2017-07-22: Bad Things Happen In Lacour: Difference between revisions

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*'''Log: 2017-07-22: Bad Things Happen In Lacour'''
*'''Log: 2017-07-22: Bad Things Happen In Lacour'''
*'''Cast:''' [[Character :: Ida Everstead-Rey]], [[Character :: Layna Manydays]], [[Character :: Zed]], [[Character :: Prima]], [[Character :: Riesenlied]], [[Character :: Elena]], [[Character :: Yarobeleedt]], [[Character :: Claude C. Kenny]], [[Character :: Kalve]], [[Character :: Noeline]], [[Character :: Lady Harken]], [[Character :: Rena Lanford]], [[Character :: Cecilia Adlehyde]], [[Character :: Kent Hauch]], [[Character :: Cassidy Cain]], [[Character :: Rudy Roughnight]]
*'''Cast:''' [[Character :: Ida Everstead-Rey]], [[Character :: Layna Manydays]], [[Character :: Zed]], [[Character :: Riesenlied]], [[Character :: Elena]], [[Character :: Yarobeleedt]], [[Character :: Claude C. Kenny]], [[Character :: Kalve]], [[Character :: Noeline]], [[Character :: Lady Harken]], [[Character :: Rena Lanford]], [[Character :: Cecilia Adlehyde]], [[Character :: Kent Hauch]], [[Character :: Cassidy Cain]], [[Character :: Rudy Roughnight]]
*'''Where:''' Lacour - Arms Coliseum
*'''Where:''' Lacour - Arms Coliseum
*'''Date:''' July 22, 2017
*'''Date:''' July 22, 2017

Latest revision as of 05:50, 24 July 2017


====================<* Lacour - Arms Coliseum *>====================

Situated immediately adjacent to Lacour Castle, the Arms Coliseum is a temple to the pursuit of perfection in physical prowess. Built more than three centuries ago by King Etienne I, the Coliseum is laid over with ancient Symbols that blunt weapons and protect combatants on the brink of death, allowing competitors to fight to the best of their ability without fear of killing their opponents.

The Coliseum is the site of the annual Lacour Tournament of Arms, a competition that fuels the spirit of martial artists and weapons merchants both. The Tournament is a spectacle that draws visitors and competitors from across Filgaia, and is the major event on the continent while it is running. A series of smaller tournaments are organized throughout the year; entering as a combatant is free of charge, but spectators pay a nominal fee that nonetheless provides a significant boost to Lacour's coffers.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s8YkgEYlvY

====================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

A month ago, Ida challenged Zed to a friendly duel at the Lacour Tournament of Arms. While she's not officially a competitor, she did arrange for an engagement with 'a dark hero'. Two weeks ago, the tournament officials informed Ida that her duel had mysteriously morphed into a team match, and that she'd better find someone else to battle the Dark Hero and his sidekick.

Now, Ida waits backstage. This is the first time she's ever actually been back behind the scenes at the arena, preparing for a match--but she's certainly dressed the part. She's wearing a vaguely military-issue jacket, cut so as not to interfere with her draw, or her ARM belts, which are (for once) in plain sight. She is wearing her trusty expedition hat, and most of her usual outfit, with the exception of a scarf with the family colors (deep blue and gold), and a sort of banner-tabard thing with the company logo.

Ida turns to Claude as the doors swing open, and the announcer starts to get going. "Let's go," she says, with the enthusiasm of someone who has not yet been beaten down in this arena.

"THE GUNSLINGER FROM GUILD GALAD, IDA EVERSTEAD-REY!"

Ida walks, because she has nowhere to go but forward--which is kind of a summary of the past month or so, for her. She feels the eyes of the crowd on her, and her stomach immediately begins tying itself in knots, but she keeps up a good front. She waves to the crowd, and--after a moment's deliberation--draws one of her revolvers, twirls, and holsters it.

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny is out of the Tournament after getting his butt kicked by one impossibly tough rival and two people from the moon. Needless to say, things could have gone better. But he's sticking around for a couple of reasons, one of which is to do a favour for Ida. Although 'favour' is an odd way to describe doing something that you really want to do anyway.

"THE KING OF THE JOBBERS - CLAUDE C. KENNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

The young man from Earth advances forward, carrying bare steel in his right hand; belted at his waist are a bell-guarded sabre and a single-action revolver from none other than the Everstead-Rey company; he is otherwise dressed in the same tan uniform he has worn since he arrived on Cow Patty Planet. He ignores the cheers (which are not inconsiderable - he has been putting on a show at getting his ass kicked) as he moves toward his side of the Arena, standing opposite Ida, his eyes narrowed as he looks across the Coliseum floor.

A little more than a month ago, he and Zed fought across the rooftops of Adlehyde... but the fight came at a time when Claude was exhausted from hours of house-to-house combat. Now, he is fresh, rested, and has a belly full of steak. His fingers squeeze and relax along the hilt of his longsword. Soon enough.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"AAAAAND IN THE GREEN CORNEEEEER--!" Oh no, the lights have all shut off. Almost all the lights. All the lights except for a pair of spotlights that suddenly shine on the far corner on the arena. Someone has clearly either been bribing the officiators, or has put a lot of time and effort into setting this stuff up ahead of the fight. Possibly both, because the next thing that happens is the eruption of quite frankly unreasonable amounts of fog from somewhere just off-stage.

It's entirely necessary.

Just like the pyrotechnics going off in the background. But where...

There. Two silhouettes begin to rise from the arena floor, obscured by clouds of fog and flashing sparks. "THE DARK HERO DUO, FEATURING OUR VERY OWN WOMAN-FIGHTING MACHINE, Z!" The one who is DEFINITELY NOT ZED flourishes with a bow as he SUDDENLY EXPLODES FROM THE FOG.

He... Seems to be in high spirits...!?

"AND JOINING HIM...!" Yes, there's still one more shape in the fog, isn't there?

BUT WHO COULD IT POSSIBLY BE!?

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Bribing people for special effects proves to be kind of amazing for entrances. The UNREASONABLE FOG and AMAZING PYROTECHNICS draw attention to their ascent, cloaking them in MAGIC* and MYSTERY! The second figure joins Zed in exploding out of the fog, leaping from their CONVENIENTLY ASCENDING PLATFORM into a proper start position. It's a pretty great three-point landing.

He stands. He's wearing... an awful lot of black, grey and silver. It's fairly tight and includes a mask you'd expect to see on some kind of ninja assassin instead of a DARK HERO. Well... maybe also dark heroes. The sleeves are loose near the wrists, though, and that shroud...

It's a scarf, but it doesn't quite sit like one. It's incredibly long, made of metallic silver thread, and it snakes out and gently drifts in a wind that may or may not be actually present. Loops of it rest around his shoulders, draping over his back like a cape. The figure crosses his arms, standing with Z(ed) in preparation for the FIGHT OF FIGURES.

The announcer booms: "QUICKSILVER HERO K!!"

The crowd, accepting the titular change from the playbill, goes wild.


  • may not actually be magic
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Up in the stands, a certain Crimson Noble is availing herself of a couple of linked seats, finding it much more comfortable to actually spread out a little regardless of what anyone might think of her for doing so. Her feet are up on the railing in front of her, one of her little spherical robots has just delivered to her a small bag of freshly baked pastries, and from who knows where she's managed to find herself a cup of tea and a saucer.

She's just about to bring it to her lips when 'Quicksilver Hero K' appears, and the amused snort she makes into the cup is not exactly ladylike; she has to pause to recover for a moment, then grins brilliantly as a hand waves Strife into position, the flaps across its eye unfolding. For anyone who's witnessed her run through a ruin, this usually signifies a precursor to laser fire. This time, however, the noise emanating from the robot is something rather different:

ka-chak ka-chak ka-chak ka-chak

Well, it wouldn't do to let people forget this moment...

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"It's Zed," Ida murmurs, under her breath. "Dark Hero Zed." Honestly, why these Ignasians can't pronounce letters correctly sometimes is beyond her, but there you have it. Ida still has no idea what a 'jobber' is, too, aside from someone who loses fights. Quaint regional slang? She stares into the fog, her gaze steely--she doesn't do the whole dramatic am-I-going-to-draw-or-not finger wiggle because her revolvers are in shoulder holsters, and it would look silly.

A door opens at the end of the arena, and Ida turns to face it--a pair of company people hurry out as fast as they can, wheeling an Everstead-Rey munitions crate between them. "Your cousin wanted you to have this," says one of them, a middle-aged stockhand type who takes a moment to mop sweat off his brow with a handkerchief. "Good luck, ma'am! Give 'em hell!"

"Of course," Ida says. The two men leave, taking the crate dolly with them. Ida turns back to the fog, taking in the sight of the second dark hero. Ida was... honestly expecting it, but it still makes an impact. These are the wages of Zed. Regardless, Ida does not disrespect her opponents. As Master Torque begins the countdown, she bows to Kalve.

"THREE!"

Ida turns, and bows to Zed.

"TWO!"

Up in the Everstead-Rey box, Ida's cousin remarks on how odd it is that an Everstead-Rey is bowing.

"ONE!"

Ida settles into her ready stance, arms loose at her sides, ready to draw or dodge as necessary.

"BEGIN!"

The bell rings. A strange, unreal flickering spreads across the floor, and Ida--who was present for Claude and Dias's duel, as well as several other matches--goes perfectly still. Beams of wood sprout up from the arena floor like trees, growing hardened stucco and plaster 'shells'--quickly taking the form of one-story frontier buildings with wide, shaded awnings. They look normal at first glance, but they don't have all four walls, because that way, the audience couldn't see anything going on inside them! There's a saloon, an assay office, and other frontier accoutrements, including watering troughs, barrels, hitching posts, and even a few stray cacti. A tumbleweed rolls past.

Ida gives the crate a whirling kick; the lid flies off, landing in the street with a puff of dust. She draws the first gun on top--as fate would have it, a scoped rifle with a box magazine and a mostly-wooden body. Kalve would recognize it as the exact model of gun Ida shot at him with when he came out of nowhere in the Adlehyde fairgrounds, but Kalve's not here, is he?

It's all right, Ida reminds herself. She tucks the gun to her chest, dives, and rolls behind the saloon wall. You can't kill him. This is exactly why you wanted to do it here. She sights the rifle on the mysterious QUICKSILVER HERO K, and fires.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Kalve with Everstead-Rey Model 15 Mk. II!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Kalve takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Everstead-Rey Model 15 Mk. II for 107 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny does not fall for Zed's disguise, because as a TRUE AMERICAN, he knows that Zed begins with a Zee, and so it is clever for Zed to use the first initial of his name as his cover identity. He isn't quite sure what to expect when the Metal Demon he thought was a friend makes his appearance, though, because their relationship has grown... shall we say complicated. Though Zed's actions speak for themselves, what they have to say is contradictory at best.

On the one hand, Zed beat the shit out of him. On the other hand, he claimed to do it so Berserk wouldn't murder Claude.

On the one hand, Zed dragged him out of Adlehyde and left him bleeding on a hill. On the other hand, he did pass on the message to Rena.

On the one hand, he fought on the side of invaders who slaughtered thousands. On the other hand, he kicked the door of that church closed.

Claude C. Kenny is feeling conflicted and confused. He likes neither of these things. And so as soon as Ida moves, Claude resolves his conflicted emotional state through the only method that his childhood, nationality, and training have taught him works 100% of the time, i.e.:

"AIR SLASH!"

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Zed with Air Slash!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Zed takes a glancing hit from Claude C. Kenny's Air Slash for 60 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Complicated is a good way to put this thing that has developed between these two star-crossed swordsmen. Claude has all of that. Zed has the fact that he's either going to have to extinguish the human race, or have his own people go extinct! Probably. It's a pretty sure bet that there's only one way for this whole thing to go down.

Well.

Unless ~someone~ is lying about ~some important stuff.~

The important thing, though, is that they can vent their frustrations here and now.

Almost.

Because as it turns out, from Zed's perspective, Claude is still and will forever be a cherished and treasured rival. No amount of potential genocide will ever put a stop to the flow of his friendshipium nor his rivalium.

Friendship is powerful, after all.

It lets air slashes cleave furrows right into arena walls!

Air slashes that Zed only barely dodges. The shockwave carves a great gash across one of his shoulder-guards, but then...

Then Claude can see that, maybe, this is not his complicated rival-friend Zed at all.

Zed...

Did not wear a mask.

As seen here: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/b8/5c/bd/b85cbd2f6be9c0342713246faf7fccdb.jpg

"Ahahahaha! Not bad, not bad at all! Let me reciprocate with one of my own!!" The Dark Hero winds back his own blade, and lets rip! WITH A ROAR!!

"AIR SLASH!!"

You can tell he's the dark hero because his air slash is purple.

GS: Zed has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Air Slash!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Zed has canceled their attack on Claude C. Kenny.
GS: Zed has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Air Slash!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny critically Guards a hit from Zed's Air Slash for 18 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

"Oh, really," huffs Noeline as she gets back to her cup of tea, crossing her legs where they're propped up on the seat ahead.

For a Crimson Noble who is supposed to be perfect and elegant, she sure does like lazing around recently, still feeling the burn from Old Petra and the mad flight and recovery that she and Riesenlied went through in its wake. She can be forgiven, surely, for having another of those little cinnamon balls.

"Whatever is the point in those things? They all look the same. You're in an arena, you should surely have a little panache," she grumbles at the open air, not exactly directed at anyone in particular nearby.

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny is pretty sure, mask or no, that Reverse Quattro is indeed his erstwhile rival, because no one - no one - would have the temerity to copy his signature technique like that. Well, except for Dias, who is also his rival, so that is fine. And except for White Knight Leo, but he is a dumb poophead. And except for Alisha Diphda, but she is hot.

...

Man, there are a lot of people stealing my awesome moves, Claude thinks to himself, but the advantage of defending against stolen techniques is that the master* of the original** move is the one who best knows how to defend against it; in this case, by throwing another Air Slash into the path of the first. The backblast sends a shockwave rippling out across the Coliseum floor, but Claude charges right into it, bearing down through the pain as he continues his charge.

Got to get close, Claude thinks as he plants his foot and slides inward, slipping a couple of whip-quick thrusts in Full Frontal's direction, mostly to see which way the bemasked man intends to dodge. Unlike in their previous encounter, where Jamil was able to use the tight quarters and buildings to evade some of Claude's more tactically-oriented techniques, the Coliseum has forced them onto a bare, featureless sand pit. Nothing for Zechs to run along to avoid spikes from the Earth, and if McGillis takes to the air, Claude will dragon punch him back into the stone age. For the moment, Claude has the advantage.

But Rau undoubtedly knows this too, and it's only a matter of time until the surroundings shift again. And so Claude presses his advantage, snapping off two more quick cuts before following up with a hard left punch toward the centre of Harry's chest.... a punch that explodes with fire, because reasons.


  • - Not actually master
    • - Not actually original
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Zed with Knuckle Burst!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

QUICKSILVER HERO K -- herein referred to interchangeably with "Kalve," despite this clearly not being his name -- inclines his head to his opponents minutely. It's exactly the kind of bare acknowledgement someone might expect from a member of a team of Dark Heroes!

The arena changes. Kalve stiffens, feeling the strange sensation that settles over the arena. He looks around as the terrain grows out of the ground with quiet wonder, his expression largely concealed by the mask. He has done similar, of course, but with less solid results. He chides himself for being so distracted, turning back to the bout as it begins --

-- with a very familiar bang. The rifle round hammers home, striking him near the shoulder. The bullet passes between the loops of the scarf, and the silvery outfit he's wearing ripples from the impact. He staggers back, his upper body twisting as he grimaces. He's already shifting his body around to mitigate the impact, but it feels lessened. The wards he'd heard about, then.

He turns the twist into a gesture. His left arm goes back, and his right forward, extended outwards. The scarf flows in the unfelt gale. His hands are... smaller than usual. Ungauntleted? He's wearing gloves, but...

QUICKSILVER HERO K declares in a booming, Zed-coached voice, "Behold! The shape of my heroism!"

The scarf suddenly snaps forward. One end drapes across his arm and into his outstretched hand, and he grips it between his fingers. Kalve twists his wrist with a wrenching motion, and a flash of electrical light sparks out as he suddenly tears the fabric apart. It coils in his fingers, becoming the skeleton of... a weapon! A hand crossbow?! Then the scarf is...!

- -- --== ' o A.R.M.

QUICKSILVER WEAPON ARRAY

A.R.M. o ' ==-- -- -

Never let it be said that Kalve comes to a fight unprepared.

The gleaming metal weapon goes 'click-click-click-click-click,' firing whistling needle-like darts down-range at where Ida stands with her rifle. Kalve surges forward, breaking towards one of the buildings and taking cover behind the shell of a saloon in preparation for the return fire.

GS: Kalve has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Paradigm Shift!
GS: Kalve has completed his action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Kalve's Paradigm Shift for 108 hit points!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Knuckle Burst for 69 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Zed!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

He's not wearing his ARMs, Ida thinks. But he's not wielding the weapons provided by his sponsor, either, and she doubts Kalve would have enough trust in human engineering to actually do that. She ducks back behind the corner of the saloon, glancing out to see what kind of damage she did--injured, still standing. As she expected.

Ida forces her face into an expression of utmost calm as the heroic speech starts. As distressing as the extent of Zed's influence is, Kalve's about to tip his hand, and--

Goodness, Ida thinks, her eyes going wide. She would be more amazed and less alarmed if Kalve didn't start shooting at her. A bolt punches through the thin plaster wall inches from Ida's right arm, sails across the alley, and embeds itself in a barrel with a thunk. Another follows, going clean through Ida's cover with enough force left over to bury itself in her bicep. Sparks fly behind Ida's eyes, and she grits her teeth in pain. If she pulls it out, she'll start bleeding, but if she doesn't...

Ida's eyes go focused, and she reaches up, grips the needle, and pulls. The pain is almost enough to wreck her concentration, but she somehow manages to keep herself controlled and composed. She wills the flow of blood to slow, and it does. It hurts like hell, but she is at least not in danger of blood loss. With that sorted, Ida tries to track Kalve--and sees a fluttering silver scarf disappear behind the saloon wall. Ida takes a step to the side, dives through an open window, and comes up on a knee next to a table. She shoves it hard, knocking it over so the tabletop is a makeshift barricade. She pops up from her cover, fanning all six shots at the segment of wall where she knows Kalve is hiding.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Kalve with Fan the Hammer!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Kalve guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Fan the Hammer for 72 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Kalve.

Kalve, Zed is so proud of you.

Zed is so proud of you that he completely forgets to dodge when Amuro Ray unleash his patented two-slash-one-punch combo. "G-gwah!" The Dark Hero yells, two lines carved in his breastplate, two gashes hewn into his mask, just over his eyes. A fire punch smashes right into his sternum. How there is fire coming from a fist? Who knows.

It's probably one of those dark secrets of space everyone's always talking about.

