2018-12-17: The Powers That Be

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======================<* Photosphere - Domicile Level *>======================

The Photosphere's interior is the size of a city. The majority of it is a massive cavern, honeycombed with different levels. Here, Metal Demons make their homes in hallways that have sometimes been repaired since the Photosphere crashed here in ages past. The quarters are small and cramped, stacked atop one another.

This place also holds the gathering areas that pass for centers of Metal Demon culture. Within these halls, one can find cafeterias and proving grounds. Their martial life is in abundance; armories and arenas are common, while theaters and libraries are unheard of.

The technology, suffice to say, is advanced. Tram systems lead into different parts of the Photosphere. Interior lighting and climate control makes this place comfortable, but it has an oppressive feeling for anyone from Filgaia.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygpjMbQeBas
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

EARRLIER -- PHOTOSPHERE

The Photosphere roils and shakes. Solarian volleys have blown gaping holes through an already weakened structure. The ancient spaceship rattles and trembles around the elevator that rises up, quickly, from the Gutter. On the airship's platform, Siegfried looks straight up. There is a distant square of daylight above; the elevator is a flat platform, rather than a car.

This shaft leads directly to the surface.

The Quarter Knight stares up, until he feels the elevator platform rattle -- and he turns his head. His helmet is clutched underneath one arm, which leaves his face visible; the hood of his cloak has fallen away, and the grey-blue hair on his head is matted with sweat. A trickle of quicksilver blood runs down the side of his face.

"Fei," he says. "Tch..." A hint of his old impetuous self, from when he was much younger, is there. Riesenlied's words ring in the back of his mind. "...Then, if I go charging right in, you will follow. Let us see, then, Fei."

The elevator picks up in speed, sparks flying from where it rockets up the two rails on each side of the shaft. Siegfried pulls on his helmet; he twists it in place, to lock it, and then looks up.

The square of daylight gets bigger and bigger.

NOW -- TZADKIEL, BRIDGE

"Tell Major Yugh that the point defenses seem to be down!" one of the bridge technicians says. "We haven't had any counter fire at all, just yet."

The Solarian cruiser flies in formation with three gunboat-corvettes, each lined up behind it. Dominia Yizkor leans forward on the bridge, her expression turned into a frown. "That isn't right," she says. "They were returning fire a moment ago. That energy signature, inside, a moment ago. Did it disable something...?"

Kelvena, standing behind her on the bridge, sighs. "I'm not sure. We're trying to get confirmation of what that is."

"Element," the bridge technician says. "I'm getting movement below--from one of the shafts."

"Get it on camera!"

A screen lights up on the airship's bridge; static crackles away from the screen, before the source of that movement becomes clear: a little blue-black blur. The camera zooms in, and it crystallizes: a long, two-handed sword, blue and grey, with a twitching yellow mechanical eye in the center. The sword slams into, and through, the forward window of the nearest corvette's bridge. A moment later, arcs of blue, green, yellow, black, and white energy shred outward from it. They rip through the hull of the corvette, splitting it into two pieces.

"What the--"

"HE'S COMING!"

The camera's view switches, to show the armored figure of Siegfried rising through the air. The Quarter Knight's pristine white cloak flutters after him as he rises up into the air, leaping well ahead of the elevator. Before it finishes rising, Siegfried leaps high into the sky. The armored plates on his chest are already split open. The last couple of motes of white-blue light draw into the opened cannon.

The beam fires. Dominia screams, leaping a moment before the sensors on the Tzadkiel's bridge howl: LOCK-ON DETECTED

Glass shatters inward, as Dominia's strong arms wrap around Kelvena and drag her to onside. The beam splits up the middle of the bridge -- incinerating the technician to ash -- and molten steel splits apart, as the air of the sky rushes in.

NOW -- PHOTOSPHERE EXTERIOR

The two halves of the Tzadkiel fall, splitting away from each other. Molten steel, raining debris, and screaming crew plummet down into the sky -- towards the far distant Arctican tundra, or to meet a grisly end when they bounce off the hull of the Photosphere. Siegfried comes crashing down, his feet smashing into the hull of the Photosphere. His head jerks upward -- and he holds a hand out.

The Dark Spear snaps into it, as the corvette he struck down explodes apart in a final, fiery explosion. He looks up towards the Solarian contingent -- towards the two gunboats that remain, and the Gears and soldiers that dare deploy.

"I fear you are outnumbered, Solarians!" the Quarter Knight howls up at them. "I am a Quarter Knight! I am master and commander of the Metal Demons! Did you think, for even one moment, that I would tolerate you setting foot on anything I claim as mine!?"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Mother's dead. If it weren't for the team who went down to rescue Riesenlied, the fight would have likely taken many lives. As it stands, at least before Fei left, they all made it. For once, they all made it.

But he noticed something.

He noticed what wasn't there.

Solaris hadn't shown up.

He left early, made his way through the Photosphere and there he saw Siegfried.

Did you want to go in? Alone?

It's a memory that belongs to Fei and Fei alone.

Perhaps I do. Perhaps I do not. But, human, what could you do to stop me...If I simply charged right in?

Fei leaps down from the elevator shortly after Siegfried's arrival. He manages a small smile, remembering the day they met. It's a fond memory.

I'd probably admire your audacity and follow you. ... Wanna test it?

"Used my name that time." He says, mildly, and that's about what he can get out before...

Well Fei can't rip a battleship apart on foot. He pulls up Elly's scarf around his face and his eyesight focuses on the ground troops. This time he doesn't cuss himself out. He charges right on in towards the ground towards the Solarian troops, sending a blue chi wave down a contingent. It doesn't kill them, but it does blast them back onto their feet and get them scrambling. He's clearly still wounded from Mother's fire, you can even see it.

Fei just wishes he could remember how he got here, but whether this is a dream, memory, or reality--his actions are the same.

"Not this time, Solaris!! Not again!!" Fei shouts.

Fei Fong Wong has joined Siegfried's party

DC: Leah Sadalbari switches forms to The Watcher!
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

No matter how one might wish it, the past never really disappears. One way or another, it will come back, it will make its influence known in the present... and maybe the future.

The alarms going off are in this way a memory for one agent aboard the Tzadkiel. She looks up in the shuttle bay in which she stands, towards the bridge so far apart. She remembers...

YEARS AGO

The controls of Leah Voss's Gear smoke with the pressure building inside the cockpit as she jerks another lever down, amps up the thrust as she stares into the display. Static crashes on the radio.

"---" Only some of the words come through, "--t is your st--"

"Hit but functional! I'll cover you!"

The blue-eyed woman stares into the screen, and draws in a breath. She flips the safeties off on the Ether booster of her Gear, as she stares past the ranks ahead, forward, forward across the snows--

Leah stares at the image of the man in red on her display, past the ruined hulks of other soldiers' vehicles, and begins to channel her magic.

NOW -- TZADKIEL, SHUTTLE BAY

The Watcher begins to turn as she feels the vibrations in the ship. Already the explosions are rocking through the cabin. The hull is ripped, buckling quickly--

The Watcher lifts her arm, and electricity crackles about her limbs. The shuttle bay doors explode off of their hinges the instant before the cabin is engulfed in flame.

NOW -- PHOTOSPHERE EXTERIOR

A woman in black armor sinks, sinks, sinks towards the ground, apparently unconcerned. The indigo cloth of her tabard flutters in the wind; twisted metal falls around her; her armor is marked with soot, a gouge through the cheek of her helmet. But she speaks calmly through the radio.

"Emergency team, converge on my signal. Approaching the target area imminently. Authorization code, seraph cherub throne, this supersedes standard emergency protocol."

Sinking, sinking, sinking--

There is time for the others to come down more conventionally; there is, after all, a shuttle landing, soldiers deploying...

But in front of the ground soldiers there is a blur of motion and a thundering crash, the ground echoing under the great weight of a figure wreathed in Ether.

Faceless, the woman stands, first from a knee and then to her full height, lifting a sword as large as she is tall.

"No," she answers, her voice strangely distorted, full of static, recognizeable only as vaguely feminine. "I did not."

"I am the Grigori, the Watcher over the Shepherds."

The Watcher lifts her weapon, points it towards Siegfried himself. If she looks at Fei, it is impossible to tell; her eyes are not visible. "And you have become obsolete. Your existence is no longer necessary."

<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

Siegfried's challenge echoes out from atop the Photosphere, bouncing back from the heavens and falling upon the ears of Solarians still reeling from the loss of the Tzadkiel. What few Gebler soldiers are still alive and uninjured are frantically attempting to ensure their comrades remain so, leaving few to pick up the gauntlet the Quarter Knight has so carelessly thrown down.

Few. But not none.

Ether surges from the depths of the Photosphere, accompanied by the rising sense of an approaching predator. After a handful of seconds, a section of the Photosphere's hull about fifty yards from the Qyarter Knight's position erupts upward in a towering column of brilliant light, carving through Hyadean metals, and showering the area with spots of molten slag. A quartet of flickering golden metal objects emerge from the gaping wound in the Photosphere, spiralling as though propelled by some invisible force, then taking up a slow circle around the gaping void.

A second passes, then two.

It is then that the golden form of the Command Gear Wyvern rises up from the depths; its armour battered by some recent conflict, smoke leaking through a rent in its lower left abdomen. But despite the obvious signs of damage, the machine makes no effort to flee. Instead, the cockpit shield slides open, revealing the windblown visage of a tall, pale-haired man in tactical armour.

"Quarter Knight Siegfried," the pale man's voice echoes out, his baritone carrying through the howling blaze. "I am Kahran Ramses, commander of the Gebler Expeditionary Force. And I shall answer your question with one of my own." The big man's eyes blaze, Ether power blazing from his eyes, transferring to the hull of his machine. "It matters not to me which pathetic scrap of mud on this ball of dust your people choose to lay your claim to. For our dominion extends over it all."

Wyvern's cockpit plating slams back into place, and the golden Gear's Aerods move into firing position. "I came to this land to slay a Demon," Ramses snarls. "LET US SEE IF YOU LIVE UP TO THE NAME!"

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        Riesenlied has ... perhaps inarguably ... had the worst couple weeks of her life.

        A painful encounter with her past led her to a Medium that she long chose to forget out of self-doubt and pain. A Medium that now rests grafted -- in no small part because of Solarian nanomachines -- upon her neck, following her kidnapping and subsequent experimentation at the hands of Alhazred, whom Kahran engaged not moments earlier in the Wyvern.

        And just when she thought she'd have her family together--

        When she thought she would have a chance to call her father thus and heal from the newfound freedom of the tyranny of the leech they've all been cast under...

        ...

        Somewhere, closer to the other side of the Photosphere's rising form, a round yellow Dragon gets them as close to the scene of the carnage as can be mustered. Gantries, support beams and cabling are falling all around her and Noeline, as Muni-Muni helps to get them to where Fei and Siegfried departed. Where the thunderous loud roar of the Tzadkiel's damage signified the portent of a horrible battle to her.

        The Dragon's Tear is clutched around her palm, reverberating with a fearful, anxious light.

        The Hyadean is a mess -- she can't even walk under her power right now, let alone speak terribly coherently. She whimpers for a moment as an explosion washes against Muni's side, but the Dragon stays strong. Her voice is in shreds:

        "... father...
         please... let us make it in time..."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        Leaving a place while it's in the process of coming apart at the seams is never particularly pleasant.

        Particularly not when the bombing has already started. Another salvo must have just struck above; something shatters, falling down in a rain of debris.

        "Go! Just keep going!"

        The corridor behind them has caved in, metal supports buckling.
        He doesn't stop. He doesn't let go of her hand.
        If he had left her, left earlier, it would have been easier. But--

        Light. He sees light. An exit presents itself. "There--"

        Several hundred feet above the ground. Loren stops up short, his gaze casting up at the sky. Now what -- he can't ask them to stop --

        He's in full body armor. His face is hidden behind the opaque glass of that helmet. Yet, the way he tenses as something slices the Tzadkiel in two, as the halves begin to tumble their way down from the heavens may hint to Lan the horror that must have written itself across his face now. For a long moment, Loren doesn't say anything.

        Everyone on board... are they...

        And then he says to Lan very simply thus:
        "Don't let go. This is going to be terrible."

        And leaps from that high point on the side of the Photosphere.

        Water for speed, agility, reflex.
        Earth for protection, absorption. The two of them glow, awash in a nimbus of Ether, channeled through and spread via the device at his right wrist.

        For the moment, they almost fly for the falling. Maybe this is what it's like for Tabitha, he half-wonders, the snows below speeding up towards them.
        He closes his eyes. Takes a breath.

        Disperse, disperse. It's not the fall itself, it's the force that kills you. Spread it out, let other things break--
        In the end it's all about stress.

        They arise amidst steaming snow and shattered earth, in the heart of a shallow crater.
        Just how Leah had landed when she'd caught him. A similar principle, if via different means.

        He straightens, exhales. Drops a hand into his pack and in doing so, releases hers. The Rosesol is consumed quickly, already doing its work as he crests the shallow rise of the crater and runs across the snow for a familiar figure.
        He doesn't shout her name.

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

The 'Merciless Queen' who accompanied the Watcher earlier is still about, propped up on a supply box, one knee up and the other hanging down. Evacuated with haste, after the fall of noble (*not noble) Yarobeleedt - the Watcher apparently knew something, and Queen knows better than to question. "I just don't get what people saw in some kind of slug mantis," she says, idly, for what's got to be the fourth time in the last hour.

The hood is down, revealing blonde hair and blue eyes; Tabitha's disguise was for fooling Lambs, after all. She's not even technically in Gebler! She just hangs out abusing their good name. Any problems that causes between departments isn't really her problem, she figures.

Then the whole structure shakes. Her eyes cut up, and the lackadaisical grin flickers to a more thoughtful, listening look. A hunter searches with more than her eyes, after all.

Which is why, in the heartbeat between the lance of light ripping through the wall and vaporizing the box she'd been standing on, Tabitha flickers away and alights on the nearest safe wall, looking straight up at devestation. "Weapons were still online?" she murmurs, lips pursed. "Not possible. Which means..."

Her lips perk up into an excited smile. "I get another fun dance tonight," she whispers, and leaps into seam of the shucked battleship, a single soaring figure floating into the open, hovering for a moment, and then darting now, swooping this way and that to tag a few of the cuter crewpersons with a low-gravity field that should ensure they hit at less than shattering speeds. Moments later, she darts out of the sky, a spear of Gebler colors and blonde hair crashing down with kinetic-kill speed--

And then she delicately touches down on the surface with barely a sound, full lips perked up excitedly. "I'm afraid you've mistaken us for people concerned about your opinion, mister," she says, and holds out her hand. She doesn't draw her ARM; it draws itself, drawn inevitably into her grip.

