2019-01-14: Jewel in a Dreadful Crown
- Log: Jewel in a Dreadful Crown
- Cast: Neriah Parringer, Jacqueline Barber, Ethius Hesiod, Lunata Croze, Rudy Roughnight, Rosaline Calice, Elhaym van Houten, Fei Fong Wong, Gwen Whitlock, Ida Everstead-Rey, Loren Voss, Agatha Pyrelight, Isiris Shango'Ra, Lily Keil
- Where: Nisan
- Date: January 14, 2019
- Summary: With Mother out of the way, Neriah tries to knock out another faith in the way of the Day of Darkness by sending a construct after Nisan. But she doesn't come alone.
===================================<* Nisan *>==================================== Nisan is situated in the large, circular basin formed by what appears from a distance to be a massive impact crater a mile or more across; water flows down from the rim into carved pathways, forming a moat (more aesthetic than military) around a small island at the centre. In the heart of the crater stands the Grand Cathedral of Nisan, the heart of the Nisan religion. The Cathedral is more than four hundred years old, and is composed of soaring archways, polished marble, and tinted glass dozens of feet high. Pilgrims loyal to Nisan regularly move into and through the city, and some few have settled there permanently, allowing a small city to be formed around the church. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyZSCsPEhxI
DC: Elhaym van Houten switches forms to Vierge! DC: Rosaline Calice switches forms to Phantom Gear Zephaniah! DC: Jacqueline Barber switches forms to CK-01 Jaeger! DC: Fei Fong Wong switches forms to Weltall! DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Command Gear Dust Dragoon!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
FIVE MINUTES AGO
For the most part, the surrounds of Nisan are basically peaceful. The action around the Photosphere took everyone an entire continent away from the centre of Filgaia's most widely-followed faith. To bring war here would seem to be virtually impossible.
At the very edge of the immense basin in which the city of Nisan lies, a small figure moves. A single patch of vivid red.
Neriah pushes her hood back and shakes her curls out with a soft rush of breath. Looking down over the city, she curves her lips into a small frown. It's a pretty place, in its own way. The kind of place she could've lived, in the kind of life she was never allowed to enjoy thanks to the vagaries of fate and inheritance.
"Ah well," she sighs as she uncurls her right palm and extends it, palm-upward. Resting on the flat of her hand is a tiny, perfect diamond prism.
The Priestess closes her eyes and focuses intently, channeling the spell she and her companion wove upon the gem. "Be awakened in darkness, Crusading Spirit of Valmar."
A surge of blue-black energy pulses at the heart of the crystal... and it begins to expand.
~
NOW
The peace in the streets of the church city has suddenly turned to fear.
Looming at the edge of the Nisan crater, the diamond hovers like a guillotine blade waiting to descend. It is not a tiny diamond anymore. It's expanded to massive proportions - somewhat wider than a Gear is tall, and hovering high above the landscape, a perfect and ominous glassy octahedron along which the daylight glints with menace. The faintest hint of a bassy vibration emanates from it.
It hasn't moved. But that subtle thrum has grown a little louder. Anxious citizens look out of windows and up from marketplaces; a few have retreated indoors, sheltering themselves from the massive thing that's suddenly appeared.
The observations soon give way to gasps and cries of surprise and fear: A pair of eyes suddenly open in the sky above and behind the crystal. They're a vivid shade of violet-tinged red, with very long lashes, and they appear above a pair of red-painted feminine lips.
"Faithful of Nisan," the apparition of Neriah utters in a voice even in pitch but massive enough in echo to seem like rolling thunder. "Do the intelligent thing and flee. This Gem of Valmar isn't here for you.
"We're here for your God."
The thrum of bass emanating from the Gem grows louder - and at its heart, a spark of light begins to shine, vivid and white.
MISSION OBJECTIVES
[ ] Defeat the [Gem of Valmar].
DC: Gem of Valmar switches forms to Gem of Valmar!
GS: Gem of Valmar has adjusted their boss level for 9 opponents!
DC: Lunata Croze switches forms to Winged Gear Rephaim!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline didn't visit Nisan very often. As the center of the Nisan religion, it was fairly well off. Sure, that meant she could probably make some decent coin there, but Jacqueline usually preferred places that were usually ignored by most common merchants.
So of course it's fitting on the day that she decides to visit that terrible things start to happen. Needless to say, Jacqueline and the Carakin vanished quickly...but that was not to say she was gone for long.
Soon, a Gear appears. She did not bring it out often, but those who had seen it would recognise it as the CK-01 Jaeger, the Gear belonging to Jacqueline. She moves quickly but efficiently(and causing minimal property damage) as she moves to put herself between the Gem of Valmar and what she assumes to be its target.
"Neriah!" Jacqueline calls out. She doesn't have to question who's responsible, she'd recognize those facial features anywhere. "I'm going to have to ask you to please send your creation away!"
Within the Gear itself Jacqueline exhales. She's a little nervous about this. It might very well come down to a fight...but it had been a while since she had been behind the controls of the Jaeger. Would she still be able to do it properly...?
She doesn't draw a weapon or attack directly just yet, but her defiance is clear.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius' presence here is as coincidental as it gets, for his mind is exactly on matters happening upon Elru. (Matters beyond 'Mother making her play to eat Filgaia,' which has already been resolved? Apparently so.)
Was. His mind was on matters happening upon Elru. How Nisan could ever fit into that - for the vast differences in geographical locations! - is not clear, and 'anyone being confused by Ethius' thought processes' is not really of importance right now.
The pulsing of the daylight through the windows with blue-black unlight is what tells the sight something is wrong. The growing thrums at last outpace the anxious whispers of the denizens of Nisan, and it is from there that Ethius steps outside of a library after going through the painstaking steps of forging it in someone else's name. (He has a book about sandworms, for reasons that are really not at all important to anything because LOOK AT THAT THING UP THERE WHO CARES ABOUT HIS CHOICE OF READING MATERIAL?!)
Ethius looks upon the enormous octohedron with that stare of his as the keeper of the library shuts and bars the door behind him, as though happy to keep both whatever that is and Ethius out of it. The eyes appear, and he tracks his own up to meet them.
'Faithful of Nisan,' that voice. It is only around 'This Gem of Valmar' that he re-confirms what his soul already is probably aware of after a few terrible brushes with her power.
Foolishly - or maybe even instinctually, which does not preclude 'foolishly' - the man runs forward through the streets of Nisan towards the enormous floating gem, its brightening white light intensifying with the building thrums of its noise that he can only draw so close. The pressure against his body is nothing short of immense just to behold it.
He throws an arm inward to a fast set of slurred syllables as part of that Symbological shielding spell of his that's invisible to the naked human eye. He is but a man, daring to run up and try to stand against something that seems - and may well be - beyond his scope.
A feeling that he must, even in absence of a reason that he even can, as his other arm holds that sandworm book closer. There is no defiant call, no real rallying from him in which to bring specific attention to him other than seeming to take steps towards a choice that can only lead to his demise.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
THE YGGDRASIL - NOT FAR AWAY
The sandcruiser's bridge echoes with a red-tinted siren ringing across as helmsmen scramble to their stations, and navigators hurry to their designated analysis consoles.
"Anomalous energy signature detected in coordinates 87/98!" announces Franz the dolphin.
"I'm getting a visual, it's the city of Nisan! Guardians, what is that--"
"Get me the feed now," announces Sigurd as he looks towards the screens. His brows furrow. "Contact the Rephaim."
"Uh, sir, Lunata's currently--"
Sigurd stares towards the hapless navigator, who's still got half a cajun fish taco tantalisingly left uneaten on his lap.
THE YGGDRASIL'S KITCHEN - STILL NOT FAR AWAY
A kitchen knife is pirouetting on its knifetip ontop of a cutting board as a fillet of tilapia goes unrendered. A large white beastman whose eyes look a little like clown makeup yelps and grabs it before it topples over and hurts someone.
"Aiya! Almost dangerous, Lunata beware!" speaks the not-Qu as she yells and fistshakes to the absconding head chef.
HERE, NOW, WHEREVER YOU ARE
Lunata lowers herself into a pitch-black cockpit.
A soft, cold light thrums in front of her--
woob
woob
woob
woob
wooooob
--and the translucent, bright blue sphere with the interlocking gimbals of Rujm el-Hiri shimmer in front of her as everything flickers to light; she narrows her eyes as she whispers, "I get it, Ge Ramda... Jay's over there."
The winged Gear absconds from the catapult of the Yggdrasil, a bright blue star as it crosses the distance in exceptionally short amount of time; between its own thrusters and the Yggdrasil's electric-powered launchpad, it can manage a lot of repsols in a short amount of time. And in moments--
A white-winged Gear descends next to the CK-01 Jaeger, cresting near the top of several households as civilians flee. She stares towards the camera feed for a moment, shaking her head.
The Rephaim descends next to the Jaeger, with a faint sigh from Lunata's shortwave comms as she chides Jacqueline, "... already getting into the thick of it again, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
The sounds of the crying people in the panic that ensures surrounds the lone man that takes in this threat. People push past him, bumping into the calm man who inspects this 'gem'. Finally the first waves of people have past, giving the young man who stands in the market place a chance to move. He had hoped to find someone else who was said to be in the area, but the wandering soul known as Rudy always seems to find trouble.
"Well, I suppose if he's around here, he'll come too," the Drifter theorizes, looking around the area toward the tallest building that is close enough to the threat to do what he needs to do.
Upon spotting it, Rudy moves toward it, not moving toward the doorway, but a nearby wall. He leaps up toward it, letting his boot press down on it after he rises twenty feet off the ground. He pushes himself off the wall, landing on the roof a smaller building. It's not a graceful landing, Roughnight depending on brute strength to go up rather than some sort of unnatural strength. Sliding on his side to a stop, Rudy doesn't miss a beat, getting back onto his feet to give a second leap, this time high enough to land on the edge of the building, his gloved hands hanging on before the young man pulls himself up.
Having barely succeeded on getting up to the rooftop, the boy proceeds to do what comes much easier for him. A couple of rounds go off as the Hand Cannon makes its presence known. It doesn't do much at the moment when compared to the power of the Gears present. That said, considering it's Rudy, he's likely just starting to warm up. He just defeated Mother with some help from his friends and allies, so this should be easy... Right?
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Despite their differences, the Church of Granas and the Nisan faith have been known to collaborate in certain endeavors. But this isn't what's happening here, at least not in any official capacity. It's just one of those happy(?) coincidences.
Inside her dark cockpit, Rosaline is taking one of several deep breaths. "I musn't run away, I musn't run away," she repeats to herself. To be fair, this is her first time experiencing live Gear combat against a noteworthy opponent. And this? Do you know what DISTANCE it's visible from? Enough to attract an Etone performing a simple training exercise, at least. That certainly counts as noteworthy.
Said Etone slaps her cheeks one last time before she flicks a few switches, bringing her weapon systems online. Carefully, carefully, she lines up her targeting reticle... Though it veers off-course in a sudden movement, as those eyes appear and a very familiar voice is heard. Well. That's one worst fear confirmed. On the upside, it also explains her pounding headache.
Do Nisan and the Ethos worship the same God? It's a complicated question. But when the voice announces the Gem of Valmar's name and intent, Rosaline can only grit her teeth and realign her sights. Steady, steady...
And a shot whistles out, a single bullet flying across nearly a thousand sharls and towards the center of that... thing. Will it be enough? Of course not.
And as the sniper shot is fired, the cloak on Rosaline's Gear flickers back to its red coloration, no longer providing her camouflage. The prone Gear is maneuvered upright, no longer having the drop on its opponent. As she fires up her thrusters to close in on the object for mid-range combat, Rosaline shouts in something resembling defiance:
"Let's go, Zephaniah!"
GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Gem of Valmar with Lock-On Snipe! GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar critically Guards a hit from Rosaline Calice's Lock-On Snipe for 31 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rosaline Calice has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
'We're here for your god.'
Sister Misericord (that is her actual name) is not an old woman. She lowers her binoculars, frowns from her perch in the top of the train station outside of Nisan proper, and immediately goes downstairs... to the telegraph office!
Another sister, this one with thick arms, immediately taps out a message. TARGET: All registered mercenary groups.
The message flies down scraggly wires across Ignas... is quickly jotted down... one copy is made, run down two blocks, handed into a single fuzzy hand.
Hammer looks down at it. His whiskers twitch.
"BRO! WE GOT ONE!" he shouts towards the back of the space. Elly drops the camp stove.
SOON - BUT SOON ENOUGH?
Two Gears fly from the general direction of Adelhyde. "I suppose we're going to have to refuel here... the auxiliary tank's exhausted," Elly says on the inter-cockpit linkage. "... oh, my goodness, Fei -- what IS that?"
The auxiliary tanks are jettisoned into the scrublands. (Someone will probably sell them back to the Ethos.) Vierge rises up into the air... though it would be hard for those familiar with Vierge to recognize it. Its pink highlighting is almost entirely gone, the arms and legs still slim but with blocky armor plating, Kislevi military surplus. Motion is smooth but still not the same. And all down the right side of the Gear is a black scrawling -
'get that mother!' 'moms are STRONG but SO ARE WE' 'GETTIM' 'JILROI WAS HERE'
- of graffiti, mostly cheering on the defeat of Mother. It has faded somewhat, but people used permanent marking ink. That's not going away any time soon.
"... I think they're in a stand-off... Maybe they're waiting for us. Well, then-"
Inside of Vierge's internals, the Ether Amp glows. Nobody sees it, because it's inside of a Gear, but rest assured: it is making a very nice humming sound.
A moment later, the air tenses, and a bolt of thunder snaps out of thin air towards that jewel!
"- Do you think that's a good way to say hello...?"
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gem of Valmar with Anemo Bolt! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Anemo Bolt for 133 hit points! GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Luniencouragement! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action. GS: Lunata Croze heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei made a promise he would help Neriah break free from Valmar. That he would try even if it was impossible.
However, Neriah's desire to assault Nisan so soon after Fei just realized his personal connection to the city, feels like an aimed strike on him to draw out Id. It does seem like something Neriah would do much like killing Siegfried being, in part at least, to draw out that demon too.
It's funny, Fei reflects, when he thinks about it like that it makes him furious but it's a furious he can deeply empathize with. It doesn't cause discord in his heart. Not yet. He's frankly uncertain Weltall can handle well under these condintions though. He thinks back...
YESTERDAY
Hammer asks Fei, "W..well bro, do you want upgrades for your gear? It'll cost you, I'm afraid..."
Fei says, "Er, I'd like to Hammer, but... I sort of spent all my money on fish for Ruby... I... I underestimated her. I knew she would order a lot but when it comes to fish she's like Xantia..."
NOW
"Was just going to drop by, tour the city with Rudy... but I guess vacation is over. No no, maybe we can go back to it after this. Just need to save the city." Fei murmurs.
When did Rosaline get a gear?
"I don't know." Fei says. "Uh. Maybe we should apologize to her."
She's an Etone.
"She's...They're not the same." Fei says.
Yeah you're probably right
Elly starts gabbing at him and Fei turns on a transmission so he can respond. "I think it's Valmar nonsense. I don't really know much about it, but I'm guessing it's one of the gross gods."
His glance to the side catches sight of the graffiti, still uncleaned, and he miles faintly. It isn't so bad when she is here.
Fei follows up Elly's strike with one of his own:--a hefty blue blast of blue chi, resonating from Fei but enhanced by his gear.
"Well, they always say violence is the language of Filgaia." Fei quips to Elly. "I more believe Cecilia's take on that, but we can be bilingual."
He then flicks a switch.
Rosaline gets a ping indicating she has a transmission coming.
"Hey Rosaline." Fei transmits. "Sorry about what happened earlier. Hope you're doing okay, uh, in general. I guess right now maybe it's tough. Is this your first time in a gear? I can give advice if you want."
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gem of Valmar with Guided Shot! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Guided Shot for 109 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
BEFORE
Another day, another delivery. This time, it's in the lovely city of Nisan. Wiping her forehead as she deposits the third heavy crate on the back door of a bakery. The elderly baker looks on, raising an eyebrow as Gwen moves to her fourth crate. "You sure you don't want my boys to help you with those? The might as well earn their keep."
"Ah, no. It's fine! They're... not as heavy as they look," Gwen lies, despositing the fourth with a loud thud of wood against wood.
"Then at least a bit of lemonade?" The baker reaches just inside the doorway, producing a glass jug swirling with lemons.
"... Ah... yeah, that'd be great, actually!" Graciously accepting an offer of fresh lemonade and downing it, Gwen exhales a long sigh, her lips puckering at the sour bite of the lemons that follows. "Ahhh. That hit the spot! Thanks a bunch."
The elderly man takes the glass, placing the wares back inside. "Lovely weather, too. I was just considering trying off the ovens for the day. People'll want their share of bread on the way home, but business will be slow otherwis... mm?" He squints upwards. "Just... what is that?"
------
CLOSE TO NOW
Gwen knows she saw him. The blue hair, the red bandanna, the fact that it was someone walking *towards* the danger, rather than away.
And then, out of the corner of her eye she sees him, leaping *up*. For a moment, she wonders if the young man had developed some special gift of flight, but no, he's just... really good at scaling buildings. Like any regular, normal young man his age. Perfectly reasonable.
And if he could do it, Gwen certainly can.
-------
NOW
Gwen can, but only after several tries, her ARM serving as her means to haul her very normal human body up as she misses leap after leap. Flopping onto the same rooftop with the grace of a fish out of water, Gwen lifts herself up and pants. "... Rudy, uh... this is..." Her words are becoming lost in the chittering thump of her heart. "... We gotta..."
It's because Rudy's body is lighter. That has to be it.
Either way, she needs a moment to breathe.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Logistical issues and time constraints kept Ida from bringing the Dust Dragoon to the final push against Mother, but that doesn't mean the weapon has been idle since then. There's still the unresolved matter of the gardnener of the Glint Mirage--taking down Kalve's construct without destroying it will be a challenge, and Ida hasn't been in the cockpit since things went pear-shaped at White Lotus Monastery. A few hours ago, she set off on a trek that was as much about testing herself as it was testing the Dust Dragoon's new heat sinks.
