Tsunami: The Breaking Wave (CVU Semi-Open Event - IC)

Cascadia Subduction Zone, Underwater: Dawn.

An echo of the past whispered seductively to the future, and in the depths of the ocean a girl courted the depths of her mind, searching for that which had been lost, assembling the pieces into a window to another time: stained glass, lacking clarity and colored with all the impositions of the weight of shattered time. It was impossible to say what could be gleaned from the view through that window, but one thing was certain about the view that it formed: it centered on a far away place, tucked up into the mountains, abandoned and forgotten and lost and found and remembered.

She must return.

She called them to her, the ones whose shadow she had touched and tainted and suffused with her own. They came, for in the shadows she had offered them were the sparks of soul, chains of white lightning that bound the shadows to them, to subservience, and to her. She was the Shadow Emissary, and as she had brought them to power and glory, she had bound herself up in them, and when she found within herself the strength to insist on something important, they were subverted to her will, and must follow.

She must return.

The Lady had called the shadows first, and it was she who had courted them and summoned them and bound them, and when she had left them to her handmaiden, the strength of them had tested the bindings between lady and servant, fracturing the memory, perverting it into something that could be used, as the Emissary could be used. But there were whispers outside the shadows as well as within them, and with a few words a name was returned, and a memory: Saikea, the first savant, binder of the shadows. She had ended her story in the black water beneath the waves, but she had begun it in the mountains, in a place called Montana. Her servant needed to find the pieces of her story and reassemble them.

She must return.

She had tested the sands and the shores, walked inland as far as the ocean could still see her on the horizon, but any further than that and the black water that she had bound herself to in shadow and darkness and madness rose up and reclaimed her. She could not leave the ocean, could not step beyond its shores - and in the mountains, there were no shores. She must, then, bring the ocean with her. Below the waves she returned, in the blackness of the depths, and she spun out a shadow into its darkness, into its stillness, into its faults. Where the land below the waves pressed against itself, she pushed the strength of her shadow, and moved the land against itself. Stone ground against stone, shifting, shattering, breaking. The Shadow Emissary knew how to break. She had been broken, so many times before. The land cracked, and the waves rose up in objection, fleeing the broken fault towards the shore. Her shadow-bound, she sent with them, to cut the path ahead.

She must return.

Morning News: 7:08 a.m.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the seven o'clock news with a special meteorological report for you this morning. Geographic activity wast of the United States has taken a turn for the active, as the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate shifted eastward, causing ripples along the Cascadia subduction zone. Seismic activity measured this initial shift at a 6.1 on the Richter scale. That's enough to cause damage to buildings if it happens in a city epicenter. The Cascadia zone is underwater, so no major damage was caused to human structures at this time, although some of our viewers in Washington, Oregon, and northern California may have felt a bit of a rumble right around sunrise this morning."

The young Hispanic newscaster aimed a patented "reassuring smile" at the camera, pausing for a moment before returning to her notes. "Now, it may seem that the point of interest has passed, but it's important to remember with these events that there can be additional quakes as the plates continue to move, and one of the concerns with these events at sea is that they can create waves which move inward. These waves can stack up with one another, and potentially create an event known as a tsunami. Right now, it's too early to tell if such a geographical event will develop, but those of you living near the coast - particularly in Washington and northern Oregon, closest to the epicenter - are advised to keep yourselves informed on the situation..."

North Cove, Washington: 7:26 a.m.

Annette Arquor, Lady of the Moor and Bearer of the Shadows took her first step onto the land above the waves. Water swirled through her skirts, inky-black and full of whispered promises. The sand crunched beneath delicate footsteps, and the sun above was a globe of incomprehensible fire for one who had spent her entire life in the caverns of the Black Expanse, deep below the waves of the ocean. She was the flawless aristocrat, properly dressed and coiffed, the water of the sea that had swirled around the shadows she bound herself to unable to disturb her appearance. Her eyes were fixed on the east, toward the dawning sun on the horizon, and her shadow fell back into the water, tucking itself up into the choppy waves like a babe rocking in a cradle.

Her hand made a staying gesture at her side, and from the waves came the warped creatures she commanded. Human, once, twisted and tormented out of their minds, with nothing rational left about them - no sense of self, only the command of the shadows and the ones that bore them. Some still looked somewhat like the men and women they had once been, but were missing limbs or had far too many, or had limbs of other creatures entirely, even creatures that didn't exist. The influence of the ocean was strong in their forms, and tentacles of squid and octopi were common, or razor sharp claws of crabs, or long gelatinous tendrils that waved through the air as if it were a liquid. Others looked like nothing human at all, a blob that slouched along the sand behind gaping maws filled with teeth like needles and a slippery sinuous thing that slithered along the sand with hundreds of rheumy eyes in long blinking stripes down its side.

Annette did not pity them. They were those such as she, who had attempted the ritual to bind the shadows to themselves. She had succeeded, and claimed dominion. The others... they had failed, and proved themselves fit only to be dominated. One of the creatures placed a tentacled head beneath her palm, like some misbegotten hound. She stroked it, briefly, then gestured it to wait with the others.

From the waves, not too far away, another man stepped onto the beach. A docksman, a laborer, one she would have paid no attention in the Moor, but the Shadows had a way of equalizing things, and whoever he was, they had named him fit to be a bearer, fit to command. Across the beach, the township waited - homes and schools and people waking up, beginning to go about their day. The waves would take their bodies, when the black water came rushing in. But first, the channel must be set for the water, cleared of obstruction, cleared of those lives that would oppose it. They were not fit to become shadow-bearers, these land-dwellers. Nor, even, were they fit to become shadowborn, the twisted ones.

They would become corpses.

The lady nodded to the laborer, and with a gesture they sent their creatures bounding ahead, to lay waste to the land that lay in the way, and all those who would not become of the shadow. Annette called to the shadow within herself, summoned it, bound with it, and became.

Her shape twisted past the limitations of humanity, and she sent out shadow hands towards the nearest of the shadowborn, pulling them in to mesh with pale flesh as it slid out of place and into a wavering caul that half-absorbed the living forms it touched, bringing them in to bind with herself, one and the same, dominion without definition.

Down the shoreline, the Docksman unbound his shadow as well, his eyes sliding out of his head on the ends of long tentacles, other wide-eyed tentacles slithering out of the sockets behind them, an array of different lengths that took up position around his head in a disjunctive sphere. A laborer's hard-earned muscles rippled along his arms and shoulders, ripples turning to ruffles, then breaking open to spill green-tinted tendrils that dribbled noxious ooze, greenish slime like putrescent discharge dropping in globules onto the sand.

The sun cast his shadow, too, back into the waves, and the waves cast up their own shadow onto the shore - against the light, where shadow should not have lain, but it crept nonetheless along the sand, and the creatures huddled in its conjuration as they rushed forth to obey.

@fallen_savant:

"So your not going to be happy to hear this but Kaedriel is still out there" Rana remarked as the two watched the news Ashley not to far from either of them. "Specifically she's there" the teen remarked nodding towards the TV, she could feel a sort of pull in her gut. To go to the coast and then even deeper, the same could be said for Yusha the small fox that sat in front of the TV paw resting on the glass as if hoping to push a door open. "I don't know how you feel about her, but I can't sit by and let her attempt whatever she's doing. Any information would be appreciated if you have the time." The shadows had a way of pulling to her, at the end of Saikea's life that mysterious force had begun to escape the woman and look for someone or something else to bond to. The shadows went to the one who Rana wished to end, more so though came the call of the dark water. Blood wasn't shed in enough quantity to think Kaedriel was dead to Rana. She just went to the call of madness and now was being called back because of that madness.

She figured her dad might sit this one out some, there was a history there that could get in the way of work. Memories of the dead that weren't kind, she would of liked to stay and be there for him and leave it at that. The draw of the shadows was hard to resist though and someone had to confront the issue at hand. "Love you. Be good Ashley" she remarked rubbing a hand through the baby sister's hair before grabbing her things. Her sister reached out seamed to cry in protest, but babies cried and shadows could extend depending on the hour. There was a thought though, that perhaps the sign meant that same pull of shadows had bound to the child to. That only served as a motivator however, for if her sister really was a bearer of shadow then Rana should make sure only the loving bearers should have a chance to draw near.

A few minutes later the teen stood outside and a member of Unity and UNKD stood before her asking to explain the briefing being streamed to some of the soldiers as well near the cost. Intent to help the mech pilot try and contain things as best as possible. "They are tied to the black expanse, a place thats likely to turn most insane. Anyone who confronts them on the ground probably should be accustomed to psionic training. Rest sticking to the air." They kept this in mind, Lizzy putting in commands for the few forces that'd go with her to make use of Black Hawks and Apaches sticking mostly to an aireal advantage. "I would think you could help with the tide some" the polite teenager remarked with the mech pilot quick to comply.

"Of course with the Hammers of Dawn even the lowest setting would evaporate water." It wouldn't be much it could help resist the volume as they waited for more capable hands. Though that also likely wouldn't take long as the nerd tapped into communications. Specifically to @orange_water and @the_custodian "not sure if available Landon or Dia, but odds are your two of the best at help pushing back an unnaturally spawned natural disaster." With that Sisters Eye was booted up to help drop the two girls and Mjolnir into the field. The pilot climbing into her mech and working once again to handle things as she could. The actual opposition on the coastline was something for Rana to confront, and from the draw of the shadows, which were bound to her much like some here she knew where to go.

Drassil was drawn the scabbard tossed and dropped into the depths of hell. She didn't feel much need for the scabbard at the time, not planning to but the blade away until a deal was settled. The heterochromia hero had set foot on the beach behind the two who seemed in command in an instant. The cry behind her from the rift she walked through a fusion of agonized screams and delighted laughter.

Her blade dips into the water, no salt daring to touch it as the blade meant to briefly cut through dimensions seemed to swallow what waves lashed against it. Probably wasn't to likely one could fight a tsunami with a sword but one never knew until they tried the rather optimistic hellion figured. "Excuse me, but flooding everything is kind of a problem. Please go on back and send Kaedriel my way." The woman before her twisted and contorting didn't exactly look like someone who would consider such a request Rana had to try though. Something in her didn't want to hurt the other shadow bearers, she felt to similar to them. She couldn't place a finger on it, but whatever had carried over to Rana and her fox was making her reluctant to fight the others. That said Kaedriel wasn't safe that much she knew, having endangered Ashley, and that child's mom. Having forced that woman to have to be slain by Nathan's hands. Jealousy led to a moment of pain that Rana wasn't comfortable with forgiving. "You get this one warning."

Her eyes one as blue as the sea one red like blood seemed to flicker. When the sinful hero thought of that woman who'd hurt Rana's father she felt wrath. Rage came to mind, her hands tightened a desire to rip people apart with bare hands if needed filled her. If they would not turn away then she would look to Annette lingering not to far above and through her hellish ability look to obtain her blood. To direct it throughout the body all to find comfort in the heart, until the organ simply popped bursting with internal bleeding. She'd prefer it be quick if possible something about even considering hurting the fellow holder of shadows bothered her. Longer this all went on the better chance that irreparable damage to countless homes and lives might be done. She'd much rather be a killer then watch the world drown because of the fractured mind of a confused woman beneath the sea.

@iridum: @fallen_savant:

A husband and his wife leisurely flew atop the city enjoying their flight. A few minutes ago, they were in bed watching news. Catastrophe had struck and it was up to the both of them to stop people from dying. But why were members of the Order of the Holy Light interested in saving people? Well, it wasn't that they had any, but simply they wanted to enter the scene of heroics, pretend to be heroes so that one day they may find it easier to take over the world. Now if not to help people, then perhaps to meet the enemies of the so called heroes was in order.

That aside, it was indeed a beautiful day to be flying. While the breeze did not bother either of them, it was still a pleasant experience, to watch the people huddle their way up and down streets with the news up catastrophe coming their way. The both of them found commotion of course, near the coastline where ... grotesque things was fighting a girl in red.

"Well isn't that interesting. Let's go down there and have a look, shall we?" Emilia turned, zooming towards them at incredible speeds, speeds that would otherwise have torn through the air itself, causing irreparable damage to the surrounding, but the energy they used via their rings were special. It minimized the effect their power had on the environment when they sped up, a safety feature so to say, for use when the Ring Wielders had to cross Galaxies at immeasurable speeds. Such measures came in handy here.

Applying just a bit of willpower, Emilia created a fist of green energy and launched it towards the woman while Rodrigo came in behind with guns manifested of green energy, and unloading on the other guy. Both of them were using very little energy, in fact nowhere close to breaking a building. A momentary bluff.

@iridum

Rana was leaving. A whispered word and a hand on the head, and she was going away. Of course, Rana left often, to go do whatever it was that she did when she was gone, but this one was different. She wasn't leaving alone, this time, she was leaving with the pull of a shadow that wrapped itself quietly around her, silently waiting in the pauses between the screams and lies and broken promises of hell.

It was different this time, and when Rana passed her tiny sister back to her father, Ashley cried in protest, fussing in his arms as Rana collected her things. "No, sweetie," he told her, distractingly, "You gotta stay with me. You can't fight monsters, you're too small! Yes you are. The monsters are gonna eat the baby! Um, num, num, she's so tasty... Rana, you stay safe, all right? Ask for help if you need it. I trust you." Nathan shifted Ashley a little bit, giving Rana a hug. "Bye. I love you. Stay safe."

Ashley watched her sister go, fussing again, unsettled. The light from the hallway cast the shadow of a tiny outstretched hand through the doorway, out into the night.

@fallen_savant:

Solar Hawk landed on the beach not far from @iridum and unhooked her mace from her belt as she observed the shadow creatures begin to emerge from the dark waters. Solar Hawk had been called here by her ring, it had quietly insisted that her presence was needed. As she observed the scene stretching out before her she could see why.

"Oh good." She said with extreme sarcasm. She gripped her mace and spun it in her hand. Fifty thousand volts of electricity arched and snapped over the Nth Metal as she charged it with her own inner power. It felt good to be back in the field, back where she belonged and where the world made sense. Out here no matter what was going on, she understood it all. At home...at home there was an boarded up empty room she couldn't explain.

The Hawk Lord and only living White Sentinel smiled for the first time in weeks. It wasn't a sarcastic smile, it was a real one, the smile of a woman who finally felt like everything was right with the world again. Standing before an invading shadow army of insanity, everything felt perfectly sane. She was Solar Hawk, first among Hawk Lords, right hand of Pharaohs, savior of Amun-Ra. She stood between the shadows and those they would hurt and that was her purpose.

So renewed and restored, Solar Hawk rushed for the male shadow, if he could be called male anymore. Her approach was simple and straight forward, but that was the point. She aimed to weave between the tentacles and deliver a mace upper cut with enough strength to crumple a car, shatter bone or obliterate organs. Aiding the strength was fifty thousand volts of electricity charging through the mace and if there were magic to be found, the Nth Metal itself would be its enemy.

Simple though her assault appeared, it was not without its own layers of complexity. A straight forward charge often illicit-ed the most immediate attempts at self defense or deflection and the reaction of someone being charged by a mace wielder could tell Solar Hawk a great deal about her opponent, enough to perhaps give her the upper hand in the moves that would follow. It was also sometimes a major distraction, opponents could be lured into focusing on her, the obvious and immediate problem, while not focusing on those that might actually pose a greater risk to them.

@fallen_savant@iridum

The wall fell away and The Custodian stepped into the vault just as Iridum spoke through their mutual com system. She cocked her head and nodded a little to herself. "Yep, I'll be there in a minute, taking care of something." If I were a body, where would I be?

She moved through row upon row of carefully stacked and labeled boxes, her eyes scanning over the labels quickly as she walked. After what felt like an eternity she finally found what she was looking for. The Custodian paused for a moment, placed her hands on the box and took a breath.

After a moment to collect herself she pulled the box off of the shelf and opened the lid. Sure enough...there it was, a simple container with no words on it, a box inside of a box. With her hand shaking she reached inside and picked up the second box, this one metal and lifted it up. It felt heavy. A wave of anger so strong it made her tremble crashed over The Custodian like a tsunami over the west coast. Her grip on the metal box tightened and she lifted it out of its cardboard prison. Once it was free she tossed the cardboard container across the room. Her vision swam, her breaths shortened as rage threatened to completely over take her actions. To this point she had given the corporation the benefit of the doubt.

The walls trembled, dust fell from hanging ceiling lights as they swayed back and forth and a crack wormed its way suddenly up one of the walls as her other hand tightened into a fist. It was in that moment that a guard going about her nightly shift walked into the room. The woman's eyes widened and she leveled a gun at The Custodian with trembling hands. She'd never encountered a meta before.

The Custodian turned her head to look at her and immediately felt a sense of restraint clamp down over her anger. She reached into a pocket on her trench coat and tossed a sealed canister containing a document to the guard's feet. "Here's my warrant." She said simply. She turned away and walked out the way she had come with the metal box in one hand. The guard didn't move until she was gone and breathed a sigh of relief.

--------------------------------------------

The Custodian arrived on the beach moments later, her feet slammed into the sand as she landed in a crouch and slowly rose to her feet. Particles of sand floated up around her in a cloud, her emotional state still residing deep in the anger spectrum. She'd placed the box somewhere she knew it would be safe, but now she had people to protect.

