Realistic or Modern [OSV] "Our Small Victory"

[Miniapollo17]

Victoria

We're better at fighting from a distance, so if things go south she seems like a better bet for close combat if that ends up happening.

 

[Agent]

Robin.
People should be glad that we are COMRADES now!

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: Site-14 Ruins, Time: 00:00​

"Kumori, you're up."
"Aye-Aye, Cap'n!" She responded with an over-the-top salute.

The rubble blocking off the actual the entrance ended up being a hologram similar to the debris blocking the entrance to the hero workshop. The interior was a series of eerily clean hallways, reminiscent of a hospital with the overuse of pure white ceiling lights. The hallways themselves were rather narrow and quite empty. Eryn could faintly feel the movements of several objects or people below. Victoria in her bat form was sitting on Eryn's shoulder while he floated through, invisible. He was mainly keeping an eye out for hidden cameras or security traps that he could deal with to make life easier for the others once they got to the same point.

Hey, you there? Eryn thought now was as good a time as any to figure out what the Blue Fragment was.
Hellooo~?
...What?
Mind telling me who you are?
You're not my dad.
...I see.
Eryn sighed, giving up pretty quickly.

"You mentioned learning to fly at the top of the sky piercer this morning, didn't you?" He multitasked with setting up a cube of telekinetic force around them to block the airwaves of their voices so they could talk freely.
"Mhm! I can finally steer my bat form now!"
"You...couldn't before...?"
"Nope! I'd be crashing into walls and stuff all the time before!"
"That's...well, I'm glad you've got that sorted out at least.."
"One step closer to being competent! Now if I could figure out how to use my gun, that'd be swell.."
"You have a gun?"
"Yeah, your dad gave all of us guns this morning. He gave me a Magnum revolver."
"A Magnum for a beginner?! Well actually, wrist injuries wouldn't be a problem for a vampire, I guess.."
"Why, what did you get?"
"XDm 3.8 compact."
"Heh, makes sense with your smol hands."
"Scuse me?"
"Though I guess they're normal in proportion to the rest of you. You're like, what, 5'4" tall?"
"5'5". You're no better, you're only an inch or two above me!"
"Yeah, but I'm also older. Sydney's the same age as you and you're pretty much exactly the same height, right? Hell, I could probably pick you up even without vampire strength!"
"Try it and you'll regret your immortality, furball."

"--wait, so if 01 and 13 are both under treatment, then who's monitoring the Blue Fragment's group?!" He heard unfamiliar voices come into earshot around the next corner.
"Nobody."
"Won't they be able to sneak in from the entrance without us knowing?"
"That's why we're heading up there, dumbass!"

Peeking around to look at them, Eryn saw 4 armoured guards, armed with rifles. Or at least, they were armed with rifles before their weapons floated out of their hands and were aimed against them. One of them tried to pull out a radio device, which Eryn crushed. Three of the guards looked at each other for a moment, and then raised their hands in surrender. One remained.
"What are you cowards doing?!"
"Listen man, nobody's stupid enough to fight the Blue Fragment from this position. If you wanna pretend to be tough, be my guest, just don't drag us down with you."

Amused, Eryn turned all four guns to the lone defiant guard, who put their hands on their hips and puffed their chest out.
"Ha, pretend? You fools, nothing fazes me! I shall face this foe head-on and...aha...ahahahaha! Ahahahahahaha!~"
"Eh?"
After a couple of seconds, Eryn realised that the defiant guard's laughter had degraded into sobbing as they collapsed into the fetal position.
"Not again.." one of the other guards mumbled. They turned to the floating guns. "So, Ecto, why aren't we dead yet?"
"I'm gonna interrogate you, duh. I've got a lot of theories on my mind that I'd like to confirm."
"Go ahead."

Eryn cleared his throat.
"First, Stan and Markus are the only villains to act in the open ever since the beginning of the dark age. They both had brain implants bearing the Angel's emblem. Because of the dark age, no heroes acted in the open, so your organization had nobody to target until now. Were the brain implants used to mind-control the villains and create a situation that would bait heroes into action, thus providing new targets?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much spot on."
"Hey, are you sure you should be spilling secrets so easily?"
"Eh, I don't care. I'm thinking about resigning anyway."
"Don't they have your family hostage?"
"Joke's on them, I replaced those hostages with androids two days ago."

"Second, the Cerberus facilities were allegedly destroyed before Angel's massacre. However, the area above was wrecked in a blastwave during the massacre itself, which was reported to be caused by one of Angel's attacks missing and hitting a random area, which in this case was here. Did Angel purposefully hit areas above the underground facilities in order to help cover them up?"
"Correct again. Hey, you're pretty good at this!"
"Huh, so these places really are important.."

