2020-08-15: Aurichalcum
- Log: Aurichalcum
- Cast: Timotheus Lovelace, Lily Keil, Ethius Hesiod, Leon Albus, Rebecca Streisand, Matilda Whitehead, Jacqueline Barber, Elhaym van Houten, Zed, Ida Everstead-Rey, Fei Fong Wong, Dean Stark, Gwen Whitlock, Hecatonchires, Malik Benedict
- Where: Kasutho Island
- Date: August 15, 2020
- Summary: The time has come -- after venturing through the corridors of the laboratory connected to the creatures attacking Claiborne, the confrontation with Timotheus Lovelace, Symbologist and creator of the abominations, can be had. But many questions remain.
DC: Timotheus Lovelace switches forms to The Fanatic Archmage! DC: Monster Mash switches forms to Hecatonchires!
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Weeks ago--
BGM: https://soundphenomenon.bandcamp.com/track/clinic-sickroom
"And you say you have located them?"
"Yes, Master Timotheus," answers the Viridian Wolves captain. If he's nervous about giving his report, he is professional enough to not let it show. "We have tracked them through your transmitters. By all accounts, they're harrying a town to the west. Claiborne, is the name."
The archmage's silence is palpable. He regards the captain with a gaze that could cut glass.
"It appears that... the situation," the captain continues, ramrod straight posture, eyes dead ahead, "has drawn the attention of various outsiders. Any attempt to retrieve the specimens now would hardly go unnoticed."
Timotheus Lovelace is an old man. He approaches the captain slowly, but with purpose, his cane tapping out a staccato across the floor. The captain does not move.
Even when Master Lovelace strikes him across the face.
"And it did not occur to you, once, that they might slay them and retrieve the transmitters? You absolute buffoon," the elder wizard hisses, shaking his head in disgust. "No matter. We cannot unring a bell. If they intend to come here... then we shall greet them."
He turns, barking to an assistant. "Vickers! Prepare the other subjects in the theatre. Yes, all of them. I have much to do." Timotheus pauses. "...And send her the data we have obtained thus far, then destroy our copies. I do not doubt I must abandon this place, but first, I will teach them a lesson for meddling in my affairs."
He returns his attention to the Viridian Wolves' captain.
"And you, get out of my sight," he says, waving a hand in their direction. "Take your lot elsewhere and secure the facility. ...Lest I put you to other uses."
The Viridian Wolves hardly need to be told twice.
"Now then," says the wizard, advancing towards the operating theatre. "Let the great work begin."
Now--
"Ah yes... right on time, I see. I had thought that would be insufficient to keep you. Come, then! Array yourselves before me!"
The operating theatre is clean.
Sterile.
All whites and surgical steel-grey, at a glance, there is nothing at all within the cavernous chamber. Just the surgical table. The lights set close at hand. The tools, glinting in that light.
Until one lifts their gaze, higher.
That's right. This is an operating theatre. There is plenty of room for observers to watch from above. Only a pair of helical staircases connect this observation loft with the space below.
One hand resting on his cane, Timotheus Lovelace gazes down at those who have entered the chamber. No one else appears to be present.
He is old -- certainly at least in his eighties, if not in his nineties. His dark skin is as gnarled as an aged tree, though his particularly plain robes permit view of only his hands, face, and neck. Still, even these are covered in Symbology tattoos of various colors: white, blue, and red. His white hair is trimmed neatly, and even his long beard looks well-maintained.
His sole eye, the left, glitters with malice. The other is covered by a heavy leather band that obscures nearly the entirety of the right half of his face.
"Very good," he tells them.
"If you have come here to stop me, I am afraid you are far, far too late," he says, and that terrible old man begins to smile. "I will tell you this much: what you seek is no longer here, and once I have finished with you, I, too, shall go to join it. But you will not follow. I am well tired of your lot involving yourselves in matters beyond your concern."
"This nuisance," he tells them, "will end here."
They have a moment to speak, should they want it.
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Martial Artist Ida!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily moved on, when others in her group headed back to get word to others. In the room with the obliterated Symbological trap, she stood for a moment, waited. She expects that he is waiting.
Lily Keil steps into the operating theatre, dressed in dark, close attire ideal for stealth in military style. Her solid-black eyes scan over the room; whites and grays, steels, clean. Tools; table. The implements of a particular kind of science; Lily recognizes them on a level important. She looks up... towards the staircases, towards Timotheus above. She remembers the eye she took; she remembers the malice in the other.
The sorceress steps forward, looking at his smile, and does not return it. "Then we'll have to find it when we finish here," Lily answers him. "Beyond our concern..."
"No," she says. "My concern is what I damn well say it is, Timotheus Lovelace." Her gaze is still rolled over in darkness; there is a sense of something opening, in the next moment, though nothing is visible, no spell is cast.
"Calling answering for your crimes against the world itself a 'nuisance'..."
"You can give my regards to my father when he joins you in Hell!"
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is among the trespassing nuisances. Curiously, he has carried one of Timotheus' guards over his shoulder with him - someone who by appearances is probably just unconscious rather than dead. That he has done so through the chamber that required speed to get through unscathed does not bode well for the trap in question, as it is something that requires significant effort on Ethius' part to keep slung over one shoulder. If this is intended to be a hostage situation, it's an odd choice - Timotheus does not seem to be the sort that would care for the well-being of a subordinate (a subordinate whose party claimed to not know what was going on and was just there for the pay).
Ethius also doesn't say he has a theoretical hostage either, so his reason isn't... that. The fact still remains, he's brought another body in here and he refused to tell the Caravan Kinship strike team as to why he would.
"You were already aware, then," Ethius remarks flatly as he stares up to the aged man who transcends him in Symbological skill and - arguably - lack of good moral fiber. "You maintained appearances."
He re-shoulders his burden - the act of which may be the only thing that betrays the odd, out-of-place man's annoyance in the matter. That complicates things - if they're after what allowed a Hyadean bioweapon to be repurposed and inflicted upon the countryside and it's no longer here, where is it, and who else has access? They are unspoken questions on his part as he continues to stare upwards at the knowing, confident smile of the archmage.
It won't end here - but he doesn't know where it's continuing.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon is walking behind Lily, today. At some point, on his way inside, he lost his coat; this leaves him wearing his button-up white shirt, his vest, and his trousers. He has an underarm holster, with a revolver tucked into it, and carries Argent Divider II in one hand. The weapon is currently folded up into its shotgun mode, and is rested on Leon's shoulder.
He looks up with a flash of irritation at Timotheus, finger curling about the trigger of the shotgun. Lily calls up to him, with a hot anger.
Leon calls up with a cold anger. "Cheeky, aren't we, for a dead man?"
His eyes shift -- taking note of Ethius, then the rest of his allies -- and then down at the operating room. Then, back up at Timotheus. The shotgun remains resting on his shoulder, but it is far from a casual pose. He is wound up, like a tiger ready to strike.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca Streisand is worn and tired from the effort of getting in here. She'd have expected this place to be covered with gore and blood, not pristine.
Yet it's sterility is compromised by her presence, as it is by Dean, Ida, Gwen and Zed. She's got a goodly amount of blood on her, though maybe not as much as some of the others.
Lily's statement gives her pause. The pure fire and vitriol that she hears from her is enough to realize it's personal for her. And so she simply triages her words to wait until after her. "As for us - We're here to see the wizard." Rebecca says flatly to Timotheus' greeting.
"But after what happened in Claiborne - the things we saw, I sure don't see one."
That statement is punctuated by the click of a hammer from her revolver like ARM, as she points it straight at him.
"Just a monster."
Rebecca's teeth grit together, as she squares up her stance, keeping one hand on her original medium, the other on her ARM.
"And taking care of monsters is just about the simplest job for a drifter to take on."
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
It's been... a long time since Matilda Whitehead and Timotheus Lovelace crossed paths. The last time she encountered him in any meaningful way was over a decade ago, now, when she was a child -- before life saw fit to change her. ... Perhaps before life saw fit to change *him*, too, though in hindsight the present situation accords well enough with her memory, the change having more to do with scope and ambition than apparent inclination.
There's part of her, though, that still finds this a little painful. Regardless of everything going on, Marze -- and by extension, Timotheus -- represents one of the few ties she has to theworld before she knew what the world really was. No matter what a monster he is (and indeed quite possibly always has been) there's something about that that makes it difficult to summon the sort of righteous anger that, say, Lily manages.
"... Timotheus!" Matilda shouts, coming in not long after Ethius. She wears the long white coat and deep brown gloves that were her usual two years ago, rather than the uniform of more recent make. She tries to think of something to say, but settles for the questions clearest in her mind:
"Why? ... and for how long?"
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline Barber and the Caravan Kinship have arrived. They managed to make it through the mysterious laboratory largely without incident - there was a brief moment where they ran into a group of inexperienced guards, but they were incapacitated quickly. And so, Jacqueline strolls through the door of the lightning bolt room, her attention fixated on the old man before them all as he speaks.
She doesn't interrupt him. She's not rude. But she is curious - 'what they seek is no longer here', he says. ...She's not actually sure what is they supposedly speak. Was there another abomination out there somewhere? Singular, by the way he says it. A frown crosses Jacqueline's face. ...That's a problem, but it's one she'll have to come to later.
"In that case... while you're still here, perhaps you could indulge me a question, Timotheus Lovelace. Turning people into monsters, attack Claiborne, and participating in the surge of Malevolence over Krosse... Why? Why are you doing all this?" Jacqueline asks, folding her arms in front of her and shaking her head. "What do you possibly stand to gain from this?"
Her eyes, momentarily, glance over toward Ethius. ...She still doesn't approve of what Ethius is doing, due largely in part for not knowing why. But she doesn't expressly forbid it - not yet. She's sure he has a reason. She hopes it's a good one.
Her gaze falls on Matilda, too, who was the same question for Timotheus - but more to the point. Jacqueline's expression softens for a brief moment, but returns to its previous stern gaze as she looks back toward Timotheus.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
And speaking of Hell, a redhaired woman in a loose fatigue jacket over a singlet, slacks, and boots, carrying a metal staff with her in an almost apologetic way, enters the operating theater a pace or so behind Leon.
Elly van Houten stares at Timotheus Lovelace. He's older than I thought, Elly thinks. But people look older down here, don't they? It's rare, but it happens.
She speaks aloud. "You must be very confident in whatever you're holding back to speak to us like this," Elly says. "I imagine you anticipated something triumphant, or else you would have left it here instead of speaking with us yourself."
Then she stops and gazes at the man. She doesn't seem to blink but that might just be the situation. Or her mind is
(estimate the space, the dimensions - this is a bowl shape - metal objects, probably frangible, likely medical equipment - oh, if I had the sense of perception, but that's a theoretical ideal anyway - the entrances? from the roof? it might be someone under a veil or behind some kind of stealth field ARM)
elsewhere.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"I don't know how you got a hold of the Demon Seed," a voice calls from the shadows, mirthful and furious all at once, "OR where you've sent it off to, but I'll find out one way or another. And then Alhazred's legacy can finally be left in the dust of history where it belongs."
Zed-- Metal Demon, Hyadean, swordsman-- emerges from the shadows, covered in blood that does *not* belong to him. His hands are stained red. A rivulet has dried on his cheek. "You human scientists always confuse me. I don't know why you're acting like you're some kind of so big, when all you're doing is cheating off someone else's lab notes. The least you could have done was to come up with an *original* invention, but I guess that's too big of an idea for a birdbrain like you!"
Zed.
Calling a man of science... dumb.
This is either DEEPLY INSULTING or hilariously hypocritical. OR BOTH. Maybe he's well aware of it? He's certainly smirking enough for it. "Whatever. Timmy Loveless, your ambitions come to an end here. Let's cut the crap and get this party started, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
As the Viridan Wolves hurry out of the room, another door opens. Footsteps echo through the operating theater, smooth and unhurried, as Timotheus makes his grand pronouncement. A figure steps into the light, and turns up to look at him. Like Lily, Ida Everstead-Rey is dressed for combat, wearing salvaged Hyadean combat armor and a long, bulletproof duster. Droplets of blood speckle her face, and cling to her armor. Very little of it is Ida's own. Both of her arms are encased in Hyadean exoskeleton, which glints in the light as she advances.
She looks at Timotheus for a long, long moment, face all but unreadable. Then, anger breaks the surface--hot and righteous, but aimed in just the right direction to be useful. "You're not leaving here alive," Ida says. Arteries press up against the skin of her face. quicksilver pulses, visibly, through them--she lets Timotheus see it, just as he sees the rage in her eyes.
"You blind, arrogant fool," Ida growls. "Do you even understand what you were toying with? What you used to torture and murder those people? What it represents? Or is it all just a novel phenomenon to you?!"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong walks in with Lily and Leon. He looks towards Leon--and his Argent Divider II--and then looks at Timotheus. People call TImotheus a dead man, a monster--and it's tempting to use those terms--even for himself.
"No." He says. "He's not a monster. Monsters are far kinder than what he is: Just a miserable human being."
He shakes his head slowly. Normally he'd be pretty hype to punch Timotheus in his stupid face just for Josephine's benefit, but now he can't help but know that right nw? Right now Josie and Timotheus are working for the same masters.
"And you'ree an old man. I doubt telling you that you're gong to die has much meaning for you. You're already on the way out from this world. I can...just wait for that to happen. Sure, you'll probably hurt a lot of people in the meanwhile, but you won't be able to hurt enough so that you live on."
He shrugs his shoulders. "And I suppose threatening you by burying your name in history isn't going to mean much to you either. If you cared about public recognition, you wouldn't be the kind of man you are. Solaris is likely to do that anyway."
He raises his head. "Besides, ending your life is kinder than what you've done to those people."
He gestures forward with one hand. "But you fancy yourself a promethean, don't you? So perhaps a promethean fate is what's just."
"So perhaps what we should give you... Is life. An eternity of ravens tugging at your entrails."
He raises up his arms in his stance. "What do you think, Tim? You wouldn't mind that, wouldja?"
But then--anyway--with that he lunges for Timotheus, intending to clock him in his face.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
'taking care of monsters is just about the simplest job for a drifter to take on.'
"Did you get that line from a novel, or did you make that up yourself?" Dean wonders to Rebecca, quiet enough for just them and maybe a few closer Drifters to hear. "I'm just wondering, because it's a really cool line."
He clears his throat then, though, because a lot of people have shown up in spades in this sterile operating hall that--fortunately--has no one on the table, as it were. Just an old man radiating malice, ready to murder them all before leaving for wherever he's going next. "Anyway, you can say what you want, old man!" he calls down to Timotheus, Twin Fenrir flashing into hand as he readies himself for combat. (Is that Matilda?? He hasn't seen her in ages! He's glad she's doing--hm. Considering where they all are, maybe "okay" is not the best word?) "We're the ones who're gonna put a stop to *you*!"
He doesn't have time to goggle at Fei's line, because Fei then moves to punch an old man. Not that Timotheus doesn't deserve it, but dang, an eternity of ravens tugging at his entrails? Was his friend always that brutal?? (Probably yes.)
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The courier that files in after Rebecca, Ida, Dean, and Zed is likewise stained with some blood, a part of it her own, judging by the quick wrapping of bandages over her right shoulder, the wound courtesy of the Viridian Wolves unit they had left behind.
Looking around the equipment, Gwen finds a certain familiarity present in the more common ones displayed. The room's setup is unique, however, and when Gwen looks up, she's not expecting a theatre. Didn't she read a book or two about places like these, in her auntie's library?
He talks from his perch above them, and she notes the stairs.
That crow black part of her questions the possibility of shooting the man right then and there, while his attention is spent speaking to them in what he feels are their final moments. But then, she may silence the sparse amount of information the man may still offer to them, while he feels he has the upper hand, she reasons a second later.
After all, Gwen never saw Claiborne, she only heard stories. Chief among them was Ida's struggling through her feelings over what she saw that day. It's not her place.
But, when Fei makes his move, rushing to meet Timotheus, Gwen begins to aim, ready to add cover fire at the very least to Fei's own efforts.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
"Ah... then you must be Miss Keil," the magus murmurs. "Indeed, I can already see the family resemblance." His sole eye narrows; his work -- as must be assumed by the presence of the Viridian Wolves here (indeed, see one of the Colonel's men here now, born by Ethius!) -- with Dietrich must not have been pleasant for him. "I am certain your father would rather you alive. But his affairs are none of my concern. No, if he wanted to see to his spawn, he has done a poor job of it! Now, I wonder which of your eyes I should take first..."
He hasn't forgotten or forgiven her that, it seems. His remaining eye soon tracks to Leon. "A 'dead man', you say? We shall see!" His relationship to the Wolves, it seems, the archmage knows not. "I believe that I owe you for my pains in Krosse..."
Whereupon his gaze settles on Ethius. "Ahh, the false one. I had so hoped you would come. I have not forgotten your trickery. But it is no matter. You will not be leaving this place alive."
Elly, too, he remembers from Krosse -- she who used such magics that he had only ever heard in rumor until that day. When he had seen not only her but Lily unleash such power. "Indeed," he says simply to her, and for a moment, perhaps Elly can see in his smile the parent of the one Josie often wore, right before she unleashed mayhem. Heredity is a strange creature.
One face stands out to him, it seems, though it takes him a moment to put name to the young woman. "...Ah. Now I remember. You were sent to Marze to study, oh... how long ago was it..." The wizard clucks his teeth, then shakes his head. "Never mind it. I see you have put in your lot with the lesser as always, Whitehead. Always focusing on that which has no value. Just like that wayward daughter of mine. But, no. It has been so since I did leave Marze, summoned by the King of Krosse. A failure that was, but it led me towards something more."
He pauses, tilting his head as if to consider something. "...Hmm. I suppose the same might be said of you. Well then, Whitehead! Would you care to become more than a failure?"
Please explain, Jacqueline asks of him, and here the wizard sighs and closes his sole remaining eye. "Very well. Then I shall tell you simply: what happened to Claiborne was accident, an occurance born solely of my sorry underlings. ...I do not expect your sympathy or understanding, of course. As to what I am attempting... I am attempting eternity. Has it not been the dream of man to extend his life? Or to live forever? This flesh does not die or fade, unlike our own. ...Where Malevolence failed, perhaps 'Living Metal' shall prevail!"
Someone else catches his eye. "Oh?"
His gaze settles on Ida as quicksilver pulses in her veins. "How utterly fascinating. You are not one of mine -- oh no, of course you are not. So what are you? A natural sport? Or has another mastered the craft?" He waves a hand, as if to dismiss her claim that his work here is at all dangerous or misled. "You fail to understand the importance of this, girl. I would have thought you, who has a piece of eternity within, might comprehend it... but clearly, your maker has failed you. So be it."
Rebecca -- as with Dean -- is a fresh face for him, he frowns as he gazes upon them as if he were attempting to place the two of them. She's here to see the wizard. But there is no wizard here. Just a monster.
Timotheus lets out a deep chuckle, rising nearly into a proper laugh. "A monster, am I? I am merely a seeker after eternity, as I was so promised! But if it is monsters you seek... then it is monsters you shall have!" To Dean in particular, he speaks, "I will see you try, boy!"
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Fei, by contrast, has a familiar-enough face. "There you are," he murmurs, his gaze on him as Fei--
Speaks to what drives the wizard. Timotheus' response is to laugh at him. "Eternity is yet in my grasp. Soon, I will have no need to listen to such drivel any longer."
But it's Zed alone who comes at him from that particular angle. Who accuses him of intellectual fraud.
Rage blooms in the overconfident magus' face, and he lifts a hand from his cane to point down at Zed. "How dare you!? This work represents untold hours of my life -- time which I can scarce afford! With what I was given, I alone assembled this work, my true magnum opus of metal and flesh! I know not this 'Alhazred' but I can but presume he scarce approaches the majesty of my craft--"
Fei has, in the meanwhile, made his way up the staircases to the where Timotheus now stands.
