2020-06-27: Frost and Flame

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<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    After weeks of scouring every available outlet for information, Colonel Raye and Anna Everstead-Rey have determined Polynya's next move, and relayed it to their Drifter allies. The Odessa operative seeks something hidden within the Molten Scar, a deep network of lava tubes on an island called the Sear. Few, if any, have gone there to explore, and for good reason--it feels deeply wrong. The aspect of Fray all but overwhelms the local leylines, bursting forth in plumes of tainted energy. The only thing restraining this imbalance is an ancient, powerful seal, embedded within a series of crystalline obelisks within the lava tubes.

    Nothing good can come of this. But there are clear signs that Polynya and her allies are inside, and have bypassed the seals. There are gouges in the rock, subtle manipulations in the Ley, and three distinct sets of footprints, traveling together.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.


                                  TURN BACK.
      RELEASE THIS SEAL, AND APOCALYPTIC FLAME WILL CONSUME THIS WORLD.
                           WITHIN THIS PRISON LIES
                           THE MISBEGOTTEN OF FRAY,
                                   SETANTA.

        The Elw left an unambiguous warning--continue, and risk unleashing another Primarch. As if there were any doubt after that, the ley-phantom of one of Ida's distant ancestors confirmed that 'Rahab's puppet' had gone on ahead. The objective is clear: stop Polynya and her allies before they unleash something cataclysmic.

    The final layer of the seal rests in the bowels of the Scar, in a great cavern that has never seen the sun. Much like the enchantments in the pillars outside, it's housed in a physical form--four massive, crystalline trees, which rise from the stone and converge on each other, twisting together to make a single braid. Their roots spread across the floor, curling into more arcane patterns. Their branches scrape against the cavern roof, at least a hundred feet above. They have no leaves--instead, dozens of obsidian wind-chimes dangle from their branches, suspended by ethereal crystal chains. Down here, there's no breeze to stir them. Brilliant energy pulses within the heart of the seal, like a blaze barely restrained.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida is at the head of her little group. She steps into the room, slow and careful, and glances around. "I don't see them..." she says, trailing off. "But they must be here."

    She's right. The footprints trail off. There's no sign of Polynya or her accomplices anywhere.

OOC: Welcome! The next GM pose will drop at 8:30, so please pose your entry before then. This pose will also begin the fight against Polynya, Ratatoskr, and Ragnell, so please choose your opponent before it drops.

<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny advances forward; he normally prefers to be at the front of his groups (because it seems he's one of like three people on this planet who understands what a tank is), but Ida beat him there. It's probably only fair given her family relationship to this particular area. Nonetheless, he is close at hand; a long single-edged curved blade in one hand and a small crystalline device in the other. This latter vanishes into his pocket almost immediately once he enters the room.

"That same energy, but off the scale and everywhere," he advises. Claude is roughly a magical as your average bread pudding, but he doesn't need to be much more than that to feel what's present in the chamber. "Whatever we're doing here, we'd better do it quick."

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Yue's been behaving really oddly over the last couple of weeks -- up to and including returning to Acacia's apartment with a strange injury over her shoulder-chest that looks like it's been made by a gun that fires Ether energy. She's kept somewhat mum about it, though, and even been more positive about...

    About helping Acacia more openly, with her ARMS efforts and anything else she'd like her to.

    So... why does she not look more happy about this?

    Ostensibly, she's here under ARMS' directive -- which is why she's alongside Acacia, and arguably, working with Marivel.

    It just makes her feel more guilty, thinking of when the Crimson Noble offered a hand to her and asked her to stand side by side again.

    "The Misbegotten of Fray... again," Yue answers, as she gazes upon the warning. "The Elw have left much behind."

    Her head tilts towards Ida. "They may already be further ahead. To make haste would be ideal."

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline Barber had come here with the Caravan Kinship, descending through the Molten Scar. It's an unpleasant place. It feels wrong. As a Crest Sorceress she's fairly sensitive to the flow of the Ley, and here Fray runs rampant. The aspect of Fire, but... tainted. It's uncomfortable.

And at the bottom, a seal, confirming her fears - this was where the Primarch of Fire was sealed. Leaving friends behind, so that there would be someone to attempt to redouble the seal's strength should she fail, Jacqueline picking her way carefully through the seal... and now, finally, finds her way to the very center, where other Drifters have gathered as well.

"Good, you all made it here." Jacqueline says, looking toward the rest of the parties that have gathered. "If they're not here, then... is there anything we can do to try and strengthen the seal from here? "

This could be an opportunity. She didn't have much in the way of sealing sorcery, though. She turns her attention toward the seal, then, attempting to study it the best she can. As she does, she begins to shuffle some of her Crest Graphs around in her gauntlets - to be ready, just in case.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Ida might have been the first to enter the room, but she's DEFINITELY not at the front end of the party within thirty seconds of their arrival.

No, that dubious honor belongs to- Who else?- the most hard-headed Metal Demon (with the overdue demise of one Ber'assface'serk) and that guy who has tanked apocalyptic sledgehammers to the face before... Zed...!

"Claude said we needed to hurry! You all heard him!" Zed shouts into the trembling air as he rushes boldly forth, because obviously 'Claude said so' is all the excuse he needs to throw caution to the wind and trip every trap like the barbarian his character sheet says that he is.* "That means we gotta move fast! Pick up those feet! Lift those knees! We've got an antman to punch and-or-sword!"

(*Obviously Zed is some kind of hilariously twinked out Gestalt character. Something something tome of battle with d12 HD)

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei looks around as he walks inside. Fei came along with Ida and Claude but, well, every time he tries to tank it usually ends up with two people suffering from heavy wounds by the end of it. Not that he...won't take a bullet for Elly if it came to it. Or Ida for that matter. Claude?

He looks at Claude for a long moment, wondering why he feels this strange subconcious urge to kick him.

But then he shakes his head and clears his thoughts of such things. It's probably not even really him, he reasons.

"Well, geeze." He says. "...They've gotta be here already, we were following 'em in." He considers. "Unless you think they got lost?"

He laughs. "Wouldn't it be great? If they got lost and we didn't even have to fight anybody? That'd be the best."

He sighs happily, thinking about it before looking to Claude. "Hey Claude, can your widget find them?"

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

The heat here is more than oppressive; even Lily Keil finds sweat beading on her brow, soaking into her black hair. And she cheats. But she's come down, taking up the rear guard of Ida's small group as she looks around at the others carefully. She has alreay worked her magic with the seal to help them get through to begin with--managing not to break it thanks to asistnce--but he can feel that something already lurks down here, weven withot the warning.

The barely-restrained blaze whirls reflected in Lily's golden eyes. "Agreed. I can redirect some of this... but I doubt things will stay this peaceful."

Fire. Fire, everywhere. Lily can feel it all around her, more perhaps than anywhere else she's been.

"They've got to be here somewhere," she agrees. "...As nice as that might be," to Fei. Lily steps into the room, puts her back to one of the trees, and keeps looking around. Flames start to wreathe her hands.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"This place is lovely," says ELLY VAN HOUTEN, REDHEAD - who is not, it seems, enormously bothered by the fire right now.

This is partly due to thin clothing, partly from a downwelling breeze she is whistling up. She wipes her forehead, nonetheless, as she murmurs to Fei, "I wonder if we used that luck up already..."

'... I wonder if 'he'll' be here..."

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    We should never have come here and yet regardless here we are, at the heart of oblivion.

    Here's the wind's objective opinion: It's Too Hot.

    No, there is no breeze to stir them, because the breeze is clustered around herself: the Seraph Boudicca, for once in her broad tall life, is doing her best not to take up space. She steps up behind Ida, following her footsteps. Her armoured greaves don't leave much of an impression.

    "The Elw tried to bind these troubles here," she replies to Yue, soft of voice and worried still. "We must not see them woken."

    Though, to be frank, she does have to smile when Fei posits the Best Ending. "... that would be wonderful."

    She's still searching the room, though, with careful steps which always seem to fall where someone else already walked.

<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia has been equal parts gratified and concerned by Yue's presence.

    Gratified because, if she's honest, it's been pleasant having the Veruni woman around, and for the two of them to have cleared the air a little between them. There's a lot of caveats in the way in which they cleared that air, and the reporter knows full well that the answers aren't going to be easy ones. But at least, for the time being, Minder has the chance to not worry too hard.

    Concerned because she's caught those looks, and she has a distinct suspicion that Yue's sudden helpfulness is either her pent-up guilt or even an attempt to preemptively atone for something. She's got a reasonable guess as to the hold that Yue's handlers have on her, and it's not a long leap of logic to wonder if it's really okay for the Veruni to be helping her like this. But she knows those answers are going to be pretty rough ones too.

    (The wound is currently chalked up to #justyuethings. She's trying to avoid thinking about that any further right now, even if she doesn't realize that.)

