2018-02-16: The Summer Palace
- Log: The Summer Palace
- Cast: Leon Albus, Lily Keil, Riesenlied, Fei Fong Wong, Emma Hetfield, Josephine Lovelace, Jude Moshe, Ida Everstead-Rey, Noeline, Claude C. Kenny, Xantia, Morgan Newkirk
- Where: Nortune Grazelands
- Date: February 16th 2018
- Summary: A mysterious incident near Kaiser Sigmund's summer palace results in an unlikely battle and -- perhaps -- the risk of deepening the war between Aveh and Kislev. A desperate plan is put into motion. Followed by In the Great Hall.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
To say that the Black Wolves' plan was flawlessly executed would be a lie. A mercenary company organized only weeks ago could not flawlessly execute an infiltration of Nortune, find out the recent movements of a secret cabal of Kislevi officers, and then prepare an attack on the Kaiser's summer palace. It has been a bumpy process. Several details were found at the last minute.
But the plan comes together, slowly but surely.
VICINITY SCHONENBERG PALACE
One part comes together in the hills on the outskirts of Schonenberg Palace, the summer residence of the Kaiser. Despite the name, the Kaiser comes here in winter too. The Black Wolves are at the core of that plan -- and their Gears have gathered here. But, word was sent to allies: the Yggdrasil Alliance, the Ebon Wings, and word to a few Drifters (or perhaps they were in the area). The Gears stand strong, there, and the lead Gear is a dark blue one. It stands tall, facing the rest.
The sensor eye, in the center of the faceplate, flashes once. Leon Albus's voice crackles over the shortwave communicator. "Our mission is simple," he says. "We have a group already inside of the palace. We're going to, ah, rescue the Kaiser."
A moment.
"The Kaiser may resist rescuing," Leon says. "We'll handle it. Your job is to intercept the palace guard. They're going to be about two thousand sharls from our current position. Then, once the Kaiser's free, I want him on one of Riesenlied's dragons and out of here."
His face may not be visible, but there is a smile in his voice. "Keep your head about you."
INSIDE THE PALACE
A radio receiver lowers in Leon's hand. "Tricky things," he says. "I doubt I'll be able to get it to work again."
He tucks it into his pants pocket. Then, the fingers on Leon's other hand fiddle, idly, at his neck -- and then he pulls the bowtie tight. The blonde-haired man has his hair slicked back, instead of worn down loose around his face. He adjusts the fancy black jacket, and the collared white shirt, that one would expect of a palace servant. He also checks idly at his back -- where Argent Divider is strapped and hidden. Then, he turns to his comrade.
"Ready, Elly?" he says. "We don't want his imperial majesty's meal to get cold."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"You heard the man," Lily Keil's voice crackles over the radio after Leon is finished.
It wouldn't be the first time the Black Wolves have improvised. Lieutenant Keil is accustomed to it, after all. The plan has come together. ...And Keil, for her part, is heading up the team outside. She waits for a moment on Leon's voice, for his explanations, for his orders. Even if these things can be tricky. And for right now...
"We come in fast, and we come in hot. They'll be shooting to kill, obviously. If you've got any last-minute jitters, it's too late to back out, so you'd better deal."
A tall, black-and-gray Gear marks Lily's presence, the strange Gear Hellerune, gigantic glaive already out and in hand. The helmet-design of its faceplate--the single long horn from the top, curving to show a flat portion at the front--cuts through the air as they move.
"...Riesenlied," Lily says, not on the radio, just behind her, to the second seat in the cockpit. It's very clean in here--well-made, and somewaht alien, full of text in language she doesn't know. "You all right back there?"
Regardless, she starts piloting forward--and starts forward, moving to intercept exactly where she thinks she's going. Exactly where she thinks their 'enemy' is going to be.
Along the way, she stretches out a hand, and Ether suffses the cockpit, the Booster working overtime as shadows start to shroud the Gear, gigantic from below, blurring its outline. "Here we go."
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lily Keil with Gloomshroud! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil heals Lily Keil! She gains 400 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
The Black Wolves have the backing of some of Filgaia's oddest and least-impressive Metal Dragons, which is a particularly mean thing to say... but at the same time, given that the average Metal Dragon is a 50-foot monstrosity that draws attention from miles away, the Ebon Wings' 12-foot adorables are actually better suited for this kind of mission.
Once the Kaiser's free, I want him on one of Riesenlied's dragons and out of here.
"Copy that," Riesenlied speaks in turn through a familiar throat microphone. "Muni, Dva and Jedan will be on perimeter duty around the summer palace. Fire the signal and they'll home in on your position and exfiltrate you out of the hot zone."
Dva and Jedan are, respectively, seated on frost and flame dragons -- one wreathed with wings of fragile, flickering ice and a solid body of hoarfrost; the other with a mantle of billowing flame, with bright-red scales of an autumn hue colour.
And Muni? Muni has no rider, because she's been appointed to be the Kaiser's royal ride, if all goes well. She looks so excited to be part of this duty. But why isn't she with Riesenlied? Well...
HOURS AGO, WAYSIDE
Riesenlied limps across the open courtyard of Wayside, immediately after receiving the summons from Leon. This was something that they'd all been preparing for, and despite her condition, she wouldn't miss this for the world. They expected her backup, and they'd have it.
"Prepare the Dragons for takeoff, and alert the Wings!" Riesenlied declares. "I'll take Muni and--"
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Riesenlied."
Riesenlied's expression drops as she whips her head, knowing that cold, steely voice anywhere. That was the voice of a Quarter Knight, the voice of the man she'd looked up to--
There isn't a monstrously tall blue knight with a horned helmet and a dark spear.
What there is, instead, is an adorably short Beastgirl who's wearing some kind of goofily large voice modulator, giggling as she speaks in a certain Quarter Knight's voice. "I am your faaaaaather figure, Riesemamaaa..."
"... Janey, what are you doing?" Riesenlied asks incredulously.
"Cetiri told me that she's enforcing Doctor Lily's orders! No fighting, mama!" Mikaia perks up from beside her.
"B-but I can't just..."
"Oh, don't worry. We'll pick up the slack. We also arranged for you a ride......"
NOW
Riesenlied is seated on the second seat of Hellerune, feeling-- a little bit strange within it, perhaps; she can perhaps sense some of the Fossils that are embedded in the machinery of the Gear, and more importantly, she can feel the flow of the converter and the Ether amplifiers, which tug and pull at the various corners of her mind.
She gasps a little harder and clutches at her side, which is still lightly bleeding.
"Yes. I will support you as best I can..."
She closes her eyes, and focuses her power upon the light of the Dragon's Tear. She raises the jewel lightly--
--and the Ether amplifiers of the Hellerune would report massive gains for a moment.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Lily Keil with Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst'! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst' for 0 hit points! GS: Reload! Lily Keil gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
It's alright, Fei thinks. He just has to ... protect Leon and Elly. Their scheme. And the Kaiser from, well, from himself by all appearances, his lack of knowledge in this arena. Presumably. Hopefully their intel so far is correct.
Fei's palms are sweating. It's hard for him to think. What would happen if he messed up? In a city this big? It could be catastrophic. He doesn't like thinking about all those people being wiped out in moments by Weltall's incalculable power. His shoulders shake as he tries to chill out. It's one thing to fight in a place like Old Petra (whatever happened to that place anyway?)...
He can't let it go out of control. Elly's here. Leon's here. Lily's here. Stay cool. Stay cool.
Remember what the masked man said. What Elly said. Just follow their advice. That should be enough, right?
FEI PSYCHO DOWN
Fei exhales slowly and snaps his eyes open. "Lily." He says. "I'm ready. I won't let anything happen to them..."
Weltall swings a fist foward. "...Or us!"
Weltall's heard looks towards Riesenlied and he tells her. "I heard from Elly you opened up your wound again, Riese. Don't think I'm gonna let you get away with a stunt like that again."
Despite Weltall's words it seems to be just kinda chilling there at it's usual power threshold.
"I won't let you carry it alone this time, so don't even think of trying."
DC: Morgan Newkirk switches forms to Restless Sinner!
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
INSIDE THE PALACE
Elly van Houten's hair is largely tucked up behind the cap of a maid, which is something of a feat of engineering, considering how much there is. Between this and a small pair of spectacles, however, it's at least broken her usual wanted-poster visage. Her combat rod is tucked in a garter holster, but the real power, of course, is in her.
She adjusts the front ruff thing on her blouse. "As ready as I'll ever be...!"
OUTSIDE THE PALACE
Tromp. Tromp. Tromp.
The HETFIELD INDUSTRIES NOVEL UNIT has been repainted into a garish sand-pink and vomit-green which, strangely enough, isn't all that eyecatching from a distance. Sure, up close it looks like puke, but perhaps, if you think about it, NATURE ITSELF is the biosphere's - anyway.
The Gear has been heavily modified, and walks as if it's perpetually bent over. The weight has been reseated towards the rear. A Gear's head is in the usual place, yes, and a left arm, but the Gear's right arm has been built into some kind of integral cannon - the devastating power, of a red right hand? Depends how much you like ghost hobo music.
Its designated operator, E. Hetfield, mysterious youthful figure of battle, has not had a lot to say while driving. She's thinking about something else entirely. Occasionally she hums faintly off-key into the inter-Gear communications link.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Improvisation might as well be the name of the game. It certainly hasn't let Josephine Lovelace down just yet.
"Ready to go~"
Someone well familiar with the Gears commonly used by those known to be among the Black Wolves would certainly recognize Weglaff. The natural assumption would be that its usual pilot would be present within.
"And, Tiger."
This would, however, be an incredibly, incredibly wrong guess.
"When have I ever backed out just because of a little danger? Besides, I'm itching to see what this can do in a real battle. Hmm, do you think the knife-fighting practice we had was enough?"
There is just a hint of a laugh weighted in her voice, and with a lurch, the Gear starts forward in formation just behind Hellerune.
"Now, let's see. Which one of these were part of the braking mechanism, again?"
Josie is... probably joking, to go by her tone. This time.
Instruction was by necessity on the short and to the point end of things.
But at least a machine is a machine by any stretch of the definition.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
The muted colors of the Elymas shine against the helpfully reflected light of the sun as it looms at the outskirts of the Kaiser's summer palace -- just out of range of notice, even for a Gear as bulky as it. The tan-hued, heavily modified Kislevi Gear looks nothing like the original model it came from; outfitted with several large, strange, dark plates that decorate its back like a turtle's shell, the cumbersome machine all but lurches in place from the weight of its heavy armoring, large feet sinking into the grasslands beneath it as its optics thrum with a low level of life and power. Kept on standby. At least for now.
Jude Moshe knows just how expensive it is to repair or replace an engine on one of these things, after all. He's not made of money.
For now, the redheaded reporter seems to be taking the entire situation well in stride, if the lax way he is simply perching himself on his cockpit seat is any indication: hands locked behind the back of his head, legs propped up on the controls of the Elymas, Moshe's cockpit slowly fills with the haze of smoke as the cherry point of his crumpled cigarette burns a brilliant flare of orange. He stares, almost blandly, up at the ceiling of his cockpit, his amber eyes unblinking and his mouth slightly agape. Just looking detached. Distant. Relaxed. Apathetic eyes roll towards the corner of his vision, staring for a quiet moment at Riesenlied and her cell of Metal Dragons and Demons. His brows lift, faintly, and a wry smile plays across his lips as he closes his eyes.
"Probably for the best she couldn't make it then, huh?"
For now, though, he just waves the smoke out of his face, and with a simple and utterly informal "Aye aye, ma'am" he fiddles with some controls, launches off a small device to latch to Lily's machine to helpfully overclock her engines when the time is right... and waits. Eyes return to staring at the ceiling.
"... I could really go for a Kislevi royal meal right about now," is his second thought on the matter at hand, seemingly appropos of nothing.
---
As Leon and Elly work, they are not alone -- not necessarily. Outside of the palace, a bird can occasionally be seen flitting about past open windows near where Leon lingers. For now, it remains discretely far enough away that most might not notice the metallic oddities of it. But close enough that Leon will be able to see it for what it is, even if Jude hadn't told him ahead of time.
Leon Albus has acquired one (1) Temporary Jacob!
GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Lily Keil with Don't Think Twice! GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Jude Moshe's Don't Think Twice for 0 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Whatever smile lingers on Josie's lips must have faded, by the tone on the voice that filters over the channels as Fei comments on Riesenlied's injury. "...Sunshine. Fengalon's teeth, you kids are two of a kind."
There's a pause.
"Or... whatever you count as."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida is still recovering from fighting two Quarter Knights in three days. She's been cooped up in her hotel room, putting the finishing touches in Cyre's ARM--she's been working on it off and on, and with luck, she can give him something tomorrow. Every time she looks at it, she sees a jury-rigged mess, all rough, hand-machined parts and potential design pitfalls. Few people ask her to do things for them these days, or so it seems, and therefore she was all too happy to take it on.
This is the same rationale behind Ida's presence here. Lily asked, and she answered.
The Dust Dragoon brings up the rear of the Gear formation--to those who would know such things, it has the general profile of a Trooper, though it wasn't of perfectly standard make even before it was modified. It has a few extra armored bits, a few more boxy compartments, a chassis optimized for sensor coverage. It was supposed to be used by the commander of one of Aveh's recon units, and now it is being used by Ida. She sits in its cockpit, a combination of helmet, goggles, and bandana hiding her face. This Gear participated in a terrorist action in Aveh, and now it's going to do the same in Kislev. It wouldn't do to have it associated with her face.
The Dragoon takes up position on a bluff with a decent view of the Kaiser's compound. Ida taps the touchscreen in several places, and the AWACS grudgingly comes to life. Green blips light up Ida's screen, representing the allied units. She pushes her goggles up far enough to rub the bridge of her nose, and speaks into the comm, letting its distortion effects do the rest. Everyone here (hopefully) knows who the pilot is.
"In position."
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Riesenlied isn't the only one hitching a ride on Lily's Gear - but she is the one being the most safe about it. As the Gear begins to pick up speed and head for the rendezvous point, a suspicious blob of red on one of the Hellerune's shoulders double-checks her hold on a pair of metal rungs normally used for maintenance work. The safety line she's using holds fast; with a humourless smile that's more like a grim line, Noeline chuckles to herself and redoubles her grip.
She's never really liked piloting Gears. She knows how, but something about them feels... too clunky and obvious, a direct contradiction to the slippery dance she normally prefers in combat. Perhaps that's a spurious argument to make when you're currently relying on an enormous slab of metal masquerading as a sword the same size you are, but... well, being a Metal Demon comes in handy sometimes.
"--I am here to assist, of course," she hums into the headset she's wearing, squinting against the wind as it begins to pick up. "Unfortunately, I can't say how much use I will be amongst a collection of Gears, but... at the very least, I'm best-placed to assist on foot, should Leon need it," she reminds the crew around her-- shortly before getting drowned out by the sound of the Hellerune bolstering itself.
The Hellerune bolsters itself - and Noeline takes that as a cue to pulse her own power. Accessing the Medium within her has become easier after her discussion with Duras Drum - even if the Guardian is still sealed, making contact with him seems to have simplified the process of tapping into that trickle of power she can feel through her Medium, and the haze across the Hellerune's outer armor is joined by a similarly coloured one around Noeline herself, even if the black flickers and twists in a very different manner.
The spy lets out a ragged breath. If only it wouldn't burn and itch.
"... Riese, I'm on duty to report back anything that happens to the children, you realize," she adds with a toothy grin, before she's drowned out by the hum of engines powering up.
GS: Noeline has attacked Noeline with Tech Training! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Noeline's Tech Training for 0 hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Noeline! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Methodical Approach! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Methodical Approach for 0 hit points! GS: Emma Hetfield has attacked Emma Hetfield with hum hum hum! GS: Emma Hetfield has completed her action. GS: Emma Hetfield takes a solid hit from Emma Hetfield's hum hum hum for 0 hit points! GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Crash Course in Piloting! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
CLAUDE C. KENNY... fought only one Quarter Knight this week, so he's better off than Ida.
CLAUDE C. KENNY... may have accidentally/on purpose shot said Quarter Knight a couple of times with a mega-illegal phase gun.
CLAUDE C. KENNY... may have agreed to come along with Ida to ask her if she noticed the laser shooting.
CLAUDE C. KENNY... has not figured out quite how to break the ice just yet.
The young boy from Earth is in his repurposed Borjanon, which is now a red, white, and blue Gear with the big dumg spinny things on the arms. He heard people liked Gears so much that he put gears on the Gear. Inside the cockpit, though, Claude has disabled all of the screens and things that run on the default Borjanon OS and has instead plugged the entire system into his tricorder, which is helpfully displaying a bunch of holographic screens the way a Federation AMWS would do it.
This stupid thing defaults to analog. What is this, the 37th century?
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Tricorder Overrides Onboard OS! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. GS: Claude C. Kenny heals Claude C. Kenny! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a solid hit from Josephine Lovelace's Crash Course in Piloting for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia is not supposed to be here. It wouldn't have made much sense to bring her along on a venture involving Gears, given that she's only had some basic training in that area, never mind having faced any actual combat situations piloting one. And yet...
Clouds of dust billowing up in the distance are the first sign that something is approaching the gathered assault team from the rear at high speeds. An unexpected element is about to introduce itself to the imminent battle at the Kaiser's palace.
Given the size of the disturbance, it's easily identified as either a Gear or some kind of giant monster. In this case, it might be considered both: what appears on the horizon is a quadruped, vaguely cat-like, skeletal metal monstrosity. Something that looks like https://dreamchasers.space/images/5/51/Silvestris.jpg <-- this coming right for you would likely be cause for concern, if not for the fact that most of the Yggdrasil crew have probably seen it before. Granted, it looked even less like a machine with a finalized design when it was first discovered in a trashed Aveh landship, and it spent most of its time in the Yggdrasil hangar encased within a cage construction and covered with tarp because it made the crew very nervous, so its current look may still be somewhat unfamiliar. But the voice coming over its external speakers should put any doubts to rest.
"Heeeeeey! Wait for meeeee!"
Yup, it's Xantia alright, seeming to have little difficulty piloting her machine - Silvestris - at faster speeds than most Gears can even reach. And somehow managing to speed up even more once she's spotted the assault team, trying her best to catch up. This may help to explain why she went through multiple instructors, each less willing to give her another lesson than the last. This is far from how a rookie typically pilots a Gear.
