2018-07-14: Leviathan
- Log: 07-14-2018 J - Leviathan
- Cast: Gwen Whitlock, K.K., Garan Dantear, Priestess Avelina, Thessaly, Riesenlied, Elhaym van Houten, Jacqueline Barber, Claude C. Kenny, White Knight Leo, Fei Fong Wong, Sorey, Alisha Diphda, Ethius Hesiod, Josephine Lovelace, Dean Stark, Seraph Edna, Noeline, Lily Keil, Xantia, Elvis, Seraph Beast, Cecilia Adlehyde, Morgan Newkirk
- Where: Pendrago - Castle District
- Date: July 14th, 2018
- Summary: Terror sweeps through Rolance as the Trial Knight infiltrates the gates of Castle Pendrago, seeking the boy-emperor - and they are not alone. Many brave souls flock to his aid, but will they be able to endure the trial set before them?
=======================<* Pendrago - Castle District *>======================= The Imperial Castle is in the very north of the city. The district around it is the center of governance for the empire. While the castle towers over the rest of the city, its high towers standing imposingly over the rest, it does not dominate the skyline alone. Few citizens ever step foot into these high, gothic towers; instead, they tend to visit the colossal Pendrago Shrinechurch just to the east of the castle, or the smaller Knights' Tower in the western part. The castle itself is always secluded and heavily guarded. A large central courtyard is in the center of the castle district. Here, the Church and Knights alike make proclamations before large crowds. The minority of the emperor means these powers are stronger, and their presence is felt here: many a knight and priest of Althena can be seen walking the streets here. Two large gateways lead to the business and port districts of Pendrago. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmeIVrUY4X0
DC: Claude C. Kenny switches forms to Red Shirt Claude! DC: White Knight Leo switches forms to White Knight Leo! DC: Josephine Lovelace switches forms to The Dedicated Archaeologist! DC: Riesenlied switches forms to Hope in the Rising Heart! DC: Elvis switches forms to THE PROFESSOR!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen Whitlock flies through
DC: Priestess Avelina switches forms to Crusader of Valmar!
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
War bellows from a building untouched in centuries.
Castle Pendrago is perhaps one of the oldest standing structures of one of the oldest standing cities in Lunar. It has been the seat of power of more than one empire before Rolance, standing the test of time and the ravages of war and calamity. Massive, surpassed only by Pendrago's Shrinechurch in terms of sheer size, it has not known direct aggression in untold centuries.
Today, that has changed.
Pendrago has survived countless events before it was even known as Pendrago, and it will survive this. The castle's sheer size means that the overall damage wrought today likely amounts to nothing more than an unseemly pockmark that may eventually, inevitably be wiped away and forgotten by time. But it is a breech, a breech Rolance has not suffered for as long as most can remember. One perpetrated by a single individual with relentless purpose.
One lone individual who has fought their way to the very heart of Castle Pendrago.
Castle Pendrago
Throne Room
"You have naught left to cling to."
Polished white boots march past the fallen bodies of Imperial Knights that lie strewn about the large, circular chamber of Pendrago's Throne Room. The armored, horned figure strides a straight path down the long, red carpet leading towards that central throne, disappearing briefly between columns as they walk unfalteringly between the stone-carved remembrances of Rolance's past leaders -- the legacy of House Dragonia, preserved through the ages. There is no sign of forced entry, despite the fact that all entrances leading into the throne room have been sealed tight. No sign of damage, beyond the broken bodies of those still-living, if disabled knights who groan weak and bloodied across marbled floors turned into a battlefield. No sign anyone should be here save the boy emperor and his retinue.
And yet, there they stand. The Trial Knight, marching a singular path, towards a singular destination:
The boy Emperor of Rolance.
And a boy he is -- perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age, just barely on the cusp of being old enough to truly claim the throne, his is a figure made lean by the rigorous and unrelenting training all of Rolance's royal blood undertakes; hair a pale wheat blonde and eyes green, he is dressed in the reds of Rolance, regal regalia askew on him as he rests slumped against the steps leading to his throne. Several feet from him lies the ceremonial sword of Rolance, suggesting a short and ill-fated attempt to fight off the intruder before him. His expression is one of tight-lipped defiance and nobility that belies his youth.
But it can't entirely suppress the sliver of fear that manages to creep its way into his otherwise stoic stare.
"No knights to protect you. No throne to support you. No regent to make your decisions. 'Tis naught but you. And what are you, boy? A puppet with no one to tug his strings?"
And there they stand, at the cusp of the Emperor's throne. Rain and flashes of lightning hammer relentlessly just beyond the magical barrier of the grand balcony at the far end of the throne room, providing a view of the entirety of Pendrago and its deluge-soaked cityscape beyond. The crash of thunder prefaces the flash of light against K.K.'s palms as a massive war scythe forges itself into their grasp.
"Perchance those strings ought be cut, then."
The war scythe rises up, casting a grim silhouette like the executioner's axe--
DC: Dispellado switches forms to Emperor Cyprian Brutus Dragonia!
<Pose Tracker> Garan Dantear has posed.
The Imperial Knights have fallen.
Already, the order had been weakened, its leadership vanished, its numbers whittled away by war and maneuvering. Perhaps if they had been at strength, none of this would've happened. Perhaps if they had been at strength, affairs on the continent right now would be much different.
As the Trial Knight advances, the warriors chosen to defend the boy emperor - knights left alive, but too injured to fight by the design of the mysterious armored interloper - have no choice but to watch. To watch as K.K. summons that enormous scythe, to cut down the boy like so much wheat.
'No knights to protect you,' they said.
"No knights but one," counters a bold voice, an armored figure in gleaming silver-chased white plate over red leather; Garan Dantear had been one of those whose absence had weakened the Imperial Knights, stuck on another world for long months. But now, here, guided by the mysterious counsel of the witch Thessaly, he stands to interpose himself between the Trial Knight and his prey, sword and shield moving to intercept the sweeping scythe with the steel of Rolance.
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
The Trial Knight is not alone.
At some time during his advance through the Imperial Palace, a Priestess of Althena began to follow the armoured figure. She's not Sister Domitia; indeed, she seems to be one of the regular palace nuns, wrapped in a simple white cloak, with short-trimmed blonde hair and delicate and serene features.
For all that she's supposedly on the side of Althena... Avelina, one of the court's priestesses, is nevertheless following along behind the Knight. She stands and watches as the armoured figure looms over the boy Emperor of Rolance.
She holds a hand up as the Trial Knight approaches the young Emperor - not to interrupt, but to raise a note of caution.
"Trial Knight," she says quietly with a look back towards the door, "there are others on their way."
Avelina bows her head for a moment, then brings her hand forward to show her palm.
A sigil shines from her hand with a ghostly white light. It is not the sigil of Althena.
It's the mark of Valmar.
SECOND CRUSADER OF VALMAR
AVELINA D'AUBRIAC
"Our Lady wished for your mission to go safely," she says, her voice taking on a subtle echo. "Please allow me to assist in making certain the completion of your task."
<Pose Tracker> Thessaly has posed.
The last few months have educated her, thoroughly, just what else Pendrago has been through in its bloody, broken history. Some would say, these believers in Destiny, that it leads to this very moment where the steps leading to the throne would be, once again, awash with crimson life. From what her father, the deceased Duke Trevelyan of Rolance, has always informed her - it is incredibly, absurdly lonely when one wears the crown. In many ways, after what has happened to his father, and his relatives, cowed and bent under forces beyond their control from giving the boy king his due support, she can't help but pity him just a little bit.
It has been years since she has had the privilege to step into the halls of Castle Pendrago, considering her family's calamitous fall from grace, but she remembers it well; winding corridors steeped in ambitious whispers and moving shadows, the electric thrill, delight and sense of foreboding whenever she discovers a secret passage - meant for former royals to escape in the event of a siege. She knows of one or two, perhaps three, but she needn't rely on the ghosts of memory, however prodigious her own is, never one to forget what she has seen and experienced, when she accompanies someone who knows most of them. It has always been the station of the Imperial Knights of Rolance to protect the Empire, and to give one's life for the Emperor has always been its greatest honor. This often means that they are equipped to do this, and often by any means necessary.
Inner machinations have left the Knights scrambled and confused, but Thessaly has tried. There is another way in which she could be of use to her warden and lord, these skills that she has managed to retain from her old life, and tied to an ancient and powerful name. It has enabled her to do something that is absolutely necessary and while it is not position that Garan wanted, for the good of Rolance, it had to be done.
The familiar, tinny voice of the Trial Knight reaches her ears the moment she and Garan Dantear, interim Knight Commander of Rolance, burst into the throne room just in time for violet eyes to catch sight of the resplendent, white figure bringing the massive war scythe down in a swinging, deadly arc...
A pale hand and elegant fingers lift, firing a protection spell as Garan charges forward. The bubble is but a small thing, no bigger than the size of an airborne marble, swirlling with bright, silvery light...
...and once it impacts the throne, it expands, engulfing the boy king.
The black-clad sorceress takes several steps forward, long skirts brushing across the floor, as liquid as ink and as silent as the grave. Her veiled face shrouds most of her alabaster mien from view, but it makes her violet eyes look all the larger - and more intent.
"Cease your efforts here, Trial Knight," she murmurs, in a tone barely above a whisper, but strangely carries. Her eyes slip towards Avelina. "You know what this entails."
And the Trial Knight does. For the spell will hold so long as Thessaly remains intact.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
--==WHAMMM==--
What emerges out from the sealed door just behind is not a kind of warrior, or a kind of hero from the sand-clad wastelands, or even those blessed by Althena, but...
...wark...
A very... rotund yellow bird that Riesenlied, to this day, still believes is a cucco and not some other horse-sized bird that's merely let itself loose and cranked its BMI up for the purposes of extradimensional storage. Nope.
Riesenlied herself looks extraordinarily haggard as she limps through, the duress of the trek through the castle having drained her of what little energy she's managed to recover from Felkirk.
"K.K. ...! Please--"
She lets out a strained pain as she draws her hands to the Dragon's Tear, but the light falters. She looks towards the sight of the Knight raising the scythe in a desperate bid to throw a shield of light towards the emperor, but the light does not come.
"Please cease this, K.K...."
Sometimes, you only have words remaining, even if they may not reach.
And, well, a giant round chubby bird floating around her to protecc her. But maybe not attac. Loccy the Fat Cuccobo is looking super nervous at the sight of the priestess and the Trial Knight.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Through the wreckage and the storm has come Elhaym van Houten. A child of another sky, she has thrown away a lot in her time, and even now she wonders sometimes if she has chosen wisely, or if she should have chosen sooner; if this will have any point, or if it is simply selfish childish running-away.
Elly is wearing a non-descript green dress with a high hem over her durable leggings along with workable boots. She is not heavily armored. She is not a knight; even her combat rod is not deployed. She reaches down as the door is broached because she can see a young man there beneath the upraised scythe.
Not much of a young man. More of a boy.
At this moment Elly stops having doubts. She was already moving but now she moves without hesitation. From her thigh holster comes the squat personal-defense sidearm of the Gebler forces. She sees Garan lunging in and she sinks down to one knee and raises the weapon, sighting along the ratchetable plastic sights atop the inexplicable weapon.
The blade clashes and throws sparks - Elly fires.
The gun is not loud as most are. There is no sharp crack! of propellant. There's more of a fss followed immediately by a shriek as the shaped block of solid propellant ignites. The spring - yes, the gun uses a spring - launches the round out as the motor ignites. Carved by Elly's fingernail, the round arcs slightly left as it begins to tumble, accelerating and reaching the characteristic 'snap!' of breaching the sound barrier, fractionally different here from Filgaia, on its way.
The light gleams on the smooth penetrator tip - 300 grams despite its small size - drop-forged tungsten alloy. It has literally been mashed on top and held in place by additional propellant.
The target of this armor-breaching round -- is the side of the Trial Knight!
THEN Elly speaks.
"Leave him alone!!"
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked K.K. with Field Stripped Anti-Gear Gyroc Round Of L O V E! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny isn't a knight either. But he isn't here.
(Sort of.)
Cless al'Vane, who looks a lot like Claude C. Kenny would if he wore half plate armour and hadn't had a haircut in a couple months, steps forward in Garan's wake, taking up a position on the Rolance knight's blade side. He regards the Trial Knight a touch nervously - he still can't see the ominous aura that boils around the armoured figure that accompanied him to this world, but he knows something is up.
"I'm not a knight," Cless says, his sword whispering out of its sheath, rising into a two-handed guard. "But Brave Phantasia is---"
Claude's totally sweet epic declaration of awesomeness is cut off by Elly leaping out of nowhere and firing a giant gun. He regards her with shock and annoyance. DAMN IT, THIS WAS A MOMENT, STRANGE REDHEADED LADY.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
- LAST TIME, ON DREAM CHASERS -
...with one final sweep, Noeline forces the door open. Jacqueline gasps in surprise and moves toward one of the fallen knights...who shakes his head, and gestures weakly toward the throne.
She looks, and then with a determined expression gestures and begins to recite an unheard of incantation, before...
- THIS TIME, ON DREAM CHASERS -
...the atmosphere begins to chill, and a pillar of ice begins to erupt out from the ground beneath the Trial Knight's feet.
"I'll thank you not to make these decisions for anyone, Trial Knight." Jacqueline says with a frown, lowering her hand.
It's at this point that Jacqueline notices that they aren't alone. No...there's a woman here, too. That symbol...
"...You're one of her followers, aren't you...?" Jacqueline asks, with a tinge of sadness. "Does she have a hand in this?"
Had Neriah allied herself with the Trial Knight...?
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked K.K. with Freeze! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Field Stripped Anti-Gear Gyroc Round Of L O V E for 85 hit points! DC: MISS! K.K. completely evades Freeze from Jacqueline Barber!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
The sound of solid stone shifting echoes from the far end of the room--from a seal, one that should be impregnable. Other sounds join it--the sound of a scraping shovel, the roar of wind, the muted roar of explosive powder going up. People are trying their damnedest to break through, but can they do so in time? Are Garan and Thessaly going to have to fight off these monsters alone?
And then, the seal breaks. It shatters. It explodes inwards in a torrent of crumbling fragments, as if destroyed by the collective determination of the people set against it. At their head is White Knight Leo, battered and bruised but still very much fighting-fit. Several twigs poke out from his hair, and his pristine uniform is stained with soot and dirt. HE cuts an impressive figure nevertheless. The sight of Garan and Thessaly standing fast with their liege stirs his heart.
"Guards!" Leo roars. "You do not fight alone this day!" Leo charges, tearing down the red carpet as if all eyes were on him. "We have unfinished business, Trial Knight!" Leo bellows. As soon as he's within striking range, Leo lunges, driving his blade at K.K.'s breastplate in a cleaving, two-handed strike.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked K.K. with Flash Blade! GS: White Knight Leo has entered a Reflect stance! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
EARLIER
Fei Fong Wong launches a chi blast through a magical door, through a statue of one of Dragonia's past rulers, through several walls, a roof, and past a resting Penelope. Also the door kind of just disintergrates thanks to mage trickery. It's pretty much overkill.
NOW
Fei runs forward. "Xantia! With me! We've got to pin him down for the others!" Fei says which despite its simplicity, is probably decent tactics. Lily burst damage is pretty nuts but frankly Lily Elly and Josie burst damage is plenty on its own. Despite throwing a hefty blast earlier, he doesn't seem so much as winded.
In fact, as Fei passes by Claude he pauses to pick up that statue he just obliterated, like the upper half of it, and he looks to Claude once.
He frowns for some reason. He's not quite sure why.
Nevertheless, he's grateful for this knight out of nowhere (It's Garan, a voice tells him, the guy Lunata beat up) since that was well timed and gives him a chance to pick up that statue which is significantly larger than Fei and isn't, still, slowing him down.
He says, "Picking on kids now, KK?!"
And with that he swings the statue for the armored man. "I expected better of you!"
And it's weird because he did, kind of, actually expect better of K.K despite everything he said and his continued determination to stop him from doing whatever he's doing. And in this case it looks wholly like child murder.
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
The warning that something was going on in the castle was going to spread rapidly through the city - you didn't distrust such a major center of the government without someone noticing, although exactly what was going on was not entirely clear. But one of the servants had done what most sensible people do when they are confronted by a force of terrible darkness.
They had run to find someone who could help.
Sorey had been amount the first people that they had run into, as he had some business at the castle himself that he was going to have to attend to soon. But the sound of a young page screaming about monsters in the castle was enough to bring Sorey's head around with a snap, and he's already moving towards the source of the danger within moments.
"Mikleo, see if you can find Rose and Dezel and see if they can get here and help in time, then try and catch up!" Sorey shouts to his old friend. "Edna, we're going to have to try and see if we can do something about this mess - if someone's trying to attack the Emperor..."
It would make the war immeasurably worse, with no one being in charge and the nobles scrambling for control, as well as the Church likely making moves as well. Really, really bad. Sorey runs towards the castle at a good clip, as fast as he can manage. Getting inside would normally be quite a feat - a maze of corridors to run through, possibly panicking, screaming people getting in the way...
Thankfully there is a another way.
And anyone watching Sorey as he runs through the front gate will see him raise one hand and make a gesture, as he speaks to the Seraph with him. "We need some steps, Edna."
For most people who can't see Seraphim, it looks like the Shepherd makes a motion, and a long block of stone suddenly jumps upwards, forming a long foot high path that leads to the castle. And then a short distance ahead, it surges upwards again. And again. And again. The result is a rapidly building set of steps, about three feet across and rising up to the wall of the throne room.
And a moment later the wall bursts open, and the Shepherd leaps onto the room, landing with a controlled tumble and skidding to a halt as he tries to take in the situation.
Malevolence, everywhere. The Trial Knight. Another strange woman who he felt he had seen before, but couldn't actually place - especially in the priestess' grab and glowing with dark energy. Sorey's sword snaps free of its scabbard, and he leaps forward to unleash a flurry of blows towards K.K..
"Somehow I'm not surprised to see you here, Trial Knight," the Shepherd declares. There's plenty of other people here - and he smiles, especially as Leo barrels in on the attack. "But you're not going to throw Rolance into chaos any longer!"
GS: Sorey has attacked K.K. with Sword Rain! GS: Sorey has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Sorey has completed his action. GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked K.K. with Emperor Dragonia III! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha Diphda was not in Pendrago.
She couldn't have been. The princess would not have dared entered the capital of Rolance, even as she has taken arms against Hyland's current government. Not, of course, that they know that widely: she has laid low, in pursuit of a way to stop this war from growing. However, she does have allies, and one of them came.
"Alisha!" the Fire Seraph says; Lailah appears in front of her with a flash. "The castle at Pendrago... the Trial Knight! They intend--"
Alisha's leaf green eyes narrow.
-=-=-
One of the stained glass windows looking down on the castle shatters. Shards of priceless red, blue, and green glass rain down onto the throne room; it slashes gashes into the red carpet, shatters on the concrete, and then a burnt piece of twisted metal that held it together hits the ground. Scraping sends sparks up, and a pair of red eyes look down.
Alisha Diphda flies downward, her Armatized form causing her hair to snap out after her -- and her hand clutches an enormous claymore-like weapon, the point of which is aimed down directly towards the Trial Knight. Her teeth grit, at the sight of the armored figure -- and the Emperor.
Her breath catches, before she finds it, and shouts -- in two voices. "TRIAL KNIGHT!"
DC: Alisha Diphda switches forms to Armatus Fethmus Mioma!
GS: K.K. critically Guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Flash Blade for 22 hit points! GS: K.K. critically Guards a hit from Sorey's Sword Rain for 9 hit points! GS: Cover! Statuses applied to Sorey! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Emperor Dragonia III for 51 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius was ready to turn back. Upon seeing the sealed door - heedless of what he was hearing inside - he declared to Noeline, Jacqueline, and Riesenlied that he had seen all he needed to. He did not understand the source or full character of the distinction, only that there is one. Distinctions that those he arrived with did not make - who moved to burst open the door and confront the Trial Knight.
From a distance, Ethius moves in behind the rest. He does not aggress upon the Trial Knight. Thessaly and Garan, allies to some cause he has not quite been forthcoming or ever clear about beyond mere reassurances, move to protect the young heir to the throne. He is not in lockstep. His assistance might be welcome. Something stops him from rendering it. Fear? No. Some greater madness, perhaps. He has acted more than a little touched, as of late.
'Trial Knight,' a voice says. Ethius' gaze shifts over to his right. There's a person here he did not see prior. 'There are others on their way.' He watches the young woman. One of the court's priestesses. A plant? An insider? This warrants a closer watch. He starts to pace silently in that direction as she raises her hand. The mark--
Just like that, the hooded figure dares leap atop one of the statues of the former Emperors - alone, a grievous offense. From his vantage point, he tries to leap down upon the Priestess just as she finishes vocally reaffirming her willingness to assist.
'Please allow me to assist in making certain the completion of your task.'
"I will not," is the only thing Ethius says as he seems intent to dive down upon her, an attempt to pounce her and run the tip of his quarterstaff down through her upper back.
Just like that, he once again appears to flip the switch from 'passive, seemingly uninterested with involvement' to 'the part where he tries to brutally murder someone.'
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Priestess Avelina with Sudden Ethius Assassination Attempt! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Sudden Ethius Assassination Attempt for 22 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The door opens with a bang, as it were.
Unlike Elly, Josie bears far fewer doubts when she bursts in through the door, ARM already in hand. Her dark-eyed gaze flits across the room, taking in the current tableau and casualties alike, lingers on the boy emperor.
Poor kid, perhaps, is about as far as that thought bears fruit.
Unlike Elly, her reasons for climbing the castle walls and pushing on in through the corridors and maze-like passages of the palace are entirely and characteristically petty.
She wants to put one right between that bastard's eyes.
Though, she'll settle for the round Elly's got readied, in a pinch.
"Go," she murmurs to Elly as the young soldier lifts her strange -- now that Josie actually takes a good long look at the sidearm -- ARM.
In this, Elly also earns an astonishing degree of approval from the wayward archaeologist, since she doesn't hesitate in the least. The bullet, that strange, intoxicating bullet, flies through the air.
And Josie, without missing a beat, takes a step past Elly and lifts her own ARM into the air.
This one was made custom. It was made by her herself, after all -- well, with assistance from a certain pink-haired girl, since there are things that Josie can't do properly by herself anymore.
Her hand arcs upwards. Like the ARM is 'light as a feather', as they might say. But it bites like a scorpion's sting.
She also doesn't hesitate.
Her own shot is a little more centrally aimed than Elly's. Don't even give them room to breathe, seems to be the implication behind such a shot.
Only then does she speak.
"Sorry for interrupting," she says, not even lowering the ARM she still holds, still aimed at the knight whether she hits or misses.
She's not the least bit sorry.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked K.K. with Reaper's Hand! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
That shovel scraping against the sealed door belongs to Shovel Knight Dean Stark, who holds White Fenrir aloft triumphantly as the would-be impenetrable door gets penetrated. "Yeah! We did it!!" he cheers, pumping his fist--and then spotting the Trial Knight holding a scythe over--a child?! "Hey! Stop that!!" he shouts... but a ton of other folks make their disapproval known in much sterner terms by rushing in to attack, White Knight Leo included. Dean quickly puts his shovel away--he *could* attack with it, but he has a much better weapon available--but before he can join in on the charge, someone else arrives on the scene on K.K.'s side. A woman in an Althenan habit. Who raises a hand, upon which shines...
"That's the mark of Valmar!" Dean declares, who recognizes it because he just saw it a week ago in Felkirk. Twin Fenrir flash into his hands, but he looks from Avelina to KK and back again. They're both clear threats, but everyone's already piling on the Trial Knight, and Avelina's making it clear she's here to help them be awful. "There's no way we're letting you do whatever you want!" he thus declares, charging instead for the priestess or whatever clergyfolk of the Church Althena are called, Dean's not clear on that point. Although it's a *moot* point because this lady's obviously faking it!
Though Dean does run over, that's only to get to the other side of the imperial throne room, to make sure none of the people aiming to fight KK and Avelina are in his line of fire. And there's a LOT of people, including someone who just smashed through the window, dang. Once Dean's got a clear shot, he aims his paired pistols and fires off several bullets at Avelina, right after Ethius pops in to try to pop *her*.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Edna has posed.
After having spent the previous day investigating Lastonbell, once news of a dragon attack reached her ears, Edna marked Pendrago as her next destination. Her reasons for going were two... no, threefold. Maybe. First was that she'd need to be here for business that would take place in agreement with an acquaintance down the line... second was that maybe she'd catch wind of Sorey and his crew of imaginary friends while she was on the move.
Thirdly... well, that one is somewhat impromptu as the feeling she gets from the general direction of the castle intensifies to a state that she just cannot ignore in good conscience. Tsk. All other business will have to wait. For now, she's off to the castle. Against her general principles, she's... running. Tsk. Whatever is making her waste energy like this had better prepared to repent.
On the bright side, she *does* happen to run into one of her target goals. That being a certain Shepherd and his crew of force ghosts. But there's no time for long questions. There's something to be done here before that. Teaming up with Sorey again, Edna exercises her powers, forcing earth and stone into steps for the Shepherd to head right on up. ...And then there's a burst as the wall blows open into the throne room. The Earth Seraph stands there as Sorey leaps into the fray, dismissed a giant silver gauntlet from one arm.
"Hm." She murmurs, stepping into the rather chaotic scene, icy blue eyes scanning the scene, taking note of the Trial Knight, as well as the Priestess. "... I guess I should have figured it was you." She murmurs under her breath. And then, with her umbrella pulled closed, she points it right at KK. On the very tip, a black sphere of gravity magic forms, pulsating as it gets bigger and bigger. Once it's about the size of a fist, she fires it right at the Trial Knight, threatening to explode into a crushing well of gravity upon impact.
GS: Seraph Edna has attacked K.K. with Gravity Well! GS: Seraph Edna has completed her action. GS: Dean Stark has attacked Priestess Avelina with Dual Shooter! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Dean Stark's Dual Shooter for 76 hit points! GS: K.K. takes a glancing hit from Josephine Lovelace's Reaper's Hand for 45 hit points! GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from Seraph Edna's Gravity Well for 68 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Numbered among White Knight Leo's ragtag team is the addition of 'super' courier Gwen Whitlock, looking not quite as impressive as she moves into the throne room from behind Leo, eyes scanning the room.
Thessaly and Garan's presences are noted, but all it took was the sight of a young king, huddled before the Trial Knight. Something twists in the courier's gut, transforming the king there in her eyes to just a boy, about to be slain like a lamb. Her decision is made there.
"STOP!" Gwen screams, fumbling for a bullet, as if her command, lost as it is among all the other shouts and cries in the throne room, could still a Trial Knight's blade by itself. It has little chance of doing that, of course, but the bullet she manages to load into her ARM could, with careful enough aim.
A moment is barely allowed to pass before the necessary bullet is fired at what may be a strategic spot in the knight's white armored hand. She isn't foolhardy enough to attack the knight directly, still feeling tender from her bout with the Fell Dragon, but she can slow him down from afar.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked K.K. with Crackshot! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
The giant door to the throne room buckles and twists as Noeline works to disrupt the protective magic holding it sealed; she's more or less working entirely off of instinct at this point, her form ablaze with a greenish glow as she tries to shape Duras Drum's sorcery in a method that is not dissimilar to the way she bends and twists her metal into the shape of the Errant Blade. The feel of the Guardian's power races through her bones, sets her lungs on fire with newfound power she's still not anywhere near used to using--
--but then she finds a metaphysical handhold, latches onto it with everything she's got, and pulls--
--and past the tearing and grinding of stone, it's Riesenlied and Jacqueline who burst through first, thanks to the final blow of the giant cucco and her own work. Behind the pair, Noeline has to hesitate, her vision suddenly swimming as she nearly pitches forward onto her knees- and catches herself against what remains of the door's masonry just in time. When she raises her head, it's difficult to pick out details of the tableau in front of her... not that she really needs to, more or less able to identify the tall white blob in particular.
Under her breath she growls, shaking away the cobwebs as she pulls herself back together with a force of defiant effort. The throne room is already chaotic enough that staying and fighting is sounding less and less like a good idea - and by the sound of it, Riesenlied's close to burning herself out already. Sucking in a breath, the spy pushes her feet forwards, but not on the attack - instead, she's hauled one of the groaning guards up to something that approximates 'on his feet', the fake knight's voice low and commanding. "--get the others out! There's people still in the kitchens! Go!"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily Keil is a woman without a country, a knight without a lord. She has not come out of loyalty to Rolance; she has not come out of compassion for a battered nation. So why, then, is she here?
Perhaps it is just her fate to be present in the face of war's ugliness.
But for now, the sorceress steps forward with the barrier destroyed, moving quickly along the hall. She is not armored; black tunic, gray shirt, black attire. Soft-soled boots, her dark hair down and back. One is covered with a patch, but the bruising all around it is still clear; her right hand, meanwhile, is adorned with a strange chain studded with runes... and is held down at her side, stiff and unmoving.
