2018-02-17: In the Great Hall

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<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

The wall that once separated this particular hallway of Schonenberg Palace from the Kaiser's personal rooms collapses. The wood frame buckles outward, then shatters away, and plaster, stone, and golden decorations fly free in a wave that slam down at Leon's and Elly's feet. That causes the ceiling to tilt dangerously, crumbling downward, at an angle -- halfway down the hallway, and perhaps with threat of falling directly on their heads. In any other circumstance, Leon would stare at the ceiling in fear.

He does not, today.

A silhouette is cut through the dust. All shadow and darkness, but an outline that is distinct against the wave of dust that rolls out before the shattered palace walls. Leon sees the wicked claw; the long cannon that composes another arm. The featureless, mechanical face is not visible.

But the glowing red eyes are.

So, too, is the movement of its four, mechanical legs. They are not quiet. Ancient hydraulics whine when it moves.

"Gryndille," Leon murmurs, softly.

He snaps Argent Divider to his side. The barrels shift, then turn upward, and clasp into place. The blade extends outward, telescoping to its full length. 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.

Part of the wall collapses behind him -- including the shattered window frame that the Kaiser fled from -- and there is a brief glimpse of him, for the people he caled. Leon dare not look at them. His eyes shine silver, a light glow to them, as he stares at the automaton that killed his squadron, once.

His hand steadies. He didn't know it was shaking. He has waited a year for this.

DC: Gryndille switches forms to Ancient Raid ARM Gryndille!
GS: Leon Albus has attacked Leon Albus with Preparations!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
GS: Leon Albus takes a solid hit from Leon Albus's Preparations for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily stops for only one thing, in her rush into the palace, towards the ruin that has been made of the Kaiser's apartments. She stops only to look back to Noeline, and call up to her, "Noeline!" A pause, "...She's uninjured as far as I can tell, but unconscious from the strain of something she did. I leave her to you."

She pauses. She considers adding something, has the words on her lips, for if she doesn't come back... But she does not expect Noeline to stay behind. "This place should be as safe as it can be, in here."

Her arms still pulse with red light, as she turns towards what she knows is her target. ...She takes off again, sprinting, charging straight through debris and obstacles with crackling black power that turns her markings violet once again as they crop up in her way. And then she sees Leon. ...She sees Leon, and she steps up beside him, looking to him once, spotting that familiar glow. She sees that his hand was shaking. ...And she reaches out with her own bare hand, aglow, ungloved, and sets it on his arm for an instant. "...Leon," she says. Just his name. Just his name, which is everything, even in the face of all that just happened, all that he may not have seen.

Then she looks to Gryndille ahead of her, and takes her hands back. It's a pretty lie, indeed. She looks to the glowing red eyes. She stares into them, her own gold. ...And then--

"Haaaah--!" Lily charges straight for it, throwing out her hand in what becomes a burst of black power, too dark to look upon without pain, crashing straight for Gryndille as she leaps within range.

Her fingertips glow with the power as she hangs midair for an instant. There is nothing left to say.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gryndille with Gloomburst!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly shields her face against the storm of dust and building materials, holding her breath til the cloud has passed - one of those little factoids from training that you don't always know you remembered until the critical point.

Her eyes turn up towards the loom of Gryndille as Leon makes his statement. Not at the machine but at the other Black Wolves. This gives Elly, still in her maid's disguise, time to reflect for a moment on what has brought her to this point.

But I'm doing this for myself, she thinks. I'm not doing it for the major.

What is 'it'? Even Elly isn't sure where the line is drawn.

Elly makes herself breathe out. Don't think, don't worry, she tells herself. This thing is before you and every path goes through it, one way or another. Her hand slides down underneath her skirt to the left side as she brings out her combat rod, snapping it loose and saying, "Ready!" perhaps as much to ease Leon as anything.

Inwardly it feels like the entire world is contracting, not in an unwelcome way. With their help, Elly tells herself, I can overcome this machine. We can overcome this machine.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Elhaym van Houten with screen fractures into a bunch of mirror shards!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's screen fractures into a bunch of mirror shards for 0 hit points!
GS: Gryndille critically Guards a hit from Lily Keil's Gloomburst for 19 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied indeed does not awaken -- her experience within Hellerune had unseated something deep within her, and by the time Lily was able to tend to her... she was unconscious, though it is perhaps a minor mercy that she's definitely not stuck in the Ether amplifier of Lily's Gear. That would just be awful.

But surely, in many ways, Lily's healing power had touched her... wherever her mind had been.

And as to where it is now...

---

Well. This is highly unusual, is it not?

( BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foZCZZuBFhI )

Riesenlied's eyes widen slowly as she realises where she sits -- at a cold, broken chamber in the subconscious of her mind. The broken, frigid cross behind her. The shattered totem of Odoryuk in front, crumbled into hoary husks of shredded wood.

Nasrin...

The blood-caked girl steps forward, frostbitten fingers cracking gently as they lay on her cheek.

You can't hide forever.

The sound of steel-toed boots ring against a nonexistent hallway in the distance. The flash of a muzzle, the peal of thunderous gunfire. The distorted noise of Ether warping in the air as flame coalesces from thin air.

Do you think kind words and happy thoughts are going to save Leon and Elly? Look. Lily is bringing violence to the fray. Fei and Josie will soon join her...

But... I don't...

Nasrin's hand seizes, becoming harsh and forceful as they grasp onto her neck.

Did kind words and happy thoughts keep Kaguya and Ambrosius by your side? I am not Id)], Riese. Draw your sword!

I--I'm no longer... that person...

There's a distorted, scoffing noise as she rolls her one visible, bloodshot, its pupil dilated and distended. The hand tightens even further, prompting a choked noise from Riesenlied.

An empty statement from someone who has never been able to answer, 'Who am I?'
You have long wielded the Fallen Sword to appease Siegfried and Mother.
You wear that mask to appease him. Fulfilled of duty, heartened in faith...

The grin warps and twists until Nasrin's jaw unhinges.

I have always...

A mask for Siegfried.
A mask for Mother.
A mask for Noeline.
A mask for the Tainted...

... who am I ... really ...?

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei heard Leon's call for help and abandoned poor Weltall. Let's be honest, this is probably playing as he follows after Lily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og-EIWN2QTo

Periodically he has to divert to pick up some one time only treasure chests though. Just in case there's anything good. But that's it! That's the only distraction from following after everybody else!

Truth be told, part of him is just mentally exhausted. Even if he HIMSELF is not that hurt from the battle against Golem Sado, it took a great deal of mental focus that's difficult to sustain. He turns a corner when suddenly he feels sympathetic pressure in his head. He stumbles, tripping over his own feet and sliding across the floor.

Fei grimaces. Why is he thinking of Riesenlied now? Regardless, he stumbles up to his feet and rests his hand against a pillar as he takes in a deep breath.

He sees them, just ahead.

Well you haven't dissapointed so far, today

Fei cracks his knuckles as he walks up, taking position near Elly.

"I made it..." He says to her. "...The Kaiser's long gone by now. So far, no major mission complications."

He looks up to Gryndille. "I don't know what you are but... if you're just going to kill people...then I'll free you from that destiny."

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Fei Fong Wong with screen fractures into a bunch of mirror shards!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's screen fractures into a bunch of mirror shards for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Even tired and relatively begraddled as she is - one does not simply take a pleasure trip around the Golem Sado without taking a few knocks and scrapes, even when you're a metal demon - Noeline accepts Riesenlied's weight with ease. "... thank you," she intones without a scrap of humour, a note of respect-- and then the rough chuckle comes back to her as she nods, and hunkers the pair of them down behind a convenient piece of discarded and broken rubble, her back to it as she lays the other demon across her lap. "Always like her to get wrapped up in her thoughts. --we'll catch up. Don't do anything too reckless."

As Lily goes, the two of them are left in silence - or as close as it gets given the structural collapse of the Palace and the battle that promises to burst into being somewhere at Noeline's back. The twintailed demon appreciates the pause - she's aching, and has overextended. "... honestly..." she sighs gently to herself in the moment of privacy, as she touches her forehead to her partner's. "How long will you torture yourself? If only I could say I understand, but... I'm not really very good at getting into people's heads, I suppose. Especially literally," she adds with another of those quiet little chuckles.

The self-deprecating smile fades - and she leans down to place a kiss against Riesenlied's forehead instead. "All I can say is that-- no-one is perfect. We have all made grave mistakes. But do not let them haunt you forever, and blind you from that which you've accomplished since." A slight push of power; Noeline is not a healer by any means, nor is it her patron's domain - but she's not trying to heal, so much as be a beacon to focus on.



... it would be a romantic scene where Trouble and Strife not also orbiting Riese at high speed, the former of the little robots occasionally bonking gently against Riesenlied's hair in an attempt to wake her. "Do you mind?" huffs Noeline eventually, sending them skittering away only to return immediately.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Indeed, how long will Riesenlied torture herself? The voices within her head are at constant war with one another, such that the events of the last few months have been naught but unrest for her already fragile, malleable mind...

Yet, as they have quietness within each other's comfort, each other's presence...

Riesenlied's lips flicker for a moment, and she opens her mouth, as if to answer--



For a moment, it would seem that the Hyadean Auxilliary (as Lily puts it) of the Black Wolves would not be joining them-- and then--

A window on the side of the palace bursts open.

Riesenlied floats through gently, framed by dark wings tinged with the hue of twilight. They call to the time of dusk, to the time of endings and rest...

The repose of her enemies.

Her chest is gouged wide open, stained fresh with her blood. It comes from the sword floating at her side, once seen by Leon, Lily and Fei in the Adlehyde Fairgrounds. A weapon Noeline knows she has not drawn in some while... not in this manner. A black and twisted sword that manifests with a wanton power, slaked fresh with her own impure blood.

"... if I must be a Metal Demon to protect people from you ..."

Her voice is disaffected and low, sounding more she is convincing herself than anyone else. The Fallen Sword shimmers with a twisted violet light, her fingers trailing its hilt as she moves it to loom before her.

"Then I shall bring dusk to you... Automaton Gryndille."

DC: Riesenlied switches forms to Fallen Sword Riesenlied!
GS: Noeline has attacked Riesenlied with Mobile Support!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied takes a glancing hit from Noeline's Mobile Support for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Riesenlied gains 15 extra FP from Noeline!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Riesenlied with Rising Heart - 'Seek the New World'!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied heals Riesenlied! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Once upon a time, this would have been the point where Josephine would have made her exit. 'Certain things aren't her concern'. 'She has other things to do before her life is up'. Things like that.

There's no job worth dying for, no cause that makes up for the cost of your life bleeding red into the dust of Filgaia.

Even now: is this worth it?
Here she is running into the ruins of a palace, while a horrific machine from ages past has its run of the place all the same.

Is it worth it?
Well, it's too late to back out now. Things have certainly changed, haven't they?

So it's in for one coin, in for twenty.

And a part of her feels alive.

Lily, as usual, has the lead on Josephine. Weglaff left some distance outside the walls of the palace (the Kaiser will just have to deal with the statue she might have knocked a little* out of place upon 'parking') she's as hot on the heels of the racing ex-soldier as she can be, hastily (and punctuated with a wince or three) prepping the now altered Gawain-series rifle as she ducks past crumbling loadbearing walls and leaps over those parts of the palace that have done more than crumble.

"Lily! Wait up--"

She sees the light before she sees anything else. Glowing red eyes.
Her heart, already pounding against her ribs, seems to skip a beat, then resumes its hasty steady rhythm.

She falls back, using what was once an ancient but decorative suit of armor as her cover; Gawain lifts in an arc.
One afternoon was what she'd promised would be enough. It actually took a little longer than that to remove the important sections of the anti-Gear rifle and transplant them so they worked.
She must be getting rusty.

Through the front sight only, she can see those glowing red eyes. Just as good as any bullseye on a target, even at this distance.
One. Two.

"Three," she murmurs aloud, pulling the trigger.

*this is blatantly a lie.

GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Gryndille with Kick the Bucket!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Josephine Lovelace's Kick the Bucket for 92 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

"We are with you--" calls a voice from below Riesenlied's rather explosive entrance - though as Noeline plants a shoulder to the ruined doorway and pushes through the wreckage she still looks rather haggard, and her expression is not exactly exuberant as she throws a skeptical and worried glance upwards at the woman floating in the air above her.

At least her scythe answers her beckon, melting from her skin to resolve itself into the familiar crimson weapon; she sweeps it around into a ready position, setting her feet in readiness for the golem's assault. "--in a manner of speaking, I suppose. Honestly..."

The sarcastic quip is tinged with concern; Noeline can't say for sure if this is for the best to give Riese a chance to blow off steam, or likely to only make matters worse. ... either way, it's not as if she can do much but lend her support.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

         Before

Jude Moshe surveys the wreckage that the Elymas has become. All things considered, it still looks better off than the way he found it, back at the border straddling the fence between western and eastern Ignas. Still...

"Man," heaves the redheaded reporter in a sigh he doesn't particularly commit to, "what a pain."

