Tanis Six, 3,520 years after the Battle of Tanis.

[shiivster]

Aki, safe in the ditch had ducked when the fire exploded overhead . . . then only when the bird says to move, does she grab 'little sister Yumi and races after the Nighthawk. she trust he bird to lead her to where it needs to take her . . and her small lithe body turns and twists and spins as it weaves in and out of people

[albatross]

Aki is able to follow the Night Hawk for a while, then the little bird wings past the slash of a Baal-rog's sword. The giant demon fires a magic gun in Aki's direction, though it could be aiming beyond her without seeing her.

One of Fakir's minions, a human looking one with glowing eyes, is trying to take it down. Aki can smell two more nearby, who are casting spells in support of the one facing the demon.

She might have to go around the demon the long way or risk combat.

[shiivster]

*With Yumi in one hand, she can only act with one hand as she moves closer. that free hand tugs her poncho off and she spins it, slides and twirls it once and lets it go to fly toward the things face. she figures that if she can block its view, the three fighting it might win and she can slip past.

[dice=20+2]

<<doesn't like this roller. it totally hates me . . . *sighs*>>[rand=199389662425852516528133353363859965157011855319986281107653402]

[thorley]

"Lovely, and after I used all that energy to fight Fakir" Bellephoebe says.

She aims her rifle at any demons heading for her and tries to gun them down, hoping the weapon is as powerful in this dimension as she expects it to be. If there aren't any, or when she's otherwise clear she hops on Starlighter and tries to get clear of the battle as she figures there isn't much she's going to accomplish.

"So" she will ask Tesla or anyone else present who seems like they might have a better idea of whats going on. "Is this a random occurance, or some third party someone neglected to mention..."

[albatross]

[Aki]

The Baal-rog sweeps the poncho aside with its sword in a parry [dice=20]+6

Then it casts a fireball at Aki. One of Fakir's minions, invisible, though Aki can smell her, reaches out and tries to cast Armor of Ithan on Aki and Yumi before the close range fireball hits them.[rand=5272403694689274336516240611672487849402893334633723998796194792]

[albatross]

[Bellephoebe]

The sky is too filled with flying demons to attempt a take off. Starlighter faces a Succubus, Tesla is locked in combat with a Rak-Shasha and pair of witches backed up by three Incubus attack Bellephoebe. Their armor is mostly effective against the tech rifle, they are hurt but not destroyed.

Tesla grunts, his stone knives flash and cancel one of the Rak-Shasha's spells before it hits. "Look for a banner, or some kind of commander!"

One of Fakir's minions appears next to Bellephoebe, a short curvy female with cat ears and eyes the color of the sky, filled with red fire. She tosses to Bellephoebe something that looks a digital disc player.

[shiivster]

Aki knows that the odd giant demon beast is up to no good, and figures it's safer to jump backward and worry about the possible back attack later

[dice=20+8] . . dodge the demon's attack.

*she will trust that Yumi can look after herself and drops the mongoose behind her as she squats and stares at the demon. Yumi has since scampered off [speed 22] to dash her way about the big demon and to follow the Nighthawk.

Aki will dodge once again to the side if the demon tries to try another attack on herself[rand=305123210263058554679151461694573457224850238045029284609259897718]

[thorley]

Bellephoebe is not liking this situation, she will catch the digital disc player (no real time to review it yet) and tell the catgirl (is it the same one spotted running away at the beginning of the battle?) "Turn your head and face me" before giving the previously mentioned code word so her companions know to look away as she deploys a "Blinder" flash grenade (New West & RIFTS GM's guide, no real saving throw and does horrible things to even cyborgs and guys in armor with flash protection). Anyone that doesn't know this is probably going to be going "OMG, my eyes, arghhh my eyes" whether they are demonic, normal, or think they
are safe from this kind of thing.

One of her best gimmicks now deployed (only one of those left, though the one she used can be recharged in theory), hopefully with some effect. Given that Starlighter probably recognized the command and the demon is blinded hopefully that will give her a chance.

Bellephoebe will then light a stick of MDC dynamite with an ultra short fuse and toss it into the demons and witches while she backs away. Where an energy rifle isn't that effective maybe explosives will be. The catgirl will presumably see this and get out of the way.

