EMBRACED [Event]

Her efforts didn't seem to be slowing them down much, and she couldn't dissolve the machines that had already been taken over. Aurora big on her thumb and attempted to clear her mind and think again, but it was near impossible right now. It had nothing to do with the chaos, she had little trouble thinking during chaotic battles like this, it was everything else. Just thinking about anything relating to these creatures made her want to think about something else, and even when she forced herself her mind felt cloudy, she felt nauseous, and she felt horribly uncomfortable.

In her thoughts, as distracted as they were, she barely noticed the cloud of spores heading her way. By the time she did they were high enough and rising quickly enough that she couldn't just fly over them. The world seemed to slow down, and most of the world barely registered anymore. Even the exploding helicopter was more like a dull roar in her ear than a loud explosion, and she didn't even appear to notice any of the fire. All she could see was this rising cloud of horror and no way out. Her aurora clustered around her in an attempt to at least keep some of it at bay, and she closed her eyes and held her breath for as long as she could. Once she could no longer feel the displacement in her own particles from the spores, she opened them again hoping for the best.

What she saw was not the best. The spores were visibly sinking into her clothes. Her eye widened, her pupils dilated and her whole body started shaking. Aurora let out a high pitched shriek as she dissolved her coat into a mass of particles. It'd be difficult to see with her aurora around her, but both her coat and her shirt were dissolved. Under them were a thin bullet proof vest and a skin tight leotard that matched her skin tone so well the only thing giving it away was the way it bunched up in her elbows. The spores were seeping through that too, which caused her to quickly pull up the sleeves of her leotard. They were seeping through her skin too, and she couldn't just pull that off. Once again, she felt her mouth go dry and her heart rate speed up. At this point, she was visibly sweating, and her whole body was quivering. A large part of her wanted to get out of here again, but that was overruled by the part of her that wanted to murder this dragon as quickly as possible. She reformed her coat back around her and clenched her fists. She needed to find that dragon right now.

"Where the hell is it?"

Her voice was filled with an obvious combination of anger and panic. She no longer cared about keeping this place relatively in tact. If that beast was going to be a coward and hide behind its army, that just meant she had to try harder to flush it out. She started taking large chunks out of the buildings and the ground looking for any sign of something unusual. The thralls barely meant anything to her, and she was barely registering the other supers at this point. The only reason she wasn't pulling the ground out from under them was because her power wouldn't let her.

Action: Maneuver (Alteration) against Incomplete Thralls

They were still holding back. She could hear it in their minds, feel it in their emotions, and it was obvious in their actions. Seraphim covered her mouth with her arm before the bloated ones started pouring spores everywhere and moved to where they wouldn't be in a few seconds. That should spare her the worst of the spores at least. Her assault on the thralls on the buildings didn't seem to be doing much anyway. They moved too quickly and were far too coordinated making them difficult to hit. There was no need to keep that vantage point. Soon, spores filled the area, and the dragon even managed to kill one of the allied supers. From what Seraphim understood of the girl's power this wouldn't slow her down much, but given the nature of the girl's power she doubted she'd mind if Seraphim used her to make a point.

"One dead, one likely infected, several more possibly infected. This is what happens when you don't give it your all in fights against dragons. Don't focus on the dead, focus on the living, or you're simply leaving them to die or dooming them to the same fate."

She made sure to speak loudly through a nearby portal. She hoped they listened, but she wasn't counting on it at this point. At the very least, her own team was fighting effectively, and there were a few people that were crazy enough and willing to do what was necessary to win the fight. Before the helicopter hit the ground she covered her eyes and ducked behind a building to prevent herself from getting caught in any collateral damage from the stunt. It was dangerous, but she approved. There was enough warning that people could get out of the way even without being able to read his mind, and it eliminated a large number of thralls from the battle. That would make this considerably easier. With a nod, she started to mow down another line of thralls on her own. The sudden silencing of dozens of voices and the feelings emanating from them didn't mean much to her at this point. She'd felt worse.

