zg_shadows | A time for Heroes

London is burning, the fires and damage everywhere, as the images scroll across the conjured screen Richard surveys from beyond the gauntlet with a quick twist of his hand before the image it wavers and shows fires rising above the champs elysee, red square, times square, du point circle, beverley hills, the horizon is dark from the giza plateau where the flames of cairo rise, tianamen square is littered with rubble and in all places the rats move,

'have they struck the whole world?' a chill passes through him despite the less violent surroundings the near umbra provides
with but a gesture a gentle chiming sound rings across the worlds and into the area nearby where the werewolves have retreated to for discussion, as one comes out to investigate Richards voice echoes across the air 'This is not just here, the rats have hit every city, the world is burning, i thought you should know but didnt want to just walk in'

'yes because if you had we would have had to kill you' comes the reply as the werewolf turns to reenter the gathering place,

Richard then turns back to his screen to find there in the chaos a van, and in the van a familar band
Leslie answers his phone unsurpised its ringing despite the circumstances 'Its Richard, the rats have done this everywhere, every city, oh and they tore apart scar, ripped it to pieces and threw the bits into charybdis, they were doing at the behest of a certain Scythe, yes the same one, they chanted the prophet commands as he gave them orders, i dont recall him actually ordering the scale of destruction but still, there were thousands of them'

Richard turns back and looks, somewhere some how there has to be a way he can make a small difference before finding out the larger implications and whats going on, and there in a part of london removed from his own area there is a bus, seems to have been fairly packed anyway and plowed into a building, by the looks of it some came to their help and now they themselves are under siege judging by the rats gathering around the bus,

with a short preparation Richard is ready, Be subtle in your arts, lest sleepers become aware of what you are well they arnt likly to become aware of who is helping them but this is perhaps not the definition

the rats approach the bus, a large number of humans are inside, already the attacks are thinning the work is nearly done but there is still more to be done and this bus are a large group of humans to be struck in their bus of metal and glass,
out of the shadows from behind a burning building walks a figure, head to foot in red robes with a red hood over his face, like a crimson member of the KKK carrying a long tall staff with a red cloak billowing behind him, in a voice not unlike Michael Caine it speaks,
'these people are protected, leave now or else'
the rats begin to approach him gathering together to rush this masked fool when with a chanting of old ancient words and the staff trailing fiery sparks as it etches a pattern in the air a ball of fire pours forth and annihilates almost all of the rats, the survivor clutching its burning body staggers forward to swipe missing by a hair and then collapsing in shock when the staff strikes with a force like fire and silver itself, the figure in red staggers, that was a draining one, but the effort needed to get all the rats in one blast needed it, even now paradox could be felt rearing back to strike, once would be punished with pain, more would be too risky now, by force of will the figure in red clears his mind and stands tall and calls out,
'over here in this building you will be safe in here, gesturing to a bombed but still reasonably intact building'
voices can be heard, he sounds familiar, sure that sounds like some actor, hey that sounds like Michael Cain
beneath the hood the hero smiles, the disguise works then,

' i am Pyrrhus and remember no matter how dark things seem there is a hero in us all that can save the day if we but let him out'

and with that the hero runs into the fire and chaos to hide and find a door that will become a door to the other places, for now he has buisness in umbra, as he finds a door and types in the numerlogical representation of the invocation of passage beyond the veil into a keypad beside it and steps through the door the storm the gauntlet and the world he discards the disguise, red cloth is easy to come by, when your a mage