The Fall of The Realm (Kreska & Valentyne)

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Valentine nodded, sprinting toward the Tempest members. Forsaking Narrus's cloak, she created a wreath of dark-fire around her body, forming a visible spectre of fire that stalked toward her foes as the air darkened around her, creating a gloomy atmosphere. She hoped that this would keep their attention on her and away from her companions. Noting that Karida's twister had tossed their charge a sizable distance from his aggressor, she lashed out to either side of her with her arms. The air rippled and the ground distorted, rock and rubble jumping up to form a ten foot high wall around her and the soldiers, walling everyone else out. It was only held together by her power and would crumple to any sort of attack, but it would reduce visibility at least. Then she swung a fiery hand toward the more intact structure the woman had taken cover behind, aiming for its center of mass. The stone cracked and fell apart as its form was twisted out of shape, and the cover collapsed. Concentrating on keeping her dark-fire body lit, she dashed toward the enemy on her left, using both arms to bowl him over with a wave of distortion that rearranged his armor, sending warped chunks flying away as sparks flew from the ruined suit. She acted quickly, leaving little time for any of them to reäct, but if they did fire on her, the Seraph simply bent the projectile around her to strike her stone barrier.

Richard supported Karida, able to hold her steady despite not being able to see her. He'd tussled with invisible figures before, so he had experience. Letting her go as she found her feet, he formed a dome of force around the wall of stone Val had drawn up, reinforcing it, as well as preventing their adversaries from flying out of it. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he hefted a huge chunk of rubble and floated it a few inches off the floor, looking around for any more approaching enemies, ready to toss it as soon as he saw anyone who looked hostile.
 
"Arda?" Narrus, standing by the boy with his shield, petitioned him to make sure he was still conscious.
"Who... are you guys?" Arda replied, obviously in a confused haze as he was finally catching his breath.
"Foreigners." A coolly enigmatic answer, Narrus hoped. "Why'd you try to face this guy and his cronies all alone?"
"Fauer... The Tempest forced our hand," Arda muttered, sounding deflated. "We had nowhere to go. No food, no more energy... Superpolis was the last-ditch option, so we brought the caravan..." He put his head in his hands, tears staining his cheeks. "But... I've failed, and... Those people, every single one of them's gonna starve... or worse, they'll be..."
"Keep your head up," Narrus said while using a hand to do what else but tilt Arda's head up. "You have a comrade on the way, right? You can turn this around." Arda responded with a sob.

"ARDA!" The figure whose voice had played on the radio earlier arrived, a young woman in her own suit of armor, which was obviously being pushed to its limits as it rocketed forward to send her flying into the battlefield. She landed near Arda in a plume of dust, holding out something to him: a box-shaped device with a small cable coming forth. "A... A backup battery," Arda murmured in disbelief. "Where did you..." He took a breath, not caring about all the dust that he inhaled because he was too busy smiling as he integrated the cable into a port just inside his helmet, and the suit pulsed with a soft light as it slowly started to blink back to life.

"Alexey!" The female sniper, now deprived of cover, rushed forward in response to her blond comrade's defeat, firing her weapon at Richard to... run into Val's barrier, which had not been there previously. In retrospect, it was hard to miss a wall of rock and rubble or at least jump back during its formation, but it happened. She cursed, recovering from a backwards stagger with a jump to the top of the wall and looking around in a frantic search for targets, the barrier already straining beneath her feet.

"You..." The man in black seethed in frustration as all of his shots seemed to be inexplicably missing his adversary. "Why won't... you... die?!" Not getting the hint from his aura blaster's apparent phobia of Valentine, he screamed in his anger as he dashed to the side again and then straight at her, holding his green, pulsating blade of energy close as if it would be any more effective than the blaster shots had been.
 
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Val whirled and flicked a wrist toward Fauer, sending a stream of dark-fire toward his blade. It passed through the energy and collided with the arm of the man's suit, which began to dissolve into white dust, the blade winking out. As he stumbled back, she dismissively waved a hand toward him, scrambling his armor as she had his companion's. This time the effect was slightly deadlier, as a shard of the ruined technology protruded from his suddenly unprotected chest as he hit the dirt. Blood seeped out of the wound quickly, pooling on the ground as the Tempest soldier's eyes went dim. She turned toward the woman in blue, raising an arm to blast her into oblivion. Then, several things happened at once. The sniper fired a shot over the wall toward Arda, which deflected off of Narrus's blast shield. A bolt of red energy slammed into her side, tossing like a ragdoll off of the barrier to slam into the opposite side of it, causing that portion to collapse into rock and dust on top of her. The attack caused Val's own shot to miss, and she looked quickly toward its source. Like a beacon of red, a man in a crimson suit strode confidently across the ruins, carrying a smoking rifle. He was wearing power armor similar to that of the others, but it was slimmer, not as bulky. It looked somewhat piecemeal, like a lot of baggage had been shaved off to make it lighter. "Vera!" He yelled in a voice filled with anger. "I should drag your intestines out with a hook, but I don't have time, so you get a quick death." An electric shock went up Val's spine as she looked at him. This man was one of the avatars. He fired several more shots at the stunned Vera.

