[Arc] Deluge

Blitz paused as Eris explained. And while he thought 'Try me' when she said he wouldn't understand, he let it slide for the moment, as he figured he would have a chance to ask what the heck it was about from her later, and feasibly Leo himself once he'd gotten over whatever was going on with him. As for the rest, Blitz took the phone, looking at the map that was open on its screen, before glancing back up at Eris with a nod. "Got it. I'll bring the ship around for....extraction of you and hopefully Leo. Good luck and be careful - I know he protected you as we left, but someone hellbent on destruction and out of things to destroy is a bad combo. I'll be back soon with the ship." Blitz said, waving and running off with the phone in hand, back down the path they'd come along, reaching the main path and taking a left as he moved down the path as fast as he could - he wanted to fly, but he'd dropped his form earlier when they escaped already, and even if it was, it was easier to stay low - too high and he might lose sight of the path entirely.

Eventually, he reached the ship and climbed inside, closing the door behind him and jumping over to the cockpit, glancing over the button before mashing the one labeled 'autopilot'. Blitz lurched for a moment, hand flashing with blue magic for a brief moment as he steadied himself, as the ship lurched into the air and sped off towards the duo. Blitz got back to the front window and looked through it as they reached their destination, seeing Eris and Leo in the crater, and there were no black flames around Leo anymore, which was quite the start. Guess she managed to calm him down, Blitz thought. When the ship landed, Blitz ran over, throwing the door open and running over to the crater's edge. "Ship's here, we really need to go before someone comes over to investigate what all the noise was about!" Blitz said.

As he ran back, having little doubt they were following, he ran inside and placed a hand on the ship's controls, blue circuitry appearing again before disappearing. "That should resolve the remote auto-pilot issue," Blitz said, taking his hand off the panel. "The original auto-pilot coding was still there from the last engine, it just had to be corrected - the software equivalent of plugging it into the right outlet." he added with a slight smile. "Let's get out of here."

Eris held Leo in her arms, sighing before she laid him down on the ground, picking up his sword. Once pristinely polished, its edges were now coated in tarnish, a line of old dust still present on the crossguard even though blood now flecked it as well. Mulling over it for a moment, she tucked it into her belt, then searching for their other weapons Tolokonsky had previously confiscated. Surprisingly, she found them intact near an alcove of rubble, holding them up for a moment before they vanished from her sight. As she returned to Leo, however, taking in the features of the chasm she now found herself at the bottom of, her ears picked up the distinctly familiar sound of Blackjack's roaring engine.

Well, that was good, Blitz had managed to land her without incident. Eris wasn't surprised, it wasn't like it was Leo piloting, but still it was a further complication that had been avoided. There was no way the ship would have been able to touch down near the remnants of the base, however, much less inside it, which now left her with the task of trying to figure a way out. "Oh... I can't fucking fly like you two, it's why I pilot the ship," Eris grumbled to herself, shaking her head as a thick vine extended from her grasp, in path carving directly upward before fastening around a steel support that jutted outward at the top. Swiftly did she scrabble up it, reaching the top within a minute or two and wiping her brow, before redirecting the growth back downward, its stem entangling Leo as she pulled him out of the pit he had created. "Of course, you had to pass out," she scorned, dragging him with the vines at that point instead of wasting her energy, reaching the ramp of their ship before she paused, glancing back at the forest.

The flicker of life, the glint of steel, she shoved Leo onto the bed and practically leapt into the pilot's seat, muttering a few words that Blitz would only comprehend as a garbled mix of Fioran and something far more menacing in nature. Pouring over the controls, she raised the cargo hold's ramp, yet simultaneously the distinct discharge of a magical weapon could be heard, its arc of a piercing, white light flying through the cabin, colliding square into Eris's shoulder. She let out a hiss of pain, far more akin to the actual noise than human vocal chords would be able to reproduce. And thus did her left arm fall numb, a wrenching, searing sensation even as it traveled up to her temple, managing to slam the auto-pilot button and upon being prompted growling, "Take us to Mae's."

Even as the ship began to calculate, blasts of a less arcane nature thudded against the hull. She gripped the burn that had quickly spread across her skin, peddling a control and violently throwing her head toward the co-pilot's seat. "We could use some guns!" she managed, even as Blackjack began to take off did its frame shudder, knocked off kilter by a shot to the port side. On her own side of the dash, she slammed her elbow down on the shielding, her visage still contorted in pain.

Blitz poked his head out of the ship as Leo emerged from the pit, out cold, held by a vine, with Eris appearing shortly after. I was so concerned about the idea of discovery that I kind glossed over the fact that I probably should have assisted her, but in fairness, she did tell me not to approach Leo earlier, he thought. Eris at least had the sense to have Leo's weapon on her person and not still with Leo, just in case. Along with...."Hey, I almost forgot this!" Blitz said, nabbing his sword from the stuff Eris had fetched from the rubble. "I don't use it terribly often, but it would have been a loss, or at least a pain to replace - thanks for fetching it on your way up!" Blitz said.

