Luis turned to look at Marlene, confused at the sudden regaining of stamina and... was she wearing a suit of armour? He opened his mouth to speak, maybe to ask her what the hell was going on, then was forced to hit the deck as the already-damaged apartment building's front exploded, showering everyone in dust and chunks of rock. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" He stayed down for a moment, looking around wildly for the source of the explosion, then got into a crouch, bringing his rifle to bear. That's fucking it. This fight needs to end now. Civilian casualties are not an option, and definitely not from the fucking commander of the operation. He sighted in on the Vanguard's bleeding eye and fired.
The earthquake created by the demon did not affect Erick too much as he was already lying on the ground. Although he did have to roll away from the car as there was ruble from one of the buildings about to fall on it. 'Thank god this isn't a Michael Bay movie.' Erick thought as he was a giant piece of concrete fall on the car. He saw the platforms Aaren had made for the team to stand on. He was directly below one of them. He tried to jump towards it but wasn't able to completely make his journey. He tried again, but this time, when he felt himself start to fall he used his Charge spell to help him catch on to the platform. To his surprise he actually passed over the platform but managed to land on it. "Alright, I haven't got much but this is all I got." Erick spoke into the comm as he cast a Torch with almost all of his light flux.
"This guy's really not going to make this easy, is it?", Marlene muttered to herself as the Vanguard brought himself out and actually absorbed some of the leftover Dark Flux wandering around, and ducked under cover as both the Vanguard's artificial earthquake and her team leader's explosive ability did a serious number to the city. I really hope I won't have to pay for all this collateral, she mused, as she went back up on her feet, trying to keep her footing stable despite the artificial earthquakes. But in this case, I guess there's only one way through this... Glancing around, she saw her leader creating several platforms in the air, Michael going into position, Luis readying a shot, Erick rushing inward -- looks like they had the same idea, then. Preparing her reserves of Flux, she too dashed towards the almost-fallen Demon in front of her. As she closed in, Marlene noticed that she now was receiving Dark Flux from one more source... And said source, the Dark Vanguard, noticed her. Fists flew, with what is possibly as much power as the weakened Demon can muster, but as slow as those swings were, they were unsurprisingly easy to sidestep, Marlene steadily continuing her advance while drawing in the abundance of Light Flux Michael's previous blast released. As she made it to a nearby Light Shield-platform, however, the Vanguard showed that it still had one trick up its sleeve... One last salvo of homing projectiles. Marlene knew she wouldn't be able to dodge that, not in this situation, standing in a narrow platform suspended in midair... So, reinforcing her shield arm, she crouched and braced herself, putting her shield between her and the projectiles. And perhaps surprisingly, she weathered through the assault just fine, the coating of Dark Flux on her shield absorbing much of the blow, though the shock still left her arm feeling quite sore. Nevertheless, as the assault ended, she is now clear to continue her approach - and promptly did so as one of the Vanguard's fists blew through the place she was in just moments ago, and in only a few jumps she was only one jump away from the Vanguard. The only way through this... Reinforcing her legs, she leapt forward. As she leapt, she discarded her armor, her Reinforcements, and took in as much of the Light Flux suspended around her as she can. Now capable of utilizing Light spells, she used all the Flux she's collected into her Charge Weapon spell, surrounding her blade with a crackling, sparking aura of unstable Light Flux. With this amount of power, the enhancement wouldn't last for more than a single shot - in fact, she'd have to put in significant amounts of mental effort just to keep the enhancement stable enough it doesn't blow up after more than a few seconds. But a single shot is exactly what she needs, and a few seconds is all she needs. "...Is to end this in one fell swoop!", Marlene shouted, plunging her blade hilt-deep into the Vanguard's neck.
Watching what everyone else was doing, Michael took action. He gathered up some more of the residual light flux, and prepared himself for his attack. Splitting his blade in half, and then crouching, Michael prepared his most powerful spell. Casting Arial Offensive, Michael shot into the air. As he jumped, Luis' shot hit the Vanguard, making it scream again, this time much deeper. As Michael neared the apex of his jump, the Torch hit the Demon, making it recoil in pain and burning away some of its defenses. Michael began nearing the demon, and Marlene struck the demon, making it glow from the amounts of light flux pushed into her weapon. As the demon let out a piercing scream, Michael landed. On its head. With both of his blades pressing into neck at each side. However, it wasn't as much a landing as a momentary obstacle. Michael sped past Marlene, slicing through the neck of the demon, leaving a large hole in its neck and its head almost off. Michael quickly flipped out his Kunai and coated it in a dark flux string, then flung the end, impaling it into the demon. This slowed his descent enough so that his legs didn't break when he landed. 'It's up to you, boss, I am gonna be incapped from that in a second when my brain catches up with my body, so I'll just make my way out of the path of you.' Michael limped away and leaned against a car on the side of the street.
