---

Amara blasted zombie after zombie, lining up her shots to hit more than one at a time with the Temple’s special ammunition. This was second nature to her, taking a shot and then spiraling around the green barriers to reposition and take another shot. Every battle came down to three things: Attrition, skill and power. The first two were Amara’s best fields, unlike the third that was often covered by Adepts. Methodical patience and precision won these types of wars, and often led to the enemy fumbling and nailing their own coffin shut.

So when the dragon appeared, and when the titan was nuked by Sycamore, she didn’t do much as flinch. She just adapted.

Fire rolled over the battlefield, and Amara was kept safe from most of it by cover. Her Kevlar armor was smoking like a bonfire, and she felt sweat start to build up under the vest she wore, but Amara was mostly fine. As was her nearest phantom, based on the fact that she didn’t feel any injuries get transferred.

Status.

Armor intact. One injured accounted for. The Cupbearer.

Amara’s head snapped around and she saw Sully crumbling on the forest floor. The fact that he was alive at all meant he must have gorged himself on the Chalice, she could barely see him between all the smoke and fire in the trees.

Help him. Now.

The phantom slung its shotgun over one shoulder and beelined towards the crispy man, smoke billowing off its armor like a meteor. It vaulted over falling trees and worked its way around the flames. Amara could feel a bullet just barely graze its waist just before it slide behind the barriers Sully was next to.

She pulled her radio out and made use of it before someone would come along and fucking melt the damn thing. She tuned it to the Aggro channel so she wouldn’t fuck anyone over on the artifact team. ”Who’s still alive out there?!” She asked, while the phantom tending to Sully pressed the Chalice into his hands and pushed him into an upright position.

”Drink deep, Cupbearer.” The phantom pressed Sully’s hand, with the Chalice in it, up against his face so all he had to do was ask it for the healing elixir.

Amara patted some embers off her arm and peaked back out to shoot again.

---

The phantom raised its pistol and took shots at the undead guards immobilized by Rien’s minion. 45 ACP rounds directly to the head, which practically exploded due to the Temple’s handiwork making these bullets that much more deadly. Ruby’s suggestion was a good one, and Amara ordered it to comply from afar. So it walked over and smacked its fist against the glowing rune.

”The soldier agrees.”

The Eustis Veil went back up, ensuring the island was mostly untouched by the rain of ectoplasm.

And then the phantom topped off its shotgun, on orders to stand guard.

---

When the monstrous dog reared its head, the phantoms already knew what they were going to do, because Amara was in their heads. One of them holstered a gun, drew an knife,
and then ran directly in front of the beast. Its intention was to distract the creature by launching itself directly onto its face and making itself the only thing there was to worry about. Like riding a bull, the phantom clambered up and made a commotion.

The other phantom fired its pistol at the beast’s foreleg.

”Move your asses, they’ll cover you.” The phantom spoke not in the usual ghostly voice, but in Amara’s. That was something she could do apparently, echoing as it was coming from an apparition. ”It gave you away, no more time for being-”

Amara’s voice cut out as there was clapping. The phantom turned and in the span of a moment, Cyrus as was gone and Adora was beating the god damn brakes off of a mobster. Taking a bit of initiative, the phantom aimed its pistol at him before he hit the ground and dropped the rest of its magazine into him.

Reloading, it carried on. ”We have taken control of the Eustis Veil. It remains until we are through, and then it is gone.”

---

---

Everything was going to shit.

Luca could only close his eyes and hope it would be a quick death as lightning was shot at him… but then it was blocked. He opened them to find a wall of plantlife - thankfully far enough away from him to not be damaged. One of the 317 had the mobster, Adora was absolutely wailing on the Undead King…

The reptile monster was chained by Alizee, with the Amaras fighting it. But it could still be a problem… and he didn’t want to leave Layla behind.

And there was a fire blocking the way. Even if one of the Amaras shouted for them to keep going - they couldn’t!

Fire was one thing he had no way of getting through. He burned like everything else - perhaps better, with how dry his skin was and the brittleness of his bones. It didn’t matter. He could do something to help. Take out the reptile while it was chained.

Luca pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning against, taking a deep breath. There was a hint of rotting in the air as he pulled off his gloves, discarding them to leave his bare hands free. He jumped forward, crouching down and shoving his hands underneath the reptile. They shot up, hoping to slam into his stomach and rot through it.

Instead he grasped something very much not a stomach.

”What the fuck?!” Luca let out a suppressed yell as the already disgusting tissue of the lizard’s dick sloughed off rotted layer by layer. Dark, sticky material slid across the back of his hands and dripped onto the floor. The heavy scent of decay wasn’t what had him gagging, one he’d gotten used to from his own body. No, it was the feeling of its comically large penis as he completely rotted it off.

At least it’s gone… oh God, that’s the first… Luca forced himself through the disgust, not letting the horror of that take him over. Then the Rot would latch on again and that was much much worse than touching a… monster dick…

”Just die,” he whispered, hands shoving up and towards the belly of the creature. He was aiming for the stomach - but all he needed to do was rot through to an essential organ, then he could easily kill it.

---

Before Rien could even comment on Ruby’s suggestion, the Ghost with them went and turned the Veil back on.

Well fine by them. If they didn’t have to walk back the way they came then it was much easier for them… though maybe they could hitch a ride with Spider Girl. Keeping it up did change the plan, because they couldn’t go help elsewhere. Not that they’d really cared about that…

“We don’t all need to defend it,” they commented, suppressing a yawn as they stuck close to Pearl - and her Ice Shield. They didn’t want to get hit by that gross Ectoplasm rain. Looked like a pain. Literally.

They then pointed to Jack, Amara, and themselves. “We’ve probably got it. Maybe someone else stays, two go?”

Rien turned to their two summons. Panoptes tilted her head, multiple eyes looking at Rien before they spread out in all directions someone could come from. Amanita just leaned against their leg.

“I’ll know when something’s coming for us.”

@Mixtape Ghost N Sloane @Atrophy Luca @FernStone Alexander@Estylwen

---

It hadn't taken long for the others to catch up, even if they were doubtful of why he'd dealt with the not-corpses The Greenwood girl had expressed mild disapproval in her need to remind him of what they didn’t need.

"... And we don't need to kill every zombie we come across,"

To that, Clancy had thrown up his hands in a half-shrug, thumb and forefinger tapping together to silently puppeteer her commentary. Need was a strong word, and particularly from someone who had probably been shitting her diapers while he was dealing with a different kind of monster. Her chastisement was a familiar talk-down he'd learned to suppress over years in half-doses.

He doubted she'd have appreciated it if he'd left one of the rotting carcasses to grab at their ankles and do what things that should be dead... did to the people that weren’t yet dead. Whatever that was. And he'd broken through enough of them in the sodden yard of Kari Wilson to know it was safer than leaving to chance.

“Personally, I’d feel more comfortable knowing there were less ghouls to potentially block our only known exit,”

Sloane blunted the edge of his irritation, gratitude enough for now. He tilted his head slightly upward in response, perhaps not so subtly exaggerating the nod in the process.

They came towards the supposed access point to the compound, a side-entrance with a loose door. He wanted to question whether it should’ve been that simple, but he’d seen plenty of smart people who still forgot the basics. A light here, a door there.

The Greenwood girls’ warnings echoed in his mind. No lights, no loud noises, and most importantly, no magic. Stick to shadows. All of those he could check easily enough, except for maybe the fact that he wasn’t functioning by natural means. His existence was unnatural. Did that mean being there would qualify?

Either way, there was something they needed here, and he doubted the others were any less noise than he was with their collective magic and parasites.

Soon, as foretold, the first of many cameras cropped up, the faint blinking LED indicating its presence as it slowly pivoted from left to right. It took maybe a quarter-minute to get the timings of the search pattern down, but then he had never really had to worry so much about them before now.

The others, on the other hand... Luca volunteered to go first, looking in his direction.

”I guess you could come with me?”

Without hesitation, Clancy had bobbed his head in agreement, then moved in lock-step with Luca, expressing a quiet contempt for the corrosive presence probing at his facade of a body as he escorted the skinny latino across the camera's blind spot like a good samaritan walking an old lady across the street.

Even as the others passed through, he chose to keep pace with Luca while some of the others moved ahead, letting them slip past him as though he was no different a fixture than any of the ornate decor of the place. Further in they pressed, keeping to narrow alcoves, blind spots and the like until they came to what he guessed was the security gate that had been mentioned earlier in the plan. While his intent was to keep an eye out for Luca, he warily glanced towards the others.

Layla and Alizee, bound as they were, were as unknown a quantity as he was to the rest of them; Britney and Sloane had been whispering to each other a moment before, about what he had no idea, while Adora and Aislin seemed to be keeping quiet for now, as were the Greenwood girls and Amara’s phantom.

Well, they were, until something at the periphery of his senses seemed to close in, off one blind corner away from the security gate.

Clancy was late to notice it, in light of the distant cacophony of sounds and smells pulsing across the island as the other groups made their play, but now he could distinguish it from the background noise, the large presence he felt was too close to ignore, footsteps that closed ahead and smells accompanying them. ”Something big, close-”

Gurgling, stinking mound of meat, the lizard-thing had been sighted by the Greenwood girl before rearing its ugly head, a toothy maw not unlike the books he’d seen when he had been a lot younger, still growing.

