ic Getting Your Shots In

[Gizmo]

The braided woman placed her hands on the table and began to rise, eyes narrowed. When she spoke her voice was quick and keen, razor sharp in its enunciation. "You should be more careful who you laugh at, you--"

"Dragon," the lounging man interrupted, his manner unperturbed and his voice velvety smooth as he tilted his head to one side and ran a hand through his hair. "How intriguing! And you said our talents were being wasted, Gyges."

The big bald man scrunched up his face in a grimace, groaning as he cracked his neck and rolled his shoulder. "Tartarus. The boss is gonna have my right arms for this @#$%."

The next thing Sekhmet could recall, she and Teagan were flying backward through the shattered remains of the bar's front window and onto the street outside, sending shouting mortals scurrying in all directions. While feline grace managed to put her feet under her before long, she had the distinct impression of having run face-first into a stone wall.

As she gathered her wits, the Greek followed them outside, stepping over the windowsill with legs the size of tree trunks. His form continued to distort and grow as he straightened from his hunched posture in the open night air, taller than the five storey building behind him. From each shoulder grew dozens of muscular arms, each ending in a clenched fist and in defiance of reason moving in perfect coordination. Clad now in a simple skirt of folded cloth, the giant looked down on his targets and shook his massive head. "Wrong place, wrong time, girlies."

[Gizmo]

While the dragon and goddess were picking themselves up off of the pavement, the Asian woman leapt through the gaping hole they'd left in the pane glass and dashed toward them. She had changed less in some ways than her titanic compatriot but she was taller and thinner now, with limbs just a little too long to look natural and boney fingers that elongated into deadly points, her outfit transformed into a pale kimono. Most dramatically her braids were now several meters long and writhing horribly like a twisting pile of serpents, with each braid tipped with a glinting metal razor barb.

 

Sliding to a halt in the middle of the road, she hissed, revealing a mouthful of pointed teeth. "Die for you impertinence!" Whipping her head about, she sent a flurry of barbed braids flying at the two heroines like machine gun fire. Both Tiamat and Sekhmet stayed one step ahead of the barrage but the barbs dug easily into the pavement and tore free again, leaving sizable gashes in the road.

[Fox]

Teagan was practically delighted, ducking sideways away from a lashing barb as she got back onto her feet and tugged her new jacket back into place. "Hah! Hahahahaha. This is fantastic. What do we even have here?"

Turning a keen eye on their new 'friends', Teagan was privately quite glad she'd been brushing up on her knowledge of this place's more magical threats - not that she'd ever admit it, but she'd been spending a lot of long nights in libraries hoping to prevent mystical creature culture shock. Looks like it had paid off. "Alright, so the big ugly one - and dang if those legends don't lie - is a hekatonkheires; big physical brute, supposed to be keeping guard in Tartarus. The pincushion is a...whatsit. Harionago. Japanese ghoul thing, supposed to stick to that little Shikoku island. The third one smelled like lightning and blood, but I dunno where he is."

[Gizmo]

"Aha, your knowledge would have even scholarly Thoth nod in respect, sister!" Sekhmet congratulated with a feral grin, backflipping gracefully away from the attack. "We had a title for such melees in ages past when the Ennead walked the mortal plane freely." Landing nimbly on her feet and splayed fingers, the goddess was at once in her tawny lioness form, golden eyes smouldering as she bared her fangs. "In the modern vernacular, tis a monster mash!" Surging forward, the mighty feline pounced upon the Harionago, meeting a cage of braids and barbs raised up in defense. Roaring savagely, she pressed the attack, forcing the ghoul on the defensive.

[Gizmo]

Sekhmet's roar was met with a high pitched avian cry as a dark shape flew out of the bar's window and unfolded into the night sky. The bird was the size of a full grown human with a proportionally massive wingspan of black, red-tinged feathers and a long, narrow beak like a spearhead. "Ah, dragons," the creature chuckled, wings disturbing the air as he hovered in place, "so proud, blood so hot!" With another, more violent flap of his wings he sent a sudden bolt of blindingly bright lightning lancing down at Teagan's feet, the harsh crackle of electricity mixing with his resonant laughter.
 
