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Post by Rosencrance Viers on Aug 12, 2015 16:00:23 GMT -5
Rosencrance Viers growled in frustration under his breath, his body dipping down into a crouch, supporting his front hand with four fingers from each hand, his eyes locked on the fast movements of the multiple battles taking place in front of him. On the one hand, Viers had apparently managed, at least temporarily, to achieve his most pressing objective and remove himself from direct combat, meaning that no one was currently paying attention to what he was doing. However, Viers’ secondary objective of getting the fuck away from these people didn’t look nearly as easy to accomplish. True, no one was paying attention to him momentarily, but the rich haze of energy that had been produced on the Council member’s arrival was without a doubt a limiting or tracking field area, among other things, and that meant that any attempt to escape might draw the attention of one of the visiting mages, who could intervene, potentially, before the male Arc could get clear.
Viers best bet of escape was to wait carefully for both the newcomers and the Es/Dragos team to be so caught up in each other that, even if the noticed him trying to leave, doing anything about it would be jeopardizing their own health: the obscuring fog of magick energy made it difficult to accurately assess everyone else’s level of preoccupation, so immediate Viers let Arcanum flood back into his eyes, the black covering allowing him to manipulate his vision such that he could catch the energetic outline of all the respective combatants, giving him an idea of what they were doing and, more importantly, where they were in space relational to him. The Arc could see that, at the moment, Dragos was busy with the silver-haired Mage, who was busy running interference both for herself and her black-haired compatriot, who was currently being bum-rushed by Es: that meant that, they were all busy, but the silver-haired mage, who seemed to have been the fog’s originator, was still free enough in the current moment to potentially intervene at Viers trying to take his leave. The Arc knew he had to wait for the right moment, but that didn’t mean he needed to be idle.
Digging down into his crouch, Viers forced his Arcanum back fully into the physical realm, temporarily silencing his flux and causing himself, energetically at least, to drop off everyone’s collective radars again. The Arcanum flooded into his musculature and peripheral body systems, causing the already dark-skinned Viers’ flesh to crust over black, darkening and thickening, with a slight golden glow emitting from his veins, in a way that made the Arc appear more Akrathi than human. As the Arcanum coated his outer surfaces, the magical substance went to work at the environment it could now touch: the Arcanum started breaking down the mist-energy surrounding Viers’ body and converting it into more Arcanum, slowly recharging the Arc’s used energy reserves from the mist that surrounded him. The amount of magic energy lost would be small in terms of scale, but the drain was enough for Viers to build up his own reserves again in preparation for escape while also dealing with the remainder of his wounds which, if he was left alone for a few seconds, could quickly stitch themselves fully back together.
For now, Viers had to bide his time, a situation he wasn’t in the least bit happy about. However, given the severity of the situation, he Arc knew that if he capitalized on the right moment, he might still be able to make it out in one piece, rather than several.
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Post by Dragos Syrkhan on Aug 19, 2015 18:32:41 GMT -5
Brightly burning eyes of golden flame would have narrowed, had they the time. The female mage's counter was swift and potent; something that would invariably halt his advance, and radically alter his approach. The one bit of reprieve allowed to him, however, was that the woman had moved her arm toward him, and with sight beyond the standard that the Magi granted him, it was his only indication of her response. The following result was nothing short of catastrophically effective in ultimately eradicating any hopes he had of reaching her, but not one that couldn't be marginally accounted for.
As much in surprise as it was to reformulate his Magi to respond in kind to what destruction the female mage might work against him, the collected mass of super heat-inducing energy was projected forward when it was only at two-thirds the desired potency, but as it launched forward ahead of the Son, it met the oncoming force full on and, in the exchange, created a discrepancy between the kinetic force meeting him head-on and that which would pass by him on either side. Grunting with the inevitible impact of what he now realized was a wave, already singed and burnt skin felt the heat of both his own projection and the woman's own as he was violently siezed from his forward projection and launched chaotically backwards. His mind, unphased by more of the pain he was already suffered was quick to react reflexively, and before he knew he was being hurled toward the snow and ice that he'd so recently departed, he was reaching out with Magi to thicken the air around him, repeating the technique he had used what seemed only moments prior to lessen a similar impact with the unstable ground.
The impact was no less potent, and ice and snow sprayed in every direction as the golden-eyed Son sank foot after foot into it. Reaching a violent stop in a short amount of time was something he needed only an instant to recognize, even with his mind roiling from both pain and the reflexive focus of his technique. Before he even made to stand, he recognized the need to separate himself from the haze-like energy surrounding him, obviously brought into fruition by the woman. As singed and spottedly-showing muscles moved with only a fraction of the lag the pain should otherwise be imparting on him to help him stand, he again reached out in his awareness of the Magi around him, comprising the Sphere. At its very extremeties, a light shimmer played out through the air as a distinctive differentiation between energies played out. Put simply, the Son made to create an energetic barrier between the Sphere's exterior and interior, and while it made the energy within it no less present, it should have effectively cut off the woman's connection to it. Whether or not he recognized the very technique as one the Mage had used against him in their initial encounter was secondary.
Primarily, the Son now stood amid a crater of snow and ice, and was doing so much sooner than should be possible for even the most physically durable of specimens, let alone one that should have been entirely vaporized. Aware enough of his surroundings to note that the conflict between Es and the dark-haired accomplice to the floating mage was escalating, it was more important to note her involvement in the conflict. Whatever effect she was bringing into creation against Es, the Son could only hope that it left her momentarily distracted, for it was at that very instant that he struck. Failing to lift his arm towards the woman, narrow his eyes, or show any indication of his intense focus, he instead opted for simple efficiency. Earlier, against Viers, he had brought a mass of liquid oxygen into being before seeking to ignite it; this action was far from so complex.
The Son felt the pull of a large amount of Active Magi departing him as he projected it forward, toward the woman, and beyond a state and plane of any interaction with the haze that encompassed them all. With enough Magi behind the projection to leave him feeling indescribingly cold, it compressed inward upon itself in direct contrast to the energy surrounding them all that seemed to exist in a fluxed sate of decompression. Folded, compacted, and folded again in the instants of thought beyond a space that it could be reached, it wasn't until the massive amount of Magi had collected into the size of a pea that it manifested in the overlapping world they shared, and placed directly in the blind spot between the female mage's eyes, at that. The resulting explosion of sheer kinetic force was enough that, if it came into effect, that it would shake the air of the entire area the mage had sought to encompass with her haze-like energy, and as it reached out, would cast a blinding light in all directions for a fraction of a second before a wave of super-heated air and energy ripped outwards from a point so fractismal. It was possible, even that the shockwave alone was something Es and her dark-haired opponent would have to deal with, let alone the echoing effects of the explosion itself. As for the Son? That energetic barrier meant to serve as a membrane between his Sphere and the woman's energies was enriched and refortified the instant after he'd released control of the force-reactive casting, serving to not only buffer him from any amounts of the outreaching explosion, but, as the seconds passed by, to break down what small amounts of heat and kinetic force that it could.
Only now did he feel the weight of the projection in full, what with this fight and the engagement before it, leaving him all too aware of how little Magi he truly had left on hand to manipulate to any great effect, but he did not spurn himself; speed and magnitude had been the desire of the projection in equal parts, and he accomplished just that. What remained to be seen, however, was how successful a tactic it had been.
