2023-03-24: Skies of Deception
- Log: Skies of Deception
- Cast: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus, Brad Evans, Ashley Winchester, Eleanor Klein, Josephine Lovelace, Marivel Armitage
- Where: Heimdall Gazzo
- Date: March 24, 2023
- Summary: For years, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has defined and reshaped Filgaia. Even as Heimdall Gazzo threatens to become the tool of something else, he cannot be left alone.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
This is the tale of the old hero who stood alone.
It was a fact he would not hesitate to tell anyone if they asked. He stood alone, and always has; certainly, he had subordinates. He had comrades, even. People who shared in his vision of a better world. People who strove to make his world a reality. But in the end, it was -his- vision. -His- dream.
-His- world.
Who but a hero, after all, could shoulder the entire weight of the world's cries for a better tomorrow?
And so, he stood alone... until one day, he thought he found someone who would - who could - stand with him. Who he could let truly share the glories of his better future with. She stood with him, thought the old hero. And now, all he needed was the world.
But then...
She was taken.
And the old hero who once stood alone, stood alone again. And it hurt, to realize, truly realize, he stood so alone.
And he thought to himself,
If I hurt,
the world should hurt with me.
...
Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus stands alone.
The bridge of the Heimdall Gazzo is an immense thing, not meant by basic design to be manned by a single person. It can, if needed. But the grand dark steel and war-gray floors leading out towards consoles and navigation centers almost seem to demand a thriving hub of activity to dominate it. A full sweep of people, working in tandem, towards a single dream, achieved through overwhelming, terrifying force.
But Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus stands alone.
This is a figurative thing; in the literal sense, the founder and leader of Odessa can actually be found sitting upon the central, captain's seat of the Gazzo's bridge. In another world, another time, he would strike very image of a king upon his throne, ready to weigh his judgment. But here, now, he just looks...
... Tired.
The tan-white of Vinsfeld's cape pools around him like a shroud, parted at its very center to reveal only glimpses of the proud and bloody-colored red of his outfit beneath that matches great pauldrons etched in gold that once stood glorious and now -- simply look strange, haunched in as they are. His head is bowed, his tanned features looking gray and fallow, colorless hair spilling a messy path that covers his expression in a veil of shadow.
Hands bedecked in fingerless gloves are emerged from the depths of his cape; they grip on the haft of his tremendous sword, Mad Mountains, literally impaled into the steel beneath him. But a pose that might once have been grand now simply looks like somehow like he was leaning on that weapon that has personally killed hundreds as his sole source of support. A warrior once fueled by the fires of youthful, revolutionary passion. And then fortified by the steel of experience. And now he just looks...
... empty.
The walkway leading towards the elevated platform where the Captain's Chair stands is smeared with blood. At the peripherals of one's visions, shadows can be seen on the path leading up. Bodies. Limbs. Three, perhaps four corpses, decorated and contorted with fresh injuries and fresher blood. Heimdall Gazzo's bridge is not meant by basic design to be manned by a single person.
Blood decorates the aged edge of Mad Mountains, gleaming in the light as Vinsfeld waits for the inevitable he has been waiting - knowing - hoping - will come.
Because Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus stands alone.
DC: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus switches forms to Regret For The Things One Has Done Can Be Tempered By Time - Regret For The Things One Has Failed To Do Is Eternal And Inconsolable!
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Every moment since he left Ilsveil has led to this. Every moment since he first stumbled into T'bok, and was arrested by men who sneeringly said his only crime was to be a hero.
Every moment since the request for backup was met with silence.
He makes no attempt to mask his footsteps, the heavy weight of a large man with heavy weapons unmistakable on the steel through his boots. It stops, just outside the door.
"The bridge is here," Brad says, over his shoulder, to the people with him.
Then he calmly presses the button to open the door. Machinery does not deserve unearned brutality. And Heimdall Gazzo, he thinks, will sleep forever soon enough.
He steps in, making no announcement of himself. His eyes cut to either side, spotting blood and corpses, before rising up to meet Vinsfeld's eyes.
"I'm here, Vins," Brad says, using the old name for his old friend.
"This has to end here."
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
No matter where Ashley Winchester goes, he will never be alone.
Even now, moving through the sterile corridors of the Heimdall Gazzo at the heart of enemy territory, he is not alone. There are four here who were trusted to finally bring Odessa's reign of terror to an end, including the humble baker from Meria Boule. But this is not the full extent of that promise.
No matter where Ashley Winchester goes, he will never be alone.
Within him there are two forces, diametrically opposed. Within him, there is a holy sword whose power is that of Filgaia itself. Within him, there is an entity of pure and utter destruction, whose mere exisence promises the end of all things. He feels them both, their presence an intrusive weight upon his consciousness. But this is not the full extent of that promise.
Far away, dear companions work to avert the catatrophic destruction of not one, but two worlds. Lunar and Filgaia are at a crossroads, and all across them both, those whose hearts had at some point crossed with his own give their all to protect them. Their will is unified, though their missions are so very different.
But this is not the full extent of that promise.
On Lunar, the last immortal of smoke and shadow approaches the time of promise, and indulges in a singular act of selfishness, daring to hope in humanity. In Meria Boule, the woman he loves prays to whatever god will hear her, and waits and hopes for Ashley Winchester to make his word into reality.
No matter where Ashley Winchester goes, he will never be alone.
And, no matter what, he will come home.
Ashley steps into the bridge of the Heimdall Gazzo, passing a gruesome and bloody scene to stand side by side with the 'Hero' of Slayheim. "Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus," Ashley says, his Bayonet ready and loaded, slung up against one shoulder. "Order your soldiers to stand down. Brad's right-- this is over."
"But nobody else needs to die today."
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor Klein has said her farewells for the moment to the others of ARMS, and made her way to the bridge. She walks with Brad, as he walks, and her footsteps are not nearly so heavy or so loud, but she makes them nonetheless. Brad says that the bridge is here, and opens the door...
Eleanor too looks to the blood and corpses, but she has more reaction; her expression twists from concern into disgust as she realizes what must have happened.
"...You killed them yourself, didn't you?" Eleanor demands. "Did they try to run? Did they think of leaving you? Or was it not even that?"
Eleanor Klein stands with others. She has for a long time; since she was young, standing behind Xiumei... since she was older, standing for her family. Now, standing with ARMS, and those here...
Ashley has said nobody else needs to die here today, but... Eleanor does not expect Vinsfeld to come quietly.
"It ends today," Eleanor reiterates. "Here, and now."
She extends her hand to her side, facing away to the floor, and no gun falls into it for now; instead, a pure and sacred Light dances along her fingertips.
Empty, he looks.
Empty, he would have left the world.
"Your vision will never come to pass."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The Heimdall Gazzo had shaken under the impact of something. Or someone. Others had head off towards the disturbance, but others have another destination in mind. She'd spotted them amidst the chaos and the confusion, and availed them of her presence as they hurried towards the bridge.
"You'll want me with," she'd said to Eleanor, to Ashley, to Brad. She'd given them a bitter smile. "Now, I ain't plannin' on making a sacrifice of myself or not, see, but..."
Trailing off, she had shrugged, her smile only broadening. Perhaps they can to the rest of Josephine's dark calculus for themselves.
It's not feeding herself to the lion so the rest of the world can be spared. It's not sacrifice. She had come here, after all, because it was the right thing. Because she's tired of running. She's not planning on this being the last station of her story.
But. Even so.
You don't get anywhere by doing things halfway. It might as well be her life's motto, she, who rewrote her entire life for the sake of her dead sister. And if it helps, well...
When the moment arrives, she simply enters, in this moment opting for an unobtrusive arrival on this stage.
For Brad, this is personal.
Ashley, an innately good man, appeals to Vinsfeld's better nature.
Eleanor, inheritor to an ancient mantle, speaks directly to the fact of the moment: that it's over.
Josie isn't as highminded as Ashley or Eleanor. Josie lacks -- in truth -- that close connection that Brad possesses.
Rifle resting against her shoulder, she has just one question for Vinsfeld:
"Were you listening? At her end."
It's not to be cruel. Rather the opposite, because she knows that look, intimately so. Just as she'd said, he's a broken man.
And he'll break the entire world.
"If you did," she continues, gazing at him unflinchingly, "then you know how she felt."
It's not to be cruel. He's not going to stop. He won't stand down. So he deserves at least the truth, and the end.
No, she isn't the 'Josephine' he'd once called 'friend' but in this feeling that they have come to both share, they are united.
And that's why she's come to stop him.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
I'm here, Vins.
Amber eyes bedecked by circles of age and fatigue crack open. A sharp but bitter smile tugs on weathered lips. Like someone indulging in private, scornful amusement.
"Of course you are, Bradley Evans,"
Vinsfeld says, invoking the full name of a sacrificed comrade.
"After all, you're our great hero."
Leather creaks with aging protest as the former champion of the Slayheim Liberation Army grips more firmly to the hilt of his greatsword, using it to drag himself up to his full, once-proud height. His back turned to them, Vinsfeld stares outward toward the endless displays of Heimdall Gazzo's bridge. Weapons readings. Warning signals. Recharge statuses.
"And what better stage than this to serve as the executioner's scaffold for all those who play pretend at being heroes?"
Shockingly modern maps of Filgaia, showcasing a series of red dots across its their geography.
Targets.
"And so, Valeria's dogs come barking and scratching at my door, so eager to please their master enough to earn his table scraps."
Vinsfeld finally looks over his shoulder, and in that amber stare that once held fire and ambition, it now looks like the guttered smoke that comes after everything has burned. It's that hollow stare that he affixes on all of them from his peripherals. His stare lingers, before affixing upon Josephine.
"... Bringing a rabid hound with them. Hello, 'Josephine Lovelace.' It seems I have a whole gallery of people playing pretend to contend with today. But... I have to thank you."
Fingers coil around their weapon with the smallest groan of tension.
"You're making wrapping up all my loose ends very convenient."
With one motion, Vinsfeld turns to face them, his pivot no less decisive for how gaunt he looks; his cape swirls around him more like a specter's trailing tails than a hero's cloak as his stare shifts to the bodies welcoming their approach. Did he do that?
"They suggested evacuation. To fight for the dream another day. They didn't understand the truth. So I showed them." His voice is rough, but even. Calm, like the eye of a great storm. "The rest, I let go. There's no escaping the shape of the world for them no matter where they go. That will be punishment enough."
They all speak of endings. Brad, an old friend, telling him it -has- to end. Eleanor, declaring an end to his vision. His dream. His world.
Ashley, appealing to his better nature.
And Josephine...
Were you listening? At her end.
... talking about a very different sort of ending.
"..."
Vinsfeld's eyes shut again. And despite himself...
Nobody else needs to die today.
... he laughs, a sharp, barked out thing of empty amusement.
"For once we're seeing eye to eye, Bradley! ... But it seems the baker isn't. I'm afraid you're wrong, Ashley Winchester. This world will never stop needing our ends. Your very presence here proves it." One hand abandons Vinsfeld's weapon. The other grips it tighter.
"I heard, Josephine," how he can spit certain names with such a damning amount of false conviction remains a singular art, "and I know. I know what she said. I know what you did. And I know what you -took- from -me-. But, again, I seem to be in your debt, because you've helped me realize something."
Pressure mounts.
