2018-03-02: Under My Skin

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Takes place simultaneously with 2018-03-03: My Way.


===============================<* Lost July *>================================

The Seed City of July was once one of the strongest of them. Built near the mountains, it was scenic and imposing (for the Badlands). Fifty years ago, though, a mysterious event destroyed it. Now, Lost July is shattered. A crater is carved through half of the city. The city's streets are a tangle of broken and collapsed buildings. The few souls who venture here are often dangerous, mad, or both. Some whisper that Lost July is a refuge for those who would rather not be caught in civilization.

BGM: None.
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

The Elw ruins above Lost July, known as the Pleasing Garden, were difficult to reach -- one had to traverse floating platforms, with traps that were horrifyingly dangerous. The controls of those platforms had been compromised, causing them to crash into one another, and many of the automatons that defended it were still active. And, at the heart of the ruins, two towers awaited them: one to the east, and one to the west, on the large platform where a great, violet wolf awaited.

And attacked those who approached.

Arriving involved either approaching by one of the bridges, or being knocked into the depths of the place -- falling, seemingly forever, until they find the wrecked underbelly: a network of crumbling, half-collapsed bridges.

Some Drifters went to the eastern tower. Others went west, and that is where we begin today.

The first Drifters through find a two-tiered tower, with an open roof. It lets the sun in, which falls down onto the floor. Those who crossed the field of the purple wolf enter on this upper tier, which forms a ring around the room. Those who fell enter, instead, from the bottom -- after a harrowing move through narrow, crumbling bridges.

The center of the floor has a Guardian Statue, far larger than any before it. Ge Ramtos, Guardian of Death, is done in fine detail and terrifying style; the Guardian rises up to the second tier, and the sun from the open ceiling pours down upon it. And then, a brighter light -- as a Metal Dragon's cry splits the sky. A Gebler Gear is blasted into the wall of the tower, and then through it. Above, streaks of fire mark where a battle is breaking out between Gebler and Metal Demon forces, in an all out fracas.

But that is not the first concern.

The first concern is the people leaping down from the back of that Metal Dragon. The beast with bladed wings soars over head -- and then a figure in dark armor, with a dark blue cape, comes crashing down to land on the tier in the center of the tower. Siegfried lands, in a three point stance, and looks up.

He locks eyes with the first Drifter that he sees.

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

There was no particular group of adventurers that she had followed through the garden. Perhaps she got here with a little help from Siegfried, though it's a little out of character for Hyadeans to team up with mere humans. Or perhaps she somehow fought her way through all the Garden's hazards alone, with what power she could muster.

Not far away, silky material slides apart, the chamaeleon pattern shifting away from that of the stone and turf below and back to a simple black fabric. Lifting slender hands, Neriah draws back her hood.

Neriah had let her hair grow out over the past couple of months; she shakes it free of her hood in a wave of jouncy curls. The style's not too far off pretty - but the dark shadows under her eyes offset it with a tangible exhaustion, and the carriage of her shoulders sags slightly as if bearing some burden unseen to the naked eye.

"I understand what I need to do," she intones, her voice quiet but aching with unspent anguish, her left hand clutched around the pistol her mother gave her. Her eyes fix forward, locked on the Statue.

Neriah Parringer's eyes have always been a cold shade of ice blue. Until now. They've shifted to a more orchid colour.

With something unspeakable roiling behind them.

Circling along that upper ring, aware of the crash and thunder of battle above her but sharing in none of it, Neriah quietly loads a clip into the gun she calls Marilyn. She lifts her eyes just in time to watch the Metal Dragon descend.

Her gaze finds Siegfried. She holds his eyes for a moment.

"Let's go, Quarter Knight," she says with a jerk of her head towards the Statue. "You're here to break a statue. I'm here to kill death.

"So let's do it."

<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

        One rider of the Metal Dragon wasn't able to be there for the entire ride. What they went through when they managed to catch themselves on the side of a floating structure, well... it's kind of something of a wonder they're here in one semi-solid piece as they pathetically crawl in through the hole of the tower's wall just after a Gebler Gear's forceful ejection.
        A metallic, misshapen claw stabs into the fractured stone for traction as the rest of them pull themselves through.
        The slug-snake-thing, Yarobeleedt, whose almost-googly eyes come to rest upon the sight in the center of the floor.
        There is happy screeching as they flail their second arm - unable to find quite the same amount of purchase - to bring themselves all the way in. There it is! Right there! A statue! At last, he will destroy one, and then Mother will reawaken, and he will be--
        Something unspeakable is in the air, and Yarobeleedt suddenly slaps himself up against the distant side of the wall just to get away from ^That^ in a sudden spike of overwhelming, crippling fear.
        ...
        He tries to whip out a tentacle-y half-solid forearm to try and tag the statue from where he is currently plastering himself against a solid wall. He cannot reach that far.
        But he wants to destroy that statue.
        But he's afraid.
        But he wants to destroy that statue.
        But he's afraid.
        But he...

<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi slides down the Metal Dragon's tail a bit awkwardly, leaning on it for balance, and assumes a stance behind the others. She quickly readies herself for battle, manifesting armor and holding her lance steady. She couldn't bring Bogey with her this time...

<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Very, very difficult to reach. ...Unless you cheat. Well, Kaguya reached the ruins the honest way, more or less, but actually going through them...

A few people might notice that Kaguya disappeared somewhere. But she was nowhere to be found, separated from others. What does that have to do with now? ...Very little. Obviously. Nothing at all.

The battle in the skies raged onward, until abrubtly--the Dragon comes. The Gear is blasted, streaks of fire come... And the Metal Dragon has people leaping down, indeed. One of them is in lighter armor--green metal glinting here and there, covered under loose brown fabric, as a small figure crashes down beside Siegfried. ...Her stance is not three point. She hits the ground and rolls, propping herself up once she does. "...Landing aside... That was awesome," Kaguya announces to Siegfried, grinning to the Quarter Knight. She pauses. She looks over at Yarobeleedt. "...Well, it could've been better," she remarks, standing up and dusting herself off, glancing at the Drifters.

"...So," she says, pulling a strange, black-and-white ARM from her long brown coat, her short hair ruffling with the movement, the armor she's wearing visible even up to her neck. "Might wanna get out of the way, folks. These guys don't like humans very much."

DC: Kahm Yugh switches forms to Kahm E Yugh!
DC: Bart Fatima switches forms to Sand Pirate Bart!
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.

 How did he even get here?
 
 Bart... honestly has no idea.
 
 There was something to be said for hiding out when you were being hunted by quite a large number of bounty hunters. There had been a bit of an incident a while ago, where they had gone to save Cecilia from Shakhan. And then... well, Bart had to lay low. Mainly because he had vanished through a secret passage with the intent of killing Shakhan. Bart figured that he had the man dead to rights, that there was nothing he could do to escape.
 
 And then shit had gone amazingly wrong.
 
 Shakhan hadn't told anyone in Gebler about the problem, but he had ended up sending a lot of people to hunt Bart down. Hence why he had been keeping a low profile for quite a while. This had led to him hiding out in Lost July, and he had seen quite a few Drifters wandering into the ruins looking for something. Curious, Bart had followed them in, a ragged figure in a tattered cloak drifting through the wreckage and ruin and generally keeping out of the way while making his way through to the statue.
 
 It's only when Bart sees the Metal Dragon arrive, with a massive armored figure leaping off of its back, that her realizes that things have gotten unfortunately real.
 
 "Oh hell no, this isn't good. THIS ISN'T GOOD AT ALL!" Bart shouts, reaching up and pulling his tattered and damaged cloak off. He seems a little more the worse for wear, with his hair falling down his back in an unbound wave, his eyepatch rather battered, and his clothing more grey than white at this point.
 
 He might be looking rough, but the pirate is ready to rumble.
 
 He really hopes that the other Drifters are also going to help, otherwise this could get really bad.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

The Pleasing Gardens, as Carina had put it, were not as pleasing as their name implied. The Caravan Kinship had tried to make their way through, but had found themselves falling victim to the Elw trap - turns out that particular puzzle had no real answer, and instead sent them falling into the very depths of the Gardens.

They had been separated because of that. She wasn't quite sure when or where. She was concerned, but...there was no turning back. They had to press forward. Lunata had remarked on a certain feeling. There was only one thing that it could mean.

She arrives through the lower entrance. It looks as if it's taken quite a toll on her - her shawl and one of her sleeves is missing and her clothes are roughed up, there's a long scratch across one of the lenses of her glasses, and her bags are significantly lighter than they were when she got in.

But they made it...and she emerges to the tower proper only to see Siegfriend standing there in all his glory, accompanied by Malfi, Yarobeleedt...and Kaguya.

The latter hurts the most to see, but she knew it would happen someday soon.

"A-ahh..." She says, a little out of breath from surprise. She looks around, and spots Neriah standing near the side.

Having come in late due to being forced to go through the shattered underbelly of the Pleasing Gardens, she had missed Neriah's declaration. So the only thing she has to say to her is...

"N-Neriah! Those people are dangerous! Get away, quickly!" She warns, her voice urgent.

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        Lunata Croze has a deep scowl scored across her face.

        How did it come to this?

        How did the Caravan Kinship, ostensibly a resurrection of Jay's Curatives and Curios, come to brave Elw ruins and risk life and limb to personally chase those that had destroyed a great chunk of their hometown? Lunata can scarce believe that they're here, now...

        That scowl only grows deeper when the Gebler Gear crashes through, and the unspeakable, torrid presence grows-- and--

        She's nearly set off when she sees the blue-armored figure with the Dark Spear. Siegfried. And...

        That slug. She can still...

        Her neck begins to pulsate, as she rubs at it. She can still feel herself asphyxiating, feeling her ribs crunch. The day she nearly died...

        Orochi-Agito is unsheathed, the thrum of the blade's spiritual gleam echoing in the distance, with a wail of regret seeping from its edge.

        "... I'm here to..."

        She ignores and suppresses the twisting sensation of disgust and rage roiling in her heart.

        "I'm just here to protect Jay..."

        She casts her eyes towards the statue of Ge Ramtos -- it's too familiar to her, given that she's summoned him before. The Original Medium ebbing within the guard of the katana wails softly, as she clutches the hilt of the blade tighter.

        How did it come to this?

        The question torments her... but... she's stalking towards Yarobeleedt as he cowers near the statue. Like she's affixed towards him.

        "... do you remember me, Demon? I'm Lunata Croze."

        Her eyes narrow, a bloodthirsty light fixed upon them.

        "This time... I'm not just a waitress you can bully. Not this time... not this time!"

GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Lunata Croze with Murderous Intent!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
GS: Lunata Croze takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's Murderous Intent for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tzadkiel (Airship) has posed.

Lost July was an ominous place, and the Elw ruins above it an even more mysterious fixture of the region. Poorly documented, of uncertain threat index, and notoriously difficult to reach....presuming you couldn't fly.

Reached the location was therefore less problematic for the core of Gebler's forces, which had been engaged in cleaning up another task before the activity around Lost July had attracted their attention. The mysterious military force's flagship, the Tzadkiel, hovered menacingly in the air as it launched aircraft and gear lances to meet the Metal Demons by sky and land in the most furious engagement between the two powers since the fall of Adlehyde.

For now, it seems the conflict between Gears and Metal Dragons has locked up the sky, creating a dense field of searing beam fire and conflagration explosions that you'd have to be mad to navigate through. One personnel carrier is just daring enough to do it however, weaving through enemy and friendly fire alike to take a quick pass over the site of Ge Ramtos, the back door hissing open as a group of Gebler troops leap into the air and sustain freefall for several seconds, deploying chutes at the last moment to make what would've been a fatal landing merely uncomfortable.

<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

Major Kahm Yugh stifled a grunt as the suddenly lift of his tactical parachute drew up a brief skein of agony from the accumulation injuries he'd suffered for so many combat deployments in such a short amount of time. He could see the burgeoning conflict between demons, drifters, and the statues below, picking out the Quarter Knight Siegfried in particular. "Remember." He spoke to his Lieutenant's through his assault helmet's built-in radio, "Prioritize the protection of the statue of all costs. If you identify a drifter with one of those sealing devices, make sure they live long enough to use it. I'll try and provide a distraction."

The operative cut his chute at just that moment, intending to drop straight on Siegfried's head with his blade pointed down...save for the intervention with a timely gust of wind that tilted his erstwhile parachute and tossed him had a rather odd angle that brought the burning blade down on Yaro's strange body instead.

"Well...good enough." Kahm decided, the visor on his helm switching to transparent hues for greater visibility, "What in the Emperor's earth are you?"

GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Yarobeleedt with Death From Above!
GS: Kahm Yugh has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei woke up with a splitting headache and yet, strangely, a refreshed spirit. He's not entirely sure just what happened to be honest. His eyes flutter open and he rubs at his skull for a moment. "Ugrghh..." He stands himself up and dusts himself off. Unlike normal, Fei is wearing a duster coat. He must have bought it at some point.

He looks around. He heads to the west. "Leon?" He takes another few steps. "Lily?" Another few steps. "Josie? Riese? Noeline? .... .... Penelope?"

He continues onward, hopping along some precarious looking bridges. It's actually a bit nostalgic, back when his biggest concern was ill kept bridges.

He eventually makes his way back up to the statue. When he sees it, he can't help but stare at it for a moment. Ge Ramtos. The Guardian of Death.

Some people pass through his domain more than once.

He rubs at his head again and then lets his hand drop, only to finally comprehend the battle going on between Gebler and the Metal Demons.

He closes his eyes. Then he opens them and Siegfried is there.

Glaring at him. At least, it feels that way.

"I've thought about it." He says. "I thought I've been a fool hoping to turn you from this path, but..." He shakes his head. "I don't think it's foolish anymore."

He catches sight of Bart in his peripheral.

"Bart?!" He says, turning his head. "The heck are you doing here?" He then sees Neriah. "And...Neriah? Kaguya???"

He is bewildered, in this moment, and then looks back to Siegfried. "Did she just say she was going to kill death? That's not how the statues work...!" Fei stresses. "What the heck did I miss? Why is Gebler here?? How many militaries are here? Are they working with you? No, they're not working with you because you're obviously fighting but why is a flower girl and Neriah helping you, she lives with Riese? How many people hate the Guardians here?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment.

"Look, I can't...let you..."

He gives up for the mometn and just adopts a martial arts pose, bouncing from foot to foot. "I'm not going to hold back this time, Siegfried."

Yes you are

"Shutup," Fei mutters to himself.

Oh my god is that the guy who wanted to throw him in jail? that guy?? How many sets of guys are in this equation???

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> Cassidy Cain has posed.

PREVIOUSLY, ON DREAMCHASERS...
 
 It is a motley crew that attempts to pick their way through the winding paths of the Pleasing Gardens, a twisting bridge that leads them away from the Tree of Life. Refreshed, but only slightly, by the bundle of heal berries they managed to find growing from its boughs. While the purpose had not been for exploration, this happens anyway, but overall, the group got what they came for.
 
 That should have been it. The trip should have been over.
 
 But as always, the world has other plans:
 
 A teleporter tile shifts the group to an enclosed chamber, and as all of them stare disbelievingly at three boulders intent on crushing their bones to dust...
 
 ...a massive shape EXPLODES from the wall, eyes brimming with golden fire directed down upon them. Its ridiculously large maw opens; not so much to speak as to roar out its tidings:
 
 "Not an end so swift, so just, for the friends of the Corseted Curse upon this world. No, you will all live to know that what you could not do, I have done. And Cassidy Cain, you will have survived by my hand, for I will have my victory. I will have my enemy's hopelessness reflected in my eyes!! PREPARE YOURSELVES, FOR THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS PLACE, CREATURES MEANT ONLY TO DIE, IS THROUGH!!!"
 
 Cassidy Cain, Jude Moshe, Morgan Newkirk, Gwen Whitlock and Molly Mason stare disbelievingly at Vorthuzahl the Metal Demon Dragon at that declaration.
 
 "....ah, shite," the conwoman groans.
 
 He proceeds to whirl up into the air, and engulf all of their shadows with their own as he divebombs into their platform, pulverizing it to dust... ~*~
 
 NOW...
 
 The fall seems downright endless.
 
 But as the group picks their way through the secret subterranean canals of the Pleasing Gardens, squeezing through harrowing bridges lining precarious drops, there is precious little light with which to navigate, save for whatever they've brought with them. Covered in bruises and coated with dust, each member has probably seen better days.
 
 Her lighter clutched in pale fingers, that single tongue of flame lifted to light the way, Cassidy, sandwiched between Jude and Gwen in their careful traverse out of the caverns, continues on, the look of her exasperated. "You're right," she tells the redhaired journalist. "I think the Elw really are pissed with us messing with their toys. Nae like they gave us much of a choice, ay? This entire place is bloody drowning in puzzles, if they dinnae want us tae press the god damn buttons, they should have put up better exit signs."
 
 Gold-and-green eyes shift forward. Light at the end of the tunnel.
 
 "At least we're almost out of this pl-- "
 
 From somewhere without, there's a distant roar. Her expression flattens immediately.
 
 It sounds like another Metal Demon Dragon.
 
 Slowly, she turns to her companions.
 
 "....ay. Fantastic. I think Vorthuzahl managed tae get a girlfriend. Do we really have tae go out there?"
 
 Not like they really have much of a choice. The exit is right there, and going back the way they came would be a tremenduous pain in the ass.
 
 Finally, they all manage to leave the tunnel. On an elevated outcropping they find a shattered tower; like a decrepit hunchback, it arches underneath a foreboding shadow with flapping wings, dislodging shadowy figures through the open roof...
 
 "Fook me," she breathes.

GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Yarobeleedt with Death From Above!
GS: Kahm Yugh has completed his action.
GS: Yarobeleedt critically Guards a hit from Kahm Yugh's Death From Above for 18 hit points!
DC: Morgan Newkirk switches forms to Gun Slinging Pilot Morgan!
<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Carina, or rather, Metal Digger Locus, hasn't had a great day so far. The Pleasing Garden has had way more than its fair share of mortal peril in store for her friends and her, she fell about 70,000,000 feet, the CaraKin is split up, there seems to be a war going on outside, her armor is out of power, AND she's had to skip lunch.

The good news is, she missed the purple wolf.

Locus runs in, her armor scratched up and the usual light in her mask's eyes dimmed. The Metal Demons and their allies of convenience make a grand entrance, and she is stopped in her tracks, trembling. Aside from Yarobeleedt and Kaguya, she hasn't personally run into the opposing team, but she knows a Quarter Knight and something unspeakable when she sees them.

She glances at Yarobeleedt, whom-- Well, Lunata seems to have this one. Instead, she sets her eyes on the most imposing threat in the room, Siegfried. ...But then, what she can even DO?

"Well," she says, stepping forward, unsure what she can contribute. She lowers a hand to her belt, fiddling with the mechanical components, hoping to make something happen. "Come on, come on," she mumbles, "it's world-savin' time... Stupid belt, don't crap out on me..."

After a moment, the light returns to her helmet's eyes. Whatever she just did, it worked.

                          SWITCHING TO BACKUP POWER_

"All RIGHT!" Locus strikes a dynamic, if generic martial arts pose, her ponytail seemingly hanging in mid-air to complete it. She points at Siegfried. "I don't know how much time I got left, so let's dance and make it quick!"

She runs straight for Siegfried, drawing her fist back and engulfing it in flames. "LOCUUUUUUUUUUS PUNCH, SPECIAL EDITION!" And she swings! Let's see how that works out for her.

GS: Carina Wynne has attacked Siegfried with Courageous Explosion Punch!
GS: Carina Wynne has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried guards a hit from Carina Wynne's Courageous Explosion Punch for 83 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
RUN RUN RUN!
 
Ruby of course does not have to run because she can fly, but that doesn't mean she's not concerned for the youth who's running along crumbling bridges after taking quite a fall, leaping, and generally just having a bad time.
 
"You could... DO SOMETHING... you know!"
 
Hiro calls out a little breathlessly to the little pink dragonet flying overhead.
 
"I am doing something! I'm telling you what to do!"
 
"That's not-!" Cue them both screaming as a good half of the bridge crumbles from underneath him.
 
When he stumbles out of the white cloud of dust behind him, he coughs weakly. "Dangit... looks like Jean... didn't make it ahead of us... like I hoped." "Hiro I've come to a conclusion." "What's that?" As his eyes squint and loosely lock onto the statue of Ge Ramtos, "Whoever built this place is Filgaia's biggest jer-"
 
Dragon screech, "OOO A DRAGON! HIRO HIRO LOOK! ISN'T IT-"
 
A Gebler gear is blasted through. A familiar armored Metal Demon leaps down. Ruby's voice sounds smaller and more nervous, "... magnificent..." A beat, "... Okay more scary than anything now. Hiro- Hiro let's get out of here!"
 
Setting his jaw, the dust-stained youth is a ways from Siegfried right now. "You know I'm not gonna do that Ruby." He's certainly not the first he sees, maybe not even the sixth. Placing a hand at the hilt of the blade that was given as a gift to him by the Guardian, he starts walking only because he still needs some time to catch his breath. His eyes fall upon Bart and Fei on the way, a glance. Though he doesn't talk to them. He looks too focused right now on one person in the room. But in that intensity perhaps it's obvious he's going to back them up.
 
'Might wanna get out of the way, folks. These guys don't like humans very much.'
 
"Oh I know that..." He says finally as he gets close, answering Kaguya as he closes in. But he's looking straight at the Quarter Knight. "...I know that one real well. Which is exactly why I can't let him have his way with this statue." There's only a wry note of humor as he notes Lunata is here, "I owe that much to Ge Ge..."
 
Then his tone darkens considerably, "... and I owe you way more for what you did to Lucia."
 
He's grown since then, but he has serious doubts he's grown enough to stand a chance against the legendary Metal Demon. If he dies here then he'll be leaving Lucia all alone in her mission and he knows that.
 
But - he's not by himself here, and more importantly, "I will never forgive you for that-"
 
He finds he's just too angry to allow himself to back down again. It's reckless against an opponent this powerful, the other two are biding their time. He does not. Hiro charges right in, feet pounding at the pavement. It looks like a straightforward rash charge. But a few paces away he plants his feet, as wind swirls up around him taking him skyward in a high leap overhead. Before he drives almost straight down upon him with a two-handed swing. Slashing down with all the force of gravity and his strength behind him. "-SIEGFRIED!"
 

GS: Hiro has attacked Siegfried with Poe Sword!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

        Shalune Amira's had much, much better days, and for once the fatigue is showing clear through her normally sunny disposition. After a couple of days helping to face down Metal Demons, the Demon of Elru, then some group of militants she's only vaguely aware are called 'Gebler', the promise of the Carakin - the promise of a comfortable and friendly caravan riding through the wasteland helping people, peacefully selling its wares, and staying out of anything whatsoever to do with religion or wars or fighting - it seems a very distant memory.

        She's girded for battle as well as she can be, given that she looks like she's already been dragged through quite enough today. Her bobble hat is tugged down a little, hiding some of the bright pink hair that refuses to stay tamed. Her coat's covered in scratches and minor cuts that will need repairing, together with a large singe across the left shoulder where she shielded herself from her own shotstaff malfunctioning on her. She's caught a dozen little scrapes and scuffs, and has a bandage just above one eye. Her staff, half-reinforced with Veruni materials, is twisted and burnt at one end.

        She's still standing, at least. She learnt that one from Riese.

        The airship that assaulted the Fereshte is nearby in the skies, but the pink-haired mechanic pays it no mind; her eyes are on the statue that dominates the scene around them, the form of Ge Ramtos making its presence known. The rock doesn't move, doesn't pulse with any kind of force that she can feel - but she still feels the bottom of her stomach drop out at the sight of it, and the familiar Veruni girl stood in front of it in challenge.

        There's a guilty instant where she considers the prospect of helping to smash it - or at least just walking away, disappearing off back to what's left of Adlehyde and just letting everyone else fight out this constant back-and-forth fight.

        But Jay steps forward, bless her good intentions, and Lunata's anger has quickly overtaken the rest of her in a way that makes Shalune anxious and concerned. Her hands tighten around the grips of her staff - and she steps forward slowly, towards the other threat the Carakin have to acknowledge, the girl she really doesn't want to fight.

        There's little chance of her managing to stand up to Kaguya, she knows that. She's not even a good fighter, let alone a good enough one to stand up to a Veruni - but she's there anyway, swallowing a lump in her throat as she nods. "... hey," she greets, in the universal tone of 'oh god what am I doing', and rubs for a moment at the back of her hair. "... I don't like the Guardians much, y'know? But-- I can't-- just let you take this statue, out of any of them. I dunno what it'd do to Ge Ramda, or Lunie."

        Okay, that's the first sentence out. That's a start, right?

GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Shalune Amira with a deep sense of foreboding!
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
GS: Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Shalune Amira's a deep sense of foreboding for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
EARLIER

Oh no, Elly realizes while sipping a gently tranquilizing hydration drink on the Tzadkiel. Why didn't I crash? I could have done this all then! But...

Her eyes focus on the blue-flavored drink. I can see it through, she resolves.

NOW:

Elhaym van Houten has one more statue to think of. Her own parachute deploys hard enough to make her ribs pop lightly, and the instructions come through the radio. "Copy," Elly says, eyes scanning around when she sees --

That a gust of wind has moved the Major but also that her current arc is going to put her down, if she ooches over, right NEXT to --

-- and that's how Elly came out of the sky, clad in fresh-pressed pleather. How can you tell it's Elly? Well, one good way for this to happen is for Elly to briefly take off her helmet and shake out all that red hair, which is exactly what she does. This also means that she can speak away from her helmet mic long enough to tell Fei, "Sorry I took so long," in a soft tone that might be drowned in the battlefield.

Having done this, the helmet goes back on. Elly pops herself in the chest with the knuckle of her thumb and the parachute detaches, the attaching guy lines whizz-snapping back into the drop harness and possibly whipping a Drifter in the hairstyle on the way. Now she's all business again. "I don't have time to explain. I suppose this is going to be our last battle with him... don't you think?"

After this she reaches into the drop harness and produces a small black tube of something. "Keep your eye on him," Elly tells Fei, before slapping the auto-injector against the outer side of his ripplingly bare arm, possibly just as Hiro dives downwards. "Do you have a sealing rod, Fei?"

Elly turns her helmeted head towards Bart then - half-raises her hand - and sort of lowers it, maybe reasoning that she should chat later. Yeah. Good plan.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Rosesol Injector!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Bart Fatima with Dramatic Bart Reveal!
GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action.
GS: Bart Fatima takes a solid hit from Bart Fatima's Dramatic Bart Reveal for 0 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Rosesol Injector for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Elhaym van Houten!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed is here, too!

Of course Zed is here too. He has to be here. There's no way he wouldn't be here...!

The metal demon descends from on high, falling from the open sky like some kind of far-too-obvious assassin in a bad action cartoon about to drop onto his target. Except, you know, the only thing orange about Zed's getup is... His... scarf...!

"Heeeey!" Zed yells, his sword sliding out of its sheath, "Hey hey hey hey hey! What are you guys doing!?" Zed... waggles his sword menacingly as his lands. Almost like he was trying to use it like a professor uses a laserpointer to gesture at his troublestudents because he's not actually allowed to throw chalk anymore. "Do you think you can just stomp all over my best penpal's stuff like this and not expect me to show up to stop you!?"

Zed... turns to face Siegfried. His lips curl into a slight frown. "Oh. Well, I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later, though. Well... Let's get this going then...!" And then Zed, does as Zed does.

He...

First deposits a whole sack full of unsent letters at the statue's feet.

And then, and ONLY THEN does he turn and charge boldly at the walking apocalypse that is Siegfried.

He'll... probably be okay...??

(He won't be okay)

GS: Siegfried critically Guards a hit from Hiro's Poe Sword for 22 hit points!
GS: Zed has attacked Siegfried with Dark Horse - Supreme Tornado!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried critically Guards a hit from Zed's Dark Horse - Supreme Tornado for 22 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


"I have no idea who is going to be more of a drama queen, Vor or his girlfriend then." Morgan Newkirk growls as he pulls himself out of the water. The beastman looks like a drowned cat, ears and tail drooping and dripping as he glowers around at the mess they found themselves in. A deep breath is taken though as he looks up towards the tower.

"Well this doesn't look that ba--"

Dragon.

Explosions.

Exploding Gears.

Shouting people.

Slowly Morgan raises an eyebrow. "Jude," He drawls as he looks at the Metal Demons arrayed there, assaulting a statue. "I'm gonna claim not it for whose fault this one is. But I'm gonna blame Cassidy for our fantastic timing. That sound about right to you?"

His ARM is already glowing, but getting in the middle of the dogpile on the Quarter Knight just seems like a bad idea...

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

After fighting Id during the battle over the Fereshte, Xantia's Gear was soundly trashed, and she had to be pried free from the cockpit, where she was found unconscious. Though recovering from her injuries fairly quickly as she usually does, she remained a bit off-balance and fatigued after that ordeal. At this moment, she should be taking the proper time to rest up aboard the airship after its forced landing.

Should be... but isn't. Not after hearing Metal Demons were approaching Lost July, their forces on a collision course with the Gebler airship that attacked the Fereshte. The crash site high atop one of the floating platforms allowed her to take a different route than most did, a shorter one, if not one without its own perils. For one thing, not all bridges were as solid as they looked, causing her to take a nasty tumble along the way. But she persevered, because...

...Because why, exactly? Why does she feel so compelled to always go towards the center of obvious trouble? She wouldn't be able to answer that question herself, if pressed. Feeling she had to be here is enough reason for her to make the effort. Even if it is in a somewhat suboptimal condition. She's even seeing things now, she could swear she saw Fei up ahead. But that doesn't make any sense, why would he be here?

