Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Lutetia City: The Phantom Quarter

His teeth grit, his fingers tightening. Before his eyes, an innocent woman died - another life with a name and family, with passions and hopes and dreams that Savien would never know of, extinguished in the blink of an eye. Nox's scream echoed in his ears, the paladin and the monster briefly joined in a grief overwhelming.

Then, as he had done for fifteen years, Savien seized his sadness and mangled it into rage.

"She's gone, paladin. Kill it."

THOOM! Savien's exorcist beat righteous thunder into the street, a streak of flaming white slicing through the midday mist straight toward the Caer Lord's exposed sternum. The .50 caliber explosive slug would detonate with an earth-shattering explosion, leaving a crater in the cobblestone at Nox's feet and annihilating whatever glass was left in the nearby windows. The round would have punched a hole through a re-enforced tank. Hopefully it would do the same to a Lord of the Caer.

He wracked another, the ammunition cylinder swiftly loading a fresh slug into the rifle's chamber. The paladin took aim through the hazy smoke, lining up another blast. He never fired. The Caer Spawn were upon him.

"By Selene..." Savien looked up at one of the airborne monstrosities, claws pointed downwards against his skull. His muscles twitched into action on instinct, a hand dropping from his rifle to the hilt of his sword. Shrriiiiinnngg. The knight sliced as he drew, attempting to sever the beast in half as it descended upon him.

"Get to the bike!" he roared at Colette over the cacophony of glutteral screeches.
 
Another bullet fired, another creature that went up in a blaze of arcane fire. Savien's yell reached Colette's ears over the ringing that his mighty weapon's discharge had left behind in them, and she moved. She fired as she ran, purging two more of the creatures as they closed on her. Two shots left.

Most of the creatures were aiming for the paladin, but there were enough of them to post a threat to them both. She reached the bike, wheeled around and shot one of the creatures in the face as it leaped at her. Its ashes sprayed over her boots. One shot. Still dozens of monsters.

So this is a day in the life of a paladin.
 
THOOM! Another blast from Savien's exorcist obliterated a squad of three spawn, flesh and viscera painting the wall behind them. He sprinted back towards his bike, ducking a monster's swipe and cleaving from its neck down its groin.

One of them pounced from behind, snarling into Savien's ear and digging its claws into his pauldrons. The knight growled back just as viciously, backhanding his blade and stabbing behind him into the beast's belly. He skewered it off his body into the ground where he separated its organs from its torso in one, clean stroke.. Its talons hadn't reached his flesh, thankfully - Monastic plate armor could take quite the beating.

He reached his destrier, quickly activating his radio. "Control, this is Savien! I need reinforcements to my location! Multiple-" THOOM! An encroaching beast lost the entire upper half of its body. "-multiple hostiles and our prime target are present!" He mounted the bike and revved the engine, looking over his shoulder. "Hang on! We're getting out of here!"

The paladin simply wasn't equipped to handle an entire army of Caer Spawn. He needed to get Colette out, wait for more troops, then storm the place.

The beasts closed in from all sides, snarling angrily at the destrier's grumbling.
 
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Not needing to be told twice, Colette was on the bike behind Savien in an instant, clinging on in readiness for the bike to accelerate with speed. One of the creatures threw itself at them anew, latching onto the back of the bike before it set off and clawing towards her. She swiveled, aimed, and fired. The creature burned.

She was all out. Only standard bullets left. With any luck, she wouldn't need them. She just hoped this machine could outpace their pursuers.
 
The world was nothing but blackness. The sounds of battle filled his ears, some sort of cannon, the shrilled cries of his illegitimate children, the shouts of mortals. He felt...wet. Tears maybe? No. He smelled...something. Familiar. Nostalgic.

Aaaaaaaaaah...So that's what that this is.....I haven't felt this sensation in...almost a century...

