Ocean's Four || Open

L eigh had a meatshield in hand, Wight noticed now once he'd gotten a second look, and he didn't find himself the least bit surprised; this was a common tactic she liked to use thanks to that hook of hers, and he could hardly blame her given how effective it was. He followed her eyes as she studied their surroundings from behind her corpse cover, and noticed the banners as well now that she was staring. Well, sure, they could be as much a means of access to the balcony as the stairs, but not without--

"The banners. Cover me."

Not without cover. Which Wight supposed was now his job as Leigh slid her pistol over to him. He plucked it up quickly and checked the contents; only three shots left at the moment, and Leigh didn't have the luxury of time to be sliding over her spare ammo on top of that. Wight would need to make sure these three counted, especially as Leigh was already on the move. He may not have been a pro with the pistol, but he could hardly call himself a decent pirate if he didn't know how to use one. He'd make sure Leigh's faith in him wasn't misplaced.

Leigh was making a beeline for the banners after a little diversion with her shield, and Wight readied the pistol to catch anyone who tried to stop her. The good news was that with Leigh now occupying the focus of the archers, Mal was certain he'd be able to get away with a bit of illusion on his end, hiding himself as he peeked from his hiding place to take aim.

Meanwhile, Colossus had been keeping his enemies quite well zoned out with swings of his axe. The orc didn't have the kind of speed as his allies, and so actually managing to catch his enemies was proving difficult with how wary they were being. He needed slip-ups, mistakes. They'd only dare to come close when he exposed some weakness. Normally he might have no trouble doing this if it meant baiting someone into close-quarters with him, but given that he'd already taken a couple of arrows to the back and had a few nasty slices on his arms, this was getting riskier the longer it dragged on. Colossus was a behemoth but he wasn't unstoppable, and these enforcers clearly knew it.

But then Leigh went running by, and one of the goons decided to turn his attention at her. He readied a lace, ready to toss it right into Leigh's exposed back-- but he made the mistake the turning his own back to Colossus. That was the orc's chance. With a bellow, Colossus swung his axe back and then plunged it down, utilizing the weapon's full reach. To describe what happened to the poor soul on the other end would be grisly, to say the least. The formation of attackers around him was broken by his swing, and without their living comrade to pick up the slack where he'd been standing, Colossus found new mobility options, charging forward and pulling his bloodied axe back to swing it in a wide arc instead, further dispersing his aggressors. The act succeeded in breaking them up further, allowing Colossus to single out one unfortunate swordsman. With the shaft of his battle axe held out in front of him, Colossus charged, slamming the warrior into a wall and smashing his ribs. He then picked him up like a rag doll and, seeing another more distant enforcer trying to follow Leigh up the banner she was climbing, chucked the swordsman like a heavy projectile. He smacked right into his comrade, both of them landing in a heap on the floor.

The orc's impressive display of violence was doing a fine job of keeping attention all over the room divided, and Wight was more than happy to take advantage of that when he fired his first shot. It had been right as Leigh made her first leap for the banner, an arrow trained on her skull. Wight could see the path it would travel clear as day, and knew that these archers were the real deal when it came to aim. And so, before the arrow could be loosed, he fired. The archer had barely managed to move in time, the bullet grazing her cheek, and her arrow went flying completely off course. Would have been lovely if it had landed in one of her team mates, but alas, Wight couldn't get that lucky. But his shot had given Leigh the safety and her opening, and she made it to the banner. Positioned directly next to the balcony, the archers would now have a much harder time aiming at her. They'd have to point their bows and attention directly downward, which would not bode well for them when there was a shooter just waiting for their eyes to move elsewhere.

The chaos that Colossus and Kali had been stirring up in the room was already distraction enough, and the bowmen clearly were finding it more difficult to prioritize targets. One of them returned her attention to Colossus, a more visibly apparent threat, but her eyes were also pointed in Wight's direction, clearly waiting for him to make another move, and it seemed evident based on her squinting that she was probably peering through his illusion that he'd made to cover himself. The other archer was firing arrows at an awkward angle in an attempt to hit Leigh, and as Leigh got higher up, that archer's angle only got better.

Mal grit his teeth. He'd need to fire again, and quick, because Leigh would take an arrow at this rate. He watched carefully, saw the next arrow knocked, and then darted out to fire-- but then there was an arrow headed his way. He barely managed to move in time to avoid a shot right between his eyes, swearing as the projectile instead lodged itself into his thigh. GREAT! The most mobile of the four of them and now he had a thigh injury. There was no time to worry about it, though, he had to... he looked up and saw that Leigh had indeed taken an arrow. Her forearm. Fuck. Angrily, Wight lifted the pistol, took aim, and fired. He wasn't prone to fits of rage very often, but he supposed maybe sometimes they worked, because his bullet wound up flying right through the archer's hand as she made to knock another arrow. There was a cry of pain and she stumbled backwards.

Leigh, the beautiful monster that she was, used her own anger to propel herself the rest of the way up. The first archer had been ready to take over for her temporarily incapacitated comrade, but Wight made sure she didn't get the chance by firing his final shot. This one was another miss, but it pulled her attention once again, forcing her away from the ledge where Leigh jumped up a moment later. There was no aggression waiting for Leigh as she stood, the first Archer briefly distracted and the second still trying to recover from the shock of her hand injury. Wight enjoyed watching as Leigh approached the first, who was now aware of her arrival, and threw a mean punch into the elf's face. She went tumbling over the edge of the balcony, clinging to the railing, and Leigh rounded her focus onto the other archer, who had managed to at least fire another arrow.