It'll be a while before he can put the parts together to get the machine back into working order. The sort of materials he needs just to get the plates working the way they need to is a headache simply to think of. But Jude Moshe isn't particularly concerned about that.

He isn't particularly concerned about much, as he slips a little drive into the interior pocket of his frock coat and slips free a smooth, featureless cigarette case of nickel, flipping it open and curiously running his fingers across the interior as he hears that familiar voice crackle over the radio.

Black Wolves, you might want to get in here.

Another sigh, nonchalant at best, as the reporter slips a single cigarette free and affixes it between his lips, giving a single, half-hearted glance to the mechanical bird circling the skies.

"Well, you heard him," he notes to the bird. "You look after the great and wonderful tyrant, huh?" Amber eyes travel back towards the Summer Palace, watching Lily rush off in the distance. Alone, he lifts a finger to the tip of his cigarette.

"It's time I go and actually earn my paycheck, I guess."

And lets the little tongue of flame that sparks from his fingertip light that glowing cherry before he makes his way after the rest.

Taking his time before the headaches come.

                                                        Now

Jude Moshe is, of course, fashionably late.

He arrives well after Lily has made her grand and violent entrance, as markings glow and burn at her arms with seething dark. He arrives after Fei skids onto the scene, after Riesenlied comes, brandishing her twisted weapon hewn from her own chest, crackling with a smear of twilight against the shards of dying light pouring in from the outside world. After Josephine lets that far-off shot whistle brilliantly through the skies. But at the very least--

                                   BOOM

He remembers to make a flashy entrance.

The sound of a barrel whining up a loud, angry charge prefaces the thunderclap that resounds throughout the shattered hall. The blink-and-you'll-miss-it sight of a shell, charged to bursting and glowing orange with presumably symbologic power screams through the stale, dust-choked air before seeking to lodge into the back of the Gryndille, shudder with ever-growing kinetic energy --

--and then -burst- into a fireball of pure, explosive force at the back of the automaton's head just as Jude Moshe steps all-too casually into the ruins of the Kaiser's palatial estate, stubbing the unfortunate remains of a dropped cigarette beneath his heel with the nonchalant stride of his walk.

"Sorry," he offers with a hapless little shrug, amber eyes sliding for a quiet moment the Metal Demons' way. His smile, of course, is utterly, helplessly lopsided.

"Smoke break."

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Gryndille with Boom Boom!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Gryndille takes a solid hit from Jude Moshe's Boom Boom for 63 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gryndille has posed.

This room was a grand banquet hall, once. Kaiser Sigmund entertained visiting dignitaries here, treating them to lavish feasts and other such displays of Kislevi prosperity. Now, it's a battlefield. Gryndille, the ancient automaton, extracts one of its four massive legs from the broken remains of a side-table, its high-mobility treads retracting into its lower legs. Four bladed, pincer-like 'feet' deploy to replace them--it raises itself up to its full height, a brilliant red light sweeping over Leon and his comrades, each in turn. It's easily twelve feet tall, though the way its chassis is constructed makes it incredibly nimble; Leon and Lily would remember that from their previous encounter.

"Sensor confirmation established. Eliminating objective." Its voice, if it can be called such, is a mechanical rasp, full of static.

Lily charges. She's been waiting a year for this, nursing righteous fury for the deaths of her comrades. And now, with her father at the helm of this ancient machine, the stakes have grown that much higher for her--faltering here could mean losing more. Coming in at an angle, she strikes for the arm bearing that massive cannon--Gryndille reacts with remarkable alacrity, twisting its torso a very precise ninety degrees on its gimballed 'waist'. It's suddenly facing Lily, presenting her with the thicker armor on its torso. Shadow magic crackles across the ancient plating, leaving eerie afterimages, but when those fade, the machine isn't even scratched. Blood-red optics flash once, and a beam of scarlet light flashes at Lily, aiming for center-mass with mechanical precision. The beam is searing, painful--the sort of weapon that makes one's nerves feel like they've ignited in one's body. Its head tilts back, adjusts ever-so-slightly, and fires a second blast at Leon.

Josie's shot flies true. The bullet hits Gryndille dead-on, right between the optics--it cuts a divot out of the armor, there, something close to, but not quite, a bullet hole. Whatever armor this thing has, it's tough, tough enough to withstand a shot to the 'skull' from Josie's finest engineering. Gryndille's head swivels towards her, and that beam of ruthless red light falls dead-center on her chest.

Jude Moshe might be late, but his arrival might just have saved Josie's life. The Symbological round slams into the machine's head, rocking it back on all four legs--pellets and bits of shrapnel fall to the floor, but nothing seems to penetrate deeply. Gryndille's woefully-intact head whirls to face Jude. If he didn't know better, he might think it's studying him. Auxiliary sensors process additional targets--Elly and Fei. The massive cannon that is its right arm splits open lengthwise, ever-so-slightly, and brilliant blue-green light coalesces between the halves. It fires once, twice, three times, four--each shot aimed precisely, optimally-calculated for maximum suppressive effect. Fei, Jude, Elly, and Josie had better be quick on their feet if they want to survive the next thirty or so seconds.

A window on the wall bursts inwards without warning, scattering bloody-edged glass shards across the once-fine carpet. Riesenlied declares her resolve, in a sense, but those close to her will know that something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Gryndille's optics turn to the two Metal Demons, and it seems to study them for a moment, as it studied Jude--and then, for a moment longer. Its treads slide back into place with a mechanical whine, and it bum-rushes them. One whips violently towards Noeline's head, several hundred pounds of metal backed by hideous mechanical strength. The other--

Over a year ago, Lily Keil sees Gryndille go from stillness to violent motion in a heartbeat, driving that horrible, clawed arm into the center of Jann's chest. It punches clean through, leaves her dangling from the automaton's forearm. She doesn't even get the chance to scream.

Now, Gryndille drives its massive, clawed left arm straight for Riesenlied's already-bloodied chest.

GS: Gryndille has attacked Jude Moshe with Disruptor Pulse Shot!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Disruptor Pulse Shot!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Disruptor Pulse Shot!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Disruptor Pulse Shot!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Noeline with Disruptor Club!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Lily Keil with Ocular Cannon!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Leon Albus with Ocular Cannon!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Riesenlied with Slasher Claw!
GS: Gryndille has completed its action.
GS: Riesenlied takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Slasher Claw for 196 hit points!
GS: Jude Moshe guards a hit from Gryndille's Disruptor Pulse Shot for 93 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from Gryndille's Ocular Cannon for 97 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Disruptor Pulse Shot for 153 hit points!
GS: Leon Albus takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Ocular Cannon for 74 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Leon Albus!
GS: CRITICAL! Elhaym van Houten guards a hit from Gryndille's Disruptor Pulse Shot for 166 hit points!
GS: Noeline takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Disruptor Club for 57 hit points!
GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Disruptor Pulse Shot for 79 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

'Ready,' Elly declares.

God, Leon thinks, I hope so.

He stands firm. When he feels a hand on his arm, Leon glances sideways at Lily. His eyebrows lift for a moment, as he regards her. Then, he nods once to her. "Lily," he says. She rushes in first, and a familiar burst of black power explodes from her fingertips and towards the ancient ARM. He doesn't know what effect it might have. They had precious little effectiveness against it, a year ago.

Will they have any now?

The Black Wolves come rushing in. Fei charges through the hole just after Lily. Josie kneels down behind a suit of armor, firing a shot. Riesenlied, wielding that sword, and Noeline with her scythe. Jude firing an explosive charge, which blasts with that fireball that explodes from his gun. They have something they didn't before, he realizes. Experience and allies that they never could have imagined.

He doesn't know if it will be enough, yet.

The moment of triumph cannot last long. Gryndille moves, and there is a blur of memories, as the automaton reminds him just how fast the thing could be. The head turns, so inhuman and featureless. He turns, glancing sideways at Riesenlied, in time to see the terrible claw stabbing at her. "Riesenlied, get back!" he cries out. The beam comes screaming in a moment later and Leon has to leap back. The searing light burns through the wall behind him, and narrowly burns through his side. Part of his vest is blackened.

He runs forward. Leon sprints, leaping over a shattered endtable, and leaps into the air, to the automaton's side. He swings his sword out -- and the blade telescopes back in, and then the barrels snap together. He squeezes off a shot. A round fires down at Gryndille, exploding into a corrosive mass of gel that threatens to coat the thick armor around one of its legs.

"It's going to be different this time, damn you!" he shouts at it.

GS: Leon Albus has attacked Gryndille with Rustshot Round!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Leon Albus's Rustshot Round for 30 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Gryndille!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied's expression is wan and deadened even as Josephine's shot shatters through, after Jude's fireball erupts upon the surface of the machine, sending her twilit-tinged hair whipping in one direction. He steps beside her, possessed of a nonchallance that should unnerve her. She has no idea that this is the man that woman, Cassidy, wanted to take revenge on her for... but she remembers him from Old Petra, from when he aided Lily from Id's attack...

She glances to Noeline for a moment. Some part of her, buried deep inside now, knows she'll take flak from Noeline and Lily for this, moreso than she already is... but they are in combat. They have no time for concerns -- that will come after, should they survive this...

And her eyes whip towards the Automaton's as she answers her statement in the only way it knows how--

--by thunderously stabbing that horrible, clawed arm straight through her chest.

The Metal Demon... ragdolls for a moment, her cold proclamation seemingly cut short in the span of a single second... Leon's warning comes too late.

It's happening again, the memory too fresh for Lily. The cruel automaton punches clean through her already wounded chest. The pointed end of the claw is visible against her wings, which slack...

...

... and ... the Riesenlied that meets her end simply-- dissipates into a veil of motes, an afterimage that disperses into the ambience as the fundamental particle of light is wont to.

Several drops of blood touch upon the Automaton's hindlegs, from where the winged Metal Demon has reappeared in its immediate headspace.

"... descend ..."

The Fallen Sword plays in the air, weaving with heavy berth as it wrenches about, controlled by some unseen force motioned only by simple flecks of Riesenlied's wrist.

"... and fall ..."

With crushing force, it cleaves with mortifying power, wreathed in inky blackness.

GS: Riesenlied has attacked Gryndille with Fallen Sword - 'Wakeless Dream'!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Fallen Sword - 'Wakeless Dream' for 132 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily doesn't wait up for Josie. She doesn't wait up for much of anything; her mind is full, fractured, and her only solution is to approach this for what it is. ...Her father is long gone by now, but she will meet him again. Josie, Elly, Fei--all are here. ...And Josie at her back is something she trusts, even if trust is a dangerous, vicious poison, she's learned.

As she hangs in the air, the violence starts all around her; gunshots, Jude's hapless presence...

And Riesenlied, in a form she has not seen her in in some time. It impacts dully on Lily's awareness, but she does not smile. There are things that need to happen. ...Dusk is ahead of them. Will it be dusk for them all? Lily barely survived this creature the first time.

...And then, only because it spared her. She knows that. She remembers when it stared straight at her, when it stared down at her, and then ran. ...No, left. Running implies something else.

She's been waiting, but Gryndille reacts too quickly--it is facing her abrubtly, and Lily's magic crashes like a wave against the cliff--doing just as much damage, as far as she can tell, when they fade. Hr eyes widen briefly, golden and reflective--and the beam crashes into her, slamming her backward into a wall that crumbles with a crack under her presence, the laser burning through her, starting to melt the armor that she brought. ...She doesn't cry out. She rarely does. But as she is pulling herself together, she looks up, sees Gryndille moving among the Wolves.

She watches its arm drive outward, her eyes pinpricks for an instant, her heart catching in her throat. Jann, she remembers; the woman's face. ...Jann, who again and again, she counselled in the medical tents, who she played cards with while waiting around for others, who she scouted with. Her friend. Her dear friend, who--

"Riesenlied!" It's ripped from Lily's throat despite herself, as she watches it, and she leaps upward once again, debris crashing down around her. ...She watches it go through Riesenlied, just like her own sword did, and her body shakes for an instant. "You--" ...the Sword. Still, the Sword.

Lily's teeth are still gritted, and Lily lifts both hands, this time blue crashing about her body, blue runes appearing before her hands; the patterns stretch farther than they have before. ...Mist starts to coalesce before Gryndille--and this spell, this spell, one she has perfected after facing Gryndille--

"Not again!"

Gigantic lances of ice crash towards the automaton, all at once, Lily briefly frozen in place.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gryndille with Mistgleam!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gryndille takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Mistgleam for 136 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Fei is here. Elly smiles to herself, glancing at him. She's wearing glasses??

A window erupts and in flies the queen of C-- no, the Metal Demon Riesenlied. She draws her blade, Elly straightens up. Josie arrives shortly after Lily whose explosive ingress was almost to be expected. Jude--

Elly has to stop feeling feelings about her comrades in arms because she has a much bigger problem: an active military device that wants to kill her, along with others. The red searing light flashes around them, and Elly moves to the side -- then comes a horrid sea-green light, washing over her with a burst that sends tattering rips through the skirts of that maid outfit, that throws her fashion frames clear, that rips her hair bonnet loose. She can't breathe -

The air's chilling. Lily must be doing it, Elly thinks, or someone. They're generating ice. The air's getting dryer - she hadn't felt enough earlier, but with the added pressure created by that spell, it is simple enough for Elly, coughing, to swing out a hand and throw her own strength down that same energetic 'path'.

