[EVENT] Acher's Attack on Enghelab

[zenderael_mods]

Who: Everyone! Remember, if you're in the Nenakret on Wednesday, you can't be here on Wednesday, at least until later.
When: Wednesday the 28th.
Where: Enghelab/Las Vegas
Before/After: During the parade.
Warnings: Violence, TBA.

This is a general purpose post for Acher's attack on Enghelab. Note what day your thread occurs in the subject line, in case this takes several IC days.

Comments

WEDNESDAY: Tai Feng and Acher

[fearnoreproach]

The attack on Las Vegas came suddenly. Brutally. The EMP took out the central third of the city's technology. Then, it was a matter of having two hundred massively enhanced soldiers rush into the heart of the city and begin slaughtering everything in sight. The Las Vegas Strip turned into a darkened, bloodied warzone, cast red and gold by a setting sun. When night fell, this place would be eerily dark.

It was anything but silent, though. Screams echoed down the street and the dead and dying piled up with equal disregard. In front of Bally's a few tourists were cut to shreds. The last, an elderly man, let out a scream as one of Acher's mercenaries punched a sword through his stomach, and another began working his rings off.

Acher knew it was butchery. He tried to pretend that he did not care. He watched from the entrance to the casino, then walked back towards the front desk. Dollar bills floated through the air; one of the cages had been opened and money was still falling down.

He brushed it out of his face without concern, and stepped over the prone form of a Las Vegas cop that he cut down earlier.

The city was his. A few of his men ostensibly stood guard, but most were tearing apart slot machines and raiding the food that was out. He had a crown, made of twisted iron and steel, that once belonged to Aerveas. It sat on his head, but it did not make him feel particularly regal. He wondered if it ever made Aerveas feel kingly.

Today, Acher doubted that.

[howl_typhoon]

Tai Feng had made a lot of jokes, since coming to Zenderael, about how she'd laid low during Aerveas' war because war is not good for the body.

Karma's a bitch, sometimes. When the attack hit, Tai Feng was stalking one of the casinos, contemplating the last week. That waitress thing actually got her a pretty nice haul, so she was thinking of trying her hand at...what. Something.

Lights down. Screaming starts. Tai Feng made her escape the way she always makes her escapes - up. And now, she just had to get outside, get clear. She was faster than these clowns, for the most part, but the things they were doing to these people...

Her skin crawled, her thoughts tingled. This was wrong, everything about this was wrong, but her first duty was to get the hell out of here. She managed to sneak past the slaughter and slip down to the door, shoving it open. Home free! Just got to get past these last few guys...!

The doors to Bally's flew open, and Tai Feng, racing at her best dead sprint, dressed in her habitual light Earth clothes, suddenly tore out of the casino. The main exception is the armored gauntlets on each hand, which crackle with mana as she got herself ready. She'll bowl on through! No problem!

She focused a Knockback impulse into the glove on her right hand. Always take out the boss first. Scare off the small fry! And if he's on his ass, she can just break and bail! Easy!

And so Tai Feng raced like a bullet, howling defiance as she slammed one armored fist into Aerveas' stomach, a full-tilt drilling. She was fully expecting either the momentum of the hit or the Knockback effect on her punch to send him flying clear into the street.

She was probably going to be disappointed.

[fearnoreproach]

Acher turned, surprised at first to see Tai Feng rushing at him. He spun to face he fully and saw the fist coming in. It struck him, but he remained a juggernaut as always: that immense six foot, muscled frame wasn't sent flying back easily, especially when he still wore that heavy plate armor. He was knocked backward, but he kept his footing.

And then he laughed. "Determined little one, aren't you? You should have stayed hidden, girl!"

He swung his fist down; his right hand struck down at Tai Feng's head, the angle awkward but the blow not. He was used to punching at people smaller than him. His left hand drew the huge two-hander off his back, quicker and more apt than he should have been able to.

[howl_typhoon]

Tai Feng had a fair bit in her corner, but she just didn't have the raw push necessary to send him rocketing clear out of her way the way Tai Feng had banked on. He was sent back, but not truly stunned, and Tai Feng glared at him with the eyes of someone whose plans had just gone amiss.

