middleofsomewhere | The Will to Fight: Ongoing: Red and Purple

The Will to Fight: Ongoing: Red and Purple

Dawn Attack

It's been a busy few days of fighting demons, attacking keystones and fighting both on the demon and human planes. On the morning of day nine of the month of Kazoo a gate opens close to the base camp that the two teams have made.

It seems the demons have decided to focus on this unexpected threat, because it is a sizable force, with a number of the large demons. They march towards the camp with single-minded focus, the opportunity to stop these unwanted defenders taking precedence over their desire to destroy the city.

The advantage to the landscape being as ruined as it is, is that there isn't much to stop the lookouts from seeing this force headed towards them. A gate opening is not subtle. There should be enough time to make sure the defenders are ready.

Scouting Ahead

Once that skirmish is won those on the Red team will find their SCA's beeping, with an exclamation point far out to the east.

A group of demons is congregating at the location indicated. Investigate why, defeat the demons and close any gates nearby.

It will take a while to get there and there is plenty to do on the way for those that follow the exclamation point. Roaming packs of demons, gates to be closed. Exhausting work, especially for those going in and out of the demon gates.

Protecting the City

Once it is clear that these defenders are not going to be easy to wipe out, the attacks on the city itself get more frequent. The demons have changed tactics: rather than sending in large groups they open many small portals, sending small strike teams to harry and target individuals.

Some of the attacks are clearly meant as traps: they open the gates in or very close to the city, to lure the Voidtreckers in to where they will be affected by the spell. Ranged attacks may be useful here.

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Trunks will accept it, but also commend Devero for making the most of his weapons and what they can do. Certainly the man is skilled, and Trunks can appreciate that. Right then, he's appreciating very much that he and Devero had worked enough with each other that they're guarding each other pretty well.

Except for those big demons. One, Trunks can handle on his own--maybe 2--easily considering he's trying to be aware of friendly fire. But 4 or 5--he didn't count exactly, is going to make him focus as he's trying to dodge those whips or cut them with his sword. A few ki-blasts are also keeping them from getting a good hold on him, but it means he has no chance to help Devero...

Which is exactly the point. The fighting is so close and so intense for a few minutes that Devero doesn't notice the demons have closed him off from Trunks until it's too late and he's surrounded. Cruelly clawed hands snatch at him from all sides, too many to beat them all back and so one finally fixes around his wrist from behind, halting his swing and pulling him off balance. His other arm is caught an instant later and his weapons are wrenched from his hands.

"No-- shit, no, let me go--!"

The crowd around him parts, clearing a path for one of those waifish, knife-sharp little demons. Devero's voice catches in his throat and he recoils, struggling to pull himself free. He knows these little ones are the smart ones, the really dangerous ones. Claws sink into his flesh and a pair of jaws gnashes beside his ear, a warning as he's held there until the little demon is only a meter or two away. The demons grappling him shove him forward then, so roughly that he crashes to his knees.

The little demon in front of him grins, showing rows and rows of teeth-- and then lashes out with writhing, shadowy chains.

Devero manages to yell out his friend's name once before the chains loop around him. Then he just screams.

Shit.

Trunks was done. So very done, with all these demons. He pushed himself for more speed, more power. Too quick to be seen, aside from silvery slashes in the air, or a golden-wreathed point of impact. He had the big demons down. Decapitated, missing limbs, sliced into pieces.

Tossing his sword up in the air, Trunks appeared at the Devero's back. Pulling demons off of him forcibly and tossing them away as if they were so much trash. Short bursts of ki are flashing out in front of Devero, before he's being pulled up to his feet.

Trunks loops one arm under Devero's own, and then holds still for 1 second. His sword fell perfectly into the sheath over his shoulder. As soon as it was in place, Trunks was kicking off into the air, putting himself and Devero out of the demon's clutches.

Edited 2021-03-22 02:23 (UTC)

The first moment after the chains wrap around him is debilitating. His experience with magic in general is limited; with magic like this? Non-existent. The chains seem to sear against his skin even though they aren't actually touching his skin, and his vision greys out as the world tilts dizzyingly around him.

If the demon was expecting him to succumb without a fight to its life-draining magic, though, it's badly misguided. This is the man who walked half the length of a train car on a badly broken leg; the man who pushed his composite self to the limits of biofeedback failsafes and beyond to save lives in his exo; the man who bent to the yoke of a profoundly abusive woman but never-- quite-- broke.

It will take more than a little life-eating magic to take the life out of this man.

