[Open] Once again a disappointment

[Marjorie]

Please forgive me for interrupting your busy day, sir, a rather nervous sounding voice said on the other end of his phone, but we've looked everywhere... we even turned on the GPS tracking on his phone, but he's left it at the house. I am very sorry, sir, but we cannot find Bevyn anywhere.

Emrys sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He'd only been back on the planet one day. ONE day. He hadn't even been in Haviah for twenty-four hours yet. "He's fourteen," Emrys snapped as he made his way down the hall - the fucking nanny was lucky she'd called when he was already heading out of his office and off duty for the day. "Fourteen, how hard can it be to keep track of a child?"

His frown deepened. "No. Do not call the police. I don't want want his name next to mine in the news if they find him in... a compromising situation. I will find the brat myself." Emrys glowered at the elevator door after pushing the button again. He was going to tan that boy's hide when he found him.

He closed his eyes, as he waited for the elevator to the arrive. He took a breath and then reached out with his telepathy. Yes, he didn't usually invade the minds of others unless it was in the line of duty... but his son was a different matter entirely, and he was seeking him out specifically. He felt surprise and fear, but then relaxation as he touched his son's mind. Then there was humor, and he got a snip-it of a 'reply' to his invasion of the boy's privacy that was something akin to 'come and find me then.'

He heard the elevator come to a stop, then the ding, and the doors opened. Emrys opened his eyes and stepped inside, breaking the connection to his son as he did so. Bevyn was far away, but Emrys had picked up a general direction. Once the elevator descended to the ground level, he got off, and straightened to blouse of his uniform. Once outside, he donned his cover and headed toward the train. Once he got moving in the right direction, all the pieces fell into place. He knew exactly where his son was likely to be. He did not call the nanny to call of the search and ease her worries, let her worry. She was the one who had lost him.

The ride over to Synesthesia took several minutes, and when he arrived, as expected, the door men were surprised to see a Pilot in uniform there. He'd been to the club before, Emrys liked one night stands with nameless pretty faces, and he also like to dance. He enjoyed the freedom of a crush of bodies where no one knew each other.

His son however, was probably high, or drunk, or both... and also underage to be here. How he managed to get in, he wasn't sure... but the boy was crafty even if he had no life goals.

Emrys smiled, and glanced down at his uniform, then looked up at the door men with a shrug, as he wove gentle tendrils of comfort and friendliness around their minds. "I know, I'm not dressed for a night out," he said, "but I'm supposed to be meeting someone here."

Not that they would have likely hindered his entrance anyway, but the two men let him pass, one smirking at him. "I was always a sucker for a man in uniform anyway."

Emrys winked at him. "And... I was always a sucker for arms like that," he brushed his fingertips against the man's bicep. He was shorter than Emrys by a couple hands, but neatly twice as big around, and it appear that all of that bulk was pure muscle. "It's a pity I'm not free tonight." Then he slipped past them and into the building. 

The music was loud, almost enough to make him flinch a moment until his ears got used to the assault. The DJ tonight was good, and he found himself moving in time with the heavy beat, as his graceful gate carrying him across the floor toward the elevator. His son wouldn't likely be on the dance floor. It was a slow endeavor though, as there were a lot of people between him and the elevator. 

[GIR]

At the edge of the bar, a lone woman kept tabs on everyone who entered or left the club, despite her blank stare kept focused on the drink she was occasionally made to take sips of. Her outfit was typical of the usual patrons of the bar, though her musculature suggested a level of physical activity higher than that of most women who spent their free time in clubs, and the drink she was slowly consuming was, though one of her favorites when her body had been her own, not of the sort usually served in clubs like this. At her hip was a revolver, a replica of an ancient firearm that, nevertheless, had served her well in Aedolis's wastes.

It had been on her last such trip that she'd encountered... Something. Now, her mind, part of the being she'd been devoured by, knew it to be a Wyrm, but back then, she'd had no words for the serpentine current of red water that had risen from the tide at the shore, the last thing she saw as an individual. And now that thing was controlling her body like a puppet.

Red Tide wanted information. It had positioned its puppets in multiple places known to be hangouts for Pilots, seeking information on a place its priestess had been taken to. So far, those puppets had found that she had likely been taken to some place known as the Thanatos Research Institute of Metaphysics, but no information on where it was had been found, and many puppets had been taken there after trying, with no idea how they'd gotten there. Red Tide was growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress. So far, it hadn't wanted to confront the Pilots directly, but that would need to change soon. If none would *tell* it where to find her, it would need to devour one.

