2022-12-18: Rising Up

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<Pose Tracker> Georg Heldalf has posed.

In the wake of the Rolance attack on Marlind, war has erupted in Glenwood.

Once again, the battle lines are drawn in Glaivend Basin. Today, a battle has erupted there; the armies of both nations meet on that blasted network of caverns, a desolate land that has been marked by intermittent fighting here for centuries. It is a large scale battle -- as Rolance red and Hyland blue meet, in a clash of steel.

It is a gloomy day, too. Overcast skies threaten rain. There is a roar of distant thunder and flashes of lightning.

Drifters may be involved -- both sides have taken to hiring offworlders -- but others might be coming to see the fighting. After all, word has spread: the Lord of Calamity may have a hand in this war.

It's in the afternoon that things take a turn, and draw the eye of many nearby. The clouds overhead become darker, but tinged with violet; the storm over Glaivend Basin is infused with the power of Malevolence. It heralds the arrival of the one behind this conflict.

Heldalf, the Lord of Calamity, appears on a large cliff overlooking the battle. Some soldiers of Rolance and Hyland alike look up, spotting a figure -- they see the outline of a hulking man, too tall to be real, and the glimmer of a purple vortex of energy in his chest. Most don't know who this might be. He is distant from the battle. He raises a hand -- and then brings it down.

Lightning crashes down, smashing into the battlefield. Soldiers are hurled backward, as it arcs and shoots out in a shockwave. The blast of lightning also clears the clouds.

"Let it begin!" the Lord of Calamity roars. "Let humanity see the end that is coming! See what this war brings... see what power awaits, from my gift!

His roar echoes over the Basin. "YUPISUY KHAMISS! YOUR IMPRISONMENT IS AT AN END! MAKE YOUR FURY KNOWN!"

The beating of wings fills the sky -- and soldiers begin to flee, as the battle on both sides begins to turn into a morass of fear and panic. Motes of violet and gold Malevolence rise from the ground.

<Pose Tracker> Yupisuy Khamiss has posed.

Both sides in this conflict have done their utmost to keep a wide berth from the foulness that is Emrys Mire. War, particularly this war, is a grim matter, but far grimmer would be any battle in the Mire itself -- rife with Malevolence, it would undoubtedly unleash a catastrophe.

Glowing lights shimmer purple in the air above the swamp's surface; they but mirror the haze in the skies above.

The Lord of Calamity has come, and even here, his presence can be felt. At his call, the surface of the Mire's waters bubble and churn. Old structures collapse as the ground trembles, giving into their age at long last. And there, in the heart of the Mire -- there, the old seal in the crumbling tower's basement cracks.

Then shatters.

The Wyllt's seal, already fading, has broken utterly.

With a long ululating howl, the sinuous form of the Fell Dragon Yupisuy Khamiss erupts into the world of the living for the first time in centuries. Shattered masonry falls about its bruise-blue form as it takes flight, honing in on the one that calls to it, that urges it to unleash its long-stayed wrath.

Its form can be seen now, emerging from the clouds above. There can be no mistaking it. This is not one of the Four Dragons of eld -- this is a monstrosity spoken about only in tales late at night, a Fell Dragon.

A Seraph, fallen to Malevolence, and never to return.

There are so many here on this battlefield.They shout and scream when they see the dragon. They panic.

It's understandable. Who among them would wish to fight a terror spoken of only in the old stories?

It descends, landing with a shuddering roar amidst the fleeing soldiers, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris and emits a long, hideous shriek of a song.

It is but a prelude to the massacre that is to come.

BGM: Tales of Zestiria - Rising Up - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaN-_EDOgRs

DC: Yupisuy Khamiss switches forms to Fell Dragon -Yupisuy Khamiss-!
DC: Marivel Armitage switches forms to Crimson Noble Marivel!
DC: Kaguya switches forms to ARMs Meister Kaguya!
<Pose Tracker> Georg Heldalf has posed.

The Fell Dragon descends.

Heldalf watches for a moment -- a grin painted across his leonine face -- and then he turns. There is a crackle of power, darkness shuddering up from his feet like lightning come from the ground to reach the sky. It spreads across his massive form -- and he takes another step.

Then, he vanishes, leaving Glaivend Basin to its fate.

DC: Margaret switches forms to I Am The Starlight!
DC: Rixia switches forms to No matter how hard you try to hold onto it...!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    EARLIER

    "H-h-h-hey where are you taking me?" Rixia bawls as she gets sandwiched between a fierce throng of soldiers in a haphazard, hurried march. She doesn't really get a lot of direct news, being kind of spacey and airheaded as she is, and Althenan Guard news is a little confusing and messy and scary at the moment--

    TODAY'S EPISODE
    RIXIA YOU'RE GOING TO WAR

    "h-hueeeh"

    Rixia is currently standing in the front of a battle line with an ill-fitting morion helmet that kinda dangles to one side (and importantly doesn't have ear holes), chinstrap drooping loose about a half inch away from her chin. She was given some armour but that fit even worse so they just kinda ditched it. Conscript girl gonna die first anyway. She has a *checks notes* voulge-guisarme that's literally twice her height that she can barely hold up.

    Even before she gets thrown to the lot, though, the boom of the Lord of the Calamity strikes fear in her heart as lightning clashes; she gets sent flying with an errant shockwave and lands rear first on a messy puddle.

    "W-wait, what's that?" Rixia lifts her head up, as soldiers around her scream in fear. A moment later, her helmet sags and covers her eyes.

    She lifts her helmet back up and her eyes widen.

    "h-hueeeeeeeeeeh"

    The dragon descends, its howl rippling through her heart and lungs; dust and debris tumbles her backwards into another puddle and she lands face first this time, as a terrified soldier bumps past her and kicks her the other way.

    She takes another look up at Yupsiyuy Khamiss, the Fell Dragon, then scurries behind a broken piece of wall. Her tail sticks out.

    "i want to go hoooooooome...!! waaaaaaaah...!!"

    CURRENT MOOD: https:'cdn.discordapp.comattachments5294258373684101141054190722456231976bocc-1.jpg

GS: Rixia has attacked Rixia with Hide!
GS: Rixia has completed her action.
GS: Rixia accepts Rixia's Hide for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

War has broken out. It was inevitable, Hilde supposes. She can do nothing now but support her people and follow them into battle. She holds no hate for the people of Rolance, but she must stand with her people. She is Hyland's shield, its Knight-Protector - they rely on her.

...But. The nature of the battle changes before long. The beating of wings fills the air, and then, the dragon lands with a roar. Hilde's eyes open wide.

"...Here? Impossible." She mutters. ...But - she has a duty. Her sword is put away and she draws out her combat standard, thrusting it into the ground and letting the flag fly.

"This foe is beyond you! Retreat, but maintain the composure befitting a soldier of Hyland! Aid your fellow off the battlefield! And I - I shall cover your retreat." Hilde calls out. Her sword is drawn once more and she plants it into the ground, standing firm with her hands resting atop the pommel, her eyes narrowed.

"I am Hilde, successor to Gladwin Giantslayer. I will brook no further harm to my people." Hilde calls out, tone like steel. The blue aura of her resolve flares about her. "Come, dragon!! Worry yourself not with the rest! I am your opponent this day!"

She knows, in her heart, that an opponent like this is one she can't face alone. But face it she must, no matter what occurs.

GS: Hilde has attacked Hilde with Focus Spirits!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hilde accepts Hilde's Focus Spirits for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst and Hyper applied to Hilde!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

Harmaus and Elise exacted their toll on Hiro, purified newly or not, he ought not to be rushing back into the fray.
 
Some things are too important though, and the malevolent pressure in the Glaivend Basin from the conflict drew all of them along that thread of resonance.
 
The Lord of Calamity revealed. All of them understood that's where he'd be.
 
"... Something's different about this one." He confides in the others, "Can feel it." There's something grim in those words to the Vile Fiends that came with him, but then he smiles, "But, different as it feels, some things feel the same you know? ... Like the fact that we're here together."
 
A seal breaks distantly, and the Fell Dragon appears on the battlefield to consume, to devour, to destroy. The pulse of contradiction pounds in his ears.
 
Who indeed can stand against it? When the Saint of Sinners appeared, they could only hold it off.
 
That has to be enough.
 
"Hold nothing back. This? This has to end." If not the dragon itself, then the slaughter. With a battle cry of, "DODGE THIS!" The youth leaps, a two handed swing of his blade aimed right at the Dragon's chest.
 
"Warriors of Althena's Guard! We stand with you!"
 
-=-=-
 
From a distance, Ruby watches on a cliffside, everyone looks like ants save the huge form of the dragon.
 
She wishes she could stand to go near it. She has an instinctual aversion to this much malevolence though.
 
"Where are they?"
 
Ruby asks to noone in particular. What did Zophar do that they still haven't made an appearance?
 
Are these the only kinds of dragons that Lunar will know from now on?
 
She doesn't know. Curling up, she just watches.

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    Glenwood is in flames, again, and the White Knight can do so very little to stop the spread. The last war between Hyland and Rolance was horrible, but this--an atrocity engineered by the Lord of Calamity himself--is unlike anything Leo could have imagined. But he has to stay strong, or he, too, will be twisted into a horror.

    There are small mercies, though. While the Church might be dragging its feet--a matter which Leo has to assume is sabotage from within, at this point--the Guard is not. They can't stop the fighting, but they can watch for Heldalf, and try to intervene when he next appears.

    Glaivend Basin has seen no shortage of fighting. Leo is deeply, uncomfortably familiar with the sights and sounds, even as he keeps his distance, sticking to the cliffs. A small number of Guards--all trusted, all elite in their own right--accompany him. As the Malevolence begins to thicken, Leo's ears angle downward, and his eyes narrow. He reaches for his sword as a figure crests a nearby ridge. "There he is," the White Knight says. "On my mark--"

    Heldalf strikes first. The lightning arcs downwards, and the deafening roar of thunder shakes the earth. Leo braces, and looks away, but the thunderclap has set his ears to ringing. "HELDALF!" he cries, "FACE JUSTICE!"

    A moment later, he hears the beating of wings. The dragon descends, and Heldalf is gone.

    "Goddess," Leo breathes, fresh horror in his eyes. For a moment, as the soldiers rout below, he hesitates. And then he thinks back to the oath he swore.

    A figure leaps through the air above Rixia's head, a white-clothed silhouette trailing a crimson cape. "RIGHT BEHIND YOU, LADY HILDE! LIGHT SPEAR CANNON!" A brilliant flash of light rips through the clouds as Leo draws his sword, and sweeps it down at the Fell Dragon's neck. The luminous crescent casts shadows across the canyon walls.

GS: Hiro has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Poe Sword!
GS: Hiro has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Light Spear Cannon!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss critically guards Hiro's Poe Sword for 40 hit points!
GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from White Knight Leo's Light Spear Cannon for 181 hit points!
GS: Cover applied to White Knight Leo!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO
 
     Seraph Lanval travels with the Fox Company through Emrys Mire - something he was very cautious and worried about for reasons obvious given what afflicted it and his nature. The group finds themselves at a spring of the purest, cleanest spring water. It was a small joy after such a dangerous trek, one he reveled in as he invited Talise, Layna, and Sephilia to take a drink if they needed it.
 
     He also acknowledged it as evidence of someone much like himself who, against everything, stuck it out. The appreciation for its existence was a nod between one Seraph who held his place of power for over half a millennium... and one he knew he'd never know.
 
     NOW
 
     There is another force competing against the immense pressure of Malevolence as the Fell Dragon descends. There is never any drowning out such a presence - one can only dare to stand with clear purpose and conviction and be a light in that overwhelming darkness. Seraph Lanval remembers this 'feel' of Malevolence, approaching the battlefield with the same humble, almost silly appearance of a barefoot, heavy-set long-bearded wastrel. He walks past fleeing soldiers that cannot perceive him, taking a long drag off the drinking gourd that contains the very piece of the Water of Filgaia. Filgaia is far from here, and he is bound to it... but the destinies of both worlds remain ever-intertwined, and so a child of Lunar's Ley returns.
 
     Though muted against the backdrop of the Fell Dragon's presence, water in all its forms great and... less great... surrounds the approaching Seraph as he steps into one of the greatest cauldrons of Malevolence, keeping a mirthful smile on his face.
 
     "'Tis plain shame we never met." There's nothing left of the original Seraph within the rampaging Fell Dragon. There's only one thing left to do to honor the memory of whoever once dwelt in Emrys Mire, from whence purest water still occasionally found purchase to flow and nourish.
 
     This brief drink taken, he follows none too far off from Hiro. Lanval is not afraid for Hiro's conviction or health even after his near-call in the depths of Harmaus' and Elise's fell plans. He doesn't call out like Hiro does, as most of those gathered would not know he's there.
 
     One does not need to be known to be there, to start Rising Up to the challeng eaccordingly.

GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Lanval with Quick Swig!
GS: Seraph Lanval has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
GS: Seraph Lanval heals Seraph Lanval! He gains 85 temporary hit points!
GS: Riposte applied to Seraph Lanval!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia stuck close to Hiro.

There are a lot of things she should talk to him about. They're things she hasn't quite worked up the nerve to -- the resolve, yet, but it's not so easy to work up the nerve to.

She looks sideways at him, as he talks. Then, Talia nods her head to him. "There is," she agrees. "Something about the storm, no? It's..." It's different, and not in a good way. But, he says it's good they're here together.

So then Talia nods her head, and she looks sideways at him for a moment -- and smiles. "...Yeah," she agrees. "I'm with you, no?"

She goes running after Hiro. He leaps; Talia charges. She doesn't have Mirage anymore; she has a short sword purchased from a store in Meribia, and that means she has to charge into battle like anyone else. He strikes at the dragon's chest. Talia ducks in low, her boots sliding across the stones, and a moment after Hiro's strike, Talia leaps in. Her blade is extended.

"Super Sonic THRUST!" she shouts, voice carrying on the last syllable. She speeds up, then, a blur, as she stabs her sword out and speeds through the air for the dragon's front leg.

GS: Talia has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Super Sonic Thrust!
GS: Talia has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
Yeah... hiring offworlders.

Some people made some efforts to be here. A couple of guys with rifles, mostly, and bandoliers of their Filgaian weaponry, which of course, is not easy to get here. But that's not going to make a dramatic difference, given that a gunsmoke ARM is about as loud as a wizard and significantly less flexible. But that's not all that's there.

A couple of medickers. Fair and fine. Even one guy who was good at wrangling animals. Hey, that's a bonus. And there was also some layabout woman who did the clerking. EXCEPT THAT THIS IS A FLIMSY COVER STORY.

Somewhere in the battlefield's chaos, thunder crackles; glows...

And above the flow of retreat, barely becoming route, something purple-green flicker-flashes and moves forwards, coming down in and among some of the few scrubby, dying trees to still be present in the chaos of the battlefield. And from in that tree --

*toot* Someone plays three inexpert notes in a harmonica.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTBHtVZNMjs

Luminous, glowing, stands a figure in a woman's-cut winter coat from three years ago in Meria Boule, with the sleeves removed and worn open. It flutters in the breeze. It has been hastily dyed purple. This figure, six feet tall, has a bandolier of swords at her hip, and a violet head-wrap over bunched-up hair and a pair of engineer's goggles.

"You do not stand alone, my lady!" declares

EMINENCE IN SHADE
TERA GR

'Light Spear Cannon!'

Tera Gram puts a hand on her hip for a moment. The harmonica is tucked away, though, and one of the swords is drawn forwards, and she step-leaps forwards into a spinning approach, slashing three times as she gets near to the forelimb of the Fell Dragon; toppling backwards, hand-standing for a moment, then completing the loop to add a rising dual-handed slash followed by a last distance-making backflip, all at that same horrid LEG.

"Have at you, beast!"

GS: Margaret has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Coiling Impale!
GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

EARLIER

Marivel finishes welding runes onto the gauntlet she'd been working on since her visit to Emyrs Mire, humming to herself as she works. "Bum, babum. Bum bum, babum o/~" She hums to herself as she sets down the welding torch and looks over to the glowing blade filled with holy power.

"I've thought of a name." Marivel says. "I'll call you... Irony."

