In Medias Res

[Lagunamov]

Misdirection.

Down from the alley Elrick managed to spot Lanying flying up above, barely catching a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. He kept walking regardless, still holding his right shoulder with his left hand to ease the pain, knowing that they would keep moving in the general direction of the bridge. Which would most likely be blocked off with dozens of soldiers. He needed to think of something.

And the something he needed showed the moment he reached a fork in the alley. A large soldier wielding a sword passed in front of him, apparently using the alley to go from one street to the other. Elrick ducked behind some trash cans so as to not be spotted, hearing the man in the armor utter commands through his radio. “Well, this is a lucky change of pace, I just found a Commander,” Elrick grinned with some slight malice, knowing exactly what he was about to do. As soon as the man finished his current set of orders, Elrick jumped out from behind the trash cans and rushed at him from behind, stabbing his sword on the back of his neck.

The Commander plummeted to the ground, Elrick grabbing him from the neck of his armor to try and soften the fall. Kneeling and inspecting him, he found his radio and… explosives. Perfect. Taking a minute to remove the mans armor and hastily put it on – it was too big, so parts fit poorly, but they’d serve their purpose – Elrick proceeded with his plan to cause some misdirection. He left the alley and turned to the streets, not in the direction of the fight, but away from it. Only a block away from where he set off he found a warehouse the size of half a block.

Holding one of the explosives in his hand, and double checking that no one was around, he threw it at the street in front of the warehouse. He quickly raised the stolen radio to his mouth, and started to utter some orders. “Wieland has been spotted! He has taken hostages in warehouse seven in sector thirteen! Requesting backup immediately!” he yelled at the radio, throwing a second piece of explosive next to a pile of barrels. The explosion was dozens of times larger this time, though. Evidently, he had hit barrels full of fuel.

Regardless, with the distraction set and knowing it would only last some minutes, he started running in the direction of the bridge, taking the alleys again and dropping the armor as he went along through them. The disguise would be useless in five minutes anyway, and he barely fit it. It was only useful to keep archers and wyvern riders from spotting him quickly. Still, he made sure to keep some of the explosives and the radio, since those would prove invaluable at some point. The pain on his shoulder hadn't subsided yet, but this wasn't the moment to start rolling on the ground and complain.

[Fate]

Hell can stop breaking loose anytime now.
--

Raen had gotten up to the roof too, good. And Lanying told them where Elrick was and was going to help her cover the archers. A lot. While all of the archers were either ducking for cover or getting burnt, Lillian kept running in the direction of the bridge via the roofs, still full of speed. Soldiers were still on the ground, a good chunk of them, but they didn't need to be worried about right now. They needed to get to the bridge and hopefully regroup before things could possibly get any crazier.

Where the hell was he though? She didn't see him anywhere, though that was probably a good thing for the moment. Then there were explosions a bit away, not too far from where she was. Did they just... the guards had better not have found Elrick and tried to blow him up. Going in that direction would be a bad idea though. Focus on getting to the bridge, then decide what to do next.

After running along the roofs for a bit, and after the archers stopped having to dive out of the way of fire, they started shooting again. Not as many as before, but still enough to be a nuisance. Time to get out of their range though since she was reaching the bridge at a quick pace. The speed she was moving at was probably the only thing that saved her life right now aside from Lanying's wonderful dragon. She jumped off the roof, landing hard on the ground as she ran straight back for the bridge, shooting down anyone in her way. Not many of the soldiers were there to pay attention to her though, most of them heading toward the explosion.

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[Lagunamov]

I suck.

From what Elrick could hear in the streets, his plan seemed to be working. The sound of soldiers in general was going away, with fewer remaining for the fight against the intruders in the area. The threat of civilians getting killed seemed to have moved the main mass of Orpheus forces around there, so at least that much was gained.

After some time traversing through the alleys, Elrick finally reached the street adjacent to the river, only half a block to the right away from the bridge. He looked at it from the shadows cast in the alley, confirming his suspicions. The forces gathered at the bridge seemed to be divided in three, with one group of about two dozen foot soldiers and some archers on each end, and spearmen patrolling the middle section. As if crossing a bridge as long as a city block filled with soldiers wasn’t enough, it seemed two or three patrol boats were also down in the river, possibly in case someone tried to swim to the other side.

Shaking his head and sighing, Elrick leaned against the wall to his left and slipped down to the ground. "I can’t believe I got us into this mess…" he thought, letting go of his left shoulder. The bleeding had stopped, thankfully, but the entire shoulder area and half of his arm were covered in his own blood, slowly loosing its red tint and turning into that disgusting brown.