Meanwhile, the Hekatonkheires named Gyges stomped forward with considerably less mirth, sighing at the smaller beings racing about at his feet. "Just hurry it up. Bad enough we're gettin' caught makin' a scene like this." Bending over slightly he sent dozens of trunk sized limbs reaching for Sekhmet but the more nimble lioness was able to stay just ahead of his grasp, momentarily halting her attack on the Harionago.

[Fox]

Teagan hopped backward to avoid the lightning, laughing all the way. "Blood so hot? So hot? Oh, little bird. Naive little bird."

Something flashed deep in the woman's ruby-red eyes and she burst into flames. "Hot wishes it was my blood," she announced, voice deepening and rumbling as the storm twisted and grew, dissipating only when it was large enough to reveal the great wyrm in all her scaled crimson-and-charcoal glory. She craned her neck, clawing at the ground with one set of giant talons. "'Hot' is a faint mortal echo of what runs through my veins. I am fire!"

Her last word was accompanied by a torrent of the same, a jet of blistering plasma shooting out from her mighty jaws...not at the thunderbird, but at the ghoul, Tiamat snapping her head to the side to catch the thing off-guard and keep it on the defensive.

[Gizmo]

The Harionago skittered back away from the gout of flame with a hiss, using some of her braids like spider's legs to propel herself more quickly. She found herself thrown backward even more quickly as a missile of rippling fur and muscle crashed into her midsection. "Never take thy eyes from the Lady of Slaughter in battle!" Sekhmet growled triumphantly as the pair tumbled end over end in a flurry of claws and metal barbs.

"Wretched mongrel!" the Japanese ghoul raged in response, razor tipped braids cracking like whips against the lioness' legs and sides. Undaunted, Sekhmet took the attack without flinching, expertly pinning the Harionago's more conventional limbs to the street and digging in.

The feline goddess craned her neck to look up at the lightning bird. "Thy words were poorly chosen, buzzard. Now Tiamat shall leave not but ash and gristle and ruin thy meat."

[Gizmo]

"Meat, am I?" the Impundulu replied with a crowing laugh, for all he seemed a bit unnerved now that he was actually looking at Tiamat in her true form. "We'll see who feasts upon whom, won't we?" Diving downward, he struck at the dragon with his talons, looking for purchase against the larger winged monster.

 

Still grumbling, Gyges stomped his foot as he planted himself more firmly and tried to pry Sekhmet off of the Harionago with the arms on his left side but pulled back as the tornado of writhing braids and raking claws continued to fly. "Grah! Enough of this!" The arms on his right side took dozens of combined jabs in Tiamat's direction, giving her more to worry about than the giant vampiric bird alone.

[Fox]

Tiamat outright laughed, a low rumble of good humor shaking her spines....or maybe it was bad humor, really, depending on your point of view. She'd been in enough scraps, and had been on the aggressive end of such attacks, often enough to know the difference between a punch meant to throw her off-balance and a punch meant to knock her to the ground. She ducked and twisted with surprising agility as the fists came down, deliberately placing the Impundulu between her and the meaty hands whenever possible to keep both assailants off-balance.

As soon as there was a break in the assault she twisted out from under his futile feathery flapping, though, deftly snagging him with one scaled hand and none-too-gently yanking him down and into the pavement. "Little bird," she intoned, reproachful, casting an eye on the rest of the fight before sliding her gaze down to him. The talons of her other foreleg scraped against the pavement, ever so close to his head where he lay pinned on his back. "Naive little bird. What shall we do with you, I wonder?"

[Gizmo]

The Japanese ghoul struggled to regain her equilibrium as she grappled mightily against the divine lioness bearing down on her, metal tipped braids thrashing about and leaving a crisscross of thin gouges in the pavement all about them. "Get off, get off, get off!" the Harionago howled indignantly, panic creeping in amongst the rage in her voice.
 