It's a solid hit regardless. A blow that forces him staggering back, grasping at the smoldering crater that was once a perfectly servicable piece of armor. At least whatever magic is at play in Lacour's arena is keeping it from getting very much worse. Zed has been thankful for that magic. It's been pretty great. He got cut up by a literal death spirit and actually left the arena feeling better than when he walked in.

Vindication is like that.

"Not... Bad...! Not bad! I expected this much, though. It wouldn't have been fun if things were that easy, right?" Zed grins, reeling his blade back. "Alright. Now...! Let's see how this works!!"

"PIIIILED SHOT----!" Zed starts to spin. He starts to whirl. He becomes the tornado; he turns into a literal tornado of spinning scarf, slashing sword and flailing fists. "HERE WE GOOOOOO...!"

GS: Zed has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Dark Horse - Supreme Tornado!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Zed's Dark Horse - Supreme Tornado for 73 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny has also been grateful for that magic; it's what kept him from losing an arm to Dias Flac, or his spleen to Alisha Diphda, or his a whole bunch of stuff to the White Knight, Leo. It's let him give his all to the fight, even if he found himself wanting. And yet.

"Fun? How can you say that?" Claude asks as Neo Roanoke turns himself in to a shrieking tornado of whirling steel and fury. "You're still acting like this is a game! Like it's fun! I want to pretend like it's old times as much as you do.... but people died, Zed! Cecilia's dad died! And we lost the damned Teardrop!"

Claude C. Kenny: shouting the names of MacGuffins to half the city.

"What are you even---" Claude starts to ask, but he's cut off by the press of Chronicle Asher's assault; half a dozen slashes in a handful of seconds. Claude meets two of them with quick diagonal parries, but the third slips through and catches him in the right side, where it meets the stiffening protection of his Federation jacket. Claude rolls back to avoid the next two, but the sixth comes in quick, and the blonde swordsman raises his sword to meet it, digging in hard.

KYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

The ringing of steel on steel echoes out, and Claude grits his teeth, leaning backward to absorb the momentum of Carozzo Ronah's strike. "What do you even WANT with it?" Claude snaps, disengaging and stepping left, his sword rising in a diagonal cut. "What can be worth that much death?" he asks as he brings the blade down again.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Zed with Twin Slash!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
DC: MISS! Zed completely evades Twin Slash from Claude C. Kenny!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

After a long, thoughtful moment - marked only by the dainty disappearance of another of those little cinnamon things - Noeline leans forward on her hands. This time, her expression is drawn into a thin line, watching Claude and his outburst with an almost glum frown. Suddenly, her enthusiasm and interest in the fight seems a little muted; it's a really good point that the swordsman makes, after all, and one that she and Riesenlied are still grappling with.

No matter how much they might move forwards, no matter how many demons their beliefs might touch, or how many humans they show their resolve to, it's still going to take a great deal of time for it to filter through to any significant extent. Especially when many of the Demons are against them to start with.

"Haah," she sighs to herself, shrugging one shoulder as she reaches over to pat Strife on the head. "Well... little by little, I suppose. One doesn't win a war overnight, especially not by losing an entire base, hm?" she comments to the little floating thing.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Kalve would be happy to show Ida his stabs when she is not on the receiving end sometime. It's just, you know... element of surprise. Nothing personal, Ida.

His cover isn't so much a hiding spot as it is a piece of wood between him and someone with guns and the skill to use them. The scarf gives him away, and Ida's rounds puncture the hastily-grown battlefield dressing with splinters flying and neat little holes cut between herself and her quarry. There isn't a lot of light coming through the wall, though; it seems weirdly... filtered.

Kind of reflective.

One the far side of the wall, Kalve presses the unfurled scarf against the surface of the wall in a zig-zag pattern. Five spots hold indents where the flattened bullets have stopped and been trapped between the scarf and the wall. One of these is right under his hand, making him grimace and slowly, subtly shift his arm underneath the costume to compensate for the pounded indent. The remaining hole is between a gap in two layers, and it looks like it got shaved on the way through, leaving a cut across his face just to the right of his eye. It probably clipped his ear, but it's covered, and small enough that makes it hard to tell. His expression, bearing a hint of alarm, is probably enough to pick it out if you can see him.

Ida can't. Instead, what she can see is light suddenly streaming through the holes. There's a sound like a heavy blade impacting wood, and an odd rippling quality to the light from the holes and the window nearby on the far side of the building. If she's watching out from her cover at that very instant, she'll see an unexplainable flicker of light on the interior of the wall, and hear a strange scraping noise. All together, it's her first warning.

The second is the wooden window shutters falling apart, neatly bisected horizontally in two pieces and clattering to the floor.

The wall of the false saloon suddenly pitches forward, the hollow building folding like a house of cards. Kalve's scarf is wound around his right arm, extended to his right into the fake street. Metallic threads unwind from the glittering edge of the enormous razor, used seconds ago to turn the mutual cover into what will shortly be matchsticks.

GS: Kalve has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Method I - Unity of Tool and Hand!
GS: Kalve has completed his action.
DC: MISS! Ida Everstead-Rey completely evades Method I - Unity of Tool and Hand from Kalve!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

That distortion is familiar. It reminds Ida of that odd cloak Kalve's worn on several occasions after he revealed himself as a Metal Demon--including Adldehyde. The effect is more noticeable here, when she's actually trying to aim at him. It's harder to get a bead on someone when you're not sure where they begin and the surrounding terrain ends. Something flickers, and a window falls apart. Ida is reasonably sure she felt something on Kalve's part, a surge of effort. Those don't happen for nothing.

Ida leaps for it. She rockets out of the saloon, barreling through the swinging doors shoulder-first. She hits the wooden walkway outside, twists into a roll, and comes up on a knee just in time to see Kalve...

...cut a building in half. Admittedly, a flimsy facsimile of a building designed for optimal BADASS COLLATERAL DAMAGE, but still. Her eyes are wide as she looks at Kalve and his weapon. She is visibly alarmed, and that does not happen often. The saloon collapses inwards with a horrible sound, and an expanding cloud of plaster dust. Ida shields her face, covering her nose and mouth with her arm, and clears a good ten or so feet in a single, panicked sprint. She ends up on a knee behind a barrel, and in the interim, she drew a very familiar gun. Ida levels Devil's Due at Kalve, and fires--the weapon roars, the slug speeds at the Metal Demon, but something has gone strangely wrong. Or right? Most of the gunsmoke propellant boils off in a cloud of smoke, infused with Ida's lifeforce. It is yet another visual obstruction on top of the wrecked building. Ida is not sure if it will work against someone who can CUT A BUILDING IN HALF GRANAS DAMN IT but there you go.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Kalve with Ebon Devil Cloud!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Kalve takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Ebon Devil Cloud for 27 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes Cover! She gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Yes. It's a point that's impossible to truly refute. It's a question that Zed has been asking himself over and over and over again for the past several weeks. Was it worth it? Was anything worth it? At what point does the scale of a war extend beyond what is acceptable? Certainly, the destruction of Adlehyde was nowhere near as thorough as it could have been, but...

...Still.

"If I told you," The Dark Hero says from around where his sword with Camille's. His expression is complicated beyond the clash of blades; still grinning, but only by a half measure. "That it was to save my people, I don't think we would agree on whether it was worth it or not. But that's not what you're really asking me."

"How can I say that this is fun?"

Zed pivots his blade to meet Judau's second strike flawlessly, exhibiting economy of motion and deliberate swordplay that simply was not there a moment ago. "I've thought about this a lot, you know. This war. This thing we've got between us. And you know what I realized?"

He flicks his wrist, whipping Usso's sword aside and sidestepping away from the follow-through. "This whole thing. This... everything has kept going because of one wrong turn leading to another. Hatred building on hatred and grudges building on grudges and I decided that it was all so incredibly stupid!"

Zed takes in a breath. Suddenly, his sword is not merely a sword. Golden-green light floods down the blade; it burns hot. Shiro could feel it, even from where he stands. "So! I decided that I wouldn't anymore. That I won't hold grudges for stupid things like war, and that I won't hate someone for something like fighting us. Because maybe, just maybe, if I can grin instead of frown- if I can laugh when everyone else is crying for blood, maybe others will too." Zed lifts his sword. He drops into an actual swordfighting stance for what is possibly the first time Usso has ever seen him enter one.

"The only thing I'll hate are things that deserve to be hated. That's what I decided. And you, above all others, are someone I could never, ever hate. SO NOW THAT THAT'S ANSWERED!" The Dark Hero lunges, launching into a series of flesh-searing, bone-hewing, revolving slashes with his NEW BLAZING SWORD. "LET'S GET BACK TO WHAT EVERYONE CAME HERE TO SEE, HUH!?"

GS: Zed has attacked Claude C. Kenny with RayBlade - Zed Saber!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny critically Guards a hit from Zed's RayBlade - Zed Saber for 27 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny grits his teeth as Mister Bushido moves into a seamless, flawless sequences of parries. He's known for a while that his adversary was more than just an eager, foolhardy, derpy swordguy (although to be hoenst, there is a lot of that there), but also a skilled practitioner of the blade. It's the problem with having to fight your formerly regular sparring partner - they know all your moves, and you know all of theirs.

Like this one - Claude recoils as Zeahart Gallette's blade ignites with golden green fire, a grimace sliding onto his face. This was the one move he simply could not counter when he last faced Zed - his sword was simply no match for the Metal Demon's blade, undoubtely enhanced by judicious amounts of technosorcery. Within a few moments of that, Hyadean fury carved away Filgaian steel, and that was that for the young man from Earth. And so he tosses his nameless longsword off to one side, where it spears itself into the wall of the saloon with a heavy *thunk*, then turns to face Boris Schauer, drawing in a breath. His right hand drops to the hilt of his sabre, a ruby gleaming in the light of the Coliseum. The blade leaves its sheath in a hiss.

And then crimson flame meets golden green.

"Knew you'd pull that again," Claude says, half to himself, as he meets each of those slashes with one of his own, the Symbological enhancement holding againzt Ratsel's own assault for the time being. Claude measures each of the cuts with a clinical eye, three, four, five in sequence, and then steps forward into the attack, his left hand streaking out, trying to catch Vidar's arm by the wrist, his right hand bringing the blazing sword up toward his opponent's chest.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Zed with FIRE PLUS SWORD EQUALS FIRESWORD!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Claude C. Kenny's FIRE PLUS SWORD EQUALS FIRESWORD for 45 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Actually.

Zed is currently being sponsored by those renowned Lacour homeboys, KNOCKOUT Forgemasters.

So maybe, just maybe, Kira Yamato gets a bit of a surprise when Zed's sword actually snaps melts right through during their fifth exchange of blows. In that moment, Usso narrowly singes Zed's flank as the Hyadean swordsman darts away just in time to avoid a potentially fatal grapple... But what will a swordsman do without a--

Zed swings his arms to the sides.

His Dark Hero Cloak (TM) flutters in the breeze.

...There are four more swords at his hips.

"Hahahaha! That's better! But did you think I would only bring OOOOONE SWOOOORD!?" Zed grabs hold of another sword.

It glows too. But this time... This time it is PURPLE, not green or yellow.

"Let's see how you deal with this now, eh?" Answer: Probably well. Zed darts forward, striking rhythmically against Claude's fire-touched steel. Six hewing blows in rapid sequence rain down from six different angles. Claude is sure to parry this as well, but...

The way that strange, purple un-light is flung from the blade with every clash. The way it seems to burn the flesh and gnaw away at the very foundations of good fortune itself. It's... Disconcerting.

But this, too, is probably something Claude has seen before, isn't it?

That's the best thing about rivals.

That's the worst thing about rivals.

GS: Zed has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Sealed Blade - Demon Breaker!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

Something bursts out of the building at speed before it comes down. Kalve's eyes track it, the rest of him unmoving. For a moment, he cuts quite the dramatic figure: the dust of the collateral damage billowing up, one tail of the scarf rippling in the wind, poised for combat. Some in the audience might even swoon! ...if it weren't for the ridiculousness of the outfit otherwise, anyway.

Kalve spots Devil's Due and prepares for the worst. He makes a flicking motion with his right arm and the blade collapses into shiny cloth again. He twists it into a spiral, spinning it inbetween them, and snaps the thing closed down the path of the bullet so fast it makes a whip-like crack as it closes.

The propellant boils out of it with a surge of something foreign but familiar. More smoke billows up around him, and Kalve lets the weapon untense again, winding it back around himself. He ducks low, moving in the cloud that obscures their section of the battlefield and listening. Feeling. Something...

There.

Kalve suddenly bursts out of the cloud, coming straight at Ida. He approaches her with a flying kick, leaping at where he senses her with a flurry of silvery cloth following behind him. It parts the cloud in a line, sending it rolling in either direction as if a titan had cloven it in twain from on high to see the battle continue. It looks fancy, and, coupled with that shimmering, it makes it tough to get a bead on him, even up close!

GS: Kalve has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Liquid Metal!
GS: Kalve has completed his action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Kalve's Liquid Metal for 37 hit points!
GS: Kalve takes Cover! He gains 50 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

An uncomfortable flickering of the senses disjoints the proceedings inside the esteemed Lacour arena. It's only for a moment, as if the flame burning in every lantern and the pulse behind every light snuffed out for just one fraction of a heartbeat. But we're outdoors, and the sun blazes brightly overhead, so how does that work?

Before any serious deliberation can take place on this uncomfortable little portent, a hairline split in one of the coliseum's towering stone supports, which it totally has a number of that I did not just make up right now, makes its presence known by emitting a loud and ungainly crack that scythes through all conversation and narration with an uncomfortable timbre. This big trimuph of masonry howls a wretched song of steel and stone, before sliding clean in half and plummeting for the arena floor with exactly zero grace and poise because, really, what did you expect.

Presumably, nobody is caught underneath, but who's to say? Less protagonist-y bystanders could be forgiven for not noticing the human figure holding a gigantic, curved farming implement standing atop the plummeting tower-top as it falls, given the brief period of time between apparent structural failure and explosive dust-cloud impact. People with a reason to fear impossibly tall humanoid figures wielding scythes on the other hand probably get a horrible sense of deja vu.

Tournament organizers can take this time to consider whether this was on the list of approved environmental hazards as poor Kalve's building-facimilies all flatten before the shockwave like one of those old nuclear weapon testing videos.

"Pathetic! Worthless!"

A horrific mockery of a voice somehow drowns out the crashing rumble of exploding stone with the tonality of a sonic boom, as if the air were painfully stitching itself back together into words. A pair of scarlet will-o-wisps burn visibly through the ever-expanding cloud of smashed aggregate and dust, about the right height and separation to be a pair of eyes.

!CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED!

GS: CRITICAL! Claude C. Kenny critically Guards a hit from Zed's Sealed Blade - Demon Breaker for 39 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny unleashes a flurry of parries, sparks and flame spewing from where two blades meet, and then...

...and then...

.....

"............I think it's for you," Claude says quietly to Zed.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed pauses mid-strike.

Zed pauses mid-strike because--

"Oh no," Zed says with the kind of dread that is typically associated with noticing a train about to straight up murder you.

"It's... It's Harken."

.......

"No way," Zed hisses under his EVERYTHING, "You like redheads, right? She's obviously here for you!!"

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Brass hits the ground at Ida's feet. She chambers another round, whips a handkerchief out of her pocket, and ties it around her right bicep to deal with the wound there. Kalve doesn't give her time to do anything else. He lunges through the cloud like it's not even there, his foot slamming into her chest and almost knocking the wind out of her. It's only a last-second reaction that saves her from being knocked down, and knocked breathless--she twists to the side, much like Kalve did when Ida tried this on him. She sucks in a breath, tries to get a clear angle past that shimmering scarf, and--

The tower crumbles. The arena stage vanishes in a whirlwind of splintering wood and pulverized plaster and torn metal. Ida heard legends about the weapons that Valmar used in the old war--things that could level entire cities. She definitely saw the man in red do something similar. Harken is not the man in red, but this is cold comfort.

Ida turns to Kalve. Her mouth has gone dry. "Harken," she whispers. "What is she doing here." Ida has an inkling. She wishes she didn't.

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

"I know literally zero redheads," Claude says, not quite truthfully. "If there was a list called 'heads what I like,' red would be on the bottom and whatever is the opposite of red would be on top."

Claude C. Kenny: college graduate, ladies' man.

"Besides, I'm not pathetic," he adds.

"YES YOU ARE!" shouts someone in the crowd.

"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!" Claude screams back up intot he stands.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"The opposite? ...So you like... Blue heads??" Zed just kind of cants his head like a confused dog.

...

"Well," he shrugs, "That would explain your girlfriend."

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

"My gi... you...." Claude sputters a bit, then recovers. "Dude, blue isn't the opposite of red, they're just different colours on the spectrum!"

Well, actually, that's a good---

"The opposite of red is anti-red, duh," he says firmly.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Noeline feels the hairs on the back of her neck rise just before impact actually occurs; perhaps it's her senses as a spy to know when something bad is on the way, or perhaps it's just her connection to Duras Drum giving the Guardian a chance to whisper in the back of her mind:

"Hey, this is gonna be hilarious."

Either way, she's tensed up and ready when Harken suddenly slices her way into the battlefield, and even then it's enough of a surprise for her to let out an astonished note, the spy's eyebrows going far, far up-- and then she's up from her seat, determined to get somewhere not quite so front and centre and obvious within the audience.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Blue is totally the opposite of red!" Zed hisses, because there is a giant scythe woman who is about to kill them all and really now is not the time for regrets, "I mean, if you want to get technical, it's even on the opposite side of the spectrum! Look, ask anyone here, they will tell you that anti-red is just blue!"

  • * *
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

LAST TIME, ON DREAM CHASERS

"PRESENTING! IN THE RED CORNER! THE GUNSLINGER FROM GUILD GALAD, IDA EVERSTEAD-REY!"

Ida waves to the crowd, and--after a moment's deliberation--draws one of her revolvers, twirls, and holsters it.

"THE KING OF THE JOBBERS - CLAUDE C. KENNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

The young man from Earth advances forward, carrying bare steel in his right hand.

"AAAAAND IN THE GREEN CORNEEEEER--! THE DARK HERO DUO, FEATURING OUR VERY OWN WOMAN-FIGHTING MACHINE, Z!"

The one who is DEFINITELY NOT ZED flourishes with a bow as he SUDDENLY EXPLODES FROM THE FOG.

"AND JOINING HIM...! QUICKSILVER HERO K!!"

K(alve) crosses his arms, standing with Z(ed) in preparation for the fight.

The ringing of steel on steel echoes out, and Claude grits his teeth, leaning backward to absorb the momentum of Zed's strike. "What do you even WANT with it?" Claude snaps, disengaging and stepping left, his sword rising in a diagonal cut. "What can be worth that much death?"

Zed pivots his blade to meet Claude's second strike flawlessly, exhibiting economy of motion and deliberate swordplay that simply was not there a moment ago. "I've thought about this a lot, you know. This war. This thing we've got between us. And you know what I realized?"

Ida leaps for it. She rockets out of the saloon, barreling through the swinging doors shoulder-first. She hits the wooden walkway outside, twists into a roll, and comes up on a knee just in time to see Kalve...

