2017-05-27: HIS LOVE FOR THE TEARDROP IS LIKE A TRUCK
- Log: HIS LOVE FOR THE TEARDROP IS LIKE A TRUCK
- Cast: Cecilia Adlehyde, Bart Fatima, Tethelle Cirdian, Rudy Roughnight, Claude C. Kenny, Berserk
- Where: Adlehyde City
- Date: 5/27/2017
- Summary: Cecilia decides to negotiate with the Teardrop for the saftey of her city. Berserk gets involved. Things get bad quickly.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
IT HAS BEEN: AN UNCERTAIN BUT MATERIALLY SIGNIFICANT PERIOD OF TIME SINCE THE QUARTER KNIGHTS ATTACKED.
The plan to escape the Castle was simple, in its way: Bart would tend to some last-minute preparations of his own; Tethelle would go get a sword; and Cecilia would go secure the actual exit, and signal them, possibly by bribing a passing wind mouse or something.
With the party reassembled, they are now plus one: Cecilia found Rudy Roughnight in the halls and had him help her get the things they need, which it turns out to be a magically-attuned crest, and the knowledge of which wall emblazoned with the sword emblem of the knights to hold it against. Cecilia holds the Shield Badge up, and the sword icon and the Shield Badge both release faint lights...and the sword grinds aside.
Cecilia turns, pocketing the badge and looking to her assembled companions. "It's time," Cecilia says, and takes a long breath; hand pressing to her chest to suppress the quivering of her heart. "It's through here. Let's go swiftly. Every moment is another death..."
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
"Yeah, we better move quickly," Bart muses as he joins up with the group. He's doing a couple stretches, because despite everything that has happened up until now, he has the feeling that this is going to be the main event. The Demons will probably be looking for someone who is trying to make a break for it, and escaping from the city means that things are going to get more than a little crazy.
"As long as we can keep running, we're going to keep moving forward," the pirate states, although he sounds more confident than he actually is. He knows is if the enemy is not going to let up anytime soon. Bart checks his equipment, ensuring that his whip, gun, and a selection of healing items are still in their proper places.
"Don't think I'm gonna be any more ready." He reaches over, setting one hand on Cecilia's shoulder and giving as reassuring a smile as he can manage. "No matter what happens, don't look back, Ceci. We'll make it through this, one way or another."
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle may not have been entirely convinced of the wisdom of Cecilia's choice, but now that she's made it she's willing to support it. This won't be the end, she knows; all it changes is what the next step(s) are.
When she arrives to meet the group, she is actually carrying not one sword but one and two halves. She has a rather old-looking but surprisingly well-tended blade, not quite as large as her original one but close; it's probably meant to be used with either one hand or two. But she couldn't bear to leave her heirloom blade - her master's blade - behind, and so she still has it on its carrier, sheared into two pieces by Siegfried's attack. The other half is in her pack, bundled in some other supplies.
Cecilia may be slightly suspicious about the provenance of her borrowed sword. It looks suspiciously like one of the ones that was hanging in the guard room. Tethelle realized it was a real blade, not designed as decoration, and even if nobody has used it in probably a hundred years or more years of trainees have been told to keep it clean and free of rust. She sharpened it herself. That's what took most of the time.
"If you had told me you would be moving a sword to get out, I would have saved myself the time getting this one," Tethelle says, by way of a slight joke. She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "You're right. If we are to do this, it should be now." Cecilia clearly hasn't changed her mind.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
As Cecilia and Rudy are joined by Bart and Tethelle, the boy with the blue hair instinctually takes a backseat. Despite glimpses of potential for Rudy to be a leader that crop up here and there, he definitely doesn't have the visible force of presence that some like Bart have, or the quiet authority that Cecilia has. The Princess has gleamed insight from Rudy's seemingly plagiarized wisdom and that shared, he seems content to be silent once more.
As the group synchronizes goal and intent, the young man is just checking his weapons. There are three cartridges that need to loaded: one for standard bullets, the second for the Boosted Shot, and the third for something that he found within the Tomb. He doesn't know exactly what it is, but who knows, it might be useful. The weapons are all loaded and he has a cheap bowie that he found in Morgan's cache of supplies in the sheath.
Once his Hand Canon is prepared with this standard ammo, Roughnight looks toward the group with a simple nod once it's clear they expect him to say something. "Let's do this," he offers as he places his weapon behind his back once more, prepared to move out into the world.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny has had better days. Even his first week at the Academy, when every other word out of anyone's mouth was 'admiral' or 'ronyx' was better than these past two days have been. People are dying everywhere, he tore up a chunk of the city wall losing a fight against a guy he thought was a friend, he got dunked on by not one but two Quarter Knights, and he failed to save Cecilia's dad.
This last fact, and a metric asston of healing magic dumped into him by Rena Lanford, is what is keeping him moving right now. In fact, given the utter shitkicking Cecilia alone has seen him take might cause one to wonder just how he's still up.
Claude fastens his jacket closed and shifts the weight of the borrowed hand-and-a-half sword he's wearing belted across his back. He's lost three sowrds in the fighting, but... there are a lot more without owners right now. "Understood," he says, checking the load on a gunsmoke shotgun he picked up on a run with Ida - plenty of ARMs without owners as well. "Taking point," the young man adds, moving forward with short steps, levelling the weapon as he heads forward.
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
B e f o r e :
- BOOOOOOOM*
"This is PATHETIC!"
Despite the deafening sound of Castle Adlehyde's easternmost wall behind blown out as if it were made of no more than tissue paper, the Quarter Knight Berserk's annoyed roar still manages to pierce through the din as he barrels into the once well-fortified royal grounds. Rubble smashes over his green, crested head, but the Metal Demon hardly even notices as dust and dirt buffets around him in thick, concealing plumes. Beneath him, what looks like six identical copies of one small man dissipate into so much magical energy. Berserk doesn't notice.
No. He just looks... bored.
And irritated.
"Tt. This has been a god damn crock," he spits, displeasure ringing in his rumbling tone. He looks into the depths of the castle; hears the fighting going on just above him. Rolls his neck.
"Let's just get this garbage over with. The old fashioned way."
---
"WHERE IS THE TEARDROP?"
"I-i don't know what tha--"
- BOOOOOOOM*
A maid goes flying out a door.
"WHERE'S THE TEARDROP?!"
"GUARDIANS SAVE M--"
- BOOOOOOOM*
A nobleman goes flying out a door.
"WHERE'S. THE GOD DAMN. TEARDROP?!"
"You'll never find it, you foul fi"
- BOOOOOOOM*
A priest goes flying out a door.
This is the pattern that has been following in Berserk's wake in the outer levels of Castle Adlehyde. Marching through the buildings lining the outer walls of the castle with a look of increasing consternation on his monstrous features, the Quarter Knight's footfalls thunder as he storms into room to room, booming questions and tossing anyone who doesn't answer -exactly the right way- aside like so much refuse. Considering the unconscious bodies littering the halls of the castle now, he seems to have been at this for quite some time.
"Useless. All of 'em," growls out the demon around slathering jaws as he smashes his massive wrecking ball into one of the nearby, skeletal Metal Beasts that bedeck him, shattering it into so many bony pieces with a sickening CRUNCH.
"LISTEN UP!" bellows the Demon, his voice so loud it reverborates far and wide throughout the castle thunderously. "I AM BERSERK, QUARTER KNIGHT OF THE METAL DEMON ARMY. AND I AM DONE DEALING WITH STUPID, FRAGILE MEATBAGS. I AM GONNA WAIT AT THE ENTRANCE OF THIS FLIMSY LITTLE CASTLE FOR TEN MINUTES. ONE OF YOU IS GONNA GIVE ME THE TEARDROP IN THAT TIME, OR I'M BRINGING WHATEVER'S LEFT OF YOUR TRASH HEAP YOU CALL A FORTRESS CRASHING DOWN AROUND YOUR FLESHY LITTLE EARS! GOT IT?!"
And off Berserk stomps, skeletal companions following close behind as his eyes gleam with irritable contempt.
The Berserk Method: Tried and True.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia has gathered the people she trusts most, which considering she only sort of knows Claude is also kind of a sad commentary on her social life, in a way. But he's been fighting non stop for the kingdom and people she loves; flagging him over was an obvious enough choice.
"Alright. We're going to go into town and we're going to give them the Teardrop. It's..." She hesitates; just a moment, not sure what to say that hasn't already been.
Which is when Berserk's voice resonates through the entire castle, blasting like a sonic cannon through the entire structure.
She looks startled, sure; but her eyes also widen. Noeline, that mysterious...individual, told her to seek out Riesenlied. That might be wise. But a more direct threat like that...
Her fist clenches around the Teardrop, dangling freely around her neck. "...we don't have a choice, then. At least he's waiting. Let's end this."
And so she turns to go, walking into the sewers beneath Adlehyde.
Perhaps unexpectedly they are actually Horrible Mutant-free, and passage is swift although for some reason blocked by a lot of hanging-grate puzzles.
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
The noise that is being driven through the castle is rather terrible, but Bart can already tell that things are getting bad in here. He looks at Cecilia for a moment, and states, "Looks like we're probably going to need to do the whole 'let's draw them away from the innocent people' routine a hell of a lot earlier than expected," he mutters. All of those *BOOOOM*s are starting to get on his nerves, and it sounds like whatever is making that noise is not in a good mood. ...or maybe... too good a mood?
"...really sounds like someone who needs to get PUNCHED IN THE FACE," Bart adds, glancing back over his shoulder.
But as they begin their trek through the sewers, Bart also adds, "I kinda have my doubts about how much that thing is gonna stop breaking things - but this is your call." He looks at Tethelle, Rudy, and Claude for a moment, and chuckles. "Well if he wants to try and attack us even if we're willing to offer him what he wants, at least we've got a good crew here to make him regret it."
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle Cirdian has seen Rudy's hand cannon before, but she doesn't really know how it works. She's supposed to be the weapons expert, so she watches him check the load as if it would reveal its secrets to her.
And it sort of does. Tethelle is pretty sure she could load it now if she had to. She's just not sure she could do anything else with it (such as hit the broad side of a barn). It probably doesn't matter. When is she going to need to fire an ARM?
She also gives Claude a thoughtful look over and a slight nod. "You and me both," she says, striding toward the front of the group. It's not that she doesn't trust him, it's that she can't do anything if she's not in arms' reach of the target. Having two swords (okay, a sword and a half, as previously noted) doesn't let you hit things from twice as far away.
Tethelle pauses as they walk. The sound of the Berserk Method is distinct, and even though she's never met the man before, she already has pegged his type. Macho. Loud. Aggressive. Not about to back down, and probably difficult to bluff, too. She's met people like him before, if perhaps not so... Metal Demon-y.
She's always been good at getting the feel of people. Even at this distance.