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Post by Es Kauvrian on Aug 25, 2015 19:40:58 GMT -5
Es Kauvrian couldn’t say she was pleased to see that her blow, initially meant to cleave the female fighter that opposed her in two, only cut through the woman’s shoulder and otherwise glanced off her center mass. Though the haze of the energy surrounding the Arc’s body, Es could see that she had done far more damage to Søren’s left shoulder than Søren had done to her own, but that like Es herself, Søren didn’t seem to be paying the injury any mind. Kauvrian knew she would have to strike hard and fast to get rid of her attacker: the corrosive energy that surrounded her opponent was too potent for her to be able to fend it off for long, and therefore the Arc didn’t hesitate to actually put her full strength behind her incoming punch, causing the blow to accelerate and increase its impact force to a point that would be nearly explosive in effect.
Es found herself hurtling away from her opponent rather than feeling the satisfying sensations of her fist going through the center mass of a biological creature, however. Immediately, the Arc recognized the interference as coming from outside of their battle: Søren’s compatriot, had deemed it necessary to separate them, and explosively at that. The energy surrounding Es’ body rebuffed most of the concussive force of the blow and the damage it might do to her physical body, but her outward expression of her own energetic self couldn’t mitigate the directional force of the blow, so as expected, Es flew backwards. The chains wrapping around her arm quickly reversed the Arc’s momentum, and though a surprised Es couldn’t do anything about the sudden manifestation of the binding devices, she nonetheless grinned beneath her emerald radiance as the bindings pulled her sharply back toward her opponent.
Good
Es always preferred to stay in close quarters, and her opponent’s actions, however much they may have been designed to do otherwise, deftly enabled Kauvrian to return to the range where she was the strongest. By the nature of physics, with both bodies flying in exactly inverse directions, the sudden connection between the two would have essentially reversed the course of both of them and sent them careening into each other again like a rebounding rubber band, but Es rapidly adapted, and by using her own energy as a propulsive force to counterbalance her own decelerative influence on Søren, caused the two women to do as Søren initially hoped: to fly backwards in Søren’s direction, Es being ‘pulled’ behind her opponent like a horse on a lead.
Momentarily ignoring the degenerative (and multiplicative) effect of the chains on her outer energetic shell, as Es hurtled towards her opponent, the Arc thrust her right arm forward, using her muscular strength to send her weapon hilt flying toward Søren with twice the speed Es’ body currently possessed. The hilt would dart directly past Søren’s wounded shoulder, missing he woman entirely, but as it flew past her in a seemingly-ineffective manner, the weapon would suddenly stop. Now hanging in midair, the hilt would go from acting as a projectile to acting as a sudden brake to Søren’s inertia, and her back would undoubtedly hit the weapon handle in such a way that the cylindrical metallic item would lodge itself directly between the woman’s armored shoulder blades.
Es knew that Søren’s deconstructive energy was potent enough to destroy the energy remaining in the weapon fairly quickly, but the Arc took a gamble and assumed that, while the energy was surrounding Søren, it would not be present in such high quantity in the interior of her body. As Søren would hit the stopped weapon, the hilt would hold fast, as though rooted in concrete, meaning to halt Søren’s inertia entirely: while the sharp force of her stopping would likely not harm the Counselor a great deal, as she struck it, the point of contact between the weapon and Søren’s body would suddenly explode, a draconic scream echoing through the area as the remaining energy in the weapon manifested as a jagged, wide blade that would mean to rip directly through Søren’s center mass and protrude from the other side, a sharp, energetic spike seemingly about to impale the onrushing Es. Es made no attempt to stop her forward momentum, and as she would bodily strike Søren, the energetic spike would merge with the radiance surrounding Es, creating a link between the weapon hilt and Es herself that had been broken momentarily by her throwing of the weapon. As Es’ chest impacted with Søren’s own, the Arc took the opportunity to snap her head forward, causing her energetically-reinforced cranium to forcefully strike Søren’s face, likely disrupting the pretty, dollish lines of the woman’s countenance. The head-butt was hardly the point of the whole maneuver, however: while the energetic rending done by the weapon’s initial explosion would undoubtedly be severe, by reestablishing a link between herself and her focus, Es could push energy back through the weapon to create new effects, namely sprouting a sudden, forceful energetic barrier between the body-locked combatants and the outside world. In split second’s time, both women would be obscured by a sphere of emerald light, trapping Søren and her energy in Es’ containment.
Seemingly, Es had made a mistake by trapping herself in a space with Søren’s corrosive energy, especially since she seemed to be doing nothing about the chains that were likely trying to snake across her center mass and hold her as hostage as she was preparing to hold Søren. Es knew her barrier would only hold for a matter of seconds, but she needed those uninterrupted seconds to finish the woman off – if her partner separated them again, Es knew she would never again be able to get in range to strike, and therefore she had to capitalize on her opportunity now while ignoring the risk to herself. Søren may have had a grim on Es’ left arm, but her right immediately went to work: with nothing to separate them, the full weight of Es’ frightening strength would come crushing down on Søren’s chest, aiming to strike and rend in the exact points of her center mass that had been theoretically weakened by the blade strike. If she had her way, Es would have her hand inside Søren’s chest wall and get a grip on the woman’s heart within a matter of seconds.
And, assuming Søren couldn’t stop her, Es wouldn’t hesitate to rip it out.
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Post by Callixta Trëguere on Aug 25, 2015 21:49:26 GMT -5
Satisfied that she'd given Søren the precious time she needed to deal more effectively with her target Callixta shifted her focus immediately back to he who had attempted to blitz his way up to her position. The white-haired hostile's momentum had slowed― probably due to the sheer amount of ice and snow present to keep him from splitting through the actual ridge and either splattering against bedrock or bursting through the other side and falling his way back toward the City.
Were the mage of a different sort of humor― cut from the same cloth as Søren even― she might have spared a smirk in his direction. As it was Callixta experienced no surge of triumph in imposing a sanction that grounded the Marru'Khyran Prince forcefully. If anything, she was quite detached: allowing any sort of emotional investment could lead to the wrong decision on this battlefield and she wasn't willing to pay the price for bowing to any impulse. Regardless, the Councilors were not there to kill anyone. Not unless the green woman was truly the Mage which, by this point, Callixta had already come to the conclusion that it wasn't Achréiøs they were dealing with.
It was about that time that the third member of the thus far uncooperative little party began to siphon off some of the decompressed ether for his own use. Both of the diminutive mage's gloved hands dropped to her sides and those jewel-bright amber eyes opened― not that anyone would know that was the case with the nearly-opaque fog obscuring everyone's field of vision. What she could perceive in the space they all occupied was what made her incredibly dangerous. See, the petite mage wasn't just an advanced magic user― a fact that might have been front and center had anyone been able to take the time to figure out the precise source of the ether Callixta was using to blanket the area and ignite conveniently when it was necessary― she was a planar mage. One with a remarkable affinity for bending physics through magic not only in a manner that appeared elegant to the most critical eye, but in ways that prevented the kind of snapback or reality breakdown generally responsible for killing mages who dabbled in reality manipulation and were of lesser caliber. With her eyes open Callixta could see the fabric of the space around her and how it was woven into time and, most importantly, the way points in reality were connected or could be connected. By the time the Dragon Prince was gathering himself up and making rapid preparations for his next move, Callixta's form very suddenly both dropped as if the strings holding her aloft had been cut and, quite simply, melted away into the fog. A fraction of a second later, the toe of one of her boots touched down on perfect white powder directly in front of the crouched figure. The mage's movement wasn't teleportation in a conventional sense. Yes, she moved between planes from one point to another, but the method of that motion was a bending rather than a tearing. Her particular affinity for dimensional cognizance meant that she didn't necessarily have to waste time or massive amounts of energy to force reality to fold to her will: she simply stepped into the river, let it guide her, and then glided out when she was where she meant to be.
