Knight's Log 9-5-12

MCM - Wednesday, September 05, 2012, 7:18 PM


======> VRUASA TELASH: Ride the elevator and push ALL. THE. BUTTONS.

Sometimes, your journey to preserve time-space and causality takes you outside of your comfort zone. Life isn't fair, as Sgrub had long since proven to everyone playing that dreaded apocalypse game. But today's strange journey into the wild unknown has absolutely nothing to do with fairness, necessity, preserving the timeline, or anything like that. Nope. There's been way too much of that shit going on lately, and Vruasa Telash has had it with it up to his neck. So instead he's decided to go explore a human world! Perhaps it will prepare him for his incredibly ambiguous DATE. But probably not, because the public building he chose to wander into is a hospital.

He is immediately drawn to the lobby elevator, which he believes has the most potential entertainment value in a cold, sterile place like this. It *dings* as it arrives at the lobby, and he steps in. Presently, the Troll is dressed in his usual, plus the awesome black fedora with cerulean band. In summary, he looks classy as classy gets! His lips curl into a broad, fangy smile and he tips his hat forward to help obscure his eyes even further.

Vruasa pushes ALL OF THE BUTTONS.

The elevator doors shut, and Vruasa stands there smiling like the devil while he waits for further entertainment opportunities to approach.

This is the 4TH FLOOR LOBBY ELEVATOR AREA. It is a fairly basic pre-reception location. There is a door to the south, leading to a flight of stairs that go up and down to levels that are currently irrelevant to the matters at hand. Through this staircase area, there is a door to the south that leads to a small STAFF KITCHEN. There is an opening on the east side of the north wall to the ICU RECEPTION AREA. There are a few chairs around here, where a pair of uninvolved civilians are sitting, waiting to be admitted to see someone.

Adela is here.
Vruasa is here (in elevator)

Lance is hating life right now. Why? Because he's /seen/ horror movies. He takes one of the vials, and approaches one of the strapped-down undead, with the great care not to get within biting range of it. And then he would grab a syringe and try to extract a sample of its blood from it. He gives a proper lookover while he works. Assuming they aren't immune to syringes, he'd be quite distracted by the peculiarities of this particular contagion. "Huh. Resembles a rogue nanomachine infection," he murmurs to himself, "Sharp teeth made for weaponizing… hmm…" Yeah he's a scientist he can't help analyzing what he's working with. At least he can multitask!

The sand continues flowing out of the vents, gathering in that same spot in front of the door. Not only that, but now it's taking a definite shape too. First, a pair of blocks sitting parallel to each other, then two elongated blocks standing vertically atop those, followed by another pair, and then a much larger block with four more attached to either side, ending in…hands? And on top, a head forms, with shadowy black eyes and a mouth turned up in an enormous grin.

"Guofuofuo! Indeed, what moron would put sand in a building's air vents?" he repeats, taking a heavy step toward the woman. "It doesn't really matter, though. Once we're done here, we'll be out of everyone's hair and no one will be any wiser. But, well, since you've…/seen/ all of this, guofuo, I'll have to kill you. Nothing personal, really."

And then he /leaps/ at Toph with his hands clasped over his head, swinging them down with inhuman force to try and crush her skull. This is going to end well for sure.

Sunshine does 6 damage to Toph Beifong with an Average hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his Flying Hammer Blow moderate attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Sakura doesn't actually make it out of the immediate area before there's an alert regarding the fire and the death and all that. She does, however make it far enough away that she's not going to go straight back or associate that alarm with her patient. After all, there was nothing that would risk a fire in there when SHE had been in there.

On the other hand, she's coming up on Giovanni, adding to his problems. "Hey." She'll call, over to the two doctors and Giovanni. "Have any of you seen anything suspicious in this area? There's some kind of… security issue going on."

The syringe goes in easy enough. The creature doesn't even flinch. Of course, it's rather busy trying to lean toward Lance and sink those wicked metal teeth into him. If its head wasn't secured to the bed, it might be close enough to reach. The leather straps holding it down are making uncomfortably insecure creaking noises, still.

Lance's syringe extracts no blood. Instead, it seems to be filled with mercury.

"Oh, because it wasn't a moron that put sand in the vents, it was a moron /hiding/ in the vents. As… sand. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense." Toph's voice is flat, suggesting a certain lack of enthusiasm. Or maybe a lack of enthusiasm.

The instant Sunshine's voice sounds from somewhere behind her, and the instant feet form on the ground, Toph whirls and immediately brings her arms up to shield her head. She'd felt him leap.

Even silence and stealth can't escape her notice. The only way to escape the perceptions of the Metalbending Police Chief is to fly.

"Gotcha." This is muttered even as the blow drives into her shoulder, but other than staggering, Toph doesn't give very much ground. Before he can retreat, she lashes out with the cables, the sound of warping steel heralding the cables' deployment.

If she should manage to score a blow, it's like being hit with a whip… a whip made of metal.

"Oh, and he thinks he's a comedian, too. That's just great," Toph mutters. "I'm sure I'll be doing the world a favour by punching in your ugly face."

Toph Beifong does 9 damage to Sunshine with an Above Average hit.
Toph Beifong hit Sunshine with her Like Spider-Man's Webs, But More Awesome moderate attack! <Standard Mechanic>

A hospital possibly in danger. Security anomalies everywhere and apparently there is little technoligcally in the Union's favor for immediately ascertaining the problem. This, Adela thinks on furiously as she storms into ICU with her Union Elite badge showing, is a problem to be dealt with. Later.

This is normally the kind of situation she would hire a team of experts to deal with. She has, unfortunately, little experience BEING that expert. And lacking her usual teams is then quite annoying.

But for the moment, she's storming down the halls in her normal outfit - well, if her slick business suit can be called 'normal,' that is.

Eyes are peeled, attention is focused, and she's making absolutely no attempts whatsoever to hide the fact that she is on the prowl for mischief.

Ironically, this may make her all the more successful in her endeavors as she glares into rooms one by one… but is heading on to the more sensitive areas, rather than patient rooms, as soon as possible.

Okay. Here comes the pink-haired, sun-marked doctor. It appears as though the ruse is going south in a hurry. His hands race into his jacket, whipping out the pistol. He fires a shot into the air. "No one move, or this one," he says, grabbing one of the doctors around the throat with his free arm and putting the gun to his temple. "I will blow his brains out." He narrows his eyes at Sakura, grinning. "Suspicious? Not at all. Turn around and go about your business, girl. Before I decide I like YOU better."

Vruasa Telash was not here for /violent/ purposes, but he finds… as the elevator stops on the fourth floor… that things are getting loud out there! He continues to smile devilishly. Perhaps this will be something of interest! Those sounds are too realistic to be a movie though. What exactly is going on here? He steps off the elevator and allows it to ascend onward. Somebody else he only distantly recognizes (Adela) is wandering around ahead of him, but he isn't really /worried/. This isn't his problem, whatever it is, and he's not in on the crazy conversations relating to what is happening here.

But there's no harm in checking it out, even if he has absolutely no intention of actually doing anything about it.

