2020-10-10: There Will Be Sacrifices
- Log: There Will Be Sacrifices
- Cast: Wen Kinoc, Meseru, Riesenlied, Zed, Noeline, Ethius Hesiod, Dean Stark, Violet Salazar, Ambrosius, Fei Fong Wong, Gwen Whitlock, Matilda Whitehead, Xantia, Azoth, Ida Everstead-Rey, Janus Cascade, Citan Uzuki, Siegfried
- Where: Bevelle - Via Purifico
- Date: October 10, 2020
- Summary: The Drifters who stayed outside of Bevelle are now faced with the likelihood of death for many of their friends. They mount a rescue, charging into one of the tunnels at the end of Via Purifico. However, what they find is... most disconcerting.
<Pose Tracker> Wen Kinoc has posed.
There are multiple exits from Via Purifico.
One advantage of those who weren't captured is that the exits lead to Macalania, where the land is a no-man's land between Guard, Yevonite, and Solaris forces. This has made it easy for Al Bhed and Drifters to do some scouting and locate where those exits might be, and perhaps find a back way inside of them. It may, of course, also allow the Guard and Solaris to do the same.
But, once, these were some of the most remote areas of the Bevelle region. The entrances are in the mountains near Macalania, with the woods protecting them.
One such entrance converges on the path out of Via Purifico here.
Both entrance and exit meet in a massive room. The room has worked stone, where Yevonite artisans have created a basin. Here, machina have been stacked up -- broken, chipped, cracked, and defunct YAT-99 and other drones used by Bevelle -- and then a larger space.
There, one can see a familiar sight... but in an unfamiliar state.
Lombardia, the Metal Dragon that defeated Sin, has been bound. She has immense chains about her arms and legs. Her wings are bound in close to her body -- and a massive, terrible machina is atop her. It seems to straddle her, with huge pincers that hold her down. Grates and glowing spots can be seen; it seems recent work has been done, to modify it.
On the top, a pair of smoke stacks rise up. There are two shut hatches, which split down the middle. Light glows from within them. Lombardia lay under this thing, silent, and eyes closed.
A few Yevonite clerics gather around her, checking over some of the machina. Someone else stands at their head: the robed Maester, Wen Kinoc. He has a machina handcannon resting on his shoulder. As people file in, he looks -- eyes moving from the exit to Via Purifico and to the entrance from the mountains outside.
He cracks a smile. "Well, well, well! Look who decided to show up. Too bad you found this place, huh? We're going to have cut your little escape short. Can't have people knowing about this!"
He smiles. "Nothing personal."
<Pose Tracker> Meseru has posed.
Maester Kinoc is not alone.
Black hair blows in a cold breeze, shot through with streaks of gray. The woman standing beside Kinoc is dressed in armor similar in cut and form to that of a warrior monk, but of deep black, with violet robes beneath. Her nose bears the mark of having broken at least once; there is a scar over her left eyebrow, another down the right side of her face. She is a hard woman, and her stance radiates authority, her bearing that of a senior monk. Her gauntlets bear spikes on each knuckle, wickedly elaborated.
At her back is a gleaming black blade, an ornate weapon with red hilt-wrappings, the razor single edge of its blade fading to gray as it reaches its sharpened point. The sword itself is some four feet long, three inches wide, with a wicked cutting hook jutting from the tip. It is not a pleasant weapon. Her arms, at the moment, are crossed, as she looks from Kinoc towards the group as a whole, red eyes taking each of them in. "Understood," she acknowledges the Maester, and rolls her shoulders, limbering up for what will obviously be a battle. She does not so much as look to the great Metal Dragon nearby.
"...Not to contradict the Maester," the woman says, "But I think dealing with some of the Otherworlders meddling in our affairs is personal enough for me."
Pulling her weapon from her back, she levels it towards the group at a diagonal. "I am Meseru, of Yevon," she introduces herself. "I will be your end."
Meseru's eyes narrow. "Make peace with your unclean gods."
DC: Lombardia switches forms to Bound Metal Dragon Lombardia! DC: Meseru switches forms to Meseru of Yevon! DC: Wen Kinoc switches forms to Maester Kinoc and the Dragon Fossil Extractor!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied has been at the forefront of efforts on the other side of this whole incident with Yevon: namely, staying on the Fereshte to help aid the Drifters running interference and distracting those that've entered the sanctum of Bevelle itself. The affably rickety ship of the Wayside Outreach has been present to pick up those who've been injured, escaping violence, and otherwise serving as a base.
But when she heard those that came into Bevelle had been captured, the situation turned from running interference to running rescue missions -- and reconnoiteuring those that had managed to flee from the depths of Via Purifico ontop of that.
She promised Noeline, and her children, and everyone -- that she wouldn't push herself. And yet, one day--
I can hear her.
Riesenlied doubles over on her chair, hands on her temples, eyes wide and pupils shrunk.
It was like every other time the Fossils called to her... called to her, from the depths of the earth. Yet far more intense and concentrated, for... this time--
As she lifts her head to the distance of Bevelle.
--a living Dragon is beckoning to her.
~*~
"This' a bad idea, a really really bad idea..." Odjn whines as she wheels Riesenlied along -- essentially leaning her whole body against the backrest of the chair. The noise of the wheel bumping against the uneven cobblestones of the Yevonite basin, at times clicking against a loose Machina's bolt.
"I know," Riesenlied ruefully whispers, reaching over to pet her small and long-term Dragon companion. She looks to Noeline as well.
"We... we will merely see what we find down here, and flee if it is too dangerous," she affirms.
And yet, what Riesenlied finds down in the depths of Bevelle is--
"No... no..."
It is scarce believable. No. It beggars belief.
Immediately she feels her throat dry, her Tainted blood hot and her hands trembling; her eyes widen further, horns raising to attention as she gazes towards the abject and horrific sight of what has transpired to Lombardia. The chains, the horrible... machine pincering her, smoke stacks billowing out of it.
"Why?"
Kinoc is the first to speak, and Riesenlied's expression crosses. She scarce feels she has the capability to speak, shocked into silence as she is.
"You are... Wen Kinoc..." Riesenlied whispers. "Why... why have you done this?"
Meseru is the next to speak, with her black blade drawn. She doesn't know her personally, but it's clear whose allegiances she belongs to.
Odjn herself doesn't seem to be doing much better, tail agitated as she hovers up and puts her paws to her temples.
"L-Lombardia! .... M-mom!!" she exclaims in shock. ... Lombardia isn't her mother, technically, but it seems like since her last encounter with her, she's essentially considered her her only family remaining.
"Open your eyes, Mom!! Please-- please don't tell me... please don't leave me!! I don't... I don't want to be left alone..."
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"IT IS ABSOLUTELY PERSONAL!"
The voice comes, booming and furious, from on high. A shadow falls across the Maester, twisting in an indistinguishable whirlwind of darkness. Its source isn't hard to determine, it's as painfully obvious as the morning sun cutting through the dark of night. It's...
It's a green-haired Hyadean, whose blade is *already* whirling in a horrifying explosion of hyperviolence.
"You get your slimy hands OFF OF HER!" Zed roars, his blade igniting with the fire of an active magnetar, throwing angry solar winds out through the tunnel in great curtains of charged particle auroras.
Ostensibly he's here on a rescue mission. Ostensibly he'd come rushing to save a certain Ida Everstead Rey, among other missing people, soon after discovering that they'd raided a nearby church (all churches look the same to Zed) and got captured by the priests therein.
He was not, however, expecting to find... this.
Lombardia, the legendary metal dragon, pinned to the ground with some kind of... thing bolted onto her, a thing with a function that Zed cannot determine-- but that he knows is Not Good.
This is more than just the dragon that saved them all from Sin. This is more than just a matter of repaying a debt...!
Lombardia is a hero to all of Hyades, a living legend, and someone whose heart Zed once connected with directly. And now...
Now...!
Now he's going to murder the monster that decided to repay her courage with malice.
GS: Zed has attacked Wen Kinoc with Saint Arts - Starstrider's Valor! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Zed's Saint Arts - Starstrider's Valor for 29 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! Meseru X.X Carrying: Who System <WHO>
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline deeply needed her time on the Fereshte, and there's been a frankly embarrassing length of time spent cuddling onto Mikaia and fussing over Janey until both children are completely sick of her presence all over again - or at least, so she likes to joke, the fanged grins coming easily to her as she positively shines.
Even the call that Riesenlied can feel pulling her towards Bevelle cannot dampen Noeline's enthusiasm completely - there is concern on her face, certainly, but it's mixed with an equal amount of determination as she helps haul the wheelchair over the worst of the rubble and the more damaged parts of the path. "That might be best," she has to admit towards Riesenlied's plan. "Bevelle is a dangerous place for all of us right now, but... we'll do what she can," she promises with a smile of reassurance.
And then that all goes to hell.
Noeline stares, momentarily dumb with shock, at the sight of the bound Lombardia and the machina that sits atop it - and then a glint of rage flicks across her eyes. "... how dare you," she mutters softly after a long moment, the anger kept carefully in check - but her grip tightens on her massive sword, which has appeared in her hands at some point without her even noticing. "All that Lombardia ever wanted to do was rest, and yet this foolish war dragged her back into the open."
"And rather than laud her and revere her for facing off against Sin, you capture her and hook her up to a prison for your own needs, using your own idea of heresy to do so," she continues, her voice stiff and disbelieving - but her eyes wide, taking in the whole sight of the nonsense in front of her. "And then you joke about it. You're flippant. About something like this?"
She shudders out a breath as she catches herself, gaze hard. "... I feel disgusted for ever being that sort of person. And for ever hoping that Bevelle might have a scrap of empathy in it."
Riesenlied's cry cuts through the fog; she breathes again, slower this time, and takes control of herself as she offers the other Hyadean a hand . Power positively flows through their link already as she looks towards her partner and nods slowly. Sometimes love needs to carry a sword, and she's never been more certain of that. "We won't let her be alone."
GS: Noeline spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Noeline has attacked Riesenlied with When I'm With You...! GS: Noeline has gained 1 Combo! GS: Noeline has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The rescue effort is underway... but there's no small amount of business that needs taken care of on top of ensuring the captured extraction team is, well, extracted. Things are a bit fuzzy as to the exact details as to how a number of them have all come together, but Ethius is still rocking a well-worn War Monk uniform which he has gotten significant mileage out of. (He has scavenged a machina rifle from the battlefield outside for further authenticity at a glance.)
He's not the first one among the Drifters to charge in - indeed, he slows his roll when he starts hearing advanced machinery of a different sound than what he's heard. It allows Riesenlied and her friends the space to discover something truly horrible. Emotion washes over the collected, most of it furious.
...And then there's Ethius, disguised as he is.
'Well, well, well! Look who decided to show up. Too bad you found this place, huh?' Ethius listens to the Maester's words. He quiets his breathing and starts to approach at a measured pace - the image of a threatening ambush waiting to happen against the intruders.
'We're going to have to cut your little escape short.' Ethius comes into view at this time, holding the machina rifle with a posture flawlessly matching the stance and discipline of the Yevonite War Monks. His gaze catches a glimpse of Lombardia, but he doesn't let it linger there for long.
Ethius' rifle levels on a random Drifter - could it be that all along, he was a displaced Yevonite whose ability to identify and disrupt advanced technology was a true hint to his nature?! This seems so obvious now, in hindsight...
'Nothing personal.' The Maester smiles at theim, as Meseru of Yevon introduces herself.
"Indeed." Ethius remarks as he raises the rifle with lightning speed away from the backside of whoever he was pointing at and just opens fire - as many rounds as a machina rifle holds - into things they don't want being shot or jostled.
One of them - especially if the rifle only has one round - goes straight for Wen's shoulder. (Which means he wasn't secretly a Yevonite all along, he was an impostor!)
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Wen Kinoc with There Is One Impostor Among Us! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Riesenlied accepts Noeline's When I'm With You... for 0 hit points! GS: Shield! applied to Riesenlied! GS: Reload! Riesenlied gains 15 extra FP from Noeline! GS: Riesenlied spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with I don't have to be Afraid...! GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riesenlied has launched an attack Link! GS: Riesenlied heals Noeline! She gains 125 temporary hit points! GS: Shield! applied to Noeline! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Riesenlied with Let's See a New World Together! GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Riesenlied heals Riesenlied! She gains 125 temporary hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's There Is One Impostor Among Us for 70 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
After his friends were captured attempting to save Summoner Yuna from the clutches of Seymour Guado, Dean went on a SECRET SPY mission to infiltrate Yevon, find his friends, and get them to safety. This involved putting on a warrior-monk uniform and crossing an active battlefield. It also involved following the directions of one Ethius Hesiod.
Surprisingly, no one got exploded. There were a couple of near misses, though.
Now he's here at the end of the Via Purifico, having ditched the Yevonite costume and approached with other rescuers to try to find their friends. And they do find one--but not at all the one any of them could have expected.
"What in the..." Dean utters, eyes boggling at the sight of Lombardia, bound and assaulted by machina. It's such a horrific sight to him that it takes his mind a moment to fully comprehend what he's seeing. All he can do in the meanwhile is shake his head with growing disgust and indignation. "What... what are you doing here? What have you done to that poor dragon?!"
Dragons may not be his jam like Golems are, but Dean has a few good draconic friends--Riesenlied and Zed over there, for example, who have already expressed their rage. "Didn't Lombardia help fight off Sin?! Why would you do this to her?! This is... this is...!!
"UNFORGIVABLE!"
Twin Fenrir flash into his hands as he falls into a battle stance. Wen Kinoc's smugness grates, but Meseru seems to mean deadly business, and let's face facts: she looks like *way* more of a threat than Kinoc does. She also seems to be taking orders *from* Kinoc. If he can tank her attacks, then that should gives the others time to beat up Kinoc and get Lombardia free. He thus zeroes in on Meseru, pausing just long enough to look over at Odjn as she cries to her 'mother.'
"We're gonna save her, Odjn. I promise," he tells her solemnly, solidly. "So don't you cry!"
Then he charges in for Meseru, heat radiating from the rods of his paired pistols, leaving behind waves of visible energy as he swings them around and attempts to batter her midsection. If the hits connect, they may leave behind some nasty burns.
GS: Dean Stark spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Meseru with Burning Magazine! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
"Meseru." Violet makes a slight bow to acknowledge a woman who seems like she'll be a most challenging opponent. "I've tried for years to make peace with the gods, and they're not interested." The midwife-turned-Drifter has traded her trademark widow's weeds for a garment more appropriate to Spira: a long blue sleeveless dress w ith a matching shawl, and sandals. She wears no armor, but that won't stop her from being able to attack. Her ARM is unwrapped and ready. "You are outnumbered. I suggest you surrender now. Preserve your life." The Widow of Garlyle is nothing if not resolute; she aims and fires with a calm demeanor that belies her internal concerns, taking extra care not to hit Dean or the other Drifters that are against Meseru.
GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Meseru with I've Brought Life Into The World and I Can Take It Out! GS: Violet Salazar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius has, largely, kept to himself since his entry into Spira. Did he feel embarrassed, to except the aid of the Fereshte? Ashamed? Perhaps he didn't feel he deserved it. He had an opportunity to take it... but, he didn't.
Now, however, several days after the fact... he spots the Fereshte heading toward a certain city. He felt it - something was about to happen. And so, despite those feelings, he follows its trail.
Now, he announces his presence with a gunshot. From the doorway, Conversator fires out toward Meseru as Ambrosius enters the massive room.
"...I have no gods." Ambrosius answers her quietly. This his only response to her. Riesenlied, however, gets a sideglance from him.
"...Riesenlied. You are not alone." Ambrosius says quietly, before looking back to assess the situation.
Lombardia, bound in chains, with a terrible machine pinned to her.
"...How symbolic. Behold, the way Yevon views those who would come to their aid." Ambrosius says dryly.
GS: Ambrosius has attacked Meseru with Conversator! GS: Ambrosius has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is worried about Elly. He told Emeralda he would go looking for her. And so he is here.
Fei ends up rushing on in. He's probably beaten a few guards to unconciousness with his bare fists as it stands. He looks towards Lombardia first. His eyes widen. He narrows his eyes.
"...You know, I'm not normally one for imperialism." He shakes his head. "But a civilization that takes its a woman who didn't need to come here and save your people from a Sin attack...and binds them in chains. And runs experiments on them..."
His eyes narrow. "Well, maybe you need outsiders telling you what to do, because you clearly can't decide to do the right thing yourself." He starts walking forward.
"And normally, I'd be resisting The Destroyer inside me with all my strength but..."
He curls his hands into fists.
"I completely agree with him. You're going to die."
Even DEAN seems to consider it unforgivable. Dean, who treats Id as a BFF, considers it unforgivable. Sweet Dean who is the kindest and sweetest man Fei knows. He tries to see, desperately, if there's a reason he shouldn't kill Wen Kinoc.
And he doesn't find it.
But more importantly than that...he has to protect Lombardia. He OWES her!
"You better hope... You better hope she survives...!"
He darts forward, aiming a foot for Wen Kinoc's face!
"You think yourselves as human, but you're fakes...!" Fei says, clearly a half inch away from berserking WILLINGLY. "You're nothing but limited fascimiles! Dopplegangers in human skin!"
You can feel it.
Hate
FEI PSYCHO? 95
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Wen Kinoc with Hagan! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
There is another person here. There is a courier here. She had helped with the scouting expedition, gathering supplies just yesterday through unorthodox means on the Thunder Plains.
"...."
That courier stands here, her face is utterly devoid of humor, her eyes like winter, lips curled slightly in contempt.
"....."
Her clockwork heart thunders in her ears, its rhythm nearly obscuring Kinoc's words, her
"....."
Just a courier. Just a courier who's been saved by this Metal Dragon, whose presence made her feel something warm inside, something human, but also other. And as the moon rose in the sky, when she was in Aquvy, she remembered a thread of it in her heart, even in the coldest and loneliest of nights.
There's no words she can possibly say. No explicatives, no heated words, no sorrow, heartful expressions that she could say or express that could outmatch the reactions of those around her.
By the time Kinoc gets to the last syllable of '-nal', Gwen darts ahead, attempting to run fast enough to launch herself at Kinoc, her right hand out to try to *grab* for the man's face.
"Shut up."
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Navigating unfamiliar terrain is... solidly a middling skill of Matilda's; she certainly hasn't taken point on getting here. She's moved well behind many of the other groups moving about -- kept her distance, stuck to the shadows, waited for louder Drifters to solve the problems. After all, all routes are likely guarded well.
Case in point.
Seeing Lombardia is a split second of relief -- Matilda's met the dragon before, and is at least glad to see her alive -- and then a lot *more* subsequent heart-sinking. She's not quite so... attached, admittedly, as some of the other gathered Drifters -- but this is an affront.
"I don't have any," Matilda replies to Meseru, tone even, as she draws her blade -- with a glance to Ambrosius, who evidently feels much the same. "My fate belongs to me -- and *certainly* not to you." She rushes forward at top speed, seemingly planning to go straight for a stab --
-- and then throws herself into a long, low leap to the side instead, drawing her holdout pistol with her other hand and firing two quick shots as she moves.
GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Meseru with Repositioning Shot! GS: Matilda Whitehead has gained 1 Combo! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action. GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Wen Kinoc with Lucky Break! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Burning Magazine for 105 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Meseru! GS: Meseru critically guards Violet Salazar's I've Brought Life Into The World and I Can Take It Out for 21 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Meseru guards a hit from Ambrosius's Conversator for 99 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Ambrosius! GS: CRITICAL! Meseru guards a hit from Matilda Whitehead's Repositioning Shot for 123 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hagan for 69 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia's main personal interests at the moment are... elsewhere, at the moment. She can't exactly do anything about them right now, however, and as such she's itching for something, anything to help take her mind off things. And so, just like at Bevelle, her main personal motivation in coming here is to assist her friends and family in something that they want to accomplish. That tends to be good enough for her - if she can help the Wolves in any shape or form, she will. Hearing about Elly from Fei naturally increases her motivation that much more.
She didn't really have a solid idea of what to expect in coming here, but when she sees Lombardia's condition, and the smug man beside the dragon... needless to say, her blood boils. She does already have a bone to pick with Wen Kinoc over Operation Mi'ihen. What he's done to Lombardia only feeds into her anger, especially seeing what it does to Riesenlied.
"How could you be so cruel! You Yevon people... are all living beings just tools to you?!"
Xantia's anger manifests as an aura of fire bursting forth from her body, wreathing her in flames. However... the Maester is not alone here. Xantia gives Meseru a long, appraising look, and the decision of where her talents are best applied is quickly weighed.
She glances aside. "...Fei. And you too, Id. You can handle things on this side. I'll keep that one busy." She doesn't make any attempt to calm the two of them. Perhaps, in this case, she agrees with their assessment.
With that, she turns to the - by all appearances - veteran Warrior Monk, loosening her shoulders muscles. "No need to bring gods into this. I like to keep things simple. I just punch people I don't agree with."
With that, she charges, delivering a single, dashing, fiery punch at high speeds.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Ida had told Azoth horror stories while they spent time together in their cell... about the idea of someone harvest for their flesh, and having it used as a weapon for a cause they would have fought against. Now that he's escaped Via Purifico, he stares at Lombardia, his eyes filled with horrified light -- she's the dragon he heard had sacrificed herself in a battle with Sin, now gruesomely shackled and being used by those who would perpetuate that same cycle.
It was all true.
He does not know her. But Azoth does not have to know her for every circuit, spring, and wire to vibrate with revulsion. It's everything he's afraid of, taken one unforgivable step further.
Azoth cannot save himself. But right here, right now, there is no one to stop him from helping save another.
The light of his bright, blue eyes focuses into a fierce, blinding glare as he turns that gaze onto Meseru as he identifies his chosen target. Something flickers in his gaze, wild and ancient before all expression drains from his face. "Gods are obsolete." With a burst of light, he launches forward, forming a blade of light beside him. It follows him with a streaming, bright trail before he seems to snatch it from the air and bring it down in a cleave at the Yevonite.
"...Join them in oblivion."
GS: Xantia has attacked Meseru with Elemental Fury! GS: Xantia assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Lucky Break for 114 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
There is another person here. There is a courier here. She had helped with the scouting expedition, gathering supplies just yesterday through unorthodox means on the Thunder Plains.
"...."
That courier stands here, her face is utterly devoid of humor, her eyes like winter, lips curled slightly in contempt.
"....."
Her clockwork heart thunders in her ears, its rhythm nearly obscuring Kinoc's words, her mind obscuring all other information as unnecessary.
"....."
Just a courier. Just a courier who's been saved by this Metal Dragon, whose presence made her feel something warm inside, something human, but also other. And as the moon rose in the sky, when she was in Aquvy, she remembered a thread of it in her heart, even in the coldest and loneliest of nights.
There's no words she can possibly say. No explicatives, no heated words, no sorrow, heartful expressions that she could say or express that could outmatch the reactions of those around her.
By the time Kinoc gets to the last syllable of '-nal', Gwen darts ahead, attempting to run fast enough to launch herself at Kinoc, her right hand out to try to *grab* for the man's face.
"Shut up."
GS: Azoth has attacked Meseru with Flash Drive! GS: Azoth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Azoth has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Against all odds, Ida has made it out of Via Purifico alive, but not unwounded. Separated from her companions in the final struggle, she limps towards the light--the pure blue glow of the Macalania Woods. After what she's been through, it's soothing, and conjures up memories of a strange, peaceful place where she had a picnic with Boudicca and Liath. It's the way to freedom. The past week has pushed her endurance to its limits, but the end is finally in sight. She is ragged and dirty and bloodstained, but all she needs to do is make this one final push.
And then Ida rounds the last corner of the labyrinth, and smells something familiar--fossil dust. The mixture of powdered metal and organic Hyadean ephemera that is a byproduct of machining Dragon components into usable format. Ida's father is one such machinist; she spent many long afternoons in his workshop, seated at his side, learning from him. It's as much a part of her childhood as the smell of Mrs. Agnew's chocolate biscuits or chalkdust from clapping erasers.
In this case, it is the byproduct of a crime against intelligent life.
Ida stops dead in her tracks, her gaze fixed upon Lombardia. The Queen of Dragons is truly immense, and the machine holding her in place is almost as large; somehow, Lombardia looks so much smaller pinned beneath it. Ida's eyes go wide as saucers. Her mouth opens and moves, but no sound comes out. She knew there were two sources of Dragon components on Spira, one much more likelier than the other--and more horrific.
It turned out to be correct.
"No," Ida whispers. Tears slick her eyes.
She blinks, and when her eyes open again, one is brilliant green.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
* * *
She's sitting on her father's shoulders, trying to reach up and touch the mounted specimen's chin. Her father is tall, but the Dragon is taller still--fully-assembled, it takes up the vast bulk of the largest hall in the museum.
"Papa?" she'd asked, looking down at him. "Are there still Dragons?"
Her father shakes her head. "Not that we know of," he says, "but perhaps you could be the one to meet one someday. I'm sure you could make friends."
* * *
He stands near one of the entrances to the Dragons' Roost, his body flowing through martial forms. Method Mercury is very different from what he was taught, but Maekir, through his practice, has assured him of its worth. The rest... is his faith in her. Ever since he saw her fly, he'd been inspired. She is the apex of the power of the Hyadean form, and if a runt like him could grasp even a fraction of it--then maybe he could return the inspiration she's given him.
Lombardia might not even know that he exists, but someday she will.
* * *
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"K--Kinoc," Ida chokes out, her rage stumbling and tripping on the way out of her mouth. He looks like a grandfatherly old man, but he is anything but. He orchestrated the slaughter at Mi'ihen, and made the survivors come crawling back to the Church. He condemned Yuna--condemned them all--to death, to prop up the cruel lies keeping him and his kind in power.
Others begin to speak up--survivors of the Via Purifico, and rescuers alike. Ida hears Riesenlied and Odjn's agony, Zed's rage. "You miserable, wretched little man. You don't realize..." Her gaze fixates upon him, its heterochromic quality similar to Yuna's, but full of rage. "What a mistake you've made! I owed you for Mi'ihen, and now-- Now you face the death you've earned!" Like a shot, she dashes across the cavern floor, having summoned up strength she didn't realize was there. Her body blurs at the edges, even as Ethius Hesiod aims a rifle at her. Her eyes meet his, as if daring him to pull the trigger.
