"Got a 50. Revolver in there by any chance? I always wanted to try one of those out." Clayton said with a smirk on his face. It was a rare sight indeed to see even a smirk, let alone a smile, on his face. Not because he was an angry, jaded guy. Just because he was a serious guy, always focused on the situation and mission at hand. Eventually, they got around to freeing each other merc, quietly, of course, until they got to Evangeline. To Clayton, she looked soft. The kind of person who never wanted to get her hands dirty. Maybe a little spoiled by her life to that point, or simply from the profession she was in. "Who are you? You're not Maniacles or ROSE. At least, I've never seen you before while working with ROSE." Clayton asked suspiciously
Oh, great, someone was talking to her. Evangeline sighed and slowly opened her eyes, as if none of this really mattered to her. The vamp she'd seen on the rooftop earlier had entered and was trying to interrogate her or something, as if he was in charge around here. The thought was almost laughable. "Who am I? It's rude to ask a lady's name without introducing yourself first," she said lazily. "I suppose they didn't teach that in the barn where you were raised, for only a backwater hick could possibly not know who I am." Her gaze briefly flitted to the detective who had entered with him. "Or, perhaps the present company is dragging your intelligence down." She grinned. "Fear not, I am here to enlighten you. Both of you." She stood up because, clearly, she was not going to get the nap she so dearly wanted. And, clearly, these fools needed to be made aware of the vast, unfathomable, immense, ginormous mental power of the woman they were facing. They really just didn't get how infinitessimally small they were, compared to her. No one did. "Look, here's what's going to happen," she said softly, like a mother talking to a child. "You're going to go out there and destroy whatever they are using to block my magic.... OR, you're going to stand here, annoying me --as most people do-- and the missile strike I just phoned in will destroy it in your stead. Either way, once it's gone, I'm going to sit here, in this cell, --just like I am now-- but with a smile on my face, while EVERY CULTIST in this GOD-FORSAKEN HELLHOLE is torn LIMB FROM FUCKING LIMB for daring to cross Evangeline Albrite!! That's WHO THE FUCK I AM!!!" While she spoke, her tone slowly went from calm, to slightly annoyed, to if-there-were-a-table-here-it-would-be-sooooo-flipped-by-now. She was out of breath and beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. Once she was done, she sat back down and laughed quietly to herself. A thin stream of blood ran from her nostrils as she reached into her pocket and popped another pill. "By the way," she said to the detective, in a tone that was suddenly sweet again, "once all that unpleasantness is out of the way, we simply must have a talk about your customer service, dear. I mean, from one professional to another, your behavior when I called left much to be desired."
I grinned. "Your wish is my command." I pulled out a revolver with a black grip and a stainless steel finish. I held it out in front of me with both hands, aiming down the sights. "One of the most powerful revolvers around. This baby can stop a charging elephant... well that's what I've heard, at least. Holds six shots, and has a powerful recoil. If you're not careful, then it could dislocate your arm. However, with someone like you, I doubt that'll be much of an issue." I then retrieved a box of .50 ammo. "For your standard bad guy incapacitating needs." I then pulled out 4 far smaller boxes of ammo, each box one of four different colors, red, blue, green, and brown. "And for our abomination stopping needs. Each box holds six rounds of elemental ammo, created by yours truly. Fire, water, wind, and earth, hopefully these'll give you the extra "Oomph" you'll need when we go back up against their little pet." I handed them off to Clayton and retrieved my bracelet, slipping it back onto my wrist. "Much better... let's get going." After we released the others, we came across... her. "Of course you must get yourself involved in this, Eva." I sighed, I had pushed the tea set to the back of my mind once the giant man eating abomination reared its ugly head. Then she brought up the missiles. "Y-You... you did WHAT!?" I turned to Clayton. "We have to get moving, quickly. If this isn't some delusion that she's built up in her head, we might not have much time. I was hoping we could take our time and try to gather our equipment, but it looks like we'll have to just dig it from the rubble if it comes to that." I turned back to Eva. "You're lucky that it's me that's here and not someone else. They would just leave you here and let you see what happens when missiles hit a building." I knelt down and unlocked the padlock keeping her chained to the wall. "One last thing, you will not kill anyone unless needed, or I'll put an end to you, these people will pay for their sins. This is the exact reason that I did not want to take you with me, because you're unstable and liable to choose killing as the first option. However, I did not ever see the possibility that you would think that or even have the capability of dropping an explosive payload on a building that you yourself are in is a good idea." I sighed. "Do you at least know how to use a weapon or fight without magic?" I had a pretty good guess what that answer would be.
