Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Westeria City

as written by Lialore and Saarai

“I was speaking more generally. But… hm, I guess likeability has never really been a factor for me” Abigail said, showing awareness of her rather placid personality. She lived in the middle-ground, and was never a ‘big deal’, really – despite her abilities.

Charming wasn’t the word that Abigail would use to describe Van Leugen. A subtle grimace curled her lips as she waved a waitress over. But Freja was supporting an amused kind of smirk.

“I’m up for getting mugged” she said merrily. That always tended to end well for her.
Her sister rolled her eyes.
“I feel like I was brought into this world to keep Freja from getting into fights.”
“Yeah. And your techniques have been working so well.”
Abigail glowered, but rearranged her expression as the waitress came over. As she ordered drinks, Freja’s gaze flitted between her companions.

“Do you guys go out together a lot, then?” she asked.

____

Taco nodded, "Yeah, we're pretty much best friends. A power trio if there ever was one." He said, "Taco and I grew up together, we met Chemo when we joined the Invictus a few years ago." Nina added, "It's why going out to a place like Van Leugen, where we might be sucked into some sort of violence, might still be fun." The Serbian woman continued.

"I'm hoping there won't be much violence. I like being uninjured or arrested." Chemo told the others, " You see, Abigail, Nina and Taco are from a bad part of a big city. They have criminal records. They're rebellious."

"Rebels without a cause." Taco said, flexing a bicep.

____

Neither Abigail nor Freja seemed to keep friends for long, such relationships seemed to elude them both for different reasons. They seemed to grow thoughtful for a moment, until Freja’s snort brought them out of it.

“Criminal records. Seriously? What do you do, steal road signs?” she asked, amused. “I mean, it’s clearly not fist fighting” she said as she gave a Taco a sarcastic, listless look.
 
as written by Ronin and Sentry

WESTERIA FIRST NATIONAL BANK

"Wait wait wait..." Randin squinted at his loan application, a fresh-red 'DENIED' stamped at the top. "Just... run me through this once more..."

The banker, a portly, balding man, tried to suppress his groan. His suit collar still smelled vaguely of his two year old's vomit. No amount of dry-cleaning was going to fix it. "We've been through this, Mr. Kaye." He thumbed off his oval glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. "You don't have any credit. I can't approve a loan like this without a solid score behind it." Round fingers flicked the spectacles back over his stubbed nose, brows bent low.

"I'm not asking for the whole damn ranch," Randin scooted forward, "I just need two thousand dollars so I can buy a clunker two-wheeler and have some way of getting around town. Look, here's my salary. I've already figured it all out, I can pay it off with the interest in two mo-"

"Mr. Kaye," the banker rubbed his temples. He glared at Randin with the smoldering hatred of a working man at the end of his shift who still needs to pick up his kid from preschool. "You have. No. Credit. The bank has no way of trusting you can pay off this debt."

Randin sat back, arms crossed. "How do I get credit?"

"You acquire debts and you pay them back."

"How am I supposed to 'acquire debts' if you need credit to get a debt in the first place?"

"I said you can't take out a loan," the banker fiddled uncomfortably his wedding ring, "you can acquire other debts. I could issue you a credit card."

"Okay," Randin smiled, "I'll take one of those for two thousand dollars."

A vein pulsed in the banker's forehead.

Aside from the heated financial battle taking place at one of the loan desks at the end of the atria, Westeria First National was in full swing. Throngs of people milled about the massive lobby, cashing, checking, loaning, paying and exchanging.

____

She wasn't so different from the rest of them. A little more flamboyant dressed in bright pinks and greens, but it was perfectly human. Her eyes, though concealed by her heavy blonde bangs, were fixated on the mirror in her hand. Her pinky finger traced around her lips, evening out a fair bit of auburn gloss. She pouted into the mirror, snapped it shut, and then closed her eyes in a sigh.

"Well, this is it. End of the line," said the young woman, running the palm of her hand across the corn rows and into the long ponytail they trailed into. She twirled the end around her finger and bounced it into a curl. Chin up, she proceeded to strut right past everyone in line until she was at the teller's desks. With an effortless flexibility, she stretched one leg up onto the small ledge on the outside of the teller's office, then climbed despite a fuss being made. Her heels- six inches in length at least - hooked into the grail as she faced the crowd and smiled.

"Hello, everyone. I've come to a rather intense romantic's crisis and I'd like to let you know-" She undid the buttons to her feathery pink coat and let it drop to the floor, revealing a myriad of bombs strapped to her person.

"- this thing is wired to my heart, and if it stops this building is going up in smoke. I'm either leaving here with a lot of money or I'm dying here today. I don't want to live in a world where love no longer exists."

A bag was dropped on the inside of the teller's desk.

"Fill 'er up, hon. And before you all think up any funny business... I can make it go off whenever I want to. No one moves!"

____

The crowd of onlookers gasped and screamed, frozen in place. Frightened as they were, they'd heard her demands - if anyone left the bank, they would all die. Only those closest to the exits made moves to slip out as quickly as they could. Two armed bank guards stepped forward, hands on their pistol grips. They did not draw - not with the bomb allegedly linked to the girl's heartbeat.

The poor teller, a twenty-something not three weeks into the job, traveled the distance of her legs with his eyes. "Y..you..." he gulped, "...you want me to f-fill the bag?"


Meanwhile, the banker had gone from red to white very quickly. "What's..." he clutched the arms of his chair, "...what's going on..."