Richard very nearled wiped the newcomer off the map with the boulder, but restrained himself when he saw what color the man was wearing. Sharing Val's realization, he stretched out a hand and coated the Restoration soldier in a thin layer of force that moved with him. It was barely perceptible, but would deflect practically any attack against him.
 
"A Restorer," the girl standing next to Arda gasped. "But... how?"
"Told you they were still alive, Enka," Arda murmured through his smile.
"That's... But... Ozere City was burned to the ground!" Enka was relieved as well despite her disbelief.

"I don't believe it!" The shrill, angry voice of an aged man suddenly sounded from Enka's radio.
"The Mad Doctor," she said with scorn in her voice.
"My three perfect soldiers, defeated in the blink of an eye!" The audio became staticky as it was apparent that wherever Guy Winterburn was, he was certainly spitting into the microphone in his wrath. "But I still have my trump card! Goodbye and good riddance, enemies of mankind."
"RUN!" a voice in the distance sounded. "He's going to shoot it!" It was a man in dirtied blue armor running towards the group, though he didn't seem to be looking for a fight as his weapon, a sniper rifle, was holstered.
"What?" Karida replied in reäction, distressed at what this could possibly be. The man approaching appeared to be the one she had saved from being sniped himself earlier, still sans helmet.
"The ion cannon's still active," Sergei said frantically. "The one Vitaly destroyed was a fake! It... Dammit! There's no time!" The new star in the sky, shining a bright cyan, was already clearly visible.

"Behind the shield!" Narrus shouted, willing the shield that had protected Arda and his self to expand a great deal to form a shell around the group. "Bigger," he muttered in command as it seemed that his shape-shifting staff had some sort of mass limit, spreading itself thinner and thinner as it covered more area. Its hardness seemed to hold just the same, however, and Narrus huddled against it as his sight and hearing were overwhelmed by the orbiting cannon's electric blast sweeping across the earth.
Ten or so seconds later, it was over. As Narrus's staff returned to its original form, Karida surveyed the destruction surrounding the immediate area, an island of earth in the middle of an elongated crater, with wide eyes. The earth radiated ripples in the air that resembled heat-waves incessantly as the cyan star blinked out.
"I don't know how you did that," Sergei immediately began rapidly speaking. "But there's no time to ask questions. We have about one hour until the S.I.C. cools down to the point it can fire again."
"Unit Echo to caravan," Enka was already barking into her radio. "Unit Alfa is intact. Rendezvous with Sierra Tango is successful."
"We have one hour; we need to get to the Tempest base immediately," Sergei said. "Tell your caravan to continue advancing." Enka nodded and relayed the orders.
"Roger that, unit Echo," the radio responded.
"You insolent brats!" Guy Winterburn's voice sounded from the radio once again. "You think I can't hear you?! Your precious little caravan—"
"Do you ever shut up?" Enka murmured as she muted the radio.
"Look," Arda said as he disconnected the battery from his suit, the remainder of the container's power poured into it. The area around them had burst into a luxurious overgrowth of purple flowers, as if the earth had suddenly come alive again.
"It's just an illusion," Narrus explained, already finding himself wrapped in the blue light from earlier. Their work here was done: an hour would be enough time for whatever Arda, Enka, the Restorer, and the turncoat Sergei had to do to stop the Tempest. The proverbial storm was finally about to pass as the illusory clouds parted. "Maybe it's what the future holds," Karida suggested as she lost her grip on the world and the flowers faded.

Soon, Khalant was completely gone, and Valentine, Richard, Narrus, and Karitama would find themselves somewhere else.
 
As the blue light fell away like a curtain, the unlikely group found themselves in the hallway of a modern apartment complex, obviously of low quality. The walls were plain and white, the paint peeling off in various places. Occasional decorative paintings hung slanted on the wall, largely empty landscapes and abstract shapes. Gunshots rang out from down the hall, the staccato ring of pistols. Richard turned to look, seeing three men standing outside an open door. One stood in the doorway, his feet set apart in a firing stance while he squeezed the trigger of his handgun haphazardly. The other two stood to either side of the room, similar weapons clenched in their hands. As Richard took a step toward them, the one in the middle was suddenly struck by a beam of bright golden light. Starting from where it hit him, his body dissolved into incandescence, and he screamed as his torso was quickly consumed by the hungry light, until it finally took his head, and what remained of his clothes dropped to the floor, along with his gun. His companions' eyes widened in surprise; one leaned in briefly to investigate, but a sudden hail of bullets caused him to quickly jerk back. Watching them, the scientist did not feel the electric shock of meeting an avatar, so he knew they were of no consequence. He stretched a hand toward them as he fastwalked down the corridor, and a shimmering wall of forced slammed them backwards into the opposite wall. However, Richard had overestimated the strength of the structure. Instead of crashing into, the gunmen sailed through the wall, flying backwards into another room. Sighing, he encased himself in a shell of force and followed them, Val behind him covering his six.

