2019-02-09: Dark Matter

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<Pose Tracker> Hellion Amalgam has posed.

    It was over a year before that Krosse had closed its borders. Citing the threats of the outside world and fearing a fate like many of the other kingdoms, the nation had turned its attentions inwards.

    Those who had dared breach the closed borders and brave the catacombs of the castle town had discovered something else: King Krono of Krosse had come into possession of an Anomalous Orb, a strange, powerful Malevolence-ridden object of uncertain provenance.
    And the castle town had become a Domain, its very nature preventing passage -- on threat of losing oneself -- from those beyond.

    And so things had remained: Krosse was peaceful, protected. And to the outside world, silent.
    During passage to and the events upon the moon. During the awakening of Mother and the threat to Filgaia.
    Krosse had done nothing. Lent no encouraging words, given no succor to those who raised arms against the global threat. The borders had remained as still and silent as ever.

    Until recently.

    Disturbances have been reported on the border to Krosse: some describing black shapes in the night with glowing eyes. Others have come in about small communities near to Krosse vanishing without a trace -- communications ceasing, and when investigated, finding those small clusters of buildings ravaged and residents gone without a trace.
    Something walks the border between Aveh and Krosse, though it is uncertain what it might be.
    No assistance has come from Krosse. Krosse's garrisons remain as silent as ever: whatever soldiers remain within do not venture forth, even with such a mystery assaulting their neighbor with no assurance it might not come to vent itself upon them.

    Screams have been reported in the night of late.
    Howls.
    The sound, it is said, is nearly humanlike.

    The sun hangs low in the sky, nearly to the horizon. The reports suggest it may largely appear at night, whatever it is. Now is as good a time as any to begin a search.

    For a time there is nothing. The blasted wastes near to the border of Krosse are silent. Like many other hunts for the cause of recent destruction, this seems to suggest another unfruitful search.

    Until you see them, skimming low over the wastes, moving as a group. Each of them is already as large as a small house.

    White marks shine across their skin. As broken and altered as they are, the root markings can be nothing else: Symbology tattoos.

    Little other features can be made out even in the dying light of day: their skin as as dark as the void between stars and save for the glow of their tattoo-like markings, appears to be as hungry for light as a dead sun. But their shape still suggests...
    that they may have been 'people' at some point.
    Even if now their form more parodies such a relationship. Legs shouldn't bend like that. There shouldn't be so many arms. Their heads move as if their necks were broken.

    And where they venture, a bruise-like stain follows.

    And they scream into the night, their voices hoarse:

    "cold"

    "cold"

    "it's so cold"

DC: Hellion Amalgam switches forms to Darkness Made Flesh!
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"What the hell are they," Talise asks, her voice tight with a gut-clenching anxiety she's trying as hard as she can not to let show.

Tucked away behind a sandy wasteland hillock, she'd been hiding out in wait for whatever it is that was seen out here. But the nature of those gigantic creatures is more startling than she'd expected. Living things do not bend that way. People should not be that large. Limbs do not articulate in such a twisted fashion.

Healthy beings do not shriek like the cold dead and bruise the earth in their wake.

Shifting in her seat, Talise - without her armour today - reaches up to adjust the simple headset she's wearing. She's not used to it; it's been awhile. But it'll have to do. "Right," she finally grunts, sliding her hands into control yokes she found surprisingly natural a year and a half ago. Beneath her, an engine thrums.

A dark shape rears up from behind that dune. In a former life, it may have been a standard Soldier-type Gear, but its armour has been heavily reconfigured, layered with khaki plates over black undercoating, with a red and white helmet piece. Huge thruster outlets jut from its upper back and spine. With a whir of servo motors, the big Gear hoists a massive, brutal-looking combat blade, right-handed but with a side grip for the left hand.

                    MECHANICAL DRAGONMASTER OF FOX COMPANY
                     F G - 0 3 S " A L E X A N D E R "

Beneath Alexander's visor, there's a flicker as a single pink light bounces to life, flitting back and forth before centering on those huge, lurching amalgams. A monoeye camera, pretty non-standard.

Talise's cockpit monitors flicker with data inputs. It's a technology that doesn't exist on Lunar but she just takes the input for what it is: Information. She taps the headset she's wearing. "We need to get in closer," she says. "Whatever those things are, they're spreading some kind of corruption. I just hope it's not Malevolence."

DC: Talise Gianfair switches forms to Alexander!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    It's been an entire year since Ida followed the trail of Malevolence into Krosse, and found the Trial Knight at work. To say that first encounter was a disaster was putting it mildly--Ida was in no place to bear the weight of such a revelation, and a tiny seed of Malevolence lingered in her, blossoming when she killed a man in anger. Ida spent almost half a year as a Hellion, and while she's since recovered in many ways, she's never forgotten Krosse. Now, people have been going missing again, and the moment word reached Ida's ears, she wasted no time in setting out for the southern deserts.

    The Dust Dragoon takes the desert leap by leap, like any other Aveh Gear--while it's heavily-modified, its heritage is still visible in its frame. The blue-and-gold machine crests a dune, jump-jets booming beneath it, sending tiny tornadoes skirling through the desert sands. The Dragoon reaches the apex of its leap, and lands, knees bending ever-so-slightly to help absorb the impact. In the cockpit, Ida barely feels it.

    It would be a beautiful evening, with the sun a brilliant red fire on the horizon, and Lunar a brilliant disc just starting to climb into the sky. But there, among the brightest stars, is the New Moon, and the face it shows Filgaia tonight is the color of human blood. Ida is not superstitious, but it's a bad omen. Malevolence lingers in the air.

    The Dragoon's sensors lock on to movement in the distance, and its cameras detect several immense shapes, splotches where ambient thermal energy is just not there. None of them have generators. They're not walking so much as shambling.

>"We have contacts--biological, likely."

    Talise, Rosaline, and the others can hear the trepidition in Ida's voice. The camera zooms in, and Ida keeps talking.

>"I don't think--Granas' blood!"

    The camera has locked on to a grotesque parody of a face, contorted in pain. It zooms out, and more of the mass is revealed--a misshapen array of limbs and body parts, dragging itself across the sand. The whole mass is shrouded in so much Malevolence that Ida feels like she's being smothered until she forces herself to breathe.

>"My God. Those--those are Reapers! How did they... how did this /happen!?"

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied. I am attempting a thing I know not the outcome of. 'Tis something I must do, and I shall not shy from its path.

    The Trial Knight's words still ring from yet a great few months back, before Elru, before everything that had been visited upon her. The Medium so ill grafted upon her flesh, the continued transformation of her skin to scale...

    ... such that she had already confirmed once that she can still do it. Speak the word that seems so horrible and alien to her. And assume the form of ...

    Should we see each other again before then, it will as like not be on peaceable terms.

    The soft creak of a wheelchair is not terribly known to the blasted wastelands, at the remains of one of the communities that has gone silent. But Riesenlied is here, having inspected a village that she hadn't revisited since her return to Ignas... and it was with dread and despair that she had seen it silenced.

    "Is this... is this what you speak of, Trial Knight?" Riesenlied whispers, squinting painfully with a withering gasp.

    "I can't..."

    The sound of enormous footsteps ring in the distance, past the crevasse the village overlooks. Her eyes widen, and she hurries her wheeling and--

    --and stares at them, just below the valley.

    "What... are those? Is that Malevolence-- no..." That tattoo...

    There's a sharp wince, as Riesenlied's hands curl up against her armrest further, cupping her mouth. The sensation of Malevolence was undeniable. But there was something else here. "K.K... ..."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei has tried to resist K.K's work before, his anger at the mysterious individual largely based in the anguish of the people of Lacan they channeled for their own purposes....and of course the continued problems they proceeded to unleash upon the world. Has Fei's opinion changed knowing the truth of what happened at Lahan and knowing that for whatever reason K.K also helped Riesenlied?

Fei listens to the hellish horde. He listens to the screams of that which might have once been people. He listens to their pained moans and they filter in through the Weltall as if they were speaking directly to him.

And he finds his opinion hasn't budged an inch. There is only so far nepotism can go and turning aside Fei's gaze from the howling cries of hte damned and blocking his ears, well is well beyond that point.

The more you wake, the more their shrieks pound against your eardrums

At first Fei just thinks they're strange hellions. He's seen so much malevolent nonsense that he can't honestly claim to expect some sort of combination when it seems just one is horrifying in of itself. It isn't until Ida pipes in pointing out that they aren't just hellions, they are reapers too, that Fei...

...huh. Yeah, his horror is still pretty steady there. It's like the difference between 99 percent horrified and 100 percent horrified, though, and Fei can't help but stare.

Weltallis hesitant to approach the creatures, watching their approach from within his gear.

"Why are they so loud?" He asks, even though he was just told why.

He's okay, he's okay, he's okay.

Aren't you fighting for more than just yourself now?

The thought gives Fei pause and he nods once and lowers his hands.

>Let's put an end to their misery.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

The last time Rosaline visited the Krosse border, she set it on fire in a misguided attempt at investigating and, hopefully, resolving the Malevolence situation. Suffice it to say it didn't work out, and that she still feels extremely guilty about that.

Rosaline felt that she and her friends had to do something about the blight upon the Kingdom eventually, she was sure of that, but there was some understandable hesitation to make another attempt. Unfortunately, it seems events are forcing their hand.

Darkness is encroaching from the Kingdom's borders, that much is clear. Precisely what is unclear, but the rumors made it sound like the use of a Gear would be prudent. Now, massing weapons of war against the border of a paranoid kingdom may not be the best course of action, but Drifters aren't typically known to play by the rules, or have much common sense at all. This doesn't stop Rosaline from being worried.

Which is why she's hiding behind a hill with Talise and others.

Luckily her Gear has stealth capabilities, which makes this easier than it sounds. Zephaniah sits prone in the brush, like a predator waiting in ambush, aided by optical camouflage. The night falls and minutes pass. Rosaline has been hesitant to even break the silence over her radio as she keeps a tense watch. She's well used to the Malevolence she feels in the air, but it doesn't help her mood at all.

And then... they come.

Rosaline switches between displays nervously as she sees the monstrosities approach.

>"O-Oh, oh Lord..."

Talise asks what they're looking at. Rosaline isn't sure. She has several possible answers but none of them quite fit. It's possible that it may be 'several of the above'. But Ida comes to a conclusion, one that becomes harder and harder to deny with each image Rosaline sees, each writhing body, each twisting limb...

>"Don't let them join up with each other!" she half-shouts, suddenly, entering the commands to load Zephaniah's rifle and attempting to get a bead on one of the clusters. "We can ask questions later!"

But it may already be too late.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna had heard the rumors. Something was roaming the border between Aveh and Krosse, and where it went, nothing was left. She wasn't about to leave this alone. And so, two Gears crouch behind a hill nearby, keeping an eye on their surroundings. Nearby, they have other friends, doing the same. The sun is low in the sky - the rumors had said it largely appeared in the night, and so she waited until night before heading out.

Layna herself is at the front, the large, crimson gear with gold lining a clear sight in the darkness. Once a mining Gear, it had been reborn as Layna's personal combat Gear. Trailing behind her is a second gear, slimmer and primarily white. This one is piloted by her crew's Lead Artillerist, Victoria.

>"I don't see anything yet, Captain. Are you sure they're out here?" Victoria broadcasts her question over a channel shared with Layna and others they were working with, studying her instruments. Layna frowns, sitting back in her seat with her arms folded in front of her. Good question. What do they do?

>"...Just keeping looking. We'll see 'em eventually." Layna decides. "What about you, Talise, Rosaline? You two seein' anything yet?"

It's as she says this that something begins to appear over the distance. Layna goes quiet as she takes in what she can. The grotesque appearance, and the symbological tattoos...

>"...What the hell? Those tattoos..." She whispers to herself, though her communications line manages to pick it up. "I'm not crazy for thinkin' those don't look natural, am I?"

But that would mean...someone had to put them there.

From the sounds of it, Talise is just as confused about what these things are as she is...but Ida has a better idea.

>"...Reapers!? By the Goddess..." Layna mutters. She briefly deactivates her communications line to swear some more. Reapers...coated in Malevolence. How? And more importantly, why? With a groan, she switches her communications line back on.

>"We can't leave this be." She concludes, drawing the massive anchor from her Gear's back. "I'm ready to move out when you lot are. Victoria, stay back and deal with any that get past us."

With that said, Layna waits - waits to face the horde of monstrosities before them.

<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

While the Kingdom of Aveh's military forces are primarily concerned with its principal foe, Kislev, all of its territory is subject to at least some form of regular patrol. And the border with the Kingdom of Krosse - which has seen its fair share of strangeness over the past several months - one of those areas under nearly constant surveillance. Which is why Aveh forces equipped with long-range sensor units detect the swirling mass of hatred that is the massive Hellion, and also detect the rising of rogue Gears to meet it.

These reports are sent up the chain of command, moving with haste and precision that would do credit to any military; but like any military, there are a lot of reports, and a lot of people who need to decide whether to pass them on, or even to take a second look for themselves before choosing to do so. As such, even a report of something as unusual as 'rogue Gears fighting a swirling mass of hatred' would take most of an hour to make their way to headquarters.

Except.

Over the past three weeks, every member of Aveh's military has received a single addition to their standing orders, briefed immediately after muster on every single day. An order that is to be followed, without question or hesitation, and with no threat of punishment for the consequences if there happens to be an error. And so a single word is spoken by a dozen mouths in stations approaching the capital of Bledavik, such that precisely ninety-eight seconds after Weltall is spotted crossing the dunes, a white-uniformed orderly darts past a surprised Myyah Hawwa and shoulders his way through the door into Prime Minister Shakhan's personal chambers. The older man's face purples, but before the leader of Aveh can begin to form a reprimand, the orderly speaks a single, hurried word:

"Demonsbane."