"If you're sure." Tethelle seems slightly concerned, in this case not because of the plan but because of... Berserk. They've already dealt with two Quarter Knights (or, perhaps, been dealt with by them), and here's a third, demanding what the first two could not get. Even Bart's words don't cheer her up. They're hurt and tired, after all; how could they not be, after a day like that?
Also, Tethelle knows how many pieces quarters make, and can count to four. "I will keep watch," she says, because she expects Berserk may have a partner, too - just one that's not quite as loud as him.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
There is a long pause as Berserk speaks. Something comes from the silent Rudy as the shout comes. His head is lowered, his bangs drape down so they mask his face. For a moment one would likely think he is quivering with fear and considering his age and the situation, it would be a normal thing for him to feel. But instead, it's something else as the low rumble can be heard in the wake of the threat.
Is Rudy growling?
Of course, as soon as it starts Cecilia speaks once more, it swiftly stops with the reminder him of the plan. Bart offers the talk of the innocent, Tethelle's the interest of his weapon, it reminds him of the mission ahead. In response, he merely gives a nod as he follows behind and the head lifts as the brown eyes look forward, Roughnight taking the rear as Claude bravely volunteers to take the front lines.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
'Let's end this,' Cecilia says, and Claude keeps his eyes forward. 'We've got a good crew here,' Bart says, and Claude keeps his weapon pointed down range. Sadly, no mutants emerge from the shadows, only puzzles. Puzzles are worse than mutants, in the sense that the time it takes to complete them is time Claude C. Kenny cannot spend devoting his focus to the mission and readying himself to deal with potential threats. It's time when his mind is free to wander, to think about the situation he's in.
To think about how this is all his fault.
Not every death, certainly; even Claude is not so far gone as to take all of it on himself. The Metal Demons attacked out of nowhere, and the death toll in the first few minutes likely numbered in the thousands. But since then, he's been running around the city, fighting to save his friends, fighting to save people, fighting to keep from thinking about the fact that no matter how fast he swings his sword, or how hard he throws his punches, he doesn't have the power to stop these monsters.
Except he does. He's just not supposed to use it.
Claude rests against a wall while the others work through yet another hanging crate puzzle, rubbing his eyes wearily. He's studied the UP3, of course - hell, the Academy devoted a full lecture to the principle. And in the classroom, it all made perfect sense: if you're on an underdeveloped planet, you can't reveal who or what you are because will literally change the course of history of an entire world. They studied Locklear's folly and dozens of smiliar incidents. Half of them ended in near-genocidal events. The rest ended in an entire world being lifted up before its time, brought into the Federation by force. The only case - the only case - in which this has been deemed justified was the Roak incident, and then only because the captain of the ship in question saved the lives of every man, woman, and non-binary gender entity in the entire Pangalactic Federation. It all made perfect sense in the classroom: don't do it. It's not worth the cost.
But here, on the ground, when the blood of a friend's father splashes onto your face because you're not quite fast enough... what the hell are you supposed to do? What the hell are you supposed to say?
Claude blinks as the puzzle is solved; he shakes his head, levels his weapon, and moves forward once more. No time to think. Thank God for that.
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
The sound of metal hitting metal fills the air around the entrance to Castle Adlehyde leading into the city's burning, ruinous town center. Just as promised, there stands Berserk -- rhythmically tossing the titanic weight of his spiked wrecking ball and catching it against his monstrous palm in a form of vague impatience as he waits. He is immense, and he is the furthest thing from human anyone could think of -- like a living, breathing stereotype of the Metal Demon scourge written in legend, he towers over all, a creature of green scales, burning yellow eyes, and a massive underbite lined with rows of teeth that look like they could chew through metal as if it were hot butter.
He is in every sense of the word, a monster.
And this is what waits for Cecilia and their entourage whenever they emerge, whenever they make their way to him; acrid drool slobbering a lazy path down metallic lips, Quarter Knight Berserk's expression is one best described as 'dissatisfied,' and perhaps more accurately described as 'impatient.' The town center is ruined, buildings collapsed and burning, scars from battles fought dragging across what was once pristine, cobblestone pathways. It is a testament to utter brutality. And Berserk seems to blend in with it all sublimely.
"... How long's it been?"
He glares at the Metal Beasts ringing the devastated landscape behind him. Being unsentient beasts, they say just about nothing.
"Worthless. Whatever. I'm saying it's been eight minutes."
Ever-generous. Ever-patient.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia grimaces. Bart's right, of course, but....
If this ends with Berserk leaving without another fight, she'll be happy about that, too. They couldn't handle Siegfried or Harken...
Soon enough they're out in the open air again; far from refreshing with the soot and fire in the air. It's cleaner than sewer water, at least, for what little comfort that is. She takes two deep breaths of it, and then turns, and--
Oh, well that was easy. This does mean that if this does turn into a fight, they'll be pointing his aggression back toward the hopefully-by-now mostly evacuated and/or decimated town rather than the Castle everyone's sheltering in. Sure. Call it a good plan.
Cecilia lets the others gather up, and then nods quietly to Claude and steps slightly past him. She needs to be in front, for this, dangerous though it is. "Quarter Knight Berserk!" Cecilia calls out, her Crest Sorcery staff in hand and her glittering pyroxene necklace on her neck. "If we give you want you want...if you get the Teardrop, will you leave this place in peace? We want no more of this pointless bloodshed!"
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny keeps his weight centred over his mass, leveling the gunsmoke ARM at Berserk, holding fire for the moment until he sees how Cecilia wants to---wait, what?
"Wait, what?" he asks, eyes wide. "Wait, you're just gonna give it to him? Is THAT what this is all about?"
Claude C. Kenny: hits the skip button on cutscenes.
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
Well, that thing was large and disturbing. Bart starts a little as they emerge from the sewers only to find the Quarter Knight right in front of them, overbearing about as much as you would expect from something that lived up to the name 'Metal Demon'. As he looks up at the massive beast (there's no better word that he can think of for this thing), Bert looks... well he looks a intimidated, and is doing his best to hide it behind bravado.
But as he had promised Cecilia, this is her show. She's the one who needs to decide how they are handling this.
Still, it rankles to give the damn thing what it wants without a fight.
Bart stands just behind and to the right of Cecilia, one hand on his whip, the other resting on something tucked into his jacket at the small of his back. "...see if you can get the damn thing to tell you what they actually want to DO with the Teardrop," he mutters quietly enough that the Quarter Knight can't hear what he's saying. Bart would ask himself but he really has no clue about the thing.
And then he looks at Claude, and shakes his head. "It's her call, Claude," he states quietly. Nah he doesn't agree either, but Cecilia is in charge of the kingdom with her father hurt, and... well sometimes you have to make a bad call, because there IS no good call.
"...trust that thing about as far as I can throw it, though..."
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
The walk, for Tethelle, is hard. She has to hear Berserk without being able to do anything about it. That he's not hitting innocent people right now (as far as she can tell, from down here) doesn't mean he hasn't. And she's not even good at the puzzles, unless pushing is involved, so she can't even distract herself with that.
On top of that, her thoughts pass somewhat the same way as Claude's, sort of, with her own twist. Tethelle was sent to Ignas. She found Cecilia and followed her. When she'd joined battle against Harken and Siegfried, Tethelle had thought that was why she was sent; to fight the Metal Demons. Then she'd lost, and badly; she wasn't anywhere near his equal. What good is a Priestess of the Sword who can't even fight?
Or, worse, what if she was supposed to have done something else, and didn't? What if something she'd done made this worse than it could have been? She's been struggling with that for a while. That she couldn't see what it possibly could have been did not make it better. All she can do now is push on.
Fortunately, her kind of focus is good at putting it out of her mind until she has time to worry about it. Which is not now.
Tethelle clambers up out of the sewers behind Cecilia - as close to right behind as she can manage. Carrying her new sword up while climbing is a new challenge (she doesn't have a scabbard, sheath, or carrier strap for it) but she manages it. Cecilia speaks to Berserk.
Tethelle doesn't. She just looks at him, as if judging. Her broken sword hangs across her back, her intact borrowed sword resting on her shoulder. It's not quite a combat stance, but it looks like she could get into one remarkably quickly. If this actually works, she'll be happy. If it doesn't...
Well, being pretty sure she's going to lose never worried Tethelle before.
"Yes," she says to Claude, by way of explanation. "It is her choice, to save her city." Tethelle has opinions about this. She doesn't share them, not in front of Berserk, but it's not hard to tell: Tethelle would not do this. But Tethelle isn't Cecilia, either.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
Rudy makes the rest of the trip in silence, to the surprise of no one, his thoughts unknown but his gaze all but determined. When/if puzzles come in the sewer (they always pop up when you lest expect them), he does what is asked, like a mute servant rather than anything else. If not for the situation being so alien and others to fill the silence with their concerns or distract themselves with their own thoughts, it might be concerning. But it matters little since the important event soon unfolds itself.
The group soon finds itself in front of Berserk. The brown eyes of Rudy open wide as he looks toward the creature, his view somewhat obscured by the people in front of him. The Outcast isn't exactly a tall individual, after all. So slowly, he moves around the group as Cecilia offers her deal and Bart advises, roughnight revealing himself with as little fanfare as possible as he gives a calm stride. He doesn't have his hand on his weapon like Claude, but like Tethelle, he seems to have the gaze of a warrior looking for a reason.
As the conversation goes on, Rudy merely stares at Berserk as his gun hand twitches. Waiting.
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
"... Gonna say thirty seconds left."
This is generous statement from Berserk is punctuated by a bored glance back towards the castle as he scratches at the inside of one flat nostril with his pinky finger. It hasn't been nine and a half minutes, not really. But one should never underestimate the power of Berserk's impatience, or - equally likely - his blithe indifference towards properly telling time.
Fortunately, it's just after he makes that statement that Cecilia, Bart, Claude, Rudy and Tethelle emerge from the depths of the sewers. The Quarter Knight blinks, leering at them in confused thought. "Hrn?" he grunts, staring them all down in a lack of recognition and lack of care one might reserve for particularly ugly cattle. "... The hell are you people supposed to be?"
And it's then that Cecilia steps forward. Calls out. And makes her request. Berserk blinks. He stares down at her. And then...
"GA HA HA HA! I told those idiots getting this damn thing would be -simple- if they just -did it my way-!"
He laughs, a bellowing, chortling thing that grates the ears as much as nails down a chalkboard might.
"What a fancy little gathering you got here. I'm guessing you must be the princess, and you..." he looks towards the rest. "... are what? Her little pets?"
He doesn't really allow time for rebuttal. Because soon enough, he is walking forward, his footfalls making the very ground shudder beneath him as he advances upon Cecilia. As he looms over her, fangs gleaming in the roaring flames surrounding them.
"I have no reason to keep wasting my time with boring, spineless weaklings," he says flatly, directly, his voice laced with cruelty. "You give us what we want, and we leave. Simple as that, princess. So..." One can practically hear the mockery behind that title. One massive hand extends. He glares at the small, blue-haired Rudy with something bordering between amusement and bored contempt for a moment as he waits. Expectantly.