Even so, now there's someone involved who a) doesn't know what the plan is, b) hasn't ever fought anything in a Gear, as far as anyone knows, and c) may barely know what's going on to begin with. This would be far from the first time Xantia's ever jumped into something without full/any understanding of the situation. Of course she can be trusted to mean well, and to be prepared to help to the best of her ability, but do good intentions alone make her presence desirable? And who let her take her Gear out to begin with?! Let's be fair, it was probably Bart.
DC: Xantia switches forms to Hollow Gear Silvestris!
GS: Xantia has attacked Xantia with Four Legs Are Better Than Two! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Xantia's Four Legs Are Better Than Two for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
'Rescuing' the Kaiser.
Man when those orders went out Morgan Newkirk had to laugh. In fact he turned off his coms so he could keep laughing. At least now though he's back on the coms as he pilots his own Gear forward.
Broad shouldered, with a boxy missile launcher set over his right shoulder the massive humanoid form of the 'Restless Sinner' as Morgan has come to call his new Gear moves its heavy footsteps with a purposeful tread.
"You know," The amused tone of voice is angled over the coms towards Jude. "I think you might be right."
Then a pause. "And I wonder if this is irony here. Going to 'rescue' the guy who used to sign my paychecks." He adds as an afterthought.
"He did try ta have us all killed, boss." Comes the voice of Morgan's sniper friend, Sharpe from way a ways back. The rabbit beastman and his Gear concealed with the rest of his former unit to protect the rear guard.
"This is true, guess that makes things even." The fox adds as an afterthought as he flexes his hands in the control seat of the Gear. The massive hands of the weapon of warm flex in reponse. "Emma," He adds with a smirk. "Am I finally gonna get to see just what that massive gun does to something in this little outing?" He asks as he fires up his sensors and the screens come to life and halo his face in blue-white light.
It's nice and comforting really. Feels like home.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Maybe I should app a buff attack for myself, Fei reflects before saying allowed. "Wait...is that Morgan? What? What's Morgan doing here?"
And then Xantia shows up. "W--wait, is that... Xantia? In a gear? Who gave Xantia a gear?" Weltall looks towards Lily. "Did someone just drop it in front of her?" He isn't being sarcastic, he's actaully not sure that didn't happen.
Another pause. "Why does that gear have so many teeth?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
INSIDE THE PALACE
"Well, then." He gives the cart before them a shove. There is a lovely silver platter on it. Steam wafts up from the thin crack of space between the platter and its lid. "Let's not keep him waiting."
As he walks, Leon sees a shadow darken the nearest window. His eyes widen for a moment, turning to regard the flutter of wings. "Jacob," he murmurs. "Guess Jude's keeping an eye on us..."
SCHONENBERG PALACE EXTERIOR
The Gears -- and a pair of Tainted, besides -- move forward. The hills outside of Schonenberg are well-kept, neatly trimmed moors meant to be scenic to look at. The wind idly blows the blades of grass, while stately willows sway in the wind. Such a beautiful view is complimented by the palace: a stone construction, fanciful in style, with beautiful glass windows that let in light on a grand hall that is gilded.
The view is marred, though, by eight Gears. The Gears are massive, towering things: solid, brown and grey machines, which turn their heads towards them. The Gears, known as Titans, were dug up in a large cache some fifty years ago. They became a staple of the Kislevi armed forces after that. These are better decorated than most, with gold lining. The Imperial Guard's Gears raise rifles, aiming them.
"Stop!" one broadcasts.
And then a line lance of blue light explodes through the air. It cuts up the middle of them -- causing Titan after Titan to explode in a fiery blast, one after the other. The detonations rip through the scenic countryside, before they collapse. The source of that blue line of light crests the neighboring hill, looking over all of them.
The Golem Sado.
The now-repaired machine rises up, blue and black body ending in outstreched wings and a snake's lower body. Undulating, twisting arms spread out from its back. They end in barrels, each aglow with light. When Sado was engaged by Gebler, nothing was said.
Today, something is. It does not come from Gebler; instead, a shortwave is broadcast out. A man speaks, older in years, and with utter calm in his voice.
"Ah, Lily," Colonel Dietrich Keil says. "How... good of you to come. We have a lot to discuss, don't we? And you--the boy in the Black Gear. You've been taking care of it?"
A moment passes.
"That's a new one. Four legs?" the elder Keil asks, likely of Xantia's Gear.
DC: Sheriff Star switches forms to Golem Sado!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Noted, everyone. ...Let's keep it tight and accomplish the mission."
A pause, as she adds to Fei over the radio, "...I've got her here for that. We're not letting her risk herself." Her sensors are giving her a good sense of everyone else here, even if Lily is starting to fade out of a lot of systems--but then, Jude's machine set to enhance her Gear has no trouble attaching. And Riesenlied's power...
Lily feels herself focused. She feels herself prepared, her senses opening up farther than they might, entering into a loop with Riesenlied. ...And Josie, well, "That's you, all right. But Weltall--" Lily uses the name of the Gear, of course, at the talk of Xantia. "I'd think you'd have learned not to ask questions you don't want answered by now."
...But as they reach the enemy, every ounce of levity in Lily's voice--and there was some--fades away into sheer professionalism. "Cutting chatter," she announces, narrowing her eyes; Riesenlied, so close, can feel the way that her emotions come under control, falling away with the discipline of a career soldier. They're broadcasted at to stop--Hellerune, a lithe design, tall and thin for a Gear, brings up its weapon to begin to deny that. Except--
The detonations ring out. Lily's eyes narrow in surprise, and she brings her Gear to a halt for an instant as she stares forward to the Golem Sado, the thing that she once saw from a distance... an entity she knows full well could destroy so much. Its arms twist. Its lights go. And the voice--
The strange thing of this voice may well be how much Lily's diction resembles his. It is clear, after all; she is her father's daughter. And for a moment she is silent.
"Do we, Father?" Lily asks in return. Her voice is ice-cold, but Riesenlied can feel the roil of emotions barely concealed, held down by force. Sadness, turmoil... And above all, anger. Building rage.
"I think you said all that needs to be said when you sent Gryndille to wipe out my comrades. Or do you have an explanation? Do you have a reason that you couldn't tell me your plans?" ...Building, and building.
"The Black Wolves aren't dead, Father. ...And I don't have to hide what I am anymore."
Hellerune's hand rises, in an instant, left arm up, palm facing the Golem Sado, as Lily mirrors the gesture from within the combat. Ether pulses, painfully hot, all around her; golden runes sear into the night ahead of her.
A beam of nuclear fire crashes towards the Golem, erupting into a dome of brilliant, golden power, pulverizing ground where it rises, blotting out vision for an instant.
There's a pulse before the explosion radiates outward.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Sheriff Star with Alpha Pulse! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Lily Keil's Alpha Pulse for 340 hit points! GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Sheriff Star!
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
"This gun's going to fire with a shot that shakes Filgaia, Morgan!" Emma answers Morgan. "I hope your rabbit friend won't be intimidated. I assure him that it's going to be something which he'll complement. Yes: The barrels of our guns will cross and heat up to burn a better future for the people!"
"Or something," Emma concludes happily.
The HI-NU continues to lumber forwards. The Titans appear and the HI-NU diverges from its pathline, getting behind a minor ridge in the landscape and hunkering down - just as there is that screaming ray of blue light that rips apart a half dozen Gears.
I made a good decision right there, thinks Emma Hetfield. The best possible one.
The Golem's manifestation makes her let out a small sigh. She explains to Morgan, and perhaps other listeners, in a quiet voice - as if she does not seek to be overheard, even as her radio set integral to the salvaged Gear she's tortured and moliated into this shape gives her access to the words of Keil the Elder.
"I told you the principle of this machine, didn't I? It is meant to demonstrate the folly of war, because of the risk of mutual destruction. The primary obstacles at that point are psychological, and I think that with sufficient repetition, even those boundaries can be overcome..."
The Golem is sighted-in on. Emma waits for the reticular oval to contract enough, and then she reaches over to decisively press a button.
"Thus!" THOOM
The shell travels in a high parabolic arc. While it flies, Lily's blow strikes with shrieking nuclear fire. It would probably be easy to assume that the two shots are moving as one.
IN THE PALACE
Elly glances when Leon does. "That's good," she murmurs. "I just hope he's not preparing an evening edition..."
GS: Emma Hetfield has attacked Sheriff Star with An Innovation In Crimefighting! GS: Emma Hetfield has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied shyly lowers her head as she gawks at the gear over one of Lily's screens and has to mentally remind herself that it isn't Weltall lecturing her, and Josie chiming in. "I--I know! I'm sorry. I don't plan to do anything on my own..." There's a quiet huff towards Noeline as she murmurs, "Just... please, stay safe, Noeline." She knows how hypocritical it is.
She adjusts the five-point harness a little more snugly against her robes, and tries to regulate her breathing and to not be overtaken by the various sensations that the machine is exuding upon her.
She peers towards the Elymas for one moment further -- recalling Port Solde for a moment... will that woman be here too? That woman with the ardent sensation of hatred for her...
Lily can briefly sense the anxiety pass from the Hyadean's mind.
But they have very little time to contemplate, because eight Gears stand before them-- and before anyone can even do anything... they're torn asunder, as if they were nothing more than paper tigers. Her eyes widen further as the silhouette of something she'd been chasing all this time comes into view--
"No... Golem Sado...!"
She gazes towards the serpentine Golem, shaking her head. Were Kislev able to obtain those Fossils in the end? Or did they find another way to repair it?
Ah, Lily.
Her attention is drawn to the shortwave broadcast, staring towards the radio. "... Colonel... Dietrich..." she frowns deeply. "Stop this at once! The Golem is not meant for human hands to use. It will not bring you the military dominance you so desire...! You only risk bringing another Day of Collapse to Filgaia...!"
She can sense Lily's anger as she speaks, cringing for a moment-- and she trembles as she feels the wave of atomising force... she can't help but rattle as she tucks her eyes away--
And the Dragon's Tear begins to erratically shine once more. Hellerune's Ether amplifier ebbs in a wave once more--
--and a huge sphere of light briefly erupts out of the dark stealth-based Gear; whatever happy accident Riesenlied caused with the amplifier would brush over Noeline and Weltall as well. In Noeline's case, it would empower her with energy, the way Riese always has... but to the Gears--
--it would feel as if there is a ghost in the shell, working hard to drive its performance higher.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Lily Keil with Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst'! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst'! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst'! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
CLAUDE C. KENNY... has seen Golems before! Specifically, he saw one carving through most of an army of terrible Gears just like the one he is in now like it did not have a care in the world. "Aw crapbaskets, that's a Golem," he groans as he switches his systems over to active battle mode. Lights ignite along the Gear's body as it rises.
(This is also when a strange icon much like the insignia on his jacket suddenly pops up on IFF signals. What could that mean?)
Claude brings his Gear up to a standing position and chambers a set of specialized rounds into the Gear-sized shotgun. "Nope," he says as he pulls the trigger, sending lines of blazing white phosphorus ripping across the sky toward Sado. "Nope," he says again, as he backpedals.
*BLAM!*
"Nope."
*stepstepstep*
*BLAM!*
"Nope."
*stepstepstep*
*BLAM!*
"Nope."
*stepstepstep*
(this could go on for a while)
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Sheriff Star with Hellfire Rounds! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst' for 0 hit points! GS: Reload! Noeline gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst' for 0 hit points! GS: Reload! Lily Keil gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Emma Hetfield's An Innovation In Crimefighting for 135 hit points! GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Claude C. Kenny's Hellfire Rounds for 85 hit points! GS: ! Statuses applied to Sheriff Star! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Rising Heart - 'Empathic Burst' for 0 hit points! GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei looks up and over to wards Ida for a moment, recognizing her gear before looking ahead. "...To be honest I always felt like I've never asked enough questions."He honestly keeps walking, stopping as he comes upon the Royal Guard. "Hold on--!" He says. "You don't understand--!"
And before Fei can get any more out than that, they all explode. All of them. Weltall lowers his hand. All those gears destroyed in a single strike. He looks towards the detonations as they rip through the countryside, tearing apart even more innocent landscaping.
Then he turns towards the repaired Golem Sado. Fei listens to him speak. The Elder Keil. Fei narrows his eyes.
FEI PSYCHO UP THAT DIDN'T LAST LONG DID IT?
"You..." Fei says. "What do you know about Grahf?" Weltall clenches its fists, mirroring Fei's movements. "No, more than that, why did you build this monster? No..."
All that powering up that other mechs did earlier. Now Weltall seems to finally do it, a dark blue aura rippling around the gear as it adopts a fighting stance.
"How could you do this to your own daughter?! And then speak to her like this?! You took her home from her!"
Riesenlied reaches out empathetically and she can feel Fei's anger, his rage, his PAIN. The pain senses that Riesenlied can feel it, and it tries to leach into Riesenlied, it tries to make her feel itself too, it tries to make her angry, hurt, it wants her to understand. It'll try to make her understand. There's more to this than just this happening to Lily. There's some deeper connection to Fei's own experiences, one that is being agitated by being forced to confront it, to see other aspects of the conflicts that have shaped him, the themes that have made themselves a part of his story.
But because it's happening to Lily, it hits Fei twice as hard as it would be if it was just himself. In spite of Lily's impressive opening strike, Fei just dashes right into it, throwing several sharp kicks for the Golem Sado. This gear may have come from Kislev, but it was made for Fei and some part of him knows it, too.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Sheriff Star with Triggered! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Eight red blips light up on Ida's radar, closer to the palace. Slave generators powering up, broadcasting Kislevi IFF. The Dust Dragoon does not move to engage, because it does not need to--the bluff that is normally quite scenic to look at now serves as an elevated vantage-point. The Dragoon's torso tilts forward a little, and the mortar tube on its back unfolds from its telescoping 'standby' position. It locks into place with a series of low clicks. "Eight enemy Gears detected," says Ida's garbled voice over the shortrange comm. "Titan-series, nothing abnormal on visual." The gilding is a little extra visual appeal, and nothing more. Ida swallows down the spike of fear. People will get killed over this.
But you've killed before. What's stopping you from killing now?
Garbled text flashes across the bottom of Ida's screen. It resolves, after a moment, into an ominous UNKNOWN REACTOR SIGNATURE DETECTED, and Ida's guts immediately start tying themselves in knots. Light lances down from above, a light Ida knows because she saw it punching a hole in a landship, knocking it away like a thrown toy. It takes her a moment to recognize it nevertheless. Sado. Sado, which should absolutely not be operational because Kislev should not have had a way to repair it, unless they went and dishonored their deal.
Ida's guts stop twisting in knots and turn to water, instead. Part of her hopes fervently that she survives to tell Aunt Anna about this. She hears the man's voice, and Lily's response. 'Father'. She can hear the anger in Lily's words, kept in careful check like the heat of a furnace--ready to be unleashed at any moment.
"Damnation," Ida says, her voice a little squeak.
Smoke mortar in the event of retreat or emergency, Ida thinks. The threat of sudden, horrible death forces lucidity into her thoughts, somehow. The Dragoon rises, its rifle sliding upwards on its back mount. The modified machine snatches up its gun, even as Fei's rage and pain set Ida's teeth on edge. The Dragoon brings the rifle up to its shoulder, braces, and opens fire. Ida fires six shots over Weltall's head, at Sado's torso.
If you die here, I think God Himself would get a chuckle out of it. Do you know how ironic this is?
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Sheriff Star with Fusillade! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
And things very swiftly go to hell in short and utterly expected order.
The Titans arrive. And only moments after they form up their defensive line, that defensive line is utterly obliterated in a flash of blue. A line carves through each one, one after the other, and there is a brief flash of recognition in amber eyes as they snap backwards towards that slowly rising, serpentine source.
A Golem.
"Fantastic," Jude Moshe observes, voice flat.
"I'm always happy to see when the worst happens, right on cue." Honestly.
What a headache.
The Elymas twists to face the Golem Sado as it stretches towards its full, imposing height, and the redheaded reporter within readies himself as he hears that voice broadcasting. Older. Not Gebler. And familiar, for anyone even passingly aware of the militant politics that dominate Kislev.
Colonel Dietrich Keil.
Doubly great, and also equally unexpected.
He can already see the shape of things forming even as Lily's Gear lurches into action. He doesn't have to hear the coldness in her tone to know just what is going to be coming next. And that's why he's already preparing, in his subtle way. Targetting systems online, getting a bead on the Golem Sado in the distance, waiting for that opportune moment--
When Lily gives the signal in a bright explosion of golden, nuclear flame.
Expected as it was, Jude Moshe still heaves a sigh, closes his eyes, and lifts his shoulders in a hapless shrug within his cockpit.
"So much for negotiations, huh?"
And his actions betray his world-weary woes as the Elymas is already spinning up its arm cannon and spitting out a single, superheated shell for the Golem Sado with intent to -burst- into a host of armor-piercing schrapnel across the ancient weapon.
"Fancy-looking weapon," he broadcasts, conversationally to the not-so-good colonel, voice scrambled in little static bursts. "Where'd you a straight-laced military guy like you find a thing like that? Poker game?"
He can't help it. He's curious by nature.
Comes with the job.
GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Sheriff Star with Freight Train! GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action. DC: MISS! Sheriff Star completely evades Triggered from Fei Fong Wong! DC: MISS! Sheriff Star completely evades Fusillade from Ida Everstead-Rey! DC: MISS! Sheriff Star completely evades Freight Train from Jude Moshe!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie huffs out a breath. "Well, good. I'd be happy to play doctor, Sunshine, but I'm afraid I've been told that whiskey isn't really medicine!"
She sounds afronted by even mentioning it.
"Looks like they've got a party already waiting for us," she comments, sighting the Gears ahead.
Keep it tight. Cut the chatter. A sigh comes in over the channel. "You really are a stick-in-the-mud, Tiger," Josie mock-complains. "Well, okay, this time we'll do it your way. Right~?"
The blade snaps out with a crack that must ricochet for miles at this scale, and while the Gear's form undoubtedly isn't up to par for what the style would normally call for, at least what it lacks in finesse it more than makes up for in sheer eagerness--
Or would have, if it hadn't pulled up sharply, skidding into a turn as a line lances through lot of the Titans.
"...what in the Guardians' green hell," the archaeologist utters, caught dead by the force of the sight before her.
Before her attention shifts.
Before she sees the Golem.
