Curb-Stomped By An Angel

Reaibn clings to the carapace of the Angel with one hand, and slams his other fist into the structure in front of him over and over.

The dense ceramic shell first begins to dent, and then finally cracks under the impacts, leaking reddish fluid that smells of mingled brimstone and blood, hot enough to burn a normal man's flesh. He graps the splintering edge of the armor and pulls on it, tearing the rent wider and exposing twitching tissues and metallic cybernetics. He reaches in and tears at the now-unprotected innards, and yanks out a handful of meat and sparking cables. More blood pours from the wound.

A deafening roar comes from somewhere in the guts of the monstrous creature, so low and loud that it felt as if Sachiel was trying to shake itself to pieces. Its tiny birdlike head swivels as much as it can towards him, and its tiny eyes flash--

--WHOOOOOOOOOOM--

--and the next few seconds are a confused blurr as he finds himself airborn, blasted clean off the Angel's shoulder like a tick. There's another CRACK-BOOM as the Angel's main energy weapon finds him again, in the air this time, and the world goes white. Was that a building he just went through? Or a whole block of them? He has the vaguest impression of bouncing ass over teakettle...

"Hey, Mister? Are you okay?"

His eyes reluctantly focus on the source of the voice, somewhere above him. The owner is an old man in work clothes, who has apparently learned to stand sideways on the wall. Other people are clustered around him, all standing sideways on the same wall, all of them sharing his look of concern. Wait, what?

Reaibn's body, which, judging from the feel of it, had been simultaneously incinerated, fed into a woodchipper and the pieces beaten with a very larger club, seemed wedged into a rather large hole in an odd brick floor, which was now cracked to hell and gone.

"How are you standing there on the wall?" Reaibn slurrs out.

"Uh...we're on the ground."

"Oh..." Slowly it sinks in that his odd perspective is because he's the one on the wall--or in it, rather. He's hanging upside down in a hole made by his hurtling body, held in place by his left leg, which actually penetrated clean through to the other side of the wall on impact. He looks back the way he came, focusing with difficulty, and sees the remains of a fence, several splintered, broken trees, several wrecked military vehicles (did I do that? he thinks), and a series of gargantuan dents in the pavement where he'd bounced. . Alarms ring in the distance, and, far away, he hears the sound of something huge bellowing. And gunfire. Lots and lots of gunfire.

Reaibn pulls his leg out of the hole with difficulty, and slides down the wall to the ground, where he finds himself face-to-face with a ceramic garden gnome. He moans.

"Where am I?" he finally manages to croak. "H-how did I get here?"

"You really don't remember?" asks a young girl. Wow...Reaibn thinks. She looks really young. And pretty. And before she can say anything, he starts to remember. Punching a hole in Sachiel...the ocean..the flying house...Holy Jesus, I'm made of metal...

"I think the Angel, ummm..shot you," she says. "And you went flying--right through the middle of the city."

"Jeez, mister--what are you MADE of?" says the older man, crouching beside him and prodding at his metallic skin in disbelief. It's still hot, smoking in places as a result of whatever the Angel hit him with.

"This is the shopping district. I think you sort of went through the business quarter and some hotels over there..." she points back the way Reaibn came from, past the wrecked cars, and he sees a building with a gargantuan hole in its wall, leading clear through to the other side. The whole thing is listing precariously, and debris is still falling. "And then you sort of went bouncing down the street. I think you bounced four or five times...and you finally stopped against the wall of my grandfather's ceramics factory. We saw you while we were heading down to the shelter," she says. "Do we maybe need to call for an ambulance or something? If they'll get out before the Angel is taken care of, that is..."

Reaibn winces. "Yeah, thanks. Look..uhhh--can someone please help me up? I'm kind of dizzy..."

And the group of them help him to his feet, gingerly using their clothes to keep from burning themselves on his cooling metal hide. He wobbles and nearly falls (Wow, I've been concussed, he thinks, the world around him panning and tilting), but finally manages to keep his balance. He notices the sound of combat seems to be coming closer. His newfound friends seem to be getting nervous, he sees. Well, more nervous.

1. Sure enough, Sachiel is actually ignoring the Eva's and the military to look for the mite that tried to hurt it. Maybe running is in order?
2. He tells them to get to the shelter, and heads towards the fighting to see if he can do something there to help.
3. He decides to take shelter with the other people and wait out the battle.
4. Something else happens, or doesn't, as the next author decides.
5. Whoah..Reaibn has an AT-Field of his own. Kewl.

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