Then, a horrible crawling sensation--something not unlike spidery limbs scuttling down her spine, and the insides of her eyelids. One look at the exterior cam--the one facing Nisan--told Ida everything she needed to know.
NOW
A booming roar echoes through the air as yet another Gear joins the fray. The Dust Dragoon arcs gracefully over a farmer's field, a gold-and-blue colossus borne aloft by the jump-jets on its calves, thighs, and back. Beneath it, snow skirls in eddies, thrown about by the wind kicked up below. The Gear lands on a dirt road, settling into a crouch to steady itself. In the cockpit, Ida reaches for the radio controls with a gloved hand, opening a private channel. "Weltall," Ida transmits. "Vierge. Do either of you have the slightest idea what this thing is?" Besides wrong. Besides a manifestation of unholy power. An aux display cycles through feed captured from the cameras--visual profiles of the other machines. Rephaim is here, as well as a Gear Ida doesn't recognize, and something that has an Ethos beacon.
"Rosaline?" Ida says. She sounds puzzled--and a bit awkward, considering she's never seen Rosaline's Gear, and may be making a very rude assumption. "I'm hanging back. I'll try to--get as much data as I can off this thing."
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Methodical Approach! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Methodical Approach for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
JUST MOMENTS AGO
It was supposed to only be transit to Bledavik from Etrenank. A simple, routine trip, this time courtesy of one of the smaller transit ships. And after that, who knows -- probably back to medical work, unless he ended up with a field-support assignment again.
And then there had been the blare of an alarm -- anomalous energy field detected, according to the report that followed -- and Loren had just gotten to his feet, grimaced, and headed off for the hanger. Honestly, he should have expected something like this to have happened.
Well, fine, then. This is fine.
Hadn't Leah said the reward for hard work was more work?
NOW
It had been a transit operation; there had been a total of four Gears loaded for return to surface operations, his own included.
Naturally, the other three are MacDougall, Bergenhom, and Van Buskirk, with himself in the role of support. Leaning forward in his seat, he squints at the visual that...
...Yeah. Intel hadn't been kidding about 'anomalous'. "Great," he mutters, diving in for a landing towards the outskirts of Nisan. "I wonder what this is about," he says to his cockpit at large, as if Schiehallion could provide an answer to that non-question.
It, being a Gear, has nothing to say in response.
Landing comes smoothly, a short distance behind the other assault Gears -- all four the gleaming white Gears so preferred by those of the force known as Gebler.
Of Solaris.
Distance is no problem -- he can reach them with Ether from here... or even half-way across the city if it comes to that, courtesy of the tech strung about the inside of Schiehallion's heavy armor. "Initiating data capture; maybe the labs can work out what this is supposed to be. See if you can hit it. It doesn't look too solid. Support ether incoming."
'Here for their god', huh.
Command's not taking any chances, Loren thinks, settling back as he similarly threads his Ether in through the Gear's amplifiers, shedding it outwards in a stream of white-light reinforcement. Before even this visual effect vanishes.
His gaze slides across the field. Looks like Drifters wasted no time in showing up. There's even a few of the usual suspects. Rephaim--
He grits his teeth. SLIDE-1.
Before his attention lands at last on the obviously poorly-repaired Gear, the core of which is...
The last time he'd seen her, Vierge had been in pieces.
There was no love lost between them. And yet, she had laid down the ultimate sacrifice.
...So they'd scavenged it.
His hands shake as he furiously sends the request:
SCHIEHALLION TO VIERGE: VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS LINK REQUESTED. INITIATE REQUEST? TEN SECONDS REMAINING UNTIL TIME OUT BEGINS.
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Loren Voss with Barrier Element! GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Barrier Element for 0 hit points! GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
Well, just because Neriah was free to do her own thing didn't mean that it wasn't worth keeping an eye on her.
Agatha had been watching the assault on the Photosphere as a particularly amusing bit of entertainment - certainly the revelation that the Metal Demon's Mother was a dark and angry goddess who wished to consume the entire world had been a dramatic twist. But personally, Agatha had seen the role done better in the past - and she was glad to see Mother take the fall. Evil deities needed to find their own schtick, and the Pyre Witch knew that one was already taken.
And thus as Neriah unleashes a piece of Valmar - another Dark God, but one Agatha has a bit more sympathy for with the whole being dead and in pieces - the Pyre Witch appears on a rooftop within the city. Nisan had not really garnered much attention on her part up until now - it was a fairly boring town that seemed to possess a great sense of history but otherwise seemed rather placid and lacking in any sort of real energy.
Seeing it potentially get wrecked up one side and down the other? That was the sort of thing she enjoyed. And such developments tended to engender the sort of fear, resentment, and hatred that allowed her to practice her preferred trade.
And so she settles back, her cloak twisting around underneath her as she pulls out her favorite slender pipe and a pair of opera glasses to enjoy the festivities. "Who is going to show up to stop this, I wonder...? And even better... why?"
She smiles, snapping her fingers to set the bowl of her pipe alight. "Nothing like a dire crisis to help you see the truth of humans..."
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
The call for help went out from Nisan pretty much as soon as the Gem appeared. The city has her own defenses, but something like this was unexpected.
The call of a familiar voice evokes an instant reaction from the eyes hanging in the air. They tighten at the corners; the hovering lips curve into a frown. "...Jay."
With a whisper of energy, the apparition of Neriah vanishes - but in one of Jay's sidescreens, there's a slight movement. A faintly-outlined silhouette of Neriah is standing in a corner of the monitor, looking up at her. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Jay. The Day of Darkness is coming. I'm here to facilitate it. And that means I can't have churches standing in the way." She narrows her eyes a little. "Or Ethius. I see you brought him too."
Others begin to appear. The apparition of Neriah's gone - but hovering to one side of the Gem, one can make out a tiny speck of red colour. Neriah's hovering there, encased in the flickering globe of her Eldritch sphere. With a dip of lashes, she watches as Rephaim touches down.
And then her hair gets blown back as Zephaniah touches down and opens fire. Rosaline's shot slams towards the Gem--
And collides with something in midair. Ripples of eldritch energy bloom out from a flat plane of impact. The bullet disintegrates as it tries to tear through. Shards of it dance across the Gem's hull.
Neriah winces a little. "Is that Rosaline? Shit."
More Gears descend. Vierge comes swooping in as Elly presses an attack of thunder, the blast slashing through the Gem's defensive field more easily; the eldritch shell soaks up some of the energy, but the bolt bleeds through to strike it, a few shards flaking off the prism. A second burst follows as Weltall comes swooping in, Fei's blast chipping a few more shards off of the prism.
"Do you mind, Fei?" Neriah's voice is coming out of the left-side monitor of everyone with a Gear. A glance reveals that there is, in fact, a tiny digital Neriah on the screen, somehow leaning against the edge of the monitor frame with a slight frown. "I know you want to help me, but getting in the way of my plans isn't helpful at all."
Another Gear's arriving; Neriah doesn't recognize it as Ida's at first, but soon enough, Ida's got a curious Neriah peeking into the corner of her monitor, too, before winking out of view. Ida's scans of the Gem produce a mess - something science can't quite parse. It doesn't quite read like Millenia would, either, though it's unlikely anyone's scanned her. But one thing is clear: The energy levels coming off the Gem are rising rapidly.
The last Gear to appear gets a curious look. Loren also finds himself with a little visitor in the corner of his monitor.
In his case, though, the visitor is not silent. "Oh heeeeeey, it's my good buddy Thomas the Medical Student! I remember you! Yeah, we were pals and everything!" Neriah says in an exaggerated tone.
Then her voice rises suddenly. "HOW'S IT GOIN', BUD?!"
The low, menacing hum pulsing at the centre of the Gem of Valmar only grows more pronounced. Windows throughout Nisan begin to rattle in their panes. It's as if the city itself is trembling. The light at the heart of the Gem grows brighter and brighter.
At once, it disgorges - and lances of light begin to pour from the heart of the Gem. The rays carry every colour in the spectrum, but so bright and shining they sear the eyes. They stream from the Gem in multitude, showering down upon the assemblage of Gears as if to tear them apart and slash through them.
The backwash of the attack is heavy. It's bound to bowl Ethius off his feet, but if Neriah knows he's there, as she seems to, she doesn't specifically aim
anything at him.
GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Loren Voss with Illuminous Ray! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Lunata Croze with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Rosaline Calice with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Tiny Target Backwash! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Tiny Target Backwash! GS: Gem of Valmar has completed its action. GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Lumina Slasher for 79 hit points! GS: Lunata Croze guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Lumina Slasher for 79 hit points! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo!
DC: MISS! Elhaym van Houten completely evades Lumina Slasher from Gem of Valmar!
GS: Loren Voss guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Illuminous Ray for 198 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Lumina Slasher for 132 hit points! <DICE ROLLER> Fei Fong Wong rolled 1d100 <78> + 0 = 78
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Tiny Target Backwash for 58 hit points! GS: Rosaline Calice takes a glancing hit from Gem of Valmar's Lumina Slasher for 67 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Tiny Target Backwash for 11 hit points! GS: Rudy Roughnight has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Lumina Slasher for 26 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
The sick feelings hangs over the ground like a moss, a thick carpet of malaise in the shadow of the great gem. The feeling to anyone actually on the ground in the shadows of giants is palpable, discrete, existing at a point beyond real. It is something anchoring. Something binding. There is no before. There is no other place. An endless persecution. Blame and recriminations well from the earth. There is
only
the
NOW.
They burst from the earth slowly in the periphery of the great beam attack as it blossoms far overhead, the rays casting harsh shadows and impositions in the dirt for miles around. And from every shadow it cuts, a brutal mask rises. The masks are all uniform, all carved from something not quite wood, not quite air, but something inbetween, as if whittled wholesale from memories one would rather forget. Each looks the same from every other, a featureless ghostlike thing. But then, each in turn opens a mouth that wasn't there only one eyeblink ago. And as the gem above cuts flares from the cloth of the sun, those that toil in the shadows that remain yawn the consecrating night.
Blackbirds flutter en masse from the grounds around the gem as it discharges its attack, ancillary effects flooding through the streets below. Rooftops are engulfed in the birds, and though none of them look quite anatomically accurate in passage, their bodies smash into and cut through roofs as any living animal might, sending shards of tile jetting into the air in tiny fragments. The harshness of it sends anyone too focused on the fight above to the ground, and some entirely into the air, carted away by the talons of cackling nightbirds.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Gwen Whitlock with The Eldest Furnace! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has gained 1 Combo! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Ethius Hesiod with The Eldest Furnace! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's The Eldest Furnace for 147 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Ethius Hesiod critically Guards a hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's The Eldest Furnace for 17 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline sees the Rephaim on her radar before it descends. It gives her time to brace herself for what she knows is coming - a scolding from Lunata.
"S-sorry...I just wanted to sell some potions today, and then this happened..." Jacqueline replies apologetically. So of course that means Jacqueline would immediately hop into her Gear to help out. "...But I'm glad to see you here."
But soon, Jay is not alone within the Gear - in the corner of her monitor, there's a silhouette - a silhouette of Neriah.
"...The Day of Darkness? I can't...Neriah, I can't let you do that." Jacqueline says. Before she can respond to the mention of Ethius, Jacqueline's Gear warns her of weapons fire in the immediate area and the silhouette vanishes. But the strangest thing was, she didn't see an obvious source. If it wasn't Lunata, then...
"Who...?" Jacqueline starts, looking around. Suddenly, a Gear appears as if from nowhere as what Jacqueline can only assume is a cloaking system disengages. She had seen that on a smaller scale, but for a Gear...?
And what's more, others are appearing, as well. Well, if that's the case...
"All Gears, this is the CK-01 Jaeger! I'm sending you my IFF data now. Be careful! I don't know what she's done, but this thing is undoubtedly dangerous!" Jacqueline broadcasts. "You can't fight it like a normal opponent, watch out for attacks that defy explanation!"
The only Gear she recognizes on the horizon is Weltall, she doesn't realize yet that she knows the other pilots, too.
The hum of the Gem intensifies, glowing brighter and brighter before emitting in prismatic lances. Jacqueline lowers the Jaeger into a defensive stance. Several of the lances strike her Gear, scoring the armor where they land. Thankfully, none of them strike any vital components...but Jacqueline can tell what kind of power she's dealing with here.
Quickly, Jacqueline draws the Jaeger's side-arm, aiming it at the Gem of Valmar.
"I'm sorry, Neriah, but I'm going to have to stop your creation here!" Jacqueline calls out, firing off a round. It is not one meant to inflict any real damage, however - instead, the moment it makes contact it begins to emit a draining field with the goal of weakening the Gem's attacks.
Her focus remains on Neriah's gem for now, though she keeps an eye on Lunata to ensure that she's doing alright.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gem of Valmar with Stun Gun! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Stun Gun for 35 hit points! GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar!
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
A few Gears close in on the Gem of Valmar. Some of them Rosaline recognizes, some of them not. The sight of Weltall makes her heart skip a beat, especially as she soon receives a transmission. Three of them, in fact. Nervously, she flicks the switch to answer all at once.
"Fei, Ida, Jacqueline!" she speaks urgently, almost shouting, "We need to destroy that thing! We can't leave a single piec--" She stops, making a strained noise. "I'm sorry, that's a little obvious. I'll do what I can to distract it. It's okay, I've been training a lot for moments like these." Her long side-trip to Lunar and the trek to Elru meant she had to be separated from her Gear a very long time, but she at least is neither completely a rookie nor completely rusty. Her Gear even moves with some grace, despite her obvious nervousness.
It's for the best, too, as multicolored lances of light rain down upon them. Zephaniah weaves among them, taking glancing hits here and these, but otherwise leaving the Gear in working order. The Ethos doesn't do anything by half-measures when it comes to ancient technology.
Now, there's likely a reason Ida assumed Rosaline's identity upon seeing the Ethos tracker on her Gear. Like almost every Etone gear, it has a cape, this one red. Its chassis, much like Rosaline's uniform, has been painted Ethos purple. This doesn't really narrow it down.
What does... is that this Gear has frickin' cat ears. The Ethos engineers that repaired it from the state Rosaline found it in had a bit of fun, what can she say.
The good news is, these things aren't just for show. Rosaline presses a button on her control panel, prompting the cat ears on her mech to... detach and rocket away, spiraling towards the Gem, and hopefully bypassing its eldritch field this time before they detonate.
GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Gem of Valmar with NY-4N Missiles! GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar critically Guards a hit from Rosaline Calice's NY-4N Missiles for 32 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rosaline Calice has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Several indicators appear at the corners of Lunata's eyes, reflected from the IFF radar. Weltall, Vierge. Those are signatures that she well knows, from prior engagements; Rosaline's Gear is less of a known quantity to her, but Fei's already engaging. The Dust Dragoon, which she hasn't seen before. Still, it rather seems evident that--
Wait, that's the Gebler gear...
The one she threw a hellgate under that one time.
She narrows her eyebrows, but doesn't make a comment. Looks like he's got Neriah's ire right now anyway. She stares back at the Jaeger. A little knot twists in her stomach for a moment, even if no actual stomach activity still exists to promote that at present.
It's everything she fears, everything she has feared, will continue to fear. Mother isn't the end of anything. Nothing will...
She's nearly too distracted to guard herself well against the incoming attack, lashes of light coming up and clashing bright with the Rephaim's own oscillating Pulse Shift Armour. A scintilla of light emerges as rainbow-like rays clash against each other; when it all comes up, there's a pock mark upon the blackened armour, but little more than that.
"Hrf--" Lunata grunts as she reels from the blow. She looks to Jacqueline and says, "It's-- fine. It's fine..."
Nothing's fine.
"Nothing's gonna change... at all..." she whispers to herself as she mutes for a moment. She locks herself backwards and drags a lever back.
She's staring at the gem again, murmuring, "It's weird, Neriah. You're probably the other person who's got as much license to hate on Ge Ramtos than I am, but we're still opposed... yet--"
Outside, the Rephaim takes aim with what looks like a large tubular launcher, not dissimilar to a Bazooka save for the fact that it looks kind of cobbled from spare parts and has a big Shalune giving a thumbs up decal on it.
"Let's see what you've got for me this time, Lunie."
She fires. A large round shell fires out of it towards the Gem, but actually stops midway as it grows a propeller and flies ontop. Then
*PWEEEEET*
The little shell splits into two and flies off after dumping colourful confetti -- from which a little swarm of little Big Shals (smol shals?) flies out and individually clamber onto the Gem and each give it a little bonk followed by a thumbs-up to each other.
Before they hop off and pull the cord on their parachutes and salute.
"......"
lunata drags a keyboard out and starts furiously typing on it
Somewhere else, Shalune gets a new angry message on her Memory Cube:
SHALUNE GOSH DARNIT
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Gem of Valmar with The Saturday Night Shalune Special! GS: Lunata Croze has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lunata Croze has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Lunata Croze's The Saturday Night Shalune Special for 182 hit points! GS: Cover! Statuses applied to Lunata Croze!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly says "mm" to Fei in response to his statements, verbal and chi-based. "Valmar... I wish I knew anything about Valmar, other than that it's something negative. I suppose this is a bad time to ask for information." She makes a short laugh as if to try to be encouraging, but tapers off after that. It doesn't seem to be the time for jokes.
Elly feels better after a vacation. She is not fully unstrained, but there's less of that chaotic sense of explosions happening forever. There may be a horror over this charming town, but at least it is a creature - some kind of giant ARM or something, something related to Valmar - not...
>> INCOMING CALL!
>> SCHIEHALLION TO VIERGE: VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS LINK REQUESTED. INITIATE REQUEST? TEN SECONDS REMAINING UNTIL TIME OUT BEGINS.