The same Greenwood girl was hollering a warning of an incoming adept, which he had figured by now meant magic-user, though ‘red’ and ‘purple’ were distinctions that meant nothing to him, and to one side he could hear the rumblings of Adora, ready to leave. Britney seemed a little more resilient.

"Came here so we could find the asshole who murdered my n-.." Clancy sharply reminded them, then changed trajectory mid-sentence "Your friends." Like the biker’s pet ‘dogs’, the lizard-thing was not something that gave him pause. If it came to it, like he’d guessed it could with the stone dog, he favoured his own chances of dealing with it.

At least, he had until a rush of air pushed out from behind, too close to ignore.

Prompted to turn, Clancy caught it just barely in time to catch two figures emerging from a distortion in the tunnel, for one to just as quickly disappear as some hulking corpse-king took their place, wreathing either exit in green fire.

The man that remained pointed at them, raving about Luna - the white-haired girl who’d been spying on them?

No, not raving. Revenge.

Manifest in power, surging forward. Clancy stepped out, trying to put something between Luca and the bolt spearing at them..

That something was himself.

The arc crackled over him, manifesting in the form of half a dozen obsidian fingers which seared at his clothes and gnawed at his instincts. One licked at the open mouthed, buck-toothed grin of the cartoon character portrayed on his mask, blackening it into a charred, hollow scream. Beneath the fabric, he could sense the recession of what accounted for his lower jaw, where the pale white expression of cold skin was peeled back to expose bare teeth and the black void yawning behind.

Another black kiss made his knee give out for a moment, not pain as he could describe it, but something that counted for discomfort, stalling him. Then, it stopped.

Vines and roots emerged to close off one mouth of the tunnel, binding the dark-haired mobster in a cocoon of tangled overgrowth, but Clancy’s eyes were dark, flinty chips of ice, set on the gaps where skin and clothing remained to showcase the outline of a body.

And the boy felt that malevolent instinct surging at the back of his mind, the hunger, the need for meat from some stupid asshole that tried to kill him.

All that worthless flesh.

Clancy threw himself forward and drove a hand through the overgrowth that bound the mobster, small fingers raking through plant matter to grasp at his entangled arm, still pointed outwards, at the point where the elbow connected to the upper arm.

His other hand grasped at the gnarled growth that stretched out from the mobster's trapped fingertips, intending to wrench the limb away. Noises were abuzz around him, his s senses fixated.

Clothing. Meat. Bone.

The boy, bathed in an iridescent green glow, crunched down at either end, the moment washing over them.

Kenshiro was already far ahead of Stormy's walking barriers, knowing how dangerous of a tool a Doomsday sphere could be. It was, after all, a massive ball of plasma that was encompassed purely by a gravity-manipulated pressure system. It was constantly tugging at everything within range (which happened to be substantial), and anything caught inside would meet a roiling death. Zombies by the dozens were gulped down by the hellish blue orb, flying into the air and ripping in half from the force before ultimately shredding apart. They were contributing to an ever-growing accretion disk of dirt and gore queued up to be consumed in a hollow blue heat death. Occasional bits of rock and bone would break from the orbit, launching themselves like high speed projectiles back out into the growing horde.

Only in the sweetest point of its wake could one move; the barrier created by Ken's control over it. Most times, Drake was the one driving it forward with the graceful arcs of lightning to track its pathway. But this constantly rotating sphere of energy was under total telekinetic control, and was doing just as much damage as a dangerous sawblade as it was an all-consuming ball of hot gas. Spinning with it, Ken whipped across the field like a skipping rock, smashing the ground several times in a row before Ken yarded it to a stop at the foot of the magma titan.

Then his whole world lit up. The kinetic beam from the sky, were it not for his ultimately stable position at the rear of a black hole, would've most likely engulfed him in a flaming Hellscape along with the Titan... It seemed like that problem was taken care of, or would at least be so distracted that its initial purpose was moot... This left the flaming lizard in the sky.

Leon, in an attempt to conserve a bit of energy, pushed himself to the limit of his everyday power. He was sprinting as fast as humanoid legs could take him, taking him all the way back to those football games he missed going to. Missed being a part of. It only became more real to him when he heard Sully's scream of pain from across the field.
Such a shame... He was so cute...
The lumbering giant of a man pivoted hard, in a split second releasing the first sequence of gates that would allow his power to begin pooling up.
If he's so cute, you want to protect him, right!?
Cute is a dime a dozen. But I wish to drink from the cup...
Then it's settled!

”Who’s still alive out there?!”

"This is Leon! I'm moving to support Sully, confirm!?"
”A phantom is with him, stay together and keep an eye on Sully while he heals!”
"You got it!"

In a single pistoning of his leg, Leon's foot broke ground and kicked him forward with the force of a car. Around the same time, Ken was at the foot of the Magma titan when the Phantombane Spiritbomb went off, giving him the perfect moment to pick up some spinning momentum on the Doomsday again... Seeing as how whatever power necessary had already been put into it, keeping it contained was the only consistent draw from his own reserves. Light work in comparison...
Using the weight of it like an Olympic hammer thrower, Ken rotated once, twice, three times, and another... Then with an absolutely ear-shattering blast, the sphere was dragging him up into the sky hurtling toward the Dragon flapping itself around. As it lost debris, the pale blue light of the internal plasma became more and more brightly visible until he was just a sphere of blue flying through the sky. Each adjustment sounded like fireworks being set off in the clouds overhead.

As the orb climbed ever upward, Leon caught it in his vision and grinned. For a moment, he missed his magics... But the horde of undead closing in on Sully and the Amara clone's position had to be dealt with. Like a bullet, Leon transferred his frontward momentum into his legs, turning himself into a spear that toppled over a swath of the menacing shamblers. Enough that it stopped his momentum fully, letting him softly land on his feet and in stance. He didn't stop for pleasantries, his half-changed appearance resembling what he'd looked like at the meeting in the abandoned bar. His hair was pale white, body larger than it already was, and each swing saw his arms extend like cartoon rubber to cable-drag more zombies down into the ground.
Where the fuck did they get this many bodies?
Go drink...
Wha-No! He's wounded! We can't even try yet!

Leon felt Lelou grumbling... So his head turned for a split second.
"Sully! Buddy!? You gotta drink!"
He ripped the backpack he was wearing off with his teeth, letting his neck extend and crane enough that he could send it flying toward the Amara Clone.
"If he won't drink, force-feed him the green stuff in there!"
And then the blast wave really hit them. Leon's body reactively turned flat and wide, soaking up debris and the harsh shearing winds so that nothing would hit his brother-in-arms, or the clone tending to him... It was only then in that bright light that he saw Lila's oily black wings furled around her... He could smell someone unfamiliar with her, but couldn't do anything until the devastation rolled over them.

Ken was still making for the source of the pain at breakneck speeds, hoping to catch the Dragon directly in the accretion disk of the Doomsday to bring it to the ground. He vaguely knew how to seal entities, and as it was mostly belief, he liked to believe that this ball of hot plasma would be enough... But it wasn't permanent. He'd have to spend a weapon, or a scroll... But that was only if this worked to begin with. He could feel the pressure system the thing's wings were making, as well as the bomb-blast from behind that was probably something crazy happening... But he didn't care. This package needed to go somewhere important. Somewhere that it would really make a difference.
"Eat this, fucking Lizard!" he screamed, sound completely drowned out by the rushing air around him.

Elysium Island, The Sky

Interactions: Ken (@AtomicEmperor).

---

The dragon stared triumphantly, teeth bared as it watched the flames near wipe out its target.

“That was their healer. Well done.” Came the voice of Jin in the dragon's mind.

The dragon continued to watch, his snarling smirk faltering slightly. Aid was coming to the healer. Aid in the form of two persons. Perhaps he could make short work of them…

He circled in the sky once more, before realizing the doomsday… well, it was on its way to him. There was a small samurai man behind it, yelling. But the dragon couldn't hear him over the sound of the wind.

Shame.

Already feeling the cosmic forces within the sphere pulling at him, flying out of range was out of the question. The heat of it was already melting some of his scales.

That meant there was only one thing he could do.

His maw opened, and he screamed.

Over the sounds of an ear-piercing screech, his thoughts were begging of his lord, Jin. To save him. He was resistant to physical attacks, yes. But not to a miniature sun.

Jin, being connected with his dragon's eyes, ears, sensations, and thoughts, already had communicated with Zi, and set something up in place.

As the wild ball of plasma came rolling towards the dragon, a tear appeared in the space between them. Hovering for a moment, before it cracked open, revealing silvery waters and a gray, sunless sky. The River Styx dimension. Open, waiting, to devour and capture both the orb and the samurai welding it.

In this instance, all the momentum Ken had created would work against him, with little reaction time to swerve out of the way of the open portal. The ideal outcome was, of course, for both wielder and orb to be caught. However, if only the orb was caught, that would be okay as well.

