Scion – Rada Campaign Guest Appearance – Part 4
This account was originally found on Livejournal, I am not the original author—I am just a fan of the journal and have found reading it on livejournal clunky to navigate and rife with errors/instability (such as having to refresh multiple times due to the page in questions becoming unavailable often requiring multiple refreshes. The original post can be found here, published by DJ-Yomi, and was published on Aug 15th 2008
…Storm’s group (including myself) quickly agreed on a plan to finish off the five remaining Daitokuji HDRs, the ones that had dropped down to ground level and were shooting futilely at Jacob’s barrier. It didn’t take us long to come up with a plan, which pretty much amounted to “Get ‘em.” But we did take a little time to empower ourselves. I bolstered those of us who can’t take hits quite as well, but aside from that there didn’t seem to be much I could do to help out against the HDRs. I mean, they’re pretty much invulnerable to my powers over life and death since they’re essentially machines, and for the same reason my “mindslave” powers (as Adam is so fond of calling them) won’t work. Then Cesar offered me some of the demon bullets we’d been collecting from the downed robots. I know Elisa got some from the robots my normal group fought some time ago, but I’d never really thought about using them myself. However, now that Ray’s taught me a bit about shooting a gun, I figured that since I wasn’t going to do anything else, I may as well take some shots at the robots.
I probably wouldn’t have bothered if Cesar hadn’t told me that the bullets pierce armor like butter. And I also decided to summon the kami of my pistol and ask it to assist my shots, which of course it did willingly. Actually, I think it was just thrilled to be useful for a change. I’m glad I made my gun happy. ^_^ I was also amused to see Cesar talking to his gun after I’d convinced mine to help me out. I guess he thought if it worked for me, it might as well work for him. He’s so cute. ^_^
And you know what, I totally rocked! It was surprisingly invigorating, blowing gaping holes in those Daitokuji robots. I couldn’t believe how effective I suddenly was. Of course, without the demon bullets or my gun’s kami, I would still have been pretty useless, but hey, combat’s all about using your advantages, right? As it was, I helped Jacob and Helena take down one robot while Storm, Cesar, and Sam took out the others. The fight was over pretty quickly.
Carina disappeared at some point during the fight. About the time we noticed her absence and started to worry, we heard some sounds from outside, like bodies hitting the ground and the helicopter coming in for a landing. We raced outside and saw that Carina had cleverly taken out the guys in the chopper and was doing a damn god job of figuring out how to fly the thing. She’d just shadow-stepped in, slaughtered the crew, and taken over. Well done, Carina! ^_^
With the security taken care of, we decided to take the chopper to the next site. I mean, why not? We had a military helicopter! But first, we had to complete the destruction of the main site. So Cesar and Storm went inside to burn the tainted blood away and set the entire site aflame. I wanted to go in and see them at work, but sadly, I couldn’t. I’m tough, but I don’t have their natural resistance to fire, so it was best that I kept a safe distance. Still, Storm’s group had a neat, fireproof camera mounted on a remote controlled car, and used that to shoot some footage, which Helena downloaded to my laptop for me. We bonded a bit more while setting that up…though I think it mostly amounted to us reaching an understanding that I totally don’t need her approval to feel good about myself.
The only part that bothered me a bit was when I saw one of Helena’s zombies, covered in flames, go flying from the main building into a nearby fuel dump. The fuel dump exploded, which was good, but I felt sorry for the zombie. I expressed as much to Jacob, but I’m not sure he understood. He was concerned for the tainted souls that were released from the corrupted blood. They fled throughout the surrounding area, of course. There’s nothing we could do about that. The place is just going to be haunted for awhile. Still, I promised him that I’d ask Amaterasu if she couldn’t send some of her people to do something about it. It’s awfully nice being so close to the head of my pantheon. ^_^
Speaking of Jacob, I think he’s found this whole sequence of events in Japan to be pretty damn freakish. I don’t blame him…but then again, I find a lot of Norse stuff pretty weird.
With two sites down, there was just one to go. Carina flew several of us over to the site in the helicopter while Cesar took the rest in their flying car (I think I heard Storm call it the Clarkbuilt). As we approached the site, they tried to radio us, but none of the guys in the chopper spoke Japanese, and both of the chopper’s original crew members were male, so we couldn’t bluff our way in. Besides, we decided it would be better to draw off some of the defenders and deal with them first before heading straight into the facility.
Five HDRs flew out to meet us, and fearing that the chopper would go down in an aerial fight, we landed before engaging them. I thought the fight was pretty impressive. Cesar and Sam’s guns blazed, blowing holes in the robots and sending them crashing to the ground. Storm grabbed and threw robots left and right, ripping bits from them as he went. Jacob took control of the computer-targeted minigun on the helicopter, and his National Guard training really showed as his shots tore into the HDRs (by the way, we had a wonderful conversation about his time in the National Guard. He claims he looked good in uniform, and I can totally believe it. Hot. ^_^)
After Cesar and Storm had downed a few robots for the rest of us to deal with, Tabby, Helena, and I leapt into action. Poor Helena’s axe just isn’t made to penetrate heavy armor, so she really had to hack at the HDRs before she could do anything. But Tabby really impressed me (and Carina, and Storm) when she swung herself onto the top of the helicopter, ran along one of the stilled rotor blades, and used it as a springboard to pounce on one of the downed HDRs. She had the robot immobilized in short order. I guess my gun made me feel a little cocky, because I strode out to it and stood next to it, cocking my hips to one side and blowing off its head execution style, looking for all the world like a girl from the opening to a James Bond movie. I was hot. Carina saw it coming and filmed the whole thing on her camera phone, and even yelled “And…CUT!!” after the shot to punctuate it. Carina’s awesome. ^_^ Tabby finished the robot off by ripping out some of its insides. And by that time, the battle was basically done.
