2024-05-11: You Will Know Our Names
- Log: You Will Know Our Names
- Cast: Lily Keil, Leon Albus, Magilou, Rille Felis, Ruth Pauling, Rikku, Meng Wu, Link, Jacqueline Barber, Citan Uzuki, Ida Everstead-Rey, Hannah Curie, Azoth, Elhaym van Houten, Xantia, Billy Lee Black, Gwen Whitlock
- Where: Kislev-Aveh Front
- Date: May 11, 2024
- Summary: The machine terrorizing the Adlehyde Ranchlands has been found, and a plan enacted to trap and destroy it before it can fall into the hands of Aveh or Kislev... or the secret hands behind both. Gryndille must be destroyed once again. But this one is faster than the other; in order to defeat it, there can be no chance of escape. But General Keil might have his own countermeasures planned...
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The land here is badly scarred. Pock-marked with the evidence of shelling and Gears' passage, the earth was already dusty and dry before it became riddled with the evidence of modern battle. The light of the setting sun stretches over the rocky front; here, there is an abandoned fortificiation. A long-abandoned railway runs in its shadow. And this...
This is where the automaton is meant to arrive.
Lily Keil stands before a worn, broken brick wall that only anymore rises to about waist-height for her. She is dressed in her usual gray-black military gear, an armored jacket over a shirt and trousers, with an ARM at one hip and a strange white sword sheathed on the other. Her golden eyes stare out into the distance, as she thinks. And her black hair blows in the desert wind, long and unbound.
"...Soon," she says. "It's coming."
Everyone has had the opportunity to set up for the battle where they like; there is plenty of potential cover, numerous places to hide or stand boldly. Lily continues, "Remember the plan. I'll trap it--and us--in place. Then, you dismantle it by any means necessary."
"...This way, Aveh and Kislev shouldn't be able to surprise us. And they would, given the chance."
"The stakes are high; this thing's purpose seems to be to spread the war past their borders and escalate tensions until the whole continent is on fire."
"There's time to run, if you hurry. But that's about it."
Dust on the horizon starts to kick up. There's not much more time at all.
What's been done to prepare?
OOC: If you have buffs you can use, feel free to use some in advance! If you don't, you can use a Free attack for the same purpose. Consider using a PL 0 Heal on yourself or a PL 0 Reload on a friend! You can also use a 0 Reserve on the boss to build FP. This is an ambush, so take advantage of the opportunity!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The old fears don't leave.
Leon Albus doesn't expect them to. The name 'Gryndille' brings back all of those memories: of a squad, the original Black Wolves, dead; of blood and violence, of barely escaping; of finally putting the damnable thing down in Kislev, years ago. When it was destroyed, there were new questions raised.
And, having seen prototypes, he knows well that there was more than one Gryndille.
He adjusts his coat, then he looks at Lily with his silver eyes. "Got it," he says. "Don't overextend yourself, Lieutenant."
He draws Argent Divider from its holster; the double-barreled shotgun gleams under the Ignasian sun. He rests the ARM on his shoulder.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Well, we can't have other things setting everything on fire," Magilou agrees, as she strides on out. "I'll negate that opening volley, but even I can only suppress so much. Use the power wisely."
Is it wise for the sorceress to walk confidently into the front row? It's fine; she has a plan.
A ring of white and lilac butterflies expand out from her, and Magilou incants: "Spell Absorber!"
Is she really planning on destroying that machine as soon as it arrives..?
GS: Magilou has attacked Magilou with Spell Absorber - Set Up! GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo! GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rille Felis has posed.
Rille Felis did, of course and immediately, volunteer to get involved.
Honestly, the challenging part would be getting her to stay away, when she heard exactly what was going on. An autonomous assault tank, under the control of someone who may or may not be with either the Kislev or the Aveh army but certainly sounds like he doesn't have any better intentions than either, on the loose and ready to shoot people, Gears, or both.
...though, Lily's plan, of all things, was one of the things that came the closest. Who wants to be in a little isolated bubble of space-time? Sure, it kept the tank unable to retreat, but it did the same for them... She was dead serious that if she died because of it she was going to try her damnedest to haunt Lily afterwards.
Still, a little thing like ripping the laws of physics apart wasn't quite enough to manage it, and so she's here.
Maybe she really wants Magilou to tell her the rest of those dirty limericks afterwards.
Rille didn't prepare all that much. She doesn't wear armour; a shirt with the sleeves removed and a pair of shorts is enough, especially now that it's warmed up. She doesn't need any time to set up an ARM, or perform a ritual, and wouldn't know how to do either if she wanted to. (She was no help at all with that kind of setup.) But she has gotten *something*.
Normally Rille goes bare-handed, or at the most has a boxer's handwrap. Her hands are tough; scaled across the back, solid like the rest of her, even disregarding the claws which she regularly files blunt; those could be weapons, but she refuses to let them be.
But today she has something new; a knuckle guard made out of a shallow wedge of metal on each hand. They look hand-forged, if a little crude, built for toughness rather than finesse. Rille has never fought a tank before and thought she might want something to punch through a little better.
By the standards of anti-vehicular equipment it may as well be nothing. Honestly, by the standards of anything it's not much of a weapon; barely some protection for her knuckles, really, like brass knuckles built to hit something bigger than she is, which most people are not. If *that's* what Rille intends to fight a tank with, she's braver (or stupider) than most.
She pulls the straps for them tight (she's got them tied on with the boxer's wraps, through slots on the underside) and clonks them together, a metal-on-metal impact that she keeps quiet by simply not doing it very hard. "I'm good," Rille says, satisfied.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
For Ruth Pauling, she who played no small hand in participating in the scarring of a land distant and yet far too close, being in the presence of another war zone like this is... well. As she's said before, some days she's not sure she's ever fully left the time and place of some of these battles.
This is the time and place for her, whether she likes it or not (it's both).
She's found an elevated and covered position along the abandoned fortifications, dressed as she always does these days. She keeps her spiritual presence concealed in the moment as her eyes stare out into the distance. She hasn't reattached the glass scope to the rifle, keeping to an iron sight so it's harder to detect her presence from an incidental reflection off of it. Her left shoulder aches in perpetuity with the stress of her rifle's weight, her right ear the only one of the pair that can hear anything that might come in the distance.
The wear and tear of a decade and a half of constant fighting numbs, gradually, to the thrumming undercurrent of Malevolence in her heart as the motion proves automatic. A fresh clip of four shots is fed into the rifle as she takes in a breath that never leaves her. No further consideration is given as to whether her persence and actions on the ranchlands of Adlehyde is going to cause more trouble along polite channels.
She's who she is, as an unsettling smile settles on her face as she eases herself into it, chambering that first round with a flick of her right hand.
"I'm ready," Ruth says as she takes her watch, and lowers her gaze to watch through the iron sights.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ruth Pauling with Her Watch! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling's stances have changed from Counter to Counter and Hero! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Rille Felis has attacked Rille Felis with Equip: Knuckles! GS: Rille Felis has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rille Felis's stances have changed from Counter to Avenger and Counter! GS: Rille Felis has completed her action. GS: Rille Felis accepts Rille Felis's Equip: Knuckles for 0 hit points! GS: Rille Felis's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Ruth Pauling's Her Watch for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify and Dynamax applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Mighty applied to Ruth Pauling!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
There's an Al Bhed here today, dressed in an armored diving suit, red headguard framing a pair of black goggles, her hair sticking out in long tufts. The main flexible portion of the suit is yellow with a criss cross of green harnesses, and a various areas protected by metal armor plating.
A hand is upon her hip, as the once Guardian stands as if to survey the battlefield.
"Reminds me of where I grew up. I'd say - except for the explosions, but no - that reminds me of it too." Rikku shrugs, then notes cheerily, "Not quite as many as here." She notes proudly, the difference.
Home is gone, and taking this in stride is her way of dealing.
Lily speaks of the plan, and Rikku nods and nods again. "Right, seems simple enough." Before she waves a hand dismissively at Lily saying there's time to run, "Pfft - what are you talking about? Us? Run? Nahhhh."
Grasping an alchemical mix she made in advance. (Don't ask what's in it) she drops it in the air, and kicks up, where she whirls around and points a fingergun at it.
"Bang!" And the volatile mixture suddenly bursts, raining down some alchemical fluid. Strange fractallized shields begin to form around several of them, as body chemistry just quickens subtly.
"We've got this. Don't worry. I brought my whole inventory today."
That sure is a large... back over there, though it looks looks a little light right now? Food for thought!
<Pose Tracker> Meng Wu has posed.
Wu's.. not actually that far away. She's not terrible with long arms, but she's rusty all the same and well, it's a critical thing so why get too far out of your territory right?
All things considered she's uh, created some cover for herself though. Nice, convenient slabs of earth to duck behind and move around. Just above waist height. Like they were placed there.
She at least tried to obfuscated it, mostly out of boredom, not that she'd admit it. Right now she's sitting against one of her convenient walls, smoking and seeming mostly at ease. Visibly at least. She's scanning the horizon almost constantly though. Or occasionally turning her head, listening to someone fill a report in.
She's not fully aware of the score, but she knows who's playing for the prize and well, that's all she needed.
GS: Meng Wu has attacked Meng Wu with Hostile Reconstruction! GS: Meng Wu has gained 4 Combo! GS: Meng Wu has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
Dressed in his usual green tunic getup with large metal shield and the hero's sword is one young hero called Link! He's biting his lip slightly as she checks his shield again and again making sure its secured and he's ready. He's also likely one of the newest arrivals! So he's less certain what exactly the automation is himself, but since clearly his help is needed a true hero never turns their back on those in need!
"Uh?" is Link's surprised voice as he looks up and around blinking when Lily announces their target will be here soon. He looks around, finally spotting the dust cloud and then nods. Link tights his grip one last time on the shield, setting his feet as he draws his blade and squares up behind his shield watching over the top of it.
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: Link accepts Link's Shield Guard for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Link!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
They've gathered at the fortifications. Today, they have a rare opportunity - they know where there enemy is going to be attacking from and when, which means that there's time to prepare.
As both a Crest Sorceress and an alchemist, Jacqueline excels when she's given ample time to prepare. She's gotten to work - using earth sorcery to shore up the fortifications, passing out potions to everyone, and offering enchantment spells for weapons to help everyone get ready.
"Right." Jacqueline nods as Lily lays out the plan, crouching down behind cover. The stakes... that gets a nod, too. Adlehyde has been drawn into the conflict once already - if it's allowed to heat up any further, her people will be in danger.
No other choice, then. Jacqueline breathes in and out, and readies herself for a difficult fight.
GS: Rikku has attacked Leon Albus with Al-Bhed Tested Rikku-Approved: Mighty G!! GS: Rikku has attacked Magilou with Al-Bhed Tested Rikku-Approved: Mighty G!! GS: Rikku has attacked Rikku with Al-Bhed Tested Rikku-Approved: Mighty G!! GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Rikku accepts Rikku's Al-Bhed Tested Rikku-Approved: Mighty G! for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Rikku!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Normally, practicality would dictate the user of Gears against something of that size and power, but... the rules of war have changed the calculus measureably. The use of Gears would attract attention from either Kislev or Aveh, and both options are bad -- either Kislev finds out they're trying to attack their war machine (rogue or otherwise) or Aveh finds out about what Kislev deployed. Both turns are bad ones.
And so, it's come to this, to ensure that they can destroy it without bringing geopolitical consequences down on the continent of Ignas. "Be careful, Lily," Citan says, looking in her direction before glancing among the other Wolves where they remain in waiting.
It's coming. There's dust on the horizon. His gaze focused there, Citan reaches over to rest a hand on Xantia's shoulder as if to thus briefly lend her support for what is to come. She, of course, rarely requires anything of the sort normally--
So it shouldn't be surprising that it's actually cover for support of a more discreet nature.
GS: CRITICAL! Magilou accepts Magilou's Spell Absorber - Set Up for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Magilou! GS: Magilou accepts Rikku's Al-Bhed Tested Rikku-Approved: Mighty G! for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Magilou! GS: Citan Uzuki spends 2 Combo on Inspire and Reload! GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Xantia with Reishou! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Xantia accepts Citan Uzuki's Reishou for 0 hit points! GS: FP up! Citan Uzuki's Reload!! GS: Xantia gains Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida kneels near Lily, hidden by that knee-high wall. Like so many of the others, she brought out the best protection she has: in her case, refurbished body armor that was common circa one thousand years ago, a mixture of lightweight Filgaian and Hyadean armor attached to an undersuit. The duster over it looks leather, but isn't.
Ida holds a small, stone object in her hands. As she focuses, her eyes go distant, and a plume of golden-white chi flows from her lips. Righteous heat fills her body, and the bodies of several others nearby, as she channels Moor Gault's blessing.
"Ready as I'll ever be," she says.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Material - Inner Flame! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xantia with Material - Inner Flame! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Leon Albus with Material - Inner Flame! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Quick and Shield expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has canceled their attack on Xantia. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has canceled their attack on Leon Albus. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has canceled their attack on Ida Everstead-Rey. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Material - Inner Flame! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xantia with Material - Inner Flame! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Leon Albus with Material - Inner Flame! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Ruth Pauling with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Link with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Billy Lee Black with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Rille Felis with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Meng Wu with Mage Armory! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Quick applied to Jacqueline Barber!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Here is where they will make their stand. Hannah is standing next to Lily, dressed in her Nedian attire: A short green dress over rights, with a black, hooded cloak. She has her eyes closed, her pink curly hair now just long enough to sway in the wind. Zephyr is not on her shoulder, but as Lily says it will be soon...
Hannah nods, and opens her eyes, bright green eyes firm as they stare at the horizon. "Yeah. Zephyr's spotted it. It ain't gonna be long, now."
She and Zephyr had been helping keep tabs on the construct ever since they'd been first made of its existence. Zephyr can stay high and far, using altitude and keen hunting senses to spot it from afar. And Hannah can relay what she sees.
"We ain't runnin'." Hannah confirms.
There aren't many preparations Hannah needs. She will place herself further towards the front of their attack position--she doesn't want to put anyone at risk of being hurt by her magic, but...
She can feel something roiling dangerously within her. It's always there, waiting, but there's been so much going on, so many excuses to use her magic navigating the warzones that have sprung up in the conflict between Kislev and Aveh...
And she knows, now, her fear of her magic is only making it worse.
But what else can she do? Turn tail and run, let the world burn? Just to spare herself?
... No. If she can help, if she can prevent more suffering, then... she has to try.
No matter what it does to her.
GS: Xantia accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - Inner Flame for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Xantia! GS: Mighty and Riposte applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Hannah Curie with Manifestation! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 4 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Hannah Curie gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: Hannah Curie accepts Hannah Curie's Manifestation for 0 hit points! GS: Surge applied to Hannah Curie!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
A rampaging machine, neither Aveh nor Kislev, committing violence wherever it wanders across war. Azoth's calculations keep looping back around to that idea. It's a fact that crawls through corrupted and partitioned databases, finding nothing, but searching, searching searching...
There is no answer. Whatever Miss Sharon means to accomplish, Azoth will help her do. Because then there might be an answer. But also because his circuits are abuzz with surging power. It's something like purpose. Or excitement.
It should be unsettling.
Azoth opens and closes his fist a few times as the energy from his core surges. Lines of light, bright neon blue flowing into neon fuchsia and back again, crawl from the center of his chest through the tips of his fingers, visible across his face and through the black top under his coat. His eyes shine with the same mix of color.
His hood is up, helping block out the glow, while he waits behind cover. He smiles, of course, like everything is as it's always been.
"All right, then. Let's do it."
GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with Overclock! GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Azoth's stances have changed from Counter to Avenger and Counter! GS: Azoth gains 5 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Azoth accepts Azoth's Overclock for 0 hit points! GS: Amplify, Dynamax, and Lock state applied to Azoth! GS: Elhaym van Houten accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Link accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Link! GS: Quick applied to Jacqueline Barber!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The scarred land. This place is what Solaris presents the entire surface as, with the occasional interruption of wild and threatening forest or treacherous ocean rapids. But these things are not really focused. So, now, Elly - with her own eyes - finds it somewhat beautiful.
But even so.
Elly is wearing her Kislevi naval coat. Perhaps it might confuse Gryndille, briefly. But Elly's real strength isn't in her armor, nor even in the stout metal rod she is holding as if it were a staff of a sorceress of eld, but it is, instead, inside.
To be clear, of course, this doesn't mean her heart or her feelings, bounteous and true as they are. This refers to her inordinately high Ether response rating.
"It's good that you're with us, Rikku," Elly tells her, with a smile. "I hope the journey didn't bother you too much."
Her eyes then close for a moment. Meditation, or at least focusing, as they all ready themselves. Please, Elly prays, let everyone be alright, one way or another. Her prayer is answered, in a way, by Jay's fortifying sorcery. (She also accepts a sol to go with it. You never know when you need to refill, as the ancient sorceror Donald once observed.)
GS: Rille Felis accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Rille Felis! GS: Leon Albus accepts Rikku's Al-Bhed Tested Rikku-Approved: Mighty G! for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Leon Albus! GS: Leon Albus accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - Inner Flame for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Leon Albus! GS: Mighty and Riposte applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia, naturally, had to be here for this. Aside from the obvious reasons for stopping this new iteration of the familiar mechanical menace, she knows very well how personally important this is to Lily. She didn't get here quickly enough for the full story, but it doesn't really matter to her overmuch why there's another Gryndille out there. After all, her role here is simple, and entirely in her wheelhouse. All she has to worry about is to smash it, as quickly and decisively as possible. She's always happy to do that, regardless of what she's smashing or for what reason.
As for the war... it may not be at the top of her list currently, but it's still one of many factors contributing to Filgaia's decline, fueling her motivation further. This thing's not leaving here in one piece if she has anything to say about it.
Given her melee specialty, she is of course positioned at the front, ready to charge in from the word 'go'. Clad in her usual armored bodysuit, the only thing missing that has been prominently present as of late is the most recent addition to her common attire: the trainer's belt. She's left both it and her Pokemon in a Pokemon Center's care - she has no wish to expose them to this kind of danger, this one's gonna be all her.
Citan's assistance is welcome as it always is, which she silently acknowledges with a smile and a firm nod. She calmly lets Moor Gault's blessing wash over her, further strengthened by Ida. Then, she turns what she hopes to be a reassuring expression towards Lily.
"Ready anytime. It'll be fine. Your plan is perfect, and everybody here knows what they're doing. We'll get it done in no time."
She really does believe that. After all, it's not just the Wolves this time, they have a large group of absolute powerhouses to deal with this threat. Among which... she looks to one individual in particular, giving the hooded Azoth a warm smile. "I'm glad that we get to fight together for once. Let's stick close and help each other out, okay?" For once, she doesn't have to say that they can handle each other. Instead: "Together, there's nothing we can't handle."
GS: Xantia spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Xantia has attacked Azoth with Let's do this together!! GS: Xantia gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Azoth accepts Xantia's Let's do this together! for 0 hit points! GS: Azoth gains Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy Lee Black has helped the Wolves face down things like Gryndille before - literally, in the sense that it has been monsters based on that beast. Those prototypes didn't drive home the full terror of its capabilities, perhaps - but, he has his familiarities with facing beasts of steel and power, too. Wels can grow to monstrous size, and sometimes, your Gear just isn't ready.
He stands toward the rear, feeling the handles of his gunsmokes in his hip holsters. Those won't do the job for much longer. They failed him entirely against the Wise Men. But they'll be with him for today.
"We'll not allow such reckless bloodshed," Billy affirms. His hand rises up to press against the Etone cross at his chest. An old memento; a useless one, too, maybe. But it is the sign of his faith, even still. Lord...grant the strength to end this quickly...