GS: Siegfried has adjusted their boss level for 3 opponents!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
        They did it. They killed Mother. The world is saved now.

        She was there, she helped, and yet Lan can still hardly believe it. Now's... probably not the best time to think too hard about it though.

        She's never been so glad that Loren's a medic, because without some hasty first aid she'd still be a burden on him. His gloved hand in hers isn't precisely 'comforting' as they run for the exit, but Lan curls her fingers around his anyway and runs faster.

        They approach light. Good, they can get out of here, get back onto solid... ground... Lan edges forward to peer over the lip despite knowing what she'll see. It's a long way down--

        A long way, and the Tzadkiel falls the whole of it. It's enough to make even Loren pause, and Lan stares out in horror as the wreckage lands in two halves, the edges still molten. "What..."

        Wait, he's not really going to--?! Lan sucks in a breath to scream, but finds her voice frozen in her lungs as they fall. Instead, she funnels chakra into her ribbon, helping negate the force of gravity on them both.

        It could never fully support both of them, but it can make Loren's part easier.

        They land better than Lan would have thought, truthfully. Well enough for Loren to go running, and Lan has no better idea than to hare after him, heart in her throat.

<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Two come to address him. Siegfried recognizes the Wyvern -- he saw it within, attacking Alhazred. Any pride he felt in that proves fleeting. The Quarter Knight regards the battered Gear coolly, for a moment. Then, he turns his head -- and metallic eyes gleam red, as he gets a good look at the masked form of Grigori.

"You rule nothing," he says. "I will cast your city to the ground if I must. I have suffered your existence on this world -- on my world -- for longer than I ever should have."

He feels the ground under him rumble with Loren and Lan hitting the outer shell of the Photosphere. The Quarter Knight turns his head fractionally; he notes their position, notes their survival, and keeps his silence for the moment. Four Solarians, he thinks, against him and Fei. Odds that he will take.

More, if he doesn't kill them quickly.

His eyes shift, quickly, when Tabitha sets down with such grace. He notes her presence. Five. He doesn't judge his odds to shift significantly. It does spur him to action. The Quarter Knight whirls, swinging his left arm up. White cape flutters after, while the armor on the forearm pops up. The cannon inside fires, barrel sparking, before a bolt of ion energy hurtles off towards Loren.

The Quarter Knight doesn't attack Lan, but nor does he ignore her. He judges, instead, that he needs to strike the Wyvern down quickly. He leaps away from her and Loren, and over Fei's head. Glumzambor swings back in one hand; as he rushes at it, white hexagons flash across the Quarter Knight's armored body. His gloved hands wrap about the hilt of the Dark Spear. It comes back.

He closes the distance with Ramses's Gear, then smashes the weapon hard for the chest -- where he hopes the cockpit block to be.

GS: Siegfried has attacked Loren Voss with Ion Pulse!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Kahran Ramses with Anti-Gear Blade!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Siegfried with Hi-Shield!
GS: Siegfried has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Hi-Shield for 0 hit points!
GS: Cover! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
GS: Kahran Ramses takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Anti-Gear Blade for 87 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        Despite her assured words to Lydia, despite her calm and determined exterior and her trust in Muni, every nerve in Noeline's head tugs at her and quietly insists that this is a terrible idea. But then, that's always been the split that drives her forward - learning to live with the Tainted and be one of their number has always been a compromise between her instincts and her desires, and in throwing away the mask of Ebon Zero she's accepted that sometimes she's just got to do something that goes against her flighty nature.

        One arm remains around Riesenlied, holding the stricken Hyadean close to her chest; she keeps her balance atop the round yellow dragon, and even if she's not that good at summoning up compliments and encouragement she can at least keep up a good-natured whisper, making a quiet noise of support as she pats the creature. Orbiting around them, Strife and Trouble sweep in a rapid patrol, occasionally pausing to blast - or headbutt, in Trouble's case - the worst of the falling wreckage away.

        She doesn't need the Dragon's Tear to sense Riesenlied's anxiety, picking up on it herself, and she doesn't need to be able to see it to have a pretty damn good idea of what just happened to the Tzadkiel. As exhausted as she is, there is a brief and tiny moment of satisfaction behind her eyes - that at least this way the Fereshte won't be plucked out of the sky once they're done with the Photosphere. But she catches herself immediately afterwards, chiding herself for thinking that way - chews at the inside of her cheek as she urges Muni onwards.

        "Just a little more," she mutters. Whether to the dragon, to her partner, or to herself, she's not really sure.

GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Ion Pulse for 162 hit points!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei can't fight a gear on foot, not really. "Tch... using your gear..." Fei says, but Siegfried ripped a battleship in half. He'd like to think that the guy can take on one gear. Maybe not if he's getting swarmed by Solarian elites, however.

Fei's attention is first drawn by Grigori. He remembers her. They argued about history. The way she has entitled herself, it makes her sound dangerous. Could it be a distraction? No, he's seen her work. Have a little hope, Fei, and do what you can.

Zephyr gonna...

Fei shakes his head and rushes forward. He charges in, not immediately noticing Lan and Loren (who seem otherwise pretty occupied with survival at the moment as is). He throws several quick strikes for Tabitha--he dimly recalls she tends to be speedy so best to not get too flashy with her before swooping in before Grigori and punching downward towards the floor before a burst of chi erupts out from the ground and towards her midsection--not a lot, but fast and hurty.

"This isn't your world!" Fei shouts. "Any more than it is theirs!" It's not quite the same line as Siegfried is using but it's close enough that in this situation he is squarely on the Quarter Knight's side here.

But he does see Siegfried striking out at Loren and his gaze turns towards him and, as a result, Lan Lilac.

"What..." He says. "Why is she here? I thought she was a shaman." Pause. His eyes narrow. "Blonde hair...should've known."

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Hoten!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Grigori with Raijin!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Grigori guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Raijin for 43 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Grigori!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hoten for 63 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

Ramses' lips peel back from his teeth, baring them in a wolf's grin. The earlier battle against the Tainted dragon had only served to whet the Gebler commander's appetite. He had fully intended to head deeper inward, help finish the job against this Mother, should it be required... but then the cries of his people echoed out in pain, and loss. So Ramses rose from the depths, seeking the source of that pain... only to find in it a target of suitable strength to allow him to cut loose.

If Kahran Ramses believed in any god, he would be thanking him now. Instead, he smiles and readies himself for war.

Siegfried's charge is swift, and while it doesn't catch Ramses off guard, per se, he needs to both react and move his Gear with sufficient speed to counter the strike. And so Glumzabor bites into the chest, penetrating eight inches of cockpit plating before Ramses smashes the strike away with a whip-quick parry. Half a beat late, he thinks to himself as he shifts his assault to his best choice for keeping up with a smaller, swifter opponent.

And so the Aerods slip out from their hovering guard and pursue the dashing Quarter Knight, firing staccato bursts of blazing Ether at Siegfried's back and sides, rotating around him on trails of thought, always chipping away at the Hyadean champion.

GS: Kahran Ramses has attacked Siegfried with Aerod Storm!
GS: Kahran Ramses has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Kahran Ramses has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried takes a solid hit from Kahran Ramses's Aerod Storm for 132 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Grigori has posed.

The Watcher answered Tabitha's question about the mantis the first two times. The fourth she doesn't, but she was a little busy just then. Weapons were not online...

And now the Watcher notes the arrival of the best defense squad they're likely to get in the moment. Fail here, and the battle risks becoming larger--risks getting near territory that they aren't willing to abandon.

She does not answer any of her allies directly. She merely notes their presence, from Ramses's sheer power to Lan's confusion. She considers what has been said...

"But it is. It is to us to guide humanity towards its destiny."

Siegfried leaps to act upon the Wyvern; Grigori, this, looks to their other target. It might seem strange, for someone who claims such a lofty title to focus her full attention on Fei the way she does, to turn towards him, the barest necessary movement. But maybe not. He is attacking her.

Fei's chi erupts forward, and the Watcher extends her arm, using it to defend as if she carried a shield; the blow does not shake her. There is, however, a crackling of electricity that spreads from her arm around her body, and she registers the effect internally; her defenses are compromised.

She acknowledges it, and steps forward, shifting her blade. Her rush is quick, her movements sparse--there is little wasted as she reaches Fei while he's looking to the others.

"I suggest you think of her later."

Leah's gigantic sword crashes down towards Fei, unnecessarily sharp for a weapon that could cleave bone as easily as wood. The blade whirrs, some machinery within it working as it pulses with corrosive Wind Ether.

"What is ownership, Fei Fong Wong? Do you really know what you're claiming isn't the truth?"

GS: Grigori has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Leaden Strike!
GS: Grigori has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        A figure stands beyond the Watcher, clad in blue armor.

        No.

        Loren is a smart boy: by turns he can assemble the pieces of what has happened here. The attack on the Tzadkiel. The Quarter Knight Siegfried's presence here now.
        And that threat, akin to one a certain other has made, but for the very real possiblity the Metal Demon might--
        No. It couldn't! It couldn't happen!

        His response thus comes in a snarl: "You'll never get near it! You'll fall--"

        Siegfried turns.
        Loren has seen this attack before, once, when on a mission deep in the Photosphere, nearly a year before. The last time, Major Yugh had interposed himself.
        There's no one to do that now. The bolt slams into him, sending the young medic ragdolling back across the drifts.
        He rises a moment later, pulling his broken and ravaged helmet free and tossing it sidelong into the snow. Blood mats the hair on one side of his head.

        Siegfried has gone, rising to tangle with the Wyvern -- damaged, Loren notes, glancing up but once at the skies -- but it appears the Quarter Knight has an ally in this.

        "So you've joined with him." Loren hisses out a breath, his expression a fell one. "Did he promise you something? Or is this just where your baser instincts have led you?" He snaps out a hand, gaze hooded as he draws on his only-recently renewed ability to channel Ether.

        "It doesn't matter."

        All the grace of a river's rapids. This, he now bestows on those closest to himself.

GS: Loren Voss has activated a Force Action!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lan Lilac with Haste Factor!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Haste Factor!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Grigori with Haste Factor!
GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Grigori takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Haste Factor for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Grigori!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Haste Factor for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Grigori's Leaden Strike for 24 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Grigori has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Siegfried notes her but does not consider her a tactically meaningful threat. Tabitha might take offense to that, but all she actually does is tip her head with interest at the way he whirls into action. "Pushed you to fight, did I," she murmurs, reading into the moves.

Fei comes at her. He's right; she's fast. Her leg blurs up shockingly fast, catching the worst of Fei's blow with her leg and then working her knee like a claw, catching Fei's wrist and shoving off the ground with her other leg. The way she moves borders on the nonsensical - not physically impossible, per se, but abusing her ability to shift her personal gravity and those around her so that she can apply forces in ways that are nearly impossible to predict. Expecting what she WANTS to do rather than IS CAPABLE OF might be the better defense...

Good luck even getting that far, though. She smiles at Fei, indulgent and pitying. "There's a problem we must overcome, in the sciences. Something that blinds so a person so easily to the data they gather," she says, and then she whirls around the pivot point of Fei's own arm to slam her knee for his jaw, then uses that force to backflip away, tap the ground as gently as a leaf, and then spear in toward his chest with an upraised knee, so forcefully applied that a razor-wind forms at the edge.

Her lips split in a mocking grin. "You can't let the lies you tell yourself get in the way!"

GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Icarus Flourish!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
GS: Lan Lilac takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Haste Factor for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Lan Lilac!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Icarus Flourish for 73 hit points!
GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
        She knows of Fei Fong Wong, but Lan can't recall where she actually... saw him. Maybe normally, she'd be more worried about it. Right now, she's focusing everything she's got on 'surviving another battle'. So far nobody's even shot at her, so she's doing okay!

        She screeches when Siegfried's bolt sends Loren flying, racing forward to interpose herself between the Quarter Knight and him. "Stop! Didn't you hear? Mother is dead!" the shaman yells after Siegfried, arms spread to either side as if she could tank one of those blows all on her own.

        Semi-familiar energy settles onto her shoulders, mingles with the thin silver in her veins. She's got this. Even if Lan doesn't want to fight other people like this, she can do it.

        She has to, if she's going to protect Loren--

        She rushes for the other martial artist, darting into his personal space to harry at him with knife-handed blows. Testing him out.

GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Dancing Dagger!
GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Lan Lilac's Dancing Dagger for 78 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Siegfried's blade meets the parry, and then he bounces backward. He has only to glance at the cut in the armor to see it bit, but not bit through. His teeth grith; he lands, ground crunching under his feet. The way the Photosphere's hull buckles, slightly, with each impact is a concern. Any nostalgia or regret he feels for the impending loss of his home, much less its sorry state, is compartmentalized.

He is not quite ready for the Aerods. Blazing light descends on him. While the glowing, form-clinging shield of interlocked white hexagons weakens the first two, the third blast strikes his hip and blows out the side of his armor. Quicksilver blood splashes down onto the ground.

"Gh...!"

He turns his head, looking over his shoulder. His jaw is visible only in profile; his eyes are largely hidden by the shadow of his helmet. "I will," he says. "Mother is dead. When I find myself questioning one lie, I think it wise to expose many of those lies. The time for restraint against you maggots is gone, boy."

He shifts -- and rushes at Wyvern. This time, as he closes in on the Gear, he leaps up -- and swings the blade into a wicked uppercut slash. It comes for the hip joint of the left leg. Siegfried comes near the thing, then bicycle kicks off the Gear. He sees Fei, as he flies.

And he isn't leaving his ally in the dust. Siegfried slams down next to Tabitha, slamming the Dark Spear out in a long, one-handed thrust to cut into her side. He turns not a moment later, then, and chops the blade down with a two-handed slash across Lan's side.

"You would throw in with their lot?" he shouts to the martial artist, as the blade finishes its descent, and slams into the earth.

GS: Siegfried has attacked Kahran Ramses with Azure Cleave!
GS: Siegfried enters a Counter stance!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Dark Spear!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Lan Lilac with Nemesis Cleave!
GS: Siegfried has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Kahran Ramses takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Azure Cleave for 217 hit points!
GS: Lan Lilac takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Nemesis Cleave for 183 hit points!
GS: Kahran Ramses has activated a Force Action!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Dark Spear for 71 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"Siegfried is my friend," Fei tells Loren. "I won't abandon him and I certainly won't let a Solarian Death Squad kill him without fighting back! Even if it's just me!"

They must be fleeing the Photosphere now. Some might see what's going on here, but he can't trust they wouldn't side with Solaris. He saw them fighting together. It might mean nothing. It might mean everything.

Fei throws a punch for Loren's face. A wave of ice erupts from his hands towards his body, rapidly solidifying into an ice-like crystal state. He might get trapped inside if he's not careful!

