Even so, Caio is still incredibly resistant and strong. As he gets closer to the guy, he purposefully lets him strike him with his fighting sticks before shoving him against the wall. Once he is closer to the woman, he looks at her, his eyes completely normal this time, as he offers her his hand. "Come, let's get you to somewhere safe."
Turning to her assailant, he adds. "Back off, dude, and walk away... or you'll get some broken bones and jail time."
Femtite looks out at the ‘lone’ figure, and given Grace’s warning, she wonders:
The youth hits Caio hard with his fighting sticks, but Caio shrugs them off like they were whiffle bats. After he shoves him into the wall and turns to help the woman, the youth looks up at the spectators. They shake their heads and give him a thumbs down.
The woman avoids Caio, not taking his hand. Instead, she seems to watch what her assailant is doing.
The youth shouts and charges Caio with all his strength, not heeding his warning about broken bones or jail time.
What do you do??
Femtite studies the figure, and surmises that it's Lua given all of Caio's descriptions of her. She must be a threat, because she has clearly baited them all to a wide open area. While Caio, if he were here, might be the one in danger because of her control over the Wolf, she's not sure who else would be in danger. Until Grace mentions that there's a lot of boys and a few girls nearby; maybe Lua is able to control the students who had taken the drug? If so, they're probably more in danger than a threat at this point -- but possibly not for long.
Bracing himself not to give the man any ground, Caio lets the man hit him five times as he tries to figure out which is his main hand. He then grabs the man's off hand and twists it before punching his arm hard enough to brake it. "Dude, back off, please."
Horizon looks at the field and considers how open it is, that the terrain is disadvantageous to their Crimefighter allies who prefer close combat and dark corners. "Caio," He calls him on the comms, "We've found Lua. Stand by and listen in. If you hear me speak about the new moon, run back to base as fast as you can," He tells him, setting up a code word in case things get bad.
He's certainly not going to be the one to get close to someone who even 'weaker' than Caio physically was still a werewolf and could probably tear out his throat. He flies down and lands fifty feet from the figure in the middle of the field. "I am Horizon. I lead the team that Caio's is part of, and I wanted to discuss the terms of your departure from our city," He tells the woman as he sizes her up.
Femtite shines sunlight on Lua. Record, she thinks to the Bug in her hair.
”Don’t forget to smile for the hidden camera.”
The wet sound of bone breaking is followed by a cry of pain. The young man collapses to the ground, cradling his arm.
The woman pushes past Caio and goes to him, putting her hand on his back to comfort him. He grits his teeth against the pain, and looks up to the spectators. The woman also looks. They give him a thumbs up.
She helps him to his feet and starts helping him out of the alley. Caio is practically ignored.
What do you do?
Lua looks at Horizon. There is no fear in her eyes. "I have come for Caio. Let him come to me. You will also turn over Carlos. I will leave with them. Those are the terms."
What do you do??
Caio then jumps to the fire escapes, intending to get a hold on one of the watchers.
The pair on the fire escape duck inside a window to a seedy apartment, but it's effortless for Caio to stay on their tail. He catches up to them after they fled the apartment unit and are just about to run down the stairwell.
They surrender quickly, holding their hands up. They each have a playing card club on their jackets.
The two exchange a look with each other. The taller one, clearly older than the one in the alley by a few years, sneers at Caio. "Just a little test. To see if he would stand up to someone like you." He looks at Caio with contempt. "Freak."
Instead, he retreats to the alley and then walks away for now, finding a place where he can hide and then follow the men or the man and the woman, using their scent to help.
Caio, hearing the message from Horizon, replies back. "Sure thing."
The pair take off as soon as Caio lets them go. He's able to find the scent trail easy enough. The injured youth left a clear traces of sweat as he was helped out of the alley.
"Looks like you fell for an initiation ritual," comes a gruff female voice from the shadows. It's familiar.
Terrier's yellow eyes pierce through the gloom. She'd done a good job of hiding her scent -- the clear sign of an experienced predator. "I don't know why Lua wants you so bad, but it's my pleasure after you betrayed and nearly killed all of us."