"Bring it." She put words to her gesture and set her stance before the turbulent sea.

@fallen_savant: @the_custodian: @solarhawk: @iridum: "Maoli? But I thought you were dead?"

"Come on now Landon don't be joking like that you know the story." I looked at her beautiful face as her voice mysteriously echoed around us was only darkness and emptiness but I didn't care she was here and right in front of me holding my hand," Now come on Landon try to keep up." Suddenly she let go and ran off into the darkness and I ran after her and was unable to catch up.

"Wait Maoli... Wait for me," I continued to run after her but there was no way I could keep up until I could see a dark shadowy figure in the distance and as I got closer seeing Maoli's now decapitated body and lifeless body on the ground. The figure only stares at me for a moment before speaking to me in a distorted and monstrous voice," You have failed her... and everyone else." Suddenly more bodies appeared around me and the figure with walking being heard in the distance.

The first body I see is that of a blonde woman holding a pistol in her hand having been torn to shreds by some monster,"Ryth..." I see the body of the young plant girl beaten and bloody hit by an obviously powerful force," Kaede..." The next body belongs to an older man with a baby crying nearby," Nathan..." The next is a young woman with her katana being severely beaten, frozen and burned all over her body," Rana..." The next only a bodysuit can be seen but I'd recognize it anywhere but the head is gone," Lizzy..." Numerous other bodies were seen around me and all had died painfully each time with me saying their name with regret until finally there was no more," Why?"

Suddenly the walking stopped as Vandal, Justice now known as Pain, Ruby and the shadowy figure stood in front of me all speaking at once," Because of you... is there any other reason we need. Just imagine how much better off they would have been without your interference but it's time to finish this Landon." Suddenly, each attacking and killing me in their own way Vandal with fire, Ruby with blood, Pain with a forceful punch and the figure with a decapitation.

I awoke with a start on a park bench in another city and the state of Washington that's about all knew with a bottle in my hand and a headache," I'm going to need more alcohol," as my eye turned blue and used my power to drink the last drops of alcohol but something stopped me the water... the ocean nearby was an army on the march," God damn it can't a guy drink in peace?" As I turn my head to see Aleenah with my equipment and dumping it on the ground she was mad about something," I see it what do we got?"

Damn Landon being drunk all of the damn time now I wonder just how much pain he's feeling right now," According to our friend an army coming from the ocean... and no it's not Atlantis it doesn't exist." That's right keep that lie going as he gave a slight nod and put on the armor drunkenly getting off the bench before running towards the coastline. He could sober himself up anytime he wanted to and that's when he would get serious for the first time in a while.

As I reached the coastline and approaching my fighting comrades my eye turned blue as I saw everything in the water and it was absolutely horrifying," The real battle is in the ocean." As I threw my two daggers one at the monster lady and the other into the ocean where I could manipulate it to fight on my behalf in the water," So real quick anyone knows what we're dealing with today?"

North Cove, Washington

News traveled fast in the meta community, and there always seemed to be someone watching. Whether it was Unity with their myriad members and linked information systems, or Gaige with her drones, or merely astute heroes who kept an eye on the regular news networks, it wasn't that long after the strange things began creeping up the beach that members of the meta community were taking note of what happened - and when they decided to react, they could move very quickly.

The beach which had just recently been home only to the wind and the water and the strange shadowbound forms was soon tainted with the presence of defenders, those who sought to strike against the servants of the Lady, to cast them back into the depths or down into death. A girl dared to dip her blade in the untainted ocean, and the sea rejected the intrusion, refusing to touch the blade, leaving it dry once retreated and the ocean free to flow back to the way it was.

The peasant child dared address the Lady Annette, drawing her idle attention. Annette's eyes shifted towards the girl, without the usual distinction of turning her head - rather, the eyes and the flesh around them seemed to slide sideways, like melted candlewax, molding itself in a new direction. "I don't know any 'Kaedriel,'" she deigned an answer. "Go away, little child. I will preach to you another day." Her arm seemed to dislocate itself, the appendage near disappearing into a curtain of flesh, then appearing then at an extension, close to the girl, outstretched, reaching for her as if to cup her cheek. "Don't fight it, little child. It Becomes you."

She might have said more, but she was disrupted by the appearance of a very rude woman who tried to punch her with a greenish fist that appeared before her in the air and traveled across the gap between them. Annette raised the hand of one of the shadow-born that she had half-absorbed, catching the strike in an open palm that crackled with the sound of tiny bones breaking. The thing that had been shadowborn moaned softly, a half-forgotten response to a half-forgotten stimulus. Annette paid the mindless thing no heed, and the woman who had interrupted little more, though one of her eyes did slide back forward, contemplating this new arrival. The hand that had been broken distended, broken bones sliding apart from each other, enveloping the greenish light like a snake swallowing a wild pig, pulling it inward with a flesh-sucking noise like a gaping chest wound. The light disappeared, and Annette raised another hand, one of her own, in a vague gesture.

As everyone had fixated on the two individuals who seemed to be the generals of the invading army, no one had bothered to pay attention to the soldiers, and the shadowborn were unchecked. Some of them tore past the lines, into the town, loping through the streets on distended limbs or slithering in through cracks in windows, and in the town, the screams started to echo. A few of them turned back, though, a lurching shambler extending twin pseudopods towards Emilia's unguarded back in an attempt to wrap around her while her attention was on the shadowbearers, and another with spiny protrusions poking through his body at arms and legs and cheeks and genitals, and along his back like a twisted mockery of a hedgehog rushed towards her husband, some of the spines launching from his flesh towards Rodrigo, knife-sharp and wide arrayed, to pin or lance or skewer.

The many-eyed general reacted to the gun attack as if he had seen it coming, simply stepping out of the way of much of the attack, and catching the rest with a shadow wrapped around himself in a shield, the light bullets impacting the shadow and casting more light into it, which seemed, of all things, to make it stronger. His subordinates occupying the green-clad arrivals, he was able to divert his attention to the winged woman who crashed into the event with a complete lack of subtlety and tact.

The Docksman allowed himself a small smile. Good. He enjoyed a direct fight. The shield of shadow caught the mace, although he did stagger back under the impact as if he'd caught some of the force even though the weapon had not actually touched him. His smile turned to a grin as the electricity coursed through the shadow, strengthening it again, hardening the shield. It wasn't magic. None of it was magic. The mace could have been made of steel or iron or even stone for all the difference the Nth metal in it made. It was a good weapon, but not good enough. Much like the woman before him. He waved a hand, and the shadow cast the mace aside, countering its force and then suddenly dissipating, leaving her nothing to lean on. A couple of the putrescent tendrils reached to wrap around the woman, coming from above, the ooze dripping down from them. If it landed on her, she'd have other things to contend with - sickness, disease, decay. A hint of miasma oozed from his pores, creating a cloud that could sicken any creature that passed through it. The Docksman bore the shadows... and the plague.

The ocean bled inky dark under the blades and challenges that assailed it. That... or it was something else. The shadow on the shore seemed to deepen, and draw itself up in wavering tendrils, away from light, away from gravity. For The Custodian, Gaige, and Orange Water, it was a phenomenon that was remarkably... familiar. Orange Water's blade cut through the water, but the currents that were usually under his control seemed resistant, like he was trying to guide the knife through some sort of sludge and not just through water. His other dagger had impacted in a wayward fold of skin of his pre-assumed 'monster lady,' the fold of which had simply dropped off, knife still embedded, and lay quivering like gelatin on the sand of the beach, noticed and quickly forgotten. She had other things to contend with.

And as for the ocean...

Cascadia Subduction Zone, Underwater

Beneath the waves, the shadows swirled. The faultline had crackled, but it had not been enough. The Savant courted the shadows, pulled them to her, drove them down, seeking further faults, seeking a place to drive in a wedge. The plates of the earth rested beneath the waves, solid and unshifting. She sought to make them like the waves above, shifting and roiling and awkwardly crashing in to one another. She sought to make them bow and bend and break. The North American plate must shatter, must be broken into fragments that floated away on a river of magma, taken out of her way. She had to get closer inland, and for that, the way must be paved.

This time when she drove the shadows down, it was with less experimentation and more confidence, striking at the weak point she had created earlier, hammering the epicenter with the force of the shadow-made-solid, and the ocean floor shifted in angry upheaval.

At the shore, where the defenders stood, the earth shook, dropping and moving with jarring motion. Even the shadow creatures were not unaffected, many scrambling for purchase or losing it entirely, and the shadow that had fallen across the sands grabbed at them, holding them in place while the effects of the quake raged, then letting them down to continue what they were striving towards: the destruction of the city, the defenders, and the land itself.

The ocean rose in protest, waves lashing at the beach, cresting sea foam spilling in white bubbles that sunk into the shifting sands, water whipped to fury and striking out at friend and foe alike, drenching any who didn't protect themselves from its wrath. The shadowborn, though, perhaps because they'd been a part of the land beneath the waves, seemed just as at home in the water as on the land, some of them maybe more so, although it was clear that their goal was not to return to the ocean, but rather to return the ocean itself to wherever it chose to become.

Special News Alert: 8:13 a.m.

"Good morning, we interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this special alert. A second earthquake has been detected off the coast of Washington. As you'll remember from our earlier report, these things often come in chains. This second quake was much stronger than the first, registering at a 7.6 on the Richter Scale, and at this point our weather helicoptors are reporting that we do, indeed, have Tsunami formation conditions. These waves are gathering off the coast of Washington, and are expected to make landfall somewhere in the southern half of the state's coast by 9:30 this morning. Those of you in the effected area are strongly encouraged to evacuate inland. I repeat, at this point those of you in the coastal areas need to leave your homes and businesses and move to safer locations inland. Be advised also that there are scattered reports of meta-activity in the area, so proceed with caution. This alert will repeat and update as often as we are able. For now, again, if you are in the affected area displayed on your screen, please evacuate."

Tsunami

On the horizon, the waves gathered, ocean and salt, infused with the anger of the earth and also with the depth of the shadows, the waves rising again and again, and each time they rose, darkening, picking up taints of inky blackness that diffused through them, darkening the tidal wave as a whole as it picked up mass and speed and began its travel toward the land, seeking to drown the coast, to break the town and the land beneath its mass, to drive down and create another rift in the earth.

One rift, and then another. Each break of the shore would draw the ocean in a little closer, a little further inland. The Savant was patient - she had spent time slowly building, creating an organism that acted as one when she desired, there for her command. For months she had been inert, seeking without knowing what she sought, searching for something to remember. It had come to her, in time, and now all the land and all the sky would not stop her sea from going where she willed it.

She must return.

@fallen_savant:

The Custodian stood in silence. She closed her eyes as the world shook and floated a few centimeters above the ground to retain her stability. Anger filled her veins more than blood, rage drove her as much as the desire to protect. Just now she had no desire to keep the gloves on. She needed to take out her anger on someone and the world had presented her with a target. The Graviton Princess wanted to help the town but there were greater stakes at play, the tsunami would do innumerably more damage than one town and there were others here who could hopefully deal with the shadows.

Someone get here quick to contain this stupid army.

Tsunamis had many forms, some were mighty walls of water, others were surges of waves that grew stronger and larger. These were the more common but the least commonly depicted. Here there was a wall of water and in both cases the wave did almost as much damage simply traveling (usually at high speeds) as it did breaking. It wouldn't be enough to stop the water from crashing down it would have to be stopped entirely. The first action she could take was the easiest, it was also the slowest and the one she started first. With an artful manipulation of gravity along the entire length of the wave she worked at the gravitons influencing and influenced by the wave to actually draw energy away from it and back out into the ocean. The effect, if nothing stopped it, would be to shave speed off of the wave so that if it did hit, it would do so with less energy. Her goal was to shave roughly twenty miles per hour off the speed of the wave.

Her second action was more brute force than art. She created an invisible wall of gravity, a carefully placed and maintained gravity well who's only function was to act as a sand pit for the invading wave. When the wave struck it would hopefully bleed off so much energy pushing through the gravity well that it would lose even more speed and look as if it were moving in slow motion...a careful adjustment of gravity's influence of time. This tactic worked on generated time dilation more than anything else and was placed almost a mile out from the shore line where the massive influence of a gravity well would do more harm to random bits of water than to any person, land or building.

The third and final approach The Custodian took was the slowest of all. Even as she balanced a condensed and contained gravity well, she manipulated the ground itself, just at the point where the tsunami would reach the shore. Here she was carefully, slowly, pushing the ground down, forming a long trench more than two miles wide and two hundred feet deep. The process of forming this trench and maintaining her other attacks meant focusing entirely on what she was doing, it meant she couldn't do anything else or she'd have to drop the third approach. If she attempted brute force it would cause more harm than good and form another earthquake, the process had to be slow, forcing the earth down one foot at a time, one piece of land at a time, anything else would be catastrophic.

If she was able to fully form the trench when the wave arrived, the last mile of its journey would rob it of wave height, reducing the surge of water inland by what she hoped would be a significant factor. Not one of these approaches would stop it entirely, all three together might dramatically reduce the damage done but The Custodian knew she lacked the power to do it all alone...or more accurately, she couldn't do it all alone without causing dramatically more damage than the wave ever could. Just because you could pull a planet out of orbit or form a black hole didn't mean that raw power could be used in every situation. If she used her full power here, she'd kill nearly everyone on the coast and threaten the stability of the planet...so she was limited, but she put everything she knew into those limits and tried to give her side as many advantages as she could. Maybe if I can weaken the wave enough then I can destroy it when it gets here.

@fallen_savant:

They vanished in a blur

One by one people began disappearing from the coastal cities. They weren't killed, there wasn't even a noise or flash of light. Simply put to anyone viewing, people just began vanishing. Not one at a time but large groups, disappearing in the blink of an eye. Whether they were watching the news, packing bags or stuck in traffic as they tried to leave the cities.

However, this was only what it would look like to the casual viewer, in truth, it wasn't a something causing people to vanish, but a someone relocating them to the other side of the state.

Some might have expected a speedster to be the first on the scene, but it had been a long night for the up and coming hip-hop star. He'd only been woken up after his phone was set alight by various people attempting to alert him to the crisis. So after finally pulling himself out of bed he made his way to Washington and was now in the process of evacuating the entire coast front. While a seemingly monumental task, it helped when you moved close the speed of light.

He knew there was no chance he would save everyone, not due to time contract, but because he couldn't search the entirety of a city he'd never been to before. Just because he had speed didn't mean he had super-memory. He couldn't accurately remember what locations he'd searched yet or not, so he was going to have to settle for clearing the streets and houses. If he could save the majority of the people from both the shadows and the water, he'd consider it a job well done.

So electrons flowed through the buildings and streets picking up people as they did. He didn't much expect anyone to be moving fast enough to notice or catch him, but then again, who knew. However, if he wasn't interrupted then he'd clear out as many people as he could before turning his speed against the shadows.

@emilia_cruz: @solarhawk: @orange_water: @fallen_savant: @the_custodian: @zoltage:

Lizzy and her pink mech floated above in the air and as electrical currents began to populate the city surges of energy where people had once been the pilot knew a speedster was assisting in clearing the city. Drones dispatched, by now recognizable to the masses. Nineteen would begin passing through streets looking to fire a ST round to transport civilian's into slipspace with the other drone leaving them able to exit miles upon miles out from the initial suspected impact zone. Not everyone was complacent, liked the mechanized hero most would go with it or go into the streets though. And the streets were easier for the speedster to get to them. As Sisters Eye dropped the KO unit that gave civilians an exit point it also distributed two RTS drones, these being the ones the pilot would use to inform authorities and hospitals of the location of the civilians to try and get them attention as soon as possible. Perhaps the speedster couldn't do it alone or her alone together though made it much more manageable. Though with any luck the wave wouldn't even come.

Still in the skies she did her best to coordinate with officers and any coming military to try and craft blockades and coordinate a defensive strategy. They wouldn't let time go to far by however and risk countless lives, tapped into the systems Lizzy used under her authorization the helicopters were given an ST ammunition source to match Lizzy's. Hundreds of rounds began to rain down augmented with the ability to on contact instead of rend flesh drop an opponent into a pocket space. One round enough to contain most the ammunition rained down looking to stop as many of the sea based people as possible. They needed to hit the source however and that was where Iridum came in the pilot figured.

"We must know her by different names, but I'm confident you do know her. You shouldn't lie" What had happened to that woman that she didn't have a name any more? That she could direct these people and be in such a position that this kind of event could come to pass? It was almost sad, it didn't even seem like something of Saikea. Rana wouldn't think that woman of labs and secrets would launch an assault like this. But then again her dad never talked really about her, she hadn't gotten to know her. She questioned a little if vengeance was even justified anymore, was the woman she longed to kill already dead? In any case the heterocrhomia hero needed to focus on the task at hand. Like the hand that dared to caress the teenager's cheek. "As for the other part I'm working on it."

