Fighting The Enemy

JP with mdman, Lorem and Cindy

Cronk rounded the corner where their van turned. There were still some remnants of the smoke screen left wafting upward into the air.

Cronk slowed his pace now, simply because of the smoke. He couldn’t see clearly behind it. For all Cronk knew, the vehicle that was behind them was somewhere in the smoke.

He watchfully walked into the smoke. As he cleared the other side, Cronk spied a vehicle with damage. There were little pellets all about the car. As far as it’s body, he could see many dents, a cracked glass shield, the light the shone before the car as it drove at night was broken.

Inside, Cronk could see the shapes of three figures. These were his men. Three to one, Cronk almost pitied them.

Cronk’s muscles were now loose, so he jumped into a dead sprint toward the vehicle. A loud bellowing growl roared from deep within his throat. Cronk was more than just angry; he was volcanic. The cobblestones seemed to tremble as each foot pounded into them.

Cronk hadn’t had time to formulate a plan. Besides, he was a doer, not a planner. So, Cronk went into battle without strategy. If he would have been asked what strategy he had, Cronk would have replied, “What strategy?” with a confused look.

A stone fence, to the side, of Cronk exploded sending small stones flying directly at him.

Elizabeth had run as fast as she could to try to catch up with Cronk, almost made it when she saw the ORC get lost in the smoke.

When she cleared the smoke, what her eyes caught was Cronk headed for the car and the stones headed for Cronk.

She obviously couldn't touch the flying stones, to stop them. There wasn't a spell that would help very much, that she could recall. It took a mere second to decide on an action.

Elizabeth removed the wards from her broach. It didn't take any concentration at all for the spirits to start to circle around her. There must been at least fifty of them and growing in numbers quickly.

Paris had a long history of things like plaques, especially the Black Plaque. People starving in the streets. Executions. The number of spirits in the city, was in the thousands. In every magic book about Paris it read. "Spirit mages that do not ward themselves against that constant onslaught often are driven to the point of madness."

"Block the bricks," Elizabeth instructed the spirits. Spirits had limited physical things they could do, messing with papers, opening and closing doors or windows, sending in a breeze where there is none. But they could form a shield, which allowed the stones to hit them rather than Cronk. The spirits circled both Elizabeth and Cronk.

The stones began to hit the invisible shield and fall to the ground before reaching the Orc.

Elizabeth had to maintain a deep concentration level to keep this going and herself focused enough to ignore the spirits all trying to talk to her or whisper in her ear. While the Eldren had to focus so much, she couldn't help Cronk out anymore than she had.

Cronk dove and flew into the wind screen. If the wind screen were to have eyes to see the huge object hurdling toward it, it would have done a sidestep to protect itself. However, it did not have eyes and was smashed to smithereens by the Orc.

Two rock hard shoulders struck the two humans in the front seat, knocking them unconscious. The man in the back stared in utter surprise as two Orc eyes gleamed at him, with tusks mere inches away.

Lorem, with her gnomish heightened sense of hearing, could make out the sounds of the ensuing struggle beyond the fog of war of the Nimble Fox. It caused her to stop chanting periodic elements and concentrate. The sound of moving rubble, physical exertion, metal shifting, glass breaking, growls and sounds of conflict were as easy to make out as the different pistons shifting inside an engine. In a weird way the sounds of conflict resembled a workshop, but more random without the consistency of repetitive events.

She shakily crawled up to her feet. Lorem already was a visual mess from working all day and getting tossed about. Now her expression though was equally a mess, painted over with fear. She shouldered the satchel and gripped the hand cannon. Then began the hard decision of taking one step at a time forward to move herself out from her secure hiding spot.

When she emerged into the aisle of the bus she met Macil and paused. In a failing voice she inquired, “Are we supposed to go help them?” She couldn’t make out from the sounds if they were in trouble or winning the fight.

The stones stopped flying and Elizabeth stopped concentrating. She could still hear and see the spirits but was no longer communicating back with them, on any sort of large basis.

The Eldren saw Cronk fly right into the windshield. She assumed the two men, in the front, likely got knocked out by the giant Orc, because it would have been a difficult thing to avoid.

The man in the back closed his eyes, and suddenly the cab started shaking side to side. Elizabeth recognized that it was far too rhythmic to be from Cronk. The shaking became harder and harder.

Elizabeth knew that the mage, must be the man in the back seat. She looked around, finding a small branch, Elizabeth began to concentrate. The branch began to glow, when something struck her in the back of the head. It was a hard hit which knocked her out.

Marcil was trying to also listen, but he was a human and didn't have the Gnomes hearing. "It does not sound good, but I do not know not good for who." Was Marcil's honest response. "Sit down we are going for a ride." Before starting the van back up. If the Orc and Elizabeth didn't need help, they could watch but if they did they'd be there.