He Captchalogues a stack of shitty lobby magazines for future inspection as he presses on through the reception area, none the wiser that he is about to walk into a hostage situation.

With a new order coming through from Bain, Ryukotsuki departs from her location out of the way of the action and heads straight for the staff elevator. Looks like there's not much point anymore in staying out of sight with her completely conspicuous appearance, now that she's making her way straight toward ICU C, her sword coming back into her hand in a burst of flame as she waits for it to come here.

"Aw, come on, you're such a downer." Sunshine retorts, his grin never fading. He's enjoying himself even more now that he knows she's an Elite, even if it means he may not get out of here in one piece (not that he came /in/ in one piece, but still). In any case, the whip bites into his body, but instead of screaming in pain or whatever Toph was expecting, he just laughs.

"Oh, that's cute. You've got a little metal whip. Come on, kid, I didn't come here to fight /kittens/." He expels the whip from the mass of sand making up his body, much of it quickly filling back in like nothing happened. Afterwards, he throws a hard left hook at her head, which is pretty much the only thing he can probably reach without bending down.

"/Damn/."
Lance draws out a second syringe, and manages to get a quick stab at the creature he's getting, filling up a second, and then a third vial, figuring that if he drained the creature any further it would turn into some kind of mummified statue. Blood vials aren't small things, after all. He smiles at the creature and gives a pleasant, "Thank you for your services." As he turns to stuff the vials away in a safe padded pocket, he goes to retrieve two different-looking machines that he has /never/ had the luxury of using before during his own job, and heft them up.
And then he starts looking for a quick exit. He doesn't bother trying to make for the reception area, knowing that place will be the first way crawling with hostiles. He goes back out the way he came, looking for an elevator and any safe way out he can think of.

Sakura's at a rather unfortunate disadvantage; she has no weapons on her, and she's not been in a real fight since Annu. She is not at all happy about this situation, of course, looking completely shocked as the man takes a hostage for… some reason. She's really not sure why.

Still, she knows what she has to do. What kind of a person would she be if she just walked away and let someone get murdered?

Don't answer that.

"Please, mister, whatever your problem.. I'm sure you don't need to go this far. Just let him go, and we can walk out of here together, if you want, even." She tries to offer.

"I'm going to enjoy beating you into a pulp," Toph comments in a tone of unmitigated irritation.

She's grinning, too, but it's the kind of grit-tooth expression that suggests extreme annoyance. In any other situation she might enjoy beating someone into a pulp, but this comes with a little more risk than a straightforward scrap.

The whip retracts, but that's because Toph commands the metal to alter itself, wrenching back and away from Sunshine and out of the morass of sand that makes up his body. It shivers in the air as she turns, staring blindly, but it isn't her eyes that detect him. She can perceive him as he moves, but the image is strange and distorted. Sand was always a problem for her. There's not enough solidity to it for her to be able to perceive things clearly.

For someone that could see normally, it might be like looking at something through a pane of heavily frosted glass; the edges fuzzy and dull.

It's enough to tell that there's a fist swinging for her face, though, and Toph neatly bends over backwards to avoid it, air whiffing over her chin. Well, that was a close one.

…Uh huh. She'll enjoy beating the tar out of this oversized freak made of sand. "Whatever. I'll send you back to the Confederacy, or whatever hole you crawled out of, in a matchbox."

The whip comes down again, but this time Toph arranges it in such a way that it crosses over itself, scissoring as it closes in over where Sunshine's neck ought to be. Hopefully.

Toph Beifong missed Sunshine with her Scissors?? moderate attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Giovanni gets the go signal. It's time to move. He tosses his hostage down, putting a bullet into the doctor as he descends before turning the pistol on a guard and cracking off another shot. Giovanni takes no prisoners. Both shots are aimed to kill. He turns to face the pink-haired doctor, smirking. "You're kind of cute. It would be a shame to kill you. Unfortunately, you got yourself involved, and now I have no choice. However, I think I shall spare you for a moment.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

The other doctor and the rest of the guards around him are fired upon, giving the remaining civvies a chance to run as he slips the pistol back into his coat and pulls out the big gun. The sawed-off, pump action 12 guage. ChckCHCK!

This is the STAFF ELEVATOR AREA. It's a lengthy hallway leading from a door to an examination room to the south to the elevator at the north. There is an under-construction area east of the elevator's exit, and next to that is another examination room, which has another examination room bordering it at another east entrance. Halfway along the hallway, a hallway heads off west into the ICU area. Each unit is currently sealed tight. There is a group of security guards around the elevator, and some along the ICU. The west end of that opens up through a reinforced door into the MAIN CORRIDOR. The seals on the ICU units are large metal shutters. Along the hallway, several wheelchairs and shelves can be assessed as cover. The security setup at the doors into the MAIN CORRIDOR has been subtly sabotaged, making the doorway into the main corridoor uselessly insecure. There are several doctors and nurses moving about in a panicked way, screaming loutly. One of the ICU doors is open. There is a fire in one of the examination rooms, as well as the smell of blood.

Two of the guards have turned and pointed their guns at Giovanni, but they can't react entirely at the moment, and they're staying behind Haruno, who they're aware is an elite for no other reason than her hair.. Meanwhile, one is busy with a large fire extinguisher, getting rid of the problem in the exanination room Twisted Ash left, and being completely unaware of the threat she presents. The last two are busy trying to direct the civillians to the elevator and protect it. They leave themselves with their backs to it fairly often, and it's likely a certain demon warlord can get them both. And then! Suddenly! Shooting. The two who were pointing their guns at Giovanni go down, along with the one at the fire extinguisher.

Adela is here.
Giovanni is here.
Twisted Ash is here.
Ryukotsuki is here.
3 guards are here.
Sakura Haruno is here.

The creature seems to weaken, as the strange blood is withdrawn. By the time Lance finishes, it has slumped back onto the bed. It still bites at the air, eyeing the living being nearby, but doesn't have the strength to do more than writhe about. The bodies that haven't been sampled from, however, are still relatively healthy. The creaking of restraints slowly turns into the tearing of seams and wrenching of metal. It's probably clear by now why there weren't any guards or technicians actually in the room, if this is how they respond to company.

"I could say the same, guofuofuo!" Sunshine laughs some more at Toph, enjoying even the irritation he's giving her. There's nothing more fun than messing with Unionites, you know. Unfortunately, she ducks the punch in that way that only kung fu masters seem to think of doing, leaving him wide open for her counterattack with the whip.

Except it doesn't seem to have any effect. It just goes right through his "neck", the sand flowing over the metal like it's alive…which, well, it is. "Nah, I don't like matchboxes. I prefer lighters, myself." he says, following up the hook with a right overhand punch. He's going to start grappling soon, though. Boxing is just boring.

Sunshine does 10 damage to Toph Beifong with an Above Average hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his And Then A Right Hand moderate attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Sakura is surprised by the sudden turn to violence, but after the first few people get shot, she's going to react, and she's going to probably draw his fire away from others in the area. At least, it should, since she leaps forward at him, leaving cracks in the floor as she leaps from the force of her chakra-enhanced pushoff, throwing a moderately telegraphed punch. She doesn't look like much, really; she can't weigh more than ninety pounds or so, so surely the punch is nothing to worry about…

It's directed with the force of a small train, attempting to smash the gunman down before any shotgunning can be happening.