[albatross]

Duke Etienne, finally faced with an enemy that doesn't require him to choose between his oath and his family, attacks to the northeast. The Porter's Gigante, who had been beating and stabbing Knights of Camelot before the demons came, fall in behind him. It is easy to see why he was summoned to fight Fakir. An Aikido master, equipped with legendary items and armor, he tosses demons to the ground or locks their joints and uses them as shields until they collapse. The Porter's Gigante make a wedge, pushing aside demons and fighting to keep pace with their master, who leaps and runs at incredible speed. Galahad and a few knights of Camelot struggle in their wake, finishing off the demons that Duke Etienne tosses aside. Several of Fakir's minions assist the Duke, his giants, and the knights following him with armor of ithan, invulnerability, fleet feet, superhuman strength, and other spells. The Duke realizes they are completely surrounded, and he is attempting to push beyond the perimeter in order to flank the enemy.

The Night hawk notices this and begins spreading the word to push northeast among the nearby fighters, "North. East. North. East." the bird chirps, weaving in and out of demons. Yumi is able to keep pace because the little bird keeps moving towards other fighters to convey this message.

Aki barely dodges the spell, the Demon ignores Yumi leaving and focuses on Aki and Fakir's minions attacking it. While it is apparent Fakir's minions won't harm knights, clearly the oath doesn't extend to demons and the bunny girls supernatural strength is put to use, pulling no punches. Aki can now see that although most of Fakir's girls use Aikido, some know Leopard style kung fu, or Dog Boxing, or Drunken style, or even some with Wui Wing Chun. These fighters now push to the forefront to attack, dropping their invisibility.

The Baal-rog is a tough opponent however, re-generating its wounds and blasting away with its magical gun. One of the bunny girls puts its weapon hand in a joint lock, another trips the creature and they yell at Aki to kill it while they hold it down.

Meanwhile, Fakir and Mikalah pause their duel in the sky. "You're new and old subordinate are about to be destroyed," Fakir says. "Show me the honor between a boss and a subordinate!"

The woman looks at Fakir then shrugs and says calmy, "Swordbearer." Fakir immediately turns his sword around and hands it to her, since it actually belongs to her. He takes out his spear.

Mikalah says, "The two best fighters must be my wing." Fakir says, "I will take your left hand side." Then he yells to Talon, "King Talon, will you take right at your bosses side?"

King Talon says, "Why, when its the perfect opportunity to destroy you!" He launches himself at Fakir, and while most of those he summoned are battling demons - Romidus fights with several Jinns - Talon's nuns and the Death Knight kill Fakir's minions and the demons alike.

Mikalah rolls her eyes, "The best fighters who aren't morons," she amends. The Rahu-men pushes a demon off his weapon and says, "I'll take the right side."

Ora reaches the area as well, "I will take the left," she says as one of her boomerangs absorbs a magic spell from a demon.

The tall woman Mikalah eyes the two giants, "We will break the circle, then face the enemy commander head on." She shouts in a voice loud enough to carry over the whole field of battle, "Two o'clock." Fakir's minions along a certain line scatter and Mikalah whips the battered katana like a wand - a massive wave of magical energy erupts from Mikalah's sword roughly at a 60 degree angle (the two o'clock angle). Nearly a hundred demons are killed. This line of devastation runs roughly beside Duke Etienne and his push to get beyond the demons. Mikalah, the Rahu-men and Ora take this path, slaying demons left and right as they go. While Talon and Fakir cross sword and spear while demons try to kill them. Fakir sends all his minions close to him in support of Mikalah's wing, and they heap protective and battle spells on Mikalah and the two giants.

When Bellephobe grasps the digital player, she realizes it is a series of PPE batteries containing 900 PPE. Her blinding blast works well. Even though a few of Fakir's minions miss the memo, they have Chi awareness and zanshin and can fight quite well blind.

Demon Locusts, Jinns of various colors, and Gallu are around - Sapphire is fighting a demon locust, Streetwise faces three Jinn and Dryzh is battling a Gallu and a witch.

The blinding blast helps, and everyone gets in a few good hits against their opponents. More demons don't surge in to take the place of those who fall, as the demons are now focusing on fighting towards the direction of Fakir and Talon.

[thorley]

Bellephoebe watches what Mikalah does with that sword and mutters rambling and partially coherant about not belonging here and being totally out of her league.

She wasn't expecting Fakir's minions except for the cat girl to avoid the blinding (just the party members who she talked to before) but them doing so, or otherwise dealing with it works out for the best. Watching them use all this "Chi" stuff to counter it makes her curious about that kind of power in an academic sense, though now is not the time to enter queries.

Her immediate opponents blinded Bellephoebe does however concoct a plan to perhaps end this, combining tech and magic.

She tells the cat girl "If you can contact Fakir tell him to watch out, when he gets to the leader I'm going to drop it. He doesn't want to be too close".