She glances to Thessaly with some surprise, golden eye on her for a moment before she returns her attention to her target. Fei's tactics sound about right to her. She sets her feet, lifts her left hand, and violet light surges up and down the strange circuitry embedded on her skin. Black light crackles about her hand--
And shadow erupts near the Trial Knight, Lily's magic seeking to grip blood or bone and twist, to debilitate and harm.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked K.K. with Gloompulse! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
As one of the previously sealed doors leading into the throne room is broken down by the power of sheer combined rudeness, Xantia comes stumbling more than rushing in, hurried on ahead by a sudden uncomfortable drop in temperature back there, hugging herself and visibly shivering. Carina did teach her that a cool entrance is important at a time like this, but... something tells her this wasn't quite what was meant by that.
Failing to take the intiative right away, she rubs her arms to warm up a bit, but after that takes a fighting stance and--- oh hey it's that big, tasty-looking yellow bird again. No Xantia, focus, FOCUS.
Fei comes in to help her with that. Immediately centering her attention on the Trial Knight where it should've been to begin with, she acknowledges the call for assistance, "Okay! I'll be right behind you!"
She does just that, as usual without any kind of particular plan. She'll wing it, like she always does. Seeing Fei going in with a huge statue makes it tempting to try something similar, but then again, it's more important to do what he said - keep K.K. pinned down. So if Fei's going from the front...
Xantia vaults right over Fei and K.K., trailed by a shower of sparks as electricity bursts from her body, surrounding her entirely by the time she lands behind the Trial Knight. She instantly whirls about, launching a series of lightning-charged punches into that massive armor.
When Fei states he expected better of K.K., she adds, "I didn't, but that doesn't make it okay! What are you up to this time?!"
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.
WHAM
Through a sealed throne room door flies a gentleman of mass and panache. "HAAAAAAAH!" he screams, in vest and blouse and rippling muscle, skidding to a halt in the room. "That felt good," The Muscle Professor comments, adjusting his fantastical hair and mosutache. But the scene ahead was the one they were heading toward the entire time. An individual white knight, trapsing his way through the halls, summoning creatures and disarming soldiers left and right.
Normally Elvis would leave human problems to themselves, but two things happened.
One, This knight leading the charge drafted him in service to their people, and can honor that, along with possible rewards related.
Two, he was coming here to take money so he wouldnt have to take things later. And this guy RUINED THAT. Everywhere is on too high of an alert to do anything!
Bonus Option Three, THey are using some very itneresting magics, or what Leo called it, Malevolence. Seeing more of it would be enlightening.
He lets the others speak against the Trial Knight. He has no personal qualms with him. But then that blue haired kid takes off after someone else. Some sort of ritualist? A priestess? "Huh! Another wielder of magic. WAIT UP!" he calls afer Dean. Well, if the fella is gonna fight her, he might as well too! Must be in league with that Knight!
"Let's see that magic in use!" Elvis roars, attempting to provoke her has he flies across the battle field with a rist reared back that could crater whatever it impacts upon behing thrown!
GS: Xantia has attacked K.K. with Elemental Fury! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Elvis has attacked Priestess Avelina with Dropping Straight! GS: Elvis has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Elvis's Dropping Straight for 30 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
The Beast of Lohgrin naturally answered Leo's summons, she just... took a little while to catch up.
But here she is, emerging behind him, metal plates of her draconic vessel compressed over themselves to fit within the castle walls. In a perfect world, she would have time to regard the Trial Knight, this nigh-mythological figure who seems so bent to Ida's destruction. She would have the opportunity to talk to them, to ward them from their path.
This is not a perfect world. It never was. Look only to the war, repeated and repeated again like a bard who knows but one song, and this becomes clear. Humanity is flawed; the world of Men is cracked and broken.
Perhaps the Trial Knight thinks this is the answer.
The Beast looks upon it and sees only more death.
She moves before she speaks, a rough facsimile of mammalian locomotion made all the more obvious in her haste to intercept.
"Trial Knight!" She declares, a mask which shows no emotion and a voice which betrays all of it. There is anger, there, and fierce protectiveness, and underpinning it all - a note of frustration, because she does not understand what drives them to these dark actions. "Answer for your actions!"
She is large, as she leaps to set upon them, even as those plates lock together. She does not strike with breezy arte; those sharp iron claws mean to tear into their armor bodily.
GS: Seraph Beast has attacked K.K. with Leap and Tear! GS: Seraph Beast has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
EARLIER:
Cecilia follows precisely half a screen-length behind everyone else, not helping them advance in any meaningful way.
BUT THEN:
The groups rally out into the chamber, charging in to declare their defiance. The Trial Knight stands tall, ready to strike. It's strange, the Princess thinks; the Trial Knight always leaves so much chaos and corruption about. This time feels...different. The Mediums pulse in her case, and the song of this strange world quivers but does not fall into disharmony as it does aroun the Malevolence. What's different?
A priestess reveals the mark of evil and Cecilia feels something unaccountable lance through her gut, a trembling, queasy feeling of terrible anxiety. Oh, there it is.
She reaches a hand up to gently put hand on Claude's shoulder. "Something's wrong with that woman. I'll...handle it."
She sucks in a breath, finding the woman's eyes across the chamber; and slips her hand free, her staff puffing into existence in her palm and swinging a long arc as she walks. Attacks start streaking in as she does, Ethius roaring in with power and Dean intervene with blasting. Cecilia whirls her staff around, lightning gathering at its tip as she pulls a crest free of her case and lets it fly. The magic card whirls out of her fingertips, slotting in at the head of her staff just as the power reaches its peak. "I'm sorry, ma'am," she says. "But I think you need to step aside, please. SPARK!"
Lightning rakes out, claws of power sweeping around before threading together into a bolt of power.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Priestess Avelina with Spark! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Spark for 55 hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Crackshot for 45 hit points! GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to K.K.!
DC: MISS! K.K. completely evades Gloompulse from Lily Keil!
GS: K.K. guards a hit from Xantia's Elemental Fury for 67 hit points! GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Xantia!
DC: MISS! K.K. completely evades Leap and Tear from Seraph Beast!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
Mercenaries are like sand. They get everywhere. Even to the heart of an empire. Most hate to see them but when war comes to Castle Pendrago. Well. The more intelligent of the garrison is glad for them. Even if they weren't hired by the Empire itself...some of them can't quite ignore a fight.
...especially when that fight involves people that are recognized.
Which is why, nearer to the rear of the hind end of the action a familiar tall figure with a pair of white-furred fox ears stands. One ear twitches from the sounds of violence that erupt inside the ruined scar in the side of the castle. The other twitches at familiar voices coming from said hole.
The old fox thrashes his tails for a moment before he sighs, the gauntlet on his arm beginning to glow again. "...ya know. If'n I was a smart one. I'd be headed the opposite direction." He says conversationally to a group of palace guards nearby. "...so y'all should be headed back that way." There is a flash of a grin. "One way or the other, it'll just be a minute."
And with that Morgan Newkirk strolls into the carnage left in KK's wake. The blue-white glow of his gauntlet as it summons a white and gold longarm from nothing marking his passage.
...with his luck? He'll stick his face in the door just in time to get it blown off by something.
...if he does he'll just blame Cass for it.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed. <SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UENb3lLSQho Silver For Monsters -- The Witcher 3 OST
There is no hesitation. The briefest moments of seconds, flickers of an instant, pass by.
And there is little but the trembling spasm that rolls through gauntlet-clad fingers before the broad blade of the Trial Knight's scythe comes down.
*KWOOOM*
Thunder crashes violently. Lightning flashes in the distance. And the sound and fury drowns out the deadly swing of the blade...
... and the sound of it meeting steel, and not flesh, with a raucous shine of sparks.
"... mm." The grunt hisses softly, almost thoughtfully, past the tinny warp of that horned helm as the Trial Knight tilts their head; reflected in the pure white of that face plate is nothing less than the determination of one Garan Dantear, the last knight standing in the name of his lord. Strain causes weapons to shake within a knot of locked tension as the K.K. leans their weight into their weapon. It is a pressure that soon grows overpowering with unnatural strength. It may buy Garan and his emperor only seconds.
But seconds is all they need. A moment later, that barrier is erected. A moment later, the many, sealed doors leading into the throne room BREAK open. Those who have come to rescue the emperor arrive in force within the waning moments of those seconds --
-- and just in time, the sound of a shot rings out through the air.
Elhaym van Houten fires off a single round -- a round meant to blow holes in tanks, in Gears. Propellant shrieks, the sound barrier breaks in a little, pinpoint billow of force --
-- and that anti-gear bullet COLLIDES with K.K.'s side with violent force enough to -rip- them away from Garan Dantear and the shielded Emperor.
Metal screams. The knight staggers backwards. But as they rise...
... that bullet is there. Lodged in a dent of warped, white armor.
"... Destroyer," breathes whatever is behind that armor, freed scythe snapping towards their right until the blade CRACKS into polished marble.
"That is not all you are capable of."
A brief deterrent. But brief is all the others need, to launch their offensive. The ground beneath K.K. begins to chill as Jay weaves her magic; the knight's response is immediate, flipping backwards through the air with a dexterity and agility that something wearing so much armor should not be capable of. Ice lances outward -- and is greeted by the blade of the Trial Knight's immaculate scythe, carving the frozen moisture clean in twain. Ice shatters into crystalline flecks of frost all around them as they land, crouched, massive weapon swung to one side.
"The decision is one already made." That faceless gaze tilts towards the sight of that priestess -- the brand she bears. One the knight recognizes. Fingers curl more tightly around that weapon. "So what, then, shall you do?"
It is a question that the Trial Knight does not give -- and is not given - time to dwell on. Not when the Shepherd makes his appearance, stabbing forward with that ceremonial sword to force more distance between K.K. and the Emperor. The way the Trial Knight moves as Sorey approaches is impossibly fluid -- their hands gripping tight onto that scythe, they -swing- it with two hands, catching Sorey's weapon masterfully between the blunt end of the blade and the sharply pointed tip. The blade of his sword nicks mildly over a polished white shoulder.
"'Tis no chaos I have sown," is their rebuttal. "'Tis but a weakness weaved into the very foundations of this place."
And they yank, to -drag- Sorey's blade briefly to the right -- to bright it to intercept Leo's and throw the White Knight's trajectory off-course for a few brief, perilous seconds. "And you believe you can finish it, as you are?" wonders K.K. as they -swing- their weapon away, high into the air. "You, seething with denial? You, who allowed Krosse to falter?"
And the blade swings down for Leo's neck.
"Can you finish it?"
And just before it can, a looming shadow quickly grows. Faceless helm snaps up -- just in time to see that statue, launched like a rocket. The trajectory of their weapon switches almost instantly, and soon they are -leaping- backwards, -smashing- their weapon into that statue. It shatters, stone pelting their armor violently as they hit ground with a scream of metal on marble as the remaining bulk of that ruined statues batters into them.
"A child only remains a child so long as he allows himself to be." Fei expected better. Fingers spasm, as the knight rises.
"... 'Tis not I you should expect such from."
Malevolence floats in motes in this throne room -- but it is no more than the already beleaguered Pendrago has been suffering from with its ceaseless plight of endless floods. The Trial Knight stands amongst it, undettered and unswayed by its presence -- a bit of warped purity in a pollution-choked landscape. Their weapon rises -- just as Edna's pulse of gravity HAMMERS into the knight. Gravity -crushes- downward upon them, exerting more and more force until they -rip- themself free. "And so you arrive," they utter, weapon at the ready. "But where, then, is the princess--"
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
And that answer comes, in the shatter of glass, in the dual-voiced scream of anger, the Trial Knight receives their answer. Horned helm tilts upwards, in time to see the furious descent of Alisha Diphda, trailing flames and blade like she were a living sword of Damocles.
TRIAL KNIGHT!
And the sound of two Divine Arms intersecting rings throughout the throne room like a beautiful song of harmonious violence as the tip of Alisha's claymore meets the broad side of K.K.'s weapon. The impact makes heat BILLOW outward, furrows dragging through marble floor as the Trial Knight is forced -further- back from their target until their back collides with one of those pillars.
"You yet live," they muse, though delivered with such utter, metallic neutrality, it sounds like a statement of fact, more than a surprised observation.
"But I wonder if you yet know why you live."
And with that, they -push-, attempting to -knock- Alisha aside. Seconds later, they are on the warpath, blue light rippling from K.K. in waves of palpable power as they bring that towering scythe upwards. Xantia lands behind them. What are they up to?
The answer comes as soon as she attacks, electrified fists meeting the sudden and monumental swing of the Trial Knight's scythe; fists collide into that armor, dancing electricity in a charged weave up white armor, but it only seems to slow the knight for one stuttering moment before that blade comes -down- like the reaper ready for harvest --
-- intent to cleave through Xantia with the unrelenting fluidity of that swing as a wave of pure, cerulean power EXPLODES outward from the arc.
"A boy who has not the will has no place to claim the crown."
They swing themself aside, still glowing with that surge of pure, mystical strength, staining with reds to match the blues.
"A boy who has not the strength but to dance along the strings offered has no seat upon the throne. If a king cannot stand at least for his people..."
And they lunge.
"... best he not stand at all!"
And that path brings them on a straight shot for the emperor. Beast lunges -- the unusual, draconic statue infused with wind and life -lashing- out with sharp demands and sharper claws is met by the sudden and cerulean-infused swing of that war scythe. It intercepts and -deflects- those claws and then -keeps going- to sweep upward, intent to carve through iron-wrought statue work and -blast- Beast aside with the shuddering expulsion of blue-tinged power. "If you have the strength to make me account, then bring it to bear! If not... there is naught any of you will be able to accomplish today!"
They charge. The swirling whirlwind of their cerulean-tinged rush brings them on a warpath that threatens to sweep up anyone in their wake with a flourish of powerful scythe strokes, the broad edge of their blade cutting for the armor of Garan, screaming for Claude and Sorey, plunging for Leo and Fei, bursts of cerulean might ripping across the throne room with each titanic swing. They leap. They bring the blade high.
... and two gunshots ring out in tandem, knocking them out of the air seconds before they can reach that throne.
It is telling, how they manage to recover, even as they fall. They twist, landing in a crouch that CRACKS marble beneath them. Their eyeless stare focuses upon Gwen... upon Josephine.
"I see you still drink deep of your bitter draught."
STOP! cries Gwen. Their attention shifts, momentarily, towards Riesenlied, pleading with them to cease -- a sentiment echoed if not more calmly, in Thessaly's own words. Cease.
"You know well..."
And slowly, they stand. The scythe disappears in a crackle of light... only for a white and blue tome to manifest, floating above them. A gold sigil rests on its cover, arcane and old. Their right arm extends outward.
"... I cannot. If you wish my cessation..."
The tome opens, flips through pages. Text, old and inscrutable, glows in shadowy hues.
"... there is but one way. Else I will claim the boy's life for mine own."
Shadow erupts at Lily's beck and call. And the Trial Knight?
The Trial Knight -seizes- it.
Magic CRACKLES around their arm as they grip living shadow in their steel-clawed grasp. They hold fast as they -break- down that shadow, as potent sorcery etches a sigil beneath their feet. Not of Malevolence, no. Of Althena's Blessing.
Althena's Blessing, channeled with every uttered chant that fills the room in a resounding echo.
"Trembling cage that bends empty space,
"drive the wedge of freedom into those who would be captured..."
And from that magic is forged a -massive- blade of liquid shadow, rising up through the air before SWINGING down, CLEAVING through pillars, through -anyone- in its way --
"Negative Blade!"
--towards Thessaly, and the Emperor she protects with her magic.
M i s s i o n O b j e c t i v e
Leviathan
Protect the Emperor of Rolance!
(Reduce K.K. to 30% health!)
GS: K.K. has attacked K.K. with Savage Beckoning! GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from K.K.'s Savage Beckoning for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to K.K.! GS: K.K. has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Chaos Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Garan Dantear with Chaos Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Thessaly with Negative Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Negative Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Sorey with Chaos Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Alisha Diphda with Negative Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Negative Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Seraph Edna with Negative Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Negative Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked White Knight Leo with Chaos Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Seraph Beast with Chaos Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Xantia with Chaos Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Lily Keil with Negative Blade! GS: K.K. has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Negative Blade! GS: Sorey critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Chaos Blade for 35 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! White Knight Leo critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Chaos Blade for 53 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Garan Dantear critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Chaos Blade for 53 hit points! GS: K.K. has attacked Emperor Cyprian with Negative Blade! GS: Elhaym van Houten critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 27 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
Avelina slowly turns towards the door as Jacqueline Barber asks that sad question. She bows her head a little. "...This is the Trial Knight's battle, but our Lady has asked me to support a friend on her behalf," she says simply, "for she has business in the coming days. Seven stars dance in the heavens, and will not wait for--"
Before she can finish, Dean opens fire. The bullets speed past her; a couple connect, slamming into her shoulders, but they don't penetrate - they hit an invisible force of some kind. It ripples subtly, but she's knocked back with a startled grunt. "...It is," she says, voice low. Elvis bears down on her before she can say anything else.
But she does level her left hand - and his palm crashes into it with a fleshy thunk. The impact throws up a shockwave; the slender-looking woman skids backwards a couple of metres.
But she keeps her palm against Elvis's fist, fixing a steady look on him. "...Are you also here to ruin the Trial?" she murmurs.
A bolt of power comes her way. It slams into Avelina; she shields herself with one arm. The energy surges across her, and she winces - but soon, some force of her own wells up, pushing the electricity away. When she looks up again, her lips press gently together. "You cannot pass here. The Trial is to proceed."
And then Ethius Hesiod jumps her and attempts to impale her through the back. Sister Avelina has no idea it's coming.
Until, at the last second, she cranks her arm back at an unnatural angle and grabs Ethius's staff by the haft. The tip of it hits her in the back and stops before it can punch through anything.
"Our Lady told me about you specifically, Ethius Hesiod," Avelina intones. "A man who showed her no hint of kindness, only hatred and death. Who would inevitably harm her friends." She smiles faintly, still holding the staff.
"Hail in the glorious name of Valmar!" she declares.
Avelina pivots - and with a surge of inhuman strength, hurls Ethius and his staff upwards. She didn't throw him with enough force to hit the ceiling. Just to ensure that he's airborne as something else happens.
The priestess's body warps and pulses with dreadful energy. The flicker of it is more steady than that which shone out in the Felkirk chapel. It streams along Avelina's limbs; her irises darken to a red colour, her face and frame becoming more streamlined, robes taking on a red tinge and reducing in overall volume, cut to expose a long leg laced with tattoos. Her hood spills back as a pair of ram's horns spiral out from her head.
Bringing forth her silver staff - it glows now with a series of garnet stones tangled into its gnarled head - Avelina brings the butt of it down with a silvery crack. "Do not interfere with the Trial," she proclaims as a wave of magical force blooms out from around her in a radiating wave. The magic shines with a cold white light, slamming towards the gathered heroes.
And then there's Ethius. Avelina releases her staff and lets it hover, then watches his descent trajectory. She draws her right arm back.
And snaps her arm upwards to try and jab him in midair with a hard palm thrust.
She swings her left arm now. The strikes have a shocking amount of power behind them. Snapping both palms out again and again, she attempts to juggle Ethius in midair with a series of blows - until she winds up her right arm.
"Begone," she intones as she attempts to grab Ethius by the head and fling him at Elvis like a missile.
GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Priestess Avelina with Monstrous Courage! GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 85 hit points! GS: Priestess Avelina takes a solid hit from Priestess Avelina's Monstrous Courage for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Priestess Avelina! GS: CRITICAL! Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from K.K.'s Chaos Blade for 164 hit points! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Thou Shall Not Pass! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Thou Shall Not Pass! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Dean Stark with Thou Shall Not Pass! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Ethius Hesiod with You Are Already Dead! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Elvis with Take Your Lumps! GS: Priestess Avelina has completed its action. GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Thou Shall Not Pass for 21 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Alisha Diphda takes a glancing hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 231 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 85 hit points! GS: Josephine Lovelace guards a hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 83 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's You Are Already Dead for 85 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: CRITICAL! Elvis critically Guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Take Your Lumps for 23 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Elvis! GS: Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 30 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny used the Force Action Protect! He takes K.K.'s attack on Emperor Cyprian on himself! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Claude C. Kenny critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 28 hit points! GS: Seraph Edna takes a solid hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 153 hit points!
DC: MISS! Xantia completely evades Chaos Blade from K.K.!
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
Having Edna at his back and Mikleo on the way was something that Sorey was extremely thankful for. His Seraph friends were important to him, and their ability to help sort the situation out was... more so.
But having Alisha and Lailah show up... that was even more welcome. Sorey grins as Alisha crashes through the window, her blonde hair flowing out behind her as she brings the Lady of the Lake's blade down towards K.K.
It was good to have your friends at your back.
As the Trial Knight brings that scythe around to take a cut at Sorey, the Shepherd brings his own sword around and catches the strike, one hand braced against the back of his wooden blade as he matches force with K.K. for a moment. But the Shepherd's blade bursts into blue flame once more, even as sickening waves of darkness come off of the scythe and Sorey performa a disengage, putting a bit of space between himself and the knight.
"People struggling to live their lives is not weakness! Your standard is as warped as your perception of the world, Trial Knight!" The Shepherd throws his blade into the next attack, knocking it away as he whirls around and resumes his stance. "And as long as I draw breath, I'm going to keep moving forward until I've purified your evil once and for all! Each step forward gives me a bit more strength to oppose monsters like you and the Lord of Calamity!"
But there are enough people here that going toe to toe with the Trial Knight meant that Sorey was going to possibly be taking some friendly fire - and as much as he doesnât mind leaping into danger, he's seen quite a few of the people working to stop the Trial Knight in action. And the amount of collateral could be... significant. Enough that he'd be a bit worried.
But Mikleo isn't back, and Edna is putting pressure on K.K. in her own way... and Alisha and Lailah are kicking butt, and while Sorey hasn't seen the two Armatized before, he is proud to see the Squire having grown so much. "Edna, see if you can keep him busy so he can't hit the Emperor! Alisha...!" He watches as the princess takes a nasty strike, and a moment later Sorey launches a wave of fire across the distance between himself and K.K., even as he moves to check on the Princess. "Are you alright?" he asks, offering her a hand up if she needs it. And a bit of cover... again, if she needs it.
GS: Sorey has attacked K.K. with Cantering Flames! GS: Sorey has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Beast guards a hit from K.K.'s Chaos Blade for 162 hit points! GS: Thessaly takes a glancing hit from K.K.'s Negative Blade for 69 hit points! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Thou Shall Not Pass for 82 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha slams her blade down into K.K.'s sword. Divine Arms collide, and the impact is terrible. The shockwave blows her hair backward, and throws her backward. She hits the ground, looking up at the Trial Knight, and she nods. "...To serve my people, wherever they should be," she says. "And for that... I can't allow the Emperor to perish! Hyland needs less Rolance blood spilled, not more, if it is to know peeace!"
But, despite her declaration, she is pushed backward, and slammed away. She flies, straight back into a pillar. She hits it with a sickening crack, and said cracks shoot up through the whole of the column. She half-falls, half-floats to the ground, and her feet strike the ground. She looks up, breathing hard. Her eyes dart about the room -- towards Priestess Avelina, towards Sorey, and then finally towards the Trial Knight again. She nods, once, at what Gwen says. "If that is what you wish... then we will stop you!"
She looks to Sorey. She nods, once, before she looks back. She sucks a breath in, noting where Thessaly and Garan are. She tries to meet Garan's eyes. Then, she throws a hand out. A magical circle erupts underfoot. It flashes, bright red.
Then, a point of brilliant red light appears near the Trial Knight -- and explodes, an enormous column of fire shooting up under the Trial Knight's feet.
GS: Alisha Diphda has attacked K.K. with Ancient Nova! GS: Alisha Diphda has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
An impact is halted. A pained grunt escapes his mouth from under the anonymity-granting comfort of that yellow bandanna aroudn the lower half of his face. The shock of arrested momentum transfers through his grip, and one hand slides down up against her grasping hand as his eyes widen.
He was specifically named. His eyes narrow. He tries to fight his weapon out of her grip as she describes himself for anyone capable of listening. He can't so much as budge it out of her grip as she gives that faint smile. He's not smiling.
...He can't seem to let go of his weapon either, as though clenching in a vice grip of some deep-seated purpose that dictates he not relent.
The narrowed eyes do nothing to compel one to think anything else of him - only hatred and death appaer to be his intent. No hint of kindness, who may inevitably harm one's friends - and now, tossed into the air, missing only the swinging blade of darkness that topples over pillars by margins so narrow he may have actually been glanced by it.
He flips once to regain his bearings in mid-air as he starts to descend. Of course he's going to try to strike her agai--
WHAM
Air rushes out of his lungs as the palm thrust crushes his chest. This should crumple any man struck by it. He does not relent. That same hatred and death that seems to drive him. The switch of her arm is the only moment he has to put his staff between himself and the prospect of shattered ribs. It shakes and shudders under the parried blow. Another comes. And another. And another. He can't land. She's keeping him up there--
Until she grabs his head and hurls him bodily towards some large fellow that--
*CLONK*
Regardless of how that impact resolves - caught, bouncing off - Ethius' head swims as light and sound grow unfocused. His left hand clutches his hood, as fresh blood goes down the side of his face. It stains the yellow bandanna crimson as he fails to manage anything more than a kneel with only the quarterstaff for support.
And yet, his mind - battered by the combination - keeps screaming at him to act, to move. The overwhelming concert of emotions, noise, blood, and chaos prove difficult to shut out.
Another concussion.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong says, "Well, I mean--" to Xantia but he doesn't really get the opportunity to clarify. His voice trails off as he turns his head and sees someone he didn't expect to ever see again.
"Dean!" Fei calls over to him. "Why is Elvis here!?" A small pause as he turns back to his fight. "I thought he went home!!"
Maybe looking away even for a moment was a mistake, though, because he barely brings up his arms beore that blade of liquid shadow sweeps across his wounds. Shadow is an element Fei is not particularly skilled in defending against. He hisses through his pain and sinks to one knee, panting for breath.
"Maybe he doesn't deserve the throne, but the political system of Rolance is NOT his fault! Is Lunar so fallen that it expects more out of children then men?"
He finds himself looking over to Cecilia for a moment before shaking his head. "He didn't ask for this responsibility. He didn't pick the advisors that control this country. He should be allowed time to find his own happiness, his own life--before he has to fight for his country's..." He stands himself up again, more determined than less right now. "How else can he be a ruler if he is not afforded that opportunity... This isn't a test, it's just a murder!"
Expecting better of yourself is the other way KK could have meant it, but Fei has people to fight for here. He can collapse into self-doubt later in the safety and comfort of his present home.
Fei steadies his breathing, icy mist rippling around Fei's arms. Elly is determined right now. He needs to be able to match her spirit today if not all the way, then to get near it. "And don't worry..." He says. "I can make up for any 'destruction' she doesn't care t'do." But of course, Elly didn't seem to indicate any desire to hold back this time. Neither will Fei. While it's a little unnerving to see Elly so focused on a violence, there's a kind of inspiration behind it too that fuels Fei's punch as he unleashes a sudden wave of rapid solidifying ice towards K.K!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked K.K. with Suikei! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Thou Shall Not Pass for 122 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Cecilia Adlehyde!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny frigging hates scythes. His previous experience with them is limited to their use by Lady Harken, which in and of itself would be enough for most people to begin despising them on principle alone. But it's more than that - they are surprisingly effective against a trained swordsman, as their additional reach and bizarre construction can give an opponent fits.
To wit, Claude's initial reaction to the scythe stroke is to duck under it, slipping the attack, but then the Trial Knight simply has to pull the hooked blade back in toward its body to deliver a brutal slash along the young man's back. Plate armour parts with a shriek of metal, yet the scythe stops short of cutting flesh when it connects with the tan uniform jacket worn underneath.
Claude rolls forward, trying to absorb the impact, then snaps a horizontal slash as he rises that misses the Trial Knight by a country mile; the blonde swordsman turns to look for his opponent, spots the armoured figure raising its sword. Spots the Emperor of Rolance in the distance, in the line of fire.
For a second, it is eerily like a moment almost a year ago, on a castle rooftop in the city of Adlehyde. A moment Claude thinks of every time he sees Cecilia. A moment in which he failed.
Chi surges as Claude leaps across the room, the stones of the flooring cracking with the force of his jump. The young man turns in mid-air, whirling to face the Trial Knight, timing the incoming attack by eye. He sucks in a deep breath, channels power into his feet, and drops down in front of the Emperor. "TEAAAAAAAAAR INTO PIEEEECES!" he roars as he lands, sending a semicircle of stone spikes ripping up from the floor. The stone blocks the worst of the energy assault; Claude's armour plate handles the rest.
"Stay behind me," the young man orders over his shoulder, any idea of continuing the disguise lost as he hops up over the barrier of rock. "AIR SLASH!" Claude snaps, firing a golden-tinged blade toward the Trial Knight, hoping more to back it off than anything else.
GS: K.K. guards a hit from Sorey's Cantering Flames for 61 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked K.K. with Air Slash! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
DC: MISS! K.K. completely evades Ancient Nova from Alisha Diphda!