Unfortunately before he can capitalize on it, Lan Lilac darts in and smacks her hand into his body several times while his guard is off from using a heavier attack on Loren.

He hops back, gritting his teeth to look towards the Solarian Shaman???

"Why are you fighting with them?" Fei asks on the off chance she just tripped into this situation. Unfortunately getting those good hits on Fei like that is good for hurting him but not so much for gauging his style just yet especially since it doesn't seem to be any style Lan would recognize. Or anybody would recognize, honestly, since it's Fei's own style. An astute martial artist may notice Shevat Open Palm and Demon Fist in the mix there, but is that just it?

Grigori swings a HUGE sword Fei's way but Fei always seems to do well against swords--just ask your Commanding Officer!--Fei slides to the side and punches the sword away from his body before, swinging off it to punch a fiery explosion down towards her. That's two ether types. It's unusual in a lamb, but he's shown more than two in the past.

"Nobody owns a world." Fei says simply enough to Grigori. "The world rests on all our shoulders."

He slides forward to capitalize further but Tabitha spins up his arm (sadly, expectedly) and slams her knee into his jaw. Fei flips back himself to open up more distance to compensate for Tabitha's speed and brings an arm down to knock away her second strike.

"Science isn't science unless it's peer reviewed." Fei says. "Solarian science is self-serving."

Fei glances over to Siegfried for a moment but he's not inclined to abandon him. He winces at his injury but--but he'll be okay.

"We're on agreement on that front. Alliances of convenience with you--" He trails off. What was he about to say there? Not now, not now, focus Fei. FOCUS.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Loren Voss with Suikei!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Grigori with Kakei!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Grigori takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kakei for 228 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Suikei for 169 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

Siegfried's explosive charge is brutal in its speed and efficiency. The Quarter Knight's blow rips into and through the Wyvern's hip joint, causing hydraulic fluid and sparks to spray forth in a brilliant shower. The latter ignites the former shortly thereafter, causing the Gear's leg to belch forth gouts of flame and black, acrid smoke; red lights from alarm beacons play along Ramses' face as Wyvern's entire lower right quadrant simply stops functioning.

Despite the flickering lights and pulsing klaxons, Ramses's expression is more impressed than concerned or angry. "What a strike," he breathes, his eyes taking on renewed interest. What a pleasure it would be, to leap from his cockpit, draw his blade, and fight. To face a creature such as this in single combat, to test his strength against the closest thing he's seen to the Red Demon's power. To dance, once again, on the edge of the sword that parts life's thread.

Kahran Ramses would do it in a heartbeat. But the commander of Gebler has his duty.

Wyvern's flight engine activates, smoke still billowing from the wounded limb as it rises into the air. Ramses's hands tighten on the controls of his machine, as he calls upon the true depths of his power, opening himself to the currents of Ether and drinking them deep. Green-white light begins to blaze out from the golden Gear as it raises its sword to the skies, forming a brilliant blade forged of pure energy. Howling winds descend from the roof of the world, feeding into the tornado of light, extending it a dozen yards upward. Then a hundred. Then two.

Across Elru, the scattered few who remain alive on the continent each look up into the skies. Refugees and soldiers, beasts and birds, each of them turns toward the distant site of the Photosphere, watching a spire of energy light up the skies, push back against the darkness.

And then, with a scream of fury, Kahran Ramses brings it crashing down.

GS: Kahran Ramses has attacked Siegfried with Heavenly Bladewing!
GS: Kahran Ramses has completed his action.
GS: COUNTER! Siegfried strikes at Kahran Ramses with a counter attack!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Kahran Ramses's attack becomes clear!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Kahran Ramses's Divine Wind for 129 hit points!
GS: Kahran Ramses takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Counter Attack for 151 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Grigori has posed.

"It is a matter of survivial now," the Watcher says in her mechanical voice to Lan. "The demon has made his choice. Our goals cannot be reconciled."

The Watcher does not answer the matter of science, however. Instead, she says to Fei, "Pretending that we all bear the same burden is abdicating your own responsibility. The powerful must use their power for the betterment of the world. The wise must make the decisions others cannot."

Lan darts in, and Grigori considers her next move; Fei is too fast to catch with the sword, too fast to maneuver around and into; this much is clear as she begins to move and instead the explosion crashes into her, the scent of burning flesh and rubber and cloth filling the air in an instant as the strange woman is knocked backwards and to what passes for ground here. Water, once; fire, next. ...But the Watcher is well familiar with fire.

From where she fell, Grigori begins to rise again, stabbing her weapon into the ground and using it to pull herself back up. As she moves, her movements become smoother, faster under the grace Loren's Ether affords her. She lets it suffuse her, focuses... and does not raise her blade again at this time.

"Or do you claim to be one of the powerless, pilot? You cannot run forever."

The Watcher's shoulders straighten; now that the smoke has cleared, the arm that holds her sword is partially revealed; the sleeve is torn, the armor broken... but it is not flesh that is beneath. Scraped metal, the cord of exposed synthetic muscle--these are obvious.

"It seems that it's time. As the Commander moves..."

The Watcher breathes in, and Fei may be the first to feel the building of Ether from here, too. It moves as freely as the sea itself, draws forward as the Grigori begins to float off of the ground with the force she channels.

"You will learn. Or you will die. The stakes demand nothing less."

A blue aura suffuses the air around her, before the sky opens; amidst the howling winds, Water develops, and if it is not visible across the continent, it is still pertinent here:

The Water materializing grows, and it is two gigantic columns that gleam faintly luminous, before they begin to hiss and bubble. The Watcher gestures, and these hammers rush towards both Siegfried and Fei, seeking to envelop, to overwhelm, and to press, caustic fluid burning as surely as acid, hissing loudly in the long instants it is afforded existence.

GS: Grigori has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha is having a great time talking down her nose at a guy she emotionally parses as a yappy dog when some kind of sword gorilla blitzes at her. She jukes back - the blade barely falling shy of splitting her belly open as the speedy, implausibly lightweight woman skips back, touches down on her hands, then twists at her wrists to whirl herself down to a squat, some of the smarm gone from that smile. Close, close, way too close...

"Nobody's lying," she says. "That you don't like being dogs doesn't change what you are."

Her smile stays so pretty as she says it, then she surges at Siegfried - daring to draw into the range of that terrible dark spear. But perhaps that hardly matters, given the powers the Quarter Knight has shown at all possible ranges. The hull creaks under her, the only warning that she's shifted her weight before she RISES into him, a surging knee that takes int he gut with dizzying force. It might not, quite, actually sting through the armor - but the forces imparted can still lift him off even his powerful feet, dazing his momentum.

GS: Grigori has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Aqua Breaker!
GS: Grigori has attacked Siegfried with Aqua Breaker!
GS: Grigori has completed her action.
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Siegfried with Ascension Typhoon!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Grigori's Aqua Breaker for 75 hit points!
GS: Poison and Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Ascension Typhoon for 46 hit points!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has lost 0 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Grigori's Aqua Breaker for 82 hit points!
GS: Poison and Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        Loren's tone is flat as he responds:

        "The leader of the Metal Demons, serving a creature that had aims on Emperor-knows-what, is your friend." He stares Fei down, as if attempting read the young man's mind. "You've actually gone mad, haven't you? Even for your kind this is pushing i--"

        The comment cuts out. Fei interrupts the commentary with a well-thrown punch--
        and the icy air that comes roaring in afterwards. Motions to guard come at an unfortunate delay; the air begins to not just bite to the bone but freeze, locking a good half of Loren's body in a pillar of frost.

        Fortunately for him, this is where Lan intercedes. Drawing back -- and destabilizing the structure of the ice gathered about him for good measure -- Loren sends that ice pillar shattering in its half-melt about him.

        He twists his left forearm and drops backwards a step, boots crunching in the snow.
        The heavy collapsible shield unfolds before him.
        He breathes out.
        Maybe it's for running the gauntlet of the Photosphere before, to say nothing of his search for Lan after their separation. Maybe it's that stunt he pulled diving off the side of the place. But he's not in good shape here right now -- he can feel himself flagging.

        Which may be one of the reasons why those green fractal lines begin to spill across himself and a few choice others situated here on the ground.

        But there are things said that he can't just let slide.

        So he says, in anger: "You're taking responsibility for the world, then, Lamb? You? Look at the world around you and tell me that again!"

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Loren Voss with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Grigori with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lan Lilac with Healing Order!
GS: Loren Voss has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Loren Voss heals Loren Voss! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Loren Voss heals Grigori! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Loren Voss heals Lan Lilac! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
        The problem, it seems, is one of communication.

        Lan assumes that when Siegfried says 'them', he means humans. Uh, of course Lan would side with humans, she is one!! Duh!

        Metal Demons are so weird. No wonder they were killing everything. Maybe they're just... fundamentally different...

        He rockets toward her, striking Tabitha on the way, and without the ability to dodge forward Lan takes a heavy gash across her side, beneath the ribs. "Augh!" She stumbles back, nearly tripping over the haft of the spear in her haste to put a little distance between herself and Siegfried and Fei, a hand clamped to her side.

        Her own style is simple enough. An experienced martial artist like Fei would easily intuit that she focuses on fast and accurate strikes, and probably isn't built for endurance. "You said that man is your friend," she huffs at Fei, eyes flickering between him and Siegfried. She gestures back at Loren, bleeding on the snow. "He's my friend." Isn't that enough?

        As if to prove her right, she can feel Loren bolstering her reserves again. The wound in her side steams gently as a scab forms, just strong enough to stop further bleeding. "I said I'd protect him," Lan explains, edging sideways to keep Grigori in her peripheral vision.

        Swaying slowly from foot to foot, Lan takes a deep breath before darting in again, ducking low to go for a leg sweep. She's just got to make Fei give up and go away.

GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Move Like Water!
GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Siegfried is surrounded by his foes. This is not alien to him; this is not different. The Quarter Knight often does that. He has not lost track of Grigori; the Quarter Knight turns, rising one blue-armored arm against the column of water, which smashes down into him. Steam rises off, the caustic fluid burning and pitting his armor. He grits his teeth, and he whirls about to face Tabitha as she charges.

She rises into him, and it takes him by surprise. Her knee slams into his armored stomach, and he lets out a sharp grunt. His fist slams for her neck -- and then he spins, getting away from her strange twist of armor. "You think to insult something older than kingdoms by comparing me to beasts? You weave a rich tapestry of horse droppings, girl."

He sees Lan move away, rushing at Fei again. He can't intervene. He expects to be dealing with the Geart shortly.

Siegfried is aware, intimately, of the strike that put upon Wyvern. He has his guesses to the pilot's recovery time. The Quarter Knight whirls, spinning to face Wyvern as it lifts into the air, and his eyes narrow. Metallic eyes gleam red; two hundred blades of energy come screaming down for Siegfried.

He screams.

He screams and he swings Glumzambor up, the blade striking into all of them on the moment that they all come down. There is an enormous flash of energy -- a shockwave that rolls off, blowing backward -- and leaves Siegfried standing there, armor blackened and burnt, but not fully broken. His helmet has a crack -- half of his face is revealed, as a chunk of armor falls away. He spits a glob of quicksilver onto the ground.

More of it runs down his arm. Siegfried turns around Glumzambor. He drives the blade into the hull of the Photosphere, feeling his feet slide. The chestplates on his breastplate snap open -- and there are more motes of light. They swirl, they draw into the barrel, and then Siegfried fires the same cannon that undid the Tzadkiel. A spear of blue-white light rips through the top layer of the Photosphere, carving out a channel that is glowing and molten -- and then it hurtles towards the flying, battered frame of Wyvern.

GS: Siegfried has activated a Force Action!
GS: Siegfried has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Kahran Ramses with Proton Beam!
GS: Siegfried has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Siegfried takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Kahran Ramses takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Proton Beam for 530 hit points!
GS: Kahran Ramses enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Kahran Ramses has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"How convenient then," Fei tells Grigori. "That you are both the 'powerful' and the 'wise'." But it seems that Grigori sees him as powerful as well, suggests that he is running from responsibility by denying his power. Fei hesitates, just slightly, at those Elly-like words and Grigori takes advantage of that hesitation to pummel him with a giant acidic column of water, pushing him away from Siegfried and letting Tabitha get past to strike at the Hyadean.

Not to mention the burning.

Fei hisses through the pain. Loren. Loren's making this fight tough as it is. And he didn't say those things about Elly but...

Fei struggles up to his feet. "Not a dog..." He murmurs.

He raises his head sharply. "I'm a WOLF!"

A Black Wolf to be precise. He straightens up and pants for breath. "Power means nothin'...if I can't save those closest to me."

He spins on his heel and--

--and Lan. Lan gives him pause. She expresses the situation simply, but honestly.

Fei looks at her. "..."

That's fair. We'll kill them both.

"Wait--" Fei begins but his arm snaps up strangely and a red flare of chi erupts out of his hand and towards Lan.

And Loren, for that matter.

Fei stumbles away and holds his head. "St..stop that. I can do this. I can do this..." He tells himself. "We don't need to...ngghh.... Lily where...where are you...?"

He pauses and then raises his head, calm again. "You tortured Lily. That's enough reason to render you unto ash!"

Yeah this is probably not helping him look sane here.

GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Lan Lilac's Move Like Water for 52 hit points!
GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Lan Lilac!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Lan Lilac with Guided Shot!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Loren Voss with Guided Shot!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Lan Lilac has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lan Lilac takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Guided Shot for 162 hit points!
GS: Lan Lilac used the Force Action Protect! She takes Fei Fong Wong's attack on Loren Voss on herself!
GS: Lan Lilac has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lan Lilac guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Guided Shot for 47 hit points!
<DICE ROLLER> Fei Fong Wong rolled 1d100 <65> + 0 = 65
<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

Where the Gebler commander brings quantity, the leader of the Quarter Knights brings quality - in lieu of two hundred brilliant blades, a single line of coruscating light rips out, shredding the Photosphere itself in its quest to slay him. The Wyvern's pilot knows he needs to evade, and on his Gear's golden wings, he could - but somewhere behind him is the remains of a capital ship with hundreds of souls aboard, Gebler soldiers, his subordinates, who have placed their lives in his hands, their trust in his leadership. Search and rescue is still underway, and while the majority of the crew has no doubt been killed... some few may still live.

The many faces that have shaped his life rise up in his mind, whispering their advice. Myyah would simply want him to come home. Hyu and Sig would argue the practical - his life is more valuable, and so he must live. Jesiah would live, mourn, and drown his sorrows. Cain would sigh, and note that leaders must make the hard choices.

Krelian would not even understand the question.

