A Face in the Crowd.

[Sage]

Xavier stumbled forward as Prospero flew over his head and landed with feminine grace, but managed to regain his footing well enough before he fell. Whas this guy crazy? He'd never seen anyone willingly get into a close-proximity fight with him before, poison or not. Luckily changing places with Prospero put him back within reach of his thrown sword again, giving him some options. The man came at him like a wild man, arms wheeling around for repeated strikes as he came closer. Xavier noted a slight inconsistency in the form of his now-torn arm, and snatched at it with his free right hand, gripping the closed fist in a crushing grip from Xavier's own massive paw.

Blood drained from the palm of his hand, and he quickly snatched his hand back after pushing Prospero backward a few steps. The bastard had blades buried into his skin or some shit. What the hell kind of masochist does that? It wasn't as if he was already losing the ability to perform his more dextrous sword tricks, now he wouldn't be able to windmill his double-ended scimitars with his right hand. That was a pain in the ass, as it was one of Xavier's more practiced forms of attack and defense.

Prospero was closer to the roof's edge now, where Xavier had started. If he timed it carefully, if he could part those swings with his swords, he could make one last ditch effort, and plant a boot into the assassin's chest, hopefully sending him off the building and straight to hell. He fell back into a defensive stance, and awaited another inevitable charge. At the very least, the assassin was the aggressor here, he could count on him not to try and escape or wait for Xavier's own attack.

[Syntaphar]

Dario knew very well where he was, and he knew where he was going if he was too hasty. He would dip a hand into his pocket and grab a handful of fire candy. He hated wasting it like this, but it was cheap. He would stare at Xavier, trying to keep Xavier's eyes focused in his, as he crushed the candy into dust with his hand. If this stuff stung in your mouth, it would certainly sting in your eyes. In fact, that may be what the red dust he had before was made of, Dario didn't know. Once it was satisfiably powdered, he would move slowly at Xavier.

After a foot or two, he would break into a dash, stopping just before leg or arm reach. Trying again to focus attention to his eyes by glaring fiercely, he would throw the red dust straight forward into Gottheit's face. Hopefully, this would render him blind for a moment, as with pepper spray or the like.

[Sage]

Xavier had plenty of time to see what Prospero was doing. And from the eruption of fire earlier he could guess with a high probability what he had, but not what he was doing. Xavier stayed poised, however, and watched the placement of his arms carefully. He had to be precise with the placement of the blades, though a lucky error could cause impalement. He dug them up and between Prospero's arms in an attempt to part them, then took one massive step forward as the fiery dust claimed his eyes as theirs.

This did not stop his momentum, and he hoped there would be little Prospero could do as his huge step led with his right foot, aimed squarely at the man in black.

[Syntaphar]

the inevitable counterattack came, but Dario was almost ready for it. He angled himself so the blow would be caught by the obsidian plates in his jacket. It would stop any internal bleeding from occuring by expanding the area of pressure, but it wouldn't stop him from flying backwards. In a spiteful measure, he would shoot his hands out, and scrape then down his leg as he flew backwards off of it. If it worked, he would have long cuts in that leg, and could bleed out from them if not immediately cared for.

As he flew backwards, he realized resignedly that he was running out of building to land on. He twisted himself in midair to try to catch on to things, but only managed to slightly slow his movement through space. When he finally stopped, he would find himself clinging by his fingers to the edge of the roof. Given about 15 seconds, he would be back up on the edge and ready to continue his fight. He hoped he was blinded for that long.

[Skylar]

She unburied her face for a second to see what was happening. The right second...

How could she cower in the corner and allow this all to be happening right before her? She had no answer for this. As soon as the assassin was over the edge, she was on the move.

First she ran to the windows edge, give a hard stomp to the fingers of the man who was clinging on for dear life, not staying long enough to be a victim as well, less he was faster then she gave him credit for. Secondly, she ran for Xavier. “Up, lets go, lets go!”

She scooped his massive arm around her shoulder. “Come on lets go, please!” She tugged with all her might, which..compared to his was nothing. But she could be his eyes, she could guide him at least out of the building. A part of her thought her actions were in vein, but she had no other choice. Not in her mind anyways. “You can’t leave me....” Her voice was more quiet now as she pulled him the only way she saw to go....away.

[Sage]

Xavier lifted himself with her assistance and crashed into the nearest table, splashing he hoped was water into his eyes. Xavier's vision, though blurry, could make out enough to see a shape resembling Frankie near him, and the assassin who was likely having more trouble than he bargained for getting back onto the building thanks to her.

He pushed her behind him, ignoring her protests. His fingers dug into the stone floor of the rooftop, as though he was trying to peel away the entire portion of floor the assassin had to work with and remove it from the building entirely, when the shield above them gave way. Razor-sharp shards of broken hail rained down on them, burying themselves into the skin and clothes of the three participants in this struggle. Xavier bled from the face, leg, and back and now from tiny points all over his body. There was only one leg left on his pants, and he stood hunched over the breaking stone when time seemed to freeze for all of them. The weather became still all around them, tiny diamonds of ice floating still in the air. The assassin would be stuck at whatever position he was in, attempting to climb the building, and they would find that they could not move whatsoever, only speak through stilled lips.

It suddenly became much darker than it should have been. A figure who appeared as a vacuum for the light slowly floated across the breaking rooftop to Xavier, and touched him, causing his form to unfreeze and collapse to his knees, before freezing again. Dario would find himself suddenly with a much better footing than he did when his fingers were stomped, and as the being of shadow turned to look gaze at him once, briefly, he would find himself standing upright toward the center of the roof.