The ice spikes - lances really - that Lily throws start to blossom into jagged shards of ice that is peculiarly resilient and densely-compressed, complicating evasive maneuvers and possibly causing subsidiary fragmentation and alloy damage. Elly hopes.

Hopes.

Hopes and...

"hgk," Elly says aloud, but it is because she managed to get herself to breathe again.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gryndille with Aqua Ice!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei studies Gryndille intently before Jude blows something up. Then he just kind of studies Gryndille deadpanly.

Fei looks over to Riesenlied as she rips a sword out of her body. He remembers what it could do to Weltall let alone to flesh and bone, but he does say, "Riese..." He can't blame her attitude, even if he doesn't agree with it.

He exhales. In that moment he's blasted into a pillar by Gryndille's pulse shot. Not quite through it, but that might have to do with the hardness of Fei's body rather than the power of that shot.

He pushes off free and flips off of it though before wheezing, "Good sign..." He gives Lily a shaky thumbs up. "It didn't kill me instantly. I was a little worried it'd kill me instantly. But if it's not killing us instantly, then we can probably...hahh...handle this right?"

Lets see if you can push through to the finish line, kid

He runs towards Gryndille and bounces through the air trying to punch it repeatedly in its frame before it can swing around and catch him again. It's fast for its size. That's...concerning, but he still has to be patient. If he fires one good hit it might not be enough. He needs to aim his strikes perfectly. Maybe if he's lucky, Xantia will recover and get here in time.

ELLY IS WEARING GLASSES.

Okay not the time. "Elly! I think one of your combos will work great! You know what I can do, lemme know if you need me to lay you up!"

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gryndille with Hoten!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Gryndille takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hoten for 121 hit points!
GS: Gryndille critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Aqua Ice for 26 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Noeline flicks up her scythe, more out of impulse and instinct than anything else; she's heard the stories of Gryndille, even seen it in motion for brief periods before, but that's not enough to really comprehend the speed that the machine can exert should it really come down to it. It's only those instincts that save her as the arm smashes into her blade, and as much as the twintailed spy might have set her feet, the sheer strength of the impact still sends her skidding backwards, grunting with effort as she does her best to prevent the robot's advance.

"--that's-- quite enough--" she mutters at their opponent through gritted teeth, deflecting the last of the strike aside; her limbs feel too heavy from exertion, but she pushes through it regardless - and when Riesenlied's body goes limp for a sickening moment, she feels her knuckles whiten on the hilt of her scythe, gripping it hard enough to draw silvery blood in thin lines down the weapon.

Being actually, vividly upset at Riesenlied is a new feeling; it twists in her gut, makes her grimace as she focuses on that brief pain. They're in combat. Now isn't the time to berate her, or wonder if it would even make a difference if she did. (Meanwhile, another part of her damns herself for the way she's always thinking, always careful, even at times as dire as they always seem to face - because the fluid is absorbed back into the scythe as soon as it came. It's all part of her, after all.)

As Riesenlied crashes down upon the Golem from above, the metal demon in red sucks in a breath and ducks low instead, diving into a slide that takes her underneath the creature's bulk on her back. By rights, she should not have space to do anything, let alone strike with an oversized and ridiculous scythe - but the metal of it warps and distorts to make space, the fluid weapon striking out at what she hopes is a lesser-armored underside with a jagged, shifting blade.

GS: Noeline has attacked Gryndille with Pointed Commentary!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille takes a solid hit from Noeline's Pointed Commentary for 77 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Josie will get one raw second to exult in the destruction her single bullet inflicts.
After that, she receives the full extent of Gryndille's attention. Red light beams onto her, lingering on her chest, and though she rises to her feet with Gawain resting against her shoulder and slips that half-step backwards--

Enter Jude.
She'll never have to find out about what would have happened next.
Instead, she lets out a low whistle as the round detonates into the ancient ARM, using the time she's been granted afresh to rethink her choice of positioning and start the immediate rush for anywhere but where she'd been planted.

It is, as it happens, one of Josie's wiser decisions: a hard rain is about to fall.

One shot misses; she had pivoted hard and perhaps taken a direction it hadn't expected. The other comes closer, winging a hole in the trailing end of her scarf and eliciting a hiss from the archaeologist.
The third one takes her in the leg, just two seconds after that, sending her into a sprawl-turned-roll as she finds a two further second's cover under what's left of a banquet table. A graze, she determines, a moment further, rising into a crouch and diving for cover anew as Gryndille proceeds to light up the corner of the room she was just within.

The window shatters after that in a rain of crystal shards. Josie gets another bare second's look at Riesenlied and grimaces.

But there isn't time for anything more than that.

It comes down to impression more than anything -- awareness of where people are, a sense of what they're doing. Sorcery ripping across one end of the field, while still others take to melee.

Josie, crouched behind what remains of a table, glances down her sight and frowns. "I need a better angle. Thing's gonna turn all this into matchsticks," she mutters, dark eyes flickering down at her current foxhole, of a sort.
And it isn't as if she'll have time to wait for an opening.

Her gaze shifts across the field, searching for something she can use. Her gaze lifts. One eyebrow arches faintly.

This is about to get interesting.

Gawain's shouldered. Her lips move; her fingers twitch. Electrical force arcs its way down the full length of her right arm and there gathers.

In one galvanic heave, she hurls the bolt like a javelin.

And already, as the ARM may find, Josie is no longer where she was standing, seconds before.

She races across the fallen broken banquet tables, passing off the rifle from left to right hand.

And there at the end, out of tables, she leaps, arcing high for the dangling chandelier.

GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Gryndille with Bolt Lance!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille critically Guards a hit from Josephine Lovelace's Bolt Lance for 19 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Smoke billows from the end of the heavy, strange shotgun ARM Jude Moshe calls his own as he lowers the weapon slowly. The hum of orange-red, sorcerous life dotting the expanse of its surface slowly die off as the redheaded reporter peers at the facsimile of life peering at him. Lurching, groaning. Staring.

So of course, Jude does the polite thing, and tilts his hand in a wave.

"Howdy," is his greeting. Of course.

"Not that I'm not flattered with all the 'come hither' looks, but you're really not my type--"

That cannon trains on him, blue-green light burning with oppressive radiance.

"--not that I'm not willing to keep an open mind--"

And that cannon fire screams out in ionic discharges of crackling energy just as Jude aims his ARM towards the ground and fires with the glow of chilling blue surging across its runic patterns. A shell hits ground -- and sprouts into a massive shield of ice seconds before bubbling laser fire can properly introduce itself to vulnerable flesh.

And it lasts all of two seconds before the rest of that cannonade shatters through the melting barrier in a rain of ice shards, bubbling-hot water, and a scattered diffusing of energy. Leaping back with a flexible twist through the air, a stray shot -slams- heat and force into Jude's midsection. Pain signals its starburst flash across his senses as he wheels backwards, hitting ground with a skid as he braces his fingertips against the shattered rubble of the floor beneath him.

"Ggh -- doesn't take rejection well, huh? Why do machines hit harder the older they are? Something... about that seems backwards. Amber eyes look, briefly, behind him. His coat settles, completely intact.

The sigh he heaves this time is one of open relief.

He doesn't stay there long. Midsection still feeling the angry flare of pain screaming through his nerves, the reporter-slash-sellsword-slash-Black-Wolf is already racing across the shattered plain of what was once a grand palace as Lily conjures forth her ice in that surge of rage. He notices, within the peripheries of that casual stare, how the Gryndille seems to stare at others. Study them. Studying unknowns?

As boots beat across broken stonework, he mentally takes stock of what the automaton has seemed unaccustomed with.

To his credit, his expression doesn't twitch once as he drops to the ground in a controlled slide across smooth marble. Doesn't even so much as flinch as his glide carries him straight between the mighty, metal limbs of the Gryndille and fleetly focuses his attack on -firing- off one -- two -- three -- four shots, one for each limb, ice EXPLODING at the joints to try to freeze it in place briefly for Elly and Lily's joint assault before his slide carries him out from under the metal behemoth, revolving chamber of his shotgun opening with the clatter of spent shells. And despite what one might expect, when he refocuses his attention on Lily, when he talks next...

"Hey, kid! This isn't like the last time, right? We know what we're dealing with here. Stay focused."

... it's for the opposite of anything glib. Maybe he's actually responding to things appropriately for once--

"Y'know, though, I have to say: you people really have a knack for picking the worst crap to be your nemeses. Kudos for that."

Or maybe it's just a flash in the pan.

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Gryndille with Boogie Chillen!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Gryndille critically Guards a hit from Jude Moshe's Boogie Chillen for 18 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gryndille has posed.

Gryndille's arm shakes a little, as it did when it dislodged Jann's body, and let her fall to the ground like so much trash. This turns out to be unnecessary--Riesenlied is gone, vanished in a flash of photons, and it takes the machine a precious fraction of a second to register he again. The Fallen Sword comes down on its back, cutting into its armor with a horrific shriek of metal on metal. The cut isn't deep. Jude does something both reckless and potentially useful as the machine swivels about--literally, as its torso rotates a full one-eighty--to face Riesenlied. His shotgun fires four times in quick succession, but Gryndille is already in motion, stepping forward. Two of the shots go wide, punching through the banquet hall's remaining wall and painting spiderwebs of ice across ash-streaked wallpaper. Two more slam into the heavier armor protecting Gryndille's joints. The machine raises one clawed foot, and brings it down on Jude Moshe, trying to pin him to the floor. (Perhaps literally, if he's particularly unfortunate.) Its cannon-arm trains on Riesenlied, tracking her movements, accounting for the sudden quantum teleportation effect. The cannon ejects a hissing plume of steam, and fires at her, at point-blank range.

Fei launches himself at Gryndille's torso, and Noeline baseball-slides through its legs. Both of these are risky maneuers--one false move, and the machine could put one of those clawed feet through Noeline, giving her a wound to match Riesenlied's. Fei, well. He saw what it did to Riesenlied moments ago. The young martial artist lays into Gryndille with his fists, and it's a testament to his strength that he manages to put dents in it. Armor gives beneath Fei's knuckles, but it's a slow, grudging sort of give, not the traumatic staving-in that would imply it wasn't built for this. Noeline's scythe cuts through something that might be part of a servomotor, and some sort of hot, unbreathable gas blows her hair around as she slides out from underneath.

Gryndille's head swivels to face Leon as he leaps into the air. His ARM fires, and a glob of clinging, corrosive gel strikes the ARM in its lower leg. Bubbles rise within the gel as oxidative action occurs, but as Leon no doubt knows, this thing's armor is damned tough. It's going to take a while for it to eat through. How long will it take? Will more people die in the interim? Josie's lightning hits Gryndille dead-on, playing across the machine's armor--but there's no smoke, no sparks, no sign it did more than just hit the surface. Not so much as a twitch, despite Josie pouring everything she could into it. She takes off, but Gryndille is suddenly moving again, treads swinging down into place. It tears through the Kaiser's fine banquet table like it's not even there, splintering Kislevi hardwood like a pile of twigs. Josie might be going for the chandelier, but if she doesn't make it, she's going to get shoulder-tackled by a good ton or so of war machine.

Atmospheric moisture condenses into lance-like icicles, which crash down on the automaton with what must be terrifying force. The onslaught would reduce a human to ribbons of shredded flesh, and could even give a Gear pause--but it's not enough. A field of shimmering hexagonal planes winks into being around it, absorbs both the punishing assault of Lily's initial spell and the lingering chill that Elly is trying to exploit. Ice crystals cling to its chassis in the aftermath, but it's hardly the killing blow both of them were hoping for. Gryndille barely slows down. Its charge after Josie turns into some sort of chase--its treads tear up the floor as it rounds on Leon, then Lily, then Noeline, then Elly. It's trying to run them all down, to crush them underfoot. Fei, though--it stops before it gets to Fei.

"CAPTAIN!" Over a year ago, Roanie screams for Leon to help him, his eyes wide with terror. Gryndille falls on him like a force of nature, that horrible, killing claw tearing through his shoulder. His right arm hits the ground, his hand still clutching his saber. Roanie's mouth falls open as he stares at it in disbelief, his face going pale from shock and blood loss.

The cannon fires. Roanie's body hits the ground next to his arm, headless.

Gryndille's claw comes down at Fei Fong Wong, still dripping with Riesenlied's blood. Its clawed fingers press together, forming a single spear-point for optimal damage on impact--after impact, it can separate them to inflict additional trauma.

GS: Gryndille has attacked Riesenlied with Disruptor Pulse Burst!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Jude Moshe with Clawed Stomp!
GS: Riesenlied takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Disruptor Pulse Burst for 71 hit points!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Blood-red Claw!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Ultra-speed Ram!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Leon Albus with High-Speed Ram!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Lily Keil with High-Speed Ram!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Noeline with High-Speed Ram!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Elhaym van Houten with High-Speed Ram!
GS: Jude Moshe takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Clawed Stomp for 53 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's High-Speed Ram for 63 hit points!
GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Ultra-speed Ram for 83 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Gryndille's Blood-red Claw for 40 hit points!
GS: Noeline takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's High-Speed Ram for 58 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from Gryndille's High-Speed Ram for 70 hit points!
GS: Leon Albus takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's High-Speed Ram for 55 hit points!
GS: Gryndille takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Gryndille has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

As Noeline's scythe cleaves from below, to adjoin the Fallen Sword, their eyes catch for a moment.

