Saltmarsh Andy Journal #31
Clash of the Titans part II
The Lazarus Museum was, I confess, less impressive than I had hoped. Of course, I had merely planned it to be the first prong in a two-prong assault on the Titans…but I am getting ahead of myself.
We arrived and found ourselves at something of an impasse. You see, a potent shield had been erected around the museum. A ward, I could even call it. It kept us out. Sonny began to search the museum from the roof, and there we met another team of Scion, albeit, apparently, self-styled free agents. I would chastise their parents for allowing such, but their parentage was of a Pantheon I had never yet encountered-and I had encountered many. Still, they seemed like reasonable people, so I approached them and their leader, a gentlemen named Zoren, spoke to me. it seemed they had to get a compatriot out who was trapped in the museum. I offered an accord. We would assist them; they would assist us. This Zoren fellow did not seem dark souled enough to be OK with the destruction of so many souls in Miami, so he cooperated.
I then instructed Sonny to use his Qi breaking powers on the ward. Calling up his power, he attacked a weak point in the Qi of the ward, splintering it. We then made our way in through the skylight.
Luck was on our side. We landed in a dark room, away from the main gathering. Those of us able to see in the darkness, which for the Miami Pound Machine was Pepito and Rosie, lead us through the dark back rooms of the museum. We found a room with a crystal coffin, from which emerged another member of the other Band. They said their hellos and, being people of honor, stuck with us holding up their word. Eventually we came upon a room where we saw a number of gathered foes. Odd Griffin-like demons, albeit non-mechanical ones. Gator men. That Yureiko chick. There was also a huge stone eagle, a bunch of very large bones, and two stone tablets, the tablets of destiny. I swiftly did some math in my head and realized this was a ploy by Orochi to steal the tablets of Destiny from Tiamat, and the bones belonged to the fallen creature Anzou who had the ability to read them. I pointed at Yureiko and crossed my finger under my throat. Pepito nodded, and he and the darkness were one and the same.
Her scream was the signal. Pepito stuck from darkness with the Wrath of the Deep, impaling her but not fatally. The enemies descended upon him, but as they gathered and struck his flesh, they found they were hitting an explosive, which blew several of them up even as I smelled a familiar cigar just over my shoulder.
The other band attacked the Griffin demons, who called Scorpion men to assist them. Sonny charged Yureiko, but she summoned a two-headed hydra-looking beast to protect her and burrowed into the ground. Pepito set upon the gator men along with Rosie, Zara and Tokichiro. Sonny swung his volleyball net and struck the beasts heads, catching them in the net and damaging them with the clubs. The beast attempted to use a one-two punch of acidic spray and biting. Sonny was usually too fast, and even the few blows that hit failed to really hit home. Despite taking blows that would cripple or kill a lesser man (me, for instance) the greatest fighter in Miami-Dade County stuck to the combat. Meanwhile, Rosie and Tokichiro fought back to back even as Zara stuck foes down by turning their very biology against them. As for Pepito what can be said. He was everywhere, he was nowhere. Every flickering shadow in the room held a reflection of Cuban Dragon in its depths, but phantasmal as the half-seen Shinobi were, the blows Pepito rained down were deadly. Soon only the serpent stood of our foes.
However, even as Sonny was trying to lay the death blow on the serpent, a challenger appeared. It was a demon who we had last seen taunting Pepito in Miami. He appeared for only a moment before vanishing, wearing sinister armor and brandishing a sword and spiky shield.
I have, however, mentioned Pepito is a ninja, have I not? Ninjas flip out and kill other ninjas all the time. Pepito had a trick ready. He glanced at me, who looked up from my game of solitaire. Now, as you know, the only way to play solitaire is 3 cards at a time. Playing one at a time is cheating. Anyway, he nodded toward the hole Yureiko had left, and took a long drag on (see what I did there?) his cigar. He blew out smoke that seemed to form an impossibly long sea dragon, and the smoke glided toward the hole, filled with water. When it hit, water splashed out, covering the ground with a thin layer of water. I quickly used my magic (I am a highly trained Water Bender, did you know?) to turn the water to snow, revealing the footprints of our ninja. Zara sickened him with a mere glance, and the Scions attacked. He struck Tokichiro as he came in, injuring him, and used his shield to block Rosie. He struck forward, slicing Pepito neatly in half, when he noticed some cigar ash landing on his head. He looked up just in time to see Pepito come raining down, trident first, impaling him.