NOW

Marivel is wearing the uniform of a medic. She crouches down towards injured and dying soldiers, treating their wounds. Nevermind the carefully chained up sword along her back. With the slight changes to the timeline she can't really be sure when exactly shit will go down. Luckily on Lunar, medics with weird mystical swords are probably not too unusual. It is a bit lonely though Marivel is used to that noise. Many she had known just simply aren't around.

She looks at Rixia. She mostly remembers Rixia as someone with a wild sword who yelled at her (or was it Vasil?) that one time but honestly what Rixia yelled was pretty fair so she doesn't hold it against her. This isn't going to stop her from being incorrigible.

She approaches Rixia as even the wounded soldiers she was treating are now up and running, moving at a careful pace. A Fell Dragon in the distance. Mm.

"So everyone can see the Dragons?" Marivel says because nobody clarified that before and she just assumed she was traveling with people who could.

She comes to a stop by Rixia and crouches down to the poor suffering beastwoman and extends a hand, smiling at her.

"Hi there." She says, smiling.

She reaches forward and takes Rixia's hand while she's hiding--

--and then stands up, pulling Rixia up with her as she sends a surge of power into her.

"Don't worry." She says, smiling a sharp-fanged grin. "I'll be by your side. You'll be...very safe."

She glances up towards a particular cliffside almost absentmindedly.

"I get homesick too sometimes." Marivel tells Rixia. "Even when I'm home, isn't that strange?"

GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Rixia with Booster!
GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya has not been part of the battle; the Duchess Alathfar, in the midst of war, is nowhere to be found. Rumors say she has sent a letter to her ministers, but certainly the hero of Tryfan Vale would be best served protecting the lands she 'won' in the last war now?

Or are the rumors that she was merely some alien malefactor true?

It's hard to say. But regardless, a small woman in green approaches the battlefield on foot. She approaches at an angle, though; she's not going for the calshing armies. Instead, she comes to a stop as a blast of lightning crashes down, and the shockwave comes. She looks up.

"HELDALF!" Kaguya calls, dressed once again in the splendor of green armor beneath her ordinary 'Filgaian' style clothes, but she is dornwed out by the beating of wings, the screaming. The dragon comes, and she rememebrs... Lastonbell.

Lastonbell, where everything changed.

Shaking off the memory, Kaguya turns to the woman she was traveling with. "Guess we've got timing," she says to Magilou. "...I think I'm gonna do something stupid."

-=-=-

"Not alone you won't," Kaguya says as she strides up beside Hilde, green glinting off her gauntlets and her greaves. To all accounts, she is dressed in a combination of green armor and Filgaian men's fashion, plus a mantle pinned with the emblem of the Alathfar line. She cuts a heroic figure in the moment, before one notices the many, many ARMs poking out of her mantle and at her belt. Four pistols, two rifles slung across her back, a couple shotguns, a bandolier or two of ammunition of varying stripes, a brace of grenades...

Oh, right. The wall beside her is lifting into the air. Is it some strange magic!? ...It is not. Kaguya has bent at the knee and picked up a ruined forttres wall. It towers over her and the others as she flexes hidden muscle and lifts it entirely over her head, much bigger than she is personally, all white and gray stone, the remnants of a beautiful mural still on the side.

"HEY!" Kaguya calls.

"Who cares about slaughtering lowbies while you've got some big-ass knights to chew on!?"

"Soldiers of Hyland! With Lady Hilde protecting you, you've got no excuse to die! Soldiers of Rolance! If you want to stab me in the back, you better live to do it!"

Then Kaguya hurls the remnants of the wall straight for the dragon with both hands, shoving it through the air like so much debris.

"HYAH!"

GS: Kaguya has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Meteor Stance!
GS: Kaguya has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Kaguya's stances have changed from Counter to Counter and Stoic!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.

A certain psychopomp has recently seen the shrine at the Mire. Shige lingered, gathering hints and shades of something bad, but never quite getting her claws into it. A direction though, she did get that much. Which is how she finds herself overlooking a battlefield, pale. One hand clenched, digging into her palm, the other keeping her lantern safe.
 
 It takes some time for her to move again. She might not be afraid of death, so to speak, but on this scale, with this kind of corruption and horror. Nevermind personal history. She about turns and leaves. The first time in as long as she can remember that she could definitively and without question say she was afraid.
 
 If she leaves, who would guide the dead away though? She doesn't know the local customs yet and probably doesn't have the same mission on this side, but she's going to try anyway. Right after she pulls one of her myriad mixed bottles from a satchel and drinks. Then holds a finger up as she continues, then a bit more. Corking the bottle again, she stuffs it away and makes her way forward. Checking on the friendly soldiers even as her shadow seems to grow and.. move on its own. Connecting to others. Breaking away. Growing still.
 
 As she approaches the frontline, she affixes a mask to herself, blank, vaguely shaped like a proper feline and raises the lantern high. The shadows gathered around her streaking out along the ground before manifesting with the briefest hint of a wisp and a beastial figure lowers and growls silently before leaping at the dragon. Shige's terrified, but you can't see it. She won't show it. She'll keep it hidden away. It won't happen again if she can do anything about it. She doesn't say anything though, not yet. Not for lack of trying. It came out as little more than a strangled croak. She'll wait for her 'courage' to take effect.

GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Mute Horror!
GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "I'll say nice things at your funeral," Magilou assured Kaguya, when she went off to do something stupid.

    Magilou turns and starts walking the other way, instead.

    -=-=-

    Besides Ruby, a witch saunters up, hands laced behind her head.

    "It's hard, huh? Seeing all these Seraphim shaped so much like you." Magilou's tone is distant, as she looks up, to the dragon.

    Even here, she can feel it.

    "They can't survive such a thing... but you can."

    Magilou taps the toe of her shoe to the ground, with a light shrug. "... we're still here, Ruby. And this isn't where your story ends. Is it?"

    She laughs, all too good natured. "Ahhh, you're going to tell me to go fight, aren't you? What a bother... that's a Fell Dragon, you know!" Even so, her hands swing down, and it doesn't take much to get her to start sauntering that-a-way.

    "We're all very stupid, haha..!"

GS: Magilou has attacked Hiro with The Girl Left Behind!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Talia's Super Sonic Thrust for 112 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disrupt applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Riposte applied to Talia!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Margaret's Coiling Impale for 95 hit points!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss's Poison Ward may block the effect!
GS: Poison blocked!
GS: Mighty applied to Margaret!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Meteor Stance for 102 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mighty applied to Kaguya!
GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Shige Kiwako's Mute Horror for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Interrupt and Mute applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Yupisuy Khamiss has posed.

    Almost immediately the dragon sets upon those who were not quick enough to flee; yells and cries fill the air. But not all are set upon simply escaping or surviving the dragon's assault:

    Hilde stands her ground and declares her intent. Hiro closes the gap in the next moment and, with a swing of his sword, strikes at the dragon's chest. It but rebounds off its scales, leaving a shallow gouge, but he has succeeded in one thing -- he now has its full attention. It raises a clawed limb to pin him to the ground, but is circumvented.

    Talia is with Hiro, after all. Her blade follows, taking the opening that he provided and piercing the dragon in the leg that remains on the ground. The dragon's response is to wheel towards her, perhaps in surprise, and that is when it is struck by another: Marga-- Tera Gram closes the distance to carve deeply alongside a wound already inflicted.

    A beam of light strikes Khamiss dead-on in the next instant, its head whipping backward under the impact of the blast. It is followed by a swordstrike that leaves a blackened gouge in the dragon's long neck. For a split-second the monstrosity reels, only to rear about; its maw opens wide and from deep within its chest the Fell Dragon exhales a cold, foggy breath across those just before it -- a contingent that has come to include Lanval as well.

    If only they had met. There is nothing left of the Seraph that Khamiss had been, only the shell of the monstrosity they've become. There is nothing left to stir or even reminisce at Lanval's kindly toast to their memory.

    Kaguya then enters the scene, and responds to the threat of the dragon by picking up a literal piece of wall and hurling it at the dragon; it wheels itself about, taking the brunt of the impact along a flank rather than its more-vulnerable head before surging forward across the field towards Kaguya with claws and jaws alike.

    There is nothing left of the dragon that can be horrified -- it is already a monster, a fiend that exists only for the sake of destruction. And yet, it bears traces of the spiritual being it had been: no wound is left by the attack that Shige's shadow inflicts upon the dragon but it still feels the bite on some metaphysical level.

    It breaks off from its attack on Kaguya in response. Its eyes glassy, it lifts its head slowly to the heavens above.

    From deep within the dragon's body, a sound comes bubbling up. It is almost nearly a song, a wailing scream on the wind that carries quite a long distance. Long had Khamiss slumbered, locked away in the depths -- away from light and air. Do Fell Dragons feel the pain of isolation the way others might? Or is it simply a barrier to them, a means of preventing them from sating what every ounce of their being tells them they must?

GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hilde with Cloudwhite!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked White Knight Leo with Cloudwhite!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Talia with Cloudwhite!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hiro with Cloudwhite!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Seraph Lanval with Cloudwhite!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Margaret with Cloudwhite!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Interrupt expired!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Kaguya with Waning!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Rixia with Deathsong!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Marivel Armitage with Deathsong!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Magilou with Deathsong!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Shige Kiwako with Deathsong!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has completed its action.
GS: Seraph Lanval takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Cloudwhite for 48 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Power Burst, Evade bonus, and Gleam activated!
GS: CRITICAL! Hilde solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Cloudwhite for 51 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: White Knight Leo fully evades Yupisuy Khamiss's Cloudwhite for 0 hit points!
GS: FP up! Power Burst and Gleam activated!
GS: CRITICAL! Margaret solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Cloudwhite for 69 hit points!
GS: Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Waning for 54 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Rixia accepts Marivel Armitage's Booster for 0 hit points!
GS: Pray grants a random effect! Hyper and Regen applied to Rixia!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Rixia suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's Deathsong for 62 hit points!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Shieldbreak applied to Rixia!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Magilou takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Deathsong for 83 hit points!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Shieldbreak applied to Magilou!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Cloudwhite for 95 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: CRITICAL! Hiro accepts Magilou's The Girl Left Behind for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Hiro!
GS: Hyper applied to Magilou!
GS: Hiro solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Cloudwhite for 33 hit points!
GS: FP up! Power Burst activated!
GS: Marivel Armitage suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's Deathsong for 82 hit points!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Delay applied to Marivel Armitage!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated!
GS: Shige Kiwako suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's Deathsong for 88 hit points!
GS: Shige Kiwako's Mute Ward may block the effect!
GS: Mute blocked!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    Even huddling and whimpering underneath her own little localised piece of rock, Rixia can still peek out and gawk at Hilde, face flushing a little bit as a little of her fear dissipates (but not completely. sorry Hilde, you're up there for Rixia, but a dragon is just too scary). She's so cool and composed... there's like a whole entirety of Glenwood between their composures...

    Then, unexpectedly, she hears Hiro standing proud and tall, leaping to drive his blade into the Dragon's chest. Just like a hero...! Was this really the same boy who fed her red velvet cake just months ago? He's also very cool...

    And where Hilde is, her other hero is too -- White Knight Leo! With a shout, he dramatically announces his refined technique, a flash of light ripping through the clouds as he sweeps at the Dragon's neck!

    And of course, it won't be complete without Kaguya! In her heroic-looking emerald green armour and the scary guns that go 'boom'! And she's--

    --picking up the wall she's hiding behind--

    --and throwing it straight at the dragon??

    They're all so cool... they're her heroes. But there's a difference between heroes and...

    ... and now she has nothing to hide behind???

    Magilou's there too and ooooh she's going to give her an earful if she sees her cowering like thiiiiiis (or maybe she won't?) but she's walked off at the same time which doesn't inspire her because if her mentor is hitting da bricks then what chances does she have--

    Marivel helps her hand up. "M-Miss Leviram?!"

    There's a sudden surge of power flowing into her! I-is this going to really be okay? She'll be... very safe.

    Why does that sound even more terrifying?!!?!? Is she going to get abducted by a vampire instead?

    And then the sound hits from the dragon and Rixia turns kind of blue in the face, struck by the proverbial wail of the banshee in song. Her innards feel like they're about to be turned inside out, and her heart is being squeezed so tightly and coldly. "uuug... egggh..."

    Tossing the voulge-guisarme to one side, Rixia clutches both of her hands to her chest. "I'm scared... sometimes I feel like I'm on the same wavelength... but when the battles start happening, it's different. Everyone seems to pick up... and I get left behind."

    She shivers as she huddles behind a barrel. "How far is everyone going? I can't hear anyone. Once I catch up, I wonder... is everyone safe? Will we all make it back together? When I start thinking like that..."

    It doesn't help that the cries of the Hyland and Rolance soldiers are still ringing around her.

    She rubs some of the snot and tears away, and tries to focus her breathing. "Come on, try to not be a disappointment to them..."

    With a bright flash, the mysterious sword with the gun-component appears in her hand, and she focuses with a little more in the way of concentration. "Help them out...!"

    >> combat routine, strategic level 1
    >> assessing key targets: formulating tactical plan, iterating
    >> junction for self-survival: hp-j, vit-j, spr-j, stat-def-j
    >> found: sufficient quantities of ambient magic
    >> draw point created. now synthesising... casting

    The device begins to rattle, and in Rixia's hand, it flashes -- and swirling winds of soothing succor surround Kaguya, Leo, Hilde and Marivel, with just a slight aberrant tinge of Symbology if one were to look closely. But, it's a tense battle, so...

GS: Rixia has activated Force Action: Extend!
GS: Rixia has attacked White Knight Leo with Draw - Benefic!
GS: Rixia enters a Counter stance!
GS: Rixia has attacked Kaguya with Draw - Benefic!
GS: Rixia enters a Counter stance!
GS: Rixia has attacked Hilde with Draw - Benefic!
GS: Rixia enters a Counter stance!
GS: Rixia has attacked Marivel Armitage with Draw - Benefic!
GS: Rixia enters a Counter stance!
GS: Rixia has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Rixia gains 57 THP from Regen!
GS: Rixia has completed her action.
GS: Rixia heals Hilde! She gains 174 temporary hit points!
GS: Rixia heals White Knight Leo! He gains 170 temporary hit points!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Rixia heals Kaguya! She gains 166 temporary hit points!
GS: Rixia heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 152 temporary hit points!
GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

"Noone I'd rather have here." He says to Talia before putting his fist up against hers.
 
Or at least they did, but now DRAGON!
 
Lanval's presence is a great comfort to them just knowing he has their back, even if he worries with all of this malevolence... well, he is an Oracle after all.
 
And Leo? Despite how they'd been at odds, his presence here is a great comfort, even if he's worried by the recent revelation of... who the Lord of Calamity truly was.
 
-=-=-
 
Ruby looks over at Magilou, "So this is where you went huh?"
 
Ruby cranes her head thoughtfully, "What not gonna lie first and tell me that you helping take care of it would defeat the point. That's how you usually pretend it is."
 
Ruby's tail lashes, but she doesn't get up, "You've never fooled me though. Your days of stupidity? Far from over. So get down there..."
 
Within the barrier Magilou left Ruby curls up, "Dummy."
 
-=-=-
 
Hiro's blade rebounds on the Dragonscales, as he lands, a clawed limb coming down on him averted by Talia as he rushes out of the way, "Thanks for the save Talia."
 
His steps taking him near Rixia as he says, "... You're not a disappointment." Hiro tells her, "Scared or not. You're here, aren't you?"
 
The music comes, a wailing scream, the pain of isolation, and Hiro blanches but...
 
... he had it reinforced to him very much so recently, that he's not alone, that he's not isolated. The song is heard, but despite the pain of isolation.
 
"Phantoms combine and tear asunder-" He says through gritted teeth, as two curved blades of green, edges becoming white with the sheer tubulence of the wind at each edge, "-CROSS BLADE!"
 
Each one drives into the Dragon, trying to chip away at its impenetrable scaled defense.

GS: Hiro has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Cross Blade!
GS: Hiro has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

She can't face it alone. But she isn't alone, is she? Leo is here, and so is Kaguya - and many others, too.

"Everyone... Thank you. Let us stand together!" Hilde says. Together, they may stand a chance against a creature so fearsome. It makes to attack and Hilde readies itself, letting it impact against her shield. She goes sliding back, but her stance doesn't break. She stand up straight - and looks back, realising that Rixia is here too.