"I was going to make a great world. A world for heroes. A world of strength and ideals. But you've shown me -- there's no such thing. We're all of us nothing more than a daisy chain of self-serving weakness. So I wonder: what does a world made for heroes, when no heroes exist, truly look like?"
And mounts.
"Let's find that out together!"
And mounts.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q499GHnxK-8
Until Vinsfeld RIPS that sword OUT of the floor with a scream of steel, the broad sweep of that immense weapon giving way to a great scythe's crescent of energy, crashing into -all- of them, fueled by a broken and unquenchable anger.
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Brad Evans with Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ashley Winchester with Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Ashley Winchester takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory for 136 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus! GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory for 65 hit points! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: Eleanor Klein suffers a terrible blow from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory for 128 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus! GS: Brad Evans solidly guards Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Old Soldiers Never Die - They Rise In Greatest Glory for 58 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Respecting the name, now, Brad thinks, eyes locked. That one hurts.
"It's a place for endings," Brad agrees. "You always did tell us our job was to topple the thrones of tyrants."
He steps further in, as the others make their claims. "Is this what it was all for, Vins? Just so you could find the biggest gun and point it at the whole world? Is that why you never showed to the castle? Is that why you had me tossed in Ilsveil? All to lead up to this?"
He stalks forward. "Is that why Billy--!"
He stops himself, bites the words in his throat, and in that moment is when Vinsfeld's pressure cracks open. Brad throws his Mechanical Glove in the way, the energy shield from it deflecting the worst of the attack. He clenches his fist and lets the cannon inside it spin up, saying, "I've seen it now, Vins. That's not what a hero is for!"
GS: Formation! Brad Evans has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with 100 Knuckle! GS: Brad Evans has gained 1 Combo! GS: Brad Evans has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
High-minded? Maybe. But that's just how Ashley Winchester is. His heart is... soft. Naive in a lot of ways. If he were not so enchanted with the idea of 'heroes,' he would never have stepped on the fateful road that would one day lead to this point. He was foolish and childish, and reality did not waste time running roughshod over his infantile dreams.
And yet, he still feels like he needs to make the offer.
Because Ashley is... still a good person, even after all of that.
"...You killed them, because they wanted to survive...?" He shakes his head, "Irving... isn't someone I'm particularly eager to please. But he's right about one thing. All of this, threatening peoples' lives, their homes, just to satisfy the 'ideals' of a man who would make himself a king of heroes, needs to stop."
He can't even shoulder the weight of a single rebellion, something inside him whispers in a voice that sounds like a smoldering ember of a collapsed star, how could he hope to rule the world?
Ashley winces, pressing a hand to one temple-- and in that instant, Vinsfeld strikes. A shockwave catches him in the gut, sending him hurtling back into a steel wall. Only the most desperate of movements saw Ashley bringing his Bayonet to bear in time to absorb the most of the cutting force.
Something bursts. Flame erupts in a vast column.
...
And out from within, Ashley Winchester bellows a roar, erupting from his accidental incendiary ignition with his blade ablaze, covered in a layer of thick napalm. He swings, crashing down with his full weight into Vinsfeld's guard, spilling fire across the militant throneroom. "I can't... let someone with such an empty dream decide Filgaia's fate! We don't need a 'hero' like you!"
GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Canister - Incendiary Round! GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action. GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus solidly guards Brad Evans's 100 Knuckle for 69 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Their great hero...
Eleanor's eyes drift from Vinsfeld towards the maps. SHe sees those red dots. SHe sees those targets. She knows what they must be. And as Vinsfeld looks over his shoulder...
Eleanor looks back to him again. He sees a hollow stare. Playing 'pretend', he says.
She doesn't answer that. Instead she looks toward him, her expression a tight, angry one for his soldiers, too. "Monster," she calls him. "What 'truth' could you possibly have to share but the truth of your own bloodlust?"
Perhaps Ashley's heart is softer than Eleanor's, in the end. Perhaps she's just seen too much. Seen too much. But not this. Fate has had no answers for her on the outcome of this battle...
What he's 'realized'?
Eleanor starts to answer--but foresight has abandoned her in this moment, and she does not move in time to avoid that pressure. The broad sweep of an immense blade's energy crashes into her, and she is swept backwards to hit the wall behind. "Gh--"
"Brad," Eleanor starts, but it's not the time for that. She shakes her head, quickly.
"We won't allow it!" Eleanor agrees with Ashley. "You don't understand anything if that's what you believe, Vinsfeld. Your 'strength' is a lie, a hollow foundation on which you've built something that will crash down when you are gone."
"Perhaps you're that 'self-serving weakness'... But not all are. I've known many who aren't."
Eleanor pulls herself back up, dusting herself off--and finally pulls a firearm, a small and golden pistol. She raises it--and the light in her hands shines brighter.
"This world will be better off without you!"
With a ringing gunshot, Eleanor fires, and where the bullet impacts ice spreads in a sudden shell.
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Frigid Bullet! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 2 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Low! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a glancing hit from Eleanor Klein's Frigid Bullet for 33 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Slow applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus partially guards Ashley Winchester's Canister - Incendiary Round for 93 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The rabid hound in question doesn't so much as flinch when addressed such. There are things which Josie has come to regret. They could, alone, fill volumes. But Antenora's blood on her hands is not one of them. If anything, she regrets it not having been sooner. But actions never are in a vacuum: from Antenora to her sister, from her to Antenora, and now, should he have his way, it will be from Vinsfeld to her. However it ends, it won't end here -- the statements about cycles of violence ever are trite in Josephine's eyes, but neither are they incorrect.
"Maybe so," she tells him, because perhaps, that might just be how it will go.
But not if she can help it.
"...So you killed 'em," she speaks, on the matter of the bodies in the room -- dead, as Eleanor had surmised and Josie had suspect, by Vinsfeld's own hand. "There won't be a tomorrow, or a dream for another day." It's not a smile, that graces her expression, however close it threatens to come: too tight, too grim.
Yes, she knows him well now: better than she'd ever thought was possible.
But she speaks of Antenora's ending, and naturally, his response is could only ever be one thing and one thing alone.
"Katriona," she says, because, again, it's her own small kindness here on the edge. "But Josephine suits just as well. I'll wear the name of who she took from me."
They're really not so different.
It was her actions, though, that helped him realize something-- something very important.
"...Right you are. Heroes only exist between the pages of a book. What we've got is a world where good people die for terrible reasons. And then we call 'em heroes for it. All the while, people like me just keep on going, right...?" She smiles, darkly. "But that's just how it is. Thinkin', it's lesser because of that, that ain't--"
With one mighty swing, Vinsfeld makes his intention felt. The shockwave of that single stroke can be felt across the room: though she twists out of the way of the incoming wave of force, still she cannot fully escape it.
Vinsfeld has the honor of drawing first blood. Small droplets decorate the bridge's floor.
She fixes him with a long, steady look. "...So that's it, is it? I'm thinkin', here, your ideal world's worse 'n a fantasy. Hate me if you want -- I've more'n earned it. But if you're thinkin' folks like me make the world less--"
She lifts that rifle of hers, the very same she'd laid claim to while still getting her feet wet as an ARMs Meister, and takes but one step back. In the blink of an eye, the report of a bullet cracks across the space of the bridge.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Red Lotus! GS: Josephine Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Highest! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a solid hit from Josephine Lovelace's Red Lotus for 207 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
Is this what it was all for?
Black and red dance wrathful lines across Mad Mountains' battle-worn edge, flashes of crimson illuminating little chips and nicks along the blade that look suspiciously fresh. Vinsfeld swings the weighty weapon around in a one hundred and eighty degree, half-circular flourish, pointing its tip towards his foes like a damning accusation.
"Heimdall Gazzo was always the stepping stone towards the real prize, Bradley, not the prize itself! It was fate that called me away that day, fate that showed me the shape of a greater vision! A vision I never would have saw if I took a single step into the damned steps of that castle! Slayheim was doomed long before any of us even knew it, because there is a single truth in this blood-soaked husk of a world--"
The arm cannon of the man once known as Prisoner No. 666 spins up into a powerful volley of munitions. Mad Mountains sweeps up, intercepting a flurry of rounds -- but the rest pummel into Vinsfeld's dense body armor with force enough to -knock- him into a stumble that sees his back -cracking- against the top of that ostentatious chair of a weapon that should never have been.
"--power and sacrifice are the only tools capable of giving shape to dreams and nightmares!"
Vinsfeld does not aggress, however; strangely, he seems to tense as if in preparation, the subtle nuances of his body language difficult to read in the heat of battle save that he seems to be preparing.
"I hoped to craft a dream, but now I suppose I'll have to settle for the nightmare the people so FERVENTLY demand--"
FWOOOOOM
Fire engulfs Ashley Winchester in a blazing column that radiates baking heat across the entire upper levels of Heimdall Gazzo's bridge. Vinsfeld squints against the conflagration that he had no small part in helping make. Ashley comes swinging -- and Vinsfeld -MEETS- that incendiary edge with that the broad side of Mad Mountains in a bristling, booming CLANG of impact. Vinsfeld feels heat bake against his cheek for perhaps one second, verging towards two; Ashley might be able to see what looks like arcane symbols marked in dark hues across Mad Mountains' equally dark blade --
--before Ashley's blow -overwhelms- Vinsfeld's defenses. The man goes -with- the motion of all that force as Ashley's blade scores an ugly black scorch across carbon armor; his backwards stumble becomes a momentum-fueled backwards leap, demonstrating surprising flexibility for an old warrior with such a beaten and haggard look; the movement sees him carrying himself over the top of the throne entirely as Ashley completes his swing, carving into and -through- that seat like a hot knife through butter just as Eleanor's bullet impacts the molten-glowing edge of that once-grand Commander's chair in a burst of frost that sees all that superheated metal rapidly cool and warp.
Shards of frost catch Vinsfeld as he completes his backwards arc, clinging to his legs in a deathly, gripping chill; ice is dusting his boots, crunching across the ground as he stumbles back to the very edge of that platform.
"You don't DESERVE a hero like me," spits Vinsfeld, the passionate declaration betrayed by the broken shell of his stare. He lifts his greatsword into the air just as Josephine lines up her shot.
"And a world without me to save it is no world at all!"
His blade plunges, impaling into the ground. And as Josephine squeezes the trigger --
Those sigils freshly-painted on Mad Mountain's broad blade alight in seething red...
... and suddenly, the entire bridge is lit in red.
Can you see them now?
Symbologist sigils. Carved into every panel, every inch of this bridge.
A specially prepared executioner's scaffold for the people Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus was hoping against hope would come here today.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
Several symbols light up light a domino effect trigger by the plunge of that blade, along the floor of the would-be throne's platform up towards the walls and the ceiling. The sequence flashes, throbs --
BANG!
And just as Josephine hits Vinsfeld square in the chest, that entire platform suddenly EXPLODES, the foundations keeping it aloft ripping apart in a hideous screech of metal. Vinsfeld goes flying --
--and the platform, and everything on it, goes CRASHING with him, towards the bridge's ground level, as the symbols along the walls pulse with sickening, weakening waves of debilitating magical energy that seek to coat the entire room with their enfeebling presence.
BOOOOOOOM
The platform crashes violently just as Vinsfeld hits the ground. Shockwaves ripple through the floor, sending precarious rumbles throughout the entirety of the vast chamber.