Becoming who she wanted was a task the teenager struggled with some. So much to try and get a hold of that she wanted to be. All of hell trying to convince her it was wrong and improbable. How could she someone who'd led to the death of her parents be a daughter? How could someone as messed up in the head be a big sister worth a damn? How could someone be a girlfriend a boy deserved when the world tried to drown her in a fear of intimacy and shroud her in doubts? She stopped herself had to focus. "Landon hey, Lizzy's busy. Remember that one time you her the rest of the teen team and Elite fought a spider thing? It's like that but with people, and they found an army to help them. Excuse me" there was more to go on about but the sixteen year old couldn't get stuck in a discussion.

Wrath, the circle that brought with it the ability to manipulate blood and a strength where the teen might be able to pull an arm out of socket. The blessings of hell as they were came through her eye and then flowed through her body, she didn't like it, this woman seeming to ride on a collage of other bodies might have been someone decent once. Was better to assault her then let Washington despair so it came. Rana looked to manipulate the blood in the woman's body guide it all to the heart. Force the body to be unable to move and heart to bloat until it gave way. Make it as quick as she could, a follow up coming not to long after as the hell seer would leap forward strength in her legs carrying her spring and lunge with more power behind it then perhaps should be possible.

She'd look to land upon the same terror of a ride, o swing her blade in a trajectory that might connect edge to throat. Her sword cast from the Ygdrassil seemed to leave a shimmering trail briefly through the air it passed. Parting space as if something meant to connect universes had been turned into a weapon. To create an opening between such, for this reason she'd met little resistance and with any luck wouldn't now. Killing wasn't pretty or nice, but the distorted voices in her head had made her far more willing to accept such action.

The sudden change in momentum would have knocked most over entirely but Solar Hawk was not new to mace warfare or hand to hand fighting and had long learned to counter balance with her wings when necessary. A quick and powerful adjustment with her wings righted her course enough to allow her to plant her feet and regain her balance before anything catastrophic could occur. She maintained a titanic grip on her mace and swiftly retreated from the tendrils attempting to wrap around her form.

Escaping the tendrils and escaping their pestilence was two different tasks and achieving both proved impossible. Her armor absorbed some of it but other drops made contact with her skin. Combined with the sickening miasma and Solar Hawk was forced to drop to one knee to stabilize herself for a moment. Sickness and death tried to spread through her body, her skin darkened, cracks appeared around her eye sockets and her wings drooped as if they were too heavy for her to hold up anymore.

She coughed into her free hand and then wiped the contents off on the dirt. Her eyes narrowed, her visage hardened and slowly, carefully, she forced herself back onto her feet. Her dark grey skin began to reverse its discoloration. Her wings slowly straightened up again and gradually the symptoms of the sickness washed away from her body as if they had never been. Hawk Lords carried divine blood, sickness and disease could only momentarily cling to their form before it was rejected by the holy blood that pumped through their veins, the same holy blood that allowed to recover from devastating wounds in time.

A face once damaged by disease and decay turned into a wicked smile. "Let's dance." She spit into the dirt, gold blood tainted with black disease splatting onto the ground as her body finished rejecting the damage. It didn't matter to her that her foe was potentially out of her reach to defeat, he needed defeating and she was the one in his way.

I can't wait to wipe that grin off your...face? Since the mace had a physical impact even if it didn't do physical damage, Solar Hawk dropped the obviously unhelpful electrical charge but kept the mace form of her weapon. Having tested the waters, so to speak, Solar Hawk didn't simply charge back in. Instead she circled slowly to the left, her eyes locked on her opponent but her sense of hearing more than aware of her surroundings. She tilted her head slightly, considering the tendrils and greater reach her opponent maintained. The thing about reach was that getting inside of it often provided an advantage and tendrils, though more flexible than arms, still had to be able to wrap around someone or coil in like a whip. If she were at mace range, wrapping around would be extremely difficult.

Shrugging to herself, Solar Hawk darted in again and attempted a series of rapid fire attacks. Her intent was not on damage, for she felt had no way of knowing if she could hurt it...but she had knocked it back before. She would drive it backwards if she could, every one of her swings at full strength. If she could get through the shield so much the better. She worked to maintain situational awareness, her hawk hearing focused on the movement sounds of tendrils since many of them extended beyond her peripheral vision.

@fallen_savant: @iridum: @_gaige_: @emilia_cruz: @solarhawk: @the_custodian: I saw and felt the actions being taken whispering a quick," damn it," as my dagger seemingly had no effect on the shadow monster calling itself a Lady and my other dagger having difficulty even when I was controlling the water so what did this all mean then, Mind? Oh your finally allowing me to speak again while you don't ruin our life... Shut up we don't have time for this conversation so tell me what are we thinking about today... Well besides that encounter at your club earlier this week I'd say two things first off the Lady didn't burst into white flames why??? Well, considering what happened last time it had no real physical presence it was there but it wasn't so maybe the body is providing a protective shell for the entities... That's as good a guess as anything Landon now as to the water what do you think what do you feel through the sludge... The shadow entities inhabit the water then so there's likely a big fish out there controlling it all but why if this isn't a simple invasion then what isit??? Suddenly the ground began to shake violently with me barely able to keep my balance I felt the massive fissure release and move creating the force for only one thing..." Oh my god a tsunami?!!?!" I felt the water moving towards us and yet with an attempt to stop it nothing happened and realized just how bad this was about to become," I can't stop it the shadows are assisting the tsunami I have to get into the water!!!" Looking around quickly at those fighting and attempting to stop it I realized that it couldn't be stopped unless the army was stopped first and then the shadows would have to be dispelled so that I could stop it.

So I needed some kind of masterplan," Aleenah gets back into the town and starts helping people evacuate the city. I'm giving you permission to do what you see is fit use those hypnotic eyes if you think it will help I don't care just get them out of here." What's next as I look around and see Rana begin her attack on the 'lady' that's good she should stay here and make sure nothing else happens as I rush forward for a moment retrieving my dagger from the goo and look around to see what the others were doing. A hawk woman fighting another general, the Custodian using her powers over gravity and such to try to lessen the damage and mass of the tsunami while the ring wearers engaged up and down the shore against our shadow infused opponents." Okay then let's get into the water..." as I rushed forward with my sword and dagger in my hands swinging at the encroaching shadows until reaching the shoreline and attempting to cut through the shadow sludge in the water. But if this didn't work I would try my next best option testing the shadows against and the monsters inside by boiling the water and if I was unsuccessful I would attempt to freeze them instead," GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OCEAN!!!!" They better die from the white flame or they better die from boiling water or else I'm all out of ideas.

Aleenah returned back into the town and began her mission removing the jewel hiding her true form and power if she encountered the shadow monsters she would crush them with her tail and if she encountered civilians then she would try and get them to leave immediately through evacuation leaving their items behind.

Aided by the encouragement of the newscasters and the efforts of the heroes, the residents of the town of North Cove began to disappear, one by one. Some of them resisted, as unwilling to trust the heroes who came to "save" them as they were to trust the invading army, but most were willing to allow themselves to be carried off to relative safety, leaving the town a ghostly place, emptier than it should have been, yet still filled with cacophony as people tried to get out. It was a reasonably sizeable town, and efforts to rescue its people couldn't solve the problem of its evacuation in an instant.

The people started moving out into the streets, which made them easier for their saviors to retrieve, but also made them easier prey for the army that was coming after them, and the streets were soon filling not only with people who sought escape, but with the bodies of those who had not been quick enough to find it. Without direct opposition, the shadowborn tore through people, not really caring if they missed some, seeking only to continue to remove those who stood in their way.

After a few moments, the bullets started to rain down in the streets. People screamed at the new 'attack' from the air force that they'd thought was meant to help, but as the situation cleared it became apparent that the bullets weren't lethal; they were there to provide a service. They landed wherever they would, without much determination, pulling friends into slipspace and safety. A few of the shadowborn were pulled in as well, off to new grounds where they would go insane without direction and wreak whatever havoc they could before they were put down for good.

On the beach, the shadow on the shore rose up, turning itself into a solid umbrella over its chosen ones, making it evident that the same hailstorm that was running through the city was going to have no effect here. It shifted its mass - if a thing created of shadow could be determined to have mass - pushing its umbrella out towards the town, to begin to cover the city and stop the slipspace bullets from doing their jobs.

Where the bullets impacted the shadow, they created little pockets - larger at first, then smaller and smaller as the shadow seemed to learn to contend with the attack, until the holes were hardly bigger than the bullets that created them. The space was quickly filled, and whatever it was that had been carted off into slipspace was gone before it arrived, lost in not being part of the whole.

Thusly protected, Annette was able to focus her attention on the child before her, who obviously had learned very little of manners. "It is never a lie not to know something, child," she murmured, as her hand brushed the girl's cheek. Flesh shifted, hers against Rana's, sealing and binding, becoming one thing. It drew Rana closer, pulling at the edges of her consciousness, endeavoring to subsume her mind, bring it under Annette's control, bring her body into the folds - to surround, to hold, to enjoin. "Shh," she murmured, quieting, her tone gentle and soothing, a balm to the mind that struggled under the onslaught of her will like a distant butterfly. "You speak of the Savant," she offered, because an offering was a kindness. "The Emissary, she calls herself. If she has any other name, she has never shared it. Now, hush, little one. There's no need to fight." She smiled, sweetly complimentary, "You're becoming."

Rana, though, wasn't just listening to Annette. She was listening to her own voices, the voices of hell, and fury, and Wrath. Within the creature that was many things including Annette, blood surged on its own tide, rushing inward, towards the heart, towards the source of life, aiming to crush and overwhelm and destroy. Annette started back, her caress leaving Rana's cheek, though her flesh stuck to it, drooping strings binding them, stretching as she pulled farther away. Annette pulled at the shadows within herself, using them to rush, to counter the tide. The salt water and shadows held dominion over her veins, not the whims of some upstart girl. She swirled them through her body, bringing cleansing the taint and bringing herself back to her fully human form, the shadowborn she had joined with staggering and collapsing as she pushed the brunt of the attack off into their bodies as she ripped them from herself, leaving them between her and the girl so that the sword strike could not reach the part of her that remained, cool and collected.

Beside her, the Docksman moved ahead of Solar Hawk. His shield of shadow had dropped when the umbrellas had gone up overhead, tied in to the thing's need to protect them from above, so when she came at him again, he sidestepped. His eyes saw in every direction. In every dimension. In time, as well - little hints, forward and backward. Enough that he could move. The mace swung towards him, and struck one of the eye-studded tentacles, which ripped free of his body and coiled itself around the mace, dripping its foul substances slick down the hilt towards the hand of the wielder. He let her take another one with her next strike, closer to the hands this time. She might not have died from his poison, but it had certainly made her suffer. Sometimes, suffering was just as good as death. Sometimes, it was better.

Orange Water seemed like he was ready to use some of his experience fighting the shadows and retrieved his knife, driving sword and dagger this time not into the questionably-human bearers, but into the shadow itself. White fire burned parts of it away where his blades struck, both on the shore and in the ocean. The attack was certainly effective on the small scale, and the inky blackness of the water seemed to recede somewhat, surging forward as if the shadow was collecting itself onto the shore, focusing its effects on maintaining the shields over the army. It wasn't dead, though - certainly not yet, and he had gathered his power and driven it into the ocean, steam rising up in a cloud stretching out from the shore as the oceans boiled, dead fish floating up to the surface, releasing the scent of a somewhat bizarre chowder into the salty air.

The small corpses of dead fish were joined as well by other corpses that might have once been human, things that had been lurking underwater beneath the inky darkness, waiting to catch anyone who dared step into the sea. Shadowborn, like the ones attacking Emilia and her husband Rodrigo, and the ones that had gone tearing into the town. A brackish bubble rose to the top as the seas stopped boiling, then popped into inky water and shadow and a single, agonized scream.

"Noooooooooooooooooooo! You killed my BABY!"

She crouched on the rocks, a girl... or half of one, anyway, with no legs but rather thick tentacles, like a squid's. She cradled a dead cuttlefish in her arm like a child with a teddy bear, and fixed her glare on Orange Water, unforgiving and wretched and filled with loathing.

On the seashore, the Docksman and Annette shared a glance. "Why is she here?" he demanded in a grating undertone.

Annette shook her head, disavowing involvement as she wrung her hand, shaking off the strings of flesh that had bound her to Rana, leaving them clinging to the girl. "She was supposed to be with William."

"She bloody hates him."

"She hates everyone." Annette made a noise, exasperated and momentarily unladylike, quickly regaining composure. "She's just a child, anyway."

"She's a bloody nutter."

"Well, she's in good company,"the lady declaimed, smoothing her skirts.

Their argument was punctuated by another shriek from the girl in question, ear-splitting and wordless, and with its fury, for those on the shore came a strong feeling of suffocation, of struggling, of drowning. The shadow army seemed immune to the effect, but it would be one more thing for the others to deal with.

The thing made of shadow, meanwhile, had gathered itself to its own satisfaction and began lifting itself on legs or trunks made of shadow, quickly moving upward toward the sky, reaching out tendrils and striking at the air force that was present, quickly bringing down anything that got in its way and wasn't quick enough to move out of it. In doing so, it stopped any attack from above... but also left the army below without its shield of defense. It gathered itself in a coiled bunch, springing out towards the vibrantly pink mech, determined to bring that thing out of the sky.

Annette watched it go, then jerked her head at the Docksman, in a particular direction. He caught the nod and disengaged from the woman with the mace, instead quickening himself towards the girl who was standing still on the seashore, her gaze on the distant horizon as she drove gravity wells into a barrier far out from shore, trying to catch the incoming wave. The earth began to crack beneath the sea as she started to open up a trench, and water rushed down into it, sucking away from the shore as geography shifted. Putrid tendrils launched themselves from the Docksman's body and fell onto the sandy shore beside her, fouling the area around her as he moved close to strike her from behind, aiming to wrap her in his oozing arms and drag her down with him.

Annette herself moved, stepping between Solar Hawk and the Docksman she had been attacking, flaring herself out again into her shadow-become form, prepared to fight the ostentatious woman as the girl she had attacked earlier worked on sloughing off the excess flesh and the mental effects of having it bound to her.

Fifty miles off the coast, beneath the waves, the Savant wasn't about to wait for her wave to forge its own destruction. The earth had to be moved, and the waves had to come forth. Another crack of the land shook the earth again, the sea floor and the sea shore rattling in time as another wave began to gather behind the first.

@solarhawk: @orange_water: @fallen_savant:

First sweep, three. Second sweep, six. Third sweep, ten. While the bots coming in to help him were appreciated, he could sweep the entirety of the town in just over three seconds. By the time they'd have moved into helpful positions he'd already gotten most of everyone. It only took a couple more runs to flush out the rest, while he could never really be confident there was no one left, he'd done the most he could. Taking his myriad of passengers, he flashed across the state before dumping all the of them in a confused mess. The moment they were all released he reappeared back at the deserted town, he'd done his part evacuating people now it was time to get into the fray.

Quickly scanning the battlefield for a target he noted that most of the threats seemed to be under "control". While that didn't mean the people holding them off where winning, they were at the very least holding them back. He was okay with that for now, after all this was a brownie points run. He was taking care of the shit no one else wanted to do, not because he doubted his power but because the hero world was a giant clique. So the only way to get big was to get in, that meant scoring points with the right people. Luckily a good number of them happened to here, he just had to figure out who needed the most help at the moment. Who that happened to be was a young girl(@iridum) going head to head with the woman who looked like she wandered in from the Victorian era. She had balls he'd give her that, but she looked to be in need of a small bail. Or at least someone to draw the fire for a hot second, and if there was anything Zoltage was good at it was making people look at him.

As his body broke down once again into electrons he zipped forwards reaching the girl's side in what looked instantaneous. At the near lightspeed, he always moved he attempt to break down her entire body into electrons before pulling them both away from the fight. Unbeknownst to him, as he did he would render the scream meant to drown the two of them useless. After all, you couldn't really tell electrons to drown.

Hopefully, with the girl along with him, he'd move them to a small hill, still able to look at the fight but far enough they could see any attack coming their way before it did. Dropping her off he'd materialize next to her rushing through introductions as he looked for anywhere else he might be able to make himself useful. "Zolt3d, with a three, at your service. Sorry if I didn't give you any warning, but you looked like you could use a breather. We can go back in anytime you want, just pick a spot and say the word."

@emilia_cruz: @the_custodian: @zoltage: @solarhawk: @orange_water: @fallen_savant:

Shadows began to rise a towering behemoth of darkness to begin to try and assault the forces in the air. It was not unlike something Lizzy and the others on the team had encountered before. It took all four of them, Elite and Landon at that time and even then progress was mostly slow and tedious results small most the time. Light helped, mostly though the only real way to keep such down however was to find the source and lay it to rest. That was why the mech pilot placed an emphasis on scanning the creature, looking for a heat signature, a source of organics or metal. Anything that might tell her of the heart of this abomination. She would try to have the Hammers of Dawn converge on that point if it could be found, angled in such a way as to try and slice through the terror until incinerating whatever was the source. Speed of the lasers virtually instantaneous, heat though limited to the radius of the beams alone, with small drones filling the air to catch the heat and bleed off. It should impact the shadow thing alone, doing minimal to no damage to the surrounding area. Heat of the lances rivaling the sun, there was little they shouldn't pass through. More importantly though was the the light, which hopefully would chase off the composition of the towering creature. Disrupting form and thus ability to wreak havoc while focusing on finding the source and laying it to rest.

