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Aberrant: 200X - [Gods of War] Intro: FireFall


z-Sean "Loki" McCline

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May 11, 2011, 5:34 a.m., Eastern Congo

Sean had suspected that he’d have some moral qualms working as an Elite. So far though, he’d had little issue with any of his missions. It was like Quasar had said: the Congo was a shithole filled with walking shitholes. Unless you went nuts and started killing civilians, you didn’t have to worry about who you were killing.

The nova hovered silently in the air, peering through the binoculars at the entrance to the mine. It was over a mile away; even with the magnification on his equipment and his own enhanced perceptions, the people appeared to be little more plastic toy soldiers. “How’s it look boss?” the sexy feminine voice in his earpiece asked.

The term made Sean smile. This was his op – the first time that DeVries had trusted him to go off without a more experienced Elite mentoring him. The baseline team down there was his to command; the success or failure of this would be his success or failure. “Quiet,” he said, lifting his eyes from the glasses to peer around at the area. Darkness was starting to cede to the sun, leaving the sky and ground thick shadows, impossible to separate with the eye. Only the eastern sky had any measureable light in the area. Before them, the peaks of the Ruwenzori Range seemed to be the teeth of a massive jaw, tearing at the rising sun. “Alright, Julia, let’s make some war.”

“You got it, Loki,” his captain replied. He wasn’t there, but he could almost see her burly form turning this way and that as she gave the orders to the ground crew. There were ten trucks, each carrying an impressive number of C-701 Chinese missiles. Though only 100 kilograms each, the relatively little warheads packed quite a punch, especially with the upgrades that DeVries tech had done to them.

Grinning, the young man tucked his binoculars onto their pouch and dropped from the sky. A mere twenty feet from the ground, he caught himself with his flight. Gleefully defying gravity, he shot forward, trusting that the missiles just starting their course through the night would avoid him. The sensor on his back would protect him, sending out a signal that would alter their course. A missile wouldn’t kill him but it would piss him off; it’d be a shame to waste a missile. Their purpose was to kill and disorient the baseline guards outside the mine and create chaos. His would be to incapacitate the nova guarding the mine.

That made Sean nervous. He knew that DeVries wouldn’t have picked him if they didn’t think he could handle it, but it was still troubled him to consider his first one-on-one combat. This is your job, he told himself, rolling over on his back as he heard the missile parting the air above his head. Hazel eyes watched through the holes in his mask as the sleek, silver forms and their associated contrails arced over him.

Twisting back over, Sean slowed his speed, timing to come in well behind the missiles. He wanted them to flush out the nova, letting Sean get the drop on him or her. That was the plan; Sean only hoped it worked. I wish DeVries had more intel on this nova… but sometime we don’t get what we want. As the first missile struck, he dropped to ten feet off the rocky ground and cut his speed back, sharp eyes watching for his opponent.

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The missiles landed in their pre-programmed patterns, the smart warheads blanketing the guard barracks, duty shacks and the operational command post in explosions and flames. Men screamed and died, their forms outlined in the darkness by the backlight of the fiery death the missiles had dropped on them. The workers quarters were a half mile away, a small prefabricated town for housing the miners, technicians and their families. Sean was glad of that, as well as being glad that the shifts had changed half an hour ago. The last shift of miners were away, and the current crop were in the mine. Civilian casualties would be minimal to none. He'd have preferred none, but you couldn't account for everything - time would tell.

And there, rising from the conflagration, was a humanoid form flying under it's own power, rising to on a column of fire that trailed behind the enemy elite as they did a quick circle over the destruction beneath. In the hellish firelight Sean could make out a female form, but enclosed in a head-to-toe 'fiber bodysuit complete with goggles. An unknown to him, but then new novas were entering the elite game every day, not all of them for the big companies. An independant hire, then. Well, they'd be shit outta luck today.

