Perfect War, Perfect Deception (OPEN [Rules inside])

OoC : He WAS kind of expecting an attack, you know...

Just sitting there absorbing energy, it's not like Falenor had anything better to do than observe the attack that came flying at him. While he couldn't exactly shield against them, the wires were nowhere near enough to keep him bound and simply shattered when enough force was applied. Just in time to stop himself right in front of the wall and slide to the ground as though he'd hit it. So I see. The gem happens to be in possession of the man who just flung me into a wall, he sent back telepathically.

"Well well well, aren't we the arrogant one?" Falenor said patronizingly. "Just what are you going to do with that...light...bow...". Sudden realization dawned on him, an immediate plan springing into his mind. Using the wall behind him as a springboard he shot straight through the air with a little kinetic help, aiming straight at Monroe's head. His adversary ducked easily, which wasn't a problem: he simply stretched out one hand to touch the photonic weapon Monroe was holding. Yup, it's light, he thought with as much of a smirk as is possible when flying towards a wall at incredibly high speeds, burning off the energy he'd absorbed from the weapon to slow himself down. Just enough for a return trip, he thought with a smile.

Turning around, he kicked off the wall opposite and zipped past Monroe again.

"Is that all you can do?" his opponent laughed as Falenor flew towards him, unaware of what he'd done the first time.

"No," he replied, "I can also do this." As Monroe once again dodged him, he aimed a rather sizeable blast of kinetic force right where he expected Monroe to dodge to. Being difficult to see, the blast was also much harder to dodge, so it really should have left Monroe on the floor. Instead, the increasingly frustrating man broke his fall with his hands and somersaulted backwards into a standing position with his bow ready, though it seemed somewhat darker than before.

"Good luck shooting me with that," Falenor chuckled, crossing the room in a heartbeat to stand next to Jennifer and pulling his staff out from under his cloak.

Monroe looked at the bow and laughed. He opened his hand and the now loosely bound particles scattered into the air and returned to his glove. "So you're a leech," the dark clad man stated as he looked at Falenor. "I'd be careful there. Take too much of my power, and you'll become an even easier target. Anyway, I don't need a weapon to take down the likes of you," the Quincy stated, almost forgetting about the woman.

A series of small force strikes hit the Quincy as he started walking forwards, almost as if he could simply ignore the blasts. The man continued to rain these attacks on the dark clad warrior, but with no avail in sight he reevaluated his idea. Gathering up a larger ball of kinetic energy, the man fired off a more powerful attack towards his target, intent on blasting the man through a wall or something, probably.

"Okay, I've had enough of you." For a moment, and only a moment, a visual blur of Monroe was struck by something, but the Quincy himself was no longer where he had been standing before. "Good day!" the dark clad man said mockingly as he backhanded Falenor into a nearby wall. "You're not worth me actually hitting hard. I wouldn't want to kill you, after-" the Quincy paused his thought, side stepping a blast of some odd colored energy from the woman who had evaded his attack on the cops.

"Odd weapon," he noted, looking at her as he smiled. "Great, two on one. Wow, I should be scared... but no," the former bounty hunter said as he looked from Falenor to Jennifer. "If you don't mind, I've got plans to get the hell out of here. I'd rather not kill anyone else who's after this ruby, but keep resisting and I'll have no choice. Only person here that has to die eventually is Derrik. Still, I can't fight him in peace with you children getting in my way!"

The darkly clad man seemed thoroughly distracted by the sound of his own voice, so now was as good a time as any to take the ruby and skedaddle. J had seen the SWAT team coming and had managed to hide himself away in an adjacent room. He then got to witness as the bounty hunter killed off every last one of them, so he wasn't exactly just going to leave without giving out a few broken bones.

Before Monroe had finished flapping his lips, he was yanked off his feet by a strong cord that had wrapped itself securely around his torso and arms. He was then met promptly by a punch that would have gone strait through any normal skull. The Quincy was sent strait into a wall, barely able to brace himself in time with his legs as he struck, but wasn't fast enough as another punch came from behind, sending him through the reinforced wall with painful sounding success. With the cable still tied around his opponent, J reeled him back to the wall and punched him sidelong, parallel to/in the wall, for a good hundred feet or so, effectively making a very long and jagged window between the two adjoining rooms.

Just before the final blow, however, J had stealthily ripped the ruby from the mans pocket, and locked his claw back into place, hiding the gem in the barrel off his left arm, and clamping his claw tight to ensure the hunters ruby wasn't going anywhere he didn't want it to go. J wasn't one hundred percent sure if his little exchange had fooled anyone. He had made sure that no one could have seen the theft, but he wouldn't but it past the group of misfits if one of them could pick up the rubies presence inside his barrel. Still, he'd play the gig for as long as time would allow.

"What are you all waiting for?" He called over to the assassin and her BFF, slouching his shoulders in an exhausted fashion and gesturing towards the man thoroughly embedded in a wall. "You're not going to make me do all the work, are you?"

Monroe pulled himself up and smiled. Cracking his neck and wiping the blood from his face, he smiled. That had hurt. Still, it would have killed that guy who originally had the Ruby, but as for killing Monroe, not so likely. The Quincy had attached a nice string onto it before the man had noticed. Still, the timing it took to be convincing that few people could see it... well, it was tricky. Now, however, it was time to counterattack.

"Three on one now. Man, you people don't like playing fair. With each one of you I beat the hell out of, a new one steps in!" the dark clad man said as he pulled the wire of Ransoutengai and yanked J into the wall, just below the window, that he had just thrown the former assassin through. The sound of J's body hitting the wall was only rewarding for a moment as the cybernetic soldier slashed his claw up at the Enhanced human.

