"I'm not to worried about it, anyway, lets do this. I could use the room to 'stretch out' anyway"
"Good, thank you. Ok, so, Zaheer, will you please..." John turned to the ascended mage, only to see that he had walked away and was currently looking through a window.
"HEY!" John yelled at him, "We need you! Hello?"
It was scary how stiff Zaheer was, just staring out the window. Maybe he was angry at being dragged by a mere mage? Who knows.
"Alright," John said, "Anyone, ELSE on this plane capable of reliably teleporting a dragon both out of and back INTO a plane?"
John looked around, only to meet inhumanly large grin of Fromanzio.
Fromanzio cackled as it seemed he was the only one willing to help. Richard was seeming the strict non-interventionalist, though also not the kind of person Fromanzio liked. Had Richard not been an ascended, Fromanzio would have screwed all of the rules and leaped on him. Right now though, he would wait and hope for a time to inflict a bit of pain back at the self-righteous Ascended freak.
Carefully floating up and stretching his arms, Fromanzio suddenly moved in very close to John saying "Ohhhh, the human needs Fromanzio's help now since Master is preoccupied?" He teleported to the side of John, leaning on the magus's shoulder. "Fromanzio can help iffffff..." Fromanzio teleported between Lucia and John and said in a high pitched and yelly voice "She asks nicely!"
He laughed knowing how hard it would be for Lucia to do that. Although, the prospect of seeing what kind of dragon she had become was almost enticing enough for Fromanzio to just let her out on his own. From the sounds of it, the Lich was a lot more fun to be around and Fromanzio would get a lot more fights that way. Shame the creature failed to gather him earlier.
"Anyone, ELSE on this plane capable of reliably teleporting a dragon both out of and back INTO a plane?"John asked only to be met by Fromanzio's grinning face
"Fromanzio can help iffffff...She asks nicely!"
Lucia sighed "I suppose ...." shooting John a 'you owe me' look "Fromanzio, will you kindly teleport me outside the aircraft?" she asked even smiling, her tone was equally 'friendly' even if it was a lie
John's eyes were twitching, a hand right on the holster for his gun while the other was holding both his knife and the cross, mind racing through every spell he knew, trying to find one that would inflict as much pain as possible on that demon. Anyone who looked at John would see utter hatred for what the creature did to him.
It took every ounce of John's will power to not kill (or try, at very least) that horrid jester, but John didn't move or say a word. As much that John loathed the thought, right now he needed this demon.
"Fromanzio, will you kindly teleport me outside the aircraft?"
Fromanzio laughed maniacally as he grabbed Lucia's arm. His voice echoed through the plane even after he had been absent for a few seconds, having teleported out with Lucia. The plane was away from the two fairly quickly and Fromanzio yelled "Alright, let's see what you can do dragon lady!"
Lucia smirked, crossed her arms and let her self free fall through the clouds, purely for dramatic effect. As she passed through the clouds she dropped her human disguise, returning to her true, and more 'magnificent' form, that of an adult Platinum Dragon.
She burst back through the clouds and hovered a moment in front of Fromanzio, the Eather Vents the dot her body glowing in the night like the lights on a plane "I remember you being ... bigger ... in my Dragon form"
Lucia's dragon for stands 30 feet at the shoulder, and roughly 90 feet long. the majority of her body is covered in a fine scale the looks more like skin, with thicker plate like scales on her back she has a total of six horns, two small ones on her lower jaw, these are short and look more like spikes, while the other four sit a top her head, one set going straight back of her head, while the other, much shorter pair, curve out and away from her head.
Looking back through the storm clouds over the ocean, Lucius could have sworn he saw another speck appearing just underneath the ever-smaller speck that was the aeroplane. "what the..." he thought, as it dawned on him that this could quite easily be someone coming back for him. Or more likely for the creature. Clearly, evasion was the order of the day, as quite a few of the... things on that plane could even have almost have matched Lucius in combat. He glanced down at the creature, and shouted, over the gale,
"We'll finish this later", Lucius quieted down, and muttered a few quick incantations - "Centum Formus... Volitus... Versantus".
It took a lot of concentration without the standard gestures, but within seconds of noticing the newer speck, an observer would see 100 identical liches, all dangling equally identical creatures from cables, flickering and racing through the stormclouds above the atlantic, darting among each other in all directions.
