2017-10-29: Last Surprise
- Log: Last Surprise
- Cast: Cecilia Adlehyde, Rudy Roughnight, Tethelle Cirdian, Rena Lanford, Jacqueline Barber, Seraph Ragnell, Berserk, Kent Hauch, Jack Van Burace, Kahm Yugh
- Where: Bledavik - Royal Palace
- Date: October 29th 2017
- Summary: While the palace rings with the sounds of battle, Princess Cecilia and her Dawn Chasers (and perhaps a few hangers-on) make a move against their real target: The Royal Gardens, and the Guardian Statue within...! But...they were never the only ones looking for the Statues.
This scene takes place shortly after 2017-10-28: Life Will Change.
========================<* Bledavik - Royal Palace *>========================= Formerly the ancestral seat of the Fatima Dynasty, the Royal Palace is now the centre of administration in the Republic of Aveh. Prime Minister Shakhan resides there, as do most senior government officials and military advisors. Exterior ornamentation has been stripped away over the years, leaving only weathered, sun-bleached stone. It is heavily guarded, and public access is not permitted. On the inside, however, the Palace retains some of its former glory. Red carpets are clean and tapestries flowing, if a little threadbare. Here and there, however - in the form of lights with no visible fuel source, or odd sounds clicking through the halls - there are signs that something ancient is at play within these walls.
DC: Kent Hauch switches forms to Firebug Robber Kent!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
The fighting is still raging outside.
The infiltration has been a success on every front. The attack on the square has drawn Gebler's city-defense teams out of hiding and drawn the guard away from the Palace's inner sections. Cecilia, with some help from Seraph Ragnell, has escaped from Gebler's "protection" of the Princess and made their way deeper into the palace. Fei helpfully retrieved her luggage, ensuring the Princess has been able to re-equip herself, and now dressed not in the fine gown Shakhan stole from people he murdered but in the blue Drifting-enforced travelers' outfit she now favors, her Ark Scepter magic staff in hand and her Crests and Mediums tucked away about her person, Cecilia joins up with the other infiltration group - the one gathered in front of the huge door deeper into the core of the palace, where the Gardens await.
Ceciliia makes no bones of it - she throws out one arm and an explosion of light and a rumbling of earth reveals the presence of the Guardian of Earth, who promptly blows the door entirely off its hinges with a blast fromhis shoulder pylons.
"Let's go," she says, giving the team a thin smile. She's tired, stressed - but now is the moment of truth. She turns and runs on to the Gardens.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
Rudy Roughnight is a simple young man.
The outcast isn't one for complicated missions, diplomatic intricacies, or delicate hands. But he is a reliable sort of individual, so when the plan was made, Rudy merely took it for what it was and did what he usually does when asked to do something.
Silently nod.
At the other side of the door, there is the blue haired young man, calmly stepping aside one of the doors as they are cast aside by powerful forces. A simple ka-clack from his weapon shows that the ARM is loaded and ready. As expected from the young man, there are no words as he merely races to be beside, Cecilia, his one hand out with various restorative items for her in order to have her at her best for whatever is to come their way while the other continues to hold his trademark weapon.
Not that he thinks there will be any real trouble. After all, with all the heroic souls at the other side fighting with all they have, this will likely be a cake walk. Or so he hopes.
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle never thought of herself as an infilitrator.
And yet here she is. She got into Aveh the simple way (she walked) and she got into the palace by means almost as simple (she ran) - the distraction was intensely useful for the second part of that plan.
She told Cecilia when she came up with this plan that she was going to see the end of it, one way or another; she would not stop Cecilia, but she wouldn't be cut out of it either. The Princess - the Shaman - needed to be alive, and they needed the Statue. That was the truth of it, and nothing would change that.
Tethelle is equipped with a red-tinged sword from Marze, fully as large as her original blade and of much better quality than the stopgap one she used for some time. It is not bloody; Tethelle does not have any particular desire to kill Aveh guardsmen and so she went out of her way to avoid doing so, though there are a couple with bumps on their head from Tethelle's fist, which is a weapon as much as any other part of her body even if it's not the one she favours. (Tethelle got lost trying to find the gardens. Castles still confuse her.)
"I am with you," she says, all serious for a change. She keeps pace with Cecilia easily, being in rather better shape than the Princess (sorry, Princess) but electing not to pull ahead, instead flanking the shaman on the opposite side from Rudy.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
So this was it.
Rena swallowed a bit and took a deep breath. It's okay. It's okay. They fought their way through that battlefield at the guardian temple. This isn't that much more work, right? ...Right. Right! ..... ...... Right.
No! There's so much riding on this, what if they screw up somewhere? Oh god, okay, calm down Rena. Calm down. Don't think about that stuff. Just focus on doing your part. Okay.
Cecilia arrives and Rena puts on her game face.
Time to do this.
And with that, the blunette breaks off into a run, taking up position somewhere behind Cecilia. "Here goes nothing...!" She says in a light tone, more for herself rather than anything else.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline's main purpose for being here was to extract Cecilia and her entourage safely from the city - a plan she'd cooked up alongside the Yggdrasil Alliance. The Princess had been right under her nose, but a certain Seraph had absconded with her before she could relay her plan, forcing her to try and find a way past the Gebler guards that had been assigned to to the Princess alongside the others that had made their way there.
All things considered, Jacqueline had escaped from the battle with the Elements in relatively one piece. If they had pressed the attack she would've been in trouble, but something had forced them to escape - something to do with their Commander.
She had left immediately, though not before handing a key to the vehicle over to a good friend of hers who had been fighting alongside her.
That was then, but now...
She stands outside the the door along with Cecilia's team as it is blasted away with Grudiev. There are some familiar faces here. She knew they wouldn't leave before completing their mission. Knowing what it was, she didn't blame them. She'd provide what aid she could.
"Right." Jacqueline says, following along behind them.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"*Damn*, that's satisfying," Ragnell drawls, grinning wide, as Cecilia calls up Grudiev to straight-up knock that door off its hinges. Why bother with subtlety when there's a battle raging both inside and outside the castle? Ahhh. This is ... so much Her speed that realizing it just has to make Ragnell laugh. "Too bad we don't have any paint to graffiti the walls, am I right, Cess?" she cracks, following the Princess inside as she sprints into the Gardens.
Like Jay, there are some familiar faces here, some unfamiliar; Ragnell doesn't bother to introduce herself, as there's no knowing for sure who can see her in the first place. If it becomes important, it'll come up later. Until then, there is a Statue to help Cecilia seal.
Explosions sound in the near distance. Ragnell whistles cheerfully.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
"And the time." Rena adds to Ragnell's statement. "We definitely don't have the time to paint the walls." Beat. "But I mean, it might be nice to put up a nice mural in the middle of a raging battle to tell everyone that we were here and all..." And now she muses on the idea for a while. "...But we still don't have any paint!"
Go Rena.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia laughs at Ragnell and Rena's banter, unable to suppress the giggle of being with her ACTUAL FRIENDS again. "Yes, it certainly is satisfying!" she titters. "But I'd rather use my time a bit more efficiently!"
Her staff flickers off to wherever she stores it outside of her battle model. Rudy on one side, Tethelle on the other, Ragnell and Rena here...yes, this is more like it.
Cecilia leads them down a few hallways - these better-appointed than the more widely-used hallways below, paintings and tapestries still up. This would be where Shakhan spends much of his time, it seems. And eventually...into the gardens.
The gardens were the space of the former Queen, and some of the remaining palace servants still keep it maintained. Shakhan permits it because it is an ostentatious show of wealth to him; to them, perhaps it is a more sacred place. The ground is covered in fertile soils, with flowers and small bushes thickly carpeting areas where a stone path has not been laid. Looming above it all, at the center of a winding set of paths, sits their objective: A ten-foot statue in solid marble (?), of a massive bird, its arms spread wide.
Moor Gault, the Guardian of Fire. Those sensitive to such things might feel the pulse of the Leyline's presence here, the Guardian absolutely anchored in this place. Cecilia certainly does as she stops to admire the scene.
She reaches into her inventory for the Sealing Rod. "We don't have time to admire it," she says. "Let's seal it and get out!"
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
They are not alone.
It starts as a faint whistling sound in the distance, easily missed. After all... it's chaos. Bedlam. War. Whatever you want to call it, the fighting outside makes for the perfect distraction for anyone looking to infiltrate the palace. The problem is, as grows readily apparent as that sound grows louder and louder and louder just as Cecilia starts to make her preparations...
BOOOOOM
... that doesn't necessarily mean those gathered today are the -only- ones trying to infiltrate the palace.
Some are just markedly less subtle than others.
B e f o r e
High above the chaotic, heat-soaked skies of Bledavik, a dragon soars. Metal wings blot out the sky with every beat as the alien monstrosity lingers in position just above the palace limits. Large -- but only large enough to accomodate one rider upon its back. Which is the only way he would have it.
The burning eyes of the Metal Beast's rider turns down towards the city limits. Drool slavering down past the dangerously sharp teeth of his overbite, it is hatred - and confusion - that twist his ugly lips into a sneer as he stares down at the square below.
"... The hell is...?" he begins, watching as humans fight humans. Yellow eyes narrow in realization. Lips pull back into a grin.
"Heh. Yeah. This'll do."
Upon the back of the beast, the master stands. His wild, white mane billowing behind him, he doesn't even think twice before he -leaps- off his flying mount...
... and goes crashing, head-first, for the palatial Gardens.
Because this is what amounts to the Quarter Knight Berserk's idea of a 'covert' 'infiltration.'
N o w
BOOOOOM
It's terrible providence that the mighty shockwave that ripples through Bledavik's ground floor with that earthquaking impact blends so perfectly into the chaotic violence going on right outside its doors.
But for Cecilia and the others, it's painfully, abundantly clear as those tremors roll violently beneath their feet, as dust and dirt gush from the blown hinges of that opened entrance, as the shockwave of that forceful impact rolls through the grounds of the garden to threaten to blow those too close to the impact point off their feet... that they are not alone. The ground craters. The foundation trembles. It's like someone fired a cannonball into the palace from the heavens.
And as that large figure rises near the statue, a silhouette amidst the haze save for a pair of burning, yellow eyes, it is very clear by that boomingly recognizable voice that their newfound company does not have their same, noble intentions in mind.
"GA HA HA HA!"
As if he ever could.
"... Shit," is his first, cogent thought.
"I missed it."
Enter, Berserk.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
As Rena appears to be talking, Rudy frowns, looking toward the general direction of where Ragnell is as they run. What he sees and experiences is not revealed, but soon he averts his attention back up front, moving to take in the sites. While others might explore its opulence, Roughnight's mind runs toward possible chokepoints and signs of hidden dangers. After all, digs teach you that beautiful architecture and danger can go hand in hand. But none of the danger seems to be there. At least for now.
The group moves toward the statue and Rudy is only able to give a brief moment of awe before a sudden explosion lets him know that the battle in the distance is not going to last forever. A nod is given to Cecilia's decree and then there is another loud impact, one much closer. Rudy moves instinctually to be in front of the Princess, likely flanked by Tethelle and others.
"We need this statue sealed," the young boy states, his tone serious as he levels the Hand Cannon toward Berserk, walking forward in a straight line. "He cannot get past. He will not get past."
The fires of the castle and the cries of the city seem to rush to his mind, his teeth gritting, his breathing becoming heavy with emotion as he comes closer to the Quarter Knight; whether that emotion is fear, angry, hate, or any combination of the three is likely unknown to most, Rudy most of all.
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle Cirdian doesn't recognize Ragnell, but it's very clear to Ragnell that Tethelle can see her, and clearly. Tethelle spares a couple moments to glance in her direction and take the measure of her, though it's a bit of a bad time for much more than that. If Cecilia seems to trust her, she will too.
Castles still get Tethelle lost like little else. She follows Cecilia and will probably remember her way out, but when Tethelle thinks gardens she does not think of something inside a palace. Gardens are for outside, not interior courtyards. She can tell the differences in the hallways, though; this is something cared about, though she can't tell why, as she doesn't know Shakhan well enough.
But she can feel the leylines.
"There!" At least it's easy to tell that it's not a fake; that was something Tethelle was worried about. "Then begin the sealing," Tethelle says; she's probably capable of it too, but Cecilia can do it better and faster, as Tethelle's magic tends to be rather more focused.
Of course, then Berserk makes an entrance. It's hard to miss, given it nearly blows Tethelle off her feet; it does cause her to stagger back a step, too close to his impact point to get away completely consequence-free. And that is a voice, and a face, she knows. "You!" Tethelle already has her great red sword in hand, but now she has it in both, held across her body defensively as she steps between Berserk and Cecilia. She can hold him off while Cecilia seals it, right? Right. Her body tenses.
Yes, she remembers Berserk. In detail.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline follows quickly behind, a Crest gripped tightly in her hand for immediate invocation, just in case. At the end of their path, she finally sees it - the great statue of Moor Gault.
It was a majestic thing. A part of her wishes she could take time to sketch it, to share with some people she knew. Unfortunately, she knows they don't have the luxury of time.
"I'll try to put up some pillars, give us some protection." Jacqueline repeats, with a nod of agreement. She's about to invoke her Crest to generate some protection around themselves while Cecilia prepares the ritual...when suddenly a massive shockwave erupts around them as a large figure appears before them.
