Who You Gonna Call?

Spoiler:

A chainsaw? Oh. Oh ho. They were just making this too easy, now.

White Whisper casually lifted his cigarette to his mouth. "Careful there, now," he murmured, trying not to sound too giddy. "One teensy little spark in that chainsaw's gasoline tank, and..."

There was a loud sort of "thwump" sound as the gasoline tank exploded.

"...that'll happen." The colt smiled. "Funny how all these crazy coincidences like freak gusts of wind and stray bursts of heat are happening right when they'd be most appropriate, huh? Almost enough to make you think something supernatural was going on..."

Spoiler:

Gallows lets out a cry and falls back, paws covering his face. Hallows immediately breaks off her attack to jump down and assist her brother. She lays down next to him, checking him over. Her ears drop at the sight of blood coming from beneath his paws. "Uh... oh no, don't move, I'll..." "Cmmtphr" is the only reply she gets, and she looks at him worriedly. "What?"

After a moment, Gallows moves his paws away from his face, and he stands up, blood steadily trickling from the gash. "CASTOR." Hallows takes a moment, and then recovers herself, nuzzling her brother. "POLLUX." They stand there for a moment, stock still, swaying for a moment, and then both turn and face the other twins once again. "ROMULUS." "REMUS". They advance in a slow, steady, vicious prowl.

---

Combat:

Rhinestone's eyes widened at the weapons and then further at the twins going into a trance. "Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap...."

Desperate and scared, she fell prostrate on the ground, careful to avoid the knives. While down, she began praying very very loudly, projecting her voice as far as she could. "Celestia in sunlight, please defend my friends from the metric buck-load of weapons behind the counter and the two scat-faces who wield them, amen!"

At the end of her prayer, her eyes lit up and glowed an even more brilliant pink than usual. After a moment, the pink light dimmed and floated away from her to surround the other members of the party.

Meta:

The crowd continues to panic, getting ever closer - if the combatants aren't careful they could hit some innocent pony.

"Hey, what do you think would happen if I goosed one of these bozos right now?" asked Bell Mare.

---

Sweet Puff's turn.

"HEY! EVERYPONY STAY AWAY, UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET HURT BY ONE OF US, EH?" Sweet Puff screams at the crowd, while working on making another cloud bunny while the other one goes for Kidd's eyes.

Combat:

Cloud Bunnehs:

Combat:

Seeing Rhinestone shy away from his knives, Maverick winced at his stupidity, pulling them back and whirling them around a second time; this time scoring several direct hits! He mentally celebrated a moment as he prepared for the next volley...

Status/Revelation:

Unfortunately one of the knives misses the mark and strikes a member of the crowd!

"MY LEG!" came a cry from within the masses.

---

[-X] Oh, the Humanity! [Reaction Utility]
Trigger: An enemy uses a damage-dealing [-X] attack.
Effect: Spend X pips, where X is the number of PiPs the enemy spent, and take the damage instead.

They did it to Blind Rage.

---

As the chainsaw catches on fire Kidd quickly throws it away, looking panicked as knives drive themselves into his flesh. Wint comes back up holding a large box.

"Mr. Wint, you shouldn't have." "Well if I shouldn't, I suppose the only thing to do..." "Is give it away."

Mr. Kidd opens the box and quickly ducks behind the counter as several pipes are propelled out by some spring-like mechanism, whacking most of the ponies.

---

Made the Ongoing saving throw. Wint and Kidd are now Bloodied.

3 damage to Maverick.
4 damage to Sweet Puff.
2 damage to Rhinestone.
8+4 = 12 damage to Hallows and Gallows.
10 damage to White Whisper.

Flinching away from the pipes and desperately wishing they wouldn't hit him, White Whisper jumped backwards.

Simultaneously, his mind jumped forwards, grabbing one of the pipes near the front and holding it firmly in place across the path of most of the others. The pipes crashed into their brother and scattered haphazardly, forward momnetum mostly arrested. One barely scraped double W's hoof as it rolled across the ground at high speed, causing a tiny bit of pain.

White Whisper took a deep drag on his cigarette as the pipes fell to the floor.

Spoiler:

Hallows jumps around in front of Gallows, shielding her and taking the brunt of the flying pipes. He barely flinches, though, even as they painfully bounce and ricochet off of him. He just looks at his sister with a look of determination, and says, "FREYR."

"FREYJA."

The two turn and face Wint and Kidd once again, stand up tall, and let out a howl. It is mesmerizing, blood curdling, and ear splitting all at the same time. The noise fills the room, shaking the walls and furniture. It echoes, bouncing about in cacophony, and then suddenly, all at once, every echo syncs up, coming together as one powerful wave of sound- pointed right at the two assassins. The jackals cry out in unison as the attack climaxes. "SCYLLA, CHARIBDIS!" It collides with their counter of weapons like a battering ram, and barrels through, smashing it, and them, against the wall with and eardrum rupturing concussion. The brunt of the force hits Kidd, in retaliation to his Chainsaw swinging, but Wint takes enough to get heavily disoriented, blood  dripping from his ears.