The other elite was unaware of Sean for the moment despite looking around, the bright light under them having effectively stolen their nightvision. They had, however, backtraced the missiles to the trucks parked a mile to the south. With a booming sound the elite accelerated to a terrifying speed, heading towards Julia and the other baseline troops under Sean's command.

Click to reveal..
Sean, the elite is pulling about 2000kph and will pass over your head in 1 round, to hit Julia and Co the next. They're unaware of you and you'll get a free attack in on the moving target at a +4 difficulty. Go to it
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Sean twisted and shot straight up, but was too slow. The form passed in front of him, going about three times faster than Sean. He scowled at the form, then pursued, determined to catch before she did too much damage to the baseline team. More than protecting the DeVries soldiers, he was concerned about capturing the elite’s attention. DeVries troops knew what they were signing up for; war at the side of novas was often hazardous.

And with luck, stealth was still on his side. Sean grinned in the morning darkness and hoped for a good fight.

Click to reveal..
Dex + Martial Arts (diff 4), burning a WP Roll: [2, 6, 1, 2, 1, 8]. Total Successes: 1. 2 sux total, miss.
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The trucks, with their missile payloads discharged, were already standing empty, the baseline troops having started to move forward to play a support role and provide battlefield awareness to Loki as the Elite did his work. Ten men were left behind to guard the trucks in their gully, which would serve as both getaway vehicles and transport for the mineral-rich ore stored here ready for transport to a refinery. The rocks themselves would be brokered through third parties - the client didn't want the wealth so much as to cripple operations here so that they could enter a competitive bid for the local mineral rights - and therefore provide a nice tidy bonus package for Sean and his team.

That part of the plan went to hell when the enemy elite streaked into the makeshift truck park trailing fire. The men and machines in that dip in the terrain didn't stand a chance.

From his height advantage, Sean could see the hurtling nova rocket strike the centermost truck without slowing, seconds before the entire gully was blotted out in a terrific fiery explosion. Kinetic blast waves with a consistency harder than steel rippled through the vehicles, turning the sturdy military-issue trucks into so much twisted metal chaff, the flame that billowed behind them part-melting the debris and washing away the handful of baseline mercs. Mercifully, they would probably have been dead before they knew it. Sean realised that the nova was some form of living artillery shell, the kinetic force from that supersonic impact transmuting into an explosive mixture of concussive blast and heat that covered a hundred meter diameter area. He scanned the clearing below, watching as the fires died down for some sign of his target.

There. The masked form was rising slowly from the impact crater, turning slowly as she came up to survey the destruction. Loki was still above her, and with her focus on the ground searching for further resistance he'd never have a better chance.

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Sean paused to gather himself; he had seconds while she scanned the flaming pit for survivors. The young man grinned as he reached for his power. He loved that surge of power when he powered his body up, chaotically changing the very composition of his frame. And there was always the chance that it wouldn’t be enough to help; that he’d still not be strong enough. It was that uncertainty that made-

The pain rippled through his body; Sean gasped as a spasm shook him. Something had just gone wrong. His muscles felt like they’d been abused to the point of failure, almost watery. But he definitely felt haler now, so something had worked right. Not what he really needed, of course.

That changed things. He couldn’t beat up anyone, even a girl, feeling this weak. And he wasn’t sure how powerful she was, but anyone who could act as her own missile was probably not someone Sean wanted to contend with when he felt this shitty.

She hadn’t seen him yet. He could run away, tell DeVries she’d been too much. The second after he considered that, his male pride reared its head. So he couldn’t beat the shit out of her. That wasn’t all he could do.

Sean extended his hand toward her, calling once more on the chaotic mess deep inside of his being. This time, he didn’t affect himself but the forces of chaos themselves. He drew them out and gave them form, turning entropy itself into a weapon. The nova threw the power at his opponent, watching with something akin to glee as his power roared through the intervening space.