Those seismic quivers are still rolling through the grounds as the old warrior who caused them drags himself slowly back onto his feet, blood dripping in thick droplets from the fresh wound just below his sternum as he rises.
"You people see what you want to see," Vinsfeld hisses. "Bradley can tell you the TRUTH. The ugliness of this world. The pettiness that fuels it. I would have carved off everything that was foul and diseased but now I see -- there would be nothing left at all. So maybe that's all there should be. It would certainly be a kinder fate than what waits for it at the fringes. If the world is damned, so be it! If this world rejects me, so be it! If I am to fall, SO BE IT! BUT I WILL MAKE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS: IF I HURT, THE WORLD HURTS WITH ME!
"IF I FALL -- THE WORLD FALLS WITH ME!"
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated a Boss Action! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Brad Evans with Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ashley Winchester with Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has launched an attack Link! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Brad Evans with Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ashley Winchester with Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes 24 damage from Poison! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has completed his action. GS: Brad Evans suffers a terrible blow from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply for 109 hit points! GS: Delay applied to Brad Evans! GS: Eleanor Klein partially guards Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply for 66 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Shield applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Brad Evans partially evades Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Brad Evans gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Brad Evans! GS: Brad Evans enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Eleanor Klein solidly guards Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Hyper and Shield removed! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Josephine Lovelace suffers a terrible blow from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply for 106 hit points! GS: Delay applied to Josephine Lovelace! GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Josephine Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Josephine Lovelace's Jam Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Josephine Lovelace! GS: Josephine Lovelace enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ashley Winchester takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Hate Most Fervently Must Have Once Loved Deeply for 46 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ashley Winchester gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ashley Winchester takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Those Who Want To Deny The World Must Have Once Embraced That Which They Now Consign To The Flames for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Ashley Winchester enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Brad grimaces through Vinsfeld's words. "There was a time I believed that," he says. "But the man you've become...maybe the man you always were..."
He glances behind himself, to the corpses dead where they stood.
"You've never thought for one moment that any of us was any more than a pawn. Even me, even Ptolomea, even him, you stood there and smiled and called us friend! But none of us was anything more than a body to put in front of your enemy's blades!" Brad cries, prepares himself...
And sees the etching.
His gaze cranes around, finding the etchings everywhere. "Trapped," he spits, and then he has to cover from the eruption. He falls to his knees, feeling his muscles wither under him. He glares at Vinsfeld as the explosion rushes across Brad's body, searing his flash through his ARM shield.
And only when it's quiet does he roar, "DON'T YOU SPEAK FOR ME, COWARD!"
He slams his fist out to the side, a massive edifice of eletronics and mirrors building itself out of the Mechanical Glove.
"I haven't stood on a balcony looking down for these last few years! I've watched people grow and struggle against a horror that YOU created!"
"I found a town that could wash out to sea any second, and the people who love it! I found people with the courage to fly through the sky and still return to the ground!"
"I found people a thousand times more heroic than you'll EVER be in every alley I've set foot in!"
"That's the problem with you, Vins! You think a hero should be a god above all!"
The machine is ready, a massive barrel flickering into being amid motes of construction matter.
"A hero pushes people up! You don't want to be a hero! You just want to be a king!"
The Thunderbolt hums, loudly.
Brad snarls. "You taught me what to do with kings."
Then there's a ray of colored light, scattering against the far wall as the panels melt under its force. It should test even Vinsfeld's strength!
GS: Brad Evans has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Brad Evans has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Brad Evans has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Thunderbolt! GS: Brad Evans has gained 1 Combo! GS: Delay expired! GS: Brad Evans has completed his action. GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus partially guards Brad Evans's Thunderbolt for 197 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
Vinsfeld speaks. Despair drips from every word. This is a man who paradoxically believes himself to be the only one who can carry the weight of the world-- and who has been completely and utterly crushed by it. By him not being at the center of it. By being left behind in a world he never bothered to build connections to.
Ashley's face, lit by flickering firelight, curdles into a deep and sincere frown.
"...You're wrong, Vinsfeld. Dreams... Dreams aren't things that can so easily be made real. You never made room for anyone else in that dream of yours. How could it ever become real like that? How do you change the world when you act like you're the only one in it that matters?" Ashley readies the Bayonet, flames guttering all around him. The glowing embers almost disguise the terrible, dull pulse of malefic magic building all around them.
Almost.
Everything glows red--
--as the world comes crashing down.
"Khh--" Ashley winces, barely able to absorb the shock of his own landing as the waves of enervation crash against him. But they drink from a terrible, tainted well. Something deep within him laughs with glee as they try to drain it. Several runes outright catch fire, burning away with invisible flame. But though the Blazer is limitless, Ashley isn't. He staggers upright on unsteady legs.
...But he stands nonetheless.
"All this... All this was so that you could force the world to remember you, wasn't it? The only way you could get anyone to listen to you was to hold a gun to their heads. How lonely are you, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus? You know, there's a girl out there who almost idolized you-- so many in Odessa who followed you for your promises, your dreams, but in the end they were just tools to you, weren't they...?"
Ashley straightens, holding aloft... A blue crystal. It's vaguely refractor-shaped, but obviously made of something different. Something... That pulses with deep, azure light. Empathite, a pure crystal of the stuff charged with power. It shines across the others, pouring over Brad and Eleanor and even over Josephine. In that moment, they are all together linked.
"Someone who only sees Filgaia as a means to an end... Doesn't get to tell anyone else how to achieve their dreams! I don't need power, I don't need sacrifice! All I need right now to make it reality--" The light of the Empathite crystal blazes to a zenith as Ashley loads it into his Bayonet. He takes aim, blue radiance shining through the narrow channels and gaps in the gunsmoke ARM. "--Is for tyrants like you to get out of the way!"
He fires, discharging a ray of pure power, bathing the room in the light that connects hearts.
And perhaps... One which might even grant a glimpse into the hollow heart of Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus...
GS: Ashley Winchester spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Unison Impulse! GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Brad Evans with Unison Impulse! GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Ashley Winchester with Unison Impulse! GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Eleanor Klein with Unison Impulse! GS: Ashley Winchester has launched an attack Link! GS: Delay expired! GS: Ashley Winchester accepts Ashley Winchester's Unison Impulse for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Blitz and Lock state applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Josephine Lovelace accepts Ashley Winchester's Unison Impulse for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Blitz and Lock state applied to Josephine Lovelace! GS: Blitz! Ashley Winchester has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Rising Nova! GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action. GS: Ashley Winchester has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Ashley Winchester's Unison Impulse for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Blitz and Burst applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Brad Evans accepts Ashley Winchester's Unison Impulse for 0 hit points! GS: Pray grants a random effect! Blitz and Hyper applied to Brad Evans! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus solidly guards Ashley Winchester's Rising Nova for 89 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"I don't need a hero, least of all you," she tells him, and as ever, spares only that most fleeting of glances through the sight just before she takes her shot.
Skill and no small amount of luck are with her. But...
Luck is a fickle thing, isn't it. Only as her bullet flies across the bridge does she at least see it. How could she not?
"Wait, shit--"
Josephine Lovelace is a magus' daughter. Hardly the most dutiful student, her father's drilling had engraved some of the essentials into her. Those symbols...!
This has been a trap. And she's out of time. They're all out of time. There's nowhere to run and no way to hide. Even the sparking array she sends out in front of herself in sheer desperation is torn to shreds before it can so much as absorb a fraction of the explosion that follows.
She lies on the ground, still and wedged up against the far wall, her rifle more than a few arms' lengths away from her. But Josie yet breathes and that alone may destroy any hope -- such that it is -- that his gambit had ended her. Slowly she rises as Vinsfeld himself speaks, on her hands and knees, her head bowed.
"We ain't... all that different, deep down," she says, taking a slow ragged breath. Here she lifts her head. "But... here's where you and I differ. You're the sort that'd scrape the frosting off the cake 'n call it 'better', eh...? And if you don't want it, no one else should have it, yeah?"
She's on her feet by now; metal glints in her left hand: an ARM, if not the rifle which remains on the floor. "...You ain't all wrong. This world's dying. Every year, a little more of goes to dust. But that don't mean it's worthless, bein' in this world. Listen to your old friend, over there!" she says, jerking her head Brad's way. "Out there's now people living their lives and getting by, and, dammit!" Josie screws up her face and shakes her head vehemently. "Maybe it ain't big or grand, but it's something! It's something, in a world like this! And I'll be damned if you take even that from 'em!"
Light, cast from an Empathite crystal, shines across all of them. Light, too, dances across the far wall, and Josie's not far on its tail: her dash takes her in close, closer than she'd been before and in threat range of that blade of his. But it won't do much good if this shot goes too wide.
Once upon a time, in a land far from where this sky fortress now lingers, she had salvaged a portion of metal from the remnants of the arm of a very particular Gear. Using it had been a Hell and a half to get right, but it had worked out in the end: the revolver-type ARM is lightweight, and more importantly, carries a little secret of its own. To wit: witness the fact that it has two barrels. It's a revolver, yes.
But it also effectively functions as a sawed off shotgun.
It dances up towards Vinsfeld, once. She only needs once. She only needs to get this close, as risky as it already is. She pulls the trigger, twisting her body as if to prepare to evade the counter strike she seems to believe is coming.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Josephine Lovelace spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Josephine Lovelace enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blitz! Josephine Lovelace has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Suffering Bastard! GS: Josephine Lovelace has gained 2 Combo! GS: Delay expired! GS: Josephine Lovelace enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Power and sacrifice...
"I won't believe that!" Eleanor protests Vinsfeld's philosophy. "Cooperation, hope--these things matter!" But Ashley has more to say about Dreams still. He has so much to say about them. And so much... kindness, for Vinsfeld.
Eleanor almost smiles, to feel that warmth from Ashley's heart. Almost.
AndEleanor has a reply on her lips ready for that comment about the world--that it is no world at all, without him--but the igils alight... and the bridge is red, too. Eleanor sees them, all right. She knows many of the sigils. And she recognizes what they must be. "No--"
Eleanor is able this time to get up a defense in time, becoming a smaller target by throwing her magically-shielded arms out before her. But that cannot protect her against the Symbols, and she finds herself enfeebled, hitting the ground on one knee as she briefly lacks the ability to stand at all. But he still stands...
Eleanor looks up. But she doesn't speak immediately. Brad speaks, first. Brad roars, and he speaks of what he's seen. The people growing, and struggling... Eleanor knows, in a moment. She knows that she's one of them. She has grown so much over the path of Vinsfeld's terrible proclamation... But that's exactly why--
"Brad has told me a better truth," Eleanor answers. "He's shown it to me, with his steadfast strength. He's shown it to me by being there, over and over, whenever we needed him. ...He's helped us all along the way. He's pushed us up." Eleanor forces herself to her feet with difficulty--but does it, all the same, with that steadfast presence nearby.
And then she feels the warmth in Ashley's heart far more intensely than before, as that power shines across them all. They are linked. And she can feel that. So...
"I understand, Ashley," Eleanor says, as she puts out both of her hands to either side, breathing in that blue light. The power of emotion.
"The dreams of this world," she says to Vinsfeld, "Are not for one man to foil!"
"This world will go on without you! This beautiful world will persist!"
