[IC] SPIRITUM

[Psyker Landshark]

Kalina Kovalic

In any other circumstance, Kalina wouldn't have bothered to give the civvie bleating for help a second thought. WARDENs were trained to kill their enemies first, not play fire rescue for every idiot that got caught in a free fire zone. But that wasn't a civvie. That was a complete and utter asshole. Then again, it'd been four years. Maybe she was remembering the voice wrong.

She leapt to the side of the RV the voice had came from, investigating the knocked out man. And...damn it. It was him. Ivan Vorokov. An associate of the Marauders by proxy, in that he ran supplies and logistics, acquiring whatever materiel the unit needed. Or at least he would be if he wasn't an unreliable cheat, swindler, coward, and all-around dirtbag. Unfortunately, his contact list in both Rassvet and Vangar was too extensive to justify giving him the boot. So Kalina needed to keep him alive. She narrowed her eyes, a low sigh coming out of her breath as she squatted down to heft his unconscious body over one shoulder.

"Gerard, bringing a casualty over to you." She intoned over the telecomm. "He's mission-critical to my father's unit. I need him alive." It was a rare occasion that Kalina actually asked for anything directly, but this was too important. She sprinted over towards Gerard and the Princess's location, dumping Ivan's sorry form off in front of her teammate and giving him a brief stare to impart the gravity of the situation on him before she turned to dash back into the fray.

[Izurich]

--Rassvet - Tanker Crash Site--

Between her squadmates' responses and Justice's radar-sense report, it was beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were under attack by... Fucking wildlife! Really? Out of everything that could accost them; between the local populace, hostile warbots, and the unidentified airship, it seemed like everyone and their mother were out to get the Barghests. For a fleeting moment, Valerie had the feeling that Collette might be better off staking out on her own rather than sticking with them. At this point, she wouldn't be surprised if a meteor of precisely the right size suddenly dropped right on top of them, just because it could.

For the moment though, she still had enough fucks to make lemonades out of these toothed lemons life gave them. Right, what was the current situation? They were under attack by a pack of landsharks, Morden "birthed" himself from one attempting to swallow him, Kalina disemboweled another with her unconventional weapon, Justice brought the literal hammer axe of justice upon the beast, Collette subjected an overeager landshark to a slow, painful death via immolation, and Gerard was making sure said princess stayed unchewed, also, there was a survivor of some importance in the RV, and last but not least, Silje designated herself as shark bait.

... ... ...

...what?

By the Earthmother, Siljeee!

"Tch...!" Gritting her teeth in palpable frustration, Valerie began flowing power into Haylel, raw mist processed into violet-colored energy as the weapon's glowing parts shone brighter while its rotating barrel spun faster. An increasingly louder hum came from the unique weapon as the ex-Maiden prayed to the divine Gaia she had enough time to save her childhood friend and squadmate from becoming shark meal.

Just as the Nephilim finished charging, no fewer than three bullet sharks came at Silje, the largest one - the broodmother - erupted from the ground below, but its attempt was disrupted by the RV that the battlemage was perching on, then there were two other, smaller beasts; they were assaulting Gerard and Collette before Silje did Silje things and lured them too. Unlike the matriarch, the pair had less weight to carry and were unhindered by any vehicular wreckage as they launched themselves off the ground, maw gaped, incisors bared to snatch the petite WARDEN like wingless hawks to a white-furred rabbit.

Without even a second to spare, the slightly shorter white-haired WARDEN made the decision to prioritize her targets. Her feet dug into the ground, bracing herself as she aimed the energy-choked Haylel at the two leaping predators...

...then unleashed a lethal beam of weaponized mist!

The indigo concentrated laser promptly sliced through the landsharks' hide, flesh, bones, and innards in one fell swoop, cleaving them in twain. No amount of cauterization would prevent a wound that wide from raining gore and viscera all over whoever or whatever unfortunate enough to be below. Regardless, as the two hungry sharks became four pieces of dead flesh, Silje had fewer things to worry about. She probably still could appreciate a helping hand or two with the big one though.

"Anyone available, assist Silje!"

Goddessdamnit, Silje...

[Blizz]

---

One by one, the beasts fell. Etherium caught fire, Valerie took a mean shot, and the others were preparing to deal with these monsters before anyone else got hurt. And personally? Morden considered his chances against even the biggest ones to be pretty damn decent considering how he just exhumed himself out of one. Civilians and his own squad, on the other hand? Not so much. The fucking princess decided to engage them, which was fundamentally a stupid decision in more than one way. Either they had to account for the liability now, or factor her into battle strategies they couldn't just rewrite on the fly. So Morden decided to ignore that.

