bravenewworld | Attack on Sanctuary

Attack on Sanctuary

It’s just after midnight when the column arrives outside of Sanctuary, shrouded in darkness under the pitch black of a new moon. Bordered by mountains to the north, the city has two primary gates to the West and the East, both of which are shut tight with massive oaken doors, centuries old and further secured with an antique portcullis. The city itself is surrounded by walls of stone, easily one-fourth the height of those found in Union and about twice the height of many of the homes, sturdy stone buildings with triangular roofs, about the same size as Calderan homes. Like Union, there are many towers within the city, but unlike Union, the towers are cold, aloof structures that stand alone with no connection to the other towers. The city itself is stone, cold, gray, and unfeeling, with small drops of light from streetlamps which line the streets, emitting an eerie blue-white glow. This is Sanctuary. Home of the Magi, conquered by Gigas for forty years. This is the city that must be reclaimed.

[OOC: If you did not choose to take the Pokeballs (you don’t have to have affirmed in an NPC thread, it’s entirely up to the character), they may have either 1 large Pokemon or 2 small Pokemon. A large Pokemon is classified as any Pokemon that is 4’ tall or long per the official Pokedex guidelines, anything smaller is considered a small Pokemon. Without the aid of Pokeballs the Pokemon will be required to be out and active throughout the log, and will not be able to be recalled or sent away if they are injured and must be carried if knocked out. As always, please limit yourself to 2 major actions in the log, and declare all Pokemon accompanying you in your first tag to a log. As always, to keep the logs moving, we will be responding every 24 hours.]

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Yuuna looks at the guards, and then at the one big man advancing. Weighing the odds, she thinks that it’s likely that he’s Enhanced, with the way that he’s advancing on the entire group. She doesn’t know his typing, but Enhanced means tough. Tough means a threat to her friends, and the mission, so that means it’s time to just stop holding back.

“Sabakumi,” she says, leaning against her Flygon’s back and speaking to her directly, “I want you to go all out. Stop this guy. Don’t worry, Kyo will cover for you while you recover. Wait till I give the signal though, okay? ”

The insectile dragon nods vigorously, indicating understanding, and Yuuna moves to her next, the Tyranitar out front. Leaning up, she pats him on the head like she always does and points to the man.

“Kyo, that man is going to hurt us if we don’t stop him, so when I say go, you blast him okay? No holes barred.” Again the rock monster nods, and Yuuna hops back down, points ahead like an artillery captain, and cries out:

“NOW!”

And then the area lights up with energy discharges. The Tyranitar goes first, mouth opening wide as he breathes out a black beam of unholy power, a Dark Pulse. And then Flygon does the same, her mouth opening wide and a brilliant ray of scintillating energy tearing across the distance between the soldier and herself. A Hyper Beam!

The remaining soldiers don't fare all that well. Between the Swift attack and the rampaging Tyranitar, they're quickly decimated and scattered, unable to move and cowering in fear.

The soldier himself, however, is a different story. He draws an infantry saber and, with practiced grace, slides it along Estelle's staff, harnessing her momentum to send her flying past him with a rather ungraceful arc. He reaches onto his vest and tosses a small, spherical object which expands into an enormous shield that takes the strikes from the Dark Pulse, Hyper Beam and Psychic attack, shuddering and cracking under the force but not breaking and protecting him from any harm. sheathing his rifle and saber, he draws a shotgun in one hand and an oversized pistol in the other, firing a shell at Isabela's Aegisslash which launches it backward with immense force, knocking it into her. He then points the gun at Estelle's head before she has a chance to recover.

"Stand down."

It was all much too quick for Estelle to follow.

The soldier sent her flying, first; she slammed into the ground unceremoniously. She scarcely caught the rest -- the attacks barraging his barrier and slamming into it with a crackle. She got to her knees, first, using her staff to push herself up. But then she found the barrel of a gun pointed at her head. Her eyes widened.

Then she dropped her staff.

"Oof!"

Isabela's smacked with her heaviest non-giant Pokémon and they go down in a heap, although Isabela at least manages to tuck into a roll and come up in a crouch, daggers in hand. She notes the barrier - she has no idea how it works, but it doesn't LOOK invulnerable...

Then she sees that he pointed the other gun at Estelle's head.

After a moment's consideration, she straightens up and sheathes her knives. "Men."

Edited 2015-06-04 03:37 (UTC)

And with a hiss of anger at feeling like this'd gone completely crossways yet again. She stands up straight and lets out a breath. Whatever barrier it was keeping the man safe, it was strong. And while there was a gun to another teammate's head? Anything she might do was just going to get Estelle shot, because neither she nor her Pokemon were quick enough to get past the shotgun to the other before he pulled the trigger. There wasn't anything she could really do, just like the last time...