And clocked the wizard in the face, mid-rant. Should Gwen follow up his swing with a flurry of rounds, the will patter against he steel backing behind the chairs beyond the railing after.
The old man reels, grabbing for the railing to steady himself. "How dare you--"
But he straightens himself, raises a hand to adjust his robes and smooth out his beard, all the while fixing Fei with a look that could cut steel.
I hope," the terrible old man says then, "that you lot did not think I would await you here alone?" He waves a hand. The door to the chamber slams shut with a bang.
Timotheus gestures upwards, then, for the ceiling of the surgical theatre. There is... something up there. Something huge and--
"Come now! Exemplar of my craft!"
It descends.
BGM: https://stuartchatwood.bandcamp.com/track/the-chloroplast-of-cosmarium
<Pose Tracker> Hecatonchires has posed.
craft
now
my craft
come
come now
now
exemplar exemplar
come
NOW.
And oh, it's such a VIOLENT word. The imperative -- the impetus. It is all today and all at once, all piled on, all pushed together.
Please be quiet whilst the procedure begins.
Please be quiet, because that first sound is such a quiet thing. A perfectly-polished tile shifts. There's the grinding of grit as it lifts from its fellows, no longer waterproof. (Why was it waterproof?) It is lifted and it falls with a clatter because --
Please be kind. It was never designed to be arboreal, none of its composite parts. Living Metal can be a claw, and that claw can sink into the ceiling. Human flesh cannot be a claw if it was not a claw in the first place, and it dangles. Yes, Elhaym: from the roof, in a fashion.
There, a leg, a foot. There, a hand. A hand, a hand, a hand, a hand, a hand, a hand. A hand.
No hand.
It's shaped like a person. It has a head, a torso, limbs. (So many limbs.) But there are arms fanning out from its shoulderblades, five dozen fingers like a mantle. A hand from the chest, linked so tenuously to its breastbone at the point of what passes for its elbow. It rips through its hospital gown, creates a plunging neckline. There aren't enough muscles to support it. There are too many muscles to support the arm where it ought to be, Living Metal surging out around strong mortal flesh. Maybe that hulking thing, like a gorilla's limb on a man, is making up for the other side: there's nothing peeking out from where that second shoulder ought to sprout.
Too many legs. It isn't a spider; a spider's legs all fit. It has its two Living Metal legs, shiny and gleaming in their normal places; but sharing the same joint are two mortal limbs, one long and elven-slender, one sturdy the way beastwomen are sturdy.
Too many eyes. It isn't a fly; they're not compound things, in the sockets. There's just MORE of them. Two eyes, three. One is slit like a beastman's. One is bright like an elf's. One is brown, the way human eyes are brown. They blink independently. They see. They see YOU.
There's one long elven ear; one is smaller. Does it hear?
Perhaps it hears enough.
Please look out overhead. It drops like a beat, down on the thud, and for so so so long it is a pile of limbs on the floor. So many limbs. And then its mantle of hands pushes it onto one side, helped by a shove from the limb at its chest; that monstrous hulking left arm pushes it up, and it must have been a gymnast, once upon a time. It has an excellent one-handed push-up. Up up up, and one leg bends to get underneath it, and the other bends around it, and it gets quite tangled; but Living Metal is not static. It moves. That leg melds around until it is no longer tangled, and there: it's on its feet.
It favours one side of its legs as it straightens, one metal limb and the other. The remaining two on the other side bend in the air, waiting for their turn. It's a necessary counterbalance, the way its one massive arm hangs from its left side; it sways back and forth, hands grasping, grasping.
Hecatonchires is come.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Is that so?" Leon ventures. "Then allow me to remind you of how they felt." He says them -- and then his eyes narrow. He listens as Timotheus explains, and it's an idea that Leon knows well: eternal life.
When Fei punches him in the face, mid-talking, Leon cracks a smile. But the smile doesn't last long.He takes a step backward, as he sees the terrible creature -- one composed of so many limbs, not quite fitting together right, and like some kind of demented homunculus.
He stumbles backward upon seeing it. His stomach twists; Timotheus is, indeed, not alone.
He looks back at Tim. "You're a bloody madman," he says, hoarsely. He swings his shotgun off his shoulder, down into both hands, and aims at the archmage.
Then he fires, a flash from the muzzle and slug sent hurtling towards Timotheus.
GS: Leon Albus has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Shotgun Blast! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Leon Albus's Shotgun Blast for 54 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"Oh boo-fucking-hoo!" Zed snaps back at the superoctagenarian sorcerer. "'Waah, I'm OLD and I spent TOO MUCH OF MY TIME doing UNETHICAL THINGS instead of ENJOYING LIFE and maybe SPENDING THE HOURS I HAVE LEFT WITH FAMILY!' Cry me a river, you old coot! All I see in front of me is a man who has wasted too much of his life making monsters instead of making memories!"
Fei-Id punches that man in the face, and Zed is honestly impressed for a split second about how Timotheus' skull does not instantaneously disintegrate into a spray of viscera and bone fragments. But more important is the thing that Timotheus summons from the ceiling. The... thing.
The thing.
The thing with too many arms. The thing with too many legs. A foul amalgamation of body parts and flailing limbs. Too many lives, shoved into an amorphous legion whose only experience is suffering.
"...You did all this... Without the benefit of Alhazred's research...?" Zed is silent for a full five seconds, which is also impressive in and of itself. But then he chuckles. Then he laughs. "Oh wow! THAT is the result of all your time? That... that thing?"
Zed shakes his head. "You're right. Alhazred's work is nowhere near yours."
He was *way* better.
Zed... plunges his blade into the ground. Light erupts, a pillar of brilliant, emerald power. A body dissolves. A form appears. Two mighty fists, sculpted of steel and power. A mechanical visage, stoic and heroic all at once. A cloak that billows and twists like a single, organic wing...
A giant, twelve feet tall... Charges out of the viridian conflagration to deliver a singularly boneshattering blow to the center of the Hecatonchires' writhing mass. "I don't usually like standing up for Alhazred's body of work, but in this case I feel *obliged!* Let me show you, you petty plagiarist! Your creation is nothing but a juvenile thesis! With the cursed power that Alhazred has given me, with the might of a thousand years of EVIL SCIENCE, I'll tear it to pieces!"
DC: Zed switches forms to Zedder Robo Dragon! GS: Zed has attacked Hecatonchires with Zedder Power Strike! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: Hecatonchires completely evades a hit from Zed's Zedder Power Strike! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The face is the memory of the blood, even if what is behind it is not, Elly thinks. Where did that come from, she remembers.
Fei speaks. He seems, almost inadvertently (or is it?) to share a certain 'Dream' with Timotheus. And yet, his energy, even here. Elly breathes out, watching him for a moment, but she shifts her grasp on her staff and turns her gaze upwards again towards the maniac.
And upwards.
Past him.
Elly gazes upwards as her mouth hangs open in sheer confusion, revulsion, horror -- something about this, something about it is echoing in the back of her mind. The sight of it is perhaps less than it could be, for the way was prepared, foreshadowed; and then a diamond appears next to her, a red jewel. It hangs there, doing nothing but throwing off a warm heat.
"... you sought eternity...? But you've denied it to these people," Elly says, softly, almost dispassionately. "You know how precious life can be. And you did this, even so." Elly trembles for a moment -- and then sweeps her staff upwards.
The diamond twirls as she gestures, bifuricates, polyfuricates, until -
Oh: When it touches flesh it erupts outwards into a clawing, flexible, burning construction of fire, like the hindclaw of a polydiplodial hawk pushing upwards at the thing, contending. A red glow fills the sterile cold of the area, back-cast from the flame as Elly holds one of her hands outwards, as if to mime it.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Hecatonchires with Thermo Crystalmelt! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Hecatonchires takes a glancing hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Crystalmelt for 62 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca flushes a bit as Dean asks whether she gots it out of a novel, because he thought it ws cool. "Came up with it myself." She says, clipped. "Anyhow, not really the time!" As Timotheus describes himself as a Seeker of Eternity, Rebecca doesn't even need a single second to respond, "Eternity... doesn't exist."
Oh she's certainly heard stories of seekers of such things. Immortality. Youth. From all kinds of tales and legends. Even if they're fun to think about, they're kids stories. And as she's not a kid, she feels that seeking such things is delusional.
Eternity feels like the worst kind of hell to her - even if she doesn't know in what way he seeks it.
As Zed gets under his skin though, the corner of Rebecca's lips tug in what's almost a smile. Seeing this man reduced to such anger. She doesn't gloat though.
And then, as he promised...
It's such a quiet thing. Just a flicker in the corner of Rebecca's vision. Like seeing a childhood nightmare that's typically fleeting. The kind that fades from one's mind instants after waking.
But you always remember how you felt.
Rebecca's pupils dilate a bit, and she has to keep her hands from shaking as she sees drop into a pile of limbs and push itself.
As it hits the ground, she steadies her hand. Pointing her ARM at the thing.
"It's going to be okay."
She says to the thing, as if reassuring herself, her voice is quiet.
"It's going to be okay..."
Eternity doesn't exist. This thing once must have been a great many lives, and her mind can't even comprehend their suffering.
It can however, comprehend ending it.
"... because it's all going to be over soon. Here we go!"
Zed charges in as Zedder Robo Dragon. And Rebecca gawks for a half second, perhaps wondering if Zed's 'anime' played a part in this, but she doesn't keep gawking. Instead firing off a volley of shots at the leg it favors, trying to take out the limb.
Each shot aimed at the closest approximation of a joint. Her shot grouping close together, as she remembers fighting in Claiborne she has to overwhelm it's regenerative capacity.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Hecatonchires with Round Beat! GS: Rebecca Streisand has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"You *will* see me try! I'm gonna try you into the *ground*!!" Dean shoots back at Timotheus in what is possibly the world's lamest banter. Maybe he should get Rebecca to write his quips instead--even if she does essentially shush him about it. When Timmy goes into a scientific rant that Fei interrupts via face punches, Dean shoots Zed a thumbs-up. "Great job distracting him, Zed!!"
But then, something arrives. Something big. And something... unnatural. Dean looks up by instinct, and his eyes widen in appropriate horror. It's a lot to take in, both psychologically and literally. There's just so much. He would meet its eyes, but there are eyes everywhere, everywhere, how can you meet them all? And yet they all meet him. They all *see*. They all hear, they all land on so many hands, too many, too many legs, and none of them match. It's like someone ripped apart a bunch of people of all different races and them mashed them together into a single doll, except these were once *living being*, they're still a living being, but now they are in hell, and it is Hell it brings to the Drifters.
"...Rebecca. We can't leave that poor thing alone," Dean says, voice and eyes steeling. She expresses her compassion towards the creature; he nods in agreement. "I don't know what that's supposed to be... but whatever it is, it's got to be suffering." He shoots her a brief look. "Let's let it rest in peace, instead of pieces."
The rods in his ARMs glow with a sudden, blazing white-hot brightness, and he rushes forward towards the enormous creature. Meanwhile, Zed grows into Zedder Robo Dragon, a very impressive sight even if Dean has seen it before. Still, they're mid-fight, and they're all in this together--can't lose focus now. With a one-two THWACK THWACK, he strikes Hecatonchires's side with said rods, radiating a heat so intense that even that sudden, brief contact might leave behind lasting, painful burns.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
... Matilda actually winces. There's part of her that understands completely, implicitly even, as Timotheus explains himself. Being honest, she *does* want to live foreve; she *does* want eternity. ... but then, she wants it because there's endless work to be done, a world that cries out to be saved -- with no one else seeming interested in saving it -- with necessary work *to* save it that would take more than a lifetime. To treat it as an end in itself, though...
Hecatonchires appears before Matilda can give her answer. It winds around itself, twists into itself, bending and even breaking as it needs to in order to move forward. There's a certain beauty in the function, even as the form itself is grotesque; after all, is humanity's most admirable trait *not* its ability to shift, to change, to carve off pieces of itself to move forward?
... but Hecatonchires's presence demands an answer, and Matilda gives it, plain and simple:
"Absolutely not."
Her approach past Hecatonchires, toward Timotheus, is cautious, measured; she allows other people time to move so that she can dart in the spaces between their movements. Even as she moves, though, she speaks. "I might have agreed with you, once," she concedes. "... but I just can't forget that those people were just humans trying to avoid their certain doom, too." The next time she steps, she draws a gleaming silversword -- and the next after *that*, she aims it squarely for Timotheus's midsection.
"Die unmourned."
GS: Dean Stark spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Hecatonchires with Burning Magazine! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Pruning! GS: Matilda Whitehead assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily doesn't know why Ethius does a lot of the things he does, frankly, but she counts on them in a way. Against something like this, she is confident he is an ally. ...There are no such conditions on her trust for the man beside her with the shotgun, colder than her fire. Lily does not listen so much as she hears everyone speak in these moments--questions, good questions, that pale compared to the roar of blood and heat in her ears the more she looks at him.
Is it all because of his actions? ...No. Lily knows herself too well. She knows it is not all that; she knows full well that she looks at him and she sees perhaps a reason that Josie...
Lily shakes her head, and her gaze bores forward again. Fire will burn from any fuel. It is good enough.
"I've never had the patience Father had," Lily practically spits. "You're welcome to try either," she says of eyes. "Soon, nothing will be your concern. 'Eternity'. Someone like you doesn't deserve 'eternity'."
But she does speak up after he addresses Matilda as well, in still-hot anger. "You don't get to talk about your daughter!" Lily snaps.
But Fei punches him. That's satisfying, in its way--but it feeds her anger, instead of sating it. She prepares to gather the energy she has unlocked--
and then
sees. The thing arrives, the Hecatonchires, and though Lily's eyes show no pupil or iris they widen nevertheless, black orb visible more through the contour of her face. "What..."
How is it made? What brings it together? The questions of the eyes, of the limbs, of how it still moves after all of this, all of them come immediately to mind unbidden... and Lily's hands curl into fists. A shockwave erupts from around her; circuitry burns through to be visible under attire as her form clouds, as spectral wings pierce through the air from her shoulderblades, and she rises into the air. The multicolored circuits make new irises, spread in lines along even her face.
No strange intonation comes this time, no gathered pause; it is far easier, if not more 'natural.'
"I'm going in," she tells Leon, and surges through the air upward towards the wizard, a shell of darkness erupting around her that becomes two giant blades of shadow, one in each hand. With her magic she casts outward, great blades appearing in the air with a thunderous roar and slashing towards him ahead of her rise. The air itself cries out against this abuse, and hardened shadow seeks to unmake pieces of the archmage.
There is a horror she cannot quite voice that fuels her, like fire drawing on anything it can burn. "You don't have to worry about my father anymore!"
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Awakened! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with The Murder-Fire - Sword! GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius re-shifts the weight of the captured guard on his shoulder as he is addressed - the word comes off as less 'hoped' and 'expected,' and it seems to be this idea most of all that gets a reaction from him, further standing up straighter with one leg crossing back. As if the idea of him being 'expected' were somehow much more troubling to him than 'the thing they're after isn't here.'
"I will be leaving this location without an indication there ever was," Ethius turns that phrase around (or just misunderstands the threat) - but Timotheus does do the honors of explaining what had transpired prior was something unplanned. There was no greater pattern or reason behind it, they simply escaped... and among themselves, fixated upon the people of the village to attack it, ceaselessly without end.
Ethius blinks once as Fei talks about... something or another. Something about ravens and their diet--
Ethius is interrupted by the sound of tile shifting, taking the cue of the machinations above to take a step back. This act probably saves his life then and there, for an abomination plops down and wrestles with its anatomy to come upright in a way that will never seem correct. He has to further reposition by taking several steps that cannot exceed the pace of a jog due to the weight he's carrying, all to try and avoid being within reach of that one massive arm on its left side.
Ethius does not respond with emotional cries of defiance or clarifications about what will or won't happen further as regards 'eternity' or other such things. His free arm already flutters fingers in sorcerous ways, to the school of Symbology, as he quietly but evenly speaks his syllables. There is nothing comfortable about this situation that assaults the senses, or stabs the heart about how many individual tragedies have happened to culminate in this singular large one. There is nowhere anyone can stand in a three hundred and sixty degree circle where there isn't eyes of so many staring them down.
Somewhere in the noise of righteous indignation, Ethius completes the spellcast with the name of the spell as what little is visible of his Symbological crests glow. "Overheat."
He builds up a tiring, exhausting heat over the creature with a simple enough understanding that centers his psyche and armors it against the unexpected - a comfort in knowing exactly what he must do, as if in itself were no different than a daily routine.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Hecatonchires with Overheat! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline listens to Timotheus's responses to the others. She frowns, particularly at his response to Matilda. And then he explains his purpose. Eternity. Jacqueline's frown only deepens.
"An 'accident'. I'm sure that would be a relief for the people of Claiborne to hear." Jacqueline says with a hint of sarcasm, shaking her head. "As someone in command, the failures of those beneath you are your failures, too."
She folds her arms in front of herself, then.
"I can't really fault you for seeking ways to extend your own life. But to steal the lives of others in the pursuit of that, to twist them beyond recognition and destroy them irrevocably? That's where you crossed the line. People aren't tools, aren't specimens for experimentation. Science exists to protect and enrich their lives, not to -" Jacqueline is abruptly interrupted as Timotheus calls upon something. The room shakes, and she has to uncross her arms to steady herself as something answers his call.
Something big.
Something...
...Jacqueline has no words for what she sees. For what emerges. It is shaped, vaguely, like a person. Was once a person. Was maybe, once, many people, in fact.
Jacqueline has no words for it. She finds them stolen from her, replaced with a deeply ill feeling in the pit of her stomach as she looks upon it. She shakes her head, her eyes filled with horror, her composure up to this point completely shattered.
"...You're a madman..." She whispers. She watches Matilda rush off, rushes to stop him. Jacqueline doesn't stop her. Instead, she turns her attention to Timotheus's creation and, wordlessly, draws a bottle and tosses it into the mass.
The bottle shatters upon impact, splattering the creature in a concoction that weakens and saps strength. ...But will it even be able to affect something like this...?
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Hecatonchires with Sapping Solution! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Timotheus Lovelace guards a hit from Matilda Whitehead's Pruning for 102 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Rebecca Streisand's Round Beat for 101 hit points! GS: Disrupt! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's The Murder-Fire - Sword for 144 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Burning Magazine for 101 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Hecatonchires takes a glancing hit from Ethius Hesiod's Overheat for 44 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Weaken! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Hecatonchires completely evades a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Sapping Solution! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Uh, I don't know if I'd say Alhazred was better. People can be equally bad." Fei says distantly. But Timotheus does say something that draws his interest. 'Wayward daughter'. So Josie isn't working iwth him. Is Odessa so poor at communicating with itself that he isn't aware they're working for the same masters?
No... Perhaps Timotheus simply just doesn't actually give a shit and is working entirely for himself whomever he ends upworking 'for'.
He looks towards the monster. His mouth opens up, and then he looks to Elly. He nods to her. Elly is always good at seeing to the wounded monsters of the world.
He looks back to Timotheus.
"We're living in a world where we all get to do what we want irregardless of what it does to others. Aren't we, Timotheus? So you truly wish eternity? Even if it hurts? Even if it hurts forever? Do you treasure your own mind that you would suffer any pain?"
"But even minds aren't eternal. Not even if you encase it in metal, not even if you copy it across thousands of tiny little machines. The only true eternity... is the cycle. And it's the eternity all share."
'Seeker after eternity, aas I was so promised!'