How fortunate, then, that a uniform familiar to the woman was being worn by a man who had just entered the bar. A man who, it seemed, wasn't in the mood for drinks or dancing, as he'd ignored the bar and seemed to be trying to get through the crowd, rather than dance with them. The observations were made through observation of the magical plane, rather than the physical, and it was through the use of that that the puppet was made to follow behind the Pilot, close enough to keep up but far enough away to hopefully not arouse suspicion. He would talk, or he would be subdued, but, before that, it was necessary to discover the reason for his presence. Fighting one was doable. More than one, however, was to be avoided for now, and not knowing where the Pilot's dragon was made things more complicated still. A dragon would have made an excellent meal and addition to its forces, if even half the rumors were true, but to do that would require more puppets than it had in the area.

[Marjorie]

The club was noisy. Not just in audible volume and the cacophony of voices. The psychic background noise and the emotions of every near by were enough to give him a headache. There was a lot of lust, happiness, excitement, anger, pleasure, joy disappointment. The sexual tension in the room and the sweet exhaustion was probably the strongest. Usually he likes that - but right now it was a distraction he threw aside as he opened his mental senses even further seeking out his target threw the mire of thoughts and feelings.

Someone, nearby climaxed. It sent goosebumps along his skin. The the hairs stood up on the back of his neck and it had nothing to do the strangers in the corner booth. He couldn’t make out a source though, even as he let a drunk take his hands and spin him around once so he could take a look around his immediate surroundings. 

Ah.. there, his son was upstairs. 

Finally, he made it to the elevator and pushed the button impatiently. More concerned now that his son might have somehow unwittingly drawn him into someone’s trap. H

[GIR]

Following the man, it seemed, would be easier than Red Tide first thought. Too easy, according to some of the fragments, even as the puppet was made to dance as the Pilot took a look around. It would seem that the Pilot, though aware he was being followed, hadn't been able to tell by whom, and the wyrm was determined to use this to its advantage as the puppet was made to keep dancing until he was in the elevator.

In the meantime, Red Tide took the time it spent waiting to search the visible upstairs area, both magically and, for a brief moment, physically. The Pilot had gone to the elevator for a reason, after all, and it wouldn't do to walk into a potential ambush or more of his colleagues. While the Pilot was, for the moment, unaware of who, exactly, he was being followed by, there was no guarantee that another Pilot wouldn't spot the puppet, and forewarned, according to most of the sapient fragments that made up its mind, was forearmed. While the physical look hadn't yielded anything of note, the magical glance had picked up something interesting.

A human whose magic, while only as strong as the normal background magic of nonmagical humans his age, was close enough in its appearance that the human might be related to the Pilot. His apparent age, the Pilot's apparent age, and the degree of similarity made it likely that, if they were related, the human upstairs was the Pilot's son. The pattern suggested the son, too, was also a psychic.

Caution would be required here. Humans tended to be at their most wary, as well as their most dangerous, when they perceived their offspring to be in danger. As all animals which formed family units, the young of humans were jealously guarded, and humans defending their offspring often exhibited strength well beyond that of humans under normal circumstances. Experience told the wyrm that this was true of magic and psionics, as well. In some cases, *more* true. It would need to subdue the Pilot, preferably without being detected, before even thinking about dealing with the son, and that was if it even wanted to go to the trouble. Red Tide could not devour minds through its puppets, after all, an often vexing difference between them and its Priestess. This meant any intended food would need to be transported to a shoreline, alive, for devouring, or, ad the very least, to a level of the city close to the ground where it could burrow to. For now, though, the puppet was made to wait and see, with Red Tide using magic to keep tabs on the Pilot's position.

[Marjorie]

Emrys wasn't, likely not surprisingly, concerned that another psychic might be following him. Though the subtly of the person might suggest it. It simply wasn't possible, all the psychics on Adelios were either Pilots or children. Unless it were one of the... no he couldn't even bring himself to name them in his head.

Couldn't be. Not out in the open like that. It would be too dangerous for them.

There were other things though, besides psychics out there that could work around people like that. Magic. It had to be. He knew he'd felt something strange about.