Quickly drawing a Seele Schneider, the Quincy stabbed the man's armored arm to the cill of the window. The armored soldier stood up just in time to get a powerful punch to his face. The humming blade burned and cut through the man's armored claw as he recoiled. The clawed arm of the man held the ruby though, so the dark clad man had to be careful.

Removing his sword from the arm, the archer turned around just long enough to spin around again and kick the man in the head, throwing him into a wall this time. J slowly stood up as the dark clad man pulled on the wire of Ransoutengai again and this time tugged the soldier over his shoulder and slammed him into the ground. "Hand over the ruby, kid. You're out of your league. With your main weapon out of commission, you can't fight against me," the archer said as he pointed his sword at the warrior. "Get up, or else give up the ruby and run!"

The situation was rapidly turning sour. This Monroe person seemed strong to say the least, and Falenor was thoroughly sick of being sent flying at things, as much of an energy source as the speed was. Instead of slowing himself down, however, he just used a combination of heat and force to blast a hole in the wall he was flying towards.

Despite stopping himself from becoming an unpleasant splatter on the museum wall, he was still hurtling with some speed away from the building. Of course, Falenor didn't give up nearly this easily, so telepathic messages were the first order of business. First, a brief one to Jennifer: I won't be gone long, then a second, this time directed at J. Of course we won't! That would be mean. Just do yourself a favor and don't die for a minute or two, eh?

He had a third message, but this one was directed at Monroe. That was nice, I was in need of some personal space, Falenor sent to his enemy's mind. There was one main difference between this message and the first two though: it was at a mental volume of approximately 400 decibels. That oughta hurt, he thought to himself with some satisfaction.

Evidently pure force isn't going to work against you, he continued to the Quincy mentally, and I'm not stupid enough to continue an obviously defunct tactic. So I guess I'll see you around, whoever you are, he finished.

Somewhere in the distance, a lightning bolt struck. Followed, surprisingly, by several others at the exact same position.

OoC : If you guess what's coming next, you win nothing. If you send me angry PMs about it, you're quite within your rights. Ehe...^_^;;

As expected, the SWAT forces were little match for the hired superhuman thieves. In fact, they were all killed by but a single man. Jennifer hadn't expected anything less; she simply needed a distraction, a way in. As soon as the SWAT team unleashed their hail of weapons, Jennifer slunk away behind them. The man now slaughtering the gunmen was, according to Falenor, the man who now had the Ruby. He seemed a formidable foe.

As soon as the man was finished with the SWAT team, he couldn't help but notice that Jennifer was still alive, having avoided the attack entirely. "Clearly you're not with them. So, I'm guessing you must be like us. Too bad reinforcements failed. After all, each man here could have killed these guys by themselves. Except for you, and him," the man said, pointing to Falenor, who was sitting next to the wall that he had been thrown up against, recovering.

"I can't say I know what in the world you're talking about. Like...you? A brute and murderer? A thief and coward? I should hope not," Jennifer responded, taking a chance. "Now, I'm afraid I'm going to have to arrest you..." she said, reaching for her shotgun. Before the man had a chance to reply, Falenor got up from the ground and began to dash all about him, distracting him. Jennifer loaded her shotgun in the interim, doubtful that it would actually be an effective weapon against this so-called "Angel of Death" substitute. By the time she was done, Falenor was standing beside her. To be honest, Jennifer felt a bit safer knowing she had a superhuman ally in her fight against another superhuman.

Engaged in his fight against Falenor, the darkly dressed superhuman seemed to have forgotten about Jennifer, a mistake he would eventually come to regret. She reached into her backpack to pull out one of her plasma armguns, powering it up. It was ready about the time that the enemy thief smacked Falenor into another wall. She fired a couple of shots at him, but he dodged them easily, taking note of her high-tech weapon. Suddenly, in mid-speech, the man was pulled quickly away, and thrown into a wall. J, the armored man she had fought earlier, had joined the fight. Now with the appropriate distraction, Jennifer did what she did best, and disappeared.

Hiding around the corner, she threw off her security uniform, and threw on her cloak and helmet. Her two shotguns were slung over her back with her laser carbine, her left plasma armgun was attached to her left arm, and her right plasma rifle was hanging by her side. Using her climbing cables and the one of her two daggers still sharp, she clambered into the ceiling of the room. She switched her helmet visor to thermal vision, and it allowed her to see through the relatively thin ceiling, at least enough to see where the figures below were. Jennifer unequipped her plasma rifle and started to get her laser carbine warmed up.

She could see the fight below, but it was the conversation that gave away the position of the Ruby. Her visor amplified the sound of the people speaking on the floor below. The darkly dressed man was now insisting that J hand over the Ruby, which must have meant that he had cleverly taken it when he attacked the superhuman assassin. Still, the only way she was getting the Ruby was if both of them were dead. The only question was which she should kill first. The moment she killed one of them, the other would take the gem and bolt. If she could kill them both at the same time...

Frost changed her mind about using the laser rifle to kill them. Instead, she carefully aimed it at what she had identified as the dark assassin's knee. The beam would hopefully weaken the man and give J a chance to get back in the fight, keeping them both occupied. The laser was fully charged, and just for good measure, she upped the diameter of the beam by almost a millimeter. The larger, more powerful beam would take a slightly larger chunk out of her rifle's battery, but cause greater damage to the man's knee. Such a beam would most likely cripple a normal human, who would have to go through surgery to have the knee replaced. Jennifer took the shot, and then put away the carbine.