Aaren's order was received and Luis, who was of course the sniper, fired first. Some simple sniper rounds were enough to get the demons attention and it fired dark projectiles at Luis. Aaren responded by jumping in front of them and blocking them with a light shield. Beneath Aaren Erick was already putting the pressure on the demon again by moving in and casting torch. The spell hit the demon in the chest and it cried and roared. It send out another many wave of dark projectiles and tried creating earthquakes. The buildings were trembling and another few started showing signs of collapsing. The platforms were unharmed, though. Aaren was too distracted to stop this wave. He tried using guidance to guide them away from their target and hopefully onto the demon, but the spell did nothing as he still had the platforms up. The demon was now furious but Marlene pulled off some crazy stunt and got the demon in its neck. Aaren rejoiced and jumped back onto the ground. He started repeatedly slashing the legs of the demon, unbalancing it as Michael hit it in the neck as well. The demon fell onto its knees and Aaren jumped onto its back where Marlene still was and quickly signaled her to pull out the weapon while he charged a spark bomb with all of his flux. The demon shook, but Aaren reacted by pushing his own glaive into its back. Barely holding on, he pushed the spark bomb into the hole Marlene and Michael had made and he let go of the glaive. The demon tried to cast some sort of spell, but the spark bomb exploded and the spell never finished. The demon let out one last noise and fell down, not even able to try to keep itself up. It had no more will to fight and it just laid down on the ground, slowly fading into a trillion particles of light and dark flux that filled the air around the team in a beautiful display while refilling all of their flux. The rubble that contained the portal let out a puff of black smoke to signal its disappearance. Aarens glaive made a metallic sound as it hit the pavement. Aaren was starstruck and could only say a "Well done, team! I am proud." Seconds after the demon had faded everyone was deafened by a big chopper moving in and landing quickly. Three high-ranking Hunters stepped out. They looked around the street and absorbed some of the leftover flux. They stared at the team members in silence, although the sound of the rotors was deafening. They looked at each other and one finally uttered a sentence. "You've made quite a mess." Aaren simply nodded. "Alright. Let's get to work." The two of the Hunters nodded at each other and started conjuring powerful spells, draining a lot of the flux that was still floating around. The buildings reformed, but were the rubble had been about 20 people were laying on the ground. 18 of them still were moving. Later someone would tell Aaren that most of the people had fled trough the back doors onto another street to safety. The third Hunter signaled Marlene. "Come over and help by healing their worst injuries, please. Just make sure they're not dieing" It was more of an order than a question and the Hunter sounded as tired as everyone else. The Hunter walked up to the two people that weren't moving. The Hunter touched them on their forehead. "Not killed by shadows or magic directly, good. And well within the time limit." All of the remaining light flux in the area started going towards her. She closed her eyes, and opened them again. They were glowing a pure white. She touched both corpses on the chest directly above the heart. Next all the dark flux started going towards her. Again, she closed her eyes and this time they glowed a pure black. She touched both corpses on the head where the brain is. Both started coughing up blood and screamed. Then they opened their eyes, looking startled and scared. The Hunter simply walked away without a word. She passed by Aaren who was still watching the two people, saying something to him he couldn't quite hear but it was along the lines of "We could've used that flux much better." They signaled everyone, both the team and the people who were injured, to move into the chopper. Aaren was closest to the chopper and had just picked up his weapon and got in directly, tired. He had wanted to say something inspirational to his team in the chopper, some grand speech to celebrate their victory, but fell asleep as soon as he sat down. He woke up from the sound of jet engines starting. ((everyone, please do at most 1 more IC post regarding what happened between your last post and the colab post. After that please move it to the googledoc (page 8 and after) so we can do conversations and such without having super short posts. As for how you get to the plane and how much time your character has spend not sleeping (the plane departs roughly 12 hours after the end of the fight): that is up to you. You should all still be in the conversation.))