Bellephoebe casts "Time Hole" (page 146 book of Magic) within this time hole the passage of time is slowed waaay down as far as the outside world is concerned. Taking her multi-tool, the detonation head from one of her high explosive pistol crossbow bolts, and one of the boxes of 100 Plasma Cartridges (she hates to use these, but it's that kind of situation) and rigs a bomb. The detonation of 100 plasma cartridges is going to be 1d4x1000 damage, even at an SDC level that is going to suck (and it's going to be worse if it's MDC or has some kind of damage multiple).

When the bomb is done she simply waits for Fakir to pick out the leader, and when the oppertunity presents itself she casts "Astral Hole" (page 138 RIFTS magic book) which lets her teleport anyplace she can see, appears behind the leader (surprise!) drops the bomb on him and then teleports out of the blast radius using the Hole since it works on a duration.

She will make sure to re-cast Invincible Armor just in case here (in case she messes up with the explosives, or just to be there if she gets attacked trying this).

She figures a bomb is going to do a lot more in terms of killing something than what she can do with offensive magic, besides if Fakir's guys are helping against the demons she doesn't want to mow them down, and given their behavior she's still having a lot of questions about this entire battle now... especially seeing as King Talon seems like something of a douchebag even if he has King Arthur on his side.

A rigged box of plasma cartridges should be pretty localized I'm guessing.

[thorley]

Oh, and while she has time and is rigging the bomb, she'll play whatever is on that digital recorder (if there is anything there except a PPE battery). Depending on what it says this might alter her plan to kill the demon leader.

[shiivster]

*Aki draws the two metal sai she carries and kisses them as she thinks back to her mentor. he had once told her that 'good living and correct food will aid you in living a long time. look at me. i am 135 years old' [yeah sounds odd, but my aunt while in Bali met a couple looking after their great grandson .. he was 135 and she was 125 and both were still going strong and climbing mountain trails leaving others winded in their trail]

*she darts in and tries an odd stunt. using her small size she will try to drive the ancient silver weapons into the things eyes and at least blind him
[rand=111657309053621237753527445950433762535514493748861716208101879]

[albatross]

The cat girl nods and disappears to convey the message, using a invisibility spell. The digital player not only is a PPE battery case, but it has a small music player with an eclectic music collection from across the megaverse, most of it great for dancing.

With the Baal-rog held down, the attack to the eyes is successful (don't have the book in front of me to check if Baal-rogs take double damage from silver). The creature howls in rage from being blinded and struggles to free itself, but Fakir's minions are very strong and it ends up breaking an arm only to be put in another joint lock.

The space ship in the sky turns its attention to blasting support for Mikalah and the two giants, and the vanships spray rail gun fire to provide more cover. The demons don't seem to care, they continue to press towards the dueling Fakir and Talon.

But while the demonic hordes try to kill the two time travellers, a horrible demonic presence approaches from the North. A giant demonic creature, perhaps an evil godling or demigod, appears. Its very presence is terrifying (HF 20), and it is armored in bone armor and carrying wicked looking rune weapons... spidery looking axes and a warped mace of thorns. It has one huge crippled wing and four arms and four legs. Standing nearly forty feet tall with eyes in odd places.

Beside it, a Gallu Demon Bull unfurls a banner on a long pole arm. The symbol is tough to make out from this distance. Mikalah ignores the standard and hits the thing with another of her magical sword energy waves. Fifty demons behind the creature are killed, but it just laughs a bone chilling cackle and casts Crimson Wall of Lictalon to prevent Duke Etienne from pushing further to the northeast.

A different minion, this one with dog ears and eyes the color of the sky arrives and tells Bellephobe the obvious. "Fakir says the leader is the giant demon due north." The canine girl holds her hand to her brow to see if she can spy the standard. "I've never heard of this demon before. I wonder who it is?"

[shiivster]

Aki nearly recoils at the roaring demon and prays for its soul to have eternal peace that it seeks . . and then drives the sai into its ear ad then holds on for dear life as the thing writhes and twists about. the various thrashings doing more damage even as she drives the second in with the first and aids with the pressure for more damage. its the only thing she can think of now. her obsidian blade would break against the creature

[albatross]

One of fakir's minions puts her hand on Aki's shoulder and says, "It is dead. But there are more. Your animals are with the Duke, do you wish to go to them or fight here?"

Another one, this one with feathered wings says, "Do you need anything? Weapons? Healing?"

There is a lull in the battle here as the other demons try to oppose Duke Etienne's charge or more likely move closer to Talon and Fakir.