She then took one of her plasma weapons, compressed the plasma chamber, and opened it up. Jennifer carefully removed one of the full green plasma cells. The cold glass canister was filled with a slightly luminescent green liquid. The liquid was actually a highly volatile plasma, under extreme pressure. The pressure compressed the plasma, forcing it into liquid form. As soon as the pressure was released, by say, a fracture or crack in the glass cylinder holding it, the liquid would quickly expand, rupturing the canister, and revert back into a gas. In other words, it would explode, very violently. This was of course to be avoided at all costs, the number one rule when it came to wielding and handling plasma weapons. Sometimes, however, there were benefits to large explosions that could vaporize organic matter and evaporate solid steel.

Falenor, having recently rocketed away from the building, sent another telepathic message to Jennifer. She began to wonder when this would overtake texting as the most popular form of telecommunication, considering how convenient it was. He informed her that he would be back soon. Hopefully I'll have the job finished by the time you do, Eidolon thought back. Hey, how much heat and shock do you suppose that Ruby can sustain? Hopefully the answer was "a lot."

Loud telepathic thoughts, lightning, and now plasma energy. No matter how he looked at it, Monroe noticed that he had gotten in a bit over his head. "Tsk," he murmured as he tossed down a silver tube, using perception, slowed as much as his enhanced eyes could make it, to figure out the best, or possibly only, course of action.

The telepathic message was annoying, but still, sound and, moreover, blocking out sound was something he was trained to do, even when it came from within his mind. After all, the dark clad man knew all too well that the only way to survive unbalanced fights, like this one, was to use your brain over your brawn.

Still, lightning and plasma. Hell, if he escaped that, there were three people trying to kill him. Things didn't look good. He was in a tight spot. Still, it wasn't until moments like this one, where everything was on the line, that a person realized just how easy it would be to die and stop fighting against the odds. Monroe, however, was not among such people.

In fact, he invited a challenge.

The tube at his feet exploded as the man's body was seemingly pelted by attacks after attacks. Had he actually let these people hit him, he probably would have been fried crispier than baked Alaska. Still, that wasn’t his idea of a good time. So, instead, the distorted motion blur could take the damage for him.

The assassin and her buddy seemed to look at the spot. They probably would have expected something dead, or at least some charred remains of a corpse. Instead, however, they found something much more disturbing. J stood there, although he had been lucky enough to not take the brunt of those attacks, freed from the blade in his arm, but no Monroe. Anywhere.

"Man, you people sure are afraid of me. I mean, three on one," he mused, smiling at them. Hirenkyaku has saved his life again. Then again, it was hard for the uninformed to be prepared for such a movement. Sudden and useful as it was. "You should, however, observe more before you rush in and attack. Still, I'll admit, if it weren't for idiots like you, my life would be boring."

Even so, Monroe accepted that these odds of three on one weren't too good. Still, he did have one ace up his sleeve left. "Hey, Derrik. Finish up with that old man over there. Hell, drag him over here. These guys are ganging up on their known superior. That's a sin punishable by an eternity locked in cold ice or trapped in the jaws of Satan in the ninth circle of hell. Well... sucks to be you," the Quincy said as he spun around on his perch and stood up.

"Now then, care to surrender so I don't have to beat the life out of you?

OoC: Come now, you guys. Monroe's survived more dangerous situations. After all, he survived Chinatown Rush, where almost everyone was Derrik and J strength or stronger. Don't think your tricks can kill him.

Dybia had been playing cat and mouse with the man, but just as he was about to round the broken wall Dybia smashed his electrically charged sword through the wall and into the man's chest knocking him back. Not to Dybia's surprise though, there was only a small cut, barely emitting a drop of blood from the whole cut.

"Hah, I could tell there was something behind that attack. Is that all you can do?" ,the man said cockily.

"Only a fool judges an attack at face value. Tell me, what do you feel around that cut?" Dybia said back to him.

The man ran a finger across his chest and to his surprise, nothing. He didn't feel anything on his chest.

"Pity, a few inches higher and I may have gotten your heart." ,Dybia said to the man trying to put into perspective just what his power was capable of.

Not showing if it hit him at all how close Dybia came to hitting his heart with a jolt of electricity the man simply raised his gun once again to blow off a bit of the wall behind Dybia as he ducked under the shot.

"Hey, Derrik. Finish up with that old man over there. Hell, drag him over here. These guys are ganging up on their known superior. That's a sin punishable by an eternity locked in cold ice or trapped in the jaws of Satan in the ninth circle of hell. Well... sucks to be you," Dybia heard Monroe say to the man.

Dybia shot over to Monroe, and said, "Old man, old man. That's all I hear out of you. like I should be in some old folks home."

Monroe simply batted another hand at Dybia expecting the same result, but was caught this time by an iron hand so charged anyone could see the energy arching between the fingers.

He took the chance and again kicked with the steel sole of his boot to Monroe's chest. He knew the man he'd been fighting was not just going to stop, so Dybia threw Monroe to the people he'd been fighting.

"Take him out but don't expect me to let you run off with the gem. I have my own opponent to deal with for the moment though." Dybia said to the confused people as he caught a shot in his shoulder, "Damn it!"

He ran back down the hall to attack him once more.

OoC : Who said anyone was dying?

BiC : It should be able to take a lot, I was planning to use it for- Falenor was cut off midsentence during his reply to Jennifer by the lightning. Heehee, this is fun... he finished, not even bothering to conclude his message properly. It didn't really matter when he burst into the room again half a second layer, leaving a smoking hole in the wall and a faint smell of ozone as he did so.