...cut a building in half.

Kalve suddenly bursts out of Ida's gunsmoke cloud, coming straight at her. He approaches her with a flying kick, leaping at where he senses her with a flurry of silvery cloth following behind him.

AND THEN

A hairline split in one of the coliseum's towering stone supports makes its presence known by emitting a loud and ungainly crack that scythes through all conversation and narration with an uncomfortable timbre. This big trimuph of masonry howls a wretched song of steel and stone, before sliding clean in half and plummeting for the arena floor with exactly zero grace and poise because, really, what did you expect.

Presumably, nobody is caught underneath, but who's to say? Less protagonist-y bystanders could be forgiven for not noticing the human figure holding a gigantic, curved farming implement standing atop the plummeting tower-top as it falls, given the brief period of time between apparent structural failure and explosive dust-cloud impact. People with a reason to fear impossibly tall humanoid figures wielding scythes on the other hand probably get a horrible sense of deja vu.

Tournament organizers can take this time to consider whether this was on the list of approved environmental hazards as the battlefield building-facimilies all flatten before the shockwave like one of those old nuclear weapon testing videos.

"Pathetic! Worthless!"

"............I think it's for you," Claude says quietly to Zed.

A horrific mockery of a voice somehow drowns out the crashing rumble of exploding stone with the tonality of a sonic boom, as if the air were painfully stitching itself back together into words. A pair of scarlet will-o-wisps burn visibly through the ever-expanding cloud of smashed aggregate and dust, about the right height and separation to be a pair of eyes.

"Harken," says Ida Everstead-Rey.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

AND NOW, THE CONCLUSION

The colisseum is in an uproar. Mercifully, no one seems to have been killed by Harken's violent entrance, but at least some of the tournament-goers are fleeing for their lives. The stadium's guards do their part to keep order, to ensure no one gets trampled. The announcer does his part to keep order, in his own, very strange way.

"HOLY SHIT!" bellows Master Torque. "LOOK OUT, WE GOT A BADASS OVER HERE! WE GOT A MOTHER$^@#ing GRADE-A 100% CERTIFIED BADASS! PERSONAL ASSISTANT PETE, WHO IS THIS INCOMPARABLE SPECIMEN OF ASS-KICKING?"

"Uh," says Pete, just off-mic. He sounds like he would rather be anywhere but here right now. "That--that looks like Lady Harken, the... the Metal Demon."

"OH SHIT!" Torque cries. "THE QUARTER KNIGHT? THE ONE WHO PUT KING JUSTIN IN THE GROUND?!"

"Too soon, boss," Pete whispers, somehow getting even more terrified.

"GREEN TEAM, RED TEAM, YOU'VE JUST BEEN CHALLENGED! YOU'RE ALL GREEN TEAM NOW!"

As all of this unfolds, Ida regroups. She checks the bandana she tied over a cut on her upper arm, tying the knot a little more securely. She cracks open the little tin tonic-holder she keeps for emergencies, because if this isn't an emergency, she doesn't know what is. Ida pulls out a bottle of heal berry liqueur and just downs the entire thing in a single, unladylike go. Like hell she is doing this sober.

Some of the spectators start to sit back down. Perhaps some of them are rationalizing that they're less likely to be killed in the stands than in a mad dash for the exit. No one seems to be cheering, but no one is booing, either. Is this seriously happening? Did a Quarter Knight just barge into the Tournament of Arms?

Yep.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

It had been an interesting fight. Layna didn't know who these 'Dark Heroes' were, other than that one of them had been participating in the tournament, but they certainly put on a good show. Ida and Claude didn't disappoint, either.

And then she showed up.

Layna had to wrestle with two opposing sides of herself. One side was...to put it simply, excited as hell. It'd been looking forward to a chance to face off against Lady Harken again. This didn't seem to be a scripted part of events, so here was her chance, right in front of her.

The other, more logical side of her told her that this was crazy, Lady Harken was a regicidal maniac and nothing good could come of her appearance here. Whatever enchantments were lining the area, they seemed potent...but would they be enough to handle whatever it was she could dish out? More importantly - was this a prelude to another Adlehyde, or just the Quarter Knight's idea of a night on the town?

Eventually, she settled for a comprise to the two sides. She stood up, and rested a hand on the shoulder of the short, stern-faced woman who had been watching the fight next to her. While the announcers panic over the current situation, Layna takes control.

"Dahlia, rally the crew. I want everyone on standby to start evacuating the audience if things start going belly-up, aye? Those guards of theirs could probably use the help." Layna says. Dahlia nods and salutes.

"At once, Captain." She replies, and turns to do as ordered. With one last grin toward her Layna takes a step back before leaping into the arena with a gust of wind behind her.

"Well, well, well! What have we here?" She announces herself and straightens up. She reaches behind her and affixes her shields to her wrists.

She would've preferred to have her real weapons with her here...but something was better than nothing.

"Sorry for jumping in unannounced...but I just couldn't contain myself, aye?" She comments with a grin. All at once, all the red in her costume transforms into green. No point in confusing anyone, right?

She seemed like she was enjoying this...and a part of her certainly was. The other part of her, though, knew that stalling the Quarter Knight here might be the only way to ensure that everyone else got out alive.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

In her own way, Riesenlied's fears had been completely founded when she decided to take part in the proceeds and watch the spectacle happen -- her eyes are wide, pupils shrunken as she watches the tower split in two, masonry and stonework all but dashed in a moment as a triumph of architecture not so much sustains itself but crumbles into naught but several pieces of debris. She coughs in the wake of the falling tower, but that's not her worry at present. She clutches at her chest as she rises from her seat, gasping.

"L-Lady Harken... what are you..."

She instinctively tries to move forward, but-- there's another gasp as she holds at her chest further, coughing a little more heavily. Not at a time like this...

She looks towards Noeline, then towards Harken and the audience again. She watches as some of Layna's crew start assisting, and she knows that's part of what she has to do too. "This way -- stay orderly, and do not panic," she beckons towarsd the people around her.

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny breaks off from arguing with Zed about whose fault this is (spoiler: it's totally Zed's) and pulls out a package from his jacket labeled 'FOR EMERGUNCIES'. He tears off the wrapping to reveal a large T-bone steak, which he throws on to the flat blade of his flame sabre, then flips over after a few seconds of grilling.

"This isn't exactly a bar fight, but you're welcome," he says to Layna as the smell of lightly scorching steak wafts out over the Coliseum. "Just... be careful of the scythe. There's a reason it's the weapon of Death," he adds grimly, flipping the steak one last time. "It's murder inside close range."

Claude flips the so-rare-it's-still-mooing beefsteak to his left hand, blows on it in a cursory fashion, and then bites approximately a third of it off. He chews quickly and swallows before chomping down half of what remains. The last bit vanishes swiftly.

It takes about eight seconds, and is terrifying to behold.

<Pose Tracker> Rena Lanford has posed.

At first it was just a pleasant little bloodsport extravaganza. Watching Two sides clash in a battle of steel and wits! ...Not that Rena really found this super exciting, but heeeeeey.

And then suddenly Lady Harken.

Yes, Rena wouldn't forget her face. Nope. Not after the beating she got on top of the castle walls back in Adlehyde, no siree. Now, the blunette totally-not-a-space elf's reaction to this?

Slap. Facepalm.

"Just when it seems like things are going to be even slightly normal..."

Ugh! Ad there goes those fools about to fight her! Why!? Damn it, she's going to lose all her MP again after this, isn't she? May as well accept it. Rena stands up quickly and shouts down into the arena. "CLAUDE, DON'T GET KILLED, YOU HEAR ME?"

Then she turns away and proceeds to run off to help with evacuations! What? You expected her to go down there and join the fight?

Please, she's helpful, not suicidal.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

What is Lady Harken doing?

She's INTERFERING WITH A FIGHT BETWEEN MEN is what she's doing!!

Zed turns slowly towards the juggernaut that is the Lady Harken, she of the Fast Draw Scythe, the Orphan Originator, the Scarlet Slaughterhouse, the Crimson Evisceration, the Merlot Murderess, the Currant Killer, the Ruby Rose Red Requiem and all kinds of other sundry names. "Laaaaady Harken," he says to the singular member of the Red Team and the only member it will ever truly need. "What... Are you uh. What are you doing, exactly?"

"'Cause," the Dark Hero continues, his hand sloooowly drifting under his cloak, towards the hilt of a Certain Other Sword. "I mean, this was kind of my fight. And it's kind of rude to be stealing a man's fight with another man without asking first??"

<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

A fair distance from the arena, Elena sits in the medic booth. Where they have a few medical experts, and a few magical ones, on stand-by in case something goes wrong and someone gets injured. It hasn't happened yet, so everyone in the booth is pretty bored. Elena is just happy that the arena is working as intended.

Then a pillar gets hurled.

Everything goes wrong very quickly.

"W-What is happening?!" she asks the others in the booth, finding only then that they have, wisely, GOTTEN OUT OF DODGE while she wasn't looking, possibly to ensure crowd safety. Or just to avoid the Metal Demons. Both decisions are sane. Elena shifts gears from confused to maybe a bit scared, in light of the announcers identifying Lady Harken.

Elena, having an incredibly high wisdom score, beelines for Ida, being the only other person she really knows in a ten miles radius. Well, person who's present. This takes her right outside the arena, on the edge, as close as she can justify getting to Ida without stepping onto the ring. This may end up not mattering to the new challenger.

"M-Miss Everstead, are you sure it is a good idea to continue with the battle? This does not appear to have been planned!" Elena still shoots a glare towards MISTER TORQUE, whom she suspects may in fact have planned this despite his surprise. From what she had seen so far he seemed very fond of nasty surprised.

<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

Yarobeleedt was in the stands, up to mischief of some indeterminate nature. Something about unoccupied seats and unseemly-looking fluid matter, but that's hardly important to go into detail about now. He's there when he sees the figure atop the pillar.

Moments later he's jumped into someone's arms, shrieking in terror at a pitch too high for human ears to hear.

"Daddy, look what jumped into my lap!" The child says, unaware about how improbable it is that someone of their stature and build is capable of holding this creature without being crushed to death immediately. "Can we keep it?"

Yarobeleedt looks at the child under his comically too-effective hood, screams another high-pitched scream that is further too high for human ears to hear, and continues this series of misplaced jumping-into-arms-screaming moments ad nauseum.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Not least amongst the pressures holding Riesenlied back, a certain Crimson Noble's hand on her arm. Slowly, she shakes her head. "Something is wrong..." she mutters, half to herself and half as a warning. Face drawn into a thin line, she sucks in a breath and calls out along with her companion, rousing the nearby audience out of their shock as a complement to Riese's warmer nature.

<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

The general panic and Harken's slow egress from the site of her grand arrival give the general populace time to either hunker down in their seats safely, or put as much distance between themselves and the arena as possible. Soon enough, though, a spectre wielding a wicked scythe of burnished gold and scarlet emerges from the ghostly embrace of the billowing dust with a terrifying gravity to each dramatic step.

"How far have you come since we last crossed blades?" snarls the Quarter Knight in what sounds like an unhinged and poorly-filtered interpretation of a human voice, demanding an answer from the American Spaceman as he swiftly Monster Hunters his stamina back to full. "Because befriending this imbecile won't get you anywhere." it's not actually clear whether that last one is directed at Zed or Claude, since the towering figure of Murder before them isn't bothering to look between them while speaking.

To a select few in this shattered mess of an arena, something is amiss. Something is wrong. This reminds Ida more starkly of the Lady Harken on the night Adlehyde was bathed in flames, the laughing spectre caked in blood, than it does the sinister and skulking figure in the dark corners of the coliseum. There is no hint of the almost (almost) gruff geniality Zed witnessed a glimpse of during his most intense ninja training. There is no sign of the put-upon superior with a disregard for the dogma and the weariness of the Demon march on Filgaia that Noeline and Riesenlied had perhaps come to count on. There is only a bottomless thirst for blood and battle that, to be fair, matches up well with Claude's personal experience and everyone else's probably-limited exposure to the crazy lady with the scythe and probably matches the horrible rumours that form the bulk of Kalve's familiarity.

"You need a reminder, Zed..." Harken breathes the words aloud, visible clouds of steam hissing from her teeth with every syllable. "... of how to properly dispose of this Filgaian vermin. Unless you want to stop me...?"

The Quarter Knight with billowing cloak and wicked scythe looks coiled and ready to spring at a heartbeat's notice. Standing still against the backdrop of the somewhat-ruined coliseum, she beckons with a hand. Come, it says, ready yourselves.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

"This is what you wanted," Ida says, to Harken. It's a statement, not a question. She dabs at the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief, then puts both handkerchief and bottle securely in their metal case. "You thought that Claude and I were very interesting." Ida draws, opens the chamber, and slides in six bullets in rapid succession before holstering the revolver. The other revolver gets the same efficient treatment.

Ida's head whips to the side, and she regards Elena with a look that is way too calm for the situation unfolding around her. Ida must have her fear in a triangle choke or something. "She will not let us leave without one," the naturalist says. She sounds deadly-serious. "Sister Elena, I recommend you leave as soon as you can--" Harken speaks. The sound of that voice sends thin spiderweb cracks through the facade of resolve. Her face tics. "Get out of here," Ida says, a little more urgently.

Ida turns on a heel, adjusting the collar of her duelist's jacket. The little capelet with the Everstead-Rey logo on it billows in the breeze. She nods to Claude, then to Layna, and then... to Zed? Is he seriously going to challenge his superior over a fight?

Yeah, probably.

"BEGIN!"

Ida draws like lightning, sights on Harken through lifeforce alone, and pulls the trigger. A single, standard-issue bullet flies downrange, towards the Quarter Knight's center of mass.

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny's body in a light crouch, his sabre held in front of him in a slight variation from the classical guard, angled diagonally rather than to the full vertical. He watches Harken carefully, his mind sorting through his experience from their last encounter.

"Keep your distance, but remember she can fire Air Slashes," he notes. "I'll try to keep her attention, but she's wicked fast. If she closes on you, and she will, you need to watch for the point for the most part," he counsels in a low voice, "But the edge is deceptively dangerous. You need to dodge to the opposite end of the blade," he stresses. "If the blade is curving to your left and you dodge left, all she has to do is pull it back toward her to rip open your back. Blade left, dodge right. Blade right, dodge left."

Five months on Cow Patty Planet have taught Claude that you can learn a lot from failure. He has learned a lot since Adlehyde.

The advising done, the young man from Earth spins the sabre in his right hand and pitches his voice to carry. "There's only one way to find out, Little Miss Slashy," Claude calls out, pulling his right arm back. "AIR SLASH!" he roars, firing a (slightly red-tinged) blade toward the Quarter Knight as he breaks into a run. He fires another one just in case she dodges the first.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Lady Harken with Air Slash!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: That attack doesn't exist. [Revolver shot]
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lady Harken with Everstead-Rey Model 10 Mk. III!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Something is wrong.

Something is wrong.

This Lady Harken is not the Lady Harken Zed knows. She wasn't this way even in the middle of the Adlehyde Eradication Plan. It's not for lack of blood being spilled, surely. There's been plenty for her to fight recently, hasn't there?

...

......

Oh no! There hasn't been a major fight since Old Petra!

LADY HARKEN IS BLOODSTARVED.

"Ah. Ahahahahahahahahahahaha, uh. Well." Zed pales and sweats like he's a highschool boy about to ask his beloved cheerleader captain to the highschool prom. "Uuuuuuunder normal circumstances, I think I'd be getting the hell out right about now. But."

"Buuuuuuuuuuut..."

Zed grins.

He draws Doombringer from its sheath.

"You have no idea how much I've wanted to fight you at your angriest. Come on! Let's have some fun!" Oh no.

ZED IS BLOODSTARVED

"IIIIKEEEEEE---!" Zed roars, lunging in against ALL GOOD SENSE and ALL MANNER OF STRATEGY to go and melee with one of his ostensible commanding officers and VAST SUPERIOR IN PRETTY MUCH EVERY WAY. He needs to get close. It's the only way to hit her with his sword.

GS: Zed has attacked Lady Harken with Ill Advised Melee Combo!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Up in the stands, Dahlia is hard at working making sure the rest of the Ruby Empress's crew knew the situation. She'd confiscated a sign from one of the arena-goers - a sign reading 'RETIRE THE JOBBER', featuring Claude's face with X's for eyes and stink-lines emanating from it - and had flipped it over to write a single symbol on the back.

The crew knew what that symbol meant. It was the sign to assemble.

Back in the arena itself...

"Aye lad, I know that." Layna replies with a nod toward Claude. She'd seen what that weapon could do, after all. She bore the evidence on her face, in the form of a scar. Still, he had some good advice. It was something to keep in mind, though often a fight came down to pure instinct.

What this does mean is that she knows not to get in Harken's face - at least, not right away. She recites an incantation, sending out an array of razor-sharp blades of air to assault her opponent. She then begins to move, not wanting to stay in one place for too long.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Lady Harken with Air Blades!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

"You wish me to leave?!" Elena retorts to Ida, just after the Lady's speech to Zed. She didn't much understand it - is that man she's talking to another Demon? An agent? Context! Elena is missing context. It's terrible. The priestess frowns, looking on as Ida and Claude rush onward to engage the foe. It's... intimidating, but...

"I... Miss Everstead, such is not the way of Lord Granas! If I am capable of aiding, then I must! You should know this already!" Her void stiffens, as she quotes: "For in Lord Granas' light did all find refuge, and he could not bear the thought of denying any His light."

Elena hops onto the arena, a bit skittish, but defying Ida's cold order. She produces a scepter, or maybe it's a mace. Some mix between a functional metal club and a ceremonial one. Why a songstress needs a blunt instrument to bludgeon people with is a mystery for the ages.

She twirls it, and points it at Lady Harken.

When she tries to say something her voice kind of croaks in her throat and nothing comes out. What could she even say? Her magic does the talking for her instead. Bubbles shoot out from her staff, a swarm of blue and green rushing for the Metal Demon!

They might make her feel a bit drowsy.

Among other symptoms.

GS: Elena has attacked Lady Harken with Nightmare Ball !
GS: Elena has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

In the wake of people evacuating, Riesenlied's mind is stirring as she lifts her head up and listens to Harken's taunt. Her voice is raspy. There's something -- beyond anger there. It's more than just the hatred she's come to know of Lord Siegfried, of Lord Berserk. She wants to be there, to help. She isn't certain what's happened to her superior, but it deeply concerns her. There's so much that she doesn't know about -- what happened. What happened behind closed doors, after Arctica, after Alhazred. She's voiced her concerns, and even Lord Siegfried has his doubts...

She hears a wailing child. She stops, and leans over to pat her on the head and pick her up gently. "Shh... it'll be all right."

She bites at her lip and shakes her head, as she turns. A fight is not what's needed here, not right now. "Let's find your mother... hmm?"

Quietly, motes of light were shimmering from her back, photons rather conveniently lining up through dust and smoke to guide those that are beleaguered and panicked to safety. It's like she can assemble her own emergency aircraft lights, how convenient!