He does, but not against her. Her opinion of him seesaws back towards 'vaguely admirable, sometimes'.
Ida, meanwhile, rushes the Maester like a charging freight train, leading with a vicious right hook to the jaw and following with a drumroll of punches to his chest and stomach. "BULLSHIT!" Ida screams, directly at him, like she's been wanting to do since Mi'ihen.
<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.
"Keh heh..."
A mocking laugh from the corridors, before he steps forth; a man that Kinoc has never heard of nor seen report of, but would surely be familiar to the Drifters running in, in his white chaps on white pants and his dark shirt under a red jacket. He sweeps fingers through his slicked blue hair, grinning, hands empty.
"Man, even I know better than to piss 'em off this bad," says Janus Cascade, slipping his thumbs into the straps of his chaps. His eyes scan across the atrocity of what's been done to Lombardia, the bound, limp Metal Dragon. "Guess this tracks. Is this how you made those fancypants new machina? Neat trick." He walks right on up, like all the screaming and violence being thrown around were little more than stage dressing. He looks up as Fei flies past, screaming about fakes. "Oh. Hah. No...God, you fortunate son of a bitch."
He holds out a hand, and the space inside his grip flickers and pulses as he grabs onto something that isn't there. "Real people can do so much worse than this."
His fist closes around a shaft that has suddenly materialized, purple light flowing up the length of a weapon larger than Janus himself as it draws itself out of the Ether. That light burns up his body, and Janus grits his teeth as his muscles melt and solidify at once under the force. "I wasn't supposed to even show myself, you pitiful little man," he spits. "But see, I have this new partner I'm tryin' to make nice with...and they want you dead!"
A BLAST of white light rips away from Janus as his human body disintegrates and immediately reforms, rock-hard flesh of pliable steel, his face an unmoving filter over something unseen beneath, and burning yellow embers in the fathomless depths of his eyesockets.
Mediums tremble before this man, this abomination that shouldn't exist, this demon-and-human who bears the cursed relic of the Metal Demons: Glumzambor, the Dark Spear, its wickedly curved blade pointed, flat-edge out, toward Wen Kinoc.
"So get on with it," Janus declares, and a blast of light that sends puffs of dirt blasting up from his feet fires up at Kinoc to vaporize the man.
DC: Janus Cascade switches forms to Successor of the Spear!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Wen Kinoc with Relentless Combination! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Janus Cascade has attacked Wen Kinoc with Bolt Action?! GS: Janus Cascade has gained 2 Combo! GS: Janus Cascade has completed his action. GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Xantia's Elemental Fury for 100 hit points! GS: Mighty! applied to Xantia! GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Azoth's Flash Drive for 106 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Relentless Combination for 102 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Janus Cascade's Bolt Action? for 158 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
The mission inside Bevelle's walls had...
...ended in failure.
The news had not come out all at once, but rather piecemeal. From Doctor Uzuki's standpoint, however... he had already assembled the sense that things had gone terribly awry from the moment he and the others had reunited with Cid and Leon. Perhaps it was simply his own experience talking, or perhaps...
But over the hours, the general picture of how events had become clearer, as was the necessity of doing something to see those who had been imprisoned free. In this, the Al Bhed's knowledge of the land had proven helpful -- as had other factors.
And before long, Citan had joined those who had ventured into those exits that led into Bevelle -- into the Via Purifico, in fact. He had asked about the name.
It meant 'the road to purification'.
"Wait," he says, not far in. His gaze lingers on Riesenlied and Noeline for a moment, not far ahead of them, before he turns to regard Fei and Xantia. "I hear something," he starts to say, as they move along. And before he can say much more on the matter, the illumination brightens and it becomes clear just what it was that he'd heard.
Machina. No, not simply Machina but--
"Is that not... Lombardia?" He lapses into silence, and but for the way he narrows his eyes, it may be difficult for someone else to get a bead on what precise emotion is at sway. "What in the world... what is going on in here?"
'Sorry,' says Wen Kinoc, as he explains that they'll have to die now, all smiles as he does so.
"I do not think so," says the doctor firmly, taking a step forward. He is not smiling.
Before Fei-- says that. Citan straightens, tension stringing his shoulders, and turns sharply. Perhaps he can feel it, in some sense -- Fei's wrath, and the stirring of what waits within. "Wait, Fei-- You must not--"
Fei is already well across the room. And here of course intruding into the space which he and Xantia still occupy is another, more immediate threat. "...I see. So 'negotiation is not an option'. I apologize for what I must do!"
The air about him grows subtly darker, as if the lights had fleetingly suffered from a power failure.
"Xantia! We must deal with her as swiftly as he can!"
With Meseru here he is cut off from Fei.
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Citan Uzuki with Yamiga! GS: Citan Uzuki assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Citan Uzuki accepts Citan Uzuki's Yamiga for 0 hit points! GS: Burst! applied to Citan Uzuki! GS: Mighty! applied to Citan Uzuki!
<Pose Tracker> Wen Kinoc has posed.
"Why?" It's the question on Riesenlied's lips. The question on, maybe, everyone's mind. Maester Kinoc turns his head, looking at the Tainted, and he lifts his chin. "Because it's what we need. To win the war -- to make sure Yevon's power never fades."
Lombardia doesn't stir, at first. Her eyes stay closed. No, the eyes that look when Odjn speaks are Kinoc's... and they go from amused to hungry, as he looks at her. And then, he turns, and swings up his gun -- and as Zed comes down, blade at the ready, he fires a shot that strikes his blade. The bullet bounces off, but so does Zed -- flying wild, blade striking the stone.
"Tch," he says. He looks from Zed, then to Noeline. He considers the crimes that she lays out. The crimes that he committed. "Heresy? I'm a Maester. I'll tell you what's heretical, heretic." He glances at his comrade. "Cheeky, aren't they? C'mon, Lady Meseru. Let's put an end to them."
A rifle shot fires, clipping Kinoc in the shoulder. A little blood splashes on the ground. He cracks a smile, at that. And then he shows some of those old reflexes; despite age and girth, he manages to raise an arm up, and blocks the kick with his arm from Fei.
He looks at him -- then he laughs. "Your rancid, rotting civilization isn't telling ours what to--" But he isn't that fast. He gets slammed in the face by Gwen, slammed backward, and rolls on the ground once. Blood runs down his chin. He wipes it off, then he glances at Ida--
--and she's a blur. She manages to punch him in the chest, but he stumbles backward. He cracks his neck, looks at Janus Cascade, and he looks at the newly made sword in his hand. Recognition doesn't come to the Maester. The blast of light hits him in the side, a burnt smear left on his robes.
"Heh... guess I made you bunch mad," he ventures.
Then, he swings his gun down. He takes aim -- and fires his shot. A blast of flame explodes outward from the barrel. Burning, clinging pitch -- which burns into armor, catches flesh, and clings to clothing easily. It smolders, a bright white-and-red, and seems to cling to whatever it catches. "Nice concoction," he says. "Something the Al Bhed never quite got right. We never let them near the mines, you know?"
Lombardia had been still, before. Slowly, her eyes open; mechanical and glowing golden, but they flicker about the room. At Odjn; at Fei. Then, towards Riesenlied, with confusion. There is a sort of confused glance at Azoth. But then those eyes settle on Glumzambor. It is all too much for her, then. She tries to cry out, but chains bind her mechanical snout. The chains rattle.
"Ah, ah--" Kinoc says, before he turns. 'Flippant,' Noeline says. Flippantly is how he aims a shot at Lombardia, and then fires a round right at her. "You settle down. We're going to need some more help!"
The machina on her back shudders -- rumbles -- and two doors open. A pair of YAT-99's, modified with Hyadean liquid metal, erupt out from it, and begin to hover in the air. Crimson eyes, mounted in the Hyadean liquid metal on them, flicker down for the others.
GS: Wen Kinoc spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Riesenlied with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Noeline with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Janus Cascade with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Lombardia with Slug Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has completed its action. GS: Riesenlied critically guards Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 13 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey critically guards Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 14 hit points! GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 69 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Noeline! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 67 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Janus Cascade takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 52 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Janus Cascade! GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 53 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Fei Fong Wong used Defend! He takes Wen Kinoc's attack on Lombardia on himself! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 98 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Slug Shot for 80 hit points! GS: Break! applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Fei Fong Wong's Force Guard activates! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Zed with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed fully evades Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
In other circumstances, Riesenlied would be heartened to see such comrades. Zed's booming voice, filled with so much familiar anger, is a boon; yet here, his own feelings don't seem much different than what she's feeling. She hears Noeline's own indignation, barbing into Kinoc for even daring to joke about this situation.
She feels Noeline's power flow through the link of their rings. Their power emanates and synchronises them further, as she feels a wellspring of confidence and strength.
Why does love carry a sword?
Indeed, she has never been more certain of the answer.
Odjn hears Dean call out for her, trembling and nodding. "D-dean... Noeline... Yeah..." She hovers towards Lombardia, reflexively, flinching as she jukes away from the combat.
Riesenlied purses her lips as she nods to Ambrosius, at his encouragement that she isn't alone. She knows that, she always has, and yet...
Her Medium in her throat trembles.
She stares towards-- towards a man who she's never seen before, Janus Cascade, yet the weapon he wields is all too familiar, transforming into a form that she thinks Hyadean and uncomfortably like... like Father's, and yet...
He carries with him...
"Father's Spear... why? Why do you carry-- who are you?!"
There's a whirl as Ethius fires open upon Kinoc -- for a moment, there was doubt in her heart, angered as she is, but he comes true for them in the end. And Fei rushes in that interstice, speaking words that...
You're fakes. Doppelgangers in human skin.
...make so much sense for her right now. As Gwen puts into action what she's feeling, along with Ida -- whose own Hyadean arm bears a connection to all this, who bears as much anger as she does...
And then Kinoc gives his answer.
It's a disgusting one.
It's what we need. To win the war -- to make sure Yevon's power never fades.
The YAT-99s' fire further punctuates his answer, and there's a gasp from Riesenlied as she throws forward a barrier of energy to wick away the worst of the flames, a portion of her chair burning away.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"Three months."
Riesenlied's voice is uncharacteristically flat as she commands the attention of the room, slumping from the worst of the attack.
"Three months ago, Lombardia came to our aid -- no, all our aid, to rescue people from Macalania Temple from Sin, putting body, heart and soul to the cause of a land she scarce had reason to assist."
Venom courses through her veins. Her voice is hoarse and raspy, anger barely constrained in her throat. It is truly rare to see her like this.
"And in these three months, you have immediately descended to butchering us as--"
...the people of Filgaia...
"Do not say it."
"--others before you have," her voice falters as bitterness spills over, "Stripping our bones and flesh and twisting them into a violent mockery."
She understands in that darkly clear moment what her father, Siegfried, once felt. The day any and all allegiances with the humans he so befriended fell apart, as a ruined mantle spills around one's shoulders. Once protective, now ragged.
...humans are not worth trusting...
"Do not say it!"
When Riesenlied lifts her head, it is with tears staining her flush cheeks, blurring her crimson eyes.
"You call us butchers and murderers and yet. How many more times. How many more lives."
Her voice is venomously accusatory, sharpened to a spear-point, every syllable jabbing and bitter.
...father was right all along...
The corpse of the girl inside her mind, within the broken and frozen room,
stirs.
"You cannot fall down that path...!"
"How many more of us will you take until you are satisfied?!"
The Heritor's crystalline sword, meant to only be an object of sacrifice, manifests in her hand. The entire basin gathers with electricity-aspected Ley that sloppily swims across the floor in a spiral pattern--
"BEGONE!!"
--and DISGORGES out in an enormous spike at her slashing command, an ephemeral blade of electricity seeking to impale Kinoc wholesale.
RIESENLIED PSYCHO 95
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Wen Kinoc with Ley Artes - Lightning Stab! GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Meseru has posed.
"Yes, Maester Kinoc," Meseru answers, and she inclines her head. She looks over those opposing Kinoc, and then steps into her opponents. Meseru takes Dean's unusual attack on the chest, the metal of her armor briefly superheating as blunt force slams into her. There's a dent, there. "You have a point," Meseru reflects to Violet. "The odds on this battle aren't fair... To you." Violet's shot slams into her breastplate and embeds there, while Ambrosius's hits her shoulder, and her dark armor makes it impossible to tell at first whether she bleeds, but the force of the impact takes her back a step.
"Then you face me alone," Meseru replies to Ambrosius's quiet words, having heard them apparently. "I salute your courage." She looks to Matilda, who has said the same. "And yours. We'll see."
She moves to defend against Matilda's strike--only to take a bullet for her rouble instead, and her lips twitch once. Xantia, meanwhile, takes another approach, and the Warrior Monk watches her, too. Her fist comes up and slams into her, but Mesru is moving--even as it dents her dark armor, the older woman's blade bursts with red power, and she hacks it down onto Xantia with a blow that sends spectral shockwaves to weaken.
"A simple approach. Very well." She sees next Azoth, and she does not have the time to dodge the blow, light leaving a gash in her breastplate. "I have no apology, myself," Meseru responds to Citan. Then, she breathes in.
"Come, Otherworlders. See the blades of Yevon."
She rushes then swiftly, swinging her sword in a great downward arc that sends a blast of green light hammering to Violet which, if it hits, will cut as surely as if the blade were right near her. She keeps moving at this, whrling into a further slash that blasts a wave of darkness all around her, expanding outward in a circle. Then, she allows a fraction of that power to snap back towards herself, raising her greatsword before her as if to salute her foes. An aura of violet-black power settles into her shoulders like a mantle.
She then extends her hand and a wave of blue energy courses towards Ambrosius, seeking to bring back a line of energy directly to her.
...From there, her final move for the mment is to swing her blade once more, gathering power in gold and letting it rock outward, crashing towards Lombardia.
"You will not free the abomination!"
GS: Meseru has attacked Xantia with Power Break! GS: Meseru has attacked Violet Salazar with Machina Break! GS: Meseru has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Darkness! GS: Meseru has attacked Xantia with Darkness! GS: Meseru has attacked Azoth with Darkness! GS: Meseru has gained 1 Combo! GS: Meseru has attacked Ambrosius with Drain! GS: Meseru has attacked Lombardia with Armor Break! GS: Meseru has attacked Meseru with Grit! GS: Ambrosius critically guards Meseru's Drain for 25 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Meseru drains Ambrosius! Meseru gains 12 temporary hit points! GS: Meseru accepts Meseru's Grit for 0 hit points! GS: Burst and Hyper! applied to Meseru! GS: Meseru has attacked Dean Stark with Mental Break! GS: Meseru takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Meseru has completed her action. GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a glancing hit from Meseru's Darkness for 58 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Dean Stark critically guards Meseru's Mental Break for 15 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Riesenlied's Ley Artes - Lightning Stab for 30 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates! GS: CRITICAL! Violet Salazar critically guards Meseru's Machina Break for 36 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Meseru has posed.
As Dean swings at her, she replies with a battering movement of her own straight down with the hilt of her blade, seeking to overwhelm him outright.
GS: Azoth guards a hit from Meseru's Darkness for 63 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Meseru's Power Break for 127 hit points! GS: Cripple! applied to Xantia! GS: Xantia takes a glancing hit from Meseru's Darkness for 48 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ambrosius used Defend! He takes Meseru's attack on Lombardia on himself! GS: Ambrosius critically guards Meseru's Armor Break for 18 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
"Gods are obsolete," intones a young blond with startlingly-blue eyes. "Join them in oblivion."
If only he were right. Violet had seen the gods' power, channeled through their Chosen. Sometimes a shaman, a priest, an acolyte. But never through her. They ignored her -- and her patients.
Meseru concedes "You have a point." Arrogant, that one -- though an attitude backed up by skill. Meseru directs a green ray of light at Violet that she almost dodges. It strikes her in the leg, cutting deep -- but not through any arteries, as far as she can tell. Violet raises her ARM for a counterattack. She prefers not to fight close if she can help it. She uses a custom cartridge this time...
GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Meseru with Wildcat Cartridge! GS: Violet Salazar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Odjn seems to calm a little, and Dean gives her an encouraging smile and nod. What's far less encouraging is how Riesenlied--the sweetest, kindest person *Dean* knows--absolutely flips her shit at Kinoc. It's more than a little shocking, and for a moment, he gapes at her rage. Yet it's a reminder that Dean's not the only outraged one in the room by a mile. Nearly everyone is, it seems like--and people pour in from both directions. He lights up in relief, and immediately knits his brows in worry, when he sees Ida, alive but also battered and injured. "Ida! Thank goodness... Are you okay?!" Clearly not, as her reaction to the tableau before her makes clear.
And there's Fei--Fei, whose rage places him but an inch away from Id. Dean considers both of them his friends, but hearing him talk like that reminds him of how he wants to help his friend. With everyone else so angry, it ironically helps Dean be less angry himself--to remember: if it were Avril or Rebecca, his much smarter and calmer friends, how would they handle this?
So: "Fei! And you too, Id!" Dean calls across the room. "Don't forget--the most important thing is saving Lombardia!" Xantia says she'll keep Meseru off him, and Dean nods firmly to him and Fei and--since he's adjacent to the group--Citan too. "We'll keep this lady off you guys! Do what you need to do!"
But then JANUS appears, and Dean stares at him with a shock and revulsion uniquely Janus's own. "Y-*you*?! But I thought you were dead!! What're you doing here?!" And what's he doing with *that* spear? Then Janus transforms and it's just sort of like, "oh." But it seems like, for the moment, the old rascal is helping--not that Dean trusts that for a second, JANUS CASCADE--so Dean grits his teeth and focuses back on Meseru.
"You must be real confident if you think you can take us all out! But we've faced worse than you before and come out on top!" he shouts at her. She's not exactly *over*confident, though; he can feel her armor underneath his strikes, and it holds up like a champ. He's no pushover himself, though. Dean's been a Drifter for three years now, and he's had his share of experiences, fighting alongside his friends. When Meseru swings down to bisect him from overhead, he crosses Twin Fenrir's rods to block to blow. He grits his teeth, and his feet dig into the floor, and for a moment he trumbles underneath the force of her strike--but he *does* stop it. "Maybe next time," he shouts, "you won't underestimate us!"
Power flows aura-like from his ARMs, from his body, and bursts forward against Meseru. It is hot and pure, the power of the Guardian of Fire, Moor Gault, and it drives him forward. This gives him a little more room to engage in another weaving rod-strike, battering against that powerful armor of hers to try to wear her down and distract her from trying to attack Lombardia again. "And for the record," Dean adds as he attacks, "*she's* not the abomination--YOU are!!"
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Meseru with Power Booster! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Meseru takes a glancing hit from Violet Salazar's Wildcat Cartridge for 54 hit points! GS: Meseru guards a hit from Dean Stark's Power Booster for 63 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty! applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius has that rifle pointed at Ida for long enough that one might take the gesture as sincere. Her approach has the lowest profile among the gathered. He holds steady even as she shoots him a (well-deserved) look. The moment she moves forward... It's not like he told anyone this was what he was going to do.
One of his worst habits among the gathered.
Things escalate after Ethius' feint shot(s) go off, tossing aside the rifle as it is no longer useful for his ends. Emotion fills the room. Fei's rage is palpable, and he can't put a finger on it but some of those words seem familiar. There is screaming. Anger. All of it deserved, by any moral center.
Only Ethius, for whatever reason, seems to keep it in check as he tries to skulk around the perimeter. Distant, opportunistic - that he did what he had to Ida there seems just as callous as anything he's ever done.
Janus' transformation is eye-catching. The Stone Medium he keeps around for whatever reason - one of Rigdobrite - shudders violently in fear as Wen returns fire. It's something Ethius is caught off-guard from as wildfire starts to flow, and the usual countermeasure (that barrier spell of his) is not cast in time.
He violently throws off the War Monk armor, bindings at the top disintegrating to the searing heat. Underneath... still largely in a shawl and humble trousers, showing off more of his Symbological tattoos than he'd like. He keeps swatting a gloved hand at the fire burning at his upper back as he crouches down.
What is he even going to accomplish? What terrible thing might he try to pull behind their backs? Even for all the times Ethius has done things ostensibly for the Drifter community... can he be trusted? (A question Riesenlied grapples with.)
Veruni interests. Another altered by Hyadean technology, wielding a weapon. He slaps a more free hand from where the Stone Medium he's holding is stil quivering. It does not calm - but he doesn't have the option to just ditch it here. At least two high risk individuals. He observes as Riesenlied's voice takes a frightening, uncharacterful tone alongside Fei's. A Metal Dragon. He has to go back to trying to swat out the fire on his person as the altered drones show up. Local weaponry altered with Hyadean technology. He looks to the suffering Lombardia with a clinical eye through the pain. Apparent competence and understanding of Hyadean equipment's capabilities and operation beyond the complex restraints.
Fei and Ambrosius ward off attacks upon the Metal Dragon. ... Lombardia saved all of their lives - Ethius' included - and yet there isn't much of a rise that can be read from his eyes. His eyes always took, and never gave back.
This doesn't belong here. He continues to skulk - everyone is moving in on Wen and there aren't very many available options of attack. Skulking is hard to do while he's still a bit on fire, though.
If not that, the way the tattoos on his body start to glow alight as he breathes in and tries to brush off the searing pain. Symbological spellcasting goes through, quiet chanting of the appropriate syllables as he flutters his fingers and throws out his hand.
"Fine Dust!" Comes the completed spell as he finds that open angle to spray dust at a high velocity towards Kinoc and clog up his machina best he can.
The highest priority was never in doubt. He can hold that thought with crystal clarity even through all the sensory overload of shouting, power, surprise, and raw emotion.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Wen Kinoc with Fine Dust! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Ethius Hesiod's Fine Dust for 24 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei distantly hears Citan's warning but surely this time it's okay right? Better the whale than THIS. Sin is akin to a murderous animal. It is not subtle. You can live a nice honest tribal life and avoid the thing but these people are trying to commit genocide and they do this to the people who HELP them and then act like they get to turn up their noses at Otherworlders?! Even Neriah 'Valmar Me Up Baby' Parringer wouldn't do this to someone who HELPED her.
"That's what it's about isn't it? You don't care about stopping Sin, you just want your DEATH CULT to last forever...!" He sees the hungry look at Odjn. Odjn, who is a CHILD.
FEI PSYCHO? 96
He cracks a wild grin when Gwen slips past Wen Kinoc's guard to slam him in the face. He steps back a bit. He isn't full feral yet--
--or maybe he just knows instinctively that Lombardia is in danger. There is some resonance going on between himm and Riesenlied. Ever since Riesenlied's initial empathic connection to Id, there has always been SOME resonance between them. Fei's fury is fueling Riesenlied's...
...and maybe for the first time in her life, Riesenlied's fury...
..It is fueling Fei's.
This is only made worse when JANUS reveals that he is wielding Glumzambor (it's news to Fei). He recognizes the voice mostly. It confuses him. "Janus..?" He sounds legitimitely unsure that he's right about that.
Fei throws himself in the path of Wen's attempt (even if it's incidental) to just flat out SHOOT Lombardia. He grits his teeth as further weapon's fire slams into his body. He sink to one knee.
"I'm sorry," He says to Lombardia. "I'm sorry for failing Siegfried. I'm sorry for failing you. And I'm sorry for failing Elly. I'm sorry I'm not strong enough. That even now... I'm just...so angry."
FEI PSYCHO? 97
He stands up, shaking, spitting blood out to the side.
And for a moment, even Id is given pause. The two of them look to Riesenlied as she tries to murder a man who completely deserves i t.
Don't you see now, Fei?
The first time Id ever really used his name. ....... Their name.
If our worlds could break Riesenlied. The kindest and gentlest of souls. If they could make even her give up on peace.
Isn't destroying these systems and everything they represent... true justice? The only thing that could give Filgaia and Lunar time to heal? The only thing that can truly break the chains of causality and save us from US?
"But that's destroying everything..." Fei murmurs.
Isn't that what's neccessary to truly eliminate them? Killing Wen Kinoc is just like killing a single infected cell. So long as what these worlds call 'humans' exist... The cancer will spread
Dean warns them that the most important thing is to save Lombardia. Fei already took one hit for her. He'd take as many as he needed to.
"We know," Fei promises Dean. "We won't forget. Lombardia... who made Elly so happy. Who makes Riesenlied and Noeline so happy. Who saved us... I won't hurt her. And I won't let her be hurt!!"
He stands up. His rage hasn't dimmed in the slightest. But maybe thanks to Dean, if he does lose control---it may be AIMED at least?
He is not usre what's going on with Janus so Janus, at least, doesn't have to worry about Fei assaulting him just yet. If it was just JANUS swinging the sword it'd be one thing, but Janus honestly feels to him more like a Hyadean right now than a HUMAN. But he's still thinking about it.
Fei aims to pry off some of that machina--particualrly around Lombardia's face--rip it free and fling it at Wen Kinoc's skull.
"I rarely get to kill someone who has almost as much blood on my hands as I do. It's kind of a relief, actually." He murmurs.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
The world catches fire. Ichorous flame clings to every surface and smolders even in the absence of air. But even the pinnacle of Yevonite incendiary technology cannot match the absolute *fury* swelling in the hearts of each and every Hyadean present in this place. Zed lands in a three-point stance as the deluge of fire sweeps towards him. He yells as he surges *into* it, his weapon whirling in his hand like a literal buzzsaw. Yevonite Fire wicks together and coats his sword like molten wax, somehow setting Zed's cursed blade even *more* on fire than it already was.
He can feel it through his own fury. The pump-pump-pump of his strange alien heartbeat resonates with the wrathful impulse reverberating from his weapon. The Hyadean proclivity for high-end ARM synchronization is a well known phenomenon on Filgaia, but not necessarily so on Spira-- and certainly not by *these* people. Normally, Zed holds his blade's fury in check, but this is something else entirely. This is the kind of situation that anyone with a Sealed Evil Darkside is going to be tapping into its power, for better or for worse.
Even the appearance of JANUS CASCADE, SPEAR THIEF, isn't enough to turn aside Zed's almost monofocused warpath.
Riesenlied's anger resonates too. He has never seen her angry before, not like this. But today, their hearts and wishes are one. The impulse, united, to utterly wipe a man's life from the face of the world is almost too much to bear, and so he harnesses it. "Again and again-- you use our people to make your weapons. You build them from our bones! You fuel them with our blood! And you have the gall to think yourself superior!"