The fog would clear only around Callixta and her quarry as she fully emerged into that spatial point. Amber eyes watched the dark figure coolly but it would become very obvious very quickly that Callixta was not on the offensive. Yet.
"I would choose to cooperate if I were in your pos―"
It was terribly unfortunate that this was the precise moment that the white-haired Syrkhan chose to ignite his own explosion meant to interact with Callixta while she was still drifting along in her literal high ground. Instead, the sound of erupting force drowned out her words and the near-instant concussive force that radiated outward actually propelled her small, and wholly unprepared, frame headlong into the crouching potential hostile. The extreme heat that accompanied that force nearly instantly burned through most of the sapphire silks covering Callixta's back but somehow didn't seem to affect her 'flesh' at all. Perhaps her quarry was lucky in that regard: unless he reacted quickly enough to keep her from being blown right into him, her petite form would actually act as a shield and take the brunt of the heat and kinetic force, dispersing it well enough to keep his center mass fairly secure. The blinding light was slightly disorienting and whether Callixta had crashed into the black-crusted man or not, she'd end up mostly flat on her stomach, vaguely aware that silk had turned to ash and that an explosion was the cause.
Fortunately for everyone who wasn't Dragos, Callixta's haze of decompressing ether did quite a bit to mitigate the full extent of the damage his explosion could potentially cause. The initial shockwave basically erupted outward with very little to soften it, but the fact that the area was saturated with massive amounts of ether― the process of decompression having been paused at Callixta's lapse in concentration― meant that the normal pressurization that occurred when ether came in contact with loose forms of energy was in full effect. The explosion radiated outward, stopped at a point within the haze where it could no longer progress outward, and began to experience the pressurized effect of the ether naturally compressing the energy into more ether. It wasn't a quick process, hence Callixta and everyone else not Dragos still being caught in the crossfire.
"Fuck.
Callixta growled under her breath.
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Post by Søren Kiirkegré on Aug 25, 2015 22:42:01 GMT -5
With the Guardian Space connection fully open, Søren could feel the tissues of her body rapidly breaking down from the inside out. As the seconds ticked by, her muscles would be of less use, her reactions slowed, and eventually, her body would no longer be able to hold on, and the former Guardian, at long last, would finally cease to exist. Søren knew she had to gain enough ground to save herself within minutes if she were to survive, and therefore, the woman left nothing off the table when it came to causing the mage attacking her damage. Whatever energy she was using, Es had to be left with severely-weakened defenses by the time Søren’s time was up – and that meant breaking through every square inch of Es’s energy that Søren could get her hands on. She could only hope that the gamble would pay off without the Counselor killing herself in the process.
The second her chains grabbed hold, the links wrapped tightly around any ground they could gain and would snake up Es’s left arm, even as her direction of motion reversed. The chains would corrosively rip through layer upon layer of the energy surrounding Es’ already-wounded extremity, and when enough energy had been displaced, seek to gain ground and eat through the flesh underneath, looking to dig tracks through Es’ skin and muscle to wrap tight around the Arc’s very bones. It is important to note that the energy being eaten through y Søren's power was not being absorbed, but degraded and cast into the surrounding environment, only to [then be absorbed by the environment itself: the cast-off, deconstructed energy would be compressed and absorbed by the surrounding Ether, incrementally thickening and densifying the smoke surrounding the two fighters and the displaced energy found a new home. Søren herself saw no benefit from the lost energy, but she traded a lack of reabsorptive properties, which may have been a safer tactic in the current situation, for raw speed and potency of her disruptive force. The Death Guardian energy wasn’t built to revive; it harnessed the destructive, chaotic side of entropic balance and sought to degrade the complex into the simple, so that what was decomposed could be recombined later into new life. For as short a time as she occupied the position, Søren had taken the nature of the Guardian Oath to heart – balance in all things. And that’s exactly what she sought to do here.
The Counselor’s mouth stretched into a manic grin as Es came rocketing back toward her, even without changing her own backward momentum by any great degree. By the time the Arc was closing on Søren, the tight-linked chains would have already multiplied threefold and expanded past just holding Es’ arm, snaking around to squeeze and coil around her torso, with some doing the same to her neck, seeking to cut through the energy keeping the chains from direct contact and bite into the more-vulnerable flesh underneath. Søren's opponent took advantage of her free right hand when she through the weapon, and the speed at which the motion happened left the Counselor with little recourse to stop it. Having seen what the weapon could do once already, Soren could quickly calculate what was going to happen when the weapon ‘missed’ her body and flew past her. And therefore the former Guardian took the only step she could – she diverted some small part of the energy that would have continued to feed the chains rapidly trapping Es to manifest new chains, this time erupting from Soren’s upper back to dart toward and wrap around the hilt of her opponent’s weapon.
Unfortunately for Søren, the chains would only catch up to the weapon hilt at the same time that Søren's own body impacted it. The Guardian armor Soren had manifested kept the blunt weapon from burying itself wholesale in her chest, as it would have had she been unprotected given the extreme force of the impact. As soon as she felt the impact, her body jarring backward and her spine arching to try and absorb some small part of it, the chains were already snaking themselves around the weapon hilt – and, unlike Es herself, the weapon was in no way protected from the degrading effects of the chains’ touch, meaning that within seconds, the weapon would already begin to degrade and warp under the disassembling weight of Soren’s energy.
Despite how quickly the Counselor could potentially break down the weapon, though, her attempt could never have been fast enough to stop the initial energetic explosion, and the armor could only blunt the force of the blow, not stop it entirely. Søren felt the blade rip through her, the white-hit, jagged light sectioning its way through the center of her chest cavity, rending and disintegrating vital viscera as it went. The former Guardian felt her right lung tear and deflate, and she felt her ribs crack, warp and fuse under the sudden explosive energy, but it hardly mattered – the destructive energies of the Guardian space had stopped her from breathing seconds earlier. In a way, Es’ attack was too late – Soren had already done more physical damage to herself than Es could have managed in so short a time – it was only a combination of her mind’s anchor to the Guardian energy and her own vastly-altered physiology that was keeping her alive: as long as she could still cognitively perceive and direct the Guardian energy and her armor, her body almost didn’t matter. The Guardian’s eyes clouded over white as they lost the ability to function, but Soren never stopped grinning, her expression so unhinged that it almost resembled a certain red-haired Mage’s choice of default projection.
