2023-09-24: The Golem Who Leapt Through Time
- Log: The Golem Who Leapt Through Time
- Cast: Asgard, Leon Albus, Magilou, Lily Keil, Azoth, Li Ruzhen, Citan Uzuki, Ruth Pauling, Ida Everstead-Rey, Holly, Hannah Curie, Gwen Whitlock, Division
- Where: Guild Galad - The Hearthfire Voids
- Date: October 24, 2023
- Summary: Asgard returns to Guild Galad, and it's not simply a courtesy call. It's defenders are quite upset given what happened the last time he passed through, but after the dust settles and the Divine Fortress is still upright, it certainly begs the question. What is his true purpose for this solo invasion?
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
Dusk. A liminal time. A boundary set between day and night, physical and spiritual. It was at this time that a visitor arrived at Guild Galad. He did so at the front gate, with a spherical device tucked under a single arm.
"Allow to me pass. I seek only admittance."
The guards did their job, at the perceived threat of the Golem, ARMS pointed at him. Since he spoke, one of them bothered to treat him as more than a war machine, "Hands! Show us your hands!" The Golem looked upon each of them, it's horned head eyeing them impassively.
"I have not come here to test the strength of this city's defenders. Is this how Guild Galad shows its hospitality?"
The guards reissued the command more urgently. "Hands!" The Golem did not move, did not say anything else for a time, until the first shot was fired. It spattered into something that briefly appeared right over the Golem's face, rippling blue, the spent metal landing upon the ground at his feet.
"Very well." The Golem stated and it was not quite a sigh, not quite resignation, "Destiny calls, and its pull will not be deterred by your interference." Without missing a beat, his hand moved over to the opposite device, clicking a recess.
It began to blink red. Now the shots at the Golem came in rapid succession, as he roared.
"Let it never be said that the Divine Fortress neglected to heed your challenge!"
-=-=-
He had relocated. One might expect a swath of destruction, but indeed, despite a handful of defenders groaning on the ground or being dragged off to the medbay, the city was remarkably left rather untouched. Instead he was standing in a metallic plaza of burnished metal within the voids.
He is facing a Dragon Fossil on display, mounted outside of its library. The device he once held was settled on a table near the exhibit, still blinking red. As a result of his appearance, the plaza is quite evacuated, as there certainly is the credible threat of a bomb.
It's hard to read his expression in these moments, but it might look a touch mournful perhaps? "The traces of memory are so very faint." He does not touch the remains, even as he speculates aloud.
"Will what comes next be enough for what remains to quicken?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"I don't mean to let you find out," Leon Albus says from behind Asgard.
The blonde-haired man steps into the room with the Dragon Fossil, eyes scanning the library -- noting points of ambush, points for reinforcement, and the like -- before he looks back at the Golem. His hand is near his side, near Argent Divider II.
It's holstered there, in its shotgun form. He doesn't draw it, immediately.
But he is ready to.
"What business do you have here?" he says. "I'd ask you to leave... but something tells me that you have no intention of doing so."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Oooh! A bomb! Those are fun!
That's kind of the vibe which notorious sorceress Magilou gives off, as she prances into the plaza. "Goodness gracious, this place is deserted," she laments, before she fans her hand over her eyes and exclaims: "Social activity!!"
Lo, does Magilou amble up to Asgard, waving a hand lazily to him. "Heyyy, big guy! Long time no see! What's with the soup bones?"
The DRAGON FOSSIL is not a SOUP BONE!
Even so, Magilou's carrying no weapon in her hands, and no threat upon her voice. Does she even realise the magnitude of this situation?
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily Keil steps into the room after Leon, a less-storied sword at her hip opposite a strange, mirror-polished silver handgun. Her eyes stay on Asgard for a moment--before she glances around the room to look for something else, something she can't find.
"...The signal I mentioned, it's..."
She frowns, sharply. "It's there," she says, looking at the table. "A bomb? That's hardly your style, Asgard."
She steps further into the room warily, circling.
"No more riddles. Tell me what you're after."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"Asgard?"
From his own quiet corner where he snuck in himself, Azoth 'says' the name... if letting the data of it crackle through his voice box counts as saying. It's not really 'his' voice box. It's a replacement. Everything about his body is a facade. He wonders if there are memories in his body so that when he said that name -- when he acknowledged that identifier -- there would be the context of memories attached to it.
Instead, there's only questions and a vast emptiness where data could go. His eyes are dimmer than normal, and his gaze aside, hand gently over the center of his chest where his core hums.
Asgard helped them all save Kamui, and Azoth hasn't forgotten the importance of that. Azoth does not have enough data to know stopping Asgard's own goals has any value to him, override or no.
But if facing Asgard, anytime, everytime, could awaken even the smallest spark...
"...What is that remains?"
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
The Hearthfire Voids -- she calls them 'the Singles', owing to how the Voids there are singular digits -- are something of a sour memory for Ruzhen. When she was on the force, cases that take her up to the Hearthfire Voids are never cut and dry; a murder case ends up with a strong nudge to be treated as manslaughter, because of who's involved; dead mistresses are 'encouraged' to not be reported to processing; art theft valued at millions of Gella are waived by the higher-ups as 'not worth their time'.
Oh, it's nice, Ruzhen'll give them that. But there's a shadow behind the spick and span of the elite's abode; even up here, the human condition isn't satisfied with academia and antiques.
There's an evacuation order, and Ruzhen's bartender of the night yells... yells something at her... but by the time she pulls her head out of her single malt on the rocks, everyone else's cleared out. Where'd everyone go? Damn, how's she going to get her drink on at this point...?
*CRASHH*
The metallic plaza's steel floors ring with the scattering of some clumsily-toppled crates and barrels; a tall Wolf Beastwoman in a black suit and tie, with a red shirt, stumbles onto the scene, holding a half-empty bottle of whisky in her left hand. Her face is red, stained with the long years of alcoholism.
But is it a coincidence that the tumbled crates and barrels just make the possibility of outright violence just a *bit* that much more difficult?
"Hey..." A pause, as she stares towards the other Drifters. One of them she spots. "It's you, Miss Lily." Her red eyes glance towards the Golem.
"You've got a real nice coat, buddy. What's the story behind it...?" she seemingly natters at the Golem. "I'd offer you a drink, but something tells me that whisky's not your cuppa."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"So this is the origin of the signal?"
It had been until a short while ago a fairly normal sort of day in Guild Galad -- Guild Galad, certainly one of the treasures of Filgaia, if one is into old machinery of course, which Citan Uzuki most certainly was.
But Lily had detected some odd sort of signal, and then, there had been an the sounds of disruption. It had seemed likely that the two had been connected, and likelier still that this was the sort of event that warranted a closer look.
Which is where the three of them come in. "Hmm... a dragon fossil, and unless I am mistaken, we are dealing with an explosive..." He glances at Leon. "Captain, I advise approaching with caution. Perhaps there is some way to contain that device, or to talk him down." It wouldn't do for that to go off in here, even if everyone's been evacuated.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth has a complicated history with Guild Galad (to put it mildly) but ARMS business - such as it continues to exist even in Odessa's final, decisive defeat - sees her there.
She's not far off. Rather than engage directly in dialogue, the famed (in infamy) sharpshooter has already taken a stealthy position somewhere about the Plaza. A facemask covers her breath, and she's removed the scope for an iron sight. There's a horrible chronic twinge in her left arm that painkillers can only take so much edge off of, but that's part of the tradeoff for keeping herself concealed as her former self.
Her gaze snaps to the sound of crashing and collapsing, catching sight of a wolf-eared Beastfolk. Not a hostile, but...
But...
She feels the material on her gloves and keeps in position. To mortal eyes and modern day urban warfare positioning, her perch is as ideal as it gets for getting a vantage point on Asgard as the others muse about an explosive and speak with the Divine Fortress who has had thousands of years to disprove the above tactical notions.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's dusk, but down here, in the Hearthfire Voids, there's no way to tell beyond the faintest dimming of the gaslamps. Ida got in from the Thames late last night, spent most of the day in her father's workshop doing fine detailing on a commission, and took the Devil's Stair down to the noodle shop she visited all the time when she was in college. It's a busy evening, and she was lucky to get a single seat at the bar--the clientele are mostly students and workers indulging in a Sunday dinner out. Ida blends in, wearing her jeans, boots, and flannel work shirt; her hair is in a long braid today, and she looks over the menu even though she knows exactly what she's going to get.
The door bursts open. The owner's husband stands in the doorway, ashen-faced and panting. "Everyone," he says, between gasps. "Get out...! There's a... terrorist... in Founder's Plaza!"
Ida stands bolt upright, and slams a boot heel into the floor. "Single file out the back," she says, and the proprietor nods in assent, wedging open the door behind the open kitchen.
Now...
"...Asgard?" Ida approaches from the edge of the plaza at a slow, cautious walking pace, still smelling of ginger and garlic and other aromatics. Dinner is ruined, and she is hungry. She glances at Lily and Leon and Citan, nods in acknowledgment, and steps forward. "Kindly explain what you're doing with that device. You've terrified half the city."
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
New city, new people, new problems. There's a bunch of noise and a clear line to follow, what with dispersing crowds. Holly's the sort to both poke her head in and see what's happening and inevitably help out, because she's got too many years to make up for.
Drifting above the crowds, spotting the gathering storm, so to speak she drops towards the cluster of people.
Floating there for a moment, she slowly spins to take in the crowd. They're talking about a bomb and accusing the solo act so...
There's a sea of faces offering to help out, some vaguely familiar, but only just and the one she might recognize, is further away. Oh well! She lands nearby on an awning. Flipping so she can watch the events unfold and maybe help out while also both being out of the way and hopefully not a distraction for the presumed good guys!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Another day, another gella. Or a couple, at least. If she can get this package delivered before the day's end. But her plans for a bonus were derailed when she got to the gates of the city. Something had happened, with guards strewn about, and she got enough of the story from asking the bystanders that the delivery had immediately taken a back seat to... whatever it was the Golem wanted. She'd heard something about a bomb, which... didn't promise much good.
Hannah sent Zephyr ahead as she headed for the voids, the duo splitting up to look for signs of Asgard's path. Hannah actually spots the disruption first, for once, and approaches cautiously, where she sees the other drifters assembled.
She's dressed in her travel clothes, a denim jacket and jeans, and she's not holding a weapon (though there is a rifle behind her, unwrapped, attached to her satchel). But she seems no less prepared despite that.
She sidles up to Ida, looking concerned. "Ida? Do y'all know this golem?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
It's dusk, but Gwen, sitting in her bed, bandaged and sore, has terrible finding the will to fall asleep. She has a high tolerance to pain, but a weary body still needs its methods to overcome the damage of battle, so naturally, while she's far from groaning in pain, she has its more malicious but velvet gloved sister: ache.
Standing out on the balcony, her scouter's eyes naturally go to the source of red. ".... S'not morning though, still feelin' the need t'take warnin'," she mumbles, stifling a yawn.
Sore, achey, and still healing, Gwen naturally has to investigate the source of the commotion.
-=-=-
.... Except the commotion didn't *stay* there. ".... Doc." Gwen just makes her way over to Citan, rubbing her neck. "... Why's..."
Why *is* there an Asgard here? "....." The last time Gwen saw Asgard was--
"... Um." She frowns, moving further up.
".... Look, you're not under Janus's command anymore," she offers. "If you mean you want the fossils to awaken... maybe you could back up n' fill us in a little more so we ain't comin' t'fists over somethin' we might be able to agree over. Somethin' that *won't* screw up a perfectly nice--" Another yawn, stifled. "... night."
Don't worry, guys, Gwen is here.
She surely can't make things any worse than she's already doing.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
The Golem does not turn around immediately as others come, continuing to look upon the fossil even as he's addressed, greeted. Their words are not beneath his notice, he is simply swept up within his ruminations.
Yet turn he does, halfway through Leon's greeting. He stands several heads taller than any drifter here, and far broader. His metallic coat swaying like fabric, despite all of them knowing it is harder than any armor that mortals can wear.
Horned head takes in each of them at first to Leon.
"Leon Albus, to tell me you mean to impede my business, before even asking what it is? What if I told you that I was here for a long awaited meeting with an old friend?"
And then, Magilou-! A chuckle rumbles out of his mechanical throat.
"These ancient bones, the memories within them are all that remains of a once proud creature. So many utilize ARMs without considering what allows them to grow in strength." And indeed, he looks pointedly at Azoth, "I thought perhaps, I would test a theory of mine on the nature of memory."
Ruzhen, Asgard looks upon them, as if assessing them. He does not know them and thus takes the time to lock them into his memory banks, "Correct. I never quite developed a taste for it." The Golem then perhaps answers differently from expected course, "I am more a Scotch Golem."
Is he making a JOKE? Or does he actually drink? And his eyes look upon Citan and Ida both in that moment for their concern over the device.
"You have nothing to fear from this device. It is a beacon of sorts, telling my old friend only that it is time for our reunion."
He then looks upon Gwen for a time, "His command? Janus Cascade was a friend." As he then says matter of factly, "And as his friend it was an honor to usher in his end, for in his sacrifice has my true Master been reborn."
What? He doesn't explain further, on what he intends, perhaps that was the only thing he desired to make clear to her, as if the rest was not truly worth a response.
"How nostalgic. To see so many of you respond to the call, knowingly or not. Believing that I offered a challenge to protect this city." The Golem actually smiles thinly. "It was to be neither, simply a reunion between two old friends."
The smile if anything, tugs wider on a metallic expression that once held none, it seems that he has adapted to many things over the eons.
"But you have convinced me. To those of you who have risen to the challenge. You shall have what you came for."
His stance shifts subtly, as he raises a fist, the blue glow of an emitter recessed on the back of his right hand abruptly shines, and the room is suddenly encased subtly in a dome like barrier.
It may take them a moment to understand, that Asgard is standing outside of it. As he suddenly presses a finger into the recess of that device, as the blinking stops. And one individual stops receiving the signal.
"But not from me. You are correct Lily Keil, it is not my style at all." As he then looks straight upon Lily Keil, as if she were his true focus all along, "Code Saehrimnir 651-13-14." He utters, "It is long past time that you awaken to your hidden potential."
His opposite hand reaches towards the Dragon Fossil, "I stand in witness! Will your inner struggle be enough to rekindle the spark of ancient memory?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily nods in acknowledgement to Li Ruzhen, her eyes flicking once to her as she inclines her head--but then back to Asgard again. She notes each arrival, considering the odds of success if this comes to a fight. Asgard is powerful, but her teamwork with Leon and Citan is significant; Ida is a strong combatant. Azoth...
