In the year 2012, a mysterious illness began to sweep the globe. In its wake, those who survived it were left with immensely powerful supernatural abilities.
As the number of people capable of wielding magic powers increased, they began to organize and seize control of the course of history. Using their powers to travel between parallel universes, these mages forge empires of a scale never before seen. And at the center of it all is the Academy, a neutral institution founded for mages to share their knowledge with each other.
Mages struggle against each other to impose their will upon the multiverse, but there is one threat that unites them all together. In recent months, mysterious entities have appeared. These entities wield power far greater than any one mage, and they seem determined to annihilate all of humanity. The mages will have to set aside their differences in order to beat them. The fate of the multiverse depends on it.
Post by Jack Mason on Jun 14, 2018 16:43:59 GMT -7
"I didn't accidentally set off anything," Jack retorted at his opponent. "Er, I mean, that was your fault anyway, so don't pin it on me!"
Jack didn't believe for a moment that she was innocent in all this, but he was distracted when he suddenly felt a section of the building coming apart in a very strange way. It wasn't a typical explosion. Instead, it almost seemed like the walls were collapsing under their own weight - except they were collapsing outward instead of downward.
It was more out of force of habit than anything else that Jack immediately started trying to grow the walls back together. He had no idea who could be behind this sort of strange attack, but he doubted that they were planning anything good.
Post by Serpentarius on Jun 14, 2018 17:44:45 GMT -7
As Jack used his sense to watch what was happening throughout the building, he noticed that the vast majority of the people were fleeing the exploding building. There was one exception, however: a woman who was walking through the fleeing crowds with a sense of purpose, like she had somewhere to be and was neither surprised nor particularly bothered by the chaos.
The odds were good that she was a mage. But the question was, whose side was she on? Jack focused his attention on her. If she took a move that seemed to put her at odds with the hated troublemakers, then Jack would be there in moments to help her out.
ACTION: Prediction (Sense) for Rira
What was Vieri even doing here? Wasn't he doing something or other today? Well whatever, it's not like he wasn't allowed here or something, so there wasn't much point in worrying about it. Did he want a piece of the mage here too? She supposed that was also fine, if completely unnecessary.
That said, if this tiny mage wasn't the one behind all this, who was? Diana wasn't inclined to believe he was lying given his general harmless derpiness, which meant there had to be something else going on here. Rather than follow up on her attack, she decided to observe. If anything came for them, she'd be ready for it. Amplifying her senses here was dangerous given all the fire and the presence of Vieri, but enhancing her analytical ability should be sufficient for something like this. Even in this chaos she should have no trouble seeing something moving not quite right.
---
ACTION: Prediction (Deduction) on Vieri
She didn't know what Faye had to do with all of this, neither did she know anything about the other boy apparently a mage. What Rira did know, was that they seemed to have complete different alliances, with the latter essentially attacking the former. Of course at first, to Rira, they were both obstacles, but it seemed that Vieri was currently the bigger obstacle. And she knew partially about the girl. That she was just a naive magician, looking to make everyone happy or something. Either way, that meant that she was less of an obstacle than the boy was.
So Rira decided she would have to keep this obstacle at bay. Raising her hand whilst she gracefully walked towards the building, she summoned large, black chains to break through from underneath. They surfaced in a dangerous and quick way as they rotated to dive back down to the ground, nearby the mages, creating a maze like enviornment.
Interference (Obstruction) against Vieri.
Action: Maneuver ([FIELD]) on [Crew].
Once again, a familiar, already used move just might be the best option right now. Even if Faye herself briefly frowned as she reached into her hat, pulling out one of the chemicals she took from the lab. Still she cleared her throat, dropped her hat and cape for a second so she could properly throw, and tossed the chemical, "Sorry, see you in a few minutes later!"