---

Combat:

As Hallows and Gallows begin to howl, Wint and Kidd duck behind the counter. The howl, in piercing the air, strikes many members of the crowd as well, slamming them into various walls as well. As the howl disperses, Wint and Kidd slowly push the counter away, though progress is slow given that it's heavy and takes up much of the room's length.

---

Impressive, but interruptable. I'm gonna post the stats after you get done with this battle so it'll make more sense.

Rhinestone's turn.

At the sound of Bell Mare's voice in her head, Rhinestone actually found herself smiling. You know what? I'm curious too. I may be bringing you in on this fight soon anyway, so you might as well have some fun before that happens.

As she "Spoke" to Bell Mare, Rhinestone looked over Kidd, trying to figure out how close he and/or Wint were to falling unconscious. "Bruises, ruptured epidermis, various owies, possible broken bones, blasted eardrums..."

Meta:

Bruises from shovel whacking. Several knives in the flesh. Burns from an exploded chainsaw. Actively bleeding. Would have been crushed by the desk had they not gotten extremely lucky. They're not looking too hot.

The crowd shakes off their ruptured eardrums and looks at the jackal twins in panic.

"I'm all aquiver."

"My god! Even the children are dangerous!" shouted one.

---

Meta:

"Luna's Garden, you guys! Are you trying to kill everypony in here?" Sweet Puff shoves her hoof into her bag, trying to find a certain candy...

Combat:

Cloud Bunnies:

Combat:

Maverick let loose another volley as he got an idea. Why hadn't he thought of that before!?

Status:

The knives fly into the crowd, sticking various ponies in the backside. The two assassin ponies place a large box on top of the counter.

"We seem to be having dog problems." "It seems their bark is much, much worse than their bite!" "Lucky we have ones that bite, eh?"

Wint knocks on the box twice as Kidd ducks behind the counter. The box flies open and two large, ravenous dogs fly out, one biting Hallows and another biting White Whisper before losing interest and moving to bite Maverick.

---

Two Guard Dogs have just been conjured! They rolled pretty low, though - Whisper and Maverick take 1 damage and Hallows/Gallows take 2.

Also, I forgot to mention that the crowd made their saving throw.

Whisper's turn.

White Whisper made a short hop back. "Never liked dogs," he muttered, appearing to focus on the beast before him. Sharp fangs, that one.

The way the desk suddenly rattled and rolled about, and the way the ghostly colt acted surprised, one would almost think he really had nothing to do with it.

Spoiler:

Hallows and Gallows jump away from the dogs, backpedaling to get behind some of the others. "Brainless mutts." Hallows says with detest, her and her brother clearly insulted by the comparison. Still, they hold back, and once again come together to build their strength and resolve.

---

Gambling that this fight will last another 3 turns.

Combat:

At the sight of their cover shaking, a grin slowly spread over Rhinestone's face. "You two done bucked up."

Lucked out, Bell. Looks like you don't have to get involved if you don't want to.

With that, she stayed prostrate for a moment to pray again, more pink light floating around her teammates before getting up and slamming her shovel hard into Kidd's face so it slammed into Wint's. They both breathed out blue smoke which settled around the twins. Finally, she stood on her front hooves and bucked the shaking desk so its vibrating form was mashed against the two ponies, rattling painfully against them.

Meta:

"Oh pooh. I was SO looking forward to saying hi to your friends again."

Kidd looks back at Rhinestone and spitefully spits at her eye. Some of the crowd, meanwhile, has dispersed, while others are trying and failing to be heroes and disarm the combatants on either side.

---

Sweet Puff's turn.

After shoveling around in her bag, Sweet Puff pulls out a bag of sour pop rocks. "Eh, this'll work, I guess. Most of the crowd is gone, so minimal injuries." With that, she pulls out a bottle of soda, dumps in the candy, closes it and shakes it up, then tosses it behind the counter where Wint and Kidd are.

Combat:

Cloud Bunnies:

---

I do believe combat is now over?

With a series of loud "BANG"s, the sour pop rocks explode inside the cola, sending the bottle flying, the crowd fleeing, and Wint and Kidd into unconsciousness that can easily be retconned into a fatal blow. The noise also startles the dogs, who flee outside, whining with their tails between their legs. Soon enough, the lobby is empty except for the assassins and the party.

Rhinestone slowly exhaled, wiping the spit out of her eye. She clambered gracelessly over the upturned desk and knelt by Wint and Kidd, putting her hoof to the pulse-point on their necks to make sure they were alive.

Heal check:

"So...what are we gonna do with these bozos besides breaking all their toys?"

"Well, if we're breaking their toys, let's at least finish doing that... Wait, scratch that. Maxim 1: Pillage, then burn. Start going through this stuff, see if there's anything worth keeping; I can fix some of it if need be. But first," he said, turning his head to look at the entrance. His horn lit up, surrounding the metal grills that barred entry at night, pulling them closed.

((Or some such equivalent. The crowd's gone, Maerick doesn't want them creeping back in just yet.))

"OR, you know, hear me out here, considerin' we just had a major fight scene in the middle of an extremely crowded place that likely has security cameras and do genuinely have some stolen bits on us - stolen from the mob they might be - how about instead of adding more crimes to charge ourselves with, we, I dunno, get ourselves the hay out of here before the police show up?!"

The cigarette in White Whisper's mouth was little more than a piteous stub at this point.