This... isn't the Riesenlied who smiles gently and greets you when you come upon her door. The Riesenlied that Elly has found sympathy in, the sickly blonde woman who dared to stand up against the power elite of her kind. This is the Riesenlied at her most lonesome and distant self... after Noeline left her so long ago.

Riesenlied!! You--

She does not answer Lily's cry or even motion that she's fine, even if some voice deep inside screams and whimpers deep inside. Some part of her that punishes herself for making those closest fear for her...

This is the Riesenlied that well remembers the sensation of the Black Wolf's Fang plunging her chest, that one time. The pragmatic side of Lily may agree: the Riesenlied that's useful right now.

Her eye glimpses on Elly as she controls Ether and conjures additional spikes coalesced from Lily's own gigantic ice lances. She notes the fragments, and where the machine has taken damage, as Fei speaks about combining their powers together and striking, followed by Jude's explosive shotgun blasts...

... but her time to capitalise on it would have to wait, for Gryndille is not fooled by her for long. The disruptor cannon comes and tracks her, and she's not fast enough this time--

--she's nearly taken out of the air as she makes a wrong feint, and finds that the ancient machine has read her; as the plume of smoke clears, it's her wings that have taken damage, portions of the twilit-rendered appendage slagged and dripping as feathers molt translucently around her.

It's risky, but it gives her the opening she needs.

Riesenlied's eyes affix onto Gryndille's sensors, and perhaps there is a commonality in how impassive the two function upon each other. But at present... it is this machine that will help the Black Wolves repeat history.

"Disappear... disappear-- disappear-- disappear--

The flat intonation is unsettling enough on its own, but the robotic staccato is moreso as the longsword rapidly strikes in thin air-- each time conjuring waves upon waves of solid violet energy that hurtle through the space, aimed towards that vulnerable breach that the others have pressed upon.

GS: Riesenlied enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Gryndille with Fallen Sword - 'Spiriting Away'!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Riesenlied's Fallen Sword - 'Spiriting Away' for 126 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Not a total success, but, well --

He'll take it.

A metal limb goes stomping down into the ground, intent to turn him into a butterfly on a pin -- or maybe just powder his bones into a fine past. He could see either happening, really. It's mostly thanks to the fact that Jude Moshe does not even flinch or hesitate in his movements, even as that end seems so patently, harrowingly nigh, that saves him from that fate: one large metal leg CRACKS into the ground where the redheaded reporter's midsection -used- to be, as he slides between limbs and scores those two hits to at least briefly make it hesitate.

But the impact alone, and Jude's sheer proximity to the release of kinetic force, is enough to send him launching painfully away into a controlled roll. He feels churned debris break against his back as nearby rubble helpfully breaks his tumble, a pained grunt slipping past his lips. He is already reloading, amber eyes giving a swift sweep of the grounds to assess the situation and the players within it, as his gaze falls upon Lily and Leon in turn.

Fighting the thing that killed your comrades. The people you were responsible for. The people you were utterly powerless to save. And there it is again, threatening to do the same thing once more. Leon and Lily must be struggling with that past, that failing. And Jude...

For a brief moment, Jude Moshe's expression is unreadably impassive before he struggles back onto his feet with the groaning protest of cracked ribs.

"Well, if you're gonna do the vengeance thing," he muses in that easy, dispassionate way of his as he slots three shells into the open chamber of his ARM. He snaps it closed with a spin, runes lighting up in a dance of yellow-green light along that large weapon.

"You oughta do it right, right?"

He aims. He fires. Three times, in rapid succession, each pointed in three different directions.

Each at three of his fellow Black Wolves.

What could easily be construed as a surprise attack, though, is anything but -- those shells will explode mid-flight in bursts of strange, magical green shards of light, like rains of glitter surrounding Lily, Leon and Fei. And the first breath they take, amidst that jade valley of power? Revitalizes. Reenergizes. Reinvigorates. Refocuses.

For revenge.

Jude Moshe salutes once, glibly. "Thank me later."

Ever-generous.

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Lily Keil with Trouble in Mind!
GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Leon Albus with Trouble in Mind!
GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Trouble in Mind!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Leon Albus takes a solid hit from Jude Moshe's Trouble in Mind for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Leon Albus gains 15 extra FP from Jude Moshe!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Jude Moshe's Trouble in Mind for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Jude Moshe!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Jude Moshe's Trouble in Mind for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Lily Keil gains 15 extra FP from Jude Moshe!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong never heard the story of how Roanie died and this is a man who punched a dinosaur WITHOUT a gear in the snoot because it was threatening Elly. This thing is threatening way more than just Elly today. It's threatening most of Fei's friends AND Elly. They can't even run, at least--not yet--because of the machine's speed. Outrunning it is impossible and besides, even if they do somehow escape, it'll be a killer robot milling about in the middle of Kislev. That just wno't do.

Fei wasn't expecting to be able to take out Gryndille with a few punches. Risky maneuvers are all he has available to him right now. He brings up his arms as he sees the claw heading towards him--really a spear now and there's a strange glint in his eye as he smiles in a strange sort of way.

Riesenlied is behaving strangely. Why now? Why so soon? Did it have to do with that weird feeling he had? Maybe. But right now, Riesenlied can take care of herself as can Noeline. A single misstep can kill any of his other friends.

He CATCHES the spear heading for his gut between his arms. He grunts, as if he's trying to LIFT Gryndille up by the claw arm which is probably the downright stupidest thing that Leon has ever seen Fei do and that's not a low bar.

He gives up after a moment but does tell Jude. "I know, right??" about having shitty nemeses.

He takes in a deep breath of that strange jade power. He doesn't immediately recognize what it is, but it feels good. "Thanks Jude!"

Instead of trying to lift the whole thing up, Fei gets an idea. He leaps on top of the claw arms...arm... and runs up it towards Gryndille's head, trying to leap into the air and stomp down on it, blood from his cut up hand dripping down around him.

Let's see if the claw arm follows after him, Fei thinks.

"Leon! Maybe we can get it to attack itself!"

Fei are you sure this is a good plan? Well he's going for it anyway. Maybe back in 10 SD his mom made him watch The Incredibles to chill him out for a while.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly WAS wearing glasses. She answers Fei with effort but clarity: "Right." The ice... is it not cutting through? Her eyes narrow for a moment.

Will Gryndile adapt to that trick?
Can that sort of thing be 'adapted' to?
And... can she live long enough to execute it?

Last one looks a little iffy.

Weapons are speaking, and for once gunfire is entirely welcome, because Elly estimates that anything that goes "bang" or "crack!" or "thoom" or "zzz-SNAP" is probably on her side, right now. As opposed to - for instance - the rush of the massive machine towards her. Elly throws herself to the side and tumbles, hard, through the wreckage; at least that is less fatal than being ground underfoot.

This machine, Elly thinks. Who made it? It's killed so many. Had it killed the Kaiser, Kislev would have suffered - why do I care? she thinks. This place isn't my home.

I care because of Leon, don't I? And all those people I've seen in the distance, Elly thinks as she pushes herself upwards. She sees some gleams on Gryndille's carapace. Is it lingering ice? Did they get some into the plating? Elly can't tell, but she has to hope.

As Riesenlied's violet fury pours outwards, Elly tries to channel her mind. She rocks back on her heels, she straightens up. Her eyes half close and her free hand, the one not still clinging to that metal combat rod, sweeps around.

It's easier every time, she thinks, as her fingertips swirl through the air. The dry air, because most of the immediate humidity has become ice.

Elly presses outwards. Imagine it like that cube forming a trail, she tells herself. There is a sparkle as a single cubic centimeter of air flashes into superheated plasma but then it accelerates and the air behind it spreads out and joins it, drawn in the wake and billowing out like the fantabulous shape of a serpent or wyrm of legend. It's too bright to look at for long, leaving afterimages as a whistling scream of displaced air rises.

The superheated wave approaches Gryndille's side: the side, Elly thinks, with the damaged armor, caked with ice (or, as some might call it, steam that hasn't yet gotten ambitious), and, of course, no doubt chilled.

"... Whatever your original mission... it ends here!" Elly calls out, hoping probably that the ribbon of searing superheated plasma was enough warning for people. It isn't a completely new maneuver for her, after all.

Well, OK: At least some people here have seen it.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gryndille with Raijin!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gryndille with Thermo Dragon!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Raijin for 11 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Riesenlied gets stabbed clean through -- and there is a moment of horror, until the truth of it becomes clear. Leon tears his eyes away, but he nods to Fei's words. "It's something! Don't concentrate too much, it can hit clusters of us without any problem!"

Easier said than done, inside the feast hall of one of the most powerful men on Ignas. After they're through here, nothing will be left but a mess. This does not weight heavily on his conscience. He starts running to the side shortly after he touches the ground, partly to follow his own advice -- and partly to get clear of the storm of ice and lightning that are hurtling across the room.

His feet smash down onto and shatter fine china, which had dropped down onto the floor. His hands keep a firm grip on the shotgun-mode ARM. "Moshe, we didn't really pick this one! It just sort of happened!"

It is shouted, but with adrenaline instead of venom.

He watches Gryndille moving, with that eerie speed -- and the way the banquet table explodes into shards of wood when it hits -- and rams through the room. He jumps out of the high-speed ram, only to throw himself into the wall hard enough to crack the wood paneling. He comes away with a split lip, and he looks up.

It brings the memory back, unbidden, as the claw punches down for Fei. It punches down just like it did a year ago, and he half-expects the same results. Except that Fei, somehow, catches the closed claw. His hands lift up, and Leon gasps despite himself. He didn't know where the painter's strength came from.

The idea, though...

The way that Jude can talk so easily, to make Leon wonder if he means anything he says... it distracts him, at times. He looks up in time to see a flash of green, a round hurtling for him. But understanding comes a moment later, as he feels an infusion of power -- as a breath drawn in is so sharp, so perfected, that it doesn't feel real. Except, he thinks, everything in here feels too real.

He doesn't know, really, what makes Jude tick. He doesn't know, fully, if he can trust him. But his actions, at times, have an honesty that seems lacking in his words.

"No argument," the Captain answers Moshe. Then, he looks at Fei, and nods. "Let's try it!"

He runs in, towards the wave of purple light and the superheating air. Sweat breaks out on his forehead -- and he leaps. He slams down on a leg, then comes in close, and then stabs his blade at Gryndille's neck. It hits with a flash of crimson ki, before he yanks -- and tries to turn the head, as Fei tries to make it punch itself in the face.

GS: Leon Albus has attacked Gryndille with Riot Crash!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Noeline's wayward skid is somehow not met by the machine simply stamping on her; perhaps it's more of a testament to her speed than anything else, the strike hitting home and then gone in the blink of an eye. She doesn't so much stand up as lever herself up, her scythe rebuilding itself in her hands with its haft against the floor, pivoting her upwards and into another diving roll. Behind her in the whirr of engines - a bodily strike from Gryndille that she's evidently only just been able to evade with the skin of her teeth.

"Believe me," huffs Noeline partly to herself and partly to Jude's quip as she hauls herself to her feet and gives herself the barest moment to read the situation around her. "If we had the option and freedom to choose, I dare say our path would look a lot different." Even at a time like this she can't help but keep up at least a little in the way of levity, despite the air around them reverberating with Riesenlied's sharp and impossible strike.

The metal demon swallows a lump in her throat immediately afterwards, remembering the sensation of her eyes meeting Riesenlied's. It makes her screw her eyes shut for a dangerous moment as she mutters a tiny little prayer, perhaps her first - and probably not her last. Still... she knows that if Duras Drum's even listening, any response would probably be incredibly cold comfort.

"... we're with you, damn it," she hisses softly to herself more out of concern than out of anger or fear, hoping that in some fashion the words might reach the other metal demon; any other words that bubble to the top of her mind are pushed down, left for later. Instead, she simply opts to dart forwards and push into a spin, foregoing her usual dance in favour of simply putting all of her strength into an enormous sweeping strike at Gryndille's back, the scythe extended to its full length in her arms.

It isn't anything close to her usual elegance - more of a wide baseball swing than anything else - but it does leave her blade thrumming with the sheer speed of the centripetal force behind it.

GS: Noeline has attacked Gryndille with Stinging Rebuke!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Most of her focus is on the venerable ARM, Gryndille: right now such a thing is a requirement to even keep breathing.

But a few things filter in.
Jude's comment, for one.

"What can I say," says Josie, between the leaps and the do-or-die landings.

"They don't make 'em like they used to."

That's all she wrote -- or all she said, to be more precise. The disruption-intent cast of electrical force barely scratched the thing's paintjob to start, and rather than nailing it in place for a couple of seconds...