Finally, the dark voids it had in place of eyes found Frankie, and it once again beckoned toward itself, despite her inability to move.

[Syntaphar]

DArio could not believe his luck. He was about to get knocked off a building by a bystander, but she didn't have the nerve to follow through, it seemed. Moreover, it looked like she really believed he fell off the building, then turned to walk away. Excellent. He would try to pull himself up onto the ledge, and there after, he would pull his razorwire garrotte and sneak behind them. that is, he WOULD, if things didn't go all to hell somehow. What the hell was this?

His arms wre speckled with small cuts from the breaking barrier, but it was the ones on his head and shoulders that really got to him. He wanted more than anything to let go, drop to the next windowsill and nurse his new wounds, but he found that he could not. Then a series of events he could hardly comprehend happened, and he in fact chose not to comprehend it. He hated going after targets like Gottheit. Something terrible like this almost invariably happened.

[Skylar]

With his massive hand upon her, and the energy he had to shove her she fell back onto the floor. It was a harder fall then she had expected, not being able to get her hands down in time to take some of the brunt of the fall.

Thinking first about her bum that now hurt like hell, she looked for Xavier. Just as her mouth opened to scream for him to leave with her, the sound of breaking glass caught her attention. Her eyes immediately went heaven bound. Bad choice. Luckily, she was fast enough to bring her arm across her eyes, but the glass offered no mercy to it, nor her exposed cheek and right leg.

In agony she screamed aloud. The shards of glass slicing her flesh into thin ribbons of raw meat. It was excruciating. And as soon as the pain hit her, something else grabbed her attention. It was dark, scary dark, and something felt wrong, yet vaguely familiar.

It was there, the thing from the house, and its soulless eyes were now cast upon her. Audibly she gasped, wishing to reach out for her leg that had been cut, only to find herself unable to move, but speak, it seemed she could still do.... “Xavier??” She only hoped he was still alive....

[Sage]

All around them, people would begin to appear. At first, none of them would be recognizable. Perhaps faces in the crowd from earlier in the day. Jack was among them, as was Under-Chef Sue. They seemed to all be frozen in a much more literal way, however, and could not see or react. They were each frozen in some type of running pose, as though they had been captured while attempting to flee. A few more unrecognizable or otherwise masked faces, and Emma would appear.

Her cheeks were wet and red, stained with streams of tears. She wore a ragged blue cloak she had obviously found to keep her head dry from the rain, and she stared woefully at a dagger concealed, barely, in her sleeve. Her stance revealed that she was likely climbing a set of stairs at the time of her capture. All these men, women, and children began to blend into the darkness, however, as the creature began to turn. Slowly, at first, but it became a blur as it spun violently. The scenery all around them on the rooftop began to quaver and then shake before exploding and flying into a vortex around the shadow.

Tables splintered, glass shattered, and stone began to peel away from the rooftop in large chunks, before bursting into clouds of dust. Each and every individual would be, for the most part, unharmed by this display. Luck seemed to factor in constantly as pieces of shrapnel flew by their faces, or exposed skin and just barely miss. The sound given off by this tornado of broken objects, before all at once, everything went silent. The darkness had completely enveloped them, and even with the best night vision, they would only be able to see a white pair of orbs in the darkness.

Gradually, should they continue to look upon the being, they would notice that he had begun to emit a slightly brighter light from the vacant recesses where his eyes should have been. Enough for them to realize that there were only four of them around now, and that Toryn was completely gone from sight. On either side of Reverie, frozen in place, were Xavier and Emma. Standing in front of him, facing him, would be Frankie and Dario.

" Stay Awake, " Was all it would say, in response to their questions and probing eyes.

[Syntaphar]

Oh what now?! Dario stared in horrified curiosity as the events unfolded before him. This was supposed to be a routine job, and now everyone was showing up. Though it was actually pretty funny to see Underchef Sue running away from something. totally out of character for the time he knew her. he thought he recognized a few of them from the tables, but maybe not. he figured that this shadow thing had collected most of the restaurant, considering that the chefs were there too. And that was alright, he supposed, it gave him an idea of what the heck was happening. The only thing was, he didn't expect to see Emma.

She looked like she had been in a lot of pain, which Dario guessed was pretty much all his fault. A sinking feeling beyond his general horror enveloped him. And what was this? She was climbing stairs, and she had a dagger? Was she climbing to the roof of this building? TO KILL SOMEONE?! And if so, who was it? Xavier, Dario? There were too many questions, and he clearly couldn't ask any of them. And man, this all had such a huge chance of becoming awkward. The vortex only added to things. He wanted to try and dodge everything, but he both couldn't and didn't have to. He would finally rest his eyes on the thing that was doing all this. Stay awake. Easy enough. He wouldn't be able to rest easy for a while after this anyway.

[Skylar]

To her surprise there were many faces here. In fact it seemed everyone in the near vicinity was here. Wherever here was...

Here was dark. Here was also scary. No longer could she see the other people. She’d scream if she thought it would do her any good, but honestly she didn’t. Looking around the best she could all she could make out were two haunting orbs floating around.

When the light branched out, she noticed something odd. Before her were a little girl and Xavier. She wanted to reach out to him, cling to him, but still she couldn’t move. Beside her was the man sent to kill Xavier. The assassin. Or so she would call him.

Stay awake? What on earth made this thing think any of them could sleep at a time like this? She wanted to question it, but what do you say to a phantom who holds all control as of this point? Silently she waited...waited for whatever may happen next.

[Sage]

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