Zed raises his dark blade. The sword, Doom Bringer, shines with the baleful glow of an ancient and hate-filled sky. A wave of cruel starlight rushes outward to sweep the Maester up in an ill-omened tide. "If this is what is at the heart of your so-called 'faith,' then it's the work of Demons to crush it with all the power we can muster!"
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Wen Kinoc with Suikei! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Zed spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Zed has attacked Wen Kinoc with Unsealed Blade - Demon Breaker! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Fei Fong Wong's Suikei for 26 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
It is a tiny relief, down in this pit of Yevon, to know that it isn't her and Riesenlied and Odjn against the whole world. How far they've all come, Noeline thinks to herself in the back of her mind with a quiet but burning pride, watching Drifter upon Drifter denounce the Yevon way of doing things and come to Lombardia's aid. It should never ever have reached this point, and what the Maesters have done is unforgivable - but maybe, just maybe, they can all set it a little bit right.
That's what she thinks shortly before her body lurches, and a sensation not quite like pain but pretty damn close ripples through her, leaving her stunned for an instant as she sucks air in through her teeth. The Original Medium of Duras Drum is mixed so thoroughly through the living metal that comprises her that even she doesn't know where one ends and one begins, so when the Guardians quiver at the sight of Glumzambor, she does as well, instinctively turning in its direction.
'Why do you have that spear?' her eyes ask, but she can't quite find the words to voice the question out loud so long as it's pointed in the Maester's direction. There's too much going on; she knows she has to look at things one at a time, or else lose track of all of them at once. It takes another juddering, heavy breath, but she pulls her gaze away from Janus, and simply reminds herself to watch both her and Riesenlied's back like a damn hawk.
She barks out an unamused, harsh laugh when Kinoc calls her a heretic. "And yet, I am honouring Yevon more than you," she mutters, her voice not even raising as she slams her sword into the ground, thrusting a shoulder against it to ward against the worst of the flame that rockets down across them. Parts of it melt - but with an effort of will they immediately reform, her shape flickering as a haze of sorcery starts to flicker around her. For once, the one so beloved of chattering her opponents to distration says nothing more - it hardly seems worth finding the words in her anger.
In... ... her... anger?
Her vision blurs for a moment, and she only registers what's happened - which sensation she's feeling bleed over their link - after Riesenlied has roared out her feelings and poured their shared power into a wild strike. It would be a lie to say she wasn't proud - but it's a pride that's mixed with an uncomfortable and unfamiliar fear, and she doesn't need to consciously hear the softer, tinier voice within to feel the desperate concern that comes with it.
"Riese!" she calls, her voice already hoarse; she's slower than her partner for once, but wills her feet into movement as she drags her body forwards, senses still detached from the presence of the Dark Spear. What can she say in return? What would be fair of her to say? She's thought all of those things before in the past. Is it really fair to insist that Riesenlied turn the other cheek?
There aren't the words to help. So instead she doesn't even try, roaring out in sheer emotion as she races towards Kinoc - past his guard - and then into Riesenlied, almost tackling her into a hug that immediately tightens. "You can't," she rumbles out, half-pleading. "Riese, you can't. I can't-- I can't let you go that far. Listen to that little part of you. Love must carry a sword, but remember why you're carrying it. For all these people around you. For the world you want to build," she whispers fiercely, heart going as fast as her words. Even in the chaos of it all, she holds her ground, head bowed against the other Hyadean's shoulder.
GS: Noeline has attacked Riesenlied with Memory of a Promise! GS: Noeline takes 30 damage from Poison! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Riesenlied accepts Noeline's Memory of a Promise for 0 hit points! GS: Burst and Hyper! applied to Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Matilda glances toward Ambrosius, and Ambrosius glances back. He doesn't say anything, but he may not need to - they appear to be on much the same wavelength.
And then Riesenlied speaks, catching Ambrosius's attention. Her flat tone, so at odds with the warmth and love her voice usually expresses, is enough to cut through even the chaos of battle. He watches as her voice swells into bitterness, to venomous, and as she actually attacks the Maester. Ambrosius's eyes go wide for a moment. He is shocked... and, momentarily concerned, for her.
But his attention is soon drawn away by Meseru, who speaks. He regards her curiously.
"So, you believe one who walks without gods to be alone. Interesting." Ambrosius comments. But, she salutes their courage, at least, it's a courtesy he wouldn't expect. It would be rude not to return the favor. "...And yours, as well."
A blue line forms between himself and Meseru as she tries to draw energy from him... but a surge of power soon sees it cut off. But she will find, in that brief moment, that there's a well of power there much greater than that of the average human.
And then, Meseru sends a burst of golden power toward Lombardia. Ambrosius moves quickly, more quickly than his form would suggest. He holds his free hand out, catching the burst of power. Actually catches it - the impact pushes him back a few inches, but it doesn't cause him to lose his footing. As the golden power dissipates, cracks begin to run through Ambrosius's gauntlet and it shatters, falling to the floor.
With a frown Ambrosius glances toward his free hand, flexing it experimentally. He appears to be unharmed... but those familiar with the durability of Veruni armor may gain a sudden new appreciation for the strength and skill of their opponent, for breaking it in a single swing.
He levels Conversator at Meseru again and takes aim before firing - but this time, rather than going for a direct hit, he goes for a debilitating shot.
He could rise to Lombardia's defense verbally... but, then he glances toward Dean. The boy appears to be doing a good enough job of that for the lot of them - he'll let him continue to handle that for now.
GS: Ambrosius has attacked Meseru with Severing Shot! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.
Janus' blast on Kinoc scorches the man, and Janus laughs, his webbed hand slapping against the steel of his forehead with a CLANG. "HAH! No shield!? You mental!? Did you COME here to die?"
He swings the blade a few times, testing its weight. He stops afterward, and chuckles. "Well. I mean, yes, you did. But you know what I mean."
"Oh, this ol' thing?" Metal Demon Janus Cascade laughs to Riese. "So, funny story," he says, and then wiggles weird, warty demon fingers at Dean. "Those guys murdered me this one time, and I brought this back from Hell."
....this summary is both completely accurate and completely useless, so apparently Janus is feeling good today. But he does take Kinoc's return fire completely across the side, which might be nice for some people. He hisses, but...the strange, blubbery steel of his body is only scorched. Like armor plating would be. He laughs. "Oh, today feels GOOD! My body's so LIGHT! Is this what all the Demons felt like!?"
He pauses, then. An air like a smile comes from him as he adopts a stance ready to run. "No. I'm something else, aren't I?"
He moves. It's difficult to track, he just disappears from where he's standing, dust and cobble flying away in every direction, and then half a heart-beat later he's behind Kinoc, having surged over a dozen meters. He grips Glumzambor in both hands. "SOMETHING WAY OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE, LITTLE MAN!" Janus crows, and then sweeps Glumzambor in a harsh sweep, aiming to cleave him cleanly in two.
GS: Janus Cascade has attacked Wen Kinoc with Dark Spear! GS: Janus Cascade enters a Counter stance! GS: Janus Cascade has gained 1 Combo! GS: Janus Cascade takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Janus Cascade has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Meseru takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Severing Shot for 50 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Weaken! applied to Meseru! GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Zed's Unsealed Blade - Demon Breaker for 33 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Zed drains Wen Kinoc! Zed gains 16 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
"... I've faced many things alone," Matilda says, eyes narrowed. She shifts her position as that wave of darkness passes, moving to take as little of it as possible -- while also taking as much of the portion she *is* taking along her shoulder. Taking a sharp breath in as she tries to stabilize herself, taking a few steps back. She has the sense that this is a *much* better swordswoman than she herself, and approaches the fight accordingly. She can't be certain Meseru is particularly *weak* about ARMs, though, given Yevon's apparent embrace of them at the higher levels...
It's still probably the slightly safer option, though, so she stays 'out' and -- indeed -- decides to switch weapons entirely. Sword gets sheathed, and out comes Freischütz. Matilda hastily slams a tube of *something* into its reservoir, all in one smooth, practiced motion.
Then, naturally, she fires. She doesn't feel nearly the anger, nearly the need to shout that so many of her friends seem to -- nor even much surprise at the return of Janus, who Matilda had quickly recognized as, like her, a cockroach singularly focused on clinging to life. She's seen enough in this world that this is just another day, another reminder of the cruelty people can inflict on one another. Likewise, she feels no need to appeal to the better angels of her allies' natures.
Oil sprays from Freischütz's barrel toward Meseru. It stings on contact, but more than that, it threatens to seize up muscles at irregular intervals, throwing off the game of a swordswoman *and* keeping herself away for now, waiting for an opportunity to get in closer in a safer way.
GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Meseru with Oil Shot! GS: Matilda Whitehead has gained 1 Combo! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Janus Cascade's voice raises the hackles on Ida's neck. It never fails to, especially now. The Mediums in her belt pouch begin to quake, and moments later, the dread power of Glumzamber washes across the room. For once, it isn't aimed at Ida--insofar as Janus Cascade can ever be trusted. She skids to a halt, twists into a wider stance, and meets his gaze with a steely look of her own.
He might have the most powerful toy on the field, but he isn't the only hybrid abomination here.
Lombardia moves, tries to cry out. At the same time, Kinoc opens fire. Ida sees the ignition of the chemicals in slow-motion, raises her arms to guard herself. Reddish-silver Living Metal flows down her arms, forming blue-and-gold gauntlets. Kinoc's shot, at least for her, is dead-on. It strikes her crossed arms, and spreads up them, igniting Hyadean biometal.
But Ida's figured out a thing or two since Vinsfeld set her on fire. There's a crackling ripping noise as the outer layer of biometal detaches, carrying the flaming substance with it. It hits the ground behind Ida, flaring brilliantly and backlighting her. That green eye of hers has only looked away from Kinoc in the moment Lombardia moved.
Fafnir is enraged. Ida has only felt this kind of anger from him once before, when that 'Megaman' said Dash's true name. Now, though? Now they're not at odds.
Ida is about to tell Kinoc where he can stick his war, his dogma, and all his ambitions--but an unexpected voice more or less does that for her.
'BEGONE!!'
Riesenlied's anger is so explosive that it manages to derail Ida's--and that is no small feat. The woman is less than ten feet away, and for a moment, Ida is completely gobsmacked. "Riesenlied," she says, recognizing the sharp boil of the other woman's anger. "Breathe." Blue-and-green eyes lock on Riesenlied's, the fury in them banked by deep empathy. "I know. You... know, too?" It's so strange. She spent so long hating herself for her anger, and holding Riesenlied up as the pinnacle of gentle, yielding calm that was demanded of her. And yet, here it is. Maybe...
Maybe she can help. Maybe she can do, once again, what she was sworn to.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"You're... not wrong," Ida says. Ida, is, in her own way, as culpable as Kinoc. Moreso. Her family built its fortune out of the bones and technology of the Hyadean people. It tears at her. "But remember. It can be fuel, or it can be the flame that consumes you." The moment stretches on for longer than it has any right to. Ida follows her own advice, breathes, feels the unchained rage in the back of her mind.
"Breathe."
Ida's fingers sharpen into claws. She darts back towards Kinoc, putting herself between the Maester and Riesenlied; she only gets out of the way to twist into a whirling martial form. It's a blade-dance, but Ida has no blades, just her taloned hands. She traces razor-sharp arcs through the air, turning the space around Kinoc into a whirlwind of blades.
Only then does she round and whirl into a kick aimed at one of the talons holding Lombardia down.
"GET OVER YOURSELF, CASCADE!" Ida roars, over the sound of her own foot slamming home.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Wen Kinoc with Muscle Memory! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Avenger stance ends. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Meseru critically guards Matilda Whitehead's Oil Shot for 15 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Dean's here, too! Xantia only takes notice after landing her initial punch - punching had a very high priority just now - and gives him a smile and a short wave in passing. As angry as she is, there's always time to show your appreciation for a friend, in a fight, and with anything that involves Id, too. They have an agreement, after all. Even if she seems strangely unconcerned about what's happening over on that side right now.
As much as Xantia values Citan's wisdom in all things, 'deal with her swiftly' isn't something she needed to be told. She's in no mood to be holding back, and she's assessed her opponent to be someone who doesn't warrant holding back against, besides. Veteran fighters should be able to take a punch, even ones that are on fire.
She isn't disappointed in this, nor in Meseru's ability to give as well as she takes. Xantia was expecting a retaliatory strike from that blade, but she wasn't counting on it being able to strike from afar, the shockwave slamming into her before she can mount a proper defense. "Ngh!"
Something's wrong, she can instantly tell. It's more difficult to keep her Ether focused, causing the flames of her aura to be reduced in intensity. While wondering what's going on, she backs off a little, though the way she's interposing herself between Meseru and Citan makes it clear that she's trying to keep the attention on herself rather than the doctor.
That much succeeds, necessitating evasive action to keep from suffering the full brunt of the follow-up wave of darkness. That weapon is capable of a great many things in this woman's hands, that much is clear. Now, what can she do to disrupt that?
Wordlessly, Xantia suddenly leaps forward. A leap both high and far, that will send her directly over Meseru. Repositioning herself, perhaps? But no - shortly after passing Meseru by, Xantia's forward momentum abruptly halts, and she drops straight down, directly behind the other woman. Counting on the element of surprise, she delivers a single, powerful palm strike aimed for the kidneys. Somehow, it's more painful on the inside than on the outside, leaving an extremely uncomforable burning sensation in its wake.
Xantia punctuates this with a rebuttal to Lombardia being called an abomination. "The only abomination here is this religion of yours. I've seen few things more ugly."
GS: Xantia has attacked Meseru with Essence-Rending Palm Strike! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Meseru takes a glancing hit from Xantia's Essence-Rending Palm Strike for 35 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple! applied to Meseru! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Janus Cascade's Dark Spear for 70 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Citan Uzuki does not have a Medium, but he still turns his head as that power rolls off Janus Cascade, as Janus Cascade's very flesh undergoes a startling transformation. But it isn't Janus' new form that draws his eye--
It's the spear itself. Citan's gaze lingers on it for the length of several heartbeats.
Is that--?
But he cannot let himself remain so distracted by the sight of it. His gaze turns from it -- and from Janus -- and...
He can see enough of it from here. The Machina flicker through the air far beyond the side of the room where the doctor stands and unload.
He can hear Riesenlied cry out. And he can see that Fei has just--
"--Tch," the doctor hisses out, and it's unfortunate perhaps for Meseru that she's on the receiving end of that fleetingly dark look. "Now is not the time for this!" he says in response to her. She's not the type to hand out apologies. "...Then so be it!"
When he comes for her, after she has swung her blade, after Xantia has interposed herself between him and her, he does so with force and speed. He may be unarmed. She may be with blade and armor both.
But Yui Uzuki was a good teacher, and these things may not matter as much as they might otherwise. He ducks to her right -- his left -- and makes as if his intent were to run past her, perhaps to join the fight with Kinoc. This will be revealed for the lie that it is when he drives a fist for the place where her shoulder meets the rest of her torso.
He's already made an assessment of her skill: he won't be able to easily evade her or escape this engagement without injury. Therefore--
It is as he had said to Xantia. They must finish this swiftly.
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Meseru with Shinrai! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Meseru guards a hit from Citan Uzuki's Shinrai for 69 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple! applied to Meseru! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Muscle Memory for 59 hit points! GS: Mighty! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Darkness explodes outward, and Azoth projects a a shield of blue-white light from his palm. The surface -- faintly fluttering with a hexagonal grid -- cracks under the force of Meseru's power, pushing Azoth back several feet as his heels scrape into the ground. In its last moments, it overtakes the shield, but Azoth pushes back against it to drive forward toward Meseru relentlessly.
He's listening. To every angry word. To cries for a mother. To shouting laced with with suffering and outrage. But his gaze remains, for now, on Meseru and her every movement.
exec.gehn_JUDGMENT;
Light forms above Azoth's head, and instead of taking hold of it, he directs his arm down as if slamming it down by invisible grip. The lance of light hurls down toward Meresu, aiming to pierce into her with explosive force.
GS: Azoth spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Azoth has attacked Meseru with Critical Process! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Meseru takes a solid hit from Azoth's Critical Process for 118 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Azoth!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
(BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FVo_LWGR7c)
She had dreams, before the blue-eyed assassin hijacked them for his own ends.
Riesenlied had helped uncover a few fragments of such dreams, once upon a time, of a dragon flying, of a wide sky, of the air her wings would never feel. The sun, the kiss of color as it dipped towards the horizon's embrace. Clouds, and lightning, of a place where no ground would ever stop her way except the reach of the tallest mountains.
Potential that existed, then taken, before the first metal claw had even pierced that protective skin of her egg. Taken by fate, some death from some force or another.
Buried, then taken.
The hidden potential that laid within the Mockingbird, the innocent name obscuring the many, many owners the ARM had burned through.
And only one owner managed to feel that Yearning for a sky they could never quite touch.
A shot burns past Gwen's left shoulder, the telltale ache of poison left behind curling in the veins of her arm, but the thrum of hate is even more vexing, red beginning to slip up the veins of her body--
"Janus?" The courier notices Janus, confusion flooding the remains of that cold glare as she registers the angle of his- no, Siegfried's blade, aimed towards Kinoc.
Riesenlied's and Fei's words make Gwen realize just how new this development is, even if it's felt like a century in emotional pain time. "It's Janus. Wasn't as dead as I thought he was. Revived through or for the blade by Odessa. I think." Her words are clipped, worried that the chaos Janus's presence may bring, for once, will not be because he's turned his blade towards them.
But it's centered her, at least.
"Focus on the assholes keepin' Lombardia bound," she offers to Fei and Riesenlied. "I can fill you in on all the terrible details later on, after a few drinks."
Her life. She owes her life to this dragon? To Lombardia? Or does she owe her life to the people who took that fossil away and made it into a weapon?
Holding her right hand aloft, Gwen borrows from that potential inside her, and projects it in a widening circle of yellow haze, casting it wider until it encompasses the sewer.
"Lombardia... if I can free you, would that.... complete it?"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Wen Kinoc with St. Elmo's Fire! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Meseru with St. Elmo's Fire! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes 21 damage from Poison! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points! GS: Jam! applied to Wen Kinoc! GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam! applied to Meseru!
<Pose Tracker> Wen Kinoc has posed.
Riesenlied's massive blade of ephemeral lightning explodes down towards Wen Kinoc. He bellows a wordless shout, and one of the YDF-X1 machina surges forward. It is silent, as it dies; the machina and stolen, dead Hyadean flesh are slammed into by electricity, Riese's blade of the inheritor smashing down into the drone. It explodes in shards of steel and fragments living metal, which all fall limp to the floor.
The light catches Kinoc's face. Some have called him jovial, easy to laughter; but now, when the light outlines the tired smile lines, the sunken eyes, and the emptiness in his wide grin... no there is something disturbing.
"'Til I'm satisfied?" he asks. "I'm not sure. How many more of you are there?"
He spins his handcannon around, takes aim, and fires -- a shot hurtling off towards Riesenlied's midsection. He turns, then, and looks up -- staring as Ethius summons up some dust, which comes rushing at him. He raises up a hand -- and a drone, with a flying rotor copter at the top, flies up and deflects it. Then, a cannon on its bottom turns, and begins firing rounds rapidly towards Ethius.
Kinoc turns, then; he hears Noeline call out to Riesenlied, and he acts on that. He turns his gun down, shifting its direction, until he has Noeline's left knee in his sights. Then he pulls the trigger, trying to put a round through her knee. "You know what the funny thing is?"
He speaks it to Zed, as he turns -- as wave after wave of starlight explodes out for him. A pair of the Hyadean-machina hybrids drop down, taking the worst of them. One catches him, driving Kinoc backward. "I have no idea who your people are. There's the chosen of Yevon--"
His eyes narrow. "--and then there's Otherworlders."
One of the YDF-X1 drones turns on Zed, then; it crackles, sparks flying from where he struck. Then, two bolts of white light explode out, shooting straight at Zed.
Fei's hands sink into the metal around Lombardia's face. Her eyes lift up to him, wide and wild. Someone who didn't know better might say she looks like a wild animal, but no: she looks like a desperate, tortured woman who is pleading with her eyes because the chains keep her from speaking. Fei's hands grip the metal -- and then he finds a countermeasure.
They burn when he touches the steel, a jolt of electricity shooting into him. Then, even as he rips some away regardless, one of those drones zips down and tries to smash into Fei, bodily, and pitch him across the room.
Lombardia's eyes follow him -- then snaps to Ambrosius with gratitude, as he catches the blast of energy that Meseru loosed. Gold illuminates him; she can do no more than make a strangled cry, chains about her rattling.
Wen Kinoc turns, then, and looks back to Janus. He sees the way his body of living metal waivers, under his wildfire, and scowls. Then, he raises his armored handcannon -- and just catches the Dark Spear, even as it leaves a gouge in the armor. He then pulls back, aims down, and fires a near point-blank shot down at Janus's right leg.
"So you've become one of those things, eh?" he asks.
Ida Everstead-Rey's blow into one of the pieces of metal holding Lombardia's chains cracks it -- bends it, sharply, to the side. Kinoc looks at that damage, frowns, and then Gwen Whitlock's yellow haze washes over him. His eyes blink a few times; the autoturret nearby and the drones about him sputter, once, before righting themselves. Then, he draws a bead, and fires -- two shoots, with purple rings of light exploding out of the barrel -- as he sends bullets at the two of them.
"Looks like her temperature's falling," Kinoc asides. "The extractor works better with temperatures over a certain threshold." He aims his pistol back -- and then another glob of burning pitch is sent hurtling towards Lombardia.
GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Riesenlied with Split Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Rook Autoturret! GS: Wen Kinoc enters a Counter stance! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Fei Fong Wong with YDF-X1 - Rocket Slam! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Noeline with Leg Aim! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Zed with YDF-X1 - Proton Missile! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Janus Cascade with Leg Aim! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Hot Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Hot Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc has completed its action. GS: Wen Kinoc spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Lombardia with Wildfire! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riesenlied guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Split Shot for 86 hit points! GS: Riesenlied's Force Guard activates! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Riesenlied receives 50 temporary hit points. GS: Riesenlied enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Zed guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's YDF-X1 - Proton Missile for 93 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong critically guards Wen Kinoc's YDF-X1 - Rocket Slam for 30 hit points! GS: Mighty! applied to Wen Kinoc! GS: Fei Fong Wong's Force Guard activates! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Janus Cascade takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Leg Aim for 91 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Janus Cascade gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Slow! applied to Janus Cascade! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Rook Autoturret for 106 hit points! GS: Noeline critically guards Wen Kinoc's Leg Aim for 21 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Hot Shot for 194 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Meseru has posed.
"Yevon guides my blade," Meseru answers Dean as she brears down at him. He stops this strike, though. "...And I've been swinging it since you were a speck in your father's eye." Dean blocks her blow, all right, and they break their clash in time for Dean to dash forward, Meseru swinging down her sword to veer off the next rod-strike, making it hit more armor instead of a weak spot it's already made.
To Violet she looks next, spotting hr wielding her ARM again. She fires that cartridge, and the warrior monk sidesteps, taking a shot to her gauntlet that jars her arm but does not break through her armor.
"Indeed," she answers Ambrosius, and waits for more of his gunfire--but before she gets it, he interposes hmself beetween Lombardia and her attack, actually catching the blast outright. She watches this, lifts an eyebrow, and then prepares a defensive stance for his next maneuver--
It hits her forcefully enough to drive her back a step, slamming into her shoulder, which will slow her blows.
She nods, in acknowledgement as she turns next to Matilda. "I believe you," she says simply, and this time she is ready. Matilda's strategy is sound, but she's right in her doubts--Meseru knows to be whre the bullet isn't. Her blade swings up as Matilda aims and the thick metal takes the shot, shining brilliantly in the light of many attacks with oil.
But Xantia and Citan move in tandem. Xantia's palm strikes Meseru, and the impact itself is blocked easily by her rmor--however, the power within it is not, and Meseru's lips twitch in anger as she feels her side burning. Citan comes up after this, and indeed it looks as if he will run past--but he demonstrates a different kind of ability, and his fist drives into her arms. The plates prevent bones breaking, but he can feel a jar there.
"Yevon is all that sustains Spira. Without the teachings, the people would fall into a despair from which there is no end. Your power cannot defeat Sin, and we will bend this weapon of yours to better ends."
Azoth's light pierces right through Meseru, leaving a burned hole in her armor. She pauses, for a moment, still.
Her red eyes flash. "You understand nothing. Your arrogance will prove your undoing."
Swinging her great blade one handed, she leaps into the air and drives it into the ground, a toxic wave of green-black magic erupting from the point of impact that splits into four as it goes for Violet, Ambrosius, Matilda, and Gwen.
She rips her weapon fre of the dirt again and extends a hand towards Dean, still close to her--her palm glows, as darkness settles around her. "I do not seek the forgiveness of men."
Black flashes, a heartbeat of night, and a spectral skull fades int being above Dean's head, its mouth beginning to open wide as it fades once more. ...But there is a sense of dread in the magic, dread that must be fought off with all one's will.
She swings next for Citan and Xantia, whirling on them both with hack that seeks to get both of them at once, a horizontal slash backed with blooming darkness.
"I can handle that, Maester." She casts out her blade for anther shockwave, this time twofold--at Lombardia again, rising into a terrible slash as it approaches her, as she puts out her hand, taking it off her sword, for Azoth.
"...The end comes for all in time."
Violet-black magic shoots out of her hand, and disappears--becoming an aura that bursts into being about Azoth, as a huge skeletal being appears and swings a clawed hand at him, all the power of night crashing his way.
