Dark Sectors

Anything you might want to try out that doesn't temporally or thematically fit the serial should go here. This is an ideal space for all your what-ifs and might-have-beens, as well as for your average silliness.
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: Dark Sectors

Post by Karl the Mad »

Mary was pale and looked nervous, but she nodded resolutely and went for the hidden cache, not questioning how or why it got there. She tugged the flight rig on and synced up with the dart gun, taking a deep breath once she was ready. "Lemme me at 'em," she said wryly, trying a smile on her face.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: Dark Sectors

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Tom joined Aislinn and Meris in the ritual, being well aware that they would've done a better job if circumstances had allowed them to encase the craft in a focusing circle or some other flat geometric arcane array. Beggars couldn't be choosers...

Magnus was, as expected, more of an arcane bruiser. He worked well with Hellfire, general fire or the usual array of elemental-based projectiles, but Aislinn was the real pro for forcefields and wards, as far as he was concerned. It was hard to work without being able to sit on the floor or to otherwise calmly work up his usual Warlock braggadocio; but he still did his best. Evocating planes of force into existence meant an almost Void Weaver-worthy understanding of kinetic forces. Aislinn wasn't quite there yet, but her ward work was solid as it was. The real challenge was that now, she'd be forced to work without runic symbols, directly projecting the intended planes of force around the spacecraft.

Pounding noises were heard. Screams followed. Then silence, for several long seconds.

Renny checked the outside feed. "What the fuck are they up to?!"

The throng had parted, letting a number of the spaceport's maintenance crew drive in on an electric cart. They'd loaded it with acetylene torches and a few pneumatic rivet cutters.

"How close will the field be?" asked Zoraya. Brows furrowed and eyes closed, Tom had his hands lifted in front of him, as if to aid himself in a bit of mental gymnastics and projection. "As close as we can afford it - no promises. Why?
- Because we might end up with unshielded stowaways, at this rate. If the bubble pops in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, we'll doom a few people to death by atmospheric re-entry."

The warthog clicked his tongue. "I thought you space pirates were more flexible. I'll let you know once we can afford to be choosy."

Three pursed his lips together. "I already shot a couple of Chambers' goons, back in Cali. At this point, I won't lose sleep if we end up killing people we'd be hopeless to save as it is."

"Quiet!" came Nereus' voice, low and seething. "Meris and I both need to focus! Bypass your safeties and unlock your gravity stabilizers, you two!"

Outside, a metal plate was heard groaning. It seemed they weren't patient enough to try and unbolt an entire panel. Marinos replied by keeping his head and voice low, and cupping his hands as if to receive a trickle of water. He whispered for several long seconds in the Black Speech, until a small, fist-sized point of warped air and gravitational forces hovered above them. He then cast his arms aside, the shuttle shuddering as a wave of raw force surged outwards and at least knocked off some of the rampaging throng.

"I thought you were supposed to-
- That wasn't it, I just bought us some time!" barked Marinos back to Renny, only to stop as the console blared.

Zoraya gritted her teeth. "They've cut the hydraulics. We can take off using your method and I can at least manually retract the landing gear, but we'll have to negotiate coupling with the Von Braun from lunar orbit. We can't land."

She shook her head, spitting out a few choice curses in an odd mixture of Russian, Cantonese and some alien dialect. "Assholes - this was my mother's shuttle, way back when!" 
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: Dark Sectors

Post by TennyoCeres84 »

With her eyes closed, Aislinn envisioned wards appearing around the spacecraft. While the signs and symbols weren't physically there, the familiar rising hum of via would start surging in the vicinity. The protective energy would shove the the attacking horde back and spread to cover the top, bottom, and sides of the craft. Meris added her auditory spell to the building barrier, a high-pitched whistling that would both gnaw at their assailants and strengthen the magical sphere.
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: Dark Sectors

Post by Karl the Mad »

Using the flight rig, Mary went outside and started sniping at the attackers with her dart gun, trying to get a feel for the weapon's characteristics. She didn't like using a gun in combat without testing it first, but this was an extreme situation and she tried to adapt quickly. "I wish this thing fired faster!" she yelled, trying to prioritize the ones who were closest.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: Dark Sectors

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Zoraya gritted her teeth at those words. "Fuck - I told Sloane I needed everything in this serviced the day before we made the jump to here! Check the gun's sides, there's two switches! One for the safety, one for the cycling chamber! Minifactory's probably jammed! Most of this thing's weight is neutral matter and grey goo, you should be able to let off controlled bursts!"