“Can’t you boys be more noisy?” Asked Aeon seemingly from another cell after a long yawn. “I was having a nice sleep you know?” “No wait, come to think it was a horrible dream. I was sitting there in a big theater and then in the center some kind of female dwarf began to play a banjo and sang the most horrible thing I ever heard. Damn! It was terrible!” Stated, if anyone could see him, his usual dumb smile would be painted on his face. He tried to move his body but then the heavy chains restricted his feet. Luckily, Clayton and the new mage arrived to free him “Well thanks, I was getting tired of this terrible stentch… oh wait, that’s Pam.” He looked in her direction waiting for a punch but… “Seriously? Sleeping? We’re in a dire situation girl! I vote for you guys not to release her” Despite his “joke” she was freed, and the team literally had a human weapon able to crush anything without resorting to magic. Aeon on the other hand had to resort to one of the revolvers. Luckily he still had “Isabella” his armor crafted with his magic, as it was just a change of structure, it remained as some sorts of metal plates on his clothes that their captors didn’t bother to remove. If I were to be able to use my magic I would crush this place with just a thought. Even the hardest metal can’t resist me. Thought with a grin on his face. “All right, let’s go. The name is Aeon, yours?” said asking to Joe but interrupted him before he could respond “Never mind, your face sounds kinda like Jace. I bet that’s the name, anyway, let’s get outta this place”
Clayton sighed "Damnit," He knew it was likely all a bluff, but wouldn't put it past her to do something like a carpet strike on the very area where she was. She was a mage, after all, and he knew as well as most vampires how bad mages could get when they finally lost their grip on sanity. Then again, there were two things going against the idea. The first was that while she was likely very wealthy and respected by other mages, if what she said about herself was true, she wasn't associated with any mercenary group that would launch a missile strike on a shit hole like this. There were no mage groups that had many military grade weapons, which lead to his second point. Mages used magic for almost everything. In the recent Templar assaults in the past few years, he had heard, when mages were stripped of their magic they had only their bare hands, their wit, and maybe some rag tag arsenal of baseball bats and molotov cocktails. They rarely used guns and when they did didn't carry much ammo. "Joe, calm down. We can't just go running crazy out of this building. Remember there are guards out there." Clayton loaded the 50. that Joe gave him "Besides, we got to be sure to complete our mission. DO you really think some missile strike is going to complete it for us? No, in this situation, the best thing we can do is look for a place underground, like a basement, a cellar, and hell, these cultists are pretty decently armed and well supplied, they probably even have a bunker specifically for this kind of thing." "And you" Clayton said, pointing at Evangaline "Shut up. You want those cultists coming in here and painting that cement wall with your brains? YOu can't use your magic in here, and don't expect me to take care of you."
"I understand that, nor was I saying that we should give up and go home, if I were, then it's likely that I'd probably already be out of here. I was merely stating that it's unlikely that this building will be able to last against a missile barrage, and I'm not sure if there's an underground bunker here, and if we're in here, I can't guarantee that I can do anything about our impending demise. I mean, I'm not sure if I have anything that can generate a shield powerful enough to protect us. If we go outside and out of the radius of the anti-magic field, or find some way to disable it, then with those that have magic, we may have enough strength to generate a shield powerful enough to protect us, or blast the missiles out of the sky before they turn us into mincemeat, or we can get out of the blast radius." I looked over at Eva. "Furthermore, as much as I'd love to believe that it's merely a delusion worked up by her fragmented psyche, I've learned over the past three years that I've been dealing with these kinds of things... never rule out any possibility, no matter how absurd or outright impossible, otherwise you'll end up dead. So, the sooner we get moving, the sooner we can make sure that we're all not just some splattered remains under the rubble of a slaughterhouse, we either need to begin exploring and looking for a suitable place to hide out until Eva's strike does or does not happen, or we need to escape the building as soon as possible."