GS: Meseru spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Meseru has attacked Violet Salazar with Bio! GS: Meseru has attacked Ambrosius with Bio! GS: Meseru has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Bio! GS: Meseru has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Bio! GS: Meseru has attacked Dean Stark with Doom! GS: Meseru has attacked Xantia with Hard Slash! GS: Meseru has attacked Citan Uzuki with Hard Slash! GS: Meseru spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Meseru has attacked Azoth with Death! GS: Meseru has attacked Lombardia with Machina Break! GS: Meseru has attacked Meseru with Curseproof! GS: Meseru takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Meseru has completed her action. GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a solid hit from Meseru's Bio for 38 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Matilda Whitehead gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison! applied to Matilda Whitehead! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey used Defend! She takes Wen Kinoc's attack on #-1 NO SUCH OBJECT VISIBLE on herself! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey used Defend! She takes Wen Kinoc's attack on Lombardia on herself! GS: Riesenlied has activated a Force Action! GS: Ambrosius critically guards Meseru's Bio for 9 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey critically guards Wen Kinoc's Wildfire for 16 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Azoth takes a glancing hit from Meseru's Death for 98 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease! applied to Azoth! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Violet Salazar takes a solid hit from Meseru's Bio for 55 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Violet Salazar gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison! applied to Violet Salazar! GS: Xantia guards a hit from Meseru's Hard Slash for 61 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dean Stark critically guards Meseru's Doom for 0 hit points! GS: Dean Stark's Force Guard activates! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Hot Shot for 170 hit points! GS: Dean Stark used Defend! He takes Meseru's attack on Lombardia on himself! GS: Citan Uzuki guards a hit from Meseru's Hard Slash for 60 hit points! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Meseru's Machina Break for 73 hit points! GS: Jam! applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark's Force Guard activates! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Meseru's Bio for 23 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Meseru accepts Meseru's Curseproof for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Meseru!
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
Meseru's greenish-black magic ray leaves Violet feeling more than a little nauseous. "OUR arrogance?" she gasps, quirking an eyebrow. The message is clear. She doesn't know anything about Lombardia other than that the strange, giant metal creature is being held against her will -- and possibly tortured. And the story about Lombardia attacking Sin -- and not coincidentally, saving the people of Spira.
This was a fine way to repay her! Violet will not let that stand! Struggling against the waves of sickness, she takes aim at Meseru and fires.
GS: Violet Salazar spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Meseru with Finishing Touch! GS: Violet Salazar has gained 1 Combo! GS: Violet Salazar takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action. GS: Meseru critically guards Violet Salazar's Finishing Touch for 31 hit points! GS: Shield! applied to Violet Salazar!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Kinoc's answer contorts Riesenlied's heart further. I'm not sure. How many more of you are there.
"You do not even see us as people -- not us, not the Al Bhed, not any of the Otherworlders...!"
The hand cannon whirls and is aimed her direction -- her eyes flash with recognition as she tries to shove her chair out of the way, but there's only so much a wheelchair can do against weapons fire.
But as the shot explodes, and smoke covers her form... a shimmering barrier once more protects her, the extent of Odoryuk's quiet grace shielding her at the worst of times, and perhaps Noeline too.
Dean's kind call rings to Riesenlied's ears.
Don't forget -- the most important thing is saving Lombardia!
She has been, always, about saving people over ruining others. And yet, at the same time, right now... her heart is having a difficult time hearing that call.
...
Because Janus is speaking, and his glib response just seems to conveniently feed her hatred and anger further. "You... what?" she stares in disbelief. "How could you say such a thing...?!"
And because Fei too is speaking, and their anger swirls around each other, infectious in the way it blazes the fire within them. Ever since that day, in Old Petra, when she met Id within an empathic realm through her power.
There was one thing he said to her on that day.
RIESENLIED PSYCHO 96
It's those 'higher causes' you have that get the reeeeaaaal body counts going...Your little Ebony Wings. You've already caused more deaths than Berserk ever will. You want to know why?
A beat.
RIESENLIED PSYCHO 97
"Mankind will destroy itself--and destroy us with it, if they can."
Another heartbeat.
RIESENLIED PSYCHO 98--
The frozen and dead memory of a Fereshte shaman -- Nasrin -- who now only lives within her mind interjects. "'See to it that they don't!'"
Her broken face lifts up. "Don't conveniently clip your own memories to serve your own ends! And listen to Noeline's voice, Ida's voice, if not mine!"
...
Riesenlied. Breathe.
Breathe...
She gazes, upon blue-and-green eyes. It is as if she is speaking to so much experience, both from the woman who must have gone through a similar path herself.
It can be fuel, or it can be the flame that consumes you.
RIESENLIED PSYCHO 97
The fuel... of her anger.
Riese!
Noeline, her partner, is there too, her voice cutting through the darkness like a swath of warmth and light. She too pleads with her.
I can't let you go that far. Listen to that little part of you.
Love must carry a sword. And a sword may be an instrument only designed for death, whether for oneself or others...
RIESENLIED PSYCHO 96
For all these people around you. For the world you want to build.
But she does not wield a sword to felling her own ideology.
RIESENLIED PSYCHO 95
--she gasps, surviving being drowned in a lake of her emotions.
"... I will fight..." Riesenlied rasps quietly, sounding for all the world like she was underwater, coughing, "I will fight to save Lombardia," she affirms both Noeline and Ida, as she recalls that important thing Dean just reminded her moments ago.
Her voice is trembling, and yet it is gaining resolve, in the familiar way it does when she's truly backed into a corner. Her resolve echoes that of Zed's. As she knows, feels, Gwen's own pain, as she remembers that dream that they shared so long ago, of a dragon soaring free.
"I will fight to see these systems that feed such corrupt people with power broken. Just like we broke free of Mother..."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"R-Riese..." Odjn whimpers quietly, staring towards what her companion... 'what she has become' is not exactly fair, but seeing her in that state definitely fills her with fear.
Fear that she pushes aside, as she keeps flying, flying as far as her tiny, teensy wings will let her.
There's a blast of fire from one of the surviving YAT-99s, and she yelps as she tumbles with a little sizzle, then gets back up again as she stares up towards the huge Dragon Fossil Extractor.
She's trembling and she's sore.
"Ruby... give me strength..." she murmurs to herself. Odjn may be a true Metal Dragon -- she learnt this frightening fact she doesn't know what to do about more than one year ago -- but she isn't a fighter.
She's a foot tall, and her flesh is best described as 'cuddly' rather than 'metallic'.
"C-can you hear me? Actually, I'm gonna say anyway. I..."
She's sobbing as she grabs hold of one end of the huge, huge machine for something that looks like a bolt that'll come loose.
Odjn can't do anything herself. She knows it. She can't make this machine stop.
And yet she's trying.
"Do you remember when we first met, Lomby? It was in that cave, in Glenwood... and... the first thing I thought of was how much you were hurtin'."
Her hands are full of grime and sweat as she gasps out a grunt. Nothing's moving no matter how hard she's pulling.
"And I know... now. Because I was hurtin' too. Thanks to Ruby, I know now how lonely it is to feel like you're gonna be all alone again."
She sniffles as she shakes her head.
"I woke up in darkness. I sat in darkness alone, in a half-broken egg, for a long long long time. There was nothing but bones around me. I didn't know what a mother or a family was like. Never did, but..."
The littlest Dragon lifts her head to look. Down at where Riesenlied is working through her own anger and fear, where Noeline and Ida are helping her through it, at where Fei, Ethius, Gwen and Zed are fighting for their sakes. No, not just their sakes... but for Spira too.
"These people... these people all taught me I belong, somewhere. That I don't have to feel alone ever again. You must've been down here for so long on your own, chained up... but..."
She grimaces and shouts, as her tiny wings flip-flip-flap as she yanks with as much strength as she can muster.
"Please! Mom-- Lombardia! I... I don't want you to leave us!! So please... hang in there!! We're gonna rescue you! And I'm not gonna leave you alone after that!!"
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Lombardia with Odjn's Love! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with Odjn's Love! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Odjn's Love! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Odjn's Love! GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Riesenlied heals Lombardia! She gains 125 temporary hit points! GS: Riesenlied heals Noeline! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Kinoc's resourcefulness and experience serves him well on covering his blind spot, as a turret takes the spray head on. Ethius crosses his forearm in front of him as he observes its construction... and how the cannon was not pointed in the way of the spray, freeing it up to open fire.
He slurs the syllables of the barrier spell in short order as he gets hammered by focused auto-turret fire. Anyone else would be swiss cheese. Every electrical light and burst that erupts is a would-be fatal turret round turned into something akin to a series of hard, injurious shoves as he's thrust up against a part of the machine. He straightens up somewhat as Fei rips off a piece of the machine, as if by alarm.
...But then, he's in better listening range of Meseru. Yecon guides her blade. Her anger... her full belief in the faith of Yevon. He hears those words as he's pinned by the turret fire.
The proclamation that the weapon will be put to better ends.
A fist clenches as one (barely) softened shot bounces against his barrier-protected skull.
...SOME OTHER POINT IN TIME AND SPACE...
Soft colors. Crisp air, like he were outside. Like he were... no. He no longer had the right to consider it that. Feelings of tranquility and the open.
It was not.
He was seated on a stump. It was presented as his idea, but it was not. His eyes tracked around it as if looking at seams.
"Are you at ease?" Asked a voice. A voice that belonged to someone blue, that he would describe merely as that. Words spoken softly, through a voice hoarse and deep. They sound different to everyone, it's said. The sound of someone you find most calming. Their voice was incongruous with their appearance.
"I am present." He responded. It was truthful. You could not tell lies to them. It was not as though it were law. It was impossible to.
He was not at ease.
"Is it what you did? Mister--"
"Hesiod."
"Hesiod." They repeated the name. A silence followed. "Hesiod." They repeat, as if having to re-center themselves from discomfort. "Then you are--"
"Yes." He interrupted.
"I did not complete the question." The voice bled towards something stranger. Anger?
"I know the question." He responded.
"Then I will ask another." The blue returned to what he understood was a soothing voice to him. "The actions you have taken. Do you feel guilt?"
"No." His response was firm.
"Remorse?"
"No."
"Anger?"
"No."
The laundry list continued. His answer was the same every time, unwavering. The blue grew quieter yet.
"...Tell me in your own words, how you felt. How you felt, as you--"
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
NOW
Ethius always keeps to himself. He never bothers explaining the hows or whys of what he does - to other people, or anything - as people argue over dogma and the rottenness of their faith. His eyes can't help but turn when he sees Azoth unleash a powerful light upon the swordswoman over there. The way Ambrosius takes up arms at all, knowing what he does about him. All this, while he's still being pelted by the drone.
He should do something about that. He has to bring up both arms with another incantation of Symbological make. The barrier bounces some bullets away from the newly-raised arm as the turret mistakes the movement of the limb for being the movement of its entire target and that's an inconvenience because he needs to redo the incantation once more while being pelted.
"Quantum Repulsor!" Ethius calls as Symbological tattoos glow, and what was once invisible to the naked eye roars again to clear sight - an electrical shield that starts cleanly deflecting the rest of the turret's volley (...for now) as he starts edging towards Lombardia's machine.
For what purpose? Kinoc said aloud that it works better with warmer temperatures. Everyone who has ever been with Ethius knows that heat tends to be his go-to for utterly annihilating rogue technology, and here, he is approaching an ailing, wounded Lombardia.
What if he intends to put a stop to this by killing her? This is a man who, to several witnesses here, killed without hesitation or remorse - he's a pragmatic enough man by all measures that he may be the biggest threat to her.
Is that shield of his the beginning of something unforgivable?!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Quantum Repulsor! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Ethius Hesiod accepts Ethius Hesiod's Quantum Repulsor for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify! applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Cover! applied to Ethius Hesiod!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean nods Fei's way, worried from the attack he just soaked for Lombardia but relieved that his friend heard him, when he responds. "Neither will I," he calls back. "Let's save her together!"
Similar words might be necessary for Zed and Riesenlied--but they're both Hyadean, the same race as Lombardia. Dean understands instinctively after his experiences with Id and Volsung that anything he tells them will ring hollow. Any calming words will have to come from one of their own--from Noeline. Fortunately, she's already on top of that as far as Riesenlied is concerned--though whether that'll be enough for her *and* Zed, who can know? So he does at least shout, "Riese! Zed! Listen to Noeline--she's suffering just as much as you guys are!"
He might have no place telling Hyadeans how to feel about this atrocity, but he can at least encourage them to listen to one of their own. And when it looks like Riesenlied does listen, Dean can only smile in relief. That kind of grievous rage... It just doesn't suit her.
Meanwhile, Janus Januses all over the place. Dean's lips curl in revulsion. Fortunately, he's saved from having to respond directly to The One Man Dean Actually Hates thanks to Ida, who tells Janus to get over himself. Dean gives a short little nod, lets himself smile at Xantia and give her a thumbs up back, and then focuses back on the battle with Meseru--and the protection of Lombardia.
"What, so you think you're better than me just because you're older? Get--" He knocks her back and swings himself around to get closer to Lombardia. "--real!" Meseru uses a fouler spell next, one that plagues the hearts and souls of men--but while Dean may indeed be younger and relatively untested compared to her, Meseru has probably met few opponents with a will and positivity as strong as Dean's. That dread radiates onto him, and he does feel its black poison, he *has* seen the night--but he has faith in his friends, and he has faith in himself. He *will not* bow down when there are people counting on him to help.
So when Meseru unleashes a double shockwave towards Lombardia, Dean doesn't hesitate whatsoever to leap in the way, his weapons once again crossed to defend both himself and the Metal Dragon from the assault. "Not today!!" he shouts, then rebounds and leaps back at Meseru in a fury of whirling combat rods.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Meseru with Violence Vice! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius returns Lombardia's glance. He simply nods quietly in response. And then, he darts away from her. Undoubtedly, his actions have drawn attention - if he stays here, he risks an attack that may catch her in the crossfire.
This proves to be a wise choice, as soon Meseru soons a wave of green-black magic in his direction. The spell washes over him. He feels momentarily ill. With a gesture of his hand, however, pure, clean water coalesces from the air, washing over him and cleansing the illness away.
He looks toward others, similarly affected... and with a gesture, similar clean waters will arrive to soothe them, too.
He considers Meseru's words, then. Could Spira survive without Yevon? An interesting question, that. At one point, he wouldn't have cared. But now, he finds him considering it. His answer is simply...
"...They will endure." He says. He glances once more toward Riesenlied, then. It seems the voices of those she cares for has had a positive effect on her.
He smiles for a moment, despite himself.
GS: Ambrosius has activated a Force Action! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Dean Stark with Cleansing Waters! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Azoth with Cleansing Waters! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Violet Salazar with Cleansing Waters! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Cleansing Waters! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Ambrosius with Cleansing Waters! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action. GS: Ambrosius accepts Ambrosius's Cleansing Waters for 0 hit points! GS: Shield! applied to Ambrosius! GS: Dean Stark accepts Ambrosius's Cleansing Waters for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Jam removed! GS: Shield! applied to Dean Stark! GS: Azoth accepts Ambrosius's Cleansing Waters for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disease removed! GS: Shield! applied to Azoth! GS: Matilda Whitehead accepts Ambrosius's Cleansing Waters for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed! GS: Shield! applied to Matilda Whitehead! GS: Violet Salazar accepts Ambrosius's Cleansing Waters for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed! GS: Shield! applied to Violet Salazar! GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Violence Vice for 86 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break! applied to Meseru!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"Oh," Zed answers Maester Kinoc as a pair of photon torpedos streak towards him like he were some kind of alien bird of prey. "Is that how it is, then?"
The missiles explode, bursting into a cavalcade of glimmering lights and tiny supernovas. For the briefest of moments, it seems as though Zed has been consumed utterly, but then...!
Then, the light fades, and the Hyadean is gone.
No. Not quite gone.
"You, whose heart and soul are weighed down by the gravity of this silver star... To see other lives and think them nothing but tools to be used-- I pity you! You are little more than a parasite wearing a man's flesh! A little Demon Mother with a man's face." The context is lost on those unfamiliar with the Metal Demon War, but Zed hurls the accusation like poison, spitting it from...
...From...
...Atop one of those pseudo-Hyadean drones.
...His fist has been plunged straight through its semi-spherical body.
"And just like her, you made a critical mistake-- you underestimate the people you seek to use as tools. You think you can turn us into weapons just because it's convenient...?" Zed's eyes flash. A pulse of green energy races down a network of circuit-like patterns beginning in the pits of his eyes and ending at his fist. "Dumbass. Fool! Moron! Let me show you why we were called Metal Demons!" His lips split into a furious, triumphant grin. His expression... shines with manic madness...! "ARM synchronization complete!" The drone's own optical sensors suddenly turn a brilliant shade of green. "I HAVE CONTROL!"
"All weapons!" Zed commands, as the drone obeys and unhinges a dozen hidden munition compartments-- each one trained on the malicious Maester. "Fire at will!"
The sound is something similar to a fireworks show gone absolutely terribly wrong. Brightly colored semi-magical munitions pour out of the drone as Zed kicks off its chassis-- and follows up with a second punt, sending the coopted machina-hybrid careening straight for its target. "And now..." Zed commands-- "EXPLODE!"
The drone... goes boom.
It's very pretty, very bright, and very much a problem since Zed is now headed for another of those drones.
GS: Zed has attacked Wen Kinoc with Machinae Supremacy! GS: Zed has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Zed's Machinae Supremacy for 26 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Again, Meseru targets Lombardia as a part of her assault. He agrees with some of the shouting he's heard, if on a different level: when is it enough for them? The sorrow? The pain? What an illogical path.
But he has no time to react to that before his systems shriek internally at an oncoming darkness a moment before it consumes, smothering out even the glow of his eyes. Skeletal claws come down, and Azoth spins in a whirl, trying to leap from night's grip. They rake across his body, cleaving against fake flesh and steel and leaving sparks in their wake.
Azoth adapts, quickly, to calm his systems and leaving him looking like he's 'only' suffered a bloodless cleave. Surface damage. Largely cosmetic. Continue normal operations.
"... Free will, and this is what you choose to do with it."
His fingers twitch, and light snakes through his fingers and arm, bright enough to pulse through his dark sleeve. He thrusts his hand upward and snaps, light extending over him in a dome of a veil to protect and guard as many as he can reach -- Lombardia included. The light from it warms them, promising some shielded protection from what may try to strike them next.
"I rather prefer their application of it."
GS: Azoth has attacked Dean Stark with Body Electric! GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with Body Electric! GS: Azoth has attacked Xantia with Body Electric! GS: Azoth has attacked Lombardia with Body Electric! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Azoth heals Dean Stark! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Azoth heals Azoth! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is not insulated against electrity. Desperation and fury guide him as much as anything. He listens to Kinoc, seemingly proud of his ignorance and his inhumanity. He screams electricity surges through him. His focus on protecting Lombardia might be the only thing that has kept him FEI through all this. If anything happened to dragon grandma...
Elly isn't here to forestall it.
He is flung free. He endures it. He rolls into his fall and then darts right back towards the mask. A drone zips down to try smash Fei away but instead of an opponent, Fei sees a tool. The drone slams into h is body and he grabs hold of it, gripping it with both hands. His eyes widen as Wen Kinoc just outright throws FIRE directly at Lombardia but he can't get in the way of that.
Instead he tries the next best thing. He raises the drone in the air and aims to SMASH it against the mask with one hand while enshrouding his other hand in ROCK which he uses to insulate his hand to grab ahold of those chains in an attempt to snap it to bits. If he can just help a little, maybe Lombardia can help finish off the rest. Or not!
"I'm sorry," He says, sobbing. "I'm sorry we were to weak. You should've just lived your own isolated life. I'm sorry we brought problems to you. I'm sorry you felt the need to save us from Sin. You should've just let us die. Why did you--why..."
He keeps trying to break those chains binding Lombardia. His back is practically to Wen Kinoc in this position.
And yet...
FEI PSYCHO 98
Mankind will destroy itself--and destroy us with it, if they can
It was Siegfried who said it.
It was Id who repeated it. Because some part of Fei--no, some part of Id understands something about them, fundamentally, isn't part of mankind anymore. Not exactly.
See to it that they don't
Fei blinks.
He looks towards Riesenlied, eyes wide, eyes MAD. But something in them.
Something in them remembers...
GS: Azoth heals Lombardia! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida feels the metal give. It worked. Hope ignites within her chest, echoed by a similar sensation emanating from Fafnir. She glances towards Lombardia's head, to gauge her reaction, and what she sees there--
Oh my God, Ida thinks, fresh horror welling up within her.
lombardia? lombarida, please, you have to--
She can't, he realizes. His hero is not merely inconvenienced, or injured, and enduring this with stoic Hyadean discipline. She's being tortured. She's being vivisected. The pain and terror is far too familiar to him--Berserk beat it into him when he was just a runty little neonate.
Seeing it on his hero's face is just too much.
For one crucial second, the delicate dance of Ida and Fafnir comes to a grinding halt, and Kinoc takes full advantage. A superheated slug slams into her abdomen, and Ida pitches back, more from the pain and surprise than the force of the bullet. Crimson and quicksilver trickle down her abdomen; Ida feels the bullet lodged in muscle, but doesn't dare touch it. It burns, like a white-hot poker--a torturer's implement.
To Kinoc's eyes, the blood might be noteworthy. Is this another one he can scrap for parts?
But through the haze of pain, Ida sees Kinoc taking aim at Lombardia again. "LOMBARDIA!" Ida screams, tears welling up in her eyes. "I'M HERE! I WON'T LET HIM HURT YOU ANYMORE!"
This, as Ida throws herself willingly into the path of that burning pitch. Once again, it hits her dead-on, spreading across her armored arms, her torso, her head. For a moment, it looks like Kinoc has successfully immolated her in her haste to save Lombardia from the same fate
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The last time they'd met, Janus Cascade complained about how hard it was to form a proper jointed exoskeleton. Now, Ida unintentionally styles on him; Living Metal wells up from every pore, coating her head to toe and giving the flames something to cling to that isn't soft human flesh. This liquid cocoon lasts for a split-second, and then--
-kshing-
It splits apart, and Ida emerges from it like a chrysalis--or like she's shedding her own skin. Steely-blue flesh parts around her, revealing her remade body, armored in equal parts blue and gold and red and black. The former bits have newer-school Hyadean styling, with a sort of baroque artistry mixed in--the latter bits are all old-school fast-assault armor, sleek and deadly.
Fafnir wore that armor. Lombardia saw him wearing it dozens of times.
"We're here to protect you!" Ida shouts, to the dragon. She glances at Riesenlied, manages a pained but genuine smile, and an 'OK' hand signal. Odjn flits past her. "Odjn! Be careful, it's trapped!"
Ida doesn't dare turn her back on Kinoc, but she does move to try and protect the littlest Metal Dragon as she makes her desperate plea.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFQIhsJL03A&ab_channel=Citano
Memory of An Escape - Exploration - 4 - Agility - Vault
You find yourself on a battleship in the middle of a war.
The battle is going poorly to put it mildly. Your allies have turned against you, leaving you alone to battle against the enemy forces. It was a massacre. There is no hope for victory. The only question is how you will survive.
Your commander looks over to one of your fellow soldiers. It is far from the first time. The commander calls "Abandon ship." You know her plan - the ship's weapons are useless, but the engines are not. It will buy time. Your fellow, her lover, protests, insists there is another way, reaches for her. She commands him to live, and looks to you all. With expectation and with hope.
She wants you to drag this man to the escape pods.
You could do that.
Or you could abandon your comrades to die, all good men and women, to save one woman's life against her own will.
Either way you'll have to move quickly.
Raftina gonna leave you
Gonna fill your heart with tears
Fei looks back to Wen Kinoc, mid strike, and then back to Lombardia.
"I'm..." He says with understanding. "You wouldn't want me..."
FEF PSYCHO 97
"You wouldn't want me to give in."
FEI PSYCHO 96
And with Riesenlied he breathes. He breathes in. He breathes out. The world, in an instant, becomes easier to handle.
And then he tries one more time to smash those chains to bits, to tear them to shreds.
"Lombardia." He says. "I don't deserve your faith. I already failed you once before because I... I must be... I think... Some part of me. Some past version of me... Was him. Lacan. I don't... I don't know what I did but I clearly messed it all up. I'm ... I'm mad at Wen Kinoc but..."
He laughs quietly.
"I'm more mad at myself...for messing up the friendship I could've had with you. And with Siegfried. It's all my fault. But--they're good people. They're much better than me. I promise. But can you at least promise us..."
One more strike.
"Lombardia...! Live...!"
GS: Riesenlied heals Fei Fong Wong! He gains 125 temporary hit points! GS: Riesenlied heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 125 temporary hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Wen Kinoc with Lombardia... LIVE!! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Break and Poison expired! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Fei Fong Wong's attack becomes clear! GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ultra Idstinct for 109 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell ! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts 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> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Magic has never been Matilda's strong suit; accordingly, she makes her peace with the pain as best she can. That wave of magic suffuses her, and she lets out a grunt of pain. "Nnrgh..." she groans, doing her best to stay standing in spite of it; honestly, though, the pain isn't... *so* bad that it holds much sway over her. She's poisoned herself more than once before, after all. A couple of times even on purpose!
Fortunately, she doesn't *have* to endure it, as such. Ambrosius cleanses the pain away in short order, and Matilda gives him a slightly fatigued-looking smile. "Thanks," she calls back, shouldering Freischütz for a moment. She scans Meseru's stance for a few moments, carefully, looking again for a weakness -- and finding little.
Still, she can't do *nothing*, of course, which means she decides to reload Freischütz with a perfectly normal box of bullets. Even if Meseru is passably familiar with how to fight an ARM-user, it's still better than closing with her.
Her attacks remain simple, straightforward. She's not in the position to overthink this, or do anything tricky; she just continues moving at odd angles here and there, doing her best to fire shot after shot with no plan save to overwhelm Meseru with sheer number of shots.
GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Meseru with Freeshooter! GS: Matilda Whitehead has gained 1 Combo! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action. GS: Meseru critically guards Matilda Whitehead's Freeshooter for 32 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Meseru's Force Guard activates!
DC: Your Free attacks must be built on 5 Attack Points. The input attack would cost 8.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
For a little while, the world has dropped away from her; even Janus' taunts feel indistinct and far away, though old habits die hard and Noeline automatically finds one little corner of her mind squirreling his words away for her to analyze later. Gwen and Ida are nearby, Fei's anger is palpable, but the only thing she has time for right now is the sensation of Riesenlied in her arms, holding tightly onto her beloved partner as she transmits her feelings.
"... it's alright," she promises softly and with a tender smile, touching Riesenlied's cheek. "I understand why. But... I know how much you would hate yourself for it afterwards."
As far as she's concerned, even the Maester cannot breach that sphere of safety and comfort, and she will be damned if she lets him so much as try. Though the cannon's shot rings true and appears to be aimed well, the very air around Noeline seems to crawl and come alive with shadow all of a sudden, twisting unnaturally and obscuring her form. When it fades again, there is no wound - a glance, perhaps, and a telltale burnt patch of ancient stone.
