2020-11-15: Kathekon
- Log: Kathekon
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, Eleanor Klein, Dean Stark, Venetia Vuong, Seraph Clarine, Gwen Whitlock, Billy Lee Black, Seraph Boudicca, Ida Everstead-Rey, Marivel Armitage
- Where: The Moonflow
- Date: November 15, 2020
- Summary: Towards the northeast of the Moonflow, rumors circulate that no one from the small village of Ledali have been heard from in days. Could it be Sin, perhaps? Or the invading Althenean army? Or... is it something else?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Ledali is a logging village in Spira, one of the little more-inland sources of the lumber the larger towns and cities make heavy use of -- in the land where complex tools run the risk of Sin's wrath, they permit the people to live as they are accustomed.
And thus, when Ledali goes silent, when no one from there has been seen in days, it's noticed. Could it be Sin? The Altheneans, perhaps? Or a Fiend attack? Or...
The village is intact. This much can be determined from the outside. No disaster capable of felling Ledali's foundations has come here, but...
It's still utterly, completely silent from here. Even birds refrain from singing their songs. Whatever has come here will take investigations within the village's walls.
If it had been silent outside, it's completely dead inside. All is still and quiet -- investigations within the buildings will turn up no signs of the occupants. It's as if everyone has vanished. And so it will continue to seem, until investigations take one further in, to what must be the center of the town.
Here are the people, still and laid out about the small verdant plaza. All of them lie prone and completely still, as if they had settled down there to sleep.
They are sleeping, as investigation will determine -- they're sleeping and cannot be roused.
"Ah," says a voice from the vine-entangled arbor at the center of the plaza. "It finally comes! I waits a very long time for it. It wonders me if villagers succumbs before it comes. Is not matter, now. I finishes here soon."
The figure that speaks is a small one, a long-haired grey cat by appearance, its fur tipped with white. A single bell hangs from a red band about its throat.
Perched atop the arbor, Seraph Harmaus carefully begins to wash his face.
"When it dies, I releases villagers. It accepts the terms, yes?" he asks those who have come here. "Life for life. An even trade."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Though ARMS may be technically out of their jurisdiction... Actually, are they? Does anything in their charter specify Filgaia? That's not relevant for the moment. Regardless, Eleanor Klein and others are here to investigate the silence of the village. Though there's no talk of Sin being in the area, it's easy to assume that there was an attack and that the people will be in need of assistance.
When the village is intact, Eleanor has a bd feeling. When the buidings are unoccupied, Eleanor feels the hairs on the back of her neck standing. And when they see the people sleeping...
She moves to wake one up, kneeling beside them to shake them by an arm. "I have a spell for this," she begins, and then she hears a familiar voice.
"You--" She turns to look at the source of the voice where she sees... Harmaus's form. "What?" This is, obviously, not what she expected. At least not now.
"I thought..." She shakes her head. "What d you want with them!?"
The Crest Sorceress puts a hand to her bag, where her crests are--her gun is slung over her back.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
In all honesty, Spira is not really Dean's favorite place. They don't like technology here, which means they don't like Golems here, so he's really not a fan. That being said, when he hears about a village that goes off the map, well, he can't help but be worried. He's compulsively helpful, after all, and if an entire village has gone silent, those people probably need a lot of help.
He thus goes with Boudicca and Ida to Ledali and looks around. "It's kinda creepy," he says--he doesn't consciously pick up on the lack of the animal sounds, but it definitely gets to his lizard hindbrain, and it puts him on edge. It's even worse inside. No people at all inside... at least, that's how it seems, until they reach the center of town. There, everyone's laid out as if sleeping. Or maybe dead. Dean hurries over to one of them and holds his hand an inch in front of their mouth; then he breathes a sigh of relief. "They're just asleep!" he announces.
Eleanor is nearby, and she says she'll try to use a spell to rouse them. He nods and stands--and then someone speaks. "Who's there?!" he demands, whipping around--and sees Harmaus. Harmaus, a fluffy gray cat with shimmery fur and a cute li'l bell on his collar and a nigh incomprehensible (to Dean) verbal tic.
"Oh hey there, kitty!" Dean says, eyes lighting up when he spots the Seraph. Not knowing him for who and what he is--last time they met, he was possessing a human, after all--all he sees is a cute fluffy talking kitty. "Wow, you can speak! That's so cool! D'you know what happened to these poor people?"
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
VENETIA VUONG, TWO-FISTED SCHOLAR OF STONE AND VICTORY, has been TRAPPED IN A WORLD SHE NEVER MADE thanks to the actions of HER PERSONAL ENEMY, MEGAMAN JUNO.
Enough capital letters.
She arrived in battle and was almost immediately thrown into a conflict against a horrid mockery of matrimony (for Venetia Vuong, secretly, may have a romantic bone in her body - a medium-sized one, at least) which led to an interval in jail, followed by a hair-raising escape and a gunfight. After that, she took a nap.
But that nap could not last long. For the lure of adventure calls. As well as the harsh shackles of... empathite communication.
NOW.
Venetia had resorted to eating a handful of coffee beans as if they were bitter, bitter candy in order to wake herself up during the journey here, for fatigue rests deep even on someone who has kept up with their cardio. At the boundaries of the village she had said: 'Well, that's a nice change: nothing's on fire.'
And NOW...
"Dinoginos's curving carbon-steel claws, what have you DONE to them!" Venetia exclaims as she gazes upon the faintly diaphanous form of - of a cat, a cat that speaks. Venetia's able to see Harmaus, given all: but the cat still looks damnably uncanny. Also, the cat speaks, which is rarely found in her experience, save in the Fritz clan up near the tailing hill -- but be that as it may:
"Your theory of economy is as questionable as your mor-- al--" Venetia falters, for once, as Dean advances to speak to the Seraph. Her mouth hangs slightly open.
Towards Eleanor, she says, "Did I make an assumption? That would be embarrassing, if I misunderstood the cat critically. Remind me to get him a present later."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
After her imprisonment by Yevon, Clarine has taken a rather long break from field duty. It was a pretty harrowing experience, drawing on some past wounds. But, she's feeling better now, and so she is among those joining Eleanor on her investigation of Ledali.
It is... disturbing, to find it empty - and even moreso to find the occupants of the village laid out in the plaza. Being not generally aware of human habits, she fears for their life for a moment before being assured that they're just asleep.
...And then, there's a voice.
"Harmaus!" Clarine shouts accusatorily. She recognizes him, though not for his form, which she has never seen, but from his manner of speech and his general essence. It's a Seraph thing.
"What have you done, Harmaus...? What is this meant to reveal?" Clarine asks. Their previous conversations had been worrying, but... she never quite thought he would go to this extent.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Starting a courier business back up after abruptly stopping (due to being teleported back to Filgaia) , is difficult. Gwen has no means of transport except her own self, and even if she wants to get a chocobo... Well, there's certain matters that occupy her mind right now.
So when rumors of a logging village going quiet cross her ears, she's curious. Certainly, it would be better to not stick her nose in things right now, but, a little glance from afar wouldn't be too terrible, right? Especially since she's traveling right by that area?
Especially when the grounds close by are unnaturally silent.
Especially when the area looks untouched, no natural disaster to explain the silence.
Especially when that silence is so loud that her attention is naturally drawn to like-minded souls who are investigating.
So much for camping near the road; she's going to investigate as well.
"Whoah whoah, there, Eleanor. Lessee what he wants, here." Gwen enters, eying the way the crest sorceress has her hand in that bag. "Harmaus, y'realize if you needed a thing done, there's easier ways of askin' for help. Enemy or not, I'm certain..." She's turning from Eleanor, seeing Dean there, and then, looking to where Eleanor is staring so intently.
See, like Dean, Gwen is expecting the Harmaus she's interacted with before, a man of indeterminate age. She wasn't exactly looking when Harmaus shed his former human host.
'Oh hey there, kitty!'
Gwen glances back at Harmaus's cat form, blinking away the urge to naturally come over and pet the adorable little fluffy feline.
Clarine knows better.
"Heyhey, Dean. That's Harmaus, looks like. Sorry." She tilts her head towards the feline. ".... Right? Just to clarify things all quick-like, since it sounds like you got... things you gotta do. Llllikkke reverse this spell on this village. Y'get me? I ain't punching a cat, Seraph or no. Especially one with a bell 'round their neck all fancy-like."
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
"Another day, another village in fear," Billy Lee Black says to himself, looking on the village from outside. He's expecting attack any moment; on some level he's always ready for the twisted abominations of sinew and flesh known as Wels, but Fiends are more likely here, he knows. But he sees neither, nor the rumored atrocities known as Sinspawn. Just...a village gone dark. He looks off to the trees, seeking sign of birds, but....the nests sit abandoned. Everything has abandoned this place, he finds, as he checks the buildings - after a single door he stops calling out to the participants, his intuition warning him of intense peril.
When he steps into the plaza, it's with iron drawn, sweeeping one gunsmoke quietly across the space. He sees others arriving; he grimaces. More in danger. Phenomenal. He steps over to a young girl, collapsed in the street. He tests her pulse. He shakes her shoulder. Alive, but won't wake.
As a test, he fires his gun, a thunderous report roaring across the whole courtyard. A gunsmoke going off in proximity could wake just about anything but the dead, but the people don't even stir. His eyes furrow deeply.
Which is when the voice croons at them from the center of the plaza, and Billy snaps around, drawing his second gunsmoke in the move.
Cat.
"Reaper," Billy declares in damnation, his guns aimed square at the beast. He has little knowledge of Seraphs, and has no reason to suspect this.
But too-cunning creatures concocting clever ways to kill him, yes, he knows how that works.
"Release them, creature," he says, the young man with ice in his tone. "The only dinner you'll have tonight is lead and iron. Release them and I can make it quick."
And then Dean misreads the situation. "No! No closer!" Billy barks, surging to interpose himself between Dean and Harmaus, weapons kept level with the scheming cat.
"This creature is death," he says to Dean.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The small villages are most beloved, by the Seraph Boudicca; it is only natural she would gather her allies and investigate the woes of Ledali. "It is too quiet," she says, because she has not read enough books; the world a whisper, and no footsteps to disturb the silence. It is only when she finds the villagers that her greaves close those few inches to the ground, clik-clack as she crouches down to look to their breathing.
This is what Boudicca looks for, in the dead.
But they are not dead; they are sleeping, writ in the rise and fall of their chests. The breeze rustles in Boudicca's own sigh, whistling through the square - only for Harmaus to disturb the relief which Dean named. Boudicca stands, whirls to face him, and her braids whirl an exclusion zone around her as they whip through the air.
"Be not fooled!" Her voice is hot iron, on the heels of Dean's delight. "This is no companion animal! He is Harmaus - and he has done this!" She points accusation, the anger boiling in her eyes, the curl of her lip. "You have taken enough lives, you mongrel worm! We did not come to offer you the lives of our fellows! You will not take them, too! You will release the villagers - and you will leave!"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Spira is a dangerous place to live. Ida can think of many reasons why an isolated village would suddenly cease contact--Sin, Sinspawn, or even regular old Fiends would do the trick. Perhaps rogue members of the Guard moved in and did terrible things to the inhabitants, because terrible things happen during war. Whatever the cause, Ida did not hesitate to join Dean, Boudicca, and her fellow ARMS agents as they went to investigate. What they find is...
Uncanny. Deeply uncanny. It reminds Ida of a ghost story, or a legend of an evil spirit. She tenses up as the group makes its way past empty houses and vacant fields, adrenaline preparing her for conflict. What she sees in the center of the village green...
Ida stares at Harmaus, her brow furrowing a moment. Under any other circumstances she would assume he was just someone's companion, but something about him feels so incredibly off.
Dean, being the kind-hearted soul he is, assumes the best. "Dean!" Ida shouts, stepping forward to try and grab Dean by the scruff of his neck.
'Harmaus!', Clarine shouts. Harmaus. Harmaus.
A Seraph, Ida realizes. She thought they were all humanoid, but they're spirits, aren't they? What's to stop one from looking like an animal if they so choose?
Billy, being the justice-driven soul that he is, assumes the worst. "Brother Black," Ida says, "mind yourself! It's a Seraph--a spirit!" Only then do her eyes fall on Harmaus. Ida does not know what he did. She only knows it was bad enough to drive Boudicca to a rage, and that definitely implies things.
"You'd best listen to her," Ida says, clenching both fists.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Ah, will bats and cats ever find peace with one another? I suppose not."
Marivel arrives, still dressed in her ridiculous straw hat and jacket getup. Marivel takes a glance around at the Drifters present, clucking her tongue once. "Not even a singular Spiran or Yevonite is it? Perhaps they already fell under its sway. Or didn't think to care to look after their own. How typical."
She snaps her fingers once and emits a small flame from her fingertip, pausing to look towards Billy Lee Black.
"Tis a Seraph, least on this world." Pause. "But ah--Brother Black. I don't suppose we can have a bit of a truce today? I don't believe this creature is up to any good."
Gwen admits that she's not going to punch a cat.
"Hm... Are you sure about that?"
Her gaze than slants towards Boudicca. She can sense her righteous rage well enough without any mysticism. She can see the rage in her eyes. She calls him a mongrel worm.
"That's pretty hot Boudi." Marivel says with a sly smile. "Come to think of it, there's something I'd like to ask you myself soon. Perhaps as soon as we are done here?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The people don't respond when shifted or moved about, merely continuing into a slumber from which it appears they cannot awake. Perhaps a spell might bring them out of that, but before anyone can try anything--
The Seraph addresses the crowd.
"We meets again," Harmaus says to Eleanor, ceasing his washing to squint down at her. "It surprised by my form? I loses old body in Bevelle," he explains, beginning to twitch his tail. "Great shame. I likes that body. But no matter. No matter at all!"
Clarine's shout draws a different sort of reaction from the Seraph: he bristles visibly to see her. "Clarine. I nots think meets it here. It considers what I says last? This but necessity: work for Maester Seymour. Through it I gets closer to truth. Tit for tat, yes? But, ah. What it sides with? Fellow Seraph?"
