Crusade pants, her chest heaving, as she lands just behind Desperado. Her giant hammer disappears and she shakes her arms out a little. Her weapons may be weightless, but the things she's hitting sure aren't. The 15 ft tall devil statue isn't just a stone facade, it's completely solid. It's been like fighting Glacial all over again, but luckily for her, this thing can't regenerate.
Desperado glances at her over her shoulder as more of Rite's minions come crawling out of the seemingly bottomless fountain of blood. "You need more fault lines?"
She nods. "Yeah, one more round should do it." Taking a controlled breath, she looks back up at the statue. Its horned head and one arm are gone, but it's still kicking, sometimes literally with its goat legs. With so many blood creatures coming out of the fountain, Desperado has had to focus solely on them. It's a good thing she has so many of those Hemomortis bullets, as the tinker coined them. It's a little weird they haven't seen Rite yet, it's not like her to hide. She's usually at the forefront of everything, taunting them and relishing the carnage.
Sticking her guns in her reloader, Desperado aims at the statue as it approaches them and fires a few concussion bullets at it. Crusade has been whittling away at it as best she can, but there's only so much she can do against solid stone before her arms give out. She's already been using her left arm more than she should and she's been doing her best to ignore the building pain. Once she deals with this behemoth, she can go back to one hand. Which will hopefully be soon because it sounds like everyone else is having a rough time with Reaper and Hellion; Monolith is down and Tether had to evac him. Desperado can handle all these minions well enough on her own, but the statue is another story.
The half man half goat statue crunches as it takes a step, stone grinding on stone. With her breathing a little more relaxed, she creates a big hammer in her hand again and runs towards the statue. The stone creature swipes an arm at her, and she jumps to avoid it, using her wind walk to run under the arm and up. With a quick turn, she slams her hammer into the elbow. The weak thin point cracks and the lower half of the arm falls to the ground with a crash. The statue keeps moving, though, and raises a hoofed foot to stomp on Desperado.
Crusade shouts to her teammate. "Above you Desperado!"
Desperado looks up and jumps to the side, narrowly dodging the stone foot. As the leg stills, Crusade notices a big crack in the thigh of the statue. Sending away her hammer, she creates the large cleaver-like weapon she used with Glacial. Running up and over the top of the statue, she drops down and slices into the leg. The blade doesn't make it all the way through and breaks halfway down. She grunts in frustration as she catches herself with her wind walk and creates the hammer again. Spinning, she swings the hammer into the side of the crevice. With a loud crack, the leg crumbles and falls away, smashing a bunch of Rite's minions and splattering blood everywhere as it lands.
The remains of the statue wobbles, unbalanced on its last leg. With a spin, Crusade slams the hammer into the center of the statue's chest. It tips back and falls, a cloud of dust billowing up around it. After a moment, the stone creature stills and she lets out a breath of relief. Hopefully Jackass will find Grotesque soon; these statues are taking up a lot more of their attention than they can afford.
Looking back over the Basilica, Crusade spies Lamplighter fighting Reaper. It looks like the blaster set Reaper's cloak on fire, but he just keeps swinging his scythe. He slashes Lamplighter on the arm, causing him to stumble back and grab the cut. She looks around a little more to see Glade facing off with Hellion. Shit, she should be over there helping them.
Looking down at Desperado, she talks into the comm. "You got this for now?" The tinker gives her an affirmative as she reloads.
As she looks back up, she sees Hellion pounce on her partner, his teeth tearing apart the vine Glade is in. Crusade starts running back towards the destroyed maze. Her heart stops in her chest as the red creature opens his mouth, a stream of flames pouring directly onto Glade. Panic surges through her and she shouts, sprinting as fast as she can towards them. She has to get there!
Glade climbs out of the top of the vine, dragging himself away from the fire as fast as he can. He crawls, hand over hand, his legs trailing behind him. All at once Crusade is back on that road, dragging herself away from a fiery death. He saved her then, but he needs her now.
He tries to get to his feet, but he stumbles. As he rolls and tries to leverage himself away, Hellion slinks towards him, wings unfurling menacingly. She's almost there. Glade backs into a wall, his escape route cut off. Hellion closes in on him, growling.