Light flickers around him, the spark of faith and ether infusing him.
GS: Billy Lee Black accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Billy Lee Black with Sacred Veil! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 3 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Billy Lee Black heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 123 temporary hit points! GS: Shield and Surge applied to Billy Lee Black!
DC: Gwen Whitlock switches forms to Halcyone!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
For Lily too the memory is strong. The old feears are still there. But as Leon looks at her, Lily nods back. "Right, Captain. I won't."
She looks to Magilou, next--with whom she discussed this spell.
She regards Rille, who promised to haunt her. then Ruth, who takes her watch. Rikku, who has some bravado for them, at which Lily smiles, and Meng Wu, siting by a wall prepared.
...And Link, of course,prepared to fight as a true hero.
Jay's fortifications may well make the difference. Ida's channeling of Moor Gault's blessing might, too. The Guardians ma be waching over them... Or maybe not. It's hard to say.
Lily will have to ensure to keep Zephyr wihin the area of the spell; that's another measurement to consider. But they are not running. And Azoth is here, to support Lil--to support Miss Sharon, as she knows herself s well. Lily accepts either name, now, whether that's a good idea or not.
This machine is hers to claim... and she means to destroy it. Hopefully Elly's prayer is answered as they do. "Heh," Lily says to Xantia. "Thanks. I feel better knowing we have your firepower, anyway."
Billy has an old memento... Bu faith and Ether infuses him, all the same. But then, it is time.
The dust continus to kick up in the distance--and soon, not so much distance at all.
It is a monstrous thing the size of a house. Done in tan drab, its upper half is humanoid... to a point. It has a 'head', a long thing packed with sensors and weapons, lengthy like a dragon's. Its torso is armored heavily, and its 'arms' include a wicked claw on the one hand and a giant cannon on the other. Then, its lower body ceases pretending to be something human; retractable treads have given way to four legs, each foot a 'spike' slicing into the ground to support it.
The Gryndille-class Assault Tank is here.
"NOW!" Lily calls, and rises into the air. Extending both hands, she grabs hold of spacetime itself. The world seems to rock on its axis, light flashing from all directions. An unpleasant 'tugging' sensation grips the group as Lily continues her spell, but no harm comes. Instead it abates as suddenly as it came, and everything shifts.
The horizon is gone.
"DESTROY IT!" Lily shouts, and looking back at her will show that she roils with shadowy power, her eyes gone black without sclera or iris. But all around, there is only the space one can see; Gryndille turns, and its 'eyes' light up as sensors work.
"SPACETIME ANOMALY DETECTED. ENGAGING RETREAT PROTOCOLS."
But as it rushes out as quickly as it came--when it reaches one 'edge' of the space, it simply appears on the other, as if the space were round.
"RETREAT FAILED. OBJECIVE CHANGE:"
"DESTROY ALL OPPOSITION."
"Magilou!" Lily shouts, through gritted teeth. "You're up!" Lily needs more energy to keep the spell going; it's clear that she's having to put all she can into it. ...And it's just as clear that, hanging in the air, she will be a target sooner or later.
But everyone else is a target now; Gryndille II slams ino the fortifications Jay set up, and the shockwave rocks the front row of battle, cracking the earth and slamming directly into each of them its metallic bulk. then, it launches a beam up into the air--and all over, those in the back row of battle receive a rain of lancing beam fire, cyan-bluegreen and white-hot.
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Boss Action! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rille Felis with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rikku with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Link with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Xantia with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Azoth with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Leon Albus with Close-Quarters Crash! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ruth Pauling with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Meng Wu with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Citan Uzuki with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hannah Curie with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Billy Lee Black with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Rikku fails to charge Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 126 hit points! GS: Break applied to Rikku! GS: Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: COUNTER! Magilou counterattacks Lily Keil with Magilou's Paradise! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou marginally charges Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 154 hit points! GS: Break applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Elhaym van Houten marginally charges Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 154 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Jacqueline Barber fails to evade Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 133 hit points! GS: COUNTER! Azoth counterattacks Lily Keil with Exploit Detected! GS: Azoth mostly charges Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 95 hit points! GS: Break blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to evade Magilou's Magilou's Paradise for 110 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - Inner Flame for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Mighty and Riposte applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey mostly evades Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 40 hit points! GS: Break applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: COUNTER! Ruth Pauling counterattacks Lily Keil with Counter Shoot! GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling critically fails to charge Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 159 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock mostly guards Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 113 hit points! GS: FP up! Countermeasures! GS: Billy Lee Black fails to guard Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 126 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Ruth Pauling's Counter Shoot for 99 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil perfectly evades Azoth's Exploit Detected for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Xantia mostly evades Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 70 hit points! GS: Break applied to Xantia! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: COUNTER! Citan Uzuki counterattacks Lily Keil with Mufuu! GS: Citan Uzuki critically fails to charge Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 154 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! (That's 20 more than usual!) GS: COUNTER! Rille Felis counterattacks Lily Keil with Hammer Down! GS: Rille Felis fails to charge Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 126 hit points! GS: Break applied to Rille Felis! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: Lily Keil fails to evade Citan Uzuki's Mufuu for 132 hit points! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Rille Felis's Hammer Down for 154 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Rille Felis! GS: Hannah Curie mostly charges Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 99 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: COUNTER! Link counterattacks Lily Keil with Parry and Strike! GS: CRITICAL! Link fails to charge Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 127 hit points! GS: Break applied to Link! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to evade Link's Parry and Strike for 125 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Good finger-gun technique," Magilou praises Rikku, "but have you tried dual-wielding?" It's like 'thank you.'
And then, that thing like a dragon comes and goes and comes again. "Yeah, yeah!" Magilou calls back, to Lily, as she steps forward --
-- and there is no shockwave.
In a sweeping area around her, as if its attack were broken by a boulder in the river, they will find that there is nothing. The attack simply does not exist... for them, at least. The atoms of the assault flood through Magilou's blood, instead, a spiritual assault rather than a physical one.
But she doesn't stumble. She doesn't so much as trip. She was never blindsided by that physical attack; never mind the way her teeth grit.
Magilou looks up at Lily, and says: "I thought so. Now -- what did I tell you?"
'Use it wisely' is what she told her. And what that means is laid clear, as Magilou takes all the power she's stolen from the Gryndille and pours it into Lily, instead.
This usually goes the other way around; Magilou absorbing Lily's out-of-control magics in order to stop her from destroying the countryside. But evidently, Magilou can turn the chessboard around, particularly when Lily is struggling with her space-time crimes.
"Now," she says, turning to the Gear.
"Is it hot, or is it just me?" A green, windy Seraphic sigil alights at her feet, as she invokes her Arte -- "Crown Fire!" -- a fiery tornado which seeks to pull the Gryndille into its embrace.
GS: Magilou has attacked Lily Keil with Crown Fire! GS: Magilou has gained 3 Combo! GS: Magilou's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Magilou gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Magilou gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Leon Albus marginally charges Lily Keil's Close-Quarters Crash for 97 hit points! GS: Leon Albus's Break Ward may block the effect! GS: Break blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! Meng Wu accepts Meng Wu's Hostile Reconstruction for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Meng Wu! GS: Cover applied to Meng Wu! GS: Meng Wu accepts Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Meng Wu! GS: Shield applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Meng Wu critically fails to guard Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 126 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon looks up at Rikku's alchemical mix -- then he nods at her. "Good thinking," he says. He feels Moor Gault's blessing wash over him; he closes his eyes, for a moment, and steels himself.
There's a glance across the others here; briefly looking at Citan, then to Jay Barber. Plenty of reliable people.
Still, this is Gryndille. It is hard for him to turn his worries off entirely.
"Here it comes!" Leon shouts, as it finds itself trapped with them -- and they find themselves trapped with it. The shockwave slams into him, nearly bowling him over. He takes aim with Argent Divider, eyes briefly on Magilou's spellcasting, then on Gryndille.
Breathe, he reminds himself.
Leon takes aim with Argent Divider II, then fires two gunshots from it, hurtling towards Gryndille II, even as he makes his way towards the barricade.
GS: Leon Albus has attacked Lily Keil with RR-2 Friendship! GS: Leon Albus has gained 1 Combo! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"The cavalry's here!" Gwen said she'd be there, she never did say she'd be early.
The fact that it's being said over loudspeakers should alert people as to how Gwen is getting here, and what heat she's packing.
With a loud boom, the Halcyone lands. "Take advantage of the Halcyone's cover while ya can! I'll deploy support in a sec!"
The Halcyone is here. And it's not too late, either; as the as time space shifts, Gwen tries her best to endure the onslaught of the Gryndille.
"Okay, deploying shields now! Let's do this, guys!"
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Neither Rain Nor Sleet! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 3 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Gwen Whitlock has canceled their attack on Gwen Whitlock.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"You think?" Rikku considers Magilou's recommendation, as she pulls out a second fingergun. "Good idea! But I'd best holster it for now." She tells her cheerfully, as she mimes doing just that, "Gotta save it for when it really counts."
And when Elly asks if it was any trouble, Rikku answers cheerily. "Not. At. All!"
She decides to omit all the times she got lost on the way. That's unimportant! What's important is she got here with time to spare. Noone has to know she bought a map from a guy, robbed him blind, and the map turned out bad anyway so fair's fair! He got her! She got him! They're even! That's how it works.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/xenosaga/images/2/25/Big_Joe.png/revision/latest?cb=20150813220657
(That's not how it works, Rikku definitely missed out on the M disk.)
Then comes the Gryndille, and Rikku whistles, "That's a big'un alright. Don't think I've ever seen a Machina like that..." She keeps a hand on a hip, watching spacetime distort and close them off and then, and Rikku waves cheerily, "Hey there, I'm Rikku, nice to meetcha, ready for your insides to be on the outside?"
It's a serious occasion, and she knows it, but still she quips because that's how she manages to stay confident. Even as it crashes down with a shockwave, blasting her backwards into a sand dune. "Ow... Owwie." She murmurs, as she gets herself up. "Oh right! I forgot to mention that I did a little prepwork ahead of time. My bad!"
What kind of prepwork? Well one only has to look at that half-empty backpack.
"It's just a Eensy Beensy Teeny Tiny Little..."
This time, she double Fingerguns, as per Magilou.
"...<3 Minefield <3"
And that's when the areas around Gryndille's legs just start detonating in sequence, making it perilously dangerous to go this way, or that - or get exploded this way, or that.
"Haha! Look at it go! Oh! Everyone watch your step though."
NOW SHE TELLS THEM?
GS: Rikku has attacked Lily Keil with Just an Eensy Beensy Teeny Tiny Little <3 Minefield <3! GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Rikku has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"The cavalry's here!" Gwen said she'd be there, she never did say she'd be early.
The fact that it's being said over loudspeakers should alert people as to how Gwen is getting here, and what heat she's packing.
With a loud boom, the Halcyone lands. "Take advantage of the Halcyone's cover while ya can! I'll deploy support in a sec!"
The Halcyone is here. And it's not too late, either; as the as time space shifts, Gwen tries her best to endure the onslaught of the Gryndille.
"Okay, deploying shields now! Let's do this, guys!" Laser fire provides cover as the shields begin to fire up. It won't do much attack-wise, but it does give her a chance to fully establish herself.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Lily Keil with Neither Rain Nor Sleet! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 2 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Lily Keil counterattacks Leon Albus with Ley-Targeted Shot! GS: Lily Keil fails to charge Leon Albus's RR-2 Friendship for 188 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover and Riposte applied to Leon Albus! GS: Gamble: Moderate! Lily Keil mostly guards Magilou's Crown Fire for 56 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Magilou!
<Pose Tracker> Rille Felis has posed.
Assistance is always welcome. Rille gives Jay something between a wave and the world's sloppiest salute in thanks for her enchantment as everybody sets up.
Then she goes back to keeping an eye out while other people take more setup. She doesn't need to, after all, and so she gives a warning: "It's coming!" She's never seen Gryndille before, but it's not like she can possibly mistake something like *that* for anything else. "C'mon, brace for impact - "
Not literally, though she's glad to be braced when Lily does - *things* to space itself. Rille's clawed feet reflexively dig into the ground, clenching as she tries to hold herself still against a tugging that isn't really the kind of thing you can brace against -
God, that's weird, she thinks, at the lack of horizon.
What she actually *does* though is curl her lips back into a grin, or maybe a snarl. "It's trapped! Let's get it!" Because she doesn't know how long Lily can hold it this way. It can't be easy, to twist off something like this and hold it there - it's not like she can just 'throw it away', or they'd never get back...
Rille charges forward, kicking up rocky soil and sand as she tears up what would be, on a nicer planet, turf or at least soil. She doesn't have speed, at first, but she has momentum. The shockwave doesn't slow her down much, though she feels the impact.
Rille *leaps* the last fifteen feet or so, coming down in a two-fisted hammerblow out of her charging rush. She follows it up by slamming her now-reinforced knuckles into it, trying to drive open a hole with the wedge-like guards; boosted by Jay's enchantment, every time she hits there's a flicker and a flash that Rille doesn't have much to do with.
GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil mostly evades Rikku's Just an Eensy Beensy Teeny Tiny Little <3 Minefield <3 for 80 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil's Break Ward may block the effect! GS: Break blocked! GS: Rille Felis has attacked Lily Keil with Wild Rush! GS: Rille Felis has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rille Felis gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Rille Felis has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil mostly guards Gwen Whitlock's Neither Rain Nor Sleet for 35 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: Gamble: Moderate! Lily Keil marginally charges Rille Felis's Wild Rush for 192 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
As the Gryndille crashes in after failing to flee, Link braces and takes the hit solidly enough that it almost throws him off balance but at the last second manages to deflect the force upwards and follows through with a strike following the rough done, almost failed, parry with his. The magical armor spell cast on him by Jay shines brightly as it helps protect him and empower his strike.
And Link doesn't stop at a single slash. Even as he lets his shield go out and to the side after the parry, he presses in behind his counter and swings several more times in rapid succession before shifting his stance and doing a backflip away to reset his stance in full shield once again up at the ready before him as he watches wide eyed all the others unleashing powerful attack after powerful attack on the same target.
GS: Link spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Link has attacked Lily Keil with Flurry Strikes! GS: Link enters a Counter stance! GS: Link has gained 3 Combo! GS: Link has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Contact comes. Ruth itches to pull the trigger, but the plan's been impressed that Gryndille needs to come close enough to be contained. It wouldn't do well for them to reverse course out of the trap at first sign of immense resistance. (Over a dozen hardened Drifters is very much 'immense.')
She holds, as the strange light of altered space-time glints equally odd along her Granasian rosary on her right arm. Gryndille announces their failed retreat. Now--
White-hot beam fire slams into her fortification. Were she still a mortal being, the wash of heat would be enough to make her faint. The blinding cyan-bluegreen light would be enough to take her sight. She pulls the trigger through it with a deafening *BANG* even as the shell of her former self stings and flinches - and tumbles, as the fortification underneath her turns molten and collapses.
Malevolence laces through her person to keep her upright as she falls to a crouch, giving her strength to stay upright and wield that rifle without support, unloading a second shot then and there through the vestiges of visibility from the backwash of that laser fire light.
*BANG*, goes the distinct, deafening report of Ruth's rifle.
GS: Lily Keil mostly guards Link's Flurry Strikes for 91 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Lily Keil with Door Knock! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil critically fails to evade Ruth Pauling's Door Knock for 166 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Zephyr is retreating back into the proximity of their chosen battleground after they've made the last visual contact. Lily won't have to worry too much about keeping him within the spell.
Hannah draws in a deep breath as Lily casts her spell, as spacetime shifts to isolate them from the outside world. She didn't have much of a warning to observe it the last time, but this time, she notes it with some amount of interest... though she casts a concerned glance towards Lily.
She'll be at risk, and channeling enough power to keep them all contained.
It's all or nothing, here.
She turns when the robot retreats, and comes up what is--for some local definition--behind them.
She's a spellcaster, she should stay out of the front, but... there are too many people between her and the target.
She's already charging ahead as the volley of laser fire. She withdraws a crest graph from her pouch and swipes it in front of her to create a crackling, shimmering barrier of force. It buckles against the incoming fire and she strains to repel it, hands outstretched as if she could reinforce the barrier.
Energy crackles and builds within her barrier and once the fire stop her shield bursts--and the air ripples and shimmers around her, whatever dark, sorcerous power she's been 'blessed' with warping her aura.
Her eyes are shining a bright green.
Her jaw is set as she takes just a moment to recover... then she charges forward once more.
Another crest graph comes out, and she charges power into it; it flares a bright orange as Hannah lifts up a boot and slams it into the ground.
The ground starts to rumble violently as she forces her will through it. The earth ruptures, chunks of rock and stone pushing up and out in a mostly straight line as her spell travels through the ground towards the Gryndille II. Giant jagged spikes of stone burst out right underneath the mech's center mass, hoping to trap and impale it to make it easier to death with.
No ice this time--they aren't taking prisoners.
GS: Hannah Curie spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Lily Keil with Tremor Spike! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 3 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
It's an assault tank. It's a walking mechanism of destruction. The fact that it's camouflaged is almost terrifying: such a thing should announce its presence, declare itself, not be *harder to notice*. Doesn't it have enough?
Lily divides space.
They're alone here, for better or worse.
How long can Lily hold it? A question Elly has no answers to. More to the point, though, the big form is not exactly blundering blindly. Showing a chilling level of swift adaptation as well as, cruelly (but politely), an announcement, Elly bites her lip and then actually bites in deeper when the beam fire comes in upon her. She throws herself forwards, ducking beneath some of the wreckage but nevertheless -- tag! And it's not a slap, but a burning line along the side of her calf.
At least it's not anywhere deeper than that.
By the time Elly's popped upwards, she sees others are already engaging. Her fingers cross for Link, for Rille, and then her eyes narrow. There is a tensing in the air and then - foosh! A surge of superheated white fire constraining some of the spaces where Gryndille might be able to surge. Pay the price, creature, or estimate how to avoid it. Either way, take time. Time for THEM to pour in the damage. To break it apart.
It feels obscurely sad to Elly, suddenly, but the burst of sympathy isn't something she can really dig into right now.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Lily Keil with Thermo Boundary! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline meets Leon's look with a brief nod, and Rille's thanks with a smile. Quiet and to the point, because soon her attention is drawn away.
Gryndille draws close - a monstrous machine, for sure. It's terrifying, honestly, but Jacqueline holds strong with the knowledge of what's at stake. Lily gives the signal, and Jacqueline braces herself as the world tilts and lights up. She feels just a little queasy, for a moment - and then it as if everything else has been erased. There is only them, and there is only Gryndille, in this exiled patch of desert - and no escape, while both sides still stand.
Gryndille reaches this conclusion too, and attacks - slamming into her fortifications before unleashing a rain of beam fire. Jacqueline moves back quickly as her cover is overwhelmed. The barrier in her gauntlets surges to life, flickering as it strains against the volley. Jacqueline winces, but holds.
She breaks into a run, moving for the next bit of cover she'd set up as she digs through one of her bags. She draws out a bottle of copper-colored liquid and hurls it at Gryndille, aiming to splash it with a potion that makes everything just a little bit more difficult if it's able to set in.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Lily Keil with Trouble Bottle! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil perfectly guards Hannah Curie's Tremor Spike for 110 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Hannah Curie! GS: Lily Keil mostly evades Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Boundary for 50 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil mostly guards Jacqueline Barber's Trouble Bottle for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Mute applied to Lily Keil! GS: Jam blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida didn't get a good look at the first Gryndille. Her whole face tightens as the advancing dust cloud resolves into a colossal machine--not as big as a true Gear, perhaps, but it doesn't need to be Gear-sized to be a terror to infantry. Sometimes it's more optimal that way.