Imagine her surprise when she reaches the level the statue is on, finding Fei there, looking around in bewilderment. Though this is neither the time nor the place, she instantly messes up Fei's dramatic stance and declaration to Siegfried by running up and hugging him from behind. "Fei! It IS you! I missed you, where've you been?"

That's when she remembers the massive battle going on, releasing Fei to take a fighting stance of her own next to him. Spirits raised considerably, and with Elly just sort of dropping out of the sky as well - which only prompts a "hi Elly!" from her, nothing strange going on there - she's more than ready for this now. "Let's fight together!" So she says, before even seeing who they're fighting, or who else is fighting. When she does lay eyes on Siegfried, she blinks, her stance faltering as she points at him. "Ah! It's you! The guy who knows Id!"

She knows perfectly well that Siegfried is the leader of the Metal Demons. But it seems that everything is still all about Id, to her. This obsession may be getting a little out of hand.

GS: Xantia has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Invigorating Spirit!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Xantia's Invigorating Spirit for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Xantia!
GS: Siegfried has adjusted their boss level for 6 opponents!
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

        The kinda goopy metal thing trying to make their best impression of some kind of dysfunctional water fountain processing artificial cheese instead of water that-- this metaphor is going nowhere good. Let's start over.
        Yarobeleedt doesn't want to leave his comfy wall cover, as the very atmosphere and aura of fear squeezes the air. He wants to kill the Ge Ramtos statue from here, but can't. He can't reach that far.
        Lunata steps forward, drawing a blade. He scarce seems to pay her much attention as an arm whips vaguely close in her direction as she puts forth the all-important question. Does he remember her? One eye lazily shakes and shivers to account for what's talking to him.
        "^Big Flower^ human?? why" Then she stares, bloodthirsty. Something about the whole picture seems to... one arm sweeps inward, the forearm's biomass expanding out like it were attempting to be violently expelled but unable to leave the mass in question. It makes for a handy shield, a completely coincidental one, as Kahm comes diving down with the burning blade. It is deflected not so much to the expected shower of sparks, but kind of a wet spongy 'bounce' as Kahm asks the question.
        "Emperor's... earth?" Yarobeleedt seems confused as his head dips under the malformed spongy forearm appendage. "There is ^EMP Error^ on ground?!" Why, is this important?! "That is nothing sense!" So are his own words, but, um...
        Yarobeleedt eyes the very leader of the Quarter Knights - the very highest warrior of the hierarchy - standing tall before a great number of them, including... ^Silly Greenhead^?! His jaw drops at just how brazen this is. Even him! Even him!! What is going on? Everyone Yarobeleedt truly hated - okay, a small number, Yarobeleedt truly hates virtually everyone ever - are now standing against Mother?!
        Berserk's jeers still ring heavy in his ears. The way he seemed surprised he was even here (in fairness he had every right to be, Yarobeleedt wasn't picked to attack Wayside), the way he dismissed him - the way everyone does...
        ...And the statue is right there! He had a clear shot, but now... there are two humans in the way.
        They'll keep wanting to throw him in the recycler too, won't they? He stirs under his impromptu guard.
        "Nononononono," he panics, still cowering before the dread in the air of a certain someone - a certain some^THAT^ - as the shield-like spongy arm retracts and reforms into a jagged blade. For Kahm, this seems to be an important tactical consideration - this thing can easily change up the shape of their forearms in melee combat, ensuring they have the upper hand against virtually any hand-to-hand weapon or style.
        "Metal Demon!! Yarobeleedt is Metal Demon!!" He shrieks, in defiance of whatever dumb nonsense word identity Riesenlied may have infected the other defectors with. "Mother will one wake on!" Awaken, he means, as he pushes off from the wall and just starts swinging his arms indiscriminately in wide, horizontal sweeps - one the aforementioned jagged blade, another a smoother, blunt, bent cylinder with spikes on the wrong side for meaningful impact.

GS: Yarobeleedt has attacked Lunata Croze with Sly Sing!
GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Yarobeleedt's Sly Sing for 95 hit points!
GS: Yarobeleedt has attacked Kahm Yugh with Strike King!
GS: Yarobeleedt has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Siegfried, briefly, catches Neriah's eye. He nods. "Do not disappoint, human. You who betray your species so often do." He looks, breifly, at Yarobeleedt too. Hesitation? He scowls at him. Even if it was resourceful of him to crawl through the dungeon, rather than drop down. "Yarobeleedt! Focus! We move forward!"

He glances sideways at Kaguya. There is no grin; there is no look of amusement, and then he nods. "The difficult part remains ahead of us."

But his eyes meet Fei Fong Wong's.

There is a history there -- one that stretches back into impossibility, because of who Fei is and who he looks like. "Of course you will, Fei," Siegfried says, with ice in his voice. "You always hold yourself back. We discussed the nature of power, once... and I still think that you do not understand."

Metal Digger Locus picks that moment to slam into him. Her fist slams into his chin, his square jaw and helmeted head snapping to the side. He spins, then, looking to face her. "You, again? Tch! You have greatly shortened that amount of time!" He reaches out with a hand, grabs Locus by her ponytail -- and then swings her, hurtling her towards Fei. And the stone. He turns, then, on a foot -- boot grinding in the grit and dirt -- and finds himself face-to-face with Hiro, as he rushes him. He swings the Dark Spear up, and it slams into the Poe Sword, blades ringing with sparks.

"This Lucia, again," he says. "You pick one human to rage about--when I have slain thousands! I--"

Doom Bringer comes down, and Siegfried lifts his hand and catches it on his forearm armor. He spins, then, and the Dark Spear lashes out. It slashes for Hiro's midsection, then turns to chop up at Zed. "The traitor shows his face! More guts than I expected of you, boy!"

He turns, then, taking aim at Xantia -- and then fires a bolt of blue light from a forearm cannon that raises up out of the armor in his forearm -- and then a second shot, firing off towards Bart.

GS: Siegfried has attacked Carina Wynne with Hyadean Martial Arts!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Hyadean Martial Arts!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Hiro with Shadow Slash!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Zed with Shadow Slash!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Xantia with Arm Cannon!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Bart Fatima with Arm Cannon!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hiro critically Guards a hit from Siegfried's Shadow Slash for 27 hit points!
GS: Bart Fatima takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Arm Cannon for 102 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        There are times when might is everything. Behold the power of the Gebler forces, in pitched battle against a sky full of Metal Demons.

        And there are times when subtlety is important.
        Against such a heavy sky of steel, something small can slip in undetected and thus turn the tide.

        Loren Voss, Second Lieutenant, Medical Division, just wishes that the undetected route didn't involve dropping in on the suspected location of one of the statues in this bombarded ruin from the sky.

        "Understood, sir," he radios back, his float for now a stable one as he falls.
        Don't think about how exposed you are. Don't think about how fast you're falling. Don't think about an equipment failure. Don't think about what could happen once you're down there.
        Just stop thinking. Focus.

        Wind disrupts their formation, distorts it further as they continue to fall. The ground rises -- nothing for it. He cuts loose, rolls to absorb the remaining impact, shedding ether.
        Shedding further ether as he rises.
        And turns, deploying his shield. There's the statue. Briefly, he touches a hand to his helmet, the visor glass lightening in response. Just enough to dimly reveal a pair of pale eyes.

        There's the statue. And there, before it is...

        That's a face he knows. 'A sick girl, doomed to die.' ...He should have known better.
        Knowing little of the plight of the Veruni but familiar -- history, always history -- with the stories, Loren instead assumes he'd been sold a load of nonsense and accepted it without even checking for himself.

        Her true alliances already make themselves clear.

        "I should have realized... So even the legendary Veruni are showing their hands."

        Raising his shield before him, Loren braces himself, before bolting into a headlong charge for the Veruni soldier.

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Kaguya with Starfall Aegis!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Carina Wynne takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Hyadean Martial Arts for 56 hit points!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Shadow Slash for 113 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Xantia takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Arm Cannon for 133 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

By all rights, Neriah should despise the Metal Demons, after what they did to Riesenlied's village.

But an ally of convenience is an ally of convenience - and her mind seems to be in an entirely different place right now, focused forward with a cold intent.

Of course, the one person actually trying to get in her way is someone Neriah really, really would rather not kill. The girl widens her eyes a little and comes to a halt, staring at Jay with a slow blink as the apothecary calls out to her.

And of course, there's Fei, too. More clueless. Just like Fei.

"Jay, I'm sorry," is all Neriah can say at first. Her voice is laden with that weary intent, but some of the flatness has gone out of it, giving way to an entirely different kind of raw pain - a simple, profound regret. "You're one of the only people in the world who's ever treated me like I matter. And I really am grateful that you saved me back there in Wayside...

"...But."

Neriah bows her head; something ripples through her, and she lets out a small, pained sound, staggering forward. And then, something happens. Those with high enough Resonance can see it.

It is as though Neriah has been bound in rusting chains. They drape along her arms and around her shoulders and neck, and wind around her body and down her legs, squeezing hard enough to bite in. The girl strains, clenching her teeth; the energetic chains pulse, fading in and out of view almost like a heartbeat.

"...But this is something I need to do," Neriah breathes through obvious pain. "If I don't break the Chains of Arius, I'll never be able to be free. I won't be able to change the world. Get rid of all the pieces of shit who hurt me and brush me off. Kill all the bastards who hurt me just because. That's why I have to destroy that statue...."

The sense of dreadful power builds up as Neriah speaks. The Chains flicker around her - and the aura of Guardian power infusing them is palpable, so close to this source of Ge Ramtos's energy. With a pained cry, Neriah clenches her hand into a fist - then throws it forward with a slashing motion, unleashing a monstrous wave of shadow towards Jacqueline. There's power to it - but for those who've seen Neriah unleash herself before, the blast is a mere shell of what she's unleashed before.

"...Even if it's you, Jay!" she shouts. "Please -- get out of the way!!"

She growls and takes another swing as someone else drops into the fray -

It's Morgan. Recognition flickers in her eyes - he was kind to her too, even flirtatious. But there are things more important than that to consider. The backwash of the blast will spill over towards Cassidy and Jude in the process.

"Sorry, Morgan," she growls. "You're attractive and all, but this is necessary."

GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with That Beast Which the Chains Bind!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Morgan Newkirk with That Beast Which the Chains Bind!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Cassidy Cain with Morgan's Fault!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jude Moshe with Morgan's Fault!
GS: Neriah Parringer has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        The other figure drops onto the scene from his parachute, and Lunata has no idea that this is the very same man that once stopped her from existing, spoken as someone who is medically a corpse sustained by Guardian Magic. Fun times.

        He notices his blade for a moment... but she's got her hands full right now, hissing as she holds the blade and-- push against Yarobeleedt's forearms. She's moving incredibly recklessly, charging forward and just shoving into his personal space and howling--

        "You're first!"

        She dives into that scything swing and is clipped, blood dripping free from her dress; but then there's a scatter of petals as she stoops into what Kahm and other sword practitioners may notice is quite similar to Still Water Clear Mirror--

        And lashes out in a verdant trail of blossoming sakura.

GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Yarobeleedt with Papillon Reel!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's That Beast Which the Chains Bind for 48 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Hyadean Martial Arts for 116 hit points!
GS: Jude Moshe guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Morgan's Fault for 44 hit points!
DC: MISS! Yarobeleedt completely evades Papillon Reel from Lunata Croze!
GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's That Beast Which the Chains Bind for 63 hit points!
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Morgan's Fault for 82 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Kahm Yugh critically Guards a hit from Yarobeleedt's Strike King for 29 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Kahm Yugh!
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.

 Bart can see that there's definitely some allies here. He's glad to see Fei, and Xantia, and Lunata, and... hey is that Hiro? That's certainly a thing. But he can tell that there's definitely something important going on, and Bart reaches for his whip to get ready to join in the fight.
 
 About a half second later he gets blasted in the chest by Siegfried's arm cannon.
 
 The blow is enough to knock Bart right the heck over, and he slams into the ground with a groan of 'oooowwww' coming from his lips. There's a bit of smoke rising from his jacket, but thankfully the armor he's got woven into the lining means he isn't killed. But damn - that hurt!
 
 "Arg, can't a man just skulk along and try and see what's going on WITHOUT GETTING SHOT!?!" Bart shouts, levering himself to his feet and pulling out a handgun from his waistband.
 
 And he runs in, firing several shots towards Siegfried as he approaches about as fast as he can. Because getting slashed at or stabbed is PROBABLY preferable to getting shot again, because heck that hurt quite a bit.
 
 But as he slides to a stop near to Fei, he gives the martial artist a wink.
 
 ...this really means nothing since you can't actually tell that Bart is winking. "Well, looked like you guys were having fun over here, figured I'd join in," he states, pulling out his whip and taking up position to try and... well, contain Siegfried, really. He's not sure how much damage he can do to the Quarter Knight. And then, in an odd echo of something Siegfried would have heard long ago, Bart adds, "Not my style to sit around and let the enemy walk all over my friends - not when I can do something about it."

GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Siegfried with Bart .45 Revolver!
GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried critically Guards a hit from Bart Fatima's Bart .45 Revolver for 18 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Kaguya with Starfall Aegis!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Loren Voss's Starfall Aegis for 38 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei brightens immediately upon seeing Hiro. "Hiro! Ruby! You're here! What a relief...!" Finally, he thinks, someone reliable. Well okay, Bart's also reliable, but his reliable is of a very different quality than Hiro's, okay? He pauses though, "What he did to Lucia?" He remembers when Lucia was not feeling well and Hiro was frantically looking for a cure? "You mean...back then with the Holy Berry?" That was shortly after Adelhyde where SIegfried notably kicked quite a few butts. "Geeze, she's okay now, though, right?"

And then Xantia hugs him from behind. Fei nearly falls over because this is Xantia we're talking about here. He smiles down at her and gives her a headpat. "Hey Xan'," Fei never had his own family, as far as he knows, not really. Sometimes you just make your own. He's not quite ready to admit that just yet. "I'm not really sure? I remember falling... but it feels like it's been a while. Something about Ida...aw geeze, Ida went Hellion too. That's right. I think I'm remembering a bit more now."

Still, his spirits seem revitalized. He doesn't emo out over this fact just yet. "But be careful--"

Pause. "Who the heck is Id?"

Neriah says some junk about the Chains of Arius. Fei doesn't get it, but he does get why Neriah is going after the statue. "Neriah, you can't just hurt people because they hurt you--" Those who betray their own kind always dissapoint, Fei reflects.

But then Siegfried lectures him on power once again. "Siegfried... I've heard about power plenty since we ran into each other in that ruin." He shakes his head. "All I've seen those people do is hurt those around them, hurt the people they care about, hurt strangers who never did them any harm. If that's what power is...then I don't need it!"

Then Metal Digger Locus crashes into him because he was busy dramatically speaking when he should have been dramatically ducking. He crashes to the floor and slides back a few feet.

That's when Elly drops in and juices him up.

That gets Fei up faster than he otherwise would. He looks at Elly for a long moment, maybe lost in his eyes even with Siegfried brutalizing people in the background. Now's not the time for him to say everything he wants to say, to let his heart burst open and say everything he wants to say.

But he does remove his coat and wrap it around Elly's shoulders. "It's a little chilly in here." He says before adding, "Hopefully... And... I've got one but..." Last time he tried to use it, Siegfried surely stopped him.

Bart slides nearby and Fei laughs a little at his comment. "You're right. That really isn't your style. It's not my style either." And for the first time, Fei feels mostly okay with that.

Fei finally turns back to Siegfried and adds, "I've found other kinds of power, man." He looks to Elly once more before adding, "But I know words aren't gonna mean anything. So...we'll just have to show you!"

And that's when he dives in, already bruised and bleeding, but smiling as he throws several sharp punches towards Siegfried!

<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"The hard part, huh."

Kaguya nods to Siegfried.

"Heh heh well, Bei..." Fei talks about the flower girl, and Kaguya grins a little--but Hiro actually answers Kaguya in some earnestness, and Kaguya tilts her head at him. "...Whoa, kay. Show him what you got, guy." She sounds if not impressed, at least aware of how serious he seems to be.

"Oh uh..." Kaguya trails off, looking at SHalune, "Hey." She glances once at Jay, and then back to Shalune again. She winces a little, despite herself. "...Yeah, I get that, but..." She shakes her head. "Not something I can back down from. Ge-Ge'll probably be fine. Lunie too. ...Okay I don't actualy know that, but this is somthing I gotta do."

She hears the others talk... But her concerns seem to be showing up pretty suddenly. Shalune is one--but Loren, the mysterious Gebler agent before her, shows up. "...A shield?" she asks. "Really? A shield?" she asks. "What kind of goof-ass weapon is a--"

Loren comes in fast, and Kaguya dives out of the way, hitting the ground and rolling. She isn't using her cane, today, luckily, but her eyes are a little glassy, for the medic's eye. "Whoa--Hey, no conversation, no hesitance to fight a sick girl..."

She grins. "Good." She calls loudly, "Hey," to Shalune, "...I get you, but I'm giving you a chance to back out."

In the meantime, she takes a breath--and lifts a hand. A floral wind lifts from her feet and upward, green and full of strange, unrecognizeable petals. ...It resembles Ether, and yet... There's something a little different about it. Kaguya seems invigorated for a moment.

Then she lifts her ARM and fires, near-point blank, sending a burst o crackling green light straight for Loren's chest. "Yep. Veruni here. That means I can crush your skull with one hand, buddy. Should I open you like a can?"

GS: Kaguya has attacked Kaguya with Blossom Wind!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Siegfried with Hagan!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Blossom Wind for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Kaguya!
GS: Restore! Kaguya clears debuffs from Kaguya!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Loren Voss with Riot Burst!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hagan for 100 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Locus gets in a solid hit! Yes, go element of surprise! But the grin behind her mask vanishes when Siegfried sets his eyes on her and grabs her by the hair-- NOT COOL --and hurls her.

She goes flying towards Fei, but something kicks in to let her avoid a collision, and with acrobatics she doesn't even begin to understand, her hands graze the ground and her momentum is turned into a series of flips, and after a short series of mishaps as she and Fei slide along the ground, soon she's back on her feet. Good, backup power seems just as good as regular power. But something bugs her.

"'Again', huh? What are you, a fan of mine?" And she charges in again, though a little bit wiser, as it occurs to her that this is precisely not the sort of opponent she should underestimate.

"Well looks like it is YOU who has shortened your time! My friends and I won't allow you to destroy our world!" Well, Zed is specifically not from this world, she doesn't know Xantia well enough to even recall if she said her name, and the rest she doesn't know at all, but IT SEEMS LIKE A SAFE ASSUMPTION, OKAY.

"So take this! Pretty Guardian Shotgun Kick!!"

And she leaps, dramatically, briefly switching on her Matrix Eye to find a weakness of some sort in Siegfried's armor-- if she can even find one! --that could potentially loosen or even break. Regardless, she brings her foot down and the sole opens up to blast away. A shotgun kick is a shotgun kick!

GS: Carina Wynne has attacked Siegfried with Pretty Shotgun Kick!
GS: Carina Wynne has completed her action.
GS: Loren Voss guards a hit from Kaguya's Riot Burst for 66 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried guards a hit from Carina Wynne's Pretty Shotgun Kick for 70 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

The....sensation of striking Yarobeleedt's amorphous body with his blade was certainly unique, but Kahm wasn't one to usually be sidetracked by the unexpected. He twists his lower torso as the unusual metal demon blocks the blade, flipping over and landing on his feet (he was still falling from the sky, remember!) as the other thing babbles and confirmed it's species.

"The tainted aren't the only oddities among your kind, I see." He declared, eyeing Lunata from the side and quickly evaluating her strangely familiar blade motions. "No matter. Your campaign of violence against the land ends today."

That sponge-shield arm quickly assumes a more offensive form, and the Major was just as quick to parry the haphazard strikes with several sharply answered strokes as he yield several steps under the assault, wincing as an errant tip of the jagged appendage managed to open a small cut on his shoulder. It was minor, barely any blood, but it did burn with a will beyond it's ken-the demon likely produced a toxin of some sort.

Kahm grit his teeth and stared down the metal menace in contemplate. The drugs still running in his body would counteract the poison in a minute or two, but until then he'd need compensate. "You, girl." He spoke to Lunata, similarly unaware she was the pilot of the gear he'd battled in Bledavik, "Your attacks are too aggressive. He can reconfigure his body to any vector attack we might make-individually. Follow my movements, and we'll see if we can't disrupt him!"

The man leapt forward in a line of rocket-like speed then, one arm back and one arm forward to stab his blade straight into whatever he could perceive as Yaro's center-of-mass...or one of several center-of-masses, as it where. The anemo blade, hummed with the force of electrical ether surging through it's ever capacitor-the true delivery, aimed to see if a surge of energy could disrupt this unusual demon's physiology.

GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Yarobeleedt with Shock Thrust!
GS: Kahm Yugh takes 10 damage from Poison!
GS: Kahm Yugh has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        '....ay. Fantastic. I think Vorthuzahl managed tae get a girlfriend. Do we really have tae go out there?'

        "I'm still tryin' to figure out what's goin' on, myself," Gwen says, still wringing the water from her damp poncho. "I'm lucky I didn't drown."

        She and the others may not have much information to go on in regards to what's going on, but it doesn't take long to guess, with so many familiar faces, as well as old foes. Namely, Siegfried.

        If he's here, then that could mean...

        Statue. Which is in turn supported by what tidbits of dialouge she can overhear as they edge closer. And then-

        Kaguya. This might be the last time Gwen could possibly reach out to the Veruni, for all the good it may do. And moving against her is... Shalune and... a Gebler?

        "Sorry, but I'm gotta go do something potentially very stupid," Gwen says to Cassidy and the crew, a sentence that may make Morgan a little uneasy, considering what he had to sacrifice the *last time* she tried something foolish.

        ---

        "Kaguya, please! Y'gotta reconsider this!" Gwen braces herself as she enters the fray alongside Shalune and Loren. "You saw some of my past. Even if I ain't a Veruni, you know I had to struggle with some of the same things you do now. Please, at least reconsider what this'll do to the people you *do* care about!"

GS: Kaguya has adjusted their boss level for 3 opponents!
GS: Yarobeleedt takes a glancing hit from Kahm Yugh's Shock Thrust for 63 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"L-Lunata, wait-!" Jacqueline calls out, as her friend charges off to face down Yarobeleedt. She extends a hand and begins to follow her, when she hears Neriah speaking.

"I-It's okay, Neriah, let's just-" Jacqueline starts...but then, there's that 'but'. There's always a 'but', isn't there?

Jacqueline stumbles back, mouth agape as something seems to ripple through Neriah - and then, the chains appear, wrapping all around her.

"Neriah...what happened to you...?" Jacqueline breathes, backpedaling. "Breaking the Statue...how will breaking the Statue help...? Please, Neriah, you don't have to do this!"

Jacqueline doesn't expect the attack to come. Her eyes go wide as a monstrous wave of shadow rushes toward her. She finds herself frozen in place. And then, Neriah shouts at her. Tells her to get out of the way. She moves at the last second, instinctively, and the wave of shadow goes roaring past her. It clips her shoulder, and shears through the side of her skirt.

Even if it's not as powerful as what she's experienced from Neriah before, it's still enough to cause concern. And the ramifications of what it means couldn't be forgotten, either...

"I-I...I don't want to fight you, Neriah, but...but for her sake, I can't allow this Statue to be destroyed!" She says, shaking her head. It was as Shalune had said - she didn't know what would happen to Lunata if anything happened to the Statue. "Please...there must be a better way!"

Jacqueline draws out a bottle and hurls it at Neriah's feet. The liquid inside has a tiring effect - intended to sap one's strength. She doesn't know if it'll work, but...

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Neriah Parringer with Sapping Salve!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        '....ay. Fantastic. I think Vorthuzahl managed tae get a girlfriend. Do we really have tae go out there?'

        "I'm still tryin' to figure out what's goin' on, myself," Gwen says, still wringing the water from her damp poncho. "I'm lucky I didn't drown."

        She and the others may not have much information to go on in regards to what's going on, but it doesn't take long to guess, with so many familiar faces, as well as old foes. Namely, Siegfried.

        If he's here, then that could mean...

        Statue. Which is in turn supported by what tidbits of dialouge she can overhear as they edge closer. And then-

        Kaguya. This might be the last time Gwen could possibly reach out to the Veruni, for all the good it may do. And moving against her is... Shalune and... a Gebler?

        "Sorry, but I'm gotta go do something potentially very stupid," Gwen says to Cassidy and the crew, a sentence that may make Morgan a little uneasy, considering what he had to sacrifice the *last time* she tried something foolish.

        ---

        "Kaguya, please! Y'gotta reconsider this!" Gwen braces herself as she enters the fray alongside Shalune and Loren, a single shot fired to signal her presence. "You saw some of my past. Even if I ain't a Veruni, you know I had to struggle with some of the same things you do now. Please, at least reconsider what this'll do to the people you *do* care about!"

DC: MISS! Neriah Parringer completely evades Sapping Salve from Jacqueline Barber!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

He was there, at Adlehyde. He felt first-hand just how brutal Metal Demons can be, just what the bulk of their ilk will do to mankind if given the chance, for the sake of their survival. He still bears the scar of that reality on his chest. Sometimes, if he breathes just the right way, if his thoughts drift in just the right direction, he can still feel the way his lungs filled with fire.

But to say, after all that, that Jude Moshe cares about the Metal Demons would be a gross overstatement.

The plight of the Guardian Statues, the calamitous consequences therein -- they are all things he has been aware of in that way of his: on the peripheries, out of harm's way. It's not that he doesn't understand the implications. He does, perhaps more than most. But there's been plenty of other people more gung-ho about getting themselves killed saving the world than him to do that sort of suicide work, and to be honest, at the end of the day?

It's all too much of a headache.

So this, all this, falling towards the depths at the hand of the creature that almost killed him, only to arrive at the destined tower where a monumentous encounter is taking place where the precarious fate of a Guardian's statue hangs in the balance, and possibly the fate of all Filgaia itself?

"Uh. Huh."

That's really, honestly, just proof -something- bigger than them exists out there.

"Wonderful."

And whatever it is, it hates him.

He lands, just as dread swells within a palpable form at Neriah Perringer's beck and call. Just as Siegfried, one of the Quarter Knights himself, unleashes his wrath. Just as a Veruni and the strangest most unnerving mash of polygons Jude Moshe has ever seen fling into violence.

Sorry, Morgan...

And amber eyes just slowly, slowly drift Morgan's way.

"I'm pretty sure," the simple country journalist begins, just as a billowing wave of shadows crests for them,

"This officially makes it your fault."

        ChooOOM.

Jude Moshe's actions are immediate and reflexive, the actions of someone who has had to survive in conflict too many times not to know the motions of the dance: His ARM gripped within fingerless gloves, dust shakes off his frock coat as he swings the weapon forward, the broad blade of a bayonet locking into place as it -cleaves- into the fringes of the blast that threaten to collide with him. It cleaves darkness straight in two, the shadows washing painfully brief across his shoulders. Caster. Uses some sort of... unholy darkness.

"Morg, later, we need to have a long talk about your dating habits."

He lets exactly one second pass before he pushes off his feet.

"If we're still alive, I guess. So, here's hoping."

And with that, Moshe throws himself headfirst into a conflict he didn't ask for or even particularly want, cutting across the distance to leap through the air in a remarkably elegant motion for someone normally so slack, bringing one leg high into the air in an attempt to -drive- it into Neriah's shoulder.

"No chance you can just let us through if we ask nicely, huh?"

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Neriah Parringer with It Hurts Me Too!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Oh!" Zed says as he FINALLY NOTICES WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND HIM. "It's Hiro and Ruby! Hi guys! Fancy seeing you here! How's Lucia? Still on the run from that weirdo Leo guy, I see? I'm glad you're still ali--awk!" Zed, so easily distracted in combat by things like Talking To A Buddypal and Making Awesome Speeches, hardly notices when Siegfried turns aside his strike. It's a mistake that would be fatal for anyone but a Metal Demon.

 That parry soon allows the Azure Knight to land a telling and solid hit across Zed's chest. He hisses in sudden pain, doubling back and clutching at the gash and the quicksilver fluids leaking from it. "H-heh, what do you take me for, Zeik? I'm not the type to run away until at least fifty percent of my butt has been kicked."

Zed's stance lowers. His blade is drawn back, held parallel to the ground. "Sorry, Hiro. We'll have to catch up more later. For now..."

Zed vanishes...!

A streak of cutting lightning blazes a crackling line across the empty air. Doom Bringer, radiant with malicious intent and coruscating with evil energy smashes into Siegfried's guard at incredible, blinding speeds! It's almost too fast for the eye to follow!

But...

Siegfried does not have ordinary eyes...!

GS: Zed has attacked Siegfried with Secret Sword - Lightning Flash!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Zed's Secret Sword - Lightning Flash for 47 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
"AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE THOUSANDS MEANS SOMETHING TO SOMEONE!" Hiro's sword clashes upon his forearm armor, the dark plate not offering any give. Before the spinning motion knocks him away. With a flip in the air, he comes down on his feet just as the Dark Spear lashes.
 
Whipping up his blade and crossing it over his shield, he catches the spear tip between edge of the shield and silverine blade for a moment before the blade lock is broken by Siegfried's colossal strength. The spear tip slashes across his mid-section, ripping his blue tunic and grazing off the armored links beneath, splitting several like they were made of paper but sparing his flesh as he stumbles backwards. Eyes wide with surprise as he sees just who intervened.
 
"Just as much as she does to me! What's the matter with you that you can't understand that!?"
 
Digging in his feet he grasps the edge of his boomerang, and flicks his wrist. In mid-flight, there's a sound as the singular boomerang doubles into two. Each flying into seperate direction, before arcing backwards. "Hasn't one of your people ever meant enough to you that you can understand someone being upset about what you did?!"
 