This was, as it turned out, an incredibly bad time to make her first grave miscalculation. She didn't even get a decent retort out before his fist connects with the crown of her head. She emitted a high shrill from the hit, immediately staggering back. Shook her head out, trying to clear the stars away. Shit, shit, this is...

She should run, but after that hit she didn't even even steady enough on her feet to be sure about succeeding at that. Only one...real choice left.

Balls to the wall. She clenched her gauntlet again, sparks of light trailing off it as she charged another debuff in it, then lunged in - fast enough to make a plausible try at slipping right past that two-hander and drill him again, then a quick one-two, each hit trying to weaken him so that if he actually hits her with that two-hander he doesn't actually literally cut her in half.

Also, trying to stun him with hits to vulnerable muscles, except it was just super hard to hit someone in the solar plexus through plate mail.

[fearnoreproach]

Acher took the first hit, the blow striking into his armor with a ring. He growled, then he turned just slightly on his left foot. She was in past the reach of his two-hander; most men would be thrown off by that. Acher was merely placed at a disadvantage. Lera wrote him as a masterful swordsman and that particular fact stuck. He swung the hilt around.

Rather than club it at her head, he brought it up underhanded, in an uppercut like motion aimed to collide into her throat and knock her back into the wall.

WEDNESDAY: Chisaki and Nova

[a_wrong_turn]

Chisaki poked her head around the corner of one of Vegas's side streets. She had kept to the alleys, the smaller streets, and the rest. She also kept Nova close, but felt a flash of frustration. She began to appreciate how much slower, how less alert he was. She could feel their heartbeats, smell them, know they were coming. Nova could not. She learned she had to warn him, constantly, to stay out of their way. He had to see them coming.

It was annoying. That wasn't fair. Nor was a city being sacked. The screams, the stink of blood, and the rest had been chilling.

She looked down the street, and then looked back at Nova. "I don't think they're close--should be going the other way," she said, quietly. She tried to sound confident, like she knew where she was going. She didn't; she had the barest sense of direction and a city's downtown area was a maze. The projected confidence was mostly for Nova's sake. "I want to turn, move out there, and move fast. We're headed for the alley about three blocks down that way. Okay?"

[taking_names]

"Why do terrible things keep happening in this city?!"

The danger was too immediate and consuming for Nova to notice Chisaki's impatience with him -- keeping up with her was difficult for him, enough to merit his full concentration, and each warning she gave of the warhounds before he could either see or hear them was a reminder of what could happen if he was slow to react to her instructions.

He still remembered clearly what Chisaki had looked like when she dragged herself to his door after an encounter with a warhound, on the verge of dying of her wounds.

Why did their lives have to be so full of monsters?!

He nodded at her instructions, running along behind her with more confidence, since he knew where she was going. The alley took them to a new and possibly even more perplexing block of buildings -- they seemed to have hit a section of Enghelab.

He glanced at Chisaki and then back out at the street. He trusted her enhanced senses to direct them, but in the back of his mind, he was still trying desperately to come up with some trick to cheat the situation and get them completely out of harm's way. He needed to get out of this before he made a mistake.

An idea came to him, and he tugged at her arm.

"Let's go over the rooftops!"

This, despite the fact that he'd never leaped from a rooftop in his life. But how did you learn a skill without trying it?

[a_wrong_turn]

"I don't know but I'm getting real sick of it," Chisaki groaned.

She started to pull out -- and then he grabbed her arm and tugged on it. She turned, looked at him, and considered that for a moment. This wasn't one of Nova's bad ideas. This was proof that, despite the fact he could be ridiculous, he was actually pretty smart. Acher's men could not get up on top of the rooftops, she thought. Most of them wore heavy plate and seemed more interested in killing at street level. She nodded at him.

"You're sure you can do it?" she asked. "We'll need to be careful with those jumps."

She walked to the nearest ladder, which led up to a fire escape. She grabbed it, put her weight on it as a test, and started up the first couple of rungs while she waited for him to answer.

[taking_names]

"I'm not sure at all," he replied, decisively. "But I tripped the other day and it turned into some sort of fancy somersault so I think maybe I have it in me."

Really, he just wanted to be on a rooftop, away from the ravenous monsters and rampaging soldiers. Worrying about the jumps could come later.

Not... much later, but he was measuring time in much smaller pieces than usual with the threat of a messy death so close at hand.