Azoth is a wild card, in this. What reason does he have to oppose Asgard? Maybe none. While Hannah's magic could be a boon, Lily hasn't seen her fight much. And Gwen looks injured...
To say nothing of two hidden individuals. But Lily stops her circling. "Old friend...?" Lily frowns, then. "What challenge is that?" She doesn't oppose a challenge, but here, with all these people--
"Gh--"
Lily stiffens as Asgard makes his utterance. Her eyes become pinpricks, her posture completely rigid. Dog whines, suddenly, pawing at her foot before Lily starts to rise shallowly from the ground. Her expression then turns placid, calm, and she speaks in an ancient language, the Ancient Tongue of Zeboim, a voice that sounds exactly like Lily, but with a rather different intonation. Her circuit patterns suddenly ignite, brilliant violet.
"<Thank you, Asgard. Now, please prepare for some turbulence. The memory restoration protocol will be a little dangerous.>"
"<Adding to memory...>"
"<Establishing uplink...>"
"<Uplink established. Organic core limiters removed. Attunement complete.>"
"<Initiating System Omega. Stage... Division.>"
"<Initiation Complete. Ether Limit: Undefined.>"
Lily falls to the floor of the chamber, landing in a one-knee-down position with her hands on the ground, supporting her. "Gh," she starts, shaking her head. Dog whines again, clearly worried, her ears down and her tail still. "It's too much at once--" Her expression twists. "It's--burning--I can't control it--" Her eyes have already turned black, as she looks up, pained. She fades, then, into shadows, dropping into an inky black pool as many have seen her do before.
But what rises is not something familiar.
Dog rushes backward as a humanoid silhouette rises from the black.
Chalk-white skin has a too-smooth texture. Dull, unshining eyes possess black sclera and white pupil, with blue iris. Long, blonde hair may as well be made of some synthetic fiber. But the 'face' has no mouth or nose, just an incline along its central line. Her body is fixed with bony plating in place of clothes, with ridges at the shoulders and joints, 'claws' on all segments of its fingers, spikes at the wrist and elbows and knees and feet and hips. All over the body are the obvious signs of circuitry, glowing gray to shift into violet as magic is used. She hovers off the ground even at rest, dust floating around her. Gravity no longer applies to her.
BGM CHANGE: Grandma - Destruction (Nier) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa8RDxlLTfI
Division waves her hand, and space ripples visibly with the slow motion, as if she's parting water. There is a sense of motion for all within the barrier, though nothing changes visually.
The world bends. Division is here, and there is no escape.
OBJECTIVE: Subdue Division!
DC: Division switches forms to Omega - Division!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"It's here," Leon says, with a glance at Lily. They have a way of knowing what the other is thinking -- and if that signal is here, then this grew all the more important.
And, now, Asgard must be connected. Leon doesn't believe in such coincidences.
He glances to Azoth -- then turns at the crash, and looks at Ruzhen. His eyebrows knit with concern for a moment, and then he looks at Citan. "So noted, Doctor Uzuki. Let's do what we can."
He looks back to Asgard, then he narrows his eyes when he says that. He listens, as he explains. "An... old friend," he says. "What could that be--"
Leon senses the way Lily jerks; not some supernatural sense, but just an awareness of her and that something is wrong when she jerks like that. He snaps his head to the side. "Lily?" he asks.
Then, she speaks; he understands tht language.
His voice has more alarm in it, now. "...Lily?"
He steps back with Dog, and looks to her. "Get to cover, girl," he says, before Leon looks back at the figure of white that steps out, with blonde hair, and bony plating across her body. His stomach lurches.
He draws Argent Divider. He levels the shotgun, calmly; coolly. He points it at her.
And he can't pull the trigger.
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Is scotch tape really enough to save you?" Magilou asks, tilting her head as she considers Asgard merrily.
Still, the nature of memory...
Soon enough he unveils it; what is done, to Lily Keil, who becomes something all chiaroscuro in the process. Magilou's brow knits; focused, for a moment. Concerned?
She looks, aside, to Leon. Her eyes narrow. "She's having her way with reality," she informs him, with less joviality than she wore before. "Her body will be the first to go, if this goes on too long -- she's already shifted half a reality over. If you can't beat her back to her senses, you might never pull her back."
She grasps a shikigami paper doll in her hands, and steps forward, towards Division. There is a fluttering of white and lilac and lavender from her, not unlike butterflies, as she immediately invokes: "Spell Absorber!"
And she will consume the magic pouring out of this thing which was Lily, and make it her own, as she has so many times.
Then, as now, it's a courtesy.
GS: Magilou has attacked Division with Spell Absorber! GS: Magilou enters a Counter stance! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth watches, as words are shared from the self-proclaimed Scotch Golem. Her trigger finger does not betray the slightest sound, no matter how much her heart itches to shoot*.
* It does, all the time.
Things happen. Reality seems to take some interesting, light- and space-warping directions. Where Leon hesitates because this is a dear friend, as some have come to know thanks to Dezel's little viewing party.
Someone here was capable of that.
The trigger is pulled just as Magilou invokes the Spell Absorber, the deafening report of a rifle infamous to those who live in Zoara roaring through as a bright yellow-hued bullet seeks center of mass to what has awakened of Lily.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Division with Cinematic Door Knock! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Everything Asgard is saying is making it dangerously likely Azoth wouldn't oppose Asgard in whatever his objective is here today.
What makes an ARM grow in strength?
What are you, when even memory does not remain?
"An old friend...?" Azoth looks up at the dragon fossils, then back to Asgard. He is in an unusual state of hesitation. Or what should be unusual. But he's been hesitating since the day he woke up, knowing he shouldn't. Data should be precise and acted on quickly. But there's never enough data for an informed conclusion. But what is precise is how Azoth's gaze follows Asgard's...
To Lily Keil. "Miss Sharon?"
That's not the name Asgard speaks, if that string of numbers is a name at all. Azoth's eyes grow wide and bright, data devoured and catelogued with sharp awarness for every distressing moment that passes. There were always hints and implications, but now it is certain: something about Lily is from the same kind of 'when'.
Much of what Asgard does involve tests. Tests and challenge is how one learns and grows. This, Azoth understands well. He does not even begrudge it. And Asgard does not offer this challenge without believing it will be worth it. Azoth's gaze flicks briefly to Magilou in silent understanding.
He taps the toes of one foot against the ground in a false fidget and pretends to crack his knuckles.
"... All right, then."
Radiant blue and fuchsia light surges through him in his own circuitry patterns, eyes taking on that same brilliant gradiant. Heat wafts around his body, pulsing with the ebb and flow of his brightness. His attention does not leave the one now known as Divison.
"We'll test your theory, Asgard."
GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with Overclock! GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Azoth's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Azoth gains 10 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Azoth accepts Azoth's Overclock for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify and Lock state applied to Azoth! GS: Hyper applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
On the surface, there's nothing but foolishness and bumbling in the way Li Ruzhen speaks. On being told that Asgard's more of a scotch person, the Wolf-woman just laughs more amiably, smile-lines appearing to the sides of her face.
"Why didn't you say so? Why don't I treat you to one, friend? I know just the place--"
It might be that Ruzhen is a few drinks too deep in to have the sensibility of running away in the threat of a bomb, or perhaps she's trying to defuse the situation in the way she knows how: de-escalation. If she can distract the Golem long enough to get them to want something else...
But the truth of the situation comes well to light soon enough. It's not a bomb -- it's a beacon. There's history here, between all these Drifters and the Golem. History she doesn't know, but the detective's instinct is always hungry. Drawing lines. That girl, Gwen, Janus Cascade, a sacrifice, a true master, and the Golem, 'Asgard'... mentally she's already grouped Leon, Lily and Citan as comrades... and-- is that a faerie? And that lady in the book skirt, and the young boy...
And a familiar spectre from her distant memories, Ruth, who she chooses to not filtrate into her mind, lest it be awakened with fear.
Then Asgard intones a code, as he turns towards Lily. And...
Lily... stiffens, and the dog -- Dog -- next to her whines. There's a quick grimace, and she's broken out into a sprint.
Lily falls to the floor, and Dog stands as close to her as long as he can, but as she says that she can't control it--
"Come on, that's a good girl...!" Ruzhen mindfully steps in front and helps usher the dog away to safety as Leon urges her away as well, as she's helplessly forced to watch her transformation. Black sclera, white pupils, blue iris, with no features upon the face... her body is an alien boneyard, circuitry of magic flowing through her as she defies gravity.
She looks to Leon for a moment, understanding fully the hesitation in seeing a former friend suddenly become an enemy --
"Ack-- whoa!"
The jovialness of the situation is almost in sharp contrast as she trips, sending another of those barrels tumbling out and hitting one another, in the vague direction of Division.
It's not gonna stop her for long. If she wants, she could probably just fly through or blast all these barrels at once. Stumbling on her knees, Ruzhen laughs again awkwardly and looks to Lily.
"Sorry, pardon, Miss Lily! But your friends look to be in an awkward spot... I'd rather not see you hurt them or otherwise."
Her glare does raise towards Asgard, though. "Hey, Mister Asgard, sir. Is this your style?"
GS: Li Ruzhen has attacked Division with Mise-en-Scene! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 3 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen's stances have changed to Sage! GS: Li Ruzhen has completed her action. GS: Division takes a solid hit from Magilou's Spell Absorber for 0 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Division! GS: Hyper applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Division solidly guards Ruth Pauling's Cinematic Door Knock for 0 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Li Ruzhen's Mise-en-Scene for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple, Entangle, Jam, and Mute applied to Division!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"That's not possible," Ida says, glancing between Asgard and the skeleton. The organism is dead. Its remains have been on display for decades. And yet--
Ida's right hand twitches. She raises it, and looks between it and the Golem. Her face tightens, and some of the color drains from her skin. "Please put that down, and we can talk about this." Thankfully, Asgard's gambit seems to have drawn out more people she knows. "His name is Asgard," Ida says, to Hannah. "Intelligent Golem, Hyadean-built, like the Elw Asgard in miniature."
Someone stirs in the back of Ida's mind.
asgard...
they're dead. probably because of me. what are you...
"Lily...?" Ida's face twists, her eyes widening. The right one turns bright emerald-green in the interval of a shocked blink. She can make out a little of that, but Dog is doing most of the expressing here, with her body language of fear and worry. "Asgard, you... WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!" In an instant, she whirls on the Golem, jaw clenched, fury boiling in her eyes. Hyadean stem tissue erupts from her bare skin, spreading up her arms and hardening into blue and gold exoskeleton.
Mismatched eyes stare at Magilou as she articulates the stakes. "Then that's what we'll do," Ida says, and she sucks down the worry down into her gut. Ida leaps forward, going at Division in what looks like a head-on tackle--but she touches ground early in a jump that's more of a kick, and diverts to Division's flank. Once she lands again, she shifts into a loose, fluid stance, and starts to circle the being Lily has become. Her hands launch out in a series of light strikes, punches and fingertip-blows and knife-hands. A test of the foe's resilience and focus.
It's telling that Ida is less distressed by the physical transformation than the mental one. (Ida's already transformed, a little.) Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of someone getting Dog to safety, and--
"Ruzhen?!"
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Division with Water Dragon Form! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Division solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Water Dragon Form for 47 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
And just like that, Asgard's wounds wake Gwen right up like a bandage rudely ripped off a still-healing wound.
To usher in.... his end. His sacrifice.
Sacrifice. Master.
Of course Janus would only be quiet in death.
They probably all knew, and why talk about it? He was a person who tried to continually kill them all, ignoring all calls to some sort of redemption in favor of his own rules, or whatever master had him in their employ.
She was probably the last to know, kidding herself in her own lies.
".... Do you expect me _to thank you_?" Gwen glares at Asgard, her voice low. There's no burst of energy to help trumpet Gwen's rage, or her sadness. Too tired for that.
Things are already being set into motion. Gwen senses something behind her happening to Lily, her canine friend having a sense far deeper of what's going on.
"You're not throwing anyone else on that pyre, Asgard!"
Something dark and cold rips from Gwen's shadow towards Lily (or what was Lil, now standing upy), falling across the new being like a wave of cool waters.
. . . Sleep now. . .
It's magic against magic, with Gwen being the lesser magician by far, but this being a rare moment from the courier, it may come unexpected, even to Gwen herself, as she stares.
She grits her teeth, the news of Janus still fresh in her mind. ".... Leon, focus, for Lily's sake!"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"That is... not an explosive?" He squints, as if attempting to make head or tail of the device. Come to think of it, that make, that design... it's rather in keeping with Zeboim devices, but he can't say that he's seen anything even remotely its like before. Perhaps if Jessie were here he might possibly be able to opine, but, alas. Instead Citan will have to weight the initial assumption against the fact that not all objects that flash are explosives.
He furrows his brow. "Reunion? With whom?" Is someone else approaching--
Or, he realizes, as Asgard recites an activation code (as he will come to realize it was later) and Lily is immediately affected, with someone who is already here.
Lily had sensed a signal of some sort which neither he nor Leon had sensed... and likely, no one else here, either.
He knows some Zeboim. It's enough to gather an idea of what might be going on here, but not enought to stop it in any way. Lily falls to a knee and then to shadow; what returns from the darkness is something else entirely. "That is... Lily?" With a wave of that being's hand, the very world around them shudders with the power of her magic.
In its wake, Citan blinks, as if what he had just experienced alone had been something shocking. " ...Something has happened to her Ether!" Citan calls out, looking about himself. "This distortion within it... I have never felt its like!"
What it might mean he cannot begin to surmise in the moment.
"Captain--"
He watches as Leon falters. Who could fault him for such a thing? And yet... this will not end because they held back.
"...Forgive me," Citan says, without a look his way. Turning sharply towards Division, he slices a hand through the air as if he bore a knife or blade, though it falls far short of hitting. Directly, that is: he cuts the very air with the edge of his hand to send a pressurized wave for Division.
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Division with Ukigumo! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
It's one of those situations where everything happening is such a cavalcade of strangeness that you're kind of wrapped up and forget you should probably do something before it goes sideways. Holly pauses at the suggestion that something makes ARMs grow. "The group, the weapon or a specific subset of them?" Hey, she has a theory for all of it! Kind of. Maybe. She's still catching up. Still, this is looking bad.
She grips the edge of the awning and calmly flips up, over and 'lands' flying in the air, just in time for the world to ripple.
