End of the Beast, Section 1: Strange New Age

[Toastburner B]

Nathainel sighed when he saw the others going. "T'aint the Beast, lads." He said as he ran to catch up them. "Surely you should've figure out how he operates by now. Just 'cause thar be screamin' don't mean that 'tis Lankington causing it. After all, I caused a fair bit o' screaming back in me day, as I'm sure you did, Rocco." Nat said, point at the gangster.

"Me point being," the pirate continued, "is that de Beast be smarter than this, you all have seen it. He works 'imself into power first, does he not? In my time, he was a British Commadore. In yours, Luke, a General. With yerself, Rocco, he 'twas a crime boss, was he not? He was even advisor the old Aurthur himself, according ta Sir Allgood over thar. The point tis that the Beast will try to establish 'imself before he starts his terrorizing. Just 'cause thar be screaming don't mean thar be the Beast."

"I had meself far too much time to tink about this." Red Eye muttered to himself.

[Raiden]

Thomas had seen the glowing figure. And after noticing that it wasn't a woman, so far as he could tell, he didn't pay much heed. But when he felt pulled out of his area, well, he certainly took notice.

He almost fell backward when he entered the new world. And by falling backward, he was almost hit by one of the floating carriages. He also heard the screaming. As the others ran off, he walked slowly beside the pirate.

"I don't think it's the Beast they're screaming at. I think they're screaming at us. I know that if a bunch of blokes with weapons suddenly popped up, I'd be a wee bit poppy m'self."

[CallmePrismatic]

(OOC: Wee bit poppy?)

Artemis shook the...un-Purgatory out of his eyes and raised his gun in the air, a very loud report escaping from the barrel as compressed air shot out. As expected the crowd instantly dropped, revealing a perfect line-of-sight to...something that looked like the Beast. For some reason every motion the creature did created not only an after-image but a 'pre'-image, giving the impression that every moving part of was somehow three times larger than its still counterpart.
To Artemis it appeared to be washed out, like new paint after a rain, its body not prepared for the sudden onslaught of reality it had been dropped into. "And if thats how we see it, maybe everyone else can too..."
Before he could relay this pondering to the others the Beast's head snapped around three times to glare at the troop. A single tattered wing unfurled from his back before he lurched over and jumped, scrabbling on the sleek metal facades of the buildings. A streak of lightning launched from Artemis's battle, along with every other gun-toting member, hitting nothing but windows as it clawed across the corner of the building.
"Damn." He lowered his gun and noticed the crowd, specifically the lack of it. As a deputy he considered crowds like sand: Dangerous when surrounded and curious when absent.
"Threats targeted, lethal force uneeded." The voice blares around them and when Artemis turns back he sees the walls glow and something like the sun's strange flare erupt forth and then pull back to reveal a row of stalwart...things, man-shaped, like a stiff, too-clean scarecrow. One look at their eyes releases any thought of humanity.
In unison they march forward. "We are here to protect the populace, stand down."
Artemis cocked his pistol, a mostly unneccesary gesture but something that gets stuck in a guy's habits nonetheless. "Stood down too long." Fire streamed out and immolated one of the being's heads. Their march stopped until the smoke cleared, revealing a face of metal but nothing that looked like pain. "Aww cmon..."
"Initiate attack phase." And as the metal men spread out to fight the group Artemis realized why the crowd had cleared.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

"Golems of metal. Pah!" Genes spat, glaring balefully at the metal beasts that had formed a semi-circle, surrounding them. She sheathed her shortsword and took out her battle knife, its keen, long, silver edge glinting in the light.
"Do not stand between us and our quarry, or suffer the wrath of Appolo!"

She flowed, rather than ran forward, her feet flying over the ground, eating it up with astonishing speed, and closed in on one of the beasts. It swung a heavy fist quickly, but not quickly enough. Granted by an ancient God's power, Genes flowed underneath the attack and slammed the keen blade deep into the chest compartment of the creature. Tormented metal screamed as Genes' blade grated its way upward towards the collarbone regions, slicing through the wiring of the machine. The creature jerked frantically, but before any of the other metal creatures beside the assaulted beast could react and aid their unfortunate companion, Genes had pulled away and had danced out of their reach.

The crowd gasped. The attack was lightning quick, and had been over in a few seconds. Genes inspected her blade.
"The Gods smile upon me. Thank Athena," she merely said, a slight smile on her lips.

[Death Dealer]

"So these metal...things want to...well, damn, I don't suppose die is the word for it."

Rocco did a swift turn on his heel, and unloaded five bullets into the skull of one of the machines, and with his other thompson gun, unloaded six bullets into the chest of another.

Only one of them stopped...

"I think we need to aim for their chest! I'm not sure what the hell makes these things walk and move, but it seems to be centered near where our heart would be!"

Right as Rocco finished that sentence, the stopped robot whirred back to life.

"Damn!"

[Raiden]

(OOC: Trust me, Prismatic. If you ever listened to two British people speak 'real english', you'd swear that they were making words up as they went. I won't do it now, but expect Thomas to run into another Brit eventually.)

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I've died enough in my lifetime."

Thomas reached to his hip and unsheathed his sword. The blade was almost as reflective as a mirror. And to Thomas's knowledge, it had never been polished. It was a special sword, he had to give it that.

He leapt forward in a thrust. The point of his blade sank into the metal of the chest like a hot knife through butter. He gave off a smile of the calibur that would make any woman swoon, had there been enough around.

"Don't mess with a Knight of the Round, lad. It doesn't do well for your health."

The robot reached up and grabbed at the blade. Thomas's smile faded.

"Oh bugger..."

