Survival
((I make you guys a nice car and you smash it just a couple turns in. Sheesh. (Though if it's just on its side I imagine Captain Armor can just push it back over on its wheels. Hell, he could probably just rock it down, though that might flip it the wrong way.))
"I guess we clear the area?"
Still got my gun, right? Use it! Otherwise, summon a Molotov and chuck it at the largest concentration.
((Indeed, car is mostly fine. Just lost part of its exterior.))
You get out your handgun, hide behind the car and prepare to fire. The assault rifle wielding man is currently still screaming in pain and cursing due to the loss of his arm from friendly fire, so you focus on the cause of the injury instead: the shotgun wielding man. You take careful aim, hold your breath and the moment you see him leave cover and prepare to fire you put a round through his shoulder. The man gets back into cover and semi-blindly fires at you again but at this distance he can't hit anything. A few seconds later, he makes a run for a nearby shop and smashes through the front window.
Survival
"'Tis time to spread fear."
Get out of the car and commence impalement of undesirables. Attempt to look extra terrifying during said impaling.
You smash through the back window, slowly get up and start walking. Mostly because you're afraid that if you push it too much you'll end up with no legs again, but it also helps with the intimidation. As you do so, you summon a spear so that you can start the impaling.
The men who threw the whelbarrow on your path peek out of the alley they were hiding in, look at you for a second and then start running away.
"Wait! Stop running! I just want to make a point! On your head!"
Oh well, they're gone. It's like luck is conspiring against you to ensure you will never get to thrust your spear into anyone today. I guess you could go stab the injured guy, but that's just not the same. Plus you'd have to walk all the way there, and that would take a while.
Those guys are the worse ambushers ever. No challenge at all. Then again, they probably had to set all this up in a very short time, what with the speed you were going.
"Ugh, I guess good things can't last forever, suggestions?"
Carefully work my way out of the car and find an inanimate object to hide behind. Can I rip a sleeve off my shirt to keep the blood out of my eyes?
You join John in hiding behind the car. You attempt to rip your sleeve but you just can't. All those movies make it look so easy. Or maybe you're just weak. Now that you think about it, it might be easier to just use telekinesis. Or you could even supplement your physical effort with telekinesis. It would be hard to concentrate on doing two things at once, but perhaps the combined strength will overcome the lack of concentration.
Campaign
Campaign, Ike!
<Man, these Discoballs are pretty fast. Other than that, though, they seem pretty reasonable to deal with. As long as there's not more than one, anyway.>
<More on topic, though, River does sound like the sort of guy who you'd describe as 'he's a good guy if you get to know him' when you really mean 'he's an asshole, but you'll get used to him'. More interestingly, though, who's she? I'm not up to speed on all these entity babes. Or, to be honest, any entities at all. I don't think I've been paying nearly enough attention to all this shit. But yeah, got some choice commentary on her?>
Get the dirt on whoever the main man cares to provide dirt on, in short. Though I can perfectly nicely continue gossiping even after that, I assume, so timeskip if it brings over some other living people to mess with.
<Yeah, that seems like a nice way to sum it up. Like a guy I knew used to say: 'It's like being punched in the face so hard and for so long you sometimes start to sort of miss it when it finally stops.'>
<Oh, she's just your good old fashioned power hungry psycho. You know, first time I met her she didn't seem so bad. You know, a bit vain, a bit bossy, things to be expected from the young and powerful, nothing that screamed 'Danger: Stay away!'. But the craziness starts soon after that. If he never chills then she doesn't know what chill is. She's ready to snap at the slightest provocation. And god forbid if you ever disagree with her. Even when she's blatantly wrong! And of course violence is the answer to everything. And not the angry kind of violence the 'oh, you forgot to say hello to me ten years ago so today I'm going to kick your dog, kill your family, burn your house, nuke your planet for good measure and then go for tea like nothing happened' kind of violence. As you'd expect she doesn't have any friends (she says she 'doesn't believe in friends' whatever that means), just people she bosses around or people she lies to trick them into working with her for whatever nefarious purpose. Nowadays I try to stay away from her as much as I can. This entity thing has pushed her crazy into overdrive and inflated her brains to thrice their previous Zeppelin-big-enough-to-lift-Fort-Knox state. She thinks she is the most powerful being in the entire universe (or multiverse, whatever term you want to use), that everyone should bow down to her greatness and other such deranged supervillain clichés. And-...>
<And I just realised that by shovelling all this dirt I may be digging myself into a hole. So I think I'll stop talking on the subject for now and hope he doesn't remember this when he regenerates.>Time flies as you wait for whatever is going on to finish. You alternate from watching the crater to watching the sun approach the mountains on the horizon, going from orange to red. It's a bit strange though that even though the ambient light is decreased, the light coming from the crater also starts to look dimmer. One would expect the opposite. You also fail to spot any movement either in the city or outside of it.
