of the roof with a few grunts and light pushes, and eventually hopped off the roof in the safest way she could attempt.

Many OMR agents flooded the area, quickly getting to work on securing the site and scouring it for evidence. A few had already passed her on their way to the building that she was just on top of. As the agents passed her, she pointed towards the door. "Hey, that place has Soviet mines in them. I already got a bit of C4 on one of them, you can use it if you want to." They replied in a professional matter, thanking her but also telling her that they have it handled. Scarlet shrugged. "Hey, can never be too safe with these things. Good luck in there." Scarlet wandered away from the building, watching the OMR agents do their work.

Hearing footsteps coming in her direction, Scarlet turns to the source and sees Michael. "Oh, hey!" She adjusted her ball cap as Michael approached her. She smiled sheepishly at his compliments, looking away briefly. "Oh, you're too kind. The credit should mostly go to the... uhm... scary thing, for standing still for me." Scarlet replied with a joking smile. Once he asked if she was doing okay, Scarlet took the glove off of her right hand and held it up, revealing the blisters and dead skin all along her hand and forearm. "As well as you can be when Scary Thing is screwing with your bags of holding." Scarlet said with a shrug. "Nothing a bit of healing magic can't fix, though. Should be good by tomorrow." She puts her glove back on, wincing a little in pain. "Ouch. Yeah. How about you?"

When Michael turned to Amanda, Scarlet did so as well. She did not say anything, though, as Michael pretty much asked Amanda the same things that she would have. However, Amanda needed a moment. As the homunculus patiently waited for an answer, Scarlet felt a nudge against her shoulder. She turned to Mike and listened. She was confused for a moment in regards to the 'gods' he mentioned, but when she spotted his posse, she knew exactly what he meant. She smiled sadly, thinking about the actual Abomination that was defeated in space. "I wasn't there for that fight, but I could imagine how terrifying it must've been. I heard all kinds of things. Thinking about it still gets to me." She looked to the scene of the battle, where some of the OMR agents were tagging the bodies that remained on the ground. "Still, a monster's a monster. Even if they're otherworldly they die all the same. Doesn't make them any less terrifying, though." Scarlet turned back to Mike, and smiled a little. "And yeah, you're right. That fight was a bit much." She chuckled dryly. "But in all seriousness, you really helped me out there. I probably would've been stuck whimpering behind that tree if it weren't for your song." She gestured to the one tree in the whole property that was severely damaged by gunfire. "Or on the roof, or... you get the idea. Regardless, thank you."

Amanda turned back to them once she finished speaking with the other agents, and gave the two her answer. It turns out that they might actually be finished here, and that they might have a chance to go chill in town for a bit. Before Scarlet could think of anything that she might even want to ask, Amanda walked away towards the other agents, who were holed up by the cars they drove. A demonic-looking lady seemed to be talking with... what's her face... Agent Faye Howard, and a few others were trying to recover from the fight. Everyone looked fine for the most part, no friendlies were down. Hurt? Maybe, but not dead. Out of the sea of black vehicles, the red Honda Prelude that Scarlet rented stood out like a sore thumb. Scarlet blinked, realizing that her rental might have been caught in the crossfire. Despite the distance between Scarlet and the Honda, she could tell that there was about a dozen bullet holes all over the fender and hood, and the windshield took some hard hits.

"Well, fuck. Looks like my rental's been shot to shit." Scarlet sighed. "Even if it'll start I don't think it's road legal anymore, so... I miiiiight have ride back to the office with you guys." Scarlet frowned. "Damn. Poor Honda. I liked driving that thing."

---

Faye didn't understand the words Madeleine said, but she could feel the magic she was using, how her mana permeated and moved through her body, delicately moving her own mana inside her, slowly putting order to the chaotic flow, thanks to the exposure to eldritch energy. Faye could feel the fragments of eldritch energy being moved inside her body, gathering together as they were moved to her feet, before being expelled. While it was the first time Faye had received such treatment, the moment it was over, Faye's breathing immediately became calmer. She couldn't feel the influence of eldritch energy on her body anymore. With that done, it was but a matter of time until the flow of mana inside Faye went back to normal.