The smoke was nearly instantaneous, and Faye, went for her nearly visible hat, remembering where she dropped it. She had maybe a few knifes left, but instead of outright throwing it towards the mage in front of her as normal, she threw behind herself, quickly sidestepping to the side, just in case. And just in case was needed, the knife would reappear where she last saw the mage boy, the straight path she threw it in giving a potentially perfect shot for the mage's back.
Aggression (Disruption) against Vieri
Aggression(Force) against Faye Taking PRESSURE opening against Faye!
---
Vieri di Adatto Isabello takes PRESSURE opening against Faye Popescu at a cost of 15% combat advantage, causing her powers to stop contributing combat advantage for the rest of the battle!
Prediction (Deduction) by Diana triggered by Rira results in FAILURE due to suppression by the target's equal-or-greater immunity, +5% combat advantage
Aggression (Force) by Vieri di Adatto Isabello against Faye Popescu results in PARTIAL success due to suppression by the lesser Interference (Obstruction) Rira used, +10% combat advantage
Prediction (Sense) by Jack Mason for Rira results in FAILURE due to not being triggered, +5% combat advantage
---
Current conditions:
Faye Popescu is PRESSURED, preventing her powers from contributing combat advantage for the rest of the battle.
Rira can ISOLATE Vieri di Adatto Isabello at a cost of 10% combat advantage, preventing him from targeting or being targeted by his allies for the rest of the battle.
Crew can RESET at a cost of 20% combat advantage, removing all positive and negative opening effects from both sides.
Diana can STRATEGIZE at a cost of 30% combat advantage, cutting the other side's combat advantage in half.
Faye Popescu can SOFTEN Vieri di Adatto Isabello at a cost of 15% combat advantage, preventing him from suppressing powers for the rest of the battle.
(Click here to send in your next round's actions!)
Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Jun 15, 2018 0:24:42 GMT -7
The light and smoke of the explosion faded, and the pigeon killing mage was a suitable distance away. Electricity continued to crackle around Vieri as he gathered his footing, straightened, and cracked his neck. Revenge, no matter how small, always felt like a breath of fresh air. All the damn smoke from the half-assed explosions that couldn’t even completely tear apart some buildings, it was just what he needed.
“I viewed you as an enemy last time you...”
He less cut off than trailed off as he took a moment to process the information he was getting from his power. It was easier to see what - and specifically, who - was about now that there were less than a hundred people packed shoulder to shoulder, overlapping each other’s thoughts like a sea of static. His eyes narrowed in confusion as his head snapped quickly over his shoulder.
“Diana?! The hell you doing here?!” He paused, then sounding more confused than anything “You stalking me or something?”
Battle, knowing her. With Building Kid again. He sent a glance back to the pigeon killer, failing to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He was going to have to take care of her, wasn’t he? He bet he’d just stumbled upon a mage battle and people were going to have to be punched to either help someone’s inane plan or stop it.
At least the sides were easy to tell. Diana was on his side. Wall Guy and Pigeon Killer got explosions to the face. He extended his hands out towards the witch mage, palms forward, and fired off another blast towards the girl.
When chains broke free of the ground. Shooting up into the sky, getting in the way of a perfectly good blast and any hope this would be easy. His eyes settled on the chain mage, and the singular enemy who’d yet to get acquainted with him and his way of business.
“Three mages, huh? Idiots think they can take on both of us, Diana.” He clicked his tongue and cracked a grin. “Oi Twirls, you and your buddies about to have a very bad day.”
Post by Jack Mason on Jun 15, 2018 16:23:08 GMT -7
More mages were starting to show up. On one hand, Jack felt like he should be trying harder to figure out who was here trying to do what. But on the other hand, he had just sensed a familiar electrical explosion as a mage he recognized blasted his way into the building.
"Aha!" Jack pronounced. "You can't fool me! He just got here, you liar! Did you think you could keep your plot hidden forever?"
Actually, Jack still had no idea what was going on. But there was no way he was going to just outright admit that.