It is for this reason, more than any other, that Kahran Ramses stands his ground. Ether blazes through his body and into his Gear, Wyvern raising its left arm and calling into place a gleaming shield of opalescent light. The Aerods come back at Ramses' call, shifting into place in front of the Gear, forming a second barrier to reinforce the first just as Siegfried's blast connects, scattering light outward. For a moment, Solarian technology meets Hyadean fury, and turns it aside. But then the moment passes, and the Aerod barrier gives way; it shatters, the weapons bursting, and Wyvern staggers backward. Ramses grits his teeth and bears down, slamming his will into the original shield... but this too begins to splinter, seams of light forming along the barrier, motes of power leaking through, connecting with Wyvern's body. Golden armour begins to peel and boil away, first on the fingers, and then down the arm. Seconds later, the structure begins to disintegrate, in a twisting series of explosions that breaks the Ether connections.

The shield drops, and Siegfried's beam rips through Wyvern's extended arm. It evaporates the shoulder and torso. It burns into the cockpit.

And stops.

Kahran Ramses stands in the heart of his melting machine, left hand extended, a final shield forged from his will enveloping him in a sphere of pure Ether. Siegfried's onslaught continues, the energy splaying past Ramses' barrier, burning the core of his Gear out from around him. Veins stand out on the big man's neck and temples as his glove begins to burn away, revealing the shimmering light of his own overclocked Ether Booster, sparking and shorting under the strain. It holds for another second, then shatters into crystalline powder, leaving Ramses standing alone, behind a splintering shield held up by nothing but the force of his will. Blood seeps from his nostrils, from his eyes, his lips parting in a wordless, primal scream of rage, that vanishes behind the brilliant flash of Siegfried's final assault.

As the blinding light and smoke begin to clear, Wyvern's wreck can be seen - the once-brilliant Command Gear now essentially ending at its abdomen, everything above the midpoint of the torso simply burned away by the Quarter Knight. The only exception is a sphere composed of a thousand hexagons, formed in a crude shield that is so cracked it is more gap than barrier. After a few moments, the shield falls away into diamond dust, revealing the upright form of the commander of Gebler - his uniform burned away, his left side almost cherry-red with sunburn, body shaking. His fingers twitch and tremble spasmodically, as blood drips from the trails of crimson tears staining each side of his face.

Kahran Ramses draws in a single, shaking breath, his eyes moving in and out of focus, seeking and finding Siegfried's dark blur.

"St..." he stutters, a whole-body shiver tipping him fifteen degrees to the left. "Hr..."

Ramses pitches forward onto the charred remnants of his cockpit block, sinking into the blissful void beyond consciousness.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        He can't take his eyes off of what's in front of him. Yet, he's aware of what's happened above, in the skies.
        That beam, like a blade of light... it's been discharged again.
        He's still young. He looks. The same strike that had cleaved the Tzadkiel in twain has just struck the Commander's Gear. The Wyvern is a meteor, rocketing down towards the earth, which buckles in the aftermath.

        "The Commander--!"

        His attention snaps back to the battle before him: to who stands before him.

        "This is what you ally yourself with?!" He shifts his body forward, as if in anticipation of an attack he will dole out. His hand goes for the blade that isn't holstered at his hip.

        And it's into this that Lan says something that truly gives him pause.

        Or make that two things.
        'He's my friend.'
        'I said I'd protect him.'

        He blinks. "What are you--"

        --It's just the conditioning, isn't it--
        Into this, Fei's hand jerks up strangely, as if tugged by an invisible line he's become entangled within. Red light -- red energy -- flares. Loren draws up, steeling himself for the slam of a hit...
        Which doesn't come.
        Because Lan has interposed herself between the strike and him.

        Bit by bit the initial shock bleeds out. He manages a simple, "Why...?"
        By the time his gaze lifts from Lan to Fei, there's nothing remaining of shock. Loren's expression is blank.

        Into the void that follows he draws up the earth. Without a word further, without the need to focus. Without anything save the sudden catastrophic splintering of the stone buried under the snowfield.
        Up from below. Right for Fei.
        Perhaps, his intent now is to run the young man through.

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Terra Set!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Siegfried blushes off her comment and her hit both. In a way, maybe that was earned. A little too demeaning? she wonders. This is a science of its own, pulling and pushing on people with just force of personality. It's her own little branch of research, her own fascination and obsession...

He turns. He levels that weapon on the Commander. She watches.

She always watches. She sees the weaknesses in Siegfried's posture. But she also sees the phenomenal power of that weapon. "Just you," she murmurs. Not some secondary equipment, not a plug-in to the main reactor...just him, annihilating a Gear with that in-built weapon. "Something that amazing..."

She draws herself up. "Then, maybe I should treat you more properly," she says, and fluffs her hair out behind her, fingers plucking at her weapon, turning hidden dials, preparing hidden settings.

"The people of this world are lost. They don't know which end is up. They pray because many of them have nothing left but prayer. We fulfill those prayers. With our memory, with our mercy...some of us do those things. I, though..."

She yanks the slide back until it sticks, then lets it click back home.

"I go to the places where people scream because a Wels is eating their son," she says, eyes focused, voice quiet. "In the quiet places where things with more teeth than thoughts eye the firelights with envy."

Her eyes turn on the Wyvern - exploding. On the Commander of Gebler, slumped and broken inside.

Her thumb hits the safety, and she turns away. "To where demons that want to be called men fight for their right to destroy this world's order. I go there..."

And then she's gone. A blur of speed that might not be so shocking to Siegfried as it is to some, but nonetheless difficult to defend against as she comes up directly behind the Quarter Knight, with his guard down, his blade out of hand and his long-range weapon slowing him down.

Then she puts the barrel of her ARM against the back of Siegfried's helmet and fires, fully-charged ether bathing his skull.

"And I kill everything."

GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Siegfried with Keep Safe the Flock!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Keep Safe the Flock for 99 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Grigori has posed.

"No," the Watcher answers Fei as he falls. "I am a servant. I labor on behalf of something greater than any one woman or man."

Wrenching her weapon back out of the ground, Grigori lets herself register her condition; the scrambling in her defenses has abated, and though she is injured from Fei's sheer power, Loren's healing has reinforced her vitality. It will have to do, for the moment. She does not offer words of reassurance or safety to Loren or to Lan, despite her demeanor towards them in better circumstances. The role of the Watcher is not kindness. She approaches Siegfried, as he defends against Tabitha's attack, and as he begins to move. That scream should give anyone pause, curdle the blood, but the Watcher has not shed blood here, only coolant that leaks faintly from her inner arm. She does not approach with speed; there is no world in which she would be fast enough on foot to stop Siegfried's great cannon, his extraordinary attack that destroyed even the Tzadkiel itself. Her blade rests against her shoulder, the blunt end flush with her armor, as she walks. She gets closer, closer... And pauses, after Siegfried has finished his attack.

"You are ancient and powerful. This much is true and I will not deny it."

She offers no words of indignation at the powerful blow against the Commander of Gebler. What he has done falls in her sight; his actions, their meaning, these are clear, and speak for themselves. She offers no taunts, no imprecations, as she lowers her blade from her shoulder, lowers it until it touches the ground before her, and then she applies her second hand to its great hilt. The tip drags against the ground as she shifts it to her side, pointing behind, both hands still on it. This close, more than only her arm is visible; metal at her shoulder that is not armor, cabling for fingers instead of skin and bone.

The red flare of chi lights the air behind her, towards the others. The Watcher lowers her stance, feet apart, as she looks once from the fallen Commander, then towards Siegfried again. She speaks, into her radio, into the radios of the others, "Your Commander will require extraction. I will engage the enemy."

That is all she says before she rushes into motion suddenly. "But there is something else that is true." Her steps clank against the discarded metal on the ground, too heavy for a human woman's, and in moments she has cleared the distance. She gets close, and abrubtly lifts her blade, the ease with which she swings likely familiar to the great Hyadean leader. Up, across--and then she swings down, her great strength using the giant sword as much as a hammer as anything, her movements tight, focused.

"The object of your devotions is dead. The thing that pushed you onward is gone. But the world I seek has yet to be born."

GS: Grigori has attacked Siegfried with Hammerblow!
GS: Grigori has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Grigori has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Grigori's Hammerblow for 82 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Loren Voss's Terra Set for 84 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
        Power means nothin'... if I can't save those closest to me.

        Despite herself, despite everything, Lan smiles until the corners of her eyes crinkle. "You understand," she says, approvingly.

        Maybe they can reach some common ground. Maybe they can still resolve this peacefully--

        Lan's eyes widen as a harsh, red chakra blossoms from Fei's palm. Two projectiles, she's not going to be fast enough, no she has to be--

        Instead of leaping away, Lan charges into it, kicking off of the ground into an unlikely arc. Silver energy glows in the ribbon holding back her hair as Lan channels all her power into her only reflex.

        The first, closest blast washes over her, scorching her clothes and her hair and her skin. It's fine. Just, reach--!!

        Lan screams in a mixture of effort, pain, and desperation as she kicks through the second wave with a wordless shout, burning her leg but diverting the attack just enough to miss Loren.

        She lands poorly, stumbling to her knees. The gash in her side is threatening to reopen. No, no, no...!

        She looks up at Fei, at the madman babbling to someone she can't see, the whites of her eyes showing all the way around her pale irises--

        "Go away!" Lan screams it, and the heavens scream with her, stars falling from the sky to crater the ground at Fei's feet.

GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Material - Shooting Star!
GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Lan Lilac's Material - Shooting Star for 32 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lan Lilac has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Siegfried stares at the wreckage of the gear. He watches Ramses, and there is a faint nod of respect; a grudging one, given where he comes from, but there and real just the same. He hasn't often seen such power displayed. He waits until Ramses collapses forward -- and then, sure that he is no longer a threat, he turns. He sees Tabitha coming at him, and his eyes turn to meet her through his still-broken helmet.

"On that point, we agree. But you are no savior," he answers Tabitha. "Your kind are the parasite, consuming the people of this world." She is a blur; she is gone in the blink of an eye.

Glumzambor is not lifted up. It does not need to be -- because the ancient ARM is Siegfried's in a way that transcends the definition of the word 'possession.' It flies to his hand, and swings up at the last moment. There is a crack-boom, and Tabitha's ARM shoots into the side of the helmet. The rest of it cracks and falls away, as he knocks her ARM aside and leaves a dent in the barrel.

His eyes fall onto Grigori, as he approaches. They are both dangerous, he reasons, in different ways. Tabitha is unpredictable; Grigori advances with a familiar, confident gait. He has approached enemies like that before -- relying on raw physicality and reach. Her sword aglow with red light.

"Perhaps," he snaps, and when she moves so quick, her blade slams down into Glumzambor. The Dark Spear holds her weapon at bay, even as the heat of her chi begins to burn into his armor. He grunts, and pushes her away with a brutal shove of his sword. His eyes drift, for a moment, to Fei.

He takes stock of him. He seems tormented. That, for a moment, gives him pause. He needs to end this. If the boy really is Lacan reborn, then...

He swings Glumzambor out, a moment after pushing back the Watcher's hammerblow. Light shudders and glows off the edge of Glumzambor. Then, green, blue, yellow, white, and black arcs of light loose -- they explode off the blade. Tears are shorn through the Photosphere's outermost lair, where they strike -- rushing to meet Tabitha amnd Grigori both. A couple shoot towards Lan, but she calls down the heavens.

One of those stars rips through one, and the arc of light disintegrates into nothing.

Siegfried judged all three of them threats. But his eyes are on a different one. After destroying the Gear, the greatest threat to him is not the people who can strike the direst blows.

It is the one who can keep them doing so.

The Quarter Knight leaps with an absurd strength and blinding speed. He rises high, and Glumzambor swings back. The massive zweihander whips up over his shoulder -- and then he comes crashing down, trying to stab the blade hard into Loren Voss's midsection.

"<Tell me again, Solarian!>" he screams in Loren's language. "<TELL ME HOW I WILL NOT DESTROY YOU!>"

GS: Siegfried has activated a Force Action!
GS: Siegfried has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Grigori with Negative Rainbow!
GS: Siegfried has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Loren Voss with Blue Steel Strike!
GS: Siegfried has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Siegfried with Hi-Shield!
GS: Siegfried has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Siegfried takes 10 damage from Poison!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Hi-Shield for 0 hit points!
GS: Cover! Statuses applied to Siegfried!
GS: Grigori guards a hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 129 hit points!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Siegfried's Negative Rainbow for 111 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Siegfried's Blue Steel Strike for 204 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei marvels as Siegfried takes down Commander Ramses. He has known him to be a tenacious opponent and in their one battle together in gears, Fei barely managed to escape. To Fei, what Ramses lacked in skill he more than made up for it in piloting ability (or maybe the two situations were just different, Fei).

Lan has set Fei off his guard, but it seems Fei has regained his footing. When Lan dives in the way, Fei looks horrified! Of course he would look horrified. This woman seems to be relatively innocent so far, Solarian or no, and he doesn't want to kill her.

But Loren? Loren he will accept killing if it comes to it. He never wants to kill, he never wants it. He's sure he doesn't.

A guardian is summoned against him. His legs still ache from Lan's earlier legsweep. He managed to avoid a tumble but the strike of the kick still hurt. She is not just a caster, she has versatility. That makes it tougher. Stars crash around him but he weaves between them like he can see the pattern of the movements, as if he had fought shamans before, but Fei hasn't fought shamans before has he? That wouldn't make any sense. Fei reaches for Lan's arm, no doubt intending to disable her. Power means nothing if he can't save him. He's worked too hard for this moment to just let him face it alone. He can't be alone anymore. It's too sad. It's too sad.

He's so tired. He wants to sleep. He has to keep moving. He has to stay alive. Siegfried has to stay alive. Crimes or not, he is the hope of the Metal Demons. He is his rival. His friend. He was misled, don't they see that?

Don't they care?

An eruption from the earth bursts out of the ground. It rips through his side, opening up a wound. Fei grabs at it, holds his fingers tight against it.

"You don't even know him." Fei tells Loren. "What do you know?"

He can't reach Loren like this. Fei takes in a deep breath and slams his forehead for Lan's, intending to straight up headbutt her in an attempt to knock her down.

"Please stay down." Fei says. "Run away to a better place."

And then he darts in for Tabitha, intending to kick her up in the air with a single strike and then backflip his feet into her to send her spiraling even further up into the air.

"He beat your commander! Isn't that power enough for you?!" He looks to Siegfried and adds, because that was largely out of spite, "Sig...maybe we should fall back. The Photosphere is already falling apart!" The longer this battle goes, he knows, the more it will turn against him and Siegfried. He doesn't like the way Grigori is talking.

He doesn't like that mask she wears. It makes him feel intense wariness even beyond Solarian's presence already does.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Lan Lilac with Violence Becomes Casual After A While!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Senretsu!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Senretsu for 69 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
GS: Lan Lilac has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has lost 1 Combo!
DC: MISS! Lan Lilac completely evades Violence Becomes Casual After A While from Fei Fong Wong!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        The stars come screaming down. One after another, an invocation of her Guardian.
        He's reminded however fleetingly again of the tablet in his pack -- the same tablet he's wondered over, struggled with, despised, cursed.

