The Retrieval of the Red snow princess (open)

This exploding metahuman was really holding his own against the the two demons, and Hospitaller's temper tantrum definitely wasn't helping the unfortunate women. The witches, who were no doubt supposed to be providing support, had their hands full trying to avoid being dismembered by beams of light. They were throwing attack after attack at the soldier, but his powerful rays of light managed to cut through their offenses. In the meantime, the demons' antagonist was flitting about the battlefield, sending Karah and Roseria flying with instantaneous explosions and simultaneously using his powers to defend himself. Eventually the two demons were able to work together to send him crashing into a building. The witches finally managed to bring Hospitaller down with an icy blast of wind, giving one of them enough reprieve to offer Karah and Roseria some healing support. As she did so, one of Roseria's dragons arrived, not joining the fight but instead giving the combatants some information. The dragon was swiftly sent off, scaling a nearby building to escape and perform its duty.

Zedekiah didn't have to worry much about what it was doing, however, because it promptly met opposition. A blast of powerful flames erupted towards it, and the source was none other than a new metahuman. This battlefield was getting far too crowded for Zedekiah's tastes. He rubbed his temples in frustration, feeling the beginnings of a headache developing. The stress of the situation was going to start giving him hallucinations if he wasn't careful. He couldn't afford to fight superhuman enemies and his own damaged psyche at the same time. Zedekiah looked to the Hospitaller, checking to see if his rage had subsided. The soldier seemed much calmer, and his wounds were even healed thanks to his powers. Zedekiah wondered whether he would still pursue the ice witches, and his thoughts were answered as the man fired yet another bolt of light energy at the one who murdered the two kidnappers from earlier.

At this point, Zedekiah's decision on who to support was becoming more clear. As much as he respected the ice demon, the risk of helping her now far outweighed any possible reward. The explosion generating metahuman was probably not out of commission for long, and both the Hospitaller and the new flying, fire-eyed girl were both opposing the demons as well. Zedekiah had very little to gain from continuing a shaky alliance with them, so he decided to act now and make sure the new girl knew he was on her side. The Hospitaller was taking care of the witches, and flying girl was busy with the dragon, which left Karah and Roseria for Zedekiah. He didn't like his odds, but the witches and the dragon would last very long, so the alternative wasn't an option. Sheathing his sword he pulled out his oaken bow, and with a precise skill and fluid movement he loosed a volley of arrows in quick succession. His attack was aimed at Karah, mean to incapacitate her buy taking out some of her legs. With such a massive body, losing a few legs would hopefully leave her incapable of movement.

Roseria smiled as karah and she continued to attack the man from earlier.  He was now strictly on defense and Roseria was hitting him with her fan knocking him around.  Suddenly though there was a roar from above as one of her dragons was almost hit with a beam of heat but it circled around the building and avoided the impact.

"Karah send out a flare for Laura."  She called over.

Karah had begun to consume the energy for the flare but as she was about to shot up the colored aura she screamed and the energy exploded her mouth causing her to cry in pain.  Roseria at first looked in terror for her little one had gotten horribly hurt.  Then seconds after she was furious and decided it was time to call in her last line of defense.  She clasped her hands together letting the echo set in then she looked over and saw that guy from earlier attacking the witches.

"You double crossing!!"  She pushed her hands forward as one of the witches washed a large wave around him.

She froze it in place and had the ice rise to make a giant pyramid.  He should be occupied for long enough to call in the Collosus.  She swung her hands around like she had her fan in hand then she cut her hand open.  Blood dripped out as she called on the witches.

"I'm calling the colossus."  She called and the witches quickly nodded.

A mirror in a tower of water appeard in front of her.  Roseria touched the freezing cold mirror turning it a bright red then the water turned red before freezing.  Seconds later it lit up in a large glow of blue and red energy.  Laura appeared as she saw the light and quickly joined her brother who was being attacked by some robot chick.  The light that brought her shattered and the ground began to tremble in short bursts as if something giant was approaching.  Then as if on cue two giant tigers , that were a few feet above the nearby buildings, leaped into the battle and crawled atop buildings next to Roseria.