"Lady Rixia! You're here as well?" Hilde asks. She's here and she's scared - but she's still helping. Swirling winds surround her, easing the pain of the dragon's attack.

"...Thank you. Your support is appreciated." She says, offering her a smile. She steps back into battle with renewed fervor, swinging her blade toward the dragon in an arc!

GS: Hilde has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Silver Arc!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss solidly guards Hiro's Cross Blade for 61 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Break applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Guard bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss fully evades Hilde's Silver Arc for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
Is this foolishness? Stupidity? Well, probably, but Margaret long ago put her head down and began following what was right. And what felt right was to watch Georg Heldalf and whatever happy chocobo manure he decided to get up to, as best she can. Across planets and time...

Alright, not time.

But here she is, the glamorous tip of the arrow. "Eih!" Tera Gram exclaims in success at the strikes of Talia, even as the Fell Dragon begins to release its breath, a chilling cold. Keep moving; stay warm. Doing things and moving fast, that's how you'll keep the horror away for a few moments more. And if you stack enough moments up, you get a life.

Some kind of life, anyway.

The great Fell Dragon begins to howl its pain. Margaret dives in as it screams, her ears flattening back against the side of her head. It is not much of a protection from sound but it beats nothing, and it keeps her hands free. Free enough to administer a flurry of slashes and to take the daring gall to scream-dash in FRONT of the dragon, turning as she does, lithobraking with one heel as she carves a narrow furrow in the battlefield's already abused turf.

"There's a lot of it, isn't there," she says a little too fast if not quite to the point of gabble, to Hiro - who she happened to end up near. (For some reason she didn't want to end up too near to Leo.) "Shame it's not got a convenient missing scale on the belly, eh?"

At which point she dashes in again, twisting in broad chopping strikes and shining flashes of the blade. Which has some stuff painted on it, although at present it does not seem to be helping much. Perhaps being able to hit the dragon at all is enough here.

GS: Margaret has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Crimson Orbit!
GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    Lanval moves and whirls with a grace as that chilling breath fills the space, spinning and pivoting off to the left with just a hint of the inherint levity and silliness he tends to carry in the way he traverses the Malevolence-filled canyon despite everything, making sure to give ample space for the other melee fighters to stake their claim on various targets.
 
     This gives Lanval, in brief, a vantage point of the scared and frightened Rixia who he helped some time ago even when she (then) couldn't see him. She can see him now, and as it is his nature to elevate small joys - little things of happiness through the hardships of life...
 
     He gives her a little wave, as to be part of the group of people who say, 'it isn't all doom and gloom... it's doom, gloom, and everyone else here with you!'
 
     "We grant thee peace!" Seraph Lanval booms, which is an earnest call above the immense Malevolence he stands in the vicinity of. Hiro and the others are in the right to worry about the risk to him - but he wouldn't be here unless he had the conviction to do so.
 
     Reinforcing the movements of the others, he leaps up, taking that deceptively ever-heavy drinking gourd to try and strike it against the massive jaw of the beast, ostensibly to try and silence the wailing.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia's feet skid across the blasted ground -- and she turns about, eyes on the Fell Dragon. This is what Amaranth could have become, she thinks, if she hadn't been pulled back from the edge. She swallows, hard, as a blast of cold, misty air shoots across her. Talia brings a vambrace-protected arm up over her face, as if to guard herself, and her eyes narrow.

"Any time, no?" Talia says, with a glance at Hiro. She grits her teeth, grimacing at the eerie song. Do dragons remember anything of their lives? Is there even an echo of it?

Or are they completely lost?

Talia isn't sure that she wants that answer. She holds a hand up, over her heard. In the last few weeks, she has changed a lot; she has faced her worst crimes and her worst fears, and came on the other side of those... not without hurts and scars, but she is whole. She didn't think she would be.

So she closes her eyes, and then she calls out: "Rime and frost, gather at my command! Unleash your vortex!"

A magical circle explodes under feet, Althenan runes scribed upon it, and rotating.

Then, a wintry tornado shoots into the air -- and hurtles for the dragon. The winds whip and tear at Khamiss, with ice shards sent hurtling into its draconic hide. The cyclone tries to engulf it. "Ice Tornado!"

Yes, Talia decided to actually say the incantation.

GS: Talia spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Talia has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Ice Tornado!
GS: Talia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Jeers!!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

A dragon's song impacts solidly against Marivel. she doesn't seem afraid, exactly though maybe that isn't unusual in of itself though, to be fair, she did go into a situation with TWO Dragons so maybe one Dragon doesn't seem so bad after you've already engaged an even crazier situation. Still, she doesn't exactly seem eager to dive into the thick of it.

Instead, she just seems...kind of sad as she looks at the Dragon. It is certainly nobody she knows but she still gets sad about it. She had been able to pretend to not be sad about it until but that mask doesn't really fit her face anymore.

Black smoke drifts out of Marivel's ears as she looks back to Rixia. Is she going to be abducting Rixia???

SPOILERS: She is thinking about it. She hasn't decided yet because she has to consider whether she'll be okay or not.

Of course, almost as soon as she hefts Rixia up she ducks behind a barrel now.

Marivel looks at it.

"Barrel." She says.

"Hey." She says.

Try not to be a disappointment to them.

"Hey...!" Marivel complains, louder. "Hey don't say that. You're braver than most." She has hid, yes, but she hasn't full out run away to the point of trampling over others like the rest of the army is doing.

She reaches down to take Rixia's hands. "Hey." She says softly. "Hey it's okay."

"I don't know," She tells the foxgirl. "Whether you'll all make it back or not. War is cruel, heartless, and most of all random. But I can promise you this, Rixia."

"This isn't the end."

She feels Rixia lending a hand already. Marivel smiles and slides her gauntlet onto one of her hands, pulling free the chained up holy blade.

She waves it at the Dragon as if to try and lure its attention, asiding to Rixia. "Oh, well, A Hiro said that too so that's two." she looks to Hilde. "Three?"

She rests a hand on Rixia's shoulder. "The truth is, Rixia. The same things that scare you, scare me too. And I've never stopped being scared of it."

There is nothing left of the Dragon that can be horrified but it is too far for Marivel to swing a holy blade at it--not without leaving Rixia's side which she won't do. Instead, Marivel stays nice and close by and extends a hand to the dragon, fingers lengthening to vicious claws as a blue light erupts out from her hand, launching out at the Fell Dragon--

--attempting to drain a bit of that poison from it and into her. There won't be a better time to see if this'll destroy her or not.

"Hiro and Talia are working well together aren't they?" She murmurs.

GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Skill Drain!
GS: Recover! Delay removed from Marivel Armitage!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    Leo's momentum carries him over the Fell Dragon's back, and into the mud. The White Knight hits feet-first, and the earth beneath him softens, absorbing the impact--a little sorcery to keep him from hurting himself as he skids through the muck. "The Mire!" Leo shouts, "It came from the Mire!" He'd never heard anything good about that place. It's not surprising it spat out something this twisted. Leo rises, glances around, takes stock of the desperate situation. Too many dead, on top of the Seraph who may as well be. His heart twists in his chest.

    But there are still those he can save. Others (Marivel? Hiro???) are moving in to help Rixia, and it's Leo's job to get them home, too. The White Knight dashes back towards Khamiss, blade in hand. "FACE ME," he commands, and Khamiss does, sort of, rearing back to breathe death on all of them. Leo leaps forward, tucking and rolling, holding his sword to the side. The instant he comes to a stop, his blade sweeps out, and a ringing bell-tone echoes through the air. The fell fog--the part near Leo, at least--dissipates in an instant, swept away by the cutting wind. "Hiro! Rixia, is she--?"

    Small irony that he's addressing Hiro like a comrade now, much less trusting him with Rixia's safety. But Rixia proves that she's got something up her sleeve, too. Strange starlight falls upon Leo, illuminating him before fading into a pale, shimmering aura. The White Knight glances among the others, and thinks: she has the right idea. This is a Fell Dragon, and they can take no chances.

    "White Dragon," Leo intones, touching two fingers to the Crest at his neck. "Bless us and keep us, in the Goddess' name." As it has so many times before, the power of his draconic 'patron' responds, flowing outwards in a wave of pearlescent white. It clings to Rixia, Hilde, and Kaguya, forming a barrier against harm.

GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Rixia with White Dragon's Protection!
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Hilde with White Dragon's Protection!
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Kaguya with White Dragon's Protection!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 1 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: Hilde accepts White Knight Leo's White Dragon's Protection for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick and Shield applied to Hilde!
GS: Rixia accepts White Knight Leo's White Dragon's Protection for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick and Shield applied to Rixia!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.

There's a deafening roar. Arm going up and over her ears to cover them up. She about bolts again, but stomps her boot down against the ground instead and shouts back at it, "AAAH, I can do that too you jerk!" Maybe she shouldn't have gone so heavy on the-... nevermind.
 
 So much for that elegant composure she's insisting a guide should have. That's self-imposed anyway. Some of the others seem more phased though. Letting the lantern go, the chained thing floating before her, it begins to glow brighter. Still that faint, eerie glow, but the sensation that washes over the people is that of peace. Hands together as she murmurs a faint prayer, quiet and private. Shadows of older soldiers and knights. A banner planted. A heroic last stand almost. The places the light touch feeling protected, proud. Memories of soldiers past, even hints of the horns and cheers.
 
 She snags the lantern as it starts to fall. The shadows almost fading away again, each little wisp left behind lingering to try and protect one of the living before blinking out as well.
 
 She does find her voice finally, coughing to cover up before. "Just another step forward on the journey right?" Not talking to anyone in particular. Her tails are still frazzled, but otherwise she looks calm enough as she takes another step forward. Past Rixia and past any hiding soldiers, trying to lead. Scared as she is. It's not hard to figure out how bad this situation is, even if she doesn't grasp the entirety of it. Besides, maybe she can clear a pocket by scaring the enemy mundane soldiers right?
 
 One ear does perk up and swivel towards Hiro's incantation. Jerking her head that way, fully expecting to see something similar to herself and actually briefly forgetting the fear. It's not though and she's very slightly disappointed.
 
 "Missing scale on the belly?" She asks, confused, having briefly overheard that over the din. Good ears mostly. She looks back up at the thing and sighs. No such luck. There is a familiar Poltergeist though and she calls out to it, "Not using a bottle this time Mr. Poltergeist?" because.. she never did remember his name. She should have, but it's far funnier this way.
 
 Marivel is also given a nod as she appears. She stops just short of calling her bat lady though. She didn't get the nickname treatment yet. "Was this.." the thing at the mire. Same vibe. She isn't fully certain, but she feels it.

GS: Kaguya accepts White Knight Leo's White Dragon's Protection for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick and Shield applied to Kaguya!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Margaret's Crimson Orbit for 105 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Drowsy blocked!
GS: Quick applied to Margaret!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss partially guards Talia's Ice Tornado for 75 hit points!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss's Poison Ward may block the effect!
GS: Cripple applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Poison blocked!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss takes a glancing hit from Seraph Lanval's Jeers! for 58 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mute applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Pretending? Me? Why, I never!" Magilou sniffs, as if she's hurt. "I was going to keep you company, but I see I'm entirely unwelcome! I'm going to go bother Hiro. He appreciates me!"

    Magilou spins on her heel, and starts walking away. It's only then, hearing that final 'dummy', that her smile falls.

    "Sorry, kid..." She murmurs, half to herself -- though Ruby's ears are quite big and fluffy.

    With that, Magilou walks straight into that eldritch song, humming a tune -- and flicks a hand backwards, to send one of her shikigami to hover by Ruby, even as she leaves. It's a minor spirit, by Lunar's reckoning -- far from the might of a Red Dragon -- but it should be able to maintain enough power from its connection to Bienfu to protect her.

    If the dragon can sing this loudly... well, it's not that she's concerned.

    But there aren't a lot of Red Dragons about these days, are there?

    -=-=-

    From nowhere, a blur of pink and purple swoops out, in front of Rixia. "Have a nice trip!" Magilou chirps, as she soars on her shikigami -- to clip right over the Fell Dragon, like a sparrow buzzing an airship. Magilou swoops, and lands... on its opposite side.

    "Hiiii! You didn't forget me, did you?!" Magilou is too, TOO cheerful, in the wake of this overwhelming Malevolence.

    She's pretending. Point to Ruby.

GS: Magilou has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Gliding Blast!
GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya didn't realize Rixia was behind the wall, or she might've picked a different wall. ...Probably.

As it stands, Kaguya notices the surging attack towards her and whirls to face it, stepping out of the way and trying to get ahold of the dragon's jaw as it approaches her. Nothing about it can be horrified, but it's horrifying enough anyway--but Kaguya can't get a good grip, and in thew ake of that sound, that song, she winces, hearing...

Is it loneliness? Or something else?

Rixia(?)'s magic sinks in though, and Kaguya feels herself bolstered by it. She is pleased and a little surprised to find, "Hey, kiddo, you're alive! That's great. Stay that way."

Kaguya watches Hiro and Talia ahead--those who said they'd fight with the Guard on this one. SHe considers Hilde, brave and true. And...

Leo, shielding her with the White Dragon's power. She glances over at Shige, and hmms. Then she looks forward. "All right," Kaguya says. "We gotta keep up the pressure!"

She kind of just avoids Talia and Hiro for the moment, as well as Lanval, instead jumping up next to Margaret. "Nice seeing you," she says, and then rears back, somersaulting behind and handspringing up into the air. A moment later, she vaults up into the air, spinning and spinning until she, in a flash of white energy, crashes towards the dragon's face.

"The mire, huh? This isn't where I talk about how an interesting an ecosystem a swamp can be, is it?"

She lands opposite Magilou, and grins.

GS: Kaguya spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Satellite Break!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Margaret with Hallowed Ground!
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Hilde with Hallowed Ground!
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Hiro with Hallowed Ground!
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Rixia with Hallowed Ground!
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Magilou with Hallowed Ground!
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Kaguya with Hallowed Ground!
GS: Shige Kiwako has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action.
GS: Hilde accepts Shige Kiwako's Hallowed Ground for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock state applied to Hilde!
GS: Kaguya accepts Shige Kiwako's Hallowed Ground for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock state applied to Kaguya!
GS: Margaret accepts Shige Kiwako's Hallowed Ground for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock state applied to Margaret!
GS: Magilou accepts Shige Kiwako's Hallowed Ground for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Shieldbreak removed!
GS: Lock state applied to Magilou!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Kaguya's Satellite Break for 114 hit points!
GS: Cripple and Jam applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Rixia accepts Shige Kiwako's Hallowed Ground for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock state applied to Rixia!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Hiro accepts Shige Kiwako's Hallowed Ground for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock state applied to Hiro!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Gliding Blast for 37 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Weaken applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Hyper applied to Magilou!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened!
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Marivel Armitage's Skill Drain for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Yupisuy Khamiss has posed.

    Each swing of his swords impacts with force against Khamiss' scaled hide. But alas, even here he succeeds in but chipping away at the dragon's defenses. Still, every second that they fight against the dragon is another second for the mustered forces to flee to safety. This may have to suffice for Hiro as Khamiss swings one massive taloned paw for him, as if its intent we that of a great cat -- to pin him or knock him aside.

    Margaret -- er, Tera Gram puts a stop to this, however it goes: her explosive dash-and-slash for the front of the dragon effectively directs its attention from him to her. Great wells of purple-black blood burble up from the weak points she's pierced in its hide to drip onto the ground. But is this wound enough to stop it?

    It isn't an opportunity that Kaguya seems to want to let slip past her. That burst of energy erupts through the air mere moments after 'Tera's' blades cleave into the dragon's flesh and slam directly into the dragon's head. It reels, emitting a low moaning cry.

    Hilde renders unto the dragon a most mighty blow in the second that follows. But, what's this? Where her strike would have landed it impacts instead but air. A heavy mist has settled into the space where the dragon was--

    It's behind her, Hilde will realize as it vents again its terrible chilling breath upon her and others who are now close at hand to where the dragon lurks. Unfortunately for Margaret, this also includes her -- and Kaguya, too.

    An icy tornado slams into its side in that next heartbeat of a moment, perhaps forestalling further tragedy along those lines. With aching slowness, Khamiss turns towards Talia, and it may be a pity that the icy shards rent only a few wounds into its scaled hide.