Kahran Ramses - his face still mottled with fading burns that rise up into the short brush cut that is finally growing back - leaps up from his chair and clears the room before three seconds have passed. Ten more place him on an outer balcony, from which he leaps and speaks two harsh, commanding words.

Call Gear."

Before two minutes are up, Wyvern is boosting toward the south, accelerating to its maximum speed. A tinny alarm sounds sporadically as G-force readings flicker between a dark orange and a burnt red, then slowly back down again. A slow trickle of red leaks out from Ramses' left nostril and crawls, jittering, across his cheekbone before splashing back against the cockpit chair.

He does not even notice, eyes locked on a distance indicator rapidly counting down.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily Keil cannot help but wonder about what is still happening inside Krosse, though she has avoided thinking of it or approaching it much, for reasons she prefers not to voice. Her interaction with Malevolence in the past is bad enough, and too close, even so, she can hear awfulness. ...And here...

Lily, too, hears something, though it does not come through her ears, as she looks out upon the group from the wastes. It is past time to joke about not much caring for this particular border, too late for quips. Dog, at her side, whines faintly.

They are both in the cockpit of Hellerune, Lily's Gear flickering at best on radar displays but nevertheless clearly present. She checks the display--and her eyes widen.

Not that they are Reapers. No, this is a known sort of enemy, powerful as it is. Not that, but because--

>"They've been... enchanted."

Lily can recognize a few of the Symbols from her studies, but not all-not enough to be sure of what is going on. She adds to Layna, then--

>"The markings are Symbological, and extensive. Whatever they are, they're advanced."

There's a directive to ensure that they don't mix; Lily can work with that. In moments, the thin black Gear shifts forward across the dunes, into plain sight of their targets, and lifts one of its mechanical hands. A small pulse of Ether becomes a gigantic one, coursing through the air around them as the Ether Booster does its work.

In a flash of blue light, explosions of mist turn to jagged stars of ice all around the closest Lily can detect.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Mist Burst!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam critically Guards a hit from Lily Keil's Mist Burst for 47 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Hellion Amalgam has posed.

    They snuff at the air like a pack of hounds, twisting their heads to catch whatever it is that has alighted here to join them. There, atop a small hill, a number of them freeze, watching in a sort of curious silence.

    "cold," one voice rings out into the night. "so cold"

    A gust of arctic-born light detonates around a group; they shrink back in certain dismay, as a captive beast might from a man bearing a whip. A glaze crackles about the unlucky ones; they, more slowly, flee from the Gears.

    They gaze upwards now, towards the heavens. Whatever remains of their eyes for an instant catches the fading sunlight.

    "cold," one of them barks, reaching out to one of the others assembled here as the glaze of Lily's spell falls from it, shattering across the blasted heath.

    "cold," rises the cry in an echo from each and every one of the Hellionized Reapers.

    There is a certain fact about Reapers -- called Wels by some. They have the ability to amalgamate when put under a certain pressure, to add their mass, strength, and abilities to transform into a single powerful unified being.
    Even when they have become Hellionized.

    They reach out to one another. They lunge at one another, heave one another into a hideous embrace.

    And thus do they fuse, joining flesh and will into a single towering abomination silhouetted against the setting sun.
    The Symbology markings glow still, broken as they are now with odd-angled limbs and uncertain mass.
    Or... perhaps not broken, but formed into something terrible and new?

    Symbols that no wizard would dare inscribe on themselves.

    The newly-born Hellion amalgam howls into the twilight--

    BGM: https://stuartchatwood.bandcamp.com/track/the-blasted-heath

    --and strikes out, lunging for the nearest of the Gears, with what passes for arms, claws, and teeth. Like a raw force of nature, neither do they stop with the ones closest to them: they are fury made flesh as they unleash themselves upon those Gears that have set themselves further afield.

    Is this their natural bestial instinct? Or...

    Bruisy light bleeds off them. With a otherworldly howl -- one that echoes from many mouths -- that light erupts in a spray of sickly corruption, firing far and wide into the wastelands.

GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Lily Keil with Rending!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Layna Manydays with Rending!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Talise Gianfair with Tearing!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Destruction!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Rosaline Calice with Destruction!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Anti-Light Sphere!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Kahran Ramses with Anti-Light Sphere!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Riesenlied with Anti-Light Sphere!
GS: Talise Gianfair takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Tearing for 292 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has completed its action.
GS: Riesenlied critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Anti-Light Sphere for 25 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Destruction for 128 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Rending for 145 hit points!
GS: Kahran Ramses takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Anti-Light Sphere for 258 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Rending for 252 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Anti-Light Sphere for 154 hit points!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Destruction for 218 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

>"Wait, Reapers? What the vile fuck?"

Talise tenses as Ida makes an observation she really doesn't like - and Ida knows the capabilities of these monstrosities far better than Talise does, the swordswoman having met them only on a couple of hair-raising occasions. Scowling, she turns in her seat and tightens her grip on her control yokes.

>"Then they're... they're Wellions."

Lily bursts in and explains things in a bit more detail - and starts the attack straight away. Talise clenches her shoulders and nods.

>"Wherever they came from, we need to --"

Whatever they need to do, it's too late. Before their eyes, the Wels amalgamate. Talise's mouth hangs open a little, before she snaps it closed. "...Welp."

Then the giant amalgamation grabs her Gear by the head and tears a massive trench through its armour plating.

Alexander lurches violently backward, the left side of its chest section torn open. The left-side monitor explodes inward in a burst of shrapnel and fire. Talise doesn't have time to react before a massive distorted claw follows the shrapnel in.

Smoke belches from the Gear's chest section. It staggers uneasily backwards as control is lost completely. Sparks shower down the front of the machine as it wobbles sickeningly, left leg giving out as the machine topples to one side. It crashes to one knee.

And plants its sword in the ground.

There's no visual or audio transmission coming out of Alexander anymore. If there were, it wouldn't be a pleasant one. Several chunks of shrapnel have hit Talise in more than a few places, and she's bleeding profusely all over her tank top and from a massive gash that slices down her left cheek. Another one runs down her left arm, but her hand remains wound tightly into the control yoke. Blood oozes down around her eye, dripping onto her chest.

She can smell burned flesh and open air, but she pushes her controls anyway, letting out a low rumble in the back of her throat despite the fact that she knows she's liable to bleed to death in her own Gear despite the fight having only started five seconds ago. Beneath her, Alexander's reactor rumbles - it wasn't hit, at least.

She maneuvers a few controls - and within the housings on Alexander's back, thruster baffles swing open. White-hot flame screams to life as the highly illegal modifications she picked up on the black market kick in, pushing the modified Gear's normal thrust output well beyond design limitations.

With an application of horsepower, Alexander bulls forward, dropping its shoulder to try and push the gigantic Wels amalgam back. Then it plants its heel, and Talise pumps one arm. The Gear swings that massive assault blade, aiming to try and carve a few Reapers off with a massive blow.

GS: Talise Gianfair has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Reinforced Combat Blade!
GS: Talise Gianfair has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Talise Gianfair has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    "Cold..." Riesenlied whispers, feeling drawn to their voices as she shuffles a little closer. The Gears that had assembled... she knows most of them. Weltall, Hellerune, the Dust Dragoon, and... it seemed they'd all assembled together. There was little she could do here on her own--

    The Dragon's Tear warps with an anxious light.

    "--ah...!"

    The creatures all lunge upon each other, into a hideous fuse of an embrace. The Symbology marks gathering upon each other... Riesenlied's eyes widen for a moment further, and is nearly thrown off her feet by the howl alone.

    The light blasts in sickly fashion, erupting the cliff that she has her wheelchair on. Sickly light corrupts the side of the ledge... and soil eradicates into little more than black motes as Riesenlied gasps and starts tumbling off, seizing her hand out for purchase--

    --and finding nothing. Her eyes widen as she tumbles and starts freefalling in the midst of debris, wheelchair crumpling against a large piece of rock underneath her.

    Lily... Fei...!

DC: Riesenlied switches forms to Novice Heritor of the Fereshte!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei remains comically oblivious to all the secret moving ons behind the scenes. Welcome to Xenogears Disc 1. And honestly part of Xenogears Disc 2.

He is, however, not oblivious to the frothing horror before him. How could he be? There are limits to ignorance. "Yeah," He murmurs as if in prayer to the Guardian of Fire. "Let's warm em up."

Fei underestimates the speed of the new amalgam as it claws into his gear's frame. Fei hisses between his teeth before he sees...

...Fei's eyes widen as the 'Okay let's go with Wellions that's hilarious' throw themselves at his gear but it's not them that he's staring at. It's Riesenlied, who has joined the field in a flippin' wheelchair.

Weltall literally jumps into the air, slams its feet down against the skull of one of the horde members and then throws itself off to jog across the battlefield and lash out with one hand and catch Riesenlied into it, catching her in one hand and providing some cover with the other.

Weltall lifts the hands up higher so Fei can look at Riesenlied through the cockpit shield. "Are you okay?" He asks. "It's not safe to be on foot out here, they're just too huge."

He looks towards the broken wheelchair.

...Well she gets what he means.

GS: Riesenlied has spent 1 Combo on Reload, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Fei Fong Wong with ... I am not Afraid ...!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Riesenlied has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied heals Fei Fong Wong! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Hazen!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam critically Guards a hit from Talise Gianfair's Reinforced Combat Blade for 63 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Talise Gianfair has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hazen for 289 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    'cold'

    'it's so cold'

    As the Reapers creep closer, the Dragoon's external audio pickups catch their agony, and relay it, dispassionately, to the Gear's cockpit. Ida reacts as though the icy hand of Death just placed itself on her shoulder--she freezes, hands on the controls, her whole body trembling with tension and fear. Her mind reels back to something she'd overheard when Mother didn't realize she was there to overhear.

    'It spoke to me.' Flora Everstead-Rey's voice trembles, as if the act of remembering were almost as horrible as the experience itself. 'It said it needed my blood to live. It said it was sorry.'

    'Don't let them join up with each other!'

    Rosaline's voice jars Ida out of the memory, alerting her to the more imminent danger at hand. She shakes her head, and fixes her gaze on the forward viewscreen. The Dragoon's computers cannot sense the Malevolence boiling off the Reapers, much less identify it--it tags each of the masses with speed and positioning data, and best-guess estimates for overall composition. Ida pulls back on the sticks. Servos hiss and growl as the Three-Dragon Cannon slides upwards, rolling up and over the Dragoon's shoulder. The modified Trooper reaches up, grabs the cannon with armored hands, and braces.

    >"Acknowledged, Zephaniah! Give me a few moments to--"

    INCOMING ENEMY CONTACT

    Ida blinks as the warning flashes across her screen, accompanied by a certain IFF signal she's seen once before--a Gebler gear, approaching at breakneck speed. Ida recognizes it. It's piloted by the man who first accused Fei of being the Demon of Elru, the man who could've easily killed him if he got the chance.

>"Weltall, watch yourself! That Gebler pilot's back, coming in fast!"

    In the moment Ida takes to analyze this threat, the other threat makes its move. The cameras tracking the Reapers follow them as they move towards each other, piling together. Flesh flows into flesh. Ida swallows hard, and grits her teeth as bile and heat rise in the back of her throat. The merged Reaper makes its opening move, charging towards Talise--

    >"Alexander!"

    Too late. Ida watches as the beast tears into the other Gear's torso, clawing through the metal to get to the flesh inside. The Dragoon takes aim at the center of the mass, power flowing through the conduits linking the cannon with its arms.

    A wash of awful light slams into the Gear, knocking it back. The Dragoon takes a step away, its gait control automatically correcting for the impact--tendrils of smoke curl off its armor, where metal and paint were vaporized. Ida keeps the crosshairs trained on the amalgam, focusing, breathing deeply to try and keep her fear in check. As soon as the cannon's charge hits full, Ida opens fire.

    Even at a fraction of its full power, the Three-Dragon Cannon is a force to be reckoned with. The Wel amalgam has only a moment before a column of flame erupts from the barrel, easily hot enough to melt through steel. Ida rakes it across the creature's bulk, trying to set as much of it on fire as she can--and, perhaps, to ease its suffering the only way she can.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Three Dragon Cannon - Flame Breath!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

At a kilometre and a half out, Ramses deploys his Aerods, causing glittering modules detach from their position underneath Wyvern's wings and fall into positions slightly behind and to either side of the Gear. A surge of will sends the little devices forward, each charging with gleaming yellow power; they accelerate forward and close up on Wyvern's formation, circling in front of the Command Gear as it continues its advance.

By this point, Fei and Lily, at the very least, should begin to feel a disturbingly familiar presence approaching at a rapid clip, the flows of Ether actually distorting around it as it charges every closer. Black tendrils and brilliant light arc out from the Hellion, but the golden Gear makes no effort to avoid them; the assault slams into Wyvern's shoulders and torso, missing vital systems by luck more than anything else.

Ramses pays the damage, and the Hellion, no mind at all - why worry about hellspawn when the devil stands before you?

"CLEAR A PATH!" Ramses roars, slamming his Ether power into his Aerods, causing a line of radiant power to circle through them. The force extends forward like a brilliant lance, enveloping Wyvern's body, and the Gebler Gear simply charges through the Hellion, the tenebrous resistance slowing it from its top speed. Wyvern bursts out the other side, spraying shadowy ichor everywhere as it slows to a halt between Weltall and Hellerune, its body crackling with raw, furious energy. It hovers in place for a long moment, then slowly draws its long blade out from a sheath at its hip.