[Death Dealer]

Rocco noticed the machine grab Thomas' blade, and he ran to the side of it, evading a few swiping metal arms as he ran, and yelled, 'Stand back for a second! Release your blade!" Thomas looked skeptically at Rocco, but did as he was instructed. A barrage of large bullets began to tear through the air. The machine's body almost danced, bullet after bullet making contact with it's metal flesh. Then, suddenly, the machine slumped down, it's servos destroyed. "Quickly now! Sever it's head! Something tells me..this thing...will stay alive if it still has it's head attached!"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

Silver arced through the air, leaving a glinting trail. The robot's head rolled away, severed from its body.
"You should just tell us to take off their heads. Don't explain," Genes said calmly as she dodged a swipe from a nearby beast. She swung around, aiming a vicious kick towards the small of the metal golem's back. Her greaves connected in a shriek of metal. The robot jerked slightly, and turned... And stumbled. Its feet twitched uncontrollably, damaged by the swift blow. The machine tried to grab Genes. The Spartan woman held her battle knife out to collide with the humanoid hand. The fingers dropped, severed.

With the same efficiency as before, Genes ducked underneath the monster's defenses and rammed her knife into the abdomen, cutting upwards. Her other hand loosened and brought out the short sword, and she lopped off its head. The thing slumped forward, deactivated.

OOC: How many are there?

[Azisien]

Luke actually sat back and watched them engage the bird...bots. Robotics had come a very long way in his time, but not quite this far. These robots moved like humans, and they were much better at doing it too. Kind of pointless, he thought, to make robots with so much advancement and fail to give them any kind of weaponry. Pointless, and stupid. For a fleeting moment, he hoped they weren't in the United States...

He wasn't a coward by any means, but the other slayers seemed to be having fun disposing of the dozen or so enforcer bots. Luke had other things on his mind...These aren't high-end, are they? Riot-control maybe, keepers of the peace. Threats targetted, lethal force needed...these things might be capable of dealing out lethal force to the untrained and unarmed, but we are none of the above. What would the police do if they were outgunned? He followed the logic staircase to one dead end, and it ended in three possible ways: Death to us, Genocide to them, or Retreat.

As if on queue, more of the bird-bots were appearing and closing in on the slayers. Luke readied his Kalashnikovs again and shouted out some advice, noting the Spartan's distaste for details. "Take the head and chest out. Sever, cleave, disintegrate, whatever you folks prefer." He kept a close eye on any of the enforcers approaching him - none were at this point - and started looking for an exit route. His gut instinct told him these things would keep coming, and bigger things would show up eventually.

OOC: Uh, yeah. I KIND of set a rough number, but if Luke's guesswork holds ture, we'll have as many of these things as we want. Not sure how free-form this is, anyway...Kill them until CMP tells us to stop.

[CallmePrismatic]

(OOC: Sorry about the delay, I tried to make this post like three times in as many days and kinda got burned out after watching my computer eat it away...nonetheless...)

Artemis fired off four shots, beheading two of the metal men and giving another two much-needed chest holes. Overall, after the initial appearing out of nowhere display and a look at their possible speed and power, he was quite underwhelmed by their new enemies. They seemed to be working under the most basic of fighting strategies, just trying to punch whoever was nearest like a common drunk, albeit a drunk with the ability to punch through walls.
The squeals hit Artemis's ears first and the vision of huge black carriages (Rocco and Luke sublimely added the word car to everyone's vocabulary) appeared at both ends of the street. His eyes came late to the party but still managed to process the emblem of a six-shooter emblazoned on the side before it was wisked upwards to unload the car's load, scores of men, the way they moved was so unlike the metal men that Artemis didn't have any time to consider they were anything but highly trained humans, armed with the sleekest guns any of them had ever seen and the ones in the front carrying...well it looked like orange light that begged to be shot at although Artemis gathered the impression that it would do as much good as shooting the sun.
With their focus on the newest arrivals only a few, the close fighters of the group who were still engaged in combat in its purest form, noticed the walking scarecrows disappear just as they had come, a flash of light and then nothing. One of the newcomers, dressed in all black, stepped forward, brandishing no gun or light shield. "We have come here to help the populace, please step down. You will be taken to a Hillon Defense Branch and dealt with by our best psychologists and medical proffesionals."
With all the events that had occured over the past few minutes, the mention of his last name managed to triumph all his other senses and unleashing a torrent of new questions. "What...who is Hillon?" He called back, his gun raising with his hand to form the gesture that would carry his voice, not realizing the aggresive nature of this action until he saw the man reveal his own hand, a small orb in it which he tossed with response.
His basic training kicking in Artemis shot, hitting the orb and unleashing its contents, bright purple fumes that swarmed out and surrounded the guardians. Trying to cover his mouth from the gas proved to do nothing, the smoke seeped into his skin like a giant blanket and everything began to go numb while his eyes and ears teamed up to create a devastatingly surreal version of whatever world this was.
"Sticky them and bring them in." At least thats what Artemis thought he heard, although in his mind the sentence raged on for hours. Before his eyelids began to weigh more than the horse he used to ride he made out the vision of the other black men raising their weapons, firing soundless rounds of black. One round caught his gun hand, a giant ball of black that weighed him down to his knees. When the ball connected with the surface of the street Artemis didn't have the strength to pry the adhesive from the ground. Instead he resolved himself to fight these newer foes to the bitter end, just as soon as he rested his eyes, just for a second...
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...and a second later he awoke, now inside a stark metallic room, way too-clean for what he was used to. His gun was gone even though he didn't bother to check, it was like checking to make sure you still had your arms.
He wasn't the first to awaken, but also managed to not be the last. He straightened himself up and spoke to no on in particular. "So this is the future."