Rurik Alexeev
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Bak Tsarevna
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Yuuto
The Demon had decided that defeating these three would be simple. That was before the distractions. That had been before all this damnable noise. Now the roof overflowed with the babes of man and she was being forced to use all her power against children. Her! A Greater Demon! The very fact that she had to consider this a battle instead of sport was an insult to her entire race.
King landed and stepped forward, as casual as can be, the cat now sleeping in his embrace as though it weren't in any danger at all. Alto stepped forward over the remains of the clone he had been fighting, stoic and intent on just ending the night event. Clara stepped forward, smiling slightly at Christine, eyeing the demon with hungry eyes more befitting a shark than a girl. All three of them stepped forward.
The demon duplicated again. And again. And again. The duplicates warped and teleported, coming at the trio from all angles. From the left one dove at King, and was swatted down at his feet like an annoyance. From the right came one at Clara, but the darkness that welled up around them made it impossible to see whatever altercation took place. At the end it lay dead as she kept moving. From behind one came at Alto, but suddenly Alto was behind it and it was bisected and left in piece on the ground. Over and over again they flew at the trio, the best, the very best Rhea had to offer, but nothing stopped their relentless, steady advance. Someone look at this battle with fresh eyes would have completely mistaken who was the monster and who was the victim.
The demon back away as they advanced amid the broken bodies of her duplicates. Then the demon did something unexpected; it grinned. It thrust its arms out, wicked circles flaring to life
along them and every deliberately weakened duplicate the trio had taken down. They burst into flame, a fire that seemed to melt off them and spread like a fungus across the ground under the trios feet until it reached the wing that King had sliced off. The energy it got from consuming that caused the flames to burst upward, accepting all the sacrifices that she had given it. Under their feet the fire rose up and then folded in on itself, enclosing the three of them in a blazing dome that was soon covered in demon seals.
She let her shoulder sag and breather deep, ragged breaths he then began to chuckle. The chuckle became a laugh and a laugh rose to a wild cackle as she bathed in the warm, nostalgic light of her creation. “Do you feel that, insects? Breath it in. Bask in it! That is but a paltry balmy day for my kind. Experience Hell on earth, the Hellfire Seal! But this is not the authentic experience. There are no screams of the damned undergoing torture.”
She turned a cold gaze across the roof, looking at each child she could see in particular. “Don’t worry. Your ambiance will be provided momentarily.”
Despite her cocky demonour, however, it was clear that she had sacrificed much to create such a trap. The once blazing energy that had been felt had greatly diminished in intensity. There was still that confidence though. That total conviction that she could kill everyone on this roof.
A peculiar sound reaching Rurik’s ears got his attention. He looked up to see a demon flying at him, almost like a perfectly spiraled football. However, it recovered and seemed to decide that if it was going that way anyway, why not take a victim? And then it flinched. Rurik would discover why in a moment, but for now he just deployed his shield, stepping in front of Thobias as he did so.
The demon deflected off the shield and flew in a new direction, towards some sort of weird bunker the Vigilante’s had thrown up. Good. The best kind of problems were the kind that he could make into someone else’s problem.
With that, Rurik was brought fully back into reality, and scanned the chaotic field before him. And there went Christine, pirouetting her way into danger. It was all fine and dandy at first until the demoness got really, really mad. She let loose a veritable horde of clones and Christine wasn’t all that far from the fray.
Of course she’d had to go run into the thick of it.
Rurik pinched the bridge of his nose. Just one moment of peace. Just one. Just once he’d wanted to stay out of it.
Fine.
“Thobias. Christine. Fetch. Now,” Rurik demanded with unusual firmness. Something told him that just moving Christine a little farther from the action wasn’t going to cut it, though. The shivers that demon had sent down his spine told him so.
And so, with everyone distracted, he made a break for it. In a flash, he zipped across the battlefield, over to where Bak had landed. He stopped for a moment to look at the… ninja? Yes, it was a ninja. Wh-
Never mind.
“Thanks…” Rurik said. It was hard to tell if he was thanking him for covering Bak, or sarcastically complaining about the demon he had so generously sent his way. He then crouched down next to Bak. She was conscious, at least.
“Laying down on the job, huh? Don’t tell me I’m starting to rub off on you,” he joked, but he didn’t sound all that amused. He was far too stressed, and it was plain to see on his face.
“Can’t have that, I'm gonna need your help.” He then squared his feet and grabbed Bak’s hand.
It was a strange sensation, but he’d grown up on a farm. You got used to grabbing weird shit… sometimes literally if you weren’t lucky. Well, that was his first thought before his hair on his arm stood up. OK, so maybe it was a little more weird than he was used to. Regardless, not his biggest concern at the moment. He then grabbed her shoulder with his other hand and hauled,
“Up we ggghh-” Damn she was heavy…
Bak tried to help as hard as she could in her dazed state. Her feet dug scores in the roof as she struggled to get them underneath her, finally getting into a good, steady spot and pushing along with Rurik's pull to get unsteadily back of her feet. “And look at you, Mr. full of surprises today. Rushing into war zones, fighting the enemy, are you so sure my discipline is not finally having some effect?” She laughed, even though it wasn’t really a joke. Then she noticed that he was still holding her hand. This was like getting hit in the face with cold water, the reality of the situation coming back to her instantly. She rapidly pulled away from him, gripping the hand with her other, holding it flush to her chest for a moment and looking at him anxiously before she started digging around in her breast pocket for her glove.