Berserk.
"It's...it's you...!" Jacqueline says, paling.
This was the one that nearly killed Lunata's mother. The one that forced Lunata onto the path she was currently on.
She didn't really think she was capable of...hating anyone before. Intense dislike, maybe. But this...monster. If anyone, anything, was capable of bringing it out in her, it was him. Her initial fear gives way to cool anger.
"Understood." Jacqueline says with a nod toward Rudy, a coldness in her voice that was not often heard. She's ready to back up Rudy, Tethelle and the others.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell raises an eyebrow at Rena; then she snorts, grins, and laughs a husky, throaty laugh. "Shit, girl, we sure don't," she drawls. Have either time *or* paint. The greatest tragedy of our time! Still, she turns that grin to Cecilia. "Fair, fair. I'm sure there'll be time for plenty o' good-bye presents on the way out~!"
And forward they go, through the gardens and up to a massive bird statue made of what seems to be marble. Ragnell gives Tethelle a nod of acknowledgement when she stares at her, and Rudy a cock-eyed look; then she slows as they approach, eyes traveling up its form as she rests a hand on her hat. She does indeed feel the pulse of the Guardian here, and she lets out a low whistle. "Right after--"
BERSERK SMASH
"--you." This is uttered as Ragnell staggers in the wake of the massive impact, dropping to one knee and holding an arm out for balance as she holds her hat in place. She looks up, frowning, at the point of impact, and sees ... a man she's never exchanged words with, but recognizes on sight. She, too, breaks into laughter; it's one of those things where you just kind of have to laugh. Or at least, it is for her.
"Well, hell," she breathes, moving along with the others to take up arms against him as she draws her twin pistols. "An' here I thought this was gonna be too *easy*!"
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
Phew.
They arrived, and with no complications. Well, none beyond the fact that there's a pretty bad war going on all around, but... They can take care of this and get out of here fast, right? Right. Rena slows her run down to a stop and pants a bit. "Here we are..." A glance around, and then she stares directly at the statue. "Right. Do your thing, Ceci, and then let's-"
BOOOOOOOOM!
"HOLY-!" The blunette shields her eyes from the sudden arrival and the ensuing shockwave of dust and debris. "What in the world just- ...Ah." That stupid laugh. That hulking frame. ...It's ...It's...
The elf quietly asides to Cecilia with a bothered expression on her face. "Who is that again?" Hey, she's seen him a bunch, but always while paying attention to not getting killed by something else, okay!?
Hands clench into fists and the girl takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. "Okay..." Looks like this isn't ging to just be get in and get out, huh? They've gotta do this. Rena's eyes open back up and she spreads her feet, taking a ready stance. "I reaaaaaallly don't plan on dying today, so... maybe you could go easy on us?"
She smiles radiantly at Berserk as if it would even do anything.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia gulps, feeling the presence of the moment on her neck. She sucks in a breath. "OK," she says to nobody. A glance to Jay. "Good idea," she says. She has...no idea who that is, actually, but the explanation earlier has her assuming the woman's working with Bart, which is good enough. Either that or Gebler assassin. Little late to worry about that one. "Let's--"
BOOOOOM
Cecilia throws her hand up to guard her eyes at the thunderous impact. "What was that!? A shell, or--!?"
The medium trembles, a shot running through the bond and into her soul. She rasps a few short breaths. "No...this feeling means..."
Berserk. Her blood runs cold and she yields half a step. Rudy and Tethelle line up for the front line; Cecilia's staff appears in her hand with another flash. "Berserk," she seethes, half for Rena's benefit. "A Demon Quarter Knight! We can't let him get to the statue! He's here to destroy it!" One of the Crest Graphs in her pocket glows, following her staff as she whirls it through the air and then presents it forward. It slots in between the two wings on her staff, two Crests pulsing across its surface. "Ley Blast!" Cecilia cries - and a crackling blast of light rips across the distance, threading the gap between Rudy and Tethelle to blast into Berserk as a raw pulse of magic. "We have to stop him!"
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 77 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Opportunity.
As the sound from the entrance of the Metal Demon is settling, there is the tinest buzzing crackle of a small arc lighter touching the tip of a cigar. The current sparks the tobacco, the handrolled glowing a bright cherry red.
"Heh. S'funny, innit. One woulda figured this is the Guardian I'd've been stuck with."
The figure squats behind a thick bush - the party ran right past him. A hand, scarred by a cleansing fire, pops open a pair of buttons on his clean white shirt, reaching within. A cloth strap holds a stone tablet there. He pulls it out roughly, not caring as buttons fly off the shirt.
He shrugs out of his ash grey coat as he stands, holding the tablet in one hand, focusing on it - and focusing down.
Power pulses away from the man, driving into the earth.
The room begins to shake.
The floor starts to crack.
"Pardon me for cuttin' in, ya big bastard, but I've had bloody well enough of some of these runabouts! I've been playing kid games with you lot an' it's time to thin the herd, innit?"
The bald man smiles, a cruel slash across his face. "An' there's nothin' I like to watch more than people panicking when somethin' important to them jus'... burns up. Isn't that always interestin'... princess?"
Kent Hauch holds his Medium of Dinoginos forward and the earth spasms. Heat billows up through the cracks in the ground as lava starts flowing up, threatening to engulf Cecilia, Rudy, and the rest of the Drifters. He stoops, grabbing the top of Red River, swinging the massive ARM up and over his head and onto his back. The straps deploy around his muscular form on contact, clicking over his chest. The tank swept through the bush on its way up, the temperature setting the greenery immediately on fire, contributing to the mounting temperatures here.
The gangster steps forward, smoke drifting around him from the flame and his cigar. His sleeves are pushed up, exposing the burns travelling halfway up his forearm, and his shirt is hanging half open from his violent retrieval of his Medium.
He replaces the tablet in its leather holster, obscuring the flame-shaped scar over his heart. Kent pulls Red River's gun from its tank, the chamber glowing a furious white.
"Let's see what color yer bloody smoke is!"
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
"... hrn? Who the hell are you people?"
It's insulting, the amount of callous indifference that Berserk manages to infuse his tone with. Rising up to his full, terrifying height as the dust settles, the lack of care or immediate recognition of any of them is apparent in the dull, -bored- way that glowing, baleful stare of his takes on. Reptillian eyes sweep from one person to the next with all the dispassion of someone watching the panicked scuttle of a disturbed colony of ants.
But it's likely only worse as recognition begins to dawn on him with the bloom of an ugly, harrowing sneer.
"Heh. The coward princess and friends, huh?"
The sound of clanging chains rings through the garden as Berserk looses the leash of his wrecking ball, dragging the spiked weapon across the floor, ruining once pristinely verdant grounds with deep, ugly furrows. "Woulda thought you got tired of losing by now." Burning, yellow eyes slit into incredulous squints, practically burrowing into Rudy. "'He will not pass'? Isn't that cute. Thinking you can change anything." And then Rena asks to go easy on them. Smiles radiantly. And Berserk... smiles in response.
It is very, very far from radiant.
He looks about to say something -- perhaps balk out another laugh -- when that tremor pulses through the ground, the crackle of a Guardian's power rending the floor asunder with fissuring pathways. Yellow eyes snap towards the direction of one Kent Hauch. Berserk's hand clenches all the more tightly onto the chain. He listens to the words, heedless as lava begins to bleed from the earth as if seeping from an open wound. Baleful eyes cast towards the others, now pincered between them.
And Berserk?
Berserk laughs.
"Lookit you humans! Can't even find it in you to work together when it matters most! This is great!" No -- Kent isn't going to get any interference from the Metal Demon, it seems. In fact... "Fine. Why not? I got time to kill."
YANK goes that chain, and with a metallic groan that wrecking ball is hefted into the air, spinning at increasingly dangerous speeds at Berserk's side.
"SO LET'S HAVE A LITTLE FUN BEFORE I BREAK YOU ALL! GA HA HA!"
Ley energy flies just as Berserk -hurls- his wrecking ball with a hideous whistle through the air. It scorches its ugly path across the side of his face, the explosion of light knocking his head to one side as he -yanks- his chain to send that spiked weapon on a dangerous, circular collision path with anyone unfortunate enough to get in its hellacious path.
And all the while, Berserk laughs his hideous laugh, even as Cecilia's magic scorches its violent path across his face.
GS: Berserk has attacked Rena Lanford with Centripetal Slaughter! GS: Berserk has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Torment! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Torment! GS: Berserk has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
The drifter swordsman is there of course. Dashing from the direction of the castle. Chugging a healing potion as he rushes to catch up with Hanpan on the others. Only to find out that everyone is already here. Cecilia is already started. Well thats good...
...He breathes a sigh of relief at that, one quickly covered by a sarcastic smirk as he strolls open to her. Mouth opening to say something about how stupid all this defintally is.
Which is when there is a boom.
And then an explosion.
And then a familiar and hated voice.
Then...lava? And a man on fire? With a Medium?!
Well that entirely wasn't expected. He really doesn't like this at all. However he defintally makes the most of it. "I'LL SHOW YOU FUN YOU PSYCHOTIC TUB!
...apparently Jack is not that happy with the Metal Demon.
Really though. Who can blame him.
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Berserk's Torment for 74 hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Berserk's Torment for 110 hit points! GS: Rena Lanford critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Centripetal Slaughter for 22 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
The earth shifts underfoot. Tethelle feels it before it really goes up, and leaps back - and it's that which saved her, because if she had not made that little hop, she would have fallen in the lava.
That would have been bad.
Tethelle's expression shifts to pure fury. Not at Berserk, surprisingly, but at Kent - Kent, who is holding an active Medium and using it to defend the Metal Demon. Whether that was his intention or not, he's doing it; pulling the lava from the ground to strike at the group attempting to seal the statue away from the Metal Demons.
"You idiot!" Tethelle roars. She holds her red-tinged blade before her in a defensive position, moving in an almost ritualized way; her body is angled to present a smaller target to an opposing fencer. Kent, of course, is not a swordsman and it's unclear how useful it will be against a spray of lava. "You are putting the world at stake, and for what? And - you are misusing the power granted to you! A gift from the Guardians, and you waste it!"
Tethelle closes the distance in a sudden rush, switching her grip on her sword entirely. She's driving the hilt at Kent, trying to smack him in the jaw hard enough to rattle him, ideally before he manages to summon more magma from the very earth at her. "Have you no respect for Filgaia itself?!"
Not many people have seen Tethelle this... mad, before. Determined, yes. Aggressive, especially against the Metal Demons, yes. But furious? Not so much.
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Kent Hauch with Battering Strike! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline would've liked to introduce herself properly to Cecilia, but there hadn't really been much time for that between...everything that had happened. In fact, she hadn't really been at the door that long with everybody before they entered.
Just as Jacqueline's about to invoke her Crest at Berserk, however...the floor rumbles. Instinctively Jacqueline leaps back as the ground erupts in a pyroclastic surge, separating herself from the Princess, Jack, Rena, and Ragnell...and Berserk
Jacqueline's furious for a moment, but she forces herself to stay calm. This was for the best. She couldn't let herself be consumed with revenge. No, right now, she needed to be focused.
"What in the world are you doing here?" She says, watching Kent carefully. She notes, with some concern, the Medium in his hand.
Dinoginos - same as Shalune's.
...Okay, she can kind of understand some of Shalune's beef with the Guardians now. They gave one to this man of all people? Couldn't they do a background check first? Tethelle provides a valid point, too. They were supposed to be protecting the statues with them, not endangering them.
...Well, she can worry about that later. Jacqueline moves to support her, switching out Crests and invoking her chosen one just as the sword-wielding priestess moves in for a hilt strike. Fortunately, Berserk's entrance had made quite a bit of rubble - rubble which will soon start flying right for Kent.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Kent Hauch with Rubble-Rouser! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Kent Hauch guards a hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Battering Strike for 95 hit points! GS: Kent Hauch takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Rubble-Rouser for 90 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
As Rudy makes his way forward, Kent does his best to separate. The lava shoots forward and the young man is forced to roll to the side to narrowly avoid getting molten rock shot at him. For whatever reason, the outcast is separately from his friends, brown eyes looking toward Jack and Cecilia first and foremost as Kent gives his speech. He looks toward Barber and Rena, giving them a simple nod as if trusting his trusted companions' safety to them.
Rudy opens his mouth, but instead Tethelle shouts out her question which is soon followed by Jacqueline, questions he wishes to know himself appartment. Letting others speak for hismelf, Rudy merely remains silent but far from passive. The Hand Cannon lifts up, a simple round making its way toward the gang leader, his lips drawn into a thin line to give facial proof to his discontent with the man's choice.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Kent Hauch with So It Begins! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Kent Hauch takes a solid hit from Rudy Roughnight's So It Begins for 51 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
"Oooooohhhhh. Berserk."
Dot dot dot
"What an apt nam-WAUGH!" The ground shakes and cracks as someone new appears! Rena whirls around and sees... "Who's that again?" No, not 'again'. She's pretty sure she's never seen the man in her life, and why is he even here doing this damn it! Between Berserk and this crazy weirdo, they've already got their work cut out for them. Tsk. Can't focus on both, so... Rena turns her attention away from the bald, muscular man, trusting her allies would keep him busy, and turns her eyes on Berserk once more.
