Draven brought both hands to his right side and cupped them over each other, a bright ball of crimson forming in his fingers.
"At the very least I admire your taste in attacks, cur."
He shot both hands forward, opening his palms as an intense pillar of firery light shot forth, slamming into the buring skull that was heading straight for him.
The two blasts of energy met with explosive force, tearing more chunks of the ground away, and Draven's began to push the skull back... But the second skull veered around and tore after him from behind. Draven eyed this, and at the last second removed his right hand from the beam of flame he was firing forward and directed it behind him, firing a second pillar of flame at the second skull...
Draven was now sandwiched between two attacks, firing two waves of flame to his left and right with both outstretched arms, holding them at bay... Of course, both beams were half the strength of his initial, due to him casting them with one arm each, and as a result, the skulls inched their way closer...
He stayed in this way for a moment, before thrusting his arms downward. His body shot skyward and the two skulls crashed into each other, causing yet another explosion and more buildings to collapse... A quarter of Alphagrad was entirely rubble at this point...
Still gaining altitude, Draven spun around in the air to face his hulking adversary on the ground. His cape unfurled like the wings of a dragon, surrounded by and flowing with the burning flame that engulfed the man. His eyes burned even more intensely...
He brought his right fist before his face and extended two fingers. The left hand was extended flat and brought perpendicular to it... Fine points of crimson light pierced through the impossibly thick darkness of the clouds high above...
----
Ven was still angry and muttered to himself as he walked away from the group and headed towards the lower levels of the ship.
"Tyranny... police... somebody find that loon a blasting dictionary..." *mumble* *mumble*
King Henri entered the ships bridge. Most of his entourage split up and randomly moved about the ship. The captain approached the king.
"My lord, we will be home by dawn."
"Excellent."
----
"Hmm, they should be arriving any minute now... Just enough time..."
Vincent wanted to time the last part just before the Greys should arrive, since it would be potentially the most incriminating and it would be best to minimize the amount of time available to find him out...
The fortress Sigmund was essentially built into two mountains. Several large structures were constructed in the small valley between the two, and many corridors dug deep into the mountains on the north and south side as well. The north and south walls were essentially the mountains themselves, steep, unscalable, and rising higher than even the tallest structure in the valley itself. The west and east walls, which contained the front and back gates respectively, were largely part of the slopes of the mountains as well, with additional stone walls built up to completely encase the central structures.
Vincent entered one of the corridors built into the northern mountain and followed it's winding path to a room cut from the stone located several hundred feet to the left of the front gate, and behind 25 feet of solid rock relative to the exterior of the fortress. Here the corridor was closest to the outside. Though 25 feet of solid rock is still quite impenetrable...
He exited and returned minutes later carrying two buckets filled with water, with a few strange looks from passing guards.
When the coast was clear, as it was most of the time in this lightly guarded section, he placed the buckets on the ground and soaked one of his hands in each... He then placed his hands on the stone wall. A circle of blue light immediately appeared on the wall and it changed in color slightly. The water from the buckets flew into the air and entered the wall, and that section of the wall became discolored slightly more... light cracks forming across the surface... On the opposite side, outside the fortress, an etching of circles appeared on the discolored patch of rock that looked like a target.
They should get the picture...
Vincent placed his hands in his trench coat pocket and walked away.
----
(You see, so many groups are attacking the Crimson Empire in such a short period of time-- Haraldur, the Greys, now your guys-- that they think they are all part of the same organized movement. They think your guys are with the Greys, and the Greys are with Haraldur (a.k.a. Ragnar). So yeah, they're doubly confused here. (Heh...) Also, when I do a paragraph by itself that isn't surrounded by quotes but sounds like dialogue, that's my way of doing an internal monologue for the character.)
James raised an eybrow.
"Are you serious? Firstly, this is the Crimson Capital. We do not simply allow heavily armed foreigners to simply wander around without question, especially when we are in the state of war. Secondly, I do believe you attacked us with one of those orbs and put the populace at quite a state of panic and dissarray for a few moments, which certainly makes some suggestions about your intentions... And additionally you are threatening us with the use of force, which, although I honestly don't believe a word of what you're saying about your army, places you as our enemy."
The wind rustled his short hair, but he remained motionless with his hands behind his back.
"So unless you surrender immediately and drop your weapons, I doubt any of you will be allowed access to our fine establishment..."
Rufus saw his opportunity, but took the time to gloat instead.
"GAH HA HA HA!! You like that, huh? Here, let me give ya another!"
He buried his fists in the ground and remove a colossal chunk of land-- a boulder spanning some ten feet in diameter and weighting several tonnes...
"GRRRAAAAHHHHHH!!!!"
He tossed the massive rock at the trapped Ogen as a finishing blow.
Hans saw the impending axe, and shifted all his weight to his right in an attempt to fall in that direction...
He was able to move his chest out of the path of the axe, but his twisting body placed his left metal shoulder guard in its way. The axe dug through the metal armor and grazed the top of his left shoulder. This would be a minor injury, but the axe still contained some absorbed energy in recoil from the capacitator burst, and the contact with the metal caused that section of his armor to explode...
"AAARRGHHH!!!"
Hans flew backwards, spinning in the air and dropping the energy sword, which disappeared as he let go, the metallic tube clanking on the ground. Hans hit the dirt a second later, some seven feet away...
He sat up on one knee, clutching his exposed left shoulder with his right hand.
"Not bad..."