She doesn't even have to look to know it. It's right on her tail and it's picking up speed.

Josie takes flight.

Her hand closes around the edge of the chandelier, and for an instant as she there dangles, someone might assume that she's in the clear as Gryndille charges.

Right up until the moment there's a resounding crack.

A direct hit this was not, but make no mistake: this is still several tons of metal, clipping a dangling and so very, very defenseless human body.

Josie goes rigid as she hangs there, pain dragging the tension through her frame. From the way her one leg dangles it's clear, perhaps, precisely what's happened.

But she doesn't let go.
Not immediately.

When she does, it's the moment Gryndille turns away from her. There's nowhere to rise.
Therefore, one must fall.

At best there are seconds. The rifle sweeps out as she plummets to the ground, not so much aiming as cracking off a wild, blind shot.

But if she's going down, she's going down good.

GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Gryndille with Insult to Injury!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Gryndille guards a hit from Josephine Lovelace's Insult to Injury for 21 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak, Cripple, and Jam! Statuses applied to Gryndille!
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Noeline's Stinging Rebuke for 72 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"Just hang on," Lily says Fei. She doesn't have it in her now to lie, and suggest that she thinks they have this, that it will be simple. ...That they'll make it. Not when she watches Gryndille's arm shake, just like before. The memory reacts jagged behind Lily's eyes, her vision briefly doubled; Riesenlied may be able to feel the pain of it, the sheer buried trauma of the memory. ...But Gryndille is moving already. It is moving, amidst her companions, amidst the new Wolves, but its armor is so tough. Lily can feel the magic here, she can see the way it all goes...

 Elly's magic capitalizes on hers, Jude's shots crash in with hers, ice building on ice in a frigid apocalypse of the moment. But it is not enough. Just like before, it is not enough, even with the terrible power of Elly's Ether building with hers, even with all she has learned. Gryndille rushes towards her. This time, she does not try to run out of the way; she throws her arms before herself, crossing them, and crackling black power--pulsing with violet--becomes a shield around her, and Lily is knocked to the side rather than being crushed, slamming through an ornate set of chairs that were priceless once, and are now splintered and disintegrating as her magic moves. ...it stops, as it gets to Fei. It stops--

The cannon. Roanie--Roanie, again, young, earnest Roanie, on his way to a promotion--

'Hey, kid! This isn't like last time, right? We know what we're dealing with here. Stay focused.'

...It slips under Lily's awareness, makes her realize for an instant how badly she's losing control of herself. Jude's words remind her, bring her back to reality, her golden eyes snapping onto Gryndille. ...She is dressed, as always, for military, but the wounds racking up on her are becoming clear already. She glances once, to Noeline and Riesenlied, as they fight, lets herself take in the battle as it is. And yet...

She cannot contain it. The feeling within her, it feels as if something is burning already, something is rushing within her. Her arms burn, like they burned when she faced Gryndille before, and she lets out a gasp of something like pain. For a few long instants, she does not move, cannot act, stumbles backwards. ...She hears Riesenlied's voice. Her emotionless voice. It is wrong, it is not like her. But this is the machine that is useful to Lily right now. This is what she has demanded, isn't it?

But Jude's power focuses her, reinvigorates her, as surely as his words came to her. ...For revenge. The jade power around her suffuses her, and she knows what she must do. She stares into this mechanical monster, and her eyes glow golden.

Elly's magic crashes forward. Lily sees it. She feels it, each pulse of Ether alight on her nerves. "...Father chose it for us," Lily says when Leon answers Jude. She doesn't know what makes him tick either. But she is still. She is watching. And that means, in the midst of her gathering power, she sees one thing. ...One vital, terrible thing. She sees Josie, rigid, hanging, her leg dangling in a way that Lily can see her instantly. She is falling, cracking off a wild, blind shot. Lily's heart stops for an instant. ...And one terrible instant later, it starts again.

Ether pulses, once, surging in one direction, like a vortex of magic. A heartbeat later, it surges once again, and again, painfully present, fearsome enough for even those who cannot ordinarily sense it to notice the raw concentration of magic, working past Gryndille, past the room, towards the black-haired woman staring it down, her armor battered and ruined, the glow at her arms abrubtly fading into gray, nothing at all, and then fading completely. The markings are gone.

Lily's eyes cloud over, gold fading, fading, fading into gray into black, the sclera disappearing completely until her pupils appear--not black, but Prismatic in a dark reflection, irises burning into existence segment by segment around those pupils, over blackness.

Lily's head bows for an instant, as she draws in another breath, and starts to rise from her position, feet dangling, boots pointed towards the ground as wings of energy burst from her back with a terrible sound of something building, clicking away, and the circuitry on her body surges back into existence, from her neck to her shoulders to her fingertips, extending from her eye towards her hair, down her cheek, multiple colors; her hair stays black, save for a line in each of those colors.

In Zeboim she intones, "<All limiters released. Ether output ninety percent>."

She moves effortlessly, gracefully, as she stares down her foe. Fei suggested they combine their forces. Lily puts out one hand, fingers pointing towards the automaton before her.

Ether pulses once again, but this time it becomes a point of golden fire just above Gryndille's head. Gravity seems to become a suggestion for an instant, everything in locality abrubtly... lighter, her magic attending to draw Gryndille towards it.

It is quickly too brilliant to look up, as it becomes a tiny sun's explosion in perfect harmony with Elly's plasmatic burst.

Lily hangs in the air, strange eyes staring forward.

DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Awakened - Omega Stage!
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gryndille with The Swallower of the Sky - Sky!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Leon Albus's Riot Crash for 78 hit points!
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Dragon for 101 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Gryndille guards a hit from Lily Keil's The Swallower of the Sky - Sky for 101 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Gryndille!
<Pose Tracker> Gryndille has posed.

Gryndille, insofar as it has intentions, has no intention of disappearing. Waves of raw force crash against the machine's armor, leaving dents and gouges in its plating. Riesenlied's assault would tear a lesser machine apart, turn it into so much scrap in seconds--but Gryndille does not cease its assault for a moment. By the time she's done, the machine is sparking a little, but still far too intact.

For a brief instant, Fei Fong Wong catches Gryndille's claw. For a brief instant, he manages to hold it still, dares to try and wrestle with a machine that weighs at least ten times as much as he does. It doesn't last. Gryndille's head jerks back in an almost birdlike motion as Fei vaults up onto its arm, and starts sprinting. The machine does not punch itself in the face, and his stomp to its head meets with little results--his heel puts a dent in the plating atop its head, and that's just about all. Gryndille thrashes, trying to shake Fei off of it--Leon comes in from the side, his blade glowing red-hot as it chops for Gryndille's neck. It should be a decapitating strike. It should cut off the automaton's head, and send it flying across what's left of the Kaiser's dining room. Instead, it slices through some of the cabling on the side of the neck before the cabling beneath stiffens, strangely, in response.

Josie's bullet finds its way into this opening through blind, dumb luck. She might be falling from the Kaiser's chandelier, leg broken, but her shot slams into Gryndille's neck as its smartweave armor is already trying to recover from that last strike. A few sparks fly out before Leon's eyes. The machine's deadly, clawed hand twitches, erratically. Even afflicted, Gryndille does not show much outward sign of its wounds.

Over a year ago, Greta screams a thunderous battle-cry as she sees Roanie's corpse hit the ground. Gryndille's back is facing her; she raises her battle-axe, bringing it down in a furious two-handed hack. Suddenly, Gryndille no longer has its back turned towards her. Its torso turns one-eighty degrees in an instant, and its cannon is already glowing with brilliant blue-green light. Greta's expression does not change, even as the cannon goes off, vaporizing a full third of her lower torso in a single shot.

Noeline thinks she has an opening. Gryndille moves to prove her wrong. The automaton's torso twists around a full one-eighty degrees, and Noeline's scythe--backed by all her formidable strength--makes a shallow, not-quite-superficial gash down its chest with an audible scraping noise. Its cannon arm is already maneuvering, targeting her low in the belly. It discharges at point-blank range, again, only this time the beam doesn't stop at Noeline. It keeps on going, punching through a fine glass case containing vintage Kislevi spirits, then the wall behind it, then the remains of the Kaiser's hedge maze.

Perhaps it's judged Noeline to be more of a threat than Greta.

Elly slings fire. Gryndille twists towards her, that hexagonal field deploying as the full fury of the woman who could've been the Fire Element falls down upon it. The rug beneath it catches fire immediately; the remains of tablecloth and carpet dangling from its frame do the same. Its plating deforms a little, but whomever built this thing in antiquity knew that thermal expansion is no friend to machines. It weathers what could've been a lethal strategm remarkably well.

Gryndille's head abruptly swivels towards Lily, that strange, prismatic rainbow reflecting in its optics and battered chassis. It's impossible to tell how the machine is reacting, if it's understanding what's happening before it. If it knows that Lily has tapped into a deep, terrifying part of herself in her quest to kill it and avenge her fallen comrades. If it knows what that circuitry means.

The sun erupts. Radiation washes across Gryndille's frame--it's hardened against that, of course, but the raw output of Lily's fury seems to stagger it nevertheless. Lily and Leon watch it take a full step back, recoiling as searing energies trace across its plating. The motion is nothing more than programming, but it looks uncomfortably organic nevertheless.

Gryndille's cannon moves to target Lily Keil. Once again, it charges, exotic particles forming a corona around the barrel. Once again, the blast carries past Lily, through the wall behind her, through the torso of an equestrian statue outside, then through part of what's left of the fence. Everyone else--

Vents open on Gryndille's sides. There's a low hissing noise, and then--

Gryndille erupts in a torus of blinding, searing light as its beam weapon vents outwards around the people surrounding it.

GS: Gryndille has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Gryndille Dynamite!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Gryndille Dynamite!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Riesenlied with Gryndille Dynamite!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Jude Moshe with Gryndille Dynamite!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Leon Albus with Gryndille Dynamite!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Gryndille Dynamite!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Noeline with Siege Disruptor Cannon!
GS: Gryndille has attacked Lily Keil with Siege Disruptor Cannon!
GS: Riesenlied used Mystic on Josephine Lovelace! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared!
GS: Riesenlied has activated a Force Action!
GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Gryndille Dynamite for 201 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Leon Albus takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Gryndille Dynamite for 194 hit points!
GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Siege Disruptor Cannon for 214 hit points!
GS: Jude Moshe takes a glancing hit from Gryndille's Gryndille Dynamite for 98 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Siege Disruptor Cannon for 218 hit points!
GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Gryndille Dynamite for 192 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Gryndille Dynamite for 197 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Gryndille's Gryndille Dynamite for 200 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied's eye passively stares towards Jude's bullet, as if scanning-- registering-- a potential threat against her allies... yet the bullet explodes into powerful healing, magical green light re-invigorating the Wolves. The Black Wolves, renewed... in what would be the hour of reckoning.

The hour of reckoning for that which has given them nightmares for a year... and shall be paid back in full.

Fei attempts an unusual manuever, one that -- actually gives her a bit of pause; she distractedly looks towards Elly's enormous stream of superheated plasma instead, following its trail towards the Automaton once more. First ice, then fire... a classic tactic...

The blood continues to drip. She doesn't have long. She never has. She--

... we're with you, damn it.

The scared Hyadean within screams, looking to Josie dangling from the chandelier... but the Metal Demon stays stilled and impassioned as she readies her blade for another exchange...

Until Lily happens.

For a moment, she is knocked out of her mechanical reverie as she turns in awe to the Black Wolf Lieutenant's remarkable transformation. The markings... are gone, as if she has surpassed her mortal form and become something greater-- her eyes burn into her own, and Riesenlied finds herself... rattled. Those wings emerge from her back and coalesce into the skies--

--and she brings the wrath of Heaven down upon her target, forcing her to look away as Elly and Lily combine the full wrath of their magic upon the machine that's brought her so much pain, for so long...

...

And that moment is enough for Riesenlied to wrest control, to sweep towards Josephine in her time of need and shelter her from the enormous machine. "Hold-- hold on-- Josie--" she intones, as she takes the sniper into her hold--

--and decides to whip her body to cover the sniper's, wings furled like a cocoon around the both of them; it's imperfect cover -- she won't be able to prevent all damage to the wounded Josephine, but... in the wake of the corona's dimming...

Riesenlied's wings are smoking, and what was already slagged continues to melt as feathers, or metal approximating the presence of eathers continue to molt to the ground. Her capelet is effectively gone from the back, her exposed back badly burnt and scorched.

"I--"

A red gleam overtakes Riesenlied once more as she rises, turning in a smooth manner as she takes flight to hover once more. Despite the massive damage she's sustained, despite the pain that screams at every fibre of her being that can feel--

A machine needs no empathy.

"Sequence 7S."

The Fallen Sword suddenly deconstructs -- and familiar weapons that haven't been seen in a long time, thought to be too difficult for Riesenlied's ailing state to sustain, emerge from the central spine that is its blade: Pinions.

The forward two lurch forward in cutting motion, criss-crossing as they serve to distract and provide additional processing burden for the hyper-advanced warmachine; the next two fly like discus, seeking to cross the machine at its neck from two different angles upon the stream of violet photons that carry them...