Randin was peering over his shoulder. He made a careful examination of the girl, looking for any firearms or weapons she might have on her besides the bombs. "Looks like someone's taking out a loan." He turned back to the banker, eyes narrowing as he noticed the numb shock etching over the man's face. He snapped his fingers. "Hey. Stay with me." He looked down at his name tag. "Brian. That's your name, right?"

The banker looked up at the sound of his name. "Yeah. That's..."

"Got a wife? Kid?"

Brian nodded. His chin trembled. "A little boy. He's two. I have to... pick him up from preschool..."

"You will," Randin pushed some warmth into his voice, "do you have a phone?"

He nodded again, this time with more confidence.

"Call the police. Do it beneath your desk." He was fairly sure one of the tellers had already pushed a panic button, but it never hurt to be sure.

Brian fiddled with his mobile. "Do you..." he spared a fidgety glance upwards. "...do you think she's going to kill us?"

"Not if she's just here for money," Randin shook his head and looked back at the robber. "Hopefully she'll get what she wants and no one'll get hurt." Otherwise ... Randin didn't want to think about how it would go down.
 
as written by barney_fife

In one of the many private offices within the bank, the commotion echoed about as the personal Banker shuffled in his seat, and a well dressed Tech Con aide peered out the door.

"Looks like a Robbery." He commented before he slowly shut the door. "Mr. Hagan, you should stay here, no need to get involved." The Aide said as the greying Miles Hagan sat up from his chair, balancing himself on his solid gold, jeweled cane.

"Over my rotting corpse." The man said with a grunt, gesturing to a second well dressed aide, or rather his personal bodyguard.

"Mr Hagan.. stay here, We've notified the RDA, they'll be here in a moment." The Bodyguard protested, while the Banker sat there stunned, the cash deposit containing roughly twenty Million Imperial Aschen cubits still sitting on the Banker's desk.

Throwing the door open, the older man stepped out into the lobby, his eyes on Maggie, while Hagan's aide was close by in tow, pulling a disruptor pistol from his jacket and holding it down. His job was to protect Miles Hagan, not intervene in the robbery.

Standing in the lobby, there were whispers among the Bank staff, and even a few of the patrons. Miles Hagan after-all was a well known individual.

"You're not going to get very far, let's think about this rationally now." Hagan called out from across the room, while his aide kept his weapon now aimed squarely towards the woman's chest.

"Why don't we disarm the bomb, and talk about this like adults." Hagan added, while the second Aide stepped out, drawing a Tesla pistol, his aim was indicated by the bright blue dot bobbing on the woman's chest.

"You can blow us all to hell, and die, or you can steal the money in the bank, and probably be killed by the cops, or you can talk about this rationally.. And i'm not afraid of your bomb, maybe I got shields to protect me from the blast."

Apparently the Tech Con former CEO had missed the memo regarding "funny business"
 
as written by Calcos

Abigail looked over Vincent as he slept soundly in his mechanical tranquility. She'd been watching him snooze away for about fifteen minutes, thinking about a variety of things. His time here had been educational --in more than just an academic sense. She smiled as she continued to keep her eyes fixated on him. If she were being honest with herself, she'd developed something of an attraction to him whilst he'd been here, and found herself thinking how strangely enamoring he appeared while he rested.

It was this fact that made her feel guilty about her next course of action. Releasing a heavy sigh, she willed herself to move forward, reaching out and sticking a syringe of an anesthetic liquid into Vincent's neck. In normal circumstances, his nanites would fight off the effects, but the programming she had instilled within the tiny machines actually aided the travel of the substance from the veins to his brain, inducing unconsciousness almost instantly.

He breathed deep as the liquid traversed through his system, bringing upon him a deeper sleep than the one he'd been in. Taking a step back, Abigail surveyed him once more; he seemed to be out cold. Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned to face Jauffrey as he approached. "It's time to move him out of here," she said with finality, preparing to deposit Vincent someplace safe.

"I'll get the car ready, then," the older man replied. As he left, Abigail gave Vincent one last look, smiling. 'We'll meet again, soon,' she thought. With that, she began to prepare the young man for transport.
 
as written by Sentry, Ronin, and barney_fife

The woman knelt down in front of the teller and stared at him from between her knees. Oh, she gave him the sweetest smile. "Did I stutter, hon? I want the money in the bag. Pretty please?"

And that's when Hagan spoke.

Maggy twisted around to spot the well-known face. She plopped her little finger into her mouth and bit down on it softly. "What? If you've got shields then why's your guard actin' like he's gonna shoot me? Wouldn't do you no good. He shouldn't be that worried if you're protected, right? The only thing shooting me is gonna do is kill everyone else. Real counter productive." She shrugged. "But whatever floats your boat, I guess."

She plopped down onto the ground and began to skip through the crowd. Some cringed away as she passed, some didn't move at all. At some point she reached out for a young, dark-skinned man and draped her arm across his shoulder, bringing him along with her. Her second victim was Randin, should he not move away.

Completely fearless. Completely insane. She knew she had all the control here. Just as much as she knew she had no control at all. She was free to do what she wanted because she didn't care about the consequences. A woman with nothing left to lose.

She strut to Hagan with her arms over the boys' necks like she owned them. The dark-skinned lad was visibly shaken, sweat running down his brow, but he was trying his best to keep a straight face.

"What are you going to do about me, hm?"

____

Randin growled as Miles Hagan entered the scene. Who the hell was this guy? The gold cane and the bodyguard trailing behind suggested he was a man of considerable means. One of the big whigs, no doubt. The owner of the bank? What was he thinking? Even if he had the means to shield himself from the blast of the bomb, everyone else in the room would be killed on the spot.