In opposite directions they come, then converge into a one-two blunt strike against the back of his helmet. While Siegfried's warrior instincts and armor besides might keep them from doing any significant damage, maybe he's hoping for a distraction.
 
"Yeah." He answers Fei, "Back then. That was him."
 
She's okay now right?
 
That perhaps cuts through his anger a little, but it doesn't totally jolt him out of it. "Yeah... Yeah. She's okay now." Which may answer Zed's question too.
 
That should change things right? He never thought of himself as the kind of guy who wants revenge. And yet he totally finds that it doesn't change much right now. The question on Id though - "Fei! You're doing okay right? Are you sure you should be pushing yourself against someone like this so soon?"
 
"Heh... sounds like we've got a similar style there Bart." Hiro manages a small smile, before looking at Zed in particular. For a moment he's silent serious, "Nothing to be sorry about. I'm proud of you. I know it's a hard thing for you to go against your people, Zed."
 
After a moment he gives his own statement of solidarity, "We'll make sure you never have to regret it."
 

GS: Hiro has attacked Siegfried with Cross Boomerang!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Jude Moshe's It Hurts Me Too for 59 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

With Gwen breaking off from the group, the look on her face watching the courier go is downright indescribable. "....at least she's up front about it," she remarks, watching the strawberry-blonde leave, eyes falling towards Kaguya from a distance.
 
 From one weird situation to another, Morgan later indicates that he's going to blame her for their fantastic timing.
 
 "Look," Cassidy tells the Fox. "I cannae help what I am. As for who's the bigger drama queen, my gella's still on Vor." All said as they pick their way through the distance between themselves and the tower, resigned to their present course, if not just because it's the only way out of this mess. "I mean, the way he announces his presence every bloody time he's somewhere." She takes a breath and deepens her voice in a booming mimicry: "I AM VORTHUZAHL, THE METALLIC TERROR THAT FLAPS IN THE NIGHT. TREMBLE AND DESPAIR, CREATURES MEANT ONLY TO DI--"
 
 Sorry, Morgan, you're attractive and all, but this is necessary.
 
 And a blast suddenly comes roaring out of her periphery, knocking her off her feet. Whatever it is that she has endured in the hands of her draconic nemesis/savior, however, has enabled her to withstand it better than she could have a few days ago. Sent airborne, the blonde conwoman goes limp, bouncing off the ground and following her tumble, finding her feet again upon that first bounce and digging her heels in, knees bent to skid sideways and kick dust into her boots.
 
 She is in no way idle, however. Pistols have already found her hands, Hawthorne's revolver upon one of them, both barrels trained on Neriah as she pulls two triggers and lets loose an initial volley of incendiary rounds.
 
 She has always been the sort to fight fire with fire.
 
 "...the bloody hell?" She does not recognize Neriah, but she does turn an accusatory look Morgan's way just as Jude claims this officially makes it his fault.
 
 "Morgan, I thought we already had this bloody conversation. This is what happens when you dinnae pay child support."

DC: Cassidy Cain switches forms to Bon Vivant Cassidy!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Cassidy Cain with Morgan's Fault!
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Morgan's Fault for 92 hit points!
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Neriah Parringer with Blame It On My Youth!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Cassidy Cain's Blame It On My Youth for 49 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried guards a hit from Hiro's Cross Boomerang for 117 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Kaguya with Crackshot!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Crackshot for 51 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
CHAOS REIGNS. Elly tells herself that she has to focus here. Bart's swagger helps her, and Elly turns her helmeted form to face Siegfried, drawing out the combat rod from its holster on her hip. Why not a gun? Because...

... anyway, Fei then removes his coat and puts it around Elly's shoulders. Her cheeks flush. It is, somehow, visible through the tinted ballistic faceplate of her helmet. "... Thank you," she says, "but we have to focus. -- Ah!" Not like that, Elly thinks, as her attention turns towards Siegfried.

Siegfried! The great devil. She's faced him twice already. Both times she was resoundingly defeated, she thinks, bleakly. He is strong, strong beyond reckoning. Even the stray thought of 'what if I was in a Gear' is useless - the Vierge is in the overhaul bay of the Gebler mothership, and the lesser machines have their duties already.

Zed swings his sword down, meanwhile. Something about his words, his rhetoric, stirs faint childhood memories in Elly. The burst of shrieking lightning though...

Elly hears Siegfried's words, or at least some of them. It may be cryptic to hear over the radio but not every conversation makes sense. "Sometimes," Elly says, "one person's enough for all the world."

Whether due to electrical disruption or the aftermath of the synchronization of the Aerods, the drawing-down of the power comes easier for Elly than it has in the past. Fear removes the risk of self doubt, to some extent; but so too does the nervous extension of having fought off a devil from hell a few hours prior, probably.

The etheric pattern forms with sharp strokes. Then the lightning falls towards Siegfried.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Siegfried with Anemo Bolt!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

        Shalune isn't on the offensive in the least, which saves her from the initial back-and-forth between Loren and Kaguya; she watches with a wince as she grips her staff close like a security blanket, and that instinctive reaction isn't just at the way the man she's vaguely familiar with as a passing acquaintance immediately lunges shield-first at the diminuitive girl.

        (Deep down, Shalune knows that Kaguya can more than hold her weight even in a match-up like that, but some images are always going to be kind of visceral.)

        It's also at Kaguya's warning - and the pink-haired mechanic sucks in an unhappy breath as she takes in the words. "That's not fair," she mutters, more to herself than anyone else. "How'm I supposed to walk away? Jay's here, Lunie's here, and I know they're not gonna budge. We had his stupid statue thing thrust onto us, then Lunie gets stuck with Ge-Ge thanks to the Metal Demons. How'm I supposed to just walk away from that? That's just cruel." It's-- the words aren't angry, at least. They're barely a rebuttal to Kaguya's statement, even, so much as just a mantra to herself spoken gently under her breath.

        Steeling herself, she sets her jaw, tries not to grit her teeth together - and swallows that lump a second time, as she looks to Gwen. "... you won't stop her just like that," she mumbles under her breath, but at least her eyes are stronger than her voice. "But-- that's okay, I think."

        When she does finally dart forward it's with a rather deceptive turn of speed. She's always been light on her feet, and Loren's charge has provided her with some element of cover, splitting the Veruni's attention for long enough for her to peel off to one side, aiming for Kaguya's blindspot. She doesn't really know what will happen when she pulls her shotstaff back up to her shoulder; she's managed to make some temporary repairs, but the mechanisms at its head have already blown up on her once today. By rights, she should just be relying on the bombs clinking in her coat pocket--

        --but she grits her teeth, pulls down to one knee for a split-second to make up for her aimfinder having broken off, and squeezes the trigger regardless. The normally white light is stained with streaks of off-red, an indicator of the broken state of the weapon - but it still pulses forwards into the midst of the melee.

GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Kaguya with Rusty Sky!
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
GS: Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Shalune Amira's Rusty Sky for 54 hit points!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Anemo Bolt for 54 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


"Well," Drawls Morgan thoughtfully as he sees Neriah turn her attention towards him. "Its good to be remembered." That crooked smile, that amused look on his face, its all there up until the shadow tendrils slash towards him. Magic is one thing that the fox doesn't pertecularly care for.

It crashes into him, driving him back but the blue glow of his own energy field that spirals out from his gauntlet ARM takes at least some of the bite out of the hit.

"You sure ya don't want ta sit down over dinner and talk 'bout this first?" He asks of the woman as the bright light of his ARM swirls around, settling after a heartbeat into the form of a short-barreled shotgun like weapon attached to the back of his arm. The white and gold casing glints in the half light as the round magazine spins to load a round into the chamber. "I mean...its obvious somethin' is wrong. You've changed a bit since last time I saw ya...I don't think those accessories are good for ya."

Then a pause as Jude weighs in.

"My dating habits are just fine!" He calls back towards Jude as he brings the weapon up towards Neriah. "I just happen ta like women that can kill me. Nothin' wrong with that is there?"

The choom choom choom of the rapid fire shotgun flings stunning pellets towards Neriah as the magazine spins shells back into the chamber. He's moving as he fires, circling opposite from Jude and Cassidy, trying to draw fire away from them. Keep Neriah's attention on him.

"Cassidy Cane why does your mind always go there!!" He shouts back towards her over the roar of the gunfire and explosions. "You damn well know its nothin' like that! I sware to whatever gods y'all got around here you'll be the first to know if I have kids cause I'm makin' ya babysit as punishment for all this!"

<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

        The ochre-ish alien-naga-bug-thing shrieks as Lunata skillfully parries and moves inward to try and swing that blade into the semi-soft underbelly of the slug-butted beast, to find him swaying back in overcompensation as the petals flit past and around him. One eye shudders and narrows as it just nearly avoids getting any of that in his face. As a skilled swordswoman who is now much more acquainted with the concept of death than most - and the concept of fearing the end - she will be able to taste it.
        He's afraid. The larger abomination to Filgaia itself (as well as to their own people, let's be real) hits all the checkmarks one might expect. He's twitchy. There's a hissing coming from his throat that is consistent with the idea of a heightened heartrate - maybe even hyperventilation - if the 'rules' of circulation are the same for a Metal Demon as they might be for a human being.
        "Fufufu... not Tainted!! Even silly human see it!!!" Kahm can't possibly know about the subtleties of what culture exists for the Metal Demons, but putting the dividing line between himself and the 'tainted' seems to embolden the foul creature. Embolden, in so much that he's screaming the words like one might shriek about an intruder in their home with a deadly weapon as he inches away backwards, his lower blobby body undulating accordingly as Kahm uses the intervening time to highlight what might be their best shot in taking this thing down.
        Kahm puts forth a good one- for a theoretical -two, moving in with respectable speed against a creature whose own reflexes and movements are remarkable. The center-of-mass - his torso - is reasonably solid when the electrical blade strikes in there. It is mitigated only marginally by the creature's backwards movement, but the strike hits true to the coursing of electrical power removing Yarobeleedt's autonomy of his less-solid parts for the moment.
        His forearms and lower body from roughly the waistline down, specifically, seem to be the parts that just can't quite hold solid. (His neck and tongue seem to be in the realm of 'maybes,' they did just bend weirdly while processing being electrically shocked.)
        Kahm will find himself at threat of being pushed back by one arm reconfiguring into that flat, shield-like spongy plane again to try and batter him back, back, back to another ear-splitting screeching noise.
        Lunata, however, has something a bit more ghastly to deal with - the other arm taking something of a whiplike quality that morphs into more of an elongated needle that seeks to impale her through the abdomen, throbbing in such way that suggests he is trying to inject something that is undoubtedly venomous.
        Take the spittle falling out the side of his mouth, dripping an unsightly color. It's probably that stuff. (Who can blame him? One wouldn't want it in their mouth either!)

GS: Yarobeleedt has attacked Kahm Yugh with Push a Bar!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Neriah Parringer with Smokin' Fire!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Yarobeleedt has attacked Lunata Croze with Lily River!
GS: Yarobeleedt has completed its action.
GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Yarobeleedt's Lily River for 129 hit points!
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Smokin' Fire for 77 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Xantia would be more concerned about Fei's revelations if she wasn't way more relieved to see him, happily accepting the headpat. Only to get annoyed mere seconds later, when Fei once again seems to have forgotten who Id is. "Wh-- come on, I've told you already, more than once!" She'd tell him again, but... not the time for that. Especially not with the way Siegfried addresses Fei, as if he knows him pretty well too. Does this guy know everybody? ...does he know her?

Just standing there gawking is rarely a very effective combat tactic. She responds to being shot at far too late, throwing up her arms reflexively before being engulfed in a flash of light, that explodes upon impact with her bracer. When the smoke clears, Xantia is knelt down, concluding the hard way that doing that wasn't a very effective way of dealing with an energy blast. Moreover, her reaction time was way too slow. Maybe I should've taken the time to rest after all, she considers briefly. Well, too late now. Nothing for it but to fight.

Needing a moment to pull herself together, she smiles to herself when she hears the unmistakable bellow of an angry Bart, rising back to her feet and smiling at the pirate captain. "Hi, Captain Bart! Glad you're here, too!" She dusts herself off and gets back into her fighting stance, getting psyched all over again. Especially after seeing that... masked person? Beastwoman? Whatever Locus is. She's got cool moves, is what matters. "Okay! My turn now!"

Rushing in quick, Xantia ducks low as Hiro and Zed launch their attacks, seeking to stay hidden as much as possible. Her style tends to be pretty reckless, but even she can play it safe every now and again. All she's after is to deliver a single strike, leaping high to drive her palm into Siegfried's sternum, with enough power to make it feel as if it pierced right through his armor, reverberating through his entire body. A strike which may prompt memories of the one she mentioned before, and can't help but mention again in this moment. "How do you know Id anyway?!"

Quickly backing off, she regroups with the others who face Id, giving a quick wave to them in general. This is gonna have to be a team effort, she realizes. It'll be fine, with all these friends to help, she's sure of it.

GS: Xantia has attacked Siegfried with Disrupting Palm Strike!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Xantia's Disrupting Palm Strike for 64 hit points!
GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        You, girl. Your attacks are too aggressive...

        Lunata's scowl deepens further, thinking back to how he entered-- how that Gebler Gear crashed through-- the personnel carrier that'd descended from above... mom had been harrangued a lot by Aveh's forces. Now she was-- forced to work with...?

        She swallows her pride. "Yeah, sure..."

        She seemingly doesn't hear Jay's calls after her, seemingly deaf to hazard... but then she calls, "You-- you deal with her, you're better at talking... right now I just--"

        Lunata's eyes shoot wider as Kahm crashes in with a blade of sweltering, electrical ether; she's about to take her chance to attack when Yarobeleedt's arm whips across and just stabs straight into her neck, prompting a hiss and a wince as she flails, feeling ungainly, venomous poison coursing through her veins.

        "You forgot something..."

        She seizes that appendage and clenches hard on it. She's not letting go.

        "Poison... acid... whatever you've got... won't burn a living corpse!!"

        She pulls back violently, and lets go in one smooth motion -- to let that hand rest on the hilt of her katana as Orochi-Agito returns to it at the same time. The air around her darkens, as a beauteous trail of blossoming petals spread below Yarobeleedt's feet.

        "Spirit Arte -- Tres Flores!!"

        Lunata's iai draw seeks low, and carves an intricate pattern upward as the kanji for 'Flower' erupts onto his body, should she find her mark.

GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Yarobeleedt with Tres Flores!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

"What in the--" Siegfried looks up at Bart and blinks. The semblance is uncanny -- not perfect, the way that Fei's is, the way it defies genetics. But, uncanny, nonetheless. "You humans... I leave too many of your bloodlines to continue, I should think!"

Bart's pistol shot rings off the shoulder plate of the Quarter Knight, and ricochets into the wall. But, Fei comes in, and rushes at him, throwing punches and kicks; they slam into his armor, not quite denting it yet, but Fei can feel the give there -- the hint that it is not as strong as it seems outwardly.

"Other forms of power?"

He turns to look back at Locus. "No, I recognize you--I thought I killed you. A mistake I shall correct shortly!" There isn't an obvious weak point in Siegfried's armor. Locus tries to make one, the shotgun-kick blasting down into the armor plate and cracking it. Siegfried growls, softly, and stumbles backward.

And then Zed vanishes -- and comes in, as a streak of cutting lightning that slams into his side. Siegfried stumbles backward, then glances briefly over his shoulder. "I take you for a corpse, Zed," he says. "You have turned your back on your own people--and with nothing but the flimsy excuses and pathetic self-rationalizations of ignorant, damnable youth!"

The boomerang smashes into Siegfried's head, armor dented inward on the helmet, and he turns. Blue-black fluid runs down his face, in a rivulet. "I understand," Siegfried says. "I have lost those... lost one that I cared for, more than anything. He fought. He was no coward--he stood against what terrors the world hurled at us."

He looks back at him. "I know that their lives mean something. AND THAT IS WHY I TAKE THEM!" Siegfried screams back at Hiro, a hint of the lost control from before entering his voice. "Because if I do not, humans will burn, pillage, and shatter Filgaia again, and again, and again! Let them suffer! Let them die! It is what they deserve!"

A bolt of lightning crashes into his midnight blue armor. He stumbles with the hit from Elly, and yet stands his ground. Then, he turns -- and Xantia's fist slams into his armor, which shudders, then dents where it strikes. He meets her eyes. "Id is a monster, returned from the past. And yet..."

He doesn't finish that thought. Instead, he slams his sword down into the ground. He stands his ground under all the attacks, while light burns and grows about him. It forms twisting arcs -- and then fangs of black, white, purple, green, blue, and yellow light rip out. It shreds through stone work -- tears through doors -- and blasts a couple of holes in the side of the tower.

And, of course, it tries to do the same to the people that he fights.

GS: Siegfried has attacked Bart Fatima with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Carina Wynne with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Zed with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Hiro with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Xantia with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Siegfried with Warbringer!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Warbringer for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock and State! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
GS: Restore! Siegfried clears debuffs from Siegfried!
GS: Bart Fatima has activated a Force Action!
GS: Bart Fatima guards a hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 111 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten guards a hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 115 hit points!
GS: Hiro guards a hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 112 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 109 hit points!
DC: MISS! Zed completely evades Negative Rainbow from Siegfried!
GS: Carina Wynne takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 188 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Xantia takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 240 hit points!
GS: Neriah Parringer has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

The closer Neriah draws to the Statue of Ge Ramtos, the more visible the ethereal Chains that bind her become. She takes a few more steps, and the sensitive can again see those rusting chains for a moment, like ghostly manacles. With each step there is the subtle sound of steel links clattering together.

"I have to, Fei!" Neriah grates through clenched teeth, forcing the words out against a backdrop of pain. "This is too important! Because I've figured out why I have this curse!"

Jacqueline hurls the salve at Neriah's feet. Even encumbered by the Chains, though, Neriah spots it in the air. She clicks her teeth together and lunges to the side, away from the bottle; she knows well where Jay's talents lie. Her shoulder hits the ground, and she rolls heels over head before coming up on a knee. The chains phase out of view again as she strains to rise. "This is the only way I can, Jay," she growls. "Because of what did happen to me. The Chains --"

Jude goddamned Moshe rudely inserts himself into the conversation. Widening her eyes, Neriah leans to the side - but the man's leg clips her across the back anyway, and she tumbles forward with a wince, rolling away before coming back up. "...Yeah. I really can't, sir," she says with a dip of her lashes. "Sorry to drag you into this."

Bullets pound into the stone around Neriah as Cassidy Cain opens fire with both her ARMs and her sharp tongue. A couple of shots graze past Neriah's arm, leaving ugly, bloody streaks across pale skin. She winces, lurching unsteadily on her feet and leveling a hand towards Cassidy.

Neriah recognizes her just fine. By name, maybe not. But Cassidy was there for the battle with Rahab, when Neriah went ballistic and hurtled off into the night to raze a village to the ground.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to look the other way for a fair price, miss," Neriah offers Cassidy with a bat of her lashes.

Morgan cuts her off with a blast of that shining shotgun. Buckshot slams into the ground in front of Neriah, kicking up a cloud of dust, again, closer - and the next blast hits her dead to rights.

Or rather, slams into the eldritch shell of magic that has pushed out around her. She strains visibly to hold it up; the effort of doing so leaves her shoulders sagging. The field eventually collapses, and she sucks in a breath, bracing herself.

"I'm sorry, Morgan," she calls, and she means it. "You are pretty nice. I'd definitely have let you have me - sorry, Morgan's girlfriend, but it's true - but I can't turn away from this one, no matter how much your friends here shoot at me.

"Not when I've figured out the truth about why Ge Ramtos has always been trying to kill me," she utters, leveling her hand.

Again those chains flicker into view around Neriah. Snarling past the pain and peeling her lips back unattractively, the girl forces herself to power through whatever magic is binding her - and this time, there's nothing anemic about the wave of darkness that erupts from the bloody stigmata carved into her right palm. An absolute maelstrom of black magic sweeps towards Jacqueline, Morgan and Jude, battering and tearing with evil energies.

Over the blast she shouts at Cassidy, "I'm serious! Name your price!"

GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Neriah Parringer with Separation!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Neriah Parringer heals Neriah Parringer! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jude Moshe with Catastrophe!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Catastrophe!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Catastrophe!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Cassidy Cain with When Violence Fails It's Always Worth Trying a Bribe!
GS: Neriah Parringer has completed her action.
DC: MISS! Jude Moshe completely evades Catastrophe from Neriah Parringer!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Catastrophe for 137 hit points!
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's When Violence Fails It's Always Worth Trying a Bribe for 0 hit
points!
DC: MISS! Yarobeleedt completely evades Tres Flores from Lunata Croze!
GS: Kahm Yugh guards a hit from Yarobeleedt's Push a Bar for 57 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Kahm Yugh!
GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Catastrophe for 91 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.

 See, the good thing about being a noble pirate si when push comes to shove, you've got friends who believe in the same things that you do who will stand beside you! Although in this case, it was more Bart standing alongside of his friends rather than the other way around. Bart didn't have all the details, and it sounds like there's a hell of a lot going on that he needs to figure out pretty soon, but he can tell that there's a lot of anger from the Metal Demon.
 
 And his friends are determined to stop him.
 
 The eruption of energy washes out towards the pirate, and Bart crosses his arms and does his best to withstand the attack. It pushes him backwards none the less, and when he finally skids to a stop there is smoke rising from his hair and clothing from the intensity of the onslaught.
 
 "Hmph, I take it that you fought my great great whatever old man back during the first big war?" Bart asks with a grin, snapping his arms to his side and bringing his whip around. "Not that we got all that many records from back then, but if kicking you demons around is a family tradition, this at least is one I've got no problem following!"
 
 The pirate spins, bringing his whip around in a wide arc to try and strike Siegfried in the face with a pair of rapid fire strikes. He leaps backwards, aiming to keep clear of that huge spear as he presses the attack, and then throws one more strike towards that helmet for good measure.
 
 "Feh, the Guardians bleat on about how you Metal Demons are some horrible force and poison to the world or some shit - sounds like you've got the same grievances with pigheaded, violent, stupid people that the rest of us have!" Bart grins. "Heh, nice to know that anger at idiots is universal. Take it from me - I specialize in reckless stupidity!"
 
 The pirate glances at Fei, Hiro, and the others. "...and really I'm in good company in that regard. You want to fight, people are going to keep standing up and opposing you. Guardians, gods, whatever. Good people see others getting hurt and they'll step up to help."

GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Siegfried with Head Hunter!
GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Pfft, what, this?" Zed laughs in Hiro's direction as he reappears on the far end of that lightning bolt. "Man, you don't even know how much crap I've put up with. But no, I do feel pretty bad about this. But! On the other hand! I get to fight THE BEST QUARTER KNIGHT." Berserk is tied for worst Quarter Knight for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who has ever been in the same room as both Zed and Berserk.

"I mean, who gets to say they've survived straight up knock-down fights with the Glumzambor Guy, the Legendary Blue Knight? I can probably sell my wrecked-up armor on the market and--"

There he goes, ranting again.

Fortunately, something snaps him out of it before he's reduced to a pile of overtalkative ash.

Siegfried.

"Y-yeah, well at least I still have my youth, old man!" Zed roars back, his lips drawn back into a snarl. "The only thing I've turned my back on is a path that made me keep lyin' to myself about what I wanted to be! I'll show you AND mom, there's a world out there that we can live in without killing it! There's a place for Hyadeans out there. And if I don't, at least I get to die saying I tried!"

It's a good thing he's actually paying attention this time, though.

The alternative is just... Not viable.

Zed's eyes go wide when the Negative Rainbow streaks across the sky. He ducks, weaves, moving faster than most any human could ever dare dream. But even that isn't enough. The Negative Rainbow tears through the landscape, melting stone to molten pools of glass. One of those deadly fangs closes in on him--

Doom Bringer suddenly surges with light. Zed slams it into the homing ray with a flash of sparks, and then rushes in for a strike of his own...!

"And if anyone of our people wants to walk alongside me, then damn, that's still better than what I had! I'll cut a path of my own, for all those who don't want to walk down the road of destruction and conquest!"

GS: Zed has attacked Siegfried with RayBlade - Zed Saber!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried critically Guards a hit from Bart Fatima's Head Hunter for 18 hit points!
GS: Bart Fatima takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Zed's RayBlade - Zed Saber for 78 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

Kahm seems to lack Lunata's conflict entirely-but then, he's been quietly working alongside the very people it was his duty to ensure were kept under control for a year now. The Metal Demons were simply the larger threat at the moment-once they were dealt with, it would be to corralling the 'Lambs' as usual.

Simple, right?

The way Yaro's body reacted to the electrical assault told him much, but there was little enough time to act on it when the metal slug begin to assail him with the shield-arm like a club, again forcing Kahm to battle it back with a blow-for-blow trade of his blade. The assault-and the accumulated effect of his earlier battles against Siegfried and Riesenlied's forces-weighed heavily on his body, breathing growing ragged and sparse before the combat drugs kicked in on a high cycle, providing that euphoric high.

He pauses, just long enough stare sternly at Fei's jacket on Elly's shoulders, then roll to the side as Lunata continued the fight to grim effect. Impressive anger, he assessed, but unrefined.

It was nostalgic.

"Not bad. Let's make it interesting." Kahm offers, and with a moment focus Lunata's strikes surge with the same electrical ether Kahm had struck the demon with earlier, judging there couldn't be too much of a good thing. Each successive strikes builds a charge, until the last one completes the 'Flower' kanji, with explodes in a storm of lightning that not only ensconces Yaro, but those in his vicinity-in this case, Malfi.

GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Yarobeleedt with Anemo Storm!
GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Malfi with Anemo Storm!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

You'll be the first to know if I have kids cause I'm makin' ya babysit--
 
 Cassidy laughs - the sound is bright and unfettered, but no matter how that expression seems engaging, the look in her eyes speaks otherwise at the mention of Morgan's fictional bastards. "Ha ha ha ha!" she exclaims, firing shot after shot at Neriah. "I'd rather have a lobotomy."
 
 She dives into cover, tucking her body within the shadow of one of the fallen pieces of masonry that had once been the ceiling, chambering other rounds and turning an eye over her shoulder at the rest of the battlefield. Siegfried's blue armor gleams somewhere within the teeming, violent masses, and Gwen's own bright head of hair bobs and weaves through the chaos. She keeps a mental bead on Jude and Morgan, though surprise flits on her expression, briefly, at the familiar sights of Marcus Rider and Loren Voss in the fray.
 
 "What's that cagey bastard doing here?" she murmurs. Loren, she remembers, if not just because he was there with her and Ida during the incident with the ship.
 
 I don't suppose you'd be willing to look the other way for a fair price.
 
 "Wish I could, lass!" she calls out from behind her cover. "But it looks like you're trying tae at least maim or at most kill ol' Morgan here, and he still owes me a show on this really infamous mechanical bull called the Thunder Down Under. It was going tae be a huge production, you see, with a saddle and copious amounts of Aquvian coconut oil, and while I'm relatively certain you're good for it, that exhibition's a once in a lifetime opportunity I simply cannae pass up."

GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Kaguya with Crackshot!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Malfi guards a hit from Kahm Yugh's Anemo Storm for 60 hit points!
GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Neriah Parringer with Bye Bye Baby!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Cassidy Cain's Bye Bye Baby for 50 hit points!
GS: Yarobeleedt takes a solid hit from Kahm Yugh's Anemo Storm for 97 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"Th-the Chains...I don't understand...what are they?" Jacqueline asks. Some others have joined the fray, firing at Neriah. She recognizes Morgan, and Cassidy from that time she came by the Caravan Kinship with him, but the other man is unfamiliar to her. She sends them a look, but it's only temporary before her attention returns to Neriah.

However, she can't focus on her for long. Her eyes stray to the other side of the battlefield...where she sees Lunata being stabbed in the neck.

"L-Lunat-- ahhh!" Jacqueline learns a very valuable about taking her eyes off her opponent. A maelstrom of black magic consumes her, courtesy of Neriah. It strikes her from every angle, battering and tearing at her, picking her up and hurling her backwards.

She lies still on the ground for a moment, before forcing herself up.

"G-Ge Ramtos...is trying to kill you...? Why...?" Jacqueline murmurs, her voice a little weak. If Ge Ramtos was trying to kill Neriah...what did that mean for Lunata...?

She reaches into her bags, rummaging through for a potion. It's so much easier, since she's used most of her supply up just getting here.

...This isn't a good thought.

The potion she draws out resembles one of her healing potions, but with inverted colors. Normally it was made to undo the effects of curatives, but maybe it could do something about that barrier of hers, as well...

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Neriah Parringer with Reverse Restorative!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"Sorry, I mean...it's just a weird name," Fei says. It really is a weird name.

Nevertheless, his latest chilling out might be put to the test a lot more heavily than he expected. Elly warns him to focus up and he is able to put up a guard and avoid getting hit in the vitals by the Negative Rainbow, and honestly he's been hit by enough times by that thing that he should be kind of able to breathe through the pain--but no, it still hurts like the dickens and he bites down on his tongue to prevent from howling. He still makes a pained noise through his mouth but it's likely lost to all but those right on top of him with the sounds of battle being quite loud.

He sinks to one knee, panting for breath. Still hurts once it's no longer drilling into him, but he is able to get up one more time.

"Your armor..." Fei murmurs.

He still hasn't healed entirely, Fei thinks.

Wait, Fei thinks a moment after, why am I--

The thought dies as Siegfried yells about killing humans because they deserve it. Considering there's at least one human here trying to KILL DEATH, it's hard to not understand his feelings, but he says, "If we both love Filgaia..." as he manages to resume his stance. "Why are we fighting to start with? Why don't we just fight against the people who hate Filgaia? This way is just stirring the flames of old wars once more. I already see the poison spreading."

