A Herald for Humanity

[Prophet]

This is a battle between Eventua and myself. Eventua, no need to post your template; I already have it. Opening post here. Part of the Prophecy for Humanity campaign
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Let it be noted that this record is a continuation of the priority archives, categorized as sub-hybrid entries into the sections E*** L****** and A****u. My name is Methuselah, the Ancient...

Fog hung on the dark London street like some spectral hand, taking the city in its embrace. A few lamp posts gently flicker as the electric current fluctuates slightly. The dark street is empty, and there is an air of silence, the only noise coming from the occasional shutter being closed. It was evening on the streets of London, and the blanket of sleep had begun to fall over the land.

The first Prophet has been sent... I had to disguise it well in order for it to escape his notice. His powers are growing stronger...

As the magical quietness of London seemed to take hold, there was a subtle set of thuds. Quiet footsteps echoed across the London street, reverberating gently around the sleeping street. It was surreal, the way the footsteps seemed to come from every concealable direction. Like a gentle cascade of sound around the street.

I can only hope this outcome will go as planned. I must insure the product of my scientific inquisition does not get out of hand.

A slight shadow slid down the stone paving the street, and the footsteps were followed by a dark figure. The darkness of the night cloaked his features, but as he gently stepped forward, he halted for a moment, underneath the light of the lamp post. The eerie yellow light cast a faded hint on his pale skin, and it wrinkled a bit as he pursed his lips. His dark brown eyes gazed out over the darkened street, and as he stood at the corner, under the lamp post at the intersection of the two dark London streets, he simply slipped his hands into his pockets and gave a low, haunting whistle.

"I know you're there somewhere, Tilt."

 

[Eventua]

The streets were dark, empty... a cold yet simple evening. But this was London, and the young man was running for his life.
Ever since he'd ben attacked by that 'Semos' guy a while back, he hadn't a good nights sleep: assasins of evey sort had been tracking him down, trying to kill him. He didn't know why or who sent them, but every waking moment he had to be on guard.
And now he was once again under attack.

"I know you're there somewhere, Tilt."

*The assasin!* was his only thought.

He kept running through the street, lisening for any subtle warnings as to where his foe was. Eventually, he stopped running as he reached an intersection of two different streets, tired out from all the running. He then looked straight up, and he discovered, to his irritation, that he was now about 20 yards from his attacker.

"Gah! Listen, who are you?! Would you stop chasing me?!" he shouted at his opponent, the strange man with the pale complexion.

 

[Prophet]

"Gah! Listen, who are you?! Would you stop chasing me?!"

The voice broke the dreamy silence of the London street like the heart-wrenching crack of a mother's vase clattering to the ground. Yet even as the harsh noise slit the thick air like a knife, the fog seemed to absorb the sound waves, like a muffler on top of the empty street. The figure beneath the street lamp didn't move, letting the sound dance around him as it faded into the fog. The neon yellow light flickered dully on the top of his dull brown hair, and as a single lock of brown slipped down over his face, his lips twitched up in a slight smile. A single pale hand slipped out of his dull coat pocket and pushed the stray strand aside, and he turned to the noise, dark brown eyes piercing the darkness with a dull, yet amused expression.

"Chasing? Bit of a strong term. I simply needed to meet; I suppose to the human mind, it was appear frightening though..."

His voice was smooth, with a hint of a British accent. It was quiet, yet strong in the dense fog that surrounded the London street. Like water gently, but surely pushing along faucet spout. There was a slight shuffle as the man slid his feet forward, shoes gently brushing against the cobble-stone road. The light danced with the shadows along his simple, dusty blazier, looking like a gentlemen once revered, but now shabby. He reached a hand into his pocket, and gently from its dark interior, pulled out a pair of black leather gloves. Without a sound, he gently slid them onto his spidery fingers, wiggling them slightly, pulling on the edges until they clung perfectly to his smooth skin. He glanced up at the man before him, Marshall Tilt, and gave a single smile.

"Call me Loq"

There was a sudden blur and a muted crack as the stone underneath Loq's foot broke clean in two. The pressure from his foot snapping against the stone had caused it to shatter, and in a matter of seconds, Loq was upon Marshall. He stepped cleanly, lowering his center of gravity, body bent slightly forward as one foot after the other slid forward. He was moving like a blur, and in the cloudy, foggy night, it would be like a mere smokey shadow racing towards Marshall. As he stepped about a yard to Tilt's right, he halted suddenly, feeling his leg bend with the pressure as he show his right heel out to Marshall's leg. The force of contact would be enough to shatter his ankle should the strike take place properly...