The goliath was splayed out on the cracked and ruined streets, arms and legs occasionally twitching. The regeneration Father had blessed him with hadn't kicked in yet. Something...no...It was suppressing it. Letting him enjoy the peaceful, endless void he found himself in. Free of pain. Free of grief. Nox knew if he let himself, he could find them. His brothers, his sisters, Father. They were here somewhere, they had to be. So close...but...He had work to do. There were still so many lives to take. Revenge to reap. Terror to sow. Children to see born.

But they'd be there...Nox told himself. My daughters would be there, my one and only trueborn baby boy...I could finally hold them in my arms, let them know they do have a father, and how proud he is, how much love he has to give them...

But, a voice reminded him, you have two heirs to arrive. And then visions. Visions of a baby girl, so very much like his precious Perilous. Only inheriting his smile and his eyes. And then he was shown something so beautiful...and something so horrible...he couldn't help but laugh. Truly laugh. A booming guffaw, rich with renewed purpose and genuine joy. Around him, that toxic, twisted, icy miasma that others called his aura flared to life, like a bonfire being fled fresh fuel. The top of his skull began to regenerate first, followed by the organs and fluids beneath it, before his flesh and sinew and muscles began to reform. All of it, from the top of his jaw to his scalp, luxorious raven locks included, would be completely reformed in about twenty six seconds. Nox was taking it slow.

He was enjoying the visions of what Aurelie's child would give to this world...
 
Savien holstered his exorcist in one of the bike's gun pockets, flash-drawing his lawkeeper and putting bullets in the skulls of two advancing spawn. One of them dropped ... the other kept moving. Two rounds later and it hit the floor, minus the upper half of its brain. Damn. These things were hard to kill without explosive firepower or melee weapons.

The engine roared, destrier tires grinding into the asphalt and speeding down the street. Savien took a look in his rear-view mirror at the black smoke in the street, still-clearing. It wasn't clear enough to see Nox's body. He prayed to the Wick - prayed to Selene and all the saints - that it was over, that one shot had been enough. In his heart, he knew better.

Spawn sped past them as they flew through the streets, many of them getting on all fours and giving chase. One of them actually managed to leap onto the side of the blurring bike, slamming into Savien's side and wobbling the destrier's trajectory.

"FUCK!" the paladin roared. He balled his fingers and gave the creature a steel-clad hammerfist to the side of its face, cracking its cheekbone and dislocating its jaw. It did not relent. Sharp claws scrabbled over his plate, a crooked maw opening to reveal rows of jagged teeth. Savien's hand shot out, gripping it by the throat and trying to keep it at bay.
 
Blam. Blam, blam blam blam.

Five shots from Colette's revolver took the creature in the skull before it finally stopped clawing. Half of its head was missing, and gore was splattered over both the bike's occupants. She fired the last shot into another of their pursuers and reloaded. How many of these things were there?

Thankfully, it seemed like they were outpacing them. Once the destrier began to reach higher speeds, the spawn couldn't keep up. It wouldn't be long before they left them behind. Left it behind.

"It's still alive," she called over the roar of the engine once they had a respite from their assailants. "I can still sense it."
 
"I heard his laughter," Savien replied, his voice distant, numb. His bike tread familiar pathways, winding through the slums of the Phantom Quarter until they'd reached its outskirts - the beginning of Lupaix. The screeching gargles of the Caer Spawn echoed in the distance. They were safe here.

"Wait here, out of sight. Re-enforcements are on the way." He brought the bike to a stand-still, offering Colette a chance to get off. The paladin did not dismount. After reloading his weapons, he revved his bike back around and drew his sword. The mists of the Phantom Quarter curled before him, the danger he had only just escaped beckoning him back into its folds. Were it any other foe, Savien would have held his ground and waited for backup. Riding back into the Quarter was certain death ... was his life really worth the minuscule chance that he might be able to kill Nox before he healed enough to escape?

The answer came to him instantaneously.

"Be well, Colette." The bike grumbled, roared, its headlights cutting a clean pillar of bright through the mist as the paladin plunged back into the jaws of death.
 
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"I'll send them your way," Colette said, grimacing as she dismounted. "Don't die out there needlessly, Paladin. Good luck."