Ruby tells him to maybe sit this one out.

"I can't," He tells her. "I'm--I'm okay enough. I can't just let him keep doing this to himself."

Or to others, Fei admits, miserably, as he darts in again. He tries to time his strikes this time for the already damaged points in his armor. He doesn't go for a lot of heavy strikes, just a lot of short, sharp, pointed strikes where he's felt the armor give, and where he imagines it must be from the hits he's been taking.

"You're hurt." Fei says to Siegfried. "You shouldn't be fighting right now."

Hiro is so composed, he thinks of the man's answer about Lucia, if it were him I could not be like that. "What an impressive guy..." He mururs.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has canceled their attack on Kaguya.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Reverse Restorative for 0 hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Siegfried with Hoten!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi flinches a little as Kahms attack washes over her -- she can absorb lightning, but not magical lightining. At the very least he has her undivided attention as she jabs at him with her lance, attempting to run him through!

GS: Malfi has attacked Kahm Yugh with Improv Tango!
GS: Malfi has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Carina knows her armor, believe her, and comes to the conclusion that Siegfried's is excellent armor. Well, no surprise there. She shuts off the Matrix Eye, so as not to drain its battery again.

Once again, her own power surprises her, as she leaves a crack where she was barely expecting to make a dent. She hops back to give herself some space, and process what she just heard.

"Killed me? What?" Did she... Did she died without noticing? She pats at her torso, just to be sure-- and completely missing Lunata's talk of living corpses --and... well, whatever! He's obviously just trying to mess with her brain, right?

"Haven't you heard?" she shoots back, pointing at Siegfried, "Heroes never die! And I'm gonna prove it!"

Xantia waves to her. She shoots a thumbs-up back. "Hey, maybe we should coordinate our attaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

She is interrupted as multicolored bolts shoot right for her, coursing right through the armor and giving the young woman inside an unmitigated taste of the pain her friends experience all too often. She collapses to the ground, shaking, black scorch marks visible all over her metallic garb.

She coughs and hisses through the pain, finding her HUD stained with tears. What a jerk. What an extreme jerk. Still trembling, she staggers back up to her feet.

There is no more witty banter out of her for now, and she's momentarily forgotten talk of attack coordination. Instead, she keeps a safe distance and fires off a volley of flaming punches, sending countless small fireballs flying for the Quarter Knight!

It's a thing to do while she gathers her courage again, for real this time.

GS: Carina Wynne has attacked Siegfried with Atatatatata Attack!
GS: Carina Wynne has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        Against almost (monsters and known menaces excluded, obviously) anyone else, it would be almost too much for him to open hostilities so forcefully.
        But she's a Veruni. They're monstrous, as a review of past encounters would reveal.
        There isn't a problem with it here, not for him.

        As it is, the edge of the shield merely clips her; he falls back, keeping it level with Kaguya as she similarly rebounds.

        He notes -- his gaze falling in a sweep across immediate melee territory -- he's been joined by a familiar-looking pink-haired girl in attacking the Veruni soldier... and the very singular Gwen Whitlock.
        Oh, good.
        For once, this is not meant sarcastically -- they could be useful.

        "You were saying?" Loren, cloaked in Gebler battle armor and face largely concealed by the combat helmeting, tilts his head to one side as if some critical evaluation of her.

        "Yes, let's all keep talking to her, in the hopes she'll see the errors of her ways." He sighs. "Please, save the attempts to tug at the heartstrings, Veruni." He sounds like he might have rolled his eyes, if briefly. "I don't know what you or your kind are attempting here, or what you're doing with them, but it really doesn't matter. I don't suppose you'd do me a favor and surrender?" He doesn't sound like he's expecting her to take him up on it, though.

        Then Kaguya does something that definitely gets his attention. ...Was that ether? It felt almost like ether.
        ...Does he remember anything about Veruni capability? Anything at all?
        She's fast after that. Her hand rises in a short sharp twist, a strange ARM in her grasp.
        He rolls back, planting his feet firmly and shield raised. Green light.
        It pours off the front of the 'Snow Lion' series tactical shield, webs of it spidering across the metal surface to sizzle against his body armor. He exhales a breath, feeling the weight of the shield on his arm briefly more keenly.

        "Sorry, but I'll pass," he informs Kaguya.

        Maybe it's the exhaustion. Maybe it's the stimulants rushing through his bloodstream. Maybe it's finally focus here to grace him at last.
        But he feels almost... keen, for a change.
        No immediate return strike appears forthcoming from the Gebler soldier. Instead, he shifts his focus a little to his left and burns a piece -- just a little piece, in the scheme of things -- of the strength and rage of the blood of the earth into Gwen Whitlock.

        "...I don't suppose either of you have a sealing rod?" he asks Shalune and Gwen, quite bluntly.

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Power Factor!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hoten for 34 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried guards a hit from Carina Wynne's Atatatatata Attack for 110 hit points!
GS: Kahm Yugh takes a solid hit from Malfi's Improv Tango for 77 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

"Nothing wrong with it, until they start trying to kill me. I have a healthy appreciation of life."

A shoe once-polished and now caked in grime and moss from an endless series of trevails throughout this floating Shrine of Masochism strikes ground in a fluid motion after its heel clips at Neriah Perringer's back. Jude Moshe moves like water, flowing with the momentum of his own attack with an almost careless motion that does leagues to hide the preparedness behind it. A cherry-picked plethora of styles guides the sharp pivot of his heel, some of them doubtless familiar to most, some of them likely only familiar to a select few.

And it is in that space between moments that Jude takes stock of the situation. The courier is here, too, of course. Some other, vaguely familiar faces, some known by reputation.

But for the most part, Jude makes sure to keep three people in his peripherals: 'Marcus Rider,' Fei Fong Wong... and Xantia.

Amber eyes catch them both between the weave of a plethora of photo-inverted colors spewed from the depths of the Quarter Knight's strange weapon. His brows furrow just a bit...

But his smile is still a lucklessly casual one as he turns it Neriah's way, his shoulders lifting in a shrug that seems strikingly ambivalent about the hand he's been dealt.

"Ah, well," he decides, tone still calm even in the midst of all this mounting madness. "Just the way things shake out, I guess."

Dark sorcery that is not quite symbology, or crest magic, or even ether rips through the air. And the reporter immediately cants the barrel of his shotgun groundwards, firing of one, two, -three- shots one after the other into the earth as the symbols on it glow a wintery white-blue.

And one by one, half-domes of ice lurch into crystallized existence around him, warding off thae whipping tempest of wrongness wth the crack and shatter of thick, forging patterns of frost.

The air around him thickens into vapors, molecules slowing down to a chilled point as that ice absorbs the heat around it, absorbs the force that batters it. It cracks, splinters, shatters--

"No hard feelings."

And from the holes Jude Moshe fires off another three shots, a pitched whine filling the air as three magically-charged shells imbed in the ground at Neriah's feet...

... and then explode, one by one, with rippling BURSTS of kinetic force.

"What d'you say, Morgan's girlfriend?" he asides to Cassidy, with a hint of a secretive smile. "Take the money, go somewhere nice, leave the Demons and friends alone? I can recommend a few spots for you two that still actually remember how to obey the laws of gravity."

Of course...

He already knows the answer to that question, before Cassidy even acts.

"But I guess that's a bit too high a hope."

Which is why he hasn't lowered his ARM.

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Neriah Parringer with Boom Boom!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
DC: MISS! Neriah Parringer completely evades Boom Boom from Jude Moshe!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
Catching the two boomerangs he snaps them back into place on a peg and jolts it down in his belt furiously. But Siegfried says that he does understand, that he has lost someone. That there was one in particular. Momentarily shocked out of his fury by that and the broken armor Hiro says quietly, "... You do get it..." He says in a sense of wonder but not quite able to offer sympathy in this singular moment of understanding. Knowing it would be hollow.
 
And then as Siegfried yells back at him, and all of that anger returns. Hiro all but sputters, and Bart responds first, giving him time to actually form words rather than incoherent sounds. Instead he just follows off of him, "Yeah what makes you think your people are any better when all the things you accuse humans are doing are things you're doing right back to them! You think this back and forth is going to save your people? You're just going to doom everyone. Human and Hyadean both! How many of your own people have to turn on you before you understand that you're not doing what's best for them!"
 
There's a distinct feeling of hypocrisy there though. That although he says that to Siegfried. That deep down he's doing the same thing. Just another chain link on this long cycle of vengeance. He can tell himself that he's protecting the statue but... he knows the reality.
 
The rainbow light twists along, and Hiro squats down to get low, trying to make himself a smaller target. The wave twists at an odd angle at the last moment, hitting him with all the force of a whiplash as it slips beneath his arm and sends him flying as it slams upward into his chest. Hitting the ground, he rolls once, but the blow seems to have been dulled just enough to allow him to roll back up to a knee - panting, forehead covered in sweat.
 
But then Zed outlines his reason, "That's why you're here!?" But then after a moment's thought, "Heh, well I'll take what I can get. I guess I can't complain if you want to work on your legend a little."
 
Ruby seems calm at first at Fei's answer "Okay well just be caref-" But then double takes, -wait what do you mean by to himself!?" Ruby gawks as Fei seems to show compassion for Siegfried. Not really surprised but - "Fei don't get yourself killed by worrying about him!"
 
Hiro doesn't feel like an impressive guy, sucking in a breath, the whole feeling of hypocrisy at his desire for vengeance seems to sober himself a bit. As he starts to chant, the winds rising up in swirling currents before he finishes it - "Fei get clear!"
 
Twisting down in an impressive funnel that picks up the dust of the Elw ruins, a small thin tornado twists in ever-shifting patterns as it falls upon Siegfried the narrow end of it aiming to drive right into him and batter him over and over and over again with the harsh friction of fast-moving wind. "We're gonna make sure you're not the one who decides the future of this world."
 
Maybe he's trying to reassure himself...
 

GS: Hiro has attacked Siegfried with Cyclone!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya looks riiiight back over at Cassidy for a moment, pale green eyes on hers for an instant. ...She looks pretty bad. Certainly in no condition to fight.

But her attention--while her eyes on are on Loren--goes to Shalune's words, at what she says, her clearly heartfelt rebuttal. It would be simpler if it were angry, but it isn't. Instead she clicks her teeth, sucking in an unhappy breath of her own--

"...Okay," she says, "You're right. I can't really expect that from you. Do what you gotta do."

It's rough-spoken, but gentler than what she says next to Gwen, "Man, I liked it better when the Gebler guy just hit me." It's a clear complaint. It is doing something stupid, in a way, as Kaguya takes the shot in the chest--stopped by armor that's revealed by the bullethole, deep green and alien, though it's still going to bruise her. "You're not gonna talk me out of this," she says to her, setting her jaw. "...Maybe you do get it more than most people, but I've considered pretty hard. I'll take care of my own."

"But this statue's goin' down."

Then she gets hit by a blast of red-streaked light, knocking her a little forward as it was hitting her blind spot. "Oof--That--"

Loren keeps talking--and really... Hmmm. "The only heartstrings I'm interested in tugging are yours. When I pull your heart out out of your chest." A beat, "Not surrendering." Her ARM is clearly not gunsmoke, and indeed, looks like something not of this earth. But she can see... Feel--Loren is--

"Ohhhh so you're gonna buff them up, huh? 'Cause I'm less likely to hit theM? I don't think so."

She lunges into action, next, lifting her ARM and loading it quickly with a gleaming green cartridge, cla-CLACK. "You first." She lifts it one-handed at Loren and fires, a now-familiar burst of sonic force crashing towards him. She lets herself use the recoil to push her back, ducks down, and gets in front of Gwen. "Hey there. Let's have a talk, just us sick girls." Abrubtly she lunges forward--her movements are slight, economical, but she punches from the wrist straight for Gwen's chest, hard enough to send her flying if she connects, and then bends at the knee and leaps straight for Shalune.

"Cool weapon. But you know, I respect what you mean. Which is why--" She reaches out to try to grab Shalune's wrist, "Try not to die, Lunie." She ducks under with her shoulder to try to hurl Shalune right into Gwen.

GS: Kaguya has attacked Loren Voss with Concussion Rounds!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Axis Strike!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Shalune Amira with Orbit Throw!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: Kahm Yugh has completed his action.
GS: Shalune Amira guards a hit from Kaguya's Orbit Throw for 150 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss guards a hit from Kaguya's Concussion Rounds for 87 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Hiro's Cyclone for 83 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

        Yarobeleedt, that dastardly design of a cowardly creature, feeds more and more of those fluids into the opening provided when he feels it sink into Lunata's... cool, kind of stiff... neck. Wait. This sensation feels a little wierd.
        The Death Priestess clenches her hand around the amorphous and totally gross thing that goes scared stiff when she squeezes it as he tries to retract it back. It's a struggle. His eyes look ready to fall out of his head when she lets go, and the timing of her release can't be any better as he flops backwards in a way that - were he not a semi-solid naga-bug-serpent-whatever - he might have snapped his back in two.
        The gathering cloud of blossoming petals at his bottom are now a cloud of blossoming petals gathering at the filmy kinda-slimy trail left behind as he backs away, slithering backwards as the sword draw seems to come up empty other than to cleanly sever the kanji for 'flower' into whatever the hell it is Yarobeleedt excretes through his lower body (probably more of that poison).
        He's fleeing up the wall, but Kahm is absolutely On This as he works with the openings and new angles Lunata provides. He promises to make it interesting, and does - as an exploding storm of lightning travels through whatever excretion trail he's left behind and conducts. Once more, he spasms, he shakes, he contorts, he peels right off the wall of the ancient Elw construct with a wet 'plop' preceding a more solid-sounding one that could be expected of an alien monstrosity with metal flesh.
        He watches as Malfi takes the electrical surge like a champion, pushing through with all the expected valor of a warrior of Mother. To bow to no human will, to move to eradicate them from the face of Filgaia itself so that her very people can take this place as home for themselves... he seethes inwardly as he considers the criticisms and mockery of his peers at this moment.
        So weak! So useless! So slow! So soft...!
        "Kullllllll," that's absolutely supposed to be 'grrr' but moving on, "is fnough!! More than enough! Silly! Silly..."
        He slams an arm into the ground. Much of the biomass concentrates up towards the front, forming a poorly balanced hammerhead that the rest of the stringy forearm shouldn't be able to lift and manipulate. This doesn't stop him from trying to flick it all over Kahm, over and over, in a tantrum. "Not outdone! Not indone! Not by one human! Not by one and one human!" Two. Righting himself up somehow within this tantrum, he darts towards Lunata.
        "Dead body not move! Not dead?? Fill dead?? Do not overstand!" He closes in much quicker, much further up into Lunata's grill--
        Around her grill.
        He tries to wrap his entire lower body around her - just like back in Adlehyde, to press together tightly and compress, hardening what muscles manage to exist in a given moment of time within that churning mass of half-melted lower body flesh to contract.
        To crush.
        "Grab still!! Grab still! No more silly! Dead dead!! Not move! Not go!"
        Just like she were that future victim he was intending back when he was so eager to kill some humans in Adlehyde! So no one would mock him for Arctica, ever again...!

GS: Yarobeleedt has attacked Kahm Yugh with Blood Gin!
GS: Yarobeleedt has attacked Lunata Croze with We Cling!
GS: Yarobeleedt has completed its action.
GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Yarobeleedt's We Cling for 110 hit points!
GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Power Factor for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Gwen Whitlock!
GS: Gwen Whitlock critically Guards a hit from Kaguya's Axis Strike for 24 hit points!
GS: Kahm Yugh takes a solid hit from Yarobeleedt's Blood Gin for 86 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
Elly breathes out into her helmet. It smells of home. Right now she's OK with that.

That horrid light comes towards her, the inverted rainbow. Elly's fingers tighten around her rod as she prepares herself. It is not easy to articulate this sort of defense to those who lack that certain something; it has elements of bracing oneself for a blow of a certain sort, throwing the right extinguisher at the right fire, and denying a thing's existence in one's heart, all wrapped together in NEGATION.

Elly cannot negate a negative entirely, of course, but the burst is flensed partly near her, washing over her, scorching the helmet she's wearing, dirtying her like-new Gebler uniform, and making her stagger a pace. "Hnhghk-"

And yet: She doesn't die. She doesn't rupture in a shower of blood. She has no real time to glory in this, because she reels about and Elly's eyes take in the sight of women and men of courage defying this monster--

Then Fei speaks to him. The helmeted head of Elly turns to look at him as if in mild disbelief.

But it's brief.

And, Elly tells herself, he has the rod. She has to protect him the rod - and her own battle baton is not sufficient. N onetheless it is gripped, nonetheless. Elly is driven to speak - to even cry out, and this too is probably going to baffle operators on the Gebler radio channel -

"You cry so much for the future - but what good is a future nobody will see?!"

Perhaps this is slightly out of left field for Elly, but the process in her mind made sense. It felt good to say it. Like she was answering a question in school correctly.

Oh, also, the massive icicle. That happens too. The Ether invocation in this case is simple and spiral-like, the spiracle-nautilus of condensed atmospheric moisture drawing inwards and quite possibly spoiling Jude Moshe's stored hooch through the invocation of the "Angel's Share," a phenomenon common to many distilleries due to the natural tendency of alcohol to vaporize and the differentials of pressure between a habitable atmosphere, such as Filgaia's, versus that of a preservative cask.

Yes: not even a steel drum is immune. The great spear of ice slams at Siegfried then, the size of several cows lined up end to end; it will at the very least distract him, Elly prays, and the ice itself shouldn't be too bad for the others striking their blows.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Siegfried with Aqua Ice!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Aqua Ice for 133 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        The sight of Jacqueline being engulfed by darkness is enough for her to suddenly snap her attention.

        "J-JAY!" Lunata shouts, whipping her head and indeed also paying the price of taking your attention off your opponent as she tries to rush from the recovery of her strike, stumbling to one knee and--

        --and sees Shalune get thrown off towards Gwen, as if she were nothing more than a ragdoll.

        The bile continues to rise in her stomach. The anger rising through her veins.

        How did they come to this?

        She has no particular means to evade as the snake-like creature seizes the opportunity to retreat from her, and descends throug the annhiliating blast of electrical power and seizes around her limb. Around her waist and tightens in a compress--

        Lunata Croze gasps and clings tight towards the naga-like substance choking at her, crying aloud, "Stop this...!" The breath is squeezed out of her lungs as she feels strength leaving her...

        She was a victim then. She seems a victim now. She grimaces and tries to seize at his limbs, but finds his constricting force agonising. There's a nasty sounding crack against her limbs--

        --and Orochi-Agito drops to the ground, clattering against the floor of the Elw Ruin.

        Her hands go limp.

<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


"I'm remembered and appreciated, if ya weren't tryin' ta feed me some kind of magic hell shadowed I'd be embarrassed!" Morgan calls as he dismisses the shotgun. "Look darlin," Comes the foxes smile. "Why don't you just explain what the hell is even goin on with the chains and the Ge...whatever he is." He never paid much attention to the Guardians, even when they appeared to him.

...ne never put much stock in gods.

"Jay's got a point! Why don't ya just explainn about the chains rather than tryin' ta kill---" And he would have said us, but suddenly there is a torrent of black magic that he has to deal with.

fThis one more powerful than the last.

So he does the sensible thing, he charges it.

Less time spent in bad magic the better, at least that is the logic.

How well the logic fares is hard to say as Morgan is looking slightly worse for wear after this charge. The blue-white energy of his shields a little bit tattered and torn, though the grin on his face still seems just as bright and fiery as ever.

"Jude," Morgan calls out as he skids to a stop. His arm already covered in the glow of his summoning weapon. "You hang out with Cassidy. I'm pretty sure you have zero sense of self preservation."

The weapon that appears is a multi-barreled affair. A trio of spinning barrels attached to an ammo well that a person Morgan's size shouldn't be able to wield effectively.

Beastmen, or at least this one though, cheat.

The roar of the multi-barreled weapon drowns out the din of battle for him at least for a moment. The rounds themselves though? Well they are aimed with expert accuracy at the chains around her themselves, the rounds not meant to kill, just wound.

The barrage quiets as the ammo runs dry, and Morgan just smirks slightly. God he loves his ARM. Eyes flicker to the rest of the battle. The players there, Gwen fighting someone else. Marcus. Loren. All trying to get to the statue for different reasons and different goals.

The chaos of it all makes him grin, he kind of feels right at home.

That grin dissipears as Cassidy speaks.

"You know, yer memory slips for all kinds of things, Cass. You forget when you owe me money, when its your turn to pay for Jude and my drinks, you forget all sorts of thing. Why does that bloody stupid bull the only damn thing you can keep in your head?!" A beatpause. "Well that and the Caravan's Tacos."

GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Neriah Parringer with Rain Down!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Morgan Newkirk's Rain Down for 73 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        Suddenly.

        Lunata's head lulls almost, almost a 180 as she cranes her neck and presses her face up against Yarobeleedt's, with complete disregard to the strange substance that he spews, with complete disregard to how hazardous his very mercurial body is.

        She limply draws her arm back--

        -=scchhHINKkkk=-

        --and attempts a rather forceful shove of her palm into his face.

        Normally, of course, this wouldn't be painful at all... except a bloody blade has erupted through the centre of her palm; with something approaching ghoulish strength, the grotesque sound of metal squelching right through muscle, bone and sinew is heard.

        It isn't until a blade of bone fused into her own veins and musculature emerges that she tears it out in a sinewy circle to attempt to break loose of the naga-like Metal Demon.

        "You're not the only one with blades on your limbs."

GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Yarobeleedt with I am the Bone of my Sword!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Lunata Croze's attack becomes clear!
GS: Yarobeleedt takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's True Spirit Arte Extension for 188 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

The answer Xantia receives from Siegfried makes her frown deeply. He didn't tell her anything new with that. Though when she really thinks about, that is something she often fails to keep in mind. She fights him just like she fights everybody else. That should have gotten her smashed into paste, several times over by now. But here she still is. If Id's considered to be a monster... what does that make her?

Moreover, she caught parts of Siegfried's reactions to the others involved in the fight. It's becoming rapidly clear that the leader of the Metal Demons seems to have history with just about everybody. In his lack of a similar reaction to her, it feels like she already has an answer to her other burning question. He doesn't know who she is, either. As usual, even those who seem like they know everything know nothing about her. Why is it always like this?

Her already low focus suffers further when self-doubt gets involved. Not even a thumbs-up from Locus can do anything to improve that. Once again, her reaction time to the energy buildup is too slow. When it erupts, she isn't already moving - by the time she makes to flee, it's already too late. Blown away at full force, Xantia is sent flying at an awkward angle, landing a good distance away from where she started, failing to break her fall. She may have been out cold before even hitting the ground.

Or so it probably looked. Even after all that, Xantia is painfully aware of being very much conscious, her self-doubts hurting even more than her body itself. Being able to keep going after a fall like that isn't normal. She isn't normal. What is she? Why did she come here, why does she have this burning need to fight?

She can't even get herself to think about giving up. Unbiddenly, her body has already started to heal the wounds incurred, dulling the pain, enabling her to keep going. Before she knows it, she's already up on one knee, slowly rising the rest of the way. The ARM around her wrist activates, red energy blade crackling as she approaches once more, pace rapidly quickening, until she's back in Siegfried's proximity. It's as is she vanishes for a brief moment, reappearing behind Siegfried, having bridged the distance with blinding speed while lashing out with her ARM blade.

That probably wasn't normal either, she catches herself thinking. But whatever she may be, she can tell Siegfried one thing with certainty: "Filgaia won't be saved by the likes of you. I can't let you do what you want." It feels as if she is literally incapable of it.

GS: Xantia used Mystic on Xantia! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared!
GS: Xantia has activated a Force Action!
GS: Xantia has attacked Siegfried with Frenzy Dance!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Xantia's Frenzy Dance for 66 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

"I should like to see you try!" Siegfried snaps back at Bart. He raises his arm up, and then lets the whip slash against the forearm armor there. It leaves dents, this time, after the beating that particular armor plate has taken. Once again, the Quarter Knight draws a bead on Bart -- and the forearm cannon shudders, before a bright blue-white beam of light explodes out for the pirate captain.

"You think Mother would listen to you, after you betrayed her!?" Siegfried bellows back at Zed. "There is no path but conquest and destruction! You think these humans better? You haven't seen them, yet!"

Zed rushes in, and he swings the sword up, deflecting the blow -- though Doom Bringer digs close, cutting into the armored fingers. Siegfried leans into the parry, a line of black-blue fluid dripping down to his chin. Then, he tears the weapon backward. It rips free, and he swings it around, and cleaves up in a massive diagonal chop for Zed's chest.

He spins, then, and turns to meet Fei. Fei's fist and feet blur, repeated strikes slamming into his armor -- and it would break it apart, break through, except for Siegfried's skill. He meets him, many of those pointed strikes hitting the flat of Glumzambor, or an arm or leg. He ends by pivoting on a heel, and swings the Dark Spear up in a sharp slash for the midsection of Fei.

"Even if I am hurt--I will carry on!" he shouts. "You know why we fight! Because our people can do nothing else--because betrayal is all that awaits!"

Locus comes at him. He comes at Locus. He takes the punches, letting them burn and smoulder on his chest, as he reaches out with a hand -- and tries to grabbed the masked girl by the face, then throw her backward. "Heroes die," he says. "Frequently. Death is a hero's calling."

Then he turns, spinning on a heel to deliver a mighty two-handed slash for Carina's midsection. Before he can turn more fury upon them, though, the wind whips and tears about him; Hiro's cyclone slashes into his armor, and he turns his head, looking at Hiro with narrowed eyes. "We are nothing like you," he spits. "We knew loyalty! We knew service! In a thousand years, until your human filth corrupted her... not one Metal Demon strayed! Not one betrayed!"

He lifts his arm -- and another beam of blue-white light shoots at Hiro. Before he can fire again, ice explodes at him -- a spear of it slams into him, and while it doesn't pierce through, it knocks him backward towards the edge of the tier that he stands on.

He fires the arm cannon at Elly -- and then Xantia appears behind him. She kicks into him -- and he turns. He moves towards her with the roll, reaching out to grab hold--

--and then drops with her, throwing her down, as he comes crashing down to the story below.

"You don't deserve Filgaia!"

GS: Siegfried has activated a Force Action!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Zed with Blue Destiny!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Carina Wynne with Dark Spear!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Xantia with Hyadean Martial Arts!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Bart Fatima with Ion Pulse!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Hiro with Ion Pulse!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Ion Pulse!
GS: Hiro takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Ion Pulse for 128 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Ion Pulse for 140 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Bart Fatima takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Ion Pulse for 98 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"Ah well. It was worth a shot," Neriah sighs, shrugging back at Cassidy and waving a hand in the air. Her smile is more than a little wearied. "Though I can't begrudge you the show... I bet he looks awfully nummy oiled up."

The woman's pistol fire rips past the cursed girl, and Neriah breaks into a dash, long legs carrying across the rim of that upper level. Cassidy's aim is true even with Neriah's fleetness of foot in play, though. A bullet grazes her thigh; she staggers and nearly drops from the ledge, wobbling precariously for a moment before swinging her arms out to reorient herself. She leaps, positioning herself away from the edge and landing with a wince.

She's closer still to the Statue. Again, ethereal chains, rusting and decayed, shudder around her, visible to those with eyes that can behold magic. They're gone again with a shimmer. As she begins to prowl closer still, back towards the edge, Jude opens fire; Neriah's eyes track the arc of his explosive firepower. Rippling bursts of kinetic energy carve holes in the stonework, but Neriah's leaping into the air even as Jude fires, flipping heels over head in the air, then descending with a click of slightly-too-tall heels a distance further away. The smile she shoots him is mirthless but with that exhaustion behind it, her eyes heavily shadowed as she whips out the pistol in her left hand. Steam jets from the back of it as she fires off a couple of shots at him, aiming to hit him in the shoulder or chest. "I really am sorry, you know. I don't like to hurt innocents. But I'm sure you've done a bunch of nasty shit in your life that would make Riesenlied turn beet red if she heard it, so I don't feel quite so bad. I'll even assume some of it was Morgan's fault."

She swings her aim; again Neriah opens fire, dashing a little closer to the statue and squeezing off a shot aimed to put a bullet in the upper half of Cassidy, preferably somewhere hurty - of course, she holds her shot until she can see the woman poking up from cover!

Another shotgun roars; Morgan fires round after round at her from rotary barrels, from a gun he shouldn't be able to hold in the first place. Much of the buckshot slams into that shield Neriah's able to hold up sporadically - but as she tries to soak up the rest, the Chains flicker around her with a pulse of death magic and she gasps in sudden pain and lurches backwards. A blast hits her hard enough to throw her off her feet, only the remnants of the shield keeping it from being lethal; shrapnel peppers across her side and stomach, biting in painfully. With a hiss, she pulls herself back to her feet, fixing Morgan with a flat look.

"It's not that hard, Morgan!" she shouts at him. "I've got a death curse on me and breaking this statue might free me from--"

There's a crckle of glass at her feet.

The potion Jay hurls at her is startling. The substance splashes across Neriah's barrier; it reduces down to an oily substance, the eldritch patterns radiating through it twisting into odd shaped before the field melts away entirely, seemingly confused as to how to actually adjust to such a curious liquid. Neriah takes a shaking breath, then lets it out through her teeth. Even in this situation, Jay's trying not to kill her.

Neriah breathes and wrestles down a horrible, sad feeling.

"...The Chains are why using my magic always felt like dying, Jay," she says, her voice low. "They're the death curse. The Ash Hare showed me the truth, when it conjured up a Shaman of Ge Ramtos I never remembered. But it made me realize why.

