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Post by Ralma Faustus on Feb 17, 2011 16:41:24 GMT -8
A full month had passed in Tairachi since the pair from Dra'zin had plummeted into the laps of it's natives. A short stay at a motel to recover, had transformed into somewhat lengthy habitation of a low rent apartment. Ralma's brother had been completely unable to pick up work due to his broken leg, and therefore had devoted himself to studying Tairachian culture and plotting their escape for when the opportunity arose. This meant he spent an inordinate amount of time listening to radio and hobbling to a cafe to watch news programs. While he was preoccupied with this, and frustrated by the necessity of getting around with crutches, Ralma spent her days at 'work'.
This was, of course a gross reclassification of what Ralma did to earn the money to pay rent. Her iterate wanderings of the city had led her into several situations where she had stepped in to help an underdog from being beaten. From this she had heard, that somewhere in the city there were wrestling and fighting tournaments somewhat regularly that paid substantially to winners.
She was not initially taken as a serious contender, and was first put up against someone of her height and weight for a meager prize. But as it became clear that such 'brawls' were more comparable to someone holding a 'little person' at arms length as they flailed ineffectually, she was bumped up in challenge. In fact, it became somewhat regular for her to be used as a 'long shot' contender in apparently unbalanced fights to force gamblers to bet on her opponent so the management could make a killing. This lasted, all of three weeks, until people started catching on that she wasn't a normal feline human.
Perhaps that was after she blitzed a Pakuma with a bewildering lightning kick to the jaw that sent him sprawling over the front row that gamblers betting behaviors started to shift in the other direction. The management began to call on her to 'throw' fights, to which she could only adamantly deny, as her reign as a light heavyweight became a progressive slump into brutality and 'cautious' cuts in her pay grade. Not that she cared much, fighting was in her blood,as long as she did it, and the food at the ring was free for 'employees', she decided to stick around.
Her last three matches had been against fully armored and armed opponents, and she began to see that her welcome had worn out. She took one look at her assignment for the day, against someone who looked more like a metal porcupine with a battleaxe than a human being, and left the arena before she was missed. To her mind, she knew she could take the oaf, and split him open like a clam with his own axe, but she was beginning to dislike the sour looks she'd get when she collected the thinning clip of money from the owners. Better to call it quits then, than to push her luck and have to kill her 'sponsors' when they forced her hand with their increasing belligerent overtures and vague threats.
In mind of this, she had made up a new route home that was nearly impossible to follow. What was circuitous at best before, now became impassible to all but a helicopter as she climbed a fire escape to the top of the low-rises and began vaulting between rooftops. Landing on flagpoles, and clawing her way up concrete faces, she entered her 'abode' by the roof entrance, and took an elevator down to the second floor.
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As she entered the apartment, she regarded its peeling wallpaper, and drained colors of its paints. The closets were empty, and only a few critical locations appeared to have been used often. The kitchen and personal facilities appeared to at least have been cleaned thoroughly, although in both cases the fixtures were probably nearing a half-centennial of age and creaked as the pressure required to turn a faucet on screeched through several layers of painted-over rust. She had 'claimed' the only truly private room in the apartment, although she denied the ragged mattress with protruding springs. She had thrown that out, on the first day, as Magnus had settled into an uncomfortably long tenure of sleeping on a fold-out couch. She guessed he probably had a couple dozen knots in his back by now, and only the act of moving around alleviated the aches and pains.
An unnatural, wavering blue light came from the living room, although this did not come as a surprise. She merely slipped off her worn 'shoes' which probably could have been called an 'unconventional' form of slipper or sandal, and wandered into the room holding one in her hand.
Her brother sat, completely immobile upon the couch, eyes closed and surrounded by a shifting, seemingly aquatic bubble of distorted blue light. Beyond, a mass of paper notes, and nub pencils lay in strewn about the floor, or pinned to the wall. Not waiting for her brother to acknowledge, she absently flicked her shoe against Magnus' head. Wherever his mind was at the time, it was bodily wrenched back to its proper place as the shoe struck. He shuddered, and looked around in startled surprise as the strange effect he had formed around himself burst like a soap bubble.
"Does this plan of yours involve sleeping all day long?" Ralma demanded, with a definite cynical sharpness to her voice.
"It's not -sleeping-, I'm just closing my eyes." He defended with irritation, "And what're you doing here? I thought you were fighting today?"
"Quit..." Ralma shrugged dismissively.