Elly cringes violently away from the pop-up call pane and draws her hand away from that entire side of Vierge as if she is terrified she will touch it and contract Veruni death plague. She stares at it, goggling, the name coming to her after two seconds. She feels a strange sense of relief, followed by a glimmer of horror.
He's alive. He's here! Gebler is here! IN PARTICULAR, Loren is here!
And Loren has just saved Elly's life, again, because in cringing away from his incoming call, Elly has steered Vierge partially out of the way of that incoming blast. The backwash propels Vierge forwards, moving it closer to that great gem, but the point is that the Gear is not HARMED - dirtied at worst. Elly swings down, landing in a broad avenue on reflex, then looks upwards.
And yet. She can't do anything until
3
the countdown
2
times
1
out
>> Request timed out.
Elly breathes out. On the tight-link connection to Weltall, Elly says, "I see Loren's doing well," in a neutral tone, but then her attention is back on the great crystal before them.
Elly exhales again. At this point the Etone Gear fires -- ah yes, Elly intuits, that must be Rosaline. A quick glance at the Ether Amp cool down figure and the overheat percentage factor reveals to Elly several things, not least just how much Hammer had to scrape. Looking up, she says, "I suppose it can't be helped... hyah!"
Vierge bounds down the avenue, leaping up to swing its battle rod in a one, two, three, FOUR smash of blows against the facet of the great Gem of Valmar. It even does a somersault on its way back to level ground.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gem of Valmar with Beat Storm! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Beat Storm for 114 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The foolhardy Symbologist who dares come a bit too close to the gem, like a confused moth unable to parse what one does with the light when they are there, can only stare and watch things unfold.
Numerous Gears touch down - he knows that's Jay who's come. Others that open immediate fire help give valuable information to work with. Concussive physical force might not do much good, based on how the bullet fired from Zephaniah disintegrates. This is of little immediate consequence to him since he can't physically reach it, but gives a good thought that maybe he also shouldn't stand too close. He catches notice as to how one Gear's electrical attack seems to find purchase. There's others that seem to be reappearing out of thin air--
That's all the 'hints' he can get, because the light is getting much too blinding to look at directly, and his footing grows less sure as Nisan shakes. Beams of color shooting out indiscriminately from the surface are a reminder that a) no angle is safe, and b) he is not standing close enough to cover for his liking.
Ethius turns and runs for repositioning's sake. One such beam of light comes just shy of hitting him - probably incidental - but the displaced air and quaking ground voids his balance and sends him tumbling less-than-gracefully across a long length of the street before he can catch himself. Even then, his body bowls through someone's wooden cart and shatters it. The world is a blur of washed-out color and unfocused sound, and then it is a cacophony of cackling blackbirds. They help him come to. Well, 'help,' by trying to run through him as much as they do grab him up. The cackling of the misshapen birds are an alarm, screaming in the man's ear.
His quarterstaff is drawn, and swung defensively and vigorously to stop them from swarming him. The only struggle is getting the ones on him off as they tear at the flesh underneath the clothes, eventually having to free a hand off his weapon to just bat them off by hand. His steps start uncoordinated from lack of balance due to ongoing shaking terrain, but find stride through purpose.
He has to stop this. That's enough to keep him together. It's not enough to give him clear line of sight of the Gem of Valmar, through the many blackbirds, or... or the look of the one that commands them. He can only keep moving forward. What he actually intends to do, by his lonesome, seems to only make sense to him as he fights through the blackbird swarm.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"You know that's not the kind of help I was talking about," Fei tells Neriah smoothly though he does pause to look at the digital Neriah. He frowns as Chu-Chu appears on the screen too. Fei removes his scarf and place it over the monitor. It's best for everyone, both oocly and icly, to not see what's going on behind the curtain there.
Unfortunately Fei is not looking at the cosmic horror as he's doing this and the gem slams Weltall hard with a ray of light. The gear starts dipping down from the damage.
He really should have asked to get that new frame on loan or something, Fei thinks.
"I don't think this helps--" He begins before he sees on one of his cameras--
--that gear. He remembers that gear. It's at about this point that SCHIEHALLION gets a visual communications link as well. Loren might not want to answer that but he's probably getting an annoying beeping noise letting him know the request is there.
SUDDENLY BIRDS.
"The kid...?" Fei says. "They're working together??" One more explanation for why he's so weird but he has at least figured out that Isiris is not a man but instead a bunch of birds taking the shape of a man.
"Alright." Fei adds to Rosaline. "I'll let you take the lead on this." In part because again, he didn't upgrade his FRAME. It turns out that shooting artillery into the cockpit causes problems with your gear.
Fei hears Elly's words on their personal link. His eyes widen.
"That's...Loren?" He asks of her.
He bites at his lip. Now is REALLY not the time to pursue a personal vendetta...
But that's never stopped Solaris has it?
Fei shakes his head. "You okay, Elly?"
Fei throws itself up, using the aid of its flight engines to throw several quick strikes with its fists towards that gem! He wonders how long he has until he runs out of fuel.
Running out of fuel is the direst of fates for Gears!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gem of Valmar with Hazen! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hazen for 59 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
The Hand Cannon is leveled to Gwen until it's clear that Rudy has recognized who the new face is. "Gwen," Roughnight offers softly, glancing back toward the large construct. He digs in his feet. "Don't get hurt."
The gear battle begins in full fury, beams of light tearing toward the brave fighters in their giant suits of armor. One of them reflects off one of the Gears, coming right for the rooftop. In response, Rudy instinctually pushes the beam. The tears into his hand, roasting off some of the leather glove to reveal slightly burned skin underneath, but it appears that Rudy is rather well all things considered.
The woman with the metal arm is unharmed. He looks back with pride, clearly ready to say something when TONS OF <censored>ING BLACKBIRDS COME OUT OF <censored> NOWHERE. They tear past Rudy in the wake of the energy deflection, instead going toward Whitlock. He can only look in horror as she is harmed. Then the horror turns into a cold anger, Rudy changing his weapon's cartridge without even looking at it, as if it were as natural to him as breathing.
The young Drifter looks toward the masses of birds, brown eyes giving each on a split second's attention as if he were trying to mentally catalogue them. The left arm of the young man glows brightly, straight symbols glowing on the forearm as he brings it in front of him. Then he raises the Hand Cannon to fire straight up. A small canister is lopped into the skies, which soon explodes. When it does, a stream of blue lasers come right for the birds, seeking out some of them as the streaks of blue actually curve as needed. While only five or so beams of light come out, it's enough to show that he's got what it takes to thin out the herd. While the Gem was the reason he started this fight, it's clear that protecting Whitlock is his primary goal now.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Mighty Avalanche! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The Dust Dragoon has a formidable sensor suite to go with its AWACS capabilities. Predictably, though, the whole thing starts spitting garbage data the moment Ida turns them on the manifestation of eldritch, terrible might. Right, she thinks, that's utter bloody nonsense. The thought does nothing to still her pounding heart. Her gloved hands tighten around the Dragoon's control yokes, clenching them until her knuckles start to hurt.
Ida feels eyes on her. She glances at a screen showing the gem dead ahead, and sees Neriah looking at her. She clamps her teeth shut to cage in a startled shriek. Jay's voice cuts through the air, then, giving Ida something to focus on other than her own fears. "Understood, CK-01." Ida says. "I can't make heads or tails of it, whatever it is, but I'll provide support as best I can." As Zephaniah moves in, the Dragoon steps forward, digging in its heels and twisting its torso about forty-five degrees. As the energies around the Gem rise to a feverish pitch--one that makes Ida feel, for a moment, as though her brain is about to claw its way out of her skull--the Gear braces itself. Horrible power washes across the machine, and--
--glances off of the Dragoon's chest armor, which absorbs it without complaint. The machine rocks back, and the balancing systems kick in; the Dragoon steps back, smoke rising from the blackened mark dead-center on its chest. Ida takes a breath, reminds herself she's still alive, and readies the Dragoon's primary armament. The machine reaches back with both hands, pulling loose a weapon that rests in a rack much like 'Strahl's' old mortar-tube support. This is a cannon, though, a weapon almost three-quarters as long as the Dragoon is tall.
"Three-Dragon Cannon, deployed" Ida says, as Lunata makes her play. The Dragoon twists at the waist, seeking an angle that isn't covered by Rosaline's missiles, or Lunata's...
swarm of tiny Shals
Ida stares at them a moment. Then she lines up the crosshairs and pulls the trigger. Hundreds of Dragon Filaments ignite simultaneously, superheating a fine mist of propellant and aerosols. The resulting conflagration roars out of the cannon's barrel, at the gem--it's a white-hot blast of flame, enough to warp a Gear's armor, ignite flammables, and overload heat sinks. What good will it do against this creature?
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has spent 1 Combo on Poison, including 0 on Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Neriah Parringer with Three Dragon Cannon - Flame Breath! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has canceled their attack on Neriah Parringer. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Gem of Valmar with Three Dragon Cannon - Flame Breath! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Three Dragon Cannon - Flame Breath for 177 hit points! GS: ! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar!
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
There was nothing quite as interesting as seeing enemies fight for a common cause - it was a pity that such a cause seemed to be getting in the way of Neriah's plan, but what could you do under those sorts of circumstances? Agatha considered jumping in herself, but she didn't really have the details of what her... calling her an ally was probably a bit too much. Colleague was a bit closer, but didn't really encompass how amused Agatha would be to see the devilish young woman's plans succeed or fail - either way, there was something to be gained on her part just by letting them run their course.
However, Isiris attracts Agatha's attention to a certain extent, as he uses some sort of attack that definitely is not cut from the usual cloth. She leans forward for a moment at the massive eruption of birds, watching intently through her opera glasses for a moment.
Of course, that isn't her only point of view - for all of Isiris' creations around, there are a few beasts which do not answer to him. A few crows in the area watch with faintly glowing red eyes, not doing anything to contribute to the chaos but instead giving Agatha a more extended point of view. As well as rats, and the occasional small scruffy mongrel that slinks about in the shadow.
And then she turns her glasses and looks at Fei for a long moment.
Yum.
"Hello again, boy - fancy seeing you in the mess here. I wonder just what sort of show you're going to give me today? Something restrained, or spectacular... either one is fine. I enjoy seeing someone pushing their limits as much as I do enjoy watching those retrains be broken."
Poor Fei might get a slight chill down his spine at that, but Agatha is hardly here to cause trouble. She just... observes, and takes notes.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
...Not to mention that familiar-looking Gear over in the distance. He can't get a read on the IFF, though--
And other 'events' may render that something of a lesser priority.
Someone is walking around with Solaris Gear parts, just as was feared.
Something appears in the corner of his monitor; his attention flits over to it.
Whereupon he straightens considerably in his seat, blue eyes wide with disbelief. "Parringer-- what the hell did you-- when did you-- damn it, I knew this was going to happen!" he snaps, attention wrenching from the furious apparation onscreen, back up at the entity that hovers above Nisan.
Probably, it's a safe bet that he wasn't expecting specifically this, though.
"So what is this about? Did you finally give yourself into whatever that 'dark magic' was?" he retorts. "I knew this was only going to lead to trouble. Well, fine, it's your funeral--"
Schiehallion's alarms hit a cacophany of a chorus, if the low rumble that rolls off the Gem weren't enough of a clue. ENERGY ACTIVITY SPIKE DETECTED. ENEMY ATTACK INCOMING, announces the onboard systems, and he can see it, as those spears of light coalesce and scream forth--
DEFENSIVE ACTIONS ADVISED, the system concludes.
"I know!" Loren growls at the machine as he activates the shielding; barriers of light errupt around the massive Solaris Gear, enough to stave off some of the incoming barrage.
And he glances over in the next heartbeat to see
NO REPLY FROM TARGET. COMMUNICATION REQUEST TIMEOUT. TRY AGAIN?
Which is then immediately followed by:
WELTALL TO SCHIEHALLION: VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS LINK REQUESTED. INITIATE REQUEST? TEN SECONDS REMAINING UNTIL TIME OUT BEGINS.
"No," is Loren's response, ire for the moment deflected towards the composite Gear. "And no."
But first things first.
Anger is a sort of power -- he's learned that. That emotion, cycled into his Ether, and fed through the amplification systems of the Gebler Gear?
Perhaps it might be enough to crack that 'gem'.
The pillar of stone materializes into the air, woven fragment by fragment from his will. This he lets fly for the Gem of Valmar, a projectile born from his redirected fury.
But not all of it is so spent.
"...Open communications to public," he informs Schiehallion's systems.
"Attention, thief!"
His voice rings out across the external speakers. "I would like to inform you that the Gear you are using posesses parts of Solarian origin. Kindly return them after this sortie or we will reclaim them from your corpse."
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a solid hit from Rudy Roughnight's Mighty Avalanche for 117 hit points! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Gem of Valmar with Terra Vector! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
In the heat of the moment, it's too easy to accept that building malaise of dread. They're standing in the shadows of Gears and giants, after all. There is no before, there is only the now, that desperate bid to survive on their own terms.
Like Rudy, Gwen's terms are simple. Get Rudy to safety, because even her foolhardy nature has its limits. Ethius may be a part of that plan as well, once she realizes the man is attempting something(?) against these beings as well. But for now, against the growing metaphorical deluge, Gwen keeps her focus in on a single point. Which, thankfully, isn't that hand cannon pointed in her direction momentairely. "Rud-...."
Colorful lasers tear through the air, aimed at the Gears but not sparing anything past them. Gwen's attempts to get back to her feet are thwarted, the courier landing on her stomach as a laser slices through the rooftop several feet away. Her words grow more urgent. "Rudy, we need to go!" They need to leave now. Get away. Rudy can't withstand this. She certainly can't. They need to get people out of here, help any stragglers.
And then, just as Gwen rises *again* the blackbirds come. Gwen's courage may have withstood the earlier attack, but the birds filling the air is enough to deal Gwen's nerves a icy, final blow.
Just like her body, right at that moment. Arms curled instinctually in front of her body, Gwen flies through the air from the impact, blood and glass spraying in midair as she is caught up in the flow of sharp inky feathers.
When she lands, if she actually lands, it'll likely be not too far from Ethius, carried off the very rooftop she tried to get up to. Dazed, Gwen lifts herself up, swatting away the deluge with her arms.
One of which happens to be rapidly charging.
A bright flash issues from the ARM, a quick pulse of pyrite-yellow. "_Get offa me_!!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Quasar Palm! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Loren Voss's Terra Vector for 172 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Isiris Shango'Ra guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Quasar Palm for 38 hit points! GS: Disrupt and Jam! Statuses applied to Isiris Shango'Ra! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Gwen Whitlock has lost 0 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
Jacqueline's resolve does not need crushing power to be felt. She unleashes her shell, and the round punches through the eldritch field around the Gem of Valmar. The round punches into the Gem's side, unleashing the draining field. The pulsing light at its heart ebbs for a second.
What Rosaline has in her tank is not just conviction... it's neko ears. The ears sail towards the Gem--
"Oh my god, that's so cute," Neriah gushes from her spot in midair.
Then the ears collide with the Gem. The eldritch field ramps up to soak up the worst of the explosive force, but fire and shrapnel bleed through. More shards begin to flake off the Prism.
Neriah draws a breath and refocuses. She can hear Lunata - and as the Death Waitress speaks, her left-hand monitor is interrupted by Neriah's head and shoulders leaning into her camera. "And the sad thing is, I don't like to oppose you, Lunie. The Death Guardian tortures you, doesn't it? But this is kind of why I'm here...." She trails off as the colourful shell deploys. Countless Li'l Shals scatter along the Prism and begin to bop chunks off of it. Neriah stares for several seconds.
"Oh my god, that's so cute!!" she gushes again.
Cute or no, it gives Elly a window in which to rush through the Prism's defensive field. Vierge lays into the Gem, a thing with no limbs and no ability to wage a melee war. The huge diamond lurches backwards; more chunks fly off of it. They shimmer in the air around Elly. In the redhead's left-hand monitor, Neriah frowns. "You're Fei's friend, aren't you? He's awfully lucky to have you, you know."
Fei looks; digital Neriah is about how Neriah looks now. Namely, much different than she did two years ago - all red dresses and dark makeup and lustrous curls and intensity in her eyes. "I told you I'd have to do things I'd regret," she says as Weltall lashes out at the Gem. The Gear's fists slam into the defensive field as the huge prism brings it to bear at the last second, but a few blows get through. More chunks of crystal flake from its mass. "Mother's out of the way. But I can't have all these other churches and gods sticking their noses into what I need to do. And you know what that is."
The really unnerving thing is that Neriah's just staring at Ida from her left-side monitor. She's not even blinking. And yet she can probably hear her talking to others. Is the image in her monitor something the real Neriah just visits in passing? Are there multiple Neriahs? At least the Three Dragon Cannon finds purchase, burning through the Gem's defensive field and bathing it in flame and fury. Broken crystal droplets drip from its face freely and bead into the air.
"I remember seeing you when you were a Hellion," Neriah says quietly from Ida's left. "Do you ever wonder about those feelings? About which part of you is the more honest reflection of Ida?"
It's Loren for whom the most bile is reserved. The Neriah in his monitor practically leans out her window towards him even as he opens fire on the Gem, punching through it and cratering its face. More shards fly off. "Oh-h-h-h no, Tommy," Neriah sneers from his monitor. "Not my funeral. Say, remember when I didn't have the power to make you pay for insulting me to my face?"
The image of Neriah leans out of Loren's monitor and reaches for his cheek. "And remember how I do now? That's gonna be fun."
Her hand ghosts right through him. The apparition in his cockpit disappears.
And then something happens - on Loren's screen, and everyone else's too. At the Gem's heart, the energy briefly fades to a ruddy red shade. Light shimmers through the immense prism, filtering along its edges in little surges. The shards knocked off of it begin to float, the broken surface of the Gem itself beginning to smooth out and restore itself. The shards closest to Fei and Elly shudder a little.