Meanwhile Sonny, his shirt mostly burned off by the venom, rained down blow after blow on the serpent. It was fierce and regenerated fast, but Ol’ Furious George was more than the serpent could take. The more the acid burned Sonny, the more determined he seem to get, and the pain was NOT slowing him down. Eventually, he reached into the snake’s mouths, pulling out their tongues and a cornucopia of organs I did not even know were attached to the tongue. It finally fell, through the volleyball net sank sizzling in its acidic blood, sort of like Perseus’s shield in Clash of the Titans.
What?
The other Band had beaten their foes by then, so we considered our options. The bones were too big to move. Tokichiro was badly hurt but not dying, Zara saw to that. I contacted John Alexandros to confirm his team was on their way, and that Helen could heal Tokichiro when she arrived. Tokichiro used his considerable Tengu talents to hide (and keep an eye on the bones) and we moved out, intending to assault the command ship.
But they were nice enough to come to us.
When we emerged, we saw undead pirates, Genma demons, Hoplite Cameros, a sort of cyber-enhanced creature, surrounded the building along with other assorted baddies…and they did not have the decency to be fighting, as they had been in the street. Yureiko was back, and Diabalito was there with Esperanza in tow. Yureiko shouted at Diabalito that they should set their differences aside and crush us. Diabalito hesitated…his side WAS winning of course…but seemed inclined to agree. It was a tense moment, but even gifted with prophecy I could not possibly have expected what happened next.
Ah Brandy. The Brandy is very good here, don’t you think. All this talking has left me rather parched. Let’s see, did I mention the snake? Right.
Oh, us hopelessly surrounded with our enemies prepared to slaughter us under the weight of unwinnable numbers that was it. Right. You may recall Egg Shen teleported away. One could mistake that for an act of cowardice. They would be mistaken. Suddenly Egg Shen appeared, his perfect hair mussed his work shirt torn…with the stamped papers granting him emergency powers. He announced heroically that Yureiko and Diabalito were in violation of the laws of heaven, and he had been sent to enforce them. Then the portals opened, and an army of heavily armed Terra Cotta Warriors (which, I might add, my band had something to do with the safe return of) marched out. Then the teams converged on the site. John, Helen and Mary’s pirate team with a small squad of their undead pirates arrived! Pepito’s gang the Young Lords arrived! Zei Xing Li and Lanfang Lei Mei arrived with Huizong Yen in tow! Rivet arrived in some sort of Mecha! Makoto and Hitomi arrived with Ephyra and Maki in tow! Marcus Orion appeared on top of a building, and from being him came US government Helicopters and Jets. It was like Final Fantasy, or maybe Suikoden. Anyway.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Diabalito commanded one Pirate to kill Egg Shen to get the papers, and another to attack the neutral band. They quickly fell in fighting Pirates, and Sonny went toe to toe with the Pirate (who turned into some sort of leech monster) as Pepito leapt into the shadows to get closer to Diabalito and Esperanza, and Rosie moved to assist her friend. The leech creature’s initial attack was on Rosie, but she was too tough to be harmed, and Sonny rapidly got it’s attention by hitting it upside the head with a streetlamp. It recovered and began to battle him, but the greatest fighter in Miami-Dade County was unmoved. He laid in mercilessly pounding the offending creatures skull to paste. Then he was hit by a flurry of fire from the Hoplite Cameros. Rosie and Sonny charged the soldiers, and Sonny pounded the ground sending a shockwave into them which knocked them down long enough for them to close. Rosie came down with her Doomhammer even as Sonny turned their own machineguns into clubs against them. As for the charging pirates assistants, they were intercepted by Zei Xing Li and Lanfang Lei Mei. The Pirate KO’d by Huizong Yen belching in it’s face was the most memorable however.