Valentine looked into the room to witness the standard foyer of a cheap apartment, two people standing in it. One of them bore a passing resemblance to Richard and wore a lab coat, but instead of the flicker of calculated madness that shone in her scientist friend's albino eyes, this man did not look like he possessed anything resembling intelligence. He carried a long sword shaped object made of metal and plastic, the end pointed at the doorway, revealing that the tip was a nozzle. Beside him stood a blonde woman who reminded Val of the Tempest sniper from the last world for some reason. She held a pistol. The electric thrill that went up the Seraph's spine when she saw them confirmed that they were avatars. However, as she showed herself, the man leveled the sword-like object toward her, pulling what seemed to be a trigger. A cylindrical blast of golden light, just as before, burst from it toward her. However, the Naphil casually swept her hand toward it, causing it to absorb harmlessly as the air darkened. "Right. Don't do that. We're here to help. I think." She told the pair. Behind her, the sound of Richard strangling a pair of men with force reached her ears. Nonetheless, footsteps echoed up from the stairwell, signaling the arrival of more enemies.
 
A cartoonish scream sounded before repeating itself almost verbatim as Karida willed a wind spell into the stairwell, a spiral twister that blew counter to the direction of the stairs so to knock whatever goons were about to arrive all the way down to the first floor from... however high they were in this building. Narrus followed it with a quick glance into the room (for the purpose of visualising it) before holding his staff up to conjure the illusion that the topmost stairs had crumbled into a ruin of infinitesimal pieces.

"So what's your guys's deal?" Narrus asked nonchalantly as the two returned from the stairwell to greet the avatars, Karida taking a moment to collect herself.
"We... Oh, bonaĵo!" The blonde woman, one eye of green and the other a brownish color, appeared to be about to launch into an explanation, but instead launched into an /exclamation/ as she ran up to Karitama in a bubbly trot. "I can't believe you could do something like that!" she said while standing over Karida, having seemingly forgotten of Narrus's existence as quickly as she had acknowledged it. "I've got a friend I think you'd love to meet! She has... powers. I'm Vera, by the way. What's your name, sweetum?"
"Ka— Karen," Karida stammered as Vera, sharing name as well as appearance with the sniper from earlier, was already shaking her hand. She wasn't sure why she had given a false name: it just seemed like the right move to make.
"I'm Nichol," Narrus added with a nod. "We're here to make things right."
 
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The other man lowered his weapon and walked carefully out into the hallway, glancing about him warily. Finally satisfied, he leaned back into the room and called. "Kaylee!" Richard visibly jumped at that name, as he had just returned. Vera's words echoed in his mind. She has... Powers. However, the girl who emerged from a doorway within the apartment was not the clairvoyant the terialic scientist knew. She was perhaps almost as sickly, but her build was slightly different, her hair was blonde instead of a soft lavender, and her eyes betrayed no speck of the gray hint of terialis. And there was no guardian angel hovering behind her shoulder. Richard felt a sharp pang of regret as he stared at her, but... Why couldn't he remember what happened? The scientist shook his head. It wasn't relevant right now.

The man carrying the sword-shaped object held his hand out to shake Narrus'. "Dr. Serrades." He introduced himself. "Transdimensional researcher." Richard's head swung up to attention at those words. He was keenly aware of the fact that they were traveling dimensions. Were they going to travel dimensions while in another dimension? "Dimensional travel?" He said out loud. "And how have you managed that? Have you managed it?"
"A device called the Artemis. It uses light to open gates to another reality. We've had a few...unsavory characters come through. Excuse me, I haven't gotten your name yet?" He looked inquiringly at Richard.
"Ah...Ivak." The scientist responded, following the others' lead in using an alias. "I'm a biologist."
"Wait, aren't you all from Artemis One? I thought they were behind us in technology."
"Artemis One?"
"The new world. Everyone who's come through has been able to do...magic, I guess. Like you."
"I'm afraid not." Richard told him. "And you haven't investigated how they have these abilities?"
"No, we haven't had the chance. We hope to get through the gate at today's demonstration."
Richard sighed. This man couldn't be called a scientist.

Valentine had slunk back as the conversation started, not interested in it. She realized with a start that their outfits had changed again; while Richard's lab coat had returned to its state of tattered disarray, her trenchcoat had been replaced by a tight fitting t-shirt beneath a black leather jacket. An identically colored miniskirt left more skin bare than she was used to--or comfortable with. A leather collar went around her neck. I swear, if I'm wearing gaudy make-up, I'm going to find whoever handles this and disintegrate him. "I'm Valerie." She also introduced herself absent-mindedly, figuring she'd throw it out there so they wouldn't ask for it later. Unfortunately, she caught someone's attention anyway. The girl, Kaylee, who had been uncomfortably standing at the doctor's side, stepped up to her. Val noticed that her skin glowed slightly, and the sudden realization that she'd have to be very careful with her powers. Something told her that stressing her abilities too much around the fragile teen could kill her.
"How did you do that? Absorb the Excalibur blast?" The glowing girl asked.
"You wouldn't understand the explanation, so there's no point in telling you." Val said.
The girl looked unsatisfied, but she leaned against a wall and looked away, apparently too timid to continue the conversation.
 
Taking after Valentine, Narrus and Karida made the most important of observations in lieu of examining the imperfections in the tenement's drywall. Narrus had his scarf back, and his suit had changed into a slightly-more-casual jacket and pants, mostly resembling his original garb but somehow feeling edgier. Maybe that means this place isn't much different from home? It was a pointless thought because Narrus already knew that this dimension was inextricably different. His staff had taken the form of a crowbar for now. Karida was also seemingly in a modern approximation of her usual clothing: her scarf, which had a more manufactured feel, and a black t-shirt and shorts, which were both uncomfortably tight and clashed with the work-duty boots that her footwear had morphed into. Her arm sleeves had been inexplicably replaced with fingerless gloves, and she imagined that whoever was in charge of changing the party's appearances to match the natives' was choosing them things that were one-third inconspicuous, one-third useful, and one-third humiliating to its wearer as her hair swayed about loosely.