"Hand over the Teardrop."
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny does not like this plan. He does not like this plan for very good reasons.
'EIGHT YEARS AGO'
"Okay, Claude, now I've got a hostage."
"Mom, that's the neighbour's cat."
"HOSTAGE, CLAUDE"
"OKAY fine geeze I guess I'll...put down the gun."
"BAD IDEA CLAUDE! If you give the bad guy what he wants, he'll shoot you anyway!"
"Mom, that's not a gun, it's the neighbour's car"
"SHOOT THE HOSTAGE, CLAUDE"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH FLUFFLES"
'NOW'
The young man's eyes twitches, but... Bart is right. So is Tethella. It's not his call. Or his cat.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Claude's incredulity gives Cecilia some amount of annoyance - pretty much nobody seems to think this is a good idea, it's not really great for her morale - but she stands her ground just the same. "Yes," she says, quietly. "It is. To save the lives of my people..."
Bart mutters at her. And Berserk...does a lot more than mutter. He gets closer to her, looming titanic. Everything about him is a different kind of rank. And his words...She breathes, hissing through her teeth. She doesn't want to let him win. She doesn't want to let this work. She doesn't want anything about this.
But her people are dying.
"...fine," she breathes, and grips the blue stone around her neck. With care - maybe more care than the moment demands, but it is a relic of her mother's - she unthreads it through her long, blonde hair.
The Teardrop is a roughly tear-shaped blue pyroxene jewel, small enough to fit comfortably in the palm; one end has been fitted with the mount for a necklace chain. The necklace itself, of course, is of the finest materials available to royalty, but they are not really what matters here. It shines with an inner light; and if you look closely, that light faintly pulses, much like one's own heartbeat.
Cecilia takes one last, long look at it, a tear beading in her eye. "This is a memento of my mother," she says. "And it is precious to many people. I don't know what you're going to do with it. But..."
"The lives of my people are more precious still," she says - and forces herself to reach out to drop it in the Metal Demon Knight's hand, and then swiftly takes several steps back. Clearing away.
Before the warring emotions in her heart take another turn.
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle is...
Okay. She's not impossible to intimidate. But Berserk doesn't do it, not today. She's already lost to Siegfried today, been battered and beaten and fell off a castle; her master's sword was broken, King Justin was badly hurt, as were so many other people, and she's about to be party to a group handing over a valuable item to the Quarter Knights of the Metal Demons. Everything she's set herself to protect has come to failure.
Being bigger than her isn't enough. Neither is insulting her. Tethelle draws herself up to her full height (much shorter than Berserk) when Berserk calls her a pet. Don't let it touch you, she thinks to herself, but damn if it's not hard. But it helps her come to a decision.
Berserk cannot be trusted, not with this. None of the Metal Demons can. Tethelle does not have a Medium with her; she cannot speak to Equites. But she has a feeling she knows what Equites would have to say about her standing by while letting him walk off with the Teardrop.
Tethelle waits. She says nothing while Cecilia hands it over. She gives her the few seconds to step back - before Tethelle steps forward. "Wait!"
"My name is Tethelle Cirdian." Tethelle taps her sword against the shoulder it rests on a couple times while she speaks. "I am a Baskar Zoa Priestess; I follow the Guardian Equites. The Sword Guardian," she clarifies, because she does not expect a Metal Demon to know. "Princess Cecilia has given you the Teardrop. She has fulfilled her part of the bargain. Send your men away."
She breathes out, then in, giving Berserk time to do just that if he's so inclined - and then almost ritualistically moves to a combat position. Tethelle holds the borrowed sword in both hands before her, ready to parry or strike. Even the posture itself looks formalized - part of a very, very old style indeed. "I agreed to let her give it to you. But I'm afraid I can't let you leave with it. Such an item is not for your hands!"
Tethelle doesn't expect anyone to back her up. This is, in its own way, her trying to prove herself - that, despite her being outclassed by Siegfried, she can still fight for what she needs to. If that means fighting Berserk herself, so be it.
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
There's not a lot that Bart can do here - he instead just keeps his position, watching Berserk for any sign of him not doing what he says. Like Claude, he's not happy with this, and he's ready for just about anything.
The bastard just looks so damn smug though. And Bart doesn't like that.
But as Cecilia had said, you can rebuild the kingdom. But you can't bring people back once they've been killed. And if she wasn't going to run... well, there were other options, as long as the Metal Demon couldn't just instantly destroy the world with the Teardrop.
Bart really hopes that isn't the case, but he figures Cecilia would know if they could.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
And so, the Teardrop is given and thus, it's done. The pit in Rudy's stomach grows almost visibly as the stare is returned by Berserk. His body coils and then loosens faintly, as if some unknown force of will was the only thing keeping him from doing something regretful. It's clear he wants the excuse, but he knows it won't come because everyone understands what's at stake.
Then it happens.
The challenge is made and Rudy grits his teeth. Perhaps reading the writing on the wall, his stance widens slightly, surely something that won't be noticed by the Metal Demon leader. After all, he's got other things on his plate, right?
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9GEH4NnlAQ
Cecilia speaks. And through it all, Berserk stares at her with a look of blank indifference like someone to whom her burdens are nothing but a passing irritation. He waits, silently, his hand extended towards her, palm flattened expectantly as if the Teardrop was simply his due. But for all he stares, his focus is on one thing:
That jewel, and the pulse of light within it, a heartbeat of something infinitely precious.
And there that precious thing settles, right into Berserk's waiting palm. Thick, armored fingers wrap around it, so tiny compared to the size of his hand. And yet even through his densely plated flesh, he can feel that warmth. That ebb, beating against his fingertips.
"Finally," he mutters, like someone more relieved to be done with something tedious than anything else. "If I had to listen to another word of your pathetic drivel, I mighta just flattened your cute little castle anyway." And there, he turns, footfalls thundering beneath him.
"Heh. Don't worry. You get to say you saved your people, princess. For now. Heh heh heh."
And he starts to walk as one of those skeletal minions advance upon him, just one of a horde. He seems to have every intention of leaving...
... that is, until Tethelle speaks.
"... Eh?"
He stops. He doesn't even bother to face her. He just looks over his shoulder at her, staring with a blank and blithe lack of understanding even as she speaks. A Baskar, she says. Servant of the Guardian, she says. His lips pull into an ugly, bored frown.
Such an item is not for your*BOOOOOOOM*
A gleam of metal flings through heat as that wrecking ball whips down upon Tethelle with logic-defying speeds right towards the tail end of her speech, looking to flatten her with its barbaric strength and cruelty. Regardless, it snaps back a second later...
... into the waiting hands of a grinning Berserk, wearing violence around him like a second skin.
"Well? Any of the REST OF YOU WEAKLINGS GOT ANY ADDENDUMS FOR ME?"
GS: Berserk has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Flatten! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Taunt! GS: Berserk has attacked Bart Fatima with Taunt! GS: Berserk has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Taunt! GS: Berserk has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Taunt! GS: Berserk has completed his action. GS: Tethelle Cirdian guards a hit from Berserk's Flatten for 64 hit points! GS: Bart Fatima takes a solid hit from Berserk's Taunt for 0 hit points! GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Bart Fatima! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Taunt for 0 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Taunt for 0 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Berserk's Taunt for 0 hit points! GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Claude C. Kenny!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
The situation goes from probably resolved to a Charlie Foxtrot within about six second, and somehow it is not Claude C. Kenny's fault. Multiple individuals on multiple planets will never believe this possible.
At this point, however, it's not like he can make it any worse, and so he moves to the right, circling around Berserk until he's clear of Tethelle. He levels his shotgun, fires a heavy slug in the direction of the Quarter Knight, then chambers a round and fires again.
He's seen how tough Zed is, and has no doubt this will not be anywhere near enough to kill this monster. It may be enough to pull him off Tethelle and Cecilia, who are closest.
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Berserk with Addendum - Multiple Shotgun Blasts! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Claude C. Kenny's Addendum - Multiple Shotgun Blasts for 40 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia's eyes widen in surprise. "Te...Tethelle!" she says, because she WAS KIND OF HOPING - LIKE, THAT'S NOT EVEN THAT BAD AN IDEA EXCEPT MAYBE WAIT FOR HIM TO DO HIS PART FIRST AND--
Boom. "TETHELLE!" Cecilia yells, with an altogether more urgent tone. And Berserk screams his defiance at them. It doesn't rattle her overmuch, though it does rattle her bones a little. She....she still hopes this can be resolved in peace--
Nope!!
Cecilia stumbles away from the fore, where she's less likely to get immediately flattened, and then swiftly holds her staff forward. Step one: An emblem of Crest Sorcery forges itself in front of her and motes of shining light whisk away from it, streaking out to mend Tethelle's bones.
She doesn't really try to exort people away from the violence. Everyone else here wants a fight. Even Rudy, with that gentle soul of his...she can tell he's aching to punish this creature. So fine...she'll support them. They supported her, after all. And maybe they even won't all die!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Heal! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Cecilia Adlehyde heals Tethelle Cirdian! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle expected Berserk to hit her about halfway through that. She's as impressed as she got most of it out as anyone.
As is, she has her borrowed sword in position, and for all the strange formality of her stance it is a real combat stance. She shifts fluidly, weaving to the side; that ball is moving too fast for her to parry without breaking this sword too, and so she doesn't, instead making an odd twisting motion with her upper body.
The ball doesn't connect solidly. The chain does, on the return; it clips her shoulder and is moving so fast that it carves a furrow as Berserk retracts it, a rasping wound that probably hurts a lot more than a cut and drags her forward a step or two, but isn't deep enough to interfere with her movement as long as she can ignore the pain.
And Tethelle still mostly just looks determined.
She'll explain to Cecilia and the others later. If they feel they can't trust her, she'll deal with that then. But as soon as she saw Cecilia handing it over, she had to act. Even though she doesn't know the Teardrop's powers, nor does she know what the Metal Demons could do with it, she can feel its power. That heartbeat, that sparkle; the Metal Demons must not possess it - and if she'd waited, Berserk might have gotten away with it!
Tethelle darts forward under cover of Claude's shotgun. He may be trying to distract Berserk, but she's using the distraction to attack, not to evade; she comes in with a powerful slash even as she feels Cecilia's magic settle into her body. Despite herself, she grins - more fierce than cheerful, but there's something there. Tethelle really does enjoy fighting for a good cause.
This seems like one.
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Berserk with Power Slash! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Power Slash for 37 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
"Oh to HELL WITH THIS!" Bart shouts, and pulls his hidden weapon out from behind his jacket.
It's a short barrled, wide mouthed gun, and he swings it around to point it at Berserk. And then... he doesn't fire.