Pepito had snuck invisibly up to Diabalito, and suddenly grabbed Esperanza, leaping into a shadow and seeming to almost teleport down and across the street to the Lazarus museum, where I was having a Brandy. Pushing her inside, he turned back to Diabalito and leapt into the air, his cloak eclipsing the moon. He landed before the pirate lord, and a clash began. Diabalito hit hard, but Pepito was fast. He got out a Kuri-Gama and sunk the two heads into Diabalito’s cold, grey flesh, wrapping them around him pinning his arms. Then…then…Pepito declared “That’s Real Ultimate Power!” and ran Diabalito through with his trident, slaying him.
Meanwhile Sonny and Rosie were tearing a swath through the Cameros. The Young Lords were trying their best to pin them with fire, and my zombies were…helping?…a bit. Just as Sonny was smashing together the heads of the last two, Pepito looked down and heard a beeping coming from Diabalito’s crushed form. Leaping away ninja style, he landed next to me, warning me of a bomb. But my great sight beyond sight told me…that was no bomb…not on him anyway. I pointed up, and we saw a single missile had been launched from the pirate command ship, a nuclear one.
I called out Sonny’s name, and he wasted no time. Leaping up, Monkey’s son flew up to intercept the missile. He pulled off a chunk of the tail, slicing off the warhead from the delivery system. He kicked the delivery down and punched the payload up, throwing his chunk so hard it hit the warhead and detonated it high in the sky, while the payload landed on the pirate mothership, sinking it. Sonny himself fell to earth and crashed on an undead pirate trying to sneak up on Egg Shen. He was OK, aside from the ringing in his ears. We all were. We had won.
It was then we found that while the enemy had been routed, we were not alone on the battlefield…
The Lazarus Museum was, I confess, less impressive than I had hoped. Of course, I had merely planned it to be the first prong in a two-prong assault on the Titans…but I am getting ahead of myself.
We arrived and found ourselves at something of an impasse. You see, a potent shield had been erected around the museum. A ward, I could even call it. It kept us out. Sonny began to search the museum from the roof, and there we met another team of Scion, albeit, apparently, self-styled free agents. I would chastise their parents for allowing such, but their parentage was of a Pantheon I had never yet encountered-and I had encountered many. Still, they seemed like reasonable people, so I approached them and their leader, a gentlemen named Zoren, spoke to me. it seemed they had to get a compatriot out who was trapped in the museum. I offered an accord. We would assist them; they would assist us. This Zoren fellow did not seem dark souled enough to be OK with the destruction of so many souls in Miami, so he cooperated.
I then instructed Sonny to use his Qi breaking powers on the ward. Calling up his power, he attacked a weak point in the Qi of the ward, splintering it. We then made our way in through the skylight.
Luck was on our side. We landed in a dark room, away from the main gathering. Those of us able to see in the darkness, which for the Miami Pound Machine was Pepito and Rosie, lead us through the dark back rooms of the museum. We found a room with a crystal coffin, from which emerged another member of the other Band. They said their hellos and, being people of honor, stuck with us holding up their word. Eventually we came upon a room where we saw a number of gathered foes. Odd Griffin-like demons, albeit non-mechanical ones. Gator men. That Yureiko chick. There was also a huge stone eagle, a bunch of very large bones, and two stone tablets, the tablets of destiny. I swiftly did some math in my head and realized this was a ploy by Orochi to steal the tablets of Destiny from Tiamat, and the bones belonged to the fallen creature Anzou who had the ability to read them. I pointed at Yureiko and crossed my finger under my throat. Pepito nodded, and he and the darkness were one and the same.