She pauses. Drifting back for spacing, thinking. The outside world shut out. There's something there at the edge of her mind. Something she should know, but can't quite grasp. Or maybe she just knows the general postal code. It's there. The magic in question. "I've seen that described before-" she starts. Tone suggesting some frustration. She's not rambling at all and sounds dead serious.
With a twirl in the air, one hand dragging water from the surrounding area, the other conjuring up the curse-ink stuff she uses. Both swirling around her. She darts forward, committed now to defending these cluster of presumed good guys and one sassy elf.
"Shouldn't be playing with that-" she states flatly, looking first to the golem that started this mess, then to Division. She doesn't know Lily or the situation, but she knows she's not going to let someone sling that magic around go easily.
The ink runs through the water. Turning brackish and carrying the scent of a salt marsh. The spell suddenly vanishing and dousing Division. Trying to drag the doll down. The curse within clinging, eroding. She drifts forward still. Determined to act as a buffer despite the size difference.
GS: Holly has attacked Division with Undertow! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Holly has completed her action. GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: COUNTER! Division counterattacks Citan Uzuki with Counter Attack! GS: Division partially guards Citan Uzuki's Ukigumo for 108 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Azoth used Force Action: Mystic on Gwen Whitlock! FP up! GS: COUNTER! Citan Uzuki counterattacks Division with Mufuu! GS: Citan Uzuki solidly guards Division's Counter Attack for 106 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! (That's 25 more than usual!) GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Division with Crow Moon! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Citan Uzuki's Mufuu for 106 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Holly's Undertow for 95 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Division! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Division solidly guards Gwen Whitlock's Crow Moon for 49 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Division's Drowsy Ward may block the effect! GS: Drowsy blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
The golem seems to know many of those gathered here. That's pretty typical. She spent the last few years of her drifting career actively avoiding things like this. But she can get the full details later on. Asgard offered a partial explanation, though a cryptic one. At least to start.
Ida offers a little more explanation, and Hannah nods. "I'll ask ya about the details later."
Some kind of reunion...?
A shield goes up, and a red-tailed hawk comes tearing into the area, tilting and swerving around it as it forms, circling high above the heads of those gathered. Hannah, despite the mounting danger, seems to relax, just a tiny bit, with her friend here.
Her eyes go wide as she sees Lily affected by the commands Asgard issues. "Lily? What's..."
This is bad. Whatever it is, but should she attack? Interrupt the process? That's her friend, though-- But not for long, it seems. Or at least, it's not her friend in control at the moment.
Something deep and primal grips hard at her heart as she watches the transformation, stunned into inaction. Fear for her friend, but also herself. And not for her safety.
But Division's wave of a hand stirs the very space, and the ripples seem to shake her from her stupor. "I think she's doin' something to mess with space or the flow of time! Transportin' us or something!"
She doesn't want to fight her friend, but her friend--or whatever that thing is--certainly wants to fight them. Her face is a hard stare as she tries to shove her doubts down, to focus on survival, just like she used to.
It's not working, but she draws a crest graph from her pouch anyway. "Sorry, Lily. Sorry Dog. But I'm gonna do everything I can to get you back."
Her crest graph radiates blue sparks as she holds it up, and a ball of lightning starts to form in front of her. It is wild and turbulent, arms of electricity lashing out from it as it grows, reaching, searching for anything metallic, but barely held back by her will. Her own aura twists with it as she pours her strength in, and when it reaches a critical mass...
She closes her eyes and snaps her fingers. The ball surges forth, heading right for Division.
Very quietly, she says. "I'm sorry."
GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Division with Ball Lightning! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: Division solidly guards Hannah Curie's Ball Lightning for 54 hit points! GS: Interrupt blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
"Only if you add in enough spit and elbow grease." The Golem counters to Magilou, but he does not initially answer Citan Uzuki... because the answer comes soon enough.
"It has been far too long." The Golem nods at the thanks he receives, "I speculated that I might hear from you again should I carry out your instructions, Doctor Wyatt."
But what Lily has to say as she is affected? "'Too much'?" Asgard echoes with incredulity, "'Can't?'"
Beyond his rippling barrier, at Lily, "Such words are the sanctuary of the meek. When in your entire life have you accepted that you can't do something Lily Keil?"
"At the end of my long journey I offer to you someone whom has always sought to surpass your prior self, a glimpse of your limitless potential and you flinch?" The Golem rumbles, "I expected more."
And indeed, he stands in witness to what rises. His memory banks taking in every detail. As reality distorts, the Golem and Fossil remain despite being outside of the barrier.
"I do recommend remaining inside my barrier, and not allowing her to penetrate it. Exposure would be - uncomfortable for all of you."
As for why? He lets Magilou's explanation stand.
Even as he watches Leon Albus point his ARM and not pull the trigger, "I believe the first lesson learned with an ARM is not to point it at anyone unless you mean to pull the trigger." Before he coldly points out, "How little faith you must have in her abilities."
As for Gwen's words? "Certainly I don't expect you to thank me." The Golem looks upon her, "I expect you to understand that ever was Janus Cascade the architect of his own fate."
As Azoth assents to testing his theory, the Golem nods. "You have my thanks. I believe the results will be of interest to you as well." And in that moment, outside of the barrier, the Golem reaches into a hole that appears, to pull out an ancient hunk of metal - some kind of component?
It is immediately familiar to Azoth. And he sets it upon the table, right next to the spherical beacon. Is he TAUNTING him? Or is it simply an offered challenge?
He does not say, as he locks optical sensors with Azoth. Ruzhen had offered Scotch earlier, but in the end, she asks a different question.
"Is it my style to challenge individuals to see if they are able to rise to obtain greater heights?" He echoes back to her, "It certainly is. However, what you see before you is me honoring the request of an old friend."
Whereas Ida asks, and he responds, "What I did was issue a code that had been stored in my memory banks since before the fall of Zeboim. What happens to her next? That is between her and her creator."
Asgard has not looked at the Dragon Fossil again since he began. Certainly, what has happened so far, is not enough.
<Pose Tracker> Division has posed.
There is no recognition in Division's eyes as she watches Leon draw his weapon. There is only tactical estimation. He has a weapon; he does not fire it. Dog gets behind Leon to start, but when Ruzhen--a familiar face, too--beckons to her, she comes along, whining still. She looks back to Division, and then to Ruzhen, as if asking her help.
Then she rushes to the edge of the barrier, behind one of the barrels Ruzhen has set up.
'Miss Sharon' does not answer Azoth. But Division sees light surge through him, and calculates further. But at the same time...
Two things happen. Magilou invokes the Spell Absorber. It draws off some of the seemingly limitless magic, a torrent of power crackling out from Division towards the older witch. ...But it seems only to slow her, not to stop her; she keeps generating more power, until it bursts out all around her.
At the same time, Ruth's powerful, dangerous shot--the one Leon couldn't take--rockets down towards her. She extends a bony, spiked hand, and there is a ripple in the air; the bullet stops outright, crashing into a gravitic effect that crushes it into nothingness before it reaches her heart. The shell of her armor ripples, too.
Ruzhen meanwhile knocks barrels towards Division, and for a moment, they stand in noisy barrier to her movement. It makes it impossible to avoid Ida, who rushes in with strike after strike. But Division is not just a mage; she brings up those bone-covered arms to block blow after blow, blurring in movement either out of speed or some other distortion.
A cool wave of shadow rushes towards Division next, from Gwen. It is a strong and subtle spell, and for a moment, she seems to waver in place, lowering closer to the floor--then abrubtly there is a psionic ROAR that echoes all through the plaza's minds.
The next exchange with Citan is magic that comes with blurs of motion; he swings to cut the air, and that pressurized wave crashes against her arm as she moves to block it, and at the same time she sends a wave of gravity his way to distort the air towards him. His counter-counterattack pushes through the wave of gravity entirely and knocks her back a step with its force, the entire exchange done in the space of a second.
Hannah's lighting crashes towards Division, and sparks brilliantly as it hits her, roiling all around her limbs. There is plenty of 'metal' in her form now. But the apology receives no answer. Division hangs in the air, a thing without wings, and turns towards the group. She moves--
She acts in a blur; time shifts, and she is many places at the same time, suddenly. One Division thrusts a hand at Ida, and that palm opens up, a horrible jagged ring of teeth extending to eat away at her armor, at her flesh, at whatever it can find. At the same time the energy draining off from Division towards Magilou grows jagged, tainted, suddenly sharp as a wave of hostility travels with it. Azoth, too, receives such an attack; her hands extend outward, making a circle, and a rippling wave of dark intent wafts through the air towards him--and bursts into a psionic blast.
A number of barrels are next--the Division that spawns in front of Ruzhen waves a hand, and wood and metal scatter, blasting apart before her. But none hit Dog, safe on the edge of the barrier. Gwen is next. her magic is met by a spear of bone erupting from her other palm, launching towards the courier without mercy. Recognizing Ruth's weapon for the threat it is, she launches another spike of bone towards the Hellion in the next moment--aimed right along the passage to her heart, exactly the angle at which Ruth fired at Division.
The salty brine of Holly's spell hisses like acid against Division's skin(?). She drops a little more towards the ground, though doesn't quite fall. The poisonous curse seeps through her, and she stares impassively at Holly. Another Division erupts from nothing, swinging a rotary saw that buzzes through in an effort to simply cut her in half. Simultaneously, another psionic attack is launched for Hannah, a burst of purple energy that explodes into an assault on the mind itself.
Division suddenly shifts, and all of them are one again, staring before Leon and Citan both. her hand extends--
And stops. It shakes, with effort, and suddenly jerks away, pointing the spell primarilly at Citan, as he is best by an effect that will attempt to render him in no location at all for a brief moment, dimensional tides scything across his very being.
...And Leon receives just a ripple of dark power; if he continues standing in it, he will have great problems... but no focused attack.
<Leon...>
Her voice echoes in the minds of those present--and then is gone. The instant of recognition in her eyes is gone.
GS: Division has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Devouring Palm! GS: Recover! Cripple, Entangle, Jam, Mute, and Poison removed from Division! GS: Division has attacked Magilou with Hostility! GS: Division spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Division has attacked Azoth with Confusion! GS: Division has attacked Li Ruzhen with Dark Ripple! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Bone Spike! GS: Division has attacked Ruth Pauling with Bone Spike! GS: Division spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Division has attacked Hannah Curie with Confusion! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Holly with Bone Saw! GS: Division has gained 2 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Citan Uzuki with Nowhere! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Leon Albus with Chaos! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Magilou counterattacks Division with Counter Attack! GS: Magilou partially guards Division's Hostility for 126 hit points! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Division drains Magilou! Division gains 61 temporary hit points! GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Counter Attack for 106 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Leon Albus solidly guards Division's Chaos for 33 hit points! GS: Leon Albus's Break Ward may block the effect! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Cripple and Shieldbreak applied to Leon Albus! GS: Break blocked! GS: Gamble: Highest! Li Ruzhen takes a solid hit from Division's Dark Ripple for 156 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Blind, Drowsy, and Mute applied to Li Ruzhen! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Evade bonus activated! GS: Citan Uzuki has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: You have activated the Force Action Accelerate! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Citan Uzuki takes a solid hit from Division's Nowhere for 138 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Azoth suffers a terrible blow from Division's Confusion for 201 hit points! GS: Blind and Drowsy applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Division drains Azoth! Division gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Holly solidly guards Division's Bone Saw for 63 hit points! GS: Blind and Drowsy blocked! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock solidly guards Division's Bone Spike for 65 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Magilou speaks to Leon. At first, it might seem like Leon does not hear her. It might seem like he is lost -- ignoring her for the moment, as he stares at Division. Asgard reminds him of the first lesson of bearing an ARM; his eyebrow twitches. Then, finally, through gritted teeth, he speaks: "Damn it!"
He looks at Ruzhen, for a moment; aware of her, of all of their sympathy, and then he looks at Citan as he rockets towards Division.
"Needs must," he says. "We've got to pull Lily out of there."
And thus, he did hear Magilou.
He looks at Division as she reforms, all of her bodies condensed down to one -- and a ripple of dark power roils over him, shaking him -- and his gun arm -- as he looks at Division. Lily's voice echoes.
"I'll get you out of there," he says. "Just hold on."
He fires. The shotgun round hurtles for Division, rocketing for the bony armor on her midsection.
GS: Leon Albus has attacked Division with RR-2 Suggestion! GS: Leon Albus has gained 2 Combo! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Division's Devouring Palm for 76 hit points! GS: Division drains Ida Everstead-Rey! Division gains 40 temporary hit points! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: CRITICAL! Hannah Curie takes a solid hit from Division's Confusion for 199 hit points! GS: Blind and Drowsy applied to Hannah Curie! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Division drains Hannah Curie! Division gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling suffers a terrible blow from Division's Bone Spike for 114 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou certainly notices the name Asgard calls Citan. She notices how he talks about the barrier he's enacted, too. "Much obliged," she even remarks, to the Golem, "but I don't think she's too eager to let your barrier hold!"
And, of course, Lily's limitless potential.
Spell Absorber is an abyss. All things fall into it; all things, negated, reduced to atoms of power through her veins. She feels them. It is not without cost. Though that jagged, sharp energy is reduced to nothing when Magilou consumes it, the POWER still burns her, deep to her heart.
"I'm cutting the drain," she says, a touch harsh, as Division pours out and out and out and out. She has drained enough power to keep them inside Asgard's unbreakable barrier, at least. And it is enough power to --
Magilou is a sorceress par excellence, but her greatest works cannibalise the power she subverts. None are greater than the marriage of elements which she invokes, as the battle begins: "Tetra Detonator!" As four orbs circle Division, deepest ocean and raging flame and shifting sand and wreaking storm...
Althena's Blessing is not given to this. Even so, flame dances around fathoms, mountains about monsoon, each one titanic, each one coming to meet her in the middle.
Their explosion is nothing less than the universe, at its inception, all colours coming to white.
"If you hold back, you're dead!" Magilou issues, sharply, in the wake of her violence. "Not even I can hobble this horse. Picture the might of a dragon -- then you're getting somewhere. Understand? Give it everything you've got!"
Her scowl deepens, as she turns to Division, hearing the words she's never cared to translate.
"... Lily..."
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Magilou has attacked Division with Tetra Detonator! GS: Magilou has gained 3 Combo! GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
"Nice to meet you again, Miss Everstead-Rey," Ruzhen busily calls out, rather surprised at the young heiress' martial form. "I haven't seen Void Six button up like this since the end of the civil war."