His tail is sweeping wildly at this point. "Or mortals? It decides now!"
Which is when Dean interjects. Harmaus regards the young man for a long, long moment, tail beginning to thump against the arbor as if in agitation. "...Jaeja," the Seraph remarks at last. Glancing between him and Venetia, who offers her own interjection on the matter, he continues, "It understands not." Fixing his glance on Venetia, Harmaus says, "This slumber mine own doing! Lucky it arrives on time. Elsewise villagers die!"
Clarifying further at Eleanor's question as to his goal, the Seraph responds with, "What wants I? To lure it here! Is thorn in Maester Seymour's side. I eliminates it. Easy, easy," Harmaus explains. His eyes narrow as Gwen voices her own remarks on the situation and what she thinks he's doing. "Then die," he says. "Is only acceptable outcome. It dies or villagers sleep forever. Once it dead, I reverses spell--"
Billy directs his shotgun at Harmaus.
"Reaper? Jaeja," remarks the Seraph, exhaling a breath that may be near enough to a sigh for a cat. "It wags weapon about? It fights?" Harmaus seems to be considering this. "Ah, yes, after rush to rescue... hmm," he muses, then apparently reaches some conclusion. "Matters me not. It fights, it dies, perhaps I releases them? Destination, not journey!"
With that, he leaps from the top of the arbor, landing upon the ground as if it were a mere hop from a fencepost and not about ten feet up. Light seemingly sparkles about him in the air as he touches ground. Trotting forward but a few steps, he comes to a stop as his gaze settles upon...
...Boudicca.
"Boudicca. I meets it again." His amber eyes are cold indeed as he regards her. "It stands against me yet? Then it knows what I must does." His gaze flicks to Ida. "I listens as I pleases, human."
And then to Marivel. "The deep red mystery!" the cat crows aloud, "It stands 'gainst me too?" His tail twitches once, twice--
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqg9jcBoEmc
Light, cold and glittering, rises about him as if in a volley. "Very well! It makes decision. Fight or not, it dies here!"
"Blinding Light!" the Seraph calls out, invoking the arte. With that, the hard streaks of brilliance stream downwards as if in a rainstorm.
Without so much as taking a step, the Seraph calls up another fast burst of light, right for Venetia:
"Unyielding Light!"
The light burns to the core should it hit. But it does not die out, lingering a moment longer, giving Harmaus the time to invoke another arte:
"Bright Sequence!"
Which then sets out as if following some invisible jagged path from Venetia to Dean, standing nearby.
"-Embrace what is hidden-," intones Harmaus, a streak of white phantasmic light screaming for Clarine; blue fire burns along its edges, as if to engulf and consume her defenses. Perhaps he still has some hope she might come to his side. Some small hope, that is. "Synkatathesis!"
GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Blinding Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Blinding Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Billy Lee Black with Blinding Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Blinding Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with Blinding Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Blinding Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Venetia Vuong with Unyielding Light! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with Bright Sequence! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Clarine with Synkatathesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has completed his action. GS: Dean Stark takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Bright Sequence for 160 hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Blinding Light for 116 hit points! GS: Eleanor Klein critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Blinding Light for 23 hit points! GS: Seraph Clarine takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Synkatathesis for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Slow applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Billy Lee Black critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Blinding Light for 23 hit points! GS: Venetia Vuong takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Unyielding Light for 163 hit points! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Blinding Light for 54 hit points!
DC: Dean Stark switches forms to The Daring Boy!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Blinding Light for 59 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
A gunshot retorts through the village, and Dean tenses and turns to see Billy. He's never met the man before, and he really doesn't make a better showing of himself when he immediately points a gun at a cute little kitty-cat. But then he seemingly jumps to Dean's defense, warning him that this cat is actually a demon. "What? But he's a sweet little kitty cat! He can't be death!" Marivel appears and addresses Billy. Dean blinks at her. "You know this guy?" But then Gwen also says she's not going to punch a cat, and he gestures towards her. "See? She gets it!" A beat. "Wait, Gwen, did you say he's Harmaus?"
Boudicca backs this up, and Dean blinks blankly, first at her, then at the silvery Seraph. "...What? But Harmaus was, like... a guy. I thought," he says, uncertain. After all, when Harmaus had shed his human skin, Dean had been busy trying to rescue Lombardia; he hadn't seen that happen at all. "So why is he--*woah*, hey!!" And that's Dean getting scruffed and pulled back, not unlike a kitten, by rather more suspicious-minded Ida. Sometimes it sucks, being so short.
The cat, apparently Harmaus, speaks again. Dean furrows his brows and peers at him. Harmaus is speaking, to his ears, some kind of strange word soup. He can understand, at best, maybe a third of what he's saying. But he *does* see that thrashing, fluffy tail, so he brightens, points at it, and turns to his friends. "See? He's wagging his tail, he's friendly!"
Crucial note: Dean has never owned a cat in his life.
Then Harmaus nimbly leaps down from his perch to the ground before everyone and declares death upon them all by way of several light artes, searing and sparkling through the air. One in particular zig-zags and slams through Dean, knocking him down and searing pain through him. "OW! BAD KITTY!!"
He picks himself up, grimacing. He still feels a little bad about attacking a small, cute animal, but between Boudicca and everyone else's reactions and the fact that Harmaus did in fact just try to kill them all, he's a little more inclined to get on the offensive. All the same, when he opens fire on Harmaus with Twin Fenrir, he does it while rolling towards some cover and give himself a bit more defensive footing.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Dual Shooter! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Blinding Light for 58 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"No," Eleanor starts to Venetia, "I'm rather certain that--" She thought she recognized him, but Clarine confirms it for her, to her silent relief. She's already a bit thrown by the situation being this, and the scrap of foresight she had she hasn't finished processing yet. This location, this time...
"Dean--" Others have that matter covered, which gives Eleanor a chance to rethink the moment and understand. It is indeed Harmaus, and Billy's instincts mirror her own (well, she thinks so anyway.) But Gwen's caution to wait...
Eleanor is skeptical that there can be peace at this point. Even if Billy hadn't just outright said there can't.
As Harmaus begins to respond... "Yes," she admits freely to her surprise. "I'm sure you feel very badly over it."
Her eyes narrow. He explains... "You'd work for that man, knowing what he is? Of course you would."
Blinding light comes--Eleanor puts out her hand and an amulet about her neck glows, displaying a golden barrier of light versus light. The spell crashes around her, opens her eyes again. "Then this is the time!"
Eleanor pulls a golden Crest Graph from her bag, one imbued with the power of Geo twinned, and it gleams as she begins to call on its magic. In a loud voice she shouts, "Let the earth claim what is hers-in force! Crag Essence!"
She whirls and her spell starts to become mist over Harmaus's location before a great spike of earth juts out from the grass, the ground shuddering with force.
Eleanor darts to the side, "Don't underestimate him!"
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Crag Essence! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Dual Shooter for 120 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Dean Stark! GS: Seraph Harmaus fully evades Eleanor Klein's Crag Essence for 0 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Eleanor Klein!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
"Perverse spirits are no better than devils," Billy replies to Ida, a cold tension in his voice. "And are due for the Lord's judgment just as surely." He doesn't know all these people, but it seems the armored woman with the hair has the right idea, and seeing people prepare for battle lets him shift his own posture a few centimeters as well. Nerves...
Ah, and then Armitage shows up. His eyes flick over, scanning her. "Agreed," he says. "We don't--"
Harmaus is speaking. Billy's twin gunsmoke pistols gleam as he keeps them level with Harmaus, but he doesn't fire just yet. "You'll release your curse with your death, spirit," Billy says. "This I will ensure."
The scattering rays of light rain down. Billy drops immediately to a knee, using his habit to cover him as the blasts rain down. Some kind of magic in the cape? Whatever it is, it ensures that when the light passes, Billy is unharmed. "Spirit indeed. Such magic!"
He strikes back, snapping both his weapons forward. Is he hesitating for even one moment to open fire on Literally, A Cat?
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM NOPE
Billy fires repeatedly, each shot aimed to force Harmaus further and further off balance to make it harder and harder to protect itself. Eventually he snaps both weapons open, ejecting shells and reloading with devices in his habit.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Sky Walker! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida hauls Dean back, her whole body as taut as a coiled spring. She doesn't let go until he's probably out of Harmaus' pouncing range.
'I loses old body in Bevelle.'
Ida's skin begins to crawl. Somehow, she doubts that this 'loss' was calm and gentle--Boudicca wouldn't be angry if it were. Then the cat mentions Seymour, and Ida bares teeth in a snarl. "And why, pray tell, should we trust you?" Her tone is positively venomous, despite the dissonance in the back of her brain. Ida grew up playing with her father's pet cats, and helped him tend to adopted fosterlings while he looked for more permanent homes. There is a part of her that feels like this is ridiculous.
But Ida grew up with cats. She knows what they do to mice, and cockroaches, and any pest unfortunate enough to be caught. Calling it 'cruelty' implies that it's a deliberate choice, and with cats, it's just instinct.
Harmaus is no creature of instinct.
'See? He's wagging his tail, he's friendly!'
"Dean, no!" Ida shouts. She recognizes the gesture for what it is. Violence is imminent.
Ida's upper body whips to the side as the air thrums with sorcerous power. It saves her from a direct hit that she otherwise couldn't have dodged--the light beam rakes down her side, searing a bright red line into her bare skin. "Ghk," she grunts. Quicksilver boils up to fill the wound, flattening into a blueish-silver patch. Ida's right hand blurs to the holster concealed beneath her vest. In a heartbeat, she aims Devil's Due at Harmaus and fires--letting muscle memory take over, lest she hesitate.
Gunsmoke powder boils out the back of the slug as it flies towards Harmaus, mingled with glittering golden-white motes. The cloud clings to Ida's body, enshrouding her in her own personal smokescreen; Billy might recognize it as hybrid technique from another school of Etone gunfighting. Five Precepts Chained Devil is esoteric, but no less deadly for it.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Ebon Devil Cloud! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Dean seems to have presented a possibility not generally adhered-to and Venetia tenses up, breathing outwards. She reaches to her hip pouch to draw out her weapon, her eyes turning towards -- an Etone?
Venetia thinks: How -- but yes, she thinks, dimly remembering having seen Billy's angelic features in the background. Yes, of course, it's -- that guy. Her eyes return to Harmaus and she answers him with a snappish tension, "You negotiate poorly. Leaving aside the price you are demanding -- *how are we supposed to trust you*?"
Unless, Venetia thinks --
-- but the thought does not reach her throat because Harmaus is moving and there is an erupting barrage of light coming towards her. Venetia twists round and steels her will, but the barrage is nonetheless enough to force her to the ground and, with a single burst, disarms her-- a gun loose, skidding across the plaza and coming to rest against a half-upturned flagstone!
Damn it, Venetia thinks, fishing out a Graph. The one that Rikku found for her! "Hell and damnation," Venetia swears as she raises the graph. "I can't follow what the creature's trying to do beyond the obvious. Did you ever keep cats, Klein?" The brandished graph gleams with bronze:
And barrage is met with barrage! Shards of glittering semi-precious stone breach and barrage towards the helpfully-luminous form of Harmaus. "And if we -- can we disrupt a -- ugh! No use woolgathering in these moments!"
GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Faceter! GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Billy Lee Black's Sky Walker for 82 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Ebon Devil Cloud for 52 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Riposte applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Working on his behalf still... hahhh..." Marivel shakes her head. "Tis interesting, is it not Boudicca? What one can get up to without malevolence or the power of darkness. Just through their own natural instincts and desires."
Harmaus has a pretty cool name for Marivel all told, but instead of saying 'yes' she says, "For now. I admire your desire for truth, but if you are to use a method such as this I have little choice. But I must wonder...this quest for truth of yours. What led you to begin such a journey? Maester Seymour may know many secrets, but he desires to become a Clysmian--Sin itself--and kill countless people. What will you do when he sees your soul worth claiming? What comfort will the truth be for a dead world?"
Harmaus releases a slew of blinding light. It crashes against Marivel. She's wearing her UV PROTECTION uniform in preparation, but she's still burning just from the power of the light seeping through her clothes and into her. She sinks to one knee--Billy will surely note that this method of attack seemed SUPER EFFECTIVE--if he's caring to notice.
"Venetia," Marivel says. "Tis going to be a mite difficult for me today it seems."
She stands up. "But I suppose tis natural for a flying rat of darkness to suffer at the hands of the stray cat of light."
She gestures forward with a hand, napping her finger again. "But the best opponent for a cat of the heavens, is a hound of hell...! Come! I summon thee!"
She snaps her fingers once more and a dark wolf of shadow expels out from Marivel's body, crouches down low, fits their eyes on Harmaus--- and then leaps out to pounce upon Seraph Harmaus.
"I shall shephard thee home ere I release thee...!"
Dean blinks at her and Marivel says, "Mm? Yes? Why do you ask? Vivi!" is that her nickname for Venetia now? "Be careful! Cats always land on their feet!"
She will listen to Boudicca's answer but for the moment does not answer back.
Because the cat came back the very next day.
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with The Hound Of Hell Has Strong Jaws! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
'Are you sure about that?' Marivel's reply draws a frown from Gwen. "Pretty sure of that. I don't do violence against animals if I can help it."
Meanwhile, Dean's disbelief makes Gwen smile. "W-well, Harmaus is a Seraph, right? So why not a cat Seraph?"
Gwen raises her eyebrows at the sight of Billy, giving him a respectful nod of her head, seeming to recognize his affiliation from his garb alone. "Rather far from home, Brother."
At the sight of Ida, Gwen's mouth opens, ready to say something, but realizes the timing would be terrible. 'Hey I talked to a dangerous Primarch and learned that your ancestor made friends with it, and she was awesome.' She's certain Brother Black, bearing the familiar robes of an Etone, would be very disagreeable towards that as well, regardless of context.
Plus, Ida is busy scruffing Dean. Gwen's seen enough fights between alleycats to know better.