Instead he raises it into the air, and pulls the trigger. A single blue streamer of light erupts form the barrel, climbing into the sky for a moment, the flare piercing the smoke and darkness above the city like a single, blazing star.
BACK ON THE YGGDRASIL
"We've got a blue flare!"
Sigurd looks at the screen, and then buries his head in his hand. "...we're actually going to have to do it," he growls. Not too loudly - bcause if Bart is doing this, then that means that he's in trouble and needs support right now. "Alright then, BRING THE SHIP AROUND! Overcharge the drive, I want you to put the nose up fifteen degrees! ALL HANDS BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
...
Back at the fight, Bart hears a faint 'ping' from one of the pockets on his jacket, even as he's staggered backwards from the force of the blow that the Quarter Knight used to try and crush Tethelle. The device pings again... and then again. Getting faster.
"Hey, you overgrown rusted PORK RIND!" Bart shouts, his eyes flicking to over Berserk's shoulder. "You want an ADDENDUM? YOU WANT ME TO ADD A POINT TO CONTRAVENE YOUR STUPID FACE?"
Ping. Ping. Ping! Ping-ping-ping-pingpingpingpingpingpingpingping...
"HOW ABOUT YOU PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!?!"
A second later, a massive metallic shape slams through a building in the way, sending a shower of bricks across the road where Berserk is standing. And following those bricks is a mass of red, which skids along the ground in a shower of sparks. Bart leaps up, grabbing onto a lowered fist which immediately raises him into the air. The cockpit slides open, and Bart throws himself inside.
Lights, view screens coming online. And Bart takes hold of the controls. The red Gear's single eye flashes, the other eye having been covered by a metal plate that wraps around to cover the left sensor. A single massive metal feather shoots up above its helm, and a pair of long metal assault chains which are ejected from both of its forearms.
A pair of weapons which Bart brings down RIGHT TOWARDS BERSERK'S LARGE STUPID HEAD.
DC: You switch forms to Pirate Gear Brigandier! DC: Bart Fatima switches forms to Pirate Gear Brigandier!
GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Berserk with Chain Whip! GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Bart Fatima's Chain Whip for 41 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
The tension is thick as the monster takes the Teardrop, takes his toys, and moves to go home. But it doesn't happen. The speech struck a chord and now the attack comes. Roughnight watches as wrecking ball collides into Tethelle. The challenge has been made and accepted.
The die is cast and as Claude moves into the fray and it soon supported by Cecilia, so the battle has begun. The Gear appears and Rudy takes a step back, just trying to figure out what is going on as the powerful metal being attacks with all it has. Why is it that Roughnight feels somehow relieved by conflict beginning with this creature?
The Hand Cannon slides into Rudy's gloved hand, but for some reason he doesn't use it at first. Instead, he just tries to race up to the creature and actually punch in it the face. In the wake of his attack, Roughnight answers his opponent with deed... Then in the wake of his attack, in word as well.
"I don't like bullies," Rudy states with his usual meek and soft voice, perhaps only to be heard by Berserk because Rudy's stupid enough to get in his grill.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Berserk with Rudy is Cross! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Rudy Roughnight's Rudy is Cross for 79 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
"Heh. Guess you all still got some fight left in you, huh? Good."
Addenda (or, perhaps, addendums) are all leveled in short order of the Quarter Knight's bellowing challenge. And Berserk, grinning with a look of sheer, dangerous delight, does exactly what one would assume the sensible solution is:
"LET'S SEE HOW LONG IT TAKES TO BEAT IT OUTTA YA."
He charges -directly into it-.
First, Claude's shotgun rounds, the peeling blasts of slugs hitting the creature dead-on... and ricocheting off his immensely sturdy hide. He laughs the entire way through, each round issuing a new, contemptible guffaw as he rears his head back--
--and -slams- it downward to collide with Claude's cursed cranium.
Tethelle comes in almost in perfect timing to the motion, using Claude's shotgun fire to try to breach Berserk's defenses; the Quarter Knight's response is to SWING that massive wrecking ball around just as that slash glances off his heavy armor and heavier hide, nicking the metallic surface as he looks to just SLAM the spiked surface into her bodily with disproportionate force. "GA HA!" he bellows gleefully, completing that arc by loosing the ball -- sending it -spiraling- towards Cecilia with rapidly building momentum. He saw that contemptible magic.
And he'll punish her just as much as the rest of them for it.
He looks towards Bart and Rudy, apparently intent to see if -they- think they're brave enough to stand against him, and then... ping.
"Eh?"
CRASH
Bricks and mortar go flying along with cobble rubble, pelting Berserk as he lifts a hand to shield himself. He stares upwards...
... and sees it. Sees that familiar sight that evokes so many memories.
A Gear.
"... heh... GA HA HA HA HA HA!! NOW WE'RE TALKING! MAYBE I CAN TAKE THIS A LITTLE SERIOUSLY!!"
Rudy lunges at him, and Berserk CHARGES with a roaring rebuttal of, "AND I DON'T LIKE PANSIES," before that fist -cracks- into his immensely dense skull, coming in to -headbutt- Rudy aside with a resounding crack of force. His weapon winds up faster and faster...
... and he -looses- it with tremendous momentum to barrel into the torso of the brigandier just as his head MASHES into those chains, feeling them CLANG powerfully against his skull. He feels the kinetic impact shake whatever amounts to his skeleton. And he laughs, riotously. Gleefully.
"COME ON!"
GS: Berserk has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Hellacious Headbutt! GS: Berserk has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Hellacious Headbutt! GS: Berserk enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Berserk has attacked Bart Fatima with Torment! GS: Berserk enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Berserk has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with No Kill Like Overkill! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Torment! GS: Berserk has completed his action. GS: Bart Fatima guards a hit from Berserk's Torment for 152 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Berserk's Hellacious Headbutt for 159 hit points! GS: Tethelle Cirdian critically Guards a hit from Berserk's No Kill Like Overkill for 47 hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Berserk's Torment for 108 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight guards a hit from Berserk's Hellacious Headbutt for 99 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny's shotgun clicks on an empty chamber. He ejects the magazine, but then Berserk is just on him, moving faster than anything that big has any right to. The Quarter Knight rolls over the Federation officer like a bulldozer, sending the young man bouncing across the ground and into the side of the gate, cracking the stone behind him with the force of the impact. It hurts. It hurts a lot. Claude struggles to recover, but is blinking stars out of his eyes; he needs more time, he needs a distraction.
The rightful king of the Fatima dynasty provides one.
Claude stares up at the towering form of Brigandier. It's hard for him to judge how powerful any of these so-called Gears are - each one of them looks like outdated scrap next to a halfway decent AMWS - but he can tell the one-eyed red Gear is a cut above the others he's seen. Claude grits his teeth and pushes himself to his feet. With this... with thiss, they just might stand a chance. He raises his shotgun---
---correction---
---he raises a twisted, useless lump of metal, grimaces, and then tosses it off to one side. CLaude reaches over his shoulder and draws the hand-and-a-half sword on the run, testing its weight as he sprints across the paving stones, moving silently on soft-solsed space sneakers. Heavier than he's used to, he thinks. But he might need the weight.
Remarkably, Claude doesn't shout an attack name as he clsoes with Berserk; he simply puts everything he has into a powerful cut aimed at the back of the monster's right knee, then spins and does it again to the left one.
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Berserk with Twin Slash! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Twin Slash for 122 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
This time Tethelle is more prepared - or perhaps Berserk was just focusing more on other people, one of the two. The ball clips Tethelle as she tries to evade it, unfortunately neither completely avoiding it nor knocking it so that it doesn't hit Cecilia after - the worst of both words, except for the part where Tethelle still has intact ribs.
She likes that part.
"Ngh - " Glancing blow or not, it still hurts like anything. Once again Tethelle realizes she may have made a mistake in her challenge - but it's not in her to give up, and she has more support than she expected. She'd expected them to run; she didn't ask them to join this beforehand. Rudy, firing; Cecilia, casting; Claude, backing her up in melee now; Bart -
"Is that a Gear?" Tethelle has never seen one in person that was actually being piloted. She's so surprised she nearly drops out of stance, but goes back into it immediately thereafter. Keep pressing Berserk, she thinks. Don't give him a moment to react. She forces herself to stop goggling at the sight and focus on the Quarter Knight, who is admittedly a rather pressing concern.
Seeing as Claude is in close, Tethelle moves with him, circling in the same direction to never present Berserk with the opportunity to hit both at once in an easy linear motion. She shifts forms, taking a higher stance and chopping downward at Berserk, her borrowed blade practically humming with chi as she does; when she hits, it erupts outward in a burst of light and force and magic, her channeled energy released. Her blows are fast, rapidly descending repeated blows; it's almost like she's trying to repeatedly bounce the sword off armour to eventually penetrate with the chi imbued in the sword.
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Berserk with Surging Slash! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Surging Slash for 112 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
What would be a crushing blow that might shatter a man who was struck by it is more of an inconvenience for a Gear. Bart winces as the massive Quarter Knight slams into him, but besides a large dent in the armor plates along his right side, Brigandier is still in good shape.
"You want a fight, then I'll give you one you ROTUND PIECE OF SCRAP!" Bart shouts back in Berserk's face as he pushes his Gear forward. He has to keep one eye on the proximity sensor, WHICH IS SOMEWHAT HARD WHEN YOU'VE ONLY GOT THE ONE, mainly to make sure that he isn't actually going to accidently run over any of his allies.
Because 'run over' is more correct than 'step on' - Bart's Gear seems to use some sort of hover system, which explains why the legs are modestly one piece of metal. Brigandier can run, but it mostly glides just above the ground, the backwash from its hover jets blowing up pieces of paper and other light debris as it moves around.
The Gear closes in, and Bart lashes out with one of the assault chains, aiming to wrap it around Berserk's neck and yank the Quarter Knight closer to him.
At which point he shouts, "So you think you like to be MAGNANIMOUS? You think that you are showing how GREAT AND NOBLE you METAL DEMON BASTARDS ARE?"
And then Brigandier tries to PUNCH BERSERK IN THE FACE.
"I MIGHT ACCEPT YOUR POSITION IF YOUR FACE WASN'T SO DAMN UGLY!" Another punch, unless Berserk breaks away. "I'M SORRY I'M JUST MAKING IT WORSE, CECILIA ALWAYS TOLD ME I WAS TERRIBLE AT DIPLOMACY!"
GS: That attack doesn't exist. [Aggressive] GS: That attack doesn't exist. [Aggresive] GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Berserk with Aggressive Negotiation! GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Berserk takes a solid hit from Bart Fatima's Aggressive Negotiation for 94 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia is just trying to keep everyone alive, OK! That's not cheating! There's rules about combat medics and okay he doesn't care.
Cecilia throws her arm up and her staff both, a faint mystic barrier forming, which is why the only thing she hits is a wall after she is impelled in that direction by Berserk's wrecking ball shattering the barrier. She stumbles out of it, coughing roughly but not, quite, actually shattered by the blow.
