Ordinis Sancti Percute

[Hell Hound Woof]

Hotspur II: Dutch
​

Dutch had been silent as they neared Hotspur II, he had been just moving through the motions. When they met up with Hotspur II he simply assimilated into the group and had been thinking of a song in his head. He had been very quitely humming the tune when Kazumasa came up to him and offered him the Thompson that poor bastard from the crash had once held. Dutch slung his rifle over his shoulder and grabbed the Thompson by the stock and held it in his hand for a moment getting acquainted with it.

"Thank ya', so where'r you from Kayazuma?" Dutch said in a low tone trying to make some conversation.​

 

[Firemind]

Seeker Yggdri and Syl, the Familiar –Hotspur 2
​

Mostly, Yggdri looked at Winters with a look of confusion and disbelief when he asked her to use her 'sand powers' and create some sort of Sand-avalanche. Did he not understand the magnitude of what he was asking? The amount of sand it would take to be able to fully disable a group of humans for any amount of time was a very vast quantity indeed. Then, there was the distance from the group: magic was more taxing the further away from the user it affected, so trying to swallow up an entire group of Geralds seemed absolutely maddeningly implausible. She was about to start explaining all of this, when a simple thought dawned on her: Of course he didn't understand what he was asking. He was a soldier, who until recently, probably would have called someone crazy for even thinking the possibility that a frail looking pale-girl could move the earth to her will. She offered a sort of apologetic grimace to Winters, as she shook her head to confirm she could not follow through with his plan.

Thankfully, it seemed that Calvin was willing to at least humour Yggdri's plan. She grabbed the grenade and smiled back at Calvin, finding the man more and more agreeable, even if his 'God' seemed oddly useless. So far, all she knew of him was that he played the role of a supportive-yet-ultimately-fruitless father figure. At least Calvin seemed much more dependable, despite his strange beliefs. She had to admit, he was probably her favourite at the moment. He hadn't done anything to confuse or bewilder her, and he'd been respectful…and he had a nice smile. So far, the only other one who'd made a great impression was Alcina. Thus far, Winters had shouted a lot, Elizabeth had been clumsy and Lindsay had been quiet. Julia was…well, she was a bit scary. Authority figures always had that effect though. She was surely a nice person, right?

As if answering her thoughts, Julia's orders were spread amongst the group, and Yggdri slid further down the dune so that she was amongst the centre group. It was at this moment that Yggdri first noticed Itula, the strange American-Indian woman who seemed to know more about Yggdri's powers than Yggdri did about hers. She suddenly wished that she had taken the time to read the dossiers. If only the library of the Ordinis was not so fascinating, she might have been better prepared. It was a valuable lesson to learn early, at least. "I can certainly help in that sm-"

Mid-sentence, the druid paused as the nauseous wave of terror and fear swallowed over her. Its presence was like a hand, wrapped around the throat, and memories of nightmares seemed to flare forth. Something seemed to harden in the movements of Syl, who had been merely padding around Yggdri's feet, fully aware of the eyes of Elizabeth on the desert cat-shaped familiar. The familiar was disturbed by its master's unease, it seemed. Itula summed up the feelings, and Yggdri nodded, her throat suddenly feeling dry and wordless. "Let us move quickly then."

At that, the druid began to pull at the storage of mana in her focusing font. Trails of liquid-like golden energy seemed to slither out of the spout, wrapping around the arm of the druid as she focused her own energies into the world around her. Soon enough, the sand was starting to swirl around the dune, a dancing sand-wave swirling around the desert, as natural as any other instance of drifting sand. She let the drift skim ahead of them, and then looped it back around the dune, trying to keep the motion authentic until they were ready to move. The veil was thin, which made it easy to manipulate, but it was thick enough that it would conceal their movements. Yggdri looked different as she concentrated on the magic: concentration and silence making the young face of the druid look more mature and dependable; especially when contrasted with the almost naïve curiosity she'd displayed mid-flight.

 

[White]

Hotspur 1 - Kani

Bill's expression was almost one of rage. He turned to Kani. "Denied. On both counts." He hissed, shouting wouldn't help them now. "We don't need you lighting a flare for any heavy artillery the damned Jerries have, whether it's some Howitzers or just Mortars, we're particularly vulnerable right now."

"Command received." Kani answered and dropped the aim to the ground.
There is reason in that she thought. She was sure that she will have to acquire a weapon of this world as this world and the eyes of these people are not used to light degrees that she and her people are used to.
As such she followed the troop as one of the last, simply prevent alarming the hostiles in the surrounding area.

The small trip went uneventful, Kani kept focused on keeping an eye on the troop infront of her, only now she actually realized that it is dark. Too Dark for her eyes to see anything in the far distance, her eyes were simply made to endure a much more lighted enviroment.
"Soldiers to front and rear"
This was enough for her to know. Command received, She thought and positioned herself at the rear to keep attempting to stay out of flaring for a barrage of shells.