And Noeline, half-turned to stare at the man with a steely crimson gaze, still clutched onto her partner even in the midst of it all. She takes in the Maester's hollowed look, the sight of him without any of the emotional barriers in the way. "... Spira is the sort of place to leave one tired and jaded and broken. I will grant you that, and that alone," she states, her voice almost soft with relief as she starts to feel Riesenlied climb down from the emotional high of her anger, the force of it almost physical across their link but lightening with every moment.
Her sword winks back into her free hand as she turns towards Kinoc, and is then slammed into the ground in front of her, both in challenge and as protection. The sorcerous aura around her has not lessened; if anything, it's beginning to expand further, rippling outwards as she pours herself into it. "This is my answer to all of this, Maester. The two of us, here, facing you. The people with us. The Gods at our backs," she mutters quietly.
"We'll show you what faith is."
There is no wind or gale to accompany the feeling of the Guardian's aura exploding outwards, but it almost feels like there should be. Even without it, it is still the sensation of the world being stripped away, every self-illusion and denial and lie of convenience torn away to expose the truth underneath. The force that accompanies it is almost physical and certainly physical enough, a dampening pressure that crashes down on the Maester and his machina both as Noeline stands tall in witness.
GS: Noeline has attacked Wen Kinoc with Material Adept - Border of Shadow! GS: Noeline has gained 1 Combo! GS: Noeline assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Noeline takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Noeline's Material Adept - Border of Shadow for 154 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia's eyes widen for a brief moment when Citan executes a follow-up attack to her own. Though she knows the doctor to be capable, this is not generally the way she sees him involved in combat situations. She can understand the motivation of course, but still... she wasn't expecting that.
She doesn't follow up on this, chiefly because of the words spoken next. The way that Meseru describes the teachings of Yevon, what it means for Spira, how they will use whatever and whoever they please... it hits a nerve, and her eyes narrow dangerously.
"You people... you sound just like Solaris!"
Her least favorite people in both worlds by far. The Yevonites couldn't possibly take over the number one spot, but there is one important distinction. She can't do anything about Solaris right now. Yevon's people are right there.
It's unclear what exactly causes it, but the moment she has this thought, Xantia's attention is briefly drawn to the other side of the battle. Yet almost as soon as she looks in that direction, she resolutely averts her gaze. She seems... at odds with herself. But she can't afford distractions in the middle of a fight. Nearby, Meseru had been occupied with others for the moment, but before long, that sword is swung in Xantia's direction...
...And finds itself intercepted by a glowing red blade, having materialized over Xantia's forearms, sending sparks fly. "You need to trust in people a little more. They're not as weak as you think." The statement is a general one, but she thinks of her friends when she says it - in particular the ones that are struggling with their inner demons right now. She's noticed, she couldn't not notice... but she trusts in their strength. They won't lose this fight. Not after coming this far together. All she needs to concern herself with is winning her own fight.
In a blur of movement, Xantia dashes forward, shoulder-first, mostly intended to push Mesuru back and unbalance her, before switching to a quick swipe with her arm blade. Then a left jab, a right slash, a left hook, a right stab... alternating hands, between fist and ARM, she attempts to drive her opponent back further and further. Away from Lombardia.
"Stop it already! Haven't you done enough? Don't you have any feelings at all??"
GS: Azoth heals Xantia! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Cripple removed! GS: Xantia has attacked Meseru with Frenzy Dance! GS: Xantia has gained 3 Combo! GS: Xantia's Avenger stance ends. GS: Mighty expired! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Meseru takes a glancing hit from Xantia's Frenzy Dance for 65 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.
Kinoc's reply to Janus' attack is a savage shot into the leg, and it forces Janus to sweep away. He doesn't blur this time, he takes a long somersalt that lands him pretty close to Gwen, stomping on the damaged leg as though he had nothing worse than a leg cramp. "Gah! Stings!" he mutters, his voice strangely tinny and resonant so close to him. "Still lagging a little," he mutters, punching his thigh once and then twice. Then he looks up, terrifying eyeless embers meeting Gwen's eyes. "Oh. Hi, cutie." He pantomimes laughing because his face is too rigid to do subtle. "Wild, innit? Didn't think there was much left in the world that could stop us from killing each other! Hah!"
"How..." Riesenlied demands an answer for his desecration, and Janus just shakes his head, rolling his shoulder a bit. "Because it's important for partners to get a sense of one another. Ain't that right, buddy?" He slings Glumzambor over his shoulder, exactly as he used to sling the Sniper Shark. "No sense being coy about the whole thing. This guy tried to kill me. It was live or die. I showed it I would live. Seems it respected that. That's all."
His gaze is drawn, then, to Lombardia, at that plaintive cry. "...this isn't my hate," he mutters, quietly, but perhaps loud enough to be overheard. "...and it's not my anger, either. You haven't shown me this side of you before, Glumzambor. So, let's show it together."
He swings Glumzambor up, straight over his head, facing Kinoc. "You're right and you're wrong. I've become something much, much more than just 'one of them.' This was the blade of their leader, once. Their leader who happened to be a good ol' pal of that dragon you got wrapped all up in chains. I ain't fool enough of a man to think that makes me the same..."
"But it does mean I got an obligation to scorch the very Earth you stand on! C'MON, GLUMZAMBOR!"
The power between them is much more equal, this time, as Janus and Glumzambor both ignite, and Janus SWINGS down, sending a slashing wave of razorlight to saw through Kinoc's guard!
GS: Janus Cascade spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Janus Cascade has attacked Wen Kinoc with Demon Fang! GS: Janus Cascade has gained 2 Combo! GS: Janus Cascade takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Janus Cascade has completed his action. GS: COUNTER! Wen Kinoc counterattacks Janus Cascadewith Counter Attack! GS: CRITICAL! Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Janus Cascade's Demon Fang for 185 hit points! GS: Janus Cascade takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Counter Attack for 118 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Wen Kinoc, whatever his flaws, chose well for his guard. Meseru is a fearsome opponent. Perhaps if he had a blade in hand, the situation would be different. Perhaps. But there is no point in considering a matter that cannot be. He made his choices, and he must live with them.
No matter how quietly dire this situation is potentially becoming.
"Perhaps," Citan says to Meseru, in those moments as he ducks backwards, twisting his body in profile away from her, "or perhaps not. Would it not be better for you to discover for yourself?"
The blade comes for him, just as he expected. She's quick, as he had already determined: thus, he doesn't attempt to dodge it but instead mitigate it, catching the blow along his left forearm. He exhales a hard-edged breath, and the wound burns of course, but these are managable matters.
For now, that is. As long as they can finish this quickly. It's true, as Xantia notes -- he does not typically direct himself thus in a fight. But--
That is because he has another concern on his mind.
He can't see what's going on there anymore, not while facing down an opponent like Meseru. Should he take his attention off her--
After all, he does not use a blade anymore.
But even if he can't see, he can still hear, and fleetingly the doctor grimaces. He makes up his mind in the next heartbeat, shadowing Xantia in her rush for the Yevon warrior. Ducking low as she makes to force Meseru back, he drops down to sweep out a leg to try to add an additional complication for the warrior: he'll see if it's possible to knock her down outright or at least stagger her.
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Meseru with Rakuyou! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Meseru critically guards Citan Uzuki's Rakuyou for 11 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Meseru's Force Guard activates!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Looking into the ghoulish face of Janus, Gwen somehow manages a grin. "You're just lucky that people have a target that's a lot more punchable than your face, right now. Or are ya jealous he's gettin' the spotlight?"
The area of glittering gold haze shorts out as Kinoc's bullet and a split wave of Meseru's poison find Gwen, the courier doubling over as Ida does, wilting as Ida straightens, alarmed by the harm Kinoc threatens upon Lombardia.
When Gwen comes to, it's to the hazy scene of Ida bursting from her crystalis, in fine armor. ".... ida....?" She gets up, clasping a hand to her chest-
where her heart still beats, of course, since that's why she's still up, and alive.
"....!" Gwen's attention pivots to the green drone, now puppeted by an equally green Zed. ... because of his hair.
Gwen sees Fei do what now seems the most logical thing: free Lombardia.
At some point, Fei may see a familiar gloved hand by his, clasping along the contraptions embedded in Lombardia that he has already loosened.
".... If Lombardia hadn't, we wouldn't have survived Sin. And I...."
She grits her teeth, preparing for the electricity meeting against the same in her own ARM.
".... I will do everything I can, just for the chance to talk to her, just once, after she rests."
She's crying. "... So I can give her something back."
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Looking into the ghoulish face of Janus, Gwen somehow manages a grin. "You're just lucky that people have a target that's a lot more punchable than your face, right now. Or are ya jealous he's gettin' the spotlight?"
The area of glittering gold haze shorts out as Kinoc's bullet and a split wave of Meseru's poison find Gwen, the courier doubling over as Ida does, wilting as Ida straightens, alarmed by the harm Kinoc threatens upon Lombardia.
When Gwen comes to, it's to the hazy scene of Ida bursting from her crystalis, in fine armor. ".... ida....?" She gets up, clasping a hand to her chest-
where her heart still beats, of course, since that's why she's still up, and alive.
"....!" Gwen's attention pivots to the green drone, now puppeted by an equally green Zed. ... because of his hair.
Gwen sees Fei do what now seems the most logical thing: free Lombardia.
At some point, Fei may see a familiar gloved hand by his, clasping along the contraptions embedded in Lombardia that he has already loosened.
".... If Lombardia hadn't, we wouldn't have survived Sin. And I...."
She grits her teeth, preparing for the electricity meeting against the same in her own ARM.
".... I will do everything I can, just for the chance to talk to her, just once, after she rests."
She's crying. "... So I can give her something back."
This time, she *is* prepared for Kinoc, throwing a dagger straight from her left hand, at the very moment his back is turned towards her.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Wen Kinoc with Letter Rip! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes 19 damage from Poison! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Letter Rip for 35 hit points! GS: Entangle! applied to Wen Kinoc!
<Pose Tracker> Wen Kinoc has posed.
"Of course you're people," Kinoc says. He motions, with his free hand, across the room. At Lombardia; at the drones. "This is how you use people."
His eyes turn, then, towards Ethius. Then, he pulls something from his robes: a lengthened barrel, which he screws into place. The quantum repulsor fires outward, making Kinoc narrow his eyes. He doesn't risk it -- he aims, and then sends a cone of thick, poisonous green fog exploding out towards Kinoc, Riesenlied, and Noeline. The air turns thick and choking.
Lombardia is distracted, by a moment, by the familiar that she she sees: Fenrir, but not. This distracts her from Odjn's approach. It burns, when Odjn grabs onto the machine. A couple of small arcs of electricity shoot, striking into her small form. Sparks fly, but still she manages to pull a little. A bolt pops out. Then, another. A third. The metal holding a chain begins to pry free, inch-by-inch. One great, golden eye turns, and looks straight down at Odjn.
Lombardia makes a rumbling, strained sound. Air passes through the vents along her nose, as she looks at Odjn with pain in her eyes. And, maybe, an effort to comfort -- and maybe pleading, like she also wants her daughter to run. She makes a strangled noise, at Meseru's blast--
--but Dean is there, and her whimper becomes more relieved, to see him take and rebound from the shot. Her eye shifts to Azoth, then -- and there is gratitude and relief, as his light infuses her, shields her.
'I HAVE CONTROL!'
"Damn it," Kinoc grumbles, before he turns. He looks up -- staring -- as one of the drones comes cashing downward, blasts of energy raining downward. He starts to wither under it, but his Rook-class autoturret rises. It starts firing, blasting through the drone, such that it slams into another but doesn't bring it down. That some drone wobbles. Then, a beam nozzle trembles, and a white-gold beam of light explodes out.
It shoots towards the hijacked drone and beyond, towards Zed himself.
Then Kinoc stumbles, as there is a terrific CRASH behind him. Fei descends, with clarity as much as anger, and smashes down into the chains binding Lombardia's mouth and arms. The chains explode, shards of half-molten steel flying out every which way. "You..." She trails off. "...'tis been a long time since I last saw your face, and it would seem that you may yet be another. But you have my thanks."
Her eyes linger, too, on Gwen. Then, with a sort of strange hesitation, she looks at Odjn. And, for a moment, Lombardia is silent.
And then Noeline's power slams into Wen Kinoc. The Maester is assailed by the blast of shadow from Noeline, slammed backward into the wall. He stumbles, bloodily, as he looks at her. His teeth grit together. "Faith is currency. Nothing more, nothing less!"
He motions at Fei -- and one of those Hyadean-machina hybrids swings down, a huge claw of living metal reaching out -- and it tries to grab him, then brutally hurl him away.
Kinoc then turns his pistol onto Ida. Lightning crackles up the extended barrel -- and then there is a crack-BOOM, as a high-speed slug explodes from it, and tries to shred through her newly armored form.
The Rook autoturret turns, in midair. Its cannon begins firing, rounds shooting at Janus. He descends through it, slams down into the ground, and then Janus's swing sends light crashing down into the Maester. He stumbles back, blood running from gashes in his robes, and looks up with a pained look. Through gritted teeth, he aims -- and then fires a shot at Janus, trying to blow him backward.
"Then maybe you should stop talking to your sword!" he spits, his voice more on edge than before. Gwen's knife slams into his back, a moment later. He stumbles, hacking wetly, before he looks at her. He turns his head, eyes blazing. Then he throws a hand outward.
Two little orbs fly, shooting around her -- and then suddenly the barometic pressure triples. Quintuples. Increases exponentially. It crushes Gwen, before threatens to fire her like a cannon into a wall. Two more fly, too, for Lombardia -- ready to do the same as she remains under the great bulk of the Dragon Fossil Extractor.
GS: Wen Kinoc spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Bioblaster! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Riesenlied with Bioblaster! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Noeline with Bioblaster! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Fei Fong Wong with YDF-X1 - Metal Claw! GS: Wen Kinoc enters a Counter stance! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Gauss Round! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 2 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Janus Cascade with Slug Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Air Anchor! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Lombardia with Air Anchor! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has completed his action. GS: Riesenlied critically guards Wen Kinoc's Bioblaster for 37 hit points! GS: Janus Cascade takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Slug Shot for 99 hit points! GS: Break! applied to Janus Cascade! GS: Janus Cascade enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Poison expired! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's YDF-X1 - Metal Claw for 129 hit points! GS: Disease! applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Noeline critically guards Wen Kinoc's Bioblaster for 37 hit points! GS: Noeline's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Air Anchor for 125 hit points! GS: Break and Slow! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Ethius Hesiod used Defend! He takes Wen Kinoc's attack on Lombardia on himself! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Zed with YDF-X1 - Photon Beam! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Bioblaster for 183 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Air Anchor for 224 hit points! GS: Break and Slow! applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Ethius Hesiod has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Gauss Round for 162 hit points! GS: Jam and Poison! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Mighty! applied to Wen Kinoc! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Wen Kinoc's YDF-X1 - Photon Beam for 102 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam and Poison! applied to Zed! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Meseru has posed.
"You assault Yevon," Meseru answers Violet. "What would I call it but arrogance?" But Violet aims at her once again, and this one catches Meseru in the chest, stopped by her armor but enough to get a look her way.
For a brief, terrible instant, Ethius's eyes meet Meseru's. There is about as much pity in her gaze as in his. What must she think of him?
The connection breaks; she resumes her battle.
"Experience is the best teacher," Meseru answrs Dean, "And Yevon has graced me with much experience." She pauses, though, considering him as he rebounds at her; she strikes back, blocking the first strike but not the next or the one after that, which slip under her guard and knock her backward, cracking her breastplate. "...But you are not an ordinary boy," she allows. Then she looks to Ambrosius.
"And you would know?" she asks of him, noticing his cleansing magic, feeling the difference. She frowns. "I will not take that chance."
But Azoth moves next, and he likewise moves to support others. There is something off about his movements, somethiing strange about his bearing, his lack of breathing. The way his body sparks instead of bleeds. "There are many who would prefer things other than as they are. Preference is a luxury."
He speaks of free will strangely. "But you know that, don't you?"
Matilda comes at her next--or rather, shoots at her, wisely staying out of her blade's immediate range. Against even most skilled opponents, Matilda's barrage would overwhelm them after long enough. Against Meseru, she blocks, and blocks--but the last shot shatters a piece of her armor at the shoulder, and her limbs are still stiff from the effects of Xantia and Citan's special maneuvers.
And speaking of Xantia--she speaks of Solaris, and says she should have more faith. Meseru calls it, "Naive." Does she have any feelings at all...? She will answer that. But first she must contend with Citan. He comes in almost just after Xantia, and the two of them both strike. Arm, blade--left jab, right slash. Meseru blocks most of these strikes, but it forces her to back up, further away from Lombardi, if only a few steps at a time. And then, Citan plays his gambit--
He impacts her ankle, hard, and she has to drive hr blade down into the dirt behind her to catch herself from falling, at which point Xantia's next slash scores across her armor. She is only on the back foot for a moment, but that moment is another in which Lombardia lives.
The Warrior Monk rounds on Xantia. "Have you stood over the ruins of your home, knowing that it's not even worth the trouble to rebuild such a town with what survivors remain?" She hacks once, furious, and a second time, a third, blade glowing increasingly on each strike. It radiates violet-black energy, and it feels like it hits more than the body if it strikes, phasing partly into a spiritual realm as it comes down.
"Find out? That is a risk I will not take!" She steps closer to Citan and finally strikes outright for him, two hard slashes that target meaty parts of the body for best effect. Next she faces Dean again, and drives her blade straight out towards him, once again making the weapon intangible, glowing red with malice. "Enough!"
She swings out her hand, and a wave of gravitic force seeks to crush the life out of Malfi, and she points as well at Matilda who must deal with the same spectral skeleton of moments ago, its terrible claw lashing towards her with dark force.
But next she is on the move, swinging out her sword with a wave of darkness that quickly turns to despair, the crushing weight of inevitability that soon enough will take all things. She makes her way to Ambrosius, closing with him and hacking down with violet power to do something about his magic, a blow that will seal it partially if it works.
She doesn't have a good shot at Lombardia; with Maester Kinoc occupied, she can't get a better one. So all sh can send to Lombardia now is a pulse of dark power, concussive force slamming towards her--small, but... still violent.
GS: Meseru has attacked Violet Salazar with Demi! GS: Meseru has gained 1 Combo! GS: Meseru has attacked Ambrosius with Magic Break! GS: Meseru has gained 1 Combo! GS: Meseru has attacked Dean Stark with Souleater! GS: Meseru spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Meseru has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Death! GS: Meseru has gained 1 Combo! GS: Meseru has attacked Azoth with Doom! GS: Meseru has attacked Xantia with Souleater! GS: Meseru spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Meseru has attacked Citan Uzuki with Bloodspiller! GS: Meseru takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Poison expired! GS: Meseru has completed her action. GS: Meseru has attacked Lombardia with Miasma! GS: Meseru has gained 1 Combo! GS: Meseru has canceled their attack on Lombardia. GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a glancing hit from Meseru's Death for 101 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Matilda Whitehead gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease! applied to Matilda Whitehead! GS: Matilda Whitehead enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Meseru has attacked Violet Salazar with Demi! GS: Meseru has attacked Ambrosius with Magic Break! GS: Meseru has attacked Dean Stark with Souleater! GS: Meseru spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Meseru has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Death! GS: Meseru has gained 1 Combo! GS: Meseru has attacked Azoth with Doom! GS: Meseru has attacked Xantia with Souleater! GS: Jam and Weaken expired! GS: Meseru has completed her action. GS: Meseru spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Meseru has attacked Citan Uzuki with Bloodspiller! GS: Meseru has attacked Lombardia with Miasma! GS: Xantia takes a glancing hit from Meseru's Souleater for 79 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Meseru drains Xantia! Meseru gains 40 temporary hit points! GS: Violet Salazar fully evades Meseru's Demi for 154 hit points! GS: Violet Salazar enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Meseru's Magic Break for 78 hit points! GS: Mute! applied to Ambrosius! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Azoth used Defend! He takes Meseru's attack on Lombardia on himself! GS: Citan Uzuki takes a solid hit from Meseru's Bloodspiller for 177 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam! applied to Citan Uzuki! GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!! GS: Azoth takes a solid hit from Meseru's Doom for 0 hit points! GS: Disease and Reaper! applied to Azoth! GS: Azoth takes an additional 20 damage from Reaper! GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Pierce!! Meseru's attack breaks through 30 temporary hit points! 150 remain! GS: Azoth guards a hit from Meseru's Miasma for 30 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Azoth takes an additional 18 damage from Reaper! GS: Dean Stark critically guards Meseru's Souleater for 30 hit points! GS: Meseru drains Dean Stark! Meseru gains 15 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
Violet nods her thanks to the tall gentlemen in the red poncho who directs cleansing waters over her. The sickness fades. Invigorated, Violet returns her attention to the battle at hand.
Meseru is much, much tougher than she expected.
Then again, religious fanatics usually were. They were insanely dedicated and didn't know when to quit.
And, like some others Violet had met, were using their faith to justify atrocities, atrocities. She's heard Lombardia speak. They're torturing a sentient being -- though it would be wrong to treat even an animal that way. It was positively indecent! She had no use for gods -- or their followers. They were undependable at best. She'd rely on her friends. Violet aims a powerful attack at Meseru. If it hits, it'll do some damage. The time was past for pulling her punches. Or her shots! Even as she fires, Meseru directs a magic attack at her -- one that uses gravity to crush. Violet can feel it right down to her bones as she struggles to remain upright.
It is a struggle that she loses. Violet finds herself forced to the ground, prone. It is a fight even to breathe.
GS: Violet Salazar has activated a Force Action! GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Meseru with ULTRA VIOLET! GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action. GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Violet Salazar's ULTRA VIOLET for 163 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Poisonous fog fills the air. Ethius has something resembling face cover... but both of his arms are committed to the Quantum Repulsor posture, and there's not much that can be done as poisonous gas fills the air. The strange man holds his position there - towards some unspecified side of Lombardia's binding. It's an excellent tactic in which to stymie a sorcerer, making the air unsitable to breathe. He may have accidentally saved Lombardia's life by stopping whatever it is Ethius intends to do. It cannot be anything good.
Ethius is already looking a bit green.
All of this... Ethius thinks as sweat runs down the side of his head. I cannot let it continue. His gaze sharpens, but whether it is adrenaline or a sign before poison overtakes someone is hard to tell.
"...You are afraid." Who is he speaking to? Kinoc? Meseru? "The day others came to your shores by means... unknown." His tone doesn't quite hold steady, but, poison in the lungs. That he can get out complete sentences is a feat. "The day strange people of stranger means impressed themselves upon your lives... unduly."
He exhales. He holds his posture. This is decidedly not very he's-about-to-kill-Lombardi-y. That's not off the table yet. "You should never have been subject to that. Your faith. You way of life. Whatever shape that had taken... that was yours."
Everyone has been trashing the hypocrisy of Yevon, and rightly so - but not this man. This strange, callous man, who has done almost nothing but take advantage of Jay's kindness and did terrible things to Lydia's heart and sense of self and control. Who has basically done almost nothing but take certain shiny things and destroy other shiny things without asking or caring how others feel. Practically unaccountable, by whatever (lack of) moral guidance drives him.
"...It was taken away from you." He saw how Luca fell. He could see how much of the Spira countryside has been overrun by Althena's Guard... but is it just stark opposition to Althena's Guard? Why wouldn't he allow Yevon to take up an equal weapon to defend themselves against it? Ethius coughs a few times again.
...I will not allow the professed passage of a thousand years be reason that I-- The poison makes him dizzier, disrupting his thoughts... but not his posture.
"I do not know who or what... gave you these means." 'These means' being what's happening to Lombardia. The composition of the hybrid drones. "I cannot... allow those weapons to be." Stress on that word. He's in pain, even if his posture remains largely rigid. "I cannot... allow these means to further... to further... to further," he coughs, "disrupt."
Cough, cough. Orbs are coming in, and raise the barometric pressure. Crushing g-forces. In a blink-and-miss-it moment on the assault on Varukias, Ethius recovered from the incredible g-force pressure the fastest of everyone in that capsule. This same resilience shows here, bolstered by the Quantum Repulsor as it rejects the forced change in pressure.
Blood fills the face covering as his nose bleeds. This should be enough to black someone out. No, without the shield, it should be enough to liquefy. It does not - he keeps this angle of Lombardia free from being forcefully converted to raw liquid living metal, as he staggers to stand up and push against it.
He's fading out.
"...All that can be done for Yevon... for Spira, as... as a whole," how can this man still breathe, what sort of place did he come from that he could withstand g-forces like that and still remain conscious? "...Is that she can't stay here."
'She,' not 'that.'
"...This... this doesn't..."
He falls to a kneel. "Belong..."
The last word is too wheezy to be heard, as his consciousness leaves him. The shield lasts for as long as it takes to halt the increased barometric pressure, possibly in a game of chicken against the little orbs.
The actual logistics about what both he and the Quantum Repulsor withstood would be eye-popping, if anyone understood them.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
A strangled noise sounds at Dean's back as he takes that blow from Meseru and leaps in to attack her again. He looks over his shoulder to see that Lombardia is conscious, her eyes open. Perhaps she'd opened her eyes earlier, but it's only now that he's this close that he sees it, hears her grunts. "Lombardia! You're awake!" he utters, joy and relief resounding in his voice. It's soon replaced by determination: "Hang on just a little longer, okay? We're gonna get you out of here!"
A wave of water washes through the room, sweeping across Dean and taking with it some of the fatigue he'd gotten from Meseru's attacks. In its wake, a dome of light grows, soothing wounds and strengthening defenses, including Dean's. The young man breathes a sigh of relief, and smiles and waves in gratitude to Ambrosius and Azoth in turn. "Thanks, guys! You're the best!" he cheers.
He exchanges blows with Meseru, and while she might still claim that experience makes her superior, she starts to admit that he's not just some kid. Dean flashes her a grin. "Glad you're finally noticing!" he shoots back. Her blade swings back in, turning partially immaterial. Dean doesn't think about it, he just defends himself with the strength of his Artificial Mountain Medium and his paired ARMs. The semi-transparent blade passes through him, and he grimaces at the feel of it, as part of his energy is ripped from his very being--but the grace of the Guardians both Mountain and Fire protects him from the worst of it. Malice isn't enough to keep him down.