'Then die.'
Light burns the air white, and Gwen flinches backwards.
A shot rings out, issued from the Mockingbird in the immediate aftermath.
Gwen grimaces, realizing just how ready she was to walk back on something she had clearly outlined as forbidden moments before.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
"You... lost your form?" Clarine says, incredulously. She was not present for the battle on the walls of Bevelle - her task had lead her into the temple itself, to prepare an escape route. She was not there to see what happened.
And then, Harmaus confesses surprise to see her. Clarine frowns at what she hears.
"...Maester Seymour. I would not trust whatever truth that man leads you to. He... twists, conceals, and manipulates truth for his own purposes, Harmaus." Clarine says. "He is using you. You may think to be using him, as well, but his purpose is foul. No good can come of an alliance with him!"
She looks toward Boudicca, then - noting her anger. Something has happened between them. And others - others filter in, as well. Some of them seem confused. Clarine is not. Harmaus's outward form may be feline, but to her he is another Seraph, regardless of form. And Seraphim come in many forms.
And then, Harmaus attacks. For her, a streak of light burning with flame. With a quick gesture, a series of mirrors slide out of her sleeve. She moves one of the mirrors to intercept... but upon contact, rather than deflecting it or dispersing it, the mirror is consumed by flame, dispersing into motes of light.
"A-ah!" Clarine gasps in surprise.
...But, he's asked her a question - who does she side with?
"If you had asked this of me at an earlier point, I may very well have relented... but I have learned much, Harmaus - I have uncovered many truths of my own." Clarine says, moving to reposition herself. She has to be careful... as a fellow Light Seraph, he knows her strengths and weaknesses better than most do.
"Today... I side with the mortals, Harmaus, because so very few of us will. Mortals are not toys, or tools to be used! These people have done nothing to warrant that. But that need not be to the exclusion of my fellow Seraphim! I stand with Boudicca, as well." Clarine says, sending the Wind Seraph a nod. "If that puts at odds, then so be it! We shall see what comes of it."
A sphere of light appears above Harmaus, and with a downward gesture a beam of searing light descends toward him. Afterward, she glances in Marivel's direction.
"Marivel, are you well?" Clarine asks, concerned. She knows how unpleasant her own light can be for her - what about one who actually intends to harm her?
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Crackshot! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Limited Ray! GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Venetia Vuong's Faceter for 118 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Seraph Clarine's Limited Ray for 131 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Seraph Clarine!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Must? Inconsequential self-validation! This devastation is your choice! Play your pipes far from here, Rat-Catcher!" Boudicca does not bother veiling her anger; it is on full display.
Her gaze slides, sidelong, to Marivel. "Yes," she cedes. "On this matter I burn bright." Boudicca may or may not actually get what Marivel means, gripped by righteous fury. "We will speak forthwith. But first --"
But first, there's a reason why Harmaus would try and reach out to Clarine instead of Boudicca.
It's a reason which sees her sight the searing brightness, and begin to move. Althena has forbidden dancing, but there is scarce other word to describe the way she finds a path between the beams. Some catch her regardless of her alacrity - the light reflecting bright off of light steel armour, sizzling into silk.
But when she stops, she is whole. It is not her price.
"We are not men, Dean, the way you are. We take the forms most comfortable to us, and we may possess things outside ourselves. A ribbon, a knife, a statue, a bottle..." Do not think there is any less anger in her voice, though it drops decibels as she completes: "... a man."
Her eyes squeeze shut, as she draws a breath. "Ought we find home in flesh, 'tis our duty to see our vessels safe. Harmaus - Harmaus..!"
Don't call them tears, the things which leak out. Tears can tell you so much. These say nothing because they are only the reflection of received sorrow; a story about tears. "I did not mean to kill him! I truly believed you would at least do that much, Harmaus! Even if you stood against us! Even if you stood with Seymour! I believed in you that much, because we are Seraphim! Even if we fight..!"
At least Clarine stands with her, she thinks, as she shakes the tears from her face. She springs forward, and wildly her tonfa lash, and what is a strike which hits low must regardless strike about the feline's chest. "His name, Harmaus!" She screams, she pleads, she demands. "Tell me his name!"
GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's The Hound Of Hell Has Strong Jaws for 141 hit points! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Crackshot for 116 hit points! GS: Cripple applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Rabid Lunge! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Rabid Lunge for 76 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Yes must. Reaching truth requires sacrifices. I musts persevere, else all is lost!" he insists to Boudicca. But his agitation does not cease.TIndeed, the arbor is nearly shaking from the intensity of the Seraph's twitching tail. He is displeased this day. (But those who have never owned a cat may have trouble reading the body language...)
"Is great difficulty," Harmaus remarks to Eleanor. "This body, this land... More trouble than I expects! But I makes do. And Maester's assistance makes up difference!"
Marivel asks after his aims, after what led him here. "What leads me here? Mysteries and lies and secrets, all sown by the Goddess Althena! Much She says is lies," whatever his animosity to the goddess, he still speaks of her with a particular reverance, "Working, working for long time yet, uncovering truth. That path leads me here! To the Maester, to what lies beyond yet!" His amber eyes narrow. "Ah? Is that its wish? ...Matters me not. Needs him only now. In future..." Harmaus closes his eyes - a smile of sorts for a cattish body.
"Needs not. Problem solves self. Yes?"
Why should they even trust his words, Ida asks. Venetia chimes in similarly. "I lies not," claims Harmaus. "Would never speak filthy thing as lie. But, ah, it matters not if it trusts me. Now that it is here, it dies," he purrs as a promise. "All I needs is serve Maester's wishes."
It's this that Clarine protests.
"Yes, yes. Maester is liar, twists, conceals much. Is foul, destined for foul end. All it says is true! But I needs Maester Seymour's connections. Is long way yet for my goal!"
And here the Seraph bares his teeth."
"And I WILL HAS IT!"
Dean, relying on the read of the situation via the reactions from the others, draws his ARMs and opens fire; Harmaus darts to his left but is far from fast enough. The bullets go right through him.
Which would be terrible, if he weren't merely just shaped like a cat. The holes are bloodless and close up after a moment's time. Perhaps there would have been some retort from the Seraph, except he has Eleanor's spell to concern himself with.
He leaps into the air as the ground shudders, just seconds afforded him before he is nearly flying along in the air astride the earthen spike. Perched there, he regards the lot of them with unblinking eyes.
This is where Billy just shoots him. The spray of bullets, aimed up at where he's standing, gives him no room to evade (unless it turns out he can fly); instead the flurry of shots juggle him for a moment as he's sent back towards the ground below.
Harmaus lands on his feet, of course. "It shoots well," Harmaus muses, shaking himself as if to thereby throw off the attack on his person. "Too well. Ah, no matter. It leaves here not alive!"
Billy is far from the last to open fire upon the Seraph: Ida, wounded from his earlier volley, delivers a shot directly for Harmaus.
He leaps at the last moment, the shell only just grazing him as he flips backwards to land--
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Well. He doesn't actually land as much as he gets slammed into by a barrage of semi-precious stones, sending his small form catapulting backwards. Capitalizing on this moment as he finally touches ground long enough to shake off that attack, is Clarine.
"Ah... it chooses poorly too! Stands with mortals!? Stands with lies!" snarls the Seraph. "So be it! I walks mine path alone! Farewell, Clarine!"
Her answer to that is clear and comes down screaming in the form of a pillar of light. Though the path below his feet craters, though Harmaus fades from sight in its brilliance...
He is still there when the light fades, tail lashing in agitation. Leaping up from the crater that arte had rent, white light dances about him like a candleflame.
A shot rings out, slamming into Harmaus. He staggers for but a moment before that wound, too, vanishes. The body is only an illusion in a sense. "Tcha," he snarls all the same, perhaps irritated for being so targeted. "It pays for that."
Before he can do anything about Gwen, though, he might have to deal with Marivel's hound, first. Darting sidelong, the Seraph seeks to evade the hound's spring, but it is not to be -- he is caught, bitten, shaken, and tears himself free from it (brief burst of light from his body and all) only at length.
Boudicca is the one standing in his path.
It may do Boudicca little good when, on the subject of that body he says only, "Mortals fleeting, yet. It learns it soon or it finds but sorrow. Else it thinks it lives with these? Too soon gone and dust!"
Perhaps it is some consolation that, when she strikes at him out of furious grief, he does not escape her blows.
"His name?" Harmaus chuckles darkly, recovering from Boudicca's raging onslaught. "I knows it not."
Light, luminous and terrible, begins to pulse about Harmaus, there before Boudicca.
"-Accept your fate-," Harmaus intones, in the Ancient Tongue. "Askesis!" Light pulses off the Seraph in a wave, like that thrown off a dying star. It's beautiful.
It's terrible.
The only one it seems to spare is Boudicca.
The light instead gathers about him in a billowing haze...
"Daybreak," Harmaus speaks, and the light, the color of a stormy dawn sun, bursts outwards for her.
GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Billy Lee Black with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Venetia Vuong with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Clarine with Askesis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Daybreak! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has completed his action. GS: Billy Lee Black takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison and Reaper applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Billy Lee Black takes an additional 45 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Clarine guards a hit from Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Poison and Reaper applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Seraph Clarine activates Guard bonus! GS: Seraph Clarine takes an additional 55 damage from Reaper! GS: Marivel Armitage guards a hit from Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Poison and Reaper applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Marivel Armitage takes an additional 45 damage from Reaper! GS: Eleanor Klein fully evades Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein activates Evade bonus! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison and Reaper applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark takes an additional 45 damage from Reaper! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Poison and Reaper applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes an additional 45 damage from Reaper! GS: Venetia Vuong takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Askesis for 0 hit points! GS: Poison and Reaper applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Venetia Vuong takes an additional 45 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Boudicca critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Daybreak for 33 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Gwen points out to Dean that Harmaus is a Seraph. "Oh," Dean says. Pause. "Wait, he is??"
But other known Seraphim, Boudicca and Clarine, are agreeing on this point, and Dean has no reason to disbelieve his friends on this point. He does wonder why Harmaus appears as a cat when others appear as humans, but this is not really the time or place for a lesson in Seraph lore. He'll ask Boudicca about it later, assuming he remembers.
But then she explains it on her own, and his eyes widen at the implications. Harmaus is a Seraph, so he can take a human as his vessel. A vessel that Boudicca... killed... He looks especially stricken at the tears that form at her eyes--and they *are* tears, whatever else one may call them. Tears are Dean's biggest weakness, for he can't stand to see anyone so upset they have to cry. It's that, and the fact that Harmaus doesn't go *splat* when shot, that fully convinces him this is an enemy he needs to take seriously. He rises from his cover, grip tightening around his paired ARMs.
Marivel meanwhile is getting bombed with light. Dean winces to see that too, but she at least is holding together emotionally. "Just wondering! I never met him before is all!" he calls back to her. He turns back towards Harmaus when the cat goes on the offensive, preparing to roll out of the way when he sheds a fearsome aura of light--but where can you go, really, to evade light? It burns into him, through him, and he screams in pain at the burning.
"D-darn it...! He really is no ordinary cat!" he hisses through grit teeth, one eye shut. Gwen was wise to caveat 'if she can help it' when she said she doesn't shoot animals; Harmaus is really not letting them help anything. He charges in towards the feline Seraph with a battle cry, aiming to slam his combat rods into the cat's weak points, make him more vulnerable to follow-up attacks. "I'm not gonna let you keep hurting my friends!!"
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Violence Vice! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper! GS: Dean Stark takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Dean Stark's Violence Vice for 62 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break applied to Seraph Harmaus!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida glances sidelong at Boudicca, and sucks in a breath. The sight of the Seraph's tears alone would be a tremendous blow; what she says is practically a knife in Ida's heart. Boudicca's boundless compassion towards humankind has been a beacon of hope for her in dark times. In helping others--even with the smallest of tasks--she's reminded Ida of just what's at stake, and just who is going to suffer and die if the status quo remains.
Harmaus doesn't even remember the man's hame.
"Wretched mongrel," Ida snarls, and the smoke around her begins to thicken, pulling itself into a tight, dense cloud. Her silhouette vanishes completely, heaving only the gold-flecked gunsmoke shouting judgment upon Harmaus. "Is that it, then?! Your 'Truth', first and foremost, no matter who has to suffer?!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Oh I see," Marivel says mildly in a small background voice. "You're not going to punch a cat you're going to shoot a cat that's much better."
She listens to Harmaus's plans. "Fair enough. The truth of the matter is, Seraph Harmaus, that if you are angry at Althena's lies than we have a great deal in common. If you wish to know why Althena lies, I can answer that for you. If you wish to know what Althena is, I can answer that too. Her connection to you Seraphs, that however is still a mystery to me. It sounded like you didn't believe she was responsible for your creation. If that is true, I am very curious how the Seraphs came to believe otherwise."
"Do you want to know the answers I have Harmaus? I could be tempted to share. But are you certain? You know the saying about cats and curiousity. But we could spare the world a bit of needless torment. Get right down to brass tacks. Fill the food bowl with delicious delicious truths."
Light pulses off Harmaus and she hisses as the radiant light pulses into her, sinking to one knee annd shrouding herself with her robes as best she can. "I know something Seyour cannot possibly know...or anyone willing to speak to thee."
She looks to Dean for a moment. She nods once to him even as smoke billows gradually off her form. She looks to Boudiccaafter.
She looks at the things that she ought not call tears. "..."
"Ng..nggha....!" She forces a hand forward, unnleashing a wave of sharp red lines that attempt to ensnare the Cat-Seraph and dig deep into its hide, like cutting ribbons of blood. "I could even tell you... her favorite snack food, nyeh hehh... They don't make it anymore down here though, geh hehh...!"
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"Then we'll show you greater trouble still!" Eleanor answers Harmaus first.
And then, "Only the mousers at the Academy," Eleanor admits to Venetia. But that beautiful spell goes off, along with Venetia's question. Eleanor backs up and speaks back to her, moving towards the other sorceress's gun if she gets an opportunity to grab it and return it. "I'm confident we can disrupt his magic if we get the chance, between the two of us. But we have to stop him first!"