"Demonstration?" Narrus echoed. "When's—"
"Kaylee!" Vera exclaimed, almost jumping in place before taking Kaylee by a shoulder to nudge her in Karida's direction. "This is Karen. She's got... abilities. Like you!"
"It was just—" Karida started, but then realised that she had no clue how to explain how simple that wind spell had actually been. "Well, I don't glow, so..." At least, I don't think I do in this world... She glanced at an arm sheepishly and was relieved to find that it was not glowing.
Narrus cleared his throat. "When does—"
"How old are you, Karen?" Vera asked, seemingly not having heard a single one of Karida's words.
"I— sixteen," Karida stammered, not thinking to lie.
"Really?" Vera responded, entirely too enthused. "See, Kaylee, you two are the same age!"
"Whendoesthedemonstrationbegin?" Narrus belted out the question for the self-proclaimed doctor quickly before Vera could interrupt him again. Luckily, Kaylee seemed too meek to make to continue the Vera-forced exchange at all, besides perhaps an awkward introduction.
Narrus just hoped that the demonstration was the right thing to be going after. Whether the party's goal was to ensure that it ran smoothly or stop it from happening in the first place remained to be known.
 
"Uh...hi..." Kaylee said sheepishly, backing away a little. Her glow seemed to fluctuate as Val looked at her, becoming suddenly brighter and then weaker. Before the brief conversation could continue, however, Narrus interrupted--or rather, turned the discussion back to its original topic.
"In a couple hours, at 15:00." Vance replied to the illusionist's question. "We were getting ready to go when we were interrupted by these thugs. We have to get through to Artemis One."
"Why is it so necessary that you do?" Richard asked with irritation.
"We have to warn the natives! The government is planning to attack them."
"Why?"
"Uh...I'm not sure. Resources?"
"What kind of resources?"
"I don't know."
Richard sighed.

"Are you ready to go now?" Valentine cut in.
"Well...more or less." The "scientist" said with reluctance.
"Then we're leaving. Whatever happens at this demonstration, we need to be there." Val crossed her arms with an exasperated look.
"Then...let's go, I guess." Vance turned to walk down the hallway toward the stairwell, holding "Excalibur" out defensively in case there were any thugs. The group didn't encounter any more resistance on the way down, but once they exited the doorway, they saw a man wearing a black hoodie leaning against the side of the building. A crooked smile decorated his scarred face. Several of the mercenaries were sprawled unconcious on the ground around him.
"Liryc?" Vance said incredulously. "What are you doing here?"
"Wait...His name is Liryc?" Richard said with a puzzled tone. There was an awkward silence for a second. Then the terialic researcher threw back his head and laughed. Liryc looked offended. "Hey, it's a cool name. Anyway, I was here protecting you from these assholes." He gestured at the comatose thugs. "I was coming to tell you that I saw that witch again. She's lurking around the square where they're holding the demonstration."
"Not her again..."
 
Vera winced at the mention of a "witch", and Narrus and Karida both imagined that it was probably some entity that was none too friendly given the way that Liryc broke the news. "Fek," the blonde woman cursed under her breath before proceeding to an explanation. "Rook went ahead earlier— that's why he wasn't here to back you up... not that you'd need it." She turned to Karida to explain even more. "Rook's, uh... an acquaintance of mine. There's this Raven guy he's obsessed with bringing to justice and it turns out he's probably going to be at the scene of the demonstration too... At least, that's what Rook said."
"Wait, Rook and Raven?" Narrus muttered. "Aren't those pretty much the same thing...?"

Vera only shrugged in response, and Narrus found himself stifling a giggle as he advanced to the exit after giving Liryc a nod in greeting. In respectful terms, this was a world inhabited by some interesting people. His demeanor shifted back to a serious one as he glimpsed what appeared to be a gunshоt wound displaying itself starkly in Vera's torso. It must be... just an old shirt she's wearing. With blood on it. Someone who had been shot in the past week couldn't possibly be as uppity as this person was.
"Don't worry, Karen," Vera said in an attempt to console Karida that came seemingly out of the blue. "You and Kaylee both are in good hands. Right, Doctor Vance?"
"But if /we're/ the ones with powers, aren't we're the ones in least need of protec—" Karida knew that she would be interrupted as soon as she started speaking, but Vera's interruption was a welcome one: "Let's get moving."
 
The ragtag group encountered little of interest on the way to the square where the demonstration was being held. It seems that everyone in town had the same destination. The place was crowded when they got there. There was a raised platform in the center of the square, the area around which was cordoned off and patrolled by several squads of impassive armored soldiers. On the platform was what must be Artemis: A twenty foot tall arch, connected to a box-like device with lots of dials, transparent tubes, and blinking lights. A middle-aged man in an expensive brown suit stood in front of a podium in front of Artemis, likely preparing a speech. Several men in white lab-coats stood around him, adjusting dials on the Artemis. Something about the whole setup made Val nervous. Something was wrong here. And it wasn't Vance's science this time. She looked around and spotted someone pushing their way through the crowd toward where the group stood at the fringes of it. Probably that Rook guy. As he approached, Liryc slipped away, melting into the crowd with a whisper of "I'm going to look for the witch. She's around here somewhere." At that moment, the politician began his speech.