His eyes flickered over to the teller as he began hastily stuffing the bag with cash. Yes. Just give her the money. There were too many lives at risk. Hand over the cash and she'd be gone...

But then Randin felt a slender hand snake around his neck. He winced, looking slowly to his left into the crazed, gorgeous eyes of Maggy Delane. Shit. This was what he'd been afraid of ... hostages. The situation just escalated.

She tugged on his neck and he stood to his full height, exchanging a brief and worried glance with the banker. Fear gripped him. Every instinct in his body told him to run, fight, flee, that there was a bomb strapped to this woman, that she was going to detonate it and he was going to die in fire in this goddamn-

He stopped himself. He breathed. No, that wouldn't do. Fear wouldn't help him here. He needed to think. Use his brain. If he wanted to survive this mess and keep everyone else alive too, he needed to wise up.

The moment she pulled him close, he was searching. His eyes poured over every inch of her, looking for any weapons, loose wires, remote detonators ... anything that might give him the opportunity he needed to put a stop to this madness. He could try and brute-force it ... wrestle her to the ground and put her in a choke hold. Her heart would still be beating...

No. Too risky. He had no way of knowing what she was capable of. A failed takedown could result in the deaths of dozens. He couldn't take direct action unless there were no other options left. As of now, his best route was just to play along and hope the maniacal romantic gave him an opening.

He let Maggie lead him where she would. As they walked, Randin wracked his brain. He rewound the scene to the point of Maggie's entrance, going every detail and line of dialogue in his head. Something had been off about it ... a curious comment not usually touched upon by bank robbers, even one as deranged as this. Something about love...

"I'm sure we don't want any trouble, sai," he spoke calmly, shooting a dark glare at Miles as they approached. He hoped the message got across. He cleared his throat. "Though... I'm not sure if robbing and killin' are much good for mending a broken heart..."

____

The former Tech Con CEO took a step back as the crazed woman approached him. The bodyguard kept his weapon drawn, tensing up as she came closer to his charge. Hagan had his eyes on Maggy, intent yet somewhat fearful.

"I doubt it, he's got a Tesla pistol, it won't kill you, just cause instant and painful spasmodic paralysis." Hagan explained, taking a step back closer to his bodyguard. "Can't set off the bombs if you can't move." Hagan said.

He caught Randin looking at him, and Hagan looked back rather quizzically. The guy looked familiar yet something was off.

Of course, RDA got there before the cops did, the front doors to the bank were thrown open and four well armed Tech Con mercenaries stormed in, weapons drawn and aimed towards the crazed romantic.

"Let him go! We have this place surrounded!" One of them shouted, while he signaled the other two to take cover behind a heavy metal desk belonging to one of the many loan officers in the bank.

It wouldn't be long before either Asteria PD or the RDA Tactical team would arrive as the scenario dragged on. With the bombs as a factor, the mercenaries kept their distance, considering their tactics and avenues of approach. The bodyguard with the Tesla pistol was the best bet, but RDA was positioning another ace in the hole. Positioning the fourth man armed with a tranquilizer gun behind the teller's desk. Their job was to protect Hagan, not thwart the bank robbery though, so none of them made any further moves.

The Tranquilizer gun itself was loaded with a dart carrying a potent and fast acting paralytic, which would paralyze the target, and then knock them out cold.

One of the Mercenaries finally called out.

"Mr. Hagan! Step away from the woman, don't be a hero!"


Miles kept his gaze fixed to Maggy, his hands resting on his cane.

The RDA men needed to keep the woman occupied while they silently ushered some of the people in the bank into a huddled group, activating a shimmering blue deployable cover. The Hard Light shield would likely be sufficient to protect from the initial blast, but it couldn't protect everyone and Hagan would be caught in the blast.

"Is it money you want?" Hagan asked, pulling out his wallet, tossing several square cubit notes onto the floor along with gold and silver square Aschen coins in front of the crazed woman. "That money's worth more than anything you'll get in this bank." He said, emptying his wallet onto the floor.

"What do you want? I can get you anything you want. We don't have to do this? You want a private jet? Done! You want love? I've got a son about your age, you could live like a queen. I can secure you passage off this planet, and to a place the cops won't touch you. Just... let's put the bombs away." He said, taking a step forward.

"What do you say?" He asked in an assuring tone, while a Mercenary shouted.

"Mr. Hagan!"

____

Half her face pulled back in a smirk, teeth glinting through her lips. "What was that?" she called out. "Don't be a hero? That's not what this man is." The hands that were so smoothly slid over the boy's shoulders lifted to point at Hagan.

"This is no hero, ladies and gentleman. This is a pushover. But by all means, if anyone does want to play the hero?" Still hooked around the boy's necks, the culprit's hands reached for wires at her collarbones, cramping her prisoners uncomfortably. The wires popped, and two pipes at the back of her bomb suit began to exude an impressive amount of smoke.

"Do it now, babes. Do it before it's too late."
 
as written by Lobos

The panorama of Westeria City loomed in the unblinking gaze of a burning missile that hurtled through the air towards it, a behemoth leaving smoke and ash in its wake. Eyes that burned with inner fires stared ahead, hellish metal maw gnashing and spewing hot gas as wings pumped slowly, the Butcher’s swift flight closing the distance rapidly. Turning his great head to glare over the city below, the servant’s elation soared.

Killing was to be had.

Banking lazily on his great wings, he began a slow circle, bellowing wickedly as figures below scurried, the echoes of shouts and screams of rabble, of the insects far below lifted on evening winds, faint sounds slipping to the heights of his flight. Descending from the far heavens to brush even with the highest of the cities skyscrapers, he roared again, this time concluding his scream with a dip of the head, and a rumble with his gut.