As Es’s body impacted her own, Søren's near-useless left arm, animated more by magic than muscle, darted out to wrap around her opponent’s broad back in-time with Es’ head-butt – Søren felt her face cave in, but while the sensation might have registered in an abstract way, she was far past caring. Her right arm following suit with her left and wrapping around Es’ body, every spot where her skin contacted the green-clad mage would degrade and warp, the energy being decomposed and ripped away at such a high rate that a normal mage’s entire body would already be 90% of the way to being a scattered dust of particles rather than a complete person. New chains would snake up Es’ right arm, and so even if she could hope to use it against the force of Søren's restraint, Søren's body pressed so tightly against her own would leave her no room or access to attack the former Guardian’s chest as she had intended. What’s more, while Es may find herself able to reconnect with her weapon through Soren’s chest, the beam would soon be cut off by the blocking effect of her armor, and the weapon itself would, by the time Es could try and send energy back through to create her barrier, the hilt itself would have, assuming it was made of normal physical matter, be more than half gone.
Søren felt her body die – Es had no need to take her heart, the organ had already stopped. In her mind, the Guardian fought the fog, held on tightly, and as she ripped and tore at every bit of Es she could contact with her decomposition, inwardly she began counting back towards what she knew was her last second of consciousness.
5 . . . 4 . . .
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Post by Es Kauvrian on Aug 26, 2015 8:40:50 GMT -5
Es Kauvrian felt the chains bite into her flesh as they finally began to pierce the barrier of energy surrounding her – the searing, burning sensation was one that was easy for the Arc to ignore in the heat of battle, but it marked a decided turning point in the fight – Es’ defenses had been pierced.
As her body collided with Søren’s, Es realized her mistake: she couldn’t make her opponent flinch. Whatever this woman was doing, whatever energy she was conjuring that had such corrosive force, she was using her own body as the conduit. At first, Es had been sure it was just a dangerous projection, but as she watched the woman’s face cave half-in and not see an inch of give to Søren’s grip, as her eyes went white and her injured left arm grabbed tight despite having been nearly rent from her body, the Arc realized that the woman was holding herself together despite decomposing herself. No amount of damage, short of total obliteration, was going to stop what was happening, and even then, there was a chance that the energy, already saturated around Es’ body so completely, would continue to degrade her long after its invoker was dead.
Søren was prepared to die, so long as she took Es with her – and she was about to succeed.
Briefly, Es thought to the fact that she herself had been effectively dead only a short time ago – would it be so bad to go again? However, if Es died, Dragos would be alone and outnumbered, and he would surely die as well under the weight of both Viers and Søren’s mage companion. Resolving not to leave the Dragon alone, Es immediately discounted the idea of dying there just to rid the world of the terror that Søren had turned herself in to.
Already so far entrenched in her opponent’s grip, Es knew she only had one chance to keep herself from being, in essence, eaten alive by Søren’s dark energy: closing her eyes tightly, Es conjured up part of her remaining energy to draw a direct spatial line between herself and a point in space teen feet behind her, somewhere near to her original position with Viers prior to the battle beginning. Once her mind had locked the location, without stopping to buffer herself like she normally did, Es forced her energy outward and ripped herself through the tiny special connection she had managed to create in a second’s time. The result, as far as her latched opponent was concerned, would be a bright, intense explosion of emerald light followed swiftly by a definitive absence – Es managed to move herself without tacking her clinging opponent along, but that meant that the severed chains of Søren’s dark energy would still be wrapped around her, at least partially when she arrived at her destination.
In a blink, Es was shifted in location, and the second she felt her feet ground, she immediately began using her energy specifically to rend at the semi-physical structure of the chains, hoping to cut them free from her body so she could step back away from the now-detached energy. With any luck, the corrosive force would be less potent when separated from its point of origin, but the Arc wasn’t counting on a reprieve, and she would quickly add the physical motion of using her energy-coated fingers to rip and tear at the severed chain lengths, trying to mechanically pull them off her body and cast them aside even as she tried to break down their binding structure energetically.
Considering her state, Es didn’t think Søren would be able to follow her immediately, but she also knew that she wouldn’t have long before she would be forced to interface with the woman again, and therefore her priority was extricating herself from Søren’s degrading energy. The Arc cursed to herself – having to retreat, even temporarily, didn’t sit well with the woman, but she knew she had to consider the bigger tactical picture. Taking a second to assess her bearings, Es quickly located Dragos and Viers in the space around her and vowed to keep both of them within her metaphorical sights as she prepared to take another crack at a dying Søren: with her weapon lost, Es was slightly hampered, but she knew that there were other avenues she could try, and therefore, as she would manage to free herself from the chains and step back, she quickly reassessed and prepared for her next move.
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Post by Søren Kiirkegré on Aug 26, 2015 10:42:07 GMT -5
3 . . . .
Søren had never, even in as long a lifetime as she had lived, experienced what it felt to slowly die from the inside out. It wasn’t an experience she was particularly enjoying, either, but the former Guardian was surprised at how easy it was to hold onto her conscious mind, even as everything else began to decompose and shut down. Søren knew that the Guardian power, while immensely destructive, was also laced tightly enough in her metaphysical self through the armor that her spirit would hold on until the last possible second, and that was exactly what she was counting on: if she lost consciousness too early, she knew that she would likely never again wake up, save for if Alpha somehow resurrected her, which, as far as the former Guardian was concerned, would be a fate far worse than actual death.
2 . . .
The Former Guardian felt the shift in her opponent’s tension and level of energy as the chains bit into her flesh, and the success caused Søren’s binding, corrosive power to only flow faster, determined to rip as much of the energy Es possessed from her as possible in the remaining seconds she had. The Ether surrounding the two women, by this point, had become even more concentrated and thick than it would be anywhere else on the battlefield, causing a concentration ripple that Callixta would undoubtedly feel. Søren half-mindlessly constricted and tore at Es, but as her mind began to cloud, her consciousness being tugged inexorably toward oblivion, the woman diverted herself towards the point within her body that was the conduit for the Guardian space energy and once again took a concrete hold of it, preparing for what was about to happen next.
1 . . .
Suddenly, the resistance under Søren’s arms was gone, and inwardly, the Counselor screamed in triumph, though her lungs contained no ability to create the sound in the real world. Es’ retreat had been perfectly timed, as even as some portion of her energy was ripped away by the transmission, Søren immediately enacted what she had intended to do all along.
Now.
Using what mental power she still had, she completely inverted the flow force of the Guardian energy through her body, causing the corrosive energy to be drawn immediately back, as though it was air rushing to fill a vacuum. The dark energy would flow like lightning back into the center of Søren’s chest, being ripped back through the opening it had used to exit with such force that it created an energetic current in the space around it. Because of the forceful nature of the energy’s withdrawal, the dark tendrils of deconstructive force’s current would pull the Ether hanging in the air along behind it, like water flowing down a stream: first, the Ether would be absent from the air directly surrounding Søren, but rapidly, the haze would be pulled inward towards the epicenter of Søren’s body, causing the smoky substance to look as though it were unfurling in reverse, like someone had reversed time, but was rewinding the world in triple-speed. Suddenly, Dragos, Viers and Callixta, and Es herself would feel the energy in the air rush past them and find their vision cleared as all of the Ether in the area was simultaneously pulled in by the vacuum that was the former Guardian’s body.
