Blizz

SPIRITUM

---

The cannon fire from the sky did not deter Morden, nor did the shrapnel of stone, dirt and metal that flew up into his face while he blasted away into the night. He merely blinked the detritus away while keeping robots on the backpedal. Valerie’s use of magic in this case was keeping them just ahead of everything that “third party” could throw at them. And Morden wasn’t surprised. For one thing, Barghest was not to be fucked with. They had Valerie, they had Silje. The robots were good high speed target practice, but Morden only had so many shells. He stopped his assault on the machines after firing no less than 20 sabots at incoming robots.

As they rode off, he allowed his mist-derived strength to wane.

Valerie stopped the truck, and stopped using her magic on it. Morden watched her lurch out of the truck and hurl up blood from mistburned blood. Morden, having a higher tolerance for mist than most Wardens of his level, knew all too well how rough the overwhelming pain could be. So he slung his shotgun over his shoulders by a sling, and climbed out of the truck. He let a plastic case and a flask full of water fall into his hands from his mist pocket, and walked up to Val’s door.

Valerie. Morden opted to use the telepathic spell connecting them all through Gerard, so she didn’t have to speak, and so they could do so without the princess of Vangar eavesdropping. He calmly sat the case down on the hood of the truck, and withdrew a dose of mist-burn medicine.

You are suffering mist burn. Be still. Breathe, compose yourself. Stepping around the pool of blood, he opened the door with uncanny gentleness for a brick shithouse of a man like himself. This will only take a moment.

X-Men: GenetiX

Ryder, being the feral little shit that she was, mostly stood down when the old man in the helmet referred to this place as Genosha. She viewed the entire world through monitors and screens. She could be within hundreds of feet of any device with a connection to the internet, and find her way to any place that existed through that. Ryder was smarter than she looked, she knew the name of almost every country out there by heart.

“Genosha” didn’t ring a bell.

The sheer curiosity of that was water to the flames. A “sanctuary” for mutants sounded utterly fucking worthless to her, having grown up in a “sanctuary” for mutants her whole life.

But more importantly, she needed to find Cyclops. So she played along, and let Magneto walk away. Without saying a word, she walked off of the landing pad, and into the so-called paradise itself.

I know you can hear me. You’re somewhere in this city. I don’t know where. Figure something out before the fuckwit in the helmet makes a move.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

---

Location: Who the Fuck is Baldur
Skills:
WHAT. THE. FUCK.

---

---

Walking into the room, Leah didn’t immediately see anything dangerous. She never liked labs. Hell, she grew up in one. And to that end, she more or less had an understanding of the flow that all this shit in here had. The fleshy wires, the console, the people strapped to tables. It told her there was some sort of experiment going on. ”Nobody move,” she said, being the tank. Leah hefted her new axe over one shoulder and walked towards the people. She made sure not to trip or step on the “cables” as she did so. Looking them over, Leah snapped her fingers in their faces, and noted they didn’t react much.

The voices pounding on those pods confirmed something for her. ”…Madalyne. You said there were supposed to be monsters in here called “Intellect Devourers?” I’m taking a guess they don’t exactly plant flowers and dance in circles given their names. So is there any reason at all we should open those pods and free what I’m assuming is something pretending to be a person?”

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Interactions: Everyone

Kari's house

---

It seemed to work out pretty okay. Up until the moment the thing’s leg went boom. Stormy didn’t get roasted by the fire, but he did notice that the fucking monster was tipping over… So that was the point. Stormy had better ideas than getting flattened, so he threw out the Iron Fortress, and heard the monster bang against the surface. He could’ve leapt out of the way, but it was so huge and unruly that it might’ve crushed him anyway. Stormy couldn’t see out of the dome, so he could only use the sound of banging against the Iron Fortress to know whether or not it was still leaning over the side. Of course, he had very little to worry about here, but there was always the risk that if he dropped the spell, it would just fall down on him.

Looking at the wet ground, Stormy noticed something got in the dome with him. A strange pink smoke that was rising upwards. He didn’t have a chance to react before it was in the air. As little as it was, he still inhaled it and felt… Fine.

”Thanks.”

Stormy spun around, instinctually focusing more on the dome than the people in it. There were six of them. His friends who he kept alive all those years ago. It was all so difficult when they were kids, but Stormy always came through. He recognized the people taking shelter in the Iron Fortress. They all found their way in life, thanks to Stormy, who always came through. And now they were in the dome because… He came through.

He always came through. What kind of protector didn’t?

A smile crept over his face. ”Not a problem. Just sit tight, we’ll be out of here soon. And then the drinks are on me, alright?”

