2023-12-01: Dark Dawn
- Log: 2023-12-01: Dark Dawn
- Cast: Metatron, Jophiel, Zaphkiel, Dean Stark, Ida Everstead-Rey, Margaret, Rebecca Streisand, Ethius Hesiod, Link, Lily Keil, Cirea, Shalune Amira, Magilou, Hannah Curie, Jacqueline Barber, Xantia, Gwen Whitlock, Azoth, Holly, Billy Lee Black, Lunata Croze
- Where: Kattelox
- Date: December 01, 2023
- Summary: Several individuals in Kattelox, in late November, find a strange object underwater and collect it, not knowing it was the Sorcery Globe. A few days later... Three members of the Ten Wise Men attack Kattelox to retrieve it.
<Pose Tracker> Metatron has posed.
"Come one, come all!"
With a massive megaphone, this voice booms out over Kattelox City's downtown area. There, in the center of the market area, is a large beastfolk with an oxen-like face and a huge dark blue coat. He looks dressed to the nines and is a natural showman. He also stands north of seven feet tall, with a broad frame, and his voice would carry even without a megaphone. With a megaphone, though...
Well, everyone is going to hear this.
"Here at Marvelous Mason's Endless Emporium, we've found the Mother Lode! That's right! That holy grail of Diggers across Filgaia has been found by Marvelous Mason's Endless Emporium's Designated Diggers! And now! TODAY!"
Suffice to say, a large crowd has gathered. They stand in the square, packed in throngs throughout it. They are perched atop buildings nearby. Some children look on with binoculars, trying to get a good look. The very thing -- the alleged Mother Lode -- is behind Marvelous Mason, in a large wooden crate. It's enormous; it sits on a platform and, periodically, it rattles. This has a few people in the crowd nervous.
"We will witness it!"
Marvelous Mason grabs hold of a large rope -- yanks on it -- and the wooden sides of the crate fall away. They fall and reveal the so-called Mother Lode: a large orb of yellow light, and with rotating pieces of square shapes across its surface. Each of them glows with that some golden light; each also glows with Symbols, like those seen in Symbology. This is something that has been spoken of, since 499 PC, in hushed whispers. When it first came to Filgaia...
It was the omen that seemed to start all of this. The Metal Demons went on the offensive thereafter. Hellions came to Filgaia. The way between Filgaia and Lunar was opened. And, in turn, it became the tool of Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus in time... until his defeat, when it was loosed again into the world.
And now, it sits here.
The Sorcery Globe.
"Now! It will be 100 gella each to pose for a photo opportunity -- a Mother Lodie, we call it -- so please line up and KYAAAAAAAAGGHHHH--"
A beam of light descends from the heavens, slams into Marvelous Mason, and sends him flying off into a nearby building. He breaks through the wall of it. Then, there is a bolt of golden light -- symbols expand out from it, in rings -- and a massive man appears next to the Sorcery Globe. He stands up, a tall man -- and clad in armor, but unlike armor often seen upon Filgaia. It's as much part of his body as it is armor, and even the red breastplate and tabard is integrated into him. Cybernetics, and far more advanced than anything seen upon Filgaia in ages.
Or, perhaps, ever.
His eyes and much of his head are hidden, with a metal helmet that covers his eyes with a visor. That visor flashes red.
"It seems this undeveloped civilization has found the Quadratic Sphere!" he says. "Jophiel! Zaphkiel! To me! Activate our signatures--it is time to claim our prize!"
Then, he turns towards the crowd. They're fleeing; a few who hesitated step backward. He takes one step forward, and those begin to run. He speaks; this time, his voice BOOMS over Kattelox, like the megaphone that Marvelous Mason held. But, he need not hold one in hand; his hands are occupied with a massive high-tech sword and shield.
"I am Metatron of the Ten Wise Men, and fighting me will be the greatest achievement you'll ever have!"
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qde-sMMBH9s
DC: Metatron switches forms to Base Defense Weapon Metatron! DC: 1 turn has elapsed in the battle against Metatron! 4 turns remain!
<Pose Tracker> Jophiel has posed.
NOT LONG AGO
GESELLSCHAFT
"Not no~w, Tron, I'm watching my cartoons!" comes the older, protesting voice of Tiesel Bonne. The large television in the Gesselschaft's comfortable living room currently depicts a cute mischievous Hob that simply won't stop Gobbin'. The green armored man cackles and slaps his metallic thigh. "Now THAT'S comedy--"
Tron lets out an irritated sigh and snatches the remote from his hand. "This is important! Here--"
*click*
"Noo!"
The television screen switches to the news. "--Mayor Amelia is planning on making an announcement later this afternoon on the discovery of the 'Mother Lode', currently being displayed at one Mysterious Mason's Endless Emporium. This has been your exclusive scoop from Kattelox TV!"
Tiesel's mouth hangs open and dry. Then, he springs to his feet.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAT???"
"Someone beat us to it! I can't believe it!" Tron is already halfway into the hangar exit.
NOW
The Bonnes are in full covert mode by the time the crowd thickens in the Endless Emporium. Tron has a brown trenchcoat and hat on. Tiesel has an even large trenchcoat on, which barely conceals the shape of his armour. And Bon Bonne looks like three Bons stacked inside of a trenchcoat, which isn't actually that far from the truth.
"I can't believe it, that thing is--"
KYAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!
The beam of light comes from a slim-built, tall humanoid figure in a skintight suit, coloured in teal and powder blue. His entire head, saved for his nose and mouth, is concealed in a latex cowl with technologically advanced golden goggles.
"INITIATING SUPPRESSION TACTICS. LEVEL 1."
The mechanical man's hands raise, and more beams of light criss-cross around the field. One of them cuts close to a trio of children, screaming as they turn their heads behind them. A collision is inevitable--
DOOT
The beam scorches a material that sounds like... rubber. A small, foot-tall being takes the beam head-on for the children, and is left sizzling on the pavement! The Lego-headed being stares up with a X) expression and whispers:
BGM Interrupt - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fp81GzKarQ
"Don't forget... about me..."
The child grasps the singed Servbot's C-shaped hand. "Servbot! I-- I'll never forget you! I--"
BGM Record Scratch
"Number Sixteen, you're FINE so hurry up and let's get OUT of here!" Tron yells across the field. Servbot #16 pauses, and then goes 'tee hee' and bonks himself on his head, then scurries up and runs off.
The mechanical being raises its head. "FOOL. I SHALL ENJOY CARVING YOU INFERIOR LIFEFORMS INSIDE AND OUT... I AM JOPHIEL. CARVE MY NAME INTO YOUR VERY SOUL IN THE MOMENT OF YOUR DEATH."
<Pose Tracker> Zaphkiel has posed.
The crowd has already begun to flee in a panic. The few who remain count among them those who have frozen in terror... and those who would stand against the ones who call themselves the 'Ten Wise Men'.
Two beams of light have descended and resolved. They are followed at a short distance by a third.
At a glance, the third might look at home at any of Filgaia's colosseums. Tall and well-muscled, his long grey hair is slicked back to fall well past his shoulders. He does, and this is important for a reason we will get to momentarily, not wear a shirt. But here is where any resemblance to those who ply their skill at fighting on the bloody sands ends:
His eyes are pure white, without any pupils or irises. And across the left swath of his chest and at various intervals down his left arm are long lines of a glowing orange-red. They trace in right angled patterns, as if to inscribe some forgotten glyph or Symbol.
He bears with him a sword. To call the blade that the third one hefts casually over his shoulder 'massive' would be an understatement. But this is no mere slab of metal: the blade glints with a well-honed edge. This is the sort of weapon that would make master blacksmiths weep.
His brows beetle, as if he were studying what remains of the crowd. And then, the man grins.
"This might be fun after all. I thought for a moment you might all run away! Come on. Let's see what you can do!" He swings the weapon off his shoulder in a lazy, easy arc. "Call me Zaphkiel, of the Ten Wise Men!"
DC: 1 turn has elapsed in the battle against Jophiel! 4 turns remain!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
When Dean heard that the Marvelous Mason's Endless Emporium had found the 'holy grail of all Diggers,' he just HAD to go and see it for himself. He's on his tip-toes in the crowd, jumping up and down every so often to compensate for his short stature. He's got no problem hearing, at least, and so when the beastfolk makes the big reveal, he sees--!
"Hey, that's not a shovel," Dean complains, frowning at the strange orb of light.
Did he really think it was going to be a shovel??
It matters little either way, because before he can decide to either leave in disappointment or make the best of the situation, there is a searing beam of light, and suddenly three weirdos are on the stage. Dean shields his eyes with one hand, squinting.
"Is this part of the show?" he wonders to Rebecca. Fortunately, this is a question that doesn't need an answer. As two more of these so-called Ten Wise Men appear and shoot into the crowd--fortunately not lethally, just yet, but it was clearly not for lack of trying--Dean's eyes narrow, and he stretches out his hands, Twin Fenrir flashing into them. "...No, I got a gut feeling not," he concludes. "Rebecca! Whatever these guys are doing, we've gotta stop them!"
Without hesitation, Dean launches himself forward at the first of those who appeared--Metatron, with the strange shield and helmet. "HEY, YOU! You and your friends can't just barge in and take whatever you want! If you wanna get a photo--you have to wait in line like everyone else!!"
...He's probably joking...?
Regardless, as he shouts, he also swings the combat rods of his paired pistols around to impact with whatever part of Metatron he can reach. His armor looks impressive--but those rods of Dean's are superheating in an instant to white-hot levels of heat, and they might just heat the Wise Man's armor to scalding temperatures.
...At least, that's the intent.
GS: Dean Stark spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Metatron with Burning Magazine! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Somewhere in the middle of the crowd is a tallish woman in a warm wool coat and hat. A large wicker shopping basket is pressed between her body and the crook of her arm. No one in the crowd seems to have recognized her, yet, but there's good reason--Marvelous Mason is promising a far greater spectacle than one moderately-famous heiress-slash-Drifter from the other side of Aquvy.
Ida's lips curl in a frown as the crate shudders again. "Now, what do you think is really in there?" Ida says, turning to Hannah, beside her. "Everyone thinks they know what the Mother Lode is, but..." She trails off in mid-sentence as Mason grabs the rope, eyes fixed on the stage. Could this really be it?
Mason pulls, and the box falls away with a crash.
Ida's mouth moves, but no words come out at first--she pulls the basket tighter as she looks at Gwen, at her other side. Her eyes are wide as saucers, and the color is fading from her face. "That's..." Is it, really? She's never seen the Sorcery Globe in person, only in secondhand accounts circulated in some Drifter circles.
But it's still a terrible omen, if ever there was one.
"We need to get it out of here," Ida says, all thoughts of the practicality of this abandoning her. She reaches forward, trying to part the crowd, but the people ahead are already jostling to get a better look. "That thing's dangerous, people could--"
Light lances from the heavens. Ida's vision blurs into a wash of smudged color; she hears the sound of breaking plaster, a deafening silence, and then screams. When she finishes frantically rubbing at her eyes, someone else has taken Mason's place.
"Shit," Ida says, her voice tiny. The crowd starts to break apart in terror, and Ida shoves her way forward, dropping the basket. "No. Run. RUN!" The crowd finally parts, and Ida surges out, fists clenched. Her eyes dart between the three figures before focusing on Jophiel, the one who started shooting. Her hands open, and the flesh of her palms unravels into bloodless, clean-edged openings. Two metallic objects eject from inside, unfolding as they settle into her grip. A pair of heavy pistols--Devil's Due, and its Demon Arm companion. Ida's feet slide into a side-on gunslinger's stance. She takes a breath, and lets it out as a billowing cloud of white-gold chi.
Her nerves sing with adrenaline, and revisited trauma. She has no words for any of the Wise Men, yet--just a withering hail of gunfire as she targets Jophiel's center of mass and starts to empty both mags.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Jophiel with Chained Devil 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: Jophiel suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Chained Devil Form for 145 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Marvelous Mason, thinks the marvelous MARGARET, standing in the crowd. Margaret is dressed downish today, with one of her garish purple suit-coats (which she got long ago from clearance on Guild Galad, and which has sort of become the Hounds' uniform... because that's the clothing they'll give you if you tore your pants) along with a tulip-cut skirt and a very wide-brimmed hat. Add in her usual pipe and you have mysterious appeal, feminine but with urban appeal.
"So they've finally 'found' it," Margaret remarks to the adjacent Magilou. "'That object'... yes... 'It' has finally been 'found.'" A herbal-scented exhalation later and Margaret adjusts her hat to look better as they are brought to the full and comprehensive revelation of the greatest treasure of Diggery -- the capstone of this current 'Age of Ground Pirates' -- and it is --
"Huh," Margaret remarks.
Margaret actually doesn't recognize the Sorcery Globe.
"I did have a feeling it was something big," she adds, "but -- oh, doesn't it look impressive? Let's go get a pic"
vwoop
"ture ah I see the show's still rolling along." Margaret smiles politely beneath her hat as Metatron speaks ominous words. "Ooo," she says. "Thrilling~!"
Margaret turns herself around when another individual apparates into the area and you can see the *exact* moment she realizes what's going on for real-real, not for play-play, when she sees that SHRRAANKKK!! of deadly luminosity arc forwards towards children, smashing into a Servbot instead. That's not stage smoke.
She's pretty sure.
Sucking on her teeth, Margaret tells Magilou, "I feel an attack of responsibility coming on," and stows the pipe before unfastening the front of her jacket and letting it hang loose over her *previously undescribed sword belt* as she strides towards Jophiel. "You," Margaret tells him, "are--"
A pause as she sees Ida Everstead-Ray, who she's seen before.
"Oh," Margaret concludes, before sighing briefly and then suddenly erupting in nebular glows and popping a momentary hand-stand as she aims to smash both feet into the side of the so-called 'Wise Man', as if to overpower him!
"-- Wait, you shot your gun," Margaret concludes after she kips back up. She looks at Ida, and then, with dawning levels of concern, towards Jophiel. FINALLY, she draws her sword, which probably shows why Borgan wasn't all that worried about her backstab potentials, back in the day.
GS: Margaret has attacked Jophiel with make your own tarantino joke! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Metatron solidly guards Dean Stark's Burning Magazine for 105 hit points! GS: Poison blocked! GS: Jophiel takes a glancing hit from Margaret's make your own tarantino joke for 32 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Margaret!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"Dean all street hawkers talk a big game! They're just trying to rip honest folks off!"
It was hopeless, she knew, to talk him out of it, but here she was, going along to MARVELOUS MASON'S because Dean got caught up in whatever shiny object he thought he was going to find. Arms behind her head, she's walking at a slower gait, still not quite caught up to him on his tip toe jumping frenzy at the fringes of the crowd.
She's only caught up when he says it's- "What on Filgaia made you think it would be a Sho..."
The Sorcery Globe appears...
"...vel..."
Rebecca just stares at it, the Meteor that fell, the object that Vinsfeld used to casually throw them all away to another world. "Dean that's the-!" The searing beam of light cuts her off, as the beastman is thrown away, the conflict being set by the three STRANGE men that just appear. "Ten Wise Men!?"
Rebecca looks sidelong at Dean as he says his gut tells him it's not. "Think your gut's running on empty today! Told you we should have caught lunch rather than hurry off to see the show!"
But Rebecca, despite her protests doesn't DISAGREE, as she suddenly holds her hands over her ARM.
"Picture!? Dean they're obviously here to steal the Sorcery Globe!"
Rebecca doesn't do anything flashy, just while she's facing Dean suddenly her hand quick draws her Gun, as she fires off several shots as she aims for the man's big mouth.
"Got a rather high opinion of yourself." Rebecca remarks to Metatron, "But I don't think I'll be defining my achievements by our tussle with you at the end of the day."
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Metatron with Swift Revolver! GS: Rebecca Streisand has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is along when he so much as even hears rumors about a 'Mother Lode' having been found at last. It could just be him being nervous and overly cautious in the downtime between Azoth's true(r?) self having nearly shown him off the mortal coil and having to hear on the periphery the results of Grace's failed attempt to get her spacecraft running, but...
"Why is it rattling?" Ethius asks aloud, of the crate. If it's an unstable Refractor core, he suddenly feels the need to maybe stand at least a whole mile away from here, but... there is witnessing.
"Miss Jay," Ethius asides, "I---"
'KYAAAAAAAAGGHHHH--'
The words that Ethius hears next following that beam of light... he doesn't recognize what he sees, but he knows the meanings of the first half of that sentence. He takes off with a running start, finding better positioning off of someone's charmingly boxy low-polygon food truck to leap along the top of market fixtures. The unfamiliar terminology of the back half of the strange red visor-bearing cyborg spoken with immense confidence and certainty isn't as important to him in the moment.
Metatron of the Ten Wise Men - fighting him will be the greatest achievement he'll ever have.
On Ethius' own honor as an unwavering Flametaker, that should be 'Tuesday, then at least three weeks of paperwork and meetings about further measures he has to sit through.'
(Today is not Tuesday, which is one of many problems with this line of thought.)
"...Damn." Some emotion finally slips through in near-breathlessness as he has to vault over a low fence and push through a panicking stampede of Kattelox citizens, as a more mechanical man's piercing voice fires beams of light (one of which Ethius narrowly ducks under on the approach), and catching a better look at the Symbol upon the immense swordsman. It's a Symbol, he can recognize that as a Symbologist, but he has no time to ponder anything more than the resemblance because the complexity he sees in just a glance is--
Nevermind that.
Ethius looks all the part like a local Drifter, dressed in a worn duster and matching trousers, with only his neck and forearms betraying some of his Symbological tattooing. He takes a quarterstaff in hand - itself a low-tech weapon befitting a mere 'undeveloped' denizen looking to dash themselves in vain against Metatron.
With precision, alarming speed, and chanting together complex syllables and hand gestures in mid-movement, pointing a hand forward as he lands in a kneel with the terminal call of the spell.
"Recurrent Current!" Lights flare from what's visible of Ethius' tattoos as electricity surges to try and wreak havoc upon he of the Ten Wise Men.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Metatron with Recurrent Current! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
"Hey, careful, I wanna see too!" a young voice calls out from the crowd as Mason speaks. A green-clad boy with metal shield and sword on his back is caught up in the crowd trying to get to the front to see for himself what it is. Then there are loud noises, cries, and sudden panic as the crowd surges and moves in the opposite direction. Link is bounced and jostled, finally pulling his shield off his back and dropping into a guarded position forcing the crowd to part around him.
When noone is running around him any longer, he looks over the top of his shield blinking asking "What just happened? Umm, is this a fight now?" drawing the Hero's Sword off his back staying in his guarded position facing Metatron as people start attacking the three new figures!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The Mother Lode. Lily Keil is dubious that this is actually going to be something as big a deal as they're claiming... But she does sense a significant source of power nearby. Is it possible that they really found it?
She will witness, anyway. Or at least, that was the idea... until the burst of light descends. That massive man appears, and Lily frowns sharply. She recognizes cybernetics. And the--Quadratic Sphere?
The third, a gladiator by the looks of him. Such patterns...
"Heh," Lily says, as the crowd parts around her, fleeing behind. "...'Fun', is it?"
"I should probably be concerned more about the people you just scared," Lily admits. "...But if it's a fight you want, I can't find it in me to decline."
"Let's see how much you can take!"
Lily surges forward. Dressed in black, with armored clothes, she pulls a pistol from her hip--and extends her other hand. Dark miasma bursts into existence, wafting towards Zaphkiel to sap his vitality.
"I've been wanting a serious fight."
GS: Lily Keil spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Zaphkiel with Affliction! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Lily Keil gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Link has attacked Link with Shield Guard! GS: Link enters a Counter stance! GS: Link has gained 2 Combo! GS: Link's stances have changed from Counter to Counter and Hero! GS: Link has completed his action. GS: Metatron solidly guards Rebecca Streisand's Swift Revolver for 77 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Metatron gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
Cirea wanted to see the Sorcery Globe.
Honestly, she wanted to see anything cool that someone came up with, but what was on display was the Sorcery Globe. She's not particularly familiar with it; she wasn't on Filgaia (or, indeed, anywhere but her tower) while the Metal Demons were attacking, and she only knows Vinsfeld because the pool they used as a bath picked up the message.
But now? Now she gets to see it in all its glory.
"One hundred gella is really high!" Cirea has money, but she doesn't always carry it around because it's a little awkward for her to drag around a coin purse with her. Her usual method is to arrange for payment ahead of time, or beg someone else to pay and then pay them back, which she has so far done pretty reliably - she's not a moocher! (Well, not entirely a moocher.) Maybe she'll just sneak into a photograph and... wait, no, then how will she get a copy?
While she's trying to work through this conundrum, light blasts from the sky and completely drives it from Cirea's head. She drops about three feet, vanishing into the crowd and darting forward, zig-zagging around other people like a little blur.
Cirea pops back out, rocketing toward the downed Servbot. "Noooo!" she wails, seeing a robot her very own size downed, BRAVELY protecting a HUMAN CHILD - but then the Servbot pops back up and runs away.
"...oh," she says, before turning back to Jophiel. She holds her hands apart, as if gripping a ball - and then she is, holding a sphere of light. "I don't think you're much of a wise man, attacking a city like this!"
Cirea throws the sphere, both hands overhead; it half-flies, half-floats and begins to fire beam after beam at Jophiel, shrinking down as it expends itself in the attack. "And they're not undeveloped! They're just... rural!"
GS: Zaphkiel takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Affliction for 144 hit points! GS: Disease applied to Zaphkiel! GS: Poison blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
For someone who would hesitate to call herself an adult, Shalune's got it pretty well made aboard the Thames. She's got a garage that doubles as a living space when she's not roaming around or camping, she's got a pretty steady job fixing up anything that people bring to her whether it's a Gear or a toaster, she's got a means of flight propulsion which turns out to be pretty useful on an oil rig where important maintenance can be difficult to reach, and she has a remote tucked away in her jacket pocket that can summon an ancient horror that should remain dormant.
She's also close to Kattelox, and Shalune loves Kattelox as a place, regularly visiting it as she expands her strange new business empire. Maybe she's learned more from Jay than she ever expected. Either way, she's up in the air as the commotion builds in the marketplace below, sitting cross-legged on the base of the Little Dipper with several large rivets in a pile in her lap. In her hands is a power tool she hacked apart from Hyadean technology, driving the bolts home into a crane that hadn't been turning smoothly; she gives the start of the advertising patter a bit of her attention, but when it comes down to it someone shouting across the marketplace is just business as usual.
It's only when the sheet pulls away and a glint of light catches on the surface of the globe that she really pauses, the hairs on the back of her head going up. Shalune has known Lunata for a very long time, and has developed a deeply keen sense of when someone's gung-ho attitude is going to get them in significant trouble. Slowly, as if going any faster would light the touchpaper, she's directing her flying scooter down towards the nearest bit of solid land--
--and yelps as a sudden explosion of light doesn't rock her craft, but does make her yank the controls hard enough to send her spiralling to one side. There's a lost moment where she wonders why the ground is now the ceiling before her mind reasserts itself - when you use a modified scooter as an aircraft, this is rather a common occurence, and it's with a practiced hand that she wrenches the handlebars to one side and gives the control column a kick for good measure to right herself that little bit quicker.
"... is it that time again?" she grimaces to herself as she pulls a white rod off of a loop on the interior of her coat and clicks the end; her shotstaff telescopes outwards, held under one arm. For all that the newly arrived trio seem to be here to fight, she's not completely sure if she should join in just yet. "It must be Friday. Why do all the weirdos arrive on Fridays, anyway?" she mumbles to herself.
She spares the Sorcery Globe a glance, because one of them just mentioned the number ten and there are definitely not ten enemies here yet, and it's that 'yet' she worries about. "Shouldn't Wise Men, uh, be wise? Rather than aggressive?" she's kind of half-stalling for time as she does so, half-psyching herself up for the fight. "Though I guess maybe the argument is that it's just wise to be aggressive?"
And speaking of which, Dean and Rebecca have already pressed the attack, so it's not like Shalune can leave the situation alone. Pressing her lips into a line, she throws out a couple of emergency flares into the near distance, heaves her staff up into her hands, and sights along it at the yelling mechanical man. Margaret's handstanding dropkick is followed up by three long-range bolts of light, chased one after the other. "Mr Ethius! That thing seems like a real cool thing to break for once, I'm just saying!" she yells.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Jophiel with Emission Line! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Naturally, Magilou and Margaret came here to view this illustrious Mother Lode. And naturally, Magilou has dressed to the nines with the Menagerie's look: a top-hat too small for her head seated to one side of it, her white-blonde hair up in twin pigtails, all tied together with too many stripes from her jacket and pants, diamonds lacing up and down, checker-patterns on her lapel, and stars on the inside of the jacket. It is aqua and hot pink and leaf gree and yellow and -- it's a travesty, all right? It's a travesty showing too much skin and too little restraint.
If you ask her, she'd say she's blending in perfectly.
"Oh yes, obviously we need one of those," she insists, to Margaret, when the Mother Lodie is invoked. "Or two! Or three! Why, let's decorate the halls!" There's screaming, now, of course, but that doesn't seem to stop Magilou's enthusiasm at all. "But it looks like these fellows are going to get in the way... I'll take the Rokurou imitation, so you handle these, won't you?"
Oh, good, she at least recognises that horror is happening.
No, not just that --
'Magilou. You should take care. More is happening than we can see. Have you ever heard of... the Ten Wise Men? Because I have not.'
"And listen closely," she adds, in sly advice, "to what these 'Wise Men' have to say."