---

Elysium Island, In the Tunnels

Interactions: Cyrus (@NoriWasHere), Adora and Greenwood (@Mixtape Ghost N), Amara's Clone (@Blizz), Clancy, (@Zombiedude101), Artifact Group.

---

“But you forgot to check if anyone was laying a trap for you,”

Alexander smirked, half-turning behind him. ”Well that's unexpected.”

His stance lowered, hands splaying as he anticipated an attack. And right he was. The speed at which Cyrus came at Alexander wasn't an issue. Alexander moved at faster-than-sound speeds too, and had the sight to see it. Nay, the issue was when, slowly under him, roots broke through the ground to twist over and entrap his limbs.

He rolled his eyes slightly, before spitting out the crumpled cigarette from his mouth. Instantly, rings of black lightning arced over his body, frying the roots and causing them to crack, brittle as they became. So it was only a matter of stepping back and leaning out of range at the same speed as Cyrus as his revving chainsaw came into range. To the outsider's eye, both were moving at blurring, dizzying speeds.

At the same moment, the Undead King watched as Adora flew at him. A shield of ice was formed in an attempt to lessen the blow. However, Adora smashed right through that and connected her hit with the Undead King. It was sent flying back, before winds surrounded it, slowly and surely righting itself back on the ground. It was evident, through the tattered cloak it wore, its ribs had spider-like cracks along them.

”Destroy their ranks, fill them with fear.” Zi whispered in the Undead King's mind, to which its hollow eyes flashed in response.

Phalanges splayed out, wisps of wind coalescing into a small twister in its hand, sparks of ice peeking through the threads. A light toss, and the twister, seeded with frost began rolling across the floor. It skirted past Alexander, growing in size. As it tore through the vines, it became large enough to encompass most of the tunnel. Frost and ice began to grow along the floor and walls - anything the twister consumed would begin to feel ice form on their bodies. It tore down the corridor, hoping to devour Adora, the Greenwood members, and Amara's clone, with enough force to ragdoll them.

Alexander watched the twister barrel past him, causing frost to coat his dark hair. It was this slight head turn that allowed him to catch the glint of a gun being raised in his direction. It was fine work, between dodging the chainsaw, that Alexander pulled a move from the Matrix, and slid his body out of the way in the blink of an eye, narrowly avoiding each bullet.

”... MAYBE SHE WOULD STILL BE HERE!”

Alexander turned and smirked, about to speak, before a shadow came leaping towards him. A small boy, nay, a small thing, steaming from taking a direct electrical hit, went and sunk its teeth into his arm. His bone. Had it severed…?

He hissed, sucking in a breath, but managed to beat down the pain. The boy was in direct contact with his body. That meant the same electricity he had used to fry the vines around him was currently electrocuting the ever-living hell out of the boy. But Alexander had a feeling that wouldn't be enough.

A hard glance at the boy, before Alexander gave a wincing smirk.

Yes... this is no boy. He's an apparition...

His free hand made a unique hand sign. In the next instant, a speck on the floor at Alexander's feet tore open, revealing Zi's portal. Alexander had a dark smirk on his face as he held on tight to Clancy, still electrocuting him, as the two began to freefall into the silvery, watery depths of the Styx river dimension.

If the boy wanted to sever his arm with his teeth so badly, then he'd face the consequences…

As a parting gift, looking up from where his body half-sunk into the ground, and was rapidly descending, Alexander caused electricity to pool in front of him, and it shot out in a wild display of black bolts directly at Cyrus, aimed for every part of him. Enough to give Alexander the fraction of a second he needed to escape. The others behind Alexander would be busy with the twister, making his escape all the more easy.

---

---

The alarm was still blaring in Adora's ear, but the rush of familiar power drowned it out, making it easy to ignore as she utterly molly-wopped this demon. She didn't even expect to knock it over! Yet, Adora had to remain focused - remember that this power-up wouldn't last forever. Though, it was still more resilient than expected when it immediately began to correct itself (Just means I gotta punch it again)...

The twister hit Adora with the force of a freight train, slamming into her mid-motion as she geared up for another punch. The impact stole air from her lungs, and she staggered back. She barely had time to brace as the frosty cyclone enveloped her, making her wish that she had worn just a little bit more than this. The wind howled around her, drowning out everything except the relentless chill. Adora clenched her teeth, refusing to let out a cry of pain, though her body screamed in protest. Adora swung her arm to break the icy grasp on her, yet they only grew stronger, crawling higher, constricting her movement.

Adora knew that, at this rate, Autumn's power-up was going to fade, and she was going to be sooooo shit out of luck. Adora gritted her teeth, fighting the chill and sapping her muscles' strength. She tried to fly free, yet she was getting immobilized as all she felt was cold seeping to her core. ”Ashy... Layla... Luca...” Adora forced out the words, ”Get out of here!”

Her vision blurred as the frost continued to creep, and the overwhelming stillness settled in.

Yet again, Adora felt the sharp sting of helplessness.

---

---

The vines thankfully blocked the electricity meant for Britney!

This gave Britney a vital moment to catch her breath and assess the situation before she took action. The Greenwood girl had boosted Adora, and she flew off the moment this situation popped off. Most of the Artifact group decided to mob the mobster, so that didn't require much action on her part. Unfortunately, that left the monster and the Mobster Monster (which Adora was fighting now). The alarm had gone off and announced their entire position to the entire island; they had zero time to lollygag. She had the Noble Vow in hand, so she had the perfect weapon to take out the Undead King - which had reigned to freeze most of the Artifact group (including Adora!).

However, they needed to free up Layla and Alizee.

Britney turned her head towards the monster, which unfortunately got its dick rotten off by Luca (Damn it! I was going to save that for Linqian!). Britney ran over to the dick-monster while Alizee and Layla were holding it down and swung the Noble Vow at its neck. With one clean, precise swipe, its head hit the ground and rolled briefly before becoming stationary. Then Britney turned towards Sloane and Aislin... who were cowering. There was that urge for Britney to call Sloane out for her request for the Noble Vow only to stand around taking cover... but if they were going to get out of this in one piece, they all had to pull it together. They had the numbers advantage, yet they weren't using it.

Britney lowered her free hand to the ground, but as she did so, she spoke.

”Aislin, Sloane,” Britney's hand was almost to the cold concrete of the ground. ”Now's not the time to stand around and gawk! Do something!” Britney followed that statement with a dismissive roll of her eyes as she thrust her hands downwards.

The moment Britney's hand hit the ground, she set forth on a wild gambit as the cold from the Undead King's twister hit her by proximity. Britney accessed a more potent and more chaotic variant of her Bloom spell, Verdant Bloom, to create a massive tree that was sharp at the tip. Less of a tree and more like an oversized stake that would impale the Undead King (hopefully) and give them a few moments to counterattack (if it didn't finish the damn thing off in one hit).

---

---

Drake couldn't help but crack a grin.

A Magma Titan and a Dragon? These guys are corny! Drake mused as he crawled out of cover after Stormy and Aaron nuked the Magma Monster. The Magma Ghost took one hell of a hit, but the Dragon, on the other hand, was unaffected. Kenshiro took the initiative by trying to shove Doomsday at it; however, whoever the hell is controlling that damn thing opened a portal right in his path! There wasn't any time for Drake to help. However, he was not going to let this Dragon off the hook. Electricity pulsed around Drake as he began flying through the air to get just the perfect angle...

If they were going to win this, they had to take this stupid little lizard out of the picture. The electricity crackled around him as Ride the Lightning built up to a crescendo. ”Get ready, you scaly bitch,” Drake cracked a smirk as he twisted mid-flight, charging a burst of Purple Lux into the core of his spell. The orb around him surged brighter, lightning bolts flaring outward in wild, jagged patterns. The energy wasn’t just raw power—precise, honed, and aimed squarely at the dragon’s exposed flank.

As Drake angled downward, the dragon seemed to sense him. A torrent of fire erupted from its maw directly at him, but Drake didn’t flinch. He drove straight into the flames, his electrified barrier sizzling and sparking as it clashed with the intense heat. The fire bent and twisted around him but couldn’t penetrate his orb of lightning. He kept charging, going faster and faster, as he screamed,

"... RIDE THE LIGHTNING!"

Charging at the Dragon with enough power to launch it into the surrounding storm.

---

---

She was cowering.

At first, Sloane had been tactically staying out of the way. With the monster interrupting her request for the sword and serving as a future excuse for Britney’s failure to cooperate she was, essentially, dead weight in a fight. It was better to just keep herself small with a back to the wall instead of finding herself out of position, potentially tripping up one of the many others they had brought along exclusively for such an occasion. When their cover was blown with the arrival of the mage and his skeleton friend, the hall illuminated by green flame and flashing red lights, Sloane had moved to act now that magic was back in the arsenal. However, the closeness of the quarters and the speed at which Cyrus and Alexander danced around one another meant trying to sink the edge of her hexed knife between the eyes of the mobster could very well plant it in the spine of the chainsaw artist instead.