He took her move toward the ladder as agreement that it was their best shot anyway, and followed up it after her once she was clear of the bottom rungs.

He was not particularly afraid of heights; a small mercy from a player who seemed to have made him afraid of just about everything else.

[a_wrong_turn]

Chisaki led the way until they got to the flat, gravel-covered rooftop. She dusted her pants off, then she turned and looked back at Nova over her shoulder. She nodded; he seemed sure enough. They had little choice, with the murderous soldiers running around the city below. A fall to their deaths -- well, his death -- was better in the end, she imagined, than being brutally hacked to ribbons by them. Her lips pursed, though, now that they were here.

"Let's see," she murmured. She turned and pointed at a building -- a jump across a narrow alleyway -- and nodded. "That way. Ready?"

Acher + Mal: Wednesday Evening

[fearnoreproach]

Even a couple of hours did not make Enghelab secure. The strategist in Acher knew that two hundred men, even with the strength of gods, were not enough to secure every part of the city. They simply couldn't cover that much ground.

The result was that when some druids attacked, Acher assumed them to be locals. He thought little of it, even while he watched his earth elemental slam a stray Las Vegas police officer across the street with a mighty, rocky punch. The newly made King of Pakerion frowned, before he turned, and resumed walking up the street leading to the edge of the black out zone.

There were lights on up ahead. The EMP hadn't worked as well as he heard; the entire city hadn't been brought down, just the downtown area.

Worst of all, the men following behind him seemed more like crazed animals than soldiers. They moved in a loose pack; they were bloodthirsty and maddened. Acher had no illusions about whether he controlled them; about whether they would listen to him in the first place. It made him a target, because his guards were hardly behaving like guards at all.

[andlivefreely]

Mal got news of the attack on Envegashab shortly after he heard about the assault on the parade in the Nenakret. Though his first instinct was to rush to the Nenakret to see how his friends, and fellow guild leaders, faired, he balked.

With most of the guild leaders in the Nenakret, along with the bulk of three guilds, there weren't many left to help out Vegas, while the parade had plenty of people who could help the wounded and sort things out. If he went there, he'd only be checking up on his friends, and possibly being of some minor use in healing, while if he went to Vegas...

Some part of him felt going to Vegas and doing what he could would somehow prove to the others that he was capable at his job.

Another part realized that if nobody went to help, it might lead to a massacre.

So he roused his druids and made for Vegas.

His intent was two-fold: Firstly, to help as many as they could get out safely. Secondly, to see what forces were there, so that those who followed later would have a better idea of what they'd be facing. This meant their assault was more cloak-and-dagger than an outright assault, and easily mistaken for locals causing a fuss.

Small groups of druids roamed in from various points, stirring shit up to distract the enemy while people got away. Mal was in one such small group when he spotted the familiar figure from the photos Lera had sent him.

Without thinking, he called up roots from deep beneath the ground, which snaked up and burst through the surface to grab at Acher's feet.

[fearnoreproach]

Acher felt the roots come up before he felt them. He burnt some of his warhound's blood, enough to strengthen himself, and then tore his legs free with that inhuman strength. He turned and finally spotted who was behind that. His eyes narrowed, then they widened; he saw Malachai and barked out a maddened laugh, before he started running across the city that he turned into a battlefield. His sword dragged out behind him.

He had no recognition of him as the Vohu. Truth be told, he possibly did not care. This was an enemy to slay; a druid come to undo his work.

A chance to die, perhaps.

He enhanced his strength again, mighty force cascading up through his arms, giving him that inhuman power. Acher swung the sword back over his back, then slammed it down into the ground. He split the very ground, a shockwave of shattering concrete and force rushing across the earth in Mal's direction.

[andlivefreely]

As soon as he realized what Acher was doing, Mal threw an arm up in front of him like a shield. This was more than a futile attempt to block a powerful attack, however, for with the motion came the shifting of the earth and concrete before him, lifting suddenly to form a thick, protective barrier between him and Acher's assault.

He still felt it. The ground shook beneath his feet, and the edges of the wall crumbled, cracks forming across it, threatening to collapse on top of him.

Mal was not used to using spells in combat.