With that, she twirls away, to face --
"Zaphkiel!" She echoes his name, tapping a finger to her temple. "I know just your type! Swords-for-brains, am I right? Well, I'll make this easy for you... you stand before Magilou, the thousand-year sorceress! None are more wicked than I -- but enough about me! Let's hear about you!"
She gestures, and her paper doll circles next to her hand as a blue Seraphic glyph lights on the ground. "Hope this works... Aqua Split!" She invokes, as a blue ball of water saunters for Zaphkiel, lazily.
"Saaaay," she adds, when the spell is done, "Lily Keil... Zaphkiel... you guys aren't related, are you?! You simply must tell me if you are. Them's the rules!"
GS: Magilou has attacked Zaphkiel with Aqua Split! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou's stances have changed from Counter to Avenger and Counter! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Jophiel suffers a terrible blow from Shalune Amira's Emission Line for 208 hit points! GS: Cirea has attacked Jophiel with Raysphere! GS: Cirea has completed her action. GS: Jophiel partially evades Cirea's Raysphere for 111 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Metatron solidly guards Ethius Hesiod's Recurrent Current for 104 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Metatron gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Poison blocked! GS: Your next attack with the Counter flag will display with the name Quickstep. GS: Gamble: Moderate! Zaphkiel takes a solid hit from Magilou's Aqua Split for 84 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zaphkiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hex applied to Zaphkiel! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! (That's 20 more than usual!)
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah is in the crowd, having accepted an invitation from Ida to come check out the supposedly stupendous discovery. She's not famous, and is dressed as she always is when travelling: denim jacket and jeans, sturdy boots, and a satchel. She's a bit on the shortish side, like Dean, but isn't struggling or jumping around to get a better view of the discovery.
Because she can do this thing called 'cheating'.
Zephyr has found an unused perch on a building's awning, and giving Hannah a peek at... a box.
Hannah frowns a little in concentration, eyes closed. Ida asks what she things it is... "Mmm... dunno. It's in a box so Zephyr can't get a look at it. Maybe some new Zeboim-era machine or somethin'? Dunno."
The sorceress blinks when the Globe is revealed, even though she's looking squarely at the back of the person in front of her. "Is... is that what I think it is?" she asks Ida in a hushed whisper.
Zephyr squawks in alarm as lights come crashing down from the sky, as the crowd starts to turn, and pandemonium takes over for excitement. Hannah rushes forward as Ida does, fighting against the crowd. "Zephyr! Get airborne! We need to keep people safe!"
The hawk takes to the air as the sorceress pushes through a throng of people, already going for a crest graph glowing a frosty, icy blue. She lifts it up and then slams it into the ground. A tidal wave of ice, full of jagged shards and sharp edges, the absolutely cruelest manifestation of winter, surges forward for Jophiel. Anything it touches it tries to aggressively spread onto, trying to encase its victim and hold them in place.
GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Jophiel with Winter's Grasp! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Jophiel takes a glancing hit from Hannah Curie's Winter's Grasp for 45 hit points! GS: Entangle and Slow applied to Jophiel! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Today is a big day. The legendary Mother Lode has apparently been found. Jacqueline Barber, of course, is a very curious person. She isn't going to miss a reveal like this - and the Caravan Kinship happens to be in the area, so it isn't much trouble at all to divert course and make their way to Kattelox City.
She stands among the crowd, waiting and watching for the big reveal. What is the Mother Lode? Something found in those ruins is unlikely to be something as simple as a pile of coins... some manner of technology, perhaps? Maybe a clue as to the nature or origins of the Reaverbots guarding it... Her mind races with possibility - though she snaps to attention the moment Marvelous Mason's voice rings out. She looks toward Ethius curiously as he starts. She waits, drawing in her breath, and then, the big reveal...!
"...Wait. That's... the Sorcery Globe." Jacqueline starts with a frown, a puzzled look crossing over her face. It's hard to forget it - she remembers the day she first saw it quite well. She doesn't get much time to question why or how it made it here before a beam of light smashes into Marvelous Mason, sending him crashing through a wall - and from a golden light comes a massive armored man. She catches those words, 'undeveloped civilization', 'Quadratic Sphere'... she makes a few mental connections, but she stows them away for now, as chaos breaks out.
"Everyone! Please evacuate calmly and carefully!" Jacqueline shouts out over the crowd. "If you came here with someone, make sure to locate them and don't lose sight of them!"
And then, she takes a step forward as people begin to flee, setting her eyes on the one who appeared first. Metatron... she looks to the other two. Then Jophiel, then Zaphkiel. Familiar faces are already engaging the others.
"I don't know why you're after this... but Wise Men or not, I can't stand by and let someone so brazenly use force to get whatever they want." Jacqueline replies. She draws from the deck on her left gauntlet, setting it into a slot - and with a gesture, sends a burst of disruptive static shooting toward Metatron! "Just who are you?"
She looks toward Ethius, moving to close the distance between the two of them.
"Do you know anything about them?" She asides, lowering her voice.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Metatron with Static Burst! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia was not here for the presentation. Of course she wasn't. Following a meeting the Black Wolves had set up with a certain shady organization, she had... unilaterally taken leave of them. In none of the best conditions, going by her erratic behavior at the time. But, following her appearance in the battle in the Solaris base on Sielje, and a private encounter that only the other person involved is aware of, she's been mentally recovering from all of that. And thus, today...
Like a bolt of lightning - almost literally - a bright flash crashes down from above. Seeking to land directly on top of Zaphkiel with one leg extended, Xantia's body is already wretched in an electrical aura, the force of her landing enough to leave a crater in its wake. Straightening up from the impact no worse for wear, she grins at this self-proclaimed 'wise man' with the big sword.
"You look strong. You're right, this might be fun."
Leaping backwards, she somersaults through the air, sending a wave towards Lily soon after landing. Then she looks the tiniest bit sheepish about just suddenly turning up again like this. "...Hi. Sorry to worry you. I'm good now. We'll talk later, 'kay?"
Right now, they've got a fight on their hands... and over what, exactly? She did hear the rumors... could this actually be the storied Mother Lode? Well, that's of little concern to her, other than the fact that it would attract attention, and thus was a convenient way to renew contact with her friends like this.
"Alright then! I'm all about serious fights, bring it on!"
GS: Xantia has attacked Zaphkiel with Elemental Fury! GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xantia's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Xantia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Metatron solidly guards Jacqueline Barber's Static Burst for 0 hit points! GS: Blind and Drowsy applied to Metatron! GS: Shield applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
In the crowd is a familiar head of short curly pale red hair-- or it would be if she wasn't wearing a black flat brimmed hat. Still, she's plenty noticeable, leaning in by Hannah and Ida. The events of last week may still weigh on Gwen's mind, but a bit of time has allowed her to regain some of her usual cheer. "... Eeeh, cursed items're a dime a dozen, Ida. Besides, if y'look around us? We ain't the only ones that wanted a good looksee. Lots of familiar faces."
Making light of the situation in an attempt to amp a friend's spirits is a good sign Gwen's in a better mood.
That, and ignorance.
Ida confirms that it *is* the Sorcery Orb, and Gwen's easy smile falters. She scratches her cheek. "Maybe you can flash some coin over there n' make im' see the error of his ways? Easy peesyyaaahhh that did not take long, did it?"
She's keeping calm, but her eyes are scanning around, noting the exit points. "... Let's keep em' busy while the townsfolk evacuate, n' we'll figure out what to do from then on." She rubs her hands together. "Reckon I'll take Muscles over there. Looks like my kinda guy. You n' Hannah deal with the others, eh?"
What's there to be afraid of, when there's a Lily and a Magilou already there? "Hey, hey, save some meat for the rest of us, will ya Magilou? You too Lily." Up walks the hapless courier, straight up to Zaphkiel. "Well, then, you can just call me Super Courier Gwen Whitlock! N' you're in luck, 'cause my dance card's all free, n' I don't mind sharin', Zaph--"
Pause.
Gwen makes a face. "Zaph-kie-l? Is this one of those sky city names? Y'all need t'calm down on the namin' conventions up thereee-- Xantia!!" She points towards the arriving young woman, and nods, listening to her explanation. "S' fair. Ain't like I was in that great a mood last week."
Disregarding the danger someone poses is an old trick, but a potentially useful one. All this time, Gwen had been strolling up, looking relatively harmless compared to the others that have arrived thus far.
If Gwen's sudden punch to Zaphkiel's face connects, she'll add evidence she's up for a challenge.
GS: Formation! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Zaphkiel with Special Delivery! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
DC: Jacqueline Barber switches forms to Caravan Leader Jay!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth has been hovering around Kattelox. The idea was to get some distance between himself and other familiar faces after the last operation with Solaris where the Watcher had inflicted her point and punishment with painful clarity. Now there's megaphones and a 'Mother Lodie' -- exactly the Drifter drawing discovery he does not need but cannot ignore himself.
Especially not with readings like that.
But staying to the fringes, hood up and skulking on rooftops was only a good plan until three of presumably ten rambunctious figures joined the party. Azoth surveys the battlefield, scanning Drifter combatants engaging with these aggressors. They don't need his help, they don't --
It isn't as if he can ignore it. Not in objectives, not in overrides. Not with the faces he sees down there, either.
"Hi, I'm cutting in!"
There's no figure to match to the voice, not until Azoth drops seeming straight out of the sky in a streak of blue and fuchsia, aiming to land directly for Zaphkiel in a detonating explosion. Azoth rides his own explosion, flipping out of it to land with a bounce on his feet.
A blade of light manifests from his upward turned palm before it lazily orbits around him. He glances at the company with him and smiles before regarding Zaphkiel.
"I guess you're in luck today, Zaphkiel. This should be interesting..."
GS: Azoth has attacked Zaphkiel with Voltage Drop! 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.
<Pose Tracker> Metatron has posed.
"You are mistaken! This planet has no claim to the Quadratic Sphere. It is far beyond your civilization's -- or its precursors -- ability to create," Metatron says. He looks up as Dean comes crashing down, rods superheating brilliantly, and then they slam down--
With a CLANG into the huge shield on Metatron's arm, which he swings upward. "Class 8-C weapons with a superheated element," he remarks. "Allow me to adjust the barrier accordingly--"
And then across his shield, Symbols flare; hundreds of them, gold and silver, and a light flashes over the shield. It doesn't melt, as the make-up of the shield shifts, and it disperses the heat across it.
"We cannot steal that which is already ours," Metatron tells Rebecca. "And that you do not know the honor of fighting one of the Ten Wise Men--"
Her bullet hits his skin. A second before it does, his lips and teeth are covered by a dozen Symbols that flash and change. The bullet bounces off his lip.
"--suggests you are ignorant of our power. A correction, then."
Electricity crashes down upon him. Sparks explode and fly; lightning arcs from Ethius's spell to hit other parts of his armor. Metatron turns his head towards Ethius, as Symbols flash over his armor. "A Symbologist, but the spell is different--ah. I know. From the Pangalactic Federation, are we?"
Then, he looks down to Link. Eyes looking at him over his shield; a boy like the others... but no, not like the others. Because...
"You," Metatron tells Link. "Why do you not flee?"
He looks at Jay, after she asks a question. His expression is impassive -- and unfazed by the earlier gunsho he look to the mouth. He raises his shield -- and the static burst erupts over it, causing him to slow for a moment, as he advances.
"One of the Ten Wise Men," he says. "Rightful rulers of the universe."
Metatron swings his shield forward, and the Symbols across it gleam. The red triangle on hte bottom of it shines, then, and it explodes out a blast of green light. The beam of energy explodes across the battlefield -- for Dean, so close, and then towards Link and Rebecca, before finally hurtling at Jacqueline.
After the shield's blast of energy fades, a few crackling motes of green light winking out, Metatron turns. His visored eyes regard Ethius for a moment. "You... are a long way from home!"
Then, he swings his sword down. Blue light erupts around him, in an circle -- and then explodes down the length of the sword. It shoots across the ground, several fangs of blue-white light that cleave across the earth, and go rushing towards Ethius.
GS: Metatron has attacked Dean Stark with Burst Beam! GS: Metatron has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Burst Beam! GS: Metatron has attacked Link with Burst Beam! GS: Metatron has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Burst Beam! GS: Metatron has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Air Slash! GS: Metatron has gained 2 Combo! GS: Metatron has attacked Metatron with Metaguard! GS: Metatron enters a Counter stance! GS: Metatron has gained 3 Combo! GS: Metatron has activated a Boss Action! GS: Metatron has completed her action.
DC: 2 turns have elapsed in the battle against Metatron! 3 turns remain!
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a glancing hit from Metatron's Burst Beam for 55 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Dean Stark solidly guards Metatron's Burst Beam for 70 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Ethius Hesiod suffers a terrible blow from Metatron's Air Slash for 120 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Metatron!
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
Holly has heard about a thing! That thing has shown up in books (That might have burnt up..) and that means she must see said thing! She also has a vague idea that the thing should be lost again, but that's more a gut instinct and her natural curiosity overrides any sense that might have been.
She's floating above the crowd, not having realized a few familiar faces would be kicking around. The thing in question is being treated like a gaudy tourist trap though and socially inept recluse or not, that seems tacky. And ill advised. Also she doesn't carry that kind of money on her. Leading to contemplations of just doing the simple thing. Floating out of reach and... no one could operate the camera for it.
She does drift steadily towards it though, slowly back and forth.
The sudden attack and movement and.. that's a lot to take in for the recluse and she actually drifts there until her head catches back up.
Hearing Cirea's voice probably helped. She darts towards the cluster of people, recognizing a situation gone awry, to put it lightly and has conjured up her paintbrush. Just.. don't ask where. "Rural counts. Sort of." She's seen some history books. Though she does look to Jophiel after as Cirea starts her own attacks, she joins in. Of course.
She flips the brush up, drawing a curse, letting it hang there, a faint glow. She places a hand against it and the thing fades away. Appearing before Jophiel, a lingering curse. Clinging, slowing.
GS: Holly has attacked Jophiel with Quiescence! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Holly has completed her action. GS: Jophiel takes a glancing hit from Holly's Quiescence for 32 hit points! GS: Interrupt and Mute blocked! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Link accepts Link's Shield Guard for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Link! GS: Link suffers a terrible blow from Metatron's Burst Beam for 170 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Xantia's Elemental Fury for 174 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Xantia! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! (That's 20 more than usual!) GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Gwen Whitlock's Special Delivery for 209 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! (That's 25 more than usual!) GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Azoth's Voltage Drop for 209 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! (That's 25 more than usual!) GS: Jacqueline Barber solidly guards Metatron's Burst Beam for 65 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
The Mother Lode is a hard thing to ignore. Something like that could change Filgaia even more than it has been, or bring total chaos - regardless, a Refractor of that scale could make some people very, very rich.
Despite the promise of a once-in-a-lifetime showing, Billy Lee Black has not brought the children of the orphanage. He has a bad feeling. A feeling which bears out when what is revealed is EXTREMELY NOT a Quantum Refractor.
Despite the tragedy that befell the Order, the attire of an Etone still gets some measure of respect - maybe even sympathy. But it does mean when the strange mechanical man appears and Billy yells, "GET BACK!" people do as told. Metatron? What kind of name is that? Billy shepherds people away from the conflict for some seconds while the initial few fighters launch their attacks.
Then he surges in while Metatron contends with the others, swinging a fierce booted kick for the side of his head, then sliding both gunsmokes up against his head and emptying them BOTH.
"I think we're not going to get along, brother," Billy says.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Metatron with Sky Walker! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Metatron heals Metatron! He gains 190 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Metatron suffers a terrible blow from Billy Lee Black's Sky Walker for 324 hit points! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"It can't be ALL street hawkers! Some of them've got to be honest! And maybe this one was one of them!" Dean argues with Rebecca.
And later: "He said it was a Digger!! Shovels are for digging! They're diggers!"
And then the lasers fall, and the three Wise Men arise. Rebecca explains a crucial detail to him, and he double-takes at her. "Wait, THAT'S the Sorcery Globe?? But when I saw it last, it had more pasta!!"
...dean no that's the saucery globe...
Regardless of the serial misunderstandings that have taken place thus far, Dean is ready to stand up and stop the Wise Men from their rampage. Whoever they are and whyever they want the Sorcery Globe, they've made it clear their intentions are bad. Dean doesn't need to understand anything besides that.
There's plenty of other Drifters in the crowd ready to stand up and oppose them too. There's Ida over there, and Hannah near her, and Azoth over there, and Magilou with pigtails over there, and many many more! Of immediate relevance is Ethius, Jay, Shalune, and Link, who are all stand up against Metatron with him and Rebecca. Of them, Link's the only one Dean doesn't already know.
"Yeah, it's a fight! The rest, I'm not really sure about!" he tells Link earnestly. He looks over at Ethius, Jay, and Shalune. Ethius is in top of the offensive like he always is, Shalune is trying to direct his aggression, and Jay tries to find out more. Dean crooks a smile their ways--they're all as reliable as always in their respective ways. It's the same with the rest of his friends, fighting the other two Wise Men. Whatever's going on, they won't let them have their way!
...But it's unquestionable that he doesn't know anything about these guys, and while that's not going to stop him from taking action, it does mean he gawks when Metatron's armor soaks not just the hit but the heat. "Woah! Symbology on a shield? I thought that was just for magic!" He looks over at Ethius and Jay. "I thought that was just for magic!" he tells the two people who are likeliest to have known it is not, in fact, just for magic.
But--huh. Metatron's claiming that the Sorcery Globe already belonged to them. "Even if that's true, that doesn't mean you have to come jumping into a crowd blowing things up! You could've really hurt someone!" Dean insists. And, because Metatron and his friends did introduce themselves earlier, he adds, "By the way, my name's Dean! Dean Stark!"
They really are arrogant, though. Metatron might be tougher than he realized, but calling fighting them their greatest achievement and that they're ignorant and need correcting... is just rude!!
And that's before claims of being the rightful rulers of the universe.
"I didn't elect you!" Dean shoots back, even if he was technically talking to Jay. He sees the Symbols light up on Metatron's shield, and Dean raises Twin Fenrir defensively, ready to soak whatever counter-blast he emits. ...It's a hell of a counter-blast, too, pouring forth towards him and the others, barely sweeping off his crossed combat rods. It's a significant piece of technology, synched extremely well with its wielder since the day he received them, but it takes all he's got to stand his ground, teeth grinding as he feels like *he's* going to melt instead.
The power ebbs, and Dean pants, leaning to one side. Fortunately, he *hasn't* melted, but the air around him is so hot it's hard for him to breathe. What's he talking about to Ethius...? Oh well, it doesn't matter! As Billy launches in for a kick after helping people evacuate, Dean grins and follows suit with another sweep of his rods, going low where Billy goes high in an attempt to knock Metatron off-balance.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Metatron with Violence Vice! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Post-cast, Ethius has a moment to regard everyone throwing themselves at the enormous cyborg knight. "Dean! Rebecca--" Ethius is distracted for a moment because the level of Symbological depth in those teeth outright hurts his eyes and mind.
It's like being a wizard in a... very flat world carried by a turtle, knowing you can see an eighth color, and learning you can also see into a ninth you're not supposed to. He brings his forearm over his eyes as Metatron regards him.
The element of surprise is the only weapon he has when fighting technologically uphill. This opponent's assertion and presentation goes well beyond that!
"You're not of the Aldian Empire." Ethius is very good at pretending he's holding his composure. With widening eyes as he lowers his forearm... "even the most skilled of their conscripts' Symbologists don't have that level of precision."
"...And no one would ever confuse you for the Vendeeni." The two greatest enemy powers against the Pangalactic Federation, a few of which he's personally scraped against in the course of his work.
When Jay's question is answered, and Ethius is asked somewhere in all this, he misses Link bravely and courageously going at Metatron from his right flank.
"I have never heard of nor witnessed this--" And that's as far as he gets before the Wise Man returns power in earnest, where Ethius channels the Symbological defensive spell to no avail. The fangs of light crawl past that, popping him off his legs and tumbling him violently across a mercifully short range of the Kattelox grounds.
He catches himself in a kneel, planting the quarterstaff against the ground with a loud, challenging echo. (It is far too quiet in comparison to what's being loosed here.)
"It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from... the lives of these people are not yours to toy with." Again, a swift motion from a short casting ritual and slurred syllables, throwing a hand forward at the final call. "Optic Flare!"
A test of the level of sensitivity of Metatron's optics with a briefly disorienting streak of searing heat - at least, buy himself a handful of seconds to gather.
In those seconds, Ethius gives a most grave admission, of a man who was once willing to stand and fight against no less than fourteen skilled Drifters to keep them from Demetrioi and greater truths.
"I cannot guarantee your safety against..." He can't complete the sentence.
GS: Metatron takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Violence Vice for 108 hit points! GS: Break applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Power Burst, Reaction bonus, and Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
"Well, Umm..." Link starts to answer, till a burst beam strikes his shield full on. The boy grunts as the beam slams into his shield knocking it down and sending the boy tumbling backwards before he comes back up on his feet with the help of his sword shoved into the ground.
"Owwwww! Who asks questions and attacks! It's because a hero doesn't run when people need help!" Link complains shaking the shield and checking if it was broken. Then he sets up in an attack position again, watching as the others attack Metatron looking for an opening. As Billy and Dean each launch their own physical attacks and others follow up from a range, Link suddenly surges forward, letting his shield drive forth only to drop it to his side as he jumps at the Wise Man slashing down and forward with his own blade.
GS: Link has attacked Metatron with Jump Slash! GS: Link has completed his action. GS: Metatron solidly guards Link's Jump Slash for 73 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Metatron gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca for the longest time reconsiders her life choices, after Dean speaks. "Forget about the Shovel-!" She finally says, exasperated, "And pasta!? Wait you can't be thinking of the- DEAN!"
Why. Why this she thinks.
As the Wisemen call Ethius out, Rebecca raises an eyebrow at Ethius, as he calls out to them, then looks back at Metatron. "Yeah? If you're so powerful, how'd you 'misplace' it for so long?" Rebecca asks, with a none too subtle jab, "Sounds to me like Odessa schooled you in what power is if you had to wait until now to take it back." Indeed, she's perhaps trying to make him upset, because there's so much around that could be collateral damage if he had a mind to hurt uninvolved people.
Indeed, as the bullet bounces off of his lip, she looks subtly spooked, "Huh, that's new." She says, trying to feign not being so surprised.
The correction comes, as the symbols on his shield glow, and Rebecca's already leaping, diving out of the way. The explosion ripping shrapnel of shredded debris towards her.
Hitting the ground hard, she scrambles back up. "For the love of-!" Her other hand takes ahold of her Original Medium, as she mentally discerns she's over a Ley hex.
More shots, but they're not intended to damage, just distract, as suddenly the area glows around him. A puddle just appears in mid-air, drip, dripping over her, before it becomes pressurized streams of water that surge down into the Wise Man.
"Rightful rulers of the-!? Oh come on! You expect anyone to take you SERIOUSLY when you're saying things like that?"
Rebecca waves a hand towards Link, "You're gonna get the kid all riled up fantasizing you're a big deal or something, not some chromed up conman with delusions of grandeur-!" A sideways glance at Dean, "You WOULD be sure about some things if you actually listened-! Now be a good role model and keep the kid out of trouble!"
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Metatron with Ley Blast! GS: Rebecca Streisand has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action. GS: Ethius Hesiod spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Metatron with Optic Flare! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Zaphkiel has posed.
Most have fled. But not all. Not all, at all.
Magilou shouts her challenge to Zaphkiel, proclaiming her might as a thousand-year-old sorceress. He cocks his head to the left, as if to consider this.
"Thousand years... eh? Well, well. It's been some time since I've faced a species as long-lived as that," he remarks, crinkling his forehead. "But me? I'm much older."
Lily is among those who stand up to meet Zaphkiel's entreaty. Darkness swirls about him in the next instance, briefly hiding even his form from sight. Emerging from the miasma, he shakes his head like a dog might after getting soaked in the rain. It's almost as if he has brushed some part of the spell off in its entirety. "An interesting technique!" he tells her. "But can you keep that up?!" He dives ahead for her, his blade tracing in countless arcs as it leads the way.
Water, when it comes in its nearly-lazy way, comes in with a smashing hit that serves to interrupt his duel with Lily. He drops back, rounding in the direction of the sorceress.
"Related? Ha! That's a good one!" he barks back at Magilou, appparently well-amused. "Still, that was an interesting spell. I haven't seen one like that in a while. Try this!" He swings his sword; he never nears Magilou, not at all-- but perhaps the the force of the edge of his blade, slicing through the air like so, will reach her all the same.
Xantia introduces herself to him courtesy of her lightning-infused leg: there is a crack like thunder that rolls across the streets as she makes her impact and the scent of ozone in the air. By any account she has dealt him a mighty blow... and yet he still stands. At Xantia, he flashes a wild grin.
It's an expression that is only dimmed somewhat by bemusement when Gwen, having introduced herself to the lot of them, makes what is first perhaps a woeful misunderstanding about her opponent and then closes to punch him right in the face.
Zaphkiel doesn't even make the pretense of attempting to dodge or block the blow.
"A cybernetic arm out here?" he wonders aloud, looking her up and down. "Funny. I thought this was an undeveloped planet. Camael! Go check your data again!" Still, he rolls his shoulders in a lazy enough shrug. "But it doesn't matter. It'll be more fun like this... right?"
'Hi, I'm cutting in!'
Zaphkiel, it seems, has more than a few dance partners tonight. There is a detonation that might serve to detonate a small building on the spot where Zaphkiel stands courtesy of Azoth, but when the dust clears...