Angling herself back down towards the ground, Crusade reaches her left hand out and extends a barrier between them just as the dragon-bat launches himself at Glade, jaws wide. Hellion smashes his face into the barrier and falls back, head shaking. He shrieks and tries it again and again, teeth gnashing ineffectually. She grows a long, sharp sword in her other hand and jumps down, landing next to Glade as she brings the blade down onto Hellion's neck. The creature screeches and jerks away, teeth bared.
She steps forward, between Hellion and her partner, and glances back over her shoulder. She can't see his face with his mask, but he's shaking a little. "You ok?" He nods minutely. He's not going to be able to defend himself without his vine, he needs to get moving. She gestures for him to go. "Get out of here, I need you back on your feet!"
Crusade turns back towards Hellion, her hand readjusting on the handle of her sword. A voice in the back of her head laughs. Classic Crusade. You pulled your punches and now you have to fight this asshole again. Everything you did before is gone. Monolith is probably dead, he almost killed Glade, and that's all on you. You going to keep letting that happen?
She dashes forward and swings the blade into his wing. He dodges away at the last second, but the tip still catches the membrane, creating a big slice in the tight skin. Hellion pulls his head back and opens his mouth, light flickering in his throat. She closes up the holes in her armor just as the flames envelop her, waiting a moment to see if it'll break, flames dancing across her barrier. Satisfied she can withstand the heat, she rams the blade forward into his underside and steps forward to bury the point deep in his chest. He screeches as the flames stop and he falls backwards, sword dislodging from his chest and black blood pouring out of the wound.
Hellion rolls away and back onto his feet. Pouncing forward he clamps his jaws on her sword and tries to pull, but it's not going anywhere. Stepping back, she slides the sword out of his mouth and swings it around her head and at his. Hellion flaps his wings and leaps backwards, dodging the giant sword.
His wings keep beating and his body slowly lifts off the ground, the wing with the hole in it flapping twice as fast as the other one. Sinner's voice in her head mocks her. Oh look at that, he's getting away again because you can't admit to yourself that you're better than this. You can end this here and now.
A low grunt escapes from Crusade as her hand clenches her sword hilt. She can't let him get over to Reaper. She's not letting everything she's done get erased again. Using her wind walk she climbs up, bouncing back and forth between barriers to get more momentum. Once she's above him she drops, bringing her sword up above her head and down into his wing. Hellion falls to the ground with her, screeching in pain. He writhes, trying to pull his wing away from where her sword is wedged into it.
"No! You are not getting away again!"
She reaches out and grabs the tip of his wing, pulling it towards her. All at once, she slides and pushes her sword down and kicks at the bone just below where her blade sits. With a sickening crunch, the bone breaks and her sword slices through the rest of the membrane. With a yank, she tears the wing away, blood dripping onto the ground, and flings the wing off to the side.
Hellion shrieks and roars as he spins, tail whipping at her. She doesn't manage to dodge it in time and it knocks her to the ground. She lands on her back with a grunt and he pounces on her before she has a chance to recover. His teeth gnash, biting at her armor, feet planted on her chest. She slams the back of his head with the hilt of her sword, but he doesn't even seem to notice. He twists his head and his teeth latch onto her right forearm. He hisses, chomping again and again. Her armor breaks and his teeth sink straight through her leather armor into her forearm.
A cry erupts from her, tearing at her throat. She can't even try and leverage her arm out of his jaws; every tiny motion is agony. She tries making new armor to push him away, but it just goes around him too before it flickers back out. He shakes his head, wrenching her arm back and forth, tearing at her skin and muscles, and her vision tunnels around the edges. She has to get out of this, now!
Crusade tries desperately to focus, but the pain is overwhelming. She clenches her teeth and grunts as she flexes her left hand. She needs something, anything. With a cry, she manages to extend a small sword from her hand. Mustering everything she has, she rams the blade up under Hellion's jaw and into his skull. Hellion seizes, his whole body going rigid for a moment, before completely collapsing on her.
The blade dissipates in her hand and warm liquid trickles down her arm. She grabs Hellion's snout, fingers trembling, and pries his teeth out of her arm before shoving his head off of her. She falls back onto the stone floor with a cry of relief, cradling her arm to her chest. She lays there for a moment, catching her breath, before she fully registers that the hundreds-of-pounds creature is still lying on her. With a grunt she pushes herself up and shoves his limp body, rolling him off of her. Looking down at herself, her brown leather armor is soaked, stained in warm, sticky black blood.