"Miss me?" he said with a laugh. Almost his entire being had turned a vivid electric blue with sparks playing along every inch of his body. His hair stood up in what would have been a comical fashion if there wasn't electricity arcing between individual strands. The last change wasn't so noticeable, but his brain had become rather scrambled with the process.

"Heeheeheehee!" he giggled, zipping around the room with all the speed of a lightning bolt. "You really should try this guy- oh. It's you." he muttered, turning to face Monroe. "You're no fun! You kept knocking me into walls! I don't like you!" he finished, putting his hands on his hips and, less than a nanosecond later, on Monroe's back. "Wonder what a lightning bolt to the spinal cord feels like? Ooh, could you tell me later?" he exclaimed jubilantly, sending a heavy charge straight into the Quincy's back in the time it takes a light bulb to light up.

Under normal circumstances Falenor would have stuck around to keep zapping him, but these were not normal circumstances. So he just zipped around the room at speeds approaching that of light a little more, throwing pieces of charged metal at Monroe whenever he felt like it. His sensible mind would be able to come up with a plan to dispose of Monroe in seconds with this sort of power and speed, but ironically the cost of it was the loss of his sensible mind, leaving barely enough to even recognize the Quincy as an enemy. Eventually, he appeared next to J. "Don't know about you. You seem fine. Take that mean guy over there down and you'll be fine," he said with a most uncharacteristic smile.

OoC : WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I've wanted to do this for a while

"Tsk," Jennifer hissed. Either the laser beam had missed when the dark assassin sped quickly away, or it hadn't harmed him at all. She let it charge up again, but before she could fire at J, an extremely large and bright heat source flew through the wall and filled up Jennifer's thermal vision, making it difficult to see. Her visor informed her that the hotspot also had an extremely high electromagnetic field reading, somewhere around the levels of a power station or bolt of lightning even. "Oh. That must be Falenor."

Falenor flew around the room as fast as, well, lightning. He zapped Monroe full of electricity, and then flew around some more, throwing stuff and acting altogether insane. He seemed to completely ignore J, and Jennifer figured that Falenor probably didn't know that it was J who had the gem, not Monroe anymore. Hey, turbo, J has the gem now, fry him, she projected her thoughts. She wasn't sure if Falenor was capable of hearing them or listening to them right now, however, with his being so high on pure electric energy.

Falenor had informed her that the Ruby could possibly sustain the damage of a plasma explosion, sort of. Either way, Jennifer figured whether it worked or not, she could either get the Ruby for herself, or no one else could have it. One option was better than the other, of course, but allowing neither option was unacceptable. Besides, of the few things that could survive such an explosion, hard precious stones were one of the things known to do so, especially diamonds, which the Hunter's Ruby was not. In a particular case she remembered hearing about, the only remains of a tragic plasma explosion in a weapon laboratory was a particular scientist's wedding ring diamond, while the platinum band had melted away.

Still holding the plasma canister, Jennifer decided to make the makeshift nuke a little safer to handle. She took the discarded security uniform she had been wearing, and wrapped some of the fabric around the cylinder, to cushion it. She tied the wrappings tightly on with a strip of fabric torn off from the uniform. The plasma grenade was now a little more discrete, and wouldn't vaporize Jennifer if she accidentally looked at it a little too intensely. Now, it was time for action.

She crawled over to a particular part of the ceiling, and using her razor sharp extendable dagger (before fighting Falenor, she'd had two of these. Now she had one, and another rather dull dagger...) she cut almost all the way through the ceiling, in the shape of a large circle. From the other side, the cut wouldn't be noticable, but any weight on it would finish the break and allow the ceiling to fall through. Going over her plan one last time and preparing for some quick action, she readied her equipment, removing a strap from one of the shotguns and leaving the weapon in the ceiling for now. Likely, she wouldn't feel the need to come back for it, but at least she knew where it was if she needed it.

Suddenly, Frost burst through the ceiling, right in front and above J. She used her momentum and element of surprise to collide right into J, pushing both of them out the large smoking hole in the wall of the building, left there by turbo-Falenor. In a few short seconds, as they fell towards the ground, Jennifer made a few quick movements, and then fired her cable back towards the building, pulling herself back onto the roof of the building, her cloak billowing behind her. The actions were quick and planned, and it would probably take any spectators a moment to realize what she'd done, besides throwing the Power Ranger out the window.

In the collision with J, she had pulled the shotgun strap around behind him, tightening it around both his arms, securing them to his side. The strap was probably not strong enough to restrain the superpowered human for very long, but hopefully it was enough for gravity to take its toll and finish the job. Along with that, something that most spectators and even J himself would probably not notice until too late, she'd left a little surprise behind. Strapped to J's back by the shotgun sling was a small bundle of cloth, inside of which was her plasma cell. As soon as, or if, he hit the ground back first...

Eidolon hid herself on the roof, and waited for the fireworks display to take place. In a moment she would have to either sort through the rubble and remains to find the gem, or finish the job with her sniper, which she was setting up now, bipod and all.

Smoking, charred and angry, the Quincy stood up and shook off the electricity. These cheap energy tricks had all but pissed him off for the last time. "That's it," he muttered, reaching into his jacket and removing his last five Silver Tubes, "I don't care who survives this, I'm killing you all now." It not longer mattered. These... people, if he dared call them that, were too scared or unskilled to fight him on their own, except for Derrik, so he'd make short work of them.

With expert tact, the man tossed each tube, one by one, into key points of the building, an all too easy task thanks to the huge holes in the walls, and attached them to strings of Ransoutengai. Falenor seemed to move towards him slowly and stared at the man, smiling mildly sadistically. "Time for the fireworks," the dark clad man stated as he formed his bow and quickly drew it back, releasing an arrow.

