The SHADOW Falls (IC): GM

[Synius]

"Well that's rather rude." He wasn't sure exactly what that would have done to him, but he was sure that it would be most unpleasant. His bolts didn't seem to get through to this guy, which was rather irritating. he took a moment, and wondered how he might get through. While he was thinking, there was no sense in standing idle. He took a look around the room, and picked a new target.

Can't shoot one of the guys holding the mirror, it might fall. So that leaves one of the grunts. He gave a quick blast, reaching out toward one of the lizards, trying not to hit one of the friendlies. The shot goes wide, putting a little burn mark on the wall behind the creature.

[quotemyname]

With a sudden flash of lightning, There was suddenly another hero in the fight. Valkyrie appeared from out of the heavenly lightning. Standing dead center in the room, she quickly lifted her hammer, and dispatched the remaining lizardmen. Lightning struck each creature as each blow fell, heavy with divine justice.

"HHRRrrraaAAAHHH! RRaahhh! HaaAAHHH!" Came her battle cry.

"Leave this place at once, foul sorcerer! Thou canst hope to weather the might of the Gods brought upon you!" She pointed at the lizard floating above the battle.

[quotemyname]

The two mages near the wall holding the mirror spared no words for their enemies. They instead concentrated on their spells. One cast another spell to heal his wounds. They other once again tapped into the power of the mirror to launch a powerful blast at Valkyrie. The blast went wide this time, bouncing harmlessly off the wall of the display room.

[Heritage]

"Okay, never mind. Make with the pixie and grab that guy, I'll go for round two with the Great Gazoo."

Hovering nearby, Fun Size Grim gaped at the big ol' hole her teammate had knocked in the museum's wall.

"Jeez, Jack, did you have to knock him all the way to Hackensack?" Now I gotta go find him again!"

She zoomed out into the street, her tiny nose twitching as she flew.

[quotemyname]

Grimalkin flew high above the streets of Freedom City. Suddenly, she caught the scent of the shadowy figure that had been robbing the Museum. She hastily made a bee-line to his location, flying as fast as she could. She didn't bother to give any mind to her surroundings, as she desperately needed to track him down. Finally, she came to the place where he had created his own little crater in the street. She arrived just in time to see him crawling to his feet, clawing at the edge of the crater, trying to get a hand hold.

The shadowy figure turned to face Grimalkin, the iridescent white eyes that shown through the mask widened in surprise, then narrowed menacingly. Quitely, he began laughing. Then louder, and more uncontrollably. From the noises he was making Grim could tell he had at least a few broken bones. Laughing must have been incredibly painful for him, and yet her presence there seemed to be somehow comical enough for him to ignore the pain and pursue his hysterics.

[Gizmo]

"Yeah, yeah, 'rue the day,' et cetera, et cetera," Jack drawled wit a roll of his eyes as he charged past the lead sorcerer. "You're the very scariest lizard wizard, yes you'm is!" Sliding along the museum's slick floor, he caught one of the other magic users with a glancing blow as he resituated himself into the middle of the battle. Lightning goes right through him, huh? Tricky...

[quotemyname]

Jack's slash caught the black robed Mage in the shoulder. Though the strike's electricity was potent enough to make the man twitch, he managed to retain his fanatical grip on the Mirror. The swordsman definitely had his attention now, though.

[quotemyname]

"Hisssssss! My minionsssssss! Die, damn you! Die!" The somewhat transparent sorcerer raised his hand and released another bolt of energy in Valkyrie's direction. She just barely managed to skip out of the way, however, and it scorched an area on the floor to her left.

[quotemyname]

Valkyrie let loose an audible growl. She couldn't touch the floating magician and she knew it. She had already seen attacks pass right through him. Even if she threw her hammer, and lightning did strike, the electricity would do nothing, as Gigawatt had proved. Her combat senses kicked in, and she defaulted to her tried and true method of causing as much damage as possible in the least amount of time. That meant taking out those mages. In a flash of lightning, she once again joined Jack of All Blades in combat. With a mighty roar, she swung her hammer at the mage that Jack had just injured. "Hrrahhhhh!"