"Fine."

Which meant she was just going to have to wait for a chance to hit him with the Spiritomb tucked away in her jacket. Or this secret weapon was going to have to step in.

Michiru pauses, wary. That was quick, how neatly they were defanged. Gardevoir makes her way back to the outskirts of the group, watching carefully.

Michiru's focus is on the barrier, rather than Estelle. Protect...?

[Seeing that their attacks have had no effect on the soldier and the danger Estelle is in, Merrill orders her Pokemon to a halt. The last thing she wants to do is get someone killed on this mission. No sudden moves here.

...That is, no sudden moves from the three Pokemon still with her. The group may remember her Sableye and Pumpkaboo, and how they wandered off as soon as they were let out of their Pokeballs. They're back now, the Sableye bedecked in jewels and the Pumpkaboo wearing a Pokemon-sized purple mage robe. Don't ask how they got them.

They appear from behind where Estelle is being pinned to the ground, and without Merrill even having to tell them, they spring into action. Vhen'alas the Sableye lets loose with a quick Fake Out attack, guaranteed to make the man flinch for a critical moment to allow their friend to escape. Viscount Dumar, Lord among Pumpkaboos, follows up with a surprise Seed Bomb from his blind spot, aiming to blow the guns out of his hands.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say.]

....Shoot. Haruka has already sheathed her sword in preparation for walking over in "surrender", but when Merrill's Pokémon take action, she makes a dash for the shield generator. There wasn't time to use Agility, but she's still the fastest person she knows.

Aside from her Ninjask, who dive-bombs the soldier's head as insurance for Merrill's Pokémon. It doesn't intend to use any special attacks, just...braves the shield in an attempt to latch on. And stay there.

If Haruka makes it to the odd object creating the shield, she's slamming both palms against it and channeling Earthquake through her hands. That shield's really something. But what about the gadget that makes it?

A crackling voice from your warp bands.

"This is the command center. We think those 'robed figures' with you are reanimated dead Gigan soldiers."

Pause.

"I'm...not sure how that effects you immediately, but now at least you won't be surprised if we're right."

The Fake-out does take the man by surprise, impacting on heavy layered armor underneath his combat fatigues but still causing him to flinch momentarily which gives Estelle an avenue to escape. He does, however, manage another shot from his shotgun which blasts the Seed Bomb away with a shockwave and Ninjask away with anoteher. This does, however, give Haruka a chance to blow through the shield generator with her Earthquake, destroying it and bringing down the shield.

"NOW!"

Alexander's voice rings out over the din of the combat as the robed figures, easily twenty in all, surge forward. The hoods fall back to reveal what, at first glance, would appear to be human. However, they are all different, their eyes are deadened as if controlled by another force. Upon each of their faces is an arcane circle inscribed in what appears to be blood upon their cheek, and it glows with an eerie red light. They do appear to be living, but changed. Inhuman. As they move forward, they quickly throw netting on the soldiers within reach. The Gigas soldier swears and flips a switch on his shotgun, blasting again at the crowd of robed creatures but instead launching himself back.

"This is Omega Squadron, Gamma Squadron down, requesting immediate assistance and evac."

Reaching behind his back, he launches a disk onto the ground, which starts spinning wildly before launching itself at Haruka, massive blades emerging from it as it whips through the air. He stows his pistol and the energy-shotgun and draws his rifle, moving a bar on it and firing it which launches a stream of covering flame. The creatures have already rounded up 10 soldiers, but the stream of flame is currently cutting off access to the others. The party hears a cry of pain, it appears one of the creatures, in an attempt to gather up a soldier, has accidentally eviscerated him with razor-sharp, elongated talons where there should be hands.

"Damn it! Back! We need them alive!" Alexander yells.

As soon as the opportunity presented itself, Estelle bolted for it. She ducked low to scoop her staff up as she ran. She turned as she got a sufficient distant away, and found that everything had happened in that time. She owed her comrades her life. She could be pleased with that. But as she turned, she got a look at this secret weapon that Sanctuary's resistance employed.

Some manner of horror.

She heard Gilgamesh earlier; she hadn't processed it until now. She stared at the creatures and hesitated. Before, she was motivated into immediate action. Now...

Now she stared, unsure what to do. "G-Gods," she whispered. "What are they...?"

When the Warp Band crackles with Wulfenbach's voice, it barely registers. She's just about to start moving again to follow up on Viscount Dumar and Vhen'alas' diversion, sword already flashing out of it's sheathe...but the man's response makes Gil's word's click.

