Lockdown

Alysha had leapt clear only to have the shield follow her. With a resonating slam, the airborne dark elf was bashed farther along her journey by Lord Brighton’s shield. The female warrior flew up and through the wooden banisters of the stairwell, shattering the wooden beams and denting the inner-wall with her armored back. She had maintained her grip on the crossbows, but it was all her stunned senses allowed; the Knight who surrendered the fresh shield to Lord Brighton whooped a cheer.

That whoop had gotten Travolta’s attention just in time to see Sir Krieg charging. Behind the man, a Confessor and two more Knights trailed in from the garden; Travolta groaned in frustration. The sword stabbed air as Travolta juked and dove in, twisting his body to deliver his punch to Sir Krieg’s two-handed grip on the sword. Fingers and wrists shattered under the inhumanly strong blast; Sir Krieg howled as Travolta dashed past him to connect the back of his other hand with the face of the chanting Confessor. An explosion of blood was the last syllable on whatever prayed spell was coming.

Rave chased after Lord Brighton, almost surprising the one-armed, shirtless elder. Hideous scars and knotting muscles danced as he brought his shield to bear, but Rave was unphased as she let loose another barrage from her glittering mirror ball. Another rain of blows, and the shield was denting, bending, shattering-

... but not moving, save to wrap its remnants around the arm holding it. The ball ceased its glitter as she exhausted the light she had put into it... and Lord Brighton still stood. A droplet of blood leaked from the lip of the ruined shield, now more a hideous gauntlet of steel on his single arm, as he met Rave’s gaze. “You are a child.” Rave’s eyebrows raised as she inhaled. “Surrender, and you have my word-”

Charging the ball halfway to full, Rave feinted another blow. Lord Brighton raised his guard only to miss as she slammed the ball into the tiles at Lord Brighton’s feet to let it bounce up into the man’s crotch. His ruined shield stayed up, deflecting her sparking fist as her knuckles brushed jagged steel. The ball sparkled as it independently smashed Lord Brighton’s jewels until his pants were torn asunder. A dozen fists of light punched in rapid fire at all they found in Lord Brighton’s crotch-!

Rave’s own punches slowed as she stared, stupefied, at where the ball finally faded and dropped. Slowly, she looked back up as Lord Brighton continued to glower back at her from under his raised guard... with nary but a twitch in his left eye to show for the beating he had taken downstairs. “N-No way.”

“The Lady protects.” Lord Brighton raised his arm like a glorified steel club, and he suddenly seemed massive to Rave as she braced to dodge.

Just as quickly, Brighton leapt backwards as more crossbow bolts whizzed by him. Alysha was halfway to standing as she pointed her weapons at the one-armed champion. Her bolts continued to be deflected or dodged as Lord Brighton ran towards the staircase, along the wall, and upon the dark elf as she tried to escape him anew. She dove backwards through the air, continuing to pepper him with missiles as Rave picked her mirror ball back up from the ground... and both had barely registered the new guests when the shirtless one of the latter pair began opening eyes where eyes were never meant to be. A hundred tiny, enchanted mirrors shattered.

Travolta turned with a haymaker, battering the last Knight to the ground, just as he saw Alysha and Rave’s bodies spasming. An incoherent rage ran Travolta towards the new enemies, but a mostly naked Lord of the Order moved in quickly to intercept him. “Now, Krieg!” Lord Brighton bellowed as his impromptu steel club was met with a fist.

Sir Krieg, still struggling to his feet against the pain of his shattered hands, moved his mostly useless right digits to his ear. With a gasp from the pain, he pressed the button and screamed, “Lockdown!”

The command traveled through the radio network, a flimsy backup to the mindlink once hosted by the Seer. The losses seemed catastrophic to the security team, but they were facing a new problem: amid the piled stones blocking the mouth of the hallway leading to John Newman and his grave, a huge, five-fingered hand appeared and grabbed hold of a tall stone. With a shove, it had fallen over; revealed there was a monstrous, naked ogre, hairless and musclebound... and familiar to the security captain who looked at the feed over the shoulder of her man. Durr, he was called... and as the Captain feared, this meant that John Newman was nearly freed. She considered what lockdown meant: the forces en route would be barred from helping... and everyone inside the perimeter would be barred from escape.