Not always confident however in one trick a lone though, accompanying the lasers the sixteen lances of heat was the Killzone weapon system. She'd lighten up on her fire pattern with Mjolnir to focus on the giant if the heart of such a terror could be found she suspected it'd also try to defend it. Perhaps even sacrificing the shadowy mass to spare it, thus a secondary attack meant to try and catch an opening if it could be made to arise. To unleash over two hundred rounds at the theorized opening, each projectile briefly trying to drag anything around it into a contained pocket of slipspace. Dig through the shadows if need be to entrap whatever powered this thing, meanwhile her multitasking brought the mech pilot to adjust her drones in use for the situation.

One passed through to meet up with the one outside city limits, so that should any of the strange terrors slip through the briefest of openings to extract civilians they could be dealt with. More a precaution then anything else, all the same however Lizzy wished to secure the safety of the civilians. Eighteen drones left to navigate, she broke six off the formation intended to defend the three black hawks and three apaches in the air. They had arrived just in time to cast their shields over the air units, defending them from the mass of shadow that tried to swat them from the skies. Not all had faired as well though, one apache having dropped in altitude, now hovering just barely above the buildings. Two drones further broke from the path to defend it just in case the helicopter was likely to be attacked in a moment of vulnerability. Of the remaining drones eight would focus on trying to find the civilians trapped or favoring the hide option. Looking to extract them, while that meant doing so more against their will it was better then leaving them to die. Even if heroes took care of the cities villains didn't and it was better nobody noncombatant stick around in this situation. Honestly Lizzy wasn't all that needed the speedster was covering far more ground in fractions of the time. Even if the pilot wanted to help the people and they for the most part knew she could be trusted. From her various excursions the electric hero more then had it covered. So she'd focus on what her various electronics could do to try and find the rest. Once the city was confidently clear the pilot would likely further divide her drone coverage to defend wherever the refuges were safely tucked away. For a little bit longer though focus was on the conflict though.

Two drones remaining would focus on fighting the army of sea terrors, together they provided sixty rounds in a second of intended gunfire meant to drop the opposition into a space where they could only harm themselves or each other. Each apache used a thirty millimeter chain gun, Lizzy dropped her focus on unique ammunition for them though letting their clips be without limit. This gunfire though a somewhat slower fire rate of six hundred twenty five a minute came with the side effect of being meant more for tanks and APCs. It wasn't likely to be kind to any of the terrors unfortunate enough to be hit by such an assault. The three black hawks with mounted m134s set for slipspace ammunition though only a seven point sixty millimeter round it wasn't the caliber that mattered with Lizzy's source. What might however was the fire rate, of a hundred per second from each. The various pilots let oxygen masks drop for them a bit more accustomed to the feelings of suffocation. Drowning was a tad more difficult however the combination of both in particular got to the soldiers in the black hawks. Not as trained or ready they at the time had no desire to contemplate shooting through the openings of the air craft with rifles. Going so far as in one case to even get to the gunner of the m134.

@emilia_cruz: @the_custodian: @solarhawk: @orange_water: @fallen_savant: @zoltage:

A hand graces her cheek warmth of soft skin contrasted by the cold and salt of the sea from wince the attacking force had come. The remark getting a laugh from the teenager who tried her best to be sweet despite the communion of hell always with her. Flesh molded almost as if looking to be woven into Rana's own, her grip on the blade readying disgusted and yet accustomed to the sights and sensations. Hell had so much suffering to show and expose her to this wasn't entirely unfamiliar just more real. Soft tone a gentle hush, she didn't trust it. Nightmares were her life all she'd really known. She was finding lights to cast such darkness out in her life, she knew these tricks though. Tell herself everything is safe, everything is okay then show disarray flood her with dismay. Savant was the name now of the one who'd brought on suffering, who's spine ought to be worn as a accessory. She wasn't here though, this woman trying to slip into her mind was right there wasn't a need to fight here or at least there didn't need to be. She was also right on the other end, this shadow bearer like the others was becoming, whatever that metamorphosis would be it would not be bound to the sea like the rest.

Blood was twisted in the opposition looking to end Annette. The hand leaves her grotesque and departing appendage leaving and yet remaining. Sick to the sight and to the touch, wrath fuels her muscles though and so it is that Rana's free hand ties up the strands and rips them away. It pulls at the jaw and gums even beneath, flesh tears and she can taste a hint of blood on her tongue as scarlet runs down her pale skin. Blade never found a home as a shadow born fell to the sand. Forever lost as he was made the victim of Rana's efforts instead of the mysterious woman. Like the shadows of those fighting Rana's own worked to endure the trembling earth to secure as it did the faction attempting to raid the land. Before further intrusion of the mind could come though someone came.

Her eyes one as blue as the sea and one as red as the ichor that ran along her face change in vision. Showcasing the teenager the state of limbo. Her vision returning to it's base in a way, a few blinks to adjust to the disorientation and what'd happened. She'd been moved, she could feel her hair standing on end a bit long strands in particular tickling her skin. She'd been moved by someone electrical in nature, her first thought was Ali. Looking up though and vision returning however it was obviously not that individual but another. A hero in a flashy get up and looking slightly familiar once eye to eye she stepped back a bit. "Cool" she wasn't a fan, rap wasn't her thing she'd heard a few tracks though and he certainly wasn't bad.

"Zolthreed thank you" she remarked with a smile choosing to say the name with said three. The fading sounds of a scream and her eyes telling of the pain and discomfort it'd sort of left in it's passing telling the teen she'd been spared of something. It had also just helped her clear her mind, or at least as much clearing as the teenager could hope for. "I'm Iridum, or Rana" she focused on the shadows the calling they had, looked out to the sea in particular. "Suppose you could help them if you wanted. Or could follow me." Rana closed her eyes thought a bit of her boyfriend and with that had gained access with her eyes to a different floor of hell. One better suited for the next course of action, followed or alone she'd open a gateway of hell. Holding the madness from entering reality as anything more then the audible terror of the damned but allowing the heterochromia hero to pass through a opening into the sea itself. She didn't think she could afford to try it before but then Zolt3d had provided her time.

Through hell she had a platform to walk upon, the opening she left behind her dragged water into hell and allowed a pocket of air for herself. A vortex of wind around her as she stepped forward ready to draw Drasil in a moments notice. "Savant to some, Kaedriel to others. Any chance of explanation?" Was hard to consider, Rana partially just wanted to follow the shadows find the woman who'd endangered Rana's little sister. Find that woman and eviscerate her with a fury unchecked. Strangely though she had some of her wits about her, maybe it was the shadows that tied them together. Maybe it was the whispered words that a fight wasn't needed, or perhaps it was just the intentions to be a hero over a hellion. For whatever reason though despite coming with hell at her back and some murderous intention she found herself also willing to give the smallest of moments to listen.

@iridum:@emilia_cruz: @the_custodian: @solarhawk:@fallen_savant: @zoltage: I watched as fish and then bodies rose to the surface revealing the hidden squad of shadow possessed people and wondered if they were intended to keep us out or if they were intended to be the cavalry? But that didn't matter now they were dead along with a good amount fish and the signature white flame showing that I had managed to harm the shadow and at least for the moment cause it to recede." Someone remind me once this is all over to start my own fish fry," now was the time to enter the water and finish the fight and the shadows so that I could hopefully stop the tsunami's now but as it turns out the enemy had different plans.

"Noooooooooooooooooooo! You killed my BABY!"

She crouched on the rocks, a girl... or half of one, anyway, with no legs but rather thick tentacles, like a squid's. She cradled a dead cuttlefish in her arm like a child with a teddy bear, and fixed her glare on Orange Water, unforgiving and wretched and filled with loathing.

Is that a mermaid? A squidmaid maybe? I didn't have time to name this stupid thing I had to find this Savant and end her as I picked up my dagger from the water," Well your babies wouldn't be here or they wouldn't be dead if you hadn't attacked this town so if you don't mind you can blame your shadows or this Savant your choice?" Suddenly, the squidmaid howled a terrible shriek and suddenly I couldn't breath thinking so this was what it felt like when I drowned people and as I stood there for a moment I wondered how she was doing it? Water manipulation of some kind? No, I would have been able to stop it by now possibly manipulating my own shadow to harm me? That's not it either... then how is this happening? You fracking idiot you know the answer this is no power they hold but one that you have... What does that even mean??? We don't have time for this so ask yourself is it real??? Then that would mean as I began to breathe in and out again slowly that son of a..." Is that the best you got?" I readied one dagger allowing the water to engulf it first before throwing it at the speed of sound towards the squidmaid aiming for her big fat mouth sending before making a quick turn and sending the other dagger in the same way towards the lady now fighting the Hawk woman hoping to lodge it in her back while she wasn't watching now for the plan...

I only saw Rana and a flash of lightning for a moment as it passed me by and into the ocean," Damn it they can't beat the entities... Hey, Greens do me a favor and protect the Custodian if I fail she may be the only one that can stop the tsunami in time." I then begin my chase but first I have to get my dagger back as I jump into the water and speed over to the squidmaid and icing over my fist I attempt to hit her with a right hook and following up with a slash from my sword showing that I'm not gonna mess around anymore.

Rodrigo and Emilia turned towards the man in orange who dared to give orders to us. Usually we would have taught this scrub a lesson and killed him on the spot but we fought the temptation and instead gave a nod. Needing for the moment to preserve the image that we were “heroes” just like them,” Fine we will protect your friend.” As the couple turned towards the Custodian and the man rushing to attack her.

At this point their rings had gained plenty of energy from the chaos caused in the ocean and in the town behind them. But chose to keep the hard light constructs simple with Rodrigo speeding towards the man and making a fist in the hope of sending him to the ground or staggering him for a moment but Emilia was the finisher. As she created a green hand to grasp at the shadowman and throw him a short distance away from the young woman manipulating gravity and time.” This woman is under our protection now… we suggest you surrender or die,” said Emilia as Rodrigo prepared to pull out his gun and finish the monster once and for all.

@fallen_savant: @_gaige_@orange_water

Solar Hawk paused as her opponents switched positions and smirked. She looked down at the disease shadow on her hand. Her skin cracked around the shadow and seemed to decay away but it stopped, much sooner than it had the last time. Her divine blood had already seen this attempt and it rejected it much more swiftly than before, shrugging off the damage and healing her weapon hand in moments.

Solar Hawk returned her sharp gaze to the shadow woman and her smile broadened. "Boy, I needed this more than I thought." Solar Hawk was back. She stood between the defenseless and those who would destroy them. She stood for a purpose again, she was a Hawk Lord doing what she had been created by nothing less than a god to do. A life that had become hazy, had become blurred with uncertainty was suddenly in sharp focus. Every pain, every swing of the mace, change in the battlefield, everything gave her more life, more energy, more desire to do what she was made for.

When the battlefield was assaulted by a wave of unbreathing, it proved the final step. She shrugged off the shadows that had crept over her mind and soul in the last months and rather than go down or feel weakness, she stepped forward. Her ring took care of the breathing issue, artificially creating oxygen in her lungs and restarting her breathing processes.

"I am the right hand of Amun-Ra." Solar Hawk said. "And you are my enemy." It was a simple line, meant not to confuse or start a mid combat debate, meant only as echoes of the reinforcing armor that was now plating her soul, revitalizing her spirit.

These two have different properties, but they're similar, very similar in fact. I don't need to beat her, I just need to distract her and find out what makes her tick. If things get worse...well...darkness has a counter all its own.

Solar Hawk's version of learning was not the same as others. She did not step back to give initiative to her opponent, she went on the offensive with the assumption that her attacks would fail but in the firm belief of her own durability and will power. It was time however that she change her weapons. The mace was good, but it was a symbol, not the be all end all of Hawk Lord weaponry.

Solar Hawk jumped backwards with two mighty sweeps of her wings and took to hovering above the ever quaking ground several dozen feet away from her new foe. Energy crackled over her form and her Nth Metal Weave took on a new appearance with a radically swept back helmet replacing the more subdued version she'd been using moments earlier. She switched her mace to her other hand and re-routed Nth Metal from her helmet (slimming down its protective abilities mildly) and her shoulders to form a sword in her other hand. As the process finished energy crackled from the eyes of her helmet, over her mace and then over her sword hand before it faded entirely.

"Let's do this." She took a lazy circle away from her foe and then swept in without warning, accelerating from a few miles per hour to several times the speed of sound within an eye blink. A thunderous BOOM! echoed over the field of battle as the sound barrier was obliterated. She sought to close the distance in a heart beat and follow a bone crushing sweep of her mace with a sword cut intent on sundering the woman's head from her neck. The blade was sharpened to a point fine enough to slice through steel and she had carefully avoided the use of electricity this time.

Should the woman attempt to grab at her, her joints and sword armor were spiked. Solar Hawk had planned her flight path accordingly as well and planned to bank away from her foe moments after making her paired attacks, provided the ability to do so was still present and her course was not diverted or subverted by some as yet revealed means.

@fallen_savant: @orange_water: @_gaige_: @solarhawk: @emilia_cruz: @iridum: @the_custodian: @zoltage:

The Custodian's focus was on her efforts but her situational awareness didn't suffer because of it. She felt the movement and interaction of gravitons like most people felt air move across their skin. She could feel the approach of someone long before he reached her as gravitons reacted to his every motion. For a moment she felt the need to drop what she was doing for self defense but in that moment another filled the gap. The Custodian continued digging her trench.

Air was robbed from her lungs and she licked suddenly dry lips. The Custodian focused, she trusted her body to do what it was designed for. Loss of oxygen was not immediately fatal but would prove so eventually, as such her body responded. It cut off blood flow and reaction to her lungs, entirely shutting them down and began instead to generate its own oxygen inside of the blood stream at precisely the same rate as her lungs.

Binary bodies were designed for immortality but not in the way of many immortals, she wasn't impossible to injure, she was impossible to kill. One of its primary means of survival was to adapt to new environments. When one part of her anatomy stopped working or suffered from some external factor such as temperature, lack of oxygen, etc, her body would change to suit the new environment. On alien planets her lungs would change to breath different air, on Earth devoid of oxygen or the ability to breath, it shifted those responsibilities to the blood stream and disposed of the need to bring in oxygen from outside sources or exhale carbon dioxide as waste. As a result of all of this The Custodian was able to continue to dig her trench, a trench intended to rob the wave of it's last remaining energy just before its initial surge into shore.

@zoltage: @orange_water: @the_custodian: @solarhawk: @iridum: @_gaige_: @emilia_cruz:

North Cove

North Cove was not a large town. It was one of those places that attracted a quiet sort of tourist, when the season was right, but this wasn't the season and the people who were in the town were mostly the locals who lived there year-round. Between the ionic hero Zolt3d and the slipspace portals dropped down by Gaige, and the efforts of the invading shadowborn, it didn't take long before everyone in the city was either evacuated or dead. Most of them, thankfully, fell under the first category, but there were a few bodies laying in the streets as a testament to priorities.

The town bereft of anyone left to help, Zolt3d moved away towards the seashore to see how he could assist there, and the shadowborn seemed to decide the same, albeit at a much slower pace. They reversed their shambling gaits, heading back the way they came, towards the beaches, leaving behind a ghost town, a shadow, and Lizzy Leet. The mech pilot fired a few rounds after the departing creatures, tearing some of them down where they stood, but a few were clever things and managed to hide in alleys and behind buildings, and move again when Gaige had other things to deal with.

The mech pilot had her scans fully active, looking for something that bound the creature, like the miniature mechanized spider they had found in Minnesota. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything so simple, and for a while she and the air defenders were contending with the shadow mass while there seemed to be nothing at all. With continued scans, though, eventually she did find something - a thin trail of shadow that led, of all places, back to the seashore. Back to the ocean.

"I can't leave the ocean..." Whispered words, from a girl on the seashore in Boracay, not too long ago, with tendrils of shadows that bound her to the sea. It seemed that whatever it was that bound the one, bound the other as well. Where in the ocean, it was hard to say, but Lizzy fired a laser out along the projection anyway, into the water. The ocean, though, was a massive dissipation force, and by the time the laser had traveled as far underwater as it would have needed to to reach its source, it had dwindled into nothing.

Most of Lizzy's attacks were concentrated, of course, on the mass of shadows before her. Lasers peppered the mass with scorching heat and light, and as before in Minnesota, anywhere the light touched, the shadows strengthened, deepening themselves, growing, becoming more massive. The thing widened itself, creating a barrier between the town and the shore, seemingly content for now to keep Lizzy and the rest of the air force away from the forces on the sea shore. At least... for now.

Seashore

The sand beside the Custodian's feet oozed yellow as the Docksman closed in on her. At a direction from Orange Water, Emilia and Rodrigo turned to try to protect her, but that left them entirely vulnerable to the attacks from the creatures that they had been fighting. A spray of spines and the writhing grasp of pseudopods caught them from behind before they were able to launch their attacks, and they suddenly had a lot more immediate worries than what happened with the Custodian. If they didn't take the time to save themselves, they weren't going to be able to help anyone for the rest of the battle.