Even if they could, it wouldn't be wise to release fearful people into what is now a battlefield. Eleanor considers that fact grimly.
"You know something about his plans?" Eleanor asks of Marivel, though she thinks better of it after a moment and shakes her head. "No, if anyone would you would. Be careful!"
"Clarine..." Eleanor looks at Boudicca too, and realization settles into her demeanor. Harmaus's body was a human one--not a projection, but...
It all makes sense. Eleanor has a pang of guilt for her previous treatment of the man who she didn't realize was there. And then... anger.
"...And we will see that faith rewarded, Clarine."
Harmaus proves himself vry dangerous in his movements--her spell is too slow to so much as touch him. But she has no plan of dying here, either. She oesn't understand the Ancient Tongue--but she understands magic as it approaches, and that power comes for Eleanor next. It is beautiful; it is terrible; Eleanor recognizes it. So she ducks down behind the arbor, using it as cover to block the effect of the spell as instead she turns an draws out her firearm. She holds onto it, a near-golden rifle shining in strange colors with the unusual design of the Veruni. She turns and holds it over her cover, aiming towards the too-fast Harmaus. Her slow-building spells won't be enough here. But maybe...
"Reaching truth, is it?" Eleanor asks of him as she crouches lining up her shot. The rifle begins to glow faintly, as she draws upon its essence.
"Truth is a noble pursuit. I'm a scholar; I can appreciate that. ...But you're not noble. You'll see that the power of mortals is far greater than you think!"
She closes one eye, looking down the sight, and squeezes the trigger. A round glowing golden-bright erupts, half-magic, and rockets towards Harmaus's position to explode in a burst of brilliant light.
"We'll stop you!"
GS: Eleanor Klein has activated a Force Action! GS: Formation! Eleanor Klein has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Mystic Shot! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"Then stay back! Support us from, uh, a ridge or something," Venetia shouts to Marivel, even as she scuttles over to reclaim her firearm and the feeling of weighted safety it provides. FALSE THOUGH IT MAY PROVE.
She hears Boudicca speak on Seraphs and her eyes flick towards that shape. "... What, and is this Harmaus then--" She doesn't interrupt further, instead checking that her firearm is loaded as she moves nearer to Eleanor, JUST in time for another wave of light to wash over her. It feels like laying in the sun for an hour -- by Venetia's standards, this is a hostile, painful act, grown in the underdark as she is -- and she lurches, but does not fall.
Not yet. "alright then," Venetia grunts. "This is some kind of a theological point but these ignorant overdwellers laid out like chloroformed tonsil surgery candidates," sometimes Venetia gets away from herself, "are merely the pawns in his deranged cat schemes."
After another moment's of consideration, she holsters the iron.
"I'm not going to shoot Armitage in the back even if she'd probably enjoy it," Venetia continues to say. "If we cannot find the secret of this seraph's madness immediately, then it is not guns but magic that must serve." A different graph this time, and she waits for it...
Waits for it... and at a key moment, in a lull in the 'barrage' aimed towards Harmaus, Venetia says, "Come forth ye pillar of flux - ANCIENT PILLAR--" And the flagstones erupt upwards, metamorphizing into a towering column of crudely circular marble, hopefully directly beneath Harmaus in the midst of an evasion!
GS: Venetia Vuong spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Ancient Pillar! GS: Venetia Vuong takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Venetia Vuong takes 31 damage from Poison! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Eleanor Klein's Mystic Shot for 132 hit points! GS: Delay applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Venetia Vuong's Ancient Pillar for 106 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Bloody Mari! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage takes an additional 25 damage from Reaper! GS: Marivel Armitage takes 18 damage from Poison! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Harmaus is not a cat. He did not possess a cat. He is merely cat-shaped, as their bullets reveal. A dull recognition thuds in Gwen's psyche where dread would be, its call instead answered by anger.
This fire is further stoked as something in Gwen's chest *churns* as Boudicca cries out to Harmaus for the man's name. This was the Seraph who kept an eye on her, once, when she was wounded, despite Gwen not asking anything of the sort.
It just adds to the growing heat in her chest.
"You know what? We don't need you. Eleanor's got the spell she needs to right your mess. But until then, we'll blow off some steam and *shove that truth right back up your--"
The terrible light cuts Gwen's unGwenlike exclamation, a sick lump forming in the pit of her stomach. It's taking away her life.
Gwen darts forward, her right palm out and seeking towards the agile Seraph. Marivel may scoff, but Gwen's making a good effort to slam her hand against Harmaus's body.
The bluff is one the Seraph will likely see through, nut she wants to see Harmaus at least think on it, hopefully when she gets close enough to see the doubt in his eyes. Earth erupts and bullets may ricochet near her, but she seems fully intent on landing her own attack, rather than sync with everyone else's.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Formation! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Special Delivery! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes 19 damage from Poison! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
The mysteries, lies, and secrets of Althena... Clarine has to admit, she wonders about those, too. Wonders that the Goddess truly is up to - why she remains so distant and silent toward her children. A part of her wishes she could ask her directly - and maybe hopes to, someday.
Clarine remains quiet as Boudicca speaks - respectfully quiet, at her sorrow, as she hears what happened to Harmaus's vessel. She wishes she could reassure her somehow, but... it's a heavy weight to bear.
Harmaus speaks, then.%r"You are aware of this! You are aware of this, and yet you still consort with him!" Clarine balks, shaking her head. "If you enact his will, then you are party to his deceit, Harmaus! Party to his crimes! Surely there is a better path to your goal?"
But, this is the path he's chosen, and they'll have to deal with it.
"You have no right to speak of standing with lies, Harmaus, considering your chosen side! If that is your claim, then we are in the darkness both!" She refutes. "My decision - it is no mistake."
Eleanor, at least, seems to agree and Clarine's mood is buoyed a bit, but the situation is no less dire for it. Her decision might not be a mistake, but that doesn't mean it's an easy one to make. A Seraph's form, large or small, is no indication of their power - and Harmaus is certainly powerful.
A beautiful and terrible light begins to radiate from Harmaus. It's overwhelming - it feels like she's going to be drowned out by it, consumed by it. She retreats backward, her remaining mirrors rising to reflect it away from her, but yet more of them are consumed by the effort.
It, at least, gives Clarine enough time to retreat backward. She can still feel the light eating away at her somewhat, but right not the others are her greater concern. She must see to them.
"Root of all creation, grant us the breath of life..." Clarine incants, her arms held out. A seraphic glyph appears beneath her feet... and then, as she continues, it spreads out, encompassing everyone who was touched by Harmaus's light. Revitalize!"
Light shines from the circle - but this one is warm, and comforting. Bringing life and reinvigoration.
As the light fades, one might catch Clarine glances in Marivel's direction. ...She might actually be a little curious about what Althena's favorite snack food is. This is the sort of important theological information you can't learn just anywhere.
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Billy Lee Black with Revitalize! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Marivel Armitage with Revitalize! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Dean Stark with Revitalize! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Revitalize! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Venetia Vuong with Revitalize! GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seraph Clarine takes an additional 35 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Clarine takes 22 damage from Poison! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: Seraph Clarine heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 215 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Poison and Reaper removed! GS: Seraph Clarine heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 215 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Poison and Reaper removed!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida glances sidelong at Boudicca, and sucks in a breath. The sight of the Seraph's tears alone would be a tremendous blow; what she says is practically a knife in Ida's heart. Boudicca's boundless compassion towards humankind has been a beacon of hope for her in dark times. In helping others--even with the smallest of tasks--she's reminded Ida of just what's at stake, and just who is going to suffer and die if the status quo remains.
Harmaus doesn't even remember the man's hame.
"Wretched mongrel," Ida snarls, and the smoke around her begins to thicken, pulling itself into a tight, dense cloud. Her silhouette vanishes completely, heaving only the gold-flecked gunsmoke shouting judgment upon Harmaus. "Is that it, then?! Your 'Truth', first and foremost, no matter who has to suffer?!"
That smoke cloud saves her. Harmaus' searing radiance races across the battlefield, far too swift to dodge. As it strikes the gunsmoke, the cloud starts to lose cohesion, dissipating into the air. Flecks of golden-white rise from it like sparks from a bonfire. Ida can feel the heat of Harmaus' magic on her face; sweat beads on her brow, dripping down in rivulets. That was too close.
The smoke parts. Ida lunges forwards, blurring towards Harmaus as the Seraph throws himself into a dodge. The fingers of her right hand press together, forming a single striking surface as she lashes out at him. Should she make impact, golden-white light will boil off her hand, and infuse Harmaus' corpus with blinding, searing agony.
"This is for him," Ida says, as time slows, and she looks Harmaus in the eyes.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Burning Infusion! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Stoic stance ends. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Bloody Mari for 162 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Special Delivery for 92 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
An Etone indeed, in the concealing habit of a traveling warrior-priest; beneath the wide ribbon he wears, the hooked-cross icon of the Order of Ethos hangs on a necklace. Though, perhaps the fact he's a priest who is STRAPPED is the bigger give away, all things considered.
Harmaus proceeds to survive getting shot repeatedly by himself and others, and any embers of doubt in Billy fade.
"So are we all," he says to Gwen, never looking away from Harmaus. "And yet the peoples' needs seem so terribly similar."
Ida's strike on Harmaus catches his attention. He's familiar, but it's not exactly the time to pursue that irregularity. He has a cat irregularity to deal with.
Relatedly, the cat just shot some more lasers at him. He throws himself to the side this time, but the slender silhouette under all those robes can't quite dodge full-speed light, even the magic kind. He can feel it sapping his strength, and slowly withers down to one knee. "Ngh...." he groans. But though his breath comes weaker, he still turns a hard eye on Harmaus. "You wield Light, perhaps, but your heart is as black as the abyss," he spits. "No morsel of wisdom is worth attacking the innocent!"
Clarine shines her light across them, and it helps with the feeling in his bones. He sucks in a deep breath, and then rushes across the distance toward Harmaus. He fires, alternating guns, twelve shots peppering the cat-spirit with bullets before he gets up close and just...winds back and PUNTS A CAT, aiming to send Harmaus airborne with a shockingly powerful kick.
That's not the ending. He snaps his hand back, reaching behind him to pull something off an unseen back harness - and producing a full-length shotgun off his back, which he whips up, sights up, and fires in a matter of heartbeats.
GS: Formation! Billy Lee Black has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Banfrau! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Seraph Clarine heals Dean Stark! He gains 215 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Poison and Reaper removed!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca's friends can scarcely be blamed for not knowing the details. All she has said on the subject of him is, 'Harmaus is not on our side'. She screamed in her birdcage...
... and she said nothing more.
It's not just in the words she says, what he did and what he failed to do. It's in her abject disgust at his use of the word sacrifices. It's in her narrowed eyes as he supposes the problem solves itself. It's in the way her teeth bare, too, as he bellows his intention to the heavens.
She stands over him, as he chuckles; and yet for all her height, he is the one who towers. Horror falls over her, cold water dousing; it dampens her volume, down to a dismayed whisper. "He died for you."
She cares so much about the man whose death she caused. Incomprehension in her eyes, she can barely conceive of someone who cares not at all. Even the Seraphim who do not care for humans at least dislike them. This is - this is...
She throws up a hand as the light builds, a glyph at her feet as wind swirls around her. The reflexive magic shields her from the worst of ground zero, the scorching light. The Red Sea of his light parts - and then closes in, around the tornado. Bright and bright, engulfing --
-- but not quite consumptive.
She is still standing, when it fades.
"Pray, tell him nothing," Boudicca says, to Marivel, chin tilting as she speaks over her shoulder. "Give him nothing. No shelter and no quarter and no more, Harmaus!" She has found her voice again, as she turns back to him. "You will take no more pound of flesh, no more lives! I tell you, you will have no rest! I will take the truth you cherish and befoul it with a thousand lies! This world is vast and complex, and you will never! Know! Its bones!" She is angry; she is not thinking of what Clarine will think, in this moment. Not of what Ida will think, what Dean will think, what Marivel will think. This is a foreign emotion: vengeance.
Her voice rises to fever pitch, as the wind continues swirling around her. With a sharp gesture it bellows out, and it is not so restrained, this time.
"Hear me, Harmaus! My smoke carries on far winds!"
She looks back, to Dean and Ida, and the emotion is writ rage on her face: "We stoke flame!" Even though Harmaus isn't Malevolent..?
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Buffeting Headwind! GS: Seraph Boudicca assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seraph Clarine heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 215 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Poison and Reaper removed! GS: Seraph Harmaus fully evades Billy Lee Black's Banfrau for 0 hit points! GS: Seraph Harmaus activates Evade bonus! GS: Seraph Harmaus critically guards Seraph Boudicca's Buffeting Headwind for 15 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Burning Infusion for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Disease applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
In spite of the chaos unleashed, the people slumber still, thankfully far enough from the immediate battle that they remain untouched by it. Harmaus' spellwork, at least, is quite accurate: however far the light may flare its nexus -- and its effects -- remains upon those before him.
But then Marivel says she knows about Althena -- she knows what Althena is and why she lies.
And Harmaus, tail half fluffed as if in dire agitation, snarls his response, "Ah? It says it knows Her?! Then it speaks, and it speaks now! If it lies, it dies!" Tail twitching, he just about snaps at her, well into a lather, "I knows it because She lies!! All we were told is lies! It talks! It says its words! I listens and I decides! But it speaks and speaks now!!"
But the combat continues.
When Dean charges him, Harmaus leaps. He's nearly able to escape the attack, too -- Dean's combat rods swipe the Seraph's trailing legs as he somersaults backwards, out of Dean's immediate melee range. He falls into a low crouch then rises to rush across the field.