Though outwardly the phenomena might seem spontaneous or uncontrolled, inwardly the female Counselor was fighting for every inch of fine control over what was taking place that she could get her zombified hands on. The dark energy of the Death Guardianship was almost instantly put back in the Guardian space, but instead of letting the Ether follow it through the hole, Søren used the armor she created as a container and trapped the Ether inside of her own body: she couldn’t keep all of it from escaping through into the Guardian space behind the dark energy, but three-quarters of the Ether that had been saturating the battlefield, Ether that’s concentration had been increased by all the energy that Es had lost, would be momentarily trapped and held within the Guardian’s armored form, just long enough to seal the planar hole between Søren and the Guardian space solidly. However, Dragos’ explosion would also rock the battlefield in concert with the Ether’s withdrawal: the force of the rushing Ether would cause the explosive energy, its heat (but not the majority of its kinetic force) to be pulled along with the draft, meaning that, while the shockwave would still spread across the landscape, some degree of its burning force would be mitigated. Søren herself, being the epicenter of the flow, was so energetically full and metaphysically grounded that the shockwave would essentially wash ovr her without throwing her back or causing her direct harm, but Es, especially with no Ether to act as a buffer, would very likely be tossed back off her feet by the sudden wave of Kinetic force. Søren didn’t notice the explosion in all that was happening
Es would find herself without chains to worry about almost as soon as she began tearing at them, but an explosive wave for her to deal with in their place. That, hopefully, would buy Søren the few seconds of time she needed to completely seal the Guardian space and move on to the real core of her designs. Taking hold of the Ether now filling her physical shell, Søren forcefully grafted the tiny amount of her energy still woven into the Guardian armor into the Ether itself, absorbing it and spreading her control through the contained,, though otherwise untapped, energy. The former Guardian knew that Callixta might be upset at the change in her level of tactical advantage, but if it meant dispatching Es, Søren was confident that the female mage could be convinced of the move’s importance. As the seconds ticked by, the Ether became more and more under Søren’s ownership, and as it did, she immediately forced it into her physical body, filling the outer armor and shifting the potent magic source into physical matter to repair just enough of her outer shell that she could begin the background process of rebuilding her physical life force.
At this point, Søren’s body was still technically dead, and the woman didn’t bother to immediately change the mechanics of that fact: instead of attempting to repair her lungs or restart her heart, the Counselor instead forced Ether to fill her body’s individual structures and keep them stable and animated, connecting her mind to her physiology through dense, raw life energy instead of biological processes. Søren, in essence, had allowed herself to die, and then reanimated her own body, acting as a necromancer unto her own form. What the former Guardian had done was a phenomenon she had only witnessed once before, and it had been done by a trained necromancer who, upon dying at Søren’s own hand, had created an Ether absorption-feedback loop and reanimated himself to keep fighting. The necromancer had ultimately been unsuccessful, because his process had taken too long: Søren was able to get in the middle and keep him from collecting enough Ether to animate himself, and he perished instead. However, due to the speed of the Ether collection, made possible by the titanic suctioning force of the empty Guardian space, Søren had more than enough Ether not only to survive, but to also begin a new phase of the battle: one where she was, essentially, more capable than she had been at the onset, while her opponent had essentially already lost a great degree of blood.
As her face righted itself, the physiological changes that came along with the reanimation process took hold – the former Guardian’s skin became bleach white, with blue, venous lines crisscrossing what bare skin could be seen from under the damaged armor Søren wore. Her eyes, still cast entirely white, glowed with a blue tinge as she saw through the Ether: the woman lacked physical sight, but she could perceive the energetic presence of those around her, and therefore could pinpoint Es and Callixta’s locations, though Viers and Dragos were invisible to her for the moment. As more time passed, the Guardian’s red irises would slowly return as they were rebuilt – Søren’s own physiology, now effectively jump-started by the giant infusion of life energy, would begin rapidly reconstructing her important physical processes now that the corrosive element of the Guardian energy had been removed, but important repairs would take time, and Søren seemingly had no intention of waiting any longer than it took Es to recover and prepare for inevitable next assault.
The former Guardian would plant her feet on the ground firmly and outstretch her right arm, palm splayed, in Es’ direction, quickly sectioning and dispositioning the Ether under her command to prepare a defense. Her blank eyes staring right through her opponent, Søren’s manic grin would have finally relaxed to echo the expression she had begun the encounter with, though her smirk had taken on a decidedly-more-mocking tone than it had possessed initially.
Your move
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Post by Rosencrance Viers on Aug 26, 2015 15:14:07 GMT -5
Rosencrance Viers definitely wasn’t so intent on what he was doing that he wasn’t keeping himself abreast of what else was going on, so he witnessed both the intense separation and re-engagement of Es and her opponent and the flying mage’s quick dismissal of Dragos, sending the unruly little dragon pup back to the ground without so much as, seemingly, a second thought. Viers grinned, but he kept siphoning off bit after bit of the surrounding magic energy without breaking metaphorical stride, no matter how he wanted to celebrate at Dragos’ misfortune.
You fucking deserve it.
However, Viers didn’t get to chip away at the cloud of Ether for very long before it drew the attention of the flying female mage, causing her to reality-slide her way right on over to the Male Arc and start addressing him. The black-eyed, black-skinned Viers looked up at the woman expressionlessly, partially because he was unsure whether he needed to be ready to fight or not, and partially because something else was happening: the Ether was being ripped away in a sped-up version of how it had originally unfurled, meaning that he no longer had any to draw on when Callixta was about half-way through her sentence.
Viers’ eyes diverted past Callixta to Es and Soren, and suddenly saw the two had separated, with Es much closer to his current location than he would have liked, and her opponent acting as the epicenter of the sudden Ether withdrawal. The fact that Es had intentionally backed off was a bad sign – in his years with her, Viers had almost never seen Es willingly retreat: it was only when the situation was particularly dire that the female Arc would actually take a step back and regroup, and the caliber of fighter it took to coax that particular reaction out of Kauvrian was not someone Viers himself wanted to mess with. That meant that these Vascxious Counselors were far more of a handful than Es had apparently anticipated when she attacked, and given that one was currently eyeballing down at him from two feet away, Viers knew he had to tread carefully.
Originally, Viers had intended to wait out the situation in order to find the winning side before making a decision – seeing as the dynamics had radically changed suddenly, the Arc knew the time for decision making was upon him. Relinquishing his attempt to gather more energy in readiness for an escape attempt (mostly because there was no longer any energy to grab a hold of), Viers began preparing a witty comeback for whatever it was Callixta was about to finish saying, but suddenly found himself lunging slightly forward in his crouched position instead, his arms extending upwards to half-instinctively grab onto the white-haired mage as she was suddenly thrown forward by Dragos’ ill-timed explosion, the force of which causing the Arc’s own braced body to slide back a good three feet in the snow, though the combination of Callixta’s body acting as a force umbrella and his own current impermeability to damage meant that, ultimately, Viers was unfazed by the blast.
His lung would have caused Viers to grab up under Callixta’s arms and secure her upper body against his, the heat of the explosion causing a warm, crackling sensation along his Arcanum-armored arms where they would shield some small part of Callixta’s clothing from the blast, but not the most of it. Reflexively, Viers would come up some from his crouch as he grabbed the Mage and steadied her, his back arching as his feet sled back under the explosion’s force so as to cushion the female mage from bowling him over. The act wasn’t exactly a show of friendship from the man so much as an attempt to make sure he didn’t get knocked over again, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be perceived as a non-adverse, if not outright friendly, action by the mage’s perspective.