Then they compress inward. Hundreds of little crystalline prisms slash and bite at Vierge and Weltall, hurtling at them like the fangs of a closing mouth and slashing at them from all directions.
Beyond the two lovers, however, the shards begin to combine into smaller Gems. A few dozen little Gems form up in a lazy orbit of the central Gem. The main prism opens up with that ray; a beam slashes across Loren and Lunata's gears, then fires again, aimed to punch a hole in Jay's, then once more, trenching turf as it carves towards Ethius.
The worst is spared for others. Rosaline and Ida. Light beats at the heart of the little gems - and they join the big one in laying down a withering fusillade of energy fire, ripping towards the Etone and the pugilist's machines in a constant bombardment of radiant light.
GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Gem of Valmar with Crystalysis! GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Crystalysis for 0 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each! GS: Lock and State! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Slashing Shards! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Slashing Shards! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Loren Voss with Prismatic Sweep! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Rosaline Calice with Prismatic Sweep! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Illuminous Ray! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 2 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Grand Armada! GS: Gem of Valmar has canceled their attack on Rosaline Calice. GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Lunata Croze with Lumina Slasher! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Rosaline Calice with Grand Armada! GS: Gem of Valmar has completed its action. GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Lumina Slasher for 50 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Lunata Croze! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Lunata Croze has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Illuminous Ray for 204 hit points! GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a glancing hit from Gem of Valmar's Slashing Shards for 130 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Grand Armada for 267 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Gem of Valmar's Lumina Slasher for 63 hit points! GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Prismatic Sweep for 270 hit points! GS: Rosaline Calice takes a glancing hit from Gem of Valmar's Grand Armada for 214 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Lunata says its fine, but Jacqueline hesitates for a moment. She feels like she ought to say something, but...the fact that they're in an active battlefield soon reasserts itself as she hears a voice over the communications line.
"...Rosaline?" Jacqueline asks. It's rhetorical more than anything. She didn't know Rosaline had a Gear. Still, it's good that there's people here she recognized. She didn't have to worry about adapting to the movement patterns of complete strangers. "It's okay, I agree. We need to stop this somehow..."
Rosaline and Lunata throw out their attacks, the latter of which...fires a shell containing a swarm of Big Shals??
"Sh-She sure is...flexing her creativity..." Jacqueline observes. She has to hold back a chuckle.
Ida responds, and Jacqueline nods.
"Thank you. I'll keep an eye out for any weaknesses in its structure!" She replies. At that point, one of the Gears broadcasts publically.
...Wait a second. Isn't that one of the Gebler Gears...? She remembered in from the fight for the Fereshte. 'Solarian'...Jacqueline frowns slightly, taking some internal notes. She doesn't know what that means, but that's something to ask about in the future.
The Gem opens fire once more, a beam firing straight toward her Gear. Jacqueline winces and braces herself again, adjusting her Gears positioning to try and limit the damage it takes. It impacts the chest plate with alarming force, but the Jaeger still stands.
She doesn't want to dodge...not when dodging means the attack might hit somewhere in the city.
"I'm closing in to melee range!" She says, then does as she says and moves forward toward the Gem. She returns her sidearm to its holster before drawing out the Jaeger's combat baton. The sidearm is meant more for disabling Gears, and she's unsure that would have a significant effect on it as it is now. She eyes the surface of the Gem carefully then thrusts the baton forward, seeking out potential vulnerabilities in its structure they might be able to exploit.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Neriah Parringer with Baton Battery! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Jacqueline Barber has canceled their attack on Neriah Parringer. GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gem of Valmar with Baton Battery! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Baton Battery for 254 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
From above, the cloud of birds seems like a thick gyrating mist of black at the ground level, at least until a scattering of them come fluttering high enough to register the beat of wings against air. The bizarre blue-eyed things seem distinct, distinct enough for Fei to notice, at the least, distinct enough to realize that they are not natural, that they are not even real.
Or are they?
At the ground level, the glittering light filters through veins of black. What appears to be a gyrating mass above is mayhem below, people being carted out of their homes and thrown about haphazardly by birds. The masks sit still, resolute, and calm in the face of the mayhem. A closer eye would note that the gyrations above are not coincidental, or a vagary of distance. The birds that fly through, surging through the streets slam into one another, not exactly dying and not exactly living for the effort. As if shadows turned to gum, the bodies of the birds cross and intersect with one another, birds folding in on eachother like crumpled paper. Several seem to stick to Ethius for all of his swiping and fighting.
They are no longer flesh, nor real blood. Or were they ever? Gwen's blasts around her and Rudy's arcing lasers trace carving lines through the boneless black, slicing birds into particulate matter, ashes and feathers drifting through the air in equal number around the Drifter. Ethius will realize the darker nature of the birds as he cuts through parts of them. They aren't real. They are just reflections of something...
Something more.
As Rudy cuts through the flock, the black feathers before tougher, more fibrous with every blast. They rip open as the blasts cut through from above, like a bubble made from melted sugar. He will realize that layers of that black are being folded in ribbons between them. She is slowly being isolated from him. And in turn, he from her.
Slowly, feathers begin to settle on the shoulders of the populace. Feathers that grow to weigh unimaginably. Motes of black that fill the spirit and soul. There's only moments to get away, to find shelter or respite, before they fill everything to the brim. Moments to respond before you can hear an endless whisper beneath the weight of an unimaginable hammer.
A whipser that fills up everything, and leaves no room for anything else.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Loren's making an announcement on the public comms, prompting Lunata to blink as she flicks her comms to the open band in turn.
"That's what you're most concerned about right now?? Don't you have bigger things to worry about??"
Brief bit of sass accomplished, Lunata slumps back in her cockpit chair for a moment. Lets the cold, frigid chill of the Rephaim's deathly sphere surround her for a moment. There's a scowl on her face. "Just as much as you can imagine, Neriah." She lulls her head back and shakes her head bitterly for another hitching pause. "Fought tooth and nail to beat Mother and for what...? For what, exactly?"
She catches herself, as she looks towards Neriah at her left-hand-side camera. "I'd still be lost, if it weren't for Jay..."
And their little conversation gets interrupted when the smol Shals elicit adoration and she grumbles for a moment to Shalune, who's no doubt giving her the smuggest thumbs up right now.
"If I could, if I thought it'd be healthy, I'd ball her up in a little sphere like you once did too. But, y'know--"
Lunata lets out a scowl as the beam crosses her again; the Rephaim throws its palm out as she more or less funnels the Pulse Shift Barrier outwards and shelters herself against the assault, but looks towards the Jaeger as she fires her retro-thrusters and pulls in a little closer against the Jaeger as Jacqueline announces that she's closing in to melee with her baton. She follows suit.
"Jay does what she does..." she looks back towards that camera. "... because she's much, much braver than I am, and ever will be. So--"
The Rephaim's gauntlet unlocks as the Pulse Shift Barrier ebbs and thrums out; for a moment, the Jaeger's sensors register a build-up of energy as she extends that shielding around Jacqueline. As that magic fetters out, she closes her eyes and thinks of her last words to Yarobeleedt.
"All you're getting is the coward out of me, sorry."
GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Pulse Shift Barrier! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action. GS: Lunata Croze heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 400 temporary hit points! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Well of Mercy! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Damnation Dust! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has gained 2 Combo! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Slashing Shards for 51 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock critically Guards a hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Damnation Dust for 24 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I'm fine, but... I hope they aren't planning to exploit this to hurt Nisan!!" Elly answers Fei, with a peculiar sort of anxious enthusiasm.
To herself Elly thinks: I thought Loren was dead.
Then she thinks: Are those tiny versions of Shalune's --
Oh no, Loren is talking to her again.
Elly's hand shakes as she reaches out to try to tap out a response on the TTS pad even as she is addressed, out loud, as a thief. The message comes out as:
> probably kill anywa
> why comply
> ?
> ??
During this period Elly listens to what Neriah is saying. She doesn't reply by her cheeks flush: she knows full well. Of course the other problem is that it is not clear to Elly, save by analogy, what Neriah is trying to do - to compete? Breathing out, she says to herself, "Is this just grandstanding...?"
And then Vierge is assailed by razor-sharp shards! The armor is flensed, curlicues of alloy flying as Elly pulls into a cul-de-sac with a sudden burst of thrust, avoiding some of it, getting the remainder - alarms complain, but do not burst into total chaos, thanks, no doubt, to that top-end frame Hammer installed during the rebuild, even if he had to use surface alloys for the armor!
A shimmering ray of faint blue containing hypercryonic thermal induction, backed by the Vierge's Amplifier, snaps out towards one of the great machine (monster? enemy? GOD?)'s shimmering facets even as it erupts in attacks. Elly also - after a glance, and steering a subsidiary control -
Sends a transmission to Ida??
> "Ida! Do you see where I'm aiming? I'm going to try to chill it as much as I can. You're familiar with thermal expansion, right? Exploit the elemental spot weakness if you can...!"
> "... and don't let her bully you, either. If you need support, just call for it!"
GS: Elhaym van Houten has spent 1 Combo on Disease, including 0 on Gatling! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gem of Valmar with Aqua Ice! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Aqua Ice for 45 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
A moment of clarity is afforded through the swarm of blackbirds that currently bombard and pester Ethius, in that he can for a time see the sky - and the Gem of Valmar reconfiguring the shards that appear to be fragmenting off of the once perfect glassy octohedron. It's a momentary glimpse into it, between the dance of so many powers and munitions among them, as the more insubstantial nature of the blackbird-like things reveals themselves.
...Like that time in the sewers of Azado. Even he can feel his blood run cold(er, jury's out on whether he's a warm-blooded creature at all). This, and because of the gathering lights that seem to be pointing his direction as Gwen's descent down towards the ground comes to completion. He can get a read on the angle and heading of the laser beam by some deep, intristic familiarity with... something or another. The way his view of the sky clears, it reeks of a certain coordination, as though to leave a momentary opening for...
"Miss Gwen," Ethius says her name with a bit more severity in tone but it's not far from his usual vocal strides, "get down." He dives hard to his right, moving to try and catch and move Gwen alike as a laser light sweeps by right where he was moments prior. He is not disintegrated.
It is as close a call as it gets - like trying to call someone on the phone while they're standing just outside of the door. The radiating heat and backwash of the laser light burns the flesh and rattles the bones, and the man keeps his sight only because he's not looking directly at it. Parts of the Nisan street spray outward from the destructive lights, peppering him with pebbles and rocks. He doesn't escape 'serious harm,' this man basically escapes death outright.
Again.
He doesn't look back through the opening as he comes down in a landing in a kneel, throwing back a hand in the direction of the opening within the birds as his fingers flick through harsh gestures that are a strain to perform for the untrained, slurring out the syllables for an electrical spell that leaves his person with a potent, thundering boom but then thins out as it surges across the distant space as he throws back sorcerous cover fire.
Well, a clarification. It's not so much cover fire as it is a cover spitball, in the cosmic scheme of things. The Gem is too distant from Ethius' present position for him to strike at maximal potency. The trick, or maybe even the feat, is that there's enough force there at all that might even punch through the barrier and attempt to send some small part of the construct into disarray with all the force of a mean-spirited finger flick.
His eyes have to go back to tracking the movements of the flapping, disintegrating darkness as he makes momentary note of a certain blue-haired young man.
"The situation has grown more complicated by the moment," he states plainly - and kind of obviously.
GS: Rudy Roughnight guards a hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Well of Mercy for 30 hit points! GS: Slow! Statuses applied to Rudy Roughnight! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Gem of Valmar with Low Potency Shock! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Low Potency Shock for 41 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Whatever this thing is, it can break. It can melt, when exposed to enough heat. It's more than Ida knew about it at the start of this engagement.
Neriah, though, is doing a good job of keeping Ida's nerves on edge. She glances to the side, and while her eyes aren't visible beneath the blue-tinted glass of her goggles, the rest of her face is all tension and nerves. Something silvery and flesh-like oozes out of the gap between her leather jacket and the matching glove. It traces vein-like lines up Ida's arm as Neriah speaks--addresses her specifically.
"I think about them," Ida says. The flesh keeps crawling up her arm, hardening into something tight and exoskeletal as it does. She glances sidelong at it, and her breath hitches in surprise, but she keeps talking. "Because they never left." A part of her grows incensed--is that Neriah trying to get under her skin, to make her question herself? Ida can't say for sure. She glances back at Neriah, the conflict evident in her face. There's anger in her voice, but there is also steel. "Because both what you saw and what you see are me. Ask yourself the same question."
The Dragoon lowers the cannon, spreading its feet to brace itself. A prismatic spray of laser fire washes across its upper body, tracing molten lines through the Gear's heavy armor. Metal runs like water before hardening into deformed, dripping shapes. Three of the cockpit cameras--including the one with Neriah in it--dissolve momentarily into a kaleidoscope of color. When the onslaught ends, the Dragoon rises, smoke streaming off its frame. Much of its upper torso armor is bent, buckled, or slagged--but Ida simply shifts up its stance to compensate. The Gear steps forwards, shifting into a sidelong fencer's stance with the Three-Dragon Cannon braced against its shoulder. Elly's text transmission makes it through a moment later, and Ida tightbeams a quick response:
> "I am! Of course, it presumes it would even work on this thing, but--"
"I know. Thank you. It's been a difficult few weeks."
Dragon Filaments roar to life again, crackling with electrical energy. Heat arcs through the meridians in Ida's left arm--both sets of them--as she lines up the sights and fires. A single metal slug rockets down rail tracks, flying from the weapon's barrel with a deafening bang. Ida's aiming for that very spot Elly weakened just a moment ago!
The echo of Dragonbreath lingers in her mind long after it fades from her ears. She glances down at her right hand, now clad in its metal gauntlet, and frowns.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Whatever this thing is, it can break. It can melt, when exposed to enough heat. It's more than Ida knew about it at the start of this engagement.
Neriah, though, is doing a good job of keeping Ida's nerves on edge. She glances to the side, and while her eyes aren't visible beneath the blue-tinted glass of her goggles, the rest of her face is all tension and nerves. Something silvery and flesh-like oozes out of the gap between her leather jacket and the matching glove. It traces vein-like lines up Ida's arm as Neriah speaks--addresses her specifically.
"I think about them," Ida says. The flesh keeps crawling up her arm, hardening into something tight and exoskeletal as it does. She glances sidelong at it, and her breath hitches in surprise, but she keeps talking. "Because they never left." A part of her grows incensed--is that Neriah trying to get under her skin, to make her question herself? Ida can't say for sure. She glances back at Neriah, the conflict evident in her face. There's anger in her voice, but there is also steel. "Because both what you saw and what you see are me. Ask yourself the same question."
The Dragoon lowers the cannon, spreading its feet to brace itself. A prismatic spray of laser fire washes across its upper body, tracing molten lines through the Gear's heavy armor. Metal runs like water before hardening into deformed, dripping shapes. Three of the cockpit cameras--including the one with Neriah in it--dissolve momentarily into a kaleidoscope of color. When the onslaught ends, the Dragoon rises, smoke streaming off its frame. Much of its upper torso armor is bent, buckled, or slagged--but Ida simply shifts up its stance to compensate. The Gear steps forwards, shifting into a sidelong fencer's stance with the Three-Dragon Cannon braced against its shoulder. Elly's text transmission makes it through a moment later, and Ida tightbeams a quick response:
> "I am! Of course, it presumes it would even work on this thing, but--"
>"I know. Thank you. It's been a difficult few weeks."
Dragon Filaments roar to life again, crackling with electrical energy. Heat arcs through the meridians in Ida's left arm--both sets of them--as she lines up the sights and fires. A single metal slug rockets down rail tracks, flying from the weapon's barrel with a deafening bang. Ida's aiming for that very spot Elly weakened just a moment ago!
The echo of Dragonbreath lingers in her mind long after it fades from her ears. She glances down at her right hand, now clad in its metal gauntlet, and frowns.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Neriah Parringer with Rail Accelerator! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has canceled their attack on Neriah Parringer. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Gem of Valmar with Rail Accelerator! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar critically Guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Rail Accelerator for 59 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Even the mighty NY-4N missiles fizzle against the Gem's protective magicks, though not without dealing some damage. A new pair of Zephaniah ears is slotted in from within the robot's head. It seems there's more where that came from. But wait, what was that the Rephaim did just now? Is Rosaline hallucinating? Is the display glitching out?
Just then, Loren, piloting one of the Gears Rosaline is completely unfamiliar with, (Gebler, right?) switches over public comms. At a time like this...?
Rosaline has activated her special ability: Guilty Conscience!
"Ida," she radios, nervously, "who do you think he's talking about? What's a Solarian?" Stories about cities in the sky are the furthest thing from her mind right now. Lunata answers, and it soon becomes clear enough that this doesn't concern Rosaline, at least not directly. "Um."
But ANYWAY. Rosaline's display screen is mercifully free of images of her friend(?), though don't think Rosa hasn't seen Neriah floating in her hate bubble. A part of the Etone considers just shooting that, but she quickly dismisses the idea. Something else on her display, however, gets her attention.
Shards dance and light pulses. The energy bombardment is impressive-looking, but Rosaline's reflexes are sharp, pulling away from the first volley before taking a sharp turn to dodge the next. It's a matter of rhythm, in a way. Soon, Rosaline notices that she isn't even looking at her instruments, flooded with unhelpful color and white noise as they are. She closes her eyes, extending her senses. Somehow, it's actually working. She can feel--
Her headache gets worse than ever. She had managed to tune it out, but the pain seizes her once more. As it does, the Gear flies right into one of the blasts, tearing into its chassis though somehow leaving the red cape intact. Rosaline screams.
The Gear is down for a moment, but obviously it's not out. Leaping back on its feet, it takes a quick running start before running towards the Gem and leaping towards it. Long claws unfold onto each of the Gear's hands, crackling with electricity. The charge is meant to disable the muscles of Wels and other living-adjacent creatures, which this construct is obviously not, but... Well, Rosaline has dialed the charge up significantly, aiming for an already-damaged facet. Let's see how that works out.
GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Gem of Valmar with Stun Claw! GS: Rosaline Calice has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar critically Guards a hit from Rosaline Calice's Stun Claw for 37 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rosaline Calice has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The image of Neriah leans on out of his monitor, prompting him to shift back as if to evade her wretched reach. He nearly goes crossed-eyed staring at her.
And Loren being Loren, his response to this fell apparation is: "What, because I turned you down?"
It may not go over well.
All the same, she reaches out to pat him on the cheek and he flinches--
Even though her hand passes through him rather than make contact at all.
Perhaps notably, there is no comment from the rest of his makeshift team at his announcement, as MacDougall and Van Buskirk fall into formation for a one-two strike (her with Etheric flame, him the application of direct melee force).
Bergenholm, naturally, is leading from the rear. It's strategic.
...Doesn't Loren have more important things to worry about?
"I did say after this sortie, didn't I?"
The announcement may sound more than a little bit put upon, at this juncture.
His gaze flickers, then, to the text-only response incoming from the bastardized Vierge. "Oh, for..." he mutters.
"A coward, are you?" he announces, the better to make sure the Gear-thief can hear him. "Fine. We can do things your way. One way or another, I'll have that gear back!"
His gaze shifts in that moment. Unfortunate, for Loren.
Something... is wrong about those birds...
A brief shiver, there. A chill that clambers its way up the spine, undeterred by sentiments such as 'time' or 'place'. He's... seen those birds before. He--
No. Not here.
He takes a breath, practically gulping air as he fights to reassert his center. Steady. Steady, now.
Everything is fine.
INCOMING, the system announces into the heart of his little crisis.
It's too late to power up shields. Loren does the next best thing: Schiehallion lifts its arms to ward off the worst of that incoming strike, earning a deep gouge across the heavier forearm plating for its trouble. At least there's not anything system critical there, he considers, quickly reviewing the damage readout. ...Anything he does with ARMs will be somewhat affected.
Then, fine. He won't do that.
He takes another breath, exhaling it out slowly, finding in the process his center.
And lets pour out an array of crackling green fractal-light outwards from the Gebler Gear. It's indiscriminate: it grows like a crystal. And to every point it can find, it expends a fraction of its energy.
They're not his friends. He'll see the thief-pilot of that mockery of Vierge dead, if only because it offends him.
But the enemy of his enemy is his enemy's enemy, and right now...
That is distinctly a position for Neriah's monstrosity and it alone.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"You can be goth and be healthy too, you know. I mean, I obviously have had that phase too at some point in my life, but you can't let it hurt other people especially not the people of Nisan who haven't hurt anyone. You never turn your power against tyrants, just the innocent, the helpless, and Nisan's God doesn't care about competition. " He is looking towards those strange birds. Why are they helping Neriah? If that's the kid's goal here, even if his suspicions are true...that's not enough to justify this.
Fei frowns as Loren makes his communications public. He can definitely realize it's Loren now that he's TALKING. Fei's hand shakes as he makes his threat to the 'thief'. Maybe anger does help because Fei takes in a deep breath and manages to raise up an arm to block the shards.
"Touch her," Fei says publicly because he's not a superspy and also doesn't exactly know that Loren doesn't know who is piloting this thing but is, at least, still being somewhat vague. "And you'll regret it. Solaris steals everything from the surface. Even its guinea pigs. Or your friend, huh?"
He doesn't actually ASSAULT Loren, however, not yet.
Fei luckily can keep his flight for the moment as he rips out the crystal shard and tries to use it as an improvised weapon to strike the gem with. "This really isn't the time huh..." Fei murmurs to himself. "But you can't just help yourself."
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Neriah Parringer with Exotic Weapon Proficiency! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Fei Fong Wong has canceled their attack on Neriah Parringer. GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gem of Valmar with Exotic Weapon Proficiency! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Exotic Weapon Proficiency for 123 hit points! GS: Loren Voss has spent 1 Combo on Reload, including 0 on Gatling! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Rosaline Calice with Renewal Order! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Renewal Order! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lunata Croze with Renewal Order! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Renewal Order! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Renewal Order! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Renewal Order! GS: Loren Voss has gained 3 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Renewal Order for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Reload! Jacqueline Barber gains 15 extra FP from Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
"You need to go. I'm fighting to-Gwen!"
Rudy's declaration is without fear, without hesitation. It's clear it doesn't matter what he's fighting or what he's up against, but all will be well. That is, until he learns that Gwen has been separate from him, though he would be glad to know that a friendly face was close by. But he doesn't. All Rudy knows is she might be in trouble and he can't let that continue.
The blackness forms a wall, pushing against him with a mysterious and horrible will. Rudy's boots dig into the roof, groves of gravel, tile, and whatever else covers these structures helping slow his forced retreat. His shoulder seems to take the brunt of his effort, as he again is switching his ARM rounds. As the warrior youth is repelled, his left forearm glows once more with blue light; a sharp contrast from the dark wall that keeps him from even seeing the Gear fight occur, though even he is forced to quirk a brow at the Cat Ears of Rosaline's fighting robot. A spent cartridge is ejected with one hand, the roundless magazine clattering to the rooftop as Roughnight
"Leave her and this people alone," Rudy states firmly, unsure if this thing is even sentient or not. However, it doesn't matter, as twirls his gun with his right hand, leaps back to get some distance between the wall and himself. A pull of the trigger unleashes a small round that seems to give a powerful explosion, clearly Roughnight's ARM anything but conventional. But that works out well because he's fighting something that's clearly not natural.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has lost 1 Combo!
DC: MISS! Fei Fong Wong completely evades Renewal Order from Loren Voss!
GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Boosted Shell! GS: Rudy Roughnight has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Lunata Croze takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Renewal Order for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Lunata Croze! GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Reload! Lunata Croze gains 15 extra FP from Loren Voss! GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Renewal Order for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Reload! Elhaym van Houten gains 15 extra FP from Loren Voss! GS: Neriah Parringer has adjusted their boss level for 8 opponents! GS: Gem of Valmar has adjusted their boss level for 8 opponents! GS: Rosaline Calice takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Renewal Order for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice! GS: Reload! Rosaline Calice gains 15 extra FP from Loren Voss! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Renewal Order for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Reload! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 15 extra FP from Loren Voss! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra guards a hit from Rudy Roughnight's Boosted Shell for 90 hit points! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
In Loren's monitor, there's a sigh that seems to come from nowhere. "You're ridiculously sassy. Maybe I should just turn your soul over to him. I think he likes you."
As Jay pushes into close combat range, she again finds that the Gem has few real defenses against a melee attack. Her baton smashes against the crystalline facets of the massive Gem, breaking off another large shard. The huge prism rumbles ominously. In her side monitor, an apparition of Neriah leans in a little. "I really didn't want to have to do this to you, Jay. You're too good a soul. But I have to."
Jay and Lunata can both hear her speaking. "And Lunie... coward or not, surely you can't love the Death Guardian. Or any of the Guardians. Jay too. Their power hasn't prevented the Baskar from being driven into the wilderness, or healed this dying planet. You two both have such conviction, yet the Guardians just exploit your dedication for their own ends. And Filgaia keeps dying.
"Maybe the only hope is to turn the lights out and start over," Neriah continues in their monitor and Elly's even as the redhead unleashes a burst of ice. The Gem seems to sense she's up to something, and shards hurtle into the path of the ray. A cluster of smaller fragments freezes over and shatters, leaving a diminished beam to leach through and begin to freeze over a patch of the Gem's surface. "And it's not grandstanding to say that. Call it observation," she remarks even as Ethius launches his shock upon the Gem from a distance. The electricity arcs over the Gem's face, a few more smaller fragments exploding into debris. "Something that occurred to me when I was Sister Domitia.
"How I can walk into any church on both worlds and find an absentee god who may as well not exist, for all the good he or she does Filgaia and Lunar," Neriah says.
The monologue is shattered when Ida's rail accelerator opens fire. The brilliant pugilist's slug buries itself in the face of the Gem. It slashes through Elly's patch of ice and sinks in with a blooming explosion, the tungsten rod left jutting out of the centre of a cracked crystal ring like some obscene thing. The Gem rocks in the air, the thrum from it deepening for a moment almost like a sick groan.
In Ida's monitor alone, the image of Neriah shifts in such a way that she seems to be resting an elbow on the bottom edge of the monitor even as she looks up at her. "I've asked myself that question a lot, and I honestly think that so much of what we want to think is the real us is just a mask, isn't it? I would love to think the real me is a sweetie pie who hugs kittens. And part of me does like kittens. But in all honestly, there's a part of us all that wants to set the terms. And I think that part of ourselves is where our real souls lie."
Then she frowns. "You shouldn't have done that to my Gem. We worked hard on it, y'know."
In comes Rosaline, the Etone finding herself with a tough task to punch through the Gem's eldritch field. Shards whirl around her, several throwing themselves into her path. Her claws shred violently through them. But they do their job: They keep Rosaline at bay for just a moment.
"Rosaline," Neriah sighs, this time in Rosaline's right-side monitor. "Is faith really worth this? I mean, the Nisan church isn't even your church."
In hurtles Fei, grabbing ahold of a Shard and attacking the main Gem in a way it's not expecting. The huge construct lurches in the air, wobbling perilously. Cracks begin to appear in its surface again.
"I turned it on Mother and on Hyland, what more do you want," Neriah huffs in a corner of Fei's screen.
The Gem lists in the air. Battered and cracked in numerous places, it seems to be struggling to gather that light again.
"I will let you in on this much," Neriah remarks. This time, they can all hear her voice - and see her eyes opening on their gear monitors. A spark of red glows behind them. "I didn't craft this Gem without help. I don't suppose you remember the spirit of Felkirk Village?"
At the heart of the prism, the spark of light...
s h i f t s
BGM OVERRIDE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Jhf4Mj6wM
GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Gem of Valmar with Process Iscariot! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Process Iscariot for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
The prismatic glow at the heart of the Gem suddenly dims to a deep, malevolent blue.
The low thrum at the heart of the prism suddenly shifts in tone. It oscillates from a deep bass to a whine so faint and so high that it sets the teeth on edge - like a constant ringing in the ears. Then it oscillates back, dropping down to a deep, mad snarl... and it takes the colour of the sky with it. Light distorts insanely around the Gem, blooming outward in a wave.
Everything it touches appears as if it's been negatived in shades of blue and black.
The rail-rod driven into the Gem suddenly clatters to the ground as it briefly fragments into a million pieces, then merges together once more - and from its mass, an endless fusillate of blue-black rays begin to pour.
They don't go in straight lines. They wind themselves into interlocking cages and shapes that don't make sense. Tesseracts interlocking with tesseracts. Shapes with fourth and fifth dimensions that undulate out from the prism like toruses. They spill towards those nearest the Gem. Lunata, Fel, Elly. Sensors scream as they struggle to make sense of the geometries they're seeing, but each ray is enough to tear titanium like a cheese slicer, to go through it like a hot knife of Valmar's madness.
Still more of those rays lance outwards - but as they descend upon the more distant members of the group, on Loren, on Ethius, on Jay and Rosaline, each ray warps itself into a shape. Grotesquely misshapen blackbirds attempt to alight upon Gears and bodies and tear into them, each blackbird distorted and unnaturally proportioned save for intensely blue eyes.
They sing as they tear. A song of a thousand voices. A song that whispers insanity.
Rays descend upon Ida as well. But they whirl around her - and they begin to take shape.
The shape of dozens of Neriahs. Talonious and with unnaturally wide mouths and eyes of roiling chaos, they begin to climb the woman's Gear, scaling legs, scaling arms, attempting to claw, to bite, to try and shear off parts of its body.
As if to try and consume Ida's Gear out from around her.
GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Loren Voss with Ungraspable Form! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Ungraspable Form! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Ungraspable Form! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Rosaline Calice with Ungraspable Form! GS: Gem of Valmar has spent 3 Combo on Poison and Smite, including 0 on Gatling! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Starved Multitude! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Lunata Croze with Incomprehensible Prison! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Incomprehensible Prison! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Incomprehensible Prison! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has completed its action. GS: CRITICAL! Lunata Croze critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Incomprehensible Prison for 137 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Lunata Croze! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Lunata Croze has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
There's no solid proof that these blackbirds are That Man's. Darkness and corrupt light rule the city, after all, and what's to say a few metaphorical blackbirds appear to add to the onslaught?
But these ones have blue eyes. Or is that just her imagination?
At this rate, as the dark motes cling to her like hardening cement, it might as well be the blue-eyed man. The world closes to a pinpoint in her mind, a narrow field that strips Gwen ever briefly of all notions aside from the dark. No Rudy, no Gears, no city, no hope, no life.
Just the constant,
regular
thrumming beat of her heart.
Another, more powerful beat of electricity pulses out from where Gwen lay, half-collapsed. "... You will not... take another piece of me, ever _AGAIN_."
Gwen wants to say a name, but none comes, to her frustration. How can a man take this much from her, and still, she doesn't know his name?
Like her name. Like someone is saying Gwen's name, very politely. Forcefully.
"...Ethius," a wobbly Gwen slurs, her fog blue eyes widening slightly as she registers the man's presence. Her next sound a grunt of impact as Ethius bowls her down in his (and now her) dodge away.
"Rudy's up there. We need to get to him. If we're together, that's three against one. He's just one person." It has to be him, who else could it be? "It doesn't make sense, though. He can't be here, he just goes after people alone, right? Why everyone all at once?"
Distantly, she hears shooting. "There, I think that's Rudy, over there. Please, help me, Ethius." She glances towards the bewildering man, a person who almost managed to kill her outright. If she wasn't so sure the Blue-eyed Assassin was causing some of this (all of this?), would it be just as easy to suspect Ethius?
She drives the thought away.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with St. Elmo's Fire! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Starved Multitude for 230 hit points! GS: Acid! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Ungraspable Form for 138 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Elhaym van Houten takes a glancing hit from Gem of Valmar's Incomprehensible Prison for 351 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 58 hit points! GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Isiris Shango'Ra! GS: Loren Voss critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Ungraspable Form for 28 hit points! GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Ungraspable Form for 136 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Incomprehensible Prison for 426 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Rosaline Calice takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Ungraspable Form for 140 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
The hardening pulse of cementlike barriers compound upon themselves, things that weave and interlace among one another as the ground party each individually tries to free themselves from the things that encroach into and through the black mist generated by the witness masks sprouted throughout the city. Each mask is beautiful, in its way, each perfectly proportioned, even in their own throes. They watch passively, as Ethius almost dies to a godborne ray of light. They watch, as Gwen flares to life in an electric surge. They watch, as Rudy watches.
The explosive round tears through the barrier just as the clarion song breaks through the sky in a thousand voices, singing a song that should never have been. As the Gem overhead slips into the comfort of a million pieces, pulsating. As the sky threads through with Stygian filaments. As everything, as nothing. It happens all at once. And then it never happens at all.
When Rudy blasts through the barrier, he blows open not just the barrier, but the air itself, through to a hole to the utmost black.
The reality break originates from there, arms reaching through an incomprehensible watery place, drowning limbs pouring out of a hole in the aether, each attached to formless, paled flesh that undulates out from the epicenter. Hands upon hands, a million bloodless fingertips spilling and stretching from the hole as they reach out, surging forward and probing for the source of the breach, reaching, grasping for Rudy.
The birds surge above as they are individually speared by points of blue-black, threaded through in Solstice celebration of an event without a name, in a house without windows under a song with no words. Forked above, ash falls like snow, the cement weight of dread falling down towards Ethius and Gwen. It piles up on the earth, and pours from the sky. Slowly, the sensation sets in, of a world tilting beyond one's control, as if everything was falling towards a single, indeterminate point. The ash piles up on the ground, turning to piles of obscene metal. Metal that winds and curls about the legs.
The rent in the world twists and winds, as chains slowly lose their slack. If a fingertip so much as touches flesh, if a chain so much as slips across a bared calf, the weight of everything drags everyone to that one, single cut in the world.
To that place without windows, to the blaspheming augur at a table where nightmares are forged.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Perdition's Echo! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has gained 1 Combo! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Winding Eyes King! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
As Jacqueline presses in, her Gear's sensors react to a build-up of energy. But it's a familiar energy, one that Jacqueline welcomes as the Pulse Shift Barrier settles over the Gear.
"Thanks, Lunata!" Jacqueline says appreciatively. She isn't privvy to the conversation between Lunata and the Neriah on her monitor. If she was, she'd surely have something to say. But for now, she presses the attack, taking note of the damage she's inflicting on the gem.
"Why do you have to, Neriah? Can't we do anything?" Jacqueline asks, looking down toward Neriah. "I don't want to fight you, either. But...I can't sit back and do nothing, either."
Neriah continues - about the Guardians, and what they haven't done.
"And you think Valmar would be a good replacement...? What would Valmar do? Who would Valmar save?" Jacqueline asks.
Before long, the light at the heart of the prism shifts, dimming to a deep blue. The hum shifts, as well. Light distorts.
"W-what in the world...?" Jacqueline murmurs. "Everyone, be on guard!"
Blue-black rays pour forth from a road, winding themselves into shapes that are impossible to fully comprehend. Jacqueline finds her earlier statement coming true in the worst way possible.
The rays settle on her Gear, taking on the shape of blackbirds that scrabble and tear at the Pulse Shift Barrier protecting her. That protection is rapidly depleting, even as the blackbirds sing a song of a thousand voices, that whispers insanity.
And the eyes...
"N-Neriah...are you working with him...?" Jacqueline asks. She doesn't know his name. But she recognizes those eyes.
Jacqueline shuts her own eyes tight, forcing the Jaeger forward even though a part of her refuses. Its as if the Gear has slowed to a crawl.