Evangeline rolled her eyes. Boys... sad, small-minded creatures. She knew the detective was a moron, but she expected better from the vampire. How old was he, anyway? Old enough to know better. "If I may..." she said, raising a finger. "Has it ever occurred to either of you geniuses that I'm not quite crazy enough to drop live ordinance on my own head? Has it ever occurred to you that said missile strike is aimed somewhere other than this building and that leaving said building would put you in the line of fire?" She sighed and rolled her eyes again. This was so tiresome. These people... damn them all. She took a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped the blood from her nose, and tried to look proper. "Has it ever occurred to you that you could simply wait here until everything goes boom and use the chaos to do..." she gestured vaguely, "to do whatever action hero nonsense boys do in situations like this? Oh, but be sure not to hurt anyone with that big gun of yours," she said, wagging a disapproving finger at the vampire with the huge revolver. "Joey here might get all self-righteous on you. He does so love to preach. Hell of a high horse you've got there, detective. Is that horse shit or naivette I smell wafting off of you, darling?"
Serra sat down and rubbed her ankles where the chains were attached, having been stripped of her armor and weapon put at quite a disadvantage being a regular human, at least one of her fellow captives was just pulling shit out of small sack, "sheez" she shook her head and mumbled "magic just keeps and getting more ridiculous" she stood up and faced him "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have anything in your magic sack for someone like me would you?...oh and has anyone seen and small vamp, looks like he'd be fifteen. he broke out soon after we woke up and ran off growling something about his kamas" ---------------------- Keenan had in fact escaped the chains and the cell and hadn't been there when the others freed Serra, He was instead stalking down a hall after a cultist he'd found carrying his cherished weapons. Though he didn't know where the others' gear was and he really didn't care. He took the opportunity to charge and tackle the cultist into a side room, grabbing the kamas off him in the process. There were two more of those cultists through that door, looking up from whatever they were doing to the commotion through the door. All he did was calmly look at his weapons and murmur "still got some fire in them" he eerily looked at the cultists "this should be quick" following that the two kamas lit up with lightning across their blades and he lunged toward them. Keenan was right, the fight didn't last long, and soon he was standing in a bloody room with three corpses strewn about. "hmm, i should get back to the others" and with that he slinked back out to the hall and headed back towards the cells.
A form slunk through the catacombs of the lower cells, leaping to the ceiling at different intervals, pausing, before moving along. Atop it's head, something that looked like a cat ear twitched and swiveled. If you were to look at it in the gloom, a bizarre shine would be in it's eyes, more than five feet off the floor. It was thin, and lanky, with athlete muscle just beneath the surface of the skin. Every now and then, a hand would pop out and slap the wall, before moving on. Eventually, it came across a cell with two thuggish guards at the door. A quick "fwit," filled the air before the guards toppled over. Cautiously, the form knocked at the door.