Emrys extricated himself from his unexpected dance partner, and having located his son, he now waited impatiently for the elevator door to open. As he did so, Emrys opened his sense further to the room at large. In the face of being hunted by some unknown with one of his children near by - even that retch Bevyn - he threw propriety and even what some would consider common decency aside, and he cast his mind out at those around him. He picked a face, and then picked up their thoughts and feelings purposefully, before moving onto the next. 

What. What? His gaze paused, only briefly on a woman he had just been turning circles with. He looked away, in a flirtatious manner and then looked back at her, casting her a playful grin.

That had been wrong.

His mind remained focused on her. First, he'd thought he felt nothing as if she were no more than a poster on a wall... and then too much, so many voices, thoughts, feelings... it was nauseating. He didn't let it show outwardly though.

Emrys had never encountered someone... something...? like this before. It put him on alert, but he kept his same irritated posture as before. Target located, he could keep track of them without the aid of his eyes. He turned toward the elevator door again and crossed his arms, tapped his foot. Ahh... at last, the doors slid open and he pressed the button for one of the upper floors. He didn't look at the number, just chose it on instinct. His psychic connection to his son would guide him to the right door. As the lift took him up, Emrys sent a sense of danger to his son, which he promptly ignored. The fucking idiot.

[GIR]

Red Tide knew its puppet had been spotted when it felt the unwanted presence in its minds. The all-too-familiar feeling of wariness and the recoil at the wave of minds. Minds totalling in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, even if one only counted the sapient ones. Minds ranging from as simple as that of a mosquito's near-singleminded hunger to ancient spirits and demons. Thus far, no human had failed to experience some degree of overload when exposed to that many minds, and it was that moment when the human went from sensing nothing to sensing everything that produced the sensation Red Tide had centuries since learned to identify and take heed of.

As the Pilot cast his playful grin, the puppet was made to act shyly at the first glance, then beckon in a motion its human fragments identified as a "come hither" gesture, though the puppet's expressionless eyes might potentially ruin the effect. That the Pilot did not accept the invitation was a frustration, though not an insurmountable one, as the puppet was simply made to wait for the elevator after the doors closed, magic allowing for the Pilot's position to be kept track of without line of sight, now that the wyrm knew what to look for. As the puppet waited, two more were made to make their way toward Synesthesia, though progress was slow enough that it was an open question as to whether or not they'd get there in time to be of use.

[Marjorie]

The come hither gesture did fail, mostly because the desire and interest wasn’t there in her eyes. Not that it mattered. He knew she was hunting him, or at least following him. Also, it didn’t matter, because his own flirty glance had been meant to cover the fact that he’d looked a little too long at her after locating her as his target. He was somewhat relieved that she didn’t step into the elevator with him, although, that might have been an ideal moment to take her out if she had. Suddenly he wished he had a sidearm in him.

Normally, Emrys would have used his abilities to sift threw the person’s mind and work out their intentions, their motives, and what their actual plans were. He couldn’t with this one thought. There were too many minds, thoughts, voices, feelings, drives, hungers, needs, disappointments... and more. He “turned down the volume” on the woman’s mind, so to speak, and just used his abilities to track where they were physically.

The elevator stopped and he got off, letting his psychic tether to his son guide him. He came to a locked door, which he banged on, and was subsequently told to fuck off. His son’s voice infuriated him. He kicked the door in. The woman he was rolling around in the bed with let out a soft yell and then started cussing at him.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Emrys said, and then picked up his son’s clothes before tossing his pants at his head. “He’s underaged, so get the fuck out before I have you arrested.”

Once the woman realized he was a Pilot, she grabbed her clothes and took off.

“Get your pants on,” Emrys snapped at Beven. “There’s someone here who’s dangerous. So move your ass so we can get back down stairs before they can get off the elevator and follow us down.” 

[GIR]

As the puppet was made to wait for the elevator, conflicting plans were being discussed. Many of the fragments wanted to subdue the pilot here and now, while they knew they still had him. Letting him leave would mean the risk of him slipping away, or worse, calling his dragon, a battle that was best left unfought for the moment. Others wanted to let him leave, allow him to believe he'd escaped, and pick up the trail with new puppets. Still others believed that it would be best to find other targets, and that the situation had already become untenable. Ultimately, however, it was decided the elevator would be too slow as the Pilot entered the room his offspring was in. There was no longer time to go about the situation quietly.