The Docksman himself just half-turned, watching that play out with a smirk. People sometimes thought that just because the shadowborn were mindless, they weren't a force to contend with - that was not at all the case. He could feel the other ones, as well, the ones who had pulled back from the town. Many of them had fallen there, but there were some dozen returning to the shore. Between them, they ought to be able to make short work of any of these attackers that remained. For now, he returned to the attack that the commotion had interrupted and grabbed the girl, trying to pull her away from the seashore.

Annette half-turned as another knife struck into her flesh, from behind, her eyes sliding down to glance at it with vague distaste. This time, though, instead of the bit of flesh that it had lodged itself in simply dropping off, it formed into a little polyp, with the knife encased within. The polyp budded off, flesh crawling within itself, and then it opened like an anemone with the point of the dagger pointed outward and the hilt buried within a blob of flesh. She extended the thing on a flesh-made appendage, like the stinger of a scorpion, turning it towards the woman who was trying to attack her. The Drowned Priestess's aura bubbled over her, and Annette watch the woman pause to find her breath... and her voice:

"I am the right hand of Amun-Ra." Solar Hawk said. "And you are my enemy." It was a simple line, meant not to confuse or start a mid combat debate, meant only as echoes of the reinforcing armor that was now plating her soul, revitalizing her spirit.

She rose into the air, the right hand of Amun-Ra, and her god rose with her.

It wasn't so dramatic as that, in reality, but she had invoked her existence as a holy vessel, and where her shadow fell on the beach, it burned with white flame where it intersected the drawn shadows of the attackers. The corona flickered around her as well, in response to the shadows that surrounded her, and Annette stepped back with an unladylike curse. The thing that she had become squelched into a shapeless, fleshy thing armed with a waving dagger, and when Solar Hawk's blade bit into it, it bit deep, but whatever the vitals were, they were well hidden, and when she drew the blade back, the flesh clung to it for a few moments, then sloughed off, the bits that had remained in contact crisped and burned. The dagger surfaced from the fleshy blob, striking wide from the side at Solar Hawk, but the flesh around the hilt of it was beginning to show the same blackened crisping as that which had clung to Solar Hawk's blade, and somewhere midway through, the strike became a launch, both dagger and the appendage that held it flinging themselves at her, almost more as if to get them away from the thing which was Annette as to get them towards Solar Hawk.

The flesh-thing quivered, and split along the blackening gash, the sac falling to the soil and Annette Arquor kneeling in the midst of it, a blackened gash across her collarbones, white bone visible beneath crisped flesh. She breathed, labored, and shook her head slightly, in resignation. From the fleshy sack in the shallows, an inky darkness drifted into the waves, chased into the water by white lightning that burned it away and left the waves a clear and sunlit blue.

Orange Water followed his second dagger into the waves, where he had cast it at the girl on the rocks. The dagger caught her in the mouth, which made her look vaguely indignant for a moment before she pulled the knife back out and removed the tongue that was caught on the blade, putting the bloodless thing back into her mouth and dropping the knife into the water while ducking to the side to avoid his fist, splashing down into the water. His blade followed it, though, and tore a gash across her belly. The squid-maiden pulled herself back onto the rocks with slender arms, looking down, then poked a finger into the open wound with curiosity. A bit of intestine looped around her finger, and she pulled it out in an inquisitive string. Her mouth worked, as if figuring out again what to do with her tongue, resolved in a wordless "Oooh." The word a bit muffled because while her tongue was back in her mouth, it apparently wasn't attached to anything. She spit it out again, into her hand, looking at the edge of it where it'd started taking on a blackish tint, making a little "Hmm" noise in her throat, then shrugging a shoulder and popping it back into her mouth, maybe for safekeeping.

It seemed that there was apparently some basis indeed for the Docksman's irritated declamation that the squid-maiden was, as he had so eloquently phrased it, "a bloody nutter." She was humming softly now, in her throat, and seemed to be completely uninterested in anything other than playing idly with the loop of intestine dangling out from her bloodless and slowly blackening wound.

Cascadia Subduction Zone

In the well beneath the waves, hell created a pocket of space and a girl stepped through, followed by a scattering of electricity and a man who formed himself on its release. The ocean bubbled around them, and in the black depths a leviathan lurked, a form that raced around their little bubble like a giant squid seeking purchase on a miniature ship. Tentacles wrapped around the bubble, cradling it like a snow-globe, and the torso of a giant appeared before them, a spear in his hand at the side of the bubble. He peered within, with calm eyes above the tentacled mass, watching the two inside, seeming to look beyond them as well as beside them. "So." A word, that echoed through the depths with an unexpected quiet and gravity. He focused on Rana, watching her another moment in silence. "Shadowcaller. Scion of the shore. Do you know where the other four have gone? One was lost, and the Savant holds the septet. One hears your song. But... no. You do not know. You do not even know what you are becoming." Silence, again, the silence of the very deep waters, and the creature outside the bubble watched them, in the deeps of thought. His gaze drifted away, towards the shoreline. "Your friends have unbound my lady Annette. She is nothing to you. Spare her." He looked another direction, deeper into the waves, and the tentacles uncoiled from the bubble before he returned a stern look to Rana and Zolt3d. "Tell them. Spare her. And I will not stop you from whom you seek." He nodded slightly, to himself. "The Shadows have taken the Moor, but the shore-dweller controls them. I would have it... otherwise. I will watch you, young Shadowcaller. Annette's life, and I will only watch."

The leviathan backed off, spear at his side, and gave them the nod to pass by. "Child," he said, with a hint of a smile, chill and predatory. "Put your Self into that blade of yours." With that cryptic information delivered, he twisted and was gone, swimming with the incredible speed that something so large could attain without making it look difficult, hidden once again in the murky waters. No doubt he was still, as he had promised, watching.

Unobstructed, their path in and out of water and hell led Rana to where she wished to be - at the bottom of the ocean, in a bubble of air, with an all too familiar figure before her.

"Savant to some, Kaedriel to others. Any chance of explanation?"

The young woman turned, and the shadows around her expanded, creating a much larger bubble on the sea floor than Rana's, large enough to encompass them both, holding the ocean at bay and leaving a hemisphere of dryness and air, with the shadows swirling around them, and the ocean beyond it, deep and beckoning.

"You," she whispered, "I know you." She smiled slightly. "You were one of us, once. You went away, when the Lady went into the water." She reached out a hand, as if to a child, then paused, confused. Perhaps Rana was equally confused, because Savant to some, Kaedriel to others didn't seem to be talking to her at all. Her hand fell again to her side, empty, and she stared at Rana, shadows swirling in and out of eyes the color of the waves. A crease knit her brow, and something in her gaze darkened, sharpened. "They tell me that you know where the traitor is." She took a step towards Rana, shadow swirling out where she stepped. "They tell me... you helped him."

@fallen_savant: @zoltage: @orange_water: @the_custodian: @solarhawk: @iridum: @_gaige_: @emilia_cruz:

The Custodian had killed five times in her life, each time because she felt there was no other choice. Today, she was willing to make it six. Her trench was as good as it was going to get, so when she was grabbed, The Custodian, seething with anger from previous revelations, finally turned to face The Docksman. His tendrils pulled at her with great strength, but she was rooted to the spot, gravity swirling around The Graviton Princess to hold her in place as if she had the mass of a mountain. For all the Docksman's strengths, he now fought an entity with much more power than Solar Hawk.

Drops of corruption touched her skin, burned at her features. Pain rippled through her body but its response was not the same as Solar Hawk. Rather than reject the disease, her body found a way to keep her alive instead. The progress of the disease could only go so far before her unique anatomy adapted to its abilities and halted its encroachment. As pain subsided, The Custodian unleashed pent up anger on the only target she felt worthy of even a drop of it...the unfortunate Docksman.

"My turn."

She knew from previous experience that the shadow things responded to gravity in their own limited way...but she also knew from observation that each of these particular shadow entities had a person within it. Solar Hawk's crushing defeat of the other shadow entity had proven her theory. Coiled in dripping sinister tendrils The Custodian filtered out the gravitons which interacted with everything not made of flesh and blood and bone. She found the core of the Docksman and there, she launched her assault.

Gravity was a cruel mistress, especially when one could wield it's powers on the micro level. She considered her options for a moment and finally chose one of finality, or at least one she believed would be final. She targeted the bonds that kept the creature's atomic structure intact and pulled at them with enough force to rip molecules to pieces. Her focus was to pull it apart at the molecular level, reduce the core being that held in the shadows to the tiniest of particles and disperse them to the wind.

Even should the Docksman die he would fine his sacrifice not entirely in vain. Though The Custodian was quite alive and less movable than Mount Everest she would be dealing with the disease for the rest of the battle. Unable to purge her system half as quickly as Solar Hawk, it would be a distraction and prevent her from doing multiple large scale gravitational affects at the same time. It took considerable effort to both attack him and keep what she had already done in place. He had certainly restricted her options moving forward and if the others didn't get their butts in gear defending the area, she'd be unable to do anything further at all. Once the Docksman's down, I'll have a swarm of shadow turds to deal with.

Sometimes The Custodian felt like an island. Today was one of those days.

@fallen_savant: @zoltage: @solarhawk: @iridum: @_gaige_: My daggers had struck there mark on both targets but that foolish "lady" attempting to use it on one of my allies was a mistake as I made it dull and lose its edge. My punch missed the Squidmaid but she was unprepared for the edge of my sword disemboweling her with the slash from my sword I expected a yelp of pain and a flash of anger as I manipulated the water to bring my dagger back to me but that isn't what happened instead she just began to play with her now cut out tongue and the intestines now coming out of her body," What the hell?" I expected an attack but she was utterly calm instead but the surprises didn't stop there as out of the corner of my eye I saw the exorcism of the "lady" Annette.

"I am the right hand of Amun-Ra." Solar Hawk said. "And you are my enemy." It was a simple line, meant not to confuse or start a mid combat debate, meant only as echoes of the reinforcing armor that was now plating her soul, revitalizing her spirit.

She rose into the air, the right hand of Amun-Ra, and her god rose with her.

It wasn't so dramatic as that, in reality, but she had invoked her existence as a holy vessel, and where her shadow fell on the beach, it burned with white flame where it intersected the drawn shadows of the attackers. The corona flickered around her as well, in response to the shadows that surrounded her, and Annette stepped back with an unladylike curse. The thing that she had become squelched into a shapeless, fleshy thing armed with a waving dagger, and when Solar Hawk's blade bit into it, it bit deep, but whatever the vitals were, they were well hidden, and when she drew the blade back, the flesh clung to it for a few moments, then sloughed off, the bits that had remained in contact crisped and burned. The dagger surfaced from the fleshy blob, striking wide from the side at Solar Hawk, but the flesh around the hilt of it was beginning to show the same blackened crisping as that which had clung to Solar Hawk's blade, and somewhere midway through, the strike became a launch, both dagger and the appendage that held it flinging themselves at her, almost more as if to get them away from the thing which was Annette as to get them towards Solar Hawk.

This was different but also unexpected the proof that these monstrosities could be cured of their possession but if I could save the young woman's life even with the injuries I just caused it would be worth it and maybe it would help ease the pain by saving her. Retrieving my dagger from the water I thought of a quick plan while the Squidmaid played with her insides. Rushing back again I attempted to use the strength my armor and my hyper-sapien biology gave me as I attempted to grab hold of her on her rock as I yelled to the Hawkwoman," CAN YOU DO THAT AGAIN?" I knew that I would have to provide some medical attention to her upon the transformation if I succeeded but it would be worth it as I waited to see if she could do it again and cauterize the bleeding and freezing her water to keep her alive until actual medical attention could be given. If not I would have to do something I would regret and stab my dagger into her killing the young woman who I presumed didn't know what she was doing.

Once I was done I would continue on my journey to catch up to Rana and I assumed the bolt was Zoltage in an attempt to help them with the fight going as fast and as deep as I could to catch them in time.

@fallen_savant: @zoltage: @solarhawk: @iridum: @_gaige_:

Zoltage let out a small exasperated sigh as Rana purposely botched his name, not the first time some had done it. Thought that didn't stop him from hoping each time ti would be the last. "Yeah, yeah." He said, crossing his arms while still scanning the town. However, his search was halted as Rana offered him the choice of following her into the ocean. He wasn't exactly sure what exactly was causing these tsunamis, but it seemed she had an idea. Whatever it was, if it worked it'd be far more useful to stop the cause, not the symptoms.

"Sure, why not. Looks like they have a handle on things down their anyway." He said, sparks flying from his body as he idly broke down as reconstructed parts of his body. Moving more in sudden blinks then a straight line he followed the young girl into the bubble of air she created. Unsure about how much air they actually had in the bubble he made sure to keep his particles loose, ready to relocate himself back to the surface on the drop of a dime. To make matters worse, they had a visitor circling their bubble, he didn't look to be hostile, but he was clearly there to give them a message a fairly cryptic one, but still a message. Something about Rana putting herself into her blade, whatever it was he quickly vanished. Leaving the path unobstructed as they carried on.

Stright to who he assumed was creating all this chaos, a woman residing in an enormous bubble of her own, one that accepted their smaller one as they got closer. Eyes darting about he looked around to see if the sea monster they had faced would be coming back. Turning his attention back to the woman at hand, he raised an eyebrow as she began ranting to seemingly no one. Raising a hand and pointing it at her, the tip of his pointer finger began to glow an intense blue as electrons flooded into it. Power cracking off his hand and beginning to engulf his entire hand he waited to see what their mission he was. "You got a plan here, or are we just here to put a stop to her?" He asked turning to Rana, while keeping his finger trained onto the woman.

@zoltage: @fallen_savant:

"I'm sorry Zolt3d I just thought the three cute" the teenager remarked in apology not having meant to annoy him just rather liking the inclusion to the name. She was also appreciative however as the presence of him tagging along helped her focus. She wanted Kaedriel dead, stripped of life removed from her spine. It would of been easy to get lost in emotions and her central motivation for coming here. That however couldn't be the case, she was a hero not a monster she reminded herself. A reminder made more possible by having someone to work alongside and or look after, a reason besides her wrath. They enter the depths, the rippling of reality of hell her way of passage, stone warm, as if it ought to be burning coal but was made nicer thanks to the cold sea. The whispers of the damned play against the waves and rushing winds that was the bubble of air the pair used. It wasn't long though before an intrusion came.

Something rises to meet them vast in scope and easily encompassing the bubble like terrain a squid like terror that surrounded them. Figure was largely hard to make out though a spear was seen, scale enough to impale buildings. Shadowcaller it called her a scion of the shore, then asked of the other four. Did he mean four on the surface world then? One of those four was lost, fiendish paranoia made her think it might just be her little sister. Another was likely the assassin who entered the depths with Nathan and herself. The other two who or what might they be? Was that even an accurate assessment of whatever the quiet yet gravitas holding voice had meant. The other remark she simply shook her head. She was confident she knew what she was becoming and more importantly who she wanted to be, it just didn't fall into line with the shadows and voices that teased and encouraged her. Tapping her comm device however and giving it time to adjust she smiled at the leviathan. "To anyone who can hear me don't endanger Annette further." She did as he asked with any luck that would mean he would avoid taking actions against them. That being said Rana tried to be honest all the same. "Sadly though they will likely try to arrest her she did lead an attack costing lives and property I can't promise she'll return to the depths.

He concluded by telling her to put her self into that blade of hers, a cryptic and mysterious line. Did it mean her powers, her emotions, or her conviction? Maybe all of the above? "Expect shadows, and water" those were new things but safe to assume. "She might have the black water, which could be depowering so keep an eye out for that. Theres also flight and blade growth." It was the shortest way to describe what she felt she knew the Savant could do, hopefully also enough to see the job done. They step onto the scene, bottom of the ocean setting changed enough to let those gathered operate with some semblance of freedom and natural motion despite a setting that might encourage the opposite. It was for that reason Rana kept a focus on her own opening, to prevent the very setting from becoming a trap in and of itself.

"You really don't" the killer sighed didn't think this woman knew a thing about Rana, maybe Nathan in the past even that felt like it was slipping however. "And no I wasn't." Her demons were in her head not from the sea, she wasn't bound here or to shadows. She wasn't the project of Saikea either, waiting for the dead to return. Though perhaps Kaedriel wasn't talking to the teen, there definitely was a distance to her words. "Plan, get her out of this sea. Don't care how."

Drasil was drawn and with it came the winds of hell. Earth and sand of the ocean depths picked up as hurricane like gusts danced in the motion of Rana's twirling blade. Winds strong enough to turn sand into bullets, to rip and rend flesh from bone. Air moving with enough force to cleave apart bodies it didn't end there however. There was water of course down here drops to scatter along the gusts. These became like hail a series of fists racing through the air.

