Summary:Blackbird finds herself the focus of the Lord of the Feast. Only after severely injuring it, are the Bats and Allies able to defeat it. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The stampede of the Wall Street Bull about a week ago, wouldn't have been missed by a certain WAND agent. Nor would the fact that responsibility had been taken by 'Gorgon and Friends'. What friends is a very good question and it's something the Bats can't answer.
But the message had got through - stop interferring. Not that the Bats are listening.
The level of crime on Staten Island has certainly escalated with the gangs getting organised but apart that, it had been relatively quiet.
Until Oracle piped up on the comms. Blackbird needs assistance. That goes to all the Bat communicators and Oracle Apps with a location not far from the city centre.
Batgirl arrived just a few a minutes ago to find Blackbird in combat with a tall, gaunt creature with antlers on its head. The Lord of the Feast. Raised in a private cemetary just before Christmas … it had deliberately sought the younger woman out, arriving in a cloud of crows before attacking.
"Please tell Agent Grey, that our appointment in half an hour will need to be delayed, Oracle" Batgirl grunts as she tosses a bola-rang trying to tangle the Feast Lords feet to allow Blackbird to get some space. "And tell me others are coming."
Relaying the message, Batgirl and checking the others. comes the androgynous voice in Batgirls ear.
"I found the one thing we didn't get trained for," Blackbird pants, still striking out with her staff even as she takes advantage of the distraction to fall back. "Antlers. It was definitely specifically foes with GIANT ANTLERS."
It's a good thing the bats - and SHIELD for that matter - train like they do. The average fight really only lasts less than thirty seconds. But Helena's been trying to beat the fey creature back since about thirty seconds before she called in for backup. She's taken her share of hits, but there are only a few scrapes and breaks in her armor showing so far, as much a testament to the technology of the suit as her own skills.
Dylan had been in the Triskelion when the message came through. The Lord of the Feast. Fortunately in a location he had been to during their reconnaissance of the island. Excusing himself from the discussion he was having, he pulls out his phone and materializes his motorcycle in the hallway outside the cafeteria. Climbing on, his armor covers him as he pulls his dagger and traces out an opening. Cutting through space, he opens a portal to Staten Island and revs the engine. His sword shifts into a lance as he guns the throttle and his bike leaps forward, aiming for the antlered supernatural.
The roar of a motorcycle engine dies about a fifty yards from the fight. The noise that follows next is one more familiar to the Bats, and possibly also to Agent Grey. It's the whistle-thunk of an arrow abruptly terminating its flight in the Lord of the Feasts' back. Fifty yards back, a man with a pair of swords over his shoulder and an oriental style longbow in his hand is already drawing back another arrow. He barely pauses to aim before letting fly again. This is a very Japanese style of archery, but it does enable the man - whose face is covered in a demon styled 'menpo' to keep up a steady flow of arrows as he approaches at a walk.
"Tenno heika banzai!" The man shouts in challenge, not once pausing. The hip quiver he's wearing isn't going to last long at the rate of fire he's keeping up, but then it doesn't seem likely that he intends it to, since he's closing to more traditional 'smacking around' range.
"We have backup." Batgirl says to Blackbird. Just in case the younger woman hadn't noticed. "Theoretically, something like antlers is a problem - we should be able to grab them and use them for them leverage. However," she grunts as she ducks a particularly swipe from taloned hands "I'm not inclined to get that close …"
Blackbirds staff hits the creature but does nothing more than anger it and brings its attention back onto her.
Thunk An arrow embeds in its in back and then another and then another … it roars, sending a backhanded blow at Blackbird - if that lands, the young woman will be sent flying before turning to answer the Samurai's challenge.
Only to be met by a lance in the belly as Dylan arrives through that portal.
It doesn't seem to slow it much, though. The Feast Lord grabs at Hengroen's handle bars and tries to throw it. Knight and all at the Samurai.
"Yeah, I tried tht early on," Blackbird notes to Batgirl. Because tactical discussion and analysis mid-fight is efficient, right? "I ended up doing most of a handstand before I got flung about ten feet a- Hey!" Luckily, she's paying attention to the Lord of the Feast still, deflecting his blow with one end of her staff before planting it in the ground to help her spring back out of the way of the backup.
"I'm starting to really dislike this guy," she notes, still trying to catch her breath in the moment as the bike goes flying.
Dylan dives off of the bike, the lance shrinking back into a sword to become more manageable as he rolls to a halt several feet away. Rising to his feet, he draws his dagger with his free hand. "Physical force will do little against the supernatural beast." he tells the others. His lance having little effect pretty much proves that. Sheathing the sword, he takes the dagger into his dominant hand. "Maybe something more esoteric will work." Keeping his distance, he circles the Feast Lord, waiting for the other to distract him enough to give him the opportunity to get in close and strike from behind.