"Promised...?" He murmurs but he shakes his head, darting forward towards Timotheus, fully intent on allowing his fists to speak louder than words, his eyes blazing.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Hagan! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hagan for 56 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"You're not taking anything more from her!" Ida snaps, stepping forward and between Lily and the sorcerer. "From anyone!" Hyadean exoskeleton blossoms along Ida's face, trailing the exposed veins. It runs along her cheeks, chin, jawline, brow--forming headgear of a sort. An accident, she thinks. All that destruction, because this terrible old man just had to--
Have immortality, Ida thinks, as Timotheus' words hit her like a punch in the gut. She's tried not to think about what her new nature means for her in the long term--if she'll be able to have children, if she'll die in twenty years, or sixty, or two hundred. If she could live for even longer. But that's--that's it. That's Timotheus' stated purpose, phrased as though he were breaking new ground and transcending mortal limits.
"You know NOTHING of who I am, monster!" Ida roars, "OR what we've SUFFERED THROUGH!"
Fei punches Timotheus in the face. Like Zed, Ida is slightly surprised Timotheus' skull is still intact, but he wouldn't have survived Krosse if he didn't have a trick or two up his three.
'Come now! Exemplar of my craft!'
Ida's rage gives way to shock--to horror--as Timotheus' magnum opus drops into the light. Ida can see all the parts, see how they struggle and flail and finally shove themselves upright. The things at Claiborne could have been mistaken for Metal Beasts, but only barely. This is--
For a brief, terrible instant, Ida is back in the Photosphere, facing down a horde of misshapen monstrosities. Cast-offs.
People, Ida reminds herself. People reduced to component parts and mashed together in a horrific amalgam. Just like the victims of the Demon Seeds. Just like the Wels.
"End that thing as swiftly as you can!" she shouts, to Zed, and the others engaging Hekatonkhires. "For all their sakes!"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida springs. Her aura billows up around her, a bright fiery sphere surrounded by a white-gold halo. She crosses the distance in heartbeats, looks into Timotheus' eyes, and says one word:
"Suffer." Her boots touch down. She throws a jab at the older man's sternum, followed by a drumroll of punches intended to pummel his head and torso. If she can trap him between herself and Fei, so much the better.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Relentless Combination! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
'Ahh, the false one.' Gwen momentairely glances towards Ethius as Timotheus refers to him, briefly bewildered as to the meaning.
But that's for another day to figure out, as the first few 'warning shots' ricochet noisely off the railing; despite Gwen's ability in aiming, she's not the level of Rebecca.
If she wants a better shot, she'd better get up there, and all the while fail to realize that she's actively pursuing trying to kill someone she only views with distant contempt, rather than the very real close emotion many others are feeling. It is simply natural to her, to kill someone who is done.
As the many hands of the beast comes forward, a stab of concern hits her stomach, a notion that she's glad she's not handling the construct below. Gwen's not sure exactly how she feels about Zed standing up for Alhazard's name, but, perhaps, Alhazard is better right now in comparison due to him being dead, rather than alive like Timotheus.
If they kill this man quickly, they can help the others fight the constructed beast downstairs.
"A man of your intellect could've done a lot of good, even if you were lookin' for a piece of eternity. Was it a fear of death that drove this? A fear of obscurity? Or both?" Gwen's face holds no humor, even as she moves fluidly into her next sentence. "I can't remember if we properly met in Krosse, but lemme introduce myself. I'm Gwen Whitlock, super courier, and I'm here because I forced myself into my friends' business. Namely--"
Ida surges forward, the emotional pain she's felt in the wake of Clariborne made real. Lily shows a portion of her inner powers, leaving Gwen to briefly marvel.
"I'm the cheerleader, so my name's not gonna matter much here. Here's my first spark of cheer." Gwen tugs off her right glove in her teeth, revealing her ARM underneath, already beginning to charge. "Here we go!"
With a snap of her fingers, a charge of static grows outwards, encircling Timotheus and Hecatonchires below.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with St. Elmo's Fire! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Hecatonchires with St. Elmo's Fire! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace critically Guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Relentless Combination for 20 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam! applied to Timotheus Lovelace! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points! GS: Jam! applied to Hecatonchires!
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
"As I said, I did not expect your sympathy, girl," Timotheus reiterates for Jacqueline. "But it is no matter. Such losses will be forgotten before long. Once we have what we have sought..."
Ida roars at him, from below. "Do you think that I care for a moment what you have 'suffered', girl?" he says to her, his expression as welcoming as stone.
Zed elicits a more furious reaction. "Silence, fool! Simply because you cannot comprehend the enormity of this work gives you no right to mock it so! Now then--"
Perhaps it's just as well that Fei decked him.
"Now, do you see? I have prepared for you your end!" proclaims the wizard, gesturing towards his construct.
Zed's response is a surprise, it would seem--
Because he must have thought that Zed had been...
Shock gives way to understanding. "Ahh, now I see. So you are here for 'revenge', are you? Very well! Come, 'demon'! Let us see your 'Alhazred's' craft against mine own!
Matilda's response comes in the wake of the beast's descent. "I thought as much," he sighs, at Matilda's response. "Then here is where you will lie for eternity, Whitehead." He turns his gaze from her, as if to pay her no heed.
Fei speaks to him first -- of eternity, at least.. of what it may truly consist. "Silence, fool," declares Timotheus, jerking his head sharply to the side the once. "You are but young, yet. You know not of what you speak. It is said truly that youth is wasted on the young--" Fei is closest, and thus Fei has less distance to cross to strike at the wizard. In spite of his age, the old man is still spry on his feet; Fei's fist clips him and he staggers again against the railing.
But he recovers quickly. "I call upon thee, the blazing crown of Iosis! Burn Spark!" Plasmic fire gathers in the palm of one hand, which he casts forward at the young martial artist in a clinging burning spray. "A shame that your life ends so soon!"
This all means, of course, that he does not see Matilda coming for him.
Not until it is too late. One glance over his shoulder is all he gets, one aborted twist. It only saves him from being run through from behind.
Her blade cuts into his side, eliciting a hoarse pained gasp from that ancient throat. Those plain robes of his rapidly become stained with rich red. "You-- damn you, girl!" he utters, before firing off a spell at her at close range. "May thine eyes traitors be!" he intones, the shimmering orb gathering before him. "Light Flare!" Before it detonates in a burst of brilliant light.
One hand on his cane and the other clutching at the wound Matilda gave him, he makes it but a short distance away from her before Leon calls him a madman and angles his weapon for the archmage.
Timotheus raises a single bloodied hand, a wavering barrier of light shimmering into being about him just as Leon's bullet should have struck him. And indeed, it does not hit him, though the barrier itself ripples in such a fashion that it prompts the wizard to frown in some measure of concern. "Hmph, I see you have grown stronger," the wizard is forced to concede.
"As have I!" He flings that hand out, for Leon proper. "I call upon thee, fang of the tempest! Flash Arc!" A single sizzling golden bolt snaps off his fingertips, crossing the distance for the Black Wolf captain.
The barrier about the wizard remains even as Lily takes flight. That single eye of Timotheus' widens. "Ah-- now I see why father sought daughter," he breathes, watching her as she descends. He raises his hand, as if to strengthen his own shield. "Stay your tongue, girl, and mind first your own family! Perhaps your father would not mind it if I should deliver you to him broken?!"
But if that shot from Leon had managed to fray his barrier--
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Then Lily's blades make indeed short work of it. Timotheus cries out as they slice first through his barrier, and then into him. But even so...
He remains merely bent, not bowed. One hand slams onto the railing. The other, clutches still his cane. "Enough," intones the wizard. If she had shown him the power of darkness, he seems intent on the light. From the shadows that still cling to this corner of the theatre, there rises within it a seven-fold array of lights. "Behold the fateful light of Aquarius! Receive thy punishment! Stellar Cross!"
The stars burn with their brilliance, once after the other.
He is not finished.
"O powers of light and time, heed now your master's call! Blink Step!"
He vanishes from where he'd stood, up in the gallery, appearing below upon the floor of the operating room. "Now--"
He turns in time to see Ida, surging for him.
"CEASE, child!" Light roars in opposition to her, a barrier born not of magic but of the technological marvels built into this room. A forcefield. The wall may buckle and bend but it does not give -- try as she might, with as much wrath that might be behind those blows, Ida can get no closer to the wizard, now.
Only when Gwen's sparks roll across the room does that barrier of his meet with real trouble. It shudders for a moment, then gives out entirely.
"Curse you, girl," the magus hisses at Gwen, his gambit well and foiled scarce before they had begun. "But if it is 'lightning' you seek, allow me to show you its true power! O, thou lightning, heed thy master's call! Bolt Wave!" With a wave of his cane the lightning crawls up his arm to explode in an array of sizzling bolts across the floor, circulating upon Gwen and Ida both.
GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Burn Spark! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Leon Albus with Flash Arc! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Light Flare ! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Lily Keil with Stellar Cross! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Blink Step! GS: You cannot act while you still have attacks in queue. GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Blink Step for 0 hit points! GS: Quick! applied to Timotheus Lovelace! GS: Hyper! applied to Timotheus Lovelace! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Bolt Wave! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Bolt Wave! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has completed his action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Bolt Wave for 62 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Stellar Cross for 104 hit points! GS: Lily Keil's Force Guard activates!
<Pose Tracker> Hecatonchires has posed.
Please stay still.
Yes: Hecatonchires is still, as Zed plunges that blade into the immaculate ground, not a hint of blood left over on that spotless white floor. It was so long ago. They were so long ago. This is, it is -- watching, blink-blink staccato as Zedder Robo Dragon rises up to its height and a few feet higher still.
Back and forth, it sways on its feet.
And then Zed charges.
And all a sudden it IS NOT THERE.
Its legs bend and it rockets upwards, crashing into the bannister of the staircase. The five arms about its collar hoist it up, legs bending to the sides to scuttle as Elhaym's flame blasts at its heels. That heat isn't on the inside; still it is heat, still unpleasant. It eschews aversive experiences. It is alive.
Hark: it can move. It can escape.
It can
it can
make them pay.
Rebecca's bullets will find a dozen willing homes as that creature leaps, again -- straight FOR HER, and if she is not careful it will land on her with a lashing of two of its four legs. It does not fall; it has two others. Its muscles tighten as it finds itself struck by more of that heat, courtesy of Dean's ARM, and --
It's a noise, certainly. From the back of its throat it is all glottal stops, strangled and reedy, HG' HG' HG'. It turns; that arm at its chest, too thin and too fragile, reaches out in a single point towards Dean. The Living Metal in its veins crackles with electricity -- that shock will discharge right along the nail. Don't ask what all that static is doing to its heart. Don't ask about its heart.
Please don't touch.
But still there is symbology. Overheat, Ethius says, and Hecatonchires is moving again, leaping over him. And for a moment, there, it pauses. It takes a swaying step closer to that strange silent man; its head cranes out.
Two heads. Four arms. Four legs. Is that..?
No! He is whole and he is whole and they are whole outside each other!
It is a mistake to think Hecatonchires feels offence, the way Zed feels offence. It is a mistake to think Hecatonchires feels betrayal, the way Fei feels betrayal. All these things were carved out; all that remains are the surgical edges and the oblivion they carry. Oh, eternity...
... but in those sharp-carved edges, perhaps there's some memory of pain. Of EQUITY.
Because Hecatonchires recognises two people over one -- and it launches itself forward, that one hulking arm swinging around more like a battering ram than a limb, aimed precisely at Ethius's midsection.
The only thing which stops it from pressing its attack is one last contender. It spies Jacqueline, pulling out a bottle. A bottle! And bottles are filled with --
It's moving again, fast too fast, outstripping the reach of that potion entirely. That motion takes it right through Gwen's static field, and perhaps it's worth asking where its heart is after all.
Or whether it's just one heart, any more.
All acrackle it settles on the staircase again, legs wrapping about the railings, and it curls into itself.
And those arms at its shoulders, a fan around itself...
Extend.
Shooting out more like bullets than limbs -- there is the distant cracking and damp sounds of flesh adjusting to the Living Metal which gives them that reach -- they surge out to grasp at Jacqueline, at Elhaym, at the hulking Robo Zed. Their grip is like steel; Zed's, in particular, is a hand which must have belonged to a Beastman once upon a time, claws at its fingertips to drag across that metal.
Please hold my hand.
GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Multiple Kick! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Dean Stark with Electric Touch! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Terror in Iron! GS: Hecatonchires has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Hundred Hands! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Hundred Hands! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Zed with Hundred Hands! GS: Hecatonchires takes 17 damage from Poison! GS: Hecatonchires has completed its action. GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Hecatonchires's Hundred Hands for 175 hit points! GS: Cripple! applied to Zed! GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a glancing hit from Hecatonchires's Hundred Hands for 87 hit points! GS: Cripple! applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Bolt Wave for 140 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Hecatonchires's Terror in Iron for 101 hit points! GS: Disease! applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a glancing hit from Hecatonchires's Multiple Kick for 78 hit points! GS: Rebecca Streisand's Force Evade activates! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Electric Touch for 82 hit points! GS: Dean Stark's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Burn Spark for 154 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Leon Albus takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Flash Arc for 232 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Hecatonchires's Hundred Hands for 210 hit points! GS: Cripple! applied to Jacqueline Barber!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon nods, once, to Lily. She is going in; he will stay back, for the moment.
"Maybe so," Leon allows.
A blast of golden light shoots for him -- and he manages to get out the Raid Funnels. The trio drop from his belt, lift up, and spin up. Light crackles between them, and then Timotheus's spell strikes him. The blast strikes him in the chest, throws him between his three drones, and pitches him backwad. He slams into the wall with a crack, and slumps down it.
The Raid Funnels fly, catch up, and orbit around him as he stands. He wipes blood from his split lip.
"Did you really think a little spell like that," he says, his voice raspy with broken winds, "is enought to hurt me? I'm the Captain of the bloody Black Wolves. I'd like to see more, sir."
He leaps, then, and starts running at a diagonal. Cradling the gun in both hands, he draws a bead, and then fires two gunshots rapidly in Timotheus's direction, trying to confuse him as much as anything.
GS: Leon Albus has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with RR-2 Diplomacy! GS: Leon Albus enters a Counter stance! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Light Flare for 0 hit points! GS: Slow! applied to Matilda Whitehead! GS: CRITICAL! Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Leon Albus's RR-2 Diplomacy for 31 hit points! GS: Dispel! Hyper and Quick removed! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
As Ida calls out to them, Rebecca says, "... Don't worry. You just focus on exterminating a monster."
What she doesn't say is that she'll focus on putting these people to rest.
Rebecca is still shooting when it leaps. And even as she start's running, she pegs its leg one final time. Even as its legs lash out, she's diving forward into what looks like part roll - part handstand. Yet the clip of its leg, and the whoosh of its force spoils the acrobatic grace.
The powerful strike, even if it doesn't hit her clean sends her into an overcompensating forward motion. And even when she rights herself back up, she's shaking out her thigh where it connected as if to make certain the leg is still good through the adrenaline.
"We may not have a choice Dean, of doing this cleanly... given what this monster did to all these people." Rebecca says, sympathizing with his perspective, "But don't worry I have every intention of ending its suffering."
And as if to indicate how she intends to do that, she grabs her Medium.
Tapping her foot down, she traces it around in a pivot, blue ley energy rising around her like an aurora. And as she does...
... the ground beneath the creature rumbles. Cracks forming, water bubbling up as if through bursted seams. A moment later, it geysers upwards in a pressurized column, attempting to blast the thing that was once people that the monster created.
"Come on..." She whispers, "... do that thing again..."
Her gambit is simple. She saw it unleash electricity at Dean. She's hoping she's soaked it thoroughly enough that it's insulation will be overwhelmed.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Hecatonchires with Ley Blast! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida was not expecting that. She slams into the barrier, and only her armor keeps her from knocking herself senseless on impact. Momentarily stunned, she reels back, feels her body right itself before she falls over. Does she have Fafnir to thank for that? Ida's not sure. But what is sure is that Timotheus' words have reached back into her mind and dredged up memories--memories of every time she's been dismissed, or mocked, or even beaten by someone who's looked down at her. She hammers at the barrier, relentlessly, even though she's not sure it's doing anything.
Gwen brings it down. Ida surges forwards, through the collapsing energy field, only to stop dead in her tracks as Timotheus recites his incantation. Ida hurls herself to the side, tucking and rolling across the floor as bolts of lightning chase after her. Arcs of energy crackle across her back and arms, and she grits her teeth as her fingers begin to spasm. She doesn't want to think about what a direct hit would've done.
Ida kicks off the floor, and slips back into a fighting stance. "You'll have to do better," she growls. "After all, you surely know what the Hyadean form is capable of!" Sarcasm joins the anger in her voice. "But allow me to demonstrate--!"
Ida throws back her head. Undifferentiated Hyadean flesh--the very stuff of Living Metal--bubbles up through the pores in her skin, solidifying as it wicks down her neck, across her shoulders. The armor underneath is already designed to accommodate flesh-shifting to better reward such talented trainees; it effectively becomes the undersuit as Ida's exoskeleton spreads across her body. It forms a high collar, a solid gorget, a wing-like projection at her right temple--it crawls downwards, forming a breastplate, tassets, greaves. It's a mashup of two distinct styles--one streamlined and flexible, colored gold and red and black, the other more solid and ornate, colored blue and gold.
Ida grits her teeth and stares down Timotheus, as if daring him to hit her again.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell ! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell for 0 hit points! GS: Shield! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cover! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's eyes widen at the potency if the fire being arrayed against him. With Moor Gault as his medium, he has some resiliance to flame, but resiliance isn't the same as immunity. He brings his arms forward and the flame slams hard against him, knocking him back and opening up some space for the wizard. He drops down into a crouch, fire still clinging to his body. Thi isn't even only the fifth time he's been in this position. He pants for breath for a moment, trying to focus his chi so he can endure this pain.
And then, slowly, he stands up.
"Sure," He says. "This me is young. You want eternity..." He spreads out his arms. "How many thousands of years will satisfy you?"
The fire flares behind him like a singular burning wing.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMqOAwDvA2M
"How many deaths will you appreciate until your spirit tires? How many happy ends will slip from your fingers? Will you smile encouragingly as madmen just like you stick needles in your eyes, pry back fingernails, and eat your flesh in vain attempts to discover your secrets?"
He swings one fist back.
"Will you wonder at what exciting chemicals they will inject into your bloodstream? What machines they'll sink into your flesh? When they tear open your mind with a cranial drill, will you appreciate their deft hands? When they dig at your brain with their tools, will you admire their wisdom?!"
He throws his fist forward, unleashing a wave of flame for Timotheus that explodes out from his arm, that wing of flame suddenly coming right for the old wizard.
"When your souls' secrets are laid bare, will you forgive this world because you are eternal and above such petty grievances? You would understand, after all, because you are just like them."
GS: Fei Fong Wong spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Kakei! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kakei for 133 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
For all its mass appears to make it incapable of being certain which way is up, for each and every way its numerous mis-matched limbs are oriented, seemingly at anatomical counter-purpose for anything resembling locomotion... it moves.
Ethius goes to a stumble as he overcompensates his turning to better face where it's going, since he's carrying that extra weight with him on one shoulder. Sorcerers should, as a rule, generally not be doing heavy lifting - they need that energy for their spellcasting. But he has been insistent, to the protests of the CaraKin, that he carries one with him. The way it sizes him up, something that resembles hesitation on the part of the amalgamation whose relationship with the concept of plurals is highly up for debate.
The problem is that since it is truly mobile, it has oriented itself into being able to face its huge arm at him again - the snap of the arm faster than Ethius can react even as he tries to lean in some direction.
The huge arm slams into Ethius and his captive alike. The only grace afforded is how the morally ambiguous Symbologist has managed to orient himself that there is a guard between him and the limb. There is, however, an Ethius between a wall and a guard, and so Ethius is pressed up against the wall for several seconds, feet off the ground.
The Powder Grenade that he had activated and placed within the guard goes off, turning one of his plans against him. There is a dust cloud of a smoke bomb that makes it chokingly difficult to take in breath when the wind is already taken out of him, when he is no longer pressed up against the wall thanks to Jay grabbing its attention. He collapses to a kneel in a wheeze.