"Does it? Can it be sure? Or will villagers sleep eternal? Ah," he interjects, in the middle of his response to Gwen, "Perhaps I speaks wrong. Maybe few days left before villagers succumb? Has been days since start of slumber already! Mortal bodies yet frail, frail, things--"
He probably expects Gwen to shoot him or use magics. He doesn't expect her to run him down and slam her hand into him. Caught in the middle of his spiel, he lets out an undignified yelp as her hand connects.
"Glimpse of the Sun!"
And returns the favor with full-force slam at close range of gold-white light.
"It died because it was weak," Harmaus replies to Boudicca, backing away from Gwen. "Must pick stronger vessel next time. Ah, but was desperate after so long searching. Took months and months to find suitable body," he continues, even as Boudicca promises otherwise--
Until Boudicca promises something which he cannot tolerate.
"It would? It would dare?!" he outright hisses, back arched as if he could barely contain his fury. His tail is held upright like a banner of war, and perhaps it's war that he proposes now--
Even as the winds swirl and buffet about him. Here, Harmaus stands firm, perhaps tethered by his rage at what Boudicca promises to do. "-I will unmake you first-," is his reply. "Radiance Shackle!" And it is on taloned limbs that his light reaches out for her, to sieze and hold her against whatever might yet come.
Clarine calls out to him -- another fellow Seraph, and tries to reason with him regarding Seymour. "It matters me not! I treats with Seymour but for moment. Maester Seymour's sins are its own! It nots tars me with them!" He seems defiant, well-intent on evading responsibility for what Seymour might do.
Eleanor, too, tries to argue this point, only to similarly receive denials from the Seraph. "It matters the one seeking is noble? Jaeja," remarks the Seraph to Eleanor, shaking his head the once. "It knows not the scope! The whole of reality is false!" he shouts, and as if to underscore that statement--
"-Cast off that upon which you rely!-" comes the call; the light that suddenly seems to burn and blaze up about Ida, Dean and Clarine is stark white, blindingly so. "Autarkeia!" Should they fail to divert or evade that burning light, it will consume them without mercy.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Into this disarray, Eleanor takes her shot. Harmaus, perhaps his attention fixated on her, sights her. He darts left.
The bullet clips him still. And more importantly, clips the cord about his neck. With a soft jingle, the bell falls to the pavement.
With eyes blazing with sudden wrath, Harmaus regards her afresh. Light, gold-pink, blazes up about him like a flare. "Sudden Dawn!" he cries out, and it bursts out from him like a scything blade.
'No morsel of wisdom is worth attacking the innocent', declares Billy, and the Seraph regards him for but a moment. "This," declares the Seraph, "is why it is limited! Why it fails!"
He dodges, charging through the flurry of shots as Billy unloads, perhaps aiming to close on the Etone. It's safe to say that Harmaus did not expect to get literally punted up into the air, though. ...Which is what happens. Sent skywards, Harmaus twists in the air like a champion gymnast; the shot that follows goes well wide.
But Billy may get his satisfaction when Venetia's stone pillar slams into the evasive feline Seraph, catapulting him a short distance across the field. He rises, if delayed but a moment, shaking off that attack.
"Yes," is the response to Ida. "Yes. Only truth matters," he says. "All else, worthless."
Ida's response to that is to lunge for him, and it is a brilliant burning light that overtakes and overwhelms him from her connecting palm; it is a burning light that clings to him still as he bursts away from her, darting across the plaza a short distance. But there is no rest for the wicked: red light flares, running outwards in a sharp-edged net for the Seraph; while he attempts to slip its grasp, it proves the faster. It catches him and for a moment he's held fast. But thrashing, he pulls his way free from Marivel's spell.
And when he does he is blazing with light.
"-Be counted, divided, excluded!-" declares the Seraph, single motes of light akin to small burning suns blazing into existence about him. They all hover in the air for but a moment. "Adiaphora!" At that final word for the arte, they're sent screaming like an array of meteors for Marivel, Billy, and Venetia, exploding into caustic fire should they hit.
GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Glimpse Of The Sun! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Radiance Shackle! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Autarkeia! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Clarine with Autarkeia! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with Autarkeia! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Sudden Dawn! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with Adiaphora! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Venetia Vuong with Adiaphora! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Billy Lee Black with Adiaphora! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Delay expired! GS: Seraph Harmaus has completed his action. GS: Marivel Armitage critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Adiaphora for 0 hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Clarine heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 215 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Poison and Reaper removed! GS: Billy Lee Black critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Adiaphora for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein critically guards Seraph Harmaus's Sudden Dawn for 32 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Autarkeia for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Riposte removed! GS: Poison applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Adiaphora for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Venetia Vuong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Seraph Harmaus's Autarkeia for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Cover removed! GS: Poison applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Clarine guards a hit from Seraph Harmaus's Autarkeia for 0 hit points! GS: Dispel! Shield removed! GS: Poison applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Seraph Clarine takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Radiance Shackle for 93 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Seraph Harmaus's Glimpse Of The Sun for 123 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Don't give him what he wants," Ida says, teeth bared, as she turns to Marivel. Her eyes narrow as she turns to Harmaus. "You bloody monster," she says, her anger once again sharpening to a deadly edge. "So your goddess lied to you. She hurt you. And you, being the enlightened soul you are, have decided to tear this world apart until you find the truth, and salve your wounded soul. That's a new one, I admit." Ida's hand darts behind her back as she speaks, palming something with the rough dimensions of a tin can. It might be one; Harmaus' light gleams off something metal before she clasps the whatever-it-is in both hands.
Harmaus snarls something to Boudicca. Ida doesn't understand the words, but the intent behind them is unmistakable. "BOUDICCA!" she shouts, and she turns. But Boudicca's given her the signal, hasn't she? Ida had already started to prepare.
Harmaus' light slams into her, and God, it burns. Pure white smoke boils off Ida's body as the lingering threads of the gunsmoke cloud burn away. Ida bites back a scream of agony, determined not to let Harmaus hear her pain even though every inch of her is on fire. Her body doubles over, and she clasps the whatever-it-is tightly, as if shielding it from Harmaus' magics at the cost of her flesh.
The pain begins to fade, and with it, the spots in Ida's vision. She catches sight of Harmaus, and unclasps her hands. A metal canister sits in her hands, gleaming. It's got a seam down the middle, as if it were two halves pushed together--and a length of cotton wick dangles from one end. "Your turn," Ida says. She lights the flare grenade, and throws it fastball-style at the Seraph.
The fuse burns. The gunpowder cooks off first, popping both halves of the canister apart with a thunderous BOOM. The magnesium ignites, and it burns with a brilliant, blinding white. The latter might merely be inconvenient to a being whose nature is elemental Light. The former, though, might be murder on those sensitive cat ears.
"BOUDICCA! DEAN! NOW!" Ida roars.
GS: Formation! Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Flare Grenade! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Flare Grenade for 0 hit points! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Slow applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy does successfully punt a cat, but he can't quite link the followup. He grunts, slinging the shotgun back into its harness under his habit. Harmaus' obvious fury at their different morals doesn't ruffle him. Billy, after all, is a servant of God. No deranged spirit can rankle that faith.
He spends a few precious seconds reloading his gunsmokes, which means he's still stuffing them back in their leathers when Harmaus chants again. He doesn't move, this time. He simply claims a knee and prays, hands folded, eyes shut.
The blast of meteoric fury lenses off him and around him, a thin layer of his own light shining out to protect him - but no, not Billy's light, but rather a miraculous, soft white glow, like the color of God's presence in a painting. He breathes in fervent prayer. Much of it is difficult to make out, personal speech between himself and his God.
But the effect is not personal. It blooms out and away from him, enveloping those nearby in a protective warmth that wards off wicked magic. "...that we may send this creature of evil to your side, where they may find peace and healing in your Light. Aid me to return them to dust," he breathes, and the light blazes once before fading into a flickering shield of protective magic.
He stands again, protected, drawing his guns.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Billy Lee Black with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Eleanor Klein with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Marivel Armitage with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Billy Lee Black heals Seraph Boudicca! She gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean gawks at Boudicca when she declares that she'll defile the truths of this world with a thousand lies, seemingly just to spite Harmaus. While he gets how angry she must be about what he did to his vessel--about what he made her do in his carelessness--that hardly feels right, either. "Boudicca! You don't mean that, you're just angry!" he calls to her, automatically giving his friend the benefit of the doubt. "Just because a scummy jerk like him wants the truth doesn't make the truth bad! Don't forget that!"
A warm light spreads out then, consuming Dean--but not as Harmaus's had; this is warm and soothing, like a hug from an old-time friend. Dean turns to see its source, and gives Clarine a warm smile and a wave of gratitude. "Thanks for the help!" he calls, feeling her power balance out and restore the damage from Harmaus's own. He nods back at Marivel, then focuses back on a very naughty kitty.
Harmaus, being a naughty kitty, naturally responds to Clarine healing and soothing those present by searing a new, damaging light into them. Dean shields his eyes with one arm in an attempt to protect himself, but light doesn't need to be seen to do harm(aus); it burns anew, seeking old wounds and reopening them without mercy. "Guh," he utters, staggering a step.
Then Boudicca shouts of smoke and winds; looks to him and Ida and declares they stoke flame. Harmaus might not be Malevolent, but perhaps some purification is what he needs all the same. Dean nods sharply to her, and leaps forward as Ida lights a grenade and *chucks* it at Harmaus. "Ready to go, Ida!!" He doesn't try to bridge the gap between him and Harmaus; instead, he whips his paired ARMS through the air, forming a cross of flame. "Let's combine our power, Boudicca!" he calls as he moves. When he charges power in his gun and fires into it, the earthly constellation bursts into flame and soars like a phoenix towards Harmaus. "GO, BIRD, GO!"
It's the move he learned a while back while training as a newly forged Seer of Moor Gault. Perhaps if it combines with Boudicca's sorcery and Ida's weaponry, it'll create a brand-new move...?!
GS: Formation! Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Key to the Heart's Ignition! GS: Recover! Poison removed from Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Key to the Heart's Ignition for 237 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Next time, Harmaus says.
Next time.
Another nameless man, taken from his family and home. Another allowed to die. Another - another --
Is it any wonder Boudicca is so angry?
Is it any wonder she goes for the throat?
Unblinking she matches his gaze; she dares -- and when she hears those ancient words, she does not flinch or run away.
She leaps forward, grasps those talons with her own gauntlet-clad hands, and she is shackled and there is a horrible sensation that she is right where she intends to be. "I dare," she answers him, all anger - she will be angry for them, she will not let another fall.
"-You're a bad man. I don't like you, so I won't stop until you feel it.-" The words are too old to have meaning, for most of the ears listening; but there is meaning which transcends meaning. The timbre of those words are girlish and young, entirely unlike the years her voice usually wears. They are halting and unsure, like she isn't quite certain of where she's putting her feet. The words are shaped small, without complexity.
She grasps the light tightly. Do not ask how she does. Light ought not to have form, and yet here it clings.
Here it is bound to her.
... to Boudicca, the pyre.
Because air feeds fire; it is their elemental truth. She cleaves to heat, her oxygen raising the flames high. One hand lifts, and her thumb glides over her finger, flint to steel, click.
The orange of her cloak is not fabric. They are embers and they burn. Her silk smokes, and she burns.
"You sorry, despicable creature," she says, and there's little pity in her words. "You claim the truth is all which matters, and yet you could not even find the truth of the man you stole. You understand nothing. You will never understand --"
Ida is worried about Boudicca; she feels it in what she calls her bones. But it's Dean who interrupts her, and her eyes squeeze shut, as she takes a deep breath. "No... you are right," she admits, tempering her fever-rage as she speaks to him instead. "It is unlike me... this anger. I say much without kindness, now."
She opens her eyes, flexing her grip. "Even so... I cannot allow Harmaus to continue harming humanity. Ere I listened, ere I allowed. If he must walk this path, I must stop him. Perhaps he does not threaten the world..."
Her gaze drops down, to one of the sleeping villagers. "... but the world is made of people. People without name or notoriety. Though their villages go without focus and their lives pass unassuming, they still possess names and deeds and dreams and love. To me, they are the world."
She looks back, to Harmaus.
She does not reach out.
Not to him.
Rather she stokes the flames like bellows and they roar, wheeling out to meet Ida's canisters, to shroud Dean's ARMs. So, too, do they eat into the grasping tendrils Harmaus binds her with.
Light cannot burn, of course. But air - air fuels the flame. Fuels it and sends it up, sends it through, all the way to the source.
"Witness the conflation of two halves! Join together, stand firm! Key to the Heart's Ignition!"
GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action! GS: Formation! Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Key to the Heart's Ignition! GS: Entangle expired! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Key to the Heart's Ignition for 200 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Perhaps Harmaus can destroy Marivel. He is essentially the worst opponent for her to fight barring maybe entities on the scale of Lord BLazer. It certainly won't be pleasant for her either way. It already isn't pleasant. All this light gives Marivel little refuge. She wheezes out some smoke but shortly after those meteors slam innto her and send her sprawling onto her back. Venetia said she should support from the rear. She's a kind woman, Marivel thinks, with a caustic tongue. One of her favorite classes of people. She slowly summons Guillotine into her handn and shifts it into the form of a staff, leaning onto it as she pushes herself up, presses against the all encompassing light that threatens to extinguish her darkness and leave little avenue for her spirit to escape. Flakes of skin shed from Marivel's body. Her wrists skeletize from where the light slinks in past her gloves. Her eyes are on fire.
But she can still hear Boudicca asks her to give her nothing. To feed the world full of lies.
Marivel thinks of her conversation with White Knight Leo.
She thinks of her vow to lie until the lies become true. To create a deceitful world where none need be sacrificed, too fight for that world until it is reality. To think Marivel simply despises violent death is not quite right. To think that tis but the act of sacrifice itself that guides her pain and desperation--that is closer, but it is more than this.
She has seen the world tree that blooms from bloody seeds and she finds it wanting.
The world can be better than this. It must be better than this. And if it cannot, she willscream out her defiance against this truth until it drowns the truth out.
She hears Harmaus's demands. She approaches Boudicca and slowly raises a skeletal limb, the construction of bone providing meager protection against this light--and she rests it on Boudicca's shoulder. Even Ida insists she keep quiet.