The arrow, although it seemed to at first move towards Falenor, the man preparing to do something about it, it quickly broke off into five parts, each one moving towards one of the tubes of liquid photon energy. Within less than a second, five explosions rocked the building, rendering whatever structural integrity left gone. The building began to sway and move about wildly.

In the next few seconds, the sound of metal and wood and glass cracking and shattering echoed, and the building began to collapse inwards. The Technological Quincy wasted no time, walking towards a nearby hole in the wall that lead out. No doubt, once the others figured out what was going on, they would flee as well. Still, even if they did, any cover the weaker ones needed would be blown, and they'd be easy targets. After all, that was his goal in this whole escapade.

I can fight you myself! Ooh! Pick me! Falenor screamed into Monroe's mind, zipping around the room. Ooh, where you going? he thought boisterously, flying just in front of the hole and pushing Monroe back with a mild electric shock. Are you leaving? Don't you like me? You're no fun... he whined, flinging him back into the museum.

"Hey...did you blow up the museum? That wasn't very nice of you! HEY EVERYONE! MONROE BLEW UP THE MUSEUM!" Falenor yelled at the top of his lungs. An instant later and he was behind Monroe again, poking him repeatedly and tripping him when he tried to leave the building.

"Why do you want to kill everyone anyway? If we were all like you, we'd be trying to kill you now, would you rather that?" his voice, originating from a point just behind Monroe's left ear, muttered. Little sparks jumped from Falenor's fast-moving form onto everything in the surrounds, including Monroe. Falenor's movements didn't seem to be designed to attack but rather to delay the Quincy until the building came down around him. At least, that's what it looked like: in actual fact, Falenor was just being annoying.

Just sit tight guys! he thought at both Jennifer and J simultaneously. There's plenty of reward to go around and I'm busy with Monroe, so work something out! I'm sending this to the other one too, so yeah. With that, he continued harassing Monroe, darting out of range every time the mean person tried to counterattack. Which was often.

OoC : WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~~~~~~!!

If there was one way you could define this man, it was annoying. All he was doing was nagging and bouncing around and simply being obnoxious. Well, in the best interest of survival, even though the building itself probably wouldn't kill him, it was necessary to make this man be quiet.

Still, the annoying man bounced around chaotically, creating lightning wherever he moved and stalling the Technological Quincy for as long as he could, it seemed. Well, when in doubt. When. In. Doubt.

The dark clad man watched Falenor closely as the man bounced about like some kind of jester. Monroe considered the many different ways he could go about tearing this man's arms off, but quickly elected against that. He considered possibly just punching him in the face, but like the first idea, that could possibly be stopped. Electricity sure was a slippery thing when it was used as a defense.

Still, if no good offensive could be thought up, maybe a more dangerous one would serve an equally good purpose. After all, it might have hurt a little bit to do it, but still, it would slow down the man.

Still, there he was, bouncing from spot to spot, sparking the dark clad man with each movement, almost instigating the Quincy into action. Well, if that was really what he wanted...

In a flash, the dark clad man's right arm had shot outwards and wrapped itself around Falenor's neck. The immediate victory seemed to go to the energy wielder as electricity flooded the Quincy's body, shocking him terribly as the man seemed to only laugh. The right sleeve of Monroe's jacket was quickly burned away, and the flesh below began to char, very slowly.

Reeling his left fist back, the Quincy made his first counterattack. A single punch to the face caused Falenor to be stunned for a few seconds and shake his head. Perhaps it was disbelief that Monroe could still move, even while being shocked. Perhaps it was shock that Falenor could be hurt that stalled him. Still, that didn't stop the second attack.

Putting his back into it, Monroe lifted Falenor and aimed him just a few inches from a hole in the collapsing ceiling. With a powerful punch, and the well timed release of the man's neck, the dark clad man shot the energy wielder towards the hole where he assumed the other cowardly person was hiding.

This was starting to get interesting... and unnatural. He hadn’t expected this Monroe character to be any kind of a challenge, what with his silly personality and all, but he had managed to get in a few good hits. Nothing had seriously hindered him, however, but the glancing stab wound was uncomfortable. Before J was able to retaliate, though, the strange energy weirder was zipping around the room in a manic fashion, pelting the crap out of the dark bounty hunter with lightning bolts. J merely rubbed his head and stood back for a few seconds, not sure if it was so smart to get in the speed demons way, but rather enjoying Monroe's humbling. Of course, he did still have the ruby...

“Don't know about you. You seem fine. Take that mean guy over there down and you'll be fine,” The soldier blinked a few times, finding the mans new attitude a strange contrast to what little he had seen before. He was certainly interesting, but seemed less then all there. J shrugged as Felanor went back about slapping and zapping Monroe around, quickly scanning the area to make sure he could make a clean escape, and almost on cue, he was interrupted.

The stealthy assassin lady slammed into him with a good amount of speed behind her, quickly binding his arms as they flew out a hole in the wall. J’s visor was extremely good at identifying potential threats before it would seem naturally possible, however, not to mention he had more then enough experience with this certain power source. She might as well have put a big bomb on his back with a neon sign that read “I am a bomb and I’m being strapped to your back.” The woman was speedy, though, and was practically on the roof before J was able to break the strap. The armored man hrumphed and caught the wrapped cloth holding the plasma cell carefully, leaning back into a back flip and landing on the ground below with barely a sound.

