EMBRACED [Event]

Gluttony didn't even notice the helicopter. He was focused on the fact that he could see the dragon, that there was suddenly his target within range, that he could tear the thing to shreds with his bare hands. And then another target registered, not the he was an immediate focus. The cat manipulator was something to be dealt with later, once the dragon was dead and everything went to normal.

And then the dragon decided to make things easier on Gluttony in the future.

The spear suddenly piercing the cat horde actually elicited a smile from the sin. Given the number of supers around, they could afford a loss. The fact that it had taken so long was slightly more surprising than the fact that it happened in the first place. And that it was an opponent, one that Gluttony would be forced to contend with eventually; it was quite the fortunate turn of events for him.

The pressure wave that followed didn't do much but push Gluttony far away from the main body and into a particularly thick cloud of spores. He had spent enough time around Lust to immediately recognized when he was under the mental influence of something else, so the subtle suggestions given by the dragon did little but make it noticeable. Gluttony activated his powers, which, unfortunately for the dragon's spores, burns away everything within his body for fuel. The mental suggestions stopped immediately.

Climbing to his feet, Gluttony decided to wait for his fellow sins before making a move. It would be better to wait and attack as a group than to rush in and get himself killed the same way as Big Martin.

Other than her little ballet with the thralls, Lust hadn't been paying much attention to the ongoing battle with the Dragon, and was caught by surprise when some kind of massive explosion sent her flying. Her momentum carried her through a (thankfully broken) window and into the open air, high above a street bristling with massive spikes. She let out a yelp of surprise, something deep within her mind screaming at the realization that she was about to die.

Then, acting on pure instinct, she twisted her body in midair, spreading her legs and arms out wide as she flew towards a massive, razor-sharp protrusion left by the dragon earlier on. There was a horrifying tearing noise as it made contact, punching straight through its soft, pink victim.

Fortunately, though it speared easily through Lust's dress, the spike barely missed Lust herself. Her snagged clothing held together just long enough to yank her to a halt, saving her from flying into other nearby spikes, before it ripped cleanly in half, dropping her the rest of the way to the ground.

Coming down lightly on her feet, Lust stood and stretched again, now clad only in her bright red underwear. What a scary experience that had been! Apparently she hadn't been the only one hit, either, because in that brief moment of flight she'd glimpsed someone else crashing down nearby.

Strutting easily through the inhospitable terrain, she approached the fallen super, and gasped. Blue Jay! The Bulwarks' cutie with the amazing sword, fallen at her feet! Oh, this was her lucky day...

The first thing Blue Jay would see as his mind cleared after the crash was an almost-naked woman standing over him, posing flirtatiously and leaning forwards to give him a good look at her ample assets. Moving as smoothly as honey dripping from a spoon, she came down, straddling his waist as she reached forward and tenderly caressed his chest.

Then her expression suddenly turned to one of disgust, and she sprang off him. "Ew! Ew ew ew, what the fuck?" The handsome, sexy hero was covered in some kind of weird fungal shit, which seemed to have burrowed into both his costume and his flesh in places. She writhed and ran her fingers down her legs, brushing off any hint of the stuff that might have touched her.

It only took her a moment, and then she stepped towards Blue Jay, more aggressively this time, grabbed one arm, and hauled him to his feet. "What have you been doing? Idiot!" She slapped him hard across the face, leaving a sting that felt both incredibly good and rather painful at the same time. "Go clean yourself up, now." Her face softened a little. "Come and see me when you're feeling better, okay?"

She shoved him aside like the trash he was. So frustrating! She'd been waiting far too long to get some quality time with him, and when she finally got her chance, the Dragon had to ruin it all. Who knew when such an opportunity might come again? Anger flared within her. Playtime was over, that plant was going to die.

First, however, she needed to make sure her pets were all right. If Limen or Envy had been touched by those horrible spores, or hurt by the shockwave, then she needed to help them. Sprinting through the streets, she called their names as loudly as she could, in a beautiful soprano cry filled with her power. "Limen! Envy! I'm coming, hold on! Please, for me, don't die just yet!" She could only hope her voice gave them enough strength to keep going, until she could find them both and keep that dirty Dragon's fingers away from her dears.

Using Speedy Assistance trait on Blue Jay and Limen.

The shockwave that blew glass into the floor and her several feet back was a suitable wakeup call. As the distant tones of Lust’s voice drove away the last of the voice that had moved into the back room of her head, Limen picked herself up and shook herself up. Before getting herself to her feet, she took the hand of the woman who had forgiven her, giving her a soft, thankful smile. She still hadn’t any clue who she was, but she was glad to have run into her. Circumstances aside. Limen swung herself up, pulling the woman with her regardless of if she needed it or wanted it.

There was a moment’s hesitation she hadn’t felt as soon as earlier today upon hearing Lust’s unmistakable call, but this was soon gone from her mind. When she caught sight of the Pandaemonium herself soon after, she gave her a wide, cheerful wave.

“Yo Lust, what happened to your dress?” Limen called from the window. Letting go of Envy’s hand, she pulled her arms inside of her sweatshirt and wrestled it over her head. Balling it up, she called down again to Lust, “You’re the one who’s going to be catching your death if you’re not careful!” and gave the article of clothing a good chuck.