The Sage blazes with golden light, now, transmuting the power suffusing her, making it her own. And then she puts out one hand, and lunges forward, towards Vinsfeld, even in the aftermath of Josie's shot, to blaze that light straight into his chest with one touched charge after another.
"We'll save this world--without you!"
GS: Eleanor Klein has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Eleanor Klein spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Blitz! Eleanor Klein has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Gathering Radiance! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo! GS: Delay expired! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus suffers a terrible blow from Josephine Lovelace's Suffering Bastard for 271 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Break Ward may block the effect! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Interrupt applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus! GS: Break blocked! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus solidly guards Eleanor Klein's Gathering Radiance for 85 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper, Mighty, and Shield applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Eleanor Klein drains Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus! Eleanor Klein gains 55 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
"Protection."
Symbols previously unlit catch a cerulean light among their crimson counterparts as Vinsfeld's deadened voice commands their activation. Despite the enforcing, protective field those spells ensconce him in, the combination of red and blue magical light enshrouds Heimdall Gazzo's bridge in a sickening throb of violet that makes its commander look all the more emaciated and emptied as he rises to his feet.
Beyond, rumbles of force from Heimdall Gazzo's engine room reach even here; they shake up towards the ceiling, making the foundations of the bridge rock even more beyond the aftershocks of Vinsfeld's explosion; the man himself sways forward, steadying himself as he looks in the direction of the engine room.
"Hh," he exhales beneath his breath, amber eyes looking briefly towards those comprehensive, digital maps as they flicker in sparks of static but otherwise hold.
"... Let me tell you what is going to happen now."
That sunken gaze looks back towards Ashley, Brad, Eleanor and Josephine as they recover. Vinsfeld, haggard and beaten as he is, sucks in a deep breath, feels the sharp protest of pain at his sternum, and continues.
"None of you are going to succeed here. -I- know what's out there, waiting for you. -I- had the solution. But you rejected it. So now, your only victory is going to be delaying an inevitable. Your only reward is going to be watching as I tear down everything you wanted, everything you cared for--"
He leans down as they all stand, taking hold of Mad Mountains.
"--just like you've done to me!"
It's Ashley who denies him first, denies him vehemently -- denies him by seeing him. Vinsfeld sweeps that tremendous sword to the side with one hand, the glow of the sigils along its broadside searing as he sneers at Ashley with bloodied lips.
"The only way to get ANYONE to truly listen to what you say is to show them there is no choice BUT to! I wasn't alone --"
But she was never really with you, was she?
"... No. Maybe I was always alone," he concedes, slowly. "But the death of Odessa's dreams lies solely on your heads--"
Empathite loaded into Ashley's Bayonet discharges a ray of light, illuminating with a blue that briefly overwhelms that sickening purple. It races for Vinsfeld, to try to connect -him-, too --
--and he catches it before it can upon the broad side of his blade.
The point of impact FLASHES dueling colors of crimson-black and blue as the force of impact alone sends Vinsfeld sliding backwards with the squeal of heels on metal. Back he drags three feet, four, six -- coming dangerously close to the consoles behind him before he comes to a sudden stop.
"What--"
And then, he pushes FORWARD. Glimpses of the empty heart of Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus can be gleaned as he -steps- forward, pushing -into- that ray to slowly march towards Ashley. It's like looking into a wildfire after it's finished its burning, and seeing nothing but the ash and smoke left in its place.
"--does a baker--"
Step. Step. STEP. Each one carries Vinsfeld less by steel will and more by petty spite. Glimpses of Antenora can still be seen in the man's heart, distorted like a festering wound at the center of all his regrets and failures.
"--know about dreams and heroism?!"
With one upward swing, Vinsfeld -smashes- aside the rest of that light off the edge of Mad Mountains. He's smoldering with beautiful blue vapors as he raises that blade high into the air.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
The blade readies the plunge --
But he catches something, from the corner of his eye, just a second before he can strike at Ashley.
"You--"
Josephine and Eleanor come in swift, the latter hot on the heels of the former. Eyes widening in surprise and fury, the commander of Odessa reacts immediately, -pivoting- towards them and giving Ashley precious breathing room, he swings his sword -down- towards the right of Josephine. Her shot goes off, clean, a shotgun's force scoring brutally across Vinsfeld's midsection in a way that scorches flexible carbon armor and sees a splatter of blood decorate the purple-hued floors of the debris-filled bridge.
But he doesn't try to avoid it.
That sword crashes right towards Josephine --
-- just in time to intercept Eleanor's blazing swing against its broadside. Magic light blazes past his weapon, burning at his weathered skin and melting at his pauldrons -- even as his free hand snakes out to try to grip Josephine by her throat.
The resulting interplay sees Vinsfeld attempting to toss the white-haired, former agent of Odessa into Eleanor, seconds before the Sage's powerful assault can truly break through Mad Mountain's guard.
Vinsfeld stumbles back two steps in the aftermath; droplets of blood scatter to follow in his wake, smoke wafting off his form. He takes two steps back -- and then three steps forward, the superheated edge of Mad Mountains coming to point at -both- of them.
"What right," he breathes, haggard, "do -either of you- have to declare THIS world beautiful?! Opportunistic carrion, picking at the bones of it! It's the fault of people like YOU that people like ME are put into this position! So here is what I will do for you: I'll scour every inch of this 'beautiful' world, Ms. Klein, until the only legacy left of your nobility is the rancid stench of its smoking carcass! And YOU--"
The sheer, bitter rage in Vinsfeld's stare is something for Josephine, and Josephine alone.
"--it's the lowest rung of hell that's reserved for traitors, and I will do my damnedest to ensure every day of your life is exactly that until the end comes for all of us! My world WOULD have been grand, but you took the only thing that would have made it worth it, and now--"
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
A loud hum fills the air. Vinsfeld's amber gaze turns towards the great barrel Brad's Mechanical Glove has become, thrumming with particles. A snarl smears across his bloodied lips.
You taught me what to do with kings.
"Oh, dammit, B--"
Not for the first time, likely not for the last, Heimdall Gazzo's bridge is blinded with light as a ray of pure power punches through the sterile air and COLLIDES with Vinsfeld, engulfing him and throwing him away from Josephine and Eleanor seconds before he can go on his offensive against them.
It's like the clap of a thunderbolt after the flash of lightning, the sound Vinsfeld's body makes as he collides with the collapsed platform that once resided above the bridge. The force of the Brad's Thunderbolt melts that ruined structure down within the intensity of its pulse. When it cancels out, the dull, throbbing purple returns to the room, and there is nothing but smoking silence for eight whole seconds.
"... How dare..."
The voice is a distant, weak thing. Two hands shoot from the rubble, gripping the cooking remains of that once-grand edifice, ignoring the way the superheated, sharpened edges cut and cauterize his skin as he drags himself out. Vinsfeld reemerges in a weak, two-step stumble across the uneven ground of that debris. His cape is largely tattered ruins, burning fringes torn free by the yank of one smoking hand. His black armor hides the scorch marks, but not the blood that drools down his stomach. A fresh, ugly burn that will no doubt leave its mark stretches all the way up the right side of Vinsfeld's face.
"... How dare you call ME a coward!"
Grabbing onto Mad Mountains, he staggers with one step, two --
-- and then he takes firm hold of his weapon and THROWS it into the air as he breaks into a full run towards Bradley and Ashley with just his fists.
"YOU'VE done NOTHING but LIVE A FAKE LIFE!"
Despite his age, despite his injuries, hollow hatred does much to fuel Vinsfeld as he -jumps- from chunk of debris to chunk of debris to -pounce- upon Brad, flying at him with a maddened, powerful right hook.
"-I- have waded through blood and death to get where I am! All you've ever done is take someone else's accomplishments as your own!" Vinsfeld lands into a stumble after this; it's one soon rectified as he sweeps out, seeking to JAM his elbow into Brad's midsection. "And when -I- finally found a purpose for you, you couldn't even do that right! I imagine Valeria thinks you're some ace in the hole against me, but maybe he doesn't realize -- you're INCAPABLE of doing ANYTHING RIGHT!"
Maddened vitriol flies with spittle and blood as Vinsfeld shouts; he's swift on the move, pivoting to his right as he turns his attention towards Ashley, looking to snap a sharp roundhouse kick to the side of the possessed man's face.
"And you! One fluke after another! You were nothing, NOTHING important, and yet you think you can cast your judgment on me, after everything I've given?! You people think I'm some king, some tyrant!? FINE!"
And finally, Mad Mountains falls -- right into Vinsfeld's waiting grip.
"If that's how you see me -- I'll become that king!"
*thmp*
To help carry it all the rest of its way down --
"A ruined king for a ruined world!"
And IMPALE it into the ground.
At the epicenter, there is a sudden EXPLOSION of red and black force, swirling like a tempest from the point of impact. It blows away rubble, smashing several chunks into one of the screens of the bridge -- and it will consume both Brad and Ashley both within its ruinous wrath if they cannot move in time.
But if one assumes being outside that epicenter keeps them safe...
... from the depths of that maelstrom come waves of lights forging themselves into a thousand thousand ethereal blades of pure force, sheering through the air in a seemingly endless swarm that -rush- for Eleanor and Josephine --
--aiming to impale them both upon the full weight of Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus' broken spite.
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Rage Against The Dying Of The Light! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has gained 3 Combo! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's stances have changed to Hero! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus accepts Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Rage Against The Dying Of The Light for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Incur My Wrath! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Incur My Wrath! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ashley Winchester with Veni Vidi Vici! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Brad Evans with Veni Vidi Vici! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has gained 3 Combo! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes 31 damage from Poison! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Incur My Wrath for 222 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Brad Evans suffers a terrible blow from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Veni Vidi Vici for 215 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Brad Evans gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Brad Evans enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Josephine Lovelace suffers a terrible blow from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Incur My Wrath for 260 hit points! GS: Ashley Winchester solidly guards Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Veni Vidi Vici for 81 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ashley Winchester gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
What does a baker know about dreams and heroism?
How many years had he spent idolizing the kind of man Vinsfeld presented himself as? The kind of man that Brad is? He had lived a life full of storybooks and novels, his head in the clouds. Heroism was always something to emulate, to aspire to. He didn't understand.
He didn't see how it hollowed you out inside.
How it reached in and scooped out everything good and glorious and spent it on a crusade that you rarely ever really had the choice but to pursue.
It left men like Brad alone and betrayed by the world. It crippled people like Billy. And Vinsfeld--
His heart is desolate. Empty of all but ash and cinder. A heart like that can't create.
It's familiar. Ashley knows it. He's seen it before-- or something similar. This heart is still more human than that one, the pain still something he can understand.
But undeniably, he knows what that heart resembles.
According to the legends He, too, was once a general.
Vinsfeld fights like a demon. Rises even after the full might of Brad's mightiest ARM discharges into him. Heimdall Gazzo trembles and shakes as if cowering before Rhadamanthus' ashen, wrathful judgment.
"Tch--" Ashley grits his teeth as a kick slams into his head--
No, into an arm and gauntlet, lifted there to receive the blow.
"A fluke... you say...? You're right, I'm nothing important. I'm just a baker," the vessel of Lord Blazer says, as the shockwave of that kick blasts his hair over the opposite side of his face. "...But bakers have dreams. Bakers can have hopes. They can desire a world-- CREATE a world! We all can! Each and every one of us, no matter how small, are part of this world-- make UP this world! All our failures and lies, all our little dreams--"
He's cut off. The world explodes in a catastrophe of red and black. Ashley's words are swallowed by the shockwave, crushed out of his lungs. But...