GS: Lady Harken takes a glancing hit from Zed's Ill Advised Melee Combo for 45 hit points!
DC: MISS! Lady Harken completely evades Air Slash from Claude C. Kenny!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Everstead-Rey Model 10 Mk. III for 88 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken guards a hit from Layna Manydays's Air Blades for 43 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Elena's Nightmare Ball  for 86 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Lady Harken!
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

As Zed dares to answer... HER... challenge, Yarobeleedt is now cowering under a series of seats closest to Riesenlied and Noeline, having decided that somehow this is the least offensive position for him to be.

"^Silly Greenhead^ dares...!" He gibbers. His feelings for ^Silly Greenhead^ are a complicated matter. To watch a Quarter Knight, let alone HER, be defied by HIM, of all people, as though he were smoothly intermingling with the humans against HER...

They're really doing it. Zed is actually doing this. He is raising a blade against HER. It should be an inspiring rally for Zed's super-complicated cool-dude-buddies against a proven rampaging monster who seemed largely unstoppable in the height of the Adlehyde assault!

Zed could be rendered dead in an instant! It's unthinkable! It blows the mind!

It may have legitimately blown Yarobeleedt's mind, because his jaw has dropped all the way open and he is steadily drooling gross chemical-laden saliva like a spilled half-drank soda.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Noeline, similarly to Riese, is letting her mind whirl. It would be completely fair to say that her distrust of Alhazred is very well founded; he's never deigned to do anything to her in specific, but when you have bits of a Guardian's medium lodged inside of you - when you're slowly learning the tenets of sorcery - you do learn to develop a certain level of paranoia even beyond that of the average spy in enemy territory.

For her, such a dramatic change in Harken's behaviour is-- disquieting and worrisome all at once. Harken's consideration for the pair after the events of Old Petra - however blunt it may have been - is still something Noeline's prepared to put a lot of stock and respect in. Compare that to the demon currently rampaging to the arena below, and it's like night and day, and even if Harken is legendarily happy to have a good old fight, she has a hard time believing such a marked change is natural.

It reminds her, instinctively, of the thoughts that drove her during the attack on Adlehyde - a hope that perhaps the Hyadeans might someday be more than just mindless soldiers, and a suspicion that there are many who would actively go against that hope through sheer malice.

That's about as far as her thoughts go, however, because it's a little difficult to help a poor old woman out of the burgeoning, evacuating crowd and also have deep thoughts at the same time.

"Goodness, dear, you do look pretty, all dolled up like that."

"Yes-- well-- surely there are better times for that sort of observation, hm? Come on, come on--"

"Oh, yes, you remind me of my daughter. Why, I've got a woodcut here somewhere in my pockets. Let me just see..."

Gods, it's like trying to move a wet sandbag.

<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

"Have you really wanted that, for so long...?" Harken seems to be paying close attention to Zed's words, never a great prospect, with a very unstable melody to her tone. "Let's see how much fun you have as your Human friends lie dying before your helpless, fool's eyes!" and with that, battle is joined. The Quarter Knight's feet leave the ground and her body follows, thrown forward at the kind of speed usually reserved for fixed-wing aircraft. Where Doombringer and Azrael clash in the midst of the arena, sparks not only fly, the ground itself craters beneath the site of impact.

"Interesting..." Harken breathes an answer Ida's way, eyes unable to focus on her. This is partly because she is locked in combat with Zed, and partly because she does not seem entirely lucid right now. Said eyes occasionally wash pure red, in a bizarre way that seems to have no rhyme or reason. "Your struggles, your pilfering, your weaknesses... all I want is for them to end!"

Ida's ARM finds Harken, holding still for a moment, to be an easy target to lock on to, the Demon's rampaging aura a blazing beacon that cannot be hidden. Her aim, guided as it is, is true--but standard-issue bullets are arguably not designed to put down such beasts. There is a brilliant cluster of sparks and a metallic *clang* as something ricochets off of Harken's breastplate, and her eyes briefly fixate on Ida. Her attention is caught.

"Still playing with toys you don't fully understand, aren't you...?" Harken demands of Ida, catching Zed's sword in one hand. This is a fool's errand: Doombringer bites into her gauntlet and into her (admittedly metallic) flesh, but it doesn't appear to slow the rampaging Demon down one bit. Rather, as the Sister of Granas wisely capitalizes on the situation, and a cloud of ensorcelled bubbles sprays from the nervous Elena's scepter and wreathes around the Scarlet Knight's form, there is an uneasy pause. Rather than doze off, it turns out, the magical contamination only serves to...

... speed her up.

Harken's scythe makes a horrendous screeching roar as she brings it to bear, even as magical blades of pressurized air rain from the heavens at the pirate lady's command and bite into the Demon's armor. All of these hits are landing, and they look solid, but they just don't seem to find... purchase. "I hear the babblings of lost fools looking to their Gods for guidance, but they didn't save your King..."

(Harken come on he wasn't everyone's king)

"And they won't save you!" The Quarter Knight's voice rises to a scream for this last statement, and she backsteps a foot away from Zed to deal with Claude at the very last second. There's no windup or preparation, just the instantaneous violent motion of the Fast Draw. Azrael bites the ground and air alike mercilessly, and a single visible shockwave of crackling azure blue intercepts the incoming dual air-slashes, their force crashing upon the rocks of the (apparently) superior technique. It also bears down on the blonde American boy somewhere around the speed of sound, threatening to pulverize him!

Zed is the closest person. Poor Zed. Harken's motion is fluid and continuous, her scythe an unending wheel of graceful murder from one technique into the other, coming at him from a diagonal and altogether unlikely angle without a word of challenge, or warning. The blade has also begun to glow cherry-red, like hot coals--that can't be good!?

The Quarter Knight's form shimmers uncomfortably, as if a mirage on a hot summer's day. Layna's goal was to not get in Harken's face immediately like Zed did, which was a very wise move, but what's about to follow might put a wrench in that plan. Similarly, Elena's potentially ceremonial arm might come up a touch short when the distance between her and the Hell Murder Demon of Legend (tm) closes.

More to the point: Harken's physical form shimmers, then seems to split into three, which Ida might remember the last time she and June got uncomfortably close to Harken. Three Lady Harkens, three scythes, three intents of murder, all screaming towards Layna, Elena, and Ida with impossible grace and celerity, ready to reap each one of them with a single swing. But which one is real? Which strike will land?

(It's all of them. Afterimages ftw.)

GS: Lady Harken has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Fast Draw - Speed Fang!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Azrael - Spinning Slash!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Layna Manydays with Azrael - Reaper Slice!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Elena with Azrael - Spinning Slash!
GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Azrael - Spinning Slash for 141 hit points!
GS: Poison and Cripple! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Elena takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Azrael - Spinning Slash for 112 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Layna Manydays takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Azrael - Reaper Slice for 195 hit points!
GS: Poison and Cripple! Statuses applied to Layna Manydays!
GS: Lady Harken has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Zed with Azrael - Cross Cut!
GS: Lady Harken takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Lady Harken has completed her action.
GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Azrael - Cross Cut for 85 hit points!
DC: MISS! Claude C. Kenny completely evades Fast Draw - Speed Fang from Lady Harken!
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

"What would you even know of gods, Demon?!" Elena retorts, hearing amidst the many words of the Quarter Knight's speech a sneer towards her faith. If you get Elena angry enough she'll find words to say and stop being intimidated! "It would not do for Lord Granas to save us from all of our hardships! He wishes to see the choices we will make after his sacrifice to stop the Dark God!" Well, sacrifice. Plunging yourself into sleep seemingly forever is a sacrifice for sure. "I-It is unfortunate, what happened to the king, but as the murderer how can you even claim to have the high ground to accuse Lord Granas of not acting! It is your own fault for choosing to draw blood, not the fault of those who did not respond!!!" Her tone is increasingly screechy through this lecture.

Lady Harken's reply is a scythe.

It's a very poignant reply, let's be honest.

She attempts to guard with her scepter, and it comes as very little surprise when the Quarter Knight cuts right through it. Now with two halves of a scepter and a gash across a shoulder, the Songstress hits the ground behind her and blood begins staining her poofy white dress. "I-I am fine!" she immediatly says towards Ida, expecting her to try to make her leave again.

Dropping the halves of her weapon, she produces instead her trusty Mana Egg, the glimmering white and blue jewel covered in runes lighting up immediatly. "Lord Granas, please! Rain life upon us!" A pulse of blue, like water, forms circles above the arena. From them, large droplets of ~magical water~ rain, refreshing Elena, Ida and Layna, helping close their injuries and make them feel a bit better.

GS: Elena has attacked Layna Manydays with Droplets of Life!
GS: Elena has attacked Elena with Droplets of Life!
GS: Elena has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Droplets of Life!
GS: Elena has completed her action.
GS: Elena heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Elena heals Elena! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Elena heals Layna Manydays! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Was it possible that Lady Harken had just been holding back, up there on the roof of Adlehyde Castle? Layna didn't remember her being nearly this fast.

Or...maybe it was like her copy said.

She was going soft. She'd forgotten her killing instinct, and now she was paying the price.

The Quarter Knight is moving far too quickly for her to dodge. Layna raises her shields for protection and starts to move as Claude had recommended...

...But when Azrael seeks blood, it is not so easily deterred.

The scythe sweeps right through her shields and they fall to the ground, rent, soon followed by their wielder as the force of the swing sends her flying backward with a bloody slash across her chest and arms. She falls backward, and lies still on the ground for what seems like a solid minute.

Within the stands, Dahlia pauses in her evacuation work for a moment to stare down, concern appearing on her typically stern face.

"Captain..." She murmurs, then turns her attention back to the work at hand. She couldn't let the sacrifice those brave - or perhaps foolish - souls were making go to waste.

Back in the arena...

The sound of something metal hitting the ground next to Layna catches her attention.

Someone had thrown her proper weapons into the ring. With a grunt she forces herself upward and draws a bottle from somewhere, drinking deep from it before sliding the bladed gauntlets on.

"Alright...let's get this started for real then, aye...?" She murmurs. She moves in again, reinvigorated both by her drink and the healing rain provided by Elena. She was still wounded, but right now those injuries felt a little less severe.

"Many thanks, lass." Layna says, nodding towards Elena and tipping her hat to her.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Layna Manydays with Careening!
GS: Layna Manydays takes 10 damage from Poison!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Layna Manydays heals Layna Manydays! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed is doing the unthinkable. For a member of the rank and file, no matter how infamous, to raise a sword against the Quarter Knights-- it could be construed as heresy and rebellion at worst. If he is not struck down immediately for his insubordination, for his raw arrogance-- if by some strange miracle he survives-- then he will almost certainly suffer some manner of sanction down the road.

Why, then?

Why risk everything on a fight that barely even matters?

Is it just a matter of desire?

Has he put everything to chance simply for a single moment of glorious battle?

"Of course!" Zed roars in answer to each and every question. "What do you think I am? I am Hyadean! A warrior! Battle sings in my veins! I want this, I want to fight, to see the extent of my current power! Ahahahahaha!" Sword and scythe ring with cataclysmic force with each and every impact. Harken's fluid strikes are met with Zed's quicksilver swings, and each and every one only deepens the crater they're standing in.

Zed is brave, that much is undeniable. He's also a fool, but nobody's questioning that. And today, it's clear, for all his skill, Harken is still his superior. A criss-crossing cut is met half-way, the first strike smashing against a deft parry, the second sweeping down in a lethal follow-up stroke.

Zed grits his teeth.

He darts into the swing.

The scythe's very tip carves a razor-thin trail down the Metal Demon's shoulders and across his back. But he's in close now. A polearm is at a disadvantage against a sword at such an angle.

For all the good it might do him.

"I don't know whether you're in your right mind or not, but right now..." Zed swings. He turns, he swings again. He transforms into a tornado of strikes and parries and dodges- a maelstrom of violence at point blank range. "Right now, my blood is hammering against my ears! Its loud roar tells me to put everything I can into fighting you! Let's see if it's enough!"

(It's probably not.)

GS: Zed has attacked Lady Harken with Dark Horse - Supreme Tornado!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Blade left, dodge right. Blade right, dodge left. Ida absorbs this, though she's not sure how practical it will be, given how fast she's seen Harken move. She strongly suspects that she had Chapapanga's own luck when she last fought the Quarter Knight, and unfolding events seem to confirm this.

The bullet glances. Ida expected it to, and she's already in motion as Harken just straight-up tanks it. The gunslinger hops to the side, moving further out into the center of the arena. As Zed and Harken slug it out in melee, Ida fires again and again and again, emptying the rest of the chambers. Her aim is dead-on, but each bullet meets with the scythe, or with that dense armor. It's like Harken is bulletproof.

That blur. Ida's eyes widen, and for a moment, she tries to figure out if the scythe is left or right. That moment ends up costing her--the answer is right, but Ida dodges left far too late, the blade slicing into the side of her left thigh. Blood sprays from the wound into the dirt, and spills freely down Ida's leg. She bites her cheek to keep herself from screaming.

--=FOCUS=--

Healing rain spils down on the arena, dripping off the brim of Ida's hat and soaking into her clothing. She glances over at Elena as the pain dies down, but does not chide the priestess for staying--instead, she jerks a thumb out, gesturing behind her in the trusty old 'please get behind me' signal. For all the good it'll do.

Ida holsters the empty revolver, and draws its mate, taking aim at Harken as she closes with Zed again. She snaps off all six shots, one after the other, though she's honestly not sure what kind of good fanning will do if standard-issue bullets weren't working earlier.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lady Harken with Fan the Hammer!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Despite the fact that he is the graduate of a military academy and an honest-to-goodness university, Claude C. Kenny is not very intelligent. He pretty much coasted through his education on his family name. When his companion, Rena Lanford, asked him why he spent so much time looking at the sky, he answered that it was because he was looking for starships. And the first time he met Kalve, they had a conversation about Geiger that went on long past the point that both of them should have realized the other shouldn't know what radiation is. Cecilia Adlehyde, one of the three people he is closest to on the surface of Filgaia, has described him as a sort of garden variety goon. And he thought Zed was in charge of the Metal Demons. He is not very book smart. Or, really, very smart-smart.

But he has been trained by a master of kung fu since he was old enough to walk, and by a master swordsman since his eighth year. He has more than a decade of experience in... well, not combat, but the next best thing.

'SEVEN YEARS AGO'

"If you can snatch this pebble from my hand, Claude, you will be ready."

"....Mom, that's not a pebble."

"Sure it is."

"I'm pretty sure it's a hand grenade."

"PIN'S OUT, SNATCH IT CLAUDE"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

'NOW'

Claude C. Kenny is fast - he's in peak physical condition, at the prime of his youth, and has no Limiter to hold him back. But Lady Harken is faster; Claude knows this, because he felt it for himself atop the palace of Adlehyde. And it is the lessons from his second teacher, the Fellpool swordsman Roddick Farrence, that serve him in this moment. You can't teach fast , Roddick would say, and you can't teach big. There's no way to counter it head-on. If someone is superstrong and you're not, you can't let them apply that strength; technique is the solution. And if they're superfast, then you need to adapt your rhythm, and time your moves just that half-step faster than you otherwise would. It takes training - but Claude has it.

Harken is as fast as she was on the rooftop; the difference is that this time he knows exactly how much faster she is.

By the time Harken has launched her scythe-beams, Claude has traveled another six paces, his feet kicking up sand as he runs. He launches another pair of Air Slashes, still on the move, intercepting her stronger waveforms with two more projectiles, which are finally enough to deflect them away. Three to one is a bad trade, and so Claude pulls back his left hand, focusing his chi, and then sends a charged ball of power streaking toward Harken, blue-yellow chi sizzling as it crosses the distance.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Lady Harken with The Ladies Call Me Hadouken Because I'm Down Right Fierce!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's The Ladies Call Me Hadouken Because I'm Down Right Fierce for 80 hit
points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Fan the Hammer for 87 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a glancing hit from Zed's Dark Horse - Supreme Tornado for 53 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

Compare and contrast Zed's boiling quicksilver blood for battle to a fine specimen of Hyadean lineage up in the stands. A Hyadean whom boasts a proud specification in scouting, advance movements, and also behind movements (such as hiding behind someone else).

Yarobeleedt doesn't have it in him to look at HER head on, shifting a sleeve in and out of his field of vision any time he thinks she may pop in there. Oh sure, some humans are being slaughtered down there, it would be better if all the humans up here were also being slaughtered but there's this tiny one that looks at him funny every so often and it would be better if they weren't watching because positional logistics and tactical advantages and etcetera etcetera etcetera but then he'll happily kill them all--

Yarobeleedt schemes not as a proud warrior that reflects the superiority in strength of his people, but as a lowly worm struggling to survive by any means possible. He could never truly understand what burns in the beating heart of the ^Silly Greenhead^.

He could continue to totally pretend that that is him down there striking them down, though. He gurgles a chortling for the power fantasy.

<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

Elena's steadfast beliefs draw a peal of laughter from the Quarter Knight, whose many flickering images fade as she stands still for a moment to put a hand to her face and howl with unhinged glee. Don't mistake it for a shrill witch's cackle, it's a full-bodied, sharply-ringing and aggressive spillover of amusement with a truly curious and inhuman (or too-human?) intensity to it. "What would I know of your Gods? That they tremble and hide, while we claim your lands! While we kill the idiots and weaklings who lead you!" Harken's teeth are also very pearly white, did you notice? Elena can tell, because the woman in scarlet armour with the scythe is grinning in a horrific fashion as she rebuts her. "Pray to them! Do it! Offer them your dying screams!"

Poor Layna's shields never stood a chance, but better they get cleaved in twain than she, right? Something to reflect on as the vile, crackling blade of Azrael whirls away from her with a terrible and heavy report on every swing, and as those shields lie cooling on the ground in molten halves. Good grief.

The dance at the middle of the arena between the two Hyadeans only grows more terrible and swift as it goes. The force exerted by each dodged, parried, or blocked inhuman blow sends cracks shooting through the ground and starts to tickle the machinery responsible for keeping the matches entertaining beneath. Something to keep in mind. "So long as you cavort with these humans, it will never be enough!" Harken spits at Zed with an illogical combination of rapturous glee and poisonous contempt. That's really not her normal voice at all, it's like someone downloaded a virus into her vocal chords or something. "I'll carve that habit out of you!"

The billowing dust in the arena is quietened, somewhat, by the pitter-patter of healing rain, which also gives everything a John Woo quality to it as Ida nimbly evades the most lethal portion of the Quarter Knight's martial dance. Each return shot, indeed, disappearing with a cloud of sparks from either armour or scythe-blade alike. It's probably as frustrating as it is hopeless. Is she playing with her food? Why isn't the finishing blow coming?

Because, as much as she might talk a big game, the Humans aren't that bad.

