Home 26: Rooms to let, fifty cents

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

It worked!

Sort of.

Not really...

Okay now they're sword and spear fighting with each other.

Something she learned pretty quickly was that attacking into a melee is always tricky. You have to wait for JUST the right opening. Khannie begins the process of weaving another illusion, sweat beginning to bead on her brow, and then holds it. There's an almost electric tension in the air, a metallic tang, as the magic waits unspent.

C'mon...

C'mon!

THERE!

Right after a round of attack and counter attack, when Hoplite steps away from the entity, Khannie manifests another stone wall next to the entity before violently swiping one hand to the side, causing it to flop over at the shadow with pretty significant force. Her illusions have some substance to them but this definitely isn't effective as the real thing. She's still learning after all. But mostly Khannie is hoping that her guess about this thing's nature is correct and if she manages to peg whatever tech is at its heart it might disrupt its shadow field thingy.

Or.

She could be totally wrong.

That's the tricky part about super fights when you don't know anything about your opponent.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Thump!
The wall squishes the entity like a bug.
Then darkness begins bubbling out from beneath it, reforming into the shadowy figure again. And now it's finally taken notice of Khannie. It fires an energy beam at the bush she's hiding behind. In the meantime, Hoplite runs it through, but it just flows around the spear and escapes.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"Yes!" Khannie whoops when the wall smoothes it.

"Oh no!" Khannie gasps when the thing just reforms. Double oh no when it looks at her.

Now isn't the time to think now is the time to act.

It has to point to fire its beams. As soon as that arm is rising Khannie is moving. She stands and starts to run, only to do a heel turn and-

Two Khannie's take off in a sprint in opposite directions away from the bush moments before it gets blasted. She's nimble and athletic, though both versions of her stumble when the shrub explodes behind them with a double yell of, "Beans!" One (the actual Khannie) goes leaping over a low fence and taking shelter around the corner of someone's house.

Where she immediately encounters someone's pet... peacock?

"Don't you dare start yelling, bird," she whispers harshly at it. The bird replies by shaking his tail feathers at her.

The other Khannie goes darting behind a minivan parked nearby where she can potentially draw fire from the entity. From her hiding place Khannie can still see her phantom and should be able to make it react as if it were real. Too bad she isn't good enough yet to cast from the position of her double.

[Morty]

[Dreaming of Birds]

As the source of the light comes out through the trees, it turns out to be a very large, very large being. Its body is serpentine, with several pairs of bird-like legs. It seems largely featureless save for the bright, radiant glow, but its head is an elaborate mask portraying a deeply sad face and adorned with many tassels that seem to jingle as the creature moves. It stops at the edge of the trees, staring at Leah and Krayger in what seems like shock and surprise, but it's really rather difficult to tell under that mask.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
What does that kid think she's doing? Just because she has a little magic doesn't mean she should be getting herself killed here. This thing is dangerous!
The figure doesn't agonize over which Khannie to fire upon. It raises both arms and prepares to blast both, when Hoplite projects a bubble shield around the two of them. "You want to get her, you have to stop me first." For the first time, the entity speaks. "Very well." Its voice crackles and pops like radio static. Its sword extends into a pitch-black whip covered in wicked barbs. "You, her, and all others who oppose me, shall die."

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Khannie sees the bubble form and fumes. That dummy! She was splitting the bad guy's attention! Now he went and threw away the advantage she gave him!

Well, either this baddie is one of those tiny robot clouds or he's an actual ethereal thing. She needs to figure out which so she can plan an attack that will actually help!

And she definitely can't help outside that shield bubble. She dismisses her phantom double and digs Maridia out of her back pack.

"Keep an eye up high and turn back anyone who's coming this way, okay? This bad guy is really dangerous."

Maridia gives a little nod and vanishes before flying skyward.

Khannie touches a hand to her ear ring, summoning her magical girl gem because now it's transformation time!

Light, glitter, sparkles and scarves surround the girl for a few very flashy seconds before bursting open like a cocoon, revealing Khannie in her silver, purple, and lavender raiment!

She even strikes a little pose at the end.

The peacock, not one to be out done in questions of flashiness, spreads his tail fan.

[bc56]

Suburban Street

Khannie makes a very fancy magic display.
Unfortunately, no one is paying attention. The entity is lashing at Hoplite with its whip and he's barely managing to block it. The weapon seems less like a weapon and more like an extension of the entity's body. Hoplite meanwhile is firing a concentrated beam of light at his foe, searing through it but not really harming it.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

That isn't true!