Ryukotsuki's flaming sword-whip suddenly lashes through the air from the elevator, whipping around to slice at the necks of the last two guards currently directing civilians.

With them likely disposed, Ryukotsuki makes her way into the area, bringing her weapon around to drape across her shoulders despite still being on fire. The demon warlord takes a moment to glance about at the chaos, eyes narrowing as she specifically looks toward the vents. Supposedly people should be coming from there, and interference isn't going to be something they need right now.

God dammit, that's cheating.

Toph scowls at nothing in particular when she feels her cable slice neatly through Sunshine's neck, returning to her, and her opponent failing to react in any meaningful way. Even as she's trying to calculate how best to strike in a way that's bound to hit him where it hurts—

"/HURK OW/."

—he manages to strike swiftly enough that she has no way to evade, head snapping aside with an unpleasant 'crack' of impact. Staggering back, Toph shakes her head to try and clear the stars from her head. That guy hits like a freight train, but she didn't expect much different from a ten-foot tall freak.

However, she can sense a great deal of metal. Cadaver cabinets line the walls, and she can tell which ones are sterile and empty. Flicking a wrist, she commands the two nearest to open themselves violently, flying out of their recesses so hard they fling themselves off their tracks, hopefully to nail Sunshine right in the back of his (presumably) ugly head.

…He's gotta feel /that/.

Toph Beifong does 12 damage to Sunshine with a Direct hit.
Toph Beifong hit Sunshine with her SUDDENLY, METAL CABINETS moderate attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Nurse "Firebug" Kelly screams her little head off every time that there's the sound of gunfire, crouching down like a retarded civilian before running impossibly though the field of fire, slipping into an empty examinatin room. She dumps over a table, screaming all the while as she lumps the clean linen up and pours alcohol all over the pile, before tossing another match on a SECOND examination room, screaming her 'blond' little head off as she hollers as she flees the second room. "THE FIRE IS SPREADING LIKE OH MY GOOOOSH! AAAAAAH BULLETS!" She cries, running… Past Giovanni towards the lobby. Dodging gunfire, somehow.

She is the ULTIMATE retarded civilian.
Oh, hey there cutie. Oh, you're going to play hero? How funny! No one can save these people now. Oh, punch. How wonderful!

Giovanni stands there, taking the punch like a champ. He staggers back after a moment, though. It WAS a heavy attack. "Oh, so you're an Elite," he says casually, turning his back on her and heading toward ICU C. He wanted a zombie sample, too. Never know what sort of chaos he could raise with that. After a moment, though, he turns back, aiming toward those attempting to flee. He spits out a wad of blood before the shotgun blast rings out, pellets tearing toward the guards aiding in the rescue attempt before turning back toward Zombieland. "Come. I have business to attend to before we can play."

Lance is worried about those guys breaking free from their restraints. But he's already trying to make his hasty escape, because he sure as hell has to get out of this hospital full of Union forces, swat members, and zombies. And suddenly there's an order to take cover. He strategically turns and ducks into an examination room and hides around the door and out of sight until he can get his opening to escape. He adjusts his hold on one of the machines, which makes his sunglasses fall off, his faintly indigo-glowing eyes now revealed. He looks pretty panicked, there!

From a west entry of the main corridoor, a group of eight armed SWAT join up with five of the patrolmen approaching from the south. These let Twisted Ash pass without any concern, for some reason. They enter through the west Insecure Door of the ICU and suddenly are already sustaining casualties. Pellets raze by from Giovanni's gun and tear a hole in two of the SWATmembers' jackets and send one of the patrolmen to the ground.

Elsewhere, at the elevator, the two remaining guards there fall to the ground, dead. The civilians are scared out of their wits and instead start retreating to the south. The smoke of the fire is getting thicker, and it's got them all in a panic.

"Aw, are you still alive? Guess I gotta start getting serious, huh-"

CABINETS.

As the cadaver cabinets rocket out of the wall and smack into Sunshine's head, they don't really hit it so much as /pulverize/ it and continue flying to the opposite side of the room. It seems Toph has effectively decapitated him, but as someone as observant as she has probably figured out by now, it's still not quite enough to put him down.

Indeed, his head just reforms from the sand that fell onto his body, though there is a noticeable crack that wasn't there before, and some sand on the floor that hasn't moved yet. "Ow! Hey, watch where you're flinging those things, you could hurt someone!"

But then he gets right back into the fight, reaching out to grab the woman and…then a thought crosses his mind, and he steps back to bow. "Sorry, forgot my etiquette. You're Chinese, right? Nihao, my name is Sunshine." he introduces himself, perhaps a bit too late, and then immediately gets back to trying to put Toph in a headlock.

Sunshine does 13 damage to Toph Beifong with a Direct hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his Politeness and then HEADLOCK moderate attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Lance has his opening? He turns out of cover, and he rushes for the elevator as fast as he can go, eyes wide with a sort of terror better seen on startled herbivores. He's not really cut out for this sort of chaos! At least his shoes will not fail him, making loud tromping noises as he approaches his escape elevator! Sweet sweet rare machines held in his arms like they are the answers to all of his problems and he'll DIE if he drops them. White-knuckled grip does not begin to describe it.
Sakura isn't exactly thrilled to be more or less totally ignored by someone she just laid into with a fully boosted punch; it's not a great sign for how the day is going to go. Especially since she's completely failing at protecting anyone, since the person she's attacking keeps shooting other people.

She's not going to put up with having him TURN AWAY from her and walk off, though, attempting to jump onto his back and begin to strangle him with every ounce of her chakra-enhanced strength, trying to squeeze the life out of the psychotic man.

After Lance exits, there's a horrible screeching and clattering. This is hard to make out, with all the gunfire and screaming. Beds are overturned, equipment not stolen now smashing to the ground, samples and discarded medial supplies scattered. In all the chaos, their moans are hard to detect…it's not too suprising that the guard and paniced civilian didn't hear them coming. The screams of the pair being attached stand out, though.

Right at the doorway Lance exited through, there are now two humanoids latched onto a guard and businessman, pinning them to their slightly metallic-tinged bodies, teeth buried in their necks. Another creature shambles out of the room and into the chaos, headed directly for the first living human it spots.

"I really hate it when they cheat like that," Toph mutters under her breath. "I really, really hate it." Toph's response doesn't sound very amused, and she plants her armoured boots with every intention of flinging another bank of cabinets at the Unstoppable Force Made of Sand.

Watch where she's flinging those cabinets? "Yeah, that's… kind of the point, moron. You're almost dimmer than Sokka. That's kind of impressive, in a twisted sort of way."

Bowing is of course completely extraneous, because Toph can't see it, and her response is to fold her arms and tilt her head in a deadpan, 'are you serious, stupid' sort of way. "No, I'm not Chinese."