As the demon fell Erick jumped down from the platform he and saw a helicopter landing immediately at that spot. Three demon hunters came out, probably elites cleaning up the mess they made. Erick cleaned his gun of the debris it was covered in waiting for the permission of the elite hunters to get in the helicopter. He heard the remark one of the hunters gave to Aaren. Sure they destroyed some of the buildings and most of the windows were broken but they did take down a class B vanguard all by themselves. To Erick, it was nothing short of victory. As the elite hunters finished they signaled for everyone to get into the helicopter and Erick obeyed their command. He was too tired to say much to anybody and immediately fell asleep in the helicopter. Erick woke up as the helicopter landed into a demon hunter base. He noticed that Aaren was being dragged off by a couple of men into a bunker. He jumped out off the helicopter and stretched his arms adm started walking towards his own bunker. 'Home sweet home.' Erick thought happily looking at his messy bunker. It was a small, army-type bunker filled with only the essentials by the demon hunters, a small single bed, a lamp and a desk for, well, anything. Although Erick's desk was filled with random pieces of machinery he spawned. There were also some blueprints of weapons he had taken with him from his job at Wings Ltd. before he joined Demon Hunters but was never able to successfully make one as he did not have the right equipment, but it was good to have a hobby. Beside his desk lied a crate and written on it 'Machine Parts'. Erick opened it with a smile on his face. The crate contained the random parts of the turrets he had been setting up before the battle. He replaced a few parts of his rifle with the ones in the crate as a repair. He got out of his clothes, showered and put a clean identical one. He drank a bottle of beer before sleeping in his bed. He woke up at the touch of a man and immediately fended him off. "Good you're awake," said the man, "go and get patched up and restore some of your flux at the tents and proceed onwards to that Boeing plane over their." He pointed at the giant plane and set off. Erick wiped off his sleepiness and did as the man said. He went over to the healing tent even though he felt unharmed, thanks to Marlene, although it did make him feel energetic. After getting his flux 'filled up' he continued over to the plane and saw Aaren already sleeping in his seat. He continued over to a seat, sat down and stared emotionlessly out the window, lost in his own thoughts.
Luis clicked the safety on his rifle as the demon finally gave up the ghost. "Kill is fucking confirmed." With that, he got up, glaring daggers at Aaren, who didn't notice. That was disgraceful. Distracted by the arrival of the helicopter, he walked over to the LZ, keeping a respectful distance, muttering under his breath so the leader didn't hear. "Well done? That wasn't well done. Civilian casualties are an automatic failure, you ficken peilstab. What am I supposed to do when my CO's this stupid? Well done. I can't believe it." He watched impassively as the bodies were removed from the rubble, but the fact that they were easily healed didn't change anything. If Aaren hadn't passed out the minute he sat down, the soldier would have had some choice words and like as not a left hook for him. As it happened, he just sat as far from him as possible, staring at Aaren with a look that probably could have burned a hole through paper. He didn't move from that spot for the whole flight. The transfer went off without a hitch, and before long they were back, Luis retreating to his bunker to perform a spot check on any injuries and service his equipment. He'd lost his knife, unfortunately, and he still had this weird sensation in the back of his mind. It was like someone was trying to whisper in his ear in a language he didn't understand. Trying to ignore it, he patched up his uniform, cleaned his rifle and axe, and just generally avoided his companions until it was time to get to the flight. He'd sleep on the plane. Twelve hours later, he sat down in the front of the plane, vaguely interested in how high-end it was but not particularly caring. Ignoring his... weird thing wasn't really helping. In fact, it was getting worse, if anything. With a sigh, he buried his head in his arms.