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.
Elvis flies at the woman, throwing an excellently formed punch at this woman. He is not afraid to hit them if they stand in his way.
And she does something unthinkable. She blocks in. With effort, but blocks it, straight-armed. "Trail? Heh." The Professor scoffs. I am here to conduct my own." He leaps back to gain distance fro mthe sudden change in form to assess the new enemy form. "Hm, something more, you are! I like it! Most interesting!"
"Come! Show me what you are capable of!"
Those that attack are rebuffed, but none so more than Ethius, who gets a walloping, and then sent at Elvis! A fun technique. He likes throwing enemies as well! The Veruni raises his guard to block the incoming body, taking the blow upon himself and staggering back. "MOVE!" he calls to the person who impacted him, jumping over them and surging forward.
"Reveal more of your secrets to me!" he calls, cockign that arm back for a vicious hit, as his fists grip the inner lining of his Power Gloves with great fervor.
Elvis closes the gap at a speed unnatural, the final few steps dig in and crush the tile beneath as he begins to use raw strength to propel further, faster still, A swing of the fist, and anything nearby unattended gose flying with the concussive force of the attack causing a vicious, unseen ripple of wind.
And those are just the items not being touched by this attack.
GS: K.K. critically Guards a hit from Claude C. Kenny's Air Slash for 22 hit points! GS: Elvis has attacked Priestess Avelina with Dire Haymaker! GS: Elvis has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Elvis has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! K.K. guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Suikei for 114 hit points! GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Elvis's Dire Haymaker for 76 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Thessaly has posed.
Ethius' familiar form tears from the sudden ingress Jacqueline makes from the wall, and while there is some confusion, briefly, in her eyes as to how many bodies have suddenly appeared in the throne room, his presence, in particular, is not a surprise.
And neither is the Princess of Hyland's presence, when she announces herself.
I cannot, the Trial Knight says. Violet eyes close from above the veil that shields her face from view.
"I know," she murmurs. "But you know as well as I that strength does not come from the ether. It must be encouraged, nurtured. Tested. His Majesty will learn, whether by someone else's hand or by mine. Until then, my lord Dantear will protect him."
Until we can find the rest of his protectors, she thinks, but doesn't give voice.
The hairs on the back of her neck stir and rise, practically seeing the strains of magic weave about the room and intensify. It doesn't just feel old, but ancient, and she takes several steps forward, fingers weaving their own glyphs in the air, her gown sweeping at the gesture and surrounded by black smoke. Dainty, slippered feet plants herself to the side of the monarch, a second layer of defense and just behind the bulwark that Garan provides. There's only a glance at Claude when he lands in front of the throne, and orders the Emperor to stay behind him while her barriers continue to gleam.
"My place is here, my lord," she tells Garan quietly. "It is yours to quell this."
She does her best to prepare for what happens, and as the horned helm turns her way, she weaves her patterns in layers, iridescent threads of violet, silver and black pulsing around her and the Emperor of Rolance. They knit, tighten, become whole - and the Negative Blade slams right in its center, darklight exploding from the impact point with a roar that shakes the very foundations of the palace...
...and when the smoke dissipates, she remains standing, a sleeve torn and blood carving down a path on pale flesh. A single crimson drop falls on the circle underneath her feet.
Its glow intensifies.
Her hand moves forward, revealing pale fingers and their black lacquer once more. Turning her palm upwards, she snaps.
Shadows move at the very sound, twisting through the floor and gathering like webs. They pull at the Trial Knight's shadow before rising upwards in an attempt to wrap around the Trial Knight, and throw them backwards - as far away from the Emperor as possible, if she can.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Trial? What trial?! That's just a kid!!" Dean protests hotly, gesturing over towards the young emperor. "And the Trial Knight's not putting him through a trial, he's just trying to kill him!! What kind of trial is *that*?!"
Elvis leaps into the fray, joining the battle. Dean's a little surprised by this, but it does help improve his opinion of the Professor... even if even Dean is reasonably sure he's only doing it to get a closer look at her magic. "Okay!" he calls to Elvis. "Let's send this lady packing!"
But before that can happen, Avelina grabs Ethius and tosses him up, then unleashes Valmarian energy, warping her body and sending magic in a wave of force slamming forward. Dean is undeterred; even as he crosses the combat rods of Twin Fenrir before him defensively, he keeps pushing forward in an attempt to get to her. She at least succeeds in keeping him from closing in, but when the wave passes, he instead lifts his copy Sword Medium.
"YOU begone!!" he demands, just before unleashing his own concussive force upon her--this time of flame, rising up from the red leyline glowing at his feet. Flames coalesce and smash with physical force towards the priestess.
Then Fei yells over at Dean about why is Elvis here. "Don't ask *me* why he does what he does, I was surprised to see him too!" he yells back.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Priestess Avelina with Elemental Crush! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Thessaly has attacked K.K. with Rallentando! GS: Thessaly has completed her action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Dean Stark's Elemental Crush for 69 hit points! GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Edna has posed.
"You say that you're not sowing chaos, but then..." Edna lowers her umbrella, and eyes the motes of malevolence that permeates through the air. "... What's all this? If you're not the cause of it, then what are you doing, I wonder?" Edna doesn't charge in to attack. No, she leaves that to Sorey, and she nods to his request. "Hm. Fine." But before she can actually make that move to do so, a blade of liquid energy tears through the throne room.
Left with no time to summon a rock wall, the Earth Seraph quickly hardens her umbrella with earth energy, and then holds it open to take the hit. ...It takes the hit, yes. But the force of the blow lifts her off of her feet, and then sends her sailing back, through a pillar, and then crashing into a wall to leave a spiderweb of cracks.
"Ungh..." She groans, narrowing her eyes as she glares across the throne room. "Tsk. Why is it always like this?" Edna mutters as she climbs out of the cratered wall and brushes the dust and debris off of herself. "And now I'm all dirty too." She rolls her shoulders, and then begins to walk. ... Right back towards the fray, but mostly around the side as she gets into a position to protect the emperor. "You owe me a plate of Mabo Curry for this, Trial Knight."
Edna, no.
And then, her eyes settle on the Armatized form of Alisha and Lailah. ".... By the way; Hi princess. Nice to see you haven't died yet." There's a ghost of a smirk on her face. And then, she raises a foot, and stomps it into the floor. Immediately, said floor quakes before stone tile is manipulated, bursting forth into a sharpened spire that comes up from right underneath KK.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
'You, who allowed Krosse to falter?'
"Still your tongue, monstrosity!" Leo snarls. The scythe descends, and the White Knight's blade rises to meet it. K.K. falls on him like an avalanche, but at the last second, something flies in from the corner of Leo's vision, slamming into the Trial Knight and knocking them away. Leo blinks, looking first at the chunk of statue, then glancing back over his shoulder at the man who threw it. Leo nods, once, to Fei, a gesture of respect that might be unwise in this situation. Leo barely has time to take stock of who else has his back--only to slip back into a defensive stance, blade raised, ready and alert.
K.K. turns into a tornado of violence. As impractical a weapon as a scythe is, K.K. wields it in a manner that can only be described as 'devastatingly effective'. Leo meets the blade halfway down with his sword, but it slips to the side, the razor-sharp end digging into his shoulder. Blood blooms against the fabric of his uniform. Stabbing pain alerts Leo to the fact that K.K. cut through more than just his skin and clothing. He bites his lip, shifts his weight forwards, and shoves the scythe away with all his strength. It buys him a few seconds.
"As long as I draw breath," Leo says, "you and your kind will never see victory!" And then a surge of all-too-familiar power scrabbles at the edge of his senses. Althena, Leo thinks, as Avelina's horrible transformation takes hold. How many of these heretics are there?
Alisha and Sorey charge forwards, and Leo is right there beside them. The tiled floor surges upwards beneath his feet, serving as a springboard--the White Knight launches himself into the air, bringing his blade down at K.K.'s shoulder with all the strength he can muster. He can only hope Garan has seen to the Emperor--or he would, if he weren't absolutely certain Garan were doing so.
GS: Seraph Edna has attacked K.K. with Earth Spear! GS: Seraph Edna has completed her action. GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from Thessaly's Rallentando for 129 hit points! GS: White Knight Leo has attacked K.K. with Rising Falcon! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! K.K. critically Guards a hit from Seraph Edna's Earth Spear for 17 hit points! GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from White Knight Leo's Rising Falcon for 155 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The Trial Knight leaps away from the pillar of ice before it can contact her...but Jacqueline is okay with this. It made some distance between them and the Emperor, and that was her primary goal. Besides, others are rushing in to help.
'The decision is one already made', they say. Jacqueline scowls.
"...Really now." She replies, eying the Trial Knight carefully. And then the Priestess accompanying them speaks. Unfortunately, she's cut off by the sudden arrival of more friends.
Jacqueline knew that Neriah had gone to Meribus from Mederic, but from what this Priestess said, it sounded like whatever she was after, it would be happening soon...
She stows that information away for later. She could stew over that later.
"This Trial is a sham. I'm afraid I can't allow that." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head. The Priestess's sheer strength, however, as well as how easily she tossed Ethius aside...
...It's concerning.
Jacqueline frowns, and then braces herself when the Priestess calls upon the power of Valmar.
A wave of power erupts as she slams her staff down and Jacqueline braces herself. It slams into her, knocking her back and forcing her to her knees with a wheeze.
If she hadn't braced herself beforehand, that could've been far more serious...
"That power...please, you have to stop this. It's going to kill you!" Jacqueline warns, concerned. "I don't know what Neriah told you...but it happened before, at Felkirk!"
She doesn't go on the offensive just yet - instead, she rummages through her bags for a couple of potions.
"P-please, use this!" Jacqueline cries out. One of them is tossed toward Cecilia, while the other is tossed toward the large, burly man that Ethius was thrown into.
...Perhaps Jacqueline should've specified to Elvis, 'please use this on the man who just got projectile-thrown at you', because it's pretty easy to misinterpret in the heat of the moment. Especially since he's already off to do his own thing!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Elvis with Distribution Theory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Distribution Theory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Garan Dantear has posed.
The terrible, unnatural strength of the Trial Knight is much to contend with, even for Garan Dantear: The red-haired knight of Rolance has no strength beyond mortal ken, nothing beyond the fruits of long training and the iron will and determination that have kept him alive thus far. He can feel it, the terrible pressure exerted by K.K., might beyond simple physicality. Lips pull back from teeth, teeth part in a stubborn roar of determination, an unwillingness to yield here, at the last. Seconds, and seconds only, but those second stretch out, stretch out long enough that it is more than just the knight and the witch to face off against the terrible armored foe.
In the chaos that follows, there is a brief spark of hope that it will be enough to stop the Trial Knight then and there: Reality, however, is a far more cruel thing, as even Alisha's efforts are only enough to push the mysterious assailant back, only enough to delay the intended reaping. Sparks fly as the Imperial Knight blocks the Trial Knight's slash at the last moment, the force of it still nearly driving Garan off of his feet, leaving him in a poor position as the followup attack comes, as that blade of shadow arcs towards Thessaly, towards the Emperor.
It's a surprise, then, when some stranger is there to block the hit that might've cleaved the young ruler in half. Only briefly does he look to Claude, or past him to the witch and the Emperor, enough to satisfy himself that they're all right. Enough that Thessaly's whisper reaches him as though she were standing right beside him.
"Honestly," the red-haired knight exhales, dark blue eyes returning to K.K., fixing on the Trial Knight. "You talk too much."
Shield leading, the Imperial Knight lunges at the larger, more heavily armored knight, the weight of the steel slab carrying added momentum behind it before his next step brings his sword around, cutting, cutting; even against such a foe as this, the focus is on timing, on footwork. In the middle of a storm of terrible powers, Garan Dantear simply tries to carve apart the armor of the Trial Knight.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Cecilia Adlehyde! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Elvis gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Elvis! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Why is it," Comes a amused drawl from back down the hallway the Trial Knight crashed though. "That people always tell people 'Don't interfere with the Trial' or 'Stop or I'll shoot' or 'Don't touch that! It's expensive!'. I mean, don't ya get it...it's just askin' for us to go and interfere. I mean it becomes a moral imperative at that point."
The voice there is familiar to some as a drawl belonging to a fox as Morgan ambles his way out of the rubble. Just in time to see Avelina's dramatic reveal as she flings Ethius away from her like a ragdoll.
"Well, I like the tats. And I gotta respect the headgear there..." This to the Priestess herself as he leans one shoulder against the rubble.
"...but see. I kinda like some of the people ya seem to be tryin' ta burn down...so..." The rifle in his hand is suddenly there. The long gun a made of a pale blue metal, the lines curved and graceful almost as he brings it up to his shoulder. The six cylinders that carry its ammo spin as he begins to pump a half dozen rounds downrange towards the woman with the ram's horns and the nice legs.
"Hey! Cecilia! That you?" He calls out over the roar of his braced weapon. "Feel like hirin' a bodyguard for the next few minutes. Pretty sure my other contracts here just ran out!"
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Priestess Avelina with Hang 'Em High! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Hang 'Em High for 100 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Priestess Avelina! GS: Priestess Avelina has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
It's unfortunate. Her lips twitch downwards with a ghost of shock as even that beautiful bullet does little more than crack the knight's armor. A touch: her dark eyes widen, wondering. What can hope to scratch--
No. She'll see this one through, even if she drowns in it.
The ARM she levels at the knight through the chaos -- through the spells and swords that surge in to strike back at and defend the boy emperor -- remains steady. Josie shifts the weight of her posture from one foot to the other. Her gaze has never left the one known as the Trial Knight.
"Guess I am," she answers K.K. with a tight-lipped smile, one that never truly reaches her eyes.
"And I'll make you choke on the dregs."
But in the end, words are but words. Her gaze slips from K.K. at last, flicking up at the tome as it emerges with a burst of sorcery. She felt that, she has no choice but to feel that.
It's not Malevolence. It's magic. And even the magic of another world...
Power gathers. One second, two seconds more, and it will burst free.
"Scatter!" she yells to the group that followed her in. She, herself, does not take so much as a step back.
"Child," says the voice of memory, "what good will cowering like a leaf do you before another's spells? Get up. Do it again. Now."
Her lips move. It's but a minor invocation of the chain of spells writ upon her back, but here it is. As the shield bursts into being, she remains standing there as the blade of magic descends--
Hisses out in pain as the plumes of shadow cut and shave where the spell does not stand strongly enough. But she doesn't stagger, and she doesn't fall.
Not a perfect spell, but imperfect is always better than dead.
And this is the point, the pivot where Josie at takes flight, her boots clattering across the floor as she sets out in a run. No destination is at first chosen, her gaze shifting across the room as she makes her decisions while in motion.
There.
At the end of the day, she's the daughter of a magus.
And what better place to hold one's ground than at the side of a wizard? It's as clear as day that the shattered pillars won't provide much protection against the magics, but a wizard's spell...
"Hope I'm not interrupting," is thus the greeting that Thessaly will receive as Josie plants herself at the magician's side, and paired with a brief if tight-lipped grin at that.
Then, while Fei takes a more direct approach to the knight, she lifts the Reaper's Hand ARM and counts off the seconds as she takes aim and fires.
"Oh, and you should cover your ears," she adds, after the round discharges, just as a sidelong statement to Thessaly. "Might be loud?"
GS: Josephine Lovelace has spent 2 Combo on Gatling! GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked K.K. with Silver Lining! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Garan Dantear has attacked K.K. with Knight's Rhythm! GS: Garan Dantear has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Garan Dantear has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
There is a stir of confusion and cacophony as the battle is joined, with all the furor of the individual parties that have emerged onto the throne room. Jacqueline appeals to Priestess Avelina, as she grits her teeth to whisper, "It's true. Please, listen to her--"
She falters a little further, holding her side as she feels-- no, sees red seep through the fabric of her dress.
That's as far as she can go.
Noeline is already going into action, pulling away knights and rallying the guards that can move. "Y-yes..." she turns towards the nearest of the wounded as she concentrates, lifting their spirits as she fills them with an invigorating energy. "Please, head-- head this way--"
Wark!
Riesenlied's eyes widen as she stares up towards the fat cuccobo, and it just--
--hucks one wounded knight onto its back, then another, and a third... Riese, I'm not sure you're supposed to stuff NPCs in your storage...
"U-um, that will do. Let's go..." she casts a wounded look to the Trial Knight for a moment. "Jacqueline, Ethius-- Noeline and I will tend to the wounded." She spares a glance towards the Wolves that have arrived too. "Please be safe, Fei, Elly, Lily..."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"... That's true, I guess," Gwen admits, with a nervous hiccup of a laugh. "You're pretty consistent on that, at least." There's something Gwen can't help but find earnest in the knight's answer, it feeding into that theory about the Trial Knight being more akin to a force of nature than a being that made conscious decisions.
She wants to think that, more like. It makes her more able to place K.K. in a tidier frame.
Whatever words she could supply feel faulty in the face of Thessaly's words, of the armatized Alisha's resolve and Sorey's earnest beliefs. And, well, Garan's blunt assestment. This is their planet. They know what counts. "... You got a good enough inkling of where I'll stand, I imagine."
But then the knight attacks with the grace, violence, and speed to back up their claims. and Gwen can no longer spend precious time pondering the whys and hows of the knight and what makes them tick. Especially since she's getting hit with that blade of shadow, knocking her back a fair distance away.
Whatever revelation K.K.'s display of Althena's Blessing might hold is lost on Gwen, the courier being about as magical as a brick. It's magic. She can tell that. Painful magic. The kind that hurts.
She can't really afford to challenge the knight head on like the others are; instead, she makes the choice to dig under the top of her boots, producing a knife of Filgaian metal and make, held in her right hand. Rushing in, Gwen tries to make a strategic jab in some opening in the Trial Knight's armor, in some dent left over from a previous attack. "Gh!"
This can count as being more careful than charging head on, right? .... Right?
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked K.K. with Comet Clip! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia needed only keep K.K. pinned down for a moment with her attack and that much seemed successful. However, as she should have known by now, the Trial Knight isn't so easily deterred once they have their mind set on something. Even with the combined force of this many people, they refuse to go down. Xantia would be impressed, if she could afford to be impressed by somebody who has so very clearly declared themselves an enemy many times over.
Fortunately, that electrical aura of Xantia's isn't just for show. Her movements seem significantly faster than usual, darting away with literal lightning speed before the retaliatory blade strike can find purchase. "I've improved a bit since last time," she clarifies with a confident grin.
Confidence bolstered by the many others she takes brief notice of as her gaze passes over faces of which some are familiar, some unfamiliar... some familiar but not yet seen on Lunar, which is something she's no longer surprised at by this point. In any case, there's lots of support, so surely they'll be able to stop... whatever K.K. was trying to do. Was it really all just to kill that boy? Naturally she'd failed to even understand what makes him so special.
Until the Trial Knight clarifies the matter. Now everything makes sense. Wait, no it doesn't! Not to her, at least. "You always DO that! Just... come in and say things that even if they're true still wouldn't mean you can do whatever you want!" Xantia balls her fists and reassumes her fighting stance, shaking with anger. "You're just picking on people weaker than you again, like you always do!" She doesn't get this mad very often, but K.K. manages it with ease and consistency.
At least they can agree on one thing: there's only one way to stop this from happening. Which happens to be Xantia's favorite way of dealing with problems anyway. Punch them until they go away. She briefly backs off while Fei attacks - especially since it's her least favorite element he's using - but then rushes right in again, this time only aiming a single strike with the flat of her hand, aimed for the Trial Knight's torso, sparks exploding outward from her hand. She's a little late to fulfill that promise of taking a few centimeters out of that armor, but... better late than never.
GS: Xantia has attacked K.K. with Shatterstrike! GS: Xantia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
'A king who cannot stand for his people...'
Lily turns her head to the side just enough to get a better look at the Trial Knight, uncertain. The things they say--
The tome. Lily's golden eye widens as the Trial Knight takes hold of her magic outright. It is a jarring, unpleasant feeling, this magic that is part of her being taken and reforged, and she freezes in place for an instant as a result. The Blessing that she has come to recognize fills the room, and the gigantic blade crashes down--
Lily throws up the hand of her broken arm, still wended with rune-inscribed chains, and more shadow erupts all around her. The massive blade cleaves straight through her shield before it's even formed, but the shockwave of impact, shadow against shadow, blasts Lily back out of the path and saves her life. "Ahh--"
Whatever sounds her impact makes are covered up by the sound of the blade's movement, and Lily falls to a knee, staring one-eyed towards the Trial Knight. "How--!?" She pushes down the shock, forces herself to consider the battle, not her questions. The melee has begun. ...And the Knight is here--
"Why bother with such a test?" Lily asks of the Trial Knight, raising her voice as she rises again. "What hope does a boy Emperor stand? What makes his life of interest to you?"
She glances to the shadows behind K.K., interested to see whether Thessaly's magic takes hold this time. But already she needs to find another approach. "But if you ask strength--"
She charges abrubtly, extending her hand and letting black light crackle up her arm, a greatsword forged of the void itself abrubtly in her hand, difficult to look upon, rending the air itself with each blurred movement. She takes it up in one hand despite its great size--some six feet--and bends at the knee to leap towards the Trial Knight.
Her eye moves once to Josie, nodding in midair as she shouts to the Trial Knight, "I will carve it from the air itself!" As she gets in close she hacks downward with strength more of will than of arm, the markings on her hand gleaming brilliant, her eye beginning to glow with power.
She is not being careful, Riesenlied, though she can feel her mirror's worry. There is something here, that she has to do.
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil has spent 2 Combo on Gatling! GS: Lily Keil has attacked K.K. with Black Wolf's Claw! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly's eyes widen slowly at what she has wrought. Her shot...
She had thought it might miss. That was always a possibility. Her marksmanship was adequate, not astonishing, and it's a rocket round - those are always a little imprecise. Or, perhaps, it would not breach the armor cleanly but would instead fragment it. This... damage, but not serious damage.
K.K. challenges her. She does not reply right away.
The first thing Elly does, then, even as Fei hurls statuary, even as Lily sends the darkness to assault the Trial Knight with the threat of revelry in the dark, is to hurl the gun at him. The sidearm itself is mostly plastic, probably mass-printed in some sky factory; does she expect that 300 grams of plastic will harm the Trial Knight where a Gear-cracker round did not?
"... Weakness... Is that all that you care about? 'Strength'? Is that the only thing you're saying, or is that just your excuse... You've hurt so many people; even with this war between Rolance and Hyland, so many people here were only trying to serve their country. They wanted nothing but to live their lives in peace...!"
Her fingers tighten at her sides. The Ether was already forming and so when the shadow surges towards Elly, it hits something - it crashes against a wall of ice that, half-formed, crystallizes in frozen fractals out of the air and contends against that blade, finally rupturing and spilling a burst onto Elly - but a much attenuated one. "Gh!" she says.
She glances at Riesenlied and smiles at her - without words. Then back to K.K.
Elly sweeps a hand forwards.
BGM SHIFT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRzdv34SGZY
The air twinkles as it flies towards K.K.
The ice that Elly had called up, which had fallen partly asunder, vaporizes in its passage. The twinkle is in fact a cube - and it is not a cubic centimeter in size. No, it is much smaller, smaller than Elly's thumbnail. The weavery of Ether around it is like the photosphere (so to speak) of a star, and the plasma is superheated enough to in fact flicker into genuine fusion, albeit on the trivial scale, as it flies to try and smash into AND THROUGH K.K. like a micro-singularity.
It isn't that compressed, of course.
Yet.
However, that plastic gun melts into a black carbon smear on the flagstones. It was nowhere near that twinkle.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
Scythe meets iron, and it will find, as it carves a path between plates, that there is nothing inside at all.
Nothing but the essential magic of the Seraph.
Ah - but perhaps that is enough.
The Beast of Lohgrin is a being made of parts; torn asunder by the horrific might of that war scythe, those parts clatter to the ground, a loose pile of metal. It is clear that it is the Trial Knight's strength which accounts for so much, here.
It takes her moments, short and yet so long and precious, to collect herself, to forge herself into her shape again. In those moments, she can only listen. Hear this: the Trial Knight will not listen to reason. The Trial Knight will only understand force.
It is Althena's Blessing they bring to bear.
It is Althena's Blessing which meets them, as the Beast of Lohgrin collects herself and stands anew.
This is no shade, comforting or otherwise - it is the wind, picking up about her in a swirling eddy before it blasts towards the Trial Knight. She is not the only one here who wields Seraphic artes. Perhaps it is a comfort.
"You would destroy a boy for the sin of his birth? Allow him his childhood! Perhaps the world of Men is imperfect, but it is theirs to make!" 'Theirs'. It speaks to uncertainty beyond the anger of those words.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia does not entirely understand the Trial Knight - she has not battled the mysterious creature across the worlds the way some people have. Her impression is simply one of yet another evildoer sending wickedness out into the world, a world more huge and horrible than she had previously known.
So there isn't, perhaps, the dissonance others feel when the Trial Knight declares this simply another trial. Avelina, though - her insistance....it breaks upon something, as Cecilia watches her spell gutter in the Priestess's arms.
"Your mistress is friends with something wicked," Cecilia says, with little kindness. "And you stand to defend a murderer!"
She slams her own staff down - a flickering wave of light countering the shockwave bursting out from Avelina as the woman mutates before her. She trembles in that anti-light, but dares force herself forward, whirling her staff in a sweeping spiral, drawing power out of the air. She reaches down to her medium case, popping it open as one extracts itself. "And I am a Princess and Shaman, and am empowered to interfere in whatever I please!" she snaps. "Material!" she cries out, as a stone tablet circles around and slots into place before her. "Magnetron Bomb!"
The icon of Grudiev flashes once before the girl and her magic both flicker away, shortly before an explosion of power erupts into the form of Grudiev, the Earth Guardian massive and monstrous, vaguely lizardlike with a body covered in crystal. The Guardian of Earth glares about, casting its eye upon all, before finding the fallen Priestess and opening its mouth to SCREAM. Its crystalline shoulders spark before firing off a blast of light that flickers and pulses like the stars, slamming toward Aveline and then EXPLODING, sending out rippling shockwaves that rip the earth apart, providing a small amount of defensive cover with its power.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Priestess Avelina with Material - Magnetron Bomb! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Magnetron Bomb for 72 hit points! GS: Cover! Statuses applied to Cecilia Adlehyde! GS: Seraph Beast has attacked K.K. with Buffeting Headwind! GS: Seraph Beast has completed her action. GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked K.K. with Aqua Ice! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
Once Ethius has left her hand, Priestess Avelina seizes her floating staff again. She gives it a dramatic twirl as she watches Ethius sail off into wild Elvis yonder.
She can't admire for too long because soon enough, Elvis is no longer all that yonder. The Priestess snaps her arm up with a hiss and brings it across to try and absorb that haymaker through sheer brute strength. The big warrior's fist hits her forearm, but the force of it hurls her backwards. Wincing, she flips in the air, coming down with a sharp click of heels.
"Perhaps if you step outside, you will get more secrets than you expect," she murmurs with a dip of her lashes. "But the Trial will not be interrupted."
Not even by Cecilia. The Princess and Chaman makes her decree and calls forth Grudiev's icon. The explosive scream of a Guardian tears the earth and pounds Avelina with light and debris. With a sweep of her arms she calls forth a shimmering field to draw away some of that power, but too much of it slips through. She hisses with pain as she's struck, sliding backwards. "...And what has the blessing of the Guardians gotten you, Princess?" she growls. "You are here, on a world far from yours... and your Guardians are losing."
Dean lashes out with the force of the elements. The radiant power washes over Avelina with a furious force. She throws her staff forward with a hiss, her shield diverting away some of it. Still more slips through her guard to scorch her shoulders and arms. Wincing, she scowls through the rainbow of light. "The terms of the Trial are not mine to set," she growls. "But so long as our Lady wishes to see a friend to success, I shall--"
Avelina was actually barely aware Morgan was even in the fray. She didn't expect someone else to come striding into the fight. When he does fire off his shots, the bullets hit her square in the side and hurl her away. She hurtles into a pillar; it crumbles beneath the impact, throwing up a cloud of dust as she lands with a thump.
She's up again pretty quickly, though, throwing her hair back with a snap of her head and pushing a chunk of pillar aside. Her scowl is dark and flat. But it's broken by something else: A flicker of surprise. She frowns lightly as Jacqueline reveals something and Riesenlied joins in on the appeal.
Her eyes lower for a moment.
"What happened to Knight Mederic was... the result of our Lady's gift mingling with another's touch," she says softly. "One which fractures like a glass pane. It will not happen so again."
Raising her staff, Avelina flicks her hair back. "Hear this!" she proclaims, her voice echoing. "Only through Trial can the Emperor prove his worth. Just as our Lady tested what belief I once held in Althena. But a goddess who robs the world of life and weakness... who allows war to consume Rolance... will fail the Trial every single time."
Avelina levels her staff. Ghostly flames whirl along it, collecting into a swelling, pulsating orb at the very head. "Only the weak fear the Trial," she proclaims.