"The Shattering... I only came to know of that name after a good while... I was only twelve years old when it happened." Faye said, with a grim expression as Madeleine asked what she had felt when it happened in 1989.

"I was completely oblivious of what was happening in the Moon at that time, but the eldritch energy I felt almost completely broke me. Both my magic and my mind..." she continued.

"I have very little memories of that day, but what I was never able to forget what I felt back then..." she finished, before shaking her head and giving a deep breath.

"I don't know how the gods managed to beat it and not be corrupted by that terrible energy... But something like that, having such a huge amount of eldritch energy to be focused in one point... It can never happen again..." Faye said, with a dark tone and an incredibly serious stare. The moment Faye looked deep within Madeleine's eyes as she said that, Madeleine could clearly feel the fear deep within then as she mentioned those words.

Madeleine might have noticed that Faye didn't really mention the creature, but instead talked about the strange energy it emanated and how she refused to call it 'magic'. It was almost as if deep within Faye's unconscious, she knew something, something she had experienced back when the Shattering happened. Something that might have been too traumatic for her and instead, was locked by her own mind, forced to forget in order to preserve her own sanity...

It did take Faye a few minutes in silence before she turned her attention towards Madeleine once again, but once she did, it was almost as if all the tension, the fear in her eyes as she spoke about the Shattering, it was almost as all that had completely disappeared from Faye's mind.

"Thank you for your help, Madeleine. I'm feeling much better now." she said with a smile, giving her a hug.

"I should really thank Morgana too. Well... That and return her hat to her. I'm afraid it doesnt fit my style that well." Faye said with a giggle as she got up.

@13org

The Demon woman heard everything Faye has to give out. Only nodding and continuing the magical ritual to ensure her mana flow is stable. All excess mana, all chaotic mana, slowly flows out of her as she continued talking about her experiences during the Shattering.

And when she suddenly hugged her. The 500 year old woman returned the hug in kind. Happy with the fact that Faye is fine, she is well aware how people like her, people that are very much in tune with the magical properties of the world, are particularly susceptible to the deleterious effects. She has a... personal experience with such things, being a demon herself, nowhere near enough to incapacitate her in the way it did to Faye, but enough to make sure she doesn't want such things happening even to her worst enemies.

"You return that hat to Morgana. I would like to have a chat with your robotic senior agent currently doing the rounds." Madeleine replied. Waving her hand to Faye as she herself started walking towards the living machine. Busy giving out orders and ensuring the process of evidence acquisition is doing well.

---

@King Cosmos@BigPapaBelial@AWACS@Martian

Being so busy coordinating the relief effort that she didn't see the Demoness slowly creeping out on her. Quickly shocking her the moment she turned her head.

"GOD! Oh, it's you. Eheheh, sorry for being so startled." Amanda embarrassingly greeted Madeleine, her right hand massaging the back of her head. "Are you here to report something? I know that you've been busy healing Faye up, so I'm kinda sorta not sure what else you've got going on."

"Oh please Amanda, there is always something going on within the OMR." Madeleine coyly replied. "But more seriously, I think that you've done enough work today Amanda. Perhaps I can take things from here, you can debrief your teammates on the way back to Frankfurt. And finally have some fun while you're at it! This city by the Rhine has lots of things to offer you know?"

"Really? Can you tell me some of them?"

"You just have to find out yourself dear." Madeleine winked, much to the disappointment of Amanda.

"Fine." Amanda relented, finally summoning the whole team to her location, "Don't worry about that Prelude Scarlet. Insurance will probably cover that one once this entire affair is finished. Why don't we just get back on our cars and drive back to the office huh? I'll debrief on the ride home."

The ride itself was rather non-eventful, with Amanda complimenting each and every one of the Agents (and contractor) for a job well done. The Android pointed out Morgana's ability to figure out solutions to an unconventional situation, the combat abilities of Scarlet and supporting abilities of Micheal, and of course, patted Faye in the head for maintaining composure even during something that would understandably make her go crazy.

