*Ponggg.*

...

*Ponggg.*

...

*Ponggg.*



The grandfather clock downstairs was noisy. Sleeping with it in the old home took a little getting used to. Some would say it was charming, even comforting, but that may have been an... acquired taste.

It was 3AM. The fire in the main hall had reduced to embers, and only some small oil lamps on their very lowest settings kept the room aglow with flickering, pale yellow light. Long shadows hung everywhere, but the house was in its usual peaceful nighttime silence, with all the estate's employees asleep, and probably the guests, too.

But then, shelves and cabinets began to rattle, and dishes in the kitchen clinked. Everything began to get brighter. It was that blinding light and roar from the sky, and it wasn't just passing over this time. Louder than ever, it felt like it shook the entire castle.

It was hard to tell precisely what was happening with those glaring beams blazing in every window and crevice, blinding bleary-eyed sleepers, and making every room look like it was practically on fire. A different kind of rumble soon came from one of the second story bedrooms, though; the thuds, thumps, and yells of a struggle. The voice sounded like the baron's—but it wasn't coming from his room. No, the door to his room stood open, and no one was inside; instead, it was the room across the hall from his, whoever it belonged to. The door was locked, but one could the light filtering under the door being wildly disrupted by fast-moving shadows.



searchindextag
chapter3asearch

Jack's first attempt on the door reverberated with an extra bang she didn't cause—a gunshot from inside, followed by a yell. Someone had just been shot.

Jack's second attempt busted the fragile old latch, and the heavy door swung freely open. Inside the room she found absolute mayhem.

The window was open, it was bright as daylight in the room, and the curtains were blasting inward like a jet engine was blowing directly on the other side. Dureau, wearing some kind of quaint old nightshirt, was (rather contrastingly) in a grappling, struggling brawl with a cloaked figure—one of the gas-mask-wearing thugs, just like Jack had encountered at the butcher shop.

The bright light made it hard to tell what was outside the window, but there appeared to be some sort of hovering platform holding several more of the henchmen. They were just finishing helping one another drag an unconscious white figure out over the sill, and onto their craft.

The cloaked figure struggled against Dureau, but managed to get the upperhand for a moment; just long enough to advance enough to plant a leg beside his opponent and push him over it in an attempt to throw him down.

Assuming the success of the takedown, he would choose flight over fight once reinforcements started to arrive, running toward the window, and jumping for it.

Bursting onto the scene clad in boxers and her shirt, Ember surveyed the scene with blood shot eyes. Being awoken didn't give her brain much time to comprehend much beside 'bright light and noise'. However, she spied the masked man attempting to escape and it clicked. It was one of those jerks that gassed her. A sudden rush of anger rushed into her body as she surged forward.

"You little %^$* I'm going to slap that mask right off you!", she cried out in breath as she attempted to full-on tackle him. The fact that her target was in front of an open window didn't register in her mind till mid-leap.

Seemed being knocked out was a sore spot for her.

The flying swords narrowly missed the airborne body-snatcher. The blades managing to cut at his cloak but by some small miracle, he was unscathed, but hitting him was obviously not the point. He hit the wall with his feet when his escape route was blocked, landing on the far side of the room to face his enemies.

The masked miscreant may have known Jack better than she realized, for he produced a folded metal contraption from his cloak, which snapped out to form a bow. He used it immediately as a blunt object, swinging it at the side of Ember's face as she charged. If it hit, it would easily deflect her headlong attack.

Assuming everything went according to plan up to that point, he followed through into a 360 degree spin, dropping to a knee and arming his bow horizontally with an arrow with a funky sack-like arrow-head, and let it fly with blinding speed and accuracy.

Should it hit it's target, which was Jack's face, the impact would cause a plume of colored smoke. Or more accurately, the sack tied to the end of the arrow came apart, releasing it's contents in her face. It's contents being spices that offend the senses. Especially when applied to the eyes and nostrils.

He used what little time that bought him to quickly draw back another arrow, this one with a more traditional arrowhead, and fired at her again, but this one was aimed for the barrel of her gun to knock it from her hands.

In the midst of the struggle, a long series of loud thumps-- almost like a stampeding elephant-- trampled through the bottom of the house, but quickly working its way up. It might have seemed like a sneeze in a hurricane for all the action that was going on, but quickly presented itself when Power Mask put his foot in the door. Clad in a native-looking sleeping cap and pajamas decorated with various flavors of chilli (the former a souvenir from Glastonia, the latter a gift from Badge [that he packed in his own shell]), Tank burst onto the scene with a very awake looking concern for how well he was sleeping, blurting only "Sherlif!--" before realizing exactly what was going on.

"Cho!"

He snapped into action mode, lunging so quickly as to put a small crack in the floorboard he sprung from, and just like that, there was a giant tortoise in play. There was a wide sweep in the clothesline/hook hybrid he fired keeping in mind the relative height of his target.

While managing to get his arrow off, the masked individual also took one in the arm. His shoulder jerking back from the force and he let out a grunt of pain.

Either the pain hadn't truly set in yet, or he was just really good at working through it because he recovered in plenty of time to roll under Tank's sweeping arm off to one side. He scrambled back to his feet to put some distance between himself and the luchadore.

He reached into his cloak and pulled out another arrow. With the shoulder wound, his accuracy was greatly hindered by sharp pain, but he didn't need a great deal of it to shoot an arrow at the floor by Tank's feet.

The arrow would explode on impact with the ground, but not the fiery sort. More of an oily sort of explosion. The small capsule held a deceptive amount of the slippery substance, The floor in the immediate area around Tank would have next to no traction in a matter of moments.

After firing, he took a risky moment to hold his shoulder.

"Oof!" He took the full effect of the knee as she brought him down to the ground, but he managed to bring his good arm up to deflect her punch which was quite a feat, given the warped periphery granted by his mask. In deflecting her punch, he would grab at her forearm and jerk her upper body toward him and then proceed to thrust his head into her face.

If that hit, it stood to reason it might daze her for a moment so he could throw her off and get up. If that much were true, he would do just that, but would also attempt to pin her to the ground face first, twisting her gun hand behind her back to disarm her, with the intent of taking her gun.