Sticking to the sideline, Sloane turned her body to shield a casting of one of her spells, the blue light blocked by her coat as the knife in her hand began to spiral and twist. Just as the cast was about to complete a waft of something repugnant hit Sloane like an eighteen wheeler hauling cow shit on a July day. Her eyes shifted down the hall and caught sight of the source through the flashing of alarm lights and black lightning. It was a nightmarish scene from hell that evoked the tortured images of a dark renaissance painting as Luca gave the bound and gurgling monster the roughest and deadliest old fashioned imaginable. Sloane balked and covered her mouth. Her concentration didn’t just break; her grasp on reality snapped as she was shunted back to a field of pink mist, limp limbs, and decayed flesh.

For a second, she thought about painting and smiled before swallowing a surge of bile that brought her back to the burning hall. Down on her knees now Sloane was, in fact, cowering as Britney had observed, although not in fear of their assailants. She shifted the bag on her shoulder to make sure that it was still there, the Brass Needle close at hand. Sloane looked up as Britney called her out, her eyes wide and terrified like an animal backed into a corner. If not for the mask on Sloane’s face or the chaoticness of the encounter Britney would’ve seen the typically unflappable woman break as her mouth snarled and every stress line darkened and creased in a look of unbridled hatred. This is all your fault, screamed Sloane in her head, fist punching the ground as she pushed herself up to her feet. With shoulders hunched and coat rippling from the twister, there was a flash of blue light as Sloane whipped the spiraled knife through the air, an angry, inhuman yowl like a cat whose tail had been stepped on escaping from her throat as it was released.

At first the knife appeared to be aimed at Britney until the blade sharply turned ninety degrees and flew straight up to the ceiling, Sloane standing with her Channeler thrust up towards the sky while shielding her eyes from the freezing winds with her other hand. A carefully palmed needle was also held in this hand for the worst case scenario, protected from view except for a quick flash of the tip as Sloane shifted her body and took a step back. Her Channeler hand shook, blue and orange wisps of flames circling the card, as she tried to keep the Possessed knife aloft as the twister closed in on it. Unnoticeable to anyone other than the Undead King was the absolute majesty of the knife as the Object of Obsession spell was narrowed to only draw the undead’s attention. Sloane didn’t need it to go after the blade. She only wanted to distract it for just long enough, hoping that temporary glance away would be just what they needed to have Britney’s stake impale the King.

---

---

This is the end, beautiful friend. This is the end. My only friend, the end…

Sully always had a feeling this was how he was going to go out: forgetting the lyrics to a song by the Doors. The intense pain that shook through his body like a thousand squirts of lime and a thousand grains of salt shoved into a thousand tiny paper cuts was nothing compared to the mental pain of knowing the melody of a song but not the words. His finger still scratched at the ground, his mind forgetting what he was even going for, as it went c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon and a ghost appeared. He felt something press into his hands. A microphone, right? They called him Cupbearer, which wasn’t right. He was Jim Morrison, dying on the stage after snorting a line of cocaine from all the way from stage left to exit pursued by bear. He felt the mic get pushed into his face. Right, he had to perform.

“C’mon baby…light my…fire…”

Nah, man, no way. Not happening. He was too fat, sad, and drunk to go through the song and dance. Time to turn his back on the audience, close the curtains, maybe go see Paris. He always liked the French. He thought they got a bad wrap. Sully pulled his charred lips away from the cup. Even if the French excursion didn’t work out he’d had a full life. He’d done some things and seen some stuff. It had been a pretty good twenty-seven years in the states. Now he’d just go away, and hey, maybe he’d start up a new trend for his fellow artists. Only, wait, his math wasn’t adding up. What year was it? He couldn’t really remember, but he could see a cake and he could see the candles, a big two and a big eight. Wait, wait, wait, no, that can’t be right. He missed the club by a year?

Then he heard it.

"Sully! Buddy!? You gotta drink!"

Leon dispelled the illusion that he was some big rockstar. Sully didn’t even like the Doors. The lyrics were all nonsense, a jumble up word salad presented as poetic genius when it was really just drunken ramblings. Plus, what kind of fucking rock band didn’t have a bass player? Sully heard Drake yell out RIDE THE LIGHTNING, sending a spark of life from the burnt crispy bits of his eardrums all the way down to the charred piggies of his toes. Metallica, now that was a real band. Blackened, Sully’s fingers tightened on the Chalice. The chalice became full of healing fuel. He wasn’t just the Cupbearer; he was the one, the Chosen One. There was a ringing in his ear, and while Sully didn’t know for whom the bell tolls, he knew it wasn’t for him. Sad but true, if not for the sound of his boys around him he probably wouldn’t even have bothered to drink. Even if he really knew he wasn’t special, if he wasn’t the actual Chosen One, if it was just dumb luck that he got the cup, Sully still had to stick around for his homies–nothing else matters.

He puckered up his lips, ready to drink the whiskey in the jar, and coughed violently as the Amara phantom plopped a fingerful of green goop between his lips like he was a baby. Surprised, Sully opened his eyes as the healthy greens sent life through his system. He spat the finger out and pushed the Chalice up to his lips, drinking deep. The ash fell off of his body like a phoenix reborn, the burns rapidly healing across Sully’s body as he took hold of Leon’s enablement and fully embraced it, shedding a few manly tears in the process. Sully came up for air after what felt like an eternity, gasping loudly in satisfaction as he yelled…

"... I live, bitches!"

He grabbed the phantom’s arm in a meaty Predator handshake and pulled himself up to his feet, “You were always my favorite Amara. Save the goop for yourself, bro. I got a cup.”

And there were people who needed him. Chalice to his mouth and chugging in case he caught any strays, Sully took off in a low run towards Lila and Liz. It was weird. Obviously, the healing of the Chalice neutralized the heat of the burns, but Sully didn’t remember it being this cold out. Unaware to the healed man, but quite obvious to anyone who looked his way, the Chalice had just healed Sully’s wounds…and only his wounds. The nuclear light of the Phantombane bomb reflected off of Sully’s shiny, bald head and illuminated his large, hairless, kind of doughy body, the fire of the dragon removing any needs of imagination for what Sully had going on under his get up.

Sully, still blissfully unaware that he was no longer a bear but rather as bare as the day he was born, ducked gunfire and magical bullshit as he reached Lila and Liz unharmed. He needlessly dove towards them, a failed shoulder roll morphing into a sideways log roll, covering himself up with a thin layer of ash and mud. Sully got up to his feet with surprisingly nimbleness. The two of them looked to be in rough shape, with wounds splattered across their bodies. If he had his pistols he could blast them both at the same time, but right now he’d just have to improvise.

“Never fear, the juice man is here! Lila! Cuz! Baby bird!” said Sully, looking like an absolute nightmare in his mudman form. Sully began to splash the healing elixir of the Chalice in their direction like he was a priest blessing them with holy water, hoping that with the sheer volume some of it would get in their mouths and heal up their wounds.

King Corpse@Estylwen

---

Sirens, shouting, the faint crackle of gunfire and artillery seemed to perforate his surroundings. Then, the taste of warm blood and fresh meat arrived among those senses, nourishing a programmed demand that poisoned his consciousness for every waking hour it was denied. Clancy’s jaws sank into the mobster’s sleeve, fingers tightening a little more around the elbow joint, coming close to outright snapping off the man’s forearm like a brittle branch. The boy had meant to tear the arm off, to let him bleed out, to crack bones beneath his teeth and gorge on the marrow-

Had being the key word. Someone else, a man wielding a chainsaw, had distracted him - momentary enough for the mobster to pull his remaining hand free and make a gesture.

A surge of energy coursed through the boy’s body, the black electricity dancing across him; the man was far from done, and the brief spasm induced by an electrical jolt brought the boy to his knees as the ground yawned open beneath them into a stygian abyss, threatening to swallow both in its black embrace.

But Clancy for his part was deceptively strong, far from weak, even as patches of clothing smoked from where the lightning had seared the fabrics enough to burn away at the facade of flesh beneath and leave pockmarks of missing skin. The boy proved unwilling to descend, one foot, a free palm and sheer strength pressed into the lip of ground surrounding the portal, preventing either from immediately escaping, for a moment.

Had the man thought he'd pull him through? Maybe, if he were just a kid, but not him. Instinct told him to pursue, chase, devour. But the others-

Adora was winded, facing down the corpse-king, The others were still occupied with the lizard-thing, or recovering yet from other blows sustained.

In other words, not good.

In his periphery, Clancy felt more power surging forth from the steepled figure ahead while the others continued to wane, cold winds gusting down the tunnel. Frost formed across every surface, and for a moment he was almost half-convinced that the wisps of fog rising from his body were a sign he was breathing for the first time in decades, until he realised it was a product of the frigid air making contact with his smouldering clothes and the mobster’s warm blood smeared across his jaw.

In the wake of those pressing matters, Clancy relinquished what little grip he’d maintained on the mobster’s shattered wrist and pulled free, leaving the dark-haired man to sink into the depths.

The boy was left to survey the damage left behind. Luca was dissolving the lizard-thing, the others at his side in enough strength to keep him from getting killed, but the corpse-king remained the greatest danger here, slowing them down, keeping them from getting where they needed to be and, he realised almost too late, rendering the tunnel uninhabitable. Clancy pushed the mobster out of mind, pulling himself past the portal, moving past the chainsaw-wielder, his gaze set on the towering carcass as it wrought icy storms upon the tunnel.