The Wise Man is still standing. A strange cyan fluid, tinged with silver, rolls down the side of his face; Zaphkiel thumbs it idly. "Not bad." His mouth quirks in a lopsided grin, his gaze taking in Azoth, assessing him. "...Ha. I was right. This isn't just 'any' undeveloped planet! You're a Class 10 android!"
He hefts his blade in another easy arc. "Now, this is more like it!" he declares, closing in on the place where his newest trio of opponents stand. His sword... moves. It must move, because otherwise, it would have had to have been in more than once place at once, as he strikes at Gwen, Xantia, and Azoth in turn.
GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Lily Keil with Spinning Slash! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 3 Combo! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Magilou with Phantom Slash! GS: Zaphkiel enters a Counter stance! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Sword Dance! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Azoth with Sword Dance! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Xantia with Sword Dance! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zaphkiel has completed its action. GS: Metatron solidly guards Ethius Hesiod's Optic Flare for 54 hit points! GS: Interrupt blocked! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Metatron has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Jophiel has posed.
Ida is the first to surge out towards the Long-Ranged Suppression Weapon. It's not the ideal form of combat for Jophiel -- normally, he'd be a few kilometres away, raining death unseen. No matter, the shield should--
CRACK
--Devil Due's bullets collides against a highly technological barrier that's only a few millimetres away from his skin, webbing out in a fine honeycomb of light that feels harder than any mythical metal.
"ASSESSING TECHNOLOGICAL FORM... DISCREPANCIES DETECTED FROM CARBON COMPOSITION. BUT IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE."
Margaret sees that the barrier doesn't immediately remove all sense of momentum, though -- as she comes in with both feet in her hand-stand dropkick, he is pushed momentarily sideways, landing against a prop of the Endless Emporium.
"HUMANOID CARBON... CLOSE-RANGE WEAPONRY AND SKILL DETECTED..."
Cirea's sphere of light comes up first as a warning on whatever heads-up peripheral Jophiel is wearing -- or most likely, integrated into himself. The machine twists and turns, using his perfect flight to inch from one position to another, though her beams prove more accurate than he expected, and the barrier has to take another brunt of the attack. Surely it has a limit...
"... YOU POSSESS LIGHT-BASED CAPABILITIES AS WELL. INTERESTING."
That seems to have gotten Jophiel's attention -- as Shalune doubles up on Cirea's critique that -- are they truly Wise Men? Jophiel reacts instinctively to Shalune's flares by shooting them, but it gives the engineer time to sink her light-based bolts of light into him square-on.
"THOSE WHO HOLD POWER MUST UTILISE ITS INFLUENCE. TO DO NOTHING IS INDOLENCE. THAT... IS THE PUREST WISDOM OF POWER."
Jophiel fortunately doesn't seem to have cottoned onto Zephyr -- because Hannah's got his attention as a tidal wave of ice blasts forward, trapping him within its grasp -- he doesn't appear severely harmed because of that unnatural barrier of his, which truly seems omnipotent right now...
But ice is ice, and he is stuck within it. Unfortunately, his arms -- which govern his lasers -- aren't trapped within.
"MOVEMENT RESTRICTED. ASSESSING SPELLCRAFT... ANOMALY DETECTED." There it is again. Is it going to rattle Hannah this time, at this dangerous time? "IT MATTERS NOT."
A second faerie has joined the fray, as Holly attempts to subdue him with her curse. There's a mildly curious look from Jophiel, quietly, as the curse clings onto his body, further slowing his movements atop Hannah's cursed ice.
"TWO FAERIES, NOW. THIS EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS PLANET. RECALCULATING THREAT LEVEL BASED ON POSSESSION OF ADVANCED WEAPONRY AND SPELLCRAFT..."
His eyes flash for a moment.
"STRATEGIC LEVEL CONFIRMED.
TARGET ACQUIRED -- MULTI-LOCK.
SELECTING CENSURE TACTICS.
ISOLATING BY CALCULATED THREAT PRIORITY."
The Wise Man draws his arms out in dramatic fashion, firing a barrage of lasers that don't seem to aim anywhere near the Drifters -- but for each of them, they instead cascade into a small cube of light that restricts them in, evidenced by the ominous gleaming light.
The cube of light follows their movements, and has different effects: for Ida and Margaret, their limbs and bodies feel heavier, restricting their movements and requiring more effort.
For Cirea, Hannah and Holly, spellcasting suddenly feels like it takes much more of a drain than before.
And for Shalune... the Little Dipper and shotstaff just doesn't quite act as intended, for one reason or another, batteries and wiring suddenly going haywire.
GS: Jophiel has attacked Shalune Amira with PROHIBITED -- ARMAMENTS! GS: Jophiel has attacked Cirea with PROHIBITED -- SPELLCRAFT! GS: Jophiel has attacked Holly with PROHIBITED -- SPELLCRAFT! GS: Jophiel has attacked Hannah Curie with PROHIBITED -- SPELLCRAFT! GS: Jophiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jophiel has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with PROHIBITED -- WEAPONS! GS: Jophiel has attacked Margaret with PROHIBITED -- WEAPONS! GS: Jophiel has completed its action.
DC: 1 turn has elapsed in the battle against Zaphkiel! 4 turns remain!
GS: Shalune Amira takes a glancing hit from Jophiel's PROHIBITED -- ARMAMENTS for 60 hit points! GS: Leak applied to Shalune Amira!
DC: 2 turns have elapsed in the battle against Jophiel! 3 turns remain!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Zaphkiel's Sword Dance for 205 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Zaphkiel!
DC: 2 turns have elapsed in the battle against Zaphkiel! 3 turns remain!
GS: CRITICAL! Cirea suffers a terrible blow from Jophiel's PROHIBITED -- SPELLCRAFT for 211 hit points! GS: Blind, Drowsy, and Starve applied to Cirea! GS: Margaret suffers a terrible blow from Jophiel's PROHIBITED -- WEAPONS for 170 hit points! GS: Old blocked! GS: Magilou solidly guards Zaphkiel's Phantom Slash for 96 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil solidly guards Zaphkiel's Spinning Slash for 194 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Xantia takes a solid hit from Zaphkiel's Sword Dance for 249 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Reaction bonus activated! GS: Azoth solidly guards Zaphkiel's Sword Dance for 147 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Jophiel's PROHIBITED -- WEAPONS for 53 hit points! GS: Old applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: CRITICAL! Metatron solidly guards Rebecca Streisand's Ley Blast for 81 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Rebecca Streisand! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Xantia!" Lily calls, and then frowns when she just sort of apologizes--and then shrugs. "Fair enough. Fight now, talk later."
She can go with that.
But then, "We're not related," she tells Magilou, even though they are both spoiling for a fight and have similar names, as it happens. But an 'interesting technique', he calls it. "I can," Lily says--and then she's charged, and has to create a blade of darkness in one hand, without time even to draw her sword before Zaphkiel is upon her. She clashes blow after blow, but even blocking a couple of them his swings hit hard, and Lily finds herself beaten back, spared by Magilou in the moment. "Gh--"
"It's not undeveloped," Lily confirms for them, as she tries to steady herself, stowing the pistol--it won't help right now. "We've had greater technology than you see now before."
"And we will again."
Lily draws her sword, but doesn't use it--the broadsword gleams in the light as she lifts a hand, calculating Etheric quantities--
And ice magic surges around her immediate allies, a protective lattice of icy Ether healing wounds and protecting against more.
"We're not done yet. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve."
She narrows her eyes.
"Azoth! Gwen!" she calls. "I'll cover you!"
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Azoth with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Xantia with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lily Keil with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has gained 3 Combo! GS: Lily Keil's Avenger stance ends! GS: Cancel Bonus! Gained 5 FP! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil heals Azoth! He gains 197 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 180 temporary hit points! GS: Lily Keil heals Magilou! She gains 187 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
She had her suspicions, but Metatron's words leave no room for mistakes - he's another from beyond the sea of stars... but Ethius is unfamiliar with him. She doesn't know the names he mentions, but she doesn't need to. The meaning comes across well enough. Jacqueline frowns, and her brow furrows.
...What kind of monsters have turned their eyes upon this world...? Metatron barely even flinches at their assault. She looks toward Dean, and stares at him for just a moment.
...She doesn't really have the heart to correct him.
"...He must be incredibly advanced. be careful." She warns.
"I-" Jacqueline starts in response to Ethius - and winces as he gets tumbled back. "Are you alright?"
And, her question gets an answer.
Rightful rulers of the universe... Once again, Jacqueline frowns.
"...I see. By what right do you claim your rule?" Jacqueline asks Metatron. A beam of energy explodes across the battlefield and Jacqueline backpedals several steps. Quickly, she gestures with her left hand as it comes rushing toward her. A pillar of earth rises to intercept it, and Jacqueline winces as it crashes through it and into her. She managed to mitigate it somewhat, but that was still serious...
Still.
"...That's how it's always been. We can't back down against people like this, no matter the threat." Jacqueline replies to Ethius, shaking her head.
Quickly, she swaps out Crest Graphs. She breaks into a run to make herself a more difficult target, and as she moves, she gestures toward Metatron again. This time, a mysterious, dark wind blows his way. It chills on a level beyond the physical.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Metatron with Mysterious Wind! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Hannah Curie takes a glancing hit from Jophiel's PROHIBITED -- SPELLCRAFT for 56 hit points! GS: Blind and Starve applied to Hannah Curie! GS: Drowsy blocked! GS: Lily Keil heals Xantia! She gains 180 temporary hit points! GS: Metatron solidly guards Jacqueline Barber's Mysterious Wind for 0 hit points! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Dispel! Infect! Mighty removed! GS: Hex blocked! GS: Quick applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Holly takes a solid hit from Jophiel's PROHIBITED -- SPELLCRAFT for 153 hit points! GS: Starve applied to Holly! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Ethius's names, of course, are interesting -- Magilou files them away -- but right now, she's gathering information on Wise men. The rightful rulers of the universe, says one; the powerful must utilise the influence of power, says another. And the third --
"Ooooh!" Magilou chirps, on hearing Zaphkiel's reaction to her age, as if it's just more casual banter. "So how old are you, Grandpa? Two thousand? Two hundred thousand? Somewhere between those two? Am I hot, or am I cold~?"
When that sword slices through the air, and the air keeps cutting, ceding ground to a king -- Magilou is quite aware she could be cut to ribbons. But the way she throws up her shikigami doll seems all too casual, as the minor spirit within endures the brunt of the long-distance slice. "Not bad!" She chirps, as if it were only a decent swing instead of a master's -- she's not a master of the blade, not like her best friend, but she's known Rokurou long enough to be able to identify skill. "Why don't I show you another forgotten trick, mm?"
First, though, she glances to Gwen -- and then back to Zaphkiel. "Oh, is Camael your man with the plan? The data dude? The one who sits at base and tells you all to be reallll worried when the boss turns red?" They're all very innocent, casual questions, and next to Gwen -- maybe that's just the vibe of this planet.
(Or maybe Azoth's existence is itself a hint that there's more going on here.)
Magilou, at least, isn't turning red just yet, thanks to Lily's chilly healing. "Thank you~!" She lilts, flashing a peace sign to the horror mage. "Time to take this and do something stupid!" Hear that, Xantia? Competition.
"Spell Absorber!" Magilou invokes, as white Light flutters to a dozen teal-lavender butterflies, and she prepares to take Zaphkiel's power into herself.
GS: Magilou has attacked Zaphkiel with Spell Absorber! GS: Magilou enters a Counter stance! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune didn't know that Jay was on her way to join them in Kattelox, but it's a relief to see her alongside Ethius; she dives down towards the melee rather than keep her distance, if only to do a brief 'hey I'm here!' circle and then draw in to be part of the brief strategy meeting. "Do they need to... be anyone? Any way you look at it, dredging up the Sorcery Globe's probably gonna paint a target on your back from someone out there. Assuming that's the real thing," she frowns, before trailing off with a shrug and a faint grin towards Ethius.
"Safety's just a thing we've gotta fight for. That's nothing new, at least. ... kinda hope we don't get any of the others show up, though." The Globe gets another glance. Honestly, she'd love nothing more than to carve off a chunk for herself, but there are probably much better times to entertain that idea, and right now destroying it is high on her list just out of sheer spite for the Wise Men that have shown up.
Heaving back on the controls to climb for height once more. She's not sure if she's liable to get plucked out of the air, but she'll still take it over being on the ground for all the maneuverability it gives her. "Get to the flares! Kattelox's Guard should be on the way!" she calls to the fleeing townsfolk along with Jacqueline's yell of warning. She's not... super confident in the Guard's ability to help in this situation, as chaotic as it's getting, but it's at least a start.
She's not expecting to have to dodge a hawk on the sudden climb. The bird is more agile than the odd scooter and the unnatural way it hangs in the air, but that strange momentum means that she's not far off, sweeping the bulk of the makeshift craft up out of its way. "... hello!" she blurts as it goes past, briefly charmed by bird before she remembers she's got a fight to help manage and a Little Dipper not to crash and burn.
"Crushing people because you can isn't 'wise thinking', it's just indiscrimiate bullying--" she starts to say, but the sudden barrage of lasers makes her shut up very quickly and brace to intercept. Perhaps the most unfortunate thing is the way in which she assumes it's a direct attack, because that means that the point at which the Little Dipper cuts out is just as she banks it to one side.
This is incredibly disorienting. Shalune's really never known her scooter to act haywire; thanks to the auspices of Veruni technology it tends to work perfectly until she crashes it into something, at which point it doesn't until she realigns the gyroscope. It takes her long enough to work out that it's the Wise Man's attack that it's much too late to salvage her flight, and she's sent half lunging, half diving, and half rolling down to the ground as the scooter crashes.
"--that is playing extremely dirty!" she blurts as she rises, pushing off from the ground. She's no fighter, but she's learned enough to know that you keep moving no matter what, particularly when your enemies can manage pillars of light from the skies. Her shotstaff emits a click and a whine of lessening power as she snaps a shot off from her hip, and she can't help but grimace as well, planting her feet to change direction.
In the end, there's only one option left. With a quiet prayer that hopefully nothing in her pack or jacket decides to short out or explode too badly, she throws herself forwards, her shotstaff held with its front end low. She hasn't just been building an empire for herself on the Thames but trying to make sure she's ready for situations like this, and rather than continue to rely on her technology when it isn't working, she instead feints a low sweep of the metal rod - only to spin with the strike.
Sadly, Shalune hasn't quite progressed to 'making sure your swing is sensible while under pressure', and settles for just baseball batting the entire length of the staff at the Wise Man. This would be a terrible idea were it not a superalloy. As it is:
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Jophiel with BONK! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Jophiel solidly guards Shalune Amira's BONK for 50 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jophiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Spell Absorber for 0 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Zaphkiel! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP! (That's 15 more than usual!)
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Magilou's words echo in Margaret's ears. Why NOT just take this Quadratic Globe for their own? Well, it seems hard to move, so this would be a project for later -- a future which she may crave but which has not yet come to pass.
The enemy - slouchesome as he may be - refers to her as a -
Margaret's eyes narrow as her ears flick back. "What did you call me?" she demands, even as the slings and arrows of magical violence burst inwards. Raising her sword up in a guarded posture, she can witness mayhem erupting in the general vicinity.
This is definitely not a stage show. Then before her, Jophiel speaks judgment and Margaret's lip curls upwards. "A convienient ideal indeed, to tell you to do what you were going to do anyway!" She raises her blade when suddenly comes:
Light.
Margaret, of course, is aligned with DARKNESS... and so the contracting cube of light forces her inwards, first into a hunch, then into a crouch, then - with agony - hitting the ground with one knee. The glowing light-wreath of Starlight Express around her compacts, compresses, sparkles all the brighter (if still darkly - you can tell the difference, really!)
Her teeth grind - her body strains. That horrible weight sinks down on her and with a sudden shout, Margaret arches her back and pushes against that cube in all six directions and with a shimmer of polycosmic fusionist magic it
Pops!
Margaret rises anew. "... you... FOOL. Some Wise Man you are. Don't you know..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu2VIHhUZNI
"Beauty is immortal!!!"
Without further warning, Margaret starts moving. There is a bursting gale from where she has passed but it seems to mostly be a big purple streak that's flicking back and forth. She loops around Shalune, which is entirely an effort to use her as something of a blind for herself. Either way, she will abruptly see a towering elf-woman with a repurposed cavalry saber come out to try and cut Jophiel, like, four times.
"Be careful, would you?" Margaret tells Shalune, before -- zwip!! Where did she go.
(She is over there. Margaret is pretty easy to see if you're looking.)
GS: Margaret has attacked Jophiel with Crimson Orbit! GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Jophiel takes a glancing hit from Margaret's Crimson Orbit for 47 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jophiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Drowsy blocked! GS: Quick applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"It is," Ida says, to Hannah. When Gwen cracks her joke, Ida turns to look at her, her eyes still wide, and haunted.
NOW
"Later," Ida says to Margaret, the word barely a hiss between deep, even breaths. There's a rhythm to it--breathe in, shoot, breathe out, shoot. Flow with the recoil. Anticipate angles of attack. Ida slides her foot and twists to the side, returning Metatron and Zaphkiel to her peripheral vision. A cold shudder rocks her shoulders as she hears Metatron's words. The true rulers of the universe...?
She glances back at Ethius. Is he doing that thing again where he's terrified, but determined to stop whatever it is, because it's his duty? Oh God, she thinks, that's probably it, again. This is bad.
"That's it," Ida says, glancing to Hannah. Her hands blur as she swaps out both ARMs' magazines, a movement that involves tendrils of glistening silver as well as human fingers. "Lock him down--!"
Not that this stops Jophiel, of course.
Thus far, Ida's been fighting with minimal movement, but the moment she sees that flash of light, she leaps to the side, flowing into a roll across the square. It doesn't help. The cube seals shut around her, and immediately, Ida feels like her body has turned to lead. "Ghh," she chokes out, and she stumbles back against Marvelous Mason's stage.
Something rolls against her foot--a spare magnesium flashbulb. For use in the 'Mother Lodies'? "Maybe don't--" Ida says, as she snatches it up, and ignites it with a Dragon Filament extruded against her palm. "--Use your power to TRY TO MURDER CIVILIANS!"
She hurls the burning flashbulb at Jophiel's face, fastball-style. It doesn't pack the thunderous BOOM of one of her flashbangs, but there's still burning magnesium in there. It's a lot more unpleasant to look at.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Jophiel with Flare Grenade! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed from Stoic to Stoic! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
The rays almost get through before hitting a barrier. Some of the later rays are different than the first, then, visible as different colours as Cirea 'tunes' them to try to break through; she doesn't quite penetrate, but she feels she's getting closer, seeing how the barrier reacts to shot after shot.
"My name is Cirea!" she calls after Jophiel. "A great sorceress. If you're that surprised by light... well, you're not much of one, are you?" There's a beat as she parses what Japhiel says, then: "I think you're just a jerk. You can do something better with power than shoot at kids to pick up a big ol' rock!"
Cirea makes herself a hard target mostly by flying. She's never still; she darts this way and that in a three-dimensional dance, around and up and down. It makes her a frustrating target for what she expects to come at her: beams.
What *actually* comes at her is a cube, which she literally slams into the side of. The cube contracts around her, and though it can't put out her magic it makes it hard for her to draw on it; she lets out a yelp as she rebounds off the cube's side, feeling rather squashed even if the cube isn't physically squeezing her.
Cirea rubs her hands together. This is going to take work. "I'll be a moment," she calls to the otehrs fighting Jophiel - and she pulls back. Not far - she's still in the fight, but she's definitely slid herself to the back row while she does something that's more complicated than powerful. She can still do this with less power, as long as she does all the detailed gestures properly, the fine movements of her fingers and the swirl of her body to draw the initial circle.
"Power of the greatest light, grant unto me a halo of mine spirit! Shine Silhouette!"
A wobbly sphere of light forms next to Cirea. At first it's shapeless, but it shifts, stretching vertically and forming itself into a faintly humanoid shape - and then, a moment later, snapping into a perfectly silver-white silhouette of Cirea, edge to edge, with no colour to it.
Also, the silhouette didn't get cubed.
GS: Cirea has attacked Cirea with Shine Silhouette! GS: Cirea has gained 2 Combo! GS: Cirea's stances have changed to Hero! GS: Cirea has completed her action. GS: Cirea accepts Cirea's Shine Silhouette for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Drowsy, and Starve removed! GS: Blitz and Surge applied to Cirea! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth's head cocks to one side as he notices the cyan-silver fluid in place of where he knows red tends to go. Zaphkiel reacts to it as an injury -- in his own hungry for violence sort of way, but Azoth isn't about to throw stones at that glass house. And especially not among the comrades he finds himself with today.
"Uh. Query." He beep boops because because he's already been called out -- which in itself is impressive, if not concerning. "What constitutes a Class 10? And... which Class are you?"
It might be useful to know exactly how accurate Zaphkiel's scan on Azoth's data was, although, really, is now the time to be curious, Azoth?!
Dancing swords submit that it is not! Zaphkiel's command of the sword that size is a beautiful terror, and Azoth's calculations can track it, but his body cannot outmove it. Blade meets bot, and cleaves him back, cutting open even the steel of his chasis to leave his shoulder wiring exposed and sparking. His own strange not-blood fluid is black, viscous, and clearly oozing only from a severed cable.
Ether, chilled and icy, forms around him. Frost settles the sparkling and slows the oozing, even providing connections to wires that threatened to fray. Azoth taps the toes of his foot against the ground, eyes never moving from Zaphkiel even as he calls out a: "Thanks, Miss Sharon!"
He lifts a fingergun, closes one eye, and a light begins to scan over Zaphkiel's movements. As it does, a lance of bright blue energy forms by his head. "And... right... there!"
Azoth grins and gives a spoken, sing-song: "Bang~."
The energy weapon flies and explodes against Zaphkiel, seeking out vulnerabilities as calculated crosshairs of holographic light try to map out his motions and help everyone else line up their attacks.
GS: Azoth spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Xantia with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Lily Keil with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Magilou with Convergence! GS: Azoth has launched an attack Link! GS: Azoth accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Azoth! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Blitz! Azoth has attacked Zaphkiel with Circuit Breaker! GS: Azoth gains 10 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Gwen Whitlock accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Magilou accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Jophiel suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Flare Grenade for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jophiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind blocked! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Xantia accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Xantia! GS: Lily Keil heals Lily Keil! She gains 185 temporary hit points! GS: Lily Keil accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Eheh. Sorry, Lily; didn't get a chance to catch up with Xantia." Gwen flashes Lily a grin over her shoulder. "--N' hey! Nice t'see ya, Azoth." Again, Gwen reveals Azoth's identity, but at least this time he's on their side.
Gwen Whitlock says, "... We may be a lil' rough 'round the edges, but we ain't barbarians here, no. We're speakin' the same language, ain't we?" Gwen hops back a step. "N' get it right! His name's Az-""
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Eheh. Sorry, Lily; didn't get a chance to catch up with Xantia." Gwen flashes Lily a grin over her shoulder. "--N' hey! Nice t'see ya, Azoth." Again, Gwen reveals Azoth's identity, but at least this time he's on their side.
The courier's first warning is that Zaphkiel... doesn't dodge. At all. It's not like punching Asgard, either. And from the punch alone, he knew. But then, it's not it's hard to guess, Gwen supposes.
All of this is pushed from the surface of Gwen's mind, temporarily. "... Ah! Ain't no one tell you it's rude to air a lady's secrets?"
Like Magilou, Gwen quietly takes note when Ethius talks to one of the other 'Wise Men'. Aldian? Vendeeni? No where on Filgaia or Lunar has Gwen ever even heard of those names. There's always the possibility that they're just something the courier hadn't learned about yet, but. The better question is: Is Ethius warning the Ten Wise Men, or all of them? Ida had the right idea from the get-go to worry.
"... We may be a lil' rough 'round the edges, but we ain't barbarians here, no. We're speakin' the same language, ain't we?" Gwen hops back a step. "N' get it right! His name's Az-"
Well, that *is* a very good question Azoth asked.
Her immediate thought is to lean back on that easy source of power stored in her right ARM, but... no. She'll just make it easier and easier for her emotions to call it forward. She can't act like she did in front of Siegfried and Asgard.
She has to take responsibility for her abilities, and how she chooses to use them.
Zaphkiel's blade swings, and Gwen brazenly takes it head on in order to get closer, on the heels of Lily's healing magic and following behind Azoth's energy weapon. "Time for you to do some more research!"
Leaping in the air, Gwen slams both her fist downwards, aiming for Zaphkiel's head. "Aha!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Lock On!
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
Holly makes a.. somewhat rude gesture at the mention that it made no difference. "Keep thinking that." She replies as she brings that swirl of ink around herself. Preparing for the worst as.. well. He more or less shrugs off their attacks and that's. She scowls. Too common.
That's a later thought. She does do the same thing she's almost always prone to doing in these situations. She's placing herself in the way, brandishing the brush like a spear and trying to put herself in place to protect the others. Even if they don't need it. She protects the people important to her (And in this case, those that are keeping others safe too.)
Said second fairy tries to do something about the laser, swinging her brush upward, interrupting. Failing ultimately. The cube following her is draining her magic, or suppressing it. She's honestly not sure and she's far enough removed from practical (Something she's well aware of) execution, means she's not immediately able to strip the magic.
She twists the brush up, brandishing it more like a polearm now and darts forward, "Joke's on you" She calls out, dragging her brush through the ink, she slams the brush and all of that enchanted, concentrated curse ink into a splash carrying much more force than most would expect from someone so small. She's absolutely cheating though.
