Neo-Chapter One/Operation: BINDING LIBERTY

At Keiko's mental cry of agony, Kirie had come to a screeching halt. For the briefest of seconds, she was torn between her current mission of chasing after the ion or going back to help. It was brief, and though her heart was torn, she continued running in Allan's direction.

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Audrey spun her glaive once at the appearance of the Helli0n operative, "A wind manipulator against a G1 weather manipulator, a feline morpher, two telekinetics, an isotope who can summon the dead to help her, a group of ions from the ANF, and a badass prophetic isotope who can see your every move before you think of making it. Feeling lucky?" The goth stood her ground; successfully hiding the fact that she was indeed powerless against his blasts of wind. For the umpteenth time in her life, Audrey wished she had been given fighting powers rather than passive ones.

"Its not that no, Simply the matter of which i'm doing my objective.." He replied with a cool tone, looking over to the others briefly before directing his gaze back to the girl with the glaive with a demurred smirk.

He made no other move as a small bell rung behind him, his gaze turning a bit soft as a sudden ice produced needle shot past him, heading straight to the fore mentioned female renegade.

"....of which was successful.." He finished as a girl walked out of the bushes, a staff in hand and gazed with a cold expression before going to stand beside Kishin.

Audrey didn't turn out of the way fast enough, and the ice needle sliced open the side of her neck.  Blood, hot and crimson, poured down her neck, onto her shoulder, and down her throat.  She clasped the open gash with her left hand, and let out a hiss, but the grip on her glaive didn't diminish in the slightest.  Another one?  With ice powers maybe?  Damn visions not telling her things....

"You're late Weiss.." Kishin looked over to the girl with a half-serious expression, but it was instantly diminished as he regarded the group. "Did you finish the assignment given to us?"

"...yes, there was a bit of an interference..but i managed to shut them down, She was impressive." The girl replied with the icy tone once more as she held up a lock of red hair and tied it to the bell on her staff. "But the part i collected from her does make a fine accessory..." She replied with a giggle.

"I see, well done." He replied as he grabbed her staff as well and regarded the accessory monotonously. "Unfortunately, we both can't stay long, it would've been a blast if we could continue our previous rendezvous.."

With a flick of the wrist he unleashed a gush of wind at them suddenly, as the girl smirked and waved the staff towards the wind burst, as it created a blizzard-induced attack on the group before them.

Nathanael gritted his teeth together as he fought to fend off the combined weather attack of the two Helli0n isotopes.  He had grown strong enough over the years to the point of where he didn't have to guide the weather using physical gestures.  All he had to do was think of what he wanted and where he wanted it, and it would happening.

However, against the strength of these isotopes, Nathanael found his arms  held out in front of him as though he were standing in front of a hover car coming at him, and was in a position that screamed, "STOP!"  The G1 opted not to stop the weather entirely, but to redirect it.  Stopping the wind and snow/ice would take too much energy, and would ultimately tire him out.  But diverting it....well, that could be done a little more easily.

Nathanael pushed back on the storm with a wedge-shaped gust of wind.  It took more energy than the bachelor would've liked to admit, but the result was that the renegades were standing in a wind-free zone while the blizzard howled past them.  There was very little space to move, and Nathanael knew that if one of them stepped out of the little safe spot, they would be frozen in minutes.

But one of them could withstand God-awful blizzard conditions.

"Keiko, go!" He shouted above the scream of the wind.

Keiko knew exactly what his big brother meant, and went into action.  He ran full speed at the point of the wedge, and just before he left the small safe spot, his ten-year-old features engorged and grew into a five foot, one hundred and twenty pound snow leopard.  The blizzard hardly had any effect on his thick pelt, though the intensity of the wind nearly knocked him off his paws when he first leapt into it. 

It only took him a heartbeat to regain his footing, and he lunged for the female.  It probably escaped everyone else's notice, but he had seen that the isotope seemed to channel something through that staff of hers.  Whether or not Keiko could snap it with his jaws (since in his snow leopard form, his bite wasn't as strong compared to his jaguar or lion), but he did intend to rip it away from the girl.

Both Kishin and Weiss grew astonished as the small cub of the group grew at his master's command and broke through the blizzard's wind. But it was the girl who grew scared when the beast came to her, she drew back some of her power and ran back a bit to the woods. Kishin right behind her as he threw rocks at the beast.

When it grew closer to them, both Weiss and Kishin then turned back and began attacking him, Kishin using the wind to divert some of its strikes before using the kickboxing moves to strike back. Weiss from a short distance away began launching needles at the group once more, her staff singing as the bells moved while she blocked.

Keiko snarled at the kicks and punches to his face that actually hurt a bit.  The inner leopard wanted to tear this insignificant lump of flesh into threads, but the human part of him had to stay focused on his mission.  He rolled out of the way of one vicious kick, and with a roar, he latched his jaws onto the girl's staff.

Nathanael knew that Keiko was vulnerable while he was battling with the ice chick, so he decided to even the scales a little.  He diverted his wind shield right at the wind manipulator, which was more than enough power to knock the bloody little wanker on his arse.  However, it also opened himself and the others for the deadly ice shards.