The craft shuddered moments later, as the gravity stabilizers were shut off. "Hold on!" the pilot again shouted to Jameson. "Let's hope your large party knows what he's doing!"

Eyes closed and teeth gritted, Nereus gestured slowly, as if envisioning himself carefully lifting a model replica of the shuttle by both hands. "I heard that!" was his only allowance to the outside world, as the normally-grounded plane soundlessly rose off the ground. People shrieked around Jameson as they lost their footing and fell to the ground, but Marinos kept them relatively close for the first few seconds. Most would only ever suffer from severe bruises or broken limbs. He then lifted the craft higher and seemed to push it, causing it to glide out of the spaceport's landing zone and between the two control towers. They'd have ample time to see Chambers put a knee to the floor in the control tower he'd seized, and to come back up with a solid tube-sized bulk balanced on one shoulder.

"Holy shit, that's an RPG!" said Three, on a tone that went from a horrified whisper to a scream in the same sentence. "Get us higher, Nereus! Now!"

Zoraya, however, seemed to have different ideas. She pushed the shuttle further upwards, adding some of the spacecraft's own thruster power to Marinos' efforts, and then managed a tight one-eighty turn that made them face the tower. With its thrusters angled down, her vessel managed a stable hover. She uncoupled her safety harness with a grunt and stood up in the cockpit.

"This death-kissing mudak isn't taking us out today," she snarled, "not on my life!"

From Mary's elevated point of view, the sudden trail of white smoke caused by the RPG's propellant exhaust was seen, along with a millisecond-long gleam of light off of the warhead's casing. The air in front of the control tower blue-shifted, however, and a pitch-black orb that was about the size of a small car erupted into being in midair, in front of the tower's now-shattered glass panels. As light itself reached the event horizon of the black hole, the view of the spaceport around the black hole seemed to distort and shift between tones of red and blue, as every other shade in the spectrum was pulled into pure darkness faster than their eyes could perceive them. They'd dimly hear Chambers let out a rage-filled scream. Inside the shuttle, the tiny galaxies that served as irises for Zoraya's eyes had turned into two black pits, and her hands and arms moved not to some sort of dance, but rather as if her ability to control her conjured black hole required physical input. Rounds were fired on Chambers' side, but the black hole took them, the singularity's pull generating sufficiently strong local winds to drown out any further attempts to use the Black Speech on the outside. The flygirl then stopped her conjuring, slapping her Autopilot switch on as she sat back down.

By now, even Nereus had been unable to entirely keep his focus up, and he momentarily gave the girl a dumbfounded look. "Daring escape for now," she hastily replied, "explanations later! I couldn't suck him in, guy has one heck of a lease on life!"

"HOLD ON, JAMESON!" she shouted, and then pushed the engines and the craft upwards as directly as atmospheric resistance allowed, Marinos helping them along by maintaining his low-gravity effects to a degree. He did, however, refocus on the shuttle's thrusters, adding negative pressure zones near the exhaust points. Mary would effectively owe her life to the flight rig, as momentum and pressure suddenly plastered her to the roof of the shuttle. She'd need to crawl and climb her way back down inside the cockpit in short order, as they were sure to be out of the oxygen-rich layers of the atmosphere within moments...

Far below, the Vanguard's conjured singularity collapsed, leaving Hong Kong's spaceport authority with unanswered questions and a good few million dollars' worth of damage.
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