A report from the forces in-bound by air gave an ETA of six minutes. The ground forces: eight. The dozen or so contract mages still traveling through an illusion barrier tunnel: an hour. Only some ten minutes had passed since the Warlock broke the door to his own cell; how had containment spiraled so quickly out of their control? How had the Slayer become such a monster as seen in the cameras before they were destroyed? But even still, through the slaughter and the mayhem, the Knight’s faith was in the Lady seeing them to victory. “S-Sir,” quietly asked the man at the console, “we must confirm the... lockdown, sir...”

Confirming the lockdown meant this was it... and it meant no reinforcements or escape until the lockdown was recalled. The security team would be the first to meet the Warlock and hold his new “friends” at the battle line. The Gorbachevs, the Wardens, and Lord Brighton would do the rest.

“Lockdown order resolved and authorized.”

A gloved hand tossed the fat soul gem into the greedy machine once again, but this time was followed by an immediate turn of the knob on the old machine’s base. “Right then... I suppose if anyone need clean up this mess, it ought to be me,” Reginald sighed. He watched reality stretch and bulge slightly as the barrier grew. He walked away from the glittering treasures of the secret vault, some ripped from the Warlock’s body to be piled with the rest, as he checked the knots of metal tied all around his body underneath his butler’s wear. He loosened his jacket and let it fall on a pile of gold coins with an audible thud. With a press of the button by the false vault wall, the stones there began to part. “I wonder where the nearest invasive trash might be-”

The doors opened... and revealed two very underdressed creatures. Lording over Reginald stood an unholy cross between a white rabbit and a man, standing fully erect with sparking batons lifted mid-strike. Behind this imposing warrior, a trembling pink young lady half-squatted with squinting eyes and a Vow Keeper as her only bit of dignity. “I-Is that Master?!” she eagerly squeaked.

The batons came down. Reginald sighed, “... found.”

“You’re Laksha Singh, the Warden of the Spear,” Tricia calmly recited as she held her hands up.

“Cheers,” a mostly naked Laksha offered with her javelin still pointed at the traitor Gorbachev, “but I’m afraid we’re a bit past polite introductions.”

“If you’re here, then no one is watching almost half the world’s population.”

Laksha grinned. “Even I deserve vacations now and again, right?” The Spear reconstituted its tip into a barbed trident. “Shame you went and buried your own tunnel back out. Did you think you’d leave out the front door, or just make another tunnel out?”

The blonde offered a tiny smile. “The latter would be the more accurate approximation. In reality, it would be most optimal if you’d let me leave with John Newman without an extensive period of questioning or resistance, and we would indeed... ‘tunnel’ out.”

“Really, now?” The Spear did not waver.

“Of course, a scientist does not prepare for the optimal.” Tricia gave the Warden a small smile. “A scientist prepares to create the optimal.” Tricia’s eyes and nose sunk into her face as three massive black and red Eyes dominated their space. Dozens more blossomed over her flesh and through her suit, and Laksha’s Spear was nearly at the Gorbachev’s throat when the world exploded.

Indentations in the floor around the Slayer appeared as if the air took hearty bites from stone. The ceiling was shattered, then the shards of stone were pulverized, and then that gravel raining down exploded into dust. The debris blocking the tunnel and the walls of concrete and steel meshes joined as glittering powder and gray mist. The Eyes of Hate hated everything indiscriminately, save in two respects: the Slayer remained untouched, and so did every part of the Warden save the tip of her weapon.

Laksha grunted and growled as her feet continued to try and find firm ground in an ever-pulverizing floor. Her Spear had launched from her hand only to be shoved back by the three massive glittering eyes on the Gorbachev’s face; she now held onto it as she pushed it ever towards her target. The three blinked and became five. The sea of Eyes on Tricia’s body continued to convulse and surge like waves of water on flesh. Tricia’s tongue lolled from her mouth, inhumanely long and monstrous, with another Eye upon it; her hair knotted into tentacles of gold with Eyes gripped in their threads. It was not the worst thing Laksha had ever seen... but it was the worst thing she had seen today.

