Flight of the Light Brigade (OPEN) (PLOT)

Who: Champions of the downtrodden, Protectors of Jump, and Enemies of the Russians all. Anyone not Titan or HIVE who wants to finally take the fight to the Russian front line and liberate the beleaguered city, which has endured months of siege.
What: Head of State TIBERIUS has coordinated and consolidated the remnants of his forces to spearhead an assault that will allow a crack team of metahumans into the heart of the Russian siege forces. Their objective: capture the Russian General responsible and his staff.
Where:A half mile beyond the twisted scrap remains of Jump City bridge at Russian Field Command.

---------------

Without intending so, the occupying forces had terra-formed the land ringing Jump City. Where once an urban scroll of roads, pit-stops, and loner estates threaded between lush countryside now existed a raw wound in the landscape. The ground had been churned by the footsteps of a thousand marching men. Fields of grass disappeared into a mire of mud. The air was rank with the smell of wood-smoke and artillery discharge. Anything taller than a man had been levelled within a 400 metre dash between opposing forces - nothing could take cover from the firing line. Tarmac had splinted under the impact of daily mortar rounds and mounds of earth had risen overnight in defiance of the promise of more.

For hours nothing would move. Abrupt firework displays tore into this silence, and bombarded the outlying metropolis buildings with yet more artillery. The refugees had long retreated further inside the cityscape. Russian aggression tightened its strangle-hold day by day, inch by inch. As their conquests across California grew more numerous - more detachments from Russian divisions would assemble outside Jump City and feed the behemoth that lingered on the threshold, poised to strike. TIBERIUS vowed to strike first.

"Samolety!"

Across the graveyard straight of Jump City's ruined bridge flew a convoy of planes. Anti-aircraft batteries came to life. The head of the convoy appeared to spontaneously combust and vanish in flame. The rest came on, unperturbed. A squadron of bombers strafed the ground ahead of them. They were immediately set upon by the defences before they could make a second pass. This allowed a smaller, nimbler, breed of aircraft through. The fighter-pilots guided their craft into an area they knew to be the approximation of Russian Field Command. A volley of machine-gun fire sent their enemy to ground. Immediately a helicopter took lead. Inside were the brave volunteers who had vowed to capture the commanding Russian General and his staff.

"You're going to have to jump!" The battle-zone was too fierce for the pilot of the helicopter to land.

It only seemed fitting to jump, considering their location. Dar chuckled to himself. "Shouldn't be a problem."

Dar held no love in his heart for Jump City, but it was within his interests to see it survive, at least for now. Tiberius had proven that the rules of politics were changing. A small band of metahumans could feasibly control their own country, as long as they were careful. Naturally, many nations felt threatened by this idea, and rightfully so. The age of human rule had come to an end. Soon, the weak would be ruled by the strong, as was the order of the universe. With the desire to reinforce this message, Dar had come to Jump City once again.

They approached the drop zone. Without hesitation, Dar stepped out of the helicopter and fell towards the earth below. He didn't have a parachute. It wasn't like they were miles in the sky or anything. Even a normal human might be able to survive a fall from this height. They would break every bone in their body, but Dar didn't have to worry about that.

He landed like a rock, forming a crater where his feet had landed. Standing up, he began to approach their destination. A few Russian soldiers started shooting him. Their bullets ricocheted off his skin, stinging just enough to be annoying.

"Priscilla..." With just that word, a red-haired woman appeared from nowhere. She moved with incredible speed, cutting the soldiers down with her sword. A few seconds later, Dar was again able to move without any inconveniences.

A man of similar views of the world was also present on the aircraft. Clad in black and purple armour, the Nephilim had been randomly selected to join the task force. He too, had no love for the city, or humans in general, but to make a name for himself here, he decided it was a good idea to get rid of these invaders.

This man was Khariel Ravenlock. But those who worked with him today would know him as Andras.