With a short, huffing sound somewhere between a predatory growl and a dismissive snort, Sekhmet shifted the weight of her feline form abruptly onto her front paws, knocking the wind out of the kimono wearing creature. With the Harionago pinned and disoriented, she seized a mouthful of twisting braids in her jaws and jerked the lean muscles in her neck. The short, violent gesture cracked the hair like a bullwhip, sending the skull it was attached to smacking into the street with an echoing crack once, twice and a third time. The ghoul lay limp, her prehensile tendrils twitching erratically in small spasms.

 

"Rrr... How fares thy boldness against even numbers, I wonder?" the goddess taunted the remaining monsters as she padded nonchalantly off of her fallen prey.

[Gizmo]

The Impundulu struggled mightily against Tiamat's unyielding grip, wings beating against the street and talons scratching away at the dragon's claws. Nothing he did managed to move the larger monster by a single inch. "Now, hold a moment," the lightning bird squawked with feigned calm, still thrashing about. "Perhaps we have been hasty, yes?"

 

Nearby, the Hekatonkheires unleashed a barrage of blows against Sekhmet with his hundred arms, no longer concerned about hitting his already battered ally. The massive fists cracked into the pavement as they struck from all sides, forcing slices of street up at unnatural angles where it had already been scored by the Harionago's blades. Without surprise on his side, however, he found himself unable to catch the nimble goddess, who wove around the hail of attacks with inhuman speed.

[Fox]

Tiamat laughed, a full-body rumble of amusement as she leaned down to grin right in front of the Impundulu's face: a predatory, cheshire smile full of entirely too many carnivore teeth. "Oh, little bird. You are so much more fortunate than you know; In another time and another place, you would be lunch. Here and now, you are simply not worth the trouble...this time. Ponder that deeply the next time you are in my. city."

She grasped both his wings in her great taloned claws, digging in near his shoulders to lift him up off the ground before slamming him right back into the pavement with a dragon's own strength.

When she turned back to the others it with was with a hiss of challenge and triumph, casting her red eyes up at the Hekatonkheires - while, somehow, still managing to look down on him as only gods and dragons can. "So much for even numbers," she pointed out, flicking her tail toward the broken ground that cradled the unconscious thunderbird. "Your friends did not hold up so well. I do hope you'll be more fun."

[Gizmo]

"Freakin' typical," the hundred handed titan grumbled in a bass rumble loud enough to vibrate the nearby windows that were still intact, using one of his many, many hands to massage his temple. "You try to do your damn job even if it's epically dull 'cause, hey, better'n Tartarus but a guy can't even get a brew without some wannabe amazons screwin' everything up. S'posed to be able to get away from gods on the mortal plane, seriously..." Gyges squared his stance to face both Tiamat and Sekhmet at once, his body language resigned but resolute.
 
The lioness, for her part, launched herself fearlessly at the gigantic foe, weaving about his legs and sinking her claws deep into the Hekatonkheires' calves. The attack carved dark red rivulets into the Greek monster's flesh, eliciting a pained grunt even as he let loose with a flurry of savage punches in all directions, practically obscuring his own torso amid the hundred pistons. Where Sekhmet nimbly avoided the indiscriminate attack, Tiamat's wings took her out of reach of the worst of the blows while her scales were more than up to the tasks of weathering the rest. "Hraagh, not even the one we got permission to wax..."

[Fox]

Tiamat responded to the attack by sweeping her wings to carry her back and away...only to dig her claws into the pavement and surge back forward, diving head-first into the rest of the giant's barrage in a brazen lunge at his head. Weathering what blows she couldn't duck didn't seem to do her any harm, but it did at least manage to kill most of her momentum - the claw she caught him with didn't find much purchase before she had to bank away.

"I suppose your devotion to your duties would be admirable," she chuckled, trying to gain a little more height. Fighting things bigger than her, but not much bigger, was always awkward. "If your duties were admirable, perhaps. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to offer you one last chance to surrender before we put you out of our misery; please don't take it. We still have some stress to work off."