"Third, various clues were lain out for us quite plainly thanks to you guys sticking your logo on everything related to you. Has your organization been intentionally leading us on and predicting our actions, including us infiltrating this facility?"
"Well, almost. You weren't supposed to find a location this early."
"Wait, really?"
"Ooh, are we speedrunning this?"
"Actually, that makes sense..." The location of the facility was not public and there were no obvious clues leading to it. Eryn had only discovered it by using tricks learnt from Robin. Even if Angel-gang had somehow monitored Robin and his hacking prowess, they should have had no way of knowing Robin had taught some of those skills to Eryn.

"And finally, what is the Blue Fragment?"
"I don't know, that's just how the predators and the boss refer to you and your powers. Shouldn't you be able to ask it yourself or something?"
"I...don't think it likes me..."
"Oof.."

"Well, that'll be all."
Eryn extended the taser-bow and locked onto the four targets and fired, restraining them. The taser nodes ended up attached to their armour plates, so the taser part didn't hurt them that much. The guards still ended up tied together on the ground, though. Eryn dropped the rifles. As he floated away with Victoria still on his shoulder, one of the other guards spoke up.
"Hey, just a heads up, Predator-06 is patrolling below. I haven't seen it myself, but people are nicknaming it the Glocktopus."
"The..huh? Thanks, I guess."

Eventually they reached the staircase that would lead them down to where said Glocktopus was supposedly patrolling.

Switch party members before proceeding?​

Keep Victoria.

Okami.

Robin.

Sydney.

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[/h]

 

[Agent]

Keep Victoria.
Eh, no thanks. That'll take too much effort.

 

[honeylemon]

Keep Victoria.
Glocktopus? Probably an octopus with Glocks, huh.
Eh whatever. Let's see how Eryn and Victoria work together.

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: Site-14 Ruins, Time: 00:15​

Eryn awkwardly fumbled around in his hood to get a finger onto his earpiece to contact the others.
"Heads up, the next floor we're going into has a predator patrolling. We'll try and observe it enough to secure a route for you all to sneak past. This one's apparantly nicknamed the Glocktopus, so if you hear gunfire, just come on down and join in the fight. Stealth will probably fly out the window at that point anyway."
"Gotcha."
"Acknowledged."
"Insert cool-sounding response here."

And so they descended. The next floor seemed much bigger, almost maze-like with its abundant interconnecting hallways. Eryn could feel the movements of a large entity moving throughout alongside what he assumed to be the Glocktopuss' tentacles. He began trying to actually find it, which proved to be a more challenging task than he had thought, with all the walls and such. He kept track of their path by mapping out the area in his notebook as they went.
"So, observing? We gonna find a movement pattern as if its an NPC or something?"
"I assume its been at this for quite some time already, and people tend to go into autopilot when faced with monotonous tasks."
"Huh..."

Eryn himself had to actively try to not go into autopilot from how monotonous this maze of hallways was. He suspected it actually used to be a field of office cubicles that had their walls painted over and extended into the ceiling. Perhaps this meant he could simply break through them with little trouble, but that wouldn't help very much with the sneaking.

"I forgot to ask before, but do you happen to have any special moves?"
"Hm?"
"Like in anime, when they call out the names of their moves and have iconic attacks and stuff."
"I don't really call them out, or even think about their names when I do them, but there are a few. You've already seen the Crowd Controller, Enhanced Kick, Projected Strike, and TK Sonar. My favourite one's Myriad Strike, but I haven't had a chance to use that in front of you yet."
"Ooh, what does that do??"
"It's like an invisible OraOraORa from all directions. Basically the Projected Strike but repeated and strengthened a bunch."
"...What was the Projected Strike, again?"
"It was when I telekinetically slapped that Werewolf at the end of the battle, but its usually not in slap form."
"Ohhhh.."
"I also know a few that aren't technically mine. Or at least, I know the theory and technique behind them, but everytime I try to use them it feels like I'm about to tear my body in half."
"That's, uh, hardcore...what are they?"
"They were all created by Viper. Compression Blade, AOE Bubble, Concentrated Shockwave, and...Oppression. The move that almost single-handedly killed Angel, and it probably would have if the circumstance was slightly different. Any of them could have soloed all our recent battles.."
"Wait, seriously? They're that powerful?"
"Mhm. Switching topics, I think we found our Predator."

He saw a tentacle moving across the ground in a hallway intersection just ahead and floated over to examine it. Its suckers were actually gun barrels, of various types. The surface was also pretty moist. He hoped it would conduct the electricity from his taser bow, which he unfolded alongside drawing his pistol, just in case.

"Cool, but what's that beeping noise?"
"What beeping noise?"
Eryn couldn't hear a thing, but the tentacles all changed directions suddenly.
"Just a constant beeping, pretty freakin loud."
The tentacles were drawing closer and moving to surround the two of them, which was when he realised what was going on.
"I'm an idiot..."
"Huh?"
"How'd I overlook this?! These guys apparantly know more about my powers than I do, so of COURSE they'd know about echolocation!"
Eryn rapidly looked around the area for an escape route. The tentacles were all coming into view, and now he could see the Glocktopuss' head approaching, with its teeth bared and resembling a paper shredder. There was a device strapped onto the side with a small flashing light.