Even as Trunks appears behind him with all the ballistic ferocity of a meteor fallen to Earth, Devero lifts his head and stares down the demon at the end of his chains. He gropes at his hip and finds one last weapon remaining, the baton he'd holstered to take out the gun earlier. With that hand, he pulls it free and flicks it into full extension; the other he wraps around the chains between himself and the demon. He turns on his blessed weapon, and then he yanks.

The demon stumbles forward, surprised, and takes about 20,000 volts of holy electricity right in the throat.

He clings to the baton as he feels hands on him, only turning it off when he realizes that these are the familiar hands of a friend. It takes all the strength he has left to keep his hold on the weapon as Trunks launches them; otherwise, he's dead weight in the younger man's arms.

One arm still looped under Devero's own, Trunks used his other one to fire off bursts of ki. Trying to keep the demons on their toes or scattering like so many ants. "Give me your status, Dev." He said, loud enough to be heard while keeping them out of range of any return-fire via whip.

"Fuckin' awful," Devero grits out, trying to rally himself enough to-- well, there's not much he can do from up here, not with his pistol down in the dirt somewhere. Hang on to Trunks's arm under his, at least.

"Feels like I've been burned. Might need to have you drop me behind the front somewhere."

With the leader of this little cohort of demons disintegrating into ash from the inside out and their big buddies already rotting away into nothing, it doesn't take many blasts from Trunks to disperse the ones that remain. They scatter like ants indeed, as many of them as can get away, to melt back into the main force elsewhere.

(They leave Devero's holy weapons behind where they'd been immediately dropped. Apparently, they can't even bear to touch the things.)

Once it looked like it was clearer, Trunks took them back down to the ground more slowly than they'd gone up. Not that he was letting go of Devero's arm until he was sure the man could stand on his own feet.

"I can give you a senzu. You've been coordinating a lot, so we need you back in action fast." Trunks remained transformed, but that golden aura around him was dimmed to almost nothing now by his choice. The only way to tell was by the spikey blonde hair and green-eyes, instead of his normal blue.

Right now, Devero can most definitely not stand on his own two feet. The touch of the life-stealing chains, brief though it was, had hit the already weary man hard. If Trunks hadn't been there to drive the foot soldiers off, his act of defiance might just have been all the resistance he could have managed before the remaining demons overwhelmed him in retaliation for killing their leader.

He tries to stand, but his legs just won't support him. He uses the solidity of Trunks's arm for stability as he sits ungracefully in the churned up dirt instead.

"That's one of your magic beans, right?" he mumbles, distracted by trying to pull his chest plate off. He could swear he's been burned, he needs to see how bad it is--

"Yep." Once Devero seems settled, Trunks is holding his hand over his ARMS band. Soon enough he's pulling out a tiny bean that almost resembles a lima bean. Passing it to the other, and all but glaring at him to take it.

Devero doesn't take it at first, too busy yanking up the base layer of the armor to examine the stretch of his abs. The burns he's expecting are absent. There are no physical marks at all.

His gaze is a little bleary as he finally raises his gaze back to Trunks. He blinks several times at the innocuous little bean in his friend's hand. "This is it?" he asks, reaching up to take it.

"Yep. I plan to buy more, although we're trying to grow 'em on the train." Once the bean is taken, Trunks is going to step back. Crossing his arms, turning himself in a slow circle to gauge how much time they might have before being bothered next.

Devero doesn't respond right away. He's too busy squinting dubiously at the bean, which looks way too small and unassuming to be magic. Especially not magic enough to-- how had Trunks put it, the first time he'd mentioned them? To "heal any injury short of death".

Not that he can really afford stubborn scientific skepticism right now. He glances up at Trunks, then pops the bean into his mouth--

It's obvious the moment that it's worked, because Devero shoots up to his feet as if propelled. He stares incredulously at his hands and arms, which had been shredded by demon claws even before that scrawny fucker had gotten its chains around him. He pats himself down; not only are his wounds gone, but so is the phantom sensation of burning-- not to mention the fatigue of a long night of interrupted sleep and the early morning rush back to the base camp with Koumyou.

An incredulous laugh bubbles up out of him. "Rust and ruin, Trunks! You didn't tell me these things worked so fast! Or that they would make me feel this-- this good!"

"Now you understand. They're rare in our world, and gone for good in my timeline." Trunks said, with a smirk. "So get back out there and do what you do best, Devero. I'm going to go play target." Preparing to take off for the air, and do just that while raining pain on the demons he encounters.

"With pleasure," Devero says with a grin of his own. He salutes Trunks with a closed fist and steps back to give him room to launch. "Go wipe 'em out, brother."

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The Will to Fight: Ongoing: Red and Purple

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