Laksha held on to her holy weapon and shoved it ever towards her foe. The tip vibrated as waves of destruction slammed into it; mere steel would have melted, or sorry stone turned to the ash that now filled Laksha’s vision, but the Spear and its wielder were unbent. The hurricane wind that tried to deny the Warden continued to blow, but her Spear continued its course, inch by inch. A wave of hardened reality passed over the entire scene as the barrier below extended; Laksha didn’t even register it.

Tricia did. She felt it, just as she felt her mana dwindling as her Eyes greedily drank even her well-trained will against an enemy that seemed unstoppable. She could barely make out Laksha’s body: twisted as of mid-lunge, her muscles bulging in an almost grotesque silhouette, and her teeth and eyes, stung with the dusts of destruction, remaining bared as her Spear tip neared Tricia’s torso. The room was a massive cloud, now; even the Warden faded, save the nearing tip.

Matter density... is now... optimal-!

Tricia shut her Eyes and rolled. The trident’s nearest horn slashed open Tricia’s suit and the underside of her right breast. Even Laksha’s training could not perfectly undo the **** of her attack; she nearly spun around with the overextending strength of her straining, her aim thrown off by the constant sinking towards the ground, but a quick step had her spinning to attack the Gorbachev again. Laksha could no longer see the Gorbachev properly, but that monstrous outline remained. That was enough; Laksha threw her Spear to beat the next wave of attacks-

... except Tricia had closed all of her Eyes of Hate for her Eyes of Form. The gems of onyx littered her body as they looked upon the ruined stone and steel all around them... and restored it.

The Slayer rested quietly on what was now an altar of stone polished by Hate. A pillar of untouched stone, human-long and four feet tall, was all that remained of the rocky floor of Dungeon Level C. Beneath it, the iron panels parsing it and Level D were now naked. The walls in every direction, and the ceiling of pure rock, were dug into by a full ten feet. Everything was now perfectly visible... except, of course, if one's view was obscured by the perfectly round sphere of metal-stone compounds sitting in the center of this catastrophe.

For a moment, nothing moved... until a Tricia-shaped silhouette suddenly erupted from the side of the sphere. Slowly, a relaxed, now mostly-human Tricia stepped backwards to plant a foot on the firm iron below... and in her shaking grip carried the Spear of the Golden Rose. Tricia kept her gaze on the end of the Tricia-shaped tunnel she had just made. There, on a smooth surface at the back of the hole, was only the face of the Warden of the Spear.

The weapon was heavy in Tricia's grip. It felt... unwelcome. The moment Tricia was firmly out of the hole, she tossed the Spear to the ground. Laksha attempted to will herself to the Spear's position; only now did she realize the reality-enhancing barrier had been elevated. Laksha would have shaken her head if it were not, like the rest of her body, totally immobilized. She grunted as she tried to move.

Tricia pressed her hand to her side as she focused some of her remaining mana into closing the wounds now hidden by her reconstituted suit. "I assembled all of the steel and iron and other metallic compounds into a body-fitting mesh to compress against your skin before sealing their form. I then had the various types of stone--largely limestone, which presents some health concerns but only from overlong exposure--layer upon you in thin, solid levels compressed over you, again and again, about three thousand times."

Laksha grunted in her struggle all the same. "So I would need to exert enough pressure with only my body to not only rupture a metallic lace compressing my muscles but to also shatter a layered matrix of thousandfold superstructures made from limestone, possibly in one go if you made it sufficiently uniform?"

Tricia stared at the face in the stone with naked surprise.

"Wut? I'm a Warden, not an idiot! More importantly... what now? Are you the bragging type? I figured if I’d ever die doing this, it’d be to a braggart."