"It's coming from there!"

The gun barrels of all the guns jutted outward, and Eryn instinctively created a vortex around him and Victoria right as they began firing. His stamina was almost completely drained right off the bat, but it was usually enough to avoid gunfire from multiple directions. The problem here was that the firing rate here was way higher, and guns themselves were more powerful than a glock would typically be. Bullets started making their way through the vortex, mostly missing him, but getting closer and closer to his torso as he gradually became less able to properly maintain the vortex.

Eventually one of them struck him in the shoulder, just before Victoria transformed and and pinned him to the ground, covering him as his vortex ceased. The bullets could barely penetrate her skin in her current state. His invisibility deactivated and she began drawing most of the fire.

"Bastard."

He used the last bit of stamina he had to propel himsel from under Victoria towards the Glocktopus head, not with any particular plan in mind. He was just salty about the circumstances they'd been forced into. He didn't actually reach them, however, as his vision was tinted blue and time seemed to stop completely.

Excuse me, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Ah, nice of you to show up.
Did you really just jump at that thing without a plan? Look at it, it's mouth is a fucking meat grinder just waiting for something to go in, and you jumped right at it! You dropped your taser bow too! What exactly were you hoping would happen?!
...Yeah, good point.
At least you're self-aware about it.
So, what do you propose I do now?
Shoot them, fry them, pommel them, I dunno. Kill them however you wish. Attack to your heart's content. I only ask that you decide on a reasonable method before you proceed. You can take your time until them since I went to the trouble of removing your limiter and speeding up your perception.

Eryn had already decided that he'd crush the Sonar device as soon as his perception returned to normal. Now it was just a question of what he'd do afterwards.

How will you attack?​

Myriad Strike.

Turn invisible and get closer to shoot it at point-blank.

Restrict the tentacles telekinetically and beat it to death with the chained 8-ball.

Retrieve the taser bow and use it to restrain and paralyse the tentacles, then switch to its melee configuration to continue attacking.

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[/h]

 

[Agent]

Retrieve the taser bow and use it to restrain and paralyse the tentacles, then switch to its melee configuration to continue attacking.

I imagine that the Glocktopus's slimy membrane will render it to a couple of "cool moves", and turning invisible is clearly a no-go.

Eryn's probably a bit too tired to telekinetically beat something to death with an 8-ball, or whatever the heck it is, so nah.

Zapping it? Probably. It's just a matter of how much electricity the Glocktopus will conduct.

 

[Miniapollo17]

Retrieve the taser bow and use it to restrain and paralyse the tentacles, then switch to its melee configuration to continue attacking.

Partly because I love the taser bow but also giving him a little breather from wearing himself out with telekinesis

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: Site-14 Ruins, Time: 00:30​

Despite no longer being faced towards it, Eryn still had a good enough idea of where his bow was. While the tentacles were positioned around him and difficult to lock on to all at once, they were still connected to the head, which of course was directly in front of him. As his perception returned to normal speed, he both crushed the Sonar device and pulled the bow into his hand in the same moment. A split-second after that, and he'd already brought it up to fire at the various tentacle bases. All the while keeping pressure on the wound in his left shoulder. The red arcs travelled across its entire body as every tentacle started twitching, unable to move out of their current positions. The gun barrels jutted in and out rapidly, no longer firing.

Eryn flicked the switch on the bow that changed it to the melee setting, which he'd never actually seen before. It looked like a cross between a mace and a baseball bat, with red sparks coming from the upper section like a stun baton. He whacked the glocktopus head with it, creating a small pulse on impact that sent it flying back with minimal effort on Eryn's part. The head's surface seemed to ripple like a water balloon after being hit.

"You're lucky you're so squishy.."
"I can get another hit in!"

Victoria leapt over onto the other side of it and kicked it right back at him, which he returned again to her with the bow-mace-thing, and repeat. It ended up as a tennis match of sorts until the glocktopus head finally burst, spewing blood everywhere. Eryn managed to avoid getting soaked by forcing the wave of blood to go around him.

Behind him, he heard a rumbling noise gradually getting louder and louder. After a flash of green, the wall immediately behind him disintegrated, and the other three teammates arrived, out of breath.
"Oh, you....you won already..."
"Wait, the new predator's dead before we could even see it?"
He couldn't be sure, but he felt a tinge of dissapointment in their voices.
"Dude, what the hell happened to you this time?" Robin rushed up to him and took off the auto-medkit.
"Bullet, duh." It was here that the blue tint in his vision dissapeared, and all the pain and fatigue from before returned all at once. "Oh fuck not again."
Unlike last time, he was recieving treatment almost immediately after the injury. He didn't lose much blood in the end, and the morphine was given early enough for the pain to stop being an issue pretty quickly.

