Coop heard a distant yell, and then the weight was suddenly lifted away from his back. He jerked in surprise—for a moment he thought that the box had slipped, or the chain had broken, or some other unspeakable disaster, but the box's presence persisted on his back. He risked a glance backward for a moment, and saw the silhouette of the gryphon above him.

Below them, the sea rolled past in huge, drifting swells. Foam was scraped off the tops of the waves be the wind, and whipped into a frenzy.

"We… have to get lower!" he yelled, through shortness of breath and tremendous wind. He angled his wings down towards the water, hoping that the gryphon would notice the move's intentionality.

The safety-orange paint was charred. Seven had tried to escape, but all his efforts did was get him kind of pointlessly off-center of the impact. When the ball of plasma hit, the resultant burst of hot air violently launched him in a twirl of awkward, flailing limbs, scalded, shocked, and bruised, stacking more injury and insult right where there was already insult and injury in spades.

He only barely managed to get back on his feet for a couple seconds before, in his scrambling haste, he fell painfully on his back again—albeit with his SMG in hand this time.

Bullets sprayed maniacally—uselessly. An entire magazine rattled off at Jam's shield with no perceivable effect as he scrambled, and scooted, and struggled even without being attacked, all in the throes of panic. He had lost all control of the situation for the first time.

What must have been going through his mind? What kind of things did a little monster like him think, anyway? Surely there must have been the dread that he was about to be hoisted by his own petard, and made vapor in seconds. Then there was the pain, the likes of which he was completely unprepared for. And, there was the complete shattering of his ego, and the realization that there were consequences for things.

Whether by intention or mistake, he was nearing the edge of the platform. It couldn't go on much longer.

[Double post yesss.]

The fire soldier—tough as it was, was no match for being skewered by a grappling hook.

It bounced across the pavement, with the hook sunk into its side. Bombarded by Ace's first barrage of cards, it arched its back and thrashed around, trying to rid itself of the increasingly painful collection of things piercing its skin.

With one final twitch, it stopped moving. Residual flames that were rippling across its body flickered, and then went out, extinguished by the rain.

As the rain cooled the suit, it began to settle, revealing how truly emaciated the creatures were. The stick-thin body of the thing could now be seen, without the fire or the suit getting in the way, and its ribs jutted out under its skin like the keys of a xylophone wrapped in wet kleenex.

Rain water poured off of it—an oddly great amount for the amount of rain that was actually falling. Even though the rain was torrential, the amount of water cascading pooling around the soldier grew very deep, very fast. Perhaps it was just a dent in the pavement, and nature was getting back at the flaming soldier that had burned in defiance of the laws of physics.

The suit continued to settle. The thing's ribs seemed to stick out very much, now. The material of the suit sank in, and down, and down, and down, until it became obvious that something horribly wrong was going on. There were holes in the skin of creature, and that was where all the water was coming from. At least, it looked like water.

The skin of the thing peeled away, and a rush of liquid spilled out onto the pavement. Seemingly absent of internal organs, the creature's torso was a hollow, paper-mache cavity out of which gushed fluids of now unnerving colours. The ribs of the creature bent, and then crumpled, and then melted into a white, chalky slime that swirled in the gushing torrent that ran out of the body of the soldier, onto the pavement.

Then the soldier was gone, leaving behind nothing but an empty helmet; a charred, torn suit; and a sickly whiff of steam, as the rain swirled out the remains and washed the melted asphalt clean.

[]micropost[]

The larger birds words where all but lost to her in the roar of what was going on around them. But when the huge form shifted to change their angle Jack followed suit. The closer they grew to the water the more intense the spray and the more difficult it became to fly. But when carrying explosives focus doesn't seem to be lacking.

The fennec fox huffed with slight agitation, but was somewhat relieved upon witness the, uh... apparently melting of the fire-based super soldier. As Badge started to sift around for the emerald, Vito stood up and turned to the officer that had been watching his back the whole time during the ordeal. The rain was picking up by the minute, and by now, his colourful arsenal was probably finished off by the downpour. A raincoat can only do so much, after all.

"Heeey, Laramie...! You let Vince know that the rock's history -- lost it in the heat of battle or whatever. I've got more important things to tend to than chase after things like this... He forgets I got stuff to do, too..!"

The ferret stared blankly for a moment before he finally replied. "Well, uh... He did say he wanted to talk to you about... y'know, what he's thinking about right now..."