Dark eyes wide a touch, only to narrow.
"Well, shit," she says, almost casually to contrast with the oath which she spoke just moments before. "If we get out of this one alive, I say you all owe me double." She pauses. "At least." Weglaff proceeds, in an inexpert but no less determined advance regardless of what waits ahead.
A voice rings out.
Within the confines of the borrowed Gear, Josie breathes out but says nothing more.
A few moments more, and her lips curl in what can really only be described as a smirk.
"Well, well."
There is briefly a pause. Breaking into a surge of a run, Josie hauls the Gear left, apparently using the cover of artillery -- and Lily's golden nuclear flame, importantly -- as the signal she needs to advance. "We only live once, don't we, Moshe!"
The blade rips out to the right -- marked by a faint wobble as Josie apparently compensates for the movement of the still-unfamiliar machine -- and bracing the sword with both hands, the Gear attempts to come in from the side.
Blade-edge first.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Sheriff Star with Break Duster! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Josephine Lovelace's Break Duster for 130 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
"I promise," Noeline mutters back into her commlink, at Riesenlied's exhortion - but it's fair to say her attention is squarely on the eight Titans that bar their path forwards. Going up against them on foot is probably something fairly close to suicide, even with their numbers, but Noeline's survived this long doing some extremely inadvisable things and today is not a day in which she plans to stop. Her eyes flick across their line, trying to get an idea of where to start, but-- something in the air makes her pause--
--and pausing turns out to be an excellent idea as Sado's laser fire simply rips through the front line and away, leaving Noeline to suck in a surprised breath and shield herself from the light of the assault. "We've been found out," she decides, muttering the words quietly into her commlink as Colonel Keil confirms that, yes, they've absolutely been found out.
Weltall's posture tenses - and Noeline sees that for the opportunity it is. "Moving out!" she calls out as she hefts her sword improbably in one hand; judging the distance, she waits for the Hellerune to thrust its arm forward before she pushes off of it in an enormous leap, using the momentum to carry her across to the Black Gear. She has to scrabble briefly for purchase, especially when Weltall begins to race forwards into close combat - but then she manages to leverage her blade as a handhold, jamming it briefly into a joint to secure her position.
In the end, Fei's initial rush promises more than just a series of flurried kicks; once again Noeline rides the momentum, launching herself up and forward into a tumbling somersault with only a brief pause to grin in reckless abandon. Her blade aims for the Golem's shoulder, once again seeking purchase as she drives it against Sado's armor.
Compared to the Weltall she's a lot less gentle about it, hoping at once that a pinpoint strike might offer both a handhold and perhaps a rather less orthodox means to approach the Golem. Somewhere in there is an extremely vague plan to identify and assault the cockpit directly, but it hasn't exactly crystallized fully just yet. "--I'm-- on board!" she blurts into her communications, but it's a less than certain thing, especially when she raggedly huffs from effort as the Golem shakes from the other explosions.
GS: Noeline has attacked Sheriff Star with Drop Crush! GS: Noeline has completed her action.
DC: You must enter a number greater than or equal to 1 and less than your current HP value. [1000]
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia's Gear certainly is a new one, to Kislev. Had it been Aveh, or by extension Gebler, they might have recognized it as a previously incomplete prototype that was stolen months ago, a trashed Metal Demon War era Gear that was refurbished with Solarian tech. Somehow it ended up fighting the side it was originally meant to fight - for today, at least. Ironically, the golem Sado was responsible for taking out the landship that Silvestris was on, which allowed it to be taken by the Yggdrasil Alliance to begin with. It would absolutely not have been here today if it hadn't been for that.
But a Gear is only as good as its pilot. And how good its pilot is is anybody's guess. At the very least, everyone receives some cheer on their radios, possibly because Xantia doesn't even know how the radio works well enough to target anyone in particular. "Hi, I'm here to help! I'm so glad I caught up in time, nobody told me this was happening today!" And for good reason... a reason which apparently eludes her completely. But then, she can pilot just fine, right? Everything's going to be just fine.
Explosions happen in short order, as if to prove how fine everything is. Golem Sado appears, which Xantia aught to recognize, having seen it wreaking havoc in the Guardian Temple area. She should know how powerful it is. It would probably be wise to slow down a little, take in the situation, present some caution, employ some tactics.
Of course, Xantia does none of this. She voluntarily jumped into a whirling mass of blades before, no one should be surprised to see her Gear leaping straight for Sado, too. It's fast, at least, very fast, and never stops moving, sharp claws seeking to damage what they can, even the teeth coming into play to try and take a bite out of the Golem. There's no plan nor pattern of attack, which may be its greatest advantage - the lack of predictability. This pilot isn't acting like most pilots, because this pilot has no idea what she's doing. She's just really good at improvising.
GS: Xantia has attacked Sheriff Star with Rip And Tear! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star critically Guards a hit from Noeline's Drop Crush for 18 hit points! GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Xantia's Rip And Tear for 230 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"I would have accepted 'it'll make a big enough explosion to impress' but I like the way you put it better." Morgan replies towards Emma as he starts flipping the weapon systems to active. Either hostiles front. That shouldn't be a problem...
...and then there is a new problem. In the form of a giant Golem.
"...uh, boss..."
"Get the hell out of here, Sharpe. Cover retreat if we need it." He calls over his personal coms before swiching back to the general coms. "So any idea where they got this thing working again?" He asks conversationally. "In fact where did they get this thing at--oh wait. Looks like someone's already asking."
You go Jude.
Inside the cockpit though the fox is smiling. Links are set up as he slips a battered old case out from beside his seat. That case has a symbol on it exactly the same as the on on Claude's jacket. From out of it he pulls a tiny card that he slams into a opening on the console.
"Byte?"
The screens start to glow as data begins to scroll, weakpoint and weapon data as scanners rake down the Golem's hide. "Lets see what we can do."
"Yes!" Comes the reply from his old and battered repair VI.
The screens on the Sinner reconfigure to a proper setup, that of a Federation AMWS. If he can't have one, he might as well think he has one.
The Sinner moves then, hand mounted canon raising to snap a shot for a weak point on the Golem. Assuming the thing has weak points. But hey. The Fox is an eternal optimist.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Sheriff Star with Air Fox! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Morgan Newkirk's Air Fox for 87 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Nuclear flame slams into Golem Sado, as the opening salvo from Hellerune proves desperately effective. A blast of fire slices a line clean through the Elw-constructed machine -- and it shows its strange nature here. The armor superheats in all of the wrong ways, as sections of it heat up in a hexagonal pattern that is revealed. The metal appears to be crystalline, if poked at hard enough.
"Of course I do." The same calm stays in Dietrich's voice, despite the grievous damage done to his Golem. "I have an explanation. You've seen the way that the war between Kislev and Aveh has grown. You've seen that neither side will end it -- not without outside help, which Shakhan has procurred. We need... something more."
The Golem's arms snap out, rising out of the body, and wicked clawed hands are unfurled. They loose beams of golden energy that loose across the sky, hurtling in for the Hellerune and the HI-NU alike. The HI-NU's shell comes crashing down, slamming into the Golem with a massive explosion, fire rising into the sky.
"More than Dr. Hetfield's mutually assured destruction," Keil continues. "Good evening, Riesenlied. I am honored to make your acquaintance, because we need a woman like you. Not an enemy of shadow and myth, but something easy to hate -- something alien, somehow -- but so like us that it unnerves us. I intend to help bring a collapse to Filgaia. A necessary one."
Claude's shotgun rounds pepper the Golem. Sado's head turns -- and the undulating, tendril-like cannons on its back lift. They take aim, one after the other. One fires a beam down for the Borjarnon, with brutal pinpoint accuracy. Another pair fire down on Weltall even as it closes in, beams of blue light slashing across the moors, just before Weltall reaches.
And then Sado leaps.
The Golem soars a thousand feet into the air in defiance of all sense and physics, rising straight above Weltall, the Dust Dragoon's shots, and Elymas's burst of armor-piercing shrapnel. It lands behind them -- and the cannons swivel to do a one-eighty, tendrils pouring down laser fire onto the Dust Dragoon and Elymas alike.
But that brings it closer to Weglaff. Sado is cut into as the forearm blade slashes into the crystalline armor and sheers some off it. The machine shudders -- and then a blast of inky darkness forms, and shoots like a bullet straight for the blue Gear.
Dietrich keeps talking, fluidly. He isn't inside Sado, after all. "Ah, Leon. Direct as ever, but... mm. A little snappier, perhaps?" A pause. "No matter. You... Tainted... chose to involve yourselves in politics. We can use that. The Kaiser dies today--a day in a sky filled with dragons. And a field with heroes on it. I don't want Kislev to be reborn. I want Ignas to be reborn. And I need fools to do it--and someone to reap the benefits."
Noeline drops down onto Sado. The Golem's armor is hardened and mighty -- it does not crack easily, but instead spiral fractures along distinct lines that hold. The same armor, though, is slightly cracked--which helps Xantia's Gear bite down hard into it, sending flecks of crystal flying off. But, it shakes free of Xantia's Gear's jaws.
Just in time for the Sinner's hand cannon to blast into the spot, holing it through a second time.
Then, a moment later, a powerful ring of shadow-stuff explodes out in a circle around it. It threatens to hurl back Xantia's Gear, knock Noeline off it, and then bowl over the hidden AMWS.
"So, yes," Keil concludes. "I took her home from her. And now, I offer it back. You can see it, can't you? We have been staunching a cut vein, while this world has a diseased heart. Come back to me, Lily. Bring Leon with you. You've hardened. You needed to be. And now I ask you... do you have the courage to make the world that we always dreamed of, daughter?"
GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Lily Keil with Finger Launcher! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Emma Hetfield with Finger Launcher! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Undulation Cannon - Sniper Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Jude Moshe with Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Xantia with Shadow Wave! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Noeline with Shadow Wave! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Shadow Wave! GS: Sheriff Star takes 10 damage from Corrode! GS: Sheriff Star has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Jude Moshe critically Guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot for 55 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Jude Moshe! GS: CRITICAL! Claude C. Kenny takes a glancing hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Sniper Shot for 124 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Claude C. Kenny! GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Shadow Wave for 300 hit points! GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Finger Launcher for 320 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot for 210 hit points! GS: Noeline critically Guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Shadow Wave for 100 hit points! GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Shadow Wave for 400 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot for 310 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: CRITICAL! Emma Hetfield critically Guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Finger Launcher for 65 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Emma Hetfield!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
"No--"
Claude C. Kenny breaks off his declaration of rebellion when the shotgun clicks empty. He pulls the trigger again, twice, wondering why the automatic reloading systems aren't swapping out to a new ammo block before he remembers, oh yeah, he's got to press a button for that crap LIKE SOME SORT OF NEANDERTHAL OR SOMETHING. He does so, after which the Borjanon flicks out the empty magazine and loads in a fresh one; by the time the Golem is leveling its tentacle, which Claude has sense enough to assume is something that will ruin his day.
Spoilers: it does.
A ruby line lances through the Borjanon's lower abdomen, above the left hip, and alerts begin blaring on the tricorder-projected screens.
WARNING: Left hip primary rotary actuator and power distribution node critically damaged.
"Reverse the polarity!" Shouts Claude.
WARNING: That command is not a thing.
"Well, reroute to undamaged systems or something!"
COMPLYING. 27 seconds...
After 12 go by, the Golem lands again and Claude returns to the time-honoured tradition of just peppering the Golem with slug rounds in the hopes that enough of that will do something useful; he's not exactly packing heavy artillery in this piece of crap. The young man reloads again and flicks his eyes to the screen, registering at least one friendly unit. "Unidentified unit, this is Calnus Kilo-Six actual," he says, his tone curt and professional. "Any chance you've got something bigger than a shotgun? I'm all out of---"
Claude stops talking, as he remembers where he is, specifically, on Cow Patty Planet, a.k.a. a planet in the middle of forbidden space, a.k.a. HOW THE HELL IS THERE A FRIENDLY UNIT HERE?!?
"---uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh" he says, eyes wide and staring.
Claude C. Kenny: smooth like butter.
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Sheriff Star with Spray and Pray! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It was not precisely kind of Lily to ask Ida on this mission, on this mission that is in truth a part of war, something different than the path of a Drifter. ...But invite her she did. Invite her she did, as surely as she has Noeline riding unsafely on her Gear, and as surely as she has Riesenlied in the cockpit with her. "We'll pay you," Lily says coldly to Josie--not angry at her, but too angry to show any emotion now but that. She does not move to negotiate, no. But Jude's questions--well, they're worth asking.
Fei's, too. He is so angry on her behalf... But ice and bile twist up in her gut both. The light exudes from Lily's Gear, and still, there is feedback; still, Lily feels her power interacting with Riesenlied's, pulsing upward.
Sado is not easy on her, however. Dietrich--her father--is speaking again. Lily sees the strange nature of this Golem. She hears--
Golden energy scythes across Hellerune, while Lily herself instantly lifts a hand inside, without the Booster acting, to shield Riesenlied with red energy from the recoil. She grits her teeth for an instant, as Hellerune shifts, and she has to get her balance.
"I've seen it," Lily spits back to her father over the radio. But then he speaks to Riesenlied, and Lily is silent. ...Her rage, for a few moments, is drowning out everything else again. But she turns, too, as Sado leaps, watching it move to her allies. Her shadows are in tatters now. This, though--her father speaks on, all too familiar. Lily, meanwhile, sets aside her emotion to look for her opening. "...Yes, Father," she says, "I've seen how useless our governments are in the face of what threatens us. But this--"
"You're--you're offering it back!?" she shouts, and the anguish in her voice does not require an empath to find. "You--I--"
She hesitates, for an instant, and her Gear is utterly still. "Father, I--" She feels for an instant that she can't even breathe... and it's an obvious opening. "Why..." She swallows, "Why didn't you just TELL me!?" she screams back over the radio. "This--is this what it was all for? To make me ready? To--"
There's a wordless cry, a roil of emotions, rage and pain and otherwise, as she lunges her Gear forward. The shadows pick up all around it as she dives forward, with her weapon, hacking it at the Golem, shifting far too fast for a weapon of the Gear's side from place to place, attempting to surround the thing, each swing hard enough to level buildings.
"You--"
It might be most dangerous, though, to Riesenlied with her. ...She alone can sense in this loop the two of them have entered, as shadows trail every arc of Hellerune's glaive in bursts of Ether.
GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Claude C. Kenny's Spray and Pray for 188 hit points! GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Sheriff Star with Blitz Dance! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riese's face drops slowly as she watches Lily's attack... certainly slice through -- though her stomach churns a little as she watches the machine simply melt away in a way that things shouldn't melt... that crystalline lattice is there, underneath the armor.
The Colonel addresses her directly, and there's something terrifying... yet familiar... about his calm. It's the kind of chilling firmness that she has heard in the voices of others who would guide so many to war... Siegfried has had such moments.
She's fallen to such rhetoric before.
She looks even more chilled at how cold and calculating he is with Lily. It twists at her inside, because she's experienced similar before... in many ways, the entirety of the Photosphere is in a similar situation.
"A collapse...?! Look at the lands around you -- you believe that collapse is necessary even in the wake of such extreme desertification?" Riesenlied sounds aghast and wounded. Not surprised that she would be used as a target to be hated... she's used to that... but...
"Accelerationism has never benefitted anyone, Colonel..." Riesenlied expresses in the wake of his proclamation that Aveh and Kislev both need to burn, and for Ignas to be reborn. Ironic, yet fitting, perhaps, that the continent of Ignas is full of those with the ambition to see it burn. "History has taught that to us. To all of us... and Filgaia cannot support another Day of Collapse! You only burn the bridge you stand on!"
She's about to speak further, before she--
...!!
--clutches her head and lets out a cry of pain through the cockpit, the emanating sensation of something dire and painful ringing through her mind as Sado's weapons burst forward and it explodes in a wave of shadowy power.
What are you... telling me...?
Sweat drips down Riesenlied's brow as she gasps and leans to one armrest. As the Hellerune comes to thrash forward in melee, it's as if her chest could burst at any moment... like her blood were on fire. Was this the sensation of a Golem? Lily can briefly glimpse upon the nonverbal communication, as if there was a tether trying to lash upon Riesenlied's mind--
Stay away... do not-- ahhh--!!
The Hellerune's Ether amplifier reverberates once more. And this time, the pulsating burst of photons that emanate from it emerge outward--
--and form waves of light that thrash and counter the Golem Sado's shadows; they crackle and hiss, raw veils of particles erratically showering around the ancient machine.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Sheriff Star with Rising Heart - 'Wave-Particle Duality'! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline's blade can't hope to find major purchase against the Golem's armor, of course - but it finds just enough, biting into one of the fractures with sufficient force to ensure that the Demon can stay aboard Sado. Immediately, she plants her feet, kind of wishing she'd brought something more in the way of armor. "--hah--" she snorts almost to herself, not least to cover a desperate moment to catch her breath. "A good plan, certainly, but a little much in terms of effort. People hate us just fine as it is."
The wave of shadow ripples outwards from the Golem's surface, and the metal demon grits her teeth against it, clasping onto the hilt of her sword harder as she focuses. What little sorcery she knows isn't much for attacking with - but the Guardian of Hades is the Guardian of Illusions, as well, and somehow her presence dims and ebbs just enough to let the wave of energy slide past her in a confusing and blurred moment. It takes its toll on her, certainly - her breath is ragged and panting when she reestablishes herself back into focus - but she's still in place.
That's another opportunity - and the next moment in which Sado gives her a little time to move without being jostled off she's thrown herself to one side in a madcap dash, dropping to a slide that allows her to slip down into a small rut along the architecture of the Golem's shoulder. The moment she starts to drop into it she's angled her sword down and to one side, tearing it against the side of the channel before bringing its full weight down upon a likely-looking conduit panel.
"See how you like it," she mutters to herself. If she can't hope to damage it even from her perch, she can at least seek to stop some of its motion - and as if to try to ensure her plan, she twists her blade home at the same time as its edge erupts in a dark flame.
Part of her quietly hopes she's even hitting the right spot. But another part of her knows that even if it isn't, she just has to keep going and try again. That's their lot, after all.
GS: Noeline has attacked Sheriff Star with Impact Law! GS: Noeline has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
Emma looks down as she sees two identical and unfamiliar logos pop up. "Oh! Morgan, is that one of your old comrades or a child from your previous life?" Emma asks, in clear and without heat, before her attention comes back to the Golem. They're rushing it.