... and by the time Gryndille's sensors have caught up--

--the Metal Demon machine is gone once more, the remnants of a portal closing in her stead.

"Cut. Cut-- Cut-- cut--cut cut cuttt--

The next sensor picks Riesenlied from above, as she freefalls with dual blades, fragments of the Fallen Sword that she hacks and cleaves away in cross-formation, leaving them embedded within Gryndille as she passes through should she succeed in her feint--

"...cut..."

--culminating in a final, bisecting strike with the remaining twig of a blade within her hand.

GS: Riesenlied has attacked Gryndille with Rising Sword - 'Illusory Dominance'!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Josie's leg breaks. Leon's breath catches in his throat, reeling with it -- contemplating what they can possibly do to keep her safe. He doubts she can walk on it. And Riesenlied... is she losing herself? The doubt comes back to his mind, rushing in like flood waters. Has he led them all to their deaths? What is he even doing, here?

The cabling is slashed into, but the head not torn off. Argent Divider rips free with a quick and fast motion, before the blade risks getting snapped in twain. He turns, his eyes scanning the room over. He sees Lily, there--

Floating.

He doesn't know what to make of the energy wings. He doesn't know what to make of the power that she summons. He does think, though, to start to leap clear when the raw golden light comes rushing in -- and he spins in midair, turning to make sure he never leaves his back to the machine for long. He sees the cannon swivel up, taking aim for Noeline and, and then at Lily. He thinks of Noeline as a friend, but one person rises above the rest:

"LILY!"

The blast fires as he hits the ground. His head snaps to look at where the beam struck, blasting a hole through the wall of Schonenberg Palace. He misses the way the vents open, and a shockwave explodes out from around Gryndille. It catches Leon full in the side and hurtles him back through one of the room's walls. It smashes down around him, as he hits the ground and rolls. A smear of blood is left in his wake. He stands up, blood running from a gash in his side; more comes down his face, from the cut on his lip and a new one over his left eye. He keeps it shut now.

He lifts his sword up. Argent Divider is gripped, tightly, in his hand. He watches, as Riesenlied flies in -- and speaks, with that terrible intonation. He grits his teeth, and then he charges in. Dust flies up in his wake; he kicks up a few shattered remains of flooring. "We found one of your lairs, you damned thing!" he shouts at it, furiously. "What was it called? Heoh Rott? You shouldn't have left that place, wherever it was! I'm not through with you yet!"

He screams. It is a raw, primal thing. A way to try to release the panic.

But not all of it. There is far too much panic for that. His eyes glint in the light, more of it coming into the room, thanks to the many holes ripped through the building's walls. Argent Divider shudders -- and then a blade of light explodes up the length of the sword. Letters flash across the blade, imposed there by holographic light: "CLARENT."

Leon leaps into the air, and then comes crashing down, slashing the blade down diagonally -- and tries to shear clean through the elbow joint of the huge, cannon-bearing arm.

GS: Leon Albus has attacked Gryndille with Code.26 CLARENT!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Riesenlied's Rising Sword - 'Illusory Dominance' for 138 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Gryndille takes a solid hit from Leon Albus's Code.26 CLARENT for 159 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Abruptly, Gryndille turns upon her in the most literal of fashions, and what should have been a killing strike simply dents off the more solid frontal armor; Noeline stares the machine down with a grimacing frown on her face, well aware that she's overextended herself with her strike, that she doesn't stand a chance of pulling her weapon back to a defensive position in time to avoid the cannon swivelling in her direction and beginning to heat.

When the beam fires it pierces straight through her midsection, punching her backwards with its force; her scythe simply dissipates away the moment it hits, and what would be a scream from anyone else is bitten back with a noise of fury, even as the beam cuts slightly to one side as its path extends outwards. Noeline crumples, the hole cut straight through her smoking with heat and flickering with the last of a flash flame. "--ggh--!!"

Still-- even as her form continues to skid backwards she manages to barely catch herself on her hands, not sure if her body shaking is from the pain and the shock of Gryndille's strike or the angry pulse behind her eyes.

Her focus wavers, her gaze wavering on the sight of the silvery line she's left dripping from her wound; she quivers a little at the sight of it before curling her hands into fists, better prepared and able to staunch the cry of pain as a dark flame erupts into being across her torso, a reckless attempt to force the power of Duras Drum into some method of mending or at least stauncing the flow.

"I'm not-- done yet," she rasps, again levering herself up onto her feet. She doesn't quite make it just yet, but she's up on one knee by the time the spark of dark power leaps from her torso, spreading across her; it feels easier these days, even if it's sure to burn her at least as badly as the laser that just pierced her. At least there's a grim sort of satisfaction on her face as she hauls herself up to her feet just as the last of the flame touches the blade of her scythe.

It's not clear whose benefit she's saying it for, but she still does: "--no matter how many times-- we will always get back up."

GS: Noeline has attacked Noeline with Duras Drum's Blade!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Noeline's Duras Drum's Blade for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Quick! Statuses applied to Noeline!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei grimaces as it becomes apparent that his plan isn't working. Shortly after, blindening light erupts out from Gryndille and sends Fei spiraling THROUGH a pillar this time and he splotches into the ground, a burnt and bloody mess. Not disintegrated, but clearly in a bad way. If he just lies there, he might survive this. Gryndille might not be able to read lifesigns and may just react to movement.

But he can't do that. Fei presses his hands into the dirt, struggling to push himself back up to his feet.

You're reaching your limit, kid.

"Shutup...!" Fei yells at...someone? Limiters unleashed? That sounds familiar.

No limiters but that was evident, kid

Fei stands up, left arm hanging at the side. He starts swaying as he advances towards the demon before them.

"You're a real piece of work..." He says. Gryndille. Beowulf. Beowolf? Ha ha ha ha.

The pain's enough.

FEI PSYCHO UP

Sometimes all it takes is pain. C'mon kid, I won't even hurt 'em. We'll do Bart a favor and burn the city down. Whadaya say?

Fei mutters, "We're with you, dammit." though this sounds a lot less impressive coming from a guy who can barely stand.

There's no red energy from Fei. His body fills with chi, just enough to make him forget the pain. He spits out some blood.

And then he narrows his eyes and runs, leaping into the air once more to slam both legs into Gryndille and just keep kickin' and punching.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gryndille with Tenbu!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Tenbu for 113 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly looks towards Lily, a reflex to check on her. At that exact time, Lily pulses with strange power. Elly's mouth hangs slightly open as she rises and sparkles and erupts, as a veritable rainbow shimmers down the other woman's body.

Lily echoes Elly.

Gryndille doesn't fall.

As those apertures open Elly feels like time is twisting. She seems to have an infinity of time for regrets. There is a brief crystalline stab - I wish I had Vierge; this would be easy then - before she sees Fei running along the thing's back and she feels a sudden great choking surge of-- of something;

Then comes the blast.

Elly does not track exactly what happens. There is a moment or two of discontinuity and then she is laying in wreckage, struggling for breath again. A shudder tells her that she hasn't broken any limbs, a breath tells her she may have broken a rib, the curl of her fingers and he toes tells her her spine is at least provisionally intact. Nothing is dripping out of her. She can, distantly, hear people declare their resolution, which means she's neither deaf nor concussed...

I need to take the drive, Elly thinks.

I didn't bring the drive, Elly recalls.

Her eyes close for a moment in sheer frustration. Then, perhaps, training takes over - or some other small voice. Think, Elehaymm, comes that subtle voice. There has to be a way to defeat this device without just raw force, that it would probably avoid anyway. Leon's speaking in that same desperate voice.

I can't just LAY HERE, Elly tells herself. She pushes up to knees and elbows, exhales, and raises her eyes to Gryndille again. She cannot develop a stratagem, and rather than fall, for the umpteenth time, into a mire of despond, she simply traces a familiar shape from the sky towards the mighty ARM.

A sort of streak; a space in which electrons can flow free.

In other words, LIGHTNING FROM THE HEAVENS, a snapping bolt arcing down (well away from Fei or Leon, it must be said).

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gryndille with Anemo Bolt!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Anemo Bolt for 89 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

It's not a good landing, as landings go. The best Josie can do is to roll in those final nanoseconds of descent and land flat on her back; the one blessing is that she didn't land on a fragment of table or chair, that the space below her is relatively clear.

But she can also tell -- glancing up, craning her neck, testing her leg, wincing, hissing out a pained squeak of a bit-back scream -- that she's not going anywhere.
Maybe not anymore. Caught up in someone else's mess, in the end. Finality pools, cold, in her gut.

As she hefts the rifle, teeth grit, it's the light that catches her eye and forces a pause from her.

"...Lily?"
She can see... Lily (?) now.
It's more than a pause. She's outright frozen.
Indeed, she doesn't even get the chance to brook a protest -- a gasp a muffled oath -- as Riesenlied scoops her up and her rifle nearly rattles from her stiff-handed grasp. "Sunshine-- what--"

Dark eyes flit from Riesenlied to Lily to Gryndille and sees that the machine is--
Needless to say, protests die young. Josie ducks her head, unable to entirely wipe the thought of a nestling sheltered by its parent
as a fire cosumes the aviary

When the fire dies she coughs hoarsely, beating back a few flickering flames smouldering on the edges of her jacket and scarf. Soot and singe darken her hair.

But Josie still smiles, if a little bitterly, over at the Metal Demon maiden. "Still kicking. ...For a given value of kicking," she croaks, scooting back against the fragments of a table. "C'mon. Go get 'em, Sunshine." Rifle left to rest against the first surface available, she nonetheless roots in her pocket for a flask and downs a good long pull of the contents in one.

Her grin turns lopsided. "You know I'm not drunk enough yet to die."

Riesenlied rises. Josie sets down the flask, watching her as she departs, the faint crease to her brow the one sign that she's noted anything amiss.

Pulling up against the table remnants, she tries for one second's space to test how much weight she can put on that leg.
The sound she makes when she tries rather suggests she can't do that.

"Well," she comments once she has the ability to voice anything at all again, her gaze skidding off towards Gryndille.

"This is a pretty mess. From the frying pan, right into the..."

Decisions come quickly: she snatches up the rifle again, shoulders it and snaps off a shot at the ancient machine.

"If you think for a minute just because you've got me pinned I'll roll over and let you finish the job--"

GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Gryndille with Have a Blast!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille guards a hit from Josephine Lovelace's Have a Blast for 128 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

And just like that, everything gets so much worse.

It happens with a pulse. Like an artificial heartbeat that tremors phantom sensations across the ground, through the senses beyond sense. That dispassionate amber gaze flits as if intuitively to catch Lily Keil within the peripheries of their vision the very second that first little surge of ether runs through. Another, more powerful, unable to be ignored ripples through crumbling stonework.

And Jude Moshe looks when it's appropriate to, when it's impossible for anyone not to notice, just in time to see the pinpricks of pupils glow with all the prismatic wonder of a rainbow in blume. His brows furrow within the vortex of etheric fury, perceptive amber eyes watching as sorcerous circuitry winds its way down the black-haired woman's form, as she speaks a language more ancient than any of them. As wings sprout glorious from her shoulder blades.

Quietly, Jude presses something within the pocket of his frock coat.

"Huh," is his sole observation, utterly dumbfounded.

---

The eyes of a certain, mechanical pigeon flash red once, twice. By the third time, it circles about, and flies away, abandoning the Kaiser and his protective entourage without a second thought to take a straight path towards the smoke-belching, light-wreathed form of the summer palace beyond.

---

It's a spectacle that would make anyone rubberneck. That Jude Moshe only spends a solid two seconds on it before taking stock of the wider situation just goes to show both how much of an jaded veteran the man has become over years of constant, unnecessarily dangerous journalism...

... and just how much the situation impresses upon him, considering it manages to capture his attention for all of those seconds at all.

But there's no time to gawk. Because just as Lily awakens to something within her, Gryndille almost seems to respond in turn, the centaurian automaton wheeling backwards before its vents hiss open wide, and -shunt- energy throughout the entirety of the room. Columns EXPLODE outward in blistering chunks of rubble, marble is sliced through like so much heated butter. Jude Moshe feels pebbles pelt at his body, feels that -heat- approaching at baffling speeds.

And he -moves-, with remarkable fleetness, expending round after round of ammo in starburst patterns of crystal ice that all shatter and divert and bisect plasmic energy in diffuse arrays. One slices through his back, narrowly missing his spine. Another, his leg. A third, sears -just- across his temple, instantly cauterizing a nice, ugly burn to decorate his tanned features as he ducks behind a nearby pillar. "Tt," he hisses out a soft wince, amber stare shooting behind his shoulder. Fei looks alright. Lily... not exactly, but she can manage. Same for Leon. Josephine with a broken leg, Noeline and Riesenlied managing...

And Elhaym...

Jude Moshe hesitates, for a rare moment. He considers his options. Considers who he's thinking about them -for-. All the possible ramifications therein...

And ultimately, he just smiles a defeated smile, looks to the ceiling, and declares, simply and resoundingly,

"Ah, well."