"/You,/" Ramses snarls, venom dripping from his voice.

(he probably does not mean Lily)

GS: Kahran Ramses has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Great Ether!
GS: Kahran Ramses has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Kahran Ramses has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Wellions.

>"So we're dealing with a group of symbological Hellion Reapers!" Rosaline lets out, much higher-pitched than usual, as if voicing this thought would make these creatures disappear just from sheer grotesque factor. It's not that Rosaline never feared that something like this would happen. On the contrary, she's had nightmares that went exactly like this. Well, not quite. The symbology is a twist even her paranoia couldn't conjure up.

She continues to hesitate to shoot, and before she can pull the trigger even once, blue light and mist invades her crosshairs.

>"What? Oh no... Oh no!"

Rosaline sets her hands in front of her ears as cries of 'cold' echo and her nightmare continues into its terrible conclusion. The Wels merge into a single horrific entity, and barrel right in their direction.

Zephaniah stands up, the purple, sleek, car-eared Gear's cape flickering out of its stealth mode. Rosaline would have loved to remain that way, but it would have run roughhead over Zephaniah if she didn't move. Her hesitation is her undoing, however, as clears scratch and tear at the machine's armor. She shrieks, engaging thrusters for a single bound away, before the Gear is torn to pieces.

Only two or three alarms are still blinking once she has cleared some distance. Rosaline would breathe a sigh of relief, but remembering to breathe is already a tall order right now.

>"Please cover me, I'll see if I can't blast it apart. It might not be fully merged just yet!" Or so she prays. Zephaniah falls prone again, setting its rifle to extend into its sniping configuration. She places the crosshairs over the amalgam, and... pulls the trigger.

Please please PLEASE don't have an AT Field this time.

GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Lock-On Snipe!
GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna listens as Lily explains - they're absolutely Symbology tattoos, and what's more, they're advanced and extensive.

>"Alright. That leaves me one question - where they hell did they get them?"

Not that she expects Lily to know, of course, but she couldn't avoid the curiosity. Symbological markings didn't just happen out of nowhere.

For now, though, she turns to face the Hellions Reapers themselves as they begin to amalgamate...and lash out. Layna hisses, bringing up her anchor to act as a wall between the Corsair and them. They bite at it, and some of their claws manages to get around to cut at her Gear.

With a grunt she pushes forward to knock it back.

>"You okay in there?" Layna asks. She takes note of the damage inflicted on the Alexander. She then moves to take advantage of the situation, swinging the anchor down toward the amalgam like an axe.

She takes note of the other Gear that's approaching, but doesn't comment on it just yet. Right now, she's focusing on the enemy in front of her - at melee range, she can't afford to take an eye off it for a moment.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Weigh Anchor!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Three Dragon Cannon - Flame Breath for 311 hit points!
GS: ! Statuses applied to Hellion Amalgam!
GS: Hellion Amalgam guards a hit from Kahran Ramses's Great Ether for 136 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Rosaline Calice's Lock-On Snipe for 144 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Cold. Maybe Lily expected that application of the cold would quiet those voices, that giving them what they called out would end it. ...Maybe that was just the spell she could bring out at that time. Either way, Lily still feels the awful presence of the things--

And a different, separately-awful presence approaching rapidly, with enough sheer Etheric force that it puts stars in her vision before she shakes them off.

or rather, before impact shakes them off. The creatures bark and shatter and Lily could only slow them because the gigantic thing crashes right towards her.

>"No idea--"

Her report to Layna cuts off with a hiss of static as her entire Gear rattles, hit with the force of mountain-cracking power--the bruising power may pass her over, but not that, and Lily feels her hands letting go the controls before she hisses and conjures ice to freeze her glove against one control stick.

It shatters as soon as it's served its purpose, and Hellerune starts to rise from where it fell with the sheer power of that attack.

>"Hellerune condition acceptable."

Lily breathes, looks around--And with relief sees Riesenlied, after that pulse of fear, on Weltall's hand. Lily looks to Weltall for an instant and nods. "I can cover her escap--"

There's that Gear, with its strange accessories. Lily looks over her display, narrowing her eyes. ...It starts to make a little more sense...

"Fei," she says, switching to a private Wolves band. "I'm here. How do you want to do this?"

Hellerune lifts its hand again, towards the gigantic Wels Hellion, and this time the pulse of Ether seems to build more, to hiss like the start of an explosion under pressure--

A golden beam rockets from her hand and surges towards the creature, exploding into a great dome, the entire blast suffused with stone-melting nuclear fire meant to break down bonds.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Alpha Pulse!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hellion Amalgam guards a hit from Layna Manydays's Weigh Anchor for 268 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has lost 1 Combo!
DC: MISS! Hellion Amalgam completely evades Alpha Pulse from Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Hellion Amalgam has posed.

    The blade comes in fast.
    The Hellion amalgam is yet faster: a long-clawed 'hand' interposes itself against the Alexander's blade, a purple-tinged black ooze wicking from the wounds its shaking limb receives in the parry. Many sets of teeth are bared; the thing snarls in response.

    Into this tense situation, Weltall interposes itself, slamming down into the massive amalgam, and smashing into one of its many heads. It recoils, pulling free. Away from Talise's Gear, providing her a moment to breath.

    Something that passes for a foot crunches atop a fallen wheelchair moments after Fei plucks Riesenlied free. It's fast on his heels, following that earlier strike he delivered unto it. Mouth after mouth opens wide, baring arrays of glittering teeth.

    And the amalgam lunges for Weltall, reaching out to wrap taloned paws around the Gear.
    While its many mouths close around sections of its plating.

    It's so very cold.
    And hungry.

    Whatever may come of its attempted meal, it is interrupted at last by flame. The Three-Dragon Cannon lets out a gout of flame which licks across the amalgam's back, and it shudders, releasing its grip on Weltall.

    From far too many mouths, it howls out into the twilight: "it's cold!"

    As if in sympathy, sections of its Symbology markings begin to shine brighter than the stars overhead.
    These would be a taboo for a sorceror, if they ever even had cause to know of markings like these to begin with.

    It's a fire in inverse that washes across the field, an impossible hue.
    It's a fire that burns both cold and hot, twinning for an instant the void and the heart of a stellar furnace. It's indiscriminate where it lashes out, where the tendrils of its unreal flame falls.

    Even as it receives a strike of shining Ether that rends free the arm that attempts to ward off the strike.
    Even when a sniper-shot blast from the Gear-sized rifle slams into an extraneous head and detonates it. It continues to invoke that flame.

    Until Lanya interposes herself and delivers unto it the full weight of her Gear's anchor. A hideous shriek, like claws grinding through a chalkboard, rings out into the night; the ghostly tendrils of the thing's fire fades into a mere ghost, then to nothing at all.

    It screams, once again.

    And it lunges for Layna, moving with shocking speed for her Gear. Atomic light detonates about it as it charges; for an instant it is illuminated.
    What has been done to it is made plain.
    Before its darkness consumes even this light, the light of a star.

    Darkness is its response to Lily. Darkness is unfolded upon her, lashing out in a line of livid purple-black antilight that leaps from her Gear to others, following an apparently pathway--

    To the figure Weltall holds in one hand.

    All the while, it beelines for Layna's Gear, and should it seize her, it shall attempt to pull the machine apart.

GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Consumption!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has spent 1 Combo on Poison, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Kahran Ramses with Paradox Flame!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Paradox Flame!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Rosaline Calice with Paradox Flame!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Layna Manydays with Obliteration!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Lily Keil with Black String!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Talise Gianfair with Black String!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Riesenlied with Black String!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes 8 damage from Corrode!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has completed its action.
GS: Talise Gianfair guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Black String for 219 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Obliteration for 177 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Paradox Flame for 80 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Consumption for 198 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam drains Fei Fong Wong! Hellion Amalgam gains 198 temporary hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Kahran Ramses takes a glancing hit from Hellion Amalgam's Paradox Flame for 307 hit points!
GS: Acid and Cripple! Statuses applied to Kahran Ramses!
GS: Riesenlied critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Black String for 37 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
DC: MISS! Lily Keil completely evades Black String from Hellion Amalgam!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Paradox Flame for 376 hit points!
GS: Acid! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice!
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise doesn't answer when Layna and Ida try to radio. She can't hear them. The line to and from Alexander is dead. Smoke continues to waft sickeningly from a smouldering gash in the left side of its chest, leaving an opening into the cockpit.

Her attempt to carve into the amalgam goes nowhere, and darkness blooms out instead. Black and violet shadow nearly swallows up the wounded Alexander. The Gear staggers back, engine chugging and stuttering under a pressure it was never really designed to cope with.

Armour can't do anything about that. Particularly not when there's an opening into the cockpit. Talise inhales, and the darkness bleeds through the gash and surrounds her even as she tries to maneuver--

    Why would you even want to do this? It's going to fail. You're a shitty Gear pilot just like you're a shitty Althenian. You're just a sad girl playing Dragonmaster in your stupid little metal soldier.
    Kill yourself, you worthless bitch.

It's an inner voice Talise hasn't heard in a long time - but one she doesn't realize comes from somewhere else. Her shoulders surge a little and her heartbeat quickens, more blood rushing down her face and arm to drip through her fingers. She inhales, the acrid bite of coolant smoke searing her throat.

And then she reaches up to smack her headset. And the side of her head.

The impact of her palm hits her like a jolt. She blinks twice as static bursts in her ears, then clears up. She can hear voices now - but they're tinny.

>"Motherfucker."

That inner voice nags at her, but Talise tries not to hear it even as the sickening threads of doubt begin to bind her heart. She pushes down on her control yokes, jamming her feet into the harness. Alexander's juiced-up thrusters scream with a burst of power, and wind rips through the cockpit as the Gear charges forward, that huge combat blade swept to one side.

It slices through the air, violently, aiming to try and tear an arm from the Wellion amalgam.

GS: Talise Gianfair has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Combat Blade Strikethrough!
GS: Talise Gianfair has completed her action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Talise Gianfair's Combat Blade Strikethrough for 331 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

>"NOW?" is Fei's instant response to Ida but of course it is now. It's the worst possible time for Ramses to be showing up wanting a fight. Fei exhales slowly over the band. He knows it's not exactly the best time or place to be getting in a scuffle with Ramses and when Lily asks him what the plan is, he doesn't manage to answer immediately.

He knows rejecting Ramses's advances here might just mean getting stabbed in the back. More to the point, he was a part of the strike team that killed his friend, his brother. The very woman he's holding in Weltall's hands would have a father if not for the organization Ramses works for and while it may have been The Watcher who did the deed.

His team kidnapped his daughter.

But...He should answer Lily.

>"I have an idea. Try and herd the Wellions towards Ramses and Weltall."

Weltall then turns its attention to Ramses.

>"You were right about me." Fei tells Ramses. "Come on, then."

And with that Weltall charges towards Ramses, rearing back with one fist and--

--A Wellion NOMS down on Weltall from above, sucking up about half its body weight even as another Wellion goes after Ramses.

"Hold on Riese." Fei says.

He then reaches up and seizes ahold of the aberration latching onto him and swings it around in an attempt to slam it into the Wellion bothering Ramses. Surely, the monster was just in the way of who he's really after.

Right?

GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Hellion Amalgam with The Selfish Man Is Like A Mangy Dog Chasing A Cautionary Tale!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's The Selfish Man Is Like A Mangy Dog Chasing A Cautionary Tale
for 114 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

This thing is fierce, that much is obvious. Whatever caused this thing to form, they spared no expense in that. The Symbological markings begin to glow, emitting flames that burn and freeze at once. Layna's anchor interrupts it...but it also causes her to draw its ire.

It lunges toward her with high speeds. There's no time to move out of the way...so with a grimace, Layna pulls a lever. The Gear hunkers down into a defensive stance and armor plating begins to shift into place as it falls atop her, trying to pull and tear at her machine.

This Gear was made for mining, and this armor was an emergency protocol in case of an imminent cave-in. It should hold up...but it also limits her movement somewhat. But even so, as the armor shifts into place, something else begins to reconfigure inside her machine - another emergency protocol to help with said cave-in.

>"I could use a little hand here, aye?"

Fortunately, she does get some help - she hears Talise's voice over the communications line, causing Layna to admit a sigh of relief.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Layna Manydays with Batten Down the Hatches!!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Layna Manydays!
GS: Layna Manydays heals Layna Manydays! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied collapses on Weltall's hand when the Gear lunges for her. There's a little, trembling shiver as she quietly nods and whispers, "I know. I'm... I'm sorry. I had to confirm it for myself... what they told me..."

    A pause and a wince, as she clings onto a finger when she not really hears Ida's warning, but rather senses the surge of Ether from the Golden Wyvern as it emerges. Her eyes widen... she recalls it from back when she was inflicted, as the Ley Dragon, at the bottom of the Gutter.

    "That man--"

    But there's little time for distraction, as Rosaline and Ida lay on the assault with their rifle and cannon and prompts the Hyadean to hide underneath that finger further. Her eyes widen further as she gazes upon the Alexander and Corsair, two Gears she's not familiar with, but also the crunch--

    Of her wheelchair underneath her as the amalgam lunges for them. There's a yelp as the maw comes close for a moment, and she's left flailing and battering against Weltall's finger.

    Her breathing is shakier and shakier, as she starts to feel that pulsating mass writhe within her. The Dragon is starting to beckon, again, and again--

    No... I can't... I can't...!

    A light ardently overtakes her from within her necklet -- from the Original Artificial Medium of Life.