With a sweep, Avelina unleashes the flame. A vast wavefront of white fire erupts out from her, exploding outwards in a blazing dome. The ghostly fire burns across the floor, scorching its way up columns, incinerating tapestries it touches. It sears the flesh with a magical taint wherever it touches.
But one person is spared the flame. Bounding forward, Avelina swings her staff to drive it towards the gut of Cecilia in a heavy blow.
GS: Priestess Avelina has spent 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Eldritch Fire! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Eldritch Fire! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Elvis with Eldritch Fire! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Dean Stark with Eldritch Fire! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Eldritch Fire! GS: Priestess Avelina has spent 3 Combo on Headshot! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Staff of Valmar! GS: Priestess Avelina has completed its action. GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Eldritch Fire for 27 hit points! GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Eldritch Fire for 90 hit points! GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Morgan Newkirk! GS: Elvis guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Eldritch Fire for 80 hit points! GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Elvis!
DC: MISS! Ethius Hesiod completely evades Eldritch Fire from Priestess Avelina!
GS: Dean Stark critically Guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Eldritch Fire for 33 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Priestess Avelina's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Cecilia Adlehyde critically Guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Bewitching Blade for 41 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Cecilia Adlehyde!
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
Only close to the point of impact does it become evident that there is a long, talon-like blade beginning to extrude itself from the head of Avelina's staff - one she's attempting to impale Cecilia upon.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"They haven't lost yet!!" Dean shoots back at Avelina, even though she was addressing Cecilia. "The Guardians asked us for help, and we *won't* let them down, no matter WHAT world we're on!" Cecilia unleashes her Shamanic powers via her Grudiev summon, and Avelina response in kind with hidden-blade attack that might hit Cecilia nastily hard. Dean doesn't know her, but he does pause a second to see it. "Hey! Are you okay?!" he calls over to the Princess.
But there's something else. Jay and Riesenlied try to talk to Avelina, tell her about Mederic. Her explanation is less than satisfactory to Dean: "A mistake?! Your friend DIED! How do you know something like that won't happen again?!" He runs up towards her, even as she unleashes those ghostly flames. He does at least screech to a halt and cross Twin Fenrir before him in defense, and while the searing heat might scalds his skin, he survives the attack with only a few burns.
As far as Avelina goes, Dean recognizes enough of her speech as Mederic rhetoric to know that arguing with her about the matter won't lead anywhere. Instead, he just shouts as he charges towards her, "Fine! Then we'll overcome that trial! Not just that kid, but ALL of us! And we'll send you AND the Trial Knight packing!!" Once he's in range, he then sweeps the rods of his ARMs, which had heated to intense levels, to attempt to strike Avelina in the side. If they make contact, the scorching heat in them might well leave some lingering burns of her own on her.
GS: Dean Stark has spent 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Priestess Avelina with Burning Booster! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Dean Stark's Burning Booster for 42 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
And now there is fire.
Why is there always fire.
Morgan growls as it rolls towards him in a white wave of destruction. "Tha' hell is this with the damn Trials! Why can't they just use a bloody written test or something!" He shouts out as he brings up a arm to try to ward it off with his ARM's shields...
...and doesn't quite get it in time.
The blast takes him off his feet as he slams into the wall behind him, flames burn his skin, singe his ears and tails as he hisses in pain. "Ah hellfire," He grumbles as he watches the flames creep up the arms of his coat, a coat he shrugs out of. "I really liked this coat, darlin! Ya sure we can't just sit down and talk about all this over a nice dinner?" He shouts towards the Priestess. Totally not giving her the respect she is due as he snatches something out of one of the pockets.
A bottle.
Which he rips the top off of with his teeth to down the contents before tossing it over his shoulder.
"Gwen don't you die over there!" He adds as he shakes himself a moment. "Cass would be mighty upset if'n ya did!"
Pulling himself out of the rubble he landed in, the defrocked fox dashes forwards. Closer to the fray now, his rifle gone but that ARM of his still pulsing with its own power.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Morgan Newkirk with No Rest For The Wicked! GS: Morgan Newkirk takes 12 damage from Toxin! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action. GS: Morgan Newkirk takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's No Rest For The Wicked for 0 hit points! GS: Morgan Newkirk gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Morgan Newkirk!
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.
"I DID GO HOME!" Elvis bellows through the fray at Fei. "Sort of! Home's not even on this planet! I just went back to camp!" What, a titan of a scientist can't roam liek a drifter sometimes?! He has things to do! ...And people to find. Person. a VERY IMPORTANT person. "You are reckless, kid!" he calls to Dean. "Don't get your head blown off!" Fella is about as sharp as a bowling pin. He shouldn't be here. "I do what I want for my research!"
A voice calls out in the midst of the fight, and a small potion is thrown his way! Elvis has to struggle to catch it due to his gloves, but manages somehow. "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO OPEN THIS?!" he calls, before saying 'screw it' and bites it, shattering the top with his MANLY JAW, before drinking it.
He might have swallowed a bit of glass, too. What doesn't kill you...?
Speaking of killing, look at all that fire. Elvis attempts to guard himself agaisnt it, but it is hard to repel a wave of fire that ignites any combustibles. "ARGH!" Elvis screeches, trying to put it out. It burns, it is painful. It interrupts thinking. "This is ILLOGICAL," he grits out. "To induct a trial on unwilling participants yields SKEWED DATA," he says louder.
Energy pulses around the man.
"Your result is TAINTED!" he stats with rage.
The energy pulses, strengthens, revitalizes.
"You have BESMIRCHED the namesake of contucted trials!"
The energy reaches its peak, it lashes out, causing floors to crumble under the immense pressure.
"I TIRE OF YOU, WITCH!" Elvis screams, his arms flex back into a fighting stance. Muscle and sinew groan under the power and might of Sentinel Elvis.
"READY YOURSELF!"
GS: Elvis has attacked Elvis with Ready Yourselves!! GS: Elvis takes 12 damage from Toxin! GS: Elvis has completed his action. GS: Elvis takes a solid hit from Elvis's Ready Yourselves! for 0 hit points! GS: Elvis gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each! GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield! Statuses applied to Elvis! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Josephine Lovelace's Silver Lining for 69 hit points! GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Josephine Lovelace! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Garan Dantear's Knight's Rhythm for 70 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! K.K. takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Comet Clip for 22 hit points! GS: Jam and Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to K.K.!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline looks toward Riesenlied with some concern, and then nods.
"...Alright. Thank you." She replies. Someone needed to take care of the wounded, after all, and she could tell that Riesenlied was in no shape for a fight.
...And besides. This fight was probably going to get serious. They would need all the extra space they could get.
She does not take her attention off the priestess for long, however. She responds and Jacqueline frowns slightly. Dean didn't take it well, either.
"Another's? Whose? The Trial Knight's?" Jacqueline asks. It was...concerning. Was there someone else helping Neriah? Maybe they were responsible for...
...No. Neriah was her own person, responsible for her own decisions. It would do her a disservice to assume she was being used.
"Regardless! I don't think anyone here has the right or authority to conduct a 'Trial' like this! Please, stand down. I can tell you're devoted...but this isn't the way to go about fixing things!"
But just as she gets this out, the Priestess begins to conjure a ghostly flame before unleashing it upon everyone gathered. Jacqueline reacts quickly, gesturing with her left hand and projecting a burst of wind that parts the flames around her, scorching the ground on either side of her with pearlescent flames. The backlash of it still reaches her, but it was far less dangerous than if it contacted her directly.
"I don't want to fight you, but if you persist...!" Jacqueline gestures with her right hand. The atmosphere around Avelina begins to heat up, before a bolt of lightning is dropped toward the Priestess.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Priestess Avelina with Lightning Strike! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius further finds himself brushed aside like rubbish as the boastful, brutish, brilliant Elvis charges in full of scientific curiosity and wonder. Words filter back into his comprehension as he crawls about the increasingly scuffed, blooded, and/or burnt red carpet that makes up the throne room of Rolance - it looks pathetic. He does not, in that moment, seem to be made of much sterner stuff than the numerous knights that are strewn about this chamber.
He reclines up against a pillar as others move in. Some appeal. Some insult. Some inquire. He mostly cradles his bleeding head. For the moment, he can only eavesdrop and listen. That alone is impressive. With so many screaming resolves and retorts, to hear anyone or anything coherently... it means he's listening to them for a reason. He clutches onto that as his mind and body grasp haphazardly for one another.
'The Trial will not be interrupted.' 'You are here, on a world far from yours.' 'So long as our Lady wishes to see a friend to success,' 'what happened to Knight Medric... mingling with another's touch... will not happen so again.' Ethius rises throughout these words. There is a demand for those to 'hear this.'
He is listening. He is also standing. 'Only the weak fear the Trial.' She lays down her conditions, her beliefs, as the ghostly flames pulsates... and erupts. Others choose to withstand the eldritch flames of a power beyond the knowledge and comprehension of the people of Lunar. Ethius, whom has had several close encounters with this sort of thing, instinctively knows better. This is not something one withstands fully intact.
He makes use of the columns and tapestries that are there for cover. The cover is temporary at best. To clear the distance of a tapestry before it disintegrates, he has to dive-roll the entire length. Even without direct contact, being in sheer proximity of the flames is like being boiled at eight degrees V.
His final movement past the next column sees him coming to a crouch behind the horned Avelina, giving no pause nor thought to the particulars of her transformation. He is presently behind. He understands it is not as advantageous a position as he would like. It is his current one.
"You." Ethius speaks, as he mouths out the syllables for a spell under his breath, fluttering his fingers accordingly. He steps forward as the incantation finishes, stopping shy of the reach of her staff as he understands their spacing. A part of him anticipates the possibility she might point it his way. It would make the attempt marginally easier. "Tesla Tantrum!"
Deafening roars of electricity sound as he extends his left hand, electrical tongues dancing about the area near his palm. If at any point that staff gets pointed at him, it makes it easier for one of these bolts to conduct.
"You will not interfere further." He speaks the words with conviction. Words that are not spoken with much emotion in their inflection, but all the same bearing the same promise he was condemned for embodying in whole without any attempt to hide it: only hatred and death.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Priestess Avelina with Tesla Tantrum! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Lightning Strike for 27 hit points! GS: Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Tesla Tantrum for 21 hit points! GS: K.K. takes a glancing hit from Xantia's Shatterstrike for 55 hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Lily Keil's Black Wolf's Claw for 100 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to K.K.! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Seraph Beast's Buffeting Headwind for 55 hit points! GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to K.K.! GS: K.K. takes a glancing hit from Elhaym van Houten's Aqua Ice for 63 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia prepares herself for the flame; staff high, ready to defend. But it's not the fire that comes for her. It's Avelina herself. Cecilia spits out a wordless sound, throwing her staff up to catch the descending hammerblow. But Cecilia senses it - barely, a flicker of a thought, she senses that something's amiss, and instead of relying on her staff, she forces magic through it, a flickering barrier rippling into being in front of her and catching Avelina's strike.
It cracks, horrid power racing through it, sickening light thrashing and squirming against her power. The barrier holds, but Cecilia finds herself yielding a step back, before she thrusts back, releasing a wave of force to force her attacker back.
Cecilia throws a hand out to accept Jay's gift, calling, "Thank you!" before pulling the cork out with her hands (SHE'S NOT AN ANIMAL LIKE ELVIS APPARENTLY IS) and chugging back the concoction. She feels her own powers swell in response, which is good because she spends a second goggling at Elvis. Holy moly man. "W, who is that guy?" she asides in Jay's direction because she is hoping somebody will be able to explain why someone is yelling about the importance of rigorous control in ways Cecilia doesn't quite understand.
Then she focuses back on Avelina. "I don't know your master well," Cecilia admits. "But I know the name at least. And I know it no ally of mine!" She steps forward, reclaiming several steps before just stopping as she locates and binds a Leypoint to her, power drifting around her in sparks. "What have I gotten...?" she whispers. What has she gotten, really? So many burdens, so many troubles she never asked for, and yet...
"What I have gotten, witch, is the chance to save people I could not! The power to allow this world and mine to continue turning! And if you think the Guardians are losing then you DO NOT KNOW THEIR POWER! MATERIAL!"
She thrusts her staff up again, another stone medium rising out, flickering and dancing as it rises. It crackles, the heat around her intensifying. She meets Avelina's eyes. "What you do here serves nothing but your own sickness! This has to stop! I have no wish for your life, but to save an innocent, do not think I will not take it!"
The Medium rises up to its apex above her and then bursts apart, and the temperature rises even further into a searing inferno. Avelina finds her life like standing in the desert sun - sweltering and annihilating, as Moor Gault shrieks his arrival.
"Vapor Blast!" Cecilia's voice calls, as Moor Gault's wings beat and bathe Avelina in flame.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Priestess Avelina with Material - Vapor Blast! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Vapor Blast for 35 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
As she sweeps away from Cecilia, Avelina begins to plot a course across the throne room, maneuvering to try and cut off the six Drifters from the battle ranging around K.K. and the boy Emperor. But Dean Stark's got her lined up in his sights, and he's seen through her shit. Narrowing her eyes, she sets her jaw a little. "Do you think I don't realize that he's dead?" she snaps. "We all wept for him. All of us!"
But the young man's got those heated rods. They lash out - and she swings the shaft of her staff to deflect one of them away. The other catches the train of her robe, scorching through it and across her side - but she manages to pivot away before being burned.
Morgan and Elvis get flat looks from her - especially the latter. "What are you even talking about. I don't care about logic or data. This is about matters of faith! Do you understand that?"
Something's happening as she speaks. A subtle scale pattern has begun to creep up Avelina's neck. It's greenish and irregular and it's beginning to sneak down her visible thigh as well. But those who battled Mederic can tell that whatever's taking place is happening much more gradually than the wild, out-of-control mutations Mederic underwent.
When Jacqueline lashes out with more lightning, Avelina throws her staff up again, the ghostlight shining from the head of it. That defensive shield of hers flares and pulses to life, radiating out to soak up much of the lightning. When Ethius adds his lightning, it, too, screams across the shield. A few jags of it punch through, lashing across Avelina's body and scorching away part of her robe. She winces but presses her lips together. "...This was not our Lady's decision; she has no quarrel with the Emperor. But it is the Trial Knight's choice to test him, and she wished to see the Knight well. And...." She turns her eyes towards Jacqueline. "...she did not want to see you fall prey to the Knight's Trials, Jacqueline Barber...."
But there is something more pressing. Cecilia Adlehyde - and she is going to show the cultist of Valmar what the Guardians have given her.
The breath of Moor Gault comes forth on a wingbeat. Vapour and flame swell through the throne room, searing paint and tapestries off the walls and scorching carpet away from the floor. The sweltering vapour enwreaths Avelina, her body appearing to distort as the heat warps light itself -
And yet that shield of hers holds. The green scale patterns continue to creep up her neck and down her leg, bleeding to the back of her hands, as she growls with the effort of focusing her power upon withstanding the might of a Guardian. "Then let the Trial continue," she growls, "for the Knight tests all of you as well as the Emperor!
"Just as the Knight tested our Lady," she hisses as she raises her staff high.
A blinding light radiates out from that staff for a moment - a dazzling flash which pushes the sweltering heat out in a globe. The light rakes at Cecilia before Avelina swings the staff ti fire it in a beam towards Ethius and Elvis in turn.
She launches herself forward. The blade sprouts from her staff again as she darts towards Dean, swinging out with a rising slash of that weapon. "I say again... go back!" she shouts as she aims to rake the weapon across his midsection! She darts away, bounding to land near Jay --
...Avelina gives Jacqueline a second-long look.
Then she wheels away from her and comes to bear on Morgan. White light builds at the very tip of her staff - and it bursts forth in a vast, screeching beam of ghostly white flame.
The beam undulates - twists - wraps itself into one of the leering faces of Valmar itself, racing forth to consume Morgan in a vast wave of hellfire.
GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Ethius Hesiod with The Light of Valmar! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Elvis with The Light of Valmar! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with The Light of Valmar! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Our Lady's Kindness! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Dean Stark with Smite the Savior! GS: Priestess Avelina has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Priestess Avelina has completed its action. GS: Morgan Newkirk has activated a Force Action! GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Riven God's Blasphemy for 165 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Priestess Avelina's The Light of Valmar for 122 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Elvis guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's The Light of Valmar for 89 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Elvis! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde critically Guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's The Light of Valmar for 26 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Priestess Avelina's Our Lady's Kindness for 0 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Smite the Savior for 102 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
DC: Creative Free attacks can only have the flags Gatling, Reserve, Artillery, Pierce, Heal, Reload, Rush, Strike, Inspire, Formation, Follow, Slow, Break, Weaken, Quick, Shield, and Hyper.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
...To serve my people, wherever they should be, answers Alisha Diphda.
And where one might expect criticism, or judgment, or even simple reprimand from the Trial Knight, for that statement to somehow be belittled and cut down, what greets it for the longest time is simple silence. And then:
"... So be it. Well met, Alisha Diphda."
Before the blade of shadow swings.
To his credit, the boy Emperor does not cower in the wake of all of this violence. He has little place to run, now, that would not endanger him even more than staying behind Thessaly's barrier would -- staying behind Claude would. He can only offer a mute, numbed sort of nod to the mercenary from Filgaia's (??) words, wide green eyes shuttering in a blink as he presses back against the throne behind him. "Thank you," he mumbles, half-aware, and suppresses the urge to ask for a name. Later. If they are all still alive.
He is scared to death. But at least he stands firm. Life in this sort of station has taught him this much.
His gaze turns, for a moment, towards Garan Dantear, towards Thessaly. Until then, my lord Dantear will protect him, he hears, through the roar of battle. There is confusion there for a moment -- and then recognition. But in another flash of violence, he winces away, as the Negative Blade comes dangerously close to crashing through that erected barrier. Things to consider later.
For now? For now, he simply stays where he is, as the Trial Knight's tome hovers high into the air, flipping through pages, glowing like a remote focus for its owners mystical energies. The knight's hands snap to their sides, twin short swords filling their grasp in tandem as they approach the throne -- and Claude, Thessaly, and Garan standing defiantly before it.
"He will learn," utters K.K. as Thessaly speaks, "or he will fall."
They lunge -- and a wave of broiling fire springs to life in the wake of Sorey's lunge. It collides with their left blade in a violent, sharp sweep -- but what does not dissipate -engulfs- the Trial Knight, setting white armor aglow at shoulders and chest as it broils unrepentantly hot.
"If you must needs struggle -- then struggle well! Let us see how far those steps have taken you, boy!"
Armor alight, flames flicking at their skirts, their right arm snaps upward, blade held before them. Shadow crackles like electricity along their blade.
"O' obsidian flash, be as a raging spear
to run mine enemies through!"
"DEMON LANCE!"
And from the red and black sigils that forge across the ground beneath Sorey, a lance of darkness and reddened, Althenan magic burbles to life -- crashing down upon him like a meteor of sorcerous wrath.
If they mean to press an offensive, they are cut tragically short by the grip of Thessaly's shadowy web of magic. They are -hurled- -- and they move -with- the throw, launched through the air in a spiral of limbs and magic that has them just scarcely thrown past the raging geyser of Alisha's conjured flames, the roaring heat of it enough to boil at the armor of their legs, partially melting it for proximity alone.
And there they land, their feet cracking into the ground in a controlled tumble that is ended the second that they -stab- their short swords into the ground. Faceless helm cants upwards, hearing Fei's words. Words said in the Emperor's defense.
That the Trial Knight does not argue any of it, perhaps means they agree with the sentiment...
... or perhaps also, that those words were not meant for the boy Emperor. Not wholly.
But within moments, Fei is upon them, and they scarcely have the time to shift themself and -slam- bodily towards Fei, to stunt his momentum enough to at least sheer off -some- of that force. The wave of ice that comes after, however, is enough to blow them -backwards- powerfully, shards of it wedging into the joints of that armor as they are sent crashing back-first into a nearby pillar. The sound of the CRACK resounds across the room, spiderweb lines forming throughout the structure behind them as they lurch forward.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"Destruction without focus is naught but the flail of a child. Power..."
Light, effervescent and soft, glows at K.K.'s limbs.
AIR SLASH!
"... with no strength!"
And suddenly, the Trial Knight -whips- themself around bodily, meeting Claude before that gold-tinged chi can even completely fire. Without a word, their left sword swings upward -- and a scream of reddish light ERUPTS from the blade and flies across the ground, a Demon Fang fired off almost as instinctively natural as breathing to -cleave- that blade in two and dissipate much of the force before it can reach K.K., the remains colliding with white armor with an impact, that sends their booted heel taking a single step back.
It might not do much to the knight visibly -- but what it DOES do is unsettle them, just briefly enough, for Leo to capitalize on the moment. As Avelina undergoes her terrifying transformation into something wrong, something other, Leo brings that sword downward -- and it CRASHES into the Trial Knight's shoulder, -wedging- into armor powerfully enough to carve into it just so --
-- just in time for K.K. to discard one sword briefly so that they may -grip- Leo's.
"'Tis not the vileness of the words that so wounds you," they utter. Clawed fingers clench all the more tightly as they hold, leaning in.
"'Tis the truth of it. And if you would seek to still it..."
-yank-
Metal screams as K.K. tears that blade from their shoulder, to -throw- Leo aside, towards Claude, towards Garan -- towards the throne.
"... then you have lost well before you have drawn your last breath, White Knight."
The short swords both disappear, exploding into fragments of light as Edna turns words and violence upon the Trial Knight. What are they doing? What is the cause of all of this?
"'Tis a weakness fomenting long before my arrival." But... Left hand reaches, out to their side.
"I yet strive for the thing that makes my heart beat."
Cryptic to the last when they are not so completely blunt, it makes the a sharp contrast to the utter directness of their assault as the floor quakes beneath them. As that spire erupts, K.K. -swings- downward...
... and the reason why becomes patently clear as the massive head of a war hammer COLLIDES with that shard of earth, as if to hammer it back into the ground like a nail. Rock cracks, splinters -- and a much more blunted tip -slams- into their midsection, launching the Trial Knight upwards into the air until they land, feet first, against a polished pillar.
You owe me a plate of Mabo Curry for this, Trial Knight.
"Survive, and it shall be so."
Are they serious--?
The world may never know; seconds later the knight is -springing- off that pillar, hammer in hand. They soar for Edna, and despite the sheer size of that weapon, their movements are like a dance as they seek to collide knee-first with the Earth Seraph --
--and then -spin- with fluid grace, to PLOW that hammer straight into the side of her and send her -careening- towards the Armatized Alisha.
It is only then they pause, however brief, as they feel the weight of someone's gaze upon them. That unseen stare focuses itself upon Riesenlied as she helps to bring the wounded out of the throne room, the familiar sight of both Noeline and that fat cucco (??) familiar. Their horned helm tilts to the left. They have an opening. They could attack, keep anyone from leaving.
But they did not finish the job on those knights when they could have... and they make no move now, either, as if they could communicate something through that unseen stare alone in the moments before violence begins anew in earnest.
Honestly, utters a voice behind them. Hands clench tight around their weapon.
You talk too much.
"And you," begins the white-armored knight, swinging themself about with sudden, violent force,
"are too weighed down."
The sword cuts, and meets the haft of the knight's hammer. The blade grinds across that strange white and blue metal before it rushes across the knight's shoulder in a rain of sparks.
"'Tis a dilemma that slows your blade more than words ever could."
And with that, they seek to -knock- Garan back towards the throne -- seconds before Josephine's bullet shells itself violently into the Knight's shoulder. It sends them -snapping- towards the right violently as Gwen cuts the distance between them, but even as she does --
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"We breathe not of the same drink, girl. And I am not the one you choke."
The pages of that book flip. And even as it does, they -shift- with the force of that bullet just in time for Gwen's jab to slide just barely into the damaged shoulder of that armor. They stagger--
-- but it does not stop their voice from ringing out:
"Open the covenant of darkness..."
... nor does it stop them from swinging that massive hammer upward, conjuring a large seal of violet magic even as they HAMMER downward with their weapon.
"Ignite Terror!"
And as a massive blast of shadow magic BURNS in a horizontal column from that intricate seal, threatening to engulf both Thessaly and Josie in its wake --
that hammer SHATTERS the ground beneath it as the sheer force generates a massive dragon's head of golden light beneath Gwen, threatening to consume her utterly and completely.
And that is when a gun flies.
It is almost pure instinct that has K.K. snatching it out of the air in the seconds before it can strike them. They stare at it, almost curious, before they turn their gaze towards Elly as she shouts those words. Their head tilts.
"Does it matter, what I yearn for?" they wonder, almost honestly curious as much as it seeks to condemn. "Do you seek to understand, or do you seek justification? If it is naught more than the latter, than you need only know what is before you: your enemy, the enemy of all your get. And such arms of fire as this," their hand turns that weapon in their grasp. "... shall not deter me. If it is the former..."
That spark forms. That twinkle. K.K. recognizes it. A star in miniature. The dawning grasp at fusion.
"... you shall not find the answer by merely asking for it, destroyer."
The cube comes. So tiny, so insignificant -- but truly anything -but- that. Ether creates a blinding point of pure plasmic heat that collides with K.K. forcefully. Their hand snaps outward, the pages of that book flip wildly
-- and a sun in miniature collides with the shimmering field of a barrier, swirling with Althena's magic in a singular contest of wills.
Gun melts in the Trial Knight's grasp. The barrier cracks.
And as what remains of that micro-star of pure heat COLLIDES with the Trial Knight, Xantia slides in. Armor is heated towards a melting point; droplets of molten slag splatter across the ground like superheated blood. And as Xantia -hammers- her palm into their torso, the discharge of sparks provide enough elemental force to blow off a bit of superheated plating in a spray of molten fury. K.K. is launched off of their feet...
... straight into the path of Lily Keil.
A greatsword of pure darkness strikes them not with physical strength, but pure, unrelenting will. It carves through heated armor in an ugly gash that sends the Trial Knight careening backwards -- a path aided by the powerful gusts of the Beast of Lohengrin's winds, LAUNCHING them through a statue of the first emperor of Rolance, Pen Dragonia. It shatters, rubble collapsing all around them...
"You speak of their rights, while cowering within a shell. You lack the bite of certainty."
... and as they rise, the air begins to glow an ominous shade of gold.
There is no incantation this time. No words. The Trial Knight emerges, a spear in hand. Their tome flips furiously, text glowing a bright shade of scarlet. Their free hand extends.
"Such lack of conviction behind your words will cost you dearly in the end, child."
And from the air drops little shards of red, like snowflakes. They join the splatter of rain that comes from the shattered window rendered by Alisha, red shards growing brighter, growing larger --
--until tremendous, blood red blades of pure ethereal might begin dropping from the skies, intent to skewer the Beast, Lily and Elly within a bladed storm as if to turn them into magical pincushions.
And even as that magic shapes itself -- the Trial Knight is already moving, -dashing- across the ground. For Xantia. For Fei. For Claude. For Garan.
Intent to impale Xantia clean through on the edge of that blade and -drive- her towards that throne...
... at which point an ethereal column of pure, mystical energy will ERUPT in streaming, twining strands of power, aiming to sweep all of them up, pummeling them higher and higher as that energy coalesces into a tight, churning ball...
... and then -explodes- as K.K. drives through it, intent to take Xantia in tow with them...
... until they -impale- her upon the magical barrier overlooking the city of Pendrago.
"Mayhaps I am preying upon the weak. I am a monster. A vile thing that repulses. I am your enemy. I am your predator.
"And if you cannot stop me, the weight of my judgement is all that will matter today."
GS: K.K. has activated a Force Action! GS: K.K. has attacked Sorey with Demon Lance! GS: K.K. has attacked Alisha Diphda with Swallow Dance! GS: K.K. has attacked Seraph Edna with Swallow Dance! GS: K.K. has completed their action. GS: K.K. has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: K.K. has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Ancient Requiem! GS: K.K. has entered a Reflect stance! GS: K.K. has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: K.K. has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Ancient Requiem! GS: K.K. has entered a Reflect stance! GS: K.K. has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: K.K. has attacked Garan Dantear with Ancient Requiem! GS: K.K. has entered a Reflect stance! GS: K.K. has spent 1 Combo on Disease! GS: K.K. has attacked Thessaly with Ignite Terror! GS: K.K. has spent 1 Combo on Disease! GS: K.K. has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Ignite Terror! GS: K.K. has spent 3 Combo on Headshot! GS: K.K. has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Dragon Ascendant! GS: K.K. has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: K.K. has attacked Xantia with Ancient Requiem! GS: K.K. has entered a Reflect stance! GS: K.K. has spent 1 Combo on Disease! GS: K.K. has attacked Emperor Cyprian with Ignite Terror! GS: K.K. has activated a Force Action! GS: K.K. has spent 3 Combo on Headshot! GS: K.K. has attacked Seraph Beast with Disaster Flash! GS: K.K. has attacked Lily Keil with Disaster Flash! GS: K.K. has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Disaster Flash! GS: Sorey takes a solid hit from K.K.'s Demon Lance for 91 hit points! GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to K.K.! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from K.K.'s Dragon Ascendant for 122 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Alisha Diphda guards a hit from K.K.'s Swallow Dance for 123 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Xantia guards a hit from K.K.'s Ancient Requiem for 231 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from K.K.'s Ancient Requiem for 247 hit points! GS: Garan Dantear guards a hit from K.K.'s Ancient Requiem for 157 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny used the Force Action Protect! He takes K.K.'s attack on Emperor Cyprian on himself! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from K.K.'s Ignite Terror for 100 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Claude C. Kenny! GS: Claude C. Kenny has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Elhaym van Houten critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Disaster Flash for 46 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from K.K.'s Ancient Requiem for 151 hit points! GS: Thessaly takes a glancing hit from K.K.'s Ignite Terror for 79 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Thessaly! GS: Thessaly has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Disaster Flash for 43 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
"I'm not sure they pay out for damages, Edna," Sorey comments with a ghost of a smile crossing his face. That would be like Edna though, to demand the monster that they were fighting pay up for getting her covered in dirt. But as amusing as that is... dealing with the Trial Knight is not terribly amusing, and K.K. is going to keep tearing the place up AND trying to kill the Emperor unless they stop him.
