((Anybody jump in for this fight. Just don't go to fast because I might not be able to keep up with my constant habit of not being home...))

Everyone needs to stretch their legs, and such was the case with Taco as he stepped through the run-down city. The buildings around him looked to be in ruins, and each one was scheduled for demolition. He figured that it would be a waste to let such an interesting area go to waste, so why not get a fight in?

It was near sunset, causing a red glow to reflect from Taco's robotic body. His stainless steel exterior was smudgeless, but he knew that wouldn't last long. He made a motion with his head, bending it from side to side. If he were a human, this motion would have produced the sound of a neck cracking. It seemed this robot had been watching too many movies.

His orb-like eyes traced the horizons as he did a slow 360 degree turn. Stopping back in his original spot, Taco assumed a defensive pose.

"Alright, let's go."

It seemed the former city of (AI) was about to be demolished by the best.

Nobody did know exactly how many floors Tenshi's Tower held. Perhaps this was a good thing - the people who had found out were located later in teh bottom of a large nearby river.

HM had rented a small suite in the place on floor 42, third window from the left of the Doomcannon and just below the stuffed bear collection. It was comfortable and refused to leave when the demo crews ordered him out. He laughed in their faces - how they'd take down even one building of the OTA would be a marvel. They'd need explosives of epic proportions.

The cloaked killer's slight ears picked up the issuing of a challenge from across the alley. His old ally, friend, and sparring enemy (at times) stood on the horizon, standing as if expecting a battle. Perhaps HM would give the wrecking crews a hand.

Hurling himself out of the fanning windows of Tenshi's Tower, HM descended like an overzealous bird, shimmering the cityscape for half a second. His speed mounted, his hands drew behind him drawing a set of rather vicious, exotic-looking claws. Skimming across the air, HM's form sparked fire and redness licked his mask - he was descending full-bore upon Taco's body.

His first playmate. High Markander. Taco hadn't seen him in a long while and expected that everything from this point on would be rather UNexpected. However, this attack seemed straight forward enough.

Instead of running any of the other directions allowed to him, Taco decided to charge headlong. Rushing HM from the ground, Taco thrust himself into the air with the aid of springs and hydrolics in his legs. He flipped in mid-air and aimed to land on HM's back.

As the cloaked, and apparently now flaming, man raced under Taco, the robot came slamming down on top of him, bring his fists down hard along with the weight of the rest of his body.

The grizzled ancient watched the two combatants duke it out and decided that if anyone was going to be doing any duking, it would be him. After all, it was his city.

It was going to be a violently erroneous ride.

He opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was an ellipsis.

The intentional ommition of information bled out of the ground between HM and Taco, blocking their legitimate attempts at combat.

"My, my. In this terrible land of terrible people, even more terrible architecture, and very few adjectives, two terrible boys are about to have a terrible battle? How terrible."

Reaching into his ragged coat of rags, he withdrew a small jar of sand, he pored it in a row in front of him, and then drug his cane through it.

He grinned with teeth of pure tungsten at his old comrade-combatants, his black eyes glittering with the light of a million stars dying and being reborn.

"The lines been drawn, my tiny minded apes. Do you dare cross it?"

Tapping his cane against the ground, the angles of the buildings leapt from their perch in reality and assembled behind him in the nightmarish form of so many overly botoxed hill women.

Shadow sat in an old building with a recliner still completely intact. Leaning back enjoying the silence with his blade leaning up the chair. "Ah the last moment before the..." Shadow began to say.

As he walked to the window Taco and HM had their attack and Tenshi's initial interuption. Thinking how fun it would be to attack all from a distance with surprise he began to charge his blade with energy. Swinging up effortlessly a large cresent shaped charge flew at the ground where the line Tenshi drew had once been.

Jumping out of the dust that was brought up by the attack crashing through the wall of the small room. "Ah come on, a battle after so long and no one invites me," Shadow said with a smirk standing on top of the medium sized building he had been sleeping in with his sword resting on his shoulder.

