Getting arms and meeting new people...

[masterofgunfu]

 Atlanta is a strange city. Anything taller than three floors is ground down by magic wave after magic wave. Electric street signs are busted, missing or replaced by their more primitive kin. The tarmac of the streets is cracked as are the cement of the sidewalks and plant life has gone wild. Yet despite all this, the humans of the city rebuild...except here in Unicorn Lane. Here magic and the wild are the apex predator and not just during the Magic Waves. Things hide and quiver in the shadows. What people live here do so because there is simple no where else in the city that will accept them. It is dangerous. It is unpredictable and it is where Andrea is hoping to buy some guns on the sly.

Point in fact, she's already bought the guns and is currently sitting in what is left of a small city park, or what was once a small city park. Now it's more a mid-sized city jungle complete with unidentifiable and eerie animal sounds. The animal sounds are leaving her alone for now and so she is making sure her purchases (two Glocks and a submachine gun) were worth the effort and cost. She's also got a perfect view of all the windows and doorways to the empty shells of three apartment buildings that surround the park's entrance.

Comments

[venusadept_2]

"Yes," Felix whispers back, just as quietly. He begins approaching their opponent, simultaneously stepping away from Andrea.

[masterofgunfu]

Before he gets too far away, she whispers again. "If a magic wave hits, don't be surprised if you get a rush of power." Then, she makes her own way to flanking the creature which has stepped out of the shadows by now. It is big, about the size of a horse, and closely resembles a panther if a panther had two tentacles comes out of its shoulders. It also has black fur and seems to blur about the edges.

"There's no need for a fight. If we stepped into your territory, we're sorry and we'll leave."

[venusadept_2]

Felix nods.

Diplomacy having never been one of his strong points, and certainly not one he's had opportunity to practice on non-humanoids at home, he lets Andrea do the talking. Possibly his sword doesn't make the best counterpoint, but he's not putting it away just yet.

[OOC: Ooh, displacer beast. This is going to be fuuuun.]

[masterofgunfu]

The beast just growls and leaps at Andrea, who dodges forward to roll under the attack and to the side. She comes out in a tripod stance, on knee on the ground and fires twice before a wave of powers hits the world.

"Son of a bitch!" Andrea snarls at her now useless guns. As the magic rises, street lights wink out to be replaced by a dim green glow from enchanted vapor filled glass tubes the locals call fey lanterns.

Andrea shots seem to have either missed or have had no effect on the creature.

[venusadept_2]

Well, that's a startling sensation! Almost by reflex, Felix sends a small earthquake at the creature, only to find that while it's still small, it's considerably more forceful than he intended. Its target may well be flung into the air, and who can say where it'd land?

[masterofgunfu]

The beast does fly into the air, nearly ten feet in fact. It turns in the air trying to find purchase, tail spinning and tentacles writhing, before its feet are pointed in the proper way and it lands in a crouch to spring at Andrea.

Andrea for her part hasn't been staring gap mouthed but dropped her now useless guns and pulled out a crossbow from over her shoulder. She loads arms it just as the beast leaps at her and she dodges to the left while firing.

"I missed?!?" She yells at the clatter of the bolt hitting the wall behind the beast is heard.

[venusadept_2]

As many a monster back home knew - briefly - Felix's most preferred combat technique involves hitting things with swords. As it happens, though, he's a bit out of sword-range of this one. He therefore summons a pile of rocks into the air above it...

...And watches as they clatter to the ground around the beast, producing little more than a clatter. The creature snarls.

[masterofgunfu]

Andrea is too close to load the crossbow again before the creature springs at her, so she ducks and rolls into a kick aimed at the creature's stomach as it sails over her. Her blow hits but barely, bouncing off the ribs. Still, enough force is transferred that the creature lands poorly.

[venusadept_2]

Badly, indeed; one of its paws gets caught in a crack.

Hang on, was that crack there a minute ago? It looks like it's getting bigger. And leaking light...

A bunch of rocks burst out of the crack, spraying upward. A lot of them go right past the beast, but others pummel its underside.

[masterofgunfu]

Mysterious cracks are fine by Andrea...wait that sounded bad.

The creature roars and is knocked up on it's hind legs but it's tentacles shot out to hit Andrea square in the chest. Her face contorted in pain, she grabs one of them with her left hand and yells out, "I think there's some sort of magical distortion field around our kitty her. Messes with your aim."

[venusadept_2]

There would be, wouldn't there? All right, options, options...

Felix sends a burst of healing energy Andrea's way. "Perhaps some way to hit an area instead of aiming at it specifically? Is that something you can do?" Despite her introduction earlier, Felix really has very little idea of Andrea's abilities.

[masterofgunfu]

"'Fraid not. I shot things or beat them up," Andrea replies dodging out of the creatures way again. She catches the expression on the beast's face though and notices something else, a glint of intelligence and amusement. Understanding animal body language does prove useful from time to time.

"I swear it's listening to us," she calls out nervously as she bends to snatch up a rock and throw it at the creature. Now that she knows to alter her aim, she hits it and it yowls.

[venusadept_2]

Felix scowls. This just gets better and better.

Aiming is not really one of his strong points, but rocks are. He points his sword at the beast, his eyes glow briefly, and a lot of rocks fall out of the air above and around it.

Indeed, that's quite a lot of rocks, since Felix is still adjusting to the power-up. Enough that even if the creature survives the pummeling, it'll have trouble finding stable footing until it gets away from where it was.

[masterofgunfu]

It does manage to dodge a majority of the rocks but the collateral effect of the rocks still makes it scramble for footing. Andrea takes the opportunity to load her crossbow and pull out a couple of spare bolts.

She fires, hitting the beast in the chest which makes it roar in protest, and has another bolt loaded.

[venusadept_2]

And while it's having a harder time of dodging...

The world seems to roll up into a ball, about ten or twelve feet across, between the three of them. Felix's touch sets the ball spinning, and then his outstretched hand sends it shooting straight at the beast. And even without the rocks, it's hard to evade something that big going that fast. The ball bursts as it hits, restoring the world around them (such as it is).

(It's a bit of illusion, and a bit of metaphor, and a lot of pain. Not necessarily one of Felix's favorite tactics, but he's getting annoyed.)

[masterofgunfu]

Andrea fires another bolt once the spell has worked itself out but misses as the beast leaps back. It lands much better, though with a limp, and continues to back away, keeping an eye on both Felix and Andrea.

"Keep backing away and this can all be over," Andrea shouts out at it as she loads another bolt. She hates killing animals.

[venusadept_2]

Felix has no particular objection to killing animals, but this thing seems considerably more intelligent than most animals. Besides, he'd just as soon not deal with it and its dodging skills any more.

He lets his eyes flash yellow, although he doesn't actually cast anything, and shouts wordlessly, flinging his arms wide. Hopefully that'll get the beast to just run off.

[masterofgunfu]

The beast does back off, walking slowly and keeping its eyes on both Andrea and felix. When it gets a good hundred feet from them, it turns around and bounds away.

"Well I think that's over," Andrea says with relief. Things could have gone much worse. She reaches into a pocket and pulls out a book of matches with the familiar Milliways logo. "Let's see about getting you on your way now."