Lily gives the signal. Ida's gut twists as local spacetime wrenches itself free from everything else. She rises, Devil's Due braced in both hands. "It knows it's trapped," she says.
It knows it's trapped, and first it tries to escape. And then, like a cornered animal, it chooses the next-best option to that.
The shockwave of Gryndille's impact turns part of the cobblestone wall into shrapnel. Ida leaps back, twists into a tuck-and-roll. Bits of stone pelt her side, but she comes up to a knee anyway, grimacing in discomfort. Ida aims with iron-sights and martial artist's intuition, and empties the clip strategically. Three opening shots at center mass. A shot to the head. A shot to the gun-arm, then the shoulder. More shots to the legs. Keep it guessing and off-balance.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lily Keil with Suppression! 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: Lily Keil critically fails to evade Ida Everstead-Rey's Suppression for 102 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth meets Xantia's warm smile with brief surprise before falling into one of his own, the facade of brightness softened. "Okay," he agrees. "Together." Maybe this time, he can see her fight while keeping that smile.
The Gryndille arrives, and Lily calls out as her spell takes shape and the trap is set. There is no need to hold back now -- no need except the overrides. Azoth isn't sure he knows what an 'itch' is, but he thinks it might be whatever he's feeling now that he cannot rip off his own failsafes.
He nods to Xantia and rushes in, but intends to keep to her plan: stick close, and help each other. Shockwaves and distorted earth rises up and slams the light veil of one of Azoth's energy shields, cracking the surface and causing a brief spark at Azoth's eye. He raises a finger with a trail of light following, aiming his hand like a gun toward the machine with a playful recoil as a light fires and --
Misses.
He does not display the shock he feels. An error in his targeting. Because he's too small? Or -- Rapid recalibrations take place.
A series if beeps emit from the android like audible calculations. Azoth snaps his fingers as he forms a lance shaped by glowing code and hurls it at Gryndille II, aiming to scramble and distort its systems.
GS: Azoth has attacked Lily Keil with Crosstalk! GS: Azoth enters a Counter stance! GS: Azoth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Azoth gains 5 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil mostly guards Azoth's Crosstalk for 33 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Hyper and Shield removed! GS: Jam applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It follows after all that they saw in those ancient facilities: Gryndille might have been destroyed in Krosse, but it does not mean that its thread had ended. There were prototypes aplenty in Shae Ving, and while he does not know the man personaly, he knows his type.
Colonel Keil is not the sort of man to stand idle, and he has apparently set his sights on a greater prize than Kislev.
His hand is there only briefly, long enough to disperse the enchantment. Citan still has not had the chance to speak to Xantia -- perhaps that weighs on his mind, still, as they stand awaiting the war machine's approach. He meets that look of hers with one of his own: he may mean for her to take care in what might follow. But he still smiles and he still nods.
"...There it is. Prepare yourselves," Citan says to them, in those few moments before reality
twists on itself
and they lose their horizon.
Whatever happens now won't affect the rest of the world. But even though Gryndille might be trapped in here with them, it doesn't mean that it intends to permit them to dismantle it peacefully. From the heavens there rains down a terrible flash of burning light. There is nowhere to escape to. There is no means by which Citan might tender up a defense. So rather than attempt either, he attempts neither: the beams of light burn and hiss and singe across his body, but still he surges forward. His one hand drives through the air before him like a blade's edge, and its pressure is one that will carry, coasting the distance from where he stands and where Gryndille awaits.
And if, perchance, the air about him grows dark even in spite of the brilliance of the war machine's beams, it is surely a coincidence.
"Billy! Elly!" He has noticed, after all, that he's not the only one who has taken a hit or two from that same attack just now. "Are you alright?"
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Citan Uzuki with Yamiga! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Citan Uzuki accepts Citan Uzuki's Yamiga for 0 hit points! GS: Burst applied to Citan Uzuki! GS: Mighty applied to Citan Uzuki!
<Pose Tracker> Meng Wu has posed.
Wu loses her cigarette when the world shifts. She tries to fumble and catch it, fully aware at the time how stupid it is, but it's a falling object and nature is nature.
Not her proudest moment. Especially when she wasn't quite fast enough to get under the beam. Scorching across her coat and hidden armor. And destroying the cigarette.
She scrambles back to something approaching respectable and moves to join the others. Now that they have an enemy, she wants to be close enough to provide cover if it's needed, "Heads up-" she starts, though there is a frown and a distant thought that she should have put a rush job on fixing the shrike.
As she moves, the cover moves with her. Crumbling and reassembling. She really does just.. come with her own convenient cover.
She's still splitting her focus though. Partially on the assembled group, partially on the tank. Maybe she should advance, join Rille. Keep it's attention away.
She glances back, then rolls over the barricade closest to her and begins to do just that. Leaving crumbling cover as she moves. Using the erratic earth to hook shots towards the machine. Not trusting in just pistol calibers to do the job, she's creating new projectiles, enchanted by the ether and erratic in approach. A string of earthen spikes with a lead core.
She raises her voice as she shoots though, still managing to sound almost deadpan, "Yell if you need help. I'll do what I can." Not that she's a medic, but..
GS: Meng Wu has attacked Lily Keil with Lucky For Some! GS: Meng Wu has gained 1 Combo! GS: Meng Wu has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Highest! Lily Keil perfectly evades Meng Wu's Lucky For Some for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Meng Wu! GS: Meng Wu drains Lily Keil! Meng Wu gains 0 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia does have many things on her mind, including quite a few worries about her lack of self-control as of late. But she can't afford to think about that now. Instead, she fully focuses on what needs to be accomplished today, and draws strength from Lily and Azoth's respective replies. They've got this.
As soon as the order is given, Xantia is off like a speeding bullet. No looking back - not that she needs to, she knows what to expect from Lily's current state. What matters is the state she could be in if they allow Gryndille an opening. That's not going to happen if she can do anything about it.
Despite the heat of the moment, Xantia is momentarily alarmed by the words 'spacetime anomaly detected'. How and why the heck was this thing built to detect things like that? Thankfully, her fear that this iteration of Gryndille could be capable of entirely side-stepping Lily's seemingly foolproof plan proves unfounded, thus far.
They're immediately attacked, of course, but that much was within expectations. Perhaps surprisingly, Xantia thinks better of charging directly at the machine, swerving aside and performing a rolling dive through the shockwave's edge, avoiding the full brunt of it. Azoth's got the center covered, and sticking too close would make them an easy target - she plans to attack from a slightly different angle.
As soon as her feet hit the ground again, the air shifts and shimmers around Xantia as she immerses herself in an aura of Light, quickly engaging protective and restorative measures to prepare for an immediate comeback. The immediate plan is to go after the sensors, though of course she can't do that the same way Azoth can. Instead, she effortlessly vaults high, high up, directly targeting the machine's draconic head in hopes of impairing its ability to 'see' clearly in a more straightforward manner. A bright flash heralds a rapid gathering of elemental energy in her right hand, which is immediately launched forward in an explosive blast along with the considerable natural force that her fists carry to begin with.
GS: Xantia spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Xantia has attacked Lily Keil with Lustrous Aura! GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xantia has launched an attack Link! GS: Recover! Break removed from Xantia! GS: Xantia spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Xantia has attacked Lily Keil with Exploding Fist! GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xantia gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil mostly guards Xantia's Lustrous Aura for 42 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover and Hyper applied to Xantia! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil fails to guard Xantia's Exploding Fist for 156 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Xantia!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy has known of Lily's feats, but he can't say he's seen this one before. Isolating a segment of the wasteland like this is disorienting and grand, and his eyes water a little just looking at the sky twist. But the most important part has been done: The enemy cannot flee. "Right," Billy says, and draws his guns, and then immediately flares of light burst around him as the beams of light rain down.
A few moments later: "I'm well, Doctor!" he calls back to Citan, as the pale boy pulls himself out of the dust, his Etone cloak still its defiant navy blue. "The trap is sprung, let us begin!"
He surges then, pulling out both his gunsmokes. He fires, over and over, each bullet racing down the range!
GS: Billy Lee Black spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Lily Keil with Gunholic! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 2 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil critically fails to evade Billy Lee Black's Gunholic for 269 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick applied to Billy Lee Black!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Gryndille II's first volley is met with counterattack after counterattack, pocking the automaton's armor wih eeach strike. It remains the size of a house, but its armor is not fully impenetable. As is clear soon enough, when the real attack start coming. Leon's gunshots slam into its torso, pop pop. Leon shoots, and Gryndille whirls to meet him. "PRIORITY CAPTURE TARGET IDENTIFIED. DEPLOYING PACIFICATION MEASURES." A beam erupts from the ground at his feet.
Magilou channeels more power into Lily, and Lily looks much steadier in the air as she does. "I will!" Lily calls. "But I can still only hold it for so long!"
Magilou's flaming tornado tugs Gryndille towards it, its spiderlike feet dragging along the dirt to hold it in place--and while it is able to resist being pulled up, the flames ravage its claw-side.
then it steps on one of Rikku's mines, and launches into the air--but it is because it is evading that destruction, only its leg blackened by the force of the explosion. It is able in mid-air to take Gwen's shot on the armored orso, but when it rushes into Rille's strike, she dents the metal with sheer force, beginning but not finishing tearing a hole in the armor.
As it lands, Link lets loose a flurry of strikes and hacks into the creature's legs. Its heavy armor shows that the legs are not its weak point, but it suffers damage all the same.
It suffers even more hen Ruth fires. The hole Rille started tearing into its armor widens and there's a crackle of electricity that suggests something important might have been hit.
The earth erupts at Gryndille's feet, under Hannah's command. It is hit, but crunches together to snap the earth spikes off at the root, preventing a far worse hit. then, it does in fact manage to mostly navigate the path to avoid the superheated white fire, but only by movin into a more vulnerable position. Jay takes advantage, and her potion splashes, the automaton's armor suddenly afflicted by roiling liquid. "SABOTAGE DETECTED."
It is kept off-balance a while longer by Ida's shots, long enough for Azoth's calculations to finish--and while it doesn't take obvious damage, he enerrgy fields thatt were gathering around it suddenly disipate. then, it whirls on Azoth, suddenly. Its cameras narrow and zoom.
"AZOTH COMPONENT DETECTED. PRIORITY TARGET ENGAGE."
The air grows dark between Citan and Gryndille, and it seems that it does not understand the signifigance yet of Citan's attack. But it regains its balance in time to start evading Meng Wu's shots, making her choose between maintaining her cover or pressing the offense. But one of its cameras is cracked under the force of Xantia's attacks; elemental energy crshes towards it, and an explosion blots out both Gryndille's 'face' and Xantia for a moment. And then, while it can't 'see', Billy's guns rain from the dust, each bullet individually small but powerful enough to dent armor and start to reach important components.
"Azoth!" Lily calls. "Leon! Look out!" But still she strains to keep the spell working. Speaking of pressing the offense--
Lights suddenly flash on, and there is a fog, as its sensors fous in sharply on Leon and then Azoth.
"DRAWING ON LOCAL LEY..."
Billy, Ida, and Gwen's Gear suddenly find beams erupting from the ground at them. Xantia and Rille, close up, receive the next volley; a sudden PULSE of white-gray energy for Xantia, and a beam from the 'eyes' for Rilly about half as large as she is. One good explosion deserves another; Rikku, Link, and Jay are a the heart of a blast as the 'claw' suddenly holds a brick of explosive and hurls it at both of them. It spider-walks close and closer to Citan, swinging out a claw to try to stop him doing that cloud thing he's doing.
More beems erupt from the ground; Elly gets one, prismatic-and-cyan. Hannah an Wu are next, receiving the brunt of a sudden field of energy, crackling power seeking to cripple them for now outright. It sercches to try to target Ruth, and more Beam Spray from above rains down on her.
"SIGNIFICANT ENERGY TRANSFORMER DETECTED. ANALYZING..."
Magilou is the one to get the sensors-and-fog treatment this time.
The fortifications on the ground are already battered. The battle continues.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Leon Albus with DIRECTIVE - S E E K -! GS: Lily Keil has gained 3 Combo! GS: Lily Keil's stances have changed to ! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Azoth with DIRECTIVE - S E E K -! GS: Lily Keil has gained 3 Combo! GS: Lily Keil's stances have changed to ! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Billy Lee Black with Ley-Targeted Shot! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Ley-Targeted Shot! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Ley-Targeted Shot! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Xantia with Ocular Disruptor! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rille Felis with Ocular Beam! GS: Lily Keil spends 4 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rikku with Gryndille Dynamite! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Link with Gryndille Dynamite! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Gryndille Dynamite! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Citan Uzuki with Adaptive Tactics! GS: Lily Keil enters a Counter stance! GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hannah Curie with Distortion Field! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Meng Wu with Distortion Field! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ruth Pauling with Beam Spray! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with DIRECTIVE - S E E K -! GS: Lily Keil has gained 3 Combo! GS: Lily Keil's stances have changed from Counter to and Counter! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Ley-Targeted Shot! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Leon Albus marginally guards Lily Keil's Ley-Targeted Shot for 134 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Leon Albus gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Rikku critically fails to evade Lily Keil's Gryndille Dynamite for 319 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Rikku! GS: FP up! Countermeasures! GS: Gwen Whitlock fails to charge Lily Keil's Ley-Targeted Shot for 336 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Leon Albus mostly guards Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - S E E K - for 22 hit points! GS: Entangle and Slow applied to Leon Albus! GS: Mighty applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Leon Albus receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Leon Albus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Link has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Link marginally guards Lily Keil's Gryndille Dynamite for 163 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Link gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison blocked! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber critically fails to guard Lily Keil's Gryndille Dynamite for 363 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Elhaym van Houten mostly guards Lily Keil's Ley-Targeted Shot for 78 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling mostly guards Lily Keil's Beam Spray for 48 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: CRITICAL! Rille Felis marginally guards Lily Keil's Ocular Beam for 149 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rille Felis gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease applied to Rille Felis! GS: COUNTER! Azoth counterattacks Lily Keil with Thermal Runaway! GS: Azoth critically fails to charge Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - S E E K - for 65 hit points! GS: Entangle and Slow applied to Azoth! GS: Mighty applied to Lily Keil! GS: Azoth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Lily Keil mostly guards Azoth's Thermal Runaway for 78 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Magilou mostly evades Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - S E E K - for 30 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle and Slow applied to Magilou! GS: Mighty applied to Lily Keil! GS: Citan Uzuki has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: You have activated the Force Action Guard! GS: Citan Uzuki mostly guards Lily Keil's Adaptive Tactics for 73 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Billy Lee Black marginally evades Lily Keil's Ley-Targeted Shot for 131 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Ruinous! Xantia mostly guards Lily Keil's Ocular Disruptor for 167 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey mostly guards Lily Keil's Ley-Targeted Shot for 65 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Pacification measures," Leon spits. "I'm doubtful."
He sprints to the side after seeing the shots hit the mark, keeping an eye on how Gryndille's thrown off balance for a moment. But not enough to stop it, and he grimaces, as its sensors seem to lock onto him.
"I see it!" Leon calls back to Lily. Beams of white, Ley-infused light explode around him; he brings his arm up, grimacing and covering his face. He sucks a breath in, before he taps at a button on his belt.
Three triangle-shaped drones drop off -- then spread out, and begin to swirl around Magilou, aglow with a fierce light.
Leon rushes to stand a little in front of the elf, raising his ARM. "We'd better put some pressure on this damnable thing."
GS: Leon Albus has attacked Magilou with PMU-Z2 Raid Wall! GS: Leon Albus has gained 3 Combo! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Hannah Curie critically fails to charge Lily Keil's Distortion Field for 0 hit points! GS: Hannah Curie's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Hannah Curie's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Hannah Curie! GS: Hannah Curie enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Leon Albus heals Magilou! She gains 319 temporary hit points! GS: Protect and Shield applied to Magilou! GS: Magilou is now being protected by Leon Albus! GS: Cover applied to Leon Albus!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
Gryndille steps on a mine, but then- it launches. "Oh come on! You're not supposed to do that!" However, she is impressed, because she hasn't actually seen a Machina THIS SMART that wasn't also like a Reploid first!
Rikku whirls to look at Azoth as suddenly it calls them out as a target, "What? Why's it after-" Then she sees the giant dynamite brick in the Claw hand.
"Don't like that - don't like THAT!" She tries to run, but the explosion catches her, the shockwave brutally battering her as she just, vanishes into the sand.
"Bwuh." Rikku bursts out of a dune, looking absolutely miserable for several long moments. "Didn't like that at all." She moans pathetically, but then, shaking off sand, looking scorched, she grasps something from inside of her harnesses, as she slaps her cheeks, "Back in the game. Chin Up! Eyes Forward!"
And then she tosses up another concoction at Jay and herself who both ate the worst of it. It bursts into prismatic light, before filling their bodies with vigor.
"Let's see if we can't avoid a repeat of that one." She says, giving her fellow exploded alchemist a thumbs up.
GS: Rikku has attacked Rikku with Chin Up! Eyes Forward! Ultra-Cure!! GS: Rikku has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Chin Up! Eyes Forward! Ultra-Cure!! GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Rikku takes 32 damage from Poison! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Rikku heals Rikku! She gains 288 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Break and Poison removed! GS: Rikku heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 289 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Poison removed! GS: Meng Wu mostly guards Lily Keil's Distortion Field for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Disrupt, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Meng Wu!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"An 'Azoth Component'," Magilou muses, tapping her finger to her temple. "Soooo... if that's just a component, how many other Azoths are running around?"
Then another beam explodes, and Magilou decides, "Questions for later." She's able to hop-skip-and-jump away from them, at least, because they're not directly targeting her. Not until --
"Eeeh?" Magilou asks, as the Gryndille II turns its sensors on her. "Well, I am certainly more than meets the eye, but I'm afraid you're just not my type. I think my hand would get crushed if --" Thankfully, whatever bawdy thing Magilou was about to say is drowned out by that assault on Jay's fortifications.
Equally thankfully, Leon's triangular defence comes in to shield Magilou -- though whether that machine got a good look beforehand is unclear. "Aww, come on," she grins, as she steps behind him, finally taking her sacrosanct place in THE BACK ROW. "We could let it play out a little longer! What's the rush!"
The camera cuts up to show Lily, all consumed with trying to maintain her spell, for absolutely no reason.
"... oh, right, that," Magilou says, as she looks back down. The camera was following her gaze the whole time. "Right, right, rightio! Now --"
She grasps her shikigami in hand, that spirit possessing her paper doll, and it extends up as she chants: "Rise!" And it goes higher, disappearing into the starspace of Lily's mysteries instead of the clouds. "Arise!" Does it extend into oblivion itself?
"Ascending... Angel!" Magilou cries, as she hefts her paper doll down, taller than the tallest skyscraper, to fall past Leon and impact upon the Gear assaulting them.
Some of those oblivion-stars are still dripping from its top half.
GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Magilou has attacked Lily Keil with Ascending Angel! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Highest! Lily Keil critically fails to guard Magilou's Ascending Angel for 355 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline's potion seems to take hold - but Gryndille is tough, and despite this, it's still going strong. And more than that, it retaliates. A brick of explosive is hurled into the midst of her, Rikku, and Link - which then explodes, violently. Jacqueline braces herself, but the sheer force of it sends her flying, crashing back into a nearby wall. She's still for a moment, smoking and looking quite worse for wear - and then, with a groan she hauls herself to her feet, reaching for her glasses where they had been knocked clear and sliding them back onto her face. One of the lenses is cracked, but she can deal with that for now.
