---

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.

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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.