You want the cover by Die Krupps, not the Arthur Brown original.
By the time the tiny seagull-looking things had finished melding themselves into the Orphan, it had just about tripled its already-impressive mass, and most all of the new weight had gone into forming what looked like a giant nautilus shell tucked into the notch in the thing's wing where its two sweeping spans met. Between that, the googly eyestalks, and the new and improved array of suckered appendages, it was just about the ugliest thing I'd ever seen in person.
The remaining F-2 pilot took a look at what the monster had just pulled out of its hat and decided to bug out, and his plane swung away then darted off on a trail of blue-white flame from its afterburners. The Orphan let him go and went after Mai, lunging forward and leaving actual contrails - condensation, I guess - behind it. I don't know where she managed to learn to maneuver the way she did as she swung out of its way and spiraled out of reach, but all of its swings and shot tentacles fell uselessly behind her until, in the end, she swung to a halt out over the ocean...
Then arrowed back in as quick as a shot. From where I was standing it looked like she might even have been moving as fast as the JASDF jets had earlier, although I'm fairly certain that that that was mostly an optical illusion. The way she explained the orange fireball that erupted when she hit when we were talking about it later was that she had been gathering power as she flew and holding it in a deliberately fragile circular shield in front of the bubble that was protecting her from the monster's tentacles and the lash of her own slipstream. When she hit, her control over the frontal shield lapsed and all of its power was released - outwards - at almost the same instant that the harder, protective shell did. I'm not sure how much of that impact was transferred to Mai herself, but she was noticably bruised when the whole mess ended.
"'I am the god of hellfire,'" I murmured, seeing the way the flames seemed to sweep away from the reeling Orphan and drain into the hot golden dot swinging out and around for another pass. "'And I bring you... fire.'"
Fire, I'll take you to burn
Before she could attack, though, it brought itself back on balance and was able to swoop out of the way of her charge with far more agility than something its size should have been capable of. The explosion that its counterattack triggered was spectacular looking, of course, but apparently having her concentration broken like that didn't do Mai any real harm - I couldn't make her out as anything more than a spark of light at the distance I was at, of course, but she wasn't moving any differently after than she was before.
Fire, I'll take you to learn
The way it attacked was wierd - I'd talked about its 'shooting out its tentacles', and really that was exactly what it was doing. As far as I know there's no anatomical principle that would let a part of an animal's body... extend itself that way, but that didn't seem to slow the Orphan down any - its tentacles looked more like opaque versions of your classic sci-fi energy beam than any sort of actual physical object.
I'll see you burn!
The third time she tried to attack it was the proof that these monsters were far smarter than any of us would have liked - it was ready and waiting for her, and rather than directly striking back, it dove out of the way then, when she followed, actually snatched what looked like a tree out of the ground and threw it at her... surprisingly accurately, too, since it made a direct hit and made her lose control again.
You fought hard and you saved and learned,
but all of it's going to burn.
She was able to dive out of the way of its attempt to grab her while she was still blinded by the fireball, as well as keep - barely - ahead of its follow-up attacks, but it was obvious that it had the advantage, and, barring interference, was going to be able to hold onto it until, eventually, she dodged just a moment too slowly.
And your mind, your tiny mind,
you know you've really been so blind.
Duran is a crack shot, if you hadn't guessed so on your own, and he proved it that day - starting with the volley of Bronze Cartidges that staggered the monster and actually unbalanced it enough that one wingtip dipped low enough to scrape a long swath through the forest surrounding the Academy.
Now's your time burn your mind.
You're falling far too far behind.
I don't know whether it was just her taking advantage of an opportunity or an actual plan, but the Orphan's attemt to stop wheeling around the unexpected drag and claw its way back to a safer altitude were interrupted by what looked like an explosion of white bandages. Julia's attempt to bind the thing so it could be dealt with was aborted, though, when it caugh ahold of one of the strands and whipped her up into the air and around to try and slam her against the ground.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, you gonna burn!
The Child cut loose from her webbing at about the top of the arc and let momentum carry her up and away and free to land in the lawn under my window with a tremendous 'thud' that tore eight deep holes in the grass but didn't seem to do her any harm to speak of. In the distance, I could see the Orphan seem to suddenly flare like a small sun, or a spotlight aimed straight at your eyes.
Fire, to destroy all you've done.
What came next was another thing I'd needed explained - it basically waved its eight 'long' tentacles out around itself then made them... explode. The 'hands' at the end of them had looked noticably bloated from where I was standing, and all of that extra volume jet gave more surface area for the threadlike... needles, I guess... that it fired out at, apparently, nothing at all. In retrospect, I could see a bit of a heat shimmer out towards the ends of each of those secondary tentacles - it had been attacking Diana's spores, and no, I don't know how it detected them.
Fire, to end all you've become.
