Tales of the Legendary
[A Hero Sandwich Production]
Smouldering Decay: Staking a Claim (pt 6.3)
Given my back to back failures with Gamma and Superball, I decided to take a little more cautious approach with Flaming Wreckage. I'm a firm believer in learning from one's mistakes, but that is a little hard when you don't know what went wrong.
Gamma said I scare her, what I can do scared her. But I'm not any different than her deep down. We are both magical, she has just stuck her head in sand about it. From what she told me that night she has focused almost exclusively on the effects of her powers and not the causes. Not that her work has been wasted, she can emit across a much wider range than I can. And if my inebriated memories are anything to go by, she has a level of fine grain control that leaves me in the dust. But none of that tells me why I scare her. She laid down the what, when, and where but not the why. And I'm honestly afraid doing even more damage if I ask.
Superball skipped out in the middle of dinner, leaving me with very little clue as to why. He certainly seems to show a surface interest in the female members of whatever team he is on, but whenever the conversation drifted towards sex he was quick to steer it onto other topics. Maybe he's still in the closet and overcompensating. But he would certainly be breaking several stereotypes, his costume most of them. Whenever I end up cornering him about bailing on me I'll have to bring that up. I won't out him to the others, but he shouldn't have agreed to dinner and drinks if he wasn't going to have any desert.
And not being able to talk to either of them about what happened, means that I'm likely to commit the same errors all over again with Flaming Wreckage. So a little slower pace than normal is called for. I need to learn what he is like, how open to a relationship he is. Because if I keep screwing up like this, no one I could possibly be with would want to be with me.
In this case being cautious meant being content with battery operated stress relief for a few more days, rather than inviting him out for a beer and proposition. It also meant accompanying Kentucky Smith and Flaming Wreckage as they tracked down a local mystic the Circle of Thorns had kidnapped. I never understood why the Thorns insisted on kidnapping mystics when they were supposedly such great mages themselves. All it did was elevate them from 'one of many hostile groups in this city' to 'hostile group of the moment who is targeting our people' in the eyes of the MAGI. And that lead to the inevitable contacting of heroes, and the beatdown we were in the process of introducing them to.
For most of the fights I hung towards the back and made sure that none of the Thorns we ran across could scamper off and warn their friends. I would think a group that professed to be magicians would have the common sense to fireproof their robes, but I guess not. At least they had the intelligence to 'stop, drop, and roll'. And that suited me just fine. If they were busy rolling around on the ground they weren't off getting reinforcements. Aside from making sure our arrival was not anticipated, I played medic and tactical support while Kentucky and Wreckage played hammer and anvil.
It was a role they obviously has some experience with, and it showed. Kentucky would charge into a group and catch their attention with his fists and his mouth. If he wasn't punching someone he was insulting them. Not that I understood half of what came out of his mouth, if it was actually in english. Wreckage would follow him in and bring fiery pain to them once the Thorns had turned their backs. Where my own powers with flame and smoke were more suited to wide area effects, range and large numbers were the only areas I bested Wreckage. He has a tight control over his fire that I doubt I could ever match. Wrapping himself in flames and letting them out in punctuated bursts that left our enemies unconscious and smoldering. I even saw him swinging a sword of fire once or twice when his foe was outside of arms reach. By the time the Thorns realized that Kentucky wasn't the real threat it was too late. Whenever we ran across a larger group in the caves I would make sure to subject the Thorns to my own flavor or radiation. They fell that much quicker when lightheaded and unable to block or attack with anything resembling their normal accuracy.
Of course there were always the archers or mages who preferred to hang back and fling spells or pointy sticks in our general direction. I was tempted to sic my imps on them once or twice, but this mission wasn't classified that high of a threat level. And both the police and the Hero corps frowned on excessive force. So I had to make do with flinging burning ash in their face, and beating them about the head and neck with my axe while they were trying to remember how to breath.
I got a strange look from Kentucky and Wreckage the first time that happened. I smiled at them and pulled my axe out of the mages shoulder. "What? I'm not helpless in melee."
Wreckage murmured "I guess not." before turning back and kicking one of the thorns that was trying to get back up.
When we finally got to the chamber where they were holding the kidnapped mage Kentucky peeked around the archway for a minute before turning back to us and speaking in a low voice "Ok, There are five behemoths constructing something around Amata. I can't tell what it is exactly from here, but it isn't done yet. And I don't want to wait around to see what happens when they do finish setting it up. It also looks like the Thorns we arrested earlier were telling the truth, because Movian is in there overseeing the construction."