In the bushes, to the side of where the fighting was taking place a cult member had watched the Orc, then the high class obvious mage come after the car. He didn't know who the two on the street were, but he recognized the car and knew their were members of the Children. The Children of the Sea who had taken his miserable existence and made him feel special, like he mattered. The Children, who would make all their followers immortal. He had picked up a stone, knowing it would have little effect on the the part of the Orc sticking out of the front window. Opted to throw it at the mage instead, a perfect and hard hit.

The swaying car was rocking from right to left, attacking Cronk’s torso, which was where the wind screen once was, with jagged glass pieces of glass. This made Cronk angrier.

Blood flowed down his face from reopened wounds from the fight with the evil doctor’s creature. Using the two front seats, Cronk forced his way into the back, glass yet slicing into his abdomen as he slid forward. He threw the third man out the back of the vehicle with a shout, “Not evil Doctor!”

Cronk then turned his attention to the two in front. He wanted to leave no doubt, so Cronk grabbed the opposite sides of both heads and smashed them together, making a sickening crunching noise that could only mean crushed skulls.

Cronk looked to see the Lady Elizabeth down. Maybe one of the rocks struck her. Now, Cronk was mad at himself for not protecting her.

Lorem watched as Marcil went to the front of the bus. As the man started the vehicle, the familiar rumble throughout the machine was felt beneath her tiny feet. It was somewhat comforting in the moment.

When Marcil didn’t hear so much as a reply from Miss Ipsum, he turned to look down the aisle. It was empty and the back door of the bus was ever so slightly ajar. The gnome had exited the vehicle without his notice.

Lorem moved in an arc around the mist, which wasn’t as thick now as it slowly spread in the air; however, it still reduced visibility well enough. No way was she going to go straight in towards the sounds she was hearing. She had to will each step as it was to move forward.

Lorem had loaded the Whispering Owl, braced herself with her back leg anticipating the recoil, and fired the grenade in the direction she intended to go. It’s unique design permeated the surrounding environment with an subsonic ambient noise that muted everything near it. Her already quiet and cautious steps were completely inaudible, even to her own ears. As she finally came around the edge of the smoke screen she caught sight of the conflict for the first time. The brutality of it shocked her.

Lorem loaded the hand cannon with a Kissing Spider. Her hands were shaking so it took much longer than her reload time in the workshop. Once loaded she tried to make sense again of what exactly she was seeing before her. So far she was not on anyone’s radar, Cronk soaking up most attention and the threat of Lady Elizabeth as a mage taking up the rest. No one was yet looking for a petite little gnome with a hand cannon peaking from around the smoke.

Marcil had looked back, to see Lorem gone and the back door open . He quickly got up and closed the door, before proceeding towards the fight.

The man from the back of the car, went flying out of the car, coming down on his right arm. If there hadn't been too much other noise, a definitive crack could have been heard. With his arm, broken the mage stood up, to realize he also hurt his ankle. He wasn’t sticking around any longer, the man got up and limped off.

Knowing now the oppositions mage was knocked out, the man in the bushes pulled out a gun and started towards Elizabeth. With one thought, that Eldren must be stopped. However, when the noises where muted, the man assumed their must be another mage nearby and didn't want to directly tangle with one. He took off running down the street.

Blood dripped down the heads of the, probably dead, men in the front seat, from Cronk bashing their heads together. The only rocking back and forth now, was Cronk’s own doing.

Marcil pulled up the van right as the fighting ended. He stopped the van and then got
out of it. Glancing around his eyes landed on Elizabeth, unconscious, and Cronk in the front windshield of the car that had been following them. He didn't see Lorem, at first.

Marcil needed to figure out who to help first. While Elizabeth was knocked out, she wasn't in immediate danger. Cronk on the other hand might be in worse shape. Marcil went towards the cab. "Cronk can you get yourself out of there?"

Lorem got an incomplete view of a broken and battered car with Cronk wedged inside of it. It looked like the Orc strangely enough decided to enter through the front windshield instead of the side doors.

She did notice the man heading towards Elizabeth. Lorem raised her hand cannon and it shook so much in her nervous grip that she was lucky she was shooting grenades and accuracy was a little less important. Before she needed to fire though, the man turned and ran. She lowered the weapon in relief. Instead of pursuing the fleeing man, that felt stupid, the gnome carefully made her way over to Lady Elizabeth.

She dropped down beside her and assessed the situation. Lady Elizabeth was breathing, but unresponsive. She tried shaking her. It looked like a small young child trying to wake an adult.

Cronk heard Marcil and saw Lorem running and kneeling by the Lady Elizabeth. Two of the ladies Cronk had come to care about most were in this conflict. On seemed to be hurt.