"Be careful." She says to both Cirea and Hannah in particular. Her tone actually serious. A tone she's recently rediscovered. That serious time thing! Though she does check on Shalune, Margaret and Ida too. She just doesn't know them as well (if at all!) and doesn't have AS vested an interest!
GS: Blitz! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Zaphkiel with Return to Sender! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters a Counter stance! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 3 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Holly has attacked Jophiel with Ink Hammer! GS: Holly has gained 3 Combo! GS: Holly has completed her action. GS: Jophiel partially evades Holly's Ink Hammer for 96 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jophiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Drowsy and Mute blocked! GS: Cover applied to Holly! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Azoth's Circuit Breaker for 218 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zaphkiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Hyper removed! GS: Break and Shieldbreak applied to Zaphkiel! GS: Strain! Azoth takes 150 damage! GS: Zaphkiel solidly guards Gwen Whitlock's Return to Sender for 100 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia's nod to Lily is a grim one. She doesn't feel like she needs to clarify this was a Memory Thing, this is likely already obvious. As for Gwen... well, the whole losing control of yourself thing, she figures Gwen also understands that pretty well. Which is good because there's hardly time for a very detailed explanation right now. "It was a bit more than a bad week... but, thanks." It'll have to do for the time being.
Furthermore, it seems there were not one, but two bolts of lightning striking the same spot today. Xantia wastes absolutely no time in giving Azoth a cheerful wave as soon as he looks in her direction. No need for additional explanations there. Xantia being both present here and seeming more like her usual self again should not surprise him in the slightest.
This is still the middle of a battle, however. And the assessment of her opponent was certainly correct, absolutely as strong as he looks, if he can take all that punishment and still appear just fine. Any chance of getting to fight such mighty opponents is a welcome one, especially when the stakes are... well, she doesn't really know how high they are. She has no idea why they want this device so badly. Honestly, the greater concern is the incomprehensible age number Magilou just casually flaunts, and it apparently being nothing compared to this guy's.
All things considered, it shouldn't be too surprising how quick he is with a sword of that size. But it still catches Xantia off-guard. And yet, she sees it move - enough so to move with the swing, causing her to be hit with the flat of it, rather than the edge. Inarguably a preferable result, but it doesn't exactly feel like a win, Xantia getting the wind knocked out of her rather fiercely, and forcefully enough to be sent straight into the wall of a building.
Crumpling to the ground, she manages to rise again quickly, thanks in part to Lily's timely assistance. ...Ice-based healing, now? She was used to the fire kind. Actually... kind of preferred it to the colder variety, but she won't complain. Dashing back in in short order, Xantia tries to take advantage of the various distractions and Azoth's indication of a weak spot to delivery a single, pinpoint palm strike, aimed to not so much so surface damage, but throw one's internal balance out of order.
"...Don't suppose you've ever heard the name Xantia before, have you?" She thinks to throw that out there, on the off chance that someone that old might know something about her past. Not only that, but... "...You might be surprised, at what you might run into on this planet." Something just seems familiar about this Zaphkiel. Like they might have something in common, perhaps. Moreso than simply feeling excited when fighting a strong opponent.
GS: Blitz! Xantia has attacked Zaphkiel with Essence-Rending Palm Strike! GS: Xantia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Xantia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Jophiel claims to not use power is indolence. "Just 'cause you got power don't mean you gotta use it!" shouts Hannah. "Showin' restraint's a form of wisdom, too."
But he's analyzing everyone's attacks, weaponry, and spellcraft as they all pile on... and for Hannah, that damnable word arises again.
Hannah nods to Ida as she responds to her attempts to lock Jopheil down. "Anythin' that keeps him busy with us and lets people escape...."
'Anomaly'
Hannah scowls, but doesn't appear rattled. If anything, it's just making her angrier. "Some so-called wise man you think you know everythin'--" she mutters to herself. She's trying to hang back, keep an eye out for danger, watch those still-free arms...
And the so-called Wise Man shifts tactics, throws cubes of light at them--even with Zephyr's spotting she can't move fast enough to evade it, getting encased even as she tries to throw herself to the side. "What the heck--"
Hannah grunts as suddenly her flow of mana is tampered with. She's pulled out another crest graph, this one emitting yellow sparks of electricity as she channels power into it. But the sparks are feeble and faint, and Hannah is grunting, straining to bring enough power to bear. "Dangit... blasted thing's tryin' to..."
Mana answers her call but flees her body almost instantly, and a barest flicker of an electrical ball is trying to take shape.
But with a vacuum caused by that prohibition, something else is all too eager to fill the void. Hannah tries to hold it off, form a bulwark, keep it out of her spellcasting... but the pressure is mounting.
Hannah says to be careful, and Hannah grunts with the strain of simultaneously trying to draw and push away mana. "I'm... tryin'..."
It's just too great. Her control breaks, and from within her something comes flooding out. Hannah drops to her knee as something overtakes her. Her aura twists sharply around her as she slowly rises to her feet again. Slightly slumped over, arms slack, head hanging forward. It takes her a moment to regain her compusure.
Her magic isn't as wild as the last time that this happened, but as she slowly lifts her head to glare at Jophiel, her green eyes are shining softly.
"... I really wish you hadn't done that."
GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Hannah Curie with Manifestation! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 3 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Hannah Curie gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: Hannah Curie accepts Hannah Curie's Manifestation for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Blind and Starve removed! GS: Surge applied to Hannah Curie!
<Pose Tracker> Metatron has posed.
The boot to the head snaps Metatron's head to the side. He doesn't bleed; his armor doesn't break, only bend. Then, both of Billy Lee Black's guns are moved into position, against armor and skin. They fire--
--and SLAM into a dozen different Symbols that appear. The rounds flatten into circles of half-molten metal against skin and steel alike, then drop to the ground.
"I have no intention of 'getting along.' You are an undeveloped civilization -- one of countless planets that will be added to our empire," Metatron tells Billy. Then, he looks towards Dean. "Symbological science has many uses. Further evidence of the lack of development in this star system."
Dean's rods slam into him, smashing into his legs. As hardened as Metatron's armor (and his armor is, in fact, all of him) is, he can lose balance. He stumbles, nearly falling -- but quickly rights himself. He swings his shield up, and Link's sword smashes into it with a spray of sparks.
"I've fought heroes before," Metatron tells Link. "They've all fallen."
Then, he swings his sword out in a wide arc. It slashes for Link, then down across Dean, and finally chops upward for Billy.
Metatron turns his head towards Ethius -- there is a brilliant flash, but just before it can blind him, a polarized shield lowers over the visor. It's with a mild stutter, not a blind stumble, that his advance slows. "Our civilization predates those. And your own Federation. By approximately 37,000 years."
The blast of pressurized water that Rebecca summons slams into him. Symbols flare up across his armor, and it disperses in high pressure rivulets that he walks through. "If you choose to not take me seriously, then that's an advantage," he says. "I've learned to use that when I crush a planet's occupants."
He looks towards Jacqueline, then. "Not by some... primitive 'election.'" Dean can't see him glower at him, but he can feel Metatron's eyes. "It is our purpose. It is our right."
She breaks into a run; a cold wind washes over him, and Metatron slows. He grimaces. Then, he brings his shield up, and a large blue-white beam explodes from the shield -- the entirety of it, this time -- as it washes across the battlefield, hurtling for Ethius, Jay, and Rebecca.
"I see that your world has a greater level of development than anticipated," Metatron says. "Camael, ensure you have a read on the Quadratic Sphere. We should not linger too long with these."
Then, he bellows: "Barrier, STRENGTHEN!"
Symols flare across his armor -- glowing brightly, then fade.
GS: Metatron has attacked Billy Lee Black with Steel Whirlwind! GS: Metatron has attacked Dean Stark with Steel Whirlwind! GS: Metatron has attacked Link with Steel Whirlwind! GS: Metatron has gained 1 Combo! GS: Formation! Metatron has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Guardian Beam! GS: Formation! Metatron has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Guardian Beam! GS: Formation! Metatron has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Guardian Beam! GS: Metatron has gained 1 Combo! GS: Metatron has attacked Metatron with Metablock! GS: Metatron enters a Counter stance! GS: Metatron has gained 3 Combo! GS: Metatron has activated a Boss Action!
DC: 3 turns have elapsed in the battle against Metatron! 2 turns remain!
GS: Metatron has completed his action. GS: Link solidly guards Metatron's Steel Whirlwind for 83 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Link gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Jacqueline Barber partially evades Metatron's Guardian Beam for 155 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod partially guards Metatron's Guardian Beam for 163 hit points! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Reaction bonus activated! GS: Zaphkiel takes a solid hit from Xantia's Essence-Rending Palm Strike for 227 hit points! GS: Zaphkiel's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Xantia! GS: CRITICAL! Rebecca Streisand solidly guards Metatron's Guardian Beam for 137 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rebecca Streisand gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark suffers a terrible blow from Metatron's Steel Whirlwind for 230 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Zaphkiel has posed.
"A lady's secrets? Ha! Only a fool would hide her strength!" Zaphkiel proclaims to Gwen. ...give him a few, he's been sealed away for a few tens of thousands of years.
Lily puts up a good fight, matching each swing of his sword with blocking swipes of her own. But he is relentless, up until the point where their duel is suddenly interrupted.
"Greater?" He makes a sound that might have halfway been a chuckle. "I doubt it. But even younger civilizations have their place! You'll see what I mean soon enough!"
His lips curl in a grin when Magilou calls him grandpa. He has prominent canines, once you take a closer look -- not like a Red Noble or the like, though.
Rather more like a beast.
"We," he says to her, gesturing with the hand not holding his great sword, "have existed for tens of thousands of years. Even your 'thousand' is a drop in the bucket! But even short-lived beings can be entertaining!" He reaches out towards her, as if to beckon her over. "Come on, show me your trick, sorceress! Let's see how you stack up against the mages of your distant past!"
And she does. Light rips into him and light, yes, pulls something away.
SYSTEM: Zaphkiel has lost 15 MP!
Even so, he grins at Magilou. "Not bad. Not bad--"
When he moves, he's a blur.
"Not bad at all!"
So is his blade. It descends upon her, with force.
What constitutes a class 10? But what is he, Azoth asks. He'll get the answer to only one of those questions and not immediately, only once Zaphkiel has finished.
"We're the rightful rulers of the universe," Zaphkiel answers.
Azoth's own reply may well be that burst of light that detonates just near Zaphkiel's head. At this, the Wise Man turns just a moment too late to regard the strike and the red markings on his body flare perhaps in sympathy to what data Azoth has begun to map out. "Data analysis...? Interesting trick! I'm curious just what you're capable of. After all, that attack before was--!"
He doesn't finish his own sentence, instead lunging into the air to descend upon Azoth like a hunting hawk.
However this ultimately plays out, though, one thing is certain: here is the place where Gwen again takes the stage, driving her fist at Zaphkiel. Raising one hand from his blade's hilt, he whips around just in time for her to swing at him and... there catches her fist in his hand.
""You're fast," he tells her, "but not fast enough!" And with that he hurls her into the air, aiming to there strike her with his blade.
Has he heard the name 'Xantia' before, though?
"I haven't," he tells her, and it's simple faintly amused bemusement that gilds his next: "Should I have? Your manipulation of the elements is interesting. Now, where did I see something like that before? The Gyria CR5 campaign?" He won't have long to travel down memory lane, however. Xantia, empowered by Azoth's analysis, aims for what appears to be a potential weakness--
Cyan-silver blood, if only a few droplets worth, spatters onto the street. Even this wound soon seals itself over.
"No, not like the rebels at all," he remarks, creasing his brow again. His blade dips low only to rise into a wide cutting arc, wide enough that the ensuing blast won't catch just Xantia. It may well also test Lily's own enchantments, at that.
GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Magilou with Cruel Bludgeon! GS: Zaphkiel enters a Counter stance! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 2 Combo! GS: Recover! Hex removed from Zaphkiel! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Azoth with Piercing Fang! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zaphkiel spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Lion's Claw! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Xantia with Vacuum Slice! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Lily Keil with Vacuum Slice! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zaphkiel has completed its action.
DC: 3 turns have elapsed in the battle against Zaphkiel! 2 turns remain!
GS: CRITICAL! Azoth solidly guards Zaphkiel's Piercing Fang for 251 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Zaphkiel! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Lily Keil solidly guards Zaphkiel's Vacuum Slice for 183 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Zaphkiel! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Strain! Zaphkiel takes 150 damage! GS: Magilou solidly guards Zaphkiel's Cruel Bludgeon for 176 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock solidly guards Zaphkiel's Lion's Claw for 232 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"It's okay, Ethius. We can make it work if we work together," Dean reassures the Symbologist. ...For all that he's keeping a lively tone, he can tell that these guys aren't just anyone. You don't need to exchange more than a single blow to get a sense of how strong someone is compared to you and your companions, and they've all exchanged plenty so far. This guy's defenses are clearly through the roof--maybe all the way to the Silver Star.
So if Jay continues to ask sensible questions of Metatron (and not crush Dean's dreams (thank you Jay)), and Shalune has her own words about safety and their relationship to it as Drifters, and Ethius is namedropping a bunch of folks Dean's never heard of before saying he's never heard of these Wise Men himself, that's all right. They've just got to keep pouring on the heat until they can finally break through that sword and shield (and teeth (and ALL those Symbological shields)).
Of course, then Rebecca's yelling at Dean to keep Link out of trouble, and he double-takes at her. "What?? Why would I need to do that? He's got a big sword and he's swinging it just fine! He can handle trouble just fine!" he calls back, jerking an elbow Link's way as he jumps and swings at Metatron. Maybe he's a kid, but that doesn't mean he's a weakling! To whit, Dean gives Link a thumbs-up around his ARM if he happens to catch his eye. "Nice hit!"
And if Metatron managed to guard most of that nice hit, well, that's hardly Link's fault. They're all having a tough time with this guy's defenses. And they're about to have a worse time with his offenses.
When Metatron swings that blade around, it SLAMS into the daring young man. Without the blessing of the Original Mountain Medium, he might well have cleaved Dean in two; the blessings of Dinoginos mean Dean at least remains in one piece, even as he's SLAMMED into the ground, wound tearing at his own jacket and under-armor. He shouts in agony, almost dropping his weapons. Fortunately, they stay in place. It takes him a moment to get back on his feet, and he needs the support of his combat rods to do it... but he manages.
"I don't... care if... we *are* 'undeveloped'--compared to you! You DON'T have a right to--just walk in and take over! The Veruni didn't... and you sure don't--either! Jerk!" Dean retorts to Metatron in between ragged breaths, glowering right back whether he can see it or not. (If Dean were a worse person, he'd give serious consideration to pushing the Veruni and these Wise Men at each other and kicking back as they rip each other apart. Alas, he is not.)
Thirty-seven *thousand* years, though?? Their world is seriously THAT old? (Far older still, really, but that alone is mind-bogglingly old to Dean.) His arrogance makes a little more sense now. That isn't very important to Dean at the moment, though. They were already having problems with Metatron's armor, and he's clearly just made his armor stronger again. But... he did manage to get him a bit off-balance either. That gives Dean an idea. Raising his voice once he has his breath back, he calls to the others, "His armor's something else, but he can still get knocked off-balance! Let's work together to knock him down!"
...it might've been wiser to not yell that for the enemy to hear, but Dean never was one for subterfuge.
To that end, Dean opens fire with both barrels at Metatron's head. He already knows the attacks won't work--he saw those Symbological shields flatten all of Billy's bullets earlier--but the more he has to pay attention to defending attacks up top, the more vulnerable he'll be to getting his footing messed up.
...That's the idea, anyway.
GS: Dean Stark spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Metatron with Bullet Shower! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Xantia suffers a terrible blow from Zaphkiel's Vacuum Slice for 248 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Zaphkiel! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: Strain! Zaphkiel takes 150 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Jophiel has posed.
"THAT IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE POWERLESS," is Jophiel's eerie and calm response to Shalune pointing out that crushing people isn't wise. And perhaps, also the response to messing with her technology.
The pink-haired girl charges and spins with the strike of the shotstaff! Jophiel raises his arm to guard, and it's with a satisfying crunch that it only mildly sinks in, that same honeycomb of protective technology seemingly reigning supreme again.
"FOOL."
His hand rises, and a cascade of lasers fly out of his fingers -- missing Shalune, but she can sense them coming from her back... and they land on the ice, freeing him in time for--
For Margaret to arrive beside him, one, two, three, four! Perhaps eerily, his covered eyes seem to be tracking Margaret, as her slashes bear down upon the barrier -- though there's no visible cut, there's a slacking and stiffening in the mechanical Wise Man's body, as if he's feeling the numbness from the strikes. Some of the impact is passing through, as shown before, but... how do you inflict lasting damage?
"YOU SPEAK OF BEAUTY... THEN I SHALL SHOW YOU THE BEAUTY OF POWER."
Cirea introduces herself, a great sorceress. And is he just a jerk? Perhaps he is just a jerk. He certainly does seem to have a lot of beef with everyone. That's the kind of thing that makes someone a jerky.
Cirea still overcomes the censure cube and creates a simulacrum of herself, a silhouette of light.
"A SIMULACRUM OF LIGHT. AN INTERESTING TRICK, BUT..."
Another flare is in play thanks to Ida -- this time, Jophiel's more ready for it, but it still seems to play up with his display -- stopping him from immediately acting on whatever his trailing sentence to Cirea would've been about.
"'CIVILIAN' IS NOT A PARAMETER THAT I AM DESIGNED TO DISTINGUISH," explains Jophiel. "SUPPRESSION SHALL BE CONDUCTED IN EVEN MEASURE."
Holly shows her expertise as she, too, isn't fully restrained by the cube -- clearly Jophiel had underestimated her. Another brush stroke, and the concentrated curse builds around him once more...
Curses, as it were, don't seem to fully obey whatever level Jophiel's barrier operates at, and it sinks into him.
"INK, AND CURSES ATOP IT. YOU WIELD AN UNUSUAL POWER..."
Jophiel regards Hannah's words with deliberate intention. That exercising restraint with power is wisdom, too. The young sorceress proves her own power by not being completely taken out of the fight; clearly, the Wise Man needs to re-assess the calibration of his censure cubes.
Something breaks within Hannah's control -- the aura twisting even more wildly. "I SEE. YOU HAD A HIDDEN RESERVOIR OF POWER. OR... NO, IT IS MORE LIKE..."
His tone just grows colder as he intones in turn: "... THEN I SHALL SHOW YOU RESTRAINT."
The Wise Man rises to the air effortlessly, not even betraying any signs of propulsion of how exactly he flies -- and once more, he draws his arms out in dramatic fashion.
"SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE.
INITIATING 'INFRINGEMENT' PROTOCOL."
The entire field above the Endless Emporium shines once more, and what emerges is a much more devastating volley of lasers -- this time, they're indiscriminate, blast forth at a much wider field than just the six facing Jophiel. This might have been his plan to trump Cirea's duplicate -- by just widening his fire.
A laser touches a nearby tree -- and it turns to stone. Another one hits the ground, and a patch of poison seems to erupt out of it -- the '100 Gella each!' sign Mason had for the Mother Lodie is hit and just withers away into rot.
And those that come towards the six have debilitating effects; it's not unlike that of a Marlboro's Bad Breath, the way it poisons, threatens to petrify, weakens and ails the body and soul. Beware...!
GS: Jophiel has activated a Boss Action! GS: Jophiel has activated a Boss Action! GS: Metatron heals Metatron! He gains 193 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Blind, Break, and Drowsy removed! GS: Lock state applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Jophiel has attacked Hannah Curie with INFRINGEMENT! GS: Jophiel has attacked Shalune Amira with INFRINGEMENT! GS: Jophiel has attacked Margaret with INFRINGEMENT! GS: Jophiel has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with INFRINGEMENT! GS: Jophiel has attacked Cirea with INFRINGEMENT! GS: Jophiel has attacked Holly with INFRINGEMENT! GS: Jophiel has launched an attack Link! GS: Metatron partially guards Dean Stark's Bullet Shower for 95 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Jophiel's INFRINGEMENT for 152 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Shalune Amira! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Jophiel has attacked Hannah Curie with SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE! GS: Jophiel has attacked Shalune Amira with SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE! GS: Jophiel has attacked Margaret with SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE! GS: Jophiel has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE! GS: Jophiel has attacked Cirea with SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE! GS: Shalune Amira partially evades Jophiel's SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE for 0 hit points! GS: Entangle, Hex, and Shieldbreak applied to Shalune Amira! GS: Shalune Amira enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Margaret solidly guards Jophiel's INFRINGEMENT for 43 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Margaret's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Margaret's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Jam, Slow, and Weaken applied to Margaret! GS: Cripple and Mute blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Jophiel's INFRINGEMENT for 93 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Margaret takes a glancing hit from Jophiel's SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle, Hex, and Shieldbreak applied to Margaret! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Jophiel's SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle, Hex, and Shieldbreak applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cirea takes a glancing hit from Jophiel's INFRINGEMENT for 40 hit points! GS: Cirea's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Cirea's Slow Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, and Weaken applied to Cirea! GS: Mute and Slow blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Cirea takes a solid hit from Jophiel's SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cirea gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle, Hex, and Shieldbreak applied to Cirea! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Magilou--Lily can tell what she's doing. She appreciates it. She's not nearly slick enough to do the same, not while concentrating on keeping them alive. Her chilly healing isn't her only trick--but it's one she learned int he Ice Shrine. "Always time to do something stupid," Lily says to Magilou, staring at Zaphkiel.
Younger civilizations... "Maybe for now. I am to make sure ours survives a lot longer."
There's Azoth--with more questions. And she smiles briefly when he thanks her using that name. It's more familiar than it even used to be; she remembers it, now. And--
"Data received," Lily acknowledges. Then she shakes her head for Gwen. "It's not a problem." And Xantia... Well. Lily understands how it goes with Xantia.
"At least we can confirm they're probably not related to you?" Lily says to Xantia, before--
"I don't believe in 'rightful rulers'," Lily answers Zaphkiel coolly, and watches as he swings further again. The wide cutting arc of his blade is a test--but Lily's icy lattice holds for just long enough, just long enough before it shatters and leaves her whole.
"The only real prerequisite for rule is 'strength.' And I'm not done growing mine."
She hefts her sword, a simple blade compared to his--ordinary, only some three feet long instead of the size of a person. But it glows suddenly with sorcerous power, and bursts, beecoming a blade three times Lily's height made of pure darkness.
"Haaaaah--!"
She swings it at Zaphkiel in a style familiar to those who have seen Leon fight--
And the blast that ensues blocks her out for a moment, too.
GS: Lily Keil has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Lily Keil spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Blitz! Lily Keil has attacked Zaphkiel with Black Wolf's Claw! GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius, free of the mask on his lower half of his face, shows further that he is capable of emoting - a wincing watching Link hurl themselves at certain doom and seem to be spared only by Metatron's willingness to spare breath and justification for those he appears poised to sweep aside with relative ease.
When Dean passes Jay and Ethius his query, Ethius doesn't look back over his shoulder. "I'm... not in a position to gainsay what he's saying." The glyphs on the teeth will haunt him in his eleep, of all things.
Hard numbers are dropped. 37,000 years... Ethius puts a hand to his forehead.
"...The year is ten-thousand three-hundred and... seventy... two." No, it's 505 here on Filgaia! Or 4,072 on Lunar! "You mean to say you have escaped notice for the entirety of the Space Date calendar?" Oh. That's why he counted so high. To claim to predate even the isolationist Vendeeni and the aggressively belligerent Aldian Empire...
A very long time to add 'countless' planets to one's empire.
Ethius' composure is tested anew as he takes a step back where Metatron only occasionally seems to make way for the laws of physics and momentum against what is put to bear against them. His Symbological spell-shield is invoked anew as a sweeping white-blue beam comes from the shield at angles in which Ethius cannot find any cover within twenty feet of himself to sprint to.
At best, the wavelengths color the impact a slightly greener shade, hurling him back again with the simple grace being he's skidding on his knees and not rolling across the grounds.
Ethius' Symbological spellcast shield, a masterwork in its speed and ease of invocation to enable him to withstand the vast majority of (known) advanced weaponry and even survive brief contact with active nanotechnology and radiation, is but a wet piece of looseleaf paper against the Symbological depth and reinforcement of what Metatron invokes.
"They're not omniscient... they seem to be working with incomplete information," Ethius gets that much out as he stands again, blood staining his lower right leg, sucking in breath. Saying this as an advantage may just be coping.
Dean speaks fiery, defiant language ultimately in sync with what keeps Ethius there despite the seeming lack of options. Jay keeps her calm on what she will or won't accept of those of power, and Billy carries on as they do. Even with the way Rebecca and Link approach it with youthful, simple approaches...
They have the right to live that way.
Hardening his gaze (somehow, yes, he can do that... further), Ethius steps in again after using his staff to cover for the first three steps for balance, a series of contorting motions with his other hand as he chants and finishes the collective cast of...
"Surge Bolt!" Ethius hurls his palm directly against the shield in question, putting the entirety of known shielding and protection circumvention packed into an otherwise simple immense surge of electrical power. The Symbols are many, too many, but working with Dean's manner of fire to try and divert power...
He just only needs to get through a few.
This thought, too, may be coping.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Ethius Hesiod spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Metatron with Surge Bolt! GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Jophiel has completed its action.
DC: 3 turns have elapsed in the battle against Jophiel! 2 turns remain!