"Anything special we need to worry about?" Wreckage asked with a glance towards the chamber.
"Amata is chained to whatever they are building, so getting her loose is the first priority. Decay, you'll need to keep our robed and winged friends away from Wreck while he frees the hostage. I'll try and keep the Movian's attention until Amata is out of that construct, after that it's standard operating procedure."
Wreckage gave a "Sure thing Doc." while I had to feel dumb and ask the obvious question. "Standard operating procedure?"
Kentucky just smiled and said "Beat up the bad guys, break anything that looks important, try not to get hurt."
"Oh, that I can do."
"Good, If things go sideways get the hostage out first, I'll play rearguard." Kentucky said as he made his way back to the archway. Wreckage and I followed behind him.
He certainly knew how to make an entrance. Rushing up to Movian and his cadre of helpers, Kentucky loudly proclaimed "You call these magic runes? I've seen epileptic rikti monkeys carve better designs!"
I didn't pay much attention to the response he got, aside from noting that it sounded rather angry. I was concentrating on one of the behemoths that had just picked up a large glyph covered stone. By the time it noticed Wreckage leaping up to free our mystic, the behemoth was glowing a sicky green, and his companions weren't looking their best either. Keeping the focus needed to turn five behemoths into slow glowing punching bags meant that I couldn't throw around the fire and ash as quickly as before, but that shouldn't be necessary when they had problems walking straight.
The Behemoths surprised me by not turning towards me, the usual reaction to my aggressive radiation. But instead making their slow crooked way towards Wreckage as he crouched over Amata. Cursing under my breath I ran up to the group and split my focus long enough to summon rings of fire around the five. Now that the behemoths where immobilized and enfeebled I felt safe enough to stand in the middle of the group and watch for signs they might need additional restraints.
Of course it wasn't more than a minute before something hit me in the shoulder hard enough to spin me half around. I heard arrows clatter to the ground around me as I caught sight of a group of archers in the doorway. They were readying a second volley as I ducked around the behemoth I was standing next to.
"Hurry it up!" I shouted in Wreckage's general direction as I checked my shoulder. The lack of blood was a relief, the armored shoulder pads had done their job. My impromptu cover roared in pain as the second volley impacted, but that was about the only thing the behemoth did besides stumble around and take swings at me so slow I didn't have to think about dodging them.
I heard Wreckage shout back "Working as fast as I can!" as I leaned around the behemoth I was taking cover behind to get a good look at archers. They were grouped in the doorway in two rows, the front row kneeling. While this was bad new because it showed competence on their part, it was also good because it meant they were in a nice tight group.
I summoned my axe and swung it hard into the back of the behemoth's knee. This dropped it to the ground, losing me my cover from the arrows. But it also meant I could focus on the archers without worrying about catching an unlucky claw to the head as I stopped paying attention to it. The archers were readying a third volley, but they wouldn't be fast enough. I concentrated on a spot in the middle of the group and heated and compressed the air until I couldn't keep a grip on it any more. The shock wave of hot gas stunned the group, but it wouldn't last for more than a minute.
Turning back to the behemoth at my feet I pried my axe out it's knee and hopped over to the other side. The roar this time was slightly muffled by the floor as I hamstrung it's other leg. I took a quick glance around to see what was going on. Kentucky was deep in a mob of thorns, but he was giving much better than he got, on both the verbal and physical front. Wreckage had broken three of four chains that binding Amata. Reenforcing the flames surrounding the five behemoths made me feel slightly worn out. Nothing dangerously low, but a warning sign at least.
Figuring that once our mystic was free the amount of problems I would have to deal with would drop rather sharply, I made my way over to Wreckage. He was muttering a constant stream of profanity at the chain as he pounded on it, And while it was glowing red, it wasn't breaking.
"Need help with that?" I asked as I walked up. "I have nothing better to do for the next 45 seconds or so."
Wreckage glanced at me, then at the behemoths that were still held in place. "The stupid thing is magical, I can heat it up, but it won't break." He offered by way of explanation.
"Magic I can handle." I responded as I hefted the axe and sunk half my remaining energy (not all that much) into the runes that were carved into it's surface. Once the axe started to hum in my hands and Wreckage had taken a step back, I brought it down on the red hot chain. The chain split with a satisfying crack and the faint smell of ozone.
As we helped Amata to her feet I told Wreckage "I got her, go take care of the archers, they'll be really pissed in about 30 seconds."
Wreckage grinned and said "Oh they'll be pissed long before that." as he ran towards the group.