"You carry Love's blade well." She says.
"What happened is not your fault."
And she pulls her hand free after and she takes another step forward. No matter who tells her to be quiet, Marivel does what Marivel does. As she has always done.
"Alright." She says. "I'll tell you, Seraph Harmaus. But first I will provide my credentials so you know I am the authority I claim to be."
She walks past Boudicca towards Harmaus, towards the sun before her.
"Althena was my mentor. She guided a party of heroes as, by accounts, she continued to have done for quite some time on Lunar but we fought with here ere your heroes, ere your miracles."
She walks into the sun.
"She was a beautiful singer. The greatest I've ever known. Her songs were a miracle. She gave me my voice. But she was more than a songstress. More than a goddess. Something greater than deity or musician."
One more step. Closer, closer to the sun. The sun of a cat's eye.
"Now I will tell you why she lies. She lies because sometimes a lie is more useful than the truth. She lies because that is what she does. She lies out of desperation, out of kindness, out of cruelty."
"And as for what Althena truly is..."
She extends a hand. "...I'll never tell you because you made one of my dearest friends cry and laughed about it. Fuck you and live eternally in ignorance. Enjoy that little morsel of truth and starve eternally having tasted it!!"
Her eyes flare crimson against the sun as darkness bursts out of her in an explosion of night. Starts can be glimpsed within that dark expanse as the Demonangle expands out from her, threatening to consume Harmaus whole. Within that night shines Clarine and Billy's aid, magicks that kept Marivel moving against a tide of light that ought to have destroyed her.
"Never!! EVERR!! EEEEVEEEERR!!" Marivel cackles like a shrieking beast, her form, the abyss bursting out of her making an eclipse out of the light.
GS: Marivel Armitage has activated a Force Action! GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Walking Into The Sun! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Marivel Armitage's attack becomes clear! GS: Seraph Harmaus fully evades Marivel Armitage's Red Power for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus activates Evade bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Clarine listens to Boudicca's vengeful fury. What does Clarine think? Well, Clarine is no stranger to such fury, herself - she certainly doesn't judge her for it.
Sometimes, such fury is necessary - warranted, even.
Harmaus denies her accusations, and Clarine frowns.
"And yet you would attempt the same for my alliance with mortals! Spiteful Harmaus! Do you care only for the convenient truths, that align with how you've decided the world is?" Clarine replies, incensed.
Harmaus incants, and suddenly the light blazes about her once more. A harsh, consuming light. It's too much for her mirrors to fully divert. Were she mortal, she would no doubt be blinded by now - but at least as a Light Seraph, she still has the mercy of sight.
She returns Dean's thanks with a nod, but her attention focuses primarily on Harmaus. He's fast - it might be best to halt his movements.
"O Brilliance, reveal your destruction... Photon!" Clarine incants. At her command, bands of golden, runic light begin to encircle Harmaus. They follow his movements, and within a light begins to build. Eventually, the bands lock into place everything caught within them - potentially at an inopportune moment - as the light detonates.
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Photon! GS: Seraph Clarine takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Clarine takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Break and Slow expired! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor has never had to deal much with the Church of Althena, compared to many of the others; she didn't go to the other side of Lunar when they all did, was still performing her research around that time, in theory. It isn't personal in the same way.
But it's true that she can't be certain she has the right spell, though she believes so. "But would you lie about that?" she wonders of Harmaus.
The whole of reality, though? "The method matters just as the purpose does," Eleanor answers Harmaus. "They aren't as separate as you seem to think"
But a spell comes again--Eleanor takes her shot, and Harmaus retaliates. When his light bursts forward, Eleanor takes up the rifle in both hands and uses it to block, crossed before herself. The blow still knocks her backward, foot and knee scraping across the ground and overturning earth as she's forced back. "I think I know reality better than a madman," she says.
She is not especially religious, truth be told. But she can respect Billy's faith--and the prayer that imbues her with power. The protective warmth settles onto her, and she realizes--it may yet empower her magic, too. "I'll help, Brother," Eleanor says, and checks over her rifle, examining it quickly to ensure it isn't too amaged. Ida's big explosion gives hr cover to get up; she's burned in places from the light, her fair skin susceptible, but doesn't let it stop her yet. She rises stepping towards him with her weapon in both hands, reloading. "Truth will never reveal itself in full to someone like you," the sorceress starts. "I've bled for that truth before, to uncover the secrets of the past. I've seen death for it. And now, I know what I see."
Nothing sparkles around Eleanor; no grand light announces a spell. But she looks with utter certainty at her foe.
"And I know that we don't die here today."
Eleanor breathes in, and understands the moment--she turns her weapon upward, adopting a sideways stance for better stability. She predicts--not where Harmaus is, but where he will be, though she can only shoot so quickly. But shoot she does--
Eleanor squeezes her trigger again and again, firing off three shots in short succession.
"But the day's still young for you!"
GS: Eleanor Klein spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Eleanor Klein with Foresight! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein has launched an attack Link! GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Eleanor Klein's Foresight for 0 hit points! GS: Lock State applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Eleanor Klein spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Abundance! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Harmaus attempts to needle in on that potential point of anxiety, pointing out just how vague his set timeline is, as well as how dire the villagers' situation may be. It's interrupted by her fist.
He responds with a painful explosion of brilliant force.
Gwen's body is ejected from the sheer force of the globe of light, thudding noisily against the side of a house, where she stays, for the moment, but not for lack of trying, as her body twitches, attempting to stand.
Clarine's healing touch invigorates the courier's steaming body, rousing and drawing her back up to give that muchly needed last word. ".... We got... ways of supporting comatose people, Harmaus," Gwen says, with a confident (if panting) open-mouthed smile. She rises halfway, her voice gaining in volume. "Once we deal with you, we'll cart these folk to a place where they'll get treatment."
She stands, then straightens, by now seemingly unaffected by the previous blast, despite how violently she was thrown back. "Humanity grows beyond its physical limits. You should've figured out that much when you borrowed that poor soul's body, and lived among us."
Don't give him information? Gwen will give him just enough. "Or maybe you just weren't sharp enough to notice something so simple, right in front of your face? There's your *truth*!"
Look this way, Harmaus. Gwen wants it. She wants your fury, your anger, your attention. She wants to see that face--
Gwen's right arm is by now fully extended, held in a rigid line that she supports with her left arm.
She wants to see Harmaus look in her direction, as she fires a bright shot right at the feline Seraph's hopefully furious face.
Then, that loud BOOM sounds from Ida's efforts, drawing Gwen's attention, flinching from the loud blast. She recovers, rubbing her eyes, just in time to see the three form their attack, which draws a laugh of admiration from her.
"go go GO!" Gwen yells, encouraging them on.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Corona Discharge! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
This is a battle of ancients. Venetia can tell, even if the outlines of what Harmaus is saying become clearer to her. This is ultimately an academic argument! Well, Venetia thinks to herself, that's wonderful. That and five gella will buy me a can of chopped loaf and a stick to eat it with.
Harmaus is seeking some sort of truth and will spend blood to get it; Marivel, of course, objects; the other Seraphs...
As she reaches again for her pistol Venetia feels a xenophobic clench at the base of her neck. A sensation of frustration at powers and principalities. In a silent interior geometry there is a swirling pivot point, one that sweeps near a solution that might, barely, be feasible at a bloody and cruel --
-- but --
-- and yet, Venetia thinks as she feels a gentler light from Clarine, and remembers Marivel's words. And yet they are not --
No, Venetia thinks even as Harmaus gathers his spells again. No, that is not the solution. To seal, to wreck, to destroy. Is that how they all kept getting into this mess? Will *I*, Venetia thinks as she exhales, fall into this same trap as the ancients? Say it, Venetia, she tells herself:
"No," she mutters aloud, probably for Eleanor to hear it.
She winces from fire. From burst. From scream. And she gets out her rod of office and does something with it as she crouches near Eleanor for a moment. "I think I just had a major bloody realization, Klein, I have to tell you about it later. That damn cat's just making a mistake everyone else makes, isn't he. Because..."
Venetia ties the stray red cord and binds the Crest Graph to the head of the rod. "... I don't know; but I think I figured something out. This has a formal disputation beat, doesn't it? If only there wasn't any attempted homicide."
"BE SCOURGED, YOU MISERABLE HAINT!" Venetia abruptly shouts as she puts one hand on Eleanor's back and, thankfully in between volleys, LEAPS over the other woman, striding forwards into the bombardment as she raises up the improvised Graph mount. "I've got your range, half-portion! NOW DIE! Faceter!"
The stream of jagged half-jewel stones erupts outwards; turquoise darts and agate flechettes ripping outwards. The gathered eruption of ley is drawn upwards, pushed out; propelled, like some sort of veritable firehose connected to a LIVING DIMENSION OF SCREAMING HIGH PRESSURE ROCK TUMBLER REJECTS, oriented directly into the erupting maw of the barrage coming towards Venetia! Perhaps two stones in five vaporize entirely, the boiling backwash of "basically distorted quartz" against "immanent light" throwing featherlight scorches all over Venetia, who nonetheless stares down the little decoration atop the ornamented rod.
"Armitage! I can see your skeleton! Stop it!" Venetia shouts into this indescribable localized cacophony, heretofore in this area unseen outside of ancient volcanic or meteoric eruptions.
GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action! GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action! GS: Venetia Vuong spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Faceter! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a glancing hit from Seraph Clarine's Photon for 44 hit points! GS: Entangle applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Seraph Harmaus guards a hit from Eleanor Klein's Abundance for 109 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Corona Discharge for 241 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Venetia Vuong's Faceter for 133 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"It thinks wrongly! Minding method means no progress!" is his snapped reply at Eleanor's attempt to argue ethics with him.
It seems that Harmaus was attempting to needle Billy in some fashion, as well as he can attempt such on a man he's only just met. If anything, Billy's non-response on the subject is the greatest response he could have given to set the Seraph's hair on end--
Well, this side of a promised assault on the truth of the world itself. Even Billy's response falls to the wayside as Harmaus fixates on Boudicca; he is -- for the moment -- given the space to say his prayers.
If Harmaus notes the fact that Boudicca's allies -- well, Dean at least -- are aghast at her promise to him, he makes no outward note of it.
Perhaps he is too consumed by his fury on the subject of the truth, defiled, to consider otherwise.
To Boudicca his reply in turn to her is a simple one. "-Then I must destroy you.-"
"What truth lies in mortal flesh?" Harmaus continues to say to Boudicca, switching into the common tongue. "It lives! It dies. What truth lies in what so short lives?"
It's on this front that Clarine takes him to task. "The ends justify it! My goal is bigger than it comprehends!" he snarls back at her, even before she returns a form of light back upon him, pure-white and glimmering. He ducks left, as if to evade it; it still catches him along the side as it glints past, slows him that just-perceptible amount.
It's enough. Gwen, having had well enough of him, takes advantage of that moment. "What use is existence that dies!?" he spits back at her, and between Clarine's having slowed him and between the time he takes to reply to her... Gwen has already raised her arm.
Does he know what sort of light she is able to hold in that hand? Perhaps he'll now appreciate it, as it detonates, bright and burning, right into his face.
There is a small crater left from the place where he is flung. He's still in the process of crawling out of that hole when Venetia thrusts that rod in his direction and makes that declaration--
Still rattled from Gwen's assault, it could be safely said that 'the cat never stood a goddamn chance'. He's on the receiving end of a barrage of rocks and assorted earthen debris of painful intent, and let it also be said that he doesn't like it at all.
Breathing hard, Harmaus limps but for a moment before something about his corpus resolves and he is able to start forward in a more normal fashion. Here, again, Eleanor tries to argue with him--
"Ah? It says it knows? It knows truth? It knows the future? Liar!" he snarls, light burning about him--
But this time only as a shield as Eleanor lets loose with her ARM. The bullets this time don't touch him but the effort seems to exhaust him in the process.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"It speaks as it pleases," Harmaus responds to Ida, flicking his tail irritatedly the once. "I will stay the course! I will have truth!" Even after everyone attempting to argue with him, he won't back down.
Ida's response in turn to that, once the light has well and truly faded, comes in the form of a thrown grenade. Perhaps the light might mean little to a Seraph embodying that element.
But the sound, as Ida suspects, is a different matter. Harmaus recoils, ears flattened, and ducks away from that point where it had landed.
This gives Dean the opening he needs. ARMs ablaze, he takes a shot at the disoriented Seraph, the phoenix only growing in strength as it seems to race towards Harmaus.
This gives Boudicca the opening she needs. Wind fuels the fire, permitting it to grow and burn bright by the time it reaches Harmaus. It consumes him: there is a pillar of fire. Only when the light and heat fade can Harmaus again be seen, tail drooping in the wake of that terrible assault.
Teeth bared, light burning bright about him, perhaps it is only Marivel's intercession that keeps Harmaus from lunging at Boudicca, his fury almost palpable. Because Marivel says she will tell him. She begins to tell him.
"..." The Seraph is for a time silent, gaze suspicious as it lingers upon her. As Marivel tells him many things about Althena.
"Her songs... I hears them not," utters the Seraph, and for a single tense moment, one might even think him placated. Until Marivel tells him why Althena lies -- here his fur begins to stand on end -- and then tells him--%R
that she'll never tell him the truth about Althena. Never, ever, ever.
His fury may be a palpable thing at this point. But here, he doesn't scream or hiss or lunge at her. Instead, his response is almost a quiet one, by contrast to before.
"-...Untroubled by insignificant things, your heart is steady-," murmurs the Seraph in the Ancient Tongue. "Ataraxia!" The light that blossoms about him is blue and soothing, glittering softly as it falls about him and strengthens his form.
Even as the dark expanse of that magic of hers erupts outwards at him and he follows it at an angle, nearly twisting about after it as he ducks under the darkness, still gleaming blue. He lands behind her, his aura blazing with white light as if to banish what remains of her darkness.