Ahrkeath crouched atop one of the many buildings set to be destroyed, her draconic tail twitching much like a cat's. She listened to the sounds of battle coming from afar, her curiosity aroused.

"Maybe I can finally stretch my wings around here," She smiled to herself. Shifting from her usual half-dragon form to full dragon, she flapped and took off, heading for the battle.

Demon was keeping her usual visual in the local bookstore when she heard a ruckus from outside. Don't tell me it's the guys again she said to herself, stashing her book in her bag and heading outside. Her long brown hair was tied off in two half-braided pigtails and wore a blue gingham shirt, beat up jeans and a hair of red leather combat boots. She stopped in the street when she saw that they were at it again. Demon walked over.

"You guys at it again?"

"Because I only fight those who might survive a scrap with me." Tenshi's voice whispered in Shadow's ear. One moment, there was only empty air, and the next, Tenshi stood with his arm resting on Shadow's shoulder. Or rather, someone was. No longer the old man in rags, a tall, rail thin man with blade-fine features and a blood red suit stood next to Shadow. He opened his eyes and looked down at the man, a serpentine smile splitting his lips. His eyes, however, were the same impossibly deep pits of shadow, with brilliant pinpricks of light at their core. "Now why don't you be a dear and go and play with that dragon that has the audacity to think she can fly through my skies, I might even give you a cookie if you can find an entertaining way to cause a lot of collateral damage."

*****

While the blood red suited man was speaking with Shadow, another man, or boy rather, with cowlicked blond hair, and the most adorable features imaginable, sat on Demon's shoulders. He tapped her head with his knuckles.

"Of course we are my fair Demon, what else would we be doing, making macaroni art of fat people at a nude beach. Now that's just wrong, Demon, you've got a sick mind. We already did that last week."

He grinned down at her with that same grin they all shared. "Now why don't you play with us too...I hear you're a real hellion in the heap, or was that a hellcat in bed? I can't remember. Either ways fine with me, just no chit-chat after, K?" He prodded her forehead between the eyes.

*****

The old man coughed up a small wind-up brass version of the barman Isaac, who in turn vomited a small scroll, unfolded it, and opened his slot-mouth to scream the words. "Eleven O'clock is far to orange to be a notary."

As expected, this caused the 8th circle of the Order of Poor Acronyms to turn over in their graves and shake their bony clubs in rage and encase Tak and HM in blocks of salt and shame.

Ah, it was going to be a good day.

Ahrkeath's ears pricked up, catching some of Tenshi's words.

"You want collateral damamge, huh? I'll see what I can do," she grinned, and looking at the vacant structures, spotted one that was suitable.

"Sorry, Ciro, old friend, but this forum died a while ago." With that, Ahrkeath whipped her right wing up, sending a blade of wind through the old Anarchists building. For a moment, nothing happened; then there was a cresendo of shattering glass and concrete that announced the first forum to fall. Demolition had begun in earnest.

Shadow just smiled, not surprised in the least. "Tenshi's speed is always impressive," he thought. Straightening up, "Sounds good to me, I do enjoy cookies," Shadow said scanning the skys for the dragon.

Leaping off the building he yelled, "Call that damage you barely collapsed that building." Charging his blade like before, he swung it in the air causing him to spin. The dark cresent crashed into the third story of the building causing it to slide off and crumble to bits. Bouncing off of random chunks of debris Shadow sent several cresents towards Ahrkeath through the dust.

Landing on a pipe sticking out of a large chunk of concrete. He watched closely to learn Ahrkeath's style. "This should be interesting," Shadow said with his usual smirk.

Ahrkeath could feel the crecsents coming before she saw them, and dove out of the way, using the dust from the building as cover, then slammed into the remaining stories, scattering pieces of concrete everywhere.

"Bye-bye, "The Anarchists". I wonder if anyone still remembers it?" She thought to herself as she watched the dust settle.