    I... Odoryuk?

    The line of dark, Malevolent antilight erupts around her for a moment; it threatens to overwhelm her light. She lets out a choking noise as she gasps out, "Fei--" as she clings ever tighter to the metal of the Gear as it, too, comes under attack.

    Then it all happens, in the span of mere instance.

    Ley Lines erupt in a sudden criss-cross of light, as if the land has just fractured. They surface, ground ruptured as thin beams dance, bend and seek towards the Malevolence, into the bubble within Weltall's hand--

    "...Ma...terial..."

    --and pierce it.

    It might be panicking for a moment, because in the wake of the Wellion's assault, in the wake of Fei telling Riese to hold on--

    She doesn't hold on! What's up with that!

    But it's okay, because Riesenlied can be seen seated not on a wheelchair, but on a gallivanting blue and white unicorn, legs adorned with the appearance of butterfly wings. Incandescently, it gallops onwards on thin air, each step supported by the thin mandala of the Ley as it charges towards the centre of the battered, wounded Gears.

    "Everyone... please hang in there...!"

    Odoryuk holds his head proudly, shining golden eyes bright as its live horn erupts into a massive mandala of light and life. And the life-energy, the ley-energy cascades...

    Around the Alexander, around Zephaniah, around even the Wyvern as it once did in the Gutter, around Hellerune as she reaches out to Lily, and to the Dust Dragoon and Ida as well.

    Metal or flesh, living or construct, it doesn't seem like the Guardian of Life cares about such trivial limitations.

GS: Riesenlied has spent 1 Combo on Reload, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Talise Gianfair with Material - Seek the New World!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Rosaline Calice with Material - Seek the New World!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Kahran Ramses with Material - Seek the New World!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Lily Keil with Material - Seek the New World!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Material - Seek the New World!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied heals Talise Gianfair! She gains 400 temporary hit points!
GS: Reload! Talise Gianfair gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
GS: Kahran Ramses gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each!
GS: Riesenlied heals Kahran Ramses! He gains 400 temporary hit points!
GS: Reload! Kahran Ramses gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
GS: Riesenlied heals Lily Keil! She gains 400 temporary hit points!
GS: Reload! Lily Keil gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
GS: Rosaline Calice gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each!
GS: Riesenlied heals Rosaline Calice! She gains 400 temporary hit points!
GS: Reload! Rosaline Calice gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
GS: Riesenlied heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 400 temporary hit points!
GS: Reload! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

Kahran Ramses' face is a rictus mask of pure hate as Fei natters on. For hours on end, he watched that damned video, using the rage is stoked as fuel to drive his recovery forward, forging himself into a blade of fury. That day in the caverns beneath the Aveh desert, he was barely able to hold it in; it was neither the time nor the place to strike at the Red Demon of Elru. But today---

---may not be that place either, as the swirling mass of darkness (Ramses has not heard the word 'Wellion' and would not dignify it by skeaping it even if he did) lashes out toward Wyvern once more, arresting his forward progress. "Get back here!" he snarls, alarms shrieking as tendrils of ebon blackness envelop the command Gear's left arm, compressing it inward. Ramses reaches for power... but while the Gebler commander is more than a match for all but the most powerful of Ether users, such as Lily, Ramses is still recovering from an assault that should have killed him. He should be dead now, instead of fighting for his life. He strains, reaching for---

Blue and white light flash through his mind's eye, as a lesser demon Ramses believed to be dead rides an honest-to-goodness unicorn past him. He just sort of... stares at that, for a second. He's seen a lot of things in his short life. But he's not quite seen that.

Regardless of the source - Metal Demon or fallen Guardian - the creature offers power, and Ramses seizes it gladly, all but gripping the ley-energy in the palm of his hand; golden light lances outward as Wyvern tears itself free, then blazes after Weltall, holding its fury close, ready to lash out.

"I'm not talking to you!" Ramses shouts across the connection. "Come out of that shell of flesh and FACE ME!"

GS: Kahran Ramses enters a Counter stance!
GS: Kahran Ramses has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Wyvern's Sting!
GS: Kahran Ramses takes 22 damage from Acid!
GS: Kahran Ramses has completed his action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam critically Guards a hit from Kahran Ramses's Wyvern's Sting for 43 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Kahran Ramses has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Zephaniah's sniper shot strikes true, exploding one of several heads, but Rosaline has no time to savor that small victory, as unnatural flames wash over the battlefield, and towards her.

>"Son of a--" She has the good sense to cut her transmission there, but needless to say, Rosaline has a deep, senseless dislike towards dogs.

Zephaniah has no time nor room to evade this sorcery. And so, instead, she grabs a fold of her cape, draping it over her cat-eared mech in protection...

...and to the cape's credit, the Gear isn't completely ravaged by the impossible flame, a simultaneous onslaught of hot and cold that sends her cockpit's ever sensor into panic mode, ravages the machine's inner working and wracks her body with pain, to the point where she lets go of her controls for a moment to erect a healing barrier around it. Unfortunately, this leaves little room for evasive maneuvers.

But it passes, as many things do. Talise is cussing over the radio, which is a relief, in a sense. And then comes the appearance of the Guardian of Life, washing over her Gear, soothing her own burns, fueling the Gear and calming all the warning pop-ups contributing to her current headache.

>"Thank you so much!" Rosaline isn't sure if Riesenlied's wheelchair has radio reception, but hopefully someone can pass on the message.

But there's still a monstrosity in front of them, writhing, reforming, morphing, glowing with the power of darkness from two forbidden sources...

"I think I'm going to be sick..." she says, for her own benefit, making sure the bags are stowed under her seat, just in case, before she moves for another offensive.

"Stealth mode on!" She braces herself as Zephaniah vanishes inside its optical camouflage cape. "I musn't run away, I musn't run away..." And she charges for the abomination, flipping her Gear's claws into attack configuration before disengaging the cloaking device, swiping away at something important-looking, reengaging the cloak and getting back to a safe distance.

Or at least, so the plan goes.

GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Sudden Strike!
GS: Rosaline Calice has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes 24 damage from Acid!
GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hellion Amalgam guards a hit from Rosaline Calice's Sudden Strike for 179 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Hellion Amalgam!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Fire seems to work, Ida notes, grimly. Then, bright red warnings flash across the viewscreen--ANOMALOUS EMISSIONS - NO TRACE FOUND--and Ida responds, acting on instinct. The Dragoon pirouettes, twisting on its right foot and planting its left behind it in a sort of fencing stance. Its profile narrows, offering the Wel a much smaller target. The Dragoon's armor is still mostly unharmed, and it meets the creature's eldritch onslaught with steel. Unholy fire pours from the massive Reaper, pouring into the Dragoon before parting around it like a stream around a rock. A temperature warning lights up on the ceiling of the cockpit. Ida lets out a breath, and sees moisture crystallizing in the air in front of her. A horrible chill grips her, as though something had just tried to suck the heat and life from the cockpit. Ida's chi surges in response, flowing into her skin. A brilliant aura of golden-white light surrounds her, and inside that, a core of red-orange flame.

>"Weltall, be advised, if that Gebler so much as twitches wrong, I'm going to make him wish he'd stayed home."

    Boastful words, perhaps--Ida's only seen this pilot in bits and pieces, but he's good. Just in case, though, Ida traces a tracking marker across the image of Weltall as it moves to pluck something--someone?--off the battlefield. One of the aux cameras turns to lock on to the Gear, and a picture-in-picture appears in the corner of Ida's viewscreen.

    ...Riesenlied?

    Ley energy erupts from her, a display that should be impossible. Ida stares, transfixed, as it pours through her. The Malevolence, a constant weight in the back of her mind, feels that much lighter. A silvery sheen flows out from the Dragoon's damaged side, pouring across its armor to form Dragonscale. Chi surges through Ida's right arm; she lets go of the joystick, looks down, sees armor curling out from under her sleeve to wrap around her arm. Heat rises from it to her throat, to something taking shape within Ida's flesh. An ARM? She can only guess what it, having only seen it once before, while piloting the Dragoon in Riesenlied's presence. A message races to her, with the same antiquated headers she saw in Dazil:

    Thank you.

    Ida takes a breath, and lets calm settle in, even as her voice rises to issue commands.

>"Zephaniah, I'm initiating tactical uplink. See if you can't freeze those Symbols right off it!"

    The Dragoon's tactical computer handshakes with Zephaniah's, and tactical data flows in. On this chaotic battlefield, Rosaline might especially appreciate the second set of eyes.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Rosaline Calice with Early Warning!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
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!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Darkness, darkness made manifest. Lily attacks it with light--but that itself is an unnatural twist, a forcing forward of the Ether that pulses around her. With the hideous shriek of the creature, Lily watches on her display as her terrible light is consumed--and feels as much as sees the line of livid power erupting towards her. Lily breathes in, and the Ether Booster of her Gear shudders with her; as the line of antilight hits her Gear's space, Hellerune is abrubtly surrounded by a black aura that drowns all vision, that is painful to look at, a hole in the very air--

And as a shield, the air it just destroyed surges into the gap, a shockwave erupting from Hellerune in all directions if not for very far. Already, the Gear is moving again.

>"You got it," Lily answers Fei as she maneuvers the Gear, looking out for Riesenlied in the swell of dark power--and finding the brilliant light of the Ley once again. Each step glows, and Hellerune, too, despite being a thing of darkness in Lily's hands, is wrapped in light, in glorious life, and Lily lets herself soak up what power she can, drawing it from the Gear within her.

She doesn't switch the section of her display that shows Ramses's Gear for a second. He is much too powerful to ignore. ...Besides--Fei has a plan.

"All right. You want to try that...?"

Lily turns her Gear, and Dog barks twice in succession before letting out a chilling howl as Lily reaches out and seizes hold of the power around her.

>"Corsair," Lily's voice echoes on the radio. "Providing cover."

Jabbing its spear into the ground, Hellerune reaches, and a tiny point of darkness appears before the mass of Wels--and then implodes, becoming a great shell of black, crackling with violet energy that seeks to reach out towards the massive abomination and pull it closer with unnatural strength.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Gloom Strike!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Gloom Strike for 101 hit points!
GS: Entangle! Statuses applied to Hellion Amalgam!
<Pose Tracker> Hellion Amalgam has posed.

    In the middle of it all, Fei takes advantage of the moment where the Hellionized amalgam clings to him and takes sections of Weltall's plating out with a series of well-placed bites.

    And swings it into Ramses' Wyvern. It writhes as it slams into the Gear, writhing against the two of them as it seeks to peel itself free. Claws scrape against the Wyvern's armoring, and it twists, pulling away from the Gebler commander and slithering a short distance across the wastes.
    In time to parry -- if at cost, as more of that dark fluid is rended from its body -- that flash of a bladestroke with what may pass as an arm. It's loosed upon the field once again.

    But even as it descends upon Layna, Talise, recovering from the Malevolence assault upon her, rounds on the enormous amalgam with massive blade in hand.

    A scream echoes out into the early night's air. One massive arm is sent flying to land in the dust and still twitching its last. A tarry ooze dribbles from the stump that remains.
    Light, unearthly and hideous, catches several sets of eyes as it leers at Talise.

    "cold," it shrieks at her, as if that statement is all that it can manage anymore in its current state. "it's cold!"

    A massive paw of a limb -- one of the paradoxical arms still left to it after her strike -- swips through the air, intent to return the favor to her.
    And as it whirls about, to Layna as well, perhaps taking advantage of the moment in which she sees to her Gear's defenses and internal status to repay, again, her earlier heavy strike.

    This is a decision that costs the amalgam. It's arguable that even if it had been looking towards the Zephaniah, it may not have seen the Gear.

    A single shot rings out into the early night air. In a spray of black tar, the topmost head remaining to the abomination is obliterated. In unison, the other scream.

    And scream.

    They do not stop screaming easily or soon. An inky livid purple haze unfurls about the monstrosity's form as it slides forth across the wastes.

    It continues to scream, as if agonized. The haze, meanwhile, rises, as if seeking the heavens.
    All the while sapping the spirits and souls of those caught within it.

    From the middle of the fog that settles upon the land it bounds forth.

    Is it possible it can hear, in some way, the radio discussion underway between the two Gears?
    Or is it merely coincidence that it strikes first at Ida -- attempting to pierce one of the Dragoon's limbs with a spindly parody of an arm -- and then draws a piece of that lingering mist about and off in a wavelike blade for Rosa, still perched at a remove for where the abomination now stands.
    Whatever it might do to Ida's Gear is, at least, interrupted with that crack of a shell from Lily's own Gear. A darkness like and unlike that which roils within it -- which strains against the glowing Symbology that binds it -- unwinds across it. It tries to reach out to her, to repay her in kind.
    It cannot reach her this time.

GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Kahran Ramses with Destruction!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Layna Manydays with Destruction!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Talise Gianfair with Destruction!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Rosaline Calice with Anti-Light Sphere!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Obliteration!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Talise Gianfair guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Destruction for 117 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Riesenlied with Dark Paradox!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Dark Paradox!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Lily Keil with Dark Paradox!
GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Dark Paradox for 0 hit points!
GS: Cripple and Poison! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Kahran Ramses has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
DC: MISS! Kahran Ramses completely evades Destruction from Hellion Amalgam!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Obliteration for 177 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Riesenlied critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Dark Paradox for 0 hit points!
GS: Cripple and Poison! Statuses applied to Riesenlied!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Dark Paradox for 0 hit points!
GS: Break and Slow! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Layna Manydays critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Destruction for 38 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes a glancing hit from Hellion Amalgam's Anti-Light Sphere for 141 hit points!
GS: Rosaline Calice enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes 12 damage from Corrode!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Can Alexander truly be said to be alive?