 

[Kadaeux]

The Sphinx:
​

It seemed fortune was with the team and they crossed towards the Sphinx without detection and, surprisingly, the Nazi patrol failed to discover the gliders. But that was the calm before the storm. Julia indicated that the teams should take cover behind a significant sandbag wall the Nazi's had set up and left to bury their work. The site revealed was much as the pilot of Hotspur One had seen.

A number of trucks were held in small impromptu vehicle park. Flanking it were a pair of Nazi 2 cm Flakvierling 38 emplacements crewed. More than a dozen powerful floodlights were on and aimed at the Sphinx, an element that helped conceal them, and revealed something else.

Two mortar pits had been dug out near the end of the Sphinx' forepaws as the Nazis moved around. A quick count would show that in addition to the heavy weapon crews, twelve men in total, another six were patrolling lazily.. no not lazily...

...

All of the occultists would be able to feel it... the six patrolling were mere puppets of flesh and bone. Zombies. Clutching their MP40s in unfeeling hands the crews of the Mortars and AAA visibly flinching whenever they got close. A single other figure say there in the Black Uniform of an SS officer, but again the Occultists could sense the slight lines of power binding the zombies to its command... and the massive German Shepard at it's side.

The entrance to the Sphinx had no more apparent defences. Those investigators on the team would feel a sense of impending revelations. Secrets to be found, and most likely, buried for the good of others.

 

[Hell Hound Woof]

Dutch - The Sphinx
​

Dutch moved quickly but stealthily as he took cover behind the sandbags, he peered his head over the wall and observed the situation in front of him. It would be make for an interestingly short fight if they tried any kind of straight forward attack.

"Whats tha plan of attack?" Dutch asked to the two higher ups, he still had the Thompson in his hands and the strap was wrapped around his arm. ​

 

[Helios]

Lindsay Okeke

A bead of sweat rolled to the tip of Lindsay's nose as he perched over his rifle. The silent drop of water finally fell as he let out a sigh. The patrol had passed and orders had been given by Julia to move out. As he looked around, Lindsay noticed a great amalgam of people and things had joined their ranks. He had noticed the friendlies move in but he had not yet fully seen what manner of strange they really were. He assessed the additions quietly and somewhat hard-headedly. He didn't like being unsure what these people were or could do. It was a precarious mission and he was more than suspicious of their individual motivations. These magicians could have been up to anything. They were playing with powerful things. Dark things. The type of forces that corrupted weak minds and weak hearts. Their team would need to be kept a very close eye on. And so he would keep a very close eye indeed.

Spirit wolves. Sand jugglers. Vampires. Automatons. Canadians… Shit had just gotten weird.

As the element moved forward towards the sphinx Lindsay remained at the rear of the column as was his machine gunners billet. It would allow him to reposition as the teams axis of fire to whichever direction the threat presented. His kit was also a bear to haul so it was nice to move along a cleared path. The tension amongst the team was palpable. Lindsay could feel the hairs on his neck spike up with each gust of hollow Egyptian breeze. His grandmother had always whispered stories of horrible creatures in her sleep. Lindsay would stay up all night by her listening to the fractured whimpers and pleas. Creatures that defied death but were also consumed by it. It was why she had fled the Congo to the south. It was why she remarried and given birth to his mother. It was a new start to a terrible fate which had consumed her previous family and previous life. Lindsay's stomach curled as he thought about himself muttering in his sleep after seeing the things they were likely to see. From what he understood from the Ordinis was that similar forces were at play, though he still could not comprehend what those forces were.

When the team had reached engagement distance from the sphinx and its German retinue Lindsay crouched behind Calvin awaiting orders. He knew his presence would be recognized in due time. Until then he surveyed the scene. He thought little of the strange patrol except that they might be exhausted and horrid smelling after a few days of desert excursions, which he felt more than explained their movement and reaction of the other guards. What Lindsay did dislike was that damn dog.

 

[Thomas McTavish]

Jace Morteres - The March to Giza


The problem seemed to resolve itself, the Nazis failing to discover the crash sites. With a shrug, Jace continued on the journey with the others. It was only then that it hit him, having clearly affected the other occultists in the group already. Jace bristled as a feeling of impending doom swept over him, ears perking like a dog's and eyes sharpening like a hawk's, spatial awareness and animal instinct reaching out like the tendrils of some great beast, snaking across the sands, expanding until he could sense no wider. He felt the adrenaline rush through his veins as a deep, primal fear tried to overpower him. He wanted to run. He wanted to leave this place. He wanted to turn away from this evil. But he had to carry on, or this darkness he felt would plague so many more than it did now.