And in a foggy London night, the first Prophet spoke...

 

[Eventua]

"Call me Loq..." said the stranger.

"Ah, uh, okay then, listen... wait, WHA-?!" replied Marsh in reply, getting confused once more as soon as he realised that his foe was charging at him.
*Damn it... fine then.* was his only thought.

As his foe moved through the fog towards him, heading for a sliding kick of sorts, Marsh was ready, raising his staff defiently, calling out "Pillar!" at the top of his voice. As it rang out, a vast pillar of stone, about 5 Feet in diameter rose up from the ground beneath him, carrying him straight upwards, using it as a platform.
"Loq! Tell me what it is you want, darn it!"

 

[Prophet]

"Ah, uh, okay then, listen... wait, WHA-?!"

As Loq's foot shot toward Marhsall's, his eyes focused; the brown orbs sharpening as the pupils seemed to dilate under the processing of data. Time seemed to slow as he gave his right foot crunched against the ground with a muted thud. The sounds coming from Marshall's voice seemed to be a dull throb, but the meaning was still clear in Marshall's mind. As his right knee bent, preparing to take on the brunt of his own weight, his center of gravity shifted downward, left leg beginning to extend into a sweep as he felt a subtle rumbling beneath his feet. The air stung against his face as his right boot dug against the earth, scrapping up bits of stone and gravel. His eyes flitted from the raised staff, to Marshall's open mouth, and to the earth beneath him in a single second, and in a single moment of understanding, he twisted his hip clockwise, pulling his left knee into himself and tensing up all the torque placed on his right ankle.

"Pillar!"

Loq's body pinwheeled to the right, barely missing the rising pillar of earth, as his knee's momentum caused him to rise off the air, spinning like a small tornado as the earthen tower rose behind him. Quickly making a single half rotation pushing off with his right foot, his own momentum sent the heel of his right boot backwards. He gave a single, fleeting glance to the stone pillar rising behind him, eyes taking in the consistency and the makeup of the geological structure. Mostly cobblestone amalgamated with earth. In that fragment of time, he aimed his heel carefully and struck a single spot with the back kick.

Imagine a horse kicking with the force of a wrecking ball, to use the imaginative simile...

The earth pillar shattered along its natural cleavage points, fragmenting in mere seconds as it tumbled down in a cascade of soil and broken cobblestone. Loq used the remained of the kinetic energy from the strike to push off, hurling into the air like a shadow slipping through the night sky before landing birdlike on the tip of a lamp post. Bending his knees slightly, gently flexing his hands, he brushed a bit of dust off of his lapel as the earthen pillar crumbled to the ground like the wreckage of a demolished building.

"What do I want? Only what any messenger wants; for his message to be heard..."

 

[Eventua]

"Yikes!" shouted Marsh in surprise as the vast pillar he stood upon crumbled below him. He leapt straight off, using his staff to manipulate a single area of gravity below him, landing gently onto the ground, the spot where he landed twisting and curving in on to itself slightly in the process.

"What do I want? Only what any messenger wants; for his message to be heard..." said his opponent.

"Uh, right... then tell me your message! What it is you've come to tell me! Though, uh, I'd prefer it if the message came WITHOUT violence, or, uh, is that too much to ask...?" replied Marsh, panting slightly from the whole excursion.

 

[Prophet]

"Uh, right... then tell me your message! What it is you've come to tell me! Though, uh, I'd prefer it if the message came WITHOUT violence, or, uh, is that too much to ask...?"

Loq heard every pause in this series of unsure phrases, and sighed. His black leather glove reflected the dull streetlight's yellow glow slightly as he stroked his chin, as if attempting to derive an answer from its sharp contours. Eventually the brown eyes just sharpened, focusing on Marsh after staring off into the distance for a few seconds.

"Really, I would love to tell you the entire thing right now," he replied slowly, selecting his words very carefully, "However, circumstance dictates otherwise..." He gave a reluctant smile, his eyes reflecting a reassuring gaze. It was a look of sincerity and truth; this needed to happen. "If you can defeat me..." he continued, bending his knees slightly, appearing slightly hawk-like as he gazed down at Marsh
I had instructed Arloque very carefully... the Prophets could not directly mention the upcoming events... such an action might catch HIS attention...