I looked over at the woman. "Oh, yeah, I might have something you'd want. It's best for us all to be armed. But, don't expect anything too fancy, usually I only create specialized weapons on request or in the event that I'm dragging someone into the field with me. What weapons do you specialize in? Or do you have a specific thing in mind?" I crossed my arms, taking a quick inventory in my head of what I had in my container. "Well I specialize in powered armor, as I feel like you might not have something along those lines some kind of assault rifle will do, you know, like a Kalashnikov, M4, G36. If you got something like that?" Serra shrugged in Joe's direction. "I don't really know what you mages carry around" "Uh... I think I have an M4... a customer requested it a while back, some doomsday prepper. I think he believed that his magic would be sealed away. The guy never came for it, I think he got very paranoid and shut himself up somewhere. Well, his loss, I can't hold onto it forever." I slowly pulled it out of the bag, then pulled out the magazine. "Unfortunately, I don't do a lot of orders for assault rifles, and since it wasn't ordered I don't have any elemental ammo for you, I'm sorry." I bowed politely and pulled out a box of ammo for the rifle and handed it to her. "Hopefully the craftsmanship is to your liking." Serra hefted the rifle, aiming down the sights experimentally "Hmm seems alright, sights could be a little better, barrel could be a little...eh, nevermind, It'll do thanks" she took the box of ammo and sat down against the wall to start loading shells into the magazine, looking back up at Joe for a second "oh, name's Serra by the way" I bowed politely, a calm smile on my face. "Joseph Hikari Nobunaga, alchemist and detective at your service. It is nice to meet you, Ms. Serra." I then turned back to Eva, a cold look in my eyes, a thin smile crossing my lips. "You're calling us the idiots...? What, pray tell, was your plan after you created this diversion with missiles? You'd still be chained up, as would the rest of us, the only difference would be that there would be less raving psychopaths. Furthermore, you do realize that town has been there for a long while and the swamp has basically retaken it, yes? That means that from a bird's eye view of this place, it'll look exactly like any other stretch of land. So, when they drop off their payload, there's a possibility that they'll still bomb this area, and you've still gotten us all killed. Congratulations, your genius astounds me." I gave an exaggerated bow, then, I heard a knock on the door... "Uh oh..." I took a deep breath. "Looks like we have some company, everyone get ready, we probably will have a fight on our hands." I was the only person around with a short range weapon... The only person I could see knocking on the door would be another cultist... we're the only survivors, after all. I pulled out the rapier resting in my belt loop and walked up to the door. I grabbed the handle, twisted it... then flung the door open and immediately thrust my rapier forward, hoping to catch the person on the other side of the door by surprise.
In a move that seemed almost superhuman, the form dodged to the side, and a gun seemed to appear in the sword owner's face, the barrel eye to eye with the detective. The owner of said gun seemed to be scowling, though his eyes seemed to sparkle. Cat ears twitched amidst pink and purple hair, and a tail twitched behind him. His ensemble seemed more subdued, a black suit made of some unidentifiable material, leaving arms bare. A tattoo of a purple and pink cat tail curled down his gun arm. His left arm, however, had the tattoo of a cat's tail decorated in card suites. The hand of that one was covered in something with claws at the end of the fingertips. "Very rude of you," he simply stated.
I looked at the man before me, a calm smile on my face, my eyes quickly flitting to the rest of the room. "I would say that it's also rude to kidnap people to use as sacrifices, however... I sincerely doubt that you're with them given the state of these men, either you knocked them out or they suddenly got very tired." I lowered the rapier and backed away slowly before sheathing it. "I do apologize." I bowed apologetically. "If we get out of here, I'll try to make it up to you, maybe a discount on an order?" My eyes kept flicking to his tail and ears. "Are... those real...?" I did my best to keep my composure... but... they were adorable...!
The catboy shrugged, and holstered his gun, glancing at the room behind the swordsman. "Hrrrm, this looks like a bigger crowd than I thought..." he muttered, glancing at the dark catacombs. "And I take it you guys don't know your way around..." He pressed the front of a device on his wrist and a flashed on screen. "And it looks bigger than the blueprints said... How many of you guys are armed?
"U-Um... well let's see... most of us are armed thanks to your friendly neighborhood alchemist, but our original equipment has been confiscated." I raised my hand and chuckled, it was clear that I was growing more nervous. "Keep it together Joe!" I looked back at the group, a faint blush appearing on my cheeks, my fists were clenched. "U-Uh... let's see... we have one missing, but there should be seven of us, including myself and the missing person." I glanced back at him and my eyes were brought back to the cat ears and the tail. This guy was so freakin' adorable! I can't stand it anymore! "U-um... forgive me for this." I needed to get it out of my system, like... now! I suddenly charged forward and brought him into an almost crushing bear hug and twirled him around. "Please let me take you home~!" After about a second of that, I let him go, rubbing the back of my head, my face completely red. "I-I'm so sorry! It's out of my system, I swear, no more." I looked to the side. "For right now at least. I really need to stop doing that..."
