witch's cape, not hat

[characterquarry]

Grendyne groans and starts pulling on her boots when the alarm goes off. Again. She quick-marches to the broom hangar, sits on her machine and is handed a plethora of loaded weapons by attentive corporals.

"Two flyers in one day? They're getting way too common."

"It's worse," the commander informs them, "South Karlsland got hit with three at once. We're taking Lytee's express and sleeping there. You can sit out if you absolutely need to, but Freya's still recovering so we could use you as a comms relay."

"No, I'll come. I just reserve the right to complain about it."

The 42nd United Forces Witch Wing takes off and assembles into a perfect synchronized formation as Lytee charges her teleport power.



...This is not South Karlsland wilderness.

[note: halfway through this thread I created a unique account for Grendyne. Do not be alarmed by the change in account. -Rockeye]

Comments

[witchwatcher]

This is getting annoying. She holds still for a good ten seconds as she copies Clockblocker's power (It's a little easier to hold on to, now, but it still takes significant effort), and protects herself as best she can with her composite Witch-Lady Photon shield, and zooms up to Lung lightning fast and taps him on the slowest moving appendage.

[wormcan]

In those seconds, Lung burns Battery and Clockblocker. Less badly than it could have been without the cold, at least. Vista and Armsmaster shield them.

When Gren comes after him Lung throws a punch, not at her but at her Steelwing.
But she can freeze him with or without that. He stops where he stands. Containment foam starts burying him as soon as she gets out of the way.

[witchwatcher]

The Steelwing caves in all along one side, but is still sufficiently objectlike to wrench clear and crash on the other side of the street. She abandons it.

After a little swearing, she tells Armsmaster, "I can try to rig something to help keep him down. A shield, inside-out and exactly the shape of his current body. Might help stop him from smashing his way out of the foam."

[wormcan]

"Can you hold it long enough for him to give up? If he stops fighting, we win. If not, it might be better to save your power."

[witchwatcher]

"That depends on how long it takes him to give up. Ten minutes, definitely. An hour, probably. Three would be pushing it."

[wormcan]

Armsmaster nods. "Do it. Drop the shield if it's harder than you expect."

[witchwatcher]

She puts up the shield. The center of the growing mound of containment foam starts glowing slightly.

She'll be able to feel him trying to break free when the timefreeze wears off.

[wormcan]

In the meantime, they pile on more foam than should be necessary.

After about two minutes, Lung starts resisting. The shield and foam are restricting his movements, but he's heating up the area around him and battering the shield as best he can.

[witchwatcher]

The shield doesn't budge. Lung can barely move. It limits how much heat can escape, too.

Gren starts to look a little strained after a couple of minutes. "Half an hour."

[wormcan]

Lung can barely move, but he's resisting. As he resists he grows, and he's not growing in exactly the areas where the shield leaves space. The more this hurts Lung the more his power activates. Pressure on the shield rises.

[witchwatcher]

This sort of shield doesn't care very much whether it's holding back a splash of water or ten tons of angry dragon. It might crack eventually, but not yet.

[wormcan]

It's closer to a single ton of angry dragon in a space designed to hold five hundred pounds of angry not-yet-dragon. Amounts of dragon increase in a self-reinforcing loop. Lung tries overwhelming the shield with a concentrated blast of heat.

[witchwatcher]

The shield acquires the stunning effect the stunbolts have, all along its surface. If five seconds of that doesn't work, she drops the shield.

[wormcan]

Maybe when he was smaller and less scaled it would have worked. As it is he gets dizzy and uncoordinated, but stays conscious. It also slows down his rate of growth. That was partially based on regeneration from being crushed, and killing the pain is a side effect.

When it drops, he starts melting his way through the containment foam. After the first few holes in the sphere around him—one in front where he's breathing the most fire, one where his shiny new tail pokes through, and one where his arm does—Clockblocker freezes the foam. "We've got to get out of here."

[witchwatcher]

She mutters something, then whisper-spells to Armsmaster "In about twenty seconds, you get as much tranquilizer as you can into him and I'll give him an overcharged stunbolt. It'll be like hundreds of little ones hitting all at once. I need that twenty seconds though. If that doesn't work, I'm out of tricks unless you want me to kill him. Which I would be willing to try."

[wormcan]

Lung breathes out two streams of fire, which curve around toward Gren and Clockblocker. It might be unnecessary, but Battery gets her out of the way while Vista makes the other miss.

"Can't inject through the scales." Armsmaster rearranges the settings on his Halberd. "Unless heat interferes with the bolts, hit him now."

[witchwatcher]

The pale green glow of the stunbolts forms a large orb, which grows and grows some more. When it's as big as a car, Gren launches it through the foam. If that doesn't knock him out, just about nothing will.

[wormcan]

He staggers. Flames die down. The gray haze buzzes around the edge of the Halberd, and Armsmaster disintegrates the scales from around Lung's exposed arm. Then he injects the tranquilizers.

Between the stunbolts and the tinker weaponry, Lung stops moving.

[witchwatcher]

Gren kneels on the ground, breathing heavily. "Finally. I was worried I'd have wasted a week's power for nothing."

[wormcan]

(That comment rankles. One week's power to take down Lung. Armsmaster had to prepare the disintegration, the tranquilizers, and the combat prediction algorithm the hard way. He doesn't show it.)

"He should be out long enough to shrink back down. Are the others still here?" He checks on Hookwolf, whose blades have retracted into his human form while he was unconscious. Stormtiger apparently recovered enough to leave while Lung was fighting.

[witchwatcher]

She glances at a certain building. "Cricket's still unconscious on that roof. She might be getting up soon, I can't tell. I can't get her, can't fly anymore... Ah, sorry I wrecked the Steelwing you made me. And what the hell kind of drugs can keep something like him down? And that shredder cloud is just scary. Wish I could copy tinkers sometimes."

[wormcan]

"It was designed with him in mind. Wouldn't be safe against most.
Villains ruining equipment, that's part of the job."

Vista and Battery collect Cricket while Armsmaster loads Hookwolf into a van. By the time they get back Lung is small enough to be moved and they can return to base.

[witchwatcher]

Gren rides in one of the vans, not having anything to fly with. She addresses the other Wards. "All's well that ends well. I'd have bolted if that last try didn't work. But if we left early we'd have to do it again eventually, with worse odds. I'm just glad we don't."

[wormcan]

"And this time there won't be a rescue attempt," Clockblocker agrees. "Since Bakuda's captured and Oni Lee couldn't plan his way out of a wet paper bag."

[witchwatcher]

"These fights would be really exciting if they weren't so dangerous. Maybe we should spar or something once in a while. I could probably use more close-combat skill, or parkour or something - I rely on flight a bit much."