And then, SUDDENLY HEADLOCK — along with a disgusted "AUGH" from Toph — which immediately has the police chief flailing and trying to get out of the sandy man's grasp. This of course quickly transforms into attempting to punch or kick Sunshine, as well as carefully flinging another (thankfully empty) drawer at him to pummel him into letting go.

Toph Beifong does 13 damage to Sunshine with an Above Average hit.
Toph Beifong hit Sunshine with her Punchings and Kickings and More Metal Cabinet Brainings, Oh My strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

ABSOLUTE Chaos. This is what Adela's imperious searching has lead her to. She knew it would get her somewhere, charging around as if she owned the place (which perhaps she might, one day!) and it has.

This isn't quite what the woman had in mind however. She watches from afar as the pink-haired kunoichi doctor opens a can of trainwreck on the source of the gunfire that had drawn her running into the hallway, and glances about every which other way. There's yells, the smell of smoke, gunbshots, a surprisingly nimble nurse…

And the similarly imperious dude with the shotgun!

Who just went straight out to attack SWAT agents busting in. The black-haired businesswoman doesn't SEEM very threatening, but things really can change in an instant.

And with the world falling apart into mayhem around her, Adela grins. It is not a pleasant expression. "I've had just about enough of this chaos. Let's see how well you /roast./" And at that very moment, her eyes ignite with flames. White holy fire burns brilliantly, painful to look at, and she turns that look upon Giaovanni—-

But then MORE happens. Here comes MONSTERS from down the hallway. Abandoning this plan, she instead gazes in their direction—

WHOOOOOOOOOOSH! Her intense gaze isn't just for show. EYE BEAMS are apparently a part of her arsenal, and twin bolts of flame lash out, again and again, going for each of the monsters to drive them back without harming anyone near them.

Huh. What's that weight on his back—OHDEARGOD!

Giovanni wasn't quite expecting this. His air is cut off, and he knows he has little time to break the grip before she managed to drop him. He focuses, the lack of air already beginning to cause his head to spin. However, he rights himself, carrying Sakura on his back with relative ease. He turns his back to a wall, then launches himself backward, smashing her into it. He staggers back and does it again, before one of his elbows launches out to dig into her body.

Ryukotsuki glances over toward Lance as the squishy scientist-type flees out from the room toward the elevator. And, of course, there are zombies following him. Of course.

With a sigh, she whirls her flaming sword-whip around over her head before stepping forward and swinging it in a horizontal arc toward the humanoid figure shambling out to attack who knows who, all while attempting to stay near the elevator and make sure only her allies get to it.

…and eye lasers. Ryukotsuki glances over slightly at the source of that attack apparently aiding her, eyes narrowing warily.

======> VRUASA: Roam around looting bodies.

Vruasa Telash has NO IDEA what is the cause of all this ruckus. He wanders through the hallways towards the ICU with the giant fangy grin on his face. He waves towards Giovanni (who is fighting somebody else at this point) and abruptly ACCELERATES, getting right the hell out of the line of fire and zooming forward the dead SWAT. He starts to captchalogue items like mad! First he grabs some of that sweet armor, and then some of those guns and sidearms. He doesn't have the ability to wield them but he's pretty sure he can alchemize them into something else. Once he's no longer in the line of fire, he stops and takes a moment to look around the area the dead cops seemed to have been swarming through.

What the hell is so special about this place, and how did this even get started? Not that it's any of his business.

"Say," the troll says, wandering back towards where Giovanni and Sakura are engaged in their fight, "What the hell is this fight over, anyway?" No, Vruasa really isn't being helpful under any definition of the word. Man, he sure has failed at learning anything about human entertainment on this trip.

Lance hammers the elevator button a few times, and stares at the doors to the world's slowest elevator. Or so he believes in his manic state. "Come oooon." He hears lasers. Gunshots. He hears people being eaten. His eyes turn out that way, and his only consolation is that Ryukotsuki is acting as a guard while he holds these priceless analysis machines. He'll have to get her a gift basket later. He really should.
"Really don't want to have to learn about how immune I am to invasive bioweapon-class infections right now," he mutters to himself.
The two creatures are blasted away from the humans they'd latched onto, falling to the ground in an uncoordinated pile. They take a not-ignorable chunk of their throats with them, making it surprising that the SWAT team member can speak at all. The businessman isn't doing quite as well, crawling away pitifully.

The creature in plain sight goes down hard…knocked back by a beam, before a chunk of its midsection is removed via flaming sword-whip. It twitches, limbs not working quite right. It's slowly trying to get back to its feet, however. The other two are clumsily seperating from their pile as well.

"You don't have much of a sense of humor, do you?" Sunshine asks his opponent as he wrenches on her head, trying to cause some damage to probably set up something else. Her flailing does little but amuse him, his raucous laughter echoing throughout the morgue…until she flings another of those drawer things at him, the shock of the impact forcing him to let go of her.

"So, you're /not/ Chinese? Sorry for the misunderstanding, then." he apologizes, sounding bizarrely sincere. And then he's back at it again, trying to slip behind Toph and wrap an arm around her neck, and then /squeeze/ in an attempt to choke her into submission.

Sunshine does 18 damage to Toph Beifong with a Direct hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his Headlock Into Sleeperhold strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Kelly runs back behind the lines of Swats that pass for her, as she is an INNOCENT civilian and not a murderess in disguise at all. Because you know, COPS are SO ACCURATE that civilians are never in danger. Once past their lines, she stops screaming. Is it because she's safe now?
Nope.
Is it because she's being protected by the SWATS?
Nope!
Is it because she's a /fucking crazy murderous bitch?/
Yep!
There is a strange flowing veil that takes over "Kelly's" skin, her entire body becoming black and growing. Her hair plumes out, and a cloak billows behind her as she turns. Twisted Ash stands revealed, waving her hands off of a few last inky droplets of her disguise. "Oh nooooooo!" She cries, in the center of the stacking-up SWATS.

Two Soulsteel Reaper Dailkaives (think short wakizashi made out of wailing black horrible hammered spirits) appear in her hands as she scythes them back and forth at head level, twirling in a pirouette as she laughs madly. "SURPRISE!" Ash crows.

Her eyes glow a lambent orange before filling into jet black pools, sworling with the energy of oblivion.

This is the STAFF ELEVATOR AREA. It's a lengthy hallway leading from a door to an examination room to the south to the elevator at the north. There is an under-construction area east of the elevator's exit, and next to that is another examination room, which has another examination room bordering it at another east entrance. Halfway along the hallway, a hallway heads off west into the ICU area. Each unit is currently sealed tight. Three security guards lie dead of bullet wounds, and three of lacerations. One patrolman lies dead in the west doorway, covered in a pair of dead swat. There are a group of apparently-deceased entities attempting to bite passerby, two of whom have already been bitten. The west end of that opens up through a reinforced door into the MAIN CORRIDOR. The seals on the ICU units are large metal shutters. Along the hallway, several wheelchairs and shelves can be assessed as cover. The security setup at the doors into the MAIN CORRIDOR has been subtly sabotaged, making the doorway into the main corridoor uselessly insecure. Several doctors and nurses move about, all in a horrible panic. One of the ICU doors is open. There is a fire in one of the examination rooms, as well as the smell of blood. The smoke from the fire has made the area all but impossible to see through.

