World Tree MUSH

    The chopper flies through the dark skies, carrying its crew as they steel themselves for the mission. The Sons of Thanatos, a cult that had been spreading from world to world, had put down roots where they weren't welcome, now is the time to put them down. Task Force 141 was running point on this, meaning Ghost and Soap are going to take care of business with some friends from out of town.

    "Soap handles overwatch, we'll move fast and hit them hard." Ghost says, adjusting his helmet before tilting down night vision goggles. The four lenses project light-amplified images of his vision, giving him perfect sight in pitch darkness. "This is capture or kill, you know the briefing."

    "Aye, the elf lass was clear on that; Kill the bad guys, secure the orbs or whatever nightmare shite they got stored, pacify the site." Soap says as he threads a suppressor onto his MK14 rifle. "If not for the wizards, this would be another day at the office."

    "Yeah well, no putting that genie back in its bottle."

    The helicopter hovers in a field for the crew to disembark. During the briefing phase, Ghost and the team had given their new allies a crash course in how to fast rope. It's time to see if they remember how to do that.

    Without any ceremony, Ghost disembarks first, hooking up and descending down a rope, waiting for the rest to join.

    Some members of the team don't need ropes to descend from helicoptors. Illumiel, even in her 'human' guise of a young looking girl with blonde hair and a white flowing dress, is far more durable than any normal human.

    She's also carrying an array of lengths of pipe, a crowbar or two, and she even found an 'Actual Sword' from somewhere... they all hang from a belt cinched around her waist.

    As the chopper comes in to hover and the doors open, she just hops out of the side, and lands in a three-point hero landing, raising back to her feet afterwards with nary a twinge from the impact.

    "..."

Itana has never been entirely happy with the people Ghost works for. She doesn't understand them and they remind her far too much of her mental image of Baron and the Red Wings, right down to attacking from above in something that goes whirr with propellers. Nevertheless, she's parked herself in the back of the helicopter with her bow leaning on her shoulder, listening, but brooding a little.

When the rope is thrown down, she descends it without much ceremony and settles just behind Lumi before stepping back to give close-range fighters the first crack at things. Her normal desert-wandering wear has been set aside for a black jumpsuit with boots and gloves, though she put a black cloak over it because she wouldn't feel right otherwise. Besides, it's cold up high.

For a moment, Itana's eyes dart towards Ghost. There's an unspoken question in them that she's not sure he'll understand, but she finally just shakes her head and looks forward once again.

    "I don't know how 'fast' I can promise," a youthful-sounding voice deadpans. "My life still doesn't allow for much physical conditioning."

    It's not surprising, for those who know her. The head of Clan Shuzenji still looks pretty much exactly as she has the entire time anyone here has known her. She hasn't aged a day, and she doesn't seem to have put on any muscle mass, either. But at least she's not put off by the tremendous noise of a helicopter ride, though she does seem vaguely annoyed at the uncomfortable ear protection.

    Nevertheless, in spite of her physical condition, Matsu is... trying. The biggest delay probably comes when it's actually time to rappel. She almost certainly had to be talked into it ("What. No. That sounds insane. Why."), and there are some very undignified noises on the way down. By the time she lands, she's... a little shaky. But she trudges on with a sour expression, sticking towards the back of the pack.

    EARLIER:

    Oh a helicopter. It's been so long since Mau has actually seen one. That was like, literally, over a hundred lifetimes ago.
    So when she heard she was getting RIDE in the chopper, the catgirl's eyes lit right up.
    "You mean I get to ride that thing?! I've never been in one before and the last time I flew was uh." Pause. "... I'd rather not talk about it..." She says while handing Illumiel a spare sword, because Mau has like twelve on top of her legendary one.
    ANYWAY MOVING ON.
    "Oh yeah I'm bringing a guy along. He's light on his feet and good with his hands. Tried to pick my pocket-- probably wouldv'e gotten away with it if I was off my game. Anyway I figured he'd be useful." She said to Ghost before embarking on the chopper.