"You're calling us the idiots...? What, pray tell, was your plan after you created this diversion with missiles? You'd still be chained up, as would the rest of us, the only difference would be that there would be less raving psychopaths. Furthermore, you do realize that town has been there for a long while and the swamp has basically retaken it, yes? That means that from a bird's eye view of this place, it'll look exactly like any other stretch of land. So, when they... blah blah blah babbidy blah I'm an idiot who thinks he knows everything. And blah, by the way." Evangeline just tuned him out at the end. The man seemed far too enamored with the sound of his own voice. She sighed for what seemed the thousandth time today and calmly cleaned her fingernails while she waited for him to finish making a fool of himself. "The answer to your first question is 'you' and the answer to your second is 'GPS,'" she said, quite plainly. "I don't do my own running and jumping and fighting; I leave that part to you people. I already spelled out that part of 'the plan.' And who the hell drops ordinance by line-of-sight anymore? What is this, 1942?" She looked him up and down and grinned. "Nice sword by the way. Correction: 1842." After cat-man showed up and he and the detective made one another's acquaintance, Evangeline stepped forward. Ten minutes had passed, and the general still hadn't come through. Still no missile strike. Maybe he wasn't a man of his word. See what happens when you trust a war criminal? she thought. All I asked you to do is fire a few cruise missilies on American soil. Is that too much to ask? Once this was all over, she'd have to pay him a visit and personally let him know how disappointed she was. This sort of thing cannot be tolerated. In the meantime, she'd just make do with what she had. Evangeline swallowed her pride and approached the detective. "I would like a gun..." She lurched as if she might vomit, but somehow managed to squeeze out one more word, barely above a whisper: "...please."
“I like how you are meeting each other nicely. Friendship is good ” Stated Aeon with a dumb smile on his face. “But enough chitchat, we have a chance and we’re wasting it by talking, let’s get out this place ASAP” Said as he readied the revolver that Joe gave to him. I hope no weird fanatic show up at the corner… Thought as he walked. "Hey you, lynx man" said to the newcomer. "Does the anti magic field affect your physique? If not, care to give us a hand?"
"Does the anti magic field affect your physique? If not, care to give us a hand?" "I guess not," the catboy said, tapping at his wrist again. "Probably because whatever gave me my appearance affected my actual DNA.... ah, here. Hatter, I've found some prisoners. Where you at?" A voice came out of the wrist device, somewhat staticy. "I'm up top, keeping a lookout, Cheshire. White Rabbit hacked into the security, and is trying to take command of the missile center. We have a few minutes. Should be easy to get out. Relatively speaking." "Excellent!" Cheshire said, stretching. "Alright, we're gonna play it smart. I've set up some time release bombs to go off and there's a van outside. If you can fight, fight."
I blinked a few times, I at least expected Eva to give me some ridicule for my actions, and this cat guy too... since I did kind of... grab him, hug him, and spin him around, asking him if I could take him home... I'm... just not going to bring it up right now and hope that it just slides by. I turned to Eva and gave her a sly grin. "Fine, I guess I can give you something." I reached into my bag and pulled out a small single shot self defense revolver. "Here, because if you go a little nuts and shoot at us, you'll only have one shot to do so, and I'd pray to whatever deity you believe in that you manage to make it count if you decide to do so." I handed the small revolver and a single bullet to her. In actuality, I didn't know if she had ever handled a gun before, and if she gets startled, or get into a gun fight, I'd rather her not try to just spray and pray, and end up shooting one of us by accident instead. I turned to the cat person, Cheshire, by what his comrade called him. "I'm sorry, but I can't leave, not yet. I mean, if you all want to leave, you all can, but I can't, not when I might be so close. This sect is still fully operational, more people can and will get hurt, they'll continue their rituals, and they'll keep edging humanity closer and closer to the abyss." I turned to the others. "You've all probably lost comrades, and I'll understand if you'll want to abort this mission, it only makes sense due to the casualties that you've suffered thus far, if we continue, the possibility of death is quite high,." I didn't wait for anyone's response, I simply walked out of the room, since the strike didn't happen, I had all the time I needed to prepare, first stop, find my weapon. This rapier is alright, but it's not quite my weapon of choice, and this is made of inferior materials compared to my scythe, it could easily be broken by any vampire or mage. At least I won't have to search too far, the slaughterhouse isn't too big, and I'm sure that they just tossed everything in the nearest empty room.