Wight may not have had any more bullets, but he still had a throwing knife. And with the first archer hanging and prone, he couldn't have asked for an easier target. He plucked it off his belt and threw it with focused accuracy. The blade found its way into the back of the elf's head, and she instantly let go of the banister and fell limply to the floor below. Or she would have, if there hadn't already been a pile of corpses in the way. Colossus had been doing his job well while Wight had been focused on the archers. It seemed that once the orc had managed to break his foes' formation with his earlier attack, they all started to go down like dominoes, one after the other. He'd already put his axe away and was right in the midst of snapping the spine of the last fighter when Wight's attention landed on him again, and with that final crack came the realization that this little mob had been completely dealt with.

Wasn't so hard, right? After all, just a few arrows lodged in their Orc, some nasty gashes all over him, a few arrows in Leigh's body, a leg injury from Mal, and Deities only knew how much more damage Kali had sustained... Kali, who was...

Wait.

"Leif! I'm going to destroy you!"

They all heard her voice, from somewhere down the halls connecting to the room they were in, and Wight felt a pool of dread. Leigh must have had the same thought, given her next order. They needed to find Kali and stop her from making this situation worse than it already was.

Maldrem got to his feet with a grunt, moving as quickly as he could. He couldn't help moving with a bit of a limp, though; the arrow had penetrated deep, right into the muscle, and he was having difficulty controlling the minor spasms even after removing it. It hurt like hell, but he had to remind himself that there was a job to do here, and the others (especially Colossus) had also endured injury. Just because he wasn't used to getting hit didn't mean he couldn't expect it to happen.

To his surprise, though, he found himself plucked right off the ground a moment later. Colossus was lumbering forward at a pace that could only be accomplished by his long strides, and while it wasn't as fast as Mal usually was, it was still faster than he could move right now. Maldrem adjusted himself in the orc's grip and flung himself onto his shoulder, so that Colossus wouldn't have to bear his weight in just his hand.

"When you spot her, try to get me close," Maldrem advised. He got the feeling that Kali was probably seeing red right now. She fought like a berserker, so he wouldn't be surprised if she had some of the same known traits that he'd heard of in those. "I might be able to pull her back to reality."

Kali had left a blood trail, so it wasn't too hard to figure out where she'd gone, and she couldn't have gotten too far. Maldrem gave his fingernails another look as they charged forward, hoping he was right about his own claim. Kali loved pain, but too much of a good thing could spoil it for anyone. And Maldrem had studied a handy little necrotic trick from some torturers in the past that might come in handy for this situation.

Despite the fact that the satyr was clearly faster than Colossus, it seemed her bloodlust was exactly what allowed them to catch up to her. Making a turn in the hallway, they found her beating at a door with her hooves, trying to bust it down. Maldrem wasn't sure if there was someone on the other side she was trying to reach, or if she just suspected that to be the case, but either way it had held her up long enough for them to reach her.

"Toss me at her, Big C. And uh, be prepared to maybe protect me if this doesn't work," he muttered into the orc's ear. Colossus nodded, plucked Mal off of his shoulder, and did exactly as bidden. Maldrem was chucked straight at their crewmate, though thankfully not with the kind of force that was meant to deal harm. Maldrem would always be thankful for the fact that Colossus had an outstanding grasp on his own strength.

Maldrem went into a roll as he hit the ground mere feet from Kali. He used that momentum to spring towards her just as she slammed another kick into the door, and managed to catch her across the exposed length of her neck with a swipe of his nails. Just as he'd hoped, the skin broke under them and his nails even managed to dig in a decent depth. Not enough for serious damage - that wasn't the goal here - but enough for Mal's purposes.

He kept sailing by afterward, his spring having propelled him over Kali, and he landed on her other side in another roll, some feet away. His little swipe probably pissed her off, so he'd need to act fast. Staring at the satyr, he ran his tongue along the underside of his nails, collecting Kali's blood off of them, and held it in his mouth for a moment. It was the same foul, coppery taste as always, but he let his magic work on it for a moment, and then spit it out onto the floor. The blood that hit the floor had become blackened, like some kind of tar, and a moment later the magic began to work itself on Kali's wound as well.

A rapid festering. Skin that boiled around the wound's opening. Blood that decayed and blackened. Kali would (hopefully) be experiencing excruciating pain right about now in her neck, enough to immobilize most people in agony. It was quite the magical draw on Maldrem to do this, but it also wasn't his least practiced trick. After all, skill with a blade and excellent agility only got you so far when you were trying to maintain command of your own unruly crew, and he'd needed to have an ace up his sleeve during those times before The Grail.

Colossus was approaching Kali from behind, cautiously, knowing what she could be capable of, but also clearly not willing to let her charge Wight if she managed to get over the pain long enough to do so.

"Kali, sweetheart. Gonna need you to calm the hell down," Mal said, as her wound continued to fester. Whether she hated this or loved it, he just needed to get her back to a point of (relative) sanity.