Breaking Quarantine

Distortion moved after Stalwart, wobbling unsteadily on his hooves, but he didn't fall over or trip on his own legs, so that was a good sign at least. Checking to see that all his belongings were still with him, he walked out of the safe zone as well. For some reason, he got a feeling of foreboding that he just couldn't shake. He hesitated for a brief moment before following Stalwart out the whole way and waiting for Star to come along.

Star trotted after Distortion and Stalwart, happy he had a new sword he could use if anything attacked them. He saw Distortion wobbling a little, staying close to him so if he would fall he could help him. He glanced at his sword and Distortion's new gun...It felt like he had messed up on the calculations just a tad bit, but shook it off as nothing. He stepped outside of the safe zone and looked at Stalwart. "Well...Let's go."

Stalwart nodded and began leading the two away from the safe zone and towards the tower. This time, they were going directly there, proceeding along the skywalks though the abandoned city. Above and below the sides of the buildings continued reaching in both directions as the towering skyscrapers continued to create a jungle of buildings around them. The remnants of billboards and advertisements also adorned the sides of buildings, along with the occasional section that was missing.

These holes in the buildings gave a slight view into them sometimes, but inside was just more destroyed than the outside more often than not. Off to the side, in one of the buildings, something shifted behind one of the windows suddenly, though Stalwart either didn't care or didn't see it. He just continued walking until he literally had to stop for a moment to look at the fair sized chunk of wrecked airship that blocked most of the skywalk.

Distortion kept himself ready at all times, swinging his new rune gun around and looking for potential targets. When something shifted behind the window, he almost fell over himself in a panicked attempt to shoot it, but he quietened his agitated nerves long enough to realise that it literally could have been anything, and he really shouldn't be shooting everywhere he saw a little bit of movement.

He eventually came to the airship and stopped alongside Stalwart, gazing at the wreckage. "So... what do we do now, then?"

Star turned towards the direction of the shifting, biting down on the handle of his sword encase anything popped out from behind the window. He almost bumped into Stalwart when he stopped. He let go of the handle of his new sword and looked at the airship. "Indeed.....What do we do now? There is an airship in our way and I'm a tad worried about that shifting." He said, glancing behind them and around them for anything that made a noise, as he usually did.

"We go ov-" Stalwart started with his metallic over-toned voice but was cut off by the sound of shattering glass, brick, and other building materials. Those were complimented by the sounds of a few pony screams as a familiar face appeared. The serpent like Turned that had shot the magic blast at the three the day before appeared again, bashing it's way out the building. It snapped up a falling flailing pony with what might have been a sickening crunch, but the surrounding noise covered it up, before turning it's attention towards another pony that fell onto the path Star, Dis, and Stalwart were on.

The creature coiled down to the unmoving form, it's mouth opening and a long forked tongue slid out to wrap around the pony and pull it into it's mouth. Then the creature turned it's attention towards the other three on the path. It let out a roar before slithering and coiling towards them fairly fast.

"Er... ah damn it." Distortion scrambled backwards, trying to put as much distance between them and the creature as he could. A brief second later, he remembered that he had a rune gun and whipped it out to face the incoming hostile with as much speed as he possibly could.

"Come on, come on, work!" He took aim through the scope and toggled the ice blast rune. He pulled the trigger and waited to see if anything happened.

With almost no recoil what-so-ever, the gun launched the magically charged ball of ice magic at the monstrous creature. When it hit the monster, the blast exploded in a light blue flash of ice magic, encasing a relatively small portion of the large creature in ice. This brought forth something of a screaming roar of frustration at the lack of movement, and pain from the attack in general from the monster.

Ician's blast wasn't alone either as Stalwart fired his own rune gun. The larger cannon fired off a blast with a rather blatant 'ka-thunk' and visible recoil as a large ball of fire raced towards the monster. Striking it in a different spot than the ice blast, the fireball erupted into an explosion which brought forth a new screaming roar similar to the last one.

This didn't last long though as the creature coiled it's long body, breaking the ice that encased it and looking towards the all three of the ponies with somehow greater rage. The monster's mouth split a ways down it's body once again. The similar glow of magical energy charged up in it's mouth right before it launched the literal beam of condensed energy towards them.

