London, Mina's England. Mid-Day.
The Tripods had choked the rivers of London with a strange red weed, making Nemo's Nautilus all but entirely useless.
One bridge separated the Tripods from the heart of London. One bridge which they could not afford to let the Tripods cross. M had told them they needed to buy time. H-142 would save the day, they said. They just needed time.
So there, gathered, was the haphazard League. Captain Nemo had his sword at the ready, as little good it would do. Skinner was mouthing off sarcasm in the fact of certain death. Dr. Jekyll had allowed his alter ego, the monstrous Hyde, to take over, and he stood with a grimace and a restrained rage.
Mina herself was hesitant. She knew that even her vampiric resilience would not survive a direct blast from a Tripod's heat ray. An aerial assault would be suicide for her. So she stood, a rifle in her hands. It was one Sawyer had sent her, the silly man. But today she'd make good use of it.
Minsc
Minsc, meanwhile, was starting to grow anxious. For such a big fellow, he seemed to bounce very easily from foot to foot. His fingers cracked around the hilt of his sword as he held it tightly. The fact that he wasn't just charging forward into uncertain danger (yet) was a testament to how much restraint he was showing.
Algren
Algren's hand closed around the barrel of the shotgun that he'd grabbed before they set out once again. He'd insisted that somebody arm him, and he certainly couldn't complain with what they'd supplied him with.
He was familiar with this. It was a small comfort in the face of what they were up against.
"You know," he said, at length, "it's clear that I've been on Fandom Island for a while. All of this feels as though it's simply the way things have to be, somehow. Aliens and all."
Mina
"We can hope these things never find our little island," Mina said, grim. "They've already devastated so much of Lond--" she heard the deafening cry. The Tripods chorused in an 'ULLA!' as they began their march across the bridge.
"They're coming!" she shouted. "We must not let them cross!"
She started forward, firing shots at the lead Tripod as best she could. She was no sniper, and any shots that luckily struck the Martian merely bounced off its armored shell.
Minsc
Must not charge. Must not charge. Wait until they get closer, should have grabbed something long range, must not...
He'd risk any stray bullets. Minsc let out a great roar to answer their 'ULLA!' and started to run forward, sword brandished, calling out a warning to any who might get in his way:
"Make way evil! I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hamster! "
Algren
Algren was going to smash his forehead against something solid if they made it out of this alive. Minsc and his charging, Mina and her advance forward, both made him cringe, to some degree.
Hold your ground. Steady... Steady... Fire!
One shot hit the creature and bounced away harmlessly. Another in a different spot had the same effect, and a third.
The fourth, however, hit the beast on one of the joints, and Algren allowed himself a momentary grin. It didn't bounce away.
Mina
Mina watched as the Tripod wobbled, but continued its advance. "Keep firing!" she shouted, and soon Nemo and his pistol, as well as Skinner and a rifle of his own joined the firefight.
Hyde
Hyde, though, he was keeping apace with Mina.
You would do better to stay off the front line, madame," he huffed at Mina.
Mina
"And you would do better than to question my actions," Mina said. "I would be careful. Minsc shall prove himself far more capable of defending this bridge than you."
Hyde
Hyde laughed. "Then I shall prove my worth over him, shall I?"
Hyde turned his attention towards the Tripod, and began his own charge.
Minsc
This was certainly more like it! Of course he understood the grave danger they were in, but Minsc laughed in the face of danger!
"Ha!" he said, laughing in the face of...the...lower leg part of a Tripod as he beat at it mercilessly. Or at least attempted to. He was doing a lot of beating of his sword. "Get 'em, Boo! Get 'em good!"
Algren
Algren was going to grab Minsc, and he was going to shake him until his teeth rattled out of his skull. That was what he was going to do when they got out of this alive. Because this was a matter of 'when.' He wasn't going to accept that the word 'if' even happened, right now.
Another round, another pause to reload.
He was grounding Minsc from killing anything but cheeeeese in the near future, damn it. In his head. Because Minsc was huge and even Algren wasn't crazy enough to tell him that he wasn't allowed to do these things, face-to-face.
And another round. On the same damn tripod. On the same damn leg. These things were resilient.
Mina
Mina concentrated her fire as well, on the leg Algren was firing upon. It would be their only hope. The military had long since been pulled away from the city.
Hyde
Hyde, however, taunted at Minsc as he approached. "What's the matter, baldy? Don't have the strength to do what Mina wants of you?"