The peacock was watching.

Honestly Khannie really doesn't care for (or about) the sparkly magical girl transformation, either. She's more of a results oriented person.

And speaking of results?

She closes her eyes and waits for a feeling.

A feeling that she's very, very accustomed to. Something she knows she can do. Something she has ALWAYS been able to do ever since she was little. All it takes is palling a fist and waiting for that feeling of murderous intent directed at one of her friends nearby.

Khannie vanishes in a swirl of shadowy purple fabric.

And reappears above and behind the entity, already hauling back for a haymaker right as it's in the middle of trying to make its next attack.

"Guile of Hades: Ghost Killing Palm!" comes the shout right as her fist should be connecting with the entity, the attack wreathed in roiling, spirit rending shadows.

She's trying to narrow down what her foe is here. A ghost? Or a nanite cloud? She's testing 'ghost' at the moment, though strictly speaking Ghost Killing Palm works pretty great against most things due to the concussive blast of magical force it creates when she clobbers something.

[bc56]

Suburban Street

Khannie's attack hits home, but maybe not with the effect she expected. The entity splatters like mud, bits of it thrown about shield dome to stick to everything available. The loose bits begin to quickly pull back together, but those that landed on Hoplite's armor don't. Instead they start spreading, turning the metal and plastic they touch into more pitch-black goo.
Jason curses under his breath. He'd been trying not to let Legion touch his gear the whole time, and now this kid is not only messing that up, but also putting herself in harm's way. He focuses a light beam from his hand and begins burning the goo off as fast as he can, the dome disappearing as he redirects power flows from maintaining it.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

The bad guy just splatted.

But it didn't splat in the good way that Khannie was hoping it would.

Instead it splats and starts oozing back together. Some of it even splats on her!

"Ew ew ew gross!" she chants, trying to scrape the gunk off. Then she notices that it makes her skin feel kind of tingly. And it is apparently eating into Hoplite's armor. "Oh beans it WAS nanites!"

Then?

She'll run over to Hoplite and try to grab onto him! Why is she doing that?

Because if she'll manage to catch him then BOTH of them will vanish in a swirl of glittering purple fabric-

-and reappear about five feet to the right.

Leaving their goopy black passengers behind.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Swoosh! One teleportation. Hoplite's armor is now severely gouged where the nanites ate chunks out of it. "Kid, run! Get yourself to safety! I'll deal with him!" He tells Khannie to get out of here. This is no place for children.
At the same time, Legion has reformed fully, aiming a clawed hand at the pair and letting loose another energy bolt, one deflected off Hoplite's shield. "Seriously, get out of here!"

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

If Hoplite is paying attention to this kid at all, he'll see that the moment the swarm begins lifting its arm she's ready to spring into action. To defend or attack as needed, as best the situation calls. Sure, this is just some kid, but a kid with highly honed fighting instincts. Which definitely might strike him as weird.

"Heck no, this bad-guy was kicking your butt," Khannie fires back. "He's a swarm cloud we've gotta spread him out and burn him down. I'm good at spreading, you're good at burning. No way this gear-head is tougher than Perdition was."

Perdition being a rather awful biological swarm being that terrorized Skyside until an intrepid hero managed to defeat him.

And as far as Khannie is concerned she is WAY stronger and WAY more experienced than she was three years ago.

She doesn't wait for a reply, darting off with super-human alacrity as she aims another punch at Legion, this time releasing a conical blast of force from her fist a good six inches away from the swarm. She's aiming to smear it across the ground all in one direction away from herself and Hoplite. The girl is fast, strong, and magically powered. Trying to keep up with her is a struggle, especially with Legion telegraphing attacks as hard as it has been doing thus far.

Khannie doesn't jeer or taunt, she moves with focus, resolve, and ferocity. She bobs and weaves and bounces, tossing feints and devastating follow-throughs one would expect from a trained boxer. It's an absolutely overwhelming martial cadence, aiming to keep up constant pressure on her enemy and giving them little room to counter-attack.

Hoplite has absolutely seen exactly this fighting style before.

[Recaiden]

"I was red for over a year. You saw me picking up Koshal for Thankmas, remember?" He doesn't really object to being made red again. It's a dream anyway. Unless Leah picked a particularly odd shade of red.
Their conversation is interrupted, however. Krayger puts a hand to the axe at his belt.
"What are we working with, here?" he asks.

