[Sunday, November 2nd. 2:50 PM] [After pretty well decimating the small army summoned by Centaurion to menace the people gathered in Union Square Park, with a bit of assistance from the cops on the scene, a bunch of sword-wielding Sikhs seeking revenge for their fallen hero, and the fashionably-late Daegal and Solaris, you rush (at Solaris' request) to the northeast.] [A few blocks away, in Gramercy Park, Eternal Warrior is once again locked in battle with Centaurion. They're evenly matched, so Solaris has sent you all to assist EW, to try and tip the scales and deal Centaurion the kind of defeat that might buy a few days respite.] [Unfortunately, your progress is halted a few blocks away as you all suddenly feel... heavier, and are dragged, either from the sky or mid-step, to the ground.] [As the increased gravity continues to test your strength as you struggle to get upright, you find yourself face to !face with the source of your current difficulty, and many besides that.] [The Man.] [It almost seems like he's sneering at you, despite the lack of a face. "Stay down. Where you belong."] [Session Start] * Horus curses and hits the comms. "The Man's blocking us. Gonna take some time." She looks to Mizuki. "He's soulless." * Abby had just landed on the ground, hand down. She glances over to Horus and says, "He's certainly an ass." * Jacqueline scoffs, "Oh, please," as she grits her teeth and fordes the awful tides of gravity bearing down on her, "as I once told Bobby Seale and Huey Newton: Th--well, /you/, you have /nothing/ on us." * TheRedcoat makes it look like she meant to do what she did at the end of last session. She tilts her head, puts a finger to her chin, and says in a Jackie-esque voice, "Hmmm....no." * Christian nnghs as he tries to move forward. His strides definitely been taken down a few notches. He glares at The Man. * Abby flicks her eyes towards Jackie, but glancing is way too much work! * Christian gathers up his hand and tenses his fingers. "Stay down, huh?" He starts stepping towards him, then at least picking up speed, pushing through the gravity field. "Why don't *you* stay down, pal?" He slams his hand down at his feet, landing a crater in the intersection. [The Man seems surprised that Christian can still move as fast as he can, and doesn't seem like he's going to be able to get out of the way in time. At the last moment, however, he hunches over, and a narrow flash of red appears between Christian's attack and himself, absorbing the impact.] ["Impressive. But we can't have any of that around here. It'd ruin the character.] * TheRedcoat steps back, invises herself while The Man is distracted by Christian, leaps across from where she was, and flings her hat at him, grapple-gunning him with the other hand. [The effort of blocking Chrisitan's attack doesn't give The Man time to get out of the way of Redcoat's attack. Whatever field of gravity surrounds him manages to lessen the impact significantly, but he still gets sliced by the hat and nicked by three grapples.] * Horus quivers, slightly, but her wings are steady (being made of light and all), and she manages to rise slowly and steadily, a few feet farther away from The Man and into the air. Her hands bring up a bow of light, also quivering, but the beam she creates and fires flies true. [The Man's gravity-based powers apparently aren't quite as effective against the amount of divine magic Horus pumped into that, as a fair bit of the energy gets through and singes his side.] * Abby stands up and gestures with her staff. "Heavy as the air gets, it still moves." She smirks faintly. "But it wants freedom like everything else. Come, spirits." The mass of air (maybe even more massy than normal) swirls into being. [The Man takes a step back, and takes a moment to glance at the lot of you. "... not half bad. But half-good doesn't get you to the top."] [And suddenly, Horus and Christian feel lighter... much lighter... and actually begin to feel themselves floating off the ground!] * Horus blinks and goes soaring, but she's USED to soaring, and she twists in the air, grabbing a light post as she goes by, anchoring herself. She reaches out with her other hand, wind forming and buffing Christian as he ALSO goes flying, eventually floating him to the ground. * Christian starts to reach out then gets caught by Horus's TK and lands on the ground, letting out a tshh and an aside to Horus. "Man, does he *ever* shut the fuck up?" [Jacky blasts at The Man with her homing lasers! Much of the juice of it is absorbed by whatever field is protecting him, but he still catches some of the energy from the blast.] It's a villain thing. You get used to it. * Christian looks at