The myriad faces- not six but ten- smiled at him. They were weary from battle, but they were alive. Stormy was to thank for that. All seventeen of them were safe in his watch.

”8th Street are just bullies. Once they cool off, they won’t hurt anyone.”

All thirty of them nodded.

”I’ll never let any of you get hurt.”

The entire coven smiled on him. His Iron Fortress sheltered them all.

Every last one.

Interactions: The Sycamore Tree Coven

The All-Verse

---

Jack strode across the cosmos as one did the hallways of their childhood home. All around him, the stars, nebulas and galaxies of distant realms bled together as a watercolor canvas. Every step he took landed on the foundation of the ever-shifting heavens, and rang out to echo in tune with the song of stellar motion. Mundane minds watched birds flutter through an atmosphere of oxygen, and Jack watched young planets drift through the breadth and bow of firmament. Along his path, unknowable to all but himself, the All-Verse was well and truly alive.

It is difficult to know the All-Verse if one only studied Shimmer, difficult to understand the galaxy when one only studied Earth’s solar system. Further was it difficult to understand the human race if one only studied one continent. To know the grand design of existence came with the territory of experiencing it all. Every star in every night sky, every grain of sand on shores where there was wonder everlasting to be witnessed. He wore time and the entropy of creation as a cloak, distillations of space washed away and were brought to bear as stepping stones along his journey.

The All-Verse lay before Jack, infinite as tangled yarn and yet ordered as a staircase. And utop the stairs was his destination.

Home.

He was like a god, and the All-Verse parted as such. He waved a shaded hand out before him, and the malleable clay that humans called existence became water; A cascade outwards, molding the abstract into order. Jack walked through the order, and felt the familiar caress of gravity. The swell of molecules in his throat. The friction of sunlight.

Down from infinity, and into the finite, where home lies: St. Portwell. The cosmos melted away, and he stood within a well-lit room. Walls of dark oak, rising outwards into familiar architecture. He walked through a door, and into a hallway, down a flight of stairs lit by purple candlelight, to the meeting hall. A rectangular room, with a long table, where the his guests sat.

Drake Blackmore. Anya Baksh. Kari Wilson. Sloane Faris. Kenshiro Murakin. Luca Olivera. Reza Cabrera, and so many others.

”Thank you all for coming,” Jack announced, walking one step forward, and appearing at the head of the table. Behind him, a wall illuminated itself with the symbolism of a sycamore tree.

”As you all know, today marks one year after we defeated the apparition known as Father Wolf. And so, today, we remember those who did not come as far as us. We remember the struggles and the triumphs that are unequivocally our own.”

”Today, we rejoice in honor of all we have become. Make yourselves at home.”

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

---

Location: Who the Fuck is Baldur
Skills:
WHAT. THE. FUCK.

---

---

With the Bastard Babies gone, all they needed to do now was advance further into this “Nautiloid.” Madalyne had the right idea- Well. Leah was pretty sure the hot, horned chick was Madalyne- by saying Leah should be the tank. She had an axe, she had terrain-altering capabilities (probably) and enough strength to punch through walls. She could probably take a few more hits than the others.

Though it didn’t sound like toughness was going to help much against brains that ate brains. ”Okay. Everyone stay behind me. If there are traps, someone make damn sure we don’t fall into them,” Leah said, walking over the corpses of the Fallen Fetuses, and poking her head through the doors to the lab. She looked around carefully, for the sight of the Intellect Devourers that Mads seemed to expect.

Held roll

Perception check for in case anything is sneaking up on them in the lab? Something Leah can’t see just by looking around normally? Ain’t got skills for this lol

Sup, its ya boi POOHEAD189

I’m gonna keep it a stack of Denny’s with you I thought you were an Admin for like

Years

SPIRITUM

---

"Yes, we are Wardens. And if you cooperate with us, you will not be harmed." Morden spoke in a tone that implied he wouldn't harm the princess. After all, he could not speak for Kali, and certainly not Silje. He was entirely unmoved in his seat next to the comparatively diminutive Vangar royal, as if he were affixed to the truck they were all thrashed about in. The resident tank of Barghest had a face etched in thunderous serenity, the eye of a raging storm that thought of the next move. Like a storm cloud blacker than obsidian, the flash of lightning could come at any moment. And yet, it did not.