The Trial Knight tended to be grandiose - and Sorey knew that they were trying to intimidate people, to shake their hearts and trying to get them to weaken and give in to malevolence. There wasn't too much else that Sorey could think of as to *why* the knight was doing all this - and given that they had created such chaos and malevolence in Krosse, they seemed almost as bad as the Lord of Calamity in trying to spread misery and destruction around Lunar and Filgaia.
The blast of dark energy sizzles through the air as K.K. unleashes a bolt of malevolent sorcery towards the Shepherd. Sorey tries to block the attack, but unfortunately it is moving too fast, and slams into his shoulder, sending the boy tumbling back through the air. It seems like the blow might be strong enough to toss him clear to the wall... but Sorey landed heavily on the ground, his feet skidding along the floor for a moment before he managed to bring himself to a stop. No matter what else he might say about the Trial Knight, they were STRONG. Just trying to block the blows that they were slinging around was difficult enough, and Sorey knew that his strength had grown quite a bit as a result of his contract with Lailah and becoming the Shepherd. It was possible that K.K. was also growing stronger - not a pleasant thought, but Sorey was willing to stake his life on being able to overcome this... knight. Monster. Evil, certainly.
But the best way to deal with a subtle, crafty creature like the Trial Knight had proven to be was to be straightforward and direct, sometimes. He might be leaving himself open, but Sorey was prepared to try and get a heavy hit in if he could. Running two fingers along the lacquered blade of his sword, the Shepherd concentrates for a moment... and pulls a sheet of the Flame of Purification off of the blade and into his free hand. It takes a moment for him to gather his energy in his sword once more, and then he calls out: "Alisha! Leo! All at once!"
It's about the best he can do with such a straight forward attack. Because Sorey tucks his arm in at the shoulder, his sword level with his eyes - and lunges straight at the Trial Knight in a direct line. He aims the blow directly at the throat of K.K.'s armor, a strike that would be... difficult for a flesh and blood human to shrug off, even from a blunt weapon. Driving the Flame of Purification into a Hellion's vital point would make it more effective as well.
But it's not the only trick Sorey has up his sleeve...
GS: Sorey enters a Counter stance! GS: Sorey has attacked K.K. with Sonic Thrust! GS: Sorey has completed his action. GS: Josephine Lovelace guards a hit from K.K.'s Ignite Terror for 96 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Josephine Lovelace! GS: Josephine Lovelace has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Sorey's Sonic Thrust for 52 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Beast takes a solid hit from K.K.'s Disaster Flash for 217 hit points! GS: Seraph Edna critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Swallow Dance for 25 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.
Elvis has had it. "THere is always knowledge behidn that faith! Always! To conduct such matters like this are akin to the snake devouring its own body! You will cause collapse! Faith is one thing, but faith without reasoning is NOT something to be lifted up!"
The priestess unleashes ethereal light that sears on contact, and feels withering-- Elvis bears it as long as it lasts, and tries to shake it off, re-flaring up that blue-lavendar energy, and charging into the fray. He raises a fist, in which the aura energy swirls around it like a maelstrom, a tempest. The man throws the punch, which chauses him to close the distance incredibly fast, and send the lighted energies spiraling outward.
"I will see your tainted trials shut down!" he says. The man looks to the rest of the fighters against this foe. They don't seem to be faring well either. "Unlike you with your trials...!"
"I STILL HAVE TO MAKE A PAYCHECK!"
Or steal it. That has yet to be determined.
As Elvis comes in with the first hit, the motion of the attack causes Elvis to spin once, and that second hand is cocked and ready to unload on a moment's notice, the energized aura filling that whole arm instead of just the fist from the first attack!
A look is cast to the other fight in the room. Man, that one seems like a mess. Good thing he is over here. Probably. Elvis can't quite help but feel bad for the guy that just ate it bad protecting the Human royalty as well.
GS: Elvis enters a Counter stance! GS: Elvis has attacked Priestess Avelina with Corkscrew Cross! GS: Elvis has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Elvis's Corkscrew Cross for 15 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Edna! It is good to see you!" Alisha calls back to the Seraph.
Her attention, however, returns to K.K. At the Trial Knight's words, she nods -- it is not a nod of agreement or understanding, perhaps, but there is respect to it. That respect does nothing to stop her. Her flame shoots into the air, and kisses the ceiling, but does not strike true.
And the Trial Knight's blade slams into her side, staining the white garment she wears red.
She draws in a sharp gasp, as the others fly in -- K.K. meeting Claude, and then Leo's sword grabbed by the Trial Knight. Alisha cries out, before she throws her hand out in front of her. A magical circle appears -- it explodes off her fingers and vanishes.
Flame erupts, rising up in a short, tight circle around K.K. Then, it rushes in, and tries to incinerate the Trial Knight, before it vanishes.
"Is might all you care for!?" she shouts back at the Trial Knight, heatedly.
GS: Alisha Diphda has attacked K.K. with Molten Wall! GS: Alisha Diphda has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! K.K. takes a solid hit from Alisha Diphda's Molten Wall for 140 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to K.K.! GS: K.K. has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: K.K. has attacked White Knight Leo with Ancient Requiem! GS: K.K. has entered a Reflect stance! GS: K.K. has completed their action. GS: CRITICAL! White Knight Leo critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Ancient Requiem for 77 hit points!
DC: One or more attacks with that name already exist. If you are replacing an attack, please delete the original first.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny - and to a similar extent, Cless al'Vane - is becoming increasingly used to being outclassed. The slow deconstruction of his slightly spacist assumptions regarding the capabilities of the people of the Kepler-186 system began nearly a year ago when he met Dias in battle, then Zed, then the Quarter Knights, again and again and again. Each time he put himself to the test, he failed. Over time, he grew to accept that he could not, despite all his preparations, dunk on literally everyone he met.
The Trial Knight's assault is like a post-doctoral program in pain; Claude barely manages to deflect the first strike away from his throat (which would be bad) and into his chest (which is excrutiatingly painful, but not lethal thanks to the one piece of Federation technology that has held up nicely, i.e., armourweave uniform fabric). He staggers backward, sees the next strike coming in toward the Emperor, and barely has enough in him to interpose himself once more. The upward slash hits Claude in the abdomen---
(ow)
---knocking him flying backward---
(ow ow)
---bouncing off the Imperial throne---
(ow ow ow ow)
---and then slamming into the rear wall, down which he slides limply, leaving a slight crimson stain behind at the point of impact. His fight against the grey haze of unconsciousness is valorous, but brief, and he sinks down to the floor.
<Pose Tracker> Thessaly has posed.
I hope I'm not interrupting.
A taller shadow dwarfs her slender frame. Josephine Lovelace might be one of the tallest women she has ever seen. Her veiled head tips back to meet the magus' daughter's eyes; within her own irises, deep pools of violet, she'd be able to see silver flecks - a sea of stars fashioned into near-microscopic galaxies around the points of void-darkness her pupils provide. If there is a smile, it is not visible.
"A Black Wolf. I hope that the rest of your pack has managed to make it," Thessaly tells the archaeologist quietly. "The Trial Knight is not a foe that is so easily overwhelmed by brute force or words of resolve and chastisement. They are almost as ancient as the stars themselves, their own determination forged by the centuries....and they will remain after the rest of us are long gone. Death will not be the way to win against them."
Violet eyes take stock of the battlefield; she is no soldier, but the wave is inundated with familiar faces - Alisha and Ethius, for certain, but Lily Keil also, wreathed with darkness as she descends upon the Trial Knight. And always, always, the red-haired knight in white plate armor chased with silver.
The small blow that has managed to pierce the barrier engulfing herself and the Emperor barely seems to register - or is it by design? Every drop of her own life's essence that falls only seems to make the circle underneath her feet glow all the brighter.
He will learn, or he will fall.
Thessaly dips her head in acknowledgmet at that, taking a sideways step towards the monarch she is protecting. A pale hand rests on the ashen-faced youth's shoulder.
"Trust us, Your Majesty," she murmurs.
And with that, she turns to face the next onslaught the Trial Knight fires their way.
A javelin forged of dark magic, the devastating wave of sorcery fires at the place where her collective stands. The barrier has managed to hold; the bodies hurled against her shield will bounce off it, though with a quick flick of her wrist, she attempts to magically slow Garan in an effort to help him land on his feet despite the heavy plate - protecting him this way is as easy to her as breathing - a fortunate state of affairs for her when she needs most of her concentration to ward off the Trial Knight's latest attack. The blast slams into her intricate barrier, and violet eyes widen when she feels the effects. Over her exposed arm, black veins start to slowly, gradually, pulsate up from underneath pale, luminous skin, magical corruption assailing her blood. To weaken her is to weaken the barrier protecting herself, the Emperor, and shielding Josie, too, but with a shake of her head, the cage continues to hold. More blood drips on the circle underneath her feet and it drinks from her life, getting stronger and more powerful in the doing.
More shadows rise up. More attack the Trial Knight, but for now, only to impede. She can be more bloodthirsty than this, but that isn't her way. Dark tendrils attempt to lash over their ankles, their wrists, wrap around their helm....but that is all she can do, for now, as she attempts to fight the influence attempting to weaken her.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius' ears ring as the Tesla Tantrum's electric crescendo comes to a close. The priestess' shield largely holds between the uncoordinated but yet synchronized volleys of electrical power between himself and the kind merchant. Somewhere in all that, Avelina further clarifies the relationship of whose impetus and/or involvement spurs today's activities of atrocities. The oncoming wave of vapour and flame forces him to gain distance, unable to capitalize on the momentary opening he'd otherwise have when she expresses a desire to have Jay spared, or otherwise work with the opening presented when Moor Gault's power is brought down to bear on her.
The red-hot steam obscures his line of sight of the priestess for a time, forcing him to take stock of who is acting against them. That plucky boy Dean. The princess Cecilia. That wise-cracking fox that a part of him feels like he should be keeping better watch. Miss Jay. Then there's that loud brute he doesn't know, but something about the whole of the picture suggests to that deeply ingrained part of him that he might not want to let him go free.
(As if he could dictate that!!!)
A blinding light radiates from the Valmar devout's staff, momentarily identifying where she is but obscuring her anew as it bears down upon the Guardian Shaman. He has problems tracking its movement, misreading the silhouette within the smoke. He thinks the staff is about to be swung towards Dean's direction, just a bit past the big lout nearby. He rushes in with this preceived opening.
Avelina swings the staff. Ethius correctly surmises that Elvis is in the path. It crosses back over his way just as he commits to a forward dive to come in close, and by then his momentum seals his fate as the beam scalds his midsection. He collapses onto the floor with sudden weakness from one of his legs as the agonizing darkness of Valmar's power overwhelms the nerves, rolling a short ways. The only mercy - and it is not - is that he's lying sprawled on the ground as a far greater, more horrifying beam flies above him en route for Morgan. Ethius swings his right forearm over his eyes, squeezing them shut while hellish heat washes just past him.
He's not sure how much time passes between the moments between soul-rending fear and the sense that one's body is being disintegrated without it actually being so. Elvis' booming demands and complaints might be helping anchor his senses. Once again, he's crawling. Incredible power rages just beyond the priestess, to some history-defining conflict of which he has kept his distance. He wrenches his gaze away from it. That is not his present concern. What keeps this man going - if it isn't just hatred and death - forcibly reaches out to pull him up as he climbs up to his feet in the wake of the terrifying hellblast that wasn't initially met for him.
"You desire for the interference to cease." These words come clearer than they should. His throat is dry. Scratchy. He's still bleeding from that head wound. He rises back up. He sucks in air while the scorched cloth of his tunic continues to smolder where the beam struck.
"Then cease your interference."
...Um. Is he confused about who's interfering with who? They're the ones interfering, aren't they? Elvis, Dean, Jay, Morgan, Cecilia. By the tone of his voice, the way he coolly makes this declaration, it suggests he is completely convinced by this. This awful man, one Ethius Hesiod, is the one accusing her of interfering.
Taking his quarterstaff in both hands, he eyes the tip of her magic staff, thrusting with one end toward it in an attempt to disrupt it as its focus of power in one singular, ultra-precise lunge from the very limits of his reach at his current position.
"Far Point!"
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Priestess Avelina with Far Point! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Far Point for 67 hit points! GS: Thessaly has attacked K.K. with Rallentando! GS: Thessaly has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Edna has posed.
Edna narrows her eyes at KK's vague explanation. A weakness that's existed long before their arrival... Well, to be completely, one hundred percent fair... humans do have a pretty crappy habit of creating and driving up the levels of Malevolence in a given area all on their own. There's just one thing she doesn't get.
Something that can make their heart beat...
Edna's got nothing for that. Briefly, she side eyes Sorey and replies. "Are you sure about that?" She asks most rhetorically as she grips her umbrella, the implement closed, and stands her ground as the knight comes sailing for her. That knee is met with a raised umbrella, the magically hardened weapon unbending against such force, her whole form skidding back a bit from it.
But in that brief moment, she smirks. "I don't have any plans on disappearing today, so you'd better prepare your wallet, Trial Knight."
Then the knight swings in from the side, and that hammer collides with Edna. Except she held her umbrella to the side and absorbed the impact. Oh, it still hurt, and she's still flying, but it's in a controlled manner that allows her to flip in mid-air and then exert her powers over the ground while she sails over Alisha.
Arms spread, she thrusts them forward, causing a wave of marble spikes to burst up from the ground towards the knight in perilous fashion. "Princess, I'll forgive you for flubbing the Tournament of Arms if you can arrest that knight. They owe me a plate of curry now."
GS: Seraph Edna has attacked K.K. with Rock Lance! GS: Seraph Edna has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"...I...have no idea!" Jacqueline admits to Cecilia, shaking her head. "I'm just kind of glad I'm not on the other end of those fists..."
He looked kind of...dangerous! Which begs the question...
"...Um, sir, thank you for your assistance. May I ask your name?" She asks with a glance toward Elvis. ...And then, of course, there was someone else who deserved the question.
"And you, sister. May I ask yours?" She asks, glancing toward the Priestess.
Conducting introductions in the middle of an active battlefield would probably be strange to most people, but this is just the way Jacqueline is. Please be patient with her.
As she looks toward Avelina to ask this, however, she notices that pattern of scales creeping up her neck. Jacqueline takes note of this with a slight frown. Indeed, it isn't the out of control transformation they saw from Mederic...but what did this mean...?
She doesn't get much time to dwell on this, as the Priestess has a response for her.
"...Did she really say that? ...I suppose she would've known it would be just like me to run off and interfere..." She comments, with a hint of a sad smile.
It sounded as if Neriah had been tested by the Trial Knight, as well.
And then, the Priestess makes her move. Jacqueline braces herself as she launches forward, and lands near her...
And then stares in confusion as the woman simply looks at her for a second before darting off to continue her assault on the others.
It was a single, small mercy. Jacqueline stows this away for later as she draws out a small bottle, which is hurled toward the Priestess's feet.
It does not explode - instead, it shatters and begins to emit a lavender smoke. It was not a painful sensation - it was designed to make one feel a bit drowsy and, hopefully, take a little bit of fight out of them. That's as much as she can expect from the Priestess - she seems to be a strong-willed one.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Priestess Avelina with Sapping Solution! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Priestess Avelina takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Sapping Solution for 25 hit points! GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Priestess Avelina! GS: Priestess Avelina enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from Thessaly's Rallentando for 132 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
So charging the horned woman who is apprently transforming into a lizard of some kind that can wield the ability of holy(or unholy as your point of view goes) fire is not the smartest idea Morgan has ever hand.
It isn't the dumbest either.
That really says something about his life choices doesn't it?
His ARM bursts into light to counter it, blue shields of pure energy manifesting in a wedge before him to make sure he isn't burned into cinders. Flames eat into the planes of energy as they fray and crack, shredding under the impact even as the fox pushes forward.
One shatters and the blaze powers into him, for a second it seems like he should have taken the advice that he just gave to Gwen.
But then he bursts out of the beam, leaping up and forwards as a gleaming double bitted axe appears in his hands. Blue and silver, with the paired blades on the weapon looking almost more like horns of a great beast than more traditional blades. He raises the wicked blade high as he arcs down from the leap, aiming to bring the weapon down on one of Avelina's horns and a azure edged slash of light.
"If ya don't wanna have a polite chat about it, there are nicer ways to say no. I mean, it ain't my worst rejection."
And then he's leaping away again, giving other people a clear line of fire to open up on the firey Priestess.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Priestess Avelina with Rain Down! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Morgan Newkirk's Rain Down for 90 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is given well wishes by Riesenlied. He doesn't hear them but he does 'hear' them? It's strange, but Fei hasn't gotten this far by asking questions he doesn't want the answer to. He does ask questions, however, that nobody wants the answer to.
"He didn't come with you?" Fei calls over to Dean. "It LOOKED like he came with you!"
But there's something even more pressing. Namely what the priestess says and all of a sudden K.K has a very valuable point. Does it matter what K.K yearns for?
But he has another point, a point that Fei has kind of always known but has yet to be spelled out to him, something that he knows he doesn't have: Strength. He has power. He has plenty of power. The inner selves know even more, knowing how little power matters compared to true strength and how few people ever find true strength no matter how much power they accumulate. No matter how much focus.
Because those with power are those who are tested the least in their lives and those who are tested so often crumble due to the unfairness of it. The test of life is cruel and vicious and some are given cheat sheets and others aren't even given a pencil. It's standardized only in its cruelty.
He is caught by K.K's explosion of power and sent crashing into one of the statues that ISN'T broken. Er, well wasn't broken. It's broken now because Fei went through it. He is barely able to even break his fall once he hits the floor and he lies there, panting for breath.
But eventually he thinks of who is with him, and maybe it's those well wishes of Riesenlied, that get him up again.
"This cosmos...is a vast ocean of stars and we are a tiny insignificant speck before that majesty. To think that we could ever be more than children...is the most foolish thing I've heard in my life." He stumbles briefly before gritting his teeth and pulling straight up to a full standing position. "We are children." Fei says. "Who are you to think that you're different?" He raises his head. "Is the murder of someone on the cusp of puberty focus?"
Neriah, who confided in him her fear, her curse. It meant a lot to him, then, but who she is now is so far from the Neriah he knew he can scarcely call them the same person.
"Is the destruction of Cyre's village focus?" Fei walks, gripping his arm. "Is the poison you spread in my home village...is that focus? Is that what someone who is focused does? Hadn't they suffered enough? But you had to have them tortured, and now every plague I see I have to wonder if that was my fault because I lost control in that one instant."
A red aura ripples around Fei as the ice ether shifts focus into flame. It doesn't burn him but it's ever bright.
"Was it focus when the malevolence spread onto Lily? How about when it hit Virginia Maxwell, who you used to spread it even further? Was it focus..."
He screams as he throws the flame of his chi towards Kakei in a crackling explosion of heat and fire. Fei is only getting angrier, but he does at least still seem in control. It may become apparent why Fei has difficulty with focus, with strength. It is not merely an absence of those qualities, but a surfeit of the power that overcomes what control he has.
BGM INTERRUPT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o53jW8qON5Q
"WAS IT FOCUS WHEN YOU GUIDED NERIAH INTO BEING WHAT SHE MOST DESPAIRED OF BECOMING!?"
The flames don't stop. No stopping.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has spent 3 Combo on Headshot! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked K.K. with Kakei! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"And if another one of your friends dies?!" Dean shoots back at Avelina. "Are all of you gonna weep for them, too?! Is this 'trial' REALLY more important than the lives of people you care about?!" Elvis chimes in about shutting down these trials--but then reveals it's about getting paid. Dean trips a step, nearly plowing into the floor face-first. Really, Professor? Really??
As for Ethius, well, technically Avelina is interfering by stopping them from stopping KK, so? That works? Maybe?? Dean doesn't read into it much, since the next moment, Avelina lashes her staff out with dazzling radiance, then slashing with that hidden blade around towards Dean. His stumble from earlier costs him, and when he attempts to turn to defend himself, that blade *slices* across his belly, spilling his blood over the floor. It's luckily too shallow to also spill his guts, but it's a *nasty* cut, and Dean staggers back as he cries out in pain. Still, he keeps his ARMs up for bear to defend against the next strike.
"So you're admitting the trials are terrible!" he accuses Avelina when she admits her lady didn't want to see Jay tested. "How can you stand up and fight for something you *know* is bad?!" But Avelina declares the Trial will continue for them all. Dean growls, "Bring it on, then!! We won't lose!!"
Fei yells some more over at Dean. "Well--YEAH, but we weren't together from the start!" Dean yells back over at him as he pulls out the copy Sword Medium again, moving over to a leyline glowing blue. "He said something about wanting to see what was going on, and then we got drafted, and now he's here for the reward, but I don't know why he was here in the city in the first place!" He holds up the copied Medium. Avelina's been using a lot of heat and flame so far, so this time, he channels the water leyline to summon a boulder of ice to fall down on the priestess with crushing, literally shattering force.
GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Priestess Avelina with Elemental Crush! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Dean Stark's Elemental Crush for 128 hit points! GS: Hyper and Mighty! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Tis not the vileness of the words that so wounds you.'
"Althena Herself has empowered me," Leo retorts, staring into that mirror-polished helm. He sees his own face reflected in it, as effective an attempt at intimidation as everything else the Trial Knight has done so far. "MY FAITH IS ABSOLUTE!" He screams the rest over K.K.'s words, as though he could drown them out and weaken their power. His fingers tighten around the hilt of his blade, and his feet skid backwards, scrabbling for purchase--but K.K. is terrifyingly strong, and there isn't much he can do to keep them from ripping his sword free. Leo is knocked off-balance. His feet leave the ground, and he goes tumbling across the blood-smeared floor. His head bounces off the side of the Emperor's gilded throne, and he sees stars.
"Garan," Leo chokes out, as the world spins around him. "The Emperor--!" He grips the throne's armrest, sees Claude go flying, strike the wall, struggle to get up. Leo takes several stumbling steps, braces a foot against poor Claude's unconscious body, and shoves, removing him from immediate danger. Leo shakes his head, steps forward next to Garan as his vision starts to clear. "This line will not fall!" he declares. As K.K. once again turns into a horrific tempest of violence, Leo studies them, waiting. The instant he sees an opening, he rushes forwards, driving his blade town at the Trial Knight's forearm. The attack is sudden, swift, and forceful--the three hallmarks of Lion's Roar.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked K.K. with School of Georg Heldalf! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
That, apparently, was not the response that Josie was expecting, evinced by the rise of her pale eyebrows. Then, lopsidedly, she grins. "Looks like we're getting a little notorious. Good. I could use the extra pay." Her eyes hood for a moment and she regards the smaller woman, as if to attempt a read of her. To make, as it were, a bit of a shot-in-the-dark guess.
"...They're a right bastard, ain't they," she huffs, after the woman's explanation that this is no ordinary foe, that even death may have no purchase here. "But then, I suppose I'm a bit of one myself. And as for them..." Her lips quirk into a smile that isn't echoed in her eyes. "There's always a first time. Let's see what we can make of this, shall we?"
Something hideous indeed is taking place amidst the chaos of battle. Josie, her attention split between the group she came in with, the woman she's standing alongside, and the knight they now all face down, notes in passing the transformation of the priestess and treads hard on the urge to look.
Can't. Won't. No time for it.
Particularly not she cracks off yet another bullet and receives a response to her earlier threat.
It takes just one word for a flinch to discolor Josephine's face.
'Girl'.
His voice still echoes in her head.
She grimaces, baring her teeth. "I'll have my hands around your throat yet," she promises, briefly blank-eyed furious gaze set upon the form of the figure locked in gleaming white armor.
She'll tear the knight limb from limb.
But, such a promise may yet have to wait. She can feel the reverbrations of the spell taking hold, far before the incantation is finished. And even someone as singularly focused as one Josie Lovelace, there comes a point where you have to acknowledge:
Defense first, because you can't kill someone if you're already dead.
"Could get bumpy," she acknowledges to her current partner, while the hammer rises and while the seal begins to etch itself in the air, that dark-haired maid she's taken up position alongside.
It's no great sorcery that she works. Just the same as before, a Symbological apprentice's defensive working. Her lips move, uttering the words. Stiffly, she lifts her right hand.
But simple also means fast.
It just also means that it somewhat blunts the terrible impact of the spell rather than deflecting it, a gasp slipping from the archaeologist's lips this time as she staggers under the brunt of the reaching burning piercing shades.
Her right hand lifts as the spell's immediate force fades, clumsily at that, to rest over her heart. That one took more out of her than the last. And... it feels like something has weaseled its way in.
The mage she stands alongside is barely doing much better, from the looks of it. That's blood, isn't it. Powering something...? Briefly, she glances over at Thessaly, querying after the woman's condition.
But, it isn't as if she could do anything, anyway -- barely more than what she's already done.
And this is magic, magic she doesn't know the ins and outs of, at that.
So Josie shakes her head. She squares her shoulders.
Well, nothing else for it.
"Hope your friend over there's good at being a wall," she murmurs to the mage, jerking her head in the direction of Garan. She pauses for a moment, sighting the Trial Knight, watching their movement from her current position, as if calculating.
"Also," she says, lifting her ARM once again, "Incoming."
The spell she works takes only instants to finalize, the rush of electricity pooling down her arm to cling to the chambered bullet.
It takes less yet to pull the trigger, aiming the magically-charged bullet for the space where she's inclined to believe the Trial Knight may yet occupy.
The charge won't last -- the bullet wasn't made for it, she didn't etch any Symbols into it. But, with luck, it will last just long enough.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked K.K. with Shoot the Breeze! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia nods rapidly with alarm at Jay's comments about Elvis, but there isn't much more to say about the might of Elvis because holy nuts Avelina.
Cecilia sucks in a breath as Moor Gault flickers and fades, the Guardian of Fire's wrath descending in full upon one woman. She catches the falling Medium, and looks up only as she's tucking it away...to find the woman, the priestess of Valmar, has survived with little more than some ruffling and also some manifestation of unholy glory. Cecilia draws in a breath of superheated air and finds it cool, the Guardian's heat fading like a memory. It is not their way to destroy so wantonly.
"All of this is a trial," Cecilia whispers, quietly. Adlehyde, the Temple, everything...not arranged by the Guardians, but a challenge she must overcome. Somehow, someone putting on airs about it sears her.
So does that light. Cecilia thrwos up her staff, another barrier deflecting the worst of that awful light; it darkens in response to the power to prevent her eyes from burning. She then kicks the back of the staff, sending it into a spin around her hand, whirling and twirling about as the magic builds around her again. "Fine. We've said our piece, sorceress. You'll...!"
She reaches down. She touches a Medium, and her body jolts, something passing through her. This one...isn't, entirely, hers.
Her fingers curl against it, before she slowly raises it up, gripped tight, looking at the icon of snowflakes splashed across it. She sucks in another breath. She wonders where he is. Then she thrusts the emblem forward.
"Jack," she whispers. "You'd want to stop this...wouldn't you?"
The Medium of Ice flickers, frosts, and erupts in light, the Shaman's quiet plea creating a localized snowtorm, hard counter to the fire she just employed.
Aru Solato roars, screaming like a storm as ice gathers above Aveline and rushes down, bullets of ice the size of railroad ties rocketing down into the witch of Valmar.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Priestess Avelina with Material - Icicle Edge! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: Priestess Avelina takes a solid hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Icicle Edge for 142 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The Knight--Tested their Lady?
The words hit Lily's ears from across the battlefield. They, and that it is faith, not logic, or reason. But what Lady could it be?
Lily does not leave the battle haze to find out. The sorceress hacks through armor as best she's able, exulting in the feeling of such a powerful foe slamming back before her, the viscereal thrill of raw strength. It shines in her eye, for a moment, almost like bloodlust. "The enemy of our get," she repeats their words to them. ...But she cannot continue speaking at that time. The tome flips, and the scarlet light rises. Lily's eye widens as she sees ethereal red raining down, and at first she prepares to push through it, to continue her advancement of force--
But The Trial Knight is moving, and Lily finds that snowflakes of blood become rending blades, and multiple grow, piercing through her. Her right forearm, broken, is impaled by one; blood opens at her sleeves, or is it merely the light of the bloody magic that shows? The storm rages over her, and the sorceress disappears within it.