Claude nimbly evades the wave of fighting spirit in scythe-beam form, which crashes into the far wall of the coliseum in a tidal spray of chipped stone and, thankfully, no human body-parts. His own return pair of attacks is faster, stronger, than before. Harken seems to anticipate it with a gleeful grin, ploughing into the sizzling waves of weaponized Fight Energy with a forward-step to meet Zed in close combat. By all rights, the sword should have the upper hand at this kind of range, and the frenzy of strikes and swings he unleashes seem to slip past the polearm's guard, but the same problem as Ida is having is here: it doesn't seem like it's enough. It doesn't slow her down. It's like striking an oncoming train, one which only seems to speed up with every landed blow.

Words appear to be in short supply from the Quarter Knight's lips, as the pace picks up further. Her scarlet form is a whorl of motion, but are Zed's eyes on the scythe? Or on her feet? Because Harken suddenly tries to stamp on the green-haired larriken's foot and uppercut him with her offhand, which is not exactly a move out of the scythe-wielder's normal playbook!

The scythe-wielding hand is still moving, at that. Azrael cuts a cruel arc through the air and buries itself in the groud for a split-second. By now, Ida has probably seen enough Air Slash to know what comes next: another rippling azure wave of violence, thundering through the ground towards her. It seems Harken wants to give her a taste of her own, ranged medicine, but then, what of the others?

Well, unless Zed does something to stop the Quarter Knight from moving, she elects to hurl her scythe at the swiftly-recovering Layna and Elena, and it boomerangs for them with an eerie, rotor-esque cadence of a noise as it bears down on the two. There is very little reason for something so large and ungainly to fly in that fashion, but there's also very little time for them to contemplate this without getting painfully exsanguinated.

Regardless of who's caught in Azrael's path, the spinning scythe soon loops towards Claude, and the blonde American finds himself face-to-face with the Quarter Knight Lady Harken, who appears at the weapon's side mere heartbeats after it starts to round on him. It's kind of graceful that she can wuxia-dance around the battlefield like this, and also fly, and bring that terrible cursed blade down on him at Mach 3, but it also really kind of sucks terribly. What he has that Harken doesn't, however, is training from a mom who is quite legitimately probably scarier than she is.

GS: Lady Harken has attacked Lady Harken with Lethal Momentum!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Lethal Momentum for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Quick! Statuses applied to Lady Harken!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Zed with Sleeping Azrael - Taunting Strike!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Layna Manydays with Fast Draw - Slash Rave!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Elena with Fast Draw - Slash Rave!
GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Sleeping Azrael - Taunting Strike for 56 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Fast Draw - Speed Fang!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Azrael - Cross Cut!
GS: Lady Harken takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Lady Harken has completed her action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Azrael - Cross Cut for 83 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Slash Rave for 59 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Captain's Orders!!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Captain's Orders!!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Zed with Captain's Orders!!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Elena with Captain's Orders!!
GS: Layna Manydays takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Captain's Orders! for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Claude C. Kenny gains 15 extra FP from Layna Manydays!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Captain's Orders! for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 15 extra FP from Layna Manydays!
GS: CRITICAL! Zed takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Captain's Orders! for 0 hit points!
GS: Poison and Cripple! Statuses applied to Zed!
GS: Reload! Zed gains 15 extra FP from Layna Manydays!
GS: Elena takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Captain's Orders! for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Elena gains 15 extra FP from Layna Manydays!
GS: Elena takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Slash Rave for 54 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Speed Fang for 62 hit points!
GS: Zed has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

The screaming of the child in Riesenlied's arms just seems to intensify, like the child can sense the blood-curdling thirst for murder from the Quarter Knight aside the area. There's a genteel 'shh...' as Riesenlied continues towards the exit, wincing just a little further as the arena continues to rock under the continued pressure of the waves of power emanating from each combatant. She shares the feeling, really -- there's nothing at all pleasant about the way she watches her superior rage across the arena like a literal Demon possessed.

"T-there you are!"

She turns, and sees a frantic mother running up to her, nodding as she hands the child over. "Thank you-- thank you! Whoever you are..." and then they're off, as she ushers her to go on.

"... this isn't the Harken that protected me," she murmurs as she lays her hand against the side of the exit wall. "This isn't the Harken that looked after us in Old Petra."

She grits her teeth, squeezing her hands tighter. She feels helpless.

She won't forget this. She won't let this slide. Someone will answer to the nonsense that's happened here.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Naturally, Cecilia Lynn Adlehyde was around to watch her friend Claude fight.

Also naturally, when a GOD DAMN QUARTER KNIGHT showed up, the crowd reacted in immediate horror, and Cecilia was swept away, accompanied only by her friend and Protection Pal as she was whisked away from the front lines. But as the guards panic about what to do, she knew what she should do.

So the gates to the Arena open, only now as the crowd thins enough for her to push through; and the Princess in Blue charges into the open, her staff appearing in her hands with a spark of shining magic. And a second later, she thrusts it forward, and a bolt of light leaps from the tip; a raw blast of unaspected Ley energy racing out to bop Harken one. She sets her feet. She has to be unafraid.

She has to fight this. Even though she finds her fingers grip her staff too tight. "We're here!" she calls to Claude. Wait, 'we'?

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

The injury from before still hurts, and she's painfully reminded of it as she gets back into a proper fighting stance. This comes just in time for her to see Azrael whirling at her. With a wince she dives out of the way, using of her gauntlets to shift the scythe's path just enough that it only clips her, rather than taking off a limb.

Of course, with a scythe like Azrael even a mere clipping was still quite the injury.

Still, Layna's not deterred. She stands up tall, cape and hair billowing behind her.

"This isn't over yet...not by a long shot, aye!? Stand tall, me hearties! Show her your heart, your resolve! We can't fall here! Pull out everything you've got, aye!?" She shouts. The people here were friends, allies. Claude, Ida...she didn't know Elena, but even though she had a chance, to run, she hadn't. She didn't know the 'Dark Hero Z', either, but here he was, fighting...even though he was apparently ostensibly on Lady Harken's side.

She didn't want to let any of them down.

Up in the stands, Layna's crew hears her orders as well. They continue their evacuation work with renewed determination. Ol' Anchor-Arms Andy, the biggest and strongest of them all, even lifts a few of the more stubborn audience members out of there himself.

Back in the arena...

Layna glances to the side as a new face enters the fray. She doesn't recognize Cecilia, but she's not about to turn down some extra help. She offers her a grin, but she doesn't turn her attention away from the fight for long.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

With a noise of effort, Noeline has finally decided to just help a number of people out of the arena at once; she looks almost comical as put upon as she is, gritting her teeth as she carries a man whose response was a dead faint over one shoulder, hurdles an old woman along with the other hand, and calls back over her shoulder to direct a couple of children behind her. Somehow, they all make it out of the arena in varying fashions, though perhaps she could be a little less rough as she sets the man down.

After a moment, she looks behind her towards the arena, setting her jaw in a line; she almost starts back towards it, but hesitates, glancing to one side before placing a hand on Riesenlied's back. "... this is probably where I should counsel you to be careful and cautious," she mutters quietly ad privately, but lets out a slow breath as she closes her eyes. "... but it would make me a bit of a hypocrite, I suppose. ... I'm going back in. I want to learn what has happened--..."

Something, a flash of blue, catches the corner of her eye, and immediately she stiffens, twisting to one side to catch the sight - and smirks without humour, at once impressed and exasperated. "Good grief."

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Zed seems to be content to take on Lady Harken in close-quarters combat for now, and Claude C. Kenny is willing to let him do it for as long as he is able. The Hyadean's physiology makes him tougher than the Earthling officer - not necessarily stronger, but certainly tougher - even with the Federation's armoured weave. Claude is pretty sure - not certain, but pretty sure - that Azrael can't carve through whatever the hell his uniform is made out of, but he doesn't want to test it.

Unfortunately, Harken does not give him a vote, because she's suddenly in his face and Claude is already moving, spinning in place, turning his back toward Harken - which almost certainly looks insane - in order to bring his sword up in a horizontal guard against the descending edge of the scythe. Claude's left forearm braces against the back of the still-burning sabre, its fire not so much as charring the surface of his gear. He braces himself; his defence is perfect, his body is ready.

Harken tears through it anyway, Azazel's blade breaking through the guard and pinning Claude's arms against his body, the scythe edge painfully working into his upper arm and shoulder. Claude ducks and slides Azazel off the forte of his blade, the scythe ricocheting off the bell guard, spinning the young swordsman back around to face the Quarter Knight. He's bruised, but still alive and fighting. It's enough for now.

"Nice try, Little Miss Slashy!" Claude snaps, bringing his blazing sword around in a rapid three-thrust combination, aiming for left hip, face, and abomen in a series of light thrusts, more to poke holes at Harken's guard, give him time to accelerate his movements. "But compared to your buddy Berserk, that was nothing!" He flicks a stop-cut at Azazel's shaft, trying to slash at Harken's relatively unprotected fingers. "Sorry to say, Lady, but you fight like a..."

Claude smashes his foot down, causing a massive spike of earth to rise up out of the ground directly in front of Harken, trying to smash Azazel up out of her hands for just a second. Claude roars as he steps forward, bringing his blade across his body in two rapid cuts, cleaving through the stone pillar - and with luck, into the woman behind it.

"...cow," he completes, because after 10,000 years they've finally probably got the whole sexism thing finished off in space.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Lady Harken with Twin Slash!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Lady Harken with Ley Blast!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

And right after he says 'cow,' SUDDENLY A CECILIA!

Claude looks at her, his eyes widening at a healthy fraction of the speed of pure terror.

WHY IS CECILIA HERE

WHY IS THE ONE PERSON WHO CAN TALK TO GUARDIANS HERE

WHY IS SHE TRYING TO PULL LITTLE MISS SLASHY

DOES LITERALLY NO ONE HERE KNOW HOW AGGRO WORKS

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Something continues to be dearly, sorely wrong.

"Hah! Is that what you're saying now? Come on Harken. You and I both know that's not right!" If there's anything Zed is, it's unpredictable. Unpredictable learns to predict unpredictable. Harken's heel drives into his toe. He grits his teeth as she swings for the fences and hits--

Empty air?

Zed's head shifted six inches to the right. His grin is as infuriating and bloodthirsty as ever. "This isn't like you. This isn't what you're like at all! And more importantly, how is it taking you THIS LONG to kill one Hyadean and a whole bunch of humans? What's gotten into that head of yours!?" Is that really the best question to ask the lady who can cut buildings in half with her scythe's shockwaves?

No, but but that's kind of Zed's thing-- not being smart.

"Faster--" Zed growls as every second swing is blocked. So he adds a third, then a fourth. "I can still go faster than this! Rrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaagh!" Cut. Cut cut cut cut cut cut cut--

But then... She throws her scythe. An opening. Zed roars and swings--

There's nothing left to cut.

"What--?" Zed hisses as Harken suddenly just isn't there anymore. His head whips around, following her scythe's lethal trajectory towards...

"Claude!" Zed yells, and suddenly he's not there either. He's over there, opposite to his BELOVED RIVAL. "HARKEN! WE'RE NOT DONE!" Zed yells, his fury only growing with each passing moment. His heartbeat throbs thunderously in his skull, it beats like a hammer against an anvil that exists only on the inside of his chest. The light of his soul expands, burning bright as it swallows his sword in a halo of searing energies...!

Just as Harken's scythe burns red, Zed's sword glows gold.

It's swung, again and again and again. Faster, faster. He needs to keep going faster, or he'll never break through...! "COME ON, TURN AND FACE ME, HARKEEEEEN!"

GS: Zed has attacked Lady Harken with RayBlade - Zed Saber!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida had no idea you could somehow make Lady Harken more terrifying to fight, but it happened. That voice--that horrible voice--it's like someone dragging a razor along her nerves. She wasn't even that unhinged at Adlehyde. Whatever it is, it's done nothing to weaken her fighting skills.

It is incredibly hard to keep track of Harken while in pain and bleeding, but Ida tries. As soon as she sees Harken raise the scythe towards her, she knows what's coming, and throws herself out of the way. Fresh pain shoots through her thigh as she leaps, and blood trails her through the tuck-and-roll, leaving red splatters on the ground. The Speed Fang misses her by inches, but it's cold comfort considering that horrible wound somehow got even worse. Someone charges onto the arena floor as Ida staggers to her feet, favoring her left leg.

"Princess--!" Ida cries. And then, a moment later: "Rudy!" She is both relieved and terrified, and it shows on her face. Layna's orders do not fall on deaf ears, either; on an intellectual level, Ida realizes that this is ironically the safest place to be right now, but on an irrational level, she suspects that if anyone could break through the ancient wards, it's Lady Goddamn Harken. The encouragement is welcome. As she angles towards Claude, Ida holsters her revolver, and draws something that might be able to break through Harken's defenses.

"BACK, DEVIL," Ida roars, and a second later, Devil's Due fires at Harken's center of mass. A bullet, rendered half-molten by the Dragonbreath igniter, races towards the Quarter Knight. Not content with that, Ida fires again, and again.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lady Harken with Devil's Draw!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.

Not everyone is running away. Most people are, obviously, but the brave and stupid still want to see some action.

Including Fargo Foobach, the Man in White, though which category he sits in is uncertain. His shirt hangs open halfway, revealing his heavily bandaged chest, though it's a wonder he's already up and moving. He remained calm, almost bored through the eruption of the incident.

The brim of his hat tips upward when Cecilia comes charging into the chaos, eyes barely visible, tracking her movements.

<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

"Lord Granas does not cower!" Elena replies, offended. "He sleeps, it is not the same thing! He sleeps so that we can live!" It's a long story, one the Quarter Knight probably doesn't care for - or perhaps, already knows. Elena doesn't know how old Metal Demons can be, and there's not much of a way to date the slash-happy lady before them. Those teeth ARE pretty scary though.

She finds refuge behind Ida, as instructed. It proves somewhat effective, as angling the scythe to hide Elena behind her living cover is just that tiny, tiny smidge more difficult enough for someone like Lady Harken that the Songstress has enough time to flail out of the way by stumbling to her right, the blade cutting past her head and undoing her perfect haircut, as well as tracing a red streak across one of her ears. That could've gone much worse. Much, much worse.

"Why? Why is everyone so intent on disrespecting Lord Granas?!" Elena whines, perhaps to Ida specifically. First that savage and his spirits, now the Metal Demons! What's next, the Guard will openly declare that Althena is better than Lord Granas in every way, dashing her hopes that the Church of Granas and Althena's Guard can cooperate?

Elena's brows twitch. An intense white light surrounds her and she clasps her hands together in prayer. "F-Fine, then! I will pray! I will pray that you godless Demons can be shown the way!" Is she being sincere or just trying to sound intimidating to a Quarter Knight? It might be both. It's probably not effective. Elena mutters a prayer under her breath. She ends it with just "White Light!" and then there's light in the sky again. Piercing, blinding white light.

Then there's a column of holy energy, blasting down from the heavens to strike Lady Harken between Claude and Zed's strikes, just as it also shields Elena from retaliation.

Amidst the chaos she spots the incoming help. Thank god, she thinks - oh, and Ida knows them! More friends to meet! ... you know, when this crisis is averted, and hopefully this city isn't set on fire like the last one.

GS: Elena has attacked Lady Harken with White Light!
GS: Elena has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

Riesenlied is witness to raw human emotion. She has a front row seat to watching happiness and relief bloom from the grasp of unadultered mortal terror. The panicked families unite and exit, the unsettled calm. For the shorter duration of their lives, their emotional states prove transient - an inability to grasp a longer state of being? Malleable to the slightest emotional impetus that registers stronger than their current state of mind can sustain? For her involvement, one family is able to come together again rather than be permanently severed from one another in a wet trail of blood and tears.

"Could stabbed??" Comes a voice that is harsh and annoying to the ears, as a dark-cloaked figure walks-- no, slithers-- up to the Tainted woman, as if in disbelief over what it is he saw. "Easy easy? Fifth letter, last letter???"

As Riesenlied grapples with the acknowledgement about the differences between the Quarter Knight who showed both restraint and care, compared to the bloodthirsty whirlwind of blood and metal down in the arena, Yarobeleedt makes an unwelcome insertion into her sensory perceptions.

He hovers a ways behind her, as though content to be that little voice just out of reach.

"Humans are all here soft unexpectedly?! Is too easy! Is even one easy. Zero easy! Why not??" He grinds the tips of his hidden weapon-transformed hands, as though wondering if maybe this is an opportunity to get one up over the ^Tainted^ commander. Bragging about killing more humans in Lacour without having it be able to be disproved would be really great!!

Here comes one panicked older lady right now, in fact, calling out a name that neither of them would recognize, as Yarobeleedt moves to position himself behind her.

"Fufufu. Show, not tell? Tell and show...!"

He raises an arm, the tip of a scythe-like protrusion from the sleeve becoming visible - ready to strike the old lady down as she passes by...

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

By far, her only interest in the tournament is how much gella she can cheat out of the various bookmaking outfits in Lacour. It is rare that she actually comes to see the fights in the tournament live - only a couple, if that.

But the conwoman is here now, pale-gold tresses glinting faintly under the high-noon sun. Cassidy Cain has perched herself on a seat in spite of the thunder emanating from hundreds of footsteps streaming out of the arena, screams at their wake. Her hand is in a bag of roasted chestnuts.

She doesn't pay attention to the exeunt of the rest; green, gold-flecked eyes are focused on the Metal Demon wreaking havoc in the ring, and those who stand against her. Lashes lidded, she pops one of the chestnuts in her mouth, jaw setting on a contemplative chew, looking very much like a morbidly interested spectator.

She does, however, have a very good reason for watching this.

<Pose Tracker> Kalve has posed.

The battle yet rages. QUICKSILVER HERO K is... nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, at a safe (ish) distance from the prime spectacle of nail-biting terror and the phenonenon of Heroic Intervention, a particularly brightly-poncho'd individual sits and watches. Kalve has occupied some prime seating, apparently recovered his strangely effective primary disguise component, and excused himself from the immediate vicinity otherwise. That weird scarf-ARM of his is laid out in his hands, too, but it looks frayed.

Edge of his seat, though... and that's as far as he's going, conflicting loyalties being what they are. He doesn't look terribly happy.

<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.

When the battle of Claude was beginning, Rudy Roughnight was not in the city. He promised he would be there, but the dig that he was pulled on lasted a bit longer than he planned on and needed to rest after the exhausting journey. Through a variety of reasons, the moment he seems to make his way toward the arena, there is a sudden charge of people making their way out. Brown eyes taken in the people with concern. "It's one of those Metal Demons!" one cries.

That is all Rudy needs.

As the princess makes her arrival, it is no surprise that he pushes himself to try and make his way toward her and Claude.

It appears that is the 'we'.

As others make their speeches or encouragements, Rudy merely levels his weapon, the Hand Cannon aimed right for Harken. He doesn't fire though, not yet. Even as the battle continues to rage. After all, everyone has a code, even Rudy as he gives the final chance for peace.