Soon enough, the group finally reached the Frankfurt office once more, and with that. Amanda finally let go of the team for the day. "Look, the sun's setting, and I'm gonna let you go until tomorrow. Do come back here tomorrow at around... 10? Yeah, 10 AM would work. We have a lot fo work tomorrow, opening up evidence that Field team just hauled back tot he office, but for now, I'm gonna go and hit the town, if anyone here wanna come and join me, then feel free to do so, alright?" She finished, smiling to the rest of the team. "Say Morgana. Do you know of any German food you might be interested in? I'm kinda new to Germany myself, but from what I've read of you, you are a researcher for the OMR right? That also means traveling all across Europe right? To head over research conferences and stuff."

"C'mon, help me out here Morgana. I really don't know anything about Frankfurt."

---

Faye smiled as she nodded towards Madeleine before she made her way to Morgana, who was still recovering herself from what happened. Truth be told, Faye did feel a bit guilty for not only not being able to help against the mage after he turned into that abomination, but because it was very likely that one of the reasons why Morgana collapsed was because she wasn't wearing her hat.

"Hey, Morgana! Thank you for helping me back then. Your hat is a bit... strange. I mean, it feels a bit strange, but it definitely helped a LOT. I don't think I would be okay at all if you had not put it into my head. Also, I know you probably had to go through a lot fighting without it on so, thanks again!" Faye said, looking at her hat a bit with a curious expression before she handed it to her.

"Also... I'm sorry that I wasn't able to do much against that mage after he turned into that... abomination. I promise I'll make it up for you somehow... I know! Do you like sweets? Ice cream? Oh, maybe cake? We could go get one after we go back to the HQ! My treat, of course!" Faye asked, with an excited expression, just before they got ready to return to the HQ. Sure, she did want to thank Morgana in a more meaningful way, but she also really, really liked sweets.

---

Already inside the car, Faye heard as Amanda praised the other agents for their capabilities and talked a bit about the mission. The headpats Amanda gave her for her being able to control herself despite the outburst of eldritch energy did help her feel a bit better and definitely made her happy. After all, she wasn't like the other agents, who had training and experience. In fact, when Faye thought about what happened, she still did really well, especially for someone with no formal training as an agent.

As the group arrived on the office, Faye was about to head out herself after Amanda said they should get back to the office at 10am when she heard her mentioning something about going to the town herself, inviting anyone who might want to go too and even asking if Morgana wanted to go with her too.

"You are going to the town? I want to go too! My sister often used to tell me of a few places around here that sell fantastic sweets when she came home from her travels! Although, I don't really remember where they are, as I never came to Germany myself..." Faye said with a thoughtful expression as she looked to Morgana and Amanda after she got closer to them.

"But that isn't too big of a problem, since we have a very good guide with us, right Morgana?" Faye asked with an excited smile.

“I don’t know why you’re both looking to me to guide you; I’ve never been to Frankfurt either and I don’t speak a word of German.” Spoken German anyway; Morgana had studied German magical practises and ritual formulas, of course, but that wouldn’t help them find a nice restaurant.

Morgana stepped out of the car as they reached the OMR office, placing the hat Faye had returned to her back on her head once she was free of the vehicles confines; she had activated the circuits within the brim a few times on the journey out of curiosity, but it didn’t seem to have suffered much for being activated by non-human magic. The circuits had proved to be more resilient to that sort of thing than she had anticipated.

“I’ve been to Berlin once or twice, on conferences as Amanda said, but I was too busy with work to behave like a tourist. I barely left the hotel.” In fact, she was supposed to be attending a conference here sometime in the next few months, assuming it wouldn’t be cancelled due to the current situation; a showcase of the latest work coming out of the newly opened OMR labs in Eastern Europe she believed. Hopefully it would include some research carried out in Germany as well no doubt, despite the country somewhat straddling the line between east and west; a lot of interesting work had been coming out of Germany in the past few years, most of it from the western part of the country but the eastern side had made a lot of contributions as well ever since the Iron Curtain fell. The surge of new ideas coming from behind the wall had brought with it a lot of advancements and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the country was at the forefront of modern magical innovations right now. A far cry from a few hundred years ago when all you ever heard from German mages was another story of another fool making a deal with a demon.

So many demons.