"Are you alright?" Jacqueline asks. She gets her answer as Rikku bursts from the dunes, producing a conconction of her own. The prismatic light settles over her and the soreness fades, and she feels a bit more of her strength coming back.
"Yes, ah... let's." Jacqueline agrees with an awkward laugh toward Rikku, offering her a thumbs-up of her own. With that she exhales, rolling her neck.
"The sabotage has only just begun..." She mutters to herself. She draws a Crest Graph from her gauntlets and sets it in place before studying Gryndille. It's showing signs of damage, at least... And so, she gestures.
A mysterious dark wind rushes forth, to blow through Gryndille and its chassis - seeking to tear away protections while reinforcing that which it hinders it.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Lily Keil with Mysterious Wind! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I think so, Doctor, it just grazed me - I can still feel it fine," Elly tells Citan, and if he looks, he can see a mark that is indeed probably something you want to put burn ointment or a bandage on, but which would not be 'send this woman to the medic right now' bad in the moment of an engagement.
Of course, just after she says this: A beam of energy smashes up near Elly. A momentary presage of danger means she rolls to the side again with a yelp of dismay, but the destruction of the chunk of old masonry she was using to hide behind is telling her something important.
YOU CAN'T HIDE FOREVER.
Elly's grip on her staff tightens, and she pushes herself upright. Sweeping her hair back with one hand she looks towards Gryndille itself, who has, for the moment, turned their horrid robotic attention onto other people, at least for the full brunt of the force. Probably Lily or Magilou. If either of them are disabled (or worse, Elly thinks, with a squeam of fear in her belly) then Gryndille will probably offload what it can and retreat.
If I had Regulus, Elly thinks with a passing twinge of concern, but 'if' can stack very high. Her other hand grasps the staff. She gives it a single 180-degree turn counterclockwise, then another, 360, in the other direction, before leading with her left foot and performing something not unlike a staff fighting form towards Gryndille.
This is not very threatening in and of itself. What is probably more meaningful is the small, but cumulatively accelerating, bursts of Etheric lightning which form discrete packets of electrical force and fly towards Gryndille. As Elly twists and strikes the air, the later ones move faster, which means that all of them are going to arrive 'on target' more or less simultaneously.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Lily Keil with Anemo Zap! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 2 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rille Felis has posed.
Rille slams her fists in several more times, punching the dent - rent, really, by the time it starts to open - as deep as she can make it.
She can't stay there forever, though. You just have to keep moving in battles like this. When the thing starts a wheeling turn, Rille scrambles backwards, anxious to simply avoid getting run over.
Rille is not run over! The eye beam is probably worse - Rille can't try to smash it out of the way. Well, she tries, but it does very little, the beam striking with a concussive *WHUMP* as it blasts air as well as Rille.
When the light clears, Rille is still there, arms held in an X in front of her. She's looking a little frazzled around the edges, the already ragged edge of the shirt where she removed her sleeves looking a little scorched. But she's still upright, determined.
"I think it's determined to make a try of it anyway," Rille calls back to Magilou. "I'm goin' in. Let's see if *I* can get its attention for a while - not that it's my type either, but better me than you!" A beat as she crouches, then: "Cover me!" That's not to Magilou; it's to anyone with a spare moment and a gun or a spell.
Rille makes a running leap up toward the upper body of the Gryndille. She twists as she goes, spinning through a full arc before driving one of her big feet down in a mighty axe kick directly at the Gryndille's shoulder; she tries to plant it, kick herself *up* higher, and come in with both fists at that eye that just hit her!
And as Rille does, she *roars*, a bestial sound with real force behind it. Her entire body flares up with energy, in the rough shape of a horned lion's head as she doesn't just try to hit the Gryndille in the head -
She tries to punch all the way through it.
GS: Rille Felis has attacked Lily Keil with Beast's Roar! GS: Rille Felis enters a Counter stance! GS: Rille Felis has gained 3 Combo! GS: Recover! Disease removed from Rille Felis! GS: Rille Felis gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Rille Felis has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
No sooner has Link reset his guard than a blast from around the Gryndille seems to detonate slamming into his shield forcing him even further back as he takes the brunt of the blast to his shield sending him sliding backwards. By the time he comes to a stop, he blinks at the distance between him and the golem thing wondering how best to reapproach. Something else seems to come to his mind through as he considers his options.
With practiced movement, he slides his shield and sword back into place on his back and pulls from his belt a white baton like wand. Closing his eyes and holding up, he begins to conduct the wind itself into a quick chime like song that rings softly around him. And when the third note plays, the effect is immediate. A rush of fresh, clean wind sudden fills the area blowing from behind Link across the field clearing anything in the air potentially and carrying with it a hint of restorative power.
GS: Link has attacked Hannah Curie with Windwaker! GS: Link has attacked Meng Wu with Windwaker! GS: Link has attacked Azoth with Windwaker! GS: Link has attacked Leon Albus with Windwaker! GS: Link has attacked Magilou with Windwaker! GS: Link has attacked Rille Felis with Windwaker! GS: Link has completed his action. GS: Azoth accepts Link's Windwaker for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Entangle and Slow removed! GS: Pray adds Quick! GS: Hyper and Quick applied to Azoth! GS: COUNTER! Lily Keil counterattacks Jacqueline Barber with Ley-Targeted Shot! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to charge Jacqueline Barber's Mysterious Wind for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Dispel! Infect! Hyper, Mighty, and Shield removed! GS: Hex applied to Lily Keil! GS: Jacqueline Barber marginally guards Lily Keil's Ley-Targeted Shot for 110 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Link heals Rille Felis! She gains 43 temporary hit points! GS: Pray adds Regen! GS: Hyper and Regen applied to Rille Felis! GS: Meng Wu accepts Link's Windwaker for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Disrupt, Jam, and Slow removed! GS: Pray adds Shield! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Meng Wu! GS: Link heals Magilou! She gains 39 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Entangle and Slow removed! GS: Pray adds Regen! GS: Hyper and Regen applied to Magilou! GS: Hannah Curie accepts Link's Windwaker for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Disrupt, Jam, and Mute removed! GS: Pray adds Quick! GS: Hyper and Quick applied to Hannah Curie!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The next round is chambered, and Ruth would fire again on the spot on principle as her vision starts to clear, with so many shapes ahead...
She catches a younger child heroically standing his ground, and some part of her seizes her heart as she points the rifle down. The sense of pain, panic, and desperation among all the parties is all but intoxicating. Guilt keeps her anchored.
Hesitation gives an opening for Gryndille's return fire, and she has to scramble to one of the few remaining places in the shattered, scattering fortification where there's anything over her head. Most of it impacts with the cover, some of it jostling loose to collapse upon her--
A shout, as she swings that rifle's bayonet blade up with strength she both lacks and possesses at the same time, deflecting a larger chunk from striking her down. Structural collapse around and behind her prevents her from retreating back to higher ground along the back row.
She can only advance further, then.
"I'm reinforcing," Ruth declares as Malevolence pulses under her existential surface. She runs through a fresh breeze conjured by the Wind Waker, sand and shards of glass as the bayonet blade cuts deep across the ground before ramming into some part of Gryndille with a swing, and discharging the third round of the clip in close quarters.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Lily Keil with Forceful Knock! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil fails to guard Elhaym van Houten's Anemo Zap for 183 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam blocked! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil critically fails to evade Rille Felis's Beast's Roar for 272 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Rille Felis! GS: Lily Keil fails to guard Ruth Pauling's Forceful Knock for 127 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Neither of them are badly wounded: he can see that at a glance. Both of them can still stand and fight, clearly. But is it not a doctor's nature to express concern in such a situation, and with the both of them close enough that he saw them get hit?
Regardless, both Elly and Billy express to Citan that they are fine despite their wounds and he answers this with a firm nod of his own. They all came here fully aware of the dangers, because there is no one else they can ask to put a stop to this.
Azoth... component. So what he had heard hadn't been unwarranted. But he doesn't look. There isn't time afforded to him to look.
After all, Gryndille has called upon the local Ley and beams of light begin to erupt from the ground around them. Citan scatters, but perhaps all he'd done was draw its attention for its next move is to, without warning, step suddenly closer to the point he now occupies and swing a claw right at him.
The time for subtlety comes itself to a quick end.
The claw never hits him outright. Rather, it appears to hang in the air before him, a clear rippling barrier holding back from its connection. The pressure of that deflected blow has dug his heels into the ground: he strains to counter the physics at play.
Then, quite suddenly, Citan takes a last a breath and drives a series of quick blows at that claw in those moments before Gryndille retracts it.
GS: Citan Uzuki has attacked Lily Keil with Renken! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 4 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Leon Albus accepts Link's Windwaker for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Entangle and Slow removed! GS: Pray adds Quick! GS: Hyper and Quick applied to Leon Albus! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to charge Citan Uzuki's Renken for 190 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Meng Wu has posed.
Wu's not entirely having the best of luck and she takes a moment. Pausing against a slab of rock. Checking her pistols. Taking a moment to focus. To shake herself out so to speak.
She's caught full on by the burst of energy. It's like being tazed again. She went through that a few times. And she grits her teeth, ignores the feeling and starts to push through. Forcing herself up. She has to admit, ignoring her cover's probably a good way of dealing with her usual brand of plowing through problems.
"Component?" She mutters through gritted teeth. Shooting an eye towards the machine that ID'd her at one point. A passing thought that she should probably..
That's a later problem.
Magilou's question is met with a curious look. Then a frown. That's a lot of potential leaks. "I'd guess on there being other components. Like an engine block."
Her focus goes forward for now. Though a thumbs up is sent back to Link.. somehow she knew the music helped. Somehow. Or she's guessing. Or she has a soft spot for combat musicians. Don't ask where one of her soldiers had found a bagpipe.
Watching the machine, she suddenly swings to a different position in her cover and wings a few shots at the thing, each pistol firing until the slides lock back where she ducks back down. She'd been.. mostly trying to see if she could find anything critical to damage. To focus on. To see what she could get away with.
Next time she brings mines or something.. there's a wry thought.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
As the attacks rip that hole into the Gryndille II's armor, Gwen cheers over the loudspeakers. "Woohoo! Awright! Keep at it!"
..... why is the only Gear present focusing on cheerleading?
..... Because it's the Halcyone, that's why.
"Azoth component, huh," Gwen murmurs to herself. Magilou's not the only one who's curious. What part of Azoth is the Gryndille II reacting to?
Gwen doesn't get long to ponder that, as the ground below her erupts with beams. Attempting to take advantage of it, she presses her ARM's right hand into a hole on the dashboard--
But it's way too much to take in. Electricity snaps as Gwen wrenches back her right hand, doubling over from the pain. "S-shit... aha... that was a doozy..." However, her pain wasn't for nothing, as Gwen looks up at the power meter.
Leon comments that they better amp up the pressure on the Gryndille II. Gwen knows just what to do. "... Deploying my secret weapon... well, one o' them." Opening the top of a tube compartment next to her, Gwen grabs a package, wrapped in canvas cloth, and carefully places it inside, shutting the cover back into place, following it with a few pats of her hand.
"Let's see how fortune fairs for ya, Gryndille II!"
A package shoots out, like some of the Halcyone's earlier stunts during the siege on November City. However, this one doesn't have a parachute, and it's aimed towards the Gryndille II, rather than Gwen's allies.
GS: Meng Wu has attacked Lily Keil with Cheap Shot! GS: Meng Wu has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cover expired! GS: Meng Wu has completed her action. GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Lily Keil with Dead Mail! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Gamble: Moderate! Lily Keil critically fails to guard Meng Wu's Cheap Shot for 106 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Meng Wu! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Lily Keil marginally evades Gwen Whitlock's Dead Mail for 108 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Hex! GS: Hex applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah scowls as the mech cuts off her attack before it can pierce any further than it does. Not ideal--but there's plenty more magic where that came from.
Too much, but that's a concern for another time.
But next is a field of crackling energy enveloping her, attempting to lock her down. She strains against the energy--her own aura twists wildly against it, rebelling further against anything that would seek to reign it in--
But she is brought down to a knee as the force of the Gryndille overwhelms her, her aura diminishing...
But only for a moment. As Hannah strains, a fresh burst of clean, restorative air comes sweeping through the battlefield, and as she inhales deeply, her aura suddenly bursts outwards and shakes off toe Gryndille's energy field.
"Hoo-ee. Thank you kindly, whoever that was." It's a chaotic battlefield, and she can give proper thanks later. She goes for a new crest graph from her pouch, this one starting to spark with white-blue tendrils of electricity. She holds it in front of herself, and a shimmering, crackling ball of lighting begins to take form. It looks positively angry, a horrendous buzzing like the world's oargest beehive filling the air. Tendrils of electricity snap off of it at random directions, and Hannah is straining visibly, muscles in her arm tensing as she tries to force it to stay contained.
It grows until it is as large as the sorceress itself. She snaps her fingers and it is flung forward, seeking out the largest concentration of metal on the battlefield.
GS: Hannah Curie enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Lily Keil with Ball Lightning! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 4 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Hannah Curie enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Azoth Component'. A chill races down Ida's spine. "Oh no you don't," she growls. Her fists clench, and the synthetic leather of her gauntlets creaks.
'DRAWING ON LOCAL LEY...'
The world slows. Ida feels the brief tremblor of power as it runs through the ground beneath her. Silvery flesh erupts from her shoulders, hardening into exoskeleton as it encases her arms. She sinks into a crouch, and crosses her armored limbs before her. The beam sends her stumbling back, exoskeleton smoking.
As Rille charges, Ida steps back behind her, and slips out the magazine. More Living Metal surges up from her hand, neatly slotting into the place where a bullet should go. Glowing, white-hot chi infuses it, shining through the seams in Devil's Due. There's a bright flash as Ida pulls the trigger--
And searing fragments of Living Metal fire at Gryndille, trying to bore through its armor.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lily Keil with Burning Quicksilver ! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Mighty and Riposte expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
AZOTH COMPONENT DETECTED. PRIORITY TARGET ENGAGE.
Azoth's eyes lock with the Gryndille II's sensors, his own bright. He looks, for all the world, a small animal caught staring down the bright lights of a vehicle it does not understand. But the trouble here is understanding a little too well.
Called out as a component, no less. Incomplete. Only a piece of himself.
Lily calls out, but Azoth does not respond. Then there is... a song. Chimes that direct the wind, flowing around Azoth. He lifts his hand, letting it cool his overheating chassis. "exec.vox ror(STRA)..." The 'words', both beeped and spoken, sound like a chant along with the music, echoing and alien.
"...There is only one Azoth left," he says, a response to Magilou, but murmured as if said to nothing and to no one. Only after, does his focus return, sharpening on his target.
"MEMORY ERROR. SUBJECT NOT FOUND," comes his own reply to Gryndille, his voice bigger than his body. Have they fought before? What data exists in this machine that might know him?
But he cannot afford to hold back and preserve that data.
Azoth stares down Gryndille II and raises his arm. Light crawls up his limbs and gathers in his palm before he sweeps it down in an bow-like arc. He pulls his arm back, trailing with light as if meeting resistance, and releases.
A potent ray of radiant light fires off like an arrow, aiming a precise shot to try and pierce a critical component of Gryndille's.
GS: Azoth has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Azoth spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Azoth has attacked Lily Keil with Signed Zero! GS: Azoth gains 5 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil mostly guards Hannah Curie's Ball Lightning for 104 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Hannah Curie! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil marginally evades Ida Everstead-Rey's Burning Quicksilver for 43 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Shieldbreak applied to Lily Keil! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil fails to charge Azoth's Signed Zero for 330 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Strain! Azoth takes 71 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy wouldn't call a killer robot on his usual list of hunt targets - but still, he's a hunter of monsters, and he knows his way around an enemy capable of putting down a small legion. Sensing the Ley shifting, Billy skids in the dirt, then redirects sharply. It's not enough to clear damage completely, and the air around his enchanted coat flickers with the fringes of his barriers, damaged and illuminated. He plants his feet after the column clears, sliding his gunsmokes back into the hip holsters, then flicks his arms up.
Two *more* guns burst out of his sleeves,a pair of Ether guns on spring-loaded rails in his sleeves. Each is charged with flame at the moment, he fires them several times, bolt of flame crackling across the distance to score against Gryndille's hide.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Lily Keil with Hell Blast! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 2 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black's stances have changed to Sage! GS: Hyper expired! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Gryndille II emits several more statements that alarm Xantia while she's in the middle of her assault. It doesn't throw her off enough for her to fail to follow through, but the very moment she lands... well, Lily herself pretty much echo her thoughts there. Leon and Azoth... her dismay is clearly audible in her wondering aloud, "What?! Why are they priority targets?" As if the giant death robot is going to comply with her demand for answers.
She has a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She's tried and failed to protect others directly so many times. It would almost certainly go badly again this time. Not that Leon and Azoth can't handle themselves, but...
She spends a little too long mentally debating her next move to avoid what happens next. At least she notices the energy pulse before it slams into her, but the best she can do is cross her bracers in front of her and dig in her heels. To her credit, she somehow maintains her footing, even through getting pushed back a significant distance, leaving grooves in the soil. Only at the very end does she take a knee, the exertion too much to keep her balance.
This is bad, she thinks immediately. She needs to get back in there right away. Whatever it's planning to do next, she has to get in the way of it somehow. As if responding to her thoughts, her elemental aura switches to Lightning, electricity crackling across her form as she rises back up. She moves in an instant, trailing afterimages as she recklessly charges back into melee range with Gryndille. It's difficult to follow her movements as they happen, but the flying sparks give away where her elementally-charged punches land, spread across the giant machine's frame.
In spite of her earlier intentions, her movement stops not far from Azoth, briefly looking over to him before she adopts an aggressive combat stance. "If Azoth's a priority target of yours, then you're a priority target of mine!"
...Does Xantia actually expect the killer robot to be impressed by such a statement? No, but clearly stating your intent is important at times like this.
GS: Xantia has attacked Lily Keil with Elemental Fury! GS: Xantia has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xantia's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Xantia gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Xantia gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil mostly evades Billy Lee Black's Hell Blast for 50 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple applied to Lily Keil! GS: Cover applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Lily Keil mostly evades Xantia's Elemental Fury for 60 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Xantia!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Leon is doubtful. Lily is glad he's not 'pacified.'
Rikku doesn't like it, but she has an alchemical soluion to that particular problem. But Gryndille does not let up. It rushes Leon in an effort to knock him senseless. It does not answer Magilou's question. Instead, it rounds on her. ...And then it takes oblivion-stars to the 'face', the shikigami's power slamming into it hard enough to leave a crack where Rille had opened its armor and shaking the entire automaton besides.
"ENERGY SOURCE CONFIRMED. NEUTRALIZING..." A terible beam erupts from its faceplate for Magilou!!
Jay's neext spell tears away its proections once more. It tries to charge into the wind, but its protective field is removed entirely.
Bursts of Etheric lightning come next. th packtts of electrical force hi simulaneously, blasting through more armor and sending crackling electricity all over Gryndille--just in tim for Rill's ROAR to crash agains Gryndille. Her running leap takes her up the lgeg of the creature, towards the upper body, and hits the 'eye'. But then her body flares in energy--
"ERROR. ERROR." Rille punches through, and a chunk of its head is broken, her fist through it and her whole body following soon after.
"DAMAGE SUSTAINED. DRAWING ON FURTHER LEY ENERGY..."
Link's music does nothing to the automaton, but much for his allies. It turns to look at him a moment--but can do nothing to stop that power.
Yet.
Ruth continues. With a shout, she advances. She ecomes to reinforc, and Malevolence pulses. Gryndille turns immediately to face her--and then it is hit in the chest by Ruth's bayonet, sending her launching upward as it rises and takes the shot point-blank.