[Gizmo]

"Yer kinda a sick puppy there, lady," the giant grumbled as he warily watched Tiamat rise into the air. His attention elsewhere, he took little notice as Sekhmet rounded about and placed some distance between them. Crouching on all fours, the lioness coiled her might in her legs before rushing forward like a tawny rocket, leaping into the air at the last moment and barreling into an unprotected joint in Gyges' knee.

This a bellow the hundred-handed one began to stumble only to find Sekhmet just as suddenly bounding up to his chest, using his multitude of limbs as stepping stones. A final leap landed the bundle of muscle and claws directly onto his face. The titan toppled backward, crashing into the street with enough force to set off car alarms for a block in either direction and breaking the few intact windows of the nearby storefronts.

The arms on the monster's left side swatted about blindly while those on his right propped him back up to his feet but he received only a defiant roar for his efforts as the goddess proved too quick for him to pin down.

[Fox]

Tiamat bellowed a laugh on seeing Sekhmet assault the titan's face, and as he stumbled back to his feet she simply folded her wings and fell. "You get consideration for the proper respect of 'lady', giant, but you lose it all for 'puppy'."

A rather extraordinary amount of dragon slammed into his shoulder like a scaly red meteor, tail lashing as she bit deep into his shoulder. Even the mighty dragon wasn't too eager to stick around once the surprise was gone, though - digging her claws into his back for purchase, Tiamat launched herself back into the air, roaring defiance as she wheeled around.

[Gizmo]

Gyges bellowed in pain as Tiamat closed her jaws around his shoulder, a hundred hands clenching in pain. The giant stumbled about for a few moments as the dragon flew back into the air, clamping one of those hands on the bleeding wound and struggling to maintain his balance. Sekhmet did not give him any time to recover, letting loose a menacing yowl as she darted between his legs before leaping first onto the side of a nearby building then rebounding off to land between the titan's shoulder blades, raking her claws in a crisscross pattern. She found frustratingly little purchase in the thick hide there, however, dropping back down to the street as her foe began to recover from the surprise of his injuries.

[Fox]

Tiamat apparently wasn't inclined to give the giant much breathing room - she was already wheeling back around as Sekhmet clawed at his back, and no sooner had the lioness fallen to the ground than the dragon, trailing fire from her jaws, crashed into Gyges' side.

None-too-gently pushing away with her many-taloned feet, Tiamat hit the pavement on all fours, chortling. "Not much longer, giant," she observed, tail lashing. "Duty or not, you're playing with fire!"

That last bit, of course, was punctuated with precisely that: a jet of crimson flame that shot up toward the Hekatonkheires' face.

[Gizmo]

The titan reacted predictably, taking a startled step back and shielding his face with a few dozen arms. When he lowered them he was greeted by the sight of a snarling lioness already leaping toward his head. Sekhmet mauled deep gashes in his cheek and shoulder before tumbling with feline grace down to the street behind him, leaving the giant with a goddess on one side and a dragon on the other. "Nrgh..." he sputtered, wiping blood away and shaking off the disorientation from the battering he'd received. "C'mon, what're you doin', playin' with me or what?"

Sekhmet snorted derisively though her opponent's continued consciousness gave her pause. "Rrrr. I too tire of this farce."

[Fox]

"Hrmph - fine. It ends!"

Tiamat surged forward through her own fire, wings providing speed rather than lift as she threw herself straight into the giant's knee. Great jaws with teeth like knives dug into the flesh there, all of the dragon's strength bent to the task of forcing their foe down on his feet....and the moment his leg could no longer support him she leapt to his back, all her scaled weight and the slightly uncoordinated flapping of her wings driving his face down into the pavement with a cement-cracking crunch.

It took a couple seconds for her to sort herself out from the fall, but when she did she stood atop the Hekatonkheires' unconscious body and announced their feat to the world: a spread-winged, fire-tinted, window-rattling bellow of pure and primal victory.