That's fine with Emma. She has to cycle the loader. Her Gear doesn't move, other than fractional adjustments of its singular gun. Her eyebrows raise upwards as she's referred to, and then comes a shrieking ray of golden energy which strikes into the ridge that Emma had crouched behind so presciently - but its angle is sharp, and as such the force scours a streak across the fresh-painted Gear.
It shudders. Not a mortal wound, but certainly a sting. Exhaling, Emma reaches for her mic button.
"A neccessary collapse? Is that like an ugly cucco, or a jumbo shrimp...? This region's already on the ropes, Mr. Kiel," Emma says, and perhaps with malus aforethought. "Are you desperate to rule over a howling desert? Is it a prize worth - whoa!! Alright, no time for talking!"
Emma clicks the mic over to address Morgan and his lagomorphic comrade. "I'll do what I can -- Oh! Is that the other one? Hello, Mr. Actual! I'm going to count back after I fire rounds, so if you can tell everyone to give the horrible Golem a little space, that would be swell."
There is another THOOM! The firing is curiously quiet, and without a barrel flash. Another high arc and the HI-NU begins to crab-walk sidewise afterwards, trailing some ozone stench. "Three," Emma says. "Two-oo..."
The shell descends onto Sado. It is not quite a shell at all; more of a frame around approximately two hundred gallons of industrial-strength corrosive alkali compounds.
"One," Emma concludes.
GS: CRITICAL! Sheriff Star guards a hit from Lily Keil's Blitz Dance for 153 hit points! GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Sheriff Star! GS: Emma Hetfield has attacked Sheriff Star with Battle With The Base! GS: Emma Hetfield has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
"Y'know, it kind of surprises me how often 'you only live once' gets used by the suicidally reckless as much as it does the overly cautious."
Jude Moshe? He's quite happy to linger in the middle, by all appearances.
No answer to his question. But maybe that's an answer in and of itself. Jude considers quietly, even as the shards of his initial salvo completely miss their mark --
--thanks to the leap of a giant Golem. The redheaded reporter looks up, slowly, as he is overshadowed by the immense form of the creature soaring through the air. And he just shakes his head, smiles his lopsided smile, and smacks a palm against his mess of red hair helplessly.
"I don't think I've mentioned today how much I hate ancient civilization, have I--"
CHOOM
Laser fire scorches the earth beneath him, burning away grass and incinerating gravel as those blue clusterlights engulf the Elymas in a beautiful display of light and fury. It fades in ionizing patterns of white and electric blue, little sunbursts dissipating in the air...
... leaving the Elymas standing, the dark plates at its back shifted all around it like a cocoon glowing bright orange-white with pent up heat and force.
"Ouch," utters Jude Moshe, rubbing the back of his head as those plates once more hiss back into place at the Elymas' back. "Guess you subscribe firmly to the idea of 'overkill,' huh?" Close. Way too close.
"... Damn. Lost my cigarette."
The threat of that Golem is a pressing one, though; without the ability to take this fight to the air, Jude must instead wait out the Sado's descent, waiting for the exact moment for it to fall --
-- before -shunting- towards it with an explosive burst of rocket fuel roaring warbling contrails of orange behind the Elymas. It rips across the earth, churning grass and dirt up into a frothing field of green as it rears its left arm backwards, piston at its elbow shunting outward with a hiss. Jude listens to the man talk. He doesn't miss a word.
"Leon's made a lot of significant life changes, lately. I think you'd be surprised, Colonel."
He just chooses to focus on the least important detail of all before that Gear -swings- its arm forward to -smash- its distinctly opened palm into the Golem... and attempt to -literally- piston it with all that pent up force.
GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Sheriff Star with Desolation Row! GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Keil keeps talking. Ida glances over to the sidebar that--as she understands it--allows her to record, review, and process the data collected by the Dragoon's sensors. She turned it on at the start of the engagement, and has not turned it off. She's reminded of Aunt Anna, and--
Sado leaps. A machine that size should not be able to move that quickly, and yet it does so anyway. Ida sees where it's going, and the Dragoon's cameras track the machine the entire time--but it's too fast. The Dragoon takes a trundling half-step to the side, and promptly takes a direct hit from several of Sado's tendril cannons. The energy fire hacks into the Dragoon's right leg and arm, searing off armor plates and carving into the support struts beneath. One of the tendril-cannons snakes around towards the machine's back, tracing a burning line across the Dragoon's thigh, and the small of its back, before cutting into the mechanisms that deploy the mortar.
ERROR,goes the warning on Ida's screen. Primary artillery servos offline. Right hip actuator damaged.
Ida grits her teeth, swallows the urge to swear violently, and reaches down to flip a switch. The Backup Smart-Engage--which Ida's repair people installed after The Wel Incident--is a little something designed to identify which servos have been wrecked and activate backups to compensate. She breathes, deeply, and tries to ignore how Lily loses the capacity for rational speech. There is something about it that strikes a chord of primal fear in the back of her brain.
It will take the backups a moment or two to engage. The Dragoon hunkers down as best as it can with an injured hip and knee, presenting itself in defilade. Ida listens to people with ideals and hopes talk about the future of Filgaia, and helplessness churns in her gut. She doesn't dare turn the radio pickup back on. Even if she did, she can think of nothing to say that doesn't sound embarrassing.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Make Do and Mend! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Make Do and Mend for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Ida Everstead-Rey clears debuffs from Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Sheriff Star guards a hit from Noeline's Impact Law for 0 hit points! GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Sheriff Star!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
To Jude's response, over the line just comes a cackle of a laugh.
That's... an answer, apparently?
"Ah, Leon."
So says Dietrich Keil as Weglaff sweeps in towards Sado and -- narrowly, the retaliatory bullet ripping past the Gear's head by inches just moments later -- the Gear hauls back to drop some space inwards towards itself and the Golem.
The blade dips in what would be a competent guard posture.
Assuming the person were fighting with a knife and not a blade, that is. And weren't in a several yards-tall robot -- these little differences all count.
The Gear mantains this posture for several seconds.
Then Josie reaches over and purposefully activates the external speakers.
"Hello, future father-in-law~" Josie says to the world at large, the sunshine cheeriness dripping from her voice. "Though I could always make it current father-in-law if you don't mind the part where we've definitely eloped."
She lets that hang before proceeding.
"Anyway. I'm afraid Leon can't make it, so you'll just have to put up with me today."
The pause that follows is almost, almost thoughtful.
"So that's how it is, is it? You've got the balls to tell the world how it ought to be? Well! You know, I'd almost be impressed. There's something to be said for thinking big!"
She wastes no time, even if she continues to talk. Hefting the blade and breaking into a charge, she once again surges ahead.
"But, hmm, how-- how do I put this?" she continues, voice breaking off as she once again takes advantage of the melee unrolling around her to urge the weighty machine into a stutter of a sidestep and reorient her angle of approach appopriately.
"If you're going to make decisions about the world, you'd better be prepared for its answer, Mr. Keil."
Venom laces in syllables in that name, the choice of 'honorific' apparently selected quite deliberately.
For Sado, there's the blade, once again stabilized with both hands as she urges it to cut.
Damn, but she should have reconsidered which hand she wanted to favor here, she thinks, wincing briefly thereafter.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Sheriff Star with Rip Slasher! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. DC: MISS! Sheriff Star completely evades Battle With The Base from Emma Hetfield!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
He's not in it, Fei thinks, but if he's not in Sado then that means... Leon and Elly! Could he be moving to intercept them? In Gryndille of all things?
Weltall is still recovering from its full frontal charge when tthe blue light rips into Weltall and sends it flying back across the field, bouncing several times across the ground. If Sado can do that to Weltall so readily, it's hard to imagine what it could do to other machines.
But ultimately a gear is only as strong as it's pilot, Fei reflects, pushing into the ground so Weltall can stand itself up. He wasn't expecting Sado to ALSO be in the Colonel's possession. He must think his plan is pretty unstoppable right now, doesn't he?
Fei exhales slowly. It seems that for the most part, his expectation for Colonel Keil's reasoning is spot on. The only aspect so far that is different is...
"You want Ignas to be reborn." Fei says dully. "It sounds like you're not intending to 'reap the benefits' yourself, you're just happy being the guy who kills a lot of people and betray those whom loved him because the allure of altering history appealed to you that much."
The anguish does not speak back in words. It just wants to be felt and observed. It just wants to feel and see. It finds it. A memory.
Not exactly memory, though memories may be attached to it.
Hardened. A man needs power to destroy a God.
Hardened. A man needs power to remake Ignas.
Hardened. The feeling of needing to be made strong. Of not being allowed to be weak. Of being manipulated or pushed or cursed into seeking power beyond power, power beyond the other. As a group, as an individual.
Farewell, Lord Siegfried. It feels that moment of understanding. Did they want strength? Did they want power? All they wanted was their family, all they wanted was their home, all they wanted was a home.
The anguish feels that it's understood. It does not weaken or recede, but it calms. It waits in neural matter, restraining itself from affecting other systems.
Fei straightens. "Is that it?" to Keil. "I was told that you were an intelligent man that was always forward thinking... but it seems I overestimated you. That's your goal? That's your reason for sacrificing your children, allowing them to be tortured... To 'remake Ignas'." Fei scoffs. "An intelligent man..." He shakes his head.
"You sacrificed your greatest treasures for dust!"
Weltall leaps through the air, surprisingly high on its own, aiming to slam its feet into the head of Sado and just keep slamming down on it. Fei figures, if he's ON the golem, it can't JUMP on him from a zillion feet in the air.
GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Riesenlied's Rising Heart - 'Wave-Particle Duality' for 0 hit points! GS: Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Sheriff Star! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Sheriff Star with Hazen! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
"A collapse... to Filgaia?"
Many words are spoken by Colonel Keil, but those are the ones that Xantia latches onto, as they are both easy to understand, and manage to make her extremely angry. "How could that ever be necessary? I won't let you do that!" It's not like she really needed to understand the motivations of someone who threatens her friends - nor their identity, which still hasn't entirely dawned on her - but it certainly provides an additional impetus to stay her course. Even though the actual damage caused seems superficial at best. She's severely underestimated what she's up against.
Case in point, she wasn't at all aware of its ability to use some kind of magical darkness blasts, knocking Silvestris clear with extreme ease. 'Do not get too close' is a lesson Xantia usually needs to learn the hard way, this time is no different. The skeletal Gear crashes hard into the ground, trailing a path through it as it keeps going for quite a ways. Not exactly the preferred way to gain distance.
Silvestris remains still after, laying on its side, emitting sparks and remnants of dark energy. Despite the abrupt involuntary trip, Xantia recovers quickly, though experiences some dismay when the controls aren't responding. "What...? What's happening? Why won't you move?" Looks like her machine handles this kind of attack very poorly. The lack of fully covering armor plating probably doesn't help - its systems are more exposed than would be ideal. But how could Xantia know how any of this works, let alone fix this? All she can do is grip the controls tightly, and plead. "Come on, Silvestris! We can't just lie here! You have to keep going! Please!"
As if her machine could hear. And yet... perhaps it's concidence, but just at that moment, the haze of darkness wafting over the machine dissipates. With that, Xantia is able to quickly right the quadruped Gear, and dispenses due praise: "Yeah! Good job, Silvestris! I knew you could do it!"
Within seconds, Xantia's machine has leap back close to the action - just not point-blank close, this time. "We're not done yet! Silvestris and I won't be beaten so easily!" she declares, the Gear emphasising this with a challenging roar. It's a very unpleasant sound, shrill, mechanically garbled, and actually damaging, since the machine has a high-frequency sonic weapon installed.
GS: Xantia has attacked Sheriff Star with Hypersonic Screech! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Jude Moshe's Desolation Row for 254 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Lets go with comrade, darlin'. Ain't got any kids around that I know of!" Morgan calls back towards as he watches his rounds hit home and....do...next to nothing. Its like shooting spitballs at a wall. "Byte see what you can do to increase the loading cycle." He calls out to the VI as the Restless Sinner starts to move. Just in time too as the Golem crashes down in a wave of pain.
He braces the Gear but it does little good as the war machine staggers backwards as damage starts to bleed into his screens.
"Leg systems damaged! Movement impaired."
"Yes Byte I realize that."
"Also two friendlies showing up on field."
"I...what?"
Now Morgan is listening, even as he shunts power away from damaged systems to keep the Sinner moving. The war machine can take a lot of damage, but the Golem can dish it out even faster it seems.
"Emma you are...wait. Claude?" Then a smirk. "Mr. Actual. I like that. But as for something else...well...just keep hitting it and see what works best. It's not like its not a big enough target!"
The missile rack on his shoulder roars as the weapon spits fire and explosives at the shell of that Golem, sub munitions scattering from the weapons just before they hit to pepper fire down the massive thing's side even as the Sinner unlimbers a larger hand-held gun. One with no visible clip and an ominous light beginning to glow from the barrel of the weapon as power is pumped though its systems.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Sheriff Star with White Fox! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Josephine Lovelace's Rip Slasher for 111 hit points! GS: Sheriff Star takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hazen for 280 hit points!
DC: MISS! Sheriff Star completely evades Hypersonic Screech from Xantia!
GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Morgan Newkirk's White Fox for 145 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
SCHONENBERG PALACE EXTERIOR
The shotgun shells keep pounding into the armor on the Golem Sado, and the crystalline armor keeps picking up those hairline fractures. The Golem takes more direct notice of the Borjarnon now; one arm lifts, and the clawed fingers glow, before another lance of golden light explodes off its fingers, and sends one careening off towards the Gear.
Lily screams at her father... and he ignores her, at first. Golem Sado does not -- does not dare to. Each swing of the glaive slashes and slams into the armor, sheering away chunks of crystalline armor. The Golem is forced to move to the side, serpentine body gouging out a chunk of hillside, before a ball of shadow gathers and forms before the massive Golem. Motes of light draw in. The air darkens about it, and then it slams forward -- before exploding in a terrifying dome of energy that centers about Hellerune, with a threat to engulf Riesenlied inside of it. The shadow feeds into it--and an impression, of an ancient anger, rides with that darkness.
Sorcery, as only the Elw could. But Riese reaches through -- and Sado shudders, stumbling, for just a moment.
"Yes," Dietrich answers. "A collapse must happen. Do you think that anything else will remake this world? I want a fire that will make us stronger. Strong enough to look to the skies and claim them!"
Noeline's blade erupts in dark flame, and she slams down into its shoulder. The arm swings up, sparks flying and exploding; it holds for a moment, and then drops down. Noeline appears to have caused the arm to stop its movement for a moment. An undulation cannon swivels around, and comes down -- then fires a thin lance of blue light, trying to slash clean through the Demon. Or, at least, knock her away.
"I'm confident we can repair the damage to Filgaia," Keil says. "But, I speak more of a political collapse. It could stave off an ecological one."
Emma counts down. On 'ONE!', the Golem Sado leaps again. It shoots straight and high into the air -- spinning, as alkali starts to burn and blacken the countryside. It comes crashing down -- and then rams a hand down, trying to spear the HI-NU on one bladed finger. The tail crashes down into the dirt, sending a wave of it up a moment after it hits. This puts it in range of Elymas.
"Mm?" Keil asks Jude.
And the palm rams into it, explosive force shooting through the armored thing. The crystalline armor buckles, hairline fractures exploding through it as if glass shattered. It swings back its other hand, and slashes down with the clawed hand, trying to slash Elymas open. The undulation cannons swivel at the same moment, three of them lining up shots on the Dust Dragoon -- and fire as one, beams lashing out to cut through the kneeling Gear.
And then Josie's voice reaches Keil's ears. He pauses, and he sounds like he is deliberately muting his surprise. "What in the--gh, someone else took that Gear?"
So she did. The blade whips up, slashing deep into the crystal armor. Chunks of it fly free, and the Golem cannot turn quickly enough to strike back. Instead, the undulation cannons swing down -- and three beams criss-cross on the Weglaff, trying to blast into it.
"The world's answer... no, I think not," Dietrich answers. "I'm not asking the world for its answer. The people I work with are going to make that answer."
Silvestris lets out a supersonic screech -- and then the Elw-made Golem responds by making a barrier of shadow-stuff appear, which ripples and undulates, before breaking the pattern on it. It wafts away, leaving the Golem untouched. Which is when a ball of shadowstuff forms, and then fires down towards Xantia's gear with an explosive promise.
The missiles slam into the Golem from behind. They rocket it formward, and its head turns to peer down towards the Sinner. Its eyes flare golden -- and then the undulation cannons turn. Two beams of blue light fire, burning through hillside, and each tries to cross through the Silvestris, then Sinner quickly. Before more join, though, Weltall crashes into Golem Sado.
The Black Gear slams into the head, and crystalline armor breaks -- and Weltall smashes it down again. And again. And again. Dust explodes out, as the Golem slams its long body into the ground, leaving a concave dent in the side of a hill. Dirt explodes upward; a tree cracks in half. The Golem's swiveling massive of tendrils, mounted on its back, twist around though. They all come up, shooting out to various angles.
"You..." Something enters Dietrich's voice. Fei might recognize it, knowing Lily as well as he does. The diction of the two is similar. Anger, hidden behind a mask of coldness. "...Building that Gear was a mistake. Relying on the past--on the advice of... it was all a mistake. You are a mistake, Fei Fong Wong. One that I will eliminate."
The undulation cannons spread out, until they surround Weltall. Then, they all fire at once, and a dozen beams of blue light scream down for Weltall from every angle.
Then, and only then, Dietrich sighs. "...I see you're not yet hardened enough, Lily. Unfortunately, we're running out of time."
SCHONENBERG PALACE INTERIOR
The explosions of the battle outside make the palace floors shake. The cart rattles with each successive blast and each successive Gear impact into the ground. Leon frowns, as a fork bounces onto the ground, and the teapot leaks all over the white drape over the cart. Then, he turns, and looks to Elly. "We're almost there. Right around this corner. Though, I don't know if our act will be--"
They round the corner, to find a quartet of four men approaching the Kaiser's door. They look up, peering at Elly in her maid outfit, and then at Leon in his waiter's uniform. Their ARMs are drawn, pointed at the two of them.
"...believable," Leon finishes.
GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Finger Launcher! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Riesenlied with Nightmare Burst! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Lily Keil with Nightmare Burst! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Noeline with Undulation Cannon - Sniper Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Emma Hetfield with Dark Javelin! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Jude Moshe with Dark Javelin! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Undulation Cannon - Triple Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Xantia with Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Fei Fong Wong with All-Range Attack! GS: Jude Moshe takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Dark Javelin for 292 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Finger Launcher for 310 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Riesenlied takes a glancing hit from Sheriff Star's Nightmare Burst for 247 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Riesenlied! DC: MISS! Emma Hetfield completely evades Dark Javelin from Sheriff Star! GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Sheriff Star's All-Range Attack for 312 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot for 244 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Sheriff Star's Nightmare Burst for 124 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Lily Keil! GS: CRITICAL! Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Spread Shot for 166 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Morgan Newkirk! GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Sniper Shot for 130 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Force Action! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Triple Shot for 152 hit points! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Undulation Cannon - Triple Shot! GS: Sheriff Star takes 16 damage from Corrode! GS: Sheriff Star has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Josephine Lovelace guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Undulation Cannon - Triple Shot for 211 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Josephine Lovelace!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Riesenlied--" Lily breathes, as she hears that communication, as she feels something happening to the woman behind her. She feels that pain. "Catch yourself--" She can only get that out barely though, the strain of something else evident in her voice, in her feelings. She does not seem shocked at coldness, precisely; coldness is familiar to her, it is what she has learend, what she has been taught, what has gone for long and long.
Lily forces herself to check her sensors, looking for Noeline in the chaos, listening to the others speak. Jude's continued presence and words, the others still moving... Josie, with her statement. Lily can't even bvarely react to it at the moment. It just hits her, as her breathing is something she tries to control, as the symbols on her bare arms glow vividly, brilliantly amidst the Ether boosting cockpit. They talk of the collapse. ...Fei... Fei speaks of dust. And Hellerune is still silent for a long few more instants.
...Until the Golem Sado cannot ignore her; the air darkens, and the dome of energy crashes towards Lily's Gear. She instantly throws out both hands, and the Gear's hands join, sending a crackling barrier of utter darkness to meet the terrifying energy around them, fighting fire with fire to minimize the shadow's effects. ...But both of them can feel that ancient anger. Sado may stumble, but Lily grits her teeth, silent, letting the anger pass over and through her. ...And then, still, she is silent for a few moments as she steps back. Her systems--her screens--are blaring with alarms that Lily silences with a single word in a language Riesenlied does not know, with a grit of her teeth. It is slowed, its armor is impaired. ...But this doesn't matter. A collapse...
"Father," Lily finally says, over the radio. She's returned her calm. "...I understand." She does not comment that Josie took Leon's Gear. "I see what you mean. That the world is in need; that it is dying, that what we are doing now cannot hope to save it."
The fight continues. "...Hardened... No, I am. I let my emotions get the better of me, but that's not the way you taught me. ...Always focus on the objective. Destroy anything in the way. Think of the greater picture. I understand."
The cannons crash outward, and Lily maneuvers her Gear around, leaping from blast to blast in order to get in melee with the Golem Sado. "We need to target the sky next, Father. ...I understand now, who was looking for me. Who we have to destroy."
The Gear lifts a hand, to place against Golem Sado's bulk. Shadows begin to float around the both of them, the same that were shielding her before. "We will forge ahead."
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Sheriff Star with Gloomshroud! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Sheriff Star with Twin Slash! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil has canceled their attack on Sheriff Star. GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Sheriff Star with Gloomshroud! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil has canceled their attack on Sheriff Star. GS: Lily Keil has attacked Sheriff Star with Gloomshroud! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Lily Keil's attack becomes clear! GS: Sheriff Star takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Omega Protocol for 404 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The shadows suddenly freeze in place--and howl with furious, unholy power. The point at which Hellerune's hand is touching Golem Sado begins to be the focal point of utter ruin, attempting to disintegrate its outer hull outright, to bore a howl into it--and the Shadow spreads, crashing everywhere, like static, roaring with unchecked Ether in a a storm of power.
More than just Riesenlied can feel Lily's rage, now.
"YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME!" Lily screams at her Father, barely audible over the static that her magic is causing. "I would have followed you anywhere. I would have done anything you asked."
"BUT I WILL NOT LET THE WOLVES FALL AGAIN!"
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
"Mister Actual?" asks Claude C. Kenny, sounding confused(er)(thanusual). "No, that's my callsign, I'm---"
WHAT IS CALL SIGN, PRECIOUS
"Ugh, never mind!" he shouts angrily. "This stupid piece of ancient BARMtech* is going to wipe us off the map if we don't do something about it!" The boy from Earth unloads several more rounds in the direction of the Golem Sado, noticing a half-second too late that its energy weapons are charging. The Borjanon slide-steps to the right, its feet tearing furrows in the soil, but the beams of light burn into its left shoulder and torso, boiling away armour plating from the left arm... and igniting the remaining rounds in the shotgun, which causes further damage.
WARNING: Multiple systems are---
"Yeah, I got it!" snaps Claude at his tricorder, which does not deserve this abuse; he checks his remaining weapons, deems them insufficient, then draws the heavy broadsword strapped across the ancient Gear's back. "All right, old guy,"** Claude says. "If you've got some firepower, then get me some cover. I'm going to try to get close."
Remarkably, Claude realizes this is a dumb idea even as he says it, but he's sort of running out of options. The Golem has more firepower and durability than any of these other Gears, and it's faster too. The only hope he has is to disable the damned thing. The Borjanon's short-range thrusters fire as the machine moves into a sweeping charge, gathering considerable momentum as it accelerates. Claude keeps the little machine with as low a profile as he can manage, holding sword and both arms in front of the cockpit as he moves forward.
As he approaches Sado, Claude drops the machine down into a sort of baseball slide, trying to slip between the ancient Golem's legs. "YAAAAAAAAAH!" he roars as the Borjanon rises, sweeping his blade toward the closest joint he can reach. "SHAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" he howls as he turns and pivots, arcing the gleaming sword toward anything that looks like a thruster.***
* - Bullshit Ancient Relic Magic
** - i.e., a person over 25 years of age
*** - Or, if he can't find a thruster, a butthole, because there needs to be SOMEWHERE FOR THE BULLSHIT TO COME OUT OF
GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Claude C. Kenny's Twin Slash for 280 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied is relieved to know Lily has so many that will band around her in the face of such hardship, such difficult revelations... she can't help but buckle a little further, finding her rolling, sweltering roil of emotions of rage, of pain-- of hurt and betrayal--
That she nearly misses it, for a moment. Deep within the sensation of Weltall's aura of anguish... what is it that she feels? Her mind desparately steps back for a moment, reeling from Sado's presence... but she picks onto that anguish that surrounds the mysterious machine.
She can't quite make out the specifics... and yet, as she senses its calm... she can't help but feel-- as much as she wouldn't admit it-- she was glad she could make another machine... understand.
A gladness that is gone as she suddenly sees-- senses Sado come, in the form of an inky well of darkness that encroaches upon her mind.
You are just a machine.
Those words keep reverberating in her head, as she clutches onto her seat and shouts in pain once more; the ancient anger sinks deep into her, infiltrating her mind with the wrath and regret of old machinery that has held deep the vengeance of a thousand years.
Is this what a human ought to feel, when the anger of their brethren is foisted upon them?
A machine does not need empathy.
Riesenlied-- catch yourself--
She grapples onto Lily's words, clings to it to try to hang onto. An anchor in the midst of the dark storm, something to let herself reorient...
"Such plans... will hurt the weak and helpless first and foremost," Riesenlied murmurs deeply, inbetween anxious, panic attack-like shaking. "It is... always the same story with ambition. You do not believe any price is too high to pay... Colonel Keil...!"
Even the cockpit seems to darken as Lily's power erupts in a sweltering storm of Ether, and all she can do is continue to hang on and...
and...
A machine does not need... to feel.
...
... descend into the machine.
Not physically, of course; the most she seems to do is to slack against her bindings, as if she's passed out, all of a sudden. But her conscience descends into that of the Hellerune, a sensation made of nothing larger than fundamental, elemental particles that reach towards every corner of the machine.
Stand strong, Hellerune. Lily needs you...
And the machine's very corners, every crease on its limbs, every crack in its armor would start to glow... and find its systems rewiring in order rapidly, and the alerts and alarms that Lily dispels would go away, one by one.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Lily Keil with Rising Heart - 'Consecration'! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Rising Heart - 'Consecration' for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Riesenlied clears debuffs from Lily Keil! GS: Reload! Lily Keil gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Lily, Ida thinks, but does not say, your father is a madman. Part of her desperately wants to say it, if only to voice her thoughts on the matter, but she chokes it down. It wouldn't help.
The backup servos finish calibrating, and engage, while the primary servos disengage. The whole process happens with a rhythmic symphony of clicks and whirrs that reverberate through the cockpit. "Come on, damn you," Ida says, in the security of her cockpit, with the transmitter off. "Work!" The Undulation cannons whirl on the Dust Dragoon, searing into it from three separate angles. Ida twists the torso back to turn what could've been a cockpit-coring shot into one that glances off the shoulder armor. The second blast hits the Dragoon low in the belly, leaves a smoking hole in its plate. The third tears into the Dragoon's thigh. When it's all over, the machine is still standing, and that's good--but that's largely because it did not draw Sado's attention in earnest.
Come on, Lily, Ida thinks. I'm supposed to be the one who does this. The thought is edged with self-loathing. The core is frustration.
Ida leans forwards on the control sticks, dropping the Dragoon to a crouch. The targeting reticle dances erratically in Ida's screen as Sado bobs and weaves, its undulating motion difficult to keep up with. Ida imagines this is the sort of challenge that the designers of the Gigas units faced, and perhaps whomever designed the thing menacing the expedition. Finally, Ida thumbs a trigger, switching over to manual targeting. The Dragoon's mortar swivels, following the Golem, as Ida cycles in a high-explosive round. The mortar barks once, twice, three times--and three shells sail across the battlefield, at Sado.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Sheriff Star with Type-E Mortar! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Type-E Mortar for 357 hit points! GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Sheriff Star!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia just sort of stares as Sado uses more of that darkness to shield itself, nullifying her attack. "Hey! That's cheating!" she complains, intimately familiar as she is with proper battle etiquette. She's pretty sure that includes 'don't use weird magic to make what I'm doing do nothing'. Ah well, that was only meant to be a setup. All she has to do is do is execute a proper follow-up, and...
Sado isn't about to let her, returning fire. Silvestris dodges nimbly, prompting a "Ha!" from Xantia, even as the ensuing explosion washes over the quadruped Gear. Were that to be all, she would have gotten off lightly. But that's when the most disturbing claim of all reaches her ears. Fei is... a mistake? That he will eliminate?!"
"Fei, look out!!" Xantia doesn't think twice, or even once. She immediately turns her Gear about and leaps for Weltall. She's not even sure what she's trying to accomplish. Maybe push it out of the way, or shield it, something, anything. This is pure desperation.
It was also an extremely bad idea. Not only does she fail to make it there in time, she gets her own Gear caught in the attack on Fei, causing considerable damage, and blowing Silvestris clear from the blast zone. Unlike before, Xantia at least manages to get the machine back to its feet quickly. "Fei!! Fei, are you okay?!" She briefly panics when she can't tell immediately.
But, as always... her instinct compels her to fight before anything else. Silvestris thus whirls about, and leaps straight for Sado. Screw lessons learned, she just wants to hurt that thing now. Mirroring Xantia's own ability to generate electricity from her body, Silvestris abruptly turns into a ball of lightning, hurtling itself straight at Sado's chest.
"How dare you!! What do you even know about Fei?! You're not doing anything to him, I'll eliminate you!!"
XANTIA PSYCHO UP?!
GS: Xantia has attacked Sheriff Star with Electric Discharge! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Xantia's Electric Discharge for 186 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
The vaulting attack of the Golem is countered by a simple and cunning expedient: MOVING A LITTLE FASTER.
Ha ha! No, that sounds quite ridiculous, but the HI-NU does double-step it and the bladed finger of the horrid golemic hand smashes into the sand and dust, digging down into significant geological layers as Emma feels a silent frisson of sheer terror. It doesn't reach her face, but not because it wasn't scary. The problem is Emma.
"I'm sorry, Morgan, I was terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought," she answers him even as the Golem's attack develops in a way that moves it away from the machine - from her. "What was that about Mr. Actual?"
This close there is not a great deal that Emma can do except for the simple and solemn truth that any artillery weapon that can be used for indirect fire, can also be used for direct fire, if you're brave enough. The HI-NU swivels as it keeps crab-walking backwards, and there is another THOOM as the magnetic coiling of the extended Emma Motor releases another shell, right towards the flank of the great machine.
This one isn't anything special other than being very fast.
Emma feels a sinking sense of having nowhere near enough tricks.
MEANWHILE, IN THE PALACE
Elly's wistful thoughts - hoping Fei is safe, hoping this will actually work, all the little moments of ill discipline that come when you're doing a long-stretching repetitive task (in this case, bringing a dinner to a political leader) - evaporate in the face of the quartet of men with the drawn ARMs.
Elly stares at them from behind her spectacles. "Left," she tells Leon, and then her head tilts forwards. The light shimmers there upon the glass, veiling her eyes. Elly exhales and imagines a blast furnace with four emerging pipes, not quite onto any of the troops before them but definitely at their sides. The Ether in the air tenses...
There is a dull industrial roar as the incinerating heat gouts outwards, right at ARM-hand height, in four directions, with Leon clear of all of them -- if he moved left. (Otherwise, well, he may have to move left NOW. Or worse - disturb the Kaiser's dinner.)
GS: Emma Hetfield has attacked Sheriff Star with A Certain Scientific Railgun! GS: Emma Hetfield has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Emma Hetfield's A Certain Scientific Railgun for 197 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
"Couldn't have said it better myself."
Laughter, apparently, is as good an answer as Jude Moshe needs.
"You've got a way with words, Josie."
Which really makes the ultimate payoff of Josephine's revelation to Dietrich all the more satisfying -- or at least should; Jude, even as he manages those effortlessly glib words, is keeping most of his focus on the readouts of the Elymas; his gaze is almost distant in a detached sort of way as he scrolls through data and listens to the words coming and going from Dietrich and the others surrounding him as if Jude himself was just an outsider observing the situation from afar, instead of in the thick of that action.
Action which almost immediately reaps its bloody vengeance upon Jude's Gear the very second he delivers that singularly potent blow. The claw rakes, -shredding- through the excessive outer layers of armor like they were composed of little more than paper. Alloys shriek, and plating is shred as the Elymas -surges- backwards with a reversal of thrusters, the entirety of the cockpit shaking in protest as the reporter gets his distance from that dangerous automaton.
"Damn," mutters the redhead, rubbing the back of his neck as he takes stock of the damage; almost the entirety of that upper armor has been completely compromised, sparks spitting wildly from gaping metal wounds. "That thing sure as hell packs a punch."
Claim the skies.
Jude's dark brows furrow inward as the Elymas comes to a halt. His amber eyes tilt, for a moment, the Hellerune's way. And then, towards Fei's direction, and the Weltall... and Xantia and her strange Gear. And for a moment, Jude just observes, with quiet, thoughtful eyes.
BUT I WILL NOT LET THE WOLVES FALL AGAIN!
And then he flips open the cover of a simple, red button on his controls.
"Well, you heard her. Probably best you just accept your little girl's all grown up now, huh?"
He depresses that trigger. And seconds later, the Elymas is -slamming- a fist into the earth; and with the faint, building sound of a 'vrrrrRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM,' the Gear releases a sudden, directed electromagnetic pulse, -racing- for the Golem Sado with intent to at least disrupt the parts of its systems that are inorganic.
"For someone who talks a lot about not relying on the past, though, you sure seem content to use it as a crutch for your future. Gryndille, the Sado... you know what they say about people who ignore the warnings of history, right?"
A second passes.
"Ah, well. Not really my concern."
---
ARMs are pointed directly at Leon and Elhaym. Their ruse, apparently, uncovered before it had even begun. A precarious situation to be in --
-- but with a cheep, something tiny and metal rushes to their rescue.
And so it is that the truly brave and/or soulless Jacob has every intention of making a sudden divebomb through a nearby window like some sort of amazing action hero, chirping threateningly as it flies in the face of one of the guards to serve as a distraction and, hopefully, give Leon and Elly the window they need to do what they need to do before getting the hell out of the way of Elly's redheaded wrath with what would sound to the untrained ear like a vaguely terrified squawk.
Like a true teammate would.
GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Sheriff Star with Sound of Silence! GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"You're right." Fei tells Dietrich. "Building this Gear was a mistake." He isn't being sarcastic. He agrees with Dietrich on this point. However slowly Fei comes to grips with Weltall in his life, he's still a long way off from calling it partner. He senses Dietrich's rage and if Lily has gotten the depths of her anger from her father as well, he knows just how deep that anger can go.
Can Weltall feel rage or is Weltall's rage simply a reflection of Fei's? Perhaps in spite of Fei's words, the connection between pilot and machine deepens. "If you had never sent this Gear to Lahan...Alice would have been alive, Timothy would have been alive. I'd still have a home. Dan would still have his sister. Citan wouldn't be stuck minding me away from his family, Captain Legrand would still be alive. Elly wouldn't have had to feel responsible for what I've done and I would have never seen that side of me again..."
Dozens of blue light slam into Weltall. There's nowhere to dodge, so Fei just curls up and lets Weltall tank it. The beams continuously slam into Weltall, their destructive power well enough to damage even the prototype. Scorching holes are punched through the machine but it does its best to stay together. Maybe because its anguish, or Fei's anguish, has been felt. It struggles that much harder to survive Sado's onslaught.
For a moment that resolve wavers.
But when Lily pushes forward about not letting the Black Wolves fall again, that resolve tightens once more.
Xantia is caught up in the attack--no! She's okay! Fei clutches his chest, muttering under his breath, "Don't do that to me, Xantia." It's not evoked over coms. Right now he can't indulge himself. He has to be someone Xantia can count on. He can sense a shift in Xantia. It doesn't require special empathy. He can feel it in the words she chooses.
A guided shot blast erupts out of Weltall and pushes back the beams. The anguish was felt. The demon within rests against its chains, wishing it could feel what Fei feels.
"Because you built that machine I met Lily, I met Leon." Fei says. "Everyone here, Xantia too. Elly too. So I guess..."