By now, the battle taking place inside the museum had caused the building to start to collapse in on itself. The genetically enhanced soldier glared back up at the shuddering roof, magnifying his vision and quickly locating the inconsiderate woman. She had her rifle mounted and pointed strait at him. He watched as her muscles tensed slightly and her finger moved to pull the trigger. J smirked and pulled back his right arm, ready to chuck the power cell at the assassin, and precisely lining up his head, the plasma orb, and the hunters ruby up with her shot, making sure that if she went for either his head or the power cell, she’d hit the ruby hidden inside the barrel of his arm instead. An invisible force punched a hole through the side of his barrel, ricocheted harmlessly off the ruby and disappeared into the night sky.

J snorted at the silly way he had just managed to cheat death and secure his own escape. Fist, he firing off his grappling claw, ruby and all, towards the outer wall. J then threw the plasma cell with all the speed he could, without having it blow up in his hand, aimed at the side of the building underneath miss sniper. “Tootles!” He called back as he yanked himself away from the ensuing explosion for all he was worth.

Pain. Pain, of course, is simply nerve impulses and nerve impulses are just more electricity. Of course these impulses are there for a reason, be it to tell you about a small scratch or, as in Falenor's case, to inform you that your nose isn't quite sitting as it should. Not that he really noticed given his current state.

He did, however, notice the fact that he was flying through the air towards the roof at an incredibly high speeds. Luckily for him, incredibly high speeds weren't exactly a challenge given how fast he'd been moving before. Rotating himself around expertly, he kicked himself off the roof and went hurtling straight at Monroe again...who stepped to the side and laughed as Falenor's face plowed through the rapidly collapsing tiled floor. Picking himself up almost instantly, he grabbed a nearby cable and flicked it at the Quincy.

Monroe did his best to dodge it, and would have succeeded under normal circumstances; the cable didn't even scratch him. It did, however, brush against his leg. Which normally wouldn't do anything, but when the person on the other end has the pent-up charge of one and a half lightning bolts, it suddenly becomes somewhat more effective. Enough electricity to knock out an elephant surged through the cable in the blink of an eye, but all it did was make Monroe flinch a little.

"Why did you throw me at the roof? You're mean!" Falenor reiterated. "You're probably trying to hurt me and the others! I think you should leave," he concluded, with what almost looked like a pout. Quick as a flash, he flicked the chain around Monroe's leg and welded it around the limb with a powerful jolt. Burning large amounts of electrical energy as nerve impulses to his muscles, he spun quickly around in circles and flung Monroe straight through the wall opposite the hole the Quincy was trying to leave through. Then he threw a brick at the area of the roof Monroe said someone had been hiding in.

"Ooh, is there someone up there? Come on down, I won't bite!" he said. "And that mean guy who threw me at you is gone, too!" he exclaimed, casting a glance at the new hole in the wall Monroe's sudden exit had created with mild amusement. "Except I'd better get going...have fun up there!" he yelled, dashing out of the building to see what Jennifer and J were up to.

"Hey, J ran off! How rude!" he grumbled when he realized what had happened. Naturally, he followed the ruby's current owner along his flight path, coasting with ease while his new "buddy" flew through the air on a precise trajectory. "Hey, where ya going?" he said cheerfully. "Come on, stick around for a while. It'll be fun!" he concluded, grabbing J and pulling him onto the roof. "Besides, I want to look at that sparkly gem you've got on you."

OoC : edit due to being ninja'd. NINJA'D. In the BA. MAN, I must be slow...

Overhead, a police helicopter flew over the museum, a spotlight shining down upon it and the chaos around it. Police on the ground were readying their weapons, unsure if they wanted to engage the thieves or not. None of the SWAT team or security members that had entered the building were reporting anymore.

An explosion caused the building below to rock beneath her feet, but Jennifer wasn't about to let that prevent her from taking her shot. J had managed to free his arms, catch the plasma cell, and land on his feet. Frost lined up a shot to his head and fired, but he put up his arm and somehow blocked it. Infrared detection on her helmet's visor indicated that the beam reflected off of something in the barrel of his arm weapon. It must have been the Ruby; he was keeping it inside his arm, apparently. As Jennifer waited for her weapon to charge another shot, she noticed J throwing something towards the building. She realized it was the plasma cell bundle, and quickly got to her feet. Jennifer pointed her arm to the other side of the roof and fired a grappling cable, zipping away from the coming explosion. Before she even reached the end of her cable, the cylinder hit the side of the building.

The impact caused the cell to fracture, releasing the great pressure within. The high energy plasma inside the canister immediately depressurized, and the resulting bright green explosion rocked through the entire building. The wall that the cell hit was turned into dust, and the supports inside the building, already falling apart, shattered like glass. The entire museum began to lean away from the explosion and collapse in upon itself. Jennifer slid down the roof, which was now a steep slope. Reaching the very edge of the roof, Jennifer leaped off and away from the building, into the open air.

Calmly falling towards the ground, Frost aimed her arm upwards and fired off her grappling cable. It attached itself to the bottom of the police helicopter, and she pulled herself up to it. Inside the helicopter was three people. One was the pilot, flying the helicopter. The other two were police snipers, trying to get a good shot on the people below. Like the ghost she called herself, Eidolon quickly spirited away one of the snipers, slitting his throat and dropping him down to the ground before anyone else realized he was even gone. The other sniper fell out of the helicopter himself, suddenly dead, a small pinhole piercing through his forehead, caused by the silent beam of Jennifer's carbine.