"Because ages ago, that man put a curse on someone in my family and sealed his powers. Locked up the darkness in Guardian chains for seven generations." Neriah's smile is almost disturbingly wide and beatific.

"I'm NUMBER EIGHT."

Once more, Neriah levels her hand. A whirling miasma of dreadful energy billows around her and streams through the manifesting and tightening chains as she braces with a sudden surge of pain.

"That's why I can't stop, even if I like you!" Neriah shouts as she begins to unload. Roaring dark magic bursts down her arms and rips towards Jay and Morgan in a horrifying, masonry-rattling stream. The channel of darkness twists into the shape of a vast face with three mouths and several eyes before surging forward to try and swallow the pair!

GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Cassidy Cain with Sweet Lady Marilyn!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jude Moshe with Marilyn Snapshot!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Discipline!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Discipline!
GS: Neriah Parringer has completed her action.
GS: Jude Moshe takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Marilyn Snapshot for 99 hit points!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Nemesis Cleave!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Xantia critically Guards a hit from Siegfried's Hyadean Martial Arts for 21 hit points!
GS: Morgan Newkirk critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Discipline for 19 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Discipline for 48 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Siegfried's Nemesis Cleave for 73 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Sweet Lady Marilyn for 79 hit points!
GS: Carina Wynne takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Dark Spear for 54 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

Kahm relished a moment of success as that arcing energy followed Yaro's trail and laid him low, though the Major was about to be visited by the foul winds of ill fortune himself. This come first from the demonic shapeshifter hammer blows, the first few of which Kahm manages to evade deftly until an upswing catches him on the side of his head knock him backwards and reeling for a moment. The helmet protected him from the worst of the damage at the expense of an audible *CRACK* somewhere along its seams, and his eyes saw stars for a moment until blinked away.

In that passing moment, he manages to catch sight of Cassidy Cain's bedraggled, familiarly blonde head (and the familiar brogue of her spoken accent if that wasn't enough) with enough time to wonder the self-same thought as she before he also notices that Gwen Whitlock was somehow present and alive after her fall from the palm of his gear. "Not to make your job any harder, Lieutenant Voss, but try to keep Whitlock alive if you can do it without risk to yourself."

The courier had her uses, though they might be precious few now that she knew who he really worked for.

Malfi's lance he instinctively sidestepped a half-second too slow, gasping in a sudden rictus of pain as the tip of the weapon tore open the same wound K.K. had given him days ago, and sealed at a rather great expense by his cruder methods before proper Solarian treatment could do so. Blood oozed slowly from his side, and the Major staggered back briefly, vision fading. The fighting has been....long, and difficult. Even with combat prescriptives, he knew his body was beginning to fail.

But there was a still job to do.

Kahm stabbed one heel down, and immediately struck upwards at Malfi with his sword, blade arced to glide along that side of her lance and deal the other demon a sucking wound not unlike the one she had just given him. Not content to lack blade, he'll then then feint away and turn back towards Yaro in time to see Lunata, apparently dead in his grasp. A waste, he'd thought, until the dead girl seemed to come back to life and gouge the bizarred demon with a blade of her own flesh and blood.

The Major stood, for a moment, now briefly uncertain of which was the monster he needed to put down.

A heartbeat later and he settles on Yaro, flicking a steel ball at him that quickly expands with a hiss into a swirling network of cable and leads that will wrap and constrict around his ever-changing body, hopefully giving the thing less angles to attack from and more vectors to be ravage by Lunata with. He then turned grimly towards Malfi, blade deftly in hand.

"Lieutenant Van Houten." He absentmindedly spoke through his still-functioning helmet link, "Nothing wins an argument like death."

GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Malfi with Helldriver!
GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Yarobeleedt with Tactical Bola!
GS: Kahm Yugh has completed his action.
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Blue Destiny for 171 hit points!
GS: Yarobeleedt takes a solid hit from Kahm Yugh's Tactical Bola for 52 hit points!
GS: Entangle! Statuses applied to Yarobeleedt!
GS: Malfi takes a solid hit from Kahm Yugh's Helldriver for 137 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Malfi!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

        Perhaps it's a credit to Shalune's instinctive nature that, when she tries to defend against Kaguya's sudden rush, something gives her an inkling of what the Veruni has planned. As a result, her first motion is to dodge down, rather than up - she's already on one knee, and it's a simple matter to try to flatten out her body, reduce the number of ways in which the Veruni can get a hold of her. She might not be a fighter, but she's not so bad when it comes to squirming out of situations like this--

        --except that she's misjudged Kaguya's strength, and the other girl can just simply hoist her up wholesale. The world spins in a confusing way around the pink-haired girl for a moment, then she's crashed into the courier in an exchange where Shalune obviously comes off worse. The Carakin mechanic isn't exactly the largest person in the world, all of her weight coming from her layers of clothes; it's probably a bit like getting hit by a pillow for Gwen, whereas Shalune's gasping a little from the overextension of her arm mid-throw.

        Fortunately - as she's always maintained - Shalune bounces. Despite being tired to her bones, despite being covered with nicks and scratches, she's quick to roll off from Gwen with a mumbled 'sorry' - not least because she has finally sensed something amiss in the air, a pull of power that's sickeningly familiar. Once again, all over again, the bottom drops out of her stomach as she spies--

        "--LUNIE!" she blurts in astonishment and fear, her eyes wide as the blade of bone erupts from the waitress; she stares for a moment, a vision of the Wheel popping unbidden into her mind. "Lunie, don't-- you'll--!"

        It isn't just the sight of the impossible and grotesque weapon that pulls her up short, twitching bodily in fear as she's rooted to the spot out of uncertainty on what to do - that's part of it, certainly, but the overriding thought in her mind is a picture of the Wheel, its time slowly ticking away faster and faster.

        Her knuckles are white on her staff this time, the metal creaking a little as it digs into her palms; she screws her eyes shut for a shaky sob, then looks back to Kaguya. This time, she doesn't bother talking - simply rams a hand into a coat pocket, grasps whatever she can find there, and flings her hand outwards. One of her odd, too-technological cherry bombs can be surprisingly destructive; a handful of them, even as unfocused as they are, is a much more dangerous prospect. Somewhere in the cloud, a charge of electricity crackles abruptly - just how much did she throw forwards?

        Even Shalune doesn't know. But then, she's not staying to watch, scrambling around in hopes of making it a distance towards Lunata.

GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Kaguya with Handball!
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Ice keeps her partner shielded, at least, but when it comes to skirmishes like these, she hardly ever worries. She remembers the afternoon on top of a speeding train, beset from all sides, the wind tearing at their clothes and the precipitous drop from the canyon and into the river below.
 
 What d'you say, Morgan's girlfriend?
 
 That secretive smile earns Jude Moshe an incredulous look. "What do you mean?" Cassidy wonders, coupled with an expression so innocent, all the courts of Filgaia would convict her on the spot. "I thought she was talking about you."
 
 Ammunition returned to her guns, she snaps both chambers in place and rises to her feet, sharp eyes trained on Neriah, though they occasionally flit from among these familiar faces. She finds Jay Barber in the fray, also, well within her line of sight, but the hulking figure in blue and the ancient statue looming beyond them magnetizes her attention occasionally. There's a glance at Jude, and towards Marcus, though really, she already knows he's noticed.
 
 Instead:
 
 "Gravity's overrated anyway, I mean, from how high up did we fall, and we dinnae even have any broken bones. Methinks Gravity needs tae find another job."
 
 But I guess that's a bit too high a hope.
 
 "Ay." Her own smile lifts higher on the corners of her mouth. "Thought we already had a conversation about the benefits of aiming low, though."
 
 Why does that bloody stupid bull the only damn thing...
 
 "It's called The Thunder Down Under," the blonde replies to Morgan. "If you dinnae appreciate it, you and I are nae longer friends."
 
 Pause.
 
 "I mean associates," she corrects herself hurriedly. "Occasional business acquaintances. People who hang out with one another sometimes."
 
 And the Carakin's tacos. She turns her attention to Jay.
 
 "S'pose you dinnae bring any with you, did you, lass?" Thanks for the reminder, Morgan.
 
 At the roaring from the big blue Metal Demon across the way, a wary eye trains towards Siegfried. "Swear he gets-- "
 
 And she gets blasted at. She manages to twist back into the piece of dropped masonry she had been crouched behind earlier, blood spraying from the graze on her shoulder and tearing off more scarlet fabric from her shirt. Otherwise, the wound is minor, and she doesn't even flinch.
 
 I bet he looks awfully nummy oiled up.
 
 There is another look at Morgan at those words from Neriah. It is full of judgment.
 
 "Well, between you and me lass....I'm more looking forward tae him shooting off the saddle and sailing like a lubed-up projectile through a window. I always wondered whether foxes could land on all fours, like cats."
 
 She reaches into her boot, and within the hollow heel, she produces a familiar device. Lifting it up, there's a broad grin cast Morgan and Jude's way. Because it wouldn't be Cassidy in a firefight, if she didn't have a grenade hidden somewhere on her person.
 
 She twists the device to active, and hurls it for Neriah's direction. She aims her revolver at the flying incendiary and pulls the trigger before it lands, sending what amounts to a ball of red-and-gold fire towards Neriah.

GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Neriah Parringer with Now Is The Hour!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.

 Damn, there was certainly a lot of get up and go in this one. Bart doesn't have all the details - he's not really been following the whole Metal Demon war outside of trying to repel their attacks, and the Quarter Knight he's the most familiar with is Lord Pork and Beans Berserk. He seemed more like the mindless brute, but the pirate can almost feel the grievance oozing off of Siegfried.
 
 He can't blame the guy all that much. "Feh, people betray and hurt each other all the time, and most of us just get up and shoulder on! But if you're talking about Riesenlied, there isn't anything wrong with trying to find a better way that just CONSTANT FIGHTING AND KILLING!"
 
 Bart pulls a coin out of his pocket, and flips it once for luck. As soon as he catches it, he charges as much ether as he can into the small disk and twirls it in his fingers. "I sympathize with feeling like the world has screwed you over - I've been in that boat, and it sucks! But that doesn't mean that you should go around trying to wreck things for the people who are trying to make it better out of sheer bile!"
 
 Bart rolls the coin so it is braced between his forefinger and thumb, and smirks. "Fei, Bart, Elly, Xantia - hell my crew are all miles better than me. I'm a man who lives for vengeance after what that bastard Shakhan did to my family, but that doesn't mean I can't try and make sure the path I burn out doesn't lead to a better world for the rest of them!"
 
 And with that, Bart fires the coin forward with a flash of Ether - and it grows dramatically in size, until its bigger thatn Siegfried itself when it reaches him.
 
 Bart... also stops for a moment.
 
 ...why is Lunata trying to slash someone open with some horrible bio-sword coming out of her ARM...?

GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Siegfried with Heaven Cent!
GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi yelps as Kahm's sword strikes home, her side suddenly gleaming with chrome blood. She meet his gaze. She doesn't know him, but recognizes a military bearing when she sees one. Best not to underestimate this dark-haired, blue-eyed human. She counterattacks with sweeping move, trying to get him to lose his footing. She is using her weapon's longer reach to full advantage now.

GS: Malfi has attacked Kahm Yugh with Improv Tango!
GS: Malfi takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Malfi has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Cassidy Cain's Now Is The Hour for 72 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
The ion cannon is pointed straight at her and Elly's eyes widen behind the faceplate of her helmet. She says something that may be strange enough to the ops crew, but is perhaps even stranger in context, as she gazes dead on towards the Metal Demon warrior.

"Maybe nobody does," she says, and then SHHHHKKRROWWWW

Elly is thrown flying backwards. Fei's offered coat separates from her shoulders, pinned under her head as she hits the ground with a loud, terrifying CRACK and a weak, thready groan from deep inside of her chest.

Rolling to the side, Elly, dazed, reaches up to fumble with the helmet. There is a massive hairline crack in the back of it, spiderwebbing out from where she hit the ground. Four seconds later she's gotten it loose, and in that period nothing else has murdered her, which means that those four seconds were good ones.

But this will not last, she knows. Siegfried is not only not materially weaker, as far as she can tell - he's desperate now. He WOULD die to beat them. And then in her darkest moment, Major Kahm Yugh speaks to she. Speaking words of wisdom:

'Nothing wins an argument like death.'

There is a horrid sense of foreboding that Elly, somehow, knows must be that nice girl. Lunata, wasn't it? The winner of that tournament?

Elly can't compose her thoughts enough to speak more soothing words. Perhaps Fei is somehow better than this than her. Bart Fatima certainly is; maybe that's what makes him a 'king' even among Lambs, Elly thinks, before her eyes focus on Siegfried, contending with closer blows. She hasn't even gotten to her feet!

The image comes to Elly. It is a little smoother and a little easier each time. Siegfried might even find that sense that there's a little patch on his armor, round about where the liver would be for a standard-model human (or the heart for a v*lc*n). A tingle, presaging the star that is to come.

The square centimeter or so of space erupts into plasmic heat, shrieking like tortured thermite blended with the unhallowed souls of the innocent. (In this context, that is an analogy. This context.) As Elly struggles to her feet, she says, even while fumbling with the three wires and two strips of white tape affixing the radio link to the side of her head:

"... I don't want more people to die...!"

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Siegfried with Thermo Cube!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

Even Shalune doesn't know. But then, she's not staying to watch, scrambling around in hopes of making it a distance towards Lunata.
Gwen Whitlock says, "Hey, uh, sir, do you happen to be a client of mine?" Gwen asks, over her shoulder, at Loren, as she feels the roiling force of the energy filter into her joints. "You got a familiar voice. Just a tad." She turns back to face Kaguya. "Well, I mean, it wouldn't be the first time I've worked alongside Gebler, but it's surprisin' all the same. But yeah, no st-""

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Even Shalune doesn't know. But then, she's not staying to watch, scrambling around in hopes of making it a distance towards Lunata.

        '... you won't stop her just like that.'
        
        Gwen winces apologetically at Shalune, pausing to run one hand alongside the back of her hair. Damn, she's going to have to get *another* hat. "I know, but.. It's worth a try, right?" The shot Gwen made hits a little *too* on the mark. "Then I gotta take care of my own, you included. Not above a bit of force to make sure everyone gets to live. I'd like t'have more chances t'chat with you, at the very least. Without alla, well." She waves her right hand in a lazy arc, to indicate the entirety of the ruins.

        As if it could encapsulate all the complex somethings and everythings as to why everyone is present here, her and Kaguya and Shalune and... that guy...

        Man, his voice is familiar!

        "Hey, uh, sir, do you happen to be a client of mine?" Gwen asks, over her shoulder, at Loren, as she feels the roiling force of the energy filter into her joints. "You got a familiar voice. Just a tad." She turns back to face Kaguya. "Well, I mean, it wouldn't be the first time I've worked alongside Gebler, but it's surprisin' all the same. But yeah, no st-"

        'Hey there. Let's have a talk, just us sick girls-' Kaguya, throwing Shalune at her is not a talk at al- OOF

        Gwen tries to catch the Shalune missile as she crashes into her, trying to ground the mechanic so she doesn't fall off someplace bad, like the edge of some cliff. "Shalune- you gonna be okay? If Lunata needs yer help, I mean..." She chances a look back at Lunata, before quickly refocusing back. "I dunno what's goin' on, but..." She trails off. She'll leave it up to Shalune to decide.

        Like so many times before, her focus narrows down to the matter at hand, not wanting to engage with the entirety of the battle surging around her. It's too much for a single courier to wrap her mind around. Lunata... is that Lunata? And- Hiro. Is he going to be okay? So many people.

        Oh yeah, and Cassidy, Morgan, Jude. Those people. Eh, they'll be fine.

        "Sorry t'do this, Kaguya," Gwen starts, straightening her ARM as she kneels on one knee, "but this is for both our futures, not just yours!"

        WHen she fires, it's notable that it's not at a fatal place, even if she fires with a strong blast. She's matching the Veruni for her ARM's own seeming strength, but just that. For now.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"I won't," Fei tells Ruby with chilling certainty though perhaps it's foolish certainty considering how many bloody wounds he has right now. He catches sight of Jude and feels a little more relieved. He'll be able to handle Neriah.

Neriah who needs to do this because she figured out why she has 'this curse'.

"What's so important," He asks. "That edging Filgaia closer to destruction is the right thing to do?" Neriah then says why it's so important. At least--why it's so important to her.

Fei's eyes widen slightly before he thinks, miserably, of course. "Neriah... breaking the statue won't stop that curse. The only thing breaking that statue will do is free 'Mother', and according to Siegfried--Mother will absolutely kill Riesenlied if she is freed."

Is he certain of that? He thinks about it and yes, he is certain.

He has to try to listen to them, he thinks, watch their movements like Elly said. His strikes hit against Siegfried's armor but Siegfried shifts his body at the last moment each time, forcing Fei's strikes to rebound off his armor. He's still connecting, but he wasn't going in hard because he was hoping to hit those weak points.

The scythe Dark Spear slides through his guard. A spray of blood splashes out of him as he's thrown back and away from Siegfried. It's almost like when Timothy got shot, it looks almost exactly like that. Fei distantly reflects on this as he sees the distance between himself and Siegfried increase.

Bart says he's better than him.

Fei lands on his hands, in a handstand in fact, and he says, "You're just putting yourself down. Anyone with half a brain knows you're a good man." He flips back onto his feet. "And anybody with a full one knows you're a great one."

He then adds, "At least, when you need to be." AGH why did he have to add that! It was so nice before.

Fei pants for breath, holding position for a moment. He watches Siegfried move. Time's running short if only because the pain in his body is increasing. How much longer does he have? He sees Elly being struck but she's fighting with everything she has. He just has to believe that this time, this time will be different, this time she won't die.

Fei says, "I don't know who betrayed you! " He isn't speaking of Riesenlied here, but of someone long ago no doubt. He doesn't disagree with death being a hero's calling. He knows that better than anybody. His hand lashes out and catches the coat. He's not going to let it touch the ground. He swoops it about peculiarly as he darts in towards Siegfried.

"But I know you once believed in a brighter world than this--wouldn't it be nice if we could, again? Even if you felt it was a lie, that doesn't mean we can't make a world like that!"

He swoops the coat again which hides the nature of his attack because in truth his feet left the floor moments ago--

--and his feet slam down rapidly for Siegfried's armor! Again, he tries for those points , relying on the concussive force of the strikes to keep himself from hitting the floor.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Siegfried with Tenbu!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Kaguya with Coil Cannon EX!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Shalune Amira's Handball for 147 hit points!
GS: Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Coil Cannon EX for 125 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

        Lunata's body goes limp, but Yarobeleedt keeps squeezing. The ambient darkness over yonder. The sense that Siegfried may turn his head and loom over his shoulder to see how he's doing. The... entirely sadistic sense that he has found someone truly weaker than himself to destroy, to kill. His breathy hyperventilation gives way to screechy yet somehow relieved chortling.
        "Fu... fu~ fufu...!" He killed one! He killed one! Thanks to ^Creature Creature^ over there occupying the other one, he starts to rear back an arm into some bloated abomination of a serrated multi-bladed spiky lance for the Ge Ramtos statue. His tongue lolls out as his eyes light up with maniacal glee. Salvation at last...! By his hands! After waiting so lon--
        Lunata presses her face up against his.
        "what"
        To describe his face further fails to deliver justice to the sheer shock of these events as quicksilver tinged a sick color of something one would intuit as being poisonous blasts out his face to the tune of a sharp, jagged bone arm stabbing him there. More spatters of his alien blood erupt to visceral gashes that taint more of the Elw battlefield with his blood. Wounds so deep that even accounting for the amorphous nature of his lower body, they don't fuse themselves closed.
        Tears - or just more Metal Demon blood? - stream out underneath his eyes as he falls onto his backside and starts to crawl off from the Death Priestess and her newly shown blde arm. He can't say anything. Words already muffled into incomprehensibility never quite form. He inches away as the light above casts a fell shadow over Lunata - like he were lookng into one of many countless sunsets that embody the end of a life.
        An opening for Kahm, as he shoots the steel ball that transforms into the matrix of cables and netting meant to ensnare, spreading out around the Metal Demon whole...
        And contracting, compressing him and his biomass into what sees him curled into an anatomical equivalent of the foetal position - as though he were, at this very moment, less the dangerous monster that required unlikely cooperation with a -Lamb- given a matter of priorities, and... more of a sad, hopeless creature whose fate is sealed.
        "Nonononono," Yarobeleedt stammers, as blood pours down his face. He doesn't look either of his aggressors in the eye as he struggles. One arm, in the form of a narrow metal-bony claw, manages to get through the netting. He doesn't think straight along the lines of 'use this to cut myself free.'
        More in terms of 'pull myself towards the statue.' It is beyond pathetic to watch.
        "Mother... Mother... Mother," he murmurs, "do not sleep long... Yarobeleedt... Yarobeleedt is..."
        ...is utterly helpless to whatever fates Lunata or Kahm have in store.

GS: Yarobeleedt has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Carina was hoping the fireball volley would cover her charge, but Siegfried has seen this before-- perhaps even this specific maneuver. Her grabs her by the face-- STILL NOT COOL --and flings her--

Though once again, she twists her body acrobatically, weaving it so that the Dark Spear can only graze her armor. Metal shrieks against metal, tearing the chest of Locus' armor open like aluminum paper-- but the woman inside is intact.

As she lands, she makes an incredulous sound that doesn't match at all the acrobatic feat she just performed.

She catches a glimpse, out the corner of her eyes, of Lunata's most recent bout of body horror. That Carina knows little about the specifics of her powers only makes it more grotesque and jarring. "W-What the hell--"

No, no, no, Locus must focus, if she wants to prove Siegfried wrong. "Yeah, well, this particular hero ain't dying today," she shouts, trying her best to keep her voice from trembling. "I ain't gonna give you the satisfaction of-- of--" She blinks away images of that spear slicing into her, just a few inches further. He killed her, he said. What is she doing here? What is she even doing here? This is insane and she's going to die and--

FOCUS!

"Right, right, right, inner voice. HEY, metalhead!" She hops away to the upper tier of the room, in one long gravity-disregarding leap, while she switches the marbles in her belt from red to yellow.

                              ELEMENT: LIGHTNING_

Electricity gathers around Locus, who lands on the platform and accumulates it around her fist.

"Prepare for a big SHOCK!" And she swings her hand, sending a large burst of ball lightning flying for the Quarter Knight from above. Lightning should be good against metal, right? Disregard the way he just showed he was capable of harnessing it to deadly effect.

GS: Carina Wynne has attacked Siegfried with Admirable Elemental Blast!
GS: Carina Wynne has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Bart Fatima's Heaven Cent for 90 hit points!
GS: Kahm Yugh critically Guards a hit from Malfi's Improv Tango for 13 hit points!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Cube for 93 hit points!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Tenbu for 93 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

A shot rings out, and while the first goes wide -- the second finds its home within Jude Moshe's left shoulder. Blood splatters a bright scarlet design across the stonework beneath him as the reporter staggers, striking his back against a wall as pain explodes across his nerves. He ignores it -- he's gotten very good at that, over the years. Instead, for now -- he just keeps his gaze focused on Neriah beyond, his pained look still managing a lopsided sort of smile.

"Innocence is just a matter of perspective. If it makes you feel any better, you can assume I'm the most awful man in the world. I hear it helps some people when the chips are down."

Giving people advice on the way to kill him with minimal guilt might not be the best tactic in the world to take -- but Jude, at least, doesn't seem particularly fussed about the possibility, even as he grips onto that bullet wound bleeding its stain beneath his coat. Clean through. Small miracles, he supposes. His amber eyes shut.

I thought she was talking about you.

And a wry grin touches on his lips.

"Couldn't be," he answers her, simply, "Morgan's broke my heart already. Maybe it's your courier friend?"

He sees who Cassidy's looking at. He doesn't spare a glance his way, but the subtleties of Jude's expression say enough as he lurches himself forward. His laugh is an easy one, even if mildly pained, his good shoulder rolling as he grips a bit tighter onto his arm.

"I'm pretty sure Elw buildings don't believe in gravity," he asides to Cassidy. "Horrible heathens, and all that, if I remember my obscure Nisan texts right."

A sigh exhales from his lips. Chains, rattling, ephemeral, wrong, whirl around Neriah like a manifestation of living schadenfreude. He takes a single, stumbling step forward, casting a glance Fei's way to give him an easy-come, easy-go kind of smile in encouragement. Even as all this madness and pain rips through all around them. He's keeping them in his sights.

If either of those two are compromised, then--

"Well," Jude begins, in his final aside to Cassidy. He knows what's coming. Because of course she has one on her. She always does. And so he waits...

"It never hurts to revisit an issue, and see how our opinions change, right?"

The grenade is tossed. And the second it EXPLODES --

Jude Moshe is -leaping- into that forceful expulsion, weaving past shrapnel into the bloom of concealing smoke to drive himself forward. There is the sound of metal locking into place. A gleam in the light, sharding through the veil.

And then Moshe -launches- himself inward, slashing twice for Neriah's torso with the sharpened edge of his ARM's large bayonet.

"But I think I still prefer to aim low."

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Neriah Parringer with Crosscut Saw!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Jude Moshe's Crosscut Saw for 45 hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Ahhh, it's not the only reason I'm here," Zed asides to Hiro. "It's like I said! I'm here to help protect my penpal's stuff! I can't very well just let a bunch of jerks punch it in! And--"

Yep.

There's that damn, easily-distracted tendency again.

Zed makes a gurgling noise as the great blue lance digs into his shoulder, tearing a great, quicksilver chunk out of his body. He growls, grabbing at the weeping wound, "Damnit. Zeik, I'm not expecting her to listen...! I know you're obsessed with her but... I've never even met her! Not once!"

Zed grasps his blade with his injured arm. Suddenly the pain surges. Zed screams with agony and boundless zeal mingling in equal measure as a deep purple haze gathers around his blade. "How can you expect me-- or anyone-- to follow someone who we've only heard stories about!?"

Zed swings, unleashing a wave of raw misfortune at his former commander. He clicks his tongue, ducking back to try and force his shoulder back into its socket and allow his own natural regeneration to repair the damage. "The ones I want to convince... Are all the ones who might dare to hope for a better future!"

GS: Zed has attacked Siegfried with Sealed Blade - Demon Breaker!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        In the approximate span of well over twenty-four hours, Loren has:
        * Narrowly escaped Krosse
        * Been volunteered to a very special mission
        * Experienced teleportation
        * Nearly died
        * Attacked an ancient cobbled-together ship
        * Parajumped
        * Not, by any definition of the word, actually slept

        If he had the presence of mind to really reflect on it all, he'd wonder how he was still standing.
        But for right now, for a lack of a better term, the medical officer has found a rhythm of a sort through the cocktail of chemicals keeping him aloft. Just one moment, to the next, to the next...

        Kahm makes a request. "Understood, sir. I'll endeavor to do so if possible," he reports back.
        It would be a shame to lose a useful pawn, even if she may already be guessing what role she might be playing. Which, funny he should consider that, as Gwen casts a curious look his way:
        ...The silence from his end as she does basically exactly that is possibly palpable. "You're imagining it," he tells her, all the same.

        And speaking of a rhythm, of a sort: Kaguya's after his heart. ...In a rather literal sense of the phrase.

        There's an audible pause there from the medical officer for a moment, his mental momentum momentarily halted by that remark.
        Emperor.
        Then: "...Why is everyone always so needlessly violent?" the medical officer asks aloud, as if to the world at large.

        Kaguya takes a guess at what he's attempting. "Is that what you think I'm doing?" he asks. "Fine. If that's what you want--"

        Further sass, of course, is wisely cut short on his part as Kaguya doesn't mince words and instead opens fire with another round of sonic force. Though he again braces himself against the incoming attack, the wave rocking him back a step as it washes over him, it doesn't pass without marker.
        "Tch," the medic comments, eyeing the hairline fracture rent down the face of the shield. "That's going to be a problem."
        To say nothing of the attacks that Kaguya unleashes on the other two. At this rate...

        Without risk to himself, the Major had said.

        Well, this, this is hardly a risk. He breathes out, loosening his hold on his ego.
        Brilliant green, the light traces outwards, following a set path and diffusing: fractals and lines, like a crystal's growth. A little burst of the potential inherent in the world beneath one's feet, neatly folded into Shalune and Gwen's frames.

        As Loren lifts his gaze and sees what Shalune has just seen.

        That's... good, the part of him that's still capable of anything like alarm under the stimulants thinks dimly. That's great.

        The Loren still more in the flow of things -- which is still most of him, as he steps up quickly behind Shalune and Gwen -- says, addressing the most pressing concern he should have which is to say, on the matter of the sealing rod: "I take it that's a no."

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Shalune Amira with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Carina Wynne's Admirable Elemental Blast for 90 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline uses the momentary distraction to pull herself to her feet. She's looking a little unsteady. Being put through this so soon after having to drag herself through the depths of the Gardens...it's a little much. Her breathing is a little heavy, and her clothes are a mess. One of her lenses is cracked all the way through, but she's still going...she has to keep going for...

For...

-crack-

She sees Lunata being constricted by Yarobeleedt and takes her eyes off of Neriah, drawing out a Crest. But...she's too late.

"L-Lunata...! No, please...!" She shouts, anguish in her voice as she watches her go limp. The hand holding her Crest falls to the side, the fight going out of Jacqueline temporarily...but then, Lunata starts to move, and something rips out of her arm, right toward Yarobeleedt.

She's taken aback...but Neriah's speaking of her name causes her to return her attention back to the matter at hand. Lunata was...fine.

She was fine.

...She'd be fine...right...?

"Why...? I don't...I don't understand why someone would do that." Jacqueline replies, looking back toward Neriah. "I can understand why you would be upset, but...so many more people will be hurt if these Statues are destroyed..."