What do you do??
Horizon gauges the field and information from his teammates. He stays at a distance while speaking up to Lua again from across the field. "As a kid growing up around here, I always had to keep eyes in the back of my head, for myself and my siblings. You never knew when the older white kids might be having a bad day and looking to take things out on you," Horizon says. "So I can smell a trap as obvious as this one. Maybe if you'd chosen a night of the new moon or had done more strategizing I would have been caught off guard. I was really hoping you would be amenable to negotiation though," He sighs after having verbalized his code phrase to Caio.
"Caio is not yours to take. This is not your country, nor your city. You have no claim to anything," He tells Lua. "Last chance to walk away, Lua."
He gathers up a mass of light and heat in a black bubble behind himself, outside of her visual range, ready for things to come to violence and preparing some attacks on his own. He clicks the comms to make sure everyone is ready for a fight!
Perhaps there was another way. He rests his back against the wall. "I'm sorry for hurting you all that bad... I completely lost control of the Wolf." He decides not to antagonize her claim of him having betrayed them, which was a total b*$%~%+$.
"I've meant to ask you this before... why did the Mongrels call you Terrier, and not something more akin to a wolf name?" He hears Horizon's signal, but doesn't believe he can flee Terrier at the moment.
Lua doesn't look cowed or even concerned, really. She just narrows her eyes that shift to a frightening yellow. "Caio will come to me on his own. You need to bring me Carlos, and you won't have to get hurt, child. You speak of a past where you were the prey. I can sense you are not far from that time."
She shrugs, somewhat abashed. "It was a play on 'Terror.' Sounded better in my head, despite it being a dog breed. There's not a lot of good options for names, 'Wolf,'" she says pointedly.
She pads closer, claws out and her teeth bared. "So, you going to come along to Lua quietly, like a whipped puppy?"
Horizon smiles, and it's not the smile of someone trying to hide nervousness. This is the smile of someone who's faced his own darkness and base impulses on a constant basis. It's the smile of someone who wants the excuse to indulge in violence.
He strikes first, and strikes out hard. The bulge of energy behind him propels Shin across the space between them in the blink of an eye. And his fist drives into Lua's diaphragm, to stop her from giving out the commands necessary to direct whatever followers she's bamboozled with her power. It's a high risk manuever, leaving himself open for a counterattack...
"If Lua gets me, she'll let the Wolf out for good, and you know what the Wolf can do... how much pain he can bring." He says to her. "After I've hurt the Mongrels, I... don't want to let the Wolf out again. I will if that is my only choice to keep me away from Lua..." Looking at her, he asks. "Isn't there another way? Whatever she promised you, I don't believe she'll deliver... she doesn't care about nothing but her werewolves... and you are not one."
Femtite creates a ball of warm, shiny yellowness above the 50 yard line. This should make it easy for her friends to see, and hopefully, her fake sun messes up the moonlight which hopefully matters.
She’s only picked up bits and pieces of werewolf lore and isn’t sure if the drug negates the need of the moon.
Lua obviously had a plan, which was all very good for her, but there was no reason for Conflux to just wait for it to happen.
Using Nightclaw's nose as a guide, she extended a thin, immaterial ward over the hostages/weapons. Without knowing everything Lua was up to, she couldn't keep everything from affecting them, but she could put enough eldritch static out there to protect them from control.
Thinking about how much Lua has tormented and hurt Caio gets Max's blood boiling. As soon as Horizon rushes at her, the demoness drops out of the air and charges Lua as well! Roaring in fury, she leaps on the werewolf, slashing with her claws!
Terrier's eyes grow more yellow and feral as she approaches, but Caio's words bring her back briefly. She seems almost confused. "She didn't promise me anything. We spoke... I told her what I knew about you... then she had me find you... and attack!"
The light of intelligence fades in her eyes as the beast comes in full force. She launches herself at Caio, and he sees just as she closes that her claws are still tipped with silver!
As the team attacks, silvery runes surrounding the football field flare into life. A strange force wraps around Lua and everyone who enters!