Minsc
"Ha!" Minsc was now laughing in the face of danger, these leg thingies, and the other really big guy. "Less talk, more fight!" he said, letting out another brusque shout as he swung back with all his might and cleaved with all his strength in the the leg being weakened by the shots of his comrades.
The Tripod
The Tripod had one severe weakness, and that was a complete reliance on its three legs. With one cleaved by Minsc's blow, the Tripod collapsed it's top cracking open with the impact. The squid-like, tentacled thing flailed there, exposed and vulnerable.
Algren
Tentacles. Nice.
One, two, three, four, five shots, fired in succession made certain that the creature didn't continue flailing about for long. And Algren would have taken a moment to thrill in that small success, were it not for the entire army that was following along behind it.
There weren't enough shotgun shells on the planet, damn it. Even so, he aimed at the next closest, and began to fire again.
Hyde
"Too easy," Hyde growled, leaping over the fallen Tripod which now blocked much of the bridge. He headed for the next Tripod, eager to take it down by himself.
The Tripod trained its heat ray upon the beast of a man, and fired.
Minsc
"One down!" Minsc called out triumphantly. "Only..."
Minor pause.
"A lot more to go! Keep him down, Boo!"
It should be noted that Boo did not actually keep the fallen Tripod down, as Minsc still had not deposited him anywhere; he was far too busy following the big guy's example by throwing himself heavily into the fray.
Hopeless? Maybe. But if you didn't go big, you might as well go home. It was not hard to choose an honourable death, especially when there might still be victory in it. Maybe. Don't know until you tried.
Mina
Mina's speed was unparalleled at that moment, as she discarded the gun Sawyer had given her and used every advantage her vampiric strength could give her.
She threw herself on top of Minsc, an emotional growl escaping her lips. "No, sir," she said. "I will not lose you to foolishness, as well."
Hyde
Her words soon seemed premature, as dramatic as they were.
With an agonized scream, Hyde had picked himself up off the ground. He was not yet dead! Smoldering, his flesh burnt and crackled, he would not let himself die in vain. With a stream of curses, he launched himself upon the Tripod that dared to shoot him. His strength tripled with adrenaline and rage, he tackled the tripod's leg, sending it crashing to the ground, now fully blocking the bridge with broken Tripods.
He tore open the pilot's section of the tripod, and with a disgusting squelch he rended flesh and blood from the alien beast, gulping down handfuls, just to further desecrate it.
Hyde bellowed a laugh... but was cut down by three Tripods, each concentrating their heat ray.
Nothing remained but vapor.
Algren
There had been a man there, a moment before. A terrifying, misshapen beast of a man, but a man all the same. And in all the time it took to yell and turn around, there wasn't, anymore.
Algren wasn't going to allow himself a moment to stare in shock. He'd done that already, when the crowd by the crater had been reduced to ash and charred bone. He'd hardly known Jekyll. Hyde. That man. He was just another casualty in the war. Another face to add to the others in his head.
Mist. Hyde was just mist. That's where this man differed from every other body he'd seen.
Algren hadn't realized that he was screaming as he was firing, now, burning through round after round of ammunition without really paying too much attention. There were enemies. They had to be shot. That was all there was to it.
Minsc
Minsc, meanwhile, didn't get to see much of that at all, because there was a lady on him. He could hear most of it, though, and it sounded glorious, and he could potentially by making sounds like that if there wasn't a lady on top of him.
"Up there, Lady Wilhelmina!" Minsc shouted, trying to point toward the tripods. "The enemy is up there."
In case she forgot. The implications of what had really just happened and why he and her were both on the ground would hit later when there wasn't millions of things that needed to be hit.
Mina
"The bridge is blocked now," Mina said, the full shock of seeing Hyde not dead then killed again in a more terrible way not yet fully sunk in.
"We retreat as we have bought the time for the hybrid to deploy itself... whatever it is. Now must I carry you or will you run with me?"
Minsc
"But is it enough time?" Minsc grunted. He felt barely scratched. He could not believe that there was not more he could do.
Mina
"Look," Mina said, pointing back to where Nemo stood. There was a fat man, effeminante, sweaty and in too fine a suit. Campion Bond, M's direct underling.
"He would not show his face here if things were not ready."
Minsc
Minsc craned his neck to look. And then he craned his neck toward the Tripods and gave a short huff of a sigh. A moment of torn hesitation, and then a grunt.
"Okay, okay," he said. "We retreat. And then smush them! It better be good."
Mina
"Agreed," Mina said, and she quickly led her friend off the bridge, avoiding being spotted by the Tripods as best they could.
"This hybrid better be fucking impressive," Mina barked at Bond. Loki would be proud of her.
Bond
"The position at Westminster should--" The sound of cannon echoed in the distance. "Ah, yes. They've just delivered H-142 into South London."
Minsc
Minsc lifted his head toward the sound of the cannon, taking a moment to measure out just how far that was, since it wasn't like any of these locations actually meant anything to him. "And how long until it gets here?" he asked, wondering if it was bad that he hoped it would be a while, because then he might get to hit more things.
Algren
Algren had run out of ammunition. Out of ammunition, and his mind was swimming, and it was Mina's harsh words and Minsc's question that started to pull him out of the methodical re-load and fire that he'd immersed himself in. No bullets. No point in trying to shoot.
Okay. He could stand up, now.
"Not nearly fast enough," he said, no hint of his usual snark involved in that statement at all. The sooner those things were gone, the better. That was all.
Mina
Mina, however, was still livid.
"Delivered by cannon?" she growled. "What is it, a fucking circus bear?"
Nemo and Skinner seemed a little stunned by her outburst.
Bond
Bond, however, mopped at his sweaty brow.
"It is a hybrid, of course," he said. "Anthrax and Streptococcus, if I recall."
Algren
Nathan wasn't exactly a biology expert or anything. Hell, the bacteria that caused Anthrax wasn't actually identified until a year before he'd found himself in Fandom. But he knew that other one was, at least.
"A disease? You're attacking them with a case of strep throat from hell?"
... Actually, that sounded almost effective.
Nemo
Nemo was the first to react. "Are you telling me that you have made me party to using disease as a weapon? There were still civilians in that part of the city!"
Skinner
Skinner tossed his gun to the ground. "I'm no master of ethics," he said. "But that makes me sick, ironic as that may sound."
Mina
Mina herself was horrified. "Nemo, I had no idea, I would not--"
Nemo
"I care not!" Nemo said. "You have made me party to untold barbarism, and I shall renounce this League, now. None of you shall see me again, and live." He stormed off, sheathing his sword as he marched.
Bond
"Bloody man, who does he think he's calling a barbarian?" Bond said. "The story, of course, will be that any London citizens were killed by the Martians. The Martians just succumbed to the common cold, poor things."
Algren
Wait. They hadn't evacuated that part of the city? There were giant freaking aliens, and now there was strep-thrax or whatever the hell they were going to call it, and there were people there? More civilians?
And they had a cover story all worked out, already. The common cold. Yes, of course.
Nathan was not going to lose his head. He wasn't. He was going to just calmly turn to Minsc, open his mouth, and speak.
"Minsc, my friend. You know how you've been aching to beat up Evil Incarnate for the sake of great justice?"
Minsc
Minsc, who was still trying to piece together what was going on (it tended to get confusing for him when the fighting stopped abruptly and went into talking), nodded slowly. "Yeeaaah?"
Algren
Nathan took a few steps backward, in order to ensure that he wasn't anywhere remotely resembling the space between Minsc and Bond. And then he pointed.
"That would be him. Enjoy."
Minsc
Minsc's life was run by a very simple policy: see Evil, defeat Evil. And he trusted Algren's opinion greatly. So there was just a fleeting second of a pause before a grin flashed on Minsc's face and he lifted his sword. A great call pulled up from the bottom of his stomach, through his mouth as he charged forward, ready for a cleave mighty enough to slice through all that fat. It would be a mighty stroke indeed.
Minsc charged forward...
...right into the opening of a portal that just so happened to have really bad timing.
Once things caught up with him, Minsc was going to be pissed.
Mina
Mina didn't care about the shocked expression on Bond's face. She merely eyed him for a moment, before saying her mind.
"I resign," she said. "I hope you choke on your hollow victory, sir."
She turned and extended a hand to Nathan. "If you will accompany me home?"
Algren
Nathan simply nodded, reached for her hand, and then turned toward the portal.
He'd had about enough of this damned place. It was time to go home.
[ooc: Preplayed with the the lovely shiroi_tiger (who also coded this, much love) and berserkerminsc, whom I still cannot thank enough. This is the grand finale! Our intrepid heroes will be back in Fandom soon. NFB, NFI, OOC welcomed.]
One bridge separated the Tripods from the heart of London. One bridge which they could not afford to let the Tripods cross. M had told them they needed to buy time. H-142 would save the day, they said. They just needed time.
So there, gathered, was the haphazard League. Captain Nemo had his sword at the ready, as little good it would do. Skinner was mouthing off sarcasm in the fact of certain death. Dr. Jekyll had allowed his alter ego, the monstrous Hyde, to take over, and he stood with a grimace and a restrained rage.
Mina herself was hesitant. She knew that even her vampiric resilience would not survive a direct blast from a Tripod's heat ray. An aerial assault would be suicide for her. So she stood, a rifle in her hands. It was one Sawyer had sent her, the silly man. But today she'd make good use of it.
Minsc
Minsc, meanwhile, was starting to grow anxious. For such a big fellow, he seemed to bounce very easily from foot to foot. His fingers cracked around the hilt of his sword as he held it tightly. The fact that he wasn't just charging forward into uncertain danger (yet) was a testament to how much restraint he was showing.
Algren
Algren's hand closed around the barrel of the shotgun that he'd grabbed before they set out once again. He'd insisted that somebody arm him, and he certainly couldn't complain with what they'd supplied him with.
He was familiar with this. It was a small comfort in the face of what they were up against.
"You know," he said, at length, "it's clear that I've been on Fandom Island for a while. All of this feels as though it's simply the way things have to be, somehow. Aliens and all."
Mina
"We can hope these things never find our little island," Mina said, grim. "They've already devastated so much of Lond--" she heard the deafening cry. The Tripods chorused in an 'ULLA!' as they began their march across the bridge.
"They're coming!" she shouted. "We must not let them cross!"
She started forward, firing shots at the lead Tripod as best she could. She was no sniper, and any shots that luckily struck the Martian merely bounced off its armored shell.
Minsc
Must not charge. Must not charge. Wait until they get closer, should have grabbed something long range, must not...
He'd risk any stray bullets. Minsc let out a great roar to answer their 'ULLA!' and started to run forward, sword brandished, calling out a warning to any who might get in his way:
"Make way evil! I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hamster! "
Algren
Algren was going to smash his forehead against something solid if they made it out of this alive. Minsc and his charging, Mina and her advance forward, both made him cringe, to some degree.
Hold your ground. Steady... Steady... Fire!
One shot hit the creature and bounced away harmlessly. Another in a different spot had the same effect, and a third.
The fourth, however, hit the beast on one of the joints, and Algren allowed himself a momentary grin. It didn't bounce away.
Mina
Mina watched as the Tripod wobbled, but continued its advance. "Keep firing!" she shouted, and soon Nemo and his pistol, as well as Skinner and a rifle of his own joined the firefight.
Hyde
Hyde, though, he was keeping apace with Mina.
You would do better to stay off the front line, madame," he huffed at Mina.
Mina
"And you would do better than to question my actions," Mina said. "I would be careful. Minsc shall prove himself far more capable of defending this bridge than you."
Hyde
Hyde laughed. "Then I shall prove my worth over him, shall I?"
Hyde turned his attention towards the Tripod, and began his own charge.
Minsc
This was certainly more like it! Of course he understood the grave danger they were in, but Minsc laughed in the face of danger!
"Ha!" he said, laughing in the face of...the...lower leg part of a Tripod as he beat at it mercilessly. Or at least attempted to. He was doing a lot of beating of his sword. "Get 'em, Boo! Get 'em good!"
Algren
Algren was going to grab Minsc, and he was going to shake him until his teeth rattled out of his skull. That was what he was going to do when they got out of this alive. Because this was a matter of 'when.' He wasn't going to accept that the word 'if' even happened, right now.
Another round, another pause to reload.
He was grounding Minsc from killing anything but cheeeeese in the near future, damn it. In his head. Because Minsc was huge and even Algren wasn't crazy enough to tell him that he wasn't allowed to do these things, face-to-face.
And another round. On the same damn tripod. On the same damn leg. These things were resilient.
Mina
Mina concentrated her fire as well, on the leg Algren was firing upon. It would be their only hope. The military had long since been pulled away from the city.
Hyde
Hyde, however, taunted at Minsc as he approached. "What's the matter, baldy? Don't have the strength to do what Mina wants of you?"
Minsc
"Ha!" Minsc was now laughing in the face of danger, these leg thingies, and the other really big guy. "Less talk, more fight!" he said, letting out another brusque shout as he swung back with all his might and cleaved with all his strength in the the leg being weakened by the shots of his comrades.
The Tripod
The Tripod had one severe weakness, and that was a complete reliance on its three legs. With one cleaved by Minsc's blow, the Tripod collapsed it's top cracking open with the impact. The squid-like, tentacled thing flailed there, exposed and vulnerable.
Algren
Tentacles. Nice.
One, two, three, four, five shots, fired in succession made certain that the creature didn't continue flailing about for long. And Algren would have taken a moment to thrill in that small success, were it not for the entire army that was following along behind it.
There weren't enough shotgun shells on the planet, damn it. Even so, he aimed at the next closest, and began to fire again.
Hyde
"Too easy," Hyde growled, leaping over the fallen Tripod which now blocked much of the bridge. He headed for the next Tripod, eager to take it down by himself.
The Tripod trained its heat ray upon the beast of a man, and fired.
Minsc
"One down!" Minsc called out triumphantly. "Only..."
Minor pause.
"A lot more to go! Keep him down, Boo!"
It should be noted that Boo did not actually keep the fallen Tripod down, as Minsc still had not deposited him anywhere; he was far too busy following the big guy's example by throwing himself heavily into the fray.
Hopeless? Maybe. But if you didn't go big, you might as well go home. It was not hard to choose an honourable death, especially when there might still be victory in it. Maybe. Don't know until you tried.
Mina
Mina's speed was unparalleled at that moment, as she discarded the gun Sawyer had given her and used every advantage her vampiric strength could give her.
She threw herself on top of Minsc, an emotional growl escaping her lips. "No, sir," she said. "I will not lose you to foolishness, as well."
Hyde
Her words soon seemed premature, as dramatic as they were.
With an agonized scream, Hyde had picked himself up off the ground. He was not yet dead! Smoldering, his flesh burnt and crackled, he would not let himself die in vain. With a stream of curses, he launched himself upon the Tripod that dared to shoot him. His strength tripled with adrenaline and rage, he tackled the tripod's leg, sending it crashing to the ground, now fully blocking the bridge with broken Tripods.
He tore open the pilot's section of the tripod, and with a disgusting squelch he rended flesh and blood from the alien beast, gulping down handfuls, just to further desecrate it.
Hyde bellowed a laugh... but was cut down by three Tripods, each concentrating their heat ray.
Nothing remained but vapor.
Algren
There had been a man there, a moment before. A terrifying, misshapen beast of a man, but a man all the same. And in all the time it took to yell and turn around, there wasn't, anymore.
Algren wasn't going to allow himself a moment to stare in shock. He'd done that already, when the crowd by the crater had been reduced to ash and charred bone. He'd hardly known Jekyll. Hyde. That man. He was just another casualty in the war. Another face to add to the others in his head.
Mist. Hyde was just mist. That's where this man differed from every other body he'd seen.
Algren hadn't realized that he was screaming as he was firing, now, burning through round after round of ammunition without really paying too much attention. There were enemies. They had to be shot. That was all there was to it.
Minsc
Minsc, meanwhile, didn't get to see much of that at all, because there was a lady on him. He could hear most of it, though, and it sounded glorious, and he could potentially by making sounds like that if there wasn't a lady on top of him.
"Up there, Lady Wilhelmina!" Minsc shouted, trying to point toward the tripods. "The enemy is up there."
In case she forgot. The implications of what had really just happened and why he and her were both on the ground would hit later when there wasn't millions of things that needed to be hit.
Mina
"The bridge is blocked now," Mina said, the full shock of seeing Hyde not dead then killed again in a more terrible way not yet fully sunk in.
"We retreat as we have bought the time for the hybrid to deploy itself... whatever it is. Now must I carry you or will you run with me?"
Minsc
"But is it enough time?" Minsc grunted. He felt barely scratched. He could not believe that there was not more he could do.
Mina
"Look," Mina said, pointing back to where Nemo stood. There was a fat man, effeminante, sweaty and in too fine a suit. Campion Bond, M's direct underling.
"He would not show his face here if things were not ready."
Minsc
Minsc craned his neck to look. And then he craned his neck toward the Tripods and gave a short huff of a sigh. A moment of torn hesitation, and then a grunt.