    But the best way to honour Yue's decisions is to accept them, as far as Acacia can tell. So she's here alongside the other woman, staring with a frown at the path ahead and wondering if one day she should write a full feature titled something like 'Filgaia's Fucked: These 15 World-Ending Cataclysms Would Scare Even Your Grandma.' Of course, to her, clickbait would be the true sign of the end times.

    She is comically attached to her vest, pulling it around her like armour, even as she looks uncomfortably hot. "The Elw sure liked doing that," she mutters sourly to Boudicca.

<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.


"We're here..." Rebecca notes the obvious, though the tension in her voice is palpable as she checks the setup the cavern. Sweat beading across her forehead

There are moments when the glittering cavern reflects wonder in her eyes, but she tries her hardest to keep a straight face. She's not about to let herself get distracted by it.

Though as she pops open her ARM to check if it's loaded, despite knowing that it absolutely is, and flicks it back shut, she glances towards Avril.

"You sure you're ready for this?" Rebecca whispers as she gives her a searching look. Looking to find any sign that Avril is dwelling upon what... he... had said, "We can just go you know. I won't let anyone say a single ill word about it."

Sliding her ARM back in its holster, she indicates, "And even if you think you're good for this... you just say the word anytime and we'll retreat. No argument from me."

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "Yes," Avril murmurs, her lips pulling in a faint frown as they advance, together, into to the heart of the mountain.

    Even the Ice Queen can be made to sweat, after all. It's inevitable, given the temperatures on parade in the heart of a volcano. And this is in spite of the fact that she, like Lily, has been cheating the entire way in --
    If perhaps a little more unconsciously so.

    Things have been... a little more difficult, lately.

    But in spite of that -- because of that -- at Rebecca's prompting, Avril shakes her head. "No. I feel that it is important for me to be here. After all," and she glances over at her friend and smiles faintly, "I must not remain 'in the dark' forever. I must take the step back out into the light."

    Which is a rather poetic way of phrasing an emotional/psychological upset, but Avril's gotta Avril.

    "Should that moment come, though, Rebecca, I will let you know." A pause. "Immediately."

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "This place feels like an oven," says GWEN WHITLOCK, KIND OF REDHEAD, who is sweating buckets. "But yeah, you're right, I wasn't expectin' a sight like this." One would think a life on the dry heat of the Badlands would prepare a person for a red hot death cave, but here Gwen is, unable to take a nap during the hottest parts of the day, which is 24/7 here.

    If only Gwen knew that Yue had a hand in an earlier battle. Instead, she gives Yue a friendly nod, and looks ahead to Ida. "Those look like obsidian. The leaves, I mean. Basically volcanic glass. I've been it in smokey colors before, but not that tone."

    It's what a person needs to do, in order to focus on how hot it is.

    "Oh, right, we need t'hurry. Hurryhurryhurry." Gwen rustles the sweat out of her clingy curls, her fog blue eyes lingering on Avril and Rebecca for a moment. "..."

    Them being here is a good sign of them knowing what happened back on Kasutho Island. She could always approach them later for updates.

     With a click, she loads the last bullet into her ARM's chamber, bending her right arm with a specific twisting of her elbow. "Okay, let's, uh, go."

     WHat in the world might be waiting for them, just ahead?

DC: Heal Berry switches forms to Crest Sorceress Polynya!
<Pose Tracker> Heal Berry has posed.

    Ida looks back over her shoulder, at Yue. "I think... I think this may be the end of the line," she says. "I don't see any other exit, unless..."

    Something flickers in the branches overhead Another anomalous Ley signal ignites on Claude's scanners. There is no time for warnings.

    An eruption of Muse blasts through the overwhelming miasma of Fray as an eldritch illusion unwinds from the body of its caster. In the blink of an eye, said caster leaps from their perch atop the great Ley-tree, falling towards Ida like a hawk swooping down on a field mouse. Their blue-white cloak trails after them as they bring their spear down at her, haft-first.

    Polynya.

    Ida's head snaps up. She raises both arms, crossing one overtop the other to protect herself. It does no good. Polynya slams into her guard with crushing force, knocking her off her feet in a single blow. Ida falls, her head narrowly missing a tree root as she hits the ground. The breath rushes from her lungs.

    "Ragnell! Ratatoskr! Now!" the Odessan operative cries, whipping a Crest Graph from her bracer and flicking it into the air. The metal plate gleams brilliantly; blue-white energy erupts from it, and the air near Zed, Lily, Fei and Elly grows so very, very cold. Under normal circumstances, it might be welcome in this horrid heat, but under Polynya's direction, it simply replaces it with soul-numbing cold. It's so cold that even a few anemic ice crystals materialize in the bone-dry air. Lily gets the worst of it, but it's clear this is not the full extent of Polynya's power. Not even close. It's a delaying action.

    Polynya reaches down, grips Ida by her collar, and hoists her off the floor with distressing ease. "Now, then," the Crest Sorceress says. "The ARM. Hand it over."

<Pose Tracker> Heal Berry has posed.

    Ida grips her attacker's gloved fist with both hands, staring into her face. "What ARM?" she chokes out. Terror lights up her eyes.

    "I thought you knew better than to deceive me," Polynya says. Energy condenses around her hand, curling against Ida's throat. It's pale and gelid and oh so wrong. It's what Polynya used to incapacitate a battle-hardened Arctican warrior before she could draw a single Crest to defend herself.

    "I can't!" Ida shouts. She feels her throat constricting. Any moment, that horrible light is going to enter her mind, and then--

    Reflex takes over. Ida draws back a hand. Hyadean exoskeleton pours from her skin, hardening into a blade around her fingers. Ida drives the improvised hand-spear at the inside of Polynya's elbow--

    SHHNK

    Polynya's fingers go limp. She drops Ida, lets her tumble to the floor. Her mask long since destroyed, there is nothing to hide the look of shock on her face. Blood drips from the wound Ida just cut into her, but Polynya's not staring at that.

    Instead, she's staring at Ida's hand.

GS: Polynya has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Freeze!
GS: Polynya has attacked Lily Keil with Freeze!
GS: Polynya has attacked Zed with Freeze!
GS: Polynya has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Freeze!
GS: Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from Polynya's Freeze for 23 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Polynya's Freeze for 77 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Polynya!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    'Ragnell! Ratatoskr! Now!' cries Polynya. In response, a rain of needle-light lightning bolts scattered amidst a downpour of water hurtle down onto Boudicca and two others nearby--coincidentally, Acacia and Yue.
    
    "That *would* be pretty hilarious, yeah," a familiar voice drawls at Fei's comment about how awesome it would be if the intruders had gotten lost. From above, the figure of the Lightning Seraph leaps down, hat tipped down over her eyes and shading her crescent grin. "Too bad things don't ever go the way we want them to."
    
    A heartbeat passes. Then: "Yo! I'm still alive!" Ragnell chirps cheerfully to the group, one gloved hand raised in greeting. "Alive, an' here to support a terrible decision." She glances over at Polynya and Ida as they maul the hell out of each other. "...It'd happen with or without me, after all."

GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Squall Shot!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Acacia Saitani with Squall Shot!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Yue Rohay with Squall Shot!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
GS: Yue Rohay takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Squall Shot for 50 hit points!
GS: Cover! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    Up there, in the trees, a silhouette appears with all the momentum of a cool gradually opaque figure dashing down one of the crystalline structures. This is not a cool teleportation fade-in. This is someone failing to hold completely still within a cloaked area of effect about one or two seconds before the tactically optimal time to break free and ambush from it. In fact, the sharp-eyed will notice him coming down about the time Polynya leaps down.
     "They came here...? They came here!" Ratatoskr's limbs are notably thinner. Where there are usually gaps and openings in his limbs - openings in which to expel compressed air in shotgun-like fashion - there is nothing. This makes some amount of sense. The tainted fire energies here are potentially deadly for the ARMs within his limbs. Nonetheless, there he is, clinging to the tree like an actual squirrel might, wanting to watch and see how the fight between Ida and Polynya turns out.
     ...But there's a bunch of faces, quite a few that he remembers too. He seems to scamper right back up the tree, maybe to deliver a message to someone higher on the tree or... there isn't one, he just looks the part to do that.
     He descends down suddenly in a swooping motion, liquid metal patagium flared out and everything as he rams into a number of people who just happen to be neatly aligned into his flight path, touching down in a three-point stance unless his landing is compromised.
     "Hyahaha--! Can you even believe what's happening right now...?" He's probably going to repeat it as a shout unless punched in the face quickly enough.

GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Jacqueline Barber with The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Boudicca completely evades a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Squall Shot!
GS: Cover! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Gwen Whitlock with The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Claude C. Kenny with The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Rebecca Streisand with The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has completed his action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a glancing hit from Ratatoskr's The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts for 45 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Ratatoskr's The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts for 51 hit points!
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a solid hit from Ratatoskr's The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts for 92 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Ratatoskr's The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts for 105 hit points!
GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Ratatoskr's The Part Where Everything Starts Going Nuts for 100 hit points!
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Squall Shot for 110 hit points!
GS: Cover! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Zed guards a hit from Polynya's Freeze for 72 hit points!
GS: Cripple! applied to Zed!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Elhaym van Houten guards a hit from Polynya's Freeze for 69 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Yue looks sympathetically towards Acacia, as she murmurs, "... I am no less guilty than the Elw. Ancient people have a tendency to..." A pause, as she looks towards Boudicca's direction, then--

    The eruption of Muse.