Lily got her anger from her father. Fei got his anger from his and Keil is saying all the lovely words to stir that pot of rage.
"Do you seek power, then?" Fei asks, striking at Sado with furious strikes. "Do you desire the power, Dietrich? I'll give it to you, since it seems you have given me so much already."
I WILL NOT LET THE WOLVES DIE AGAIN.
Fei doesn't comment on it. He just smiles behind his cockpit shield.
All of him.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Sheriff Star with Raigo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
Oh great. It has magic energy beams.
"Incoming! Incoming!"
"I can see that Byte!" Shouts Morgan as he jerks the controls of the Gear to the side. Wenching it around so the beams slam into shoulder plates. Armor turns to vapor as molten metal drips to the sand but the damage goes no further, which is good.
Because a little further makes it to the beating heart of this Gear where Morgan sits feeling very vulnerable. Which is not a natural feeling in a situation like this. Usually in a gear you feel fairly invulnerable.
Also usually you aren't fighting Golems.
"Totally understandable," Morgan responds towards Emma as he shunts power to repair systems. This time its a quartet of weapons in the Gear's chest that open fire. Stuttering crimson beams of energy are spat in the direction of the Golem, intending to capaltize on the damage as Morgan starts to find a better postion.
...though really. There isn't any good positions.
"I'll explain about call signs later, Emma." He adds as he circles round the swift moving Golem. "...and is it just me or is this guy not so mildly insane."
Then Lily's response comes with the shouting and the explosive magic and Morgan nods slowly. "Well good its not just me."
GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Jude Moshe's Sound of Silence for 49 hit points! GS: Disrupt and Weaken! Statuses applied to Sheriff Star! GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Sheriff Star with Red Fox! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Afraid so," Josie's voice rings out in response to the Colonel's reaction. "Well, in a manner of speaking. D'you think he'd be annoyed if I made some adjustment suggestions?"
Somewhere in the depths of the Gear, Josie once again smiles in a self-satisfied manner.
Particularly -- as much as the Gear rattles under the weight of her own swing -- as the blade crunches home into a section of the armor.
It is, alas, not a state that will last her very long. Her expertise with piloting a Gear is... less than extensive, and this is not a style of battle she's quite adept with. Too late, she catches the twin scroll of alerts and sights the cannons as they redirect and aim right for her. Evasion quickly becomes not an option at all.
Well, Josie thinks, lifting the blade as she settles back into a last-ditch defensive posture.
Well.
It does not go well at all. Sections of Weglaff hiss and steam as the barrage finally ends. A little more tight-lipped, Josie's gaze skims the array of messaging from within the machine of damaged plating, compromised electrical systems, and the lot. She lifts an eyebrow, then sighs.
"Oh well," she murmurs to herself. "Guess Leon will just have to put up with the damages." Before she hits the accelerator -- not about to stick this close, not for this long -- and delivers, courtesy of the close-range cannons on Weglaff, a little tit for tat, so to speak.
"So that's," she says to Dietrich, throttling back as she hauls out of the way -- the tendrilfire, though others might suffer the brunt of the barrage, is not something she would like to experience for herself if she can help it -- of the continued attacks from the Darkness Golem, "the sort of man you are."
Hellerune has gone silent. Don't think for an instant that Josie hasn't noticed.
"Taking what you want because you're stronger. And why not? You know best, eh?"
Lily lashes out.
Screams.
"...Just like a father," she snaps finally, an answer to her own statement. "Unfortunately," Josie says, planting both hands on the hilt of the sword and echoing Jude's far calmer statement, "children have an unfortunate habit of growing up--"
One good moment is all she needs. Her gaze shifts between Sado, Hellerune, Elymas... Weltall.
"Come on. Let's scrap it. Then we can show Mr. Keil that this dog bites back."
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Sheriff Star with Impact Cannon! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Raigo for 246 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
With a burst of effort, Noeline kicks off the sparking panel; for a moment you might expect her enormous sword to present a problem in such confined quarters of the long furrow in the Golem's design, but the blade abruptly melts away, pulled back into her own metal with a thought. She's not Kalve or even Yarobeleedt, not able to manipulate her metal extensively and completely - but she can do that much. It allows her the leeway to send herself sliding down the metal surface of the Golem, head down with a hiss of pain as the laser briefly washes over her skin and cuts a line along one arm.
The motion is more or less instinct, her thoughts having slowed down to let herself move how she deems fit. She's silent - after all, saying anything to Keil or offering a counter to his arguments seems pointless. She's heard this story before; the tone and the belief behind it are always the same, whether politically or religiously motivated. She doesn't exactly have the luxury to offer much of a quip right about now in either case.
Instead, she glances down the ledge she's skidding along, sucking in a breath; there's too much blue and yellow ahead of her, and it takes her a muted instant to realize that she's about to get thrown off the Golem entirely, much too fast to do much of anything about it. When she's suddenly ejected into the open air it's with an intensely disorienting moment, buffeted by the sudden shock of air around her, the sensation of it tinged with Lily's dark sorcery and the sharp acidic tang of gunpowder and ordinance.
A shape looms in front of her, and it takes her a moment to realize it's the Golem's face, briefly orienting into her vision; that manages to catch her attention, and she sucks in a shaky breath as her sword melts back out of her, its white shape resolving itself in an instant, held firm in her grip. "--I would love to be caught--" she mutters into her communications - and for just a moment seems to hang in midair as she lets the next current of hot air buoy her upwards, just enough to pull the upwards momentum around into a spin.
The sword resists at first - it's much too heavy to be practical. But then, so is a demon's strength, and the wrenching swing draws a line of bright white force that arcs out from Noeline's position to impact straight against Sado's face, and then a second one as the weight takes her around for another crescent slash.
It's not just for show - it propels her backwards, and signals her position at the same time.
GS: Noeline has attacked Sheriff Star with Infinite Slash! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Morgan Newkirk's Red Fox for 363 hit points! GS: Morgan Newkirk takes Cover! He gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Josephine Lovelace's Impact Cannon for 262 hit points! GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Noeline's Infinite Slash for 110 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
SCHONENBERG PALACE EXTERIOR
"You're coming to understand, now," Dietrich says. "You are my daughter, after all."
Hellerune's hand touches Sado. Light gathers and grows, and -- at a command from Dietrich, the Golem permits it. This proves to be a mistake. The blast of pure shadow explodes outward, a shockwave of it ripping away a whole outer layer of crystal. The explosive force throws the Golem, freshly risen, backward again. It goes flying, the Golem tossed like a rag doll. It bowls over trees, and rolls a few times.
And, once again, anger enters Dietrich's voice. "I expected better of you, Lily. To not be tied down by sentimentality. To not--"
His voice cuts out a moment later. Claude's Borjarnon slams into the snake-like lower body of the Golem and bowls it over, the blade slashing into it hard enough to short the radio out for a moment.
And it is wobbling, when the trio of mortar shots from Ida's Dust Dragoon ram into it. Explosions billow and echo up into the sky, fire rising high and smoke higher. Golem Sado twists, and then surges upright. Its eyes flash, brilliantly. Colonel Keil's voice cuts back in over the radio, after a burst of static.
"--noying. You would think their technology sturdier," he complains. Silvestris leaps. It slams into the Golem. Sado bounces backward, armor shedding. "What do I know of him? I read the reports. I know what machine he stole. Perhaps you should know your friend's history, girl. After all, we are what our past makes us!"
The railgun shot slams into the Golem. Sado is knocked to the side, but rises back up. Crystal shards explode and shatter away from it, smoke rising from its massive frame as it does. Elymas's electromagnetic pulse rolls through it, and sparks fly as arcs of lightning rush over its strange construction.
"That--touche," Dietrich tells Jude. "But, I suppose, there is being a slave to the past... and harnessing it."
He falls quiet at Fei's words, though. Fei's shot pushes back the beams -- and the blast rips through one of the cannons, the tendril shredding apart and exploding in a fireball as it tears through. Several of the tendrils fall down, shredded apart. Red beams slash into the Gear, fired from the Sinner, and the Golem seems to stumble.
"Who doesn't desire power, boy?" Dietrich asks Fei. "We live in a world where we're quashed under foot -- or we're strong. If you pretend to have a choice, then you have the strength to enjoy that luxruy."
The impact cannons from the Weglaff rip into the armor of Sado. Crystal chips keep flying into the air, and some of them rain down around Noeline as she rises up to the Golem's face. Sado watches her with cold, golden eyes before the blade cuts down into it with a furious explosion and burst of sparks. A scar is cut into the face--
SCHONENBERG PALACE INTERIOR
Leon runs left. He reaches behind him, snapping Argent Divider from the holster on his back. His coat falls away, leaving him wearing his vest and white shirt. The weapon comes free, gleaming silver, and the blade snaps outward with a flick. The barrels snap-up, and he spins to face the guards. His eyes, silver as his weapon, turn to them as he brings the blade up before his face. "I don't have time for--"
He watches them writhe on the floor, clutching their hands. Melted ARMs lay on the ground, pools of half-molten steel, as the troops grab hands scorched and burnt. Jacob is perched on one of their heads, and a few gunshots are in the ceiling, where they fired on the bird in vain. He blinks down at them, and then looks at Elly. "...er. Good job."
Then he kicks the door down. It flies open, and Kaiser Sigmun turns. A greying man, with notably pointed ears, wearing fine white-and-red robes. He turns, staring for a moment. Leon looks at the Kaiser, and the Kaiser looks at him. "I'm Captain Leon Albus," he says. "Commander of the Black Wolves Mercenary and Ranging Company, LLC."
He holds out a piece of paper, stamped with the emblem of the Bernadelli Insurance Society, who notarized it.
"You've just hired us to be your bodyguards," he tells Sigmund. He grabs the Kaiser by the arm, yanking him into the hallway.
"What is the meaning of--"
Then Leon pushes him back, as a trio of gunshots come down the hallway. A quartet of soldiers run, these in sharp dark green uniforms. Wolf's head patches are on their shoulders. "Emerald Wolves," he mutters. "Elly, we're going to have to cover the Kaiser. Jacob, stick with him and get Muni-Muni's attention. Your majesty, run through--" He fires a shotgun shell into a window, shattering it. "--there, and head for the dragon!"
"This better--" the royal starts to say. He is cut off when Leon turns, then aims his shotgun, and starts firing at the approaching men.
"GO!"
SCHONENBERG PALACE EXTERIOR
--and then Sado opens its mouth. A great, gasping maw filled with a twisting gyre of purple energy is inside. Shadowstuff, made manifest; sorcerous power, given life and form. This is Elw technology. It speaks, in the Elw language, and yet the word burns into Noeline's mind.
"POWER."
A cone-shaped shockwave of black energy shoots across the battlefield, away from the palace. It strikes the earth -- and the grass, the trees, and everything suddenly flashes black and purple. It burns at all it touches, which shines white. The sky blackens. Inexplicably, pieces of tree melt; metal catches fire; air turns solid and freezes into chunks of sickly purple ice that rain down from above. Physics is grasped, commanded, and defied as the shockwave rolls out.
"NO WISDOM. NO COURAGE. ONLY POWER."
It is this sight that greets Kaiser Sigmund, who bolts out the shattered window, and finds himself staring at the back of the Golem Sado. It stands between him and the rest. His mouth drops agape, and he stares for a long moment. He turns his head, slowly, and peers back at Jacob, and then forward.
Leon's voice crackles over the shortwave. "Kaiser's out! Kaiser's out! Get the Kaiser!"
GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Noeline with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Jude Moshe with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Emma Hetfield with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Xantia with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Riesenlied with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Bleak Impulse! GS: Sheriff Star has attacked Lily Keil with Bleak Impulse! GS: Claude C. Kenny critically Guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 66 hit points! GS: Riesenlied takes a glancing hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 172 hit points! GS: Noeline has activated a Force Action! GS: Noeline guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 100 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Emma Hetfield guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 228 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Emma Hetfield! GS: Jude Moshe guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 198 hit points! GS: Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 183 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 66 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: CRITICAL! Xantia takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 425 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! Statuses applied to Xantia! GS: Xantia has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 253 hit points! GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 336 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Sheriff Star's Bleak Impulse for 346 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
SCHONENBERG PALACE SKIES
There's perhaps something about royals and unusual escapes in this timeline, because Jedan listens in on the shortwave and responds back with a prompt and curt, "Roger that," as he turns towards Dva and nods. "That's our signal -- cover Muni-Muni and get the Kaiser out of here!"
The exciteablest littlest Dragon known as Muni-Muni bobbles on down towards the window where the red-robed, long-eared Kaiser just charged through. She's not in her Teardrop shape, rather transformed as some lucky individuals have seen--
Two stout legs have popped out of her body, shrouded in gilded armour; her torso has popped apart as well to reveal insect-like wings to either side of her, and her top has split apart into something that resembles an open-face seat.
Yes, it is the form known as...
A Certain Magical -- no! -- Munitekal Armour!
(Coming to you soon in a Gunslinger 1.1 update!)
It squeaks excitedly, going :D? at the Kaiser and bobbling left and right. Muni-muni muni! (tn. Climb on, sir!!! :D)
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny is about as magically aware (or, frankly, generally aware) as most varieties of cheese you could name. But even he knows that something is SERIOUSLY WRONG with the stupid magical bullcrap that is pumping out of the Golem and heading his way. And there's damned near nothing he can do about it. In a world seized by some sort of war of robots that are super, a kung fu practitioner like Claude C. Kenny might be able to channel his internal energies through his robot into some sort of mode that was equally super, and fire a giant hadoken at the energy wave to break it up.
But he can't do that, because he's in a millennia-old machine that is dumb.
This is where the Federation tricorder - a state-of-the-art military model - saves Claude C. Kenny's life. Sensors register energy readings that seem impossible but are demonstrably not, then quantify them into something that's close enough for Claude's purposes, i.e., a visual representation of the fields that are just causing probable death as opposed to certain death. And while Claude has many faults, cowardice and reluctance to act have not been counted among them.
So he dives inward, and slips through. The Borjanon's armour plating crackles and ignites, but then he's through the first wave. A whispering tendril of spacetime in which pi is equivalent to exactly 3 washes over the mecha's sword, twisting it into something that bends in on itself. Claude discards it without looking back.
And then he is through - his Gear belching smoke and fire, but still functioning. Bellowing an angry roar, Claude drives both arms down toward part of the Golem's snakelike lower body, trying to find a portion that resembles segmentation if he can find one. Whether he can or not, he presses both forearms down onto the surface, at which point the grinding gears surrounding the Borjanon's forearms blaze to life, sparks and shards of shattered metal spraying out in an incandescent cone to either side.
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Sheriff Star with Tear Into Pieces! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. DC: MISS! Sheriff Star completely evades Tear Into Pieces from Claude C. Kenny!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily's emotional signature is overwhelmed by the darkness of her power. What was pain, betrayal, rage, resolution--all of it erupts as, visible only to Riesenlied, the circuit patterns on her arms glow with painful radiance, creeping creeping along her shoulders, seeming to spread bit by bit, only a little, but enough. The power is all there is, for long moments, and Hellerune struggles to stay together with the force of the Ether pumping through the Gear, radiating out from it.
...Systems start repairing, thanks to Riesenlied's consciousness; she holds it together, where even the experimental power of Solaris might not be able. It is easy, to be frustrated by Lily's anger, for those that are.
But she does not stop.
She does not stop, as Xantia's electricity crashes outward near her, beside her, around her. She cannot know what is happening in the palace, but she can hear the great noises of the Emma Motor.
...Jude and Josie both indicate that she's grown up, and maybe she has. It's hard to say; at the moment though she has made clear what she thinks. Accept it... Lily doubts it. But Lily is having difficulty stopping to think at all. She stares, as the power abates, and Sado is thrown backwards. Dietrich is angry. ...Lily knows that anger well.
"Yes," she agrees, her voice her own again, "I am your daughter. The daughter of a traitor. ...And I know full well how to accomplish what needs done."
We are what our past makes us.
"...How much do you know?" Lily asks. "How much? How long--"
She grits her teeth. "...It doesn't matter. You know full well, Father. ...I have power. I am power. You call it held down by sentimentality--"
Power. ...The Golem Sado roars back with a power so familiar to Lily in its way--alien, yes, but of an element of hers. Black and purple; everything melts. Hellerune's systems fry, armor plating burning off in an instant, held fast by Riesenlied's consciousness, by Lily erecting another barrier of black power. She huffs--
She pulls something from a compartment, slamming it open, and jabs the needle into her arm, the stimulants and Rose extracts helping to keep her going. Hr eyes narrow--and Leon's voice--
"This isn't over, Father." The alarms are not blaring, thanks to Riesenlied, but Lily can feel the system preparing to overload. She shifts her stance, places herself with a gigantic rush between the Kaiser and the Golem, her foot slamming down with a shockwave, cracking earth beneath it. ...She is still far off. She is not at the palace. But still--
"...We will meet again. I swear it."
At that, she lunges--her Gear is bolting forward, charging, her glaive suddenly ablaze with shadow, with dark fire that blots out all light. And then--her Gear shimmers, and seems to be in three places at once, all charging at once for Golem Sado. Each are hazy, each radiate malice--
But the real Hellerune crashes past, glaive outstretched, coated in nothingness sharper than any razor.
"Top priority is the Kaiser now." She doesn't need to say it to Riesenlied, she thinks, but she says it on the channel between the others. "Enacting the plan." Her voice is cold. But her feelings are something altogether different.
To her father she says, "...We will."
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Sheriff Star with Witchrazor! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Into the Darkness. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Lily Keil's Witchrazor for 160 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
In the wake of the Golem's awe-inspiring blast of black energy, Riesenlied's body roils and struggles, with a sub-conscious groan of pain as the supernatural sensation starts to react uncomfortably against her already tormented and tainted physique. The blood from her wound seems to drip upwards as physics is defied, before everything resumes and it drips upon her capelet.
But she doesn't need to be awake to see the circuits erupt on Lily's skin, emanating radiance all over her; she grasps it all together as she acts as the machine's very soul for a moment.
There is no response to Dietrich this time from Riesenlied; the sheer, overwhelming power of Sado and the interplay between Lily's mind, Lily's power and the Hellerune's own amplifiers seems to have seen fit to accidentally unseat her from her place of conscience, such that...
Lily. This is Riese... do not be alarmed. I want to use Hellerune just for a moment... just a little longer, Hellerune...