Tricia frowned at the Warden. "I don't want anyone to die... I'm just going to take John and go. The Order should have access to sufficient mining equipment to... excavate you, in time. Until then, please... do not attempt to urinate."

Another silence. "... Fuck, now I have to go! Why did you do that?!"

"My apologies." Without another word, Tricia left from Laksha's extremely limited view. The Warden remained still and silent... until the steps had finally faded.

Quite the clever little Gorbachev, isn't she... ah well, Laksha sighed, not clever enough. She could no longer teleport in either direction... but the Spear was still her birthright and hers to command. Right, so I can’t teleport... but calling it to me was the first trick I learned! The Golden Rose inside Laksha called to the holy weapon... and said relic bashed brainlessly against the boulder in which Laksha was trapped. Right, just like riding a bicycle... Laksha hoped for some damage, any damage that could get her out faster. She called the Spear again, this time with the Spear tip stabbing towards her. The holy relic sunk a few inches into the back of the boulder from wherever it had bounced... and by doing so, rolled the boulder until Laksha was horizontal.

The Spear Warden stared at the iron floor. "Well... piss on me." Moira came back to mind, and Laksha continued willing the Spear’s chiseling.

Alysha crumbled against the wall with blue blood oozing from every natural hole in her head. She blinked half-consciously as she tried to regain some sense of the battle, or of the violent vibrations that had shaken her to her actual core, but the world was a buzzing blur, now.

Rave continued to press her hands uselessly against her ears as she tried to keep the terrible noise vibrating in her head out. The mirror ball that had withstood so much had found its nemesis in sound: it was now a popped and shattered mess, not unlike Travolta's face as he continued to spar with Lord Brighton in the kitchen.

The one-armed giant of a man tightened his fist until the knuckles cracked. Blood stained his fist; more of the same stained Travolta's nose and chest. Travolta spat yet more upon the broken kitchen island between them; half of the red loogy landed on the **** stone mage's body, still grimacing with a crossbow bolt sticking out of his mouth. "You know, lots of guys have told me they could beat me one-handed... go figure the first one to come close wasn’t bluffing."

Lord Brighton offered a mirthless chuckle. "Beating a scoundrel like you is no issue... but doing so and keeping you alive, ah, now there lies the challenge." Lord Brighton continued to pace around the island; Travolta paced right along with him. "But you don't need to suffer this; surrender and, as I've promised the girl, I will spare your life."

"Yeah, call me unconvinced as we try to save your favorite prisoner from being ‘spared.’ How much **** have we earned?”

“You-” Lord Brighton’s arm flew up and deflected the thrown chef’s knife Travolta had produced from some unseen debris. His gaze remained on the leader of Collide who now stepped away from the island. “... You are mistaken and misguided; victims yourselves of a Warlock’s lies-”

Travolta reached down and hoisted up the rifle of the guard he had bludgeoned earlier. He leveled it at the approaching former Warden-Lord and pulled the trigger... just as the latter channeled the Memory of the Rose.

In the foyer of the mansion, Rave continued to struggle to stay conscious as the scrawny, aged rocker continued to blast her with his extra eyes. The goth girl next to him seemed to be doing nothing except looking about, curious. "Ever ready, weren't we, to save the dying, two or three? But no one here is neeeeearly... on ****'s door so cleeeearly..."

Rave tried to quip about the weird, sing-song voice, but her teeth clattered too much. Breathe, Rave... breathe!

"Yeah, nice blokes, aren't they? Looks like sleeping poison, and no one's bleeding to **** or got a bolt in the eye or anything like that! Right nice folk-"

Rave's training finally recovered her breath... and she phased the aching parts of her head and bones into light. It happened for a flicker: the young girl being subdued turned into a silhouette of gold. Victor was taken aback. "Whoa now, that wasn't me-"

Rave's light form jolted forward and rocketed a fist, halfway-phased back into flesh, right into the mouthy one's crotch. Victor was no Lord Brighton: with a howl, he collapsed as his eyes and Eyes all shut in pain. Rave turned, ready to knock the goth girl's lights out-

The lady’s cheeks were now opened with eyes like diamonds... and Rave began to wonder why she wanted to punch anyone at all, vicious and cruel a thing as that was. Another eye, one blind and whited out save for green veins that danced on its sclera, opened on the goth's open hand; Rave slowly calmed down as she began to wonder why anything was upsetting her. She was strong now, and she didn’t even know these people; wasn’t this needlessly cruel? Why punch such a nice-looking lady?