"Oh.. I knew you couldn't last much longer." Magnus answered, "I would have left weeks ago if I was being paid that little."
"Well, the last few fights were pretty good, it's just I don't like the way they look at me when I walk by."
Magnus scoffed.
"That's typical. You're stronger than they are without trying. And people get tired of it in a competitive environment. If it wasn't for all those twists and turns you take on the way home, they might come here and.. I dunno.. Break my other leg."
She didn't respond to this, but let her brother go on, as he lifted himself up upon crutches he retrieved at the side of the couch.
"But that doesn't matter. I think I know where all the magic is gone in this world. This 'rift' thing that has all the time lines messed up has the leylines warped."
He gestured to vague scribblings on the wall, in which he added several more feverish annotations at choice locations.
"It isn't just that the magic here isn't 'used' as much anymore. A great deal of it's flow is redirected into rifts to support them. Those Temporal Displacement 'guides' say that this stuff started here, and went back to their 'Koumai' and 'Malakar' eras. If that's true, all the leylines here might be distorted, but back then.."
Ralma gestured for him to finish up, as she had no idea what her brother was saying, let alone whether or not she should care about it.
"The experiment we ran before should work much better than it did here and now." One of his crutches tapped what looked to be a long metal bar laying on the ground next to the couch, "Probably won't be a waste of our time... Maybe..."
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(Will be continued)
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Post by Magnus Faustus on Mar 26, 2011 19:26:56 GMT -8
"The plan, then.. Will be to go find one of those Temporal Displacement guys, and use a 'rift' to go back in time on this planet. When we're there, we'll use attuned markers like this one to 'spike' the Leylines. Hopefully with a high degree of alignment, a portal back to Dra'zin will be more likely to occur within our lifetimes. Though this is all just elegant guesswork on my part, I've only been studying portals and the magic of this world for a month."
He paused and put a finger to a roughly scrawled bar graph, with notation in some obscure number of units.
"The constant I've been picking up on is that normally portals from outside of this world tend to be of two types.. Nominally low powered and close proximity, or rather high power and distant. Whenever an individual gets pushed into this plane, they have to have an amount of energy invested proportional to how different the constants are in their own world.. Never mind planar protection like our Nexus. The reason we're here, it appears is because of the rupture created by the destruction of that deposit of crystal.. Probably had embedded dragon hearts somewhere along its course."
"Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of using the same means to get back.. First because of the lack of materials, and secondly because it'd probably kill us this time around in the 'testing'... That's why we're doing it this way instead."
Magnus looked back to his sister, and found she had moved off into the kitchen and was searching through the fridge contents for the makings of a sandwich. Probably had been the moment he had began theorizing.
He grumbled, and began to start a stinging rebuke for her inattention when the screech of brakes drew his attention away. Moving to the window, he briefly pulled the blinds and looked into the street eight floors below. A half dozen cars had come to a screeching halt in front of the building, and a group of well dressed men piled out and barged through the front door of the apartment complex.
"Well.. That steps the timetable up a bit. Sis... Looks like they already have you marked. Get your things together, your ex-employers thinks we should leaving right now."
Magnus sister shrugged with disinterest, as she finished the sandwich, placed a corner of it in her mouth and went about gathering their very few possessions worthy of transportation and getting ready to bail.
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Being so many floors up off the ground had the benefit of it taking a few minutes for the goons to get people on every floor demanding if anybody knew of Ralma or her brother. With their belongings gathered, and back in the little armor that they possessed, they made their way into the corridor of the ninth floor.
"Okay, I guess we'll head up to the roof and we'll bolt to those 'committee' guys before these guys wise up." Magnus mused, as he checked that his .45 revolver was fully loaded and all the parts moved as properly.
Ralma's response came first with the soft crunch of her knuckles, and crack of her neck as she rolled her shoulders.
"Nah.. I think I'm gonna go out the front door.. And take some of these guys out along the way." She smirked, " The rules of the ring involving 'no killing' were getting on my nerves anyways."
Her brother stood confounded. He wasn't sure the full count of their enemies, but he was sure he didn't have enough bullets to get involved in a shootout, more so since he was on crutches so couldn't exactly operate with any sort of agility.
"And what am I supposed to do? Stand around and get my ass handed to me by some mafia wannabe? Those stairs take me fifteen minutes on a GOOD day going down."
Ralma pointed to the iron doors of the old elevator at the other side of the floor.