[Nothingness]

Explosion Day!

With Lanying taking care of the archers that were raining pointy-death upon them and then telling them where Elrick was headed, Raen felt that he could breath just a tad easier. No more running around blind while taking on an army.

Leaving Lanying to cover them, he quickly followed Lillian along the rooftops. Only pausing for a moment when he heard a massive explosion and saw a massive cloud of smoke rising in the distance. Either Elrick got blown up, Erick blew something up, or a random explosion happened. Either way, he could see a lot of the soldiers in the distance running towards it, ignoring them for the most part. "I'll take it." Raen said as he continued to jump from roof to roof.

It wasn't until the bridge was in sight and Lillian actually jumped off the damn thing that he slowed down and took a fire escape down. And a good thing, too--there was a small group of three guards coming down the alley towards them. Relieving them of their lives quickly enough, Raen rejoined with Lillian, saying between breaths, "Alright, where's Elrick? 'Cause I gotta say--going to the bridge kinda doesn't sound like that great of a plan anymore." He pointed to all the guards that had taken positions at the bridge.

[Aerith]

If we hit them enough, will they go away?
--------

Raen and Lillian managed to join up near the bridge, but Lanying could see Elrick in a nearby alley. He was holding his shoulder a bit. That would need to be tended eventually.

Even from down below, Lillian and Raen had to know that crossing the bridge at this point was going to be more than a little difficult if not impossible. Lanying could only do so much. And while her first instinct was to charge straight at the bridge, incinerating anything in their path, she knew there were too many.

Small One, my time grows short. If you are going to act, do so before I fade.

She wasn't about to let what little time with Qinglong she had left go to waste. As much of the enemy as she could, she destroyed, burning through them like dry twigs. She cleared a good chunk of space in front of the bridge before Qinglong released a final roar and floated closer to the ground. He let her drop as he shattered into myriad shards of light.

"Perhaps I have only made them angry..." she muttered as she brandished Maelstrom's Dragon. If the bridge was cut off to them, they would simply find another way.

[Qinglong has left the battlefield.
Posts until next use: 4
Uses remaining: 1]

[Lagunamov]

No, the irony doesn't escape me.

The roar once more set Elrick’s alarms off, making him stand up quickly and look at the sky. Lanying had descended with her dragon and attacked the front row of the forces at the bridge, burning most of them to death and making the others retreat backwards closer to the middle. Then the dragon dropped her off somewhere where Elrick couldn’t see, in all likelihood, the street facing the bridge properly. Sighing, Elrick banged his head against the wall a couple of times in frustration, and then left the alley. “Shit, guys. Do you think blowing stuff up is the answer to EVERYTHING?”

He started walking slowly towards the bridge, hunched over and trying to hide behind railings that kept people from falling into the river. Once he reached the bridge properly, he hid behind the stone column on the right that decorated its entrance in an arch. His group was there, only a couple of meters away, and he signaled them to not reach at his presence. He poked his head almost at ground level to check the status at the bridge. It appeared most soldiers had decided to gather at around the center, only the archers being left at the very opposite end of the bridge for support. He knew that strategy, they were going to haul his group’s ass if they even dared to stand on the bridge.

Good thing for them, he wasn’t going to stand on it. Taking advantage of the bridge being curved upwards for engineering purposes, Elrick retreated a couple of steps back and hanged from the stone railings, passing onto the bridge’s next. Hanging from there, he started to move sideways to his right, slowly, but surely, approaching his targets. After about a minute of moving sideways, he stopped. Hanging using only his left hand one, he picked up three of the explosives he had left, and threw them over the railing and into the middle of the mass of soldiers, with an extra one thrown a second later towards the archers at the very back. The objects falling caused panic on the soldiers, but the explosions were too quick for them to react.

Being so close to them, Elrick felt his ears buzzing with a high pitch noise as bodies flew above him, some dismembered and burnt to crisp. It seemed his explosives may have detonated someone else's as well, since the explosions was too large for only Elrick's. He shook his head, shrugging that thought off, and as he pulled himself upwards and onto the bridge, he drew his sword once more, ready to dispose of the twelve or so survivors. “So, who was making the BBQ? I smell burnt pork,” he mocked them as he attacked the closest spearman, still stunned from the blast. Good thing they cleared the bridge that much, those were the last of the stolen explosives.

[Fate]

Pfft, explosions fix everything.
--

"I don't know. I lost track of him after I left the roof." That was the only answer she had for Raen, which probably wasn't good. Lanying joined them after torching even more of the military. They were right near the bridge, but if they even dared to take one step on it, they'd be shot to hell and back. They weren't getting shot at yet, but if they moved, they would be. Great.