Amata was a little unsteady on her feet, but seemed to be awake and aware. "You ok?" I asked as she followed me back to the hamstrung behemoth. It was still struggling feebly so I kicked it in the head and sat down on it's shoulders as it slumped to the ground again.
"Uhh, yeah. I'm ok." She seemed a little taken back by my chosen perch, but relaxed once a she saw a few fireballs come no where near us. The four behemoths that were still upright were more likely to hit each other then us. I was able to relax and catch my breath a bit as I watched Wreckage make quick work of the archers. A glance over at Kentucky showed him still surrounded by a group of thorns, though it might have been a little smaller than last time. The one thing I cold see was that the thorns looked distinctly frustrated and worse for wear, while Kentucky was still happily throwing fists and one liners with equal abandon.
my attention was drawn away from Kentucky when the behemoths roar changed in pitch. I glanced over my shoulder to see Wreckage flambeing it. The archers hadn't lasted very long.
"Don't tell me your worn out?" Wreckage playfully taunted me as he moved onto the second behemoth.
"I'm not worn out. I'm being strategic in my resource usage." I shot back at him with a smile. "If you want me to stop making these guys resemble marshmallows just say the word."
"Nah, I think Doc would get mad at us if we took much longer."
"He looks happy to me." I said with a glance over to Kentucky as Wreckage finished off the second demon.
"He's starting to taunt them in other languages, that's a warning sign." Wreckage said. "You know he's mad when he stops speaking english altogether."
"Ahh, good to know." I said as got up off my impromptu seat. While not as relaxing as it could have been, because I still had to keep the demons glowing like nightlights. I no longer felt like I would run out of energy before the fight ended.
While Wreckage took down behemoth number three I kicked the prone one in the head for good measure and threw some hot ash in the face of number four. Not that choking it some more was strictly necessary. But it's always easier to take a large threat down to my size when they are too busy clawing at their own face to block a cheap shot to groin. The behemoth fell to it's knees and bent over slightly when my boot connected. It's hands clutched at the more recent source of pain. This allowed me take a nice big swing at it's head. Of course I know swinging my axe like it's a baseball bat is not the 'proper' or 'correct' way of doing things, and it's gotten me chewed out by various combat instructors. But nothing else comes close to one-shotting threats this big.
As I was prying the axe out if the deceased behemoth's skull, Wreckage put the last one out of it's misery. He shot a cheery "Come on slowpoke." over his shoulder as he bounded over to the group surrounding Kentucky. What were previously screams of frustration from the thorns quickly became screams of pain as Wreckage laid into the closer section of the mob. I settled for bombarding the thorns with hard radiation, as the tight grouping made it possible to hit almost all of them at once.
The group of thorns didn't last long against our combined asault, and Movian fell quickly after his minions. His inane (or is that insane?) chatter about how 'we would be destroyed' and 'he would have his revenge' didn't even faze me anymore. The threats really start to lose their bite when you hear enough of them and nothing ever happens.
Kentucky looked around and saw that we were the only ones left standing, "Well I guess that's it." He said as he slapped arrest beacons on the thorns at his feet. "Decay, can you make any sense of what they were trying to do with that thing?"
I took another look at the half constructed thing in the center of the room before replying "Nope, sorry. It's outside my area of expertise. I recognize a few of the glyphs, but nowhere near enough to make an educated guess."
"I don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything, and I want to know what they were trying to do to me as much as you guys do... but can we get out of here?" Amaata interrupted before Kentucky could start a closer examination of the construction.
"Oh, yeah, sure. Lets get you down to MAGI for a checkup." Kentucky said as he snapped a few pictures on a small camera. "They might have a better idea who to talk to about this."
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Amata was being held in the hospital overnight for observation. MAGI hadn't found anything wrong, but wanted to make sure she didn't have a delayed reaction from the aborted ritual. Which left Wreckage and me without much to do. Kentucky had gone off to see someone about the pictures he took. I got the feeling he would have been happy to have my input on the topic, but I really didn't have much of a clue. And I had my sights set on the other puzzles at the moment.
I wanted to go get a beer, but settled for coffee instead. Wreckage was a nice guy, easy to talk to. And one beer could easy lead to five or six with good company. And five or six beers could make me forget about my plans get a better idea about him before I tried to jump his bones.
Which meant that we were seated in a semi-deserted corner of a coffee shop talking about a variety of things.
"I get the whole fire bit, but what's up with the axe?" Wreckage asked. "You don't really look like a lumberjack."
