((Group 2: Tris, Nox, Mandain VS Shadow Stalker, Post your scrap here after your initial post here.))

Nox remained where she was as the situation played itself out before her, the chaos increased as the destruction mounted, and yet from the darkness of other similar alleys she could make out the presence of the rest of the resistance. They, like her, were waiting. It didn’t take long before their patience was rewarded. The atmosphere changed and even among the dying wails of destruction an undertone of silence, of fear, set in as two metallic beings entered the square. So, they were what all the fuss was about. From her position she couldn’t make out any details but she could see a predatory giant to their walk, and considering that they were man-made, it was rather unnerving.

As her attention was held by these beings, a stranger event suddenly stole her concentration. It could only be described as ‘feeling a shadow’, a flicker of movement whose heat had only registered briefly when it passed it front of an air-conditioned doorway. It was, however, something, and considering the fact it was an invisible something Nox decided it earned investigation. On top of that the fact only when she focused all her awareness upon it could she make out the faint dispersion of heat, that revealed its form, suggested that this was something that did not want to be known. Its signature was so faint, however, that she couldn’t make out its outline but rather a general idea. It was about 100m metres away and seemed to be clinging to the walls themselves as it edged round the square. Nox repositioned herself, by walking about 10m away from the wall, and so waited. Her plan was simple, as it hadn’t yet done anything and seemed to be on reserve, she would wait for it come closer, possibly even pass behind her. So that when she attacked she would not only have range on her side, but also have a better idea of what she was dealing with.

Mandain was walking in circles, the mood among people changed, darkness could be felt throughout the streets. People running around in chaos. Horus was as exited as an Egypt god could be, shamefully for him there wasn't a part for him to play this time. This time Mandain was up for the fight with stalkers. There was not much he could do against them, he needed to see wires, a crack in armor, anything that could let the stalker get a nice shot of Ion injected in his technology.

Nox, a girl he meet in the cooperation game was focusing, Mandain on the other hand was playing with little Ion balls in his hand, a bit childish you may say, but it passed the time until he could strike. "We will victory Hahahaha" "Yes Horus let's wait and see what we can do about those stalker bots" A shiver passed his spine, something was watching, cloaked it could be, something out of the ordinary, this could become more interesting by the second.

As he hovered in the air scanning the area and watching Abyss have his fun, he noticed two Stalkers move towards the resistance members then speak. "CEASE YOUR ACTIONS MUTANTS!" This made Kaz chuckle inwardly for about a half a second before he realized there were only two of them. On top of that they seemed to be equipped differently from each other. They knew the patrol was suppose to consist of three of the metal annoyances, of course there was a chance their intel was wrong. He would rather act on the side of caution than not. Activating the com system Hades had implanted under his skin, "There should be three in this patrol. Keep your eyes, ears and everything else open for the third. Nox, see if you can locate our missing friend. Mandain, we don't want to totally destroy what these things have, but if it comes down to it, fry the bastards."

(OOC I'm going to skip Tris since its been awhile and I presumed lasers could cut through a Stalker’s armour, correct me if I’m wrong )

The com system buzzed into life, and Nox’s suspicions were thrown off revealing fact – the invisible creature scaling the walls was the third Stalker. Realising that getting rid of its invisibility was the priority, she looked round as the makings of a plan began to form. Firstly, she noted that though Mandain’s light show was childishly impatient and idiotic, it did seem to be the centre of attention. Since, by now the stalker had passed behind her, and was making its way to Mandian’s position. She picked a building, and focused her mind, judging the distance carefully – there would be one chance, and no room for mistakes, since after an attack she knew she would become the target. Luckily, the 10m distant was well within her range.

She held on to the fleeting signature of the stalker; sometimes a clear shape was momentary present but mostly it was only a vague haze, if that. That was, however, enough for what she planned. It reached her point. Two things when happened instantaneously. First, one of her new blades left her hand and flew true to its target. Aiming for the centre of the heat signature, Nox simply wanted to hit. The blade, however, was no ordinary blade. Since it was one Hades’, and so with the help of concentrated light, which was being fed into as it flew, it edges flared into life and took on a electric blue sheen. The lasers the now embraced the blade would ensure that, on contact, the blade would bite into its target. Nox wasn’t aiming for damage, but rather to provide a visible target for other attacks. Second, a large pocket of light around her disappeared as its energy was briefly used to create a pulse of heat, the effect lasted for barley longer than a blink of an eye. The combination of darkness and heat, however, would serve to hide the passage of her blade, and so allow it to hit. Nox didn’t give any thoughts to what would happen next; all her thoughts were focused upon the present, which happened to be watching her blade’s path into its target.