Frost activated the radio jammer in her helmet, to prevent the pilot from radioing for help, and then held her carbine to the back of his head. It didn't have a shot charged yet, but the pilot wouldn't know that. "Keep flying," she said, her helmet making her voice deep and menacing. The pilot nervously complied, keeping the bird in the air. She then directed the pilot to fly the helicopter to the best vantage point, so that she could snipe the thieves herself. She had him elevate the 'copter much higher than he normally would for sniping purposes, since her carbine had a much greater range than conventional sniper rifles. This altitude would help make sure that, while she could attack the people on the ground, the people on the ground wouldn't be able to attack back. Her main target would continue to be J, at least until someone else had the Ruby of course.

Her shot charged and ready, she put her eye to the laser rifle's scope and zoomed in on the ground below, searching for J's head.

He was home free. All his worries were fading away. He was almost to the other side of the wall and all his enemies who were still mindlessly killing each other without purpose were about to be blown to smithereens.

And then it all turned around. He was yanked back up onto the roof and the plasma orb was about to hit. It was just about the worse case scenario that could have happened if he was living in a nightmare.

“Come on, stick around for a while. It'll be fun! Besides, I want to look at that sparkly gem you've got on you.” said an overjoyed man hyped up on electricity. Had he any time at all, J would have liked to beat this guys face in for sending him to his doom, and forthwith escape his doom. But seeing as how he couldn’t even complete these thoughts before he met his doom that he had so cleverly set up, he was pretty much doomed. It was a mean kind of irony.

The plasma bomb hit. The man was gone the millisecond he noticed. J could make out that the woman assassin was already halfway across the building. J was straining to get every ounce of a jump out of his legs as he could muster, igniting his thrusters as hot as they would go, but the overwhelming blast had already engulfed him.

How crappy was this? He had so cleverly put everything into action, and now he was the only one it even had any effect on at all. All because of some guys ridiculous speed. There comes a point where that kind of speed should just not exist. Surely it was cheating.

J’s body flipped and spun through the air at inhuman velocities. The sheer force and corrosive effect of the plasmatic explosion was enough to make every fiber of his being scream out in pain, and the high speed spinning wasn’t helping matters. Everything was a blur of colorful plasma and excruciating pain, but it was all over before he knew it. His acceleration had changed from up to down, everything turned dark as the explosions light faded, and he struck the cracked cement with a painful sounding thud.

The young mans breath was ragged, his face contorted in agony. His helmet was mostly missing and his visor was no longer hiding his now bruised and bleeding face. That’s the first thing he noticed, anyway, though he didn’t really care. He was more focused on the fact that he was still alive, and what he could do to keep it that way. And the pain. It would be nice if that would go away.

J had always had the mindset that nothing would actually ever kill him. It just never seemed like his time to go. It was like someone was writing a story about him, and he was way too awesome of a main character to be killed off just yet. Sometimes he wondered if that would sound completely ludicrous to someone else...

Through painful gasps and blurry eyes, J made out that his left arm was mostly gone. While this wasn’t a good thing in of itself, it also meant that he no longer had the Hunter’s ruby. The rest of his body was in just as bad of shape, and blood was starting to pool underneath him. Utterly defeated, the clone soldier started to fade out of consciousness.

OoC: And this is why I haven't been posting. All I had to write about was J's spectacular defeat =P Get to work, peoples!

Jennifer Frost scanned the ground below through the narrow field of vision the nightscope attached to her laserbeam carbine allowed. She quickly found her target and zoomed in closer on it. Only a quick glance revealed that her target wasn't in such a good state. J had apparently been caught in the plasma decompression explosion, which had left him pretty torn up. Jennifer couldn't fathom how he could have been caught in the explosion. Last she knew, he was on the ground, from where he threw the bomb up onto the roof of the building. How he could have managed to get from the ground to the roof before the plasma cell hit the building (and perhaps more importantly, why) Frost didn't know. All that really mattered was that J was unconscious, or maybe even dead, and laying on the hard black asphalt. She couldn't really justify shooting him now, he was already in defeat.

As the building continued its collapse, a large cloud of dust obscured the ground. Jennifer knew she would have to quickly get to J before anyone else found him, or else she would never get that Ruby. "Descend! Now!" she commanded the pilot of the helicopter, her voice artificially vicious and bestial. He complied immediately, wishing to keep his life as long as possible. As soon as the helicopter was close enough to the ground, Jennifer jumped out, her cloak billowing behind her. The pilot quickly flew the aircraft away, no longer being held hostage by the dark assassin.

Using her visor's infrared capabilities, she was able to locate the body through the dust filled air. J was lucky (and in a different sense, so was Frost) that the explosion had thrown him far enough away that he hadn't been buried under debris from the collapsing building. Although J was mostly unconscious, Jennifer could tell he was still alive, if only barely. He was drawing ragged breaths and his eyes were slightly open, staring blankly into the distance. Most of his helmet was missing, and the visor was completely gone, exposing the man's bleeding face. Jennifer could tell that he was young, hardly a fully grown man. What was he doing in this deadly line of work?

Examining the armored body further, she noticed that something very important was missing. His left arm. The arm that held the Ruby inside. Turning away from the boy, she quickly looked around for the missing limb. Although the dust still obscured her vision, she was able to locate the still-warm disembodied arm with her visor. She quickly went over to it, pulling it out from under a few bricks. It was badly torched, and the armor protecting it was hanging off of it in shreds. It wasn't hard for Jennifer to pry the armor off with her knives, enough so she could pull the red gem out from inside.