And with that, he's off. He sprints across the battlefield as he loads a special slug into the chamber of his shotgun ARM. The revolver spins into place. Symbols glow, a sea green hue.

And he makes sure to keep both Leon and Lily in his field of vision as he fires off another round in Elly's direction without another second thought, the slug exploding into diffuse power to surround Elhaym. To provide a salve.

To heal her in a suffusion of magic.

In a way that no actual Symbology is capable of.

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Sinner's Prayer!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Elhaym van Houten!
GS: Jude Moshe heals Elhaym van Houten! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily floats in the air, staring back as Gryndille swivels towards her. She cannot know its reaction, of course. She can sense many things, but not this. Not this, this thing, as she remembers Greta's battlecry, as she thinks of her final stand, what she tried to do. ...What Lily could not do to heal any of them, to save any of them, though she gave as much as she could, though she gave her whole heart.

It is different, now. Radiation erupts, and for once--for once--it steps back. It recoils.

Lily does not smile. But her eyes widen faintly, taking in that movement--but the cannon charges, and the exotic particles form that corona. Lily, for her part, lifts a hand to begin to conjure a barrier of ice to refract the blast--

The blast obliterates Lily's position, sending her flying backwards and out of view, her new power not enough to block this thing, as the light vents outward. She is not in the room, she is not visible, as Leon calls to her, as she tumbles through walls and crashes backwards into priceless statuary.

She feels rather than sees Riesenlied's moment, her moment of control, her intonation--and she is silent for long moments, as she gathers herself. It is impossible to tell what has become of her in those moments.

But she hears Fei's shouting. She hears Noeline's words. ...And as she rises from the wreckage, floating once again, she sets her eyes on Gryndille. "...None of you are dying here," she says. "None of us are dying here." She feels the Ether from Elly, feels her power, and her energy wings fold inward as she rushes through the air, hovering over Josie's position, shielding her with her own body just as Riesenlied did before. ...Just as she senses--from Jude--

Her strange eyes track to him for an instant. "...Calligraphy, right?"

She breathes in. She feels alive, her senses opened, her reality too huge. And that--

That means...

Lily watches Leon. SHe heard his scream. She knows it. She hears his anger.

"Leon," she says, and there is something soft in her voice. "...I won't let it take you." The blade crashes down, diagonal, and Lily lifts both hands. The circuits gleaming from her body turn orange-red in an instant, brilliant, as they go dim an instant later. Ether suffuses the world again, and this time, the temperature drops utterly, precipituously... as all the heat in the room is drawn towards Gryndille, with pockets shielded, pockets where friends are, with a level of precision unheard of for Lily in the past.

She intones again, in a strange language, "<Output... Ninety-five percent...>"

It's cold enough now away from Gryndille that ice is forming along the ground. ...And suddenly, there is the smell of sulfur and brimstone. Fire erupts, immolating walls, immolating priceless remnants of painting, hot enough to melt iron, hot enough to cause pain even for those close--except that it doesn't, those that aren't Gryndille are completely safe from this punishing hellfire.

...This punshing hellfire that engulfs the room, for an instant blots out everything, visible for long distances as it erupts some four stories up.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gryndille with The House of Devils - Fire!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Gryndille takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's The House of Devils - Fire for 174 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gryndille has posed.

Riesenlied's strange fugue state seems to be doing one good thing, distressing as it is for everyone around her--it's keeping her laser-focused on Gryndille. Pinions buzz and whir around the machine, coming at it from four different angles at once. None of them managed to do much more than scratch the paint, though one comes dangerously close to its neck, and gets spiked away by that claw-arm like an errant ball. Its head whips up, tracking the quantum disturbance heralding Riesenlied's presence moments before the Hyadean reconstitutes herself. Her blades sink into the machine's armor, leaving bits of themselves in the plate.

It's kind of evocative of Riesenlied's mental state at the moment.

The final cut, though--the claw-arm comes up, catches what's left of the sword, traps it between its pincers. Josie's shot hits home a moment later, digging deep into one of the furrows made by Riesenlied. It hit, it dug in, it hurt it, but if Gryndille is close to destruction, there is no external sign.

Fei's feet slam into Gryndille's midsection, and the young martial artist accomplishes something nigh-impossible--he makes Gryndille take a step back, as if stumbling. Imprints of Fei's heels are left in its plating. Elly calls down a bolt from the blue as soon as Fei is safely out of range. There is most of a ceiling left between the start of Elly's electron assembly and Gryndille, but that doesn't matter for long. The bolt strikes the ceiling, blows through the plaster and elegant slate sheeting, sets wood on fire, reduces the chandelier Josie was hanging from to bits of shattered glass. Current arcs through Gryndille even as the roof of the Kaiser's elegant summer palace catches fire, violently.

The hell Lily unleashes moments later makes the whole point moot. Fire consumes what's left of the table. It gobbles up chairs, upholstery, bits of paper and cloth, anything flammable within a hundred or so yards of Gryndille. The machine is caught dead-center, the apocalyptic inferno stressing its chassis to the limit. The outermost layers start to smoke. Some of the exposed cabling combusts. Gryndille seems to writhe, though that's largely a function of the heat getting through to its processor, forcing its cooling systems to try and do the impossible. It lets out a garbled sound, full of static.

Leon flies in. Flame glimmers off his blade. Gryndille raises its claw-arm, internal supports groaning audibly as the stress starts to damage them. One of the wounds opened near its shoulder widens--

Leon's blade comes down, wreathed in Lily's flame. There is a horrible shearing noise, the sound of metal being violently torn apart. Gryndille's gun-arm--the horrible killing implement that felled so many of the Black Wolves--hits the ground, separate from the rest of it.

Gryndille shudders. It writhes--and then, a strange and frightening transformation takes place.

<Pose Tracker> Gryndille has posed.

"SCRAMBLE PURGE," Gryndille screams, in that horrible electronic 'voice'. It suddenly jerks upright. "FoREIGN subVErsion detected. Recalibrating carrier wave. Recalibrating central access protocols using evolutionary algorithms."

Something flickers in the machine's optics. It looks down at Leon. It doesn't make a move to hurt him further--or anyone else, for that matter. A secondary beam, this one green, flickers across the blood on its claw-arm. The static starts to clear from its voice, though it doesn't get any more pleasant to listen to. "Organometallic cellular structure, matches theorized 'organometallic-extremophile' extrafilgaian profile. Oxygen-based metabolism. Biochemical and genetic profile contain anomalous alterations. Ley sensor detects World Eater taint. Further classification necessary for optimal deployment."

It looks down at the two survivors of its first rampage--the two young soldiers who devoted themselves to its destruction--as though it knows... one of them. Or perhaps both. It's impossible to tell.

"Returning to" A horrible hiss of static. "for repairs."

All four treads engage at once. Gryndille leaves the combat zone with the same grace and consideration it entered it with--which is to say it leaves the Kaiser's burning mansion at white-knuckle speed, its severed arm still lying on the floor.

It did not flee. It left.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Gryndille proves to be the superior combatant in this case, even with all of Riesenlied's knowledge and training-- she's trapped in its claw-arm, unable to pull her blade back; her vision wavers in and out, in and out. Less of a blur from poor vision hampered by wounds, though there is that as well, and more--

The sights of battle start to intertwine with that which dwells in her, as the sensation of keeping down what's starting to feel like a full blown panic attack becomes... more and more difficult.

Leon lunging forward with a roar that cuts through to the Hyadean within-- she senses his panic, and shares in it-- CLARENT... she has seen that blade before, back in Jolly Roger -- and she was defeated by it. Gryndille would see the full force of Argent Divider in the hands of its skilled owner, too.

That panic building to a near-crescendo as Noeline is pierced-- a similar feeling of abject terror from that moment where she thinks that's the end, that's it-- yet...

We will always get back up.

They do say that often, do they not? No matter how often the world knocks them aside, knocks them down... that is the way-- the way of Wayside. The roil of Duras Drum's black flame agitates her, incites some last motion of resistance within her...

We're with you, damnit.

Riesenlied is immediately reminded of what Fei told her not half an hour ago--

You don't have to go it alone. No one should.

Noeline and Fei's words keep revolving in her head, as the emotion she's trying to contain starts to bubble and threaten to burst through the lid that she's keeping everything underneath. If Id is a mask upon which instinct can run free... perhaps this is just the opposite. A vain, foolish attempt to paint violence as a logical, calm thing, when it terrorises her deep inside.

Within the wake of that fear, Elly's peal of thunder echoes from the heavens, lapsing her out of it once more. She watches Jude bring forth healing-- it reminds her of Rena, when she came to her aid in the Farmhouse once... they're all reaching their limit, but so is the machine, she can feel--

Go get 'em, sunshine.

That's just it, isn't it...? No one's called her something like that before-- Noeline has her pet names, of course, so does Mikaia and Janey... but there's just something about how Josephine's view of her developed, so far outside of her usual circle of interaction...

Lily voices her resolve, stating that the automaton won't take Leon. And she backs that resolve with a flame that consumes the room, causing her wings to flicker and catch fire once more. It is as if she has gazed deep into the very bowels of Hell itself--

And the... the truly remarkable happens.

Gryndille powers down... and... it screams-- screams with a noise that pierces through her mind for a moment, gazing towards it as it... recalibrates...

'Organometallic-extremophile'... was it referring to her own blood? She doesn't understand what's going on... World Eater? It was all too confusing--

--and suddenly, it's all too much, for her. The Fallen Sword finally dissipates as the last vestiges of her power fade away, fragmenting into trails of photons as she collapses to her knees. The twilight tinge of her wings similarly evaporate, leaving the tattered and shredded dragon-wings she normally bears...

... she whimpers for a moment, having no more mask to hide behind. She's spent. But... but they're all alive, somehow... and she must remind herself that they... did succeed in their mission, didn't they?

She can't manage anything further, clutching herself as she watches the silhouette of the machine in the distance... glances over everyone, in turn not wanting to be seen for what she's shown...

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Argent Divider, wrapped in Lily's nuclear flame, carves down into Gryndille's elbow. The construct isn't easily felled. Every blow struck today proves that. It is only with that extraordinary effort that the fire and blade, together, carve through the elbow -- and the claw arm clatters to the ground with a massive thud. Sparks explode, spraying outward, as it rolls across the ground. Leon lands, kneeling, breathing hard.

He looks over his shoulder, back to Lily. His eyes fix on her and stare a moment, and then he stands up, shakily. He raises Argent Divider, and stares at Gryndille.

It speaks. Still robotically, but far more than it ever said before. He can understand maybe a tenth of it -- and what he can understand is confusing, at best. He stares up at it, then raises his blade.

But it doesn't strike.

It flees. He calls out, rushing towards it -- and throws a hand out, fingers open. It doesn't stop the automaton from speeding away. He turns, then, eyes shifting back to the others. Then, he lets out a long, slow sigh. "...It looks like we're all alive," he says. He lets that sink in. "That went..."

Better than he expected? "We're alive," he settles on.

He looks though, at Riesenlied. He quiets; his lips curl down, into a frown, and then he walks closer to her. "...Riesenlied. You..." He looks at the fading light of her wings and the Fallen Sword. "...It's all right. It's done, for now."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

Lily's still Lily.

That fact, Josie marks well as she allows 'Gawain' to dip down and raises her focus away from the world of the rifle sight. Whatever burns in her now, she's still Lily.

"Tiger! Give 'em hell!"

Even if she's a Lily that utters such strange words, in a language that -- apparently for all Josie's studies, she can't speak.

Hellfire. The pyre, set just for the automaton, burns brilliantly; Josie lifts her right arm to shield her gaze from the light, tilting her face away from the inferno.
On her face just before she averts her eyes is an strange look, somewhere between abject discomfort and trance-like awe.

She isn't looking when Fei impacts Gryndille, or when lightning strikes, or the instant blade carves through metal.
But she can hear every second of the cacophany that ensues.
And she can hear the metallic screech from the machine in response amidst the flames.
Can hear, too, the telltale sound of an automaton's immediately departure.

Then the silence -- amidst the hasty collapse of the palace -- and all around her the sound of the flame. Josie once again attempts to stand and--

Collapses, heavily, another wounded sound slipping from her lips.

"Better than expected, sure... Listen, Lion." What? "Sunshine! Come on. Let's-- come on, let's get out of here--" She breathes out and coughs. "Don't suppose anyone can give me a hand?"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei pants for breath. He watches Leon rip an arm off of the thing. He blinks a few times as he unconciously tabulates the amount of force neccessary to make something like that happen.

He straightens up. It's leaving?

Stop it!!

Fei steps forward but then drops into a crouch, his chest heaving.

"Yeah..." He says. "You better run."

He flops onto his back.

If you don't stop it now, it'll be harder next time okay you're just gonna sit on your butt fine

Fei blinks twice. Did it just use the word taint? World Eater. Does that mean that 'taint' can eat worlds, or that the world is eating Riesenlied. Is it something that can be used against machines like Gryndille?

Why is he thinking about this? They didn't win. Gryndille got to leave and fight another day but...

But...you can't win alone, and he has to do something important even so.