Loth was halfway up the building when a beam of energy appeared out of nowhere and burned him.  He was able to crawl around the building after recovering from the beam but he felt the heat still sit on his tail.  A few minutes later a wave of scales appeared and was aimed at someone flying in the sky.  Loth also followed in his sister's ways and began to fire beams of ice at the target once he was in front of the building again, bent on the revenge for the  cheap shot.  The ice was very low in temperature and the scales were moving at very rapid speeds.  The air close to the beam chilled and the glow from the attack blinded the sun.

"Laura we have to shoot down the incoming jet with the giant bomb."  Loth roared as he watched the zedekiah shoot karah.

In rage he fired a beam of ice energy first in front of the opposition, then he dragged it forward like a homing laser.  

Good thing that her original target was behind the building when it started an attack, had the dragon had full view of her than he might have had better aim. After all only an amateur would have stayed in the same spot after attacking, and Neena was not amateur. She spun to the side as beams of ice were shot at her, letting out a laugh at the cold breeze that followed after them. Some dragon, there was a twinkling noise behind her, she spun around, were those scales. Damn, there was another dragon, she hadn't been expecting that. She opened her eyes wide, instantly an energy laser shot out of her eyes punching into the scales aimed at her. It wasn't enough to stop them, she threw her hands up in front of her face as the scales slammed into her knocking her into the still smoldering building. She was slammed into a few desks and then landed on a copier.

She coughed and blinked a few times, she looked down at the copier. "PC load letter...what the fuck does that mean?" she asked as she rolled off of the copier and went down on one knee. Alright, two dragons, she wasn't strong enough to take them both down at once....but...if she had something heavier, yes, yes that might work. Neena grabbed a piece of the copier paper and a nearby pen. Tsk tsk, lets see she needed to estimate the weight of the dragons, the building, the air speed, how fast the dragons could dodge, her own speed. She quickly began to write down equations and a few free scale models. Yes that would work as long as the dragons were close together. She nodded to herself as she finished the math, from behind her a floating eyeball appeared.

"There check the math and did I forget anything?" Neena asked as the eyeball stared at the paper.

"You forgot gravity," the eyeball replied.

"Oh yeah, let me just add that in, okay, I think this is a pretty good plan," Neena said and the eyeball seemed to nod. "Well wish me luck," Neena said before taking off through the building. She ran down several levels, checking out the window she waited for the dragons to be in position. Then she sprinted to the main beam of the building.

She was breathing a little heavily, her ribs ached with each breath. She steadied herself and fired an acid beam at the beam and the surrounding walls around the building, weakening it. She then took off out the window and positioned herself beside the building. Now for the final push, her eyes flickered again, this time a laser beam streamed out of her eyes slamming into the building. The building groaned and began to topple over, hopefully if her math and calculations were correct the building to topple over on the dragons taking them to the ground and crushing them under the rumble.

Hospitaller smote at the icy prison, bashing and crashing at the ice.  Being in here wasn't good.  Instinct screamed about being trapped.  Duty and training told him there could be people needing healing.  His radio, helpfully enough, told him there was air support on the way.  In any case, golden beams of solid light struck out, chipping at the frozen water and cracking the chilling prison.  Eventually, the whole thing shattered.  

Even before the ringing of shattered ice had fully reached its crescendo, he heard a distant shriek, which reminded him of the sound of a metahuman he'd worked with once.  She'd been able to turn herself into something like a living plasma bolt, and when she moved she made a noise rather like the one Hospitaller was hearing.  

Then, there was a rumble.  

Martin turned towards the noise.  A massive skyscraper was coming down towards the battlefield, groaning and straining with structural distress like a mighty glacier made of concrete, steel, glass and gravity-derived killing.   A dragon was latched to its side, but this detail paled in comparison with the fact that the entire building was about to come down.  

There weren't moments to act.  

There weren't even seconds.  

There was no time to think.  

So, Hospitaller didn't.  There was nowhere to go, not with the time left, so he made somewhere.  A round metal plate set into the street sufficed.  A smiting blast dislodged the iron circle and he jumped in, grabbing at Zedekiah as he went, plunging into the dank, dark, and hopefully safe sewers.  