JUST IN TIME FOR A SPIKED METAL BALL TO COME SAILING FOR HER.
......
NOPE. Nope nope nope!
Immediately, Rena plants her feet and takes a breath, waiting... waiting... there! She lashes out with a palm, avoiding the spikes as much as possible as she follows through with her arm, thrusting against the impact to form a counterforce. Even so, it sends her skidding back... back... back quite a ways before she finds an opening to break off and leap aside out of the way. "Tch!" Landing a bit away, she shakes her hands of the smoke rising from them and hisses lowly. "So strong...!"
But there's no time to rest. Planting her feet again, Rena spare the other situation with Kent a brief glance before she breaks off into a sudden dash, closing the distance between her and Berserk in moments. "Hah!" With her fist infused with rippling chi, the elf aims a firm body blow right into the Quarter Knight.
GS: Rena Lanford has attacked Berserk with Energy Palm! GS: Rena Lanford has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Times like this, Ragnell almost wishes she were a Water Seraph. On top of Berserk cratering his way into the gardens, an old man she doesn't immediately recognize waltzes in and makes a mini-volcano to separate the group, splitting Jay, Tethelle, and Rudy off with the newcomer. It's an interesting use of Mediums, to be sure, and Ragnell wonders briefly what this guy's angle is if he's using the power of the Guardians. Then he basically says it, and she realizes-- "Oh, yeah, aren't you one o' them Black Ties fellas?" she says, squinting at him. She's pretty sure she's seen him before, several months back, when Sorey was giving a public lesson on Malevolence. She snorts at Berserk's comment on the matter, and remarks, disdain evident, "Ain't that just what humans are like, though?"
Meanwhile, Berserk not knowing who she is doesn't bother her in the slightest; as much as she loves a good fight, Ragnell still has a self-preservation instinct, and she's fought enough Quarter Knights in the past to have a general idea of how tough this guy is going to be. Case in point: when he starts to swing around that spiked ball, Ragnell is already in motion to avoid it. But the swing goes wild when Cecilia's magic blast impacts with Berserk's face, and the massive ball clips Ragnell--which is more than enough to send her crashing into the ground to eat dirt and, very nearly, lava. Not one to sit around when other people are trying to kill her, she rolls away, staggers to her feet, and lets her lips peel back in a feral grin. "Mm, mm, mm. Well ain't this fuckin' terrible." She glances to one side when Jack races into the room--hey, better late than never--then twirls her right pistol and aims for the air over Berserk's head, Seraphic magic charging in the muzzle. "So let's have some fun, big guy! *Squall Shot*!!"
She fires off that charged shot, and it comes down in the form of a lightning storm, sheets of rain and thunderbolts crashing down around Berserk. It only lasts a couple of seconds, but the sheets of rain also impact with the lava, creating steam and smoke that billow to one side, giving Ragnell a bit of cover.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Berserk with Squall Shot! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Rena Lanford's Energy Palm for 33 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Berserk takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Squall Shot for 44 hit points! GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Berserk! GS: Seraph Ragnell takes Cover! She gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
The arrival of Kent Hauch sees Cecilia turn in awe. The power of a Guardian...! "Black Tie," she spits, recognizing the attire easily; clearly the Princess has no great love for the gang. "What are you doing here?! Now's a TERRIBLE time for a kidnapping, I'll have you know!" she yells. "We're--"
Whatever else she's about to say is interrupted when Berserk's flying ball SLAMS directly into her shield spell. She swings her staff up to reinforce the field and it only succeeds in keeping the barrier intact enough that she goes soaring in a protective bubble; slamming into th ground and rolling to a halt some distance back. She huffs, once, twice. "We can't..." She wheezes. "We can't let you...destroy the statue! The Guardians...the world! Is depending on us!"
She throws her arm forward, another Crest igniting before her staff. "MUSE!" she screams. A second flickers into vision. "MUSE!"
One of her crests whirls around her before swirling into the centerpoint of the two icons, the energy drawing down into the stone tablet and then sparking with gathering power. "PRESSURE!"
At which point a blast of water erupts from her staff, washing across Berserk like a bullet of water pressure!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Berserk with Crest Sorcery Freestyle! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Crest Sorcery Freestyle for 61 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
"Hnf," Kent sneers. "The soft boy. Thass funny."
Kent lifts up his arm, fist clenched, allowing the hilt of the weapon to slam into the muscle there. They lock up together and Kent grins down at Tethelle, smoke curling from his mouth. "Guardians an' Filgaia, huh. I got a policy of not respectin' anything that ain't bloody well earned it."
Rudy's bullet slams into his shoulder, and by all rights should've punched a hole right through him, but the Mediums have made them all a little more than human in their own ways. It rips a hole in his shirt and leaves a nasty bruise there. He tries to ignore it, but the scattering of rocks are more pressing.
The leader of the Black Ties shoves him and Tethelle apart with a burst of strength and uses his gun arm to cover his face from the rubble. He shrugs through, growling. "You think this pile of dust an' dirt has any gods worth protectin'? Worth listenin' to? Thassa joke! Filgaia's a mess! You know what you do when a leader's leavin' a gang a mess?"
He steps back. Kent is strong, but he doesn't do close combat until he has to. The man swings Red River from left to right, the gun thudding twice, bullets of angry orange lava speeding toward Jacqueline and Rudy. In the same motion, he whips the gun up and down directly toward Tethelle, thumbing the ARM's controls. The barrel extends and divides, the weapon shifting from heavy pistol to sawed-off shotgun.
"You kill the leader and take his bloody job, innit?" Kent pulls the trigger, Red River rocking his arm back as a narrow cone of molten rock sizzles out for the swordswoman. He points toward Berserk. "'e's not my bloody problem now, is he? All I care about is makin' sure you lot die in this room. See, I don't recall saying anything about a kidnapping. You types're just makin' it bloody hard to do my business! Call me an opportunist if y'like, no slag off my pile."
GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Lava Shot! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Lava Shot! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Lava Burst! GS: Kent Hauch has completed his action. GS: Tethelle Cirdian guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Lava Burst for 87 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Kent Hauch's Lava Shot for 94 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight critically Guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Lava Shot for 22 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
His laughter is pure vitriol, ringing through the garden's now ruined grounds. Combined, it makes a mockery of what was once a beautiful slice of nature now rent asunder, smoldering with lava fissures and craters as everything that was good and natural about this place is torn down.
That this comes from the clear power of a Guardian just makes Berserk's laughter all the more boisterous.
Really... even he has to appreciate the irony.
Metal whistles through the air as Berserk's wrecking ball snaps backwards, colliding with his massive, open fist with a decisive 'WHUD' of impact. The ride side of his face smoking with dwindling, sorcerous might, it doesn't seem to diminish his amusement any more than normal -- if anything, the Quarter Knight seems to relish it, his grin a savage sight as he marches past lava and madness towards that statue.
"What a joke," he hisses. "Just the way you humans are. Weak and stupid to the bitter end--"
SQUALL SHOT!
Lightning and electricity sparks around Berserk midway on his path to the statue of Moor Gault; the Metal Demon snaps -backwards- as electrical arcs play across his scaley, armored hide, jolting through him again and again as he snarls. Steam rises all around him; his lips peel back into a sneer as he feels that electricity nettle at his joints -- and hears that voice. "Think a little steam's gonna save you?" he wonders. And then he turns. He lifts one foot into the air.
And SMASHES it down.
It's raw, kinetic force that ruptures through the already compromised earth of the garden's grounds as Berserk seeks to capitalize on the new additions Kent has made, sending a fissure screaming across the grass-laden fundament beneath Ragnell, splitting into a yawning chasm.
She has a handful of moments to react, then, before the spew of lava introduces itself to her in a less than friendly way.
Not moments later is Rena dashing into Berserk's defenses. The Metal Demon snarls as the flare of chi illuminates his ugly, reptilian features. He doesn't even think; the Quarter Knight breathes war, reacting on pure reflex as he winds backwards--
--and looks to -drive- his massive head downward into a dramatic forward lurch to drive his forehead into Rena's body the exact moment she introduces her palm to his center mass, cracking the chi-infused blow against the Metal Demon's obscenely dense skin; it dents armor inward, yet somehow, the body beneath feels even more reinforced than the plating ostensibly meant to protect it as the Quarter Knight roars.
"TRY HARDER, TWERP! GA HA HA!"
He has every intention of just moving -through- Rena whether she sticks around or not, before Cecilia's words cut through, with Jack's defiant proclamation. Berserk blinks. He squints. He looks around him, towards the chaos spawned by the power of the Guardians.
"Looks like the Guardians shoulda chose better, then," is the condescending snarl of his response, nothing but unfiltered contempt in his voice for everything Cecilia Adlehyde is and chooses to be. "I got an idea. You let me have this statue, and I don't tear down this city. Sound familiar? GA HA HA--"
It's laughing amusement cut short by the ignition of Crest sorcery. Water erupts in a deluging column of pressure, -slamming- into the monstrosity's hide with enough force to send him staggering towards his side. "FINE! I'LL BEAT YOU INTO SUBMISSION FIRST!" hollars the Quarter Knight, before he sends that wrecking ball -soaring- through the air. The twitch of his wrist, and the thing lashes straight upward, looking to crash into Jack on its ascent... before whistling -down- on a collision course that is doubtless meant to smoosh Cecilia like a bug underneath the furious weight of steel and spikes.
GS: Berserk enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Berserk has attacked Rena Lanford with Hellacious Headbutt! GS: Berserk has attacked Jack Van Burace with Torment! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Flatten! GS: Berserk has attacked Seraph Ragnell with No Kill Like Overkill! GS: Berserk has completed his action. GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Berserk's Flatten for 82 hit points! GS: Jack Van Burace takes a glancing hit from Berserk's Torment for 91 hit points! GS: Rena Lanford critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Hellacious Headbutt for 30 hit points! GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Berserk's No Kill Like Overkill for 234 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle slides back after Kent breaks the lock, sweeping her sword around and ending with the point directed right at Kent's face. Since she's several feet away now, he is not immediately stabbed by it, but she definitely seems more willing to use the blade the more he speaks.
She's still furious. "I do," is her reply, short. "I respect the Guardians. Though they are weaker now, they still deserve respect, and they are still part of Filgaia. They have granted you power so that you can use it to defend Filgaia, to help the world, not to damage it!" Tethelle starts to edge around to the side, circling.
"But even if you care nothing for them, you still live here! If you want to fight us, fine. But allow us to finish here first! You say he's not your problem, but he is everyone's problem!"
Tethelle dodges to the side in the space she's cleared at the same time Kent fires, whirling her sword through a series of blindingly fast arcs to literally parry bullets. What she gets, however, is not bullets. The lava spatters across the flat of the blade, which is curiously undamaged by it; it's a fire-aspected blade made by Symbological smiths, from Marze. But now it has lava cooling on the side, which changes its weight, and some of the backsplash spattered across Tethelle's arm, causing her to curse under her breath in an unfamiliar language.
"My name is Tethelle Cirdian, priestess of Equites," she says, "and I don't intend to let you continue on your 'business'. Nor do you deserve the blessing you've been granted. If you want to fight me so badly, you have your wish - and I'll take that undeserved blessing from you!"
Tethelle comes in fast again. Kent might not like melee combat, but Tethelle thrives on it; she stays in within reach, though with enough room between them to use her great sword appropriately - she's no knife-fighter. Her blade shimmers with silvery-white energy along the blade as she slashes, leaving a trail in the air that bursts in a bright flash as soon as her sword makes contact with him. (Or hopefully him, anyway, but it bursts when she hits anything.)
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Kent Hauch with Burst Strike! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Kent Hauch critically Guards a hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Burst Strike for 19 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline switches out Crests as Kent takes aim at her, generating a pillar of stone in front of her. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to gather enough energy to make a solid defense, and the bullet of lava melts right through her pillar. It at least takes it down from a potentially fatal strike to a merely rather painful one, the force of which pushes her backward as her front is scorched and burned.
She winces, but focuses her attention back on Kent.
"Really, you seem just fine with using the power they gave you." She comments in disgust, rummaging through her bags.
"But fine. This isn't really about the Guardians, anyway. You say he's not your problem now, but he's going to be. Should a gang leader really be this short-sighted? If you have enough of a head on your shoulders to be leading people, then use it!" She comments, echoing Tethelle's sentiments.
She draws out a bottle of bright-orange liquid. Depending on how far back he remembers - and perhaps on how high the cleaning bill was - he might remember this particular concoction from all the way back in Tumblus Town.
Jacqueline hurls it at Kent's ARM. The bottle will shatter on contact with the first surface it meets, splashing it and the area around it with a liquid that seeps into ARMs to gum up the works.
"If the Metal Demons get their way, there won't be a job to take over! Unless you're foolish enough to think you and your thugs can take out an entire army and their queen!" She shouts.
"Look at him! Do you really think he's going to leave you alone when he's done here?" She asks, pointing at Berserk.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Kent Hauch with Haywire Draught! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Kent Hauch takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Haywire Draught for 24 hit points! GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Kent Hauch!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
The lava races for Rudy, who actually swats it away with inhuman force. The backhand of his glove is melted by the bold move, showing that he has been somewhat burned by the experience. Other wounds that follow are the small marks that come from the globs that exploded out and actually hit the face and chest and the boy, small coin-sized burns that hurt, but do not slow down the warrior in the least. The gamble has paid off this time, it seems.