    Polynya cries for two other names; there's a narrowed look on Yue's face as a struggle erupts with a number of the Drifters.

    "Tsk-- cover her!" Yue shouts, but it's too late; a brief struggle happens between them, and Polynya lets go. Did she do it...?

    She has no time to react, because a trio of needle-like bolts strikes them; even as aware and on-guard as she can be, the Veruni doesn't have the time as she suddenly notices that Avril and Rebecca are present too.

    "Why are you here--" Yue makes the mistake of splitting her attention, and barely twists her body as she lets the bullet graze and electrocute her for a mercifully brief few seconds.

    "... A Seraph?" Yue asks, having made the conclusion from a honed number of years of training her senses, as she sizes up Ragnell more fully, as she greets Boudicca.

    Now, Yue's realised already that she's at a sizeable disadvantage -- magical or not, those enormous shackles of hers are going to be a natural magnet for electricity, so she'd best settle this fast...

    "... I will take point. Cover me, Acacia," Yue offers a simple strategy, and the black-coated Veruni's suddenly leapt into the approximate vicinity of Ragnell's grill, her body twisting into the kind of balletic combat she normally gets up to--

    "<Rising Cucco!>"

    A kind of combat Ragnell might be particularly familiar with, and a bit unusual coming from Filgaian Drifters, perhaps.

GS: Yue Rohay spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Hitenkokko - Rising Cucco!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Junior, they're here.

Fei suddenly forms a wreath of fire around himself but the ice still manages to punch through and collide against h is body. Fei sinks to one knee as ice crystals form around him. "Damn...!" He says, looking to Ragnell and looking about as surprised that Ragnell is still alive the other five or so times Ragnell was thought to have died. "You..." He begins. "Jeeze..."

He straightens back up and shakes the ice off his body as he fixes his gaze on Polynya.

"Hey, Luisa asked us to look after this place for her." He walks forward. "I don't wanna hurt you, but... Just what is your relation to Ida anyway? You seem real obssessed with her family..."

He bows, as if this were a sparring session, looks to Elly Elly, nods once, ten darts forward, throwing a palm strike for Polynya's face and a knee for her gut.

"Do you even know what you're in thrall to? It's just some mistake the Elw made...! There's nothing for you here!"

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Polynya with Hoten!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny is partway through opening his mouth to tell Fei to shut up about devices he MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE as someone who is DEFINITELY NOT A SECRET SHEVAT AGENT when everything starts going nuts. Polynya attacks, screaming for Ragnell (God damn it I left the frigging ironwood sword at home, Claude berates himself), and launching an attack on Ida. Who launches one back, sort of, leaving the Crest Sorceress staring down at the martial artist's hand.

*clicketyclick*

Polynya will hear the sound of a hammer being drawn back as Claude C. Kenny - who was standing right beside Ida - aims his four-barreled Lancaster pistol straight at her face from about three inches away. She can actually see the slugs deep in the barrels. "Hey," says Claude angrily. Hands o---"

Ratatoskr slams into Claude's midsection (which like the rest of Claude is like hitting a side of beef wrapped in future kevlar), and the impact is enough to send him staggering backward; the shot aimed for Polynya's facemeats instead rips through the air about a foot and a half to her left. Claude stumbles back awkwardly - he's holding two weapons and doesn't want to drop either one - so he draws the other hammers back and tries to twist his left arm around to aim the pistol at the Hyadean warrior.

"Your timing sucks," Claude snarls as the hand cannon roars.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Ratatoskr with Lancaster Pistol!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: Ratatoskr guards a hit from Claude C. Kenny's Lancaster Pistol for 62 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Hitenkokko - Rising Cucco for 106 hit points!
GS: Poison! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.


Avril's smile makes Rebecca feel like she's going to faint for reasons that have nothing to do with the heat, "W-Well..." She stammers, "... doesn't get much brighter than right where I'm looking."

She's going to be mentally punishing herself for that later, as she swiftly tears her gaze away to look at something crystalline.

"You know... because it's all glittery and... molten in here..."

Definitely punishing herself. Though she gets serious when Avril says 'Immediately'.

"You say that word and I'll get you out of here, promise." That's not something she says lightly either, given how seriously Avril takes promises.

Rebecca has her hand hovering over her ARM as the Drifters approach Polynya, but then the Odessan operative cries something that causes her to jerk her chin up. Her hand whips her ARM out of its holster, spinning her gun into her hand.

She's about to point it, when suddenly she gets peppered by a shotgun blast of compressed air which knocks her clean off her feet, sliding across the cavern floor.

"Guh!" Rebecca hisses, as if she just took buckshot at mid-range, as she shouts at Ratatoskr, "You again! Do you just live on the carnage or something?" Bringing herself up onto her knees, she suddenly lets herself fall backwards into a hand stand to bring herself up to her feet... just as Yue asks, "Why are you here!?" Rebecca echoes. "Are we really on the same side this time?!"

Her eyes flicker over to Ida and Avril, and she just decides, "Guess I'll swallow my doubts... for now." Sighting down Ratatoskr, she takes a step forward, ARM whipping up as she squeezes off several shots of suppressing fire that try to punish every possible advance he might make. "Avril - I'll try to keep him pinned down for you!"

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

In moments everything goes...

Well, is 'goes to Hell' problematic in this inferno?

Lily turns towrds Polynya as she rushes down, facing her as the blue-white energy erupts from the Crest. In the same moment, Lily calls forth heat--using the abundant power of Fray in this chamber, she turns the fire wreathing her hands into a column of flame that engulfs her form briefly and blocks off the worst of the cold, the spell complete before she even finishes waving a hand.

But this prevents her interrupting Polynya's moment with Ida, as when the fire fades Ida is already tumbling to the floor. She sees the shock in Polynya's face...

The sound of Ratatoskr and Ragnell joining in. Lily can't focus on them at the moment. Instead, she focuses on the sorceress before her. "You didn't know?" Lily asks of Polynya then, stepping forward, no weapon in her hand. Instead, the fire along her hands gathers again, orbs of flame twining around her arms as she twists the surrounding Fray energy into an aura of power.

"I'd have expected you to do better research on your target."

Lily stands, arms not only wreathed in flame but blazing with orange-red circuitry that extends along her body up near to her jawline, a strange effect with her fire-reflecting eyes.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lily Keil with Gather Fire!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Ratatoskr with Round Beat!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Gather Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Ratatoskr takes a glancing hit from Rebecca Streisand's Round Beat for 64 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ratatoskr gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Ratatoskr!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

The tooth-cracking intensity of the cold round and near her does not quite catch Elly by surprise, but it does mean the sweat that had not yet vaporized in the hot dry air of the volcano becomes a momentary rime of withering frost.

But it is a passing thing. Mostly. Elly shivers violently for a moment, sees that Ida is dropped, that this woman is staring at her in shock - why? What is the reason for this? Elly doesn't know, but she DOES know distraction when she sees it.

Fei is approaching Polynya, and so is Lily, though Lily is taking it a little more seriously. Elly, for her part, moves to the left, circling round as Fei closes. It's the sort of behavior pack animals on the hunt might show. Some sort of - wolves, perhaps. Elly's eyes flick to Ida with a moment of concern but the best thing she can do for her right now IS

"hhhaaahhhh--"

-- snap out her staff and throw herself forwards into a rib-cage-jabbing thrust strike from a full body length away, hopefully just as Polynya's attention is focused on the others!

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Polynya with Break Through!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Of course it couldn't be that easy. Jacqueline shudders at an eruption of Muse. There can only be one being powerful enough to cut through the fog of Fray. It happens faster then she can react to - Polynya appears and attacks Ida.

"I-Ida!" Jacqueline shouts in concern. She starts to rush over to her side... but, before she can get there, something moving at high speeds starts to rush toward her. Jacqueline wraps her steelcloth cloak around her, wincing as Ratatoskr impacts against it solidly, forcing her back. And then he lands, positioned to cut her and some others off from the rest of the combatants.

"...Ratatoskr, what are you doing here?" Jacqueline says with a sigh, shaking her head. "Of course I can believe it - you and your Odessa friends are trying to unseal and incredibly dangerous entity. That's exactly the sort of thing you'd do."

That said Jacqueline draws out a bottle, hurling it at his feet. It shatters instantly upon hitting the ground, and the immense heat quickly melts the bottle. The contents, however, are released upward in a lavender-scented cloud that saps the strength of those who breathe it in.