With a groan, Crusade climbs to her feet. Both of her arms hurt and she's exhausted, but they're not out of this yet. She looks down at Hellion's body. It took all of this to neutralize one of them. She can take two minutes to patch up her arm, so she doesn't bleed too much, but then she needs to get back at it.
As she unzips her armored jacket, Jackass' voice comes over the comm. "I found him! He's trying to run!"
She grimaces as she pulls her arm out of the sleeve. "Don't let him get away, Jackass. Do you need backup?" Ragged holes with torn skin dot her arm. She's bleeding pretty badly and will absolutely need stitches, but she needs to keep it from bleeding openly or Rite could just siphon all the blood from her body. She's done it before to her own team.
"He's headed out a secret door up on the ledge, but I'm chasing him."
Phantom's tired voice sounds in her ear. "I'm out front, I can keep an eye…wait…I see someone climbing down. I'm on it!"
Crusade grabs a roll of gauze from a pouch and starts wrapping it around her arm. She doesn't need to do a perfect job, just enough to keep her from losing too much blood. Biting at the gauze, she tears it off and tucks the end in to keep it secure. She puts the gauze back into her pouch and eases her arm back into the sleeve of her armor. The tight leather puts pressure on the wrapping, which will hopefully slow down the bleeding.
Jackass's voice comes over the comm, sounding relieved and excited all at once. "We got Grotesque. My man Phantom fucking one hit KO'd him. He's all tied up and away from the building."
She nods as she activates her armor again. "Awesome job, guys. Phantom and Cannis, keep him locked down. Jackass, we could use you back in here."
"On my way."
"We're on it!"
Activating her armor again, Crusade looks around. Glade, back in the game in a huge trunk, and Lamplighter are fighting Reaper. They seem to be handling him at the moment. Reaper stands between them, his attention split between the two. She turns to the other end of the church where Desperado has been dealing with the never-ending stream of Rite's minions. There's a massive bloody creature that just keeps growing. Craning her neck to look behind it, it seems like Rite has finally shown herself. She needs to go help Desperado. The sooner they neutralize Rite the better.
She jogs over towards Desperado, growing a big sword in her hand again. The large creature is nearly 10 ft tall and has four arms with long, hooked claws, sharp teeth, and a spiny fringe running all the way down its back. The tinker jumps back as the thing swipes at her. Desperado dodges as well as she can, but with four arms this thing is keeping her on her heels. As she gets closer, she can see a thin stream of blood drifting up off of Desperado's arm and straight into the demon attacking her.
Rite stands on the right set of stairs, leaning over the banister, with a too wide, too toothy grin and a manic look in her eye, giggling every time the creature hits her teammate. The stairs are absolutely covered in her minions, all just waiting while Rite watches as the big one toys with Desperado.
Crusade calls out to the tinker. "Desperado! You want help or you want me to get Rite?"
Desperado manages to get off a few shots before she has to dodge out of the way again. Huge splashes of blood erupt out of the creature and splash onto the floor. "Just go get her!" She fires a few more at one of the claws. The area darkens and then flakes away, but a new hand just forms in its place. She's right; Crusade isn't going to be much help against that thing. Best thing they can do is cut it off at the source. She veers off to the right and uses her wind walk to get some height. Fighting through that mob of creatures would be a bad plan, she can just go around them.
Rite's head turns towards her as she approaches, her lips curling down into a frown and her brow creasing as she stands. "You! You took my Bruja away! You turned her against me, you bitch!"
As Crusade gets closer, the creepy, bloody creatures start moving, climbing over one another to get on top of the railing. They fling themselves into the air and latch onto her legs, climbing up her armor. With a surprised yelp, she stops and tries to shake them off. Their skinny little fingers cling onto her, though, and more just keep jumping on. They climb up her legs and torso, some leaping to grab onto her arms.