"-Do you think that you truly understand the nature of the world?-"
It's a simple statement, in the Ancient Tongue. "-To understand, one must begin with the fundamentals. ...Behold.-" declares the Seraph, to Marivel, perhaps one of the few here who might understand what it is that he's saying to her.
As the light about him swarms forward to engulf her.
In the beginning, there was nothing.
And then there was light.
"Katalepsis!"
They are caught, or so it seems, in that self-same crucible of the cosmos, the center of light, heat, and unrelenting pain. But the light continues to burn and build about them, gathering in an ever-increasing coil of light and light and light.
"-Return to the origin, you debased forms!-" shouts Harmaus to the world about him. "Apocatastasis!"
And the world about him is bathed in beautiful prismatic soul-searing light.
GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Ataraxia! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 2 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus accepts Seraph Harmaus's Ataraxia for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Disease, Entangle, and Slow removed! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Mighty applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Marivel Armitage with Katalepsis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus has launched an attack Link! GS: Seraph Harmaus spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Dean Stark with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Billy Lee Black with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Seraph Clarine with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Venetia Vuong with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Apocatastasis! GS: Seraph Harmaus has gained 2 Combo! GS: You have finished a Link/Follow chain. Remember to +round! GS: Seraph Harmaus has completed his action. GS: Seraph Clarine takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Seraph Clarine takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Billy Lee Black heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 110 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Billy Lee Black takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Venetia Vuong takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Venetia Vuong! GS: Eleanor Klein takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Dean Stark takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Guard bonus! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Katalepsis for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca takes a glancing hit from Seraph Harmaus's Apocatastasis for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex and Poison applied to Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
No? Eleanor blinks as Venetia speaks her own answer aloud, surprised for a moment but now listening to her more actively. "You--" She nods quickly. "yes, do tell but.." She hears it, and it makes sense, immediately. "It does, doesn't it?" she asks of the other sorceress, and then finds herself jumped over as Venetia leaps forward. She watches that spell rocket ahead though as she keeps firing--
She can't really say anything to a flat 'you're wrong', either, except for these gunshots. She listens thuogh, as Harmaus speaks--
He calls her a liar, and she smirks at him, something in her yellow eyes. That smirk is the only answer she gives, a certainty in it that does not stop to think that revealing this truth if it is believed is dangerous n its own way.
Marivel goes very Marivel abuot it and Eleanor looks to her--Light and light and light though, it all burns so brightly, and Eleanor throws up an arm to shield her eyes yet still burns from it. There's a weakness to it that settles around her, and Eleanor's vision remains blacked out for the moment. Her rounds spent, she stows the rifle again and starts to rise to her feet in the process. "Nn..."
"Vuong!" Eleanor calls then. "If he wants to defend his ideas..."
"I've heard a lot of hot air before!" Eleanor pulls a golden Crest, this one inscribed with Wing in its twinned form. " Light gathers around her, three colors swirling around in sparkles, red blue and green. "Wind that bears all voices, hear my call!"
Eleanor points forward with the Crest, "Fall upon the unworthy! Mistral Judgment!"
From the northwest the first gale comes, then others around, whirling until they're a cyclone that crashes towards Harmaus's form, touching with age as much as battering force.
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Mistral Judgment! GS: Eleanor Klein takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's face twists in a smile of grim satisfaction as Dean and Boudicca burn Harmaus on his own private pyre. The smile fades, though, as Marivel starts to talk. "Marivel--" Ida says, but her anger gives way to horror as she sees what Harmaus' light has done. She's seen Marivel survive worse injuries, but those weren't inflicted by light. What is--
Oh. Oh, that is cold. That is how you twist the knife.
Of course, this does nothing for Harmaus' anger. Ida's eyes widen; adrenaline surges through her as Harmaus once again calls out in the Ancient Tongue. She clamps her eyes shut, covers her head with her arms, and looks away. It's not enough. A flash that puts her flare grenade to shame erupts from around him, and despite all Ida's defensive measures, the light gets through. It tears through her eyelids like they're not even there, sets her skin on fire again. Hyadean tissue erupts from her skin, only to be flash-boiled before it can so much as form a proper under-layer for her exoskeleton.
Clarine's light, Ida has noted, is typically soft and gentle. This is nothing like it. This is a scouring, devastating light, a light that pours through everything, witnessing the world even as it strips it apart. "MARIVEL!" Ida screams. Her own voice sounds distant. She can barely hear her own labored breaths.
Reality fades back into place. The pain remains, but the world is still there. Ida lowers her arms, and sags; every inch of exposed skin is reddened, and a faint, glowing aura clings to her. It isn't hers. Her clothes look sun-bleached, and a lock of hair across her right temple has turned stark white. The color has drained from her eyes, revealing the blood vessels within her irises--crimson threaded through with Quicksilver.
"Y--you," Ida chokes out. Her aura ignites around her, crackling against the lingering taint of Harmaus' sorcery. The pale gold condenses first, followed by the inner core of flame. Ida breathes in, and sucks the lifeforce of the world into her lungs. She whips Devil's Due from its holster once again, and focuses on the feline Seraph before her. A mandala of light traces itself out around her feet, all abstract symbols instead of the Granasian glyphs this technique typically invokes.
"Burn," Ida says. She becomes a conduit. Primeval fire flows through her, erupting from Devil's Due in a brilliant conflagration--all the colors of flame, twisting into a winged shape as they bear down on Harmaus.
The effigy of Moor Gault, Guardian of Fire, lets out a keening shriek of righteous rage, and throws itself at Harmaus. It erupts in a blinding, consuming explosion. Ida grits her teeth, but forces herself to look.
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 4 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Breath Of The Fire Dragon! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 29 damage from Poison! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus guards a hit from Eleanor Klein's Mistral Judgment for 98 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Harmaus guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Breath Of The Fire Dragon for 106 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Seraph Harmaus!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Moments later, the pain starts to die down as a less all-searing light settles into her. Ida blinks, glancing about for the source before her eyes settle on Billy.
There's going to be an awkward conversation about all this, she thinks, isn't there.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy might just manage a smile as Harmaus visibly bristles at his quiet dignity in the face of a screaming maniac of a cat.
Well, though it falters when Boudicca makes some, uh, RATHER BOLD declarations, and even Billy looks at the armored woman with some shock. He recognizes the kind of stomach-burning hate that makes a person say something so dire. He should speak with her later, he decides. For counseling. Ah, a priest's work is never done. Is this how the old missionaries felt--oh right, murderous cat.
Harmaus' blast of light crashes against him, his own shields not quite tuned to block that kind of fire. He curses low, scrubbing at his eyes to lessen the harm. He remains bent that way for some seconds, but after a time, he rises up. "Your tragedies excuse nothing," he says, slipping one of his handguns into hand. With the other...he flicks a coin into the air. Marivel has seen this trick.
"Become dust again, and trouble the innocent no more."
He levels the gunsmoke at Harmaus, unafraid to aim even as he focuses very intently on the cat-spirit's body.
When the coin tumbles into the intersection between the gun and Harmaus, he fires, shooting precisely through the center of the coin - and also, of Harmaus.
GS: Billy Lee Black spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Adam's Apple! GS: Billy Lee Black takes 22 damage from Poison! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Billy Lee Black's Adam's Apple for 142 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Harmaus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Quick applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"All truth is held in mortal hearts," is Boudicca's response.
"-... since you don't even know that, I don't think we'll ever get along.-"
Past and present weave together; there is some sadness to her ancient words, but they're not a disagreement, after all.
Maybe Harmaus and Boudicca can't coexist.
Maybe it's one or the other.
Even if it's him - she's still sad.
Not even Ragnell was...
"I will cry for you," Boudicca assures him, "once I have cried for every mortal soul you crush. Not one moment before. Not one soul before. I promise you that."
It's a heavy promise. Boudicca feels deeply, even across the aisle. So often she offers her enemies the same rejuvenation she offers her friends. And yet...
... the one time she didn't...
... he let him die.
It is belatedly that Boudicca's hand reaches up, to her shoulder. Too late to meet the skeleton there. "Oh, Marivel..." Like Dean, she speaks sense to pain, though the two of them strike different drums. ... Billy isn't wrong to think what he does, not really.
And as she witnesses her acts, a laugh bites from her, short and barking. "You," she is struck with realisation, "are a terrible influence." The words are only half the story: the other half is the gratitude with which they are delivered.
(It's true, though. Boudicca learned how to twist the knife from Marivel, and maybe that's why it was harsh enough to shock Dean.)
It is succour short-lived.
"Marivel --"
Each syllable a little less distinct, a little more washed out, as Boudicca's features are consumed by light. Light reflecting from her helm; light reflecting from her eyes. Light which washes her lips to the tone of her skin. Light which washes her hair to the tone of her steel. Light.
That's what Seraphim are, more or less. When they break down to their simplest form, when they don't affect humanity or possess some object or another. A ribbon flutters; it is all sound. There's nothing to see but the brightness.
Even as the light fades, remembered only in stars which remain in the eyes, like staring into a flash, like staring into the sun. There's a ribbon in the air, tossed in the eddies.
But the air is not undefended. There was a prayer. Boudicca may not be the best angel available, but Billy's faith fell on her regardless.
Remember that.
And listen, as Eleanor calls out. Her spell now receives a response, as the breeze blows past her, entirely independent of her spell. "I hear you," it says, because the wind is Boudicca, and the wind is with Boudicca.
The ribbon catches on woman, sparkling into existence, a mane of hair which weaves to twinned braids. She is in the air - she is coming down. The wind comes with her, a glyph on the ground, faster and faster until it is a gale --
Crashing down on Harmaus.
"Did I not tell you? We did not come to offer you the lives of our fellows!"
GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Howling Gale! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes 16 damage from Poison! GS: Seraph Boudicca gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Boudicca combines the force of Ida's explosives with the might of Dean's ARMs to create a new power that blazes forth into Harmaus and sends a wave of heartening, purifying heat in its wake, little flames that eat away the hateful light and change it to something pure and clean. The purifying power of Moor Gault's flames...
Of course, like two minutes later Harmaus hurls another round of searing rainbow light on everyone and sears them painfully YET AGAIN, but it's the thought that counts.
"Really...? You were a student of Althena's?" Dean says in wonder, staring at Marivel with round eyes. He's not a faithful of Althena's and has no stake in the religion, but he's made friends with many members of the Guard and knows how much devastation they've caused in their war against Yevon, so hearing more about the supposed Goddess can't help but pique his interest. Of course, then Marivel essentially tells Harmaus to suck an egg, then laughs in his face, sooooo that might be a conversation for later, too.
Regardless: "You're still up...?! You're one tough cat!" Dean hisses once the searing prismatic light dies down. "But we're not giving up, either!! You're gonna leave here feeling... meowserable!!"
Oh yeah. He went there.
Still, what's a daring young Drifter to do after even the power of Moor Gault isn't enough to take out this feisty feline? But then, just because he and Boudicca combined their strength to use a new move doesn't mean he's got nothing left in the tank. This time, it'll be just his own power, brought down on Harmaus, because his friends are seriously getting a beating (MARIVEL YOU ARE GIVING DEAN A WORRY) and this needs to end.
And so: Dean takes but a moment to reload his ARMs, because he'll need every bullet he's got. Once they're loaded, he opens rapid fire on Harmaus, first with the right gun, then the left, then the right again, tossing the guns up and catching them because frankly it looks cooler that way. Then he opens fire with both guns, and the rods on their muzzles glow hot white as he digs his boots into the ground and launches himself at Harmaus to strike the bad cat with superheated beams. Hit or miss, he leaps backwards, aims at the Seraph anew, and charges up his guns--first white, then the fiery red soul of Moor Gault--and a molten blast EXPLODES from Twin Fenrir and roars forth towards the Light Seraph like the explosion of a volcano's heart.
GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action! GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel speaks in the Ancient Tongue as if it were a second language. There's an accent.
"-No. I am as much a seeker of truth as you. Indeed, l can claim little moral authority over you. I too have buried plenty of mortals in my own quests. The only difference is that I remember their names. That is no comfort to the dead, I assure you, and there will always be more truth to find. Tis a labyrinth for which the wise one's idiom of knowing oneself to be a fool is the only escape.-"
Light burns her. It always has. She knew this instictively. Her body hesitated to walk in the sun's light in the same way a child may hesitate before putting their hand on a flame. A kind of genetic memory within her simply knew that it would burn.
She hears Ida's screaming her name. She hates worrying her friends in this way. It always feels a little like she's failing them, but fighting creatures like Harmaus--she knows that the only way to permanently deal with them is to seal them. And even then that is more like a bandage than medicine. A wound strong enough will seap through all the same. A wound deadly enough will drench that bandage red eventually.
For a moment, Marivel truly looks like a Wels, a Reaper. Her skin hangs off her like the glue is wearing off. Marivel knows the tale of the big bang. Darkness cannot end.
But where there is light, darkness pulls back. It simply cannot exist concurrently with light. Darkness that throws itself into the sun simply becomes more sun.
The charred teeth rattle as Marivel whispers. "-A universe designed by a sociopath deserves devouring-."
Prismatic light pushes into her and erupts around her. she sinks to one knee. Pitch black smoke flits off of her body only to be devoured by the light emitting from Harmaus. Then she sinks to her hands and knees. The head does not dip. It remains raised in defiance.
No, in welcome. The sun burns, but she has never seen the light as an enemy, nor the sun. It was always there for them. In Crimson Noble philosophy, it is not tht the sun wishes for their deaths.
Immolation is just how the sun expresses its love. It has so much to give. Just a little too much. Even a human that endures its embrace for long may find themselves burn. The sun just loves the Enenra a little excessively, that's all.
And when they are ready to return into its embrace, it will take them with but a look.
R
"I'm sorry," Marivel murmurs. "But there's still a chance for a happy ending. The boy said so. So long as he believes it--"
She slides one rotting foot forward, pushing herself back up into a crouch, jaw clenched. "So long as she believes it. My business in Spira... is not done yet. So long as her successor lives, my work is not yet done."