GS: CRITICAL! Metatron partially guards Ethius Hesiod's Surge Bolt for 138 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Metatron has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Billy Lee Black partially guards Metatron's Steel Whirlwind for 126 hit points! GS: Zaphkiel solidly guards Lily Keil's Black Wolf's Claw for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"You- what?" Rebecca seems stunned by the declaration that his civilization predates everything on Filgaia, and some 'Federation' by that much more, even as he just walks through her attack with a symbological flare of defensive symbols. "You're making it VERY DIFFICULT to-! What kind of person just strolls in here and declares they're trying to take over the universe!"
Apparently these guys Rebecca?
That shield comes up again, and this time, Rebecca invokes her Medium, as a spherical barrier erupts, covered with Guardian glyphs.
The Blue-White Beam splits upon striking it, but in just a few moments it's cracking, breaking - SHATTERING! The last remnants of its energy staggering her back, "Guh-!" A hand holds her side, where the last vestiges of the beam burned her.
"So!? I'm not saying he can't! You still watch their back and look out for them a little extra just in case things go bad!" She calls back at Dean, "This is basic stuff Dean!"
Indeed, she saw that flare of symbols, and his call for defense, which simply results in Rebecca replacing her Original Medium for Rigdobrite's stone one, "Shooting Star!"
There's a gleam of a light above, before a laser ray suddenly carves from above, in a serpentine arc across the ground and through Metatron if she gets her way, cleaving through defensive enchantments.
If he's gonna pull out lasers then why not fight him with lasers? When in Kattelox...
There's a SORT of logic to it.
Indeed, Rebecca looks back towards Dean, still breathing hard, and seeing how messed up he's getting too. This is just one of them - there's THREE of them...
"Hey Dean..." She takes a deep breath, before showing at least a moment of understanding, "...I get it - I hate bullies too - but we might have to throw in the towel soon and beat it."
The big man may be concerned with honor, but Rebecca's never been concerned with that. Not even once.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Metatron with Shooting Star! GS: Rebecca Streisand has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action. GS: Hannah Curie suffers a terrible blow from Jophiel's INFRINGEMENT for 124 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hannah Curie's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Hannah Curie's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, and Slow applied to Hannah Curie! GS: Mute and Weaken blocked! GS: Hannah Curie solidly guards Jophiel's SUPPRESSING RESISTANCE for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle, Hex, and Shieldbreak applied to Hannah Curie! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Hannah Curie enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Metatron partially guards Rebecca Streisand's Shooting Star for 133 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Metatron gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Lock state removed! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy's confronted many monsters with many defenses, but THAT'S a new one. His eyes widen as he recognizes his entire barrage has been stopped by that Symbological shield, and forces himself to stop reloading the gunsmokes. They won't do him much good here. But he's barely getting them back in their holsters when Metatron MOVES. "Wha!" Billy squawks, the upward chock striking his own Ethereal shields and sending him sweeping upward. But he's nimble, maybe surprisingly so, and arcs down to a hard landing. "And that's the thing you do to those less 'developed' then you, is it? Crush them down and use them as mockery and fuel? I see."
His eyes flick to the side, Dean also switching back to gunplay. The bullets didn't do much, but an Etone has many more than two weapons. Billy throws both arms forward, and his Ether guns slide into his hands, a pair of wood-paneled weapons that he drives forward. "This world already has plenty of men like you! Get out of here!" Their barrels pushed together, a silent darkness forming between them, before it fires at Metatron, a scorching abjuration.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Metatron with Hell Blast! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 3 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black's stances have changed to Sage! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Metatron solidly guards Billy Lee Black's Hell Blast for 64 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Metatron gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: Cover applied to Billy Lee Black!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Yeah!! You look great!" Magilou sparkles to Margaret, across the way. Show them the power of beauty--!!
And it's interesting to Magilou -- even before Zaphkiel really starts talking -- that he holds a sword that large in one hand. Of course, what he says is interesting, too. "Short-lived!" She exclaims, a hand to her chest. "Did you hear that, Gwen?! He called me a spring chicken! Yeah, I've still got it--!!" That's not the most interesting part of what he said, but Magilou is quite good at playing the fool, all in all.
(And it is, objectively, very funny to not be the one wielding magic from the distant past for once.)
The blade descends --
-- and that white light GLEAMS, and it is as if Zaphkiel cuts through another layer of existence entirely, because his sword is at one moment threatening Magilou's flesh and in the next moment past it. She is, by all visual accounts, untouched.
Spell Absorber doesn't just absorb spells, any more. No: she's adapted it to absorb any assault, bladestrikes inclusive.
This is not to say that she does not feel the power in Zaphkiel's swing. Deconstructed to its base atoms, that attack swims through her veins, and it is her soul which withstands the assault and leaves her body standing.
"Hooooooo boy--!!" She exclaims, as she spins in a dizzy circle. "You're sure not kidding, are ya, Grandpa? I know a guy who'd love to get a crack at you--!!" Would even Rokurou be this stupid? It's honestly hard for Magilou to say, but it's more convenient for her to frame it that way. "But with power like that, this will be easy...!"
Just what is she talking about? She forms a little frame with her fingertips, finding Zaphkiel within them. "Aiming, aimiiing... thanks for the assist, brobot!" She asides, chipper, to Azoth. "Now, it's time for you to witness --"
Magilou points to Zaphkiel, "... the strongest synethsis of elements! Tetra Detonator!"
And the magic invocation feels important enough to be spoken in colour, as four orbs spiral, around Zaphkiel. They are red as the hottest wildfire -- blue as the deepest ocean -- yellow as the oldest sands -- and green as the harshest winds. They arc around him until they collapse in towards him, and they come with all the fury of a birthing universe, exploding into white light as they seek their mark.
Lily might realise, first -- Magilou isn't feeling half as casual about this meeting as she's letting on. If she's using a spell like that...
GS: CRITICAL! Holly solidly guards Jophiel's INFRINGEMENT for 66 hit points! GS: Holly's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Holly! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Magilou has attacked Zaphkiel with Tetra Detonator! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
Link moves his shield in front of him even as his blade bounces off of Metatron's shield. The motion means the whirlwind of blade strikes hits his shield instead of him knocking him backwards instead of out as he lands still in range of the Metatron, Billy and Dean. "What?! Are you working with Ganon then? Where is my sister!" the green clad boy demands of Metatron in response to his statement about heroes.
And even as he does he pushes forward again blade and shield at the ready as he adopts a more defensive posture as he sets himself up between Dean and Metatron watching the Wise Man for a chance to strike back.
GS: Link has attacked Dean Stark with To Be a Hero! GS: Link has gained 2 Combo! GS: Link's stances have changed from Counter and Hero to Counter and Hero! GS: Link has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth flashes Xantia a smile. Not one of his impossibly bright under the circustamces flavors, but something a little softer -- more familiar to her, at any rate. "I have your back," he says. "Okay?" So there's no need to hesitate. She can go all out if she needs to, and not be afraid. Sometimes a good fight can be an efficient outlet, after all.
Unfortunately, Zaphkiel has no more information on Xantia, and though Azoth chooses to remember the name of that campaign, it seems like it may be unrelated.
"I appreciate the sentiment!" he calls to Gwen cheerfully. But what Azoth is called and whether or not he goes by a name does not get to be on today's list of priorities.
Instead he tries to keep his focus on tracking. Reading. Observing. Know where Zaphkiel is and where he will be. But this is an analysis for Zaphkiel's weaknesses -- not his strengths. That is a far harder line of data to predict that most of them are (rightly!) in the process of trying to avoid learning more about, and any anticipation Azoth manages to calculate together must be perfect or suffer the consequences of Zaphkiel's sheer, overwhelming force.
As Zaphkiel descends upon him, Azoth knows exactly how that sentence ends. There is, however, no time to run the computations as errors surge and blade rips back through him, destroying Lily's icy protections on him and scraping sparks across his body.
He tumbles, tossed and rolling before managing to dig his fingers into the ground to make himself stop. Distorted beeps creak out of him as he shakes the dust from his hair. "'Rightful rulers'? Is that your objective, or... did you get to decide that yourself?" His mouth quirks. "Raw deal, if it's the former."
Azoth shoves himself off of the ground, and he makes the motion of a feint of a kick as if knocking his own energy blade into the air. This is all pointless motion: he's manifesting them as he goes, and doesn't even catch it. He only pretends to, the pommel always an inch from his finger even as he balances it there, and then hovering by his hand, not held as he dashes for Zaphkiel to slash again him with a simple strike.
GS: Blitz! Azoth has attacked Zaphkiel with Array Slice! GS: Azoth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Azoth gains 10 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark accepts Link's To Be a Hero for 0 hit points! GS: Protect and Shield applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark is now being protected by Link! GS: Cover applied to Link! GS: Gamble: Highest! Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Tetra Detonator for 371 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Azoth's attack becomes clear! GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Azoth's Call by Future for 309 hit points! GS: Strain! Azoth takes 102 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
...And then he's gone before the blade ever hits, nothing but fragments of pixelated light in his wake.
Azoth is behind Zaphiel now spinning his sword above him before plunging it down, trying to sink it in before commanding it to detonate.
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
Cirea's silhouette moves with her like - well, like a mirror image, if the mirror image was solid shining white instead of having things like 'colour' and 'texture'. It flies side by side with her, the two close enough that if Cirea reached out one arm, and the silhouette reached out the other, they could probably just barely touch.
And now that she's managed it, Cirea is a lot less shy and less likely to remain hanging in the back. There are other people out there fighting and she can't just leave them to it!
"I'm fine!" she assures Holly as she accelerates, letting magic build - she's passing a lot of her power to her silhouette, making *it* the primary caster instead of her to try to bypass Jophiel's bindings, so it shines brighter than usual.
"It's more than a trick, you know. I don't know where you're from, or when," so she *was* listening to Ethius just now, "but we're not exactly helpless! A thousand thousand - whoops!"
The 'whoops' was because more lasers. Aborting her spellcast in a shower of harmless sparks and glitter, Cirea dives, nearly touching the ground as beams rain down around her; one of them hits the ground she passes by and turns it into a bubbling mess, while another is avoided only by a sideways roll.
The last ones she has to withstand, and she does that by casting a different spell entirely; surrounding herself with a shell of light that destructively interferes with Jophiel's beams. 'Destructive' is, unfortunately, right; the shell explodes under the impact of the blasts, showering her with semi-randomized energy and launching Cirea straight up almost ten feet.
She catches herself at the apex of her launch, trailing smoke, and goes right back to casting as fast as she can. Her voice doesn't quite squeak as she gets a good view of the battlefield - including Hannah, which causes her to hesitate for a moment; it's something about her magic...
But when she begins to cast, she's definitely going maximum speed: "A thousand thousand lights in the sky above - name one and call it forth! From night to day, a star touched by another! TWINKLE STAR!"
Nothing happens. For about five seconds.
And then, in the sky, there's a shine of blue-white - which resolves into falling spheres of light, trailing shining tails like comets, all of which fall down right around Jophiel and explode in photonic bursts and bright detonations that Cirea shades her eyes from.
A few seconds after that, a few more fall, because what's the point in making a spell that duplicates your OTHER spells if you don't get some extra comets out of it?
GS: Cirea has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Blitz! Cirea has attacked Jophiel with Twinkle Star! GS: Cirea has gained 2 Combo! GS: Cirea has completed her action. GS: Gamble: High! Jophiel takes a solid hit from Cirea's Twinkle Star for 273 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jophiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Cirea! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"I'm trying to be careful, I promise! He just broke all the stuff I actually use to fight with!" Shalune is rather grateful for Margaret circling around her in the wake of her rather wild melee strike, because obviously if someone big and powerful is doing that for you they must be doing it to help cover you, and make up for your shortfalls. Right?
Right???
Her hit lands, though not nearly hard enough. That's fine; she never really expected it to do all that much more than token resistance. The way that time hangs in the air afterwards gives her the chance to grin directly at Jophiel. "I'd rather be an fool than powerful. It kinda twists your outlook on life, I think."
Shalune herself mostly relies on being squirrely; she's not that good at dodging around a combat zone, usually preferring to keep her distance and strike from cover or the air, but she is short and wiry and generally fairly agile, weaving a little as she tries to put some distance between herself and the barrage of lasers. Intuition sends her throwing herself to one side just before they can reach her back, then she's rolling afterwards and kicking herself to one side as she erratically starts to dodge.
And she's used to working under pressure, as well - during one dive she twists off a small panel from the side of her shaft and tosses it to one side. As she twists away from around Margaret's next assault she's dig two fingers into the weapon and ripped out a small piece of patching wire, now burnt and twisted, and her hand flicks into her jacket to retrieve a new loop as if she just had one waiting there ready for this situation. (She's not that smart: she just collects odds and ends a lot.)
She's trying to pay attention to too many things at once, but she's trying to grab what she can. The thought that the Wise Men might predate even the Veruni is-- sure, it's weird, and it's something she can't help but take note of, but it also means that it might be something the collected Drifters can use. Always the optimistic one, she can't help but wonder: what would the Veruni think of someone trying to take 'their' planet? The enemy of my enemy is--
... well, she can hope it goes that way, at least.
Shalune is not at all magically minded, so she can't automatically tell what might be happening behind her around Hannah, but something tells her that it's probably best if she remains in between both targets. When the lasers chasing her finally ground, a quick glance is spared for those around her before she sucks in a breath and rewires the primary circuit in her staff. "Just a little more," she mumbles, her tongue automatically stuck out of the corner of her mouth in concentration.
It's only in time for the next barrage to land around her, each bolt accompanied by an array of debilitating effects; she grits her teeth and hunkers down around most of them, dirt and soil and stone dust kicked up around her as several strike home close enough to impede her. There's a moment where she's lost from sight in the cloud, a wracking cough indicating her struggle--
--and then that air around her seems to change. All of a sudden it isn't a plume of smoke and dust, the particle matter growing higher than it should and forming into something else. It's a shape - a suggestion of a giant figure with clawed arms and plated armor several times Shalune's size. It is not strictly an ancient golem, because perhaps her call button is as haywire as the rest of her technology. But it's something close enough.
Stood in the midst of the cloud, pink hair whips around Shalune's face as she struggles to keep her footing and not collapse, her thumb held down hard on Diablo's remote. One fist curls and raises along with the form above her. "Infringe this," she growls, and the giant fist hammers downwards on top of the Wise Man, more raw force than anything physical.
GS: Shalune Amira has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Shalune Amira spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Jophiel with The Crimson Wind - DIABLO! GS: Shalune Amira has gained 1 Combo! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Jophiel solidly guards Shalune Amira's The Crimson Wind - DIABLO for 212 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen definitely understands what it feels like, in her own way. It's why Xantia was on her list of people to at least check on.
After all, Xantia did the same for her.
"Couriers don't get known for for well they punch their customers," is Gwen's response to Zaphkiel. "That's just bad business sense."
It's easier to play at being a goof than to prove your bite is worse than your bark. After the courier's fury last week, she's taken a noticeable step back in terms of violence.
Unfortunately, Zaphkiel is seeing right through it. He latches onto Gwen's fist, and hurls her back up, leaving her defensiveless against his blade.
The slash makes Gwen's prosthetic ARM known, exposing metal panels through the new cut of her right sleeve; the further secrets of her augmented body, at least, are hidden behind the padded corset and clothing underneath her slashed blouse. All that could be seen is a masked glow over where her heart might be, just as it begins to pulse faster--
Because Gwen is using that point of contact to touch the bare point of her metal arm to that sword, and--
There's a faint smell of ozone as Gwen attempts to charge the sword before gravity overtakes her, forcing her to let go and fall down. Xantia isn't the only one with electric traits, after all.
And she's got more where that came from, as she half-rises from the dirt with a grunt, using her knees to hold her right arm steady as Azoth tries to stab Zaphkiel from the other side. ".... Ngh!" She fires a blast of energy, the recoil shifting her a few inches across the ground.
If Magilou is getting this serious already, things are going to get bad unless Gwen tries to catch up.
GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blitz! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Zaphkiel with Coil Cannon EX! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
There's a concerned look to Hannah, that magic going haywire isn't exactly the best of things, but there's also not much she can do about it at this time. There's a voice somewhere in the back of her head suggesting she needs more training, but a separate suggesting that the dark mage might have had some valid points and she can't tell what's what. Which is partially why she's caught off guard, catching the worst of the blow with a slash of the ink. Cutting through the spell, only to catch the side effects of it all anyway.
She does lose some altitude, slowing down visibly. And she looks angry about it! While she's slower, (And quieter) than usual, she begins to draw symbols with precision. Each word lingering around her. Glowing faintly until all of them are written. The symbols on her leg glow briefly as she conjures up the water. Scooping each word up in the deluge before holding it above her head.. where it blinks out. The bubble, foul and brackish appears above Jophiel's head to douse him in the stuff. She's definitely returning the favor, though with.. less of the wide range he had presented. A trick she might have to go and stea... learn. Learn.
At this point, with the onslaught of it all, she does move in closer to the others. Brush in both hands, held up in a defensive posture. It's bad enough to take things seriously!
GS: Holly has attacked Jophiel with Deluge! GS: Holly has gained 2 Combo! GS: Holly has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Knowing that the faeries look favorably upon her would please Margaret if she was not currently locking her attention on the "Wise' Man in front of her. He is, after all, the man with the plan, and by plan, we mean
Positively
Lethal
Attack
Nuclei.
("What's later?" Margaret asks Ida en passant. Oh, yes, she's halfway confirming. They're trying to kill the locals. Tsk, Margaret thinks, without further interior elaboration.)
Jophiel speaks of the beauty of power. Margaret narrows her eyes. (And then tips a wink back at Magilou.)
The sky above them shines, and not the subtle silhouettic duplicating on Cirea. No! It is something else. A ray of light washes over Margaret as she lunges forwards and finds
one foot is sticking
The other is coming around strangely
She looks downwards at the advancing gray wave up along her body for a few moments even as she calls up her magicks; the light of Starlight Express bursts outwards, and there's a shimmer before --
A perfectly Margaret-shaped and Margaret-sized statue stands there, in all its glory, fury, and, notably, lack of animation.
Silence for a moment as the stars shine in their rage. The light twinkles off of the blade, which has escaped this fate. The painted-on runes on the blade shimmer.
They spark, several times. The sword trembles --
One stone-wrought hand cracks forwards --
AND THE BLADE IGNITES as Margaret staggers forwards, the shell-mask on her face breaking partway as she staggers forwards. RAW SORCEROUS FURY, echoing and bouncing metaphysically off of the ignited RUNE BLADE, is cracking her loose.
Sort of.
Gradually.
"You had BETTER-" crack, crumble, "HOPE I DON'T GET," crumble, stagger, groan, "GET TO YOU --"
One leg sparks as she hurls herself forwards with one mostly freed leg, aiming to try and drive the burning blade through Jophiel's torso! And if it doesn't work she's probably going to hit the ground. Hopefully, without shattering.
DC: Margaret switches forms to Rune Blade IGNITION!
GS: Margaret spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Margaret has attacked Jophiel with Coiling Impale! GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Access! Margaret takes 30 damage! GS: Jophiel solidly guards Holly's Deluge for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Disease, Shieldbreak, and Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Jophiel takes a solid hit from Margaret's Coiling Impale for 232 hit points! GS: Poison blocked! GS: Mighty applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline hears Shalune shouting for the crowd, and she can't help but smile. It's good to see her being reliable as ever.
"...It's the real thing, I'm pretty sure. I recognize it from when I saw it last - and I don't think they'd go through all this trouble if there was a chance it was fake. They must have planned this." Jacqueline considers, replying to her statement.
Ethius, though. Jacqueline frowns. 10372m according to the Space Date calendar... that's a far cry from the current 505... and the 37,000 Metatron mentions is a far cry from even that.
"...I see." Jacqueline murmurs. And Metatron explains. They weren't elected. It's their purpose - their right. She frowns.
"...I thought as much. Thank you - you've been very insightful." She replies. The way he words it, the way he's spoken, paints a picture of his intentions.
Metatron raises his shield, and a beam explodes outward from it. Jacqueline eyes widen in surprise and she furls her cloak tightly around herself, diving behind a nearby stall. Her cover is blown apart in an instant, and she narrowly escapes the same fate.
'Camael'... a fourth one? Jacqueline frowns.
"Careful - he's planning something." Jacqueline warns. He strengthens his barrier - so maybe it's time for her to do the same. She reaches into her bags, rummaging about until her fingers brush up against a stone tablet. She grasps it tightly, and whispers a silent prayer for aid to Grudiev.
The Earth Medium shines - and the ghostly silhouette of the Earth Guardian answers. Debris from the fight is drawn into the vents on his back and then exhaled outward as a glimmering cloud of dust, settling over her allies briefly before fading away - a diamond-like barrier that continues to reinforce itself with the strength of the earth around them.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Dean Stark with Material - Earthen Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Material - Earthen Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Material - Earthen Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Billy Lee Black with Material - Earthen Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Link with Material - Earthen Embrace! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Rebecca Streisand! She gains 186 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Rebecca Streisand!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Azoth's support is heartening to Xantia in a way that she wouldn't be able to adequately explain, which makes it fair because the reverse is also true. "...Yeah," is the only word she speaks to him, and the only word necessary to express her trust and gratitude.
It's not exactly a disappointment to hear another negative answer to a question that she'd stopped asking long ago, realizing its pointlessness. But what if, against the odds, Xantia just happened to have something to do with whoever these 'wise men' are associated with? She had to try. "Guess not," is her simple reply to the 'should I have', and Lily's statement at the same time. She doesn't presume this 'campaign' of Zaphkiel's would have anything to do with her, either.
Though while this didn't upset her overmuch, that other remark does prompt a deep frown from Xantia. "...Another bunch of 'rightful rulers', huh?" Obviously, that sends her train of thought directly to Solaris. Controlling influences like that are among the most insidious threats to Filgaia. While nothing changes outwardly, on the inside, her motivation for a good fight is now supplemented by the significantly more urgent motivation to protect this planet. This just ceased to be a fight for the sake of fighting.
The viciousness of her following strike surprises even Xantia herself, managing to draw... blood? But the color... if there's a shade of silver, and a healing factor that strong, that leads her to only one conclusion.
She would have done better to move rather than gawk at the spilled fluids. Literally blown away by the vacuum blast, Xantia sails through the air for a short moment, before landing hard on her back. She doesn't lie there for more than a second before springing back to her feet. She's hurting, but... now that her level of alarm has been raised in this way, she moves to actively suppress the pain so as to keep fighting without it holding her back.
The ARM on her right arm activates, the red energy produced by the bracer growing to a greater size than it usually does - a large energy blade, to oppose a large physical one. In a sudden burst of speed, she dashes past Zaphkiel, not once, but thrice, trying to deliver a quick blade on each pass. After the third, she stops, turning to ask after the conclusion her previous attack led her to.
"You're... artificially enhanced, aren't you? Maybe even artificially created... what is it, nanomachines?"
GS: Blitz! Xantia has attacked Zaphkiel with Blade Blitz! GS: Xantia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber heals Link! He gains 239 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Link! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber heals Dean Stark! He gains 243 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Dean Stark! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Ethius Hesiod! He gains 179 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Ethius Hesiod!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida sags forward as soon as the flashbulb leaves her hand. She presses her hands to her thighs, takes a deep breath, and then draws herself up--a moment of reprieve granted by Holly and Cirea, and everyone else. She glances at the others, eyes widening as she catches sight of Hannah. "Hannah!" Ida cries. That flare. It's just like the fight with the Witchbuster. "Breathe! We're right here with you!" The best possible outcome is that Hannah's magic somehow overcomes whatever nonsense Symbology these people are protecting themselves with...
She doesn't want to think about the worst possible outcome.
"And I'll show you THE BACK OF MY HAND, CREATURE!" Ida is not in the best position to make good on that threat, as incensed as she is. The gleam from above alerts her to incoming fire. She can't hope to dodge light if she can't see it coming. Instead, she takes a knee, throws up her arms, and--agonizingly slowly--extrudes exoskeleton. She can feel the slithering twist of her own tissue as it moves in slow-motion.
The first beam strikes when her armor is only halfway hardened; it hits high in the shoulder, and a bolt of searing pain erupts behind Ida's eyes. A second one hits, and queasy, dizzying weakness overcomes her. Her vision swims. A high-pitched ringing in her ears disrupts Margaret's voice. Her hand trembles as she reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a small, geometric object. An Artificial Medium. Ida presses it to her palm, and whispers: "The mountain still stands."
The air above her trembles. An apparition takes shape above her: an immense figure, a giant with arms of steel and stone and a volcano's flame licking his scalp. The projection of Dinoginos raises both massive arms, and clenches his fists. A sense of groundedness swells in Ida's chest, and Hannah might just feel the same, too, as the Guardian's reinforcing magic takes hold.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
'NO, IT IS MORE LIKE...'
Hannah watches Jophiel with a sustained glare. "Like what? You got somethin' to say, come out and say it."
Why the hell does everyone feel the need to be mysterious about her danged magic when they clearly know something?
It's starting to tick her off.
She nods to Ida. She's angry, but not as... distraught as last time. "I know. I think I'm okay. Got a better handle on it this time." But calls forth a Guardian's power, and and she inhales deeply, letting it steady her further."
Jophiel rises into the air, though, and Zephyr is already hightailing it out of the immediate area of the right, streaming for an even higher vantage to continue escaping notice. Lasers come from everywhere, indiscriminately destroying everything in what is most definitely not a show of restraiunt. Hannah keeps her eyes on him, still with that same, stubborn glare as the lasers come in. She's pulled out a crest graph and seems content to just... stand there, letting everything wash over her. Her body rocks as the attacks tear into her, but she just sets her stance and keeps her eye on her target.
The crest graph in her hand is already glowing with a fiercely whispy aura.