The difficulty seeing is probably making what Twisted Ash is doing, allowing her to decapitate all the swatmembers at once.

Vruasa is here.
Twisted Ash is here.
Twisted Ash is here.
Lance Benson is here.
Giovanni is here.
Sakura is here.
Ryukotsuki is here.
Eight patrolmen are here.
Two ??????? are here.

<Session 412> perfectPerfection Prorth Edhuwi says, "I am still getting the hang of this."

Finally. Toph rolls away, using the momentum of being forcibly let go to tuck and roll, armour clanking as she rolls right onto her feet again. She doesn't waste any time in taking advantage of her sudden freedom, lashing out with the cables again to try and batter the head and face of the… well… whatever-he-is.

"Not really, when your people are firing on civilians and all hell's breaking loose," Toph replies conversationally. Actually, she's pretty well pissed off, but she can at least pretend at some veneer of civility. She's mellowed a bit since her younger days, and she's also gained a sense of responsibility for people like those poor civilians.

Who, it sounds like, are dying in various gruesome ways upstairs while she wastes time with this clown made of sand.

Who, it seems, has managed to get the drop on her again, stealing behind her and trying to choke her into submission.

"Ghgrachk"

This, obviously, does not please Toph, and five metal cabinets are immediately ejected from the Wall O' Cabinets to express her displeasure; all of them aimed at Sunshine's head.

Okay, so maybe she's a little desperate, too, what with the room starting to darken and spin and all. But there's no such thing as "overkill," right?
Toph Beifong does 17 damage to Sunshine with a Direct hit.
Toph Beifong hit Sunshine with her One, Two, Three, Four, Five Cabinets! Ah-ah-ah! strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

The crazy pinkhaired doctor gets one hell of a ride, first crushed into a wall, then crunched in the side with an elbow. Giovanni will feel the girl's ribs give way with a sickening crack, the sort of thing that should have her rolling in pain on the ground, and she does gasp in for breath.. but she also hangs on for dear life.

And she's still squeezing at his throat with one hand, the other moving to try and clamp over his nose and mouth, the medic clearly trying to cut off his air supply completely. This is likely to add a certain urgency to his attempts to be rid of his little parasite. Perhaps if someone assisted him?

Truth be told, there's little Adela can do besides launch a few eye bolts at the distant monsters. And truth be told, as a rush of Essence nearby draws her attention, she no longer cares to do more than that.

Because she gets a CLEAR view of the arrival of Artifacts on the scene, glimpses of them that send a shiver down her spine as the senses of Autochthon give her insights into their origins and purpose.

A shiver down her spine, and rage in her heart.%R There's no real time to debate over this. In almost the same motion as she swirls about, Adela screams an order down at the SWAT folk in words that can be clearly heard through the entire hallway like crystal. "GET AWAY FROM HER. NOW!"

At the same time, she withdraws her own weapon from a pocket. A small cylinder of glimmering gold, really it looks like no more than a grip of some kind, used for a bigger machine.

Until she forces a surge of Essence into it.

Then the ORICHALCUM BEAMKLAIVE thrums to life with a hiss of energy, channeled Essence sizzling out into the shape of straight sword.

Giovanni drops to his knees, his vision wavering as he pitches to the ground on his face. He keeps the shotgun in a death grip, but he's losing consciousness rapidly. He rolls over, attempting to merely lay on the ninja girl strangling him from behind. But if breaking her ribs and slamming her into a wall didn't work, he didn't have high hopes for this. After his roll, he draws his head forward, then jerk it back, attempting to headbutt her in the face and ram her skull into the floor at the same time.

The SWAT team member that was bit holds a hand to his neck, his conversational skills heard failing over the police frequency. The businessman manages to drag himself to his feet, lost in the chaos as a crowd of similarly non-descript civilians try to escape. The two creatures that had a small meal are back on their feet as well, moving more swiftly toward the nearest humans, ignoring the SWAT team member entirely as he tries to regroup with his fellow officers. The one creature that was hit dead on is still twitching, but doesn't seem to be getting up nearly as fast.

Sunshine squeezes tighter and tighter, as hard as he can, his shadowy "eyes" seeming to shimmer with a sadistic light. "Oh yeah, struggle. I like it when they struggle, it makes it all the more /satisfying/ to feel your life draining from your body. Getting weaker, and weaker, and soon you stop moving altogether, guofuofuo…" he chuckles, tightening his grip ever further. "Have fun in the afterlife, hero!"

And then more cabinets come flying in, smashing into him hard enough that even he feels the pain, once again forcing him to relinquish his grip on the Metalbender. "Gragh!" he grunts, as sand sprays everywhere like blood. Some of it immediately returns, repairing the wounds, but yet more stays where it is, apparently lifeless. "Alright, if that's how it is…"

Lunging forward at Toph, the enormous sandman throws another punch at her, but this time is aiming less to hurt and more to spin her around. There's no real finesse in this process, as he is too angry at his kill being denied to care. He reaches out again to grab Toph by her wrists, trying to place one of his enormous boot-like feet on her back and /yank/ on her arms.

Sunshine does 18 damage to Toph Beifong with a Direct hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his Modified Romero Special strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

The mednin manages to hang on through the roll, at least, but the backwards headbutt catches her just about perfectly, leaving her seeing spots and getting her hands to loosen their grip for just a few moments, moments that Giovanni can most likely use to get away from her. Even begin to flee the area, if he chooses, or try to get some sort of advantage over the good doctor.

Twisted Ash begins glaring daggers down the hallway in the SWAT, Civilian, Zombie… Basically everyone's general direction, especially that GIANT GOLDEN GLOWSTICK of a beamklaive that Adela is weilding, indiscriminantly firing blasts of necrotic energy down the corridor and laughing the whole while. "Ahahahahahahahaha! I just… Can't believe it! It's all so funny!" She calls, filling the air of the corridor with random blasts of death and Oblivion as the helmets fly around her and blood sprays all along the walls.

She twirls her swords idly, simply content to cover the elevator escape by shooting hate through her eyes.

The irony of 'staring people to death' is not lost on her as well.

She doesn't seem to be picking her targets, simply 'not hitting' Giovanni as a point of not betraying the 'feds. It'd suck if she did that.

This is the STAFF ELEVATOR AREA. It's a lengthy hallway leading from a door to an examination room to the south to the elevator at the north. There is an under-construction area east of the elevator's exit, and next to that is another examination room, which has another examination room bordering it at another east entrance. Halfway along the hallway, a hallway heads off west into the ICU area. Each unit is currently sealed tight. Three security guards lie dead of bullet wounds, and three of lacerations. One patrolman lies dead in the west doorway, covered in a pair of dead swat. A cluster of five armored swat lie decapitated at the corner of the hallway and the staff elevator hallway. There are a group of apparently-deceased entities attempting to bite passerby, two of whom have already been bitten. The west end of that opens up through a reinforced door into the MAIN CORRIDOR. The seals on the ICU units are large metal shutters. Along the hallway, several wheelchairs and shelves can be assessed as cover. The security setup at the doors into the MAIN CORRIDOR has been subtly sabotaged, making the doorway into the main corridoor uselessly insecure. Several doctors and nurses move about, all in a horrible panic. One of the ICU doors is open. There is a fire in two of the examination rooms, as well as the smell of blood. The smoke from the fire has made the area all but impossible to see through.