"If you have something more esoteric, that would be highly convenient." The japanese armed man says. Bat systems might identify him as 'Silver Samurai' though he isn't wearing any silver. Helena might, further, recognize the voice of Kennuichio Harada, whom she has met. He isn't disguising it in any way.
Dylan does definitely not get thrown, not even being on the bike when it is hurled, but the bike Ken has to duck and that takes him out of the fight momentarily. When he comes out of his dive-dodge, though, he charges forward, bow still in hand hoping very much that someone DOES have something more Esoteric becuase his only card to play in that regard isn't one he actually WANTS to play.
Maybe the yelling will distract it and give Blackbird and Batgirl a chance to do something to the thing while Dylan circles around behind.
It's totally efficient. Or maybe Batgirl is just used to working with others that she's training. Or maybe the talking helps her focuse. Something like that.
As the Feast Lord turns, Batgirl sends another batarang at its back. This time it's a mildy explosive one that pushes it forward a step when it goes off. "This thing is tough and if I remember what Agent Grey told us, it feeds on the fight." beat "How that helps us, I have no idea because I'm not going to stand here and let it hit me. The iron in the batarangs isn't affecting it either." What the hell would affect this thing?
With Dylan temporarily down, the Lord of the Feast turns on the Samurai, clawed hand reaching out to try and grab the bow as he's charged, throw it, while sending a fist to punch the man in the menpo - hard.
"Be ready Blackbird, I'm going to try and draw its attention." Batgirl circles round to put herself near the younger Bat. "Agent Grey, Samurai, if you have anything, you best move quick." The redhead knows Ken doesn't like to use that sword but seriously, if there was ever time - now would be it.
"Flash Bang!" The device is thrown and goes off, causing the Feast Lord to swivel and charge the two women.
That leaves it back to the men.
"Circles, right?" Blackbird takes advantage of the arrival of the others to fall back further, pulling up the records of their last fight with this thing. "They had to use a circle to summon it, didn't they? Put another one around it, maybe it'll be stuck there?" Helena is far from an expert in magic, but there are a few key points she's picked up.
The HUD between her hood and her contacts pulls up the images from their last encounter, laying them over the landscape here. "If you can keep him distracted, I can try tracing it out, maybe Agent Gray can empower it?" Grasping at straws, she pulls a flashlight from her belt, flipping it to a UV filter and flashing it at the lord as well. Maybe it doesn't like sunlight. Who knows?
"Convince it stand in one place long enough for the circle to be inscribed and the ritual cast and that might work to banish it." Dylan replies, his tone distracted as he studies the Feast Lord. Between the Samurai and Batgirl, it seems distracted enough for him to move in and sink his dagger into its back. The blade passes into it with no resistance, unable to affect the physical.
"On it. Do your doodling, Miss." Kennuichio says in an efficient tone to Blackbird. When Dylan moves in behind it he moves in front of it. As it inevitably turns at being stabbed the slightly less than silver Samurai brings his bow down on the creature's wrist. There's a brief flicker of some kind of energy field around the bow staff as it makes contact and rather than bouncing off with a wooden 'smack', it goes right through the thing's supernatural flesh like a hot knife through melty cheese.
That's going to upset it. Hopefully Blackbird and Dylan work quickly. Or that dagger Dylan has has some serious voodoo. Ken can't tell if it does or not.
Even as it is all happening though, he reaches back to push the tang of one of the swords clear of the scabbard by just an inch or so and the moment he does Dylan can see magic flowing off it's black blade. And EVERYONE can feel the evil and wrongness radiating off it. Especially the Lord of the Feast.
Batgirls Batarang sticks in the beast, causing ichor to start dripping from it. "It can be hurt at least… got your claws, Blackbird?" Batgirl doesn't partrol with anything but the redhead is well aware of who trained the younger woman.
The UV light causes the Lord to flinch, long enough for Dylans knife to sink deep. The Feast Lord stumbles and roars, weakened by the attacked but not quite beaten yet. Dylan can see the wound where his lance pierced the creature hasn't fully healed, and where the Samurais arrows have pierced, the thing is bleeding.
And then its wrist fountains black ichor as Ken uses his bow like a …. knife?
"I can do that…" Batgirl mutters, moving closer, side by side with the Samurai. Dodging a swipe from the creature, getting covered in black stuff, she's not thinking about the fact that Ken can see her and some of her moves … might seem a little familiar.
Damn.
"Claws or Circle, Blackbird. Don't delay. Agent Grey, Silver Samurai, you're having an effect." The sword makes her shudder - it's not a nice feeling. "If you must, do it quickly." She says to the man. She'd save him this if she can, though.
"Hey, I did my part keeping it in one place already," Blackbird quips to Dylan, backing away. "Batgirl, catch," she calls, tossing the flashlight to her counterpart before falling back to the outskirts of the space.