One sliced open his left side, and another embedded itself into his right inner elbow.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Nathanael shouted out, "Sam!  Eric!  Make a shield around us, or they'll tear us to shreds!"

Upon noticing a few of her strikes had indeed landed on some of the renegades, Weiss paused to regard the sudden bite the leopard gave. Landing on her staff she felt the tug as the beast indeed was trying to remove her only source of power and lifesource. She yelled in protest and focused entirely on the snow leopard now, forgetting the others.

Grunting with effort she looked over briefly to Kishin, who was being assaulted with gusts of wind of the weather manipulator the renegades had. Her look of icy stoic features now turned of fear as she jumped up, and began kicking at the snow leopard, her grip tightening on her weapon as she headbutted it.

"Let go of my staff you bad pussycat!" She protested childishly, tears threatening as her grip began loosening by the utter force her stamina was draining her.

"Zach!" She cried out angrily, daring herself to remove one hand from her beloved lifesource and produced a needle, bringing it up above the cat with an icy glare. "DIE!"

Zach, upon hearing her cry of terror looked over, his gaze rising a bit as he found himself on the ground, shock in his eyes as he regarded what the leaopard was trying to do. "Get away from her! Get away from my partner!" He shouted, glaring as he then unleashed whirlwinds and small whirlpools of air to form tornadoes at the ground, hopeful to buy himself time to stop the beast, to rescue Lilia

It was pretty straight forward, really.  Dead Keiko=broken/unbelievably enraged Nathanael.  Broken/unbelievably enraged Nathanael=no more sunny, happy-go-lucky Nathanael that everyone preferred to have around.  Therefore, Audrey's next move was simple:  she barreled towards the ice isotope, Weiss, and tackled her.  Unfortunately, she kinda negated Keiko's attempt at ripping the staff away.  Both the staff and Audrey's glaive were trapped between their bodies as they tumbled to the grass.

The prophetic isotope grappled for control, and while she did, a vision claimed her sight.  It was difficult to fight while she couldn't see, but thankfully, the vision only lasted for a handful of second.  When her sight cleared, Audrey shouted, "She'll die without the staff!  Get it from her!"

No more hostiles. All was good.

Having gone off to make sure the Helli0n Isotopes from before were eliminated, Hikaru returned to the Renegades only to find that they were in the middle of a seemingly desperate fight. The two persons they faced against did not seem to be regular Isotopes, and both sparked a feeling of uneasiness in his being. In fact, it was significantly colder than before.

"What the hell?" Hikaru muttered to himself as he pulled out another coin. 

"Hey! Old man! Who should I aim at?!" the Ion yelled at the Aussie, resting the coin on his outstretched hand ready to flip.

---

"Listen to me and listen good, unless you want to die right here." the masked man said to the caught woman, not removing his Saif sword from her neck's general area.

"What is Operation: ROMAN ASSAULT? What did Helli0n do now?" Despite being asked at blade point, Banshee did nothing, remaining silent.

After a few moments, the dark-clad man referred to the Isotope accompanying him.

"Allan, come give me a hand with her. We are taking her as well."

"Sheila's too close!" Nathanael shouted back as he continued to fight with Zach for the control of the wind, "And your damage radius is too wide! Go hand-to-hand! Get the staff and break it!"

Keiko was indeed hindered by Audrey's tackle, but it played into his favor just seconds later. With the gothic isotope grappling with the enemy, it put them with a 2 on 1 situation. Renewing his efforts with a coughing growl, Keiko latched onto the staff once more; whipping his head side to side in an attempt to dislodge Weiss's hold.

You find your efforts meaningless now, the snow leopard has joined the assault once more as you look over desperately to kishin.

"Help me!" She cried out as she jumped up and wrapped her legs around her staff, balancing herself somewhat to fully launch frost needles at her attackers. The close distance would have them dive away, or if indeed her life was meaningful to devour..Take the attack and die while she watched.

Kishin yelled angrily in frustration, every move would be reflected with another gust of wind, so he decided...brute force would be the answer. Using the bursts of wind he maneuvered himself towards the weather isotope, his arm flying back as he spotted two frost needles flying ahead, Good, she knew.... As his glasses fell off the bridge of his nose he tackled him to the ground.

"Tell them to release my sister! Tell them now!" He shouted as he grabbed another flying frost needle and holding it at his neck, his other hand holding his head as he straddled his arms down.
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Meanwhile, minutes after Weiss had appeared, Meira glanced over to her bleeding hand, and with a small gesture began forming a small ball of blood. But what Audrey said had her suspicions corrected, she had checked...everyone had blood in their systems...all of them except Weiss, she was as Audrey recalled, only ice...and it seemed the staff would keep her alive..

But the knowledge of the iced occult division's wind user was his sister...well it paralyzed her...both groups were in trouble, so as best as she could she launched the orbs of blood at the needles dissolving them enough so the damage of penetration wouldn't hurt much.