    This might be the moment in which Marivel has a potent opportunity open to her -- the chance to sample the essence of a Fell Dragon. But... is this a good idea?

    It's as good a time as any for Magilou to intrude upon the dragon's being, a moment which sees it attempt to snap at her but for her to escape, unharmed, to land on its opposite flank. A low, warbling moan slips from the depths of the Fell Dragon, and this may well be some sick parody of the magic it had wielded as a Seraph: these gouts of water that erupt all around it like flowers blooming in a field, all tinged a sickly purple-blue.

    Then there is a flash. Those energies... perhaps they are unmistakeable for a creature still possessed of such spiritual might as a Fell Dragon. It sees and it knows what Rixia is doing -- has done.

    One dull eye turns her way. And it is followed by a mighty lash of its tail.

    'We grant thee peace!'

    Does the dragon on some level recognize what Lanval is? Whether it's some faint glimmer of kinship or simply the hunger that drives it, it raises its head in this moment as Lanval calls out to it as if to scent the air. Zeroing in on him it nearly swims through the ground towards him in a terrible rush, tearing up earth and stone alike in its wake. Opening its jaws wide it descends upon him, again with that horrible wailing all the while.
    Perhaps the 'clonk' on the jaw might subdue its song... if but in a metaphysical sense.

    Is it the invocation of the White Dragon that draws its attention, at last, from Lanval? Does a Fell Dragon regard the Four as distant kin or bitter enemies? Does a Fell Dragon regard anything at all, anymore? But Khamiss howls terribly as it descends upon Leo, as it seeks to lay into him most terribly with all the strength and force it can muster with its tearing talons.

GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hiro with Mischance!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Margaret with Deadcold!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hilde with Deadcold!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Kaguya with Deadcold!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Magilou with Waterlily!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Shige Kiwako with Waterlily!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Marivel Armitage with Waterlily!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Talia with Waterlily!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Rixia with Crystal Mirror!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss enters a Counter stance!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Seraph Lanval with A longdrawn carol!
GS: Recover! Break, Disrupt, Jam, and Weaken removed from Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss spends 1 Combo on Interrupt!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked White Knight Leo with A pale pale corpse!
GS: CRITICAL! Hiro takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Mischance for 130 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hiro gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: FP up! Power Burst and Evade bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has completed its action.
GS: Hilde solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Deadcold for 24 hit points!
GS: Weaken applied to Hilde!
GS: Hyper applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
GS: Seraph Lanval has activated Force Action: Accelerate!
GS: Seraph Lanval partially evades Yupisuy Khamiss's A longdrawn carol for 165 hit points!
GS: FP up! Power Burst, Evade bonus, and Gleam activated!
GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Seraph Lanval receives 100 temporary hit points.
GS: Seraph Lanval enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Strain! Yupisuy Khamiss takes 100 damage!
GS: Hiro used Defend! He takes #-1 NO SUCH OBJECT VISIBLE's  attack on Rixia on himself!
GS: CRITICAL! Magilou suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's Waterlily for 46 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Entangle applied to Magilou!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated!
GS: Shige Kiwako takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Waterlily for 23 hit points!
GS: Entangle applied to Shige Kiwako!
GS: Hyper applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: White Knight Leo solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's A pale pale corpse for 99 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! White Knight Leo gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Interrupt blocked!
GS: FP up! Power Burst and Gleam activated!
GS: White Knight Leo has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
GS: Strain! Yupisuy Khamiss takes 100 damage!
GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Waterlily for 47 hit points!
GS: Entangle applied to Marivel Armitage!
GS: Hyper applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated!
GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Deadcold for 62 hit points!
GS: Weaken applied to Margaret!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hiro with Mischance!
GS: Talia takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Waterlily for 19 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Talia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Entangle applied to Talia!
GS: Hiro solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Mischance for 46 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hiro gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: FP up! Power Burst and Guard bonus activated!
GS: Hiro enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Hiro has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Deadcold for 59 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Kaguya gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Weaken blocked!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel doesn't immediately start screaming so that's a good sign--her eyes are glowing crimson and she has grown leathery black wings behind her but that's not too atypical for Marivel even if the latter is usually a second half situaition. Obviously she gained Deathsong. That might be a bad thing irrespective of everything else. For the moment, Marivel is glad it's not a variation of Demon Fang again.

"Too much," Marivel murmurs to herself.

She has to pry herself free from that connection. "Come on, come on... Digest more efficiently..."

She is expecting a blast from the dragon's maw rather than a burst of water underneath her feet. Marivel is slow to move out of the way due to being in midcast when it appears and is blown up through the air before she slams back down on her back, twisting one of her wings.

She also takes a vuln stack.

Marivel says, "Don't worry," to Rixia. "I usually get throttled a bit before the ultimate victory. Business as usual."

She rolls up to her feet, rolling her shoulder back as she readies the holy blade that had once served as the dragon's seal.

"BRB." Marivel asides to Rixia as she darts forward, her gauntlet smoking as she swings the holy blade Irony at the Fell Dragon!

"You don't like this one, yes?" Marivel asks. "I don't suppose you will be atypical and return to your true self?"

Marivel is still determined to try and do this impossible thing. Maybe, for some reason, she feels like she has to no matter how impossible it has been proven.

GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Guillotine!
GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage's stances have changed to Hero!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Leo draws upon the White Dragon, and Hilde finds herself protected by a shining barrier. And a wisp lingers near her, too, courtesy of Shige. With support like this, she can fight harder.

"Thank you!" She calls out to her crowd of allies, readying herself for another go at the dragon. A dangerous endeavor... but someone must.

...And it becomes all the more dangerous, however, as even more of the dragon's terrible capabilities are revealed. What would have been a clean strike finds itself cleaving through the air instead. She can feel the dragon behind her and whirls around quickly, raising her shield just in time to receive a full blast of its chilling breath. It parts around her shield - but it leaves a layer of ice across the front of it, and frost begins to form on her armor. She feels weaker, like the cold is draining her very life from her body...

"Ugh, it chills to the bone... Be cautious, everyone! The dragon can disappear into thin air and reappear unexpectedly!" Hilde warns. An unnerving prospect - it was dangerous even when it was very big and very powerful. But to have such powers at its disposal...

Knowing this, however, she can at least attempt to adapt accordingly. She raises her sword in front of herself for a moment, focusing energy into it. The blue aura of her resolve strengthens, and some of the ice clinging to her armor starts to melt before she leaps toward the dragon and swings her blade down - and where her sword strikes, where it be the dragon itself or the ground, a wave of energy erupts out from it to try and catch it if it disappears again.

GS: Hilde used Force Action: Mystic on herself!
GS: Weaken removed!
GS: COUNTER! Yupisuy Khamiss counterattacks Marivel Armitage with Counter Attack!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss solidly guards Marivel Armitage's Guillotine for 101 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hyper applied to Marivel Armitage!
GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Hilde has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Stock Break!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Hilde's Stock Break for 228 hit points!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Rixia with Crystal Mirror!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss enters a Counter stance!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Hiro used Defend! He takes Yupisuy Khamiss's Crystal Mirror attack on Rixia on himself!
GS: CRITICAL! Hiro solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Crystal Mirror for 65 hit points!
GS: FP up! Power Burst activated!
GS: Hiro has gained 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

"Whoa Talia! You actually-" Despite the dire situation, he actually smiles, knowing that she's serious.

"Don't worry Leo. I won't let her come to harm!" It's good to feel like the two are closer, after so long being at odds. "Hope so after that!"
 
He calls out to Shige. As the light touch of a prayer settles upon him, causing a surge in morale.
 
"How could we?" He laughs at Magilou as she enters the fray, "Fashionably late?" Before he salutes Kaguya, "Reckon it's good seeing you too, Duchess." And a flash of a smile at Marivel, "Let's go with three."
 
A massive taloned paw comes down, and Hiro tries to skip out of the way, but the paw comes down near his leg, and he's struck heavily as it rakes against his thigh, knocking him aside, as he stabs his blade into the ground.
 
Its eye turns upon Rixia, and Hiro made a promise to Leo, which is why when the tail lashes at her, Rixia sees Hiro move in despite his injured leg, pushing her down low as his shield strikes the tail, turning it just fractionally. Just enough.
 
That it doesn't cleave off his head.
 
Breathing hard, he tells Rixia, "Once... this is over..." He looks over his shoulder, "...treating you to a bun. First though-"
 
Bringing himself standing, he squares up his stance, and charges at the Fel dragon, his blade igniting on the way.
 
"-BURN BURN BURN!"
 
His blade is wielded in an impaling thrust, that tries to find a gap of in the scales, and sink in the entirety of that eruption of flame inside of its gut, if he manages.

GS: Hiro has activated Force Action: Lock On!
GS: Hiro spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Hiro has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Battalion Sword!
GS: Hiro has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    Lanval's eyes, largely open and glowing with aquamarine light, falls upon the struggling Shige - she who he just met some time ago while he was trying to break the perfect bottle for a certain someone whose time has just passed about a week ago.
 
     "'Tis a different matter," 'Mr. Poltergeist' clarifies as he comes to a low stance post-Dragon-smacking. He has a moment to clarify an important matter for the psychopomp from Filgaia. "#-1 INVALID ANSI DEFINITION: +aquarmine This one was once a Seraph, like mine self. Malevolence hath smothered their very being to the last... there is naught left one can do but grant them peace." That he's able to explain this much between what he tells the dragon and now, well...
 
     That undersells how fast the dragon closes in on Lanval. Blink, and he's chewed to pieces. Blink, and there's streams of watery mana like ribbons--
 
     Where Lanval leans broadly to one side as the dragon's terrible jaws graze at his side, water spilling from him much like blood. He closes his eyes in focus, loosening the contents of the drinking gourd as he swings it in a wide circle like one might loosen purifying salt.
 
     What water that spills from him does not corrupt, a small measure of Malevolence purified through Schturdark's power in the wake of the dragon passing by to Leo's position. Lanval needs a Seer to Purify greater concentrations of it, and the massive amount generated masks the small miracle he works for where he stands, steadying himself with a patient smile - anchoring to a small joy the Mire had provided.
 
     "Even as thee art, cleanest purest water doth flow at Emrys!" Lanval speaks true, having seen that sanctified spring that managed to evade the corruption. Hilde talks of how the dragon can disappear into thin air and reappear...
 
     The incantation Lanval speaks is mostly lost in the sounds of shouting and war around him, but not the ending of it as a Seraphic Arte glyph extends from his feet. "Blessed Drops!"
 
     Large globules of shining water, blessed as they are, start raining down upon the Fell Dragon straight from the Seraph that the Goddess had declared Fallen.

GS: Seraph Lanval has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Blessed Drops!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"I--ah--well... yes," Talia admits to Hiro. She sounds a little embarrassed; at least, to the extent one can be in the midst of a very dangerous fight.

Water explodes up near Talia, as a geyser. She leaps away -- but can only get halfway to an escape, as the water nearly hurtles her to the side. She falls into a roll, hand out to push off the ground. That shoves her off the rocky surface, then she hops to her feet with an acrobatic motion. and lands again.

Her eyes widen, when she sees the talon sweep down for Leo. She doesn't know him -- but Ivan was rather fond of him. And, more than that, Leo came to her brother's rescue. For that, she owes him. "Sir Leo!" she calls out. "Look out!"

She looks at Hiro, then; her eyes widen as she sees him rush in, and shield Rixia. Talia isn't much of a shield. "Keep her safe, Hiro!" she says. She spares a quick glance at Kaguya -- but doesn't say anything. She isn't sure where to begin, there.

Hilde calls out.

"I suppose I should expect that, no?" Talia says, in regards to Hilde's advice. "But I will remember that!"

Hilde gives her all the inspiration she needs. She sees light shoot from Hilde's sword, as the knight goes straight for the Fell Dragon. She acts only a moment later.

Talia goes charging in towards the dragon. She runs -- without Mirage, there's no teleporting in -- and leaps up onto a rocky outcropping. The ex-assassin bicycle kicks off that, then does a quick turn around in midair, with her short sword thrust out. She makes several rapid stabs for the dragon as she comes in close. Her feet kick off the scales, just as Talia slams the blade down in a diagonal, rightward slash.

"Stardust!"

GS: Talia spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Talia has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Stardust!
GS: Talia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Riposte expired!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
Magilou calls out cheerfully as she dives in for her own contribution to violence.

"How could I POSSIBLY," says Tera Gram from the ground, before pausing to herself and reaching up to adjust her little hankerchief-snood and thinking to herself: I forgot. This disguise... she wouldn't know me like this. Best not to force the question in this chaos.

And chaos it is. Ice contends with ice, which is perhaps a battle with a terminal end. But the creature keeps turning its attention back and forth, a malevolent beast but nonetheless at bay. It becomes a certain sort of mist, bleeding already --

But is it actually WOUNDED? Margaret barely credits it. It's moaning, yes; it is acting hurt. It's also a malevolent creature. How like such a beast to grow more perilous as it bleeds! For wounds to be a trivial decoration! Ah, but when do these things become fantasy --

The cold deepens. Wet cold, clinging, rimefrost and hoar, not the good clean radiant unpleasantness of induced magickal ice. That has the charity to be in dry air, almost by necessity. Margaret feels herself shiver; the usual sweat that gets wicked away here, on the heights of her own magic, is instead spot-freezing. Almost in the very pores themselves! Ew, she thinks, even as she does a backflip away from the motion of the screaming creature and sees --

Where it's going. No, where it went. "Right!" Tera Gram snaps back to Hilde at her warning, her sword held up warily. But the good thing, at least, is that it is fairly easy to locate. It cannot disappear for long, unless, she thinks, it chooses to simply...

Fortunately, of course, it does not. And unfortunately, its target...

"LEO!" Margaret shouts. "Alright, enough of this." The blade is swept up in a half-circle, held up above her head, and Tera Gram declares...

"IGNITE!"

DC: Margaret switches forms to Rune Blade IGNITION!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
And with a burst of white light, those little painted-on markings glow, and then burst into lambent white flame that soon enough engulfs the entire blade, the steel shining outwards with stellar (if not quite solar) luminance.

Tera Gram has already started running forwards during the eruption of power, and when it is done she grasps the blade with both hands, holding it off to the side as she builds up momentum for the power of the

FIRST clash

SECOND, THIRD, slash downwards with twinkling afterparts that are quite similar to the sparks you see from a blacksmith's foundry - and perhaps for good reason. The blade ever-honing, sharp and glittering and screaming just a little bit.

FOURTH, FIFTH, SIXTH, twisting around so each one has her back put into it, trailing streaks of light behind it. SEVENTH is the last, an upward strike aimed more to put a different cross-chop wedge, to deepen and join wound channels. Perhaps to make that 'missing scale' she'd spoken of to Shige just moments ago, when she felt that blessing.

And then for lucky #8, she hops back, raising the sword backwards with a double-handed grip as the light grows almost indescribable, enough to cast shadows for several seconds, and Tera Gram leaps into the air and SMASHES it downwards-- the blade howls-- screams--

And bursts! The fragments roaring upwards into a final sparkling arc as she comes down into a kneeling stance, arms spreading out as she hastily discards the (probably quite hot, after ALL OF THAT) hilt and pommel.

GS: Margaret spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Margaret has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with A Continuous Motion...!
GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Margaret has launched an attack Link!
GS: Margaret spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Margaret has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with THE GREAT DIVIDE!
GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    To Rixia's mild surprise, Hiro speaks out to her. She's here, isn't she? Rixia redoubles her expression and wipes at her tears again, sniffling. "Y-yeah..."

    Hiro's working with Talia too, who's the nice woman who gave her a change of clothes and a shower that time she stumbled into Vane all bloodied. She's rooting for both of them...! "N-nice teamwork!" she calls out, agreeing with Marivel's comment.

    She looks to Marivel and the barrel again and says, "B-barrels comfort me, okay. I just want to say, 'Barrel!' when I'm next to one."

    Marivel takes her hands, though, and then squeezes her hands in turn. She tells her of how awful and heartless war is. But she can promise her that it isn't the end. And that the same things that scare her... scares Marivel too.