He let his shotgun fall out of his mist pocket, and ran to the grenades that had been knocked free of the truck. Strange to have this stuff, but alas. He loaded sabots into the breach, and collected a singular grenade. Morden had an idea in mind, one that wouldn't outright kill the biggest of the sharks, but would make it a hell of a lot harder for it to kill them.

There will be an explosion, do not be alarmed. I am going to blind the creature.

With a righteous, one-handed chk-chk of his shotgun, Morden bit down on the pin of the grenade (in a way only a mist-roided WARDEN could, Hollywood be damned) and used all of his strength to hurl it at the ground, and bounce it at the landshark. The fuse was ignited, and between that and the sheer force with which he threw it, the grenade went BANG a few inches before making contact with the landshark's face.

The point of this was to make the landshark move its head in just such a way that Morden could predict it, so when it recoiled from the cluster of shrapnel and the flash, and its eyes went open again, Morden aimed small.

He knew it wouldn't be enough to put this thing down, but with all the chaos happening, the landshark's options would be severely limited. It was a raging animal, not a trained fight. If pushed came to shove, it would just run, most likely. Morden pressed forward and repeatedly fired his shotgun, aiming the sabots at the small eyes to gouge them out. How could it fight back if it couldn't tell where it was? There was still the one harassing Silje, but this was a start.

Blind them. Cripple them. Drive. Them. BACK, he communicated. Use your environment, worry less about killing them.

[Vertigo]

__________________________________________________

Silje barely had the time to marvel at Gerard and Collette getting out of the truck and holding their own against the sharks — Collette even turned one of them into some sort of reversed flame salmon, burning it from the inside out! — when shit hit the fan, and a big shark hit the RV. It felt like the entire world tilted, and had Silje not tethered her feet atop the vehicle like she was so used to doing by now, she'd likely been knocked right off it, straight into the maws of the hungry predators.

Somewhere below, she heard the desperate cries of the man she'd seen inside the RV, before he was unceremoniously cut off. Hopefully due to a reason other than dying. They probably needed him around for questions and stuff. In her peripheral vision, she could see Kali(?!) of all people heading towards him. Probably to relieve him of his earthly possessions, which he longer needed, or to kill him again for shouting too loud.

By the Earthmother, Siljeee!

Oh, right, the whole being about to be eaten thing.

Don't worry, Valpal, this is all according to—

A familiarly bright purple beam burst worth from her childhood friend's direction, cutting straight through the two smaller sharks. They fell apart like sliced fish, and Silje abruptly realized she was hungry, and also that she was glad to have friends.

Morden warned them of an explosion — a silly concept, explosions were at their best when they came unexpected — then aimed for the large shark's face. Silje felt the RV, which was quickly being chewed through, jolt in the shark's grasp from the impact. Morden had the right idea. But not the right tools.

Silje did.

Hastily, she fell on all fours on top of the truck, pushing her hands into the mist she'd covered the truck with to call the sharks to her. She started to churn it, its colours mixing, brightening, turning into an unstable, pulsating stream that flowed across the RV, down into the parts already chewed and ingested.

And she was not about to give a warning for the explosion that was to follow.

What she did do, was prepare herself. The second the mist burst, she'd turn the tether under her feet into a propelling force instead — and let herself be yeeted far away from the carnage that was about to follow.

The landing? Well. She hadn't planned quite that far ahead yet.

[OwO]

Justice

With most of the beasts hewed, Justice would have liked to say that things were calming down. Unfortunately for her, things wouldn't be simple. Kalina had history with a bystander carrying armaments. Really? Couldn't it have been something simpler was the only thing
Justice could think about. Something like someone on vacation. Maybe a nurse? Instead, they were someone running small arms. Fun.

Her annoyance was cut off by the reality of the fight. The mother shark and what little remained had went after Silje when she turned herself into a human flare. Morden used some roadside frags and his gun to try to blind the mother shark. The fact that he used his teeth actually baffled Justice. It wasn't like opening an MRE. Grenade pins weren't meant to be easily torn out. Thankfully, Val had dealt with the sharks attacking the princess and Gerard.

Then Justice felt it. The winds of the mist were condensing and shifting around Silje. It was different from all of their attempts to distract. No, Silje was up to something. That was never good. It didn't take Justice much time to realize what the mage was up to.

"Ah shit."

Hexagonal barriers formed a cone around Silje's future explosion. The purpose was simple: to shape the explosion so that it would only sublimate and shred the mothershark; the Barghests and company would, hopefully, not be harmed..

[vietmyke]

Gerard Biserus

Justices barriers had barely gotten up in time to block off the resulting explosion. A few beams of energy and waves of heat escaped from the gaps as the barriers cracked against the pressure, but the vast majority of the explosion was focused on what was within. There was a bright flash of light, a roar of pain and panic, and a cloud of smoke to obscure the insides of the impromptu barrier bowl.