Culminating in a brief sprint forward, this was where Rana would rush in raising her blade in a path to carry her blade and it's remarkable edge from pelvis to brow. While the gesture might cleave an individual in two that was not the idea however behind the move. That was to hopeful. Rather in the move's aftermath came a small tornado like current. Enough air pressure to hopefully send an individual toward reaching above sea level. There were other tactics to employ, and an ally who might do so better. There was also though still a girl enraged at another for endangering her baby sister. Rana liked the idea of starting with an effort of combining her blade and hell to end things more personally.

@fallen_savant: @solarhawk: @the_custodian: @orange_water:

"Attempt to extract Anette now" the mech pilot remarked over comms plugging in coordinates to Sisters Eye so that it may then dispatch a projectile toward the woman now deprived of power. Snapping through the skies at the speed of reentry the projectile would look to lock the downed opponent into slipspace. Separate from the sea terrors, a white void to the woman and her alone. Hopefully sparing her of being on the recieving end of further attacks but also from retreating to the sea which might look to empower her once again. After coordinating attempts to deal with the downed foe or perhaps same time it was hard to tell at times with the way her HUD worked she then went to focusing on the drones. The helicopter nearly downed was able to return to the skies, freeing up two drones keep six focused on helping the helicopters however. This meant Gaige had a total of fourteen to make use of, she set each of them into attack mode directing them toward the shadowy terrors heading for the mass looking to surround the heroes on the beach. In no time the drones were raining down ST ammunition intended to drop the legion into the space of their own. Fourteen barrels all capable of dropping a dozen or so rounds a second looked to conclude this in agile mobile air to ground fire.

The gathered forces were confident it seemed best to leave them to focus on the tide and generals however. Focus could not entirely be on them so far though there was the towering behemoth before them of shadows and darkness. Light did good at chasing away some darkness sure but sadly that light then also cast more shadows for it, a fuel almost for the creature and frustrating to say the least. It did however keep the creatures focus, it was intent on being a wall before the air forces and mech pilot. Lizzy began to charge her weapon as she readied again to try and maintain the obsidian giant's attention.

Lighten up on laser fire letting the Hammers of dawn cool down some so that gunfire could be the focus or at least appear to be. Lizzy would open fire with ST ammunition alongside the apaches this created five points of contact on the giant of spread out gunfire. Each shell of the guns in use set to the largest area of effect, the slipspace ammunition looked to leave thirty by thirty foot points of contact looking to drag the shadows away from the overall mass. To suck it into the opening. They would open fire with rockets, likely the explosive yield of such though creating rather nice fireworks above the city wouldn't do all that much damage wise. As the helicopters and mech lit it up however this should leave the Blackhawks open to attack another point on their own heads up display. It might look silly but the blackhawks were firing at just the sand and street, ST ammunition, separate then the ones for the legion or the shadow colossus looked to pepper the trail of thin shadow leading out to the ocean. Why? Because the projectiles and the unique pockets they cast might just cut off the ties that led the shadow from it's origin to the city limits.

Finally came the BFG, it's four barrels rising from Mjolnir to fire toward the sea, each one angled so that it might follow the other projectile. Mjolnir adjusting flight for such shots to be made accordingly. In rapid succession the guns would go off. Each projectile briefly behind the last. As the first round raced to speeds of Mach fifteen it'd dive a good way into the ocean. Eventually however it would slow down as was the nature of shooting into the water most bullets would eventually loose some momentum. It would leave a trail though for another of the projectiles to go through fast enough and aimed well enough for that one to go deeper. This would Lizzy believed leave the last two BFG rounds to be capable of reaching the target. As for what that meant, well the Hellical cannon was a Maverick issued mix between a coilgun and railgun, a staple of the mech ever sense Lizzy found it in an old lair of a criminal. Each round was high megajoul hitting with thousands of pounds of force capable enough of giving armored craft and durable metahumans a good run for their money. It dispensed flechetted nanocrystalline tungsten Carbide munition in addition to it's sheer impact force. Meaning that upon contact it was likely to go off in such a way as to decimate the insides of whatever it entered. It wasn't nice, it wasn't pretty and the nerd hoped one day such methods wouldn't be needed. Right now though she had to use what she had. Leaving a towering shadow monster or it's caster to assault her friends and the city wasn't something Gaige cared to let happen.

@_gaige_: @fallen_savant: @solarhawk: @the_custodian: @orange_water:

Solar Hawk was a bit focused on offense to worry about defense. The dagger struck her side with full force. Her Nth Metal weave absorbed a great deal of the penetrating blow, resulting in much less of the knife penetrating her skin. She reached down and ripped the blade free with a wince. Gold blood flowed from the wound freely but would soon begin the process of slowing. The wound would heal over time.

She focused her attention on the woman who had been robbed of her powers by the mentioning of Amun Ra but had little time to respond before Gaige gaiged her away somewhere. Hm... Solar Hawk turned her attention to Orange Water as he called out to her and reforged her mace into a mace shaped like the holy symbol of Amun-Ra. She reached into her shirt and removed a necklace she wore that held the symbol as well.

Solar Hawk had seen one or two classic movies and realized in this moment that it might actually apply. Rather than repeat a speech and flight, she strode towards Orange Water and his squid lady and held out the holy symbol. "Amun-Ra created me to lead his Hawk Lords into battle against the forces of evil. This necklace is more than a symbol, it was touched by the hand of the Sun God himself, forged as a gift for his favored servant, divine energy flows through it, is forged into its molecular bonds and it is carried by one who carries out his will." Ok, this is kind of fun.

Solar Hawk tossed the necklace to Orange Water, since he remained closer, but she held her mace out in its place, the holy symbol imbued with just as much of Amun-Ra's divine light and touch as the necklace and still wielded by the person who had just moments ago declared herself the champion of a divine god. Solar Hawk anticipated needing to move in quickly if the declared holy symbol didn't work in Orange Water's hands or if the mace itself didn't work simply as presented.

North Cove, Seashore

Gravity was a kind force. It held things together, bonded them to one another, allowed for consistency and formation and life. When kindness was removed, it became something else entirely. Molecules had their own forces, strong interactions that held them together against normal gravity, allowing for them to be whatever they were. When the force of gravity was strengthened, though, and targeted, those bonds could be broken - although it was not something that could be done simply, or easily. The atoms resisted, the molecules defied. But the spaces between them, where molecules became cells, became organs, became people... those were not so strongly beholden. And along all the spaces, gravity tore. Another force rushed in, a counteragent, something that tried to hold things together - a shadowy web that tried to tangle things up the way they once were. The Shadowbearers were true to their names, and the shadows they had taken within themselves tried to preserve them where they could.

Sometimes, though, they could not. Sometimes, it was simply not enough. The thing that had once been the docksman, and more recently been something else, became something further removed from those things yet - not much more than a bursting cloud of bits and particles and a shadowy web that tried to hold them together for a moment, before it flickered and fell, nothing living left for it to cleave to, no bound life to empower it. The sand and the seashore was awash with riotous color - yellow and red and black, slimy and visceral and with nothing left in a cohesive enough whole that it could be even made apparent what the thing had once been, or even if there had once been anything at all other than a vibrant mess cast up by the surging sea.

Less disgustingly, if just as dramatically, Solar Hawk cast a divine essence into the talisman she carried, and tossed it over to Orange Water in the waves, who caught the thing and held it above the creature before him. There was a hint of... something, a drawing back, and shadow cast into the water, tied and bound to her still, but arced away from the necklace. In another Shadowbearer, it might have drawn the girl away with it, but this one was... different. She looked up at the glowing thing, releasing the intestine she had been playing with into a sagging loop that dangled haphazardly from her belly. Her hands, she reached towards the shining thing with all the curiosity and abandon of a small child. Since that was more or less what he had planned anyway, he lowered it enough and let her grasp it. Her fingers wrapped around it, and the same white fire bled through her, out into the shadows in the water, which dissipated away into nothingness, and with it the squidlike form she'd taken, leaving her just a girl kneeling in the water. She blinked, and gave him a curious look for a moment, though still seemed more intrigued by the toy she held. The wound he'd given her earlier remained as it was - the blackening around the edges stopped, and the whole of the thing... equally bloodless.

Orange Water raised the spell he was casting, the one he'd meant to use to cauterize the bleeding, but there just... wasn't any bleeding. There was a dampish leaking of fluid that he was able to cease, but it wasn't really blood. She blinked again, slowly, and it occurred to him that the fluid in her veins not only wasn't really blood, it was also still. It should have been moving, like the rushing currents of the ocean. She should have been breathing, or trying to. Instead, she was just watching him, interested but not necessarily intent, and she didn't seem to resist as the spell came up around her and froze her into whatever state it was she was in. Whatever that was.

It was then that the sky opened up, and dropped a projectile onto the seashore. A tendril of shadow rose up from a fine line that led from the ocean towards the thing that was lurking between the seashore and the town, and knocked into the thing, slightly changing the direction of the dropped portal, leaving it a few meters from Annette rather than right atop her. She looked at the open portal and shuddered slightly, edging back from it towards the waves. The shadowy creatures that had returned from the town were close now, beginning to strike out haphazardly. Without a shadowbearer present, they were more or less milling about without direction, looking for something to slaughter.

The ocean shuddered, a cloud if inky black appearing in the water beside the seashore. The water had been black before, tainted with shadow before the shadow had drawn away, but this was... not shadow. It was, instead, actual ink, that clouded the waters and concealed things from vision. The waves drew themselves together, then rose up in a swell and crashed down onto the beach, a wave that wasn't quite a tsunami, but was still big enough to wet everyone on the shore. When it began to recede, clearing the vision again, Annette was no longer alone, but standing cautiously beside an elegantly dressed man, who for all his clothing did not seem to be wet in the slightest. He regarded the defenders, the shadows, and the waves, summing them up with a cursory wave of his hand. The wave that had spilled, as it withdrew, tugged the majority of the shadowborn monstrosities with it, pulling them back down deeper into the sea, away from the shore, leaving only a few that had been too far out to capture. "Lady Annette," he murmured quietly, as if no one else mattered.

She met his gaze, refusing to be ruffled. "Lord William. I thought you were intended to be guarding the world-break."

A smile touched his features, somehow for her alone.

Annette stepped back, her eyes widened in surprise. "You're... you traitorous whelp!" Shock turned into amusement and she laughed slightly.

"Shore-dwellers," he said, as if this were a great dismissal. "Come back to the Moor. You don't belong up here." He raised a hand, and an arc of shadow lined with white lightning shot out, clashing with a tendril that had risen up from the shore, breaking it away from the two of them.

Annette watched the little interaction with interest. "So?" Not the Americanized so what, but the archaic flavor: So, it's like that.

"So." He nodded agreement. For a moment, his eyes left her, towards the defenders, lingering a moment on the frozen girl, resigned with a sense of there isn't much I can do about that. "Were I you," he commented, in their general direction, with a finger pointed in the direction of the shadow in the sky, "I'd do something about that before the young Shadowcaller cuts it loose." He wrapped an arm around Annette, and his shadow with it, and the waves rose up to catch the two of them and call them home.

As for the shadow itself, the ammunition that the forces had driven into its "tail" seemed to have little effect, as the tail itself was in that shadowy state, diffuse and non-solid. Munitions passed right through it, striking the ground below, leaving craters and cracks, across which a trail of shadow simply fell unaffected. The solid-made mass in the sky, though, seemed otherwise. The slipspace bullets tore gouges out of it - gouges that were quickly filled by more shadow, but even as they filled, given how many of them were impacting, there was a hint of diminishing around the edges, as if the thing simply didn't have enough mass to keep up with what was happening without another influx of light. Ammunition splintered against the sides, occasionally "breaking" off little fragments that chipped away and disappeared into nothing. The attacks weren't killing the thing... but they were certainly making it smaller. Perhaps more manageable. And maybe someone else might be able to do something about finishing it off, if they didn't have other things to worry about. Of course, in order for the others to get close, the scattered fire from the sky was going to have to stop. Even now, with the shore attackers taken back to sea, the shadow above the town opened up, the entire thing going diffuse, and the bullets that had been striking it with such force moments earlier now simply fell through.

At the ocean, the sound of the waves became more audible, and on the horizon it could be seen that the first giant wave loomed ahead. It had been slowed somewhat initially, but with the defenders being forced to spend their attention on other things, it had gotten closer while they had been distracted. It hovered on the horizon like a wall of water, and rushed forward, preparing to come crashing down. For all its visibility, its size belied its distance, and it was likely still some ten miles out to sea. At the speed it was traveling, that gave maybe fifteen minutes before it crashed to the shore. The second wave followed it, another ten minutes out. It was enough time to prepare, but people were going to have to choose what was important to them and how they wanted to focus.

The Faultline, Beneath the Waves

From somewhere in the vague distance, a cannon attacked the watery depths of the ocean. The waves tugged at the projectiles, slowing them down, tapering off their paths into vague nothingness, but one after another they came, each one a little bit farther than the one before it. Still, the Cascadia Zone was some fifty miles offshore, and for a bullet to travel fifty miles even in the open air would have been an impressive feat. Underwater... underwater, it wouldn't happen, even had the swirls of shadow not taken unkindly to the intrusion and added their weight to the water, tugging them down. For the moment, it seemed that Iridum and Zolt3d were doomed to fight alone. The man of electrons seemed a bit out of his depth here beneath the wave, not quite certain what to make of it, though he readied himself anyway.

Rana, though... she showed no such hesitance. She knew what was here, and who, and for her, that was enough. Why didn't matter. All that seemed to matter was a world beneath the waves, out of time. Months ago. She drew the blade she'd drawn back then, and with it the winds that whipped the bottom of the ocean into a frenzy, sand and coral swirling through the air, caught well before they could reach her opponent by twists of shadow that arced out from her, one after another, her own spinning maelstrom. It caught the particles, but when Rana rushed forward, it cleaved beneath the blade, leaving her an opening through the shadow for her sword to strike - and strike it did, upward from below, and the ringing clash of metal-on-metal echoed through the bubble of air as knife blades that lined the abdomen of the girl who was once Saikea's final project came out, catching the wicked edge. Whatever they were made of, though, it couldn't stand up to the edge of Drasil, and the armor-blades cleaved in two, taking most of the impact and slowing the strike, but leaving behind a sanguine gash that sprayed blood into Rana's whirlwhind, carried back with it as the shadows anchored their summoner, holding her firm in a webwork that tied her to the outside of the shadow-bound cavern.

The savant stepped back, white-lightning webbing already chained across the wound, filling it in with shadow and sealing the gash, and she raised a hand with a smile, her eyes reflecting absinthe green, as she called the fire from the shadow of insanity and cast it in a wayward arc towards Rana. "Tell me where the traitor is," she said, an accusation more than an inquiry, "Tell me where his bastard is, the one that stole all the Lady's light and left her unprotected. Tell me where they went, when she went into the waves." She advanced, slowly, the fires dancing across the ocean floor between them. "She must return. And traitors... must... die."

@fallen_savant: @orange_water: @_gaige_: @solarhawk: @emilia_cruz: @iridum: @the_custodian: @zoltage:

The Electron Adroitness grinned as Rana gave what he perceived as the order to kill. Leveling his finger at the woman he let the blast he'd been holding up in his hand go, but it was unlike his usual blasts. While most of the time, he simply converted the oxygen around him it to electrons and let them loose at his target, he wasn't sure it'd be enough this time. After all, she had just healed from the young girls attack like it was nothing. If they really wanted to get rid of her he was going to have to be a bit more creative. His first thought had been to uses his ability to convert something into pure energy to let loose an explosion that far exceeded the destructive yield of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, it only took him a second to realize that would just make the situation on shore much, much worse.

So he opened for a less conventional use of his powers, creating free radicals. By robbing nearby atoms from their electrons he an essentially made it hungry, it would look to steal as many electrons as it could from a nearby atom. That new atom would repeat the process, creating a chain reaction of more and more chemically reactive atoms. Now by itself, it would be mostly harmless, but Zoltage wasn't one to hold back when he didn't need to. He wasn't as brutal when it came to street crime as most vigilantes, but for the superpowered for those who inflicted harm for their own deranged sense of pleasure. For them, he held back nearly nothing.

The effects of free radicals were numerous, but there was only two he was relying on right now. The first being the combustion side of it. Given that free radicals stole electrons, they also broke down elements such as the water all around them. Turning it into hydrogen gas and oxygen, but that wasn't was caused the damage. In order for the radical to steal electrons in the first place, they had to generate an excessive amout of heat. Enough heat to overcome the energy barrier and allow the radical the electron it desired. A side-effect of leaving an unstable, superhot, electron-less atom behind was as bad as it sounded. It would create an explosion rippling through the air. One that would tear through whatever was placed in it's way by ripping it apart at an atomic level and burning the atoms. Needless to say, that also meant the woman in from of his finger.

While that alone was more than enough to be an attack free radicals didn't stop there. Another thing that free radicals could do, even just a couple, was corrupt DNA. In everyday life this probably happened to everyone, however, when it was in such a concentrated burst it was much different. The amount of damage it would cause to the cells would be catastrophic, meaning that even if the explosion failed to kill her she been left with a slower burning attack. Zoltage would have literally given her cancer.