the Man. "Yeah, as he should get used to this." He rushes towards him, now that his feet are firmly planted in the ground and screeches his whole fist towards his !face for a super-sonic knuckle sandwich. [Christian's fist, and Christian himself, are slowed somewhat as they get close to The Man, but he still hits with sufficient force to knock him flying back several feet. Before he lands on his back, however, he stops his fall and rights himself.] * TheRedcoat jumps across the street to some cover, and flings out a shot and a handful of poison darts. [Redcoat's aim is true, made moreso by The Man's inability (for the moment) to locate her. The bullet from her Glock nicks his arm, but the darts are entirely stopped by the weight of the gravity around him, dropping harmlessly to the ground a few feet away.] * Horus lets go of the post, and this time she's prepared for the gravity, allowing it to pull her down gradually as she closes her eyes and spreads her wings in concentration. A whirling, fiery tornado springs up around The Man, tightening in on him and burning from all directions. [The Man is buffeted by the burning winds, but manages to push out and force the air out away from him, disappating enough of the mini-maelstrom to allow him to act without significant distraction.] * Abby stalks forward, staff in hand, and wrenches it around in an upward golf swing to try and catch THE MAN with it. "Keep dancin'. You can't do it forever." [Abby's staff passes through The Man's defenses! And The Man! ... but without any apparent effect. "Attacking my soul? A novel approach, but you're going to have to dig a bit deeper than that."] [The sky above you all seems to warp, and debris and small objects on the ground all around start to accelerate into the air. Then larger debris... then a couple of trash cans... and suddenly you all find yourself being pulled upwards...] * Christian manages to react quickly and pushes off one of the floating debris bits as he starts to float up to land himself downward. He crouches down as low as he can get and stays there. * Abby stays down through the force of sheer will, staring into the Man's !eyes. "Maybe you'll have to try a little harder too." * Horus blinks as she's pulled upwards, but she forces herself equally downwards, the wind working in her favor. * TheRedcoat flings herself through an open window into a vacant room on an upper floor of a nearby building and clings to the sill, keeping down and in(visible). * Abby 's air kami causes a sharp gust of wind to blow towards the Man, flapping around Abby's already slightly pulled-up outfit, but to little more effect than that. [The winds fails to penetrate the dense gravitational field around The Man. "My word, look at you all go. Truly, you're a credit to your fellow plebeians."] * Jacqueline , following a couple of snapshots at the ground has footholds to keep her from being lifted by The Man's power. She then, thanks to the magic of small scale Higgs field manipulation, is able to turn her gun on the gravitic anomaly and send a tide of vibrant, rainbow-hued 'light' slicing through the air and the electromagnetic spectrum to reach him. * Horus rolls her eyes. "Truly, you are a giant fucking dick." ["Well of course. I am The M-" Alas, his smarmy response is cut short when Jacky's shot impacts into him. His field takes a good chunk of the impact, but he still gets friend a decent bit.] [He's taken a fair beating at this point, but he's still looking fairly steady.] * Horus grins. "Should pay more attention." * Christian goes for follow-through with the Man's battering by rushing after him. Each step is punctuated with "Will, you, shut, *up*?" before swinging his whole arm around to catch him where his chin would be with a backhand. [The Man takes that impact hard, even though heavy gravity absorbs some of the impact, and again goes flying back. This time, he skids along the ground a couple of feet before righting himself.] * TheRedcoat , from her vantage point, decides to do an all-guns hour and fires off her Glock and grappler at The Bozo. [Redcoat's aim is true again, and a bullet and two of the grapples, despite being slowed, take chunks out of The Man.] * Horus looks up and away towards Centaurion and Eternal Warrior, and her expression hardens. "That's enough distractions. Hyde can solo your ass." So saying, she waves her hand, and she, Mizuki, and Christian turn into pure light, reappearing in an instant right in the thick of things with Eternal Warrior and Centaurion. * TheRedcoat blinks and quietly, from her indoor vantage point, mutters into the comm, "You know, I don't give her enough credit for subtlety sometimes." [To be continued!]