...
There's... a flame in the dark.
A blue flame, flickering like a candle in the wind but never quite going out. "Everything... everything you keep saying-- it's all about you. What you gave. What you suffered! What we did to you!" Ashley's voice returns, stronger than before, smoldering with a crackle-pop of not so distant flame. "There's no room in the world you'd create for bakers and magicians and priests! There's just you! Vinsfeld..."
The shockwave clears.
Standing there is... not Ashley Winchester.
It's the vessel of the Blaze of Destruction.
But the eyes-- the eyes glowing inside that black helm. THOSE are surely still the eyes of an ordinary baker driven by little more than a little hope and a humble promise.
"A dream as selfish as yours is nothing but a nightmare! A baker's dream shines infinitely brighter! You're no hero. Maybe you never were. You've become nothing but another Blazer!" He draws back his fist-- and slams it hard into the floor. A wave of apocalyptic, shadowless flame races across the ground, threatening to swallow Vinsfeld whole. "For this world... For the one I love! I'm waking you up right here, right now, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!"
DC: Ashley Winchester switches forms to Knight Blazer!
GS: Blitz! Ashley Winchester has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Disaster Impulse! GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 4 Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken expired! GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
He's for them, and swiftly: Josephine barely has the time to twist out of the way of Mad Mountains' mass. She can feel it impact the floor mere inches from where she stands, but still does not falter: her shot goes off straight into his midsection. He never tries to avoid it.
The wound must be terrible. But Vinsfeld Rhadamantus made his name for himself not merely by his words alone: the man himself is a mountain, and he shall not shatter easily.
He never tried to avoid that shot for he takes that moment to again strike out at her with the blade, a singular swing that might have caught Josie if Eleanor had not interceded. There is heat and light, and still, he will not stop.
His hand takes her by the throat.
Josie is not a short woman: she dangles mere inches above the floor nonetheless. She struggles with him with her right hand. Not her left, which even now tightly grips her ARM, but her barely functional right. Whatever advantage she has, she'll clasp hold of it until her last moments, however it pains her in the moment -- but that has ever been her way.
But this is not how he intends to end it: in one single movement, he hurls her bodily at Eleanor and the two crash to the floor.
She hunches over when she rises to her knees, her right hand touching gingerly to her throat. But she still has her ARM.
"...Then do it," she tells him, hoarse. "Make it right, whatever it takes! Go on! I won't just let you, right -- but neither'll I deny you! But..." She pauses, and in that moment glances Eleanor's way. "Nora's had the right of it all along. You don't. Get. To destroy the world, just because you lost someone you love..."
That goes for her, as well. Even if it was unintended. Even if.
But her story isn't over yet. And neither is the world's.
There, in the center of the room, comes an eruption of red-and-black force, tearing outwards towards Brad and Ashley alike. Josephine, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, turns to rush for one of the rows of machinery -- used, perhaps, by bridge operations once upon a time -- and catapults over them. Her intention had been to use them as a barrier against whatever came next.
She never arrives on the other side safely. Still in mid-air, the light catches up to her before she crosses. Thus do a thousand swords of hate pierce her through. Without even a sound she drops to lie by the side of the console, seemingly insensate.
As they say, though... 'fool me once, shame on you.' But fool someone twice, and--
"And what the hell-- have you given?!"
BGM: KILLER IS DEAD - Chosen by the Moon : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap1ea8bvMgw
She is riddled with wounds and yet still rises. She, who has braved the inferno and come out alive, she, the sole survivor now of her family's fraught lineage. Whatever happens, Josephine Lovelace will survive, if but out of spite. If but to wound and wound again. She would never say she is possessed of noble spirit, and yet, she is still here now.
In both hands she holds an ARM: the left, the weapon she had birthed out of an ancient weapon; the right, a gift from a foolish love.
"Answer me! Answer him!" She's noticed the change that has come over Ashley -- witnessed that Ashley is no longer here. "Answer all of us! What have you given!? What does the world owe you, Vinsfeld!?"
They may be of like pain, but that is all the more reason why she cannot spare him.
And so she unloads: firing at him and firing around him, giving everything else she has left to give, in however much time she has left to her. Her right hand feels as if it's burning anew with each pull of the trigger.
But so be it. So be it! She'll give everything she has. Not in atonement.
Because it's the right thing to do.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Josephine Lovelace has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Walk Me Down! GS: Sneak! You have gained 1 Combo! Only you see this message. GS: Josephine Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Recover! Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Slow removed from Josephine Lovelace! GS: Weaken expired! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Brad disengages the Mechanical Glove from the construction with a jerk, and the rest of the Thunderbolt cannon scatters apart into motes of construction matter. He rises to his full posture, his lip curled.
Eight seconds. Enough time for his scowl to deepen.
But he's not expecting that rage. "I'll call you--!" Brad roars, and then his eyes go wide as Vinsfeld HURLS himself at Brad. Brad, despite his enormous size and raw muscle, isn't much of an in-close fighter, and Vinsfeld knows it better than most. He takes that hook across the jaw, and Brad's still staggering from the blow while Vinsfeld recovers. The big man is able to shift his feet enough to regain his balance, swings himself around to punch down at his one-time friend and commander, and then eats an elbow to the stomach before he gets it off, crumpling to his knees while Vinsfeld spits vitriol and failure upon him. He gurgles as he struggles to get air back into battered lungs, struggles to force himself upright.
Then the blast wave roars outward, sending Brad flying back until he hits the ruined plating, smashing into it and denting it backward with force and mass. He gurgles from the hit. Is he down?
The answer comes some seconds later, as the air clears.
"Really says it all," Brad croaks, prying open the Cartridge reader on the Mechanical Glove. He rips out the one inside and tosses it aside, pulling a whole new plate from his supplies and jamming it into place.
"You never did give a good god damn about the logistics crew, did you? You left Varukisas in shit shape, and this poor ol' girl's not much better."
He jams a new one into place, and slams the lid shut. "Dual load," he mutters, and it beeps at him in acknowledgement. One bar starts loading slowly. The other completes instantly.
He slowly climbs to his feet, and is then able to heft the shoulder-mounted missile rack the Mechanical Glove has loaded into his hand.
"Keeping that guy's ship in good shape...is something I'm very good at!"
Missiles corkscrew forward, crashing down around Vinsfeld and exploding!
GS: Brad Evans has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Brad Evans has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Brad Evans has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Blitz! Brad Evans has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Anti-Monster Missile Cluster-Launcher! GS: Brad Evans has gained 1 Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Slow expired! GS: Brad Evans has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
'Protection'. Of course he has something like that ready. The violet throb of the room hurts Eleanor's eyes, though it is not only her eyes--the baleful magic he uses still crashes against her.
But he says, what is going to happen now. Something... to happen? A solution?
No. Eleanor will not accept this, either. "I'll take responsibility for the death of Odessa's dream gladly," Eleanor answers.
And she moves. She moves as she can, and her hand slaps into the broadside of Mad Mountains. And moments later, she's crashed into Josie, her spell interrupted though the light around her continues to blaze, golden and brilliant. It radiates from her like the corona of a star, her blonde hair starting to lift as if gravity itself is starting to lose its hold on her.
"I--" Who is she to say it? What right does she have? She is interuppted before she can answer at first, her glare of defiance her only rejoinder in the moment to his promise to her.
But her eyes are ablaze with that same defiance.
But the bridge is blinded with light, and even Eleanor has to close her eyes against it for a moment. Just a moment, before she opens them with satisfaction as Brad's atteack has...
Not finished him. No, not yet. Eleanor's eyes narrow again.
"You'll become--"
That IMPLOSION of force comes. "NO!" Eleanor starts, throwing out a hand toward Ashley and Brad, but it is too late to prevent the attack. ...And the lights that come outward shatter towards Eleanor, and carve away at the enchantments she wears to keep her safe. An amulet of shielding shatters with the sheer force of Vinsfeld's attack; a ring of protection withers and melts away on her finger. The threads of her jacket fray as if burned from the edges.
"Aah--"
She hits the ground, and all that light surrounding her obscures her for a moment. ...Before it fades, the last protection she holds against the blades that have come upon her.
There is blood on her when she rises, blood staining her white blouse from her side, already pooling there. "...No," she says. "I have heard this talk of a King of Ruin before, and you do not have that title. The man you are foolish enough to work with does, and I will not let either of you take this world for yourselves."
"Who am I, to call this world beautiful!?"
Eleanor rises to her feet, unsteadily. "...I am more than you, tyrant. I am the student of Rauru! I am a graduate of the Sielje Academy! And I am the Sage of Light, destined guardian of this world and its heroes!"
"And before any of that I am a daughter of Klein."
She looks to Josephine, who moments ago, said that she was right, in what she said. She smiles grimly. "...A daughter of this Filgaia that we love."
The young elf lifts her hands, then, in the beginnings of something like a prayer. "And you will not have us."
Even as Ashley brings forth that terrible power, the light within Eleanor begins to shine forth again as she lowers her eyes. "O Ancient Light that beats within this world's heart..." She starts to rise from the ground, as her Sage's magic begins to take hold. "Ley that flows even here through the very air..." Golden power collects in her hands again, and even the blood dripping down her side begins to glitter.
"As the shield of Heaven protects us from the darkness outside--"
"I call upon you, in the name of the Three--!"
Eleanor throws out both hands before herself, and that light begins to crystallize. "Filgaia, guard us from evil! PERFECTED DEFLECTION!"
Coalescing from the very air itself, golden shields whirl into being before and around the four of them. Around Josephine, doing the right thing. Around Brad, their steadfast rock. And around even Knight Blazer, with the soul of a baker.
"I won't let you stop them!"
GS: Blitz! Eleanor Klein has attacked Ashley Winchester with Perfected Deflection! GS: Blitz! Eleanor Klein has attacked Brad Evans with Perfected Deflection! GS: Blitz! Eleanor Klein has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Perfected Deflection! GS: Blitz! Eleanor Klein has attacked Eleanor Klein with Perfected Deflection! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 3 Combo! GS: Break, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken expired! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Eleanor Klein heals Ashley Winchester! He gains 287 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein heals Josephine Lovelace! She gains 377 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state applied to Josephine Lovelace! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 288 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Brad Evans! He gains 285 temporary hit points! GS: Lock state applied to Brad Evans! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus solidly guards Brad Evans's Anti-Monster Missile Cluster-Launcher for 97 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a solid hit from Ashley Winchester's Disaster Impulse for 238 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Josephine Lovelace's attack becomes clear! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Gamble: Low! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus critically guards Josephine Lovelace's Tequila Sunrise for 70 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Some of the bullets strike him directly. Others embed themselves in fallen machinery; one console explodes from a single bullet. But others sail past Vinsfeld to ricochet off their surroundings, an increasingly deadly dance as ever more join in. They come in from all sides, perhaps unseen, unsensed--
Until that last critical moment.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
Within the subsiding maelstrom of that assault, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus rises; the remains of those ethereal swords linger, floating in the air as Vinsfeld leans heavily upon his weapon. He is battered, bleeding, burnt -- the scar that stretches from his forehead all the way down his neck cools enough now to see how truly gruesome it is. A memento from Brad Evans. And yet... he continues to stand. Some of it is simply his natural strength. Much of it is that protection spell suffusing the Bridge, empowering him past any human limits and letting him endure things that would have killed anyone without it. And an important kernel - perhaps the most important of all - is the deadened spite that grips him now.