Before they could talk further, however, Eris turned at a noise of some kind - Blitz glanced in the same direction and saw faint movement near the treeline. "Aaaaaaaand there's the attention I was worried we'd attract - time to go, seriously!" Blitz said. Eris only responded in a blend of Fiorian and words Blitz didn't know, but highly suspected that they'd need censoring if said aloud. She didn't have long, though, as one of the glints of steel within the forest shot something that soared through the open door of the cabin and hit Eris in the shoulder, Blitz cursing before slamming the door shut behind Eris after Leo was inside. He turned to treat Eris, only to find her halfway to the cockpit, which was the better move in this situation, admittedly. She pressed the auto-pilot, and the ship took off - or was attempting to, but more blasts - the old-fashioned, exploding kind - were crashing against the side of the ship, with Eris mentioning guns. "I'm on it!" Blitz said, throwing the door of the ship open wide for a moment to aim a palm at the treeline where the shots were coming from, before unleashing another sustained laser blast through the base of the treeline, attempting to scatter the snipers, but adjusting his aim carefully - aside from not wanting to start a forest fire, he also wanted to use the smoke from the blast of the beam as cover until they were out of range. As he did, he also fired up his Digital Barrier to protect as much of the ship as it could cover - while it wasn't big enough to engulf the whole ship, it would protect a significant percentage of it, at least.

"No! Use the the guns on the ship!" she yelled, even as Blitz's barrier shimmered across the glass in front of her. With two quick beats of a pulsar cannon did it flicker out of existence, however, and even as his laser blast burned through part of the tree still did another arc of light fly past the ramp, beyond where Blitz stood, and collided with the floor of the ship. It exploded on impact, illuminating Blackjack with dazzling radiance, and while it had effect on neither Blitz nor the interior itself he would hear a grimace from Leo as he rolled over on one side - though he was clearly still unconscious - and a string of pained expletives from Eris as the ramp slammed shut in front of Blitz's face. "Get in the cockpit!"

Whether or not he did so, within a few moments she engaged the gravity lock on the cargo hold, taking hold of the controls as adrenaline pumped through her veins. Eris pulled the steering back full throttle, and the ship shot upward, nose pointed directly at the sky above as it left its previous path of gradual ascent. Even so did blasts continue to rattle Blackjack, one in particular hitting with a thunderous crack. Upon its impact did alarms blare, large, red print displayed on the viewport: PRIMARY FUEL CELL DAMAGED. It was not her first concern, however, that honor belonged to the missiles racing toward them even as they picked up speed.

Knowing there was no control on her side of the dashboard to do what she wanted to do, she again engaged the voice controls. "Ship, eject primary fuel cell and convert to secondaries." As she spoke, there was the nauseating sensation of the start of descent before the latter command kicked in, and from a distance was a loud explosion heard as the fuel cell and missiles collided, catching the tail end of Blackjack although it only served to send the ship spinning into space. "Engage the warp drive," she stated, and as script scrawled across the screen advising against it she caught the glance of other vessels speeding toward them. "For Treis's sake, Stella is not in the Outer Regions!" Eris hissed, reaching across the ship and shifting the proper control back herself, sending them rocketing into the stars.

Blitz paused at Eris' yell, then rolled his eyes and said "I'm a living weapon who turns INTO weapons for a living, Eris, ya gotta clarify!" he said, before slamming the door shut and jumping over to the cockpit with Eris. Blitz sat down just as Eris gunned the engines, and while they were mostly out of range, one final, stray shot hit the side of the ship, and one display read 'Primary Fuel Cell Damaged'. That's a problem, Blitz thought. I can't hack a rupture in metal closed, and I can't weld shut something that's filled with something flammable. We'll have to address that once we're out of range. With a verbal command, however, Eris had the ship eject the damaged fuel cartridge and switch to a backup - from the sound of the blast behind them, it caught an incoming shot, which was both good and bad - good in that it hit something they'd tossed out the back instead of the ship itself, and even gave them a bit of a push with the resulting blast, but the bad news was that the hull was likely scorched considerably on the back half of the ship now.

Eris engaged the warp drive as she glanced onto one device that indicated that other ships were approaching from behind now, which was a problem - damaged ship aside, Blitz assumed the ship's guns, at least most of them, were mounted on the front or side, not the back, so shooting back there would be an issue, and they were nearly out of the atmosphere, so opening the door to shoot again wasn't an option. Before it could develop into a full-blown problem, however, Eris took some kind of offense with their automated destination, manually corrected things, then blasted into space, losing their pursuers. "Hopefully switching systems will cause them to give up the chase - they don't want to start an international issue any more than we did." Blitz said, relaxing slightly in his seat. "How's Leo doing?"

Within a few moments of watching the distance fly by did she lean back in her chair, again gripping where the bolt had struck, deep violet liquid now spattered on all of the controls she had touched. Leaning back, she brought her knees up to her chest and rocked back and forth, teeth gritted as a splitting sensation coursed through her body. She then bit her lip, attempting to divert her focus but even as blood trickled down her chin it helped little, her mind screaming for some solace and she was trying hard not to do so with it.