Spinning on her heel, Morgana turned to face Amanda . “Let’s just ask someone inside for a recommendation.” She glanced in Faye’s direction before turning back to the android. “Somewhere with a good dessert menu.”

@Kumbaris@13org

@13org@King Cosmos@Kumbaris@AWACS

Micheal Crane, Smooth Criminal

After some time and returning to base, Micheal and his deific friends had gone to find their rooms. the gods getting a really nice three bunk room right across the hall from Micheal's room. Stripping out of his work gear Micheal had then put on a very nice black suit ensemble, black vest over a dark grey pin stripped dress shirt, with feather embroirdery on the lapel, black slacks and black boots. And to top it off a wide brimmed felt hat, sometimes called a Navajo hat on the top of his head, a beautiful blue, yellow and white beaded band finishes everything up.

Honestly makes the young shaman look pretty fly.

He trots down to join the group in the front of the building, "Hello everyone. Sorry if I took too long. So what's the plan." He unconsciously slides his fingers along the brim of the hat. And if anyone had it in them the general idea might be, "Kung Lao Wins!". He smiles brightly, "I heard something about a dessert menu? I could go for a steak personally. Some big piece of a steer or hiefer. Slathered in HP sauce with a side of onion rings and sauteed mushrooms. Anyone with me?" He nods, and then looks up as the gods come piling down the stairs somehow both skipping down and falling over each other, all of them in technicolor versions of what Micheal is wearing.

Micheal chuckles and shrugs, "How about we get a car, or limo even get the drive to take us to the night life portion of the town and go from there?" He nods to the others. Not sure what else to offer.

The trip back to OMR HQ was uneventful, thankfully. Scarlet mostly just sat in silence and watched the trees pass as the team headed back to Frankfurt. She managed to salvage the things she left in her rental. Silver lining, though, she doesn't have to drive for a bit. She did appreciate Amanda's comments on her combat ability, and once Amanda mentioned them, Scarlet herself couldn't help but smile and give her the same answer she gave Mike earlier. You can thank the scary monster for standing still for me. Her right arm and hand were wrapped around in cloth, as she got her arm checked out by the medics that were on site. Her dead skin and blisters, while not reversed, were mostly shed off by the healing spell applied to her arm. The cloth was mostly there to absorb any fluids that remained. For the most part, Scarlet remained quiet during the trip, mostly thinking to herself. Her mind constantly played back the fight she was just in, and the fear that she felt. The two loud bangs from her fifty, and the abomination. The scary thing.

Scarlet was able to snap out of it once they arrived at HQ. She quickly excused herself to the infirmary, where she took off her bandages and had some more restoration and cleaning applied to her arm. At this point, her arm and her hand were good as new, and she didn't feel gross or in pain anymore. While she was getting checked out and healed where necessary, she answered any and all questions her clients had. She answered them in the clearest and most succinct way she could muster, giving them a play-by-play of what happened there. They did confirm Amanda's assertion that the rental car would be taken care of, and reiterated their point that all of her expenses will be paid for in the duration of her contract. Speaking of...

"Do you guys have any plans to give Amanda's team some qualified staff?" Scarlet asked the senior agent opposite of her. She finished cleaning up her arm, removing what was left of the dead skin and blisters on it. "I don't know about you but I'm getting a bad feeling from all of this."

"I wouldn't be concerned about it if I were you. You and the rest of the team handled that situation quite admirably." The senior agent replied, the elf speaking with a somewhat heavy German accent. He was the same agent who called her on the phone and negotiated her contract, as he was one of the liasons at Frankfurt. "Besides, you did more than back up what was on your resume."

"I don't recall writing fighting eldritch monsters anywhere in my resume." Scarlet almost snapped. "Were you even there when it happened? That thing..." Scarlet stopped herself midsentence. She let out a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I'm... I just... never mind."

"Hey, it's fine, no worries." The agent said, leaning back in his chair. "It seems to me that you're still processing what happened. Many of us, myself included, were veterans of the Shattering. We know a thing or two about fighting abominations." He said with a smile. "It's completely natural to still feel scared, even long after it was over. You might even have plenty of nightmares." Seeing the look in Scarlet's eyes, he put up his hands reassuringly. "But, since you were just fighting a small infantry target as opposed to a world-devouring entity, the effects should be quite minimal. You'll feel better in a few days, I'm sure."