OOC: for some reason, it won't let me post my entire post. Trying to edit it in piece by piece

 

[Eventua]

"If you can defeat me..."
"Heh, alrighty... bring it on!" said Marsh in reply, moving his goggles down over his eyes.

He raised his staff and waved it in a slow, gentle movement over his head.
"This could be fun... STONE!" he shouted, and as he did so 5 chucks of rock, al abou the size o a smallfootball, rippd out of the groud, suspended in mid-air.
"Take this!" he shouted, swinging his staff like a club, striking the stones one after the other. As he did so, the large chucks flew straight towards Loq at high-speed.

Using the oppurtunity now presented to himself, he ran off down one of the streets.
*Come on... pursue, damn it! Down this long old street with no room to manuver...*

 

[Prophet]

"Heh, alrighty... bring it on!"

The corners of Loq's lips twitched in some sort of amused smirk. His pupils dilated slightly as he followed the ripping of the earth, the light from each stone fragment that hung in the air catching his attention. He gently bent his legs, his coat tails hanging down, blowing slightly, like the feathers of a bird about to leap from its perch. His face was relaxed, but if any expert on human biology looked at him, they would describe the tenseness of his legs, the tightness of the muscles beneath his pants. Enough coiled energy to launch him in any direction he chose.

Arloque wasn't designed for chatter... minimizing his vocal output in battle shouldn't be a problem...

The stones shot towards him, like meteors from the sky, and as each projectile neared him, his eyes narrowed, feeling the subtle signs of wind on his face, and analyzing the pattern of each geological entity.

Tilt is a magical marvel; his terrakinetic power is quite interesting to say the least... the battle will serve as an interesting addition to his entry into the Archives...

The metal of the lampost crumpled in a succinct CHINK and Loq hurtled himself upward, two of the stones smashing directly into the bulb, causing it to shatter in an impressive array of sparks. The golden lights flickered with amber brilliance as Loq shot into the air, rotating quickly in the air as the other three rocks shot toward him. Loq let a single breath escape his lips as the rocks neared closer and closer, flexing his fingers once before letting his arm jut forward with a ferocious blur.

CRUNCH

The first stoned exploded into fragments as Loq's fist smashed through its center, and as the second one followed suit, ducked his head, rolling forward as the second stone flew overhead, missing his body by mere inches. His rotation carried him forward and down, and as he spun back up, he brought the heel of his foot down with a snap, catching the third stone with his foot and sending it crashing into the earth. The broken earth rained from the sky like some cataclysmic event, and as the rocks and pebbles clattered to the earth, so did Loq, descending like an angel from the heavens, a blur shooting towards the earth...

KKRRAACKKK

Loq hit the ground with a momentous crash, sending a spiderweb of cracks from the crater beneath his feet. His legs bent slightly, absorbing the energy as he glanced up quickly, watching the back of Marsh as he made his way quickly down the street, into the dark London abyss... Loq slowly stood, reaching up and brushing a bit of dirt off his shoulder with a quiet sigh, brown eyes flashing as he gazed down the shadowy cobblestones...

"Always a dramatic one, Marsh..." he whispered to himself, bending his knees slightly and reaching down to feel the ground. He let the dirt shift beneath his fingertips, feeling the rough stone beneath his black leather gloves. There was the silence of the night, the only sound being Marsh's running footsteps. Loq only felt the subtle vibrations beneath his fingers. "And there... you go..." he muttered, slowly pushing on a single stone before standing up, brushing his hands off as if satisfied with his work. "Let's see if what the Archives say about you is true..." With those simple words, Loq's right foot shot up with a blur, and with a momentous crack, akin to a bolt of lightning, Loq stomped on the ground. The snap was like a gunshot wound, and in an instant, the earth cracked. Marsh would suddenly find himself caught, as the earth beneath his feet broke open with the energy. Loq's kick had forced enough directed energy into the earth to power a small tornado; and all that energy was focused through the earth into the water main beneath the London street. It would erupt according to Loq's calculation, directly beneath Marsh, and he would be caught in a tumultous maelstrom of water, sewage, and earth.

Arloque has always been a man of exactness and numbers... I wonder if that will be enough in this case...