Yay, action muse!
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
By the time the tiny seagull-looking things had finished melding themselves into the Orphan, it had just about tripled its already-impressive mass, and most all of the new weight had gone into forming what looked like a giant nautilus shell tucked into the notch in the thing's wing where its two sweeping spans met. Between that, the googly eyestalks, and the new and improved array of suckered appendages, it was just about the ugliest thing I'd ever seen in person.
The remaining F-2 pilot took a look at what the monster had just pulled out of its hat and decided to bug out, and his plane swung away then darted off on a trail of blue-white flame from its afterburners. The Orphan let him go and went after Mai, lunging forward and leaving actual contrails - condensation, I guess - behind it. I don't know where she managed to learn to maneuver the way she did as she swung out of its way and spiraled out of reach, but all of its swings and shot tentacles fell uselessly behind her until, in the end, she swung to a halt out over the ocean...
Then arrowed back in as quick as a shot. From where I was standing it looked like she might even have been moving as fast as the JASDF jets had earlier, although I'm fairly certain that that that was mostly an optical illusion. The way she explained the orange fireball that erupted when she hit when we were talking about it later was that she had been gathering power as she flew and holding it in a deliberately fragile circular shield in front of the bubble that was protecting her from the monster's tentacles and the lash of her own slipstream. When she hit, her control over the frontal shield lapsed and all of its power was released - outwards - at almost the same instant that the harder, protective shell did. I'm not sure how much of that impact was transferred to Mai herself, but she was noticably bruised when the whole mess ended.
"'I am the god of hellfire,'" I murmured, seeing the way the flames seemed to sweep away from the reeling Orphan and drain into the hot golden dot swinging out and around for another pass. "'And I bring you... fire.'"
Fire, I'll take you to burn
Before she could attack, though, it brought itself back on balance and was able to swoop out of the way of her charge with far more agility than something its size should have been capable of. The explosion that its counterattack triggered was spectacular looking, of course, but apparently having her concentration broken like that didn't do Mai any real harm - I couldn't make her out as anything more than a spark of light at the distance I was at, of course, but she wasn't moving any differently after than she was before.
Fire, I'll take you to learn
The way it attacked was wierd - I'd talked about its 'shooting out its tentacles', and really that was exactly what it was doing. As far as I know there's no anatomical principle that would let a part of an animal's body... extend itself that way, but that didn't seem to slow the Orphan down any - its tentacles looked more like opaque versions of your classic sci-fi energy beam than any sort of actual physical object.
I'll see you burn!
The third time she tried to attack it was the proof that these monsters were far smarter than any of us would have liked - it was ready and waiting for her, and rather than directly striking back, it dove out of the way then, when she followed, actually snatched what looked like a tree out of the ground and threw it at her... surprisingly accurately, too, since it made a direct hit and made her lose control again.
You fought hard and you saved and learned,
but all of it's going to burn.
She was able to dive out of the way of its attempt to grab her while she was still blinded by the fireball, as well as keep - barely - ahead of its follow-up attacks, but it was obvious that it had the advantage, and, barring interference, was going to be able to hold onto it until, eventually, she dodged just a moment too slowly.
And your mind, your tiny mind,
you know you've really been so blind.
Duran is a crack shot, if you hadn't guessed so on your own, and he proved it that day - starting with the volley of Bronze Cartidges that staggered the monster and actually unbalanced it enough that one wingtip dipped low enough to scrape a long swath through the forest surrounding the Academy.
Now's your time burn your mind.
You're falling far too far behind.
I don't know whether it was just her taking advantage of an opportunity or an actual plan, but the Orphan's attemt to stop wheeling around the unexpected drag and claw its way back to a safer altitude were interrupted by what looked like an explosion of white bandages. Julia's attempt to bind the thing so it could be dealt with was aborted, though, when it caugh ahold of one of the strands and whipped her up into the air and around to try and slam her against the ground.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, you gonna burn!
The Child cut loose from her webbing at about the top of the arc and let momentum carry her up and away and free to land in the lawn under my window with a tremendous 'thud' that tore eight deep holes in the grass but didn't seem to do her any harm to speak of. In the distance, I could see the Orphan seem to suddenly flare like a small sun, or a spotlight aimed straight at your eyes.
Fire, to destroy all you've done.
What came next was another thing I'd needed explained - it basically waved its eight 'long' tentacles out around itself then made them... explode. The 'hands' at the end of them had looked noticably bloated from where I was standing, and all of that extra volume jet gave more surface area for the threadlike... needles, I guess... that it fired out at, apparently, nothing at all. In retrospect, I could see a bit of a heat shimmer out towards the ends of each of those secondary tentacles - it had been attacking Diana's spores, and no, I don't know how it detected them.
Fire, to end all you've become.
Yay, action muse!
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"