Sending her sword away, she creates a short club in each hand instead. She hits the little creatures, hoping it's enough to dislodge them. Some of them fall away and splatter onto the ground, but some of them burst right there. Her armor is covered in blood smears and more and more of them just keep jumping onto her. One manages to climb all the way up her chest and latches onto her helmet before inflating like a balloon and bursting. Blood splatters into her eyes as her helmet gets completely covered. She can't see a damned thing! If she drops her armor and puts up new, the creatures may fall away, or they might cling to her. She can feel her arms being weighed down by more grasping hands. Fuck, no time to weigh the variables, she just needs to do it.
With a grunt she pushes her armor out, trying to create as much space as possible between her and the biting, clawing creatures. Her armor goes out in a sphere, taking Rite's minions with it. As it fades away she's left standing mid-air with no protection, but at least she can see and move now. More bloody creatures climbing onto the banister, getting ready to fling themselves at her. Putting her armor back up, she runs away from the banister and back towards the ground.
With a sigh, Crusade speaks into the comm. "I can't get close enough to her. Those stupid things are –"
"Lamplighter's down!"
She turns to see Glade leaning over a figure on the ground on the far side of the Basilica. Reaper storms towards them, scythe held out in front of him. Her heart races in her chest. "What happened?"
"Reaper saw Hellion and freaked out, backhanded him with the scythe. He's headed your way!"
Another friend dead because of you. Where does it stop?
Crusade looks back at Desperado. She's making good progress with the large minion; it's a few feet shorter than last time and the blood fountain is finally starting to empty. Rite will be out of ammo soon. She just needs to keep Reaper away from Desperado and –
Her armor shatters around her and a blade swings past her face, just barely missing her. Her head snaps back to see Reaper right in front of her. How the fuck did he get here so fast? She jumps back as he swings the scythe at her again, the blade coming within inches of her face. She puts her armor back up and creates two shorter swords, but she doesn't even get an opening to use them, he just keeps coming at her. He swings the scythe faster than she's ever seen him move before. She blocks one of his hits, deflecting the huge blade off to the side, and spins, hitting him in the side. He doesn't even seem to care as he slams the handle of the scythe down on her shoulder.
Crusade tries to dart around him and get some space, but he grabs the back of her armor and hurls her back in front of him. She stumbles, struggling to keep her footing, as he comes at her again. He raises the weapon above his head and brings it down and she has to lurch backwards to avoid it. She loses her footing and falls to the ground on her back. The scythe comes down again and shatters her armor, stabbing into her leg. She grits her teeth and grunts, pain radiating down the limb.
Reaper leans down and grabs the front of her leather armor, yanking her up. His hooded face is inches away from hers, his voice raspy and high-pitched. "When I'm done with you, you're going to wish Hellion had burned the flesh from your bones and eaten you bit by bit."
She brings her sword up and stabs him in the side, but he just grunts a little. He releases her armor and she falls to the ground. He swings the scythe down and she rolls to avoid it. She keeps rolling as he hits again and again and again. The two and a half foot blade slams down into the stone next to her, cutting off her escape. He reaches one hand out towards her and roughly grabs her face. Immediately she can feel the energy draining out of her, like she's being pulled into the ground.
Out of nowhere, there's a loud shout and Reaper's hand is torn away from her. She looks over to see Glade pushing Reaper away from her, the trunk's shoulder rammed into his side. He pushes him all the way to the fountain, slamming his back into the stone lip. Reaper cries out, dropping his scythe. Glade grabs his cloaked head and lifts him up for a moment before slamming it into the edge of the fountain.
Crusade is frozen, eyes wide, as she watches Glade. She can't even breathe. He slams Reaper's head into the stone over and over again, screaming as he does. Reaper tries to fight him at first, pushing at the branches gripping him, but after the loud crunch on the third hit, his arms go limp at his sides. Glade doesn't stop, though. He keeps going, blood staining the stone, until Reaper just falls out of his grasp. The body lays on the ground, next to the scythe, a pool of blood radiating out from his head.
Glade just breathes heavily for a few moments, his shoulders going up and down, before he stands back up and turns towards her. There's blood splattered all down the front of his trunk, dripping onto the stone. He takes a few steps towards her and puts out a bloody hand. Crusade just looks up at him, heart thundering in her ears. He saved her, yet again. But this…what he did…this isn't him. They all knew this fight would be a struggle, but it's costing them everything.