 

[Eventua]

He could sense it, in the ground... his foe wasn't pursuing him.
*Damn it...* he thought, but just as he stopped and turned around to see what his opponent wasdoing, he watched as Loq smashed his foot onto the ground, sending shockwaves through the ground towards him, shattering the cobbles and breaking the underground watermains. As the road broke up and water, sewage and mud began to rise out of the ground, the alleyway being completely destroyedin a vast wave towards him, rocks flying out everywhere.
"Heh... bad move mister..." he muttered under his breath, waving his staff over his head. As the destruction came towards him he brought down his staff with a tremendous crack, the noise exceeding the umultion of the torrent.
"Now then, let's see if my will is strong enough... GRAVDRAW!" he screamed, twirling his staff in his hand like a conductors baton, creating a mighty vortex of gravity straight in front of him, but at his feet. If it worked, the pressure would build to the point where he could redirect it straight back at his opponent, ten times stronger, with the speed of a bullet from a gun. If he failed, he would be totally crushed under the weight of London's sewage.
*Not a nice prospect. I sure as heck aint gonna be killed by waste.* he thought, his mind focused entirely on condensing and packing the wave. It charged towards him, and as it did, something incredible happened. It began to slow down, crashing to the ground at his feet, slowly being sucked into a single solid mass, pulsing and throbbing and ready to blow at any second, a timebomb of insane power.
"Hey, Loq! Bad move man... bad move." he shouted, twirling his staff one last time before tapping the mass, ever so slightly. And as he did, the gravity shifted, travelling along the ground straight towards Loq, the huge mass of waste and water and stone being dragged along with it.

 

[Prophet]

"Hey, Loq! Bad move man... bad move."

The casual syllables rang in Loq's ear like a slow, dull drumbeat. His ear pricked slightly as it picked up the phonetics as they were barely pushed from Marsh's throat. Time seemed to slow down for Loq, but in reality, focus was just kicking in. His eyes glimmered as his senses kicked into gear, everything around him coming into mental focus.

Reality is, after all, all simply data input. With enough processing power, observation and reaction are a simple as balancing chemical equations... After a certain amount of training or design, it eventually simply becomes... automatic...

Loq stepped to his left, letting his weight and energy shift into that foot, lowering his center as he eyed the waving staff. His pupils dilated with focus; every dust particle gently drifting in the breeze caught in his attention. A stray lock of tussled black hair slipped forward, as if caught in some invisible force. Loq's breathing slowed, as if relaxing for a single moment, exhaling gently as he watched his attack frozen in mid-motion, twisted into a single sphere of potential energy, ready to explode...

As the staff touched the sphere, Loq shot to the left. There was a rocking concussive force as the muddy sphere rocketed toward where he had been. However, all that was left of Loq was a blur as his entire body forced itself to a harsh left, where he pinwheeled into a tornado-like spin, crashing through a window of the nearest house with a resounding CRACKK

The earthen projectile shot off into empty space with a roaring hiss. There was a tinkle as the broken glass struck the ground, but otherwise, there was silence. This London street was built off interconnecting houses. Each of them had little passageways to the other. The fog gently swirled around the dark, now empty street, and it seemed to slide around Marsh, taking him in its gentle embrace.

"Marsh..."

Loq's voice gently slid from all around, mimicking the movement of the fog. His British accent was hauntingly elegant in the midst of the dark environment...

"You can throw rocks... you can disrupt magic... you can even manipulate the fundamental forces around you... but this isn't going to be enough for what comes..."

In the darkness, Loq's voice was everywhere. It echoed around them like a gently choir of spectres, gently making their way in the fog. Marsh may have sensed it by now, but the fog was enchanted. It was responsible for keeping the people of this London town asleep during their escapade...

Where was Loq? Nobody knows...

OOC: He's hiding somewhere in the street. And I thought I'd just explain the thing with the fog, just so we don't have any continuity issues.

 

[Eventua]

*Feeling... tired...* was what he thought as the voice of his opponent taunted him from... somewhere, in the fog. His attempt at using his opponents tactics against him had failed, and the projectile had now destroyed several houses, and probably killed the occupants.