The beam struck her in the small of the back. Sean could see the damage that the entropy was doing – muscles were sundered while bones were twisted and stretched. The blow bowed her and drove her toward the earth, but she stopped herself. Sean waved at her, grinning insolently as she twisted to see him. “Hi,” he said. “I’m afraid those are mine and I’m going to have to insist you stop damaging them.”

Click to reveal..
Boost: Str Roll: [4, 4, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1]. Total Successes: 0.

Boost: Sta Roll: [9, 10, 7, 1, 10, 10, 9, 1]. Total Successes: 6. Stamina 5, Mega 5 for the duration of the scene - +5B/+3L soak +3 Bruised Levels

Quantum Bolt, spending another WP Roll: [1, 10, 9, 10, 7, 4]. Total Successes: 4. + 1 = 5 sux

Damage: 12d10[10] vs 15 Lethal soak = 7d10

Damage from Quantum Bolt (Soak already removed)] Roll: [5, 1, 8, 1, 7, 2, 8]. Total Successes: 3.

Total Quantum Spent: 11, Total Damage: 0, Total WP Spent: 2

Current Soak: 19B/13L

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Click to reveal..
Carver *rolls* 1d10: 10+5: 15

Einherjar *rolls* 1d10: 9+9: 18


The enemy nova took a moment, only a moment, to orient herself on Loki, the light from the burning wreckage in the gully granting a hellish quality to the bodysuited figure. Then the air under her drifting form ignited with a booming sound similar to that of a rocket firing, and she streaked towards the DeVries Elite.

Loki twisted in the air, trying to evade the supersonic assault, but the rocket-girl slammed into him and the air was filled with fire and smashing force once more, the shockwaves capable of demolishing steel and concrete slamming into the young Elite as whatever strange quality his opponent possessed turned over 2000kph of forward momentum into a kinetic explosion with the force of an artillery round. He tasted his own blood in his mouth as he was sent flying, his ears ringing so badly that he couldn't even hear the wind rushing past them as he reached the apogee of the arc and started to fall.

Loki smashed through a corrugated metal and wood-beamed ceiling, dimly aware that the nearest buildings to his position should be half a mile away: the worker's quarters. Shaking off the the landing with ease and clambering to his feet with blood issuing from his nose and ears he glanced around, seeing a dozen frightened women and children huddled in the corner of a spacious bunkroom. They were screaming, but being temporarily deafened Sean couldn't hear anything more than a faint buzzing noise.

The other elite!

He looked through the hole in the roof, seeing a trail of fire heading straight for him like a meteor from the heavens.

Click to reveal..
[Einherjar] 11:21 pm: Enemy nova's attack roll, first dice is a mega:
Einherjar *rolls* 8d10: 7+8+2+6+6+7+3+1: 40

4 succs to hit

Loki dodges:
Carver *rolls* 5d10: 7+7+3+7+4: 28
3 succs to dodge

Einherjar *rolls* 15d10: 1+4+5+3+8+9+10+3+6+2+9+5+10+4+6: 85

5 Bashing damage

Sean, you get a round while your friend closes in. grin
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Sean couldn’t hear, but he could still speak. “Run!” he shouted to the women and children before shooting into the air. He needed to get away, and he flew to the side, trying to clear the huts. He didn’t want there to be more collateral – though right now, he was looking to be some collateral himself. Twisting in mid-air, he fired off a shot of his own, throwing pure chaos at her.

But she dodged, twisting to spiral lazily around his bolt. “Mother fucker,” Sean muttered, hazel eyes narrowing as he watched her continue her strafing run.

He had an option. It wasn’t a good one, but he knew he could fall back on it, if he had to – and it was looking more and more like he was going to have to risk it. This is gonna suck. He wasn’t worried about dying, not yet; he wasn’t nearly hurt enough for that. Hell, Roxy had hurt him worse when she’d found out he was the one pennying her door at Windhoek. This lady packed a punch –

But he was an Elite, and that meant something.

Click to reveal..