Slowly, subtly, Red Tide gathered a pool of magic around the puppet on the magical plane, then slowly creeping it around the dance floor and bar, so as not to alarm any mages that could see as it could. As it did this, the puppet was made to head for the stairs and begin ascending at just under a run. As soon as she was halfway up, Red Tide released the magic, filling the downstairs area with a light pink soporific gas that would taste and smell like abnormally strong alcohol. The effects were gradual, with those who had not been drinking wondering why they suddenly tasted alcohol, but it took only 10 seconds for even the heavier humans to fall asleep. The downstairs area would be clear, leaving only the upper level to deal with, if all went to plan.

As the puppet reached the top of the stairs, she was made to stop and wait. Rushing in would be foolish. Unless the elevator doors and maintenance hatch were airtight, the elevator would not lead to safety, and the gas would flow in before the doors opened. The Pilot would best be captured conscious, if possible, so he could talk without the need to devour him before knowing if he'd be more useful dead or servile. The child was less important, and could even be useful as a hostage if it came to that. For now, though, it was best to focus on the primary target. It would still be some time before enough were in the area for capture to be guaranteed, so the best strategy for now was to capture the Pilot if possible, delay him if it proved too difficult. Red Tide knew what the Pilots options were now, but not his plan. That meant cutting off as many options as possible.

[Marjorie]

With his sense opened to the building at large and following the person - or thing - following him directly, he knew that they had forgone the elevator for the stairs. This was problematic because he’d been hoping to loose her as he headed down and she was stuck heading up. “Fuck.” Wait. What the hell? He felt the sudden sleep of everyone in the lower part of the building.

Beven didn’t even have his pants zipped up when Emrys grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the room. “Someone’s coming,” he said in a harsh whisper, “and I don’t know if I can handle them on my own.”

 Now the teenager’s scorn has shifted to real fear. He’d never suspected his father was capable of anything that felt like fear. It wasn’t exactly fear Emrys felt, but he was concerned he might have been outclassed by this mage. Whoever they were. A building like this had more than one emergency exit though, and the people upstairs were still conscious and unaffected by whatever was going on down in the lower levels. He turned toward a brightly lit emergency exit- it was protected by fire doors that shut air tight, though not knowing exactly what had happened down below, he was more counting on the fact that such exits would lead him directly outside.  He pulled a fire alarm just before dragging his son, who was now obediently following him, threw the door.

It wasn’t long before some sense of panic at the alarm started flooding threw the people in the upper floors. People flooded out of various rooms of vice and into the main stairway and out the stairwells marked as emergency exits. Emrys and Beven were ahead of the crowd though and making good time, as they moved down the stairs at a fast clip.

A hand full of people made it into the stairwell he was traveling down a floor above, Emrys pushed on their minds with his psychic abilities, harshly, and filled them with a sense of need and duty to defend the door they had just come threw. He started doing the same thing to other near by people until he had two doezen little guards on the doors to the stairwell he was fleeing down.

[GIR]

As the fire alarm sounded, the puppet was made to take off toward the Pilot's position at a run. Even in various states of inebriation and intoxication, the other occupants of the upper level would not take long to react to the sound that, even now, the minds from the present day were eager to flee from, having been conditioned to respond tot he alarm as if there were a fire even when it could plainly see there wasn't. But that didn't mean there wouldn't be. As a water/wood/toxin wyrm, Red Tide's fire magic was near-worthless. But it could tap into it's Priestess's lightning affinity, too, and so the puppet was made to pump electrical energy into the building's wiring, overloading it to the point of sparking fires throughout the upper level and triggering the fire suppression system.

Humans, as a general rule, loved the idea of fighting fire with water. This was truly a blessing for Red Tide, as the water raining down was a ready-made weapon against any humans who got in the way, knocking them aside, as well as a means of cutting through the door. While Red Tide could create water even through its puppets, controlling water that already existed was far more efficient when feasible, and the rain of water made for another perfect crowd-control measure: The addition, through magic, of a contact paralytic to the water. The puppet would be fine, as puppets seemed to be immune to toxins, but the other humans would be easier to move out of the way now that they were limp and unable to struggle.

The problem, though, was that doing so took time. Cutting through the door, even just through the hinges and lock enough to force it out, more time. And the Pilot was wasting none of that time. Other puppets were still not close enough to pick up the chase within visual distance, but, more importantly, there was the matter of the Pilot's dragon. A roar of rage, loud enough to shake the building and in the voice of everything Red Tide had ever consumed, accompanied the use of a deluge of water to force the door out of its frame. As the puppet was made to step out onto the emergency stairs, one of the fragments watching the criminal brought more of the attention of the whole to that puppet as the High Priestess asked, as she had before, where exactly she was. While the female puppet was made to continue the chase for the moment, the criminal was paid more attention so as to hear the answer through as many ears as possible.