"Please get out of the way." She requests.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Ratatoskr with Sapping Solution!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Boudicca turns around in Acacia's footprints to behold -- "Ida!" Pinned by Polynya, Muse in the air, and she springs forward to correct the issue of her Seer assaulted by that woman --

    -- only to have to alter her course sharply in mid-air, a brake-puff breeze as her trajectory suddenly takes her at a ninety-degree angle away. The reason for this is clear: it's raining in hell. Water laced with lightning is a poor mix, and Boudicca lands without being doused, but she is - if anything - further away from Ida and Polynya, now.

    "Away your awaried fatalism, Ragnell!" She lays her curse in agitation, damning the entire business; it's an anger she can't resolve, because Ragnell is here and Ida is over there. "Do not speak as if you are passive observer whilst you assist!"

    The wind does build around her, now, only to blow outwards in a buffeting blow as she advances. If anything, Boudicca's the first one to wince when she sends it out. Her voice raises, again, regardless: "Stand aside!"

    ... they're both Seraphim, but it seems like it might be a bit complicated.

GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Buffeting Headwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Polynya guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hoten for 66 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia is so focused on the way forwards that she doesn't think to look above, and hisses in sudden surprise and pain when the first charged bolt hits her, jolting backwards in what might be surprise or might just be the first of a string of muscle spasms from the electrical charge. She has the advantage that her defence is an instinctive one, and she's already on edge - so it only takes a moment for the ether around her to warp and divert some of the attack away.

    Three of them, her brain supplies automatically. Acacia is not always the best of shots, and with her muscles still shivering, the string of shots from her pistol go wide of the falling Seraph, leaving her grimacing as she tries to shake the quiver off. "Not sure that's how 'supporting' works," she mutters to herself, but Yue's already on the attack.

    Rather than try to correct her aim, she drops to one knee long enough to draw in a slow breath instead - and though it doesn't help with the shaking from her quick electrocution, it does a lot for her state of mind. Drawing a bead on Ragnell, the reporter waits until she hears the familiar cry of one of Yue's artes, closes her eyes to feel the air around her, then squeezes the trigger.

    Turns out she didn't really need to aim at all. The pinpoint line of white, as if she's using tracers, initially seems like it's going wide - but is already curving unnaturally by the time it swings past Ragnell, and positively zig-zags backwards to try to blindside her.

GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Snapshot!
GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action.
GS: Ratatoskr guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Sapping Solution for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ratatoskr gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Weaken! applied to Ratatoskr!
GS: Quick! applied to Jacqueline Barber!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Buffeting Headwind for 76 hit points!
GS: Dispel! Cover removed!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Acacia Saitani's Snapshot for 59 hit points!
GS: Jam! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed has been frozen solid several times before. In fact, one might even say that, over the course of his life, he's spent more time on ice than not! But perhaps it's not simply the cold that cuts so deeply to the Hyadean's core... It's not even the sight of Ida straight up impaling Polynya's arm! Rather, it's simple chemistry. You take metal that's really hot and suddenly make it super cold and bad things tend to happen. "Agh!" Zed yelps as he breaks free of the cloud of glacial cold, quicksilver dripping from thermal fractures all over his body. Already, the gashes are beginning to seal shut, but a telling early blow has landed...

Zed... is faced with the prospect of having to reciprocate.

"Whatever it is, don't hand it over!" Zed calls, vanishing into a flickering mirage of motion. In a split second, he's past Polynya's position, his blade already out of its sheath. Already, his strike has been delivered...!

"Polynya, this thing you're trying to release, Setty or whatever its name is, I don't know what you think you're getting out of it, but it isn't worth losing your life over!" Doom Bringer swings a second time, looking to cripple the Crest Sorceress' other arm. "I mean, if you want me to kill you, that's one thing! We can arrange something! But this is just suicide!"

GS: Zed has attacked Polynya with Miracle Strike - Phantom Bite!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Polynya critically Guards a hit from Zed's Miracle Strike - Phantom Bite for 25 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    'Ragnell! Ratatoskr! Now!'

    In a split second, Gwen goes from the complaining courier to cautious courier, her eyes scanning the room.

    In a falling wave of blue-white, Polynya drops down on Ida, kicking her aside. "Ida!!" Gwen's first action is to run towards Ida as she is lifted up in Polynya's grip, just about to clear past Claude.

    Which makes the next few seconds a mass of fumbling and feeling like someone slammed a metal squirrel into her face, which is an approximation of what actually *did* happen, in that Ratatoskr slammed her in her haste to get to Ida and Polynya.

    Also, hello, Ragnell. You're alive. "Goddamn it, Ragnell," Gwen grunts from her position on the ground, one hand to the spot where Ratatoskr hit her in the head, and the other trying to keep the curve of a smile from showing on her lips as she turns away. "Can't you limit your enablin' to other things?"

    Getting up with an indignant grunt, Gwen winds her own ARM in a wide circle; a gesture meant to convey.... something, really, to Ratatoskr. It would have a more convincing look to it, if she wasn't staring past him towards Ida on the ground, the drip of dark crimson from Polynya's hand, the shock on her unmasked face.

    Gwen will have to trust the others to help Ida; it seems her own task in all of this is to collaborate in keeping a very active and equally dangerous Ratatoskr from interfering.

    "Sorry, Jay, but I'm cuttin' to the chase here!" Poor Jay was trying to do the right thing, and Rebecca was keeping the Hyadean properly busy.

    Gwen's contribution is not as charitable, or as smart as Rebecca's, the courier running in to attept to deliver a uppercut to Ratatoskr's chin.

GS: Polynya guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Break Through for 64 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ratatoskr with Shoryu-gwen!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Ratatoskr takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's Shoryu-gwen for 43 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ratatoskr gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Shieldbreak! applied to Ratatoskr!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    It can't stay dark forever. Eventually the clouds will break.

    In spite of the current situation, in spite of recent events, Avril can't help but keep smiling at Rebecca's reaction.

    "Yes, we are in the middle of an active volcano, after all," she replies, because it's completely entirely possible to be intelligent and observant and still miss the proverbial elephant in the room.

    But even her current mood can't maintain itself -- simply because it must not maintain itself, here and now. "Yes. I believe in you, Rebecca," is her reply when Rebecca says she'll get her out of here, post-haste, if she so much as gives the word. "And... should you need to retreat, I will do everything in my power to see you to safety. I promise you this," she says.

    And when Avril Vent Fleur makes a promise, she means to keep it.

    "Is that...?" she hazards, before all hell, as the phrase goes, breaks loose.

    Absolute Zero leaps to her hand, the blade emerging into the world with a flourish, but it is far, far too late for her to do anything save get sent sprawling by the blast of compressed air driven her and Rebecca's way. "Ah... Rebecca, are you--"

    She rises to her feet, sighting her foe. "...So we meet again," she informs Ratatoskr, angling the tip of her blade towards him as if in formal challenge. "Is what you desire truly the act of fighting itself?"

    Before, at Rebecca's words, she glances this way and that, in search of Yue--

    "Yue! Are you...?"

    As if she's afraid to really ask the question. Glancing over at Rebecca, she, here, has no answers to really give her., other than: "I do not think she is on their side."

    Strange bedfellows, pitched battles, and so on, perhaps.

    Speaking of which...!

    "Understood!" As soon as the last shot rings out, Avril advances, coming in from side opposite her friend to engage Ratatoskr with one open, honest jab of her sword's blade.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Ratatoskr with Innocent Saber!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Ratatoskr takes a glancing hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Innocent Saber for 72 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Polynya has posed.

    Polynya stares down the barrel of Claude's gun, and smiles a grim little smile. "You again," she says. Ratatoskr slams right into Claude, and thereby Claude becomes his immediate problem. The objective must not be compromised.

    Ida shoves herself upright, gasping for breath. She can still feel the echo of Rahab's power on her skin, and all the horrible memories it dredges up.

    Screaming curses at Riesenlied, while knowing in her heart that she was to blame. Fighting desperately against a beast from the depths of nightmare--a Metal Dragon that should've been dead, but wasn't. Running from the beast in the depths of the Hadal Temple, abandoning her comrades to their fate.

    Polynya seems remarkably calm for someone who just got her arm slashed open--but it's like the calm inside the eye of a hurricane. It's a moment of eerie stillness that could and at any time. Her blood oozes back into her injured arm, sealing the wound and patching damaged tendons. With that same arm, she reaches into her cloak and pulls something out--an old-model Hyadean medical scanner, the kind used during the First War. She raises it, and lets its beam sweep across Ida's prone, struggling form.

    Hyadean runic script flashes across the screen--script that Polynya can read.

GENETIC SIGNATURE CONFIRMED
TARGET MATCH WITHIN ACCEPTABLE MARGIN OF ERROR
TISSUE TYPING: COMMANDER FAFNIR, SERVICE NUMBER...

    Polynya puts the scanner away, her face completely unreadable for a second or two.

    'I'd have expected you to do better research on your target...'

    "It was true," Polynya says. Her voice is positively glacial in its anger. "The 'Demon Fist'." Her gaze falls on Fei and Lily and Ida, and her lips split in a snarl. "It was right there all along. That horrid arm of hers--it was his."