The patrolmen pull back, firing at Ryukotsuki still but being mostly ineffective. Their own efforts are mostly to cover a retreat. Meanwhile, heavily armored SWAT come out of the ceiling vents of one of the southern examination rooms. The group of five attempt to advance towards where their less armored cohorts were decapitated, firing at Twisted Ash who they can now aggro at, and also at Ryokotsuki, with their submachine guns. Meanwhile, a pair of yellow-marked heavily-armored SWAT members approach, each bearing a tazer gun. One fires towards Ryu and the other towards Twisted.

Twisted Ash is here.
Vruasa is here.
Ryukotsuki is here.
Lance Benson is here (hidden).
Giovanni is here.
Sakura Haruno is here.
Adela is here
Two Tazers are here.
Five Heavy Swat are here.

Once she's let go again, Toph scrabbles away, uncaring of which particular direction she manages to go in. Unfortunately, the direction she chooses puts her tripping over a bloody corpse, which she can feel when her hand goes down to catch herself and lands in something sticky, lukewarm, and smelling strongly of the coppery stench of blood.

Oh, that's just /great/.

Pushing herself quickly to her feet and flicking the stuff away distastefully, Toph swings her head back around to focus on the ground and get a read on where Sunshine's gone—

/POW/.

Delivered from a slight angle, the blow isn't enough to knock her out or even send her staggering, but instead spin her around so she's seized by the wrists, and the whatever-he-is starts systematically attempting to pull Toph's arms out of her sockets. Which is, by the way, remarkably painful; especially with the metal of her armour biting into inconvenient places along her forearms.

Something twitches near Toph's right eye.

Yeah, that's enough of that.

Bracing herself against one foot and kicking out viciously with the other — it seems a pointless blow, aimed at empty air — Toph sends out a flurry of not one, not three, not five, but a full seven more cabinets (and not much more, as the rest of them are occupied, and the idea of lobbing a corpse-toting cabinet through the air is just nasty), aiming each and every one at the freak's head with a lot more velocity than may be strictly necessary.

"Let me /go/, you /freak/."

/Now/ she's pissed.

Toph Beifong does 4 damage to Sunshine with a Graze hit.
Toph Beifong hit Sunshine with her CABINETS CABINETS EVERYWHERE strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

"AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAh-agggagagagaggggagggaggauauauauauauauuauauauauauuwubububububuubububububububuuuhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn." Twisted ash's speech becomes rather garbled as she's SNEAK ATTACKED by the tricksiest of all SWATS…

The Noble Tazer.

Swinging her swords around randomly and firing eyeblasts everywhere, Twisted Ash goes from Maniac Murderess to Garbled Flailing Idiot in 1 second flat!

Augaugauggggggggggggugugugugugugufuckthishuuuuuurts!

Get away? Yes, yes he does. Sucking in a deep breath, Giovanni bounds away, heading into the lab. Zombies. Oh joy. He needed a sample, so he blasts at one of them, then rushes in to scoop some of the various matter into a vial and pocket it. He then strolls back out, seeing the heat turning up. He eyes the girl on the floor, then aims a kick at her gut. "So close, yet no dice," he says. He steps forward a bit, placing his shoe to her throat and stepping down to apply some pressure, all the while training his gun on the incoming forces. He fires a blast into the crowd of heavies, then another to aid his comrades.

Vruasa Telash gets no response from the well-dressed man and his pink-haired opponent! Well that conversation went nowhere fast. He wanders away from them down an adjacent hallway, towards the direction of somebody screaming like a goddamn lunatic and the not-really-distant glow of some golden /thing/. Also, lots of smoke. Then he accelerates again, pushing himself forward a few steps in his timeline. When he comes out of it he's chilling out next to the elevator, smiling plainly at nothing in particular. Well, he got into this mess by going on an ELEVATOR ADVENTURE. May as well get out of it with one. Though there is an awful lot of shit flying over here next to this one.

Oh hey, what are those interesting-looking sparky weapons? Somebody seems to be vibrating like a nuclear-powered jackhammer after getting nailed by one.

He fails to notice Lance Benson at all, for the moment.

Sunshine just keeps yanking harder, like he's not just trying to rip Toph's arms out of their sockets, but simply /off/ entirely. "You're not gettin' away that easily!" he growls, but soon lets go to deal with the cabinets. He's expecting it this time, and as he whips around to face the incoming volley, he /punches/ the first one away, then grabs the second one and swings it like a bat at the rest, sending them flying all over the morgue.

"Alright, I've had about enough of this." he says, turning back toward Toph with the cabinet still in hand. "Let's see how /you/ like the taste of your own medicine!" And then, just like with the other cabinets, he swings it at the woman like some kind of big, awkwardly shaped baseball bat.

Sunshine does 4 damage to Toph Beifong with a Graze hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his Well It's Not A Chair, But… strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Adela's eyes are still blazing with imperious white flames when the deathly power comes her way.

The woman's burning eyes widen, teeth gnashing contemptuously. She will not stand aside - she will answer it in her own way. Light flares from the Titanic Exalt's face, the mark of the Shining Tyrant's Chosen gleaming upon her forehead and the flames of judgement lashing out to fill the corridor with a burst of white light. The Death bolts meet the Titan bolts, and both self-destruct in a cataclysmic eruption that sends tongues of damaging Essence spraying out in every which way.

Then comes the mighty Tazer, and Adela sees her chance. "You Abyssals all seem alike. Blood and murder games on tuesdays, bone drums and lolspeak on wednesday. This is new! I wonder what other noises you'll make when—"

WHOOOOOSH! Down the hallway she rushes, aiming to stab the tip of the burning blade into Twisted Ash's right foot. "Things aren't so AMUSING anymore."

The weakened creature still tied to its bed is blasted by Giovanni's shotgun, a chunk of its torso disintigrating. What seems to be mercury splatters everywhere, making a silvery puddle that is thick enough to be easily scooped up. The creature stops any moaning and goes still, half of its side missing…shiny silver ribs exposed. Meanwhile, the businessman is carried off by a few good samaritans, clutching his head. The SWAT team member collapses into the arms of his fellow officers, in much the same pose…

Great. More interference. Ryukotsuki grits her teeth and raises her third arm to shield herself from the bullets and tazers, each attack managing to bounce off harmlessly aside from a few small dents. She crouches behind the shield, pushing forward just enough to bring her weapon around again and lash out at the SWAT members a few times with the burning segmented blade, aiming to cut through their armor with sharpness and heat or at least distract them from attacking her and her allies.

Sakura is just recovering when Giovanni makes it back out into the hall, and then she's getting another kick at her poor abused ribs, curling up around it for a moment, at least until there's a foot on her throat. That isn't any good at all, and she'll reach up to push weakly at his leg, something he might dismiss…

At least unless he notices the faint green glow. If she manages to touch skin, that chakra scalpel is going to start cutting at tendons and ligiments and all those other things that make one's leg work.