Finally... Eidolon said as she stashed the prize inside her cloak. All this work had finally come to fruition. She hadn't expected this to be so difficult, but it looked like it was all going to be worth it. Still holding the severed limb, she walked back to the beat up armored young man. She dropped J's arm next to his body, maybe he could get it reattached. A pool of blood was gathering underneath the body, and Jennifer wasn't sure how much longer he'd last. It wasn't as if she really cared for his life or anything; just a moment ago she was planning on killing him herself. It had been out of necessity, however, not out of hate or bloodlust. She had what she needed now, and the boy was no longer an adversary to her goals. She only hoped the best for him now.

Looking around, she noticed the dust was beginning to settle, and the air beginning to clear. It wouldn't be long now before the police moved in, to check on the aftermath and arrest who they could. They'd find the boy and take him to the hospital. Hopefully he was still alive when they did. The other thieves would be showing up soon too, if they weren't too busy tearing each other apart. Eventually they'd realize that none of them even have the gem, and they'd go searching. She needed to get out before either the police or the hunters arrived. With one last look at the defeated J, she turned to the wall surrounding what used to be the museum, and ran towards it.

It was only a matter of time now. Frost would use her cables to climb over the wall, and then make for her vehicle. Once she was in her fortress of a car, no one would be able to stop her. She'd be home free. For a moment she remembered something about her deal with Falenor. What had the deal been? Right: if he got the Ruby, then they would go to his place and he could examine it, and he'd let her take it home and cash it in. And if she got the Ruby? Falenor hadn't planned on that possibility. Hopefully he wouldn't miss it, because he would probably never see it again now, unless he stole it from whoever she was turning it in to.

Idiots! Morons! Fools! The lot of them were nothing but arrogant weaklings. Still, the time to crush the insects had come. Still, if they hadn't been so careless. So foolish. So stupid, he wouldn't have been able to get around them. The chaos the energy guy, the person that looked a bit like Megaman and the woman had caused, he wouldn't have been able to sneak around. True, he had left Derrik to deal with those idiots, but Monroe had total confidence in the perfect assassin.

And if Derrik died, the Quincy didn't plan to shed a tear. After all, this was warfare. This was Social Darwinism at its best. The weakest here would perish and the strong would continue killing. Well, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the archer had already sized up most of his opponents and deemed them unworthy. Still, his own pride might have been very powerful, but he wasn't one to allow things to end so easily.

The time had finally arrived to reveal himself. Neon green wires wrapped around the woman's arm as the Technological Quincy smiled at her. He'd either pry the ruby from her hand or rip her arm off if that didn't work. "I'd suggest giving that ruby up, lady. You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. Don't waste my time making me fight you. Give up. I'm growing tired of you baboons stalling me!"

The Quincy tightened the grip of his Ransoutengai, attempting to force the woman to drop the ruby. "I've got you, and like this, you can't fight me. Trust me, you're doomed. Ready to give up now?" he asked, smiling sinisterly. He'd won, or so it seemed.

Damn! Jennifer Frost thought as the neon green wires wrapped around her left arm. The Hunter's Ruby was clutched tightly in her gloved fist, where she had thought it would be somewhat safer than in her cloak, which she didn't doubt could have already been removed and quickly stolen away by those strange wires by now. She kept her other arm hidden underneath her billowing black cloak, where all her weapons were.

Her arm caught, she turned around to face her antagonist. As she examined the young man, looking for flaws and weaknesses, he spoke to her, demanding she give him the prize. "I'd suggest giving that ruby up, lady. You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. Don't waste my time making me fight you. Give up. I'm growing tired of you baboons stalling me!" Jennifer listened carefully, considering what her next move should be.

"I've got you, and like this, you can't fight me. Trust me, you're doomed. Ready to give up now?" he asked with a sinister smile, confident that he had bested her. The green wires tightened around her arm, but they did little good in forcing her hand open. Her armor was made from strong metal plates bound to tough bulletproof fibers, and she could hardly feel the pressure from the mystic wires through the thick layers. Hoping to buy some time, Jennifer spoke up.

"Such arrogance, Monroe." Frost let her voice ring true and gentle through the helmet, unfiltered. She had managed to get his name via an information request from the CORE profile database. A quick facial recognition scan brought up his name and a few minor details about him. CORE probably had more than that on file, but it was all classified to Jennifer's clearance level. "Baboons? Really? You insult me." While she spoke her hidden right arm made some secret movements, adjusting her laser carbine.

"You seem strong, Vossler. Strong, and fast too. Certainly stronger and faster than a helpless woman like me." A flick of a switch and the carbine was charging up a shot. She held the weapon in her right hand and pulled it quickly out from under her cloak, keeping it slung around her shoulder. "Light," Jennifer said. "Are you faster than light? Unless you are, I would suggest against making any sudden movements right now." The carbine gave a quiet and high pitched beep, warning her that the weapon was now fully charged and ready to fire a beam.

"Right now I have an infrared laser beam pointed directly at your forehead. You probably can't see it but I can, with this helmet. If I move my finger, if my finger even twitches involuntarily, that harmless infrared laser becomes powerful enough to burn through at least an inch of solid stainless steel. Are you stronger than steel? Are you, Vossler?" If he made any threatening moves, or didn't let go of her arm real quick, that beam was going right through his face. In fact, she'd probably shoot him even if he did let go, to make sure he didn't follow. Maybe, just to show him some mercy if he complied, she'd only shoot him in the spine and paralyze him, instead of killing him.

Hoping she was right and the man wasn't faster than light, or stronger than steel, she looked down at the strings binding her other arm. "These are really beginning to make me rather uneasy. I'm afraid my finger might slip if you don't let go of my arm, and I don't think either of us wants that.

"Oh, also, the beam moves as fast as light, so don't think you can go dodging it like I saw you dodging bullets earlier."