"Then take that.. I don't think anybody but their guys will be using it during all of this. I'll see you in the lobby alright? I hope you remember how not to get killed."
With that, Ralma ran off, and darted into the main stairwell, whereupon a shrill scream sounded, followed by irregular bursts of gunfire.
Magnus' only response to her sudden leap into the fray was a string of vile sounding curses on his 'bloody minded sister' as he hobbled toward the elevator. Only to notice that the elevator appeared to be on it's way up already...
(To be continued. With much violence.)
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Post by Magnus Faustus on Apr 11, 2011 20:33:36 GMT -8
OOC: I said much violence, and so help me I'll give it.. Albeit this'll make this thread sort of a 'prequel' to their arrival at the TDIC outpost... AAAANYWAYS...
IC: Over the gunfire on the floor below, Magnus didn't get warning of the elevator's imminent arrival as he hobbled toward it. It was when the doors began to slowly open before him that he realized how dire his situation had become. Alerted by the gunfire on the floor below, the two hired goons had weapons drawn and trained as the door opened. Magnus' drawn revolver was an immediate announcement of threat, and without a single wasted warning they opened fire. Perhaps by some luck and good fortune, that they were using under caliber concealable pistols. A shot meant for Magnus' head ricocheted off of the shoulder joint of his breastplate, while the second went wide, as the shock of having guns pointed at him had made him lean slightly off center.
Still, the ricochet was enough to send him off balance, as he brought the revolver to bear and barked a response as fast as he could before he collapsed into the wall. Four rounds, one miss, but with only one properly placed in his assailant's throat. The remaining two went into an arm and the torso of the other assailant. Both went down, but not before at least one bullet found its way to collide with his ribs. In a flat collision, the bullet took no pause to the thin sheet of metal that wrapped around Magnus, nor any of the flesh or cloth beneath. It was only when it collided with the curiously segmented ribcage that it came to a halt, throwing Magnus to his back.
This alone was enough to send his cursing to new heights, as he dug at his chest where the bullet had come to rest. He knew he was fortunate to have the unusually formed ribcage which acted like a shield against invasion around his vitals, but any shot, wedged in against the smoothly fitting plate-like formations of his ribcage was enough reason for significant concern Moving became a nightmare of gritting teeth and pain, as his body simply 'tried' to work its way around the searing lead slug.
It was the reminder of the gunfire below that made him concerned for what his sister was dealing with, that made him haul himself to a sitting position and attempt to get up again. A bewildering haze of pain and vindictive hate descended upon him, the latter driving him to stand again more so than the former.
"B-better be grateful..." He rasped, as he drew himself to his feet, clutching the bullet wound and the revolver with equal tenacity.
He gave the wound a quick spray with an antiseptic foaming solution that also acted to slow the flow of blood into the region. Of the two crutches, only one remained intact, as a bullet had fragmented the structure of one, so he relied on that one as he roughly made his way to the elevator, shoving the only surviving thug out of the way of the door so he could continue. Needless to say, he wasn't gentle in this action, and the only thing saving his enemy from a curb stomp was that Magnus was still wary of putting pressure on his injured leg, even after so many weeks in recovery.
He thumbed the numbers of the two floors below their own, leaving conspicuous bloody thumbprints on both buttons. He jabbed the prone body that had fell backward into the elevator after Magnus' second round had ventilated his carotid artery. Vacant eyes stared into the wall, as blood pooled beneath. The janitorial staff weren't going to be happy with them, that was an absolute certainty, but Magnus was gratified that he wouldn't be around to take the heat for what remained after this 'professional disagreement'.
He had time to load two more rounds into the revolver, and pointed it into the hallway as the door opened upon the floor directly beneath their own. The muted colors of the hallway had been interrupted by bullet holes, blood and horrible remnants of anything not smart enough to run away from his blood-happy sister. One had been smashed into the floor so hard as to crack the surface and create a small indentation before the bones in his back had crumbled apart like crushed popcorn. Another was on both sides of the hallway, as his sister had likely torn him apart like an angry child throwing a fit at a rag doll. Magnus thumbed the door close button several times, and breathed a momentary sigh of relief, not just because it appeared his sister had made her way rather 'efficiently' through her assailants, but also because he was quite obviously glad not to be so far on her bad side to deserve such gruesome end. A perverse sense of schadenfreude that could only come from knowing that being a sibling was saving you from having every backhanded comment you ever made about stupid choices your sister made, coming back to you at the edge of a sharpened knife.
