From the Ashes. . .

[PslyderFTA]

It wasn't until one of the consoles showed a lighter area that he noticed, but he whirled around with nearly inhuman speed, hands darting inside his jacket to whip out a matched pair of very big pistols, which just as quickly aimed for the ceiling once he realized who stood behind him.

"Fraggin' spirits, girl!" The breath whooshed out of him as he reholstered his pistols. "Warn a fella nex' time y'wanna see his Batcave, willya?"

He didn't want her to know how fast his heart was going, and how much he was telling his body that this wasn't an attack, and he didn't need all that adrenaline, thankyouverymuch.

[Shard]

What she didn't expect was for him to pull guns on her.

So she dropped into a crouch, reaching into her pouch, and pulling out two rods, with an inhuman speed that nearly matched his.

Both had crystals on the end, with light, flickering like a fire. They filled room with a bright red glow.

Her eyes glowed faintly as watched him, but she broke into a smile, and sat, laying the two rods across her lap.


"Sorry..."

[PslyderFTA]

Psly held his breath while watching the two rods and their less than vague imitation of fire, not wanting to become tonight's special of BBQ elf, and smiled wearily when she dismissed her aggressive post.

"Now then. . .should Ah be askin' whaht yer doin' in heah, or we jus' gon' get down t'y'wantin' t'help out?"

[Shard]

"I'm here because... well, I was curious. And help out with what exactly?"

She paused a moment, and then began digging through her pouch, extracting two books. She offered them to Psly.

"This is what I've been doing since I got thrown into Rhydin. You might find it a bit interesting."

[PslyderFTA]

He reached for the books when a piercing alarm sounded from the console behind him.

Spinning in his chair, he stabbed the mute button with his finger, his face full of dread and dispair.

"Aw drek. . ."

Quickly scanning over the myriad screens in front of him until he found the one he needed, and a few seconds of looking told him all he needed to know.

"Yeah, m'dear," he said to Shard behind him, "Ah'm real sure them'll help, jus' not right now. Ain' time fer readin' no mo'."

Several swift keystrokes later started up a process deep within the underground complex. Robotic arms moved and grasped, held and welded, while a sleek form grew steadily under their meticulous and precise movements.

Borrowed from an old design for a dear friend, and modified for the larger frames of both Psly and his new weapon, the new motorcycle didn't employ the variable color scheme of the original. That would have taken too much time to implement, and this was an emergency. The new weapon was loaded on board, along with a full storage compartment of ammunition, slightly glowing with its own light before the small door was closed upon it.

Psly turned back around to face Shard. "Ah gotta go. If'n y'wanna stay heah, feel free. Ah know y'c'n handle y'self inna fight, but Ah'm gon' be boltin' outta heah fas'." He seemed to be stumbling over his next words.

Then, as the chair he sat in began to decend with increasing speed into his complex, he finally looked up.

"Love ya, toots."

[PslyderFTA]

Rocketing from the emergency launch tube a mile out of town, the black motorcycle's engine shrieked like a bane-sidhe as it arced through the air, landing with a heavy whump and cloud of dust, increasing in speed as Psly gunned the throttle. Airborne telemetry indicated more than one dracoform circling the new construction project.

Now, Psly knew Cory worked there, and while there was no love lost between the two men, Psly couldn't just let innocent townsfolk perish without doing something about it.

So, here he was, going out to do something about it.

He was going out to take on not one dragon, but a whole slew of them.

When all this was over, he was definitely looking in to psychiatric help.

((Cross Posted in Emerald Isle))

[Shard]

Shard had less than a minute to decide what to do.

After Psly dropped down the tube, and left her mouth hanging open in shock, she looked around, locating a stairway that led down into the lower levels.

She took it at a running pace, leaping to the bottom, and looking around, just as she heard a long whine, and a huge rush of air... She had to grab ahold of the banister just to keep her feet.