"Wait!" Clayton interjected as everyone seemed eager to rush out of the slaughterhouse. "Whats to stop Sanders from doing...whatever he did to halt our magic and stun us again? There is clearly a magic halting device, or better yet a charm or talisman in this very building. Yes we just escaped the chains and are making friends with a cat man here, but we should find whatever it is and use it to our advantage. And nobodies abandoning the mission."
I looked down and then turned around smirking, punching my fist into my hand, a fire in my eyes. "Leave it to me, just get me close enough, and I can hold him off long enough for you to deal with the rest of the cultists! I guarantee it with all the authority that I have as the detective!" I grinned easily. "Besides, we still have to find our original equipment before we just go rushing in there, there's a good chance we'll find whatever's creating the magic barrier, however, I don't know if it'll be portable, for all we know, it could be a large generator or something, in fact, it could be an enchantment on this very building rather than anything physical. But it might be more disadvantageous than you might think for us, considering that we'll also still have to be dealing with that abomination of theirs, magic may be necessary to take it down."
"Ein" Keenan calmly walked past the body as it fell to the ground, the calm demeanor was for intimidation, he's found that when you're fighting something that's not bothered by fighting you it inspires a bit of worry and doubt about your ability to beat it. "Tveir" He pulled his kama back from the second victim of his slow advance down the hall, the count was purely a whim as was switching languages with each number. A moment later he swung a kama out again, letting it go and using the chain to guide it's flight as it tore along one of the walls and into the third cultist. "Trzy" not a second after that one hit had a cultist came bursting out of a side door swinging a scythe down at Keenan, who easily parried the strike by hooking the haft of the weapon with a blade following quickly with a stab to the cultist's chest. "Ceithir" He pulled the scythe from the corpse's hand and hefted it, it was light and made fairly decently, by human standards at least, it was far from being near some of the what he's seen, but it could do, he'd play with it for now. The handle was a bit long for him though, made it a little awkward to swing especially in these close quarters, but it was good for hooking, a tactic he used to pull the fifth cultist toward him for the finishing blow. "Pět" He should be close to the cells now... ----------------------- Serra finished putting rounds into the clip and loaded the magazine into the rifle. She stood up and watched to see what the others were doing. whatever their plan was her intention was to find Keenan or her armor first.
Tired of waiting, Aeon took the foolish initiative to run toward the first exit he could find. After crossing a few turns he come to find two figures wearing a shady robe.... Damn, fanatics.... Luckily they hadn't seen me yet.... Thought while spying their backs. I can get a clean shot to them. He carefully aimed his gun to the back of one of the cultist's head. Slowly pressed the trigger, not sure of what kind of ammo was the gun loaded with. And then.... A strong bullet charged with a small gust of wind was ejected. In just an instant traveled the distance between Aeon and the cultists. The recoil powered by the wind was so strong it literally pushed Aeon a couple of steps back. Yet the bullet hit the wall, missing its target and the gust of wind was loud enough to warn the two figures. Oh right, I have a terrible accuracy thought with a smile on his face. The two turned to him, their faces weren't friendly, and then they readied their weapons. I may be in a bit of trouble. "Heeey guys, I kinda need a bit of help!!!" exclaimed through the corridor.
Clayton's face reddened as he heard the yell of his mage comrade from the hall outside the room. Nothing annoyed Clayton more than having to work with idiots who compromised the mission by putting themselves in danger. Aeon could have avoided that whole situation by not running off ahead of the group. As soon as Clayton spotted the cultists about to attack Aeon, his Wild West quickdraw gunslinger skills kicked in. Time seemed to slow down a good bit, even though no time alteration had occurred. It was merely his own skill and experience. Clayton had been in and won so many shootouts that he could aim, draw, and fire all in a smaller amount of time than most people could figure out what was happening. Two shots went off, but it was so quick it sounded like one, and both cultists slumped to the ground dead with crimson blood leaking down their faces. "You damn mages all think you're the shit." Clayton said to Aeon "Did you learn your lesson?" He asked same caustically, ready for more cultists to show up.