"We have to...we have to...!" She murmurs. The Jaeger tightens its grip on its baton...and then begins to unleashes a rapid combination of blows. If her opponent were a Gear, she would be aiming to eliminate vital systems to disable it without harming the pilot. Here? She's aiming for all of the cracks and fractures they've made in the Gem so far, looking to exacerbate them further.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated a Force Action! GS: Jacqueline Barber has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gem of Valmar with Incapacitation Combination! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Incapacitation Combination for 286 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Winding Eyes King for 47 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
That statement from Neriah, before her apparition vanishes from the sanctity of his cockpit, is met with a creased brow and a frankly baffled expression from the young medic. "'He'? Who are you talking about?"
In the aftermath, he might, possibly, be able to thread the lines together, and understand precisely what she means.
Who she means.
Right now and in the moment however--
"'Her'?" Loren voices, publically. "A friend of yours? I'll have you know that this 'friend' has stolen those parts from a fallen classmate of mine. I know that your kind are no better than beasts, but I would hope you possessed even that basic moral understanding."
There is a moment of silence.
The amplifiers crackle. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Lan is, truthfully, about as far from his mind as possible in this moment.
Particularly when, as she speaks about things he can only place at a remove -- being far from the situations that played out on Lunar, or not party to the ones that unfolded on Filgaia, or a hundred thousand things he is missing the complete context for -- the gem glimmers.
Light touches the land. To his eyes, everything the light touches becomes distorted.
Dyed a brilliant, endless blue-and-black.
Like a bruise, he thinks, flinching away from the hideous brilliance of it.
Like a bruise, one that comprises impossible angles and alternate dimensions. Schiehallion's systems scream out in their alerts, only to become quickly overrun by a calvacade of error messages. A ringing that doesn't stop.
He can see...
Van Buskirk and MacDougall's Gears are flung back in the madness of the moment. He doesn't see Bergenholm; an attempt to hail them returns another error on his end. Are they okay? Are they alive?
The light lances out for him. It births a horror of crows. It sings out to him. He--
Slams a switch on the console. "Initiating system override," he states, "Shut down support systems and auxillaries. Assuming direct control. Engaging shielding. Engaged."
Light flares around Schiehallion in the livid otherworld: the hexagonal shields burst into being. The barrage of birds slam into the shielding, which hiss and pop.
He takes a breath, then another. "...Engaging Ether circuits. Override safeties."
From nothing, he brings it into being. A great arc of water, a tsunami turned on its side and scything for the Gem.
It's as sharp as any blade. Perhaps sharper.
GS: Loren Voss has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Gem of Valmar with Aqua Origin! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Aqua Origin for 326 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata's expression is a terribly flat one as she stares at the shifting light-- towards something closer to a familiar... unlight.
A negative shade of black and blue, winding into shapes that may as well be four-dimensional with how it dances and flits about in a manner unknowable. Her sensors start to echo and scream, ringing out as something explodes softly within the back and a monitor starts to fizzle out as if it'd rather give up the ghost than keep staring at it.
She hears Loren protest.
"Right..."
She closes her eyes, and imagines the indefatigable shape--
--of Rujm el-Hiri's interlocking gimbals. A cycle of cycles, inexorable, neverending. An absolute representation of order amongst the chaos, unknowingly, undoubtedly, all speaking towards one truth:
That all is transient.
The Schiehallion's process comes over the Rephaim, as its Ley converters continue to thrum with power. But the white-winged Gear appears black for a moment, as it threatens to shatter; the Pulse Shift Barrier appears in negative, and erodes into so many shards as Lunata forces herself to pull back and up towards the air. The already-rent armour of the Rephaim continues to hiss and softly melt, already misshapen from its encounter with the Ice Queen Golem, Lolithia Vent Fleur.
"... it's strange, in many ways. I used to devote hours and hours of my life washing a statue of Zeldukes. I still remember-- how it feels. How much comfort and solace it gives me, giving me some time away from it all..."
The Rephaim does what its namesake does -- flies. It ascends above the space of Nisan as its two rifles find its way towards its arms, each of them whirring with the faint thrum of the Ley.
She takes careful gaze as she watches the Jaeger launch its attack, grimacing as she continues.
"Then Ge Ramtos came. Came and took away everything, my soul, my freedom. And I guess that's the point where I realised... even something as primal, as fundamental as the Guardians, the very lifeblood of the planet? They've got their own opinions too."
An extension clacks outwards in a loud noise as multiple lock-on points all aim towards the gem.
"Lumping them all in one glut's just as pointless as blaming it all on humanity."
Her eyes narrow, squinting as she finds the one breached centre that Elly and Ida have exposed before through frost and flame. From within those twin rifles, the Ley threatens to escape as a frightening build-up of energy continues to escalate--
"Target, multi-lock on... error corrections, aligned.
Sub-routing power to primary Ley generators, confirmed.
Deviation within acceptable variation."
|
|
|
\. |\.
\,-+-,/
`, /` | `\. ,`
-------==` -o- `==-------
,`. \, | ,/ `,
/`_+_`\
\| \
| target: ROCK-ON
| subrouting power
| maximum discharge
"Rephaim... Full Burst."
GS: Lunata Croze has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling! GS: Lunata Croze enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Lunata Croze has attacked Gem of Valmar with Rephaim Full Burst! GS: Lunata Croze has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lunata Croze has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Gem of Valmar critically Guards a hit from Lunata Croze's Rephaim Full Burst for 141 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lunata Croze has lost 1 Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Rudy Roughnight critically Guards a hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Perdition's Echo for 49 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Rudy Roughnight! GS: Rudy Roughnight has gained 1 Combo! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
> "It's the best I can think of right now, Ida... after this, it's pretty much - aah -"
Two glittering fractal patterns fall upon Elly, first one, then the other.
One is a deep blue and it surrounds her even as Elly sees a ghost of that lewd-lipped woman appearing on her monitor. She's got something, Elly can tell, and it's just too bad that she can't figure out what it is. For a moment she wonders if Gebler will have any better luck, but then the blue turns towards black and the rays pour outwards. Inwards. To a certain extent both are true.
Elly does the reflexive thing, drilled into her by a dozen gross petty fire effects in Jugend: she blocks. The Ether Amp in Vierge greatly magnifies the attempt to guard, the Gear's arms coming up in a forward block; the rays strike against this absolute territory, throwing prismatic halations around as the zone immediately and atrociously contracts. Vierge doesn't get chopped up into tiny chunks immediately; in return Elly feels her stomach clench and her adrenal system sink down somewhere below her navel. Her skin sheens with cold sweat.
Something's singing. The cockpit is full of impossible darkness through screens struggling to display something impossible in full stereoscopic vision. A number increments upwards as Vierge is buffetted by bow shock from this attempt at a defense: but it rises too slowly. There isn't enough power in the repaired Gear - there might have not been enough when it was, indeed, a 'truly' new Vierge.
And then comes another thing. Green, orderly, and thus stymied almost completely by the distortions of Valmar, it only barely brushes against Vierge's right shoulder, drawn in, in the end, by the ferrous pigments in one of the spray-painted decorations. But that touch is enough. The power transfers in.
That number that Elly had seen suddenly becomes something different. She feels her stomach climbs out of somewhere around her knees. And she speaks to the vision on her monitor.
"Is all of this because of your search for god...?"
"Sometimes," Elly says quietly, "I think I'd agree with you."
"I'd even be jealous. You've found something that answers to you, even if maybe you just share a goal. Sometimes I wonder if there ever was anything that 'created the world'. And if there was... wouldn't 'they' share responsibility for all the suffering? It feels like worshiping something like that would be the worst thing you could possibly do."
"But... even if there isn't a 'god'... even if there's nothing out there but monsters and exotic energy life forms... If there's nothing out there but what we make... don't we still have the responsibility to decide what to do? And if we make that decision... shouldn't we make something 'good'?"
Elly is silent for a heart beat.
"... Instead of trying to annihilate a city???"
Hyper Mode!
Vierge swings its rod forwards with Authority. Ether forms an inverse waveform and ripples through the tesseract, distorting distortion further, inverting and cancelling out; the piece of equipment flies forwards, leaving a bow-shock clear space in which normal reality, not composed entirely of death rays, can exist. Elly speaks to the apparition even as she flicks on the booster. "It would be MUCH easier to SYMPATHIZE with you if it wasn't for the HUGE MONSTER FROM HELL YOU SUMMONED!" Elly declaims.
Vierge pursues the bow-shock of the thrown rod - and then dips out of that blue-black hell with one fist already drawn backwards!!
Gripping both cyclics, engaging the haptic force assist, Elly pulls back and then SLAMS forwards, leaning in as Vierge obeys with a barrage of rippling strikes, fists moving faster than the pistons in a reciprocating engine: "You had that other 'you' - I won't say which one is 'you' and which one isn't - but whatever other shape you want to hold, whatever person you want to be, if you intend to keep doing this then don't be surprised if you don't get the understanding you want!!" Vierge concludes the rush and spirals in midair completely unnecessarily -
No wait it was totally necessary. It reclaimed the rod in the process. Swinging round for a final short smash, Elly concludes, "The 'real you' is the one you choose to become!!"
Vierge backflips away. The side of the Gear which didn't get heavily graffitied is showing a lot more scorching and burning. A visual artifact? Or was it everyone's written dreams??
GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action! GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gem of Valmar with High Diva! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's High Diva for 340 hit points! GS: Break and Disrupt! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Gwen talks about 'he.' Neriah's not a 'he.' She must be talking about... that man from Azado. He listens to her explanations in relative quiet, perhaps from a bit of shock. (Or because a rock got him in the head, again - yes, there's the small trail of blood from the left side of his head, that happened.)
"If I am to hazard an estimation, they are... emboldened, by the assistance." His usually dry means of delivery, a sense of his words being carefully rehearsed, seems to shake as though a part of him were putting together logistics about who's familiar with what, where what comes from where, as Gwen points upwards to where Rudy is, on the roof. He needs the higher vantage point, even if it is dangerous. He can't take his eyes off of--
--well it can't take his eyes off of him, either, as a light distorts and bends into a blue-eyed blackbird-like monstrosity as they clutch about Ethius.
There is a pained yell as one in particular has itself a real shot at eating his neck. He grabs at it, desperately, to no avail. What he tries to grab as a throat, is just a mass that seems to twist and turn and ensure the beak can't be dislodged. They sing as their bodies and the way their forms interact with the light throw into chaos one's belief and sense of the world around them.
While he fights through pain and confusion, he holds but one key belief - he needs to go up. He doesn't have the means to go up the sides of buildings as easily as Gwen or Rudy do. He would normally have to do this the old-fashioned way. In a way, the bird(s) that eat(s) at him isn't going for the blood - it's eroding the psyche. Sucking out all the color in the world, beyond the blue-black. Sight is compromised, as the ash weighs upon him. Ash, which tends to be the sort of thing in which Ethius seems to be in his element...
This is something else. Everything spirals out of reach and physical comprehension. He wriggles violently to shake off the ash as it takes form as metal. Metal that tries to curl around his legs...
He has to ascend. He does so sorely out of desperation, finding purchase in the side of a building already damaged by the battle, where he barely gains handholds against what yanks down on his leg. The weight of dread that drags anyone to that one, single, indeterminate point. Whatever his comprehension of that 'indeterminate point' is... Ethius just knows he can't allow it.
It's enough to keep him from being dragged down. It's not enough to avoid a leg being yanked, a nasty cramp shooting through his leg as he holds onto the side of the building with a deathly vice-grip. Somehow, in his attempts to escape the pile, he's about two stories up, gloved hand digging into that groove in the side of the building as deeply as he's ever going to. The profane chains still pull at him. The fell song still screams through him. Also, blackbirds - insubstantial and farcial caricatures as they are - are very much tearing him apart.
With his other hand, he wiggles the fingers for a heavier heat spell down towards the instinctual direction where this all seems to be gathering. It may worry Gwen into him lapsing into some of his more seemingly indescriminate, destructive habits. He gets the gestures off but flubs the somantic element thrice before he finally gets the two components of any given Symbology spell right, as he subjects the mass of all this to an intense heat.
Making it melt, making it weak, trying to make it react in ways that make sense to him might be what anchors his psyche to keep doing what must be done.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Overheat! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Hyland?? You mean--" Fei says but then Neriah continues further and reminds him of Felkirk Village. Not that he ever needed the reminder. He takes a moment to look down towards Rudy but he knows that's one guy who is stronger than he looks by a longshot. 'Hang in there Rudy,' Fei thinks. 'I'll get you a burrito after this'.
He imagines himself and Rudy, smiling at the local Nisan burrito stand, happily chowing down on burritos. Elly comes but she asks for tacos instead. Luckily, tacos are an option but does she want hard shelled tacos or soft shelled tacos? Well, she'll try both. For the adventure.
'Thanks Fei,' MindRudy tells him. 'This is much better than murders and fending off eldricht horrors.'
'You're right, Rudy.' Fei says. 'Burritos are a million times better than having to get up on a monday and fighting some kind of space satan.'
'Yeah.' Rudy says. 'Who's Satan?'
'My doctor.' Fei says.
Fei is jarred out of this happy thought experiment by Loren. Fei blinks a few times in confusion.
"Huh?" Fei asks, bewildered, of Loren. "Fallen classmate? Who died?"
He means Elly you idiot
"...I am not going to listen to lectures of morality from anyone who justifies murder so easily."
5rWeltall's hand reaches out towards that ether support light from Loren's mech and he smacks it away from Weltall.
He refuses to be 'shepharded'.
Weltall's sensors crack and sputter as the strange multidimensional beams crackle against his gear. The birds and Neriah are definitely working together. How the birds managed to settle down and speak directly enough to Neriah to form that kind of relationship is a mystery to him but it's definitely not good.
Fei grimaces. Maybe he SHOULD have accepted that help from Loren but honestly right now he'd rather get eaten by the outsider god.
Elly is moving in. Fei elects to follow after her, shouting, "WHAT SHE SAID!"
He attempts to drive his feet down repeatedly upon the Gem of Valmar, figuring that if he's running out of fuel he can save some by using his opponent as a moving platform.
Repeatedly.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: Fei Fong Wong has spent 4 Combo on Gatling, including 3 on Gatling! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gem of Valmar with Ryuten! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ryuten for 238 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Sorry I'm late," a familiar voice crackles on to the Black Wolves' radios. In moments it isn't only a voice, but a thin Gear rushing on boosters across the battlefield. Its silhouette is hard to focus on--shadows cling to it, blurring its outline in motion... but its primary weapon is still docked.
No nation's colors can be discerned easily of it.
"I'm going to count on you. ...But for now, I'm going to keep fire off your back ends."
The Gear shifts course; abrubtly, from inside, Lily Keil flips a few switches in the cockpit... and the massive Ether Booster of the experimental Gear roars to life.
"Going hot. Stealth module disengage. <Ether input-->"
Hellerune crashes directly into Schiehallion with its arms outstretched, taking hold of the other Gear with both gigantic hands. At the same time, the charging booster begins to output abrubtly; red lines of power crash outwards like circuitry in the very air itself, becoming powerful barriers that lock both off for now from much of the battle.
"You keep going on like this, and you're going to crash your Gear and the civilians caught up in this mess," a modulated voice rings out on general frequency. "Removing target to support range."
Lily has long since stopped listening to the blaring alarms that announce the horrors occuring even now outside her Gear. They all do their own parts...
This one is hers.
"Remember we fly together."
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Hellerune!
GS: Gem of Valmar has adjusted their boss level for 7 opponents!
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
Agatha pauses from her admiration of the carnage and explosions as a Gear makes an appearance on the battlefield.
"Oh Lily dear, you do make the most dramatic entrances," she purrs quietly. "But do be careful to not steal the scene, there are others on stage besides you of course..."
She was a fan of out of the blue interference, of course - and if Lily happens to look to the left and see the Pyre Witch lounging atop one of the taller buildings in Nisan, Agatha will certainly be sure to wave to her. Always good to know when your fans are around~
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
Energy is issued from Loren's Gear, through a mechanism Rosaline doesn't even begin to understand, though she welcomes it. The readouts on her weapon systems display numbers that prompt her to perform a double-take. Well. She can wonder what that's all about later.
She then performs another double-take upon hearing Neriah's voice coming from her monitor. "Faith? You think that's about faith? You're trying to justify destroying a city!" Neriah did urge the faithful to flee, but Rosaline is under no illusions as to what such widespread destruction would entail in practice.
Unfortunately, Rosaline missed the whole Felkirk episode, having been embroiled in her own drama at the time. She does, however, know enough to recognize the Gem's shifting as very bad news, especially as light rolls into incomprehensible shapes. Rosaline tries to avert her eyes, but how can she? She notices Neriah's eyes still looking at her from her own monitor, somehow. She raises a hand, an inch from the screen, as if attempting to block them...
...and issues a beam of etheric light, destroying the monitor.
The commotion seems to have flicked her public comms back on, and so Ida, Fei, Jacqueline and the others are treated to the sound of Rosaline screaming in apparent pain, followed by dead air.
Did she pass out? Judging by the way the Gear moves to avoid rays and singing blackbirds, shapes and Neriahs, either she's still conscious, or Zephaniah has a very sophisticated autopilot. She isn't dodging elegantly-- No, the Gear is moving towards the Gem, heading straight towards its core, acrobatically so but heedless of damage. Sparks fly, armor plates are torn off, revealing delicate machinery, but the Gear leaps heedless.
Finally, Rosaline makes herself heard on the public comms again. Some of the people present might find her tone familiar. It had been a long time now since she screamed like a madwoman, blinded by rage and a singular, stated urge--
"I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"
Zephaniah attempts to land upon she shifting facade of the Gem of Valmar, or at least hang on to something. Rosaline loads two clips into the Gear's rifle, shortened from its sniping configuration, then presses it against the surface of the Gem, aimed directly at its core. The first volley is full of freezing rounds, attempting to spread a sheet of ice upon the construct, as far as it can possibly go. The rest is high-impact rounds to, quite simply, shatter it.
As this happens, those who haven't muted her radio band after her shouted threat are treated to... more dead air.
GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Gem of Valmar with Rite of Promession! GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Rosaline Calice's Rite of Promession for 324 hit points! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Overheat for 88 hit points! GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Isiris Shango'Ra!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
With the support computer system currently overridden, Loren wouldn't have seen Hellerune's approach even if it weren't starting from a stealth capacity.
As it stands, a blur of motion from an auxillary camera is all he gets. He has enough time to jerk his head in the incoming Gear's approximate direction before it crashes directly into him, rattling, as they say, his cage.
He struggles against it, trying to pry loose. For all Schiehallion's size, the stealth-class Gear -- it is one of those special-ops Gears, when, where, how did she get her hands on THIS -- has gotten the drop on him and has found purchase.
Hellerune will not easily be dislodged.
"Keil-- you witch--" he snarls over the public channel. "Let go of me!"
She does not.
Between her boost and the ultimate inertia Schiehallion will generate once she pushes off with him in tow...
A point will be reached where he won't have a say in the matter anymore.
"This isn't over!"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's face twists into a half-smile as she sees the destruction she's wrought on the enemy. The warmth in her right hand--the one presently holding the stick that guides the crosshairs--grows to a brilliant crescendo. But the smile falls from her face as Elly's transmission wavers, and she sees those fractal patterns converge on Vierge.
> "Vierge, evade!"
An armor damage indicator lights up on the status paperdoll on Ida's HUD. Rear left leg, lower, she thinks. That's not--
Then one of the external cameras locks on to the source: several grotesque-looking specters, duplicates of Neriah, literally chewing through her Gear's armor. Plating peels off the machine like layers of fondant icing--it might as well be fondant icing, to these things. Ida's teeth jump on edge. She presses the right foot pedal to the floor. The Dragoon's jumpjets roar to life beneath it, incinerating the offending Neriahs in a blast of flame and superheated wind. The Gear rises into the air, arcing high over Rosaline's machine. More of the Neriahs fall from its frame as it twists, violently, sending them plummeting to earth. The Dragoon braces itself once again, settling into a fencer's stance with the Three-Dragon Cannon pulled up to its other shoulder. Scheihallion's green energy flows over it, into it, through it.
"Are you trying to convince us?" Ida says, "or yourself? Because all I'm hearing is the same nihilistic drivel I thought a year ago. Thinking it is one thing--" The computer terminal chirps out a sequence of tones, and lights up with green text: Best-Guess Complete "--but acting on it--"
Ida presses the 'transmit' button on the computer's control pad. Tactical data flies over the airwaves to Vierge, Weltall, and Zephaniah. And then--
"Rosaline?" Ida's blood runs cold. A cockpit explosion? The Dragoon swivels, cameras tracking Zephaniah, as Ida desperately studies its movement to reassure herself there's still a conscious pilot at the helm.
'I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!'
"Rosaline!" Oh my God, Ida thinks.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Force Action! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Early Warning! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Early Warning! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Rosaline Calice with Early Warning! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 20 damage from Acid! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Early Warning for 0 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Wolves don't fly they are strictly terrestrial!" Fei says, eyes widening as Lily takes Loren away. "Liiilllly!!"
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Early Warning for 0 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
A burst of Ether lights up the IFF screen, and a familiar green beacon appears. "Lily," Ida says. She's... getting the Gebler out of here? On one hand, one less problem. On the other--
"Stay safe! Understand?" Ida's voice is still shaking.
GS: Rosaline Calice takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Early Warning for 0 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice! GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Gem of Valmar has adjusted their boss level for 6 opponents!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
There should be fear and horror that crosses into Rudy Roughnight's mind as the warping darkness shifts in ways that are in nightmare alone normally. However, there is merely an odd single minded approach that seems to be demonstrated, as if the young boy was more confused than terrorized, as the threat seems anything but predictable.
"What the-" Rudy mutters softly as the torrent of arms erupts toward him. One step back is all that is given to show any sign of hesitation before the boy redoubts his efforts. The youth draws the long bowie knife/short sword weapon at his side and begins to cut and tear, both out of a fierce anger as well as a desire to survive. At worst, it will at least parry away some of the deranged hands, but the real attack will come soon. Rudy leaps back, putting the knife between his teeth as he replaces the cartridge again. While to most people, the assault on the mind and psyche would be unified with the assault on the body. It's clear that Rudy is being affected, though it's clear not in the way that it should.
After all, some say the best way to fight monsters is be one yourself.
"Just need to beat you," the young Drifter replies as he takes the bowie into his hand once more, a hint of fatigue in the voice he somehow finds when there's a void of dialogue. "Then I'll help Fei, Elly, and the rest beat the gem-thing!" A few ragged breaths are given before Roughnight continues, the forearm lighting up blue to signify his desire to fight on as the right hand spins that ARM around. "I'll just keep fighting until there's nothing left!" he roars out, his voice soon drowned out as he levels the weapon, unleashing his own wave of pain and suffering; a hail of bullets announce themselves in a way that lacks any true horror save the pain they may inflict on whatever stops them, each bullet having as much punch as a standard rifle. The force of the attack causes Rudy to skid back a few inches. With the retreat and the kickback of the attack, the Outcast stands on the edge of the rooftop, though he seems more focused on the fight than the fear of falling.
GS: Rudy Roughnight has activated a Force Action! GS: Rudy Roughnight has spent 4 Combo on Gatling, including 3 on Gatling! GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Gatling Raid! GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action. GS: Isiris Shango'Ra guards a hit from Rudy Roughnight's Gatling Raid for 97 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
One thing becomes clear as blows begin to descend towards the darkened Gem: Its defensive field is gone now. Jay makes that clear when she barrels through the blackbirds, scattering them into motes of light, and lays into the Gem with the conviction that she absolutely must. Glassy surfaces shatter and break away. In each fragment, a reflected Jaeger twirls madly.
In each fragment, a little Neriah looms behind the Jaeger, cupping it in her hands. "This is part of me, Jay. It always has been part of me. I'll save the ones who deserve saving. I'll damn the ones who deserve to be damned."
Loren assumes direct control. That blade of water swings, as sharp as any blade - and it slices through the nightmare. It rends the face of the gem, shards of broken crystal bleeding into droplets of water. They mix together in insane patterns of light that dance around Schiehallion as though Loren had entered a kaleidoscope.
As rays rain down around Rephaim, one of them manifests into an energetic blue Neriah, standing atop the Gear's head. "That's the nice thing about Valmar. You always know what he'll think. Or will, when he returns. But I've started to think the Filgaia we have now isn't worth saving...."
The apparition watches as Lunata arms her beam - and the full burst of Rephaim's power tears into the Gem.
The rays converge. Insane, rolling patterns of beams clash with Lunata's assault - but it is the power of Rephaim that punches through to slash into the face of the Gem. A glowing trench is left behind. It pulses in patterns of blue.
There's a Neriah in a corner of Elly's monitor, watching her with quiet interest as she speaks. Vierge hurls that rod with an immense bow shock, striking true and smashing in the face of the Gem. Slashing through the hell of rays, Elly unloads with strikes that leave cobwebbing cracks and fractures in the Gem's massive bulk. Shadow bleeds out to try and seal them. She simply outpaces the Gem's rate of restoration.
In Elly's window, she might notice the Neriah apparition opening her mouth to say something. But she closes it - and Elly might spot the Priestess of Valmar blushing with actual embarrassment and jutting her lower lip out in a sullen pout before huffing a curt "It's not like I want sympathy, y'know" and vanishing in a little puff of wounded ego.
Even Rosaline is telling her off now. A Neriah ghost in the corner of her monitor narrows her eyes a little - until Rosaline blows the monitor out.
It doesn't stop her from declaring her intentions in no uncertain terms. Zephaniah opens up with the fury of an Etone who's absolutely sick of the Impetus of Valmar's shit. Freezing rounds slam into the Gem and turn an entire corner of it to ice, before the follow-up rounds blow the corner clean off.
"I'm already convinced," one of the Neriahs clinging to the Dragoon whispers into a comm pickup.
Frustration builds. Almost invisible among the constant coruscating crisscross of ghost rays, the hovering shape of Neriah tosses her curls back and narrows her eyes. Maybe I shouldn't try to proselytize anymore, she chides herself internally. I'll never understand this shit. This dogmatic hope in a world that deserves to end.
The turmoil reflects itself in the whirl of the Gem's world. The whirling rays begin to wend themselves into a maelstrom of faces. Some of them are human, interlocked into grotesque screaming shapes of rage and hate and despair and nihilism. A few Neriahs are in there, mingled with some with hideously inhuman features, mingled with a thousand blackbirds, mingled with eldritch interlocking lines that fold into each other. The Gem itself goes dark for a moment --
And even the faces go dim. Everything goes silent. Everything slips from sight.
"Maybe I am nihilistic," Neriah says into the emptiness. Her voice echoes starkly. "Maybe I do want to burn the world down. And you know what the worst of it is?"
"That I'm not sorry."
The darkness suddenly collapses out from itself. It peels away like the roof of a dome sliding open. Light shines into the darkness, dazzling and brilliant - but what spills out of the gem is not the same. It's more of those insanely whirling rays. Some are composed of rays of pure shadow. Some are dazzling light.
They interlink. They form escherian interlocks that go nowhere and everywhere. And they lance out to rake at every gear in sight - and Ethius. The Gem is badly battered - and Neriah seems bent, now, on ending it all.
GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Darkness and Light! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Darkness and Light! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Darkness and Light! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Darkness and Light! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Rosaline Calice with Darkness and Light! GS: Gem of Valmar has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Darkness and Light! GS: Gem of Valmar has completed its action. GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Darkness and Light for 78 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Darkness and Light for 275 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Darkness and Light for 91 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a glancing hit from Gem of Valmar's Darkness and Light for 181 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong used the Force Action Protect! He takes Gem of Valmar's attack on Rosaline Calice on himself! GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Gem of Valmar's Darkness and Light for 62 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gem of Valmar has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"You... know who I'm talking about?" Gwen feels an odd flush of relief. "Then you know..." Or appreciate, at least, the very real danger. "Do you know his name? Please tell me..." She trails off in the wake of the impossible song. "... What in the Guardians' names is that?"
Well, clearly, it's the thing emboldening the Blue-Eyed Assassin. Complicated is a proper word for it.
She hears Rudy, off in the distance, just barely. And there's the blue glow of his ARM, if she focuses just enough...
"Rudy! I'm okay, I'll try to get over here! We're- Ethius?!"
There was an Ethius here, but now, there's just black. Ichorous feathers, blue eyes, the cackling dark.
Her fear leaves her as she tries to claw at the stuff that plagues Ethius, each handful feeling heavier and heavier. "Hold on, Ethius, I'll... ah...." She pants. At some point, Ethius ended up over there, up the wall. At some point, all she was doing was tearing at the weights that begin to attach to her.
He's going to get Rudy, she believes.
There are others, too. Others who can't fight, who don't have a vehicle to get away or fight back, no weapon capable of fighting back. Is that baker okay? Gulliver will be, Gwen knows. And...
It's really dark in here. How are they going to know where to go?
She lifts up the Mockingbird with a rough grunt. One pulse, one shot, one bright beam, to pierce it all away.
"I know you're all scared, I was too," she says through a throat that feels impossibly dry. "Everyone, just hold on, they're fighting for you, keep your chin up. You can fight back. You can survive, just..."
One shot. Lift your ARM high, and fire.
"Everyone, hold on!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has spent 3 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Corona Discharge! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Isiris Shango'Ra guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Corona Discharge for 103 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei looks down at the tactical data. Somehow, he is able to understad it. "Got it, Ida." He says. "Thank you."
Think of burritos with Rudy, Fei thinks, that will get you through this alive and in one piece. That's what matters. Elly will be okay. It wouldn't end like this, not this easily.
His ability to keep his cool is helped by hearing Elly's resolve.
There is more dazzling light from an obscure source. Fei can't stop the damage from impacting his gear, but he can stop them from impacting his sensors. Fei takes a deep breath and closes his eyes...
...then pushes Weltall forward, stepping in the way of some of those dazzling beams to protect Rosaline's gear. "Rosaline! Are you hurt or just pissed? Are you okay?"
Weltall's sensors are wrecked from the assault. Fei turns them off. To fight an eye perhaps one must see without eyes.
Fei closes his eyes. He almost, but not quite, makes contact.
But it's close enough that he can feel where it is. Fei's eyes remain closed as Weltall throws itself back up into the air towars that gem and punches through the beams, charging blue light into its right hand before slamming it for the outsider creature.
"Simply employing tactics from a higher dimension...isn't enough to distract me." Fei says as his cool one liner for the day after all those kind of lame one liners.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: Fei Fong Wong has spent 3 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Gem of Valmar with Raigo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Raigo for 348 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"'Kiel'?" Jacqueline repeats to herself, as a Gear flies in to apparently abduct the Gebler Gear. It's probably for the best - they don't need further in-fighting when Nisan is in trouble. She can only think of one 'Kiel' who'd be here helping Fei out, but she doesn't state it.
Before she can dwell on it further, though, she hears a loud cry over her communication.
"R-Rosaline!" Jacqueline shouts, concerned. ...But her Gear is still moving, and just as importantly Rosaline is still talking.
"O-oh no..." Jacqueline murmurs. There's dead air afterward. Jacqueline finds herself worried. Even more worrying is what Neriah says.
"...I see. I'm sorry. I wish it didn't have to be this way." Jacqueline replies. She sounds a little sad. A part of her had hoped they'd be able to do something for her...but it sounds like Neriah had accepted this as a role. "I don't think any one person has a right to say who 'deserves' to be saved or damned on a worldwide scale, Neriah."
Jacqueline shakes her head. At this point, the darkness collapses. Light shines, dazzling, brilliant and terrible. Shadow and light interwines together in a mad dance, going everywhere and nowhere, lancing through everything in the way. Jacqueline hunkers down. Lunata's barrier protects her to a certain point...but the manage to deplete it, and begin tearing at the Jaeger herself. Jacqueline winces as the Gear is forced back...but she takes a deep breath and forces it forward once more.
"This world...it's not perfect. But I still believe in Filgaia, and I believe we can make it a better place. I'll do what I can to protect it." She starts, brandishing the baton.
"And I won't..." She's upon the Gem now. She focuses, and then forces the Jaegaer into a lunge, flourishing the baton in a single, elegant, pinpoint strike with technique that might be surprising to see from Jacqueline. "...give up on it, no matter what!"
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gem of Valmar with Artful Flourish! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Artful Flourish for 362 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.
The Dust Dragoon's computer transmits its data, and Zephaniah immediately accepts it, though Rosaline doesn't answer Ida's calls, or anyone else's for that matter. At least it seems like she's still piloting.
Its rifle empties, Zephaniah slides off from the Gem, which produces more of its mad rays, this time in light and dark. The Dust Dragoon's data would be helpful for dodging this, but the Gear seems intent on going back on the offense, unfolding its claws once more and preparing to spring up, heedless of the incoming beams...
...which Weltall blocks. Zephaniah hesitates. Finally, the silence is broken. "...F-Fei?" Since Rosaline didn't bother to switch back from public comms, the others get to hear this too. "I'm fine," she says, sounding weak but not completely out of it. "I can heal myself, I don't know what came over me, I'm doing it again, I..."
"I just know we need to wipe this thing from our world!" she says, looking up and pressing a certain button once again. She fires another pair of missiles, which whirl into the air, their trails interwoven with the beams of light and dark in a strangely hypnotic pattern, helped by the Dust Dragoon's analysis. More soon follow, and over a dozen NY-4N missiles make it out of the pandemonium, and towards the cracked Gem.
"And you," she says, shutting off her radio, and hoping that Neriah can still hear her somehow. Her voice sounds pained, and not just physically. "I thought you couldn't be so bad, I even thought like you not so long ago. But it's just... I don't see things that way anymore. The me from before was angry and afraid. I know you are too. We can still talk, I think. But so long as you continue on this path, make no mistake..."
She's tearing up, her cockpit only illuminated by her still-intact displays and her own healing magic.
"I will fight you."
GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Gem of Valmar with Itano Maneuver! GS: Rosaline Calice has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Rosaline Calice's Itano Maneuver for 402 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
The lurching Earth that tilts everything in existential bias towards that one consecrating point is not merciful. It bears little care for the balance or wellbeing, for health or for fatigue. The sensation is much different than forgiving ground and street. There is a sense of vertigo, a sense of wrongness. That one should simply not be where they are standing, and the slightest mishap will cause an unforgivable death. Being on the side of a mountain, with no rope. Being on a lurching, sinking ship. This is the sensation that one can feel, up to the ankles in slowly crimping metal and breathing the dust of those who have gone before.
Gwen's Side
"Can you, though?" he reflects mildly.
When Gwen lifts her weapon high, she will notice him, not too far away. This person at the root of the thing itself, the one with the terrible eyes and the worse hands. He stands at a table, covered to the elbows in blood. At his altar, a horse lay, cut from belly to neck in the old ways. As he speaks with the courier, he dresses the catch, working quietly with a small knife. The calmness of his voice cannot hide the squelch of the knife.
"Is this something that you speak to yourself, time and time again until you believe? Is it truly something you stand to hear yourself think? That if you let everyone benefit from your strength, that you will have enough left for yourself?" he asks as he works dutifully. The scent of blood is clear to the back of her tongue by now.
"And tell me, what happens when nothing works, and you find yourself completely and crushingly alone," he asks, motes of doting concern in his voice. "I am disappointed. You weren't ready before. But you survived. And yet, now..."
He produces a droplet of the purest black from the gutted horse, a droplet that dances on his fingers, as everything else seems to flow in slow motion. He steps towards the courier, in slow, methodical steps. "...You still seem to think you understand. Ah. But I will gift you this much.."
He holds up the single droplet, a horrific, harmless droplet. He holds it up to her forehead, held between three fingers. He reaches in, to touch it to her. Only when the thought takes hold will she realize that it is not harmless at all.