All at once, time itself slowed for Distortion. The instants stretched into seconds, then minutes, then hours, and it seemed that the beam of magic was suspended motionlessly in the air. It was almost as if he could reach out and touch it...

So he did. But not physically. Magically.

He felt the familiar hemisphere of control around him. The magic in the air, ever so infinitesimal like a single dot of light in the night sky, and the beam that was a sun's worth of power.

All the fear and panic left him in that moment. All there was was peace. In here, under a dome of isolationism, it was as if he was back home.

The moment passed. His horn flashed brightly as he attempted, with his magic prowess, to divert the entire beam just slightly to the right of them all so it would miss. At the same time, he switched to beam projectiles in his rune gun and fired at the creature again.

"I feel... good." He grinned, showing his teeth. The dull throbbing at the back of his head had gone.

Star's eyes widened as he saw the thing launching a beam of magic. He looked around quickly to see Distortion wasn't moving out of the way. Oh you idiot. He quickly tackled Distortion out of the way, grabbing his sword and drew it oust to, most likely not, block the beam of magic. Time stoped to a halt as he thought about what he was doing... Now I'm the idiot...Push the pony I come in here with and probably save his life...But at what cost? My life? He...Might not even make it to the Magi-tech building. It would have been for naught if he died sooner then later. Then time spend up and he dared not flinch for that would have showed he was scared. He wanted to be as brave as Luna when she had saved him many years ago. He still needed to pay a debt so he couldn't die today.

The beam sailed at the two, an immense amount of power of straight magic with no spell catalyst or matrix to act as a guideline to how it worked. It was simply directed energy, at least until Dis connected to it. When's Dis controlled, if slightly chaotic, magic connected to the beam, for a brief moment Dis would feel the immense power behind the blast. Power that would rival the royal sisters, and Twilight in terms of sheer power alone, and this was charged and released in seconds while it might have taken a few full minutes to get this power. This revelation would be staggering, until the fact that this much magic was trying to be redirected, even if only slight off to the side.

The levels of energy here would rival the alicorn sisters, to a lone unicorn, it was staggering, terrifying, and soon enough painfully burning. Dis would even find his whole horn glowing with the surge of energy interacting with his, and it was visibly beginning to singe the fur around his horn. It might have started to do real damage if Star hadn't tackled Dis then, breaking the connection. The beam itself however would be deflected, striking part of the airship as Dis's right became up and taking out a decent chunk of the wrecked craft.

Dis's second shot would skim along just above the path until it hit where the creature was, freezing another chunk of it and most of the path the creature was on. Stalwart decided to take this to his own advantage and fired his own rune cannon a couple times. The first at the frozen chunk of path that the creature was on which caused the walkway to start collapsing. The next shot was at what remained of the airship, blasting another chunk of it out of the way and allowing passage with relative ease. "Move, NOW!" Stalwart yelled as he shoved both ponies along the path as the crumbling edge began to approach them. The creature itself had already succumb to the collapsing passage though, disappearing down into the depths below, and now it seemed that the falling path was trying to claim more victims if they didn't move quickly.

"Ha ha... ha..." Distortion's eyes began to glow pure white from the sheer amount of magic he was trying to channel to redirect the beam. He was so deep in his trance-like state that he didn't notice the singeing of the fur around his horn. It was only when Star tackled him away did all the glow die out and he collapsed to the ground, panting.

"Whoa..." he breathed. "Just... whoa. That was intense." He shook his head. "Don't get hit by one of those things. Seriously, don't. It'll be like being hit in the face with a meteorite."

For the first time in what seemed like forever, he had all his wits about him again. No sooner had Stalwart shouted at them to move than Distortion dashed away from the crumbling edge, trying his best to evade it.

"Heh..." He glanced up at his smoking horn. "No extreme magic for a while. But maybe I can still do this." He boosted the passive speed enchantment on his cloak with whatever magic juice he could spare before resuming his retreat.