Finishing reloading the revolver, the elevator descended another floor, and Magnus cautiously poked his nose into the middle of what seemed like a funneled war zone. At the far end of which, his sister was gradually making her way through demoralized yet desperate hirelings with what could only be termed as extreme prejudice. She used the first person she got hold of as a bloody shield against gunfire as she clawed and smashed her way through anything that tried to counterattack. It was probable that perhaps some of the minions had escaped her wrath, either by running down the stairs when they heard her above, or ducking into a side room and cowering inside something. Ralma wasn't the sort to go chasing her prey if it didn't present any challenge or amusement, but this fact was lost on the native Tairachians that were trying to put her down with a variety of close range firearms and blades. It was strange to Magnus, simultaneously being appalled by the ferocity of his sister's wrath, but also intrigued by its tempo and creativity. Never had she rejected the title of 'Beast' as it had been granted to her, or any of the other ungraceful slurs dropped on her, she simply called them another 'part' of who she was. But it was a mistake that any one person could be thoroughly captured with one 'name' alone. Sure, she was a berserker, but she was also a knight who avenged injustice. A horrible contradiction seemed to lurk beneath every one of her actions to the casual observer, but somehow Magnus was feeling that he was getting used to this duality of his sister. She knew nothing but how to be true to herself, and in a way he was a little jealous of it to be able to wear a single 'mask' of identity and be perfectly content with it.
"What are you waiting for!? Join in already!" Ralma chiding voice cut the sound of combat.
Magnus inhaled sharply, regarding that her opponents had mistaken the 'cat call' for a taunt at them instead of her brother who she had seen lurking in the elevator. The body of one of her assailants caught a cluster of bullets meant for her as she skillfully directed him into the line of fire.
Her brother in the meantime collected himself mentally as he gripped the revolver, focused his will and directed the pain of his injuries into the action of attacking those remaining opponents who were still focused on his sister. Runes glowed up and down his right arm as he threw himself fully into every bullet, transforming the mundane bullet to a charged magical projectile with devastating physical power. Every time he pulled the trigger, avoiding crossing his sister's own path, someone lost their life with startling efficiency. The rounds were like lances made of lightning and thunder which ran bodies through with a roar that should not have come from such a comparatively tiny weapon.
It might have been thought that they possessed one mind in the short frantic battle that ensued, Ralma quite literally dancing among the chaos, dodging bullets and smashing skulls, and being protected by what seemed to be a thunder from on high as anyone who thought they were in her blind spot for even an instant met a frightful end at the impact of the magically charged bullets. It was hardly surprising for Magnus as his sister closed the last few feet with a half-skip and joined him in the elevator.
"I think the only ones left are the ones in the lobby. So.. Ground floor if you would?" She asked, apparently energized by the results of her rampage.
Without any word of complaint, he pressed the button. He then deflated emotionally, leaning against the side wall, only barely resisting the urge to claw at the little piece of metal that was still wedged inside his chest.
"Best things in life are free, aren't they?" His sister added.
"Maybe, but I think we differ on the 'best' things in life.. I don't think you're talking about tea on a sunny afternoon." Magnus muttered.
"Of course not! Getting even with assholes who would do you harm is where it's all at. Stress relief and exercise all in one." Ralma laughed.
"I don't know if dismembering them and pulling their guts out with your bare hands is 'normal'."
Ralma paused, regarding the dripping mess splattered over her forearms. She then quickly crouched and began wiping off the blood on the still somewhat dry back of the thug who had accosted Magnus on their floor. With only slight success she stood back up, flicking her fingernails toward the back of the elevator cabin in an absent-minded action as if she had just used a towel.
"Do you want me to pull that bullet out of there?" She asked.
Magnus started nervously, and waved dismissively.
"Not now! You'll probably kill me by infection with those hands of yours.." Magnus lectured.
Ralma rolled her eyes at her brother's stubborn behavior. It was only good that the bullet didn't seem to be slowing him down immediately, or else she would have forced the issue.
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They arrived at the lobby without incident, as even Magnus' preemptive reloading and careful clearing of the hallway with the revolver proved unnecessary. The only people on the lobby level seemed to be a number of frightened residents and the superintendent of the building who was trying to keep them from searching the upstairs floors for answers about what was going on.
"It sounds like it's over, but we don't know.. It would be better if we just stayed out of the way until they left.. I... Hey!" He shouted as he spotted the foreigner siblings coming out of the elevator, stained with blood, "What is.. Is this your doing? I knew something was strange when you paid in cash all those times.. You're some sort of drug dealers aren't you?"