Action: Aggression (Subdual) against Incomplete Thralls

Sin Eater's spinal cord was the first part to repair itself. Once it was connected, her heart began beating again, her lungs filled with air. She awoke to darkness, the silence broken only by the moaning of the entrapped thralls on which she had attempted to use her power. The memories of going into the building and finding the immobilized thralls in there returned to her.

She got gingerly to her feet. Her spinal column hadn't yet fully healed, so she had to brace her head with both hands to keep everything properly aligned until it did. The echo of voices from a distant portal reached her. One dead already? Was that her? Well, it wasn't wrong, she supposed. She decided not to bother with correcting them. Instead, she began looking for a way out of the building. Some of the walls created by the thralls hadn't formed properly, so it would only be a matter of time before she could rejoin the fight.

Action: Interference (Reversion) against Armored Thralls

Geata found he couldn't tell which sound was originating from which portal. He considered spacing them out more next time, in order to solve that problem, but he didn't want sacrifice how well everyone could hear each other, either. It was a conundrum, but one he didn't have time to consider, as new information came through. He listened intently to everything said, then sighed. He was happy that people were making use of his idea, but he had hoped for and expected more in general, and perhaps even a little more feedback. It was fine, though, honestly. He was happy just to be helping, but he felt the need to respond to something in particular.

"At the very least, keeping a few alive wouldn't hurt, yeah? It'd give the healers a way to study the effects and find a way to reverse similar things in time for future occurrences." He wasn't saying it to be argumentative with this Seraphim character, but he thought it might be better to do so than to just murder absolutely everything. Although, speaking of murdering everything, a thought crossed his mind that caused him to smile a little. A portal opened in the gap and he squeezed through, emerging on top of a nearby building that provided him with a good vantage point. Near the giant mechanical minions that were exploding, Geata spotted his target. His grin growing, he used his portals to close the distance immediately.

"Your promise is all well and good," Geata said jokingly to Blue Jay, "but at least I'd be kicking the bucket due to a dragon, as opposed to, say, a one on one fight with a super. Why, someone who died like that who had the opportunity to would absolutely need to do something to prove that they aren't truly pathetic as that death would suggest. On an obviously unrelated note, I have a challenge in mind for you. I have recently acquired a sword of my own and, as such, have a need to field test it. As the only other sword user I know of, you get the wonderful potential role of being my competition. I propose this: whoever can take down the most of the ones climbing around the buildings, wins. Prize is yours to decide."

The second he finished, the internal contents of the creatures started to fall from multiple portals above their heads. "Five for me," Geata said cheerily, doing his best not to think about the deaths he just caused. With that, he gave a wave before dropping through a portal that opened beneath his feet.

Where he emerged was directly above one of the things. As he fell, he thrust the blade down to make use of the momentum. Once it stabbed into it, a portal would open inside it further down that would cause the sword to pierce the insides of another before passing through another portal, the process repeating until there was little more sword to stab with. Geata'd spin, using that to pull the sword free of the portals, before dropping through another portal and repeating the same process as many times as possible.


Maneuver (Speed) against Gaunt Thralls

For a brief moment, Rainfall stopped firing and squinted at the battlefield, trying to make out potential weak points amidst the chaos. The combined assault of Emerald City's supers had hit like a wrecking ball, blunt and crude but undeniably powerful. A massive detonation lit up the sky for a moment, while light and shadows and all manner of weaponry- and even some super crazy or invulnerable enough engage in hand-to-hand -danced through the horde, cutting and breaking and slaughtering as they went. All these strange lights were reflected in Rainfall's bright eyes, and in that moment, a certain grim satisfaction could be seen in her expression.

Her own attacks had contributed relatively little. The immobile thralls were exposed, but had proven too tough for other powers to fully destroy. However, the constant, blazing fire from her minigun had worked pretty well in routing the weaker troops. Perhaps she could do some more harm there. She turned, shouting to the pilot. "Bring us in and, further up! I need a good vantage on the main swarm!"

With that, she opened fire again, aiming as deep into the hordes of incomplete thralls as her gunfire could reach. If her powerful assault scared them as much as it had the first time, it'd drive them straight into the defending forces, to be ripped apart by whatever powers her fellow heroes and villains had in store.

Action: Aggression (Subdual) against Incomplete Thralls