"Dub, Jamal. Can one of you go astral or send a spirit after our biker buddy? We can wait in the lot until you get back."

Dub smiles weakly. "You'll have to ask Jamal to handle that one. I'm just the straight-up spellslinger, remember?"

"Right." Sloan nods, " Jamal, its up to you. Do that thing you do."

Jamal sighs. "You know how painful it is to go astral? It's like pushing your body through a screen door, and feeling your organs get ripped out in the process! Your asking me to do that out of the goodness of my heart?" Jamal stares at them, then snorts and starts to laugh. Jamal shakes out his arms. "I'm just kidding. Someone hold my corpse, I won't be needing it." He smiles, and sits down on the ground. He closes his eyes, and hums.

Snap, crackle, and pop! He's out of his body and blasting down the road at the speed of thought after the motorcycle.

Sloan smiles, shakes his head and then lights a smoke. "Anybody want some fries?"

As Jamal turns astral a vision of fire and vengeance interposes itself between him and the biker. It's large and assumes it's in charge. It's vaguely manlike form points a fiery limb at him and spouts magma like it was spittle. "Feel the pain, little mageling" it shouts at you as a burst of elemental fire emanates from it's astral body, roaring at you with great malice!

The astral flames engulf Jamal, searing his ectoplasmic skin...and causing such a burning smell around his meat body as he gets the deepest of tans! That he's in astral combat is obvious...and he's not doing well!

Dub D hisses in dismay at the sudden, shocking damage manifesting on Jamal's body. Obviously, the mage is in deep, deep trouble. He feels like an idiot, walking around with his foci lit up like a Christmas tree, and never even bothering to do a quick astral scan any time. Very clever, and restrained, of them to resist the temptation to at least blow his Sustaining Focus in favor of remaining hidden. That will probably be next now, though.

The smart thing to do (especially as badly wounded as he is) would be to deactivate his foci, refrain from any astral perception, and hope that Jamal survives and can be healed more successfully than he was. What Dub D actually does is something only a complete and utter idiot, or a Dragonslayer shaman, would do. He opens his sight wide to the astral, looking vengefully for a target.

Seeing the comotion in the back seat, "Hey, what the hell is goin' on?"

"Drek!" exclaims Wil.

The elemental seems to laugh as Jamal burns, though no sound other than the crackling of a major conflagration emanates from the creature! It seems to strut toward Jamal's astral self, supremely confident, if such could be said about such a being. The fire elemental stops to look at Jamal...to really look at Jamal! It's perception drawn away from Dub's astral sight, it does not notice the manabolt until the last second! It "jumps" on instinct and catches the bolt in it's "hip."

"HOW DARE YOU! YOU INSIGNIFIGANT INVAE! BUUUUUURRRRN!"

The powerfull being immolates and rushes toward Dub D like a raging tempest of flame!

In a flash the elemental is there, grasping Dub D in it's powerful, crackling arms. The mundanes would see him go rigid, lifted off the ground to hover there errily, bent slightly at the small of the back. His hair starts to smoke, then urn. His mouth opens to scream, but no sound has time to escape as he combusts. He falls to the ground a smoking pile of ash.

Jamal sees the elemental bearhug the man, astral form raging against the merey percieving shaman! "Hah hahaha! The flesh creature buuurns! You may have been a dragon slayer, but even you could not stand against the elemental death that is the fires of the beast!" The thing says something in some unknown, ancient language that sounds of crackling and popping, a touch of respect in it. "You were brave...so an honorable pyre for the Dragonslayer!" The elemental erupts, gouts of fire shooting all over as Dub D is consumed! His spirit leaves his charred body, shouting defiance as it travels to wherever a shaman's spirit goes.

Dub D buys Jamal the time he needed with his pyrrhic death. The mage gets slurped back into his body. Unfortunately our elemental friend follows...materializing right inside the taxi's front seat on the passenger side!

Jamal groans, first at the pain, but second at the spirit that just materialized. He grabs for his gun, and looks at the others sitting in the back with him. "To put it nicely, the Awakening is pretty rude. To put it rudely," Jamal pushes open the car door frantically as he talks, and takes aim at the wheel. He's gotta slow this thing down if he wants to get out. "We're royally screwed, unless one of you knows how to summon elementals."

Sloan kicks open the door and jumps out. "Fuck that," he says flatly. "Everybody out of the pool."

Ticker freaks out and struggles to open the taxi door. When he gets it open he flops out and scrambles back. "IT'S NOT GRIDLINKED...IT USES FEUL!"

Sloan slides over the the hood of the car and grabs Tick by his collar, "Lets go old timer!" He half drags, half carries the cabbie as far and as fast as possible. [in the direction of what ever cover there is]

Wil fumbles with the door, pushing it open, then scrambles away from the cab as fast as he can.

Jamal follows suit, running as fast as his badly burned body is capable of.

The cab sits there ominously in the McHugh's drive through line up, blocking the way with people behind it honking and shouting as everyone evacuates the vehicle! After about 10 seconds...BOOM! The van probably would have just burned were it not for the presence of ammo. Ticker had tried to sell them guns before...and they were still there. Ammo + fire = pow. Pow + feul = burn. However...Pow + gas pocket in sealed space = BOOM! Concussion and van shrapnel sprays the erea, smashing out rhe windows of the 2 cars behind the van as well as rattling the well armoured McHugh's windows. The people inside hardly notice...but the McCops do!