        But for right now, Fei is the center of his focus, the center of the microcosmal universe that is this battlefield.

        Until, that is, the Watcher delivers her order. He nods in reluctant assent, taking one drawing step backwards. Duty takes priority over whatever he might feel now.
        The Commander can't die here.
        "Lan--! We're going!" he barks, shield still held before him, as if he doesn't trust Fei to not take a swing for him.

        It's into this moment that Siegfried intrudes.
        Loren's gaze snaps upwards, shield following it. He twists his torso, as if to minimize his profile, letting the shield take the lead.

        On impact, the shield shatters into hundreds of shards. The blade keeps going. The blade sinks deep into--

        Loren.

        "<How... do you know...>," Loren slurs through a mouthful of blood. He slumps against the snow, limp, staring nearly sightlessly up at the one who has run him through.

        Should have... realized...

        His gaze shifts, a few millimeters to his left.
        And he breathes out, channeling Ether.
        But not for himself.

GS: Loren Voss has attacked Grigori with Healing Function!
GS: Loren Voss has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Grigori!
GS: Loren Voss heals Grigori! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

"Tell that to the people who weep with joy when we arrive," Tabitha says to Siegfried, though she can't entirely disguise the alarm she feels at seeing her ARM so effortlessly ruined. She stares at it thoughtfully, then tosses it leisurely away, letting the thing clatter to the ground. "Says the man whose entire game plan was to kill everyone and then, what, stab the planet's soul? You have no high ground! You slaughtered a kingdom! Twice! What--"

She was about to really get going when Siegfried blasts at her, forces her to hop and dodge. One, two, three points of light slam into her, breaching her defenses and sending her soaring backward. She touches down - SLAMS down, her feet indenting the battered hull with an unimaginable weight - to force herself to stop sputtering away. "He knows the--" she sputters out, actually taken truly by surprise by Siegfried's barked cry; but before she can intervene, Fei leaps at her, and she whirls at him. He gets that first kick in, but she goes even higher than he might be expecting, arcing through the air like he'd hurled a tennis ball instead of a person.

She comes down some ways out. "Yes," she says to Fei, even from here. "I think it is more than enough."

She pulls the silvery gauntlet she wears up, taps a few invisible signals on it, and brings a mic nobody can see up to her mouth.

"<What are we to say to sinners that feign nobility?>" she breathes in Solarian.

The armlet beeps, twice. An alert pops up - one visible only to Grigori, one on Ramses' destroyed monitors, and one splashed across the hidden screen of her shackle.

        LET THE LORD'S JUDGMENT FALL UPON THEM AS A WEIGHT.
        GRAVITON SHACKLE RELEASED. ETHER DOUBLER ENGAGED.
                        00:14:59.99

Tabitha's Ether response spikes, doubling and then doubling again, a shockwave of ambient magic blasting away from her in a sudden riotous release of subdued power. When she walks, it's less like she steps upon the ground as the ground feels it must be drawn to her instead, as she steps purposely toward Fei and Siegfried, the air lensing around her.

Then she holds up her hand and Fei and Siegfried find themselves rocketed at each other, forces pulling them in with more force than Filgaia pulls them down.

"You're right," Tabitha says, with her eyes seeming to stare far past Fei and Siegfried. "I should be taking you very seriously."

DC: Tabitha deVriese switches forms to Tabitha Unshackled!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Hypercondense!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Siegfried with Hypercondense!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Grigori has posed.

Savior; parasite. Either could be true.

But when Siegfried lifts the Dark Spear, the Watcher continues to attempt to force her weapon down. Her face is hidden, but she is nevertheless watching him. She watches the armor begin to melt, continues to push--

But the leverage and power of the Dark Spear must not be underestimated. He swings back, and the Watcher is pushed along with it, knocked through the air towards the edge of a platform that sports deep rents where her feet shifted for purchase. The light of Glumzambor explodes outward; the arcs of color crash towards Grigori, and once more she lifts an arm instead of her entire blade, shifting her stance to become a smaller target. An explosion rocks the space she occupies, blotting her from view for a vital instant. In that moment, the Quarter Knight has more than enough time to leap away, towards their healer.

LONG AGO

Leah laughs, a girl of sixteen standing with a taller boy the same age... and smirking right towards the child nearby. "Ren got you that time," she says. "Should I tell the class about the ace meeting his match?" She's teasing, obviously, leans familiarly against the boy. He starts to answer her.

MORE RECENTLY THAN THAT

"This? Just a souvenir." His voice is one she knows perfectly, of course, even if she didn't see him in the mirror walking into the room. Leah lifts an eyebrow. "...That's some souvenir. Is it for...?"

MORE THAN ONCE

The confident smile of a blonde man in uniform greets the young soldier as she turns around.

BUT NOW...

The Watcher faces in the direction of Siegfried and his target. She can see Fei, fighting. She can see the battle. She can see that a strike has hit home. But there's no way to tell what, precisely, she is looking at, because...

The Quater Knight Siegfried runs the healer through, completely shattering his defenses. But a mask protects. Safely behind it, one can act without fear that one's actions will be traced.

A mask conceals. It does not change the actions taken, but it means that no one can see what, if any, reaction the woman behind it has to the events that she sees.

But those are not the reasons that The Watcher wears her mask.

Grigori shifts her stance, bends at the knee, and with a rush of Wind Ether soars into the air above, leaping higher, higher. She looks down, grips her weapon once again, holds it carefully before her--and as she begins to fall again, she breathes. Wind Ether was already building--now it wreathes her. Green light becomes wind becomes crackling electricity, dancing all about her form, her arms and her leg that should be electrocuting her but instead suffuses her with light.

The Watcher impacts hard, another crater erupting from the ground behind Siegfried, her weapon at the ready--But she does not use it. Instead, the armored woman, sparking, metal exposed in her limbs, shifts one hand off and punches directly for Siegfried's back with an electrified synthetic fist that knows nothing of humanity anymore.

A mask shows. A mask represents the unknown, and puts forth a presence that erases the soft stuff of life in favor of something grander.

"Your friend is right."

She does not rise into the forces Tabitha invokes.

GS: Grigori has attacked Siegfried with Anemo Rush!
GS: Grigori has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Grigori has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Hypercondense for 67 hit points!
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Grigori's Anemo Rush for 97 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Hypercondense for 76 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
        For all that Fei Fong Wong is a terrifying madman, he has a sensitive soul. Lan struggles to her feet, pulling herself up to her full height. She's just winded, is all. She can still do this. Fei grabs her wrist and Lan is struck by just how young the Demon of Lahan is. He can't be any older than she is--

        And then he tries to headbutt her, but he's awfully nice about it. She sidesteps, her fist taking the place of her forehead as she drives it towards Fei's nose, twisting her other arm out of his grip. "I CAN'T!" she screams, and doesn't think about how it sounds.

        She just couldn't live with herself if she did, could she?

        Grigori calls for retreat, and Loren calls for her. Lan shoves at Fei again, just to push him away from her, and turns to run for Loren and his shield.

        She has a perfect view of Siegfried's spear as it pierces through Loren's gut, the shock on his face a mirror of her own.

        Siegfried has a very short amount of time to dodge the silvery whip reaching to coil around his ankle and slam him into the ground below.

GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Siegfried with Subdue the Serpent!
GS: Lan Lilac has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Siegfried critically Guards a hit from Lan Lilac's Subdue the Serpent for 38 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Quick! Statuses applied to Lan Lilac!
GS: Siegfried enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Siegfried has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lan Lilac has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

"There can be no retreat!" Siegfried calls back to Fei. "You have heard their words! This will not end until we put an end to it! There can be no flight! We've written an end to Mother, and I see no cause to stop!"

His blade has speared through Loren. He looks down at him, his blood soaking Glumzambor. His eyes follow the way that Loren's eyes shift; the way that he prepares Ether to heal the wounds of someone else. This provides some awareness of what is to come.

He whirls around, to find the Watcher coming, a crater in her wake. He sees the sparks and exposed metal in her right arm. His eyes narrow, as he sees the fist -- and it slams into his face, splitting open skin. Another rivulet of quicksilver runs down his face as he stumbles backward. Glumzambor is pulled out of Loren.

Then gravity grasps him, and he is thrown. He slams into Fei, bodily; there is a crack. "Gh--" He grunts, stumbling away. "You have a curious sorcery at your command!" he snarls at Tabitha.

He lunges at her. Lan's whip snaps out for him, silvery whip lunging for him -- and he lets it wrap around his fist. He then throws his arm to the side, and tries to pitch her away from him with it. Then, he rushes in, ducking low for a moment. His soot-stained, quicksilver-covered cape flutters after, torn at the edges, as he comes close to Grigori. "Your arm--" he starts. "--mechanical."

He reaches out with his left arm as he runs. His right slams Glumzambor down into the ground, just as the fingers of his left hand grasp, tightly, on the Watcher's left wrist. He pulls and uses his blade as a pivot, at the same time -- yanking her arm at him, before he raises a foot, and kicks her. Siegfried shouts, with something like savage triumph, as fabric and machinery tears. There is a grisly popping noise; a spray of coolant, perhaps.

Then, the Watcher finds her now detached right arm flying at her head, like a club. He tries to smash her to the ground.

He drops the arm, unceremoniously to the ground. Glumzambor is grabbed, and he begins to walk over. He stands over Loren, looming. Blood runs down his face; down his arm; down his side. His armor is a cracked, battered, and half-shattered thing. His lips are bloodied. He doesn't shove Glumzambor into the ground. He just reaches down.

His fingers grab Loren by the throat, and then lift him up. They start to squeeze, crushing the air out of him.

"How many of you must I kill?" he asks. "Before I find justice in this world?"

GS: Siegfried enters a Counter stance!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Grigori with Blue Destiny!
GS: Siegfried has attacked Loren Voss with Crushing Windpipe!
GS: Siegfried has completed his action.
GS: Grigori guards a hit from Siegfried's Blue Destiny for 178 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss guards a hit from Siegfried's Crushing Windpipe for 52 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

If Fei could hear Lan's thoughts he would weep. But it's not as if he has a secret empathic power that constantly bombards him with the pain and tears of those around him. That would be ridiculous. He's just a lamb. Maybe a Shevat operative at worst judging from his martial arts style.

"No!!" Fei shouts as Lan turns from him to strike at Siegfried. Fear threatens to overwhelm him. They're all...

They're all turning on him!

Fei grimaces tightly. He knows there's a dark power within him. He knows that much at least by now.

If they're going to survive. No, fuck his own life, if Siegfried is going to survive he needs to accept it as part of himself. In some ways, he already has. It's not like flipping a light switch, it's more like remembering the light is already on.

If light is an appropriate word for something like this.

Fei's hand crackles with electrical power as he suddenly slams it for Lan's chest with a surprising amount of power. He's no longer holding back. Desperation is not gentle. To make matters worse, the electricity obeys Fei's will. It won't travel through that silvery whip in the slightest. That's three ether talents.

"F..fight me! FIGHT ME!!" He demands as he rushes towards Tabitha, hoping beyond hope that striking at Lan will draw Loren's ire. Tabitha seems to be activating something. She's moving the ground with every step. Dangerous.

Siegfried slams into him. Fei guards his back. "This is just the start of it." He murmurs. "They'll hound us forever. The best victory is to Live, Siegfried."

He bursts off at Tabitha with such speed that it's as if he's flying rather than walking, bursting through the air as he rears back and aims a black hole punch right for Tabitha, darkness billowing out from around her body as soon as his fist makes contact. If it makes contact.

Either way. That's four.

"Take, take, take, take! Is that all you can do?!"

GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Yang Strike.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Lan Lilac with Yang Strike!
GS: Sneak! You have gained 1 Combo! Only you see this message.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: 2 Combo gained from Boost!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action!
GS: 2 Combo gained from Boost!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Yin Strike.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Yin Strike!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Fei Fong Wong's attack becomes clear!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ultra Idstinct for 201 hit points!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Fei Fong Wong's attack becomes clear!
GS: Lan Lilac takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ultra Idstinct for 222 hit points!
GS: Lan Lilac has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        He saw her there. Above.

        He sees her even now as she strikes at Siegfried.

        A LONG TIME AGO

        "You're top of the class now? Not bad, huh," a much younger Loren says to the blond teen who bears a face akin to his own. His gaze runs over to the woman seated at his side. If just for a moment. "I guess that means you're doing pretty well, Gil. But, don't rest on your laurels yet." With all the determination a child can wear, Loren makes his promise: "I'm going to catch up to you when it's my turn. And then I'll go right on past! You'll see!"

        IN PRESENT TIME

        His body jerks as the blade is yanked free. Slowly, he inches his right hand towards the wound in his gut, realizing at a touch that it's bad, worse than he'd thought. His other arm hurts, a mere afterthought in the agony that uncoils from his abdomen. Maybe it's broken. He can't tell right now -- pain threads into pain, an endless series.
        He doesn't move. Moving at this moment would make an even bigger mess for someone else to clean up. He reaches out instead all the while trying to focus his mind, to pour power into his body and knit flesh--

        A sickening pop above jars his attention. His gaze, black spots dancing in the periphery, shifts at the right moment to catch what Siegfried swings for what it is.

        NOT ALL THAT LONG AGO

        Loren fidgets with a component in Leah's arm and frowns behind his medical mask. "Servo's worn down oddly. ...Leah, were you overusing this?"

        NOW

        "Leah... no..."

        Siegfried returns his attention to him. Reaches down.
        Closes his hand around Loren's throat to hoist him into the air. Black chews up his vision for a moment. There is a roaring in his ears. He...
        His right hand, gauntlet coated with his own blood, twitches towards the pack at his hip. Reaches inside it.
        And in a perfect echo of that moment on the moon months ago, draws a line of his own blood across the surface of the Medium inside.

        "Material..." the wounded medic chokes out.

        Dinoginos' reply comes swift on the heels of that request.
        What makes a mountain? Time, perhaps, is the easiest answer. But another factor plays into the formation of a towering peak: that sometimes called the blood of the mountain, the fire below.

        The earth beneath Siegfried seemingly shudders and splits. Heat rolls up from below like some forsaken kiln. Dinoginos will have his due.

GS: Loren Voss has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling!
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Siegfried with Material - Hypogaean Pyre!
GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
GS: COUNTER! Siegfried strikes at Loren Voss with a counter attack!
GS: Siegfried takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Material - Hypogaean Pyre for 166 hit points!
GS: Siegfried enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Loren Voss guards a hit from Siegfried's Counter Attack for 139 hit points!
GS: Loren Voss has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Well, at least she earned something complimentary from Siegfried, sort of. "This is what I am," Tabitha says. "I am the force that will pull you to oblivion! If I am good for nothing else, I can at least put an end to a beast like you! I will silence your damnable--!"