One could easily come to the conclusion that there was only muscle in the thick skull of his, that he was just a bruiser. A junkyard dog that did little more than what its master told it to do. It was not a difficult assumption to make, he was a Vanguard. There was war in his blood, and he was a wall in human shape. What more did he need than to be a meat shield? But that assumption was dead wrong. Morden was a warrior, but any society that separated warrior from thinker produced soldiers without the ability to think. And thus, Morden elected to use a different strength. He held out both hands in front of himself, and let his mist pocket open wide. In one hand, he produced a small black container. In the other, he produced a semi-automatic shotgun. A firearm as old as modern combat itself.

From the container, Morden withdrew a handful of shells, loaded with hardened sabots; razor sharp, metal darts launched by propellants to sink deep into armor that blunt force couldn't handle. They were often ineffective against power armor unless aimed in ways a sniper rifle was often used for, but these machines had something to protect in their heads. Something that left only so much room for protective plating. He loaded the shells with ritualistic composure. Red lightning flickered between his fingers, caressing the galvanized steel of his weapon like an ominous christening of a vessel.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

And eight.

His last shell was dropped directly into the chamber. Safety off.

"Continue straight ahead, ignore the ones we cross. I have them" With that, Morden opened the nearest window and hauled himself out until the upper half of his body was fully hanging out the side. He aimed for robots crawling out of debris, and aimed for their "Weakpoints" as best he could, going off of his understanding of human anatomy; Their equivalents to throats, eyes, and anything else that would, at the very least, slow them down if they tried to take a swing at the truck while they fled.

Barghest's retreat was punctuated by the occasional BANG of Morden's shotgun discharging its ammunition.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Interactions:Anya, Lila, Vashti

Kari's House

---

The Phantom assigned to Sloane merely nodded as its responsibility was taken by another construct. Silently, it turned and ran off into the dismal battlefield. Through its course, Amara, and the Army by extension, gained an understanding of the overall situation. One voice in an endless chorus, amplified into infinity and relayed unto itself. The movements of the fleshy abomination and the jacket with which it played, the zombies falling from the sky, the light in the dark that was Linqian’s burning body. This phantom saw it all as it searched for the one called Anya Baksh.

And it found her in due time.

It appeared through the rain like a guardian angel, and approached Anya calmly.

”Your companion has gone ahead, into the fray,” the phantom stated, plainly without a hint of emotion. ”I come to escort you away.”

Meanwhile, another phantom ran like the Hound was chasing it, through the soaked trees and dimly lit woods. Using the blaze of red as a lighthouse, the Legion squad knew where every piece was on its chessboard. And they were convening on one location, the place where their VIP was. Four phantoms came forth, one carrying a Beretta 1201, a semi-automatic shotgun. Across its chest was a belt loaded with extra shells. Amara caught the sight of Vashti on Lila’s back, and almost got distracted by the feathers.

Avert your eyes, it corrupts.

We want Lila alive and intact. Act accordingly.

Amara aimed her pistol at Vashti’s back, and fired two .45 hollow points into her midsection. The sound was completely unheard thanks to the rain, but she refused to be ignored.

”VASTHI FUCKING NOUR!!!”

The three unarmed phantoms squared up, inching closer to her and Lila while keeping their eyes low to the ground.

Meanwhile, the shotgunner kept the barrel aimed right at Vashti’s face. It knew not to fire, but who could say whether Vashti knew that?

”GET AWAY FROM HER, RIGHT NOW!!!”

---

Interactions: The Flesh Monster

Kari's house

---

Sully Ran.

Luca ran.

Someone had Linqian covered. He didn’t need to stop and wait to see if Drake was going to act. He quickly swiped his hand across Drake’s shoulder, resetting the 15 minute timer for his Phantombane and then, without any shields weighing him down, bolted.

Stormy ran faster than he had ran in a while, charging through the downpour and the mud like an unstoppable force. It was almost difficult to really see the target he had in mind in all the wet gloom, but the smell of death and ammoniating flesh was unmistakable. His hands radiated a green glow, unmistakable in the heat of battle. As a kid, Stormy was one of the go-to Adepts for combatting inhuman creatures. Apparitions that the Stygian Snake spawned simply through the act of existing were never short in numbers. They always took many forms, and some of them just happened to be a bit more on the Abberant side. Creatures made by creatures were a whole other class of entity of their own.

It made things complicated when working with the coven’s human Aberrants. He could recall a few times when members that uses artifacts of were Adjoined couldn’t tag along with him or they’d risk getting caught in the crossfire. But those skirmishes of pest control taught Stormy a valuable lesson: Intelligence was often a prerequisite to Emotional Fields.