He moved backward, away from the wall, as quickly as he could, expecting Acher to burst through it, shrieking like a much more sinister version of the Kool-Aid man. He also couldn't put it past the guy to leap over it, or something equally impressive.

He'd heard about the things Acher and his men could do.

Before his druids could get involved, the excitement attracted some of Acher's men. Whether or not they had any sense of loyalty to Acher didn't matter. They saw a fight, and wanted to take part.

Unfortunately for Mal, this left him alone in his fight against Acher, as his druids became occupied.

[fearnoreproach]

Acher saw the shield come up and growled, softly. He jumped, then, high into the air. He wasn't burning much of the warhound's blood, now; he used just enough to get up high, spun in midair, and then came descending down towards Malachai. That gigantic two-handed sword chopped down straight for the Vohu's head, trying to split him open with a mighty, two-handed chop at the Vohu.

He wore enough plate armor to make him heavy. He landed in front of Mal, armor shaking and boots digging into the ground when he hit. He barked a laugh out again; his men were moving in too, fighting with Mal's, and he left them to it.

He doubted he could control him, anyways.

"Brave of you to come!" Acher roared down at Malachai. "But the last brave thing that you will ever do, I think!"

The Vairya + Tai Feng: Wednesday

[plot_zenpc]

The Vairya supposed that he should have done something about this.

He didn't think of himself as the Vairya, really. Rodrigo thought of himself as some dumb kid from Los Angeles who happened to have a madman -- the same one sacking the city, which he guessed was some kind of irony -- give him a godlike power. He never knew what to do with it. He had little idea of what Zenderael was; he just tried to do what he always did and lay low.

It wasn't working so well right now. He learned he could bend luck, though, and not like other rogues. It manifested incredibly strongly for him and came naturally, so Rodrigo just started bending luck all the time.

He ignored the way that a crossbow bolt flew by his head, inches from his ear. He knew it would miss. He was sitting at the one bar in Las Vegas that still had power, because he bent his luck so far that it had a backup generator. The barkeep was dead, of course -- he wasn't so lucky -- and that meant Rodrigo had to poor his own drinks. He was fine with that. It kept him down to earth. He sipped his cold beer and turned to look at one of the blood-soaked, bloodthirsty soldiers approaching.

The man drew his sword. Reflexively, Rodrigo twisted his luck further. The scabbard split in half along a structural weak point and the sword flipped out at an odd angle, twisted up, and cut the soldier's head in half. His body collapsed in a heap on the three other men that had gotten that idea, after they saw him through the hole knocked into the side of the Bellagio. Rodrigo looked down at the dead man passively.

"Huh," he said. "Ain't that some shit."

[howl_typhoon]

Tai Feng was on her way out of the city at this point; one near-death experience was quite enough, thank you. This joint could handle itself.

But as she scampered up a neighboring building, she noticed that one of them still had power. She sat on the far roof for a few minutes, processing what exactly that meant. Well, obviously there were people there. But did that mean it was where the guy with the crown was hanging out? After last time, just barging in there seemed like a bad idea.

She heard someone coming, so she moved fast; latching an anchor to the edge of the wall and slipping over, dangling over the edge while she watched the abortive attempt to slaughter whoever was inside go through. "Ahm..." she said, to nobody. OK that was...unique.

She lowered herself back down to street level, then, hands in her now-bloodstained pants' pockets, took a look inside. Did she know this guy? She felt like she knew this guy. Couldn't tell from this far away.

Well, he was apparently safer to be around than anyone else, and she could use a break, so a minute or two after Rodrigo finishes marveling at the spectacular death of his would-be assailant, the door opens again, and this time it doesn't presage an assassination attempt. "Ahhhm, nei hou" Tai Feng said. "Looking like you have fun in here."

The bombastic smile she'd usually use is muted. Getting pummeled by a gorilla will do that to you.

[plot_zenpc]

Rodrigo turned and looked at Tai Feng. He hesitated for a moment, just to be sure that Tai Feng wasn't an assassin -- except luck bending meant that she would have tipped herself off, if she was, and he was safe -- so he looked at her. He shrugged both shoulders and went back to taking a sip of his beer. He nodded at her, before he looked down at the tall glass.

"Not bad," he said. "but it'd be nice if there were more back-up generators working. A guy's trying to take a vacation, you know?" He motioned with a hand, at the wrecked surroundings. "It's so... inconvenient."