As Savien's bike sped away, she sighed, turning around and walking to a nearby wall to lean. She took out another cigarette, and it was only then that she realised her hands were shaking. She swore at herself, forcing her arm to steady as she flicked her lighter and brought the cigarette to her lips. In a city where you dealt with monsters daily, even if you weren't a paladin ... that had been a greater monster than any she'd seen.

She only hoped she wouldn't ever see it again.
 
Like a marionette guided on malicious strings, Nox rose from the ground, aura lashing and coiling around his giant form erratically, hungrily. It grew and grew, a flaring beacon to the supernatural community while the Caer's shining eyes cast their cyan light on the incoming paladin. Or more accurately, the destrier. The thunderously loud vehicle barely managed to drown out the undead's gleeful cackling. Barely, being the key word. As Savien grew closer, carving and treading a swath through the spawn around them, the human's foe would grow in size, and what was already a giant was now truly a massive man, towering and slack jawed, mouth like a swirling abyss of frozen blood and black ice. With a roar to match the warrior's own, Nox set his stance.

Too-large feet breaking through his fine boots. Wickedly jagged dagger length talons digging into the cement as if it were butter. Rooting him into the earth.

All his power seemed to vanish inside him, being channeled outward into his hands, into the massive ebony claws. At just the right moment, those bladed hands would sink into the metal of the motorcycle. Crushing around the front axle like one crumpled a paper ball.

He like the intense momentum of the bike turn his upper body, keeping his feet firm, resolute, stronger than the mightiest tree. He like his spine twist until he knew it would twist no more.

All of his raw, physical strength powered down his upper arms, his wrists, and his palms. Lifting the bike. Turning. Launching it through the air, passenger still included, spinning rapidly in spiraling, swirling arks. Aimed perfectly at a crumbling cement wall of what was once one of the slums tenements. Pursuing it on foot as soon as it had begun to leave his hands.
 
Savien returned to the Phantom Quarter, rerouting the twisted streets until he once again faced the avenue in which he had confronted Nox. The Caer Lord was a black blob at the end of the roadway. A horde of undead stood between the paladin and his foe, already converging on the mounted knight. The closest of them reared, spewing bile and vomit from its toothy-maw and gargling a sickening wail.

"Yeah," the knight growled, "fuck you too." He revved his bike.

The destrier charged forward with thunderous fury, powerful engines bolstering the machine from 0-60 in less than four seconds. The first spawn disintegrated beneath the motorcycle's tread, gore and viscera spewing out behind the machine's tires like grass out of a lawnmower. Savien had his sword brandished. He slashed atop his bike as he road, decapitating a passing spawn before bringing his sword around his left side to cleave another from chest to skull. The undead screeched, mindlessly pouncing in front of the machine to stop it. It mattered not - the metal beast would not be slowed. If anything, it went faster. as if each pulped foe fed some sort of mechanical bloodlust stirring somewhere in its engine. Gore painted the frame, the windshields, splattered Savien's armor and visor. Putrid organs spilled onto the cobblestone and rotted beside limbs torn from their sinews and crushed bone.

Savien hardly noticed. His eyes were forward at the rapidly-approaching vampire lord, watching Nox undergo his horrible mutation. At least now the beast looked more like the monster he truly was.

I'll crush him, Savien thought, I'll smash the bike through his chest and cut fucking his head off. His blood boiled, his mind red with rage, with fear. Gone was the tactician, the cold-hearted machine. Blood had covered the wingspread raven cresting the center of his breastplate. The paladin had come for vengeance.

He was screaming as he closed the distance, muscles flaring as he forced up on the handlebares, the front tires of his destrier lifting off the ground over Nox's head. He pushed down, attempting to drive the tire directly through the monster's mutated sternum.

A savage crunch. A whiplash of force and wind. Colors blurred around him. He felt his bike break through something before smashing into the floor. A shock of white pain shot up his left arm and his vision went black. No. Don't black out. You're dead if you black out. Don't...