Her scream was the signal. Pepito stuck from darkness with the Wrath of the Deep, impaling her but not fatally. The enemies descended upon him, but as they gathered and struck his flesh, they found they were hitting an explosive, which blew several of them up even as I smelled a familiar cigar just over my shoulder.
The other band attacked the Griffin demons, who called Scorpion men to assist them. Sonny charged Yureiko, but she summoned a two-headed hydra-looking beast to protect her and burrowed into the ground. Pepito set upon the gator men along with Rosie, Zara and Tokichiro. Sonny swung his volleyball net and struck the beasts heads, catching them in the net and damaging them with the clubs. The beast attempted to use a one-two punch of acidic spray and biting. Sonny was usually too fast, and even the few blows that hit failed to really hit home. Despite taking blows that would cripple or kill a lesser man (me, for instance) the greatest fighter in Miami-Dade County stuck to the combat. Meanwhile, Rosie and Tokichiro fought back to back even as Zara stuck foes down by turning their very biology against them. As for Pepito what can be said. He was everywhere, he was nowhere. Every flickering shadow in the room held a reflection of Cuban Dragon in its depths, but phantasmal as the half-seen Shinobi were, the blows Pepito rained down were deadly. Soon only the serpent stood of our foes.
However, even as Sonny was trying to lay the death blow on the serpent, a challenger appeared. It was a demon who we had last seen taunting Pepito in Miami. He appeared for only a moment before vanishing, wearing sinister armor and brandishing a sword and spiky shield.
I have, however, mentioned Pepito is a ninja, have I not? Ninjas flip out and kill other ninjas all the time. Pepito had a trick ready. He glanced at me, who looked up from my game of solitaire. Now, as you know, the only way to play solitaire is 3 cards at a time. Playing one at a time is cheating. Anyway, he nodded toward the hole Yureiko had left, and took a long drag on (see what I did there?) his cigar. He blew out smoke that seemed to form an impossibly long sea dragon, and the smoke glided toward the hole, filled with water. When it hit, water splashed out, covering the ground with a thin layer of water. I quickly used my magic (I am a highly trained Water Bender, did you know?) to turn the water to snow, revealing the footprints of our ninja. Zara sickened him with a mere glance, and the Scions attacked. He struck Tokichiro as he came in, injuring him, and used his shield to block Rosie. He struck forward, slicing Pepito neatly in half, when he noticed some cigar ash landing on his head. He looked up just in time to see Pepito come raining down, trident first, impaling him.
Meanwhile Sonny, his shirt mostly burned off by the venom, rained down blow after blow on the serpent. It was fierce and regenerated fast, but Ol’ Furious George was more than the serpent could take. The more the acid burned Sonny, the more determined he seem to get, and the pain was NOT slowing him down. Eventually, he reached into the snake’s mouths, pulling out their tongues and a cornucopia of organs I did not even know were attached to the tongue. It finally fell, through the volleyball net sank sizzling in its acidic blood, sort of like Perseus’s shield in Clash of the Titans.
What?
The other Band had beaten their foes by then, so we considered our options. The bones were too big to move. Tokichiro was badly hurt but not dying, Zara saw to that. I contacted John Alexandros to confirm his team was on their way, and that Helen could heal Tokichiro when she arrived. Tokichiro used his considerable Tengu talents to hide (and keep an eye on the bones) and we moved out, intending to assault the command ship.
But they were nice enough to come to us.
When we emerged, we saw undead pirates, Genma demons, Hoplite Cameros, a sort of cyber-enhanced creature, surrounded the building along with other assorted baddies…and they did not have the decency to be fighting, as they had been in the street. Yureiko was back, and Diabalito was there with Esperanza in tow. Yureiko shouted at Diabalito that they should set their differences aside and crush us. Diabalito hesitated…his side WAS winning of course…but seemed inclined to agree. It was a tense moment, but even gifted with prophecy I could not possibly have expected what happened next.
Ah Brandy. The Brandy is very good here, don’t you think. All this talking has left me rather parched. Let’s see, did I mention the snake? Right.