The first of many to come boiled up his throat and out of his fiendish jaws, a churning mass of daemon-spawned fyre and sickly tars, a glob of burning fluid that he spat as though vomit to the streets hundreds of feet below. The fireball fell like a burning star to the center of a four way intersection in the Azure Heights, splatter peppering the buildings around the central impact zone and sticking fast to their walls, burning with heat unattainable with mere mundane fire. The intersection itself, however, became home to an atrocity, the ball bursting on impact like a foul blossom, catching within it several vehicles which nearly erupted in secondary explosions like firecrackers. The infernal napalm splattered like viscous death, catching fleeing pedestrians and lighting them like straw figures, sowing horror and terror in the survivors as they scattered like flies from a corpse disturbed.

Fireball after fireball lobbed from the circling, twisted wyrm, slamming down in Colcord Point, New Caprica, An Cuplah, Little Shintenchi, Cedarwood Grove, and the Azure Park. Bursting open in borough centers, down intersections, some impacting in densely occupied zones, others causing more damage than death. Smoke began to rise through the city as the daemonic flames began to spread slowly around the areas they struck. The first circling of the city saw more than fifty fireballs spat through the city, slamming down indiscriminate of preference, of presence of life, without morals entailed. It was a rain of terror from a being delighting in sowing it. As the

Butcher began his second circle, he began to mix his fireballs with more directly damaging shots, heavy spheres of hellish metal that glowed nearly white, trailing superheated air from their extreme heat that he targeted on buildings over the city, hammering the heavy shot into skyscrapers and warehouses, into restaurants and gas stations, shaking the city with secondary explosions and thundering impacts, shattering and brutalizing stone, metal, glass and wood, sowing chaos through a city coming awake under a threat that was hammering into it.

And reaping a bloody toll.
 
as written by Script

A sonic-boom echoed in the skies overhead, higher than the Butcher's flight, as what appeared to be some sort of meteorite entered the atmosphere, shooting down towards the city at immense speeds.

As it grew closer, however, it became obvious that this was no meteor. It was a humanoid figure, seemingly propelled by small but powerful jets.

Aiedail shot past Butcher just as he was firing one of his metal spheres. One arm was extended, the end of which had formed into a strange cylindrical device that emitted bright light. The sphere reacted to her presence, its flight wavering and slowing dramatically in the split second before it would strike a building. Instead, it curved around in a wide arc, grazing the top of another skyscraper and smashing through a signal tower atop it.

The android brought her arm up and around as she descended, and the sphere followed its path. As rapidly as it had descended, it shot upwards straight back at him - or more accurately, where the near instantaneous calculations her computers had determined he would be when it got there. Of course, computers couldn't account for everything. Certainly not, for example, dragons that gave a middle claw to the laws of physics.

The momentum of the throw catapulted Aiedail herself towards the ground, but she swiftly compensated for it with her jets and was soaring back upwards to continue her attack. Westeria City's premier robot super-soldier had entered the fray.
 
as written by barney_fife

Aiedail wasn't the only response that was mobilizing to face the crisis that loomed above the city. In New Caprica hundreds of Aschen ethnic citizens were fleeing to the insides of their buildings in the face of the bombardment that came from above.

The Tech Con quarter had long been preparing for any threat to Tech Con property, and RDA Mercenaries scrambled in every direction to the sound of blaring alarms.

Sergeants barked their orders and directed men to their positions, Tech Con mercenaries taking cover behind supercrete jersey barriers and redoubts, while a trio of Mercenaries prepared a Type 02 MANPADS Armed with a Vindicator Surface-to-Air missile.

The Vindicator was a potent weapons system, a hyper-sonic plasma jet missile with a laser designated computer Guidance armed with a shaped plasma charge that carried with it the energy of twenty-five tons of TNT. In addition to the shaped charge was a tightly packed canister of tungsten ball bearings, which would be superheated and shot out in all directions once the plasma charge detonated. This ordinance package was lethal to rotary and fixed winged aircraft, strike craft, and lightly armored starships. The Tech Con mercenaries were confident it could handle this dragon.

A bolt of demon fire seared towards the Tech Con headquarters, impacting the side of the building and sending glass and super-crete raining down on the troops below, those that didn't escape to cover were likely incinerated. As the building shook from the impact, the team continued sighting the missile.

All around Hagan Avenue, and the Tech Con quarter large flatbed trucks were moving through the streets, each truck carrying a stormbringer AA laser emplacement, which utilized an 800 megawatt, 532nm quad-barreled pulse laser turret. It would take some time for them to set up, and power on, but they were hopefully not needed.

The Tech Con mercenaries entered their fray by firing the shoulder launched Vindicator missile, with let off an audible hiss, and seared up towards the Dragon, turning to avoid obstacles, and homing in onto the beast. With the first missile away, a second one was being loaded.
 
as written by Ronin

The dark skinned captive gasped as Maggie hooked her arm around his neck and reached behind her back, pressed even closer to her scantily-clad (and bomb-covered) figure. Randin, a bit taller, was saved the embarrassment, and he took the moment to take stock of any other weapons Maggie might have on her person. As far he could tell, she was armed with only the mess of wires and pipes. No guns. Knives, possibly ... not very big, if so.

Smoke steamed out of the pipes strapped to her back and Randin held his breath, carefully observing the audience as they inhaled the fog. He watched them for any sign that the smoke was drugged or laced, allowing himself to breathe only after making certain that the fog was a cover-up and nothing more. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the teller load the last wad of cash into the bag and zip it shut. His spirits lifted for a moment - this was nearly over. Soon she'd be gone, the bomb threat over, the lives of the people no longer endangered...