    Polynya's entire face twists into a look of utter rage. She sweeps an arm, and a wave of eldritch power rushes across the room, slamming into the still-recovering Ida. The heiress goes flying like a thrown doll, and slams back-first into the seal. The energy around her condenses, forming some sort of horrid substance that's not quite ice because everything it reflects is all wrong.

<Pose Tracker> Polynya has posed.

    'Do you even know what you're in thrall to?'

Fei rushes in, putting himself between his dear friend and her attacker. His palm impacts Polynya's jaw with a solid thunk, but there's an odd density there--it's like smacking a steel plate instead of human bone. She staggers back, whipping a hand down to catch his knee and redirect it. The motion is very, very similar. Ida's done something like it. Kalve's used something like it, too.

    Elly charges in after Fei, her staff slamming into Polynya's chest. Her salvaged Hyadean armor gives a little, the impact carrying through. The Odessan operative staggers, stumbles, and whips out her spear to catch herself. Zed strikes in a single, elegant motion, his blade all but leaping to the attack the moment it's unsheathed. Polynya turns to the side, her hand whipping out to redirect before that sword finds its home in her neck. Doom Bringer arcs high, clipping the woman's cheek. Just as it did when he faced down Rahab, the blade cuts through the beast's power--

    --And the eldritch energy infusing Polynya's blood dissipates with a snap-pop. Quicksilver drips down Polynya's cheek and elbow, and coats the edge of Zed's blade.

<Pose Tracker> Polynya has posed.

    "You hurt it, didn't you," Polynya says. She stares Zed in the eye, even as she flows forwards, her hands jabbing at his throat, sternum, and gut in quick succession. "I felt its agony when that blade cut into it. But you didn't kill it, did you? Nothing can kill it, so long as the Ley remains." Polynya balls up a fist and strikes out at Zed with a mighty backhand, trying to swat him away. The Crest Graph orbiting her head begins to flicker, and another wave of freezing force washes out at Fei. Muse spikes up through the ambient Ley, in blatant defiance of the local imbalance. Water vapor forms out of nothingness.

    "Tell me, 'Lee', 'Elly'--do you even remember me? You were there, too, in that hell. I saw you. You ran from me, I remember that much. And you, Black Wolf--" Polynya points a finger at Lily. "You and I are going to have words, as well. We have so much in common." Ley energy flares up around Polynya, an eerie mirror of what Lily just did. Ice clings to her spear, and shards of it leap towards the other sorceress, eager to rend her flesh.

    "But I owe you an introduction, don't I? I am Astrid of the Method. And I am weary of this farce."

    Polynya--Astrid--draws herself up as if stretching. Her whole body lengthens, broadens; muscle knits itself across bone. Her features lengthen, sharpen. Her armor and spear change as well, discarding the patina and 'damage' she'd used to hide them as 'relics'. The Second-in-Command of the Ash Legion whips up her weapon, and turns on the two she recognizes from the Old War.With a cry of fury, Astrid drives her spear at Fei, then twists on a heel, carrying the motion to impale Elly as well.

DC: Astrid switches forms to Astrid of the Method!
GS: Astrid has attacked Lily Keil with Cryogenesis!
GS: Astrid assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Astrid has completed her action.
GS: Astrid has attacked Zed with Third Method - Roaring Avalanche Stance!
GS: Astrid has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Astrid has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Third Method - Cold-Forged Fury!
GS: Astrid has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Astrid has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Third Method - Cold-Forged Fury!
GS: Astrid has gained 2 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    "Terrible? I'm just in time...!"
     Ratatoskr's timing is terrible, narration agrees with Claude. It is a hallmark of being an annoying recurring threat. As he touches down, his free hand reaches behind him to do what would be insane were it not for the fact that his flesh registers somewhere respectable on the Mohs scale of hardness: he tries to catch Claude's shot.
     He's not exactly faster than a bullet. It pings off his wrist and buries itself into the earth deeply enough he can't dig it out in short order, which is momentarily distressing.
     Rebecca is in a position to do a much more reasonable thing like 'shoot him many times,' and though his reactions and movements are every bit as capable as some other Metal Demon rapid striking units, she covers all the avenues. One bullet smacks against the side of his head as a ricochet peppers him in the leg, forcing him to a kneel. "Carnage? Carange!" Ratatoskr snarls, and also kind of laughs? He has that permanent grin thing going. "History!!"
     Jay scolds him and throws a bottle. He fumbles in trying to catch it because of course he wants it, and it slips out, shatters, and gives him a fume-ful of lavendar scent. "Did you not see the mural...?" He sputters at the end of that, rising up. He's just about to sway back, and in fact, posture-wise might blunt what's coming.
     But it won't stop it. Gwen punches him in the face, depriving the world of him repeating what he just said as an exclamation and having him dazedly rise up. At his full standing height, he is pretty tall. He looks down at Gwen's punching han--
     Avril jabs right into his side, drawing quicksilver as he tries to swing an elbow out to strike Avril back - it is a succinct way to sum him up, isn't it? Fighting for the sake of fighting itself, even under the veneer of--
     "It's exciting what will come next... I'll get to see it happen... I'll be there for it...!" As he does this, he sweeps his tail out to try and trip up Gwen, plant it, and leap backwards to slam into Claude with the patagium out again - like he were ramming him with a shield in a backwards ram. He's going to have to stretch his leg out a bit to kick Jay from this position, but...!
     Evidently he decides the act of doing a leaping knee strike is better given to Rebecca instead, bearing down upon the trick shooter with just enough of a delay and lead-up from Jay's concoction that she has ample opening to keep shooting.
     (he probably even wants that)
     "...Of the Method?" He asides. The Method is... very storied, among the Metal Demons and their remnants. But now is not the time to go through the endless list of rumors and feats.

GS: Ratatoskr has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Elbow Room!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Root Cutter!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Reverse Ambush!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Keepin' on Kickin'!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Not The Bee's Knees!
GS: Ratatoskr has completed his action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Ratatoskr's Reverse Ambush for 69 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Claude C. Kenny gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cover! applied to Ratatoskr!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber takes a glancing hit from Ratatoskr's Keepin' on Kickin' for 56 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: CRITICAL! Rebecca Streisand guards a hit from Ratatoskr's Not The Bee's Knees for 76 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rebecca Streisand gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Ratatoskr's Root Cutter for 48 hit points!
GS: Entangle! applied to Gwen Whitlock!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Astrid's Cryogenesis for 97 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mighty! applied to Astrid!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    "That's me! Ragnell, the Lightning Seraph," Ragnell tells Yue, dipping into an overblown bow. She rises up quickly and, after wiggling her fingers in greeting at Fei and Elly, looks back over at the Veruni woman as she charges in. She steps with her, moving with her rising foot--
    
    '<Rising Cucco!>' she yells in a very familiar language.
    
    Ragnell staggers back from the attack, then whorls one booted foot *up* for Yue's chin in a reverse axe kick. Hit or miss, once she regains her balance, she blinks up at Yue, then tilts a thoughtful look at her. "<Cucco, huh? That's an unusual attack,>" she remarks in flawless Ancient Tongue--though Yue would probably recognize it as Zeboim. "<An unusual attack for an unusual speaker of an unusual tongue.>" She smirks and winks. "<Wouldn't you say~?>"
    
    A buffeting blast of wind rails into her then, followed up by a zig-zagging bullet that scores a line along the Seraph's body. Ragnell half-turns, half-twirls to Boudicca and Acacia. "Nope," she tells the former succinctly, Seraphic glyph glowing at her feet. "An' jus' so you know, I'm no passive watcher! Bein' passive isn't the same as bein' necessary. But don't you worry; necessary or not, I'm very much here an' present. On that note: Blitzstrahl!"
    
    A tiny cloud forms over Boudicca's head, and from it falls a small but nonetheless loud thunderbolt. As the arte strikes--whether it's Boudicca or something the floor--Ragnell breaks into a run to circle around Yue. She opens fire as she goes, but the blasts aren't aimed at the Veruni; they arc around in a semi-circle, aiming instead for Acacia.
    
    "What 'other things' did ya have in mind, exactly?" she calls to Gwen as she goes. When she lands, she sends Polynya a dry smile as she seethes about the Demon Arm. Unlike Ratatoskr, who's at least surprised enough to let himself be distracted from his beloved fighting, she's not at all surprised by Polynya's re-introduction as Astrid of the Method. But then, this is typical of Ragnell.

GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Yue Rohay with Heartbreaker!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Blitzstrahl!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Acacia Saitani with Storm Runner!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes 22 damage from Poison!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
GS: Yue Rohay critically Guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Heartbreaker for 26 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yue Rohay gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Storm Runner for 145 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Acacia Saitani!
GS: CRITICAL! Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Ratatoskr's Elbow Room for 145 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Blitzstrahl for 80 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Break! applied to Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Seraph Boudicca's Force Guard activates!
GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Astrid's Third Method - Cold-Forged Fury for 38 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong's Force Guard activates!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Astrid's Third Method - Cold-Forged Fury for 148 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    A great disturbance is happening across the room, as those engaged with the Hyadean known as Polynya are avail to another, greater secret -- of Astrid of the Method. Yue has a quiet narrowing of her eyes, for a moment...