As the source of the light comes out through the trees, it turns out to be a very large, very large being. Its body is serpentine, with several pairs of bird-like legs. It seems largely featureless save for the bright, radiant glow, but its head is an elaborate mask portraying a deeply sad face and adorned with many tassels that seem to jingle as the creature moves. It stops at the edge of the trees, staring at Leah and Krayger in what seems like shock and surprise, but it's really rather difficult to tell under that mask.

"But it's not part of your self-image. Colors can be part of who you are, even if they're just little details."

Leah raises a hand and waves to the bird-snake.
"Greetings, traveler."

Turning slightly to Krayger, she asks "Do you recognize them? That's not the same as remembering them."

[Deathkeeper]

Dreaming of Birds

Krayger also waves in greeting, his other hand resting on his belt.
"Something about them seems mildly familiar but that's all I got." he whispers to Leah. Something does seem familiar about that particular light. But the mask, the feet, nothing about the appearance is ringing his bells.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
"Don't just splatter him everywhere! It'll make it harder to track down and destroy all the parts of him!" Wait. Perdition? How does she know about that? "Don't worry about killing him, he's one of many copies!" Legion is splattered, but it hardly matters because he can just reform from it. And this time he seems to have given up on pretending to be a solid creature. A mound of black ooze lashes out with pseudopods and tentacles in an attempt to entangle Khannie, material that was almost liquid a moment ago becoming as solid and hard as steel.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Ugh.

Does she really have to explain everything here? It really doesn't help that she's trying to make openings and Hoplite is just standing there.

"You got the beam-splitter, don't you? When I squash him drop a wide-blast right on top of us; more surface area more damage! I can take the heat but this aggressive pudding-pop won't!" she yells back.

Having to spell out your plan in front of the bad guys is just the worst.

She just needs a good angle to get a solid blow in and-

Tentacles!

"Beans!" Khannie swears as she back-peddles, a swirl of purple fabric enshrouding her like a cocoon as the limbs in turn wrap around her as well. As soon as Legion manages to get a good grip the cocoon explodes in a rushing wave of scything magic. Those glittery scarfs LOOK like scarfs, but apparently they're purely magical and potentially destructive manifestations of the Magical Girl's power. Khannie leaps back from the blast, hanging impossibly in the air as a little swirling rift forms around her fist-

-and a much BIGGER one above Legion.

"Eat truck-fist you booger."

She thrusts her hand into the rift and a GIANT SIZED magical gauntlet crashes down toward Legion from above.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Hoplite is rather frustrated with this kid (fangirl? How else would she know these things?). She keeps throwing herself in harm's way, and although she's clearly powerful, she's too young. When she cuts Legion apart and then completely smashes him (again, only a temporary inconvenience for the nanite swarm), he merely reforms again, barbed, electrified tentacles lashing out at the heroes. "It won't work. I'm still limited in energy output." Unless he does something dumb, like disable the safeties on the miniaturized reactor powering his suit, he only can project so much energy at a time. "Listen, you get to safety and I'll distract him." Hoplite boosts back away from the attacks.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Ooze monsters are the worst.

Even as Ghost Khannie really didn't have access to any particularly great area of effect attacks. She's always been more focused on going toe to toe with baddies. With Perdition she had smeared him across the ground and then blasted a nearby tank of coolant to freeze him. Then it was just a matter of scraping the gross super-villain off the ground. Didn't kill him, but it kept him still long enough to contain him. Too bad Inside doesn't have random vats of dangerous chemicals just around the way that Skyside does. That would probably make this WAY easier.

"If you can't cook him off and you can't contain him then what are you- BEANS!"

Khannie shouts as out come the shock-tentacles.

She launches a gauntlet trailing a scarf behind it like a rocket, the projectile latching onto a utility pool some distance away. Khannie grabs the scarf and NYOOOOOOM! off she goes as it retracts into the fist, yanking her out of tentacle range not a moment too soon. Khannie skips to a stop near the pole, both gauntlet and scarf vanishing in a poof of purple sparkles.

"-then what are you doing fighting him out here in the middle of a suburb? What's he doing out here? Stealing people's lawn gnomes?"

It looks like this irritating child isn't listening to Jason's pleas to flee.

"Stop treating me like I'm just a kid! I'm a Magical Girl! I'm a hero too! I can help!"

