"We opened the door to the shadows...

[nightbeyondfire]

The man sat alone, back slumped against a wall as he stared down at the pistol in his hand, unloading and reloading it in silence. Over and over again. How long had he been here, ignoring the sounds of life around him and the chatter and racket from the communication device on the ground along with the discarded necklace? Days? Weeks? Months?

It didn't really matter. None of it did anymore.

Load. Unload. Reload.

"You look like crap."

The man looked up, staring upwards at his only companion for what felt like an eternity. Himself... only different, like seeing a photo negative version. The colors were all wrong and there were a few things off.

It had no eyes. He'd found that strange once before the feeling had been bled out of him.

Load. Unload.

It was this thing that had shown him the truth. It had started with whispers in his mind when he was alone and had grown from there, appearing in shadows, taking the place of his reflection and finally standing right there beside him exposing the plain, hopeless reality of where he'd found himself.

An ugly grin split the negative version's face.

"So, what's the hold up, jackass? You know what you have to do now."

Load.

Yeah, he did.

-------------------


In the early morning, it happened without warning. A shudder ran through the entire city and for just a moment it was almost as if reality itself... bent for a moment, warping out of shape before snapping out of place and one of the buildings of Genessia's skyline vanished into a rising cloud of smoke and dust.

The thing rose up out of the cloud, standing over the buildings around it. Misshapen, grotesque, it could only be called humanoid in the most generous of terms. Its body was colored in splotches of red and black, its limbs twisted with the right arm many times larger than the spindly left and it stood on legs that should have been bent and twisted too awkwardly to support it at all.

The head swiveled from side to side on a too-long twiglike neck, wide, blanket white eyes that seemed painted on searched the city and a toothless mouth opened wide in a low, groaning howl that rumbled over the city.

The creature’s body convulsed and with a chorus of sickening splits and cracks its body bristled with weapons, and they all fired as one, shearing the top floors off of the next several blocks and covering the rest of the town in burning debris.




Through the city, every communicator screamed out a deafening alert, which was followed by the voice of the AI.

“CORRUPTED ELEMENTS DETECTED. PLEASE ASSIST IN PURGING IN ORDER TO ENSURE THE CONTINUED SURVIVAL OF THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS”


[OOC: Subthreads are up. Post in them for combat, or go nuts with planning/reactions through the rest of the comments.]

Comments

[aero_sage]

That building wasn't going to last much longer, and Harpuia doubted that the human on top of it could fly. He had to get the creature's attention diverted from its target. He unleashed two quick aero blades of energy towards the abomination before leaping into the sky, propelling himself upward.

Shifting his angle once he'd gained enough height, he dived for Natsu to catch him up under his arms and speed toward a much less destroyed building to set him down. At least, that was the plan. It seemed Natsu had quick reflexes and the ability to leap fairly far. Acceptable. Harpuia lifted his arms as he descended, touching down lightly next to the fire-breathing warrior.

"You have an interesting power for a human," he commented, turning his winged head back toward the monstrous being and its misshapen body. "I suggest we take out its legs. It will be unable to maximize harm if it is immobile."

[explodewiththerage]

He didn't know someone had been watching him. Kinda busy dodging bullets and the like. He turned sharply when someone landed next to him. He looked pretty damn cool!

"Yours is awesome too." After all flight made things so interesting! He followed his unexpected partner's gaze to the creature.

"Hmmm any ideas how we do that? It took my Fire Dragon's Roar and it got off barely singed." That's not to say he doesn't have other moves in his repertoire but he's open to ideas before he starts pitching in his crazy ones.

[nightbeyondfire]

With Natsu and Harpuia dropping back to come up with a better plan of attack, the colossal monster swings back around and continues on its hunt through the city, leaving more spawn in its wake.

[aero_sage]

"I am unable to discern any weaknesses at the moment," Harpuia concluded, albeit reluctantly with a glance at Natsu. "However, persistance may be the key. Whatever the case, we must prevent it from continuing further if each step causes more of its kind to spawn from its tracks."

Twin blades of violet energy were powered up as Harpuia crouched. "Let's focus our attacks on the thinnest leg. Its weight shouldn't logically be supported by such a structure, but it also should not be able to stand if it possesses only one such limb." He prepared to jet off, except...um...

"...Are you able to descend without my assistance?" It would be impractical, not to mention rude, to charge the monster and leave Natsu high and dry on the rooftop.

[explodewiththerage]

"So in other words keep hitting the same spot until something gives? Yeah That might work." Natsu said and turned his attention on the thinner appendage. Yeah that one had a pretty big 'hit here' sign all over it.

"Sounds like a plan! Lets do it." Natsu said and punched his fist eagerly, flames erupting around it as he powered up his magic.

He blinked curiously at Harpuia's question.

"Hell yea. Got off from higher heights before. Besides I can grab onto the side of the building and just slide down." Natsu said and ran up to the edge before vaulting over it and heading up his hand to the point that it would burn through the building enough to slow his fall to Street level.

[aero_sage]

The reploid watched Natsu descend, leaving a line of flames in his wake, and smirked to himself. That would do.

Blades flaring with energy, Harpuia launched himself into the sky, climbing higher and higher until he could calculate his trajectory for maximum damage. Once he got a lock on what he believed to be the weakest point of the creature's leg, he dived swift and sure. He darted past the twisted tendons with two cleaving strikes.

"Huh! HAH!"

But he didn't remain immobile, knowing he would make himself an easy target if he didn't keep moving.

[explodewiththerage]

Natsu wasn't subtle by any means. Property damage was also second nature for the mage.

Once he was back on street level, Natsu activated his lightning fire Dragon Mode and dashed so fast he was literally a bolt of lightning and fire as he blasted past deformed leg lashing at its hide with a claw swipe of furious flames. He didn't stop there though and kept going on ahead before turning for another kiting run.

[nightbeyondfire]

So many attacks focused on its legs. The combined efforts of Weiss and the Ice King had its feet frozen to the ground and now Natsu and Harpuia were wreaking damage almost faster than it was regenerating it.

The thinner leg buckled under the impacts, cracking inward and the beast sagged against a nearby building. Its mouth split open again in a frustrated roar and yet more weapons bristled out of it. A belt of vulcan guns.

The rotating barrels spun briefly with a sharp whine before firing off in all directions, unloading thousands upon thousands of rounds at the two harassing it.

[aero_sage]

"That's it!" Harpuia shouted, pulling back as he prepared for what would hopefully be one last diving slash before the thing toppled completely.

Except that was a lot of guns.

Gritting his teeth, the reploid jetted higher into the sky, ducking and weaving and blocking what incoming fire he could with his crossed swords. But his defense wasn't perfect. A few bullets pinged off of his armor, and one punched through the plating on his leg to earn a pained grunt.

It seemed he'd have to assault the artillery to best defend the humans below.

Relying on his speed and maneuverability in the air, Harpuia rose high, then dove, plunging both swords downward as he aimed to cleave the gun barrels from their source.

[explodewiththerage]

"Fall already, you freaky bastard!" Natsu roared as he attacked with in more frequent bursts by reducing the distance to the point where he turned around for another kiting run.

He smelled the increase in gun powder and had to slow his attacks against as he was forced to do a serpentine trajectory to avoid the shots. This gave the monster a bit of breathing space but the attacks didn't cease completely.