Fei rounds on her. "This again," she breathes, eyes cutting to him. She lifts a finger as if to repel him - but her eyes flick wide at the speed he's moving. At the thing in his hands. "Idiot!" she screams, and thrusts her hand forward, CATCHING that abyssal, swirling thing. His final, furious scream comes at her, and her fingers dig in - DIG IN - to the swirling gravity nonobject between them. "I give and I give and I give," she spits. "My life, my secrets, my pride and my ambitions, to give your miserable world a ghost of a chance against the things KILL YOU IN SHADOWS! If you object to what I take, then perhaps you ought to reconsider what you HAVE!"

She jabs her other hand into the sphere - INTO the sphere, fingers bent as if to pry open the swirling chaos within.

"Perhaps I'll give you something you've never seen then!" she snarls - losing some of that cool, that detachment. "Why don't we witness something impossible together!"

Her muscles clench, fit to rip the singularity open and reveal - what, precisely? - but...

                RELEASE PARAMETERS EXCEEDED
                TERMINUS PROSCRIPTION CONDITIONS MET
                SHACKLE ONLINE.

Her eyes lose that subtle glow.

The world stops bending around her.

And then Fei's black hole detonates in her face and sends the blond Etone rocketing back until she slams into the rubble of Ramses' Gear, the woman herself collapsed, and blood pooling below her from where her arms are now missing below the elbows.

DC: Tabitha deVriese switches forms to Etone Tabitha!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
        She's tired. She's tired. She thought the world was saved...

        She doesn't want to die here. She doesn't want to see Loren or Leah die. She doesn't even want to see Tabitha die, and Tabitha makes Lan very uncomfortable for reasons she can't quite articulate.

        She just wants Siegfried away from them. Wants Fei to leave. Wants them all to live to celebrate the death of a monster greater than any they've ever known. The Knight hauls on the energy ribbon, but it bursts into fading sparkles, the true form of her weapon just a length of silk in Lan's hand.

        "Please, just go away!" she howls, reaching deeper into herself for the power to call down the stars again. She'll force them back, and then in the confusion she can grab Loren and try to carry him to safety. Leah can get Tabitha.

        She lifts her arms, silver flooding her veins, her eyes--

        And gets punched in the breastbone so hard it steals the breath from her lungs, voltage sparking in the spaces between her teeth, the gaps between her synapses. Rigdobrite's power falters, fizzling in her hands as Lan falls to her hands and knees in the dirty snow.

        Her head won't stop ringing. She can't breathe right. "Please," Lan asks again, curled in on herself, choking on her breaths. "Please, go away."

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

No retreat; no surrender. ...The Watcher would say that Siegfried is correct here. It would not end here. It would merely give them a chance to resupply, to approach the Quarter Knight on their own terms instead of his.

But she does not say this; she does not answer it with words, but instead with action, her synthetic fist impacting Siegfried's face, splitting open skin, becoming touched by quicksilver blood. Still her face cannot be seen; still the marks of possible injury are concealed. ...And still, Lan comes, trying to help. Lan moves into the battlefield. "Retreat," the Watcher says in her distorted voice--but she does not have the chance to finish her statement. Her head rises towards Siegfried, her weapon rising to meet his charge. But he does not charge in the direction she would expect. Siegfried's hands clench down on what he can feel now is also machinery, her lower left arm, the wrist compressing and its gears whining with distress. Still, Grigori is preparing to move; Ether swells around her as she swings her weapon--

Siegfried shouts and gets hold of her arm, and there is a terrible pop and an awful ripping noise to accompany it; sparks shower the ground, coolant spraying in all directions, a grisly simulacrum of blood. Her sword falls to the ground, clanging ominously. One-armed, the Watcher sails backward, impacting a pile of ruined machinery with an ugly set of noises. She is still, for an instant, as Loren is grabbed. Then her arm flies towards her, impacts with a sickening crack that forces her head to turn; her body shudders.

"..."

Her voice scrambler picks up a wheezing breath for an instant, malfunctioning due to the sheer damage to form. Still her shoulder sparks and drips oil; the socket to which the arm was attached is plain, and empty, blackened with the residue of what has come.



How many of you must I kill? The Quarter Knight asks. How many, before he finds justice in this world?

The Watcher's arm falls from where it had impacted here, and her mask is a ruined wreck. A shock of blue hair is visible; there are bandages covering her right eye, but they are soaked through red, now. Her remaining hand rises to rip away at what remains of her helmet, tearing of enough that her mouth and nose are free. So it is that the Watcher's face is shown, the helmet torn such that it covers the sides of her head, the top, the back... part of her cheek. The scarring on her face is clear, now. Her remaining blue eye focuses again, as she watches Fei unleash incredible force towards two others. She hears the voice. She hears the directive. Darkness billows. And yet...

Leah Sadalbari rises, leaving her ruined arm behind. Her sword is where it was left. She looks to Loren, and she is somehow still nearly expressionless, her eye glassy, her face pale. Dried blood has collected at the base of where her mask was. But she stands, nevertheless, though her left hand twitches, the exposed joints of one of her fingers sharp, metallic. She is perhaps more machine than woman, now, save for the bloodsoaked bandage over her right eye.

"Justice..." Leah says, raising her voice. She pauses then, steps forward another step--then another--then sprints forward, her remaining hand in front of her. Her tabard flutters around her.

The Guardian's power erupts, and Leah reaches Siegfried again in that moment. Already the Ether around her has been charging, furiously building to a rate beyond what is reasonable, beyond what is sane, beyond anything short of one of the Elements themselves. A blue-and-green aura floods the area around her and she rises to her full height again behind Siegfried. "There isn't any justice in this world," the woman hisses, and lets loose her Ether. A terrible storm erupts amidst the ruins of the Photosphere entrance; water crashes outward, wind howling in a horrible gale that seeks blood; objects rise within it, hurled around as if they weighed nothing at all. Two vortexes rush outward; the first goes for Siegfried. The second, for Fei.

And Leah shoves her fist forward in the heart of it, covered in rushing water and lightning both, straight towards Siegfried's core. For one brief, brief moment, she is not expressionless.

She is rage personified.

"If there were justice in this world then he would still be alive! But I will change it with my own hands!"

GS: Leah Sadalbari has activated a Force Action!
GS: Leah Sadalbari has spent 3 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling!
GS: Leah Sadalbari has attacked Siegfried with Hurricane Cutter!
GS: Leah Sadalbari has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Hurricane Cutter!
GS: Leah Sadalbari has completed her action.
GS: Siegfried guards a hit from Leah Sadalbari's Hurricane Cutter for 139 hit points!
GS: Siegfried has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Leah Sadalbari's Hurricane Cutter for 125 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        "i'm sorry"

        Those are the anxious and whispered words Riese keeps repeating to Noeline, as the two proceed outward; she's less doing something under her own power as guiding Muni-Muni, needing to leave most of the debris-clearing to her partner.

        "... i'm sorry...
 this is really reckless..."

        But they eventually arrive -- just for a moment, it seems that all tension gets sucked out of the air and into Muni as she--

        "Muniii--"

        --boings against the surface, this weirdo, extremely rubbery, bouncy 12-foot tall blob of a Dragon; she's singed on all sides from various backdrafts as the Photosphere's systems begin to fail. Her eyes are cartoon swirls as she rolls over one side, no doubt pacified by Trouble and Strife.

        But Riese...

        Riese is...

        Riese is not ready to see the extent of the carnage that had visited this hull of the Photosphere.

        Half the Tzadkiel as it burns aground against the rapidly rising form of the once-starship; what screams as her like once in Azado, when Sin visited and tore apart so many souls at once.

        The Wyvern in the distance, blackened and burnt at the cockpit block; a peal of sickness lurches over her as she fears whether the pilot who'd helped save her was now dead.

        Others she doesn't recognise immediately -- Lan, who didn't quite look like a Solarian like the others, struggling as she carries Loren with her; Tabitha, moving with an unusual motion that trembled and rattled at the back of her mind as she flings back towards the Wyvern.

        That-- medical student that once visited Wayside, Thomas Blackwell, bleeding out of his chest and rasping through blood pooled in his mouth, against the snow. She feels horrified. She wants to reach out and help him.

        A part of her tells her she shouldn't be feeling this way. These are the members of Gebler, who relentlessly hunted her, and her people, on her ship--

        "...h-haa..."

        But she can't help it. She fears for all the carnage and violence that has been wrought here.

        Fei, summoning powers scarce she's seen, powers of darkness as something bristles deep within her mind. Deep within her mind, where a corpse quietly whispers despairingly to a demon:

        This moment... it's too familiar... ...

        She clings towards Noeline, nearly lurching to one side as her inert legs tumble out of Muni's seat one way.

        They don't look functional.

        She doesn't look functional.

        "f-fei! fei--"

        Her voice sounds exceedingly raspy and scratchy, devoid of strength and energy. It hitches, warblingly--

        "f-father-- fff-fffather--"

        The Ley screams within her head as her own Medium bristles. Dinoginos, the Guardian of the Mountain, emerges out from underneath as the earth bristles high into a hellish conflagration.

        The gristly 'pop' of a mechanical arm coming loose from the cloaked figure--

        The mask cracking loose. The face of... the face of... the Drifter that'd visited her before, back in ... New Petra. The kind Drifter who'd helped them all before...

        "l-leah...?"

        There isn't any justice in this world.

        Her pupils shrink.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        "Easy... easy," Noeline mumbles back to each of Riesenlied's sobs, an arm kept securely around the Tainted leader in her stricken state; as her second, as her beloved, as her partner, she could do no less, and that thought makes her chuckle softly. "... I am used to reckless things by now, aren't I? And I made you a promise to stay at your side. Just hold on."

        Muni lurches to one side, impacting against the side of the Photosphere; immediately, Noeline lunges forwards and over the harness to try to steady the dragon with a hand, urgently muttering more of that quiet support as she desperately tries to take stock of what she's seeing, of the enormity of the Tzadkiel burning against the side of the Photosphere.

        It is much too much to take in and understand at a single glance, especially with the world beginning to spin around them. Instead, she's forced to brace as she feels the rush of air as they reenter the Photosphere, the dragon pitching to one side as it crashes down onto a metal flooring. There is a breathless moment in which her hold tightens around Riesenlied, and then she's tumbling forwards with Riesenlied in her arms, pulled forwards by sheer momentum.

        Noeline had thought she had given everything she had to give. She had thought that perhaps now, with the light back in Siegfried's eyes and Riesenlied rescued from the terrorizing influence of Alhazred and Mother, there might be some hope for the future. That thought was, she realizes, much too naive of her. Riesenlied, out of all the Hyadeans, hopes to foster the most out of their races. At times, Noeline feels as if she's the counterbalance - well aware of how thoughtless and arrogant both humans and Hyadeans can be.

        Of course it had been Gebler. Of course they would be the ones to swing down upon the Photosphere like vultures, aiming to pick off the remnants. Of course they would be the ones to declare themselves the arbiters of truth. Of course they would be the ones to wilfully ignore the entire context of the Photosphere's actions, of Mother's speech. Of course they would style themselves judge, jury, and executioner.

        It turns out there's still some strength left in there somewhere, a sudden brightly-flaring spike of anger to go with the tension and the fear and the pain of it all. She pulls at the sensation of the Medium within her - no, the sensation of the Medium that is her, tearing at its strength to add it to her own. A corona of dark sorcery and shifting shadows suddenly blazes around her, its shifting colours nearly obscuring the two of them; her free hand raises, and rather than the ornamental scythe she prefers to use or her overlarge sword, there is just a single threatening spike protruding from her hand.

        "--stay away from him!" she roars, her hoarse voice tearing out as she holds onto Riese all the tighter.

DC: Noeline switches forms to Hyades Guardian!
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

"Life is always struggle, Fei," Siegfried says. "Without it, what are we? I can't live like that. It isn't living, to me."

The Quarter Knight's expression is cold as he watches Loren die. The warmth he felt fleetingly, before, is gone. He looks at Loren, with an expectant cast to his features -- as if there will be some answer. He feels the slight give in Loren's throat; that, too, is familiar. This is not the first person whose throat he crushed. His fingers keep digging in, until he hears one word.

'Material.'

He acts by instinct; he throws Loren to the ground, as hard as he can -- it is sure to buckle the already damaged hull structure. Glumzambor topples over, falling to the ground. It clatters, helplessly, to the floor. The golden eye at the center of the blade flickers and twitches. Then, the plates underneath Siegfried split open, and his ancient enemy strikes.

Flame blasts outward in a column, burning through the armor. Some of it begins to slag and melt; flesh burns away, revealing mottled quicksilver below. He stumbles from the fire. His legs and knees shake, as he does. A hand, trembling, reaches down towards Glumzambor's fallen hilt.

A massive thunderclap sounds. The cannon on one of the Solarian gunships fires, and a shell rips through his left side. Quicksilver blood and viscera splatter the ground behind him, before the shell hits the Photosphere. It blasts a hole through the armor. The Quarter Knight, burnt and broken, starts to turn. One more, he thinks.

He only has to kill one more.

His face a half-burnt ruin, his steel grey eyes still shine with that angry metal gleam. His eyes lock with Leah's one eye, now unmasked, and his head tilts to the side. He raises his left arm, as she rushes. The forearm plate pops out. There is a crackle of electricity across the weapon.

Muni rises to the surface, a blob of yellow. Siegfried only half sees the Metal Dragon, with quicksilver blood running into his face. He hears, distantly, Riesenlied's voice. He blinks his eyes, turning to look at her. He meets her eyes.

Leah's hand smashes into his chest and through it. Quicksilver blood bursts out. The Quarter Knight's mouth works, but no noise comes out. Instead, a line of quicksilver begins running from the corner of his mouth, as burnt armor and flesh give way. He crumples down, falling next to Loren. His head rolls over -- and lifeless eyes turn, to face him but not look at him.

Glumzambor clatters -- and then falls, sliding off the edge of the Photosphere, and into the blue.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

One step at a time. That's what it takes. One step, and then the next. This is what takes a black-haired woman out of the Photosphere's depths with the speed of someone who knows a life may depend upon it. Running despite her exhaustion, echoing steps take the woman out of the cavern that is the ruined passage... And into the light.

Red battle gear hides blood well. Lily Keil's weapon is at her back, her hands empty; the exhaustion in her features is plain, but she has not stopped. She comes from a way different from Muni's path. She comes... Just at the wrong time, it would seem.