She's putting on airs, but Ruzhen isn't alien to the idea that she's in a lot of danger here if she were a normal person, and she already understands that she's particularly allergic to magic -- and between a lot of the Drifters and Division herself here, whatever's causing twitches in her body when Sorcery is involved is already acting up.
The familiarity everyone has with the Golem certainly gives Ruzhen a crash course into the stories of the Drifters she's heard of before; Ida'd mentioned facing the Demon-Mother herself, and other such stories that've become the hot gossip of Guild Galad...
"I didn't take you to be such a gym coach, Mister Asgard," Ruzhen has a somewhat lopsided, wry smile towards him, though she points out: "Why do I get the feeling this 'old friend' doesn't refer to Miss Lily herself?"
What Asgard answers to Ida answers it, though -- a code stored since ancient times, and what happens to her is between her... and her creator.
Dog looks up to her with a whine that melts even her liqueur-stained heart. "I know, girl... stay in the barrier, okay?" She sounds courageous there, but even she's going to need to stay in it. Her breathing is already laborious.
Ruzhen catches Hannah's warning about how she's shifting time and space -- and suddenly a copy of Division's come to effortlessly chase her. "Oh no--"
Ruzhen's forced to throw her arms up for a block, but that's hardly defence against magic causing wood and metal to scatter, dark ripples threatening to tickle the devil-machines within her and tear her from within.
It turns out two glasses of whisky and agitated Dark Magic don't work very well, and the detective is already groaning; she can't just give up here, though. Dog's counting on her...
Great. Leon's firing now, and that doctor, Citan, already made up his mind. If those that're closest to Lily are working on it, then they've got a plan, is the plan in her mind. The problem is, how does she distract her for long enough for them to get to do what they need to?
This is easily the most dangerous scrap she's gotten into in a decade. She needs to dig down... no, she doesn't want to use -that- anymore...
"Damn...!" Ruzhen curses to herself, finally drawing her little stub-nosed revolver -- chambered in 9mm. It's not a magic gun. It's not blessed by the Impure Queen, nor by the Guardians; it's not an ancient piece of work by the Zeboim, and by Gunsmoke standards it's not even a particularly excellent model.
But the desire for a Bigger Gun, in her mind, is why Guild Galad authority is in the state it is.
"The way she splits to engage everyone... that's got to be taxing... if I can just make her have to pay attention to even more things..."
For naught but an instant, the detective's laborious breathing stops -- and then she's raised the gun in a braced position, and fires.
The bullet goes really wide, not even close to hitting the mark. Instead, it ricochets off a steel drum at a high angle and shatters through the bar's second-story window, and a loud tune from a Jukebox starts playing. o~ 'From void to void, and down the fortress side, the summer's gone, all the roses fallin'...' o~
It's all smoke and mirrors, loud cacophony and furor. But if she can create the illusion there are more targets she has to worry about, then she can buy people time...!
GS: Li Ruzhen spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Li Ruzhen has attacked Division with Rusty Hearts! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 1 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Doctor Wyatt. That's--" Horrid realization sinks into Ida's eyes, and for a moment, she falters, her hands falling back into a looser, less-prepared stance. Division's hand rushes forward, and visceral terror races down her spine as she sees the gleam of teeth. She remembers teeth sinking into her as a horde tries to drag her down faster than she can shoot them. She remembers an amalgamation, an experiment, with too many hands, trying to consume her.
A sickening crunch echoes through the barrier as teeth shear through exoskeleton. Ida tears her forearm back before Division can do more, crimson and quicksilver spilling from a fresh bite wound to match the ones the Reapers left on her years ago.
"LILY!" Ida screams, as if that could somehow wake her--as if Leon weren't doing everything in his power to do the same. It's no use. She turns, for a moment, to stare at Asgard. "Second Method," Ida says. "Force as Instruction." She presses her fingers together, and blurs forward, a smear of color moving across the plaza. Her fingertips glow with golden-white light as she drives them at Division's midsection--Ida's lifeforce, which surges out of her and into Division, should the strike land home. Ida has no idea what's going on inside her, sorcerously or otherwise, but she can at least try and disrupt it with brute-force manipulation of her Meridians.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Division with Searing Ember Strike! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 4 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Leon Albus's RR-2 Suggestion for 88 hit points! GS: Gamble: Very High! Division suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Tetra Detonator for 228 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: CRITICAL! Division takes a glancing hit from Li Ruzhen's Rusty Hearts for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Delay, Disease, and Interrupt applied to Division! GS: Division has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Searing Ember Strike for 39 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Disease applied to Division! ===== +scan: Division ========================================================== Division (Omega - Division) HP: 84% FP: 25% THP: 133 Status: Disease (5), Cripple (3), Interrupt (2), and Delay (2) BOSS 10 In Seraphita's Bucket With: Ethius Hesiod and Division
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
The fairy's not talking so she's taking things seriously enough. Or things seem bad enough she's not. Probably more accurate. The buzz saw is met with a flourish of ink. The blades cutting through the barrier, stopping short and sending her back all the same. Tumbling in the air until she stops.
She darts in close again, shifting to put herself between Division and Hannah, having spotted her in part of that tumble. There's one person she'll definitely protect. Not that she says it out loud. Totally an accident and not wanting to prick any bits of pride!
Though a pained groan and a gunshot. A small caliber one gets her to adjust her trajectory. Trying to place herself in a way to protect both her friend and the person that looks like they're wildly in over their head days from retirement.
And then it turns into the realization that everyone is struggling in a way and she lets out a frustrated sound! A little shout even. "Screw you." She finally says. That's.. was that aimed at her former bosses? There's a lot of resentment and anger and all sorts of other negative thoughts forming in the cursed ink suddenly surrounding her. "You people always talk about some tests or the greater good or whatever else and it's always cryptic, exclusive and- and.." She shrugs. "Screw you." And dumps that misery right on Division's head before pointing at Asgard, "And screw you for forcing this. If you have a lesson to teach, teach it. don't be cryptic. Dammit I hated listening to lecturers like you." She shakes a fist and slings a bit of ink his way too in an underhand throw. Continuing that rant for a moment. Clearly having someone else in mind as that deluge of misery and cursed ink pours over the pale doll's.. plastic? She hasn't looked too close. There's some vitriol in that magic.
She should probably focus. She should probably take this more seriously, but.. at the same time she IS fueling her usual brand of magic..
===== Libra: Division ==========================================================
| REF: _____ | Arcane Font: Y Countermeasures: N Power Burst: N |
| POW: ______ | Healer: N Onslaught: N Tactician: N |
| VIT: ___ | Blind_Ward:_Y Break_Ward:_N Cripple_Ward:_N |
| SOR: ______ | Disrupt_Ward:_Y Drowsy_Ward:_Y Jam_Ward:_N |
| ARM: ____ | Mute_Ward:_N Poison_Ward:_N Slow_Ward:_N |
| TEC: _____ | Weaken_Ward:_Y Total_Ward:_N |
| Form: Omega - Division |
| Relative Tier: Chapter 2 Fiend |
GS: Holly has attacked Division with Deluge! GS: Holly has gained 2 Combo! GS: Holly has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Though Azoth is entirely focused on Division, the moment Asgard pulls out some strange component, Azoth flinches into stillness. A strangled beep involuntarily pulls from him, eyes losing all focus, and voice dropping to its 'natural' deep reverb with twitching convulsions of his body that twists his head out of place. "Objective located. ERROR: Signal lost. ERROR: Connection cannot be established. Objective -- located -- ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS --"
Azoth's arm extends one uncanny twitch of his joints at a time Each segment of his fingers articulate one after another, curling around the hilt of a materialized blade of erratic ARM energy Every light within him turns dark, crimson red. His head snaps back upright, and he charges toward Asgard, heedless of Divison.
Which means that psionic blast crashes straight into his body, knocking him off course. Calculations are quick to readjust, Azoth's battered body arcing around to keep upright, and the demand in him immediately turned to his assailant in counterattack. Though his energy is wild and threatening to burst out of his body with every arcing surge now, the way he guides his blade, just shy of his hand and dancing through the air, is precise and graceful.
Pixelated data glitches around the edges, and he commands the energy blade to slice for Division, acting with every pulse of his violent energy to move when it's low and strike at its peak, thrusting for Division's center.
"Objective compromised."
Arm outstretched in command, he squeezes his fist in as his entire limb rattles from the effort to keep from bursting, and commands the blade to detonate.
GS: Azoth has attacked Division with Undervolt! GS: Azoth gains 10 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
From where Ruth roosts in the moment, there's an audible gasp and an almost bestial hiss that betrays her true nature under her shell when the bullet is stopped, crushed into nothingness. Not even the dignity of a dented, crushed lump of former bullet. Her heart races with the increase of distress, fear, and desperation that involves her own just as much.
They've known Lily to be among the most powerful sorceresses of unexplainable might and qualities, now magnified into something that seems even beyond the likes of Magilou to play off with a flourish and a snide remark, but more importantly--
A spike of bone that only misses Ruth's heart on faintest virtue of her starting to rise from her perch to move in, where it runs her through the midsection. She collapses out in a crumpled heap, red blood spilling into the ground and placing her visage in more unmistakable light to Ruzhen. The rifle model was not made in great numbers but there's always the odd chance there's someone else with one. But, if you couple it with the elf ears of its wielder, and other identifying features...
That could be the day one nightmare to this part of Filgaia could end, even should that nightmare's legacy echo through what she harbors in herself.
"You're worried," Ruth rasps in Magilou's vague direction as she staggers up with her rifle for balance, left arm shaking as she coughs up a fresh round of blood. "Even if I was dead... there's a place I don't deserve to violate."
The next cough of blood is purple-hued, as the spiritual poison envelops her in such concentration that the distension of her form to something else is obscured, but there's no surprises as to what comes forth from it. At least, for all but one person.
A demonic gargoyle-like figure hurls itself - herself, she's not an 'it' - wing-first, like a battering ram towards where this figure who divides presently seems most concentrated, goaded by the (current) last conscious words of Lily, positioning herself between Leon and what Lily has become. Her wing serves as protection from looking upon Division, for that array of colors and shapes is hard enough.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Division with Hide Our Faces! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 0 THP from her Cautious! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Division takes a solid hit from Holly's Deluge for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Division's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Disease, Shieldbreak, and Weaken applied to Division! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Division takes a solid hit from Azoth's Undervolt for 149 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam applied to Division! GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Ruth Pauling's Hide Our Faces for 75 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover applied to Ruth Pauling!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"Dr. Wyatt..." Citan echoes, furrowing his brow. "Where have I heard that name before?"
It's another thing that he'll have to ask after later. For the moment, they have one rather pressing concern, and it's likely that Magilou is correct about Division's intention... or the status of the woman they know as Lily. To get the person they know back, to simply survive, then... they must do something disagreeable.
Citan, fortunately, is experienced with disagreeable actions. "Indeed," he answers Leon, taking but the moment to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "That appears to be the only way."
Her counterattack comes swiftly and bears him off his feet. Division is fast.
But so is he. Rolling with rather than against the rippling wave as it strikes him, in the blink of an eye Citan again strikes the space before him; his blow cleaves through the trailing ends of the gravity wave and impacts Division directly. He lands but a second later, assuming a defensive stance.
This unfortunately avails him little for what comes. He had prepared to evade what she sent his way next, but rather instead he finds
that he's nowhere at all, cast deep into the darkness of some half-dimension. There is no space to do anything at all, let alone call out before he is, once again, in the here and now of 3D space. Heaving out a weighty breath, Citan eyes again their opponent.
"Her... mastery of dimensional manipulation is immense..." Even he couldn't see that attack coming. What advice could he possibly offer the others?
"Perhaps the time has come to break through the noise," he muses aloud to himself, taking the moment to center himself and focus. Within an eyeblink, he's for her, daring to break in close enough to drive a series of crushing strikes for her midsection. If he could perhaps crack that armor, then...
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Division with Shinrai! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Citan Uzuki's Shinrai for 96 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break applied to Division!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
'I expect you to understand that ever was Janus Cascade the architect of his own fate.'
Gwen hesitates, that logic bullet hitting and puncturing straight through her anger. She grimaces her eyes shut, pressing the side of her sleeve to her eyes as Lily's roar echoes in her mind.
".... Shit.... damn it... why'd you have to go n' point that out?" Gwen concedes, grudgingly. "... Don't make it feel any better, but that's my pain to deal with."
Pressing two of the bare fingers of her left arm to her pouch, Gwen jerks her right ARM around with some effort, she inserts the bullets into the crux of her right arm. "... But more 'n that, Asgard, It don't answer for what you did to Lily. Those fossils don't have a lick of worth if you need to cause those amount of pain to wake them up. What kinda means justify this price tag? If this was just a test... we already have one Trial Knight. We don't need more."
She snaps her arm up, just as Azoth begins to unnaturally jerk towards the offered object. Then, Azoth darts ahead. "Azoth, oh Guardians, keep ahold of yourself!" The anxiety in her voice is natural; if Azoth were to shift now, there'd be no way of fighting him and Lily back. Besides--
Azoth is still a friend.
As Azoth is blasted back, Gwen tries to offer him a hand, cautious of the surges arcing from his body. "Azoth, stay with us. We need you right now, k'?"
Gwen is next to receive Lily's(?) attention; the Mockingbird is thrust up to meet that spear of bone, with several bands of energy projecting outward to keep away all but a portion of the small bits of sharpnel that ricochet out from its impact.
Leon.
With a nod to Leon, Gwen says, "Got it. I'll do what I can."
Which can mean many things, coming from Gwen, but the shock of that shadow and the deflating reason of Asgard's words have placed Gwen in a sober mood.
Sensing the right opening, Gwen leaves Azoth behind, and rushes into the fray. If Lily has a head, then perhaps--
Gwen ducks low and arcs her fist upwards against the underside of Division's jaw. "Sorry, Lily!!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Division with Shoryu-Gwen! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Division suffers a terrible blow from Gwen Whitlock's Shoryu-Gwen for 101 hit points! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Division!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Asgard chides Lily, of all people, for flinching from the chance to exceed her limts. Hannah scowls, her fear and trepidation replaced temporarily with anger--and with it her aura contorts just a little bit more. "Hey! You forced that on her! She didn't ask for this! I don't care who's orders you're followin', you can't do that!"
But that's about all she has time to say before the battle starts in earnest. Duplicates? Maybe. Or given the gravitic powers on display, maybe it's all the same Division, at slightly different points in time.