But these guys *are* tougher than he initially gave them credit for. Ethius is down; a lot of his other friends, and Janus, are getting real beat up too. It's time to pull out all the stops... but Dean also hears what Meseru says to Xantia, and despite everything, he feels a pang of sympathy.
"I can get why you might be desperate. I've seen Sin, too--it's huge, it's terrifying. I get why you might think you need to do anything you can to stop it," Dean tells Meseru, his voice clear. He throws a hand back to indicate Lombardia. "But this Hyadean *helped* you guys against it! She fought it off for you, even though there was nothing in it for her! If this is really about fighting back against Sin, why would you treat her like this?! THINK! Don't just do whatever some crooked old man tells you to!!" He doesn't know if Meseru will listen to him, but it's always worth a try: "Do the RIGHT thing!"
Focusing his strength and conviction in his ARMs, Dean opens fire on Meseru with a rapid release of bullets, first from one gun, then twirling around to use the other, then twirling back to use both. He bends his knees as the combat rods glow white-hot, and he speeds at Meseru, whipping them around so fast they seem like a single line of searing light. Then he leaps back, focuses his power in Twin Fenrir, and unleashes a massive blast that combines from the two guns' muzzles and explodes on contact with Meseru should it hit.
GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action! GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action! GS: Dean Stark spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Meseru with Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Meseru takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact for 252 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
That spectral claw is plenty scary -- and Matilda decides to give it as wide a berth as she can. It's not wide *enough* a berth, unfortunately, and it bites into her -- but it doesn't really get its claws (metaphorical or literal) into her. It stings, and Matilda's stance sags, but she stays standing.
She finally sees her opening, but she's not *quite* sure she wants to take it. She needs to be cautious. She certainly doesn't charge straight into the followup. Instead, she continues to make a sideways, cautious sort of approach, knowing she's being weakened by that claw-swipe. It's not until a few seconds *after* she first identifies that opportunity -- while Dean is firing -- that she starts to rush forward.
Her attack is relatively simple; she's on guard for something more potent from Meseru, and doesn't want to change weapons. It's just a shoulder check -- trying to take up as much space as possible and knock her off balance *without* wasting too much movement of her own.
GS: Matilda Whitehead has activated a Force Action! GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Meseru with Shoulder Rush! GS: Matilda Whitehead assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Matilda Whitehead's attack becomes clear! GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Iron in the Garden for 183 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Meseru enters Critical health and gains 25 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"You people... you sound just like Solaris!"
Maybe that's why Azoth's so afraid. But his tangled, static fear fell off his priority queue -- and all his hypothetical waking nightmares with it -- in favor of anger. Fear is feedback to adjust for caution. Anger is for action. It's a useless emotion when any of those actions are not his to take.
But the overrides are silent today.
His purpose burns strong and clear: protect. He was built as a weapon, yes, but to be wielded from the inside, safe from harm. He charges heedlessly through Meseru's wave of darkness. Its influence clings to his circuitry, sinking into his core so that every spike of power, every surge that demands he act, retaliates with an agony that ripples through every sense he's been built with.
But in spite of that, in spite of the rage and desperation around him, joy sings electric through his circuits as what should be a dark blow for Lombardia strikes against a quickly formed shield. Violent shadow shatters Azoth's protective veil into motes of light, leaving Azoth to stand his ground as he shields Lombardia with his body instead.
He crumples into a kneel, the sparks arcing from his wounds now tainted black.
Preference is a luxury. But you know that, don't you?
Maybe this cannot be called a preference either. It's another program -- an older one. An ancient code that drives him, that makes up the entity anyone calls 'Azoth'.
But it's still his.
"You have a lot of people who love you," Azoth says, softly, as he watches the battle from Lombardia's side while looking for his next opening. "Sorry. You must already know that. ...For what it is worth, I will do everything I can to keep your family together today." Slowly, and with a glitched pop somewhere inside his body, he pulls himself back to his feet.
"Well, time to get back to it," he says cheerfully, giving Lombardia the facade of his usual bright smile before dashing back toward battle.
Just like that, the smile is gone. Another sword of light forms at his side, then another. It's followed by several copies as Azoth charges straight for Meseru, swinging his chain of blades horizontally across her. After trying to slash through her, they raise up with a flick of his wrist, and then he commands them all to slam back down over top of her, each exploding in succession on contact -- either with her, with her defenses, or with the ground.
GS: Azoth has activated a Force Action! GS: Azoth spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Formation! Azoth has attacked Meseru with If Then! GS: Azoth has launched an attack Link! GS: Azoth takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Azoth's stance ends. He enters the Avenger stance! GS: Formation! Azoth has attacked Meseru with End If! GS: Azoth takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Azoth's Avenger stance ends. He enters the Stoic stance! GS: Azoth has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline doesn't move as Duras Drum's power rips through the hall, only bears witness to the damage it causes and the anger on the Maester's face. It might be for the best that she's showing a poker face, because otherwise his reply to her would send her curling into a sneer. That analytical little part of her can't help but wonder which came first; Spira's desperation, or this cynical, terrified power-grabbing side of Yevon? Maybe it's just another one of those long-persisting situations so common on both planets, that no-one has ever dared to question or try to change.
That issue is rather forced now, she supposes.
"You can't hope to touch us with faith that weak," she tells Kinoc, and it's not confidence in her tone so much as a terribly plain certainty, as if she were telling the man that water is wet or that the sun might perhaps rise in the morning. It's not something she's boasting about, it just is - and as she says it she's proved right, because for all that the air around her should be thick with smog and poisonous fumes, they just-- seem to dissipate away, lost in the drifting shadows around her.
Part of her knows she can't keep this up forever, fatigue ebbing at the edge of her senses - but perhaps this is the one chance they might have to impress some of their own values upon the Yevonites for good. It might be a futile hope, she thinks to herself as she catches Dean acting along those same lines and desperately trying to reach the Maester, but they've faced futile hopes before and come out the other side stronger for it.
Something catches at the edge of her thoughts across their link; still with her hand held in Riesenlied's, she looks to her partner and lets out a quiet breath. "I'm by your side," she promises gently with the ghost of her smile, her gaze quiet. There are a thousand things left unsaid behind those words, but perhaps it's enough to say that much. "I'll keep you steady."
At least she can find it in herself to grin. It's been a while since she's been so cocksure, but she can feel the flow of the battle shift, the warmth of her partner by her side, and even the Fereshte outside waiting for them, and it all mixes into a buoyant sensation like none other. "Odjn and Lombardia need you. It'll be alright."
GS: Noeline has attacked Riesenlied with this Promise that We've made...! GS: Noeline takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Poison and Shield expired! GS: Noeline has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
How much firepower can a single hijacked drone take? As it turns out, not as much as two other drones can dish out. The shanghai'd machina sparks and sputters as its chassis is riddled with round after round of enemy munition before a full three quarters of its honeycombed superstructure is finally disappearing in a wave of ultra-dense photonic energy. The drone lists, its optics flicker, and the machine explodes in a plume of smoke and fire.
And Zed...
Emerges, singed and smoldering. A defiant grin is fixed to his face as the cloud of acrid, metallic smoke that used to be a drone parts around him. The beam tore into him as well, turning his armored bodysuit to cinders from the waist up and exposing a torso that seems to have partially melted. Rivulets of flesh-colored living metal are blasted back in the opposite direction of his flight, superheated past their melting point by the photonic beam. With a grunt of exertion, Zed pulls it back into himself and continues his advance...
...Atop yet another hijacked drone, which is apparently serving as a makeshift rocket-powered surfboard. "Fly!" Zed orders, "As fast as you can carry me!"
The drone complies, as Zed...
Zed raises his blade high. Starlight accumulates, gathering in a fine sheath overlaid atop the weapon's deadly edge. "And as for you-- who are you to complain about us talking to our swords!?" Zed demands as he leaps from his second stolen drone-- and kickflips off the roof of the cavern. Doom Bringer is swung at the last, looking to cleave right through the Yevonite's shoulder and unleash a deadly payload of accumulated energy directly into his torso. "You people talk to your gods. We talk to our swords. What the heck is the difference!? It's pretty hypocritical if you ask me!"
"At least..." Zed glances aside as Lombardia stirs, "At least the things we talk to stand a chance at killing your stupid space-cetacean!"
GS: Zed spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Zed enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Zed has attacked Wen Kinoc with RayBlade - Zed Saber! GS: Zed has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zed takes 31 damage from Poison! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
It's strange how Xantia starts to feel progressively better after every swing. Combat can be pretty therapeutic, that much is true, but it doesn't fully explain how motion after motion, the next swing keeps feeling easier, in a physical sense. It's only now that it's starting to dawn on her that there's a lingering warm sensation, actively strengthening her. Only her eyes turn briefly to note the source - Azoth isn't someone she recognizes, and there's hardly time to react to this in any way other than that at the moment. She's well aware by now that she can't take her eyes off of Meseru for very long.
Thanks to Citan, she is able to capitalize more than she was anticipating, but is soon forced back onto the defensive. Seems like she unintentionally hit a nerve. In a way it's a relief to know that there are yet nerves to hit, with how stoic this warrior seemed so far. But it's hard to be glad for that when you're being subjective to successive slashes of growing intensity. The first two, Xantia still manages to intercept, but her arm is knocked aside by the second, allowing the third to strike against her armor.
Except there's no visible impact, or anything to indicate her armor was indeed struck. The blade passed right through her. Though it may leave no physical signs of injury, she contorts and recoils as if in pain, quickly disengaging. She's not sure what to make of the disturbing feeling of lingering cold, not passing nearly as quickly as she would like.
Under these circumstances, it feels only natural to call upon her inner light. Not only does it provide a pleasant warmth to counterbalance this unnatural chill... when Xantia brings both hands together, pure light seeps forth and quickly solidifies into the shape of a large, two-handed sword. Without warning nor fanfare, she -slams- the giant weapon down towards Meseru. Unlike most of her weapon constructs, it doesn't disperse on impact, but remains quite solid, as if it were made out of a physical substance, allowing her to raise the blade back up and take on a defensive stance.
"No," she readily admits to Meseru's assertion. "I've never once felt like anything I could do to help make things better would be pointless. That's because, no matter what happens... I don't give up."
GS: Xantia spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Xantia has attacked Meseru with Radiant Blade! GS: Xantia enters a Counter stance! GS: Xantia has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Meseru guards a hit from Azoth's If Then for 99 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Meseru gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Meseru takes a solid hit from Azoth's End If for 209 hit points! GS: Meseru critically guards Xantia's Radiant Blade for 34 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
In a stunning twist, Matilda is not actually just going for a shoulder check. Her non-leading arm draws her blade again, and she sinks it into Meseru as quickly as she can before hopping back away. Her stance stays confident rather than defensive, now, though -- she seems very much ready to finally meet Meseru blade to blade, at this stage in the fight.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Odjn turns with some shock to Ida as she comes close to defend her, and says, "Y-yeah, I'm being careful, as much as I c-c-caaaan...!!"
It turns out that it starts to burn, and she starts yelping and screaming. But she keeps holding on, no matter what, whimpering with each tug. A bolt pops out, then another. She doesn't know why it's happening, but--
She sees it, that great golden eye.
For a moment, both Dragons see eye to eye -- not just literally, but metaphorically too.
"I'm done runnin', mom. I'm going to burn my paws and throw up and be sick all day if it means bein there for you, at your worst. We're gonna get through this! I'M DONE RUNNING!!"
With how the bolts are popping out, she keeps tugging, enlivened on a vigour that isn't just hers.
It is everyone's vigour.
...
Zed's comparison of Kinoc to Mother is incredibly on point, Riesenlied admits quietly. They are similar, underneath their skin; they are possessed not of a desire to know and understand, but to manipulate and toy. To shut down all attempts at conversation and dialogue with what seems like law and logic...
Dean calls out to her -- to listen to Noeline, to the others, and she nods. "Thank you so much, Dean... I needed it."
Riesenlied doesn't know that it was her own father who said that line, but it's one of those things that almost seems like fate at this juncture.
She does, however, hear Fei sob and express his lament and grief to Lombardia. And yet at the same time, he says it--
You wouldn't want me to give in.
"That... that is right, Fei," Riesenlied affirms for herself too, as they both breathe. "Let us do it. Let us live -- for our loved ones."
She is fortunate, because Noeline is there to curtail it for her.
Their world becomes a bit easier to handle, and she feels her lover's hand on her cheek. She returns Noeline's gaze -- and finds the time to return a squeeze her hand even in the middle of a pitched battle.
(How do they find the time? It's Yuri Standard Time.)
So much so that, when Kinoc fires his bioblaster upon them, Riesenlied is able to more clearly focus her energies and form an air-filtering barrier around the both of them, using the full strength of the Medium of Life.
It hurts, still; the sheer impact doesn't necessarily stop her from reeling, but she relies on Noeline to take care of the rest.
Ida's lunge and sudden burst of flame prompts shock and surprise from Riesenlied, but she bursts on through with what almost seems like a cocoon of Living Metal.
Some part of her thinks Ida embodies Hyadean physiology far more than she has, but... she is not jealous of that.
She's just proud.
Riesenlied faces Janus for a moment, eyes widening as he explains that it was a kill-or-be-killed situation with him and the spear. Some part of her wants to search for needles in the haystack, like how some part of her father survived...
... no.
"... I would rather see it rest with the remains of my father," Riesenlied admits. "But you witness those feelings within it -- an echo of the love my father had for Lombardia. Respect it. Please."
Her gaze looms up towards the Dragon as she finally speaks, and she now knows what she must do. "Lombardia... I..."
She turns to Kinoc again. This time, there is no anger left within her eyes; as Ida spoke to her before, the anger has truly become fuel to buoy her newly-tempered resolve.
"Noeline is right. We will show you faith. So I have but one question left for you, Mister Wen Kinoc."
She closes her eyes, lowering her head as her hair and capelet whips with the flourishing power of the Ley drawing close upon her, trusting on Noeline's words as she tells her she'll keep her steady. For Odjn and Lombardia, as she says.
"How badly do you wish to see another Dragon?"
DC: Riesenlied switches forms to -Accession- Ring-Promised Dragon! GS: Riesenlied accepts Noeline's this Promise that We've made... for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Surge! applied to Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
LIGHTNING strikes Riesenlied, clashing hard upon the Yevonite-made basin--
And an enormous globe of blackness surrounds the wheelchair-bound Hyadean, and Noeline if she will allow it; within, the rapid transformation takes place, limbs shifting in a way Ida and Janus have both shown in this one battlefield.
A remarkable feat, if not one to be taken lightly, for a Tainted Hyadean.
The darkness clears, quickly...
And a twelve foot tall Dragon stands where once Riesenlied stood, swathed in white and blue scales pulsating with the flow of the Ley as she can muster into this battlefield.
The Ley Dragon.
-You wished for a Dragon.-
The Dragon, buoyed on Noeline's powerful boon, lifts straight off the ground on powerful wings. They are unlike Riesenlied's non-existent ones, solid and bearing the regality of Hyadean dragonry.
They glow, the ominous extent of all the Ley gathered within her visibly solidifies into a sphere affixed into her mouth.
With one final rear of her head, she thrusts it forward, circumventing her typical countdown that she clearly feels Kinoc does not deserve.
-You shall have it...!-
The sheer burst of faint-white Ley energy consumes where it touches, yet it does so with an almost disconcerting quietude--
butterflies ephemerally floating out where they may.
Alhazred, a mad scientist bent on twisting and experimenting on those around him, faced this Flare, once.
And now...
Another one does.
GS: Riesenlied spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Wen Kinoc with this Promise that We've Made...! GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo! GS: Shield and Stagger expired! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
'You people... you sound just like Solaris!'
Perhaps it's a story that resonates across the experience of all life, regardless of its origins. Power, after all... tends to lead towards particular ends. But is it fate or is it choice? That, he still does not yet know.
Right now there is the fight.
It only staggers her for a moment in the end. But sometimes, as he's learned in his life, mere moments can be enough. He rises on the follow through, back up again and onto his feet as Meseru turns her wrath upon first Xantia--
Her blade glows, and he turns his head to follow it. It's almost as if she's somehow drawing out Xantia's lifeforce through the sword alone. "...How can that--!"
And then, without so much as missing a beat, she is upon Citan himself. Another long gash is rent along the length of his arm as he moves to block it the only way he can, and then the blade scythes long across the him the other way, carving red across his torso. He's left staggering back from the impact, his right hand pressed against the worst of the wound.
Wen Kinoc had chosen well in his choice of guard, indeed.
He's not finished -- far from it, even with a wound like this. But at a glance he can tell the same is not true for Xantia. Or for many others, among them the sparking body of that young man -- Azoth -- who under other circumstances than these would have the doctor's undivided attention.
In this moment, Citan Uzuki hesitates, vascillating between two potential choices of action. To move to try to finish this. Or...
He grimaces, exhales a breath, and thus makes his own choice.
The force that moves across the room is a silent, nearly invisible one, a wave of air and water-vapor Ether that ripples to reach whoever it can touch. A small thing. But it might buy them all a moment, and mere moments can be enough.
"Xantia! Everyone-- now!"
GS: Riesenlied has canceled their attack on Wen Kinoc. GS: Citan Uzuki has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Extend! GS: Riesenlied spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Riesenlied has attacked Wen Kinoc with Shimmer! Our Anima Flare! GS: Riesenlied assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: You do not have enough Force to pay that attack's cost. GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Xantia with Sazanami! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Violet Salazar with Sazanami! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Sazanami! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Sazanami! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Sazanami! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki's Avenger stance ends. GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Citan Uzuki heals Violet Salazar! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Violet Salazar gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Citan Uzuki heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Citan Uzuki heals Xantia! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei sees Gwen's hand. He looks to it. He smiles at her for a moment. It doesn't flicker when she throws a dagger for Wen's back. He hears Wen's cursing. His swearing. IT's like tasting sweet ambrosia, but it's nothing NOTHING compared to what Lombardia says to him.
You have my thanks
Fei can't stop the tears from flowing. He's only had one other true conversation with her, and at that time he was freaking the hell out. But he can't stop crying. He feels like a child again.
We're all children, though, and maybe Fei has never stopped being one either. Doc is here. Dean is here. Riesenlied is here. Xantia is here. And so is everyone else. He can feel the wheels of fortune turning.
"I should be thanking you..!" He blubbers, his guard lowering for a fateful moment--
--and the claw seizes up Fei from behindd and SLAAAAAAAAAAAMS him against the far wall. He hits it, hard, and collapses to the floor, blood pooling out from his face down and around him.
And for a moment, it seems like maybe that's enough. That will start it up again.
He pushes up slowly. His hair is mattered red with blood. It's covering his face.
He takes one step to Lombardia. Then another.
Then he falls flat on h is face a second titme. He wiggles on the floor. He hears Noeline's words. That they will show him what faith is.
He stands up. He stumbles and lands on his hands and knees. Blood splatters again against the floor as Fei hacks and coughs.
And then he stands up once more.
"W....n...." He spits out another red glob. "Wen... It's not arrogance when you can back it up."
He looks back to thte man, face still covered in blood. "Your religion is as empty as your eyes. And that currency you call faith...you've overdrawn from the bank, and they are coming to collect. "You lost your greatest city. The Al Bhed won't ally with you again."
"And we all know now that you never wanted to defeat Sin. Sin is the source of all your power. A power you can't control. Not unlike Id."
He looks towards the machine pinning Lombardia down. He walks towards her. and then flops up against her, panting for breath.
"Just a second." He says. "One second..."
GS: CRITICAL! Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Zed's RayBlade - Zed Saber for 246 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei swallows. If he closes his eyes, he'll pass out. If he closes his eyes, it's all over. He wants to see the moment that Lombardia is freed.
"i remember... What broke him." Fei says. "Us? No, not quite that by itself. Almost? So close... So close..."
He brushes blood out of his eyes with his hand. It hurts to even do that.
"You're gonna live." He says. The last time it was pleading. Now it sounds like confidence. He leaps up, grabbing for that claaw thaat seized him and aim punch it WITH FIRE and send it spiraling back down towaards the various machinery and chains binding Lombardia. "You're gonna live! If Lacan failed, then I'll... I'll find a way to succeed. Even if I'm more patheticc, and give up more easily, and lose myself more and more than he ever did. At least... At least I'll stand up again and keep on trying...! No more... No more so-called Authorities or Would-Be Tyrants making our world. We'll make our own!"
He drops back down to the ground. "A world...in which we can live! That's what I'm going to fight for! That's all we wanted. It isn't too much... I refuse to believe it's too much. Just because our worlds are harsh... Doesn't mean we have to be...! That... That's what Elly taught me."
He shakes his head once more. "She could have lived in comfort. But she came down here. And somehow--somehow she loved it more than the most gilded cage in the world. Something...Something must be worth it there, even if I don't always see it. It cann be a good world. We can make it a good world. With each other."
"We don't have to ask them to carry the weight of the world for us." He says.
"We can carry it ourselves!"
GS: Fei Fong Wong accepts Citan Uzuki's Sazanami for hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Wen Kinoc with Tenbu! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Shimmer! Our Anima Flare for 214 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Fei Fong Wong's Tenbu for 32 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Of course you're people. This is how you use people.'
"Die screaming, you disgusting little man!" Kinoc's bullet is still lodged in her gut, burning her flesh. It makes it difficult to talk, much less roar in rage, and yet Ida manages. Fafnir helps.
And then Fei comes to the rescue, just as Ida knew he would. Well maybe not knew, but in helping Riesenlied pull back, she might've also helped Fei. Hearing Lombardia's voice fills her with a swell of pride. She glances over her shoulder, regarding the great Dragon with a pained but broad smile. "We'll get you out of here!" Ida says. "Please, just hold on!" Fafnir, but not. Parts of the armor are his, and she even smells a little like him, but she's clearly not him.
Kinoc goes flying, hits a wall. "And you," Ida snarls, at the old Maester. "History will remember you as the Butcher of Mi'ihen--the man who sent countless souls to their deaths." She underestimates just how much fight Kinoc has in him, just a little. The gauss round screams through the air, clipping Ida's right thigh; bits of armor scatter across the floor, accompanied by a spray of blood. Ida bites back a howl of pain. The look she fixes on the Maester could kill.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ethius Hesiod, of all people--of all people--intervene on Lombardia's behalf. She watches as he struggles against gas and gravity both, the latter of which she can feel two dozen feet away. What he says is... baffling. But in its own way, it makes sense. She watches him fall. "Azoth," Ida says, seeing the android move in to defend Lombardia as well. "Can you get him to--"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's mouth falls open, a little, as she sees Azoth's reprisal. And that's not even the last of it.
'How badly do you wish to see another dragon?'
Fafnir is more disturbed and baffled by Riesenlied's existence than anything. He was 'born' a runt, small and skinny and a little sickly-looking--at least compared to his fitter brethren, like Siegfried. To him, Riesenlied looks so fragile that the slightest breeze could shatter her. She has trouble moving under her own power. But before their eyes, she changes.
She's a shifter. Against all odds, despite--because of?--the power forced upon her, she's achieved the same dream he did.
Ida shoots Kinoc a truly vicious smile. She thrusts out a gauntleted hand; the bleeding at her thigh is already starting to slow. "Maester Wen Kinoc! Not only are you a disgrace to all humankind, your so-called mastery of the ARM is crude and brutish!" She needs to get his attention. She needs to keep him off Lombardia and Riesenlied until one of the two of them can finish him.
Something starts to gather in Kinoc's firearm and turrets--Ida's lifeforce, reaching out across the gap to help her attune to the Maester's own ARMs. "Allow me to instruct you in the proper methodology!" It starts subtle, but the disruption of control grows progressively worse. ARMs refuse to fire, or move, or otherwise function as Kinoc wills them. This is because Ida wishes to render him as powerless as he rendered Lombardia.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's mouth falls open, a little, as she sees Azoth's reprisal. And that's not even the last of it.
'How badly do you wish to see another dragon?'
Fafnir is more disturbed and baffled by Riesenlied's existence than anything. He was 'born' a runt, small and skinny and a little sickly-looking--at least compared to his fitter brethren, like Siegfried. To him, Riesenlied looks so fragile that the slightest breeze could shatter her. She has trouble moving under her own power. But before their eyes, she changes.
She's a shifter. Against all odds, despite--because of?--the power forced upon her, she's achieved the same dream he did.
Ida shoots Kinoc a truly vicious smile. She thrusts out a gauntleted hand; the bleeding at her thigh is already starting to slow. "Maester Wen Kinoc! Not only are you a disgrace to all humankind, your so-called mastery of the ARM is crude and brutish!" She needs to get his attention. She needs to keep him off Lombardia and Riesenlied until one of the two of them can finish him.
Something starts to gather in Kinoc's firearm and turrets--Ida's lifeforce, reaching out across the gap to help her attune to the Maester's own ARMs. "Allow me to instruct you in the proper methodology!" It starts subtle, but the disruption of control grows progressively worse. ARMs refuse to fire, or move, or otherwise function as Kinoc wills them. This is because Ida wishes to render him as powerless as he rendered Lombardia.
GS: Citan Uzuki heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Wen Kinoc with First Method - Calling The Demon's Name! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 22 damage from Poison! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's First Method - Calling The Demon's Name for 0 hit points! GS: Jam! applied to Wen Kinoc! GS: Wen Kinoc has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.
Janus Cascade, who is physiologically incapable of aggravating people when presented the option, calls, "Yeah, you tell 'im, Z!" as Zed defends talking to swords. He levers upright from his assault on Kinoc.
Kinoc shoots him - square, right in the gut. It makes a horrible sound like girders bending, and Janus grunts, hand clutching the damaged metal organs. But his eyes are locked on Kinoc, now.
"I don't really do respect," Janus says, to Riesenlied, which is one of the most emotionally honest things anyone who isn't Gwen has heard him say. "But for what it's worth, I'm not the one that took it."
But that seriousness fades as he cackles at Gwen. "Yeah! I figure, hey, if they're gonna sock me in the grill, may as well be a real grill," he laughs, through his ventilated face. She charges off for her attack, and Janus' breath comes strangely through that faceplate, as the burning embers of his eyes swivel toward Kinoc...as he focuses so much power on Gwen.
His grip tightens.
Then he's gone again, the wind swirling around his absence. He all but appears before Kinoc, silent as he tries to drive the spear through the man's spine in a single, executioner's attack.
