For the crew arriving from Milliways:

[gone_byebye]

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

[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.

[gone_byebye]

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!

[gone_byebye]

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.

[gone_byebye]

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.

[gone_byebye]

The wounded lion struggled, both wings beating madly in an effort to compensate for the injury. Needless to say, this did not work as planned; the effort only tore further into the wounded wing, sending blood spraying with each frantic stroke. It straightened the wings a little, perhaps for a glide- no? No. Not quite. It looked as if the lion was aiming to land on one of the structures on the rooftop, possibly to leap again since flight was no longer going to work.

The other, meanwhile, had brought itself together enough to come back for a second pass.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

This would be interesting. Two lions. One couldn't fly, and the other had recouped. The lion on the rooftop was actually the larger threat. Eddie concentrated on it, coming as near as he dared - there were people up there, after all. He pursued at an angle, careful only to fire where he was more than eighty percent certain he wouldn't endanger any humans. The other lion had to be disregarded until he could deal with it - no matter how strong the fire scorched.

[gone_byebye]

Below on the rooftop, the humans flinched- Shandor included, though admittedly his took the form of throwing up an arm protectively, since he lay sprawled across a piece of masonry. Even the glowing form of Ereshkigal looked up apprehensively.

The wounded lion bared its teeth, snarling its defiance as it tried to outleap the incoming fire.

It failed.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

"Target destroyed."

There is just enough left in me to make me feel almost guilty.

Then he flew out to turn, as not to catch anyone important to him in the wash from his engines. Allies were allies - and allies were no good when they were toast.

[Doctor Stantz, is everyone faring well?] he asked as he sought the second dragon with his sensors. One on one now. This would be more interesting.

[gone_byebye]

Ray was frantically scanning the edge of the building for signs of anything else arriving- friend (Sooty) or foe (anybody who wasn't Sooty). As the signal came in he dragged his attention back to the immediate situation.

"Garion's taken out Namtar. Shandor's on the ropes but he's still a threat. Ereshkigal is active-"

"EAT PROTONS!"
"You give archaeology a bad name!"

"-but both my colleagues are apparently unharmed, as are Andrew and Garion- Eddie, just keep those things off us, but be aware I think there may be a living hostage somewhere on the rooftop-"

The original lion roared. No mortal beast could have achieved such volume- windows on nearby buildings shattered, spraying glass in every direction.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

Maybe, thought Eddie, the lion would like to know how flame felt. Eddie flew toward it, came close, then pulled up, yawed, and flamed his engines in high scramjet mode, their pulses beating hard against the air as, for just a moment, he was in a standstill. And then he was circling the building. If his cockpit hadn't been sheilded, it was fully possible that the glass would have shattered. Thankfully, he had fixed that.

[I will keep the aerial fight as far from the rooftop as possible. Contact if you require backup. Tinman out.]

[gone_byebye]

Ray nodded, took one more look for Sooty, then dashed into position just in time for ANdrew to vanish completely from the line of sight of anything on the rooftop.

The lion saw Eddie's approach and bunched itself for a single great wing-pumping leap. It had no intention of being caught by the proton stream again-

wait, why was the dragon turning like that?

It was bright, but alas, not bright enough. The leap began a fraction of a second too late, and its hind legs were caught in the engine flames. Had Eddie been capable of olfactory processing, the reek of barbecued cat hair would have been terrible.

Legs still aflame, the lion writhed, rolling to keep its pointy ends towards Eddie as it plummeted. If that thing came any closer it would either burn or be gutted. It let out a pain-fueled exhalation; perhaps it might burn anyway...

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

Pounds of heavy cat landed on Eddie's hull and to Eddie, the solution to this was obvious. Even with paint bubbled, he was certain the claws wouldn't gain too much purchase.

He swept into a barrel roll, spiralling in perfect control straight ahead, sensors trained on the horizon - so long as he could reorient once the roll was done, even if the lion did manage to cling, he could manage.

[gone_byebye]

The lion tries to cling, and if Eddie's skin was made of any lesser substance it might have had a chance. But these are claws that can dig into stone, not metal. They lose their purchase and the lion tumbles uncontrollably as Eddie goes into his barrel roll.

[ucav-tinman.livejournal.com]

As the lion tumbled Eddie pulled out and turned, aiming with bullets purchased at the end of the universe - at least that was one thing the lion could claim. The phrase 'I came from the end of the universe to kill you' could truly apply.

Too bad that, soon enough, the lion would not have the ability to recount that tale. Eddie fired. He'd had enough dodging and playful pursuit. Things were getting worse. His sensors told him that much - while he'd been fending off aerial attack, things had progressed.