I laughed. "You never saw me when I was getting started. I looked like an Eco-Terrorist that got caught in a fire" I said as I summoned the axe and placed it on the table between us. "This baby used to belong to a banished pantheon. I was in the hospital getting my initial physical for the Hero Corps when they attacked, I never did find out why. All I know is that one minute I'm half dressed and sitting on a cold examination table, and the next a six foot tall undead hulk is smashing down the door.
"Of course I'm scared half out of my wits, and starting to think I might have been safer back home. But I'm not entirely helpless, so I pull the one trick I knew back then and give it a face full of hot ash. Of course back then my controll was so messy I barely managed to keep it together across the three feet to the door, and I almost set fire to my sleeve in the process. But it does the job, and the husk is pawing at it's face trying to figure out what is going on. The good news is, it dropped the axe it used to bust down the door. The bad new is, it's still standing in the doorway. Fortunately I now had an axe." I said patting my axe. "It took a lot longer than I would have thought to dismember a dried out corpse. I was still making sure it wasn't going to get back up when the heroes showed up to 'save' me."
I smiled and leaned back in my seat. "They were a little surprised at first. But they let me keep the axe. Upgrading it with a variety of runes and glyphs has become a bit of a hobby for me."
Wreckage glanced at the axe then back at me before saying "Well that's one way to start your career."
I took a sip of my coffee, ok at best, and asked the obvious question. "So how did you get started?"
Wreckage stared into his coffee for a minute before looking back at me. He shrugged and said "It's a bit funny, really, You could say I had a wake-up call. I ended up getting a license pretty much by mistake... I'd been planning on leaving town." He paused to swallow the last of his coffee. "I wasn't... exactly on the right side of the law."
Well this was interesting, I had figured him for just one more hero in a spandex bodybag, but he apparently had a bit of colorful history. And as much as I hated it, I had learned something from those damn spycraft classes. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, even more when you minimize their failures and inflate their accomplishments. "So what, you were a minion who grew up in the isles and had an attack of conscience while on a job here?" I said. Picking the bottom of the barrel meant that almost anything they ended up being looked better in comparison.
"No! Nothing like that." Wreckage quickly answered. "I was... I was in a gang." He said after a moment. He seemed to curl in on himself as he said it. "The Outcasts, actually. I'm not proud of it anymore... all I can say is I was young and dumb, y'know?"
"Well your smarter than everyone who is still in those street gangs." I said with a smile, Wreckage seemed to relax a bit when I didn't immediately condemn him. "It took a lot more than the threat of jail time for the gangs to smarten up back home." I spent a moment lost somewhere between the dregs of my own coffee and my memories before continuing. "Kinda sad how many never thought to stop fighting for their own square foot of turf when everything else was crashing down."
I shook myself out of my memories and smiled at Wreckage again. "It's good to hear that you smartened up. You're heads and shoulders above the rest, most of them would never figure out there were bigger and better things in life until it was far too late... But enough about the past." I said, once again putting a smile back on my face. It never seemed to stick when I talked about what once was. My libido was all to eager to suggest the *perfect* way to cheer me up. And after watching Wreckage exert himself for the better part of an hour the metal images had focused to a photo-realistic quality. "It's safe to assume your going to stay on this case for a while?"
"Ya! Of course." Wreckage was quick to answer.
I jotted my number on the bottom of a paper coaster and slid it over. "Well let me know when something develops, I have a few things I need to take care of. But I am definitely interested to see what comes of this." I said, and I knew my smile had more than a hint of naughty smirk. But I had to make an exit before the caffeine and endorphins in my bloodstream convinced me to start ordering my coffee irish. I stood up and dispelled my axe, leaning over the table a bit as I waited for his response.
Wreckage had a confused expression on his face for a moment as he glanced between me and the phone number. Then he smiled and looked at me, though I didn't miss the short pit-stop his glance took at my cleavage. "I'll be sure to call if something comes up."
My smile was a full on smirk at this point, but I refrained from saying anything as I walked out of the coffee shop. My hips as bit more swing in them than strictly necessary, and I know if I opened my mouth something a lot more colorful than simple innuendo would come out. Things were definitely looking positive. I figured I had enough time to blow of some steam in the shower, and grab a quick nap, and then refresh the protective spells on my armor while I waited for the phone to ring.
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Done for now, I had to break it off here because more conversation would mean more innuendo. And more innuendo would have Decay making 'bad' decisions
Next bit will be more thorns bashing by Kentucky/Wreckage/Decay, followed by Decay listening to her libido.
ETA: corrected grammar errors.