Explosion past, Viers would immediately let go and take a step back from the mage, taking a second to glance over her shoulder at Es and the Counselor’s compatriot, who had seemingly absorbed the Ether in the field entirely and was now radiating like some kind of necromantic meta-mage.
Great.
Es hadn’t attacked yet, and the woman was no longer glowing shock green – Viers suspected that the Arc hadn’t lowered her defenses so much as they had been lowered for her. The male Arc could feel the direction of the winds changing rapidly, and therefore, since Callixta’s sentence was easy to translate even in its incomplete form, Viers’ black eyes met with the Mage’s and he spoke, though quietly.
“Consider me cooperative.”
Viers knew he had to wait and see what everyone’s next move was, but it was becoming clear that Es and company was outmatched, and that made the chances of him siding with his wayward former companion in this instance virtually nil. Es might hold it against him later, but Viers would much rather be brought back to the city in handcuffs and explain his situation to a sympathetic Floraelia than have to deal with the Mage at the moment.
Assuming he had time, and nothing else would blow up in the few seconds it took to say it, Viers would also flash a quick grin at the mostly-nude mage in front of him.
”It would be difficult for me not to be, considering your outfit.”
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Post by Dragos Syrkhan on Aug 26, 2015 22:36:47 GMT -5
Dragos was lost in the haze, and effectively chasing ghosts with his actions, at this point. The pinpoint attack he had unleashed, the explosion which sapped so much from him, had been directed toward the woman's location as he knew it from his previous advance, when the fog hadn't been so thick. He was aware of Es and her opponent's location due, in large part, only because of Es's energetic signature and the sounds of their clash, but he could discern little of what was actually happening, or how fast. Viers? Viers was lost for now, but that was secondary considered to the threat that the two women posed. As the wash of his explosion reached outward, the Son was ready with his his barrier, both to defend himself from the wave, and to absorb every precious drop of energy that he could from it. Then, the haze lifted.
Lifted wasn't quite the term; it was drawn it at such a rapid pace that the Son had some problem recognizing it as a process that had a duration in the first place. Golden-burning eyes widened the faintest hair in response, but he was far from so distracted that the outcome of his own manipulation did anything but function exactly as accounted for, even if the sparse amounts of energy that he could absorb were so infantismal. With alert focus, he gaze shifted around, quickly taking stock of the locations of the others; the damnable mage woman had, apparently escaped his blast without any degree of meaningful harm, yet, she was standing before Viers, and between he and Dragos specifically. His eyes narrowed reflexively, but that instant of observation quickly passed in favor of taking stock of the two other figures, Es and her now darkly armor-clad opponent. Dragos couldn't be certain of the dynamic between them, but given that the dark woman had been the epicenter of the mass drain of energy, he didn't need to waste time wondering how much of a threat she was at this point.
Those two instants were really all it took; fractions of a second, and he not only had a more accurate assessment of the playing field than moments before, but he had both a line of sight on both targets and the exact means with which to engage them. Dragos looked in Callixta's direction again only as an afterthought, even while his desired manipulation had already begun to play itself out. In a tactic that was wholly identical to the earlier explosion, he felt the sudden pull of Magi as he projected it outward and into a single point before him. Specifically, in the space between the two bodies that were the roughly intertwined pair of Callixta and Viers, the Magi compressed as fast as Dragos could focus his mind and, as before, unleashed the super-compressed energy from a point no larger than a pea. The silver-haired mage showed no direct signs of damage from the heat of his previous blast, but she couldn't be wholly impervious to kinetic force. Viers, on the other hand, had shown a remarkable degree of survivability, to the point that Dragos was comfortable risking serious harm to him if it meant their separation.
Without the idea to personally savor Viers' collateral involvement as an added bonus ever crossing his mind, his eyes were again too slow to transition to his next intended target, since his mind worked so much faster. The well of Magi that he had pulled on for the blast aimed at Callixta had not been entirely pulled upon, yet for his next attack, he projected its remainder in its entirety, this time directing a completely identical projection directly, as he had with the silver-haired Mage, before and between the eyes of her dark-haired accomplice. Cast in rapid succession, with the only space of time between them being that which it took Dragos to think of doing so, neither explosion was nearly as potent as the one that came before them, but both were powerful enough in sheer concussive force to completely obliterate flesh and bone at the point nearest to the epicenter, and rend limbs at the extremities.
Dragos, however, was far from content enough to watch either play out and, before either had done so in full, he was crouching to coil and subsequently unleash with the powerful muscles of his legs in a burst of speed that kicked up the snow and ice behind him. Further propelled by his connection to the Sphere around him, he launched himself not at either of his momentary adversaries, but Viers instead. If the silver-haired mage had not been removed from his path she'd find that, only a scarce second or two afterward, Dragos was barrelling down on her, if not outright flying over whatever remained of her. The intent, then, was to catch Viers in a full-on tackle, arms spread wide to immediately wrap around him and prevent his separation. There was only one other thought and action to complete the maneuver.
“Es!”
It was time to go.
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Post by Callixta Trëguere on Aug 28, 2015 9:42:40 GMT -5
Callixta Trëguere was not expecting the dark-toned figure to not only restrain himself from exploiting her unbalance caused by the Marru'Khyran whelp's explosion but to also move to brace her against being thrown farther was a surprise. Gloved hands reflexively circled his shoulders when her slight frame was slammed against his; her cheek slid to rest against his as they weathered that initial shock. When he released her the mage did not linger, instead stepping back and straightening as the remainder of sapphire silk twisted and burned before ashing away from her form to leave her completely exposed. From far away the petite mage realized the weight of her long braid was no longer present but she spared nothing further to lament the loss. She was, however, slightly disappointed about the loss of her boots― they were one of her favorite pairs and replacing them was going to be difficult.
The ether was gone temporarily and Callixta didn't need to turn around to know it was by Søren's hand. Thankfully, the barriers between planes were still thinned by her own hand and replacing the lost super-condensed energy source would be a matter of time and not effort.
Those intensely ochre eyes met dark when her quarry pronounce his cooperation.
"Wise choice."
The diminutive Councilor made to turn around to take stock of the remainder of the battlefield when something caught in the edge of her vision: a ripple that didn't belong.
Callixta's jaw clenched as she reacted impossibly fast, her right hand darting forward to― perhaps to Viers― bat at something that wasn't there. There might have been a fraction of a second where the same blinding light from the first explosion was visible in the physical plane before the planar mage shoved the tiny point of hyper-condensed energy through the thinning she'd been maintaining and then allowed the barrier between to gel once more. One explosion was enough: the second one provoked the mage in the worst way. Dragos was only fortunate Callixta hadn't had the time to find the right fold to have his little explosion go off in his face. . .