[Gizmo]

Tiamat's triumphant roar echoed in the canyon created by the urban landscape for a moment before all three of the troublesome monsters were abruptly wreathed in blue-purple flames. The fire would have been obviously mystical in nature even without its abrupt appearance and the chill that rolled from its licking tongues rather than heat. The harionago and impundulu disappeared from view almost instantly, whisked away from the battlefield by their alluded-to masters while it took several moments for the coldfire to envelop the hekatonkheires greater bulk and leave the surprised dragon without a perch.

Unconcerned by the sinister clean-up, Sekhmet licked blood from her claws, shifting smoothly back into her human form when she reached her thumb. Inspecting her fingernails and running her tongue across her teeth, the goddess stretched from her toes upward with a satisfied sound before retying the plaid purple shirt she'd acquired earlier in the evening, adjusting the knot above her abdominals until it was snug. "Blessed Ra, I was in need of bloodsport!" she crowed with a laugh, tugging on the waist of her ripped jeans. "Rrrh, mayhap the pretty barrister still be available..." Unfortunately for the goddess and her excess energy both the bartender and the rest of the watering hole's patrons had long since fled the scene.

[Fox]

Tiamat's fall to the ground upon the disappearance of her fallen foe was, perhaps, less than graceful - and she could be clearly seen to ponder, as she lay in a dignity-free heap, whether or not she could play it off as intentional or clever somehow.

Ultimately she gave up, though, snorting into the dirt they'd managed to kick up. Fire burned outward from between her scales, and when it finally receded it left only a more upright, less saurian woman carefully adjusting her new jacket. "Having 'em just disappear on you kinda takes some of the fun out of it," she drawled, kicking spitefully at the prior location of the thunderbird. "The people and the villains. It's hard to find ones that aren't cowards and weaklings. Still!"

She stretched, weaving her fingers and cracking them above her head. "Still, I sure feel better. Scratched at least an itch, y'know?"

[Gizmo]

Sekhmet's eyes scanned back and forth across the empty street as bit of shattered glass fell from broken windows at irregular intervals. Eventually accepting the lack of prospects she let out a sound somewhere between a groan and a wistful yowl before turning back to Teagan with a wicked, toothy grin. "Truly, though tis not all twas scratched," she agreed, splaying the fingers of one hand to display vicious claws that gradually shrunk back down to human fingernail proportions. "Thy confidence in battle be well earned, oh mighty dragon! Concern thyself not with our foes' withdrawal. I expect they shall make themselves available for future trouncings anon."

Hopping over the sharp edge of the windowsill, the goddess cast around the bar's upturned tables to find an intact bottle which a cursory sniff didn't find too terribly revolting. "By glorious Ra, my battle fervor will yet be channeled! Pray tell, Teagan, do mortals yet make merry dance to thundering melody?"

[Fox]

"Hhhr."

Tiamat opted to kick in a few of the glass shards the more graceful Sekhmet had hopped over, breaking the jagged shards out of her way with one boot before stepping back inside. "I guess," she admitted, snagging an over-turned whiskey bottle off one of the wall tables; she held it up, eyeing what liquid hadn't already escaped with a critical crimson eye. "S'not like the old days, though. They've got these things called clubs, but I was disappointed when I found out there wasn't much...y'know." She swung the bottle out in front of her, snorting. "...clubbing."

[Gizmo]

Sekhmet took a long pull from the bottle she'd scavenged only to thrust it abruptly to arm's length, giving is an angry, betrayed look as she swallowed. "Yyowrrr! Gluh. Very well," she told Teagan, discarding the offending beverage and giving her head a shake. "Tis close enough, one assumes. Come! We are victorious in battle and revelry be warranted!" Looking to the dragon with an expression of grave import and placing a firm hand on the shoulder of her leather jacket, the goddess looked unwaveringly into red eyes and decreed, "I would witness thee shake that which thy matron gifted unto thee." Not knowing where she was going did not seem to deter Sekhmet in the least as she turned and back out toward the street.