The massive hammer connected with a glancing blow to the side of the mage's shoulder. Lightning arced through the skylight, shattering glass and sending it raining down onto the museum floor, then it struck the place where the hammer had touched. The mage looked a little shaken up by the hammer, but the lightning seemed to have no effect on him.

[quotemyname]

Elsewhere on the streets of Freedom, the man that Grimalkin had been following crawled slowly and painfully from the crater which had been created by his body. As he stood, his body faded from Grim's vision, but she could still smell him. Then, before she knew what was happening, a small army of similarly clad men began to come out of the woodwork from everywhere. Every alley, shadowed doorway, and manhole divested at least one of the shadow warriors. Before long, there were at least 20 of the men on the street surrounding her.

[quotemyname]

The two mages finally managed to gather their wits about them and respond to their newest attackers. Still pinned against the wall, the two simply entered artillery mode. Another blast of brilliant light shot out of the mirror. It struck Valkyrie straight in the chest at point blank rank. But she gritted her teeth and was only forced back a step, knowing full well that it could have gone much worse.

The second mage raised one of his hands and it glowed with arcane power. Another blast of energy was sent Jack's direction, and yet one more attack completely missed him.

[Heritage]

Pixie Grim grinned broadly when the masked and seriously injured thief began to laugh, but for just a second she had her doubts when he faded from view and his flunkies came pouring out of every nook and crannie. But only for a second. Fluttering her eyelashes and doing her best to look nauseatingly cute, she put her hands to face and looked pleasantly surprised.

"Wow, all of you boys came out to see little ol' me? Aww, what a bunch of sweeties!"

Then her tiny features became down right diabolical.

"Now pucker up for a great big KISS!" :twisted:

There was a sudden woosh of air as the changeling smoothly shot up to full size and disappeared from sight at the same time; in a flash, her claws were out and she was ripping her way through the schmucks like a buzzsaw through a baked Alaska. It seemed like she was everywhere and nowhere at the same time as clothes shredded and unconcious bodies slumped to the pavement in the blink of an eye. The Jewish ninja princess tumbled, flipped and rolled through their ranks, spreading mayhem as she flew.

[quotemyname]

Grimalkin's invisible talons made short work of all of the reinforcements. In her wake of destruction was left body after body of dark clad soldiers. The entire exchange took only a few seconds, but even as she was finishing, the bodies of the fallen soldiers were already evaporating into clouds of slickly gray-black smoke. They made a hissing sound as they dissolved into nothingness.

On the streets of freedom, and Invisible Grimalkin now faced off against an Invisible opponent, one on one.

[Gizmo]

Jack of all Blades pulled an annoyed face as he easily vaulted over the deadly bolts of mystic force hurled in his direction. "Alright, bored with this," he drawled, touching back down to the floor lightly and kicking off to launch himself at the first of the robed mages. His sparkling sword of electricity came down in a brutal overhand strike, passing though into his opponent's body from one shoulder with a slight smell of sizzling cloth and flesh. Shifting his weight to redirect his momentum, the swashbuckler brought the lighting blade across in a perpendicular slash which left the shocked sorcerer at the hip and immediately found a new place to bury itself in his colleague. As Jack took a step back, pulling his rapier back into a ready position, the pair collapsed atop each other without so much as a grunt, faint wisps of smoke rising from their heavy vestments.

[quotemyname]

"Blasssssst! Foul Humanssssss, foiling my plansssssss!" The High Sorcerer looked even more enraged than usual at the loss of the last of his henchmen. "Resssssst assssssssured. There will be another day, another time. The time of the Ssssserpent!" Then suddenly, he was gone, vanished in a puff of logic.

---

Outside on the streets, Grimalkin barely had time to catch her breath. Where the multitude of troops had been earlier, a large 10-foot wide glowing circle appeared. Another similarly dressed figure appeared through it, and turned around to face it. He waved his hands in a circular pattern, presumably keeping the portal from closing. Four other figures followed him out. Though they were dressed the same, their physical size was greatly enhanced. Instead of the costume fitting loosely like it had on the clones, theirs were stretched tight across their frames. Even their muscles looked to have muscles of their own. The first in the troop spoke, "No visible targets. Fan out. Operation Interference!" At his command, two of the new arrivals raced to the sides of the streets where civilians were still busy fleeing the growing disaster area. The leader and the other turned towards other areas, and clapped their hands hard. The resulting shockwave downed about 10 civilians on either side of the street.