Khariel jumped off gracefully after Dar did, landing with a quick flare of his black amethyst and gold wings to soften the landing. Soon afterwards, he was walking beside Dar, sensing vaguely his otherworldly presence.

"With such a company, these humans will beg for mercy long before we are finished with them." Khariel stated darkly. He was well aware that he was only permitted to attack the Russian humans for this mission. But he would treat them like any other human who crossed him: cruelly and without mercy.

He glanced at Dar, a small but devious grin on his face as his eyes glinted in anticipation of what was to come. "I am Khariel Ravenlock, however I have chosen my codename, for when it applies, to be Andras. It will be an honour fighting alongside you and your minion."

Another squad of Russians came into view, opening fire on the group. Khariel stepped forward, dark forcefield forming around him to block the hailstorm of bullets. His now ravenlike visage seemed to grin as he shot out one arm and shadowy tendrils appeared from it, advancing towards the soldiers. The Russians tried to fire at the tendrils, but all for naught as the bullets went right through the intangible shadow without any effect. Khariel's attack hit home, piercing the throats of each solider, causing them to fall to the ground, lifeless.

When we're talking about people who would volunteer to venture into the war zone to fight, there was one obvious person who would volunteer to do such a thing. This obvious person was one who had been fighting the Russians since the attack on the airport, where he had failed to stop the deaths of the hostages, something that still haunted him. The former registered hero who had so many reasons to hate the Russians and want to help end this war in any way he could. Kicker.

When the pilot told them that they had to jump, Kane simply scoffed Don't you know who the heck you're talking to!?! then he jumped out. He fell through the air, feeling the wind blowing against him. He loved this feeling, but he wouldn't have any time to enjoy it too much, he had a landing to make. One of his companions just landed without any finesse, the other companion was all about the finesse, spreading his wings to stop the fall. Kane smirked, knowing he had to outdo them, he kicked against the air, making him rebound off of it, he did this again, going through the air in zigzags. He zoomed a path in the air which spelled Kicker before dropping down on the ground.

Kicker's view of the world was exactly the opposite as the other two's, while they had no love for Jump city, he had nothing but love for the city. It was where he was born and raised and grew up. It was were his family lived and his friends, well, admittedly his only friends were people he met as Kicker, but they still lived there. He was doing this for the people who had lost their homes or friends or lives to these jerks.

While he was doing his thing, one of his companions had summoned some weird red haired lady to cut down some Russians. Now, Kane had no love for the Russians, but that guy was going a bit overboard. He turned to the other guy who was with them That guy's going a bit overboard right? however, the guy did not hear him, because he was too busy impaling a bunch of Russians in the throats Oy Vey he sighed exasperatedly before spotting a group of Russians coming towards them.

The Russians were trying to form a firing line to fire upon all of them, hopefully killing all of them except the bullet-proof one. But Kane wouldn't let them, he moved at them by dashing through the air at them faster than any man can run, you know, any man that doesn't have super speed. He got between their forces and started moving through them like a hurricane, kicks to the chests which launched them into the air, kicks to the back which knocked them down and sweep kicks which made them eat so much dirt that they wouldn't be needing any supper. Any who could gain enough sense to shoot at him would find him too fast to do so. Soon they would all be down, but his companions would notice that among those that Kicker fought, there had not been a single death Alright ladies, let's go

The rolling hills to the drop zone's right nestled a grid-layout of canvas. Tents all aligned to regulation order were protected from bombardment by the leeward side of a natural bulge in the earth. A farm road passed not sixty feet from the edge of this encampment. In its centre lay the only solid construction; the farmhouse itself having been levelled by the defenders in an attempt to deny their enemy shelter. This tin building had been used for the storage of pygmy goats and had since been renovated for the housing of Russian officials. If there was ever a body of people that could sterilise an area - it was the army.

