Current Energy: 2

Current Training:

Magic Resistance (7/10)

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

City Center, Canberra

You have a task.

Synergy Bonus: 1 Energy

Your pulse races, and your heart thumps with the strength of a dragon as you move. The air ignites at your passing and Gram gleams brilliant under the mid afternoon sun.

It is a simple task. Kill the monster. Save everyone. You've done it a hundred times before. You will do it one hundred more.

Your attack - which moves with such force that it creates a shockwave, decimating nearby buildings - misses, grazing weakly across the tip of one ivory coloured wing.

You have power.

Your forward momentum is arrested before you can careen towards the horizon, the rope in your free hand drawing itself taught as Trainwreck halls back on it with all of his considerable might.

A power that has never failed you before. You - Sigurd - have never lost in direct combat. Your end was not met in the heart of pitched combat. Nor was it in the dueling grounds.

You were slain by treachery, and by deceit.

You are reeled back, taking the opportunity to release a dagger from your belt, then kicking it with all your might, sending it flying straight at the Simurghs blank face. Once more, she dodges by only the barest margin, the blade leaving an almost invisible line across her otherwise perfect cheek.

You have allies, fit to the task. Blood brothers who would ride with you to Niflheim and back, marching under the banner of your Master.

A rapidly fired barrage of attacks disperses the inevitable counter attack, and you send a nod to Oliver as you reach the ground, pull your rope anchor to yourself, and then immediately break in the opposite direction of Trainwreck, who has already proceeded to avoid what few attacks his surprisingly agile bulk will allow.

You are missing only one thing. That which unites and drives your fellow Oathbound onward.

"This ain't fuckin' working!" Trainwreck calls out to you as you circle the Endbringer. As she has the last few times you have attempted an offensive, Parian's three remaining dolls lunge forward, dancing about their controller in am almost artistic display of violence that allows her to rush in and quickly beset the beast from all angles. The creature isn't dodging because the Dolls have the capacity to hurt it, no. It is protecting the device cradled near its breast, which began beeping ominously some few moments ago.

You need an opening. An opportunity to land more than a grazing blow. You need something decisive. Something overwhelming.

You need-

"Oppose, Nemesis!" A great cry rings out, as your Master, still feeling tired, but healthy, takes to the field. Her aura explodes into the air above the battlefield, sweeping over everything and everyone present. The great hourglass of a black widow spider is visible for all to see, and while her Spiritual Pressure doesn't appear to affect the Simurgh in the slightest, the eight unavoidable spider limbs that pressure forms into do, digging into Endbringer and drawing what you would almost describe as a flinch from it.

You don't bother to update your Master on the situation. She can see through your eyes, and you felt her doing so for the entire skirmish.

What you need to do now is captialize on this moment.

Finally afforded some breathing room by your Master's overwhelming presence, you tilt your head downward, capturing the Simurgh in your field of view, and more importantly, in the lenses of your Crystallized Wisdom.

Unlike the last time you used these, this is a combat situation. You've no time to pick through the dross for interesting or obtuse facts.

You just need to know what to do next.

The device is intended to change the chemical composition of the rain clouds. Self propagating. Probably permanent.

You frown. Obviously it isn't enough for the Simurgh to just show up and kill everyone, she has make it rain plague forever over the country she lands in.

"Master," you quickly begin to warn her, only to be cut off.

"I know. I'll make an opening," she informs you, flicking Nemesis to the side, and causes her power - previously spread across the entirety of the city - to congeal into an endless swarm of dog sized spiders.

Spiders made of magic.

Spiders made of magic, that proceed to fire beams of pure power from their serrated maws.

"Just... an opening?" You question, even as you rush forward, obscured by the beams.

"If she dies she dies!" Taylor answers obstinately.

On the one hand, its very impressive in a teenage girls should not qualify as WMD's sort of way.

On the other, you doubt her first attempt will succeed.

There is one notable result however.

The Simurgh, for perhaps the first time since the fight began, attempts to flee.

You have pushed the Simurgh to this point. There is do doubt in your mind of that. The Simurgh does not often give the appearance of difficulty whe evading attacks.

You forced that on her.

This is not a mere attempt to evade. The moment your Master begins her barrage the Simurgh begins to ascend, her upward motion erratic and jerky as she weaves through as many of the attacks as possible, while what few land clip her largely in non-critical areas.

This isn't merely dodging. This is frantic. Desperate.

"Trainwreck!" You howl to the large man, who grins viciously and charges up along side you, then ahead of you, using his prodigous strength to bound upward and onward.

This was ways your plan.

Trainwrecks semblance allows him to 'tag' a target, and then unneringly make his way to them. Over the course of your brief skirmish with the Endbringer he had just barely managed to graze her with a punch.

But barely was more than enough.

You might not be Odin, and you might not know the the exact spell he used to ensure Gungnir always struck true - but if there is any power among your allies that will give you the chance to reach the Endbringer and defeat her precognition, Trainwreck's is the one.

The iron giant of a man ranges ahead of you, making sudden swerves and movements that you take great care to follow perfectly, as every seemingly ill time evasion is immediately rewarded with an unexpected attack or accident landing where you were just standing.

Just as you follow the man over the roof of a large building, the Simurgh flies by below you at speed.

"Get wrecked!" Trainwreck howls as he slams into her from above, the servos and gears in his armor clunking into place in such a way that he seems to fall several times faster than he should, slamming into the Endbringer's upper body and effectly stomping on her chest, pinning her to the ground.

There is a palpable sensation of irritation about the Simurgh as she casually swats him away with her telekinesis, the green sludge from her broken machine oozing out onto her torso.

But it's too late. You're already in position, Gram spinning wildly in the air before you as you too, fall along Trainwreck's path.

-1 Energy

"Bölverk-" you roar triumphantly!

...only to be struck blindly from the side as Trainwreck, who the Simurgh had apparently brought back around to hit you with, hurtles into your side, sending you of course and away from Gram, which continues to descend blindly through the air.

Then there is the hurried sound if running, and another man leaps from the building behind you to take your place.

It is to be understood that only one man may wield Gram.

It is more than just a weapon. Its an authority. It is a sword of choosing. Only Sigurd, or one who had inherited his will, and his essence, could possibly attempt to wield it.

The sheer unlikeliness of any human being able to touch it, let alone use it safely, could not he understated. The sequence of events required for it, so unreasonable, that a new Age of Heroes is more likely.

"Gram!"

And yet before you, against all possible odds, Greg Veder finishes your chant - and slams his hand, your hand, into the pommel of your weapon, plunging it straight through the Simurghs head.

And then the ensuing explosion causes everything to white out.