Cronk pulled himself out of the vehicle. He appeared to be a bloody mess. Head, arms, and torso were all bleeding. The deeper wounds were in his sides, from the car attacking him.

He approached Lady Elizabeth and Lorem. “She hurt bad, Pretty Flower?” Cronk asked.

Lorem thought she heard something, but wasn’t sure. The Whispering Owl was silencing most sounds in the immediate area to that of a vague soup of noises. When her peripheral vision though glimpsed something coming she turned her head quickly to find out if it was a threat or not.

Lorem gasped in fear seeing Cronk. She had expected him to still be stuck in the car, but here suddenly was this towering zombiesque figure near her. She didn’t even recognize him as she grabbed her hand cannon, jerked backwards and fell over. He was unrecognizable with the blood and mist vapors.

Her spastic reaction caused her to accidentally pull the trigger on a loaded weapon. The grenade launched with no aim really, but Cronk was a big target in its flight path. It erupted, the recoil sending Lorem further off balance and tumbling over the prone body of Elizabeth, and out came the Kissing Spider. It detonated in mid air and a viscous net opened wide to engulf and entangle the Orc and perhaps even Marcil, the latter having even more time though to evade then the former.

It was like slow motion. Cronk could see the net opening above him but could do nothing about it. His mouth agape, Cronk raised his hands above him to try to stop the net’s downward trajectory. The pain in his sides wouldn’t allow it though, and the net came down, trapping Cronk inside. The more he tried to escape, the more entangled he became. Did Pretty Flower really think this poorly of him?

Two tiny feet sticking out of a dress were all that was seeing the mighty Cronk become like a fish in the net. Lorem felt Lady Elizabeth’s legs beneath her as she tried to sit up. She caught sight of what appeared to be a threatening bloody foe in her net. At first she felt a small sense of accomplishment. She had trapped the enemy and saved them.

Then as she sat up more, she realized it was Cronk. The good feeling instantly popped as she realized what she had done. She started to scramble up to her feet, a wave of shame and guilt punching her in the gut.

Because of Cronk's size and Marcil being a little behind when the Orc stood, he wasn't caught in the net. Marcil ran over towards Elizabeth and bent down, he couldn't do much for Cronk and concerned a net might end up on top of him, if he tried to move Elizabeth, at this moment, so he just stayed knelt by her side.

He saw Lorem get to her feet, and hoped she realized she had trapped one of her teammates, instead of someone else. Or he assumed, that was what had happened.

Lorem called out to Cronk as she rose. “Stop struggling it will just make it worse.” It wasn’t just a net, but a sticky net. The more he fought it the more entangled he would become in the material and the adhesive. She wanted to scream ~I am so sorry~ but it felt more important to tell what she did.

Her voice didn’t travel well with all the other sounds going on and the muted atmosphere was just starting to lift. So who knows what Cronk actually heard from her imperative exclaimation.

She looked to Marcil as he arrived by her and Elizabeth’s side. “She’s not responsive, but breathing.”

Cronk heard Pretty Flower say, “Struggley,” so he fought more to get out. It was like being in the web of a giant spider. Cronk’s mind then strayed a bit, wondering if there were such a thing as a giant spider. With each struggle, it adhered to Cronk more. Finally, with exhaustion and loss of blood, Cronk ended the struggle.

“Cronk tired!” he exclaimed as he quieted. “Thirsty!”

Marcil looked around for only a moment. "I am going to get help. It should not take very long." He hoped anyway. "Do not move her," indicating he meant Elizabeth.

Marcil got in the van and sped off down the road, a screech accompanying the vehicle as he turned a corner.

Lorem’s eyes were wide in panic. Cronk was down, injured and immobilized. Lady Elizabeth was unconscious and injured. Marcil was now gone and all around her was the aftermath of the conflict; dead bodies and busted vehicles. The mute had ended and the last of the smoke screen left. Lorem felt very exposed and vulnerable as she sat there between her two teammates with only herself and a hand cannon as protection.

She was able to load another grenade as she made herself small and still. It was up to her. Oh no! It was up to her, she prayed nothing happened until Hope arrived.

Lorem called out to Cronk, “Cronk, are you alright?” She paused. “I am very sorry. It was an accident.” She squeaked out, not realizing admits her trembling she had some tears forming. Her sense of hearing was on high alert.

It was hard for Cronk to admit he needed help. He was used to bashing through, overcoming obstacles. Now, something as insignificant as a net had him bound and helpless.

“Cronk need help,” Cronk weakly admitted. “Hurt badder than thought. Cronk can not free Cronk.”

Cronk thought about the apology. Of course it was an accident. “Pretty Flower not worry. Cronk still like.”