Near the Seraph Beast, Lily Keil shows when smoke clears, on one knee on the ground, sucking in air as she attempts to hold her body working with the sheer force of the attack that came. She cannot see Xantia harmed here. ...But she does, looking down, raise her voice. It is unsteady, at first.
"...A monster, is it?" Lily calls out to the Trial Knight. "No. ...It is as you say. All that matters..."
She lifts her head, and her eye glows brilliant gold as she stares out at them. "Is that you are the enemy today."
Magic flares around her, almost visible like air shimmering in heat--before the mystic energy around her starts to draw sharply towards her, fading light drawn in like from a vortex. Her eye changes, abrubtly, filling black like a pool before the iris reappears, iris and pupil both a combination of brilliant reds and golds and blues and violets, lined edges, circuitry growing from her eyes to cover skin, to trace down her cheeks, to shoot light along the paths of her body. The rents in her sleeves make it visible. ...But it would be regardless, shortly, as she begins to rise, that same energy crashing outward to form spectral wings of strange electric design. Lily Keil begins to hover in the air. A line in each strange color cascades down her long black hair, and when she reaches two feet off of the ground she stares forward, unblinking.
In an ancient tongue she intones, "<All limiters released. Ether output: ninety percent.>"
She remembers the Malevolence that spread to her. Fei's words about it reach her. But she does not answer of it at first. ...Not until her right arm lifts, the chains about her hand vibrating with power, even as her fingers do not move. "..."
She does not answer. Instead: Her markings pulse with light for an instant all in one color, holding it as flames erupt around her, from her, and she lifts both hands. With each she sculpts it--
And hurls it forward in a great column, the flames devouring whatever they can in the path between Lily and K.K. and making the space immediately around her unbearably hot for an instant.
"Come on."
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Awakened - Omega Stage! GS: Lily Keil has attacked K.K. with The Harm of the Forest - Fire! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
An iron mask cannot reflect pain or shock. There are no lungs to take a breath, no eyes to widen, no heart to pound. The only reflection to the Trial Knight's words are the way those headpieces pull back, sharply. The Beast of Lohgrin speaks - her voice wavers. "D-do you not also dwell within your plating?"
Those blades, red as blood, need not connect with a vessel which leaps from their path, though certainly some lance through between hindplates.
Their words are wound enough.
She comes to a landing which sees plates sliding over each other before they straighten themselves. It is a lack of fine control which is the only suggestion of injury; iron cannot bleed. "I am certain enough in this! Humanity, in all its flaws and foibles, is worth defending!" There is a shaken quality to the words, despite her anger. "You shall not harm this child, Trial Knight!"
Lacks the bite of certainty, they say.
She charges forward - she bites. She will show them her certainty, here and now.
<Pose Tracker> Garan Dantear has posed.
The clash of weapon on weapon sends a cold bite of numbness along Garan's swordarm, the sheer power of the Trial Knight not something a mere mortal was meant to strive against. Light dances in the Imperial Knight's dark blue eyes, as he still resists, still defies, tries to remain standing exactly where he is, until the force plied by the larger armored figure overwhelms him, hurls him back towards the throne and nearly upending him entirely. Weighed down, the Trial Knight calls him. Slowed by an internal dilemma.
The red-haired knight's shield provides at least some defense against the eruption of arcane energy that tries to blast them up and away, the terrible force rattling the very bones in his body as the column of light rises, as it compresses and then erupts, sending him crashing into a column.
Honestly, there's a part of him that wishes he would give up.
It's that foolish refusal that's gotten him into so much trouble, after all. If he'd shut up and stayed in his lane, he never would've gotten caught up with Thessaly. Never would've wound up on Filgaia at all. And instead... Other people would've suffered, and died. And the witch herself, now using her power to shield the boy emperor as well as she can...
"Khh," Garan rasps, the sound a little wet, a touch gristly - at least a rib or two broken, he guesses. Blood has gummed one of his eyes shut, the other lingering briefly, briefly on the figure of Thessaly in her dark silks, the young emperor who'd fought even when it was hopeless. The fallen figure of the mysterious fighter who'd continued shielding the boy. And then, the Trial Knight.
"Fine," the red-haired knight wheezes, standing alongside Leo. "Is that what you want to see?" he wonders, though who knows if K.K. can even hear him. He can barely hear himself, at this point, scarcely able to draw a steady breath. Barely able to hear Leo's own brave words, the blood pounding in his ears. As he charges, full out, at the Trial Knight, while every muscle in his body screams at him to stop, to just lie down. Instead, he aims to smash his shield into K.K., to create an opening rather than waiting for one even while the White Knight brings his Lion's Roar to bear: Garan's sword gleams with a half light as it cuts, calling on the Blessing to steady his arm, to sharpen his edge. Because he knows: There's nothing in the world that cannot be broken. Even himself.
"BECAUSE I'M NOT HESITATING NOW!!"
GS: Seraph Beast has attacked K.K. with Stubborn Bite! GS: Seraph Beast has completed her action. GS: Garan Dantear has spent 2 Combo on Gatling! GS: Garan Dantear has attacked K.K. with Breaking the Unbreakable! GS: Garan Dantear has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
When the ghostlight fades, there's Avelina... staring at Elvis with utter bafflement. "What are you talking about," she asks with a quick blink.
But he's got fists, and Avelina can't argue with fists. When the big man takes a swing at her, she sweeps her staff up to bat the first blow away, the second one slamming into her shoulder but not solidly. She drops back with a wince, then leaps away, sending a scowl back at him. "Reason is the root of faith. As so. Althena returns. She brings only sorrow. Ergo, Althena does not care. Only I care. And the gift from the God of Our Lady gives me the strength to seize joy again!"
Behind her, she's aware of the Trial Knight giving several speeches before absolutely trashing just about everyone. She tunes the conflict out and focuses on the six before her. Six she needs to keep from running to the rescue of their fellows. And Ethius Hesiod among them.
Lunging.
Staff and staff cross - but Avelina cannot match Ethius's precision. The staff slams into her chest; she's flung backwards by the impact, groaning as she hits the ground and skids.
Rolling backwards, she comes out of it in a crouched position. "Typical," she growls as she levels her weapon once more.
Morgan and Jay are on her before she can figure out her next move, though. She starts with surprise as Jacqueline's potion crashes at her feet. The lavender smoke wafts around her and startles her. "What the," she breathes - and then she shrieks as Morgan strikes down with a mighty blow.
There is a clatter as one of Avelina's horns hits the ground, neatly severed from her skull.
The woman shrieks, more with shock than pain, and flinches backwards. "What did you do?!" she yells as she swings at him perfunctorily, attempting to rip her staffblade through him.
She too leaps backwards, trying to open space. Wincing, she draws in a breath and focuses deeply for a few seconds - remembers what her Lady told her. The blessing she gave to her.
When her eyes open again, she nods simply back to Jacqueline. "Avelina. I was one of the Sisters of Althena, once... but, yes. Our Lady wishes nothing but the best for you--"
Dean cuts into the conversation with some real talk that leaves Avelina clenching her jaw a little. "I won't die," she fires back at him with the simple, clear zeal of the converted. "I won't become like Mederic. I don't know what else happened at Felkirk, but it won't happen to me!" The scale's there - but it hasn't begun to consume her.
Dean's magic might, though. The summoned hunk of ice slams bodily into her, crunching through her defensive shield. She goes down with a yelp, pinned between a pillar and the huge iceberg. Growling with pain, Avelina finally manages to focus her free hand forward - and she bursts out of the ice shard and back into the open, bloodied and with robes torn, but alive and moving.
Until Cecilia hits her with another storm of icicles. Ice bullets the size of railroad ties slam into Avelina again and again, tearing her robes and punching through skin and muscle. Blood streams behind her as she shrieks and hurtles back into the wreckage of Dean's iceberg, falling into it. It begins to slide in on itself, collapsing down onto her.
For several seconds, nothing happens.
Until the iceberg splits in half along a vertical line - and then explodes.
Dreadful energy pulses out of the rubble of the ice block in a screaming, undulating pillar. It pulses around Aveline as she strides forward. The scale pattern has crept down to her hands and up to her temples - but her horn is still missing. Her eyes blaze with sparks of pale white light at their very pupils. But the darkness does seem to be doing something.
It's knitting Avelina's wounds back together. The healed skin all has that green, scaly texture to it.
"Your test begins immediately," she growls as she raises her staff high - and the light shining from it begins to brighten. The dreadful blackness whirling around her compresses. It sucks itself into the staff, pulsating madly, whirling into five orbiting globes.
"SEE THE FACES OF GOD!" Avelina screams as the power of Valmar explodes from her staff. It roars outward in five vast beams of ghostly flame. Each one swells, warping itself into a leering face of inhuman attribute, maws hanging open, too many eyes of fire staring down five of the heroes before her. Dean, Cecilia, Jay, Elvis, even Ethius Hesiod himself - the flames of darkness come for them all. Only Morgan is spared, and only then because he was out of the way.
A THOUSAND MILES AWAY....
Neriah lifts her head towards the stars. Fireflies dance slowly around her.
Why am I thinking about you, Fei, she reflects in the halls of her mind. ...and Jacqueline....
GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Priestess Avelina with Coil! GS: Priestess Avelina has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Priestess Avelina heals Priestess Avelina! It gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Smite the Savior! GS: Priestess Avelina has activated a Force Action! GS: Priestess Avelina has spent 4 Combo on Gatling! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Dean Stark with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Priestess Avelina has attacked Elvis with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Priestess Avelina has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
In spite of her anger, or maybe even partially because of it, Xantia can't help but enjoy a good fight. Being able to do so with comrades - no, close friends, that makes it even better. Fighting alongside Fei, being able to make good on her earlier promise to Elly to damage that armor for her by following up on an attack, setting up for a follow-up by Lily... it's exhilarating to be able to use her powers in such a way. So much so that she begins to think of this as all fun and games, failing to take into account the very real danger to all of their lives. Such things happen with frightening regularity. And why wouldn't they? Things usually have a way of working out well. Of course she would never learn that way.
But a painful lesson awaits her this day. All it takes is a momentary distraction, seeing the magic sent down towards Lily and Elly. Feeling an impulse to do something to stop it, despite not knowing anything she actually could do. And turning her head back just in time to see K.K. coming for her next, spear in hand.
It all happens quickly, but it feels like an eternity. Xantia makes a grab for the weapon, actually succeeding in doing so... but only after its tip already pierced her body. Before she realizes even that much, the force of the charge lifts her off her feet, taking her on an involuntary tour of the throne room... and pinning her against the barrier, the lightning charge dispersing from her body on impact.
Somehow, Xantia is still holding onto the weapon. All that she really managed to accomplish is keep the spear from entirely piercing through her body. But, as she can clearly see, looking down with an incredulous expression... not preventing a serious wound on the right side of her abdomen. And this pain, this is... really bad, isn't it?
She manages to turn her confused expression back to the Trial Knight, a fading expression, looking like she's going to pass out... until she hears their words. They seem to have triggered something, Xantia suddenly steeling herself, gritting her teeth, and the look she's giving K.K. turning defiant...
And then there's an explosion of force, emanating from within her body. Violently pushing back against the spear to clear it from her body, and against K.K. For once, she was not using her fists to generate a shockwave. It may have been sheer force of will.
But it was also a move of desperation, Xantia falling to her knees right after, clutching her wound. Though she can't entirely stop it, she manages to slow the bleeding. Enough so to slowly rise back to her feet, breathing heavily. She needs a moment before being able to formulate a response. "Then I guess... I have no choice but to stop you. Because I won't let you stop me. Not before I figure out who I am."
GS: Xantia has attacked K.K. with Massive Shockwave! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has activated a Force Action! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Riven God's Blasphemy for 152 hit points! GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Riven God's Blasphemy for 153 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Riven God's Blasphemy for 182 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from Xantia's Massive Shockwave for 88 hit points! GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to K.K.! GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod critically Guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Riven God's Blasphemy for 58 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Oh, hey! Morgan!" Gwen's greeting rings cheerily over the battlefield. "Didn't see you slip in! Kinda, uh, got my hands full." The thought of Cassidy being upset over her death gives Gwen a bit of a boost of confidence. "You better not die either! I'm sure Cass'd get all upset over that too! She's got a big heart, y'know?"
Might as well bleat out Vash's name in the middle of a battle. Morgan's now marked for death.
Morgan's fate is kept a mystery, as Gwen becomes distracted by her own problems. Namely-
"... I 'spose I *did* get a little assumption-y with you there, if you meant me," Gwen says. "But seriously. Even if you were tryin' to change somethin' in the name of some sort of good by dethroning a king," she starts, shuddering still even with the distance created by those words, "My thinkin' is that killin' a snake only allows a bigger, more poisonous snake to move right on in." But as Thessaly says...
She's already trying to engage the knight like he was on the same level as she is. It doesn't matter what he wants, really. Her mistake here does not change the outcome; the dragon's golden head of burning light manifests behind Gwen's feet either way, ripping a scream from her as she does her best to endure and hold on.
"... ah..." The courier coughs and staggers, shoulders bunched while she lurches back to recover, hot knife stashed inside her boot. Focus.
Leo and Garan's line is solid, but it can't hold out for long. She'll bring the force needed to bring the knight down. Straightening out her ARM to its fullest rigid length, Gwen presses her back against a lone pillar of cool marble. "Okay... steady..." She concentrates, drawing on her body's own store of energy, condensing it down-"
-- In her mind's eye, dragon's wing rips out of a shoulder, a lone memory of an event that never happened. Nothing has happened, save for the slow whirring of the Mockingbird, plates moving and pulsing underneath the fabric of Gwen's damaged blouse. She grunts, shaking her head, listening to the warnings of Josie, nearby. "Let's add onto that." She breathes. Aims.
Only for Lily to draw her attention, the courier left speechless in the wake of Lily's transformation.
Now. "Gh!" The ARM fires a pulse of lightning, Gwen's body jerking against the marble pillar from the recoil. It doesn't matter if she hits or not; the way Gwen stands makes it clear she's charging up for another blow already.
GS: COUNTER! Elvis strikes at Priestess Avelina with a counter attack! GS: CRITICAL! Elvis guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Riven God's Blasphemy for 217 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Elvis! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked K.K. with Coil Cannon EX! GS: Gwen Whitlock has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Priestess Avelina critically Guards a hit from Elvis's Counter Attack for 39 hit points! GS: Priestess Avelina enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
For the brief time that the weapon is in the grasp of the Trial Knight, it might be baffling. Obviously it's an ARM - a fireARM, hnf hnf - but the details are obscure. It might be worth considering later, especially as the round Elly shot wasn't a traditional bullet. Of course, 'later' is its own problem.
"..."
Her best shot for the moment and KK shrugged it off. Elly swallows, feeling the chaos around her. Minor Ether weaveries form to spare her from hurled rubble, stray shrapnel. She doesn't even notice she's done it. K.K. spoke, and was clear: She won't get this answer by asking for it.
She wants to ask Why not? To ask for justification again. To plead, perhaps. Fei speaks before she can and his voice comes through to her clearly, eerily so, as it so often has. His fury rises. He lists the crimes of K.K. and Elly feels cold ice run down her spine, thankfully in a literal sense. But then K.K. raises that strange tome, the golden light comes - she raises her hands to guard her face -
The shriek and burst of a sudden flagstone eruption, artificial stalagmites carved from the ground itself pouring ahead of her and creating interlocked baffles that break and fall aside in a parody of a giant's causeway, spares her agony, perhaps death. But some of that unnatural light filters in and her eyes are blinking away spots even as she reels.
Everything K.K. has done.
Every cruelty, Elly thinks. And how many do they not know about? How many are hidden? How many small towns had no survivors to report? How many places became ruins? How old is this person? Elly knows, of course, that one can have a life greatly prolonged, even if the arts to do so are not known well.
How many?
The thought pushes Elly into a strange place. A strange sort of calm, as if she were in the middle of a vast sea. She can see Lily... changing again. Am I going to change too? Elly thinks.
The sea seems to expand. She raises her hand up, head tilting forwards as her lips tremble.
The first thing that happens is a simple and seemingly innocent Etheric weaving. The air around K.K. becomes completely calm and still - unnaturally so. It might not occur to people diving in to punchkick the Trial Knight or to administer swordings, because, of course, they are moving THROUGH the air. The only real evidence is a few wisps of dust and smoke that simply stop moving.
Lily gives fire. Xantia presents shock. Elly can feel them in an obscure third-hand way through the Ether effect. What Elly provides, during a heartbeat of motion, is the flowing of water. Vapor gathers around K.K. as Elly attempts an Etheric drawing on ice. Simple, right? Except she dissipates the effect several times, as if she's trying to get an angle on the Trial Knight. Perhaps aiming for the ding she put into that armor before?
Of course this also means that there's a high level of humidity in the saturated air there. Waiting. Hanging. Then suddenly the zone of stillness contracts to a space perhaps an inch off of the Knight's armor.
THAT'S when the fire comes. To superheat the water-rich atmosphere.
"... Is this what you wanted?" Elly asks, afterwards.
She sees Gwen hurt. I have to save her, Elly thinks, but: the Trial Knight's said as much. I could block their blows a thousand times and they'd make two thousand more...
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked K.K. with Thermo Dragon! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Morgan Newkirk guards a hit from Priestess Avelina's Smite the Savior for 89 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! K.K. takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kakei for 185 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! K.K. guards a hit from Seraph Edna's Rock Lance for 84 hit points!
DC: MISS! K.K. completely evades School of Georg Heldalf from White Knight Leo!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"If you make people sad, that means you don't care? What about all the people you and your friends are making sad by destroying churches and sending out horrible illusions everywhere?!" Dean challenges Avelina. "You can't say you care and then turn around and do the exact same thing you accuse Althena of doing when you say she DOESN'T care!! Or are you saying you only care about YOURSELF?!" Dense as he can be, Dean has a gut feeling that Avelina really *does* care. This comment is a deliberate push--an attempt to make her see herself the way she's coming across to the rest of them. If she really does care... will that get her to stand down and retreat?
Probably not, considering Avelina's zeal and religious fervor, but hope springs eternal.
Even when he and Cecilia bring down all that ice on Avelina. Even when Avelina *erupts* from it, breaking the mini-iceberg in half and exploding it. Even when the faces of the damned scream out, maws wide to devour the souls of her enemies. Dean braces himself for that strike, and *still* he feels the power of Valimer sear at his soul. He can't hear himself scream. He can't hear anything at all except for his own blood, for blood makes noise, and it's ringing in his ear, and he can't really hear her in the thickening of fear.
He slumps down, panting, bleeding, vision moving in and out of focus, in the wake of that magical assault. His legs twitch as he tries to get back up on his feet, but his body isn't quite obeying him right now, like it's rigid with a terror that completely bypasses his frontal lobe and has taken up residence in his lizard brain. That's a problem. That's kind of a big problem. But Dean wouldn't be Dean if he let impending unconsciousness and possible death make him give up. Taking a deep breath to steady his rapid heartrate, he balances one wrist on the other, aiming a shot for Avelina...and when the moment feels right, he squeezes the trigger, sending a bullet *hurtling* her way, aiming to penetrate right through those scales of hers.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Priestess Avelina with Sniper Shot! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Dean Stark's Sniper Shot for 89 hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Josephine Lovelace's Shoot the Breeze for 87 hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Lily Keil's The Harm of the Forest - Fire for 87 hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Seraph Beast's Stubborn Bite for 31 hit points! GS: Cover! Statuses applied to Seraph Beast! GS: CRITICAL! K.K. takes a solid hit from Garan Dantear's Breaking the Unbreakable for 265 hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Coil Cannon EX for 51 hit points! GS: K.K. guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Dragon for 103 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.
OH yes Dean. Well, this was originally about money. Now it has become personal.
"I CAN HEAR YOU TWO!" Elvis shouts over the fighting toward Dean and Fei. "And I can't just be in a city?! Am I just supposed to live out in the wilderness like some sort of hermit?!" Damn kids.
A look toward Jacqueline.
"It's Elvis!" he says quickly.
The name probably doesn't have much merit to most. Despite Volsung wanting him to keep a low profile, using his name is probably not the issue.
He also isn't thinking straight right now.
"This sounds like someone who has not performed all their research! Your summary lacks context and source!" Elvis shouts towards Avelina. This Human right here. When that frightening wave of energy comes, Elvis is ready to take the brunt of it, and charges through with a fist raised!
It is incredibly painful. But pain is something Elvis can endure. He has trained for this. His body is built for this. Reaching Avelina, and throwing the first hit, Elvis slams the ground with a heel of a boot, causing the ground around to shatter, as does the above ceiling, which collapses downward as the Sentinel jumps back.
"Be buried with your inconsistancies!"
GS: Elvis has attacked Priestess Avelina with Hi-Crush! GS: Elvis has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Elvis's Hi-Crush for 82 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
"Are you sure we are talkin' about the same Cassidy?" Shouts Morgan back towards Gwen as he alights from his leap. Not fast enough to get fully out of the way of that bloody bladed staff though, and a line of blood now decorates his shirt, dripping crimson down his chest as he lands and the axe dissipates.
"As for you darlin!" This towards the priestess. "I wouldn't have had ta give ya a trim if ya had just been willin' ta talk this out rather than spewin' fire everywhere!"
There is a slight frown though as Avelina begins to change and warp. The scales grow and spin around, the darkness healing her as it continues to warp her form. "...ya know, darlin'. I don't know much about magic, but damn if that doesn't look right at all." His rolling drawl filled with a touch of concern. "Jay, you have any idea what the hell is happinin' ta her? Cause I'm gonna guess that 'not good' doesn't quite do it justice!"
He lets the wound across his chest bleed freely as his ARM spins up to power and a new weapon appears. This one long barreled and bulky, the metal tinged red and the bore on the weapon larger than and normal rifle should be.
The strange hump midway down the barrel vents steam as Morgan braces himself and sights in on the angry, now one horned priestess.
The rush of energy from the launcher sends a rocket streaking towards the priestess, aiming to explode right at her feat in fire and fury.
While the recoil of the weapons recharges the ARMs shield systems. Its dual purpose you know.
GS: Morgan Newkirk has attacked Priestess Avelina with Hell to Pay! GS: Morgan Newkirk has completed his action. GS: Priestess Avelina takes a solid hit from Morgan Newkirk's Hell to Pay for 169 hit points! GS: Morgan Newkirk drains Priestess Avelina! Morgan Newkirk gains 84 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
'I won't die,' Ethius hears. He starts walking towards her at a measured pace as she struggles with the words from Dean, or her concern for Jay's well-being. He keeps moving forward as ice falls upon them - first from Dean, and later, through Cecilia. All the while, he is staring. That stare. Icicles graze his shoulder. That entire arm numbs under the cold. He keeps going.
"You will not die." Ethius remarks, spoken straightforwardly as always. Neutral tone, no strong emotion one way or the other, no real accent to identify. "A passing is acknowledged. It is chronicled, the subject honored and recalled a number of times after it transpires."
He halts when the iceberg splits in half, and the unlight erupts. A power he has to respect as he slams the butt of the quarterstaff down as if to stake his claim and say, 'I am standing here.' His left hand - the one grasping it - tenses as she strides forward. He watches her wounds knit back together. It's in his mind now - there's a vulnerability he can use.
"You will be erased." He must now.
He must now what? He understands those three words. They're the last thought to run through his head before the blackness erupts to the promsie that their test begins immediately. He's too far from cover. He doesn't blink. He shifts his balance a bit to the right as to better place his stronger side ahead of him. He gets a split second of additional focus by waving his right hand in front of his eyes as he starts to twist and flick his fingers. Blocking out the sight of a hellish face does wonders for holding one's focus. That just means he's coherently aware of his surroundings for a little bit longer before Valmar's power overwhelms him and it becomes impossible to grasp meaning or context. What comes next is more rote instinct, something just so deeply ingrained him that for all he's forgotten surrounding it, he doesn't forget the sheer act of it.
The positioning of his casting hand ensures the wash of flame doesn't splash into his face. The rest of him is awash in hellish black flame. He doesn't allow any grunts of pain to alter what is slipping out between his lips, or for the searing agony to change the character or nature of those twitching fingers. He may well be incorporating the spasms in them. He can't see anything but the sneer of the faces of fire. He can't feel anything. It would be faster to say what he can (which is to say, almost nothing else).
"Grave Dust." Those words seal the spell's completion.
Somewhere in the priestess' person, fine, granular matter starts to spontaneously generate around - and unless she moves out or has some means to stop it from doing so, within her. Scratching, suffocating... a cruelty to experience. It's something beyond the idea of someone picking up a weapon and striking out of fear.
He is exactly as her Lady says, in that moment. What rules apply to this man? What logic guides him? What sort of incredible madness grips him so? Malevolence doesn't appear to have a grip on him. Though his Symbology appears to use styles and spells not recognizeable to the Ignas continent on Filgaia, it is unambiguously that. There seems to be no higher or greater power about him beyond this. What is visible of him is plainly human.
Only that he seems utterly possessed of that unambiguous, unrepetant, unrelenting will to move to kill Avelina dead by any means at his dosposal without an outward expression of joy in doing so, or how painful or slow it might be - only that he seems convinced he must.
Not even a consideration that she is turning into a scaly-horned mutant gradually, bit by bit, and might be able to crush his skull if she grows a hand big enough to do so.
Through the hellfire - it's not clear if he's even capable of seeing her but those eyes are locked on hers. It may be coincidence, but that doesn't change that she is being stared down by what may be mutually agreed upon - across the cultures of the two worlds - to be as a monster.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has spent 1 Combo on Disease! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Priestess Avelina with Grave Dust! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Priestess Avelina takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Grave Dust for 170 hit points! GS: Disease and Jam! Statuses applied to Priestess Avelina! GS: Priestess Avelina has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
To think that Cecilia's bonds with Jack have any power over the Medium...well, perhaps it's fantasy. But the results of Aru Solato's wrath are certainly spectacular, as they shred Avelina and force her toppling back into Dean's glacier.
Then it explodes. And then she's real, real mad. Cecilia edges backward, uneasily. Being a sorceress, her first impulse is to hang close to Elvis, who is a big boy. A very big boy. Yikes.
But her impulses don't help her much as Avelina's power rushes across her, scorching at her in horrible waves of anti-fire. Cecilia throws her staff forth again, Guardian magic flickering at the edge as she tries to resist those flames. It works, sort of; the barrier cracks and crackles, flames lapping across its length. She feels her strength sapping away, her feet forced back through the scorched carpet as she strains to resist that horrible flame.
Then she sucks in a breath of superheated air, and finds it cool in her mouth. "My TEST!" she calls back, defiant, "began more than a year ago! You think we stand by!? Wait for wicked men and women to hurt people before we move!? LIFE is a test, and our lives are struggles! To find what is good, and hold it close! To take back what is right and keep what is ours!"
She lashes out with her staff and the flames break at last around her, the Shaman's eyes flashing as she thrusts her arm forward, staff held at the heel by her other hand. "I won't let you mock the struggles of these people who fight and suffer with your own sadistic need to hurt people! If you find joy in this sorrow, just stand still. I will give you all the joy you can handle! MATERIAL!"
The air around her cracks and sparks as this one rises up. Another Medium, whirling and stuttering upward before it claims its place above Cecilia, shining with an icon of lightning. She has memories of this one, too...the fury, the anger she felt at the moment Jack betrayed her. She draws in an electric breath.
"I do not wish for your life," Cecilia repeats, calming herself in some small measure.
Her eyes crack open. "So please try to survive. RAGE HAMMER!"
The Medium explodes, and Noua Shax, Guardian of Lightning, bristling lion crackling with glory, forms. It draws in its own sharp breath, eyes judging as it regards Avelina. It opens its mouth wide, and SCREAMS--
And it is the sound of thunder, as a bolt of lightning, thick and coherent like a BEAM, roars across the distance into Avelina, tearing into her, through her, and probably knocking over a few walls before it flickers out entirely.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has activated a Force Action! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has spent 3 Combo on Gatling! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Priestess Avelina with Material - Rage Hammer! GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Priestess Avelina guards a hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Rage Hammer for 205 hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Cecilia Adlehyde!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"A pleasure to meet you, Elvis! I'm Jacqueline Barber!" Jacqueline calls back. The name has no significance to her, except that is attached to...well, someone like Elvis.
Nearby, however, Jacqueline winces as one of Avelina's horns is severed from her skull. That...had to be painful, and would not be an easy fix. She shoots her a sympathetic look, then shuts her eyes for a moment and nods quietly.
"...Avelina. I see. Thank you. I wish we could have met under more pleasant circumstances." She replies. The Neriah wished the best for her even now...well, it was a little heart-wrenching, but it solidified even more the idea that she had to talk with her.
Avelina insists that she won't die...but Jacqueline is still not quite sure. But telling her that wouldn't help, as focused as she is on her duty. No...the quickest way would probably be to try to subdue her as quickly as possible.
