The damage to her knee proved to be just what the doctor ordered, as Cyrus immediately took advantage of the situation and attacked her in her weakened state, but the Argent promptly put the man on his ass. Arkash looked down at his rifle, then lifted it to aim when he believed that Cyrus was in trouble, but the bolt had yet to click; it was still cooling down. Arkash lowered the gun and promptly thumped it with his balled fist. "C'mon!" he yelled and shook the device. He didn't care if the golem exploded or injured him, so long as he was able to fire at that moment.
Thankfully, there was no need to force the gun, which was good as it was impossible to jailbreak it without the proper tools; Cyrus charged the woman a second time, and the two engaged in a battle of fury. Cyrus was bleeding, though, unlike the Argent. He could smell the coppery taste in the air, the telltale whisper of a wounded animal nearby. Such smells put his teeth on edge and formed a pit on his stomach, but they were smells he'd long since learned to cope with and to ignore the instincts that surrounded them.
Cyrus blasted the argent's arm with his pistol, and Arkash moved his arm to bring Cullen and the boy to duck. They were in the line of fire, all it would take was a sloppy aim to kill either one of them. Thankfully, Cyrus was skilled enough not to miss at point-blank, put a dent in her arm, and forced her to drop her shield.
It really did infuriate the lizard; Argent were so ridiculously strong. She'd been shot three times and was still fighting above the abilities of a regular mortal. They could all move like him despite weighing several times his weight with their immortal armors. While Arkash watched the fight unfold, he watched a man take the fight to a god.
When his rifle finally clicked and heralded that it was ready, Arkash took aim, but the two were moving too fast again. He couldn't take the shot without putting Cyrus in the crossfire. Arkash bared his teeth and hissed while he stared down the iron sight; it was his last shot, too. It had to count for something, or he was throwing away his only chance at winning the fight... That was if Cyrus didn't pull through.
So when the woman's back was turned to him and Cyrus was driving a flamelance to her face, Arkash shot the woman in the back of the head with a boom of his rifle and prompt explosion from the flamelance Cyrus had conjured. The strike of Arkash's bullet on her head assured that her face made contact with the explosive force of Cyrus's magic, and aided, if a little, in her defeat.
As Cyrus rolled across the floor as backlash from the boom, Arkash slung his rifle over his shoulder and drew his knife, but he was already too late. Cyrus drove his blade into the visor of her helm and hopefully killed her. Arkash stared with his teeth bared. Was it enough? Was she really dead? It was so hard to tell with some of those monsters.
The human walked on by him while Arkash stood tense, contemplating whether or not he should stab her in the face again for good measure, but decided against it. He sheathed his dagger, and nodded to the suggestion before he ran to catch up with Cyrus. His spurt of energy began to withdraw, and exhaustion crept around the edges of his consciousness as he brought the human's arm to rest on his shoulders for support.
With his free claw, he pulled Cyrus's spare arm to hold the wound on his abdomen. "Keep presha', dum'ass," warned the rath while he helped the doctor along. "Fay an' Az prolly 'ave some ban'ages an' shit, we's close now," he explained with obvious concern to the furrow of his brows.
Cyrus had lost a lot of blood, the scent of weakened prey emanated heavily off the man. The taste of venom stirred in his palette and urged him to chomp the weakened human. Just one little bite was all it would take to satisfy his instincts, but he wouldn't. A neoalt was far more capable of resisting their instinctual urges.
Eventually, the trio arrived at the entrance of the sewers; a covered manhole in a darkened alley. Arkash handed Cyrus over to Cullen, then knelt at the side of the manhole to rap his knuckles on the frosty iron grating in a series of knocks. Maybe a dozen seconds later, the grate lifted by some force that laid in the darkness of the sewers and pushed aside. "Come on down, Ark," instructed Asmodei's voice.
"I foun' a few more surviva's..." Arkash explained.
"Ah! Send them down first then. How bad are their wounds?"
Arkash's eyes looked over Cullen and the boy, who appeared to be in good health, then settled on Cyrus. "Two of 'em's fien, Cyrus's in bad shaep, tho'," he elaborated.
"...Cyrus is there?" The Velsign asked, then popped his head out of the sewer grating and looked about briefly before spying the wounded doctor and the party. "You both look like hell," the velsign spoke most honestly. Arkash merely grinned in response. As the velsign withdrew into the sewers again, he spoke "Send Cyrus down first," from the dark of the underground tunnels.
In the muggy darkness, the groans, whimpers, and sobbing of nearly three dozen broken nameless could be heard. Out of the thousands that had perished, that was all the group was able to save.
Image source.