He pressed on, a stone determination across his face as he caught up with Ituha. "You feel it too, right?" he asked. "That primal fear? The sense of being preyed upon? Like as you are a rabbit, and the wolf has you in his sights?" He stared dead ahead, eyes focused on the face of the Sphinx.

 

[Brovo]

Ituha, Stone Oak – Sandbags​

"Yes, I do." Ituha replied to Jace with a soft tone as she spotted the sandbags and moved quickly and silently over to them. Looking about the area, she saw many rows of guns: Too many to hit at once, widely dispersed over the area. A discontented look reached her face as she hid back down beside the sandbags. What was she going to do?

Calvin D. Walters & Alcina – Sandbags
(Collaboration with @Tempest)​

Calvin moved himself up along the sandbags as Julia motioned, pressing himself up against the wall. He quickly spotted the zombies as he peeked over the sandbags and rolled his eyes. Looking over to Alcina, he looks at her cat and winces, then starts whispering. "Your cat is fine, Alice, right? Y'don' mind if I call you Alice?" He thumbs over the sandbags, in the direction of the zombies. "I heard witches do voodoo magic shit, any idea 'bout them walkin' corpses?... They ain't like the ones I read in serials, right?" He had also noted, pleasantly, that the emplacements were understaffed. Two mortar pits and a pair of 38's with only 12 people total manning them? Advantage goes to the Away Team. He smiles to himself.

Alcina blinks in Calvin's direction as Puss slams himself up against her calf after catching back up with them after keeping watch from atop the dunes. She smiles and shakes her head, "Not really like the living dead in serials. Really, they're kin t' voodoo puppets that a necromancer has to tell everything it does. Other words, zombies only as good as the one tellin' them wot do, kay? Stop the necromancer, zet officer in black there, the zombies fall over no better than ragdolls." She flashes a wide toothy grin as she draws out her dart gun, loading it with several sour apple potion tipped darts.

"Really now!" Calvin whispers as his blue eyes light up with hope, and his breathing slows to a steady pace. "Alrighty then. I got a plan. You with me on this?" He says as he offers a handshake with a friendly smile. Whether it was by trained practice, a genuine sense of camaraderie, or both, he was attempting to win her trust.

She holds her hand out to him and shakes it with a faint rumble of a purr from her throat, "Kent see any reason why not, Waltzy. Why don't you tell me what you got in mind."

"Well." Calvin scratches his chin. "I don't 'spose you got some kinda love potion? Mind control? Voodoo doll? Somethin'?"

She blinks in confusion before she grins and holds up a vial of #99, "Well now that you mention it, yeah, I kinda do. Only lasts for a wee bit, but wot for you're thinking it, I'm imagining it doesn't have to be forever, huh?"

Calvin takes a deep breath and grasps his cross momentarily, muttering a thanks to the Lord. "No marriage today ma'am, n' definitely not with a kraut. Just get the SS Officer on our side n' order him to order his entourage to spray and pray the 38's. Er, the turrets with four barrels, over there." He points in their direction through the sandbags. "Make sure they expend all their ammo, that way if the SS Officer breaks from your wiles, he'll have a horde of nothin' more than target practice."

Alcina fiddles with the vial before nodding, tipping a new dart with the serum inside and loading it first along the feed instead, "Thanks for explaining this, I wouldn't much know much about the subtle things of guns and bigger guns, you know?" She chuckles, "But this makes sense, I will see what I can do."

Calvin D. Walters – Sandbags​

Calvin nods in appreciation, then looks at the others around. "Listen up!" He says in a hoarse whisper, keeping his body low as he made his way to the center of the group, remaining behind the sandbags. This way, he could speak to all of them without having to raise his voice or be spotted. "Alice's is gon' hit that big scary jerry in black--the SS officer--and twist him to our side. He's got control over those walkin' corpses, and they'll unload all their wonderful German engineering on those bloody Nazis at the 38's." He motions over to the AA guns. "I'll toss a 'nade at the further mortar pit n' take em' out with a bang. Lindsay, Dutch, bring your big fuckin' guns to rip through the krauts in the closer mortar nest. Jace, the Gook, and the Indian can cover the rest of us and do whatever they think is best to help nail these death worshippin' fucks to a holy cross."

He pulls out a grenade and looks to Julia. "Assumin' none of this ruffle your feathers, comrade."

Ituha, Stone Oak – Sandbags​

Ituha looks to Calvin and, though she hesitated, nodded in agreement with the plan. Looking at Jace, she smiles softly. "I can disable those '38s' as Calvin called them... Think you could deceive their gunners to keep me safe?" Her eyes then wander to Kazumasa. She seemed to wish good luck to him, but had no idea how to suggest to use his weapons and talents. He would know better than she would, so her smile merely persisted, hoping that both Jace and Kazumasa would get through things alive.

 

[Thomas McTavish]

Jace Morteres - Sandbags


Jace cracked his neck and knuckles, smiling like a demon. "Aye." he said. "I think I can do that."