Far above, a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II close-support anti-armor warplane, in cooperation with the US army, designated Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and boasting nose art declaring it the Tank Muncher, zoomed in on the vector given by the recon spotters on the ground.  

The pilot was frustrated, his comrades in more fragile helicopters had been hammered by flying beasts, harrying them and forcing the few Warthogs on station in the area to play at air superiority, shredding fleshy wings with their autocannons.  Tank Muncher's pilot, on the other hand, had no aspirations of being a fighter jockey.  He liked straightforward slugging matches with ground targets, none of this dancing with ice bat nonsense.  

With this in mind, it was with some surprise that Tank Muncher watched as a building he was approaching collapsed into the middle of Tampa, and he altered his trajectory, zeroing in on the disturbance's location like an ungainly airborne shark.  

It seemed that Zedekiah's arrows were making some progress. The monstrous Karah was gathering some kind of energy at Roseria's request, but before she could use it the energy backfired. Zedekiah assumed that it was the pain of his arrows breaking the demon's concentration that caused her attack to fail, but regardless of the reason Zedekiah was glad it happened. He didn't know what Karah was going to do with the energy, but he doubted it would have been good for him. Roseria was initially worried about Karah's well-being, but her worry soon turned to rage as she noticed the Hospitaller giving her witches a hard time. She swiftly coordinated with her hydrokinetic witch, using their mixture of water and ice to encase the Hospitaller in a frozen tomb.

After putting the Hospitaller temporarily out of commission, Roseria curiously gave herself a cut on her hand, drawing blood. Zedekiah watched in fascination, wondering what she was up to. She summoned some sort of mirror in a pillar of water, and as she touched the pillar Zedekiah realized that this must have been a ritual. The blood should have been a dead giveaway, summoning contracts commonly required a blood price from the summoner. The pillar of water turned blood red before freezing over, and then it began to glow like some kind of beacon. Another dragon appeared, seemingly called by the light, and then the icy structure shattered. Zedekiah felt the ground shake, and knew that whatever it was that Roseria had called, it was big.

The dragons seemed to finally notice Zedekiah at this point, because one of them targeted him with a blast of freezing breath. The beam hit in front of Zedekiah first, but then began to make it's way toward Zedekiah's position. Running away probably wasn't an option, but before he could consider some alternatives all hell broke loose. The sound of screaming metal and breaking glass filled Zedekiah's ears, and he looked up to see the building that held the dragons begin to topple over. There was no way Zedekiah could get out of the way in time, and he doubted that even his voidsteel armor would hold up to being crushed by such a massive burden. Zedekiah was resigned to at least be gravely injured, but luckily for him Hospitaller had other plans in mind. The soldier had escaped from his icy prison, and in the confusion of the falling building he thought quickly. Zedekiah was jerked to the side and dragged into a blasted-open manhole.

The sounds of destruction above became muffled, but strangely echoed through the dark tunnels of the sewer. The air was cold and damp, and it smelled like a gas station bathroom. These conditions didn't bother Zedekiah, however. He had experienced worse, and he was thankfully alive. "Good Job." He told Hospitaller in thanks. "It's a mess up there. Any ideas?" Zedekiah was honestly at a loss. Things gotten way out of hand, and his head was throbbing. Any more of this damned war could prove too much for him.

A building toppled over atop the dragons but not for long.  They blasted a large beam into the middle of the building then burrowed themselves through the building.  Roseria sat their with her giant blue jungle cats as a rush of smoke engulfed them.  The witches were now by her side and were sitting there.

"I stopped the cloud because he asked and he was going to help me...but instead he tried to kill you."

She said as the clouds rushed in and the snow ran down like a raging blizzard.  Snowmen sprouted from all over as planes and helicopters flew nearby.  The harpi8es began to shoot feathers and attack ferociously as they felt the anger from their leader.  Karah stumbled up then shook of the pain before rushing to the aid of the dragons.  The priestess were now letting pillars rain everywhere as well as sprout from the floor and erupted into the sky.

Explosions rained as the creatures began to fight back.  The giant cats roared and spewed balls of ice into the air as they ran to attack the ground troops.  Their cryo temperature froze everything they ran past.  They spewed out spheres of energy and froze everything in place before shattering it.