[Marjorie]

Emrys didn’t know how, exactly, though obviously some kind of magic. He noted that people were falling limp all over, and others were falling dead,  and the further he got from those he had inclined to guard the doors the less of an effect he had on them until he had none at all. So instead he sent them to jamming, locking, and blocking the doors in the levels where the woman following him hadn’t affected yet. He reached out more specifically to one strong mind after he’d had a few doors worth of obstacles placed between him and his pursue.

The mental link between Rojgher, the Dragon Emrys served was ever present, even when it was in the background, and he dragged it to the foreground now. Thoughts and memories of the events that had unfolded sense he entered the club along with a call for needed help flooded across their mental link. Rojgher’s mental response was immediate, and Emrys already knew that his arrival was imminent. He’d be off the airy he was in soon, and once he took flight, the dragon who Emrys was apt to discribe himself as belonging to (in his own thoughts at least), would be there shortly. 

The woman was slowed, but not stopped by his efforts. He had no doubt that Rojgher would deal with her swiftly though, even if she was giving him a run for his money. There wasn’t even the possibility of a world that existed in Emry’s mind where there was a force that could contend with an enraged dragon. Besides that, he could feel protective, offended, angered energy radiating off of Rojgher at the very idea that someone would so threaten HIS pet pilot. It filled him with confidence he might not otherwise have.

“Quickly,” Emrys said, as they rounded another corner, another level closer to their escape. Two more flights of stairs to go. “Rojgher is coming, but we can’t get caught before he’s here.” Beven didn’t answer but moved faster at his father’s urging. Emrys flung his mind out at near by people and caused them to barricade the next set of fire doors between them and the woman chasing after him.

[GIR]

As its quarry continued to flee, his options for escape became fewer and fewer, even if the pursuit of the puppet was slowed by having to cut fully through the doors instead of merely cutting them free. That meant it became easier to control the chase. Red Tide expanded its sight as the puppet was made to continue the pursuit, then focused lightning magic on the next doors in the Pilot's path. Within seconds, both were welded shut, their handles glowing hot throughout the process as a means of preventing the Pilot from opening them. Next, two other likely doors got the same treatment.

As it continued to weld doors shut in pairs, Red Tide took care to create clouds of sleeping gas in every pathway its puppets native to the area knew of except ones beneficial to its goal of trapping the Pilot. Capturing the Pilot alert was no longer an option, but he would need to be lead to a more convenient location. A location better suited to the puppets, but not good for the dragon. Direct confrontation with the dragon, while useful, was best avoided, for now.

As it planned its next move, Red Tide turned its attention to the doctor studying its High Priestess. "Perhaps not, Doctor.", the puppet she had given it was made to say, the voice coming from him a combination of many, many more voices than the High Priestess's, "But he will know enough. Many pieces of knowledge may mean nothing taken separately, but a puzzle is made to be combined, not looked at piece by piece. Your species forgets that it is the small clues, the seemingly insignificant details, that add up. A Pilot will be in the best position to know these clues.". The criminal remained silent afterwards, until her response, which sparked a, "So it would seem", and then nothing. It had no more words for her, and its attention was needed here and now. Its High Priestess would be able to handle that situation. One further thought was spared for that situation, as an order to her given on a subconscious level: any question of its location was to be met by demonstration of the uselessness of the answer on the psychics listening in on the goings-on.

[Marjorie]

"Fuck," Emrys pulled his son back from the door by the waste of his pants before he could reach for the handle. Heated metal had a specific smell. He turned, quickly, aware that he was now being led or funneled to a position that would give his pursuer an advantage, there was no other reason to lock a door.

He looked all over his environment as he continued to flee. Another pair of door left open, another welded shut.
 
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

There. He took off his shoe and hurled it at an air vent with as much strength as he could muster, busting the screen off of it before it could be welded shut, if they had that idea in mind. "Up!" he lifted his son so he could climb into the tight space and then pull him in. Emrys was tall which was a pain, but he and all his children maintained his willowy build... so it's wasn't too tight a fit for them to still move with decent speed, though he'd likely lost the advantage of speed he'd created earlier - putting them somewhere on even footing there. They came around a turn and then: "Take a deep breath and hold it. Do not breath until we're outside." He did the same, knowing, from the observations of people around him that there was some kind of poisons gas was about. He urged his son along, they were on the ground floor. If they could make it across the room, they'd be free of this fucking club. He grabbed his son by the wrist and a chair in the other hand as they passed it.