She knows she's probably drawing a lot of attention from her friends, especially those who don't know her deal, but now that this mysterious source of power is flowing through her it's hardly the time to try and shut the tap now. She waits for the volleys of attacks to clear around Jophiel and then raises her crest graph.
"Thanks for removin' yourself from collateral damage range."
She swipes it sharply across her body, and while nothing happens on the ground, up above the skies suddenly kick into turmoil. The air around Jophiel starts to spin and whirl and twist, trapping him in his own personal cyclone. But it's not just buffeting winds--it's air compressed into finely honed blades. Down, across, up, forwards, backwards--any and all directions, multiple times as they double and triple and quadruple back on themselves again and again in a swirling chaotic mess. All that motion of air causes an eerie wailing sound to spontaneously erupt amidst the flurry. And then, just as suddenly as it all started, air and sound suddenly grow strangely still.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Material - The Mountain Still Stands! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Hannah Curie with Material - The Mountain Still Stands! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - The Mountain Still Stands for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Zaphkiel takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Coil Cannon EX for 236 hit points! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Xantia's Blade Blitz for 222 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Hex applied to Zaphkiel! GS: Hannah Curie accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - The Mountain Still Stands for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Hannah Curie!
<Pose Tracker> Metatron has posed.
"And who are you to say if we have or do not have such a right, Dean Stark?" Metatron asks. He did, it seems, catch his name -- and remember it. He turns, then, and looks up -- and indeed, the shots that Dean fires slam into his head.
With explosions of sparks, the bullets hit Symbols -- flatten -- and drop away. But it does distract him.
"We were sealed -- but as it happens, when the source of our seal's power was used as a battery--" Thank Vinsfeld, for that. "--then it grew weak."
Something older, then, than the Space Date calendar.
Ethius lands, palm against his shield, and electricity blasts into it. There are a couple of loud POPS, as parts of it are short-circuited. A few of those Symbols flicker out. Then, Rebecca's lances of light slam down into him -- and not all of the Symbols can rise.
Machinery is burnt; armor is scorched, some peeling away in layers. Metatron hisses, but he swings around his shield -- and Billy's dark blast of energy, fired from his guns, slams into it instead.
"I assure you," Metatron says. "This world only has nine others like me."
He turns his head to Link -- seeing him position himself between Metatron and Dean. His visor looks at Link, impassive. "I know nothing of your sister," he says. "Or this 'Ganon' of yours. But I've seen your like before, on other worlds -- and they've not stopped me!"
Then, he looks at Jacqueline. Insightful, she says. "Of course I am."
Metatron turns his sword around, then stabs it down into the ground. There is a crackle of light across him; a sheen of blue-white light, before a dome-shaped blast of light explodes off him. It hurtles out for everyone near him -- Ethius, Jay, Link, Rebecca, Dean, and Billy find a cascading wave of blue fire rushing for them.
When it fades, the Symbols across his armor all ignite -- a brilliant golden light, as they sear into Metatron's form, and give him a golden sheen.
"I'll show you the might of the Ten Wise Men!" he says. "As long as I stand, they shall never fall!"
GS: Metatron spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Metatron has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Barrier Burst! GS: Metatron has attacked Link with Barrier Burst! GS: Metatron has attacked Billy Lee Black with Barrier Burst! GS: Metatron has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Barrier Burst! GS: Metatron has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Barrier Burst! GS: Metatron has attacked Dean Stark with Barrier Burst! GS: Metatron has attacked Metatron with Meta-Aegis! GS: Metatron enters a Counter stance! GS: Metatron has gained 4 Combo! GS: Metatron has completed his action.
DC: 4 turns have elapsed in the battle against Metatron! 1 turns remain!
GS: Metatron heals Metatron! He gains 301 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Rebecca Streisand suffers a terrible blow from Metatron's Barrier Burst for 318 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rebecca Streisand gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Hannah Curie spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Jophiel with Cyclone! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Jophiel solidly guards Hannah Curie's Cyclone for 306 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Jophiel! GS: Hyper applied to Hannah Curie! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Link solidly guards Metatron's Barrier Burst for 94 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Ethius Hesiod solidly guards Metatron's Barrier Burst for 108 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 183 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: CRITICAL! Billy Lee Black solidly guards Metatron's Barrier Burst for 139 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: Jacqueline Barber solidly guards Metatron's Barrier Burst for 107 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Jophiel has posed.
Cirea defiantly tells Jophiel that she's not helpless -- and she's certainly backed it up with action. The use of the simulacrum to bypass the censure cage is certainly clever. But even after the last volley, she still stands, a remarkable testament to her tenacity.
Twinkle Star is the name she evokes, and the comets from the sky force him to dart and shimmy out of the way -- one of them catches him, and it's with great force that he grunts and exerts the calibration of the barrier, synthetic muscles straining as he--
--finally throws it out of the way, so he's not flattened, and escapes the duplicate comets along the way.
"A SIGNIFICANT SHOW OF MAGICAL POWER, INDEED... SO THIS PLANET IS MORE THAN JUST AN UNDERDEVELOPED MASS."
His attention is drawn next by Shalune also surviving the barrage, and where he underestimated her is... at his own peril, as he stares not only at a spunky mechanic with verve and pluck--
--he's staring at one of the Elw's Eight Ancient Golems.
"... CAMAEL, TAKE CAREFUL NOTE OF THIS ANOMALY--"
His words are interrupted when Diablo's fists raise and threaten to just shatter him into a million pieces if he does nothing; at first, he takes it head-on, and finds the discrepancy between their weights obvious immediately.
"THIS WEAPON..."
It takes everything the Wise Man has, but then he twists out of the way, allowing him and his barrier to bounce against the side of Diablo's fist and let it shatter Earth.
Any further comment about the Golem is forgotten as Holly draws his attention next -- and it's with the onslaught of ink that a foul and brackish bubble splashes through him, corrupting some of his systems and slowing him down.
"HNGH... SYSTEM CORRUPTION DETECTED..."
Looks like it's working -- though for an opponent of this calibre, it's clear that he won't be stopped by this alone.
Jophiel witnesses the Margaret-shaped statue and allows himself a smirk for a moment, thinking that his target has been subdued-- but N O !
Beauty won't be subdued, just like that. The runes upon the blade shimmer, trembling, and erupting-- Margaret is a raw force to be reckoned with as the rune blade ignites, sinking her burning blade into the mechanical Wise Man's torso.
What happens is nothing short of a miracle, as Jophiel's current barrier parameter CRUNCHES hard against the rune blade in a way that physics just doesn't know how to handle, his body ragdolling in a V-shape for a moment with the force of the blade -- but very little in the way of damage passing through.
"yOu DDDddARE..."
The mechanical corruption in his voice betrays the apparent lack of harm coming to his body, as Jophiel shoves her aside in moments, to regain the control of his airspace.
It's at that moment that Ida, contrary to what he expects, takes the moment to summon the power of Dinoginos, reinforcing the Drifter's defenses in a way that his systems can't quite calculate.
"'THE POWER THAT SUSTAINS THE WORLD'... WHAT A DISMAL STATE IT IS IN."
Jophiel doesn't finish the line. Despite Hannah's desire to have him just come out and say it, he doesn't. Why is everyone so mysterious about her magic? That's just part of her charm point, perhaps...! Even if it ticks her off.
"ALL THE BETTER, THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND."
But Hannah deigns to respond to his unfinished sentence with the confirmation that his movement is to her advantage, and reveals it as the very air around him becomes hostile-- he moves down, across, up, forwards, backwards, buffeted by winds as they threaten to slash away, his ears played by the eerie sounds that no natural wind should create.
As the buffeting winds dissipate, the barrier appears red -- it's clear that it has some kind of operational limit.
"CAMAEL. TRANSFERRING COMBAT DATA TO YOU..."
It's clear that whatever metric they deem worthy, Hannah -- and everyone that Jophiel's battling -- has met the mark. They're a threat, not to be ignored. But then...
"PLAYTIME IS OVER..."
BGM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqVEfCisiuM
"REMOVING LIMITERS.
THREAT LEVEL AT MAXIMUM...
INITIATING 'CARNAGE' PROTOCOL."
Rather unpleasantly, despite the calm and unbothered exterior that Jophiel has revealed up until now, his head starts to spasm as he exerts noises can only be described as hellish and mechanical at the same time--
N O F U T U R E
And his entire body explodes into a shower of thin, but no less lethal lights, each slamming against individual and random reflective surfaces, each going PING PING PING with resounding horror as it goes--
--the corner mirror at the junction between Apple Market and Downtown--
--the reflective surface of the second story of the Library's windows--
--the funhouse mirrors at the Endless Emporium--
--even the surface of the nearby pond at the park where a turtle scurries out of the way--
--and finally, with each bounce, the laser sinks in with deadly accuracy to each of Jophiel's targets, where it threatens to explode with disintegrating force!
GS: Jophiel has attacked Jophiel with UPGRADING THREAT LEVEL...! GS: Jophiel accepts Jophiel's UPGRADING THREAT LEVEL... for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Jophiel! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Stagger removed! GS: Jophiel has activated a Boss Action! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Jophiel has attacked Cirea with N O F U T U R E! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Jophiel has attacked Shalune Amira with N O F U T U R E! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Jophiel has attacked Holly with N O F U T U R E! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Jophiel has attacked Margaret with N O F U T U R E! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Jophiel has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with N O F U T U R E! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Jophiel has attacked Hannah Curie with N O F U T U R E! GS: Jophiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jophiel has completed its action. GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Hannah Curie solidly guards Jophiel's N O F U T U R E for 120 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Shalune Amira suffers a terrible blow from Jophiel's N O F U T U R E for 364 hit points!
DC: 4 turns have elapsed in the battle against Jophiel! 1 turns remain!
GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Jophiel's N O F U T U R E for 238 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Zaphkiel has posed.
"A courier, are you? You've got a stronger bite than the average courier!" Zaphkiel declares, gesturing towards Gwen. "Then come on, courier! Show me the might of that arm of yours!"
The swing of that blade should have taken him in two.
It nearly does. Lily's shadowy blade scythes deep into Zaphkiel's bared flesh, silvery cyan bubbling free in a muted flood. It stops only because Zaphkiel takes her hand in a grip that might as well be iron. He looks at her for a fleeting moment and the corner of his mouth twitches, barely, before he wrenches her hand and blade free.
"Too slow," he tells her, shaking his head. The cyansilver fluid is flowing in reverse, trailing itself back into his body, back into his mending flesh as that great Symbol etched onto his torso shines brilliantly. "But you're welcome to try again!"
Zaphkiel's eyes don't betray what he's looking at precisely, let alone any particular emotion he might be feeling. Still, when Magilou mentions that there's someone who just might like to fight him, his head minutely turns her way.
But he doesn't say a thing. Perhaps, even insofar as his tendencies might go, there is such a thing as business before pleasure.
And today, it just so happens that the two get to commingle for a bit.
He's caught, all the same, in a swarm of the elements. They tear at his flesh. They bite and sting and burn. But even the marks that her magicks leave on his body don't linger long. It's as if it's ceasing to exist, in the same moment that the red-orange Symbols pulse. It's almost as if they're empowering it. Except... Symbology can't heal. Everyone knows that.
"So that's the power of a thousand years of magic," Zaphkiel muses. Almost as if he's a little impressed, he nods his head. "We'll have to add that to the record."
Is becoming rulers something they got to decide, Azoth asks... or something that was made their objective for them?
"Ha! Class 10s were always too clever for their own good. Right, Camael? But, come on, now! I don't think that's the extent of your power. Show me something more than those toys!" he says, urging Azoth onwards.
Camael, if he's listening in, doesn't chime in, not even to warn Zaphkiel as Azoth's manifests in a display that would have been deadly...
...If the Wise Men were any less than what they claimed to be. The blade sinks deep into exposed 'flesh', yet Zaphkiel bucks backwards like an infuriated steed to shake Azoth free. Cyansilver again dances in the air, but as if compelled to return, it reverses its flight to return to his body. He turns in that moment, blade bared, and this, here, is where Gwen shoots him.
Lightning crackles over the length of his sword and slowly, Zaphkiel straightens, having been pressed back several feet in the act of that defense. "Interesting," he remarks, his face turning towards the electrical pulses that continue to dance up and down the length of his sword, sizzling and snapping at his bare hands. "So its function isn't purely utilitarian, but--"
Xantia in that moment intrudes. Not just once, not just twice--
Three times. His wounds run cyan, the light catching its silvery highlights.
"So you're familiar with that? I wonder..." Zaphkiel muses, regarding Xantia as his wounds, again, undo themselves.
His head turns then as if he were listening to a communication that none of their opponents could hear.
"...Understood. I'm sending over my data now." Minutely, his head turns to regard his compatriots on the field here. "Heh. You've all been very entertaining. I haven't had to use some of these techniques in thousands of years! But unfortunately, we have things we have to do."
Zaphkiel rolls his neck, cracking vertebrae (??). As if limbering up afresh, he goes on to roll his shoulders. "But don't worry. I'm not finished with you just yet."
Both hands take the hilt of his sword as he hoists it towards the heavens. It had seemed a masterpiece before but now the sword reveals its true shape: it isn't a blade that was forged from metal as much as it was... Symbology. All of the blade is covered in Symbols, from tip to pommel, and all are now alight, burning to do what it was created to accomplish. "Behold now the power of the wandering stars!" Zaphkiel roars, hefting the sword towards the heavens as it becomes engulfed in violet flame. Something like a shockwave rolls off the edges of the blade.
"STARCALLER CRY!"
And something like a secondary eruption detonates off the weapon as Zaphkiel slams it into the ground with earth-shaking force.
GS: CRITICAL! Cirea takes a glancing hit from Jophiel's N O F U T U R E for 148 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Cirea gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Zaphkiel has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Zaphkiel has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: You have activated the Force Action Lock On! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Zaphkiel has attacked Magilou with Starcaller Cry! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Zaphkiel has attacked Azoth with Starcaller Cry! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Zaphkiel has attacked Lily Keil with Starcaller Cry! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Zaphkiel has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Starcaller Cry! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Zaphkiel has attacked Xantia with Starcaller Cry! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil suffers a terrible blow from Zaphkiel's Starcaller Cry for 0 hit points! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Lily Keil receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark solidly guards Metatron's Barrier Burst for 76 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Metatron! GS: FP up! Countermeasures activated! GS: Protect! Link takes 19 damage! GS: Gwen Whitlock partially guards Zaphkiel's Starcaller Cry for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Azoth takes a solid hit from Zaphkiel's Starcaller Cry for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Magilou solidly guards Zaphkiel's Starcaller Cry for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Zaphkiel's Starcaller Cry for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Xantia receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Xantia enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Jophiel's N O F U T U R E for 253 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Holly solidly guards Jophiel's N O F U T U R E for 172 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune's first impacts the ground more because she's half-collapsed than commanding Diablo in how to attack, but the end result is a satisfying sort of crunch that does at least leave the mechanic grinning brightly and fiercely. It would be nice if the rest of her worked; she's fairly sure she's got a patch of one leg petrified, and there's a sickly feeling running through her stomach as it rolls that she's pretty sure isn't just anxiety around this fight, her vision swimming.
"... thanks," she remembers to say; the image of Diablo shimmers away as if it were simply the dust in the wind, which is exactly what it is now. At least she gets the sight of Jophiel having to recalculate his calibrations and expectations in the wake of the attack, and isn't that the most important thing?
Well, okay, staying alive might be good too.
Dinoginos follows it up - "heyyyy, dinoman, good to see you," burbles Shalune, which is perhaps the clearest indicator that she's not feeling all that in touch with reality right this moment with how full of painful cotton wool her head is getting - and Margaret and Hannah's retaliation despite the assaults bearing down on them.
"Oh, Carnage Protocol sounds real bad," she adds fuzzily. "But, I bet Lunie would love to name somethin' that--" Whatever the rest of her brain is thinking, she does at least have the capacity to haul herself up to her feet. Haywire or not, she reaches into her bag to slam down a small device that looks a lot like a camping lantern. It's because it is a camping lantern, but when she turns it on it glows with an ethereal sort of colour, a very rough approximation of a barrier shimmering into view around her as a dome.
(If you look closely, she just stole an emitter from her last trip through an Elw ruin and stuck it in her lamp. Should this work? Who can say?)
Still, with the interference still very much present, the barrier flickers and cracks even before Jophiel fires a seemingly endless barrage of lasers. Her mind having crystallized a little with adrenaline, Shalune works frenetically to fix it and jury rig up a battery, but the assault is simply too much. "Might need some blood after this!" she manages with a lot more cheer than she really feels, and then she's sucked in a breath and hunkered down beneath her coat, using the last of the barrier as cover before she disappears under the repeated explosions.
There is very little left afterwards but scorch marks and a huddled, ashen figure... but Shalune shifts with a groan of pain, and slowly uncurls herself as what remains of her jacket slides off of her. Both arms are cradled to her chest; the last of the lantern's light is an ember, but a little part of it still persists.
"... yeah?" she scrapes out with a hiss of pain as she stumbles one foot in front of her, then slowly lifts herself on one knee. Every movement clearly aches, but she grits her teeth through it as she hauls herself up to roughly her feet and barely stops herself from pitching back over. It takes some bravado for her to growl out: "... ... what's your next try?"
Lunata really needs to stop influencing her.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Shalune Amira with Still Standing! GS: Shalune Amira has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hex expired! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Shalune Amira heals Shalune Amira! She gains 186 temporary hit points! GS: Shield applied to Shalune Amira!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius recoils visibly when he makes that contact, drawing back a hand whose glove has now been burned off by daring to challenge the shield like that - and then some! He's rapidly shaking out that hand and sucking in breath as he takes leave of the careful grasp he typically has on even the most subtle movements of a living body.
Which is to say, a realistic reaction to touching something hot.
The assurance that there is only 'nine others' like Metatron.
"...A far cry from the assembled armies under Mother, or the numerous local powers consolidated under Vinsfeld," Ethius remarks in a sedate tone of voice. He has to point his exposed hand away from Jay's helpful layers of earthen armor via Grudiev's assistance, and catch a sneak at Diablo.
He never did... apologize.
...
"We have an opening--" Given the way they diverted and spread their offenses, Ethius primes himself to move in anew as Metatron takes in praise of their insightfulness, and... even the act of stabbing that sword into the ground challenges Ethius' balance, and once again a blue-white light such as when the laser--
"...Brace--" Ethius' voice trails off to another Symbological shield cast because that erupts into explosive force at the exact moment he completes it. Blue fire meets loud, blinding sparkling about Ethius' form as he's hurled back - upright - skidding across the length and doubling over as the faded wave reveals a renewed defensive layer of Metatron's capabilities.
"I do not believe the previous opening exists." There are four-letter words starting with the sixth letter of the alphabet that convey emotion and information in a far more timely manner like this, and it has assuredly crossed his mind.
Elsewhere, immense power erupts. The way the lasers converge, watching a sword wreathed in violet prior to earth-shattering force...
Ethius curls his still sore hand, smacking his lips as he manages scalding dehydration in the wake of being at that blast.
"I'm calling in the big one." That's as much as he can give warning in advance for - the spell that scarred Diablo. He closes his eyes as a light starts to glow from the tattoos visible at present.
A sorcerous pattern forms on the ground from the beginnings of the casting ritual, as he throws his right hand up in a forceful gesture to gather sorcerous power like a beacon.
"I call to a star that enables the patterns of life itself, its existence itself an unstable, unsustainable chaos..."
The light of the Symbological runes grow in intensity, and once again it's starting to make intensity look like less of a word.
"Relieve your ceaseless pressure at my call, and bathe them in the unrestrained maelstrom of your prominence...!"
His voice gains strength as he swings the hand down towards the ground in a crouch, fingers spread out as far as anatomically possible, to a final shout to the completed Symbological spell that is intended as the closing act of cleansing dangerous out-of-place technology in the name of preserving the natural development of a world yet to reach the stars.
"S O L A R - - - S T O R M ! !"
A tongue of flame lashes out from a dimmed sky, splashing down upon Metatron as though the sun itself had taken desire to directly eject energy upon where Metatron stands. Residually, it does awful things to ARMs in the periphery. (...They'll be fine with some TLC or a quick reboot, most of the hardware brought by the Drifters has adequate surge protection.)
In the epicenter of all that, immense heat and cosmic rays throw their all against the Meta-Aegis.
He can think of no other solution.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Metatron with Solar Storm - Cinematic Version! GS: Ethius Hesiod gains 32 THP from Regen! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Holly has posed.
She's still trying to gather more and more ink from whatever she uses as a tainted reservoir when ... she pauses. Briefly. Then scowls. She hadn't introduced herself and she's usually so proud to do so. Oh well, she'll be remembered by what's written!
More immportantly, there are golems about though and that does draw her attention. The inky curses floating slowly around her, no long formless blobs streaking through the air. That's something she's going to note. Even mid-fight, that natural curiosity almost grips her and shakes her hard enough to just float over to get a peek at a bit of history.
She shakes that off, particularly as the machine (She's pretty sure it is one by now, right? Is it a hybrid like the Hyaedeans?) begins to malfunction. Then begins what more or less tracks as something like a countdown. The suddeness genuinely catches her off guard and only a hurried free hand through her accumulated spells to repurpose the ink prevents it from being worse. The stuff burning through the hastily erected shield. Concentrated light meeting concentrated nastiness. More and more ink sinks into the light with the last of it sneaking through to scorch the fairy with a loud noise that might not have been the most polite. She does orient though and assess the situation.
The others.. more or less seem to have taken care of themselves and at this time, Shalune (Golem lady) looks like she needs help though and despite the hesitation that tells her to protect friends first, she takes a place between the prone figure and where Jophiel had been in case there's more to come.
Then an idle though slips past her guard and she somewhat embarrassedly remembers she's a Filgaian fairy and can actually aid even a little. She flips the brush, checking it briefly before holding in both hands and shaking sparkles towards the prone form. Scattering the healing magic she's supposed to be associated with to try and at least keep her moving in case it gets worse. All things considered though, she checks on the others too. Focusing first on her closest friends first because she's at least a little selfish. Not that she'd admit to it.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean decides he's just not going to worry about all this huge numbers. It's over his head, and Ethius and Jay seem to get it way more than he does, so he'll let them think about it and explain it to him later when they aren't fighting! Besides, he has an argument with Rebecca still ongoing.
"I didn't say that! We're fighting together, obviously I'm gonna look out for him as far as that goes! But he's doing just fine!" Dean insists to Rebecca. Link even gets in between him and Metatron, and Dean smiles. "See? He's full of courage!" Another thumbs up to Link. "Thanks!"
Of course, Link seems to have his own problems going on with a Ganon and a missing sister... but Metatron doesn't seem to know anything about that, so fighting this guy isn't going to help that issue any. Dean'll ask him about it later, if there's time.
As Rebecca points out, there might not be time.
Thankfully, Jay buys some more for them by sprinkling healing power down on him and the others. Dean breathes a sigh of relief, his movements growing less pained; it helps him raise his guard in time to take on that rush of blue fire with a cross of his ARMs as it whooshes forward towards him and the others from that dome of light. Even so, it's a lot of power; between Jay's magic and Twin Fenrir, it helps dispel a lot of it, but it's no joke besides.
As he lowers his ARMs, Dean shoots back to Metatron, "One of the people you'd be trying to rule over, that's who, Metatron! If this is the way you and your friends act, I don't want you ruling over me and *my* friends! End of story!" Does that mean that he'd be okay if Metatron and the other Wise Men were *benevolent* conquerors? Well, there *are* still a lot of kings in this world... It's not like he isn't used to the idea of *someone* ruling. Nonetheless, that's how he feels about *this* would-be ruler. Billy puts it even more succinctly.
But then the Symbols on Metatron's armor ignite with golden light, lighting him up like the sun. Rebecca says that they might need to cut and run pretty soon. Dean glances at Billy, then at Ethius and Rebecca and finally Link. From there, he looks at his other friends, battling against those other two Wise Men. And Metatron *did* mention a different name from everyone else's...
"Then if we *do* have to run for it, we're gonna have to give it our all and hit 'em hard so we've got time to run for it. These guys aren't the type to let up just because we showed 'em our backs," Dean tells Rebecca. He turns fierce blue eyes towards Ethius as he calls down 'the big one.' "C'mon! Ethius's giving it all he's got, so we can't fall behind either! Let's do *that*, Rebecca!"
Dean jumps back to go back-to-back with Rebecca, raising his paired ARMs to unleash every bullet he's got left. "GO!" While he might focus fire on Metatron, there's three Wise Men, and they'll all need to get a solid punch in the face in the form of bullets if they're going to throw them off their game--either to get away, or to turn the tides against them. Dean's not dismissing that possibility just get.
"Go, go, go!!" he urges, not just Rebecca but everyone else fighting their hardest against these creeps, as he swivels in time with Rebecca with a grin.
GS: Holly has attacked Shalune Amira with Faerie Lights! GS: Holly has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cover and Starve expired! GS: Holly has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Tetra Detonator. Lily recognizes it immediately. She recognzies how seriously Magilou is taking this battle, and she wonders for a moment if she's not riding the high of the serious fight too much.
But Azoth's question is fair. Are they, too?--
And then her blade swings. She knows its power--she knows its strength. And she sees, in an instant, that it should work. She starts to smile--
Until he grips her hand. Lily looks at her blade--and then looks at him, in anger, in primal frustration. "Gh--"
The blade dissipates, as he wrenches it free, and then she stares at him. "Symbological healing!?"
Nanomachines are one thing--but the Symbol glowing as he heals... it should be impossible. Lily steps back, and then jumps back, when her hand is released. Her sword stays in her hand, but she keeps it up for defense rather than offense.