All this would happen in microseconds, as the free radicals, launched by Zoltage at high speeds, rushed towards the woman and sought to tear her atoms asunder. To make sure the ensuing explosion didn't go too much farther then he wanted he sent plenty of electrons after the radicals. Once they had finished ripped the woman apart he would use the electrons to sate the radicals without making them cannibalize other atoms.

@emilia_cruz: @the_custodian: @orange_water: @solarhawk: @fallen_savant: @zoltage:

As Above

"Leaving the rest of ground forces to the rest of you sorry." Lizzy remarked into comms towards the other heroes who might be listening in. They were making profess it was a rather slow going process however and to achieve the objective of putting the shadowy colossus down it would take essentially all the fire power they had. Of course help was welcome, there were still a few of the invasion force and their leaders however. Not to mention the tide not to far out.

The objective would be a simple one, concentrated fire three black hawks, three apaches it was a small amount of air support in most occasions. However that changed when considering the ammunition UNKD got when she was around and the overall coordination. The projectiles were slowly effecting the large opposition, they needed to focus all in to really make any progress. An otherwise incorporeal mass that was hard to fight for them with regular resources.

They couldn't cast it out in the name of god, or generate enough light to chase away the darkness. What they did have however was firepower. Killzone weapon system would focus on the front of the oversized wall of obsidian, An apache would open up from the right and left with its guns. With the third focusing it's fire on the back, the three blackhawks looked to create a overlapping fire pattern at the base of the creature. And finally from above the drones leaving the beach would look to converge and rain there own fire down upon the figure. With each round having a large area of effect they hoped to blanket the creature in the rippling ammunition that seemed to suck up light shadow air and anything else around it. Looking to through sheer volume of ammunition contain the beast. Perhaps most pivotal of points being near the back of the giant and around the base. Where the ammunition of choice might sever the rope of a silhouette that let the creature be controlled.

The mech pilots only other attack was to direct the drone based hammers of dawn toward where she had been shooting previously. They knew the opposition was below, the issue was reaching such an area. The lasers from to far out lost potency by time they got out here before. Ammunition did better it still wasn't quite making the cut though, so took tame her mind a multitasking machine through the unique HUD of hers to try and take into note the waves and possible refraction from the various angles. She had twelve Hammers of Dawn systems, this would allow her to create a ring of that potent energy. When light hit's water though it angles, so she did her best to consider that as well. This would allow her attack to create a cone the energy which didn't care about distance now that they were just above the dancing waves would shoot into the depths. Intending to catch the shadow manipulator in a cage of blazing energy. One that would boil all the water before evaporating it entirely and likely do the same for whatever laid within. The intensity of this light and fact it was looking to cover all angles would in theory cut off shadows at the least from whatever was in the AoE to shadows outside of it. If this didn't work however the mech pilot might have been considered out of options on trying to contain this threat.

She also had to consider her allies, if they came for the one below the sea or for it's giant shadowy monstrosity then Lizzy and the few soldiers backing her would have to cease fire.

So Below

Fire danced along her back and arm, burned her flesh a smell and sedation all to familiar to her. This time it was in person not just in her head. Her body was aching she wouldn't pay this to much mind however. She had to end Kaedriel, wounds could heal she needed to see this done however. She focused a few of the winds about her body, cuts small but numerous coated her pale skin. It was taking away oxygen from the flames, hell lightening the burning sensation for a more tolerable series of lacerations.

Blood escaped from flesh as her blade found its way some into the other woman. Shadows looked to fill the parted flesh, and Rana smiled. Don't focus on the success or lack there of just kill, they're shadows were interwoven some. For the most part Rana had done her best to conceal her ties to the shadows, hold it so others didn't have to not so much use it. She and her fox could move to each other through the others shadow though and travel upon shadows. The devilish fox rose from Rana's shadow and up the absence of light running up the leg of Kaedriel and to the wound looking to launch an upward otherwise unorthodox pounce at the savant's head. His teeth and claws which would look to bite and tear could dig into the hides of other things a particular witch had cast and thus should find little resistance. Adding to the mixture of attacks from Zolted, which if Rana had been able to see or know of she'd have been amazed by, at the moment though she wanted a spine.

Her opponent had stepped forward casting words and fire, Rana simply looked to stay behind however. Swift on her feat so that she might launch an attack from such a flanking position. Her blade would lash out aiming to divide the lower back, split a woman in two would be nice she'd settle for a split spine however. Her rather unique blade had shown already to be able to make such a cut, she wasn't satisfied though and so with it came the currents of hell. A cyclone meant to shatter bone and carve flesh, to turn sand and ice into lethal projectiles along the gust. This would look to enhance the slash and grind up the meat within if so lucky. With closed eyes taking a brief instant to focus on which hell she looked to see. The heterochromia hellion dipped once more into wrath, to tap into a strength to rip bodies apart with small hands alone. Her free hand, a burning and cut up mess it may be sought to dive into the wound or make one if need be. And rip a certain desired trophy of hers free from the rest of the body. "Only traitor I see here I'm sorry is you."

@fallen_savant: @_gaige_:

Death, Despair, and Agony all around for the ring wielders as the creatures from the deep and the shadows continued their assault. It was like adrenaline, and alcohol, an addiction to the minds of Emilia and Rodrigo who'd been starving for quite a while now. Their rings no longer connected to the psyche of living creatures, so the feeding had to be more or less direct, but they were on vacation, hence they hadn't really bothered going into the field anyway.

But at this moment, the energy leaking out as emotions directly fueled the both of them. Emilia and Rodrigo pretended to be helping, saving someone here, punching a shadow there but the primary focus of the ordeal was, of course, something else entirely. They let chaos feed their deranged minds, until a semblance of thirst quenched was reached at and they had stopped momentarily, their gaze met each other. "Let's whack a mole," She suggested, laughing.

Rodrigo obliged, they flew, hands held together towards where the Shadow Lady Savant was fighting Rana. Their hands joined together in harmony, their rings exploded with green energy which took the shape of a giant hammer 10 meters across and slammed it down towards, Savant primarily but not really caring if Rana got hit, still, Emilia did shout down at her, "Get away little girl!"

@fallen_savant: @orange_water: @_gaige_: @solarhawk: @emilia_cruz: @iridum: @the_custodian: @zoltage:

With the immediate threat to her person neutralized The Custodian turned her attention back to the one thing no one seemed concerned about, the big giant walls of rushing water. Unfortunately no matter how powerful she was, there were limits to the power the planet itself and the people living in the area. There were a number of ways she could utterly neutralize the waves, all of them would kill everyone in the region, or worse.

"Orange Water, if you could deal with the waves, I'm out of options that won't kill everyone." She said over the com system provided by Gaige. She considered the wave awhile longer and then levitated a fist sized rock into her palm and pondered it in silence. She shifted her gaze back to the beach and then to the rock again. Hm. The Custodian focused and closed her eyes, shutting out the rest of the battle entirely to focus on a new task. She reached out and began to carefully sort gravitons one from the other, picking out structures and items, seeking specific objects made from or otherwise containing carbon. She was careful to avoid bodies (living or dead) but people would need to use their superhero insurance later.

A collection of strange materials slowly began to gather around The Custodian, swirling around her in a growing vortex of seemingly random crap. She still had to maintain her other wave breaks so she was careful and slow and the vortex contained everything from the wood parts of houses to the carbon elements in beach sand (usually dead animals, sea shell fragments, etc) to the corpses of random fish. As the Vortex of Things gathered together she continued to pull in more and more items, extending her range in careful increments since not everything she needed was readily available on the beach.

The Custodian would have grinned had it been any other day, instead she focused her mind with laser like precision. She eventually managed to shift just enough focus to speak on the com system again. "Gaige I can't help you with the shadow thing, I need to build a seawall in case our other efforts fail. If there's an emergency though please yell at me and I'll drop what I'm doing." I'm building a seawall out of carbon and whatever I can plug in the gaps with...this should amuse me. Maybe it will later when I've had a chance to calm down.

@_gaige_: @solarhawk: @emilia_cruz: @iridum: @the_custodian: @zoltage:@fallen_savant:

Less disgustingly, if just as dramatically, Solar Hawk cast a divine essence into the talisman she carried, and tossed it over to Orange Water in the waves, who caught the thing and held it above the creature before him. There was a hint of... something, a drawing back, and shadow cast into the water, tied and bound to her still, but arced away from the necklace. In another Shadowbearer, it might have drawn the girl away with it, but this one was... different. She looked up at the glowing thing, releasing the intestine she had been playing with into a sagging loop that dangled haphazardly from her belly. Her hands, she reached towards the shining thing with all the curiosity and abandon of a small child. Since that was more or less what he had planned anyway, he lowered it enough and let her grasp it. Her fingers wrapped around it, and the same white fire bled through her, out into the shadows in the water, which dissipated away into nothingness, and with it the squidlike form she'd taken, leaving her just a girl kneeling in the water. She blinked, and gave him a curious look for a moment, though still seemed more intrigued by the toy she held. The wound he'd given her earlier remained as it was - the blackening around the edges stopped, and the whole of the thing... equally bloodless.

Orange Water raised the spell he was casting, the one he'd meant to use to cauterize the bleeding, but there just... wasn't any bleeding. There was a dampish leaking of fluid that he was able to cease, but it wasn't really blood. She blinked again, slowly, and it occurred to him that the fluid in her veins not only wasn't really blood, it was also still. It should have been moving, like the rushing currents of the ocean. She should have been breathing, or trying to. Instead, she was just watching him, interested but not necessarily intent, and she didn't seem to resist as the spell came up around her and froze her into whatever state it was she was in. Whatever that was.

I didn't know how young she was she almost seemed like a young adult yet her mind had a childlike curiosity to it a moment ago playing with her intestines and now wanting to play with the holy talisman of some Egyptian god. I allowed her to take it from my hand and hold it close to her body as her infection disappeared into the waters below us. I wonder if the shadows had warped her mind so much that she was now so childlike or if this was trauma that I had caused in my "fight" with her. I didn't have time to drink or think about this question as froze her with the surrounding water and removed the holy symbol from her hand," I'm sorry... We will let you play with it later I promise," as I gave a quick request to Gaige," I have another guest to subspace and can you go on and do me a favor and teleport Aleenah out of here wherever she is." Now came the hard part I no longer had the time to reach the mastermind I had to try and help in stopping this wave now which I was certain I wouldn't be able to do.

"Orange Water, if you could deal with the waves, I'm out of options that won't kill everyone." She said over the com system provided by Gaige. She considered the wave awhile longer and then levitated a fist sized rock into her palm and pondered it in silence. She shifted her gaze back to the beach and then to the rock again. Hm. The Custodian focused and closed her eyes, shutting out the rest of the battle entirely to focus on a new task. She reached out and began to carefully sort gravitons one from the other, picking out structures and items, seeking specific objects made from or otherwise containing carbon. She was careful to avoid bodies (living or dead) but people would need to use their superhero insurance later.

"Okay just give me a moment..." As I looked towards the hawk woman who gave me the symbol of her God throwing it back towards her," I can't stop this wave at least I don't think I can but I can probably turn enough of it into ice and then into steam to stop wholesale destruction. So as long as the shadow is attached to the wave I can't do enough although if the shadows in the second wave are exorcised then I can stop that one possibly before it hits the shore. So can you help me out one last time and help me stop the tsunami?" I jumped up towards the dock and landing on the surface I turned around to see the approaching wave," Let's try this again... Get the hell out of my ocean you damn shadows."

There could be no holding back now as my eye remained blue and I outstretched my arms towards the waves and began my manipulations of the water infused shadow turning it into ice and then steam or just turning it into steam right off the bat, either way, there was no time to waste.

Beneath the Waves, Cascadia Subduction Zone

Fire danced beneath the water, caressing the hell-spawn traitor. Acrid flesh burned and sizzled, and blood and shadows filled the gaps. The Savant noted all this, with a quiet curse - so, the girl was a thief as well as a traitor. She'd stolen away a shadow of the lady, and bound it to herself where it could not return to the water, to the depths, to the Lady with whom it belonged. She might have cursed aloud, but there was not time for curses. Her attention was drawn fully to the unworthy whelp, and in so was not focused on the man who had arrived beside her.

He did nothing.... except point a finger.

Free radicals were something that existed everywhere. They weren't a unique creation, that was nowhere until he made them so. They floated about in some amount constantly, having minor reactions here and there, simply being a part of the chemical makeup of the atomic world. They were not even necessarily dangerous, in and of themselves, and would eventually stabilize themselves through reactions over time.

The difficulty lay in the fact that the natural state of things contained a very small amount of free radicals. When Zolt3d unleashed his attack, it was not to send a few radicals into the continuum, but rather to pour a steady stream of them, targeted solely in the direction of his adversary. They sparked into oxygen in the air, blossoming into flame along the trajectory, and the air inside the bubble again filled with the scent of burning flesh, this time mixed with the white scent of heated metal as it contacted the blades embedded within her body. With only a small amount of air beneath the waves, the explosions couldn't take off as well as he might have liked, and indeed as soon as the fire blossomed along her side, a shadow wrapped around the stream and snuffed it out, shielding its chosen against further damage. The damage, though, was already being done - the cells within her body at the contact point breaking, mutating, creating polyps of things that should not be. It would not be an instant effect, but even now it was propagating itself throughout her system, and the shadows within raced to contain it.

She raised a hand to the charred area, a knife sliding out along her wrist, the obvious intent to excise whatever had been done to her - cut it out, and let the shadows take over. The kitsune writhed its way up her leg, and the Savant cast it back with a shadow of her own - made solid and infused with the same green fire she'd launched at Iridum, an unkind attack that was meant to destroy the creature or burn it beyond recognition.

As for Iridum herself... she knew an opening when she saw one. She cast forth a cyclone, caught up by the shadows that spun it away, but the blade within the whirlwind struck true, slicing through metal and bone and flesh, and the girl closed her eyes and summoned her Wrath, the anger for a family torn apart before she could make it her own, for a small sister who would grow up without a mother, for the father who had killed the woman he loved when she had been betrayed, for all the horrors that had been and were still yet to come. Her delicate hand tore into the open wound, and white lightning blazed as she grabbed her desired trophy and ripped it free with a writhing shadow wrapped around it that blazed away into nothingness.

There was a moment of stillness, and then the shadow that held back the water dissipated out into the ocean, and the waves came crashing inward once again. Outside in the ocean, the shadow of the leviathan that had stopped them before filtered past, slowing for a moment beside the collapsing bubble, catching the shadows that broke loose. The creature tendered a bow in the direction of the attackers, and sped off into the sea, content to let the two of them rest in a watery grave.

North Cove, Seashore

At the seashore, helicopters peppered a shadow with ammunition, but the thing lay dormant for the most part, inert, letting the strikes pass through it. Attacks fell, indeterminate, a few of them scattering bits of shadow here and there, but there always seemed to be more of it, and the shadow itself did not seem to want to engage, staying quiet... as if waiting for something. Time ticked by, and at the moment no one could know that Rana had ripped free her grisly prize, there was an inaudible snap, and the tether that had tied the shadow to the ocean broke free. The thing collected itself not into a formless monstrosity, but into a woman - a towering giant that lumbered above the city, some thirty feet tall now made of shadow-made solid. The thing armed itself with a sword of darkness, and swung it towards one of the helicopters circling in the sky, a massive hand launching out to strike at another.

At the edge of the water, Gaige's Hammer of Dawn struck the ocean. Water evaporated into a cloud, leaving stranded the dead fish that Orange Water had boiled earlier. Some distance of the ocean was gone, water pooling slowly back in, but there was a gap, a bit of space that would break the tsunami further out from the town than it would have before, giving valuable distance to help preserve the coastline.

At the shoreline, the defenders turned their attention to the massive wave that was coming in on the horizon. The Custodian started in on a quest to create a wall to hold back the sea, ripping molecules and debris from the nearby town. Homes and buildings and streets crumbled under her onslaught, possibly doing as much or more damage to the small town as the tsunami would have done when it hit. It was a decision that might help to stop the wave... but whether or not the cost would be worth it or the decision the right one was something that only time could decide. Right now, her concentration was on the wall she crafted, pressing pieces of what had once been a town into a wall and filling the gaps with compressed carbon that she pulled out of the woodwork.

The wall took shape, and stood erected out at the shoreline, and the waves came closer, rushing inward.

Orange Water waited with necessary patience as the wave closed, and when it arrived, he hit it with as much of his abilities as he could muster, freezing ice and more steam released into the air, now damp and heavy, saturated with so much of the sea. The wave broke up, much smaller as a good portion of its volume evaporated, ice floes trapped in what remained, slowing it down somewhat, dragging against the current. The wave that remained impacted against the barrier, water and ice crashing against walls that had once belonged to houses, pavement that had once belonged to streets, cars that had once belonged to people. Some of them splintered as water poured through the gaps, but what poured through was slowed, a surge but not a suffocation. It leaked back in to where the ocean had rested once, and the water settled. On the horizon, the second wave was still some ten or fifteen minutes out. It, too, would need to be dealt with, but for now there was small amount of time for the defenders to prepare, and the shadows that had sped the second wave were gone now, leaving only water. It was still an incoming disaster, but it was no longer an unnatural disaster.