"For decades, scientists have theorized about the possibility of alternate dimensions. It has ever been mankind's curiosity to know whether we are the only intelligent life in the multiverse. First, we made legends about magical creatures hidden in midst. Research proved these legends wrong as the years rolled by, and we turned our search to the sky, in search of alien life. This, too, proved unfruitful, as the other planets are as barren as the ones in our solar system. Now, with the Artemis device, we have confirmed the existence of other dimensions, and our forays into Artemis One have affirmed that intelligent human-like beings exist there. We have made contact, and we are negotiating a relationship of mutual benefit now. Now, we allow the public a rare glimpse into this other wo--" He was cut off very abruptly as a gunshot rang out across the square, followed by panic screams and a wave of motion through the crowd. As the well-dressed man collapsed, the soldier behind him whose rifle had fired stepped forward and kicked the podium down. The other soldiers executed the scientists on the platform with precise shots to the head. The leader made a signal with his hand, and the rest of the military personnel made a formation around the platform, leveling their weapons at the crowd.
Then they opened fire.
 
"Well then," Narrus remarked in response to the spectacle, which had somewhat predictably broken out into violence quickly. With a stroke of his crowbar-staff, the soldiers' rіfles began to appear as if their barrels were peeling away to reveal the flesh of a large banana underneath each one. While their effectiveness as weapons technically couldn't be affected by the illusion, it would make aiming them quite a bit harder even after the soldiers had puzzled out that nothing had actually happened to their firеarms.

"Now is the perfect time to strike!" An amplified cry sounded from some distance away from the square, and not long after several roofless cars filled with suit-vested figures who appeared to be part of some sort of gаng were screeching into the scene. Standing in the most extravagant of the black vehicles was a feminine-looking man whose appearance struck the exact same key as the Khalantan soldier Fauer's had earlier. "I am the Raven!" he shouted. "And the new reality shall be MINE! HMHMHMHAHAHA!" As he broke out into laughter, several windows in the nearby buildings revealed snіpers who wasted no time opening fire on the soldiers that had revealed their presence just a moment earlier.
"RAVEN!" The person who had been meandering his way through the crowd on the way to the party's position abruptly broke from the crowd to point at the gаng leader, facing a veritable legion of suits pouring from cars. "TODAY'S THE DAY YOU'RE GONNA—"
"FLY!" Raven interrupted Rook as if on key. "TODAY, I FLY!" He continued laughing manically but not doing much otherwise as the suits on the ground began to wantonly discharge their weapons as well.
"SHIT!" Rook shouted, somehow diving behind a conveniently-placed car to dodge every single one of the shots aimed directly at him. "Watch out, guys!" he called back to the group, likely giving away their position. "They mean business this time!"
"Goddammit, Rook," Vera muttered as she too broke for cover, her demeanor seeming much less urgent than the situation called for. A dust cloud rose from the earth as Karida, with an evasive maneuver of her own, invoked another wind spell as the immediate area became whipped with upward-blowing gusts. With any luck, it would make the enemies' bullets much less effective as the group was situated an equal distance between the soldiers and the gаngsters. Turns out wind spells... are some of the most useful ones around, she thought with a bit of reluctant amusement. SOMEONE'S not gonna let me hear the end of that...
Raven was struck by a stray gunshot and fell off of his car. "Ha... hmhmhmhaha!" The laughter quickly resumed, however.
 
The soldiers looked down briefly at their seemingly-ruined rifles, then, in sync, their weapons dissolved into white mist and reformed back into good-as-new firearms. Every bullet that struck them passed through with a wisp of mist to bounce off the ground. "What the fuck?" Val swore, watching their adversaries immediately overcome Narrus' illusion, as well as being totally unaffected by bullets. She turned to Richard. "There's something more to these guys. I'm going in. Seal it off behind me." The scientist nodded. He had already surrounded their group with thin layers of flexible force to protect them from the projectiles. The Seraph turned from him and concentrated. The air around her darkened, causing Kaylee to blanch and double over, and two dark-fire wings coalesced on her back. She took to the air, surrounding herself with a distortion field that caused bullets to bend around her, and touched down on the platform, in the middle of the supernatural soldiers. As she did, a flickering dome of force formed around them, sealing the enemies in with a very dangerous individual. She began laying about her with blasts of dark-fire as bullets whizzed by her head, but her opponents were a blur, moving faster than should have been possible and evading nearly every attack. The ones who were too slow shattered into gleaming white particles which nigh-instantly materialized into a fresh foe. Sweating from the exertion of commanding so much power as well as maintaining a protective field, Val focused her dark-fire into tight beams which she swept around her in a wide arc which was much harder to avoid. A surprising number of soldiers still ducked, jumped, or weaved around it, but more were hit. Whenever she saw that tell-tale shimmer of white, she focused a beam on it, and the mist burned away into nothing without reforming. So they CAN be killed. That's comforting. They were beginning to realize their guns were ineffective against her, and they slung their rifles on their back and began to close in around her. The Naphil held them back with a flare of dark-light and managed to kill a few, but not enough. As they approached, she realized she couldn't hold all of them off if they rushed her.