    ELSEWHERE NEARBY

    A certain Hyadean's horns wiggle as she sags and tries to rely on them to just figure out the way through the Molten Scar, looking extremely tired as she leans on a walking stick.

    "W-why did I have to get lost now, of all times...?"

    There you go, Fei, someone got lost...

    HERE

    Yue looks on contritely towards Acacia for a moment, but only so long as Ragnell actually responds to her in the Ancient Tongue -- or as Yue would know it, plain ol' Zeboim.

    "<The last thing I expected today was someone to speak the same language I do.>" (Yue, Lily's right over there.) "<But... that heartens me, in a way.>"

    Yue's style, arms bound as she is, is focused on the movement of her legs -- and it's with little surprise that she anticipates Ragnell's response with her own booted foot up to her chin;

    Anticipation, though, is only half the battle.

    There's a grimace as Yue pulls backwards, but the shackles weigh her down. The Seraph's foot grazes against her chin, and Ragnell's force is enough to propel her backwards into an awkward three (four; her hands move together)-point landing, scuffed.

    "<Are you from... that old time as well?>"

    Ara, it looks like someone isn't aware of the Seraph's Ancient Tongue.

    What comes next is along the same veins - a style more reminiscent of Lunar's Artes than Filgaian martial study. She's working in tandem with the reporter, wincing as she calls for Acacia, "On your nine! Careful!"

    She darts, left, right; she's building momentum with each leap, even with an enormous metal weight on her--

    "Then... how about this one?"

    A feint. She's a blur of extremely long brown hair for a moment, descending close to the ground to a kneel, coiled like a spring -- and launching and dispersing her energy in one burst, she bears the image of a crescent moon and its dark silhouette with her spinning flip-kick.

    "<Arcane Arte - Moon Fall!>"

GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Gessenkohou - Moon Fall!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny rides the hand cannon's recoil, twisting with it and then snapping his left arm downward, holstering hus sudearm in a smooth motion. He's doubtful that he'll get a chance to reload in the midst of all of this nonsense - and frankly, with the amount of fire being thrown casually about, throwing random rounds into the mix is probably not a good idea. Ratatoskr is already bounding off, more's the pity, and so Claude takes a second to survey the field, like the combat officer he's been trained to be.

He sees Polynya doing some sort of nonsense that sends Ida flying back; it looks painful, but Zed, Elly, Fei, and Lily are already there. It's doubtful he'll do more than get in their way if he sticks his oar in.

He doesn't see Ragnell, which isn't a surprise, but he hears a tornado of sultry-voiced lightning that appears to answer to that name. He can't see BuddiFruddi, either, so they're probably engaged heavily.

Which leaves a hyperactive bouncing Hyadean as a priority target. Not the primary threat - Polynya the Method Actor is definitely still that - but as the likeliest to put down and free up resources to end this. As for tactics, Ratatoskr has, in his experience, disdained the use of ranged weapons; Claude therefore doesn't waste time chasing after the Hyadean as he darts around with Jay, and Gwen, and Rebecca, and the distractingly dancing Avril.

He doesn't have to; Ratatoskr will come to him.

So Claude draws in a breath and begins to focus internal energies, steeling himself for the inevitable charge. He raises his sword - the chisel-pointed katana Gamgee gave him after the Tournament of Arms, a blade far beyond his skill, then and now - and holds it in a two-handed grip, above his head, point arcing down and forward. A flash of green and quicksilver enters his vision, and Claude steels himself.

Ratatoskr hits the wall that is Claude C. Kenny, and the impact rattles his bones. He grits his teeth, bearing the strike, and then brings Gamgee's blade down in a glistening half-moon arc. Half a heartbeat later, he steps to his right, carving another whistling slash along the horizontal, trying to strike the Hyadean twice before he can bound away.

GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Ratatoskr with Twin Slash!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
GS: Seraph Ragnell completely evades a hit from Yue Rohay's Gessenkohou - Moon Fall!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Yue Rohay drains Seraph Ragnell! Yue Rohay gains 0 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.


There are times when having the people in her life oblivious to certain things is the most frustrating thing impossible...

... and then there are days like today where she feels like she dodged a proverbial elephant riding a Monowheel trying to run her over. Still she can't help but smile at Avril's own promise.

Then the battle is joined. "I'm good!" Rebecca says, ignoring the ache in her ribs. It's time to be a big girl right now, which means not complaining about pain.

Rebecca keeps pulling the trigger as she tries to make Ratatoskr Zig into the Zag of Avril's blade. "If that's the case then you're on the wrong side of history!"

And then Polynya draws her attention. As Rebecca's eyes widen in surprise at the sudden change. "What?" Someone that made Elly and Lily run? That's enough to give Rebecca anxiety...

... not that she didn't already have that.

Yue and Ragnell speaking in an old tongue gives her even more anxiety. Like maybe the two are conspiring...?

Ratatoskr rushes up to her, and Rebecca suddenly digs in her heels and holds her ARM between both of her hands, the skinny revolver her shield. The Knee Strike slams into the Gun Metal. The impact causing it to smack back uncomfortably against her collarbone as she falls.

Only to suddenly slap the ground, and roll back up and over into a kneeling position.

Noting grimly the hit Avril just took, she decides that she needs to distract him a bit. That's usually Dean's role to get up close and personal, but teamwork can be fluid like that.

Suddenly rushing out into a sprint she calls out, "Avril duck then pop up! I'll cover you!"

Rebecca's hop allows her to plant a foot on Avril's shoulder, balancing her weight on her toes so that it's not painful. Not that it would be since she's so strong but...

As Avril pops up, Rebecca leaps off of her shoulders, twisting to attempt to axe a kick into Ratatoskr's face. Then while aerial, as she falls, that powerful acrobat's leg blurs forward and back, as she tries to slam another strike into the eager warrior's collar. "You're absolutely right about one thing."

Then digging her foot in, she flips herself up and over. As she comes down... it's clear it won't be long before her ARM is soon to be pointed right up in the Metal Demon's face, point blank. "You'll be here for this!"

GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Astrid's Third Method - Roaring Avalanche Stance for 69 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Ratatoskr with Crescendo Step!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
GS: Ratatoskr takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Twin Slash for 141 hit points!
GS: Ratatoskr takes a glancing hit from Rebecca Streisand's Crescendo Step for 39 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"...No, it's okay, that's how it always ends up with him, one way or the other." Jacqueline says with a sigh, shaking her head toward Gwen.

She looks toward Ratatoskr, then, as he responds.

"Do you mean the one about an 'apocalyptic flame consuming the world'? Yes, I did - and what about you? This isn't a game, Ratatoskr! Do you even understand what that even means!?" Jacqueline retorts. "It's not exciting! It's terrifying!"

Ratatoskr goes for a kick. Even with his strength sapped, it seems like he has plenty left to spare - he is the energetic sort, after all. She tries to backpedal out of range, but he still manages to connect with a kick good enough to knock the wind out of her for a second. It takes her a second to recover.

"Alright... let's try to deal with this quickly!" She decides. With a gesture of her left hand, Jacqueline invokes one of the Crest Graphs in her gauntlet. Sorcerous light spreads out from her position, settling over her allies currently fighting Ratatoskr and enhancing their strength.

From this position, though, she's able to witness Polynya's change.

"...Astrid? But, wasn't she..." Jacqueline stammers, surprised. ...Apparently not. "But... Astrid is a Hyadean, isn't she? Then, she shouldn't be able to use Crest Sorcery..."

Jacqueline considers this for a moment.

"...That must be Rahab's doing too, then. That makes sense, with Miss Vuong's observations..." Jacqueline mutters.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Mage Armory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Mage Armory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Mage Armory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Mage Armory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Claude C. Kenny!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    "That is the problem!" Boudicca snaps back, as Ragnell assures her she's present no matter how necessary she might be. She can see the glyph - she looks up --

    Her weight drops, and she places a gauntlet-clad hand on the hot ground, as the other raises up with tonfa held in defensive line. The lightning grounds through her - an entirely unpleasant experience - and she leaves it to the earth, as she straightens.

    Her bangs are all staticy now. There's a bit of green hair, amidst all the black, and it frizzes as it sticks to her face.

    It's the worst, Ragnell!

    (Never mind that the energy poured into Seraphic lightning could stop a man's heart with sufficient determination; apparently the worst part about this is the hair.)

    "Do you not think of what will happen to unnecessary things when they become inconvenient? You need not involve yourself in every little torment just on the whim of it!" Never mind old words, she's too busy yelling in these ones, because Polynya is not Polynya and there is always more oblivion to go around. "Do not vex me on this! My Seer requires aid!" Her words are directive, but there's an anxious undercurrent to her demands which makes it as much a plea to reason as any kind of order.

