1219/The Plight of War and Fear

The Plight of War and Fear
Date of Scene:	29 June 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Grace Choi, Ares
Tinyplot:	The Plight of War and Fear

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Grace Choi has posed:
    Hell's Gate. The Devil's Play yard. Grace had come up to visit a friend who'd inquired if Grace was up to a night of going wild. So, Grace had obliged. And, everyone had a -very- good time. But, Grace wasn't much one for goodbye's and breakfast. So it's 3am, in Hell's Kitchen. And the streets are pretty empty, save for the menacing thugs, the Yakuza, homeless people and runaway teens hidden in alleys, and shadows. Grace? Grace is walking down the street as if it were the middle of the day during rush hour.
    At 7 feet tall, and able to throw cars, she's not very worried about getting jumped by someone. Ever.

Ares has posed:
    It is ever so. When one feels utterly at ease with the world, at calm with their situation, and with a handle on what little trouble could rear its ugly head... one of the fates feels it a chance to laugh and casually cut at one person's thread or another.
    Such is the case now in the quiet of the city, that neighborhood having barely any street traffic and even less foot traffic. It's fairly quiet save for the little bit of white noise that is present in any developed area. They yowl of cats, the hum of high tension wires, the rumble of distant traffic on the freeway.
    And then there's a short sharp /CRACK-BOOM!/ and an abrupt outrushing of air as what looks like a black stain of ink splatted upon the air and just hanging there appears. It's only there for a second barely perceived against the nighttime sky save for where it blots out what stars can be seen and some of the street lamp's light.
    Then the next instant and /Smashing/ through that dark portal are two heavily armoured figures, hurtling down into the ground to impact into the middle of the street like some meteors dropped from on high.
    The larger one gains its feet quickly, slashing a great two-handed sword that's longer than he is tall, and at eight feet in height he is naught to sneeze at. A loud roar comes from him as he snarls, "You old fool! You think you saved them!"
    But the other armoured figure is only perhaps six foot seven or so. He gains his feet slowly, grimacing as he brings up his gladius in hand. The handle and ruined remains of his shield smoulders as if it had been set aflame recently. But he tosses the shattered shield aside and gets to his feet...
    And she may well recognize him for he has those same brown eyes, and those same stern features as John Aaron... just in full heavy armor. "Some of them. At least." The pieces of the shield clatter to the ground.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace had been walking, listening to some Dresden Girls in her head, when the first sound came. It startled her, and she'd jumped back, wary. Magic. Grace hadn't seen hardly any magic. Ever. BUt, she knew she didn't like it. At all.
    Perhaps just as much as magic, Grace suddenly realizes she does not like really tall men in ancient armor popping out of magic portals and fighting right in front of her. And she steps back, to assess the situation and tries to figure out what the HELL is going on.
    She doesn't need to think long. Ares - or, John, as she knows him, is in trouble. She doesn't need to know why he's dressed as he is, carrying a shield. Something about him giving her a warhammer hits her brain.
    A streetlight flickers out, as it's wrenched from it's post, and the heavy steel of the long pipe of the streetlight is suddenly swung like a baseball bat at the taller figure than both herself, or John.
    "Fuck off," Grace snarls, at the taller man, brandishing the sword, "And get your oversized portal-popping ass back in whatever pit you craweled out of, and leave my goddamn friend alone," she warns whoever it is. Without much care, or thought, that he might've been the one who created that portal, or that he's got a nine foot sword.