Lance gets the hell scared out of him. "AH!!" He turns his attention to Vruasa, and stares for a few seconds. He doesn't really say anything. He's just holding some stuff. He doesn't do much more than stare at the troll for a while. Since the troll doesn't really seem to be in a mischief mood, he sidles a little further out of sight, peeking around the corner out of the examination room and waits for the elevator, in the most surreal moment of his life.
He makes a little coughing noise, and tries to continue being unnoticed while he waits for this incredibly slow elevator.

NOT FOUNDIt's a big, awkwardly shaped baseball bat. Made of what is most probably aluminium. This is not incidentally as alarming as it probably should be to Toph, who just grins in light of the big, body-sized metal cabinet being swung at her face.

Lifting an arm and clawing her fingers, twisting it around, she manages to soften the impact by forcing the cabinet to bend itself up and contort into a shape that very nearly resembles a pretzel. It still hits her, but she manages to mitigate it from "fatal blunt trauma to the head" to "some kind of damage to her shoulder," taking the brunt of it on the metal armour she wears; though the impact resounds through her arm.

Nyargh. It's kind of like standing inside a temple bell while it's being rung with a big mallet.

While that's all happening, she twists one foot, steps back from Sunshine, and sweeps her other hand, sending no less than three trays full of very sharp metal implements all flying for him at terminal velocity. Incidentally, autopsy tools are, like their surgical equivalents used on living patients, kept very sharp!

Ouch.

Toph Beifong does 8 damage to Sunshine with an Average hit.
Toph Beifong hit Sunshine with her Sharp Pointy Objects Forever strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

Gio presses his foot into her throat, relishing the feel of it. And then, without warning, he's flat on his back, and that leg? It's on fire in all sorts of horrible ways, and definitely isn't moving. He cries out, then points his shotgun at her. Then thinks better of it and begins to savagely club her with it instead, the barrel striking down on her repeatedly to merely beat the pink hair doctor as much as he can. "God damnit! I find the one god-damned doctor in this place that can fight back!"

Lance gets the cue, and emerges from the examination room in a hurry, and steps into the elevator as it starts to open. He spares one glance to Vruasa, wary and terribly confused. He got absolutely no answer about his possible hallucination. He must be hallucinating it. How can anyone be so calm at a time like this? Lance really doesn't have the mental capacity right now to think about it, with everything else taking up his mental energy with sheer animal terror.

Sakura had done what she could, coming in to a fight utterly unprepared, but she really can only do so much; after the third or fourth blow to the head from the barrel of the shotgun, her nose is obviously broken, an eye orbital shattered as well, bleeding…

On the bright side, for her, she seems only half-concious. Which would probably be safer if there weren't feds and zombies around, but she's quite the medic; given a couple minutes she could likely at least get away. If Giovanni accepts that and gets taken away himself, anyway.

Ohoho, so the little lady's able to bend the cabinets as well as throw them. That's certainly surprising. "Guofuo, you're just full of surprises, aren't you?" Sunshine remarks, his good humor returning for a moment as he casually tosses the pretzel-shaped cadaver drawer behind him. "But you're not gettin' much further than that."

And suddenly, sharp pointy surgical tools fly out of their trays to attack him, stabbing into his body with soft noises that sound kind of like 'thup'. Or maybe 'thwip'. Something like that. In any case, they cause a lot less pain than the cabinets, until one of them strikes the emblem on his chest. Immediately, Sunshine doubles over in pain, grunting as if he'd just been punched in the gut with a train.

"Urgh…ooh, that's done it. You're goin' down, missy." he starts growling again, leaping at Toph with surprising speed considering his size (though probably helped along by the natural Choujin ability to fly). As soon as she's within arm's reach, he tries to wrap his hands around her throat, and from there slam her into the ground.

Sunshine does 4 damage to Toph Beifong with a Graze hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his Doublehanded Chokeslam strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

The whole cluster of Swat go down! Or up, or to the side, depending. The shield-charge spreads them out. The heavy armor saves most of them, but the heavy swat suffer some casaulties. For the most part, the group is less dead and more disoriented, but this has severed the tazer's connection to Twisted Ash.

You now have free time to reach the elevator! Which has just dinged and opened!

"What?" Vruasa asks, casting a fangy grin in Lance's direction. He wanders away from the elevator for just a moment to CAPTCHALOGUE the tazer of one of the very dead SWAT Tazers. Delicious alchemization material, you are /mine/. Then he moves back, and looks towards the hiding guy. It doesn't seem like he's /hostile/, though. The elevator opens, and the troll steps into it unhesistantly. He looks around, and then… presses every single goddamn button in fast-forward. A half-second later he removes his AERODYNAMIC ROCKET SPEAR from his sylladex and SMASHES the grate on the top of the elevator.

He waves at Lance.

"Enjoy the ride!" The troll exclaims, happily.

PCHOOOOO!

And then he launches himself via rocket spear right the fuck out of there and into the elevator shaft.

There is a surprising series of events. One is that Twisted Ash is TAZED. It basically is the worst thing. Then Ryotsuki becomes TRUE HERO and deals with the tazer. Not in time to stop her being stabbed in the foot. That basically sucks.

But a confident smile reappears on her face. "Yeah. It's pretty fucking hilarious, bitch." She snarls, before booting Adela with her good foot… And making a mad dash for Giovanni. She grabs him…

y the waist.
And twirls once before shot-putting him, bodily, like some sort of… Pokemon Trainer Rocket Missile… Into the elevator. She literally uses him as an improvised weapon, with the Elevator as the target. GET OVER THERE!

LOOKS LIKE TEAM ROCKET'S BLASTING OF AGAIN BUDDYPAL!

And then there's a pile of SWATS and her, and Adela. Yeah. This sucks ass.

Her swords disappear as she dashes off, vaulting a swat herself and making a mad dash for the elevator, pulling two handfuls of mundane smoke bombs and tossing them behind her.

"LATER SUCKERS!"

There's some wuxia bullshit and also a fuckton of essence burned. She's also glowing like some sort of evil necrotic roman candle sparkler super saiyan or soemthing. It's pretty obvious.

Lance stares up through the hole in the elevator's roof, in the wake of Vruasa's escape.

His eyes drop to the elevator buttons.

And then his head raises again, and an amazing fury shows on his face. "I HATE YOOOOOU!!" he screams up at the troll, long after the troll is long gone.

This is the worst elevator ride ever.

"I'm just full of surprises," Toph responds, through gritted teeth. That still smarts, and that's going to leave one hell of an impressive bruise on her shoulder by the morning. Twisting, she observes through the vibrations as Sunshine shifts his stance, keeling over as though she'd whacked him over the head with every one of those cabinets.

What the hell; these Confederates are /weird/.

"Yeah, no. I don't think so." Toph immediately turns to face where she'd last felt Sunshine connected to the floor, which suggests that he's decided to leap. Instead of being taken down yet again, she twists, trying to shove him away with her armoured shoulder, using the cables to augment the movement by lashing out at where she's pretty sure his face must be. If it's not his face, anything'll do.