Not that Gerard had much time to focus on all that. He'd barely pulled himself back up to his feet when Kali dumped the man at his feet. He would've questioned the rare oddity that was Kali requesting something, but his thoughts were very quickly interrupted as Collette pointed up and past his shoulder, a slightly toasty Silje flying through the air. While toasty was not an abnormal descriptor for the bombastic battle mage, flying was. With little time to check his surroundings, Gerard caught and threw the nearest object he could towards the girl to break her fall with a wave of telekinesis. An open crate flew from the ground in front of the RV and caught Silje midfall, a small poof of packing peanuts flying out of the box as the small WARDEN fit neatly inside. Perhaps not a 'soft' landing, but at least she didn't crash into the pavement beneath her.

Hooray for multitasking. Gerard grumbled to himself as he slowly let the Silje-box sink back to the ground, turning his attention to the man Kali had dropped in front of him. The man, all things considered, wasn't badly injured at all, save for a sizable lump on his head from where he impacted the pavement. Gerard murmured a quick spell as he grabbed some of the nearby mist and began pushing it into the man, forcing his body to speed up its own natural healing. Healing magic was a bit iffy with non-WARDEN types. WARDENs and other Mist users could handle the amounts of mist put into the body via healing magic, regular civilians? Not so much- Gerard could heal him, and in this case the man's injuries weren't severe, but too much too fast and the man would start feeling the symptoms of Mist burn a lot faster than they did.

As the smoke cleared up and the barriers disappeared, what was left was an empty dome, the ground carved up as the giant landshark had apparently dug itself back into the ground. Cooked bits of landshark meat, fangs, and bone were splattered about inside the barriers, denoting the severity of its injuries, but there was no sign of the shark itself save for a large hole in the ground. A wide tunnel continued for almost a hundred or so meters before Justice could sense the landshark finally stop moving, likely succumbing to its injuries.

"Fuck me, that was an exciting start to the morning." Gerard grumbled as he picked up a fang the size of his hand. Harder than steel and with razor sharp edges, the thing was practically a dagger. Even after chewing through a steel and aluminum vehicle, not a single scratch could be found on the tooth. With a slight shudder, he tossed it lightly towards Justice. " Good call on the barrier, imagine getting hit with this as shrapnel."

Ivan's eyes slowly opened, blinking for a moment before he shot up with a start. "Holy fuck I'm dead! I'm dying! Leg's fucked- I'm a goner. Done in by a fucking land fish! I can't believe- oh I'm okay." Within an instant, the shock on Ivan's face was quickly replaced with the toothy grin of a conman's smile. His face bore the expression of a grateful buffon, though his eyes remained sharp like a hawk's. "Ah! I've been saved! Thank you good sir, I owe you my life! Should you need anything just say the word, and I, Ivan Vorokov shall..." The man's voice trailed off as his eyes scanned the group and spotted Kali. "...provide."

"Fuck."

[Izurich]

--Rassvet - Tanker Crash Site--

Through the combined efforts of Morden, Silje, and Justice, the Barghests had managed to triumph over even the titanic broodmother of the pack... and keep everyone alive in the process, what? Justice's barrier wasn't there just to look pretty. Nevertheless, it was finally over-... it better be over, there was no higher purpose in combating wildlife, an unnecessary risk and waste of effort from the nation's first line of defense.

"Haaa..." After confirming there were no other burrowers nearby, Valerie slightly relaxed as she disengaged her powers, the purple veins fading away from Haylel's surface as the weapon's hum and glow ceased, leaving only the faint trail of mist vapors wisping out of its barrel. However, just as a precaution, she didn't stow away the bulky mistarm yet, instead keeping it on her person as she approached Gerard’s location.

"..." The white-haired WARDEN observed in inquisitive silence as the "civilian" started prattling on and on, being overly animated even though he was (mostly) fine. Oh please, for the love of the Earthmother, they didn't need another Silje in the team. Though apparently, Ivan here was closely acquainted with one of them, and oddly, it's not the battlemage, but instead...

"Care to enlighten us about this jackass, Kali?"

During the commotion, the tallest white-haired personnel among them did say something along the lines of 'mission-critical' and 'needing him alive', but the question still remained, why?

[Psyker Landshark]

Kalina Kovalic

Seemed the rest had deal with the remaining fauna. Good. And that Ivan was awake and speaking. Less good. Kalina narrowed her eyes as Ivan prattled on, more irritated than usual.

"He runs weapons and black market trade for my father's crew. Poorly." She said simply in response to Val before walking up to the man in question, slugging him in the face.