Ares has posed:
    Phobos is already bringing up his fist, lightning seeming to flicker around the heavy gauntlet he wears as he growls, "We've only begun." He starts to step forward, his boot crackling the street with his step only for that crested helm to turn and focus the glowing red eyes inside it on Grace as she steps in and /WHAM!/
    She can feel it jolt up the length of that lamp post, even as it seems stop short some small distance from him, impacting something invisible and shattering all up and down the shaft. Pieces explode in her hands and fly off like shrapnel in different directions.
    "Grace!" His voice is heard to the side and a bit behind her. She'll hear the hint of concern and then the growl, "You e'er were a disappoint, child!"
    "Fool!" Phobos rounds on the Amazon, bringing his gauntlet up and about to unleash instead of on Ares on her instead. The iron-clad limb of the armoured being gleams for a moment...
    Only for the impact of a hurtling Ares to /slam/ into the side of the taller being. There's a crackle of energy discharge that for a moment lights up her friend's body, his skeletal structure visible for brief spare moments, but then Phobos is sent hurtling backwards into the face of a nearby building, crashing through wall after wall...
    And then the building starts to collapse on him.
    It gives them a moment, a brief respite. "Are you injured?" Ares says as he turns to her, still sizzling, portions of his beard aflame and his arm has a wicked burn that has cooked a portion of the skin.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace's hands are bloody. Her shoulder is bloody. Her face? Bloody. She pulls a piece of shrapnel out of her skull, throws it on the ground. Then, she pulls a piece of shrapnel out of her shoulder. It, too, is tossed onto the ground. Those in her hands? Pulled away. Dropped. She flexes her blooding hands, "That? My mother could hit harder than that," she tells Ares, her eyes narrowing. "Your beard's screwed. Damn. It looked good on you, too."
    Slowly, she turns her head towards Phobos, still utterly clueless as to what's going on. It's clear the guy has some crazy messed up magic powers, or super high tech going on like Iron Man, but Grace doesn't seem phased, in the least.
    "Here," she says to him, "Let me help you."
    She pulls him up to his feet, "Good thing you work in construction. People who own this building are going to be pissed." Then, she's moving out, pulling a huge block of steel and cement out of her way, as if she were going to just go back and get in the fight again. "I -hate- cheating bastards. Can't even fight fair."

Ares has posed:
    "I'll shave later," John turns to look to where the building is still collapsing, but from within there's a loud /ROAARGH!/ that comes from Phobos as the sound of smashing comes from what must have been the basement of the building. A large chunk of debris comes flying up... and over to crash into the ground some twenty feet from them, but nowhere near hitting.
    "Bide." He tells her as he steps forwards, moving to stand at her side while the noise of destruction continues to erupt from the fallen building. He takes a deep breath and scowls, then /smashes/ his hand onto the pavement. The ground crackles and bursts, shattering apart in pieces as he thrusts his hand into the ground and withdraws from the earth a long reddened steel hammer with obsidian seemingly woven in with the metal, and carefully inlaid throughout is a subtle stream of what could only be lava that lends a hearty glow to the weapon.
    "The Labor of Hephaestus." He tosses the weapon towards her even as he turns and looks towards the shattered building. "Get behind me, I will draw his fire, and when we are close enough... strike."
    There's the glimmer of flames around his own hands as a large golden shield flashes into being upon his left forearm. He locks it into place and swings his gladius around. "When he shows himself. At the ready."
    There is a moment, perhaps two... and then Phobos _leaps_ from the cratered building and lands on the ground with a crackle of barely constrained energy, his own two-handed sword swinging around and sending blasts of fire and rage towards them.
    John brings his shield up... and charges.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace, not to be outdone, kicks a huge piece of debris back out as well, before rolling her shoulders, flexing some. It's what Ares does next that kind of, if however briefly, breaks Grace's mind. For a moment. Or two. That? She hadn't expected. At all. Sure, she's seen guys in news footage, like Superman, smash the pavement and cause it to buckle and crack and do crazy things. But to call up lava? And weapons? That's defintely a new one.
    "Maybe," Grace remarks, wryly, in a manner which shows she's getting her wits back, "I should start a construction company, too."
    The long handled hammer is taken, the importance of the name not missed on her. And, being a smart cookie, Grace has, perhaps, an idea of what, if not who, Ares actually is. And, thus, what the man they're fighting is, too. Her hands wrap around the war hammer, and she's about to argue about getting behind Ares, when he's already jumping ahead.
    Grace decides to creat a distraction of her own, taking a huge pice of a steel girder, ripping it out, and throwing it like a lawn dart at Phobos' direction. He's going to -have- to dodge it, and at the same time, counter or dodge Ares from a different direction.
    And gripping her hammer, made by a God, she begins to run forwards to follow up with Ares' plan.

Ares has posed:
    Those blasts of flame explode around them and for a time, hunkered down behind his shield, it might seem like an instant of time from a war ages ago. No trenches, no bombers flying overhead. Just a mad dash in heavy fire to try and reach an objective shared by those gambling their lives together.
    Phobos roars, "And yet you fight for /them/! Not your own!" The sword coming around and he snarls angrily, the features of his great crested helm seeming to contort and twist even as he screams at the two large figures rushing towards him. No step is missed by the one who had been Ares, his stride remains unbroken even as a fireball /explodes/ on the side of his shield. It causes him to adjust his grip on the weapon.
    But for Grace the air around them might suddenly feel heavy with danger and panic. The very ground might suddenly gape. The sky might threaten her with such death from above. And the face of the God of Fear might be the most terrifying thing she might ever have seen. For most mortals it is enough to shatter their minds, to make them drop to the ground and rip their eyes from their sockets. For most it would damage their minds as they look into the face of fear and see something entirely of the other world.
    But then she might hear as well, John's voice as he says. "It is all a lie. Grace. He himself is the greatest lie of all. Now strike for true."
    And as he says this another blast rocks him, smashing the shield aside as they close that last distance. It forces him to one knee as he winces, the side of his head /burning/ with flame. And there, Phobos is gloating. Right in front of her.