Regardless, the light of life that shines around the Gear does its work. Scudding violet light is replaced by shimmering blue-white light as the Guardian of Life is called forth for just a moment. Talise draws in a breath.

    KILL YOURSEEEeeeeeeeelf, the Revenge of Purple Inner Voice screams into Talise's soul before being drowned out by Odoryuk and dissipated into nothingness for the second time in as many encounters with a Guardian. Talise doesn't notice, again. She's too busy smiling as the light of life washes across her, the wounds in her forehead and arm beginning to stitch, the flow of blood stopping. "Riesenlied," she mutters, though she's sure the woman can't hear her. "You're a damn saint, do you know that?"

Metal itself warps and shifts. Severed support beams knit together. The plating covering Alexander's chest armour knits back into place. The gap into the cockpit seals once more. It's imperfect, and Talise still hurts. But it'll do.

What will do less is the way the amalgam stares at her like that. Talise shudders visibly, a chill racing down her spine that has nothing to do with the feelings of recovery Riese graced her with.

That massive paw comes soaring in, and Talise grunts and jerks her control yokes. Alexander's shoulder armour comes to bear, and the blow strikes it hard enough to hurl the Gear back, heavy plating jarring loose. A chunk of armour tears off and falls to the ground. A solid hit, but not a fatal one this time.

As the entity screams and that haze of Malevolence begins to spread, Talise widens her eyes as she looks towards the Gears housing Ida and Rosaline - two people she'd just as soon try to help avoid further Malevolence-related entanglements.

>"Ida, Ros', try and keep it at range! I'm coming in from your left--"

Anything else she's about to say is swallowed up by a massive roar. It is not the amalgam doing it.

The black-market thrusters mounted to Alexander's backpack adjust, overlapping baffles adjusting to their widest setting. Fuel sprays directly into the thruster line and ignites with a screech as Alexander accelerates to full afterburner. Gravity forces Talise back in her seat as she barrels forward. Clenching her teeth, she struggles against the pull of G as she attempts to cut into the Wellion amalgam's line of assault, struggling to assert her Gear between the Dust Dragoon and the Zephaniah.

"Here it comes," Talise snarls as she opens up with a barrage of fire from the vulcan guns embedded in Alexander's chest, beginning to accelerate into a charge.

GS: Talise Gianfair enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Talise Gianfair has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Breast Vulcans!
GS: Talise Gianfair has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Talise Gianfair has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

>"Fair enough." Fei transmits to Ida. Hopefully it won't twitch wrong while there's the zombie armada to worry about.

He looks towards Weltall's arm and sees Riesenlied's not there. He still FEELS her, however, and when he looks up he sees ... Riesenlied riding a unicorn. Fei exhales a relieved sigh as he sees that she's okay. That's much better than a wheelchair as far as transport goes, but Guardians don't last forever.

"Riesenlied... With that power, maybe we can actually stop this thing..." This isn't said TO Riesenlied, it's more Fei to himself like they often do in mecha shows so you know what people in cockpits are thinking, providing a key human element to what would otherwise look like two action figures being slammed against one another.

Fei is further tempted to just let it go when Ramses shouts at him. It might even be possible to release him and only harm Ramses in a condition like this but it's strange, because even now, even after everything...

...he has no idea why Ramses hates him so much, hell he has no idea why he hate Id so much.

"He can hear you." Fei says. "Why do you hate us so much? You don't care about the people we've harmed. What did we ever do to you?"

He continues to have no idea that he had an underground dig adventure with Ramses not so long ago. All the shrieking, all the pain--pain Fei feels almost as if it was his own pain, a thin barrier between his agony and the amalgam's.

Fei tries to keep the amalgamation between Ramses and himself. The creature continues to gnaw at Weltall's plating. Fei is so ruthless with his secret black box technology. fei snaps back and throws several quick kicks at the creature, keeping into the air so that if it starts gnawing it'll at least be on more heavily armored sections than Weltall's head or chest area which Fei is situated. He very much doesn't want to be eaten.

"We've done nothing to you."

GS: Fei Fong Wong has spent 3 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Ryuten!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Talise Gianfair's attack becomes clear!
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Talise Gianfair's Pop-Out Sturm Faust for 333 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Alexander charges brazenly....

...But at the last second, Alexander cuts its thrusters, drives its left heel into the turf, and skids, stopping short. Clods of turf and chunks of terrain fly up from around its feet as it cuts off all that insane velocity with a long, skidding brake.

Then a compartment in its left calf springs open.

Something bursts from that compartment. It's a stubby rocket with a couple of little vanes flaring from the tail, and it fires off with a boom of thrust, lobbing upwards at a startling angle to try and hurtle into the Wellion agglomeration, centre-of-mass.

Talise veers away once the sturm faust has been fired. She'd rather not be caught flat-footed when the anti-Gear rocket goes off.

>"Ida, Ros'! Hit it now!"

GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ryuten for 208 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied can glance momentary emotions, expression from her allies as she passes by; nothing more than a glance, but the intensity from the man originating from within the golden Gear was... intense. She wonders why, for a moment, he was so fixated upon Fei...

    But some part of her already knew. Because they both bore the same hurt.

    She can feel a great struggle from within the Alexander -- within Talise, she can sense. She gives her reassurance and calls her a saint, and... well-- she whispers out a, "I'm not sure about it, but... I believe in you, Talise," to her, even if she's not certain if her voice can carry... because she does.

    And because she hears 'MotherCUCCO' from the radio bands going on and reels back with a quiet flailing for a moment.

    Rosaline thanks her-- and her wheelchair is long crushed (and was just a regular wheelchair, without anything fancy) --but she can hear her as she whispers, "Hang in there, Rosaline... I know you can do this."

    Ida transmits another message to her, in the same header as when she mutated into the Remnant -- something that helped rein her back. And she can only hope Ida can find the Ley strengthening against Malevolence as well. "... you're welcome."

    She pauses as she feels the Material summon weakening -- her own Medium thrumming to a halt as she feels the connection to the Ley faltering.

    It was exhausting.

    And it's an exhaustion the amalgam well takes advantage of as darkness roils and fumbles outwards, flinging her off as Odoryuk de-materialises, evidently, in cubes of data once more. Perhaps a characteristic of her summoning, even now. "Ah!"

    She winces for a moment further as she reaches out and looks to Weltall in the distance, but enough of the Ley alights her towards... Hellerune, as she clings onto its hand with a bit of a 'thunk'.

    "I--I'm all right, Fei!" she calls out, because she knows he'll probably want to know. She's breathing harder than ever, but she looks to the amalgam again--

    Her heart squeezing tighter as she hears it again. "I'm sorry. I can't take away the cold, but..."

    As she hangs against a nail of Hellerune's, she holds her hand out as the Dragon's Tear shines with an indefatigable light--

    "But..."

    --a familiar, coalescing light that forms within her arm into the shape of the Fereshte Heritor's crystal sword.

    "I want to understand... some of that pain of yours."

    A thin beam of light streams from the tip of the rapier-like blade, cascading outwards to the Amalgam as she channels what is left of the Ley within her to bring that feeling outward and onward.

    "So here... even if it's not much...
     Have some of my warmth."

    She might not be mind-delving into a mass of Wels, because... well, that's exceedingly dangerous even for Riesenlied, but it doesn't mean she'll leave them be.

GS: Riesenlied has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Laevateinn!
GS: Riesenlied takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

From yards and yards away, Talise has the decency to blush over even the slightest hint that her potty mouth threw Riesenlied off her game....

GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Laevateinn for 0 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Hellion Amalgam!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

The abomination descends upon her once more, attempting to take advantage of her current situation, with her mobility somewhat limited. But Layna doesn't fear - the Corsair holds strong, and while it's busy with her, others are moving to take advantage of the situation.

The Zephaniah slices through it with a vicious claw strike, and the Hellerune unleashes terrible, crackling violent darkness. Both of these give Layna room to put a little distance between herself and the massive, Hellionized Reaper.

>"Good work, me hearties! That'll set 'em right!"

Layna's grin can be heard in her tone, as she retreats. She whistles appreciatively as Talise manages to land a solid hit, though she's briefly distracted by something.

>"...When'd she get a flyin' horse? There sure is somethin' relaxing about it, though."

Layna comments, finally noticing Riesenlied flying about. She isn't directly affected by it, but even so there was still something inspiring about it.

And so, she turns her attention back to the abomination.

>"You know...there's a button here I've been wanting to press for a good, long time. I think now's a good a time as any, aye?"
A wide, menacing grin crosses over Layna's face as her finger descends upon a button. It's a big button, with three words on it. Reading...

THE BIG GUN

The plating that had shifted over the Corsair's chest recedes, making way for a rather large cannon pointed directly at the Hellion Amalgam. This cannon's original purpose was to cut a path through a cave-in, to allow the pilot to escape. Now, however, Layna aims to put a hole right through the Hellion itself.

Her raucous laughter can be heard over the communication lines. Somewhere, her Lead Artillerist sighs and shakes her head.

GS: Layna Manydays has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Hellion Amalgam with The Big Gun!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's The Big Gun for 571 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

'he can hear you'

Kahran Ramses freezes. For Fei, the words are an offhand remark, a flippant acknowledgement of something he's sure the Gebler commander already knew. But there is knowing a thing and then there is knowing it, and Fei's comment is a full and final confirmation. By his own words, he has admitted it. Fei Fong Wong is not the Demon of Elru. but the Demon lives inside him. Can hear him. Can---

'why do you hate us so much'

(darkness and glass and muffled voices, the faint shifts in shadow barely noticeable unless they are the only things you can see in the world, a thing you look forward to, pine for, spend hour after hour searching for the slightest glimmer, only now the voices are quieter, and there is a harshness there, because you've failed, you've failed, the only thing you were ever meant to be in this life and you've already failed, and then there is pain as you're expulsed from a womb of glass and steel, into a light so bright and terrible that you don't know the sound shredding your ears is your own voice, because you've never heard it before, and now you're falling---)

'you don't care about the people we've harmed'

(---the taste of copper in your mouth, something's torn inside you and you're choking on yourself, and you can hear the voices, people you've known for five years - for your entire life - screaming in terror and agony as a red monster rips them from their cockpits and ends them, and he's laughing, he's laughing because you failed before you were born and you failed again here, and you have to live with that - you have to live with that - and he won't stop laughing, why won't he stop---)

'what did we ever do to you?'

it is this last question that sends a scream ripping up out of the depths of Kahran Ramses' soul, every inch of pain, rage, agony and fury erupting from him in a single, wordless cry. Wyvern erupts in golden light as Ether - more Ether than even Lily has seen someone hold before, more Ether than should even exist - blazes out from its battered frame. Tendrils of darkness flicker out from the Hellion; they are consumed. Beams of light slash inward; they are turned away. Wyvern raises its hand upward, and Ramses pours everything he has, all that power, all that fear and anger and all of his sorrow, into a brilliant, blazing sun.

"YOU!"

Ramses' voice is brittle glass as he pulls his hand back, the brilliant sun swelling to three, then four, then five times the size of the Gear that created it.

"TOOK!"

Ramses throws his hand downward, sending the flame rushing toward Weltall. The Wellions may be in the way; Ramses does not care. Riesenlied may be in the way; Ramses does not care about that either. At this time, in this place, he will burn the world itself so long as he takes the demon with him.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEERYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYTHIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!"

GS: Kahran Ramses has activated a Force Action!
GS: Kahran Ramses has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Hate Hate Tenkyoken!
GS: Kahran Ramses takes 28 damage from Acid!
GS: Kahran Ramses has completed his action.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Kahran Ramses's attack becomes clear!
GS: Hellion Amalgam guards a hit from Kahran Ramses's Divine Wind for 237 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

>"Thank you so much, I-- Dust Dragoon!" Rosaline radios Ida, as she sees precious additional data scroll onto her viewscreen. "I'll give it a shot."

She got away from the Hellion intact, and takes the opportunity to switch to freezing rounds and hopefully finish this... But Ida isn't so lucky. In a moment's horror, Rosaline only catches a glimpse of her friend's plight, and a moment later, a wave of that dark mist flies towards Zephaniah. Talise heroically interposes herself to protect her from further attack, but the dark blade proves hard to elude. Rosaline bounds away, and yet the wave homes in on the Gear, knocking it off course and sending the Gear sprawling and its rifle skidding away.

Two of the cockpit's screens flicker off. In the remaining one, the Etone can only see this seemingly invincible monster straight for her nightmares, dangerously close to two of her best friends.

'Good work, me hearties!'
'Hang in there, Rosaline... I know you can do this.'
'Ida, Ros'! Hit it now!'

There is no response from Rosaline. The fallen Zephaniah remains still. And then...



In a brilliant flash, an explosion rocks Zephaniah's torso, where the cockpit is located. A white form flies out of the suddenly immobilized Gear.

Light floods the wastes, giving the illusion night has turned to day again. The source is a brilliant shape, hovering over Zephaniah. Looking at it with the naked eye may be ill-advised, but luckily most here have access to Gear equipment, allowing one to filter, zoom, enhance, and...

The floating shape is Rosaline, her eyes glowing with Etheric power as her hair has flown loose, burning as immaculate white flames in a way reminiscent of her former Hellion form. Somewhere along the way, her Etone uniform has turned a pristine white as well, with ornate gold trimmings and an excessive amount of trailing and billowing fabric giving the entire thing a ceremonial air.