Scarlet nodded. There was some confidence to the senior agent's words, but still experiencing the unnatural fear in her heart compelled her to second guess him and herself. I shouldn't be feeling this. I shouldn't be scared. I survived much worse. I was brave. I should be brave. What's going on? Scarlet sighed, and smiled weakly. "I retract my previous statement then." She stretched a little. "Anything else?"

"No, that'll be all, Miss Rubashka." The agent replied as he finished his notes. "You did say that Amanda planned on taking her group out in the town, yeah?"

Scarlet blinked. "Yeah, what of it?"

"Maybe you should go with them. Socialize a bit, see the sights. At least immerse yourself in the feeling of safety in numbers." The agent replied. "Should help you get over it a bit quicker. I doubt that sitting in your hotel room watching TV all night will do you any good."

Scarlet looked away for a moment, and looked back into the agent's eyes. He does have a point, and it seems as if he read her like a book. Comes with being a senior OMR agent it seems. Scarlet took a deep breath and let out almost all of the air in her lungs. "I suppose. Yeah." She stood up. "Thanks for hearing me out. I'll talk to you soon." Scarlet smiled weakly as she shook the agents' hand. She turned to the healer on the other side of the room. "Thanks for patching me up."

---

Scarlet had long since gotten herself cleaned up. Just wearing a black pair of cargo pants and a light grey t-shirt, she applied some minor illusion makeup to make herself look a little prettier. Her curly hair remained in a tight ponytail, and her tactical bag of holding remained at her side, where she could easily draw any of her weapons at a moment's notice. Hopefully she wouldn't run into too much trouble today.

Scarlet walked downstairs to where the other agents are gathered, and smiled a little at the sight of the friendlier individuals she met earlier today. While she hasn't gotten herself acquainted with the rest of the agents, she did recognize Faye, Mike and Amanda. She quietly ingratiated herself into the group, and looked around. She blinked once she saw Micheal.

"Woah, looking good." Scarlet said with an impressed chuckle. "Making me feel a little underdressed here. Are you sure we aren't going to a dinner party or something?" Scarlet asked jokingly, before stretching a little. "So uh... what did I miss?"

Scarlet then turned to Faye, giving her a smile and a nod. Once Faye had a moment to be spoken to, Scarlet addressed her quietly. "You feeling okay? I heard about what happened."

@AWACS@13org

Mikey's Got it Going on

Micheal turns as he hears another person coming to join them. And with a playful grin on his face he waits until she's joined them before giving Scarlet a wolf whistle, "Saying I'm looking good? Look who cleaned up great. Looking good yourself." He nods, "Sounds like we're trying to decide where to go out on the town. Little downtime after the warehouse and the Abomination. Yeah that sounds good. Got any input here Red?" He grins still using that nickname he first used back at the Gang houses. He thought it sounded cute, and informal. A way to be friendly. He grins brightly, "I'm hoping for steak. A big thick end to a steer or heifer. No muss no fuss just alot of meat." He shrugs a little.

He too turned to Faye and smiled to her, "I'm sorry you know I should have said something too. Facing the Abomination, it's not fun. I was in a Lodge the first time. I hadn't been a Shaman for more then a few years I think back then. Even from the protection of a Lodge with fifty Oska-peyos and near one hundred of us inside the Lodge I watched people burst into bright evil flame from one side of the Lodge to the other. Men cry out about seeing nothing but eyes in their mind before dropping. I think I understand the horror, and other worldness of it. Need to talk about it you got a set of ears here." He gestures over his shoulder at the Gods who are casually using their magicks to randomly change eachothers outfits into different colors, "And believe it or not, they were there too. If you want to hear some fun stories." He grins, "You aren't alone is what I'm trying to say yeah?" He chuckles, "Sorry we First Nations tend to claim people we make friends with. They become our extended family. And so far I like the lot of you. So I'm going to be actting like a big brother sort here in short order." He grabs Scarlet in one arm and Faye in the other and gives them both one armed squeezing hugs. And booms out a laugh while doing so.