Ralma walked past the superintendent, and Magnus stopped to take out a pair of room keys. He placed these carefully in the man's hands, a pained but curiously nervous smile on his lips.
"Close enough. Though it doesn't matter. We're out of your hair now." Magnus explained, putting his free hand back upon the grip of revolver which he had put back into its hip holster, "And you might want to clean the upper floors... Just a thought..."
The man expression became one of incomparable frustration, but Magnus hobbled his way around him to where his sister was regarding the entrance of the apartment building with some degree of confusion. A mess of wires were laid out before the doors, connecting to blocks of grey material stuck to the frame.
"Guess they really don't want us using the front door?" Magnus asked, as his sister picked up a chair, "Hold on.. If they want an explosion, I can give them one."
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The explosives strapped to the front door of the building exploded, sprinkling bits of concrete, steel and glass into the street. Momentarily rocking the armored utility vehicle that sat in the rear of the column that had pulled up on the low rent apartment block that the two off-world siblings had holed up in.
"Ms. Faustus really should have paid more attention to her signing contract." A man with thinning hair said as he watched the front of the building fly across the street in pieces, "Too bad.. The crowd seemed to like her, so many bets for her after those first few rounds.. No matter what I set up."
He opened a small fridge at his feet and removed a glass and a bottle of port.
"A drink then.. To hard-headed foreigners.. And the unfortunately unpredictable nature of terrorist attacks.." He said as he gulped a mouthful of the stinging alcohol and gestured at the driver, "Let's go."
The vehicle pivoted out of the column and drove through the smoke laden street. Unbelievably, something lurched from the front of the building and collided with the front of the car. The back of the car jumped, throwing it's calm occupant forward, and spilling his celebratory drink across the leather upholstery of the vehicle. A voice shouted outside, but he could not make out the words as the lack of a seatbelt had made him strike his head on the flight forward.
The door beside him screeched, and was torn off like the top of a sardine can.
"A ha! Bonus!"
A sharp fingered hand grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him from the car. His momentary protests going unheard as he became aware that the driver had collapsed, either from the impact, or because he knew what he had struck and was wisely playing possum.
"Hey old man. Sorry for not putting in two weeks' notice, but I've had enough of your games." Ralma smiled demoniacally as she lifted the man effortlessly, apparently unconcerned with just how her hold was strangling him by his own collar, "Hey brother. You want the last one?"
A hobbling youth with a tired expression made his way through the smoke, his free arm glowing a strange ethereal blue, which reached up around his neck to his face in distinctly arcane lines.
"He's your ex-boss.. Kill him yourself." He answered, "Waste of a bullet."
"Not like that.. How about you explode him like the doors?"
"Eh?"
"Yeah! I'll throw him right up there, and you see if you can hit him. Target practice, right? I'd kill him myself, but I have too many ideas.. It'd be a shame to just pick any old one."
"Then we leave?"
The man squirmed, trying to pull up on the feline's arm so he could breathe and plead his case.
"I-I can pay if you don't kill me!" He shouted hoarsely.
"Fine fine.. Just make sure he's a fine red mist, okay?" Ralma answered as she tightened her grip on the man's collar and lifted him overhead with both arms.
Before he could say anymore to try to convince them otherwise, he found himself airborne, soaring down the street. Momentarily envisioning shooting skeet, he flailed as he began to fall again, seeing what looked to be a glowing orb pursuing him. It curled in midair, like a curve ball, whipping back and forth in nonsense directions, and missed him by a hair's breadth. A momentary breath of relief as he regarded the ground below him, only to see what looked to be another similarly glowing patch of ground that he was descending toward seemingly reaching out from where the pair had launched him...
The only kindness was, he did not feel the ground erupt with the force of a land mine as he landed, as the collision with the ground first cracked his skull and killed him.
"Hey! You missed!" Ralma exclaimed, even after the second spell that had carried directly through the asphalt went off and blasted the remains of her boss into bits smaller than confetti.
"You asked for red mist.. Not for mid-air fireworks.. And you know how inaccurate my spells are in the air." Magnus shrugged, as he pulled the car's GPS from its stand on the dashboard.
A few taps later he was pointing down the street.
"One of those Displacement Committee places isn't far from here. Let's go."
Ralma grumbled, and followed, a little upset that she couldn't see the avaricious old man get zapped in midair like a mosquito.
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