I can overclock your metabolism again if you want.
ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Way down below, probably near the very bottom of the facility, was the movement of a much larger object, probably at least the size of a city block or two. The movement was slow, but the size meant that it had enough kinetic energy for him to sense it from far away regardless. On top of that, movements of humans were rushing upwards to their position, which he assumed were more guards.

"Hey, Jack-O-Lite, your powers are technically limitless against inanimate objects, right?"
"Uh...sure?"

It seemed the stealthy part of the infiltration had been cut short.

Now what?​

Fight them and continue downwards.

Just leave normally.

Ask Okami to destroy the facility before leaving.

Report the situation to the authorities using the battle alert app as you make your way out.

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[/h]

 

[honeylemon]

Fight them and continue downwards.
To be honest, this is the farthest we've gotten. While I don't like the thought of Eryn being incapacitated for future fights, leaving means Angle-gang gets another chance to clean house. Plus we get to see how the group functions without the help of Ecto.

 

[Agent]

Ask Okami to destroy the facility before leaving.
"Kill every last one of them!"

 

[Miniapollo17]

Fight them and continue downwards.

They said we got here earlier than expected, it might be good to keep going while they aren't fully ready.

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: Site-14, Time: 01:00​

"Alright, let's mosey on. There's a group of humanoids approaching, so get ready for gunfire. Jack-O-Lite, please destroy all these annoying walls. Aegis, can you form some cover for us?"
"Wait, you want to continue?!"
"If he says he can, I don't have a problem."
"You have a hole going straight through your shoulder! Patched and sutured, but it's there!"
"Has that ever stopped me before?"
"What a frickin chad."
"You---" Robin looked lost in thought for a moment before turning to Sydney. "HAS it stopped him before?"
Eryn couldn't see her facial expression behind her mask, but the fact that she didn't respond right away made him feel like she was similarly lost in thought for a moment.
"Have you...even been shot before?"
"Nope. Thus, it's never stopped me before."
"What a frickin chad."
"Good enough for me."

After a few seconds of Okami sending green beams around the room, it went from a maze to an empty area. Sydney set up a large wall-shield for them all to take cover behind as the enemy guards began entering. After checking the taser bow, he realised that the melee strikes used up a lot of its energy, and that it only had two shots remaining. Enough to take out fourteen enemies if the shots were placed correctly. As bullets started hitting the shield, Sydney was continuously renewing it. It wasn't anywhere near as strong as her bubble shields, but this way they could retaliate more easily. Eryn noticed his HUD and the rest of his vision starting to blur, and his fatigue increased even more. Still, he was able to use a bow shot properly thanks to the homing function and restrained the first 7 enemies.

After that, though, he was on the verge of falling asleep. Being pumped with a boat load of painkillers was starting to show its side-effects. His hearing became echoey and generally limited, and his vision became tunnel-visioned. He was more annoyed that anything else, since he already had to deal with something similar when fighting the werewolf. The prospect of powering through yet again wasn't appealing, but at least he'd already been treated this time.

Aside from gunfire and his teammates talking to each other, the main noise he noticed was a voice coming from what sounded like a radio.

"Preliminary squad wiped out. Predator-04 and Angel-02-Lite deploying."

Can you do the thing where you make me more alert and less tired and stuff?
I'm working on it. I'm not used to this either, you know. I think the dosage was too high.

Within the next half-minute, he was seeing flashes of blue, and hearing electric crackles. Something was pouncing around and drawing everyone's fire. It was too blurry for him to get a good look at its form, but he knew it was quadrupedal. Robin jumped onto its back and looked like he was attempting to choke it while it tried to shake him off. He was rapidly growing his own aura of yellow electric arcs, while the blue electrical aura of the predator was diminishing.

During this, something else burst through the wall and into the room at a speed high enough that it would've been too blurry for him to make out, even if he wasn't being affected by a painkiller excess. All he could tell was that it vaguely resembled Angel-00, but much smaller. Around the size of a large pickup truck. It flew at wide angles, preserving its momentum, going around the group until it attempted to strike. It glanced off the side of one of Sydney's sudden bubble shields and continued on. It had tried to strike the group with its wing. It started circling around again to eventually make another approach, deftly ascending and descending out of the way of Okami's beam attacks. A yellow electricity stream from Robin did hit it, though. While it wasn't physically impeded, an orange aura did appear around it for a brief instant before shattering.

When his vision was eventually tinted blue and his perception was sped up like before, he was able to see it properly. Especially since it was now headed straight for him. Sydney hadn't been able to form a new shield yet as her attention was diverted between the Angel and the Predator.