The intercom made some noise and Kaz started talking. "I know Kaz, I''ll Fri them when something go's wrong, for the rest I will just block their attacks with my shield and try to make some bumbs in their armor". 'Mandain looked to the side seeing the blade that Nox threw hit. He wasn't caught of guard, and if the stalker would have tried to got him, his shield would be on long before the stalker would have a chance to hit his target. Nox his blade hit good, and made the stalker visible, Not visible in really seeing the createre it self, but the knife never hit the building, giving it's position away. "Nice one Nox, if need protection which I doubt jut run op to me and touch me, but I doubt it you need it". Mandain made some steps over to Nox so if something would go wrong he could intervene. I''ll try to keep his attention" he nodded hoping for a nodding reply so that they had an agreement over how they would try to handle the Stalkers. Behind them the other Stalkers were moving in. The ionic balls in his hands became bigger and bigger, 2 purple balls, hoping the stalker would keep it's attention on it.

((OOC: Sorry for the late post guys, but Tris isn't much use till she can see stuff anyways........))

Tris hadn't been making much of an account of her she was afraid. After her exploding air got boring, she had made it into a watchful shadow from which to keep an eye out for stalker types alright, but her attention kept wavering to Venus, Abyss, and the clones, wanting to go help them- but she knew it wouldn't do any good.

....now all she could do was watch, and wait.....
and not being trained for the watching and waiting for something she couldn't find (even as big and bug looking as the stalkers were) was making her bored and nervous and fidgety at the same time.

The comm from Kaz made her jump (but fortunately she was in a shadow and so couldn't be seen acting so childishly), but the words compounded her nervousness and panicked feelings, even though she tired to push them out of her mind- but how could she fight something like this that she couldn't see?

Nox however, the cool, collected, and slightly scary Nox seemed to have a plan. Tris watched a succession of images- a knife emerging, flaring up like a jedi light saber, then a stream of sucking, heated darkness connecting with......nothing......something?
So that was where the hidden stalker was.

Tris waited, squinting to try see the mechanical creature. Knowing that if she could do that, she could atleast help.

She started to move as stealthy as possible around towards where the burst of darkness connected, so she could be in proximity, hopefully try slow the thing down abit.
The positive thing about her being stressed and nervous was her powers felt ready to burst and her reflective felt razor sharp- adrenaline can do great things for a person at times.

(OOC: protruding knife hilt okay or not? if not i'll change it.)

Though the blade hit, it didn’t really cause much damage, but on the other hand Nox’s aim had been to increase its visibility rather than for damage, and in that area she had succeeded. Owing to, firstly, the fact that hopefully the others would managed to piece together that when a knife is thrown but doesn’t hit a wall it has hit an invisible something, and secondly, though extremely hard to spot, her knife hilt could be seen protruded from air apparently if looked at from the right angle. Though small it was target.

A part of her mind registered the minor distractions around her, such as Mandian’s words, which she nodded to in response, and the other girl’s approach. But even if she hadn’t been focusing her attention upon every move of the stalker, she still wouldn’t have been interested in words of protection. Nox doubted the creature would be all so happy after the current events, and so guessed that a retaliation was on its way, which was why she watched with such intent; this creature was dangerous, and so she needed to be able to predicts its act. Her only conciliation to the situation was the welcomed weight of another one of Hades’ blades in her palm, ready, as she was, for a fight.

(ooc: Post is rewritten)

(OOC: hey guys, Tris still can't see the stalker having no extra sensy powers and so can't do anything unless you tell her where to blow stuff up, so feel free to post without me till Tris is needed so I dont slow you down.)

Paying sole attention to every minute movement of the stalker was rewarded, since, as predicted, mere moments after the knife struck, its retaliation was launched. There was no time for another weapon to be drawn, no time to call upon any energy, and certainly no time for logic. Which was why, on instinct alone, Nox didn’t even completely manage to twist herself side on with her blade defended her open side. In the process of attempting to do this, however, she saved her life. For, as the unseen blade came down upon her, it opened up her shoulder rather than her chest, due to her slightly altered position. The wound, due to her momentum, was also thankfully relatively shallow and, though it had torn apart muscle, it had done no damage that time could not heal. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. If this hormone, that now began to pump its way through her system, hadn’t been present then the pain would have been too much, and the prospect of continuing the fight would have been nil. As it was, Nox focused on her blade, pushing the cries of pain to the back of her mind, for all that now stood between her and the stalker was that blade. The blades grated against one another, sparks flew, as hers slide up the stalker’s, producing a peculiar low ringing sound as metal fought metal. The block was luckily successful, and managed to keep its blade clear from her flesh. The only reason her blade remained unbroken though, as it faced the force of the stalker, was the blue tinge that honed its edges, for as strong as any metal maybe, a laser would always be a match.