Lucia shook her head, and darted after the closest clone and just flew beside it "Jumpy aren't you? I already know I'm talking into to one of the fakes, but what I want to know is can the real one hear me? I wish to talk, not play hide and seek" She said, then waited for a reply, assuming she was guessing right and the real one can hear her
"Where did you see Arzhela? How did she contact you? You've got about 2 minutes before you drop out of these cables, now ANSWER MY FUCKING QUESTIONS!!" the Lich called out, getting angry. One of the wires slithered down the the doppelganger's side, moving toward its neck, squeezing and making it harder to breath, much less speak - why did the Lich hate him so? "And you may as well tell me your damned name, when you finally decide to fucking answer!!" he finished. The Lich looked away, distracted, then made innumerable copies of itself.
Finally, with the Lich distracted, the cord loosened enough that it could speak. "For my name; I don't have one. Doppelganger's names are who they look like. Right now-" it said, opening its arms to try and indicate itself "-I'm me... that's it." it said, answering another of the Lichs questions as best it could; explaining doppelganger naming was hardly easy.
it then continued, to answer the earlier questions. "She contacted me how most do: through a a go-between; an old friend o mine with a clean report. I don't know how she'd heard of me, but she had. She wanted me to do a job, and offered to pay with the tattoo. I only meet her once; when she gave me the mark." it said, trying to explain that hiring and assassin was hardly a job people liked to involve themselves in personally. "She had me kill the old vampire woman; back in New York and take her place so I could watch the old man. She, Arzhela, seemed to think someone in New York was out to get her." it said, trying to finish his explanation.
"As for where I met her-" it said, looking up. "-that's where I'm based out of. Car-" he started to say, before something strange happened; it started screaming. Its screams were torturous, labored, and deep, as though the creature were being torn limb from limb by some unknown force. As it did, the tattoo glowed a bright red, and its magic expanded greatly. A moment later, the monster went deadly silent; the tattoo still glowing a deep, crimson red.
Then, in perfect, proper, queen's English, the monster spoke. "Good day, Imperious. It has been some time." The voice was feminine yet to Imperious it was as cold as ice. The creature began to transform slowly, the tattoo still glowing.
Twisting in place, she pushed the metal wires away from her the way only a Lich (or a creature pretending to be one). The magical Tattoo glowed a little brighter and the wires twisted into a much more convenient shape; a much more royal appearing throne. Smiling cruelly, 'Arzhela' said. "Surprised to see me?"
For the image, there is no staff - if c_westerman13 posts a better picture later, assume that's the real version of the Lich.
Imperious (or any other mage) can tell that the tattoo is channeling her magic to control the doppelganger and to cast spells; it isn't actually her.
John watched as Lucia quickly transformed into a dragon. He actually had never seen a living dragon before, only photos of one and a piece of a Silver Dragon that had been shot down over New Mexico. It was actually beautiful to see her fly.
John went back to his seat to get as wide of a view as possible.
"Aquila Oculus," John said to increase the range of his vision, then pulled out some binoculars to increase his vision range further. He saw a rather blurry image of two humanish shapes moving around ("@!#*ing airplane windows"). As he watched, with horror, there were dozens of these things, either some kind of cloning spell or illusions.
Then, all the illusions started to convulse at the bottom, was the dropple... thing changing? The thing detached itself from the "line" that it was tied to the Lich with.
"What is going on out there?" John said as the plane continued it's turn.
Before Lucia could let enough time pass to get a reply, she caught a bright red light out of the corner of her eye and stopped to look, then broke off from the fake towards the light.
"Surprised to see me?" Lucia heard as she got close enough to hear them, she stayed with in ear shot, and also kept her self between the Litches and the plane, circling around them in the same slow arc, though this was not intentional
Lucius pondered the question for a second. Technically, he decided, he was surprise to see her *here*, but he had entirely expected to see her somewhere, sometime soon. In the back of his mind, of course, he knew this wasn't the real Arzhela, but it was still way closer than he'd wanted anytime soon. That being said, it gave him an opportunity too.
"A little surprised you'd appear here of all places - nice use of the Tattoo, though", Lucius paused for a second, "What did the vampire do to piss you off then, sweetie". Anyone with even an iota of knowledge of linguistics would have *felt* the sarcasm dripping off the sweetie. At this point, what appeared to be a... fuck, a Dragon, flew up to one of his illusions,
"Jumpy aren't you? I already know I'm talking into to one of the fakes, but what I want to know is can the real one hear me? I wish to talk, not play hide and seek"
Well this was... interesting. The dragon was a good few hundred meters away, but Lucius' magically enhanced voice would reach with no problem.