"You won't beat us. Surrender, flee..." The weapon's hammer slides back as Rudy's eyes narrow, compassion duels with his seemingly uncharacteristic hatred as his attention seems leveled on the Quarter Knight Harken. "Or die."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied's eyes widen towards Yarobeleedt as he comes up beside her. Then, there is a deep-set frown as she seizes at that weapon-transformed hand, without fear, without hesitation.

Her blood starts to trickle as she grasps onto the Metal Demon scout's blade. It's red. Just another reminder of how much of an Other she is.

"Do you want to trouble us more?" she demands of him. "This is neutral ground. We already have become the first to stymie that arrangement."

She steps closer, that expression of genteel concern and mirth dying down. There's a cold fury, barely restrained in her voice. "Do not feed them further, Yarobeleedt. Ours is an already complicated situation."

She lets go. The emanation that comes from her frame, no matter how tainted, is daunting. It is the kind of voice that she uses to bray lesser monsters, the presence that she uses to rattle them at an instinctual level. And as much as she does not enjoy using it, as much as she wishes to treat everyone with equal respect, there is a limit.

"Begone."

GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Devil's Draw for 139 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Ley Blast for 76 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a glancing hit from Elena's White Light for 73 hit points!
GS: Elena takes Cover! She gains 50 temporary hit points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a glancing hit from Zed's RayBlade - Zed Saber for 62 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken guards a hit from Claude C. Kenny's Twin Slash for 66 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

Just behind Riesenlied, having turned to spot the most squiggly of demons, Noeline only allows herself a thin smile - but one that is tinged with pride for the sake of Riesenlied and her resolve. It's hard to hate the snake-like creature, per se; she can't really describe what she feels for Yaro, but perhaps the closest word might be 'pity'.

On the other hand, pity doesn't allow you to backstab old ladies, Gods.

She leans in, close enough to murmur to the blonde Hyadean: "... the princess is here," is her report, the spy furrowing her brow as she feels the stirring of Duras Drum in the back of her mind.

Noeline doesn't explicitly need a Medium embedded in her face to tell that the Hades Guardian's stance on all of this is that it is hilarious, and would you pass the popcorn?

"I-- they may be able to hold her off, at least for the moment." It's a snap judgement, and one that involves a great deal of wishful thinking on the whole - that much is written on her face, together with the way she's urgently scanning the stands for any other signs of townsfolk.

She pauses as she spots those lunatics sat across the way, huffs once, and internally amends that to 'any other signs of nice, normal townsfolk that actually want and/or need saving'.

<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

"Keh?!" Yarobeleedt gasps as the scythe-hand is caught. His first instinct would be to wiggle it loose. Wiggle waggle. He does not. The entire arm finds the improbable combination of going limp and freezing solid at the same time. His elbow cracks loudly as though it were this short of just falling off the joint entirely.

His beady little eyes lock into hers. She can see them from under his hood. The way they unfocus, roll, and otherwise convey intent to look anywhere but through the eyes of her firm determination about finding another way. Where the softness of a kind soul peels to reveal it is built on a foundation of centuries of sorrow, loss, and desire.

When she lets go, the arm does not drop. The scythe-forearm drips, shedding some of Yarobeleedt's mass in faucet-like drops that cause a hiss of smoke above the stone it splashes upon.

In the blink of the eyes of someone else other than Riesenlied, he's gone. It's as though he never existed, and that this convenient left-over trail of kinda-sorta slime leading up and over the wall and out was left behind as a little gift from the heavens above.

Noeline might not want to step in any of that. It would ruin her shoes.

<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

A spiralling blast of energy, like a lone survivor from the Itano Circus, hones in on Lady Harken from behind with tremendous speed and accuracy. A good gambit: Metal Demons seem pringles to sorcery, and Cecilia making the most of her surprise entrance against the vile beast that killed her dad is a logical move. It's a heart-breaking moment, then, that instead of laying the Quarter Knight low with a sneaky surprise attack at the start of the round that the bolt of ley energy instead seems to impact ... something, a hair's breadth away from Harken's actual body. A momentary glimmer of a colour hard to capture in words: a shimmer of horrendous negative violet and black, that drinks greedily of the excess energy before it can blast Harken too severely from behind. What? What?

It does, however, put the Scarlet Knight off-guard for just long enough for Elena's prayers to take form, and be heard. A column of blue-white light engulfs the battlefield, and the Metal Demon leader especially, that same eerie negative aura beginning to burn brightly (for lack of better term) as unknowable energies rain upon Harken. "I feel the touch of your God," spits the scythe-wielding psychopath, her eyes nothing but empty pits of crimson in which no discernable human features can be found. "And I will cast your Lord Granas down further than you can ever imagine!"

Elena gains one gold star for helping to make Lady Harken even angrier than she previously was. Holy: a good element to have?

Maybe if she was more lucid, Harken would finally give Zed a modicum of respect for his abilities, as he follows her across the arena at speeds unimaginable. Even when his blade cuts nothing but air, he's keeping up with one of the Photosphere's primary tools used for infiltrating and murdering things at the speed of thought. On the other hand, all that smack he's talking would probably ruin it. "Are you denying me the glory of the hunt?" Harken asks Zed with the voice of one whose senses are well and truly scrambled. "You ant, you plaything, you joke!" and without her feet ever touching the ground, the scarlet knight screams a wordless and highly-distorted wail of unknowable emotions as she and The Guy She Likes The Least After Berserk start striking each other's weapons approximately one-hundreds times a second, neither finding a gap in the other's defenses. The racket is awful. A real cacophony, metal screams and miniature sonic booms as the air rushes to fill the void left by Hyadean weapons swung with unfathomable strength and speed. Who is left standing as the auras of scarlet and gold grow, swell, wrestle and grapple with one another as their wielders seek to kill the other?!

Oh, she can fight multiple people at once. To the death. Right. "Don't speak of that fool to me!" howls Harken in reply to Claude's taunts, pushing aside an incoming blow from the Dread Zauber 'Doombringer' with a wildly-improbable parry at an angle that hurts to think about too closely, rounding on the blonde teen. If she has her way, they're both about to find out how durable the Federation's armoured clothes really are. "If you're such a big fan of him, why don't I take you back home for you two to compare notes after I take your arms and legs from you!?"

Claude's feint is successful: Harken swivels and backs off just in time to keep his sword from hitting her gauntleted fingers, and the spacefaring macho's use of the earth as a pillar to obscure his movements is tactically pretty damn sound. When his sword bites home, the second strike plunges into Harken's pauldron amidst a spray of chipped stone and dust, but here lies the rub: now he's toe-to-toe with a ten-foot tall alien designed to bathe in blood. Hmm.

Plus side: all of this carnage means that, at least, Layna does not have a glowing scythe bearing down on her again for a moment. It's the little things that count.

At that moment, and that moment precisely, a half-molten bullet of many strange alloys and energies hits Harken in the side of the head. Cooling metal and rock splash over her face, followed by one more, and another, and another. It sizzles her metallic flesh and there is a noise that escapes her lips something like pain--wait--no, actually, it was a little groaning giggle of elation, as she turns her head slowly to look at Ida Everstead-Rey without budging an inch, elsewise. "You..." she slowly points at Ida, and then at Rudy, who has the gall, the gall I tell you, to point a gun at her (but not the chops to fire, like Ida did. Tsk.) "And you..."

"Are both going to die here. Make your peace."

The flickering crimson aura present around Harken begins to throb sinuously while she wipes the molten rounds from her face, before thunderously exploding outwards. Her very wish to strangle every last face in the Lacour coliseum bears enough force behind it to do the killing for her, what need has she of weapons?

<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

-=BUT WAIT ONE SECOND=-

The Lacour Tournament of Arms(tm) Arena(tm) is equipped with, as we all know, a bevy of machinery designed to keep the battlefield more interesting and varied than the sandy circles of yore. Now, because I demand it and have whimsical desires, the machinery in question is beginning to activate either as a result of the world-shattering blows being unleashed above it, or because a fleeing technician slapped the button clumsily on their way out the door. What this means to you, the viewer (and participant), is that a great shuddering and shaking visits the arena as the symbological and mechanical components whir to life. The floor begins to split and slide apart, and brightly-coloured symbols on distant as-of-yet-uncut support pillars flare brightly the colours of blue summer skies, fresh-fallen snow, deep ocean trenches. Snow begins to fall from the sky, and great battlements and turrets of ice rise from the ground. The beleaguered combatants find themselves amidst a great castle of ice and must adapt accordingly.

GS: Lady Harken has attacked Elena with Fast Draw - Slash Rave!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Fast Draw - Slash Rave!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Fast Draw - Slash Rave!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Fast Draw - Slash Rave!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Why did I get so close to My Biggest Fan Lady Harken???!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Zed with Azrael - Guillotine!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Slash Rave for 159 hit points!
GS: Zed has activated a Force Action!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Azrael - Guillotine for 263 hit points!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Slash Rave for 81 hit points!
GS: Elena takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Slash Rave for 163 hit points!
GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Why did I get so close to My Biggest Fan Lady Harken??? for 156 hit
points!
[GROUP] ERROR: No group entered to check.
GS: Rudy Roughnight guards a hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Slash Rave for 94 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken has completed her action.
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Captain's Orders!!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Captain's Orders!!
GS: Layna Manydays takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Captain's Orders! for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Cecilia Adlehyde gains 15 extra FP from Layna Manydays!
GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Captain's Orders! for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Claude C. Kenny gains 15 extra FP from Layna Manydays!
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

Prayer status: rousing success.

Elena should be proud for pulling that off, but Lady Harken seems pissed. Elena realizes maybe that was a mistake after all. Maybe this is one person she shouldn't screech at. Or maybe it... is? It's really unclear if the Quarter Knight being angry is distracting her or making her more powerful. Maybe both? Probably both.

The masked hero certainly seems to be putting a dent into her. They must have a rivalry going, Elena surmises, based on their exchanged? Something about the masked hero failing, not doing what he should be doing. So he's a traitor? A... good? Metal Demon? Is that even possible?

There are all good questions that'll have to wait. The arena changes to one of ice and snow. Elena finds it beautiful, having an affinity for ice magic to begin with. Sadly there's still an angry Quarter Knight at play, beautiful ice castle or not.

And that intense pressure and blast of force knocks Elena straight through a wall of ice. She's lucky her back didn't break from the impact alone, but Lady Harken's outburst has completely destroyed Elena's shield of faith. The literal one, the holy energy. The metaphorical shield that is her faith is going to be tougher to break.

As she stands again, she dashes for the ramparts of the castle to seek high ground. Her hands clutch her Mana Egg, and holy energy gathers again - this time, there's no obrital strike, no deadly beam from the sky. There's a column of light though, centered on Zed, as Elena's words mutter prayers and channel energy into him.

"Mysterious hero! Lord Granas will guide your strikes, so please, show this Demon the way out! We cannot afford this fight drawing on, if she continues like this, the crowd will..." Is the crowd at risk? It's hard to say. But Harken is definitely getting stronger and faster as time passes. And more reckless.

For his trouble, Zed gains a HOLY AURA. It infuses his fists and sword especially, a shining white and gold halo and empowers his next strikes with Lady Harken's favorite element. It also revitalizes him somewhat.

GS: Elena has attacked Zed with Hymn to Granas!
GS: Elena has completed her action.
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Elena's Hymn to Granas for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Zed!
GS: Reload! Zed gains 15 extra FP from Elena!
GS: Zed enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna watches as Lady Harken launches into an assault on her allies. None of them came to her, however. Did Harken pass her over because she just appeared to be shouting to the heavens? It was hard to tell. Of course, just because she wasn't attacking her directly didn't mean that she wasn't in danger.

Layna braces herself against the outpouring of killing intent, Harken's very aura forcing her back. Up in the stands, her crew are having to defend themselves from it as well. They protect civilians where they can - Ol' Anchor-Arms Andy shielding many of them with his very body.

They survive, but not without effort. It only serves to drive home the danger present in the arena.

As Layna recovers, she looks about in surprise as the area around them suddenly seems to shift and transform, forming what appears to be a castle of solid ice. Her surprise wasn't because she wasn't familiar with this - she'd seen it plenty of times in her fights. No, the more baffling part was that...it was happening in the middle of a fight like this.

Those producers were insane. Did they arrange this, or did someone else do so? Well, this wasn't the time for worrying about that!

"Don't let the change in surroundings catch you off-guard! Stay steady and keep fighting!" Layna shouts. "And if you can, use the terrain to your advantage!"

With that said, she hunkers down and awaits Harken's next moves.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida's shot hits home. The bullet slams into the head of a Metal Demon warlord with enough force to reduce a human cranium to a thin red mist. It staggers her, but--wait--

She's laughing?

Ida's mouth falls open, and her blood runs turns to ice. For an instant, she's back on Castle Adlehyde, bleeding in the cool night air. Ida stumbles back as the wave of force erupts, but there's nowhere to run. It slams into her like a physical blow, knocking off her feet; she hits the ground, the air rushing from her lungs as her entire ribcage turns into a single knot of pain. She coughs violently, blood bubbling up between her lips, and her body jerks involuntarily. For a moment, it looks like Harken's laid her out.

Once, there was a Maiden,

Chi surges. It boils out of each meridian, suffusing Ida's body in invisible energy. Her martial skill, combined with her heer will to keep going, takes over where her flesh starts to fail--and fail it does.

Who struck an iron wall until she shattered her hand.

Harken tore through a major muscle in her leg, cracked half her ribs, drained almost two pints of blood out of her, but still she rises. Redirected vital force is the only thing keeping her leg from giving out, but still she rises. The blood flow has all but stopped.

She did not stop, though cracks spread throughout her bones.

"YOU THINK YOU'VE BESTED ME, DEMON?!" Ida roars. It is a foolhardy thing to say to someone who, just a few minutes ago, said she would kill her. Blood drips from the corner of her mouth, but she sights Devil's Due again, breathing as deeply as she can through the pain. Her feet slip a little on the ice, and her breath mists in the air, but aside from that, she doesn't seem to register the change.

She did not stop, though blood sprayed her eyes. )]

"I CAST YOU OUT!" Elena might never have seen an Etone in action. Ida is not precisely an Etone, but she damn sure looks like one as she pulls the trigger. A mandala of silver and red traces itself out out the ground at her feet, with silvery lines blowing across the ground, tracking Harken.

She did not stop until she shattered the wall.

Molten flame sprays from the barrel of Devil's Due, a fierce torrent of Dragon-fire in hues of brilliant gold and red. It's shot through with silvery, demon-blood-colored smoke, and it melts any ice unfortunate enough to be in its flight path. Ida holds down the trigger. The bullet is long since spent, but that doesn't matter. All that matters is stopping Harken--wounding her badly enough for Cecilia to land the final blow.

"Survival is fury," she said.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Lady Harken with Dragon's Breath!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 4 damage from Poison!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Her attack pings off some ephemeral power around Harken. "...no openings," Cecilia murmurs. "Even to magic like that, she's on her guard..." She braces herself. She's faced demons directly before. Grindelwhatsit was scary, and attacked her head on without support. Compared to that...she actually finds this less scary.

And, indeed, when Harken comes, that impossibly fast scythe tearing at her, she only throws up her guard; a magic barrier catching the slash of her blade across her front. Then Cecilia shifts her stance around and whirls her staff, catching energy out of the air. A Wing leypoint swirls up around her, glimmering green magic seeping out of the world at her call. She thrusts the staff forward, a tornado leaping across the distance between Sorceress and Demoness. "We couldn't just...leave you to this, Claude!" Cecilia yells at his silent shock; and then, she looks to Rudy. How strange it is, to see him so furious...but she squares her stance a bit, trying to draw strength from her gunslinging friend. "We won't stop fighting...No matter how strong you are, if we have to, we'll keep climbing after you!"

GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Lady Harken with Vortex!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

One-hundred times a second. Two-hundred times a second. Three. Four. In the space of a single moment, in a sliver of time so insignificant in the span of even a human life, two Hyadean warriors exchange a flurry of blows that neither can afford to draw their attention away from. To avert their eyes for even an instant-- to allow their resolve to flag or their concentration to waver-- could mean a lethal mistake.

But even with that, even in a flawless exchange, there can only be one who stands, and only one who falls.

Zed--

Just barely, cannot keep up.

The green-haired Hyadean yells as pain shoots through his nerves. A vast spray of quicksilver blood erupts from deadly lines carved across his torso. But even then, even as his heart hammers his blood from his veins, Zed...

Can't... Stop...!

"I thought... I knew there was something wrong. Now..." His hand tightens around the hilt of the invincible cursed sword. "Your voice. Everything is wrong. Don't you remember what we were just doing!?" He staggers forward, leaning into the onslaught of blades, even as wound after wound is torn open. "Wake up, Harken! Whatever has got hold of you, punch it in the teeth and WAKE U---"

The ground is moving.

Zed hisses as a column of ice suddenly shoots up underfoot, forcing him to stagger back, a maneuver cut abruptly short as he stumbles right into a frozen wall. "Khhhhh... Damnit--" The masked warrior wheezes, slumping back as he tries to force his quicksilver blood back into his chest. "Can't just... Let up now--"

Harken is still moving.

Her fury, unnatural as it is, rages on unabated. She might be getting stronger, faster, but she's growing unhinged. This isn't how she should be fighting- this isn't her role among the knights. Something is wrong and it could mean the end of her.

His sword... Isn't enough to stop her alone.

Not alone.

But then comes the light.

It's an unfamiliar sensation. A strange energy that vaguely tingles across Zed's skin. He doesn't know what to make of it- he has no context for what it might be, only... That it seems to have set his sword on fire.

And, more importantly, it seems to be keeping him from collapsing.

"H...Haaaah. G-granas, huh...?" Zed chuckles as his grip tightens. He slumps forward before his spine catches and straightens. "Granas or Mother or whoever is watching, alright..." He roars, his sword burning white and gold and pink and green. "Alright! LET'S CUT LOOSE, ONE MORE TIIIIIIIIIIIIME!"

Zed takes a step forward.

He readies his sword...!

And then, in the blink of an eye, in a spray of quicksilver blood, in a flash of action and a haze of violence, Zed is suddenly right there. Right next to Harken.

In the heart of the storm.

"HAAAAAAAAAARKEEEEEN! HEEEEERE I GOOOOO! TAKE IT!" Zed cuts once, horizontally. "MY SWORD!"

That Zed disappears. Another emerges behind the first, swinging diagonally. "MY SOUL!!"

One more. Zed fades back and suddenly shifts forward again, his glowing blade flashing in a tight crescent, "AND EVERYTHING I'VE GOT!!! Ze-tto...! Sakura--"

One more slash, one more spray of silver. Zed swings...!

And finishes...

That sign...!

--=Z=--

Zed turns. He... Sheathes his sword.

"SUPERNOVA!"

The Z wavers, the air shimmers, and finally, the world is consumed by a catastrophic explosion.

Zed smiles as the white-hot globe expands, consumes him, and turns him...

To speedlines...!

GS: Zed has activated a Force Action!
GS: Zed has activated a Force Action!
GS: Zed has attacked Lady Harken with Split Ladle Sakura Supernova!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.

