Origins: Snapshots In Time 157

China
The Wolfkin Den
Launching Bay D-2

Vincent moved within the entryway.. and then reached behind him and hit the controls on the wall next to the doors. The doors slammed shut behind his chair. Yes, it was cutting them off from their ranged fire support, but it would also keep the hostiles contained to this hallway. Though anyone could come and go if they wanted and knew how to open the doors. With that done, those red eyes of his scanned the hallway.

"Uncle, they are dressed for fighting you." He commented, and reached up to pull his collar off from around his throat, just in case. "They are almost completely covered up."

"I NOTICED, thanks much Vincent..." Matthew shot back.

"There are too many here - and too many more coming." Vincent said calmly.

"Get the hell out and back with the noncoms, dammit. You can't even fucking walk, Vincent, an--"

"No." It was said quietly - so very quietly, but with a deadly, lethal edge to the tone that wasn't normally in his voice. It was enough that Matthew snatched at the adult next to him and sent him flying across the hallway while staring at his nephew. Vincent returned the look calmly, and then looked up the hallway.

And that was when he started chanting.

The sound of the heavy, large doors at the end of the launch bay resonated through the hallway and the room beyond, carrying well over the cacophony of the battle. To Matthew's ears, the slamming of the doors seemed ominous - almost final. He glanced back there briefly, then quickly returned his attention to the combatants in front of him. That look in his nephew's eyes was... very unsettling. Not that he would ever have admitted it to anyone.

Vincent sat there, literally inches away from the doors, arms casually folded in his lap in the wheelchair as if he were just setting there to enjoy the night stars outside. The Marauder team lead's crimson eyes looked past his Uncle, and past Shun - he paid neither man any heed. They looked beyond the assorted Wolfkin warriors. They took in the dead and dying Wolfkin on the floor, and the dead and dying Troopers nearby.

Then Vincent leaned forward, just a bit, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, and fixed that red-eyed gaze of his on the far, far end of the hallway, where there was a pop of displaced air and a brief wisp of some kind of greyish smoky haze. The visual and audio effects dissipated quickly, leaving in it's place another large group of Troopers.

It wasn't long after that - perhaps a second or two - that Vincent's calm, unemotional, cool monotone could be heard, carrying just above the noise of combat. Whatever the young man was saying, the wolves in the hallway couldn't understand it - and neither could Matthew. But all around them the walls had begun to darken with some kind of swirling, spiderweb-like substance. The stuff moved and slithered like it was alive, and it was quickly reaching up to encase the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.

Vincent's manner never changed. And his voice never raised, and his tone never shifted out of that silken monotone as he chanted. His hands moved lightly in front of him, and then he lifted his head and seemed to straighten up further in the chair. Red eyes fixed on the group of Troopers closest to Matthew and Shun. His right hand moved, waving slightly, poking into the swirling blackness that had begun to fill the hallway.

Around them, there were unhappy whimpers and growls from the Wolfkin that could smell and taste the death rolling off of the boy. The wolves didn't care for it; many an ear was flattened to it's skull; many a tail was lashing in agitation. Even Shun's teeth bared slightly in response to the magics starting to swirl around them as the Marauder continued to chant.

It was then that the blackness suddenly broke around them - replaced with wispy, smoky white shapeless... things that went flying past them with a screech that left every wolf and every Scorpion in the hallway with their hair standing on end. Quickly following the shapeless white smoke was a dragon-shaped thing made out of pure shadow. Shadow that had red, glowing eyes like it's master.

The shadow-dragon launched into the thick of the fighting, and the wraith-like smoky things were flying in and around and through the various Troopers in the launching bay. The wails and screeches that resulted from them - and those they touched - were quickly succeeding in rattling every Wolf in the area.

Perhaps the most unnerving thing about the entire matter, Shun thought as he came up at Matthew's side yet again, was that the wraith-things and the shadow-dragon-thing were so cleanly picking their targets. Not one wolf, and not one Scorpion was touched by either manifestation of the Marauder's sorcery. But it was time to start distracting people away from the crazy stuff the Maruader was doing.

"Now.. while Vincent does his thing.. lets see who can kill the most." Shun's blue-white eyes glittered with dark amusement before grinned, adjusted his stance fractionally and lunged back into the fray.

Matthew chuckled slightly and smirked as he followed the big Alpha back into the mix as well. "I knew there was a reason I got on so well with you in a fight."