A glance is given toward Barber, making sure she is alright before he takes aim again. This time, two bullets fly, Rudy waiting for openings as Tethelle attacks. Still there is silence. The words of power, opportunity, and morality are thrown around. But for Roughnight, the only sounds that come are the loud shots he fires. Just because he doesn't talk, however, does not mean he isn't taking even every word offered, not only by those fighting Kent. Berserk's boastful words carry to him. Two beings, powered by their own selfish drives.
Rudy's brow ticks slightly, only once at first, but slightly growing in speed. He's starting to get mad.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Kent Hauch with Can't Stop Won't Stop! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell overhears Kent's explanation of his actions and rolls her eyes. "Human doesn't like how the gods're doin' their job, so wha'd'they do? Try to fuckin' kill 'em and become God themselves. Typical fuckin' human," she mutters. She'd have a few more choice words, except it's a supremely bad idea to let one's attention drift from a Quarter Knight. The waves of steam actually end up working against her here; while Ragnell can feel the WHOMP when Berserk smashes his foot into the ground, she doesn't see the rent ground until it's too late. Her only real hint is the massive spike in heat beneath her--and then it's one quick motion to save the one, most precious thing she can, and then she is veiled behind a curtain of lava.
This would be instant death for a human being, of course. Fortunately for Ragnell, she isn't human--and the element of lightning has some roots in fire, which only helps. But lava is still goddamn lava, and by the time Ragnell manages to get away from the rain of fire, she is burnt, blistered, blackened, and badly, *badly* injured. She pants as she sprawls on a rare patch of unaffected earth, shoulders wobbling.
And then she lifts a hand and catches her hat on its way drifting down. It, at least, is okay thanks to her quick actions earlier. And that's the important thing here, clearly.
Staggering up to her feet, Ragnell sets her feathered hat back upon her head with due care and tenderness. Puffing out a breath of ash and smoke, she angles her arms up as she begins to cast a Seraphic arte. As the golden glyph circles under her feet, she calls to Berserk, "So if we *don't* give ya the statue, you'll tear down the city whether ya get it or not?
"Promise?"
...Ragnell's particular sense of humor might be a little dark.
Regardless, she turns a hand out towards the Quarter Knight and calls, "Thunder Blade!!" A crackling blade of electricity hurtles down from above at an angle towards Berserk, sending up a wave of lightning upon the initial impact. A heartbeat follows; then the blade *explodes* with concussive force in a wide radius around itself. If the initial blast doesn't snag the Quarter Knight, perhaps the follow-up will.
GS: CRITICAL! Kent Hauch guards a hit from Rudy Roughnight's Can't Stop Won't Stop for 67 hit points! GS: Kent Hauch enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
Well this didn't turn out well.
Not that Jack is really complaining since it means he gets to hit Beserk. "I've heard that lie before, you metal bastard!" The swordsman snarls as the huge machine man talks of sparing cities.
Not that they were a serious offer. I mean really. Jack is just to mad to understand sarcasm.
He is quite well enough to understand hammer to the face. He tries to twist out of the way but that mace and chain comes far too hard and far too fast for conventional manuvers. He's tired after fighting an Element and...well to be fair. He isn't really thinking well.
However he uses the momentum imparted to his poor body to leap up and then dive down. A slash aimed at the chain, the sword flashes as he tries to sever Beserk's favorite weapon. "I'll take you down a piece at a time you rotund bastard!"
MEANWHILE!!
Hanpan will cling to Cecilia's hair. Because OH MY GOD HE DIDN'T EXPECT THAT.
GS: Jack Van Burace has attacked Berserk with Heal Blade! GS: Jack Van Burace has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Regardless, she turns a hand out towards the Quarter Knight and calls, "Lightning!!" A point in the air over Berserk's head sparks, then shoots down a quick, solid, single thunderbolt. Kra-kow!!
GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Jack Van Burace's Heal Blade for 29 hit points! GS: Jack Van Burace takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
Rena doesn't smirk or celebrate as she land what amounts to a blow. No. This battle is far from over. In fact- oh lord. He's reacting already! Moving with a sense of urgency, the elf channels chi into her arms and plants her feet. Juuuuust in time to feel the impact of that headbutt as it strikes against her sideways outstretched palm. "...!?"
Even while shoring up her defenses with chi empowerment, she could feel her arms and the rest of her body creak from the sheer strength of the blow as she skids back a couple feet. But she doesn't stop there. Knowing not to push her luck, the blunette leaps backwards a bit and surveys the situation. Cecilia and Jack look... okay. Ragnell though. It looks like she took a pretty bad hit.
No time to attack, she's got a more important job to do! And so Rena dashes off in the Seraph's direction, skidding to a stop with her arms outstretched. "Here, let me heal you!" She says quickly, a soothing green glow emanating from her palms. It's not chi, and she didn't use any sort of medium. Was that just simply raw magical energy?
Huh. Either way, it does the job pretty well, soothing Ragnell's wounds as much as can be accounted for in this hectic situation. "Try nooooot to die, okay? That would be pretty bad and all, right?" A silly little smile forms as she makes a light crack despite the battle happening around them
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Berserk with Lightning! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Rena Lanford has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Cure Light! GS: Rena Lanford has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Lightning for 45 hit points! GS: Rena Lanford heals Seraph Ragnell! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Berserk screams his taunts...but it's Kent that makes Cecilia take notice. "This isn't one of your turf wars," she says, with quiet steel. "The order of the world requires us to stand up." She forces herself to remain standing, and sets her eyes on Berserk. "To help each other to save everyone!"
Power flows in and around her. She feels the Leyline bursting within her.
She reaches up to help Hanpan take a seat on her shoulder, instead, because that hurts her hair. She smiles at him thinly, before turning hard eyes on Berserk. "As for you..."
And then the world pulses around her, her Mediums whirling out of her inventory to circle her like beads of potential. They spin around her until one settles in front of her. She says, "I've given you every inch you're getting! MATERIAL!"
The Medium surges with light, more and more and more, until Cecilia is gone - replaced with the lumbering form of Grudiev. The mammoth stone lizard shrieks, power crackling in its shoulder pylongs, firing down in twin streams to a point in front of it, gathering and building--
And in the end, Cecilia's voice calls: "Magnetron Bomb!"
The flickering blast of power rips forward, tearing up the garden around it as it goes, shards of earth torn out of the ground by the passage of the Earth Guardian's power before it slams into Berserk and hurtling him away!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Berserk with Material - Magnetron Bomb! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Magnetron Bomb for 50 hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde takes Cover! She gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent Hauch has no fear of swords. "They granted everyone power," he growls back. "That's panic. That's fear." He steps right up into Tethelle's reach with instincts built over a lifetime of fighting on the streets backed up by training from his good buddy, the Man in White.
The weapon's crossguard digs into his body, and he grunts with the impact as the trail flashes behind him, shadowing his face. "Fookin' idealist," he mutters, completing the step, driving his knee up toward her gut with all of his mass's momentum.
"Hah! Like I'm gonna explain everything to you lot just because you ask! Things're more complicated than you'll figger out with the time you got left."
He snaps Red River out over Tethelle's shoulder toward Jacqueline, seeing the bottle, and fires a sphere of hissing tephra at it with a crack. The rock bullet pings off the side of the bottle but fails to divert it - it shatters across Red River's gun and most of his right arm.
Kent sucks on his teeth and pushes past Tethelle, his eyes locking on Rudy. He digs into the scrap-covered bag slung over his shoulder, the one all Black Ties wear, hurling a molotov cocktail toward Jacqueline without really looking. It isn't lit, but that's fine - when it smashes apart on the ground, the lava everywhere sets it off. Not really a weapon that requires accuracy.
He's focused on Rudy now. Something about that kid pissed him off back then in that small town. He roars back at Cecilia as he marches forward: "Don't give me that shit about togetherness, Princess! Easy to talk like the world gives a shit about any of us from that ivory tower!" He starts running at Rudy, the barrel of Red River opening out into a wide nozzle.
"These worthless, primitive, terrified gods ain't nothin' but bloody tools! They won't save this planet! You people can't see it when it's right in front of your eyes!"
His arm whips around in a wheel, Red River growling as it starts burning through the gunk clogging it, horrible grey smoke billowing around it. He swings it in an uppercutting arc toward Rudy. "Yer all TOO FOOKIN' SOFT to accomplish ANYTHING! You gotta climb the the real heights to get anything done around here! Short-sighted? I'm cutting edge, aren't I?!" Lava erupts out in a wave toward Rudy, flowing out around Kent as well, swiftly cooling to form curling structures of brittle stone.
GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Ash Knee! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Molotov Cocktail! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Tephra Wave! GS: Kent Hauch has completed his action. GS: Tethelle Cirdian guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Ash Knee for 73 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Molotov Cocktail for 64 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight takes a solid hit from Kent Hauch's Tephra Wave for 120 hit points! GS: Kent Hauch takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
Hanpan is now regreting hanging onto Cecilia. She's yelling attack names and summoning giant Guardian powers. "Remind me again who needs to be the bodyguard?!" The little Wind Mouse mutters as he clings on for dear life.
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
Promise?
Returned to his hand, Berserk bounces his wrecking ball upon his palm, chain rattling like the approach of death with every thump against his hand.
"How 'bout you find out the fun way."
If he's intent on unleashing that weapon upon Ragnell, it doesn't come immediately. Instead, Jack immediately arrests the Quarter Knight's attentions with his sudden descent. He catches the flash of steel from the corner of his eyes, sees Jack's brandished blade -- knows his intent. The Metal Demon snarls, tenses--
CLANG
And sparks rain as Berserk captures Jack Van Burace's sword directly upon his palm.
The blade bites -- digs a shallow wound into Berserk's hand, for all the pressure that Jack exerts -- but Berserk holds it tight, keeping it from that chain -- and keeping Jack -close- -- as he snarls, breath rank and spittle flying.
"Look at you, all angry," seethes the Demon, making sure Jack is close enough -- so close to his goal, yet so far from achieving it. "How's it feel, being so mad, trying so hard, and getting NOTHING out of it because you're TOO DAMN WEAK to take what you want? Feels sad, doesn't it? Pathetic? It should, if this is ALL an ANGRY LITTLE SHIT LIKE YOU CAN MUSTER!"
And with that, the Quarter Knight will just look to fling Jack away, not caring enough to even try to smash him into something before stomping away, laughing -- as if the former knight was little more than a gnat beneath his notice, or care. And then he feels the air around him ionize.
"Eh?"
It's a single, backwards snap that sends him careening backwards just as Ragnell's lightning bolt cracks its flashing path across his chest from above. Branching paths of electricity burst and crackle across the alien alloys of Berserk's armor, irritation curdling his lips as he just -flings- that mace Ragnell's way reflexively. The weapon howls as his body smokes, making a crash-landing where Rena is currently tending to Ragnell's wounds -- with a violent trajectory and momentum that will catch them -both- up in its wrath if they aren't careful.
"What the hell are you supposed to be, anyway?" he wonders, eyes affixed on the Seraphim in the distance. He grunts, once, before turning his head. "Whatever--"
Just in time to see Cecilia summoing up the form of Grudiev in her place. Yellow eyes widen. Lips part. This. This he's familiar with. And it fills him with tremulous, unspeakable...
"NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN!"
... rage.
He roars. It is a hellacious, blood-curdling sound as the Quarter Knight does not attempt to retreat -- but -charges-. The ground rumbles with his every heavy impact as he winds his left hand backwards. His right hand -yanks- upon the chain of his weapon.
And as that blast of earth and power rips forth, cosumes in shards of natural future...
... Berserk -punches- through the Guardian's power with a blood cry of unspeakable fury that prefaces the full force of his fist plowing through everything it comes in contact with, earth, energy, flora, Guardian, princess...
... as the wrecking ball sails in from behind to CRASH into anything his fist DOESN'T hit to just OBLITERATE everything in his way.
GS: Berserk has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Torment! GS: Berserk has attacked Jack Van Burace with Taunt! GS: Berserk has attacked Rena Lanford with Flatten! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with No Kill Like Overkill! GS: Berserk has completed his action. GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Berserk's Torment for 87 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Rena Lanford guards a hit from Berserk's Flatten for 116 hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde used Mystic on Cecilia Adlehyde! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has activated a Force Action! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Berserk's No Kill Like Overkill for 140 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Waitin' around doesn't sound very fun to me," Ragnell complains, but there's no seriousness to it. It's a stark contrast to her wounds, which... 'a pretty bad hit' is... yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's accurate.
The Seraph startles when Rena dashes to her side with an offer to heal her wounds. "Uh--" she utters, but Rena's already doing it, and while the Seraph has seen her healing on the battlefield in other fights and knows how skilled she is, it's another entirely to see it up close. It's actually quite amazing to feel that light wash over her third-degree burns and wash away the pain, knitting together... not so much tissue as underlying magic. Ragnell blinks at herself, then at Rena.
Then she grins and laughs and reaches out to tousle the girl's blue hair, if she lets her. "Yeah, that would blow harder'n' a volcano!" she jokes back. "But..." She turns a grim look towards Jack, whose fury has sent him thoughtlessly whaling at Berserk with all his might, and Cecilia, who calls upon the power of her Medium to summon Grudiev. "Got a feelin' you're gonna be real busy with those heals real soon, Rena."