He can't quite mentally place where the guard he's held was struck in the moment of shock. That guard might be dead - he can't be sure at the moment because he's choking, sputtering, and having a bad time of nearly being crushed against that wall. Ethius crawls on the ground for several important moments as he tries to gather his thoughts.
Things did not transpire as I believed they would. He thinks. The others would have disapproved if I told them why I took them with us. We could not have taken chances with the possibility of being beset upon by more creatures of that ilk, and I only had working theories of how they select and focus on prey.
Ethius shields with an arm against a spray of Ley Blasted water that only comes shy of dousing him a bit (only a bit) while still crawling out from his dust cloud. If what we seek is no longer here - indeed, anticipated... it would appear this guard has more value alive. The Symbologist sucks in breath, hand in forehead, and recenters in the chaos. ...If they are. I do not buy the story we were given when Jay attempted negotiations. Not if these individuals struck out of familiarity of who this is.
Ethius doesn't have time to crawl around like a snake on the ground while the target is mobile, nearly impossible to read as to when and how they may thrash out a limb, and/or otherwise sewn together and empowered through the notoriously difficult to kill Living Metal.
He seems to be piggybacking off of Rebecca's tactics as he starts to bend and contort his fingers in ways only possible through no small amount of practice in Symbological spellcasting. He has to start over once because of a cough, as if not yet quite having soaked being crushed up against the wall like he has. Towards the end of the renewed, second attempt, he finishes off the series of chants with the spell's name...
"Recurrent Current." Sorcerous lights... and then electrical power jumps from one outstretched limb to try and catch within the amalgamation - to shock over, and over, and over.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
And so it is time for the hundred-handed one to give ELLY that hand - one slides down and makes towards what Elly discerns to be her throat. That burning phoenix claw pulls back, contracts into a free-floating amorphous glob of fire as Elly raises the staff up --
Her throat is not seized, but the iron staff is gripped. Elly contends her strength against that of the Hecatonchire: this is not going to end in Elly's favor, but she can stall for a moment, time enough:
Light flashes. She can hear Fei. She can feel Fei's fear. He might resolve this problem for them and leave them with another - or resolve it all with his strength. Elly knows that strength, even if it is still only quietly drawing into view. But he might not, they might -
"I'm sorry," Elly gasps to the creature. "If I could heal you I would. I -"
They said I was a destroyer, Elly remembers. Her lips press to a thin slit.
Elly sinks to one knee. This is a give - to make more of the creature press forwards -
And that animate section of fire surges upwards, aiming to run THROUGH the deeper underside of that limb and leave it a separated sausage of distorted flesh.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Hecatonchires with Thermo Calcinate! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"Hmn!?" The Hecatonchires, being in possession of approximately a hundred times the normal number of legs one might find on an ordinary human being, is naturally approximately a hundred times as fast...! The creature slips away from Zed's strike moments before he makes contact. The air quivers, not only from the force of his aborted blow, but also from the sudden displacement of Timotheus' abomination of limbs.
And in an instant, the thing is upon him. An arm, grotesque with living metal and tipped in the claws of a mighty beastman cleaves into him. His arms lift to absorb the raking blow, but whatever creature this limb belonged to, its hardness has likewise been increased a hundredfold. Crude but effective, the talons tear into the steel giant's own arms...!
"Not bad," Zed growls, "Tell me again how long you spent working on this thing, Timotea Lovelive...!" The Metal Demon, the Monster Zed, pivots back into offense. He snatches forward to seize the creature by the wrist with one hand, while the other...
The other is spinning.
It is spinning and spinning, gaining speed moment by moment. An emerald aura shines from the otherwise jet-black armor around Zedder Robo Dragon's right arm...!
"Extending limbs are a neat trick, BUT IT'S JUST ANOTHER YOU'RE LATE TO THE PARTY WITH! Take this! ROCKEEEEEEEET--" Zed hurls his fist forward! It... detaches at the wrist and begins spinning through the air like a rocket-propelled drill bit. It's as if Zed has fired his fist like a bullet... A bullet, perhaps, out of a broken magnum, but still! "--PUUUUUUUNCH!"
GS: Zed has attacked Hecatonchires with Rocket Punch! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: Ethius Hesiod spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Hecatonchires with Recurrent Current! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
In the end, Matilda cares exactly the wrong amount in all circumstances. That burst of light dazes her a little, but she stays in close rather than giving in to her first instinct to gain some separation again. After all, Timotheus -- despite being very old, and very powerful -- is still a mage, and can still defend himself *best* at long distance.
"People with bigger dreams than yours," Matilda hisses, "have tried to kill me. I won't end up on a slab in your operating theater." She's a little unsteady on her feet, her eyes struggling to adjust still -- but she's passable at tracking based on movement, too. It does a lot more to slow down her *defenses* than her ability to strike at *him*, really.
As Fei speaks, Matilda glances back at him in momentary shock -- though she quickly snaps her vision forward again, not wanting to lose track of Timotheus. She doesn't linger on the thought -- but she commits the horror to memory. She can ask after it later; right now, the most important thing is to stay alive and stay on the offense.
Pressing her advantage in close-quarters combat, Matilda keeps her sword moving. It's a feint, this time, though; the slash she offers is quick, noncommittal, light. The fierce kick she offers, on the other hand, is much less so.
GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Planting! GS: Matilda Whitehead has gained 1 Combo! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
It's fast!! is Dean's first thought when Hecatonchires all but flies around the battlefield, so quickly it might as well have had wings grafted on because why not, Timotheus, why not!!
When he strikes, it's not any better. It really is a horrible, chuffing sort of noise. Dean seizes up, out of horror, out of empathy, out of the shock of electricity flowing into him from one of the poor monster's nails. "Guh!!" he grunts, stunned several steps backwards. That *hurt*, a visceral sort of hurt that churns the guts in nausea and other things.
"...Yeah. You're right," he says to Rebecca, his whole demeanor grim. A lot of people mistake Dean for innocent because he's managed to hold on to his optimism, compassion, and enthusiam over his years of being a Drifter. But that is a triumph of the human spirit over the horrors of the world. When he looks at this thing, he pities it--but also knows that it's strong. That, as Rebecca says, they probably won't be able to give it a quick, easy death. "Then let's just keep at it," he tells his childhood friend. "We can't let this happen to anyone else."
As Rebecca summons a water spell from the leyline, he concentrates his strength on another whalloping double blow from Twin Fenrir's rods. This time, though, the heat goes inwards, towards the ARMs, towards Dean, radiating power as he continues his attacks. If he can just concentrate a powerful blow on this poor thing--maybe, maybe they can all end it sooner rather than later.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Hecatonchires with Power Booster! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Hecatonchires guards a hit from Rebecca Streisand's Ley Blast for 62 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty! applied to Rebecca Streisand! GS: CRITICAL! Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Calcinate for 166 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Weaken! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Hecatonchires critically Guards a hit from Zed's Rocket Punch for 31 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty! applied to Zed!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Ida coming to Lily's defense is not something the sorceress expects in the moment. But whatever she might say about it is lost for now in the chaos of battle, because she doesn't speak up about it now. Neither does she immediaely respond to the kind of world they live in that Fei mentions. Youth, wasted..
"Heh," Lily remarks about whether Fei would know. But then she is moving. Timotheus notices her--and he sees. "She's more my family than she ever was yours, old man. You had so much and you only wante something else. The kind of greed you have--Leon!"
Lily listens to his 'enough.' The fateful light of Aquarius shines down upon her then. Lily throws up both hands to create a barrier of pure darkness, infusing it with all the hatred she has for the man before her. The sevenfolds light crash against it, magic shattering upon magic in a vertical shockwave of power; one, another, held with inhuman magical force until the final breaks through with an audible crack and a brief, terrible light washing out Lily's silhouette.
As the light fades she looks to Leon, and sees defiance nd the drones both. He speaks up, at least, and she moves, no longer frozen. ...But frozen may be the key, here.
"Fei, Elly..." She sees both of them. She has to set aside what she hears, though, and focus. Lily delves back into that feeling. "Whitehead," she suggests of the woman ahead of her in melee. "Look alive!"
She moves to target around her, seeing that she is on their side again here and now at least, as she calculates her spell. No, there's one thing she has to do first.
"<Engaging secondary reactor...>" Power gathers around her, an obvious charging of... something, as a noise thrums to life; from her back something metal shifts, unfolding to slip around her wrists and start to grow into something. It is not liquid--it is solid, but somehow taking up more space than it did the last instant.
That power spikes and seems to grow, rather than lessen, as Lily puts out her hands and the ground beneath Timotheus begins to ice over. Where Elly throws animate fire, Lily moves to supercool the area on its heels. Abrubtly a great sheet of frost erupts forward, seeking to briefly entomb the wizard and shatter. The aura around her becomes visible, brightening.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with The Grief of the Snake - Ice! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"Forgotten?" Jacqueline hisses back to TImotheus. "That isn't something you should just forget! Don't turn your eyes away from what you've done!"
She has more choice words for him, but there's no time to get them out because the Hecatonchires is moving. It moves with surprising speed, and Jacqueline soon finds limbs rushing toward her with surprising force. Jacqueline raises a pillar of earth to try and defend herself, but it crashes through. It strikes her solidly and Jacqueline's eyes open wide as the sheer force sends her flying back, crashing into a nearby wall and collapsing to the ground.
She lays there for a moment, injured and dazed.
"...Who... who are you...?" She asks weakly, quietly. "...Who were you?"
With a grunt of effort she manages to force herself up. She's still recovering from her daze, so managing another throw is beyond her at the moment... and besides, the last one didn't seem to take.
Instead, she gestures with her left hand. The best she can manage right now, until she's back on her feet again - metaphorically, she's able to stand but now well - is to offer support to the others. The best mercy they can offer... is probably to finish this as quickly as possible.
With a gesture of her left hand, light spreads out from her position to settle over the others, fortifying their strength.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Zed with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Dean Stark with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Zed! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Recurrent Current for 129 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Hecatonchires takes a glancing hit from Dean Stark's Power Booster for 50 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty! applied to Dean Stark! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Rebecca Streisand! GS: Dean Stark takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Noticing Leon's backward exit and crash against the wall out of the corner of her eye, Gwen turns her head, briefly concerned. But, as Leon says as he gets up, he is the captain of the Black Wolves. The corners of her lips turn upwards in a closed smile, remembering the grim memory of his refusal to die that night in the tavern, despite the wound in his abdomen.
Turning her attention back to the battle, Gwen concentrates her own field against Timotheus's barrier of light, enabling Ida to break through. She manages a smirk of pride at the magus's ire, blowing off her knuckles as if they were the barrel of a smoking gun.
Such pride will be punished, and Timotheus is quick to show her and Ida both his own control of this particular element. Instinctively, Gwen holds out her right ARM, attemptting to guard against the electricity by absorbing it.
To answer Ida's unvoiced question: it doesn't go so well, to be directly hit.
Gwen screams as lightning boils up her ARM, electricity seeking the metallic conduits inside. The Mockingbird sparks and twists erratically, the appendage acting on the nonsense commands the current brings.
That sorcery of his will be a problem, if she's going to be of any help here. Reaching into her belt, Gwen thumbs a compartment and slips out a bag, bringing out a drawstring pouch. Holding it in her left hand, Gwen aims, and then throws it in the air, tumbling in an arc over Timotheus's head, as if it was to miss him completely.
Ragnell was correct in calling it a biological weapon, when it came down to it; the introduction of this dust to an older man's lungs could be something akin to breathing in mace.
Gwen fires a shot with her right hand, attempting to pierce the bag and burst it of its contents over the man's head. "Nobody breathe!!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Auntie Frea's Fire Chili Spice Special! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Planting for 142 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's The Grief of the Snake - Ice for 146 hit points! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Auntie Frea's Fire Chili Spice Special for 0 hit points! GS: Hex and Mute! applied to Timotheus Lovelace!
<Pose Tracker> Hecatonchires has posed.
Hecatonchires isn't the only acrobat here, though it doesn't really have the faculties to appreciate Rebecca's handstand.
Suffering is such a broad concept. It is BIG, all connected events and recognition. Is it the right word for what Hecatonchires knows? There is pain -- avoiding pain. Things which are painful.
Water is not so painful, but the battering is. Up comes the geyser, striking Hecatonchires in its chest, that fragile extraneous arm. That's not the only reason it springs down from the staircase, though it is the reason it's shaking itself, rolling from one set of legs to the other. The other reason is the fire which gouges one of its limbs -- the way its wrist is seized. One it can pull away, dragging along the cauterising force of Elhaym's animate flame. The other is trapped, even as it tugs.
If it had a plan -- this is, let us be clear, a remarkably large if -- it is one arrested by Monster Zed. Because Zed's fist spins, and rockets forward, and all its eyes widen at once and its arms reach around itself to defend itself.
Please stop.
It's an effective barrier. What it does not account for is forward planning; the imagination of what could be. Because it hears symbology and braces, and in turn Ethius's current takes root in Rebecca's liquid. All its muscles straighten and contract at once; its limbs batter against itself, arm and arm and arm and arm and arm and arm and arm and arm. It has four legs; all of them fail. It tumbles.
HG' HG' HG', it says, again, as it pushes itself up with that one broad hand.
And then it reaches into its mouth.
And its mouth opens.
And opens.
And OPENS.
Living Metal at the ligaments of the jaw, the memory of a snake-woman; both these things contribute to the way one of the hands at its mantle reaches down into its throat, and pulls. Pulls -- and pulls out a tongue, lolling down over its jaw. Do you remember that faithful old hound from days past, the one who would dig up something they weren't supposed to only to pant happily after taking you on a merry chase around the neighbourhood..?
Because this is nothing like that.
HAAH HAAH HAAH, says Hecatonchires, triumphantly, drawing air in through at least two lungs.
Once upon a time one of them must have had a deep voice, gravelly. A smoker, perhaps.
Who were they, Jacqueline?
Who are they?
WHAT are they?
WHAT IS IT?
HAAH, HRAA, GAAH, says Hecatonchires to Jacqueline and Elhaym, and maybe it's not impossible to imagine those are words. They could be words. They used to be words.
Please please please be quiet.
And what it is now is something which scuttles forward on two of those legs, with a shuffling gait which betrays how precarious its centre of gravity is now. The top of itself twists as it meets one of its foes, bending at the waist, and those five arms grasp at Dean and drag him with its as it straightens. It will throw him as far as it can trust him.
And then ten feet further still.
Rebecca -- it does not quite connect how SHE made it hurt but there were the bullets and the geyser and that is enough -- will find that there is liquid coming from that slender chest-hand, just the way electricity did. The nails on that hand suddenly cock at a right-angle, and what is underneath sprays at her in a noxious cloud. It was poison, once. It still remembers what the poison was like. With a gesture, that cloud threatens to overtake Ethius, too.
Do not think it is planned retribution for their teamwork. It just happened to see the Symbologist, in that moment.
And Zed -- Zed has demonstrated something essential about Living Metal. Something which is illustrative, as Hecatonchires turns its right side to him. And that place where its other arm ought to be and isn't...
... slides back, to reveal guns.
A machine-gun peppers out metal bullets towards him, RATTA-TATTA-TAT.
GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Hecatonchires with Roiling Dynamo! GS: Hecatonchires has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Hecatonchires's Roiling Dynamo for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disrupt and Jam removed! GS: Quick! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Please! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Please! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Dean Stark with Grappling Grip! GS: Hecatonchires spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Unclean Barrage! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Unclean Barrage! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Zed with Hidden Gunner! GS: Hecatonchires has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hecatonchires takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Poison and Weaken expired! GS: Hecatonchires has completed its action. GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Elhaym van Houten guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Please for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken! applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Please for 0 hit points! GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a solid hit from Hecatonchires's Unclean Barrage for 75 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rebecca Streisand gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison! applied to Rebecca Streisand! GS: Dean Stark takes a glancing hit from Hecatonchires's Grappling Grip for 47 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle! applied to Dean Stark! GS: Ethius Hesiod guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Unclean Barrage for 42 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ethius Hesiod gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison! applied to Ethius Hesiod!
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
"I shall do as I please, girl!" is Timotheus' response to Jacqueline. He seems not so much as moved by her righteous fury.
'I'd like to see more, sir', Leon, Captain of the Black Wolves says to him.
"Aha, so you are the famous 'Black Wolf'! Had enough of Keil's nonsense, I assume? Or, no... what was it again? That's right, it was treachery, wasn't it...?" the wizard muses.
"If you wish to see 'more', then you shall have it--"
The sudden flurry of shots comes in from a diagonal, cutting the already-wounded elder Lovelace off as he's forced to duck left, then right, an attempt to sway out of the captain's line of fire. He stumbles just as one of the rounds clips a shoulder -- just a nick, perhaps, but it's still enough to stain the robe there red, to force the wounded wizard to stagger on the rebound from that strike.
It's then that Fei addresses him.
'This me is young,' Fei tells him.
Timotheus frowns. "You..."
He throws out one hand; shimmering light leaps into the gap between the two men -- one old, one young.
It holds for a moment. Then melts away, steam under the press of that burning wing. "...What are you?" Timotheus has the time to utter, his one eye wide, before the flame touches him. He is engulfed, briefly alight with it. A hissing breath escapes him as he staggers back from Fei.
Into this, Gwen hurls a single satchel into the air. It tumbles in freefall, catching the tail-end of the cinders.
And it burns. Oh, does it burn.
Timotheus screams, stumbling backwards as he squeezes one eye shut, as he draws a wheezing breath and dissolves for the moment into a hacking cough.
But he is a wizard, and well-learned in his craft. Even if he should be laid low by a coughing fit, he will not be so undone.
"O, thou waters-- of the heavens and earth! My will-- be done-- bring ruin!" intones Timotheus, struggling for breath and in flames. He draws a ragged gasp, the finalization of the spell broken up by a single wheezing sigh. "Torrent Globe!"
Water pools at the feet of Leon and Fei, rippling outwards in growing concentric circles. Before all-too-suddenly, they burst upwards, a pressurized column of water and steam.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Timotheus, still aflame, slips one shaking hand into a pocket and draws out a single vial, which he downs. When he exhales, he exhales smoke and steam, and when he walks, he walks that much straighter than before. The flames smolder as the airs he breathes out turn to mist about him, and then the flames snuff out utterly.
"Please, do go on," he says to them. "Do continue to tell me that I have erred. None of you," he says, turning to Ida now, and if he raises an eyebrow as she undergoes a transformation of metal granted to flesh, perhaps it is out of academic interest, "show a whit of understanding the purpose of this work, merely pretense that you are right and I am wrong." He taps his cane once against the metal floor; it rings out. "Now, then, hybrid child... let us test how well your fusion was conducted. If I subject it to flame, will it melt?" He gestures with his bloodstained hand. "O inferno, scour and purge!" Blue flame, dancing like marsh gas, floats in the palm of that hand. "Purifying Flame!" He but breathes on it, sending it in a torrent for Ida like the breath of a dragon.
Here he pauses a moment, lifting his gaze to watch how his construct fares. Almost, the look on his face might be one of a proud father--
And then Zed intrupts this moment with a shout. "'How long', you wretch!? Hours, days of my remaining time!" roars back the wizard, this spot that Zed keeps prodding an apparently sore spot for the aged magus.
Matilda catches up to him again, a problem for the less-than-melee-inclined magic-user. "You won't, will you?" he says, stepping backwards as she comes for him. "Well, let us see about that--"
Light, summoned far too quickly, rises to meet her blade. Her sword slides past it, through it.
It runs long and deep along his arm, which he jerks back, away from her as he hisses in pain. "Insolent girl -- I should have smothered you back in Marze!" he curses, and even though it evokes from him a truly pained twist of his expression, he calls out, "Flash Arc!" as he works the weave of that spell again, this time for her alone. The air is redolent with ozone as the bolt cross the distance for her, for her blade--
Lily might be able to grant Matilda some much needed respite as she closes.