    NOW:
    Mau doesn't need night vision goggles, her eyes adjust to the dark fairly well and cats- therefore catgirls by extension- have good night vision.
    "Man though... 'The Sons of Thanatos'. ... I thought I was through with that Lich a long-ass time ago." She mutters as the chopper doors open Mau hooks onto a line and rappels down with surprising ease and grace, landing lightly on her feet before she unhooks and lightly pats Matsu on the shoulder. "You good, Matsu? That was pretty sweet right? I mean how often do you get to rappel out of a chopper, SpecOps style huh~?"
    This damn nerdy cat.

    Matsu replies not with words, but with an intense wet-cat glare.

Itana gives Mau her patented look. She does not /say/ 'this fucking cat.' But she's thinking it.

    Thankfully, Rei is fuzzy -- he's a bit of a man-cat-thing, after all -- so the cold doesn't bother him as much as it would otherwise. His tail twitches in a nervous way as he rides in the chopper. And he looks like he's trying not to draw too much attention to himself.
    Though he's clearly listening when the briefing happens. The name 'Thanatos' doesn't mean anything to him, unfortunately, so he's got no frame of reference. And he's also pretty fast and nimble, since he doesn't actually bother with the rope at all. Just hops out the open door lightly, landing in a crouch. It's not that super-heroic three-point landing... but it's so light the snow's almost not disturbed by his landing at all.
    He'll stick with the rest of the group, keep them in sight. But he knows he's out of his depth, so he's going to leave the leader-ing to someone who knows more about the situation.

    "I could have done that." Mau says when Rei lands on his feet, as cats do. "But I wanted to use the rope."
    She legit did, she's never rapelled from a chopper before in all her lives.

    Soap descends last, and he and Ghost share a quizzical look for a moment. Soap had a time trying to convince Matsu to go down, but at least they're on the ground. The mountain range leads towards a village surrounded by trees. There should be plenty of cover.

    As the group descends, Soap hangs back to hide in the brush with his rifle, keeping an eye out for hostiles. And he sees a few. "Got five hostiles heading for the village circle. AKs and coats. One dog."

    "Acknowledged. If he barks, you know what to do." Ghost replies over radio, motioning for everyone to keep quiet.

    "Never been a fan of dogs, eh El-Tee?"

    "Not when they're with the bad guys."

    The guards seem unaware so far, and there's nobody else out. Looks like this is the nightly patrol.

    GHost, true to his name, sneaks up behind one guard and grabs him before slitting his throat in a single deft motion. It's very macabre seeing how casual Ghost is as he stows the body.

It's cold. Itana absolutely despises the cold. She reaches into the pack she's got with her, pulls out a black toque of the sort usually used to keep someone from seeing your hair in the dark, and stuffs it deep over her head to cover her ears. It actually does have help; her hair's white, after all.

She curls her hand into the folds of her cloak to grip the shaft of her bow, the other hand kept out of sight and warm with an arrow in hand. Sliding forward, she settles in behind the brush and listens to Ghost and Soap outline who the enemies are. People from outside their normal world, it seems like. She doesn't understand Ghost's world well, but she's seen enough to know that magic is far outside the normal paradigm of his existence.

Then Ghost just shanks a dude. Itana blinks once and raises her eyebrows.

She eases through the brush. With care, she heads for the shadow of one of the buildings. Say what you will about Itana, but she's extremely good at moving around silently and without being seen. There's a guard not far from her.

She waits for them to pass along on their route before continuing on, seemingly intent on pushing ahead.

    Sneaking around isn't really Illumiel's thing, but since she's the odd one out in that regard, she follows the others lead, and when Ghost takes down one target, Lumi jumps in and caves in his buddy's skull as he comes around the corner, shouldering the body as if he weighed nothing and hiding it in a bush nearby.

    "..."

    The Angel is being very eloquent tonight.

    Perhaps surprisingly, it is the seemingly-14-year-old girl in a miko outfit hidden by a black cloak that is apparently unperturbed by Ghost's sudden act of silent, efficient violence. Matsu merely regards the newly-minted corpse for a second, and then her attention moves on.

    Overall, the Phoenix Maiden hangs back as well, moving only when it seems safe... which probably means moving along behind Ghost. She's not nearly agile enough for guard-dodging antics, nor does she have any kind of stealth training. It was probably a bad idea for her to be here to begin with, but the cult is enough of a threat she's willing to risk it just to make sure the others are able to handle this particular bunch. She does eye Rei every now and then, however; more out of curiosity than anything else.