Cold had no hold over him, no pain it could enact on his senses, nor the shivering that would induce most into a stupoured huddle. Too long in the woods. His sleeves grew encrusted with frost, each movement giving forth a crunching sound as ice formed, dissipated and reformed with each motion.

Sluggish steps became paces, the boy driving fingers into a section of wall coated in ice, raking gouges in the surface, and pushing off against that surface for more leverage.

Half-charred and spattered with blood, the boy looked half a revenant himself as he burst through and vaulted over a layer of ice to lunge for the undead monarch’s lower torso, hands clamouring to grasp, tear and smash at whatever exposed bone and rotting tissues he could find.

If nothing else, it would pull attention away from the others long enough to do some damage. His only error, as he'd realised moments later, was that Britney's stake was primed to punch through him on the way to its target.

---

---

---

Without a second thought, Ruby smoothly slammed the bottom of her tree branch into the ground, and a barrier of vines, roots, and tree branches appeared around her. It tanked most of the spirit bomb, but it was not meant for her but meant for the Magma Apparition. She didn't see the blast itself, but she saw it had launched the Magma Titan across to the other side of the island into the water. It was on its back, in a cloud of steam, but it was still in one piece...

It slowly rose to its feet, the Eustis Veil had reactivated, and the barrage of Ectoplasm bombs ceased as planned. Ruby would have been satisfied with that, but, unfortunately, the Magma Titan climbed to its feet. However, at the very least, the wind had knocked out the bastard as it groaned, huffed, and puffed while in the veil of steam. It made sure not to enter the fallout zone of Stormy's Phantombane.

"Are you sure that turning the Veil back on was a good call?" Jessica asked through the radio. "I can't do my thing with the Veil on!"

"If I weren't, I wouldn't have done it," Ruby said with a roll of her eyes. "We got some breathing room to track down the source of their artillery."

"Hey now!" James grinned as he stuck his axe out and electrocuted a zombie to the cinders. "You have me here! The storm's my turf!"

Ruby sighed.

"... We also have James."

Bullets still whirled by as Sully hopped to his feet and shouted...

"... I live, bitches!"

Jess shouted, cupping her hands together before boisterously laughing.

However, Ruby's eyes should have been on the Apparition; she was momentarily distracted by Sully's antics and didn't realize that the Apparition had stopped moving. He knelt forward, grabbed a handful of stones, sand, and debris from the mansion, and chucked it at the formation at lightning speeds.

"... Aw, you gotta be," Ruby said as one was coming right for her.

The 317 lady - Lucia Scott - stepped before her, drew a symbol out of blood, and caught the rock in mid-air using telekinesis without a word. It hit the ground, and Ruby sighed. They need to take care of this thing and now. She glanced at the mansion and figured those rich bastards cut and run and sicced their pet ghost on them to keep everyone's attention off them.

In other words, they aggro'd the aggro.

The fact that she was cucked was marred by the fact that the Magma Ghost survived a nuke - albeit, it didn't precisely tank it. It's keeping its distance now, probably trying to lure them into getting close to it.

"Alright, we need a plan!" Ruby turned her head towards Stormy and Aaron. "I don't suppose you two can hit with another one, riiiiight?" She tilted her head.

"Don't we gotta seal that damned thing anyway!?" James shouted as a monstrous bolt of lightning came from the axe and hit the Magma Titan head-on, stagging it before he turned towards Lily and said, "New Yorker! I need a boost!"

"Aye! Papi, I ain't tryna' get bugzapped here!" Lily laughed. "Cut the lightning first!"

"Does ANYONE have another bigass attack like that?!" Ruby asked the Aggro group, though she was tempted to speak into the radio. "WE do, but we need Pearl for it."

"Just grab Pearl!" Jess shouted.

"Hey, Pearl and I are going to head back to the Aggro group," Naomi said on the Radio. We're on our way now!"

Music to Ruby's ears as she raised the radio to her face.

"Double time it, we need you!" Ruby replied.

"Roooooodger!" Naomi said.

---

---

---

Amara had cut the Veil back on.

Naomi just shrugged.

At the very least, the Ectoplasm rain had stopped. However, all the pressure was on the Veil group, even if nobody knew. If things went south, they had to turn the Veil back off, or else they would be up shit's creak without a paddle! However, she was sure that things would be alright.

“We don’t all need to defend it; we’ve probably got it. Maybe someone else stays, two go?”

"But if they rush for it..." Pearl noted, looking between Naomi and herself.

"I'm gonna be rea-"

The explosion of the Hallow Blast rocked the island, going off like a nuke that launched the Magma Titan across the island. Naomi thought it looked pretty cool, but the damned thing got back up. Naomi facepalmed. Things were going south, and nobody wanted to admit it.

"Look, I think we should stay," Naomi countered. "While I'm not going to be much help if they start shooting at us, the plan hinges on us right now."

"But, I feel like we're going to need the Maiden Flash against that thing," Pearl sighed. "So, it's best you take me back to the fighting line."

Naomi didn't like this idea, but Pearl was above her on the Greenwood Heirachy. So she just sighed as she begrudgingly raised the radio to her lips.

"Hey, Pearl and I are going to head back to the Aggro group," Naomi said on the Radio. We're on our way now!"

Music to Ruby's ears as she raised the radio to her face.

"Double time it, we need you!" Ruby replied.

"Roooooodger!" Naomi said before turning to Jack. "Catch."

Naomi chucked the radio to him. Meanwhile, Pearl got intimately close to Naomi, who wrapped her arm around the shorter girl.

"It's up to you know. Just let us know if you need anything," Naomi said before she took off with Pearl.

Elysium Island, The Sky

Interactions: NA.

---

It wasn't working. No matter how much fire he threw at the man in the orb of lightning, he wouldn't stop. Moving too fast, else the dragon would have flown out of the way. Instead, his body curled up in itself, protecting the softer insides as the orb made contact.

ZAM!

A terrible screech escaped his maw as thousands of volts, maybe even tens of thousands, coursed through him, wracking his nervous systems and turning his insides numb. It took a long moment before the dragon realized Drake's eyes were on him, but he was so far away…

Then Drake disappeared entirely, as the dragon fell into the Veil.

Jin cursed in his mind. And, slowly but surely, the dragon began to deconstruct as it was buffeted by the storms, resummoned back to the Dynasty.

---

Elysium Island, In the Tunnels

Interactions: Britney @Mixtape Ghost N, Artifact Group

---

Alexander hissed as Clancy broke from his grip, only watching as Alexander escaped the scene while hugging his mangled arm, portal closing over him.

The Undead King had it a little tougher. Alas, the one managing portals was watching from a slit somewhere else in the tunnel, and was also caught up in the Obsession when Sloane threw the knife. So, the Undead King stood there, motionless and defenseless, as Clancy tore at its ribcage and spine.

Crack!

That was the sound of a precise strike, the stake, that impacted through Clancy right to the Undead King's ribcage. The work Adora had done, the spider-like cracks, splintered, and the stake wholly impaled the Undead King. It grunted, now stuck in one place.

However, its twister had indeed caused a lot of frost damage to the tunnel and its residents.

”Ashy... Layla... Luca... Get out of here!”

Alizée, staring blankly at Luca as she held back the four-legged monster, quickly turned her attention to Layla. ”Layla, get back!”

Layla gritted her teeth, seeing the twister coming right for her. And she shook her head. ”I'm not leaving!”

Britney made quick work of the four-legged monster, and Alizee released her chains, immediately scooping Layla up and attempting to shield her from the frost as it began to cling to her eye lashes. ”You stupid girl…”

”Aislin, Sloane, Now's not the time to stand around and gawk! Do something!”

Aislin had been too scared to take the shot, afraid she'd hit the Greenwood member who attacked that Mafia fellow. Then afraid she'd hit Clancy.

But now? She could see it clearly. A fire tornado forming in the Undead King's hand, spelling doom for them.

She couldn't let that happen!

Spurred on by Britney, and by necessity, Aislin lowered her gun and instead raised a single hand to the roof of the tunnel. In the next instant, rocks, boulders, concrete and dirt began to fall on the Undead King, just barely missing Clancy. Dust and dirt filled the tunnel, making it hard to see for a few seconds. Making it hard to breathe.

Until, eventually, the dust cleared enough to show only a single boney hand of the Undead King sticking out from a mountain of rock and concrete, completely smothered. The hand twitched and tried to move, but besides that could do nothing.

Aislin took shallow breathes, tasting dirt and dust in her mouth. Her gaze moved to Britney. ”...Let's get outta here. I dont think its dead.”

However, her concern wasn't needed. Slowly, the Undead King's hand dissolved into gold specks, de-summoning back to the Dynasty.

***

Reports fired through the House of Cards comms ceaselessly. Valencia stood there, absorbing it all, hand on her chin as she stared at Lancy, who was sweating over the notes.

Ah, it couldn't be helped, could it?

Valencia's hand fell on Lancy's shoulder. ”We're leaving.”

Her gaze fell on the two esteemed Elite members with her, Blake and Jason. ”Get close and I'll portal you out. Or you can stay here. But,” A short chuckle. “I wouldn't recommend it.”