"Wait, you did it on purpose?" Diana blinked then laughed as she continued to try to play whack-a-mole with her spear. "Holy shit, I didn't think you had it in you. So what happened? Someone bleed in the wrong place or something?"
She wasn't exactly trying very hard to hit him. It tended to be pointless to try because she didn't have much interest in killing mages. Figuring out how their powers worked was always a good time though, so she had no problem stabbing at him just to see what would happen. Given this place was on fire, was he going to burn along with it? If she stabbed in the right place in the floor would she be stabbing him? There were a lot of things she could try, so she was more than happy to run around and keep provoking him, even if it meant she got badly burned in the process. Fortunately, he seemed pretty easy to provoke into fighting.
Diana didn't even notice Vieri was here until he, and the kid in the wall, said something about it. She turned around mid stab into the floor and shrugged. She already knew the kid in the wall was stupid, but this was just silly. He was acting like blowing up buildings was something she hid rather than something she did openly while enjoying every second of it. He was probably just saying stuff, but still. She turned her attention back to Vieri, lifting up the briefcase full of money in her hand like she was going to throw it to him, only to realize it was kind of hot and her skin melted into the metal handle earlier. It was probably for the best that she hang onto it for now and hand it over later.
"Right, you got me. I was trying to very sneakily cause a massive explosion that would set a giant building on fire, and very stealthily caused a very unnoticeable riot that'll probably be in the news for months," she said flatly at the kid in the wall without turning away from Vieri. "Stalking you? What are you even doing here? I thought you had more important things to be doing than messing around in some random city. But no, I got you enough cash to hire a couple hundred of these people for a year or so, even if you overpay them. They seriously work for just about nothing."
Of course, while she was talking she was still keeping a good eye on things. Enough so that even when knives randomly appeared out of nowhere, she was able to act on it. Unfortunately, there were no conveniently placed small animals around to incur Vieri's wrath, so she had to make do with kicking the nearest person trying to escape the building fire into them instead. The chains were a bit harder. Even if she saw them coming, there wasn't much she could do about it other than step back and make sure she didn't get caught in it too. All she could really do was wave apologetically at Vieri and hope for the best. But it meant that another mage was here, and one that she knew. A little late to the party, but it looked like she might be able to learn something or other.
Post by Faye Popescu on Jun 15, 2018 19:39:05 GMT -7
"Haha! Uh, who's Twirls? Also, welcome spear girl!" Faye would attempt a wave, only leaping backwards as another explosion went off, turning her face away just a little too slowly to not feel the intense heat. But this was alright! She could still see... blurry, but functional! But throughout all this amazing powers, slight eye problems, and smoke, could never forget the stage smoke, Faye found she was a bit backed up on plans. She could still follow the car, if she didn't care about more explosions, which were a tiny inconvenience, and more opponents was making her sweat, literally. Especially when chains erupted all around, nearly causing her to start shaking.
Oh what a predicament! "Truly, this is not an easy situation to come past! You two are rather powerful, and you do seem to really want to win!" She plopped back on her hat, holding the rim tightly. "I have no idea why you are against me this time, but I can't blame, I can't! I just have to wonder. Also, there are other mages around, you know them all?"
As if she was talking about the weather, Faye seemed to really wait for an answer, good hand at the back of her head. Of course, she wasn't that ignorant. As much as she would love to hear their answer, she would also love to get no more injuries, or injure these people. She began backing up, rubble crumbling under her boots, and a laugh still trickling out of her mouth.
Post by Serpentarius on Jun 16, 2018 17:55:29 GMT -7
It didn't take a genius to see what was going to happen next. Jack had repeatedly been the victim of this Vieri guy's electrical explosions, and he wasn't about to get caught off-guard this time. And as much as Diana's taunting was making him grit his teeth, he didn't have any time to waste trading banter.
Instead, Jack quickly sank back down into the building and turned his attention to the metal wiring and understructure. He began warping and growing them so that they'd dig deep down into the earth, harmlessly channeling any discharged electricity downwards and spreading it throughout the rest of the city. Hopefully that would dilute it enough to stop it from damaging him or either of the other mages that Diana and Vieri had apparently decided to pick on today.