Who knows what Rudy expected when he made that declaration toward Harken. Either way, when the explosion of power comes forth, the arm not equipped with an ARM is raised and the young man seems to just weather the storm, his feet sliding against the ground under the sheer power of the attack as the forearm protects his face from the all encompassing assault. Roughnight still stands, however, and despite the burns and scrapes caused by the assault, he seems more angry than hurt.

As the Princess attacks with her guns, Elena encourages with powerful magics, Claude and Zed uses their powerful sword techniques, even as a pirate captain uses the power of morale to push people past their limit. Ida seemed to have the similar idea as Rudy himself, her special ARM and ammo payload announcing her murderous intent. Oddly, he merely gives her a nod in agreement as if understanding and validating her feelings on this Demon. Of course, it likely won't be registered, but that's the problem of being a boy of silence in a warzone of words, shouted ideologies, and explosions.

In the wake of all these special attacks, Rudy is content to merely offer his contribution, three high powered bullets. They may lack the flare of some of his companions, but hopefully, if they hit they'll show that the blue haired boy is willing to make good on his promise.

While he doesn't seem to be the sort for speeches often, when Cecilia speaks on not leaving friends, Rudy gives a nod with two simple words that offer affirmation. "That's right!" Offering Cecilia and Claude a warm smile to pair with his sage addition to the mid-battle conversation, the outcast turns toward Harken once more. As the smile fades into the battle hardened expression of a warrior, Rudy moves toward the rising battlements, jumping toward them and catching the edge with one hand. As the foe likely prepares herself for her next assault, Rudy pulls himself up, trying to get a higher ground, which he erroneously believes will give him the edge.

GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Lady Harken with Shots Fired!
GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny has experienced many firsts in his time on Cow Patty Planet, including:

-His first time introducing himself to someone who doesn't ask him if he's related to that Kenny

-His first time drinking beer

-His first fighting tournament and, subsequently, elimination, from same

-His first time drinking beer (suck it, America)

-His first time being invited to ravage a traveling companion by the aunt of the same traveling companion, and being comped a free room to facilitate the aforementioned ravaging

To these he can now add: his first time being knocked away by a killing intent so hate-filled and furious that it is a physical thing. Even his mom never managed that. Claude eats Harken's hate in the face, bounces back off the snow (snow?) and smashes into one of the castle embrasures (what does that word mean?) before falling to his hands and knees. He pushes himself up, groaning softly, then tries to push the soft ringing of a low-grade concussion out of his ears so he can hear the sounds around him. The screams.

Screams?

Claude looks up and around at the stands, where the few foolhardy or slow onlookers have been bowled over by the force of Harken's rage; evidently, the same Symbolic protections that prevent combatants in the Coliseum from taking a mortal blow don't also protect the onlookers from damage. Which was... probably okay when the people in the Coliseum weren't throwing around Sorcery or ARMs, but is really not okay now. And now Harken - the most blood-thirsty Quarter Knight he's seen, which is saying something - is screaming about the hunt. Claude grits his teeth and clenches his hands into fists. This is... a really bad idea. A really, really bad idea. Not counting the spectators, there are a dozen people here, and that's eleven too many. But most of them are Metal Demons (who could get the debrief from Berserk) or people he kind-of sort-of trusts. Others are strangers, who he might be able to fool but can't control.

This is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea. But he can't care about that right now.

And so he unzips his jacket. "I'm not like Cecilia," Claude says, rising to his feet. "I can't save the planet. It's too big for me - I'm not royalty on a sacred quest. I'm just a guy." He plants both feer, snow crunching under his feet. "I can't save a city - it's too big for me," he adds. "I'm not the white knight of a goddess. I'm just a guy. I can't even..." He draws in a shaky breath. "I can't even save the family of my friend. I'm just a guy," he spits, his face flushing with anger, feeling the memory of Justin's blood splashing on his cheek, "Who's too far from home... and too slow on the draw."

Snow begins to flow away from Claude's feet, first on a whisper of wind and then in a rush, blasted away from his body as he gathers his chi. "But I'm here!" he snaps. "And I don't care if you're some sort of misunderstood alien or just batshit fucking crazy!" Claude's arms begin to shimmer with power, Rudy's words and Layna's giving him encouragement, Ida's defiance sparking his own, Cecilia's presence solid behind his back. And for a second, he can't hear the screams. "I'm going to fight!" he snaps. "With everything I have, and to HELL with the consequences! I can't save a planet, or a city, or even a king... but I'll do everything I can to SAVE EVERYONE IN FRONT OF ME!"

Claude vanishes in his own speedline, reappearing three-quarters of the way toward Lady Harken, sliding in the rest of the way toward her. He plants his feet, throwing up a giant cloud of snow around him as he hurtles in toward Harken. With their vision blocked by the snow, Claude hopes no one will see his right hand flashing upward, drawing what looks like a sword hilt with no blade or crossguard out from an underarm holster concealed under his jacket, then whipping it up toward Harken from below, waiting until the arc of his swing has him pointing up at Harken to the sky beyond before screaming---

LIGHT, COME FORTH!

---at which point a blade of pure, brilliant light cuts through the snow, the air, and anything between, a line of pure power rising up into the heavens for the briefest of instants, only to vanish as soon as it came, Claude standing there with empty hands once again.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Lady Harken with 'Sword' of 'Light'!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

Riesenlied struggles a little in the apex of the fight, as those that have gathered turn towards the absolute limits of their powers. For a moment, she is stood between a mixture of awe, both at seeing the kind of power that 'mere' 'humans', by the words of elders who've never stepped foot outside the Photosphere would say, and... yet with a fear at what, collectively, this kind of power may lead to. It isn't just power -- the kind of teamwork and camaraderie displayed is amazing, as well. Layna's taking charge, the light of Granas that Elena has emanated, Zed's unleashing of his true power, Ida's enormous discharge from Devil's Due that plagues at the back of her mind as always, and--

--that light.

She can't be certain, but... that was no spell, nor any kind of technique unravelled from chi. No, if anything, it reminded her of the light of Laevateinn, of photons that emanated from her body. What kind of weapon did that young man have...?

"... Noeline ... let's go."

She lowers her head. She's made up her mind. She turns and drapes her cloak a little closer around herself, fighting back the feeling within her that's all but rattled.

"We have work to do. People to speak to. A home to rebuild."

And then she's departed, slowly, but surely, with that resolve deep in her heart.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

By now, Noeline is seated in the stands - well, perhaps 'seated' is the wrong word, so much as 'hidden, Yaro-style, behind several sections of deserted seats'. It's hard to be stealthy when you're as flamboyant as she is, but then again she's got an extraordinary amount of practice at it - and it's not like anyone in the arena is paying much attention to the audience now that the vast majority of non-combatants have been able to vacate the premises, and the rest of them are swinging around and inside a gigantic castle of ice as if it were a playground.

Just, you know, one filled with blades.

Her eyes scan across the figures moving through the battle, but most of all they settle on Harken herself, feeling out what she can of the Quarter Knight's habits and contrasts to the quiet and - well, 'unassuming' is probably the wrong word to use for Harken, as is 'sedate', but it's kind of close to the way she would normally describe the oddest of the Metal Demon superiors.

"... what happened to you," she mutters as she glances up above the line of the stalls - not pretty work, but it's the fundamentals - and then she's forced to squint against the sudden and vibrantly bright light as it spits into the sky. ARMS are ridiculous, she reminds herself as she shields her eyes, not quite as aware of its nature a certain other Metal Demon might be - and looks back to Riesenlied as she intones her command.

"... yeah..." she mumbles, twisting away to slip out at the commander's arm - though she bites hard into her bottom lip, leaving a glance behind at the devastation as she sucks in a breath. "And more than a few things to look into."

GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Rudy Roughnight's Shots Fired for 31 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Vortex for 73 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Dragon's Breath for 177 hit points!
GS: Poison and Break! Statuses applied to Lady Harken!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Zed's Split Ladle Sakura Supernova for 168 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's 'Sword' of 'Light' for 166 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

I know, I know, this beats the drum on the same point again, but it bears repeating. It's important: the Quarter Knight continues to pick up speed. Each action, each movement, is getting harder the follow, the less of a protagonist you are. Elena has noticed it, and it isn't getting any better, the longer things draw out. Similarly, her eyes--which have long since become bottomless pits of luminous blood in which no trace of mercy or reason may be found, are burning so brightly that they're getting hard to look at. They leave glowing trails in the mist resulting from all that falling snow melting before it can touch Harken's physical form, which means that she generally leaves a hissing, horrible path of steam and bloody light with every leap and step and swing.

It's almost as if someone back at the Photosphere threw down a challenge to her after the Demon of Elru smashed Old Petra to bits and said there's no possible way she could be as bad as him, right? Not a shot.

For Lord Siegfried, I must...

The raging storm of violent intent unfurls beautifully, in the same way a Category V cyclone is beautiful, around the metallic deity of war calling itself Harken. Twisting tendrils of scarlet fury lash at the frozen walls of the prop-castle, smashing the icy battlements into sparkling clouds of dusted gems, in contrast to the elegant mandala of control that ripples through the ground from Ida's feet towards her demonic foe. A small tornado is visited upon the city of Lacour, as the intensity of so many terrifying combatants clash on the material and astral planes. And the wielder of most of this inhuman fury seems robbed of a key sense of self-preservation.

Reason drowns and dies somewhere in Harken's thirst for violence, because it is constantly being sated. No greater high can be imagined, let alone found. "You can't cast me out!" Harken screams at Ida in a voice now full of static, as if the very implication offends her on some deeply-held level. This is a new level of losing control. You can call it: Losing Control 2. The Quarter Knight in scarlet clenches Azrael in both hands as a quicksilver plume of dragonsflame shrieks louder than any of her mad roars, louder than the violent storm of her aura, and blinds anyone foolish enough to be left in the audience for a little while. It crosses the distance between Ida and herself in less time than it takes even her hyper-tuned senses to blink, and punches through that beautiful crimson plate as if it were paper, erupting from the Quarter Knight's back in equal measure, no less intense.

Trust the Good Guys to pick now the pile on.

Blue-haired bombshell Rudy Roughnight is too humble about the quality of his weaponry: each trigger-pull looses a rifle-slug imbued with the inexplicable strength of feeling that makes an ARM and its wielder more than just the sum of its individual parts. The momentarily-immobilized Harken reels with each impact, her earlier momentum seemingly halted. Wisely, he scales to higher ground, so as not to be pulverized by the out-of-control Battle Aura nonsense going on.

Cecilia Lynn Adlehyde, perhaps of all people, has reason to press the attack the fiercest here. A vortex of her own summoning struggles fiercely against the gale brought on by Harken's uncaring destruction, and seems to keep the Quarter Knight from taking another damn step closer to her, or any of the friends she holds dear. Little by little, piece by piece, are the tables turning?

A sword.

Is the first thought to bubble to the surface of the Quarter Knight's mind again in some time, as the Federation Ensign with more brawn than brains, and a heart bigger than both, swears himself a new path and hurls himself back into the fight with a strange weapon. Why does the sight of a sword-hilt hold such meaning to her? Why would it? Harken has never wielded a sword in her life. But things are happening quickly, there's no time to ask questions. Whatever Claude Kenny has in his little hands, the discharge from it probably rates as one of the highest releases on energy in Filgaian history*.

One blinding light joins another. Zed, with nothing left in the tank but his spirit and a dawning sense of something being wrong, descends upon his own superior with heart burning brighter than perhaps even he knew possible. Despite their last exchange almost putting him down, there's no fear in his heart. There's not even any hate. Why is it that when he swings his sword, and before all fades to white and charcoal-sketch, that the scarlet-haired woman who looks up at him in dawning recognition has eyes almost as sad as Riesenlied's...?

...Stronger...

(*Probably not, but doesn't it sound good?)

<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

The world comes back into focus. The ground ceases to shake. Scarlet armour runs into molten rivulets down the Lady Harken's form, yet, she still stands as the deafening roars and explosions fade. An un-light, a smoke woven of negative film through which the world looks twisted and wrong, pours from her wounds. It's hard to tell where her armour plate ends and her flesh begins, so severe is the damage to her entire right side.

...Stronger...

But there's one hand still holding Azrael, fingers clenched strongly. For the sake of dramatics, with the BGM no longer playing, Harken's ragged breathing is audible to everyone involved, and it sounds truly deranged and desperate. But not defeated.

"Run, Zed." is her surprisingly lucid command, before the unfortunate happens, and Lady Harken resumes her violent lashing-out at renewed intensity. Wielding Azrael in a single hand, her towering form simply disappears from where it once stood and her cloak flutters to the ground, detached from its wearer.

A beast of blood and molten metal flickers into view above Ida, encased entirely in that woven web of negative wrongness. Solarized light. Un-life, un-being, the polar opposite of qi and vibrance. A wraith, a ghost, a reaper come to collect its toll. Without word, without sound, a scarlet flash of brilliance arcs through the air between them and through Devil's Due first--and Ida Everstead-Rey second. It is the perfect strike, truly, if only it were happening to someone else that she might appreciate it.

Second. The entire port side of the Ice Castle, turrets and towers and all, explodes. This is because that horrible darkness enclosing the Quarter Knight is lashing out in a way her physical strikes simply cannot, an ever-expanding sphere of poisonous energies which makes remaining anywhere near her an, at best, tumultous and terrifying idea.

But look on the bright side, I say, as unknown energies cooked up by the sickest minds from Hyades threaten to tear Lacour to peices, she looks more horrified than angry, now. Lost, even. What's a Hero(ine) to do, given a moment's reprieve?

GS: Lady Harken has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Fast Draw - Magnum Fang!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Fast Draw - Magnum Fang for 269 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Lady Harken with Lethal Momentum!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Lethal Momentum for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Quick! Statuses applied to Lady Harken!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Loss of Control!
GS: CRITICAL! Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Loss of Control for 197 hit points!
GS: Poison and Cripple! Statuses applied to Claude C. Kenny!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Cecilia Adlehyde with Loss of Control!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Rudy Roughnight with Loss of Control!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Loss of Control for 83 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Layna Manydays with Loss of Control!
GS: Lady Harken has attacked Elena with Loss of Control!
GS: Lady Harken takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Lady Harken has completed her action.
GS: Elena guards a hit from Lady Harken's Loss of Control for 95 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays takes a glancing hit from Lady Harken's Loss of Control for 82 hit points!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action!
GS: CRITICAL! Rudy Roughnight takes a solid hit from Lady Harken's Loss of Control for 211 hit points!
GS: Poison and Cripple! Statuses applied to Rudy Roughnight!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Lady Harken is still standing after taking a Federation-issue phase gun shot to the face. Claude C. Kenny is beginning to suspect that there is some kind of nonsense going on here.

Another discovery: when undoing the jacket that is your sole protection from edged weaponry and bullets to get at said phase gun, doing it back up again is a MAJOR PRIORITY; Harken twitches and then spaces out and then whispers something, and then suddenly people are going down and Claude is bleeding from a cit that basically crosses his chest for exactly the same distance that was not covered by his jacket. He sprawls backward along the snow, crimson droplets ruining the pure white of the Coliseum floor. People are falling, maybe dying. And she's still standing.

Then again, so is he.

Not willing to risk another shot now that Harken may be looking for it, Claude scrambles to his feet in a broken, stumbling rush, both hands trailing blue light as he finally channels the power he had gathered for show. Draconic features form out of two balls of chi, one for each of the young spaceman's hand; he drives the first one toward Azrael, trying to deflect it away, then smashes the second toward the Quarter Knight's centre mass, screaming

"DRAGON'S HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWL"

........

(although it is two dragons so maybe it should be doub....never mind)

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Lady Harken with Dragon's Howl!
GS: Claude C. Kenny takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Dragon's Howl for 142 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida cannot help but watch as Claude unleashes... something. Something too bright to look at, so Ida doesn't--she jerks away, instinctively, and she still ends up with afterimages haunting her vision. She rubs at her eyes furiously, but that doesn't help either. She breathes out, and chi flows out into the world, lighting up her allies like beacons before her mind's eye. Cecilia and Claude are brilliant, Rudy is strange in a way she can't quite put her finger on, and Zed feels even stranger. Harken...

Oh Granas, Harken.

Weeks ago, Ida fought Vorthuzahl, a Demon who turned his own chi into a dark, howling void, a force that could suck the life out of anyone nearby. Ida put the skills her mother taught her to the test, fending it off as best as she could. She'd come away from the fight with a horrible, cold sensation, as though something had been gnawing on her soul, tearing bits off of it.

The juggernaut she faces now is infinitely worse. This is not simply a technique well-honed--this is wrong on every conceivable level. This is wrong in ways that Ida never anticipated. It is like someone punched a hole in the lifeforce of the planet, and then twisted it around, inverted it. And it's bearing down on her, wreathing Harken like a shroud.

Ida opens her mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. Harken's just too fast--the scythe meets absolutely no resistance from the air, or anything else. For a split-second, Harken sees herself reflected in the whites of Ida's eyes, wide as saucers, her face frozen in a look of terror. Actually, there's a little resistance--there's a sharp ping as Devil's Due just... flies out of Ida's hand, and buries itself barrel-first in the ice next to her. Like someone threw it there. There's a long gash down the side of the visible barrel.

For a split-second, Ida looks completely unharmed. Then she twitches, staggers forwards; blood sprays from a wound that looks like it just suddenly appeared several seconds after Harken slashed her. A single, massive wound runs the length of her forearm, continues down the center of her chest, and down part of her right thigh. She stares up at Harken, her mouth working. Nothing comes out. She can feel that horrible corruption sinking into her, threatening to snuff out the precious light keeping her alive.

Ida hits the ground, and a pool of blood starts to form beneath her. Something comes loose from her jacket as she falls, a gleaming metal object--a badge?--that looks... oddly familiar to Harken, in some way she doesn't remember fully. A crest? A brooch with a family crest? It sits just inside the growing pool of Ida's blood, glimmering.

<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

The castle will be missed. By Elena, at least.

She's quite distressed when she sees Lady Harken survive the combined blasts. Quite distressed at her ensuing rampage. Berserker might not even begin to cover this Metal Demon's performance. Was it Ida, who warned Elena that Metal Demons were terrifying and not something to take lightly, especially considering Adlehyde? Elena understands why now.

Even the thick layers of ice between the Songstress and the Quarter Knight aren't enough to shield her from the waves of energy ripping the area asunder. Elena shields herself with water and light, expending her precious mana to survive.

The outbursts doesn't stop. Elena grits her teeth and pushes her prayers a step further. "E-Everyone, please, hold on! She cannot... surely she must have a limit?!" Must she, though? "We merely need to exhaust her!" What a great world it would be if that were true.

Finally Harken's outburst breaks through Elena's defenses. Is she... is that it? Is she out of mana, just like that? She knew she wasn't very experienced, but she thought for sure her limit was higher. She reaches into her dress, pulling a large spherical black object out of it. When in doubt?

"Here goes my impact bomb!"

Elena throws the bomb. It does bomb things, like explode. And stun! Because that's what explosions tend to do to you, especially ones right in your face.