"Fucking Christ-!" Victor bellowed as he reached for his gun.

Penelope glanced at her partner for a moment... and the next, she squeaked as her nose exploded in blood.

"Oh yeah," Rave recalled, her outstretched fist still held before a stunned Penelope, "that's right: the Order fucking SUCKS!"

Victor pulled the weapon, but Rave was already upon him, sparking blows up his body as her fists, sheathed in light, crunched the bones of both of his arms and cracked his skull. More of those vibrating Eyes opened on his body; Rave spun him about as he began to spread cracks on the walls and bannisters as he destroyed in blind fury. Another blow to the back of the head, and he was laid out next to a recovering Penelope.

Rave delivered a swift kick to the goth girl’s stomach, putting her out of commission as well. “Shit... my teeth are still vibrating. You two have some cool powers, but-”

A wet thud drew Rave’s attention... and the bloody body of Travolta made Rave’s breath freeze. His arms twisted in unnatural ways. He wasn’t moving. There seemed no part of him that wasn’t red or bruised, and Rave **** herself to stop staring at Travolta if only to do so at the man who did this: a bitter Lord Brighton, his shield no longer clinging to his arm and his fist now a torn open, bloody mess.

“What ground do you gain, now that you’re trapped here?”

Rave spat. “Well, **** now, duh. You’re going to pay for making Travolta look like a shitty Picasso by looking like an even shittier one.”

A groan from Travolta relieved Rave’s unspoken fear, but the former Warden-Lord was already upon her-

... right until a beam of blue light had nearly struck his face. The Warden-Lord casually tipped his head away from the beam and eyed its source: a child-sized, winged monster just outside his abode, clad in leathers and fur, with a bitter grin on her face. "Nice to finally meet ya, you overgrown testicle wrinkle!"

The old man's nose wrinkled at the demon fairy. "Is there no end to the Warlock's familiars?" His arm suddenly swung to the side, battering away two more bolts from Alysha as she fired from where she had landed upright.

Rave shook her head as she started bouncing on the balls of her feet. "'Fraid not, Moi-Moi's dad. Now back off, or else we'll beat you like we have the rest of the Order!"

"We'll fuck you up way worse," Fairy added as she readied a small orb of hellfire between her hands.

"We... will spoon you." The room turned to consider Alysha's threat as she struggled to stand.

Rave looked between the older redhead and the white-haired elf. "Um... that's-"

"You'll do none of those things," Lord Brighton sighed, "because you've woefully underestimated the Order and her allies."

Rave cursed. "Yeah? What allies do you have left-?"

Alysha's crossbows began to vibrate, and soon their structures snapped. The dark elf stared at the source of the familiar vibrations: the male Gorbachev had regained consciousness. “The shit we do for this job," he grumbled.

Rave went to put the man back under just as Lord Brighton resumed his charge. Fairy raised her arms to throw the hellfireball, Alysha dove after Lord Brighton with a stiletto pulled from her belt, the old Lord found his wounds suddenly healed and his natural strength and speed bolstered as the Penelope focused her Eyes upon him, and so the **** brawl continued.

Abandoned deeper in the house in a puddle of his own blood was Travolta... who stirred as the blood coaxed him.

The stairwell was before John; he needed only consider the logistics of how everyone would follow him, now. He looked past Galley and at his “army”: an ogre, a mature succubus, a mage, a mimic that had copied the appearance and thoughts of a Knight, a ball of physical light that sounded distinctly like George Takei, and a red-eyed, human-faced monster of black fur who had no grasp of spoken language. John had hoped for something a bit closer to a Justice League out of the Order’s basement, but such were the only salvageable bits there.