Human beings that were paranormal usually had Emotional Fields evade they were, in fact, emotional. Apparitions that were powerful enough to have a sense of self took on personalities, and therefore became resistant to magic. But that monster moved and behaved stupidly. It just battered and played with Sloane’s hexed jacket like a toddler. So Stormy got close, took in a deep breath, slammed his hands into it. His assumption was confirmed when he felt the influence on his being. Like a rope was lashed end-to-end between himself and the creature, and it was pulled quite strongly in the direction of the monster.

Stormy leaned into the fleshy mass, uncaring of the putrid gunk he’d likely get on his clothes and hands. If he got infected by something, he could just find Sully. 8th Street’s alleged heavy hitter lit up like a green bonfire, as the Consecration spell took hold. Every square inch of its festering body rejected it. And with nowhere for it to go that could get it away from that magic, the only thing it could do was suffer. And 8th Street’s time traveler couldn’t get within 20 feet without feeling the same way.

Stormy grit his teeth, and hauled himself backward to put a few feet of distance between himself and the monster. Deep breath… This could work.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

---

Emily's raging fireball was met by a wall of green.

The shields orbiting Linqian, and Britney by extension, snapped out of existence to make room for a dome of damn near impenetrable yellow Lux that wrapped around him, Drake, Luca and Sully. The sound of rain battering against metal could be heard as it washed across the outer surface of the Iron Fortress, loud and hollow. Everyone on the inside was detached from everything on the outside. No one could see in or out, and the look on Stormy's face implied it wasn't easy to keep this thing up. He was tense, yet still, like he was focusing on the barrier and nothing else.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

"When this barrier falls..." he began, slowly. "Be. Ready. To. Run. Emily may be waiting. They can not hear us. Leave. The monster. To me." His fists were clenched with the glow of individual auras yet to be cast. He held one out for Sully, the Witchveil aura. He only had to touch it, and it would be applied, and then Stormy would drop the Iron Fortress to let them all loose.

Meanwhile, that prick with the gun seemed to catch on quick. Not quick enough to avoid getting clocked, but at least he was distracted. As Aaron shot the shadow puppet, it cracked into dozens of pieces as if he had shot a porcelain cup, and then dissolved into black smoke. Vashti's storm was sure to bog them down, but it had an advantage that Jack could work with: The storm clouds made everything all the more dark. The light from the hellfire was bright, but the clouds were shading everything else, making it dim enough that Jack didn't have to worry about walking into the bright sun. It was a small advantage, but in these situations, everything mattered.

He decided to quickly teleport into another tree nearby, not bothering to stick around and risk getting shot. He heard the shouting in the distance, and he saw the flesh abomination moving to do... Something. If Jack had a guess it was Sloane's Hexmarking if they were all lucky. Jack looked up through the leaves of the new tree he had moved to, and saw the swirling portal that rained down undead. Far in the direction of the left, there was that camp surrounded by ice, and it didn't look like there was anything he missed. So Jack made a quick, educated guess that the portal was connected to that.

He held a hand out, and formed his usual weapon of choice out of the darkness. A scythe, with a blade sharp enough to cut through the bodies of many apparitions. He swiped his fingers through the air, and the weapon duplicated itself. He made a twisting motion with his hold hand, and Jack's pair of scythes began to spin rapidly, faster and faster until they were a black blur. Faster. Faster. Faster.

And then, using his the telekinetic control he had over the shadows, Jack sent them whirling upwards into the sky, through the portal that the undead were spilling out of. Bodies were chopped up like hands caught in a thresher, and whoever was on the opposite end would be treated to the equivalent of high speed, magic sawblades flying out to chop them up. Jack blinked a dark spot out of the corner of his vision, making a mental note to use that trick sparingly, if at all again.

Staying mobile was ideal in Jack's opinion. He wasn't equipped for being at the center of fights like this. When a fight got to this magnitude, Jack belonged in the shadows, sabotaging and making life easier on his allies.

He teleported again, onto the far side, of the battlefield, just in time to almost smack headfirst into Greyson fucking Devola.

"...Where have you been?"

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Interactions: Luca @FernStone Sully @Atrophy and Drake @Punished GN

Kari's house

---

Just as he said he would do, Stormy followed Drake into the fray, Guardian Barriers hanging off of his wrists. He was made magically slower by them, reducing him to a quick jog where Drake could move at a solid sprint. He flicked his wrists, and the shields flew off in the direction Linqian's limp body laying on the ground, Vashti had surely done a number on her, even with whatever spell that was. He didn't think Linqian would be so stupid as to go in without some sort of contingency, but still, the shields hovered over her body to shade her from the rain, and from whatever someone else might try to do in the short span.