Which is when Bart touches down. ... you know what, sure. "Just...watch the town, Bart!" she calls up at him; then turns her attention on Berserk. There's no words. Her people didn't deserve this. His 'pity' is mere distaste for how easily they die. Cecilia tries so, so hard not to hate.
But the ground rises up as she holds up her staff, jagged stones ripping themselves out of shattered earth to fire themselves at Berserk. Her staff work won't help her here - but her magic still might.
She still has a card she hasn't played, after all. If only she can muster her strength a little more...!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Berserk with Break! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Break for 29 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
The powerful crack of skull on skull means that Rudy is soon sent tumbling backward, the strength behind the blow enough that Roughnight's head and back slams into the pavement before bouncing back up before coming down hard and rolling to a stop. For a second, Berserk's claim that the teen was a pansy might have been justified.
A second or two pass and the others engage the Metal Demon as Rudy slowly stirs. Like he was as dead as the skeleton minions of Berserk, his arms are limp and to his sides as he rises up once more. Ragged breaths escape Rudy, the red bandana unable to stem the crimson blood that flows down his face. The battle is escalating quickly and it's clear that Roughnight plans to do the same. Normal bullets won't cut it, clearly.
The cartridge is swiftly changed out, going from regular sized rounds to large and thin rounds that seem almost too long for the rotating cylinder to hold. A hand spins the cylinder to see if it will work and sure enough it does. It's strange that Rudy has been able to find additions to his ARM that work so well with it, but again, the question is left in the wake of far more important matters.
Rudy's left forearm begins to give a powerful blue glow as particles of blue energy gather within it until the arm glows with energy briefly. Once that is done, the teen spins the Hand Cannon in his other hand. It seems like he's doing a lot of show, but when will the attack come. The answer is soon given as he levels the weapon right at Berserk.
The weapon fires as Rudy learns its power for the first time. The weapon seems to level itself for the Metal Demon's head and attempt to give a powerful shot. The sheer firepower behind it is enough to cause Rudy to skid back a few feet. Most people would need to be kneeling down to fire a round of that power, but Rudy does it standing and as if he were firing a pistol. But well, that's a detail likely to be lost when skilled swordspeople fight with people that are using gears. Should the shot impact, there might be a small blue explosion of energy, but well, that's assuming it hits as intended.
For now, in the wake of the attack, Rudy says nothing, figuring he'll let the weapon speak for itself.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Berserk with Snipe Bullet! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Rudy Roughnight's Snipe Bullet for 93 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
His ball and chain whirling around him like a tempest, even in the face of one of those massive Gears, Berserk still laughs -- the first entertained laugh he's had since he got here. Blood red mist starts to rise around him, frenetic anticipation riding high and pumping the quicksilver of his veins into dizzying heights.
"This is almost reminding me of the old days! Come on, come ON! Let's see if you humans still know how to put up a halfway decent fight in those things!"
The first to come, though, is Claude, looking to use the appearance of the Gear as a distraction. That cut comes swift and deadly... and Berserk turns -into- it, eyes gleaming with hatred. The blade carves into his knee, through armoring and into flesh...
... where the distinctive screech of metal sparking against metal can be heard as that blade runs across the impossibly dense alloy surface that is Berserk's hide.
There is a shallow furrow in its place, and that in itself is a coup -- but one that Claude might not have much time to celebrate as that ball comes swinging around to catch him in its flurry and swat him aside.
"Heh."
Tethelle is inbound next. The good news -- she manages to press into his defenses. The bad news? He's still spinning that wrecking ball around like a top. The end result are those blows, meeting that wrecking ball, some landing on Berserk's armor and some pelting off the ball and chain harmlessly, the successful blows pelting into armor, denting it, starting to penetrate it into the metal flesh beneath--
--before Berserk looks to resoundingly knock her aside with the pent up momentum of the wrecking ball and a violent WOOSH of motion.
Any follow ups are cut short, however, when Cecilia trains that magic upon him; rocks smash into the creature's hide and the Quarter Knight snarls with irritation as he -smashes- the rest aside with one mighty sweep of his arm. He -leaps- towards her, landing in front with an impact that craters the ground.
"Shoulda run when you had the chance, -princess-," he snears, before looking to almost casually cold-cock her across the skull with concussive force, to disorient her and make it that much harder to focus.
But there's that glow. That distinctive blue glow. Towering over Cecilia, Berserk pauses. He looks back towards Rudy, squinting at that strange blue light, as if searching for something just out of his reach. A frown creases at his lips.
"Whatever."
And this declaration comes just as Rudy's shot fires; the demon doesn't even bother to try to move out of the way as that powerful blast COLLIDES with his head. The shell explodes across the surface of his skull, sending him lurching backwards...
... and then he -snaps- forward, -hurling- that ball and chain at Rudy with both hands, skull smoking and scorched here and there but not obviously damaged as he howls out with bloodlust, looking to do no less then punch Rudy through the building with his weapon.
But he hears it. He hears that gear, and he knows what's coming. The chain whips out, lashing around Berserk's neck. And the Quarter Knight?
He doesn't fight it at all.
He moves -into- it.
He -leaps- with the momentum, to COLLIDE with the Brigadier, meeting that massive metal fist -face-first-.
CRUNCH.
"MAGNANIMOUS? NOBLE? GA HA HA HA! Who GIVES A DAMN ABOUT THAT TRIPE?!"
And Berserk punches -Brigadier- in the face.
He is punched again, body smashing to the side, but he -clings- onto the Gear bodily now, looking to lunch across it and attach onto its torso.
"ALL THAT MATTERS IS STRENGTH! AND BERSERK IS THE STRONGEST THERE IS!"
And PUNCHES again. And again. And again. Over and over and over until it's simply excessive, roaring all the while.
"Jealous, meatbag?! Don't worry, we'll see what we can do with that pretty little face of yours once we TEAR THIS CUTE TOY TO PIECES."
GS: Berserk has attacked Berserk with Bloodrush! GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Berserk's Bloodrush for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield! Statuses applied to Berserk! GS: Berserk has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Torment! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Concussive Carnage! GS: Berserk has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Centripetal Slaughter! GS: Berserk has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Centripetal Slaughter! GS: Berserk has attacked Bart Fatima with No Kill Like Overkill! GS: Berserk has completed his action. GS: Bart Fatima takes a solid hit from Berserk's No Kill Like Overkill for 322 hit points!
DC: MISS! Tethelle Cirdian completely evades Centripetal Slaughter from Berserk!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Berserk's Concussive Carnage for 47 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Cecilia Adlehyde! GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Berserk's Centripetal Slaughter for 82 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Torment for 37 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny was expecting to connect with metal. He backfisted Zed with a goddamned explosion and did little more than scorch the Metal Demon's face. If this Berserk is stronger than Zed is, then he shouldn't be surprised at all. He's still surprised, though. Things are supposed to bleed and break when you cut them, damn it.
That whirling wrecking ball comes around and Claude gets his sword in the way of the strike, bracing to guard... but then physics does what it does and the combination of mass + velocity drives the guard into Claude's body, which then knocks the young man flying away. He twists his body lithely and lands, sliding backward several yards before coming to a halt. He rises, grinning tightly. That hurt, but it wasn't lethal. He can do this, he thinks as he raises his swo---
---correction---
---as he raises what used to be his sword, but is now the hilt and crossguard of his sword and about six inches of blade, the other foot and a half having been snapped clean off, landing...somewhere. Claude rips off some language not meant for polite company as he charges back inward. "WHAT THE (obscene gerund) (theological impossibility) DO THEY EVEN MAKE SWORDS OUT OF ON THIS (obscene gerund #2) PLA---"
not from space Claude NOT FROM SPACE
"---ce," he concludes somewhat lamely, then side-steps his way rapidly in, trying to get inside Berserk's guard. He drives the broken mass of sword forward, aiming to stab it into the gap he opened up earlier, then releases his grip ont he blade and pulls both hands back, chi flickering as he closes his fists. "METEOR PALM!" he screams, then smashes rapid-fire punches into the hilt of the embedded sword, each strike driving it deeper.
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Berserk with Meteor Palm! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Meteor Palm for 87 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle decides she likes Bart. More than she did already, anyway. She'll have to have a drink with him later.
The whirling ball deflecting her strikes is a problem; she feels the jarring impact every time her sword hits that instead of Berserk, as it's moving a whole lot more than he is. She feels the armour start to give way under her, and her grin becomes fiercer. If she had her original sword, she'd have a better chance at cutting through his armour instead of this slower strategy... and if wishes were fishes she could have walked from Guild Galad instead of spending all her money on ship passage.
Berserk tries to throw her aside with the sheer weight of the ball - but manages to touch nothing but air. Tethelle momentarily aborted her attack so she could evade. Normally she'd sway aside, but no point in that with a ball whirling in great arcs - she throws herself to the ground instead, and the ball whistles over her, so close she can feel it and the wind of its passage ruffles her hair.
Acrobatically, Tethelle springs back up, but Berserk has taken that moment to throw himself elsewhere. Cecilia, first, but by the time she's started to move he's gone toward Brigandier. Well, one of Tethelle's shoulders might be bloody and raw, and she might be bruised and battered from a day of fighting and more tired than she wants to admit, but her legs are still working.
"Steel," Tethelle responds to Claude, with the attitude of someone who knows. Well, she did just call herself a Priestess of the Sword Guardian; perhaps she does. Given she's still carrying around a broken sword on her shoulder strap, she has personal experience with the whole business. "At least, that's what we do in my village."
Big city people are weird, Tethelle thinks to herself.
While she says this, she takes several steps backwards, checking her footing against the street. And then, sprinting forward, she throws herself in a ballistic arc toward Berserk - yes, while he's still on Brigandier, this is going to get very crowded very fast - and tries to slam her borrowed sword in a great two-handed slash at his back.
But that's not it, because if she manages to embed it, she uses it to swing herself upward, bringing the sword with her; she plants her hand on the mostly flat top of Brigandier's head (sorry, Bart) and springs even higher. Flipping forward, Tethelle grips her sword in two hands and comes down in another slash with all her weight and momentum behind it, a vertical blow that, if Berserk wasn't so Berserk, would have a pretty good chance of bisecting him.
With Berserk she's just trying to get through the armour.
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Berserk with Whirling Juggernaut! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Whirling Juggernaut for 147 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia dares to join the fray and is swiftly punished, as he straight up socks her across the jaw.
It is humiliating and humbling both, and it is as much her emotions swirling as the actual probably literal concussion she now has that makes her stance less steady. "Probably," Cecilia says, quietly. Berserk's long gone. This is to herself. "The whole point was to avoid a fight. But..."
Rudy. Bart. Claude and Tethelle.... All of them fighting as hard as they can. She's not sure of the purpose. He has what they want. All they needed to do was let him leave. But she can't....she won't...