"One arm us, zero arms Gryndille." He sways. "Nice job Leon! Zero casualties, man!" He looks to Lily who is still a cyberdemon angel of death. "Looking good Lily! Nice and terrifying! Nice job!" Josephine mentions they should probably leave, he thinks it over and nods, moving to help Elly if she needs it.

"Thanks Jude," He tells the man. "For lookin' after her." When did he see it?

Did he even see it?

Still, he says, "Yep, we sure sent it packing! Next time we'll get it for sure! It'll be stronger? More evolved? So what! We'll be even better too! Zero casualties, man, zero casualties against that thing? I hate to see whatever else the world thinks it can throw at us!"

He glances back over to Lily.

They were elite soldiers, but even so...they were limited

He blinks twice and shakes his head, clearing it. "We'll just have to use 110 percent of our ether power next time. And ki. Yep. Yep. And the Kaiser'll give you guys medals, it'll be great. Maybe even Jude will get a medal."

He nods once. "Maybe even Penelope will get a medal. I think Penelope earned it everybody."

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

...Calligraphy, right?

"Yep," says Jude Moshe, taking those prismatic eyes trained on him in remarkable stride. "Calligraphy." His head tilts. Dark red brows lift, seconds before Lily's attention shifts back to the matter at hand.

"Still, can't say I've got quite the same form with it that you do."

He tunes out everything else but the mission at hand, even the sight of Jacob, perching himself comfortably on a distant and unobtrusive piece of rubble somewhere far beyond the fringe of the battle's epicenter. Even as that assault intensifies, the reporter stays towards the edge of it, providing his support for those in immediate need; that it gives him a better vantage point of the strange phenomena unfolding than right in the thick of the fight, well, that's just happy coincidence.

As soon as that healing round is fired, however, Moshe is already turning his attention back on the Gryndille as it takes that ungodly assault and mainly loses a limb in the process. His brows screw together at the sight of it, damaged and unbowed, and a sigh slips past his lips, free hand lifting palm up towards the heavens. A soft 'vmmmmm' of a hum begins to rise from the barrel of his ARM.

"Guess there's no helping it--"

And then the Gryndille shrieks in a burst of static and electronics.

Amber eyes shutter in a blink, his head tilting at a curious angle as he watches the creature make its strange soliloquy. He's still ready -- still on edge -- though one'd never know it to look at him, just standing there, squinting, scratching the back of his head. It's making an assessment. Of a contaminant? The blood? He tries to think back, to who spilled blood on that arm, brows furrowing faintly in what looks like flabbergasted confusion as he opens his mouth --

--and then shuts it as Gryndille squeals off into the distance. Not to run. To regroup.

Jude Moshe has a lot on his mind. But all that ever really comes to the surface is,

"Huh. Who knew he was so chatty? Maybe next time we can appeal to his better nature."

As the hum of his weapon slowly dies off and the barrel falls back, hidden, into the depths of his frock coat.

His completely unharmed frock coat.

"This is either a really good omen, or a really bad one," he muses to himself, looking himself over and ignoring the protest of his ribs as he strides forward anew with a helpless shrug. He'll find out soon enough, he's sure.

Thanks, Jude.

The voice makes Jude pause. He looks Fei's way, head canting slightly. Did he see it? Either way -- the smile on Jude's lips is unabated in its sense of nonchalance as he casts an easy wink Fei's way. "What can I say? Must just be my heart of gold getting the better of me, kiddo."

For now? For now, he crouches down next to that severed arm, investigating it with curious eyes as Jacob flutters in from above, artificial eyes blinking once or twice with its cheery, victorious chirps.

"Look on the bright side, Cap'n," he asides to Leon as he makes his assessment of the situation.

"Probably means more suicide missions in the future for us."

He hears the sound of someone, collapsing, behind him. He looks, and blinks at Josie, strugglng to get up. Without a word, he stands up, and makes his way towards her. And if not stopped, he'll loop an arm around her shoulder to help lift her up to let her lean her weight off of that leg, turning himself into an impromptu crutch.

"You've turned overdoing it into an artform, Josie," he notes to her, ever-so-mildly. A second passes.

"I really don't want any kind of public recognition for any of this."

...

"No offense. Very proud, and all that."

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Noeline's vision blurs again as she hefts her scythe up to prepare for an attack; she's aware she's kind of burning the candle from both ends, and will surely pay for it later - as she has in the past, and no doubt will again. It seems so common a thing, now, a natural extension of life on Filgaia, and for a rather uncharitable moment she has to wonder why so many damn people would continue to fight over this ball of dust, how many people will assume that what's left of it must be burnt away before anything can be made right.

Still, she stands. It's a defiance that has marked her all the way - in her leaving the Photosphere to learn about the world, in her chasing the Guardians out of sheer curiosity, in her return and subsequent betrayal of the Quarter Knight's values. A core part of her, unwilling to bend to anything but the march of her own drum.

Except... an attack does not come, save for the piercing wail that nearly sends her back to her knees before she plants the butt of her scythe against the floor and squints her eyes against it. For a moment, she thinks that must be the prelude to it - but then with a final crash they're left alone, save for the crumbling of masonry, and the crackling snaps that indicate an inferno well underway.

"Riese," she mutters, half delirious, reaching for the other woman as her Tainted form powers down. There's fear in her voice, and anger, and upset all at once, and it's more a moment of desperation than anything else-- and then she catches herself, planting a shoulder under one of the other woman's arms to help haul her up, disregarding the spike of pain that floods her midsection.

"... Miss Lovelace is right," she notes, her normal quiet mirth lost. "Time to leave. ... celebration can come later."

Maybe not all lost, given the faint grin that touches her face at getting to use Josephine's full name in the certainty that it will annoy her. And, when she looks up to finally register Lily's explosive burst of power in full, the deadpan that graces her tone. "... as for Miss Keil, she is all yours, 'Cap'n'."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly has, by the time Jude puts her in his sights, returned to her feet, approximately. There is a run in her stockings; considering these things have turned shrapnel before, that is not a good sign. Then something happens and for a brief blinding moment Elly thinks, with a surge of hope - Loren --?!

Her head swivels, but there is Jude instead. "-- Thank you!" she says to him, astonished but not afraid. The glance is brief, since, well, Gryndille. The hell-machine makes a strong case for focus. Trembling slightly, Elly can see broken armor. She exhales, inhales, struggles to bring the focus together. Once more? Will it be enough? Who can say?

Then flame washes out. Elly's gathered focus of Etheric potential is enough to flash a repellent barrier within her immediate environment, keeping her and possibly someone standing right near her from getting a case of the ol' ignited clothing. After this, there is a shriek of metal -

And then Gryndille speaks, at some length. Elly stares at it, the outlined words creating some kind of image in her mind even as the key facts are retained by mnemonic tricks and quotational methods drilled into her in Jugend. The modem-with-a-pickax sound at the end is not remembered, for the same reason that she couldn't tell you the colors a bird sees in ultraviolet light.

Gryndille immediately slams back out through a wall. Elly watches it go, and sort of stares in that direction for a second and a half afterwards, before the world seems to slip back into clearer focus and -- and --

Riesenlied's still alive. Noeline too.
Leon's there. Josie's there. Jude isn't just there but he did something to make her pain ease.
Lily is... not a corpse.
Fei --

Elly hastens towards him a few steps, and asks him, first, "What?" and then, "Oh - We're alive! Everyone?! Thank you!" The latter, to Jude in particular.

Elly trails off afterwards, looking towards Lily. She seems uncertain.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Gryndille requires that level of focus, the level that Riesenlied is showing. Lily continues watching the creature, continues watching each of the pinions move, seeing them all crash forward. ...This is different, as Jude said. It is not the same. But still, it is not yet enough. Gryndille is still coming. So Lily gathers forth what power she is able. She gathers herself, and yes, there is fire.

...She brings hell, watches Leon fly in, watches as her magic catches on her weapon, sees--hears--metal torn apart. She stares for an instant--...She keeps pressing her advantage. She pours what she can into it. And then she hears its... voice...

The winged woman is still hovering there, directing her fire, until it fades, and Gryndille starts screaming. ...What remains of her fire is more than enough to burn this place, to keep it lit, to blister wood and melt gold. She hears it, understands it somehow. Algorithms. It watches Leon, and it talks of... Riesenlied's blood? World...?

Lily stares up as Gryndille looks down. She does not know why it should know her beside the one time. It mentions leaving for repairs, and Lily grits her teeth. "No you--"

...It's leaving. Lily starts rising again, as the smoke rises, until Riesenlied's sword disappears and she collapses--Lily stops, mid-movement, and looks to Leon, her bizarre eyes on him. ...They're all alive. They're all...

Josie told her to give them hell. But she is still Lily, turning to look at the others with her black sclera and colorful pupils. "You..." She looks to Gryndille fading, hears Fei talking, sees him sway. "Zero..."

Lily actually laughs, a voice of relief, strange on her form, but light, so very unlike her... and so very like the girl all those years ago who asked Leon to dance. Just for an instant, she is that girl.

"...Calligraphy," she says to Jude, and breathes in heavily. "There's..." She looks to Noeline, sees her supporting; sees Josie starting to be carried. And she looks into Elly's eyes, for a long few moments.

"...Yes, we... We are..." Lily's all Leon's, hm? "...Heh. I suppose I..."

The vortex of power pulses again for an instant, and Lily's form flickers before the patterns recede, gone from her face, her hair normal, and she falls to the ground, catching herself on one knee, swaying. "We--"

The fire is still going. It's... sure not stopping.

"...Let's get the hell out of here," she says, lifting her golden eyes towards the others again.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied hears Leon's reassuring words. It'll be all right, he tells her, and for a moment she braces against herself. She hears him, she really does... Fei cheers to celebrate their victory. 'Zero casualties', he says -- he might be a little loopy from blood-loss, but... yes, that is something she has to cling to. They all did it, together... collectively...

Sunshine! Come on.

She pulls her head up, wincing a little as she-- reaches-- but fortunately Jude's got her covered. She's being rescued herself, as Noeline casts a glance at her with an expression of anger and fear... and she can sense that. She feels ashamed, barely containing her anxiety at this point in time.

Elly calls for them-- and she hoarsely speaks, "I--I'm here." She doesn't want to be, but she is here. They're with her... she doesn't have to bear this alone...

You can't turn away now, Nasrin whispers deep within. Own it. With your own two hands.

"It will be all right..." Riesenlied whispers, looking to Noeline, tugging herself closer to her partner's. She glances to Lily, wincing faintly... and nods to Leon. "Please take care of her, Captain."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

"Thanks, Jude."

Thus runs the immediate response as Jude helps her up onto her... foot. Josie seems content to let the wounded leg hang, somewhat, leaning heavily onto the reporter's shoulder.

"Overdoing it, huh? Probably." In spite of the situation and her injuries -- and possibily at least partially because of the good nip of alcohol flooding her veins -- she grins over at him. "Only got one life to live, right? Might as well go big. C'mon. I'll owe you double on this one, plus..."

Her gaze routes briefly towards Riesenlied.

"Still gotta talk to you about a little bird's rumor, one of these days..." she mutters to Jude. "Shit, might as well use the reward money for something good, huh...?"

She's almost sunny herself.

Right up until the moment that Noeline uses a certain pairing of name and honorific, and the wounded archaeologist's expression goes swiftly south.

"That's Josie to you, too, kiddo--"
This is punctuated by an apparent attempt by Josie to do some math through the haze of pain and booze, flail mentally, and give up and pin to Noeline the sudden nickname of:

"Sugar."
Because she'll be damned if she'll give this one the satisfaction of a nickname like 'Spice'.

Her gaze lingers on Lily as the young woman approaches and here makes eye contact with Leon.
Some conversations don't need words.

Take care of her, her look says.

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Leon looks at Fei, opening his mouth -- and then closes it. This may be the bloodloss. Or, maybe, he is trying to keep their spirits up. He smiles, then he nods. "I'll take it," he says, before he flicks Argent Divider out to the side. The blade telescopes back in; the barrels unfurl. He tucks it in the holster strapped to his back, over his vest. Then, he rotates his shoulder once. "We took its arm. And it... it sounds like something changed, there. That part about foreign subversion..."

He shakes his head. "...and the other things it said. I'm not going to pretend it's not a problem--or that we don't have our revenge, still. But I don't think it's working for the Colonel, anymore."

Who, or what, is it working for? That question sticks with him.

Then, he glances to Jude. "No promises," he says. "We'll see if the Kaiser rewards us or sticks a bounty on our hands. I don't have much faith. Also, we... destroyed this palace, so..."

... as for Miss Keil, she is all yours, 'Cap'n'.

Leon turns to look at Lily, his mouth open. "I don't know if--" She falls to the ground, though. He has questions about that vortex, but... questions for later. He doubts Lily has answers. He walks over, and offers an arm down. He helps her up, and then looks back at Noeline. He smiles, once. And then he looks ahead. "I plan to. Let's go."

He takes two steps forward. Then, he pauses. He looks at Josie, and frowns for a moment. "Lion?" he asks. "Really, Josie. Is that nece--"

A massive beam crashes down from the ceiling behind them. Flame engulfs it, and crackles, licking up at the air.

"Out. Now."