To her left, she saw the construction facility, and the entrance to the mass driver that propelled Psly out into the night air.

To her right, she found what she was looking for. "Storage."

She stepped up to the glass enclosure, and panels slid back into the wall, allowing her access to Psly's storehouse of bikes, scooters, and other nifty stuff.

She didn't have time to really look around, but she picked the biggest bike she could find, one that took two claw hooks to hold the thing up by its rear tire. She walked over to the nearest one, and studied the set up. A big button was placed next to each bike. She hit one, and one of the large bikes was lowered to the storage facility's floor.

Shard didn't have any time to waste, so she pushed the bike over to the hangar pad in front of the mass driver.

Shard lowered herself into the bike, taking a moment to orient herself to the controls.

"Ok... this should be easy, right? Where's the go button?"

Glancing to her right, she noticed a small panel, with three buttons, "Charge", "Go", "Abort".

Shard looked at the control panel of the bike, and hit the start button. The engine roared to life. She harnessed herself in, then looked over at the panel again, and hit "Charge".

The high pitched whine started again.

"Here we go..."

She hit the "Go" button.

She pulled her arm back in, as a soft glow started emanating around her. She gripped the handlebars to the bike, articulated spikes clenching onto the frame, as the floor seemed to drop out from under her.

Shard was thrown back into her seat, a thin scream coming from her lips, as she passed through the tunnel at an ever increasing rate of speed.

All too soon, the end of the tunnel appeared...

"Ooohhhh ddddreeeekkkkk!"

And into the night air she went.

((Cross posted in the Emerald Isle))

[PslyderFTA]

Oblivious to the development behind him, Psly redlined the engine heading for the city proper. A prearranged signal cleared the gate as he shot through it in a blur, one eye on the road, the other on the telemetry screen in front of him displaying the circling forms around the construction site.

Weaving through the streets as he neared the river, he considered his plans. Unfortunately, the construction tower was the tallest building in the immediate area. He needed to be somewhere higher.

An upended trailer provided resolution to a sudden dead-end street problem, catapulting the bike into another high ballistic arc over the river, providing the elf with a wonderful but macabre view of the desolation. Halfway over the river, an idea dawned upon him.

A couple of pistol potshots sent in the general direction of the dragon battle was all he had time for before gravity reasserted herself and he had to retain control of the speeding vehicle. But he had a destination in mind once more.

For almost nothing in Rhy'Din City proper was taller than the bluffs on the northern edge. . .

((Cross posted in Emerald Isle: The Priest))

[The Watcher in the Dark]

Data flew towards the central processing node from sources disguised as myriad small birds in the forest and surrounding the countryside, highlighting the forms of the fighting dragons and saurians along with the incoming motorcycles. Guards in the gatehouses opened the gates with the reception of preprogrammed signals. The same guards kept the gates open for the second speeding form, unable to be confused per se, but reporting the information as always.

It was up to the meat to analyze the data to find the important bits.

[Shard]

She hit the ground, bouncing twice, than twisted the throttle as far as it would go. The recoil was more than when she shot out of the mass driver, pressing her against the seat...


"Hooooollllyyyy......"

She noticed that the bike was helping to steer itself, and allowed herself a sigh of relief.

Shard looked at the computer touchscreen in front of her. She hit the navigation bar, and noticed an option for "Tracking".

Shard hit it.

On the screen, she saw several lights, but only one of them was blinking...

"That's got to be him......"

So, using his own tracking device, she started to follow him.

((Cross posted on Emerald Isle: The Priest))

[PslyderFTA]

Psly gunned the throttle even as he landed, leaving an incredibly long stretch of scorched earth and rubber behind him as he tore through the Old Market district, his passage churning up the detrius of the streets in a frenzied wake behind him.

It wouldn't be long now before he could take the fight to the dragon.

And somewhere, in the back of his mind, the elf began running through a list of competent psychiatrists, just in case he came through this in one piece.