Though, her answer to where Elrick was got answered. He silently told them not to notice his presence, not to react, and then disappeared again. Shortly afterward, explosives went off, hitting a whole mass of the soldiers. There was their cue, Elrick appearing back in the field fighting off one of the spearmen. Lillian ran onto the bridge first, shooting past Elrick with missiles this time at the ones farthest away-- didn't want him caught in the explosions they'd give off when he was already bloodied up. They'd need to take care of that later.

Three of the missiles hit their target, two of them dodged by the soldiers. Two explosions went off near them, though they were out of its radius. Fine, she'd just shoot at them.

[Battle Report:
Lillian used Laser Tag
Five posts until next use, four uses remaining]

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[Nothingness]

Let's all be cool, now

Between the Lanying's dragon torching a chunk of the soldiers, and Elrick's explosives wiping out another chunk, Raen quickly reconsidered the idea of crossing the bridge. All in all, it wasn't half bad. All they had to do now was clean up, and pray that they didn't get surrounded by soldiers on both sides. That was up to how quickly they could finish the remainders off.

Running into battle with the rest of them, Raen batted away one of the soldier's spears before running him through with his borrowed blade, tearing it out of its victim. Moving onto the next, he quickly dispatched the soldier, but he didn't immediately leave the corpse. Instead Raen knelt down next to it and began to absorb the chill from it, instead. Feeling strengthened by this, he continued on, locking himself in a fight with a rather skilled swordsman.

[Raen used Arctic Grasp, four posts until next use. Next skill used is at 2x strength]

[Aerith]

Want to go for a swim?
--------

Just because she was on the ground once more did not mean that Lanying was helpless or any less effective. The soldiers remaining on the bridge after that explosion were not worth her using any of her abilities. Dashing into the midst of them and taking them out by more traditional means was preferable.

She felt very leery of using Maelstrom's Dragon to kill the soldiers, like there was some sacred boundary she shouldn't cross in using her weapon of the light. It didn't matter whether she used a Keyblade or not. She was still deadly in close quarters.

Waiting until the smoke cleared from the missiles Lillian had launched, Lanying picked out a soldier or two and mentally marked them as hers. Perhaps they underestimated her size. Too bad they would not live to put that lesson learned to good use.

Slipping beneath one man's attempt to apprehend her, she smashed an elbow into his stomach, then followed it up with a swift kick to his jaw that came into her range as he doubled over. He reeled backward, straight into his partner, and Lanying pressed her advantage, sending them tumbling off the bridge into the water below.

[Lagunamov]

Yeah... No, you are screwed.

It was this kind of moments that made Elrick glad he got stuck with the party he did. As soon as he had jumped onto the bridge to fight off the remaining soldiers, he was already having backup arrive, letting him focus better on less enemies. Between the explosions and Lanying’s swift disposal of a couple of enemies by throwing them off the bridge, the pressure he had on him at first had waned down. Now he was locked in combat with one spearman taking the lead, and two swordsmen at his side.

“You traitorous scum!” the spearmen yelled at him as he lunged forward, slashing relentlessly at him. Elrick tried his best to dodge and block, but the enemy was too strong and had a weapon with better momentum than his, so he was at a disadvantage. Unless, he did the unexpected.

Jumping backwards and to the right to dodge a piercing attack, Elrick threw his sword at the swordsmen to his right, hitting him right in the face, half the blade passing straight through his skull. Then, as the armored man with the spear tried to attack him again, he blocked his attack by grabbing his left wrist with his left hand, and in a quick blow he hit the back of his elbow, breaking it, his arm bending backwards and the man falling to the ground in pain.

Taking a hold of his spear as he fell to the ground, Elrick then quickly proceeded to take down the last of his targets, sweeping him of the ground before he could even attack him, and stabbing him in the chest as he landed. “You guys forget I used to train with you and kick your butts. I am severely disappointed in your lack of progress,” he snarked at the fallen men, kicking the spearmen on the head as he walked by to knock him down and removed his sword from the other’s skull. Which required him to use his foot to keep the head from moving along with the sword as he pulled it towards him.


[Badassery used. Inherent to the character.]

[Fate]

How the hell am I supposed to follow that?!
--

Lillian thought she should have the upper hand here, fighting only short range fighters with guns. But no, the two she was shooting at weren't going down as easily as she wanted them to. Well no wonder, Elrick had trained them, or so he just said after he committed serious badassery. Very awesome badassery. And there Lanying was doing it too, as was Raen. Damn, she picked really good traveling partners. Not the time to focus on that though. These soldiers, two swordsmen to be exact, weren't going down from long range attacks.