Lily's eyes scan Gebler, and for once they are not her priority: she looks for one man, for Fei, and she sees him. But she also sees--

Death. The man who was to be their hope of peace, the man she had fought before, the one she had been convinced to spare, to find--

Lily Keil comes to a stop, her eyes locked on the falling Quarter Knight.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

        Loren is aware of little, his vision continuing to crackle with the black spots that seem to overtake everything. His senses swim, swallowed up by the void within.

        Of all things the frail circulate that remains of his consciousness stirs up a recollection of the anaesthesia scale. Induction, delerium, the scale of decreasing respiration, and then...
        And then after that point, death.

        He swims against the current however inevitable he knows it to be, reaching out for a surface he can't reach.
        Struggling to stay alive.

        Even he lived to twenty-one--

        He knows he's summoned the Guardian. Peripherally, distantly, he's aware of it.
        And in retaliation, he's flung to the ground with a sickening crack.
        His consciousness, to his perspective, hovers above the void. He sees for a moment Leah as the black catches up to him. He sees her arm plunge through Siegfried.

        And for Loren, the void overtakes him at last. He slumps where he's fallen, sinking at last into the abyss of unconsciousness.

<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
Hiro was a patchwork of flesh and sinew against bandaging, herbs and litanies. What else did you expect him to be after the battle against Mother?
 
Bereft of his sword, which he'd thrown at her in the final push... he finds himself being guided forward by a little Dragoncat at first, but then the sounds of battle become his guide soon enough.
 
One plodding step at a time throughout the Photosphere.
 
"You're being awfully quiet."
 
"Mmm..." Ruby offers, subdued. Moreso than usual from her perch on his shoulder.
 
"Hey... he's going to be alright."
 
"... mmm ..." Ruby looks no less worried by the reassurance, perhaps even more distant.
 
The noises are growing louder. "Bad time to lose my sword huh?"
 
The youth squats down to pick up a piece of a shredded metal beast, just before he he rounds the corner. Just in time to hear the words...
 
'with my own hands'
 
...a fist through Siegfried's chest on a battle taking place by the edge. He'd recognize the Quarter Knight anywhere, especially from behind.
 
Once upon a time he'd sworn vengeance upon him when he'd put someone he cared about in a coma. Now he'd come to realize his anger was perhaps... just perhaps... misguided... because he had learned over time that he was someone's father. And someone's friend.
 
Once upon a time, before Hiro was ever born, he'd believed in something better, and greater, had fought for something like that.
 
He thinks in this moment that perhaps he should have followed Fei's example.
 
Glumzambor hits the floor with a clatter.
 
Too late.

Funny how much can change in such a short span of time...
 
The spear slips over the edge. The Quarter Knight falls.
 
And he just stares, stunned by the sight. Ruby on the other hand, her eyes widen in that moment as her attention is on- someone else entirely.
 

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"You're what kills us in the shadows!" Fei counters in a surge of anger. He doesn't look back towards Lan. She's still talking. She's alive. If he pretends she's dead, he won't have to strike again. Tabitha goes down. Loren. He's down. Ramses. Down. Only the Watcher left.

Loren's wound against his side drips with blood. His burns from Mother ache. The remains of acid sizzle against his skin.

He hears someone saying a name. Leah? Who is that? There's a million Leahs in the world. It doesn't matter who is speaking.

He walks through the winds. They tear at his body, carving many chunks out of his flesh. He pays it no mind. He wasn't the primary target. The winds twist around him gradually. It only minimizes the damage a little bit, but it doesn't stop his movement.

He walks by Grigori. He doesn't hit her. He doesn't hit Leah. He walks towards Siegfried's body.

"Sieg?"

Fei crouches by Siegfried's body. He pulls him up into his lap so he can look down at his face. "Get up." He says. It's like an order. "...Brother?" He gives Sieg a small shake. "Come on you got hit by a black hole, this is nothing." He smiles. He shakes again. "Haha...come on man. We beat them all but one. This is too sad..."

Tears start appearing in his eyes. He already knows it's not a joke. He already knows it's too late. It's not even a hope. Desperation after desperation.

This is a man whose actions killed the father of one of his closest friends. This is a man who threatened all of Filgaia. This is a man who never once apologized for being deceived. This is a man who threw away his own daughter. This is a man who turned a woman into a killer.

But as Fei hugs Siegfried's body tightly to his own, a wail escaping his lips, it is important to remember he was also...

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZdnJLdmRlI

Five Hundred Years Ago

Lacan pulls a strip cloth free from his tunic and wraps it tightly around a quicksilver wound.

"You see then," Sigmund says. "What and who I truly am."

Lacan can sense the trepidation and fear in his words. It makes him want to reassure him that everything will be okay. That nothing has changed. Those stories were lifetimes ago, what did that mean here? Something within him tells him to fight for this unlikely friendship he had forged.

"Well," Lacan admits. "I thought I was pretty good at sizing up my subjects, but I guess I'm not half the painter I think I am. Though I don't think the stories got it right either. You don't have cruel eyes."

He laughs awkwardly. "I thought you a man who fought nobly in a war but...Well if you want to match the stories, you'll have to wear a helmet." He smiles. "We're friends aren't we? Elly would give me no small amount of grief if we broke up the gang over something like this."

"You know I am Siegfried then." Sigmund is shocked. Lacan is also shocked. He didn't match the murals he had seen. "I lied to you." He continues. "Are we friends, Lacan?"

Lacan is quiet.

"Well...Nobody's perfect."

Now

"He wanted to understand humanity." Fei whispers. "He wanted to know what we were really like. You showed him, didn't you?"

Five Hundred Years Ago

"Sir!" Lacan rushes forward, waving the knight down. "Hey! Hey you--!"

He holds out his hand.

"Welcome! I see you have an eye for the arts." Just part of the salesmanship. "You're lucky, there are many with no soul for it and I pity them. If you're not in much hurry, I would like you to be my next subject."

"An eye for the arts," The knight. Sigmund. Siegfried. He says it like it's a joke.

He says it as if he realized he doesn't have an eye for the arts. "...You wish to paint me?"

Lacan smiled. He tried to make it like Sophia's. "You've seen a lot haven't you? I wish to capture that look. Right now I feel like I'm good at painting people, but I'm still working on expressing how they feel through my work. I always feel like there's something just eluding my grasp." He pauses. He extends a hand. "The name's Lacan."

"If you're offering... Very well, then. I agree. I am..." The knight hesitates. "...Sigmund. It's a pleasure."

Now

"He had such sad eyes." Fei whispers. "I wanted to see them light up with joy."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

And then Lily arrives. Fei doesn't look at her. In all the commotion, with all those winds battering him about, something came loose. And now it falls out from its hiding place. Hanging from Fei Fong Wong's neck is a shining Nisan Cross. It twists around lightly in the air.

Riesenlied will recall she's seen this cross before. This exact cross before. This exact chain before. Where did she see it? It was in Old Petra. It was in his head. You remember, don't you?

"It hurts so much." He pauses. "...Wait..."

7 months ago

Ruby is looking at him. Why does she look so upset? He hasn't seen her so upset in so long. Beneath that pain is something else but he can't quite sense it. "I'd want it to hurt-! I'd want it to hurt and hurt and hurt and I wouldn't want it to stop! I would never - WANT to get used to it!"

NOW

Fei blinks a few times. "Ruby?" Ruby is there, but Fei is not looking at her. It's more like he's looking past her. "That was..."

Then he blinks a few more times.

Then he laughs. It's a short, bitter laugh.

"I get it...Dean was right...Ruby was right..."

He snaps his scarf away from his neck. He pulls his hairtie away from his head and casts it aside as useless junk. He wraps the scarf around his forehead. It is damaged from all the fighting he has been through.

It's funny. He was so tired. But now he has more energy than anything. Where is it coming from? There is no end to it.

He did everything he could. He did everything.

But in the end... no matter how much you hope, Zephyr always leaves you blue.

"You'd...want it to hurt, right Ruby?" Fei asks. Why is he saying this. "No matter how painful it is? Always?"

He stands up slowly.

"You're right Ruby." He is still crying, but he is eerily calm now. He turns to look at Leah. "It always hurts."

And then a red aura crackles around him. His face goes pale. His hair turns red. His eyes yellow ever so faintly.

"It never stops. And that is why I can't afford to stop."

Fei(?) gestures with a hand. Telekinetic pressure squeezes squeeze squeeze SQUEEZES around Leah's face.

"No more masks." Fei says. And with a careless gesture with his hand he sends Leah flying for one of the halves of the Tzadkiel, flinging her as if she were a toy.

And then he turns towards Riesenlied, towards Noeline.

As he does so, Weltall flies in, and hovers near Fei. The metal giant has no pilot. It still arrived.

Fei floats up towards it and drops down onto its shoulder. He smiles. The tears still flow freely.

"They killed me and I forgave them." He says.

"They destroyed the world and I let them."

"They conspired against me and I listened to them."

"They tortured to me, and I worked for them. I don't believe in names. I've had too many, so they don't mean much to me anymore. They're all real. None of them are real."

"But you called me Id." He says. "So how about you call me that as I destroy this world for MURDERING MY FUCKING BROTHER!"

Id points to Riesenlied.

"You can join me if you want." Id says.

He looks towards Ruby. "Or you can fight me. But nobody... NOBODY... is allowed to STOP HURTING!!"

<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.

Glumzambor falls. No entreaties reach it, for it has no ears. Wind whips by it -- and the Photosphere, with wrecked debris and bodies from the shattered Tzadkiel, painting one side. The Dark Spear plummets down and down, but the eye mounted in gold on the blade does not look down. It looks up at the Photosphere's top.

It looks up to a surge of red.

The eye blinks; its mechanical eyelid flutters like a camera shutter. Then, finally, it looks down. The eyelid shuts, and this time, it is slower.

A few seconds later, it slams down into the remote Arctican tundra, nestled in hills and rocky mountainside. The blade rests there -- but already, a snowdrift is blowing over it. The wind whips and whistles by, the only noise to mark its passing.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

        Just like that.

        If Noeline believes she'd been to naive, then what of Riesenlied? Even in the scant, fewest moments she'd been able to grapple of her mind back from Alhazred. Even in the scant, fewest moments between being carried from a collapsing Photosphere back to the Fereshte, and back through the debris here...

        She'd believed.

        She believed in a future...

        A future where she could turn the corner as she dries the dishes and find Siegfried seated on his armchair, older, weary, but content as he tells battle-stories to Janey and Mikaia and the other children, as Noeline places an arm around her and pecks her at the top of her head.

        Her shrinking eyes peer to his--

        As Noeline's sorcery rattles around her and prompts a screech within her own Medium...
        As Lily emerges from the other side, weapon at her back, red battle-gear covering her own...

        She doesn't even get parting words.

        Not... not a single word...

        He crumples down. Next to Loren. Next to Thomas Blackwell. Leah's hand-- that Drifter's hand in him as she plunges through in a roar of Ether.

        She's back there again in an instant.

        Darkness. The thunderous roar of lightning splitting the sky. The little Hyadean whimpering and trembling as she smells something awful in the air of the chieftain's tent. She nearly stumbles as she calls out--

        "father"

        She's not quite sure what she's feeling.

        In an instant, as if her spirit had left her body--
          No, like her mind had done this before.
            Like she just let herself escape from all this again.
              So she doesn't have to feel that pain all over again...
                  Never again... never ever ever again...

        You can't!

        She lurches forward in gurgle. Her hand is writhing. It's beginning to nauseatingly pulsate... "what... why?"

        I won't let you.

        "w-why... why? why would you--" she rambles unto herself, lurched on all fours. Her mouth open, as she feels her head starting to zoom and shift.

        Her horns erupt outwards in similar fashion.

        I won't let you create another me, Riesenlied!!

        A low Draconic hiss is escaping from her.

        Her legs are worryingly elongated all of a sudden. Her hands are misshapen claws, talons ready to mutate.

        "... i can't do it
         i can't do it. don't make me--"

        Her face threatens to cave and be swallowed by scales as a draconic silhouette overtakes--

        You PROMISED.

        She stops.

        Her one, still human hand reaches for Noeline, desperately. She whispers out, 'help', as if that's all the control she can manage right now, as she listens to Fei go through his own grief. He calls her father brother. He has a better recollection of his sins that she needs reminded of, time and time again.

        She scarce hears Hiro and Ruby, even if it registers in her mind.

        She stares at that cross.

        She remembers.

        Weltall soars in behind him, all of a sudden. She doesn't understand why it's here. She doesn't understand. Fei is floating. She doesn't know Fei to be someone who floats. He talks about names--

        And the truth drops.

        You can join me if you want.

        She doesn't understand. Fei, Fei Fong Wong. One of her closest friends ever. One of her greatest friends ever. How could they be both the same person...? How could he be the stalker that has chased her across two settlements and destroyed them, and wishes to share all the suffering and death he ever experienced? How...

        Her legs useless, her voice useless. Half-mutated into the shape Alhazred hammered her into, not even a despicable masterpiece as she is some slapdash creation. Tainted. Just like she'd ever been.

                                   Join him.
                       Join him... and show them all...
            Just like father did five hundred years ago with Grahf.
                                  Join him...
                   And bring forth another Day of Collapse.
                                                                               
                             The dragon is quiet.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

It is too late. Lily's golden eyes take in Siegfried's fall. She watches the hole in his chest, the quicksilver blood; she watches the great weapon fall, fall towards the ground. She knows, distantly, that someone kinder might feel compassion, might feel something for watching him die. ...But all Lily feels in that instant is the echo of someone else's grief, someone else's emotion washing up on the shores of her mind. She does not know Leah, the Watcher. She does not know Lacan, or Sigmund.

...But in the next few moments, as Lily watches Fei order, try... and finally understand. As she watches him fall into desperation--in that instant it is like Lily is there again at the battlefield Gryndille left. She is looking over the bodies of the dead. Her brothers and sisters, her comrades, her precious friends; it is watching them die again, to feel what Fei feels, even distantly. It tugs at her heart, and it is more than them too. It is Riesenlied, lost, turned into an awful thing. It is Fei, walking away, walking... walking...

Lily opens her mouth as if to speak, but can only lift a hand to her chest, to her throat, as if she might be choking, as if she can't find her breath. She can hear the whispers. And Fei does not look at her. he does not look at her in the least, but he does not have to, because--

Lily's golden eyes widen as she watches the shining Nisan Cross at Fei's next. ...At Fei's neck. No, not only at Fei's neck. She stares into it, and she feels she should have some tears for herself, but she only sees Fei... falling apart. No--he already has. While Lily was focused on the world, while she compromised to save many... He was there. He was falling. And now...

It is too late.

The red aura crackles, and Lily stares at the man there in red. She stares at him, as Riesenlied and Noeline are here, as Weltall arrives. Her own Gear still rests on the snows, far away now. She is watching his tears. He mentions his names, what he says...