"It's Valmar. She's drawing upon the power of Valmar to continue fighting. The man we fought before...it transformed him, went berserk...and consumed him. I think the same thing may be happening here, too, but...it seems much more controlled." Jacqueline explains to Morgan.
Even though she is torn at and encased by ice, Avelina still erupts from the iceberg she is sealed within, and has enough strength left to call upon the power of Valmar.
The flames explode outward in the form of ghastly faces, trying to consume each and every one of them.
Jacqueline's eyes widen in alarm and she gestures quickly, invoking a pillar of ice in front of her. It only grants her a short reprieve before being consumed instantly and the flames come for her.
Jacqueline lets out a cry and stumbles backwards, falling to her knees and shutting her eyes tight. She seems to be clutching at her chest...but she is instead holding the Medium that she keeps close to her heart, and whispering a quiet plea to Grudiev.
Grudiev, who answers. His form appears behind her. He draws in debris and rubble and exhales it in the form of glittering dust, which settles over her allies assisting in this fight.
...All but one, who does not seem receptive to it in the least.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Elvis with Material - Earthly Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Morgan Newkirk with Material - Earthly Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Material - Earthly Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Dean Stark with Material - Earthly Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Cecilia Adlehyde! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Cecilia Adlehyde! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Elvis! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Elvis! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Dean Stark! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Dean Stark! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Morgan Newkirk! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Morgan Newkirk! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
Avelina opens her mouth to say something as Dean Stark challenges her beliefs. "That doesn't," she begins - but she stops short.
What am I doing here? They're in pain....
"Aaaaagh, stop it!" Avelina shouts, clutching her head with both hands as the pure white thought digs into the back of her mind. "I don't care, I don't care! I just want to be strong! I'm tired of everything being terrible all the time!!"
Dean makes her life even more terrible by shooting her. The penetrating attack punches through the scales creeping up her left arm, burying itself in the limb with a bloody thunk. With a wail, Avelina staggers backwards, her eyes growing wide with anger and confusion. "You're WRONG!" she screams. "Unless I'm strong, the world will just continue to be miserable! I'm stronger now! THAT'S WHAT I WANT!!"
Elvis gives her something she does not want: A collapsing ceiling. Crumbling masonry plummets around her, bricks smashing into her shoulders and back. "Damn you, you're wrong!" she shouts with that same mixture of frustrated anger. "You can't research a matter of faith... all that matters is your conviction!"
My Lady... Neriah... is this what being strong is like...?
Being hurt for this White Knight...?
Her train of thought is interrupted by Morgan Newkirk shooting her with a rocket. She looks up with wide eyes about a split-second too late.
The projectile goes off. Avelina's shriek is lost in the fire and flame as she's hurled into the air like a rag doll. Smoke and flame stream behind her as she descends as if in slow motion, her limbs hanging limply. The Priestess hits the ground with a thump.
She bounces once, then hits the ground again before rolling back to one knee with a weak groan. "I won't give up," she gasps. "I won't...!"
Ethius issues his sentence. That she is to be erased.
Granular matter scratches around her. Avelina struggles to raise her shield to repel so much as a mote of it. She's drawing what power she has - but what happened with Mederic doesn't seem to be happening with her. The taint of scale and horn does not advance. She simply seems to hit the bottom of whatever font of power is there. The whirling particles slash and race across her; she gasps, then strains for breath as Ethius takes away even the air she would draw upon. It's excruciating, and only what little power she remains allows her to wrench herself out of it.
Into Cecilia's wrath. Another Medium is issued forth, and the Lion of Lightning brings down his own decree.
The thunderbolt slams into Avelina and tears her defenses away like so much flypaper. She lets out a thin cry, lost in the sound, as she's hurled off her feet and into the air --
...This isn't joy... this doesn't feel good...!
It's all wrong...!
Althena....
With a thump, Avelina hits the smoking tile. She rolls over limply. Groaning, the woman plants her staff, beginning to struggle to her feet.
"I... I can't...." she rasps, her eyes alight with anger - but the anger disguises something else.
A fear that seems to belong to a much smaller, less angry person.
[Avelina HP Dropped Below 15%! What Will You Do?]
[ ] Purify
[ ] Kill
[ ] Mercy
GS: Priestess Avelina has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
What seems to be a lifetime away.
In a dark castle threaded though with Malevolence.
A fallen knight leans against the frozen stone of a parapet. His armor frosted over, his white hair hanging loose. The black blade of the Swordsman resting heavy on his back.
Caught in his own thoughts he isn't expecting a sudden tug on his soul...
Something pulling him towards a Castle and a battle far away.
"Cecilia...are...you doing something dangerous again..." He mutters as he nearly leaps from the parapet only to catch himself. "...she doesn't want me to help...I'm sure..."
The massive head of a skeletal wyvern bumps him in the shoulder as his ride nudges the Hellion in worry. "...it's fine..."
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
On the other side of the terrible hellfire, Ethius is... scorched. That's a succinct summary. The entire top of his clothes are burnt away, revealing a dark-skinned man comprehensively covered in Symbological tattoos. There's... not a whole lot of space for more. How many spells has this man engraved on his person, and for what purposes? Some look kinda-sorta similar to familiar crests, but only kinda-sorta. They all glow in a soft light, as though he were already part of the way through another spell cast.
Only his yellow bandanna, partially scorched, survives to obscure the lower half of his face. Ethius strides forward. To the frightened Avelina, his shadow is cast over her.
He must be in excruciating pain. That stare does not waver. He extends a palm down towards her. His fingers flutter. He has no parting words for Avelina. No heightened emotion, just a simple, mechanical act. Any twitch or flex of a muscle is with a purpose. Even his breathing seems to be so well controlled to appear like he isn't at all.
If he is not stopped right this instant, there won't be an Avelina left at the completion of his next spell.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
'You will be erased'.
Jacqueline hears it, but doesn't process it just yet. She hears Avelina struggling with the others, and hauls herself to her feet just in time to see her suffer, before lightning consumes her.
Jacqueline begins to approach her, her arms held out.
"It's alright, Avelina. Please, you don't have to fight us anymore. Let's just...talk, okay?" She urges.
There's a problem with that, of course.
Ethius.
Jacqueline whirls on him. She knows that look. She knows what he's doing. There's no time to think of it.
"Ethius Hesiod! No one is dying, or being erased, or whatever here today!" Jacqueline shouts and rushes him.
She doesn't take the time out to draw a potion.
That'd take too much time.
She doesn't take the time out to cast a spell.
That would also be costly.
So, instead, she does the one thing she assumes he wouldn't expect.
She slugs him, channeling every ounce of exasperation and frustration she's been feeling toward him as of late. She doesn't feel good about it, but...
...Well, it's all she has right now.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated a Force Action! GS: Jacqueline Barber has spent 3 Combo on Gatling! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Good Night! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Good Night for 159 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
His name is yelled aloud. He's known to hate that. He's always insistent about not saying his name. Would it be something he'd kill someone over? Jay doesn't get to find that out. He is completely absorbed in the next spell he is intending to cast. Already, the ambient heat of the area surrounding the weakened priestess is rising. He just completed a lower-end heat spell as set-up for the coup de grace, from the looks of it.
This either requires that much focus, or there is such an incredible urgency to this man to completely wipe her from the face of existence that he does not react to it. The comparatively cooler air of the world on the other side of a finer grade of Valmar fire blast is murder on one's skin. He doesn't let it stop him. He must do this.
Jay walks up and punches him right in the head. It's anticlimactic to watch - a meeker, more unassuming young woman just doing that to a hardened guy like that.
His head jerks violently in the direction Jay's fist travels. The bandanna catches the spittle. It's not strong enough to launch him off his feet - but it's enough to void his balance. He goes three steps before falling onto his seat. The adrenaline starts to fade, and his body's aches catch up to remind him of what he just did.
"Why" There's no punctuation to guide whether this is intended to be a single-word sentence, or an incomplete statement that accidentally fell out of his mouth.
He's shocked.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Shadowy magic roars outward, threatening to engulf the Emperor and his barrier. But before it can...
... Claude C. Kenny -- Cless al'Vane -- heroically intervenes without so much as a second's thought. The boy Emperor of Rolance watches on, green eyes wide with shock and horror as the mercenary is engulfed and -ricocheted- off the throne so close to him. He gasps, ducks -- and concern is in his expression as he watches Cless fall.
That act of bravery will not go forgotten.
If Claude lives.
Live, Claude. Live!
Worry and fear dominate him for a moment -- until that hand layers upon his shoulder. He starts, and then those wide green eyes blink, looking up toward Thessaly briefly. "Y... yes," he mutters, throat dry. "I think I don't have much choice but to. Thessaly, was it--?"
For now, the young Emperor Cyprian puts his faith in all of them.
Effervescent points of light flow around the Trial Knight as they hold the grip of their spear tightly -- remnants of that titanic discharge from moments earlier, clinging to their partially-melted armor as they apply the pressure of their bodyweight against that spearpoint. Beyond them, rain patters against the shimmer of the barrier, their spear partially jutting from the magical defenses as they look down upon the city beneath.
"There is naught natural in this, this suffering," they murmur, almost to themself, despite Xantia's proximity. "Endless rains as if the Goddess herself would flood this city off her world. 'Tis not of my making. Then who...?"
They are pondering words interrupted by a sudden explosion of sheer, kinetic force that seems to spontaneously generate itself off of Xantia's body without any form of prompt. The sheer surprise of it is enough to take the Trial Knight off-guard, -launching- them off their feet with a crunch of metal, struck so hard their spear is ripped from their grasp. It breaks apart as if by will not seconds later, fragments of light floating around Xantia even as the knight hits ground shoulder first, rebounding once across the abused marble earth.
"Yes," they exhale under their breath, as the amnesiac girl delivers her answer.
"As it must be."
It is heat, next, that greets them. They know what is coming, even before the flames start to encircle them. It is a familiar force, borne by armatized strength -- and one that they seem prepared to defend themself against...
... until tendrils of shadows wrap around their body.
Their helm.
Their wrists.
Their ankles.
Holding them in place--
--exactly long enough for those towering walls of flame to circle them and engulf them in a raging storm of flame.
There is no sound of pain -- there is no raging anger of defiance. But those fires burn, intensely, even as Sorey once more surges for the Trial Knight's defenses. The sword thrusts towards their fire-veiled throat--
--and a hand, burning bright orange, snaps out like the lash of a serpent to grab upon that sword seconds before it can introduce itself to the neck of the knight.
Blade slices across heated metal, digging deep as those clawed fingers grip tight. The Trial Knight emerges, one horn melted away, armor damaged, -glowing- with excess heat... but still standing.
"No. Not all," they utter, that metal-warped voice so calm. Their fingers spasm along Sorey's blade in that subtle, involuntary movement.
"... Might is not the thing I care for in this world."
Steam rises from them as they -shove- that sword aside, seeking to set Sorey off-balance. Before they can capitalize on that moment, however, spikes of marble HAMMER into the Trial Knight one after the other like natural missiles. They explode, one after the other, sheering a super-heated pauldron off of the Trial Knight's shoulder, sending them careening away from the Shepherd, so guarded by one of his Sub-Lords.
The promise of the mabo curry is not addressed again. Maybe they were being cruel and deceitful...?!
Or maybe, they're simply waiting until the bitter end.
Regardless, the White Knight of Althena is soon pushing his offensive, driving his sword forward... and the edge of that meets the edge of K.K.'s own as a manifested short sword clashes with Leo's weapon head on.
"The school of Georg Heldalf, Lion of Rolance," they utter, weapons straining. "You know the strokes of it well enough. But you are too blind to master its bite."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
They shove off. Another sword flashes into existence in their opposite hand, thrusting forward for Leo's heart...
When an electrified bullet ricochets off the side of their helm, blowing away the horn still remaining from their helm in a shatter of melted white metal -- metal that all seems to dissolve into so much light as they are sent veering off course, colliding into the side of one of those pillars with a CRUNCH of metal against stone. Electricity sputters, discharging across their frame as their fingers spasm, swords dissipating into nothing more than light as their dig furrows into that mighty column before them. Thrown off their intended path...
... but not yet stopped.
But the others here, despite their doubts, misgivings, fears or uncertainties, do not let K.K. reach the emperor beyond. Even as the Trial Knight moves, the Beast of Lohgrin is once more upon the move, shouting down her lack of resolve with a declaration of intent that cannot wholly mask the tremor to her words.
Humanity, in all its flaws and foibles, is worth defending!
"..."
She lunges, the great maw of the Beast wide --
-- and the Trial Knight does not move an inch. They merely reach out --
--and GRAB the iron maw of the hidden Seraphim's vessel, holding it unhinged wide even as the sharpened teeth -drag- into the metal of their palms until the Beast can feel them biting into something softer. Like -- flesh.
"My armor is not to hide within," they utter, slowly. Their arms strain yet hold fast against the clench of the Beast's jaws. "'Tis no shell to shield. Mayhap I am a monster to be loathed...
"... but never shall I face the truth around me with anything less than eyes wide open. What say you, child?" Claws clench tighter.
"Is that vessel your protection, or naught more than a crutch with which to blind yourself?"
Gauntlets grip tighter, and begin to exert. So. Much. Pressure. As if they had every intention of -ripping the Beast apart by hand-, starting with tearing that yawning maw in twain. And it is only a sudden PULSE of lightning that stops the Trial Knight flat, -ripping- across them and adding to the charge that crackles across armor. Hands weaken in spasms, grip loosening, until the knight is sent -staggering- backwards, their footing terribly, tragically off...
... until they SLAM a single, booted heel into the earth. Their faceless helm tilts upward. Gwen's words echo, for a moment.
"Then protect the snake you have, with all your might."
And it is then they see Lily.
<All limiters released. Ether output...>
"You know the Ancient Tongue...?"
There is a faint sense of wonder to those words as they turn their stare towards Lily. Curious at the sight of her, the -words- she uses, that they seem to take heed of -- understand, even. Their right hand snaps to their side. Their spear is summoned forth. Glowing, red hot, with charging energy.
"Are you, too, a monster?" Clawed fingers curl tightly as flames lick along that spear.
"... Perhaps it matters not--"
Flames erupt. And a massage gout of white hot heat gobbles up the air surrounding K.K., -ripping- them backwards as chunks of armor are melted into slag. The spear grows hotter and hotter, a searing white hot light amongst the roar of flames that they struggle against, more and more. Moving -forward-. One step at a time. Through the raging inferno.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Which is when Fei's own fire ROARS to life amidst a host of angry accusations, some laced with guilt, some laced with justified rage. Chi BROILS at white armor, forcing K.K. back several steps from their advance. And -still- they move forward. Gripping tight to their spear, as heat, as the white hot light, seems to just intensify more and more the more rage and flame is poured into them, concentrating at the sharpened tip of that weapon. Was it focus? Was it focus?
What gives them the right?
It is an answer that does not come immediately, not as thick vapors increase in an EXPLOSION of steam as Elly adds her ether into that raging mix, igniting along K.K.'s armor. And that is when they give in, footing gone and launching them -back- with the raging torrent of Elly and Fei and Lily's chi and ether-laced flame. They CRASH into the magical barrier of the balcony with a CRACK, spiderline fractures forming along that magical, translucent surface. And when it all finally dissipates...
... the Trial Knight slumps onto their feet in a stagger, their entire armor glowing orange in a way that should assuredly burn away at whatever might lie beneath. They should be cooked to death in their armor. And yet...
... Is this what they wanted to see?
That glowing helm lifts upwards, almost literally dripping away from whatever face might be beneath, here and there. Pale skin can be seen in patches as their head slowly tilts. Almost in approval. But...
Was it focus? Was it strength?
"... Would you seek to aspire to such sunken heights as mine?"
Would they look to the Trial Knight to find strength?
"All you need know, is there is but what thing that shall ever stop me."
And that is precisely when the shining shield and blade of Garan Dantear strikes.
The blow is powerful, laced with the Blessing of Althena's strength to break the unbreakable.
A crack of hard metal, a SLICE of sharpened steel, and the blade seems to send melting armor -SPLATTERING- across that barrier. The sheer force of it all ripples a shockwave throughout the balcony...
BECAUSE I'M NOT HESITATING NOW!!
And the barrier shatters as the Trial Knight flies through it.
Into the rain-soaked skies of Pendrago they soar, limp as a ragdoll. And yet, as they are literally hurtled out of the castle, they twist.
They say something. Something impossible to hear from that distance.
And then that spear slices into the air.
... And ALL its accumulated heat comes ROARING out in a massive ball of broiling, plasmic fire, BURNING towards the throne room.
With every intent of destroying the entirety of it.
Unless those gathered can stop it.
GS: K.K. has activated a Force Action! GS: K.K. has spent 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling! GS: K.K. has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Xantia with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Garan Dantear with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Seraph Beast with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Lily Keil with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked White Knight Leo with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Seraph Edna with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Thessaly with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Alisha Diphda with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has attacked Sorey with Absolute Domination! GS: K.K. has completed their action. GS: CRITICAL! Alisha Diphda takes a glancing hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 196 hit points! GS: Alisha Diphda has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Sorey has activated a Force Action! GS: COUNTER! Sorey strikes at K.K. with a counter attack! GS: CRITICAL! Sorey takes a solid hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 325 hit points! GS: COUNTER! White Knight Leo strikes at K.K. with a counter attack! GS: CRITICAL! White Knight Leo guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 242 hit points! GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from Sorey's Counter Attack for 169 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of White Knight Leo's attack becomes clear! GS: K.K. takes a solid hit from White Knight Leo's Counter Attack for 167 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 354 hit points! GS: Seraph Edna has activated a Force Action! GS: CRITICAL! Elhaym van Houten guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 233 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Josephine Lovelace takes a glancing hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 203 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Edna guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 250 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 229 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Garan Dantear guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 205 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Thessaly takes a glancing hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 174 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Beast critically Guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 65 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Xantia guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 200 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from K.K.'s Absolute Domination for 204 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.
There is a wave of Morgan's hand as the massive launcher weapon dissipates as he watches the Priestess fly. Hit. Bounce and skid across the floor. Broken and smoldering she struggles to raise...but there is something subtly different about her.
Something that he isn't the only one that notices. Jay remarks on it and Morgan seems to slowly lower his guard...
Right when he notices Ethius stalking forwards.
The foxes eyes widen for a moment as something strikes a chord of memory in him. "Ah hell," He growls. And he sees where he is pointing. "Ah double hell." He says as he starts to dash forwards. This is bad. There isn't many things he knows in this Galaxy with that kind of single minded purpose in their head...
Regardless of the acknowledgement that this is a really stupid idea that could bloody well get him killed he still plants himself between Ethius and the fallen priestess.
...and this is the man that just charged fire thinks this is stupid and life threatening.
That is saying something.
But then Jay. Little meek alchemist Jay. Just knocked him right in the jaw. Enough take him off his feet and break his concentration.
And he doesn't have to test his ARM against that symbology. Symbology he recognizes as being horribly forbidden.
"...why?" Morgan replies as he slowly raises from his guard. "Cause sometimes killin' everything isn't the answ--"
Which is about when the entire back half of the throne room is engulfed in fire from the Trial Knight.
Out of reflex Morgan slams a fist into the ground, shields deploying around him, the priestess, the Princess, and the others around to protect from that backwash of flame.
"Yeah hold that thought, I'm pretty sure that Trial Knight doesn't agree with me."
</poem>
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.
Cecilia's Guardian fury clears, as that horrible light fades. She watches the girl; twisted and mutated, but something...changing, in her. She doesn't continue her assault, but watches her with a mounting concern...When Ethius steps up. Something flares. She whips her staff up, twirling it around her. Will she beat him!? She has to stop this! Death in combat is one thing, but executing an opponent who isn't fighting is another! The power gathers around her, but Symbology can be so much FASTER and--
And Jay flattens him the fuck out.
Cecilia blinks as the lights flicker out around her. "Oh," she says. "...nice hook."
Which leaves...
She steps toward Avelina, the rasping, exhausted woman. She sees that fire. This woman is not dead yet, the danger is not over. But...but still, there's something...
"The song..." Cecilia murmurs, listening quietly to the symphony of Lunar, silent to all but a select, chosen few. She nods, as if in response to some unseen direction.
She steps toward Avalina, the struggling, staggering woman. "We do not have to build a world on the back of suffering," she says. "I believe that. This world...ours, and this one, they suffer in their own quiet ways. The anger of the sky...the sorrow of the sea...the terror of the land...both the Silver and Blue Stars are in pain, and fighting, hurting each other, it only makes it worse."
As she walks, the Medium case clicks open on its own. They emerge, like silent spirits, hovering about her. Seven of them, floating above in sacred vigil, Ice, and Earth, and Lightning, and Fire, and Water, and Mountains, and Wind, they gather above to a Shaman's sermon.
"I do not know what called to you," Cecilia says. "I do not know your sorrows, or your pains. I would not presume to lecture you on them." she says, as the Mediums draw in that stray magic - the power of Lunar's leypoints drawn inward, sucked up toward sacred purpose with the silent propriety of the power that sustains the world.
"But I will tell you," she says - and kneels before Avalina, looking her in the eye. Seeking something behind the rage. "I will tell you," she says, "that the highest task we who follow the Guardians believe in, is lifting each other up. To each do our small part to sustain the world."
She reaches out with her staff and sets it against the woman, and the Mediums flare with light.
It isn't the Silver Flame. It isn't a blazing, coursing annihilation of impurity. It is the means by which the ground leeches away what is impure from the water, and it is the way the world disperses what is toxic from fumes - a silent, insistent, drawing pull, as what is evil is firmly but forcefully extracted and annihilated, before the light of what is not.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Then--"
Alisha's eyes widen. She has an answer: K.K. is not behind the events in Rolance. Her breath catches, and her claymore lowers in her hand. Her eyes meet the visor of the knight's helm, and she finds no answer in their words.
She opens her mouth -- and she looks up, as the Trial Knight is pitched into the rains -- no, soars into them. Alisha stares -- and then sees the column of flame coming down. Lailah speaks in her mind, and she throws a hand up; a shield shimmers into existence, bright red to meet bright flame.
And the Trial Knight's fire pushes through it, because an Armatization that hasn't gone through a trial is untempered.
The flame slams into Alisha. She goes flying backward. In a flash, she and Lailah separate; princess and Prime Lord slam into the ground, each rolling, and then fall still in a broken corner of the throne room.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Her knuckles sting, and she can feel her hand throbbing from the pain. Ethius is larger and more durable than she is, and physical strength has never been Jacqueline's forte - it's possible that she's never even thrown a real punch in her life. She might've hurt herself just as much as she hurt him with that one, but it seems to have been enough to knock him back.
...It was also enough to take the adrenaline right out of her. She doubles over with her hands on her knees, exhaling, having to take a moment to catch her breath.
"I-I won't...let you. P-please...you don't have to..." She murmurs, shutting her eyes and shaking her head. She glances back, blushing and grinning a little sheepishly as Cecilia compliments the punch.
...Oh dear, people were watching that, weren't they...?
...Regardless, she listens as Cecilia speaks to Avelina. Jacqueline does not say a word - she can see that the princess has it covered. She thinks she might understand a bit about why the Guardians chose her. Her words...they make her proud to call Cecilia her Princess.
...Even if she doesn't like that title at the moment.
But then, sound from the side gets Jacqueline's attention. She lets out a gasp from alarm and turns toward where the Trial Knight has unleashed a terrible ball of all-consuming fire onto the throne room.
She doesn't have the energy to defend against it...! But, fortunately, Morgan has them all covered. She sends him a thankful look, then looks out at all the others.
"Everyone...! You can endure this...!" She urges, she hopes...
...But can do nothing to help.
<Pose Tracker> Sorey has posed.
The other trick that Sorey has is that he's willing to use his free hand and take a hit in the process.
The Trial Knight is strong, that's for certain. But the moment that you shift from being on the defensive to going on the attack is a moment where you are vulnerable - at least, that was how Sorey's teacher had taught him. But as K.K. brings his own attack around, Sorey channels all of the Flame he had gathered into his clenched fist... and brings it around to smash the Trial Knight in their smug helmeted face with it.
That's about the best he is going to get for the moment, because it seems that the Trial Knight is going to go all out and try to bring down the entire throne room. But Sorey smiles, even as the Trial Knight unleashes one last, massive attack.
"What 'test' exists when you strike back out of spite, Trial Knight?" Sorey asks quietly. And somewhat sadly - because their enemy certainly spoke with conviction. "Claim to judge us all you want, but when we throw your gauge back at you... you simply lash out at your failure. If you seek to make people stronger, then you should accept when that strength defeats you as well."
But there was a vast amount of fire being channeled into the room, and it would be enough to kill everyone in the room several times over unless they did something about it. "Edna, we need to try and stop this!" Sorey shouts, holding out one hand as he calls out her name. "Hephsin Yulind!"
There isn't time for too much in the face of the oncoming wall of fire. The moment that Sorey summons her Armatus, he slams one of his Divine Weapon fists into the ground and begins calling upon the Earth and Stone with Edna to begin protecting people in the room.
He summons walls of rock, one after another. Each one thrusts up from the ground like a shield - trying to protect people from the oncoming wall of hellish flame. For people who had been fighting K.K.... those walls might help some, but many begin to melt immediately from the intense heat. But Sorey keeps throwing them up, even as the flames batter against him in the process.
Protect as many as he could, especially those who had already been hammered in the second battle taking place in the room.
He's going to have to hope that it is enough, because using this much energy is rapidly pushing him to the point where he is going to pass ou-
Thump. Sorey lands on the ground near to Alisha a few moments later, although *slightly* less tossed and burned.
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.
As others close in for their attacks, a nod is given toward Jacqueline. Her helpful abilities coupled with actually asking his name means she is in the good docket. The docket you want to be in. Others present may be close to being added to the paper shredder.
At the Priestess' crumpling, he looks to Cecilia nearby, then to Dean and Fei. He has no idea what to do in this situation. Some there begin to try and talk it out with her. Morgan seems worried for that Cecilia character.
And one person seems keen and intent on murdering the defeated. The Veruni opens his mouth to make a statement, a word to help spare this person, who tried to take them down, but no words come. It was difficult to justify the pardoning of execution that Ethius desired to impart.
The man visibly flinches when Jacqueline comes over and PLANTS a fist right in his face. "Oh that looked painful." And this is coming from the guy who destroys walls with casual ease. For a hit its only as painful as how unprepared your target is.
And boy that guy wasn't prepared for that one at all.
Elvis takes a moment to gather a breath, as some others come to Avelina's aid. A comment is thrown in Dean's direction.
"Good fighting, kid."
He showed moxie again in difficult times. Maybe he isn't crediting him enough. He knows how to use those ARMs for certain. He watches Cecilia act on the ex-opponent's behalf, using a type of magic he has seen a time or two before.
Then he feels it, a wave of heat surges outward, rippling, encroaching. One of those formed takes action quickly though, deploying a protective embattlement. "Good work, but don't let your guard down!" he says, surging full of that explosive energy once again. "If they can't handle it, we still have a fight on our hands!" He tightens his gloves, ready to strike out if needed as tthose behind work to assist the Priestess.
<Pose Tracker> Thessaly has posed.
She doesn't explain how she recognizes the Black Wolf, but Thessaly's secrets are many. Violet eyes maintain their quiet assessment on the battlefield, and the rampaging Trial Knight and their companion. Curiosity has her directing her attention at Avelina now and then, but for the most part, her focus is maintaining the barrier around herself and the Emperor - and whoever else takes cover in her magic.
Hope your friend there's good at being a wall.
"In all my life," the witch replies, with that strange whisper that carries. "I have never encountered a better protector. He will fight until he dies."
And stars forgive me, but I am too selfish to let him.
And this is when she watches that red-haired head and his white-silver armor standing up from where he has fallen, his words ringing the loudest - amidst all the righteous cries and pleas for the Trial Knight to turn the other way, it is him that she hears the loudest. It is about to happen - she knows the workings of his mind better than anyone else...
But there is also a glance at the state the Trial Knight is in, and she prepares herself - others may not sense it, but she can...how power practically shudders through the ancient stones of Castle Pendrago, and the violent storm that it promises. She takes several steps forward, the young emperor shielded from view when the stately, black clad magess takes her position.
"Get ready. It's coming," she murmurs to Josie - and Garan, too, through the eldritch bond that binds them both.
I'M NOT HESITATING NOW!!
She watches it all, the flash of steel and ivory and the shattering of the barrier around the balcony. Fingers weave ephemeral patterns quickly to reinforce the protective cage in which she has encased young Cyprian - perhaps a flimsy one in the end when violet eyes catch the spark through the open doors and in the dark, stormy night outside of the castle.
A spark that gets larger by the second.
The throne is suddenly awash in broiling heat. Fire that threatens to burn all it touches, to reduce sturdy, ancient stone to ash. The smell reminds her of it, of the combined might of the Knights and Guards, decimating everything she knows...
It is enough to drop her on her knees, above the circle feeding off her blood as she and the monarch, and Josie, too, disappears from view...
...but when the fireball passes, she remains. Her barrier holds, smoldering ruin that it is. Cyprian remains behind her, breathing still. Her gown emits black smoke and more blood pours into her circle. All by design, to be sure. She knows how dangerous the Trial Knight is, she was not taking any chances.