'What the hell are you supposed to be, anyway?' Berserk asks her.
Ragnell dips into a cocky, mocking little bow. "Delightful an' charmin'," she quips, winking cheekily at the Quarter Knight. ...Let's face it, it's not like he'd remember or care if she told him the truth. The only thing he cares about is SLAUGHTER, case in point when he just fuckin' chucks that mace at her and Rena. Ragnell curses and attempts to shove Rena to one side as she too dives away; whether that's helpful or not is... well, yeah, nah, it's probably not helpful, considering that massive spiked ball clips her just as hard as it did before, i.e., hard enough to send her hurtling into the ground. Again. But she tried!! And... that's probably what counts...?
Regardless, Ragnell picks herself up as Berserk goes to town on Cecilia. It's awful, but it means he's focused on her, so there's time enough for a higher-level Seraphic arte. One again, she concentrates, calling up a glyph beneath her feet, as she chants, "One true sword to smite the masses... Thunder Blade!!"
A crackling blade of electricity hurtles down from above at an angle towards Berserk, sending up a wave of lightning upon the initial impact. A heartbeat follows; then the blade *explodes* with concussive force in a wide radius around itself. If the initial blast doesn't snag the Quarter Knight, perhaps the follow-up will. Better still, one or both might keep him pinned for a while, preventing him from getting any closer to the Statue for a moment longer.
One can hope, anyway.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Berserk with Thunder Blade! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Thunder Blade for 118 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
"Better an idealist than a nihilist," Tethelle snaps back. "What do you live for, I wonder?"
Tethelle is a lot of things, but a street fighter isn't one of them. Kent has a completely different set of reactions than she does, and at extremely close range his win out; she takes the knee right in the gut, though at least she manages to roll with it rather than getting all the wind knocked out of her.
Still, it isn't exactly fun. She lets out a wordless grunt as she is knocked backwards, giving Kent enough time (and room) to continue to engage the others - but she recovers, if not immediately, quickly enough to continue to fight. Tethelle is now several steps away - exactly where she doesn't want to be.
"You're right. They won't," Tethelle says, more steadily. "Not alone. But they will help us. You have misunderstood, I think, the blessing of the Guardians. You think I'm too soft to accomplish anything? Let me show you what we can accomplish when we work together!"
"Equites! Guide my blade, and allow me to cut a path to the future!"
If Berserk was made furious by the summoning of one Guardian, he will not be any happier when a second pulse of divine power radiates through the gardens - but not from Cecilia. Tethelle has pulled her own Medium out, a stone tablet with the symbol of the Sword on it, and is holding it before her; as she releases it, it circles around her, glowing a strange shade: gold, tinged with green around the edges.
The power flows into Tethelle's sword. It barely seems able to contain it, vibrating as Tethelle holds it as steady as she can, the blade beginning to glow the same shade but so bright it hurts to look at. When it has held about as much as it can, Tethelle slams it point-first into the ground, and it penetrates as if the stone was made of butter, driving in about a foot - and a gigantic blade of divine energy erupts from the ground under Kent's feet, accompanied by several geysers of pure power from the crack in the floor it's created.
DC: Tethelle Cirdian switches forms to Sword Shaman Tethelle!
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Kent Hauch with Blade Eruption! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Jack Van Burace takes a glancing hit from Berserk's Taunt for 0 hit points! GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Jack Van Burace!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline nods toward Rudy when he glances back at her, to reassure him that she's fine. Right now, they had to focus on the problem in front of them.
So, fine, maybe things were 'complicated'. Jacqueline didn't really care about that now. Another pillar goes up, and the molotov shatters against it. Some its contents do still splash back at her and ignite, forcing her to take a moment to tend to her burns.
She draws out a potion and downs the lot, before tossing two more out - one to Tethelle, and one to Rudy. They don't need to catch it - it'll heal just as well whether or not they drink it or if it splashes on them, but drinking it was easier, certainly.
"And what, exactly, are you accomplishing here? You're not scavenging, I take it." She didn't expect a real answer, but Kent's response - if he chose to even say anything - might give her some hints about it. If he was really just here to kill them...then why? Jacqueline's eyes narrow. "You call the Guardians 'tools'...but it seems to me like you're in the exact same position."
It was just a guess.
Speaking of the Guardians, Jacqueline can't help but be impressed when Tethelle invokes the power of Equites - the Sword Guardian, from Jacqueline's understanding. She's never seen a Medium quite like that before, however...
GS: Kent Hauch guards a hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Blade Eruption for 88 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Distribution Theory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Distribution Theory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Distribution Theory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Tethelle Cirdian! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Rudy Roughnight! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
In previous battles with beasts like Berserk, the tactic was simple: Survive and do everything you can to keep everyone alive. But there was more at stake than just this fight. Slowly, Roughnight is forced to come to grips that somehow, for some reason, he working with people entrusted with a task far greater than all of them combined.
Fighting to survive is no longer enough. Rudy must learn to fight to win.
When barrel of Red River expels the massive gout of protective lava, Rudy actually charges straight for it as Hauch moves toward him. The subtle movement of the cartridges being changed is important but easily missed in the chaos of battle; Rudy's firing cylinder is moved for something that has much bigger rounds. But as soon as the change is made, a pillar of swiftly cooling rock not only hits Rudy, but forms around his chest, burning his white shirt and causing the normally silent young man to cry out in pain. He dangles for a moment about ten feet off the ground, but the reason for his charge is now clear as the left forearm of Roughnight begins to glow the weapon is twirled in his other hand. He's in a much better position to get in a good shot at Kent, despite the stone wall. The powerful explosive shot is given, seemingly enhanced by the pure anger within the outcast.
Regardless if the Hand Cannon's powerful hits or not, the bare and burnt hand of the blue haired kid comes down on the brittle stone, breaking himself free with a violent motion and landing on the ground. As Tethelle offers her powerful attack as well, Rudy gives a 'three point landing' on his feet and his feet hand, slowly rising in the wake of her words. His white shirt is all but gone, revealing burns across the front of his torso.
Roughnight opens his mouth to speak, but then he gets clocked in the head by a potion that causes him to stagger to the side. However, the healing outweighs the flash of pain as the potion from Barber does what it needs, revealing a scrawny chest and abs. A nod is given toward the kind healer before Rudy turns toward his foe. Finally, he speaks.
"With or without the Guardians, I will save this world," he states with his voice lacking the meekness it had the first time he confronted Kent. "We will save this world. I recommend you become part of the solution before I'm forced show you what I do to bullies."
Part of him wants to look toward the battle with Berserk, to see how they are doing. But he knows he can't look at the monster that is fighting his friends. And part of him doesn't want them to see the freak that he fears he is inside. But the power to protect is useless unless it is allowed to run free and it seems at the moment, Kent is primed to receive all of it. But even with the harshness in his eyes, the attempt for compassion is given to Kent a second time, the gentle tone making for a sharp contrast with the hardness in his eyes and the leveling of his weapon once more.
"Please."
GS: Rudy Roughnight has activated a Force Action! GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Kent Hauch with Boosted Shell! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Kent Hauch critically Guards a hit from Rudy Roughnight's Boosted Shell for 25 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
This was not how it was supposed to go!!
Jack twists in the grip of the massive Quarter Knight as he spits in his fate. Try as he might he can't break free from that grip, at least not until that Metal Demon helpfully releases him. The swordsman flies, Berserk's words ringing in his ears. They hurt. They sting. They tear into him.
Weak.
Powerless.
His head hangs for a moment. Slammed against a wall. Sitting there unmoving. Sword held loosely with one hand. The swordsman has trouble moving as he starts to stand.
When he looks up, eyes unfocused for a moment as if every one of those words was a lash. He sees Rudy though, Rudy and Cecilia both fighting. Can he do less, espicially when faced with an enemy from his past such as this.
This time its at the giants legs he aims as he leaps back into the fray, no more words. Jaw rigidly clamped shut as he flings himself forwards, slashing blows met to mince the ground around his feet. Trying to unstead him. Give others a moment to catch him unawares.
But talking? He's beyond this.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
Rena doesn't resist as Ragnell ruffles her hair, and she laughs lightly. "Ehehe..." But there's little time before her expression grows more serious, turning to look towards the progress of the battle. "...... Yeah. I am aren't I...?" Sigh, yep. Of course, then a massive spiked wrecking ball comes hurtling her way and her eyes widen. "WHOA-!"
Ragnell's attempt to push her out of harm's way does help a bit. The rest is Rena crossing her arms in an X and channeling chi to shore up her defenses! KLONK! The ball smashes into her, spikes tearing at her clothes, but only scratching flesh rather then blowing her up into tomato soup! That would have sucked. Still, the impact sends her sailing away... away... awaaaaaay.. thud. "Kuh-!" The elf hits her back hard and coughs out from where she lays on the ground.
".... Ow." The blunette groans, just laying there and wondering if maybe she shouldn't get up, but... damn it, she has to! With that, she draws herself up to her feet shakily and takes a deep breath. Okay, what next...
Her eyes settle on Cecilia and then she nods to herself and runs off. There's no point if the leader drops dead, right? Right! "Cecilia, let me help you!" Rena says quickly as she does the same thing she did for Ragnell for the Princess, channeling a soothing, rushing flow of raw healing magic to ease the buildup of damage over this frankly insane battle. No time to attack the hulking jerk herself!
GS: Rena Lanford has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Cure Light! GS: Rena Lanford has completed her action. GS: Jack Van Burace has attacked Berserk with Strike Buddy! GS: Jack Van Burace has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Jack Van Burace's Strike Buddy for 95 hit points! GS: Rena Lanford heals Cecilia Adlehyde! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Berserk's reply to her Guardian power is an utterly furious rampage. But this time Cecilia's Guardian is a manifestation of something more, something different, a wider spread of power!
Berserk's is just of an immense wish to pulverize a princess. The fist slams through, ripping through the earth walls Grudiev threw up. The Guardian scatters, his power ephemeral, and Cecilia reaches for another this time. "I won't--!" she yells.
Shaman...
A Medium of Stare Roe, cracked and fractured, a barely-empowered husk found in the Palace halls, between her Berserk. "JUST LIE DOWN!" she screams, as a blossoming, blooming light erupts between them, Cecilia feeding more and more power into the Medium to try and spark off its Guardian...
And then there is a tremendous, horrible CRACK as the wrecking ball hits the Medium's power, and the Medium explodes apart. The crack spreads clear across the middle and the thing falls away in chunks. Cecilia watches it with an unreadable expression on her face.
And then, eyes down and hooded over, she speaks. "You just aren't listening," she says, maybe more to Kent than to the creature before her. "It was never the Guardians' job to save the world! It was never the world's job to save us! It was only ever ours! Our task! Our burden! And if the Guardians give us power so that we can do our jobs better, then that is the greatest kindness they have the strength left to offer!"
Her eyes cut up, daring to match eyes with Berserk. "If I am soft...then I will find steel. And if your power breaks through mine..."
Another Material flashes up between Shaman and Demon. "Then I will still try anew!" she calls. Rena's light washes across her, and the feeling of refreshment prompts her to take a long, long breath. "I accept this burden, however difficult the road."
Her eyes reopen. She stares at Berserk. "MATERIAL!" she screams, and the Medium before her rushes out with roaring tides, before a more familiar pair of eyes glares at him.
Schturdark. The Guardian of Water screams like a waterfall.
"Assault Tide!!"
The water rushes away from the Guardian - pushing Berserk back and away. He's experienced this before, surely; but the damage is damage nonetheless, as it washes across him, blasts past him - and even soaks the ground. Cecilia recognizes friends and so the power cannot harm most of the field...
But Kent may find she is no ally of his, either, as the water crashes across him like a wall.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Kent Hauch with Material - Assault Tide! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Berserk with Material - Assault Tide! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Kent Hauch takes a solid hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Assault Tide for 154 hit points! GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Assault Tide for 147 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent's put himself in a pincer position with his section of the fight in order to go after Rudy in the way that he did - he's either bold or an idiot.
Or, well, six of one, half-dozen of the other.
He's getting angrier and angrier as the fight goes on, as the Drifters spew their nonsense at him. Him! If they'd seen the garbage in the corners of this world like he had, if they knew how much he had to bite and tear for every scrap of comfort he had in this world...
Veins bulge at his right temple, sweat shining on his head. He's not the usual Kent Hauch, always performing for his gang, always seeming larger than life. The veneer is flaking away. He's becoming just Kent.
Just Kent is a different beast. Just Kent is a desperate street rat with nothing to lose.
Kent glares down at Rudy, a rivulet of sweat running down his chin, his neck, slipping into the horrible gnarled flame-shaped scar over his heart - his Medium has shifted in the fight, exposing the old knotted wound once more. "You ain't nothin'," he growls, his accent slipping. "Just a kid who still thinks this world's fair. Like being a good person could ever fookin' matter." His hand bears down on Red River, knuckles whitening. "Trust me. You're better off dead."
He suddenly whirls around toward Tethelle as the blade punches into the ground, reaching to the side and grabbing one of the spiralling rock structures, muscles on his burned forearm bulging as he drags it between them. It splinters some of the energy apart, splintering apart itself as it does so, and he barely jerks his head away from the remainder of it, dropping to a knee so it doesn't punch into his center mass. It opens his battered shoulder and the side of his face in a spray of blood.