Valencia stood with Lancy and waited long enough for Jason and Blake to join her if they wished, before she pulled out a small vial pendant around her neck. A quick pull of the top, and it snapped, brilliant light flooding the lab before fading away, leaving the lab quite empty.

---

Elysium Island, House of Cards Boats on the Shore

Interactions: N/A.

---

A few minutes later, everyone was accounted for at the boats. Out of all of them, Alexander was certainly the one worse for wear. Zi was examining the wounds, trying to get it stabilized. What could you really do with shattered bone, though? A sling would just hurt everywhere.

”I'll be fine. Just hit me with the morphine in the kit, and I'll make it back to base for proper treatment.” Alexander said gruffly, though it was obvious his voice shook with the pain he was in.

Valencia gave one last look to the island as the last person to board the speed boats, before she shrugged, and hopped on the last boat.

An alliance didn't mean fighting your battles solo. She had bought them time, that was all she was expected to do. Now? The entire island would be evacuated of personnel. And no one died. That's all that mattered.

”We'll call it a draw, Sycamore.” She murmured as the boats started revving their engines, and pulling away from the shore…

---

With Sully alive, and a fucking dragon fading into the background, that was two less major variables they had to worry about. There wasn't a lot the Aggros squad could do beyond push past the Magma Titan. Right now, it was the priority, so the squad took to focusing it. Hallow Blast, Ride the Lightning, all the good this the Adepts had for hitting hard technically worked. But the fallout meant that Amara's phantoms had to get back away, which wasn't an issue since they were carrying firearms.

If they didn't get that thing taken care of, this would spiral out of control quick. One of her phantoms stayed with the artifact squad through the blizzard, and helped them along. One of them focused mostly on Adora, who seemed to be in the worst state. A draw, huh. Sure.

While they ran, the Veil squad got down to Alex, Rien, a phantom and Jack. The storm was keeping them from suffering a rain of hellfire. Amara herself had an idea for how to do this, but that goth ass twink beat her to it.

"I know what to do. The Veil must be deactivated, but we'll return it back to the field immediately after," She heard him say through the phantom connection.

"We will shield you. Do what must be done."

Over in Jack's part of the island, darkness whirled around him and the ghostly fighter. A few bullets here and their picked off the zombies, as Jack prepared to banish the Eustis Veil to oblivion and back. He felt the entire world turning sideways as the vertigo and the nausea set in, blurring his vision and threatening to send him into a deep sleep. The portal was going to big, more than he usually created.

"Listen up! Hawthorne's got a plan, Veil's! Going down!" Amara announced over the radios. "Be ready to obliterate the shit out of that fucking titan!"

"...Now."

---

The Hallow Blast rocked the Magma Titan and put it flat on the ground. There was good news and bad news in that. The good news was that this thing had a limit to how much punishment it could take at once. The bad news was that they couldn't hit it with another one of those for at least another fifteen minutes. That was how long it took an Abjuration aura to burn out, and that wasn't factoring in how much time Aaron needed to recharge his Spirit Bomb. So they had to pick up some momentum.

"We can't use that again for now!" Stormy warned. "Drake! We can cast Barrier Storm to keep it knocked down! I'll-"

The sky over the island flickered back to normal. The storm of the Eustis Veil was off again.

And off in the distance, Stormy saw something black split into view, high in the air. And it was at that point that he watched a 40 foot tall stone fall, like a meteor, and pick up speed before crashing right into the skull of the Magma Titan. That was the Veil. Amara's phantom had disabled it, and Jack had banished it into the Void, letting it fall and fall and fall before bringing it back to Shimmer to land flat on the apparition's head.

"What in the god damn..."

The radios crackled to life, and it was Jack's voice.

"That... Should open a window for the rest of you..." He didn't sound like he was in good shape.

"The Veil is likely destroyed, use this time to rain... Hell down on that beast."

Well, damn. "It's stunned! Get him!" All of Stormy's barriers dropped, now that there was a window to breathe and reposition, and he hauled ass forward. "We're not done, yet!"

---

---

With the monster beheaded by Britney, Luca pressed himself back against the wall. The remaining flesh on his hands completely rotted away, leaving them as clean as they’d started. With a grimace he pulled his gloves back on. His chest heaved up and down, head tilting to the side and squinting against the fire still blocking their way out. He inched towards it has frost crept towards them - preferring the heat radiating off it to the gripping frost that could easily hurt someone as sick as him.

But it wasn’t over yet. What could he do? Adora said to run. To where? Back and out? No way. If he got closer-

Part of the roof caved in. Dirt stung his eyes, and dust filled his lungs. Luca took a heaving breath, before coughing. Rough, horrendous sounding coughs tore through him as he breathed in more and more dust. His knees buckled underneath him and hit the floor. He curled forward and into himself. Even as the dust began to clear, hacking coughs still ripped through his frail body. Rotten lungs barely functioned under the best circumstances… It was so difficult to breathe. But he had to. Deep breaths, slow breaths.

Dark coloured bile was forced past Luca’s lips, spat out onto the floor as he forcefully coughed up as much dust as he could. Eventually, breathing got easier. His limbs stopped shaking, and. It was just a short lived attack brought on by the dust. He’d be fine.

One hand grasped at the wall as he pushed himself back to his feet. His hand went into his backpack, pulling out an unlabelled tub of pills. He threw a couple in his mouth and washed them down with the small water bottle he’d brought with him.

That should relieve the agony in his limbs a little, at least. Either way he’d just push through like normal.

”A- Adora, are you alright?” he coughed out, squinting to try and find his friend. She… seemed to be alive. He wanted to stay behind and make sure she was alright, but what could he do? He’d just hurt her more if he got close. It was better to press forward, find the artifacts and get out of here.

”Let’s keep going. We still need to get past the guard dog… Gotta be quick since we’re lit up.”

Before he started moving forward Luca moved back towards Sloane, pausing a short distance away - long enough that she wouldn’t quite feel the prickling of his aura, but it was almost there. He looked at her with completely brown eyes - no hints of the rotten green that was a telltale for the rot taking over. Not that he knew she had the bronze needle on hand.

”I’m alright, in case you’re worried,” he said quietly - talking about the coughing like he was dying… which she knew he was. ”It was the dust, not the rot. It hasn’t progressed at all because I… well, I can tell when it does.”

His eyes creased slightly, reassuring smile hidden behind his black surgical mask. He held up a gloved hand. ”Let’s go- I’d offer you a hand, but that’ll end badly for us both.”

King Corpse, Aislin@Estylwen, Luca @FernStone & Everyone

---

For all its power, the corpse-king was still just that. A corpse. Dead, rotting meat and old bones.

Useless, the instinct at the base of Clancy's consciousness reminded him. There was no sustenance to find here, only a problem to be dealt with.

While it appeared to remain unaware of him, the boy had made to maul the towering creature, small hands grasping and tearing at exposed bone and the residual tissues contained around it. He meant to bisect the royal skeleton, one hand plunged elbow deep in an effort to grasp at what passed for backbone. Fingers grazed against vertebrae, then-

Snap.

The boy's limbs seemed to drop, dangling limp at one side as the two of them were speared through by a great wooden length, the skeleton through its ribcage and the boy from waist to sternum. Clancy's gaze shot downwards, trying to make the scale of it.

It looked bad, horrifying even. The stake as thick as a tree tunk, more as like to be just as strong. Thick enough that it seemed less the case it had speared through him, than he'd been smeared around it, like a human donut.

The only times he could recall things looking worse than this were oout on the train tracks, a long time ago. He could only guesd how it looked to the others, even if he felt nothing of it save for the presence of something that didn't belong there.

The corpse-king wasn't down yet either; impaled through the ribcage, and pinned to the wall a few feet abead of his own position, uust narrowly out of his reach, Clancy could see the glow forming in its twitching, bony digits as it invoked another surge of elemental wrath, fire and storm bound into one Although he didn't have enough room to twist around, or even glance backwards, the boy could hear the panicked voices, urgent shouting.

Getting free was a good idea, except he was suspended midair, far enough of the ground that his feet were dangling in the air, no floor or wall to kick off, and the corpse-king still a few inches too far away for him to properly grapple with or pull loose. One hand clutched at the wooden length drigen through him, palm barely wide enough to curl around a fraction of its circumference, and dug in.

Definitely a tree trunk.

Legs swung out, fingers dug into the wood, cracks and fissures forming where they bedded in, and then, before he or the corpse-king had a chance to lash out at the other, darkness enshrouded the both of them as the roof came crashing down, a shroud of dust and detritus swallowed up half of the tunnel with them.

---

=-”...Let's get outta here. I dont think it's dead.”

Aislin's relief appeared premature when another hand burst through the mound of debris. Smaller, paler than the last, it appeared to reach backwards, pulling free a looser section of the rubble, exposing the still-impaled Clancy, skewered upon the visible length of wood.

Perhaps by some stroke of luck, the debris wall had given him something to kick off. Knees brought as high as they could, he kicked off against the debris wall while fingers dug into the wood, pushing himself backwards until he slid off the blunted end of the stake, landing backwards on his rear with both palms splayed across the ground.