    "Aite, let's get this done, and then we can head back to The Cat's Meow for a pint on me." Mau says.
    Ghost gives the signal to be quiet and Mau stops talking. For as much as she likes to faff around, even she knows when to be quiet when starting a hunt. Her tail flicks as she draws her magic sword in her main hand, and her trusty shortsword in her off-hand and--
    She watches as Ghost just casually murks a dude.
    Yeah that seems about right with Ghost's style.
    Nevertheless she starts to move; quiet, quick, light on her feet.
    While Itana pushes ahead, Mau opts to take the guard that passed her by out of the equation.
    "Meow!" She says, eloquently, to get the man's attention and when he draws near to investigate, the catgirl steps out of the shadows and as quick and quiet as a moonbeam she just...
    Donks him hard over the head with the pommel of her sword.
    The guy goes down, unconscious, like a sack of potatoes and Mau catches him to drag him back into the shadows with her, grinning like the cat that caught the canary.

    :3

    Rei blinks at Mau's words. Looks up at the chopper. Looks back at Mau. He shrugs. "Thought it'd save time, is all," he notes humbly, raising a hand to rub at the back of his head. Doesn't look like he was trying to show off, so there's that.
    Well, if there's hostiles and snow, the only way to sneak without leaving footprints is probably going to be in trees. 'Whoosh!' is the sound of him hopping into a nearby tree!
    He does seem to be keeping an eye on Matsu, so he'll probably meet her gaze once or twice. There's nothing weird in his gaze though. He's just checking on her is all.
    From his place in the tree, he might be able to quite literally get the drop on at least one guard when they pass by. He'll apt for knocking unconscious too -- the pommels of his daggers are quite large, blunt, and metal!

    Goons go down...and then one of them gets back up as Ghost notices something weird about these guys. There's an unearthly moan from the body of the man he just gutted, coming out of the new hole in his throat as he lunges for the Lieutenant. "-Fuckin' hell." Ghost growls, as he puts three .300 BLK rounds into the body at point blank range. While suppressed, it's loud enough to get some attention.

    "We got a problem. They know we're here." Soap radios calmly.

    "Tell me something I don't know. We need to move on to where the weapons are."

    "Aye, gonna thin out some of these tossers." Soap's rifle lets off muffled cracks as he begins dropping guards.

    Ghost makes a mad dash for a farmhouse as cloaked figures shamble towards the sounds of combat.

    Rei will find that the guard is resilient to bonking, letting out a confused 'Mrrrr?' as he staggers and turns around to face Rei.

    It's a ghastly sight. Under the hood is a ghostly pale man with markings all over his face, and he raises his gun sluggishly.

    The guards in general are pretty slow to act but they definitely are aggressive, sweeping the village with AKs and other weapons.

Itana's seemingly not that interested in the guards. She's also not exactly great at formation discipline. She simply continues on, keeping to shadows, moving with catlike silence.

She's close enough, though, to see what happens when Rei strikes one of the guards. Looking back from her hiding spot, Itana stares for a few seconds, her mouth opening, then closing. Internally, she does some calculations.

As one of the guards goes lurching past her, the archer snaps her arm out of her cloak. The twang of her bowstring is certainly not as loud as a gun, nor as prone to muzzle flash. Her arrow snaps out of the darkness to try and punch through the guard's head before she can be seen, and by the time the shot is off, she's already moving to another covered spot.

Perhaps Ghost's masters had good reason for sending him here after all, she ruminates.

>> GAME >> Illumiel spends an Edge for: Avenger Aura

    Illumiel's eyes widen, as those unearthly moans start to sound... and Itana would see the littlest Avenger bristle... her hair starts to waft up, a ghostly flame begins to lick around her weapons... all of them, and the edges of her allies weapons gain that same unearthly golden flame. Blessed Fire engulfs these weapons, and their bite can now silence the Undead.

    "I AM ILLUMIEL. THE BLESSED FLAME. YOUR ABOMINATION ENDS HERE!" she booms, tearing away her mortal guise and spreading golden feathered wings as she raises off the ground. "IN THE NAME OF HE IN THE HIGHEST.... BE AFRAID."