Dead Gigan Soldiers?!

She whirls to get a look, and stops for a heartbeat, her whole world slowing to a crawl as she processes the sight of Gigan soldiers being rounded up by their supposed allies. Their hands...aren't hands...and they're killing those men. Death is a thing she's not incredibly familiar with, though while she's not a total stranger to it, this is something else. This is just...grotesque.

Alexander's words hit her next, along with the actions of these creatures. Nets...they want them alive...but why?

That answer is even more obvious than the fact that something was wrong.

To make more.

A sudden calm comes over her in that instant, and she raises her sword high, turning briefly to address Estelle.

"Estelle, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we have to stop them. Forget that guy, don't let those men get taken. Gigan or not, this is wrong."

Then she charges forward, straight at the group, swinging her sword to slash through the net and free some of the rounded up Gigans.

"Get going! Run, now!"

Beside her, the Politoed that'd been following along trying to stay unassuming leaps in to help, blasting the creatures back with a Hydro Pump, using his body like an anti-riot hose.

Edited 2015-06-05 04:28 (UTC)

Blood magic...

[Merrill's voice is a low whisper as she watches Sanctuary's 'secret weapon' spring into action, definitely feeling more than a little uncomfortable about it all. She'd studied similar sorts of sorcery herself, and even made a blood pact with a hungry ghost, but it never crossed her mind that it could be used for something like this. Or that anyone in their right mind actually would.

It isn't until she hears Yuuna's voice that she snaps out of it.]

Run! Get away from them! I'll hold them back!

[She isn't sure whether her brand of blood magic will be able to override whatever it is Sanctuary has done to these people, but she's certainly going to try. Slicing the palm of her hand with one swift motion, Merrill activates Wounds of the Past, her own blood dispersing over the Homunculi in a fine mist as she attempts to weave her own enchantments and halt their movement.]

Edited 2015-06-05 14:48 (UTC)

"What in the earth god's taint is going on..."

First the random announcement from that Rotomcycle guy, then the...whatever those are, and now her team was fighting against those things to let all those people she'd been carefully trying to corral go.

Isabela doesn't bother drawing her knives again, and pulls her Tyrantrum back into its Pokéball, switching him out for Vivillon.

"HEY! Can we all stop stabbing each other for a second and determine just what in the name of the Savior's tits we're doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Haruka's still lying on the ground where she'd ended up after attempting to dodge the soldier's flying blade (and getting a gash in her arm for the trouble). Gripping the wound to staunch the bleeding until she has a chance to treat it, she does her best to sit up. "We've been had."

Her Reuniclus flies off to retrieve Ninjask, who is itself lying stunned from the soldier's shockwave gun. This is where Union's habit of answering every call for help that comes its way gets them, huh? This is the sort of thing that's supposed to happen when people stick their noses where they don't belong. And yet Haruka'd almost touted that nosiness earlier. To a Team Evolution member, of all people...

If Haruka wasn't too busy scowling, she might laugh.

Michiru's standing over Haruka, the gleaming sphere of a Water Pulse swirling above her palm. She's not sure who the enemy is right now, but she has her own priorities. Her Gardevoir had hurried over, spurred on by her Trainer's spike of fear. A sphere of pink appears between the Pokemon's hands, and then Gardevoir is using Heal Pulse on the wound.

"Surely the gods are laughing." More humans enslaving other humans. Either way, Gardevoir seems to relax a hair as the tumult of her Trainer's emotions is sharply reined in.

"What the hell are you doing!?"

Alexander's expression is incredulous. "These are Gigas soldiers! If you won't strike to kill, you're leaving it to us to clean up your mess!"

The Gigas soldier's expression doesn't waver as he assesses the situation. He sprints forward and draws his large pistol while sheathing his rifle, taking a shot while Alexander is distracted. A deafening bang sounds out that is stunning to the unprepared, and in an instant, Alexander's body crumples to the ground, minus one head.

"Damn it!" his companion mages hiss. "The council will hear of this! Slaughter all the soldiers! Leave none alive! We must win this fight!"

The homunculi quickly obey, delivering fatal blows to the remaining soldiers within reach, through wicked nails, bladed limbs, and grotesque fangs. The hydro pump, however, strikes true, blasting two Homunculi away while the Wounds of the Past constrict several more. These measures save the life of four soldiers, but unfortunately the five others are not so lucky and are torn apart. Covered in blood, the Homunculi then run forward as the lone soldier falls back, only to be met by a hail of gunfire from a squad of armored soldiers in black helmets. While three Homunculi fall, they continue o writhe and hiss, felled but not slain. The rest, perhaps seventeen in all albeit with six disabled from the party's tactics for now, continue forward, running to the downed soldiers to kill them.