Cesar didn’t want to risk the car, so we piled onto the chopper. With air superiority on our side, the ensuing fight was pretty easy. Aside from a couple of BGRs and a massive bulldozer robot that sprouted blades and spikes when we attacked, there wasn’t much left to oppose us. The bulldozer (we kept calling it Killdozer) couldn’t really attack us in the air, and the small arms fire from the guys on the ground wasn’t much of a threat. I offered to use my compelling presence the immobilize the mortals like I did at the first site, but Jacob didn’t like that idea. He didn’t want me bringing in the shikome to clean things up. For some reason, the idea of shikome eating guys alive doesn’t sit well with him. ^_^ Seriously, I could totally understand his point, so I left the shikome at Maneki’s house and we finished off the mortals the hard way.
Storm took care of Killdozer, throwing his javelin with monstrous force so hard that it shattered the thing’s armor like glass. Cesar took over the minigun from Jacob with a look of exhilaration in on his face (he really does remind me of Elisa sometimes) and started mowing down anything else that happened to shoot back. The rest of us took shots at the mortal guards on the ground, finishing them off one by one.
Things were going well until a gashadokuro appeared and grew to its full size. It had no trouble reaching the helicopter, and Carina just couldn’t get us out of the way in time. The gigantic skeleton grabbed us and threw the chopper like something from a Godzilla film, damaging it badly. We had to evacuate then. Carina and Sam shadow-stepped out, while Cesar jumped onto the gashadokuro and slid down its ribcage and leg, shooting as he went. Jacob grabbed Helena and jumped clear. I was going to stay and try to shield Tabby with my body, but Storm grabbed her first and leapt from the chopper, so I followed Sam and Carina and left through a shadow.
We finished off the gashadokuro on the way down. I remember that Storm landed on one of the remaining mortals, pinning him to the ground, and Helena ran up and beheaded him with her axe. Tabby, who was still in Storm’s arms at the time, was pretty annoyed by that and hissed at Helena, who gave her a dark look in return. Poor Tabby just wanted to kill the guy herself. >_<
In the end, all three sites were demolished and I picked up a bunch of demon bullets, about half of which I plan to give to Elisa next time I see her. Daitokuji’s operations in Kyushu have basically been shut down. And Storm’s group decided to keep the chopper. Sam can smuggle it out of Japan, and they know people who can repair it.
Now we just have to go find the local youkai and negotiate a settlement with them. They’re still angry, and we need to calm them down. That’s where I’ll shine. Sure, I’ve participated in the battles so far, but mostly I’ve been along for the ride or have provided knowledge and advice on matters of purification. But when it comes to mediating with youkai, I have both skill and experience
In the meantime, we returned to Maneki’s house to rest up and regroup. I think Carina wants to ask me about something, but we’ve been so busy she hasn’t gotten the chance. Maybe I should approach her about it?
Anyway, Sam came to speak to me. A couple of others were there, like Cesar. It was not a pleasant conversation, but I can’t really hold it against him. He was just trying to share some legitimate worries, and he gave me some interesting things to think about. Still, I wasn’t happy about the way he talked about my mother.
Basically, he has a conspiracy theory that the shikome, and even my mom, are being subverted by the essence of Mikaboshi. He says the shikome especially represent exactly what Mikaboshi represents. I won’t go into all the details, but he did make some good points, and I can see where he’s coming from. Still, I don’t really think he has the whole picture, and I don’t think the shikome or my mother are working for Mikaboshi, either knowingly or not. If they bear any resemblance to Mikaboshi, then it’s something more primal, something that doesn’t come from Mikaboshi, but that he may have latched onto as well. I was actually quite offended by the implications Sam made about my mother and my girls. I’m still angry about it. Cesar seems to see things like I do, though. He totally backed me up in the discussion. He’s such a blood-crazed sweetie. ^_^
Again, I’m not saying Sam didn’t make some good points, but I personally think he’s totally off-base. Cesar says Sam’s a paranoid conspiracy theorist anyway, so that colors what he says too. To his credit, though, he did comment favorably that he was surprised I didn’t use my social prowess to cut him off or overpower him with my words and charisma. We had a calm, intelligent discussion (despite how much he pissed me off), and I guess that impressed him. Which is good, in a way.
I’ll try not to let this color my opinion of Sam, but that’s gonna be hard. Then again, maybe it just pissed me off so much because I can see where Sam’s coming from, and don’t want to accept his theories because they might be true. But no, I really don’t think they are true. I’ve come to know my shikome very well, and there’s much more to them than the rather two-dimensional view that Sam (and most others, for that matter) seem to present. They’re actually very deep, real people, with their own hopes and dreams and pet peeves and vices. They’re just touched by a bit of delicious madness.
Anyway, we’ll soon head out to meet with the youkai. I hope we can resolve things quickly and peacefully. I’m taking Keiko, Sera, Quinn, Dahlia, and Kimiyo, of course. Being youkai themselves, they should lend us a bit more legitimacy, if we need it.