Star looked at Stalwart, putting his sword away and galloped after him and Distortion. He was glad he wasn't dead and glad Distortion kill himself for no moving. Alive, good. Not being dead, great. Running...Just keep running. He though to himself as he glanced back at the creature. he then turned his gaze to Distortion. "You're a bucking idiot, you know that? If you do anything like that again, I will kill you myself!" He said, trying to make him no do anything like what he did ever again. He of course would never kill a pony...It was against his oath as a guard to do so....And he still needed to pay his debt to the fabulous Princess of the Night.

Ician would find the boost rather minor as it seemed a number of the magic relays had been overtaxed if not burnt out from the extreme surge of magic. Still though, the group was fleeing with the crumbling street trailing right behind them. Eventually though, the bricks stopped collapsing at one of the stabilizing tethers that anchored the walkway to the surrounding buildings. That didn't mean Stalwart didn't have to jump the last few feet in his bulky armor to make it.

He grunted with the effort of hauling himself up, but Stalwart didn't so much as glance behind him before continuing along as if the whole encounter didn't happen. "C'mon, we need to keep moving if we're to make it to our next stop before nightfall," he said while trotting forward.

Surrounding them were the still towering buildings overhead, all still in their various states of destruction. For the moment though, there didn't seem to be anything moving around them, or lying in wait of a trap. As they followed the skywalk though, it soon wound up to another building. The space was obviously a shop of some kind, but whatever they used to sell was a mystery as time had erased most if any traces. Stalwart did hesitate for a moment, but it didn't last long before he proceeded on into the building and disappeared around a bend in the halls.

Distortion stumbled and nearly tripped over his own legs. He hadn't expected the boost to be as small as it was, but at least it was something. He eventually reached the other end of the bridge, with a lot of unstable running and near falls after attempting some ambitious jumps, but still in one piece.

Taking the time to slow down a little, he fell into step behind Stalwart. He was a little too tired to look around, and he was still reeling from the revelation that had hit him earlier. That much power was... it was immense. He dreaded another encounter with those things, but at the same time he almost relished it - the interaction with such extreme arcane power came with a pleasant high.

Silently, he trotted after Stalwart, at which point it occurred to him to turn around and see if Star was still with them.

Star looked in front of him with a bit of concerned as he saw Distortion almost tripping over himself or almost falling after jumping. He followed Stalwart and Distortion from behind, keeping his eyes out from anything around them. He rolled his eyes at the unicorn stallion as he looked back at him. He went closer to him before hulling him onto his back and picking up the lost speed to catch up with Stalwart. "Stop being so slow, Distortion. You're gonna make up lose Stalwart at the pace you're going at." He said, not trying to be mean or anything. What he was really doing was getting Distortion onto his back so he doesn't need to see him almost fall over.

Stalwart continued leading the two into the building, through hallways, across larger open areas that were either big rooms or a bunch of smaller rooms that'd had their dividing walls knocked down, and even across covered walkways in between close buildings. As they were walking through one hallway, the roof suddenly collapsed with no real hint of it's impending destruction, cutting Stalwart off from Star and Dis.

"DAMMIT! Hey, are you two alive back there?" Stalwart called out from the other side of the collapse. "If you are, don't try and destroy this to get through. If you do, the whole place might start coming down. We'll have to meet up-" Stalwart paused as what sounded like a shrieking howl echoed out. "Shit, what are harpies doing in this sect?! Hey, try and meet up on the north side of this complex, and keep low. The harpies are practically feral, either take'm out or run, don't bother with anything else." Stalwart commanded before the familiar 'boom' of his own rune cannon resounded followed quickly by another shrill cry. "Good luck!" he called and then his hoof steps started traveling away as he began moving towards their meeting point.

Approaching Star and Dis were similar high pitched shrieking calls but nothing was visible yet. Never-the-less, the 'harpies' seemed to be closing in on the two in the rather tight and narrow confines of the building hallways.

Distortion rolled his eyes as the roof collapsed. "Figures. I don't think we have to worry, though, since this is usually the part of the quest where we get the opportunity to see just how powerful our new weapons are."

He stayed silent through Stalwart's explanation of the harpies. "Yep. Knew it. A test, all right." He glanced at Star, on whose back he was still lying. "So, fight or flight? My rune gun here says fight, but then again I don't know harpies as well as I should." He slipped the shield rune into place and pulled the trigger. "Are they physical or magical? 'Cause I'm in no shape to be deflecting magic bolts at a time like this."