    "R-really?" Rixia whispers aloud. Everyone's... probably scared in some way too, but they're still willing to fight. "How do you deal with it, after so long, Miss Leviram?" Maybe by having crimson red eyes and leathery black wings?? That'd make her feel pretty powerful too!!

    Marivel says some very weird things, though. "W-w-what does 'brbbb' even mean?"

    Leo bestows the power of the White Dragon on her, and she feels emboldened and powerful, a barrier clinging to her to protect her from harm. "M-Mister Leo..."

    "I feel really nauseous and awful near the Dragon's aura... is this what Miss Magilou was teaching me a while back? Male... Mael...volence?" she mumbles. It's really rare that you come onto someone who's not terribly familiar with the concept, but she's got a faceful of it right now!

    Just as she says that, Magilou appears! Her eyes widen. "M-Miss Magilou? I thought you left!" Kaguya gives her a salute too, and -- and tries to give her a grin in turn, though it turns out rattly and shaky. "Y-yeah, working on it..."

    Just as Kaguya tells her to keep on living, the Dragon's ire is drawn upon her, and it swings its mighty tail at her! "Aaaah--!!"

    Hiro throws himself in harm's way, though, and raises his shield to deflect the blow. Groggy, Rixia looks up at Hiro where he's glancing to the dragon too. "H-hey, I still owe you for last time... b-besides, your leg!"

    She concentrates, and this time, she doesn't use her gunblade -- instead, she focuses her own Time Magic:

    "Layer upon layer make your mark now... Haste!"

    For Hiro, there's a little trick of the light -- and it's as if everything's moving a bit slower compared to him; it makes it easier for him to react and dodge to things.

    "Let's get buns together!"

GS: Rixia used Force Action: Mystic on Hiro! FP up!
GS: Rixia has attacked Hiro with Draw - Haste!
GS: Rixia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Rixia gains 59 THP from Regen!
GS: Rixia has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hiro accepts Rixia's Draw - Haste for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick applied to Hiro!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    "Good," Leo says, turning back to Hiro. "I'm counting on you." There are so few people Leo can trust right now. Hiro just so happens to be one of them.

    Hilde lunges forward, and the air shimmers. In the space of a blink, the Fell Dragon is gone, but its presence is still there. Leo's ear twitches, and whips around to see the thing rear back--

    "BEHIND YOU!" Leo shouts, and he charges, blade gleaming. Khamiss' breath goes high, leaving him with only a minor chill--but then the beast round on Seraph Lanval.

    For a horrid moment, Leo wonders if they could defeat two Fell Dragons. Some of the Guard's strongest are here today, and so is Hiro, and so is the infamous witch Magilou, but--

    Lanval holds his ground, and does not turn, and Leo breathes again.

    'Sir Leo! Look out!'

    The dragon lashes out at him next, its claws falling like a guillotine. Leo's blade races up to catch them, meets them halfway. The CRUNCH of impact echoes through the basin, and drives Leo shin-deep into the earth. Every muscle in his body screams in pain, but he holds the Dragon's might off for a few crucial seconds. That's all he can manage right now, and all it takes.

    Leo ducks and tumbles forward, beneath the Fell Dragon's vast body. He comes up to a knee at its flank, his blade lashing out in another blindingly-blight strike. Again, there's a flash of almost stellar intensity, not that dissimilar from Margaret's. Were their foe made of flesh and blood, it could lay open its belly; Leo hopes he can at least make it hurt.

GS: White Knight Leo enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Luminant Scythe!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: COUNTER! Yupisuy Khamiss counterattacks Hiro with The reaper weary!
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Hiro's Battalion Sword for 376 hit points!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Seraph Lanval's Blessed Drops for 244 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Seraph Lanval enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss takes a glancing hit from Talia's Stardust for 119 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Delay applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Drowsy blocked!
GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated!
GS: Hiro partially evades Yupisuy Khamiss's The reaper weary for 133 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hiro gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hiro enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.

Shige's starting to get in the groove of things. Focused on anything, but the horrifying dragon beast thing before her. Largely because she's not in the immediate line of fire and she can do something for those that are. Pausing to do lesser magic for the soldiers around her, trying to keep them safe as much as those engaging the dragon who, blunt as it is, get the majority of her focus right now. She doesn't crack a joke though. "All things must end, right?"
 
 Hiro, both throwing himself into the fray and getting batted around like a cat's toy gets her focus instead now. "Hold on!" she calls out, not able to stop the swing, but she can try to mitigate right? Swinging the lantern around and raising it, casting the same shadows and wisps as before. A figure of a witch, the kind you might find on the edge of a town offering healing, not so much the brash explosion throwing sort manifests. Murmuring a spell lost to time. Soothing and lingering and the faint dying sounds of the spell are all that remain when the wisp and its memory fade away.
 
 She's moving proeprly now though, having already completed her half of the spell, dark shadows chasing behind her as she flits through the crowd. Stepping over any fallen, adding to that shadow for a moment.
 
 As Hilde moves, those shades follow, nodding in agreement and preparing phantom arms. They're fading away themselves, but they'll help as long as they can borrow the time.
 
 She really should be watching the dragon though as she's all, but swept under by the water. Both herself and the lantern submerging briefly before she scrambles back to her feet looking frustrated and off balance. She won't shake herself off yet. Though a wet cat is an angry cat.
 
 She doesn't know most of the people here by name, but she's doing her best to help the situation! Something for later of course.

GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Hiro with Witch's Apparition!
GS: Shige Kiwako has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action.
GS: Gamble: Low! Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Margaret's A Continuous Motion... for 144 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Slow applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    Magilou blows a kiss to Tera Gram, and is it some terribly coincidence?!

    "You just hold on to what you're about, Fox-face!" She calls, cheerfully, to Rixia -- and salutes, to Hiro. "You know I am!"

    You know. Acting. She's got the power of more spirits than hers at her back, thanks to Shige, so perhaps it's a little easier.

    Magilou thinks of her own Fairy Circle -- don't worry about what kind of arte that is -- as she quick-steps away from the water, and grimaces, as those Malevolent water splash her ankles. She's able to hold her own frighteningly well against the corruption, but it's still not pleasant, even with a broken heart.

    "Soooo, honourable knights, what's the plan? Sacrifice ourselves nobly to the Fell Dragon's jaws? Great plan!" Magilou crows, looking to Hilde and Leo. (And with a glance to Hiro. Sorry, buddy. You're a knight.) "But I really have to insist you illustrate the rest of the plan after we all senselessly die here!"

    A shadowy Seraphic glyph alights under her feet, as she stretches her hand out, channeling her arte towards Khamiss. "You're all about to get a lot closer!" She invokes, and Talia has such a noble path to follow, using invocations just like these. "Gravity Mine!"

    Magilou isn't arrogant enough to think she'll compress a Fell Dragon enough to keep it in place, of course, even as the shadows collect to a node on the ground.

    But if she can make it flinch...

GS: Yupisuy Khamiss solidly guards Margaret's THE GREAT DIVIDE for 123 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
GS: Magilou has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Gravity Mine!
GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Yupisuy Khamiss solidly guards Magilou's Gravity Mine for 29 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cripple and Entangle applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Guard bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from White Knight Leo's Luminant Scythe for 199 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mighty applied to White Knight Leo!
GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: CRITICAL! Shige Kiwako heals Hiro! He gains 231 temporary hit points!
GS: Regen applied to Hiro!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Like flowers in a field...

That chilling breath crashes into Kaguya, who relaxes immediately against it to let her armor do the work of protecting her. Most of a Veruni containment suit does a lot to insulate her from the chill, though ice clings to her sleeves in obvious lines where she was struck. Nevertheless--it's damage, and a little at a time might be enough if they can't make some progress battering at the dragon's defenses in turn.

That wailing....

Hilde's warning snaps Kaguya out of hearing the sound. It can disappear and reappear. Such a creature--what kind of magic does it hold? Why do Seraphim turn to dragons? Kaguya has a lot of questions.

Kaguya laughs at Hiro. "You reckon, huh? You've been on Filgaia too long!"

But Hiro--Hiro moves to defend Rixia, and Kaguya immediately sweeps up near them, ready to help defend. "it's Malevolence," Kaguya confirms for Rixia's sake. "And listen to Marivel. You'll be fine."

She watches Margaret (TERA GRAM!) move quickly and quickly, howling with a blade, and looks kind of impressed actually. "Guess the sword couldn't handle it..."

Kaguya isn't sure where to begin with Talia, either. But she thinks about it. Yeah, she thinks about it.

"Hey Magilou," Kaguya says. "Do they make cards for 'sorry, I don't remember why I hate you so much?' Because that's kind of a thing. It's kind of weird. Anyway."

Kaguya breathes in, and reorients herself in Lunar's flows of energy. She feels the rush of the wind around her, the water at her feet, the plants all around, and... Strangely enough, not the Malevolence. she doesn't dwell on that.

"A plan..." Pause. "Well."

But did Kaguya mention she had a lot of ARMs? Because she does. And she pulls two shotguns, beautiful wood-stocked gunsmoke ARMs with straight barrels (Barrels!) and gleaming metal triggers. She hefts both up and, rather than worrying about recoil, jumps upward to fire both with everything they have--and, rocketed back by the sheer force of the slugs slamming for the Dragon, whirls mid-air to toss them aside and pull a couple of pistols. The six-shooters have mother-of-pearl in their grips, and they fire twelve shots straight for the Dragon's face, Kaguya spinning around with the report of each as she fires shot after shot. Finally, at the apex of her leap, she pulls one of the rifles--and aims straight center-mass, delivering a powerful round for the Dragon's heart!!

...And then, as she starts to sail back down, pulls a brace of grenades. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

The small Veruni appears to be trying to test every form of modern weaponry on a Fell Dragon at once. Or close enough to.

She sails down, down, down and answers Magilou, "I'm thinking I shoot it until it decides it doesn't like getting shot. If I run out of ammo before that, then maybe the soldiers will have run off enough that we can book it."

GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
GS: Kaguya spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Excessive Firepower!
GS: Kaguya has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Kaguya has launched an attack Link!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Explosive Finish!
GS: Kaguya has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss solidly guards Kaguya's Excessive Firepower for 116 hit points!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Kaguya's Explosive Finish for 70 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Delay and Weaken applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
<Pose Tracker> Yupisuy Khamiss has posed.

    It's the narrowest of narrow saves: Hiro, spotting the danger coming Rixia's way, intrudes in the nick of time to interpose his shield before the powerful flick of the dragon's tail. It's enough to just barely turn it aside, though no good deed goes unpunished: the dragon rears about to attempt to snap at Hiro, as if to repay him for an attack thwarted.

    Leo finds himself in a similar dilemma: his blade has, just in the nick of time, raised to meet the coming claw. It's as big as his forearm, and here he strains and struggles for a moment that may just feel to be far too long.

    Until he breaks that talon-on-blade-lock.

    Knowledge of an enemy's capability is just about half the battle, as many warlords of old have noted. Hilde takes up the strategy they had suggested and adapts accordingly, adjusting her technique to try to catch the dragon ere it slips again to assault them from behind once again. Indeed, it begins to fade from sight even as she brings down her blade, but such a gambit is interrupted. A guttural howl erupts from the monstrosity's throat even as it is forced back into solid form once more.

    Into this moment, its once-kin in Lanval lets loose with a most blessed rain. 'Fallen' though Lanval may be, the roar from the forcefully-rematerialized dragon speaks to the power he still holds. Even in Emrys, there was a spring. In any place and time, there may be joy.

    And with a rematerialized dragon, much and more might be attempted. Talia leads with a flurry of blows, using the monstrosity's very form as a surface of which to rebound upon. None of her strikes might cut particularly deeply individually, but collectively her assault forces the dragon back from offensive, forces it also to rear up. This is an opening which many might have sought.

    Particularly Tera Gram.

    The cuts come in quickly, one after the other -- the dragon might attempt to snarl and snap at her with each blow she inflicts upon it, but Tera Gram is always one step ahead, always just too fast to be easily caught. There, with one second-to-last strike, an attempt by her to make her rumor reality even as she delivers her last and eighth blow. It's been wounded, deeply so. Under other circumstances this might have served to only enrage it, but instead, Magilou intervenes. The spell that detonates around it staggers it, makes it flinch--

    Just long enough.

    Thus for Hiro, persistence pays off: where his blade had before met with the resistance of the dragons' scales, here the heated blade sinks deep into the pit of the dragon's belly. The rumor, made manifest, is now exploited for all it is worth. Not to be outdone, and following up on the opening that Tera Gram, kind foreign adventurer of note, has opened for them, Leo drives at its flank and cuts a deep gouge there through its damaged hide; it bleeds a sickly violet. Here, too, Kaguya unloads upon it, delivering to the dragon a full tasting flight of weaponry it has never before seen in its entire Seraphic (and Draconic) existence. Shells pepper its hide; it shrieks in its agonies.

    It is fitting, perhaps, that the holy blade -- even wielded by a Crimson Noble -- cuts so deeply into the Fell Dragon's flesh. Khamiss screams, thrashing in its pain as it is struck and snaps at Marivel -- but alas, while her blade does indeed prove as effective as one might hope against the dragon, there is no hint of a transformation away from the state it now occupies. If there is any way at all to return a Fell Dragon to a Seraph -- and all the tales that the Seraphim themselves tell suggest that it cannot be -- this is likely not it.

    The storm of Malevolence all around them churns thickly, the heavy clouds above now half-illuminated by its dull and bruisy light. Here above all else is not a safe place in which to be. And yet, the defenders here gathered have no choice but to be here, lest the dragon turn its attention to the fleeing armies or, worse, seek out yet other lands.

    This same storm seems to evoke something in Khamiss, for it turns its attentions away from those arrayed before it regardless of the wounds they inflict upon it and towards the stormy skies still on the very brink of rain. Heedless now at what might be thrown its way it begins to keen discordantly, a long wailing throb of sound that cuts deeply into the souls and spirits of those who can hear it.

    Lightning cracks down from the skies above. The storm has come: it has begun to rain in earnest.

GS: Yupisuy Khamiss spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Kaguya with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Magilou with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Shige Kiwako with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked White Knight Leo with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Rixia with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Margaret with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Talia with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Seraph Lanval with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hiro with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hilde with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Marivel Armitage with The curse is come upon me!
GS: Delay expired!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has completed its action.
GS: CRITICAL! Rixia solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 25 hit points!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Rixia!
GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Gleam activated!
GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 40 hit points!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Kaguya!
GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
GS: Hilde suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 39 hit points!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Hilde!
GS: Shige Kiwako suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 45 hit points!
GS: Shige Kiwako's Mute Ward may block the effect!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Shige Kiwako!
GS: Mute blocked!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Hiro partially guards Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 19 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hiro gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Hiro!
GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
GS: White Knight Leo takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 11 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! White Knight Leo gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to White Knight Leo!
GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Gleam activated!
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 38 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Talia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Talia's Slow Ward may block the effect!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Poison, and Weaken applied to Talia!
GS: Slow blocked!
GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated!
GS: Seraph Lanval takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 19 hit points!
GS: Seraph Lanval's Cripple Ward may block the effect!
GS: Seraph Lanval's Mute Ward may block the effect!
GS: Seraph Lanval's Poison Ward may block the effect!
GS: Break, Jam, Slow, and Weaken applied to Seraph Lanval!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison blocked!
GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Gleam activated!
GS: Magilou solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 30 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Magilou's Mute Ward may block the effect!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Magilou!
GS: Mute blocked!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated!
GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: CRITICAL! Margaret takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 21 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Margaret's Cripple Ward may block the effect!
GS: Margaret's Mute Ward may block the effect!
GS: Break, Jam, Mute, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Margaret!
GS: Cripple blocked!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated!
GS: Marivel Armitage suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's The reaper weary for 123 hit points!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated!
GS: Marivel Armitage suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's The curse is come upon me for 31 hit points!
GS: Marivel Armitage's Mute Ward may block the effect!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Poison, Slow, and Weaken applied to Marivel Armitage!
GS: Mute blocked!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    A storm arrives. Fell rain drips heavy with the curse of Malevolence, of whatever contradictions fueled this morass that took hold of the Seraph this Fell Dragon once was. A keening wail pierces the skies, the air, the ears and very souls of all who yet stand and fight.
 