Vito sputtered. The weather wasn't getting any better, and he despised the fact that he was only going to get wetter standing around like an idiot. "Bah, right. Fine! You tell him I'll be getting on his case later for my payment, and... for his 'discussion'. I can't take this anymore, I'm going back to the casino to spend the next three days drying off. On -his- nice carpet." The fennec shoved the officer aside, before dashing away, vanishing into the night's downpour.


Basil, meanwhile, cautiously crept over to Badge's position, to examine the mess of the once-soldier lying on the ground. He appeared as though he wished to say something, but the prior display had apparently left him a mite... speechless. Deciding to leave the costumed hero to his devices (as he had appeared quite well, anyway), Jacques resumed his rounds of checking upon those who were still standing.

He started chewing on another candy cane, holding on to his hat as he gazed upwards towards the top of the tower. Even if the mess down on the ground floor had been tended to, there was certainly a situation still thriving up above...

Whether it was all over or not, it was hard to say.

The bird and the gryphon had disappeared into the darkness. Rain poured down, the various fires around the tower began to go out.

Then there was a tremendous flash. Though the source couldn't be seen from the ground, a distant light illuminated the heights of the tower. It began to ramp up through aquatic blue, through cyan, into a cutting white light that lit up the tower like a spotlight.

Anyone higher up on the tower would see - in the distance - the ocean was glowing. A huge patch of the water was radiating light as if it had had a sun buried in it.

Then it blew up.

In dead silence, the water erupted in a glowing tower that rose up, and up, and spread across the horizon. Now visible to everyone, it shot plumes of vapour the size of thunderheads into the clouds. As the light began to taper down from blinding to very bright, the shapes of millions of gallons of half-vapourized water could be seen curling and contorting in the air. The deceptive slowness of the glowing mass in the distance belied its immense size, as the blast rippled across the horizon, forcing the ocean up around it. In eerie quiet, as if someone had pressed the mute button on the entire universe, the ocean rose up in a shallow crater around the epicentre of the detonation, as its tremendous power began to press the mass of water down to its bed, exposing a huge stretch of sand and broken coral.

Then there was a sound, a squealing, howling, earth-shattering cacophony, like a never-ending freight train crash. A hurricane wind hit the shore, picking up debris and garbage, and making the trees bend and ripple. The tower rocked, gently.

As the noise went on, the ocean sank out and down again, and the glow began to fade, but the immense fireball boiling away the waves still illuminated an oncoming wall of foam and mist approaching from a distance.

Unlike the mass of the ocean itself, the out-rushing wall did not sink. It grew larger and larger, and blacker and blacker, as the last remnants of the bomb's implosion sparkled away, and it soon became obvious that the wave—for that was what it was—was not going to break before it hit shore.

The roar of the explosion faded away, highlighting the oncoming wave as it approached, frighteningly tall—well into over a hundred feet—and just as quiet.

Then a deep, distant rumble began to fill the air.

Seven laid there, half sitting up, one elbow on the floor, the other curled across his forehead in defense of another strike. He had been disarmed and battered down, and was beyond his plans, out of his text, out of his training—for all practical intents and purposes, out of the fight.

When it all abruptly stopped, he remained frozen there for just a few seconds longer, before tepidly uncovering his eyes, looking over his arm, and... seeing the results of his bomb.

He rolled off his back and onto his knees, turning to face the light. There he remained, arms slack, hands limp on the floor, and wide, blank eyes trained on the crushing wave.

The wave didn't even seem hindered in the slightest by the hillsides. The tower was right in its path.

Rock watched it all in silence.

In all the years he'd known her, he had never seen her move, or fight, or do anything in such a way. Wind, rain, scattering lightning spreading like glowing cracks in shattering air; gold light, the supernatural glow of the emerald's power; the battered foe, falling apart at his seams...

He began to push himself upright to watch it all, driven by adrenaline, renewed—not by the need to fight, but by the need to take it all in.

Call it strange, macabre, or even the workings of a simple, brutish mind, but as the tower quaked, the jarring, continuous thud of the distant bomb rumbled his insides, and a curtain of white foam seemed to threaten the moon itself, he gazed on with the eyes of one enraptured by art, breathless in awe of the disaster rather in fear of it. The pain faded from him in the wonder of the spectacle, and against all physical limitations, he pushed himself to his feet and started toward the girl, with a limp at first, then a fast stagger, a slightly lurching jog, and finally, a full, uninhibited run.

The first mist of the water began to spray across the tower. The earth-razing wall was seconds behind.