Star stepped back a few when the roof collapsed so that he doesn't get squished under it. He looked back at Distortion with a raised eyebrow. "Figures, you would say something out of the blue." He rolled his eyes and behind him. He listed closely to what Stalwart said to do. "Gah!" He flopped his ears so they were pressed against his head. "That noise...Flight. I choose flight. Can't think about swinging or blocking with annoying noise!" He said, referring to the high pitched noise of the harpies. "Sometimes I wish I wasn't a thestral." He muttered, running down a hallway that lead...North? He couldn't tell which direction he was going, but he needed to get away from that annoying noise.

As Dis pulled the trigger, a translucent, bluish tinted, bubble shaped shield formed around him, but would only remain active so long as he held down the trigger. As Star bolted down hallways though to try and get away from the sound, taking random turns and such, the two soon found themselves suddenly in a larger open room. Once they entered, the noise was cut off by the sound of the doors slamming shut. The figure that pushed the doors closed, which was a pony but covered in a heavy layers of cloth like armor and a heavy mask covering it's face, pointed a sword at the two.

Suddenly there were three more descending upon them, each with a spear aimed right at them. All three weapons glanced off the shield, but the electricity dancing around the point of one went through it without any problem. Luckily, the magic stayed close to the weapon, only reaching a few inches off the sharp spear point. With the initial attack deflected, the 'harpies' took back to the air and continued their diving attacks in a constant barrage while the one near the door drew back it's sword. A series of runes slowly lighting up along the blade.

"Yeah, no, this is not good." Distortion watched as the weapons failed to penetrate the shield, but the electricity that managed to crackle through it spoke volumes about their safety. "I can't switch to the other runes while keeping the shield up, Star, so I guess it's up to you. Though they're gonna punch through soon. I'm beginning to think that it'd matter whether or not I drop the shield. In fact," he rolled off of Star's back, toggled the shield off and onto the ice rune, and fired at the one near the door, whose sword was beginning to come aglow with runes, "I think it's time to move. So move!"

Star turned around when he heard the door slam behind him. He was somewhat glad that annoying sound stopped, but worry started to take his head as he saw the pony who had closed the door. One sword being pointed at them...He glanced upwards to see three harpies trying to get at them while the shield was up. Three harpies...He looked back to the pony by the door as the runes of the blade charged up. Runes being charged up...Not good...

He looked back at Distortion as the shield dropped. He was told to move and did so, moving to his right in a wing beat. He quickly grabbed his new sword in his mouth and drew it, keeping his eyes on the three harpies that were flying. Three flying and one by the door...Behind said door is an annoying sound that those hell forsaken harpies make. What to do now... He though, silently wishing he would have let Distortion lead the way. He also curse he bad navigational skills.

The ice blast rocketed out of Dis's gun, sailing quickly at the 'harpy' with the obviously magic sword. It swung it's sword as well though, causing the magic to release and launch off the weapon, colliding with Dis's ice blast just a few feet from the harpy. The two magic attacks combined and erupted with a shock-wave of force that launched the harpy back into the wall, it''s head bashing against the hard surface. This elicited a feminine cry of pain from the harpy along with a sickening snap before it fell to the ground and didn't move.

The other harpies however didn't seemed the least bit deterred as they went about trying to continue their dive bombing runs. Two of the three were going after the rune gun wielding Dis while the last sped after Star. All three were stabbing forwards as they chased their respective targets.

Distortion swung around as soon as the shockwave emanated from the collision of volatile magic, bringing his gun to bear on the other two harpies who were coming straight at him. The leftover force from the shockwave pushed at his hooves, but he held firm on the ground before loosing another bolt of ice at the nearer harpy.

Star shivered a little as he heard the sickening snap one of the harpies made. He, however, kept his eyes on the one that was speeding at him. He bit down on his sword a bit more to make sure he had a firm grip on it while at the same time taking a defensive position. He swiveled one ear in the direction of Distortion, however, to make sure that if he needed help he would hear it at a moment's notice.