Info dump inbound: This is a conversation between Michael and Marlene. --------------------------- Marlene nodded wordlessly as she headed to heal the injured, or at least make sure they're not in any immediate danger to their life. Though she probably would have done so anyway even if she wasn't ordered. It was in her nature to help others after all... And it really was partly her fault in the first place for causing so much collateral. ...Though she had to say, watching someone bring a recently-dead person back to life was quite the sight. Still, she was quite tired after all this, and she's sure pretty much everyone else is, too. Sighing inwardly, she continued her duty, tending to the injured and wounded with both mundane and magical means. Done with her task, she entered the helicopter, just in time to see her fearless leader drift off to sleep near-instantly. Exhaustion - she certainly figured as much. She's about as tired too, and flopping down to sleep for a good while is a signifficant temptation right now. But as experience told her, she's pretty much unable to sleep right out of a stressful situatioin, and she still feels stressed from the night's events. Marlene sighed, and leaned back on her chair. "I think I need a drink..." While Marlene was healing the wounded, Michael was helping get the ones that had been fixed up back to the helicopter. After the demon gad died, he had sucked up the flux like everyone else, gaining back his strength. Since it was kind of their fault that the civilians were injured, Michael felt obligated to help. Once they were all in the helicopter, he sat down as well, near Marlene. As he sat down, he heard her talking about getting a drink. 'I know of a great place in the city to get a drink, if you want to go once we get back to base.' "Ah, well...", Marlene replied, trying her hardest to not not look at her conversation partner, "That would be nice, I guess. Though, I think we might have the same idea of a place either way", she said, managing to force a small smile despite her fatigue. "So... I suppose we're paying for ourselves?", she continued, unconsciously letting in a bit of worry in her voice. She didn't like having others to pay for her, honestly, and on the other hand her former payroll as an office worker is tight enough that treating another person to alcohol would probably be pushing it. Seeing the worried look on her face, he said, 'It's ok, I can pay for myself. If you are running low on cash, I can pay for you as well, I don't really have much to spend on these days, what with almost constant training with weapons and flux training. With all of that I never really get any spare time.' "Oh, uh, not to worry. I can pay for myself", Marlene replied hurriedly, not wishing to impose on her new teammate. "But thanks anyway" She let out a small sigh, and leaned back on her chair. "So, anything else do you want to talk to me about?", she asked in return. 'I think it would be better at the bar, not exactly the best place to talk right.' He slowly raised his voice as the helicopter blades whirled faster. He sat back into the chair, relaxing. Holding the door open for Marlene, they walked inside getting seats by the bar. "This really is my usual place", Marlene mused as she entered, nodding a quick thanks to Michael for his gentlemanly courtesy. Not many bars are open at this time of day, but this happens to be an exception to the rule - a part of the reason why she visits this place on occasion. Taking her seat and ordering her drink, she turned to her companion, "So... Is there anything you wish to talk about?", she asked, taking a slow sip of her glass. Ordering a pint, Michael turned around to look at her. 'Where do you come from?' He said thanks to the bartender as he was handed the drink, then took a sip of it, savoring the bitter drink. "Great Britain", Marlene stated curtly, taking a small slip before amending, "Though, I wouldn't be surprised if people were surprised at this. I don't talk like a British, do I?", she said, managing a small smirk as she intentionally let show a more 'British' accent in her words. "That said... Where do you come from, Michael?", she asked back. Michael looked at her surprised for a second, then looked back up at the board where the alcohol selection was. 'You wouldn't think it by looking at me, but San Francisco. People always think that anything coming from that city is a surfer or gay.' He shook his head, then took another sip of his beer. 'Haven't treated myself to one of these in awhile, I've been on a diet/workout regime. I think that, in light of current events, it won't kill me to break the diet a bit. I've got plenty of other things jockeying to take me down.' He chuckled, and took another slow drink, savoring it. He set down the drink, then said, 'Why did you join the initiative?' Taking a long, deliberate sip out of her glass, Marlene exhaled deeply, and answered, "It was... About a year ago, I think. It was a stormy night, and I was walking home with my friend, as usual", she began, turning to look at Michael. "Don't think it's that hard to guess what happens next. A demon, dropping in right in front of our faces. So we fought back... No, I don't think that 'fight' is the correct word. It was more of 'survive', really. We held it off long enough for the Demon Hunters to arrive, but by then...", she trailed off, clearly remembering a particularly discomforting experience. "Well, let's just say that now I know how it feels to lie in a pool of my own blood. I might be exaggerating on that. Anyway, while I recovered - I had a couple months - I decided it'd be better to at least learn self-defense in case something like that happens again", she continued, downing the rest of her glass. "So, here I am. Oh, and bartender, another round, please" 'Damn. That sucks. My reason is significantly less frightening. I was doing some, well, lets call it 'urban exploring' ' He made quote marks in the air. 