His nose began to bleed and his head began to hurt, the strain from his attack having mentally drained him. This wasn't good.
"Right... need... to finish... this..." he mumbled, slowly. He crouched down ad slowly placed his hand to the ground, trying to feel the reverberations, trying to detect Loq's location. It wasn't eay. His opponent was fast and seemed to be good with numbers to a degree far beyond any ordinary human, enablng himto d things far beyond any mortal man.
*Why can't I ever get attacked by a regular assasin, with a sniper rifle or something. The kind that doesn't make defending myself a pain in the ass...*
He felt... there it was. In the ground, the sheer energy...
"PILLAR!" he shouted, tapping a single point on the ground with his staff. As he did so, he could hear the grind of stone against stone, the classic sign of his pillar spell, somewhere in the distance. If he was correct, his foe would have been sent hurdling through the air.

"Check..." he muttered. But was it checkmate?

 

[Prophet]

Plop... plop...

The crimson droplet hit the ground with a tell-tale splatter. Loq's ears pricked slightly as he slid amongst the shadows, quietly tip-toeing his way through the darkness of the houses. The shadows hid his crafty profile, and with his keen senses, he managed to sidestep the various obstacles the darkness presented. He slid his way carefully around a coffee table, one eye glancing through the darkness, alighting on a slumbering figure, oblivious to the intruder creeping around his house.

I had created this artificial fog to keep the occupants asleep... Loq will not need to worry about succumbing to its effect. Marshall however, may feel a bit more tired if he strays deep into the fog...

Blood from Marsh's nose was dripping on to the ground. Loq pinpointed the sound of the liquid, and slowly made his way around it, leaping catlike through a darkened stairway and landing silently in on a basement floor. His eyes caught some sort of old tapestry hanging on the wall, before pricking his ears for sound. It was quiet, the only noise coming from the rumbling boiler in the corner. Steam hissed from a slightly open pipe, spraying into an open grate in the floor, which no doubt was some sort of drain to the sewers, and Loq concentrated, focusing his hearing, isolating the sound waves from Marsh, and blocking out the rumbling of the boiler...

""Right... need... to finish... this..."

Loq's eyes widened for a moment, the calculations flying in his brain as he took a few step backwards. The implications were clear. His eyes spun around the room, locking on to several items before eying the boiler rumbling in the center of the basement. Quickly, he approached the ancient contraption, tapping it slightly as he leveled his right boot against the dirty metal surface. The crude construction hissed as steam roared out of a loose pipe, and Loq focused again, his ear pricking as he heard the telltale signs of scraping stone.

"Pillar!"

Loq kicked off, stepping upward as he leaned his body back, propelling himself off the boiler as the rumbling of the earth increased below him. He barely grazed tapestry with his foot, his calculated arc leading him squarely where he had planned, the metal grate opening easily beneath him, just as the earth split with a crack. Loq's forearm shot up as a rain of dust and earth spat across the room, coating everything with brown as a pillar of stone shot upward, smashing the boiler up where Loq had been mere moments ago. The pillar of stone rocketed up through the rooftop, smashing through shingles, cement, and sheet-rock; and when it struck through the air, it the boiler shot up into the sky, like crude missile soaring into the air, arcing slightly through the evening sky.

I was wise to upload him with schematics of 19th century London...

As this happened Loq sat down, gently sitting cross legged in the drain where he had landed. The grate had opened upon landing, the metal clanging open in tandem with the boiler shooting up, and it shut again, hidden by the scraping stone. As the grate closed, the tapestry, which he had loosened from the wall with a calculated kick, fluttered to the ground, covering the grate like a disheveled rug as it fell to the floor. He was now sitting cross legged in the very opening of an underground tunnel, about a meter-wide in all it's dimensions. He was hidden in the darkness, like some golem lurking in the catacombs beneath this house. He shut his eyes, quietly slowing his breathing until it stopped completely. His chest stopped moving, and his entire body froze, every single vibration stopping. He was utterly still, statue-esque in the basement of this old London house... It was dark, and dust swirled about him, cloaking him from sight, like a statue amidst a destroyed museum. In the darkness, that old boiler would seem to be him, hurtling through the night sky only to crash a couple hundred meters away, or so Loq calculated. The hiss of steam would even replicate a scream as it shot with high pressure through the air. Marsh would likely go investigate, and even if he didn't, he would not be able to locate Loq via his vibration sensing... The only way to even see him would be to remove the dusty tapestry from the grate and to shine a light directly into it... Loq was totally immobile, alone in this space beneath the basement of the house...

Rest State achieved... beginning Synchronization...

It was then that he began Synchronization... it was time to take things up a notch...