[PslyderFTA]

The sudden roar surprised him. Psly didn't think he'd come anywhere near hitting either dragon, but apparently, luck landed on him like he'd landed on that patch of dry road before. . .

But navigating the twisting turns of the path up the bluffs was no easy task, and he bent all his concentration towards it.

Finally, he'd judged himself high enough and slewed the motorcycle to a halt, engaging the recoil pylons once its motion ceased and extending the weapon from its compartment along the bike.

Like a good deal of his creations, the rifle was sleek, but in its own way, highly threatening. Snaking a cord from the rounded box atop the weapon, he winced as he inserted the plug into the receptacle behind his ear, engaging the sighting program.

Then he braced himself and lined up for the shot, attempting to calm his breathing as he looked through the enhanced optics at the battling dragons.

The only thought he had then was, which one to take down first?

[Shard]

His trail took her to an upended trailer, and a small crowd of people, cursing, as they tried to upright it. Just in time to hear the sound of concentrated pistol fire. And roaring.

"Damn....."

She drove around, studying the map, and located the nearest bridge, and gunned it.

She glanced up at the sky, once, and was greeted by the sight of dragons... in air... flying...

Dragons?

"This CAN'T be good...."

Looking up from the moniter, she saw a bouncing headlight heading up the bluffs at high speed.

She gunned it, a worried frown marring her delicate features.

Her frown only increased when she saw the headlight stop.

[PslyderFTA]

Psly stood a little straighter, watching the scene in the distance unfold with an almost unbelieving stare.

Then, as neurons in his brain fired in sequence to bring the rifle back to firing position for a shot at the other dragon, something quite unexpected happened.

The body of the blue dragon, impacting loudly with the cobblestone street, flared incandescently, converting immediately to what appeared to be lightning. Psly did not have time to ponder this development, however for there was a minor complication. The orichalum present in the bullet that took the creature down and the same metal present in the gun bridged a mystical connection. . .and the gun was connected in a much more physical way with Psly's brain, via the datajack. . .

The bolt slammed into the rifle, bike, and Psly at . . .well. . .lightning speed, catapulting the hapless elf into the distance as it reduced the motorcycle and weapon to so much carbonized slag on the mountainside.

The funniest part he would recollect later was how odd it felt to believe that the bolt was just as surprised of this development as he was.

Psly's more immediate concern?

How does one land safely in Battlefield Park?

When one is unconscious. . .

[Shard]

She had slowed down, in preparation to head up the bluffs, when the explosion happened. A lightning bolt seemed to hit the place where Psly and his bike stood. Shard watched in horror as the bike exploded. She covered her eyes a moment against the glare, but quickly looked up again,
her natural night vision adjusting in time to see what appeared to be Psly becoming a shooting star.... into Battlefield Park.

Stopping the bike, she unharness herself, and took off at a dead run. Dodging trees at a good 30 miles per hour, she tracked Psly’s falling form, until it hit the trees.

She found him as fast as she could, his body laying practically curled around a tree, where he had landed. She knelt beside him, turning him over. The pixies on her chest ran about her flesh in a furor, crying, and tearing at their hair.

“Psly! Answer me! Please!”

He groaned, eyes flickering.

“Dammit!”

She examined him for cursory injuries, making sure that nothing major was broken, before lifting him easily, and slinging him over one shoulder. She started to run again, this time back into town, and towards Psly’s garage.

She burst through the garage door, and ran up the stairs, towards Psly’s bedroom, tripping over dirty clothes, and other assorted piled objects. She laid him carefully on his bed, and made for the bathroom, knocking everything out of his medicine cabinet as she looked for any sort of first aid kit. She found some grubby towels, and wet them down, and headed back into the bedroom.

Shard started to tenderly clean Psly up, dabbing at the blood to get a true indication of his wounds. As she was tending to a scratch behind his ear, she noticed that the area around his data jack was scorched.

Not good.