'This was the same day that the west coast was hit, and it was storming. At that time, I didn't think to much of the demons. At the top of a skyscraper, there was something that looked like a shadowy man. It was a Shadow, but I didn't know it at the time. It engaged me in a battle, and I was able to take it down with a knife that i carried on me for self protection. At that moment, I began to realize that they were actually a threat. I hadn't been doing much with my life, so I decided to join the Demon Hunters Initiative. That's about it for me.' He shrugged, then took a drink. His drink was about halfway, so he ordered a Guinness. It should arrive about the time he finishes his first pint. "Urban exploring, huh?", Marlene commented. "Few years back I probably wouldn't even think about it. Too dangerous and the like. For the record, I am that girl who'd rather just stay at home and read than go out to shop and hang out with friends. Now, though, I'm starting to have second guesses. Probably because my day job involves sitting in a cubicle with heaps of work to be done from 9 to 5" she stopped for a moment, taking a much slower sip from her second glass. "Though, anyway, I'd probably get more than enough parkour in this line of work. Speaking of this line of work, I really hope all our fights won't result in as much collateral as back then. Don't want to get a repo for being destructive", she said, sighing at the end. 'Well, if you think about it, it was mostly Aarons fault that the buildings were destroyed.' He chuckled to himself, then said, 'I never really had any friends to hang out with, I was the kid who was always picked last. That's one of the reasons that I began parkour, it let get away from the world for awhile. I got pretty good at it from running away from people trying to beat me up all the time. That was how life went for awhile, just going day by day. Each day I wasn't beaten was a good day in my book.' He sighed, then finished his pint, just in time for the Guinness. "Messy childhood, I see... I can't envy you for that", Marlene replied. "My life was pretty normal, to be honest, aside from that one stint that landed me here. I wasn't nearly the most social girl in the neighborhood, as I might have said just now. I still had friends, though. Some pretty good ones, to be frank. Weird thing is, my best friend was a total 180 from me. Funny how things like that work out, huh?", she said, a slight grin on her face. "But... That's all in the past right now. Come to think of it, I think we had something about having to board an airplane in 12 hours or so? I wonder why" 'Maybe we are going back to HQ for a debriefing? This was a pretty high priority mission.' "Maybe. Might get chewed out on the way, too. Either way, it's still a pretty long time. Might as well just relax until then", she took a small, slow sip, and relaxed on her chair. "Anything else you wanna ask, Michael, just go ahead" 'Why did you choose the weapons you did?' "Personal preference. Mostly that... And there's also the thing about shields. I'm here so I can protect others, after all", she replied, before sighing deeply. "Sadly, I haven't made much progress on that front yet" 'Well, you've been doing a great job in my eyes. If it wasn't for you, we never would've been able to finish that battle.' "I'd like to make a point about how we could've done much better, but that's probably been done before already. Plus it feels kinda cliched" 'We certainly could've done better, but seeing that we were a brand new team who had never had any prior work together, and the fact that it was an extra strong vanguard, I think we did ok. If we had more time together, we would've done much better. "Sound argument. That said... No, moping about it won't help. Hmm...", Marlene trailed off, thinking for a short while. "I think I'm going to practice for an hour or so before boarding the plane later... Would be nice for a wake-up exercise either way. I should probably stop drinking now, I don't want to lose too much sleep over booze" 'Alright. I'll finish this,' he held up his half finished pint, 'and then I'll head back and have some sleep.' "Same", Marlene agreed, finishing up the rest of her pint. After she had finished and paid for her drink, she stood to leave. "Thanks for the talk, Michael. I think I had needed someone to talk to for a while now. See you in a bit" 'No problem. I'll just finish this off.' He pointed to his pint, then waved goodbye to Marlene. As she walked out the door, he finished off his drink and just sat and thought for awhile about what she had said, making sure he wouldn't forget it. He then stop up and stretched. 'I had better head back to base.' He flagged down a cab, which dropped him outside of the base. He walked in and headed to his bunker stumbling a bit from the drink. He opened the door, walked in, closed it, and promptly fell on the ground from the exhaustion. When he woke up, it was to the door hitting his legs as an MP opens it. 'Your team is supposed to be on a jumbo jet, leaving in about half an hour. You had better start packing.' He left, leaving Michael groaning on the ground. Michael got up and packed some clothes and thongs to clean his weapons with, then headed over to the jet. He sat down and leaned back in his chair. He waved to Marlene when she came in, then relaxed as the jet took off. Making her way back to base, Marlene forced herself awake long enough to take a quick shower and switch to more-fitting sleepwear before heading to bed. She awoke sleepily, but quite in time - there was about 90 minutes before her team was supposed to board the plane. Thank God and whover it is for inventing the alarm clock. She dressed up, and took her remaining free time doing a few dozen practice swings with her blade. She finished just in time to come across an agent informing her of the departure. Packing up and cleaning up, she headed to board the plane, returning Michael's wave as she took her seat.