"Augh! Motherfucker!" Ivan cried out as he was knocked to the ground, paleing as he looked up.

"Ivan Vorokov." Kalina drew her sidearm, flicking the safety off before pointing it in his face. "One: what are you doing here? Two: give me a reason not to kill you. I've been telling Dad you're more trouble than you're worth."

"Woah, shit! Hey, easy! Easy!" Ivan screamed, holding his hands up in alarm. "I'm running shit for your dad! I don't get this stuff to him, the Marauders are fucked!"

Kalina was never the best at reading people. Less charitably, she was downright terrible at it. But...

"Kalina, my daughter. You see shitheel, Ivan? Never trust word that comes out his asshole mouth." Her father's last bit of advice about Ivan ran through her head. A glance at the fallen crates around reinforced that. She narrowed her eyes and shifted her aim to Ivan's left knee.

BANG.

"GUUUUAAAAGH! YOU BITCH!" Ivan screeched shrilly, clutching at his left kneecap.

"I left you the leg that can work a gas pedal. Now try again. About the only materiel I see here that could be mission-critical would be the plastic explosive. And that's a stretch. Or, if you don't feel like telling the truth, give us something out of your own pocket. I know you're good for it." Just then, a thought came to her head, unbidden. Ah, right. The other reason she was so angry with Ivan.

"Remember all those care packages from Dad you brought? The ones that coincidentally had things missing that were already mentioned in the letters he put in? You owe me."

[Vertigo]

__________________________________________________

It was at the exact moment her explosion went off, sending her soaring through the sky in an uncontrolled free fall, that Silje realized why she probably should have given a warning about the explosion. Unfortunately, by then it was way too late.

Fortunately, there was Justice.

A quick glance behind her was enough to clue Silje in that their squad leader had intervened and contained the blast. The barriers, shimmering in a familiar colour, were a clear enough indication of her involvement. Then came the light and the heat and the sound, and Silje could no longer see anything but bright light. A few seconds and a loud thunk later, she could no longer see that, either.

"... Ow."

Silje found herself in a heap inside a box, her fall broken before it could dangerous. Her knee hovered inches from her face, and her back and shoulders hurt from where they'd met the hard wood. Shapes still danced inside her eyelids from the flash bang of the explosion.

And she'd do it again.

_{^{"That was} so} cool!" She shouted as she burst out of her makeshift solitary confinement like a bright-eyed jack in the box, fists thrust into the air. "We sho— oh?"

She slunk back down upon realizing she was interrupting something. That something being Kalina, greeting an old friend. Intensely. With a gun.

"Just-- gimme a holler if you wanna blow up the other knee too!" Silje called out, supportive as ever. She was snugly back inside her box, save for a hand extended out to show a thumbs up.

Silje really wanted to bring up the thing with the princess, but Kalina knew so few people, she felt it'd be better not to interrupt her right now. There was time after, the princess wasn't going anywhere.

And if she tried, well, Kalina had already proven to be pretty good at busting knees!

[OwO]

Justice

Her plan did work. It stung her skin as the barriers could barely contain the explosive force, but Justice did manage to ensure that nobody had been turned into a vacation casualty. The shark slunked back into the ground, but had then given up as even its large form couldn't handle losing half its mass to a living goblin.

With a deep breath, Justice shook her hands. It felt nice to get that out of her system. A little bit of carnage and destruction always made people feel better.

"Everyone good?" Justice yelled as her ears rang. Though, she didn't really care for any responses. Everyone would probably be fine. Though, if Gerard hadn't thrown a box to catch Silje, Justice or Morden would had to catch the falling mage. Morden would probably shrug off the catch. Justice would have had to sacrifice her knees. Luckily, she avoided that.

With a quick flick of her hand, Justice snatched the tooth out of the air by its root. She'd had properly lost a few fingers were she not familiar in handling knives. "I do what I do." She said as Gerard gave out the rare compliment.

"Huh." Justice murmured as she inspected the tooth. It was interesting indeed. She flicked it in the air a few times. It was weighted decently. Though, awful to try to use as an actual knife. Such was a blade without a handle. With another quick toss, she threw the tooth and her war axe back into her pocket to save for the next fight.

Unfortunately, the afterglow of combat didn't last long. There was an unwanted survivor in their midst. The goal had been to simply escort the princess. Now? The Barghests were getting involved in arms smuggling. Even worse? It was someone that someone knew. As though she had chosen to reject reality to save her temper, Justice grabbed the princess by the shoulder, immediately turned around, and lead her to the other side of the truck so Kalina's old acquaintance couldn't get a good look.

"Ten minutes." She said without elaborating further what the deadline was for. Though, given that Kalina had occupied herself with the interrogatorture of the survivor, the rest of the Barghests could surmise what she meant.