Grace Choi has posed:
    Grace is -not- most mortals. That isn't to say that she isn't affected. The terror does take her. The terror, and fear of being that little, helpless girl again, kept in a virtual hotbock, only allowed to eat when the man allowed her to, only allowed to go to the bathroom when he allowed it, doing ... unspeakable things and ... but she's not just a mortal. She has Athena's blessings. And Aphrodite. And Hermes. Demeter. And Hera. The fear grips her. But it does not -consume- her.
    All it takes is Ares' touch, to her mind to clear her head. To remember that she overcame her plight. And that she never need be afraid of anything, ever again.
    And Grace is moving more quickly than a mortal should. Grace? Grace is -pissed off-. And it's instinct, that pays off. Instinct, that little girl, before she'd run away, had been trained to. The rigors of the Amazons. The battle-readiness.
    The hammer comes down - but not on Phobos' head. Not into his chest. It's swung, down, and at a vicious angle to connect, solidly, against the back of the tall God's knee, to bring him down and dibiletate him, and she uses that same momentum to swing the hammer around again, and connect again if she can, this time solidly into the back of Phobos' head.
    Grace doesn't pull her punches when she's pissed.

Ares has posed:
    The flames continue to lick at Phobos' hands as he unleashes a stream of it straight at the staggered John Aaron. She'll see the fire dance up and down his form even as she bursts free from that fear, accepting the anger and using it to power her charge as she rushes in and brings the hammer up around in that smooth swing.
    Yet even as she brings that weapon about, she can feel it as an extension of her wishes, can feel it melding into the crook of her hand, becoming a subtle presence in the back of her mind. In that moment it seems as if this is the most natural thing in the world...
    And then the head of the hammer crashes into Phobos' knee.
    There's a loud crack and sparks erupt from the armor, blasting apart the metal shin guard and knee plate, sending the pieces clattering to the ground as his knee gives out. He howls in pain even as she twists around and brings that hammer back up and around...
    Only to have it _clang_ against Phobos' upraised hand, an invisible force stopping that strike, the air between them seeming to shimmer from the heat of the weapon alone. Those gleaming red eyes in the crested helm meet hers and she can almost /feel/ the rage from the creature before her. "No. No! _I_ am the God of War!"
    He seems to hold her there with that power, them both seemingly straining against each other. But then he brings up his other hand and the dark flames flicker to life about it as he gets ready to blast her.
    Until John /slams/ his shoulder into Phobos' abdomen, sending them both rocketing back and locked together in a furious struggle. She is suddenly free of the struggle, long enough to see those two figures abruptly flash out of existence, disappearing into another black void floating in the air.
    And suddenly all is quiet around her, save for the pieces of debris that hit the ground, and crack apart.

Grace Choi has posed:
    As Grace's 'finishing' blow is stopped, Grace strains, her face turning read. But, Phobos is straining too. Which means, in her head? She's -winning-. Because -fuck- the God of Fear. And she's just some half-Amazon, crazy tall woman. She feels the rage, the power. But whether it's Ares presence, the bolstering of his aura into her mind, her own sheer fuck-you'dness attitude and strength of personal will and pride, or a combination of all of the above she does not yield. She only fights all the more. And then the two men are back into a furious struggle, and suddenly she's free. She starts to move towards them to renew the fight ... when they disappear, again.
    Grace lets out a string of curse words and violent language that would make Bacchus blush. Maybe. She throws the hammer down, in that fit of rage, at being stripped of her victory - their victory - against a true God of Olympus. That would've been something to have on her belt.
    A minute, two, later, and Grace is bending down, to pick up the hammer again. "Hephasteus, huh? You owe me a fucking beer, John. You'd better pay up," she says, to the empty streets, against the incoming sound of sirens. She hefts the war hammer over her shoulder, like a lumberjack might a large log one is just barely able to carry, and she walks down the street. Out into the darkness. To crash. To rest. Figure out how long it'll take her wounds to heal, and what she'll tell her friends about her time in Hell's Kitchen, when she gets back to Metropolis. It has, afterall, been an interesting night.