"Then take that damnable girl! Always more trouble than she was ever worth, her and--" But he doesn't finish his sentence. His sole dark eye turns as hard as quartz.
Ice intrudes into that space, then, and even the spell that Timotheus works to deflect it is to little avail: in her state, even if he had the time to weave a better barrier it might well falter. Frost catches up to him. Frost swallows him. He staggers as it shatters, catching himself against a wall. He breathes, the once.
"You," he says, then swallows. "...Very well. Let the darkness take you!" The spark that flicks from his fingers is but a small, small thing. It dances in the air, tracing a circuit about Lily. It seems almost more joke than attack.
He has not forgotten Gwen. Turning his sole eye to her last of all, he slams his cane onto the floor with a resounding ringing tone. "Do not think," he tells her, "That I will permit such a trick twice. You will die for that, girl!" And he gestures for her. "Be engulfed beneath the waves!" he intones, as the waters again encircle -- but for her alone. They drag her own, into a personal, impossible abyss. "Drowning Tide!"
GS: Timotheus Lovelace has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Extend! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Leon Albus with Torrent Globe! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Torrent Globe! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Alchemical Arts! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Alchemical Arts for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Quick! applied to Timotheus Lovelace! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Purifying Flame! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Flash Arc! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Lily Keil with Shock Ring! GS: Sneak! You have gained 1 Combo! Only you see this message. GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Drowning Tide! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 2 Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace's Avenger stance ends. GS: Timotheus Lovelace has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Matilda Whitehead critically Guards a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Flash Arc for 42 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Matilda Whitehead gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Torrent Globe for 94 hit points! GS: Disrupt! applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Timotheus Lovelace's attack becomes clear! GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Storm Prison for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken! applied to Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Leon Albus guards a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Torrent Globe for 90 hit points! GS: Disrupt! applied to Leon Albus! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Hecatonchires's Hidden Gunner for 97 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Purifying Flame for 99 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Cover and Shield removed! GS: Mighty! applied to Timotheus Lovelace!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"That's what people have taken to calling me," Leon answers. He scowls at Lovelace -- a bit of pride, at how he scored a shot on him -- and then he looks at Fei. There is concern on his face, then. Worry, even; those are words that say a lot about Fei's current state.
"Fei," he says. "Easy. We're all here with you."
He steps back as water pools, then a geyser explodes underneath his feet. Leon hisses -- steps backward -- and he glances back at Timotheus. "A work's merit is defined by more than its usefulness. If its moral failings anger the people to the point that they cannot accept it... then it wasn't worth anything in the first place."
He throws a hand out.
And the three Raid Funnels shoot forward. The golden triangles spin, as they zig and zag, and then launch out towards Timotheus. They cut at him, bladed edges slashing at Timotheus as they close in, then fly backward.
GS: Leon Albus has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with PMU-Z2 Raid Fang! GS: Leon Albus's stance ends. He enters the Stoic stance! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace critically Guards a hit from Leon Albus's PMU-Z2 Raid Fang for 19 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover! applied to Leon Albus! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Drowning Tide for 124 hit points! GS: Cripple! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The strange man - the man who in the eyes of this creature may be by proxy among the most damnable within reach - has one advantage when the mouth opens (after removing a few excess bits of anatomy stuck there) and exhales venom. He has a mask over the lower half of his face. It would be simple enough, in theory, to keep a hand over it and move out, but there are two complications.
a) He is still short of breath after nearly being crushed against the wall.
b) He would be leaving the debatably dead guard to be definitely dead.
There is no shouting, gawking, or flinching before them now - Ethius has to omve, and move he does, trying to nudge and push along the fallen guard even as he is bore down upon by the noxious cloud. It's awful to the skin for contact, too, even with some of Jay's cool, invigorating spellwork that does wonders for muscle fatigue. Try as he might, he can't move that body in his current state without taking in a breath. Even filtered - barely - it's enough that the noxious cloud can reach its intended target, and the Symbologist's existence is that much more miserable for it.
Cough, cough. His eyes burn from the acrid noxious cloud. Pushing, shoving... and collapsing over said guard as Ethius comes out to clear(er) air and - facing the wall - has to pull down his bandanna from his face just to suck in breathable oxygen. Cough, cough, cough.
He doesn't look it directly as he points out a hand in contorting gestures that fail to materialize into anything useful because he's coughing too hard to keep the string of syllables involved with that spellcasting. The poison thus, for the moment, neuters his spellcasting ability. He fumbles to get his staff drawn and use it for support to stand back up.
RATTA-TATTA-TAT, he hears behind him. It's not angled at him, but it's not far off. (He's more startled by catching Zed in his peripheral vision but that's always been a thing.)
Somehow, in an uncomfortably short span of time, Ethius switches from 'hunched over, back faced, coughing while holding onto quarterstaff like walking stick for support' to 'taking weapon in two hands and lunging right at the beast - while still coughing up a storm.'
"Far--" cough. He can't say the technique's name, but as it's a hand-to-hand thing he doesn't really need to - lunging with the precise tip of his staff towards the side of where the Living Metal biomass is producing, and firing, machineguns in order to point it away or possibly even shatter the produced barrel(s) outright.
GS: Ethius Hesiod spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Hecatonchires with Far Point! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes 29 damage from Poison! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline stares in horror as the creature reaches into its own mouth, and pulls out a tongue. And... it speaks. She stares at it in shock. ...But, this shock doesn't last long, soon turning to something along the lines of sympathy.
"...You're trying to talk to us, aren't you?" She asks. She finally manages to stabilize herself a little. "...I'm sorry. We must seem boorish to you, attacking without so much as explaining why."
She shakes her head. Does it - they - understand what's happening? Are they even capable of understanding?
"That man, the one who made you all like this..." She says, nodding her head in Timotheus's direction. "He's going to make more people like you. Hurt more people for his selfish ambitions. We have to stop him. That's why we're here."
She doesn't know if they can even understand her, but the Hecatonchires does, at least, seem to respond to sound. This might prove a convenient distraction for what's coming next.
"Please... rest, and let us take care of things." Jacqueline entreats. In the time that she started talking, she's rolled another bottle toward the Hecatonchires's way.
This one is much like before, except this time it erupts in a lavender plume. There is fire, but the true concern is in the smoke that rises upward, carrying fumes that induce drowsiness and quickly drain away the will to keep fighting.
The last one didn't work, but maybe the issue was just in the method of application...
GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Hecatonchires with Apothecary's Fire! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's been rough since Josephine's betrayal. He would have taken a bullet for her--he just never expected the bullet he'd take would be her own.
And to make matters worse, Timotheus Lovelace is conducting terrible experiments against the people of this world and that is also a particular trigger for the young(?) man. Timotheus asks what he is.
'What are you'?
That's right. What are you, Fei?
"I..." Fei begins, faltering for a moment. What is he? Isn't he human? He feels, breathes, bleeds, and dies like a human so why... WHY?!
He shakes his head, grabbing at his forehead. In this moment, Timotheus burns and screams. For all his talk, he too is just a man. For now, at least, he is just a man.
But if he is close to eternity...
...What will Timotheus become? Something like Ida? Or something more like...
Water erupts underneath Fei's feet and engulfs him. It puts out the fires! That's both good and bad for Fei as he was channeling that fire into PUNCH, but at least he's not BURNING anymore.
So much as boiling perhaps. Fei grits his teeth, refusing to scream for the man. Ice ripples out from around him--this helps protect him from becoming a Lobster Fei.
He step forward once more, crouching again--grimacing.
He stands up slower this time.
A word enters his mind. What is he? What is he? What is he? What is he??? The word dangles at the edge of his consciousness, ceverly hidden within the recesses of his mind until a burning hand grabs hold of it and pushes it forward.
"Contact." He murmurs. And then he raises his head up high. "I'm just... A Contact...!"
And he takes one step forward--only for Leon to reassure him that he is not alone.
He looks to Leon. How many times has Leon stopped him from completely losing it? How many times...has Leon saved Filgaia?
Just a captain with a few soft words manages what the world's armies can't and the fury--it doesn't subside, but it stabilizes.
He channels dark and light chi into his palms as he jumps forward, his mind a momentary calm ocean--one that won't last for long as he sends those fists swinging for Timotheus.
"If only you had the fate you deserve...!"
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Yin Yang Strike! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Yin Yang Strike for 131 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Hrm. A rocket punch's impact, absorbed by a veritable barrier of meat? His fist's might, held at arm's length by the power of a hundred arms!? Zed makes a thoughtful noise as his wayward limb is deflected, before abruptly arresting its flight and returning by virtue of a full five fingers of rocket-propelled thrust.
Unfortunately, it returns too late to adequately defend from... Gun. Lots and lots of gun. "Internal weaponry too...?" Zed thinks aloud through the barrage of bullets. Round after round hammers against his body, each shot hammering in a fresh dent in his armor. But if this alone was enough to lay him out, then Berserk would have gotten rid of him ages ago.
"Hours and hours of the time you have left...!?" Zed asks of Timotheus Loveless, apparently intent on wasting more of the old man's breath. "Amazing... Truly! You spent so much time on this creature. So much time... taking away so many lives... So many futures... And turning it all into something that sounds like it's constantly in pain!?"
"It's funny! And terrible! Like, absolutely, incomparably terrible. But it's still funny to me. For all your so-called 'genius,' it took you hours to make this creature. The culmination of your life's work!!" Zed says, with an abrupt electric *pop!* Lightning sizzles across the ground and arcs between the antennae atop his head. "It's funny 'cause I begged Alhazred to make me a super cool robot form, and he did it in like a day? I mean, he was testing super technology on me too, but still! I don't want revenge, Tabitha Lipbalm... Alhazred was an awful, awful person. All I'm saying is that it's sad that your genius is just retreading ground he trampled over hundreds of years ago."
Zed reaches up. He seizes that electrical halo building around his head in his fingertips. Jacqueline's magic washes over him, then, bolstering his body and empowering him with sorcerous might. "I'm really sorry, too, thing-with-many-arms. You didn't ask for what happened to you. Not like me."
Zed... hurls his hands forward. A blast of extraterrestrial electricity erupts downrange, shedding blinding, corona-obliterating light in an instant before resolving into a steady, electric-blue glow...!
It has many limbs.
What happens if they would all start convulsing at once...!?
GS: Zed has attacked Hecatonchires with Space Thunder! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
'Look alive!' 'Nobody breathe!' Matilda holds her breath and weaves back, just as instructed; this gives her a brief glimpse of Ida, too, which -- wait, how? What? ... Again, just like Fei, this is something she'll have to simply commit to memory and potentially ask after... *later*. Right now she has just, too much going on, too much of it life-or-death.
Matilda shifts her grip on her blade slightly, and brings it up into a parrying position; having to take the impact of the bolt wrenches her arm a little bit, but it's better than taking it straight to flesh. Her blade clatters to the ground, slightly bent; she'll need to fix that later. Right now, again -- more important concerns, more immediate.
Taking a half-step back, Matilda whirls; her coat provides a big, flashy distraction, billowing from her movement. She seems to think better of that whirling retreat in moments, though, instead coming in for what appears, amid that whirl of white, to be a shoulder-check.
GS: Matilda Whitehead has activated a Force Action! GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Shoulder Check! GS: Matilda Whitehead has gained 1 Combo! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action. GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Far Point for 105 hit points! GS: Jam! applied to Hecatonchires!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Fei's words roll through Ida's mind like a warning tremor before an earthquake. "Fei," she says, adding her voice to Leon's. "You're here. This is not then." Someone else lunges at Timotheus--Gwen? No. Matilda. Here? She's not in uniform. Surprise crosses Ida's face, but only for a moment.
Timotheus speaks to her. For about half a second, Ida sorely wishes that Maekir would drop in, perhaps by punching a hole in the roof, and teach Timotheus a lesson in humility. "And you know nothing of its nature!"
The wizard breathes out, and flame washes across the room. She sets her heels, raises her arms, deploys the buckler-shields mounted to each forearm. Flame licks across them, causing them to glow cherry-red, then golden-yellow, then white-hot. Pain arcs down Ida's arms, even as the flame licks at her face and torso. There's more to this sorcery than just raw fire, as befits a magus of Lovelace's stature. It hurts far more than it should, as if it were trying to undo what Ida just did to herself. Timotheus Lovelace is committing a cardinal sin against a Method practicioner--he is dictating what shape Ida's body can take.
Ida's exoskeleton starts to buckle and warp. Some of the lighter bits blacken and char to uselessness. She stands her ground nevertheless.
Over the distant din, she hears the horrible noises coming out of Lovelace's abomination, and her gorge rises. She hears Jay trying to talk to them, and her heart aches. She stands her ground nevertheless.
When the flame dies down, Ida is scorched, warped, but still in one piece. Her shields fold back into her forearms with a grinding groan. Ida grits her teeth, and turns to the elder sorcerer, defiant. "I have been stabbed," she says, and takes a step towards him. "Shot at. Burned. Electrocuted. Held hostage within the very body of a Metal Dragon. And that was only--only--the past month."
"Fei is right about you," Ida says. "'Eternity' would grind you to dust beneath its weight. The metal is irrelevant, and always will be, because you fail to understand it."
In a surge of movement, she's suddenly right there, in Timotheus' personal space, holding her breath just in case Gwen's powder is still in the air. She still has breath enough to drive a flickering, gold-glowing knife-hand at Timotheus' solar plexus, trying to drive the wind from him in a single strike. And should it hit, Ida's lifeforce discharges with a snap-pop like lightning, surging painfully into the sorcerer's body.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Burning Infusion! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 3 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Avenger stance ends. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Matilda Whitehead's attack becomes clear! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Iron in the Garden for 181 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Burning Infusion for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Disease! applied to Timotheus Lovelace!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily, too, is worried for Fei in this state--but Leon is the one who can lead, there. Leon has words in a moment where Lily doesn't, and not only because she sees some close to her harmed.
'Then take that damnable girl!' Lily's spell goes off, but she takes no satisfaction in it after those words. Her response is smaller, perhaps inaudible as he staggers, perhaps not.
"I had," Lily answers, and there is an ache there that cuts through her anger, righteous as it may seem or be. But that spell comes, a flickering spark of his fingers, and Lily charges through it, planning to overwhelm it with raw force--but here, the subtlety of the archmage has an advantage over the raw power of the witch. The circuit the spell makes lights up and crackles all around her, the magical force resultant enough to slam her backward through the air until she hits the opposite wall with a crack of building material.
The darkness draws more deeply around her indeed.
She has a moment, to look over at the horror on the other part of the battlefield. She takes that moment and burns it into her mind--it reminds her of the intelligence at the door, at that facility, the one that recognized her--that begged. It is an ugly reminder, but this time she makes herself look into it.
In an ancient language she then intones, "<Activation complete. Causation engaged.>"
Lily rises, and her form shimmers; from underneath her arms build cannons, a small exoskeleton of something chrome lining her limbs. Her spectral, multicolored wings beat once, and then fold as she hovers.
Fei seems better, somehow. It is a relief, flashing towards her as she lifts her hand.
"The darkness is familiar, but..."
"I'm going to return from it, for the same reason I didn't join Father."
Lily lifts her other hand; it becomes painful to look at her, the shadowy force about her hurting the eye as surely as too-bright lights. She channels energey, and far above, the sky roils. There is a minor tremor in the floor, as bolts of nothingness crash towards Timotheus to try to bind him in place.
Lily still hovers, and her darkened eyes roll back, closing as she invokes a redoubled force.
"...<Obey my call!>"
The strange words hang in the air, as at first nothing happens. ...Then, there is a terrible rumbling, and then a horrific groan of shearing stone and metal as part of the ceiling crashes in, moonlight suddenly streaming into the facility from outside. But there is little time to look; the ceiling shatters in more than one place, after all.
In the next instant after the moonlight is let in, bursts of radiance announce the presence of flaming meteorites that crash down towards Timotheus and any barrier he can put up.
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action!
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Causation!
GS: Lily Keil spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Darkened Sky! GS: Lily Keil has launched an attack Link! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Meteor Call! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly feels light washing on her from Jay. Jay Barber, she thinks. I wonder if she's had the same kind of thoughts I have had. Despair, fear, discouragement. She has always been sweet. But there is not even the gulf there is between me and Riesenlied there - we could even be related, Elly thinks, through mother, but --
But -
She's woolgathering because of what is before her. The Hecatonchire wobbles, rolls, tumbles. If it were smaller, younger, would they want to protect it instead? Elly thinks, even as cold sweat runs down her spine. She feels on some level like she's running down a hallway. The others are screaming. It's turning Ethius's gas towards him. This is a horrible place.
"I'm sorry," Elly answers the thing, her voice a dry croak.
"But,"
"I,"
Elly's head dips down for a moment.
She leans on her iron staff for a moment.
Then she raises her head. That globule of red comes towards her, dragged and undulating like burning water droplets as it gets swirled round. It grows in size around her, a momentary boundary - is she going to make some kind of static defense, perhaps? No, it's not that easy.
The gathered flame gathers before her into a disk. It begins rotating. Faster. Faster. Annular confinement draws the plasma (for that perhaps, is the true state of the flame) forwards. The angle of the rotating disk is such that one side of it travels over Elly's right shoulder, the other one pointed towards the Hecatonchire.
Elly stares dead ahead. "I'm sorry," she says. Her brow knits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB6Ch_VAfIk
The galaxy of fire abruptly collapses inwards. The dual prominences sluggishly glow yellow for a moment... and then FLARE to a gas-flame blue, an intensity of color rarely seen. Timotheus's flame may have been a cool blue: this is a surging one, an incinerating heat, aiming to lance through the Hecatonchire and then spread outwards. Without the will of Elly confining it, of course, it will lose heat and pressure will dissipate.
But there is a LOT of both.
GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Hecatonchires with Thermo Incinerate! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Oh, to think that Matilda would stop at just a dodge back and then a shoulder check. Somewhere in that whirl of motion, Matilda snagged a knife -- well, to call it a knife would be condescension, nearly a shortsword -- from that coat. Needless to say, she brings it straight forward, then *twists*, then follows up with a rising knee just below it to really drive it home.
GS: CRITICAL! Hecatonchires takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Apothecary's Fire for 90 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Hecatonchires takes a glancing hit from Zed's Space Thunder for 81 hit points! GS: Hecatonchires critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Incinerate for 36 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper! applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Hecatonchires's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca doesn't feel any sense of triumph at being right over this. Dean shows off his maturity, and she finds only admiration. That he can hold onto that optimism of his, despite facing the reality of the situation. Constantly she worries that what makes Dean, Dean will be crushed. And constantly she's proven wrong.
"We won't." Rebecca promises to her childhood friend, "Just don't let up. The faster this is over with, the sooner it gets to be at peace."
"Don't have to tell me twice," Dean calls over his shoulder at her.
Rebecca catches a line of sight of Ethius electrical spell, and a flash of gratitude appears in her eyes. Normally she doesn't get along with the mysterious man, but right now they're at least united in bringing down this colossus of dark science and magic - that was once people.
Jay's spell infuses over her with light, fortifying her. And with a breath, Rebecca murmurs quietly, "Don't think about that Jay." It's never an answer you really want to know - she doesn't say.
Rebecca sees its hands move, but she doesn't see which one moves at time. A nail twitches. And suddenly a noxious cloud is headed her way. Gasping, she sucks in a breath. And finds herself crossing her forearm across her mouth, trying to run out of it.
Looking positively ill, like she wants to vomit.
And that's when she sees the side of it slide open to reveal guns, and she decides she doesn't have time for emesis. She needs to be a big girl here, as she dry heaves, seeing Dean hit the floor. And Rebecca suddenly lurches forward, reaching out her hand to help him up if he needs a little assistance, "You okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
What a polite abomination, always conveying a 'please.' It's too bad no one here can hear its pleas!!