But, Neriah can't stop here. It hurts. Jacqueline really, truly doesn't want to fight her and she thinks - or at least hopes - that Neriah feels the same way. But...they were on two different sides here.

A terrible miasma, taking the form of a face with more mouths and eyes than a face should have comes roaring towards her. She draws out a Crest...or at least, she tries to.

The Crest she's looking for isn't there.

She dropped it...

Back in Wayside, right.

She throws her arms up, trying to protect herself. The wave hits her, and though she manages to remain standing, it's still clear that it took its toll on her. Cass asks her if she has tacos.

"Wh-what? Now? U-umm...I don't, but...I do have something else." Jacqueline says, reaching into her bags and drawing out her Medium.

She clutches it tightly. This time, the entreatment to Grudiev is silent...

...but it is heard all the same.

The image of the great saurian Guardian appears behind her. Rubble and dust is drawn into the vents on his back...and then breathed out. It covers the entire battlefield, but primarily settles on certain, specific targets, forming a protective shield around them, to protect them from harm.

Jacqueline is not one of these targets.

And, when all is said and done...

She looks at Lunata. She observes the situation...but she doesn't say a word. But the look on her face may say plenty -

'...Please...'

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Landing her strike serves to restore a bit of Xantia's confidence. It's a similar feeling to when she fights Id, the feeling as if she's doing what she's supposed to be doing. She needs to believe there's more to that feeling than just her telling herself that to feel good doing what's best at. Even if she's not like anybody else... does that really have to be such a bad thing?

Xantia is slow to move after her strike, allowing Siegfried to grab hold of her with relative ease, however... this only prompts a smile from the red-haired amnesiac. This is exactly what she wanted, to be in close range, where she's in her element. She answers to his claim of not deserving Filgaia, "Maybe not... but I'll never stop fighting for it!"

If there's one thing she's got going for her, it's raw physical strength. Impossibly high physical strength, as the Metal Demon leader soon discovers when Xantia reverses his throw, causing him to fall before she does. When she drops, it is with a foot extended, rapidly displacing the air as she builds momentum. In this moment, a phrase she keeps hearing in her dreams comes to mind. A phrase she hasn't worked out the exact meaning of, but which lets her believe that she has a purpose: "Because... I am Filgaia's hope!"

GS: Xantia has attacked Siegfried with Whirlwind Kick!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Lunata Croze with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Shalune Amira with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Carina Wynne with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Jude Moshe with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Cassidy Cain with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Lunata Croze!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Lunata Croze! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Jude Moshe!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Jude Moshe! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
Zed's explanation causes him to double take, "... Your penpal!?" Then upon realizing he's the Grim Reaper's pen pal, "That wasn't just a title?!"
 
Loyalty. Service. He'd been with Lucia for only a year, and he knew something of loyalty but he didn't know a thousand years of it. It's said with enough conviction that it might have hit home... save one thing. "Corrupted her? You don't get it! You don't understand her feelings at all!"
 
In that moment he's rushing Siegfried, thinking his focus is elsewhere. Which is when suddenly an arm is whipped up and he's facing down the blue-white light of a cannon. The ion-laser hits him head on. The youth's charge is cut short as he stagger stumbles aground. "Hiro!" Part of his tunic and armor at his side is burned away, the skin blackened beneath it.
 
Gagging from the pain, he dry heaves once, before he rolls over. His instinct takes his hand to the side, but his face twists up when he does that and he lets it be.
 
Diaphoretic and feeling faint besides, he turns himself over. Then plants his sword into the ground. "The New World isn't going to be about... who deserves it. What she's trying... to create... she's gonna do it hand in hand..."
 
There's something Bart says that gets to him though. He'd certainly heard him talk passionately about his personal war against Shakhan. But he'd never heard about his family. "Bart..." But strangely enough those words help him. In the idea that just because he wants revenge doesn't mean he's necessarily gonna fall into the same trap.
 
"... Maybe you should think better of yourself. Because the way I see it - If anyone can make sure it leads to a better world it's you."
 
Working his way up to his feet, he's certainly not numb to the pain, but he's working himself to get back into this fight. He's ready to move in again.
 
"Hiro stop! Take a breather! And Fei come on! You're still trying to talk him down aren't you!? Focus on living!"
 
Hiro's advance towards Siegfried is slow and painful. His first few swings are wide, sloppy. "No time for that Ruby." Obviously due to his injuries. But then he seems to find his rhythm. Coming in low, he slices at one of Siegfried's knee points, before with a swinging flourish, he tries to reverse it into an upwards pommel strike at his elbow.
 
And all the while Fei's words pound into his skull like a migraine about the way Siegfried used to be. What he used to believe in. It clashes so readily with his image of him as the murderer of thousands. And makes him wonder...
 
"If we stop... he wins again."
 
... how long ago the two of them might have been on the same side. "So we can't."
 

GS: Hiro has attacked Siegfried with Basic Attack Command!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Shalune Amira!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Shalune Amira! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Cassidy Cain!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Cassidy Cain! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried guards a hit from Xantia's Whirlwind Kick for 107 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


"Great. A death curse. Why is it always a bloody curse! This is cursed, that is cursed, people really need ta stop flingin' those things around like they were candy!" Calls the fox as he glances for a moment across the battlefield. The Metal Demon is taking on all comers, but there are a long of people who want a piece of him.

The price of being popular.

"Look, darlin'." Back towards Neriah. "There has ta be some other way ta break this thing that doesn't involve ya tryin' ta smash yer way though all us. Right?"

Who the heck is the Ash Hare?! He has no idea.

But he could be wrong.

"I mean if'n your cursed for eight generations that seems long enough ta me."

A beatpause. "And why do people always think its my fault!" Again a pause. "And can we use a different adjective than 'nummy'? Cass no supplying them and don't give me that look you started this!"

Then he's up and running, towards Neriah now, even as that burst of dark and violent magic sweeps in. His shield ignites in white light as he leaps into it, charging forwards to try to take the brunt of the blow on the summoned panels of light. They shatter into fragments but at least they allow the man himself to maneuver himself closer.

"You should know by now, that I land on my ass just like everyone else does. Since most of the times its your explosions that cause it!"

Case in point. Everything explodes.

He charges as soon as he sees it, that familiar canister. The fox goes sliding though that expanding ball of flame, coat and tail trailing smoke as he snaps his arm up. Just as Jude snaps his blade down, going high where the simple reporter goes low. Both covered by the distraction from Cassidy's grenade.

 Somewhere in his charge his gun changed again. This time the brutal canon like barrel of a large bore shell rests on his arm as he swings it towards Neriah and...

Triggers it. Before it is aimed anywhere near aimed at her head.

No he's not trying to shoot her in the head, but the concussion wave from a round like that going off is still enough to stun. Or at least keep her attention. At least that's what the fox is hoping.

"Jude," He shouts as he slides past the cursed woman, spinning to keep facing her as he does so. "You know Gwen is married to her job. Besides, you're the only one for me. Stop lyin'."

GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Carina Wynne!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Carina Wynne! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Morgan Newkirk!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Morgan Newkirk! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Zed's Sealed Blade - Demon Breaker for 63 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
GS: Loren Voss heals Shalune Amira! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Hiro's Basic Attack Command for 64 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


As he spins, and as he quips the Fox catches sight of Jay's Guardian raising from around her. The protections settling over a select few people, of which he is one. Morgan doesn't quite get why the Guardian would do that.

I mean he's not exactly a true believer here.

...but hey. He isn't complaing about it, the little jaunty salute tosses Jay's way in the middle of all this mess.

GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Neriah Parringer with Hell to Pay!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Hell to Pay for 206 hit points!
GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Morgan Newkirk drains Neriah Parringer! Morgan Newkirk gains #-1 TOO MANY REGISTERS#-1 TOO MANY REGISTERS#-1 TOO MANY
REGISTERS250 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        From a distance, Lunata hears Shalune crying out to her. She can already tell what she's thinking, that she shouldn't be squandering her time further upon the Wheel. Somewhere, the little waitress that nearly choked to death as all her bones crumpled underneath Yarobeleedt's wait whispers an apology.

        But that girl is no longer there.

        Kahm's bola snares Yarobeleedt, and for a moment she sees that Malfi's joined the fray. No matter. Yarobeleedt is snivelling before her now, writhing in the cocoon-like net that his bola has constricted around him.

        "You," Lunata hisses, "are why we got here. You, and that knight in blue... and the brute with the wrecking ball... all of you."

        She can see Shalune's desperate look as she cries towards her. She can see Jacqueline's look of terror, even as she summons and entreats the Guardian of the Earth and she can feel the power coursing through her. She can see Bart and Fei and Gwen and Hiro and those she knows--

        And it doesn't matter.

        "It was when your kind descended on our city that my life changed completely."

        She brings the bone blade around almost lazily, holding it level to the palm of her hand as she readies herself.

        "When I stopped just being a waitress. When Jay stopped just being a merchant who'd do right by everyone's side... when Shalune came back from Elru. And our lives..."

        Her expression cools. Completely.

        A filthy distention of blood bloats out of the palm of her hand. It swells further and further, as her veins lift and clasp around the length of her newly-christened weapon, more like they were alien tendrils than human arteries.

        "Material."

        With that single command, the blood gorges out onto the blade, slaking it in a fresh coat of her own sacrifice. The fresh power of Ge Ramtos can be plainly felt coursing throughout the weapon, naked and unbridled, rather clearly tethered to the statue present in this very own room.

        It lacks the finesse and style of the swordplay Lunata has demonstrated before. There is no grace here.

        There is only the will of one who has decided to play executioner.

                        00:00:13.256
                        "I want those moments back."
                00:01:34.553
        "I want that smile back."
                  00:03:53.127
                "I want our lives back!"
                        00:05:16.856
                   "I want our time back!!"
                00:07:47.113
                   "Give it BACK!!!"

        The blood blade descends.

GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Yarobeleedt with Material- Arcanum XIII!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"What the shit," Kaguya expresses eloquently as she sees Lunata conjure a blade of her own bone at Yarobeleedt, staring. This is a pretty good opening, frankly; Kaguya hasn't shown a lot of exertion in this fight so far, but this surpises her more than enough to get her off-guard. ...And throwing someone is totally a talk. She has little else she can say about it, though she does briefly consider one obvious fact:

Lunata's probably pretty mad, from what Shalune said.

She ends up with a whole lot of junk thrown at her, and it crackles with electricity--Kaguya blinks as she looks at it and then they all explode more or less in her face, sending her shooting back against a stone wall which cracks under the force of her striking it without so much as a fanfare. It springs up a cloud of dust and smoke--

Where Gwen's shot gets her right in the shoulder and Kaguya roars lightly in reaction. ...Yes, roars; it sounds kind of like a snarl, actually, as she slips back to the ground on one knee.

"...Look," she says, "I dunno what kind of 'future' you think I have," she says, looking up. ...You'd think there'd be a followup, but there isn't instead. Kaguya grins at Loren in lieu of that, "I'm violent 'cause it's a good way to work out stress! Also because sometimes I get tired of the way people look at me, you know? I just wanted to remind you that--"

She pauses. She considers. Loren keeps talking... Loren lets loose his magic. She laughs faintly, as she gets up. "Ohhhh I get it," she says. "Well, I do still want to see whether you can live, buddy," she says. "I do like you."

Does she--

Yes. Yes she does.

Jay helps. Jay's Guardian appears, and Kaguya bares her teeth as it does. "Okay, so," she says back to the crew she has. "That's some pretty sorcery. But I can do sorcery, too." She takes in a breath, holds it, and focuses, and that not-Ether sweeps up around her again, wind to Loren's earth. She puts out both hands, and gales rush for Shalune and Gwen both, full of conjured alien flowers with razor petals and blade-sharp stems.

Kaguya stops abrubtly, as she hears Lunata, and cringes. "...Okay uh..." She glances to the others, "Let's finish this quicklike, okay? I really don't wanna be here when she finishes gutting that slimy freak."

So of course, she pulls her ARM again, loading it with a strangely glowing shell and pointing it straight at Loren; it resembles a shotgun... mostly. And when she fires, it erupts on reaching near him, turning into a sickly-yellow column of light that inverts health, scrambles life... Burns with strange flame.

GS: Kaguya has attacked Shalune Amira with Blossom Rain!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Blossom Rain!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Loren Voss with Moonbeam!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: Yarobeleedt takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's Material- Arcanum XIII for 276 hit points!
GS: Yarobeleedt has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Blossom Rain for 165 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Moonbeam for 177 hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Xantia manages to turn things around -- hurtling the Quarter Knight down to the ground. He slams into the stome below, cracking the floor near the base of the statue. Siegfried stands, then, and he looks upward at her as she calls out.

"And I will crush that hope!" he shouts up to Xantia. Then, he cries back to Bart -- but really, to both of them.

"You speak as if this is about vengeance--about only hurting you! This is expedience! After a thousand years, our victory must be absolute--and to do that, we must break your spirits and crush your cities!" Siegfried snaps back at Bart. The coin comes flipping up, and then grows, and grows, and grows. Even as he stands on the lower tier, not so far from the statue.

So he strikes upward, and slashes the magical coin in two. Its halves fall in two pieces around him. He looks up at it -- and then his chestplate opens up, plates sliding away, to reveal the cannon inside that once blasted Lucia to kingdom come. The beam spins up -- and then a massive blast of light explodes out of it. It shoots up at Bart, but also rips a hole through the middle of the terrace, and then through the side of the tower.

A Gebler Gear outside has to swerve out of the way.

At the same time, his armor begins to super heat. He feels the scorching heat and glares up for Elly's masked form. But he swings up Glumzambor -- and tries to parry with it. It doesn't quite work; Fei kicks into him, slamming off armor, and he stumbles backward. The dark steel plate drops to the ground. "Tch--

GS: Siegfried has activated a Force Action!
GS: Siegfried has activated a Force Action!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Bart Fatima with Proton Beam!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Carina Wynne with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Xantia with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Hiro with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Zed with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Bart Fatima has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Xantia manages to turn things around -- hurtling the Quarter Knight down to the ground. He slams into the stome below, cracking the floor near the base of the statue. Siegfried stands, then, and he looks upward at her as she calls out.

"And I will crush that hope!" he shouts up to Xantia. Then, he cries back to Bart -- but really, to both of them.

"You speak as if this is about vengeance--about only hurting you! This is expedience! After a thousand years, our victory must be absolute--and to do that, we must break your spirits and crush your cities!" Siegfried snaps back at Bart. The coin comes flipping up, and then grows, and grows, and grows. Even as he stands on the lower tier, not so far from the statue.

So he strikes upward, and slashes the magical coin in two. Its halves fall in two pieces around him. He looks up at it -- and then his chestplate opens up, plates sliding away, to reveal the cannon inside that once blasted Lucia to kingdom come. The beam spins up -- and then a massive blast of light explodes out of it. It shoots up at Bart, but also rips a hole through the middle of the terrace, and then through the side of the tower.

A Gebler Gear outside has to swerve out of the way.

At the same time, his armor begins to super heat. He feels the scorching heat and glares up for Elly's masked form. But he swings up Glumzambor -- and tries to parry with it. It doesn't quite work; Fei kicks into him, slamming off armor, and he stumbles backward. The dark steel plate drops to the ground. "Tch--there is much to stop a world like that!"

He bellows it. And then Locus leaps down, kicking into him -- and lightning explodes, shooting through his armor. But, still, he meets her with his forearm armor instead. And then he pulls away, turns, and cuts into Zed's wave of force with Glumzambor. It still knocks him backward, the purple haze billowing about him.

"I expect you to have faith! To show the strength to believe, no matter what!" he shouts at Zed. Then, he turns, and he looks at Hiro.

"A new world... it was a foolish notion," Siegfried says. "The new world--we made it. You damn humans, your damn war, the damned Elw... all of it! You've made a new world, and it is NOTHING!"

Hiro slams his sword into his armor -- and it dents inward. Then, light explodes out from Glumzambor again. Arcs of twisting, multi-colored light slash at Hiro -- and bull past, to slash at Fei and Elly at once, to try to blow back Locus and Xantia, and then slam Zed into the ground.

The Quarter Knight's back is near the statue.

GS: CRITICAL! Hiro guards a hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 132 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Bart Fatima guards a hit from Siegfried's Proton Beam for 189 hit points!
GS: Carina Wynne takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 193 hit points!
GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 97 hit points!
GS: Xantia takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 97 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

Malfi was clearly well-honed in the use of her weapon. Kahm so no waste in her movements, and unerring precision in her strike, the kind of wielding that suggested that weapon was merely an extension of herself. Martial prowess like that in an enemy demanded wariness, if not a strange sort of respect.

However, there was a difference: This time, the Major was ready for her. His feet dance backwards, teetering just out of the range of her considerable reach before dashing back in close-too close, he suspects, for her to react with that weapon in time. At such close range, the lance's longer reach became a decided disadvantage, and Kahm delivered a lancing bolt of electrical ether with the pointed fingers at the demon woman's face. It wasn't much juice, but the affect was two-fold: To blind her sight briefly with a flash, and briefly interrupt her body's ability to move.

Because once it was gone, so was he.

There was a brief glance at Yarobeleedt's miserable state. It would be easy to deal with the creature permanently in the situation, but that had never been Kahm's mission. For now, he was out of the way. "Lieutenants." He spoke, addressing both Loren and Elly at once on their commlinks, "I'm going to signal the Tzadkiel, cover me if you can."

The Major bolted in a dead dash, leaving the strange demon to it's uncertain fate at Lunata's hands and running by the edge of the conflict with Siegfried in time to see a giant coin fall from the sky (and inwardly scoff at such a juvenile use of Ether's gift as it split in two) and hone in on his true target.

Ge Ramtos loomed before Kahm like an ill omen, sending half a chill down his spine even as he ran through the dim memory of the specter's incarnation before him in Bledavik.

He leapt-really leapt, aided by successive bursts of ether-concentrated air pressure behind his limbs to land atop the statue's crown, sword raised high....

To bring down a splitting bolt of lightning down from the sky.

Kahm was the target, not the stature. The lightning flowed into him, energizing him, filling him with overflowing but altogether temporary reserves of the strength that had sapped from his body from the Trial Knight's sadistic dungeon onwards in the past 48 hours, but one might think it served another purpose as well, as Gebler gears and aircraft above began to gather around the streaming energy in the sky above.

GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Malfi with Anemo Lance!
GS: Kahm Yugh has attacked Kahm Yugh with Battle Trance!
GS: Kahm Yugh has completed his action.
GS: Kahm Yugh takes a solid hit from Kahm Yugh's Battle Trance for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Kahm Yugh!
GS: Shalune Amira guards a hit from Kaguya's Blossom Rain for 157 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tzadkiel (Airship) has posed.

The Tzadkiel's bride was abuzz with energy and frenetic orders.

"Registering a sudden spike in energy at coordinate X234.555, Y346.446....confirmed, it's from Major Yugh!" Shouted an Operator on deck.

"That's the signal." Spoke a commanding voice, "Initiate the recovery!"

A beam suddenly shot down from Tzadkiel's hull far above, bathing the statue in it's pale light. It didn't seem to be of offensive nature, the ground did shake and tremor, and the statue seemed ever so slightly to shift.

Was it...moving up?

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Now may be the hour indeed, though not for Neriah. In a gunfight, Cassidy Cain and her friends have the advantage of more versatile weapons and more people with such weapons. Cassidy's explosive trick sets the air aflame, the fiery ball descending and spraying across the ground. Gouts of flame spew up and catch Neriah's cloak and tunic; she bats at them with a hiss as she sprints along again, shaking her leg out and swatting at a persistent patch of flame.

"If you feel like you got shorted on the broken bones front, I might be able to do you a solid," she fires back. "No matter how much I like Foxy Booty over there!"

Through it all, Fei shouts something at her that leaves a sick feeling churning in the pit of Neriah's stomach. But her eyes darken, and she pushes the feeling aside.

"That won't happen," she shouts back. "Riese... I've never been strong enough to protect her or Mikaia without losing control. But I can be!"

She can also be distracted. Jude's grenade goes off - and as he comes hurtling through it, Neriah gasps, widening her eyes and recoiling back from him.

The bayonet blade rips through cloth across her midsection - and marks flesh beneath with thin, painful cuts, blood beginning to trickle down exposed bits of fair skin. Neriah winces as she spins away from the well-armed journalist, pivoting away, then staggering a bit as the ambient magic of the room causes the Chains to again flicker into view, thick with rust. One cinches about her throat.

"This is all fun and games to you three, isn't it," she snorts, but soon flashes a mean little smile Jude's way, orchid eyes blazing as she glances at him. "It's not a joke to me. I am going to break that statue. And I am going to break that curse. And I won't accept anything less."

Jay Barber - sweet Jay Barber - calls forth the power of a Guardian.

Neriah's teeth clench tightly, her lips coming together in a purse. The power of Grudiev doesn't bolster her curse - but it reminds her of things. The fact that there was no Medium waiting for her in the Temple.

"It is more than long enough, Morgan," she grates. "If you want to help, get out of the way and let me wreck this statue, and you'll be doing me a huge fa-"

Morgan hoists his weapon and opens fire. A concussive round hurtles ominously through the air - and it slams into the ground at Neriah's feet.

The concussive wave blows a crater in the masonry underfoot. Stone and mortar vapourize instantly, throwing up a massive cloud. The force of it slams into Neriah with killing force.

She can feel bones breaking that she would prefer not to break. Her eyes close - and she's lost in the cloud as the concussion wave passes.





save me, valmar.





Seconds pass - and then, from the heart of that cloud, there is a surge of feeling. Some oppressive magick is pressing against the soul. Lunata Croze can feel a cord of Guardian magic tightening - the power of Ge Ramtos, straining to hold something horrible back.

The statue itself pulses with sympathy.

The dust whirls, then compresses, then sucks inward, swallowed up by a sudden roar and billow of pure black magic. Negative energy whirls around the figure that was once Neriah and is still Neriah. Black light swallows her up; there is no sign of anything human anymore, only a humanoid shape sheathed in pure negative energy, ghostly white strands of cilia-like hair haloing around her head, her face simply a pair of blank white eyeholes that flicker insanely. The chains manifest so clearly now that anyone can see them. They tighten and tighten.

The rusty links are struggling to hold the beast.

With a bloodcurdling roar that vibrates below the range of human hearing, Neriah unleashes a tidal wave of absolute calamity. Dark power pours out of her in intense waves. It swells into vast, skeletal faces, into immense black talons of energy. The force of it booms towards Jay, towards Cassidy, towards Morgan and Jude, easily enough power there to tear through a building with pure evil magick.

Neriah's voice is more felt than heard, underlaid by deep, monstrous echoes.

                 " i t m u s t b e t h i s w a y . "
                      " n o m o r e c h a i n s . "
                    " n o m o r e w e a k n e s s . "

The waves of raw evil energy are spilling dangerously close to the Statue. They eddy and pool around it like murky waves.

DC: Neriah Parringer switches forms to Dark Manifestation!
GS: Neriah Parringer has activated a Force Action!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 110 hit points!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Eighth Circle!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Cassidy Cain with Eighth Circle!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jude Moshe with Eighth Circle!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Eighth Circle!
GS: Jude Moshe takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Eighth Circle for 276 hit points!
GS: Malfi guards a hit from Kahm Yugh's Anemo Lance for 35 hit points!
GS: Slow! Statuses applied to Malfi!
DC: MISS! Cassidy Cain completely evades Eighth Circle from Neriah Parringer!
GS: Morgan Newkirk critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Eighth Circle for 55 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 193 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi finds herself targeted by Kahm's ether once more, and is unable to absorb it. It twines around her, slowing her down. She can do little other than watch as he clambers onto the statue and summons more lightning. He's yet another human manifesting strange powers...
She struggles to get nearer the statue and keep attacking, sending a plume of her own energy straight at him. Just her luck to wind up fighting someone who also used the Electrical element!

GS: Malfi has attacked Kahm Yugh with Assault with Batteries!
GS: Malfi takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Malfi has completed her action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Eighth Circle for 184 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Kahm's feet touch down in the statue. There is a subtle shift to its weight -- which makes Siegfried step away and glance upward. Recognition shoots across his face, as he sees the Gebler commander standing atop the crown of the statue. Ge Ramtos's likeness is bathed in a beam of light, soft and glowing.

But there is something else. A little thing -- something that, in any other circumstance, would be lost in the din of battle. They are, however, in a dungeon, and Kahm's weight is upon the statue.

And thus, cutting over chaos and emotion, the worst sound one can hear within ruins echoes:

*click*

<Pose Tracker> Bart Fatima has posed.

 "Ah hell this is gonna HURT-" Bart starts as Siegfried winds up for something big. It would be nice if the pirate had something to resist the incoming blast of PURE DESTRUCTION with anything other than grit and his own body, but alas that is really not a thing that is gonna happen right here and now.
 
 A moment later Bart spots a large piece of debris on the ground, and he grabs it and uses it as a brace just before the beam slams into him. It's probably the one thing that saves his life, because the blat disintegrates the debris and still sends him flying backwards and tumbling across the ground. Clearly much more battered and broken than before, the pirate coughs as he levers himself to his feet.
 
 And he grins, although it is quite shaky. He's clearly taken a major hit, and he pulls out his whip and replies with about the sassiest and probably stupidest thing he can think of at the moment.
 
 "Didn't hurt... one bit!" he proclaims, and snaps his whip. It's rather limp and less than intimidating. "That... the best ya got... metal head...?"
 
 And then he wavers for a moment, barely able to stand up. Okay yeah, he's probably not doing much else in this fight. But that doesn't mean that he won't help his friends, as best he can.
 
 The normal, sensible reaction would be to use one of his colognes on Fei. Or maybe Hiro. But Bart considers for a moment, and he figures that their best bet is to try and nuke Siegfried as best he can. And thus he makes sure that the one with the best magical talent is able to stay in the fight. He pulls out a bottle of purple colored cologne, and throws it as Elly. It shatters as her feet, the Ether charged mist flowing outwards and providing an energetic boost.
 
 Provided he isn't a goof and just throws it short.

GS: Bart Fatima has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Purple Cologne!
GS: Bart Fatima has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

        The Metal Demons are the reason they are all here where they stand.
        The accusations of Yarobeleedt's crimes - of which there are many - are not met with any introspection about whether they were actions deserving of his current predicament. He lacks the capacity. He only thinks of one thing, as he wriggles and squirms and pathetically tries to crawl by one arm. He lacks the courage or character to even look Lunata in the eye. He is trying to run away from it all.
        Unlike those who have the courage to look into who they are, what they stand for, what they think can happen. Zed over there fights back against Siegfried's convictions, in so much that he states doubt in something he has never gotten to see for himself.
        Yaro hasn't, either. It doesn't stop him. Hearing Zed's lack of faith... he seems intent only to clutch onto it ever tighter as his only salvation. But she's not awake yet. She can't.
        It is a cruelty that he does not seem keen to regard Lunata's grievances as she stands to be his executioner. Like it all means nothing to him. The lives taken. The happiness stolen. The time...
        ...The time lost.
        "Mother... Mother..." Is all he can pathetically murmur, trying to crawl off from Lunata. Kahm chooses to break away to focus his attention on the other still standing. It is a tactically sound decision - this one seems hardly worth his time.
        He can see the chains around ^That^. He can see Siegfried's back up against the statue. There is still time. If he comes close enough, he can have the glory. All of it. He tries to reach out with that little claw shaped only to be able to tug him along at a glacial pace, lacking both the strength and leverage in which to land any sort of serious blow against it--
        Lunata wants it back.
 
* * * S P L O R C H * * *
 
        All she gets back is an all-encompassing splatter of quicksilver that will stain her and her clothes - and perhaps the coursing of a venom that is largely useless against her lich-like physiology. She gets no screaming, no pleading, no crying.
        The natural decline of the ground sees Yarobeleedt's motionless body falls down the decline like a tumbleweed - a plant that only becomes free to roam the wastes upon its death - somewhere near the vicinity of Kaguya's person.
        His body leaks more fluids. He steadily deflates. His eyes roll less erratically. His tongue lolls out, dripping more of that ichor.
        His mind continues to race.
        "Mother. Mother. Mother."
                "I be leaf."
        These thoughts repeat as he enters the beginning stages of the regenerative torpor all Metal Demons enter after sufficient trauma - just like what happened back at Arctica.

GS: Bart Fatima heals Elhaym van Houten! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

For all that she acts like this is a social outing among friends, it doesn't change the fact that whatever is going on has to be serious business considering just who showed up. With Siegfried's proclamations as to how none of them deserve Filgaia, there's a heavy lidding of her eyes; were the circumstances different, she would find some merit in what the man says - the right of conquest is as old as sin, after all and all the more understandable to a woman who does what she wants, takes what she wants, whenever she has the opportunity. But at the moment, it is tremenduously difficult for her to feel any sympathy.
 
 Because she wouldn't be much of a thief, if she lets others take from her. That was her job.
 
 As Neriah inches closer to the statue, so does she. Chains and dark ephemeral energy washing around her, this amount of magic should be keeping her at a distance. Keeping her wary.
 
 She has seen Jude rip through half a dozen armed combatants while bleeding to death - she doubts that a hole in a place where he could afford it would slow him down.
 
 And like him, she already knows what is coming.
 
 I'm pretty sure Elw buildings don't believe in gravity.
 
 "It was nae as bad as all that, was it?" she muses. "I'd like tae think I'm as much of a heathen, for all the time I spend sinning with a priest."
 
 But I think I still prefer to aim low.
 
 There's a laugh at that, right before Jude takes advantage of her grenade's explosion to launch himself at Neriah. She cuts away from him then, angling her approach the other way, diving into a roll through the smokescreen her incendiary has generated while the red-haired journalist and Morgan press their advantage.
 
 Strange things start to happen all at once.
 