Meanwhile, the two mages begin chanting in a deep, sonorous tongue. A gray ball emerges from one of their hands, exploding around Haruka and Michiru and spraying them with heavy, sticky webs. Yuuna and Merrill will feel a strange, powerful compulsion to begin laughing hysterically.

Even when Yuuna screamed that it was wrong, Estelle was stunned. Her worldview was thoroughly Calderan: Gigas was the eternal threat, the thing that nearly broke their city. The empire behind the attack that stole her mother from her and very nearly broke her family. She stood, transfixed, staring at the situation that made no sense in that view. The Gigas soldiers fighting monsters that were -- if Gilgamesh von Wulfenbach was correct -- humans transformed into these creatures.

Then the homunculi laid into the soldiers. Some were saved; other soldiers died horrible deaths, torn apart, even while more came rushing up. The soldier who nearly killed her shot down Alexander.

She snapped her head to the side, staring at the mages. She saw the grey ball appear in their hands -- and she realized that they were directing them at her allies. Everything cracked at once: the black and white way that she saw the world, the faith she had in this operation, and the certainty that she had before. It was replaced by something else. Fury rose up in her, but it wasn't the childish lashing out from before; she wasn't trying to hit the faceless threat that took her mother away. She was trying to save her friends. The people who tried to help her, even after she did something stupid.

She was a God of War. It was time she acted it.

Everything happened in a blur after that. Flame erupted around her entire body in a bright nimbus of light. Estelle leapt off the ground, staff whirling over her head, and she landed with all of the astonishing speed that a fully evolved Fighting-type Enlightened could muster. Her staff slammed out, a hard blow at the temple of the mage on the left. She didn't aim to kill, but incapacitate with a mighty knock out strike.

When she shouted, her voice boomed over the surrounding area: "STOP IT! No more!"

Yuuna, hit by the spell laughed and laughed, a hysterical giggle not at all unlike the berries from the Grassy Knoll. She fought to keep her mind steady, to not fall on her backside and just start giggling again as she recognized the danger of letting go and getting hurt by the homunculi, and managed that at least. Staggering backwards, she fell into the arms of a waiting Hitmonchan. Gouken moved her out of the line of fire, placing her firmly onto Kyo the Tyranitar's armored spines so she wouldn't be hit by stray bullets. Still laughing, she manages to pat her partner, trusting her safety to him.

And...acting of their own initiative? Her Pokemon continue to attack. An Ominous Wind washes over the mages and soldiers still shooting from the still hidden Spiritomb, while the Flygon explodes into motion. She'd had time to recover from the beam now, and relatively unmolested she heads for the Homunculi in a furor. She swoops high, hovering over them and with a sharp gesture upwards, causes Earth Power to spray upwards under the abominations, hopefully shredding them.

Edited 2015-06-06 03:32 (UTC)

As far as Isabela can tell, whether through a misunderstanding or betrayal, they have two groups of enemies now. One is routed, and that means it's time to focus on the other. With a nod, she directs her Vivillon to keen out an extra-accurate Supersonic attack at the mage that hadn't just taken an enormous wooden shaft to the skull. Aegislash, meanwhile, takes up a position between the Homunculi and the fallen Gigans, happy that his captain is ordering him to do the honorable thing for once, and uses King's Shield in order to better block the...whatever they are from attacking the fallen.

It's really not much of a decision at all. Michiru drops the held Water Pulse and mentally commands Gardevoir to Teleport Haruka out from under the netting. Once they're clear, Michiru readies herself with a Calm Mind, preparing to use Mirror Move if necessary. She'll give as good as she gets.

So much for this alliance. Losing that Alexander probably won't go over too well.

This alliance was doomed the moment it started. So was this mission, actually, so the moment Haruka finds herself standing clear of the battle, she nods at Michiru's Gardevoir to go back for her partner. A still-dizzy Ninjask wobbles its way to her side, while Haruka's Reuniclus has taken up a position in front of Michiru and erected a Reflect. They're fighting potentially what, now? Gigas, Sanctuary, and Sanctuary's secret weapon? That's not a fight that can be won.

So when Haruka steps forward, it's to yell at her own companions. "Fall back!" she orders - not that anyone's beholden to listen to her, but there they have it. "We're fighting on too many fronts. Where's the righteousness in getting killed here?"

She doesn't like any of this either. Everything about this situation is wrong. But that's exactly why they need to leave, from where Haruka's standing. Whatever Union does next about this kerfuffle, it won't be misinformed.

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