     Lightning strikes nearby, evaporating puddles of pooling water. The Water Seraph turned Oracle of Schturdark keeps the gentle, if a little silly, smile as he watches some find courage, many holding fast to conviction, and others yet finding themselves more true than they may have ever imagined.
 
     He seems to mostly stand there, in the moment, taking in another sip from his drinking gourd, then taking it in hand and whirling it. Faster, faster and faster it spins until it's a blur worthy of the likes of Ambrosius' strange cutting saws made only of water, and then...
 
     He hurls it into the sky, into the rain. He cannot fully clear the Malevolence from the skies above, but there is a small miracle of note to be noticed -
 
     The droplets of water that escape... are clean. Brisk, refreshing. This is not true in that wide of an area, as those fighting would need to be close(-ish) enough amongst one another to benefit from it, but the gesture is clear.
 
     "Thy curse is come upon thee... but so shalt salvation." Even before the events at Love's Cradle, Seraph Lanval had murmured acknowledgement for how this then-unseen and unrecognized Seraph to the mortals at large for how long they must have held out.
 
     This cleansing rain, free of impurity for the moment, shall be as tribute to this resilience.
 
     While he is not to render aid to the Veruni, declared anathema by the Guardians - and the actions of most of them have helped reinforce this adversarial relationship over the years. Nonetheless, there's not much he can do if Kaguya just happens to be standing around in this rain, now is there...

GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Kaguya with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Magilou with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Shige Kiwako with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked White Knight Leo with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Rixia with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Margaret with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Talia with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Hiro with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Hilde with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Marivel Armitage with Wake Up Splash!
GS: Seraph Lanval has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Riposte expired!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Hilde accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Jam, and Weaken removed!
GS: CRITICAL! Hiro accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, and Mute removed!
GS: Magilou accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Entangle, and Jam removed!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Talia accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, and Entangle removed!
GS: Kaguya accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break and Cripple removed!
GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Entangle, and Jam removed!
GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
GS: Shige Kiwako accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Entangle, Jam, and Slow removed!
GS: White Knight Leo accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Jam, and Mute removed!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Margaret accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Jam, Mute, Poison, and Slow removed!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Leo shouts his warning to her, and others heed her own. Though she doesn't know many of them as well as she would like, Hilde's heart soars. She is relieved that such fine allies would arrive to join her this day.

Magilou, though, asks what the plan is. Hilde looks over to her, considering for a moment. Kaguya's plan is a good one too of course.

"We shall not die. For the time being, we occupy its attention until everyone has evacuated. If we can defeat it here and now, that would be ideal... but we may need to consider alternate methods of dealing with it." Hilde replies. "If you, or any of the other spellcasters know of any such method... then we shall do what we can to restrain it while you do whatever you need to do."

It is, of course, a Fell Dragon. Hilde doesn't want to imagine the damage it could do, if allowed to rampage across the countryside. Something must be done, here and now.

...Particularly now, when the Malevolence becomes so thick, building into a storm. And the dragon wails, a wail that pierces into her very soul.

"Ugh...!" Hilde gasps with a wince, falling to one knee. She stabs her sword to the ground, in order to keep herself from falling over completely. It's difficult to move, but...

...The rain begins to fall. This rain, however, is pure and clean. It washes away the dirt and grime of battle - and so too does it clear away the pain clinging to her soul. Hilde exhales, and stands up straight.

"Now...!" She shouts. Her shield is stowed away, and she takes up her sword with both hands. She charges down the dragon, swinging her blade in a mighty downward cleave!

GS: Hilde has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Titan Cleaver!
GS: Hilde takes 37 damage from Poison!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

"Don't worry. I've got her." He tells Talia, panting. Hiro's looking worse for wear after all that, but Shige?
 
That spell courses through him and, "Whoa!" He feels almost brand new? Like he'd just entered the fray, "Lifesaver."
 
He tells her with an almost too fast salute, newly moving quickly from Rixia's Haste spell.
 
"Letsgetbunsforevery-!" Hiro speaks slower, which brings him to normal speed, "We're getting buns for everyone after-! Buns on me!"
 
It may sound absurd talking about buns in a moment like this but... there it is.
 
Hiro grins at Leo, "Likewise, let's get all your people home." Hey he's getting the hang of speaking during haste.
 
Hiro will own every part of that but the Lawful part of Knight Magilou. Whereas for Kaguya, "It's like a second home by now!"
 
Despite whatever optimism and cheer he's mustered, the Fel Dragon seeks to snuff it out. The storm seeps in like a low throb of sound, and his soul feels like it's pulsing with the beat of its malevolence.
 
Despite the pound of contradiction, the wound to his soul...
 
"Is this what you feel all the time?" He murmurs to himself, as rain pounds down upon him. With Lanval's touch it becomes a blessing, and the wound throbs less as he silently thanks the Lord of the Land turned Oracle. "Don't let up everyone! Not even for a second!"
 
...this time, when he charges at the Dragon with a battle cry, his image splits into three, each one taking a side of the dragon. And three quick but devastating slashes that scar the air.
 
When he leaps backwards, the images vanish and he sheathes his sword. Each gouge collapses like it was a physical thing caving in, nature abhoring a vacuum, the wind rushes in a storm of slicing gusts.
 
"Let's show that butcher that he can't just have his way in Glenwood!"

GS: Hiro has activated Force Action: Lock On!
GS: Hiro spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Hiro has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Trinity Crisis!
GS: Hiro has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hiro's stances have changed to Hero!
GS: Hiro takes 33 damage from Poison!
GS: Hiro gains 58 THP from Regen!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

The answer to Rixia's question is a complex one. Marivel has some habits that are, lets face it, not the most healthy. And some habits that would be fatal for anyone else. But Marivel, ever a teacher, focuses on the positive when trying to teach.

Even as her left hand is chopped off by a well timed dragon CHAWMP, ripping it free in a spray of smoke and crimson energies. All in all not the worst for Marivel but that's a pretty low bar.

She looks up as the lightning crackles in the sky. "Lightning," She grumbles. It's not as effective against pure light but it's close enough. The way it harms Marivel isn't entirely based on the logic of this realm but it isn't wholly divorced from it.

Rixia first, she decides.

SPLOOSH before she can say much of anything. Marivel, drenched, looks at Lanval for a long moment. Then she clears her throat.

"Yes." She tells Rixia. "Really. When I lose people, I try to focus on the good times I had with them. When I'm hurt myself I seek comfort from those that remain. And in the thick of it, when the fear and horror and worst of all randomness of it all is faced directly at me..."

"I quietly accept it, that fear." Marivel says. "And I let it inform my actions without letting it control them. I remind myself if I let it rule me, something I fear more than my own pain will surely come to pass..."

"And I do a few breathing exercises. I can give you some meditation sheets if you'd like--"

She is asked about 'brbbbb'.

"Oh it's a way to say Be Right Back but like, when you are in too much of a hurry or lazy to spell it all out."
5rWhy is she taking time during this battle to explain this??

"And...just so you know..."

She fwiffs off her cloak, revealing a T-SHIRT that has a BARREL on it!

And under it, in vibrant colorful letters: Barrel!

"I TOO...TAKE COMFORT IN BARRELS!"

Thunder crashes down from above thanks to the Dragon's presence, illuminating Marivel and, more importantly, her Barrel T-shirt. "Let Barrel be your battlecry, shout it for all to hear!"

Another crash of lightning! This one hits Marivel. She blows out some smoke. "Never mind the heavens! Pierce the heavens with your Barrel instead!"

Yes, she thinks, this is the best pep talk.

Finally turning to the Dragon...

Mother. Father. Every time it comes with an ache.

She extends her hand out, twists her wrist--

"I have thought a safer place for you. Hell." Marivel murmurs as a dark triangle pulls out from underneath the Dragon and starts to pull it under, trying to drag it to another realm entirely. An ancestral homeland, really. This is the last idea she has to not kill this thing but in a place like that, maybe even a Fell Dragon can feel at home.

GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Hilde's Titan Cleaver for 207 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Marivel Armitage has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with DemonAngle!
GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage takes 26 damage from Poison!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Hiro's Trinity Crisis for 323 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Charge!! You gain 65 FP!
GS: Strain! Hiro takes 37 damage!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Gamble: High! Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Marivel Armitage's DemonAngle for 129
hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Drowsy and Hex applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "They make cards for anything if you're not a coward," Magilou points out, to Kaguya, all too casually.

    The amount of times she's sent holiday cards with the holiday crossed out and replaced with something entirely different is...

    ... okay, still not many, but Grimoirh has a pretty decent collection from Magilou realising it would be funny every two hundred years or so.

    (She'd tell them to hold on to memories like that, if she wasn't quite, quite occupied with this abyssal existence.)

    "You're holding up remarkably well," she tells Lanval -- and she almost sounds serious, for a moment. "All things considered..."

    Her gaze veils, for a moment. She weighs the scales.

    A blue Seraphic glyph alights beneath her feet, so much like Lanval's own.

    "When it comes to pain," Magilou invokes, "it's better to give than receive!" And she still remembers the words and their cadence, for all they've fallen to disrepair, over the centuries and their assumptions. "Fairy Circle!"

    A lotus blooms on the battlefield, and four more at its cardinal directions. It is green-blue, in the manner of water, and those flowers glow white with bright light; the mantra spreads far, and the blooming flowers ease the pain of that song for many.

    It's healing magic, but don't tell Khamiss that: because that central flower, blooming under its distracted claws, carries with it all the wounds of light and water wed together.

GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Extend!
GS: Magilou spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Magilou has attacked Kaguya with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Talia with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Margaret with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Rixia with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked White Knight Leo with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Shige Kiwako with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Kaguya with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Seraph Lanval with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Hiro with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has attacked Hilde with Fairy... !
GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Magilou has launched an attack Link!
GS: Magilou has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with ... circle!
GS: Magilou takes 26 damage from Poison!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
GS: Magilou heals Hiro! He gains 90 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Jam, Poison, and Slow removed!
GS: Magilou heals Seraph Lanval! He gains 90 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Jam, Slow, and Weaken removed!
GS: Magilou heals Hilde! She gains 86 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Mute, Poison, and Slow removed!
GS: Magilou heals Shige Kiwako! She gains 86 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Poison and Weaken removed!
GS: CRITICAL! Magilou heals Kaguya! She gains 108 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Jam, Mute, and Poison removed!
GS: Hyper applied to Magilou!
GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
GS: Kaguya enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Magilou heals Talia! She gains 87 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Jam, Mute, Poison, and Weaken removed!
GS: Magilou heals Kaguya! She gains 91 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Slow and Weaken removed!
GS: Magilou heals Margaret! She gains 89 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Weaken removed!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Magilou heals White Knight Leo! He gains 90 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Poison and Slow removed!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Rixia accepts Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Jam, and Poison removed!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Magilou heals Rixia! She gains 84 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Mute, Slow, and Weaken removed!
GS: Hyper applied to Magilou!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya does what she can; she'll collect her ARMs later, when she can, rather than leaving them for some enterprising bandit to uncover. She's learned, some. But her weapons fire, and fire, and fire, and it doesn't like being shot at all, it would seem. But still it fights. This storm of Malevolence that churns thickly around them finds no purchase in Kaguya, a faint red light lingering where the horrible miasma lingers against her. It is dangerous here. Dark. But that stormy sky above...

A disconsolate keening begins, a horrible wailing, and Kaguya grits her teeth. While Malevolence may not suffuse her, this pain does; she wonders, not for the first time, who this dragon was. Certainly she cannot hate this foe.

But... If Kaguya happens to be standing in the rain... then that's fine. And as it happens, she does. A cleansing rain falls on her, despite the adversarial relationship her people have with the Guardians. It doesn't clear away all the effects, but she feels stronger, and her muscles feel sharper. Kaguya narrows her eyes to the dragon, and says, "...There's only one kind of salvation for a dragon like this, huh?" Kaguya asks, and it isn't some warrior boast, but a sad question to which she already knows the answer. "...If I can give it that much, I will."

'It's like a second home by now!' from Hiro, and Kaguya doesn't smile as she answers, "For me, too." She doesn't comment on buns for the moment, though. Instead--she won't let up. And in fact--Magilou has an answer for her. A card for anything...

"Talia!" Kaguya calls, actually saying her name for the first time in--a long time. "I've got some apologies to make, but now's not the time!" From the opposite side of the Dragon she calls to her former enemy. "Right now, I'm gonna pin it down so you can do your thing. So consider this my greeting card!"

What?

Regardless, Kaguya starts running--backward, sprinting up to the slope of a fallen wall and springing off of it, up into the air where she somersaults through the air. "I'd say I want fewer sad battles..."

Kaguya twists mid-air to put out a fist, wreathed in green-white energy, drawing on the power of Magilou's healing spell to give her strength. "But most of them probably should suck!"

Kaguya becomes a meteor of green energy, and slams down to try to pin the Dragon in place long enough for Talia to get off her attack.

"FALLING STAR!"

GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Lock On!
GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Falling Star!
GS: Kaguya has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

 
A blown kiss! Tera Gram is already ahead of a lot of historical knights who were lucky to get used hankerchiefs, and died for them nonetheless. And speaking of dying -

Well, we'll get to that. Her blows move faster than the dragon, and it is *certainly* gratifying to Margaret to be One Step Ahead Margie in this moment because one good bite and, well, she doesn't need BOTH arms... and that's the best case scenario. The creature is wounded.

But the storm is breaking too. Something is howling... Unarmed, Margaret can only throw up an arm as if to shadow herself from -- from what? From what dire horror is screaming? Is it even the Fell Dragon at *all*?

Thunder rolls... and the water is perhaps not fully cleansed, but eased, by the Oracle's action. The water becomes less driving, less of a durance, and more of a soothing thing. Warmer, certainly, which Tera Gram is definitely appreciating, given the socks inside of her towering boots.

Hope is dawning over them. Around them. Encouragement from a knight (is she the holder of this area? Margaret vaguely wonders, in the glittering streak thoughts of Starlight Expression), and a blooming flower that glows outwards. Margaret exhales.

And Tera Gram turns her head. "I suppose if I were the solitary heroine," she says to the Fell Dragon, "this would be the end of things, for I had struck my blow and shivered my sword to flinders. But my dear worm," and this is when she grasps one of the OTHER hilts in that bandolier, "I like those stories, but not their endings."

"For the buns to come," Tera Gram concludes soberly (SHE HEARD THAT ONE, HIRO) -- and then she leaps forwards, another bounding surge and sweeping gash, moving now towards the Fell Dragon's flanks - to discourage twisting. It's not the kindest way to handle such a beast, but at a certain point one must decide between doing a thing without grace and care, or not doing it at all.

GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Margaret has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Twisting Flurry!
GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia, rebounding from her kick off the dragon, hits the ground in a three point stance. She stands upright nearly instantly, looking up at the dragon with no small amount of concern. They've done grievous damage to the Fell Dragon, now. Will it be enough, though? They couldn't really hurt the Saint of Sinners, though she thinks that one was larger.

She isn't sure. It's hard to tell in the middle of the battle.

Khamiss makes the churning storm of Malevolence grow thicker around them. Talia grits her teeth, bringing an arm over her face. The wail from the creature strikes her ears, the discordant sound shaking her for a moment. This isn't just a maddened beast they're fighting; it is something that was, once, a person.

Now, it's reduced to this.

Rain splashes off her, soaking her clothing through. Talia charges through the rain, her boots splashing in puddles as she does. But, under Lanval's magic, the rain changes; it becomes refreshing; it takes away from the oppressive weight of the storm. Talia's footfalls are lighter. More sure.

Hiro charges in first -- and Talia nods after him. "Right...!"

Magilou brings out her own spell -- a wave of healing, which washes over Talia. She sucks a breath in, glancing at the elven mage, and she nods her thanks, mid-charge. She is surprised, though, when Kaguya calls out to her. Talia blinks -- but she knows when the time to question is, and this isn't it. "Right!" she answers her. "We can discuss that later, no? I'm behind you!"

Kaguya springs into the air -- slamming down for the dragon. Talia runs in, ducking low across the ground, until she gets near enough. Then, she leaps up, just as Kaguya comes down. When she does, she slashes out with her sword -- and jumps into a corkscrew slash, blade slashing out with light trailing after.

"Light Spear--CANNON!"

She swings the blade up, at the creature's body -- and there is a final blast of force and energy, in the shape of a brilliant starburst of pure white light that explodes off the tip of her sword.