I estimate you'll have around a quarter of a second to react to this. You should be able to land a hit in that time, just make sure it counts.
Ngh...
Take your time. Analyse everything you can about it before deciding.

Like the voice said, Eryn began brainstorming whatever he could notice about the Angel.

The wings didn't look like wings, and weren't even attached to the 'body'. Rather, they were separate, large blades following close-by. Probably kept in formation by a magnetic field, like Sydney's separator-sword.
The ends of each blade were lined up with an orange glowing line disecting the spherical body.
There was a single vector-thrust engine on the back, capable of angling itself in different ways. He felt the movements of gyroscopes inside it. He deduced that it controlled its direction through a combination of angling the engine and using the internal gyros.
The eye on the front, unlike Angel-00, resembled a circular air-intake rather than an emitter for energy attacks.
There were 6 wing blades. The 3 on its left were angled outward, aiming to slash him as it flew past.
His HUD had already managed to lock onto the body and wing-blades. The taser bow's 1 remaining shot should have been enough to spread to all 7 targets, and all he had to do was pull the trigger, since it'd probably be able to aim itself mid-flight.
The Angel was angled slightly downward at him, with a decent space between it and the floor.

I'm starting to understand why it had "Lite" in its name.

Make it count.​

Fire the last taser bow shot.

Accelerate yourself underneath it to let it fly past.

Myriad Strike concentrated on the front.

Angle its body and engine to drive it into the ground.

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[Agent]

Myriad Strike concentrated on the front.
An air intake? I dunno if this Angel is like a plane or something but I wanna attack it.
"Fire away, coward!"

 

[Miniapollo17]

Myriad Strike concentrated on the front.
I'm obsessed with the tazer bow but I don't wanna run out of energy with it.

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: Site-14, Time: 01:15​

Eryn began the barrage of rapid strikes to the Angel's front, but only for a split second as the target ended up knocked slightly off-course, missing its attack and flying past Eryn. He had to find a way to slow it down before attacking or his barrage would never be able to target it long enough to do anything. It was still flying in wide-angles to maintain speed, making that task seem particularly difficult.

I can sustain you like this for perhaps a minute more before you start falling asleep again.

Eryn was focused on trying to keep a visual of the Angel, but could hear electrical crackles and other battle noises coming from behind as the others were fighting the Predator. He assumed the Predator was there because its electricity was specialised against his powers, so he had to trust his teammates to deal with it for him while he dealt with the Angel. Still, he wouldn't be able to land his barrage if it stayed at that high speed.

There was still debris on the ground from when it burst through the wall. There was a particularly angular piece that caught Eryn's eye. As the Angel's circling manouvre brought it near his location, Eryn floated it up to point it at the air intake. Just as Eryn hoped, the Angel made a sharp turn to avoid being impaled, and had to slow down considerably to do so. It was at this moment that Eryn was able to find a grasp on it. Finally, the myriad strike could actually happen.

"Muda."

Invisible blunt strikes started pelting the Angel's front surface, each with the power to cave in a car roof, and at upwards of 10 strikes a second. This kind of attack was reserved for breaking down particularly strong doors or for disabling armoured get-away vehicles since he'd never used it on a superpowered individual before, and it felt like overkill against standard thugs. He usually only kept it up for a couple of seconds at a time, but he had been assaulting the Angel for nine, and he still kept going. The sillhouette of the Angel at the massacre flashed in his mind. If he couldn't handle something as small as this, there was no way he'd be able to stand against that monstrosity.

The attack barrage had now been going for 12 seconds. Usually he would have injured countless parts of his body by now, but he seemed to be holding up for now with just a general ache. The Angel, not so much. It's engine was spluttering small explosions and had for the most part become non-functional. The air intake was on fire and some of its blades were falling out. The general front surface was starting to look like someone had pelted a sheet of metal with a hammer several times. The blade-wings positioned near the front had fallen to the ground while the others were occupied being used as legs, as the Angel had no other way of keeping itself up.

Congratualations. This is the longest time we've ever managed to sustain your Solo-Phase mode.

His vision lost its blue tint once more, and he felt the effects of the painkillers flooding back. Instead of letting himself collapse, he forced himself to draw his pistol and aim it at the inflamed air intake. At point-blank range, he fired a shot into it, causing another small explosion somewhere inside the Angel.

"Your sillhouette's different. A cheap copy."

He fired another shot.

"You're nowhere near as scary as the other one.."

And another. The Predator had been blasted over near Eryn, and he could now see that it had the form of a large silver wolf, with a waning electrical aura. He shot that too, but it escaped the scene by leaping into a nearby electrical outlet.

"The Predator's aren't really scary anymore either."

He returned his aim back to the trembling Angel, which looked as if it was doing all it could just to stay standing with its blade wings.

Say something cool.​

"Congratulations on being the first Fallen Angel. You won't be the last."