Her expression is perfectly blank as she regards the Hellion amalgam. This is why it may come as a surprise when her next few words are shouted in barely-contained fury. No radio is necessary to hear her.

"You sicken me, abomination! BEGONE FROM THIS WORLD!"

She extends a hand, palm first. What she's doing isn't entirely clear, until a sphere of crystalline light forms around a portion of the monstrous giant, engulfing several of its symbols. It clears away a moment later, leaving...

Nothing.

The simplest analogy that might come to mind is a hole in particularly disgusting swiss cheese. Where did all that mass go? Wherever that is, it's gone without a trace.

And yet, the floating, glowing Rosaline looks at her own hand with great displeasure, as if staring down a misbehaving child.

DC: Rosaline Calice switches forms to Wrath Immaculate!
GS: Rosaline Calice has activated a Force Action!
GS: Rosaline Calice has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Mysterium Fidei!
GS: Rosaline Calice has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Rosaline Calice's Mysterium Fidei for 410 hit points!
GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice!
GS: Hellion Amalgam enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

It is an ugly battle. The violence of it continues to tear at the edges of Lily's psyche, the screams of cold audible only the least of it. Maybe it can hear, in turn--but Lily has to block out those sensations as best she can.

Lily focuses all of that violence that she can into her spell, letting it drop from her hand and hang onto the horrific titan for as long as she can manage it. Like, and unlike; this much is true.

It reaches, and no, it cannot grip her, but that fog can. Lily feels it sinking in, feels the awfulness, and Dog whines within the cockpit... But Lily breathes in, and draws that power straight towards her, fighting fire with fire in a dangerous game--

And her eyes cloud over, sclera and iris both fading until her eyes are fully black staring forward. "...Charging," Lily murmurs. Then, thunk.

Hellerune's hand curls, gently, shifting to provide a platform for Riesenlied, ever-so-carefully so as not to dislodge her. Lily doesn't have to say anything to her.

...But it might have been better if she had. The Wyvern's pilot makes his answer known. Lily Keil understands hate; she understands rage. Deep, deep within it boils, threatening to spill out, to overcome every other aspect in need to destroy that which has been set against her, to annihilate it unto the last speck. It is thus that she understands what she is feeling when that pilot's power blazes forward with incredible force. "Riesenlied--" Lily's voice calls over the radio, and then the sheer power of this level of Ether is plain; beyond anything, beyond what should be, only hinted at in whispers; the light stuns Lily in her Gear, leaving her nauseous, her vision swimming, the markings along her skin blazing just from what is given off.

She forces her Gear to turn with a blind motion of her hand, to put herself between Riesenlied and that power, but even then--the power that she had drawn in herself, that she was starting to channel, still burns around her, all the worse for what radiates from that sun. It begins to burn, Lily's skin blistering along her circuit markings.

...So it is all too easy to miss Lily's attack, after the spectacle of Kahran Ramses's Ether. She does not call forth a sun; she does not create anything. She merely reaches out... and pulls. Rips, channels the power coursing through her and her Gear to the point between her and the great Reaper before them.

Nothingness erupts in that space; sometimes, Lily's darkness is pure, untouchable, free of the sort of corruption that Malevolence offers, and this is... technically, also true. But there is something wrong in it, a will not brought into being with brilliant light but twisting reality into the shape it must take.

Hellerune simply lets loose from its eyes and mouth and hand a torrent of dark power that seeks to utterly annihilate everything in its path as if it had never been.

...And within the cockpit, Lily lists to the side, alarms blaring from all sides.

GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lily Keil has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Omega Protocol!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Omega Protocol for 468 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Rosaline's shot reduces one of the Wel's heads to black goo, the grotesque, satisfying splck filtering through the Dragoon's pickups. Ida manages a smile, even as tension crests like a wave inside her. The amalgam screams, and Ida's smile turns to a grimace, teeth clenched, face pulled tight.

>"Alexander--acknowledged. Cannon charge is building to full, a few more minutes..."

    The amalgam's spindly arm lashes out. Ida cuts off mid-transmission, twisting the right stick back--the Dragoon's right arm flexes, twisting to put the thicker forearm armor in the way of the Wel's strike. Bone tears through metal with a hideous, metallic screech. More of that silvery stuff pours out of the Dragoon's Dragonbone endoskeleton, even as the original plating hits the sand.

    A moment later, Zephaniah goes flying. Ida watches it out of the corner of her eye, sees the damage report flood in from the Gear's computer. Her teeth jump on edge.

    >"Rosaline!"

    Time seems to slow as more adrenaline floods Ida's system. The Ether sensor blares a warning a moment later; the Dragoon turns on its heel, a camera fixing on Wyvern as its Ether output skyrockets. In a heartbeat, the sensor is overwhelmed, and shuts itself down.

    >"Fei!"

    You're out of your depth.

    Ramses howls in fury. The Dragoon does not move--its gun is still trained on the massive Wel amalgam, but it seems torn between the threat to Zephaniah and the threat to Weltall.

    Pick one.

    "Back, monster!" Ida roars, as if the amalgam could hear it in the confines of her cockpit. The ambient Malevolence parts around the Dragoon as its pilot reasserts herself, flowing around it in streams of violet. The Dragoon draws the Three-Dragon Cannon to its shoulder, and fires. Lightning races along rails inside, chased by a slug of ferromagnetic metal. It clears the barrel with a tremendous crack. Ida pulls the trigger again, and again, and again, firing more rounds into the monstrosity.

    And then a pale light shines into her viewscreen, and one of the cameras focuses on the tiny, floating figure. Ida's jaw goes slack.

    "...Rosa...?"

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Rail Accelerator!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Hellion Amalgam guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Rail Accelerator for 193 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Hellion Amalgam has posed.

    The amalgamated Hellion, already far beyond aggressive, takes the apparent opening presented by Talise's Alexander. It lunges for her, spewing tongues of dripping darkness in an array for the so-apparently defenseless Gear--
    The missile slams into it after, evoking something that might be a scream.
    Anyone listening with their eyes covered might mistake the sound it makes for a shattering steel beam. It roils backwards, attempting to regain its balance.

    If it were not for Riesenlied's sudden incedence, it is entirely possible it would have descended upon Talise to vent the pain and rage it now feels.

    'I'm sorry,' she tells it.

    "i"

    "i"

    "i--"

    A bit of the Ley filters into its body; its voice cracks.
    "i want to die," speaks the amalgam, before the darkness within it swallows up even that light.
    And then, once more, it screams, a broken mechanical wail of sound. Writhing as it in agony, it lunges for Riesenlied--

    "cold"

    And thus, the Gear where she now rests.
    It doesn't reach. Weltall snaps out a series of kicks that, even as the thing attempts to evade, still clip it, and more importantly, knock it askew. Backwards.

    Facing Layna's Gear. The mass of the Abomination rises, and if it still had eyelids, perhaps it would blink in its confusion as part of the Gear unfolds to reveal the Big Gun.
    A roar that would shake the heavens to their very foundations echoes out into the early night, the sun now a distant memory below the horizon. Black tar oozes from the gaping hole in the middle of the wretched creature.
    And still, it moves. Still, it screams.

    The markings that line its body begin to shine again.

    No sorceror would dare engrave something like this on their own flesh.
    For it is likely that the force so enscribed would undo them.

    For an existence like a Reaper -- a Reaper so altered by the touch of Malevolence -- no such concerns are present. It invokes that forbidden magic with a hoarse scream.

    Light. There is light, from out of the darkness. It coils around the form of the twisted abomination in a swathe. Unfolds into a brilliance rivaling that of the sun.
    More than the sun?

    And detonates outwards into coruscating tongues of electrical discharge towards those unfortunate enough to be near.

    In the heart of this a light arises from the Zephaniah. Remaining heads swivel towards it, their glassy eyes shining against the light. It jerks upright. It lunges for that small figure, swathed in brilliance. Again a solar light erupts around the abomination--
    And is gutted.
    The rule of Symbology is this: you must have the appropriate Symbols etched on your body to use your spells.
    Riddled with holes in a half dozen or more critical places, that spell is now lost to it.

    But not all of its illicit magic.
    Remaining Symbols shine, dredging out from within this darkness made flesh--

    The cold. The endless, painful cold that cannot be sated.
    Eternity, in the blink of an eye. The air freezes around Rosaline, and only proceeds onwards, inwards, from there.

    Into this moment, Ramses intrudes, detonating (nearly?) a sun's worth of Ether into the remnants of the amalgamated Hellion; it has but a moment to hiss at him, a moment to vomit forth more dark fog to well across the field, across him and the object of his hatred.
    Before the onrush of Ether carves from the battered abomination yet more of its flesh. It is by no means reduced -- see now as the holes Rosaline rent in it begin to knit together, sans the Symbols -- but it has become less of itself.

    Less, and less, when Lily and then Ida unload their weapons upon what remains.

    The railgun discharges a round for the atrocity, peeling more of itself from itself. A part that might have been a limb, might have been a head.
    A pure blackness spewed forth by a Gear cauterizes what remains. Not even ashes remain.

GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Talise Gianfair with Void Decay!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has activated a Force Action!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has spent 5 Combo on Gatling, including 4 on Gatling!
GS: Hellion Amalgam enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Riesenlied with Kugelblitz!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Layna Manydays with Kugelblitz!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Lily Keil with Kugelblitz!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Kugelblitz!
GS: Talise Gianfair guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Void Decay for 276 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Rosaline Calice with Frozen Star!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has activated a Force Action!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Kahran Ramses with Dark Paradox!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Dark Paradox!
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes 16 damage from Corrode!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has completed its action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Dark Paradox for 0 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Kugelblitz for 87 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: CRITICAL! Kahran Ramses takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Dark Paradox for 0 hit points!
GS: Break, Cripple, Poison, and Slow! Statuses applied to Kahran Ramses!
GS: Riesenlied critically Guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Kugelblitz for 43 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes a solid hit from Hellion Amalgam's Frozen Star for 239 hit points!
GS: Reaper! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes an additional 5 damage from Reaper!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Hellion Amalgam's Kugelblitz for 264 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has lost 1 Combo!
DC: MISS! Lily Keil completely evades Kugelblitz from Hellion Amalgam!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

This time it isn't just the negative emotions of the Wellion that Fei has to contend with. He can feel it from Rosaline. The disdain. The displeasure. The fury. Were this any other situation, Fei would likely drop everythijg to try and reach Rosaline and reassure her, support her until her rage returned to managable levels in order to avert the potential mewvolent catastrophe.

But there is Rosaline's rage, tempered as it is from her growth and experience as a Hellion...

And then there is Ramses. Perhaps objectively, the rage is of similar potency but in the realm of the mind and the heart, subjectivity is power. Fei feels an anger that borders on the unimaginable but fei can imagine rage like this. He feels it within himself, from time to time. It was that rage that dictated Id's actions, a rage even now smoldering within his chest.

It is a powerful enough rage directed so strongly at him that blood starts dripping rapidly from Fei's nose from the empathic feedback. He doesn't notice.

Id does not know what Ramses is talking about. When Id became the demon, he saw Solaris as one entity, a manyheaded hydra he intended to slay. He does not remember Kahm nor Lily Keil nor Ramses. He didn't until they forced themselves to be acknowledged. And now Id knows them.

Through their empathic connection, Riesenlied will feel some of that rage too, albeit diluted like feeling a movie of a movie, an image of an image.

Fei stares at the sun of ether, Feeling the hate hate hate stabbing into his skull. Fei wishes he was the kind of person who could shrug off such despair. Part of hin is that person but that person has cast aside the name of Fei

"I. ." Fei begins. He can tell Ramses of what Solaris had taken from him. His other self xould share every little bit of justice, love, hope, and desire that Solaris ripped uncaringly away from Filgaia to horde it for themselves.

But Solaris is just the latest iteration, a deep part whispers. For whatever cruelty they had meant, they returned his daughter to him.

"I'm sorry." Fei says. He doesn't know what he had taken. Logically in his brainmeats he doesn't even know what he is apologizing for.

But it is real enough for Ramses. "I'm sorry...."

Weltall dashjets backwards and away from the nemesis in the Wyvern.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Kahran Ramses with I'm sorry!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Kahran Ramses takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's I'm sorry for 0 hit points!
GS: Kahran Ramses enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Kahran Ramses has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    It is perhaps fortunate that Riesenlied didn't remain ontop of Weltall's hand, when Ramsus evokes the entire sum of his rage in a welling raise of anger directed-- towards the Wellion, towards Weltall, towards them; there's a grimace as she hurts at that sensation of anger...

    There's more than anger there. A grief that she can only soft sense its depths thereof.

    "Id..." she whispers for a moment, glancing to the black Gear again. Could this have been her, if Wayside, if Old Petra, if any of their encounters had gone differently?

    But... she believes in Fei. And they have work ahead of them--

    And sees the flash from Zephaniah's torso, as Rosaline evokes something Riesenlied can't particularly sense well and blasts what seems like a finely shaped, round hole; she bite sher lip as she glances towards Layna in the Corsair and her Big Gun, feeling that sinking feeling starting to trickle back inside of her.

    Riesenlied--

    Lily's voice mercifully cuts her back to reality as she gasps and says, "Thank you--" as she grasps harder and winces as she realises how affected Lily must be from the surge of ether coming from That Man. And in reaciton--

    "Lily..."

    Lily lets loose with the strength of the Hellerune, or rather-- her own strength, amplified through the Gear... and she feels her limping as she calls out, "Lily!"

    The Three-Dragon Cannon rings in the back of her head again, as she whips her head towards Ida's way for a moment. She withers and--

    i want to die

    Riesenlied's eyes widen further as her light diminishes within the darkness. "No... no," she whispers as she stares towards the amalgam lunging, lowering her head in that mild measure of despair that's seeped into her.