What she had on was what Limen always had on underneath this time of year - today’s choice black sleeveless, washed yesterday because she figured the dragon was going to be bad for coin laundry business. It revealed, for one, the stark contrast between Lust’s figure and her own boxy form, but also the reason why she was worrying for Lust’s state of wellness. The black spores had seeped down to her skin. Black splotches, now vanishing slowly, had settled into the numerous remains of gashes, burns, and trailing from her upper right back, deep claw marks, that covered her arms. The only places the spores blended was in the few recent bruises and burns Limen had acquired - and with the baring of her arms, the source of the later too became visible.

She really doubted she would be punching the dragon, and so Limen was seeing little need for the generator, book-like in size and shape, strapped carefully flat against the small of her back. Wires (fraying in a few places) ran from both of its sides up her arms so the loose ends hung in carefully tied knots near her wrists. They were held in place by a couple of repurposed armbands, each of which Limen undid and pulled off. Clicking latch on the strap holding the generator itself to her back, she likewise unwrapped it from her waist. The whole device clattered to the ground with a satisfying, freeing thunk.

Limen stretched her arms over her head and cracked her neck. The fight wasn’t over yet, and if the dragon thought it could beat them with glorified city smog, it had another thing coming. Specifically three badass supers on a motorcycle that hasn’t sounded too broken and so hopefully wasn’t.

Scooping up her bow along the way, Limen trotted over to the forlorned bike left swooned on the desk. With a good yank, she pulled it onto the linoleum, and gave the key a good three turns for charm. The motorcycle purred to life, not quite dead yet either. Best of all, she spied a desk remains that would serve fine as a ramp.

She gave the two women a wide grin and slipped into the bike’s seat. “You guys ready to go kill this asshole?” Revving the gas, she nodded for the two of them to get on. She would be - slightly - more careful not to crash it this time.

Ophiuchus was glad his attacks had taken out the dragon-influenced buildings. Unfortunately, the presence of a news helicopter seemed to make the dragon fly into a rage and he was blown off his feet. Thankfully, the snake-man's scales and toughened skin cushioned the impact and his snakes were agitated but otherwise unharmed. As Ophiuchus got to his feet, he saw thick clouds of spores being spewed into the air as the dragon's growth exploded over the Horizons building. He knew he couldn't do much on his own so he made sure all three of his snakes were coiled around his body again and headed to where the other supers seemed to be congregating.

Unhallow was practically blind because of the spores in and around them coupled with the nature of the battlefield flooding them with information. It was getting to the point where they were starting to have great difficulty even making out things that they should be able to see with no problem, such as the ground, allies, and even that helicopter in the sky. They could make out the shapes somewhat, but they were starting to have difficulty telling what they were because of everything else their mind was being flooded with. They were blind to everything going on and had no idea how much progress they were making against the dragon, or even what it was doing. Unhallow had no idea if everyone was dead, or if they were getting ready to deal the final blow. It seemed unlikely that they had already won because the infinite spirals were still there, but that was the only thing they could even guess about at this point.

"I can't see anything!" Unhallow finally shouted in frustration.

Without giving it much thought, Unhallow started unfastening their helmet, ripping it off their head hard enough that it left a little bit of a bump on their chin. They understood that the helmet was there to not only protect their identity, but make the best use of their powers. However, that didn't apply in this case. Protecting their identity didn't even seem important anymore in the grand scheme of things. Who were they going to go after? Their family? They were all dead. Their friends? They'd separated themselves from them soon after getting their powers because a couple of them were too huggy to be around them anymore. They had no civilian life at this point, and the idea of the police going after them was just laughable. Even if they weren't thinking about it right now it was something they had given a great deal of thought towards in the past, and given the current situation, the idea of people knowing who they were wasn't enough to even register in their mind.

Unhallow's hair cascaded behind them, pooling into a circle on the ground next to her, and staying that way even as she sat up. Her eyes were a dark blue, but before they could even get a glimpse of the battlefield, everything went white. The force was enough to knock them off the side of the building. She was suddenly very glad that she took off her helmet because she still couldn't quite tell where the rest of her body was with her super senses, but her eyes could at least see her arms and her hands relative to the wall, allowing her to grab onto the edge of the roof before she went flying off. Sadly, Unhallow lacked the upper body strength to pull herself up, but it was still better than falling to her doom. For the first time she could actually see what everyone was fighting, and the only thing she could think was how it looked like they hadn't made any progress at all.

HaLOS was expecting the dragon to finally appeared, it was expecting something along the line of a giant beast emerge from its slumber. What it didn’t expect was a bright light and a shock-wave that knock it straight into the ground below. The damage from the sudden impact to the ground almost cause it to lose connection to the unit; even still, the robotic form took quite a damage from both the shock-wave and the falling.

“A-Annarlyzine d-d—damaage report…” its voice-modulator is broken again, now HaLOS can only communicate with fragmented, white-noise fill word, “Eeeneging boostler issss deeesroy, inppppput energy dedccreasing by 55555550% margin.”

This was quite a bad situation indeed; HaLOS can still control the unit from where it is at the moment, but because of it losing half of its power and its ability to fly, its combat against the dragon has decrease quite significant. It can still scan the area around it to see the thousands upon thousands of spores coming down from the sky. Everywhere through the still functioning CCTV cameras, it can only see the darkening city because of the spore blocking the sun. And the Horizon building that it saw from earlier is still standing with all of the creature’s corruption all over it.

Even though the spores will do nothing to HaLOS as it fell onto its metal body, they can still do quite an issue in its mobility. There’s no time to bring it back to the workshop to fix it; HaLOS just have to keep fighting until it can no longer move its robotic form any longer.