The rest of the cells had contained demons or oddities too dangerous or too high level for John to use; without the time to bother trying to destroy the latter, he abandoned them all to rot in their cells. His thoughts went once more to Deanna, but she had made her choice; however foolish it was to stay, it seemed too monstrous to drag her out knowing full well she wanted to stay, unlike the poor Dullahan who surely wanted her body returned. More, it seems like she’ll be kept safe and happy, even staying in this hole...

"We really should be going, Mr. Newman," mumbled "Scion," the floating orb, "I can feel this pocket dimension has grown quite large."

John switched the data of his Eye; nothing changed from the barrier's description, but then it probably didn't need to for any change in size. He looked at the camera overhead, the last one still intact on this floor; with a mental command, Durr cast an explosion of fire at it, dropping it onto the ground as a blue-flaming husk. A sweet odor filled the room as it burned. "Alright... we climb up and we help everyone we see who isn't with the Order. Any new prisoners get reported to me. Let's go!"

John quickly dashed up the stairs ahead of his new minions, feeling the incredible grace and speed his newfound agility and paragon power granted him. Anyone and everyone who’s been with me for longer than a few minutes: report!

<This fucking old man refuses to die!> hollered Fairy.

Much to John's relief, Alysha joined that impression. <Only three remain, but they are strong- damn it.>

<A foe who... commands... chains is-!> came the **** thoughts of Greenpaw. <I have Lily!>

Lily is-? John continued his dash up the stairs, reaching the first level above the bottom and being met by two Knights with automatic rifles. Both opened fire on John; with his eyes fixated on the guns, he did his best to juke and dodge, but he was still not nearly fast enough to avoid bullets. A few damage readouts came out, but he was upon them before their first round of firing was even over. Seven strikes, and both Knights were knocked to the floor. John noted the similarly armed Knights coming down a long hallway from the same level. Take care of the stragglers, I have to keep going up- Greenpaw, what level?!

<Level F-!> More damage indicators came up for Greenpaw than John had time to read; he just had to get there before the last of them showed up.

John thanked that “Magoi” character once again for teaching his Almiraj the English alphabet, hopefully among other things. John glanced at the plate marking the floor he was now leaving behind. G... one more! Fairy, is my mom safe yet? John kept his Eye set on the barrier; the moment he was free, he had to snap into action.

<You think I've had time to try and find your sodding- crap!>

John grew alarmed as chunks of HP fell from them both. Fairy, Alysha? What's-

John reached sub-basement level G. The long hallway there was broken by a massive gap in the rough stone wall... and there, being struck on his head by a black iron weight at the end of a chain, was Greenpaw.

Greenpaw: -29HP
Greenpaw is dying!

John followed the sharp-edged lump of metal as it went back into the Vault. The Gamer quickly moved into range, keeping his guard up as he prepared to dive and heal Greenpaw back into fighting-

Lily laid there at the butler's feet with alabaster blood leaking from her forehead. She wasn't moving.

Lily is bleeding. The stupid, innocent succubus in her knock-off Ashcroft uniform came to mind.

One of the two weights at either end of the chain weapon dripped that same, viscous white.

Lily is bleeding. John briefly saw her in childish pajamas, whining about not getting to sleep with him. A harmless thing.

The half-dressed butler let the weights, each dripping white or red, rest a moment before setting them both to whirring rapidly as he caught sight of the Warlock. Links of the chain weapon he spun had visibly torn apart his undershirt as he used it; now they pulled and shifted about over the toned muscles of a retired Knight.

Lily is bleeding. John remembered giving her that name. She was level 1 and could barely see. Who would hurt her, even here, except to hurt John?

"Well then," Reginald offered, "I was told to avoid confronting you alone, Mr. Newman, but I suppose push comes to shove."

My Lily is bleeding. John's wide-eyed glare slowly traveled up.

"This is your familiar... so I suspect you care for her enough not to do anything foolish." Reginald's chipper delivery fell away into a low rumble. "Now then... where is Ms. Brighton?"