While Val fought the soldiers, Vance waved Excalibur around his head, creating a circle of light, before realizing that there was already a barrier protecting him, as a bullet bounced off his chest. He sprinted toward Raven's forces and jumped up on top of a car, swinging his pseudoscience sword around and transluminating waves of gang members. Despite the fact that by all rights it shouldn't have done a goddamn thing, it seemed to be quite an effective weapon. Richard was focused on maintaining his barriers, but he still found a moment here and there to send walls of force careening into the enemy ranks, crushing their bones and sending up sprays of blood. Kaylee, meanwhile, had dove behind a truck and was cowering there, her form shimmering.
 
Narrus wasn't sure exactly what was going on with the mist-soldiers, but if they were less than a cakewalk to deal with even for Val, they were trouble. More like a croissantwalk... No, a baklavawalk. That stuff's messy as all get-out... He thought to convert his staff into a wall-like paddle for a moment to push all of the mist-beings into one place, so they would be concentrated enough for Val to zap away several at once, but he knew there were several fallacies in that plan almost as soon as it had come to mind. He was positive that there was likely still some sort of barrier between Val's fight and everyone else's as well, either of Richard's make or Val's own, so instead he concentrated on getting rid of the roving gаng members on the other side of the party. He looked back and willed the entire scene of the event, Artemis mechanism and all, to appear on the gаng's side as though it had begun moving down the city street at a high speed. Those who were still packed in their cars with clown-like efficiency took the bait, leaving only the downed Raven, the snipers, and the other members with boots on the ground remaining. As for the snipers, they were foiled by the buildings' windows becoming covered in illusory bricks. I should fog up their scopes for good measur— Narrus stumbled for balance as he found his own self almost falling down much in the same way that Kaylee had before. Ah, the ever-present limit on god-modding. Things can't be too easy, I suppose. "What's going on with her?" he asked Vera of the keeled-over Kaylee as he recovered. "She's not about to evolve or something, is she?"
"She, ah... has a habit of turning into light every now and then." Vera had to pause her routine of shooting from cover to answer his question, but it just seemed that she had been simply passing time as many of her shots had been blind, despite the presence of Rook down the street.
"Kiel interese," Narrus murmured with a sigh as he peeked from behind their nondescript cover for a moment to make sure that his tiring illusion was still proceeding apace. It was, but it wasn't stopping Rook from a routine of repeatedly shooting his rival in painful but non-lethal places.
"What's that mean, Nichol?"
"Nothing."

They could be weak to fire, Karida remarked as she observed Val's clash with the mass of enigmatic entities before moving to offer help, since it was clear that it was quite a few foes to take on for even a mage of Val's standing. Knowing of the barrier between Val's fight and everything else but fairly confident that she could at least conjure something on the other side of it instead of crossing it, she took a wide stance when she had gotten as close to the scene of the fight as she dared to: unless Karida had been somehow powered up in preparation for these dimensional adventures, this spell would challenge her limits as a mage given all the magic she had already used. She took a breath and whispered the entire incantation in that single breath, wincing as she felt weak in the legs and her vision swam. However, Karida maintained her concentration and directed a wall of fire to spring up between one swath of the soldiers and Val, sweating from the sudden blast of heat.

Karida recalled the scene of the soldiers disintegrating and re-materialising and wondered with dread if they would simply do the same to float over the fire. Hopefully I at least bought her a few seconds of time, but...
 
Val glanced at the wall of fire Karida had conjured up to protect her. Thankful for it but lacking the time to properly congratulate the mage, she concentrated all of her power into a harshly intense aura of dark-light that was paradoxically painful to look at. Stabbing pain shot through her angelic body, causing her to tremble and bite her lip hard enough to draw blood. Her iridescent eyes began to glow as all of the light around her slowly disappeared until the only thing that was visible was the flame about her hands and the pinpoints of white-black that were her eyes; even the light of the flame was gone though the heat remained. The invisible distortion field around her faded as all of her energy was drawn elsewhere. Seemingly sensing the change and ignoring the lack of sight, her foes (besides the ones who were examining the wall looking for a way around it) rushed her all at once, booted footsteps echoing through the growing cloud of darkness. Desperately, the Seraph spread her arms and violently released some of the energy she had gathered. A wave of black-outlined whiteness spread from her in a chaotic blast that returned some illumination, revealing the disintegrating forms of every soldier around her. As they began to reform, she released the rest of that power, and the white clouds burned away. Light flooded the world around her, and the barrier of force Richard constructed shook and shattered with a piercing sound--like an anvil struck with a hammer underwater.

She dropped to her knees, the world dimming around her. Then, she was vaguely, incredulously aware of a white blur of a humanoid figure stalking straight toward her. How did he... She struggled to stand up, but her weak legs refused to hold her. The creature stepped up to her, and it formed a misty white blade and took hold of it. It was hard to tell where the hand ended and the sword started. She weakly stumbled backwards as it swung that terrible weapon, but the blow glanced off of thin air. Val looked past the figure to see Richard sprinting toward her. The mist began to strike repeatedly, and the barrier shook. Finally, it collapsed, falling inward in fading transparent shards. She rolled away, but the creature was much faster. Its weapon still caught her across the side. The Seraph screamed, and what seemed like an impossible pain radiated out like fire from the wound, engulfing her entire body. Briefly incapacitated in that terrible sensation, she reverted to the fetal position, tears streaming from her eyes and blood flowing from her side.