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
[A Hero Sandwich Production]
Smouldering Decay: Staking a Claim (pt 6.3)
Given my back to back failures with Gamma and Superball, I decided to take a little more cautious approach with Flaming Wreckage. I'm a firm believer in learning from one's mistakes, but that is a little hard when you don't know what went wrong.
Gamma said I scare her, what I can do scared her. But I'm not any different than her deep down. We are both magical, she has just stuck her head in sand about it. From what she told me that night she has focused almost exclusively on the effects of her powers and not the causes. Not that her work has been wasted, she can emit across a much wider range than I can. And if my inebriated memories are anything to go by, she has a level of fine grain control that leaves me in the dust. But none of that tells me why I scare her. She laid down the what, when, and where but not the why. And I'm honestly afraid doing even more damage if I ask.
Superball skipped out in the middle of dinner, leaving me with very little clue as to why. He certainly seems to show a surface interest in the female members of whatever team he is on, but whenever the conversation drifted towards sex he was quick to steer it onto other topics. Maybe he's still in the closet and overcompensating. But he would certainly be breaking several stereotypes, his costume most of them. Whenever I end up cornering him about bailing on me I'll have to bring that up. I won't out him to the others, but he shouldn't have agreed to dinner and drinks if he wasn't going to have any desert.
And not being able to talk to either of them about what happened, means that I'm likely to commit the same errors all over again with Flaming Wreckage. So a little slower pace than normal is called for. I need to learn what he is like, how open to a relationship he is. Because if I keep screwing up like this, no one I could possibly be with would want to be with me.
In this case being cautious meant being content with battery operated stress relief for a few more days, rather than inviting him out for a beer and proposition. It also meant accompanying Kentucky Smith and Flaming Wreckage as they tracked down a local mystic the Circle of Thorns had kidnapped. I never understood why the Thorns insisted on kidnapping mystics when they were supposedly such great mages themselves. All it did was elevate them from 'one of many hostile groups in this city' to 'hostile group of the moment who is targeting our people' in the eyes of the MAGI. And that lead to the inevitable contacting of heroes, and the beatdown we were in the process of introducing them to.
For most of the fights I hung towards the back and made sure that none of the Thorns we ran across could scamper off and warn their friends. I would think a group that professed to be magicians would have the common sense to fireproof their robes, but I guess not. At least they had the intelligence to 'stop, drop, and roll'. And that suited me just fine. If they were busy rolling around on the ground they weren't off getting reinforcements. Aside from making sure our arrival was not anticipated, I played medic and tactical support while Kentucky and Wreckage played hammer and anvil.
It was a role they obviously has some experience with, and it showed. Kentucky would charge into a group and catch their attention with his fists and his mouth. If he wasn't punching someone he was insulting them. Not that I understood half of what came out of his mouth, if it was actually in english. Wreckage would follow him in and bring fiery pain to them once the Thorns had turned their backs. Where my own powers with flame and smoke were more suited to wide area effects, range and large numbers were the only areas I bested Wreckage. He has a tight control over his fire that I doubt I could ever match. Wrapping himself in flames and letting them out in punctuated bursts that left our enemies unconscious and smoldering. I even saw him swinging a sword of fire once or twice when his foe was outside of arms reach. By the time the Thorns realized that Kentucky wasn't the real threat it was too late. Whenever we ran across a larger group in the caves I would make sure to subject the Thorns to my own flavor or radiation. They fell that much quicker when lightheaded and unable to block or attack with anything resembling their normal accuracy.
Of course there were always the archers or mages who preferred to hang back and fling spells or pointy sticks in our general direction. I was tempted to sic my imps on them once or twice, but this mission wasn't classified that high of a threat level. And both the police and the Hero corps frowned on excessive force. So I had to make do with flinging burning ash in their face, and beating them about the head and neck with my axe while they were trying to remember how to breath.
I got a strange look from Kentucky and Wreckage the first time that happened. I smiled at them and pulled my axe out of the mages shoulder. "What? I'm not helpless in melee."
Wreckage murmured "I guess not." before turning back and kicking one of the thorns that was trying to get back up.
When we finally got to the chamber where they were holding the kidnapped mage Kentucky peeked around the archway for a minute before turning back to us and speaking in a low voice "Ok, There are five behemoths constructing something around Amata. I can't tell what it is exactly from here, but it isn't done yet. And I don't want to wait around to see what happens when they do finish setting it up. It also looks like the Thorns we arrested earlier were telling the truth, because Movian is in there overseeing the construction."