That still hurt, though. He's ten feet tall, made of sand, and proportionately heavy; being hit by him is still like being run over by one of those new-fangled automobile things they have in Republic City.

Turning, Toph runs a silent count on the examining tables. Three of them. Good. Raising a clawed, twisted hand, the tables immediately contort themselves into a much thinner shape with a tortured, shrieking /SCRUNCH/ of metal doing things that shaped metal isn't supposed to do.

And, as they assume a much more convenient form to her purposes, Toph uses her earthbending to swing them around and attempt to tie themselves around Sunshine, all three at once, to slow him down… and, should they strike, /keep/ tightening.

Toph Beifong does 2 damage to Sunshine with a Mild Graze hit.
Toph Beifong hit Sunshine with her <insert witty attack name here> strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

The civilians are just starting to relax, thinking they've escaped the chaos. When the passed out businessman awakens. Changed. Heavy, tinged limbs flail in the confined space of the elevator they'd been evacuated to. The civilians have little chance to avoid the powerful blows, and even any officers escorting them would likely be waylaid. The new creature sets upon the liveliest occupant as the elevator decends, feeding…

Instead of chokeslamming Toph like he was expecting, Sunshine is expertly deflected, causing him to crash into the floor. He's not hurt, but it's still not very dignified. As he gets back up, he suddenly finds that whip lashing out at his face again, but once more just flows around it so it doesn't cause any harm.

"You're getting on my nerves." he says, starting to lunge at her again, but the loud and very noticeable screeching of metal alerts him to her next attack. As soon as the tables start to squeeze on him, he disperses his body into a cloud of sand to shoot up out of their grip, then angles himself back at Toph. As he falls toward her, he reforms in midair, arms and legs spread out like he's trying to simply flatten her against the floor.

In fact, that's exactly what he's trying to do. "I /love/ Unionite pancakes in the morning!"

Sunshine does 17 damage to Toph Beifong with a Direct hit.
Sunshine hit Toph Beifong with his Sunshine Press strong attack! <Standard Mechanic>

The elevator closes with the Confederate team (sans Sunshin) inside, and begins moving up. It pauses at each floor, but only briefly; it looks like Ryukosuki's override has let Bain get a little bit of shifting done in the behavior of the elevator. As it progresses up, there's the loud, ear-shattering sound of explosions on the upper floors.

"Yeah, welcome to my world, sweetcheeks. I've got more important things to do than play around with you all day, though." With a flick of her wrist, Toph retracts the spool of cable, attaching it to her belt. Swiping an arm across her mouth to wipe away the blood she can feel trickling from her mouth — god dammit somewhere there's half a molar of hers on the ground here — Toph promptly…

…shifts her stance to plant her bare feet firmly on the ground, clapping her hands together. The concrete ruptures, and the earth beneath swallows Toph Beifong whole before sealing itself again.

Thankfully, it's easy to propel herself back to the surface, a fairly impressive distance away from Mercy Hospital, and punch a pillar into existence from which Toph perches atop, cross-legged, to watch the distant building.

Lance was starting to relax. He really was. The delay that each stop of the elevator causes makes him look more and more grumpy. And then there are explosions. Explosions while he's in an elevator. He muses over his chances to survive the drop, if it were to fall while he's in it.
"Actually," he comments, as if thinking aloud, "This seems about right for difficulty, for all the money this is worth." He hefts the machines up a bit more. He is sure as hell not letting go of those.
He's going to find where Vruasa lives. And he's going to fill Vruasa's house with frozen shaving cream cans. One of the many revenge plots going through his head as he also imagines his imminent doom.

Meanwhile, in the morgue, at one corner, a swat-member, bitten by a passing monster, is in a bad state. It looks like one of the patrolmen brought him here to escape, but he was scared off by the combat in action. And that fellow, the one with the bites, who the doctors were examining at the beginning of that heist… Well, the morgue may not be safe now. In fact, the building as a whole may not anymore. But at the very least, it's contained to one building.

Another massive explosion at the roof. The elevator's stopped.

The elevator drops abruptly after another explosion at the rooftop. It catches abruptly between level 2 and level 1. Through the top of the elevator, one can see that the top levels of the building are on fire now. The smash breaks open a large portion of the floor, where it looks like there was an emergency panel for getting out in situations like this. Crumpled up like this, it may take some time to open it. Or some help from someone on level 1, near that staff elevator.

As Sunshine's battle concludes, the bitten SWAT member seems to recover. He's well enough to struggle from the patrolman's support…turn towards him…and latch his new, metal teeth into the poor officer's neck. The sand monster now has his very own zombie cargo, and one more being prepared fresh before his eyes. Or eye shadows.

What the HELL. Not only does Adela NOT get a satisfying squeal from her stab, but Twisted Ash sees to kicking Adela right in the stomach. The Titanic Exalt's knocked for a loop, not having expected orprepared for such a counter attack at all. She tumbles, stumbles, and topples…

And then, well, off they go.

Suffice to say, when she hurries out of the building about a half-minute later on orders to retreat, and more events unfold, she is not happy. But she's there to watch the explosion, and wait to see what will happen.

Instead of Unionite pancakes, Sunshine just gets a face full of floor. However, instead of getting angrier, he actually starts /laughing/. Probably because of what's being said on the radio, which to him is the most hilarious thing ever. "Really, what has the world come to? Guofuo…" he says as his laughing dies down, wiping away a tear. Then he notices the guys in the corner.

Moments later, he's flying through the ventilation shafts again with two zombies in tow, carried along by denser concentrations of sand. The roof is out of the question, so he'll be going out the front door. All he has to do is make it to a warpgate with his cargo, and then he can start planning some /real/ chaos…

Lance stumbles about inside the elevator, and nearly falls over, barely managing to keep standing after the drop. He hits his head against one of the walls in his stumbling backward, knocking his hat off and knocking him for a loop. "Nngh… I'm okay. I don't think… anything broke at all…" He steadies himself, and makes sure none of the vials got cracked, and releases a great sigh of relief that that wasn't the case. His head is bleeding! But he doesn't seem to have died, so. Small favors.

Twisted Ash had been thrown to the ground after the drop, but looks no worse for wear. She dusts herself off, checking Lance… For the vials and the devices. "The stuff okay?" She asks, utterly unconcerned for /Lance's/ safety.

This is her payday at stake!

She looks around, before checking the door, setting her shoulder against it and trying to pry it open.

"Come on, before more jokers pile in."

"Yeah," Lance replies, groggily, "The stuff's okay." He readjusts his grip on the two analysis machines and prays to himself the sensitive equipment won't need too much recalibration to function properly. He's too shaken to recognize her general lack of caring about his wellbeing. Or maybe he just expects it. Probably the latter.


Log Notes: This is where Vruasa picked up the TAZER component of his now heavily-alchemized spear, along with SWAT Armor, and a few firearms.

There was also some J-IC conversation, but it doesn't bear much repeating so I've edited it out. I do believe the scene continued somewhat longer than I attended, and started somewhat before I began logging, so not everything is there.

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