ACTION: Interference (Corruption) against Vieri
Faye was kind of wishing she never joined this fight. Things were going off kilter for everyone, nobody would be happy at this rate, and her mind was getting way too focused on everyone's injuries, even her own wounds! Gosh, was she being a horrible performer. So she should do something for what she was assuming her last act on this stage, her last act should be pretty spectacular. Couldn't have anyone forget she was here after all. Plus, if things worked out for the girl in that car, that she had no idea the current whereabouts, then she still wanted to help out!
But she couldn't hurt the two mages in front of her. She was slightly sick of doing that at the moment, besides, her good knife throwing arm was out. So she closed her eyes, searching throughout the smoke for anything with her mark still on them. She found quite a bit, cars, rubble, even people! So she dropped all the rubble, and a car she found no longer moving, maybe a foot behind Diana, right out of searching eyes. Hopefully, it'll collapse all towards her and trap her, so she didn't even have to fight her anymore!
Interference (Obstruction) against Diana
She remembered fighting the mage that made the weird chain things, and they seemed pretty solid, but how solid were they? Could Vieri make them explode? Further, just how big an explosion could Vieri make if he really put his mind to it? He didn't give her much fodder for provoking him, but based on that last explosion it didn't seem like he needed it. That person he was going after was the one that nearly killed that stupid bird right? That would explain that at least. Hopefully that would be enough.
"Come on Vieri! You're not going to let this stupid kid in the wall show you up right? Those last few explosions were so small that I didn't even know you were even here!"
From there all she needed to do was get around the nearest corner and then amplify his power. The static discharge, the light, the sound, the resulting explosion, she could hit all those points pretty quickly. Would it be enough to break the chains he was in? How much of the building would even be left after this? Thinking about it, maybe she should find the closest window just in case she needed to jump out of it really fast.
---
ACTION: Teamwork with Vieri Aggression (Force) against Faye
Vieri lowered and widened his stance. The arcs of electricity shooting off of him were growing; the ones from his back going from several inches to several feet. The ones jumping from his arms, raised on either side like he was lifting something, were trailing high off into the air in streaks of blue and purple. The static around him was growing enough he almost seemed to glow.
“Shut up Diana, if you want bigger explosions than do your half of the job and get out of the fucking way!”
Some part of him was really hoping she wasn’t using her power to amplify her own sight right now. Another part of him wanted her to just watch this damn explosion and tell him she couldn’t tell he was here. At the very least, he couldn’t completely center it on him - Diana was close enough that she might end up getting more caught in it than was comfortable. He just wanted to get home and get a drink that wasn’t now filled with glass; fishing her out of the rubble and dragging her to the nurse’s office was going to add who knows how much extra time to his trip in this damn city. He’d make sure she was behind him.
In a single, quick motion he thrust his arms forward. Not directly at the pigeon killer, he couldn’t exactly kill her without turning the entire school on him, but close-ish. The energy cracked and released all in a single burst.
Blinding, white light filled the area. The boom ruptured eardrums and shattered distant windows, and the ground beneath him cracked and melted as the air around him was momentarily hotter than the surface of the sun.
What was alarming was the wind. His eye took the bright lights about as a normal human’s did flipping on the lights, and the soundwave only sounded to him like a nearby thunderclap. The wind was, in the moment of the explosion, his only frame of reference. His explosions always caused a little bit of it, but it was never this. Even though he’d focused the explosion forward, the wind and fire and ruble blew far past him on either side, blasting him off his feet and sending him skidding on his back like he’d been hit head on by a car.
As the light began to fade and the dust settle enough to make out any kind of silhouettes in the clouds the explosion had kicked up, the only silhouettes that could be made out were far in the distance. The buildings on all sides of them were no more than crumbled ruins, most of their stone and metalwork melted and blasted backwards into structures several blocks away. As far back as he could see, buildings were shattered husks, many partially or completely fallen into the street or other buildings. It went on for at least a mile, if not more.