Lily turns and watches Riesenlied in her difficulty. She watches her in what she is. Scales a silhouette. Lily is silent, as she looks to Fei again... And remembers.

What God would say... What the others would blame her for?

Finally tears glimmer at the edge of Lily's eyes before she shakes her head, wipes them away, breathes in--and stands up straight.

"ID!" Lily shouts, from the distance, raising her voice, hoarse and ragged from the power she channeled before.

She begins to walk forward, walk towards the Gear. "Fei," she says again. "...No. He's gone, isn't he? And it's you, just like it's always been you. I... For so long, Id. I've tried. I have--I've tried to be the woman they tell me I can be."

Her voice cracks, as she looks down, as she looks to the side. She does not start hurting. She feels her own, but she feels others', too, and she comes closer.

"...I betrayed them. Him. I lied, because I knew it was what had to be done. Because it was the only thing that would preserve the world. Preserve the people I cared for, and..."

"AND WHAT FOR!?" the witch screams. "What for? What for if it ends this way?" There are tears again, but this time she does not wipe them; Ether flares and they disappear, unmade instead of changed. This world...

"This world... This dying, awful world. What is it for, but to find new ways to hurt everyone? What God..." She shakes her head. "I don't care, Id. ...It doesn't matter if they'll forgive me, like you told me they would. It doesn't matter."

"...Because I can't."

Lily steps closer, closer. Makes it all the way.

Her eyes have a faint hollow to them. It is almost not herself. Almost, for just a flicker, a flash, that he can see.

"Take me with you," she says simply. "Maybe this is why I was given this power. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"The only thing."

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

        Noeline's yell of command and warning comes too late; she is only in time to see Leah's hand burst through Siegfried's chest, the sound of the motion rising above the din of the Photosphere tearing itself apart around them. Her eyes shrink much like Riesenlied's, and for a moment the world falls away. Not so long ago, she would have assumed that this event would have been a relief of sorts, that seeing the last of the Quarter Knights fall would have closed a chapter on the Hyadean story and allowed them all to move on.

        That feels like a lifetime ago now. Whatever else she might have been expecting, it certainly wasn't a sheer and unbridled fury, the likes of which she's not entirely sure she's ever felt before. She wasn't expecting the world to narrow to a thin pinpoint the way it has, or for its sounds to be replaced by the rush of blood in her ears.

        "--you--" she hisses as she tries to will her legs forward, but the enormity of the tableau in front of her won't let her. Riesenlied slips from her grasp before she even realizes it; it takes her a moment to catch up to that fact, the world moving around her like treacle. "You just couldn't leave well enough alone! You just couldn't put aside your superiority for even an instant! You just couldn't let a father and a daughter live for once in your pathetic, pitiful fear!--"

        Leah flies from the ship in a show of unstoppable power, and the sudden and abrupt motion of it rips the rest of the words from Noeline's throat with an astonished noise; beneath her, Riesenlied's form cracks and twists in an unpleasant fashion, and even if Noeline doesn't know what the hell is going on she can at least recognize it for what it is - the resurfacing of the Ley Dragon, of Riesenlied's shape.

        For a moment, her heart rises back to her throat; the panic of the last few weeks rises back over her in a violent, unstoppable wave. Has the shock restored Mother's control, in her dying throes? Has Alhazred gained power over her? A million possibilities tear through her mind in an instant to leave her rooted to the spot, and it's more out of instinct than anything else that she finds, impossibly--

        --her hand, still in Riese's.

        She stares at it as if wondering what is even happening, barely registering Id's offer to the dragon next to her - and then looks from their joined hands to meet Riesenlied's eyes, recognition blossoming in her own. She swallows softly; her hand tightens, and she sucks in a deep and hoarse breath, the sound of it rattling with a hiss of fatigue. "... I'm here," she whispers. "I'm here. We have people to go back to. We have people to see us through, people we made a promise to. You aren't alone this time. And I swore - no matter how much pain, no matter how much the world turned against us, we'd face it."

        "... don't give up on that. Don't give up on the world," she mutters hoarsely, screwing her eyes shut. It seems hopelessly lacking - but it's all she has the energy for. That, and her hand in Riesenlied's, and the faith in her eyes.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
What drew Elly to take THIS route and not THAT route?

Why did she run in this way, follow this path, and not another?

She was afraid, and delirious with rising pain, and felt that if she stopped she would never start moving again. Perhaps she wanted a high space, or perhaps - what were the words, exactly, that she spoke to Ashton Anchors?

'Maybe Fei's going to call Weltall.'

Weltall can fly - if nothing else it could fall in a controlled way. Perhaps all would be paid for and all would be saved, a completion of the cycle, a source of something good from all of that violence.

And if THAT failed, Elly thought - they could make a leap of faith. She thinks she could make it to the ground on a column of Wind. She thinks. She hopes. No, she knows - she could! But she won't do it alone. She has to know.

The world around her is pulsating in strange ways, her vision fading as she struggles forwards. In her mind she is cheering herself on in a thousand ways. She thinks she can hear those strange voices telling her to do it. All will be well in a moment. As she rounds a corner, rebounding off a wall with a lance of fiery pain up her left arm, she almost falls. Almost but not entirely.

She tries to call out because she thinks she sees Ruby. In some other world she found her voice. Things might be different there. Who can say? Here she ends up coughing and spitting a little blood on the ground. Two deep, quick breaths, rallying herself, and she makes it up that hallway, though not at a run. As she emerges into the howling Arctica winds, she is just in time to see Weltall rise.

I was right, Elly thinks. We can stuff everyone in there. She can see a dim shape. That must be Siegfried, Elly thinks as she staggers forwards. It will be ridiculous; we'll laugh about it

        for

                        years

Elly's feet give out and she ends up skidding on her knees as she looks upwards, seeing the Slayer of Elru rise into the air. He glows with a hideous luminosity. He is speaking. Something swearing. Elly forgets his language. Right now she doesn't remember any language. She raises her hands as if to hide her eyes but she ends out looking from her splayed-out fingers because

Wrapped around the forehead of that burning corpse-and-blood image of death is the very scarf that she gave Fei Fong Wong to ward off the chill of this lethal continent!

Her hands slide down, smearing blood and ash down the bridge of her nose, as the world telescopes impossibly. It can't be true, can it?

It is!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

        Water takes the shape of whatever contains it. That is just in its nature, to take to its surroundings and come to a rest within them.
        There is nothing 'natural' about the Photosphere to one who has existed a bit over half a millenium. Any sort of residual joy or calm from having severed Mother's hold of the Ley Point has given way to utmost confusion and even panic as the turning and shuddering of the Photosphere ended up dictating one Seraph Lanval's course through it. His one blessing there is that he lacks a corporeal form by the vast majority of definitions of the concept. He would have otherwise died of so many fractures and impacts by now.
        He's lost sight of Talise, Sephilia, Tethelle, Rosaline, and Ceimglace again. He's frightened. He feels almost powerless, being thrown about the rapidly disintegrating alien structure as he theoretically breaks every damn bone in a body that doesn't have them.
        He feels the part of someone who has, as he comes spilling out to be 'caught' by some of the residual debris currently littering where so many are gathered, where so many witness, where he stares blearily into everything. Swirls of colors, sounds... for a spirit who tends to come off as uncoordinated and even unaware, one of his eyes is open without the aquamarine spark behind it. Fearful. It's fear. Nothing about this scene is--
        ...Oh. That might explain some of that feeling, as he is in the presence of several auras he can feel on a level that is beyond disturbing for him.
        Those aren't Hellions he's in the presence of.
        He used to take his ability to navigate the world for granted because he was once so attuned to Lunar's spiritual ecosystem, which has already led to a number of rude surprises on his new home of Filgaia.
        As Lanval stands up, once again fighting the base nature of the element he embodies, one eye still wide open, he regards the totality of what he is witnessing in the simplest terms, because those are the only terms he can bring to his very comprehension.
        He is in the presence of terrible, overwhelming, unstoppable power.
        His hands shake around his gourd, too rattled to even have himself a drink. He averts his gaze anywhere-- until he recognizes one of the bodies that have fallen. Until he recognizes the form that Riesenlied nearly takes again.
        Old habit has him nearly thinking of beseeching Althena Herself, but no... She won't hear him, anymore.
        ...What would Talise do?
        ...
        ...
        ...

DC: Zed switches forms to Manic Blade Master Zed!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

 
"Siegfried! Siegfried is..." There's a certain mental shifting in gears, between one sight and the next. One can almost imagine something grinding to a halt at the sight of grisly death on this horrific battlefield, one can almost feel his vertebrae grinding together.
 
It's like in a horror movie. The killer is in the room. The boy just doesn't know it yet. And now he's looking. No more like seeing.
 
Ruby is making eye contact with Fei. There's something in her posture that's still like she's cringing. All the same, she's brave enough to finish the statement.
 
"... and never stop."
 
Hiro sees the crimson aura erupt. It's far too familiar. "Fei...?"
 
"I wanted to tell you Hiro... really I did."
 
But it isn't really fair is it? You make friends and you feel like you can't possibly love anyone more than these people you've shared your life with. And then they die, and you're left behind. So you make new friends, but then they're gone too...
 
"Look if - if this guy has... if something's gotten into him."
 
"... It's not like that Hiro. You're thinking far too short term. He's not a problem to be solved."
 
Ruby recalls the moment those fingers became a fist.
 
And then one day, all you can think about is how temporary they all are. All these new people. They remind you of old friends... but...
 
...And eventually, it's not even that they're temporary. All you can see is their end...
 
"I don't know what this is... all I know is that seasons come... seasons go... so do people... but he persists. There's nothing I can do... nothing I can do at all..."
 
"Fei... you know I... we won't..." He stammers, as if still fundamentally uncomprehending of the situation, of thinking it's still Fei that's present despite Ruby's situation. As he stares sidelong at Lily, "Lily? You..." Then at Riese, "Riese you're not... considering this... right?"
 
Ruby flaps her little wings as she takes off from Hiro's shoulders, "... except one thing." Hiro makes a singular swipe in the air, that's just a moment too late. "Ruby - wait - don't!"
 
Flapping his wings to some happy middle ground between Hiro and Id, Ruby offers something. "Id... I know you want someone to share your pain with you... and you're really hurting right now. Enough that you want a whole world to feel it. So I'll come with you. You know I'm going to live a long time. Long enough that you don't have to be alone."
 
It's only now at this distance that one can see the tears glimmering in Ruby's eyes, "...I'll hurt with you." And then Ruby swallows, because she then adds something else. A condition. One that she knows can go horribly wrong in the instant that it is offered, "If you'll just spare Lucia's world. That's all I ask."

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

 
                                  Earlier

How many lives has this conflict extinguished? How many more have been scarred irrevocably, damaged to the point where there simply is nothing more they can give, rendered into a state even beyond death. How many have been made living, walking corpses?

Too many.

Too many.

His eyes shoot open. The vibration that resonates through the air is unmistakable. Danger is near, danger is approaching. Every survival instinct demands that he get up and move, and so he does. Someone rolls out of the gurney he'd been bootstrapped into and staggers down into an adjacent hallway. Behind, someone yells his name, but... But...

He has to go.

He has to see for himself. To stand on that battlefield. The way he had looked, the way he had talked, it could have only meant--

The guilt, the regret, how could he possibly live with himself if he didn't?

Siegfried. He needs to go. Sieg...!

                                    NOW

There are no words.

He knows when he sees it, the dark lance, tumble through the air without its master. He feels it in his gut when the deafening silence is shattered by the anguished cries. It's obvious. Painfully, terribly obvious. Even to someone as dense and hopeless as this, the loss, the suffering, hatred, wrath, they're undeniable.

And yet.

And yet...

                        Years ago - a man once said
                          That power is just power
                         The boy did not know then
                       That to truly understand power
                Is to suffer enough to understand suffering
                    Is to lose enough to understand loss
                   And to keep your eyes open regardless
                             To never look away
                         No matter how much it hurt

        And so there is no roar of defiance in the boy's voice. There is no declaration of hate. His wounds ache and his limbs protest, his body, half-broken and one foot in the grave, bends to his spirit. He wipes away his tears, sniffs back the sobs, and demands that this time, this time he will not disappoint his hero again.

What the world needs now isn't more hate.

It needs an orange scarf billowing on the horizon.

It needs a shadow cast long by the setting sun across the bloodied earth...!

In this moment of darkness, of dawn snatched away, it needs, more than ever...

             The kind of idiot who doesn't know how to give up!

"RIESENLIIIIIIIIIED!" Zed, the Dark Hero, roars into the wind from where he stands atop the plummeting Photosphere. "GET UP! WE STILL HAVE A WORLD TO SAVE!"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Id is not quite like Garrett or Rosaline or Ida. It's understandable to mistake him for a Hellion form and in many ways he acts like one...but he isn't a Hellion. He is not the dark side of Fei come to life. In truth, Fei only learned about Id in this moment, a moment of weakness. It's all he ever needed.

"Gone?" Id says to Lily. "No. You don't understand. I am Fei. I was always Fei. That other man you knew...He's someone else. He calls himself Fei, but he's fake. Not real. He's an illusion. I wasn't expecting to ever care about his friends, but you guys seemed to like me. I thought I could only relate to others through destruction...but for some reason you like me. Even kept my secret."

He senses Riesenlied's hesitation. He turns to her and Noeline. She has someone strong to help her carry that weight. Id saw Noeline as a pest, but now sees she is not to be underestimated. "Come on," Id says, almost in direct contradiction of his earlier proposal. "Are you gonna give up that easily? I thought you were going to feel my pain, carry the world's weight..." His words are strangely gentle in this moment. He is as ever determined to eradicate everything, but the malice as mighty as it is is not running Id. Id is running his malice. It is a malice that empowers his very cells, but aside from those earlier outbursts, he is in control. Fei isn't, perhaps, but Id is.

Lily confesses her own sins. Id doesn't know what it is, precisely, what those sins are but he has to imagine she's talking about Leon.

She makes the offer. Id's eyes widen in shock. "It's not about whether you can or can't." He tells her. "The wounded walk into the light. Thank you, but no."

Ruby speaks. She understands in a way few others do. She's their friend. She reached him without even seeing him. She shared snide remarks with 'Fei'. She knows they're not quite the same but she makes the offer all the same because she'll share it.

"Okay." He says to Ruby. "I'll spare Lucia's world."

Wow! That was easy.

"I'll spare Lunar." He says. "The world she has made her own."

He hops into the cockpit then and there. He exhales a long sigh. "...One more time. One more cycle..."

But then his eyes see Elly's. She was supposed to be gone. She was supposed to not be here.

He sees she understands.

"...Sorry Lily." He says as the weapon systems charge.

"Therapy's over."