Kent roars. "You think POWER is the same thing as DRIVE? As HUNGER? As RESOURCES? You think this trick is going to affect this world? You're a FROG IN A FOOKING WELL! I've seen more of what's happenin' here than any of you! You ain't bloody helping, you're all IN THE WAY!"
He spins again, hearing the click of Rudy's Hand Cannon with the sharp senses of someone always ready for someone to try to collect his scalp. Too close. Can't get away. He has to...
Red River responds to the defiant fire within him as he brings the gun up.
Synchronizing.
The barrel changes of its own accord, splitting into four, rotating rapidly. It fires streams of lava that lattice together with threads of metallic traces broken down from the rocks within its tank, creating a spiralling shield spider-webbed with reinforcing traces that glimmer in the red light.
The Boosted Shell hits and detonates against it. The shield lasts for a few instants before shattering in a glittering cloud. The remainder of the Shell spits forward, striking the gangster directly in that flame-shaped scar. Blood - not enough - spurts out.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent stumbles back, hand slapping at his chest, eyes briefly wide. His fingertips find the ravaged bullet and he barked out a pained snarl as he rips it back out of him, flinging it away. It hits one of the narrow lines of lava in the ground with a hiss.
He puts his hand over the Medium, adjusting it back over his heart, and leaves it there. "Heh. Might look that way, innit? Followin' orders. But one tool's got no say in the matter, throwing itself into whatever hand'll hold it. But me--"
Whatever he was going to say next is quite literally washed away by the water of Schturdark, slamming into him, cooling the lava around them all to stone. Kent disappears in the wave, staggering back, steam exploding around him as it hits the white-hot parts of Red River.
But he never takes his hand off the medium at his chest. The steam seems only to be building, a terrible heat suffusing him. His next word can't be heard clearly, but it just might be...
"Material."
The steam around him explodes further, erupting into a pillar all around him as the air becomes screamingly hot. The stone path under him starts to flow. Yet another Guardian forms around him, fitful, flickering. An enormous humanoid of stone and metal with a pulsing heat above its head, hunched. Resisting.
Veins bloom over Kent's left temple, his teeth gritting, biting through the cigar, ripping at the Medium with all of his will.
"Bleeding Earth."
The world heaves again, far worse than before. Instead of merely cracking, the ground starts to fragment apart as narrow, jagged rivers of lava splinter away from the leader of the Black Ties. This willpower goes beyond merely criminal. He fights directly against the water of Schturdark, filling the garden with steam and smoke, the terrain becoming unsteady, levels rising and falling.
Kent spits the stub of cigar left in his mouth. It lands in a patch of undisturbed grass, though the heat is causing it to brown and wilt.
GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Rena Lanford with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Jack Van Burace with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Berserk with Material - Bleeding Earth! GS: Kent Hauch has completed his action. GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Material - Bleeding Earth for 0 hit points! GS: Tethelle Cirdian guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Material - Bleeding Earth for 0 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight takes a solid hit from Kent Hauch's Material - Bleeding Earth for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Entangle! Statuses applied to Rudy Roughnight! GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Kent Hauch's Material - Bleeding Earth for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Entangle! Statuses applied to Berserk!
DC: MISS! Seraph Ragnell completely evades Material - Bleeding Earth from Kent Hauch!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Material - Bleeding Earth for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Entangle! Statuses applied to Cecilia Adlehyde! GS: Jack Van Burace takes a solid hit from Kent Hauch's Material - Bleeding Earth for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Entangle! Statuses applied to Jack Van Burace! GS: Rena Lanford guards a hit from Kent Hauch's Material - Bleeding Earth for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Entangle! Statuses applied to Rena Lanford!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
Winds whipping wildly around Berserk, the Quarter Knight's mane of white hair billows behind him in the torrential force brought between himself and the manifested force of the Guardian. Fury seizes his gaze, every blow seeming to just make him hit harder in all his escalating wrath.
He won't stop. He can't stop. Like a force of nature, the Quarter Knight just keeps pressing -forward- like he was feeding on all the violence around him. There is no talking, no reasoning; just single-minded purpose as his burning yellow gaze focuses on that statue beyond him.
"Yeah," he decides, to himself. "Done playing."
And with that, he begins to move, slowly, but with driving purpose. He does not stop as he hears the distinctively strange sorcerous crackle of Seraphic artes in the distance; he is waylaid by the -explosion- of electrical fury as that elemental blade impales itself in the ground just before him. The explosion rips through him in a lightning storm of power, overcharging and blowing off pieces of armor and smoking at the green scales of his armored hide as his arms sweep up in front of him to shield him from the brunt of it.
It halts him, but it's only temporary -- only long enough to infuriate him as he turns his gaze upon Ragnell, and then Rena. His lips peel back. And then he just starts -marching- anew...
... right into Jack's path.
It's almost as if Berserk refuses to acknowledge the former knight. As if his presence were not even worth considering. It'd be hauntingly familiar to Jack Van Burace.
The same cavalier indifference the Quarter Knight wore when he slaughtered his way through Arctica. Through Jack's home.
The ground, his legs, all of it, introduced to the edge of Jack's blade. But Berserk. Doesn't. Stop. He marches -through- him, intent on just -pushing- Jack away with one open palm and a snarl as the blows knick through armor and scrape flesh with sparks across that metallic hide. It slows him, unsteadies him, but does -not- stop him. Smoking now, armor carved through, he still makes his way towards that statue...
... only to pause as he feels that tell tale fluctuation. "Hrn?" Hears those words. Sees the Medium Cecilia holds. His nostrils flare. Eyes narrow.
Assault Tide!!
Time and time again, that manifestation has been his bane. Washed him away in the inexorable tide, bought the time needed to save the day. And as that power engulfs and drowns him within its tidal fury, as water -pounds- into him with all the pressure one might find within the ocean's depths...
"I SAID--
"I'M DONE PLAYING AROUND."
BOOOOOM
A sonic boom detonates within the air of the garden as Berserk's hammer punctures through the veil of water like a meteor punching through the atmosphere, breaking sound barriers as it screams furiously through the air. And as the fundament beneath him begins to crack and crumble and tear away at his feet, Berserk directs his fury, his righteous anger, his overwhelming, savage might -- ever -ounce- of it - to tear that hammer in a wide spiral throughout the -entirety- of the garden. Pillars explode. Walls collapse. All around him everything comes apart as Berserk.
Breaks.
Everything.
And woe be to anyone caught in the crossfires.
And in the aftermath, as lava spits at his feet, as structures collapse around him...
... the Quarter Knight keeps moving. Marching, drenched and steaming yet unabated...
... right for the statue.
GS: Berserk has activated a Force Action! GS: Berserk has attacked Rena Lanford with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Jack Van Burace with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Berserk Break! GS: Berserk has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Berserk Break! GS: Tethelle Cirdian critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 136 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 205 hit points! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 123 hit points! GS: BACKBLAST!! Seraph Ragnell can't escape from Berserk's attack! She takes 48 damage! GS: Rudy Roughnight critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 143 hit points! GS: Rena Lanford critically Guards a hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 132 hit points! GS: Jack Van Burace takes a solid hit from Berserk's Berserk Break for 327 hit points! GS: Berserk has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Drawing the power, as it turns out, is easy. Holding it is much harder.
Tethelle breathes out, then in, stabilizing her energy flows. When she draws the sword from the floor, it's a somewhat ritualized movement, and she takes a specific stance. Her movements are strangely flowing as she shifts from position to position, channeling the very power of the Guardians - or at least one, specific Guardian - through her.
This is the Twenty-Fifth Stance, the final secret of her temple.
Tethelle does not roar back. As Kent gets angrier, Tethelle... well, she doesn't calm down, precisely; she merely gets more focused. She can't let her anger run wild. But she really, really wants to. "It is not," she says, instead. "I am one thing: a sword against the darkness, a shield to protect others, a blade to open the way. I will cut a new path - and if I have to stand against all the Metal Demons and you to do it, I will! The world will be in better hands than yours!"
Kent summons the very power of the Guardians against her. Tethelle feels it in her bones: Dinoginos, who cannot be happy to be used in such a way. She feels the resistance of the Guardian, and Tethelle works with it. As the ground cracks underfoot, lava meeting water in clouds of steam, Tethelle walks through it, holding herself safe through will and power, the green-gold glow of Equites surrounding her like a bubble.
It's hard. It's the hardest thing Tethelle has done. She feels a pain like a hot wire in her head as she holds the ground together under her feet, shielding herself from the Guardian's power. She has no attention for Jacqueline's potion, which splatters around her. One step. Another. Another -
Berserk slams in from the side. The pillars and walls shatter, showering Tethelle with debris even as the bubble of light around her pulses, throbbing with her heartbeat. Chunks of stone fall through it, Tethelle's sweeping parries not enough to deflect them despite her best efforts. She feels the power slip away from her, slowly at first but then faster, and then she sees what Berserk is doing.
"A blade to cut the darkness!"
Tethelle expels the power, forming it. It tears out of her, forming a ring near her. Sword after sword appears, connecting to the ring, a spinning disc that she releases - and then there's a woman there, the phantasmal form of the Guardian herself, a four-winged woman with a wreath of blades.
"MATERIAL! ENDLESS BLADES!"
Equites sweeps across the battlefield. Sword after sword rains down, shining motes of light that strike and impale. Tethelle herself staggers to the side as she expels all her built-up power at once, barely able to stay upright - but forcing herself to nonetheless, even as Equites pulls up at the end and is gone, leaving not even her glow behind.
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Berserk with Material - Endless Blades! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Kent Hauch with Material - Endless Blades! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Kent Hauch guards a hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Material - Endless Blades for 95 hit points! GS: Berserk takes a solid hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Material - Endless Blades for 150 hit points!
DC: Tethelle Cirdian switches forms to Warrior-Priest Tethelle!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"It does matter! Every day, I see good people, trying their best to make their way in this world! The world certainly isn't fair, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make as much of it as possible. It's people like you that worsens the world! You're the one who's in the way!" Jacqueline shouts back, furious. "Show me that there's more to you than burning and looting and destruction, and maybe I'll reconsider my opinion!" Jacqueline shouts.
Kent invokes his Medium, and Jacqueline reaches into her coat, drawing out her own - the Medium of Grudiev. She's seen this happened before. Cyre and Catenna are in her mind as she invokes it.
"Grudiev, please...Material!"
The Medium starts to glow as the image of a dinosaur covered in crystalline appears. His arms extend over her, and a shield of earth surrounds her. It holds against the pyroclastic flow Kent invokes, channeling it away from her and protecting her with its embrace.
Unfortunately, this did leave the shield somewhat fragile, which causes problems when Berserk...
...decides to stop playing around.
The mace crashes down on her earthen shell, cracking it open and smashing down on Jacqueline. She's knocked to the ground. Her shell protected her from the instant demise the mace promised...but it wasn't enough to fully withstand the attack.
She looks up, her vision blurring as she sees Berserk begin to approach the Statue.
"W-we can't...we can't let him...!" She says. She shuts her eyes tight and invokes the Crest in her hand, conjuring an earth pillar that she hopes to slam directly into the Quarter Knight.
From her position on the ground she also sees Tethelle invoke her own Medium.
They were throwing out everything they had...would it be enough...?
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Berserk with Pillar Crash! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Pillar Crash for 129 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
At Kent's words, there comes something from the broken boy. The normally silent Rudy Roughnight begins to laugh. An odd thing considering how infrequent it happens from Rudy, much less from a 'hero' on the battlefield.
"Fair? FAIR? When did I ever tell you that this world is fair? Has been fair? Will EVER BE. FAIR?" At this point the kid is crying. He's actually crying with pure frustration and ire, his tears burning down his face, making clear lines through the dirt and ash raised by Kent's attacks of earth and fire. His loud protests make it hard to breathe as the steam and smoke fill his lungs, causing him to cough and double over. Despite this pain, the cartridges are changed once more, this time, a revolving barrel with only two shots. Much like the Red River, the barrel of the Hand Cannon actually expands, going to three times its normal width. Tethelle and Cecilia fight with the power of the Guardians, which are impressive and powerful. Jack fights with his blade, with tricks that Rudy can't muster. Barber and Rena have their healing arts and powerful magics. And there is someone that's invisible doing something cool. Rudy just has his gun. But he can still get better. Rudy can still learn new tricks.
Slowly, the ARMslinger staggers to his feet, still bolstered by the healing magic of Barber. From the darkness of Kent's summon, the blue light shows that Rudy is about to do his thing. "I know this world's unfair, and that's why I fight to protect the people in it. From you. From the Demons. From the world itself if I have to. And if I'm not strong enough, I'll gather around those who are. And if we aren't strong enough, I'll do it takes to make us strong enough!"
The shot is fired, not at Kent like normal, but in the air, lopping itself into a gentle arc to hang above the battlefield. "And no one will-"
The power of Berserk tears into Rudy, the mace cracking against the skull, sending him to the ground. One would think that with Rudy falling to his back with a bloodied skull that the ARM attack would stop. But it already got the targeting data. Rudy did his part, now its time for the new ARM cartridge to do ITS part. The canister suddenly explodes into beams of light, which cascade down into a multitude of white energy blasts that attempt to level not only Kent but Berserk as well.