The words spring to mind, as her feet square and her eyes flash. "I won't let people I care about fight alone, Quarter Knight! Not even against you!" she calls, in echo of something warm; and beads of light form around her, flickering and flashing - and then she whirls her hands forward, and the beads of light careen downrange as a bolt of light, smashing Berserk hard with the raw power of Filgaia herself.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Berserk with Ley Blast! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Ley Blast for 33 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
Okay that... that was a bad one. Maybe focus less on the quips and a bit more on fighting the horrible metal monster thing.
The blow from Beserk is enough to send Brigandier flying into a nearby building, pretty much at the exact same moment that Cecilia shouts at Bart to watch out for breaking the city more.
Which is a shame because it seems like he's gonna be breaking the city NO MATTER WHAT at this point. The red gear has sparks erupting from some of its joints, and there is another massive dent, with several of the armor plates having broken off. "Look Ceci..." Bart growls, although his voice comes over the Gear's loudspeaker. "I can fight the giant metal demon thing, or I can try not to break the city. Doing both at the same time is not something that is working out right now!"
But Brigandier pushes itself back upright, the two assault chains retracting into its arms for a moment. And Bart reaches down to grab a manhole cover from the ground, holding it between two of his Gear's fingers for a moment. The pirate focuses, and begins channeling energy into the Ether Converter in the Gear, allowing it to absorb and amplify his energy.
Bart pauses for a moment as he hears a bang on the top of his Gear's head, and shouts, "Do I look like a war machine or a stepladder to you!?!" at Tethelle! Ah well.
The cover lifts off from the Gear's fingers, spinning around for a moment as it drinks in Bart's Ether power. And then with a single motion, Brigandier catches it and shoots it at Berserk like it were a human flicking a normal sized coin at him.
"Well, if there's one thing I've heard about you Metal Demons, it's that you don't enjoy magic!" Bart shouts.
And all of the sudden the manhole cover is LARGER THAN BERSERK IS, heading right at his face at the same speed!
"DOES THAT MAKE CENTS?!"
GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Berserk with Heaven Cent! GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Berserk takes a glancing hit from Bart Fatima's Heaven Cent for 75 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
The mace comes right at Rudy and the world seems to slow for a moment. Fight or flight kicks in and the result shocks him.
The mace moves to Rudy's left before it is pulled back. The young boy takes a few breaths, trying to figure out why he isn't a smear on the wall. He should be dead. He doesn't know what happened, but the clue comes when he can't feel his left arm. He looks toward it and there are scratches and abrasions on it and his left glove is missing. Did he knock it aside? Why? How? Rudy attempts to bring the hand up, but it's quivering, shaking from the pain and numbness that came from, whatever that was. He almost wants to drop his gun and cry, he wants to stop fighting if it is making him like this, but His eyes go wide once they veer toward Cecilia as she is hit. Tethelle is fighting with everything she has to win her duel of honor and Claude is staying in the thick of it, fighting on the front line as he promised he would. As Bart's gear gives its raw power to the fight. Rudy knows he can't step out now.
Roughnight tries to replace his cartridge to use a different weapon, but the ammo falls from his numbed hand. He puts it in slowly, gritting his teeth as he tries to prepare himself for not only the savage assault he's sure that Berserk is all but asking to unleash, but the hope that he will somehow be able to work with the rest of his peers to drive this threat off, if not take it down.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Reload! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Rudy Roughnight takes a solid hit from Rudy Roughnight's Reload for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Rudy Roughnight!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
The hideous crunch of metal against stone rings out as Brigandier impacts that building. Debris blows past Berserk as he continues punching, looking wholly, monomaniacally focused on just tearing the Gear apart piece by piece. It's an activity that's only halted by the glint of steel from Berserk's peripherals. He looks back --
--just in time for that sword stroke to cleave into his back just as Tethelle blitzes past. The Quarter Knight lets out a -hiss- of abject irritation, swiveling his baleful gaze Tethelle's way. She springs up -- and that vertical blow -smashes- into Berserk before he even bothers to try to defend himself. Armor cleaves, but the rest of the blow turns into something more akin to battering blunt force that manages to -bat- the Metal Demon off of the Gear he was so happily beating on moments earlier. There is a screech of metal, a clang of impact -- and Berserk goes flying, just in time to see that manhole cover launch his way.
And expand.
And expand.
DOES THAT MAKE CENTS?!
"What the hell are you--"
WHANG
Down Berserk goes, colliding into the ground as that enlarged manhole cover SMASHES into it just seconds after, kicking up a thick veil of dust. There is silence, for a moment...
"... You people..."
... and something emerges from the wreckage. Hideous and unbowed, Berserk's eyes GLOW with primal annoyance as he grabs tightly onto his hammer.
"... are too..."
Claude comes. Beads of light launch forth. And the moment that sorcerous might BURNS at his armored hide -- the second that Claude -slams- that blade into the gap he made--
"... DAMN. WEAK."
Berserk -tosses- that wrecking ball at Claude. With every single ounce of his titanic strength brought to bear.
It retracts. And then -flies- again, towards Tethelle. Towards Cecilia. Towards Rudy. All with improbable, -impossible- velocity, breaking the sound barrier with cacophonously deafening BOOMS with every stroke, possessed of unholy, riotous fury...
... before it flies through the air towards Bart's Brigandier, to slam into it with enough force to make even a Gear bow from the impact. And there Berserk stands. Smoking from magic, armor bent and shorn off, sword most likely jutting out of his knee.
And he just looks -angry-.
GS: Berserk has activated a Force Action! GS: Berserk has attacked Bart Fatima with Flatten! GS: Berserk has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Berserk Break! GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a glancing hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 181 hit points! GS: Tethelle Cirdian takes a solid hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 348 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 207 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight guards a hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 218 hit points! GS: Bart Fatima takes a solid hit from Berserk's Flatten for 173 hit points! GS: Berserk has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
For a second, Claude thinks he has it. For just a second. But then Berserk hurls the wrecking ball into his body, and the young man goes bouncing off the paving stones again, rolling once before smashing into the castle wall, actually sending cracks along it as he sinks an inch or two inward. He's held there for just a moment before his weight causes the edges to give, and he collapses down onto the ground. Claude just lies there, twitching, his body in agony, until suddenly breath rushes back into his lungs and he starts gasping for air again, tears leaking from his eyes.
They can't do this. Berserk is going to win. Bart may survive in that Gear, but Tethelle will die. The young man witht he gun will die. Cecilia will die. And so will he. Unless... unless he does the one thing he is never, ever supposed to do.
Cecilia's face a mask of loss, her mouth soundlessly whispering 'Father'
Claude closes his hands into fists, his body shaking. She smiled at him, on the walk from Curran Abbey. She trusted him, a Drifter she hardly knew. And he let her father die.
Ida's eyes quivering over the barrel of Devil's Due, pointed at his chest
Breaths rasp out of Claude's body, increasingly broken and shuddering as he struggles to control himself.
Bart's arm dropping around his shoulders as they walk back from a failed Dig
I threw sass in his face and he eventually returned it with... trust and banter. Claude's right fist smashes into the paving stones, breaking the earth beneath.
Rena leaning over him as she heals him, her face an inch from his, her eyes more blue than any ocean, brighter than any stars
"The hell with it..." Claude half-sobs as he pushes himself to his feet. "If caring for them is a sin... then I'll be a sinner!" Tears fly from his eyes, chi blazing from his body as he takes a single step forward, his body dropping low. "If saving them is a crime... THEN I'LL BE A CRIMINAL!" he screams, blood-flecked spittle flying. Claude pulls down on his jacket zipper, reaches into his underarm holster, and palms an object. He drops into a low crouch, screaming at the top of his lungs, the power of his chi pulsing outward at full blast. Claude's right hand - holding what appears to be the hilt of a sword, but with no blade or crossguard - drops down to his left hip, his left hand covering it as if he's preparing to draw. It's all he can do to conceal what's actually happening. It may be they'll figure it out. It may be they'll make the same deduction Rena did. It may be this will change the fate of an entire world.
But he can't just sit back and watch them die.
"LIGHT, /COME FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORTH!" Claude screams at the top of his lungs, drawing the bladeless hilt in a blue, swinging it forward - but then a thin blade of light, brilliant as the sun, rips out from Claude, carves straight through an intervening stone without stopping, then streaks toward the monstrous Quarter Knight in an incandescent rush.
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Berserk with 'Sword' of 'Light'! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
"I will make it up to you later!" Tethelle calls back at Bart.
Tethelle feels her sword bite into Berserk's back as she drags it downward, the metal-on-metal shriek painful to listen to as she's showered with sparks. She lands as Berserk himself falls nearby, though thankfully not too close. She manages somehow to land on her feet and scrambles, clearing out of the way before Bart drops the penny from heaven. She thinks, for a moment, that might be it - that it's over aside from digging out the Teardrop.
But then Berserk rises.
Tethelle's eyes widen. He's taken as much of a beating as Siegfried. Possibly more; he's been thrown around more, smashed by a Gear and an ARM as well as Claude and her own martial skills and Cecilia's magic. And he's still moving. Tethelle pulls herself into a defensive position, sword held before her; it's a stance Berserk has not seen before but Siegfried has, the highly braced position where she's ready for anything.
As it turns out, she's not ready for this.
The ball smashes into her with the roaring blast of a sonic boom behind it. When it hits Tethelle's defensive position, it strikes with enough force that there's a shockwave away from the blast point; dust and debris kicks up in a circular blastwave from the impact point, which is Tethelle's borrowed sword held with one hand on the hilt and one hand bracing against the flat.
And if that was all that would be fine, but Tethelle barely manages to slow the ball by pushing against it, so much stronger is Berserk than her. It's not clear if she managed to slow it at all or if it just plowed into her. She's thrown out of the blastwave, moving faster than it is; she passes through the roiling cloud of dust and slams into a segment of wall with enough force to crack what's left of it with her body's impact. This causes a second dust cloud as Tethelle drops like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
She lands on her hands and knees. Everything hurts now, and Tethelle just wants to pass out. The world spins and swirls around her in an unpleasant manner. Where Berserk has inhuman durability on his side, Tethelle just has stubbornness - but stubbornness is sufficient for her to force herself up. She doesn't really stand so much as wobble upright, her sword held in front of her in one of those formalized martial arts positions.
"Not done yet," she half-says, half-slurs. Her first step is unsteady, weaving; her second is straighter, her third straighter yet. Despite the incredible beating she's taken, she rushes Berserk, because if she stops now she will fall over and she knows it. She has trained for years, since she was very young, to use the sword, and it's ingrained body memory that makes the strike as skilled as it is; she lashes in a carving arc toward the damaged parts of Berserk's armour, driving her sword up and in at his arm -
- no, his hand, where he was holding the Teardrop before. Tethelle is a little too concussed to remember if he moved it, but if not, she'll pry it out if she can, or at least make it harder for him to fight.