Subtlety is at an end. The claw Citan strikes loses a tine entirely as Citan pointedly eliminates part of it hollding it on.
Wu shoots at the hole in the head, and widens it, her bullets striking fiercely as Gwen shoots a ackage. The 'secret weapon' strikes, but Gryndille is able to move just out of the way, and the explosion rocks its side, rather thn its vulnerable pieces.
The chaotic battle stretches on as Hannah flings forward a six-foot blast of electricity. Gryndille is hardend against lightning, at least, and despite the way her blast deforms its chassis, it catches it with the claw. The claw bursts open before closing sharply on the lightning.
It jukes out of the way of Ida's living metal. "WORLD-EATER TAINT DETECTED."
It targets Ida--and a sudden blast of energy smashes towards her! "ADAPTING."
Azoth asks a question. Or rathr, h raises an error, his voice large. Gryndille's inernals whiirrrrrr.
"SUBJECT AZOTH RATED CLASS-S THREAT TO SUBJECTS. ELIMINATION BEST SOLUTION."
But Azoth's light crashes through Gryndille's torso, finally passing through the hole that the others were widening.
Xantia's questions are not answered. A shield emerges in light where her punches land, preventing the spreading of their energies.
"ADAPTING."
It then whirls out of the way of the Etheric flame Billy brings to bear, judging it too high a threat to ignore this time. the fire scores against its legs anyway.
And then...
The very air shakes, the whole world seeming to rock on its axis for an instant as there is the sound of a terrible impact. One. Two. Three. Four. Impacts rock against the air and shake the ground at everyone's feet.
Lily grits her teeth again, and cries out in pain. "I--I can't--"
CRACK. The world itself splits open like an egg, and through the single crack in the air emerges a second automaton. As large as the first but yet undamaged, a second Gryndille erupts onto the scene.
"REINFORCEMENT PROTOCOL ACTIVE."
BGM CHANGE: Weight of the World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPSOaSwdEaE
Lily shouts again, a wordless cry of agonized determination, and the crack begins to seal itself. There is not enough time: the second automaton turns on Lily.
"SOURCE OF SPACETIME ANOMALY CONFIRMED. EINHERJAR DETECTED. DEACTIVATTION CODE 'SHARON WYATT' DISABLED."
It begins to charge its cannon.
The original, meanwhile--th 'original' copy--suddenly opens its torso, letting loose a quantity of small cannons that construct themselves before it. "ARMOR COMPROMISED. ASSUMING FULL OFFENSIVE MODE."
Cyan blasts cascade out towards the group, the very ground turning to glass where it hits.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Leon Albus with Adaptive Tactics! GS: Lily Keil enters a Counter stance! GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Ocular Beam! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Azoth with DIRECTIVE - P U R I F Y -! GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Xantia with DIRECTIVE - A D A P T -! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lily Keil with WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil heals Lily Keil! She gains 201 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rikku with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Billy Lee Black with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hannah Curie with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Citan Uzuki with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ruth Pauling with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Link with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rille Felis with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with DIRECTIVE - A D A P T -! GS: Recover! Hex removed from Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Meng Wu with Siege Breaker! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Leon Albus mostly guards Lily Keil's Adaptive Tactics for 117 hit points! GS: Leon Albus enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou critically fails to guard Lily Keil's Ocular Beam for 238 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease applied to Magilou! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Protect! Leon Albus takes 60 damage! GS: COUNTER! Rille Felis counterattacks Lily Keil with Springboard Kick! GS: Rille Felis critically fails to charge Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 213 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rille Felis gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Rille Felis enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Meng Wu mostly guards Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 124 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Rille Felis's Springboard Kick for 124 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten fails to charge Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 207 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Xantia mostly evades Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - A D A P T - for 91 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Recover! Cover, Hyper, and Mighty removed from Lily Keil! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Xantia receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Xantia enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Ruth Pauling mostly guards Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 108 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Azoth critically fails to charge Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - P U R I F Y - for 324 hit points! GS: Azoth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Citan Uzuki critically fails to guard Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 235 hit points! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Citan Uzuki receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Citan Uzuki enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: COUNTER! Link counterattacks Lily Keil with Parry and Strike! GS: Link critically fails to charge Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 207 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Link gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Rikku perfectly evades Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Countermeasures and Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Link's Parry and Strike for 111 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber fails to evade Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 101 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gwen Whitlock critically fails to guard Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 472 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Countermeasures! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Absolutely not," Leon says to Magilou, flatly. "Because, yes, that."
There's a flicker of worry in his silver eyes. He watches her spell fall -- breathes a sigh of relief to see its explosive promise play out -- and then breathes a sigh of relief after Link's conducting of the wind itself.
"Good work," he tells him. Then, he looks at Xantia. "I've never had a great answer. I know it's from Heorot. And there's a connection. But..."
Even knowing he was from that place -- even knowing his origins -- made him only have more questions about why Gryndille came after them both.
The barrier that Leon made intercepts the beam that Gryndille fires at Magilou; it holds it back for a moment, until it shatters, and the Raid Funnels are blown backward. Leon, himself, is sent flying backward when Gryndille comes slamming towards him.
He hops backward, before Gryndille calls out an alarm. His eyes narrow. "What is it--SHIT!"
A second Gryndille explodes through the barrier. Leon looks to the undamaged one. "We need to take this out, quickly!" he shouts. "Be careful!"
He leaps, and then snaps back his ARM. The barrels come apart; its narrow blade telescopes out, before Leon comes down for it, near the head, and slams his sword down for its neck.
Then he tries to rip it free.
GS: Leon Albus has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Leon Albus has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Leon Albus spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Leon Albus has attacked Lily Keil with Black Wolf's Fang! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey fails to guard Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - A D A P T - for 194 hit points! GS: Dispel! Recover! Hyper removed from Lily Keil! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Hannah Curie mostly evades Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 162 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hannah Curie enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil critically fails to guard Leon Albus's Black Wolf's Fang for 272 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Leon Albus!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
See? It can always get worse.
Gryndille speaks with stentorian force. Elly, in a passing moment, thinks she can see the wisdom there. Any tactical updates are not expressed in a useful form - the overwhelming power OF Gryndille will only be augmented by the declarations against the potential for the enemy to succeed.
To resist.
To escape.
To survive.
A second one comes. Leon gives his command. Cannon fire rips towards Elly who stamps her right foot forwards and raises up her staff held in both hands above her head. It is not much of a guarding posture, and her arms jerk for a moment before returning to the stance when a cannon shot does glance on it. Another one whips a hole through her coat; it grazes her flank as well, although she will only notice later.
Elly's focus is somewhere else. Something approaching its peak.
There is a brief flare of plasma-orange up and around Elly which stops -- as she grasps hold of it with her mind and pushes it forwards. Forwards, forwards, forwards, it seems like it's crossing an endless plain even if it's really only a few dozen yards, but with a gritting of her teeth it gets there. It gets there right beneath the currently-still Gryndille -- and then Elly forces it towards the one Leon is terrorizing. The less damaged one.
Please work, thinks Elly, before she exhales.
The ground underneath that creature flashes orange-red for a moment before something rumbles -- and then CRACKS, the ground itself seeming to split as a living shape of raw screaming plasma rises up from beneath. Like a bird spreading its wings the shape ascends, the Ether-construction DRAGGED upwards and through the vertical axis of the Gryndille's body, as well as slightly forwards and to the right -- Elly's right, at least, which may be that Gryndille's left. It is not so much that the screaming, incinerating fire-shape can burn THROUGH the thing as that this enforced space of hyper-agitated molecular motion is being pulled through it, whether it likes it or not.
Once free of the belly of the beast, the wings spread, and the superheated gasses that have been gathered in the way of this vast eruption of Ether-potential begin to vent upwards. It sounds like a scream.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Lily Keil with Thermo Phoenix! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Lily Keil counterattacks Elhaym van Houten with Ley-Targeted Shot! GS: Lily Keil fails to charge Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Phoenix for 241 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shieldbreak blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
The wind wakes, and Magilou blinks, looking over to the boy and his instrument. "Hmm," she remarks, to herself. "That kid's more of a powerhouse than he seems, huh...?" She can tell just how impressive the wind responding to Link like that is, apparently.
Speaking of unseemly children, she turns to Azoth -- having heard his murmur, despite all sense and logic working against it, and smiles. "There's only one Azoth left so far," she asides to him, wagging a finger. "Growth mindset!"
Is she saying that he's going to be destroyed here, or is she saying someone could make more of him? BOTH OPTIONS ARE BAD!
Leon is defending Magilou, thankfully -- though that explosion does manage to rock her, when his protection shatters, the Raid Funnels are forced back. There's another one, now, and Lily is struggling with the pressure.
"So," Magilou sighs, as she straightens up, "it's like that, huh. You get to take out your Einherjar while she's pinning you in, and then the other one takes us all out. I mean, for brainless machines, it's not the worst plan." Beat. She looks to Azoth. "Don't take it the wrong way. If you go to the Wizard, you'll be able to get a brain of your very own, tin man."
And instead of focusing on the Gryndille II trying to kill her...
... Magilou strides up to the second one, right in front of its charging cannon.
"But what would Velvet do in this situation? She'd probably find the nicest thing on the battlefield... to eat. And you're looking pretty good. Spell Absorber."
Once again, that flash of white light and lilac butterflies expands out, as Magilou promises to neutralise that cannon aimed at Lily.
If she can neutralise its power and break it down to its base components -- she can send it back to Lily, just as she did before.
So long as she can survive all that force coursing through her soul.
GS: Magilou has attacked Lily Keil with Spell Absorber! GS: Magilou enters a Counter stance! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Magilou gains 8 THP from Regen! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Magilou's Spell Absorber for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
No sooner does Link finish using the Windwaker Baton than the golem is attacking! It's attack makes the world shake, sending debris all over catching the boy off guard with its harshness and suddeness. By the time it clears, Link comes launching out of the debris landing a strike with his sword as faint pink sparkles surrounds him and those quick of the eye will notice the small fairy circling him before it takes off having saved the young hero from falling. In the aftermath, Link stares in astonishment as there are now TWO of them! With a shake, he quickly pulls his shield off his back getting ready to continue the fight no matter the odds.
GS: Link has attacked Link with Fairy Bottle! GS: Link enters a Counter stance! GS: Link has gained 2 Combo! GS: Break and Hyper expired! GS: Link has completed his action. GS: Link heals Link! He gains 196 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"You've got that right." She tells Jay as she flashes a grin her way and then she starts to jog, starts to run. Haste taking over her limbs as she moves like a Chocobo on Curiel Greens. Suddenly dodging, weaving, she's moving faster and faster, but she knows she's not got much time.
Because...
'ADAPTING'
It starts to shake the ground. And Rikku just...
Isn't on the ground, with a swing of a grapnel that clanks against the side of it's rear, she rapidly climbs up and runs alongside into the open section of armor.
"Okay let's see what I can do here."
Rikku reaches INTO the armor with her Godhand, as there's movements of Hydraulics within it, two clamps suddenly wedging in from the elaborate Machina gauntlet. Trying to wrench it in, as there's a sudden movement of hydraulics. That's when a crack splits in the air and-
REINFORCEMENT PROTOCOL ACTIVE
"Oh come on! That's cheating! We're not even IN your space time!"
It's clear Lily is faltering. Not only that, it's identified her as the source.
There's not much time.
Bracing both legs against the first Gryndille's frame, she grabs her opposite arm that's inside and-
"No no no - DON'T DISABLE HER!"
-tries to do some damage, and fast. She may not know this particular design - but she understands enough at a glance that she thinks this one is connected to...
GS: Rikku has attacked Lily Keil with Godhand! GS: Rikku has gained 2 Combo! GS: Rikku's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Rikku gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Rikku gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Quick expired! GS: Rikku has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Rikku's attack becomes clear! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to evade Rikku's Steal for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disrupt, Jam, Mute, and Poison applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
-and abruptly, there's some give, as Rikku shouts, "LET ME DISABLE YOU!" And pulls - one of the components that connects a leg to the main torso, right out.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Lily, hang in there!" Perhaps it would be better to step out and let the Mockingbird's full power reign supreme, just to end the Gryndile II.
To do so is like letting loose a firework; her trajectory will be hard to control outside of where she's aimed, and it's one more body on the field that will need healing.
A glass cannon is useless when there's another option, and even if the Halcyone goes down, there's nothing that says she can't step out and continue the fight on foot.
..... That is, if the Halcyone doesn't just explore or collapse under its weight.
Gwen flinches back from the bright cyan light of the Gryndille II's blast, shielding her eyes with one hand. ".... Damn it..."
The mighty Halcyone is shaking; it's not meant to challenge foes of this calibur.
Its pilot is a better choice, but she's not going to emerge just yet.
The cannon hatch is opened; two packages that are clearly marked are deposited inside.
One is saved for Gwen herself.
"Doc! Link! Shootin' a care package your way!" The Halcyone's cannon aims, and shoots one package towards Citan, complete with a little parachute to allow it to fall down safely. The second is for Link, after moving and reaiming.
"I lowered the power level on the shots; usually this thing is shootin' towards Gears!" They'll be fine; Gwen knows the Halcyone well enough by now.
Still, it makes sense to warn them.
GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Citan Uzuki with Air Mail! GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Link with Air Mail! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 3 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Gwen Whitlock heals Link! He gains 105 temporary hit points! GS: Pray adds Quick! GS: Quick applied to Link! GS: FP up! Gwen Whitlock's Reload!! GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock heals Citan Uzuki! He gains 134 temporary hit points! GS: Pray adds Blitz! GS: Blitz applied to Citan Uzuki! GS: FP up! Gwen Whitlock's Reload!! GS: Gwen Whitlock used Force Action: Mystic on herself!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
There is another scowl as the Gryndille just--catches her ball lightning before dispersing it. Even with all of the cracks in its armor, all the holes being punched through it (some of them quite literal punches), she's having the worst luck tonight. Still, she thinks she's having some effect, but--she worries about the costs if she can't find a way to break through.
And there are so, so, many costs. She stumbles hard as the ground begins to shake, and Zephyr spots it for her before she can. A rift. She draws in a sharp breath and looks over to Lily. She'd offer to reinforce her, if she could, but--
Her magic is wild enough, she daren't risk trying to funnel that into a dimensional spell of this kind.
But a second of those monstrosities forces its way in, and heads right for Lily. "Oh no you don't--"
She takes off running, not even bothering to look behind her as she tears across the battlefield, leaping over rubble and debris. Zephyr helps guide her from his aerial view, and she only stumbles a few times from some stray hits of the original Gryndille's bombardment.
But where before the energy within her simply flowed out, forced through by years of uncertainty and fear about it, by all of her recent travels to distant stars and satellites where it grows more unstable--
Now she pulls it out, draws on it as the weird aura around her intensifies, the air distorting sharply. Two crest graphs come out as she runs, one blazing with a fierce red energy, and the other w miniature maelstrom of small white whisps. She skids to a stop by the robot's side.
Magilou is trying to absorb the energy to send it back. Hannah, instead, has energy to give.
The white-glowing crest graph is drawn back, and with a furious swiping motion she draws it across herself. Where Link woke the wind with a gentle song, there is nothing gentle about Hannah's magic in this moment. She tears through the air, forcing it to stir into a raging cyclone. It howls and gnashes furiously, a dissonant shriek reverberating through the battlefield.
And with the second she draws it up, inhaling sharly before she expels a calamitous gout of flame. It billows outwards, greedily sucking in oxygen--and there is so much oxygen in the cyclone Hannah's created. The dissonant whine of whirling winds is joined by a fierce, bass-deep roaring. Though Hannah seems immune to her own magic, she is still sweating as she spews an endless stream of flames.
The cyclone alights, and the combined fury of elements is surging right at the second Gryndille, hoping to shut it down brutally and quickly before the situation gets even more out of hand.
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 Lily Keil with Elemental Conjunction! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil mostly guards Hannah Curie's Elemental Conjunction for 218 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Rille Felis has posed.
Well, on the plus side, Rille did manage to get Gryndille's attention.
On the minus side, she wasn't the *only* one. It can focus on more things at once better than she can.
Rille manages to get her foot on what's left of the Gryndille's head as she kicks and literally boost herself *over* it, vaulting - she'd've left a footprint on its face if it still had enough of a face to leave one on.
Midair, she hears Link's music, before it's drowned out by the sudden rumbles and thumps of distorting space and air impacts. One of them hits Rille in midair, launching her up even higher; she feels no bones break, but that's mostly due to how tough she is rather than any weakness in the assault.
She sees the second one punch through while she's still in the air. There's nothing she can do about that one, but... "LILY!" she yells, followed by: "HEY, GRYDNILLE! You want a real fight? Pick on me and leave the rest of 'em alone!"
Rille comes down like a comet at the back of the first Gryndille. She roars again, a more bestial sound than she generally likes to admit to, and she goes right in when the cannon-ports open; slamming in with both fists to shatter the cannon that's right in her face, then wedge her arms inside the port.
And then...
Rille pulls.
She pulls as hard as she can, balancing there on the Gryndille's 'back', pulling at the sides of the gunport as if she was trying to literally pull the autonomous tank apart with her bare hands while pushing *upward* with her legs to pop the top half off the base of the tank at the now-weakened point. Muscles stand out across her back and her arms, her torso and her thighs; her entire body strains with the sheer force of it as she flexes her strength.
It's hard enough that metal squeals and bends almost immediately, and despite the ludicrousness of someone attempting to pull a tank apart by hand, it seems like it might not be impossible if she had long enough to do it...
...which of course does nothing for the second Gryndille, but one problem at a time!
GS: Rille Felis has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Rille Felis spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Rille Felis has attacked Lily Keil with Unbreakable! GS: Rille Felis has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rille Felis gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Rille Felis gains 33 THP from Regen! GS: Rille Felis has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth's teeth grit as the world shudders, planting the bayonet blade into the ground (dangerous this close to Gryndille but more preferable to falling over). Her grip tightens as Lily's emotional strain carries through with her admission of limitations - and there's another Gryndille that makes it through before she can reinforce.
Cyan blasts cascade around Ruth. Her close proximity to the mass of cannons ironically might have put her in a safer place in terms of cascading shot concentration, her overcoat and shawl growing ever more singed in the immense heat.
"There's two." Ruth murmurs in muted horror, from taking in what few instances of spoken priority targets have been heard. "When they pick their targets... is it something they were told? Or something they've come to fear..."
Ruth stands up, drawing the rifle out from the ground with some difficulty - the heat damn near fused it into the glassed-over ground, but that strange reality-defying strength a Hellion can achieve has ever been consistent in making sure she is never without it.
Emotions boil over as a thick blackish-purple miasma, resembling a muggy fog-filled morning, fills the space while her silhouette runs forward...
Coming down to a crouch in front Lily, facing down a charging cannon of a concentration of power intended to neutralize someone or something - no, someone - beyond the physical laws of space-time. Her silhouette fills out to something more grotesque - familiar, but never comfortable to witness - as a large wing fans out to her right that casts a startlingly large silhouette that seems to reach out in Azoth's and Elly's directions coincidentally.
Bitter laughter rings out as immense guilt, shame, despair boil over. Glowing eyes rise to meet the other Gryndille trying to bear down on Lily.
A serpentine tongue flicks, as her typical Hellionized shape's stone gray hue turns more of a patinated bronze - where it spreads everywhere on her person, even on her outfit. Her body heat signature seems to disappear entirely, to the sensors, like she were turning cold-blooded on the spot.
"Sssseeeing them," Ruth murmurs, "the idea anyone would sssseee them asss... worth being rid of..." She feels almost beyond verbal communication as she makes the self-loathing of her despair her armor, touching ever close to the very idea she'll never be anything but a heartless monster that simply never could stop, or be stopped.