Horizon flies in with an attempt to cripple Lua's ability to command her followers. She rocks back from the strike, but when she rights herself she appears unfazed, having shrugged off a non-silver attack.
With a smooth motion, Lua casually clamps one hand on Horizon's throat and draws him close. Her golden eyes fill his vision and he feels her invade his mind!
Horizon feels his past laid bare before her. She is thoroughly dominant. You've felt the call of the moon, young one. You've been one of us before. What a treat. I shall make you hunt once more. The time when Shin was briefly warped by the chaos of the Rogue Shard and Apotheosis into a werewolf is brought back with crystal clarity! He feels Lua overbearing his will--
--Suddenly Lua is interrupted by a blazing bright sun in the middle of the night! The werewolf witch gasps and recoils from the unexpected daylight, and whatever she was doing to Horizon is stalled.
Devil Diva descends upon the disoriented foe. Lua's instincts react superhumanly fast and she avoids the initial charge, but the demoness adjusts and viciously claws at her. DD's talons rend deep furrows into Lua's flesh that reveal a thick furred hide just underneath the skin. She snarls and slams her fist into Devil Diva's midsection that sends her flying back into the stands!
Human-like howls and growls surrounding the stadium is heard all around, and there's the sound of some fighting nearby -- evidently the Crimefighters are encountering some of the affected high schoolers. Conflux responds by countering Lua's control, and the voices start to trail off.
Then, rapidly approaching on all fours, a massive shaggy wolf appears at the far end of the field, covering ground quickly!
What do you do?
It is a bloody affair. The snarls and growls of two wolves fighting to the death echo through the alley. Terrier's silver-tipped claws cause agonizing pain to the Wolf. She cannot relent, because if she lets up for a second the Wolf will kill her.
Caio, trapped behind his mind in a haze of pain and fury, realizes that Terrier was sent to him by Lua to die, making the Wolf triumphant!
What do you do?
Devil Diva is unharmed by the impact with the stands! In a flash, she rushes right back up to Lua!
Femtite grabs the SF2 control stick, but does not attack Lua. She attacks the silvery runes!
She makes a double quarter circle motion and mashes all three punch buttons!
_____
Femtite sees her star interfering with the ice magic. She wills it to rise and shine so it emits more light, but from a higher altitude to take off some of the heat.
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Indarius jumps in his skin a bit as Diva rushes to meet the werewolf in combat only to be flung into the stands below, sending a shockwave up them. "Did both of them really just try to punch a werewolf? Magic and Silver guys! Maybe try to siphon her life force a bit but don't get too sucked in yourself otherwise you're not gonna get much done yeah?" He first speaks just to the nearby crew of Conflux since everyone else seems to have moved away. Spotting the approaching hulking mass jostling towards them Indarius spreads his feet and quickly draws up a circle of runes.
A chilling wind picks up in the close vicinity, as Indarius's staff begins to glow with stored power. There is a rush of excitement as he feels that this might be someone he can open up on. But there is also a twinge of regret that if they don't end this quickly he might be forced to hurt people he would really rather not.
"İ̷͇̞́̕ḭ̴̜̥͆z̶̪͚̲̃ ̴̰̩͖̒͋N̸̋ͅò̸̢̡̤̄l̸͓̏̀̑ ̷͈̹̦̄͂͠S̴͔̬̞̊̂ư̵͕͖̕ ̴̥̪̋Ḓ̵͗a̶̬̫̦͗͌ä̶̛̱̣́͜l̷̺̋̿̇ ̵̤͙͌̂̑M̷̢̆̒̚ų̷̞̹̈̽͋ ̸͚̩̥͗W̸͇͘͠a̶̭̯̕h̴͓͚̟̿͒ ̵̢̘̞̇Q̸̲͒̀a̵̧̱̽͂ḩ̴͕͉̐̍̋"
Raising his staff skyward and circling above his head three times he begins to erect a massive icy dome around the stadium grounds, starting from the lower section of the seats. It doesn't stretch high enough to cut off the line of sight from what's happening on the field, but should make escaping or getting into it from the lower levels of the seating and the in stadium entrances quite difficult. The jagged spires near the top of the wall melt slightly at the presence of Femtite's micro-star but it shouldn't be a problem. However with The star slowly rising above the arena, the spires quickly refroze into permafrost even sharper than before, like spread fingers threatening to catch any who tried to escape the magical thunder dome.