    Tonfa to hand, she springs forward, clears the distance between herself and Ragnell -- "Cerberus Strike!" It's a little different with tonfa than a staff, certainly, but it's still built on those three strikes like the three heads of Hell's stoic guardian, rising up from the core in a blatant attempt to push Ragnell up. Boudicca, at least, rises: leaping up to swing her metaphorical mass about and slam into Ragnell from above, as if she's just changed her mind and would now rather she fall to the ground. "-- Soaring Blast!"

GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Rebecca Streisand!
GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Cerberus Strike!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has launched an attack Link!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Soaring Blast!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Cerberus Strike for 150 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Seraph Boudicca's Soaring Blast for 28 hit points!
GS: Slow! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Seraph Ragnell enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

As Polynya suffers under the rain of blows, Elly spins round and --

She's called by name.

But not quite her name. That question isn't going to Elehayym van Houten of Etrenank, it's going to -

Liabelle Emily. A freak coincidence of time and space, and Elly freezes even so, turning her head to look at her. Polynya rises upwards and begins to change, to distort. Her armor follows her, impossibly, and memories flow in Elly's head - like glaciers breaking or expanding over previously cheerful arctic tundra.

Why do I recognize her? Elly thinks, quailing. Even those echoes. They came from Ida but now that I look at her, I remember her. Is she doing something to me? The way Ida did to me, perhaps? Is that what's happened? Her head begins to hurt, the injury from the desperate struggle in Krosse making itself known, perhaps.

Is that it? Elly thinks, a moment before--

The spear is coming towards her and a hundred peaceful moments in Spira come to a moment of nervous fruition. Perhaps Fei can feel a twinge of glory because Elly leaps to the side, her arms snapping up in a way not too different from his, and perhaps not too different in turn from whoever taught HIM. The three-section staff goes slack; the blow is moving too fast to dodge entirely, but a bloody ice-gash along the ribs is far, far better than what almost happened. Spinning, Elly sprawls on the ground for a moment.

She kips back up, heavily. "... you're tired of this farce?" Elly says, huffs really. "Then --"

Elly raises up her staff...

... and pitches it away!!! (Free three-stick nunchucks for someone.)

Barehanded Elly spreads her palms. "Then stop!!!"

Elly speaks with sudden, inexplicable thunder that seems to come out of her throat like she's standing on an amplifier stack. (Claude at least probably knows about amp stacks.) "Stop it! Stop it and talk! Get the others to stop too! Even Ragnell -- there are things none of you know-- all of this, nobody has to - to fight over the bloody guts of this planet!"

Can you spot the exact point where that moment of shining light diffracted? Elly kind of can, and she was behind it and couldn't quite see it. She swallows dryly, feeling the gash in her side as she keeps her hands spread, gazing at the changing form of Astrid. The shape, the change and the shape both, hold fear, but, Elly tells herself, come on: just don't let that fear be in charge, for one shining minute--

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Astrid with Screamer!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

There was part of Zed that had been expecting exactly what color the Crest Sorceress would bleed. Quicksilver. The sight quiets his usual exhuberance regardless, his eyes widening in surprise and understanding. Three blows lash out in a familiar sequence-- so familiar. Too familiar.

Kalve and Zed are-- or perhaps, were-- friends and sparring partners. The technique the woman brings to bear is a familiar one. The trio of blows are blocked by the flat of Doom Bringer's curved edge in the same motion. Each piercing strike slams into the alien blade and sends trembling shockwaves and an ominous sense of forboding up the length of Polynya's arm. About the only thing it breaks is his stunned silence, though each strike forces the Hyadean warrior back six inches at a time regardless.

"Method Mercury," Zed observes, his gaze tightening in sudden realization. "Astrid of the Method...! You're still alive!? Of course... Of course, it all makes sense! Rahab never made another puppet! You... the dragon beneath Wayside, the captain of the Fereshte, it was you all along! That's why you reacted so strangely when we fought on the train. That's why everything you've done has felt so weird! Captain Astrid of the Ash Legion, second in command to Fafnir... That's why you knew about the Jotuns, too...!"

Zed wheels back, clicking his tongue as Ida is hurled so viciously across the chamber. Her arm is the key, isn't it? And by placing her there... They haven't much time! "Then..." Zed takes a step forward-- the frozen floor cracks and craters as his foot falls. A mere prelude, as he brings his sword high--! "Let me introduce myself again, too. I am Zed! First Generation Metal Demon! Former member of the Advanced Raiding and Marauding Squadron under Quarter Knight Berserk, former member of Adlehyde Infiltration Group under Commander Riesenlied, and..."

The blue-silver fang that is Doom Bringer suddenly ignites, a wreath of starlight and sunfire twining up the weapon's gleaming edge. "The one who would protect and save all of my people! Yourself included! Astrid of the Method! You are keenly mistaken about something vital!" Zed swings, a heavy, crushing blow more suited for a knight than a warrior of the shadows. Astral fire erupts from the point of impact like shockwaves from a falling star. "I did hurt that thing, Polynya. I hurt it, and that means I can kill it!"

GS: Zed has attacked Astrid with Saint Arts - Starstrider's Valor!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zed assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"That's right," Lily says at first--and she sees that snarl. The arm... 'his', she says, as if she knew that demon. Lily narrows her eyes--but cannot move in time to block the power going for Ida. But it's when that energy that disappears, when qicksilver drips...

"What?" Lily starts. At first she thinks she might be like Ida, but it's different from that, too. Muse spikes up; water forms of nothingness. And she asks--

"What are you--" The mirror applies. Shards of ice leap towards Lily, who steps immediately to the side. Fire melts some of them, but not enough; blood sprays hot onto the ground where the ice tears through her sleeve, what remains of the fabric immediately soaking red as Lily's eyes narrow.

Have in common... Could she mean?

"Unlike you, I broke free," Lily answers, "And yo... The Method, is it?" She knows it. She is familiar, ish; she has worked with its practioners, knowing two. But Astrid's form stretches, and changes..

"So, a Hyadean who can use Sorcery. I'd call it fascinating in other circumstances. ...Still would now, if I'm being honest. It's your connection? Or...?"

Elly speaks up--Elly, who takes a gash and hits the ground. "Elly!" Lily calls, in concern, making to move towards her--but she picks it up, and suddenly Elly speaks in a thunderous voice. To stop--that no one has to fight over this. "...You'd be better off listening to her," Lily says. "But tell me what you want to--" Lily advances from the side near-opposite Elly, lifting her hands and throwing a fireball, a wave of flame, another fireball, a column of fire--she hurls out burning power before herself in waves as she advances towards her foe, unafraid of melee. "Talk about!" In the barrage of attacks she has the time to look briefly at Ida, to gauge her condition, but she can't break away.

No, she needs to know what 'Astrid' means. But as Zed speaks, Lily finds herself having to say, "I owe Rahab some pain, myself!"

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Astrid with Burning Advance!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei's eyes widen upon striking Polynya's jaw. "You..." He is too slow to stop his own followup. He is well versed in techniques from The Method--and the Demon Fist--at this point and Polynya can see Fei going from 'relaxed' to tense in a moment. He hops back and sinks into a crouch, raising his arms up to protect his upper body. It almost looks like a STRETCH.

"Astrid...?" He raises his hand to his forehead. "Lee's dead, Astrid. He died in the Deus Ex Machina. Mother killed both him and Elly. But she didn't like the price she paid. And now she's dead again... Maybe it'll stick this time cause Cecilia did it."

He looks up and there's a different quality in his eyes as he straightens up and knocks the spear away from his body with a hand. Strangely, he does not interfere with her strikes against Elly.

"But we 'remember'. We usually do, eventually. But you... The impression you made... it's very light. Hazy... You must not have been cruel enough. You gonna start being cruel now? That creature isn't strong enough to force your actions. It can only...tweak..." His lips twist into a horrible grin. "Want me to rip it out of your soul? Or are you the type to hold a thousand year grudge? Didn't work out for Siegfried...Doesn't work out for anyone--"

He swings his fist back, a giant red aura crackling aroundn it as he throws it towards Astrid's face but--

stop!!!

The fist comes to a stop inches from Astrid's face. It's almost like Id is struggling to connect--then the grin fades as he stumbles back, placing his hand on his forehead. He stumbles back as Fei pushes himself back into the forefront of his mind.

Somehow, in the moments before it's done, Fei inexplicably worries about Riesenlied, having a strong feeling she got terribly lost.

"Is talking shit out..." Fei says as he punches both hands forward, sending a surge of his OWN ice crashing into Astrid.

"Before the extensive revenge campaigns so fucking hard?! He never hated you!"

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Astrid with Suikei!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Avril is, as a general rule, pretty quick with her reflexes and her blade.

    Ratatoskr, quicksilver himself, is faster.

    "--!"

    She doesn't even get the chance to attempt to parry it, her blade still born in the follow-through of her own attack. Ratatoskr's elbow simply drives, unassuaged, into her stomach as she turns to face him. Avril buckles, dropping to one knee for the moment, her free hand curled about her midsection before she slowly and shakily rises, exhaling a single breath. Her grip on her blade tightens.