She lets the rest of that emotion spill over in a frightening shrieking hiss as she leans forward into it, as if her very nightmarish visage were the most potent shield of all - that strange single-winged image like some twisted demonic mockery of the Nisanite depiction of how all only have one wing as the Granasian rosary on her right arm is the only thing that maintains its original coloration.
GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil fails to evade Rille Felis's Unbreakable for 374 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cover applied to Rille Felis! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Rille Felis drains Lily Keil! Rille Felis gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Ruth Pauling spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Warmth of a Looming Shadow! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Azoth with Warmth of a Looming Shadow! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling has launched an attack Link! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ruth Pauling with Heart of Patinated Bronze! GS: Ruth Pauling enters a Counter stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 3 Combo! GS: Amplify, Dynamax, and Hyper expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling heals Azoth! He gains 196 temporary hit points! GS: Protect applied to Azoth! GS: Azoth is now being protected by Ruth Pauling! GS: Cover and Riposte applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Ruth Pauling heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 192 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
The fact that it's focusing on Azoth makes sense after a fashion -- even if the particulars are elusive -- but its targetting of Leon is somewhat less so. "I do not know," he answers Xantia in that moment. "Perhaps it is a matter of his 'inheritance' but I do not recall any mention of 'Sharon Wyatt' possessing any animus towards him or his father--"
It must come back to Heorot in some fashion. But how it might be connected remains unclear
And now is neither the time nor the place for uncovering such answers.
It feels as if the very world is shuddering on its axis. And like it had appeared to do in Adelhyde once upon a time, the sky splits.
Here there comes another Gryndille, ready to aid the one they have enclosed in their trap. "Another-- and so soon?!" Citan calls out, aghast at the sight. That there would be others is no surprise. But it had either caught up to the first in its trap at record speed, or there had been two set from the first: perhaps it had been a staggered strike, to catch anyone who destroyed the first unawares.
In either case it's clear more than ever that Colonel Keil is not to be trifled with.
"Lily--!"
Though she works to seal up this space before the second can intrude, she's not fast enough. And it's coming right for her. "Captain!" he shouts at Leon, and before he can do anything at all the world around him is full of cyan fire. There's nowhere to go. Even an attempt to raise the earth as a barrier results in it being reduced to so much glass. Citan drops to one knee amidst the barrage.
But he does not stay there. Surging to his feet, he races ahead in Leon's wake. "The Captain is right! Billy, Xantia! We must take out that one, immediately, before it harms Lily!" he exhorts. Elly, after all, is already on it. That blazing bird races ahead for the second Gryndille even as Citan comes to a temporary stop as Gwen's announced package lands at his feet. Well, now, this is fortunate, runs the thought as he pries it open.
"...Please, pardon me," he tells Elly once he stands. There is still some heat from her Ether lingering in the air, and there's enough left for him to borrow. Drawing the heat into his hands, he can there ignite an ember, and from that ember, draw a flame. And from that flame--
He moves sharply, his form likely a familar one for Elly -- and Wu, even if they did not practice it themselves. Flame is a transitory, emphemeral thing in Solarian Blade Arts and so it is imperative to strike swiftly. And so he does, striking for the second Gryndille with the length of flame that is not a sword.
...But which could very well be mistaken for one until the moment it leaves his grasp.
GS: Citan Uzuki has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Citan Uzuki spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Blitz! Citan Uzuki has attacked Lily Keil with Kasei -Goku-! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 4 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki's Avenger stance ends! GS: Cancel Bonus! Gained 5 FP! GS: Citan Uzuki gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Ruth Pauling heals Elhaym van Houten! She gains 193 temporary hit points! GS: Protect applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Elhaym van Houten is now being protected by Ruth Pauling! GS: Cover and Riposte applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Elhaym van Houten mostly guards Lily Keil's Ley-Targeted Shot for 67 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Protect! Ruth Pauling takes 17 damage! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Citan Uzuki's Kasei -Goku- for 316 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Hyper and Shield removed!
<Pose Tracker> Meng Wu has posed.
The counter attack is withering. And she puts her foot down, pushing against the wall she's created, reinforcing it. Absorbing the worst of it, leaving her ragged, but operational.
The fact that the mission's about to go sideways crosses her mind. She pushes through her cover. Literally, the barricade collapsing around her back into the soil. She focuses it outward. Swinging her arm out as she releases the slides after a fast reload. The earth creating a ridge before the machine. Their target. The creature trying to stomp a hole in someone she's trying to prevent being squished. Same thing, different day. (Not really.)
With the barrier, temporary as it is, she walks her fire from both sides. A few pillars popping up along the way, creating a criss crossing pattern of gunfire, grit, earth magic and a faint trail of green behind each. Dumping what she's got into the attack through both ammo and ether.
She's out of practice. She's old. This used to be easier. Other thoughts track through her head, but she tries to ignore them. She's getting back in the groove. She can prove herself to herself. She starts to run forward, fully intending to try and put what she can between Lily and the target if need be. All still while deadpanned.
She does give Citan an odd look though as she moves, mid-reload having dumped another pair of magazines in short order.
Recognition there. Briefly. Confused. "Later-" she states, but she's focused.
For those in close.. unlike some of her earlier shots, these are nowhere near as wild. Almost like she guided each shot around them. Just.. don't panic hopefully.
GS: Meng Wu spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Meng Wu has attacked Lily Keil with Breaking the Bank! GS: Meng Wu has gained 2 Combo! GS: Meng Wu has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"God," Ida breathes. She ejects a few spent shards of Living Metal, and holsters Devil's Due. "What were these things built to kill?" What could possibly be worth it? Then:
'WORLD-EATER TAINT DETECTED.'
Ida's heartbeat thunders in her ears. More exoskeleton erupts from her skin, interposing itself between her vital organs and Gryndille's beam--and the horrid scent of scorched Hyadean flesh fills the air. Smoke drifts up from the scorched ruin of Ida's torso armor as she stumbles back, gasping. Probably second-degree burns, beneath all the armor. Breathing hurts.
But Ida doesn't dare let up.
Something smashes into the ground, over and over. Ida's head whips about, but she can't pin down where it's coming from--it's everywhere and nowhere, at once. The world rocks and tilts. Lily screams. "Lily, hold on!" Ida cries. "We almost--!"
CRACK
The second Gryndille-class tears through the barrier, and Ida spends a whole half a second staring in slack-jawed horror. She shakes her head. Leaving the first Gryndille-class to its fate--a fate where Rikku gets some top-quality secondhand parts--she charges the reinforcements, leaping up onto its leg-joint. A second leap carries her up to the torso, bright, glimmering wind imparting additional force to her leap. Ida grabs the automaton by the torso armor, imparting as much leverage as she can, and then tries to HURL it into the ground.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lily Keil with Overturn the Black Tortoise! GS: Break expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
SUBJECT AZOTH RATED CLASS-S THREAT TO SUBJECTS. ELIMINATION BEST SOLUTION.
Azoth wavers, hand to his head, eyes bright red. "No." (That statement alone, perhaps, could have done 324 damage.)
Class S threat. But how could this machine know of Azoth's current predicament? If this is data from the past, then...
"No. My purpose is --" Azoth suddenly reels as a violent spark dances across his form with a thunder crack. He falls to the ground, barely keeping himself up with his now rattling and smoking arm. "WARNING. 642 CORRUPTIONS IDENTIFIED IN OBJECTIVE DATA... No, I -- CONTINUED OPERATION AT RISK FOR --"
But the data he's collected doesn't add up, does it? It hasn't for a while now. And isn't it right? Isn't his elimination the only way he can --
Xantia's declaration makes Azoth's eyes relax back into blue.
"...Pro...mise... in progress..."
The world splits open, and one becomes two. Azoth can hear Lily's strain under the urgency to trap the second. They cannot afford to drag this out. But before he can calculate any means of offense, the full offense barrage barrels down upon them. Azoth shoves himself up, erecting an ARM shield of light, trying to capture not just himself but Xantia into that shield of protection. Stay close. Help each other. But, for all his attempts to call up defense, his body sputters and sparks as the shield cracks and shatters under the pressure.
Azoth hits the ground again, eyes blinking red in error. That colors sharpens within a new sheltering dimness as a shadow stretches overhead, and Azoth looks up to see Ruth. She's protecting him, not for the first time. And yet again, he does not quite understand it, beyond that he is too fragile. Something not worth being rid of...
In the respite, he pulls back to his feet.
"Class-S, huh...?" Light floods Azoth's eyes and circuits as he lifts his rattling arm. A blade forms of light forms by his side. Two. Three. Five. A dozen fan out behind him like wings. "...Let's see, then." He snaps his fingers.
The blades fly from his body, sailing out in erratic patterns past one Gryndile to converge on the one targeting Lily, each detonating in brilliant blasts of neon on impact, whether into machine or earth.
GS: Azoth has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Azoth has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Azoth spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Azoth has attacked Lily Keil with Blade Server! GS: Azoth gains 5 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Gamble: High! Lily Keil critically fails to evade Meng Wu's Breaking the Bank for 380 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil fails to guard Ida Everstead-Rey's Overturn the Black Tortoise for 188 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil mostly evades Azoth's Blade Server for 173 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Strain! Azoth takes 50 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
They're starting to make a difference. Gryndille is weakening, damage clear on its frame. It seems like they're going to pull it off -
And then the ground shakes four times, and Lily cries out.
"What's going on...?" Jacqueline asks, guard raised, as she quickly looks around. "Lily... Please hold on."
And then, the world tears open. Jacqueline's eyes grow wide as a second, pristine Gryndille rips its way through into the space.
"A second one...?" She gasps.
...Even if there's two, that doesn't mean she can take her attention off the first one - especially when its torso opens, constructing a multitude of small cannons.
There's too many to defend against completely. Jacqueline does her best to dodge through the volley, occasionally meeting a blast with a spell to deflect it. It leaves her exhausted by the end of it, forced to one knee.
"How's everyone holding up...?" Jacqueline grimaces, forcing herself to stand up. One, damaged Gryndille is equipped with cannons. The second, undamaged one has one, single cannon - charging and pointed right at Lily.
...Not good. They can't ignore either. She trusts the latter to the others who are already beginning to lay into it, turning her attention back to the first. With that, she draws two Crest Graphs, one from each deck. Gryndille has displayed resistance to electricity - but in its damaged state, she sees a potential way around that.
Jacqueline gestures, a raising motion with one hand. Though this land is a desert - and one now riddled of patches of glass from the sheer level of destruction currently being laid upon it - water begins to bubble up from the cracks. Suddenly, it becomes furious, surging up in a great geyser.
And even as the geyser shoots upward, Jacqueline is already preparing her second spell. She gestures again, this time downward. The air crackles with energy, and the faint scent of ozone heralds the arrival of the storm - lightning streams down from the empty sky, meeting the geyser as electricity uses the water as a conduit to run rampant.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Jacqueline Barber has attacked Lily Keil with Dualcasting Sequence! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Billy Lee Black mostly guards Lily Keil's Siege Breaker for 123 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil fails to guard Jacqueline Barber's Dualcasting Sequence for 302 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Those blasts seem to be doing the damage Billy hoped for, forcing the mechanical beast to try and evade. Billy's already regearing, slipping his hands down to change Cartridges in the Etehr Guns, when - the impossible happens. "What!" Billy yelps, weight low to keep himself grounded. "It overwhelmed Keil! Doctor! Elly!" he calls to his team, and then charges. "I'm going in!"
As the second Gryndille rains fire down, Billy races forward, reaching into the back of his traveling coat for his long-barreled rifle, then fires several shotgun blasts from it.
Then he throws it into the air, and leaps high, enhanced kicks sending him up the body of the Gryindille. It puts him up close, but...
He catches the rifle, hanging in mid-air for a moment, swinging it down so it points down the line of his legs. "BANFRAU!"
A beam of light pierces straight downward.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Lily Keil with Banfrau! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black's stances have changed from Sage to Hero! GS: Shield and Surge expired! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Billy Lee Black's Banfrau for 269 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
A reply to Xantia's shouting comes from different directions than she expected. She can only frown at Leon and Citan's responses, as there isn't much of an actual answer in there. To be hunted and not even know the reason... unfair things like that are very upsetting.
Speaking of upsetting things, Azoth's predicament has her looking in his direction with overt concern. She says nothing else, has no idea what more she could say... but in the end, it seems all that needed to be said already has.
And speaking of unfair things: she doesn't even get to ask Azoth whether he's okay before a second Gryndille arrives, which is definitely not playing fair. Everything starts to move very fast... and the first Gryndille is standing in the way of her interfering with the second. "No! Lily! Grrrrgh... out of my way!!"
She charges, once again. With the aim of quickly blowing past, but... this Gryndille has adapted itself perfectly to Xantia's elemental strikes. She finds herself losing out in the exchange, the energy drained out of her without any effect, and the subsequent cannon blasts forcing a violent retreat. Landing hard on the now strangely solid sand, she can only despair at her inability to make a difference when it really counts, yet again. It's Azoth who is forced to protect her prone form, forced to suffer in her stead. How could she let this happen? Is this really all she could do...?
...Something changes. To those who aren't near, it may get lost in such a chaotic battle. But if one sensitive to magical energy happens to be focused on Xantia's side of things, they might take notice of a sudden sharp spike right where in the spot where she fell. Right before it becomes visible - a red glowing aura of pure Ether has manifested instead of the elemental kinds she normally uses. The despair is gone from her expression, replaced with a gleeful grin as she rises back up to her feet.
Those who have seen this happen before may realize... it's happening again.
Throwing out her right arm to the side, a red energy blade materializes from the bracer she wears, growing far longer than it typically does - a size more fitting for an opponent the size of Gryndille. Paying zero heed to Citan's instructions or anyone else's words, Xantia is fully focused on the damaged Gryndille in front of her, letting out a snort of disdain.
"You worthless piece of trash! Did you really think you could kill me!?"
The first strike is aimed at one of the machine's legs - then a second at the other leg on that side, attempting to outright sever them or at the very least cause it to topple. Regardless, the third strike is a stab aimed directly for center mass, attempting to pierce straight through before ripping the weapon free in an upwards motion.
GS: Xantia has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Xantia spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Xantia has attacked Lily Keil with Vermilion Sundering! GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xantia gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil mostly guards Xantia's Vermilion Sundering for 162 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Leon slams down against Gryndille, scything through armor with the force of the ARM. The narrow blade hands in--and tears out, sparks roiling as its sensors fire overdrive with a sudden lack of input.
Link's fairy is brighter than it should be--as she moves to take off, she shines like a beacon while she escapes the space-time crack.
But it can always get worse. It just did. But Elly has an answer for the new Gryndille. Heer Phoenix drags through, ahead and within it, bursting out by th screaming shape. That horrific cry knocks the new Gryndill around--but still, its cannon is pointed at Lily. ...Its armor is melting, though.
Magilou prepares. The butterflies expand outward... Her trap is set.
Just as Rikku sets on of her own. She reachs into the armor of the firs Grndill, and rips some things right out! Gryndille stiffens--and then its legs stop moving entirely. "MOTION ERROR. CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED."
"SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED."
Hannah's power tears at the new one's armor, the third Gryndille showing obvious rents in its plating that starts to melt even further under the sheer force of her expanding spells. But still, it aims.
The first one isn' quite finished. Rille roars, and comes down meteoric. She pulls, and starts to rip the machine off its frame. Barel, barely it cracks--But it's just enough bcause--
Then, Ida comes in. Rille manages to finish pulling the tank apart, and Ida takes hold of the upper half, grabbing it and hurling it to the ground, leaving it in two pieces. Between the two of them its self-destruct sequence is interrupted.
Azoth wavers, but he is able to attack after all. his shield of light assists, but it is the exlosions that ar enext. The new Gryndille rocks on its balance line, and suddnly manages to evade one of the blasts--but they both explode, and one of them explodes on its chassis. Then, it rocks again as each sshot o Wu's slams into its armor too, denting and eventually cracking through it while the other is stuck agaisnt her earth ridges.
Billy's long-barreled rifle comes out, and Lily calls, "I'm--not done yet!"
His blasst of light scythes through the new Gryndille's claw arm, piercing its shoulder and causing that limb to spasm. But the first Gryndillee is only disabled--not done.
"SELF-DESTRUCT IN 5..."
the sound of static rends the air as jay's yester pushes agaisnt its upper body, launching it into the air, and the lightning crashes against it in turn. The upper body of the first Gryndille explodes into shrapnel.
"BACKUP SYSTEM ENGAGED. SELF-DESTRUCT IN 3..."
The rest of the mmachine is still huge, and it glows red until Xantia strikes--?one, two...
What would've detonated the entire area instead falls apart into so many piecces, as the bottom of its torso and its legs collapse in on themselves.
"Xantia!" Lily calls out. "Xantia, don't--lose yourself--"
"HEAVY DAMAGE SUSTAINED. RETREAT NECESSARY. TO RETREAT, SPACETIME ANOMALY MUST BE ENDED."
"FIRING."
A circle of energy surrounds the barrel of its cannon, swirling in towards it as the sky (such as it is) darkens. The machine pushes itself up, and preaprs tto--
FIRE. A gigntic blue beam, wider than a person, erupts towards Lily... and those towards those in the way: Magilou's absorption.
It goes berserk when Magilou starts to absorb the blast, and begins pouring out more blue blasts, each smallr than the original but all frightfully powerful, and in the wake of those it starts slashing with its gigantic claw and spiked 'feet'!
Static crackles from its speakers, but it continues, eye lasers lancing through the area.
the 'cover' they prepared is entirely gone. The battlefield is featureless but for wreckage and shrapnel. It is now or never.
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Boss Action! GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Augmented Annihilation! GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Billy Lee Black with Blood-Red Claw! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Xantia with Blood-Red Claw! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Meng Wu with Blood-Red Claw! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Leon Albus with Blood-Red Claw! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hannah Curie with Blood-Red Claw! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ruth Pauling with DIRECTIVE - P U R I F Y -! GS: Lily Keil spends 4 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hannah Curie with Gryndille Dynamite! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Gryndille Dynamite! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Citan Uzuki with Gryndille Dynamite! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Gryndille Dynamite! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rikku with Ocular Disruptor! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Azoth with Ocular Disruptor! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Link with Ocular Disruptor! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Ocular Disruptor! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Rille Felis with Ocular Beam! GS: Lily Keil takes 37 damage from Poison! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Leon Albus perfectly guards Lily Keil's Blood-Red Claw for 139 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Ruth Pauling marginally guards Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - P U R I F Y - for 146 hit points! GS: Stagger removed! GS: CRITICAL! Rille Felis mostly guards Lily Keil's Ocular Beam for 130 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rille Felis gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Catastrophic! Jacqueline Barber mostly evades Lily Keil's Ocular Disruptor for 169 hit points! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Azoth fails to evade Lily Keil's Ocular Disruptor for 197 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Azoth gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Protect! Ruth Pauling takes 50 damage! GS: Elhaym van Houten mostly guards Lily Keil's Gryndille Dynamite for 80 hit points! GS: Poison blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Protect! Ruth Pauling takes 20 damage! GS: CRITICAL! Xantia critically fails to evade Lily Keil's Blood-Red Claw for 447 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Power Burst! GS: COUNTER! Magilou counterattacks Lily Keil with Magilou's Paradise! GS: CRITICAL! Magilou critically fails to charge Lily Keil's Augmented Annihilation for 473 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Strain! Lily Keil takes 101 damage! GS: Protect! Leon Albus takes 26 damage! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Magilou's Magilou's Paradise for 284 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Low! Rikku perfectly guards Lily Keil's Ocular Disruptor for 55 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Countermeasures! GS: Rikku enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Gwen Whitlock perfectly evades Lily Keil's Gryndille Dynamite for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison blocked! GS: FP up! Countermeasures! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Link perfectly evades Lily Keil's Ocular Disruptor for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Link gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Billy Lee Black critically fails to evade Lily Keil's Blood-Red Claw for 260 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Billy Lee Black enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with DIRECTIVE - P U R I F Y -!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon lands, breathing hard, and swings Argent Divider to the side. His eyes dart between the two Gryndilles -- and there's a brief feeling of relief to see one of them stop moving its legs.
'SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.'
"Shit--"
And the second one fires on Lily, but Magilou's absorption pulls it in. Leon's eyes widen sharply -- and he makes the Raid Funnels spin around her again.
A brilliant shimmering field of aquamarine light erupts between them, doing their best to hold back the lasers being fired all around.
The claw does strike at him, though. He gets thrown back, hitting the ground, and rolling a few times.
"Keep up the pressure!" he commands. "We've almost got the other one!"
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Leon Albus has attacked Magilou with Scutum Eternal! GS: Leon Albus has gained 2 Combo! GS: Cover and Riposte expired! GS: Leon Albus has completed his action. GS: Leon Albus heals Magilou! She gains 73 temporary hit points! GS: Protect, Regen, and Shield applied to Magilou! GS: Magilou is now being protected by Leon Albus! GS: Citan Uzuki has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: You have activated the Force Action Accelerate! GS: Citan Uzuki critically fails to evade Lily Keil's Gryndille Dynamite for 321 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Citan Uzuki gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison blocked! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: CRITICAL! Hannah Curie marginally guards Lily Keil's Blood-Red Claw for 207 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey perfectly evades Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - P U R I F Y - for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Hannah Curie fails to charge Lily Keil's Gryndille Dynamite for 310 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison blocked! GS: Hannah Curie enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Hannah Curie has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Meng Wu has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Meng Wu perfectly guards Lily Keil's Blood-Red Claw for 72 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly feels, for a moment, vaguely thirsty.
It's a strange thing to feel, even as she looks over her shoulder towards Ruth for a moment. Then she can see Dr. Uzuki moving, and something --
Something feels funny.
Elly raises her right hand to curl fingers into a loose fist and suppress the urge to giggle. It feels weird to do that. Is she sweating? It's hard to tell. There is a shouting of self-destruct as everyone pours it into Gryndille fils and devastate it. Xantia's --
The wisps of the fire-bird are rising, hanging in the air and crackling. They aren't, exactly, classical fire. Thus formed, they don't just dissipate, although they are at least not devouring the oxygen in this confined space. (That would be a little embarrassing, though at least Azoth would probably survive.)
But even as she sways just a little, Elly raises her left hand and with it the metal rod. When'd it get so hot, she thinks, even as she hears Leon speak, and she hears herself call back to him, "Got it!"
Maybe it's just become fun again, thinks Elly.
Was it ever?
But the thoughts fall away as her eyes narrow just a little. Those wisps that were crackling up near the top of the dome suddenly twist and fly back towards Elly, coagulating in front of her. The morass of plasma vaporizes some shrapnel that might have mutilated her, staying right there for a moment as Elly bounces on the balls of her feet, head swaying to the left, then to the right. Her hands turn and turn about. The light before her coagulates into something brighter. It goes from white, down to something like red, with a brief excursion into some kind of yellow-green as a bit of rarer metals in the morass burst asunder.
(It is like there's a blast furnace there. Hopefully nobody tries to eat it.)
Elly's gestures stop... and then she pushes a little.
Invisibly (maybe Lily or Magilou can sense it but they're probably busy) it's as if Elly just poked a straw into that sphere. A thin film that had been under incredible pressure gives way. All of that superheated plasma, that riot of over-agitated atomic chaos, sprays outwards in a tight line of plasma that's sort of a painful blue-white towards Gryndille, aiming to carve a sort of inverted U from left front to right back leg before the plasma loses enough pressure to dissipate into a huge, warm pillow of strange-smelling air.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Lily Keil with Thermo Incinerate! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 2 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Link has posed.
As the battlefield erupts in chaos and explosions, Link mostly uses his shield to deflect debris but then his danger senses flare as he spots a laser blast coming right at him. His shield starts to come up, then stops as he throws himself to the side in a tumble narrowly evading the entire blast as to churns up the debris and land where he had been clearing a swathe of the battlefield. When everything is done, the entire field is cleared.
"Oh... That was dangerous." Link says, as he readies his blade and prepares his next attack. A deep breath to steady himself, and then he charges forward shield up in front of him as he closes in on the heavily damaged Gryndille. His blade gleams in the light of the day as he holds it up high and then swings it down with as much might as his small frame can muster in a truly heroic strike.
GS: Link has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Link has attacked Lily Keil with Hero's Strike! GS: Link enters a Counter stance! 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. GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil marginally evades Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Incinerate for 306 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery adds Interrupt! GS: Mute applied to Lily Keil! GS: Interrupt blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil critically fails to guard Link's Hero's Strike for 315 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Firing.
Spell Absorber doesn't just absorb spells, these days. Magilou improved the Arte, over the centuries, to widen its nullification capacity to any type of assault -- though grievous damage from an ARM was vanishingly rare, back then, before Filgaia connected to Lunar again.
The cost of this breadth was depth. Once upon a time, Spell Absorber knew the arguments it expected, and it was able to obliviate them with no harm done.
Now -- the power could come from anything. Now, Magilou has to process it through herself, in order to break it down.
That blue beam is wider than a person -- and those lilac butterflies expand out -- and it isn't. All that power disappears, around her, into her. She breaks it down, and her heart is the pestle.
These machines were built to bring civilisations to heel. Cities -- armies -- nations. This Magilou knows, as the full force of its cannons is broken down through the channels of her veins. No -- Gryndille II would tame the planet itself with its might.
She will fall.
But as she staggers -- though there's no outward sign why she would, no damage borne against her flesh, not a single solitary scratch -- Leon's Raid Funnels find her, and their light bolsters her. "Impressive," she says, and the word is dull, and her eyes are dull. Why bother?
She turns, and pours the atomised might of Gryndille II into Lily's own furnace, for the second time tonight.
"There will not be a third."
Magilou doesn't realise she's responding to a thought she hasn't voiced.
<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.
"Got it! I GOT IT!" She calls down, even as she just literally dumps the whole massive component she ripped off over the side, it still sparking, the hydraulics of the Godhand wrench letting go.
'SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED.'
"Oh... Poopy."
Rikku considers her predicament and salutes the Gryndille, "Well it was nice knowing you. You would have been a salvager's dream to sort through!" And then literally takes a running leap off of its frame, as Rikku threads the sudden array of blue ocular blasts.
One of shines at her during her descent but she suddenly swings her Godhand arm in the way. The blast striking the strange Machina weapon with wisps of burning light.
As Leon commands them to keep up the pressure, Rikku hits the ground into a roll, coming up sandy, the countdown in her ears.
"Really!? Okay fine! But in return!" She picks up a run, pulling out a valuable looking gem that's still sparking, "I want what my Dad paid you for the whole stupid Shoopuf kidnapping operation!" She makes eye contact even as she dumps the gem in a Hypello's potion.
Has she really not let that one go!? Well no, Brother graffiti'ng curses where Yunie could see them is still a sore spot!
The concoction starts to spark, then overload, and Rikku... chucks it wholesale at the second Gryndille.
When it bursts - what roars down from a space above Gryndille is a column of lightning, not unlike some divine hammer, flashing - with a roar of apocalyptic thunder.
But that's just the start.
Because it does it two more times.
And Rikku...
... for once in her life.
Does not take cover.
"Worth it!" She shouts out, to herself mostly, for that whole month of camping on the Thunder Plains.
And then she takes cover - just not from the lightning, but from one angry Gryndille and another one self destructing.
GS: Rikku has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Rikku has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Rikku spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Rikku has attacked Lily Keil with Souped Up Ouch-Ouch Surprise!! GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rikku gains 5 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Rikku has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida lands on both feet as what's left of Gryndille's upper torso hits the ground. Her upper body feels like it's on fire, between the burning exertion and the literal burns.
'SELF-DESTRUCT IN 5...'
"Shit. Shit, shit, KILL IT--" The tenor of Ida's fear changes, subtly, as Jay and Xantia finish off the mortally wounded machine. What the hell just happened to Xantia? "Xantia, breathe!" Ida cries, on the heels of Lily's warning.
They don't have time to breathe. A beam bigger than she is curves through the spacetime bubble, seeking her out. Ida hurls herself to the side, a gymnastic leap that sends her tumbling end over end. The beam misses her right thigh by less than a foot. She feels the heat of its passage, and her face twists in a grimace.
They have to kill the second before it can do the same.
Ida clenches her right hand into a tight fist. Golden-white light billows out around it, shining across her knuckles as she charges at the remaining Purifier. There's a thunderous BOOM as the shockwave of Ida's punch detonates--and then, an impact powerful enough to rip through a Metal Dragon's armored flesh, as Ida tries to go straight through the remaining Gryndille.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lily Keil with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil fails to guard Rikku's Souped Up Ouch-Ouch Surprise! for 337 hit points! GS: Lily Keil's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Misery adds Weaken! GS: Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Lily Keil fails to guard Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist for 281 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Rille Felis has posed.
Rille strains, feeling the burn from the effort. She's going to ache later, but it'll be a good ache if she can save at least one person from this damn Gryndille. That's the whole reason she came here, after all; it's the people who are going to be suffering if this thing stays loose.
And it's one of the first times she's fought alongside such a large number of Drifters, too. She thinks she likes it.
She feels something start to give, redoubles her efforts - and as others join in, Rille finds the top part of the enormous tank give way completely, the shriek of twisted, torn metal drowning out almost the rest of the fight for her.
But Rille doesn't drop everything. Most of the top half of the tank falls, exploding in its abortive self-destruct sequence, but she's still got a huge piece of armour plate. It's taller than Rille is, though not as wide.
Rille uses it as a shield against the beam from the other Gryndille.
This ends up being a bad idea. The center of the armour-plate 'shield' begins to glow a dull red. She feels the heat on her fingers, uncomfortable at first and then painful; Rille shifts her grip until she's using her blunt claws instead of her fingertips as much as she can, but she can't hold something she can't dig into entirely with her claws and her hands are still burning.
Rille runs forward, against the beam. The shield gets hotter, brighter in the middle, almost white; the glowing red visibly extends almost to her fingers. Rille lets out a roar, half pain and half anger, as she runs forward behind it, trailing broken pieces of white-hot metal as the armour plating starts to come apart, bolts and screws falling away and littering the ground -
Rille does not stop as she simply continues to run directly into the new Gryndille, angling the shield up and putting her shoulder against it to lever it so that she can push upward, deflecting its line of fire toward everyone else. Her shirt scorches away; the scales across her shoulder, already dark green mottled with black, char all the way to black.
And so with one last shove, Rille drives the shattered, superheated shard directly into the underside of the other Gryndille before she half-staggers, half-runs away from it before it explodes from every Drifter still standing hitting it.
GS: Rille Felis has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Rille Felis has attacked Lily Keil with Meteor Drive! GS: Rille Felis has gained 1 Combo! GS: Rille Felis gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Rille Felis gains 40 THP from Regen! GS: Shield expired! GS: Rille Felis has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah watches as her magic starts to tear and melt through the second Gryndille's armor. Progress, she thinks, but not enough before it unleashes with that canon of its. She raises a hand to cover her eyes as the blast fires out, impossibly large and blindingly bright. But she can see, through Zephyr's vantadge point, as the second Gryndrille comes clawing for her, so without looking she draws a crest graph and raises a barrier that crackles and shimmers, deflecting away those striking attacks...
The attack stops, and she stands here, panting for breath. Controlling this much magic is exhausting, both mentally and physically, and she fears the reprecussions later, but they can't afford to slow down now. But she's a moment too slow to respond when those eye blasts start firing out, and instinctively she raises her arms to guard herself.
Blue energy clashes against that weird aura that surrounds her, and the air crackles and hisses as energy struggles against energy. Her eyes glow brighter as she digs deep, slowly pushing her arms out, muscles straining with the effort. She is pushed back, heels digging through the broken ground, and with a last tremendous flare of energy the bolt from the Gryndille vanishes.
One pant. Then two.
And then Hannah's eyes roll back up in her head and she promptly collapses in a heap on the ground. Where before her aura might have been akin to a cacophony of sound, the bustling of a marketplace with traders hawking their wares...
Now there is only silence from the young woman.
GS: Lily Keil mostly charges Rille Felis's Meteor Drive for 215 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Slow blocked! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Meng Wu has posed.
She's not quite running on fumes yet. Wu's magic trick didn't topple the machine. She really wasn't expecting to, to be fair. Even through the dust, smoke and overall chaos she can see the cracks though.
She's made her way closer though. Putting herself in a position to try and.. do what? It's bigger than she is. Others are hurting. Again, she's no medic.
Any thoughts of doing anything else are interrupted when a claw swings her way. Kicking her heel into the ground, a pillar juts into the way, then a second and a third. All while she ducks beneath, feinting left, then going right. Catching a significantly slowed down hit across her back. She stumbles. Catching her footing with one hand.
The pillars grumble away, leaving little more than rubble as she sprints straight forward and goes for something.. pretty straight forward. No tricks, no fancy angles, just slamming her hands into the ground. Something snaps and a pillar of earth juts upward. Spiked, crystaline. A smaller version of what she likes to channel through Shrike.
She doesn't stop though. The self-destruct countdown has her worried. She expresses it as strangely as everything else though. She's smiling. Like she's expected it for a long time. She's not going to go easily, one way or the other. Just like earlier, with her gear. Being that close to the line brought something out.
She doesn't stop moving. An arm reaching up, a few shots ringing out. "Come on! Over here!" Her trash talk could use some work.
She's getting out of the way of everyone else's magic and firepower. Clearing space.
GS: Meng Wu has attacked Lily Keil with Holdout! GS: Meng Wu has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hyper and Mute expired! GS: Meng Wu has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Moderate! Lily Keil fails to evade Meng Wu's Holdout for 290 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
As the shields are burnt away from the last attack, Gwen switches tactics. Slamming her hands over the controls, she pilots the Halcyone to make a leap over to the side, like a giant metal chicken, balancing on its two digitigrade legs. "... Woo! That suspension system was worth every gella I spent on it, heehee!"
In that moment, getting a view of the battlefield, Gwen finally notices Xantia's change in... everything. She frowns.
The speakers turn on. "If Xantia needs a calm down after all this, I'm still here." Gwen's reply over her speakers is steady. Of course, *defeating* Xantia in this state on top of assuming Gryndrille is a bigger ask than simply 'tumbling around the battlefield until the two of them hopefully get tired', but hopefully it'll calm some worries. "We don't have much time."
Surely it's an okay plan, right?
Gwen's tone over the speakers changes quickly as the Halcyone gets into position. "Okay! I'm pluggin' in. Gettin' a clear shot! Don't get close to, uh, well, I'll just aim 'round y'all. I ain't here t'cramp your style!"
She intends to make good on that, since it'll take her a moment to, quite literally, *plug her ARM in*. It's a rougher technique that using a cord; it's not as if her prosthetic was made with those sorts of modifications in mind, but metal still conducts. Inserting her right hand into the same hole as before on her dashboard, Gwen grasps a coil deep inside, and flips a switch with her left.
Being a battery for a Gear is not the best thing ever, but for a flashy attack or too? It works just fine.
The cannon hand that was delivering packages swivels to another sort of cannon, which begins to heat up.
"Aiming.... aiming.... there we go!"
It's not just a delivery, or a special delivery, it's a--
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Lily Keil with Super Special Delivery! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 2 Combo! GS: Cover expired! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth is bathed in an immense, Ley-powered blast - and the primary reason she's 'bathed' and 'not immediately disintegrated' may be owed far more to Magilou's Spell Absorber.
The Hellion's silhouette and figure casts a defiant contrast in colors of blackish-purple, unmoving and unyielding like an enduring monument. A monstrous screeching is tuned out only by the thrumming feedback of the immense beam's sound against displaced space and time surrounding it. To those whose work it is to help purify Malevolence from where it most readily takes root, it's almost like a power point presentation on how a stubborn Hellion simply cannot have their affliction torn from them freely.
Too bathed in guilt and despair to let herself be stopped, her right hand is the first thing that moves underneath the immense pressure and power, her Granasian rosary withstanding both a test of its elasticity and that Gryndille's power as it goes to the rifle. Too bathed in guilt and despair to simply let go of her weapon, as she rises and folds her wing while Malevolence violently roils from her person as such that finer details of her features are now impossible to discern beyond the glow of her eyes.
"Xantia," Ruth hisses, with a tired voice. "...Are you dissssappointed it didn't?" Ruth reflects at Xantia's anger of the preceived hubris in a sobering moment, disassociating somewhat from the near-miss of a self-destruct sequence not long before. It's broken up with choking laughter, as a few tears hit the ground while some of that searing pain registers.
"You know what hurtssss..." Ruth's eyes start to look down, "the thought... sssssomeone... ssssstill ssssssaw usss assss anything... more."
And yet...
"And yet... we ssssstill hang onto that, don't we, when it'ssss... sssso easssy to..."
She still has one round left in the clip. She opens it up, and lets the last round fall out without a shot as a single tear snakes down in its place. She closes it up on that.
Her tail curls around the rifle and holds it up towards the direction of the sky if there were one. A strange, empty light fills the place - hollow, and oppressive.
Bang. The teardrop is its own bullet, seeming to part the 'sky' above.
"When our eyes meet with the heavens upon our deeds..."
A stream of prismatic light descends - so translucent as to be nonexistent, but devoid of warmth or joy. It's bright, clear, and without blemish (the usual spiritual taints notwithstanding) - but... so empty. Like a storm has passed, and on the other end...
"What is left beyond this Hollow Radiance?"
A question for all those who have chosen, and can't seem to escape, being engines of violence - especially for the last Gryndille, now, as that fell empty sunlight descends upon them, while Ruth comes back down to a pentient, exhausted kneel under the weight she carries.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Ruth Pauling spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ruth Pauling has attacked Lily Keil with Hollow Radiance! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling's stances have changed from Counter and Hero to Counter and Stoic! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Moderate! Lily Keil marginally guards Gwen Whitlock's Super Special Delivery for 160 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jam blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil mostly evades Ruth Pauling's Hollow Radiance for 143 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Interrupt blocked! GS: Lily Keil has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"Go!" Citan shouts in response to Billy's announcement that he's going in, encouraging him to do just that. If nothing else, he knows that Jessiah taught his own son everything he'd known about ARMs. All of them in the Wolves have their own skills and talents, but as the son of the former Earth Element and himself a former Etone, is this not the scale of fight Billy is adept at?
But it's only Billy who forges ahead for the second Gryndille. Xantia, despite the direction from Leon and Citan, has gone after their previous foe, red energy blade in hand as she rends into the glowing red Gryndille. Her voice--
"Xantia! No, you must not--"
'Don't lose yourself', Lily begs.
No terrible explosion scythes across this dimensional field. Instead, here they all stand as the first, badly damaged, lashes out instead with cannonfire and lasers, with unbridled destruction. The last of the flame leaves Citan's hands as he turns away from the devastation and even the thin rippling wall he conjures holds little against what is brought to bear. There is little and less to draw upon for support now, but if Citan can hold to one thought as the dust settles and he's able to confirm that everything is at least in apparently working order...
It's that it must be on its 'last legs' as well.