But he is outnumbered. Outgunned. His greatest weapon is -literally- falling apart now, a huge beam of steel CRASHING into the floors behind him as another explosion ripples through the Gazzo.
"... Why do you people... keep trying to fight this?"
So why is he still pushing--?
"You've crushed my dreams... this world's future... you've damned us all. And you still keep... hhh... -pushing-. I told you what's coming next.
"Do any of you really think you have the ability to stop it, when all you've done is help enable it?"
Vinsfeld's hand trembles around Mad Mountains' grip for a few seconds as fatigue threatens him. He shakes his head; spits blood to the side; and affords himself an empty, bitter laugh.
"I can't wait to see the looks on your faces..."
... that ends as he sees a spark of blue in the dark.
"... eh?"
Ashley Winchester emerges. --No. It's not quite Ashley, is it? His voice bubbles with the cauldron of a ruinous fire that somehow supplements the hope and defiance in his words like blatant contradiction. Blue flame wreathes him. Flames that burned down civilizations. Flames that consumed worlds.
What stands there is not Ashley Winchester.
"... The Blaze..."
Vinsfeld takes a single step backward. The rippling heat of Ashley's voice condemns him for his selfishness. Calls him out for the way he uses those beneath him. Compares him to the Blaze of Destruction itself. How fitting, then...
"... I am what... you have forced me to be...!"
... that he cannot see Ashley's words for what they are.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
The legendary freedom fighter of Slayheim stops his backwards retreat. He steels himself as he stares down what was once a simple baker who has become something so much the more.
"That something like you has taken everything from someone like me is--!"
Disgusting.
The word never gets out before Vinsfeld springs straight towards the ruinous flames, despite all logic demanding caution; but there is no more room for logic in those wild-yet-exhausted amber eyes, nothing but the mad spite that fuels every cell of him now as he attempts, as he has done so many times before, to fend that flaming assault off thrusting the broad side of Mad Mountains in front of him like a shield. He rushes. He CRASHES into the shadowless fire. It batters and spills around his greatsword.
For exactly a second, before the raw force and heat of it completely overwhelm even Mad Mountains.
Vinsfeld's last words before being engulf within Blazer's flame is an incomprehensible roar of frustration before the old warrior who claimed he was a hero is swept up within the heat's current and -hammered- into the very support beam that crashed behind him mere moments ago with a sharp, crunchy CRACK of impact. Blue flame catches on the remains of his coat, it burns down his armor straight to his skin -- and he snarls as he grips at that tattered cloak and -rips- the rest of it off of him, casting it to the air. He stumbles forward, catching himself just before he falls to his knees. And he -glares- at Ashley.
"... That power of yours... if only it had been in the right hands..."
His teeth grind together as he mutters to himself:
"... damn you, Valeria..."
He prepares himself for an offensive. But --
And what the hell-- have you given?!
Keeping that guy's ship in good shape...is something I'm very good at!
A bullet fires. Vinsfeld's eyes widen as he sweeps his sword around, catching and cleaving it against Mad Mountain's edge seconds before it can introduce itself to his skull. "Damn you--!" he shouts -- and his sudden -lunge- for Josephine turns into a sudden, twisting -bend- as one of Brad's missiles soar just over his head. Between an onslaught of bullets and rockets is Vinsfeld caught, eyes wild and wide as a gasping grunt of exertion escapes him. One rocket he catches on the side of his sword, casting it up into the air where it explodes. A bullet her intercepts by putting it into the path of another rocket. He leaps behind rubble to evade yet more shots, before a missile hits the shredded metal; the subsequent explosion sees Vinsfeld LAUNCHING off his feet, his massive blade SLAMMING into the ground to stop him as he interposes it between him and another shot.
But there are so many. So many that he cannot possibly see all the canny places they hide as more pierce his guard, one hitting his right shoulder, another his left thigh, another grazing his skull and two more hitting his chest and breaking carbon armor that had so steadfastly protected him until then -- two missiles striking his broad blade with such force that it knocks him into a smoking, bloodied roll across the ground. His ribs ache. The world swims.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
But his gloved hand grips upon his blade as he drags himself back up onto his feet for one last time.
"... I don't know, Bradley..."
The words come with a wet cough as Vinsfeld pulls himself upward. Both hands grip tight onto his sword...
... and then release.
"... I think... I've done a good job keeping this one in the air for as long as she needs to be, now."
Arms sway, as Vinsfeld steps forward. He blinks hard. The protection sigils lining the bridge begin to spark and sizzle as their time begins to run out.
"Heimdall Gazzo... could have been the axe that cleaves the wicked. But you're all wicked, aren't you...? I used to think... it was just people like your fancy little noble Sage there..." He squints against Eleanor's light, cracked and bleeding lips pulling taut and thin. "... but it's all of you. All of you, serpents slithering in the snow."
His body tenses, as muscle fatigue begins to settle in. He needs a little more time.
"You want to know what I've given? Everything. I've given the world all of me."
Amber eyes look sidelong towards the damaged bridge. Towards those maps. A smile scornfully carves its way across his lips.
"And I'll show you... exactly what that means!"
Mad Mountains is abandoned as Vinsfeld -sprints- forward. Protection magics empower him, push him, even as he feels muscles tear and bones protest and strain. And as he runs, those ghostly swords in the air suddenly start to -move-. The first swings towards Josephine, snatched from the skies by Vinsfeld as he looks to bring it -crashing- down through her chest. A second swings past as Odessa's leader seeks to -boot- Josephine away by that ethereal hilt. He grips the second -- and -throws- it at Eleanor like a blazing javelin, screaming with power and fury at everything she is.
Another explosion. The bridge tilts backwards and diagonal as the entire structure of Heimdall Gazzo lurches towards its side. And Vinsfeld runs UP that freshly-forging incline, -vaulting- over a piece of falling debris and grabbing a third and fourth sword from mid-air with both hands as he descends on the blazing Knight Ashley Winchester has become, braving the flame for the sole purpose of trying to IMPALE what was once little more than a baker STRAIGHT into the floor.
And then last...
... last, he lets himself fall backwards as Heimdall Gazzo tilts. Falling towards Bradley Evans. Soldier No. 666. One of the first, but not the last, to be sacrificed for Vinsfeld's ambitions.
"BRADLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!"
His bloody roar fills the trembling Gazzo as he -rips- Mad Mountains from the ground in the middle of his descent -- and brings it CLEAVING down with every ounce of force and strength he can muster towards the man he once claimed to be a friend.
And the second Mad Mountains hits -anything-?
All those ethereal swords simply--
explode.
...
Behind them, past the onslaught, one of those maps light up.
Lost to the cacophony, an automated voice chimes something simple and damning:
<<Charge Complete.>>
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated a Boss Action! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Brad Evans with Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ashley Winchester with Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Eleanor Klein with Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has gained 3 Combo! GS: Brad Evans takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing for 462 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Brad Evans gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein suffers a terrible blow from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing for 617 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Josephine Lovelace takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing for 634 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Josephine Lovelace gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: Josephine Lovelace enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ashley Winchester suffers a terrible blow from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Evil Men Require Nothing More To Encompass Their Ends Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing for 478 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ashley Winchester gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"The world under you was no future," Eleanor retorts. He says there is 'something next', that they lack the power, but Eleanor sees--
She stumbles, for a moment, as she does see something, but it is not Vinsfeld. "Gh--"
But whatever she saw she doesn't share. She returns to the moment an instant later, her glowing eyes fading to normal radiance. And Knight Blazer comes forth. Vinsfeld crashes forward...
For a moment she thinks it might be done, but it is not.
"That power is in exactly the right hands," Eleanor tells Vinsfeld of Ashley and the Blaze of Disaster.
But he releases his sword, and... as long as it needs to be? THe sigils are winking out. But Vinsfeld has more to say. He speaks of her, but Eleanor knows what he thinks of her and those like her. She stares unmoving at him. "...You... Even now, you're so full of hate. The world doesn't want for the gifts you would give it, tyrant."
But the ghostly swords move as Vnisfeld does. She has no time for another retort. And that terrible, ethereal blade crashes towards Eleanor. A blazing spear rushes at her barrier, and Eleanor throws out her hands to reinforce it. Her Perfected Deflection wars against the unholy power Vinsfeld can bring to bear here in his sanctuary, becoming brilliant and hardened light that crackles with every instant, sword against shield. And barely--barely, it holds, the phantom blade embedded within her barrier, still hovering before her as she takes rapid, deep breaths of effort and relief. Her magic has held.
"You--" The Heimdall Gazzo tilts, lurches, and Eleanor's eyes widen as she tumbles backward, shield and sword and all. "Aaah!" she calls in alarm, but her eyes widen further. The blade explodes before her, and her barrier, already taxed to its limits, finally bursts. Eleanor screams despite herself, despite her efforts, as the explosion slams into her. The ring of protection against flame she bears shatters in an instant, expending the rest of its force in one final burst that is all that saves her from the powerful blast.
She rolls into a console, groaning. It is almost done. Except that--
'Charge Complete'. Eleanor's eyes widen, and glow once again, as she sees it. She sees the devastation to come, and she cannot blot it out of her mind. "No!" Eleanor calls, "No, no, NO!"
She can hardly move. But she forces it anyway, one arm hanging onto the console at the moment but the other drawing her gun once again, that golden pistol that she keeps on her person. It begins to burn golden, as she enchants it, putting her all into one more spell.
"Farore," she murmurs. "Guide my hand."
She points--but not at Vinsfeld. She points up, above him, and starts firing every bullet in the revolver, six shots all at once that slam ito the 'ceiling' far above.
She hangs there from the console as recoil almost knocks her loose, but then the 'ceiling' glows, and bullets begin to rain from it, dozens upon dozens of shots all down at once in a deluge of golden light.
"VINSFELD!"
GS: Eleanor Klein has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Eleanor Klein has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Eleanor Klein spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Blitz! Eleanor Klein has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Bullet Rain! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus accepts Eleanor Klein's Bullet Rain for 254 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
She is but dimly, dimly aware of the shaking and shuddering of the warship, and hardly all of them due to their fight to the death in the bridge. Of all things a distant -- or so it seems, now -- conversation with Xiumei comes bubbling up, one in which Josie had wondered about the escape route.
Even then, she'd had the feeling. But so be it -- she hadn't come in here ignorant of such things.
Why do they keep fighting this, even to the bitter end?
"Because it's not-- your world," Josie says, and perhaps it carries even amidst flame and falling steel.
"And what's next-- daresay we'll figure it out. Without you."
Though she'll wonder, now and even after, about that laughter. That look in his eyes.
Maybe it's all the more reason for her to unload without restraint or consideration for where this will leave her -- or him -- afterwards. But then, she'd said what she'd wanted, and she'd meant it.
Yet, he's still standing. Somehow, he's still standing. Come what may, Vinsfeld will not go quietly.
"...Sure. I ain't denying that," she breathes, grimacing against the agonies that echo their way up her right arm. "But you... you don't get to act... like you've clean hands!" She roars the last, and defying even the demands of her body, lifts both ARMs once again.
