-John Marston

John wasn't entirely sure what the health and mana regen debuffs were supposed to do to him. His health didn't regenerate quickly enough to make a huge difference, and his mana regen… well, unless it came down to a few points of mana making the difference, his regen wouldn't do much in an active combat situation. The damage reduction on the other hand?

John had become a **** of nature. A one-man army. Between the armor he wore and the buffs cloaking his figure, John charged through a barrage of hostile enemy fire and lost less than ten percent of his health. His blade sung as it clashed into and immediately through one of the nearest Cabal - the man's face barely had time to contort in pain as he fell to the ground with his spine severed. John didn't bother to check whether his health had been fully depleted or not - with an injury so grievous, and without the aid of Gamer's Body, recovery would require greater magic than even Moira seemed to possess to heal - or even survive.

John's eyes were not on the man, though - they had already passed to his next target. Two more mages who were cowering behind a thick load-bearing pillar, both of them frantically firing out waves of ice in a vain attempt to ward off the multiple foes approaching them. With the aura of the Shard around him, John scarcely even felt the chill, much less the tiny shards of ice that shattered on contact with his armor.

"Any of you that piss yourselves and flee in terror," John roared as he pulled his weapon back, bringing the point down in a stabbing motion that drove cleanly through one Cabal mage's shoulder and through his opposite hip, "be sure to let those who you serve know: this is the fate of any who threaten me, my family, my friends, or my allies!"

John tore the blade free with a twist, adding just that little extra spray of crimson to the withdrawal as he turned to the other mage. The man was all but weeping, backed into a corner in a cubicle, unable to do anything but his final duty as he threw spell after spell at John. For his part, John simply deflected the largest blast of fire with his sword, though a few sparks of lightning did graze his midsection and caused him to grimace as he bore down upon the grieving man.

"And let those who would follow you understand… there is no mercy for such evil," John growled, grabbing the man by the skull. He opened his mouth to plea for mercy or scream in pain. John would never know which, as the tip of his sword was thrust rapidly into and then through his mouth, emerging from the back of the man's skull.

A pillar of stone rose from the ground, bursting through the floor to slam into John's chest. While it inflicted minimal damage, he was thrown off his feet and into the air, soaring over several more desks while just barely maintaining his grasp on his blade. John broke through what might have been a rather impressive desktop setup if not for the shards of rock lodged in the casing of the tower, careening through until he collided with the carpet again and skidded several feet further.

Despite the minimal damage inflicted, John was seriously disoriented. As he came to his feet, a large green band wrapped around his leg like a snap-band, over and over until he was covered from knee to ankle by this strange energy. John's eyes travelled up the band until he locked eyes with someone trying - frantically - to yank him off his feet. John was aware of the pressure, but even as off-balance as he was, he was in no danger of being pulled off his feet again. Out of curiosity, John cast Observe.

Lyle Britchet
Level 8 Cabal Kidnapper
<The Cabal>
125 / 165 HP
Relationship: -78
Alignment: -94
Status Effects: N/A

John's eyes narrowed, not due to the status but because of what he realized as he cast the spell. This was the man who had attempted to capture Sophia. There was no mistaking it, for his face was burned into John's mind. **** was too sweet, too merciful. John's skill in attacking was too weak to cause a painful ****, so in moral desperation, John reached for the only thing satisfying enough to sate his anger.

Cruciare!

John lunged forward and latched his hand around the throat of the man, pulling him completely off his feet and slamming him into the ground. Red lines of mana erupted from where John's hand touched the man, and he began to scream. Not a sound of terror but sheer agony. John kept the spell up for almost three full seconds, and over the course of that brief window, the man's voice rose from a frantic cry to a bloodcurdling whine, his eyes rolling back in his head and his body beginning to spasm against his will. Though his Intelligence and Wisdom scores had returned, John's pity had not. He felt nothing as he stood, preparing himself for another victim while lifting his foot up and driving his heel into the man's chest until he heard ribs crack and shatter.

Mana dwindling, John leaped off the fallen man and aimed over the nearest cubicle, a purple runic bracelet wrapping around his ankle as it was launched from the arm of a nearby Cabal arcanist. John felt his leg go almost entirely numb, and even its mobility seemed hindered as he struggled to avoid bashing his head on a desk while his knee crumbled under him.

"Mother… fucker!"

John futilely tried bashing his wrist through the energy, but his hand passed harmlessly through. Cursing himself for never developing a proper dispelling magic, John grimaced and decided to deal with it.