    Oh they're resistant to bonking.
    Oh. Right. Sons of Thanatos. Thanatos was a Lich. That means...
    Necromancer.
    "GAH! OH SHIT FUCK." Mau says, eloquent and sagacious at this realization.
    Mau comes flailing out of the shadows with a zombie in her arms.
    "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!"
    She's not grinning anymore.
    She is doing the opposite of grinning.

    D:

    Judo flipping the zombie guard to the ground she sweeps down with her magic sword to take the guy's head off his shoulders before hurling a dagger with ridiculous force into another guard raising his weapon before she makes a break for the farmhouse after Ghost.

    Rei makes a face at the pale, pasty man with his empty eyes. "Euuugh," he groans in disgust. He's seen a corpse before, has fought the undead. So... he's gonna jump back because he doesn't want to get bit! "And of course neither Ryu or Momo are /anywhere/ in sight. Don't this just beat all..." Rei grumbles.
    Though that said... he suddenly notes Illumiel glowing, hears her capital-P Proclamation. And then he realizes the edges of his daggers seem keener, alive with golden flames!
    "Oh, hey," Rei intones, and raises a hand to salute in Illumiel's direction. "Thanks!" he calls out. And then makes a swipe at the zombie. Mainly to make it stay back while he also heads for the farmhouse. He can leap into trees, so hopefully he can outrun the zombie.
    Hopefully these aren't the fast kind!

    Somehow, Ghost forgot about Illumiel's aversion towards the undead. But it makes sense, these are zombies after all. The zombies are only slightly tanker than the average dead body, thankfully. Mau effortlessly decapitates not one but two zombies with her sword and thrown dagger. Illumiel meanwhile seems to be drawing the aggro of these zombies, as they stumble towards her.

    Ghost stacks up at a door at the farmhouse, before kicking it down and chucking a stun grenade that leaves cultists inside blinded and deafened with the blast. One goes for a pistol, and goes down instantly with one shot from Ghost's Chimera carbine, while others are either running like hell or too dazed to resist properly.

    "El-Tee, there's somethin' about the barn. May want to-"

    KABOOM! Something blasts open the barn doors as out strides a robed figure, or rather he floats. "FOOOOOOOOOOLS! You expected mere terrorists with their bombs and guns, but I, Mortius the Dead-Shaper, will bring true terror to this realm!"

    He begins to unleash bolts of unearthly essence at anybody he can see, from Itana to Illumiel.

Oh yes, that sure is an angry angel. Itana looks over to Illumiel with lips pursed as the angel's aura casts radiant light upon her. She nods, approvingly.

Quickly, she reaches for another arrow and pushes back her hood, her cap going with it. It's just in the way now, and Illumiel's radiant presence is more than warm enough. She fires off another arrow at a guard before whirling towards the farmhouse--

    'Mortius the Dead-Shaper'

"Do you know a man named Vile Darque," Itana begins, before a bolt of magic slams into the wall of a house she's standing in front of, having missed her by inches.

With a hiss of breath, Itana drops down and starts running as blasts of magic start pouring towards her. Another one rips up clods of dirt and rock that pelt her as she goes; a third hits so close that she's thrown off her feet, hitting the ground and rolling with a pained grimace. She ends up tumbling and coming up on one knee, sweeping her cloak back with one arm. "Illumiel!" she shouts over the noise of the combat, intent on not losing track of her angel.

Arrow in hand, Itana fixes her eyes on Mortius and snaps her arm like a whipcrack. The arrow she fires booms off her bowstring with a thunderclap of sound that blows the snow from the rooftops and tree boughs near her, the shock of it leaving a ring of vapour as it blitzes towards the necromancer.

    The boss has arrived.

    The zombies were being drawn towards the angel, and the angel was bashing them down with a length of pipe in one hand, and a crowbar in the other.

    The magic bolt strikes her in the back, between the wings, and she's launched into a wall, splatting there like a swatted fly.

    Itana calls her name...

    Illumiel pushes herself off the wall, backhands a zombie away with her bare fist... then pulls the sword, and another length of pipe from her belt of weapons, turning towards Mortius while pointing the tip of her sword at the floating necromancer.

    "Death-Shaper? This is bad comedy. You shape nothing, you trick, and philander. Thouart a blaggard and a farce. This ends now.

    She kicks off, wings spreading and giving a single flap as she charges down the necromancer, swatting his magic bolts away and following Itana's arrow in to give him a one-two-three punch of arrow, crowbar, sword.