 She glimpses the Lightning Rod Formerly Known as Kahm Yugh from a distance, calling down the power of the heavens themselves to rejuvenate him, revitalize him from whatever toils he has already suffered. It touches the tip of his sword before the smoke of the grenade engulfs her, and all she sees is a flash of muted light, like thunder attempting to spill from a cloud cover. Were it any other day, she would be impressed, but Neriah's outrage bleeds through the ether, calls to whatever patron spirit is still lingering in the statue staring at these violent proceedings in silence.
 
 She is not magically adept. Not really. She knows just enough to keep her head above water, but Symbology and like arts are those she leaves to the rest. She prefers her guns, her grenades and her wits. And if none of them will work...
 
 The bloodcurdling roar generates the first prickle of ice and fire that she feels throughout this entire battle, every nerve set alight by battle frenzy and adrenaline. Jay's prayer is invoked just in time and she feels the effects from the alchemist's plea, washing over her. On any other day, it may even be enough to temper her volatile spirit, to content herself to hide behind the barrier that it provides.
 
 But she is not so idle as that.
 
 Slowly, within the smoke, she rises to her feet as the wave of raw, evil energy rolls over her like a tide, her fingers falling on the grip of the innocuous looking blade on her side, no longer than a knife.
 
 There is a burst of emerald light. It tears through the smoke, rips apart the miasma threatening to choke her and leaves her untouched.
 
 When the smoke clears, the glowing, green blade lowers at her side, having grown into a full-lengthed longsword; the final segmented, interlocking metal plates snap into place, lining up indiscernible engravings into a configuration that cannot be visible through its aura. In her secure grip, it burns even while it rests in easy familiarity within the hand of a woman with a reputation for being a reckless gunfighter.
 
 ...but a sword?
 
 "Ay, lass. That's nae right, is it? Nae taking your pain all that seriously. Just the kind of people we are, methinks. Like you said earlier, we're nae exactly the best company."
 
 She lifts the blade, to point it towards her.
 
 "But this is just a guess, luv. I dinnae think you'd like us very much once we're serious, either."
 
 And with that, she moves.
 
 She doesn't launch herself so much as she streaks towards Neriah, her blindingly fast approach putting a feint on one side only for those fleet feet to change direction in the last moment, stepping around her in flashing steps. Her other hand grips the end of her blade, and she lunges for the kill. There is no movement wasted, no unnecessary breath expended. She simply closes the distance fast enough, misdirects in the last moment, and with a low sweep...
 
 Attempts to slice up her leg, carve up along her side, and right into her arm.

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

        Shalune runs; true to her nature, the haphazard pinwheeling dash is more instinctive than anything else, trying to break away from the fight she's locked into and get closer to Lunata. She can hear the waitress' hoarse voice faintly, hear the cracking of bone and the gush of blood, but the actual details and words are lost against the din of the fight and the panicked drumbeat of her eardrums.

        What she does hear - behind her - is the rustle and whistle of air. She's seen this before - knows that it's Kaguya's winds, headed towards her back. The fact that the Veruni is attacking someone trying to break off is not something the mechanic blames her for - for all she knows, Kaguya's blinded from her attack, or just reacting instinctively to the flow of the fight.

        The other thing the mechanic doesn't do is attempt to dodge it. She braces instead, setting her jaw as she feels the power of the etheric blow wash over her; a cry rips from her throat as the back of her coat and the sweater underneath are shredded and torn by otherworldly petals. It's fine, a strangely detached part of her mind thinks. There are more important things right now.

        In some ways, it's even a boon - because that carries her forwards, sending her staggering at first but then using the wind at her back to simply pile towards Lunata. "--Lunie--! Don't you-- nnh," she grunts; there's a hot, sticky feeling on her back, aware that she's bleeding. "--don't you get it!? I told you before!" she bawls anyway, pressing forward. Heedless of the cold look in the girl's eyes, heedless of the bone blade that's part of her or the way her veins unnaturally wind around it, heedless of the Metal Demon as it falls away from the waitress and whether or not it might still be a threat, Shalune--

        --opens her arms wide, and lets her momentum simply tackle the other girl in a confusion of limbs. Somewhere in the midst of the impact she finds the werewithal - the frustration, perhaps - to just grab for Lunata's arm, even if the feel of naked, slotted bone makes her shiver bodily. "--'so long as you both are alright' doesn't mean a damn thing if you're dead! How would that make us 'alright'?!"

        Behind her, a little unheeded, is the crackle of power - but perhaps she'll get to that in a moment.

GS: Cassidy Cain has attacked Neriah Parringer with The Best Is Yet To Come!
GS: Cassidy Cain has completed her action.
DC: MISS! Neriah Parringer completely evades The Best Is Yet To Come from Cassidy Cain!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Lunata gives her speech. Jacqueline realizes, with mounting horror, what it is she intends to do. Jacqueline starts to move toward her, as Shalune does, but it's too late. She stops in her tracks, staring in horror as the blade swells, and Lunata intones that word.

'Material'.

"N-no..." Jacqueline whispers quiet. It was too late to stop it.

And, nearby...something nearby reacts. The chains tighten around Neriah. Her form shifts...into something Jacqueline has seen once before. That bloodcurdling roar is the only warning she gets.

It isn't enough.

She draws out a Crest to try to protect herself...but the Crest itself is torn to pieces, blackening as it is swept into tidal wave of calamity Neriah unleashed. Jacqueline opens her mouth in a wordless cry, as the skeletal faces consume her, as the black talons tear at her. It sends her flying backward, her form limp...

...and the last thing she sees before unconsciousness takes her is the sight of that executioner's blade descending.

She doesn't see the aftermath. Nearby, her glasses clatter to the stone floor, broken.

DC: You have set your HP to 1.
<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

"Hey, don't go crushin' my friends!" Locus calls out to Siegfried, when he speaks of crushing Xantia (who in Carina's mind is just 'The Girl with an X on Her Shirt' or 'X' for short). She considers helping save Lydia enough of a solid to qualify as a baseline for friendship, you see.

Just then, Grudiev's power washes over Carina, patching up her armor with a layer of protective earth. This surprised her a bit the first time, but now she recognizes it. "Nice, Miss Jay!" She flashes a thumbs-up in her general direction, despite the distance. It's nice to be reminded that she's not fighting alone-- Especially now.

She then descends upon the Quarter Knight, who does experience the shock advertised, but manages to sweep her away. She three-point lands into a skid, without even really thinking about it.

She raises her head, just in time to see the multicolored, negative light flying right towards her.

"Beans 'n' a half--" and she is blown away across the entire chamber.

It is very good that Jay provided her aid just now, because Grudiev's barrier prevents the searing light from filtering through the gash in Carina's armor. Almost all of it is washed away as Locus skids backwards, but at least she remains relatively uninjured. "Whooooof..."

She is too busy trying not to die to hear a click. She should be alarmed, but just the sight of Siegfried right next to the statue is enough to produce that effect. She glances at the corner of her vision, noticing the icon she saw blinking earlier in the ruins. A power indicator? And if she's reading it right, it's running low. Well, only one thing to do, then.

"Foolish or not, we're gonna give this new world our all, no matter what!" Carina shouts defiantly, only half-aware of what she's even talking about as she charges right back towards Siegfried. She winds up her fist once again, gathering lightning in the ambient air-- And there's no shortage of that flying around! --to build up into a nearly blinding point of light.

"ALWAYS-WINNING! FINAL! LOOOOCUS PUNCH!"

She puts everything into that ONE BLOW! ...and fails to account for her angle, which is honestly rather 50/50 as to whether it would blow Siegfried /away/ from the statue or /into/ it.

GS: Carina Wynne has attacked Siegfried with Final Punch!
GS: Carina Wynne has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Carina Wynne's Final Punch for 106 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Faith in what!? A Mother who asks for her children to fight and die for a thousand years? I'd rather have faith in people I can believe in-- who don't tell me that the world is a terrible place, that the other side is nothing but a bunch of faceless monsters, traitors and cowards!" Zed roars back as the Negative Rainbow surges in. Blasts arc into him, one bolt skipping off his shoulder plate, another digging into his chest...!

But...

"You... talk so much about camaraderie and loyalty...!" Doom Bringer swings out, disrupting the Negative Rainbow long enough for him to slip out to safety. It ends... levelled at Yarobeleedt. "Someone... just fought and nearly got himself killed for your mission. Are you going to take him to safety, or is this going to be his grave?"

Zed's blade flashes. He vanishes into a flurry of violence. Strike after strike after strike pounds at the Blue Knight, and-- and then...

It... stops.

Zed stares at Siegfried. "Uh."

He looks up.

"...U-uncle Zeik, did you just... Hear a 'click?'"

GS: Zed has attacked Siegfried with Forbidden Move - Astral Dance!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Zed's Forbidden Move - Astral Dance for 95 hit points!
<GROUP BB> New message posted on 'Caravan Kinship' 'Notes and Reports' Board (2/19) by Tesni Inoue: New Hire
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        "Have you considered taking up a hobby?" Loren asks Kaguya quite seriously and quite flatly when she says violence is good stress relief.

        ...Remind him of what?

        If there was ever a comment Loren never thought he'd hear, let alone in the middle of a fight, where they're most definitely attempting to kill each other...
        This one probably tops the whole damn list.
        For an instant, even this most exhausted and hopped-up-on-stimulants Loren manages a particularly notable taken-aback pause.
        Behind the translucent glass on the faceplate, he even stares.

        His attention briefly drifts to a certain other corner of the field of battle and quickly reroutes itself. Blood and the fragility of life is no stranger to anyone pursuing his field of work -- he'd seen the sort of injuries that made some people vomit before he'd even graduated. But this is something else. Not the viscerality of it, but rather the reverse, that pulse threaded through it that threatens to push even through the largely pleasant haze he's in.

        And it's a good thing he does look away, because Kaguya pulls an ARM and shoots at him again.
        Or perhaps not so much 'at' him but around him.

        Whatever that thing is, as it so happens, 'close' is in fact good enough. Lifting a shield would be useless; he doesn't try. A shimmering array of white light rises, an etheric bloom about him as he attempts to hold his ground--
        It burns through it, corrupts it. It burns him. Even the brush of its light burns. He staggers, dropping back a step, then two, thinking of nothing else but to get back from it before it can turn fully dire for him.

        Here he stands, damaged shield raised. He breathes out. This is a problem.
        Particularly when Shalune breaks away, having perhaps far more pressing concerns on hand than this.

        Over communications, Kahm's voice breaks into this tense moment.

        "Major, what are you--"

        There's time enough to see Kahm break into a dead run, bolting clear across the battlefield.
        Enough to see him leap -- ether boosts and all -- and enough time to realize what the Major has in mind.

        No. He's going to get killed.

        That shot, in the depths of the Photosphere.
        That's all that comes to mind as Loren abruptly breaks away from Kaguya, green-tinged light already trailing from his free hand as he attempts to reach to close the gap, so to speak, in etheric force if not by any other means.
        He doesn't think anything at all. If there's an emotion wrapped into the heart of the infinitely-growing crystalline lines that speed for Kahm, it's desperation.

        And punctuating the heart of this moment is, naturally, a click.

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Kahm Yugh with Restorative Axiom!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
"BART!" Hiro shouts as Siegfried's chestplate opens, suddenly frightened at the memory as it's aimed at him, "You- how dare you!?"
 
This isn't his world. He wasn't born here. He didn't grow up here. He barely knows anything of its history beyond what he's hastily cobbled together from ruins in the past months and old legends. So for a moment Siegfried's words do strike home. In the same way he realized with Ragnell that humans must take responsibility for their actions. But-
 
"It's... NOT NOTHING!" This close up he expects an attack from Glumzambor directly. Which is why he's caught flat-footed by the twisting rainbow smashing into him at point blank range, rendering his shield into splinters again as it jams upwards. Only the terrifying chromatic light momentarily refracting off the flat of his blade saves him from worse injury. But it does beat him back. It does nearly send him aground again. But he keeps a knee. Panting.
 
"If it's been done before and we failed then we'll do it again. And again until we get it right. The desire for something better is... NEVER NOTHING!"
 
What Fei says to Ruby however - "Fei..." Suddenly sounding a little uncomfortable, "... alright. I trust you to do what's best."
 
Siegfried's back is against the statue. A lightning bold descends and - "What's he doing!?" The statue doesn't seem to be his target but...
 
*click*
 
"OH DANGIT! WHAT DID HE JUST SET OFF! WE'RE OUT OF TIME!" "Ruby I'm gonna... do that thing..." Which is why of course Ruby turns to one person for salvation, "IT'S NOT ENOUGH HIRO! ELLY WE NEED YOUR BEST SPELL! LIKE NOW! ALL YOU'VE GOT!"
 
Hiro runs suddenly at an angle, to try to flank at Siegfried's side. "... I think Ruby's right. I'll do my best to set you up Ma'am!" He feels like he's going to fall over as he does, his gait a slight limp, but when he makes it - the winds swirl at his back, while his weary arms point his blade straight at Siegfried.
 
"If you don't believe in that anymore..."
 
Suddenly the winds strike him headlong at his back, launching him forward at blinding, uncontrollable speed. Along the way sheer air friction ignites his blade in particular in a corona of blinding flame, "-then all that's left for you is to-"
 
His first slash cleaves down into a wave of flame, "-BURN-" It sets him into a reckless spin, as he turns around into his second flaming strike from low to high, the fire building upon itself in intensity, "-BURN-" The fires are already infernal in intensity, as he brings it high in one final overhead slash, bringing down all of his strength into it in one giant pressure backdraft of blazing flame. "-BURN!"
 
But all of that was just prelude, because even as the final slash falls. His true aim all along after all was just for there to be enough flame from his technique washing over Siegfried - for Elly's attack. Whatever flaming hell he can conjure is just more fuel for Elly's fire.
 
Which descends then like radiant dragonfire from the heavens.
 

GS: Hiro has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

As satisfying as it was to be able to make use of her strength like that, Xantia feels a chill when Siegfried claims he will crush that hope. That statement feels so... offending, on more levels than she fully understands. She feels like she should say something in defiance, but nothing immediately comes to her. After the words that follow, however, she knows exactly what to say. "After a thousand years, maybe you should just accept that you're never going to win!" Nailed it. She looks pretty proud of that one.

Of course, the Quarter Knight has plenty of reason to be furious even without that taunt, and by now Xantia realizes that it's a good idea to not be anywhere near those blasts of light when they happen, clearly out of the one meant for Bart. Maybe she should have tried to get Bart out of the way too, she thinks after it's already too late to do anything about that. Sorry Bart. But he claims it didn't hurt so luckily everything's just fine.

Having missed most of the battle at large, this is her first time actually noticing what Lunata is doing, and the terrible results of it all on poor Yarobeleedt. There's only one way she can react to such brutal savagery. "Goooo, Death Waitress!" ...what? She's not worried. It's the Death Waitress, it's what she does. And that slug thing had it coming for a long time.

By then, Siegfried's returned, venting his wrath upon those gathered, including herself. This time, she at least knows what's coming, and what a bad idea it would be to get caught in that again. She manages to gain some distance in her mad dash to get clear, but is still clipped from the back, bowling her over and sending her skidding across the ground... ending in a roll, and getting right back to her feet. That... barely ended well. She takes notice of her breathing, realizing she's reaching her limits. She really should have taken that rest earlier.

Just then, Locus dashes past, executing... a lightning punch? Naturally this makes her immediately think 'hey, I can do that', so she decides to do the exact same thing, making it a DOUBLE lightning punch! Hers ends in a literal explosion of lightning, and since Locus did it, she has to do it too:

"Super Exploding Lightning Xantia Punch!!"

It's her first try at shouting made-up attack names, give her some slack.

GS: Xantia has attacked Siegfried with Exploding Fist!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Kahm Yugh!
GS: Loren Voss heals Kahm Yugh! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Hiro has attacked Siegfried with Battalion Sword!!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Hiro's Battalion Sword! for 198 hit points!
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Xantia's Exploding Fist for 161 hit points!
GS: Kahm Yugh takes a glancing hit from Malfi's Assault with Batteries for 51 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        I... be leaf...

        "..."

        Lunata stares on almost too impassively and coolly as Yarobeleedt continues to grovel, whimpering in his weakened, bloodied state as the poisonous, mercurial white-blood splotches all over her face. Her hair. Her clothes. It hisses gently, as fabric starts to wither away at how anathema it truly is.

        It doesn't feel good.

        Not one bit.

        But Lunata already knew, from far back as the Temple, that revenge is an empty dish, never fulfilling.

        Shalune comes bowling into her a moment later, her harshly tousled white hair tumbling as she stares towards her. The bone blade is broken in the descent, as the ebbing power of Ge Ramtos begins to fade.

        Her arm lifts a little as Shalune grabs onto it, and she can see that she's wounded; she casts her eyes to Kaguya for a moment with a scowl--

        "... because I'm selfish, Lunie. Because Jay--"

        She thrusts the broken remnant of the blade to where the alchemist just fell to the wicked burst of dark energy Neriah fires outwards.

        "--needs our help! Both yours, and mine!"

        With insanely surprising strength, Lunata turns and drags Shalune with her, stepping right next towards Jacqueline to where she fell. She scoops up the broken pair of glasses and puts it into her pocket.

        There's a glance towards Neriah, as her face contorts deeper than she ever has felt it twist before.

        "You want to kill death so badly?"

        The Original Medium of Ge Ramtos thrums where it's melded with her arm, rather plainly felt by one so hunted by the Guardian of Death, like Neriah.

        "That's convenient, because I want to kill you too. No--"

        She scowls deeper.

        "I WILL kill you."

        She glances down towards Jacqueline, as she clutches Shalune closer to her and remarks, "But not today. Not... today."

        She lifts her head up and murmurs, "Ge Ramda."

        A manifestation circle erupts underneath her, and that familiar spectral claw -erupts- out of her back. It trembles, for a moment; the hesitation feels palpable along the ghostly figure.

        "Do it."

        It stops.

        "DO IT!"

        It's a familiar manoeuvre -- the claw -stabs- into Lunata and tears a chunk of her soul, appearing as an ebbing red fragment of light. It's the same visible shine as that which appeared at the top of Rujm el-Hiri, back when Lunata first gambled her way into the Wheel to save her mother's life...

        And now...

        "I don't care if I have to become a monster."

        The red light descends into Jacqueline. Life surges through her battered body.

        "If it's for you and Jay..."

GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Soul Sacrifice!
GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        'You're imagining it,' Loren says.

        "Well, I suppose you wouldn't tell me either way," Gwen says, with a conspiratorial wink.

        ... No, she's still not sure who the man is. He just seems like the sort that seems fun to tease, just a bit, in that spilt moment.

        But not too much, as more crucial things demand their collective attention.

        Out of the corner of her eye, Gwen spots Hiro. The way he almost crumples to the pain of his burns, something that makes the courier's breath hitch. She may have forgotten the initial event, it having been so long ago, but her body still remembers the pain that lingers well afterwards, as well as the treatments that seemed to impart even more. Surely, with the magic that Lunar people possess, maybe that won't be his fate-

        'But I can do sorcery, too.' Kaguya forces Gwen back to their side of the battle, razor petal sharp blasts of wind cutting deeply past her clothing and into the skin underneath, drawing blood. "Nh!"

        Shalune makes her departure, something Gwen gives her blessing to with a small nod, should their eyes meet.

        The strong flash of lightning catches her eye. A man is there, caught in its embrace, and Loren, being a Gebler soldier (as far as Gwen knows) naturally goes to his aid.

        She doesn't stop him, only giving him a nod.

        "I guess it's just you n' me, Kaguya." Gwen sets her fog blue eyes on the Veruni, a small smile on her lips. "Let's make the most out of our time, in the way only people like us learn how t'do."

        It's a farce, perhaps. Gwen's never really thought about how long her ARM will support her. She was simply awash with the riches and excess of time where before, there was none. Could she really remember what it was like, to be that 'sick girl'?

        Her ARM whirrs, light pulsing in the now lit gaps between each plate. "We'll figure out a way to exist. The Guardians don't have ta bless any of us. We'll live. We'll make our own time, without takin' time from anyone else in the process." She raises the Mockingbird, static making the short curls of her hair float.

         This is her song.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Bounding Flight!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Bounding Flight for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Quick! Statuses applied to Gwen Whitlock!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
The light.

There's too much of it. It hurts. The impact strikes Elly, half-risen, and bears her down into the ground again with a wordless cry; the radio mic on her cheek peels halfway off as she is corkscrewed INTO the stone, flecks of blood coming from her lips as she tumbles out, sprawled, gasping.

She sees Kahm fly.

Blinking heavily, she pushes herself upwards to her knees. Cover him, the Major says. Her head turns upwards to look at him and--

                                why?
                                I've already betrayed them.
                                but...

But, Elly resolves, Major Kahm has treated me with kindness and forbearance. If he hadn't permitted this operation, I wouldn't have made this realization. I wouldn't be here now... and...

Despite the blood and the horror some part of Elly does not want to be anywhere else. Even if she dies here, perhaps that would be truer than becoming an old woman in the clean steel walls of Etrenank. And then she smells something with an elegant and mysterious flair, the complex molecules that make a true Fragrance transmitting etheric energies into her. The pain lessens - moves away - and Elly raises up her head.

She rises to her feet. The rod is left to lay. Elly sways.

Ruby pleads with her, in desperation. Elly looks at the pink cat, and she sees something precious and weak pleading with her.

Not unlike the Guardians.

Elly smiles at Ruby, the helmet having been shed long ago, as far as she can tell. She answers Ruby but probably only the Tzadkiel can hear. "It's alright," she says: "I'll take care of it." Then her eyes close.

Not much happens as Hiro begins his combo, except that without fanfare, that ice lump Elly tried to bludgeon the Quarter Knight with earlier melts and sinks into the ground. This is not natural, but nobody's being targetted. Elly breathes in slowly.

"... Everyone's plead with you," Elly says. "You won't reconsider... maybe it's too late..."

There is a flicker of blue around her, here and there, out of the corner of her eyes. She is shaping something complicated.

"But... I can tell you're hurting too. As a 'Shepherd,' I guess I can't help but do this," Elly breathes. Then she moves, drawing back her hand like a slow-motion low-impact imitation of some of Fei's punches, or perhaps more accurately a certain country doctor's.

                        "I'll show you an Element's power."

Four things happen at once.

The first is a sudden inversion in the air above Siegfried. This does not do much beyond throw dust around. Who cares.

The second is an expansion of the ground beneath the floor of this horrid delve, a porosity that spreads in complicated heartformed patterns that could not be easily seen without a microscope. This probably actually makes whatever that mysterious rumble is worse.

The third was the melting ice, already established.

The fourth is the screaming dragon of fire that comes out of Elly's hand as she shouts wordlessly over the scream of refined interstellar fusion-hot temperatures, the plasma snaking outwards as it strains against the confinement bottle guided by will and training and talent. It shudders for a moment as it screams forwards, and it may feel like a blast furnace to Hiro or Ruby far too soon. It's still nearly ten yards away. Perhaps this will --

The Ether suddenly slams into the ground, leaving a manhole-sized glowing tunnel. Some steam rises from it. Elly, in the distance from it, stays in her posture. That may seem like farcial anticlimax...

... until the superheated water deposit at a lateral angle beneath Siegfried explodes.

This is tremendously tricky. Elly knows. It is foolish and flamboyant showboating, even if the motivation is an obscure mercy. Half-melted rocks and superheated steam from beneath may certainly surprise the Quarter Knight, but it would not be a clean kill - it might even throw him into that aerial disruption, unfortunately reversed so as to potentially hurl him into distant skies.

Then Elly slumps forwards, gasping, her nose bleeding with gentle and ominous red.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Siegfried with Thermo Dragon!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

This is all fun and games to you three, isn't it.

"If that's how you want to see it, I won't argue." The sound of footfalls hitting masonry preface the splash of bright mix of crimson across the ground beneath him as the redheaded reporter hits ground in a light stagger; the impact jostles his bullet wound, opening it further; blood from his blade and from his injury ooze to the ground beneath him as those amber eyes look back Neriah's way. "It just is what it is, at the end of the day. You want to break the statue. I'm not particularly attached to it either way, but I've got reason enough to try to make sure it doesn't happen."

The Guardian's power swells around them, inhaling stone and dust as Jude Moshe's smiling face gets increasingly lost within the maelstrom. But that smile never reaches his eyes. It never has.

It never will.

"Suffering or not, we both want different things. That's all it ever boils down to, isn't it?"

After all, no one has a right to Filgaia. The bellowing sound of Siegfried's voice still echoes in his ears as his shoulder throbs. No one has a right to anything, do they? It's like he said:

        No hard feelings.

He can feel the Guardian's power encircling him, enfolding him, and after that, everything falls apart in distressingly short order. Stone and earth becomes his shield, enveloping him within a protective prism of spiritually-reinforced power. There is a swell. A pulse. Something off. Something wrong.

And that ambivalent amber stare turns itself towards his gun with the crease of his brows. The revolving chamber opens. Shells fall free with a clatter of metal. And he reloads, in the precious seconds between calamities, snapping the chamber back into place as he looks outward, towards Kahm in the distance. Kahm, receiving help from the heavens?

There is something faintly unreadable in the journalist's gaze, in the seconds before he looks to Neriah.

In the seconds before a piece of the beast unchains.

The Guardian's magic buffets him, as he feels a roar echo deep within his eardrums, ringing at them furiously as he stares at the unlight that Neriah has become. And in those final moments, before he is engulfed, still nothing reaches his eyes. Not pain, not fear, not happiness or even flippant indifference.

The look of someone who has nothing to give before the sight of the end.

The skeletal face of a creature not natural or right collides against the shield of Grudiev, brandishing talons of power that rides almost antithetical to everything the shield of stone and dust embracing Jude stands for. He can't move in time, he knows that -- it comes too swiftly, his own attention too divided on a myriad of different things. Spiritually-reinforced stone splinters. It cracks. Dust dissolves into nothing like it was phased out of existence. And as the waves of the chained beast reach their crest --

The shield shatters, and Jude Moshe is consumed, lost within a sea of darkness.

If it weren't for that shield, he might well not be standing there, in the aftermath. If it weren't for that shield, the reporter might not exist any more than the crumbling dust that was once a building that came before him. Talons of anti-light tear through his clothes, gauge through flesh, ride through his soul. It seeks to unmake him, to reduce him to nothing.

What it says, that he is still standing there, body smoking and sagged forward from where he has been -slammed- against a crumbling wall, well... maybe it's best not to think about that.

Blood drips from Jude's lips, joining the scarlet that he has increasingly decorated this holy place with. He stares at it for a long, quiet moment, before amber eyes lift up, watching through the cold halo of pain at a flash of emerald that screams across the distance.

"... Sorry," he breathes out, slowly, though it is a half-hearted apology at best as he aims his ARM into the air.

"Like you said. This is just the way things have to be. One way, or the other."

And he fires a single shot into the air -- before it fractures, becoming a hail of bullets, all of them raining down on Neriah in a vast swath.

Just in time for him to hear the

*click*

and simply, silently, lament his luck.

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Neriah Parringer with Boogie Chillen!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Lunata Croze's Soul Sacrifice for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Lunata Croze clears debuffs from Jacqueline Barber!
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Dragon for 199 hit points!
GS: Siegfried has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
DC: MISS! Neriah Parringer completely evades Bad Sign from Jude Moshe!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"I know," Fei tells Ruby. "That I'm not good at this. But Elly said that I could learn. That it was like martial arts. So I should be able to do it...I need to do 'nothing', I need to pay attention, study, anticipate..."

He can feel it, though. He can feel the anguish. He wants to cry because of all the pain around him. However awful Yaro may be, he can feel his desperation, it's like a child trying to reach out to their mother. The fact that someone he saw as a child not so long ago is also screaming bloody murder is not lost on him.

He feels the pain from Siegfried, sharper and more refined than the pain ripping into his body from the negative rainbow. Fei jerks back sharply from the strike but does not go flying or anything. He's got a tough body. He doesn't skip leg day. He skids back, but he stays standing. Not this time, this time he's not going to fall before that technique. Why, he thinks, does my leg feel like it's burning?

He doesn't say 'Siegfried, buddy, you're warring with us too' because of course he is. Siegfried knows that. He knows that. When a group feels threatened, they'll do what it takes. Any group will.

He feels the pain of Lunata who was irrevocably changed by what the Metal Demons did. He feels the difference between what Lunata is now, and what she was. It tears at his heart.

He thinks, for a moment, that Gebler convinced Lunata to murder a sobbing child calling for its mother so they could take the statue for themselves. He imagines they don't want to break it, of course they don't. They had plenty of opportunities to if they so desired. Some part of him knows exactly who that statue will be going to. Part of him imagines what Gebler might be able to do with a statue like that.

"Stop..." Fei begins. Is Yaro dying? He doesn't even know. He knows he's an enemy. He knows he shouldn't feel anything, but the way that he calls for his mother--

He can feel Neriah's pain. It's dreadful. for a moment. He hears Jay pleading to Lunata and hearing it come to not

But it's not that little red voice Fei listens to. It's another voice entirely.

"A statue." Fei murmurs, pausing to look at his hands. He can't stand to see Siegfried hurting. He doesn't understand why, but he understands the feeling.

FEI AWAKENING 25 PERCENT

Is saving a statue worth all this, he can't help but wonder.

He closes his eyes and he remembers, all those Elw corpses. But then, those same Elw brought the Primarch into this world, didn't they? They were hardly innocent. And then again, who is? It's not about who was right or wrong, he thinks, it's about who ends the cycle. Elly said she was sick of seeing people die.

Fei runs, not for Siegfried but for the statue itself, the sealing rod held tightly in his hand. They're going to steal the statue. Even if he seals it, Gebler will have that statue. His eyes stare into Kahm's eyes as he runs for it. He sees you. He recognizes you. There's something behind his own eyes. It isn't the Demon of Elru.