Vieri began to pull himself up, stuffing down a groan. The ground underneath him was slick like glass, concrete and metal melted and hardened again. The buzz of his power’s sensor wasn’t silent, but it was far more quiet than it had been just a few seconds before.
“What the hell-” He gasped, his body pulling himself to his knees more from muscle memory than thought. “Diana?”
Aggression(Force) Teamwork with Diana against Faye!
Interference (Obstruction) by Faye Popescu against Diana results in SUCCESS, +0% combat advantage
Aggression (Force) by Diana and Vieri di Adatto Isabello with TEAMWORK results in SUCCESS, OVERWHELMING the Interference (Corruption) Jack Mason used, OVERWHELMING the Interference (Obstruction) Faye Popescu used, +30% combat advantage
1. Just head back to the Academy. This might be your fault, but it's not your problem. +5 Zenith, +65 Impact
2. Take the opportunity to insert yourselves into the rebuilding effort. With the magic at your disposal, this could lead to some significant leverage among mundanes in the area. +15 Zenith, +35 Impact, a new group branches from the Seekers and takes Shanghai as its territory
Diana wasted no time in getting out of there, but just as she was about to turn a corner suddenly a huge pile of rubble was in her way. Enough that she couldn't quickly get around it. Vieri was pretty obviously ramping up in the other room, so she needed to leave five minutes ago. The damage he would cause would be far greater than anything she could do to herself, so she amplified her own strength and punched through the rubble in an effort to get out of there. Her hand was thoroughly smashed in the effort, and the arm snapped in several places, but it was still better than staying where she was. As much as she wanted to avoid breaking every bone in her body, she didn't have enough time to find a good way out. So she had to opt for jumping out of the nearest hole in the building and hoping for the best. The explosion went off behind her, sending her flying across the chaotic mess of a street around the hotel. But gravity quickly took over and she landed chest first into the sidewalk, did several flips before finally stopping face first in a flowerbed on one of the nearby buildings. For a moment, she didn't move because everything hurt and she kind of wanted to fall asleep right here, but she supposed she probably shouldn't do that.
First, she needed to survey the damage. She couldn't feel her legs so she was already off to a great start. Something was definitely poking her lungs, she wasn't even sure what direction her hips were trying to go, and she was pretty sure that thing stuck in her tongue was a tooth, and that went along with the severe burns she had from not only standing in the middle of a fire that long, but also from the explosion she wasn't quite fast enough in getting away from. There were some bones sticking out of her skin in the arm she fractured before, but the other one was...mostly okay. The shoulder was bending in the wrong direction, but a quick push against the ground snapped that back into place enough that she could push herself up to look at the building behind her. Or lack of building behind her rather.
"Nice!" she laughed weakly.
Seriously, that was impressive. She hadn't gone out of her way to see how big a boom he could make if he really tried, and if she really tried, so it was pretty cool to see what they could actually do. Diana had no way of knowing if he was putting his all into it, but he seemed pretty pissed, so there was probably a good amount of effort at the very least. The power of mages was something else, and seeing the effects in the most obvious, visceral way was fascinating. No one would be able to deny it. The fights in her universe were small time compared to this, and this would be all over their glowing boxes where everyone would see it. In full video assuming not all of the cameras were destroyed in the blast, but even if they were, they were probably sending the video elsewhere and that place probably wouldn't be destroyed. Everyone would see, everyone would know, and she would make sure they all knew what was going on.
But she had to do it fast. Any bleeding was stopped pretty quickly by her power, so she probably wouldn't die, but she was still in a flimsy human body and it tended to have really bad reactions to severe injuries and pain. She was already seeing black spots and it was really hard to fight the urge to take a nap here. Her eyelids were heavy, and even her mostly in tact arm was starting to give out. She took a moment to amplify her voice's volume, something she was happy she could do now. She rarely used her indoor voice anymore, and she could be pretty loud if she put her mind to it, so her power made it sound like she was speaking over a loud speaker. It was loud enough that even the people still by the building could probably make her out over the screaming crowd.