Basically, the mage saw the entry point for the Marru'Khyran Terrorist's gift and reacted based on the information that the most likely outcome for that point of distortion being a better-targeted explosion now that the ether was no longer obscuring anyone's field of vision. Satisfied that she'd guessed correctly when there was no bleed-through and the point's effects were not felt in the physical plane Callixta finally snapped 'round to face the white-haired brat with his metaphorical fist full of firecrackers. Her expression hardened when she realized he was jumping at them. The petite mage's lip positively curled and her stance shifted instantly to close the distance between herself and the dark-colored figure, her body torqueing into a half-turn that allowed her to slam her right hand, open palm, flush against Viers' chest.
What visibly happened then― unless he was able to not only anticipate what she was going to do but also stop her― was that Viers seemed to be pushed back with no resistance for about .2 seconds before he melted away― vanishing with no other marker.
With Mr. Cooperative secure, Callixta switched direction from behind to forward― meaning her left hand, with the lone glove covering it as her only remaining article of clothing, was now raised in Dragos' direction with no other visible effect.
Don't be shy now. One tap is all it will take.
Callixta couldn't stop the smirk from twisting at her mouth as she watched the approach of the Marru'Khyran Prince.
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Post by Es Kauvrian on Aug 29, 2015 13:57:03 GMT -5
Es Kauvrian cursed under her breath. Between the sudden reversal of fortunes that had taken place in her battle with Soren and Dragos’ inability to subdue the planar mage, their situation had gone from bad to much, much worse in what seemed like a blink of an eye. Now Es was positioned far enough away from Soren that the woman couldn’t strike immediately, and was closer to Viers and Callixta than she was anyone else on the battlefield: the only good that Es could see out of the current situation is that Soren’s maneuver opened up the battlefield, meaning Es and Dragos could now work in tandem to fight both mages rather than splitting up and hoping for the best. Even with that strategy, however, Es knew that a protracted fight wouldn’t do any good: they needed to get Viers and run. Luckily. Dragos seemed to have the same idea.
Dragos’ explosion might not have stunned Callixta and Viers in the manner he intended, but it definitely did something to change the nature of the situation for the better: it distracted the planar mage, giving Es a precious few seconds to conjure up the remainder of her energy reserves and push them outward, again coating her external body in bright emerald light. Pivoting quickly as the second explosion would (hopefully) stun Soren and keep her from interfering, Es took off in the same manner Dragos himself had, only with twice the speed: the snow erupted at the force of the Arc’s blinding liftoff, and with one bound Es sent herself careening directly at Viers, meaning to sweep up the man in an emerald flash and then continue onward to intercept Dragos also. If Es could get her hands on both men, then the Arc knew she could get them out of there.
But Callixta was too fast: before Es could reach Viers, the planar mage removed him from the equation, causing Es to rapidly change the direction on her bound. Assuming Callixta, without the sensory aid of the ether coating the battlefield, didn’t realize what was happening behind her back and still chose to turn toward Dragos, she would immediately be slammed into from the backside by a sprinting Es, who, after changing her direction and accelerating further, would mean to slam her left shoulder, linebacker-style, into the small of Callixta’s back with titan-like force.
Es didn’t expect to actually harm the planar mage by essentially gut-checking her out of the way: in fact, the Arc’s aim was, apparently, to run through Callixta, using the force of her speed to send the woman hurtling off to the side as though she had been clubbed by a giant. However, Es took the blow a step further and capitalized on the energy coating her body, which would be used for a singular purpose when it came into contact with Callixta: taking a page out of the mage’s own location-jumping book, Es’ energy would link Callixta’s body, momentum and all, to another point in space, and assuming that she would be too distracted by being run over to do anything about it in the seconds it took to complete, the energy would cause Callixta to essentially disappear in a flash of emerald light as Es completed her strike, only to reappear in the same second some ten feet away, pointed straight down onto the top of Soren’s head.
If all went to plan, the momentum that Es transferred into Callixta’s body would hold, sending her flying straight down from ten feet above Soren’s head, causing the two women to forcefully collide with bone-breaking force, potentially taking them both out of the fight for a few seconds. That few seconds was designed specifically: assuming that Dragos was either still running towards where Viers had stood or had stopped in his tracks, Es would make sure her angle was right and aim to run right past Dragos on his left side, snatching out with her right arm cross-body to grab the man just under the shoulder. Unless she was stopped in some way, the second Es got a hold on Dragos the two would disappear, swallowed up by a flash of emerald light that would translocate them from their current location to another quite far in the distance – hopefully safe from their pursuers.
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Post by Callixta Trëguere on Aug 29, 2015 21:22:36 GMT -5
Nothing prepared the petite mage for the green woman's abrupt collision: Callixta was standing stock-still with her left hand outstretched, waiting for Marru'Khyr's little Dragon to continue barreling his way toward her. Instead, the pale-haired mage was quite suddenly thrust forward― the point of impact in her mid-back causing her slight frame to immediately begin to tip forward. The breath she'd been holding hissed between her teeth as she became aware that the impact wasn't the real gist of what was happening. The moment reality was shredded to exchange points in space Callixta's teeth clenched.
Who the fuck did this bitch think she was dealing with to believe such an inelegant warping of planar magic would be effective. . .
It really only required the exchange for her to recognize what happened and about a second more to right what had been torn. Visually, Callixta appeared above Søren and perhaps the green woman might consider her move a success until― just as quickly― the mage was returned to her previous location with a spray of snow to announce her arrival. Callixta slid a few feet to the side as she dispersed the momentum she'd been gifted and finally stopped. Just in time to watch Captain Emerald make off with the Marru'Khyran Whelp. The Councilor muttered a curse, paused, and then breathed deeply. Amber eyes honed in on Søren as step after step brought her closer to the other petite woman. As she noted the very obvious changes in the other Councilor bright blue light began to manifest and encompass Callixta's nude form. A few seconds later and she was no longer exposed― sapphire silks had made a return though this time it was in the form of trousers and a long tunic rather than a dress. Generic black leather boots swallowed her leg to the knee and there was a distinct lack of detail to be found.
"There is a new guest in my quarters."
Callixta eyed the former Guardian sidelong.
"Can you follow them with me?"
The mage glanced at the point in space where they'd vanished, watching how the reality frayed there, struggling to smooth itself and keep from unraveling.
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Post by Søren Kiirkegré on Aug 29, 2015 22:08:30 GMT -5
Søren, unlike her planar-magic-wielding, compatriot, wasn’t able to see or otherwise predict Dragos sudden, explosive attack, and therefore when the explosion erupted from, essentially, nowhere right in front of her face, the Fifth District Counselor’s head snapped back as though it had been hit square on with a fist-sized rock. However, despite the explosive force of the attack, Søren’s body remained planted in place, a phenomenon only explained by the vast amount of Ether making up the compositing force of her body. Considering that, essentially, Søren had been ‘hollowed out’, both physically and energetically before she absorbed a hundred-person dose of Ether, in the current moment, the Counselor was made up of more magic than matter. Combined with the manner in which her armor held the Ether in as Søren worked to fully assimilate it into her own life force, the majority of the blasts kinetic and thermal force was absorbed into both the armor and the Ether inside it, causing Søren to stand upright through it like a seaside statue resisting crashing waves. That didn’t however, stop the woman from being momentarily blinded, this time in her energy-based sight, due to the force of the blast. Søren’s dead, white eyes truly saw nothing for a few seconds, and by the time her vision began to return as the energies surrounding her body calmed, both her potential opponents were suddenly gone.