"Well, I can hear you. But fuck, Ascended, Vampires, Fey, and a fucking Dragon! This is one hell of a flight", Lucius glanced back at the fake Arzhela for a second, before looking back to the Dragon, "I'm a little busy to talk, what do you want?"
"Well, I can hear you. But fuck, Ascended, Vampires, Fey, and a fucking Dragon! This is one hell of a flight", he went silent for amoment "I'm a little busy to talk, what do you want?"
Lucia giggles at the first comment "I know right? Are Flights always this ... Interesting? Anyway, since I'm the only one on the plane that can catch up to it, John has asked me to recover you and the doppelganger, also, look to your left" Lucia waved at him, now considerably closer, just by a different clone "I assume your lady friend is the reason for your rather rash actions on the plane?"
"I assume your lady friend is the reason for your rather rash actions on the plane?"
Lucius frowned a little at the lack of seriousness the Dragon was showing, before replying.
"I wouldn't know - I usually fly by my own powers - I was only on the damned plane to see Crim", Lucius turned back to the rival Lich's image, and muttered another small Latin incantation - "Murus Igna Pila" - causing a sphere of fire to materialise around Arzhela, then looked back to the Dragon, "And yes, I was looking for her, and needed to talk to the creature alone. What's your move now?"
"A little surprised you'd appear here of all places - nice use of the Tattoo, though" Lucius said, then paused for a moment before adding "What did the vampire do to piss you off then, sweetie." Then he was off to some other topic, looking at a dragon circling their little meeting. Arzhela continued to smile; almost like a mother would at a child, though inside she was particularly annoyed at the Lich. It had been centuries since that had last spoken in person - so to speak - and to be upstaged by the dragon was a touch annoying; she suspected that was part of Imperious's ploy however, so she ignored it.
Up until he cast the sphere of flames around her. Muttering a phrase beneath her breath, she dismissed the flames. "I never knew you were so interested in Dragons; is this a new hobby of yours then, Lucius old friend?" she added showing off her cruel smile once more, her teeth jagged and bared. "But tell me Lucius, why should I tell you my reasons for dealing with the simple vampire lord; what's in it for me?" she finished, her smile now leaning toward lopsided, a display of utter contempt.
Lucia looked around the two Litches, she didn't see the Doppelganger."No idea. All I was sent for was you and the Doppelganger, which I don't see, your friend showing up kinda puts a kibosh on all that." Lucia thought for a few moments. "You have fun with your girlfriend" she said, looking around for the the plane, finding it behind her, then took off toward it.
Lucia cruised along side it looking for John, after finding him, she relayed a message in Morse Code using the Eather Vents on her neck.
'one target MIA, second target speaking to a female Litch'
Almost chucking as 'Arzhela' almost instantly dismissed the wall of fire, Lucius pondered his next move. Angrily, he yelled in Latin - "CISTAM ICTUS!" - As he swiped a hand across in front of himself, aiming to slice into the fake lich's abdomen.
"I've no standing interest in Dragons, honey, you should remember that", Lucius' rage began to flare again, "Though a platinum always shows potential, does it not?"
Lucius span in the air, thrusting his hands forwards as not-Arzhela came back into view - "Trabem Lux", he muttered, firing a powerful light beam to envelop his adversary.
John saw Lucia fly up to the plane and started to open her vents. For a few second he had no idea what she was doing, but then figured out she was speaking in Morse code ("How does a dragon who hasn't been on this planet in decades still remember morse code?", thankfully she repeated the message.
"one target MIA, second target speaking to a female Lich"
John grabbed a flashlight, and started to relay a message back, hoping his code is still up to snuff.
"MIA target is the other Lich, saw it transform. Most likely some kind of forced transformation via a curse if the creature spilled the beans. I doubt the creature is still "alive." Still, try to defeat it, and bring back both Liches, dead or undead. He still has information and we can still get info from a corpse."
Richard closed his eyes and used his abilities to scry the battle. "Hm." opening them again he walked up to Terra and hugged her tightly "Be back in a minute, Love." Looking over to the FBI guy "Seems like it's getting rather out of hand over there. I'm gonna go try to see if I can help the Dragon."
"Seems like it's getting rather out of hand over there. I'm gonna go try to see if I can help the Dragon."
"Thank you," John said as he turned to Richard, "The Droppogang... dropplo... grey creature has turned into another Lich, and it looks like a fight is breaking out. I rather have at least one of them alive to question, although I doubt the new one is going to be very co-operative. I am going to see if I can assist from the plane."
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