...and yet, for all his relief, Randin couldn't help but feel a faint indignation nagging at him. Yes, no one was going to be harmed, but Maggie was also going to get away. She was going to win. She'd come here, threatened dozens of innocent people, stolen a caseload of money ... and now she was going to pull it off. It didn't seem right. She didn't deserve it.

Randin felt his fists clench involuntarily at his sides. Once again, he was tempted to jump her ... throw his arms around her neck and put her into a rear-naked choke or a standing guillotine. It was easy. He'd done it many times before ... it would take less than two seconds before she'd pass out. He could pull it off, couldn't he? Maybe? Was he willing to take the risk? Was bringing this woman to justice worth endangering his life and the lives of everyone around him?

Randin nearly growled. He wondered if the true essence of being a 'hero' was open willingness to get everyone around him killed. He decided to bide his time, blinking against the fog keeping close to Maggie. He would see her next move.

Outside, screaming and explosions echoed in the far distance. Small tremors shook the ground. What was happening?
 
as written by barney_fife

The RDA personnel needed to move quickly, as smoke began to billow out from the pipes, the sniper adjacent to the group decided it was now or never. There was a few nonverbal cues and the Bodyguard directly behind Miles Hagan took a step forward, reaching out and grabbing the former CEO before whirling him around and pulling them both to the ground.

As this was happening, the second RDA Mercenary positioned behind the loan officer's desk took the shot, discharging his rifle with a barely audible 'thhp'. The dart coursed along it's trajectory and was headed directly towards Maggie's neck. Should this dart make it's mark in the woman's neck, it would inject it's payload, leaving but a few scant seconds before all muscle coordination would be lost barring any sort of immunity, drug resistance, or somehow missing the target, the paralytic setting in rapidly while the tranquilizer would take time to take effect.

As this was happening the Bodyguard had moved to force Hagan to the ground we the ground shook and explosions rocked in the distance, the second mercenary shouting.

"We need to get out of here!"
 
as written by Ronin

"Move! Move! Move!" an NPA barked over the roar of raging flames, hammering gunfire and the steady, bone-shaking metronome of beating dragon wings. "Get these people out of here! Over there, on the sidewalk!" He gestured to a couple cowering in parked minivan, pinned against the side of a building by a fallen billboard. Two enforcers hurried over, bracing themselves against the mess of steel and plaster. Their armor joints groaned as they slowly pushed back five tons of debris, their power suits lending them the much-needed extra strength. A moment later, they were opening the car door and getting the couple to safety.

All across the city, NPA and WCPD personnel struggled to evacuate civilians from the carnage left in the wake of the Butcher's raid. Seraphim carriers flew over the skyscrapers, landing in the heart of inferno zones, quelling flames with cryofoam and pulling wounded citizens into their cargo holds. Sergeants and officers alike kept in close contact

And yet, aside from Aiedail, the TNG had not offered a military response to the Butcher. All of their efforts were focused on rescue and damage control. Not a single bullet or missile rose to challenge the dragon's ruthless rampage.

"How long till TAF is on site?" an out-of-breath enforcer asked his commander, his face smeared with grime.

"Five minutes," the commander replied, looking through a scouter at the beast overhead. "Not like we have much, though. 90 percent of the fleet went god-knows-where."

The enforcer gulped, squinting at the silhouette of the dragon miles away. Even from where he was standing, it looked enormous. "How do we kill something like that?"

"We hit it. Really hard. With a lot of guns. Repeatedly."

The enforcer gaped. "But... what if that doesn't work?"

"Then we do it again. And again. Until it does." The commander put a thumb on the radio strapped to his shoulder. "Lieutenant! How far are you from the Government Center?"

The radio squawked. "My squad is three minutes away, sir. We'll have Parliament in a bunker before you know it."

"Excellent." He flicked adjusted a dial on the device, switching channels. "Technician, have you received word from Commander Lagbara?"

The voice came through slightly more static-sodden. "He's still in Therrier-Paix, sir. He's been notified and is suiting up. Could be as long as half an hour."

"Dammit." The commander growled. He put his hand back up to his scouter and took another look at the Butcher, whistling faintly. "I'll tell you what, monster, you picked a helluva' time to attack our city..."
 
as written by Lobos

The Butcher's rampage was poised to continue, breath drawn for another fireball to rain down below, when a sudden downdraft and boom sounded, and in his hesitation, aconcussion rocked the drake in the air, flaming froth spewing in a geyser from teeth slapped together. One of his own cannonballs, returned to him through means he was still attempting to discern. Flares of energy flickered crazily around him, the power field that he had erected hours past taking its first counter-attack of the eve. Lambent eyes scoured the skies around him as the broken shrapnel rained down, his flight stabilizing. A growled curse was half free of his maw when his eyes spotted the missile grow larger with proximity with brutal speed.

Shunting his energies rapidly to reinforce his barrier, Butcher blazed at the last instant with astonishing heat, flames igniting from raw air in the instant of the strike, better to blind the tracking systems of the missile as it slammed into the field, reflected, a moment before it erupted with a cataclysmic blast. Rolling and twisting with the masive shockwave, shrapnel peppering off his armored hide as it found gaps in the energy protecting him, Butcher found his flight drastically altered, fumbling in the air before he snapped his wings out once more, flaring to produce a heat draft that caught his plummet. Glancing around, he followed the jet to it's origin, growling as he dipped even lower in his flight. A glimpse of something ascending towards him drew a leer, and his mouth twitched as his incanted.