She drags the other leg underneath her and stands up, pushing one last burst of shadow into that blazing light--but it's clear that Marivel is just barely clinging on, showing stubborness in the face of obliteration. And who knows? Maybe oblivion.
Oh Marivel... You... Are a terrible influence
"I'm glad I managed to do something right." Marivel manages, giving a vague impression of a smile. She feels a wash of relief come over her in that moment.
She manages to focus that little bit of a darkness into a single fingertip.
And she expels it in single piercing burst of night before the light ultimately overtakes her--
--and sends what clearly looks like a burnt up corpse, free of hair, skin, eyes, and teeth. Little more but scorched red bone.
And Marivel just...
...lies there.
GS: Dean Stark spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact! GS: Dean Stark has launched an attack Link! GS: Dean Stark spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Scarlet Dynamo! GS: Dean Stark takes 18 damage from Poison! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Marivel Armitage has activated a Force Action! GS: Marivel Armitage has activated a Force Action! GS: Marivel Armitage spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Erg Phasor! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
"That is no excuse, Harmaus! Foul means lead to foul ends, regardless of your intent, or the perceived grandness of your plan! You will only ever find a false, sullied truth." Clarine replies. "And I assure you, I can comprehend much - but if you truly believe I cannot, then tell me of it!"
She shakes her head.
"There is beauty and truth in impermanence as well, Harmaus - my time with these mortals has taught me that. And regardless... we Seraphim, though our lifespans are not limited like theirs, we too may someday return to the Earthpulse. What, then, is the use of our existence?" Clarine asks.
But Harmaus has had enough, it seems. Soon, the world is consumed by light. It threatens to overtake her, a smaller light consumed by an even greater one. The world feels like nothing to Clarine for a moment as the world becomes a world of light. She has to struggle to maintain her form amidst this chaotic light.
It's exhausting... but when it fades, she's still standing - metaphorically, anyway, as Clarine rarely stands on the ground itself, instead opting to hover just above the surface - though she looks exhausted by the effort. Her aura is dimmed and faint... but her expression remains defiant.
She raises a hand into the air.
"O seven brilliant blades, I call upon you to descend and loose your shining might!" Clarine incants. At these words, six swords of shimmering, prismatic crystals appear in the sky above Harmaus. They descend one after the other, carving a glyphic circle of light around him.
"You will undo what you have do to this village, Harmaus." Clarine stresses, and then, she swings her hand downward. "Prism Sword!"
At this, the promised seventh sword appears. It descends for the very center of the circle of swords, and when it buries itself into the ground, the circle is completed. The seven swords detonation in a brilliant eruption of rainbow light and crystal shards.
She will, of course, be very worried about Marivel in just a moment.
GS: Seraph Clarine spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Prism Sword! GS: Seraph Clarine takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper! GS: Seraph Clarine takes 23 damage from Poison! GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Howling Gale for 228 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Seraph Harmaus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Seraph Harmaus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Laser Impact for 188 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Seraph Harmaus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Scarlet Dynamo for 118 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: Seraph Harmaus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Erg Phasor for 245 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Seraph Harmaus! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Seraph Harmaus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Seraph Clarine's Prism Sword for 262 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Seraph Clarine! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Seraph Harmaus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"Fool that you are," Venetia addresses the powerful ancient being who is regularly demolishing the immediate area with exploding bursts of light, "you think that method is there to ease the conscience of the weak...? These are the words of someone who has mistaken cruelty for strength."
"The strength to--"
The light blinds Venetia and she makes a furious noise in it. When it fades, the first thing that she sees is the wreckage of Marivel and at that point her vision seems to swim for a moment. She can remember a room of mementos.
"I warned you, you - damn - DAMN IT!!"
Venetia's hand tightens, in pain, and in rage, around the grip of her rod.
And then she says to Harmaus--
"WELL??? Do you FEEL any better FOR DOING THAT?? For doing ANY of this? Did you LEARN ANYTHING, other than PEOPLE HATE CRUELTY? Or are you just SCREAMING because you can do nothing BUT scream? All of this USELESS NOISE-- and LOOK WHAT YOU DID! Do you know what she KNEW? I don't either! Well, now NOBODY gets to know ANYTHING! Congratulations! You have DIMINISHED THE WORLD FOREVER!"
Tight bands of gathering ley ripple out around her as Venetia strides forwards, like she's walking on a frustrated pane of amethyst. "If I have to beat you into an ectoplasmic paste I WILL DO SO! NO MORE OF THIS!" She shouts a wordless sound which seems to translate, in the Stygian school of Crest Sorcery as 'same again', because there is another eruption from the firehose of gemshards:
"If I have to throw TEN THOUSAND GIBBERING MANIACS into a HOLE before you SETTLE DOWN and LEARN SMARTNESS," Venetia says, before there is another 'same again' just as Faceter's invocation seems about to wear off: "I WILL DO EXACTLY THAT! You want to LEARN SOMETHING??" Her stride moves forwards, putting her directly in front of where Marivel was, even as she stumbles once in the glare and the pain.
And then: "Hyah!" IT KEEPS GOING
"HERE IS YOUR FREE LESSON: in a statistical level, NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING! Hyah! Every scrap of knowledge is TESTED! Hyah! If you torture people and find out they scream, you have learned ALMOST NOTHING! You must KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! Use your BRAIN or whatever cup full of BLUE LEY DREG you use for - HYAH! Damn you, you miserable little -"
Unfortunately, there are limits, no matter how angry you are. The red cord binding the Graph to Venetia's rod is starting to smoke.
GS: Venetia Vuong spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Seraph Harmaus with Deepest Art: Force Crusher! GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Venetia Vuong takes 21 damage from Poison! GS: Venetia Vuong gains 5 FP from Sufferer! GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action. GS: Seraph Harmaus takes a solid hit from Venetia Vuong's Deepest Art: Force Crusher for 190 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Seraph Harmaus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"'Excuse'? Tcha, it thinks wrongly! I begs no 'excuses', I needs no 'forgiveness'! My path is right! It will see! Every and one will see!" he snaps at Clarine. "I has no need for fleeting things! I needs only the truth!"
Nor is she the only Seraphim present to call him out on his aims. "It thinks I wants its tears?" Harmaus snarls, baring his teeth as Boudicca says she'll cry for him -- but cry for him after all the harm he has done. "It thinks I wants its sympathy? I only wants one thing!"
It's probably a fair guess as to what it might be.
To Marivel, before she is cast into light akin to the universe's birth, he says only one thing:
"-I remember not useless things.-"
And then there is terrible, terrible rainbow light.
Punctuated but once by a single, piercing ray of darkness. Perhaps it may be some consolation that the feline Seraph lets out a wordless howl as that beam strikes him, puncturing even the light-based shields that he summons about him in a vain attempt to keep it at bay.
He has been weakened, gravely so.
Eleanor calls upon the wind after buoying herself against that terrible light, and though the feline Seraph hunches up and tries to weather the storm she summons as best he can -- barriers of light and all -- it is as clear as day that he is losing this battle. While not swept away by the winds, he is still diminished at the end of her working.
This is a situation that Ida takes advantage of, unloading Devil's Due upon the flagging Seraph with barely a word for him. If he will not listen, is then breath perhaps wasted arguing?
Perhaps the only thing left for it is to let violence settle the matter.
Light might form a barrier before the flames wash over him, but it is clearly a poor one: they so easily roll through those walls and consume, for a time, the Seraph.
But killing a Seraph is no easy task.
"Was not seekings excuse," he replies to Billy, shaking off that last as he seems intent on rounding on the Etone, next. Still, his pace is slow--
And it is these dulled reflexes of which the crack-shot young man takes advantage. Perhaps before it might have been more of a chance hit -- regardless of Billy's talents -- but now...
The coin hits the plaza stone with a gentle ring as Harmaus is sent reeling from that shot, the stuff of his body already filling in the gap.
But sluggishly. Slowly. Even a spirit can only take so much.
Eventually he will be... meowserable indeed.
"I can not give up! Not until I finds the... the truth!" Harmaus insists, in the face of Dean's honest surprise. He's one tough 'cat', sure enough--
But one tough cat that Dean, using his power as a Seer, unleashes upon the Seraph with ARM and Moor Gault's flames alike.
But he's still standing in the end.
He's still standing when Clarine's blades descend.
"No," says the catlike Seraph, defiant to the last. There is light here, everywhere.
And he's still there, still taking those few steps forward when Venetia approaches him and fires off a series of questions at him. He half-squints as if he were attempting to process all that. "Tcha-- it silences! Talks too much, too fast!" he snaps at Venetia, narrowing his eyes. "What I learns? I understands it listens not. I understands it disregards truth! That it values silly stupid things! Ah, very much I learns today!"
And perhaps he might have gotten another word in edgewise if Venetia hadn't then begun to invoke that spell.
Over.
And over.
He looks rough by the time she's done, as rough as a Seraph can look given their nature. He's breathing hard, looking as if even standing upright were a strain. But he's still standing. He's still glowing with light.
Eleanor had called upon the wind.
The wind answers her prayers.
It is a gale that sweeps down upom the wounded, tiring Seraph, sending him flying to crash into that arbor; it falls with a heavy thud onto the plaza. Harmaus takes a few unsteady steps from the wreckage, and if looks could kill...
Perhaps everyone here would be at least mortally wounded.
He darts forward the once then, perhaps with all that he has left available, grabbing the fallen bell and cord with his mouth. Then, just as suddenly, the Seraph is off and gone again, vanished in a sudden detonation of brilliant light.
The village plaza, pockmarked from the battle, is again still and quiet. The villagers slumber still in a rest that will not release its grip--
But perhaps, as Eleanor and others had surmised earlier, there is much that can be done about that.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy does not just let the Seraph cat flee. Half-blind from its final flight, he still snaps his weapon up, firing and firing again and again--
Click.
Billy grunts. He reflexively reloads the iron and then tucks it back in its holster. "Escaped," he mutters, stepping over for a moment to regard, first, the fallen arbor. "It retrieved something before fleeing....hm."
Then, he turns, and steps over to the fallen bodies, briefly checking. "Not rousing," he says, head tipping. "Sorcerers, if you have any ideas, I'm all ears."
And then...
Then, he steps over toward Marivel's corpse, squatting down next to the charred, reddened bone. If it's grotesque, he looks on it with a certain sadness. "Such pain," he murmurs.
"Perhaps at least she will be at peace, now," he murmurs, reaching for something in one of the apparently manifold pockets of his habit. He produces a missal, flipping it open to the section for last rites.
This is presumably when someone suplexes him.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca is as stunned as anyone, when the wind does so much damage. She looks to Eleanor, as if to ask, 'did you do this?' But the both of them are healers. Perhaps... it was the will of two healers in harmony which wreaked such devastastion.
She puffs out a sigh, sagging a little. "I am sorry... you all had to see me express such violence. I have had many emotions... I did not mean to cause alarm." She starts off to go gather up Marivel --
Only to see a priest move in!!!
"Ah - excuse me!" Entirely unlike her steely rage, Boudicca stumbles a little over her words as she rushes the rest of the way to gather the corpse up. "I must insist you not minister to Marivel! Ah - forgive me - I am the Seraph Boudicca - I am her friend, ah - please do not worry --" wait did she tell him not to worry about a corpsified woman oh no that doesn't make any sense, "I ask you see to the villagers! They will be quite shaken when they wake!"
And so she scarpers, with a Marivel husk, and perhaps some concerned fellow friends to help wake her up.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Clarine huffs, at that.
"Indeed we shall see, then, Harmaus! But know that I have done my best to warn you from this!" Clarine replies. "This path will only lead to tragedy for you. This truth I give to you for free!"
And soon enough, after more fighting, the battle ends. Clarine breathes a sigh of relief - or at least mimes a gesture of one, not really having any actual 'breath' to speak of.
"...It is alright, Boudicca. Your emotions were warranted, I feel, and the violence necessary." Clarine says, offering Boudicca a reassuring smile. "You have done nothing wrong this day. Please rest assured of that."
With that said, now is the matter of Marivel('s charred remains)... who Billy seems to have taken an interest in! Boudicca gets to her first, though.
"It is alright. This... it happens sometimes." Clarine explains, without actually explaining anything.
"Please wait, Boudicca...!" Clarine says - and with that, she turns to follow after Boudicca. She will return if needed, but there are plenty of other healers here able to tend to the needs of the village. She's unsure her manner of healing will help with their particular predicament.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida and Billy are of similar minds. She pulls the trigger once more, only for a hollow 'click' to echo from her weapon's barrel. That last effort consumed the entire clip to fuel one vast conflagration.
Ida allows herself to sag. She looks to Boudicca, brushing that pale lock out of her red-and-silver eyes without realizing either have changed. "Boudicca," Ida says, "trust me. I've said far worse. I've done far worse. That you recognize it is proof of--"
Ida coughs, violently, as the last of the light releases its hold on her. It flows out on her breath in pale, glimmering streamers, and dissipates. "I think I might hate that man," she says, once she's cought her breath again.
Then, the matter of Marivel. Ida watches as Billy walks over, preparing to--
Oh no.
"Brother Black, wait--!" As Boudicca carries Marivel off, Ida moves to intervene, managing the most awkward of awkward smiles as she meets Billy's gaze. "We can explain later," she says.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy gathers himself to deliver a final rite for a woman he knows - saw, today - to be tremendously dangerous. He does not always get to do it. And then--
Golly that woman is quick in that armor, he thinks, with a certain blank stare. "Ah--" he says, slowly, but doesn't quite get his thoughts together in time to stop Boudicca from scampering off with Marivel('s ravaged husk) in tow. The additional calls from Clarine - and particularly from Ida, whom he needs to have quite a talk with, sees him quirking an eyebrow and scratching his cheek, uncertainly. "Well, very well," he says. "She's right, at that. I'll remain and ensure the villagers are well."
He steps off, his face darkening. So, he thinks, quietly touching the Ethos charm at his neck. Servants, is it...