Carver *rolls* 6d10: 4+7+4+1+2+6: 24

[Carver] 7:53 pm: Uah.

Carver twitches.

[Einherjar] 7:54 pm: 1st Die is mega....

Einherjar *rolls* 8d10: 4+5+5+5+8+1+9+7: 44

Total Quantum Spent: 13, Total Damage: 5 (Bruised ////, Injured /), Total WP Spent: 2

Current Soak: 19B/13L

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The ballistic nova corrected her course before Sean had gone 20 metres up and away from the damaged building, but as she screamed in on him some combination of her speed and Sean's own movement caused the bitch to narrowly miss, plummeting towards the earth at the northwest corner of the hut. The sonic boom of her passing rattled Sean's teeth and caused a jolt of pain to run through his ears, but caused him no serious harm due to his enhanced physiology.

Then she struck the ground, and the world became a maelstrom of fire and blast waves once more.

Sean was battered by the concussive waves, but due to his distance from the epicenter he was spared the brunt of the explosion. The hut he'd just left, and the others nearby, were blown to pieces in the conflagration, not even the screams of the occupants able to escape the roaring of the fireball.

Click to reveal..
Einherjar *rolls* 6d10: 6+10+8+2+5+7: 3

3 Bashing to Sean.

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Lehana had woken to the sounds of thunder and death, her arms clutched instinctively around her children. It was a sound she had heard many times in her life from the first terrifying nights after her village had been raided and she had been taken all the way through the years of her later childhood and adolescence until she had been given to Umara, the foreman of a diamond mine, as a bribe for rights to pan the waters around the mine for other minerals. She hugged her children close to her, praying in French and her tribal tongue that the evil spirit that had been given to Umara to protect the mine would keep the death far away from the workers as well.

Not that the spirit cared for them. It liked to pick on them, to cause them pain and make them beg it to stop. Umara could shield his wives and children, but Lehana had seen. It made sure they all had seen what it could do. The only thing the spirit cared for was the diamonds; diamonds and metals and the precious buried things of the earth.

Lehana screamed with the others when the roof fell in. Her son huddled behind her while she clutched her daughter, only seven weeks old, to her chest and tried to shield them both from the flying bits of wood and metal. She barely saw that it was a man, another spirit pretending to be a man, before the man-spirit yelled something at her and the other wives and flew up out of the hole in the roof. She clutched her children tighter, trying to decide what she should do, when the evil spirit hit the ground outside the hut.

The heat, the death, was almost instantaneous. She felt her body burning, her children seared into her own melting skin without air enough to even scream as it happened. If only we were diamonds, she thought as she died, then someone would care that we are dead.

The anger, built for years on bitterness and pain, erupted within her. She felt her body change, pushing away the heat as skin and muscle rebuilt itself over nearly-bared bones. It was not the same flesh, though; she was everything the world wanted from her homeland, a woman made of diamond. Around her, the wind picked up and the water of the jungle rushed in, a rainstorm drenching the village only moments after the fire had blazed. She could hear the jungle talking to her, telling her of the other villages, of the other people and lands and animals all abused by outsider and traitorous native alike. It spoke to her of her children, already dead before its gift could be imparted, and of the children she could still save. Mostly, it spoke to her of revenge and savage balance of nature itself.

She stalked from the ruins of the hut towards the spirit that tormented her people and served the greater evils that destroyed her lands. She and the land were one, their anger was one. The land reached out, enclosing the spirit and crushing it like coal to a diamond; the pulled the spirit back down, slamming it into the ground a second time. The feeling of pain from an enemy that was once like a god to her was...intoxicating. She could feel the blood of her enemy soak the land, an unwilling sacrifice that finally finally gave back to the land instead of taking from it.

She was no longer Kirabo, daughter of Kelani; nor was she Lehana, seventh wife of Umara. She was something else now; one with the land and filled with the power to fight the enemies of the land and of the true People of the land, those that lived with the land and did not burn it or dig it up for evil spirits.