A mighty roar anger cut threw the silence on the dance floor full of unconscious people. It spurred him on across the other half of the room. Rojgher was there. Or close. He just needed outside. Beside him he felt his son stumble. In his mind he growled, if he'd been able to open his mouth to verbalize it, the sound would have been as enraged as Rojgher's. Emrys hurled the chair at a pate glass window which shattered, and then he lifted his son across his shoulders and hurled himself out the window onto the street.

[GIR]

The decision was made when the psychic had managed to slip out of the trap and out of one of the windows. There would be a change in targets. The roar of the dragon meant following the Pilot out would be foolhardy, though two of its puppets who had just now arrived at the scene would stay and engage the dragon and Pilot. They were a distraction that could become the main force if ignored. One puppet, a gardener by trade, threw the contents of a packet of seeds out into the street, wood magic focused through it causing the seeds to grow with a speed even the fastest-growing plants of old had never matched.

The seeds were of a nonthreatening flower species favored as decorations by humans, admired and grown for its beauty, but Red Tide's absolute command of wood magic enabled the seeds to be made to grow instead into a much stronger version of a magical species of carnivorous vine which tangled the feet of its victims and grew around them, killing its prey through either starvation or strangulation in a matter of days. The variant that could, in ancient times, be found in nature had been difficult enough to cut. The ones grown by Red Tide were as titanium alloy, and even the branches of the vines that weren't being guided toward the Pilot and his dragon by wood magic were drawn toward sources of carbon dioxide and heat, several unattended vines ensnaring running vehicles, lights, and other heat sources.

The other freshly arrived puppet was a construction worker by trade, and this puppet was made to use water magic to cover itself in water compressed beyond its natural limit, then rush in to attack, as if to beat the Pilot to death. It was also made to, as it did so, create and launch compressed water projectiles at over 10 times the speed of sound at the dragon while the puppet that had originally been chasing the Pilot was made to gather all the water and glass in the building, use water magic to break the glass up into tiny particles, then use the particle-infused water, compressed into a 90,000PSI stream,  to begin cutting through the floor of the club. If it could not capture the Pilot, the Pilot's offspring could be taken as a bargaining chip. Or simply to punish the Pilot.

[Marjorie]

Cars and many other sources of heat were being captured by some magically enhanced plant, growing at a rapid pace, but not just inanimate objects - first reponders were caught up in it's curling vines as well. They were targeting heat sources, it seemed, making him and his son and obvious target as well. He moved as quickly as he could away from the vines and stole a gun off of a police officer struggling to grapple one of the plants.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Emrys did growl out loud then as mental warnings flashed across his link with Rojgher. If he was captured or killed, Rojgher could not be.

They needed a military response to this. Combat Pilots. The first responders were all going to die.

Back up is coming.

Not quick enough.

Hojgher let out a stream of fire against the attacking plants, dragon fire could burn to cinders or felt just about anything known to man - so that helped there, even if several unfortunate first responders were burnt to a crisp as well, but once the construction worker arrived, he had to retreat out of range. With the onslaught from his new attacker, Emrys had to drop his son on the ground to defend himself. He could carry him, fight, and run. His son laded on the ground, as the construction worker charged him. Emrys didn't have time to see if he was ok or prevent him from hitting his head, as soon as his son was off his shoulders he lifted the weapon on his hand and emptied the magazine in the gun he'd lifted off the fallen police officer into his attacker

[GIR]

As the dragon burned the vines, the gardener puppet was made to add water magic to the wood magic, producing thicker vines saturated with water. They were slower to move, but the water absorbed heat, allowing the plants to withstand the dragon fire slightly longer, though they, too, were burned. A second packet of seeds, ripped open and thrown as soon as the dragon retreated, allowed the attack to continue, with one important difference: The Pilot had dropped his son to fight off the construction worker puppet, allowing the gardener puppet to focus on using wood magic to cause the vines to drag the son away from the Pilot, each group handing the human off to the next as they were made to grow toward the building, where a pool of water magic waited, the spell designed to launch the human into the building.