[bc56]

Suburban Street

"Because if you get hurt, I'm the responsible adult who will go to jail! Maybe your parents too!" Hoplite complains back. This kid thinks this is so fun. She hasn't hurt anyone with her actions yet, obviously. "For your information, he's targeting me, not the other way around! I'm trying to get him out of the densely populated areas!" Relative to the city, with its high-rise apartments and crowded streets, this is much less populated.
Legion, meanwhile, isn't just letting the heroes resolve their argument. He's shaped up into humanoid form again and fires another energy bolt. This one looks likely to blast the distracted Hoplite in the chest.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"I won't get hurt! Even if I do I can take it! I'm tougher than I look. And-"

Khannie grabs the scarf around her neck with one hand and whips it forward, the folds of midnight purple fabric expanding and wrapping around the incoming projectile. She keeps the momentum going, spinning around and flinging the energy bolt back at Legion with dead-eye accuracy. As it streaks toward Legion a trail of glittering purple sparkles shimmer in its wake. In addition to its usual explosive force it will also detonate in a cloud of scything magical fabric.

The Magical Girl is trying to focus the blast a bit more this time. Can she get it fine enough to damage individual nanites? Maybe she's thinking about it wrong. She's basically fighting an angry cloud of silt. Normally a flame-thrower style effect would be a good idea. Or maybe freezing them. But those options aren't available. What else might work?

"-keep your eyes on the bad guy!" she chides Hoplite. "At this rate you're going to get hurt before I do."

Her eyes have never left Legion. She backs up a bit so she can see Hoplite in her peripheral vision, too.

"Did you have a plan aside from getting boogermaster to chase you? Have you got a team-mate on call who might be able to torch this goober?"

Khannie clinches her fist, purple sparkles shimmering around her hand.

"Or am I going to have to imagine up something dumb enough that'll work?"

[bc56]

Suburban Street

"Better me than you."
Hoplite switches off the external speaker on his suit so he can make a call.
"Hey, need you to apply fire to something. Don't bring the suit."
"Ugh, really? I just got out of the shower. My tails are all wet!"
"Get Tristan if you can. The monster's vulnerable to fire and eats tech."
"Are you tangling with Legion? That's guy's bad news."
"Yes, now hurry up! There's a kid in danger!"
He hangs up.
"Help is on the way. Just got to slow him down until then." Hoplite fires a concussive blast of hardlight at Legion, throwing the nanite swarm back and briefly scattering it. The response is a trio of malformed cannons appearing from the blobs to fire a barrage of energy bolts at the heroes. Hoplite manages to shield himself, but Khannie will have to provide her own protection.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Energy bolt barrage?

Finally boogermaster is getting a bit more serious.

Khannie drops to one knee and seemingly thrusts a fist into the ground which in turn causes a gauntlet easily three times as wide as she is to pop out of the pavement in front of her, palm forward. Energy blasts detonate against the magically resilient surface.

Looks like Legion just talked to the hand and the hand didn't find his argument compelling.

In a smooth motion Khannie hops to her feet, the shielding hand vanishing as she tosses a scarf at Legion this time around. The fabric whips through the air as if caught in a breeze, threatening to slap against the nanite swarm. "C'mon..."

"What are you doing with that starfish?"
"Remember how the book said they're covered in tiny pincers?
"So stuff doesn't grow on them, yeah."
"Well, I couldn't see them so I thought maybe I could find something small enough for them to grab."
"Is that a hair?"
"Yeah! Try pulling on it."
"Okay... woah! It's stuck!"
"Right? They must be REALLY strong!"

The iridescent surface of the scarf is covered in innumerable tiny gauntlets just the right size for grabbing and crushing individual nanites. This is a pretty wacky idea, Khannie has got to admit, and she isn't how well copying an idea from a starfish is going to work. But it's worth a try, right? Should all go well the scarf will prove to be VERY sticky and will begin slowly chewing through Legion as it pulverizes individual robotic particles.

"C'mon, work!"

[bc56]

Suburban Street

The scarf hits Legion and sticks to him.
The he moves, and it falls off. He seems unimpressed.
What isn't so obvious is that it worked. Legion is just a lot more than a few individual plankton to that starfish scarf. He can afford to sacrifice part of himself to detach it. Speaking of which, a large blob of Legion is flattening itself to hide among the blades of grass and slithering off towards the street. I'm sure nothing bad could come of that.
The turrets, meanwhile, continue their barrage, aiming to pin the heroes down while Legion prepares to destroy them. If they move from cover, they're very likely to get shot.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

The corner of Khannie's mouth quirks up in a smile.

If the scarf hadn't done anything Legion probably would have just ignored it. But instead he ejected enough of himself to get it off really quickly. That's all Khannie needs to know.