He began running through the possibilities- phantom aerial strike from demon birds? Shadow creatures causing chaos among the ranks? Perhaps a spare soldier or two would slip in and cause some trouble. Jace had the perfect idea, just then- All of them would look- and feel- like they had all just spontaneously combusted. It wouldn't do any actual damage, but it would likely cause enough panic and pain to distract them long enough for Ituha to take out the guns and Alcina to work her will with the necromancer and get them to unload on the living. Twirling his staff before plunging it into the sand, Jace began his spell, double-layered voice ringing softly across the sand.

"As dark has swept the land across,
So shall, too, the sun's shining light,
Across the hearts and minds of men
Phantom flames burst alight!"

 

[Firemind]

Seeker Yggdri and Syl, the Familiar
​

Yggdri was unsure if the expenditure of her mana had been worth anything at all, but she was generally glad that the group had managed to remain hidden. It was comforting to know that the collective had managed to avoid any extra conflict, especially from an undesirable location. It would be no short guess to make that Yggdri had never actually been involved in conflict, and the idea of having to kill someone was not something that comforted her. In truth, it was one of the reasons that she had asked Calvin for his pineapple. Magic was like an extension of her body: a limb of astral proportions that made her feel everything it felt. When she touched something with magic, she could feel it-Its emotions and its anguish or excitement or its pain and, she had no doubt, she would feel its death. Killing with magic would be like choking the life out of a person with one's own hands. The very thought of having to kill someone so...personally was terrifying, and she doubted she'd be able to do it, even now.

Yet a weapon, like the guns that these soldiers used, and their artificial fruit, they made killing impersonal. She didn't need to feel the life eeking from the person with a bullet, and she didn't need to watch the terror in a person's eyes as death made itself a bedfellow with an explosive. She listened to Calvin's plan as he spoke through a way to deal with the individuals, and noticed that she wasn't mentioned. Not as protection, or assault, or anything. Had she made such a small impact on the man? The Druid puffed her chest out a little in a minor moment of childish annoyance. She gripped the grenade that she'd been given by the soldier, and put it on the floor, before wrapping a clump of sand around it, leaving only the pin exposed.

"I will guide the grenade into the closest mortar nest. It should be accurate enough to take them out, and we can time the exploding to happen simult...simyul...at the same time. It gives them less chance to react...Less explosions."​

 

[Goldmarble]

Kazumasa​

As the squad of misfits clustered around the sandbags, Kazumasa listened closely to the one named Calvin. Glancing over the rest of the men and women, he hoped none of them would freeze in terror of their first taste of combat, but if they did, there would be little he could do about it. He nearly silently chambered the first round of the magazine into the Enfield, before slightly narrowing his eyes at Calvin's rather crude remark. He peeked over the neared bag, and eyed the 38s. A small thought came to mind, but he pushed it off at the moment. "Will do, if you don't get yourself killed, peckerwood."

He quickly looked to Jace and Ituha, giving them a quick nod before crouching low behind the berm of sandbags, and moving to get a better angle on everything. If he was to give covering fire, he wanted to be in a place where he could see most of the enemy. The vehicle corral would be an issue of course, but that was unavoidable. Upon finding a better angle, he quietly, and carefully removed one of the sandbags, to give himself a bit more protection from return fire. Gauging the range quickly, he knew he'd have to aim a bit low for most of his shots, considering the somewhat, close range nature, and the minimal limit of the elevation setting for the rifle.

He set himself into position, and waited to first, eliminate any surviving krauts from the grenades, if he could see them.​

 

[Kadaeux]

The Sphinx:​

Julia gave Calcin the go ahead and waited, when it began it was quiet at first, the dart striking the Necromancer just above the collar, and that was when the quietness vanished. The German Shepard's head came up and then it stood upright and howled a blood curdling howl that chilled the very souls of those present. Bill Fullerton was the first to recover. "WULFEN!" He called out in warning as Alcina forced the Necromancer to order the zombies to attack the AAA emplacements. The zombies emptied their MP40s in moments before the Wulfen chomped down on the Necromancer preventing it from killing any more of their own people before it charged for Ituha.

Meanwhile the attacks on the Mortar nests proceeded well both of them being taken out, one by an excellent grenade throw by Calvin and the second by Yggdri's fortunately placed grenade. The Zombies, without their Necromancer divided their attentions suddenly between falling over or trying to tear each other apart as the necromancers magic fell apart.

Suddenly one of the AAA emplacements roared and strafed the sandbags, Adrian took a pair of rounds in the shoulder only his vampiric constitution preventing him from dying of shock on the spot. But Bill and Julia transfixed the gunner between them neither knowing who got the killing blow leaving only the Wulfen to worry about.

A Wulfen that fixed its attention on Alcina and charged howling.