Appear in staging area?
"...What's going to happen to me? What happened to...my host? What's happening to the others?"
Your questions go unanswered in the void. You feel your thoughts getting stretched out and thinning.
The demongirl tried her very best
to help the fox and aid the jest
(in games she did not really get
she was thrust into, don't forget).
The tricks she played did good and bad
but she was slow and got burnt bad.
Her allies tried to help them live
two minds that fought for what to give.
The girl cries for the harm she did
she tries to heal others indeed.
The demon urges to move on
to fight the sin from man's greed born.
Its cravings win her weaker mind.
Her friends forgotten, left behind.
Alone she fought, alone she died
and not one of her allies cried. The entity laughs as you drift into unconsciousness, a strange laugh that reminds you something between the cries of a hyena and the roar of a lion.
You wake up. You can see a colorful ceiling above you.
You have the weirdest sense of dejavu.It's just like you the first time you woke up, except on the other side of the bed there is a television, currently showing John and Alan being attacked by a garden of flesh.
"Hey! Welcome back!" says the entity with that perpetual excitement of his.
Through Interface, to teammates: <Hurry up, we have people coming down the elevator shaft. Warn me before entering the elevator hallway, if you surprise me I might attack you by accident.>
send my orbs to reinforce the firewall as necessary, have the rest begin spreading flame all over the place again to use as a source of power for the upcoming fight. retain a minimum of three orbs, and allow the firewall to fade if I have to choose between that and sending those last three. focus my orbs on anyone that breaks through the firewall somehow. change the orbs pattern from the usual spinning one to randomly scattered stationary floating positions around the hallway, unrelated to my physical position.
To Zech: <Keep what intact?>
Through interface, to D: <I'm probably going to break your elevator speakers if they aren't broken already, just relay anything you have to say through Zech.>
do not concern myself with minimizing damage as I send reinforcing flame up to the firewall. Do avoid burning Zech and the box I'm hiding behind.
((Fun thing about being so small: smoke rises.))
Interface, Irine: <Really? I saw some bits and pieces of the ceiling start to chip off, but I guess that was not what your referring to. Okay, the door then.>
Hold off the door then using my crystal wall.
A wave of magical ineptitude seems to hit the elevator hallway as both Zach and Irene fail to do anything significant with their powers.
Zach fails to manifest even a tiny shred of hardlight.
Irene manages to set a single box on fire and send some of her orbs to reinforce her wall of fire, but it doesn't do much of a difference.
As the dust begins to clear, you can see white foam falling in the elevator shaft from above. The firewall has holes in places and is almost destroyed. The elevator platform and its mechanisms have been turned into a pool of twisted metal, broken concrete, splintered wood, cyan liquid and white foam. The top of the pool lies a meter or so below the elevator doors, while pieces of metal and concrete stand much higher.
Wait, wait, wait! Stop right there! Try to understand how I currently feel and what may cause this emotion - once ascertained, think on how to fix the problem.
The images or visions or experiences or however you want to call them are gone now. All that's left is a mix of feelings. Anger and despair and frustration and confusion and pain and sadness and desolation and fear. But anger is the dominant one. That's as much rational though as you can muster right now.
I'm sorry, but your request to "think of how to fix the problem" cannot be processed right now due to alien mindfuckery. Please try again later, when you're not being mind controlled by aliens or when you make an adequate roll.
Eria went with reflexes honed from facing dangerous animals and Bull rushed Ike into unconsciousness.
"Run away? Excellent idea!"
Run away with the canister to the extraction point.
Ike first turns his pistol to Jordan, but Jordan, remembering the wisdom of the saying "a Coward's mother never weeps his end", manages to run away before Ike's shots can find their mark.
Eria uses that time to get closer to Ike and try to tackle him off the pedestal. Her missing tail messes with her balance, so she can't get there in time before Ike can get a shot off. Luckily, the shot grazes her left arm, causing moderate pain and minor bleeding but nothing she can't handle. Eria jumps and tackles Ike, throwing him off the pedestal and breaking his contact with the cube. However, the cube keeps pulsing red light and emitting infrasonic pulses and Ike keeps growling with murderous intent. Ike's under her for now, but he's not incapacitated.
Meanwhile, Jordan is very close to the elevator hallway. The two scientists from before are also there, along with another man in a labcoat you haven't seen before. They're standing on the platform leading to the elevator hallway, looking into the dust coming from above. They are whispering to each other. They haven't seen you yet.
John sighed. <<What are you fools doing out there? We got this objective... if we can make it out now.>>
Run for it! Ready flamethrower and torch any flesh that gets in my way.
Run away!
Alan runs away. John twists the valve of his flamethrower to the "OPEN" position and follows Alan in running. Both John and Alan notice the flesh growing spikes above balloon-like sacks and turning them to face them. The moment they see the sacks pop, Alan falls down on the ground, completely evading the spikes. John jumps over him, but manages to get hit by a couple of spikes on his left lower leg, the yellow liquid they brought with them doing more damage than the half-melted spikes themselves. His leg now has a deep red hole in it that is bleeding moderately. John stumbles but keeps on running despite the damage and the pain, a bit slower than before.
Alan gets up and starts running towards the door, quickly overtaking John. As they run, the notice the yellow liquid's pressure is dropping. By the time they've reached the exit of the room, it has stopped flowing completely. A tendril tries to grab Alan's leg but he easily breaks free and exits the room. More tendrils extend to block John's escape. John lifts the sprayer of his makeshift flamethrower, aims at the obstacle and pulls the trigger. It is immediately obvious that this is not a very effective design, as a large amount of pressurized flammable liquid and gas escapes the sprayer and burns his hand, setting the clothes on much of his right arm and torso on fire. But the flamethrower does its job, melting the barrier. John grits his teeth and keeps on going, plowing through the remains of the barrier.
Alan and John just exited the room with the flesh and entered the room Angel died in. John is on fire due to the low-quality flamethrower that's still on his back. The flesh doesn't seem that much hurt by the flame, only slightly inconvenienced. It's still growing and is now coming through the door. Your couch-mobile is here, along with the medical suit. What do you do?
Happy holidays to all!