Caio kicks Terrier away and towards a trash container. He then steps back, trying his best to shift back to his human form. "She sent you to your death, Terrier... she wants me to kill you... you told her I almost killed your whole group and even so she sends only you..."
"I'm not killing you..." He says as he manages to shift back. "I'd rather die than become the monster she wants." With that, Caio knees, open his arms, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes.
Grace lands and leaps at Lua as well, with a feline snarl! She unfortunately leaps too high and Lua is easily able to duck the lunge.
I really hate these magic rules, Shin thinks as he disengages from the direct fight, giving room for Grace and Max to strike out. "Okay, she knows I was once temporarily a werewolf, so I'm going to keep my distance! Like Indy says, magic and silver!" He says as he turns to face the other werewolf that's charged onto the field. At least the students were out of the danger zone.
He couldn't directly hurt werewolves with his powers, and he's rattled by Lua's infiltration into his mind. So he takes up to the sky, trying to keep the other werewolf from getting closer to Lua and his team! "Hey, Spot!" He shouts as he gathers up energy, lancing it out to blast at the wolf's feet to try and trip them up. "Lie down and roll over!"
Femtite pilots her Love Bug into the runes to disrupt them along with Lua's magic. She's successful in ripping up a chunk of the football field's turf and breaking apart the zone of bestial rage, but ends up catching an emotional feedback!
Devil Diva quickly recovers from Lua's counterattack and feels a surge of hope from the dissipation of the rage field. She returns to the fray, again trying to put a hurt on Lua. The demoness slashes again in a repeat of what she just attempted! Further wounds are opened up on the werewolf, causing her to lash out without thought at a threat! Lua's lips retract in a rictus snarl, baring teeth with pronounced canines. Her arms elongate and distort, ending in wickedly misshapen claws. She rakes one set across DD's chest and flings her in the direction of the wolf bearing down on the sports field!
Indarius charges up and gets some help from Femtite. His power keeps the students further at bay and out of the fight thanks to his icy dome!
While this happens, Grace seizes her moment to attack, but Lua sidesteps the errant attack and she gets thrown aside and into DD! The two go sprawling into a heap!
Horizon stays away from Lua and engages the incoming werewolf, keeping him from defending Lua! The two exchange blows as the Protege halts his charge and forces the oversized wolf back. But just as the wolf appears cowed, he lunges forward with a heavy body-check against Horizon!
With a high-pitched growl, Terrier lunges at Caio's throat with her silver-tipped claws -- and stops short!
Her claws are still poised to rip into Caio's jugular, but she holds back. She shakes her head, trying to clear it. "This-- I'm not--"
she struggles before pulling her hand back. "Lua... is not... my... master..."
More of her humanity appears behind Terrier's eyes as she looks pleadingly to Caio. "What is she? How is she doing this?"
Grace blushes at Max in their tangle before extricating herself from their entwined limbs and lunging again at Lua!
"Dammit!" Max curses as she gets tangled up with Grace. "Are you okay?" she asks the catgirl.
Once the pair are no longer entwined, she points at Lua. "You go low, I'll go high!" she says, rushing back in alongside her teammate. As Grace goes for Lua's legs, Max tries to grab Lua's arms and drain her vitality!
"Y'know, Fearless Leader is just supposed to be a nickname my dude; it's okay for you to fly outside the reach of the heckin' big doggo."
Hitting the footing was a good idea, but Shin's thinking too small. So as the wolf lunged again, Connie ripped open a little paper tube of slightly flavored sugar to throw in a warding cloud in its path.
Connie's experiments with flight had pretty universally ended in crash landings, but she'd learned a few things along the way. Something with that much weight was pushing off the ground with a lot of force just to keep everything moving, and if you had a takeoff with a lot of force, with a charm where it turned out the steering just didn't work...