She was Mahdi Diamant, the living diamond of the Congo. And she would have her due in blood.

Click to reveal..
Earth: Crush, Maxxed x3 22d10=103

First die is mega; maxxing spent: 3 for agg damage, 12 for extra damage.

9 suxx, 18 levels of agg damage

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“Fuck!” The scream was full of Sean’s frustration; he never liked it when innocents died on an op. And they were so very, very dead. No baseline could survive that inferno. These moments reminded him of his mother, shot trying to help someone live. It made him feel like shit, that people died because he did his job. Part of his wished he’d get used to it; part of him knew that if he did, he’d be a soulless husk.

Then the weird shit happened. A storm blew up out of nowhere, soaking Sean in seconds. He held himself aloft against the wind but it snapped his hair around his face, blinding him in bursts of ginger-red. He squinted at his opponent, preparing to strike-

The flash of moment caught his eye. “Holy shit,” Sean muttered as the scintillating woman emerged from the ruins of the hut. He barely had time to absorb that sight before the ground reached up in a muddy, giant grip. His opponent was slammed into the ground by that earth, leaving Sean wincing a little. “Gotta hurt,” he muttered. He knew that there hadn’t been a diamond-lady in that hut before so he had a reasonable guess as to where she came from: the woman’s former victims.

He streaked down toward his opponent, landing next to her. Bending, he turned her over and said, “You have about three seconds to surrender to me, because I don’t think she’s in the mood to accept one.” He pointed at the woman stalking toward them and let the woman draw her own conclusions. “I know. Not your day, right?”

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The woman under the mask began coughing, the rasp of her breath a clear indicator that she'd suffered damage to one or both of her lungs. As she lay half-buried in loose rock and dirt she scrabbled to remove the full-face mask and goggles, prompting Loki to help her. A remarkably ordinary (for a nova at least) woman lay under the mask, sandy-blonde hair mussed with blood and one hazel eye closed under the puffy swelling on that side of her face. She spat blood to one side and whispered, in an accented voice, handing her mask to Sean. "Oui... surrender. I surrender."

She closed her eyes, and lay back, struggling to breathe as her inhuman vitality staved off death, for now. But the implacable approach of the diamond woman was now a concern, her hard feet crunching as she stepped over loose rocks and shale.

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“Hold up,” Sean said, stepping between Bombbitch and Diamond Lady. He wasn’t sure that Diamond Lady was going to listen to him. But he still put himself in-between them, his bulky frame protecting the woman he’d just tried to kill. Her mask was warm in his hand; the first mask he’d ever taken. He’d be damned if he was going to have her get killed by some enraged new-node.

“She just surrendered to me, fight’s over,” Loki said firmly. Despite his stance, he was worried about what Diamond Lady was going to do to him. He wished he had telepathy to tell Bombbitch to go, if she could. But for now, he just hoped that she’d back down and let him have his prize.

Click to reveal..
Mala asked me to post talking to Mahdi.
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Mahdi hesitated as the new spirit stepped between her and her revenge; between them, the rainstorm flickered and flashed with lightening, highlighting her rage. She kept her eyes on the male spirit, but extended her new self beyond; the land had had its blood, now the animals would have their pound of flesh.

Click to reveal..
Using Nature mastery to call all the nearby carnivorous animals to the area to attack the unmasked elite woman. Sorry for the short post, but I'm tired and Mahdi has no idea what Sean just said. wink
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A low, coughing roar sounded from nearby: a lion. As the panicked screams and shouts from the workers and their families renewed, a huge, black-maned king of beasts came prowling from the edge of the clearing, head held low and tail lashing lazily. The male had been lurking around the livestock pens for weeks, now and then taking a bullock or goat, but the attitude of the corporation that ran the place was that goats were better off eaten than people. If the lion became a man-eater, then they'd worry about it. That moment seemed likely, the beast's eyes on the downed nova at Sean's feet as it paced now in a loose, spiraling inward circle, wary of approaching too directly with him standing there.