"Anything special we need to worry about?" Wreckage asked with a glance towards the chamber.
"Amata is chained to whatever they are building, so getting her loose is the first priority. Decay, you'll need to keep our robed and winged friends away from Wreck while he frees the hostage. I'll try and keep the Movian's attention until Amata is out of that construct, after that it's standard operating procedure."
Wreckage gave a "Sure thing Doc." while I had to feel dumb and ask the obvious question. "Standard operating procedure?"
Kentucky just smiled and said "Beat up the bad guys, break anything that looks important, try not to get hurt."
"Oh, that I can do."
"Good, If things go sideways get the hostage out first, I'll play rearguard." Kentucky said as he made his way back to the archway. Wreckage and I followed behind him.
He certainly knew how to make an entrance. Rushing up to Movian and his cadre of helpers, Kentucky loudly proclaimed "You call these magic runes? I've seen epileptic rikti monkeys carve better designs!"
I didn't pay much attention to the response he got, aside from noting that it sounded rather angry. I was concentrating on one of the behemoths that had just picked up a large glyph covered stone. By the time it noticed Wreckage leaping up to free our mystic, the behemoth was glowing a sicky green, and his companions weren't looking their best either. Keeping the focus needed to turn five behemoths into slow glowing punching bags meant that I couldn't throw around the fire and ash as quickly as before, but that shouldn't be necessary when they had problems walking straight.
The Behemoths surprised me by not turning towards me, the usual reaction to my aggressive radiation. But instead making their slow crooked way towards Wreckage as he crouched over Amata. Cursing under my breath I ran up to the group and split my focus long enough to summon rings of fire around the five. Now that the behemoths where immobilized and enfeebled I felt safe enough to stand in the middle of the group and watch for signs they might need additional restraints.
Of course it wasn't more than a minute before something hit me in the shoulder hard enough to spin me half around. I heard arrows clatter to the ground around me as I caught sight of a group of archers in the doorway. They were readying a second volley as I ducked around the behemoth I was standing next to.
"Hurry it up!" I shouted in Wreckage's general direction as I checked my shoulder. The lack of blood was a relief, the armored shoulder pads had done their job. My impromptu cover roared in pain as the second volley impacted, but that was about the only thing the behemoth did besides stumble around and take swings at me so slow I didn't have to think about dodging them.
I heard Wreckage shout back "Working as fast as I can!" as I leaned around the behemoth I was taking cover behind to get a good look at archers. They were grouped in the doorway in two rows, the front row kneeling. While this was bad new because it showed competence on their part, it was also good because it meant they were in a nice tight group.
I summoned my axe and swung it hard into the back of the behemoth's knee. This dropped it to the ground, losing me my cover from the arrows. But it also meant I could focus on the archers without worrying about catching an unlucky claw to the head as I stopped paying attention to it. The archers were readying a third volley, but they wouldn't be fast enough. I concentrated on a spot in the middle of the group and heated and compressed the air until I couldn't keep a grip on it any more. The shock wave of hot gas stunned the group, but it wouldn't last for more than a minute.
Turning back to the behemoth at my feet I pried my axe out it's knee and hopped over to the other side. The roar this time was slightly muffled by the floor as I hamstrung it's other leg. I took a quick glance around to see what was going on. Kentucky was deep in a mob of thorns, but he was giving much better than he got, on both the verbal and physical front. Wreckage had broken three of four chains that binding Amata. Reenforcing the flames surrounding the five behemoths made me feel slightly worn out. Nothing dangerously low, but a warning sign at least.
Figuring that once our mystic was free the amount of problems I would have to deal with would drop rather sharply, I made my way over to Wreckage. He was muttering a constant stream of profanity at the chain as he pounded on it, And while it was glowing red, it wasn't breaking.
"Need help with that?" I asked as I walked up. "I have nothing better to do for the next 45 seconds or so."
Wreckage glanced at me, then at the behemoths that were still held in place. "The stupid thing is magical, I can heat it up, but it won't break." He offered by way of explanation.
"Magic I can handle." I responded as I hefted the axe and sunk half my remaining energy (not all that much) into the runes that were carved into it's surface. Once the axe started to hum in my hands and Wreckage had taken a step back, I brought it down on the red hot chain. The chain split with a satisfying crack and the faint smell of ozone.
As we helped Amata to her feet I told Wreckage "I got her, go take care of the archers, they'll be really pissed in about 30 seconds."
Wreckage grinned and said "Oh they'll be pissed long before that." as he ran towards the group.