    Mau runs a good distance before she starts to slow down. Not because she's tired, but because she's put some distance between herself and the undead. With a little huff the catgirl slows to the kind of casual strolling saunter of a cat that has absolutely done nothing wrong after crashing through something delicate and easily broken.
    You all know the walk, as she looks up into a nearby tree to find Rei
    Ahem.
    "So. Nice weather tonight huh?"
    It's not nice, it's cold and there are zombies eevrywhere. IT kind of sucks right now, but she's mainly checking in on him to make sure he's okay considering the suddenness of 'oh shit zombies'.
    At least they're not the cheating fast kind of zombies. ... Zoombies?
    Right then, on to the barn, and when Ghost pops a flashbang, Mau pins her ears back as it goes off and then--

    'Mortius the Dead-Shaper'

    "... You know a guy named--"
    Itana beats the dumbass cat to the question, before she can make it, and then dread necrotic energies go everywhere.
    Using her legendary divine blade Mau cuts an energy ray in half, she swats another bolt of dark magic aside, and a third one gets batted off into an unlucky zombie nearby before... Mau winds up, choking her grip on her legendary sword as she two-hands it like a baseball bat.
    "Hey, Mortius... Think fast!"
    Mau swings with the force of a small typhoon, intent on hitting a home run out the park and back into Mortius' center of mass.

    Rei's on the way to the farmhouse when the door of the barn all but explodes outward... and somebody in a robe floats out. "...Came in like a stale fart," Rei mutters, mostly under his breath. "Gonna find out I can be 'silent but deadly' too."
    He pauses to give a nod to Mau. "Yeah, just peachy." He does not sound peachy. but he does sound /alive/, so there's that. "Think I got an idea, but first..."
    First... he needs to stop getting knocked over by unearthly bolts of magic! One sends him sprawling, and just as he stands up, he has to hit the ground again to avoid another. He has to gauge them carefully, to see exactly when he has the few seconds he needs to try to stymie this, at least a little.
    He raises one hand, dagger still clasped in it, holding it with two fingers pointing up -- you know, the way a ninja casts! His hair seems to be caught by a breeze with no apparent source, and motes of yellow light sparkle in the air around him just for a moment.
    Rei says a strange word, one that sounds like 'pe-po-pa', and points at the 'Death-Shaper'. A pop of the same energy in front of his fingers, and then... two squares overlap in the air, aimed over the Death-Shaper. And once they overlap, they seem to try to pull the very words from him -- Rei's attempted to SILENCE the mage. It won't last long, no doubt, if it hits at all... but hopefully it'll give everyone a few seconds!

    "I don't know how to tell you this," Matsu replies to the newcomer, "But they did plan for more than just common brigands with common weapons. They brought a Phoenix." She shifts her posture slightly. "Let's see how your death stands up against immortal fire."

    In a flash, the Phoenix Maiden whips her cloak off herself, unveiling the pristine white and vibrant red of a shrine maiden. Her hand continues to move, spreading out ofuda which float in the air around her. Quickly, the divine priestess whips her hands through a series of seals, chanting softly under her breath, and flame seems to ripple along her body, before the talismans begin to whip around her in a circle, pulling along the flames of Suzaku and infusing themselves in the process.

    And then, all at once, Matsu whips both hands forward, forming a final ritual gesture to direct her attack to launch, and declaring a firm, "BE PURIFIED!" The talismans abruptly fire outward at once, spreading out across the entire area, each unleashing a burst of flams that expunge curses, expel evil, and radiate divine light and the warmth of life.

    "Of course I do! He was my master, before THAT-" The necromancer jabs a finger at Mau, "Foul feline slew him! I took up his cause. You will all become my generals when I kill you all." Of course his monologue is cut short when Itana lets off a lightning bolt of a shot at him, leaving the necromancer stunned and reeling.

    "Do these numpties ever shut up?" Soap groans over comms, trailing his scope on Mortius's smug face. He growls in anger and tries to pinpoint where that shot came from, and when he thinks he sees Soap he trails a symbol only for nothing to happen. He screams impotent threats only for no words to form.

    That silence effect works!

    Ghost meanwhile will be clearing out the farmhouse.