A piece of Sharpnel catches Jamal hard in the back, and he weakly tries to run away. The pain proves to much for him, and Jamal collapses.

The elemntal gleefully enjoys the carnage of the explosion, like one might a hot tub. However, something familiar begins to manifest. A certain city spirit appears and does it ever look pissed!

"How dare you disturb the very symbol of all that is good in the city that is McHughs? " The spirit is half again the size of the elemental and it floats over. The firey creature actually looks frightened, then just looks gone, "poofed" away by the ancient might of the city. It shifts to a human form, then steps inside McHughs for a minute or two. Then out comes a couple of employees and the city spirit, handing out a free soycaf and McBurger to everyone that sticks around, as well as an apology for the damage done and a promise to pay any repair bills or medical costs.

Wil rushes over to Jamal and starts to try and stabilize him.

Giving Tick the you okay? pat on the shoulder, Sloan scrambles to Wil. "Whatever you're gonna do, do it now. I'm gonna get us some wheels."

Sloan scans the parking lot looking for a vehicle that the most obscured from direct view of the McHughs.

As you're trying to stabalise Jamal, the free spirit walks over with a coffee and McBurger for each of you. It notices Jamal and looks at him with a frown. "Oh, my. Did that elemental cause this? I am quite unimpressed with the callous treatment of my city."

Jamal shudders.... sharpnel lodged in back, heavy burn wounds, and now that guardian angel spirit again. Jamal pats his arm, and his chest to be positive his foci are still there. "Are you my guardian angel spirit? Or am I just extremely lucky?" He groans from all the movement, and tries to stay still so all of his wounds don't hurt so much.

The spirit looks at Jamal again and seems surprised. "You...you were the human that flew into me this morning." It has a strange look on it's face, as if it were considering something.

"Tick, grab your chest and make like you're havin' a heart attack!"

Sloan runs up to the nearest respectable looking person with a car. "HeyMister[Mam]MyCousinGotCaughtInTheBlastAndMyUncleJustHadaHeartAttackAndWeDon'tHaveTimeForTheDocWagon!!" Sloan takes a deep breath before panting out, "WeNeedYourCarT'TakeHimT'Th'Hospital!!" He takes another deep breath, "PleaseMister[Mam]!!YaGottaHelpMe!!"

The elderly woman in the vehicle is allready quite upset when the strange, rugged looking fellow bangs on her window and talks too fast! She sqeuales and pulls out a little pistol and blams away 2 shots...which hit her side window and fail to penetrate! She calms down once she has her view of the fellow obscured by the cracks. SHe starts to roll down her window, only to have it crumble. SHe looks mildly chagrinned now. "Oh, I'm sorry young man...I just got a lettle bent out of shape from the stress. Now, what's that you say? Heart attack? Well, that can't be good, can it? Now, sonny, I won't be just handing you my car, butI can drive you to the hospital."

Meanwhile the big spirit scans Jamal and shakes it's head. "I can heal you, little flesh being, if you make a deal...promise to elimenate this threat to McHugh's...and sacrifice a touch of your life force. Is it a deal?"

Jamal pauses to think. "What do you mean lifeforce, aren't you healing me?" Thinking is obviously painful though, and he cringes as the burns under his chin rub against those on his neck.

The spirit looks at Jamal with a strange kink to it's neck. "If you do not wish, then I can leave you like this..." It slowly turns to walk back to hand out more coffee and McBurgers, pausing dramatically to look back, giving Jamal 1 more chance to say yes.

Jamal sighs. "Hey wait, I never said no, I just wanted to know what sacrificing part of my life force entails!" Jamal instinctively tries to stand up.... Bad idea. He groans in pain, and falls back to his awkward, 'I'm freakin' dyin' here!' position.

The spirit raises it's human form's eyebrow questioningly, not saying a word. The look on it's face is plain though...it seems to say, "What kind of magician doesn't know what I'm talking about?"

Sloan throws his hands up to cover his face and throws himself to the grond when the old lady shoots.

"Jesus, lady!! WaddyaTryin'ToDo? Kill me!?"

The old lady seems startled at Sloan's response. "Oh dear, I'm sorry young man. I'm afraid my nerves just got the best of me, what with that dreadfull explosion..." That's the exact moment the McHugh's employee stops at her vehicle, offering her a McBurger and a soykaf, looking at Sloan like he just grew another head. "Uh...sir? D'you wanna free McBurger and soykaf?"

Life force... "Look buddy, I'd rather be dead then even lose a bit of my life giving juice, your not touching my seme-- uhhh--- spiritual resevoir.... Two life savers is good enough, I don't need to pay for the..." Ouch, too much pain. Jamal looks around and crawls over towards something to lean against. "I don't need to pay for a third."

The spirit shrugged and walked away, back into "Temple McHughs."

Wil puts his shoulder under Jamel's arm and starts to help him over to the car with the little old lady.

Once in, the lady maneuvers out of the line and drives away, off toward the hospital. She must have been a race car driver, because she seemd not to realize the car has brakes. She expertly zips through traffic, arriving in front of the hospital in record time. "Here you go, young man. I don't think your friend had a heart attack, though. It was probably just angina. Anyway, I hope he recovers quick."