"Begone."

"Soshite Toki Wa Ugokidasu."

"You're not afraid of ghosts, are you?"

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[honeylemon]

"Congratulations on being the first Fallen Angel. You won't be the last."
C'mon, we gotta spook these Predators a bit.

 

[Miniapollo17]

"Congratulations on being the first Fallen Angel. You won't be the last."

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: Site-14, Time: 01:20​

"Congratulations on being the first Fallen Angel. You won't be the last."
Eryn fired into the intake again, and the Angel finally collapsed. He sat down to take a breather and looked back at his teammates. Robin's hands were smoking, Okami was stomping out a small fire that had caught onto his shoe, Sydney was brushing soot off her cloak, and Victoria looked pretty much fine apart from having been knocked into a wall. He then noticed that his shoulder was leaking again, and now the Ecto armband on that arm was being stained red.
"Uh...Robin? Could I get more stitches?"
"What, again?"

After getting restitched and bandaged, Eryn had to figure out their next move. He could already feel various other objects heading up to their position, similar in size to the Angel they just fought. He knew they wouldn't be able to fight those. But at the same time, if they couldn't handle this, then they'd never be able to win against Angel-00. Still, could he really afford to worry about that for now? He decided to retreat, but before he could get the words out, he felt something else coming from above the facility at high speed.

"Why is there a missile heading here?" The others turned sharply to him. Instead of exploding at the surface, the object just went past and kept going down unimpeded. "Wait, IS it a missile?"

It melted through the ceiling and landed on the floor, revealing itself to be a figure dressed in a dark trenchcoat and a white armband bearing the symbol of 'Soular Flare', and a head that was completely obscured by fire.

"Oh, wait, it's just my dad."
"Your dad is SOULAR FLARE?!"
His father stood up, then turned around to look at them.

"Ohhh THAT explains all the heat signatures on this floor! What are you kids up to here?"

"We're investigating uh...Angel-gang."
"Huh. Same. By the way Aegis, could you make a heat shield real quick? I'm about to upset whoever those incoming heat signatures are."
"Uh....sure?"

Sydney set up wall shields dividing the room, separating the group from Soular Flare. Several Angels sized similarly to the previous one busted into the room. Some seemed to teleport in while others phased in through the wall, but most opted to break through. Instead of attacking, however, they almost seemed startled as soon as they entered and quickly tried to create distance between themselves and Eryn's father. The latter simply put his hands in his pockets, and took a single step forward, prompting the Angels to float even further back.

Without emitting any noise, or even smoke, Eryn's father 'ignited' in a blinding flash of light, turning his flames white-blue and instantly raising the room's temperature immensely. A blue, fiery aura surrounded him alongside an etheral chain that looked like it was made of molten metal.

Sydney's wall shields started to crack from the temperature alone, and the floor and walls around Eryn's father quickly turned red hot and started to melt. The same could almost be said for the Angels, who were desperately trying to stay far away enough that they wouldn't be instantly liquidised. Some had already started to retreat.

"No way, he's overwhelming them just by standing there!"
"Doesn't that seem...kinda broken?"
"Psht, he hasn't even used any of his actual attacks yet.."

A stubborn Angel tried in vain to fire a beam attack at him, which was only absorbed into his aura. Within a split second, the ethereal chain surrounding him flicked out and returned to its default position. A moment later, the Angel fell apart, perfectly melted into two pieces. The remains exploded shortly after.

"Eryn. You have school in the morning, and it's late. Go home, I'll keep investigating for you from here."
"Ngh..."

"Ah, shit. I'll have to head home tonight to gather my stuff."
"Same. Plus, if I keep spending nights outside the dorms, my roommate's gonna start getting weird impressions of me.."
"...Dorms? Why the hell do you have dorms?"

Okami looked around at the puzzled looking group.
"Wait...do you guys go to Venari?!"
"...Yes?"
"That fancy-ass private school?!"
"Yeah?"
"With the uniforms?!"
"....Ye?"
"......No wonder you three are so..."
"So 'what', Jack-O-Lite?"
".............."

Location: Eryn's bedroom, Time: 06:28
​

Sometime during the night, Eryn had been awoken by the sudden idea of using adderal just before a fight in an attempt to boost his telekinetic performance, which was why he was now stuffing some into his blazer pocket. He yawned heavily while trying to finish his mug of coffee and looking over his computer screen. The locations of the old Cerberus bases seemed to be completely erased as of last night, hidden to the extent that Eryn wouldn't be able to uncover them as easily as last time. He'd need to ask Robin for direct help later. That'd have to wait for later, though. The taser bow, which had charged overnight, was folded into its bag form and stuffed into another bag as it was still too recognisable. His Ecto jacket, goggles and respirator had all been squeezed into his backpack. His pistol was holstered and hidden by his thick coat, and his 8-ball was secured inside one of its pockets.