Amata was a little unsteady on her feet, but seemed to be awake and aware. "You ok?" I asked as she followed me back to the hamstrung behemoth. It was still struggling feebly so I kicked it in the head and sat down on it's shoulders as it slumped to the ground again.
"Uhh, yeah. I'm ok." She seemed a little taken back by my chosen perch, but relaxed once a she saw a few fireballs come no where near us. The four behemoths that were still upright were more likely to hit each other then us. I was able to relax and catch my breath a bit as I watched Wreckage make quick work of the archers. A glance over at Kentucky showed him still surrounded by a group of thorns, though it might have been a little smaller than last time. The one thing I cold see was that the thorns looked distinctly frustrated and worse for wear, while Kentucky was still happily throwing fists and one liners with equal abandon.
my attention was drawn away from Kentucky when the behemoths roar changed in pitch. I glanced over my shoulder to see Wreckage flambeing it. The archers hadn't lasted very long.
"Don't tell me your worn out?" Wreckage playfully taunted me as he moved onto the second behemoth.
"I'm not worn out. I'm being strategic in my resource usage." I shot back at him with a smile. "If you want me to stop making these guys resemble marshmallows just say the word."
"Nah, I think Doc would get mad at us if we took much longer."
"He looks happy to me." I said with a glance over to Kentucky as Wreckage finished off the second demon.
"He's starting to taunt them in other languages, that's a warning sign." Wreckage said. "You know he's mad when he stops speaking english altogether."
"Ahh, good to know." I said as got up off my impromptu seat. While not as relaxing as it could have been, because I still had to keep the demons glowing like nightlights. I no longer felt like I would run out of energy before the fight ended.
While Wreckage took down behemoth number three I kicked the prone one in the head for good measure and threw some hot ash in the face of number four. Not that choking it some more was strictly necessary. But it's always easier to take a large threat down to my size when they are too busy clawing at their own face to block a cheap shot to groin. The behemoth fell to it's knees and bent over slightly when my boot connected. It's hands clutched at the more recent source of pain. This allowed me take a nice big swing at it's head. Of course I know swinging my axe like it's a baseball bat is not the 'proper' or 'correct' way of doing things, and it's gotten me chewed out by various combat instructors. But nothing else comes close to one-shotting threats this big.
As I was prying the axe out if the deceased behemoth's skull, Wreckage put the last one out of it's misery. He shot a cheery "Come on slowpoke." over his shoulder as he bounded over to the group surrounding Kentucky. What were previously screams of frustration from the thorns quickly became screams of pain as Wreckage laid into the closer section of the mob. I settled for bombarding the thorns with hard radiation, as the tight grouping made it possible to hit almost all of them at once.
The group of thorns didn't last long against our combined asault, and Movian fell quickly after his minions. His inane (or is that insane?) chatter about how 'we would be destroyed' and 'he would have his revenge' didn't even faze me anymore. The threats really start to lose their bite when you hear enough of them and nothing ever happens.
Kentucky looked around and saw that we were the only ones left standing, "Well I guess that's it." He said as he slapped arrest beacons on the thorns at his feet. "Decay, can you make any sense of what they were trying to do with that thing?"
I took another look at the half constructed thing in the center of the room before replying "Nope, sorry. It's outside my area of expertise. I recognize a few of the glyphs, but nowhere near enough to make an educated guess."
"I don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything, and I want to know what they were trying to do to me as much as you guys do... but can we get out of here?" Amaata interrupted before Kentucky could start a closer examination of the construction.
"Oh, yeah, sure. Lets get you down to MAGI for a checkup." Kentucky said as he snapped a few pictures on a small camera. "They might have a better idea who to talk to about this."
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Amata was being held in the hospital overnight for observation. MAGI hadn't found anything wrong, but wanted to make sure she didn't have a delayed reaction from the aborted ritual. Which left Wreckage and me without much to do. Kentucky had gone off to see someone about the pictures he took. I got the feeling he would have been happy to have my input on the topic, but I really didn't have much of a clue. And I had my sights set on the other puzzles at the moment.
I wanted to go get a beer, but settled for coffee instead. Wreckage was a nice guy, easy to talk to. And one beer could easy lead to five or six with good company. And five or six beers could make me forget about my plans get a better idea about him before I tried to jump his bones.
Which meant that we were seated in a semi-deserted corner of a coffee shop talking about a variety of things.
"I get the whole fire bit, but what's up with the axe?" Wreckage asked. "You don't really look like a lumberjack."