---

As Nox entered the rubble, he would find Savien lying face-down some five feet from his destrier. The bike itself was mangled, its titanium frame dented and its handlebars ripped from the main body. The engines which had deafened the Phantom Quarter now lay dormant. An eerie silence had taken its place.

A trail of blood followed the knight's body from the bike. He was not moving - didn't seem to be breathing, in fact. Nox might have looked closer, moving further into the rubble...

Chkchk.

It was the only warning before Savien rolled over in a blur, lawkeeper leveled into his good hand. His helmet had flown off in the crash and he blinked at the blood seeping into his eyeballs from a gash above his brows. He fired three times, unloading .40 caliber rounds into the monster before him - attempting to drive him back out into the street.
 
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What Savien saw of Nox no longer even resembled human. The flawless ivory skin had become cracked, flaking, a bleak and fading ashy gray. Eyes has sunk so far back into the skull that they seemed more like minuscule pinpricks of sky blue. But they light they gave off, like standing before twin beams from a lighthouse, a pale fel cascade that seemed to gnaw at Savien's very mind, his very soul. Before he'd already stood eight feet tall, or close to it, but now the Caer's shoulders scraped harshly against the dilapidated wood-and-cobble ceiling, easily breaking double digits on his height but at least a foot.

Savien would feel every footstep, monstrous crashes that shook the ground.

Savien would feel the already-recovering aura of terror and hate wash over him, as all light seemed to be sucked towards the cavernous maw.

The first round of the lawkeeper seemed to collide with solid air, the miasma so thick around his terrible, unholy form it absorbed all but the barest of the projectile's impact. The next slammed into Nox's face, blowing off a double-fist sized chuck of his cheek and left eye. With a growl, Nox stepped forward just in time to catch the next to the neck, spraying thick, oily ichor all around the ruined and groaning room, coating the floor, the walls, and the paladin himself, but his advance was stopped.

A grating, rumbling bubbled forth from the cavern of ice and glass that was the Caer Lord's dangling jaws.

Sick, demented, hungry laughter.

"Where is your precious light, mortal? Where is your whore of a divine in your time of need?!"

The slow advance began a new.
 
The tremors quaked through his body, humming through steel and nanofoam into his bones. For a moment, Savien thought he was having the nightmare again, the one that had plagued him since the Lumenia massacre. Yes, there was the monster, stooped over him, smiling, laughing. There was he, the paladin, his frail, human body mangled by a single hit. Somewhere along the way the beast's jaw would open and he would be swallowed whole - if he didn't wake up before then. It took the crushing pain in his arm to remind him that, no, this wasn't a dream. Reality had intersected psychology. Nox was here; the Caer was imminent. Beaten and half-broken, the paladin looked up at the incarnation of Winter and knew a depth of fear he hadn't felt since Carseau.

"Where is your precious light, mortal? Where is your whore of a divine in your time of need?!"

"SHUT UP!" Savien spat. His lawkeeper clicked, the tumbler loading a new magazine cylinder. KCHUM. Buckshot spread towards Nox's face. Savien was trying to blind him. He rose as he fired, left arm hanging limp at his side. KCHUM. KCHUM. KCHUM. Click.

Roaring, the knight rushed forward, attempting to plant an armored foot into the creature's sternum and force him out onto the street.
 
Scraps and tatters flew off of the Caer's body, flinging more of the ice-cold black goo into the air. At first it seemed not to bother the monstrosity in the slightest, but on the third shot and beyond, Nox actually raised a hand to defend himself from the balls of searing lead. Once again his own vision was compromised, several segments of his left eye and the skull around it being blown from his face.

A great and vacuuming hiss drew sharply into long dead longs as depth perception jarred and tilted all around him, neck snapping around like a spring that had long lost its tension. But there would be a problem for the poor soldier of light. Nox simply outdistanced Savien on reach. Greatly.

The outstretched arm found a home around the paladin's armored throat long before the the kick ever found home. With a purr like an avalanche, the Neo Imperius lifted his helpless foe into the arm, hooking his ebony nails into armor and flesh alike, slicing through back, shoulders, and upper arms. Nox was sure his hold was powerful enough to keep the Light's dog's limbs at bay, but perhaps, with persistence, luck, and the aid of Nox's underestimation of the human spirit, Savien could break free.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps there was no escape.