Stormy's eyes flicked over to Lila... And there was something wrong about her. She had wings, claws. And those feathers... They tugged at his mind while she flew off behind the house. They were resplendent, radiant like something for which Stormy had no name, he- No, that wasn't right. Something in the back of his mind wasn't really saying that, so much as it was being tugged at. He blinked his eyes shut for a moment, and that oddity was the thing that solidified his plan. When Stormy finally closed the gap between himself and Drake, sully and Luca, green sparks were arching off of his hand. It was as if Drake had electrocuted his fist and made the lightning green, as Stormy's Witchveil aura was ready to be distributed

"You've got fifteen minutes before that wears off," he said to Drake, who was radiating the green smoke of the Phantombane aura. He looked up at the giant abomination that others were no doubt hiding behind. "Sully- You should be able to move Linqian with this. Take it, it'll boost your emotional field and make whatever spell that is affect you less, or not all." He held out a crackling ball of green energy. If Sully took it, he'd be granted a hefty dose of extra magical resistance. "Just be careful when it wears off."

”The person who created the undead creature isn’t there,” Luca said to the two of them, glancing over at Linqian’s prone body. Shit, was she even breathing? Drake could probably just run in there but… maybe if he shared a bit of what he knew it would help. ”She’s probably… behind that ice wall. And it won’t matter how much you hurt it, because Carol will just keep healing it. She,” Luca pointed to Maya, ”has sound manipulation and can shoot sand at people. She has range, so be careful. You know what Emily and George can do… I don’t know the other two, they joined after I left.”

Luca wasn't looking so good, but at least Sully had him. "Drake's faster, he can get in and out of that camp they've got... Drake- You'll be safe from Adjoined and Apparitions as long as you're only there for fifteen minutes. Fly out if you need a renew-" Stormy said, thinking quickly.

”But we need to…” he trailed off, grimacing. He didn’t want to suggest this, because of the six here, Carol was the only one he cared about. But he also cared about people on this side. ”Get Carol away from the creature.”

Stormy considered something... "What is she? Abberant?"

”Yup, Abberant, it's the,” Luca gestured to his own stomach, ”hourglass fused to her. No Apparition.”

"Agent, right. Okay- You and Sully need to get the hell out of here. Odds are good that this homunculus is an Abominable, an Abberant like her. Meaning you don't want to be near me when I use this-" In his free hand, Stormy conjured up a green mote of light that shone like a miniature sun. Just being in its presence, Sully and Luca might feel... Uneasy. As if they were overstaying their welcome in a place that didn't want them. That would be the Consecration aura. As for how he planned on using it ... "I won't use it until you're clear, but go. I'll try to cover you both while you get out, but I need to get in there and help Lila with Vashti."

This was Stormy's plan: Protect the others as best he could while he wasn't right over their shoulders. This was going to be complicated, but there were enough moving parts that this could go from checkers to chess if they just played it right.

Interactions: Sloane @Atrophy

Kari's House

---

They were all out, and the phantom on the window snapped out of existence to rest. One Amara was outside, she was going to follow up on what Sloane said, but Lynn took off running. "She's got that covered, it seems." Looking around, this day had gone to shit. It was raining like a biblical flood and the red hellfire wasn't feeling like getting extinguished. There was that camp 8th Street had established, and the fleshy monster. The phantoms around Amara began to speak aloud.

"A forward camp and a dreadnought on the field, chosen marks run while they prattle," they both said in unison, with haunting feminine voices. "The move is yours, Soldier."

"Full rank, on me. You get to the car and grab the Beretta from the trunk. Form Seven, GO!"

One of the phantoms nodded silently, turned and blitzed off into the trees in a dead sprint. Three more appeared in a cloud of distorted air, where the rain bent around the fabric of reality. One minute there was empty space, the next, those phantoms were simply there. They observed their environments with the body language of predators.

"We're finding Lila and we're making sure those fuckers don't get what they want. Sloane-" She quickly turned around to the woman who cast some spell to distract the Flesh Monster. "Unless you plan on sticking around for the glory of the fight," she started, with obvious sarcasm at the notion, "This phantom will help get you out. Stick with it, and you and me can communicate back and forth whatever choice you make. Delegate to it, and you follow her orders like mine-" She pointed a finger at the phantom, who simply nodded.

"Phantoms!" All three of them snapped around to their living counterpart, like cadets saluting an admiral, "Forward!"

With that, Amara and her squad of three ghostly warriors took off into the rain, looking for Lila. All the while, one of them remained with Sloane. Its hands folded behind its back with something like diplomatic bearing. "Make your choice, miss Faris."