Jay's magic seeps into Dean's body, strengthening him further. "Thanks!" he calls over his shoulder to her, unable to say more in the heat of battle. A little more speed would have done him well, considering the monstrosity grabs him and lifts him up. "Hey--leggo!!" he demands, pounding some of its hands. Perhaps thanks to that, there's a little less force than there would have been when it hurls him--but it still does hurl him. He lands hard near Rebecca with a loud "OOF." It's still a better sound than the ones Hecatonchires is making.
Rebecca offers him a hand. He smiles up at his friend and accepts, rising to his feet with her help. "Yeah, I'm hanging in there." His smile fades as he looks back at Hecatonchires on one side of the operation room, Timotheus on the others. "These guys are real tough, though."
"Dean," Rebecca says. "We need to hit it with everything we've got before it can pin down everyone in the room." And immediately moves so that she's at his back, "You ready?"
Dean grins. "Always!" he replies, snapping Twin Fenrir to attention. "Trigger--!"
Rebecca immediately responds with, "Rondo!"
And they both start firing, the two pivoting in flawless coordination, saturating the room with smoke and gunfire. Every shot detonating explosively. "Go go go go go!!" Dean calls, waving his paired guns back and forth to cover as wide an area around the Hecatonchires as he can. Rebecca meanwhile empties her clip, with a snapping sound she reloads...
... and then suddenly leaps, flipping gracefully over his shoulder as Dean turns around. The two end up back to back, and as they turn again, more fire and smoke that threatens not just the Hecantonchires, but the monster as well. Despite turning themselves into a carousel of gunfire, they work well as a team, and their shots carry a frightening accuracy.
"You don't deserve any remaining time," Rebecca calls to Timotheus after their fire ends. (She may have been extra certain that her shots went his way. She does after all pride herself for her Marksmanship.) "Not even a single second."
"So it's time you go down!" Dean concludes, snapping his guns to either side of himself.
GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action! GS: Rebecca Streisand has activated a Force Action! GS: Formation! Rebecca Streisand has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Trigger Rondo! GS: Formation! Rebecca Streisand has attacked Hecatonchires with Trigger Rondo! GS: Rebecca Streisand takes 26 damage from Poison! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action. GS: Formation! Dean Stark has attacked Hecatonchires with Trigger Rondo! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Hecatonchires takes a glancing hit from Rebecca Streisand's Trigger Rondo for 89 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Trigger Rondo for 188 hit points! GS: Timotheus Lovelace completely evades a hit from Lily Keil's Darkened Sky! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Timotheus Lovelace critically Guards a hit from Lily Keil's Meteor Call for 39 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Rebecca Streisand's Trigger Rondo for 186 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
It's a fitting fate, to stifle the man's breath with such a low trick. "Go! While he's still coughing! Just don't breath in the red dust!"
Gwen spends that moment loading her ARM, eying her companions. Fei's dance with identity crisis causes her to pull her focus to him instead, remembering how he slept in Citan's room abiard the Thames. She didn't know what tragedy had brought him to that state, and neither did Citan, for that matter.
"You're one of us, Fei. A Drifter. That's--"
A magical tide swirls around her boots and in the next second, she's encompassed in deep waters, separated through means connected through infernal magic than matters of distance and time. Fei's reply to his own question doesn't reach her, Leon's calm words talking him down, Lily's call of her own deep magic, Matilda's agile swordsmanship, Ida's verbal and physical counterattack, the battle beyond, many hands, all noise
She's just aware that she's drowning, again, like before. Like the time before then, before now, again and again, cold and cold, separation.
It's so cold here that it burns, like her lungs, like she's on fire, like the Primarch's baleful stare on her as she took a piece of his fire, like a tick out for blood.
If only he had the fate he decided.
If only the blue-eyed man had the fate he himself decided
If only she
If only
If
i F
The slopping wet young woman bursts from the water abyss in a moment of the magic's weakness, the remaining liquid falling from her as she flies forward, the full weight of her sodden form intent on slamming against the Magus, her right fist directed straight at his throat.
Gwen's own curse flares yellow bright through the wet fabric clinging to her body, alarm red beating in the front and back where her heart was, in time with the gasping, greedy breaths she tries to draw.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Gut Reaction! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Timotheus Lovelace critically Guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Gut Reaction for 28 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Hecatonchires has posed.
sorry
i'm sorry
we have to
revenge
it's funny
i'm really sorry
but
i'm sorry
peace
you deserve
don't think about it
Hecatonchires doesn't see the humanity in Ethius, as he tries to defend his hostage from the poison. No: Hecatonchires sees no humanity.
None at all.
Please choke to death.
If this is the star of Timotheus's works, then...
It LURCHES forward, as Ethius jabs his staff into its inner workings. The staff surely strikes metal -- and the metal shifts around it, becoming not a machine-gun barrel but something much wider, much more open.
And there's something inside.
Ethius's face, meet rocket. Rocket, Ethius's face. One-two-three they burst out from its flesh, and the other two mercifully arc around the Symbologist -- they will find Rebecca and Dean, instead, dolefully tracking their heat signatures.
The question might now be: how, precisely, does one kill something whose flesh can shift and reform? Surely it is HURT, and yet it never seems dissuaded. It does not give pause; it does not give up.
Perhaps that's why it's hurting... all the time.
All these extra injuries... they're just more of the same.
HAA HAA HAA, says Hecatonchires as it hops back from Jacqueline's bottle, and as its lungs fill with smoke from the shattered glass those sounds change to GHH GHH GHH. That strangled coughing means it almost doesn't see Zed's lightning -- and though it leaps away, the electricity catches it, seizes it, and it lands all in a heap.
It's too MUCH of a person. It can't quite figure out where its sense of balance ought to be; its experience in relation to itself.
Please get up.
But just as Elhaym recognises: it's not always that easy. There is heat, building, and it compresses; its arms curl around itself, its legs all folded up. The metal drip-drips as the heat washes over it.
Its arm is a little less bulky, when it finally rises. Its leg a little skinnier.
But it reforms. It rebounds.
And it turns on Zed.
All but falling on him, its hands DIG into that metal, and its hands curl into fists -- as if it could drag his metal right out of him. Out of him, and into it, because if it actually grasps him it will take those handfuls of metal and roll them down its throat. HGK HGK HGK, it swallows.
This was its purpose, after all. Plans change. Plans adapt. Zed is a Drifter now. And Hecatonchires...
Please die.
Its eyes fall on Jacqueline and her vials, and all of them blink in unison. All at once it surges forward, the ram of its one monstrous arm swinging down on her like a gavel in the hands of a judge. Did it hear her? CAN it hear her?
It can kill her.
And she is not alone in its vengeance. If it heard Elhaym's apology, surely it must have rejected it -- because from Jacqueline it leaps to her, and with one massive fist it lashes out to do what its mantle of hands could not. A punch from something like that... describing the kinetic force behind what's coming for Elly is a devastatingly clinical approach. Well -- perhaps that's fitting.
Please please please please please...
GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Internal Alchemy Rocket! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Dean Stark with Internal Alchemy Rocket! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Internal Alchemy Rocket! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Zed with Chilling Draw! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Killing Intent! GS: Hecatonchires has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Ultraviolence! GS: Hecatonchires takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Hecatonchires has completed its action. GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Killing Intent for 118 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a glancing hit from Hecatonchires's Internal Alchemy Rocket for 95 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rebecca Streisand gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Rebecca Streisand's Force Evade activates! GS: Elhaym van Houten guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Ultraviolence for 126 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Dean Stark takes a solid hit from Hecatonchires's Internal Alchemy Rocket for 187 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
He makes Ida's extruded flesh bend. Buckle. Burns bits of it to ashes. "Ah. What a disappointment," the wizard sighs, watching her and shaking his head. "Perhaps if the flesh were more integrated... I might do this for you, if you were to ask me kindly."
She tells him again just what she thinks of him -- his methods. His goal.
"But of course. None of you fools will have it!"
She brings to him her meaning by her body -- if words do not suffice, then action, violence may convey it? He may raise his cane -- no magic, perhaps she was too fast this time -- but she is hardly deflected by it. She strikes at him.
He crumples to his knees, wheezing a breath just in time to convulse. Then, and only then, with the help of his cane, he rises. Fei is there to greet him.
Something is not Right about Fei. Even the blinkered archmage can see it, now. The way he talks. The way he moves. The way he seems that something inside him is screaming to be loosed. For the first time since this fight ensued, Timotheus hesitates when he regards Fei.
This hesitation costs him.
Because Fei does not hesitate. Fei lunges for him.
Timotheus is flung backwards to slam into the wall, which he slides down the length of, and slumps in a heap at its base. He twitches, and for a moment, it may well seem that he won't rise again. The elderly are understood to be frail, and he is so very old.
But he is a wizard. And he, inch by inch, breath by breath, stirs and begins the process of rising.
"Save me your moralizing, mercenary," Timotheus snarls at Leon, and from him it's a slur, as he rises to his feet. "They will learn."
And Leon then throws a hand out.
"An interesting trick! But let us see if it can best my storm!"
Lightning strikes behind where the wizard stands; winds build and gather, wrenching anything stray on the walls from their moorings. The surgical table is overturned, the tools set scattering in a glittering spray. Even the Raid Funnels are deflected by the gathering storm, though one brave the storm long enough to deliver a slice along the back of one of Timotheus' hands. Before it is forced back.
And here, in the still-building storm, Timotheus Lovelace howls into its heart:
"I invoke thee, storm of the ages! Relent not in thy all-consuming might!"
In the eye of a storm such as this, there is a certain calm. But it will not last.
"Scouring Tempest!"
Not with the storm's fury unchained, let loose to ravage those unlucky enough to receive its touch. For the wizard's control is fine, and while others may feel the pressure and fury the storm promises...
Only three will receive its embrace.
Fei. Ida. Leon.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Into this -- after this -- Zed harries the wizard. Again, and again.
"How many times," utters Timotheus Lovelace utters, wroth, "must I tell you to shut up?"
Matilda presses her advantage and closes on him; his eye rips from Zed and his taunting to the sword-bearing woman who is for him. It may look like little more than a shouldercheck but he moves to evade it nonetheless--
But it is for naught. Her blade sinks deep and he keens in pain as she wrenches the weapon in a twist; his plain robes gain further color for her efforts. He claps a hand to his wound once she wrenches it free and wheezes with the pain of the action--
But it is never a good idea to underestimate a wizard, even a badly-wounded one. "Allow me," he tells Matilda, "to fix an old mistake." Still clutching at his chest and bowed, he raises his hand bearing the cane as if to reach for the heavens. "Behold! Look to the skies and repent!" he calls out, flickers of the just-summoned storm brought forth once more as if stirred back to life from ashes alone. "Holy Thunderbolt!"
It's a gleaming thing, this thunderbolt. Pure white, shimmering. If anything could be called 'a finger of god', perhaps it is this, this singular bolt of judgment cast for Matilda alone.
Into this moment Gwen, lost in another abyss and sodden with Timotheus' failed attempt to drown her like a rat, intrudes. She lunges for him, her fist grasping, grasping for his throat. She does not reach him.
The cane may be but a normal cane, but it is made of sturdy oak. He swats her aside, a flinch crossing his face as new pain from his wounds are derived. "I see that failed to do you in," he tells her, his gaze implacable. "So be it. Let the heavens themselves present unto you their judgement!"
It's nighttime outside. But into here, it seems that darkness has been brought. For Gwen, all is pitchblack.
"All heav'n in order aligned..." the wizard intones. Specks of light begin to intrude into the dark. "Stars be my witness, 'gainst those before me! Celestial Impulse!" Timotheus cries out, as the stars avenge themselves upon one singular courier.
Perhaps it is a relief that the spell -- however it catches her, should it fully catch her, is cut short before Timotheus can drag it out.
Because someone... has just shot the wizard. Timotheus lifts a hand to his chest, seemingly shocked to see that red, red color that greets him when he pulls it away. There is raw ragged fury in the gaze he delivers unto Rebecca.
In this, Rebecca is spared the wizard's wrath, because he then has rather more to deal with.
Bolts of nothing rain down about him, and he, here heaves out a breath that leaves red flecks on his lips as he works the counter. Out of nothing, there was birthed light, after all.
"Prepare thyself! Light Chain!"
The rising coils, link after link of shining brilliance, rise to try and catch Lily.
As she raises the roof. Quite literally.
To say that destruction is rained upon the operating theatre would be an understatement. Total chaos is left in its aftermath: walls stagger inwards as if they were fit to fall. Pipes hang and lazy angles, leaking fluid. An alarm has gone off, somewhere. Divots mar the floor. There is no surgical bed anymore.
But Timotheus stands in a field of light, barely scathed. Blood drips onto the floor about him.
"O brilliance of the celestial firmament, I call now upon thee..." he rasps, extending a shaking hand upwards for the nightsky above. "Stand fast, thou fool, and meet thy judgement! Empyrean Terror!"
Is it truly the sky that opens? Or is it not real, after all?
Beyond the darkness of space, there is light. Beyond the light, there is--
GS: You do not have that Force Action. [lock on] GS: Timotheus Lovelace has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Leon Albus with Scouring Tempest! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Scouring Tempest! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Scouring Tempest! GS: Timotheus Lovelace spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Holy Thunderbolt! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Hecatonchires has posed.
What, then, can stop the magic word?
The answer is bullets. It's such an obvious retort. Bullets shower Hecatonchires and all a sudden it is not attacking with such brutality any more -- now it is moving, now it is fleeing. It does not strike against Dean and Rebecca, in that moment. It needs to get AWAY.
It is a moving target.
GS: Timotheus Lovelace spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Celestial Impulse! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 2 Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Lily Keil with Light Chain! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has launched an attack Link! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has attacked Lily Keil with Empyrean Terror! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: You have finished a Link/Follow chain. Remember to +round! GS: Jam expired! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has completed his action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Scouring Tempest for 160 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Scouring Tempest for 70 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ethius Hesiod guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Internal Alchemy Rocket for 111 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Ethius Hesiod enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disease expired! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Light Chain for 0 hit points! GS: Slow! applied to Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil completely evades a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Empyrean Terror! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil's Force Evade activates! GS: CRITICAL! Matilda Whitehead completely evades a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Holy Thunderbolt! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Matilda Whitehead gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper! applied to Timotheus Lovelace! GS: Lily Keil used Defend! She takes #-1 NO SUCH OBJECT VISIBLE's attack on #-1 NO SUCH OBJECT VISIBLE on herself! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey used Defend! She takes Hecatonchires's attack on Zed on herself! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Hecatonchires's Chilling Draw for 69 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Celestial Impulse for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Reaper! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Gwen Whitlock has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Leon Albus guards a hit from Timotheus Lovelace's Scouring Tempest for 53 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Leon Albus enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
In the aftermath of their attack, Rebecca fights the urge to give Dean a high five. It's a really strong urge. It's just not the time to celebrate. Because the look Timotheus gives her chills her to the bone. Part of Rebecca wonders if she'll end up regretting striking her target. If he weren't preoccupied, she gets the feeling that she would.
Though perhaps, not much. This man deserves much more than a single bullet in her eyes.
The one two three of rockets that arc towards Ethius, and two more that arc towards her and Dean are evidence of that, "Scatter Dean!" Rebecca leaps into the air, reloading, and pivoting around in one motion, firing off a trio of shots at the rocket in an attempt to detonate it early.
Ultimately, she gets her wish. Unfortunately for her, it detonates too close for comfort.
The explosion blasts her out of the air and Rebecca lands inelegantly on her posterior.
"Ngh. Dean..." Scorch marks mar the pink of her clothes, as smoke wisps flow off of her. "... you hanging in there?" Suddenly she just rolls backwards and up to her feet. As she comes up, she finds herself paling at the violence with which its striking Elly. Rebecca is grasping another medium than the one Old Man Tony gave her and she murmurs.
"I've never been the praying type, and I won't apologize for that. But... please, I beg of you... if you have any mercy in you. You'll end it's suffering right now." Picking up the volume of her voice to be someone, "Material-"
Sparks rise off of her as she invokes it, her twintails rising in the air as she channels the flow of electric energy.
"-FLASH CORRIDA!"
Thunderclouds form at the ceiling of the operating theater, as an effigy of a great horned beast bursts out of the clouds and descends in an arc. A green gem alit on its head reflects the appearance of the unfortunate being back at it.
Noua Shax, the Guardian of Thunder and Lightning charges at the Hecatonchires... parallel columns of lightning marking its path in sequence. As it tries to crash into the thing, the impact splitting the room with deafening thunderclaps.
... and instantly vanishing. It'd be like if it was never there, except that's not quite true. That impact was quite real, as are the scorch marks in twin lines across the floor.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Hecatonchires with Material - Flash Corrida! GS: Rebecca Streisand assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Rebecca Streisand takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action. GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Rebecca Streisand's Material - Flash Corrida for 171 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Better a mercenary than a bitter old man," Leon answers, with a smile. "Really, this is one of my better career moves."
The Raid Funnels fly back. Lightning explodes from the archmage's summoned spell -- and lightning slams into the barrier between the three funnels, dancing across the fields of energy, as Leon holds them at bay. Some shoot by, and one strikes his shoulder.
His shirt blackens there, in an instant.
He lets out a hiss, then lowers his shotgun, aiming one-handed. He draws his bead with the sight of the shotgun and fires, a round exploding from the barrel at Timotheus.
"It's over, Lovelace!" he shouts at him, with a flicker of anger and regret. Hadn't he shouted something like that at this man's daughter, not so long ago?
GS: Formation! Leon Albus has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with RR-2 Insight Check! GS: Leon Albus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Leon Albus has launched an attack Link! GS: Leon Albus's Stoic stance ends. He enters the Avenger stance! GS: Disrupt expired! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Her assault delivered, Matilda decides to just leave the knife in Timotheus and backpedal, taking the opportunity to go for that bright silver blade she had no choice but to discard earlier instead. Her grip curls around it right as Timotheus demands, 'Look to the skies and repent!' He brings the full weight of his experience, his nearly a century of learning, down on Matilda, with those words: 'Holy Thunderbolt!'
Matilda, of course, has learning to bring to bear too. Silver is a funny thing -- it's a powerful antiseptic, but more than that, it's very conductive, and that conductivity makes it an even more effective antibacterial agent in turn. Silver is, accordingly, an essential component in any medic, apothecary, or compounder's arsenal, and in a world where the safe and effective application of electricity through sorcery is common, knowledge of its status as the defining conductive metal is part of Pharmacy 101.
All that, of course, to say: Matilda hurls her sword -- a sword made on Lunar, made of silver, for some arcane magical purpose, left in a Glenwoodan ruin -- into the air, straight up, and rocks her body straight backward. The bolt doesn't stop cold in the air -- it has to reach ground somehow, after all -- but it does seem all too happy to meet a much better conductor than Matilda, and drive *that* into the ground instead of, well, Matilda herself.
Matilda takes several moments to circle around and take a breath, after that. One hand slides into a coat pocket, with a faint sound of something being retrieved from a pocket -- something she quickly brings to her mouth and swallows. Her lips curl up into a small smile. "... see what you get," Matilda offers, with a wide grin, "for dismissing the 'valueless things' of the world."
She springs forward again, now *completely* weaponless -- but such is fine, of course. She needs no weapon to try to seize Timotheus's arm with one hand, place her other hand behind his elbow, and push to break bone and tear muscle.
GS: Matilda Whitehead spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Casting the Bullet! GS: Matilda Whitehead has gained 2 Combo! GS: Matilda Whitehead has launched an attack Link! GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Casting the Bullet for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, and Hyper! applied to Matilda Whitehead! GS: Matilda Whitehead has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
If Rebecca had offered Dean a high five, he would've taken it--he's matured in his years as a Drifter, but he's still a kid at heart in many ways and probably always will be. IT's just as well, considering Hecatonchires unloads those rockets as he and Rebecca are forming up, unloading and loading the abomination with bullets. As it runs and runs and runs, the rockets it fired before close in.