"Xantia!" Lily calls. "Be careful!"
But there is Zaphkiel again. The power of a thousand years of magic--the power of class 10s. ...More. Gwen's shot, Xantia's impossible speed...
AAnd that attack. Zaphkiel roars, and Lily interposes her blade as a shield. The shockwave rolls off--
The broadsword shatters under Zaphkiel's power. Lily plants her feet, but burns nevertheless, assaulted by the violet flame until she reappears within it, on one knee. "Gh--"
"...Magilou," she says. "I think I'm going to try something. If even your magic doesn't pierce through..."
"Then I think it's not them we need to attack."
Lily's eyes cloud over first, sclera turning black as night. She shrugs out of her ruined armored jacket, revealing circuitry all over her arms that gleams purple as she starts to rise into the air, spectral wings extending from her back.
"...<Limiters disengaged>," Lily announces in an ancient language that they may nevertheless understand.
"Sealed away, was it...?"
"Let's seal you back up."
Lily extends both arms, and begins to call upon unnatural, twisted Ether that shakes the very world around her. She knows she won't be able to withstand this casting--but she puts her all into it regardless.
"If this doesn't work, Magilou..."
"I'm counting on you to get us out of here." She spots Hesiod working on his casting--"Hesiod! I'm with you!"
Both hands extend--and space begins to turn, rotating around a single point. The buildings feel it first--they look unreal, for a moment, dissociating from reality, until the space around the Wise Men begins to clutter--begins to section off. Space-time is warped such that for an instant, everything looks as if in funhouse mirrors--
And then space shatters, a brutal effect that would utterly destroy lesser opponents. ...Lily can only hope it does something to these, for a llittle while, when preceded by the awesome might of a Solar Storm.
Regardless of what happens, that same Solar Storm crashes through her, and Lily jolts, thudding hard to the ground.
GS: Lily Keil has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Metatron suffers a terrible blow from Ethius Hesiod's Solar Storm - Cinematic Version for 0 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Lily Keil has attacked Metatron with Astral Collapse! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Lily Keil has attacked Jophiel with Astral Collapse! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Lily Keil has attacked Zaphkiel with Astral Collapse! GS: Lily Keil has gained 3 Combo! GS: Lily Keil's stances have changed to ! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Lock State added to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Boost! GS: Dean Stark spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Dean Stark has attacked Metatron with Trigger Rondo! GS: Dean Stark has gained 2 Combo! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
Cirea isn't even *from* this planet. She's from the moon!
She also has enough self-awareness to not tell Jophiel that, though part of her REALLY wants to. She feels weird about being called a Filgaian.
Cirea is currently trying to figure out how you stop someone who shrugs off your most powerful spells - well, not 'without effect', but without enough effect to actually stop him. And she's come up with an idea. "Give me a moment!" she calls, spinning in a tight arc to draw a circle in the air, the magical pattern starting to form in yellowish-green.
It's moving that saves her from the stray (actually quite well-aimed!) blasts from Jophiel's reflective volley. Cirea tends to be very physical with creating the glyphed circles - mandalas, almost - that she favours for her casting; complex arrangements of lines and colour, repeating and isolated patterns. She moves in a circle, and the pattern trails behind her; her hands control the detailed energy while her body lays the foundation down.
"Okay, you guys have had enough! Everybody out! The breath of the world, released! Blow, winds!"
"HAVOC STORM!"
Cirea's magic is not aimed, directly, at any of the Three Wise Men (well, there's three today). She's aimed it low, beneath them; patterns and circles that match the one she's made in the air, with her silhouette drawing one around each of them (the one near her has vanished). So when the blast comes -
It's from beneath, trying to literally pick them up and throw them, a chaotic storm of wildly churning angles and pressures in visible waves of yellow and green.
But near the end of her casting, one of Jophiel's very last bolts hits her - hits her solidly, sending her flying end over end to literally bounce off a wall, so that's probably the only spell she's got in her for a few moments.
GS: Blitz! Cirea has attacked Jophiel with Havoc Storm! GS: Blitz! Cirea has attacked Zaphkiel with Havoc Storm! GS: Blitz! Cirea has attacked Metatron with Havoc Storm! GS: Cirea has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cirea has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
"Shuuuuuuuuuuuut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup," Margaret wheezes as she bears down on Jophiel, swinging her mostly free leg backwards to kick loose and landing in a slightly wobbled stance. Breathing heavily, tasting stone dust on each breath, she stares at her. Her blade burns.
"Oh for Goddess's sake," Margaret shouts. "You come here, you turn half the neighborhood to stone with your basilisk ray, and now you're complaining the amenities aren't to your liking? Piffle to you, sir! Shoo! Go back to your --"
His barrier is glowing red.
Red is rarely a good color.
Against this red, Margaret glows violet-purple-pink-white-black: the magics flare around her because she can will the magicks around. What about the rest? Will her legs cooperate? Margaret has very little idea. She can see the light streak towards the distant, shining spaces, as in the semi-distant spaces she can see others drawing on great powers.
Things are coming to the critical point...
... so much for the photograph, Margaret thinks as her eyes narrow. She leans forwards and rushes, the burning blade in her left hand swept backwards as she brings her head down and rushes forwards. She can feel a ray of horrible light washing along her side but momentum is her friend right now, and her left arm sweeps UPWARDS towards -
STRIKE!
STRIKE!
STRIKE!
STRIKE!
STRIKE!
A flurry of five chopping savage blows against the Wise Man as the burning blade shudders, shedding fragments of superheated metal as the old Celesti blade begins to reach the end of its exalted lifetime, concluding with a leap aside as she raises the blade upwards, bringing her numb right hand up for bracing alone. The swirling of light around her coruscates along the blade and as the metal begins to break into so much vapor, the light engulfs it --
For the final, surging overhand chop that aims to carve, not Jophiel -
But THROUGH Jophiel, and towards the horizon beyond!
(Margaret is briefly puzzled at the sheer intensity of the winds. Did she outdo herself? Ah, she thinks, glancing upwards; Cirea gets what is meant to be a thumbs up but sort of looks like a waggle of the right hand. Still, it's the thought that counts.)
GS: Margaret has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Margaret spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Margaret has attacked Jophiel with A Continuous Motion...! GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo! GS: Margaret has launched an attack Link! GS: Margaret spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Margaret has attacked Jophiel with THE GREAT DIVIDE! GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hex expired! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Access! Margaret takes 30 damage! GS: CRITICAL! Metatron solidly guards Dean Stark's Trigger Rondo for 178 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Cirea has posed.
Cirea, who is dangling upside down after having bounced off a wall and caught herself on a windowsill, gives Margaret what is probably supposed to be a thumbs-up in return. Sadly she is upside down at the time.
Then she slides off the windowsill.
GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Lily Keil's Astral Collapse for 391 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zaphkiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 60 FP! (That's 45 more than usual!) GS: Strain! Lily Keil takes 50 damage! GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Cirea's Havoc Storm for 281 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zaphkiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover applied to Cirea! GS: CRITICAL! Jophiel takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Astral Collapse for 451 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Lily Keil takes 50 damage! GS: CRITICAL! Jophiel takes a solid hit from Cirea's Havoc Storm for 342 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Cirea! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Low! Jophiel solidly guards Margaret's A Continuous Motion... for 243 hit points! GS: Slow blocked! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Jophiel suffers a terrible blow from Margaret's THE GREAT DIVIDE for 360 hit points! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca counters back, "He's also full of misconceptions! He thinks this Metatron Creep has his sister and works for Ganon!"
... Wait is that why Dean and him are already getting along so well?
It's a really good thing that Jay, sends that Diamond like energy out, because that roaring wave of Blue Fire? It's perhaps all that saves her. It slams through that diamond energy, burning it away instantly as Rebecca shrieks from the cascading wave of Blue Fire.
It hurts. A lot.
It's a challenge not to break down sobbing from just the pain, but she promised a long time ago. She wouldn't. So even blasted off her feet, she forces herself to leap up, even as the vestiges of the diamond energy left by Jay's spell tries to knit away at the new wounds.
Still hurts though.
"And who-" Her voice rasps, from the burns in her throat, "-are you to say if you do? Dean and me! We're just - SICK AND TIRED! Of people like you coming in to disrupt the lives of everyone trying to get by!"
And while Dean has implications of being good with BENEVOLENT CONQUERORS, Rebecca decides to let that slide, for these Wise Men are showing off that they are VERY VERY GOOD at disrupting the lives of others as Jophiel just, TURNS INTO LASERS! And Zaphkiel sends a town shaking shockwave not far away that nearly stumbles her.
Dean however, counters, and Rebecca gives him a sigh, and a lopsided grin, "Was afraid you were gonna say that Dean." Yet, her tone feels like tacit agreement with him.
Despite them squabbling all the time, or perhaps as a sign of how close they are from the fact they do, when Dean says 'do that' Rebecca instantly knows what he means, "Right Dean!"
Abruptly she springs into the air, into a somersault, where she lands just behind where Dean landed, ARM held high and back to back. And then she just begins to fire, her ARM shining as she just rains bullets around the immediate area with incredible accuracy.
It will miss the Drifters, but everywhere else? It's just saturated with bullets.
"We're not finished yet!"
Then as Dean swivels, she leaps again into a backflip, landing back to back again, and swings her ARM around in an arc of bullets that ricochet at dizzying angles as the two turn in synch, turning the pair into a whirling cyclone of gunslinging death as they fill the Kattelox streets with muzzle flashes and gunsmoke.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Metatron takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Astral Collapse for 441 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Strain! Lily Keil takes 50 damage! GS: Formation! Rebecca Streisand has attacked Metatron with Trigger Rondo! GS: Formation! Rebecca Streisand has attacked Jophiel with Trigger Rondo! GS: Formation! Rebecca Streisand has attacked Zaphkiel with Trigger Rondo! GS: Rebecca Streisand has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rebecca Streisand gains 34 THP from Regen! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action. GS: Zaphkiel suffers a terrible blow from Rebecca Streisand's Trigger Rondo for 288 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Metatron suffers a terrible blow from Cirea's Havoc Storm for 304 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Cirea! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The Sorcery Globe used as a battery... a grimace crosses Jacqueline's face, as she realises what that must mean.
"Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus..." Jacqueline mutters, as if the name were a swear. Of course Vinsfeld's actions would find a way to continue to haunt them from beyond the grave somehow.
Metatron's sword is planted into the ground - and then light erupts outward, blue fire threatening to consume them all. Jacqueline gestures rapidly with her left hand, forming layers of earthen walls. The fire overtakes her...
...but when it fades, she's still standing - if with some effort, and a little drained from the rapid casting.
"We don't... falter so easily, either." Jacqueline replies, before forcing herself to stand straight up. She considers her next course of action. After thinking for a moment, she draws two Crest Graphs - setting one in her left hand, and the other in her right. Her stance lowers into one more optimal for her next feat of spellcasting.
His defenses are... strong - they have to hit him with everything they have. And so she does - casting two spells in rapid succession.
Ice begins to rapidly form around him before converging onto him, as if trying to freeze him within a solid block of it - before a bolt of lightning crashes down to cause it all to erupt.
GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Spellweaver Stance! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has launched an attack Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber's stances have changed from Link to Hero and Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber accepts Jacqueline Barber's Spellweaver Stance for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Surge applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Jacqueline Barber has attacked Metatron with Dualcasting Sequence! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Shield expired! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Metatron solidly guards Rebecca Streisand's Trigger Rondo for 130 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: CRITICAL! Metatron suffers a terrible blow from Jacqueline Barber's Dualcasting Sequence for 323 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Business before pleasure, huh?
But it's important to know that there are still things that bring Zaphkiel joy.
"Hoooh? Symbology to repair the body," Magilou muses, a hand over her lip. "How interesting...!" All new discoveries, after all, begin with everyone knowing that, and 'that' being defied anyway.
"To think, I'd appear in someone else's record! Finally, a little recognition!" Magilou has an entire grave honouring her, but this is not about that.
But... they have things to do.
"That's..." Magilou starts, eyes narrowing at the sight of a blade forged from Symbols, before she throws up a hand and summons a beehive barrier of light against that shockwave. It holds, for the first roiling pass...
... until the eruption tears through them all.
"Kh--!!" At once -- and for the first time in an aeon -- Magilou's barrier cracks and fails to nothing, and she does not bear the cost of maintaining the barrier as her wounds. No: she is bodily thrown across the way, to crack a pew of seats in two with her slight body.
She looks like she ought to bounce, but she doesn't.
"Give me another headache, why don't you..." She grumbles, to herself, as she picks herself up in the wake of Lily relying on her. There's a shard of wood still stuck in her twintails, and her hair is going to need such a brushing, after this. There's also blood, of course, but let's not underestimate the impact of ruining her hairdo. The devastation of such a thing will be felt for centuries.
But while Ethius and Lily have grand ideas for ending this, Magilou -- at least takes that request to take care of them with a centimetre of seriousness. Enough to declare, to Zaphkiel: "You're all about to get a lot closer!"
What? Who?
To his sword, apparently, as a purple, inky Darkness sigil alights on the ground. "Gravity Mine!" Magilou detonates the spell right under his feet, seeking less to end him --
-- and more to tangle him up in his own oversized sword.
GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Zaphkiel with Gravity Mine! GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Metatron boasts to Billy - there are only nine other men like him. That's useful, of course. But Billy...
He feels more like he's looking at a man who'se left his face behind, rather than covered it. The pale boy dares to look Metatron dead on, and breathes, "No. Your kind are the most pitifully common of all. I hunt monsters, you see. I know quite a lot about mindless beasts."
Metatron's might does crash against him - the diamond barrier from Jay flashes up between him and the attack, and Billy's own defenses are nothing to sneeze at, but even so, it forces him back, a thrown stone crashing through all those layers and scratching his cheek. Bright red blood drips down a pale cheek. He breathes. He can't quite muster the power. The damage is too much, too fast, but...if he can at least hold this man back...won't that be something? In the moment, it's all he can think to do.
So he throws back his coat, and an ENTIRE MINIGUN falls out, already mounted to a deployed bipod. Billy falls to a knee and levers the massive weapon up at Metatron. For all the slander he can throw at Metatron, his spite won't break the man's shields, let alone his bones. He's not sure anything he has now will do it. But...he must try.
For Granas and Filgaia, he must try.
He pulls the trigger, BOMBARDING Metatron with a seemingly never-ending deluge of ARM blasts, eyes focused to take in every detail.
GS: Formation! Billy Lee Black has attacked Metatron with A Real-Ass God-Damn Minigun! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 2 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black gains 31 THP from Regen! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Gamble: Very High! Metatron suffers a terrible blow from Billy Lee Black's A Real-Ass God-Damn Minigun for 310 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Jophiel partially guards Rebecca Streisand's Trigger Rondo for 180 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jophiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Jophiel enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Entangle expired!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Even as he's thrown and attacked and making his own attacks, Azoth endeavors to keep the obversations going for his allies. They flicker in and out dangerously, but there's always another flash of light to follow if they hesitate.
Zaphkiel speaks to 'Camael'. Another one of their ten? How advanced are the communications to be speaking directly right now...?
Azoth beeps with alarm as the sword points skyward. Symbology...?! "Get behind me!"
What a pointless, futile effort. Azoth thrusts his palms out, a veil of light curving in front of him. This ARM shield shatters instantly. He protects no one with it, least of all himself as he's blasted back and slammed into the nearest wall with a distorted utterance and a crack of metal. Azoth sinks down into a kneel, all his blue lights turned red. His left eye flickers rapidly. The right's lens is broken and dim.
His shoulder, already cracked open, sparks red. Brighter. Bigger. Blinding. Azoth's arm twitches and spasms as he lifts it, each piece rattling into the next. His fingers articulate one uncanny joint at a time. Warnings flare through every line of code as Ethius begins his ritual. Even before the spell is complete, sensors know what is coming, and his functions begin to scramble.
Abort. Retry. Fail.
Show me something more than those toys!
Ignore.
Blades manifest in rapid succession, taking place behind Azoth in a ring as he thrusts forward toward Zaphkiel. He commands them to gather with him, then spreads them like a fan to fire off, each after the next, diving to pierce and pin into his target.
... The strain of it is far too great. Azoth's body crashes before Zaphkiel in a kneel as the last of his blades find their mark -- or don't. The effects of Solar Storm muddle the android further, sparks fritzing out of the cracks in his chassis and his one good eye is a constant, dull pulse of red light. Azoth is completely exposed, unable to defend himself or retaliate any longer.
GS: Azoth has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Formation! Blitz! Azoth has attacked Zaphkiel with Blade Server! GS: Azoth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Azoth gains 10 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Blitz expired! GS: Azoth has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
As Metatron unleashes the explosive barrier of blue fire, Link huddles behind a shield almost as tall as he is using it to blunt the force. Thanks to the various protections casted from behind him, he pushes through it deflecting a litte of it from Dean in the process too. When it ends, Link is still near Metatron.
Then tremdnous attacks come back in from other people around the fights and Link remains behind his shield peeking around it watching, waiting as he considers things. As the various spells dye down, bullets fill the air around Metatron from Billy and Link finally sees a chance. Surging forward, the young boy thrusts forward once, twice, thrice in a quick flurry of attacks.
GS: Link spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Link has attacked Metatron with Flurry Strikes! GS: Link enters a Counter stance! GS: Link has gained 2 Combo! GS: Link gains 26 THP from Regen! GS: Shield expired! GS: Link has completed his action. GS: Metatron suffers a terrible blow from Link's Flurry Strikes for 260 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Gleam activated! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Catastrophic! Zaphkiel solidly guards Magilou's Gravity Mine for 129 hit points! GS: Zaphkiel's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Entangle applied to Zaphkiel! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Zaphkiel solidly guards Azoth's Blade Server for 140 hit points! GS: Strain! Azoth takes 50 damage!
DC: 4 turns have elapsed in the battle against Zaphkiel! 1 turns remain!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
It seems like Jophiel taking to the sky hasn't enough to keep everyone else from piling on attacks.
But her demand for answers is met with that reply. Better that she does not understand...
She scowls in frustration. "Fine, if you won't talk, we'll just have to make you talk."
That's a rather tall order, Hannah, considering the fearsome might on display here. Still, it's good to have goals.
Transferring data... who could they possibly be in contact with? And do they possess a similar level of power to these three? But the barrier is turning red... "I think we might be breakin' through his defenses! If we can push 'im just a little bit more..."
But of course there is a ferocious attack coming their way, as he declares playtime is over. Hannah's glad that Zephyr is keeping well above the fracas right now. 'Carnage' protocol... "... I don't like the sound of that." She's already going for a crest graph. She swipes, but this time a barrier of ethereal force srrounds her. It shimmers and rackles with her strange magic, and Hannah holds out a hand to steady the bubble as laser strikes drill into it.
The barrier strains as the lasers drill into it, and the entire surface crackles with more power as she pushes back against their might. But when the lasers stop, she drops her hand and lets the barrier dissipate.
She's already reaching for another crest graph--no, two crest graphs, one glowing with a fierce red energy, and the other shimmering with electric sparks. She draws deep, her aura--not to mention the air around her--shimmering with whatever this hidden powers of hers that she does not want is. She holds both crest graphs up under her mouth, and she starts to inhale sharply. Power swells, builds up within her as she gathers it along with her breath.
And when her lungs have taken in every last scrap they can, she exhales sharply. A great big torrent of flame erupts from her mouth. It burns scorchingly bright, and as it clears her mouth it can only meet the very barest definition of a ball: it's fraying and trying to unravel, licks and arms of flame peeling off of it as it sails forth, all while something inside it keeps renewing it. And once it is almost to Jophiel...
She snaps her fingers. From within the fore of that fire-not-quite-ball erups a a thick, writhing mass of electric tendrils that lash out wildly in the air around them, turning the entire thing into a writhing mess of fire and electricity. And once the first tendril of lightning catches onto the cybernetics in Jophiel's body... there's really only one place that disaster waiting to happen wants to go.
GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Hannah Curie spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Hannah Curie has attacked Jophiel with Elemental Conjunction! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Hex expired! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: Jophiel solidly guards Hannah Curie's Elemental Conjunction for 238 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jophiel gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The blast that Zaphkiel calls down on them takes Gwen completely by surprise, plowing her over on the ground with a hard smack.
It's a wonder Gwen can even sit up after that, but with effort, she coaxes herself to shift her body upward, first to just sit up, then lean on two knees, then one, then a staggered standing position.
Her right hand shakes. Her body aches for some relief and boost to keep moving, something her ARM could provide.
Instead, Gwen presses her left hand over her right, and stills her breathing. It won't make much of a difference, and it's clear these men are documenting all their tricks. That Ace can only be used once, and it better be when it'll matter.
That doesn't mean she's not going to blast him to hell and back, though. ".... Heh... y'know, if you weren't tryin' to hurt us all..." Gwen starts.
'You would make an exception for Azoth, someone who nearly killed you, but not Siegfried?' Riesenlied's words come to mind, as Gwen tries to reflexively seek her opponent's amiable side as a means of bridging peace.
".... Nah, anyone who's claimin' to be the ruler of the universe so casually is someone I really can't stand, even if you seem right personable on the surface." Gwen allows her voice to grow weary. "Dean's got the right of it, I think."
Freeing her right hand from the grip of her left, the fingers of Gwen's right hand begin to curl and hook, as if trying to latch onto a store of energy it technically can't physically hold. ".... Magilou, I think I can nab Lily if you can't, if this next attack don't do me in. I don't Lily would mind none. I can haul one of you guys too, if y'need." The battle's lost, in Gwen's mind, but that doesn't mean they can't give these Wise Men a little more wisdom to remember them by.
Drawing a glowing circle in the air, Gwen's finger traces the symbols inside it, then presses her ARM straight through the middle, holding it steady. She winces when she sees Azoth already on the ground before Zaphkiel, his body being further damaged by the last-ditch efforts slung Zaphkiel's way.
"Hold on Azoth, I'm gonna come snag you!"
It takes effort to readjust her earlier aim, but it's worth every effort she makes. "Here's one for th'road, Zaph!" His name is Zaph now. He'll have to deal with it.
"Ringshine!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Zaphkiel with Ringshine! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Years of training have granted Ida an astounding degree of control over her body. Jophiel's sorcery--technology? is there any meaningful difference, in his case?--is pushing that control to the limit. Her vision swims. The ringing in her ears is now coming and going, seemingly at random. Horrible nausea has settled into her stomach. Her limbs feel leaden, her head feels light.
And yet, she's still on her feet. As the ground rumbles, Ida looks up, sees Diablo's wobbly image, and gives an equally wobbly 'OK' sign. "Thanks," she says, to Shalune and her refurbished ancient weapon system both.
is that--
The nausea nearly makes her double over again, but she grits her teeth and fights through it. "This world is still alive," Ida growls, "and so are we!" Her gaze locks on Jophiel's, and does not waver. She takes a step towards him as he recoils, seemingly in intense pain--but part of her is reminded of Azoth in the throes of his overrides, and she doesn't go for the immediate counterattack.
This saves her, or at least spares her pain. Jophiel erupts in an unconscionable amount of lasers, and through the dizziness, Ida sees the beginnings of a pattern. Dodging is again out of the question. More exoskeleton erupts from her body, encasing her vitals, but even this motion--which is normally simple, reflexive, easy as breathing--feels strenuous, like it's taking forever. The first laser lances in and strikes Ida in the small of the back. It's barely stopped from burning through by her armor, which explodes from the sudden heat-stress. The second blast shatters the armor on her shoulder. The third catches her in the gut.
Azoth, Ida thinks, as she reels back. He was--she heard him. And Link, and Jay, and--
Ida plants her foot with a heavy STOMP, cups her hands, and raises them as she takes a breath. "Get out," Ida says, as she slowly, deliberately clenches a fist. Chi boils off of it as she steps towards Jophiel. "Get out and NEVER, EVER COME BACK!" With the last word, Ida surges forwards, a human shockwave. The air howls around her as she drives her fist right toward Jophiel's face, wreathed in light. Every part of the strike feels ten times more difficult than it should be.
But that's the Method, right? Adversity is a far, far better teacher than victory.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Jophiel with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed from Stoic to Avenger! GS: Hex expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Jophiel solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist for 260 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia stares at Zaphkiel impassively after delivering her strikes. He won't confirm her theory. But it's clear that there's something going on that isn't natural, and it has something to do with those symbols. She doesn't know Symbology so well, but she's almost sure there has to be something more going on. Something that she can't see, right now. Something that... could well make victory impossible, unless they figure it out.
But it seems they're out of time. There's little Xantia can do against an attack so massive except to weather it, the best she can. Digging in her heals, she crosses her bracers in front of her, dismissing the weapon in favor of a translucent shield.
It isn't enough. When that power washes over her, Xantia shield strains, then breaks, and she's flattened to the ground by that wave of force. By all rights, enough to knock anyone down and out.
However, down is all she is. Her drive - her need to protect Filgaia is strong to the point where it's out of her hand. She MUST get up, and so, she does. Emotion has drained away from her eyes and her words, when she intones, "All threats to Filgaia... must be removed."
...And then it stops. Whatever she may have planned to do doesn't happen. It's a combination of factors that causes it, but primarily, concern. For Lily, when she taps into powers she knows are dangerous to herself. For Azoth, dangerously prone to putting himself in harm's way to protect others, even when not ordered to do so. They always go so far. ...Someone has to make sure they make it through this.
What she ends up doing is so straightforward, likely no one would have predicted it. She waits, bides her time until all the bombardments cease. Expecting even Zephkiel will need a moment to recover after all that. And then she strikes. By charging in, ducking behind him, and... attempting to wrap her arms around him, as a prelude to using all her considerable strength to toss him backwards. Just, get him far away from everybody, in the most direct way possible. The classic...