Stood as she was, one shoulder dripping dark red droplets onto the square, the other putting all its might into a block which now was locked in place, she realised that the stalker had effectively revealed itself to the others. Surely the others would notice the attack even with the invisibility, and one of them should be able to get an attack in. Holding onto this thought, she held her position, willing the others to react fast enough so that the Stalker’s other blade would not have time to attack once more. She detested relying on others like this, but since radiation would have no effect on inanimate objects, what else was she to do.

(May I make this a bit more interesting for myself by letting Horus out so he can jump in a bit and have some action? No worry, Mandain will shift back after a while.

Mandain had not much to do, since if he would attack it would destroy the whole stalker, so all he was doing was watching Nox do her thing and keeping himself out of her way. Venus came in and you could see he had an eye for the girl with the black hair, though it was a weird to see a big red guy and a normal girl together. Anyway Horus was not sleeping quietly in his head, but was slowly making his entrance to controlling the body, he wanted some slashing, and some scarabs. Mandain knew that keeping Horus restrained was crucial in this situation, if anything was to go wrong he needed to intervene and kill the stalker, and Horus was not effective against stalkers. Control was the hard part and Horus knew he would be out sooner or later.

The creature’s next move came almost instantaneously, in the brief interlude, however, Nox was able to deduct one simple fact. The evidence practically spoke for itself, what with the other girl walking away and Mandain standing there, just standing there. Her deduction: she was going to have to go it alone. The bitter thought of ‘What a good team we are’ even surfaced, but then she reminded herself that she didn’t care. That didn’t, however, help to make the situation more manageable. There was still her and there was still one shadow Stalker. It was within this interlude Nox made her first mistake: she expected the predictable. Slamming into an abandoned car, whose radio was still faintly playing, Nox realised her error – this thing was adaptable. It was, in brief summarisation, a smart killer, and all the more dangerous for it.

Now being slammed into things was not a new occurrence for Nox, in fact it had been but a few days a go since she had felt the familiar dizzy sensation or the rather unique headache that followed. This time she even had the bonus of the added pain that radiated from her newly acquired injury. Luckily for Nox, however, being slammed into various objects was something you became used to, or rather your mind became used to separating itself from the messages of pain your body sent. This meant it could focus, without much delay, on a plan, preferably one that got her out of trouble. As it happened Nox’s mind recovered from the blurred slumber in about the same the Stalker took to leap over, which was, to say the least, fortunate.

Nox couldn’t tell the still invisible tail-like blur, which began its arching passage towards her, was attended to finish her off. As it happened, and much in Nox’s favour, she hadn’t planned to waste any time finding out what the vague tail blur was anyway. A half-thought out plan, therefore, was already under way long before it even managed to register for an appointment with her department of common sense, let alone before it passed its risk assessment. Oh well. The plan, like all the best, was a simple one: concentrate enough heat in the fuel tank of the yellow cab that was parked just next to where the stalker now stood, simultaneously do the same to the other, rather hastily left, car on its other side. Result, hopeful, a Stalker caught in between two explosions. Would it have any effect? There was only one way to find out. Nox had been having, as some would put it, a ‘tough day’, she hadn’t however, had to yet use her ability, which meant that concentrating enough heat for the two small sparks needed when surrounded by the wasted energy of Times square was not a problem. What was, on the other hand, would be redirecting all the heat off her, so that she didn’t end up killing herself, but then, she had done that sort of thing before. Well kinda of. Nox had acted on blind instinct, she had to in order under the circumstances, which meant that the two cars blow up before the Stalker’s tail managed to rip open her upper lower chest, which was again rather fortunate.

Mandain stood and watched as Nox was blown back by the stalker and into a car. "I'm out coming" Horus had enough of Mandain his watching and not doing anything. Horus began to struggle to get in charge of the body, but this time Mandain heavily resisted the struggle. "We agreed not to take this path!" Mandain did not think those words, they were shouted out with pain as Horus and himself had a battle inside the mind. "You do not strength have this for, out let me and I'll show what is power"

Mandain had his head in his hands and with his knees on the ground, all he could was give in.

The sky turned dark when out of no where an Eclipse began to rise. Horus stood up, and his laughter was as load as it could be. The laughter of a god turned evil shivered the bone of mankind. "Lets fight!" Horus drew his sword out of his arm and with the point of his sword on the ground, the ground began to rock like and earthquake. This was not an earthquake, but millions of small scarabs rising from the ground to the surface, to aid their got in battle.