She makes a jerking motion with one hand and the scarf strikes toward Legion like a hungry python, aiming to lash around him in a constricting embrace. It won't be just a gentle caress like the first time. This time around the scarf will be aggressively pursuing the nanite swarm. Legion could probably change his focus and blast the magical scarf to bits, but that would mean easing up on the fire coming Hoplite and Khannie's way.

Hopefully?

Khannie thrusts out one hand again, manifesting another massive shielding gauntlet as she moves to interpose herself between Legion and Hoplite.

"I think my dumb scarf idea is working!" she informs the fellow super. "I'll shield and focus on crushing him. You blast the parts that aren't getting constricted."

Hey Khannie a slithery thing just came off the big monster, comes Maridia's mental voice from above.
Okay keep watching it. If it gets close to us let me know.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
The scarf lunges for Legion
And promptly flies through a hole that has appeared where it was attempting to strike. He flexes his fingers and fires beams of red energy at the aggressive garment. With his other hand, he fires a blob of himself like a bullet.
Not at the heroes, but through the window of the house whose yard they've been fighting in. Another blob is fired like a mortar shell across the street and onto the roof of another house.
And the fleeing blob manages to slip underneath a minivan parked in a driveway. It looks like Legion is trying to split up and get away.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Okay it looks like Legion is running scared.

Or...

At least recognizing that his enemies have some capacity to harm him.

The problem with this, of course, is that there will potentially be MORE Legions if those blobs can multiply fast enough. That's a very real hazard. However, the little blobs are less threatening.

...hopefully?

With her free hand Khannie yanks off her scarf (only for it to immediately grow back again) and tosses it into the air! The length of fabric splits in three, splats against the pavement, and each fragment goes racing across the ground like a shadow toward one of the fleeing Legion fragments. She's doing her best here to keep Legion off balance and provide cover while Hoplite does the blasting.

Hoplite IS doing the blasting, right?

Or maybe charging up for a REALLY BIG blast?

[bc56]

Suburban Street

Remember the turrets that are still firing their barrage at the two heroes?
They're still doing that. Hoplite's keeping the shield up against those attacks right now.
But one of them can switch targets to fire at the flying scarf.
And meanwhile, a car is racing down the street, disregarding both street signs and signs of danger. It'll be at the site of the battle in a few seconds.

[Morty]

[Dreaming of Birds]

"But it's not part of your self-image. Colors can be part of who you are, even if they're just little details."

Leah raises a hand and waves to the bird-snake.
"Greetings, traveler."

Turning slightly to Krayger, she asks "Do you recognize them? That's not the same as remembering them."

Dreaming of Birds

Krayger also waves in greeting, his other hand resting on his belt.
"Something about them seems mildly familiar but that's all I got." he whispers to Leah. Something does seem familiar about that particular light. But the mask, the feet, nothing about the appearance is ringing his bells.

The strange being stops and looks between the two dreamers.

"Greetings," it replies in a sad, melodious voice. "Can you tell me where I am? Something pulled me to this dream, but I do not know what. It felt like my master's voice, but I do not feel them here now."

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Stupid auto-turrets.

Khannie will have to think up something like that. Something a bit more autonomous that she doesn't have to focus on quite as much. Guided scarfs might count sort of but she isn't sold on that one yet. But that target swap was just the sort of opening she was looking for. As soon as the weapon ceases shooting at Khannie and trains itself onto the scarf she threw into the air she vanishes in a swirl of fabric, popping back in right in front of the turret to punch through the projectile and directly into the gun with a blast of magical force!

"Guile of Hades! GHOST KILLING PALM!"

Shouting the names of your cool attacks definitely makes them cooler.

That ALSO means that Khannie just intercepted the attack meant for the scarf(s), allowing them to go zipping away to do their job!

This is a good sign.

This Legion guy is apparently learning that Khannie is a real threat.

Khannie there's a car coming this way pretty fast, Maridia helpfully points out.

[bc56]

Suburban Street

The car screeches to a halt just down the street from the fighting, thankfully. The passenger side door swings open and a red fox with nine tails hops out and comes running across the lawn towards the conflict. The driver of the car should probably also get out and get to the fight as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Khannie obliterates one of the turrets. It's made of Legion nanites, so it's not permanently gone. Hoplite uses the opening to blast through one of the others with his light beams, then leap and roll out of the way of a barrage from the last turret.
However, there's something else nearby the turrets that Khannie seems to have failed to account for. Legion's main body lashes out at her, fingers edged with nanotech claws aimed to slash open her side. Even the hardest armor won't protect against this. Hoplite watches helplessly with a sick expression on his face, hidden by his visor. He doesn't have the right angle to shield Khannie from the attack.