((Oh dear, it's been a while since I've RP-ed with you guys. Let's see if I've still got it...))

No one saw it coming; after all, how could they? It was just a gloriously blazing clump of fire, cast out of the Heavens like some renegade exile. Down and down it cascaded, a few pieces of debris breaking away from the mass and flaking off like electric sparks, only to disintegrate and wisp away on the winds created as it plummeted closer to the earth. Was this a means of judgment, sent to earth with its sole purpose to raze the masses below? Or maybe it was a holy vessel, meant to encourage and give hope to a world plagued by so much strife?

Well, the answer was neither.

“IIIII’M BAAAAAACK!”

Slightly muffled, but by some miracle loud enough for all to hear, the message conveyed across the city, echoing in the ears of everyone present. Meanwhile, the protective shielding unfolded away from the awe-inducing spectacle, revealing them to actually be wings; angel’s wings, to be exact. With the coverage pulled away, the rest of its body; including the face; was revealed. Jet-black hair atop his head fluttered wildly in the wind, while the figure’s gleaming yellow eyes seemed to bore into any soul who was fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) enough to meet with them. According to his clothing style and overall body structure, it quickly became apparent that this was a male; and a rather well-built one at that. Though a tad on the lanky side, he was tall and somewhat handsome, wearing a Navy blue, skin-tight sleeveless shirt, brown knuckle-cut gloves, and charcoal-gray cargo pants tucked into black boots. However, the flaming wings perched on his back, each with a solid length of six feet, sort of disrupted his otherwise human appearance; then again, what was the fun in normalcy?

Onward he careened, only several hundred feet from impact with the city down below. For too long had he been away, and with the genesis of a new home on the horizon, he took it upon himself to lend a hand in the annihilation of his former home. Though he currently resided in another domain, perhaps the future site could turn into a fruitful getaway. If not, a few cheap laughs and some mindless destruction never hurt anyone.

Closing in on one particular building, an archaic two-story medical facility by the looks of it, the man thrust out his right arm and grinned maniacally, focusing his energy to the palm of his hand. Not a moment later, a comically oversized sword materialized in his grasp, having an overall length of seven feet and a blade whose width reached a foot. Gunmetal black, its edges were chipped but sharp as ever, and the faces of said blade retained the scratches of battle etched into the wondrous weapon so long ago. Suddenly, as if he had forgotten something, this strange entity casually dug into his back pocket with the left hand, producing a pair of World War II fighter pilot goggles whose lenses took on an aquamarine hue. Swiftly slipping on the accessory over his eyes, he now reached the fifty-foot mark; a couple seconds more and it was demolition time.

He was fully-prepared, ready as he would ever be. There were no more obstacles in his way, nothing to distract him from his objective; it was time for pure mayhem. In one incredible flip forward, the winged warrior gripped the sword’s handle with both hands and swung down with a might unmatched, meeting the top of the building in an execution which couldn’t have been more perfect.

Light erupted from the facility and in a single, massive flash of raw energy. Its detonative power had been catastrophic, enough to lay waste to the Eifel Tower with perhaps 50% of the used force. Yet perhaps overkill was what this mysterious divebomber had been searching for; after all, being cooped up for so long a time would probably make anyone go crazy with power like that.

Reemerging from the rubble, his silhouette seen in a cloud of dust resulting in the explosion, he swung the blade upwards and hoisted it upon his shoulder, the arc letting loose even more debris from the ground. It began to settle and there the figure stood, grinning still but more-so in satisfaction rather than lunacy. He looked down and brought his foot up off the ground, giving his still goggled eyes the chance to read a piece of text amongst the wreckage: ARCHANGEL’S ASYLUM

“Well, the place was abandoned a long time ago. I’ll just build another one, maybe even better this time,” Archangel joked to himself, chuckling as he turned his gaze to the promising horizon...

((Forgive me for the length, I just couldn't resist having a flashy reentrance. =P))