Richard slammed the creature with a wall of force before it could strike his compatriot again. The transparent attack sent it sailing some thirty yards away. It charged back toward, and the mad scientist glanced around and selected a large truck nearby. Encasing it in a shimmering aura of force, he picked it up and hurled it straight toward his assailant. Even the mist-creature was unable to avoid that devastating attack. Its form ceased to be cohesive as the vehicle passed through it. As the particles began to reform, Richard separated each individual piece of the cloud with walls of force. Hopefully, unformed, they'd not be able to break it. Then he rushed to Val's side.

"You two! Get over here!" He called back, moving the Naphil's arm and pressing down on the bleeding gash just above her thigh.

With Raven incapacitated, the remaining members of his gang began to dissipate, and the crowd had long dispersed. The square was littered with corpses, both civilian and thug. But it looked like this Realm was just about finished.
 
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"What were—" Narrus began before cutting himself off, knowing already that their comrades in this world would likely be woefully ignorant of the answer to his question. By the time he had reached Val and Richard, Karida was there as well, looking more than a bit fatigued as she leaned on her knees catching her breath. "Can any of us use water mag—" She stopped herself as well, shaking her head as she recalled that this wasn't a world of mages, least of all ones like herself. Each magical class had its own uses— fire for cauterisation and increasing body temperature, ice to slow infections and fevers, wind to soothe the skin and coagulate gashes, lightning to induce pain-relieving numbness; but the most medically effective element by far was water, the only one that Karida had no access to with her fire-predisposed spirit. She stooped to her knees and placed her hands near Val's wound as well, trying to nudge Richard's aside. "Gonna give it a little wind," she murmured through panting. "Help it set up faster..." She whispered an incantation, bringing it to an abrupt end with a gasp. The glow of her magical amulet was strong, easily shining through the scarf that usually served to conceal it. As a warm breeze akin to the feeling of opening an oven in a cold room blew onto the wound, Karida felt herself in free-fall in the midst of a void as her body and mind fell out of synch for a second. She caught herself on her elbows, blinking repeatedly as she tried to ground herself back in the world.

"Seems like that magic takes a lot out of you," Narrus observed, noting that the fiercer Karida's amulet glowed, the more her face blanched and the more disconnected with the world she seemed.
"It's the amulet," Karida murmured, perhaps unaware that she was barely audible. "It's easy to overuse, and when that happens..." She closed her eyes and pouted once, feeling that she did not have to end the sentence... or perhaps she didn't want to put the effort into speaking.
"Don't try to be too helpful, now," Narrus said jokingly, though what he said came off more awkwardly flat than humorously. "Seems like things are starting to get a little harder, after all, and there's only so much I can do with illusions. We're gonna need that magic of yours." He sighed, frustrated that he couldn't do anything to help a wounded companion but satisfied with his attempt to turn humor into pragmatism. "You don't have any first aid, do you?" he asked Vance.
"Hey, have you guys eaten yet?" Vera approached the scene with an atmosphere-breaking question. "We should reward you for a job well done!"
"What even did we do?" Narrus muttered, expecting no answer to emerge from Vera's stupidly happy visage.
"Doesn't that sound great, Kaylee?" Vera confirmed Narrus's presumption as she queried the keeled-over Kaylee before moving to help her up.
 
Vance shook his head at Narrus' question, but Liryc stepped forward, producing a small white box from...somewhere in his hoodie. "I figured I should start carrying one, after Vera got shot."
"Get me a gauze pad, medical tape and a roll of bandages out of it." Richard instructed clinically, looking at his bare hands, smeared with blood. There was little for it, however. He hadn't been sure if they'd had a first aid kit with gloves in it at first, and he didn't want to wait to confirm it in case the wound was serious. He took the supplies that Liryc handed to him, setting the pad on the gash and pressing down on it, then wrapping a segment of the roll around Val's stomach and securing it with the tape. The Seraph was beginning to recover her composure, and she had been a still patient. "T-thanks..." She stammered. The biologist shrugged. "It's not as bad as it looks." He reported. "It didn't go deep enough to hit any blood vessels or vital organs." While he had worked, he had been careful to keep a portion of his concentration on the barrier imprisoning the mist-creature. He glanced back it briefly. It was holding.
"Those things...I've never seen anything like them." Val said shakily. She looked at her wound and winced. "And their weapons burn like acid."
"We'll check the dressing periodically and make sure it isn't infected." Richard said.
"Well...Now that that's taken care of, what are you guys going to do now?"
As if on cue, blue light flooded the air around them, suffusing the atmosphere with a calm mood. Kaylee stared around her in wonder.

Val closed her eyes, bracing herself for the transportation she knew was about to happen.
And then...
...Nothing happened.
She opened her eyes. The light faded, then returned, stronger. Then faded again.
A vaguely familiar feminine voice echoed through her mind, speaking to Richard, Narrus, and Karida as well.
"This shouldn't be happening... Something is blocking me. I can't get through to you." Its tone was slightly panicked. "There's some kind of a dormant spacial distortion near you. I'll see if I can bend it to connect to your next destination, but I can't activate it from here. You'll have to figure out that yourself. ...Good luck."