Eris heard Blitz's words but did not truly comprehend them, riddled with agony as she attempted to stand, black specks coating her vision but she did so anyhow, leaning against the walls as she stumbled over to a cabinet Blitz would likely recognize. She pulled out a black bottle with no markings on it whatsoever and drained the entirety of its contents into her mouth, before slamming it down on the counter and gripping the latter as she stared down at the floor, one, five, ten seconds before she let out a sigh of relief. It was at that point in time that the metal mage's words finally clicked, and with that she offered a delayed yet far more comprehensible reply than what she would have said in the heat of the moment.

"I'd rather not wake him up and ask, the longer he's out the less likely he is to do something stupid. In general? Neither of us are doing too great," Eris stated. "As for the people who shot at us... I hate to break it to you but they were neither the police nor the military; those two don't have a habit of blasting anti-extraplanal magic."

Simultaneously, she rummaged through another cupboard, although what it contained was entirely different, a host of medical supplies ranging from the mundane to things that required a degree to even work correctly. She pulled out a spool of gauze and a container of disinfectant, about to tear the sleeve off her shirt before looking it over and just removing the article of clothing in its entirety - it had already been ruined by Tolokonsky anyway. At least the letters he had carved were untraceable now, but considering the nature of her most recent affliction it would take a lot longer to close up. Thus did she pour the hydrogen peroxide over it, some of it dripping onto the ground although she had no reaction, gripping one end of the bandage with her teeth as she wound it around her shoulder and upper arm, eventually securing it with tape. Eris then retrieved a blue sweater, slipping it on over her head and sinking into one of the considerably more comfortable seats in the cargo hold, glancing over at Leo to find him still unmoving.

Blitz asked his question and paused, but there was no answer from Eris - not in words, anyway. A moment later, there was a grunt, and Blitz turned to see Eris stumbling down the hall, dripping purple fluid that had to be her blood from her shoulder. "Are you alright?" Blitz asked, then paused. "Okay, stupid question, but are you going to be alright?" he asked instead. "I thought the blast just grazed your shoulder, I had no idea the wound was that bad."

"Not everybody has steel-strength skin like you, fella." Shoop pointed out.

"Point taken." Blitz said as Eris slammed back something from a bottle, which Blitz at first thought was just to deaden the pain a little, but she seemed to relax far more than a bottle of alcohol should have allowed. And far faster. Now I'm curious what was even in that bottle, but now might not be a good time. However, it did stabilize her enough to answer Blitz's initial questions - that neither of the 'wonder twins' were doing terribly great, and that the ones pursuing likely weren't the local law enforcement, but something a bit worse, as they were using firepower the police and military shouldn't be using so freely. "You're gonna have to bring me up to speed on that one - I admit that I'm a quick learner, but earlier this year, spaceships were new. Extraplanar magic is a bit....well, I'd say 'after my time', but I'm still around, so...mixed feelings on that one. But yeah, concept I'm not terribly familiar with."

"While you explain it, though....Shoop, help her out." Shoop nodded - which, in Shoop terms, was tipping the top half of his hat-body forward a bit - and hopped onto Eris' head to use healing magic on her wound. No telling if it would be enough for the job by itself, but it would at least heal it enough to stop her from bleeding all over the floor.

Despite the pain coursing through her body, she let out a single note of laughter. "I'm very old; I've survived much worse. But no, it did not graze my shoulder." Eris turned her back in his direction for a moment, revealing the blackened flesh around where the bolt had made contact, fading into a dark purple where the majority of her blood outpoured from, and at last a pinkish lavender that bordered her pale skin. As Shoop moved onto her head, Eris opened her mouth to protest, before merely shaking in disapproval. While the gesture was appreciated, it would do little, for the physical wound was but a superficial one, certainly nasty but far from the epicenter of the affliction. Even if that were not the case, a residue of the magic yet remained, impeding the healing process itself, if that were not the case then the bleeding likely would have already stopped. It was indeed not the end of the world, though, bandages tended to suffice for at least some period of time in the category of not bleeding out.

Ah, but that mattered little. After his time, Eris smiled at that, oh how naive. "Nonsense, you've probably just never heard it called that. Anti-extraplanal magic is typically referred to as a subset of holy magic, but I dislike the nomenclature because it makes several rude assumptions. The most commonly known extraplanars are demons, of course, but there are many races that do not fall into such specific categories, and many that do not necessarily have a malevolent intent in inhabiting this plane of existence. As for extraplanal magic itself...." Eris pointed at Leo for a brief moment, before letting her arm fall.

She let out a soft sigh, fiddling with a pen that had been absentmindedly left at the coffee table in front of her. "As I'm sure you're going to ask, no, Leo and I were born on Earthland. My mother and his father were not, however, so that magic kind of just...." she trailed off, putting her hands together for a moment before breaking the contact by bending her wrists back, the separation of one into two. Eris then cleared her throat. "It's not fun."