Riesenlied's voice is echoing from what feels like the channel that the Witch channels her Ether through. Unusual, for a moment, due to how it's typically an input channel...
But the Gear would shine once more, moving with an ease that exudes cooperation between the Solaris-stolen Gear and the Hyadean that's entered a subconscious state. In the interstice after it crashes past Sado with its glaive outstretched, its free hand raises. With a thunder--
-ccCRACKkk-
A familiar sword of light is formed, floating on the dark Gear's palm.
Golem Sado... once, the Guardian Equites told me that there was no Guardian of Wisdom. That only we can wield this blade... then... let us sunder the past with this blade that will carve open the future...!
It rears its hand back, the spike of radiance manifesting further and further. At its peak, it -thrusts- the blade of light forth--
... and its name is... Laevateinn...!!
It is a projectile of light, taking the closest distance between it and its target. It would not be abetted by anything, for it reaches the Golem's innermost thoughts rather than its physical armour.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Sheriff Star with Rising Sword - 'Laevateinn'! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Riesenlied's Rising Sword - 'Laevateinn' for 152 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline hadn't actually planned this far out. Her mid-air strike had basically been an act of desperation, and even if the sight of the scar torn into the Golem's face by the repeated arcs of force is a source of grim pride, it's a very cold comfort when your ultimate goal is to survive. Like it or not, she's still in freefall in front of Sado - which means she has very little way to avoid the Golem's attack. All she can do as it turns to face her is face it in turn - defiant to the last, she offers it a cocksure, toothy sort of grin--
--not that that would have mattered in the slightest. The wave that ripples out from the Golem is not the sort you avoid, all-encompassing and terrifying; Noeline yelps as it picks her out of the air, leaves the world whirling around her as her perception stretches and thins. She tries to tell herself it's an illusion - tries to bend Duras Drum's power towards her own defence - but whatever is happening is clearly much more than that, and her skin crawls and burns from the twin sensations of Guardian's power and Sado's-- whatever on Filgaia this is.
Her back impacts with one of the generated blocks of ice, smashing straight through it as it collapses around her; the shards cling to her like a living thing, stinging and slicing along her limbs before the acceleration of gravity sends her scattering further down in a falling arc. Winded, she lands much sooner than expected, and it's only an impulsive thrust of her arm that stops her from falling further, as her blade rams home into another of the blocks. Hauling herself up with her free arm, she grimaces - watching as she rides the icicle down towards the ground and throwing herself clear.
"What the hell have you woken up?" she mutters quietly to herself. The fall, supported by the ice beneath her, gives her the barest of instants to catch her breath - to focus inside herself, to watch the strange, impossible wave continue to wreak havoc--
--and then she's flung herself off the icicle at the second-to-last moment, sword winking away mid-flight as she lands heavily and then kicks up into a full run, far faster than any human should be able to manage, headed directly for the Hellerune. "--I am onboard in five! Four! Three!" she counts urgently, leaving the last two numbers as she plants her feet and then launches upwards in a more or less vertical jump, catching back onto Lily's Gear as her final command comes through. "--Go!"
GS: Noeline has attacked Noeline with Nanomachine Paste! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Noeline heals Noeline! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.
Jacob may be hopping once or twice on the disarmed guard's head. Is he... spinning?
... Is he doing a victory dance??
Seconds later, the mechanical messenger bird is flying through through those blown open doors with a triumphant chirp, circling about to land on the Kaiser's shoulder just as Leon grips his wrist. Jacob looks up at Sigmund, tilts its head, and blinks, eyes shuttering like a camera lense as it tweets its cheery greeting at the leader of Kislev.
It's only with the sound of gunfire that Jacob hops off the Kaiser and into flight, as if his immediate survival was more important than Kislev's commander getting shot full of holes.
It's important for a bird to have priorities.
Orders given, though, a single chirp comes from Jacob, as if understanding just what Leon wants; it flits for the window in front of the Kaiser to act as a guide, flowing through and soaring up into the air just as everything starts to go to hell.
Not to be deterred, he will circle around Kaiser Sigmund seconds after the man peers at him, and then swing around behind him to nudge the Kislevi leader in the back with the prod of his mechanical beak.
Jacob: perhaps a little impatient. Or just that dedicated to the mission??
Either way, Jacob will fly off after that, nudging Sigmund as necessary with annoying regularity before flitting off towards Muni-Muni. Jacob will circle the dragon once, twice, before fluttering in the direction of the Kaiser, as if intent to turn the creature's attention that way.
He may nudge Muni-Muni with his beak, too. Maybe.
Once or twice.
This is -important-.
---
Meanwhile! Everything starts going to hell!
But, I suppose, there is being a slave to the past... and harnessing it.
"Yep," muses Jude Moshe good-naturedly as electromagnetism coils around the Elymas' fist.
"That's the other thing people always say."
The Golem Sado's mouth opens wide. A chasm of darkness spews from its maw, purple churning like a maelstrom at the very center of it. Jude tilts his head, frowning faintly.
He'd make some glib remark about how that can't be good, but it proves just how little good it actually -is- by giving him no actual time to respond in any reasonable way beyond action. "Tt!" Controls on the Elymas are gripped, commands inputted; the bulky Gear -shunts- its plated arms up as that shockwave of pure, pitch black SCREAMS across the battlefield, burning away EVERYTHING in its path. Physics turns upside down as heat and cold trade places within the same breadth like some sort of quantum parade of madness.
And all that can be seen of the Elymas is a silhouette of plates ejecting from its back before it is consumed within the unnatural swirl of magic.
There is silence. No words come from the pilot of that modified Kislevi Gear. Its fate uncertain...
... until the answer comes, however indirectly, through the sight of those heavy, shell-like plates -blitzing- across the battlefield with the roar of rockets. They spin about, closing in on the Sado, encircling and enclosing it --
--before they -all- slam forward to -crush- it between that literal cage of plates, to do damage or at -least- hold it in place for the onslaught of others. And there, within the wreckage, is the Elymas -- one arm melted clear off, the other one frozen into uselessness, frame lurching forward and sputtering as Jude controls those plates from within.
"Golems. Of course the one we didn't manage to sabotage was the crazy one that doesn't make a lick of sense."
GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Sheriff Star with Masters of War! GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Direct hit, Ida thinks. She blinks behind her goggles, as if the whole thing were wishful thinking, somehow. Eldritch smoke rises from Sado's torso, though, and Ida allows herself a smile--one edged with vindictive glee. "Have fun cleaning that up, you bastard," Ida says. Unfortunately, her sense of triumph is momentary. She doesn't have to see Fei's voice to hear the pain and anguish in him. Lily's struggling mightily against a rage that threatens to drag her under and drown her. Ida can do nothing to help either one of them.
As usual.
Sado's maw drops open. The AWACS immediately begins screaming about a massive power buildup, and Ida watches the threat estimate climb until it scrolls. She bites the inside of her cheek, hunkers the Dragoon down so it's in defilade, with its remaining armor facing the Golem. Ida thinks she should pray, but she can't find the words.
The beam washes over the Dust Dragoon, and the world goes white. Ida smells sulfur and ozone, and feels the Dragoon's frame rattling around her as though a giant had seized it and were shaking it violently. When the light fades, the machine is still there. The armor on its right arm is gone--so is most of the right arm proper, reduced to slag alight with eldritch purple flame. The skeleton is still there, as are some of the servos, but most of the Dragoon's right side is a scarred, half-molten wreck. In the cockpit, Ida remembers to breathe, realizes she's gone completely rigid in terror. She sinks forwards, looks at her display, and sees the poor, noble external cameras relaying staticky external feeds.
She can still target by sight. Good.
The Dragoon lurches into the air, its jump-jets taking over for its damaged legs. The Gear's entire frame rattles again under the strain, and Ida doesn't need to look to know it's under far more stress than it can handle at the moment. She tries to control her descent, to make it slow and even--but she still comes careening in over Hellerune's head. Gobbets of molten metal rain down like blood. The Dragoon lands in front of the palace--barely--and turns around. It takes a knee--or tries to--in front of the Kaiser, Leon, and their Munitekal escape route. Ida flicks on the radio, and her garbled, static-laced voice comes over the comm again. "Covering fire."
The mortar still works. Ida cycles in three more of those explosive mortars, one after another. Once the last one's gone, she switches over to the Type-Is she has remaining. Those ones explode on impact, spreading sticky, clinging, flaming gel designed to kill Wels as big as Gears. As destructive as this approach is, Ida is still taking care to avoid collateral damage. She has her back to the Kaiser and Sado in her primary arc.
And if nothing else, she has to survive to tell Aunt Anna that the deal is very definitely off, and that Kislev's leadership has undergone a dramatic and unfortunate shift in approach. Further deals with them are not advised.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
Emma doesn't have much to say in this hot moment. She is focusing herself because now that she has fired that round she must deal with the delays of an autoloader that she built herself. It works well, but...
It takes time.
A second drags out. Two. Three... At four, Emma relaxes, but then everything goes immediately and straight to hell as that surging ripple of impossibility washes over her Gear. It lurches to the side, screens flickering with violence and showing ghost text and strange images. There is a loud BANG as if God came down and kicked the autoloader, the shell detonating and blowing a hole in the back large enough that Emma can smell the outside air from inside of her cockpit.
"Hah... Morgan...?"
The radio makes a squeely noise. At this point one of the screens flickers back on, functional if with a huge 'crack' in the center from the damage to the lens. Except, Emma thinks, that's a fractal set. What happened?
NOVEL UNIT: DISABLE (?)
I'm going to die in here, probably, Emma thinks.
MEANWHILE, inside of the palace:
Elly looks vaguely abashed at the pain of the men. But they'll live! Right? Mostly. She salutes Leon and then moves in to suddenly and swiftly catch sight of the Kaiser of Kislev. She does not introduce herself; her eyes widen behind her fashion spectacles. Leon presents royalty with a bill, and Elly turns her head at the snap of gunfire. Her hands clench tight and -- no, she thinks, the air's too dry here. She tenses up again and lets out a "hhhahhh--" before masonry and stone comes flying out of the side of a wall, bursting like an extremely blunt and surprising claymore at those men.
"Sir!" she says to the Kaiser, extending an arm and moving to put herself on the gunward side. "We have to go! I'll protect you!"
Am I going to die in here? Elly wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Emma Hetfield has posed.
BACK OUTSIDE
The HI-NU has smoked gently and periodically let out a spark. Lacking a better plan, Emma got out of the cockpit seat and was trying to do some wire splicing; if nothing else, the legs need to move. Unfortunately(?) for her, the radio comes on just in time to inform her that the Kaiser is coming.
At this exact same time the screen she had been squinting at dies. There is also a loud buzzing BRAP from the cockpit, which Emma looks at with a moment of accusation. Betrayal!
Emma's eyes saccade around, crouched in a mechanical space in a heavily modified Gear. "Well..."
Emma flips open a panel.
EXTERIOR VIEW
The HI-NU's remounted torso is slowly inclining to the left. This sort of torso flexibility is of course a function of any Gear; they may not be as bendy as a human in most cases but you have to have at least a little give. This slewing of the entire upper body of the machine, whose knees seem to have suffered from a beautiful but crippling cascading melt of the armor plating, is beyond the normal tolerance.
There is a noise of SOMETHING dying in the waist of the machine. Peek in from the back and you can see Emma Hetfield periodically peeping out and then leaning into the breech of the gun to squint down it. "Aha," she says. "There you are. Do you think that power is so glorious...?"
The HI-NU suddenly lurches forwards. The leaning forwards is down far enough that the barrel of that strange cannon hits the dirt, kicking up dust. Something in the bowels of the loader goes THUNK. Emma leans into the gap and stretches out one leg, biting on the tip of her tongue as she st r e t c h e s and kicks the back of some piece of metal. It latches into place with a complaining clank.
The HI-NU straightens back up a moment later. After this the running lights go off. Well, so much for that.
Of course, from the perspective of Sado, that's the case. Seen from behind the improvised unit, someone just slid out, scrambling down like a desperate rock climber into the back of the leg and skidding out on glassified space in a rut behind the Gear. Emma fumbles for her glasses with desperation.
A piece of resistor between two spliced cables slowly heats. Heats... sags... melts...
Emma gets her glasses on and books it towards Morgan's Gear.
The two cables send a signal. The pulse runs into the electric motor inside of, indeed pervading, that cannon. The current steadily increases as the resistor vaporizes, the cable hanging together JUST long enough. Magnetic forces tug at the payload, make it shake, tremble, and then a certain critical threshold is met. Even as the copper wiring melts, the resulting magnetic field cracks with levin's wrath!
Also a five hundred pound piece of scrap iron comes flying out at about Warp 7 at the Golem's side.
GS: Emma Hetfield has attacked Sheriff Star with Love Deterrent! GS: Emma Hetfield has completed her action. DC: MISS! Sheriff Star completely evades Masters of War from Jude Moshe! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Sheriff Star with Hell's Coming With Me! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Hell's Coming With Me for 348 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The mouth of Sado opens wide.
Josie, briefly, vaguely, has the impression that she may have made an error with her life choices.
Perhaps if she had been on foot, an escape might have been feasible (assuming it was scaled appropriately, and so forth) -- she knows her own reaction time and the space she has to move in. This Gear, perhaps not so much, and already in position for a charge and not to evade or guard, there's little room for anything, anything at all except...
Embrace it, in a manner of speaking.
There's really no other word for it:
Physics gives up, rolls onto its back, and dies.
She's aware of it and the myriad-fold impossibilities that unfold hideously from the heart of the Golem's weapon. Just as she's aware of the alarms that scream, the perilous manner in which the Gear shudders, the nigh-endless pour of damage inflicted upon every inch of the machine.
It's as if something sunk its fingers deep into her chest and wrapped its hand around her heart.
This is terror--?
Oh yes.
In spite of -- because of? -- the impulse of night, the end that should be nigh for her now (too late? too soon?) she starts to laugh, the sound pitched high and edging on hysterical.
She can't stop anymore. Won't stop--
Into the heart of the dark, then, with no way out but through.
She hasn't let go of the blade either as she emerges, Gear partially melted and blackened (was it the fire? the acid? lightning? something else?).
She says nothing. Not to Lily, not to Dietrich Keil. There's nothing to say anymore. The blade briefly skids along the ground underfoot as Weglaff charges for the Golem head-on, before rising in an arc to be born as a lance. No one who studied the blade would do such a thing--
Kaiser's out! Get the Kaiser!
Josie isn't focused on that now.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Sheriff Star with Into the Darkness! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Emma Hetfield's Love Deterrent for 181 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Josephine Lovelace's attack becomes clear! GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Josephine Lovelace's Heat Saber for 179 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The Gear doesn't move the way a person's body might -- it hangs, there's weight. It's almost a shame -- the destruction one can commit in a machine of this size really is glorious.
A part of Josie sings as she surges with it, as heavy as it is. As heavy as this blade is.
She never did study the blade. There were other things she was preoccupied with.
But perhaps it won't matter as much as the blade now burns with a sick and angry dark red light, or as she bears the machine behind it into the final paces of its charge.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Thinking things through clearly isn't Xantia's strong suit normally. Let alone when she's enraged enough to ignore everything she did learn in such a short time, namely getting too close to Sado being a very bad idea. But in the end, it's not her disregard for common sense that proves to be her undoing. It's a simple choice of words from the man who claimed he would eliminate Fei.
'We are what our past makes us.' A simple statement, probably not that big a deal for most to hear. Perhaps even for others with amnesia, those who chose to move on and accept their new reality. But it's different for Xantia. She's never been able to truly be at peace with herself. The recent desert expedition reawakened fears regarding what she might find if she continues to search for her past, but in the end... she has no choice. Because it's true. Without her past, what is she, really? Some sort of pretend-existence, a mockery of whoever she used to be. An existence like that... isn't worth anything.
Colonel Keil probably has no idea that his simple words struck Xantia down to her very core, causing her - and by extension Silvestris - to freeze up. Even as Sado's mouth opens, Silvestris just stands there. Almost as if it were welcoming the end.
But, as the energy blast is unleashed, at the last possible second... Silvestris jumps aside at an awkward angle, in a sudden desperate bid to not be right at the center of the incoming shockwave. It's far too late to react now to escape entirely, but at least it escapes being vaporized outright. Instead, it is violently propelled in the direction of the palace, mere moments after the Kaiser escapes it.
The impact is spectacular, Silvestris striking the side of the building head-first, bringing down part of the wall... a section which just happens to be adjacent to Leon and Elly's pursuers. Xantia herself is flung right out of the cockpit, landing directly on top of one of the Emerald Wolves, slamming the man hard into the floor. She remains seated on top of the soldier, dazed for a moment, but groggily smiles upon identifying her friends, and waves to them. "Hey, I uh... I think I broke the building. Sorry."
Never mind everything else that happened just now. Everything is fine. She is fine. And if they can still manage to get Silvestris going, it just might be a way out.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
hispparently lasers work. Morgan grins viciously as the damage reads across his screens. The Golem is damaged, hurt. Opening its mouth...
...wait what.
"Byte what is that?"
The VI contemplates the power amp for about .3 seconds before coming back with its conclusion.
"Bad! Bad!"
"I FIGURED THAT OUT ALREADY!"
He throws the Restless Sinner to the side, the pressure wave crunching armor and tearing the left arm of his machine clear off. The sudden loss of all that weight throws the Sinner off balance for a moment, stumbling and slewing round drunkenly before he can manage to right it. Smoke pours out of rents in its red painted armor and sparks arc from the stump of its arm.
"Status on main gun?"
"Almost charged!"
"Great. I..." Then he note's Emma's Gear. Or more importantly Emma herself. Running across the sands towards him. Which is a bad place to be in a battle of Gears. Unless you can take a several story war machine tapdancing on you.
"What in the--Byte pop the hatch! Power to pulse weapons, slag that thing!" He shouts as he unbuckles his harness and shoves the hatch of the Sinner open. His ARM glows blue as the Gear, moving on its last commands, stalks towards the Golem, firing more beams of flensing red death as it goes.
Morgan himself, one hand on the handle of the cockpit rears back his arm and flings the end of his energy grapple towards Emma, to help pull her up into the dubious shelter of his own Gear's armored form.
"Did anyone tell you today you're crazy?" He shouts at the engineer, laughing as he does so. Catching the explosion of her Gear out of the corner of his eye. "Its a good thing I like crazy!"