"Vognun voth thul." A foreclaw stretched forward towards the rising figure, following by a blindingly brilliant flash, a jagged spear of electrical energy as thick as bridge cable, a heavy bolt of lightning moving at over 90,000 miles an hour, trailing the rocking echo of close thunder. The monstrosity immediately following with entering a sharp, steep dive for the city below, wings tucking in as the Butcher hurtled like a living missile, flaring wings at the last moment at a height bare yards above the lowest of the middling sizes apartment complexes. Rapidly accelerated, he poured reinforcements into his fields, drawing off the nexus of energy his master offered, and dipped his head to the ground below.

With a scream, flaming liquid poured out of his gullet like water, a stream of flame down the avenue he rocketed over. Slashing his head backwards and forwards to spread the flow and damage, the daemonic engine cycled open secondary sets of eyes, these burning portals into the madness of the beast glaring above and to the sides.

He would not be so quickly caught unawares again.
 
as written by Script

Despite the incredible speeds at which Aiedail was flying, she wasn't flying faster than a lightning bolt. The lightning struck on her electromagnetic shielding, which served to diffuse its energy to the point where she was able to redirect it into her own power reserves. She faltered briefly in the air as her systems took a moment to cope with the sudden surge of electricity, but after a moment she shrugged it off and shot up with renewed purpose.

As she gave chase to the dragon, her body was morphing, the grav cannon shifting and altering until it took on the form of a more conventional weapon. Expanding to be almost as big as she was, its barrel was narrow and box-like in shape.

The laser cannon was designed to be able to fire with enough intensity to burn a wound in the hull of an average starship, albeit in a precise and localised fashion. It wasn't quite comparable to the larger weaponry fitted to the ships themselves, but for its size, it packed a lot of power.

As she shot after Butcher, she opened fire with a single short burst of energy aimed with pinpoint and predictive accuracy for the creature's torso. The shot was experimental, to test whether or not the creature would suffer any injury from the heat or if its infernal nature would lead it to entirely ignore it.
 
as written by barney_fife

Tech Con Spaceport

"TC-101, TC-105, you're cleared for launch, the mission is simple, sorties against the dragon; take 'er down boys." The message clattered on the radio of both the Apollo fighters as the pilots ran the final check.

"TC-101 to command, all systems go." The Pilot replied, double checking the avionics and the flight systems.

"TC-105, all systems green!"

As the fuel hoses disconnected, the engines began to rev up, and both Apollos began to dust off from their respective landing pads.

Billowing black smoke surrounded them all, and the Pilots considered their options, before the LSO gave them the green light.

Both Apollos kicked on the throttle, their engines shifting to horizontal flight and the two aircraft darted forward towards the chaos deeper in the city.

"105, bank around hard right, we'll circle him and head him off as he rounds those buildings."

"Roger.."

The pair of Apollos split, with one heading north and the other heading south, circling wide around Butcher. "101, I'm in position, heading up the main road!"

The second Apollo rolled to the left before barreling down into a reverse immelmann turn, knifing between a pair of apartment complexes and kicking the throttle to thrust forward down a wide avenue towards Butcher's position, keeping a low flight path to use the buildings themselves as cover.

"Going for attack run now!" The TC-105 pilot called in, knifing down along the thoroughfare that Butcher was flying along.

TC-101 looped in a wide arc once more, before it kicked on it's VTOL mode, and coming to an abrupt stop before orienting itself down into the skyline, with forward engines activated it shot down towards the Dragon before the Pilot narrowed his eyes.

Flipping the cover up from the fire control, he depressed the trigger, and the Apollo opened up with it's disruptor cannons, sending a flurry of brilliant green streaks of light towards the beast, some would likely hit, while others would miss. This flurry of weapons fire continued until the Apollo abruptly pulled up, while the second one coming up behind the dragon followed up, hoping the first Fighter managed to distract it enough for the next attack.

"Fox One away." TC-105 reported, as the second Apollo that was coming up the Thoroughfare launched a single AAM-4 'Gryphon' as it sharply pulled up. The Gryphon missile being a short range Air-to-Air missile with infrared homing and passive RADAR guidance. The Gryphon packed a powerful 1,000 pound Solenite warhead designed to down small fighter craft.

Once the missile was launched it rapidly accelerated to speeds upwards of mach 2, as it's rocket motor engaged. Upon impact the missile would detonate in a powerful concussive explosion, shattering windows nearby, but otherwise doing minimal damage, however if Butcher somehow dodged the missile, the impacted building would have a large burning hole in it's side. Sometimes collateral was inevitable.

The pair of Apollos banked around once again, the first one leading to head off Butcher's flight to the Residential section of the city, while the second Zoomed about, trying to harass Butcher with Disruptor fire.
 
as written by Ronin

Great shadows swallowed the skyscrapers of Westeria City as the Terran Navy came onto the scene, three massive Triremes descending from the clouds and hovering above the metropolis.

The Apollo fighters would immediately receive a hail from the foremost Trireme - Nero's Fiddle.

"Tech Con fighters, the area you are engaged in is not evacuated," a cold sharp voice cut in through the vox, "the use of missiles and explosives directly threatens civilian life. Stop."

Aboard the bridge of Nero's Fiddle, Captain Aaron Vrail cut the transmission and watched the carnage below on a holopad.

"Orders, sir?" a technician called out, "Morningstar and Chicken Gumbo await your command."

The captain poured over the cityscape, smoke and fire reflected in his grey eyes. Trireme DE cannons could level mountains ... but they were useless so long as the Butcher kept flight over the city.

His finger pressed into his comms, his voice carrying through to the other ships.