The other hand curled into a fist, one finger raised and pointing crookedly at Savien's bloodied features.

"Such a pitiful creature, abandoned by its Savior. You mentioned my family, and how the Light banished them to the dark for all time. Allow me to return the favor, my sweet fool..."

The single, vicious talon, like a spear aimed at the knight's forehead plunged towards the left eye first...
 
"Uhhgnnn..." Savien grunted as the talons enwrapped around his armored frame, followed by a deep-throated howl as the nails sliced through his armor and nanofoam like butter. Cold. So cold. Like being stabbed by frostbite. Blood flowed from the wounds in his shoulders and back. Nox would have the satisfaction of feeling the paladin shudder and squirm in agony within his grasp.

His lawkeeper had fallen to the ground beneath his feet. He'd hilted his sword at his belt, but he couldn't reach it with his shoulders literally pinned to his torso by Nox's nails. His fingers, wet with blood, scrambled for the hilt, slipping, missing.

"Such a pitiful creature, abandoned by its Savior..."

Again, Savien. Reach. Move deeper into the hold, if you have to.

"You mentioned my family, and how the Light banished them to the dark for all time..."

Don't listen to him. Move. Struggle. Block out the pain. Your life depends on it...

"Allow me to return the favor, my sweet fool..."

Savien paled, pupils shrinking as he watched the black talon come closer to his eye. No. No, no, Selene, please no. He made a desperate scramble, bloodied fingers briefly gripping the hilt, pulling - slipping. His sword dangled off his belt out of reach.

"No... God..." He watched the dagger-talon close in, felt its shadow over his left eye. In that brief moment, all hope fled him. He had failed. The Caer had won. Winter would come to Lutetia and the strength of men could do nothing to stop it - no more than he could stop Nox from ending his life. Only mortal. The words whispered somewhere in the back of his mind, almost consoling him. Only human.

"NO!" Savien thrashed at the last moment, bucking his body away from the intrusion with a burst of strength. The nail would miss its mark, slicing down the top of his brow, skipping his eye, and resuming at mid cheek. A huge chunk of flesh skewered from Savien's face with a wet shhhlkk, skin, facial hair and other scar tissue slopping to the floor as the Caer left his mark on the knight. The paladin screamed.

But then, Nox would feel a burning on his hand. In the scuffle, Savien's silver had escaped his armor. It rested on the vampire's corrupted flesh, the Evequec raven shining bright and true against the leathery black. Holy energy. The light of the Pleur seared into Nox's hand with a force altogether stronger than simple bullets, zapping through his bones and traveling up his arm like a bolt of burning lightning, forcing his grip to loosen, his scythes withdrawing from Savien's flesh...

It was the opportunity he'd been looking for. Savien collapsed, his shaking hands reaching for his lawkeeper. This time, they did not fail him. His fingers clenched the grip, rotating the tumbler once again until the bar on the frame showed a red band. He'd hesitated using this ammunition before, given his proximity to Nox, but it didn't matter at this point. He turned around, somehow finding the strength to lift the 10-pound firearm and aim it directly at Nox's chest.

"The Wick burn you," he spat, gore dripping from his chin in a rain. He pulled the trigger.
 
Something burned through his blanketing aura. Something burned through his thick, shark-like hide. Something burned at his very essence, like a brilliant white-hot star shooting into his clenched fist. The joy quickly fled from Nox's mind, replaced instead with a flashing, searing agony. It shot up his arm like a lightning bolt, reaching the abyss within Nox's chest and filling that dark, eternal void with white-hot light, pure and precious. The two energies were never meant to mingle, and the Caer's body could not tolerate the contact, not when it wasn't prepared for it.

With a shrieking torrent of screams and curses, he felt himself drop his foe, flinging his arm out wide in an effort to toss the trinket away from his corrupt form. It worked, just in time for the behemoth to catch a high-caliber explosive round relatively pointblank to the chest.