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Sheriff Star with Red Fox! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Morgan Newkirk's Red Fox for 116 hit points! GS: Morgan Newkirk takes Cover! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Thinking a machine is yours just because you had it built." Fei says. "I bet you think this golem is yours too. Is that why you adopted Lily? Kept Leon close? You wanted their power?" Anger is powerful, but that power quickly fades unless you channel it properly. It's a lot like chi in that regard. Why else would hate-fueled martial artists be so potent? It's still not the most potent form it can take, but it's definitely the most convenient.
Red beams lash out at Weltall. Fei smacks it aside like Goku with a justice flash. The beams twist to the side as a result and slam into the ground. Sado's power is such that Weltall's hand is burning red.
The Kaiser, Fei thinks, pulling Weltall back. That's more important than breaking Sado. He starts moving Weltall over to block Sado from following the Kaiser's escape.
That's when he sees it. Feels it.
Fei howls in anguish. He places his hand at his forehead. Not now, he thinks, not NOW. Why are you rejecting me? Why? We want the same thing.
No. Xantia somehow isn't dead.
No. Xantia's alive.
Nobody could have survived that. Xantia survived that.
"Alright then. You want power? You want the power of the Mother of Destruction??"
Brilliant white chi fills the Weltall, interspersed with red energy. The energy surges throughout the whole of Weltall's body, though its potency is greatest at its extremities, its fingertips, shining brightly. It charges towards Sado but then--
--the power just halves itself at the last moment. "...Just kidding."
The fists and hands strike rapidly against Sado all the same, though its purpose is more to hold the golem back than it is to destroy it. This time, at least.
"Filgaia's language is love, courage, and wisdom." Fei says. "Not violence." He is completely calm and chill here. Completely.
"You confuse power for strength. Power is the capability to destroy anything. Strength is not needing to destroy anything. You can't save Filgaia on your own. Nobody can. Not even me."
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Sheriff Star with Ryuten! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Sheriff Star takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ryuten for 348 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
SCHONENBERG PALACE EXTERIOR
"What in the name of God?" Kaiser Sigmund asks Muni-Muni, as if Muni-Muni can provide an answer. He hesitates a moment -- his teeth grit -- and then Jacob nudges him, once, in the back. "This is the strangest damned kidnapping ever," he mutters as he stalks forward. He was a soldier, once. He can swallow his misgivings. In the face of the Golem, still looming overhead, that may be the best he can hope for. He climbs onto it, and then nods once. He looks over his shoulder, back into the palace. "Damnation... the Wolves must have been... tch."
He looks forward, and then grips Muni-Muni's controls.
The Borjarnon is the first to reach the Golem. The massive thing swings its tail up -- and slams it for the midsection of Claude's Gear. Sado knocks the Gear backward, with minimal damage, but without the damage that Claude hoped to achieve.
But it buys time for the Hellerune to slam down between the Kaiser and Muni-Muni and the Golem. Sado turns its head, slashing down with a clawed hand -- and then cleaves through a shadow Hellerune. The blade slashes through the armor, Hellerune's glaive shredding into the crystal armor. And then a second blade, of light, plunges into the Golem. Arcs of lightning erupt, causing the Golem to shudder -- and its open mouth screams, again.
"...So we will, Lily," Dietrich says. "Perhaps your friends are right. Perhaps, I've underestimated you. All of you."
Golem Sado is not so moved. Shell-like plates come rushing in, trying to enclose and then crush Sado. Another pulse of purple power explodes outward. It catches the plates; it shoves, throwing them backward with a flash of light, and a flash of gold in its eyes. But, it cannot hold everything at bay. More mortars strike it; the Dust Dragoon's shots blast huge chunks out of the armor, and blow off one wing. It smashes into the dust and dirt, and the Golem almost crumples forward.
And then is hurled backward, as Emma's makeshift cannon slams a piece of scrap into it. It explodes, a chunk falling away. The chunk includes most of its arm. Crystal rains down across the battlefield, as the Golem sways. Its good arm swings down to meet Weglaff's blade as the blue Gear charges in, Josie driving it forward.
And its sword superheats to that ugly, fiery dark red in an instant, and the blade slashes the clawed fingers off. They go flying, then slam into the ground with a hiss. The severed claws burn and smoke where they hit the ground.
"I did what was necessary. I made the hard choices," Dietrich says. "Do you think it was easy? It wasn't. But it had to be done. It--"
Fei, through Weltall, slams into Sado with brightly shining fingertips. Then, the glow is gone, and Dietrich actually gasps in shock over the shortwave. The repeated blows hit it, over and over. Sado stumbles backward, then opens its mouth again. It screams, wordlessly.
And then the snake-like Golem dives down, digging into the ground. It burrows downward, a gaping hole left in its wake. Its retreat, sufficed to say, was not intended.
"This... has not gone according to plan." There is a note of resignation, perhaps, in Dietrich Keil's voice. The Colonel sounds perturbed. "...Very well. Gryndille, initiate code Alpha Four-One-Niner."
There is a flash of red from the east. It shines, brilliantly, and it moves in a blur. It is hard to make out the specifics of, thanks to its speed. A trail of dust and debris is left through the gardens it moves through. A gash is torn through the Kaiser's favorite hedge maze, before it hits the east end of the palace. The wall on the side of Schonenberg opposite the battle suddenly explodes, glass and broken wood and stonework exploding up in a cloud as something tears through the structure.
Part of the roof buckles, as whatever it is smashes its way through the finery of Schonenberg Palace.
SCHONENBERG PALACE INTERIOR
"Another one down!" Leon calls out, as he pulls back from around the corner. An Emerald Wolf lay on the ground, foot twitching and blood pooling. A gunshot clips off a piece of golded scrollwork on the wall, though, and serves as a reminder that they are still under fire. To say nothing of the half-seen battle outside. Leon turns to look at Elly.
"We should follow," he says. "As soon as we've got enough room to--"
Silvestris slams into the side of the building, and the whole thing shudders. Leon turns his head, looking around the corner. Daylight pours in -- and he sees Xantia sitting atop the now buckled over Emerald Wolves. He tilts his head.
And then the palace roof collapses. Beams of wood snap, and stone ceiling collapses, separating Xantia from them. A shockwave rolls through the whole building, and the power of it throws Leon and Elly to their feet.
The mercenary captain turns in time to see the wall that once separated this hallway from the Kaiser's room has collapsed. The ceiling in here has fallen, slamming down until it is only about nine feet high, instead of twenty. Gold falls to the ground, as crenelations are torn away and rain downward. A wall of dust comes rolling forward, and a shape stirs behind it.
Leon's eyes lift, to regard the silhouette: just over twice his height, with an outline of crab-like legs, but a vaguely humanoid body. One arm ends in a wicked claw; another ends in a long cannon. Eyes glow red, lighting up along an almost featureless, mechanical face.
It steps forward. Once, then again. "Gryndille," Leon murmurs, softly.
He snaps Argent Divider. The barrels shift, then turn upward, and clasp into place. The blade extends outward, telescoping. He raises the receiver, with his free hand, and speaks into it. "Black Wolves, you might want to get in here. The rest of you, keep the Kaiser safe," he orders. "I think we have incoming. We'll... follow as soon as we can."
He drops the receiver, as glowing red eyes stare down at him. It's a pretty lie, he thinks.
SCHONENBERG PALACE EXTERIOR
Muni-Muni lifts into the air, the Kaiser in it. He looks out, peering between all of them -- and then down at the hole. He looks to his unlikely saviors with a confused look, and with an unknowing glance -- unable to see the monstrosity that has smashed its way through his palace, save to know something struck it. He ducks, though, a moment later.
A shot shoots right over Muni's head.
Another six Gears are running from a hill over. The Titans are painted a dark grey -- and have a wolf's head logo, emblazoned on their shoulders. They are, however, a good distance away -- enough to make good an escape.
"Gh--the Grey Wolves! Then--" Sigmund turns to look right at the Borjarnon and Sinner, and shouts: "We need to get out of here, now! This damned coup has gone far enough! My Guard should be sending reinforcements!"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Kaiser Sigmund, as a former soldier, can probably appreciate Muni-Muni for what she is: A responsive, armored and well-shielded mount. Even if it squeaks and bobbles and likes headpats and rolling around more than the average flying armored unit. And Muni does dart up, ducking and weaving in a pattern that some of us like to call 'the serpentine' (not related to Sado in the slightest) as she tries to get the Kaiser straight out of dodge.
Two more Dragons flank the Kaiser on Muni, the heavy-set Demon giving him a two-fingered military salute as he hefts the anti-materiel sniper rifle and returns fire to the incoming Titans. "Escorting a Kaiser out, huh? Our jobs certainly don't get weirder..."
But what of Riesenlied?
She's still lying still in whatever seated position the five-point harness best holds her; she doesn't appear to have awakened, and... whatever presence she was able to exert over Hellerune appears to have dissipated...
But something stirs within her. It senses Sado's disappearance into the ground, and more...
Gryndille...
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
They're all hard at work, here. Lily notes the others on her sensors, notes that Xantia's gear is down and wondering for an instant if she's lived. She can't be certain. ...Jude is in progress. Josie has gone silent. This has gone far, far against what they were planning. And yet...
Noeline is on board. "Noted," the radio calls out to Noeline, and Lily tries to get a feel for how badly-off Riesenlied is back there, but can't at first. She is still working, still attempting to fight this Golem, with a Gear that is badly, badly overloaded.
...But she did not miss the familiar sword of light. The sword of light, contrasting the weapon of darkness, both present at once somehow.
Dietrich speaks again. Lily listens, at least. 'Friends', he calls them, and she does not correct him, for all that she feels a twinge for that being the word of them. Lily watches the screaming Golem. "...Maybe you have," she answers. Defying her father is not that simple. She is doing so, and yet--
He says he made hard choices. He justifies himself, and Lily shakes her head. "...No," she says. "I don't think it was easy, Father."
She's actually stood up to his plan somehow though, though it took much. But the radio--
Gryndille. The flash of red comes, and Lily's eyes widen. "No--" The roof starts to buckle, and Lily starts to turn in her Gear. "Hang on, Riesenlied--"
She sets her course for the Palace, and her Gear sprints, as Lily starts to disentangle herself from the harness. She sits in tanktop and long military pants, tucked into boots, and she throws a breastplate on over herself, buckling it as she moves, and then is jarred by the Gear shuddering to a stop when she finishes. ...But the Gears are running over. The reinforcements--
...Aren't going to be enough. Lily reaches out her hand once more, and shadows start bursting around the Gear--but it sparks, and a small explosion rocks the cockpit, sending embers across her exposed arms, sparks burning into her. She grits her teeth...
"I'm getting you out of here. I don't have time to secure it."
Lily buckles her ARM belt, checks her knife--and calls, "Noeline!"
Riesenlied goes over her shoulder, and Lily opens up the cockpit, which sparks further. ...She leaps from it, taking a rope, her exposed arms coiled with muscle as she makes her way out. And Lily's marks are on full display, bizarre circuitry gleaming violet, pulsing in places, a few burns ignorable.
She takes off in a dead sprint for Leon, her black hair rushing out behind her, Riesenlied still on her shoulder. She looks up to find Noeline only once--
Her boots impact hard the ground, as her markings turn red, and she begins to pump healing energy into Riesenlied, pulling another syringe from her bag as she moves.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Another flush of vindictive satisfaction rises in Ida's chest as Sado goes reeling. The Dragoon is going to need expensive--and extensive--repairs, if not a total external rebuild. Unless Lily is cutting her a portion of the paycheck, this is an unqualified loss. A frown crosses Ida's face as realization hits her, smothering that moment of pride like a bucket of water. You forgot to ask. Were you that desperate to feel needed? You're an idiot.
The ground trembles as Sado flees, burrowing into the earth. Not good enough, Ida thinks. Keil still has his pet Golem. Not only that, but this Gryndille thing, the monster that killed Lily's comrades...
"I'm afraid I'm a weasel, not a wolf," comes the garbled voice, laced with static to boot. Weasel. For something Berserk came up with, it's oddly fitting. "But Godspeed, all of you." She can't stick around. Ida fumbles with the radio, managing to tease out Hellerune's private radio frequency. She disengages the baffling, and tries to ignore how her voice is shaking.
"I'm here," Ida whispers. Tears start to slick her eyes. She forces the Dragoon to its knees, servos shrieking in protest. "I'll be here if you need me. Please be safe."
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
Oh great. Something new.
Morgan yanks Emma into the cockpit with him before the hatch slams shut again, the fire from the oncoming Wolves scattering against his Gear. The damaged machine moves though, pulling back, covering the Kaiser as he is extracted on the most adorable piece of sentient armor ever designed.
"Sharpe, show these Wolves what hit-and-fade actually means." He calls out as the Sinner starts to pull back, the damaged machine snatching up its own arm as it turns to go. "Good luck Black Wolves, we'll get the package out! You get yourselves!"
Sharpe, far distant to the battle proper smirks though the scope of his rifle as he sees the advancing Titans. "Urgh. No class." he mutters to himself as he paints targets and...
The rest of Morgan's little team trigger weapons. Arching missile fire over the sands to crash down in front of the oncoming Titans and...do no damage at all.
But great gouts of smoke and choking dust, mixed with enough metal filings to cloud any sensor system cover that area of the battlefield as Morgan's Foxes pull out, covering the other Gears as they go. Leaving little trace of their passing behind...well...spent shell casing and metal slag.
It is what they do.
"Drinks are on me after this boys and girls. We just fought a Golem. And lived." A pause. "Someone tell Dean, one with a big 'G'."
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Hanging onto Hellerune might be madness were Noeline human, but as the Metal Demon braces for liftoff it's almost a relief; she tenses, ready for the Gear to kick into high speed--
--and instead, something she never expected slams home behind her, tearing into the building behind them with both speed and fury. It's immediately obvious what it is - and immediately obvious what its target must be.
It's also immediately obvious that there's no way in hell Lily Keil is going to let that stand from what Noeline knows of her, and the metal demon lets out a sharp exhalation of breath as she realizes their work isn't done for the day.
Her head snaps up at the call of her voice; she focuses in on Lily as the mercenary does the obvious, though the metal demon jolts at the sight of her passenger, a spike of fear going through her much stronger than the spike of curiosity at the marks spreading across Lily's face.
"--she'd better be safe!" she blurts as she allows herself one small little moment of petulance, and then without really knowing when she hit the ground she's chasing after Lily at a dead sprint, tearing across the shattered ground.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The blade cuts; pieces of Sado fly free from the frame of the Golem.
There's a sort of elegant force about a blade, runs a part of Josie's mind as Weglaff -- she -- leans back on the follow-through, blade still hissing in the air as the heating coil is cut.
In a moment like this, there's purity.
She knows machines, she knows how they come apart. It may be some ancient terror, but it's a machine.
And so, one applies as much force as is needed, again and again--
Or, thinks the archaeologist finally, lowering the blade in bemusement as clarity begins to depart, or, it'll run away instead.
Even if she burned all her fuel, it wouldn't be enough to reach the Golem before it sinks into the earth and away.
From the east it's as another sun had begun to rise. Realization similarly dawns over Josephine Lovelace.
An unspeakably foul invective involving several Guardians and several rude body parts follows as a part of the palace explodes.
Gryndille.
She guns it, or at least as close to 'guns it' as she can get in the damaged Gear. Everything else can wait.
Even she's pretty sure she won't like the Ignas that waits if they can't extract the Kaiser.
And then there's the matter of the wayward ARM.
The mysteries a little close to home.
And Deitrich Keil.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Weltall stares Sado in the eyes. It does not blink. Fei lets Sado depart though, of course, at those burrowing speeds it's hard to say whether trying to stop it would be enough anyway. Maybe he just doesn't want to break Dean's heart, or maybe it has to do with that brief word on machines he had offered.
Fei exhales, once, but of course that's all he has the time for before Gryndille has apparently returned. Leon is calling for him. As his friend, he has to answer him. His friends outside of the Wolves are alive, and maybe not well--but alive and when you're alive you have the chance to be well again. It can keep.
Except for one person.
"Ida!" Fei says. Is he going to say that Ida's not a weasel? That she's a wolf too? Not exactly.
"I'd never underestimate a weasel," Fei tells her. "But whatever 'animal' you may be--we have a bond that transcends time. Don't forget that, alright? This isn't farewell--just see you later!"
And then, as if remembering all that was lost here. No, not lost. Thrown away.
"A treasure like this, Dietrich. It can't be stolen. It can only be given away." It's not the first time he said such words either. It probably won't be the last. "...I won't squander it. I can't squander it...! Not again!"
He kicks weltall's cockpit door open and he says, "Hey." to Weltall.
"....Sorry about earlier." And then he leaps out and starts jogging after Lily.
"I've got your back!" He tells her. Elly, he thinks, hold on...!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
NORTUNE -- WOLVES COMMAND
"We've lost visual, Colonel."
Dietrich frowns, as he looks at the view screen. Another ARM; another product of the past. The Colonel watches the slate grey screen, now turned off, thanks to the broken contact with the cameras monitoring Schonenberg and the connection to Sado. He didn't pretend to know how those worked. It made using them precarious.
"Keep in contact with the Grey Wolves," he says. "Gryndille... he has the Kaiser's face. He won't stop until he's found them. The Black Wolves failed against him once. They will again."
The rest of the command center was quiet. He couldn't help but notice, in fact, how they were packing up. The contingency plan demanded it; after today, the entirety of the Wolves Task Force would be outlaws. It was all part of the plan. If they failed to take over Kislev, then...
Then that was the hand they were dealt. But it felt much too like defeat for Dietrich's comfort. This had always felt easier when Harkon Albus was around, he thinks. Dietrich sighs, then stands.
The man behind him laughs, though, and that sets him on edge. "Sounds like you're in denial, Keil."
"Does that mean your assistance is at an end?" Dietrich turns to face him: a tall, broad-chested man with a massive cybernetic arm. He has to look up, to meet his one eye. It is to Dietrich's credit that those three massive blades on the arm do not make him nervous. "Or are you and your master still intent on helping us?"
The one-eyed man laughs. "We got you those Dragon Fossils, after that went to hell in a handbasket. No, I've seen how you're useful. I'll report favorable results, when I return to Aquvy."
"Mm. Perhaps we'll join you," Dietrich says. He tilts his head, slightly, and his cold, pale blue eyes regard the ex-soldier before him. "Ptolomea, was it?"