She waits - and when the Trial Knight doesn't return, she moves to check over the young Emperor quickly, and then starts moving to where Garan is at a quick pace. He will need medical attention; her veil serves her well in hiding her expression when she rushes towards him.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
As it must be, huh. A simple response, but incredibly frustrating. Always making it sound like they're doing exactly what the Trial Knight wants. It's especially vexing because Xantia certainly doesn't have a better answer. Fighting is all she knows how to do. She doesn't even think she's capable of standing idly by when things like this are happening. Is this really how it must be, every time?
She doesn't have any sort of additional retort left to offer, keeping out of the way for the moment. Despite the injury, she still catches herself watching for an opening. It's only a matter of time before she would rush in again, unwise though it would be.
Luckily, she doesn't have to. The barrier that she'd staggered a few steps away from finally breaks through the additional punishment that sends K.K. flying through. The nearby impact causes her to stumble and sway, but she manages to barely keep herself from toppling over. She still looks unsteady on her feet, though. It's been so long since the last time she was injured so seriously that she can't entirely suppress the pain, neither through subconscious nor conscious use of her powers. She recovers so quickly from most wounds without even thinking about it, she'd almost forgotten that there are limits. Limits which she seems to have crossed with this particular wound.
"On a whole different world and still doing that..." She'd started to murmur her thoughts on this whole situation, thinking it was over. But the Trial Knight has one more card to play. Seeing the flames rapidly approach, Xantia's eyes go wide, and she reflexively does what comes natural: she throws a punch. A punch that displaces the air with such force that it blows back the fire travelling in her general direction, intense heat flowing past her on either side, hopefully to be dealt with by others.
"--Ah," is all she manages to voice before her legs give out, dropping to the floor clutching the wound she was forced to stop actively suppressing the bleeding of in order to act as she did just now. A move which cost her a lot more energy than she bargained for. She may need a little help to get back to her feet this time.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Edna has posed.
The Trial Knight is sent flying into the rain. ...And then catastrophe comes sailing right for them. "Oh." Edna murmurs blankly as she sees that oncoming final strike and does not argue when Sorey asks to Armatize. She closes her eyes, and her form is drawn into Sorey, combining with his to form the Earth Armatus. And then, a rock wall after rock wall is raised to attempt to fend off the perilous blow.
Unfortunately, doing so is a massive drain of energy, and before long, the transformation splits as Sorey goes and passes out. ...Oops. Meanwhile, Edna is back, and barely standing on her feet. She pants in a haggard manner, and looks about... They survived. She survived. Then, in that case...
The Earth Seraph stalks over to the hole that KK flew through, and stops right at the edge. Her free hand is raised and she points right out into the rain. ...And she shouts into the downpour. "TRIAL KNIGHT. I SURVIVED. IF I DON'T GET MY PLATE OF CURRY, I WILL FIND YOU."
After that, she promptly topples over.
Mission Accomplished.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
It's only until K.K mentions that what Lily spoke was the 'ancient tongue' that Fei realizes what's happening there, but he doesn't comment on it. He's pretty sure Claude just friggin' died. He can't believe it. He never expected that kind of pure <s>heroism</s> martyrdom from the boy. Part of him hesitates to curse the name Lightspeed Kenny.
Fei sinks to the floor, watching Garan slam into the knight in what is surely a poetic defenestration through the barrier. However focused he can be, however infinite his ether potential, his body can only manage what it can manage. The Trial Knight says only one thing that can stop him and every single cell of Fei believes it. In all the stories, there is only really one thing that can end demons of that sort. The rest is endurance and that is what is struggling now.
Of course, being only able to be stopped by one thing is in essence a guarantee that one would be stopped by such a thing but it's cold comfort even as the room becomes significantly hotter than it was just a moment ago even with Fei's flames.
The fire feeds Fei's flames rather than harm Fei directly, but the indirect assault is perhaps more effective in this sense as Fei can't absorb it all and the burning starts. Fei howls in agony. He is in no position to save the throne room, he isn't even in a position to punch Ethius.
He looks towards the young emperor for a moment. His life is his own and he doesn't need anybody like him to say any words. He just hopes that he can find some of what Cecilia has been able to find one day before the position overtakes who he is.
He supposes that little bit of hope is what he has been fighting for. It's kind of nice, really, to fight for someone else, to not kill an innocent.
The energy leaves Fei as he frosts himself over in one quick burst before collapsing to the floor as exhaustion takes him. Life is a test but it'd be nice if someone had an answer key. So far, the only thing that felt a little close to that answer, the only thing that felt a little bit right.
Fei looks up at the ruined ceiling. He envisions not a perfect angel who has overcome every trial, nor a demon who has turned their back on naive hope, but rather two wounded creatures taking each other by the hand and lifting themselves up through the air.
It's the most beautiful image Fei has ever imagined, the kindest feeling...
...that even the damaged may find their own paradise.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"One of those lot, huh," Josie whispers back in reply. "Heh. A real live knight in shining armor..."
Thessaly, the emperor says. So that's her name. Another little piece, one that the archaeologist files off for later. Later, as if she's so sure there'll be a later.
Which is the place where she murmurs to the wizard, "We get through this and I'll owe you a dri... hm." She hunches her shoulders in a slight shrug. "A glass of water," she opts for instead.
Elly's ether. Fei's chi. That force of Xantia's.
In all honesty, Josie can't say she's running a tight inventory on the team she came in here with. At best, she knows roughly where they are in the room and is taking care to ensure her bullets land clear of them.
Other people, no such promises.
But as for their condition, whether they're wounded, beginning to retreat, or any of their plans -- she knows nothing. In the end, their life is their own to manage -- she'll just do her part to keep it from ending early.
But she would have had to have been blind to have missed this from across the room. Lily changes.
As she did before. Josie's gaze lingers one, two heartbeats long.
Then pushes even this aside, focusing. Let it become yet more of the cacophany, lights, explosions, screaming. For her at this moment, only one person really exists.
That person, she's currently opening fire on.
The remaining horn detonates as the charged bullet crashes into it, and for the moment, Josie's heart soars. Exultation lights in her eyes; her lips part.
Moments like this are what it means to be alive.
She takes a -- she glances down, at the circle -- careful step forward, ARM still trained on the Trial Knight. And she exhales a tight little breath, as if in this moment sighting for a followup shot.
In the end, she does not take the shot. Garan closes on the knight, and jerking the muzzle of the ARM ceilingwards, Josie pulls off from the shot, still holding that gunner's stance.
And in one smashing strike--
Her gaze follows the armored figure as it flies into the air, limp. No, still living, this one--
Thessaly had been right. They won't die so easily.
So it is for a lingering moment that Josie draws a bead on the hurtling form but...
The ARM lowers, down towards the floor. Instead, she merely watches.
Even she's not a good enough liar to tell herself she could actually make that shot, at this distance.
The spear hurtles into the air.
And Josie suddenly has larger things to concern herself with than the matter of a bullet's trajectory. She sucks in a breath, wonders for a fleeting second if there is any drink left in her flask, and only then holsters the ARM.
"I can see that. Make it," she says to Thessaly, "two glasses." When her lips move again, it's to work that same spell yet again, layering a glaze of Symbolic protection over the barrier the courtly magus more expertly manages.
Then takes a breath and twists her body to brace for the worst as the deluge of flame drops.
She, for an instant that recedes into eternity, is aware of nothing so much as the glare that seems to want to devour everything. Of heat. The roar.
But the shield holds. She can in the end only hope the others managed to protect themselves, but...
At the end of the day, you're only responsible for yourself.
"Whoa, you okay there--"
Any expression of concern will have to wait for later. Thessaly races off, leaving Josie standing perhaps not far from the young emperor.
She glances down at him, looking him over.
"All in one piece?"
Pause.
"You know what, I think you need this more than I do."
She hands the emperor of Rolance her hip flask. "It's gonna be warm, though."
GS: Josephine Lovelace has activated a Force Action! GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Fortification! GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Thessaly with Fortification! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a solid hit from Josephine Lovelace's Fortification for 0 hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Josephine Lovelace! GS: Thessaly takes a solid hit from Josephine Lovelace's Fortification for 0 hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Thessaly!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Beast has posed.
There is the sound of metal grinding against metal, as the Trial Knight grasps the Beast of Lohgrin's maw. It is a horrible, grating sound, as iron bites through armor, inch by painful inch. The Beast is hollow-eyed, as she stares into the Trial Knight; they are not so empty, in the end.
It is not muscle which bids those jaws close, upper and lower head-plates which so loosely form a draconic face. It is not bone or sinew which supports them. It is magic - it is will. And it is the Beast's will which the Trial Knight drags the blade of their words through. "I - I know the purpose of my --"
Tremulous words trail to nothing as the Trial Knight grips tighter, and the Beast of Lohgrin can do nothing but try and keep herself together. It would not be difficult to separate herself, but for the way she feels so exposed already.
She knows the purpose of her vessel.
Doesn't she?
But there is lightning, a great pulse which weakens that iron grip, and the Beast pulls away with desperate motions. And for such a short, essential time, she does not strike back at all. There are others willing to attack in her place, and the Trial Knight is sent through the window, sailing away.
She has no lungs to take breath, no way to sigh in relief at all.
If only it were over.
There's a rush of heat - and she doesn't have time to reply, to think at all. Wind will only feed fire, and she cannot hope to stop it. There is only one thing she can do.
There is only one thing she does.
The Beast of Lohgrin rushes to the window with all the swiftness of the breeze, locks her plates together, and stands. She stands, as heat washes over her, as flame eats through that iron and scours what lies in its edges. She glows red-hot with the effort of it; it is a paltry reflection of its pain. Wind only feeds fire.
She stands; she does not fall. And as the fire passes, iron blackened by the blast, the Beast stands true.
She turns to the room - she takes a step. Another. "Is everyone all..."
She collapses into her constituent pieces in the middle of her sentence, all ability exhausted.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily regards the Trial Knight with her single, brilliant black-and-radiant eye, and it widens slightly as she hovers in place. She sees that spear, and she hears their question. But already she is hurling her power towards them, and what shocked her is not the weapon--but the way this being understands the tongue she speaks, a tongue long dead to her knowledge.
...But when the Trial Knight begins to crash forward, forward, and Elly and Fei's power joins hers--
Magic cracks, and the winged sorceress stares. They asked if she, too, was a monster, and she raises her voice again without inflection, the echo of it magical, "I am." There is no emotion in the answer at all.
Pale skin. Something like approval. To what might they aspire...? This, this Lily does not answer aloud, but she does not argue. She waits for the attack that does not seem to come, or else for the utter ruin of their foe. ...but Garan Dantear strikes. The barrier beyond shatters, and her eye narrows as if a camera's aperture narrowing against the brightness at hand. Words, words that she cannot hear.
The spear comes. One of many, Lily is close to the barrier's ruins, though there is a jarring question of her movement to it, jerky and half-shadowed in the air. She throws out both of her hands, broken and whole alike.
In an instant the sight of Lieutenant Keil is lost entirely to the flames. Even the luminescent brilliance of her wings and arms and hair and circuits cannot be seen amidst the gigantic fireball that threatens to overwhelm her completely. ...But should her magic hold, the part of it that is her line slows, holds without passing so far as it might. There is not time, is not breadth for her affect it all--
But when it starts to fade the strange figure is badly burned, and surrounded by crackling red and black power, drawn into her hands, her markings pulsing with it. There is no more air around her, nothing to breathe in her immediate space that has not been burned up or annihilated by her attempted countermagic; her hair floats with her, as if, just for a moment, she is weightless.
It floods back in after the fire fades fast enough for a *crack* in the air as the vaccuum is corrected, and the bizarre, technological apparation that was Lily Keil is hit with the shockwave of it, crumpling down with a sucked gasp for air.
She catches herself with her right hand, which buckles beneath her.
The power that was flooding her before dissipates in an instant, leaving her dazed along the ground, burned but not smouldering, a figure in black amidst ruin.
Heat still radiates from her, but not from any spell she is casting. Attempts at focus keep her still for the moment.
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to The Witch!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Leo was going to feint, to twist the bade into a lightning-fast strike at some of that half-molten breastplate, but K.K. sees right through it. Metal meets with metal, and the Trial Knight effortlessly locks Leo's blade into place before he can follow through. Leo's lips twist in a snarl as he stares into that mirror-polished helm, endures more of what he can only think of as petty taunting. "You know nothing of General Heldalf!" Leo roars. The mere thought of someone insulting his master is infuriating.
(But is that really what K.K. said?)
The Trial Knight goes flying. Leo chances a glance over his shoulder to see Thessaly still in place, still shielding her liege with body and magic. There's no time to praise his soldiers for their gallant action. A second sun erupts from the tip of the Trial Knight's spear. Leo's legs move of his own volition. The burning in his arm is almost unbearable. "DEMON FANG!" the White Knight roars, and he sweeps his blade forwards in a single strike. A wave of energy races after the falling Trial Knight, passing through the fireball without slowing down. The bad news, of course, is that the fireball hasn't slowed down, either.
The White Knight thrusts a hand forwards, raising it--the floor rises at his call, the stones of the castle reforming into pillars to try and block the fire. He has to keep it out. He has to starve it. If not, everyone in this room is dead.
As a side benefit, this also keeps him from noticing Josephine giving forbidden alcohol to a head of state. Perhaps it's for the best.
<Pose Tracker> Garan Dantear has posed.
So, on the upside: It worked.
Possible downside: It worked.
Garan can see the edge of his sword melting under the force, under the same heat that weakens the Trial Knight's own armor, and honestly it's not hard for an exhausted mind in a battered body to wonder if all along K.K. wasn't just some searing hellfire compressed inside that armor, and rupturing it was what would ultimately cause that enormous fireball to impact the throne room. For a moment, a look of resignation crosses the knight's face: it doesn't last, of course, subsumed by anger, and then focus. There's only so much he can do against such a blast, and putting his faith in Thessaly's ability to protect herself and the young emperor, the red-haired Imperial Knight buries his half-melted sword in the floor as a brace, hunkering down and raising his shield in front of himself, the Blessing, the Light of the Goddess making a gleaming barrier.
It isn't enough, of course, which is the whole problem in the end. Even in the small pocket created, the heat is severe, the FORCE of the terrible impact unspeakable.
By the time the danger passes, the shield is a half-melted, misshapen lump of blackened steel, the Imperial Knight's armor of silver-chased white similarly badly marred throughout. He lists to the side, hitting the damaged floor of the throne room with a clatter, his one open eye staring up at the ceiling until it's given something else to focus on as the veiled visage of Thessaly fills his view.
"I really don't like that guy," he confides in her, weakly.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen was once afraid of the fire, her body still marked by the first disaster to mark her world, as well as what could be considered the first mercy.
She still is, like anyone who has something still to lose from it, who have known its violent touch.
'Then protect the snake you have, with all your might.'
She screams as the flames come, her ARM forming a small shelter of energy as a shield against the flames, but it's not enough. The Mockingbird imitates security, but it can't be a master of it.
It's hard to tell what enables Gwen's survival, from the earthen pillars, the shields, the hot-blooded refusal of knights like Leo to allow anyone under their watch to fall.
One or all of these could have allowed Gwen to stay alive where her ARM's limited shield capabilities would have failed. Som when she stands, her clothing charred and tattered, the holes revealing the pulsing patch of 'skin', like a small sun, over her heart, Gwen is still whole, if a little... singed. Hurt. Hot.
Alive. And more exposed than she'd care to be.
She's just a little too tired and out of it to really consider it, having put it in a chest with her fears and the ticking clock of her death, denied several times over.
"The king!" She follows behind Thessaly ad
"Uh, d-don't be scared, sir!" Gwen says, now fully away of how her skin, finally beginning to cool down to the point that she can feel the air pass over it. She's still decent, at least, BUT THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT. Looking at the boy king, her lips drawn thin, Gwen summons whatever wits she still has in her arsenal to speak the most eloquent words she could deliver as a balm for the king's possible fears.
She raises a finger.
"I know first aid! You're in good hands, sir!"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I don't want to be anything like you!" Elly cries out to the Trial Knight. They're burning, she thinks. Reeling. They must be dead on their feet but still moving, like that story of the man who leapt into a hot spring after a dog and came out with his skin cooked but he didn't die for days -
"You're doing this! Whatever your reason is, you're forcing us to grow like this - you might say that you're doing us a favor, forcing us to find strength... but it isn't worth all of the people who you've killed in the way! You had no right - other than 'power'!"
Of course, there are bigger fish to fry, such as 'all of them, because K.K., with their helm cleaved by the wonderful products of Blade Dreams, c/o Prissa Lastnameunknown, is releasing a fiery eruption of unprecedented proportion' - that really isn't that best analogy. Fei is falling and Elly turns to move towards him already.
Elly has not realized it but the water in the air is struggling to form ice. The barriers are glacial in their force and attempted scale, driven by cthonic reflex - get AWAY from the heat - but they melt almost as fast as they can be replenished, driven into sublimation by the sheer force of that burst. They contort and contract, coming together like an overcranked video of ice flows over the course of millenia in some unknown continent -
The wave passes. "Fei!!" Elly screams.
He doesn't get the chance to hit the ground. Maybe that's why it was a soft blow. Elly touches his forehead, frosted over as it may be, but he's breathing... she exhales, praying without form in relief.
Then Lily catches herself and falls over behind her. "Lily-! Oh, no - hold on!"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen was once afraid of the fire, her body still marked by the first disaster to mark her world, as well as what could be considered the first mercy.
She still is, like anyone who has something still to lose from it, who have known its violent touch.
'Then protect the snake you have, with all your might.'
She screams as the flames come, her ARM forming a small shelter of energy as a shield against the flames, but it's not enough. The Mockingbird imitates security, but it can't be a master of it.
It's hard to tell what enables Gwen's survival, from the earthen pillars, the shields, the hot-blooded refusal of knights like Leo to allow anyone under their watch to fall.
One or all of these could have allowed Gwen to stay alive where her ARM's limited shield capabilities would have failed. Som when she stands, her clothing charred and tattered, the holes revealing the pulsing patch of 'skin', like a small sun, over her heart, Gwen is still whole, if a little... singed. Hurt. Hot.
Alive. And more exposed than she'd care to be.
She's just a little too tired and out of it to really consider it, having put it in a chest with her fears and the ticking clock of her death, denied several times over.
"The king!" She follows behind Thessaly, her focus limited to the main reason she stepped into this room. Because, beyond that, she's likely to just drop over, much like those around her.
"Uh, d-don't be scared, sir!" Gwen says, now fully away of how her skin, finally beginning to cool down to the point that she can feel the air pass over it. She's still decent, at least, BUT THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT. Looking at the boy king, her lips drawn thin, Gwen summons whatever wits she still has in her arsenal to speak the most eloquent words she could deliver as a balm for the king's possible fears.
She raises a finger.
"I know first aid! You're in good hands, sir!"
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR US! WE'RE ALL IN THE SAME ROOM AND WE'RE YELLING ALL THE WAY ACROSS IT!" Dean shouts over at Elvis. "And that's why I told him to ask you, but he kept asking me!! Anyway, I didn't say THAT, I just said I don't know why you're in THIS city!!" As opposed to home. Wherever that is. Dean has no idea where Elvis's home is. Then Elvis actually share his name and although Fei used it earlier, Dean didn't actually quite register that. He's honestly surprised. He thought he was just, you know, the Professor. "You have a name?!" Case in point.
But then Avelina Valimar-bombs him, and he fires off a shot at her while attempting to pick himself up off the ground. It's slow going, but he hisses at himself to come on, come on, you can do this, you're not giving up!!, and inch by inch, his trembling body begins to obey his will. It gets even quicker to respond when Jay calls up the power of Grudiev to shower healing energy upon him and several others, and he flashes her a grateful grin and a thumb's up before slipping a foot underneath himself and wobbling up to his feet. His front is still covered with blood, but his wound from earlier has closed, at least.
But before he can attack again, Avelina appears to be... well, 'flipping out' is probably the best term for it. He can't help but look at her with concern when she starts going on about needing to be strong the way Mederic did, and she collapses under the weight of all the incoming attacks. A massive fireball from KK ROCKS the room, and Dean nearly falls the heck over, but steadies himself at the last moment. In that time, Ethius casts a spell to eradicate her, but Jay gets there first, punching him the HECK out. Dean breathes out a sigh of relief, and realizes that he's shaking. Well, after all the blood he lost, that's probably natural. Rebecca and Avril are going to be upset at him again, he reflects momentarily.
"Thanks," he says to Elvis, nodding firmly his way. "You too." Then, gait steady, he approaches Avelina... and kneels down next to her. "You're wrong," Dean tells her--but quietly. "You're plenty strong, you know. I should know; I took a bunch of hits from you! But it's not enough to just have strong powers. You've gotta be strong of heart, too. And you can't get strong of heart just by getting strong of body all on your own. You already know that, right? That's why you were so sad when your friend Mederic died."
Cecilia calls upon a purifying flame as she speaks to the priestess. Dean has no such power; he simply holds out a hand to her. "Hey. C'mon, why don't you stop this already? There's still time to start over." He gives her a warm, encouraging smile. "I know things are hard, and the world can be mean and unforgiving. But that doesn't mean you ought to give up on it. Right?"
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
Avelina's fate hangs in the balance - until Jacqueline Barber makes her move on Ethius Hesiod and punches him in the goddamned face!
Avelina is only blithely aware of it, struggling as she is to even make it back to a standing position. Her right hand drops from her staff as she fights to keep herself standing. "I won't," she manages to gasp. "I won't...!"
What have I done... what have I done?!
Cecilia advances on her and Avelina is simply too weak to do more than listen - but the Princess-Shaman can see something dawning in the eyes of the cursed woman. There is a tiny spark of something. The red of her irises isn't there anymore - only a pale, frightened blue, like a scared little girl peeking out from behind the face of a woman out to kill them all.
"Lifting... each other...." she breathes, halfway between disbelief and some emotion that the darkness does not want her to name.
When Dean moves to kneel near her, she opens her mouth to say something. A tiny voice inside her tells her to kill him.
"...What have I done," she asks in a very tiny voice as the facade breaks for just a second.
And the staff touches. The light flares. And what it encounters is not Malevolence - it is something else. A taint. For a moment something pulses --
In the depths of Cecilia's soul, for just a moment, the cold eyes of a dark-haired girl of no more than 19 or 20 stare at her intently, a towering resentment burning behind them.
But that taint cannot hold. Avelina is not possessed of one of Valmar's fragments. She is not NUMBER EIGHT, wherever it is that Neriah's ancestors came upon a font of power so enduring. Avelina is neither of those. She is just a girl who has been given a demon nature. That nature can be exorcised, as any other demon can.
Like water running down the sides of a glass, that power begins to leech away. Green scaly patterns melt into dark, liquid stains, congealing into scudding streams that slough down the girl and to the floor, puddling and dissipating at the light's touch. The red of her robes fades back to a soft white. Colour begins to flow back into her hair. Countless wounds begin to fade away, leaving soft, pale skin behind.
As the light fades, the person left behind is smaller and more frightened-looking, an exhausted young blonde of no more than eighteen. She looks up at Cecilia with wide eyes full of tears, her lower lip hanging a little.
As the Trial Knight's spear hurtles into the throne room, Avelina slouches forward. She only stops because her cheek hits Cecilia's thigh. Weakly, she buries her face in the girl's garment and sobs, a thin, regret-filled sound. "...I'm s-sorry... Althena f-forgive me...."
No trace of the Power of Valmar remains - just a scared junior priestess who decided wrong.
~
An hour later, when things have calmed down, a very contrite Avelina will reveal something to Cecilia, Dean and Jay in particular. Her blessing came from a woman named Neriah. Avelina was a sad girl who had begun to doubt Althena. She thought she had found a better god. How wrong she was.
And she'll reveal something more: That Neriah had taken a ship to Nota. Something about an idol that would appear in the forest when seven stars aligned....
[ QUEST UNLOCK: Silver Millennium ]
<Pose Tracker> Priestess Avelina has posed.
A THOUSAND MILES AWAY....
"What's wrong, Madame?" asks the wide-eyed blonde girl of no more than seventeen.
Neriah opens her eyes, slipping out of her grim meditation. The fireflies slowly drift around her, serene in the ethereal glen.
"...Avelina has left us," she murmurs. "I didn't... know they could do that."
"Then is she...?" The girl's face begins to go pale as she catches her hand at the collar of her long tunic. Anxiety builds in her expression.
Neriah opens her mouth a little... but soon closes it and smiles a tender smile, laying a light hand on the scared girl's shoulder. "She's alright. She's just found a different way," she says. "But I want you to go home and wait with Trent, Severn and the others, Anna. I'll take care of things here."
"Are you sure...?"
Neriah nods simply, and the girl begins to step away, taking one last look back at her before vanishing into the treeline.
Left alone in the clearing, Neriah looks up towards the heavens. Towards seven stars that blink against the blackness, visible through the opening in the canopy. She sighs and moves her hand to her heart.
"...Maybe I'm too far gone to ever be healed that way," she murmurs. "Maybe I wish I could've been. Jacqueline... Fei, Riese... Ginny...
"...Mikaia....
"...I don't want it to be this way," Neriah whispers, her heart in her throat.
The stars gleam, seemingly just a hair from lining up perfectly....
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
In that moment, as Ethius seems to have the fight taken out of him by one alchemist's frustrated punch, there's a sudden shift in his demeanor that doesn't seem to come up very often - short of supernatural string-tugging, anyway.
His eyes are less focused. Constant movements of the head - less sharp and purposeful, more idle and drifting. He moves his back up against the nearest surface available in this deeply battle-damaged chamber, as a historic battle rages ahead of him. There is disagreement on all sides.
Why
Even the thought can't have proper punctuation appended to it. He hides his face lower against his forearm - which he just noticed is bare. Out there, in the open, with only a building ball of all-consuming fire ahead and above to draw eyes away.
For those who have differing priorities, it's plain to read on what of the man's face can be seen. Panic. Exposure. Vulnerability. Bewilderment. There is some higher priority he is placing on some idea, some concept, that he does not dare draw any closer to where there is a pitched, final effort to save the throne room and its inhabitants from total eradication.
One hand goes to the remaining satchel at his belt. There is a flash of Symbological power as he hurriedly casts the spell to activate it - twice. He gets tongue-tied and messes up the verbal component the first time.
It's the only opportunity he has to disengage and, perhaps, avoid direct identification - but the damage could well be done. What damage? What possible damage could be greater than the prospective fall of Rolance's seat of power as it dangles at the edge of complete oblivion and annihilation? He does not say. He probably could not. Some part of him recognizes there is.
With the activated Powder Grenade, he throws down a smoke cover at the first sign of prospective sighting. He remembers the way out, the hidden passages pointed out. He has an escape route in mind. He has to leave - now - and this spectacle is his only chance to do so.
The same mortal panic expressed when he first appeared in Lunar with the others. Every misstep, every thoughtless action.
The overwhelming sense that there is something he may not be able to prevent, but must, at any cost. He gets out to open air, and somehow, there are stars that shine through the overcast haze of the rains.
What is a star? He is aware of the question. He's not sure who said it or when. Why is it on his mind when--
What is a star?
...He wraps an arm around the Stone Medium of Rigdobite close, realizing it almost fell off of his person. He becomes mindful and self-conscious of almost every movement he takes until he can once again cover himself somewhere in Pendrago.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Fire roars in a blinding inferno that threatens to devour everything in the surrounding area. The emperor, the throne room, his protectors -- everything. And yet...
Through ice, earth, through magic, through sheer force of -will-...
... every little bit of that fire is either negated, suffocated, or unwound. Leaving the emperor's protectors battered, bloodied and burnt...
... but all of them, and their charge, very much alive.
In the aftermath, there are many wounded, but none dead; the damage to the castle is extensive, but as large as it is, not enough that it cannot be recovered from. Though the Trial Knight came here apparently intent to kill the Emperor, he left no others dead in their wake. Wounded, at best. But all still breathing. It will take time to recover. Time to rebuild. But it is far from as bad as it could be.
And in the depths of the throne room, sweating, buffeted by a gradually dissipating heat, the emperor releases a long-held breath, faltering back onto his throne. He has been forced to see and learn much in his young age -- forced to grow up far too quickly, even as those who hold power would have him quietly locked away and ignorant -- but all this?
Well. He might be in a bit of shock. Which might be why he only now recognizes Alisha Diphda, fallen. A princess of Hyland. Protecting him. Isn't she dead--?
Shock, however, is also probably why all he can do is just numbly accept the flask offered to him, staring almost blankly at Gwen as she offers her first aid.
"... Ah... thank you, I think I'm... I think I'm fine," he mumbles. "But the offer is very much appreciated--"
Which is when he takes a sip of that flask.
And ends up in a coughing fit on the floor, smacking a fist on his throne.
And so, the emperor is saved. And almost surely those who have saved him have more than earned his favor.
"I-I think my throat is on fire--! ... but... it's not... bad?"
... If Josephine doesn't kill him with alcohol first.
M i s s i o n
Complete!