Oh, us hopelessly surrounded with our enemies prepared to slaughter us under the weight of unwinnable numbers that was it. Right. You may recall Egg Shen teleported away. One could mistake that for an act of cowardice. They would be mistaken. Suddenly Egg Shen appeared, his perfect hair mussed his work shirt torn…with the stamped papers granting him emergency powers. He announced heroically that Yureiko and Diabalito were in violation of the laws of heaven, and he had been sent to enforce them. Then the portals opened, and an army of heavily armed Terra Cotta Warriors (which, I might add, my band had something to do with the safe return of) marched out. Then the teams converged on the site. John, Helen and Mary’s pirate team with a small squad of their undead pirates arrived! Pepito’s gang the Young Lords arrived! Zei Xing Li and Lanfang Lei Mei arrived with Huizong Yen in tow! Rivet arrived in some sort of Mecha! Makoto and Hitomi arrived with Ephyra and Maki in tow! Marcus Orion appeared on top of a building, and from being him came US government Helicopters and Jets. It was like Final Fantasy, or maybe Suikoden. Anyway.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Diabalito commanded one Pirate to kill Egg Shen to get the papers, and another to attack the neutral band. They quickly fell in fighting Pirates, and Sonny went toe to toe with the Pirate (who turned into some sort of leech monster) as Pepito leapt into the shadows to get closer to Diabalito and Esperanza, and Rosie moved to assist her friend. The leech creature’s initial attack was on Rosie, but she was too tough to be harmed, and Sonny rapidly got it’s attention by hitting it upside the head with a streetlamp. It recovered and began to battle him, but the greatest fighter in Miami-Dade County was unmoved. He laid in mercilessly pounding the offending creatures skull to paste. Then he was hit by a flurry of fire from the Hoplite Cameros. Rosie and Sonny charged the soldiers, and Sonny pounded the ground sending a shockwave into them which knocked them down long enough for them to close. Rosie came down with her Doomhammer even as Sonny turned their own machineguns into clubs against them. As for the charging pirates assistants, they were intercepted by Zei Xing Li and Lanfang Lei Mei. The Pirate KO’d by Huizong Yen belching in it’s face was the most memorable however.
Pepito had snuck invisibly up to Diabalito, and suddenly grabbed Esperanza, leaping into a shadow and seeming to almost teleport down and across the street to the Lazarus museum, where I was having a Brandy. Pushing her inside, he turned back to Diabalito and leapt into the air, his cloak eclipsing the moon. He landed before the pirate lord, and a clash began. Diabalito hit hard, but Pepito was fast. He got out a Kuri-Gama and sunk the two heads into Diabalito’s cold, grey flesh, wrapping them around him pinning his arms. Then…then…Pepito declared “That’s Real Ultimate Power!” and ran Diabalito through with his trident, slaying him.
Meanwhile Sonny and Rosie were tearing a swath through the Cameros. The Young Lords were trying their best to pin them with fire, and my zombies were…helping?…a bit. Just as Sonny was smashing together the heads of the last two, Pepito looked down and heard a beeping coming from Diabalito’s crushed form. Leaping away ninja style, he landed next to me, warning me of a bomb. But my great sight beyond sight told me…that was no bomb…not on him anyway. I pointed up, and we saw a single missile had been launched from the pirate command ship, a nuclear one.
I called out Sonny’s name, and he wasted no time. Leaping up, Monkey’s son flew up to intercept the missile. He pulled off a chunk of the tail, slicing off the warhead from the delivery system. He kicked the delivery down and punched the payload up, throwing his chunk so hard it hit the warhead and detonated it high in the sky, while the payload landed on the pirate mothership, sinking it. Sonny himself fell to earth and crashed on an undead pirate trying to sneak up on Egg Shen. He was OK, aside from the ringing in his ears. We all were. We had won.
It was then we found that while the enemy had been routed, we were not alone on the battlefield…