    Mortius bobs and weaves, taking a crowbar to the face and sending him spiraling. He'd be screeching some angry threat to Illumiel he wasn't silenced right now, and with his incantations completely nullified, he runs back into the barn. He returns with an assortment of magic relics and weapons, and he starts blasting! A wizard staff lets off magic bolts that hurdle towards all involved.

    Ghost sees this from a window and is more than a little befuddled. This was a long, long way from dealing with guys toting guns and RPGs.

    Illumiel goes to chase, but a moment of silence is followed by the Angel being launched back out of the barn on the end of a staff-blast. She's barreled through a wall, and doesn't emerge immediately.

    'he was my master'

Itana groans as she reaches for another arrow, giving Mau a look of pure disgust. "At least you had the decency to want to be a catgirl. Why do these ones always want to be villains with silly names?"

Then Illumiel gives chase, only to get launched back out of the barn. Itana sucks in a breath and starts running.

Within seconds, Itana launches herself forward and baseball-slides the rest of the way to Illumiel. Wordless but with worried intent in her eyes, she sets her bow down and reaches hastily into the pouch she brought along with her. She's tucked several potions into it, each one wrapped with a rough label and a cord. The one she pulls out is a pale green, with a few letters written on it:

    kyur

"Here, this will help," she urges as she pulls the top off. If Illumiel's present enough to take the potion, she'll offer it; if not, she'll feed it to her. It tastes oddly herbal and restores a bunch of HP.

    With the field purified of necromantic power, Matsu is freed to focus on the necromancer... who has almost comically scrambled off to come back with an armful of magical artifacts. "This is just ridiculous," she grumbles, but already more ofuda are being deployed. This time, it starts with a single talisman, held forward with a muttered incantation of defense to protect herself from a bolt of magic. But if it's not a curse or otherwise profane, she's not nearly as well-suited, and it shows in the way her barrier cracks a little under even that basic assault. But she doesn't fuss about it; instead, the Phoenix Maiden whirls around, charging multiple ofuda strips with purifying flames, before flinging them straight at Mortius.

    Mortius points a finger at Mau.
    Once again, Mau is grinning like a cat.

    :3

    "Yeah, I did that, huh."
    ANYWAY. The dude gets Silenced. That's handy.
    And while Matsu shows that the party WAS actually thinking ahead and prepared by bringing her, Mau takes a defensive position in front of the phoenix miko.
    She gears up to protect Matsu from...
    Uh.
    ... Matsu made all the zombies die. ... Re-die as they go up immolated in holy fire.
    An angel goes flying past and things are getting a little more than chaotic as the necromancer has to resort to using artifacts to continue his dirty work.
    "... Yeah. Yeah it's kind of sad really." She replies when Matsu says the whole situation is ridiculous. "Guy has no dignity even when Silenced..."
    Mau simply shrugs to Itana.
    "Look, some people wanna be catgirls, some people wanna be badly named villains. Not everyone can be objectively correct." She says as she takes a swing at the air with her sword, sending a cutting ripple shockwave of razor sharp wind at Mortius.

    Good, the silence got the necromancer. Rei's not wasting time; he knows those few seconds are going to be precious. And any mage worth his salt has backup for when he can't cast -- either running out of mana or getting silenced. He tries to get close, but again magic bolts come out, this time from items and relics. He's too busy dodging to see to Illumiel, unfortunately. But maybe he can serve as a distraction.
    Rei does that whole 'ninja-cast' thing again, and this time something like 'ha-sa-to' leaves his mouth. Four purple diamonds spin around him for an instant before flying off and disappearing.
    That's a speed boost on his already impressive speed... so he's likely to be able to handle this a bit better. "Hey, death-sucker!" Now he's trying to get the mage's attention, trying to give the others an opening to see to Illumiel!
    He'll be trying to occupy the death-mage's attention, dodging around magical bolts -- and Matsu's ofuda, too; doing that thing where he gets out of the way of them /just/ in time. Because if his body's blocking them from view, then Mortius can't see them either... until it's too late! At least, that's what he's hoping. If his tail gets a bit singed in the process, oh well!

    The Necromancer screams silently as he watches his zombies get absolutely immolated, reduced to crispy piles of bones. Mortius also tanks abuse from all sides, and he seems to realize he has someplace to be. Anywhere but here, really. The flames hit him, leaving his robes singed. But that's not all.