'Scatter!' Rebecca says. Dean hears that and knows the wisdom, but it's too late for him to get out of the way now. He crosses Twin Fenrir's rods before him in a defensive position, but this only does so much good against huge explosions.
KABOOM.
Dean lands a fair distance away, clothes scorched, bleeding in several spots. It's a miracle he's still conscious--hell, that he's still alive. Still, he bears the power of the Original Mountain Medium and all its defensive properties. In short, Dean's built tougher than most. With a pained groan, he manages to pick himself back up.
"I'm managing," he tells Rebecca, reloading his ARMs. "But we've got it on the run. Just a little bit more...!"
As she prays to Noua Shax, Dean does as he usually does and takes the more direct approach: more bullets. Bullets and bullets and bullets, first spinning to one side to fire with one gun, then spinning to the other to fire with the other, then firing both together, until light burns in Twin Fenrir's rods. With this power stored, Dean launches himself forward after the great abomination like a samurai's iai strike; hit or miss, he then leaps backwards, gathers one last burst of power in his ARMs, and fires a great explosive blast onto Hecatonchires.
KABOOM.
GS: Dean Stark spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Hecatonchires with Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Tilling! GS: Matilda Whitehead's Avenger stance ends. She enters the Stoic stance! GS: Slow expired! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly rears back as the thing comes for her. The Thing in its hugeness, its mass, its distorted shape.
Elly does not notice that this does not have that subtle frisson of deja vu in the face of this one.
But it can be forgiven... after all... she's being attacked by a massive congeries of limbs and body parts!!
And what can Elly do in the face of this? She sinks backwards as it comes towards her and she raises up her arms, crossing them over herself in a defensive posture that is no doubt going to be helped by having a big metal staff in one. But the single thing she does greatest, the decisive moment, is that
she
S C R E A M S ! ! !
The noise is enormous in the cacophonous metal chaos. A moment later it is upon her and then there are cracks and thumps and when the Hecatonchire emerges Elly is --
-- alive, but half-laid out on the ground, one of her ankles visibly twisted out of true. Some nameless fluid clings to the top of the iron staff; perhaps the metal sunk in enough to make the Thing recoil. Elly needs a moment, no doubt.
GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Hecatonchires with Screamer! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Leon Albus's RR-2 Insight Check for 199 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Timotheus Lovelace enters Critical health and gains 25 FP! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Tilling for 123 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Timotheus Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline glances Elly's way. She's not the only one reaching it out them - it's reassuring, in a way, that there's someone thinking along the same lines. And then, she looks Rebecca's way, shaking her head.
"...I can't help it. I can't help but think about it. ...But, don't get me wrong. I... won't let it stop me from doing what needs to be done..." She replies.
Her attention returns to the Hecatonchires as the amalgmation leaps toward her with blinding agility. There's no time to dodge. And even if she did, it has other limbs. In a panic she raises a pillar of earth for protection with one hand and wraps her steelcloth cloak around herself with the other as the massive fist descends for her. It smashes into the earth pillar first before continuing on toward her.
That, combined with her cloak, might ultimately be what saves her. The fist approaches with less momentum than before, but still enough to smash her into the stonework below.
It hurts... but, even so, with a wince of pain Jacqueline is still able to stand right back up.
"...I don't know... if there's any part of you that can still understand me. But... I just want you to know. I don't hold this against any one of you. You... never asked for this, I'm sure. You couldn't have wanted this. I don't hate you - I can't hate any of you." She says. "There's only one person in this room deserving of that, and he's not a part of you right now."
She spreads her arms out... but, she's not asking for a hug. No, this is a spellcasting stance.
"I can only ask you all for forgiveness..." She says...but then, her tone sharpens. "...But you, Timotheus Lovelace, I'll only ask to disappear."
And then she lowers herself down, invoking two Crest Graphs at once - one in each hand. With the spell in her left hand, energy tears through the floor of the operating room. Debris is hurled into the air as the ground, as well as the Hecatonchires and Timotheus are assaulted by earthen energy. And with her spell in her right hand bolts of lightning scream down from the heavens, striking through upheaved stone and anything else in its wake.
GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Hecatonchires with Spellweaver Stance! GS: Jacqueline Barber has launched an attack Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber's stance ends. She enters the Avenger stance! GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated a Force Action! GS: Formation! Jacqueline Barber has attacked Hecatonchires with Dualcast - Voltaic Quake! GS: Formation! Jacqueline Barber has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Dualcast - Voltaic Quake! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber's Avenger stance ends. GS: Cripple expired! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Dualcast - Voltaic Quake for 116 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: CRITICAL! Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact for 231 hit points! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Screamer for 0 hit points! GS: Disrupt! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Hecatonchires has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Rising coils of light link around Lily; they weigh her down, hold her in place. This, paired with the lightning crackling around her, casts strange shadows on her face and form; her still-black eyes are shot through with color, dazzling in its brilliance. What moonlight shines in as the walls crumble in places falls on her--as she sees Timotheus, in a field of light, spared the destruction of her spell by his own might.
This time, the sky opens agaisnt her instead of for her, the opposite of her magic in many ways. The chant comes, and Lily, trapped in place, breathes in--
The space where she was visible is completely obliterated in the next moment; melted metal and crumbled stone are all that remains. ...Behind that space is Lily, the shadowy magic she used to shove herself backward, chains and all, still radiating around her. It is a field of darkness to match his field of light.
"You've worked all your life for this power, for your 'eternity', Lovelace. But me?" Her voice echoes strangely in this form, as if distorted. "I've been practicing maybe a fourth as long as you have. But..."
Power keeps building, and Lily lets it; it bursts all around her, darkness overflowing, blotting her out completely in a storm of shadow.
And there is a terrible crash.
Lily, eyes still black but otherwise in a basic human form again, drops down to hit the ground, rolling with the impact and pulling her knife as she charges. "Haaah--!"
She's smoking from the lightning, jacket torn and body battered, but she is moving. Holding the knife tip-down, blade out, she surges forward and upward, taking advantage of Matilda's motion to try to hack straight across the old man with her weapon.
"...It flows through me. And I went to military school."
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Black Wolf Lily!
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Lily Keil has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Black Wolf's Claw! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Weaken expired! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The change in weight when Ethius makes contact is enough to throw him a bit further off-balance, which is always a risk when dealing with amorphous targets - it's more surprising that he knows how to recover from that by crouching down a bit lower and planting a hand on the ground, dropping the grip of his weapon before he falls face-first towards it.
He coughs again, and when he sees the three bulbous things with tell-tale noises of an ignition starting to build within them above all of the shouting, writhing, shattering, and lights... this is a panic situation on his part, because he can identify those are missiles.
He doesn't yet have his Symbological shield against this sort of thing up. That's several quick syllables to slur at once while sweeping an arm inward. The gesture is laughably easy. The tongue-twisting and tiny amount of time involved... less so when there's a missle coming to meet his face.
There is an explosion. There's enough chaos around that if there's any electrical light or sound heard, it's missed... but Ethius' body is not collapsing to reveal the upper half has been reduced to, uh, less than usual.
The smoke doesn't quite clear, but it's enough to reveal the sleeve of his defending arm (his right) is completely gone. Wisps of flame flit out as his eyes re-open. He cast the spell at the last possible moment... and he steps back, as if dizzy. As if the residual concussive force could count as yet another notch of cranial trauma which coincidentally helps as the entire theater is collapsing from Lily's nearly unmatched sorcerous might, revealing the night sky above and so many other forces in play. (A lick of lightning seems to reach out towards him as the Flash Corrida passes by but comes up short. This is good!)
His hostage, the still motionless guard, is behind him. He nudges them back closer towards the wall. It may be well too late for them, but he has no time to ruminate or check more thoroughly. The horror is flailing in the direction of any number of those on the ground with him - around Elly, around Jay, and was there someone el-- Zed.
The sky's open. The mass of bodies fused into one, driven by desires only able to be communicated with violence - there is maybe something unnerving about how Ethius can stand straight up and look to it head on, for something that is tragic, wrong, sickening. He coughs again.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
It's not very often that he pulls this, lately. Especially not in such close sequence to one another, as he brings a hand up forcefully as sorcerous power builds around him.
"I call to a star that enables the patterns of life itself, its existence an unstable, unsistainable chaos..." The beginning of the spell. Roundabout word choices chosen to make the syllables used for casting it easier at cost of some expediency, but that's a necessity for consistent high-level Symbology. The light of the Symbological runes on his naked arm glow brilliantly. "Relive your ceaseless pressure at my call, and bathe them in the unrestrained maelstrom of your prominence...!"
Compare it to Timotheus, who is unquestionably Ethius' superior as a spellcaster by roughly five decades (at a guess), who has seamlessly strung together several high level spells under immense duress from half a dozen foes - each one visually striking, each one a reflection of a master of their craft... as sunlight that looks a whole lot closer than it normally would takes on its fiery, unstable, violent motions from the skies above the ruined roof.
"SOLAR STORM!" Ethius calls as he swings the hand down against the ground, palm open and fingers spread at the end of the gesticulations, and with it... it comes down towards the Hecatonchires. The man offers no apologies or olive branches to the mass of them - as if having already known his answer from the beginning as to how to bring such a thing to peace when Living Metal has proven exceptionally good at being elastic against the stress of pain and injury.
What follows from above is something that has gone beyond the romanticizing of the heavens, and what lies within or beyond - as if reaching to a more ugly, primal, clinical truth that trades out the workmanship that seamlessly blends form, function and force together for just something destructive to envelop the writhing mass of limbs and eyes, as if content to just make it be as it never was should it prove unshielded.
(It still does not play very nice with ARMs surrounding it.)
GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Black Wolf's Claw for 225 hit points! GS: Mighty! applied to Lily Keil! GS: Charge!! You gain 45 FP! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Hecatonchires with Solar Storm! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes 26 damage from Poison! GS: Poison expired! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Spellweaver Stance for 70 hit points! GS: Hecatonchires takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Dualcast - Voltaic Quake for 119 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Hecatonchires has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight! GS: Hecatonchires guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Solar Storm for 90 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hecatonchires gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disrupt and Jam! applied to Hecatonchires! GS: Hecatonchires has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"I'd rather die," Ida says, "than let you touch me, butcher." She snarls the words down at Timotheus as he reels and crumples--but she doesn't have long to indulge her sense of visceral satisfaction. One glance across the room reveals that Lovelace's monster is still up and moving; even worse, its eyes are squarely focused on Zed.
Once, before she became a Drifter, Ida accompanied her mentor, Doctor Oxford, in a dig in the wastelands south of Celesti. Oxford's people had been trying to open a set of ruined bunker doors, only to find out, once they did, that they were meant to keep something in. Wels swarmed the camp; Ida defended the others with the gun-techniques her mother taught her. She saved her fellows' lives, but in the process, one of them got too close. Ida still remembers the way its claws hooked around her right shoulder, the way it bit off chunks of her right arm.
The same arm that now bears the flesh of Fafnir.
"ZED!" Ida roars. Zedder Robo is both bigger and more massive than her, so she doesn't tackle him out of the way--instead, she throws herself between him and the onrushing horror. Once again, too many arms grip Ida's shoulders, chest, arms. Once again, a horrible ripping sensation as chunks of her flesh are torn away. The one mercy is that Hecatonchires gets mostly exoskeleton and not Ida's actual flesh. She looks into those eyes, confronted with the full weight of Timotheus' monstrous ambition.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida all but rips herself free of the thing's grasp, stumbling backwards. "I'm sorry," Ida says, as if she had anything to apologize for. Crimson and quicksilver weep from the wounds the creature opened in her. "You're suffering. It's not your fault." She feels ozone in the air, and realizes, to her horror, that she has turned her back on Lovelace while defending her dear friend.
Lightning surges through Ida's body. A raw scream tears free from her throat, and she drops to the floor, thrashing as secondary arcs rip through her. But then her right hand reaches down, touches the floor. It's covered with blood, the attached arm bearing wounds that mirror those left by the Wels--it grips the floor, pushes. Lightning still crackles across Ida as she rights herself. She manages a small, weak smile for Zed before turning her full attention to Lovelace.
"Let me ask you something, you cowardly old man," she snarls. "A question, if I may."
"'A weapon is forged in furnace-heat.
A warrior is forged in battle's fire.'"
The thing is running. Ida chases after it, a look of pure focus on her face. Once she's got enough of a lead, she skids to a halt, her life-force flaring brilliantly around her. The two-part aura concentrates into arcs of light and flame around her right fist, and forms a sort of bow shock in front of her.
"'These are one and the same!
A tempering of strength which drives out impurity,
leaving behind only the finest of both,'"
The thing is running towards her. Ida stands her ground, the aura around her almost blindingly bright.
"'With the slag cast away.'"
And so the master says.
But a strong weapon may be wrought from metal impure.
But a strong warrior may be wrought from teachings uncertain."'
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida goes from stillness to explosive action in a fraction of a second. She throws a punch, a simple straight with perfect economy of motion. It's the start of a chain reaction--force amplified, the rest of her body in perfect alignment behind that fist. She streaks at the Hecatonchires like a bullet shot from a gun, the bow shock followed by the punch followed by the bow shock of Ida's entire body moving at superhuman speeds. Her motion carries her through the monster, across the room, towards Timotheus Lovelace. She hasn't lost any momentum whatsoever.
Ida's fist races at Timotheus' jaw with enough force to pulverize stone. She looks him in the eye, and does not look away until she's on the other side of him. Only then does she finish the koan.
"'What truth does the master speak?'"
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Force Action! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Hecatonchires with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist for 144 hit points! GS: Hecatonchires has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong hears from both Ida and Zed as well that he isn't alone and, particularly, that he is a Drifter... Fei never really asked for that life, or for that identity. He's seen himself as a farmer, and a painter, and a swordsman and a surgeon and a spaceman and a berserker but none of these were quite right. It isn't until he whispered that singular word, that two syllable nigh-meaingless phrase did Fei know what he was.
He doesn't know what IS what he is but he knows the name of it. It was buried deep in his soul forever. This loathsome man, Josie's betrayal, it pulls these secrets out of his mind.
Such as new traumas always manage to do to him. For him? To him. Every fresh wound against his psyche bleeds...and it shows what lies underneath.
Whether he wants it to or not.
storm crackles around him. A lightning blast slams right into him and crackles around him. If it were a cartoon and his skeleton flashed, it wouldn't even seem all that out of place i n this moment.
"Nobody on this planet is special." Fei whispers. "Nobody in this universe is special. The word 'special' itself is a lie to make us feel like we are more than what we are: Specks of dust smaller than dust. Tinier than rocks. That is how you can wish for eternity. You look the grand and vast cosmos and think it small rather than nigh infinite. We are cells of this greater overarching construct that we will never ever perfectly understand. No matter what fel engines we build, no matter what glorious wonders we craft, or treasures we find sparkling."
"But that does not mean are lives are pointless. We aren't special, but do not take that as a bad thing. Because we are not special we get to live our own lives. Our choices are always our own. You cannot run from what you are." He points a finger towards Timotheus.
"Because that is what you are trying to do. You are trying to run away. That's right..."
"You're a coward."
"You could have had everything. Loving daughters. A long life to be celebrated. Respect to those that knew you. Everything specks of dust like us can ever earn. Nothing greater. Nothing grander."
He shakes his head. "But instead... Instead you are cowering before inevitability, respecting your mind over your soul. You can imprison the latter in metal, in shards of glass and plastic. You can store it on a disk and file it away in the most impressive of computational structures."
He shakes his head again. "But that is not immortality. That is postponement. Evil in of itself? Perhaps not. But what will follow you is your karma."
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnyETI-Ox2U
"We are all slaves to it. And your well runs deep, Timotheus. In this life..."
He swings his fist back, once more twisting Timotheus's own magic around his hand--electricity crackling along his arm. "Light. That's all this is. Not godlike power. You can flip a switch and banish it until the sun rises once more."
"And even suns die."
He surges forward as the electricity traveels from arm to leg, all the way across. He throws one lightning charged punch for his body, and follows it up with a vicious crackling roundhouse.
"There is no escape from our prison. All we have is each other. That's all we've ever had."
"That's all we'll ever have."
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with All We Have Is Each Other! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Disrupt expired! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The cane swats across Gwen's face, drawing blood that grows diluted by the water still dripping from her face.
And then, there is nothing, as far as Gwen can see.
What little mental ground Gwen gained is lost, cast to the stars that spin in the ink that's splattered over her perception.
Its threat is cut short by Rebecca's aim, leaving the pale red-haired courier mostly unharmed save for a touch of death ebbing away at her health.
Intentional or not, Rebecca probably saved not only Gwen in general, but saved a lot of people from a lot more. Because Gwen isn't reacting to the nightsky that Timotheus opens before them- or, more like, she seems to someplace else, mentally.
"The stars themselves cannot save you from death. One of us will grant it, whether it be my impartial bullet or their anger at the limits you have callously stepped over."
Gwen steps forward towards Timeotheus, and begins to speak, as if she and the magus were the only ones present, though no illusion is deployed by the young woman to change his perception of things. She doesn't seem to hear the similar messages being said by her, by Fei, or Ida's call to her martial arts training.
"Which death will you choose? Which fate, Timotheus Lovelace? Or do you deny yourself this kindness?"
She's pointing towards Timotheus with that metaliic hand, rivalets of water dripping languidly from her pale form.
"Your time is running out."
It is Gwen's voice, it's Gwen's words. She has shown her ability to speak like this in times when she wishes her words to be taken seriously. No one is speaking through her.
But it is definitely unGwen-like, what she is saying.
The pointed finger fans out into an open palm, after Fei makes his attack, beam of light bursts from her hand, directed at Timotheus.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Timotheus Lovelace with Coil Cannon EX! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes an additional 30 damage from Reaper! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
The Hecatonchires is a terrifying thing. A monster of meat and misery, whose very existence is designed to simultaneously experience and inflict pain. Pain. Zed is sure that if Alhazred had designed this thing, he would have left in its ability to feel pain just so it could have an added edge in combat. He would have let it feel fear just so it could dodge a fraction of a second faster. He would have stripped it of the ability to speak, though. It would never have a mouth to give voice to its torment.
In this way, and in so many others, Timotheus and Alhazred are similar.
But the creature has another facet to it. Another bit bolted onto its being that Timotheus would never have neglected. Hunger. The need to feed. Zed sees that hunger flash in its eyes a mere moment before the monster leaps forth to consume him. To add parts of what make Zed himself to its own twisted assembly. To ensure that some part of Zed would suffer exactly as it does.
It never gets the chance.
Because someone else is there instead.
"Ida, what are you--" She's being torn apart. Or rather, parts of her are being stripped off. The outer shell that her squishy inner bits are surrounded by-- is being torn apart. A mere moment more and it might have torn free an arm. A second and it could have learned to wear her face. But she tears hersel free, just in time.
Zed is silent for an instant that seems more like an eternity-- before he says: "That was stupid, Ida. You could have gotten yourself eaten! You could have... But didn't. Thanks. I'll take it from here."
Zed pats at his friend's shoulder, and moves past her. The monster is continuing its rampage. The Metal Demon spares Timotheus Lovelace a look. "Timotheus Lovelace. Do you know what the worst thing about this is? It's not just that you remind me of someone I used to look up to. It's that... that I understand. I understand! I do! The desire to create something amazing! To achieve something nobody else could even imagine! To be remembered... Immortality is just how you get there. I know... How empty it feels," Zed's hand closes into a fist. "Pursuing that so-called 'dream' for its own sake. How it makes you spoon out parts of yourself to achieve it. Putting the cart before the chocobo-- driving you to do terrible things. The difference is that I never went as far as you did."