The world flew by, if only for half a second, and once again Nox found himself on his back, torso out on the street, legs still half inside the partially collapsed arena he had made for the Paladin and himself. The hole in his bare chest leaked sticky black goo, bubbling up from torn muscle and shattered flesh like petrol freed from the earth. Such a blow was nothing for his abominable form would, was, an inconvenience at best, but once outside, his senses finally broke through his bloodlust.

They were coming. Nox wished he could meet them.

Picking himself off of the cracked and ruined streets, his voice would call silently to his many children, his precocious spawn.

Throw yourself at the warriors of light...Buy your Father time to escape...Today is but a taste of open war...Find me once you're free of their pursuit, and not a second before...Kill as many as possible...Escape the Light...Find your Father...

These instructions would embed and infect the minds of the poor creatures around him, converging on his location. Savien and Colette had already slain more than a dozen, easily twenty, but an approximate battalion still awaited, and with those still pouring up from the tunnels, their true numbers would reach, if not barely surpass, one hundred and twenty strong, all of them seeming to ignore the dying paladin within the building their master had been splayed out in front of. The carrion swarm of tittering, howling undead advanced to meet the forces of Selene before said zealots found their wonderful Patriarch, their goal simple.

Distract.

In the mean time, Nox Caeruleum dusted himself off. It was time to leave. Of course, it wasn't lost on him that most of his Spawn would die ensuring his escape, but such was their purpose. Though it didn't make it any harder to swallow.
 
The sound of racing footsteps was barely audible under the blasting of gunfire, feet moving at a rate far beyond that a man ought have reached. A radiant blade swept out and took the head from an errant spawn, bisected another through its torso, and swept on through the horde unhindered. The swirling aura of that which should not have been lay just ahead, at once alien and familiar. His sword knew this feeling, this cold, from another life.

I swore an oath, when winter came, to stand against it. For the innocent, I would be their protection.

He swerved around a corner, driving his foot through the face of a pouncing ghoul and skidding in its remains. Another gunshot sounded at the end of the street. Deliverance's light seemed to grow more intense with every step he took, reacting to the presence of its ancient foe. He carved a path through the minions that sought to cut him off, barely slowing for each. His body was an extension of his spirit, and that of his companion, weaving around and through the screeching obstacles.

We were united, then, and still we almost fell. The Wick faltered, but it was not extinguished. It found light anew in the fury of our holy blades. Our duty became only to fight the coming winter, until our deaths. For the faith, I would sacrifice all.

A glimpse of the creature, caught through the rising dust of the explosive shot, was almost enough to give him pause. Fear spiked through his chest, but warmth surged to push it back. He felt a hand on his shoulder, urging him on. He wasn't alone.

The war is not over. My duty stands unfulfilled. And through your hands, I will bring the enemy DELIVERANCE.

Like a gleaming torch cutting through the darkness, Noah burst through the smoke and dust. His body was wreathed in luminous anima, and the blade he carried blazed with the furious light of sanctification. A spectral vision of Deliverance, third of the Oathbound blades, sung through the air in an arc towards its ancient enemy's midriff with force enough to cleave him in twain as the warden's voice cried out with the intensity of two souls united in purpose.

"Die!"
 
The swarm only rose to oppose Noah if he did the same, the majority streaming past him, compelled to follow their orders. Nox felt the spirit-warrior coming. How could he not? It was a true beacon in his darkness, a light inspiring Hope and Faith. A light that would have to be snuffed out.

It was a single opponent after all. Fair combat. Why not indulge himself for a moment longer. He could make it quick.

Snapping his head over his shoulders, those smouldering sunken orbs would latch onto Noah's gaze, assaulting the Warden's mind with visions of a frozen hellscape and all the joys to be found there.