"This isn't good.."This isn't good..." I turned back around and rushed through the door. But, I heard footsteps coming from the opposite direction from the commotion. I quickly turned and brandished my rapier, only to come face to face with a teenager holding a kama and... my scythe! I slowly lowered my rapier, remembering what Serra had said, a 15 year old vampire looking for his kamas. "Ah, you must be Keenan." I lowered my rapier. "Sorry." Keenan stopped in his tracks and swung the scythe down when someone just burst around the corner, in his brief started state he managed to embed the scythe blade about halfway into the ground before he realized that the person was friendly, or at least wasn't a cultist "uh, no problem?" Serra ran out after Joe, coming up behind him when he stopped and seeing Keenan "oh hey kid, there you are" she waved over Joe's shoulder. Keenan easily pulled the scythe out of the ground and rested it on the ground, holding it like a walking stick he waved back with his other hand "Hey, Serra, I see you found those others?" "Yep, I helped her out... but uh... could I get my scythe back?" I pointed at it as a gunshot rang out from the direction where Aeon and Clayton had went. "Our comrades may very well be in danger, and from that gunshot, we're going to want to get moving, like... now." "oh, this is yours" Keenan handed the scythe over "you might wanna get it looked at, whatever guy you got it from was either an idiot or ripped you off" once Joe took the scythe he looked down the hall from where the gunshot came from "if we really wanna help we're gonna need to find her armor" he gestured at Serra Serra turned back from also looking down the hall "Yeah, I can probably handle some of these cultist guys with just a gun, but if we start coming across those creatures again i'm gonna be basically useless without it" "...I made it myself." I looked to the side and sighed, hefting the scythe over my shoulder. Everyone's a critic... I pulled off my trench coat. "Here." I held it out to her. "I know it doesn't look like much, but I've managed to make it tougher than kevlar, and more importantly it's lightweight. It should be a suitable replacement for your armor until we find it." I hoped that she would assume that the rest of my clothing was like that and just take it without question... so long as I make it out of the anti-magic field if I'm seriously injured, I should be fine. Serra took the coat and look back and forth between Joe and the coat for a second before bringing up the M4 and firing a round into the coat, seeing it bounce off and land on the floor. "you know" she leaned the rifle against the wall and slipped on the coat "I don't think I'll ever get this whole 'magic' thing" she picked up the rifle again "you know" Keenan suddenly said "I think your friends are just fine" he pointed down the hall where he could here Clayton yelling at someone. "Not magic, alchemy." I grinned. I turned to where he was pointing. "That's good... we should go join back up with them." I held a button down and quickly folded the scythe back down into a plain black rectangular box. "There, don't want to snag it on any doorways." I chuckled. "alright then, you lead the way" Keenan gestured forward down the hall for Joe to go first then followed just after, with Serra just behind him still fiddling with some of the buttons on the trenchcoat as she walked.
While the others were busy goofing off, Evangeline decided this would be a good time to figure out how to load the gun, since the detective, in his infinite wisdom, decided to give it to her without putting the ammunition in the damn thing. Rather than risk looking silly in front of the others, she waited until they were gone before she set about figuring out which orifice to cram the round into. It's only one bullet. How hard can it be? Naturally, she figured it out rather quickly. She was the smartest person in the room, after all. Did you expect anything less? Still, this seemed like an awful lot of work just to kill one cultist. If they'd hurry up and shut down that damned anti-magic field, she could kill hundreds without lifting a finger and without shoving stupid lead projectiles into a metal tube. Guns... stupid guns. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Once the gunfire ceased, Evangeline joined the others in the hall. She arrived just after the detective, the vampire kid, and soldier girl. The bossy vampire and some other guy were already there. Eventually, she might bother to remember their names. But, for now... ehh, who cares? "You damn mages all think you're the shit," the bossy vampire was saying. "Did you learn your lesson?" "Some of us are the shit," Evangeline said. "If you'd spend less time barking orders and more time getting rid of whatever is disrupting our magic, I would be more than happy to show you just how powerful a real mage is... but, until that happens, I'll be over here, behind you." She could hear the cultists coming. "Do your best, darling."