Short-range it was then. She took the dagger out of her pocket with her right hand, jumping onto the railing of the bridge and running along it. She kept shooting the swordsman farther away from her with her left gun, who kept using his sword as a shield to not get hit. Once she got close enough to the second one, she jumped in front of him and kept shooting at the other. Finally, after at least five shots, he wasn't able to dodge one to the chest and went reeling backwards. Before the second one could decide to get from behind, the dagger went straight into the gut, taken out before he fell forward.

Yeah, Elrick should be disappointed with the soldiers' lack of progress.

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[Nothingness]

Is this all?

Well, that was disappointing. While the soldier Raen was fighting was much more skilled than the other two, he still fell far too quickly. Raen did give him marks for actually going on the offensive and forcing him to block, but outside of that the soldier's skills were abysmal. Quickly blocking one sloppy attack, Raen brought the soldier's blade to the ground, and twisted his body around and elbowed him in the face before embedding the sword in the soldier's ribcage.

Letting go of the sword, Raen left the corpse hang on to it--neither of them would be needing it right now. Dusting his hands off, Raen looked around at what the other three were doing. Lanying politely introduced two of them to the drink, Lillian went crazy with a knife/gun combo, and Elrick just thrashed a few others. "Alright," Raen said, "Where to next?" He couldn't see any problems in their near future. Mostly because all of said problems were either in the river, or lying on the bridge, or more than a few blocks away.

[Aerith]

Let's move on.
--------

It seemed these so-called soldiers were severely lacking in discipline, thinking they could throw themselves at an enemy in any old fashion. Lanying hoped that the men under her command back home would have more skill than this should they need to defend the people.

"If this is all there is, I do not think we have much to worry about while we're here."

She looked to Elrick and the others. It probably was not a wise decision to linger for too long on this bridge. But only Elrick knew where to go in this city.

[Lagunamov]

I am not happy about this, but I am left with no choice.

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With all guards on the bridge finally down, Elrick took a deep breath, relaxing for a second or two. Surely enough, the residential district ought to be easier to navigate undetected. “We finish crossing the bridge, and then we move a couple of blocks into the district. What I need is not far, so we should be done soon,” he told the others, walking closer to them as he said so.

However, right after he had said where they would be going to next, he saw trouble approach from where they had just come. And it was too fast for him to react before it happened. An archer had reached one of the roofs closest to them and launched an arrow, hitting Lanying from behind on her thigh, piercing straight through it. A second wave was clear to come, but now the Orpheus traitor had enough time to do something about it.

Running past the injured girl, Elrick spun his sword forward, summoning his tornado in very the middle of the bridge, blocking the entrance to it and deflecting the incoming arrows. Not only that, but after dragging some bodies into it through its suction power, the cyclone turned itself into an explosive force, severing the bridge in two below it. Quite evidently, someone among the fallen still had some live explosives.

Walking back towards Lanying, now on the ground and bleeding, Elrick took a look at her. The wound wasn’t even remotely fatal, nor would it leave any lasting damage, but she couldn’t go on with them anymore. “I’m sorry, but you are out. I will not have your blood on my hands,” he said, kneeling next to her, and after he put the black cloak on her, he began concentrating. Dark mist started to spread from beneath her, slowly but surely, opening a Corridor of Darkness. He wasn’t sure exactly where it would take her, but surely it would reach her home world, where she could recover quietly.

With the first almost casualty out and the Corridor closed, Elrick felt an unusual strain on himself. That Corridor had taken more from him than normal, even for a long distance one. Something was off. “Lets move, the tornado won’t block them off for long,” he ordered, wiping off the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand as he stood up and began running towards their last destination.


[Garudyne used. Will last for one more post.]

[Fate]

Just keep on running.
--

Couple of blocks into the next district, got it. Then they'd get what Elrick needed and get the hell out of there before any of them got killed. Lillian started making her way across the bridge after the order was given, not expecting the next events to occur. What the hell, another casualtie?! Lanying got shot too. It didn't look too bad, but it didn't help the situation at all. More archers were going to come too by the looks of it. Great, just great.

Before either she or Raen could react, Elrick made a big-ass tornado that blocked the archers' shots and blocked anyone's way onto the bridge. And then he sent Lanying away, hopefully to her homeworld. It wasn't something any of them wanted done, but it needed to be. They had to keep moving now. Lillian nodded her head in reply to this, going ahead of Elrick and Raen with both guns out. It wasn't far from here, whatever "it" was.

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