Finally, as nightfall approaches, the phantom shape extending above the crater disappears and the Baubles begin scattering, although many of them stay in the general area. Everything around looks much darker and silent. Even the wind has stopped.
<We get signal. What!> you hear the voice of your entity a few minutes after that.
You can see the glow of lava coming out of the crater again.
<Main screen turn on.> You start getting a visual feed from him again. The image itself looks much better, even though occasionally details disappear or things become out of focus. The inside of the crater looks much like the impact site of a meteor, rock molten, fused and metamorphosed by extreme temperature and pressure into a bowl-like shape, with one side being higher than the other due to the mountain's inclination. The lava inside hasn't started cooling and solidifying yet. It hasn't got much viscosity and it is still radiating light and heat which are providing light to the surrounding area.
<It's you!!>The feed is focused on a small three-tailed fox lying on the ground close to the observer's legs, which are barely visible as dark shapes at the edge of the vision. They both seem to be standing close to the lava, not close enough to be in danger of being burnt but probably close enough they aren't comfortable.
<No, wait! No no->The feed cuts off. You take this as your queue to hastily make your way there to see what's going on.
LenglonYou are drowning. In darkness. Alone. You do not react. The darkness is pushing you from everywhere. The cold surrounds you. You do not react. You float limply, letting the currents take you. For a moment you feel the need to act, the need to do something, even though you don't know what that may be. You need to stop this. But the feeling passes a moment later. There is nothing you can do. You failed. Everyone is gone. You can not make things right for them. All you can hope is that someone will come to you. That someone will do something for you. Something to make you live again. You float. Alone. In darkness.
Suddenly the world floods with golden light. It's so bright. It's burning you. But you know it is a chance. It scares you. You hesitate. But you have to take it. You try to fight. You try to open your eyes-
Your vision is blurry. Something is holding you. You try to move, but you can't escape its grip. Its holding your mouth shut, not letting you take all the air you need. It's holding your neck like a noose, ready to dig into your flesh. You feel sick. Your chest is burning.
But then you notice you have a second set of feelings. Eyes and ears you can use but cannot control. You focus on it as your heart-rate starts returning to normal and you stop hyperventilating. A humanoid with the characteristics of a black wolf is holding a three-tailed fox, forcing it to stand still and look at him. The fox looks tiny compared to him.
The moment you stop struggling, he brings his face closer to yours, looks at you straight in the eyes and speaks.
"I will not forget what you did. Not until you cease to be."There is little emotion in his voice.
He gets up, pushing you a bit harder than needed in the process, causing some pain. He leaves you looking at the points of light floating around above you like burning ashes in the wind in the backdrop of the dark blue dusk sky. He quickly walks towards your second vision. He reaches out towards it with a hand and it ceases to exist.
You still feel dizzy, disoriented, sick. And now that the adrenaline rush has started dying down you also start to feel hungry. Yet you also feel like something is slowly filling you with strength, empowering you.
Harry BaldmanAs River walks by you, he pauses and grabs you by the wire around your neck. You notice that he, unlike you and Irene, doesn't have a wire around his neck. In fact, he is completely naked.
<If you care about your entity, you will not speak about it to anyone.
And stop transmitting. I do not need you to attract attention anymore.>You get the feeling that what he said was only heard by you.
He releases you and continues walking away, disappearing outside of the crater.