He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd be too vulnerable walking outside alone like this, especially since Angel-gang apparantly knew his name and where he lived. He considered himself lucky that they hadn't leaked his identity already.

Mondays..​

Walk to school normally, alone.

Walk to school with Sydney.

Go to school while invisible, allowing you to patrol for crimes as you go.

Get your dad to drive you there.

[/font]

[/h]

 

[Agent]

Can obliterate mass amounts of enemies without even trying.
"Here have a gun."

Walk to school with Sydney.
I got nothing to say about this.

 

[Miniapollo17]

Get your dad to drive you there.

Walking is for nomads.

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: Streets, Time: 06:45​

The sun had yet to fully rise, bathing the streets with a dim orange light in an otherwise dark environment. It was especially cold at this time, and shivering while constantly yawning wasn't exactly pleasant. At least the cold helped to numb his left shoulder, which had yet to recover from the recent wound. Moving the shoulder at all proved to be difficult, so he planned to just keep that hand in his pocket for most of the school day.

When he finally met up with Sydney, she looked as if she were sleepwalking. She had dark eyebags, an unsteady walk, and was mumbling something about wanting Yokan. She was carrying a fencing bag at her side which presumably had her real swords hidden away in there too.

"I'm starting to regret starting operations at midnight.."
"Ya fookin better! Can we just do these things in the afternoon or something? Or as an after school club with its true purpose hidden from school staff? It's not like we really get up to much during the day anyway."
"Don't you have fencing sessions and band practise to go to after school?"
"I can afford to miss those. My swordplay is strong, but my shields could use some work. The trouble is my bubble shields are already tank-level, so I can't train those further unless I use frickin ANTI-ARMOR weapons!"
"Yeah, plateau's suck. My powers didn't grow at all during the almost full year where we had nobody to fight but street thugs."
"You've gotten way stronger over the past two days, though. After what you did to that Angel, you could probably solo the Werewolf now."

Eryn was confused for a moment, but quickly saw what she meant. He never would have managed such an attack two days earlier. Despite letting out a small chuckle, the thought only brought him anger. Anger at what, exactly, he didn't really know. Images of the people he met at the store during Angel's massacre, who he failed to save in reality despite trying to change things in his nightmares, and whose faces he couldn't remember, were flickering in the back of his mind.

"Right...so why aren't I happy about it..?" The question wasn't directed at Sydney, but rather was just him thinking out loud.
"Hm?" She turned her head slightly towards him as they were walking.
"Like, being stronger is all well and good, but I feel like it would've been way more useful back then instead of now. Maybe we wouldn't even be in this mess if it had happened sooner." Eryn let out a frustrated sigh. "And after last night's fiasco, I can't even see us winning this anytime soon."

Sydney didn't say anything at first.

I shouldn't have said that.

...

"...I know," wasn't the response he'd anticipated. "Feels like no matter how strong you get, it doesn't fix what's already happened, right? And on top of that, with no victory in sight, you feel doomed to failure regardless."

"...Yeah. I feel like if we keep going down our current path, I'll just end up dead."
"Mmm, same. Though that's probably because we're both willing to die for this, huh?"
Eryn hesitated before nodding. Sydney had somehow put his feelings into words for him. He had to remind himself that she was at the massacre too, and had lost just as much as he had.
"Right. I want that Angel dead way more than I want myself alive."
"That makes two of us."

Sydney procured two thermos flasks from her backpack.
"How many of those do you have?"
"Probably around 7."
"Definitely what it looked like.."She handed one to him, the coffee inside still being warm.
"Still...dying alone would probably suck. Maybe we could just be doomed together or something."


Eryn cracked a quizzical smile.
"Sure, whatever that's supposed to mean."
"I dunno, just kinda made it up on the spot."

Location: First-floor hallways, Time: 13:13​

Nothing particularly interesting ended up happening for the first few hours of the school day, so he was able to autopilot through it without much thought. Well, apart from the discovery of Angel-gang's twitter account, named simply "Seraph", where they publicly tweeted playground-level insults at the team. One of them included the claim that the only reason they hadn't dissapeared yet was thanks to the aid of Art_Master087.

It was lunch hour now, and Eryn was making his way away from the cafeteria after getting a sandwhich. Sydney and Robin told him that they'd be in the music and computer science rooms respectively. He was considering paying one of them a visit when the sounds of pulsing electrical arcs caught his attention, coming from just outside the entrance. A ball of blue electricity was hovering there. He struggled to see it properly now that the area was being swarmed by students who were mostly all taller than him, trying to get a look at it.

Eventually it dissapeared, and a Sentinel appeared, kneeling in the small crater it had created. It slowly rose to a standing position, and Eryn could tell it was looking right at him. People started to flee past him in a panic, while he was more fixated on the kinetic energy he was picking up from it. Every step it took left a crater in the ground. How was it moving so fluidly when it was so goddamn heavy? He could already tell that he wouldn't survive any kind of direct attack from it.