Meanwhile on the rise to their left, the attackers might not at first have noticed the tank that loomed in the shadow of dark clouds. Its engineers set the tracks and lined its main turret. They knew it was a long distance shot, and they knew it was far too close to their own forces, but they had the order to throw caution to the wind when dealing with metahumans.

The senior General heard the dull rumble of tank turret fire from his quarters. He was talking incessantly into his walkie talkie while staff flittered around him gathering maps and laptops and his fold up chair. All would go into the vehicles for emergency evacuation. The General's bodyguard were close at hand. Two were Russian metahumans, raised since teenagers in the Russian armed forces. The third was a diminutive fellow that really only came up to his commanding officer's knee. It was the latter that seemed the least enthralled by the mayhem around him.

Each tent sheltered four soldiers. Every one of those soldiers now mobilised and formed rank on the roadside, angling their firearms up the ridge towards the enemy landing site. Officers told them to hold steady and keep file. Stragglers from the first onslaught hobbled down the slope and slipped between men as the wall parted before them like a well oiled machine. The Russians waited apprehensively for the attack, planes still screaming overhead.

Dar raised his eyebrows. Khariel Ravenlock had introduced herself, revealing her true identity before stating her codename. It seemed to be the incorrect order to do those things, but it wasn't a problem. Khariel said it would be an honor to fight beside him, and Dar nodded. Khariel was powerful. A potential ally, perhaps.

"Indeed."

The other individual with them was delightfully full of himself. Dar chuckled dryly at Kicker's comments. He would be a useful tool in this fight.

There it was, the whistle of an incoming shell. Even Dar had no desire to be hit by such a weapon. He gritted his teeth. It was still early in the battle, and he had wanted to avoid causing his knight any unnecessary suffering, but it had to be done. "Priscilla, block it."

The red-haired woman did not hesitate. She leaped into the air at impossible speed, intercepting the tank shell with her body and stabbing her sword into it. The shell exploded, tearing Priscilla to bits. The small parts of her that remained disappeared on their own, as though by magic. It wasn't quite as tragic as it might seem. Priscilla would be fine in a day or two. She had only died temporarily.

The shockwave was tremendous, but Dar managed to remain standing.

Dar drew his sword. Without Priscilla he would need to continue the fight personally. Dar turned to his companions. "Can either of you destroy whatever just did that? Preferably before it shoots at us again."

Khariel stoically withstood the shockwave of the explosion with slightly more effort than Dar, but withstood it nonetheless. When Dar requested that the tank that was responsible for the shell should be destroyed, Khariel spoke up in a voice distorted by the dark forcefield surrounding him.

"I'll deal with it." He extended his wings again, and flew up into the sky, arcing above the offense of Russian troops and the tank. The soldiers opened fire on the blot in the sky that was the Nephilim, bullets ricocheting and absorbing into Khariel's forcefield and simply phasing through his intangible wings.

He then dove down directly above the tank, too high for the barrel of the machine to reach. He landed with a powerful psychokinetic crash, a force strong enough to potentially crush the pilot of the tank within, and definitely strong enough to damage the machine to malfunction. Rising from the landing, he summoned shadow tendrils to make quick work of the base of the tank barrel, effectively ripping it off the main segment of the machine.

The surrounding soldiers gaped for a few moments before resuming to fire on Khariel. The light ammunition fire had no effect on Khariel's forcefield, and after a moment or so of light annoyance, Khariel impaled the throats of a few of them with shadow tendrils, and psychokinetically choked the others.

Kane heard the sound of a shell, he grunted and prepared to do something, maybe to either deflect the shell or try and grab everyone and air walk out of danger. But the guy with the sword ordered his red haired girl he summoned to block it, how was she gonna block it? Kane wondered if maybe she had some cool forcefield or something while she used her body to block it, blowing herself to pieces Holy-

His eyes widened, not that you could tell because of his mask, he turned his head to the guy What the heck was that!?! that girl had just killed herself! The raven haired guy went to destroy the tank that had done the act, but Kane just stared in disbelief.