“Uhhhhh,” she said, looking around halfway between embarrassment and horror to find something to keep Rurik's mind off anything he may or may not have felt. “Have you met the friendly ninja?” She said, pulling out her glove, slipping in on over her hand, and gesturing to Yuuto. “The one I told you of? He is the one that helped me earlier today, and just now. Thank you friendly ninja.” She bowed as deep as she could chance at him, as she had seen other ninjas do in her movies.
“Right… friendly ninja. Uh, coin chihuahua… how’s your mustache… whatever.” Rurik mumbled and shrugged.
She came back up and looked out over the battlefield. She’d unfortunately only gotten bits and pieces of the demons gloating, but looking at her she could tell that the worm had turned. The big ball of hellfire sat on the roof like a miniature sun casting an evil light that could be seen from the street below, and right there, far too close for comfort was, “Christine.” She called out. “Get away from there!”
“If Thobias is doing his job, Christine will be fine,” Rurik told her, now done butchering the ninja’s presumed language.
“Instead, just keep an eye on me, all right?” he told her and patted her. Not her shoulder or even her head, but her… cannon? He then bent over and scooped up a handful of the gravel that Bak’s feet had torn out of the rooftop and began walking… right toward the angry demoness.
“Wait, what are you doing?” She asked as he walked out. “Where are you going?” This heroic stuff was a welcome change, but this was serious. Just a cone of this thing had tossed her like being hit by a big truck. She willed her guns to whir to life, the one under the broken armor winding up in jerky burst before finally firing up. She groaned. So, that was a months worth of growing she had to do then. She leveled all her guns at the demon, hoping to the gods the Rurik really had a plan and wasn’t just winging it.
He had a plan. Perhaps a very dumb plan. It all hinged, unfortunately, on making one horrible demon monster very, very angry with him. It looked like she was getting ready to kill them all, so it was now or never. He began by flicking a rock at her head.
POP! It blew up, right next to her face. A minor annoyance, barely more than a distraction.
POP-POP! Now it was probably really annoying.
POP POP BANG BOOM CRASH BANGBANGBANG! And then it was like a cluster bomb going off around her.
The demon just dusted her shoulder off and turned its gaze to the boy that had so kindly decided to volunteer for the slaughter.
As it’s gaze fell upon him, Rurik just put on a shaky smile and motioned with his finger for it to come get him. It’s response was a bit more immediate than he’d hoped, though...
A circle flared to life in front of her hand, flashed, and fired a white hot stream of light at the young fool.
“Ah sh-” He threw up his hands and projected his shield. Hot hot hot hot! The flames reacted strangely to it, sort of balling up as he did his best to hold on rather than reflect it immediately.
‘Please have gotten the message, Bak…’ he thought to himself. He couldn’t take the heat anymore. He hadn’t lasted quite as long as he’d hoped, but this particular bit hadn’t been part of the plan.
He was sort of improvising, but he had an idea that stemmed from his fight with Kath earlier. He pushed back, the gathered flame and energy that had accumulated against his shield flew back into the beam, forcing it back and actually making it almost halfway before detonating, and with any luck leaving the demoness open.
The demon covered herself with one arm to steady herself from the force f the detonation, and was just lowering it for another shot when-
“You fool, this is plan!?!” Came a shout, followed by a bang! Suddenly the demons face was engulfed in an explosion. Bak stood back, cannon smoking. Rurik had felt that shot go right by his ear. The only reason she hadn’t opened up with the chainguns was that he had put himself between her and the demon. “Next time if plan is to just fight let me go in front of you.”
The demons head had snapped back, and then back down to stare at the two of them. Blood poured from its nose and its perfect teeth were cracked in the front giving it a by far more devilish appearance. It looked like it had just been caught between a hammer and an anvil, except usually the victim of that wasn’t alive enough to be as pissed off about it.
As Yuuto watched on, Rurik came over to help Bak up. He then began to… well, butcher wasn’t even the proper word for what he did to Yuuto’s second language. However, the ninja didn’t even bother to correct him, not that he would’ve had the chance anyway. The two of them started to attack the Demoness with a renewed vigor. Ah, of course. The Demoness had trapped Claire-san and the other two in a dome. With the foe distracted, Yuuto let loose another burst of power, slamming the Demoness with another Void Beam. This one he kept concentrated on their otherworldly foe as long as possible.
“Is never wise to harm friends and allies of a ninja. When that happen, ninja usually know how to strike back!”Rurik’s jaw went tight at the cannon shot. She’d cut that a bit close. He lifted a shaky hand to his ear, touching it to make sure it was still there. He let out a sigh of relief that he was intact. The demoness looked worse for wear. Had they actually done it? Just like that? A headshot to the source?
Then she looked back up and she was clearly pissed. However, before she could attack, the ninja joined the fray. Rurik realized he had the right idea. He quickly stepped aside and lifted his hands, unleashing a barrage of mini-bolts from all ten finger-tips.
“Light her up!” he called for Bak to join in. She had enough bullets to suppress the demon til the sun came back up, but hopefully that wouldn’t be necessary.
“SUPPRESSING FIRE!” Bak yelled yelled, her guns lighting up and adding her fire to Rurik and Yuuto’s.