From the northern edge of the hut-strewn clearing, the sawing roar of a leopard carried through the night air, and from beyond that the hooting laughter of hyenas. To Sean and the defeated elite, it was very much as though the jungle was coming to the party.

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“Aw, shit,” Sean sighed, moving back to Bombbitch’s side. “I’m going to get you out of here.” Sean wasn’t brilliant, but he knew that animals shouldn’t be this bold. There were fires and shit burning, and everyone knew that animals were afraid of fire. They should be hiding, not approaching.

Kneeling, he picked the woman up, ignoring her pained cries. “I might need you to hold on to me, if I have to fight,” Sean said, even as his eufiber sprouted tendrils and wrapped around her. “Can you manage?”

Nervously, he kept an eye on Diamond Lady, wondering how the hell he’d gotten himself into this.

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The woman grunted in pain and nodded, looping one strong arm around Sean's shoulders. It occurred to Loki that the woman might decide to renege on her surrender - though once unmasked and all, it was considered a punk move to continue fighting. Still, one thing all his instructors and training partners at DVNTS, Einherjar included, had drilled into the young man was that the only rule in a fight that mattered was 'He who walks away, wins'.

But the blonde woman showed no signs of being willing or, judging from her wheezing breath, able to continue the fight, and seeing as Loki was all that stood between her and scary Diamond Lady, he reasoned that it'd be terminally stupid for Bombbitch to try anything on him.

The animals continued to come closer, the large lion only six feet away now and snarling thunderously as the shimmering diamond form of the new nova looked on.

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  • 3 weeks later...

“Wow, that is awesome,” Sean muttered softly, staring at the lion for a moment. Then he pushed off the ground, putting distance between the glittering woman and her animals and himself. Shifting an arm, he pressed his passenger’s head close to this chest, trying to protect her head. “This won’t be fun,” he promised Bitchbomb softly and kicked in the afterburners. In a second, he was moving at five hundred miles per hour into the night sky.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mahdi screamed at the fleeing novas, knowing she could not catch them. Lightening bolts chased them through heavy rain for almost an entire minute before Sean cleared the diamond woman's area of influence. The night sky was eerily silent after so much havoc as the storm behind him finally began to disperse.

Mahdi herself stood alone in the remnants of what had been her husband's village. Her children's village. The living had fled as far away as they could, abandoning the mine and taking their chances with the jungle over a fight between the god-spirits. The animals she'd called nosed their way through the dead and dying, but nature provided better for her own than man generally did for his own in this place and after a few minutes her onetime minions ghosted back into the surrounding trees.

She circled the place where she and her children had slept along with a half-dozen other women and their children, eventually she laid her head down on the scorched earth and prayed to the gods of childhood that when she woke she would be in the nightmare she knew instead of the one where she was expected to give up her heart and stand with them.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Bitchbomb's name, it turned out, was Yves. Her elite name was Hi-Ex, and she worked as a contractor for the Janissaries. On his way back to HQ, Sean managed to get that much out of the battered woman before she passed out. For the rest of the trip, Loki alternated between the satisfaction of a mission completed, and the remorse of the innocent deaths (which hadn't been his fault at all, but still). Now and then he checked on Yves, and wondered about the new eruptee back there.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mahdi woke as dawn was breaking, the pain in her head a dull, insistent ache. She was lying naked on the hard, blackened earth that her home, such as it was, had stood on before the events of last night. It hadn't been a dream, then. All she had ever had, truly had, was her children. Her husband had been a hard-handed, brutal man, but her children she had shone the light of her love on as she could nothing else in this life. And now they were gone, ripped away in a battle between gods. She stood up and looked around, her eyes soft with tears waiting to be shed, and hard with the first diamond glimmers of new resolve.

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