I laughed. "You never saw me when I was getting started. I looked like an Eco-Terrorist that got caught in a fire" I said as I summoned the axe and placed it on the table between us. "This baby used to belong to a banished pantheon. I was in the hospital getting my initial physical for the Hero Corps when they attacked, I never did find out why. All I know is that one minute I'm half dressed and sitting on a cold examination table, and the next a six foot tall undead hulk is smashing down the door.
"Of course I'm scared half out of my wits, and starting to think I might have been safer back home. But I'm not entirely helpless, so I pull the one trick I knew back then and give it a face full of hot ash. Of course back then my controll was so messy I barely managed to keep it together across the three feet to the door, and I almost set fire to my sleeve in the process. But it does the job, and the husk is pawing at it's face trying to figure out what is going on. The good news is, it dropped the axe it used to bust down the door. The bad new is, it's still standing in the doorway. Fortunately I now had an axe." I said patting my axe. "It took a lot longer than I would have thought to dismember a dried out corpse. I was still making sure it wasn't going to get back up when the heroes showed up to 'save' me."
I smiled and leaned back in my seat. "They were a little surprised at first. But they let me keep the axe. Upgrading it with a variety of runes and glyphs has become a bit of a hobby for me."
Wreckage glanced at the axe then back at me before saying "Well that's one way to start your career."
I took a sip of my coffee, ok at best, and asked the obvious question. "So how did you get started?"
Wreckage stared into his coffee for a minute before looking back at me. He shrugged and said "It's a bit funny, really, You could say I had a wake-up call. I ended up getting a license pretty much by mistake... I'd been planning on leaving town." He paused to swallow the last of his coffee. "I wasn't... exactly on the right side of the law."
Well this was interesting, I had figured him for just one more hero in a spandex bodybag, but he apparently had a bit of colorful history. And as much as I hated it, I had learned something from those damn spycraft classes. Everyone loves to talk about themselves, even more when you minimize their failures and inflate their accomplishments. "So what, you were a minion who grew up in the isles and had an attack of conscience while on a job here?" I said. Picking the bottom of the barrel meant that almost anything they ended up being looked better in comparison.
"No! Nothing like that." Wreckage quickly answered. "I was... I was in a gang." He said after a moment. He seemed to curl in on himself as he said it. "The Outcasts, actually. I'm not proud of it anymore... all I can say is I was young and dumb, y'know?"
"Well your smarter than everyone who is still in those street gangs." I said with a smile, Wreckage seemed to relax a bit when I didn't immediately condemn him. "It took a lot more than the threat of jail time for the gangs to smarten up back home." I spent a moment lost somewhere between the dregs of my own coffee and my memories before continuing. "Kinda sad how many never thought to stop fighting for their own square foot of turf when everything else was crashing down."
I shook myself out of my memories and smiled at Wreckage again. "It's good to hear that you smartened up. You're heads and shoulders above the rest, most of them would never figure out there were bigger and better things in life until it was far too late... But enough about the past." I said, once again putting a smile back on my face. It never seemed to stick when I talked about what once was. My libido was all to eager to suggest the *perfect* way to cheer me up. And after watching Wreckage exert himself for the better part of an hour the metal images had focused to a photo-realistic quality. "It's safe to assume your going to stay on this case for a while?"
"Ya! Of course." Wreckage was quick to answer.
I jotted my number on the bottom of a paper coaster and slid it over. "Well let me know when something develops, I have a few things I need to take care of. But I am definitely interested to see what comes of this." I said, and I knew my smile had more than a hint of naughty smirk. But I had to make an exit before the caffeine and endorphins in my bloodstream convinced me to start ordering my coffee irish. I stood up and dispelled my axe, leaning over the table a bit as I waited for his response.
Wreckage had a confused expression on his face for a moment as he glanced between me and the phone number. Then he smiled and looked at me, though I didn't miss the short pit-stop his glance took at my cleavage. "I'll be sure to call if something comes up."
My smile was a full on smirk at this point, but I refrained from saying anything as I walked out of the coffee shop. My hips as bit more swing in them than strictly necessary, and I know if I opened my mouth something a lot more colorful than simple innuendo would come out. Things were definitely looking positive. I figured I had enough time to blow of some steam in the shower, and grab a quick nap, and then refresh the protective spells on my armor while I waited for the phone to ring.
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Done for now, I had to break it off here because more conversation would mean more innuendo. And more innuendo would have Decay making 'bad' decisions
Next bit will be more thorns bashing by Kentucky/Wreckage/Decay, followed by Decay listening to her libido.
ETA: corrected grammar errors.
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy