For the crew arriving from Milliways:

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The door from Milliways opens onto what would ordinarily be a picture-perfect day in early October over Central Park West. The air ought to be crisp and clear this high up. Certainly the view of Central Park, its leaves beginning to turn all kinds of colors, would support that...

... only anyone who actually pokes a head or hand or limb out the door will feel that it's not. It's warm- unseasonably so- and the air is tight somehow, shivering against the skin. There's an unpleasant, greasy feel to it, a sense of something about to precipitate out of nowhere at all. And far, far overhead, the sky roils and writhes in livid bruise-purple colors, torn open in a ferocious act of metaphysical savagery.

Looking up for too long is probably not a good idea.

Comments

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The vilely shimmering figure shakes its head rapidly to clear it, turning to face the oncoming figure. "Ah," it says, and though it speaks in no language Garion's world has ever heard it nonetheless makes its meaning felt. "A hero, is it? We have seen your like before, in the Underworld."

It flexes long, dripping fingers that end in needlelike claws before leaping towards Garion on all fours. The arms are longer than the legs, giving Namtar the heaving, rolling gait of the rock-wolves who dwelled with Grul.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

Garion's dealt with rock-wolves before, but the most important thing is that this creature called him a "hero."

He HATES that.

...only his wife can call him that.

Roaring like the Alorn he is, he comes in swinging, the massive sword moving with unbelieveable speed. He strikes low, using the training given to him by Hettar, of the Algars, tactics low to the ground suited best for battling while upon a horse.

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Namtar is a god of Sumer, the oldest of civilizations according to the thinking of many. And the gods of Sumer were much given to war and struggle, even at times with mortal heroes who would contend with them.

'Were' being the operative word here. Their last original worshippers passed from the red dust of Earth four thousand years ago. Even Shandor's small congregation could only feed them praise and pleadings, not daily interaction as once they might have had. Namtar's pantheon has squabbled and fought among themselves for four thousand years, and while that does put an edge on one's skills, it carries with it a problem as well... namely, that after the first thousand years, one ceases to truly remember what it is to battle with a novel foe, or an unusual strategy.

The horses of Namtar's time were far too small to be ridden in battle. Quite simply, Garion's strokes did not exist when last the deity had contact with this world. He veers away at precisely the wrong moment; the blade slashes a long, sickening-smelling path along his flank, brownish ichor sizzling into smoke on contact with the blue flame of the Orb.

"Filth!" rages Namtar, planting his hands on the ground and twisting himself about to strike at Garion with a lithely bending kick.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

He jumps.

He wasn't as nimble as Silk, not by a long jog, but he was a bit more nimble than a man his sized tended to be since he'd been taught a hodgepodge of techniques and always kept very humble concerning any achievements. Thus, he'd pushed himself to at least keep up with some of the greatest warriors of the West.

The jump, however, is short and used to propel a spinning stroke towards Namtar's middle. It was a brash move, one more suited to an axe than a sword, but this sword was big enough to pull it off. Barak, the large Cherek who had been named the Dreadful Bear, the man who more than any other had protected Garion during their travels, had also added to Garion's teaching and it showed now as he used his size and strength.

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The kick was meant to provoke Garion into jumping, true- but Namtar had reckoned on it pushing the hero backwards, to give him more room for a full-force lunge. He twists violently again (no creature should be able to twist itself so, not with its middle contracting like that) and brings up one arm, shouting vile syllables in something like a warding chant. It does him little good. Such things seldom do when they're interrupted by flame running swiftly around one's middle.

Namtar howls and flings himself at Garion's knees, aiming to come in under the swordsman's guard.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

Garion doesn't even try to block the move with his blade. Instead, he throws his Will to the Orb once more and shouts with as much force as he can manage;

"BURST!"

[gone_byebye]

That is not something Gilgamesh and his ilk ever brought with them on their quests. Come to think of it, not even Inanna, the goddess of Heaven, had ever thought to do something like that.

There is a sickening, squelching rumblerumblerumble noise for a moment. And then as Namtar's claws swipe forward-

well-

A significant portion of the monstrosity's midsection sprays every which way, black gobbets of reeking sickness splattering over most of the rooftop. What remains of him shrieks with blind idiot fury and rolls heedlessly sideways, clawing at any surface that might give purchase and a chance to regroup.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

He gets no chance to regroup.

With as much speed as he can muster, he slices the head of the creature off before stopping to get a breath.

This was almost as hard as helping Durnik in the forge.

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The fiend's head rolls along the rooftop, the hideous wet maw still gibbering as the body falls to the stones, clawed hands and feet twitching spasmodically like a beheaded snake's jaws.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

Garion watches it for a moment before shaking it off and heading towards the next threat, shouting to make sure--

"RAY! You still there!? You need me?!"

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"I'm here!" Ray cries, gesturing frantically to Andrew to get down and out of the way. "But we have a problem!"

Ereshkigal- her figure barely visible for all the sickly-pale light surrounding it- is raising her arms over her head and chanting nerve-jangling alien syllables. Peter and Egon are firing on her for all they're worth. Overhead, a pair of large winged beasts (nowhere near the dragon's size, but large enough for all that) are closing to engage Eddie in combat.

It would appear that the problem is the bearded, shirtless, kilted fellow with the fell light in his eyes and the bronze sickle, who's lifted one hand and pointed it Ray's way. There's a very clear feeling of power being pulled in and concentrated, to the point where it's about to burst forth.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

Garion wobbles as the energy flying around starts to dizzy him, but the Orb beings to sing it's familiar song and he follows it until he's a little more stable. His eyes light on the bearded kilted fellow. There is a three second pause as he blushes about the kilt before heading towards him with his sword flaming and ready.

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Belgarath often criticized Polgara for her over-reliance (in his opinion) on gestures as opposed to words. Too dramatic, or attention-seeking- something like that.

Nevertheless, it is amazing how much power can be released with a simple contemptuous flick of the wrist. A jagged streak of violet energy lances across the rooftop in Ray's (and therefore Garion's) direction.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

It is also amazing how well anger and protective emotion can be used to power an act. As Garion sees the energy crackle across the building he swings his sword into it, blocking it from touching Ray. Using a particularly vile curse, he, for all intents and purposes, tells the violet energy to bugger off.

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One of these days Ray is going to get some more of that padawan training from Qui-Gon Jinn, but today is not that day. With an inarticulate exclamation of surprise he drops to the ground and rolls, shoulder first, coming up some distance away on one knee with a slender blade of green energy in his grasp. "Thanks, Garion-"

"Save it," snarls the bearded man, who raises sickle and club over his head. "Ssalmani-ia ana qulqullati tapqida duppira!"

The roof begins to shake beneath their feet.

Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that the building begins to shake.

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Garion blinks and the memories of the destruction of Rak Cthol come crashing into his mind...and with those memories, the memories of their escape. That's when he looks down, reaches for a shadow, and throws himself into it, sliding across the darkness and into the bearded man's shadow before reaching up and into him, grabbing for his vocal chords.

No vocal cords, no words.

No words, no magic.

He just hopes it works.

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Though there is no sun visible above, there are shadows in plenty on this roof. Eldritch fires, proton beams, the radiation of Ereshkigal- oh, there are so many shadows...

And the one Garion has chosen lies just along a crack in the rooftop that Shandor fails to see. The bearded man looks this way and that before thinking to look down. "Zi anna-" he begins, and then makes a horrible, crumpling, choking noise. One hand grabs at his throat as he turns purple with both asphyxiation and rage.

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

Garion is a simple boy. Thus, he doesn't do anything all that odd with the internal organs of the man. His job was to stop the words, to stop the magic so that Ray could take care of things.

The easiest way to do that, however, is to knock someone out. So, hawling back good and hard, he knocks the man across the jaw with everything he has.

In the future, Garion would knock a Grolim out with enough force to nearly kill him. He's younger, less experienced, and slightly less pissed off than he will be then, thus it's not as effective.

But it's still a damn good hit.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

Burn, baby, burn--!!

Eddie's music plays loudly as he goes into a careening turn.

"Targets acquired."

The missile arm is retracted. He can't guarantee the same kind of accuracy while mobile with the proton thrower that he can with the machine guns.

The sound of Eddie turning in that gravity-defying way, his engines thundering and screaming, is nearly as terrible as the sound of pure agony. His wings trembled under the onslaught of pressure. And yet he did not let up. He could tell his frame was not in danger. And aiming solidly at one of the airborne creatures that his sensors could not name, he fired.

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The first beast- for beast it was, no machine of Eddie's acquaintance or history- felt Eddie's incipient onslaught before anything else. It wheeled in midair as the thunder of what it could only perceive as a bronze dragon filled the skies, and drew breath.

A belch of fire gaining in temperature from brilliant orange to nearly blue-white shot forth from its mouth, its cloud enveloping the proton stream... but not impeding its passage. The winged lion writhed in sudden agony, tumbling backwards and downwards, still spewing flame.

Its companion, meanwhile, circled higher in the hopes of getting a clear shot at the dragon that surely intended its mistress ill.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

He was reminded of Russian skies. Of the onslaught of SU-37 Terminators. For one moment, he thought of how easy it had been to work with Ben Gannon.

Say something -- make us proud, cast the first stone!

His sensors could see both creatures, but he could not fire on both at once. One was approaching him from behind. The other was disabled.

Leave the disabled be. Go after it later. He began to turn, flaring his engines, looping in midair to fire again.

He felt... exhilerated.

Make a move!

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The other lion spread its wings, effectively stalling in midair; then it folded them, diving in an effort to elude the beam. It would spread both wings again as soon as it had a little less thunder over its back, enough room to come up and around after this thing and attack its underbelly.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

He analysed every movement of both lions - odd how they moved and thought, as if they had never thought that lions were supposed to be landbound creatures.

This was... fun.

He pulled up - straight up, climbing vertically into the air before letting himself stall and fall, firing machine guns at his newly chosen target. He could endure scorch marks. Even if his hull was blistered, he would still be able to fly.

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The temporarily disabled lion circled back and away, heading uptown some distance as it struggled to regain its internal flame. The other roared in frustration and leapt heavenward, wings beating furiously as it struggled for altitude. Nothing in the beast's makeup was capable of the sort of vertical ascent Eddie was making, though. The best it could do was a tight, tight corkscrew-

And then the bronze dragon fell straight towards it and it tumbled backwards in surprise, losing several body-lengths of altitude before it could flame again. Almost it regained its bearing, but the bullets tore into its left wing very close to the body, and the flames stopped as it let out an inhuman yowl of pain and started to plummet.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

The flame washed over Eddie's hull, and he could feel the heat of it - paint blistered, bubbled, cooked, and flaked in the high windspeed that Eddie kept up. He pulled quickly up, but not as up as he could have. True, that one had a wing injured, but if let loose on the ground, it could still do quite a bit of harm to the humans nearby. Eddie aimed his machine guns again - he would have to take it out before it took out anything else.

I'm the nightmare from upstairs and I'm coming down

Eddie recorded the yowl.

That would come in handy later on.