"Time to destroy the traitors."  Roseria cooed as she walked towards the sewers.  Roseria froze over the opening and the surrounding area then heran slammed into the ground with her fists then it collapsed and the four were standing in the sewer.

The two dragons erupted from the now top of the building as karah joined them.  They all looked at one another then they looked into the sky and began to search for the target in the sky.  Karah decided to call some of the harpies to aid.  They rushed in and began to search along side the three monstrous beings.

Martin did indeed have a few ideas.  Sewers, by dint of being underground, were resistant to having buildings dropped on them.  They also extended under much of the city.  So, getting out should have been just as simple as going a few manholes over and popping back out.  He was about to say as much to Zedekiah when ice blasted inwards not too far along the tunnel, depositing the four from earlier into the sewer.  

With that, all other concerns flew out the window.  Hospitaller's eyes hardened as the three objects of his ire came into view.  He moved his ally behind him.  He didn't want friendly fire to be a concern.  There was nowhere to go in this tunnel, nowhere to take cover, and precious little maneuvering room.  He took two strides forward, putting himself at a few yards from the murderers and their leader.  Then he paused.  Before, when he'd first met this group he had been relatively calm and collected.  Business came first, and it was his business to heal, not speak.  Now however, adrenalin and fury prevailed beneath a tranquil facade, so he spoke.  

"We were not properly introduced.  I am Martin Valette, but the media calls me The Hospitaller.  It is a misnomer, but accurate.  I am indeed a Hospitaller, but not the only one.  Do you know what being a Hospitaller means?"

He didn't wait for an answer, instead raising his left hand to waist height, the glow it held crackling with building golden power, and continuing his monologue.  

"It means I am an affiliate of an ancient order of warrior monks, of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta."  

"That means little nowadays, so I'll add context.  During the crusades, there were knights of the temple.  The Templars, their role was to safeguard holy artifacts.  There were also knights of the hospital.  They did not just safeguard the hospital though.  The monks also worked it, as healers."  

"My gifts also follow that pattern.  I felt they were a good fit.  The order, which still exists, accepted me.   They are not warriors any more though.  They operate hospitals, often where no-one else will go.  As I joined them, that is what I did.  I became a healer, and it appealed to me."  

"I prefer to save lives, I never like losing them.  Sometimes I can save a few, sometimes I lose them.  But I always try.  No matter the creed or allegiance."  

He pointed a finger, his right hand acting accuser.  

"I saved those three.  I worked quickly, minimally, so that I could save as many as possible.  I would have come back once I was sure I had saved as many as I could.  None of them would have had a scratch left on them.  How did they repay me?  By taking the lives of those I sought to save.  Two men, also victims of the explosion.  Killed right before my hands.  I cannot judge them, it is not my place.  But they will stand trial before those that can, or I shall revive an old tradition of the order,"

His right hand mirrored the left, the both holding growing globes of crackling golden energy, ready to be released at his command, the hum of power punctuating his words, even as a trace of a french-sounding quebec accent crept into his voice.  

"by, as you Americans say, beating the sheet out of you."



Tank Muncher was having a very bad day.  There were bird-things all over the place in his airspace, and although his Avenger autocannon revved loud and clear, reaping the harvest of feathers like a lead scythe, the feathers were in turn giving his plane a beating.  

One of the creatures dodged too slowly, and got sucked into an engine.  The whole plane shuddered as the device started coughing, giving a short series of sputters before finally dying.  

Tank Muncher shook his head.  That was not good.  He could keep flying with minimal loss of maneuverability, but there was now only one engine pulling his very heavy hunk of metal through the air.  So, he turned around at the first opportunity and started limping back to base.  

"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot calling in.  I've lost an engine, get a new one prepped for installing, I've still got a full missile load and I want to find something to put the hurt o-"  

That was when he saw them, two reptiles and a weird centipede thing.  Now there was a target.  

"Scratch that tower, sighted a target of opportunity.  Locking special load now.  Here's hoping the brain boys modified these seekers properly."

Targeting computers beeped and whirred, and a small reticule popped up on each of the targets.  Tank Muncher smirked.  

Time to bite back.