"....interesting," he says, quietly, afterward. "I guess you can tell when I'm mad, too."
That wasn't to Kinoc.
GS: Janus Cascade has attacked Wen Kinoc with Blasphemous Stab! GS: Slow expired! GS: Janus Cascade has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Janus Cascade's Blasphemous Stab for 80 hit points! GS: Cripple! applied to Wen Kinoc!
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
'And you would know', Meseru responds. Would he...? Ambrosius does not respond. He elects to continue the battle in silence - even only sending Dean a brief nod at his thanks.
Meseru approaches, then, swinging her blade and release a wave of violet power. With a gesture of his hand, a barrier of water surges to encompass it... but, to his chagrin, he observes as the energy eats through it, striking at him. He can feel it exert a pressure over him, temporarily sealing his Etheric powers.
...Very well. If that method of attack has been cut off from him, then he will simply have to choose another. He returns the favor, quickly closing the distance with her and uses the moment to throw out a powerful, scything right hook.
In the distance, he sees Ethius fall to an attack from Maester Kinoc. Despite their differences in the past... he cannot help but feel a begrudging amount of respect for him, for putting himself on the line for Lombardia's sake.
Did he do it for her, or for some inscrutable goal he had in mind? For now, he elects to give him the benefit in the down.
And in the distance, he sees something else that catches his eye. Riesenlied, taking on the form of a dragon - and this time, of her own will. Seeing her resolve... he cannot help but feel a bit proud.
He always was perhaps a bit envious of her resolve.
GS: Ambrosius has attacked Meseru with Scything Swing! GS: Hyper expired! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action. GS: Meseru guards a hit from Ambrosius's Scything Swing for 65 hit points! GS: Mighty! applied to Ambrosius! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Blue-grey eyes widen as they catch the metal dragon's gaze.
Lombardia.
Gwen takes her right glove off, showing the metal joints below, the structure undeniably humanoid as they gently touch the surface of Lombardia, as if to give some pulse of whatever meaning that ARM might be holding within. The Mockingbird's secret, the egg inside its metal nest.
The egg that never hatched.
"I'm alive, because of you, your kin. I don't know how. But I feel we're connected, and that means...." Her eyes close as her voice cracks. "I owe you, Lombardia. And what's more, I'm not the only one--" Fei smiles, and she does as well.
The knife is flung, almost as retaliation for Kinoc firing at Janus. Maybe. Or maybe it was coincidence. Like the way those fingers tightened on that blade before it was thrown through the air.
Fei is flung back, but Gwen manages to keep by Lombardia, aiming to protect the metal dragon, as she swore to do, as the pressure in the air mounts.
-Two orbs-
She can't block two. She's having a hard enough trouble with one. Her heart feels like it did when she was a child, all over again, the breath squeezed from her lungs, her mouth straining for air--
Ethius.
Gwen watches the man takes the second orb head on, for Lombardia's sake, just before the world is ripped and tumbled around her, or rather, her body is, slamming against a wall.
Citan's healing couldn't have come at a better time, the breath of energy inflating Gwen's lungs, announcing her return to consciousness with a hacking cough from Gwen's lips.
She rises halfway, staring in confusion at... no, that's not Lombardia. That's... that's a dragon, she's seen somewhere. "... Riesenlied?" she croaks.
It has to be now, if it's ever. Gwen made her decision when she didn't borrow on the extra source hidden in her ARM, or in Setanta's wonderfully churning energy.
She gets to her feet, the full metal of her ARM now bare from the previous attack, the pyrite gold energy glimmering down the gaps between each plate as she charges.
"If you survive this, Kinoc--"
A bright flash, and a brilliant beam of crackling energy is sent towards Kinoc.
"--I think you'll know better than to ever lay a hand on anything Hyadean again!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Wen Kinoc with Quasar Palm! GS: Gwen Whitlock has launched an attack Link! GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Wen Kinoc with Corona Discharge! GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Quasar Palm for 0 hit points! GS: Jam! applied to Wen Kinoc! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Corona Discharge for 108 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates!
<Pose Tracker> Wen Kinoc has posed.
The increased pressure fades, as Ethius crumples into a heap. The orbs fall to the ground with a clatter. Lombardia's eyes turn towards him -- unable to do anymore. Kinoc glances, too, and then swears: "Damn. Those things are expensive."
The burst of shadow around Azoth is anything but bright, but it commands the attention. Lombardia's great golden eyes turn, to look at him, as he speaks. "It would seem that it is so. But do not cast your existence aside for one such as I," the Metal Dragon says. "My life has been a log one. But... still."
The dragon does a bit of a head-bob; something like a nod. "You have my thanks."
Then, Lombardia turns her great metal head -- with all of its terrible scars, the signs of rust and damage from ten centuries of battle -- towards the much smaller Odjn. "Truly," she says. "You are stubborn, are you not, Odjn?"
"More than confident that I can!" Kinoc says, snapping the words back to Noeline. He draws a bead, with that elongated hand cannon. There is another crackle of blue-white lightning up the barrel -- and then a high-speed slug explodes out of it, hurtling on towards the Hydaean. Not a moment later, Zed soars by. His blade catches him at the shoulder, on his arm, and there is a blast of blood from him. He crumples down, stumbling.
His eyes lock onto Fei's back. "Nngh--" He spits. Then, a pair of those orbs fly out -- racing to catch up with Zed, Doom Bringer, and his stolen drone -- before pulsing. And then the air grows heavier, and heavier, and then explodes with a blast of powerful wind.
Kinoc then turns, looks at Ida, and takes him. He pulls the trigger once; the handcannon doesn't work. "Annoying," he spits back at Ida. Then, he rolls the firearm's chamber -- takes aim -- and fires again. There is a thunderous CRACK-BOOM and the gunshot fires, a high speed slug hurtling straight at Ida.
Lombardia looks down at Gwen, and then she bobs her head once. She does not answer more -- can't yet -- as Gwen sends a blast of golden energy into him. It flashes, pitches him backward, and sends him rolling away. He comes up -- to a knee, then stands -- and levels his weapon at her. He hacks, wetly. "I'm not signing up for lessons. Sorry."
He pulls the trigger, and shoots out a blast of poisonous, choking fog around her. He looks proud, though. And then the ground under his feet shakes.
He stumbles back, though, as he sees Riesenlied. His jaw drops, because of all the things he expected, it was not to see a second Metal Dragon. She slams down down onto the ground, rocking it under his feet. White light explodes; it shreds through two of the Hyadean-Machina hybrids, burns away Kinoc's autoturret, and its impact near him sends him flying in a heap.
"D-Damn..." he spits, looking at Fei. Lombardia's eyes are on him, sadly, as he smashes into the machinery. A smoke stack is shorn away; it falls away, crumbling. Then, the machina is dented inward, more and more a wreck.
"Be alert!" Lombardia calls to Fei.
Because Kinoc shoots him in the back. A purple ring fires out, as he takes a shot. Kinoc turns, then -- weakened and slower -- and fires a second shot up, blasting a round up towards Riesenlied's draconic head.
Not a moment later, Janus appears before him -- and stabs his spear into him. He grunts, bloodily, and then levels his weapon down. He fires, a purple ring exploding out from it, and shoots a bullet directly into Janus Cascade's chest.
Then, he looks at Lombardia. His eyes drift to Riesenlied -- and he sees the beleaguered state of Meseru -- and he grins. It's an unhinged, ugly thing.
"I only need one dragon."
He aims the handcannon at Lombardia and fires, a thunderous boom echoing, and the high-speed slug hurtling through the air towards Lombardia.
GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Hot Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Riesenlied with Hot Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Janus Cascade with Hot Shot! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Noeline with Gauss Round! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 2 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Zed with Air Anchor! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Gauss Round! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 2 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Bioblaster! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 1 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Wen Kinoc has attacked Lombardia with Gauss Round! GS: Wen Kinoc has gained 2 Combo! GS: Wen Kinoc has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
unleash
It comes almost as a whisper to Janus Cascade's mind. There has been much talk of who could not be here, today: Siegfried, Quarter Knight, and commander of the Metal Demons. His presence is but an echo; something felt in words and actions, but not in his presence. Were he here, perhaps things would be different.
And, despite all their efforts, Wen Kinoc is standing. Bloodied -- direly injured, even -- but standing, and seeking to end the life of the Metal Dragon he tortured.
The word repeats in Janus Cascade's mind. But it can be heard, too, in Fei Fong Wong's and Riesenlied. An indistinct voice, barely audible, and yet...
...familiar.
A THOUSAND YEARS AGO
In the heart of the Photosphere, Siegfried stood before Mother. He was a younger Metal Demon, then; slimmer of frame, his armor less ornate, without the fringe and half-organic elements that his armor ahd later in life. The armor still had the stains of battle on it; the quicksilver blood of Enkidu, who bled out in his arms.
He stares ahead of him, where it awaits him. A long, ebony blade; half spear, half sword, in its pedestal. At the base of the blade is a closed eyelid. Siegfried takes only a couple of slow, halting steps towards it.
"It had a name," Mother intones. She was still lucid, then. "But it requires a new one."
ONE THOUSAND AND THREE YEARS AGO
"C'mon, Sieg," Enkidu said. The tall, golden-armored Hyadean walked ahead of him. He looked over his shoulder with a grin plastered all over his face. His hair was spiked, carefully combed; a far cry from Siegfried's messy, unkempt blue hair, some of which fell in front of his eyes.
"We don't have time for joyrides," Siegfried grumbled. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Trust me," Enkidu said. "Going flying with Lombardia... isn't a joy ride. I'll introduce you two."
Siegfried hesitated -- sighed -- and then relented. "...all right."
FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO
The wind blew through Siegfried's short hair. He let himself smile -- in ways he hadn't, since the day that Enkidu died -- as he stood upon Lombardia's back. He clung to one of her spines, as the wind rushed around them. "You see, Lacan?"
He looked back at his friend. "There is nothing like this. This freedom... I wonder. If all of us can enjoy this, then are we..."
But Lombardia's voice interrupts that thought. Her voice is booming. "Find your purchase and cling tightly, mine charges!" the queen of the Metal Dragons bellows. "For you will now see how I can fly!"
THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS AGO
"...this is the place, Riesenlied."
Siegfried's voice was quiet, as he led the young neophyte Tainted there. Her smaller hand in his, though she had grown in the recent years. The Quarter Knight walked, reverently, towards the emptied plain. A few blast craters, not such a rare sight on Filgaia, are scattered about.
"Her name was Lombardia. The last of the Metal Dragons... and the greatest," Siegfried said, softly. "The ones now... they are not of her ilk. Not as intelligent--or transformations, which we metal Demons have mastered. But she... she was unlike any other. Older than I. She was born on the Photosphere."
He hesitated. Glumzambor, on his back, was silent and still. Always silent and still. "The day she was lost..." He trailed off. "...I remember it well. I think, that day, I lost much of who I could have been."
A THOUSAND YEARS AGO
"It had a name," Mother repeated.
Siegfried stared at the weapon, silent and still. He took another couple of steps towards it, solemn as ever. The memory of Enkidu's loss -- the actions of the accursed Megamen, employed by the Emperor of Humanity -- seemed to linger around it.
"The humans," Mother said, "called it Simeon. An Anima Relic, they said. A thing of power... a thing of this world. This world, dearest Siegfried, that must be ours. This thing needs a new name, now. Just as your people need you, now.
The flesh inside her pulsed, like a heart beat. "Quarter Knight."
Another beat.
"Hero."
And another beat.
"Leader."
Siegfried took another step forward, then another, and reached his hand out. Mother continued to speak: "Will be these things for them? Will you take this weapon? Will you bring your justice to this world, my knight?"
Siegfried stepped up to the obsidian blade. He reached a hand out and hesitated, for only a moment. Then, he spoke: "Yes. For Hyades... for my people... to lead and guide them, be it to ruin or glory, I will bear this weapon."
"Then name it."
Siegfried's azure-armored fingers curled around the hilt. His eyes shone red, like metal catching the light.
"Glumzambor, the Dark Spear."
TODAY
Glumzambor's great eye snaps open.
It twitches and flickers, its pupil snapping every which way. It strains, barely contained in Janus Cascade's grasp. His fingers strain to hold it, but there is so much more. There is a presence within the Anima Relic, a spirit that somehow remains. A fragment, perhaps, of what is lost. For Janus, it is unfamiliar; a rage of a thousand years, at this crime, fresh and raw.
For Fei, it is something that courses through the channels of the world. Something that comes to the core of his being, and a brush with the memories of three separate lifetimes.
For Riesenlied, through the Dragon's Tear, it is the most familiar. It is anger and pain, but a familiar voice.
For all of them, it is a command and a plea:
UNLEASH.
DC: Siegfried switches forms to The Echo of What Was!
GS: Siegfried spends 2 Combo on Inspire and Reload! GS: Siegfried has attacked Janus Cascade with Fury Unleashed! GS: Siegfried has attacked Riesenlied with Fury Unleashed! GS: Siegfried has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Fury Unleashed! GS: Siegfried has completed his action. GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Hot Shot for 200 hit points! GS: Riesenlied accepts Siegfried's Fury Unleashed for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, Hyper, Quick, Shield, and Surge! applied to Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Reload! Riesenlied gains 15 extra FP from Siegfried! GS: Riesenlied gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: Gwen Whitlock used Defend! She takes Wen Kinoc's attack on Lombardia on herself! GS: Zed guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Air Anchor for 115 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break and Slow! applied to Zed! GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Bioblaster for 115 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Air Anchor for 233 hit points! GS: Break and Slow! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Gwen Whitlock has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Fei Fong Wong critically guards Wen Kinoc's Hot Shot for 48 hit points! GS: Noeline critically guards Wen Kinoc's Gauss Round for 33 hit points! GS: Mighty! applied to Wen Kinoc! GS: Fei Fong Wong accepts Siegfried's Fury Unleashed for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, Hyper, Quick, Shield, and Surge! applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Siegfried! GS: Fei Fong Wong gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: Janus Cascade guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Hot Shot for 26 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Janus Cascade gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Janus Cascade's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Janus Cascade enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Janus Cascade accepts Siegfried's Fury Unleashed for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Burst, Hyper, Quick, Shield, and Surge! applied to Janus Cascade! GS: Reload! Janus Cascade gains 15 extra FP from Siegfried! GS: Janus Cascade gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Wen Kinoc's Gauss Round for 112 hit points! GS: Jam and Poison! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Mighty! applied to Wen Kinoc!
<Pose Tracker> Meseru has posed.
Though Violet takes a hard hit, her gunfire finally strikes through this time, punching through a dented part of Meseru's armor and making for a nasty wound.
Ethius's words seem to at least catch Meseru's notice as she battles the Otherworlders. "...A strange man," she comments. "But you speak some truth. Take that, at least, with you, strange man." She seems to have an amount of respect for him in her eyes--but she cannot focus on him much. She has to immediately round towards those she's fighting again. In this case it is Dean, who speaks to her as well. "Your Althena's Guard attempted to help us," Meseru answers him, "And as soon as we did not act as they wished, they turned. We cannot trust such a machina weapon any more than we can trust any of you."
Dean's white-hot rods swing out at her, and catch her blade, knocking it from in front whre she would otherwise use it to block. As Dean is firing, Matilda rushes up at her, and her feint is effective--Meseru cannot block both, and indeed in trying she blocks neither. A blade sinks though a weak point in her armor, Dean's massive blast hits her straight on, knocking her bodily out of melee and across the ground multiple yards, where she lands on one knee, stabbing her weapon into the ground to stop her flight. She stands quickly, but there's a stiffness in her movement.
She meets Azoth's attacks next. The first few slashes she is able to largely block, but light may be a bane of hers, as there are too many for her to finish. When they all slam down the second time she is driven back again, that much further from Lombardia. She has little time to react to Xantia's words as she first must react to hr weapon--the gigantic, powerful blade slams towards Meseru, and she brings up her own great blade to meet it. The two weapons clash, a powerful shockwave erupting from the meeting of light and dark. When Xantia takes her defensive stance and takes it back, Meseru steps back as well, blade up and diagonal down, pointing towards her. "...How nice for you," she sneers at Xantia, though her posture is stiffer still than it was before--this has not been an easy battle.
She looks to Citan. "The secret techniques of Yevon can do many things, Otherworlder." But perhaps she would have preferred if he'd struck out with a blow she could try to defend; instead he uses his subtle magic, and Meseru sees its effects, narrowing her eyes as she examines her foes.
Ambrosius's forward assault is something of a surprise. Not in that he closes the distance at all, though there is some of that, from a mage and ranged combatant. No, as Meseru swings her left arm to block the blow, she is surprised at the sheer power of the Veruni's arm. Even managing to block the blow, she is pushed back, boots making trails in the dirt as offense meets defense and drives. She leaps backward, then, clear of her foes, and stands--but she narrows her eyes as she sees that grin in Kinoc's eyes, the way he fires on the dragon, even as nother is right there. But more than that... far more than that. She sees Glumzambor's eye open. She breathes once, slowly.
"...Maester Kinoc!" she calls, her voice rising above the din of the battle.
And then she puts away her sword, stowing it on her back with a smooth motion. She turns towards him.
"...My regards from Maester Seymour."
Meseru steps back--and jumps back towards the Yevon lines, leaving Kinoc where he stands.
<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.
The crushing gravity fades just as a wave of healing energy passes over Violet, reinvigorating her. She thinks it comes from a tall, ponytailed man, to whom she'll owe thanks. She clambers back to her feet stiffly, a bit awkwardly, panting, leaning on her ARM, which she's relieved hasn't been damaged. Meseru is fleeing; Violet watches her go impassively. Now that she has time, she spares a glance at Lombardia, who is alive, but not a form of life she's used to treating. If only the Drifters can defeat Wen Kinoc!...
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Though Xantia's assertion has a rather different flavor from his own, Dean nods fiercely at her. "Xantia's right!" he tells Meseru. "You can do anything as long as you don't give up! Sacrificing people, doing horrible things to the people who try to help you... Isn't that just a form of giving up?! Of saying that you can't do better?! If you're so strong, then don't do horrible things because you think that's your only option! *Do better*!"
Riesenlied thanks Dean for his earlier words, and he smiles back at her. "You're welcome, Riese. I knew you'd listen!" She transforms, this time willingly and under her own power, and it's a breathtaking sight. He can't afford to let himself watch, though; his opponent is on the other side of the room.
And when she counters him verbally, he frowns. "They're not MY Althena's Guard. I don't like what they're doing any more than you do. They're wrong, too," Dean tells Meseru firmly. "Okay, though. I see where you're coming from. But just because one group was a jerk about things doesn't justify you doing something like this to someone totally different! Would you do this to anyone and everyone who helped you, just because they *might* be jerks later? That kind of thing *guarantees* that people will turn on you!"
It sure sounds like Meseru isn't going to listen to him, though. That's fine; Dean thought she might not. He still thinks it was valuable to try to talk to her. He understands the Yevonite point of view a little better now. This small increase in understanding, however, does not prepare him slightly for what happens next. No, not the Glamzabor's eye opening, that seems normal enough, the other thing:
Meseru tells Kinoc, 'later, sucker,' and runs for it.
Dean blinks rapidly. "Wait, what?? What just happened??" he utters.
Either way, it looks like they successfully fended Kinoc's companion off. Taking this truth for what it is regardless of *why* it is, he glances over at Kinoc, then at Lombardia. Then he dismisses his paired ARMs and runs over to the Metal Dragon.
"Odjn! I'm coming to help!" he calls before pulling himself up onto the table on which Lombardia is chained. He proceeds to attempt to help Odjn dismantle, or at least remove, the machine that pins Lombardia there.
He *could* attack Kinoc. But like Dean said earlier: saving Lombardia is more important.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
'I only need one dragon.'
Ethius covered where she couldn't, before, as did many before her.
Gwen'd be able to get there in time to shield her, if she uses the energy within her.
The slug meets something that isn't Lombardia, but something else-
not a metal dragon, no, though in that flash of a nanosecond, one could think that.
The blood dripping from Gwen is evidence of that, as her body catches the bolt. A body, each nerve pumped painfully full of energy, moving at a speed it shouldn't, energy wastefully flowing out from her back, flowing out like the shape of wings.
Gwen catches a blurry outline, and somehow, she feels it's Dean, from the sound of his voice from afar.
They'll take it from here.
She collapses to the side of Lombardia's here, now just a simple courier, still alive, but bleeding badly.
Her wounds can be treated, however. Lombardia's, if they don't focus on her, may not be so easy to heal.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius is ready to press the attack. He moves forward to do so, but then she leaps out of range... and, with a word toward Maester Kinoc, leaps out of the battlefield. Ambrosius watches her leave, just in case it's a feint... but, he doesn't make any moves to prevent her exit. Though he has no fondness for Yevon and those who follow it, he must commend her power.
This, however, leaves Maester Kinoc alone to fend for himself. It is true that Lombardia needs to be saved, but if nothing is done about the Maester, then her situation would only continue to worsen.
"...It would seem Yevon has abandoned you, Maester Kinoc." Ambrosius says quietly, raising his revolver, Conversator, to aim at him. "You have my pity... but not my mercy."
And then, without any further fanfare, Ambrosius fires.
GS: Ambrosius has attacked Wen Kinoc with Conversator! GS: Ambrosius has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Ambrosius's Conversator for 72 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.
Matilda knows what it means to send regards from a compatriot while retreating. It's a maneuver she's thought about deploying more than once in the past, in fact. And on the one hand, she absolutely doesn't want to be used as the instrument of someone else's wrath -- someone who, evidently, couldn't even bother to be here.
... But there's more to do here than just bring a hammer down, ultimately. Even if she doesn't always want to admit it in all contexts, Matilda likes to hurt people... but she likes to *help* people, too. She cares *just* enough that -- even though her heart still kind of hurts from the last time she spoke with Lombardia, even if she resents the dragon and so many others for leaving them a dying world...
... she's going to do the responsible thing. Not the kind thing, perhaps -- but the responsible one. She empties Freischütz's reservoir of conventional bullets, and loads a vial into it instead; turning toward Lombardia, she fires a quick shot.
It's not a bullet, of course -- no, it's medical in nature. It *should* give Lombardia back at least some of that waning strength.
GS: Matilda Whitehead spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Lombardia with Fairy Shot! GS: Matilda Whitehead has gained 3 Combo! GS: Disease expired! GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
The world would be a better place without her actions in it...! Attack. Attack. Attack. Pursue. Attack...!
Azoth leaps after Meseru, a blade of light forming for him to seize from the air, prepared to hurl like a javelin for her fleeing form.
Data catches up to him, gathered and processed from the parts of battle he wasn't focused on. Ida called to him. There's a far higher priority: Ethius. Light fades as Azoth pivots on a gella and darts to the fallen Drifter's sides. Every action is another spike of pain rattling his systems, but not bad enough to interrupt his processes. There's no reason to let it show right now. So he doesn't.
Something stirs in the air. Also, another dragon, this one free of any chains. (It is a wonderous sight. He concludes he likes it.) Gwen's collapsed, too, and bleeding still. Azoth scoops up Ethius and makes a low dash with a burst of light from his feet. He slides to Gwen, setting Ethius down with her and pouring all his focus and energy into a shield that covers the three of them, trying to protect them from any stray fire until a better maneuver can be made.
GS: Matilda Whitehead heals Lombardia! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Lombardia gains 15 extra FP from Matilda Whitehead! GS: Lombardia gains a Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei feels him. He feels...it.
Anima.
FEI PSYCHO 0
Anima. Why does he know that word? He does't know what it means. But he feels it. What is it exactly? He is so confused. He rears back his hand in a swing, aiming wholly to take another strike at that machine. But--
--Kinoc shoots Fei in the back.
Or does he? The purple ring stops an inch from Fei's back. It's a gun. It shouldn't be possible. But Fei turns to look at the purple shot. He sees it, there, before him.
And then he hears a command.
And then he hears a PLEA.
UNLEASH
The Siegfried of One Thousand Years Ago: A Siegfried who was nothing more than an enemy. Something stalled Siegfried's hand from killing Elly then. What was it? He never knew because they still died shortly after. Though he was a foe, there was something to him. Something that resonated. A deep loss? A loss of somone important to him. Somehow, even before one thousand years ago, Fei understood that feeling. He never knew the name of Enkidu. But he remembers, somehow, that loss. Still fresh. Still fresh. Three years fresh. What is such fresh pain of but three years, Siegfried?
What is a scattering of years compared to millenia of loss?
And yet...And yet... He felt a touch of it, didn't he? He had to save Adlehyde. The woman, Adelhyde. She couldd build something. Something free from the dire chains of the Eternal Emperor of Man. If it was her...someday....
The Siegfried of What Feels Like Yesterday: Fei looks into the Lightless Shaft. He could just jump in there to his death. Nobody would ever know. Only Siegfried. 'Did you want to go in? Alone?' He asks. 'Perhaps I do. Perhaps I do not. But, human, what could you do to stop me...If I simply charged right in?'. What did he say? He'd...probably admire his audacity and follow him. And he did. And later...
Later on that painful day in w hich his very understanding of who he was shattered like a broken mirror. 'Then, if I go charging right in, you will follow. Let us see, then, Fei.'
And the Siegfried of Five Hundred Years Ago: Lacan. He...was Lacan? Lacan. He holds onto her back. He can only imagine how terrified he looks. He struggles to even stand. He's just too scared. After all, he's a coward. But then he blinks. Siegried is looking back at him. He tells him there is nothing quite like this. Nothing quite like freedom.
Tthough he is what his people call 'Metal Demons', Lacan sees nothing like a Metal Demon in the man. He sees a knight. A knight of fire--a fire that will never be quenched. He wonders if he too could be a knight of fire. If he too could be brave as this man before him. And though he loves the woman next to him more than anything or anyone.
Lacan finds that love is rarely so simple as that. Even a love of destiny of ten thousand years, well, he finds that he loves this man too. He grabs holdd of a spine, and stands himself up. He hopes he is being gentle to Lombardia. He hopes.
He looks to Elly, the woman he loves. He looks to Siegfried, the man he loves. And he is able to be brave for a moment.
There is nothing quite like freedom. For a moment, he thinks that happy days can last forever.
Or forever enough.
"I knew you'd seen much." Lacan manages. "But to think you've seen this."
But now
He feels him. He feels Siegfried. And a small voice within Fei...
Wants to see.
For the first time, He wants to see it. To feel it.