Letting her arm drop loosely to her side, Søren’s smirk rapidly transitioned into a sneer, even as Callixta chose to approach her. The former Guardian’s white eyes tracked to her compatriot, sightlessly beholding the woman’s energy as she waited for Callixta’s inevitable explanation. Søren’s chief worry was that all three of them had escaped in a flash, after all that work had been done to damage the female Achréiøs impersonator, especially at the expense of Søren’s health, but Callixta’s opening statement quickly dispelled the notion of complete failure: they had at least managed to hold on to one of them.
”The one they were after?”
Søren assumed her own answer, but she also didn’t put it past Callixta to have somehow grabbed the white-haired Marru'Khyran. Regardless, with the battlefield suddenly clear, as she waited for more explanation from Callixta, Søren took stock of her own injuries, and noticed that she was, for all intents and purposes, still dead: she hadn’t noticed when she spoke, but her words came out in a gasping, wheezing, half-gone set of sounds due to the fact that at least one of her lungs was currently collapsed. First order of business became for the Counselor to reactivate her most basic body processes, so while Søren half listened to Callixta, she also set to work using the Ether to jump-start the restorative powers of her own tissues, and by shifting where her energy was going, she would manage to fairly quickly restart her heart and fill her lungs with air again, allowing her circulation to get moving again so that her the rest of her body, with the help of the Ether, could start healing.
Søren would let Callixta answer her question, and once she had a few good breaths moved through her respiratory system, the former Guardian spoke in a much more normal vocal inflection in response.
”I can, but I’m not going to be a lot of use broken and blind. I need at least a few minutes to regenerate. Can you see where they scampered off to?”
Søren was fairly confident that they wouldn’t head back toward Vascxious Sigma – there was too much chance of being detected again. If they truly wanted to escape, they would have to go somewhere to lay low, and if they were stupid about it, they might jump directly back to wherever their base of operations was, meaning that, even though they weren’t captured, they could still provide valuable intel, specifically as to where the Mage might be. However, Søren wasn’t (luckily) holding her breath for them to make that sort of mistake: odds are they would try to redirect and hide out somewhere until they felt it was safe to go back, meaning that, for the moment, reconnaissance would be more useful than confrontation.
”You may just have to drag me around. Is our guest safe where they are?”
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Post by Callixta Trëguere on Aug 30, 2015 11:41:42 GMT -5
With a furrow in her brow Callixta flexed her right hand and brought it up for inspection, finally realizing the appendage had been pretty severely damaged: the meat of the extremity was mostly gone― apparently having been melted away when she touched the gathering of super-condensed energy― leaving only the blackened frame of what served as her skeletal structure.
The mage dropped the hand, absently shifting a small portion of her own store of ether to begin coaxing those "tissues" to regrow and stretch over the frame and make her hand whole once more. The process would take a few minutes and there was no rush. Amber eyes refocused on Søren, her chin lowering to answer affirmatively to her question.
"If we move quickly we can recover the other two. I do not think it wise to engage them if they are given enough time to recuperate properly."
It was at that moment that Callixta realized their actions had been somewhat foolish: they retained the high ground when they were in the City, but out here? With no support from the Tower and the possibility of the true Mage entering the battlefield at any time, they taken a very real risk. Fortunately it had worked in their favor. So far. The Councilor had no intention of pushing the envelope much more.
"I can. Her method involves switching two points in space, and it leaves tears. They are not healing easily. . ."
Callixta trailed off as she glanced over to the foreign point in space, her eyes tracing the frays before flickering back to Søren.
"Still, there will eventually be a snapback and reality will right itself. If I dally too long the trail will be lost. She did not limit herself to one exchange," she continued on, her teeth showing at the admission.
The mage took a deep breath.
"I can focus better if you stay here. I'll go and find the end point. You stay and finish regenerating." She paused. "The only real risk is that Achréiøs will be waiting at the final destination. If that is the case, it would most certainly be better if I were alone: there are no guarantees in that scenario and it is better if only one of us is at risk. If I do not return in an hour you need to report back to the Tower."
The petite Councilor watched her companion with an even expression.
"Our guest will remain safe if he does what he is told. Otherwise, the Tower will be alerted to his presence and his questioning will most likely handled by someone else. Perhaps he can be trusted; perhaps not. Either way, escape is unlikely."
At least that part was secure.
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Post by Søren Kiirkegré on Aug 30, 2015 12:14:50 GMT -5
Søren, admittedly, was only half-listening to her companion, but the Counselor’s lack of attention was understandable, given the circumstances. The vast majority of the Operative Commander’s focus was directed inward as she sought to get her body back on-track with healing, a process that would take time and energy, though Søren would still be left with a vast surplus of life force when her reconstruction was complete due to the sheer volume of Ether she had been able to absorb. Of the highest priority in her healing, now that her major circulatory organs were beginning to get back up to speed, was repairing her eyesight, so Søren shunted Ether in a higher concentration into her eyes, causing the dead, white, empty orbs to glow with a fiery blue light as she responded to Callixta’s ideas.
”The window for dealing with the woman is closing fast – I diminished her pretty significantly, and her escape probably exhausted the remainder of her power entirely, but I doubt she’ll stay as weak as she is now for long. I may not be in the best shape, but I’m a lot better off than either of them are right now.”
Søren was still deciding what the best course of action might be, and as she lapsed into silence and thought for a moment, she kept getting momentarily distracted by her returning sight: as Callixta watched, the former Guardian’s red irises would slowly begin to reappear, the structures of her eyes rapidly repairing themselves. Going from darkness, with superimposed energetic vision over it, to a blurry white field was the first distraction, and it caused Søren to squint and blink, even while she was trying to plan tactically.
Callixta was right about the risks: the two might have been prime targets right now due to how damaged they both were, but if they rendezvoused with the Mage wherever they ended up, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference how tired they were. However, the former Guardian wasn’t one who was exactly known for her overabundance of caution, and even recognizing that she emotionally wanted to deal righteous fury down onto the female fighter, Søren still intended to be more aggressive then safe with their actions.
”If the one you grabbed won’t be a problem, then we need to stay in the field and finish this. And no, dealing with Achréiøs on your own isn’t the safest bet: if we coordinate, we have a much higher chance of escape together than either of us do separately.” As far as Søren was concerned, they’d cross the Mage bridge when they came to it: even with his people getting effectively trounced, Achréiøs hadn’t stepped in, and that made the Fifth District Counselor fairly convinced that he was, at least right now, otherwise occupied. ”Go follow them – when you figure out their final destination, come back here and get me: I should be good to go by then. We should track them and see what they do for now: if we get a chance to take them, we’ll deal with that when the opportunity is right in front of us.”
Blinking a few more times, the naked, handless Callixta began to come into view more clearly. Søren frowned and stepped a bit closer to the mage, and raised her right hand to touch the severed ends of her partner’s hair.
”Pity to lose that gorgeous hair: still, you look good with it short.” The former Guardian smirked, touching her fingers to her own hair, which while not singed, had, at some point, developed a shock-white streak on its right side. ”We’ve been complacent for long enough it’s probably time for a change anyway.”
Søren’s smirk grew as she let her hand slide down the center of Callixta’s chest before it fell back to her side.
”Go find them: then we’ll finish this.”
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