    "I'm so... so sorry..."

    She closes her eyes, feeling tears flow freely as she whispers, "You're in so much pain... I want so dearly to help you, but--"

    But is visiting violence upon it the only way to stop it? The fangs of the question sink deeper into her, as the Medium begins to thrum deeper. As the agent that Alhazred visited upon her begins to thrum harder, pulling away at the corners of her mind--

    "Then I shall let proper due be done. By the customs of the Fereshte."

    The most of what she can do for Lily is to try to dissuade it from coming this way again; it's cold. It's so cold...

    "Material."

    Once more, unicorn antics take the stage as Riesenlied not so much rides as floats above the palm of the Hellerune, indefatigably coalesced upon the weave of the Ley that she's once more pulled upon her being. Every pore, every line, every scale within her body threatens to buckle as she empties herself as she is in the service of what she can be--

    In emergence of the Ley.

             "Hand in hand I beckon forth the Guardian of Life...
                This vessel, ever struggling for acceptance...
                                    I say--
                        This is our torch in the dark."

    An enormous mandala not dissimilar from those cast to light in Dragon form erupts around her wrist, as the demi-form of Odoryuk coalesces within a writhing, bounded field of what looks like data.

                       "A torch of guidance to the lost.
                        A torch of vigil to the strayed.
                      A torch of unity to the lonesome..."

    From the tip of the horn, the gathering light of pure Ley reverberates into a scintillating sphere refracting the many facets of the world's life. Blood starts to threaten to seep through her as she pushes her power to its limits.

    "Life shall continue... Material--"

    Riesenlied pauses, her tears flowing more freely than ever before. But she finds resolve, as she thinks of those struggling just as hard around her. She grips her hand--

    And it rains.

    It does not rain droplets of water; no, from within that sphere, a cavalcade of criss-crossing beams each freefall, piercing the Malevolent substance where it may find it; it seeks those that are cold, in desire to put it to repose.

                               "Paradise Lost!!"

GS: Riesenlied has spent 3 Combo on Headshot, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Material - Paradise Lost!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Riesenlied takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

A lot of things happen at once. The area practically lights up as intense power is brought down upon the amalgam all at once, darkening as Lily brings her power to bear, as well. Layna can hear the warnings emitted by her machine, but she ignores them - she can see them well enough from here.

There's one thing that comes as a surprise, though.

>"Is that...Rosaline?" Layna asks squinting at the light that emerges from the Zepheniah's cockpit. The voice that comes after is clear enough, even without zooming in.

Layna lets out an approving whistle.

>"Damn." She says. There really isn't anything else she can say about it that - she's just that impressed.

She isn't in a position to intervene or comment on the other conflict brewing on the battlefield, but she takes note of them. There is one thing that demands her more immediate attention - even through all the power brought down upon it, the Hellion still moves.

>"Even after all that? This thing is serious."

And then it unleashes its terrible power. Layna curses - this time without being able to shut her communications off- bringing up her anchor to shield her from the attack. The weapon absorbs most of its power, its surface scorched and scarred by the electrical discharge.

>"Just a little bit more, aye? You heard what it said - it wants this to end just as much as we do."

Layna, briefly, has a flashback to the Photosphere. To the people of Saint Centour, twisted into grotesque amalgamations by Alhazred - much like this creature. A frown crosses her face, and for a moment, she's quiet.

>"The Big Gun's outta juice, and the Corsair's gonna need a little time to recharge. I trust you can handle this without me for a second, aye?"

She speaks with a light-hearted, reassuring tone, but it takes some effort to maintain. With that said, she leans back in her chair...and watches.

GS: Layna Manydays has spent 1 Combo on Inspire, including 0 on Gatling!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Talise Gianfair with Let's Finish This!!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Talise Gianfair takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Let's Finish This! for 0 hit points!
GS: Talise Gianfair gains a Combo from Inspire!
GS: Talise Gianfair has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

The Hellion lunges, dripping darkness and lashing with terrifying tongues. Even as her missile makes it mark, those hideous appendages tear and rend at Alexander's armour. The Gear shields itself with its plating and sword, but armour buckles and shears nevertheless; the plating on the left side groans under successive impacts, punctured in places. The damage Odoryuk repaired threatens to burst open again.

Talise holds on for dear life as she's forced back - but there's a feeling that buoys her. She doesn't have a radio uplink to Riesenlied. But she knows the woman is there. With a breath, she looks off towards something in the distance.

>"Riesenlied...."

The Hyadean woman had been a friend even before all of this started. There's a goodness in her that Talise only wishes she could match. Even without a radio, the purity of Riesenlied's belief reaches her, and the swordswoman's heartbeat quickens.

Until Zephaniah goes down. Elation whiplashes instantly to a sick feeling.

>"ROS'!"

But there's that flash. Rosaline emerges like a rising star. Talise's mouth opens ever so slightly. "...Could she always do that?" she asks the empty air in front of her. Then she taps her headset.

>"Ida, could she always do that?"

Before her, the symbols upon the body of the amalgam shine, grim and cold. No Symbologist herself, Talise knows enough to know that Reapers don't normally have those. "What kind of wizard could have done this," she growls as she pulls back steadily, making room for others - for Ramses, screaming as he attacks, not at the creature, but at Fei. Talise stares a little before giving her head a shake and focusing. Alexander withdraws, gaining distance, storming across the ground, then accelerating a short distance before touching down at extreme range.

Talise has no magic to her name. She has no heavy cannon. She has no blessing from God; indeed, she's the only Lunarian to have been forsaken by Althena and denied her Blessing. But she does have one thing in her pocket.

Talise steels herself. Alexander squares to the foe - and with a broad sweep, points its huge combat blade forward, as if calling a home run.

A deep, guttural rumble reverberates through the Gear as Talise slides her hand onto the engine toggle and steadily ramps it up. Flames erupt from its burner cans as raw fuel flows and detonates into currents of intense heat and fire. The exhaust blooms out the back in intertwining orange-blue diamonds as Alexander leaps forward, a pair of short stabilizers unfolding from its backpack to keep it at a high-speed hover. The Gear accelerates, cranking that combat blade back. Both hands cinch around the weapon, one gripping the haft, the left clenched around the side handle.

Within seconds, Talise has closed the distance. She barrels at the Wellion abomination at insane speed. Leaning intently forward in her seat, she snarls - and cranks her arm.

    The air itself sings with the ringing note of tempered alloy.

Alexander lands in a crouch several metres behind the amalgam. Its sword is held off to its far side. It swung a perfectly horizontal blow. A few particles of badlands sand flutter through the air around it. Eyes lidded, Talise waits.

It's not until a few seconds later, if she did it right, that an angry slash just might begin to manifest upon the body of the amalgam beast. A vertical slash she's hoping will cut the symbological fiend in half.

"I can't bring you warmth," she says quietly. "Only mercy."

GS: Talise Gianfair has spent 3 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling!
GS: Talise Gianfair has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Dragon in Maximum Burner!
GS: Talise Gianfair has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Talise Gianfair has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

This creature wants to die. How could it not? Rosaline stares it unblinkingly, with only the mildest form of disgust on her expression. Does she feel any shred of pity for it? Her glowing eyes hold no answers.

She leaves it riddled with holes, but the greatest strength of an amalgam is its great versatility. It has yet another trick up its sleeve, one that seems to take Rosaline by surprise. The air freezes before she even realizes this is happening.

She doesn't move. Instead, white flames flare from her body. They should be enough to banish the cold, shouldn't they? They burn bright for a moment, even as the air remains still, a haze forming from the sheer difference in temperature...

Until they grow dim and flicker. Rosaline grits her teeth, extending her hands and flaring her flames up further, but they don't last long. Frostbite touches her lips, flames disappear to leave way for rose-colored curls and color returns to the Ethos habit.

"Stilll... weak..."

And Rosaline, now unconscious and suddenly concerned with gravity all over again, plummets.

NEW MINIGAME UNLOCKED: Catch Rosaline!

DC: Rosaline Calice switches forms to Etone Neophyte Rosaline!
<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

For a moment, so focused is Ramses on disintegrating the source of his fury that the tendrils of the Hellion's despair find a chink in the big man's armour. For a moment, they seem to find the purchase that would allow them to begin to touch his spirit, corrupt him, and claim him. For a moment. But then Fei Fong Wong apologizes for Id destroying Kahran Ramses' life.

The moment passes.

"Sorry?" Ramses bellows, anger and disbelief warring in his voice. "You're sorry? YOU? What... you..." The Gebler commander sends his Gear surging forward, Wyvern's blade flashing left and right to sever tenebrous tentacles almost negligently before they can strike him. Wyvern closes on Weltall, and the golden Gear's left hand wraps around the throat of the ebon titan. (Some part of Kahran Ramses' rational mind knows all too well that a neck strike is not debilitating on a Gear, but that part of his mind is not calling the shots right now.)

Wyvern rockets upward, taking Weltall with it, its head leaning inward, Ramses screaming into his viewscreen. "Never, in the history of Filgaia, has a single word proven so unworthy to the ask as you - YOU! - saying you are SORRY for what you have done to me! To this world! If you truly wish to beg forgiveness? Then wash your neck so it does not stain my blade!"

At a hundred metres or so up, Wyvern whirls in a circle and throws Weltall back down toward the Hellion; the golden Gear's Aerods arc out again, spiraling in a dizzying, circuitous pattern, carving lines of brilliant energy into the air. Ramses reaches into the depths of his hatred, every last bit he has, and throws the Ether blast down toward the earth; when it hits the Ether array Wyvern's aerods have drawn out, the beam triples in size, spreading outward in an attempt to consume Weltall, the Wellions, and frankly anyone or anything within the blast zone.

"I ACCEPT YOUR APOLOGY!" Ramses adds as the ground explodes.

GS: Kahran Ramses has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Apotheosis!
GS: Kahran Ramses has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Apotheosis!
GS: Kahran Ramses has completed his action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Kahran Ramses's Apotheosis for 268 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Kahran Ramses's Apotheosis for 441 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Hellion Amalgam guards a hit from Riesenlied's Material - Paradise Lost for 253 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Talise Gianfair's Dragon in Maximum Burner for 616 hit points!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    'i want to die.'

    The blood leaves Ida's face in a rush. She's been trying to keep from thinking about the why and how of the monster before her, but there is something in that voice--that voice that should not exist, Reapers don't speak, they only kill--that reaches into Ida and clutches at her heart. Someone took these things and turned them into this. Not even a Reaper deserves that.

    The markings branded into the amalgam's flesh begin to glow. "BRACE!" Ida roars, her voice pouring from the Dragoon's speakers. It's lost in the din. Terrible, searing light pours from the amalgam, fusing sand to glass, and pouring across the Dragoon's body. The Gear twists to the left, presenting the Reaper with intact armor, but all that means is that its left side is raked by cosmic energies. Alloy melts instantly, pouring down the Gear's frame in great, molten gobbets. Dragonbone groans under the strain.

    Ida blinks, and in that moment, the line between her and the machine ceases to exist.

    The Dragoon twists upright, and steps forwards. It shouldn't be standing after that hit, much less moving, but move it does--it circles around the amalgam, raising the Three-Dragon Cannon with both hands. In the cockpit, Ida snaps upright as the flesh at the nape of her neck pulls outwards in half a dozen places. Her right arm does much the same, ejecting tendrils like thin, metal-crystal nerves. She doesn't answer Talise--can't answer, she isn't sure--but she cries out nevertheless, a low, metallic rasp underscoring her voice.

    "GET AWAY FROM IT!" Ida roars. The barrel of the Three-Dragon Cannon begins to glow. Deep in the weapon's belly, flame filaments superheat, turning gas into plasma in heartbeats. Electrical filaments catch the plasma in their magnetic embrace, keeping it from erupting and destroying both the weapon and the Gear wielding it. Ice filaments chill the assembly, keeping the gun from melting under the strain. The whole thing is a work of morbid mechanical genius.

    The cannon erupts. A column of light as bright as the sun--and nearly as hot--surges at the amalgam, leaving a trail of glassed sand in its wake. A shockwave of superheated air blows past the Dragoon, and the other Gears. Ida holds the trigger--

    And out of the corner of her eye, she sees the Gebler pilot make his move, grabbing Weltall by the neck. Something flashes before her eyes--Fei holding Siegfried's body on the hull of the Photosphere. Her teeth jump on edge. She twists the cannon upwards, by about forty-five degrees.

    The erupting arc of plasma surges towards Wyvern, targeted precisely to spare Fei its wrath. Crimson and silver stream down the back of Ida's neck from the strain.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has spent 3 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Hellion Amalgam with Three Dragon Cannon - Breath Of The Sun!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Kahran Ramses with Three Dragon Cannon - Breath Of The Sun!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Kahran Ramses takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Three Dragon Cannon - Breath Of The Sun for 388 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Kahran Ramses!
GS: Kahran Ramses has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

It is difficult, in the moment, for Lily to focus on any of the displays around her. She can't keep track of most of them, not for lack of sight but for too much, her vision still swimming and her other senses reeling as if from a great and sudden light in the dark. She cannot help but vent some power; but just before, as that happens--despite her daze, a steady hand reaches for the controls, and maneuvering thrusters shove the Gear backward out of the path of the electrical discharge before it hangs limp again.

Riesenlied calls. "Riesenlied," Lily murmurs, but it may be audible anyway to Riesenlied, of all people, a sense of answer. From within where she has spiraled, Lily looks at that connection. She silently turns within herself, and there is something else that Riesenlied can do for Lily after all.