"I never took other people... and killed their dreams for the sake of my own. But look at it! Look at you!" He says, to the abomination. "You... you've lost everything important. Just a bunch of body bits, without the thing that lets you be *more* than the sum of your parts."
"Alhazred left that with me, at least. I'm lucky. I was so close to being just another monster--" Zedder Robo palms its injured, bullet-scarred chest. Even as the sky opens up, even as the circle of hyperviolence rounds fatally upon the Hecatonchires. "That's why, as one science experiment to another, let me remind you of the soul you once possessed!" Zed looks to the sky. To where the sun shines brightly and sheds its terrifying solar winds... And he leaps.
Up.
Into Ethius Hesiod's metal-melting magic. "Khhhhhhhhhhraaaaaagh! Look! This is what it means... To be MORE than what you are MADE OF! I borrow the power of the SUN! ZEDDER--"
Zed's voice is strained. His boddy sparks and smokes, armor melting into so much useless slag. Internal weapons overheat and spark out, almost to a point beyond his automatic repair systems can handle. But still he perseveres... And yet...!
SHIIIIIIIIIIIINE!
He roars, throwing his arms outward as if to embrace the sun setting him ablaze. He draws them inward, compressing that incredible heat and light... Into himself...!
There's a flash. An emerald blaze. The solar magic blueshifts, molten red and corona orange now burning vitriolic green and solar gold. At the heart of that psychedelic sun... Zedder Robo Dragon spreads its wings.
And flies at the Hecatonchires, arms spread as if to embrace it. "The light of my soul burns bright! TAKE IT, HECATONCHIRES! Behold, Timothy Lovelace! My SHINE!"
SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRKKKKH!!!!
Impact.
Zed and the space around him blossoms in a hemispherical supernova of gold-jade light. It pours outward, all consuming in its radiance, and still Zed's voice roars over the din of flash-sublimating steel.
Somehow, he's... still probably not dead...!
GS: Zed spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Zed has attacked Hecatonchires with SHINE SPAAAAAAAAARK!! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cripple and Mighty expired! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist for 103 hit points! GS: Timotheus Lovelace enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Mute expired! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Fei Fong Wong's attack becomes clear! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ultra Idstinct for 89 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Hecatonchires takes a solid hit from Zed's SHINE SPAAAAAAAAARK! for 246 hit points! GS: Hecatonchires has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight! GS: Timotheus Lovelace takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Coil Cannon EX for 133 hit points! GS: Timotheus Lovelace has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Perhaps Lovelace had thought Leon felled by the storm he had summoned. Perhaps he was simply preoccupied with the swords and spells unleashed by others within this space.
'It's over, Lovelace!'
Whatever it is, he turns and he catches a second shell dead-on. He convulses once, stepping backwards in a fashion that makes him seem more marionette than man. But where others -- particularly others of his age -- should have dropped, he still stands. Flames gather in his bloodied hand.
And Matilda interrupts rather pointedly here by siezing that arm and wrenching it brutally back. The wizard makes a sound that does not seem like anything a human being should be able to make, and yet, it is his to emit all the same.
The crack will tell anyone else all they need to know. As will the way the arm hangs limp. Timotheus wrenchs away from Ida, limping away all but a few steps when his gaze rises to focus on Jacqueline.
She asks for forgiveness from his creation.
She asks for him to disappear.
His cane clatters to the floor, dropped from his grasp. His sole working arm traces in the air the workings of a spell.
He manages to complete but part of it when Jay unleashes the force contained within those graphs. Perhaps that's all that keeps him from being felled by it. A 'heroic' effort, one might say.
But.
"You wretch," he hisses at Lily as she taunts him.
As she drops out of that transformation she had mustered, empowered by that fell strange magic she and Elly both can wield. "I should have smote you the moment you stepped into this room--"
She comes at him with the knife. He raises an arm -- nearly too late -- to try and block her. But her aim was never for his face. She scores a line, further marking the man's robes with such brilliant red. He breathes hard, stumbling away from her, and there is a snap of ozone in the air.
'Let me ask you something, you cowardly old man', says Ida.
Just one question.
She moves at an impossible speed. First for the creature. Then for Timotheus himself.
Ida's fist drives forward with pile-driver force, and indeed, had it been anyone else's jaw, perhaps it would have shattered.
But Timotheus Lovelace is a master wizard. Light intercedes -- summoned by in invocation of will, perhaps drawn from one of the older tattoos on his body -- just seconds before the punch slams into him. It does not dampen the force of the blow -- see, his head still cracks to one side as hit comes in -- but difuses it just enough.
Just enough, which just means it's sufficient for him to be on the receiving end of further abuse.
"Spare me your lectures," he spits at her.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
He finds purchase and safe haven only against the wall.
'Your time is running out', Gwen tells him, echoing the sentiment about the room. "How dare you-- you striplings-- tell me, me, with what I should be concerned--"
His construct is wounded. His construct may be dying.
It may be a mercy.
He has time enough to reflect on that fact before the beam fires from Gwen's fist, bursting upon him with a brilliant flare. "Aagh..."
And then there is Fei.
Timotheus Lovelace is a coward.
At this the wizard outright snarls. There is more of him in Josie than the archaeologist would ever care to admit.
"Worthless! Utterly worthless!" he snaps in retort. "What meaning is there in a life forgotten?! I will have eternity-- I will have my legacy! I will have--"
He still rages as Fei slams punch after punch into him, finishing it with a kick that dents the wall. Were it not for the enchantments the magus surely bears, perhaps it would have broken the wizard as well.
He collapses, buckling in on himself and lists to one side, before finally, like his daughter before him, slumps against the buckled, burnt wall. But unlike his daughter, there is still light in his sole eye as he glares balefully at the lot of them.
"I thought," he says to Zed, his one unhand clenching and unclenching where it scrabbles in the rubble, "I told you to shut up. You absolute--"
But he stops and he has to take the time to breathe, in, out, as if it were for some reason quite difficult at this time.
"I suppose..." he rasps, and there is a hiss to the sound that that cannot suggest he is particularly healthy or well, "that you think you have won this day. I suppose you lot think you have proven to me some truth. But you will find not what you seek here. It-- is already gone!" he rasps, and when he splits his lips in a terrible grin, his teeth are bloodied. He begins to chuckle, the sound low and pained.
And then the wizard whispers: "Mother of all spirits of the air, bear your child to safe haven..." He breathes the once. "Teleportation!"
And then, in a flash of light, Timotheus Lovelace stands here no more, amidst the charred and burning wreck that was the laboratory.
<Pose Tracker> Hecatonchires has posed.
GUGHHH says Hecatonchires, gurgling and strangled by its own lolling tongue and all but drowned out by the sonic force which is her voice.
And then there is Zed: but it is not Zed. It finds itself buried in the flesh of something half something else, and it cocks its head as it stares at Ida in blank wonderment, blink-blink-blink-blink all out of sync with each other. A smile spreads over its face -- in recognition--?
oh.
No.
It's not smiling.
It's opening its mouth, wider wider wider, to shove that hunk of exoskeleton into its jaws. As if it doesn't care whether its target wasn't quite Hyadean. ... what a horrible thought.
That meal doesn't bother it. Other things do. Avoiding aversive experiences...
It's why Hecatonchires runs from those bullets. It's why it KEEPS running, as Rebecca's Flash Corrida brings Noua Shax into its path. The impact runs right through its spine -- surely only one spine? -- but there's nothing there to catch it as its momentum is arrested, and it stumbles forward with nothing to catch it. It starts running again, only to run into Ida and her fists; like a bullet it is thrown backwards, no longer its own master.
HHH, HHH, HHH, says Hecatonchires, as it skids to a stop. HAA, says Hecatonchires, and the tone rises, and the treble rises, and Elhaym has reminded it how to scream. It does, painful and distraught, the lasting imprint of what has come
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
That's the sound it makes as bullets bite into it -- as Dean himself launches forward, strikes as if to mark it for the final blow of his laser impact. It's only when it all explodes that the noise peters out, to gurgling again. It's as if the sheer force of his ARMs has distracted Hecatonchires from its sound.
It turns to find Jacqueline, arms spread. Its arms spread, too, all five around its neck. This is called 'mirroring': the capacity for creatures to echo each other and find empathy. Or... is it? Because it lunges forward --
-- but as it happens, Jay wasn't trying to give it a hug, either.
The crests strike it in its motion -- debris striking at its chest, disrupting its centre of gravity. It does not have a solid basis to stand on, and down it goes again. Down, down, in time for the volt to charge through its body, and its hands grasp against the clinical ground.
When it rises, it is... slick. Even with the repairs it made from its foes, its constitutent parts can't seem to keep together properly. One arm slides over the other. One eye slides over the other.
It's manageable. It can recover. Hecatonchires was designed to kill Drifters.
But...
... of all the Drifters here, gifts of mercy and understanding and empathy, fear and vengeance and determination, and let us not forget Zed's reckoning of LEGACY...
... there's something which doesn't quite fit.
It's hard to remember, but didn't Hecatonchires see it, when this started?
Ethius Hesiod is not like the others.
As it stands it finds itself bathed in light and that light becomes heat -- boiling, searing, ravaging. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, it screams, AAAAAAAAH. It has forgotten how to punctuate the noise, but now it remembers how that noise is made. One leg melts into the other; its mantle of arms becomes more like a cloak.
And it's still standing, even as its rocket launcher melds with its machine gun, its electrical conductors forging into something deeper, its fingers lose their claws.
Please hold.
Please hold.
Please hold.
What is it holding on for?
Perhaps it was Zed -- all along. Zed, who could have been one of them. Zed, who had all those tricks Hecatonchires showed. Zed...
... who charges through the heat of the Solar Storm, wings outstretched, brighter than the sun itself.
The only limb left to its function is that fragile little thing on its chest. As the shape of Zedder Robo resolves, it seems, in the end -- it reached out.
To grasp him with the only weapon left to it?
Or...
Weeks ago--
There is so much white. It is overwhelming in its sterility. It's hard to move under the medications. It's hard to hear anything.
"... #4 isn't going under," one of them says. The one with the partner on a distant island, wasn't she? It's hard to keep track of them.
Your name isn't Four, and you try to say so again, but your tongue feels thick. "Nnn..."
There's a hand on your shoulder, as you try to push yourself up. It shouldn't be this hard. You've been a deckworker for years. Right? Isn't that right?
"Please be quiet whilst the procedure begins," says another one, closer to you. He's low on the totem pole. Everyone's always ordering him around.
It's the first time anyone's spoken to you instead of at you in...
... it's so hard to tell.
"Increasing saturation," says the woman. You can't quite tell how many people she's talking to.
And you can't tell much of anything after that.
Goodnight.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
The light of the green sun fades. In its wake...
Zed is still there. Not Zedder Robo Dragon, but... Zed.
But...
He has something. In his hands, there's...
A frail, fragile little thing. Maybe it was still trying to kill him. Maybe it was just flailing in desperation to survive.
In the instant before the Shine Spark exploded, Zed did not consider these options. In his mind, there was only one possibility.
"I'm sorry," the mossy-haired demon whispers to the disembodied limb. Little else has survived the aftermath of the Shine Spark, empowered as it was by the might of the sun itself. He holds it tight, even though it has lost all ability to reciprocate. "We were too late to save you. I'm sorry we couldn't get here in time."
"I hope you weren't afraid when you went. That it didn't hurt. I hope holding your hand at the end was enough."
Zed is quiet for a long moment. If he notices that Lovelace has made his escape, he doesn't do anything about it. It's not until he turns toward the others that they can tell--
He's not happy about this at all.
"We need to bury it," he says, quietly. "Somewhere people can go to mourn."
...
...?
Wait. Something's wrong. Something about the way he looks--
...Zed...
Has somehow gotten a *rockin' tan!?*
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius does not avert his gaze in watching what transpires. That he still has functional eyesight watching the Zedder Robo take the brunt of a Solar Storm blast head on and continue onwards to deal what all appears to be a decisive enough blow to unmake it. Leaving very little but a suntanned... Zed. His name is Zed. There is a suuntanned Zed who speaks their last rites to a fallen limb.
For a man who nearly got crushed, inhaled poison, and nearly had his face and other attached anatomy blown off by a missile, there is a stride that does not falter. Only the audible sound of him sucking in breath is the suggestion that this is a human being approaching Zed, and not some sort of automaton, as his captive of indeterminate living state remains placed up against one of the walls.
"I will ensure it is safe," Ethius says with a hand extended towards Zed, looking at him with that gaze and the unspoken expectation that he will be taking that hand. The other arm - his right, the one whose sleeve got disintegrated - is behind his back, bent as if he were standing at attention.
As if there were some level of emotional ambience that just does not seem to... reach.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Teleportationg magic. That's some real solid sorcery. Uncommon. Powerful. If you're not careful with it you'll end up in some random spot not of your choosing. It could be an island in the middle of nowhere, or partially embedded in rock. Timotheus is powerful.
But even unlimtited power can only go so far. Fei knows that too more than most. He has men. He has cleverness. But there is already an emperor, isn't there?
Fei feels an eternal wound ache and he sighs. it's going to be hard. He is going to need to rest. To recover. And maybe, in time, he can really be Fei Fong Wong again.
Instead of...a shadow of a child.
"A glimpse of the infinite... It's a dangerous thing."
He makes his way to Elly. He's going to hug her for a long, long time.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline takes a deep breath, when all is said and done. Timotheus escaped, and a thing of indeterminate nature is still out there that they'll probably have to stop. This really isn't a victory. But they have, at least, put some unfortunate souls to rest. She can take solace in that much, at least.
She opens her eyes, then, spotting Zed - and spotting Ethius. She frowns. On one hand... she doesn't think a piece of Hecatonchires needs to remain. But on the other, she can see how Zed feels about it, so she approaches the two of them.
"...It's alright, Ethius. Let him bury them." She says, shaking her head. Her gaze then tracks over toward the guard placed up against the wall.
"...And, now can you tell me why you dragged this poor fellow into a warzone with us...?" She asks.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida takes a moment to catch her breath, her shoulders heaving after that exertion. She turns to face Timotheus, committing the image of him bleeding and scrabbling to memory.
Then she realizes what he's about to do.
"Oh no," Ida says, "NO, YOU DON'T, YOU BASTARD--"
In a flash of light, he's gone. Ida clenches her jaw so hard her bones creak. Fresh exoskeleton flows from her fingertips, turning into claws. As light washes through the lab, she turns to see Zed, and a radiance so bright she has to look away.
When it's gone, all that's left of Hecatonchires is a single arm. The rage in Ida's heart dies to a low boil, while fresh grief wells up to contrast. She looks down at her arm, still bleeding from where the monster took its pound of flesh, just like the Reapers did.
"We do," Ida says, to her dear friend. Her voice almost breaks. "Who--who were they? How many of them had families--?"
'I will ensure it is safe.'
Ida looks at Ethius, her entire face tightening. Disbelief lights up her eyes for a moment before the anger returns.
Idiot. What would you do with it? Leave it in a tomb, so it can hijack some other idiot girl's body?
"I will make certain that it is safe," she says. "That is all that remains of Lovelace's victims. Just this, and whatever records he kept. I would have them remembered and mourned for the people they were, and I will not see them consigned to oblivion to 'smooth matters over'. By that same token, I will have Lovelace's crimes documented, so the world may know him as the monster he truly is. I will write him into history as a man who sought nothing but power, no matter the cost."
At some point, the iris of Ida's left eye turns green. She doesn't seem to notice.
"Thank you, Miss Barber," Ida says. Hopefully that will be all.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The right hand drops back to her side when Timotheus leaves. Gwen is thoughtful, glancing at the space there. The thrumming red of Gwen's own engine has settled back to the subtle glow of yellow, disappearing under the drying of Gwen's clothing.
She coughs, sniffing, and turns, one hand rubbing her nose as she regards Zed, and the absence of the Many Handed being. "...?"
".... So it died?" Her voice cracks, and Gwen rubs her face with one hand, a subtle warmth creeping into the soft timber of her voice. "... Thank you. I never got a real good look at it, but it looked like it hurt. Probably was for the best, y'know?" She nods at Ida's firm declaration, opening her mouth to say something.
Why is Ida's left iris green?
"Hey... maybe we need to rest a bit? He did a number on us all."
She glances to Dean, and gives him a small smile, remembering her own promise to him. She did offer to help him bury those soldiers, after all. "Let's collect ourselves first. We got a lot of work ahead of us."
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius has that hand open - ready to take the arm in hand. And then...
He is accosted. He turns his head over to his right from where Jay approaches. He is familiar with the pacing where she starts to question just about any of the weird, off-beat behavior he gets up to (no small amount of it being questionable).
His familiarity with Jay questioning him - maybe even taking for granted her level of influence - outright blindsides him to Ida snapping up from the opposite side as she out-and-out declares what will happen. Ethius' outstretched hand's fingers curl slowly as he is compelled to look her way. The passion in which she declares what has happened to them will be memorialized, as will be Timotheus' crimes. He is unblinking, but does not quite muster much of a contest.
What would 'contest' entail, one may wonder.
"..."
Jay chimes in at last. It's alright, let him bury them. On two sides, one of righteous anger, one of kindly mercy. Standing before them... to what end does this man desire or represent?
"..."
Ida thanks Jay. Gwen comes in and suggests they all rest. Ethius still hasn't answered the merchant caravan leader.
"He's not as unknowledgeable of the incident as he claims." Ethius says. "I am uncertain if he is still alive."
A subtle way to say 'he needs a medic.'
His open hand curls fully into a fist, and it retracts. He turns away from either of them - now facing Gwen, momentarily - and finds no matter where he looks he can't avoid meeting someone's gaze.
He starts to walk off towards the soldier. His answer to Jay is clearly not the complete one - but future elaboration will have to wait.
<Pose Tracker> Malik Benedict has posed.
Timotheus' inner sanctum is a wreck. The observation room windows bear fist-sized holes, and sparks flicker from dead light fixtures. As the Drifters below start to regroup, a pair of eyes looks down upon them, taking it all in.
A single figure stands in the observation room, cast in silhouette by a handful of surviving lights. His voice is soft--inaudible from the surgical theater proper--but confident.
"Not a bad show," the man says. He reaches up, tucks a lock of wavy blonde hair back into place. His lips settle into a self-assured smile, the key element of his resting face. "The monster was a bit... crude, shall we say, but that's what comes of treating Hyadean biology like tape and baling wire." He folds his arms, the folds of his long white robe swaying about him. "But I suppose that's to be expected, given how pitifully short-sighted the man is. What good is immortality if the world will perish within a century? A decade? A year?"
There's a second silhouette behind him, even larger, and even harder to make out.
"What do you think?" asks the man, as he turns to look behind him. His companion does not answer. The man shrugs.
"Still," he says, "we have new data points, and some fascinating recordings to deliver." His gaze falls silently on Ida Everstead-Rey, lingering on her a moment. "4A's made breathtaking progress over the past few months." His eyes drift over to Gwen Whitlock. "And 3J... has yet to find her upper limit, if she even has one. It's exciting, isn't it?" The man glances back at the other shadow, but there is still no answer.
"Well. I suppose we'd best get back; God knows Her Highness is going to want to go over this with a fine-toothed comb. What do you think she'll take issue with this time?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida sees movement out of the corner of her eye. She looks up, sees a humanoid silhouette in the observation lab--no, two. In the blink of an eye, they're both gone. A chill runs down her spine. She glances around at the others, as if to confirm that she isn't seeing things.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
It's definitely not the complete answer that Ethius gives her. Jacqueline can see that, and the fact that she can see it shows in her unamused expression toward Ethius at his response.
But, at the same time, she knows he's not wrong.
And so, with a groan and massaging her forehead, Jacqueline shakes her head, drops the line of questioning - for now - and hurries over to tend to the guard.
She's occupied by this, and may need to be informed of any startling revelations.