What went up wouldn't always come down.
Femtite is engulfed in red flames. In her wild rage, she aims her Love Bug, The straight at the big, bad wolf.
If Connie wants the creature to helplessly float, Femtite will ram him straight into her floating sun! She pulls back and to one side on her control stick, rotating clockwise and angling up until facing the wolf… then with a quick jiggle—right, left, right—she punches the accelerator buttons!
The Bug is engulfed in flames, barrel-rolling at the air wolf!
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Watching things from his vantage point in the seats Indarius see's the additional wolf is being handled. With a building curse on his lips he seizes the moment to aid his allies further. He narrowed his eyes at grace and pulled a genuine silver dollar coin out of his pocket, flipping it into the air.
Â̷̮g̵͔̽ ̸̦͑V̶̫̓ó̶͇l̸̥͊ ̷̭̇K̷͖͊ǘ̸̮n̴̪̂
Words spoken and staff alight he points at the rotating coin and a small bolt of flame shoots up and liquifies it into quicksilver. The magically molten metal then flies out to the field honing in on Grace's claws.
Max keeps Lua's attention focused on her so that Grace can get in a solid blow!
Horizon feels ribs break from the wolf's body check. He's not a tank, and he coughs up blood flecked spittle as he's sent flying. Thankfully, Conflux moves to assist before he ends up dog food. He floats above the field, wiping his mouth and grimacing as his breathing is labored.
"Really hate magic," He rasps out as he checks his utility belt for any of the anti-Caio tech he'd made in the past weeks. He swore he'd done something - right, there it was. Silver iodide grenade. Maybe it would be useful here. He primed it, flying above the wolf and going for a fastball pitch in midair. "I've had it with your unscientific invulnerabilities!" He shouts before throwing it with force, a cloud of silver-yellow smoke enveloping the beast!
"Do you have somewhere to hide? Until we've delt with her, you'll be in danger as well, both because of her powers and because I've not killed you as she intended."
Conflux reorients the gravity around the large werewolf and before it can launch itself to follow up its attack on Horizon, it lifts awkwardly into the air! It snarls in confusion at this turn of events, kicking and snapping helplessly as it rises.
Femtite flies after the floating wolf and smashes into it, sending it careening off into the sky!
Horizon recovers enough and flies up into the air, sending a silver bomb its way. The cloud of silver particles disorients and hinders the werewolf as pained growls leave its throat.
Lua sees this, and identifies the spell that Conflux cast. Her own magical prowess allows her to redirect a magic spell, and with a complex gesture she sends Conflux flying towards the werewolf and off into the sky, as if it was the source of gravity!
Both Horizon and Femtite look on as Conflux is tethered to the wolf that's being blasted skyward!!!
Down on the ground, Max, Indarius and Grace put together a tag-team effort to hinder the werewolf Howler. Lua screams in real pain as Grace's silver-enhanced claws rake across the back of her legs, drawing sizzling blood. Devil Diva comes at her head and slams into it hard while drawing off some of her power!
Lua tumbles and rolls across the ground. She stands with some effort, touches her wounded leg and sees the blood on her fingers. Then she laughs. "Very good. Do you wish to kill me? Take my strength, demon, and add it to your own. You, night hunter, how does it feel to have my blood on your claws? Kill me, then!" She throws her arms wide, inviting them to strike her down!
Terrier nods. "Yeah, I know how to hide. What about you? You're not going to go face her, are you?"
Grace was already nervous, but now, having drawn blood…
She lunges again, but the attack is half-hearted at best…
Lua’s words hit hard, as there is a part of her that wants to do as she says. To kill her, end her threat to her best friend for good. But Max knows she is better than that. She is not a killer. She will not become a monster like her demonic sisters!
Max’s eyes glow red as she sees Lua opens herself up to attack. She calls upon the demonic power she has been hoping to deny, grabbing the werewolf and slamming her to the bleachers again and again with inhuman strength!
"Connie!"