    Something seems to have gotten loose, as the sounds of something padding out of the barn reaches Mortius's ears. He goes through his scrolls frantically before summoning up a portal.

    "Uhhh, El-Tee?" SOap says. "Is that a...bloody pokemon or somethin' out there?"

    "Dunno what you mean." Ghost says, before checking with binoculars.

    A small, round teal thing with adorable big eyes seems to beam at the crowd assembled. "Moopsy!" It says, as the necromancer silently screams again.

    The creature gets real low, wiggles its butt, and lunges at Mortius, biting down on his arm.

    In a horrific display, the creature seems to suck Mortius dry. It doesn't suck his fluids, oh no, he just drinks the necromancer's bones instead.

    "...fuckin' hell." Ghost mutters. This has been a weird, weird day.

    The zombies are handled! That's great! Mau turns to give Matsu a highfive.
    But then her ears twitch.
    She hears something escape the barn.
    She watches in rapt, abject, horror as a necromancer gets his bones drank right up.
    Mau holds up a finger and opens her mouth.
    Mau lowers her finger and closes her mouth.
    "OH FUCK IT'S A MOOPSY! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, BEFORE IT DRINKS YOUR BONES!" The renowned, famed, world-saving hero catgirl shrieks as she turns on her heels and starts running for the fucking chopper, flailing and shrieking.

    Matsu is fully prepared for round two. She didn't expect the necromancer to go down easy, so she's ready for another barrage - or if barrages don't seem to work at all, to come up with something else.

    But then, there is Moopsy.

    And then there are not bones.

    Matsu Shuzenji looks very alarmed. And then even more alarmed when Mau just turns and bolts. "W-what-?! Wait- hey, wait- I can't run that fast-!" The tiny Phoenix Maiden is now struggling to keep up, and glancing around at everyone else present. Ghost, Rei, Illumiel, Itana... someone halp. ;_;

    Illumiel is starting to get up, feathers dull, a trickle of golden blood leaking from the side of her mouth. She works her jaw, then spits aside before Itana skids in to give the kyur potion.

    She drinks it, then nods to the nomad as her feathers get a bit more colour back after the potion takes effect.

    And then the Moopsy appears.

    Even she knows horrific when she sees it, and without a word, she flexes her wings and scoops up Itana, kicking off to also grab Matsu. "Fly you fools, this foe is beyond any of us."

    Rei had also been prepared to go a few more rounds, as his silence spell was due to wear off really soon. But then... well. Things Happen. As they tend to do. Things that Rei wasn't prepared for. Rei pauses, looks at the scene. Looks at the others. "Yeah, uh. Dunno about the rest of you, but I don't want to be next on the menu," he says, almost casually. "What's everybody think?"
    Mau seems to agree, even if she doesn't say it in so many words. But yeah, this isn't something that's meant to be fought or faced. This is clearly an eldritch thing to which the only response is... survive.
    And apparently one survives a moopsy by... being anywhere except where the moopsy is. So yeah, Rei is also going to make to flee! And as he's burning through the last of his Haste spell, he flees pretty fast.
    Once he's sure someone's got Matsu and that everyone else can get out with all the fastness this situation requires, Rei will use the oh-so highly sophisticated form of movement known as 'NOPING THE FUCK OUT'!

Itana cannot fly to the angels. She will settle for sliding to one.

Illumiel, at least, is visibly improving. Itana's eyes brighten a little, a relieved smile reaching her face involuntarily.

Then the Moopsy appears and drinks a dude's bones.

"WHAT," Itana shouts, before Illumiel grabs her.

The archer lets out an involuntary squeak and ends up in a princess carry. She reaches out from that position to try and help Illumiel grab Matsu on their way out.

Illumiel is princess-carrying Itana who is princess-carrying Matsu.

    Ghost doesn't take the chance to try and be a cool guy, instead he radios command. "Laswell? Yeah, we found uh...found another one. The bone drinkin' thing. Might need a containment team for this one, dunno what else the bloke was keepin'. Him? Yeah he's just...boneless at the moment."

    Then he links up with Soap and they go catch up with the rest of the group.

    Yeah, this was one of those nights, people.