As for the construction worker puppet, it was made to continue fighting. Water was one of a group of substances that were densest in their liquid forms. As a fluid, water was naturally nearly incompressible, to the point that high-powered weapons had little to no penetration when fired into water, the bullets instead shattering. Pistols and other low-powered firearms could penetrate with some efficacy, but that was why Red Tide had made its puppet compress the water using magic. The armor it had formed was as dense as iron, but could not be compressed by normal weapons. The magic holding it in place left no room for the water to move except where Red Tide needed it to for its puppet to move, when its puppet was moving, leaving a surface as hard as granite. The bullets from the weapon flattened out as they struck the water, then fell to the ground. The armor was not invulnerable. It was not proof against heavier weapons designed with armor penetration in mind, or, with proper timing, the joints where motion necessitated the water being less compressed in order to allow for movement could be pierced by even normal small arms fire. Dragon fire, ironically enough, or even sustained high heat in general, would also cook the puppet inside the armor, as the water sacrificed much of its ability to absorb heat by being so compressed, a side effect of magic which forced aside natural laws, and this was one of several reasons it had been necessary to drive the dragon out of its range. Even as it was, some magic had had to be used to put out the fires when the dragon backed off. The puppet's movements were, with study, somewhat predictable, being a series of light, swift blows with slower, more powerful ones thrown in here and there with the intent being to catch the Pilot off guard by altering the timing of the strikes, while still keeping him busy.

The gardener puppet would be made to take over the duty of keeping the dragon out of range as the construction worker puppet fought the Pilot as soon as the Pilot's son was in range to be launched back into the building, while the puppet that had originally spotted the Pilot continued cutting through the floor. It was crucial that that puppet escape with the new bargaining chip.

[Marjorie]

Emrys psychic link to his son told him that he was being carried away. He didn’t even spare a glance in his direction though. He couldn’t even spare him a thought. His ability to defend himself against his current attacker was just enough. He took a few hits, blocked others, evaded some altogether. But even when he blocked a swing the connection was jarring. He slid back under the force of a connecting blow, then ran. He turned as he went swiping an assault rifle off a different cop. That should have more punch to it. He hoped it’d be more affective than the pistol. He turned again. Still retreating and employed the clip into his attacker. He was smart, a good shot, a quick learner. He didn’t bother with body shots, figuring out that whatever magic he was using was like armor. He aimed for points of movement. They were always weakest. It didn’t matter the kind of armor - physical or metaphysical.

[GIR]

As the Pilot shot for the puppet's joints, the first few shots were ignored, leading to damage to the puppet's shoulders as the water was pushed aside by the bullets. The rest of the clip was not given such complacent disregard as the puppet was made to stop moving and lock its joints so that the water could be compressed. To the wyrm's frustration, however, this merely meant a tedious game of red light green light with the Pilot that ended in the puppet being rendered immobile by gunfire. No longer able to press its assault, it was made to create a sphere of water in front of it, then run as much electricity through it as it could muster to form hydrogen and oxygen gas inside the sphere.

The gardener puppet, meanwhile, was made to form a shell of compressed water around itself and continue keeping the dragon at bay. It had done its part in getting the son inside, but its cover was blown and now it was best used as an area denial weapon. To this end, it was made to fire off shots of water at the Pilot if he tried to go back into the building, but otherwise focus on the dragon, which represented the bigger threat, and any reinforcements.

Inside the building, the task of cutting through the floor was going smoothly without the Pilot's interference, allowing progress to be rapid. Moreso when the construction worker puppet was immobilised, leading Red Tide to increase the pressure of the stream and make the puppet break and gather more glass to use as abrasive material. As a precaution, the puppet was also made to form walls of compressed water over the windows and doors to bar entry until it could finish the hole.  A temporary measure, one that the dragon, if both puppets outside were lost, might render useless, but a stop-gap was all that was needed if the impromptu backup plan survived to fruition.

[Marjorie]

Attacks like this - on Pilots, on Dragons - didn't just happen and not out in the open. The threat was perceived as real, and given a high priority. Back up was coming, a military response had been issued by the time that Hojgher had arrived on the scene.

There were no more cops or first responders coming. Somewhere jets had been scrambled, and Emrys got the feeling they might level the whole place to stop this, but he knew the technology was better than that. He didn't look up when he felt them buzz the club. He was still retreating, and  more rapidly now, pretty sure those jets had not just buzzed the building he was in front of.