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Berserk with Still Blade! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's 'Sword' of 'Light' for 163 hit points! GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Still Blade for 41 hit points! GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Berserk!
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
God damn this thing was tough! Bart is rattled again by the Metal Demon slamming into him, and Brigander crashes into yet another wall thanks to the impact. That's bad enough, but it seems like he's just getting a kick out of smashing the party into the ground. Bart rubs his jaw for a moment, and Bringandier mirrors the movement - just to show that he's not out just yet!
Oh boy is he starting to get close though. He doesn't think that the Gear is going to hold up to this sort of punishment for too much longer.
The others are breaking out some big attacks. Hell, Bart has NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL CLAUDE JUST DID, because he just... unleashed some sort of beam of light sword? That's actually really damn cool. Bart wants it. Just because. But it is the sort of thing that will do a lot of damage to the Quarter Knight, he hopes. Tethelle on the other hand is going for the Teardrop. The others... they aren't going to be able to keep fighting like this, and Bart hits a button.
"Sigurd, I'm going to need close fire support on my position *really damn soon like the hell now*," he transmits to the Yggdrasil.
"You'll need to wait, Young Master. We just got a fire support request for Leon recently and we need to reload the missile tubes."
"LEEEEOOOOONNN AAALLLBBBB-oh wait that's fine, just hurry it up!" Bart commands. So they need to stall the damn thing. Right. That's not going to be hard AT ALL or anything.
He's got one trick up his sleeve. And he's gonna have to hope that it works. "Hey, big guy!" Bart shouts, trying to get Berserk's attention onto him.
And then Bart slams energy for the only Ether he could use that didn't require some sort of physical medium right at through the Ether Amp and sends it flying at Besrerk. Really it works because he uses it to warp his opponent in some weird way, twisting their ability to see, hear, and their sense of balance. Doing horrible things to their ability to attack.
"Allow me to share this with you, Metal Demon! A pirate's gotta have a winning smile, AND THIS ONE IS FOR YOU!"
Please distract him long enough please distract him long enough...
GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Berserk with WILD SMILE! GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Bart Fatima's WILD SMILE for 21 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Berserk!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia feels her power growing, the Ley power of Filgaia drawn into her hand and ready for use. But her head's still pounding from that blow.
Then she gets another one; that wrecking ball slamming into her hard and laying her right the hell out.
She regains focus only slowly; her head spinning and her mind reeling and her ears full of tinnitus. She barely notices Bart doing... .... ...what even was that. Was that a hallucination. Wow.
She does notice Claude, though. Her eyes widen, forcing herself to a sit. "The Sword of Light....?" she breathes out.
She'd made him out for a more garden variety goon, honestly. But...she knows that story.
She slowly stands. "Maybe...I picked better allies than I thought," she breathes. She motions forward with her staff, spinning it in her fingers. The ground around her flashes with power, the air burns with a pentagram sign, and she watches, quietly, as blasts of pure fire race forward, bombarding across Berserk's frame.
A little more. Just a little more...
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Berserk with Fire! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Fire for 111 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
While Berserk had planned to have the previous attack send Rudy into a building, it is this attack that does what he set out to do. Knocked clean off his feet, the blue haired boy is sent through the wall of a damaged structure, the stonework collapsing around him. As others deal with the ramifications of the Metal Demon taking off the kid gloves, Rudy's own marred remaining glove punches out from the wreckage and slowly asserts itself. Pushing up for the second time this fight, Roughnight seems like death warmed over. He takes a breath and then he runs.
One would think he would flee the scene, but instead, he moves around the powerful Metal Demon leader, as he tries to tactically get to his back. Blue energy gathering in his left arm once more. Glow is bright, even though Claude's Sword of Light is far brighter and more awe inspiring.
The gun spins around, even as Tethelle makes for the Teardrop. When Rudy fires the weapon, the aim is clear, try and deal as much pain in one go to have the Metal Demon release the Teardrop. If the others can get it, get away Maybe it would make this hill one worth dying over.
Finally, Rudy decides to shout like everyone else, "Hey, leave those people alone! If you want to prove yourself, show me what you got!"
With pitiful but heartfelt taunt attempted, Rudy unleashes a powerful blast from his Hand Cannon, the shell explosive and far more powerful than any he's fired so far, as if strengthened by his own ire for this beast that just won't fall and the hope that the battle will be won, even if he won't be around to see it.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has activated a Force Action! GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Berserk with Everything He Has! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Rudy Roughnight's Everything He Has for 78 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
"PATHETIC! You challenge me, and this is all you're gonna give?! It'd be FUNNY if it wasn't so damn SAD. Hit HARDER. Fight BETTER.
"I WANNA FEEL SOMETHING LIKE PAIN BEFORE YOU MAGGOTS DIE!"
Tethelle, dogged as she is, refuses to fall even despite all the damage she's taken. Anyone honorable or just might have commended her for her tenacity. Berserk? Berserk just laughs in her face, raucous and abrasive, even as she makes her swaying charge for him. "Whatcha gonna doe, girl?" he growls. "Come at me with your tooth pick again? BRING IT! LET'S SEE WHAT YOU'VE GOT!!" That sword -drives- into the damaged segments of that heavy armor wedging into it, trying to -- wound his arm? "GA HA! The hell do you--"
No. His hand. She's going for his hand.
And -that- gets him to react.
"NO!" bellows the beast, and for all he might have seemed engrossed in taunting them, in mocking them, the grip he holds on that Teardrop? It is stronger than the grip of -death- itself. Tethelle pries, and pries, and pries, and she might just threaten to start to wedge it open...
... if the -thud- of Berserk's hammer being dropped didn't sound out half a second before he looks to GRAB her.
"You lost it. You think you can take it from ME?! After we waited SO LONG!? She's coming back, and when she does--"
And then looks to just SLAM her into the ground, if he gets ahold of her.
"YOU'RE ALL GONNA BE BLOODY SMEARS."
And again.
And again.
And AGAIN.
And it doesn't STOP until he sees two searing lights. One bright blue, one endlessly white. He turns, sneers at Rudy and Claude, pure yellow eyes widening. "... When the hell did humans get something like..."
He doesn't get a chance to finish. He sees the blade of light rupture with blinding brilliance. Thin but immeasurably powerful, as the light from Rudy sears all the more brightly as if in response.
"... Heh. I'll show you."
And Berserk, being who he is...
"I'LL SHOW BOTH OF YOU WHAT I GOT!!"
Rushes right toward the both of them.
BOOM goes the Hand Cannon as the Blade of Light screeches in a brilliantly searing rush. They both slam into him at -once-, armor blowing away from his torso until all that remains is melted tatters and his heavy, metallic flesh. He feels the light borner, feel the shell EXPLODE across him in a way that knocks him towards his right.
But he still. Keeps. MOVING.
Charging, slowed as he is, -straight- into that light, he -whips- his xhain out, looking to snag Rudy by the ankle. His body smoking, an orange and ugly cut starting to carve into his hide from the blade, Berserk keeps CHARGING. Charging until he's RIGHT in Claude's defenses, until all that light is POURING into him at point blank range, burning a hole into his chest in a way that actually HURTS.
And then he'll -yank- Rudy forward until he is in perfect range...
... for Berserk to bring his wrecking ball down on the top of them, two handed. Again. And again. And again. Over and over relentlessly until that damn, PAINFUL WEAPON stops HURTING HIM.
"C'MON! C'MON!! C'MON!!!"
And he would likely quite literally smash them to bloody smears if he can, continue attack relentlessly...
... until fire BROILS at his back with such a forceful impact that it makes him -lurch- forward bodily.
"Hrn?!"
Jaws slavering with drool, Berserk's head snaps to the right, looking behind him. Back smoking, RAGE in his eyes, he turns... and LUNGES the princess' way, with every intention of -landing- in front of her...
... and flicking her with one mighty finger, right in the dead center of her eyes.
"Is that ALL YOU'VE GOT? GA HA HA HA! A princess of weaklings for a city of weaklings! At least you were SMART enough to give us what we wanted! Too bad that daddy of yours wasn't--"
The Ether Amp sounds. Berserk blinks. And then he howls in irritation, hands lifting up, slamming over what constitutes his ears as he staggers backwards, wobbling unsteadily. His wrecking ball snaps outward for Brigandier, but it is unfocused and far from as lethal as it could be, as he likely wanted it to be.
"G-ghhh-wh-what-- YOU SHITTY LITTLE PRICK! I'M GONNA-- g-ghuhh--hhh---!!"
He's distracted. Disoriented. But what left is there to do--?
GS: Berserk has attacked Bart Fatima with Torment! GS: Berserk has attacked Berserk with Bloodrush! GS: Berserk has activated a Force Action! GS: Berserk has activated a Force Action! GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Berserk's Bloodrush for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield! Statuses applied to Berserk! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Love Tap! GS: Berserk has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with I'm Gonna Wreck It! GS: Berserk has attacked Claude C. Kenny with I'm Gonna Wreck It! GS: Berserk has attacked Rudy Roughnight with I'm Gonna Wreck It! GS: Berserk has completed his action. GS: Tethelle Cirdian takes a solid hit from Berserk's I'm Gonna Wreck It for 231 hit points! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde takes a solid hit from Berserk's Love Tap for 69 hit points! GS: That is not a valid target. [#-1] GS: Bart Fatima used Mystic on Bart Fatima! 200 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared! GS: Bart Fatima has activated a Force Action! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Bart Fatima critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Torment for 44 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny critically Guards a hit from Berserk's I'm Gonna Wreck It for 45 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny used the Force Action Protect! He takes Berserk's attack on Rudy Roughnight on himself! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Berserk's I'm Gonna Wreck It for 132 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle is so focused that it's a wonder she notices anything that is not literally in front of her face. Fortunately, the beam that streaks past her is right in front of her face. She twists her head to realize it came from Claude, focusing on him and the weapon in his hand for a few moments.
Claude gets one advantage: Tethelle does not know that story like someone from Krosse would. She's from somewhere too isolated to have the same legends; she follows the Baskar tradition, and while she knows of a historical Sword of Light, her mind does not immediately go there.
But there's a disadvantage, too. Tethelle knows swords. That's not a sword. He's not holding it right for any sword she knows, and that includes some of the strangely shaped ones they had in a book, or in a few cases ancient weapons held in the shrine to Equites. She can't be sure, of course, given the condition of her head and the confusion of the battlefield. But she feels it's something else. And with what he's saying...
Well. It's something to think about later.