GS: Blitz! Xantia has attacked Zaphkiel with SUPLEX!! GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xantia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Xantia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Metatron has posed.
Flame shoots down from the sky, hurtling down for Metatron. It slams into him -- and the golden light around him. When it strikes, the Symbols all around him flash brilliantly. He is gone, in a moment, in a brilliant light of cosmic fire.
And when it fades... he stands there, unharmed. The technologies making up his body are online; his visor still glows, dimly.
"We do not need armies," he tells Ethius. The barrier, though, is diminished -- and that lets Dean's and Rebecca's shots, fired into him, strike home. Many smash against the armor; many just flatten out when they hit Symbols. He leaves shattered bullets in his wake. One, though, hits his cheek.
And blue-silver blood splashes on the ground. "You both have... some skill," Metatron allows. "I see this will require more of me than expected!"
Space warps around him -- and then shatters, as raw cosmic force at Lily's command slams into Metatron. His defenses, though, hold. His armor is burnt here and there -- yet more often, it withstands. He even steps through some of the energy, fearlessly.
He swings his shield up -- and then Cirea's spell comes up from below. Churning wind strikes him, throwing him into the air -- and he crashes down, leaving a crater in Kattelox's streets. His shield swings forward. Ice forms rapidly; it smashes into the shield, even as it rises up around him, though Metatron hacks some away with blade and shield alike.
Then Jacqueline's lightning bolt descends, slams into him, and the ice shatters. He looks at her -- and he remains whole. Armor is dented, here and there, yet not broken -- not cracked.
Before he can advance on her, though, he has to turn -- and his shield intercepts the huge burst of bullets from the minigun. Billy's shots leave it cratered and dented throughout, as the rounds strike it, and half of them break through the symbols. But the shield doesn't break.
And Link comes rushing in. His sword thrusts out, and the first one is met with a strike of Metatron's sword. The second, too, collides with it; sparks flash with each blow. The third, though, slashes past, and cuts a gash into his armor.
Sparks fly when the Hero's Sword cuts along his armor. "It seems the heroes here can wield a blade," Metatron says.
He then swings his shield forward -- and pushes Link back from him. He starts to step forward, until he sees a crackle of light. That gives Metatron pause.
Before Zaphkiel, Jophiel, and Metatron, a hologram appears -- a flickering images of an old, balding man wearing green robes. He holds up his hands -- and each palm has an eye on it. Like Metatron, he wears a visor; however, his forehead is dotted, irregularly, with eyes.
"Yes, there it is," Camael says. "Good! I have you data. And the coordinates--we'll bring you in!"
He vanishes.
Then, rings of light erupt around the three Wise Men here -- and around the Sorcery Globe. Huge rings of silver light, filled with Symbols turning on and on; those shine, brilliantly, before the they turn into several flashes of light.
They shoot up into the sky -- up high, and higher still. They rise to a distant, gleaming star, visible even in daytime. One that Filgaians and Lunarians know well.
One they fear well.
The New Moon -- the Black Star, on Lunar -- the artificial satellite whispered of. It gleams, as those lights seem to merge into it.
<Pose Tracker> Jophiel has posed.
Jophiel looks on with no small amount of surprise as Diablo seemingly flickers away from the battefield. "VIRTUAL INSTANCING...? TELEPORTATION?" Jophiel questions, when the truth is the likely much more simple, 'a great creature appears for a summon attack and disappears, don't think too hard about it' JRPG logic.
But Shalune is still standing, and Jophiel scoffs for a moment. "I COMMEND YOU ON SURVIVING THAT. HOWEVER..."
His reaction is disrupted as he -- as the most mechanical of the Wise Men -- senses the powerful Symbological spell that Ethius harnesses. He's in the periphery, but he, too, still feels the garbledness of his systems. He takes one look at Metatron.
...
Hmph, if that fool dies here, then he wouldn't have been worthy to be their ally in the first place.
It isn't just Shalune, though -- Holly, too, reveals herself to still be standing. Floating. So, this is the tenacity of those from this cursed star... she's flitting towards the mechanic for aid, and he tries to cut that avenue off--
Much like Ethius before, it's Lily that takes his attention this time, and space-time begins to unravel, and the funhouse mirrors of the Emporium become quite real.
"THIS IS... MEMORY SPACE ONCE MORE...? NO--!!"
The unravelling power of Lily's reality-bending power rips through him for a moment, so much that there's another one of those hellish, unintellible corruptions--
"... ... THAT WAS ... ..."
--and then, in a shower of data, Jophiel reasserts himself, that barrier looking dangerously close to its limit.
A moment later, Cirea reveals that she's not done yet -- like Hannah's Cyclone before her, it's with wind that she attacks, blasting him in ways that the barrier does not protect; there's a grunt as he tries to escape the vortex, but finds himself churned through the storm, as something begins to crack.
"THIS POWER..."
The Drifters are exceptionally well-coordinated, for what he thought was a random collection of passerby. Margaret's taunts wash off off him, but the five chopping blows are much more trouble, as Jophiel doesn't trust the barrier itself to exert dominance--
Clash! There's a forearm deflect, and then an abdomen dodge, a last-minute knee strike that pushes the blade up causing it to slice against the barrier, a weave, and then for the last--
Bravery Roll: 86 vs. 97
BLADE GRASP!!
"HnNG#$zzvvhHH--" comes his guttural groan, as the mechanical malfunctions in his voice erupt through as he attempts to take hold of the blade. They fight, and fight, hand against blade in tandem--
--and when that breaks, the final, sixth slash is--
Through!!
There's dramatic stillness as Margaret passes through. And then, a SPURT of mechanical fluid erupting out of him!
"IMPOSSIBLE..."
Rebecca's bullets come on through with impeccable force a moment after, and the machine is forced to recalibrate its priorities. Unfortunately, by this time, the barrier has had a bit of time to breathe-- though it's still with all of his effort that he has to deflect, redirect, and otherwise disintegrate the rondo of bullets that Rebecca has to offer.
Jophiel has no answers for Hannah. But the attack doesn't succeed in taking her down -- she, too, has a barrier that strains and hangs against the lasers, and in response... she has more than one answer for him. A conjunction of elemental energies that act in concerto-- a symphony of flame that he initially veers clear from--
But that, too, is within Hannah's calculation, as the lightning strikes him directly, and the barrier looks overwhelmed as the strained, hellish noises erupt from his throat. Something broke inside of him, she can sense it.
"I WILL... TERMINATE..."
That word, once more, is unfinished, as Ida finally surges into melee range, where he expected her to be all this time, but has not been -- and finally makes him pay for it, her words punctuated with defiance and verve as the fist strikes with clarity and truth.
A crunch is felt, within his body, regardless of the barrier's status. He ragdolls backwards, through the air, crashing into a nearby house and flattening it wholesale.
...
...
And then he rises, uncomfortably quickly. Something viscous and black is dripping from him.
The calm veneer just seems to spur him onwards. He's wounded. He's clearly and undeniably wounded. From Margaret and Ida's strikes, from Cirea and Hannah and Holly's great magics, from the presence of Diablo and Shalune's own works. From Lily's reality-shattering collapse, and Rebecca's hailstorm of bullets, expertly directed from each of her barrels to him.
Oh, he is wounded. And feeling pain for what must be the first time in so long -- given they were sealed -- seems to have activated something that lay dormant within him.
"MORE..."
That agitated twitch erupts from his left shoulder. A dangerous red energy is gathering within him. He must be planning to attack again, and again, and again!
"MORE, MORE!"
His head spasms this time, spit and liquid erupting from his mouth, what passes for a tongue lashing out as he shouts, ungainly:
"MORE, MORE, MORE, YOU WORMS! MORE! MORE! I WANT TO SEE MORE OF YOU WORMS WRITHING IN PAIN! OH, FOR HOW LONG HAVE I FORGOTTEN THIS SENSATION? THE PAIN! EXCRUCIATING, INDELIBLE PAIN, NOW ETCHED INTO THE VERY RECESSES OF MY DRIVE STORAGE! KEEEEYAHAHahahH0x88F5#$zzvvhHAAAA HA HAAAA--"
And then the flickering image of an old, balding man in robes appears.
"DON'T INTERRUPT ME NOW, CAMAEL--"
He is interrupted, turning into little more than light as he shoots high up into the sky, to a distant place of ominous origin -- the Black Star... the New Moon.
...
...
A Servbot gawks quietly at everything that's just happened, and looks up, with a big ol :OOOOOO expression on his Lego face.
"Miss Tron, they went up into spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace."
GS: Zaphkiel solidly guards Gwen Whitlock's Ringshine for 143 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xantia's attack becomes clear! GS: Zaphkiel solidly guards Xantia's Scarlet Eclipse for 137 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Zaphkiel enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Xantia drains Zaphkiel! Xantia gains 68 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
That suplex may not have worked as well without Xantia's personal touch. As in, her magic/energy-draining touch, causing a brief moment of severe weakness while Xantia is strengthened at the same time. That's one way to pull off a reversal. As well as keep herself standing, in good enough shape to be able to help those who pulled out everything they had, borrowing some of Zaphkiel's strength for that purpose. This truly is a dark day, when Xantia is the one making sensible decisions. While still suplexing people of course, it's still Xantia.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune is running entirely on bravado; she couldn't press the attack if she tried, and is more or less standing her ground out of sheer spite than any particular heroic will to continue. When the mechanical man goes to the ground she tenses, expecting that this isn't going to be the end of the fight by any stretch. When he stands in that unnatural and impossible way, she has it in her to recoil in surprise and fear, nearly stumbling over her own feet at the sudden rage.
... and when the Wise Men improbably, impossibly lift into the air, she cranes her neck to watch them rise right up until she falls back on her ass, spreadeagle on the ground. "... oh, right," she says as if it were obvious that the New Moon would decide to spawn a bunch of bad guys just for them, and closes her eyes. "Um, I might just pass out now, if that's okay with everyone," she decides terribly calmly.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
A hand grabs out to Shalune's collar and starts dragging her away. "Honestly!" huffs Lunata. "You're not getting any room to rag on me about being reckless for the next three months!"
<Pose Tracker> Zaphkiel has posed.
Symbological healing.
Lily is the one who says it first, perhaps, realizing that the trick Zaphkiel is pulling is precisely that. That Symbol, etched onto his flesh -- it can be nothing else.
"They never did tell anyone else, did they?" Zaphkiel remarks, as if thoughtful for the moment. "Or perhaps it was forgotten? Well, whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. You can't win," he tells her -- tells all of them.
"But at least you can try to be entertaining!"
Metatron speaks of why they are here now. Why it only could have been now. They had spent tens of thousands of years sealed away in that sphere, only for what it had been used for serving to weaken their prison enough for them to escape. Perhaps, Lily supposes, she might be able to seal them away again.
And at this, Zaphkiel narrows his eyes.
The world around the Wise Men shudders then, even as solar fire rains down from on high. For something else, for almost anything else, it might have been enough to kill them. Or shatter them. Or trap them so they could never go from this place, ever again. Time and space sheer against each other in an awful wrenching lurch and Lily accomplishes in this moment something she hasn't up to this moment: Zaphkiel drops to one knee. He is using his sword, plunged into the street and shining with all its Symbols, to stay upright. Gripping the blade with both hands he then roars wordlessly and with one mighty swing--
carves his way free of the prison Lily has attempted to craft. "Impressive..." the Wise Man breathes, as Lily slumps to the ground. "A shame that was all you had!"
Winds, not aimed directly at him as he paces past Lily's fallen form, buffet and slow him; there thus may yet be time for others to evacuate or escape whatever comes next. Bullets fly with pinpoint accuracy, riddling his flesh with wounds. They heal, yest, but the numerous wounds cost him time. And time counts on the battlefield.
Time counts, however it's bought: Magilou's spell detonates right underneath Zaphkiel: magic calls to magic after a function and drags at his weapon. Even a warrior as seemingly invincible as he is subject to such basic laws as this. It takes time for him to tear away -- with one great ripping pull -- the weapon from the binds that have seized it in an almost loving embrace. "Clever," he remarks to Magilou, and though he smiles at her, that smile is nothing less than that of a wild beast.
It might be familiar to her in its own way, after a fashion.
It buys the rest of them time. So does Azoth's last stand, each and every one of those shimmering blades forming in an array to hold off Zaphkiel. He swings his own sword but once, striking in a wide parry for but a few of those swords. The rest drink deep of his flesh and blood as Azoth collapses, before these wounds are too undone. "Weapons of light..." muses Zaphkiel, pausing by the fallen Azoth. "Camael and Zadkiel will have to look into that once we're done." But he presses on, blade in hand.
Gwen rises to her feet to make one last stand. "At your limit already?" Zaphkiel muses, before he catches on to what Gwen is up to. "How noble of you, going back for a friend. Unfortunately, this will be the end of the--"
Gwen in that moment makes her attack, light shining forth in a brilliant blinding beam. Though Zaphkiel raises his arm to blot out the light, it has but little effect, effectively stopping him in his tracks.
This is where Xantia finds him. Xantia, who has herself attainted a particular stage. He turns as if sensing her approach, but the light burns still.
And Healing Symbol or not, some things are not so easily shrugged off. Not immediately.
Xantia connects before he can strike her down, and here, perhaps, Zaphkiel learns something about what Xantia can do. And Xantia is quite strong indeed. He lands on the shattered remains of what had been a food cart, his boots grinding the remnants of the wood into so much dust. "That was... quite something--" Zaphkiel lifts his sword, taking it again in both hands.
Here there intrudes another, manifesting in the holographic image of an older man studded with eyes. "Camael-- you have poor timing." His attention sweeps across the battlefield, at the fallen, the still standing, and the destruction they have wrought. Lopsidedly, Zaphkiel grins.
"It looks like it's time for us to go. A shame. I would have liked to have seen this to the end," Zaphkiel says, shaking his head. His hands grip that blade of his firmly in both hands.
"...But how about a parting gift? Let's see how you handle this!" He breaks then into a forward dash, the tip of that sword skidding across the stokes and kicking up sparks. "SLAYING CRUSH!" When he swings it at last, it's in a wide, cleaving arc.
And with that, there is but light. He vanishes, disappearing with the rest towards the New Moon.
GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Lily Keil with Slaying Crush! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Azoth with Slaying Crush! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Slaying Crush! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Slaying Crush! GS: Zaphkiel has attacked Hannah Curie with Slaying Crush! GS: Zaphkiel has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock solidly guards Zaphkiel's Slaying Crush for 1 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Azoth suffers a terrible blow from Zaphkiel's Slaying Crush for 1 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Azoth has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight! GS: Lily Keil suffers a terrible blow from Zaphkiel's Slaying Crush for 1 hit points! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Regen added to Hannah Curie! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Boost! GS: Hannah Curie suffers a terrible blow from Zaphkiel's Slaying Crush for 202 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Zaphkiel's Slaying Crush for 140 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Impressive, he calls it, though all three manage to break free of her seal. It isn't enough.
...Not yet.
Lily can't move, in the moment--her nanomachines are strained from the combination of her magic and Ethius's. But she does not perish today, either.
"...Only... all I had..."
"Yet."
Lily grits her teeth,a nd tries to push up; her legs aren't working.
"Healing Symbols... no, they... didn't share those..."
She's counting on Magilou. But what happens--
The sparks slam into Lily and lift her from the ground. Magilou and Xantia were more sensible, it would seem.
Because Lily hits the ground again, breathing, but spent for now.
Perhaps thanks to her friends, or thanks to chance, it's 'for now'.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
And Magilou smiles back. She's decided she's quite fond of Zaphkiel -- as far as existential threats go.
If only because he reminds her of someone important.
But he is no simple foe. Magilou did heed Gwen's offer, but Gwen, it seems, is as much in need of help as anyone else -- particularly as Magilou hops backwards in a quick-step to take herself out of Slaying Crush's path.
"Camael...", she murmurs, as she watches them leave. As she looks up to -- "... mmm," Magilou presses her lips together, and surely hums through them.
"And with no throne to ascend..."
She sighs, and sweeps her hair out of her eyes. (A trickle of blood, as well. Don't worry about it.) "Are you still alive?" She issues the people around her. "If you can stand, start hauling the wounded. They'll need a place to rest. You healers had better not run off, either. Not that I'd push myself, either... I doubt they'll come back too quickly, now they have what they're looking for."
She lifts her palms in a broad shrug. "... all the same, I'd rather wake up in a bed than the shattered ground." Can the Inn really accommodate them all?!
(Of course it can. The inn always has a room with enough beds to fit the party, and Magilou just forced everyone into her party. You don't get a say in that.)
... it's only later, though, holed up in the inn waiting for the stragglers to wake up, that people might notice Magilou isn't tending the wounded. Rather, she's -- writing? Strangely enough, she takes three letters out and gives it them to three of her many doves, without letting anyone see what's inside.
She wouldn't, of course.
Because it reads:
'Dearest Darling Ghaleon Guy,
Remember those wise men you knew nothing about?
Well, funny story! We met three of ten of them, out here in Kattlelox! (Filgaia. You don't get out much, do you, you poor dear?)
They're the destined rulers of the universe, to hear them say it, and they took the Sorcery Globe. And you won't believe where they took it --'
The letter is longer than that, of course, and Rokurou and Grimoirh receive similar missives, wherever they may be. Has Magilou trained her doves to sneak through Elw portals?! (Obviously she has.)
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Metatron's armor is dented, but not broken. They'll need far more than that to overcome his defenses... and Jacqueline's already starting to run on empty. What can she still do...?
Just when it seems like the fight is going to continue... a hologram appears. This must be the Camael Metatron mentoned. Jacqueline frowns, and watches intently. She tries to take in what's happening as best she can... and she watches, as the three Wise Men rise. Up... to the New Moon. A frown crosses Jacqueline's face.
"...I guess it was a bad omen after all..." She considers with a sigh. It looks like things are about to get quite complicated in the near future...
"...How's everyone doing?" Jacqueline asks. There's not much left to do but assess everyone's current status - and thankfully, Magilou's already on task ordering people around. If she weren't so exhausted already, she'd think a little more on that.
"Right." Jacqueline says with a nod, and gets to work. It's probably going to be a long night, at this rate.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida feels something in Jophiel's body breaking beneath her fist. The barrier held, but not enough, it seems. She keeps proper form for the follow-through--and thus avoids falling face-first onto the pavement from her own momentum--but the instant Jophiel hits the house, her strength starts to fail again. Ida looks around at the others, and then back up at their bleeding(?) opponent, and even dizzied and sickened, it's impossible not for her to notice the change in him.
Shit, Ida thinks, her eyes going wide. She can't do that again. She screws up her face as Jophiel starts ranting, trying to put on defiant bravery and managing only to look like she could be violently ill at any moment. He vanishes. Across the field, Zaphkiel raises his blade and launches his parting shot.
The air screams. An ornamental tree two feet away from Ida topples over, its trunk cut through in a single blow. Behind it, kinetic force scrapes across the street.
Ida stays on her feet for a moment, and then clutches her side, two-colored blood spraying out to stain the street. She sinks to her knees, pressing both hands to her injury.
"Help," she says, to the fuzzy blob she thinks might be Jay. (She hopes it's Jay.)
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"... Haha..." The facade is down completely; Gwen pants, one eye wincing shut as Zaphkiel regards her. "Yeah, some days it's just like that, y'know...?"
She's almost happy that they're leaving, even if it is with some consequence that she's likely not going to be very happy about.
'...But how about a parting gift?'
"--shit!" In a panic, the courier's eyes settle on the still Azoth, lying forlornly on the ground. A blast like this could...
Maybe, it would have been a bad idea to throw what little time she has into saving a person who has nearly killed her before, as well as Lan. But how can that even fit into any sort of equation Gwen can think of, when she's seen his capacity when he's not in the 'control' of Solaris.
Whether it's an act or not, Gwen can't deny the way her brain thinks. It was the kind of person she willed herself to be when she was a teenager, drawing on the memory of the nameless soul who selflessly saved her that distant night. A person who'd do something so thankless, because they could...
"AZOTH!" Gwen's ARM glows, infusing through her right shoulder and through her body in a near painfully instant surge of light.
It feels like, in that second, every nerve of hers is on fire. But with it comes the speed she needs, to close that small distance between her and Azoth.
... And nothing more, as the arc of light descends on them all.
In the end, Gwen is still very, very human, a fact that is all too obvious as she lays next to Azoth, out cold and very, very injured.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Not all that long ago, the sight of Metatron walking unscathed from the epicenter of Solar Storm would have been enough to drive Ethius to outright panic, as his posture holds through both his and Lily's intense sorcerous might in concert. It would have nonetheless been all he had up his sleeve - and that of any of his Flametaker peers at that, such as he would ever be aware of other individuals. (By and large, no, he doesn't directly.)
The others fill the gap from the beachhead against a seemingly invincible defense.
All the way down to even a determined young child who with a sword. A Hero's Sword. (The Hero's Sword?)
Ethius does flinch a bit at the sight of the strange man with eyes in interesting places, if only a reflex from his general discomfort in being seen. Metatron outright identified what corner of the greater star ocean he hails from. What more have they seen? What more do they know, among the ten of them?
A final dangerous parting blow from the one with the sword may have just stymied them further in seeing to the life of their comrades... as evidenced when Ethiu's quarterstaff splits into two and sees him tumbling, almost as a slapstick afterthought to just how close he was to being cleaved outright.
Crumpled on the ground from exhaustion and heat exposure, the Symbologist from beyond the horizon of the two - three? - worlds lies on his back before sitting up a good twenty seconds later.
"There will be matters to discuss." He was pretty sure he wrote a detailed missive on the Caravan Kinship board, which everyone must have understood clearly the first time because there was no questions*.
* Technically true. But it was someone's turn to do the chore of clearing out the message board no more than five minutes after Ethius completed penning it, and they took all of that down without a thought. Oops.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
They can't win, Zaphkiel claims... and perhaps they can't, right now. But as long as there's a next time, things may be different then. Xantia took all the steps she reasonably could to try and ensure there would be a next time, but, had that retreat not been forced just then, there would have been little more she could have done.
As it is, the best she could do was to make sure to remain standing, to still be capable of helping those who cannot, after all that. Starting with Lily. She may not be a healer, but she can still do good there. Her body can convert what she drains from others to Ether, and that she can in turn supply to Lily. After all, at low Ether reserves, at worst she'll be feeling cold and miserable. That's nothing compared to Lily's needs in that regard.
Whatever happens, she'll do whatever she can to make certain that everyone makes it to a safe place. If nothing else, she'll have no problem carrying absolutely anyone who needs to be.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Buying time. That's all Azoth can do as a fraction of what he is. His hand twitches, but does not lift, as he is scrutinized under Zaphkiel's gaze. More names. Zadkiel. Look into what? Errors flood his thoughts. Damaged. Overheating. Even once the Solar Storm passes and his visuals lose their noisy haze... Azoth knows he really is just a toy.
Gwen creates a distraction. Xantia creates distance. They won't abandon him. They probably should. Their odds are so much better if they do -- now and much, much later. Now he knows better than to calculate that they ever will.
That makes the next calculation he experiences particularly painful. He knows it before he hears his name. Zaphkiel's cleaving arc scatters him against the ground beside Gwen. Unable to move, it's only by luck of how he landed that he sees her fallen, call to her with a garbled, distorted series of broken tones before his lights go out.
...He'll fit in the inn, but it'll be a while before he recharges on his own unless someone's willing to sacrifice a Refractor on him.
Link goes home.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
They all pile their attacks on Jophiel, and with the last one it's Ida who finally manages to break through Jophiel's barrier, sending him flying...
and even that was only enough to just barely wound him.
Oh crap. She can see that change coming over Jophiel, and is gravely concerned. She's doing her best to keep her magic under control, but even with this strange reserves she'll has her limits, and the longer the fight drags out the greater the possibility one of her spells will slip and go haywire... and against an oppoent who is creazed and thirsting for pain...
This does not bode well.
They're spared a further battle (mostly) by an interuption, and by the Wise Men making some sort of escape via a teleporter, taking the Sorcery Globe with them.
But before that, there's a parting shot, as Zephiel charges forth and takes a parting shot. That monstrous blade cuts forth, and Hannah barely has time to react. She tries to just funnel that extra energy into a haphazard barrier, to just shove against the attack. There is a flaring as the air in front of her twists and shimmers, energy bursts... and the sword cuts clean through it, catching her in the stomach and sending her flying back. She lands with a hard impact as she rlls and tumbles along the ground a few feet.
But miraculously, by the time she manages to stir, groaning as she aches all over... the gash in her stomach seems to be mending itself. The astute might notice a faint shimmer of a crest graph in her pouch being activated.
"Damn blasted fool had to put that flippin' thing on display..." she mutters in complaint as she forces herself upright again. She falls back onto her but and closes her eyes, shivering as she takes deep, steadying breaths. The aura around Hannah slowly starts to subside. Withj a few more breaths she manages to calm herself down enough to bring herself back into balance. The cubes are gone, the danger is past, she can let go of the power now.
When she opens her eyes again they're green, but no longer glowing. And the defiance has drained to concern and worry.
Zephyr chirps overhead and Hannah gasps. "Ida!" She forces herself to her feet and staggers over to her. "H-hey, Ida... I gotcha... Shoot, where is it..." She reaches into her pouch and pulls out a potion, holding it up to Ida's lips. "Here, this should help..." It's blueberry-flavored. It might be familiar to her.
That done, she sets about trying to dress Ida's wounds.