"Dispatch guardians with raptor packs and hellcannons. Four squads. We harass him east, into the gardens." He pointed out the area on the holomap - a large swathe of green. "Send some NPA to make sure they're evacuated. Get them out quickly." He sat back in his chair. "The moment we get a bead on this thing when it's not surrounding by occupied buildings, we hit it. Hard." He began relaying coordinates. "Set up a perimeter. Fly low. Take angles on the gardens, so it doesn't seem like we're deliberately trying to trap him there."

Not two minutes after the order went out, small specks were flying off the bottom of the Triremes. TAF guardians, raptor packs flaring on their backs, soared into combat. Not engaging the Butcher directly, they took up positions around the dragon, forming a tentative circle.

"Aiedail, this is Seraph actual," one of the marines squawked into the robot's comms, "we're trying to force this thing into the gardens east of here so the big ships can roast him. Concentrate your fire with ours. We need to push him east."
 
as written by Tiko

Overhead the clouds churned violently, blotting out the sun as the sky darkened beneath a growing storm that seemed to manifest itself from a singular point high above the city. The growing tumult of clouds veiled the rift growing within it, and arcs of lightning seemed to flash through them, but only the faintest rumble of thunder could be heard from below.

Those that turned their gaze skyward would catch glimpse of a massive shadow within the churning clouds before a second dragon erupted forth from the growing storm. As Butcher's fires swept the streets below, a crack of lightning split the sky to silhouette the one that had appeared above the city.

Thick trails of noxious fumes billowed from its maw as it folded its wings and descended towards the city.
 
as written by Lobos

Trailing a line of fire down the street, the Butcher's maw snapped shut as a beam struck his back, secondary eyes tracking the beam to its source. The attack boiled into the metal on his back with precious little effect, indeed, the thermal energy actually fed into the inferno heart of the beast, the fires that raged around him and his form boiling to new heights, a veritable nexus of daemonic flame that peeled roofing, scorched and melted glass and metal, seared and cracked concrete.

"Mey bo." Snarling, he began to incant anew, when a flurry of other bolts struck against him, peppering with as much effect as the android's beam. Flares of energy burst on his hide of metal and bone, the thermal energy seeping and feeding into him, some missing, adding to the destruction his mere proximity was leaving in his wake, chewing through weakened structural walls and blasting holes on the inner reaches of the buildings. His lips peeled back in a menacing grin, when his multiple eyes noted the second strike craft to his rear. The burst of a missile shooting free of buildings prompted a rapid response.

A sudden twisted bank as they raced forward sent them hurtling in pursuit, as he opened more eye ports to track the pursuing missile, as well as scanned before him. A certain building made him bare fangs in pleasure, even as he sharply banked another curb. "Ziinin Yol Vokun. Nizah Krah!"

Banking sharply again and rushing straight, the drake that hurtled forward shed flames like water, roaring as it burst for the NPA building, the lone missile hurtling after it doggedly. And eyes watched them from behind a shimmering field of blackly lit force, a secondary field that surrounded the Butcher as it clutched against the building, his burning heat masked under the daemonic powers he possessed. Severed he had from an illusion born of fire and tar, that struck and washed over the center of the building, bursting like a balloon a scant second from the missile that boiled into the building behind it. Detaching from the building, twisting back the way he came, the Butcher shed flames from his back, unleashing a burst of speed he hadn't yet unveiled.

Bursting around yet another avenue in the business district the Butcher opened wide his maw once more, swinging it in the direction of the harassing Tech Con jets, spewing not fire or heavy balls, but a flurry of smaller metal slivers that gleamed white with heat, spinning crazily as they cracked the speed of sound. Highly inaccurate but a storm of shredding, superheated metal, he simply swept his head about in their direction, filling the tortured air with his projectiles.
 
as written by Script

Upon noting the ineffectiveness of her laser, Aiedail was already in the process of reconstituting the weapon into an alternative form. It solidified into the shape of the grav cannon she had utilised earlier to fling one of Butcher's spheres back at him just as the missile struck the NPA headquarters.

Though briefly indecisive as to whether to assist there, or continue her pursuit of Butcher, she determined that minimising the dragon's further destruction was a more suitable course of action. There would be others capable of assisting the NPA staff, both within the building and outside of it.

She remained hot on the tail of the dragon, even with his increased speed, and was preparing to reform her other arm into a weapon when he struck out at the jets. The android swiftly realised that the jets, unshielded as they were, would likely suffer extreme damage at the hands of the spray of metal, and in being taken out of the sky would lead to further destruction where they crashed.

And so with the inhuman reactions made possible by her computerised brain, she acted. Her grav cannon burst into life, targeting the cloud of projectiles and isolating them mid-flight. The spray of metal was torn off of its indended course, going in moments from a buckshot-like spray to a densely packed ball as they were drawn together by her manipulations. The ball of scrap was sent towards the ground to be set down harmlessly in the street, leaving the Tech Con jets unharmed.
 
as written by barney_fife

Both the Pilots were almost stunned as Butcher managed to redirect the missile into the side of the building. One of them cursed under his breath as the missile slammed into the side of the NPA Headquarters, resulting in a plume of flame and thick black smoke.

"Gods damnit.." 101 growled. "Command, our sortie was ineffecive." At that moment the Dragon turned to return fire, sending metal slivers towards the pair of fighters, which split up to take evasive action, before Aidail intervened to spare the pair of aircraft.

"Hey thanks, we owe you." The Pilots replied as the craft regrouped.

----

Tech Con HQ

Security Chief Henderson was conteplating her next options as the TNG hailed Tech Con following the failed missile strike. "The use of missiles and explosives directly threatens civilian life. Stop."