AWAKENING: 40 PERCENT
Fei looks arounnd, as if in a daze. He looks back to that purple ring.
"This shouldn't be here." He says as he grabs hold of the ring by both sides and squeezes them until they are crushed into nothing.
Or maybe not nothing. When he opens up both his palms, he is now holding onto two purple flowers. He walks towards Noeline and Riesenlied. He smiles at them and places a flower in each of their hair. And then he kind of waddles around as if in a daze, like he's seeing everyything for the first time.
He smiles at Janus, a genuine smile that he probably hasn't seen in fucking ages. And he says, "You made friends with Siegfried?"
He looks at Glumzambor. It is not actually a Metal Demon relic. It's something more. He can see that inn this moment. But he says, "...Let's fly again sometime, okay?"
And then Fei smiles lazily as he walks around. Nothing effects him in the battle. Not stabs or gunblasts or magic. He even pats Wen Kinoc on the head once as he passes, as if scolding a child.
And then he looks up at Lombardia.
He looks at Lombardia's chains. Everything.
And he says, "There is nothing like flying with you."
And then he reaches forward to tap, lightly, the chains.
And make them...go away. Just...go away. Like they weren't even real to begin with. As if nothing in this dimension was really ever real.
"See you later, Ethius." Fei says as the transcendent joy of Siegfried still living on in some form fades.
And Fei... blinks once.
FEI PSYCHO 1
And he says, "Sorry, this has been just the most stressful month in a while."
He's blushing fiercely.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Wen Kinoc with Yin Yang Strike! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
At last, Doom Bringer finds purchase. The blade sinks in as if greedily consuming the very stuff of carnage, battle and violence. Zed smirks like the allegorical cat that's claimed the cream... Moments before he realizes to his immense dissatisfaction that the Maester is still standing. He goes to pull the blade free from its resting place, when suddenly...
The air grows heavy.
It's more than a metaphorical thing. The air grows heavy in a very *literal* way, but also in a very *metaphysical* way. A chill runs up Zed's spine, as if having a sudden premonition of a coming calamity. It's a strange sensation, one that Zed is wholly unfamiliar with-- but only because he is so used to hauling a phenomenally cursed sword around all day everyday (though admittedly Doom Bringer is doing much better in that regard as of late).
"Damnit, hold on--!" Zed tells his drone as the machina-hyadean hybrid struggles against the mighty downburst. He yells as he's thrown free, hits the ground hard, bounces once, twice, then rolls to a gradual stop.
In some ways, he's lucky. Being out of the way means that he has completely avoided getting evaporated by--
"Riese...?" Zed whispers in quiet awe at the manifestation of the Ley Dragon. He's seen it before, but to think that she can muster the strength to take that form again... She must be doing better, he thinks, since the last time he saw her. Good for her!
He pushes himself back up onto his feet, beginning to move when--
I only need one dragon
A shot rings out. Zed's mouth opens to yell a warning, but Gwen is already on the move. And then, with a wet *plop* she collapses at Lombardia's side.
There's a stillness in the air around the Maester. He'd feel an awful, terrible sensation like the a sudden inability to breathe, as if the atmosphere had suddenly been obliterated. Zed is... there.
"You tried to kill Lombardia," he says, ominously. "Then you shot my precious student."
Three slashes, each stroke linked to the next, carves a blazing green-pink 'Z' into the air.
"Die."
He slices one last time, bisecting the diagonal line with a perpendicular stroke. The bubble of vanished atmosphere seems to go *pop.*
The world fills with light.
The camera... zooms out. Further. Further. Fuuuuurtherrrr...
Lunar appears, rotating so Spira is on the horizon. A tiny little pinprick of light blossoms on the surface as Zed's power unfurls into a terrifying explosion...!
And then the camera zooms back in, and everything aside from Maester Wen is fine. Maester Wen just might be exploding.
Zed is... looking away from it, his scarf billowing in the blastwave. Because of course he is.
GS: Zed has activated a Force Action! GS: Zed has activated a Force Action! GS: Zed spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Zed has attacked Wen Kinoc with Split Ladle - Sakura Supernova! GS: Zed has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zed takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Jam and Poison expired! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: Wen Kinoc critically guards Fei Fong Wong's Yin Yang Strike for 29 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates! GS: CRITICAL! Wen Kinoc critically guards Zed's Split Ladle - Sakura Supernova for 60 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Of course Zed has to do something extremely extra. Of course he has to.
Because Janus Cascade told him that he approved of something he said. And that just fills him with shame. ;A;
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Perhaps, Ida thinks, as Kinoc cycles the chamber, her control is not as potent as it needed to be. In a single, fluid motion, the Maester takes aim and fires. Ida whips an arm up, her shield unfolding from the back of her forearm--but it only slows the bullet down. The slug punches through the shield, then the armor beneath, then Ida's shoulder; the unpleasant, ripping crunch is almost drowned out by the sound of the shot itself. Ida pitches backwards, grabbing at the wound. Her face twists in a rictus of agony.
Then something passes over her like an invisible mist, numbing the pain. It feels familiar, but Ida doesn't know who did it.
'I only need one dragon.'
BOOM.
Gwen catches the shot. Ida sees her bleed, sees the wing-like eruptions transfixing her as she pitches over. Thankfully, Azoth is both attentive and quick to respond; Ida flashes him an 'OK' sign and allows him to take over. Her gaze whips back to Kinoc, full of cold fury; undifferentiated Hyadean tissue pours from her newest wound, sealing it with gleaming silver.
Something else settles over the chamber. Ida finds her gaze drawn to Janus, and the blade he carries. Glumzamber's eye snaps open, and Ida's eyes widen. It feels like someone just walked over her grave. His grave? His grave?
Kinoc's erstwhile ally flees the scene.
A smile settles on Ida's face, mirthless yet satisfied. "Are you ready for the death you've earned, you horrible old man?" Her lifeforce billows out around her, the pale, gleaming gold of her aura surrounding the flame-spectrum of Fafnir's. She settles into a ready stance--
And then Dean runs past, reminding her of something equally as important as ensuring Wen Kinoc does not leave here alive. For a moment, the two minds within Ida's body waver back and forth between vengeance and saving someone she does not know.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
For Ida, at least, this was never in question. It does not take long for Fafnir to come to the same conclusion. Ida draws in a deep, steady breath, letting it fill her lungs. The might of the world itself flows into her. Petals of violet light trail off of Fei, surrounding her.
"HAAAH--!" Ida shouts. she charges, turning into a golden blur as she races across the battlefield...
Straight for the giant torture device still perched atop Lombardia's body. She leads with a flying kick, planting a foot into the machine's side--and then a sweeping roundhouse kick to try and knock it down. Ida's armored fists hammer mercilessly against the thing's bulk, crushing and tearing with terrible strength.
She won't stop until the thing is in pieces, broken beyond all recognition.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Inhalation! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has launched an attack Link! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Inhalation for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Wen Kinoc with Second Method - Blood and Scars Tutelage! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
She was going to stay focused this time, Xantia told herself. It shouldn't be hard to just have faith in everyone, no need for her to have any doubts. Then Riesenlied goes so far as to transform herself into the Ley Dragon, and she just can't help but look away from her opponent to gawk at that. That's plenty of an opening for Meseru to disengage - by the time Xantia looks back, there's no one there anymore to swing at.
"Hey!!"
...That's all she's got, due to surprise. But also, because it's not actually an unwelcome development. Keeping Meseru from interfering was the whole idea after all, she has no reason to seek to continue that fight. Her quarrel was always with the other party present... who has been terrible in the past and has continued to be terrible here today, she doesn't need to have seen the specifics to be pretty sure of that.
She doesn't pause to look at anything else that's going on over there. She shifts quickly - and so does the weapon in her hands. The sword of light starts to glow with a different color, rapidly turning from white to red... until it bursts, pure light making way for pure fire, elongating and growing thinner as it is reshaped into a different form. Reassembling the Ether construct in her hand, changing it to not only a different element, but also a different shape, seems to cost Xantia little effort, and little time besides. Now is her chance. She will not miss it.
Even if she never knew any of them personally very well... even if she got the impression that they just thought of her as a nuisance... even if there isn't anything that can undo what has been done... she has to do this for them. Because she's the only one in the position to do so.
"This is for the Crusaders!!"
With that, knowing that her etheric constructs don't last long after leaving her hands, Xantia uses all of her considerable strength to hurl her weapon - now a spear of flame - directly at Wen Kinoc.
GS: Xantia has activated a Force Action! GS: Xantia spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Xantia has attacked Wen Kinoc with Inferno Lance! GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xantia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"I... I appreciate it, y'know," Odjn mentions to Azoth when he speaks of how he'll do everything he can to keep her family together.
The littlest Dragon's eyes turn back towards Lombardia's.
"... not as stubborn as you think. I spent a lot of time runnin' away, lyin' to myself, bein' scared. It wasn't until I talked to my best friend Ruby that I got the courage to... do something for myself."
She nods, looking so weary and wounded as she shifts through Fei's powerful attack that helps tear away at the bindings, keeping her own peace in dragging the bolts out.
She looks to Riesenlied -- where the Ley Dragon is fighting in the distance. Then cheers up as Dean climbs up to help her, lightening in expression. "Dean! I'm so glad to see you!"
The little Dragon looks to Lombardia again.
"And Riese... I mean, she's looked up to you for so long too, and now she's fightin' in her own way. Well, this is mine, from me... to you."
...
The Ley Dragon's blast does not come fatally -- because she has promised as much that she is not here to murder him, but rather to destroy the systems that enable such; erasing his instruments will have to do for now.
It comes at a cost -- and Kinoc's hand cannon goes *THOOM* as the Dragon readies herself for defence--
"Gwen...!"
unleash
--and she's struck, seemingly distracted by something; there's a singed scale that seeps off and collapses, thudding to the ground like so much debris. Gwen falls, catching the slug meant for Lombardia, and a part of Riesenlied rues herself for not being able to react on time.
The word repeats within her mind. Over and over and over again...
"...Father..."
Noeline can feel it, more than others, with the link between their rings; a great feeling of grief and sorrow, longing and loss... and an echoing sensation of her Father's anger and pain.
Fei, on the other hand, seems relaxed, creating... flowers? A beautiful purple flower from nowhere, and slipping it onto her horn.
It looks cute, even in Dragon form.
The Tear, embedded somewhere within her body now, shimmers with the coalescing powers reminiscent of a rainbow of emotions.
She remembers so well.
The day Siegfried, her father, took her so far abroad out in the cold; she was so small then, huddling and chilled, dressed in cloaks insufficient to keep her warm.
He took her to witness several craters that she did not understand the significance of. To introduce the then-absent Lombardia to her. At the time, it was a name she did not understand, but respected all the same.
And yet now, today...
It is unmistakable. He tells her to unleash.
She could unleash another attack, fallen and betrayed as Kinoc is; but she well remembers Dean's words, not intending to make the same mistake.
No.
"... Kinoc... I pity you, truly. Yet..."
The Ley Dragon's wings gather once more, as the Ley shimmers upon them in a mandala -- and yet this time, there is no trace of the violence and aggression that it did before.
What she chooses to unleash, in honour of her father, is a soft and billowing, familiar light... a healing light, seeking to lift and restore those that it touches.
It is an ephemeral light, faintly shining with the colours of the rainbow...
Yes. It is a technique imparted to her by Siegfried's tutelage, something she was never able to achieve under her own power. Yet, it does not destroy. It is not its negative.
For it is...
GS: Riesenlied spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Zed with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Janus Cascade with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Azoth with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Citan Uzuki with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Dean Stark with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ambrosius with Shine! Our Positive Rainbow! GS: Riesenlied has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Riesenlied heals Ambrosius! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Ambrosius gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Citan Uzuki! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Citan Uzuki gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Fei Fong Wong accepts Riesenlied's Shine! Our Positive Rainbow for hit points! GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Gwen Whitlock gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Gwen Whitlock has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Riesenlied heals Dean Stark! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Dean Stark gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Zed! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Zed gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Janus Cascade has activated a Force Action! GS: Riesenlied heals Noeline! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Noeline enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Reload! Noeline gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Janus Cascade! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Janus Cascade gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Janus Cascade has activated a Force Action! GS: Azoth accepts Riesenlied's Shine! Our Positive Rainbow for hit points! GS: Azoth takes an additional 20 damage from Reaper! GS: Reload! Azoth gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline closes her eyes as the blackness that surrounds Riesenlied also swallows her in turn. The Hyadean is clearly not afraid as it covers her and obscures her from view, her eyes closed and her head bowed in something like prayer; she holds on as long as she can to Riesenlied's form, until both of them are indistinct and then even longer still.
When the Ley Dragon appears again, the Crimson Noble is nowhere to be seen at first - but her presence can still be felt in the aura of sorcery that still clings to the walls and floor like a cloying mist, though one much lighter and finer than the smog produced by the machina strewn around. It pervades the very air, the echo of a soft snicker, but nowhere more so than around the Ley Dragon itself. Whatever state Noeline has pulled herself into, she has a promise to keep.
And when she does physically reappear, it's hard to really tell if she's actually there or just some shimmering mirage, her form shifting from step to step oddly and without any movement inbetween. "That confidence is misplaced," she states with a grim stare as she faces down the Maester's cannon. Again, she places the enormous sword in the way of the bullet - but there is the question of whether she needed to go that far. The slug clearly impacts off the metal of the sword with a sharp report and a blistering of sparks - but the next moment she moves, and it's as if the space around her reforms to have never had it happen in the first place.
She does not have as strong a connection to Siegfried as others here - but she has enough in the way of respect for him, and her link to Riesenlied as well, to bow her head in solemn recognition. She can feel the shift in the air and the way in which the command seems to echo through the chamber, perhaps carried by the Dark Spear or by a fragment of Lombardia's memory or perhaps both. In the wake of it, she doesn't really trust herself to speak.
(The strange formless shape she has right at this moment does not seem to deter Fei, or whoever Fei is right now, from placing a flower in her hair, and she cannot help but chuckle.)
What she does instead is turn her heel on the Maester, understanding that she can trust that other people have the man's fate well in hand, and all but stalk up to the machina that has Lombardia still trapped under its sway. "... you did good," she tells the little Dragon still struggling against the machinery, and then raises her hand and her sword.
The slab of metal gives way, almost dissolving back into her as its form collapses. What is left protruding from her palm is a single utilitarian spike of living metal, razor-thin and sharp. Without a word, she joins the others struggling to free Lombardia, leaps up onto the bulkiest part of the extractor's housing she can find, and simply slams her hand down into it, piercing sheets of steel and living metal both.
And then that spike expands outwards into rivulet upon rivulet of metal, each twisting through and twining around as much of the contraption as it can. Concentration is scored across Noeline's face as she manages them, cutting as close as she can to Lombardia without harming the dragon, until she's finally left holding a gigantic filigree of metal in her hand.
And then she closes her fist, and each of them contract, seeking to simply tear the machina apart.
GS: Noeline spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Noeline has attacked Wen Kinoc with The Living Blade! GS: Noeline has gained 1 Combo! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Second Method - Blood and Scars Tutelage for 202 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Wen Kinoc takes a solid hit from Xantia's Inferno Lance for 259 hit points! GS: Wen Kinoc has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Wen Kinoc guards a hit from Noeline's The Living Blade for 135 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Wen Kinoc has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Janus Cascade has posed.
Janus rips his blade out of Kinoc, something cold in a face that can't emote. Kinoc shoots him in the chest, and there's a horrible metal-on-metal CLANG as it hits and sends Janus toppling backward. He staggers back several yards before he recovers himself, clutching the injured armor. That one sunk deep, deeper than he'd expected. It hurts. "I see....this body isn't invincible, huh? Not...not yet, at least." He chuckles, something dark and raspy in his tone as he rises up.
unleash
He draws a single, shallow breath. His eyes swivel down, peering at Glumzambor in his hand. "So....you're sick of the games, huh?" he says.
He doesn't see the thousands of years of memories of the blade's last wielder. But something of the resonance of the moment surges into him. The rage, the anguish, the HATE, the overwhelming sorrow.
He does not know this pain, its unique, horrible taste; but he knows a pain like it. "I guess...partners gotta share that, huh," he whispers.
He remembers her blood on his hands. "I didn't get to kill them, that time," he says, low. "I didn't get to do anything but watch her go cold."
"But you." He snaps his eyes up at Kinoc, now a fiery red.
"You I can KILL."
And then the floor under his feet starts to melt.
He swings Glumzambor up and lightning crawls up the length of his body, up the length of the blade, and a BLAST WAVE of an ineffable power washes away from him. The stone under him out to five meters turns instantly to glass; out to three meters, the glass turns molten, except for rocks that kick into the air and then dissolve, sublimating instantly under impossible forces. The pure-white lightning crawling along Janus' body is no electrical phenomenon, it's SOMETHING ELSE, leaking through from something far, far more terrible than the Elecromagnetic Force. He lets Glumzambor's rage fill him up to bursting, the tears on his cheeks steaming away under the intensity of the forces he invokes. "YOU AND YOUR WHOLE DESPICABLE LOT!"
It's impossible to look at him. He is pure black and pure white at once, profound power in paradox, tapping deeply and greedily into powers that were not meant to be tapped, not in this way, not all at once, and never by so raw and greedy a man.
"GWEN!" he screams, before sound becomes impossible to transmit amid the dull rumble that shakes bones like continents.
"GET OUT!"
He swings. "ULTRANEGATIVE!!!"
It's not, quite, right to call what emerges a beam, at first. It starts as raw elements, particulate forged in the galactic furnace that has just now sparked at the heart of the spear, sheering away and then converging back in, waveforms of will amplifying each other as they interfere constructively, feeding back over and OVER and OVER.
"R-A-I-N-B-O-W!"
It takes moments for these powers to crash into Wen Kinoc's body with awesome, annihilating force, and then surge past, beyond, gathering strength and power; becoming stronger, not weaker, over time as they vaporize walls, scatter out into passages and annihilate Fiends. Janus holds back nothing and gives forth everything. Unleash, he was commanded, and begged, and so he unleashes everything.
Outside, the side of the mountain upon which Bevelle Temple sits bulges, cruciforms of terrifying not-quite-rainbows sparking into life as the rock melts under the forces, and then a BLAST of incomprehensible power screams into the air above the city. Houses are set afire by the passing as it roars out into the sky, and out of the atmosphere, and far, far beyond this place; a message of hate, sent from here to the stars.
When it's finished, Janus' jacket and shirt are vapor. His metal skin is a blazing red, nearly succumbing itself to his own assault. He falls directly to his ass and wheezes.
GS: Janus Cascade spends 4 Combo on Link and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Janus Cascade has attacked Wen Kinoc with ULTRANEGATIVE! GS: Janus Cascade has gained 1 Combo! GS: Janus Cascade has launched an attack Link! GS: Janus Cascade has attacked Wen Kinoc with R-A-I-N-B-O-W!! GS: Janus Cascade has gained 1 Combo! GS: Janus Cascade has completed his action. GS: Riesenlied heals Ethius Hesiod! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Reload! Ethius Hesiod gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Ethius Hesiod has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Air Anchor for 252 hit points! GS: Break and Slow! applied to Monster Mash! GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Wen Kinoc's Gauss Round for 178 hit points! GS: Jam and Poison! applied to Monster Mash! GS: Mighty! applied to Wen Kinoc!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
His response to Meseru is a simple, almost subdued one. "Yes, so I see," Citan says, punctuating the statement with a shake of the head, just before he sees to the wounds of others rather than press her again.
Sometimes to advance, one must retreat.
The opportunity is presented and so he takes it: he turns his head for just the one moment.
Wen Kinoc takes a shot at Fei's unprotected back.
"FEI!"
He breaks from the fight before Meseru ever does, off in a mad dash despite knowing that he cannot reach.
'I only need one dragon,' says Wen Kinoc, speaking of the dragonshape that Riesenlied has assumed.
And in this moment the world seems to slow to a dreadful crawl. That eye -- the eye of that object, that thing that Citan Uzuki knows now with a certainity for what it truly is -- opens.
YEARS AGO
"Some of the Anima Relics have been lost to us. We know not where they might now lie," says Emperor Cain of the Holy Empire of Solaris. "Be on guard. Should one fall into improper hands and be then awakened... it means but ill for the world."
He had gazed up at the emperor, who remained utterly still upon his throne. "I understand, your majesty. How might I know them?"
NOW
That thing that, now awakened, lies in the hands of Janus Cascade.
"No--" he calls out in warning as the power of that thing swells in the man's grasp.
Before he reaches the place where Fei... does not lie, wounded. It's as if there was never any bullet. Or, no--
A transformation of matter, he realizes with a jolt.
He doesn't understand, precisely, not as such. But such a thing... Under normal circumstances it wouldn't be possible. But for one with limitless potential, it is no longer impossible.
He watches, astonished still, as Fei touches his hands to what binds Lombardia and simply unmakes it.
Is this... the power of the...?
For the first time in a long, long time, Citan Uzuki knows fear, even as that rainbow light washes over him.
Even as the power of the Anima Relic is unleashed.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean grins at Odjn when she cheers to see him. "Of course! I'm not gonna let you do this all by yourself!" he declares, offering a fist for her to fistbump. He sobers, and looks over his shoulder at the battlefield with concern. He looks in particuar at Ethius and Gwen, deeply injured as they are--though it looks like Azoth has gathered them up and is defending them. That's a relief. Still: "Besides, a lot of people have gotten hurt today. Ethius... Gwen... They gave it everything they got to protect Lombardia. We've gotta make sure we answer their wishes and not let them down."
Anyway, there's like a million explosions going in for Kinoc's life, Dean doesn't need to help out with that. A Positive Rainbow uplifts him further, and he redoubles his efforts on helping Odjn dismantle this nefarious machina. He'll re-summon Twin Fenrir and use it to help as needed.
<Pose Tracker> Wen Kinoc has posed.
"Meseru--" Kinoc turns his head, when she calls his name. His eyes widen, with realization; his breath catches, as the betrayal is said aloud. "What are you-!? No!"
He screams it, next: "NO!"
Ambrosius's shot takes him first. His revolver fires, a round blasting into his chest. He stumbles back, blood beginning to blossom from where he was hit. And then he sees Fei grab a ring of energy...
...and break it with his own hands.
"What... what are you?" Kinoc asks, his voice a whisper.
The chains on Lombardia are torn away. Dean rips one free -- one of the ones holding her back legs down. It crumbles apart, as he does. Kinoc's question remains, as Fei makes the chains on Lombardia vanishes.
The Metal Dragon looks at Dean and Fei both with gratitude -- and then at Gwen, with a worried look. Her golden eyes flash, mechanically, and with fear.
While Matilda shoots Lombardia, it is with a vial of healing energy. And while Matilda shoots Lombardia, she is an immense dragon; she actually notices it a second too late, blinking, and turns her great head to Matilda. She inclines it, respectfully. "I offer my thanks."
Ida tears into the remains of the machine. The huge, hulking thing -- already so battered -- begins crumbling apart in sections. It is lit up by the light of Riesenlied's rainbow, and Ida's blows are all the stronger for it. Finally, Noeline jumps in.
She slams her spike of living metal into the remains of it. And it expands outward. The thing pops -- and cracks -- and finally shatters apart entirely, rivulets of metal that slice through it on Noeline's command. It falls into a heap -- and Lombardia stands. The Metal Dragon roars, wings beating, and stands free for the first time in months.
"N-No..." Kinoc manages, weakly.
"Did you truly believe, little human, that you would contain me forever?" Her head lowers. Her golden eyes blaze. "Did you truly think that the Queen of the Metal Dragons... is ever alone?"
"NO!" Kinoc screams. He backs away -- and then Zed's colossal blast smashes into him; it drives him to his knees, smoke wafting around him. Then, Xantia's spear slams into his chest. The fire burns him; it slams him backward, smashing him away from them. He hacks, wetly. He leans against a wall, and looks up.
His eyes meet Janus Cascade's most inhuman ones. He stares, uncomprehending of the terrible knowledge gifted to Citan. The blast wave strikes into him, as the ground under Janus Cascade flashes into glass. Molten lava bubbles, and cools.
And then it strikes into Kinoc. The Maester screams, body illuminated white and with lines of shadow -- and then burns into ash and pyreflies in a moment. The wall flashes red, starting to melt. Then it gives, ancient stones burning away in an instant. Superheated air explodes outward.
It sends a rain of debris down onto the mountainside below, down into Macalania Woods. A gaping hole now lets sunlight pour in. Smoke rises. Molten stone cools.
And Wen Kinoc, Maester of Yevon, is no more.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei doesn't look to Wen Kinoc as he's made no more. Instead he smiles at Lombardia. Did she forgive him? Well, at least she...accepted him. And that's enough. It's a peaceful, almost Tylor-esque smile. To those who know him best, maybe it IS a little bit frightening...especially in the context of the physical matter he just...unmade.
Today he came close.
Not just him, Riesenlied came very close.
But they didn't cross that indelible line. It wasn't just because of Riesenlied. Or even Noeline. Today, Fei saw everyone trying to help Lombardia.
Even Janus helped even though he's an asshole!
But perhaps Fei understands a little something about Janus. He may be an asshole, but he said something that will make it so that no matter how much of an asshole he becomes, he'll only ever feel sorrow while fighting the man in the future. If that's where their paths go.
He smiles to Noeline, who ever excels at stating the simple facts of the matter. Perhaps Crimson Nobles will be worthy of her one day.
He smiles at Riesenlied who even with this, endured the pain and persevered. As she promised. That promised pain was shared.
And then Fei presses a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Hey man, you're a great friend." He sees Gwen, there. She's hurt. She needs...She needs...
...Doc!
Fei remembers Citan shouted his name. He makes his way to Citan, still smiling. He seems completely oblivious to Citan's brush with fear.
He approaches Doc. Still smiling. Still a little off.
He reaches up with a hand and presses it on his shoulder.
"I almost lost it." He admits. "But not today." He pauses. "But... more importantly than that." He nods to Gwen. "Gwen really needs your help. Can you look after her?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
The explosion is terrible, and yet, of the two great omens predicted by the Emperor, that isn't the one that holds his attention.
Fei approaches him, placing a hand on his uninjured shoulder. He almost lost it. But it wasn't today. And he asks a thing of the doctor.
"...Of course, Fei. Will you help me move her? This is not the ideal place to be, right now."
Not after that, of course.