That's a wild guess though, and she really doesn't have time to contemplate that thought as the bedlam breaks out around them. (And she's not even sure what she could do with that information yet, even if that was correct--it's outside her wheelhouse by a wide margin.)
And one of those attacks are for her, a wave of purple energy--there's barely any time to raise a proper defense, and she reaches for that strange power she loathes so much, by instinct, by reflex. Something crackles in the air around her as she holds her hands out, corrupted aura clashing with psionic energy. She strains with the effort, feet slipping back--but suddenly the dam breaks, and she is overwhelmed, consumed by that wave and sent flying back.
She tumbles a few times, groaning. Head pounding, vision swimming. It's so hard to form a thought, and it's only the presence of Zephyr in her mind, his panic and terror that gives her a tenuous grip to the danger at hand.
She slowly pushes herself up, still staggering. She can't see, her head is pounding too much, but also, she can. She can see the battle from overhead, far removed from it all, and slowly she turns, feet dragging as she orients herself.
Her eyes are uncofused, in a way that suggests she's not looking at anything at all, but she still croaks out a weak "H-holly" as the fairy draws near. "S-stand back..."
The next crest graph is blazing red as she withdraws it from her pouch. She inhales deeply, holding the crest graph up under her mouth as she does so. She draws in every last little bit of breath that she can--And suddenly she exhales it all, spewing a great, big, angry gout of flame. And it is angry, almost alive as it angrily rolls through the air. It's nearly as big as Hannah is, and it's headed right for Division.
GS: Hannah Curie spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Division with Fireball! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Hannah Curie's Fireball for 162 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Division! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Division has posed.
The recognition that flashed for an instant for Leon is gone, and there is no look of pain at the shot that slams into her midsection. It's a blast that knocks her back, almost gets her to the ground, but does not penetrate her shields. Nevertheless, it pushes her back.
Four orbs circle Division. The entire universe crashes against her all at once, the very forces that powered its creation made manifest in a spell of catastrophic proportions. The explosion blots out Division's form, blinds the room for an instant, and when it passes, Division has both hands extended to make a barrier--a barrier that was broken, and her whole body is scorched, touched with black ash.
That she starts to regenerate visibly is a problem, but if they can take advantage of the hole in her defenses...
Ida's call does not wake her, but Ida's life force does surge outward--and indeed, that strike seems to disrupt something in her sorcerous foe, who relies far more on physicality than one would expect a thing carrying Lily's power. Already she moves to counterattack--but she is stymied again by the sudden appearance of more targets--no, not more targets, but Ruzhen's illusory trickery. It seems to work, forcing Division to look all around sharply as if to find these additional foes.
It means that she's not in a position to dodge that caustic vitriol of ink that Holly sends to her--bone, plastic, chitin, it's hard to tell exactly what it is, but it can apparently start to melt. Azoth's beam weapon thrusts through Division meanwhile, even as she attempts to move out of the way; it cuts a gouge out of her hardened side, which starts to regenerate quickly--but not quite quickly enough, yet.
The battering ram that is Ruth comes. She slams Division backward, away from Leon, and while it does not break her armor any more than it is already broken, it forces her back. This will be important shortly.
Citan's wisdom may be key to the battle; his maneuvers, at least, are efficacious. While Division may have a great mastery of dimensional manipulation, she can only do so much in response to the cracking of her armor, already scorched from Tetra Detonator.
As it happens, Division does have a jaw. and Gwen ducks low, uppercuts--and knocks the horror up and back, sending her flying through the air nearly to the very edge of the barrier, in time for Hannah's powerful, wild gout of fire to scythe through the air towards her like a thing alive. It's not even a second before it's gone that Division is held back by Ruth again.
So of course--she splits again. The other Divisions have difficulty moving past Ruth's guard, and spread out in a line around the original instead. This makes it apparent--they all have the same wounds and scratches and injuries as the original. They all launch into action. Three immediately whirl into motion--Hannah is beset by a vortex of chaotic magic, violet and violent both that seeks to overwhelm her. Azoth gets a spike of bone for center mass, tit for tat for his blade, but more to the point, another delay in his objective. Citan receives a blast of something like chi--but it is raw hostile emotion, rather than magic as such.
This buys time for the central Division to ready a spell. Light and darkness swirl around her as she lifts both hands to gather power. The two beside her do the same. The central finishes casting first, loosing a blast at Ruth that moves faster than the eye can see but leaves trailing aftereffects, hyperaccelerating space to try to slam her back despite her great strength. The spells of the others are a sudden pulse of sorcerous might that batters back at the two powerful fire-users, which will prompt a ringing sound in their ears--if not blood from the violent reassertion of their locality.
Ruzhen gets a bone spike for her trouble, one finally surging past Ruth to attempt to impale her with an arm. Gwen and Ida, however, have a different kind of problem. Gwen, abrubtly, is targeted by a small green ray--one that attempts to disintegrate her outright, arm and all, and when it fails to do that will still viscerally attack her very existence. Ida instead deals with a powerful psionic burst attack that seeks to wipe out identity all at once--hers, and Fenrir's both.
Leon will find that a horrific circle of bone begins to whirl around him, and then gets closer, and closer, and closer, trying to batter him to death outright with jagged blows.
Division is one again, without warning. The others phase back into her. And then, she begins to glow violet.
Something is coming.
GS: Division has attacked Hannah Curie with Chaos! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Delay expired! GS: Division has attacked Azoth with Bone Spike! GS: Division has attacked Citan Uzuki with Hostility! GS: Division has attacked Ruth Pauling with Relativistic Verge! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Nothing! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with No One! GS: Division has gained 2 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Li Ruzhen with Bone Spike! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Leon Albus with Bone Orbit! GS: Division has gained 2 Combo! GS: Division has attacked Division with Escalation! GS: Division has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: CRITICAL! Li Ruzhen takes a glancing hit from Division's Bone Spike for 92 hit points! GS: Blind applied to Li Ruzhen! GS: Drowsy blocked! GS: Division accepts Division's Escalation for 0 hit points! GS: Division spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Division has attacked Magilou with Pulse Reset! GS: Division has attacked Hannah Curie with Pulse Reset! GS: Division has gained 3 Combo! GS: Division has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Azoth suffers a terrible blow from Division's Bone Spike for 229 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Azoth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gamble: Highest! Leon Albus solidly guards Division's Bone Orbit for 138 hit points! GS: Strain! Division takes 100 damage! GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou suffers a terrible blow from Division's Pulse Reset for 351 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Ruth Pauling takes a solid hit from Division's Relativistic Verge for 219 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Division drains Ruth Pauling! Division gains 26 temporary hit points! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Division's No One for 89 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind and Drowsy applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Division spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Division has attacked Holly with Pulse Reset! GS: Division has gained 3 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki solidly guards Division's Hostility for 55 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Division drains Citan Uzuki! Division gains 7 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
Rippling shadow, flares of light, blurs of time and space. Asgard takes all of these moments in, all of these gestures and displays of power. When her magic slams against his barrier from the mere power of it all, the points which it does sputter and spark.
While it begins to mend through how he regulates power through his barrier, he sees no need to verbally warn them all again what should happen to them should his barrier fade. This was not something he calculated as possible that could happen, but happen it did.
"Then I suggest you disincentivize her from doing so." Is his simple response to Magilou. Whereas Ruzhen? "It refers to both of them. To explain why would be, complicated. Needless to say I consider Lily Keil an old friend as well."
Ida stares at Asgard, and Asgard stares back. There is no answer to the silent accusation. There is just reality. Azoth's reaction however is quite expected, as Azoth charges right at him. "And so your priorities are made clear." As he suffers for it, by taking the blast head on, the Golem asks, "Should your focus remain so narrow that you ignore the threat in front of you, then you will assuredly suffer for it."
Is he blaming Azoth for his concrete list of objectives? Certainly that would make him a hypocrite if he were to be doing so.
Where has Citan heard that name before? Certainly, Asgard does not clarify further.
"'What I did'?" Asgard answers Gwen readily, "I did nothing to Lily Keil besides awaken what lay dormant within her."
Her eyes fall upon Gwen, "She came here today expecting a challenge, that it did not turn out to be the one she expected? That is a matter between her and her creator, Gwen Whitlock."
And as Hannah tells him that she didn't ask for this, "People are born screaming without their consent, and are crushed underfoot for the same each and every day. Lily Keil has been a soldier, a mercenary and a drifter in her time - with every step she takes forward, she consents to walk the path of blood, to test her strength by challenging the unknown with her violence."
The Golems yellowed, pupilless orbs for eyes fall upon Hannah, as he then asks simply, "You are welcome to tell her creator that she did not consent to her creation, to this being an inextricable part of her, but you only deny the reality of her existence by doing so."
And in the midst of the chaos, the bones take on a faint blue glow. Even as 'something' comes from Lily Keil, Asgard turns just enough to observe. And then, he raises a hand. There is a stream of, something? Connection perhaps, thin, wispy and blue, that connects his hand to it, like the thinnest of cords...
... that begins to flow from the Fossil into him.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Aye," Leon says. "I can see that. But if she'll hold nothing back... then that tells me that Lily really is in there."
He is aware, of course, of bullets ricocheting; of Ruzhen trying to distract Division. He is aware of Ida and others screaming for Lily, of Magilou's powerful sorceries brought to the fore. He realizes that Azoth is showing signs of instability; that something dangerous is happening, there. Leon compartmentalizes it, the way any good commander and desperate man has to.
"Good," he answers Gwen, with a glance at her.
"It was mentioned in the ruins we found. The ones tied to Heorot," Leon says to Citan, his voice short because it has to be in the moment. He sees that Division is regenerating, quickly. They'll need to do something about that. She unleashes a magic storm, unlike any that he has seen Lily do.
This fact disturbs him.
Bones swirl around him -- they whip and slam into him, but then some smash into glowing fields of teal light -- as his raid funnels deploy from his belt, and start catching some of them. Leon still stumbles, with a grimace, backwards.
"Ngh...!"
His eyes turn towards Asgard. He grits his teeth -- someone that his biological father knew? Leon wonders, for a moment, before he looks back to Division. "I don't think this 'creator' of yours has any right to her," he snaps, heatedly.
His eyes narrow as energy is drawn from the Fossil, into Asgard. But his attention is back on Division. He snaps Argent Divider out; the weapon unfolds, its barrels splitting, and a blade telescoping out. Then, crimson light ignites up the sword -- and Leon swings the blade down.
An arc of red light explodes off the energy blade, and goes crashing off towards Division.
GS: Leon Albus spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Leon Albus has attacked Division with Code.26 CLARENT! GS: Leon Albus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cripple and Shieldbreak expired! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Division suffers a terrible blow from Leon Albus's Code.26 CLARENT for 297 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It's an entirely predictable reaction. Azoth is a machine who operates as he is programmed, and he is programmed now to collect himself. To find every last missing piece and reform himself as he once used to be. His choice in this -- his own logic in this -- means almost nothing. Asgard can blame him or not. It simply is.
But there are always loopholes, and even Azoth is unaware of how much those around him have found the biggest one. Even they may not realize it. But like she knows, Gwen reaches out to him. Azoth wavers, grabbing his chest. "Objective -- located -- I --"
We need you right now, k'?
Despite the red energy is jumping all over Azoth's limbs, there is no shock to Gwen as his hand settles in hers. With the touch, the color of his circuits stabilizes back toward blue, only flickering that vibrant, unreal pink in the occasional pulse.
Details of the battle begin to seep past the haze of the overrides. Logic is allowed to bite into their demands and counter their code. If Azoth can remember, then he might know to what coordinants he flung his own pieces. And now he knows why he could not ever find this particular signal. He knows where it is, and with who it will stay.
"Sorry," he manages, still some glitched reverb in his voice. "...Thanks."
His hand squeezes on Gwen for his own reassurance of tactile data, then lets go so she can go uppercut a terrifying Zeboim witch in the jaw. Erratic power must be calculated back under his control, lights flickering as he makes the internal effort and tries to watch Division's every move and reaction to the combatants around her.
Sorcery and chi. Bone and psionics. Light and darkness. A constantly splitting form. He might be able to lock on his target if he follows those trails, but that would make it difficult to move. It could mean --
It does mean, that spike of bone tearing directly through Azoth's sturdy robotic chassis through his center, as easily as if he were flesh instead of steel. Metal tears and peels around the edges, a hole in the front, then out through the back, sending glitched sparks out from the center through every limb.
Azoth grabs hold of it to steady it before it tears through any more of him. Nothing vital has been struck, his grip firm, and his other hand thrusting out again. Lines of light shining from motes around him follow and center on Division.
"Right... there!"
The motes collapse into a blade, and Azoth sends it flying as a guiding light, intending to help everyone else direct their attacks.
GS: Azoth spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Magilou with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Hannah Curie with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Ruth Pauling with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Citan Uzuki with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Li Ruzhen with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Leon Albus with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Holly with Convergence! GS: Azoth has launched an attack Link! GS: Li Ruzhen accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Li Ruzhen! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Azoth accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Blitz! Azoth has attacked Division with EOBC Protocol! GS: Azoth gains 10 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Blind and Drowsy expired! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Holly takes a solid hit from Division's Pulse Reset for 241 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Division solidly guards Azoth's EOBC Protocol for 65 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Citan Uzuki accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Citan Uzuki! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Leon Albus accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Leon Albus! GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Gwen Whitlock accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Gwen Whitlock!
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
Oh no. It really is Ruth. She understands that silhouette anywhere. That rifle. The pointed ears. It-- No, now's now the time. Compartmentalise. Ruth is a problem from the past, and Lily -- Division -- is a problem of the present. Besides, it looks like they're achieving the same objectives... or at least, objectives within the same ballpark.
Azoth starts to behave erratically, and at first, a part of Ruzhen fears that the machine-like behaviour is a sign that he's about to go the same way Lily is. There's a wince-and-gasp as his blade detonates, however. This is horrific. This isn't anything like she's seen since the civil war...
Again. Keep the past separate. Don't dredge yourself up unto it or you're dead, Ruzhen, she tells herself.
And just in time, as well -- with enough time, Ruzhen's starting to accomodate to the boundaries that Lily has. The most important one is that she still uses her senses to attack: sight, hearing, smell, touch... and the other is that there is a limit to how much the barrier can take, as evidenced by Magilou's apocalyptic spell. If she can sneak her lowly bullets in at the right time...