Of course, the question is, what does she have in her utility belt to draw a circle with? Chalk's not standard issue equipment, even for the bats. But she does have…ooh. Explosive foam. Perfect. Moving around the perimeter, she starts to draw the circle with the foam, keeping the overlay of the circle from their first meeting on her HUD and tracing it out.
"Umm, no. Don't do your doodling." Dylan counters. "I was being facetious. I don't do that kind of magic. I also don't know the symbols or spell needed to banish it." Magic is not so easy all you need is a big Etch A Sketch! At the sudden flare of Evil, he leaps backwards, drawing his sword which immediately bursts into flame again. "God's blood!" he swears, "What cursed blade is that?"
Well, if magic won't get rid of it, or rather if they don't have the magic to get rid of it, at least they kept it standing still long enough that Blackbird was able to lay a bomb around it. This thing clearly bleeds even if it takes extraordinary measures to make it do that. A boom like that might send it packing?
"An old and angry one, made in madness long ago." The Samurai responds to Dylan as he pulls the blade free and cuts the creature across the chest before leaping back. Call it intuition but he doesn't want to be standing in this circle when Blackbird does whatever it is she's going to do with it.
"I often have this effect, Batgirl." On things that want to kill him. Or are monstrous antlered demons from fantasy writers fever dreams.
"Clear, Miss." He doesn't know Blackbird's name. "If you have a trump card now is the time!"
"You should be careful with your use of sarcasm around us. We're a little immune to it." Batgirl quips, expertly catching the flashlight and shining it in the Lords eyes. Just in time to nearly duck a wild punch - that connects with her armoured shoulder, sending her flying and thudding across the pavement. "That hurt …."
"He's a good guy, Agent Grey…" Batgirl mutters as she rises, another bola-rang flying from her fingers to tangle the creatures arms.
The Lord is bleeding and starting to stagger, caught in the circle of foam that Blackbird has inscribed. "I like the effect…" That's to Ken. "And that's Blackbird. I'll do formal introductions … later."
It's a nice slice from the Samurai. The chest of the Lord opens and spews forth ichor - slowing it a lot but not killing it.
"Everyone clear. NOW BLACKBIRD!"
When the foam goes off, the Lord explodes in a shower of crows … the creatures flying upwards and cawing. When the 'smoke' clears, there's the remains of the circle and a single dead crow in the middle.
"Anyone hurt? Or hurt badly?"
"Okay, well you are officially a bad wizard," Blackbird calls back to Dylan. No doubt it cuts deeply. "Got one toy left from the Nightfall mess. Nobody freak, it's not harmful to people."
She pulls a small, round device from her belt, tossing it toward the center of the combat. There's time for the light on it to blink three times before it explodes…spraying bright blue paint everywhere. Not harmful to people indeed. But the cold iron mixed in it…will hopefully sting a bit. And hey, it's paint. Like…bank dye pack paint. Should be hard to get off, especially if you're a fey creature without access to modern dry cleaning techniques.
Blackbird, well out of the range of the paint, raises a hand with a thumbs up at Batgirl's call. "All good here!" And then she winces, feeling a few nascent bruises. "All good enough, at least."
Taking them at their word, Dylan backs off quickly from the circle though he doesn't lower his sword and even after the Feast Lord is gone, he's watching the samurai. "If you are bound to it, I can sever the binding and destroy the blade." Maybe. Eventually. Whether the dagger will do it or it'll need weeks or months is the question. "I'm not a wizard." he informs Blackbird. "I'm an artificer. I make toys." he adds, gesturing with his dagger at the one she throws.
"I am not, though I keep it out of… let us say prudence. Such things are not best left laying around where the unwitting can find them." The demon masked man sheathes the blade carefully and that feeling of evil and wrongness mutes considerably. Mutes, but doesn't entirely go away.
"Well. That was fascinating. Glad you were able to be here, Artificer-San. I am unhurt. I am, however, somewhat curious as to who did what to upset that thing so much." Unlike Batgirl, Ken has not seen this particular thing before and at the moment, he's quite happy about that. Once is enough, though the manner of it's departure suggests he may see it again.
"Batgirl. In trouble as always I see. Blackbird." That last is a greeting. She had fought impressively all things considered.
"You're a wizard, Dylan …" Batgirl mutters in a parody of a book series she likes a lot. "Either way, you all did well. Thank you gentlemen, for the assistance. I didn't know you were an Archer as well…" that's to Samurai. "You'll have to tell me more of your secrets …"
She's teasing as she inspects the scene. "We can't keep going up against this guy…." she glances over to the Samurai, smirking a little under her hood "I'm not always in trouble, I'm often getting you out of it." beat "Agent Grey seems to know more about the Feast Lord, than I. But it was summoned about a week ago - and seems to have an appetite for Bats."
It's then an etherial light appears and the shadowy form of a woman with snakes for hair appears. "Eurayle…" Batgirl growls.
