Endgame: This is the Way the World Ends - RUANA

[animusmods]

Characters: open to those who want to fight Ruana
Setting: the lower administrative levels
Format: action, please!
Summary: It's time to take control of the Tower.
Warnings: physical and psychological horror, violence

When everyone is assembled, Zo opens up a portal--rather, he rips into space violently, as if doing anything less will cause it to snap back shut again. The way the portal quivers and shakes at the edges, it really might. He'll hurry everyone through--and they'll all step into a bedroom. The bed in the center is decorated in pink, with a large canopy and curtains surrounding the bed itself. The curtains are closed. It's silent, but the pressure is so thick in the air it's a living thing all its own. It's completely silent.

Comments

[animusnpcs]

Ruana darts back away, though the edge of the weapon scrapes her across the front as she retreats. She hisses, but ultimately it doesn't seem of much concern to her; the wound visibly begins knitting itself back together, threads of skin tangling over the scrape until it's shut, however messily.

For a moment, the lightning stops as eight glowing limbs of energy extend from Ruana's back, enabling her much faster movement around Loken and a quick ascent up the wall to the ceiling.

[greyerrant]

"She's all yours, Tarik."

Garviel says quietly to his ghostly brother, who starts unleashing mass-reactive explosive rounds towards Ruana's climbing form, tracking her with the autofire boltgun.

[animusnpcs]

Ruana skitters along the walls and ceiling away from the shots, though she doesn't use all eight of her new limbs to do so. Two of them are occupied firing bursts of energy that meet the explosive rounds halfway, detonating them in mid-air long before they can hit her.

As she dodges the barrage, the air around her begins to spark again.

[greyerrant]

"Get down here. We both know we're finishing this on the sharp end." He growls, knowing a krak grenade or the hosing fire from the bolter isn't going to end it, and her lightning probably won't end him.

[animusnpcs]

In response, Ruana begins to shriek. Her volume quickly starts to exceed tolerable human levels, and soon enough the entire room is shaking from how loud it is, cracks beginning to appear on thinner surfaces.

[greyerrant]

Loken winces, his lyman's ear taking a moment to consciously filter out the sound. He is aware his own eardrums may soon rupture, even as an enhanced human, and nods to Torgaddon, his ghostly, formless twin, to unleash another blitzing burst of bolter rounds towards the shrieking monster.

[animusnpcs]

Ruana's shrieking increases in pitch and volume, and she twists around on her limbs as if they were made of rubber to duck and dodge around the rounds. One of them strikes and pierces through one of her limbs, though, and Garviel is momentarily suffocated in complete silence and darkness. It's only for an instant, but that's enough for Ruana to volley countless small points of bright energy in his direction.

[greyerrant]

Loken is pummeled to the ground, his body smashed back, armor holed in smoking craters, some of the systems failing. He growls, blood dribbling from his lips, and struggles to rise, saying quietly.

"You're... not... the one I'm going to face. I defy you, until the end."

[animusnpcs]

"Who will you face?" Ruana's voice is curious and mocking at the same time, even as she continues her volley.

[greyerrant]

"Horus... my.... traitorous... father."

He rises, his white/grey armor now crimson with his blood, black where the lightning and hammering volleys of energy strike him. One of his pauldrons shatters off entirely in a burst of splintered, smoking, ceramite, and he just starts slowly walking towards Ruana, his own willpower and bulk defiant against the murder-storm she is unleashing. He uses his sword almost like a crutch as one of his legs is smashed open to bloody ruin at about the shin. The Emperor made his warriors tough, walking tanks, even, and Loken was exceptional even amongst them.

"One such as you would never understand."

[animusnpcs]

"Don't assume you know anything about me." Ruana punctuates her sentence with a blast of fire accompanied with the distant voice of a screaming child.

[greyerrant]

Loken is smashed down again, flesh seared even further, his face charred black, leaking red, and he says quietly.

"Then tell me now. Before the end that we both know is coming."

Behind him, Torgaddon raises the bolter, but doesn't fire.

[animusnpcs]

Ruana speaks simply, in a dead-sounding monochrome. "Once upon a time, there were some scientists who wanted to achieve immortality. And they succeeded.

But I never wanted it."

[greyerrant]

Loken pauses, clearly trying to gain strength from the pause, then nods to Tarik.

"I'll see if I can end that curse, then."

Tarik fires, but not -at- Ruana. Rather, he fires at the wall behind her, trying to destroy it with explosive mass-reactive bolts. If he can get her dislodged, Garviel will close for an overhanded swing of the chainsword. If not, well, he'll just keep walking towards her, dragging his wounded leg.

[animusnpcs]

She doesn't expect that--it's obvious in the way the wall crumbles and she stumbles forward, as if her knowledge of action and reaction is something she only has a passing familiarity with. She catches the chainsword, in a manner of speaking--it takes her arm off, and only the pure force of her mind stops it from slicing her skull down the middle.

Then, everything in the room freezes, and no one can move.