"Slow him down, he's tearing through us - lock him down!"

"Guess damage reduction isn't quite as OP as I thought," John grunted, forcing his way up. Walking now was like doing so after sitting on his leg for over an hour, and he could tell there wasn't as much **** behind his steps. Ruling out any sudden emphasis on kicks, John stumbled free of the cubicle and toward a far corner of the room. Around him chaos reigned, the sound of Seras' repeated firing mixing with the noise from various spells and Sophia's shouts. In front of him a Cabal mage stepped over a fallen divider and raised hands coated with brown sludge that reached out toward John. Rather than retreat John stepped forward and embraced it, acting on instinct as he pushed himself off his non-hindered leg. The brown sludge acted like living mud, gripping his limbs and slowing him down, but John's strength was enough that he didn't come to a stop until his hands were already wrapped around the man's throat, pinching both thumbs around his adam's apple and pressing into vital airways and arteries.

The mud tried to pull John away, but an overwhelming desire drove him onward. The desire to see the man's realization of his impending demise. Even as the living mud solidified and formed into a spear-like tip that pierced John's left thigh, he continued onward, pressing through the pain.

-17 HP! [16 Reduced]

"I hope the rest of you are watching… because… this is the fate of all who embrace such unapologetic evils!"

John's shout was almost - almost - louder than the crackling that came from the man's throat. He hadn't realized he was gripping quite so hard until the Cabal soldier's adam's apple crumbled, his eyes rolled back and the solidified piece of earth disintegrated in John's leg, opening the wound it had inflicted and harmlessly soaking into the bland carpet below.

Status Effect gained: Bleed

"Shit, fuck, shit-fuck!" John screamed in his own head. Even as he let the broken man fall to the floor, there were four more coming out of the surroundings with spells at the ready. With little else to do, John turned toward a nearby copy machine and cried out as he ripped the top section off entirely, holding it to his side. A moment after he did so, a fireball exploded on the other side, shattering the glass and technological pieces of the copier's innards, knocking John to the side.

A litany of other spells followed. John did his best to deflect what he could see, but the sundered section of a copy machine was a poor substitute for a Warden's shield, so John had little success in blocking the incoming attacks. Even with his damage reduction, he found himself being pummeled sufficiently to place himself at risk. Feast's health and mana restoration from his recent kills were only just enough to keep him standing as he staggered past office chairs and scattered shards of destroyed structure. The number of Cabal assaulting him fluctuated as Seras caught one after another with her shots, but every one she or Sophia downed seemed to be matched by two more. Losing Moira had freed up far too many Cabal, too many foes, to possibly deal with one by-

While John was concentrating on raising the shards of plastic that had once constituted a copy machine to block an incoming rod of steel aimed for his solar plexus, a bar of actual liquid metal wrapped around his freed arm and pulled him in a singular, brutal motion. John flew through the air by his wrist until he careened through a doorway and slammed into a far wall, his shoulder connecting with a framed picture of what could have been any generic CEO in America.

-10 HP!

"Fucking- motherfucker," John swore vigorously as he pulled himself free, a few shards of glass breaking off and falling to the ground as they lost purchase in their original framing as well as the soft flesh of John's arm. He had just regained his awareness when a wall of metal rose at the doorway he had just been sucked through, sealing him away from the room that he'd been forcibly evacuated from.

"The pain is going to be the least of your worries when I'm through with you, John Newman," the person across from him swore, grinning from ear to ear. John took just a moment to glimpse at the person standing a few feet away, still connected to him by a tube of living metal. The man was in his mid-thirties, covered in scars, and had the look of a man whose outfit was far more valuable to society than himself, but John was thankful for one thing.

The metallic doorway, annoying as it was, formed just in time to absorb a half-dozen multicolored energy blasts. Meanwhile, the fool in front of John continued to smirk and cackle as though he had single-handedly eliminated John's entire forces.

"No more saviors for you, John Newman! Your Warden ally is sealed away, your creations are locked on the other side of my barrier, and you yourself-"

"Am going to enjoy tearing you limb from limb," John noted, casting Observe.

Yorgen Vahnstranguhlee
Level 10 Cabal Metallomancer
<The Cabal>
143 / 195 HP
Relationship: -88
Alignment: -87
Status Effects: N/A

"The only thing I haven't decided is just how literal that's going to be, you colossal fucking moron."