In the wake of the attack, the boy arises. "Is everyone okay?" he asks with a broken voice, trying his best to assess what seems to be an ever chaotic and changing battlefield.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has activated a Force Action! GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Berserk with Mighty Avalanche! GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Kent Hauch with Mighty Avalanche! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Rudy Roughnight's Mighty Avalanche for 39 hit points! GS: Kent Hauch guards a hit from Rudy Roughnight's Mighty Avalanche for 55 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
There's some value, Ragnell reflects, in giving humans power simply to see what they'll do with it--if they'll work towards the greater good, whatever that is, or decide that their personal interests come first, even if that means the destruction of a world.
There's value, but only in a theoretical sense, because sacrificing the world you live on just to prove to yourself that humans are as rotten as awful as you always suspected is fucking stupid.
She does at least have to give Kent credit: his willpower is incredible. As he fights against the tides of Schturdark, of the essense of his own Medium, Ragnell retrieves her grappling hook from the item bag in her poncho and aims for one of the broken rafters high above the gardens. She fires just in time to haul herself up off the earth to completely avoid Kent's Material. At the same time, though, Berserk makes it clear that he's done with playing around, and simplpy shatters everything around him so thoroughly that the expulsion of power batters at Ragnell, who can only turn herself to one side as best she can. It's still a better defense than some of the others can manage, being down there on the ground with him; Ragnell sees what becomes of them and does not envy them. Still, everyone is fighting their hardest, on both sides, and Guardians appear over and over to lend their aid, one way or another. Ragnell glances over towards the Statue, the target of all this chaos. It's still standing, somehow, but... given all this destruction, it might well end up breaking just as a by-product of the fighting without Berserk or Kent ever having to get all the way over to it.
Wouldn't that be a kick in the teeth.
She flips herself upward to loosen and release the grappling hook, then lands light on her feet below on the crumbling earth below as the rope coils back into the firing gun. She puts that away and stands, beginning to cast a Seraphic arte anew on Berserk. A giant glyph appears beneath him as she chants, "O sacred will, lay waste to our foes... Divine Saber!"
Bolts of sacred lightning begin to fall then, seemingly at random at various points of the glyph around Berserk, then finally in a massive, continuous blow at the center.
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Berserk with Divine Saber! GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action. GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Divine Saber for 71 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
Nope.
NOPE.
Rena is smarter this time. She is not sticking around. Not that there's a whole lot of space left to really retreat to anyway, but even so, once the ground starts shaking, she stumbles, but moves to find safer position. But there is nowhere to escape from Berserk. One can only try to not die. And that's what Rena's going to do. Dodge? Nope. She summons every ounce of energy she has left and channels it into chi to reinforce her body. And here it comes.
BOOOOM!
The hammer slams into her. Annnnnd she goes sailing. Right into a wall. CRACK! ".... Ow." Rena groans from within the wall crater, her arms crossed defensively. She reaaaaaally doesn't want to imagine what it would have been like to actually get hit by that unprepared.
Tomato soup suddenly comes to mind again. .... No, no don't think about that right now! The elf pulls herself out of the crater with a groan and sighs, eyes poring over the battlefield. Who needs help.. who needs- ...Ah. Jack.
Good ol Jack Van Burace.
He looks like he might have just lost all of his blood. That can't be pleasant. And so Rena runs over to him and smiles grimly. "Try not to fall over on us, okay? You don't look like you're ready to have a funeral yet, after all." Best joker, Rena Lanford.
But she heals the swordsman, providing much needed relief all the same. She just hopes everyone else is stopping that violent crazy bastard. Because she's got her hands full!
GS: Rena Lanford has attacked Jack Van Burace with Cure Light! GS: Rena Lanford has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
The echos are terrifing.
Marching forwards regardless of damage or defense. Ignoring attacks that would fell ten men at once. An unstoppable force of destruction. Something ment only to break, to kill, to destroy. It slows him yes, but thats all Jack can do. The fear, the hate, the fustration of that all mix in Jack's mind as Beserk casually marches his way towards the statue.
Red clouds his vision as the knight throws himself forward. Blood rushes in his ears. Common sense is no where to be found as the flings himself bodily at the Quarter Knight. Echos of the screams he heard when Arctica was reduced to ash ring in his ears along with the scream of bloodlust.
He throws everything he can at the monster from his waking dreams.
And Berserk simply keeps walking.
He doesn't stop as that massive foot comes down on the man that once called himself a knight. The snapping of bone is audible, though the Quarter Knight seems not to care. He's left behind as the Metal Demon stalks on, left broken in the rubble he created to try to slow the advance. His left arm mangled, his right leg not much better. Trod on like some insect under the Demon's advance. Shattered, broken, useless once again to stop whats happening.
Even then the swordsman struggles to rise. Everything senseable in him long since burned away in a need to stop this thing or die trying. Those are the only choises, there are no others in his moment.
He stands...and Berserk's hammer comes down.
The explosion of power, of force. It lifts Jack up off his feet and send him flying backwards. Tumbling though the air in a tangle of broken limbs. Slamming into the far wall in a spray of crimson blood and a cracking of bone. Rib? Spine? Arm? Leg? Its hard to tell at this point.
His vision fading, his life leaking out on the ground of the flaming garden.
By some strange twist of fate his hand has kept a hold of his sword. What use of it though if he can't stand.
Driven beyond all thought of self presvervation the knight twists where he lies, his sword raised before he snaps his weapon forward. The pressure wave generated by that motion slamming into one of the tottering pillars, the weakened stone failing just as Jack's body failed. The structure tottering over, falling, angling to crash into Berserk. To stop his march. To somehow do something with whatever life he has left. Even if its useless he has to try...
Rena's healing? Is likely the only thing keeping him alive at this point. The man can't even seem to manage to stand.
GS: Rena Lanford heals Jack Van Burace! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Jack Van Burace has attacked Berserk with Trickster! GS: Jack Van Burace has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Jack Van Burace's attack becomes clear! GS: Berserk takes a glancing hit from Jack Van Burace's Trickster for 146 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia has her expectations low this time. Berserk is furious; Kent's furious. He EXPECTS this from her now. Before, when it's worked, she's used it as a surprise. Now...
Well, she's not entirely surprised when Berserk's response is to scream at her. But that is what allows her to weather it in turn. She slams her staff down, a barrier bolting up around her. The ground under her cracks and fizzles, her eyes falling on Kent Hauch as his own power leaks out - another Guardian, invoked. The others all seem horrified by how Kent feels about the Guardians, uses their power, but for Cecilia...
They gave that power forth for humans to use. That they would then use it is obvious, isn't it?
But even so... it rings in her ears. The voice of the world protesting. A voice of...
Shaman...
Berserk's wrecking ball blasts her back another dozen steps. She slams with her back to the statue, crying out in pain as she hits. But Rena's healing is still with her, and even as Berserk's murderous fury rages across her, she feels she can still stand. She can't...just let it end this way...
Her knees feel weak. She grits her teeth and forces her staff to the ground, refusing to fall so easily even as the ground beneath her cracks and bleeds from Kent's bleeding earth.
Shaman...!
Her eyes widen and glare at Berserk. Behind her, unseen, the statue shines. "And I said," she whispers, "that WE WILL NOT BE YOUR TOYS!"
The statue pulses, once. A light explodes in front of her, as the wrecking ball comes in. Before, she narrowly repelled it with a Medium's last rasp of power, but now...it is like striking something immobile. Immovable. Like a wall.
Like a mountain.
The pieces of the shattered Medium from before rattle where they lay, and whirl up into the air, rapidly assembling themselves around that resurgent mote of light. The Leyline whirls; the power that sustains the world has come to this place. And throbbing through every soul, a voice.
Shaman. I am Dinoginos. Guardian of Summits. Guardian of Mountains.
The pieces of the fractured Medium click back together around that shining pinpoint of the Leyline, and the mark upon its face has changed to the same as that on Kent Hauch's medium. The voice speaks again to the soul.
Set your feet, and become one with the world. Together, no force shall move us!
"GATHER WITH ME!" Cecilia calls out, and then says something else as the new Medium's power flows out of her, and her form flickers. She sets her feet. "MATERIAL!"
She becomes one with the world. The same figure as Kent invoked appears, lurching out of the ground, eyes blazing as it surges upward, higher and higher. If before it looked cowed, now it glows with purpose, as it pulls one unbelievably massive, craggy fist back - and SLAMS it into the ground.
Shards of earth rip up from the landscape, massive sheets of rock bolting up around the statue of Moor Gault and the people near it. For Berserk and Kent, for just a few moments - The way is blocked.
Cecilia croaks, hoping someone gathered together with her: "Get...get it sealed! GET IT SEALED NOW!"
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
The ground beneath Kent stops flowing as he releases the Medium. Perhaps the shamans can feel it - Kent doesn't simply release his will on the Guardian - he casts it away. Flings it down like a spent pistol. Dinoginos...
...doesn't leave.
Dinoginos strengthens, transfers, and flows.
The gangster, the thug, watches it happen through his angrily hooded eyes, but he does nothing to stop it. Not that he could against a fully fledged shaman... probably. But just as much as fighting against Berserk isn't his problem, neither is interfering with the sealing of the statue of Moor Gault.
The only reason he is here is to kill Drifters, collect his paycheck, and continue to jockey for position. A long game.
Berserk goes absolutely buck wild, but Kent steps further back, getting out of the line of fire. Smoke stops drifting off Red River as the last of that gunk finally burns away just in time for swords and light to rain down against him. "Tch."
He lifts his arm as he briefly vanishes in the rain of violence, energy raining down into him. By all rights, this should be it. Even using the power of a Medium, even synchronized with an ARM from the Metal Demon War, he should be just a gangster. He should be gone.
Kent, just Kent, roaring out his anger, comes tearing out of the raining assault, blood streaming down his face, expensive shirt in tatters.
No more Guardians. Not even the power of his weapon. Kent charges right up to Tethelle, swinging a bloody and cut fist down at the bridge of her nose, planting his right foot, twisting his body's mass down into it.
"The problem with you bloody Drifters is that half of you think you're far too damn important. Sword against the darkness my arse. Not a fat lot of good against fire, innit?" He reaches up, thumbing blood out of his eye. Kent Hauch draws himself back together. The street rat starts to pull the shell of the leader back around himself. The garden is in flames - it makes him feel better. Rudy, Jacqueline, they're briefly forgotten, but Red River glows with grave promise.
GS: Kent Hauch has attacked Tethelle Cirdian with Haymaker! GS: Kent Hauch has completed his action. GS: Tethelle Cirdian takes a solid hit from Kent Hauch's Haymaker for 120 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
They're determined.
But so is Berserk.
For as much as those gathered here are resolved to seal that statue, in Berserk is a thousand year old grudge that fuels a resolve more steadfast and burning thn the unquenchable heat of a star. In that statue is everything. Every hope, every dream.
The future. His people's future. More importantly, HIS future. And even more importantly than that...
... his Mother's future.
It is will and strength and a stubborn rage that fuels his every waking moment, electrifies every alien cell in his body, that carries the Quarter Knight forward. Carries him even as others desperately summon the Guardians as well -- carries him as Equites rains blades of light upon the battlefield, carving through and impaling him, sticking through the earth as he -rips- those burning motes of Guardian's power out of him, one by one.
Carries him even as Seraphic lightning carves its sign into the earth beneath him. Even as electricity bolts from the heavens into one tremendous column of ionizing air, supercharging Berserk and attempting to fry him where he stands -- he wades THROUGH it, struggling through the prison of lightning and thunder before -smashing- his way out, electricity spasming at his limbs and stuttering across what amounts for his nervous system as he smokes, armor blackened and broken. Yet still -moving-.
Carries him, even as Jay summons forth that massive pillar of earth, COLLIDING with his midsection with force enough to carry him up into the air with it. Carries him as, even airborne, Rudy's ARM shells slice rays of light through him, carving angry paths through his back... until his hands reach out, grab that pillar, and -shatters- it, sending him crashing towards the ground with a krak-BOOM of impact. Carries him as he stands up...
... and sees that foundation coming down on top of him like a looming shadow.
And all he can do is sneer.
THOOM
Debris collapses on top of him. Buries him. It should kill anyone. Anyone human. At the very least, crush limbs, break bones, render him immobile.
But as rubble splinters and then explodes past one angry, green fist, as he stumbles outward through the haze of dust and dirt...
... Berserk carries on.
Every spite-filled thought, ever day teetering on the edge of oblivion, every furious moment of betrayal, every -hour- he felt the -humiliating sting- of loss. All of it carries on, into his fist clenched around that mace. Hefted back.
And carried on through that one mighty toss, resounding like a thunderclap rent across Bledavik's castle as he hurls his weapon at that statue...
... and pauses, as the Unstoppable Force meets the Immovable Object.
"... eh?"
His weapon, suspended there, is held still. And there he sees it. The Guardian. Again. THe Guardians. Always. Every time. Fury rides high through him as earth surges up in a craggy bastion around that statue, defending it in a celestial shell of mineral and divine grace.
The howl from the Quarter Knight is absolutely blood-curdling, even beyond that barrier.