A torch in the dark. A power that is not blinding but steadfastto guide... And by letting herself focus on that, Lily is able to take a breath, and vaguely gaze at the displays on her screens--and blinking, soon more. "Fei," she calls on her radio. "What is your status?"

She sounds dazed, because she is, but where Hellerune had sunken into a slouching stance, the Gear stands once again, under control once more. ...More or less. As Lily perceives Ramses's continuing assault, she attempts to channel more Ether herself--And finds a sharp pain instead in her head, in her arms, all through her body, which on the bright side at least jars her into awareness. Sitting up suddenly, she sees movement on her display--

Falling. Rosaline, who moments ago was blazing, is cold and sinking, and Lily makes a decision quickly. She flips a few switches for a boost of speed and rushes, her free hand slipping out just to where Rosaline is about to fall--

It won't be comfortable... but unlike the ground, it won't be fatal.

>"Hellerune--going to have to--" Lily hisses out a breath, "Pull back."

Dog can't pilot the Gear for her... but she can bark and bark, and provide something to hang onto mentally.

GS: Hellion Amalgam takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Three Dragon Cannon - Breath Of The Sun for 432 hit
points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Hellion Amalgam!
GS: Hellion Amalgam enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Hellion Amalgam has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Hellion Amalgam has posed.

    There is no escaping the array of AERODs fielded by Ramses. Even a thing that should not be such as the amalgam cannot override the rules of the universe as such. It twists, yes. It raises a few series of twisted limbs in a guard.
    They're all torn asunder by the blasts of Ether, sections rent free, and still others reduced to ash -- no, not even that. A scream again rings across the southern wastes of Aveh, one that might make the residents of any settlement that yet stands near to the border shiver or take to the streets in fright.

    It does not end here for the creature.

    The flame that erupts after from Ida's cannon is as bright -- as hot -- as the sun.

    "cold," moans the abomination, wading through the flames, set alight like a torch.

    "cold..."

    Even this is not enough to quell the chill that its steeped into its -- their -- core nature. The Symbols that still lash them. The Malevolence that burns like a paradox furnace in their heart.
    Or their nature, as Reapers.

    Talise has but her blade.
    But at times, all one needs is a sturdy blade to fell a monster. No tricks. No sorcery.
    Nothing but tempered steel, delivered in a sweeping arc upon one's foe.

    Her blade cuts cleanly, carving a good half of the remnant of the Hellionized thing away into the night: it is but ashes, dust, caught in a sudden gust driven by the heat of the still-burning flame. Yet, even here, its flesh begins to knit together. Is this how it must be, for eternity? To continue on, in spite of...

    ...everything.

    A few drops darken the broken earth.

    The rains begin to fall.

    BGM: https://stuartchatwood.bandcamp.com/track/a-brief-respite-camp-theme

    Hissing streams of Malevolence exude from the Hellionized amalgam's damaged flesh, trailing up into the sky. It begins to slump, slowly, to fall forward upon the earth, curling up. It exhales a breath. It's almost, almost a sigh.

    One small voice whispers up into the night sky, the light upon the tattoos that marr its flesh fading out.

    "thank... y..."

    It collapses to the dead earth below, there to lie and move no more.
    Perhaps this may be a mercy.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei looks down at the floor as Ramses shouts at him incredulously. His guard is lowered and it's probably a good thing that Ramses isn't acting wholly efficiently right now but rather is using that different part of his brain. Ironically, that might be what saves Fei's life even as Ramses puts it in danger by seizing Weltall by the neck and rockets up into the sky.

Fei endures the abuse. He knows what Id has done to this world, after a fashion, but he doesn't know what Id has done to Ramses. He simply can tell that Ramses feels that it's true.

Ramses could make a lot of demands of Fei, feeling lightheaded from bloodloss and the sudden rise of altitude. Some of them Fei would even try to make happen.

Instead Ramses requests Fei to let himself be cut down before his blade.

'I want to die'.

It's a foreign thought, Fei realizes, and that makes him realize...it is a foreign thought. It isn't his thought. Fei has thought he wanted to die for so long that it's a surprise to him that this thought doesn't come from him but rather from the Wellion. A vision of a green haired child, a red haired woman, and then Riesenlied and then Ida and then Lily and Josephine and Leon and Noeline and the rest of the Wolves and even Cecilia, Cecilia of all people.

Fei raises his head and wipes blood from his face as Weltall plummets towards the horde. He has plenty of problems to worry about now but chief of it is the beams rippling towards Weltall.

Several hit, but Fei doesn't move Weltall out of the way. Instead he calms his mind, close his eyes, and...

...gives the ether a little push. The high energy stream of incalculable power ripples around Weltall as it crashes down past him towards the horde. Weltall is heavily damaged but not destroyed.

"No." Fei says. "I'm not going to die for you."

Fei jolts Weltall away and sends itself crashing to the floor far (enough) away from the amalgamation.

"I have too much to live for." Fei says, sounding almost surprised. "I don't care if it's unfair. I'm living. And I will repay what I've done to Filgaia by freeing it from Solaris's machinations."

"I'm sorry," Fei repeats. "That I can't give you more than that."

Tough words from someone whose gear can barely move but, then...

Fei has a good view of Ida's gear. The rage recedes from his mind as he remembers all the people who have struggled to live even as the Amalgation gratefully embrace death, perhaps Ida first and foremost amongst them but Riesenlied's own struggles in Fereshte village and Lily's own struggle to find the good in the world.

Fei still belongs with those trying to live. Fei still belongs with his dear friends.

<Pose Tracker> Kahran Ramses has posed.

For a moment, Kahran Ramses is certain he's done it. He's thrown the hardest shots he's ever thrown, and he's done so twice in succession. For a moment, the Demon of Elru was caught in a moment of indecision, and Ramses struck him down. For a moment, he's sure of it.

For a moment.

"...why..." Ramses hisses, his body shivering. "Again... and again... and again and again..." The big man's right fist slams into the side of his cockpit, shattering the screen there. "Again and again and again you refuse! Stand there, Demon!" he roars. "Stand there so I can /cut you dow---"

Ida's blast connects fully with Wyvern, blasting the golden Gear backward; the left arm and sword fly off insto the distance, and the machine hovers backward, belching smoke and fire. Ramses coughs through the acrid smell of burnt wiring, tears rising in his eyes as he surveys the field. The monster that was occupying the Demon's other friends is gone, and the opportunity to end it - if it ever existed - is past. For a moment, Ramses considers ending it all anyway, in one final strike.

For a moment.

But not that he knows the Demon is alive, knows what mask of flesh it wears... he cannot leave this world until the creature known as 'Id' has as well. "You are a twisted, broken creature, and everything you touch will wither and die," Ramses spits... then turns and blasts off toward Aveh airspace.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Hellerune interrupts Rosaline's fall. The nice thing is that while the fall is painful, she isn't conscious enough to feel it. She'll have to thank Lily later.

Zephaniah will need to be recovered, which may require the help of two or three Gears, seeing how its second of two cockpit explosions in one month has left it in an unpilotable state. The good news is, she can likely have it repaired good as new, with the bounty bonus on taking down a Gear-scale Reaper and Hellion at once.

And later, Rosaline is brought back to health with no complications, aside from frostbite and dehydratation from excessive spellcasting. She also seems to have no memory of... whatever she did back there, precisely.

Indeed, she seems a little confused. Upon waking up, she soon has tears streaming down her face:

"It's so cold..."

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Talise's blade cleaves through the Hellion. For a moment it looks as if it will repair itself...but the Malevolence trails from it, and the Hellion falls, slumping over and curling up.

And it thanks them. Nearby, the Gear that was attacking Weltall is forced into a retreat. She's quietly thankful for that - she's already used her Gear's most powerful weapon and she's not sure she's ready for another fight while her machine is still recharging from that.

Layna's quiet for a moment. She regards the fallen Hellion, shutting her eyes and folding her arms in front of herself. She thinks, considers, exhales...and then finally, she speaks.

>"When I find out who's responsible for this..." There's a brief moment of hesitation - very brief.

>"...I'm going to end them."

This happening wasn't natural - it couldn't be. Someone had devised that awful Symbology seared into its body. They had to have known what this was, and what it would do.

Layna would find them - but not now.

She returns the Corsair's anchor to its back, and takes a moment to assess the situation. They had all taken heavy damage from this fight. This very well could have gone in a different direction.

...But for now, she just has to take solace in the fact that it didn't.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

'thank... y...'

Talise's stomach twists into a tight, sickening knot. Not for the first time, her mind catapults back to the halls of the crumbling Photosphere. To Ines Colina, slamming down the mutilated and animate bodies of what her parents had been twisted into.

Closing her hands, Talise folds them over her control panel and bows her head. She murmurs a small prayer. Althena, whatever souls might still have lived within, may they find peace.

Perhaps Althena has forsaken Talise herself. But that doesn't mean the rest of the world has to be denied mercy.

She looks up, taking stock of where everyone is - Rosaline in particular, who has wound up in Lily's grip. Talise smiles with a touch of relief; she is fairly sure Lily won't try to murder the cat-nun.

Ramses blasts off, and Alexander's head turns to look afer the retreating Gear. A frown creases Talise's face.

>"Fei, your friend there's kind of a jerk."

>"And yeah, Layna... yeah. Someone's going to get the knife."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    A violent outbreak has erupted around Fei and the man in the Golden Gear; between Ida and him; everything starts stirring, and then everything also kind of goes 'wugh' as Lily makes a spot decision to grab Rosaline as she starts to sink--

    And she's knocked out of her reverie as she reaches forward to shout, "Rosaline!" as she helps drag her in, being, well, the current passenger of the Hellerune's hands.

    Once she's certain she can secure her, a soft light shines upon her as she channels the Medium of Life to sustain her, make certain she wasn't going anywhere.

    Fei withstands the onslaught as Weltall takes heavy damage, but does not face destruction.

    No. I'm not going to die for you.

    She bites her lip deeper as she watches Kahr abscond in the Wyvern, towards Aveh airspace; she slumps for a moment as she closes her eyes, the tears still freely flowing through her.

    The fear is back inside of her.

    To strike the creature down... even with the channeled power of Odoryuk, as if it were a relegation of responsibility... she cannot so easily flee from the guilt. Like the time she reeled out of control and attacked Emeralda in Dragon-form; it all fills her with an unpleasant, uneasy fear.

    "I don't..."

    thank... y...

    She cups her mouth and shakes her head, lowering her head as she starts to sob. Words failed her. Emotions failed her. And even if it was what the creature wanted...

    She looks up with tear-stained eyes to Weltall, choking for a moment. She says something incredibly obvious.

    "I don't... like Gears or fighting..."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Wyvern flees. The moment it's out of sight, it's like a switch being thrown in Ida's brain. She sags forwards, the strange filaments linking her with the Gear pulling loose, one after another. Ida's restraints pull tight around her, holding her upright even as her body gives out. She sucks in a breath, and smells ozone in the air, mingling with the scent of her blood.

    'thank... y...'

    The amalgam's final words linger in Ida's mind. Perhaps later she'll have time to think about this, to remember the time she overheard one of her mother's most terrible confessions. Now, though, everything is numb. Ida is exhausted. She's terrified for Fei and Rosaline. She toggles the speaker on.

    "I'm all right," Ida says. She does not sound all right. Her voice is a low, dry croak. "Is everyone conscious?"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"It's okay," Fei tries to reassure his friends. "They get to rest now. It's sad.... but they get to rest now." To think Fei is looking on the upside here even as he's laying on the ground in a half shattered gear. "They're a grateful dead."

IT's bittersweet, at least, but they get to rest. Fei can understand that feel in part, at least, even though he has rested many times.

"Thanks for the save Ida. If it weren't for you he'd've finished me off."

He considers Talise's words and Fei doesn't have a strong answer. His feelings about Ramses are more confused than they've ever been. "His anger is honest." is about what he can say.

And finally, of course, not liking Gears or Fighting...

"I'm sorry, Riese." Fei says. But it is Filgaia. Fighting will be a part of life for some time yet.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily can appreciates Riesenlied's help--moreso when she canstop and think, because the sorceress is having some trouble with everything this moment. A Gear's hand alone is not always the best thing to catch; Lily spots Riesenlied with Rosaline on her display, and exhales something like relief. There is nothing she can do towards the Wyvern, at this time.

...But she can feel Riesenlied's fear.

"...It's all right," Lily murmurs, and it crackles on her radio. "Not to like it. If everyone liked violence... then we'd have even more war than we already do... Riesenlied."

She closes her eyes, for a moment. Honest; anger...

"...Sometimes all you can do for a patient is help them face the end. ...I'm glad that I didn't have to do that for any of you, instead."

Lily winces, breathes in again. She is quiet, for a while.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise has to tune her radio a little to begin to pick up Riesenlied.

Just in time to hear Riesenlied crying. Talise opens her mouth slightly before pressing her lips together, slouching forward. Her shoulders sag a little.

>"If everyone were like that, there'd be no need for fighting anymore," she murmurs with a small, sad smile.

But it can't be so, she realizes even as she says it. Riesenlied's compassion is an exception. And in a garden full of only sweet lambs, all it takes to upend things is a single wolf.

Or am I just justifying myself again? Am I just trying to pat myself on the back and convince myself I'm not really just some barbarian, good only for smashing things? Is that why my friends keep me around - because all I'm good for is being a big dumb idiot who beats up bad stuff so others can have a little peace?

Talise doesn't say anything else. She's sunk in thought as ponderings of the origin of the Amalgam give way to introspection and doubt.