GS: Talia has activated Force Action: Lock On!
GS: Talia has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
GS: Talia spends 1 Combo on Interrupt!
GS: Talia has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Light Spear Cannon!
GS: Talia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.

The downpour is miserable, moreso than the usual reasons one is so bad. Clinging tightly to the lantern again, finding comfort in that inevitability in a way as she sinks to the ground. That feeling of dread is almost literally washed away almost in its entirety by the cleansing rain that follows the roar. It takes a few moments for her to collect herself. In the mud and whatever else. Hood over her obscured face.
 
 When she pushes herself back to her feet, she doesn't look up. The thanks does help though, oddly. Kind of piercing some melancholy that had been fermenting from the start and only dragged out by the bitter rain. "Yeah." She says, voice quiet, would have been quiet even if it weren't muffled. She thumbs up instead.
 
 The spell from Magilou, pretty, in its way and removing the worst of the funk she found herself in, the part that comes from concentrated nastiness at least. Tonight's not goign to be pleasant, if she makes it. She pats her pack, checking on the drinks and cigars stashed away. Mind wandering briefly at thought.
 
 She lifts the mask, glad for the hood keeping her face mostly hidden away as she takes a breath and continues her walk through the battlefield. The shadow behind her growing still. Up until she comes to a stop. Surrounded by the shades and memories of soldiers old and new. Silent as the grave and chilling to be near. "I never knew you. I'll probably never know your story." she starts. The shades around her forming up and charging after the dragon. Each flittering between an almost-shadow and a wisp. "I'm sorry for that. No one should be forgotten." The soldiers, the beastly horror, even the witch from before contribute to the.. magical dogpile the shadowy shaman has conjured on. "It's time for you to leave though, you don't belong here. I will take you where you belong. Whether you want it or not." Said as the shades and wisps all crash against the dragon in an attempt to drag it back to Shige, in a way.

GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Eclipse!
GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's ... circle for 140 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Falling Star for 214 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
GS: Strain! Kaguya takes 84 damage!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss partially evades Margaret's Twisting Flurry for 114 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Gamble: Moderate! Yupisuy Khamiss partially evades Talia's Light Spear Cannon for 133 hit points!
GS: Delay applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Interrupt blocked!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss solidly guards Shige Kiwako's Eclipse for 84 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Purge! Hex removed!
GS: Purge explodes for 68 damage!!
GS: Weaken applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Delay blocked!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    Rixia's shield made all the difference back there. Its glow has faded--it's turned into a faint nimbus of darting starlight, as if Leo were surrounded by a cloud of tiny fireflies. Violet blood spills on the ground beside him as his blade cleaves through Khamiss' tainted corpus. It hit. It's hurt. They're turning the tide. Hope dawns in Leo's heart for the first time in what feels like forever.

    Leo does not have Magilou's advanced, intimate knowledge of just how much you can do to a Fell Dragon without actually killing it.

    Then the sky darkens, and the rain begins to fall, and Khamiss begins to keen. Leo's ears flatten against his head; his face twists in a rictus of pain. The agonized sound throbs inside his skull, and it takes everything he has not to drop his blade and clap his hands to his ears. As if that meager gesture would stop it. Lightning slams into the ground not ten feet away, blackening the turf with a loud POP and a roar of thunder. The rain slicks his hair to his head, and his clothes to his body. Through a haze of pain, he sees Hiro.

    Get your people home. Save everyone you can, even if you can't save everyone.

    S P L A S H

    Cool, blessed droplets fall against Leo's skin, and the agonized ringing fades. Pure rain falls into the mud, and spectral flowers blossom. The White Knight looks over his shoulder at the excommunicate Seraph, and the notorious witch, and nods, pain and gratitude in his eyes.

    At least two days after the actual fight, Leo will realize that wait, wasn't Magilou's sorcery aspected against healing?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms1_fL1eJ-o&ab_channel=MekkahDee

    Right now, he has worse to worry about. Hiro launches into a chain of strikes, his shadow selves moving in to support him. Kaguya dives from above like a stooping falcon, and Talia follows. The enigmatic Tera Gram, having already shattered one blade on the dragon's scales, draws another, and moves in once again.

    Leo watches them, his blade held at the ready before him as he channels his focus. Those who've fought beside him know well what this means. A gleam of light ignites on the tip of his sword, and travels down the length. He breathes, and steps into a full-body, two-handed slash, from upper right to lower left.

    "LION'S HOWL!" Leo roars, and energy BOILS out of him, assuming a familiar shape: the visage of a roaring lion, the wispy trailing edges forming its mane. The phantasm streaks across the field, easily one-eighth of the dragon's size, and full of violent martial force.

GS: White Knight Leo spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! White Knight Leo has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Lion's Howl!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo's stances have changed to Avenger!
GS: Cover expired!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from White Knight Leo's Lion's Howl for 349 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    Rixia nearly missed it before, but she sees the fellow fox lady with the lantern -- Shige -- as she steps past her before. She also seems scared, but she's also hanging on strong as ever... even as the shadows almost fade around her, as the shadows of older knights and soldiers seem to come and go about her. Who is she? It's spooky, but...

    Magilou gives her encouragement. Hold onto what she's about... along with Shige's empowerment, she feels a little bit scared now. The best advice really is that simple, isn't it?

    Kaguya confirms that it's Malevolence, and to listen to Marivel. "D-d-don't think I like it... it feels awful... it's like how I feel a lot of the time except it's gassing everyone with it." She slumps. "You know, some of us try to bottle it in and don't throw their everything bad around all over the place!"

    Marivel shares with her what it's like. "... that... that sounds like a lot. That sounds like-- like someone tough and strong like you could handle, even if you say you're scared. ... I know my fear rules me a lot." But didn't Magilou just tell her to hold onto what she's about?

    Maybe, that also involves accepting that she's a scaredy-fox, a lot of the time.

    And then-- gasp! Barrel! "I also... I also like barrels..." she admits. One day, Rixia, one day, you'll have your own Atelier.

    It gets worse and worse, though, as the storm of Malevolence churns even thicker, the stormy skies showering them all and cutting deeply into her soul. She's about to let go of her gunblade and collapse from the sheer weight of it.

    But Lanval... as he takes a sip from his gourd, spinning faster and faster until the droplet of water that comes is clean, brisk, refreshing --

    "... ... hey... it's you, isn't it?" Rixia finally looks to Lanval. "You're the one who gave me water that first day in Meribia!"

    Acknowledgement, at long last, from someone whose Resonance journey has been full of bumps and bruises, so to speak.

    Earlier, Hilde called her -- Lady Rixia -- and she flummoxedly mumbles, "Y-yeah, I'm here too... I'll... I'll support, yooou, Lady Hilde. Y-you don't have to call me Lady. I'm your kouhai, you know?"

    (This isn't the Working Designs localisation.)

    Hiro and Leo are working in tandem, which brings joy to Rixia, since she knows they're at odds at times; Hiro even splits into three, Talia joining in behind him with the technique Leo used earlier, with the White Knight himself using a legendary technique -- the Lion's Howl! And Magilou creates her powerful fairy circle, flowers blossoming underneath her...

    "C'mon... come on... give me power, Sleeping Lion," Rixia looks to her gunblade and stands straight, holding it high in the air. As if to answer her prayers, suddenly--

    >> triangletriangletriangletriangle

    There's an eruption as the circle of rain parts around Rixia, and an enormous crackle accompanies the construction of an enormous thunderblade of light that rises far, far, far high into the skies--

    "W-wait, this is too muuuuuuuuch power--!!"

    Apparently, enormous blades of electricity and light are very heavy, and thus the foxgirl accidentally trips and falls face first into the mud, bringing the blade down to descend powerfully (?) upon the Fell Dragon.

GS: Rixia has activated Force Action: Snipe!
GS: Rixia has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Blasting Zone -tripping ver.-!
GS: Rixia gains 63 THP from Regen!
GS: Rixia has completed her action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Rixia's Blasting Zone -tripping ver.- for 146 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Yupisuy Khamiss has posed.

    The storm is a terrible one, the air well-tainted by Malevolence's touch. No doubt the dragon will draw strength from the rain and lightning that cascades down about it.

    But a minor miracle occurs, all at the behest of Khamiss' once-kin, the Seraph Lanval. The rain that falls upon those arrayed against the Fell Dragon... is pure.

    And that purity, this moment, may be all that they need. With her blade in both hands, Hilde comes at the dragon -- were it any other creature, such a swing might have cleaved it in two. As it stands, her blow is a grievous one, one that sees the dragon weeping violet from the wound she has left it. It opens its maw wide, lunging for Hilde.

    Hiro, similarly bolstered by the downpour, won't simply let this happen. He intrudes, and when he does, it is in triplicate: three blades meet the air, three vacuum blade strikes streak for the dragon and force it back; an arc of violet streaks through the air.

    He is right. It shouldn't be forgot that the dragon did not will this, in that it can will anything at all anymore. Heldalf broke free the dragon from its centuries-long seal, all for the chance of causing ever more chaos in Glenwood.

    Marivel opts for a different tack altogether, attempting to drag the dragon to another dimension. It struggles violently against this, perhaps recalling the way it had been sealed once in the long-ago past. It snaps wildly in the general direction of anyone it can reach as it begins to become dragged away, but its glassy eyes become ever more unfocused. It fixes on one singular point. From where it had been caught -- badly -- in Marivel's dimensional shunt it simply vanishes, reverting into that thick fog which drifts for a moment across the field. They had seen this trick before, Hilde most of all, but this time...

    This time, wherever they look, there are dragons.

    The unluckly few -- Magilou, Shige, Talia, and Margaret -- will find that the dragons they meet are very much real.

    Or at least their breath, which freezes to the very bone, certainly is.

    It's Shige herself that provides the answer to the conundrum that is the multiple dragons, calling upon her shades as she speaks the need for the dragon to go to place where it belongs. The shadows distort the light, disrupting the false images, and ultimately, the real Khamiss comes back again to the fore.

    Kaguya has been waiting for this moment. So, in her own way, has Talia. Slamming into the dragon with all the force of a falling star, Kaguya leaves behind a crater in the earth where the dragon now lies. It's the opening Talia could have only wished for, cleaving into the badly wounded dragon as it still manages to get up from where it had been laid into the groud, rejecting this premature burial. Hazy purple-blue light collects around the dragon as it rises with nary a sound this time, the points of anti-light erupting into projected gouts of Malevolence directed for Hiro, Lanval and Marivel.

    But this leaves it immobile for the moment while it works such an arte, and here, Margaret -- Tera Gram? -- punishes it for its greed.

    Yes, that might be healing magic come soon after, answering the needs of many against the Fell Dragon's curse, but the central flower blooms painfully for the dragon alone. It staggers, falling upon its side.

    It never had a chance of evading Leo's strike.
    Or, for that matter, a wayward gunblade.

    Eyes glassy, Khamiss turns its gaze up to the heavens. One more time, just one more, it wails its deathsong.

    Even here as it exists now, a Seraphic glyph, if in parody, is drawn upon the ground; dully glittering spheres of light spiral up towards the very heavens. And the heavens, as arrayed as they are, answer in kind. This is no torrent of rain to follow -- this is a localized deluge of Malevolent water, all that which seeks to overwhelm, submerge and drown those caught in the maelstrom.

    The dragon is dying, truly, and it would seek to bring down its foes with it.

GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Magilou with Half sick of shadows!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Shige Kiwako with Half sick of shadows!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Talia with Half sick of shadows!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Margaret with Half sick of shadows!
GS: Delay expired!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hiro with Draw near and fear not!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Seraph Lanval with Draw near and fear not!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Marivel Armitage with Draw near and fear not!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Half sick of shadows for 239 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Talia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked White Knight Leo with The mirror crack'd from side to side!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Kaguya with The mirror crack'd from side to side!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Rixia with The mirror crack'd from side to side!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Yupisuy Khamiss has attacked Hilde with The mirror crack'd from side to side!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has completed its action.
GS: Hilde suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's The mirror crack'd from side to side for 168 hit points!
GS: Disease and Poison applied to Hilde!
GS: CRITICAL! White Knight Leo solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's The mirror crack'd from side to side for 106 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! White Knight Leo gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Poison applied to White Knight Leo!
GS: Disease blocked!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Hiro fully evades Yupisuy Khamiss's Draw near and fear not for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hiro gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's The mirror crack'd from side to side for 174 hit points!
GS: Disease and Poison applied to Kaguya!
GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated!
GS: Kaguya enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Draw near and fear not for 141 hit points!
GS: Purge! Cripple, Poison, and Weaken removed!
GS: Purge explodes for 61 damage!!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated!
GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Rixia suffers a terrible blow from Yupisuy Khamiss's The mirror crack'd from side to side for 236 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rixia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disease and Poison applied to Rixia!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: Rixia enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Magilou solidly guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Half sick of shadows for 113 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval partially guards Yupisuy Khamiss's Draw near and fear not for 176 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Lanval gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Purge explodes for 5 damage!!
GS: Seraph Lanval enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

    alia lands, the cold of the dragon's icy breath lingering on her. She struck in time with Kaguya, but that put her well within the reach of the watery blast at the end. That strikes her -- driving her backward. She goes flying, with frost and rime clinging to her from the dragon's breath from earlier.

She hits the ground in a crouch, her bought sword dragging through the dirt. It catches on a rock.

She stares at the dragon -- sees its glassy eyes, hears its cry -- and she shakes her head.

"We almost have it!" she shouts. She hopes she is right; it's as much trying to will reality to be so as it is a statement of truth. "Keep going!"

GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Shige Kiwako takes a glancing hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Half sick of shadows for 148 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Margaret takes a solid hit from Yupisuy Khamiss's Half sick of shadows for 239 hit points!
GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Hiro has posed.

"You didn't become a Duchess for nothing-" Hiro says to Kaguya, before he drawls, "-I reckon."
 
Don't worry, Tera Gram.
 
THERE WILL BE BUNS!

Magilou's spell glows underneath him in a healing spell, that further leaves him feeling bolstered, and the witch gets a questioning look, her being able to both damage and heal is just like a...
 
... but he doesn't linger on that one, Magilou has her tricks, and secrets.

Working with Taila and Leo in this moment, they score terrible blows to the creature. However, the creature directs a horrible Anti-Light in his direction, and Hiro suddenly just DIVES out of the way with a reaction speed bolstered by Rixia's spell.
 
He comes down hard in a mud puddle, sodden and dirty but alive.
 
"Just a little more, right Talia?"
 
As he gets up, he raises his sword overhand with both hands in a high guard, and the storms winds swirl around the blade. In a sudden flash of movement, he's tries to overrun the dragon.
 
The winds slam into it, with the force of a bomb in how they erupt out from the point of impact of his blade.
 
"Then you can rest." Hiro says more quietly than his explosion to the Fel Dragon.

GS: Hiro has activated Force Action: Lock On!
GS: Formation! Hiro has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Sybillium Sword!
GS: Hiro has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hiro gains 57 THP from Regen!
GS: Hiro has completed his action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss suffers a terrible blow from Hiro's Sybillium Sword for 216 hit points!
GS: Purge! Drowsy, Entangle, Mute, Slow, and Weaken removed!
GS: Purge explodes for 85 damage!!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel has shown her love of Barrels too. Unfortunately--well okay maybe it's fortunately actually--she is unable to pull the Dragon into that other space. "Hahhn..." Marivel pulls her hands back. Once again, Marivel thinks, she cannot save them. How long, she wonders, will she bash her skull into these impossible scenarios hoping to make this galactic sector feel just a little less cruel. Maybe making the universe less cruel is beyond her. Maybe it has been beyond her for some time.

The pure Malevolence thrown her way is dizzying. She sways unsteadily, looking like she might roll over. Not unlike a barrel.

Someone tough and strong like her, Marivel thinks. She certainly tries to project that. It isn't for her own sake that she does so she says, "It's okay. There's no shame in it. So long as you do your best, that's all anyone can ask for."

She walks forward slowly, pushing against the dark tide. She thinks of her mother and father as they cradled her body. It feels a bit like that, but thick like they were wearing intoxicating perfumes and colognes that make her dizzy.

She really can't do anything but cut it down huh.