[howl_typhoon]

Acher didn't actually cut her much, so the blood stains on her clothes were minimal. Small miracles; she did look scuffed up, but so did everyone, right now. The heavy gauntlets she still wore spoke to some fighting ability, at least. But no miraculous slips occurred, no.

Tai Feng ambled a little further in, casting a glance behind her uneasily. This was an obvious attention-getter, and she didn't need Rogue powers to tell that. The guy whose neck stump was coloring the floor told that story pretty well. She did her best not to look at him.

"I am think there are bad guys having vacation today," Tai Feng said. She didn't directly approach him, instead picking her way through the room. Try to get a feel for what was still left around; in a circumstance like this, she could use random objects for impromptu weapons, or even just pilfer any valuables that survived.

At a time like this, getting the extra money to survive was the first thing to do, not the last. Besides, this was more relaxing than running in terror.

'Inconvenient,' she heard, and managed not to spit. His inconvenience got her damn near killed! "Inconvenient and danger." Finally finding her curiosity overwhelming her, she looked over a table divider, tipping her eyebrow. "Why you still here, though? Is crummy place for vacation, now, full of jerks."

[plot_zenpc]

"Vegas was always full of jerks, kid," Rodrigo said. "These are at least honest jerks."

He shrugged. Ever since he became Vairya, he found it hard to care about other people -- no, about humans. He could see he was different, now. After all, most people couldn't make a dice roll a six every single time. He stopped thinking of himself like other people a few weeks ago. He wondered how the rest did it at all. They had been at this longer.

"Nothing here can kill me. Check it out," Rodrigo said. He turned and looked at a trio of Acher's men walking in the distance, visible through the hole. He yelled at them. "Hey, assholes! Hey, come kill the Vairya, you dumb assholes!"

Acher vs. Victor + Ravindra + Tai Feng + Valentine

[fearnoreproach]

In the end, combined forces of berserkers, rallying local troops, a surprise influx of rogues, and adventurers overcame Acher's paltry army. They never had any hope of winning. Acher knew that from the beginning; he had tried to deny it for a time, to think that this could actually be the beginning of his reign as King of Pakerion, but he could plainly see the truth now that his back was against the metaphorical wall.

It was also against the literal wall. He slammed into the wall of a castle, part of Enghelab that remained intact in the merge; crossbow bolts from a cluster of Las Vegas police stuck out of his armor, blood running down his breastplate and trickling from the corner of his mouth. He looked up with a grim countenance, then wiped the blood off on a hand.

The crossbow bolts fell away from his body, pushed out by hardening and reforming skin. He swung his sword down into the ground, and a shockwave of thorned vines ripped out to and fro, batting them aside in huge numbers. Acher's eyes glanced around, then he looked forward.

All around him, his men were being cornered and killed; one had turned into a warhound nearby, but spears in berserkers' hands were pinning it down, while they hacked it to bits.

He laughed. It wasn't hard to miss him; his crown was still on his head, a final bit of defiance. He intended to die wearing it.

[pulledunder]

Victor had rushed in with the Ahura's forces, desperate to reach Acher, to do something before it was too late. Half of him was afraid he would find Acher already dead, and the other half was afraid to find it hadn't been possible for anyone to kill him. The hair on the back of Victor's neck stood up when he finally found him bloodied and pierced by crossbow bolts, but still standing, still knocking over rows of combatants.

One way or another, this had to stop.

He hadn't reached Acher without a few bruises of his own, or without a few stains on his armor and a heavy dent in his buckler. But his sword, though drawn, was still clean from his focus on defense. "Acher!" he called, straining to raise his voice over the surrounding violence, "You've lost this battle. Surrender."

[howl_typhoon]

The rogues were Tai Feng's doing - personally, institutionally. Laura asked her what she wanted to do about Acher, she said 'smash him,' and the first postings were going up within thirty minutes of that, most of which was spent on Laura and Tai Feng hashing out exactly how much finesse to put on the smashing versus the him.

Going from scrambling for survival to sort-of leading a sort-of army of definitely ne'er-do-wells was beyond bizarre. It lurked in the back of her head in a way she couldn't ignore, that all her little fantasies about leading a gang were suddenly both no longer fantasy and no longer adequately fanciful.