"Hey! Hey all of you! Be quiet and listen! You see this? All this damage here? It was caused by one person."
As much as she wanted to go on about all the gory details she didn't want Vieri to have a mental breakdown because of it, so she kept it vague. That said, later she was definitely going to have to make fun of him for having a bigger animal body count than she did. It seemed unlikely that there were no rats or other small mammals inside, no squirrels in the trees, no bunnies in the flowerbeds, and no birds flying around the building after all.
"This is the power of mages! People that can bend reality to their will regardless of what reality says should happen! People that don't have to follow your worthless laws of physics!"
To emphasize her point, she used her power on the smoke coming from the remains of the fire and the building. The smoke quickly grew out of control and billowed out in ways that should not be physically possible. As much as she wanted to use it on something more dramatic, like the sun, she wasn't quite sure what kind of effect that would have on the planet and wasn't feeling inclined to find out while she and Vieri were still in it. This would have to do.
"This is our world now, so if you want to live in it, you're going to need to cooperate with us. Do so and we can make your cities better than you can imagine. Fail to cooperate and we'll just turn your city into a crater and then rebuild it how we want it. The choice is yours, weak mundane humans!"
With that, she flopped onto her side and sighed. Vieri had better take over the dramatics from here because she didn't have it in her even when she didn't feel like she was going to die. Now she just needed to figure out how to get back to that portal. It wasn't too far away, but right now she only had a working arm and her consciousness was fading pretty fast. Maybe she did just need to find a bathroom or other secluded area and take a nap for awhile. Her power was already closing up some of the smaller wounds, and sleep would only make it go faster as long as she remembered to use her power again before she fell asleep. There wasn't much harm in trying, so she started dragging herself to the nearest building in an effort to find some place to hide. At least until Vieri figured out where she landed.
Post by Faye Popescu on Jun 16, 2018 23:22:35 GMT -7
Faye felt like everything was going wrong for her. She so, so definitely shouldn't have joined this conflict! Even while she realized that she shouldn't be standing in front of this mage boy anymore and started scrambling backwards, boots nearly causing her to slip, her rubble pile blocked an escape route, for everyone. Her good hand flew up to cover her mouth, she just caused someone to get hurt with her, didn't she? She... wasn't sure how to feel about this, until she drew her arm up to protect her face. This wasn't going to be pleasant for either of them, even if one was a bit unpleasant. Really, that was the only thing her mind could land on.
Then a bright light managed to pierce through her eyelids. Quite honestly, light like that could have reminded her of spotlights or quick, safe explosions that was meant to awe. Sadly, the fact this light appeared alongside Faye being sent flying incredibly quickly made such nostalgic thoughts hard to hold onto. And then she landed, her bad arm completely stopped moving, and burns rose in her arms and legs and frankly, Faye was surprised she had any thoughts left, much less nostalgia. Especially when breathing became quite hard, she recognized the feeling of broken ribs.
For a second, Faye looked down at herself, seeing her ruined clothes, injuries that she hated, hated ever getting, and faced the realization all this was caused by people she always was trying to be civil with. She simply couldn't, absolutely couldn't keep even a neutral expression forever. She felt her face twist into an ugly scowl, breathing rapidly. How could she be so hated!? She was only trying to help! Why was everyone so unreasonable, why were people like this!? If people just stayed happy everything would be so much better!
She pulled up her good arm again, covering her face for a few seconds. Be happy, think happy thoughts... She could almost do it, but her previous thoughts kept rising back up. She needed to get out, before she got angry outwardly. But moving was, well, a challenge, just a challange. So since she couldn't force herself up, she just had to move a different way, of course. Reaching out to her side, she grasped for her cape, preparing to drape it over herself. "G-Goodbye, you all...!" She used her cheerful voice, she had to leave well. Then she threw her cape over herself, making herself as small as possible, and hoped no one was quite looking at her closely.