But he'll show her what he means by that. He'll show all of them what he means by that.
And he starts with Josephine.
The blade pierces right through her. There is no pain; yet she can do little but gape at what runs her through. Nerveless, her sole sensation that thick thread of shock that ropes through her, even her weapons slip from her fingers. In her neck, Josie can feel the drum of her pulse beat once, twice--
The blade that has pierced her through then explodes. Heat and pain consume her.
Awareness comes in shakily, afterwards. She has to fight to get there, struggle to even open her eyes. Everywhere about her is by turns bright and dark, the bridge bathed in too much light or too strong shadow in equal measure. She smells smoke and gunpowder. Iron. Blood.
That blood must be her own.
...He's still alive. And so is she.
CHARGE COMPLETE. They've run out of time.
Slowly, every movement feeling as if it's taking all that she has, she reaches out for that cooling pool of her own blood and dips her fingertip into it. There are Symbols scribed on her back in ink that will never fade, and therein, there is power.
But she can add to that, briefly, with another Symbol of her own. It's a simple one, twinning another that her father had inked on her back as a child. The elementary sort that is learned when one is educated in the arte. But simple does not mean weak.
Particularly not when it is added to another spell.
When two simple things meet, perhaps something more powerful can be born.
Her lips move. There is no sound until the last word, as electricity spirals down her arm. "...Lightning," she finishes, rising up just enough on her trembling right forearm to hurl this spear of the heavens at Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: You have activated the Force Action Fury Shot! GS: Josephine Lovelace has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Josephine Lovelace spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Blitz! Josephine Lovelace has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Bolt Lance! GS: Josephine Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus suffers a terrible blow from Josephine Lovelace's Bolt Lance for 196 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
He is not alone. Even now, even in this form, he is not alone. Brad and Josephine bombard the impossible, implacable man with bullet and rocket both. Eleanor, the guide of heroes, girds them all in the protective warmth of Filgaia's light. Even him.
Even the Vessel of the Blazer.
"...What have you ever given yourself, Vinsfeld? From where I'm standing, it looks like the only things you've ever sacrificed have been the lives and livelihoods of the people you've convinced to follow you. Even now, you're demanding the world make countless sacrifices for the sake of your dream!"
"How many soldiers have you thrown into this grinder? You killed several yourself, and you still say those were somehow 'necessary' sacrifices, while your sword was still wet with their blood!" Anger. Anger comes more easily in this form. He can't deny it, the flames that the Blazer stokes in his soul are real and tangible things. They lick at the boundaries of his mind, a corruptive heat that's somehow even more real than the Heimdall Gazzo's increasingly ruined bridge.
He takes a meaningful step forward, his armored heel grinding into the twisted metal. Firelight and protective radiance alike flickers across the Blazer's black armor. "...This power shouldn't be in anyone's hands. Don't think for one second you could handle it. Someone like you would be consumed in an instant." The Blazer feeds even now on the darkness in his soul. Someone whose spirit is as hollow as Vinsfeld's would be nothing but the ideal tinder for the Blaze to catch.
'Something' like you, he had said.
Maybe...
...No. Not again. He won't fall into that trap again. A blade of his own ignites in Ashley's hand. Something about what Vinsfeld said-- strikes a chord of dread in his heart. What is he planning? What has the Heimdall Gazzo needed to be airborne for...?
He's not Brad. His knowledge of mechanical and military hardware is limited at best. He can't even begin to speculate.
So why does he feel like a lead weight just fell into his gut?
Vinsfeld explodes into terrible, desperate motion. Too quick to dodge, all he can do is defend. The blades descend. One sword is knocked aside, shattered and consumed by a sword of invisible flame. The second--
Buries itself into his shoulder, nearly pinning him to the floor except for the lucent barrier it needed to shatter before piecing into him. Ashley's voice goes up in a strangled cry of pain. But in this form, his physiology is not quite human. What would be a punctured lung is... simply not. Clawed gauntlets reach for the blade, dragging it out bit by bit before--
--He flings it away--
Too late. Mad Mountains comes crashing down. The spectral sword explodes. Knight Blazer is sent flying, hurtling into another console. Protective runes hiss, fizzle and pop as the Blaze of Destruction devours the complex symbology, metal and glowing glyphs corroding alike. Deadly fingertips curl around the cratered console and slowly pull him free--
'Charge Complete.'
Too late.
No. Not yet. Not too late /yet./ "Hhhhh--" The Blazer/Baker hisses, fingers curling into the gap carved into his torso. With a wrenching pop, he pulls the breastplate apart-- and tears it clean off of its broken hinges. There, at his heart, a nucleus of power more destructive than any other throbs and thrums. It is a seed of the apocalypse, the crystallized core of Lord Blazer's power around which this form had been forged. No, unleashing that power like that is too much. Too much. If they have any hope of stopping this, they need something more. A blaze must be honed into a blade. Forged. The light ignites, that terrible, all-consuming golden radiance begins spilling out of the Blazer's core. Ashley wraps his fingers around his thrumming sun-heart, pain racing up his arms as the Blaze threatens to consume itself. Closer. Closer. His hands cover the mote completely.
And the power fires-- into him.
"Hhhhhhraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" Blinding, golden, impossibly cold light consumes him utterly. The consoles around him disappear, turning immediately to ash.
A spark leaps from the supernova.
It reaches the Gazzo's ceiling, instantly flash-atomizing the steel structure as it kicks off. A nova of flame creeps across the peeling metal plating. The ember falls...
"VIIIINSFEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLD!"
A Blazer, shining gold with the light that dawns Filgaia's final day, descends upon Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus.
...Leg extended, in a flying kick that carries with it the weight of calamity. A last burst-- composed of all the power Ashley Winchester could gather in a single, desperate instant.
But will any amount of destructive force be enough to avert what Vinsfeld had set in motion...?
GS: Ashley Winchester spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Ashley Winchester has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Banisher! GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action. GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus suffers a terrible blow from Ashley Winchester's Banisher for 291 hit points! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Loading...loading...
Brad has no choice but to brace himself. The Heimdall Gazzo is swaying dangerously....as Vinsfeld speaks his curse. Brad bites out a curse of his own and glances around, foolishly taking his eyes off the enemy. "No...Damn you! What's the target!?" he yells, already guessing. But the consoles that make it easy to guess that have all been destroyed.
Unfortunately, that means he's not ready when Heimdal Gazzo begins swaying. When explosions rock the bridge hard enough to send even Brad off his feet, clinging for dear life to an intact console. When he sees Vinsfeld scream at hom, blade out, and DESCENDS.
Brad doesn't block with the barrier, not with the Glove still working. He tries to THROW himself to the side--
Which lets Vinsfeld catch him in the shoulder, driving Mad Mountains into and THROUGH him, pinning him to the wall.
Brad sneers through bloody teeth...and clenches his fist.
"You didn't kill him," Brad spits, staring defiance into Vinsfeld's eyes. "You and that king both failed to kill either of us. All you ever did was murder a mountain of people you weren't trying to."
The Mechanical Glove tones and begins building something. A heavy, secured base - not that that helps much in these conditions. A wide central chamber.
A barrel that glimmers with internal magnetic coils for amoment before it's wrapped over in securing plating. It pushes out...and out...
And shoves into Vinsfeld's chest.
"That's the only man you've ever been. A killer who spends mountains of pawns failing to kill anybody he needs to."
He tightens his grip on the lever and the whole mechanism sparks to life.
"I'm sorry, Heimdall Gazzo," Brad seethes. "You deserved a better master than this."
The Mechanical Glove beeps loudly and intones, a garbled, electronic tone. "Final Force Restrictions Relieved."
"RAILGUN"
What emeges from the barrel is an electromagnetically-powered shell the width of a man's fist, going INTO Vinsfeld and with enough force to pass through internal bulkheads like paper, leaving a wave of molten metal in its path.
GS: Brad Evans spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Brad Evans has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Final Force Restrictions Relieved - RAILGUN! GS: Brad Evans has gained 1 Combo! GS: Brad Evans has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus suffers a terrible blow from Brad Evans's Final Force Restrictions Relieved - RAILGUN for 373 hit points! GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
Heimdall Gazzo's bridge is in ruins. So many of the panels once carved with weakening and strengthening runes have been burned, melted or otherwise destroyed. The glowing red sigils have long-since faded, fizzling with spent power. And the blues...
... the second that charge finishes, the second Mad Mountains impales through Brad's shoulder...
... the last of those runes of protection die out.
Vinsfeld feels the full weight of an exhaustion and pain magic had been holding back crash into him like a tidal wave as he leans the full of his body weight into the weapon pinning his sacrificial comrade into the wall. He lurches, eyes widening as a bloody breakout of coughs wracks his body -- perfectly timed in the wake of the listing of all those critical failures.
"... 'Bradley'..." Vinsfeld spits that name like a curse, expression tangling up in frustration. "... What a -joke-. I'd have given... a thousand thousand bodies more... to make sure the world lived into tomorrow. And -you-... khhk... -you- remain the same, -useless- lapdog of greater men--"
That barrel shoves into Vinsfeld's chest. At this point, he's too weak to even try to shove it away. His yellow, bloodshot gaze narrows almost daringly.
"--and ALWAYS chained DOWN to their service--"
RAILGUN
The human body is no match for an electromagnetically-powered shell. Vinsfeld, loathsome as he is, is no ordinary man -- but this remains harrowingly true as that round of artillery PUNCHES through carbon-weave armor, through flesh, through muscle, through bone -- punches STRAIGHT through the entirety of Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus' being as his Symbological protections fade and die. His eyes widen as the environment beyond him is simply BLOWN apart. His grip on Mad Mountains stays strong, -ripping- it out of Brad's shoulder as the force behind that bullet sends him flying like a ragdoll.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
In this moment, he has no more counter to his foes. No more words, nor action. There is a hole in him now, as literal as it has been figurative, and as he flies,
his grip on Mad Mountains loosens, just as Josephine and Eleanor's assaults find his prone form.
Golden, shining bullets rain from the ceiling, riddling Vinsfeld, as many piercing through him as they do ricochet OFF; combined with the CRACK of Josephine's lightning seizing and surging -straight- through him with exhausted yet determined power, it is more than enough to send him SLAMMING into the ground with a sickening CRACK, rebounding off of it--
VIIIINSFEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLD!
... just in time for a supernova to fill the entirety of his existence with its blindingly, burning fury.
He cannot see Ashley -- the Blazer, the baker -- through the conflagration he has become.
All he can do is FEEL him as that kick CRACKS across his body.
"wuh--WINCHEST--"
His roar never finishes, before all that desperate, destructive force -blows- past him in a billow of calamitous fire. It burns through the wall behind Vinsfeld...
... and the kick itself?
Drives him straight down, towards a jutting, jagged column of the very platform Vinsfeld had sabotaged.
SHUNK.
Impaled like a moth on a pin, Vinsfeld finds himself aloft on a molten pillar of scrap, run through by the very destruction he had wrought.
Mad Mountains DRIVES into the ground beside him not a second later, biting deep into steel until it remains there, lodged, like it was when they had emerged to confront him.
...
... ...
"... h-heh..."
Vinsfeld coughs. His eyes lose focus as he looks up towards the ceiling.
"... thank you... so much..."