They kept looking at her. Some with genuine expectations of guidance, others with the all-too-familiar silent glare of judgment; probably the most, just bewildered by the young girl with the cowl and slightly mis-fitted armor marked with the subtle signs of the Vairya. Waiting to see what she'd do; who she would be. Tai Feng was pretty much with them, there.

They'd dug out a leather breastplate that sort-of fit; they didn't have time to forge anything new for her. It had the Focus and speed enchantments that'd help her shine. They'd outfitted her with some better wire, some knives to complement her weights. It wouldn't do to send the Vairya in against a man who'd killed a far more experienced Vairya with his bare hands with a tee shirt and jeans, no matter how well-loved. The pants, virtually unarmored leather that provided freedom of movement, material to enchant for speed, and pretty much nothing else, felt weird. She was used to her baggy jeans.

She had time to reflect on all of this as she hung in midair, her mind wandering as the world crawled past below her. The dilated awareness of her new reflexes, a gift of the Tongue, was strongest at the apex of her leaps, she'd noticed. And down, below, there he was - Acher, hurling aside a score of men even in his moment of weakness. She found her silver tongue flicking between her lips, uneasy. That crown on his head, she decided, was pissing her off. Maybe she'd make it the start of her own personal collection.

She plotted the path, threading her gloved fingers together for a moment while she spread-eagled through the air. Then, finally, she shifted posture, a swan dive that tore her through the air down toward Victor and Acher. At the last second she forward flipped and flung her arms backward, releasing a cradle of wires that grabbed a castle parapet and arrested her fall rapidly. She tugged and magic sparked through the wires, making them retract neatly into their spools while Tai Feng simply fell the last couple meters, landing in a neat crouch.

She rose up; she was dressed quite differently from the last Acher saw her, but when she reached up to flick the hood back from her head, the face was the same, barring a rather less wild-eyed, more composed expression.

The flash of silver between her lips when she said, "Or, you can give me my rematch," was new, though.

[paladont]

Ravi had been in touch with Victor throughout the mayhem, snatching moments of reprieve in the chaos to send texts back and forth. He knew about the attack on Enghelab, knew Victor was part of the Ahura's group to rush in and handle it. He was content to let the both of them handle their own matters separately. Victor had his duty to the Ahura, and Ravi had his to the Spenta and Mazda.

It was when he was informed that Acher was among the forces Victor sought to subdue that Ravi decided a shift in priorities was in order. If Victor was going up against Acher again, then this was personal.

He didn't bother to inform anybody of where he was going. Things were so hectic that nobody questioned him running off. It wasn't exactly an uncommon sight to see a diamond-armbanded medic running to the next emergency out here. He shot Victor a text to say he would meet up with him in Enghelab, hopped a warp to the city, and followed the sounds of chaos toward the source.

He arrived at the castle grounds and scanned for Acher, but saw Victor first. Good enough. He gave himself a focus blessing, and then got into spell range to throw Victor a defense blessing. That was the only announcement of his presence before he joined Victor at his side, taking up a defensive stance against Acher. He was dressed in the plate armour given to the paladin adjuncts in the Amber Gaze, plus the red medic armband with the white diamond on it, but even though the attire was new, his identity was unmistakable.

[fearnoreproach]

"Bristol," Acher growled. He turned on a foot, walking towards the paladin. He gripped his sword tightly; he was covered in blood, dried and fresh, his own and others. He hissed softly as he walked forward, looking him over. It was right that it end here, he thought. He made his point; he told the world of his wrath, of his vengeance, and he inflicted misery to match his own on a city. It was his legacy.

That and the crown on his head, for how little it mattered.

The new Vairya drew a long glance; he looked impassive at first, not recognizing Tai Feng among the myriad at first, then realizing it was a girl he thought dead, and then finally catching the flash of silver. His eyes widened more at that, before he barked out a laugh. "I seem to be behind many of your guild's change of powers," he said. "So be it. I'll crown a fourth Vairya before the day is done."

He caught Ravindra running up, too. He roared wordlessly and leaped; he spun as he went airborne, and then slammed the massive two-hander down at the top of Victor's head. He burnt warhound's blood, incredible strength making him go higher, and he let gravity strengthen the swing.