When the boy stood, the foot-wide tear in his abdominal cavity was near-imppssible to miss, ligHt dimly spilling through the great puncture for a few seconds before a shadowy, skeltal layer filled in the space, underlying the pale facade of flesh that had been displaced. Human donut wasn't too far from the truth, complete with a coating of grey-brown dust that smeared his charred and tattered clothes. The only part of him that seemed to retain any dustinct colour was the crooked, yellow sneer of the torn cartoon mask, now smeared with blood.

”Great work.” Clancy clapped both palms together with a sarcastic cheer, nodding downwards at the shadowy hole in his torso, ”Thanks."

Although his expression betrayed nothing of his sort, his gaze searched for the others out of concern for their potential losses. Adora and Luca were definitely on rough shape, but they were alive at least, judging by the latter's suggestion they move forward, ”Yeah, before I run out of stuff that fits."

Then, he shot a look at Britney and the Greenwood girl, "Unless you think the dog can fetch me another shirt.” His voice was bristling, laced with venom, but lacking most of the guttural rumble that had characterised his other imhuman backslides into instinct.

For now, anyway.

---

---

When the dust had settled, the tree had impaled the Undead King and was reduced to nothing.

Britney let out a sigh of relief... She felt like lying down after making a tree that fast. Yet, she had to keep her composure, keep it together, for the group's good. As the fires faded away, the tree remained there, and Britney looked around. Everyone was in one piece...

... Except for Adora, who had fallen backward.

"Oh goodness!" Kashmira shouted as she ran over to Adora and pressed her hands against her torso. Waves and pulses of green light came out of hands that surrounded Adora. "Everyone! Huddle together for warmth!"

”... I'm. Fine.” Adora said, pushing herself up to her feet, she was still shivering - yet Kashmira wrapped her arms around her waist and drew Adora close. ”I'm-”

Kashmira released more of the healing energy.

“Don’t argue with me; you're not the Doctor!” Kashmira said nervously, tightening her hold around Adora’s waist. “At least let me stabilize you.”

Despite it all, the group was still one big red blip on Elysium Island, with their entire location being broadcasted. The idea of a stealth mission was thrown out of the window almost immediately...

"Damn," Autumn monotonously said, shaking her head in disappointment. "I was hoping to claim him myself."

Britney raised a thumb, pivoting around as she glanced at everyone.

”Is everyone okay?!” Her eyes landed on Clancy momentarily, and she awkwardly laughed. ”... Sorry about that, Clance.”

She turned towards the hall and said, ”If you're all still standing, you can move. So let's go.” Her voice carried more resolve than she felt, but it was enough. Without waiting for a reply, she turned down the hall, leading the group into the unknown.

---

The tunnel stretched before them, shrouded in a heavy, oppressive quiet. The air was thick and damp and seemed to grow colder with each step. Britney let Autumn take the lead, as she seemed to know where she was going, but thankfully, they avoided any more monsters!

"We're getting close," Autumn said - having to raise her voice to be louder than the alarm - glancing at Adora; she still looked pale, but Kashmira was at her side to catch her if she fell.

”... Define close,” Adora muttered, not loud enough for Autumn to hear.

As if on cue, the tunnel began to widen. The walls pulled away, and the dim light grew brighter as they approached the Vault Room. Autumn raised a hand, signaling the group to stop. The room was enormous - an imposing rectangle and in the center, perched on a massive pedestal, was the Starving Dog. Behind the Starving Dog stood the vault door, a towering masterpiece of steampunk engineering. It was constructed of dark, weathered metal, its surface adorned with intricate rivets, gears, and pipes that hissed faintly with escaping steam. At the center of the door was a large, circular emblem resembling an eye, its iris made of gleaming sapphire that seemed to follow the group just as the Dog’s eyes did. Around the door's edges, jagged scratches and scorch marks hinted at failed attempts to breach its defenses.

“Why does it look like that?” Kashmira asked, her head tilting slightly as she stared at the statue. “It’s just a statue, right?”

”More than just a statue,” Britney matter of factly said,
”It'll come to life if we get too close.”

Her eyes went to the very edges of the tunnel into the room before she went back to the group.

”I know we're short on time, but we should devise a quick plan for handling this... That thing is tough as nails, fast, and strong,” Britney awkwardly laughed.
”If we go in guns blazing, we will be in for a world of hurt.”

Adora turned to Autumn, then asked, ”Can you boost me again?”

"I ca-"

"... You're still hurt!" Kashmira said.

”I said I'm good,” Adora shook her head. ”I'm the only one who can give Luca or Sloane an opening.” She rolled her eyes.

---

---

---

Ruby and the others watched Drake get snatched by the House of Cards.

Fuck.

"... Wasn't that your boy?" James asked Sully, weakly pointing the finger at where Drake was.

"We'll get him back," Ruby said to Sully.

Naomi swung in spiderwoman style with Pearl in her arms, just in time to see the Eustis Veil crash down on the Apparition and slam it into the ground so hard that it sent a rumble throughout the island. They received word to rain down hell on the Apparition, and the first thing that popped into Ruby's mind was to hit it with the Maiden Flash now that all four Maidens were present. However, by the time they charged up a Maiden Flash worth anything. That didn't stop James and Jess, who were barraging the creature with lightning and sunlight.

“One of you boosted the adept that can summon the sun, right? I can seal the apparition, but the size of it means I could use the help. We have to act fast while it’s down, so do you have an amplifier or not?”

Ruby narrowed her eyes at the stranger. She had no clue who this bitch was or who she came with. She had half a thought thinking that she was trying to pull a fast one on them, but-

"... You're lookin' at her," Lily said in a singsong, sassily putting a hand on her hip. "I don't know who the fuck you are! But if you can get rid of big n' hot over there before he cooks us, I'll love you fooooooorever!" She blew her a kiss.

"But we don't know this bitc-"

"Yeah, yeah," Lily rolled her eyes at Ruby as she walked over to Liz. "The way I see it, we're screwed if we don't take the Hercules Movie reject out, so who gives a fuck? Not me." She laughed as she wrapped her arms around Liz's. There was a transfer of magical energy as Lily's skeleton illuminated, and Liz's skeleton began to glow brightly as she started charging her more.

After a certain point, Lily let go of her and gave her the thumbs up.

"... Go get 'em, tiger!"

---

---

Sloane dropped her hand and turned her head to protect herself from the dust cloud as part of the roof buried the skeleton, pulling the collar of her coat over her nose. She turned to see the hand of the skeleton vanish in a flash, leaving behind a pile of rubble and a young boy who was more hole than boy. Sloane would’ve been concerned if it were anyone other than Clancy; for him it might as well have been a skinned knee, the what-should-have-been fatal injury being sealed shut by shadows. Sloane checked herself for injuries while Kashmira was mending Adora, but aside from a few minor scrapes from debris that were wiped away by the healing wave she was fine.

She was shaking the dust from her coat when her eyes were drawn to movement. It was Luca who had approached her, stopping just out of range of the Rot to start picking at Sloane’s flesh. His brown eyes were met with a peculiar wrinkle of Sloane’s brow and a quick aversion of her own eyes that was interrupted by a sharp intake of air, an upturning of the chin, and a narrowing of her eyes as her finger pricked the end of the Brass Needle in an attempt to better hide the artifact. Her unintentional reaction to the pain masqueraded perfectly as prickly dismissal to Luca’s insistence that he was fine. Her eyes softened as Luca smiled behind the surgical mask.

”Let’s go- I’d offer you a hand, but that’ll end badly for us both.”

“I wouldn’t accept it anyway. I know where those hands have been,” said Sloane dryly, her head tilting towards the beheaded monster. An attempt at humor or merely a statement of a fact? Who could say.

Sloane followed after the group, taking a moment to float her possessed knife back into her bag and discretely drop the Brass Needle in after it. There was a worrying lack of resistance on the way to the vault, which hopefully meant that the Aggro team’s distraction was working and not that they were slowly being stalked by something waiting for the prime opportunity to strike–presumably, once they alerted the Starving Dog. Sloane looked at the statue then took a few steps to the side to get a better glance at the vault, feeling the eyes of the statue stare at her as she craned her neck. The vault looked bizarrely antiquated in its design, but she should still be able to open it up with a glitch caused by a Hexmark. The problem was the size of the door demanded a larger Hexmark, and a larger Hexmark required more time to draw.

“It’ll take me ninety seconds, two minutes tops to breach the vault,” said Sloane with a frown, erring on the safe side with her estimate. Even if she could pull off her Hexmark in a minute that simply might be too much time. Ruby had made it sound like the Starving Dog was indestructible, and despite Adora’s bravado a handful of already half-cooked meatshields and some light bondage consisting of chains and vines probably wasn’t going to outperform Greenwood’s attempt at putting down the dog. It was quite possible that Luca could breach the door faster, but she really didn’t like the idea of him relying on the Rot.

”I'm the only one who can give Luca or Sloane an opening,” said Adora.