He took an adderall pill.
I'll speed this thing up so it'll enter your bloodstream quicker.

Now it was a question of what to do first.

Would Sydney know where to go if she was still in the music room? The school's superhuman lockdown procedures would surely activate soon, making navigation a lot harder when that happened. Did Robin bring the Auto-medkit? Eryn's shoulder was still wounded, and there was the risk of breaking the stitches again during battle. Victoria was absent today. If he didn't change into his costume, he would have to spend the whole fight invisible. The bag containing his taser bow was in a locker elsewhere on this floor.

What first?​

Retrieve the taser bow.

Rendezvous with Sydney.

Rendezvous with Robin.

Go into the bathroom to change.

[/font]

[/h]

 

[Miniapollo17]

Go into the bathroom to change.

We shouldn't waste our energy on being invisible when we don't have to. As much as I love the taser bow this thing showed up in electricity, so I'm not sure taser bow will be that useful or should be high priority.

 

[Agent]

Go into the bathroom to change.
Uhh... You know what? Sure. I don't think a Taser is gonna stop this thing.

 

[Doctor Nope]

"Our Small Victory"​

Location: First-floor hallways, Time: 13:15​

When he was sure everyone else had ran far enough away, Eryn rushed into the nearby bathroom. There, he took the Ecto apparel out of his backpack, putting the jacket and armbands on over his uniform. He looked in the mirror for a bit to properly align his respirator and goggles, and also tried to adjust his hair a bit. He knew it wasn't necessary due to the hood, but he'd noticed he had failed to condition it in quite a while and---

That train of thought was interrupted when the Sentinel burst through the door, knocking it off its hinges. He should have felt something that heavy approaching, but had been too distracted by the mirror. Acting out of impulse, he unleashed a Myriad strike on the Sentinel, focusing the telekinesis from his right hand while keeping his left in his pocket. The Sentinel stopped and shook slightly, but it didn't take long for Eryn to realise the strikes weren't strong enough. Not the slightest dent was left on the Sentinel after a five second barrage. If anything, he'd only helped to get rid of some of the dust on its surface. The tall, mechanical beast stepped forward in a lunge with its sword-shaped arm, which Eryn avoided by rolling past it and running out the bathroom before the Sentinel could turn around to attack him again.

Back in the hallways, blast-doors had closed at various points, presumably to keep the Sentinel confined to this area. He drew his pistol and turned back to the Sentinel who was slowly walking out of the bathroom. He fired two shots at it, both of which ricocheted off and left tiny marks. The Sentinel's arms changed shapes, one of them becoming shaped like a large anime-esque scythe blade while the other became shaped as a large katana. Eryn lowered the gun while stepping back slowly. The Sentinel continued its casual pursuit.

"..How...do I damage this thing..?" He felt sweat building up behind his goggles and respirator.

Eryn ended up backed up against a pair of blast doors, preparing to Myriad strike it again despite knowing it wouldn't do much.

"What do I do, Adrien...?" he muttered to himself without really realising it. A digitised voice came from the ceiling speakers.

"Registered heroes identified. Aliases: Aegis, Ecto. Deployment of the power-dampening field has been cancelled. Free reign granted."

The blast door behind him open, and he fell backwards through it. It closed again shortly after, and the Sentinel's katana blade stabbed through it. Eryn scrambled back to his feet and retreated further back from the door as the Sentinel began carving a hole in it. He could hear blast doors opening and closing elsewhere in the school now, getting gradually closer.

..How are these things USUALLY killed?

Eryn recalled Viper using moves like the Concentrated Shockwaves and AOE bubbles to take down groups of Sentinels with ease. Eryn had never even been able to get a good look at one back then because of how quickly they'd been dispatched. He knew he couldn't replicate those moves though, even with having learned the theory behind them from Viper himself. Last time he tried, he almost tore himself in half. The last time he tried, though...was just over a year ago. Back then he couldn't even fathom pulling off a twelve second barrage like he had the night before. The AOE bubble was probably out of the question, but...

The sounds of the other blast doors opening and closing told him that Sydney was nearby. He could probably meet up with her while using the blast doors to slow down the Sentinel, which was now about to come through. He knew she'd want to fight this thing. He didn't doubt her determination one bit. He knew she'd even be willing to die to pull it off and he knew she was fully capable of taking it on alongside him. But he was still scared. Leading an enemy like this to someone who'd happily throw her life away to protect him from it, scared him.

It's coming through.​

Telekinetically restrict its movements so you can fire into the gaps at its joints.

Rendezvous with Sydney.

Telekinetically suplex it.

Lead it in circles to get it to make footsteps craters in the same place over and over.

Attempt to use a Concentrated Shockwave on it.

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[/h]