Some people wouldn't shoot the devil out of fear they'd miss.

That's not something Rivka has to worry about: her aim is impeccable.

The note she plays cuts through the hissing rain, burning a line through the toxic water and adding a brief new spear of illumination to the pale blue bonfire that remains of the blocky generators. The purple-haired sniper's magic has an interaction with the alien particles in the air itself, sucking in the suffocating raw magic and leaving a burning contrail behind.

The sound of the shot making an impact is something unearthly, a noise produced by elements that should not exist in nature in quite this way. It sounds, though, like a cacophonous sizzling. 

[center][b][color=red]|[/color][/b] Music: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUHLd9XKv2E][b]Disturbance[/b][/url] [b][color=red]|[/color][/b][/center]

Three of the metal diamonds have formed the shield, their points projecting a protective triangle of yellow illumination. Rivka can see the outline of her bullet where it burned through the hard light and the crack in the girl's sleek armor. She shifts her weight, but the injury is farther from debilitating than her attacker could have hoped. Her attention shifts, glowing eyes focusing on the source of the damage.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/zj8d7RB.png[/img]

Crystal and Chie make it into the power station a second later, their silhouettes illuminated first by Rivka's rifle and a split second later by the light thrown off from the impact against the enemy's shield. Inside is much darker than out, the once fluorescent lighting now gone dark. The occasional window casts only a meager blue light from the rising flames outside.

Chie's senses make it easy to navigate the halls and stairways toward the people they're here for. They find the rest of the remaining workers scrambling down the hallway of the second floor. Most of the men and women look like civilian operators, some visibly bleeding, and they're being led by a woman in Imperium uniform.

There's only one other weight on Chie's internal map, a marbled sized distortion on the opposite end of the building.

The soldier's rifle is briefly turned on the two Ars Magi before she recognizes them as backup. "Ma'am!" She says, taking a shaky breath to steady herself after. "We're under attack there's–"

Through the window they can see the outline of the metal motes swerving toward Rivka. Six baseball-sized diamonds approach like hungry vultures, their points flaring to life as they send cutting beams of energy in the direction of the virtuosa. They bend and flank, spreading out with a malicious intellect to cage and maim. They're not bullet fast but they are fast; they cover the distance between the two girls within a matter of seconds if they aren't stopped. The armored girl is coming after them, a pale sword emerging from her wrist. 

Two motes bend off preemptively toward Selma, Kheper's sturdy oak not gone unnoticed. Rather than separate and contain these two add their force together, connecting into a single point and firing off a supercharged cannon of radiance toward the big big girl.

All of this Crystal and Chie can see from the second floor. 

"--There's an Ars Magi." The officer finishes. She waits expectantly for orders.

The thing on the other side of the building is getting heavier. Even if Selma wasn't distracted she wouldn't feel any tremors, not until it's too late. Chie at least knows it's coming. The marble becomes a sphere, then a baseball, then roughly the size of a adult human. By the time it rounds the corner both Magi see the [url=https://i.imgur.com/FWcfycC.png]Vᴏɪᴅ[/url] for what it is: a jagged facsimile of the upper half of a torso. It has no legs, but long arms that end in even longer hands. It has no head, but above it's curved shoulders floats a smooth black ring inlaid with glowing red geometric symbols.

It floats ominously forward, its halo rotating slowly around its central point. As the female officer barks at her wards to get down and raises her rifle, the thing raises one long hand to spit out perfect spheres of darkness. Each is no bigger than a bullet and neither is anywhere as fast. Just the opposite, actually.

They float slowly down the hall and toward the Ars Magi and cluster of civilians.

Verrry...slowwwlyyyy...