“Perhaps if the plan was to just get you killed then that would work,” said Sloane bitterly. “Our best bet would be to try to immobilize it. Autumn boosts our controllers while Layla and Alizée leash it, Aislin buries it, and Britney fences it off. Clancy, Adora, and Cyrus are ready to intercept it if it breaks free. One Amara stays with Kashmira and guards our healer, while the other comes with Luca and myself and watches our back.”

“But if we’re lucky, I could potentially disable it before it even gets a chance to act,” said Sloane, pulling out the same knife she had used to distract the skeleton. She was unsure whether or not Object of Obsession would even work on a living statue, but if it did it could completely circumnavigate dealing with the Starving Dog. Sloane turned to Autumn. “How many of us can you boost?”

---

---

”Adora, you’re not good,” Luca said bluntly- and hypocritically. But it was different. The thing hurting him also helped him. He knew his own limits… he’d had ten years to test them. Adora hadn’t. And he wasn’t just going to stand there and agree to her getting killed- just like Sloane said, perhaps not in the nicest way but… she was right.

While Luca was happy they’d avoided anything on the way there, he wasn’t stupid enough to believe they’d just be let out. They could get out- he absolutely believed that- but he was realistic enough to know it wouldn’t be easy. If Adora was knocked out or, worse, killed… It won’t happen.

”I agree with Sloane,” Luca observed the door from a position slightly away from the group. Metal… It was hard to tell what type. But metal was easy to rust. There was no need to worry about how the door functioned- he touched it, and he’d make a hole big enough for them to step through. The speed of it was just dependent on how thick the door was… ”I can probably get through the door in a minute- assuming it's not incredibly thick- but I agreed to let Sloane open it. I’ll only step in if she can’t. But we’ll get through it easily between us… without anyone sacrificing themselves.”

Luca looked over at Adora, gaze almost pleading. He understood, but he needed her to stay safe too. And she wasn’t the only one that could hold it off…

”How much can you handle like this, Clancy?” Luca asked, looking over at the shadowy boy he considered a friend. The shadow where there’d been a hole in his torso was difficult to look at but he knew that he couldn’t die… As much as he didn’t want to suggest it, if anyone was to step in against the Starving Dog, it should be the person who couldn’t die. ”If you’re less hurt than Adora then… you’ll be able to hold it back best.”

He then looked over at the statue, frowning. They would need to get back past it after breaching the vault. If they didn’t destroy it they’d just be dealing with the same problem on the way out- and he was useless when it came to carrying artifacts out.

”If Layla, Alizée, Aislin and Britney can immobilize the statue… I could also destroy it. It’ll erode like any other stone I bet. Then we won’t have to deal with it on the way back out. Unless we’re hoping for a secret passage inside the vault, or a perfectly timed teleporter?”

Luca @FernStone, Sloane @Atrophy, Britney, Adora @Mixtape Ghost N & Everyone Else

---

”... Sorry about that, Clance.”

Was that sarcasm?

Britney had earned herself another half-assed clap from the boy's grimy palms, payment in kind for the equally half-assed comment, although Clancy avoided giving in to the temptation to suggest where Britney could aim her [i]next[i] spear - he left that unspoken.

”Sure.”

Faint green light spilled from the other Greenwood girl - Kashmira - washing over him with no effect, Clancy chose not to join the brief huddle that formed, instead setting his attention on their supposed destination as Autumn stepped up to lead them on. He kept an eye on Luca and, to a lesser extent, Adora. They weren't in their best shape, and he had considered they were already in bad shape with unfriendly eyes on them, and this was all before they'd reached the vault.

That soon changed at least. Greenwood girl led them out of the tunnel and into something out of an art gallery.

The others probably had their eye on the vault, the overengineered mechanical system that would've looked old by his grandparents' standards, never mind the people in the room. Whatever its workings, it would be difficult to get through.

Probably.

The vault was their problem.

Clancy's gaze, on the other hand, was set on the statue of the dog. The Starving Dog, although to look at it, the model from which its likeness had been sculpted was probably better fed than most dogs he'd met. What it was really made of was a question present in mind. Marble, maybe? He wasn't a rock expert, but he knew that the stuff was heavy, but also easier to crack open than something like granite.

Then again, this was a magical statue that didn't follow logical rules or reason. Sounds familiar, right? The irony wasn't lost there, either.

”I'm the only one who can give Luca or Sloane an opening.”

Clancy rolled his eyes as they considered their plan of attack. Why wait for Father Wolf when you can just get eaten by his cousin? For Adora's sake, he cut in.

”Nice try, but you weren't there when some of the stupor friends met me at the biker club. They had dogs that size, too.” Or something like that. ”And maybe you hit your head a little too hard back there and forgot which one of us is still walking around without some glowing green bullshit to fix things.”

It wasn't intended to be mean spirited, but being blunt and direct came across as subtly as a lead balloon.

”How much can you handle like this, Clancy?”

He looked at Luca, shrugged, then glanced downwards at the shadowy abyss yawning through his torso. It was starting to close up, pale flesh gradually edging back over the underlying skeletal shadow, not unlike watercolour spilling across a canvas. It would take a while before it cleared up, and would probably not make it in time before they had their next punch-up.

”If you’re less hurt than Adora then… you’ll be able to hold it back best.”

The boy realised, perhaps a few seconds slow, that Luca was asking if he was capable of stepping up so Adora wouldn't have to. That she was in far worse a shape than he was or would ever be.

"I'm not hurt." It was easy to forget how bad things looked, sometimes.

Irritated was a better description, present company accounted for. The damage was superficial, an interruption at best. Outside, it meant people asked questions, but in this circle there was no illusion to keep up with. Perhaps in part that was a relief, what made it easy. Not that he wanted to go through the experience of peeling himself off the end of a large wooden tree-trunk again, "But I think you're right, he gestured back to Luca, then nodded over at Adora, "Could say a lot of stuff about you both. You're not okay, and you still have getting out of herle to worry about when this is done."

”If Layla, Alizée, Aislin and Britney can immobilize the statue… I could also destroy it. It’ll erode like any other stone I bet. Then we won’t have to deal with it on the way back out. Unless we’re hoping for a secret passage inside the vault, or a perfectly timed teleporter?”

"How long would it take you to get through stone?" It was a rhetorical question, mostly.

Too long, too much risk. Clancy shook his head, giving voice to his feelings on the matter, "Not worth it."

When the biker had set the deer-goat-dog things on them at the club, he'd slowed them down, hurt at least one of them bad enough it didn't get up, They weren't too different in size to the statue either, either, but they had still been living things, made of meat, blood, bone.

Could he stop it? Of all of them, he probably had some of the best chances, and had nothing to lose. Could he break it? 'Maybe' was his best answer.

[b]"Here's a better idea. Sloane was right about trying to hold it down, immobilise it. While that's happening, I'll try and hold it, hit it, break pieces off if I can. I don't know if it's smart enough to know it can't hurt me. Doesn't feel like it's really ‘alive’ like that, but I'll keep it busy.”[b]

Like a big cat sizing up prey, the boy pivoted a wide berth around the stone canine, easily dwarved by its size, a puppy by comparison. The only thing it was missing was a coat of red paint Funny, he considered, without betraying a sense of humour to the others.

Thinking back to Sloane's suggestion, he added onto the strategy. ”Adora and Luca should save it for the way back unless they don't have a choice. You'll just get in my way.” A half truth, equally blunt as before.

”l can still do as much damage as I can. If you've got anything for me, like a stick to play fetch, now's your chance. Otherwise, do what you need to open the vault and slow Clifford here down. Get what you need and run. If it doesn't stay down, I'll catch up when you're too far to be outrun.”

Then, after another seconds pause, he shot a comment in someone's general direction, ”Try not hitting me this time."

Clancy, for his part, was as ready as one could be.

_{Interactions: Clancy (@Zombiedude101), Britney (@Mixtape Ghost N), Sloane (@Atrophy), Artifact Group}

---

Layla, Alizée and Ailsin all shared a look with each other as the group spoke, before staring up at the Starving dog. They were finally nearing the end of this insane break-in, with one final, monumental task left.

The dog seemed imposing and strong. Would chains really imobilzie it?

”It'll work, trust me.” Alizée side-eyed Layla, sensing her anxiety.

Layla took a breath, glanced at Clancy, Britney and Sloane, and nodded. ”I think it's a good plan. We're ready to start.”

Oh, it was a complete lie. But she pushed her nerves down. Alizée had her back, and Clancy was willing to stick his apparitional neck out for them despite being absolutely angry with her choice of companion. The duty fell to her and Alizée to do good with the trust given to them, and ensure the Starving Dog stayed starved.

In unison, Alizée and Layla shot forward, running along opposite sides of the Starving Dog. Chains gleamed and stretched, hungrily wrapping tight around the dog's neck, torso, and legs. They pulled equally in opposite directions, hoping to keep the dog pinned and inhibited in its movements. Layla gritted her teeth, seeding her chains with soul-sucking desire, same as Alizée. The dog would have it's energy absorbed as quickly as possible, with parts of it becoming transparent in a matter of seconds if they were successful.

Meanwhile, Aislin and a hand raised to the ceiling, cracks appearing in it. If the dog so much as barked in the wrong direction, she'd bring the ceiling down on top of it. Avoiding Layla, Alizée, and Clancy, of course.