As the holy blade sliced deep into his still recovering abdomen, Nox felt pain flare to light anew! It has been so long since such a weapon had pierced his flesh, delivered its sweet kiss! Combat brought pain, and pain was a dear friend to the once third-boy of Nito. He knew he could get lost in its passionate embrace if he was not careful. Once the nosferatu noble felt the shimmering edge begin to slice through his shattered ribs, he'd unleash his response, a simple one as always. With a rabid snarl, he drew back his gnarled-and-devilish fist before countering, the jab aimed for the center of his new foe's chest. It soared through the minuscule space between the clashing fighters, the force behind it more akin to a speeding semi-truck or a subway car.

The attack was followed by a tidal wave of fear and malice, as if trying to reawaken Noah's long-primitive Flight response. There would be no questions who was the alpha predator after this day.
 
The fist struck Noah with a force that shook him to the core. The protective layer of anima around him was the only thing that saved him from his chest being caved in at the strike. As it was, the blow took him from his feet and launched him back across the street. He flew like a ragdoll, pain shooting from the impact across his body, and slammed into the opposite wall. Stone dust rained down on him as he fell to his knees at the building's base, taking a ragged breath in to refill his winded lungs. Then the fear came, almost as tangible as the blow itself. He faltered, trembling in the creature's shadow. For a brief moment, he was nothing more than a twenty year old boy at the feet of a dark god's avatar, small and insignificant as a mouse.

Stay strong, Noah!

But Aurore's voice cut through the terror, the spectral paladin's spirit pushing at his mind to grant him a reprieve. He felt her hand on his arm again, helping him to his feet. He rose, unsteady for a moment but not falling. His grip on Deliverance tightened, a reassuring source of warmth in the tide of fearful cold, and he lifted his head defiantly. He wasn't broken, nor was he bowed.

There were motorcycle engines roaring in the distance, tyres screeching as the reinforcements were cut off by the horde of spawn, and gunfire beginning to sound. It was aid, but distant.

Taking a deep breath and steeling himself, Noah shot forwards once again. Practically skimming across the street, he charged the monstrosity that was the Caer and slashed at one of its legs, aiming to sever it at the thigh.
 
Not far away...

"Light, but there's a lot of them!"

Perrin's lawkeeper discharged with another thoom, splattering the contents of a spawn's skull across the street, even as he slashed with his sword through the neck of another. The young paladin still bore faint scarring from his trouble in the sewers the other week, but was otherwise in full fighting condition. His light plate was already half coated with gore from the spawn that they'd already waded through, and according to the detective, they were still the better part of two blocks away.

To his side, a two-handed blow of Aurelion's greatsword bisected one of the creatures at its midriff mid-leap, the two halves hitting the pavement with wet thuds. His friend was an imposing figure, clad in heavier power armour, and apparently not up for conversation in battle. Perrin couldn't really blame him, if he was honest. There were other paladins with them - the largest group he'd worked with in all his time since taking the silver. He still wasn't sure he believed what it was they were being sent against.

A possible Caer. Up until now the word had been that the Nuvellon estate and Lumiena Square attacks had been some sort of powerful imitator, but to think that they could be facing one of the actual beasts? It was a little daunting, to say the least. But also a little exciting. It probably wasn't the best survival instinct, to be excited by the prospect of facing up against Lutetia's boogeyman, but Perrin couldn't deny the thrill he was feeling. His near death experience in the sewers had been sobering, but apparently it hadn't taken the buzz out of his lust for danger.

A pair of the rabid creatures leaped at him. He drove his sword through the skull of the first, but the second managed to latch onto his arm, clawing at the plate with limited success. He stumbled a step, before bringing up a boot to force it off of him, and emptying another slug into its head when it fell. More surged to take its place, though - there seemed to be no end to them in sight. This called for some heavier firepower. The next chance he got, Perrin pulled a grenade from his belt, primed it and lobbed it into the midst of the horde. "Grenade!" he yelled, to give warning to the others, and a few moments later it exploded, sending chunks of spawn flying every which-way.

Still more came, but they were beginning to make progress. They could only hope that Savien was holding his ground.

The thought brought a grimace to Perrin's face. One paladin against the monster that was a Caer?

He didn't like those odds.
 
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