"Okay, okay," he said. "We retreat. And then smush them! It better be good."
Mina
"Agreed," Mina said, and she quickly led her friend off the bridge, avoiding being spotted by the Tripods as best they could.
"This hybrid better be fucking impressive," Mina barked at Bond. Loki would be proud of her.
Bond
"The position at Westminster should--" The sound of cannon echoed in the distance. "Ah, yes. They've just delivered H-142 into South London."
Minsc
Minsc lifted his head toward the sound of the cannon, taking a moment to measure out just how far that was, since it wasn't like any of these locations actually meant anything to him. "And how long until it gets here?" he asked, wondering if it was bad that he hoped it would be a while, because then he might get to hit more things.
Algren
Algren had run out of ammunition. Out of ammunition, and his mind was swimming, and it was Mina's harsh words and Minsc's question that started to pull him out of the methodical re-load and fire that he'd immersed himself in. No bullets. No point in trying to shoot.
Okay. He could stand up, now.
"Not nearly fast enough," he said, no hint of his usual snark involved in that statement at all. The sooner those things were gone, the better. That was all.
Mina
Mina, however, was still livid.
"Delivered by cannon?" she growled. "What is it, a fucking circus bear?"
Nemo and Skinner seemed a little stunned by her outburst.
Bond
Bond, however, mopped at his sweaty brow.
"It is a hybrid, of course," he said. "Anthrax and Streptococcus, if I recall."
Algren
Nathan wasn't exactly a biology expert or anything. Hell, the bacteria that caused Anthrax wasn't actually identified until a year before he'd found himself in Fandom. But he knew that other one was, at least.
"A disease? You're attacking them with a case of strep throat from hell?"
... Actually, that sounded almost effective.
Nemo
Nemo was the first to react. "Are you telling me that you have made me party to using disease as a weapon? There were still civilians in that part of the city!"
Skinner
Skinner tossed his gun to the ground. "I'm no master of ethics," he said. "But that makes me sick, ironic as that may sound."
Mina
Mina herself was horrified. "Nemo, I had no idea, I would not--"
Nemo
"I care not!" Nemo said. "You have made me party to untold barbarism, and I shall renounce this League, now. None of you shall see me again, and live." He stormed off, sheathing his sword as he marched.
Bond
"Bloody man, who does he think he's calling a barbarian?" Bond said. "The story, of course, will be that any London citizens were killed by the Martians. The Martians just succumbed to the common cold, poor things."
Algren
Wait. They hadn't evacuated that part of the city? There were giant freaking aliens, and now there was strep-thrax or whatever the hell they were going to call it, and there were people there? More civilians?
And they had a cover story all worked out, already. The common cold. Yes, of course.
Nathan was not going to lose his head. He wasn't. He was going to just calmly turn to Minsc, open his mouth, and speak.
"Minsc, my friend. You know how you've been aching to beat up Evil Incarnate for the sake of great justice?"
Minsc
Minsc, who was still trying to piece together what was going on (it tended to get confusing for him when the fighting stopped abruptly and went into talking), nodded slowly. "Yeeaaah?"
Algren
Nathan took a few steps backward, in order to ensure that he wasn't anywhere remotely resembling the space between Minsc and Bond. And then he pointed.
"That would be him. Enjoy."
Minsc
Minsc's life was run by a very simple policy: see Evil, defeat Evil. And he trusted Algren's opinion greatly. So there was just a fleeting second of a pause before a grin flashed on Minsc's face and he lifted his sword. A great call pulled up from the bottom of his stomach, through his mouth as he charged forward, ready for a cleave mighty enough to slice through all that fat. It would be a mighty stroke indeed.
Minsc charged forward...
...right into the opening of a portal that just so happened to have really bad timing.
Once things caught up with him, Minsc was going to be pissed.
Mina
Mina didn't care about the shocked expression on Bond's face. She merely eyed him for a moment, before saying her mind.
"I resign," she said. "I hope you choke on your hollow victory, sir."
She turned and extended a hand to Nathan. "If you will accompany me home?"
Algren
Nathan simply nodded, reached for her hand, and then turned toward the portal.
He'd had about enough of this damned place. It was time to go home.
[ooc: Preplayed with the the lovely shiroi_tiger (who also coded this, much love) and berserkerminsc, whom I still cannot thank enough. This is the grand finale! Our intrepid heroes will be back in Fandom soon. NFB, NFI, OOC welcomed.]