The woman frowned slightly, before she sent off a reply.

"I don't quite like your tone, Captain, you don't want our help? I'll pull out and bill the TNG for damages to our property. Otherwise you can let my men do their jobs."

After she sent the message, she turned to her assistant, pondering her options.

"The Android's laser was ineffective, our Disruptors were ineffective, what can we use against this thing?"

"You could try devising a Cryogenic weapon, it might prove more effective than what we're throwing at it. Helium tank with a hose and a couple Helicopters" Arren replied.

"He's too fast for Helicopters, what about Combat Skins?" Callandra asked, before she turned back to the holographic map.

"We could refit a flamethrower to discharge supercooled Helium, fit it with someone in a Combat Skin." Arren replied.

"Do it." Callandra ordered.

----

As the Jets returned to their base, with their mission failed, a group of former tacOps personnel in Combat skins were being readied for deployment, each of them were fitted with a flamethrower unit, but the tanks had been refitted with Liquid Helium. a Refrigeration unit kluged to the assembly all running on the suit's power provided a crude yet effective cryonic weapon.

Another message came through to the TAF personnel, a heavily accented voice.

"There's a cold front coming in!"

The group checked their weapons, and then the signal was given before they all activated their Blink packs, vanishing in brilliant flashes of light.

As the second dragon began it's descent, Stormbringer AA Emplacements rapidly locked on, and began to open fire, sending brilliant streaks of green light into the sky, pulses of four bursts from each emplacement targeted precisely for center mass on the descending Dragon, each Laser bursts contained enough energy to cut through solid steel.

While the Ground based AA were focusing on the second Dragon, the Armored men were formulating a plan to deal with Butcher.

One armored soldier appeared several feet in front of Butcher, while a second flashed in behind. Using the Combat Skin's specialized flight systems, they kept up with the nimble dragon.

The First Combat skinned soldier openned up with his Helium tank, spraying Butcher with supercooled Helium, which would serve a twofold purpose. The extreme cold of the Helium would serve to displace the heat put out by the Dragon, while the Fire retardent properties of Helium would serve to deprive the flames of precious oxygen, and extinguish them.

Each Nimble Armored trooper would attempt to stay close to the Dragon, using their helium weapons to literally put Butcher out, with the Two Combat skinned men broken off to engage the second Dragon, to finish it off should the Stormbringers fail to bring it down. The Fifth Armored man made a beeline to the NPA Headquarters.
 
as written by Rōnin and Tiko

As the Butcher careened out of the fires of the NPA Headquarters into another street, he would be assaulted mid-flight in a hailstorm of massive, supercharged slugs. TAF guardians with raptor packs zoomed around the leviathan, massive hellcannons strapped to their shoulders. 60 caliber bullets roared out of their rifles in fits of blinding thunder, the guardians' raptor packs thrusting back against the recoil with perfectly timed precision. They took aim at his chest, shoulders, wings, face, eyes ... their shots precise and coordinated, each round capable of cutting clean through a re-enforced tank hull ... or dragon scales.

But of course, the fire was meant to be suppressive - to harrass the Butcher away from the residential area and towards the gardens.

"Aiedail, do you copy?!" one of the captains roared through his comms, blurring past the dragon's wingspan and taking a shot at his temple. "We need support! Concetrate your fire to drive him east, away from these buildings and towards the gardens!"

Meanwhile, the Triremes were assessing the possibility of another dragon entering the scene. The newcomer's entrance to the city was readily noted by the crew of Nero's Fiddle, who quickly began running scouter checks over the looming beast.

"Do we have radio transmission coming from him?" Vrail eyed the creature from a holopad.

"No sir, no reading."

"Get me an oracle, fast," Aaron's brows knit, "I want this thing identified as friend or foe before it gets another hundred feet into our-"

Before he'd finished his sentence, a rain of brilliant green lances seared toward the incoming dragon.

The dragon caught sight of the turrets realigning below, but it afforded scant seconds to attempt evasive maneuvers. Furrowing one wing, it threw itself into a barrel roll and its descent picked up to near breakneck speeds as brilliant streaks of green light lanced past it. It wouldn't reach the skyline in time to break the turrets line of sight though.

A beam of light tore through one wing, severing sinew and tendons where it left a gaping hole clean through the powerful membrane. The dragon tried to bank with its good wing as another beam of light scorched across the length of its flank, but it veered out of control and its descent turned into a free fall as the dragon tumbled from the sky towards the city below.

Vrail blinked. "...who..."

"Tech Con, sir. AA turret."

The Captain watched mutedly, the beast's massive frame dropping like a crater into the city below. "Gods..." he swore. "Just... get a guardian squad down to the point of impact, fast." He smoothed back his hair. "Let's pray that thing wasn't on our side." His fingers flitted over his comms, patching back into the Aschen radio signal.

"Tech Con," his voice buzzed through, "that target was NOT identified. You may have just shot down a Terran citizen." He struggled to suppress a growl, surveying the damage done to the NPA Headquarters. He was half-tempted to scream at them ... throw their demands for compensation in their faces, what with the carnage already reaped on the rest of Westeria...

But Vrail kept his cool. Now wasn't the time for hostilities. The Butcher was the enemy. All that mattered right now was bringing him down. "Tech Con, you can work with us or against us. We're trying to drive this thing east, into the gardens where our orbital cannons have a chance of stopping him without inflicting civilian losses." He relayed a set of directives and marked-up maps to the Aschen database. "I ask you to work with our guardians in accomplishing this goal."
 
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