@zoltage: @fallen_savant:

Flames danced along her figure skin burned flesh brightened and then in a few places even began to become dark and charred. It burned for once all to real of a sensation, she'd known it before but only within her psyche. The pain casted by hell it wasn't real at least not in a physical representation. Rana could endure the pain for a time, as it wasn't new eventually though it was. And her body tightened in response she wasn't going to stop here, couldn't be bothered to. She did however need to call it a day she figured once she'd seen to Kaedriel, she had a sister to tuck in later, a dad who shouldn't worry. She also had to tell him what had transpired when the deed was done. Take the fire, tolerate the pain and keep fighting she told herself as she closed the distance exploiting the opening.

Yusha came not to successful when so small and from a frontal attack with another shadow user. He was knocked aside the fox could burn like magma himself so the flames didn't weigh on him to extensively. But the shadows tore and ravaged pushed and lashed back. The small figure of his was torn and battered left to skid along the sands of the ocean depths. He was a good distraction though for the explosions and blade that'd come in relative unison. The explosions consumed a small section of the conflict zone. While managed enough not to burst upon the heterochromia hero the concussive force was there. A sliver of metal broke free from Kaedriel shrapnel that briefly nicked her eye before sinking into her brow. Her vision blurred in her left eye as blood flowed, it'd need some corrective lenses but that was for a later time. She had to focus, look past the pain. This woman had ruined a chance for Ashley that wasn't fair, placed Nathan into a situation of doing something no partner should have to do.

Wind tore through the air but was mostly countered by shadow with said attention scattered though it led Drasil to find it's mark. That blade casted from a some might say divine tree, and some might say counterfeit of such a thing. It didn't change the wood however's unique edge which left a trail of distortion in it's path as it briefly divided nearly any and all things. Including the lower back of the body and various muscles and organs within, ichor scarlet usually but almost as dark as pitch in the limited light escaped the wound. Painted the sands before Rana's hand soft and burning but cruel and cold in intention dived into the opening. Electricity surged through her veins intense in pain but helping her grip tighten. Then came the tear as her vision went to seeing rage and chaos she briefly tapped into the force upon the thrust she'd gained the might to rip limbs away to casually break skulls in her palm and as such brought the spine free from the rest of the body.

Eyes open tapping once more into the part of hell that allowed Rana to generate winds, a strong gust that allowed the two survivors and fox to continue breathing. Air replacing what was lost in combustion hell opened to sheathe Rana's blade and take the spine for a later time. Returning home with it in hand wasn't what her dad should have to see, that wasn't fair to him. She'd make something of it later for now she took a second to compose herself it felt great in a way, the shadows were being taken elsewhere for what she didn't know but they were lifted from a corpse. On the other hand it felt wrong and unrewarding. This woman had been lost, a subject who's loyalty seemed to lead into madness in a way Rana wasn't even sure she'd killed the same woman. "I'm sorry Kaedriel, even if I hated you. I hope lost and buried at sea perhaps the shadows will leave you so that you might have clear enough sight to find her."

Hellish to some gracious to others Rana only dropped to a knee to try and make the deceased look as presentable as she could arms lain peacefully hair as nice as she could hope to make it. Kaedriel had been a friend to her family once and that deserved respect even if Rana had been the killer. By now the winds had chased away the fire that'd danced along her small figure. She chose to take what she could of her own clothes to tear away to help cover the wounds of the fallen. Bandages and tourniquets to hide lacerations and pockets of exploded flesh.

Once done she went to pick up Yusha recovering from his own wounds but only looking to Rana's own much like she did with him upon taking him into her arms. "I'm going home Zolt3d, thank you for the help I don't want to be here anymore though." She'd of said it even if he'd left her though with the dead, and only after did she exit through a portal and let the sea return to how it was. The tides looking to take away the dead, and in Rana's mind she liked to think that the currents washing away one corpse would lead to the remains of another who'd fallen so long ago. Rana would arrive on the beach and similarly look to make her exit. "I can't be here anymore sorry. But thank you for having been here." Status of the situation was unknown she couldn't be bothered just spoke into the comms and moved on. For the shoulders of the sixteen year old were lighter a burden having been lifted, but a heart heavy with what revenge had led her to. She vanished again to arrive back in LA.

"Dad, I'm so sorry." She'd changed as she passed through the rifts of hell. Once home taking a seat at a window frame. Warmth of the sun a comfort after such a dark action. Most the blood had been cleaned she still saw it though, her eyes liked to show it to her even now. Rana did her best to start healing her own wounds with what she'd learned from Drake. Her one eye was closed a small sliver of blackened iron rested by Rana's foot with a few drips of vermillion around it.

"I tried to see to her being as presentable as possible but let the sea take her. It seamed right she be where Saikea was. I'm also not sure you'd of wanted to see her that way." She wasn't even sure if vengeance had been done, if the life she longed to take was bound to the spine she'd torn free. So many people were lost adrift in mind and soul, drowning in darkness until they were unrecognizable. "Still I love you and I'm sorry."

"Is Ashley okay."

@solarhawk: @emilia_cruz: @the_custodian: @orange_water: @fallen_savant:

"First wave is taken care of, last one is a good while out. Orange, Dia any chance you can get to that as well still?Perhaps a gravity well or opposing wave sent it's way?" Granted the way things had gone were remarkably frustrating on some level. A lot of dead sea life, and a vast amount of destroyed homes and property. It was the later which got to the mech pilot, that was a lot of people she'd have to try and help later and might be more then she possibly could hope to. They were supposed to protect lives and homes, they'd sparred lives but hadn't homes. Lizzy was asked to make extractions as well for a few, dividing her focus more. Lizzy herself would simply turn the Hammers of Dawn weapon system toward the coming wave adjusting some and then releasing another cone of energy meant to help soften the coming tsunami and then look to help with Landon's request.

Sisters Eye thanks to it's satellite nature was able to find Aleenah and would send a projectile her way so that she might escape. It was only a door though, the choice was up to the girl. As for its exit it would lead back to outside of Unity's base so that she might be able to return to familiar territory. As for the ravaged victim of combat Landon had confronted Lizzy sought to use Sisters Eye to try and drop her simply into a pocket of slipspace isolated and alone. There were the many twisted subjects that came as an invasive force, but leaving the wounded with them didn't seem the logical call. With any luck both would be removed from the ongoing conflict one that was changing and as Rana eventually arived on the shore it was clear why. The source was dead they were nearing the end, but the poor kid herself was done for the day. "Take care of yourself Rana."

They had a shadow colossus to deal with still for a large part the ammunition wasn't doing to much for it as it went back to a more incorporeal state that resisted to much damage being done or progress being made. A sword came down and collided with a black hawk, shielding of a drone broke under the force. The obsidian edge cleaving into the propellars scattering the rotating blades to lacerate streets and remnants of buildings. Oversized sword cut into a soldier but on its traversal down in the continuation of the arch do to size reduced the man into more akin to paste. The drone shifted into a combative state instead of a defensive one. Changes made just as the helicopter was nearing the soil, rounds captured the soldiers within the blackhawk and moved to fire at the pilot. Sparing them but by then the bird had impacted the road and as fuel combusted and metal crumpled and components were made into shrapnel it was to late for anything else. The drone and copilot were lost from the damage done. "Focus fire on the arms." The remaining drones and helicopters began focusing fire for now on the weaponized limbs of the shadow. Before it'd gone intangible they'd made some progress. The idea was then if it was back to this state and their rounds could work they could focus on the limbs to decrease mass. To replace what was lost it'd likely need to shrink in size.

Landon's blade worked, the hawk lord had been effective perhaps this was better for something beyond science. "Hey Solar think you can give a hand?" Of course Lizzy also had her own idea. There was some issues with it, they were fallen gods, some might say artificial. She did believe in them however, as she'd met them, saved them, fought beside them. If something sacred or holly was something needed then perhaps she had a chance. She also while not devoted, knew angels were real. She lived with one, well he lived in her occasional home away from home anyway. "Any chance Robin's clan of birds or some fallen friends can grant a girl a miracle?" Not the best prayer but that wasn't her thing. As Mjolnir opened up h;however Lizzy would open fire a twenty millimeter slug hopefully blessed escaping her barrel. The projectile not likely to miss the head of such a large target.

@_gaige_: @solarhawk: @emilia_cruz: @the_custodian: @orange_water: @fallen_savant:

Solar Hawk launched into the sky, flying straight for the giant of shadows like the spear of Amun-Ra. The sound barrier screamed as she hit mach three and made for its center mass with the intent of combining the divine aura that seemed to be so influential on the shadows with her immense momentum and one good mighty swing of her mace to hopefully bring the shadow beast down or otherwise cripple it.

Solar Hawk kept her sword ready as well but intended to use it if she needed to cut herself lose from the thing or otherwise deflect an attack. Gold blood trickled down her side from the earlier wound but the pain was long forgotten. The Wrath of Ra continued to accelerate on her approach, she wouldn't slow down until she crashed in or through the shadow beast.

Let's get this over with, looks like whatever was driving this has been itself driven away or ended but this thing could do a lot of damage on its own. These new guys aren't half bad actually, they did a pretty solid job.

@orange_water: @the_custodian: @solarhawk: @_gaige_:

On the line where the water met the land, there were a few minutes between one wave and the next for the heroes to shore up their defenses. The Custodian and Orange Water seemed to have the idea that if something had worked well enough the first time, they might as well stick to it rather than spending precious seconds trying to formulate a new plan. The first wave, muted as it had been, had still done significant damage to the retaining wall, and so the Custodian had to use her time to pull additional debris from the deconstructed town and use it to fill in the gaps where she could, adding smaller and smaller pieces where there were holes to be found, and reinforcing the structure with drawn out carbon fillings.

Landon waited, preparing himself for the onslaught. The trick to using his own abilities in this situation was judging the timing - he'd have more impact the longer he waited, but if he waited for too long, it would be too late to have the effect that he wanted. The wave gathered itself out at sea, no longer prompted by the whims of the shadows, it followed only the currents of the ocean. It came in as a rolling mass, and ice began to nip at its heels as it approached, floes freezing away behind it as they dropped off of the wave into massive sheets of ice, a hazard for boaters that would dissipate over time. The air above the sea clouded with steam, mist and damp rain as oversaturated atmosphere poured its excess back into the ocean, collected back into the infinite basin, out of the grasping hands of the wave. One massive piece after another, the wave diminished, bleeding off its essence back into the ocean in one form or another, leaving much less of itself when it finally made impact, crashing in to the erected wall with all its distressed force.

The wall shattered, where it needed to, letting gouts of water pass through, spurting on to the seashore like watery cannons. For the most part, though, it held back the onslaught, and the places where the wall broke just released the pressure, turning back the tide of the mass. Waves settled onto the shore, crashing and white-capped, but they didn't reach beyond the sands, and no one would need to contend with them other than the defenders on the seashore. The town would have been protected... had it not been destroyed in making it the instrument of its own defense. The people, already evacuated by the speedster and the Sister's Eye, wouldn't have anything to say about that at the moment, but what they would think of it when they returned... well, that was a question that was going to need to be addressed.

In the place that had once been the town, the shadow colossus watched the downed copter with vague dispassion, or seemed to anyway. For a thing made entirely of shadow, it was difficult to tell how it actually processed the world around it - even if it appeared human shaped, there was no real reason to believe that it had the same senses. If it was being attentive to something, it was to the pink mech before it, that opened up and showed a girl, who offered a vague prayer to some half-forgotten gods, and unloaded a bullet, striking the shadow-creature between the 'eyes.' It turned, considering her, shadows rippling along its throat as it redesigned itself somewhat. "Child." It spoke, with a pause, as if testing the word, the formation of it. The voice of the creature was an echo of Lizzy's own, with a bit more depth, a hint of harmonics, and a softening around the edges... but still, it sounded more like her own voice run through a filter than anything else, "You know very little of miracles."

The creature raised a sword, and Solar Hawk's mace impacted upon it, white lightning dissipating throughout the blade, but quickly absorbed. "And you. Avatar of a forgotten god. The remnants of mystery that cling to you may dispel the lesser fragments, but your god is as much a shadow now as I. Do not think I cannot stand against him. You are more like the bearers on the seashore than you would like to believe." Thus dismissed, it returned its attention to Lizzy, watching her with open intrigue. "The mind-stormed bound one thought you of interest. Or perhaps I did, through her. What do you think, child? Shall I suffuse you, and echo through your technomachy? The world you would build would be interesting to partake of."

@the_custodian: @orange_water: @solarhawk: @fallen_savant:

Her prayer went unanswered or at the very least the power behind it wasn't on the level needed to have an effect. The way the creature spoke it sounded like maybe just maybe the idea was the right one that faith and spirit might be the proper tool to bring such a thing down. However Lizzy there was no way she could call on such to best what stood before her. She had a faith in science and her mind not in the sky fathers new or old. Even if some seemed undeniably real she only went so far in such faith. That said her tools as well we're not enough to achieve the over all objective.

She'd fired rockets to no avail despite the way they planketed the skies. She had tried laser weapons and while it held a focus it fasted as many shadows as it did chase away. She'd shot at it only for it to pass through or do minimal harm. She'd coordinated her gunfire with helicopters and drones despite the vast area of effect it wasn't enough it wasn't fast enough. This shadow didn't even seem to have a source to cut free any more as a potential means of victory.

So Lizzy would multitask she'd pre plan, and send a text as she spoke. When it came to the text it was to Unity and the Heroes of Tommorow, it was to Vael and to Kaija. Coworkers and friends she wanted to get it out there. That 'I'm pretty sure I'll be fine, but just in case this plan backfires I'll miss you <3'. Then came the pre planing if this was her end every cent she had would go to helping restore this city and UNKD was to dispose of all her tech. If this went south she would launch a projectile fro, the Sisters Eye to contain her. Despite her confidence that she'd be okay the nerd still had to be sure, then or more accuratly at the same time she spoke to the shadow colossus before her.

"It's true. I tend to be more self sufficient then that, I'd rather put faith in my own brain and friends. I didn't know Saikea she seemed a brilliant mind though. Her work scares me in some places, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued though. So I'll take a chance on you, Mjolnir doesn't have a copilot seat though." The pistol was holstered as the pilot extended her hand toward the towering figure before herself. Hoping that for better or worse it might at least bind with herself and conclude this rather problematic day.

@_gaige_:@solarhawk: @fallen_savant:@the_custodian:

The creature raised a sword, and Solar Hawk's mace impacted upon it, white lightning dissipating throughout the blade, but quickly absorbed. "And you. Avatar of a forgotten god. The remnants of mystery that cling to you may dispel the lesser fragments, but your god is as much a shadow now as I. Do not think I cannot stand against him. You are more like the bearers on the seashore than you would like to believe." Thus dismissed, it returned its attention to Lizzy, watching her with open intrigue. "The mind-stormed bound one thought you of interest. Or perhaps I did, through her. What do you think, child? Shall I suffuse you, and echo through your technomachy? The world you would build would be interesting to partake of."

I couldn't move... well I could but that would mean the end of the town that was left after the attack from the shadows and I didn't know for sure if Custodian could hold off the tsunami by herself at this point. I knew the Hawk woman was up there as well trying to take down the remaining shadow but failing for the moment and now Gaige was thinking about taking a deal from a hostile entity especially something that we fought against in Minnesota and here today. " Lizzy listen to me do not take that deal. The entity can't be trusted it has to be destroyed to make sure it doesn't try and kill us all again. Do not make deals with otherworldly entities that's like one of the most important rules of magic. Someone hold that thing off I'll be there soon and I'll help you finish the damn thing off." I didn't care if I was starting to become tired of the constant power use we need to finish the case once and for all.

@orange_water: @the_custodian: @solarhawk: @_gaige_:

The man's words crashed like water, lost in the roar of the waves. If Gaige heard them, they did not seem to change her mind. The offer hung in the air, and a hand lay extended between them. The shadow swirled, condensing down within itself like a whirlpool, splashing onto the ground and rising again only the size of a human: a woman's body. For a moment it was nebulous, shifting ever-so-slightly between silhouettes, but it settled before her in a copy identical to herself, colorless and made of shadow, its own hand extended in mirror image.

Fingertips touched, flesh-to-shadow, and white fire poured through the shadow creature, alighting it for a moment, then swirling into sparks that coursed through the body it had created, mimicry of synapse. The white chains sparked, and then shadow-and-soulfire vanished together into nothingness.

Within Lizzy's mind, her own voice echoed softly. :How beautiful you are, little creator. We will make lovely things. Interesting things. All the things.: Her own soft laughter, breathless with anticipation at the things that might become. Ideas sparkled through her head, things that could be designed or created or improved. Memory of a tiny spider that suddenly seemed to make sense, the way it could hold the shadows using the power of stolen life and stolen immortality. Lizzy could rebuild it if she wanted, destroy a mortal and a god to bring it back to life, or use the same misbegotten technology for her own devices.

Echoing her decision, the wave crashed into the barrier and dissipated, leaving a handful of corpses, a broken town, and the whisper of a shadow in a mind that had not broken... yet.

The sun climbed toward the horizon, calm and steady as the ocean, casting cheerful shadows on to the speckled sand.