[Heritage]

Seconds before the new arrivals smacked their hands together, the unseen agile shapeshifter leaped clear of the shockwave, did a backflip and landed on the sidewalk.

This is not good.

She activated her comlink, allowing only Jack to hear her voice.

"Jackie me boy, it's Grim. I've got a lot of unfriendlies showing up out here, using some kind of portal to spill out onto the street. Looks like SHADOW is here in force."

[Gizmo]

Jack scowled as he stood over the unconscious mages and listened to Grim's report over the comlink. "Nertz. Goldilocks! he shouted to Valkyrie. "We got a sitch outside! I need a ride and some muscle, so get your fine, Nordic self in gear!" He looked to the other heroes in the museum. "Shelly, Glowstick, you good to mop up in here? Sounds like we're going to need all hands on deck out there ASAP."

[quotemyname]

Valkyrie's head snapped towards Jack as he took charge of the situation. You know... I really should be offended at all that. But he is just too damn good looking! Maybe I'll just give him a stern talking to. Later, though. Yea.

She laid her hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the eye, "Prepare thyself to travel on the wings of the gods. A gift few mortals have the pleasure of experiencing." A bolt of lightning struck the ground at their feet, and when the flash cleared, they were gone.

Moments later, Valkyrie and Jack stood in the streets of Freedom City a few feet from the crater which the SHADOW agent had created with his fall.

"Stand down, warriors!" She called to the SHADOW agents running amok. "Unless thou wilst rise to a true challenge!" She held her hammer straight out at one of the agents. "Come, engage a real combatant. Shame not thy selves on such rabble that cannot fight back. Prove thy selves true warriors. Face me!" She pounded her chest with her fist.

Yea! And pick on someone your own size!

[quotemyname]

The arrival of two more heroes spooked the hell out of the original SHADOW Agent. He'd already been beaten stupid once tonight, not to mention being thrown half-way across the city. He didn't need a repeat of that event. He quickly slipped into the sweet embrace of the shadows, disappearing from normal sight, and took off down the road away from the super-heroic threats as fast as he could. He had a job to do, and he was going to see it through.

[quotemyname]

As the SHADOW agent with the museum article crept away through his own shadows, he was unaware that he was being stalked. A much more dangerous predator followed him via scent alone: Grimalkin. Eventually, the SHADOW agent turned down a long alley, intent on making his escape. A small shuttle with another agent as a pilot laid in wait. The badly injured SHADOW agent crept towards the shuttle with mounting relief. Suddenly, everything went black as Grimalkin pounced on him from behind. Seeing his fellow agent defeated, the pilot quickly lifted off and sped off through the sky.

---

Meanwhile on the streets, Jack and Valkyrie paired up to make short work of the remaining SHADOW agents, starting with the one that had opened the portal to provide more reinforcements. Sixty seconds and a few lightning bolts later, the streets were clear once more.

Freedom City was safe once more.

---

High atop a nearby building, three figures stood within a dense shadow. Stepping forward out of his cover, an Elite SHADOW agent gazed down at the scene. "They fight well," he observed.

"Yes," the response from the darkness came in a thick Russian accent. The next figure to emerge didn't exactly walk as much as he floated towards the other SHADOW agent. This figure was made of a sort of cloudy darkness himself. Taking vaguely humanoid shape, Nacht Kreiger overlooked the street. "But it is the girl that I am most concerned with. I haff only ever zeen von ozzer fight ze vay she does, vis reckless abandon, und zeemingly no fear of ze afterlife. Take eet from me. Eet helps knowing von's place in zat vorld is secure." Nacht Kreiger stood for a few long moments watching the fight before announcing, "Yes, his excellency vill vant du hear of dis. Come, ve must be off."

A third SHADOW member dispelled the unnatural darkness on the roof revealing a fourth member of the squad. The fourth made a circular gesture with his hands, and a free standing glowing blue portal appeared. The officers of SHADOW filed through it one by one, and were gone.

To Be Continued...