Salvaging what remains of his own barrier, he draws it in and casts it forth, adding to its layers what else he can gather as it flows outwards and rises like a tide at those points he dictates. Here it must protect, and here, it must bolster: it rises and falls and pools like water caught in a concave stone.
GS: Blitz! Citan Uzuki has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Gensoseii! GS: Blitz! Citan Uzuki has attacked Xantia with Gensoseii! GS: Blitz! Citan Uzuki has attacked Billy Lee Black with Gensoseii! GS: Citan Uzuki has gained 1 Combo! GS: Citan Uzuki gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Citan Uzuki has completed his action. GS: Citan Uzuki heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 194 temporary hit points! GS: Surge applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Citan Uzuki heals Xantia! She gains 201 temporary hit points! GS: Surge applied to Xantia! GS: Xantia enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The first Gryndille is torn apart, with only its lower-half remaining. It glows red, ominously stating its intent to self-destruct... but Xantia tears into it, causing it to collapse in on itself.
Xantia's behavior is... concerning. Jacqueline draws in a breath - but there's still one more Gryndille to worry about. She turns upon it, now, as beams erupt from its eyes to burn through everything in its path. They leave destruction in their wake, but she can track their movements. She evades, her gauntlets' barrier helping negate glancing blasts, until -
She feels searing pain in right arm. Jacqueline hisses, stumbling back and clutching it for a second. Some of that power leaked through her barrier. She flexes her fingers experimentally with a wince. She can still move it, but...
...She'll just have to make do.
"R-Right!" Jacqueline calls back to Leon, then directs her attention outward to everyone. "We're making headway - keep pushing!"
With some effort, she draws four Crest Graphs - two in her left hand, and two in her right. They're cast rapidly and in turn, creating four wells of power at each of the compass points around her, each one of the building blocks of Crest Sorcery - fire, water, earth, and wind.
She draws on each well in turn, harnessing their energy and sending it hurtling toward Gryndille, each gesture like a conductor performing a symphony. Roaring fire erupts forth all around it, which is soon met with a crashing torrent of water. The earth, soaked but still stalwart, forming into stalagmites that seek to jab into its frame - before the wild winds whip up into a storm, threatening to below it all away.
And then, with what power remains... Jacqueline unites the wells of power as one.
But... her right arm is lagging a bit behind due to her injury. After a point, it can't keep up. The gestures become unbalanced. The power feels unstable, like it's going to go out of control -
Just when it feels like she's going to lose it, Citan casts his barrier over her. It protects and bolsters - and through it the flow of power stabilizes, allowing her to regain control over it even with her injured arm.
She combines the gathered elements into one harmonious flow and then directs them - sending it rushing outward toward Gryndille in a great beam of her own.
GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Jacqueline Barber has attacked Lily Keil with Elemental Symphony! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Quick and Shield expired! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil critically fails to guard Jacqueline Barber's Elemental Symphony for 339 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Hyper removed! GS: Delay and Poison blocked! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy has slipped his weapon back away by the time he hits the ground again, dust puffing up around his feet. He's woefully off-balance to try and doge the claw attack, and it catches him clean, a smash across the chest earning an "AUGH!" of pain and sending him back.
He flips before he crashes, though, recovering midair and slamming his feet down, skidding to a halt on the broken plain. He snaps his ether guns back to his hands. "One down," he breathes. His eyes flick to Xantia. What can he possibly say to her...no, the Doctor's on it.
For Billy, he has his own task. He thrusts the barrels of his weapons together, and focuses, the ether within himself and that within the guns resonating until a bead of black darkness forms at the tips, and then grows and grows, before Billy yelps a "HWAH!!" and fires a bolt of expanding darkness down the range toward the remaining Gryndille, devouring all it touches.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Stay close to Xantia. Help each other. Azoth keeps to that as a constant way to steady in the battle even as the past unearths itself and stares him in the mask he calls a face. So he feels it: Ether. He whirls to look at her, watching how she glows red and becomes... gleeful.
"Xantia?"
Relentless, she assaults, the violence efficient, effective, destructive, but the smile all wrong. And the words don't sound like Xantia. Is this really joy, or...?
Heavy fire rains down again, and it's thanks to Ruth that this sputtering, sparking machine does not get eradicated past his meager shielding as he's still left struggling from energy his body cannot contain and damage his chassis was not built for. But Ruth has words for Xantia, too.
"...'No matter what'," he echoes of a moment long before this one, observing Xantia's patterns, and then charging their foe. There's no cover left, and Gryndille must fall now. Azoth touches the center of his chest, where all the light flows from his core and swipes it out, sword appearing not in, by beside, his hand as it trails after him and follows him in a reckless cleave.
But not as reckless as it seems, vanishing from sight and appearing above the Gryndille to descend upon it, plunging the energy blade in to pierce, rip, and tear before letting it burst, all while hoping he manages some sort of pincer with Xantia's own violence.
Whatever form she's in, he keeps to his word.
GS: Azoth spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Azoth has attacked Xantia with Convergence! GS: Azoth has attacked Azoth with Convergence! GS: Azoth has launched an attack Link! GS: CRITICAL! Citan Uzuki heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 233 temporary hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Billy Lee Black gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Surge applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Azoth accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Azoth! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Billy Lee Black has attacked Lily Keil with Holy Gate! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action. GS: Azoth has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Blitz! Azoth has attacked Lily Keil with Process of Elimination! GS: Azoth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Azoth gains 5 FP from his Daredevil! GS: Lock state expired! GS: Azoth has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil fails to evade Billy Lee Black's Holy Gate for 363 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dispel! Shieldbreak removed! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Lily Keil fails to charge Azoth's Process of Elimination for 333 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus! GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Disrupt and Poison expired! GS: Strain! Azoth takes 50 damage! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Xantia accepts Azoth's Convergence for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz applied to Xantia!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia gets exactly the satisfaction she wanted, tearing through her target with vicious glee. At this point it's hard to determine whether stopping the self-destruct sequence was the goal, or just a bonus to her. All too casually, she deactivates her weapon, dispersing the blade into motes of Ether, which are promptly pulled back towards herself, rejoining the red sea of her aura. A small metal piece rolls close to her feet, which she immediately kicks back at the wreckage.
"...That's what you get."
At least she sounds calmer. But there's still something distinctly Not Right about her. It's particularly easy to tell for the people who call her name. Lily, Ida, Citan... The way Xantia looks at them is so... nonplussed, bordering on apathetic. She hears their words, it's just that what they're saying doesn't seem to interest her. Ruth... Ruth does get a reply, of a sort. "Pf. Don't be stupid." Petty and dismissive, but... at least it got her to say something.
However... one Gryndille still remains to be dealt with. Azoth makes an appeal to her, with words that she should know. And, perhaps in spite of expectations, she responds. Not verbally, but in the way she begins to move, in tandem with Azoth's movements, as if it were choreographed. She instinctively knows exactly what he plans, how she should move in order to make the most of their team effort.
Then it all goes wrong. All it takes is Xantia's realization that something's off, being unsure of what happened a moment ago, a gap in her memory. In that moment of distraction, Gryndille's claw lashes out... and strikes Xantia dead on. The force of it is strong enough to knock her over backwards, a huge gash torn open in her stomach.
There is just about enough time to think 'any normal person would die from a wound like that', before Xantia starts to laugh. And starts to get up, despite the terrible stomach wound...
...that isn't bleeding. Blood was certainly spilt at the moment of impact, after which it just kind of... stopped flowing. Xantia's gaze casually drifts down to what should be at least close to a lethal injury, and that smile just never leaves her face when she raises it back up. "Didn't even hurt," she claims, certainly acting in a way that suggests such.
It may be telling, however, that she doesn't strike back in retaliation. And that the concentration of pure Ether surrounding her has considerably diminished. She is acting upon that injury. Citan's timely assistance helps her recovery along, the wound visibly closing as she takes in the additional Ether... and then that grin of her broadens.
It comes wholly out of nowhere. A large, dark cloud bursts forth from Xantia, obscuring vision, and proving highly toxic should anyone come into contact with it. Using this as cover, and banking on Lily being rendered unable to stop her in her current condition, she abruptly flees the scene.
This... could be bad.
GS: Blitz! Xantia has attacked Xantia with Etheric Miasma! GS: Xantia has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xantia's stances have changed from Avenger to Sage! GS: Xantia gains 5 FP from Gleam! GS: Xantia has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xantia accepts Xantia's Etheric Miasma for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Power surges into Lily Keil, the power to tame a planet. It rushes through her, and it could make her giddy with its force, with the sudden ease for a bare moment there is of maintaining the effect. She manages a smile. "Keep it up," she says, and she is no longer struggling.
Elly creates plasma, continuing to show Ether beyond what is reasoable even for the First Class of Solaris. No one tries to eat the blast furnace. Lily does sense Elly's magic in the moment, as plugged as she is into the mana of this pocket region, but everyone else can sense the explosion that rocks the automaton next. As it fades, Link is there. He closes, and hacks into the robot with all his heroic might, scything off armor plating as if his sword were a grander sword of legend.
Gryndille takees lightning of all things, and anyone who knows Rikku knows htis divine hammer of destruction is not what someone would expect of her. While Rille uses the armor as a shield, and runs to the new Gryndille. It can't quite fire on everyone else from this angle anymore, ratcheted upward as it is. It attempts to correct--
Wu's pillars lock it into place as they and the shard of armor pierce through its underside. ?
Gwen's delivery s super special. It fires around everyone else, and the cannon launches its payload at Gryndille III. Ruth, meanwhile, is bathed in guilt and despair, too. Bu that translucent, psimatic stream of light holds no joy, no warmth... and no blemishes. Its empty malevolence pours through the automaton.
Their deeds. This, too, is among Sharon's deeds. Lily has accepted their weight. ...But will this be enough, here and now? Lily knows at least that Citan will guard Xantia when she can't.
Meanwhile, Jay calls for them to keep going--and then unites hr elements. The spell may be unbalanced at first, but she egains control. A great beam slams into Gryndille III as it tries to recover, ablating away more armor still.
The darkness of Billy's Ether scythes off a claw at the shouler, and Azoth's power bursts through the machine from within.
"CRITICAL... DAMAGE..."
What's left of it shuts down. It cannot fight any longer, and its armor is ddented and cracked, outright shattered in many places. Its heavy cannon falls; the whole thing just collapses.
"Xantia!?" Lily starts, but--she winces--she can't hold it much longer. Lily drops the spell and lands; reality reasserts, and it may be nausea-inducing for a second as the horizon returns. Local space and time reassert themselves, and smoke rises into the sky where the wreckage has fallen.
"...Damn it," Lily says of Xantia, sighing as she looks after her. "...Doc," she says. "I can't go after her right now. I have to...
With the last of her borrowed power, Lily lowers herself to the ground and reaches out her hand. Energy crackles between her and the wreckage, great bolts of black lightning surging from her hand towards what was once two Gryndille-class assault tanks.
When the darkness fades and light shines on them, they are dust. There will be no salvaging of these machines.
"...Captain," she says to Leon, looking his way with a lopsided smile. "Mission accomplished."
The smile doeesn't last. But she looks to the others. "...I don't sense any more approaching. We did it."
The wind blows, and there is a howl of noise in the distance. It's a victory, if not a perfect one. Lily... takes a seat.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Zephyr comes tearing down out of the sky as soon as the immediate danger has passed. A few float lazily down in his wake as he charges right for Ida. His wings flare out right as he reaches her, bringing him to a screeching halt--not a screetch from the strain of brakes against a tire but a the screech of a panicked bird.
He'll keep nagging at Ida until he gets her to follow him, whereupon he'll make a beeline straight for Hannah. He lands by her head, and with a plantive chirp, is preening at her hair.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
They fight, with everything they have. Until, finally, the second Gryndille has had enough. It shuts down... and with the last of her power, Lily unmakes them, leaving nothing but dust.
It's better that way. No good could come of leaving any part of it for salvage.
Her adrenaline slowly fading Jacqueline stumbles, raising her left hand in a gesture to bring up a pillar of earth to steady herself. It's the only feature left in this blasted-clean desert plain, now.
She exhales.
"That's that, it seems... for now. Good work, everyone. We fought well." Jacqueline says. They're all on their last legs - she can barely stand, herself. "If there's anyone who can still walk, give me a hand?"
She gets ready to pass out potions to the wounded. But for now...
They've won for today, but who knows how long this'll last? The war is still going - and the source has yet to be addressed.
...For now, better not to worry. They should savor the victories they can get.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
That's not Xantia at the wheel right now, Ida realizes, eyes wide with horror. Or is it? Which possibility is worse? There's no time to try and stop her, though. They have to put the second Gryndille down before it self-destructs. Lily's straining.
The punch connects, and tears through. Ida skids to a halt, almost pitching forward from momentum and exhaustion. She thrusts a foot forward to catch herself, and sucks air into burning lungs.
"...Zephyr...?" she croaks. "Hold... hold on..." After a few moments, she follows.
"Hannah!" Ida cries. She sinks to her knees, pulls out one of the spray-bottle Nedian Potions she'd intended for herself, and starts applying it. There will be time to panic over Xantia once everyone is conscious and stable.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
It's a miscalculation on Azoth's part, too. Everything goes from bad to worse, and any call he makes is lost over the din of violence as he watches the claw tear Xantia open. ...Bloodless, or rather, not bleeding, and any brief lucidity Xantia had is gone again.
Everything happens at once for him -- the Gryndille collapses, reality right itself, and time and space seem to collapse leaving dust behind, with Azoth somehow sprawled on the ground before he's aware of what is what. Azoth only has a fraction of a moment to mourn the loss of the machines -- only following their own purposes, he understands -- and the loss of the data on himself.
He shoves up from where he'd fallen and dashes straight into the miasma after Xantia.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah starts to stir slowly, arms and legs twitching as consciousness stirs, and she starts to exert control over her body once more. "Nnggg... 'mokay..." That's not really meant for Ida, though. It's for Zephyr, who settles down quite a bit once Hannah is able to respond to him--really, once she can reassure him via their link.
The talking is mostly incidental, for them.
It's a wondrous thing, those spray bottles from Nede. Hannah will still need more recovery time, but within moments she is able to gather herself up enough slowly push herself up. But it's a slow, laborous process.
"Well I ain't dead," she grumbles once she gets to an upright sitting position. She sighs wearily. "Thanks, Ida. Much appreciated."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
After the return of space itself and the fall of Gryndille, Elly stays upright... by leaning on her staff. Which means she doesn't respond for long seconds to anything much at all, even if she doesn't fall over. She tugs a little at her blouse under the coat; she's soaked with sweat, to her mild surprise. She realizes, too late, that Xantia is gone again.
It's never easy, is it?
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The matter that was intended to be dealt with... is, by and large, in a very near thing. It takes Ruth time to stir to any sort of movement, the gargoyle-shaped Hellion only but managing to look over her left shoulder at the distressing unidentifiable Ether left in wake of...
"Where is she?" Her serpentine tongue flicks. "Xantia...."
It's more inquisitive than distressed, in so much she's the only one that seems to be outright missing.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"I," Magilou declares, "am just going to sit down right here. You can go after the madwoman, or whatever you like." And thus she does, just as she promised, right there in what isn't wreckage any more.
And while everyone is busy with the wounded, mentally or physically...
... she scoops the dust Lily made of Gryndille II into a vial, and stoppers it, tucking it away.
<Pose Tracker> Meng Wu has posed.
Wu's a bit offput by the shift back to reality. She obfuscates that by reaching into her tattered coat and feeling for the cigarettes, intent on fixing her vice. She begins to scowl and look around. Finally checking a few other pockets as she begins to make her way back over. Lit up, talking to her team and trying to assess what happened without seeming clueless. You know. With someone disappearing into poisonous fog.
The confusion on her face doesn't.. really hide it though. And she looks at the assembled group, the damage and..
"I'm sorry I'm no good at helping others." There's emotion there. She's sincere, but it's so faint.
"Tell me what needs to be done and I'll get it done though." Her voice back to that flat monotone.
Though in the meantime she points to the ground, creating a seat for herself and settles down. Fully expecting to just be told to stay out of the way.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen never accounted for Xantia *exploding into smoke and running away*. Azoth goes running towards it.
".... Shit." Even Gwen is panicking, now, as the Gryndille's danger is crossed off in her mind.
"I still have fuel, I can maybe..." There's so many wounded, though. And how long will the Halcyone itself last if she pushes it even more. Xantia may have run off to avoid being around people. She's done that before and been okay, right?
The cockpit shield of the Halcyone opens; the disheveled head of the courier peeks out. "I got first aid supplies. Well... I mean, the whole care packages. I have enough fuel so I think I can maybe go try t'track Xantia down, but I don't wanna leave y'guys stranded."
As Lily shakes her head to the latter idea, Gwen nods. "Alright. I trust your judgment." It feels cowardly, leaving your decision at the feet of someone else, but people like Lily and Leon are people she trusts to make such decisions, when it comes down to it. "I'll get some supplies."
Nodding to Meng Wu, Gwen adopts her usual grin, and brightens up, as if she wasn't as worried as she was before. "I know exactly a few things you can do! I'm gonna lower this big guy down, but it's a lot easier for me to hand supplies to you then duck n' and out. Sound good?"
Some of Gwen's cheeriness may be an act, but it has a purpose.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
The look she gives them all is as if she's not there anymore. As if she had exited the stage and then another had taken the fore. It's a phenomenon he's quite familar with courtesy of another, sure enough, and he's by no means unaware of the turns that Xantia can take. But is this not different by magnitudes?
And when she is wounded-- should that wound not have continued to bleed? Yet it's as if her blood stopped flowing to that injurt and as if it's already begun to heal.
He is faced with a choice. He can hold back from further mending that wound and strengthening her in the process. He can risk Gryndille doing unmitigated harm to Lily, who is still holding this space together with everything she has should they not succeed. And he can chance empowering and healing Xantia as she now exists. So Citan takes a gamble, as he sometimes does, and douses Xantia -- Xantia, in spite of the state of mind she now occupies -- with the shielding and strengthening force of his Ether and has to hope it's enough.
Or that he made the right decision.
Gryndille begins to collapse. It can sustain nothing more. And there is a burst of darkness from Xantia's body. Lily calls out to her as Xantia begins to flee and then, to him.
Of course, there is nothing Lily can do to help Xantia right now. Drawing himself up, in spite of his wounds, he makes a dash after her towards the haze of miasma--
Only to draw up short as he grazes the cloud of darkness. He doesn't even need to touch it to know what will happen if he were foolish enough to plunge into its depths after her. "This Ether--"
But Azoth, perhaps untouched by the miasma, rushes past him and into the darkness.
"...I am sorry," he says to Lily and perhaps to all of the rest of them, staring at the haze that does not immediately lift.
<Pose Tracker> Meng Wu has posed.
Wu quietly stands once more, brushing herself off and nudging the stool away. By making it collapse. She does one last check of herself, then nods to Gwen, "Yeah. That should be alright. I can probably.." she starts to think of some way to use magic and- she just decides she needs the actual work. "Let's go."
She looks to Citan though. At the mention of Ether with a dubious look. "I know my senses aren't what they used to be-" she trails off. "Later." And gets to work. "Your form's better than mine ever was." She admits as an aside. She hated fencing as a kid.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
"Doctor," comes Billy's voice. The pale young man's shroud of a traveling coat is around him again, though his favorite blue ribbon is a bit rumpled. "Captain Albus. Lieutenant Keil. Miss Elly," Billy greets, each in turn, before his eyes turn to the returned horizon, and their friend who has fled over it, scorching dark clouds in her wake. "...she's gone," he reflects.
Then, with a heavy sigh, he reaches up to unthread his Etone cross from around his neck. "I'll help tend to the wounded, Doctor."