Thankfully, she felt herself fall into her dimension, and let out a breath. Alright, she could get back to the portal easy peasy through here. But first she needed to calm down and think happily, stop feeling bad for herself, think happily, get to smiling and performing, and, well, think happy, just happy.
What the fudge just happened? It was like someone had flashed his eyes directly with a flashlight, then set off some firecrackers in his ear drum. This was simply to say, he was disoriented. He'd managed to enter the building, despite it looking like the wall was healing itself, and searched around for the kid who'd phased through. He thought maybe a little roughing up might get him to talk, and if not that, something more extreme might. He wouldn't get the chance though. Something was happening down the hall. First, he heard shouting. Then explosions. Then shouting about explosions. Not good.
He prepared himself for the worst, and hoped whatever happened, it wasn't of the nuclear variety. Turns out, Crew was very lucky. By the time he'd regained some hearing, and managed to rub away the white spots in his eyes, he could see the absolute devastation in the aftermath. Rubble was everywhere. Well, not exactly. Rubble was all that was there.
Looking around, he.. well, he didn't see anyone. No one but the other mages, who, no surprise, survived. What the hell was all this even about? Some feud? A fight gone wrong? He was about to confront them, when one of them started ranting about who they were, what they could do, and what was there's. The distinct sound of a helicopter overhead didn't bode well for him. The last thing that was needed right now was being declared some kind of terrorist.
Opening a portal to the Academy, he began to walk through it, though he shouted before disappearing. "Assholes!"
Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Jun 17, 2018 6:25:52 GMT -7
He’d had a pretty decent idea of where Diana had been moments before the blast. The realization that she was no longer there - or nearby there - was plenty to jump him quickly up to his feet.
“Di- Diana!” He yelled, cupping his hand to his mouth for the second half.
His leg stung as he put weight on it, but not enough that he couldn’t walk on it. It was fine and he was tough, and he had someone to find. Fuzz in his head to sort through.
The area was quiet, painfully so. Compared to the electricity that had been rushing around him, in the cars, appliances, wires running the walls, even just plants running along the road, now felt deathly silent. He could count the number of signals on his two hands, not including the wires left alive underground or sputtering helplessly above, their tops chopped off in the explosion. It was disquieting in a way that made it difficult to concentrate, and was why he had only a vague idea of which direction was Diana until she started shouting.
As much as she just sat around in battle (for how much she said she liked it), when she put her mind to something, she really didn’t half-ass it. Powers amplifying it or not. He was a little startled as her voice began to ring over the ruins, but, listening, he couldn’t help the small smile from curling on his lips.
He killed it quickly. He had to go track her down. Now that he knew the direction he knew which signal to focus on, and what he was reading… She wasn’t dead, at least. Granted, if an explosion like that, half caused by her, could off her, she kinda deserved it. But she’d toughed it out, and he wasn’t going to leave her crawling for long. Like he would leave her to that long enough to get back to the portal- she underestimated him.
He was moving quickly by ‘things that were still alive’ standards. The quiet was still leaving him a bit of a daze, and he was focusing on Diana’s signal to keep some kind of noise in his head while he ignored the rest and stumbled over the rubble. With no one else and nothing else in his way, he could make it straight there.
The dramatics could wait. He was a little dizzy and a little hurt, and she was really hurt. And, she’d done a fine job with the dramatics.
His eyes momentarily widened as she came into view with her legs and arm, or what the explosion had made of them. He used it to quicken his pace. Not that catching up was difficult given her… he chose not to look at it too hard as he came to a slow just alongside her.
“Oi, Diana, don’t die.” He said with moderate grumpiness as he crouched down next to her. Grabbing her bony arm, he turned his back to her and began trying to pull her up to a piggly back. Given the inches she had on him, this was the only way this was going to work.
