genessia | "We opened the door to the shadows...

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Might have been the sort of thing you share so we could make a contingency plan." She yelled back at him and continued to eye ball the area while he decided to get chatty with the network.

Which was why the truck was in motion almost before he even spoke. The lumbering beast of a machine revved like a growling demon, but it had no shortage of power to get those wheel turning, a spray of lose gravel kicked up in it's wake and the truck leaped forward.

"Hang on!" She had her belt on so she was good but it was distracting to try and drive, figure the landing of the projectiles and keep an eye on him in the rear view at the same time.

Fortunately Murphy was excellent at this sort of high pressure, erratic avoidance driving. Amazing the skills you pick up when you're friends with a wizard.

There's a clatter and a thud as Harry pitched backwards when the truck lurches into motion. Fortunately, he managed to keep his hand on the cannon and not go tumbling over the side. All that before he could remark about what contingency plan?!

The cannon was a simple enough concept in theory, but a little more complicated in practice. All it really did was take in energy and store it under a sort of pressure, absorbing and focusing it into one huge blast that was way larger than what he could have otherwise managed in a single evocation.

Only drawbacks were the very long charge time, and how freaking power hungry it was.

He knew full well what kind of focus and attention it took to drive safely while bombs were raining down around you. Which was why he decided to help.

"No. No. On the left! The left!"

"Shining Prism!"

Monsters. Everywhere. Wanton destruction. It was something out of a nightmare, the likes of which Milla couldn't have been prepared for. As far as monsters went, the titan of a beast was unlike anything she had ever seen, and its capabilities were mind-boggling to say the very least. But against something that size, Milla had yet to come up with a plan.

Yes, she can use her artes, but against something of that size she's not certain how useful she would be.

She's taken to eliminating the ground forces. She had a small group of the inky black mob trapped inside a magic circle - from the edges of said circle erected walls of light, appearing as if solid, like glass. Within the magic cage, a burning-hot light bounced from wall to wall rapidly, running through the beasts with lethal efficiency. When the spell faded, dissipating into nothing, the monsters were vanquished, the road cleared.

That's when she hears the oncoming truck and the explosive convoy it seems to be leading. With a jolt she looks back over her shoulder to see Harry's beat-up truck barrelling straight for her. With no time to get out of the way of the road, she leaps into the air with surprising grace - and seemingly leaps again in mid-air to travel over the truck and land in the bed of the truck.

She looks to Harry in slight surprise, but her body jerks as the truck continues to swerve and dodge the oncoming projectiles, and it's difficult with her sword in one hand, but she manges to keep from simply falling off. "Harry!"

"Stop helping!"

Murphy yelled back at him and concentrated on keeping the big truck moving as nimbly as was possible for a vehicle of it's size. She didn't let up on the gas either, taking sharp zig zagging turns and wide arcs to avoid the missiles.

A job that was made harder when there was a sudden figure in the road ahead, Murphy pulled a hard right on the wheel and the girl jumped, which ok shocked Karrin into a moment of shock. The truck skidded as tires caught before she whipped the wheel around and drove forward again.

She thought they were clear of the projectiles but this wasn't getting them closer to taking the thing that fired them out. "Plan? We could use one about now!"

"Sorry!"

He was really going to try to stick to that too. At least until he spotted the person standing in the middle of the road, right in their path.

"Murph!"

And that's when the person freaking jumped right over the truck and landed in the bed just on the other side of the cannon.

"Milla?"

And then the truck veered hard to the right, tossing him on his ass again before he could grab onto the side to stop himself.

"Whoah!"

Harry Dresden was truly a majestic stallion.

With the truck more or less driving straight again, he heaved himself back upright with a grunt and looked back at the craters left behind them. The big bastard had some real firepower.

The thought should have scared him senseless. The thing was massive, ridiculously strong and it just soaked up the best he could throw at it and threw even more back at him, but all he could feel was the blood pounding in his veins. The thrill of chaos, battle and fury on a scale he'd never seen before. It was a rush.

His expression split into an almost feral grin when he looked out toward the monstrosity.

Okay, plan. Time to come up with something. He turned his attention to the jet circling over the monster's head.

"We get up higher, get a clearer shot at it! Hang a right up ahead, there's one of those big multi-level parking garages!" This would have to be timed just right. His head snapped around, looking toward Milla. "I could use a hand charging this thing, if you can spare some juice! Right hand on the top, start channeling directly into it until it's ready to fire."

Milla stumbles in the back of the truck, left, right, just like Harry. The two of them fell, grabbed onto the side of the truck, and then righted themselves once more. She was not one to startle easily, however. She regains her footing quickly, and her focus seems unshakable.

When Harry voiced his plan (shouted over the rushing wind and over-all noisy chaos), Milla gave a nod. "Very well!"

That was a simple enough answer. She kneels so that she would have less chance of being thrown off the truck and plants her hand right on the top of the cannon while trying her best to stay situated. Closing her eyes, she gets to work, offering her mana to power up the cannon.

Humans, where she came from, produced mana via a lobe in their brains. To this end, the act of offering mana to power Harry's glyphs was not a manipulation of magic as an external force, but rather a natural ability - and she has plenty of mana to give.

Harry's plan seemed obvious - to fire at the creature's head rather than its chest. She would agree that was a good plan - with enough power, that thin neck should have had trouble withstanding.

"Right, because that's not insane at all." She snarled back but she was already turning the wheel and heading for the garage. She trusted the other to keep their feet and their heads by way of ducking for clearance since she wasn't slowing down.

She took the turns sharp and hard but with all the skill of a race car driver, The big lumbering truck was gliding through the upward spiral at a controlled if nearly reckless speed.

"You love it!" He shouted even as he dropped into a crouch beside the cannon, funneling power into it again.

With Milla's help the reservoir inside of it was already filling up quicker than before, and the runes carved into the iron were already beginning to glow bright red with power. Damn, the girl was a powerhouse. That next shot was going to be big and he could hardly wait to see how ugly the thing looked with a brand new hole blown straight through it.

He kept his eyes forward though, watching the beast and the plane harassing it. Ruby would be making her move any second now, and this was going to take some serious timing to pull off.

"We opened the door to the shadows...

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Hello again, Harry [Hopping in, I hope you don't mind.]

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forever late!

I'm so angry I could just-- no, not really. It's cool.