[Targets will soon be destroyed. Fifty over one-hundred at current. Next orders?]

[gone_byebye]

Staggering back from the edge of the roof, nerves jangling with adrenaline and shock, Ray clapped his free hand over the ear with the headset in it. "The major threats have been neutralized groundside, but the minor threats've multiplied. Adjust the proton thrower to a frequency of seventy-five thousand, wide dispersal, and fire full stream on anything airborne that isn't verifiably solid. And scan for anything that is solid- we need to know about it before anyone takes any steps towards it one way or another."

The air below, it so happens, is chock full of remarkably less-than-solid targets.

[asar-suti.livejournal.com]

BOFFF.

A huge black ape fist silences the lion, and then purple gorilla eyes, magnified a hundred times, turn on Ereshkigal.

[gone_byebye]

The lion, horrified, lunges away, leaping after the overhead bronze dragon. If its nose could bleed, it would have a nosebleed after a hit like that.

Below, on the street, there is a shocked silence.

"Dude!" cries a single overexcited human voice-

(The thing about New Yorkers is that you can evacuate them from the site of danger and tell them they mustn't go near it, and they'll do that, but the more dangerous it is the more they want to be there. And the other thing about New Yorkers is that quite a lot of them own binoculars and telescopes that have never once been used for birdwatching or astronomy.)

"-that's King Kong up there! Lookit!"

And as the murmur goes up from the crowd the goddess whirls to face the ape.

"You must be a god," she rasps in the Sumerian tongue. "Not even Gilgamesh was so foolish as to offer My lions harm-"

"Go get 'em, Kong! Go Monkey Power!"

With a screech of fury, Ereshkigal wrenches a piece of masonry loose and swings it at the ape's head.

[asar-suti.livejournal.com]

The giant ape ducks so Ershkigal misses, overbalancing; then, he attacks her from behind.

She is to tall to be picked up in classic King Kong style, but he swipes her, mercilessly, and starts pushing her twoard the swirlling rift.

So, where was that follower he was supposed to throw in after her?

[gone_byebye]

Overbalancing ain't the half of it. Ereshkigal's masonry swipes through the air and smashes several obelisks, scattering chunks of concrete and stone; Peter and Egon are forced to let up their proton assault and run for cover. The goddess shrieks and drops her weapon, unable to hold onto it after the blow the ape's dealt. "Wretch!" she cries. "How dare you-"

She suddenly lifts both arms over her head and drops to her knees. This is probably not as great an advantage as it looks for the ape, because it means the goddess now has room to attempt to punch him in some vulnerable spot (knee, crotch, stomach, ankle) while chanting loudly in unimpeded Sumerian.

Across the roof, staggering to his feet with a look of pure rage in his eyes, a black-bearded man with a sickle in one hand and a club in the other can be seen.

[asar-suti.livejournal.com]

Gorilla. Crotch. No problem - there is hardly anything there, compared to the sheer size of ape. Same, stomach. But ankles - not so good.

So the giant ape grabs one of her arms and pulls her backwards, towards the rift.

One (comparatively) small purple eye keeps the black-bearded man in sight.

[gone_byebye]

Very true. Bad target zone. There were no gorillas in ancient Sumer. Ereshkigal was assuming the ape would have a man's vulnerabilities.

"Hey, I think Kong's going for that hole in the sky! He's got hold of this glowing chick or something-"

"RAY! What are we supposed to do now?" shouts Peter. "The monkey's on our side, right?"

"Ezphares," cries Ereshkigal, who's thrashing frantically as she tries to writhe free and maybe land a heel strike on the ape's knees. "Olyaram, Irion-Esytion-"

"Yes he is! Don't hurt the monke- I mean the ape!"

"This is no time to be arguing taxonomy, Ray! Peter won't understand it anyway!"

"Eryona, Orea-"

"I resent that, Egon-"

The black-bearded man, heedless of the logistical difficulties inherent in kilt-wearing, scrambles over shattered concrete and launches himself towards the ape at a dead run.

... wait, no? No, it looks like he's planning to run past the ape...

"KONG! KONG! KONG!"

[asar-suti.livejournal.com]

The cheers from below fires the giant ape up like good wine. Followers, albeit temporary New York ones, are sweet intoxication to any deity.

A lash of one strong arm lifts Ereshkigal off the stones, and smashes her back down, making her stop her incantation for a moment; the other hand grabs the black-bearded man trying to escape. Just a silly human.

In the heat of the moment, Asar-Suti lifts his human captive high into the air, waves to the crowd, and roars while pulling Ereshkigal inexorably towards the rift.