From the corner of her eyes, Elena sees Ida fall too. She attempts using the distraction from her bomb to make her way to her. She's not all that fast on her feet, but she can't just let Ida lay there either.

GS: Elena has attacked Lady Harken with Impact Bomb!
GS: Elena has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

This...this isn't the woman from Castle Adlehyde, Cecilia realizes, dully; as Harken crashes amid the battle, her endless acceleration coming to a halt suddenly. Or rather, it is, but... "Something's wrong here," she breathes. "This...power, it's not right...! Is this the power of a Metal Demon!?" She's fought them before. Berserk, brute as he was, never used anything like this. The way the Medium trembled felt gut-wrenching, but it never sensed anything like this....!

Maybe moot. She throws up her staff again, conjuring another magic barrier just in time for Harken to appear before her again. And the word is appear, a presence sensed as much as seen -- and then it's that presence that washes over her, flows across her bubble of a barrier like a pocket in the ocean. Doomed to drown. But...There's a thing about that.

False though these images may be, Filgaia yet works according to certain laws. The air is thick with Muse energy to create that castle. Cecilia sucks in a breath of noxious air, and breathes. No....prays.

"Guardian Schturdark," she whispers. "This place is filled with a demon's evil...this creature screams and flails but only darkness leaves its mouth!" Her eyes snap open, and the watery energy around her begins to push out against the poisonous sea of Harken's hate, and a stone slate leaps from her bag, whirling around her in counterpoint to her own spin, her staff rising high.

The Aqua Wisp, Medium of Schturdark, twirls into place between the wings of her staff. "Guardian of Water! Heal this broken soul! Judge this evil heart! Wash away this poison until only pure water remains!"

The power around her surges, whirling and gathering, pushing back that anti-light, and amid it, Cecilia seems to flicker and vanish, surmounted by a different, looming figure. Yet, the voice that rings out is still her own. "MATERIAL!"

"ASSAULT TIDE!"

The pressure breaks; and from within that bubble of sacred pressure, a figure forms, massive and glorious. A black tortoise fit for myth, it shakes off the poisonous air around it, drawing in the Muse energy, the natural power of water all around.

And then it sees Harken; and then it screams, with a voice like a waterfall.

Water appears around it, magically formed from the elements of the world and rushing across the land, engulfing Harken's poison and clashing against it with the power of the Guardians.

Moments pass, and soon the magic assault fades; and soon after, Cecilia returns, huffing for breath from the exertion, trying to find Harken amid the chaos of the shattered castle.

GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has activated a Force Action!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has attacked Lady Harken with Material - Assault Tide!
GS: Cecilia Adlehyde has completed her action.
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Elena's Impact Bomb for 113 hit points!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Cecilia Adlehyde's Material - Assault Tide for 157 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

"Atta boy, Claude." Layna says with an approving grin as he makes his stand, and declares his resolve. Lady Harken is barraged by a series of powerful attacks...

The good news: they seem to have an effect.

The bad news: she now seems to have gone insane, this time perhaps even moreso than before.

Good job, heroes!

Even the stands weren't safe from whatever was going on with her, it seemed. Those members of the crew possessing defensive magics employed them to protect those around them, but even those were reaching their limit.

It was becoming increasingly clear to Dahlia that staying here was no longer safe. They'd done all they could. If there was anyone left who was too stubborn to flee, they couldn't be held responsible for them.

She modifies her sign, sending out the signal to retreat.

Down in the Arena, Layna looks up, and manages to catch sight of it.

"Aye...I'm thinking you might have the right idea, Dahlia." Layna murmurs. She glances toward Harken, then towards Ida, collapsed on the ground in a steadily-growing pool of her own blood.

She starts to run toward her, but glances toward Elena as she approaches as well.

"Lass, you've got healing magic! Get her out of here and see to it that she's treated, aye!? If you can't do it yourself, look for a man in robes called Lysander! He'll probably be surrrounded by a bunch of scruffy-looking folk." She orders. "I'll give you some cover!"

She places herself between the two of them then, and begins an incantation. Whirlwinds begin to appear, with the primary goal of blocking Harken's view...if such a thing even mattered anymore. From out of these winds would come a series of wind blades, meant as a distraction more than anything.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Lady Harken with Air Blades!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Air Blades for 80 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

The light fades, it dissolves into so many tiny, insignificant motes, fading away until it's just as indistinguishible from the falling snow.

Zed is bent at the knee. His Hyadean physiology is already working to repair the grievous injuries that have turned the front of his chest into some kind of horrible non-euclidean tic-tac-toe board. But even then, it can't put his blood back into his body. Everything hurts- it hurts more than it's hurt in years.

After that... After all that, after his final strike and Claude's... Whatever the hell that was, could Harken really, truly, still be standing...?

The answer is more terrible than he realizes.

All that did was buy them a moment's respite. All it managed was to win Harken a moment's sanity- enough to deliver a single order.

Run, Zed.

The demon's mouth goes bone dry as his eyes turn to his commander. One of four. One of the greatest of his race. He watches in horror as she loses control. "What... What is this...?" Zed wheezes as that... that corruption-- that FILTH-- explodes out of Harken. Drives her forward, pulls at her limbs like she were nothing more than some kind of marionnette. "What is this!? Who did this to you!? Harke--"

His voice is smothered in his throat by something else.

He turns, slowly, his eyes widening as he finds...

The Guardian.

Schturdark...!

One power meets the other. Purity and corruption clash in a cataclysmic collision of forces. Only one can remain in the end, but... After all that, can anything stand against Harken as she is? If she keeps going, will that... Will that power consume her, too? Will anything be left?

Zed staggers to his feet. He has to... He has to--

Claude unleashes the dragon's howl.

Ida hits the ground in a bloody heap.

So many lives struggling simply to live. Zed feels a tightness growing in his chest. A painful, terrible sensation. He has to run. He should run. This is their problem, not his, but... But...!

Zed looks to the shining sword clutched in his right hand.

"...Damnit," Zed growls. He turns his head towards the crowd-- Riesenlied, Noeline, to someone he knows. "GET HER--" he gestures his cursed sword at Ida, "--GET HER OUT OF HERE! We'll..." Zed staggers. He catches himself before he falls over, but only barely. "...We'll stop this...!"

"Mother, Granas, Guardians, whoever is listening. One more time. Let me... Let us stop her...!" Zed staggers forward one more time.

His foot hits the ground.

And he charges, his shining sword ablaze. He was told to run, but...

How could he look himself in a mirror if he ran now!?

GS: Zed has attacked Lady Harken with RayBlade - Zed Saber!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Zed's RayBlade - Zed Saber for 121 hit points!
DC: Elhaym van Houten switches forms to Vierge!
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.

Being a late comer for a fight means that you don't really understand much in the way of context. Rudy has no idea of this fight and considering this is his first time dealing with Lady Harken, has no idea of her power other than one or two people saying 'she's bad news'. But as the entire battlefield around him is destroyed, he sees it first hand. He is in the middle of changing his cartridges when the power of the Quarter Knights is displayed. First, the groundwork underneath him gives way as he is pushed back. Rudy tumbles over himself, grabbing the icy battlement with his free hand. But the bottom of the wall soon gives way and the battered Rudy falls to the ground.

Slowly, the outcast struggles to stand, his brow bleeding from landing on his skull. "Is that all-"

That would be the cue for the battered tower to fall. Right on Rudy. One can even see first of many large stones hit the forearm Roughnight raises to defend his head with, the arm breaking despite his unnatural strength and stamina. But he doesn't even have time to scream before the rest of the tower falls around him and buries the young man. Well, that's likely it for the young man. Or so one would think.

After a second or two, as the attacks from others continue on without the blue haired boy's presence, the rubble moves. It's likely something to be missed in all the chaos, which is good because for those that would see it would know that it Really Isn't Natural. But never the less, Rudy emerges from the rubble. His broken arm dangling in front of him as it glows blue, channel his own power much like the summoners. But instead of the powerful magic, it all goes into the gun. The weapon is twirled around twice, and then aimed toward the Metal Demon.

"I'll keep going," the strange lad begins as he walks a few steps forward. A glance is given toward the fallen Ida and the wounded others. "We'll keep going. No matter what."

He isn't one for speeches, but with the few words that he offer, Rudy lets a powerful action pair with it, pulling the trigger to unleash an explosive round that is far more powerful than an ARM of that size should have.

GS: Rudy Roughnight has attacked Lady Harken with Boosted Shell!
GS: Rudy Roughnight takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Rudy Roughnight has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

Elena looks at Layna, nodding. "Y-Yes! I will take her to safety, do not worry! I am... sorry that I could not be of any more aid, she... she is a terrifying foe, and..." And, and, and! Maybe there's no time for this, Elena.

The Songstress scrapes the bottom of the barrel, channeling the last of her reserves into her Mana Egg. It pulses again, a clear blue circle of magic like tranquil waters, which washes over Zed and Layna. The Mana Egg seems dull afterwards, no longer shining or blue, instead being a drained silver white, reflecting Elena's own condition.

She does her best to pick up Ida - it turns out Elena can barely lift her, but she's trying. Sadly, she won't escape Lady Harken's reach in time to avoid a last attempt at snuffing the life from the both of them.

Elena doesn't spot Ida's dropped trinket, either.

GS: Elena used Mystic on Zed! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared!
GS: Elena has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lady Harken takes a solid hit from Rudy Roughnight's Boosted Shell for 116 hit points!
GS: Elena used Mystic on Layna Manydays! 100 Temporary HP gained! All statuses cleared!
GS: Elena has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Lady Harken has posed.

Something is wrong. Something's wrong. Something's so wrong.

Harken recoils, twisting from side to side. The sight of Ida lying motionless in the snow in a spreading pool of crimson should mark victory, yet, nothing so sweet beats in her breast. No words come out of Ida's lips, but there's no need for these two to communicate through such a base and crude method. Perhaps in the moment, their very spirits are connected. What is it that the two communicate in this instant? What understanding might they come to?

The scarlet pall fades from Harken's eyes. They're... so normal. So human.

The young Federation officer summons every last ounce of his courage and is rewarded for it. The dread scythe Azrael is already slipping from the Scarlet woman's grip by the time his Claude's life's force strikes it, blazing brightly. It soars into the sky, leaving a trail of crimson motes in its wake. The second storm of brilliant, vibrant force splashes against Harken's midsection in a dazzling explosion of radiance, and forces her back another step. But her eyes remain on the dying form of Ida Everstead-Rey, as if something were too confusing about the sight to come to terms with. It leaves her wide open, defenseless.

Elena is coming to terms about one of the unfortunate truths about the Metal Demons, and especially their upper ranks: they're impossibly durable. Even when seemingly taken right out of the fight, with that horrendous negative-light aura beginning to fade, world-shaking blows and explosions still fail to put the Quarter Knight on her ass.

...Stronger...

A sister of Granas hurling a black-powder bomb would be surprising even if Harken were entirely with-it, but with her in this strange shocked and stunned state, the bomb actually physically strikes her in the head and bounds away again before exploding, blinding her and sending the Knight to her knees. It's the perfect time for Rudy to capitalize on a stationary target, and the glowing tracer-arc of his ARM shell forces the malfunctioning Demon to turn on one side and soak the impact of the explosive shell with her remaining armour. In tandem, these blows seem to rob Harken of her remaining senses and protection, clad in a raiment of dripping steel. She whispers something in a voice that no longer functions, her sight stolen from her, and scrabbles in the snow for something. Gauntleted fingers close around the fallen pistol Devil's Due as if it were made of tissue-paper, and the priceless artefact crumples beneath her fingers in an instant. Just as the warmth of Ida's life was cast onto the snow in an instant.

Without a doubt, the battle is turned. So why does a lingering, spooky feeling persist over the coliseum's head? The pirate blessed with such masterful command over the winds forces the Quarter Knight back again, but not before Harken's other hand closes around the fallen brooch at Ida's side as she stumbles to her feet. "Wh--where did... what happened to me?" she whispers, but hey, not everyone can hear that. Can they? Whadda shame.

By the time Harken is back on her feet, Zed has made his decision. He charges her without hesitation, sword shining with the light of spirits innumerable, reflected in Harken's eyes. She drops the now-wrecked Devil's Due dully and instead catches his sword with her hand--as in, through the palm and out the other side again. "Some... thing is wrong, someone... someone..." she's trying to tell him something very important, he can tell that much from the look in her eyes. But that's not the Big Harken voice at all. "You--go, before..."

Time is at a premium, here, and there's no telling how much the Guardians feel like discriminating one Hyadean from the other. Even this malfunctioning visage of Harken seems to have the might to pull Zed's sword from her hand and then--should he not get outta the way, anyway--grab him by the scarf and throw him far away from the rapidly-encroaching waters of Schturdark. It's a poor officer who leaves her soldiers to die, after all.

And then--all... is silent, save for the roiling of the Guardian's waters before they boil away and vanish.

If the Quarter Knight still remains, she's somewhere amidst the rubble, but... where? Is the battle... won?

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

A lone human lies in the dirt, bleeding out after challenging a Quarter Knight so that others could escape.

Ida finally manages to form words. "Run," she chokes out, as Elena approaches her. Zed's yelling for someone to get her out of here. Will this be the first time someone dies on the floor at Lacour Coliseum? Ida doesn't know. What she does know is that suddenly Lady Harken is standing over her, grabbing for something in the snow. Ida's face pulls tight in a look of pain, or defiance, or terror, or all three. Elena manages to hoist her off the ground, giving her a perfect view as Harken's hand closes around the pistol her father made for her mother. Demonbone crumples like foil. It all happens at a sort of dull, surreal remove, accentuated by the fact that Harken seems as out of it as she is.

Ida convulses, coughs up more blood, and mercifully loses consciousness. It's a miracle she's still alive, a miracle that owes much to the tiny, bright spark in her that has yet to wink out.

ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO

She's beaten. Her striking arm is broken, and her ribs feel like they're about to cave in. She looks up, and sees a red blur resolve into a red-armored monster that looks frighteningly like a man. Before she can react, something like a vise-grip tightens around her throat, wrenches her off the ground, and slams her into the wall.

"I suppose you're the only one left," the monster says. "I was almost concerned the Dragons would leave no one alive to tell the world what happened here."

The Demon smiles. The woman's blood turns to ice.

"My name," the monster says, "is Fafnir. You're going to listen to what I tell you, human, and then you're going to tell it to every other human you meet."

"Firstly, your master is a coward..."

<Pose Tracker> Elena has posed.

Expecting Elena to comply, Ida, is madness, and further testament to your bloodloss. You already know how hard-headed she is! So of course, under the cover of Layna, the Songstress lifts Ida and attempts to drag her away. It's probably lucky then that the Quarter Knight doesn't pursue or attack, struggling with herself. Being swallowed by the princess' tide, fighting with Zed. Elena isn't about to complain. She needed that blessing.

It'll take her quite a few moments to get Ida to safety, given her slow pace, her own exhaustion, and the fact she's only barely strong enough to haul another person around over a shoulder like that. It's better than dallying about, though, seeing that Lady Harken might well rise from that rubble. Tough indeed!

"It is no wonder an army of such monsters could destroy a city..." she mutters, but Ida's probably too out of it to hear or answer.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Cecilia breathes amid the chill. It's quiet now. The enemy appears....silenced? In a way. But she was so overwhelmingly furious before...

Cecilia dares to take a few steps forward. She looks over to find Rudy. "Rudy!" she calls. "Claude!?" No answer on that front, for some reason. She'll have to go find him later. For now, she stumbles over the ruins to find her companion, running after him. "Rudy!" she calls again. "Are you okay!? That tower fell, didn't it!?" Wow that guy's tough.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna's not the type to overstay her welcome. She stands there protectively, just long enough for Elena to start carrying Ida off. She's not about to do something foolish like try and save Ida's ARM - it was already a lost cause.

"You lot'd best be fleeing too, aye!? It's not worth it to stick around anymore!" She shouts. This is directed both to everyone still in the arena, and outside of it.

Whatever was up with Harken right now, she didn't want to wait to see what'd happen next.

She's off running, then, chasing after Elena just to be sure.

<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.

As Harken seems to no longer be around, Rudy Roughnight calmly puts his ARM away. The arm still dangles in front of him, wincing as he feels it to see how extensive the break is. The pained look is held at bay as best he can once he feels the eyes of another upon him, however. ""I'm fine, I just got lucky, that's all," the young man replies with his usual small smile, nothing about toughness here Not that she would likely believe him considering the evidence displayed. But he shifts topics off himself as soon as possible. "I'm glad you're okay." His attention goes to remains of the arena and those who seems to be moving around. "Is everyone else alright?"

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"You're--" Zed's eyes lock with Harken's-- then widen as his blade sinks into her palm. "You're... Being controlled by someone... Else...!" But... But who--

Zed doesn't have time to consider that question. Harken, with one more burst of sanity, hurls him free moments before Schturdark's waters flood in. "No--" he yells as he's torn free. "Harken, wait!"

Too late.

The cataclysm swallows the arena, and Zed is thrown free--

And right into a wall.

Where he... Seems to have been knocked unconscious.

Well. Hopefully someone (LIKE KALVE. OR RIESE) is still around to pick him up before this gets REALLY awkward.

<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.

Meanwhile, Yarobeleedt slithers back behind the walls of the arena proper. He has, by some unknown method, found some way to refill what tiny, shriveled, leaky container is used to store any courage he may accumulate.

"^Tainted^ repeatedly buke Yarobeleedt?!?!" All right, maybe it's more akin to spite, rather than courage? That makes much more sense, as he sulks and seethes admist a muffled chorus of chaos just over on the other side of the wall. "No matter... Yarobeleedt will go play! Go fast forward. Soon. Soon." He rubs his hands together with horrid scraping sounds.

Zed hits a wall, on the opposite side. Yarobeleedt straightens out, voice terminating in a high squeal.

The wall cracks.

Zed's unconscious body collapses on top of Yarobeleedt with a shriek from the latter, and he darts off in the opposite direction.

"Noo! No! Stranger strangler! Angry angle!!" Yarobeleedt chokes and gags as he slither-crawls along the lower depths of the arena back out towards some indeterminate location that roughly constitutes 'freedom' and 'extraction from the scene,' panicking about the mysterious strangler just perfectly sprawled out on his back as to enable them to hang on.

<Pose Tracker> Cecilia Adlehyde has posed.

Should she be more troubled? For Cecilia, in a way that was just another battle with a raging demon. But something didn't...feel right. She thought Berserk was the rampager among them, and he showed nothing of that horrible miasma. Is that just Harken's powers, or...

After a moment, she shakes her head and turns back to Rudy. She favors hime with a relieved smile, but it soon breaks when she actually gets a better look at him. "You're hardly fine! You're hurt! Come on! That, uh, pirate?" Cecilia gets distracted looking after Layna for a long few seconds. ....sure "uh, she's right! We should get moving. Uhm. ..." She frowns. "I'm sure Claude got out! And....uhm. I think everyone else, too." Cecilia please stop confidently stating things you have no idea of.