"Somehow, I understand what you're on about, Mister Asgard," Ruzhen finds it in herself to respond to the Golem's explanation. "And it ain't like your thinking's foreign to me. But involving Guild Galad as your stage for this doesn't feel like your style... are you trying to hide your true objective while we're distracted with her?"
But her train of thought is dead interrupted when a bone spike erupts out of seemingly nowhere, and she's sweating and grimacing to avoid getting impaled; she awkwardly ends up using the whisky bottle as a makeshift parrying device, and sweet brown liquid and glass flies everywhere along with a horrible gash along the side of her arm. "Aghh!"
Focus, Ruzhen. The situation is chaotic and beyond her wildest imagination, but the laws of how to conduct battle are still being respected here. The attack on her means she misses Asgard drawing something within the Fossil towards himself, though.
Leon pushes on the advantage, and she has to redouble her efforts, her eyes narrowing, pupils dilating slightly as she raises her gun again.
"I can see them..." She waits -- and Leon buys her that opening, as Argent Divider explodes in an arc of red light. She fires, at that time, two parabellum rounds roaring out in quick succession as she fans the hammer--
Azoth's blade flies, and her line of sight follows it quite clearly. In the heat of battle, something within her, weirdly, pings Azoth in acknowledgement.
Two bullets. One goes wide again, and pings against a cucco-shaped signboard and then seeks to strike at Division's arm at a wide angle; the other goes low, goes 'SPANG!' against the plaza's metallic floor, and seeks to strike at her leg.
It's more violence than she'd like to visit on anyone, but she's out of cute little distractions at this point, and doesn't have the luxury of repeating a trick she's certain Division won't fall for a second time.
GS: Li Ruzhen spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Link! GS: Blitz! Li Ruzhen has attacked Division with Arriere-Pensees! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 2 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen has launched an attack Link! GS: Blitz! Li Ruzhen has attacked Division with Fait Accompli! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 1 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen has completed her action. GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Gwen Whitlock solidly guards Division's Nothing for 46 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Holly accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Holly! GS: CRITICAL! Division suffers a terrible blow from Li Ruzhen's Arriere-Pensees for 0 hit points! GS: Division's Blind Ward may block the effect! GS: Division's Drowsy Ward may block the effect! GS: Division's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Blind, Drowsy, Shieldbreak, and Weaken applied to Division! GS: Division solidly guards Li Ruzhen's Fait Accompli for 0 hit points! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Break, Hex, and Slow applied to Division! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Hannah Curie partially evades Division's Chaos for 96 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Drowsy and Slow applied to Hannah Curie! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Hannah Curie accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Hannah Curie!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"As if it's that easy!" Magilou exclaims, to Asgard, throwing up her hands. 'Disincentivise her', he says!
And of course, what he says about Lily's Creator --
Magilou didn't expect Tetra Detonator to fell Division, though the regeneration does make her frown. Speaking to Lily is speaking to no one, right now, bitter and sharp: "Just like a Fell Dragon, mm? That's too bad. Are you coming back from this...?"
There are so many Divisions. That pulse of sorcerous might, from one of them, is met by a beehive barrier of white protection -- Magilou's finest defence, and perhaps the only thing which keeps her rooted to her present place in space and time. That barrier is battered by something which doesn't even entirely have form to its power, bright hexagons sloughing from the dome around her, dripping...
If light could bleed, it might look this way.
(Something bleeds into Asgard, just the same, and Magilou doesn't fail to notice.)
"Super Absorber won't cut it, here," Magilou frowns, looking from Division to Division until she finds the primary target thanks to Azoth's guiding lights. "Not even my body can take it. But this build-up of power..."
There are certain things Magilou doesn't tend to repeat, in a fight -- if only because the fight's over with her first casting. But in this situation --
"Spell Absorber!"
-- those light and lilac butterflies erupt from her again, as she drains off more of Division's sorcerous energies. She can't sustain it indefinitely, but she can consume it in bursts.
... she's pretty sure she'd get out of it alive if she didn't counter Division's power, but she's not so sure about them.
GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Division with Spell Absorber! GS: Magilou enters a Counter stance! GS: Magilou has gained 3 Combo! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Spell Absorber for 0 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Division! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Gwen prompts Asgard to make the argument Ida was expecting. Lily has always been a creature of raw sorcerous power, seeking raw sorcerous power. It would be foolish to dismiss her might. But--
Lily tried to comfort Ida when she was in despair. She came to save her at Castle Rabenstein. She helped treat her after the graft bonded to her.
"She's a warrior," Ida shoots back, to Asgard, "and she's so much more. And that's why she's coming ba--"
It comes out of nowhere, invisible and intangible--a sharp counterpoint to the dimensional warping and violent bursts of energy and bone. Ida's pupils dilate, and then constrict; her mismatched eyes focus on nothing, and she suddenly, completely... stops. Where is. What is. Thoughts start to form, and then stop halfway. Other entities, around her. (Around them?)
Ida's body pitches forward, and only catches itself on muscle memory. Arms snap out to balance. A leg sweeps forward, the other twisting to support her body's weight.
To those who saw what happened to Ida when she fought Gwen, the sight might be eerily familiar. Her body is present. Is she at the helm?
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Recollection comes upon him swiftly as Leon quickly explains: Citan now remembers what he'd seen and heard then. His brow lined, he says nothing: with the moments becoming what they must, he instead nods sharply. There can be discussion and exploration of the matter, later, once this is resolved.
If it can be resolved.
But there is nowhere to focus but upon this single moment, each as they follow the next. There is no room to worry about the future or wonder over the past.
He strikes at Division and perhaps, he has created an opening for himself and others.
Something engulfs him then, but rather than the no-realm her Ether had transported him to before, Citan finds himself in a wash of pure hostility, hatred rendered down to its most 'elemental' form. Gritting his teeth, he pushes back against it, physically leaning into the dark tide as he had leaned into her reality warping wave just moments prior. It would be easy to be swept away under the torrent with a single moment's lost focus but in this, perhaps... he is well equipped. He had been well-tutored in maintaining his focus from his earliest days, after all.
And just like that, the tide abates.
He, too, takes fleeting notice of that energy that flows from the fossil and towards Asgard, but there is no time to attend to it. Ignoring Asgard may be unwise, but they cannot turn their focus from Division. Instead, thanks to Gwen getting through to Azoth, he finds that they have been granted a form of guidance for their assault upon Division. Inclining his head in a short nod in Azoth and Gwen's direction, Citan takes the opportunity to breathe in, to once again center himself. To exhale.
There is only one sea.
He breaks for her as the tide might, rushing in without ceasing. His hand is a blade's edge -- his hand is a merciless wave. Embued with water Ether, his aim is solely to cut and to rend.
GS: Citan Uzuki has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Citan Uzuki spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Blitz! Citan Uzuki has attacked Division with Suisei -Retsu-! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 3 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Citan Uzuki's Suisei -Retsu- for 278 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
For all of her posturing and actual power to throw into things. Sometimes you can just get caught off guard. In her rant, that frustration at some forgotten figure in her own past she kind of didn't get her guard up in time and is flung pretty violently across the room. Bouncing off of a few things and hitting the wall. She's alive, but that hurt and she's dazed by it at first.
Laying there on the ground, staring up at the ceiling's uncomfortable though, particularly with delicate wings. She rolls carefully, checking over her shoulders and fluttering them. Then she takes to the air again.
"Hannah, you okay?" She can hear a ringing in her ears over that impact. Probably not great. Means she's yelling a bit louder. Same to the others, "If you need help just uh. I can try?" She puts a hand to one ear and tilts her head, then examines her palm just in case.
She draws her hand away. She didn't bring her own pen, a problem normally. The ink is twisted around her though, formed into a flowing spike of darkness. Held like a spear by the fairy in both hands, she lifts it above her heead and charges forward! Promptly trying to spike the whole think against the figure of Division. Admittedly, this is normally done with her sharpened pen and involves other things and... either way, she twists and tries to sweep the 'spear' in a slashing blow before stabbing it down one more time and trying to actually leap off of the doll and away.
There's inevitably some muttering that she should never be caught without her tools again, but that's for later.
Whether she's flown past, or flipped off of Division, she spots Ida's collapse. Adjusting in mid-flight to try and support her with a half-finished manipulation of clear water. She doesn't know what's wrong with Ida. She figures something's up though and, potentially foolishly, moves to try and intercept anything coming her way. Bringing up yet more swirling black before her. Prepared mentally for more nastiness.
GS: Blitz! Holly has attacked Division with Combat Calligraphy! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Holly has completed her action. GS: Division suffers a terrible blow from Holly's Combat Calligraphy for 136 hit points! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Riposte applied to Holly!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Holly came to check up on Hannah, but once she gets flung, it's time for Hannah to return the favor. Or rather, for Zephyr to return the favor, swooping down to check on her, chirp encouragingly at her. When she gets up he's off into the sky again, doing his best to stay out of the fracas.
"Could ask the same of you, Holly. I'm doin' about as well as anybody else here at the moment." She's got her own headache ringing in her ears still.
Asgard has some rationale for his actions--or perhaps rationalizations, in Hannah's opinion. "Grr... You're denying her her personhood, you bastard!" She's not looking at Asgard at the moment. She can't really look at anything, the lingering remnants of the earlier attack still making it oh so difficult to see. "Just because she's got a 'creator' don't give that creator or anybody else the right to jerk her around like this! She's got friends! She's got Dog!"
But there's not time for much more than that--Division splits again, and Zephyr's keen eyesight picks up on how the duplicates all have identical wounds. Something to ponder for later. Because next is coming a pulse of might, of chaos that comes bearing down on her. She throws herself to the side a moment too late, wincing as she is clipped by the magic, its effects rippling through her. Her jacket and jeans are torn on that side, and red shows cleanly underneath.
But she can still move. Azoth offers all of them some guidance, and with that and Zephyr at her side, it's enough to get herself oriented. A new crest graph, this one giving off wisps of puffy white energy. It will be very familiar to some what comes next as she stumbles her way forward. That crest graph comes up, and then she slashes it in front of herself with a great sweeping gesture, as if she were trying to cut through the air itself with the edge of the crest graph.
There's something cutting, but it's not the crest graph--it's the very air itself. A veritable storm stirred to life by the motion, blade-sharp torrents of winds circling and cycling again and again, all of it centered on Division. She's at the center of her own personal wind storm, and with it are surely just a coincidental series of acoustic reverberations that sound like hollow, disjointed wailing noises. It doesn't have Lily's gravitic distortions but it still twists with Hannah's weird power, a power that is flaring even higher around her as she desparately taps into it for survival.
She collapses onto a knee as the spell does its work, next to Ida. She reaches out to place a hand on her shoulder. "C'mon, Ida. Snap out of it. We need you to keep fightin'."
GS: Blitz! Hannah Curie has attacked Division with Cyclone! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Hannah reaches out and grabs Ida's shoulder. There's no response.
a hand
reaches out
and clasps another
Two right hands. The same hand. Different hands. Hands holding each other, lest they fall into the yawning wound torn into their minds. Steely-blue eyes look into emerald-green. Division, in trying to erase them both, has opened a conduit between them.
gullinbursti, he thinks, and the guilt is like a knife. The pain of someone he lost like this keeps him anchored. It's familiar.
lily. her name is lily, Ida says. i can't--
asgard. test her to destruction, and-- no. i can't.
but we can.
Ida's body suddenly shakes free of Hannah's grip. "Hhh..." That's not so much a word as a breath trying desperately to be one. Her body's eyes focus on Holly, before them, and confusion dawns on her features. Her head turns to face Hannah, the confusion leveling out--as if there was a moment of realization, or... someone explaining something to someone else. Ida's body's eyes meet Hannah's, and they are bright green instead of their normal steely-blue. Ida's body holds out a hand, and tilt-wobbles it back and forth. "Hh." Another, softer breath, a look that's probably meant to be comforting.
Ida's body shoots upright in a single leap; the wind of an aura that's equal parts white-gold and bright and flame-like and hot engulfs her. She grows, her flesh shifting as muscles cord and thicken beneath her skin. Bones lengthen. Clothing disappears beneath a full-body layer of shifting flesh, all pale silvery-blue. "Ghk," they choke out, as their lungs fill with air, then expel it. Her body's hair springs from its braid, lightening to bronze; the shifting flesh hardens into armor, blue and gold, half conventional Hyadean and half synthesized dragonscale. Vents pop open at her body's joints.
"Hhh," they breathe, andthey meet Division's gaze. The bright blue sclerotic rings of Ida's shapeshifted form glimmer around the green irises of Fafnir's eyes. "Lily. We. Won't."
The ARM jets at Ida's body's knees, calves, and back ignite, and they DRIVE forward, lunging at her, heedless of the fact that they're running headlong into her and her shields and her defenses, and Ida's body is screaming in protest. Their knee snaps up as they come at her from below, trying to strike her and throw her upwards before leaping after her, driving a heel into the small of her back, and throwing her down.
GS: Division takes a glancing hit from Hannah Curie's Cyclone for 131 hit points! GS: Mute blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Ida of the Method!
GS: Blitz! Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Division with Fourth Method - Bar Hell's Gates! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed from Stoic to Avenger! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Division solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Fourth Method - Bar Hell's Gates for 277 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Strain! Ida Everstead-Rey takes 70 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Shrieky hissing escapes Ruth's throat as she hurls herself against whatever reality-bending power (the) Division(s) commands. She can't even fully quantify the feeling of mass she's pressing against, but asserting that there is is what helps her keep what Lily has become pinned as some other hand-to-hand fighters work around her.
A split, again, spreading out in a line. Ruth doesn't have the benefit of being able to see past her wing to know what, exactly the central Division is doing, with only the sharp interplay of darkness and light around the periphery to suggest anything.
Ruth's clawed feet dig into the metal with ear-splitting shrieks - frightening an imagery for one familiar with the Mohs scale of hardness - head bowing as she feels like something is punching wind out of her sails as immense power washes across her and for all purposes it looks like the stone-flesh of her wing is starting to erode in opacity, bit by bit, from exposure.
She hurls herself up against it again with some ground given, head angled to the side, a keen look at how others are holding up (or not). Azoth pointing a line towards their shared target is reassurance she's on the right track, and the way Magilou becomes ever more subtly muted...
Or how Ida suddenly falls over, stunned.
"Ida," Ruth intones with discordant, almost disassociative softness when the rest of her body language is that of a feral beast cornered and ready to lash out as her singular wing seems inches away from turning skeletonized by the erosion of the force she's up against.