It's something older.

Suddenly he's in that white light, jamming the sealing rod for the statue. This is why everybody's fighting. If there's no reason to break it anymore, there's no reason to fight for it anymore but in this moment, this close to Kahm, he whispers a few words for Kahm alone.

"The people of Filgaia won't fall for your boy king's lines for much longer. Enjoy your victory, you who don't know the truth of this world..."

He feels Elly's pain. Her resignation but more than any of that, he can feel her resolve. Had he not felt these things, he might have swung his fist into the statue instead.

But he still has that fist. Fei twists and sends that other fist, this one bursting into flames for Kahm's helmet, intending to slam his fist through. The words were from some Fei or another, this is one last remembrance from the other guy.

The click is unheeded. Of course there's a click.

<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya, of course, is in the middle of a fight over here. She's concerned with Lunata, but she has Loren in her face, has Gwen trying to get through to her, and has Shalune, who can't just let it go with Jay and Lunata fighting so hard. Amidst the chaos, this is a small bubble, relatively, even if they keep moving--she has her hands full. However...

The execution comes. Chains about the Statue come, and Kaguya narrows her eyes at it, at the coming ship. ...But then Yarobeleedt flies, eflating, motionless, right... onto... Kaguya's... foot. Her eyes bug briefly. She stares down at the hated Metal Demon before her, the awful foe who represents what has happened, what is to come. And... she...

Shrieks.

"EW EW EW!" Kaguya calls suddenly, reclaiming her foot, rearing back, and kicking the body of the cowardly Metal Demon as far as her great strength can take it. The kick makes a sickening, awful squelch as her metal boot impacts, but it's almost easy to miss because over it the small Veruni is still shouting, "It touched me augh I need a shower ew--"

But she looks up, and sees Shalune--hit by her attack, charging Luanta--and has a sort of 'augh' sort of look to her still, before she shakes her head abrubtly... and ceases going after her. It's good enough. But she sees Jay, too, fallen on the ground...

Kaguya's eyes are duller as she looks up at Loren and Gwen again. She grins, remembering the taken-aback look Loren gave her, the surprise, and his question. "Well," Kaguya says, "My real passion is botany." She says this entirely gamely, as if she totally means it, sees nothing wrong with saying as much in the middle of a battle. "That's what my degrees are in, anyway." ...Plural?

But Loren takes off, and she doesn't have to see his face to know that kind of desperation as he looks after someone. The click... Kaguya wonders, for a moment, who has gotten Loren this much, who he cares about. ...And in another instant, she thinks... "...Wonder what'd happen if I..." She grins again, teeth showing, "Got in the way a little...? What would you do? I want to see..."

She's lucky, for a moment, getting the time to take aim after loading a glowing cartridge--and shoot a blast of rainbow colors straight for Loren Voss's back, a sickly aura that makes much worse the inversion of a moment ago.

Then she looks to Gwen again. Just them, Gwen says, and she nods. "...Yeah," she says. "You and me. I kinda wish we'd had more time to talk..." Kaguya puts her ARM away, holstering it within her coat, as she watches Gwen's ARM pulse. "But there's other ways to talk. You say you've got another way... But I don't see it. So you're gonna have to show me."

Kaguya, then, pulls something else from her coat--a syringe, that she pops the top off of, takes a breath, and jabs into her neck, depressing the plunger. She shudders with it for a moment. "A-ah... Just... Need..." She takes it out; there's a little read beading there at her neck, before she tosses it away. "All right then. Now..."

"See if your new health can stand up to my sickness." Kaguya sets her stance--and charges, straight for Gwen, ducking under and adopting a stance that keeps the axis of her body facing Gwen, keeps herself a small target--and starts in with a flurry of blows, punch, punch, knee, all small, all hard to read, all hard enough to break concrete. "Show me," Kaguya says, "What you're like. What you can do."

She keeps going until she lunges in to try to grip Gwen, spin her, and crash her straight to the ground. "Then we can talk!!"

GS: Kaguya has attacked Loren Voss with Prism Canister!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Kaguya with Doctor's Orders!
GS: Kaguya heals Kaguya! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Blood Moon!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

        Tears in her eyes, Shalune can barely process what is happening right at the moment - neither Lunata's words or the way she's dragged across the battlefield quite register to her right at the moment. She instinctively clings to the white-haired girl out of sheer fervour...

        ... but the sight of the stricken alchemist pulls her out of it, eyes wide in panic all over again. "JAY!!" she cries, voice hoarse, and perhaps it's for the best that her attention narrows in her direction, not fully comprehending what Lunata is doing above her as she frantically pulls vials - Jacqueline's own - from a miraculously undamaged pocket.

GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Good Thing!!
GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
GS: Shalune Amira heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


The concussion round slams home. Morgan knows it'll hurt, but she isn't stopping. She isn't going to let up. He's seen looks like that on so many people's faces. Seen that push, that drive, that need to finish what they started no matter the cost. Part of him regrets having to stand in her way...

...but the rest of him likes living. He isn't quite ready to lay down and die. Not now, and not for a while yet.

The fox has to smirk though as the mess continues to unfold around them all. Though he pauses. One ear flickers slightly as his face blanches slightly. From across the battlefield he casts his eyes towards the statue and frowns.

"I totally heard a click."

But then...he has other things to worry over.

Slowly he starts towards Neirah once again before...

Before everything explodes in shadows.

They scream out of the center of the dust cloud. Ripped away from the woman bound by chains both physical and mystical. The screech from her is enough to shatter bones and burst eardrums. The wave of darkness is even worse, black talons felt more than seen as he struggles just to stand upright though the magics rushing past him.

Those skeletons fall on the fox then, circling around him, enveloping him in shadows and smoke from which only a few flicking spots of fur can be seen.

At least at first.

Blue-white fire suddenly rages at the center of the swirling magic, tearing past the shadows, shoving the skeletons back and back as the roil of blue flames pours from where the fox stood. It recedes like the tide to reveal the fox standing there, though its not quite the same fox. Its Morgan yes, but the fur on his ear and his tail is white and gray...and there is the small issue of him having two tails now.

On his left arm hangs a shield made of white and gold. Elegantly curved, with flickering blue flames clinging to the sides. In his other hand is a long hafted weapon of the same strange metal. Almost like an axe, but where blades should be there is only the same blue flame.

There is a shake of his head, a slight smirk on his face.

That crooked look, the mischievous eyes sparkling for a moment as he rolls the axe in his hand. There is a deep breath as he starts to stalk towards the bound figure. The stalk turns into a run. A glance is given towards the bloodied form of Jude, the fallen form of Jay. If wants to help them...but he can help them the most by ending this as quick as he can.

And so he runs.

No wear near as quick as Cassidy, but the foxes advance uses her attack. Uses Jude's rifle round. Every advantage he can gather as he draws back that flaming weapon to bring it crashing across towards Neriah's temple.

At least he's not using the blade.

"Sorry, darlin'." He murmurs as his white and gold weapon scythes though the air. "We each made our decision. Just remember, ya asked for this."

GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Neriah Parringer with Hell to Pay!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Hell to Pay for 158 hit points!

GS: Morgan Newkirk drains Neriah Parringer! Morgan Newkirk gains 250 temporary hit points!
GS: Loren Voss guards a hit from Kaguya's Prism Canister for 90 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi moves to interpose herself between the Filgaians and her fallen commander. She's slow for her kind but still inhumanly fast. If she has the time (and space) she'll transfer some of her life force into him. Internal batteries are useful that way! Then she'll keep a defensive posture.

GS: Malfi takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Malfi has completed her action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Kahm Yugh with Kakei!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Kahm Yugh has activated a Force Action!
GS: Kahm Yugh guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kakei for 89 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Kahm Yugh!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Zed's blade slams into Siegfried's. slowly driving him back, keeping him occupied -- even as his eyes dart towards Yarobeleedt. He grits his teeth, then looks to Zed. "Gh--we will withdraw him, but you should know that I need not carry him! The Photosphere--" He pauses. "Yes." Worry enters his voice. "Yes, I did."

Metal Digger Locus and Xantia come flying back in. Siegfried stabs the Dark Spear into the ground, then crosses his arms -- and their blows slam into his forearm plates, driving him back across the ground and leave an immense wave of dust in their wake. He looks up balefully at Locus and Xantia both -- and rushes forward. His hand grabs for the hilt of Glumzambor.

He turns to face Hiro, and then his eyes narrow at him. He raises Glumzambor, ready to meet him--

'BURN!'

And Hiro descends. The blows strike, battering his armor, and smashing him back. Each blow erupts with fire, roiling and burning around him. It blows him backward, and he stumbles. "You will never burn me down, Hiro! NEVER!" he shouts. "I am a Quarter Knight! I am the salvation this world deserves--I am the best hope for Filgaia! I AM--"

He isn't even paying attention to Elly. That is a mistake. The air inverts. The ground cracks and shift; ice milts. And then, a dragon of fire comes screaming into the hole... and a blast of superheated water slams into Siegfried. It hurls him into the air as he looks at Elly. His eyes widen. His lips move, forming a word, and then his world becomes steam, fire, and height.

'Sophia.'

He goes rocketing into the air, and when he comes tumbling down, he is a few hundred feet in the air, and unconscious.

        PHOTOSPHERE

"Withdraw Lord Siegfried immediately!" Alhazred calls out.

"But, my lord--" One of the Demons hesitates. "The teleporter can only get one. Yarobeleedt--we won't be able to--"

"I'm sorry, did I sound like I care?" the Quarter Knight asks, turning a vicious gaze down on the offending Demon. He steps backward, slowly, and then nods. "My--my lord."

        PLEASING GARDEN

Siegfried's body lights up. A blue light infuses it; swirls around it. He comes crashing down past the lip of the tower, and then he vanishes in a surge of photons, then wind, then nothing.

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

The power pouring out of Neriah is tenebrous and obscene in an utterly spiritual way - like chemical sludge polluting the soul. But no amount of spiritual malice can completely dampen a free spirit or blunt the edge of a sharp tongue, and Cassidy Cain stands up to the horror in front of her. Neriah turns to face her; shadow streams around her in rolling waves, obscuring the shape of the hellchild within it.

The brave woman's shining blade slips through the darkness... but Neriah melts into the murk. The shadows thicken.

Swelling up from the shadow pool, Neriah re-emerges on the other side of Cassidy, still ever closer to the Statue. Shockingly white, empty eyeholes open up against the undulating black as she reconstitutes herself.

          " t h e p a i n w i l l b e o v e r s o o n . "

She can, through her own shadows, see Jay Barber going down, her Crest and her glasses in pieces. Through the undulating pain and malice roiling through her, driven to waves of agony by the clench of the Chains, Neriah wrestles with a pang of guilt. She can't tell if Jay is alive or dead.

This woman saved her life, and Neriah repaid her with death.

I'm sorry, Jay, a small, lucid part of her mind wails. Please don't be dead. I didn't want to have to kill you. You were one of the good ones and I cared about you a lot. But I have to do this.

Jude Moshe, a survivor's survivor, lets his wrath be felt. Furious bullets pour down towards Neriah. The Chains of Arius clatter around her as she begins to sink downwards again, letting out a deep, resonant rumble of raw pain as she sinks into the fever pool of her own darkness. Ammunition tears apart the stonework where once she stood, sending chunks of debris blooming into the air in dusty clouds as Jude's firepower and defiance total stonework from millenia long past.

The shadows stream across the upper level. They surge into the air. They billow outwards, and congeal once more into the humanoid shadowform. The unlight wreathing Neriah streams off her, bleeding through the Chains.

Spiritual rust crumbles off of them.

Morgan takes his swing; it's a mighty one, crashing through the shadows as if driven by the gladiator-fox's courage. It's debatable if Neriah has any substance at all, at this point; he charges through the darkness, however, and makes contact with something solid. The tenebrous figure that once was and yet is Neriah skids backwards, a horrible, echoing roar booming from somewhere within that seething mass she has become. Shadows bleed off of her, her body flickering madly within the chains as she seems to struggle just to maintain her form, much less remain in control.

                      " n o . i a m s o r r y . "

Neriah doesn't press the attack. Hurtling back from Morgan's blow, the shadowy entity hits the ground - and then rockets upwards, into the air. A vast cometary tail of shadow streams behind her, trailing chains dangling from her limbs, more contristing around her as the power of the ancient curse struggles to bind one more generation than it was ever meant to bound.

Neriah levels her right hand. The Sigil of Valmar shines from the shadows of her palm like a ghostlight.

            " t h e c h a i n s m u s t g i v e w a y . "
                          " f o r g i v e m e . "

It takes all she has to power through the death curse - the agony the Chains wreak upon her. Malice and Valmar energy build and build. She levels her left hand --

And with a horrible shriek like the damned about to rip open the gates of Hell, Neriah's dark magic lances out of her in a single, incredibly finely-concentrated RAY.

Shadows bloom off of Neriah, streaming out behind her in a vast backwash that engulfs Jude, Morgan and Cassidy. But the fury of the RAY is leveled at the Statue. All the power of Valmar's Child, concentrated into a single, devastating, tainted RAY.

Rust flakes fill the air as the Chains of Arius strain to do the impossible.

GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Cassidy Cain with Ray - Obscene Backwash!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jude Moshe with Ray - Obscene Backwash!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Ray - Obscene Backwash!
GS: Neriah Parringer has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Malfi has posed.

Malfi skids to a halt as Siegfried is teleported away. She is near the statue now, looking about in confusion. Is her entire party being recalled?

GS: Gwen Whitlock critically Guards a hit from Kaguya's Blood Moon for 38 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline Barber lies still. The battle rages around where the simple alchemist from Adlehyde fell, to someone she considered a friend...

She doesn't move, even as Lunata drags Shalune over. There's no reaction, as Shalune cries out her name.

To Jacqueline, there is only nothingness...for a time. And then, she feels something familiar. A warm, comforting presence, washing over her body...

She can feel, faintly, familiar potions being applied to her.

Life surges through her.

Jacqueline Barber stirs....she opens her eyes. Her vision is blurry, but she could never mistake the silhouettes or voices above her.

"Lu...nata...Sha...lune..." She murmurs.

"...S-sorry..."

Her voice fades and she shuts her eyes again, but...she is breathing more easily now, at least.

A life may have been saved this day...but at what cost...?

GS: Morgan Newkirk used Mystic on Jude Moshe! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared!
GS: Morgan Newkirk has activated a Force Action!
GS: Morgan Newkirk critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Ray - Obscene Backwash for 16 hit points!
GS: Cassidy Cain takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Ray - Obscene Backwash for 41 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        Lunata can't help but have a faint smile as she hears Jay's voice again, even if it is so rattled and broken. She reaches for a small device that Bart would well know is just colloquially known as the Call Gear button at the Yggdrasil, and presses it.

        She ignores the lightning bolt coming down upon Kahm. She ignores Gebler and its ilk for now, she ignores their Gears and their machinations for the world. She ignores the Drifters delivering the final blow upon Siegfried, and the other Metal Demons. She ignores Kaguya as she continues to battle Gwen and Loren, and even Neriah, as she besets Cassidy, Jude and Morgan.

        She clutches Jay and Shalune tightly into her arms, even if one is still twisted and a broken blade of bone.

        "... I'm sorry. But..."

        ( BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07KPSuwmsZo )

        Her eyes narrow as she makes what she probably will reflect on as an oath, months down the line.

        "I don't care if they're Veruni.
         I don't care if they're Metal Demons or Hyadeans.
         I don't care if she's the Chains of Arius.
         I don't care if they're Gebler or Aveh or Kislev or anyone else in this whole wasted, withering world."

        Her eyes feel clearer than they've ever been.

        "If they threaten your life... in any way shape or form... even if the entire world comes at you..."

        Her eyes squeeze tighter. Even as the entire place explodes with unnatural energies and the violent blasts of battles still ongoing, her words are clearer than ever:

        "I'll be your monster."

DC: MISS! Jude Moshe completely evades Ray - Obscene Backwash from Neriah Parringer!
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.

As Kahm stands atop the statue of Ge Ramtos, a work built in worship itself, he see so much.

Violence. Carnage. Waste.

This was the nature of surface-dwellers, of their enemies. So much pointless bloodshed, so much wounding of the land. Now, more than ever, the mission of Solaris became clear. Preservation, control, a slowing of decay.

It was a battle they were doomed to lose, a struggle that could never be won. Filgaia was already dead, and they were merely delaying the inevitable.

And yet, he would fight it. Even as his body rebelled, even as his mind strained under the surge of so much etheric effort. Elly was fortunate to simply be able to collapse.

Even as his mixed blood cried out to join in the violence below.

The statue lifts with light, the bolt of lightning ceasing around him. Kahm met Malfi's energy blast unflinchingly, cutting through it with the empowered edge of his blade, the sizzle of burnt fabric and already making embers of the edge of his uniform. He tries to secure a position on the statue as best he can, but draws a wary bead on the approach of Fei Fong Wong, reaching for his sidearm until he sees the rod in his hand.

It was mistake. The martial artist's flaming fist collides into the spider-web fracture Kahm's helmet had suffered earlier from Yarobeleedt's flailing appendage, shattering off his head to reveal a mop of sweat-caked black and blue eyes shimmering in unvarnished contempt. Kahm's free hand held Fei's wrist in an iron grip-he must have done so at the moment the other man made contact. The younger man's words, even spoken with such a strange look, were heard as madness and delirium to the operative's ears. Who was this fool, to lecture him so?

But he knew, didn't he?

"You..." Kahm snarled, his grip tightened, "Everything that's happening started with you.

Three points of light emerge from the Tzadkiel as energy signals are interpreted, and commands are made. The ground shakes as the steel titans make landfall-Vierge, near Elly. Schiehallion, where Loren stands. And Kahm's Hauteclaire, behind the statue as it lifted.

Fight on. Each weapon silently demanded of their pilot. You are not yet finished.

"I was blind before. You have made her weak." Kahm said, releasing Fei's wrist, leaping backwards from the stature to the open cockpit of his gear, "That will soon be corrected."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

There is no way she is getting in the way of those barrage of bullets and she rips herself away once she realizes that her blade will not find purchase on the thing that Neriah has become. And before she can move again, instincts scream at her to stay her blade.
 
 Something is happening.
 
 On top of Kahm's ridiculous display of power and the fact that Siegfried just vanished and left his forces without his leadership, the situation around Neriah is starting to become too volatile to countenance. When the smoke clears and the wake of that devastating area attack is revealed, she finds Jude slumped against the wall, crimson on his lips, and Morgan's body on the dirt, dust ripped away by the evil tide to reveal the paleness of the tufts in his ears and his tail. She knows him well, too. Knows what that means.
 
 They've not yet recovered from their traverse in the higher levels of the Pleasing Garden, but Morgan is still mobile at least. She takes whirling steps into the mid-point between Neriah and Morgan, eyes shot with gold sliding over her shoulder to keep a visual bead on the red-haired reporter.
 
 Her priorities shift, she angles her blade in a different way.
 
 "Hey Morgan," she speaks up, casual as can be. "Still got that shield of yours?"
 
 It is the only warning he is going to have.
 
 Morgan is bigger and her, stronger than her. He is just as tall as Jude, and about twenty pounds heavier than the reporter himself. It's going to take everything in her to be able to move him.
 
 And so she does. But she doesn't go for Neriah.
 
 She charges right for Morgan.
 
 It has been a long time since she has performed in a circus, but muscle memory kicks in and this time, she launches herself at his direction. For a while, she is in the air, a golden bird in flight, before she tucks herself into a roll. Hands bracing on the ground, she springboards herself up, using her lightning momentum to rocket herself feet-first towards Morgan, aiming for his chest.
 
 And kick him.
 
 Leaving him sailing, with his shield, towards Jude and the path of Neriah's attack.
 
 It costs her. She is unable to evade Neriah completely, but the emerald blade whips forward once she's landed on her feet - bird one moment, cat in the next, the next wave slams into her blade and the virid flames eat most of the sorcerous strike. It cuts her cheek, rips her other shoulder open, the top of one thigh.
 
 The pain will be over soon.
 
 "Ay?" she murmurs. "What does that say about me, then, lass, if I dinnae want it tae stop?"

A pause.
 
 "If he's sleeping, Morgan, you have my permission tae kiss him awake!" Cassidy calls over her shoulder as the fox man flies. "Never say I dinnae do anything tae help you achieve your hopes and dreams!"

<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
There's a million things Hiro would like to say to the idea Siegfried is the salvation this world deserves as the heat of Elly's inferno washes over him. That he's its best hope. That even for all his anger and desire for vengeance - he knows behind that mask was is a bitter jaded old soul that once wanted better too.
 
And in that it's like he's seeing Fargo again after his match - declaring what he would become, just like all Drifters. Frightened of him.
 
As Siegfried rockets away, for a while it's all he can do for his eyes to follow him. To make certain he isn't coming right back down upon them with just as much fury and retribution as he promised. But as he vanishes in blue light, he tears his eyes away from that point in the sky instead. Almost mutely he speaks to himself, "... and I'll never..."
 
Inhaling once through his nostrils, "...become like you."
 
Ruby however immediately goes over to Elly. Not seeing how her nose is bleeding. Immediately excited, "TEN OUT OF TEN! A PLUS FIRE ELLY!" And immediately she offers her a pink pawsie in the air in front of her, "Paw five!"
 
Did she sense at all the resignation in her...
 
Possibly not. Though it could be that she's trying to just cheer her up.
 
But the most important question is will Elly be leaving Ruby hanging?
 
But it also unfortunately makes her a little heedless to the drama over there. She looks back just in time to see Kahm jumping into the cockpit, "Hey Fei are you done over there? You really should come tell Elly how awesome she is!" Which is when Vierge lands beside Elly, causing her to start.
 
Ruby suddenly gets a strange feeling as she stares up at the steel titan, then Elly, then back at Kahm and Fei and double takes as she starts to make vague connections that aren't really fully formed, "... Did I miss something important?"
 

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        Pinning together someone's wounds from afar. Adding to someone's capabilities. Doing it quickly and correctly. Distance times power times speed.
        Doing something like this takes effort.
        It takes every inch of Loren's focus.

        He doesn't hear Kaguya. Doesn't, with his back turned, see what she's doing.

        And that's why he gets shot in the back.

        The shot takes him off his feet, sending the medical officer into a forward sprawl as whatever fell powers that emboldened that cartridge detonate across his back.
        The armor plating in the combat uniform spares him a more potentially debilitating wound. Yet, this too has left its mark: it's punched clear through the plating and exposed skin.

        But he doesn't stay down. Pushing himself up, he rises to his feet and casts just one long look back at Kaguya.

        "You want to see it? Then here it is."

        Schiehallion touches down not long after.
        He doesn't linger.

        He's not done yet.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei knows his words come across as delirium, knows it comes across as madness. He even knows on some level it was a mistake, allowing himself to step out this far. All it has ever done was get him and those he loves killed. His hand is held in Kahm's hand. It's a tight grip. The flame dissipitates around his hands.

He doesn't argue. He knows the futility of arguing. He doens't plead. He knows the futility of pleading. One thing is certain, he knew Kahm would relax the moment he saw the sealing rod in his hand. That's why he stroke. Maybe that's what makes this man dangerous.

"She makes me strong." He says. It's not for Kahm that he says it, not exactly, but he can hear it. He doesn't blink as Kahm bruises his wrist.

But then Kahm releases it. There's some honor in Kahm yet. Refreshing, after a fashion. He might have said something more but--

RUBY INTERRUPT

The presence fades as whatever happens to him, the statue, and ecetera happens.

He needs to tell Elly how awesome she is--

<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.


Oh god, she's aiming at the statue.

OH GOD its big enough that they get caught in the pressure wave.

OH GOD CASSIDY HAS A PLAN!

These are the thoughts of Morgan Newkirk as he hears Cassidy's question, stares at the carnage wrought in the battle that is going on. Gebler arriving. That familiar figure leaping into a Gear. Raising up in the sky.

The massive blast from Nierah.

The dissipearance of the Quarter Knight...

And that is the question Cassidy asks him?!

"Of course I have my shield! Its right here! On my arm!" He waves it in her direction for good measure as he glances towards her and...

Why is she charging him.

He takes the boot and goes tumbling ears over tail towards Jude. Nearly landing on the simple country reporter before he can find his footing again. "YOU COULD HAVE JUST BLOODY WELL ASKED ME!" He shouts as he braces his frame, shield forwards. Blue firey corona flareing to direct the energy up and away as he angles the armored piece of his mysterious ARM to protect himself and the man he's nearly squished.

Nearly.

That doesn't mean that Jude isn't going to have two white furred tails in his face though.

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

        The 'Call Gear' button, as it turns out, is not just for show.

        The Gebler radars would all be picking it up, every single one of them. And Kahm and Loren, as they start to board into Hauteclaire and Schiehallion, would see it plain and clear...

        The winged Gear. The Gear from Rujm el-Hiri.

        The Gear that he battled in Bledavik. The Gear that summoned, with all its power, the auspices of Death to visit Loren and Kahm... and was only briefly shut down by the ECM burst of Hauteclaire's inner black box.

        The Rephaim.

        Lunata pulls Shalune and Jay up, and hops up onto the winch as she looks towards Carina. "I'm going to bring Jay and Lunie to the Carakin, hop on if you need it!"

        As she climbs up to the top of the opened blast door, she stares across towards Kahm and Hauteclaire.

        So the two pilots meet at last...

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
Elly doesn't leave Ruby hanging, despite the great displacement of the arrival of Vierge. (Vierge's paint job looks pretty rough right now but they had spare parts for the punched-in face, it seems.)

She smiles at her weakly.

"I have to go," she tells Ruby. Then, a second later, "It's still a recall."

The ascension ladder falls near her. Elly looks down at Ruby and points at the radio headset still on the side of her face all the way up to the cockpit. Her eyes look tired, and her nose is still bleeding.

That was probably deliberate. But what would it mean?

-=-=-=-

"Ready to - hf - launch, sir," Elly says thickly once the cockpit buttons up.

<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

The statue remains bathed in that light from the Tzadkiel, lifted slowly into the air. That light threatens to carry it away -- perhaps to save the statue, but condemn it, too. It is through that white light that Fei Fong Wong emerges. He rushes through it, the sealing rod extended, and long shadows are cast back over the whole of the broken tower. A few final motes of light, from Siegfried's retreat, descend down in his wake. The sealing rod is outstretched--

--and then a great darkness gathers. It takes form of the Sigil of Valmar and a ray of light comes crashing for the statue of Ge Ramtos. It looms over them all, and casts its own long shadow. Fei, however, finds something in that moment. An awakening. A sense of who he is.

The sealing rod explodes with light. It is such bright, immense light that it outshines the light from the Tzadkiel; it forms a dome, which the beam slams into, and rolls against, and blows over. Neriah's ray blasts a hole through the wall of the tower, and the entire side of it comes crashing down to the ground.

The sealing rod flashes -- and the statue does, too. There is a wash of power, and then serenity, as everything stills. Lunata can feel it; a sudden, artificially imposed sense of peace... so at odds with the experiences she just had.

But then the world screams as the Chains of Arius crack. They shudder. They snap -- and they break in the statue's stead, exploding into pieces of rust-covered metal, with a deeper foulness within. There is a rumble through the world, then. A thing long slumbering, and long sundered, stirs at this event.

Compared to that, it is almost mundane how the now-saved statue falls down into a depression, created by whatever mechanism made the click.

Something, it seems, has been unlocked. A rumble from outside the tower suggests that it must be on the platform that connects the two towers. Because of Neriah's horrifying show of power, they have a good view of it -- and they discover a new problem, as blue lightning begins to crackle about the battered wall of the tower.

It leaps out, and words alight on the tower: huge, elegant runes in the Elw language... which none here, nor even in Etrenank, can read. The lightning then leaps, arcs through the air, and touches the neighboring tower, where Odoryuk's statue lay.

There, runes also light up in blue. The word they spell is different.

But then, from both towers, blue lightning shoots out to the south... to where a small, battered, and collapsed ring of rubble is. Where, once, a third tower stood.

But there is no Guardian, nor tower, of Wisdom.

The lightning flies every which way. Blue lightning screams down, streaks of it slashing across the battlefield. Some of its slams up into the hull of the Tzadkiel, dispersing over it but burning into it. More of it breaks apart stones. But, something begins to grow, gather, and swirl outside -- on the platform where they fought the wolf. The holes blasted into the wall of the tower make it clear.

A churning, roiling mass of black clouds tinged with a sickly gold. As it expands outward, its nature becomes clear: a purple mass of Malevolence that explodes up into the sky as a terrible, rolling column of thunder and hatred. Gear shoots away from it; Metal Dragons swoop to get clear of it.

<Pose Tracker> Heldalf has posed.

The column of Malevolence vanishes -- and a new battlefield appears on that platform. Dozens of soldiers appear -- and collapse in a heap. Plate and chain mail armor, the likes of which is rare on Filgaia -- and tabards of blue and red, both stained with blood. Swords and halberds lay scattered; a few crumple, their forms shifted into something lizard like. Blades are buried into the backs of friends. Violence is rank in the air.

The few who are aware seem confused.

They panic at what appears in their midst. A few dart away screaming; more fall to their knees, sobbing incomprehensibly. All of them are blown over by the shockwave of his coming, which sends a wave of dust and dirt ahead of them.

A hulking humanoid figure, clad in black armor, who stands nearly twelve feet tall. His face is feline; a massive scowl, a beard and mane of gold, and solid eyes. They narrow, with a hateful confusion, as he looks around.

And then, the lion-like grin -- and his fist clenches. The Lord of Calamity smiles, as he looks upon his new domain and all in it.

        TO BE CONTINUED