More of her attention is on Berserk. She's prying - she's damaging the sword to try to free the Teardrop, so desperate is Tethelle. She twists, grinding it into the wound. "I will not let you," she growls. "This is my choice. I will not - "
Berserk grabs her. Tethelle is too slow, dazed as she is, to break his grasp; she finds herself lifted from the ground, and for all her presence she's not actually very tall. Certainly small compared to Berserk, easy to swing around like he does his hammer -
Which means when he smashes her into the ground like he might with his hammer, the first blow is enough. Tethelle slams into the ground, the air knocked from her with a wheezing gasp, and the second and third do little but knock around an already mostly-unconcious Tethelle. She lets go of her borrowed sword; it clatters to the ground, but she refuses to relinquish her grasp on her broken one, her hand completely automatically squeezing around the strap to make sure it stays with her.
She does not react when she rolls away from Berserk. She's not dead, but she's definitely not really doing much other than lying there and occasionally making a soft sound.
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
Bart does the logical thing in this situation.
He hits the loud speaker.
"GRAB ON EVERYONE, WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!"
People are already going down, being hammered on by the Quarter Knight. There's no way they are going to get the Teardrop away from him at this point, so the real concern is getting out of here alive. And Bart has managed to confuse the damn thing for the moment, so now is the TIME TO GO.
He sends the Gear spinning forward, one hand snatching towards Tethelle to pull her out of Berserk's immediate reach. She's the main concern, and Brignadier boosts backwards, getting between the others and the Quarter Knight as it lowers its other hand for people to grab onto.
"Cecilia, I'm going to have the Yggdrasil hit this area hard! If you've got any other tricks to drive that thing away, it's time to use em!"
And with that, Bart looks at Berserk. "You hear that, buttercup!?!" he shouts. "Yeah you might be able to take a few Bart Missiles to the face and survive! And you might be able to keep coming after us!"
Bart just points at Berserk, and there's a seriously crazy look in his eye. "But you better ask yourself, pork rind! WILL THE TEARDROP SURVIVE THAT SORT OF BARRAGE!?!" The pirate punches his comm system in his Gear, and shouts, "SIGURD! FIRE!"
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny pours it on, holding the trigger down on his phase gu---
---correction---
---his Sword of Light, giving the Quarter Knight everything he's got, seeing that it's actually hurting the monster. "You like that?" he screams. "YOU LIKE THAT, BIG GUY?" But then Berserk is moving, carrying Rudy along with him, and Claude C. Kenny stops firing, fearful that the Metal Demon will use the gunman to block the phase gun blast. He ducks down close, re-holstering the weapon as Berserk comes in, waiting for that moment just before the wrecking ball comes down.
And when it comes, he uses it to throw Rudy away from his body.
CLaude does what he can to defend himself, drivign chi blasts up to counteract the worst of each strike, but Berserk is too powerful and CLaude simply has nothing left. By the time the last one falls down and rises again, Claude is staggering backward, then falling to the ground, driven senseless from his mind.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Amid the chaos; amid the screaming, Cecilia hears it. It's hard not to hear things Berserk says, really.
'She's coming back.'
A horrible chill runs down her spine. 'She.' She should know who that is. But the myths about the demons are so, so scattered, that--
No real time for it; she gets flicked.
And mocked.
One of them is pretty painful, because Berserk is three times her size and made of horrible metal muscle. The other is extremely painful, for other reasons. She's still reeling from the combination when Rudy and Claude get turfed by the rampaging Quarter Knight. "Claude! Rudy!!" She forces herself up, swaying.
Bart's screaming at her that he's going to flatten the area. ....she's not pleased, but this area is...either decimated or deserted, by now. "...I'd rather you not burn this place down any more than it is," she breathes. "...but it's better than the alternative." She slowly rises up, and power flashes up around her. "Then I will show you, Quarter Knight! I have more than my own strength to hand!"
And she reaches to her side. She's shown this to exactly one of the people here, but she produces a...stone tablet; the size of her palm. Like her Crest Graphs, but bigger, and on it, the sign of the Aqua Wisp, holy sign of the Guardian of Water Schturdark.
It is glowing. And that light flows up her body, around her as she holds her staff up, and the medium takes flight on its own. "Medium, I call on you!" she screams. "Guardian Schturdark! Your Shaman begs for your aid! Show this creature the crash of the waters! Erode his hatred away!"
The tablet swirls up above her and just...stops, as that power rushes into it, a rushing torrent of Muse ley energy swallowed up by the stone.
And Cecilia screams again.
"MATERIAL!"
And then there is a flash, the tablet seeming to erupt in power, and Cecilia is surmounted by a shining illusion; a vast turtle only barely smaller than the Brigandine, its shell hissing open and sucking in air that suddenly seems thick. It eyes Berserk with the hatred of old enemies. And it screams. Yet though the noise is riotous, the soul hears Cecilia's call.
"ASSAULT TIDE!"
And then there is water everywhere; a vast, tidal surge, blasting into Berserk, picking him up with all the strength of furious waters, and pushing him, crushing him, crashing him to the stones, wearing away at his invincible flesh with all the power of the world.
Cecilia is back, a moment later; the tablet falls quietly back into her hands.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has activated a Force Action! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Berserk with Material - Assault Tide! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Assault Tide for 188 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
As the powerful attacks assault Berserk, Rudy merely watches to see how it all plays out. And then, the counterattack comes. While he was ready for the mace, but the chain comes with shocking speed. It takes all Roughnight has to keep hold of his weapon as he is used as a living weapon against Claude. He expects to impact with ground and there is a collision and Rudy opens his eyes. He is still conscious though on the ground, but the swordsman with the mysterious weapon is defeated. He wants to verbalize thanks, but with the battle, with the few times he's met him.. He can't remember Claude's name. He can't remember the name of the man who saved his life who might have died to protect him.
Pitiful.
The emotions burn within the normally stoic Roughnight, thrown into a traumatic day that seems destined to be his final one. He was making friends, now they are fighting for their lives. He is powerless to save them. Powerless to stop this Metal Demon, much less the rest of them. The tears pour out down Rudy's face, mingling with the blood, ash, and sweat. He sobs as if a child rather than a normal teen far too young for war.
Pitiful.
But something just snaps in Rudy after few seconds of this display. The grief is poured out and emptied. With that gone, he seems ready to stand once more. The Hand Cannon is used as a prop, Rudy rising one more time to stand and fight. Cecilia's attack is unleashed and the blue haired teen blinks in response to the powerful attack. If she is willing to still fight, he's willing to do the same.
The ARM spins about yet again, Rudy's arm glowing once more, but the most attention seeking things are his brown eyes as he runs straight for Berserk. Humanity has been beaten from him and all that is left is a warrior's rage and ire that seems to transcend Rudy's current state, a fa軋de meant for a much more challenging rival. Having done his lame shout earlier, silence returns to Roughnight. But it's clear that he plans to keep on fighting as he leaps into the air, trying to aim for an eye, that ever opening and closing mouth, anything vital that might be a crucial weak point. He plans to see this through and despite Bart's sage advice, as if killing Berserk as was his lone purpose in life.
Pitiful.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Berserk with Boosted Shell! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Rudy Roughnight's Boosted Shell for 111 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
He is distracted. He is angry. But as the noise dissipates, as focus returns to him, as he notices all who have already fallen...
"GA HA HA HA HA HA!"
... Quarter Knight Berserk's laughter rings out, loud and spiteful as if to -burn itself- into their memories.
He grips his belly as he chortles, throws his head back as he belts out that scornful and mocking laughter. He hears Bart, and still he laughs... until that threat. Yellow eyes narrow. The laughter stops. And Berserk stares at the young man in the Gear.
"... You think I'm gonna balk at that? You wanna play chicken? Fine! We'll PLAY CHICKEN!" But never underestimate Berserk's stubborn refusal to quit even in the face of all sanity. "LET'S SEE WHICH OF US BURNS FIRST IN YOUR PUNY MISSILES!!" He roars, -barreling- towards Bart--
--and then he hears it. That chanting. That familiar sound and the swell of power so disgustingly alien. He halts in his steps. He turns, looking upon Cecilia...
"No."
Looking at that hateful tablet, lips peeling back in an ugly sneer.
"NO!"
His focus diverts. And suddenly, Berserk is CHARGING at Cecilia at -full speed- with every intention of -blowing- her over before she can finish that incantation, before she can summon the aid of that wretched thing Berserk so deeply despises.
"YOU THINK YOUR GUARDIANS ARE GONNA SAVE YOU?! THEY'RE NEXT, -PRINCESS-! THEY'RE--"
BANG
BANG BANG
"GRAGH?!"
And before he can, Rudy's ARM fires upon Berserk, ricocheting off his skull, crushing against his mouth where teeth pulverize the shells, hitting joints -- shoulders, knees, everything.
And while they don't seem to do much -- do -enough- -- damage to fell him...
... what they do do, is slow him down.
ASSAULT TIDE!
Slow him down for the Guardian Schturdark to drown the town square within the tiddal surge of its judgment.
He lunges. His massive hand that could so easily crush bone reaches for Cecilia's head...
... and snaps inches short before the vast wave crashes into him with force enough to sweep even Berserk off his feet, to crush down on him, push him beneath the waves --
--and drown him as they carry him in their deluge far away from the town center, screaming in fury the entire way through. Not defeated -- but indisposed. Swept off the playing field by the power of the Guardians.
But given how much of an open question it is how long that will -last- -- it might be best not to tempt fate.
GS: Berserk has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.
Well... that was impressive. Especially given how crazy the Quarter Knight seemed. Being willing to play chicken wasn't a bad thing, and Bart wouldn't mind if they blew up the Teardrop in the process (although that might have been bad? This is why he doesn't do the magic stuff). The flood of water that the tablet unleashes carries the Quarter Knight away, and Bart just thinks to himself 'damn that guy is going to be really pissed off when he's not being carried away by a flood'.
But Cecilia seems able to push him away from the city center, and he pauses, and hits the radio again. "Alright, don't fire, but keep those missiles hot. I may need them soon." No reason to blow up parts of the city when the fight seems to be over.
Brigandier reaches down, picking up Claude along with Tethelle and keeping them secured in one hand. He looks down at Cecilia and Rudy, and states, "I need to get back to my ship, and these two are going to need proper medical attention there. And quite frankly, I'm sure there's about six dozen things I need to take care of as well, and we've got a whole pile of refugees to handle. I'm willing to give both of you a ride, and you can hole up on the Yggdrasil for a bit while we decide what we're going to do next."
He also needs to see how his people are going, which is Kind of a Thing given that he's not heard from Lily and Leon in a while, Cass and her partner at all for the most part, and Fei was definitely going 'I DON'T WANT TO FIGHT' last time he and Bart talked.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia watches him go. So that's...the power of the Mediums...? She looks at the tablet with renewed awe, but must soon put it back away. Berserk's screams still echo.
He'll be back, and soon. Wherever they go...it can't be here. She marches over to Rudy, and puts her hand on him, gently soothing. "It's OK," she breathes. "It's...done. He's gone." She offers her shoulder to him. "I need to return to the castle soon, but..."
She dares to look back the way Berserk came. "...perhaps now would be a good time to give your 'try to lure him out of the city' plan a try, too."