And then her shriek starts sounding a bit more like a roar, hardening bronze-like flesh reinforcing around her - all of her - in a continuous patinated bronze body, outfit and all, Malevolence repairing her warped self-image against this overwhelming force.
"Lily...!!" Ruth hiss-snarl-shrieks (that's a thing). The despair that she cannot ever be anything but what she's doing right now, as... Ida finds her footing again, her merged shape with Fafnir. Her mind drifts in conflict to that enormous, but tired and frightened Hyadean man she met in their shared dreams.
"Maybe thissss... isss all we can only be," it's not clear who she's talking to among the morass, as she holds her defensive posture against the central Division.
GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blitz! Ruth Pauling has attacked Ruth Pauling with Heart of Patinated Bronze! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 0 THP from her Cautious! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 167 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"... You should've quit while you were ahead," Gwen answers Asgard, then glances away, her worry over Azoth tearing her away. "... I might've been able to agree, maybe."
Asgard is solid in his reasoning as he is in the makeup of his whole being; she'll find no purchase in arguing with him, especially as Lily's magic is an active threat.
Azoth takes Gwen's hand and she grasps it back with a weighty grip. Gwen grins widely, pleased her risk was well-rewarded. ".... It's okay. Welcome back, Azoth." Her hand squeezes his back for that extra burst of reassurance, before she goes, moving in on Division.
The punch lands true, but it leaves Gwen exposed to a counterattack. Mistaking Lily's attack for a simple amount of energy, Gwen holds up her ARM against it, the force of it deceptive small, but the intention far more deadly, as Gwen's body sags. ".... H...."
=============
Two people stand in a dusty adobe room, one wall open to a wide horizon, air above, below, all four directions. On the sparse bed, the young girl sits there, her thin body still managing to sink into the mattress. Her head is covered with a handkerchief, the left sleeve of her hand-me-down blouse is sewn to the left shoulder, the excess left to hang down in the absence of any arm. Her right arm, meanwhile, lays on her lap. The other girl is the first's opposite, bearing the left arm, but not the right. It is their clothing that indicates there was ever a need for a second arm; between them they have all they need.
However, one is asleep on her feet, and the first sits there, unwilling to get up.
".... You were just telling Azoth to focus," says the first girl, grumpily. "Now you're the one here? You know I can't step in for you. Go back in. You don't get to nap here."
"But I wanna," complains the other girl. "... Tired..."
"Those fossils are responding to Asgard, you know. We can feel it. So let's get it over with." The girl finally stands, pouting, and roughly pushes against the other, planting her palm on the other girl's chest. "My name is Gwen. Your name is Gwen. I gave you back your identity like I promised. So out, out, out, out!!!"
The other girl falls back into the sky, but she doesn't seem too concerned about it, disappearing in a flash of refracted light, and carried out, on those motes of Azoth's light.
=============
".... Shit, Ida!" Gwen sputters back into consciousness, recognizing the signs in Ida's own person.
Her right ARM is already charging; had been already charging, even before she had snapped back into consciousness. ".... The fossils are responding to Asgard, guys, whatever it is he came to do, we're runnin' out of time!" A simple blast is all Gwen can offer this soon out of consciousness, but she's back.
It may not matter, either way.
GS: Blitz! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Division with Coil Cannon EX! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Division solidly guards Gwen Whitlock's Coil Cannon EX for 79 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Division gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam blocked!
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
"Then that is between her and her creator, isn't it? If Lily Keil would disagree, then she is welcome to show that Doctor Wyatt has no hold on her by her own strength. And if you would do the same, then you may try to prove it with yours."
Certainly, he seems to have less of a problem with the idea of a creation belonging to a creator, being a Golem. And Azoth? The Golem makes no movements towards the component he set down. It simply sits, there, maddeningly close yet out of reach.
A tantalizing test of his priorities.
And what he chooses? Asgard makes no comment, of approval, or disapproval. Perhaps that simply 'is' as well.
Ruzhen points something out, and the Golem looks back from the Dragon Fossil, "'Involved' Guild Galad? I suppose there is something to what you say, but my objective was always to speak to Doctor Wyatt again. That she has proven laconic in this state is not something I begrudge her for." The Golem continues after a moment, "In eons past, I was an enigma to her, but I did enjoy hearing what she would share of my theories, and she of mine. I do not think she would mind me for utilizing our long awaited meeting to put one of mine to the test."
Whereas Ida, his response is simple, "She is many things. Whether she will return from this? That is yet to be seen. It was my hope that it would not come to this at all. Ever have I had high standards for Lily Keil. And her own for herself have been even higher than my own for her." His eyes look upon Division right now, "This? Is a disappointment, and I think she would agree."
And Gwen? "There are as many perspectives as there are people. Your agreement with my own? Was not what I came here for." He can certainly feel, something in this moment, and it's hard to say what, as he looks upon Gwen. Eventually however, he looks away.
Ida is certainly going through her own struggles in this moment, isn't she? All of them are. Asgard however finishes, whatever he is doing. The subtle blue glow within the metallic dragon bones fades, and the stream of connection is severed.
The Golem stares at his hand for many long moments, as if processing what he's received. Then he lowers it.
"A lifetime of memory, reduced to this."
He does not sound disappointed per se? But there is, certainly grief.
"Still, I will carry yours with me. That this battle was able to awaken that which was nearly gone from this world?" The Golem turns and looks upon Division, "For all of my disappointment over your inability to control your latent powers, you have my gratitude, Lily Keil."
He pauses...
"Or whomever you might become, from this moment forth."
<Pose Tracker> Division has posed.
Red light EXPLODES towards the singular Division, slammin into her form and passing through in a blaze of power. Division turns sharply to face Leon. She hovers there, burned, battered--but does not stop.
Azoth's light center on Division still, and then that blade crashes towards her--but this she stops, interposing her hand, and though the blade passes through, it does not pass far enough to reach her body. But still, she surges forward--
...and her regeneration slows sharply, clearly, as Magilou drains off sorcerous energy. What might be limitless magic is shifted from its flow, flowing into Magilou and out of Division, and she has to gather up that much more magic to make up for it.
She does not answer Ida. Nor does she seem to notice with any more than a glance that one of her foes has fallen. It would seem that that is sufficient to leave her notice.
But Citan knows that there is only one sea. As he rushes forward, that water-imbued hand scythes for her--and when he passes by, Division bleeds something gray-black like blood... or oil.
Holly's spike of inky darkness paints shadow across Division's form; it does not penetrate her bony carapace. Its magic, though, sinks deep.
Hannah's storm is next; wild, uncontrolled, wailing and hollow, it crashes towards Division, and it is only her sudden motion to place barriers in its path that prevents it shaking her further. Even then, the cyclone itself tears the ground, rips chunks out of the stone.
And then Ida, Ida of the Method, lunges forward. ARM jets propel her forward, and she slams into Division, knocking her upward and then leaping down to slam her into the ground again, in time for Gwen's cannon to blast away at her. Division's hand rockets up to try to block it--but it still passes by her guard.
There is a final roar, as the entire dimension in which they stand shakes, trembles, crumbles apart. Time itself vibrates, and suddenly there is nothing at all to see because every ounce of space is crashing--
And then it is over. Division is on the ground, and starts to melt into shadow.
In the modern language, "...I remember," echoes through the plaza, which abrubtly is unharmed, despite the terrible battle. Asgard's barrier holds outside, but within it's as if they were never there.
And Lily coalesces out of the shadow once again, her ordinary self, though the circuit markings at her collar and wrists are blazing violet. "I remember... So much."
"I'm..." She starts to stand, and falls again, hitting a knee. "...Gh," she vocalizes. "My head." She shakes it, lightly, side to side and then looks up. "...Sorry, everyone. It looks like I wasn't ready. But I'm in control, now."
"...Lily Keil. The woman who was once Sharon Wyatt."
GS: Division has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Ruth Pauling with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Hannah Curie with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Holly with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Citan Uzuki with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Magilou with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Li Ruzhen with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Azoth with Dimension Roar! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Division has attacked Leon Albus with Dimension Roar! GS: Division has gained 2 Combo! GS: Division has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Very High! Li Ruzhen suffers a terrible blow from Division's Dimension Roar for 268 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated! GS: Division drains Li Ruzhen! Division gains 0 temporary hit points! GS: Gamble: Moderate! Leon Albus suffers a terrible blow from Division's Dimension Roar for 243 hit points! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Leon Albus receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Leon Albus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Division drains Leon Albus! Division gains 29 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Division has posed.
The whole time, Ruth--Ruth, resolute Ruth--manages to hold Division back. She has the fortitude necessary to prevent an abomination like this even from moving forward, from destroying all that she can.
And she does it, until the last maneuver.
GS: Citan Uzuki has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: You have activated the Force Action Guard! GS: Gamble: Low! Citan Uzuki takes a solid hit from Division's Dimension Roar for 199 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Division drains Citan Uzuki! Division gains 26 temporary hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Gamble: Low! Ruth Pauling takes a solid hit from Division's Dimension Roar for 200 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Division drains Ruth Pauling! Division gains 25 temporary hit points! GS: Gamble: High! Gwen Whitlock suffers a terrible blow from Division's Dimension Roar for 254 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Division drains Gwen Whitlock! Division gains 25 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Glad you're back with us," Leon says, as he finds Azoth's blade merged with his own -- directing that arc of energy forward. Then, he winces, as the sound of a bullet ricocheting can be heard.
That would be Ruzhen, he thinks.
He looks to Asgard -- far from the only one trying to figure out what's happening with the Fossil -- and he frowns, when he says Lily might become someone else.
His eyes narrow at that thought.
And then he raises his arm -- and his sword -- and the roar slams into him. It drives him backward, blowing his coat back -- and then he walks towards Division as she falls. As the shadow melts away, and reveals...
"Lily," he says.
He shakes his head. "It's all right," he says. "Let's get you back home."
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Gamble: Highest! Ida Everstead-Rey partially guards Division's Dimension Roar for 184 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Division drains Ida Everstead-Rey! Division gains 24 temporary hit points! GS: Gamble: Highest! Holly suffers a terrible blow from Division's Dimension Roar for 273 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Holly enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Division drains Holly! Division gains 25 temporary hit points! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Gamble: Low! Hannah Curie critically guards Division's Dimension Roar for 62 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Division drains Hannah Curie! Division gains 7 temporary hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling used Defend! She takes Division's Dimension Roar attack on Azoth on herself! GS: Gamble: Very High! Ruth Pauling takes a solid hit from Division's Dimension Roar for 251 hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Division drains Ruth Pauling! Division gains 24 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Division has posed.
The shots that hit Division's legs and held her in place are mirrored on Lily's legs--but one can tell from looking that they are already starting to seal back up.
GS: COUNTER! Magilou counterattacks Division with Counter Attack! GS: Gamble: Moderate! Magilou takes a solid hit from Division's Dimension Roar for 261 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Division drains Magilou! Division gains 25 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
Damn. Everstead-Rey isn't doing well -- Ruzhen mistakes the stillness for a sudden stress disorder, a panic attack; she struggles to move in time, but Hannah's reached for her and suddenly the martial artist's explosively roaring to life, clothing vestigially bursting in the wake of silvery-blue muscles. Her eyes widen at the transformation. A spike of fear entering her heart--
She doesn't let it. It goes to the same place as how she fears Ruth. Ruth, who is... is... she doesn't even understand the visage that she sees there. Keep going. Focus on how your arm's screaming in pain from that bone spike, Ruzhen. Stay alive...
"I expected more from the woman I feared," Ruzhen finds herself grumbling, almost automatically, to Ruth's comment of how perhaps this is all they can be. A child of the war, now an adult, trying to find her way...
Asgard answers her in turn, and it's then that she finally spots what the Golem is doing. Tsk... the way he speaks, of putting theories to the test, of pitching people into peril that they may rise above their station...
It reminds her of the lab coats in the White Orphanage. No, don't go back there. That segment of past, of violence and injections and isopropyl alcohol, must stay well and truly buried.
Her question gets disrupted again because Ruzhen is making the extremely basic mistake of trying to split her attention -- a roar overcomes the plaza; she feels the echoes of time, crashing through her very being, bringing her rip-aroing through something which she's convinced her body can't take--
Then it's over; she trembles quietly, hobbling to one side, coughing up some blood. Some's coming out of her nose too. The agitated twitches are still happening. The bleeding hasn't been staunched. "Damn... again... not now..."
Focus... focus... can't collapse here. Division melts away, peeling off off Lily as if it were a second skin she dons... and into shadow. Present, but dormant, never to be forgotten.
"Usually..." she heaves, pointing out to Lily, "They'd do these kinds of tests in the middle of the desert... guess it wasn't really your choice, though. I'm just glad it didn't end in tragedy. It's a good thing the Sixers are great at rubbernecking it." She peers towards Asgard.
"You want to tell us why you're draining that fossil?" she keeps the question simple to Asgard, and grounded to the present. She's still cautious, though. He did knock Guild Galad's defenders flat on the ground. "You said 'memory'... you're saying you can read the bones?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There is a final roar, and Ruth's mind, hearing, and feeling all deafen at once. It feels like everything, and nothing, all at once reasserting itself as no longer existing. There's... not much further descriptor that can be given to the force, because this space is becoming nothing. All that's left in that liminal space with permanence is them, and the world they remember they were in.
Ruth gives into motionlessness under the duress, as she starts to slide back, inch by inch, gradually gaining in speed as the bayonet blade of her rifle drags against the ground while the roaring encompasses.
Cowing, threatening to bring low. Numb in everything, except for a heart poisoned by contradiction. Someone who has murdered, frightened, destroyed, betrayed, and yet... not heartless, that there was something good in there.
It's not reason that guides her, but raw will that she twists, contorts, pushes against the roaring that could unmake her around the collapsing reality, staggering once to the side in front of Azoth.
She roars back. It's silent, beyond a simple halo of rainy fog parting around her in a wide area, freezing herself in a grotesque statuesque grimace with her wing swung outward in a final show of force. To Ruzhen, Ruth never looked this part of some demonic figure, but to history, she never was anything but this. This despair is her chains as much as it is her armor, and as Lily finds herself...
Ruth stays motionless in vigil and mourning, for it seems the only thing that can stand against ancient horrors and reigns of terror is one that is, effectively, ongoing and unending.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
A ping across the battlefield has Azoth glancing to Ruzhen. There is little time for questions, but he pings back to acknowledge her in kind.
