12th July 2012
13:05 GMT -8
FACE ME!
Iname just runs outside, but I'm limited to more mortal speeds. A hush tube takes me out into the car park in front of the main building, my visor over my eyes as I search for my target
and my god powers fully activated, reaching out across my ally's home territory. Whoever this is will have to choose between fighting me directly or accepting being weakened by the Source.
Seven metres away to my left Knockout tanks a blast of luminous cyan fire on the shield she grudgingly accepted from my armoury.
"
I will tear your liver from your chest, wizard!"
Now where
is the blight-?
Lighting flashes out of
nowhere, biting at my armour. But the wizard hasn't appeared in person. My challenge is unanswered, and the blast which previously scythed through entire buildings patters off my armour like spring rain. If it was being manually cast then it would only be a
little weaker, so-. Automatic?
"Tcetorp Nevyarg morf eht pu-wollof!"
Huh?
A rainbow beam like the one that nullified my construct monsters flies at me, only to be struck by a beam from-. Zatara's amulet. The beam fades away, only the weakest residues carrying on to strike my left gauntlet. 'Protect Grayven…'
"Giovanni!" I draw my daiklave. "Good to see you. Whatever brings
you here?"
"Arion." He drifts a little closer, carefully watching the space around us. "Or as he would have originally been called in his native Atlantis, Ahri'ahn."
"Arion?
William Knightley?" I frown. "I interviewed him for Larissa's school when I was trying to help her find teachers, the man's a tit. He's nothing
like powerful enough to do this."
Zatara raises his eyebrows. "William.. Knightley?" I nod. "Then at least I know the victim's name. I was referring to the
original Arion, not the man who unwisely began using his name."
Oh. "Ahri'ahn, the founder of the Atlantean school of magic Ahri'ahn?"
"The very same."
Huh. Kind of surprised we're doing this well. Though… Circe herself demonstrates that there's a
limit to how good a magician attached to their human physiology can get. And
she had access to an appreciable chunk of Hecate's power prior to giving it up. Nabu and Jebediah have elemental order, Klarion and Company have elemental chaos making them more than they were. I have a fragment of the Source. Ahri'ahn was famous for not having any interest in making any sort of bargain with an elemental creature. And if he hasn't been keeping up with modern thaumaturgy then he won't be knowledgeable enough to use work arounds in the way that Sunset does. So he's probably
dangerous but not
ridiculously s-.
Space… Ripples, and then the air surges past me at skin-scouring speed! Iname dashes away, trying to outrun it while Knockout just braces and Zatara clutches his amulet.
"A weak-."
Yeah, it doesn't really hurt but there's no way he'll be able to hear me until the noise has died down a little. I fold my arms behind my back, Darkseid-style. Five, six-. There we go.
"A weak effort, Ahri'ahn. Considering your legend I expected better. Or were all of your battle magics cast against defenceless civilians, even in the days of antemergerentur Atlantis? I don't
recall my Atlantean colleagues mentioning you ever fighting an equal, but I
had assumed that was just due to the gulf of time. Is this really all you can do?"
Zatara grits his teeth.
"
Grayven."
"Method to my madness, Zatara. All
sorts of things happen when you don't play ball with a New God." I spread my arms out a little. "Want to try shooting me again? It'll be even less effective this time, then less still and still."
I make a show of walking in a circle, but I'm watching out quite carefully. My goggles revealing nothing means that in a very real sense that he's not
here. He's not dodging us by being invisible or intangible. Remote viewing is perfectly possible, but countering
that would require highly sophisticated magic of a sort that I'll have to rely on Sunset or Circe for.
"Don't make me use school yard insults. We'll both feel the lesser for it."
There's a peculiar waft of sea spray from the roof of the entry gate guard station, and my goggles show me all
sorts of interesting information about exactly
how he's interacting with local space. I'll share it with Sunset when things are a little calmer. A moment passes and then a
man in early modern and decidedly non-Atlantean dress precipitates out of his portal. And when I say non-Atlantean, I mean neither historical Atlantean nor modern Atlantean.
So I say the first thing that comes into my head.
"What's with the clothes?"
"Alien."
No trace of an Atlantean accent. He's been speaking English for a while, well enough to inject enough contempt into the word to make it clear how he feels about me. Alright then.
"By the authority invested in me by the American Federal Government, I am placing you under arrest."
He doesn't even bother to raise an eyebrow.
"Do you honestly expect me to comply?"
"No. No. But they like it if I
try. What was this all about, anyway?"
"It's about you disgusting creatures using my work." He holds out his right hand and a book I.. don't recognise teleports into his hand. "My
actual work. You.. create these abominations and
celebrate it. You're like children proudly standing next to a shit-filled potty."
"Whaw, modern Atlanteans sure get
you wrong. So… You want every un-man dead and their records expunged?"
"And you and your lackeys dead, and that order cultist as well."
"Excuse us if we
don't try-" The tron lines on my armour switch from yellow to
orange as I
focus my mind on my revulsion at his wantonly destructive attitude. "-to take you alive, then."
Knockout charges and the water foam rises again, Iname's scythe passing through the area he occupied-
"Agh!"
-a moment before with no resistance. I turn-. Shit!
A mosquito-like insectoid has pounced on Zatara, proboscis punching through his magic shield and stabbing-
My construct ram hits it a moment later, ramming it through the exterior wall of the Uncorporation building and back inside.
-him in the.. leg. He clutches the wound, staggering for a moment before collapsing to the ground.
Scan.
Non-human matter detected.
Iname dashes up, looking at him with concern.
"Master-?"
"Get him to Sunset. I'll clear up the rest of the insectoids."
"What about the wizard, Master?"
My face
darkens.
"We'll have to go after him
later."
...Goddammit, Grayven, all that style, fizzled away for a half-hearted joke.