"Ah. The girl Bat and the little Bat. The Ronin and you … I don't know." Her head turns towards to Dylan - his sword flames as the magic of sending ignites it. "You were warned not to interfere. But you insist on doing so, Guardians. You leave us no choice but to … eliminate you."
"Hey now," Blackbird objects. "He came looking for me." Because the important part right now is that this is not her fault, obviously. She straightens up from her crouch, growing more serious at the threat. Everyone here might be older and more experienced than she is, but…this is her home. And the fight she's going to inherit.
"Look, this plan of yours? It's stupid. You people live forever and you think this isn't going to come back and bite you in the ass? Think ahead for a damned minute. When your monster's done trying to eat us and the rest of the world, it's still going to be hungry. And who's going to be left for it to eat? You. And who's going to be left to help you fight it back? No one." She leans on her staff, eyes glowing golden in the shaddow of her hood. "You want to try another tactic, maybe?"
"Or you can come to the table and talk peace." Dylan counters, sheathing the flaming sword and the glowing dagger. "You are outnumbered, Euryale. You and all your allies. Should you actually become a threat, we can summon allies of our own to defeat you. Should that prove to be difficult, Blackbird is partially correct. The Sorcerer Supreme can ward this island, trapping you all here with the Feast Lord. We remove what humans we can and once they are gone, he'll feed off of you as you turn against each other. Or… we can find a way to settle this peacefully. I rule a kingdom that doesn't exist any more, Euryale. I understand your need and desire for a home. Let us work together."
"Summon your allies if you must, Knight. We will bring forces to bear that your kind has not seen to date. Peace? With your kind? Who infect the world and leave us nothing but dregs? Your kind who treat their own so abysmally?"
The Gorgon laughs. "You have been warned. You don't what you're dealing with. And we shall have what we want … when we want it." she pauses, turning yellow eyes to Dylan "What would you do to have your King back, Knight? The one who will lead all Kings on this world?"
"Little Bird …" Blackbird gets her attention now "… you will never be good enough for your role models - you will never be enough. Try as hard as you like. Run as far as you like. Don different clothing to prove them wrong - but you will never succeed."
"And the girl Bat. Has fear taken your foundling yet and turned her to be what she was meant to be? It won't be long and you'll be alone … again."
The image starts to fade, with it Dylans sword dims. Soon it's just the Bats, the Samurai and the Knight with the body of the crow in the middle of the charred remains of a circle.
Helena grimaces behind her mask, watching the image fade. "Yeah, tell me something I don't already know, lady," she mutters, looking between the others. "Stupid fairies playing mind games. Don't listen to her. It's never really what they say it is." That much at least she's confident of.
Frowning to herself, she looks between the others and the circle, finally taking a few steps toward the downed crow. "That's new, right?" she asks, looking back. "I don't remember it leaving stuff behind before. Maybe we did some damage?"
"Heed her not. She seeks to wound your confidence and make you weak in battle." Dylan points out, his armor fading as it's reabsorbed into his torc. Pulling out his phone, he walks over to the crow to take its picture and it disappears. "I might be able to track it with this. At least when its on this plane." Giving a whistle, Hengroen revs its engine and rides over. Looking undamaged by the throw, it landed on its tires much like a… cat. With tires instead of feet. "It seems the attempts to talk peace are getting nowhere. As for the Feast Lord, as it feeds on violence, you might want to consider taking out the gangs en masse. Decreasing the violence here might weaken it. I'd suggest sedatives since beating them all up just increases the violence."
Batgirl stills Eurayle asks her question. The foundling - Orphan. Fear - Phobos. Phobos who took his leave a few weeks ago. Batgirl is going to have to seek out Orphan and try to speak with her.
"I won't heed her." The redhead says, masked face seeking Blackbirds for a moment. "Sedatives, we can do. It's not a bad idea - there's just not many of us, we'll have to plan it carefully if we do it."
"Take the bird, Agent Grey. I have things to see to." Batgirl turns, beginning to walk away. "Don't be a stranger, Blackbird. We should talk some." Yeah, she'd heard what Eurayle had said. "Agent Grey, Samurai. Oracle will be in touch."
If they knew her better, they'd know something was bothering her.
"Coordinate with the police. Perhaps SHIELD will lend some forces as well all things considered." After all, Staten Island has been invaded as in a state of siege. "Well, I could use a nice cuppa." Dylan says. Anyone else?" Giving his bike a quick look over, he gets on it once he's satisfied.
Blackbird knows Barbara enough to know when something is bothering her. She watches the other woman closely, head tilting. "Yeah, we've got some sedative stuff. Can probably modify some weapons, make sure we've got the gas-proof masks going. Hey, Batgirl." She raises a hand to the others, jogging after Barbara. "I'll ride with you. We can compare stock."