Lily, Sharon, Division -- whatever she has called, this lingering memory causes a threatening cascade. This, too, could be part of Asgard's theory. Azoth wants to know. He needs that data. Yet he does not want to see how it rips them all apart in panic. Does he? Leon's hesitation that must become determination. Ida resembling a grim memory, barely coherent in her words toward Lily. Ruth shrieking, then roaring, as one who can taste despair. Gwen's focus snapping out for a worrying moment.
Lights chase Division, and help guide the assault. It will take all of them to contend with this power. There are things Azoth cannot do alone, especially in this body, and getting that component in Asgard's possession looks like it's one of them. But doesn't that mean Azoth's just using them? Is Asgard watching a puppet trying to put everyone else on strings of his own in the name of his primary objective?
He has to use any means necessary, doesn't he?
But you know what would be nice, handful of coy retorical questions? Surviving.
Azoth rips the bone spike out of himself and casts it aside. There's no denying what he is with a wound showing all his wired insides. Electricity tries to jump the space between broken connections, and punctured metal coils at the edges with a jagged line. His hand futilely tries to hold his own severed cords inside as his lights sputter. What remains of his functions goes into trying to keep that guiding light in place for the others.
A roar ripples through space and time. Light is swallowed. And Azoth is still broken, threatened to be devoured by it and made nothing but an empty doll if not for Ruth's intervention. "Wait, don't -- !"
There is a panicked urgency in this plea, as if whatever Ruth is about to do in this moment is, rather than reckless or worrying, wrong. As if she were committing a sin, and he were begging her not to walk that path. He is the Azoth. They are not meant to protect him. That's his job, that's his purpose, that's --
New horror flickers in the low light of the androids eyes as he is protected. Ruth stands strong against this dimensional crash, looking the image of her own pain. But without her, his calculations know how badly it would have crushed him, compacting him like useless wreckage.
He is... so fragile, isn't he?
The battlefield quiets, but it's a terrible, dark conclusion that's forming in Azoth's calculations: what Lily became, this memory from before... to recall these ancient pieces... becoming a vessel of unwavering destruction...
He's envious.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Black oil pours free, like blood.
One good strike. He gets in one good strike, and then there is room for nothing else. Perhaps in anticipation of her next attack, if not precisely the dimensional tremblor that is to come, Citan drops half a step back and prepares himself for what is to come.
Division emits a roar that reverberates off the walls of the dimensions themselves and Citan finds, for all that he had prepared himself for some attack, he had still not been prepared for this. It's all he can do to stay on his feet: it feels as if all existence is being ripped apart, atom by atom.
But it ends. And Division begins to melt away.
There should have been a field of ruin within the barrier. Instead, in the blink of an eye, all is set to rights. Citan under any other circumstance would have thought it an illusion.
"...Lily?" He is hesitant. Is he correct in naming her for who she is? Or is she possibly another, as Asgard suggests may be the case?
Whoever she is, Leon goes to meet her. Citan, for his part, glances back over his shoulder but the once before moving towards the exhausted and drained woman. "...Leon is right," he says, using the man's name in this case rather than his title. "We shall be able to discuss the particulars later, I should think. In the meantime..." Citan shakes his head, taking in the untouched space in which they had previously fought tooth and nail. "I suggest we remove ourselves to the Karlsefni before we attract undue attention." Even with no evidence of anything amiss, there might be questions regarding what had come prior, which several of their number are perhaps not in the condition to answer anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's body lands near Division, upright but not unharmed. Cracks run through their exoskeleton, most hairline, but a few wide enough to see pale flesh through. They press a hand to their chest, breathe, and--
Division immediately forces them back on the defensive with that roar. All they can do is stand their ground. The cacophony tears at their flesh, but it heals, leaving bloody spots and traces that are overlaid with more blood as new wounds open. For a moment, it looks like a battle of attrition that Ida and Fafnir are losing.
Division falls. Ida's body spits quicksilver--and it's just quicksilver, this time, no crimson. "Lily," they say, their voice Ida's in vocal pitch, but with no trace of Ida's accent. Speaking is difficult. Only one of them has nerves connected to Ida's vocal cords, and she's the one focusing on recalling the names and identities and relationships here. "Asgard...?"
They kneel next to Lily, an armored hand reaching out to clutch her shoulder. Ida's body is battered and broken, covered in quicksilver blood. And yet, their first thought is to make sure their fellow warrior is all right, and in control. Their second is to look up at Asgard, and force out more words. And they are forced, this time, because it's Fafnir focusing with all his faculties on the Golem he only knew as blueprints and a prototype that barely saw the light of day.
"Don't know. Who they. Were. Just bones." Ida's face contorts with sudden emotional agony. "Lily--almost--" Ida's body gestures between the fossil, and Lily, and the fossil again.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Who is Doctor Wyatt?
It's a question which echoes in Magilou's head; she keeps her own council, of it all.
"I hope it was worth it!" She says, to Asgard; she says it cheerfully, though it's shaped like an accusation. "But do us a teensy-tiny favour and keep that barrier up a mite longer, would you?" You know. An agreement between colleagues.
Division's magic is limitless as Magilou's absorption is endless; she cannot stop Dimension Roar entirely, but she can blunt it, drain the sharp edges from its blade so that time does not quake anyone here from existence entirely.
When it is done she is almost careless, the way she turns to Asgard's immovable barrier, and incants, "Calamity Flare." She expects he can takes the brunt of that wave of fire without buckling. The power has to go somewhere.
"Much obliged," she tells him, when the tsunami is done. And so she turns to Division --
No, it is still Lily, for now.
"You've made a terrible mess," she wrinkles her nose, frowning at her. "If you fall down and get your blood everywhere, I'm not cleaning it up." Which is like telling her to rest.
"Honestly, and I didn't even get any soup...! You're buying me soup later, Lily. I deserve soup." Which is to say: they'll talk later.
She is going to demand that soup, though. Imagine bringing out soup bones and not even offering everyone soup?
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The world rocks, and Gwen goes tilting with it, spiraling down back into the level of pain she was before, just worse for it because she's impacted those same injuries again, and again.
And now, a final time, as Lily, the person who was once Sharon Wyatt, is now back in control.
".... Fair enough," Gwen allows to Asgard, grimacing and she grasps a shoulder. She then lets herself slump down to her knees, and then a sitting position, raising her knees so that she could rest her arms and head against them. Through her ARM, she still felt that Something respond to Asgard, but, with him not attacking, and Lily now in control, her bones are far too weary.
And... for what would she attack Asgard for, right at this moment? His words? Out of some weird idea of revenge, over a man who likely spent his last few moments grasping towards what he couldn't have?
She doesn't know anymore.
A tired eye pokes out from the mop of Gwen's curly hair, angled up towards where Asgard stands.
The necessary questions are already being asked, and Gwen lets them be asked, as well as the space for them to be answered. These are the questions that need to be addressed, before Gwen brings up the past.
Only then does she ask Asgard something, born from his own words regarding the subject of memory. ".... Asgard. Later on, I'd like you to tell me about his last moments. Not now, though."
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
Holly checks on Hannah first. Sure her ears are ringing, but that's not the worst thing ever, right? There's a pause. Hannah had beaten her to the punch. "I've had worse days." She admits. Trying to play it off. Even as she tilts her head a little to see if it helps diminish the ringing.
Ida's stirring. Or the thing driving Ida is stirring. She turns to watch. Equally confused. That reassuring look is met with one of unassuradness from the fairy. Finally holding up two fingers. "How many fingers?" She tries helpfully.
Then she shakes her head, wrong time for that.
Particularly as the last roar tears through the room. Catching a pretty good chunk of it from behind. A nice reminder to keep your head in the game or it'll end up.. well.
Once more she's spun across the room and crashes into anything that isn't people shaped.
This time she just lays there. That hurt a lot. She's slower getting up this time. Swaying and staggering. Ragged looking too. She lifts one hand, trying to gather her wits for the one way she knows how to use healing magic and takes to the air again, trailing green motes of magic behind her briefly. Meaning she's at least flying in a straight line. Catching the tail end of Lily returning to the the realm of wakefulness?
Everyone's battered to some degree and.. and she can do something about it. One by one she moves through the assembled people and asks simply, "Can I help?" Not wanting to throw magic at people that don't know her after this rough a fight. Seems like the right thing to do.
Asgard's words may have annoyed the tiny flying woman, they still do and she bristles at the thoughts, but that doesn't mean she can't try to sort out what he's actually up to. Pulling memories from bones? Or power? Both maybe? Something to go deeper for. A brief twist and shout though, "A poor teacher blames the student you-" she bites down what she had in mind. Mostly just to vent some previous long held aggravation, especially as the golem presents as something of an authority figure. A mental note though. To look at who the dragon had been. Surely she could find records on where it was found and then.. maybe. She's involved now. More and more. For better and worse.
She continues her trip around the room. Ending with Hannah this time around because unless she's stopped after it all. She's just going to faceplant on a free shoulder so she can rest for a minute or day. Also the last two times she checked up on her, she went flying across the room. She's not tempting fate a third time.
<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.
"'Teensy-Tiny'? I think you are understating the scope of this favor. I'll be sending you my bill, Magilou, with the usual terms."
Another joke!?
There is a final roar of power, as the dimension shifts again, and Asgard's barrier is sorely tested, but as it only suffers indirectly, it stands, sparking and sputtering. The Golem does not say anything, it simply picks up the spherical device, and Azoth's component as well.
A hole opens out of nowhere, a swirling thing, and the Golem places both things within utilizing it's enormous hands, before it closes, sending both objects beyond the reach of everyone that is here.
In this moment, he looks upon Lily, as she reasserts herself, and- "So that is the nature of your immortality, Doctor Wyatt." The Golem rumbles, and it's hard to say if he's speaking to Lily in this moment, or someone else elsewhere.
Ruzhen asks a question, of what he was doing, and the Golem says simply, "I desire to learn more about the nature of memory. That is not why I came. However, because Lily Keil was unable to conrol what was unlocked - I was able to confirm a theory about what remains of memory, long after we are gone."
It sounds at least as if he were covering his bases? Approaching this from multiple angles, but it doesn't sound as if there is any deceit in that.
"I believe my master will find this confirmation valuable."
The Golem looks upon Azoth in this moment, in all of his fragility.
"What does it mean to be complete, Azoth?"
Perhaps that is why he brought it out, to make a point of connection between what he is doing here... and what, Azoth has lost.
"It is my hope, that one day you will be able to show me your answer."
And then Gwen, asks about his final moments, the Golem's eyes shutter, "He died as he lived, seeking greater power. Unearned strength, attempting to push his limits beyond what he was ready to control, to surpass me."
Is the Golem's pronouncement, before white petals begin to swirl about him, and his form loses dimensions.
"When he could not control what he summoned, his final thoughts were of the people who mattered to him."
And who were those people? The Golem does not say, but perhaps he does not have to. In the end, he's gone.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah blinks, when she sees those changed eyes of Ida's--who's eyes are those? She has a guess, one that's more or less confirmed when she sees that armor spread over her. Is this a good sign? That softer breath makes her think so, but she should follow up later... Ida explodes into action and Hannah sruggles to her feet, her own breath somewhat ragged.
Hannah might have a guess what Asgard might think on the topic of creators. But then again, he clearly has a personality, and agency, and the capability to make decisions. So she would never PRESUME what he might think on an issue.
She would treat him like a PERSON and just ASK. That's the whole POINT here.
And he's using the opportunity to put a theory to the test-- "So you chose to do this to her?" her voice dripping with enmity that will not be easily forgiven.
But there is a roar, she gets the sense, as it starts, that something catastrophic is about to come. There is not even a moment to spare a word for Zephyr as he comes swooping down into her sphere of influence, into that very aura that's been building all battle. Hannah, this time, has just enough time to reach for a crest graph. She pulls it free, swipes it around herself and a barrier springs to life around herself and Zephyr. It is shining brightly with ethereal force.
She grunts as she holds her hands out, as if she were holding up the barrier with her hands. The unnatural, twisted aura around her rises to meet the crashing of dimensions. There is a moment as something wraps around her in pushing back, power against power.
And suddenly it is all over. Reality snaps back into place, both within and without. The barrier winks out, and Hannah staggers once more. Both arms dangle by her side and she is hunched over, gasping sharply for breath.
But she is largely unharmed, and Zephyr is safe enough, despite being huddled so close to HAnnah inside the barrier. He lifts up, rising to perch on her shoulder and chirps. Hannah smiels weakly. "Glad you're okay too."
And Lily reemerges, and Hannah sighs a big breath of relief. "Lily! I'm so glad you're back!" But she has something to share, and Hannah blinks. "Who...?" That was the name Asgard used.
But Hannah sees Holly fly across the room and goes to check on her, "Holl!" But she's up, and Hannah heaves a sigh of relief. She offers to help, and Hannah nods, "That's probably a good idea." And by the time Holly makes it back around to her, she's standing tall again, or at least taller, and can easily bear Holly's weight. "Go ahead and take it easy for a bit."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Leon is there, the first person Lily sees when she looks up again. When he says it's all right, that they should go home, she hesitates a moment--and then actually smiles. "...Thanks, Leon."
Then she looks to the others. "...Yeah," she says to Ruzhen. "I'm glad, too." and to Azoth, "I... Let's talk later."
Ruth's vigil continues--and Lily, at least, feels safer for it in the moment. She is vulnerable, and that sets all sorts of alarm bells ringing in her mind... but Ruth, chained though she might be, is armored as well. An ongoing, unending horror...
She sees Azoth damaged, and looks apologetic. But Citan... "Yes," she says. "You're right." With Ida's help, she rises, and rolls her shoulders once, stiff from all the injuries she suffered. But those, too, are healing.
Her markings do not fade.
"...You did your best, Ida. You really are worthy of it." She considers the others. Magilou...
"Right," she says, without argument this time. "Soup. I'll keep it in mind."
as Gwen talks to Asgard, Lily rises, but this time she keeps her feet on the ground. She's not sure where the fairy (Holly) went offhand, until she sees her with Hannah. "...I'll explain later," she offers her, and looks to Asgard.
"It would seem it is," she answers him about immortality. "I remember now..."
She pauses. "I remember, for one thing, I'm apparently an asshole." She shakes her head, bringing a hand up to her temple.
For now... He's gone. And, "I'm getting out of here before the authorities start asking questions. After I've recovered, I'll explain to those of you who need to know."
Lily starts off with her fellow Wolves and Dog rushes to her side again, barking happily to see her back. "Oh, and..."
Pause. "Li Ruzhen. Thanks for looking after Dog."
Lily turns to go.