And even beyond that barrier... the way everything SHAKES with every moment his fist SMASHES against the surface of it, time after time after time, is nothing less than harrowing.
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!"
GS: Berserk has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Tethelle Cirdian has posed.
Tethelle has lost her grip on the power. She's fallen out of the Twenty-Fifth Stance even as Cecilia successfully walls off the statue - though from Tethelle too, on the far side of the (mostly cooled, thankfully) flow of lava and with the same barrier keeping Kent off it. She has never channeled it in combat before, and the shock of losing it is strong. Especially with Cecilia channeling and reforming Dinoginos' power, across the gardens, and Berserk howling his defiance.
And as a result she is a remarkably easy target to punch in the face.
Tethelle's nose breaks, and it hurts. It makes her stagger back under the force of the blow, half-dazed as she shakes her head sharply and then rather strongly wishes she hadn't. She starts to say something, to object to what he says. She's not the only sword, but she spoke to Equites, and the very Guardian seemed to approve of her choice of path. In fact, Equites put her back on it, after she thought she'd failed.
But the words won't come through the blood and pain, and so Tethelle replies in the simplest way she knows how. It is crude and simplistic and yet feels very, very right to do.
Tethelle switches her sword to her off hand, and with her strong right arm punches Kent right back, aiming right at his nose.
GS: Tethelle Cirdian has attacked Kent Hauch with Right Hook! GS: Tethelle Cirdian has completed her action. GS: Kent Hauch guards a hit from Tethelle Cirdian's Right Hook for 45 hit points! GS: Kent Hauch enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
Okay. Jack isn't dead.
That's good enough for now.
Now for the next important thing; sealing this statue! Rena takes a deep breath and then looks towards Berserk as he goes insane with anger. It's... really, really unsettling. To put it lightly. But she shakes her head. There's a job to do here, and Cecilia has opened the way! Rena breaks off into a run and pulls out her medium from the temple run a good while back. She still hasn't used it for battle or anything yet. ...Not yet. But for this, she'll have to try and do something with the opening they have! Giving Berserk a wide berth, the elf raises the medium and closes her eyes. Focusing her magic into the tablet and on the statue itself.
Come on... Come on... Come on...!
A gust of wind kicks up, tousling her hair and clothes as she scrunches her brows in focus...! She does not want to know what happens if Berserk breaks the barrier!
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
Laughter.
Rattling. Weak. Wet. All things that laughter shouldn't be. Laughter that even the most unhinged might call crazy. This is not a place for laughter, but its there none the less. On the edge of hysterical, booming, and oh so mocking.
It comes from where one Jack Van Burace struggles to get to his feet. Leaning against his sword(the other knights would yell at him for that) the sandy haired Drifter forces himself to slowly stand. Everything is pain, its his whole world. Pain though is something he's lived with since his old life died in fire and ash.
And he still laughs.
"There, I've seen it." His voice struggles over the pain. "The mighty Berserk. Stopped dead in his tracks by us pitiful humans." He mocks the gaint Metal Demon. "Oh now that sight almost makes all this worth it. Now who is the weak one, Demon? Now who is pathetic?"
...apparently the Knight really wants to undo all of Rena's helpful healing.
Or he has a deathwish.
Likely both.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline expects death, stuck on the ground as she is. Both Kent and Berserk seem unstoppable, even with the powers arrayed against them. And then...something happens. Berserk's massive mace is halted by a barrier. Kent seems distracted...
Now's the time.
With a wince Jacqueline hauls her injured body from the ground and breaks into a run. As she moves she draws a rod from her coat - a Sealing Rod given to Drifters to seal the statues along with the ritual. Rena has already started it, and as soon as she's close enough, Jacqueline joins in as well.
It's a little intimidating, doing it while Berserk is leering down at them...but it had to be done. They had to trust that Cecilia's barrier would hold.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
The thunderous slamming against Dinoginos' shield has Cecilia's heart pounding even more than before. But Rena and Jay slide in beside her, doing their best to reinforce the shield. Cecilia sucks in a breath and whirls around. She's splitting her concentration which probably means Berserk starts tearing through that shield any second now, but she joins the other three spellcasters. She prays in her heart, less words and more thoughts. "O, Guardians," she breathes.
The Leyline rises up through them - gathering up in the two Sealing Rods and in a space before Rena, until beams fire from all three points, hitting the statue and engulfing it in light!
Afterward...if the statue shines just that little bit brighter, perhaps that is all the sign it gives. But to those who could sense it, something has changed. There is a certainty in the heart:
The Statue is beyond Berserk's reach.
Which is when Cecilia collapses to her knees, and the barrier erected by Dinoginos crumbles, and the Quarter Knight has an unobstructed shot at the Guardians' Shaman.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent Hauch feels the cartilage give way under his fist. It's not as good a feeling as fire, but it's a close second. The wild chaos of the situation is nothing new to him.
He is accustomed to working around fire and screaming. It's relaxing.
He follows through fully on the punch, blood dripping off the now-split skin on his knuckle, sweat misting and steaming off his body. He grins down at Tethelle.
"Din't expect that, eh? People always get fired up'n forget about good ol' fashioned fists."
She promptly responds in kind. Tethelle feels the cartilage move, but this isn't the first time Kent's had his nose broken. It's practically on a hinge. He rolls his neck with the punch, twisting. The end result is that it looks like he's been plowed with a baseball bat, but it doesn't take very long for him to blink his vision back into place. Grinning through bloodied teeth, he straightens.
As he puts a hand on his nose, he looks past Tethelle at the sealing.
Hunh. At least Kent isn't leaving totally empty-handed.
He tugs on his nose, pushing it back into place with a meaty crack, plugging one nostril and blowing blood clear to steam on the hot stone beneath them. He puts Red River over his shoulder where it magnetically attaches to the tank on his back. Kent puts one fist to his palm, cracking knuckles. "Arright now, bitch."
"Let's finish this dance..."
The gangster rolls forward one step and shrugs his shoulder. The strap to his bag slips off and into his hand.
"...another time."
He drops the bag into a finger of lava between them, jumping back. The superheated rock sets off both the regular fuel and the Tipple within, creating a small wall of blue-green flames, hot wind blowing off from it. Kent stumbles as he lands, blood spurting from a few cuts on one leg from the rain of swords. He growls, stomping down as he straightens.
Kent leans over and retrieves his coat, brushing ash off of it.
...and just like that he starts to leave, backing away from the shattered, burning battlefield, grinning cruelly. The veins still throb at his temples - he's very much furious - but he knows when the tide is about to shift completely against him. The sealing of the statue is a clear sign.
Time to go.
<Pose Tracker> Berserk has posed.
He hears it. Weak, and wet, but he hears it.
Laughter, like a mocking death rattle.
Slowly, the pounding upon that relentless barrier comes to a stop. Stone is concave, so close to breaking, but he knows he is too late. He can feel it. The statue, sealed. He won't be able to break it in time.
And as the battering rams that are his fists come to a stop, he looks at Jack. Daring to laugh at him. Fury and frustration are his blood, pumping quicksilver hate through his veins as he stares at Jack. He knows. He's too late. But as he turns to face the former knight of Fenrir...
... Berserk knows he can still make them all feel the hurt he feels right now.
He won't win today. He can't. But Berserk is just petty enough to make them pay for their victory.
And that is why he stalks towards Jack Van Burace as they seal up that statue. That is why he picks the man up by that blonde mane of hair, angled so that they can see as the barrier constructed around the statue falls apart -- see it, but be too late to do anything about it.
"Too bad you won't get to enjoy it."
Unable to do anything as his arm draws back.
"Because all you are is a message, runt."
... and as Berserk drives his fist straight into Jack with every ounce of that rage and frustration that has runs through him like a tidal wave. The force will knock Jack through walls. Possibly through buildings. Berserk doesn't care. Doesn't pay attention. Just offers a contemptibly base sneer before he launches off towards the chaos beyond. He does not attack Cecilia. Not this time. No -- Jack is enough.
Because Berserk is enough of a sore loser that he just wants them to know the -sting- of victory before he leaves.
GS: Berserk has activated a Force Action! GS: Berserk has activated a Force Action! GS: Berserk has attacked Jack Van Burace with I'm Gonna Wreck It! GS: Jack Van Burace takes a solid hit from Berserk's I'm Gonna Wreck It for 257 hit points! GS: Jack Van Burace has attacked Jack Van Burace with Slash Rave! GS: Jack Van Burace has completed his action. GS: Jack Van Burace takes a solid hit from Jack Van Burace's Slash Rave for 156 hit points! GS: Jack Van Burace has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It looks like Cecilia and pals are finally working on actually sealing the Statue. Ragnell, who didn't attend that meeting and thus never got a Sealing Staff or learned the ritual, can't actually help out with that, but to her mind that's how it should be. At this point, it's a clash of wills--a clash of desires--a clash of, to whom will this planet belong in the future, humans or Metal Demons or... whatever the hell Kent is trying to do or be? Ragnell's been helping out on Cecilia's side, but at this point, she hangs back, watching events unfold as some fistfight Kent, some erect the barrier, and some take some potshots at the enraged Quarter Knight.
Her help isn't needed, it turns out. An instant later, the Statue is sealed. For the time being, it is beyond anyone's ability to destroy.
But the same is not true of those who did the sealing, which is made keenly obvious when Cecilia collapses and the Dinoginos barrier crumbles in Berserk's wake. A good thing (for everyone who isn't Jack) that Berserk is content ("content") to punch the shit out of Jack and leave the rest be, knowing that he can't do what he came to do anyway, and that he and Kent both leave as a result. She watches all of them go, then jogs on over, jumping over broken ground, to join the others.
"Yeah, so I'm thinkin' it's time to get the hell outta dodge," she says with all the casualness of someone who wasn't invested in the person who just got an ass-kicking and isn't kind enough in general to be worried in principle. (Sorry, Jack.) "Up an' at 'em, Cess."
<Pose Tracker> Jack Van Burace has posed.
Jack doesn't even move. Doesn't even try to dodge. There is a vicious grin on his face. Bloody and mad. The wild look doesn't even fade as Berserk stalks forward. He doesn't try to dodge, he can't.
The arm, massive as his memory. He knows how it can kill. He sees it draw back as he stands there, grinning madly up towards the Metal Demon. He locks eyes with the creature of his nightmare.
"I don't care." He states with a soft chuckle. "You still loose."
The fist connects with his midsection. He can feel ribs newly mended crack once again. His body becomes a bullet, crashing though walls. Though at least one building. Boneless. Aimless. Unable to control himself as he tumbles half the length of the city.
Under the rubble of a ruined building he comes to rest, conciousness banished when he went though the first wall. He doesn't move, he hardly breathes.
One hand still stubbornly clutches his sword.
There are some things worth getting hit for.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
It's done. Jacqueline can feel it, sense it in her being. The Statue is sealed - protected, at least for the time...and Kent seems to be taking this opportunity to escape. She can breathe a sigh of relief later, though. Cecilia has just collapsed to her knees, and Berserk is still standing.
"Princess! Can you move?" Jacqueline asks, concerned. She quickly stows the rod back into her coat. Ragnell joins them in short order, and Jack...
Well. There's nothing she can do for him. Berserk seems to be satisfied with that, at least. She feels bad about it, but...they can't wait any longer.
Jacqueline glances toward Ragnell and nods before looking at the others gathered.
"Right. Everyone, follow me. My peoples' vehicle is parked safely nearby. We'll take it and drive out of the city, hopefully without Gebler or Aveh tailing us." She says. It sounds like an order, her voice taking on a take-charge tone. She doesn't wait for people to argue. Instead, she starts to move. They needed to be quick about this. The two biggest threats at the moment were gone, but they weren't out of the woods yet...
...Or, the city, rather. But if all went well, they would be soon enough, headed toward a location she had arranged with the Alliance beforehand.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.
Rena lets out a sigh once everything appears to have succeded.
And then Jack gets the blood punched out of him again.
"Oh for the love of-" The elf hisses! Glaring as Berserk leaps off into the chaos and away. "-Of all the nonsensical-! Argh!" Cecilia is given a quick look over, and then she trots on over in the direction Jack flew.
SOMEONE'S got to make sure he does pass through the pearly gates!
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
A SHORT TIME LATER
A soft hum filled the air in the gardens as the Hauteclaire descended from the skies, the gear's normally pristine white paint job marred with the marks and scars of recent battle. From inside, Kahm Yugh beheld the state of the garden-a ruined, smoking wreck-with a put-upon sigh. He couldn't have expected any less when he'd asked Kent Hauch to help.
The Prime Minister was going to be furious, but the Captain trusted they could turn even this act of vandalism into a suitable means to an end.
Kahm locked the gear into a stable hover (he wasn't sure the roof could tolerate the gear's weight anymore) and lowered himself via hand crane to survey the damage up close, pinching his nose at the acrid stench. "Well Hauch, I certainly can't wait to know what happened here." He said to himself, "But I'll trust you showed them fury, for now."
The Captain's eyes turned now upon the guardian statue, the lone thing that seemed to remain relatively unscathed-and did it somehow seem a little more polished for the trouble?
But something else troubled him. Radar had picked up a lone metal dragon stealing over the palace while they'd been occupied fighting the rebels. After this much time, why would the Demons make a move..?
Kahm weighed the implications solemnly.
"Next time, we'll show them war."