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
<<TARGETS LOCKED. WAITING FOR SIGNAL.>>
Vinsfeld's lips contort into a rictus grin as blood oozes from their corners. The heat burns at his lungs. He should be dead. He will be soon.
But spite does wonders to make a man live long enough to impart a final bit of knowledge.
"... you have all been... very obliging to my... final wish..."
'IF I HURT, THIS WORLD HURTS WITH ME!'
His right hand falls. And a red light blinks on the inside of his wrist.
"... I took the liberty... of loading a list of locations into Heimdall... hk... Heimdall Gazzo's auto-targeting array. I... had my people... set a dead man's switch for it... keyed to me. Originally... I thought it would make... for a decent ultimatum. But now..."
'IF I FALL -- THIS WORLD FALLS WITH ME!!'
"... how many of the targets will it hit... before everything falls apart...? Two... three... maybe a baker's dozen... ha--h-hhk--- ah... even if it's one, though... I think that'll suffice... just fine. This -- this... is everything... I have left... to g-give."
His smile broadens. His eyes widen.
"... A-antenora -- I'm gifting the world -- the nightmare you gifted to me--*"
And Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus goes limp, just as the remaining terminals aboard the bridge alight.
<<SIGNAL RECEIVED. FIRST TARGET LOCKED. PREPARING TO FIRE.>>
Pulsing a giant, red mark on a map of Meria, near where one place would realistically be.
The province of Klein.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
They are bloody, but not broken. Eleanor can see the wounds on the others; she can see Knight Blazer's chestpiece broken open. She can see Brad's shoulder. She can see Josie, far too injured that she should be able to talk or stand r fight or do anything. There's so much blood. And yet...
And yet they are here, and they are winning. The last of the Symbols is fading. Almost, almost Eleanor can relax, but--
But she Saw.
"Monster," Eleanor calls Vinsfeld again, but then Vinsfeld is impaled, impaled on his own destruction. The great sword drives into the ground. She watches him, and prepares to watch him die. Maybe they've averted her vision, after all. Maybe--
'Targets Locked.'
"No--"
His final wish...
His final ultimatum. "You can't!" she calls. "There's no REASOn anymore--"
But his spite is there. His nightmare, gifted by Antenora, and Eleanor looks in horror towards the screen. That first target... The one that will 'do just fine'.
"No!" Eleanor wails, as she sees it, in abject despair. She knows exactly where that red dot on the map is, and rushes towards the screen as it remains, trying to find a cancel, an 'off' switch, anything. "No, please--This--it can't--"
She can't find one. She can't find anything, and none of her power is designed to interface with this technology. Eleanor tries to contain her fear, but she can't; blood runs down her side, and tears down her face.
"Please," she says, and turns to the others, looking to Brad and his artillery... and then Knight Blazer. The only one.
"Please!" she calls. "My people--my FAMILY--"
"Please, save them! I don't care what happens to me--as long as you can--As long as--"
"Please."
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Ashley finishes the job. Brad, the blade ripped free, screams as he forces himself upright, teeth grit and eyes watering. He struggles to breathe through the pain. But though his head is ringing even in his attempts to stand, he can still hear Vinsfeld's final wish. "God DAMN you, Vinsfeld!" Brad roars, but the man is gone. The computers go live.
Eleanor screams at them, please. "I...can't," Brad hisses. "I might be able to get up a Double Railgun but not with my arm like this. Damn it."
His eyes slide to Ashley. "...last time we tried something like this, I had to blow up a dimensional bomb. Barely did a thing. But maybe..."
He stumbles over to a working console, and rather than acknowledging its report, rips the casing completely off with the Mechanical Glove, then - screaming - uses his other hand to pull his Quad Scanner off his belt and drop it on the desk. He runs a cable from it and into the circuitry, and then, finallly, pulls out the probe with his gloved hand. "If we can find the fire control, we don't have to blow open the whole damn ship," he mutters. "There's people still fighting in the Engine Room!"
He rounds toward Ashley, levels a finger at the eastern wall. "THERE! Firing chamber is that way!"
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
Even as spent as he is, even as broken as his body is, Ashley Winchester is still himself within that cracked shell of a Blazer. He may not have blood to chill, but his veins run cold nonetheless when he hears--
Targets Locked.
Waiting for Signal.
'Deadman's Switch.'
"..." Ashley, the Blazer, stares at the countless holes carved into the ceiling as if hoping an answer would come down from heaven, Granas-sent, on angels' wings.
No hope, no rescue, no way out
But it doesn't.
Unless you give in. Give me what I want
His eyes fall onto Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus.
My freedom or their deaths! They die either way though. Hah!
The first man Ashley Winchester truly hated.
A spark of hatred can light such a magnificent conflagration
Not just for... all of this. But because...
Vinsfeld, you miserable husk, don't think you can steal MY thunder
"...Emphatite," he whispers in a voice loud enough to hear through the din to the radio that is somehow a part of his being even now. "Tell Marina... That I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise." He staggers out of the smoldering hole he'd fallen into, craning a burning-eyed gaze at all the others. "I... I can stop this. I can stop it. But...
Can you feel it? The desperation--
Please, Eleanor begs. Please.
Your hopelessness, it's wonderful. What will you do? What will you DO!?
He clenches a fist over that sun-heart at his core. "Everyone... I'm sorry, there's no time. I'm sorry. This is the only way. Brad, Josephine, Eleanor... There's no time. Please, get to the escape pods if you can. I'll... I'll take care of the Heimdall Gazzo."
Wait, what are you doing--
In the only way he knows how. The only way he can now.
No not like this not like this NOT LIKE THIS THIS ISN'T DESPAIR--
His hands cradle that mote of crystalized power.
--WINCHESTER, YOU LOVE-STRUCK FOOL--
"Marina..." And squeezes it until it cracks.
"I'm sorry." Infinite light splits the gem. It washes outward, consuming everything that it touches. A wave of absolute destruction-- Lord Blazer's power, congealed within Knight Blazer's heart-- is released unto what's left of the Heimdall Gazzo.
"I love you."
It happens all too quickly. Too fast for escape pods. For anything. He couldn't have known, but.
There was no time.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Just one last burst. That's all she has left in her.
That's what she thinks in the moment she lets fly with that spell, before even the struggle of that single moment steels from her all that she has left. Josie collapses after, falling to the battered floor of the bridge.
Unconsciousness, however, does not come for her. She can hear what follows even if she cannot see it. In the end, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus is but a man, however strong he might be. And is a 'demon' not stronger...?
But he does not simply die. He has parting words for them -- for all of them.
"You... bastard," Josie hisses, fury enough to bring her back from the edge, to permit her surge up onto her forearms. "You were-- just like her, you were..." Weakly, she slams her left fist against the floor and bows her head. Perhaps it will give him satisfaction, at his life's end.
It's impossible to miss the target: the first of many, perhaps.
Eleanor begs for them to do something, anything.
"...Kid," she utters, and there's only one person in the room that technically meets that description, regardless of his current form.
"You're a demon... right? So... do your thing. And me, I'll... do mine."
Funny that it should come down to this: this skill that she had grown up loathing.
Once again she doubles a Symbol inked on her flesh and invokes her magic.
GS: Josephine Lovelace has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: You have activated the Force Action Extend! GS: Blitz! Josephine Lovelace has attacked Eleanor Klein with Empower! GS: Blitz! Josephine Lovelace has attacked Brad Evans with Empower! GS: Blitz! Josephine Lovelace has attacked Ashley Winchester with Empower! GS: Josephine Lovelace has gained 1 Combo! GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action. GS: Ashley Winchester accepts Josephine Lovelace's Empower for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ashley Winchester! GS: Brad Evans accepts Josephine Lovelace's Empower for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Brad Evans!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel has spoken to Eleanor at length of the Day of Promise. A Day that absolutely needed to come to pass. An event that was so inviolable that she didn't even come personally to help the very child she was most desperate to protect.
As she desperately begs Knight Blazer to help save her family, her closeness and understanding to the strange forces of Time, of temporal matters...
It tells her, in this moment that this is it.
This is the Day of Promise.
This happening here is why Marivel could not be here because this moment needed to happen. And so what is about to come. What they're about to do, Marivel needed it.
Months Ago
It was evening and Ashley had just told her the truth of his situation. Marina was furious at the Crimson Noble and the cool night air was slowly calming her down. She could not believe she talked to the ARMS Commander like that. At a certain point her sharp tongue was going to get her into serious trouble!
She felt the Noble creep up to the roof behind her.
"...Why...?" Marina whispered. "...Why did you just...have to ruin everything?"
She didn't look back to see the Noble's expression but she heard, just faintly, a sharp intake of breath that was surely not reflexive.
"...We made a promise."
The one the Noble won't tell her about.
"That doesn't give you the right to play with people's lives." Marina said. "...Your name is fitting. You're just like any other noble."
"...Yes." The Noble admitted.
"...Why do you keep coming around the bakery? You're here even when Ashley isn't. DON'T tell me it's because you like my pastries."
Marivel walked up beside her. She took her time to answer this one.
"...I like you, that's all." Marivel said. "That's the biggest reason. I can't promise to keep him from war, but I can promise he'll come home and to do everything in my power to ensure he keeps coming home.."
Marina made a 'tch' noise at the back of her throat but even though she knew damn well that if Marivel had that kind of power, she wouldn't look so desperate all the time. She turned her gaze to the night sky and as a white light streaked down across it she wondered aloud.
"Are those shooting stars?"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfN0a_5lPU8 - Promise Made On A Star
Marina clasped her hands in front of her and closed her eyes in prayer.
The Crimson Noble turned back to her and scoffed gently, "Come on now, wishing upon a star is so silly." Then she allowed herself a small smirk and leaned into Marina's space, looking up at her slyly as she hunched herself over to peer up at her at an odd angle. "But hey...Tell me what you wished for. But just to warn you, if you wish for too much, the star won't make it come true~"
Marina shook her head and let her hands drop. "I didn't wish for much. Just that everyone makes it through the fighting safely."
The teasing expression from Marivel faded quickly. "...Well," She said seriously. "I'm sure the star can handle a wish like that."
The two looked back up to the stars, together. Marina with this strange demon who had imperiled her dreams by tying them to an ancient civilization destroyer.
But as she glanced over into the Crimson Noble's eyes...
She could see the vampire was making a wish of her own.
NOW
Marina sits by herself on top of the roof of the bakery. She had been heading up there a lot lately but now...
For now, as she sees a new shooting star in the sky...
She makes her wish again, just in case one star wasn't going to be enough.
<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.
Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus' last wish.
Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus' last curse.
One way or another...
The old man who stood alone would make this world hurt like he hurt.
His dying smile is engraved on his lips as Eleanor pleads with Ashley -- with the Knight Blazer. As she gives him her permission.
As Josephine empowers him -- empowers them -- with the last vestiges she has left.
And as Brad -forces- his way into the last working console to provide the exact, direction that the a Blaze that would otherwise destroy all in its path must be pointed.
Flame burgeons and blooms. Destruction sweeps forward past the bridge, eastward, like a tidal wave of blinding, fathomless light. The Knight Blazer could rip this ship to shreds. The power that fuels it has done even worse on a greater scale.
But together, they can accomplish more.
Together, they can accomplish miracles.
Because none of them stand alone.
---
In the skies, there is a glimmer of light, like a twinkling star. A light becomes a column, stretching outward.