The strength of it was awesome, he was flung back several feet, and the sound... he couldn't even describe, but his ears were bleeding now... and his vision shook. Had he hit his head? The explosion had been centered on top of the gardener. Somewhere in the distance, one of the jets crashed - the projectiles from one of the puppets had hit it, but not before the pilot could complete their task.

The dragon used that opportunity to cook the construction worker alive, then swoop down to pick up Emrys. Emrys scrambled up onto Hojgher's back, and he took to the sky gain. Fucking hell, he was out of practice for this... Pilots rarely actually rode dragons these days, and he had no gloves, his shoes were too slick, and his hand would be cut on the rough edges of scales and sharp bits of machinery. He held on tightly, pressing his body as close to Hojgher as could, as he twisted sharply in the air.

Hojgher was most concerned with Emrys, but Emrys wanted his son back. It was easy to surmise why they wanted Emrys' son. It was leverage, against him. Not that it would work - even if he wanted to, Hojgher was literally in his head all the time. Whatever they wanted from him, Emrys couldn't give, Hojgher would just as soon kill him as keep him safe if it meant safeguarding himself or Adolis.

They had a quick mental exchange, if Hojgher couldn't get Bevyn out quickly he'd take Emrys and leave him behind. Hojgher shot a steady stream of dragon fire at barriers placed over the windows as he flew right at one of them that was large enough for him to fly in threw.

[GIR]

As the construction worker and gardener puppets were destroyed, control of their spells were shifted to the female, who had just broken through the floor of the club when the jets bombed the gardener puppet into oblivion. The sphere was simply released, the hydrogen and oxygen contained within exploding as soon as it contacted the fire. The remaining plants were simply left alone, no longer growing at their enhanced rate. Red Tide treated the loss of both puppets as acceptable losses, with their covers having been blown and their usefulness at an end, and the puppet was made to grab the son and escape, using water pressure from below the cut-out section of floor and foundation to blast it up and out of the way before jumping in and filling the hole behind it. By the time the dragonfire destroyed the barrier the Dragon had chosen to enter through, nothing but several blasts of water and a hole filled with three layers of compressed water with two of normal, if highly toxic, water between them, left behind to slow the Pilot down as the puppet escaped to the level beneath, awaited the Dragon and its Pilot. Evaporating the water would release the (contact) toxins into the air. Many of Red Tide's minds wanted to fire on the city personally. To level it for the insult of denying Red Tide its due, or to further provoke a long-awaited war, or for simple psychotic rage. But many more saw the wisdom of accepting, provided the puppet could be made to make good its escape, the capture of the son as good enough.

Human fathers, in Red Tide's experience, rarely abandoned their children to no good end. Having never devoured a Pilot or a Dragon, Red Tide had no information that would have suggested otherwise, and, while it had heard (or devoured) rumors, the majority of its minds dismissed the idea that Dragons and their Pilots were themselves a network out of hand as propaganda. It had no way of knowing its hostage was next to useless. As it ran, the puppet was made to use the son's phone to make a call to the Pilot. "You will retrieve the Priestess. You will bring her to the wasteland and release her. If you cannot bring her, you will bring the information on her whereabouts. If you do this, your child will be returned to you unaltered. If you do not, your son is forfeit. You have one week. Do not bother tracking me. *I* will find *you*.", the puppet would be made to say as soon as he answered, in its own voice, before destroying the phone and dropping the remains to end the call. For now, it could afford to be made to run, firing water projectiles at any foolish enough to attempt to intervene, until it found more standard exits to the levels below. Staying in one place was foolish.

As the puppet was made to flee, Red Tide found one of the tunnels it had burrowed and flooded inland in ancient times, the tunnel meant as a means of crossing miles beneath the continents in order to move about unobserved. It disliked using them if it didn't need to, as the tunnels were uncomfortably hot due to their depth and there wasn't as much room for water as it would have liked, but they made serviceable passages for it to burrow to villages, later towns, and still later cities inland to feed. To do that, however, it needed to shrink itself to a size that would not draw suspicion. Over two thousand years ago, humans had developed technologies that allowed them to see underground, and so it would not do for there to be newly made tunnels as large as the ones of old. It would take time to reach the surface, but it would be able to do so if it needed to. For now, however, it would simply travel to the tunnel nearest the city the humans names Haviah and wait. It could retain its power by remaining in the tunnel, but would need to form a water cloak to do so at the surface, a spell which required far more focus than the ones it had made its puppets create.