In the silence, he was able to speak softly. “Give me your arm. You want to go to Florence or the academy med bay?”
Diana tensed when she heard footsteps behind her. She wasn't in much of a position to deal with any potential problems, especially if it ended up being an angry mage. Her mind started running through potential options, until the person in question happened to talk. She could recognize Vieri's voice from anywhere, even if it was softer and less grumpy than usual. He found her more quickly than she expected. She supposed there probably weren't a lot of other thoughts to interfere with finding hers given what just happened, so she felt like she should have been less surprised. There wasn't much point in trying to crawl away at this point, so she stopped, sighed, relaxed, and let him grab her.
"Please, something like this isn't going to kill me," she waved her one working hand dismissively before wrapping her arm around his neck to help keep her in place so she wouldn't flop off of him. "Just take me home. Once I sleep for a few hours I'll be fine."
To an ordinary person, it might have looked like she was simply acting tough. She was clearly in bad shape. There wasn't a single spot on her back side that wasn't charred black, most of her limbs weren't working, several bones were poking through her skin, her spin was twisted the wrong way, but none of that really mattered. It was just as she said before, mages don't have to care about the rules. Injuries like this were nothing before her power, and a few hours of sleep would genuinely fix the worst of it, and the rest could be taken care of when she woke up again. There was really no problem here.
But there were other signs that she wasn't trying to sound tough. She had no problem being carried, it made more sense and would save more time than trying to walk on her own and Vieri seemed fine enough for it. One use of her power on him would probably fix most of the small issues he had pretty quickly. Diana had no reason to believe he would try anything, so there wasn't any reason to fight. She just rested her head on his other shoulder and started dozing off immediately. There wasn't much point in putting that off either.
Post by Jack Mason on Jun 21, 2018 23:25:22 GMT -7
The explosion sent chunks of steel and concrete flying at the speed of sound. Even outside the lethal pressure zone, this wave of debris caused widespread destruction.
One piece of concrete, larger than a person, tumbled down the road, gradually losing speed as it went. One particularly violent bounce dislodged Jack from inside, and he rolled to a stop in the middle of a crowd of people. The mundane civilians seemed even more shocked about Jack's sudden appearance than they did about the explosion - which seemed like a serious case of misplaced priorities, but he wasn't in any state to confront them about it.
For several moments, Jack could only blink in disbelief at the rising cloud of dust and smoke. He had never seen destruction on this scale, especially not in one of the urban regions of the world of 2018.
"Someone is gonna have one heck of a mess to clean up."
But that someone wouldn't be Jack, this time. His senses were still trying to tell him that his limbs were scattered across half of Shanghai. The thought of trying to merge again in this state was almost enough to make him vomit.
Pushing himself onto his unsteady legs, Jack stumbled toward the general direction of the nearest portal to the Academy.
Post by Serpentarius on Jun 23, 2018 21:04:15 GMT -7
The Huangpu explosion was arguably the worst peacetime disaster in recorded history, killing over a hundred thousand Shanghai residents and visitors. However, the rebuilding effort also offered unprecedented business opportunities. Mundane construction companies competed fiercely for contracts, but the true work was done behind the scenes by mages.
Those mages were also competing among each other, naturally. And in the course of that competition, it began to become clear that it was exceedingly rare for mage powers to actually be useful for this sort of work. Some mages had powers that could be cleverly repurposed to a constructive role, and these were the mages that dominated the rebuilding effort, because completely peaceful mage powers simply don't exist.
Eventually, a particular group of mages began to dominate the rebuilding effort, reaping the connections with mundane business and government that resulted. This just so happened to be the same mages that were responsible for the destruction in the first place, but only a very few individuals were aware of that. However, even the ignorant local public was able to see that the rebuilding proceeded far faster than should have been possible with 21st century technology alone, and rumors about the existence of magic began to pick up more traction...