Horizon acts to protect his friend and confidant first, rushing in to get between her and the snapping jaws of the wolf! He meets Femtite's eyes moments before getting there - there's a desperation that resonates with her. The kind she must feel in this moment as well. The realization that perhaps he's not been honest with her or himself about how he feels about Conflux as he pushes, not quite fast enough on his own. But with a little help, a nudge from her in the air...
Femtite is not about to lose Connie to a man who’s half-wolf, half-helium balloon!
She pounds the kick buttons for a quick upward thrust!
Horizon races upward. What the why? Femtite has no idea what competition Shin thinks he’s in. Just because you’re okay with everyone sharing your girlfriends...
She releases her thrust button to point V-shaped fingers to her eyes, then at Shin. Pounding Heavy Kick lifts her well past, and Fem scoops Connie in the Bug and closing her dome.
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Watching the entire situation devolve into chaos with Horizon and Femtite both racing to save Conflux the obvious one that's going to be successful being the closer of the two. While Grace and Diva continue to drive home the effort into Lua. He smirks as Lua goes limp in Diva's grasp, and then she slams her again, and again, and again. His satisfaction at her being taken down being quickly replaced by a fear that Max might genuinely kill Lua if she kept slamming her while assumedly draining her essence.
After the third slam Indy started up towards DD in comms, "Diva, we all want her to pay, but not dead calm down." Meanwhile he threw a shield up towards Horizon so he didn't go careening off into the sun on accident.
"Terrier... later, when Lua is dealt with and we don't have to worry about her, what are you going to do?"
"Nice save, babe, but- Ack!" Even within Love Bug, The, Connie was still floating around, bonking off the ceiling as she tried to balance the pulls of traditional gravity, magically sympathetic gravity, and the thrust and inertia of Femms's craft.
"I'll break the link soon, but can you try to keep me from sliding around too much in the meantime?"
Okay, DD and Grace are giving Lua plenty of physical trouble. Just need to make sure she doesn't pull a rabbit out of her hat...
Doing her best to drown out everything else, Conflux reached for one of her Emergency Glass wards, carefully shaping and projecting it to encircle Lua in a nigh-impregnable bastion against arcane energies.
Nothing in, nothing out.
Hitting her comm she called down to Grace, "Hey Clawdette! Just keep Lua close, and she should be on a sorcerous sabbatical!"
Horizon and Femtite both race to save Conflux from a nasty encounter with a werewolf, with Femtite being the clear winner. She plucks Conflux out of danger with aplomb.
Horizon, however, fails dismally and if it weren't for Indarius's heads-up play, the Protege would be the one in the werewolf's jaws. Unfortunately, that pulled the Nova's attention from what was happening on the ground.
Both Max and Grace refuse to play Lua's game, deciding to attack the werewolf howler despite her calling upon their darker natures. Unfortunately, it was no mere bluff or reverse-psychology on behalf of the witch.
Grace attacks, but a dark miasma rises up around Lua. The recently-transformed teen misses wildly in the murky gloom. Grace is bombarded with sensations as a wild, feral instinct threatens to overtake her!
The miasma surrounding Lua doesn't deter Devil Diva, who blows right through the spell and carries the witch into the stands! Already suffering from the earlier battering, this time the structure completely collapses as the Transformed wreaks total havoc in her bid to subdue her foe.
Only once Lua is dropped and no longer moving does Max realize the miasma still clinging to her -- and her mind slips away! Those in the air can only look on in horror as Max's limbs elongate and become misshapen while her body contorts! She appears as some sort of hellbeast, snarling and growling -- yet somehow recognizing that Indarius poses the greatest threat to her! Her tail grows a mass of wicked barbs, that she then with a flick sends speeding at the mage!!
Conflux sends a prison of anti-magical shards around Lua, putting her out of the fight, though it appears her final spell will still cause problems to the heroes!!
What do you do??
Terrier looks sadly at Caio. "I don't know. My friends are all captured, thanks to you. I don't have a hope for a cure. Or to be considered normal. I'll probably run until I'm caught, then I'll be locked away in a cage until I die, or some other super villain wants to bust us out to use us as pawns."