Her eyes slant to Kaguya. Her hand flashes out to the side--She could try another bite, certainly, but she can already tell it'd be no use.

Best to put them to bed so they can no longer be used to harm the land they, judging from her experiences with other Seraphim, love so much.

A crimson eye opens up in her palms, then across her wings as a slew of pitch black lasers erupt out of Marivel, all closing in and fast on the Dragon.

"I'm sorry for coming up short again." She tells the Dragon, simply enough. Even if everyone said it was impossible, she will always treat it as a failure on her part.

GS: Marivel Armitage spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Erg Phasor!
GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Magilou indeed casts a spell - a spell of healing. Were the situation any different Hilde would think on this, but she doesn't have the time for second-guessing.

"My gratitude!" Hilde calls out, as blooming flowers ease her pain. Rixia points out, then, that she doesn't need to call her 'Lady', and Hilde smiles.

"Of course, Rixia. And, thank you - your support means much. You have done well to stand with us thus far, even against such great a foe." She praises.

...But the foe is not yet defeated. In its death throes, certainly, but it attempts to bring them down with it. There is a deluge of Malevolent water, raining down upon them. Hilde grits her teeth.

"...My apologies, dragon. But I cannot fall here. And I am sorry, too, that we must fight. I shall mourn you - but for now...!" Hilde says. It's difficult, pushing against the Malevolent storm... but she keeps going, building up momentum, until she picks up enough speed to charge, taking out her shield and holding it in front of her. She charges for the dragon and looks to ram right into it full speed.

GS: Hilde has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Dauntless Charge!
GS: Hilde has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Hilde takes 22 damage from Poison!
GS: Lock state expired!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Erg Phasor for 291 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yupisuy Khamiss gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss's Poison Ward may block the effect!
GS: Poison blocked!
GS: Hyper applied to Marivel Armitage!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss partially guards Hilde's Dauntless Charge for 181 hit points!
GS: Cover applied to Hilde!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: FP up! Charge bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.

The feline shaman doesn't really have much in the way of stopping anything resembling a crash of water. She just tries to orient herself back up and swims to the top. Hoping her bags were closed up properly and trying to avoid swallowing any of the tainted water. Something tells her that would be really bad. Probably. She lands back on solid ground nearby, sort of. On her back, lantern still chained to her belt nearby, upright.
 
 She gets back to her feet, quicker this time. She still has a duty in a way. She doesn't know if it will work over here. She'll try though and that's taking priority over anything else. This thing has been trapped in this state for far too long and... well that's what you do, right? It's an end to the suffering. A chance to finally continue on to whatever awaits.
 
 As it thrashes and flails around, crying out, she walks closer. Holding her lantern up. Trying to see if there's anything left of what the creature had been to take home. Almost a light at the end, a guiding one if there is. She's quiet, she's not even fidgeting, barely moving at all as she focuses. "It's time to go home." she says softly, trying to sound reassuring. Trying to do what she hopes is right as the fight goes out of the creature.
 
 Everything else at the moment is shut out.

<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    The Dragon is dying, and it seeks to bring its foes down with it. And with a Seraphic glyph, as if in parody, it brings a deluge of Malevolent water, seeking to submerge and drown those caught in its wake--

    And caught in its wake Rixia is!!

    "mhgfrghghforhfohrhrrrrrrrrrrr--" Rixia gurgles as she gets swept by the currents, flailing out a 'I CAN'T SWIM' message in... in... well, charades, as it were. She goes ...somewhere.

    It's okay. Her gunblade will probably junction Water to elemental defence or something.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    Lanval responds to the myriad thanks and glances with that same smile. He is Lanval, the Mirthful Wellspring, after all, and the small joys have ever been what his native Domain influences. (Okay, if Kaguya looks he's not looking her way. There is decorum here!! very important decorum)
 
     The Fell Dragon's frightening tactics come to fore - and before Hiro, Marivel, and himself, anti-light forms into the gouts of Malevolence that surge towards them, and Seraph Lanval...
 
     Rushes in.
 
     Seraph Lanval draws near, and fears not. With another Seraphic Arte glyph betraying intention, another rush of water meets the wave of Malevolence. There is no errant misery in which for the spiritual poison to feed, with thanks to the Fairy Circle from a witch whose own capabilities are supposed to 'just' be that of destructive magic.
 
     His eyes flare all the way open as he keeps redirecting torrents of water to defend and push those gouts back. Water, by its nature, is easy for Malevolence to corrupt due to the nature of just how much gets into it to begin with... but he puts on one heck of a show, flowing and pushing it back, letting what does 'catch' Malevolence part and pool to either side. He 'mmmphs' in strain, drawing deeper into personal reserves of power to prevent the worst from happening - something that might lower the amount Marivel and Hiro have to deal with, or anything else.
 
     As it lets up - comparatively, Fell Dragons never really 'let up' as presence alone floods a space with concentrated Malevolence - and sings its wailing dirge to call forth more water, Seraph Lanval doesn't avert his gaze.
 
     "There shalt yet be mirth and respite in Emrys anew," and the springs of water he saw was proof that there was something clinging on, "but 'tis time we see thee on your way..."
 
     With the one opening he has, he has himself a drink from his gourd again... and laughs, laughs all the while, as bubbles start to flood and fan out to the dragon, surrounding them in no small quantity. Bright, shining, iridescent... each of which bare slightly warped visages of Seraph Lanval having a good time of things, trapping them briefly in a bubbly maze.
 
     "I bid thee be on thy way in good health! Revelry Labyrinth!"
 
     He wipes his mouth and flicks aside something of alcoholic make on the ground, and all those bubbles explode.

GS: Seraph Lanval has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
GS: Seraph Lanval has activated Force Action: Extend!
GS: Seraph Lanval spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Revelry Labyrinth!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Revelry Labyrinth for 359 hit points!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    Leo's shoulders sag from exertion. He's been on edge for days, on top of the physical exhaustion brought on by living in a war zone for weeks. There was a time in Leo's life when he thought he would simply get over it, but the truth is clear: even as the White Knight, he is mortal, and mortals suffer when war breaks out. This is why Heldalf has the upper hand.

    But as the dragon suddenly multiplies, Leo finds a desperate second wind. He turns his back to the others, facing the dragons encircling them, and drives his blade forward into Khamiss' jaws as it lunges--

    And whoosh, all that's left is empty air: an illusion. A sudden rush of cold air hints that not all of them were.

    But the tide is turning, even if Khamiss isn't going to die peacefully.

    "ABOVE!" Leo shouts, as the Malevolent deluge pours from the sky. He thrusts his right hand skyward, palm-up, and the earth answers him, rising up and curling over his head in an improvised shield. That shield shakes violently as the water hits it, and Leo has a scant second or two to remember that water erodes earth before the foul tide breaks through. He closes his eyes and mouth just in time. The Malevolent rain pelts him, hammers his back and shoulders--as if trying to batter him down into the mud so it can drown him. Leo trembles, grimaces, coughs. He doesn't fall.

    "I'm sorry," he breathes. This Seraph was sealed long before he was born. He never knew them. But still... "We will remember. Rest well in the earth."

    Leo rushes the dragon with what looks like a head-on-charge, his feet churning up the mud. Another of those pure, ringing bell-tones echoes across the field as he draws his blade--is that some sort of enchantment? Martial mastery? Something that started as showing off and became embedded in Leo's fighting style? It's hard to tell. But what's also true is that Leo's made his own style; Waning Crescent is very much his own creation. He steps into a form, his blade lashing up for the Dragon's neck, across for its right foreleg, and then forward into a stab at its gullet. Given its size, the form is a little difficult to execute, but there are also very few true openings. He's not letting his guard down yet.

GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Flashing Crescent!
GS: White Knight Leo enters a Counter stance!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo's stances have changed from Avenger and Counter to Counter and Stoic!
GS: White Knight Leo takes 26 damage from Poison!
GS: Mighty expired!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from White Knight Leo's Flashing Crescent for 289 hit points!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    Magilou knows something of sealing Fell Dragons -- though it was not by her hands.

    There is a reason she has not spoken of it.

    (When some evils die they die and die and die again, until they are crushed to nothing and forgotten, and this is an active process. Magilou knows of them just as well, Kaguya.)

    The illusion of that dragon rises to Magilou's left -- and she spins to meet it, lifting a shikigami to defend herself. "Illusions won't work on me," she tells it, too gently.

    And she watches, as the Fell Dragon -- hmm, suffers isn't the right word, she thinks, for something without a mind to capture the idea -- as everyone rallies themselves, to fight back, to survive.

    (Not, Magilou still supposes, in her eternal pessimism, to win.)

    "Do you remember?" She asks it, and forgets to pretend, for a moment, addressing Yupisuy Khamiss directly.

    The Seraphic glyph under her feet is red, now. "Paint the town red... Blood Moon!" And a burning circular body appears above the Fell Dragon, memories of an age long past.

    Oh, well.

GS: Magilou has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Blood Moon!
GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Magilou takes 24 damage from Poison!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"Heheh. ...I'm not sure they want me back," Kaguya admits, "But I hope they keep the flowers even if they don't."

Another crime to lay at Heldalf's feet, this battle. Kaguya works with Talia, and finds it works out better than she'd hoped. Marivel's attempt to find a 'safer' place for the dragon, meanwhile, gets Kaguya's attention--but there are dragons all over. Kaguya darts backward from the one before her, rather more successfully than Talia who goes flying for now. She shouts, and--

"Right!" Kaguya says, looking to that Glyph, and bracing herself. She's seen glyphs similar, but this is biger, stroinger, and that song...

"...Sorry," Kaguya says. "But I hope that this is better than being what you are."

Light spirals up, up, and up--and a deluge of Malevolent water crashes towards Kaguya. Rightfully, it should send her from the battlefield, and it almost does. The mirror cracks, and Kaguya finds herself thrown by it, and drenched, what healing light continues to cling to her starting to burn as if it were acid. But she doesn't relent--she holds on. She said she would.

"I told Magilou... I'd be a different kind of Sentinel," Kaguya says. "And I'm not sure my castle wants me back. But here, and now..."

"I will make this place green again."

Light flashes from Kaguya's eyes as she calls upon magic that is not quite Ether, magic tied to this world and to another, with the scent of flowers that have never bloomed here.

This time, instead of from above, Kaguya strieks from below. The winds slam into the dragon as Hiro strikes, but Kaguya puts out both hands, and the greenery all around begins to surge. Foilage blooms; underbrush bristles; trees flower, and blossoms rise. She looks to Marivel, too--and then back to the dragon.

...No, who is it that must answer for Fell Dragons...?

The blooming flowers become vines and thorns that thread throughout the dragon's form, seeking to drink up the water and show something living in its place, even if it cannot be the dragon itself.

"...Bloom," Kaguya murmurs. "Bloom, and thorn."

The moon above, and the earth below... Or is that the other way around, up here?

GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Full Clip!
GS: Kaguya has activated Force Action: Lock On!
GS: Kaguya spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Poison!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Kaguya has attacked Yupisuy Khamiss with Bloom Thorn!
GS: Kaguya has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Kaguya takes 31 damage from Poison!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Yupisuy Khamiss solidly guards Magilou's Blood Moon for 99 hit points!
GS: Disease applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Charge bonus activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss takes a solid hit from Kaguya's Bloom Thorn for 220 hit points!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss's Poison Ward may block the effect!
GS: Cripple and Jam applied to Yupisuy Khamiss!
GS: Poison blocked!
GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP!
GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
GS: Yupisuy Khamiss has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Yupisuy Khamiss has posed.

    It will not survive this, whatever happens next. But it could do a great many ill things even in its suffering. There are still soldiers escaping the field -- there are still those too wounded to run. How far might a dying Fell Dragon get before it perished?

    And that is to say nothing about about it might do to them.

    Hiro's answer comes in detonation of a storm from the tip of his blade. It staggers, trying to right itself, managing to get up onto its feet as if it were about to charge. But Hilde meets it first in a collision, sending it reeling to one side.

    Pitch black lasers stream for it as it stumbles, slicing into its corpus.

    And still, the rain keeps falling. Lightning, perhaps in response to the Fell Dragon itself, cracks the ground not far from where Lanval stands. He takes hold of a portion of the storm -- even here there are those springs of pure water -- and turns it back upon the dragon in a torrent, losing it in a explosion of bubbles.

    It's a knight's duty to see matters such as these brought to a close, however long ago they might have been begun. Leo does his duty masterfully, cutting further at Khamiss' body; the dragon slumps with a keening cry, its eyes glassy as it gazes back at him -- at all of them.

    A red moon rises, and Kaguya is there to greet it, with flowers blooming under its light.

    Shige holds out her lantern and tends to the duty she knows best of all.

    I bid thee be on thy way in good health!
    We will remember.
    I will make this place green again.
    I shall mourn you.
    Do you remember?
    I'm sorry for coming up short again.
    Then you can rest.
    It's time to go home.

    It slumps down onto the ground with barely a sigh, no longer able to move or resist any longer. For the first time, the look on its face is almost peaceful, that strange glazed-over expression finally gone from it.

    Slowly, its body begins to fade away, the Malevolence that had transformed and empowered it dissipating into the air.

    All that remains is a single Iris Gem. Perhaps it had been embedded in the dragon's body. When touched, a memory emerges from it.

    She had been called Shalott in life.

    The water Seraph had been as dutiful towards her charges as her epithet had implied, always the first to lend her aid to those in the valley and the last to give up, however ill things might get.

    It was no surprise that a village sprang up around the place she tended. And eventually, a town.

    The great wizard Myrddin who had come to dwell in the valley, had always sought out her advice, for her knowledge stretched back centuries. He was one of those few who had the gift, and so was able to forge a partnership with the Seraph.

    "Of course, Master Myrddin. T'would be my pleasure!" So speaks the Shalott of old, curtseying before the wizard.

    The town grew. Myrddin's renown grew. He spoke of the spirit that had guided him, though few ever saw the Seraph. There was, for a time, peace and plenty.

    "Please... please help me...! It hurts so much...!"

    It didn't last. Water is an element prone to contamination, and so it had been with Shalott. Myrddin sought answers, then cures, but it was all far too late. Shalott succumbed to her curse and became a Fell Dragon.

    The ground and water began to rot. Still, the people would not leave. Desperate to save those who had called the valley their home, Myrddin drove them out by the force of his magics. History would only remember him in tales as 'the Wyllt', the mad wizard of yore.

    "Though the struggle was in vain... I leave all for those of some future time... the only hope that remains... behold, my last and greatest work!"

    With no other recourse left, Myrddin sacrificed himself to form the seal, to close off what had been Shalott from the world. He knew it would never stand forever. He could only hope that someday, another might be able to finish what he had but begun.

    Now, at long last, the curse has been ended. A long-awaited hope has been realized. Emrys Mire as it has been known will be no more... and the Seraph Shalott can again know peace.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    The Fell Dragon falls... and with a gesture, Lanval calls for one of his Seers to help with cleansing the rest of the area best they can. (Which of them? It's vague. What's not vague: the amount of work on his shoulders in being a middle-man between Schturdark and the Seers of Water, but it is a burden he has long since accepted.)
 
     He might not be the first to find the Iris Gem, but when he takes his turn to touch it and take in the memory... it matches, almost to the letter, what he imagined when his Fox Company friends and himself found that landmark within the Mire. That strange, resilient, pure water spring.
 
     The likeness of having a great mortal friend - in his case, the only real mortal contact he had for centuries - though the fates between them obviously differed. His own passed of old age far too soon, and she was already an older mortal when they met in his relative childhood.
 
     She was dutiful. She held on as long as she could.
 
     He used to fear Glenwood, and its many Malevolent Domains. Hearing of it was what inspired him to help reinforce the Boundary up in Meribus, to have held as long as he did for hundreds of years even when his surroundings became... particularly noteworthy among mortals for being such a terrible place that dive bars wouldn't want to be associated with it.
 
     "Both of 'em got their resht now," he says, having since sobered up from the power high. (Sober is a relative term.) "Seraph Shalott... 'n Myrddin. He wash a good friend ta her 'till the very end... 'n well beyond that. If the pure shpringsh of water we found were any indication... she held ash long ash she could, too."
 
     All the better reason to keep pressing on, in a world that Althena increasingly seems to have abandoned to its fate before the likes of the emergent Lord of Calamity.
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