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
All three blasts go off at the same time, in the same cadence. The blasts of light pierce through the haze of black, cutting away metal, and wood, and flesh. The haze of force between them and the great gem in the sky is broken at once, as simple as that. The masks in the street moan eerily, in the midst of their feeding on all around, but each cracks in turn, breaking and shattering, though it will take a day and a night for their ghostly visages to finally fade from the earth, painful and shame-inflicting on all foolish enough to look upon their translucent, shocked, broken visages.
GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Under a Disastrous Moon! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a solid hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's Under a Disastrous Moon for 0 hit points! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each! GS: Lock and State! Statuses applied to Isiris Shango'Ra! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has attacked Gwen Whitlock with God Killing Scintilla! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has completed his action. GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Isiris Shango'Ra's God Killing Scintilla for 57 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
As Vierge spirals around with a glorious set of sparkles that are Ether-backwash halation and explicitly not giant pink hearts, Elly answers Ida - "Thanks!" - before she faces Schiehallion dead-on.
Lily arrives, then, like an interfering black stallion.
Elly's mouth opens slightly. She is simply, and purely, awed. And, perhaps, thankful.
At this point, the manifestation of Neriah dissipates within Vierge's cockpit. Was it because Elly spoke harsh truths? Was it the backwash from the Ether Amp kicking it into Hyper Mode? Either way, this too is a relief. As the Gem struggles and refracts, Neriah speaks to them. Space itself loses causality, the effect raining down onto the Gears. Will this ruin Nisan on its own? Elly thinks, with an obscure fear and sorrow -
But something that Neriah said.
"I don't know if you can hear me," Elly says in the cockpit of Vierge, hair shading her eyes. "But..."
"When he comes back?"
"Why are you so certain? Is it just that this is something you can believe in, because 'Valmar' is cruel, and that seems truer than kindness...?"
Space itself is getting screwed up. Elly looks at the radar and says: "Whether or not you're sorry... it isn't the point. This isn't tenable. None of us are going to let you harm this place any further --"
Elly stops abruptly as if she were deflated. That is because she had glanced towards the control lock for the AERODS and seen a print-out error: SOFTWARE ERR: RANGE UNDEFINED
Elly closes her eyes for a moment. She turns her head to look towards the Gem, which seems the size of Lunar until she blinks, and then seems very small but extremely close to her eyes. What can she DO about that?? Vierge is able to turn around, approximately.
"Of course," Elly breathes out. The Ether Amplifier, deep within Vierge's guts, begins to hum again... This time what rises upwards is not so much literal spikes of Earth, not the living or dying stone of Filgaia wrought upwards, but the heavy, downward, static and stabilizing impulse that that element contains. Like an earth-toned strip of ballast in a ship at sea, Elly throws that vision forwards!
If the Gem really DID turn inside out, Elly reasons, it'll probably still hurt!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has spent 2 Combo on Gatling, including 1 on Gatling! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Gem of Valmar with Terra Lance! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Gem of Valmar's Darkness and Light for 71 hit points! GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Terra Lance for 278 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Gwen's voice rings through the overwhelming stimuli to Ethius. He's not sure how he's going up the wall, only a feeling that he must. In any other circumstance he'd know this isn't something that should be physically possible, but the world feels like it's so warped under all of what's going around, going through him, he just knows he has to get to the top.
He can't 'hold on.' He has to go... see...
That's not Rudy, where he steps out to. Ethius stares blankly, for that's all he can do as he can't remember if he's breathed in the last ten seconds or not. He might not remember how to, to meet that man with no name. Their stare... there are few stares Ethius struggle to meet. Some of it is distraction, the need to find the fell blue-black light of the Gem of Valmar. Some of it is...
The nameless agent speaks to him with familiarity. 'Is it not your desire to change things?' Ethius can't recoil. He can't walk back, he can't climb back down. 'Here is your chance,' they offer. Ethius tries to raise his left hand, dismissively. The fabric of the glove is torn and bloodied. An attempt to deflect the droplet of inspiration is met instead with a different opening, as it presses into the flesh of his left hand.
'It's all you need...'
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Darkness and Light coalesce, never quite coming together, but seeming to be of the same mind of being a destructive force. Everything is a haze. He can't make out fine details of an order of events between seeing the nameless man with the eyes as he's brought back to what feels like the waking world. Both opposing forces pierce around and through him, viscerally. It's ugly. His back faces to Rudy as he staggers forward across the roof, laying a hand against what little intact 'wall' there is to prevent a fall as he stares out towards the Gem. He hears out Neriah's laments and resolve, hearing out everyone else's.
...He gets out the harness for the Hot Air Sack, tying it quickly about one wrist even as wounds mount. He uses his right hand, the one inside the makeshift hot air balloon, to complete the Symbological spell. As it fills, the wounded man steps forward...
...And jumps off, floating towards the Gem. He can't get close enough on foot. He has to float. His left hand has more energy to it than the rest of him, free of weakness. As he draws nearer, he starts to cast spells even as he floats dangerously close to some expressions of great power.
There are no additional words or disagreements on the man's part about Neriah's assertions, motives, or means.
Even before all of this, Ethius already made up his mind as regards Neriah and her ambitions. It is not clear as to what compels him to this. He just might be as much of a monster, who just so happens to have his goals - however vague but probably terrible they must be, for the destruction, frustration, and sadness he can leave behind - somehow just not align.
Does he truly know why? He is only now sure - in wake of Mother - of one thing.
He's here to destroy something.
It could well be, for lack of any influence of a fell power in which to fall back upon as an easy explanation, this man may well be bound ever more tightly to something than Neriah herself is, in that he does not even question the impulse.
Is it not his desire to change things?
It is his desire to destroy. Whatever his reason that he holds dear, he knows he trusts it implicitly even if he doesn't know what specifically.
Ethius casts again as he floats, using his left hand for the gesticulating component. He sizes up the breadth of the Gem in its current state. He reasons it is not enough to shatter it. He needs to find a way to damage it from the inside. Incidental observation reveals whatever defensive countermeasures it has up are down, so he risks trying to force his way in... sorcerously.
He attempts to manifest motes of fine particulate matter within the crystalline construct - to ruin its inner clarity, to possibly even turn its ability to produce and refract light into itself - his chanting more forceful in tone as he makes minor but extremely important adjustments to the gesticulating component to ensure it is at the scale it needs to.
Whatever it is he needs to destroy, for all he remembers and has seen in his conscious time, this seems within the neighborhood.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has spent 1 Combo on Disease, including 0 on Gatling! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Gem of Valmar with Grave Dust! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Grave Dust for 218 hit points! GS: Gem of Valmar has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off all temporary hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Gem of Valmar has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The Dust Dragoon settles into a crouch, something low and stable. Its torso twists, angling so its less-damaged armor is facing the Gem proper--the less-damaged parts bearing the colors of house Everstead-Rey. Ida breathes, reasserting her composure in the face of what looks to be an episode of blind rage from one of her dear friends. Part of her insists that she needs to run after her, to throw herself between her friend and the Gem--something tinged with guilt. When Rosaline speaks again, it's like the weight lifts from her shoulders. Even so, with those horrible shapes swirling around the Gem, Ida knows they're not out of the woods yet.
TReality tears itself asunder. Ida grits her teeth and weathers the storm as best as she can. It's not enough. Warnings shriek in her ears as the Dragoon's armor--already melted and flayed from the Gem's assault--starts to give way entirely, shearing off in chunks. Metal hits the ground around the Dragoon's feet, and the gleam of Dragonbone reinforcement shines through the gaps in its plating.
No.
Ida pulls back on the right stick, but does not feel the sweat of her palm, or even a stick at all. She opens her eyes and looks, and sees her right hand, or what it's become. The vague outline of a hand still grips the stick, but the metal flesh has flowed outward, merged with it, extended needle-thin tendrils of itself deep into the Dragoon's systems. Heat rises in her, flowing through both sets of Meridians. It feels like she's in the belly of a behemoth that is coming to life after centuries of slumber.
No. She's in its brain. She's controlling it.
Dead metal comes to life. The Dragoon's armor flows over its wounds, sealing the breaches before the Gem can punch through to its vulnerable innards. In places, it looks like Dragonscale. In others, it looks like a smooth surface that was grown, rather than welded into place. The Dragoon stares down the Gem, even as the Valmar-empowered thing tries to kill it. It raises its cannon, and white-hot sunfire boils within its barrel. Ida barely has to tell it do to that.
"Look into sht sun," Ida grates out, an eerie metallic timbre in her voice. "My breath."
The cannon roars. A lance of searing-hot plasma tears free from the Dust Dragoon, racing towards the core of the Gem. It's bright enough to obliterate shadow beneath it, and to cast shadows for miles around. Ida's face twists into a rictus of defiance, teeth bared.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has spent 4 Combo on Gatling, including 3 on Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Gem of Valmar with Three Dragon Cannon - Breath Of The Sun! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Gem of Valmar takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Three Dragon Cannon - Breath Of The Sun for 458 hit points! GS: Break! Statuses applied to Gem of Valmar! GS: Gem of Valmar has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
Maybe that's the difference between them and me, Neriah reflects as she hangs back, watching her friends and their friends unload upon the Gem of Valmar with such conviction. They somehow manage to find something worth hoping for on this forsaken planet. I wonder why I can't.
Ever the noble-hearted one, Fei steps up to bear the blows for Rosaline, then strikes in his own right. Crisscrossing beams give way before Weltall as that blow is leveled. Blue light rips the peak off the Gem. It's not regenerating anymore; the light at its heart is at an ebb. What power of darkness fuels it must be close to spent.
"I'm not sure I like the world you hope for," she says quietly, her face just faintly appearing in Jay's left-side window, downcast. "Where you see such kind things in people, I only ever saw the real parts of them. Their hate and bitterness - even when I was just a scared girl being tortured by her own nature. I guess I just can't see past that. But I never saw hate in you."
Her eyes harden a little. "Because people like you are the exception, Jay. Most people's kindness is just a polite fiction that hides the people they really are. And maybe I'm no different. But even if that's true...."
The Neriah on the screen looks up, even as Jay focuses into a pinpoint flourish, striking true with a blow that carves a vast trench into the ailing Gem. There's quiet sadness behind her eyes.
"...Never change, Jay," Neriah says. "Maybe when it's all over, we can make a Filgaia with better people in it."
The image fades from Jay's monitor as Rosaline begins to fire those adorable ear missiles. The explosions are less cute, and the regular missiles are even less so. They strike true; the Gem slouches in the air, scorched shards breaking off of it and crumbling to earth.
"I know you will," comes a quiet, sad voice from somewhere behind Rosaline. If she were to look, she'd find a Neriah apparition sitting with her back to her, head bowed. "I guess I thought... that you understood these feelings the same way I did. But I don't hate you.
"I could never do that."
That apparition fades away slowly, a note of regret left behind.
The power of the earth comes to bear. Elly's power leaves the Gem slouching perilously, its lower tip fragmenting as it dips close to the ground.
"I don't know why I'm so sure," a quiet voice admits from somewhere on her instrument panel. A reflected Neriah lurks over a couple of readings. "All I know is that I was born with this power for a reason. I didn't understand it for a long time.
"But I do now."
Ethius's contribution is more subtle - but soon enough, the clarity of the crystalline Gem begins to cloud, and the shadowy spark at its centre begins to dim and fade.
If the Gem had eyes, it would look into the sun. As it is, when Ida merges with the Gear, there's not much more the Gem can do against the scream of plasma. The bolt punches through the centre of the Gem, and the structure around it shatters--
For just a moment, the spark at the centre of the Gem is in plain view.
It looks a lot like an eye, for a second. One that seems to stare into Ida.
One she can almost
see things in
the eyes of
something unspeakable
an ancient thing impetus
the chains
my daughter
my child
8888888888
888888888888888888888
88888
88888888888888888
the day must come again
the intense gaze of an older man staring into her heart
from an age gone from here
from a place too near
The oculus winks out of existence, evaporating like so much dust. Fragments of the Gem glitter in the fading sunlight. They, too, disintegrate, breaking down into dust.
Some damage has been done. The battle of Gears spared Nisan a terrible fate. No one has died today.
Neriah hangs there a moment longer and brushes a curl back. "Better come back to me, Mr. Handsome," she murmurs under her breath before flickering and disappearing in a little whirl of shadow.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
As the man appears from behind the terrors he created, Roughnight narrows his gaze as he stands ready for what he presumes is the 'real battle'. But the man talks; he makes calms that Rudy doesn't have what it takes to do his simple self-appointed mission. "You're wrong," he states firmly, a hint of ire in his voice. While collected, it's clear that there is a nerve there, a reflexive edge that seemed abnormally absent previously in the conflict. As the man moves toward Roughnight, the Outcast reloads, but not before the tear is placed, though Rudy doesn't exactly understand exactly why. Maybe it was the dark soul taking advantage of the brief distraction that came from the destruction of the Gem.
Regardless, in the wake of the movement, the youth shows that Frontier Justice that he was raised on as he lifts his chin and speaks. "I don't want to kill you, but if you don't surrender, I won't be left with a choice," he points out as the ARM is raised to hip level.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
'Can you?'
It takes a few good moments for that soft, dreaded voice to register. The light from Gwen's ARM dims.
"..." The sight of the horse, lying open to the air in a position that feels *wrong* to someone who knows horses well, causes Gwen's knees to begin to buckle. She can taste the blood in the back of her throat, as sure as any kill she herself has dressed for her own survival. Even she has killed, just to eat.
But never-
"Your aim was right. I did die," she breathes softly, "you stabbed me clean through. You destroyed my heart. You left me to die, alone. But somehow.... I refused to die. So... I'm here. Maybe I paid my debts to the Guardians when I helped destroy Mother. Maybe I never will. But you realize... I still would've died, if it weren't for them."
For Hanpan, for Vash. For the friends who she was with afterwards, who never knew how truly glad she was to be by their side, like nothing had happened.
But that was a lie. "Every time I found myself somewhere else, I hoped we'd never meet."
He walks towards her, slowly. For every step he comes towards her, she forces a step back. Forward, backward. A slow dance.
"It's not time yet..."
One stray moment is spared to look towards Rudy, towards the chaos happening above them.
And that's all the time Isiris needs.
Her scream is a terrible sound, echoing out.
And like before, her ARM responds, of her own will.
"_Don't_... ever... _TOUCH ME_!" Gwen lurches at Isiris while he remains close by, trying to reach for his throat.
Like Rosaline before, her next words are just as chilling. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has spent 2 Combo on Gatling, including 1 on Gatling! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Isiris Shango'Ra with Special Delivery! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has activated a Force Action! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Special Delivery for 68 hit points! GS: Isiris Shango'Ra has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Isiris Shango'Ra has posed.
The nameless spinner smiles, it is the only thing all three beneath the great Gem see the same. His smile is a faint, incomprehensibly small thing. One would think him the sort never to smile but when he does, it is a polite, gentle thing. But with whatever grace that he shows, it does nothing for the look of his haunting ill-conceived eyes, unnatural in the way that nothing should be.
He never seems to be quite close enough. A hand reaches out, slipping around his throat, wringing the life from him. A gun lifts to point at him. And another seems to stand with his mind entirely yet still. But no matter how close one gets, no matter how trapped he may be, how strong your arms are or how fast your trigger finger is, he seems to be leagues away.
"Enough for tonight," the author decides. "We'll all see one another again soon.."
And when he does, he splits across the middle, his body shifting along a harsh axis. It is anatomically impossible, this thing. But he splits there, and then once again, then and then again. By the time the glistening sky reaches their level, he has split and slid across so many different axes that it is debatable if he was ever a human thing at all. By the time he is gone, each ideation of him, there is no evidence he was there at all.
Just a dream. Just a bad dream...
But the idea doesn't go away when you look again upon the waking world.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline listens quietly as Neriah speaks. Of how she saw the darker side in the world, the hate and the bitterness. If their situations had been switched, Jacqueline couldn't say she wouldn't be doing the same thing.
"...I won't make excuses. People...can be truly awful. I know that just as well as anyone." Jacqueline replies. "And I'm sorry that you had to go through that. If I knew sooner...maybe I could've done more to help."
She doesn't respond as Neriah suggests they could make a Filgaia with better people.
Together they lay into the Gem, unleashing the full breadth of their power and technique into the gem. And eventually, the Gem fragments, shattering and falling before dispersing into so much dust.
Jacqueline sits there quietly, her eyes closed for a moment before she exhales, runs a hand through her hair, and turns the communications on once more.
"...It looks like its over. Is everyone alright? How's the city doing?" Jacqueline asks, returning the Jaeger's baton to its holster and looking around. Hopefully the city itself wasn't too damaged...she had tried to be careful herself, but there was no telling how much damage the city itself had incurred in crossfire.
This will probably be something she thinks about for a while. Neriah...it was unambiguous now. Or maybe it had been for a while, and she just refused to admit it - Neriah would have to be stopped, or she would do something terrible.
Jacqueline sinks back into her Gear's chair quietly, emitting a sigh just loud enough to get caught by her speakers.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius lets the air out of the Hot Air Sack as he descends. His descent is significantly less gentle than it should be, owing to his wounds. He touches down with a heavier 'thud' than should be safe, but for his purposes, is just safe enough to come kneeling down before the smoldering, dusty ruins of the Gem of Valmar. He seems an out-of-place element among those who have brought mechanized tools of war for something so beyond much of any of them in scope. A lot swims through his head, one hand to his forehead. One thing is for clear, looking at even the inert dust through that.
He extends that hand to it and flitters his fingers.
He even wants to torch what is already dust, free hand to his abdomen to clutch one such serious wound as the ambient air temperature rises about the ruin that has already been soundly pounded. Such a gesture seems almost petty, doesn't it, the extent in which he seems wanting to just go on ahead and try to melt or destroy things beyond the finest perceivable threshold.
There's too much dust and not enough Ethius for that, but that doesn't seem to stop him from making the attempt.