Val swallowed. What was going on?
"Dormant spacial distortion?" Richard mused out loud. "What could she have meant by that? Well...this will be interesting."
 
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"Dormant..." Narrus murmured. "The Artemis?" he asked idly, glancing at the portal-contraption in the distance. "I'll take a look at it," he said, moving to approach the device. "Dr. Serrades, you have any idea how to make this thing operational?"
 
Vance followed Narrus up onto the platform. "I invented the technology that made this possible. I should be able to figure it out. Vera, come over here." The doctor examined the control panel critically, taking stock of all the dials and buttons. "I don't know what the dimensional coordinates for Artemis One are, but they should already be calibrated. I should be able to manage that. Vera, go make sure the capacitor lights on that side are on." He turned a knob labelled "intensity." "This was set way too low." He said with disapproval. "They couldn't have transported a mouse on that setting." Upon being told that only about half of the lights were on, he fiddled with several more settings until the lights dotting the arch were all gleaming red. "Aaand...Fire it up!" Vance dramatically threw a lever, and the entire contraption began to shake, the lights blinking on and off lightning fast. Several prongs, facing inward, fired incandescent red beams of light which pooled into a vertical sheet of energy within the arch. The light grew brighter and began to expand out away from the arch. Several pieces of the machinery were torn off with a scraping sound and pulled to the middle of the crimson vortex, where they disappeared. The portal grew larger, and a significant portion of the arch snapped off and vanished into it.

"Now or never!" Val yelled over the growing hum of the gateway. "I'd rather not be stuck here!" Grimacing, she stood up and sprinted toward the wall of red.
"Are you sure you didn't turn the intensity up too much!?" Richard demanded of Vance as he ran after Val.
"Um...I'm not entirely sure..." The scientist answered sheepishly, backing away from the portal.

After the group had gone through it, the portal collapsed in on itself, leaving nothing but a ruined Artemis and a stunned doctor staring at where it used to be.

-

The group found themselves standing on a vast field of grassland that seemed to stretch out forever. It was dark, in contrast to the bright noonday sun they had just left behind. The moon was nowhere to be found in the sky, and the only light came from a structure in the distance. It was a ziggurat of gray stone, stretching up toward the sky as if it claim its lofty perch for its own. It had several wider sections on the steps leading up, and at the top a blinding purple light flooded out like an inky cloud, consuming the blackness of the sky hungrily. A cold wind blew across the air, and everything was eerily quiet.

"What...is this place?" Val said uncomfortably. The lack of natural light severely limited her power, as she only had distortion to work with.
"I'm not sure. I don't see anyone around." Richard responded. "Logic would suggest that the Avatars are at that building."

The group warily marched toward it. As they came closer, they could make out more details. There were scattered crowds of people on the steps, staring up at the purple cloud spreading out from the top. The stones that made up the structure were etched with exotic symbols which glowed faintly. A single figure stood at the very top of the ziggurat, silhouetted by the lavender glow. Val cautiously stepped onto the first step, glancing nervously at a group of black-robed worshippers staring upward, enraptured. They totally ignored her. "I don't think they're aware of their surroundings..." The Seraph said. She climbed up farther.

It took several minutes for them to near the top of the building, but finally they were only a few steps away, standing on one of the wider sections they had seen from the field. "There's someone there." Richard said, stepping over to an inert body laying on the ground, shielding his eyes with his hand from the incandescent light above him. He knelt by them. It was a petite, fair haired woman, lying face down, wearing elaborate silver armour. He rolled her over and set two fingers against her neck. "Dead." He said quietly. Her eyes stared up into nothing, and there was a clean puncture, like a bullet hole, in her armour on her torso. However, her skin seemed unharmed beneath it.
"There's more bodies over here." Val called to him. One was a tall man in similar, black-toned armour, with a shadowy sword laying next to him. His wounds were more obvious; there was a still bleeding slash across his neck, and blood had pooled around his head. The next corpse was a brown-haired man in a dull peacoat. His clothes and skin were singed. The final victim was a young woman, hardly an adult, with brown hair. A small knife was lodged in her chest. Val felt sick to her stomach and had an electric feeling at the back of her neck. She knew suddenly that these people were the avatars. "Does that mean...we're too late? That's...that's not supposed to happen..."

She looked up at the man standing alone at the peak. His arms were outstretched, a book held in one, and beyond him a girl lay motionless on a raised stone platform. The light was emanating from her. The man didn't seem to have noticed them. "What...now?"
 
"... This isn't right," Narrus voiced everyone else's thoughts as they examined the apparently-dead avatars. "We could stop him," he said of the lone man ahead, who seemed to be about to perform some kind of sacrifice using the prostrate young woman as tribute. "Or save her." As he said this, he raised his staff just slightly, and the girl up ahead appeared to burst into purple flames, her flesh rising into the sky in dark tendrils, until there was seemingly nothing left. "Let's see if that fools him," Narrus muttered to let his comrades know that that had been an illusion of his making and the girl was in reality still lying on the platform.
 
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