    Her gaze lifts in time to see what has come over Polynya.
    But that is a situation to which she cannot attend, not while she trades blows with another and is already the poorer for it.

    "So... you want to see what will happen," she breathes, her blade angled hip to shoulder in a low guard, as if to ward off a further strike of that ilk. Certainly another like it could see her in dire straits.

    As Rebecca has already cottoned to.

    She doesn't glance backwards at her friend; as instructed she ducks low, forming the means already to send Rebecca sufficiently airborne.

    Much of Avril's physical strength is in her core. And Rebecca is light, quite light. She surges to her full height in the moment after Rebecca alights upon her, taking the moment to drop back.

    Taking the moment to draw out her Medium and summon the power within it.

    Briefly, the scent of the ocean winds itself about Avril as the Medium shines bright. She exhales softly.

    "Rebecca-- I have an idea...! Let us use my magic, together!"

GS: You cannot act while you still have attacks in queue.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Ocean's Blessing!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Astrid takes a glancing hit from Elhaym van Houten's Screamer for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Astrid!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Astrid has lost 1 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia doesn't speak Zeboim, but she can pick up on the sounds of the language, and can identify that their opponent is speaking it back at Yue. It is absolutely not the time for a moment of jealousy, but that doesn't stop the reporter from feeling a spike of it anyway, feeling her cheeks puff out just a little in return to Yue's contrite glance.

    But she catches herself, and turns it into a quiet nod with what she hopes is a supportive smile. She's not out to dig up Yue's past, no matter how many times she has to remind herself of that. Rather, it seems more important to accept her presence now. ... but whatever her feelings on the matter, she's forced to leave them aside for the time being as she picks up Ragnell turning her own tactics around on her, the homing blast twisting after her as she rolls to one side and pushes herself up into a run.

    She doesn't really know how best to dodge something like this, and it's clear the trail is following her faster than she can cope with - so instead she simply chooses to grit her teeth, cover her face with a guard and brace against it, grunting with effort as she's forced back several steps. "Are you even saying anything, other than running yourself in circles? Does any of this matter to you at all?"

    Something is happening around them, but she doesn't really have the time or the ability to focus on other things right now. It takes everything she's got to push back against the attack and keep her footing, and by the time she forces forwards the Seraph with them has said everything else she can think to say and then some; it's enough for her to make a note to ask about Ragnell later, because she's getting a little sick of even more faces stacking against ARMS, time after time.

    She harnesses that irritation, feels the ether condense itself at her feet, then shoves forwards shoulder-first, aiming for Ragnell with a yell and an impact that sparks with a glint of light; she twists after it, hammering a punch forwards that tries to grab at Ragnell's clothing to hurl her over one shoulder. It isn't pretty by any means, but there's a surprising strength behind it.

GS: Acacia Saitani spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Mightier than the Sword!
GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action.
GS: Astrid takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Suikei for 131 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    'What 'other things' did ya have in mind, exactly?'

    Even in the middle of a battle, Ragnell shall always gotta Ragnell. And Gwen, her head still smarting from Ratatoskr's earlier attack, is quick to shout her answer. "Somethin' that *ain't* enablin' whatever Polynya's doin'. Which is--" She gestures with her right hand, gloved fingers extending towards the unmasked woman in an effort to explain every question Gwen still has.

    Ratatoskr is still here, close by, and fully able to make Gwen remember he's there, with his tail. "OOF!" Gwen flips in the air, landing with a painful smack against her back, drawing out a throaty cough as she lies there, dazed.

    Sitting halfway up, she pauses to look at the scene before her, as Polynya provides answers to questions Gwen had always wondered, but never asked aloud.

    Questions receive answers, which lead to more questions, as Gwen finds herself frozen there in abject horror.

    Gwen could still remember the first few times she and Ida had met. The time where Gwen, not knowing of Zed and Kalve's secret identities as Hyadean spies, had foolishly allowed them to examine her, with Ida present. Gwen was supposed to be the one with an ARM attached to her. She had accepted it, and, to a degree, it was a part of her in ways she can't quite understand.

    But Gwen couldn't deny the fact that she had liked it, being able to help Ida in a world she had already traversed, like letting a friend in on a secret she had kept to herself. It could have remained that way, if Ida's ARM was more similar to her own, rather than of an entirely different make and intention.

    Now, Gwen feels lost, seeing Polynya morph into Astrid. Hyadean, human, the name was familiar. So where...?

    Zed makes it click all into place. "... Astrid... There was a ship was named Astrid."

    Elly cries out, and Gwen, still on the ground, does the only thing she can.

    "St. Elmo's Fire!" Gwen's own demon hand reaches up, fingers splayed wide, as she attempts to buy time. The current of transparent electricity expands from around her, emcompassing the field, expanding outwards.

    "Ida, hold on!"

GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Mage Armory for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Gwen Whitlock!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Seraph Ragnell with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ratatoskr with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Astrid with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Acacia Saitani's Mightier than the Sword for 180 hit points!
GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Jam! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Ratatoskr takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Jam! applied to Ratatoskr!
GS: Astrid takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam! applied to Astrid!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    "<That 'old time,' hmm? You could say that.>"
    
    As Yue charges right back in, Ragnell stands her ground; she appears to fall for the feint, only to leap backwards out of what would essentially be a defensive feint, landing light on her feet as Yue kicks the shit out of the space where she was just a split-second ago. It's a powerful maneuver, Ragnell can tell just by looking at it. Good thing she managed to get out of the way in time. As she lands, she pops off a pair of lightning bullets, POW POW, at the Veruni woman--a simple, fairly basic attack.
    
    "<So why are you here, now?>" Ragnell continues, not knowing and absolutely not caring that she's freaking Rebecca over there out by talking to Yue in a language only they (and Lily) know.
    
    "Oh, that right? Sounds like we weren't understandin' each other then, haha!" As light and uncaring as Ragnell's tone might sound, that upwards tonfa strike hits hard and fast, as expected of a Wind Seraph. The follow-up downwards strike doesn't quite hit her dead center, though, due to her twisting in mid-air; she's sent down, but not to ram into the ground. Instead, she manages to catch herself, wincing from the force of the attack, and backsteps. Her movements are a little slower than before, though, thanks to Boudicca. "If you're really worried 'bout your Seer, though--why don't you just go to 'er? You know you're not the only one fightin' me, right? Or d'you not trust your buddies here to have your back if you retreat?
    
    "And anyway--I'm not here on the whim of it. I'm here 'cuz Astrid very earnestly wanted my help."
    
    Elly yells a whole lot about the futility of this battle. Ragnell glances at her. She laughs a little, low and breathy, and turns her attention to Astrid. "How about it?" she calls to her. "You feel like stoppin'? I don't mind ditchin' this place if you don't."
    
    She doesn't include Ratatoskr in that call, but then, she's not here for *him*, they're both here for Astrid.
    
    Acacia asks Ragnell a crabby question. With all the gravity of a light breeze, she replies, "Nope! Everything is nonsense. I'm here just to annoy you, specifically." Sounds like Ragnell's channeling a bit of Nimue right now. To whit, Gwen just gets a big ol' shrug. Looks like that's a no!
    
    For all that she doesn't seem to be taking the battle seriously, though, she does move away from Gwen's electro-fire--but that only makes her vulnerable to Acacia suddenly getting up in her grill and backwards-bodyslamming her with surprising strength. Ragnell crashes into the floor with a very painful-sounding *crack*, body folding sideways in a way that really looks like it hurts. She rolls to one side, Seraphic glyph forming beneath her. "O darkened stormclouds... Thunder Blade!"
    
    A huge sword made of lightning *slams* into the ground around Yue, Acacia, and Boudicca from an angle, sending out a concussive burst of energy; a breath later, it EXPLODES in a cacophony of lightning, crackling in a wide radius around its landing point.

GS: Seraph Ragnell spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Thunder Blade!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Yue Rohay with Thunder Blade!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Acacia Saitani with Thunder Blade!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes 25 damage from Poison!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Astrid guards a hit from Lily Keil's Burning Advance for 133 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Astrid guards a hit from Zed's Saint Arts - Starstrider's Valor for 81 hit points!
GS: Yue Rohay takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Thunder Blade for 155 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yue Rohay gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a glancing hit from Seraph Ragnell's Thunder Blade for 82 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Thunder Blade for 157 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    Claude's observation about Ratatoskr's preferred range of attack is well-founded: he has incredible foot speed for engagement, and his observed ARM attacks can only be effective at close range (aside from the horn laser, which he has not elected to use - perhaps for reasons similar to how he has shifted the internals of his limbs). Weird Hyadean soldier biology theories can wait, though.
     Claude carves true through the liquid metal patagium and much of his upper back. Quicksilver splatters and ignites when it hits the ground, forcing him to continue through the established attack pattern.
     When he gets to Rebecca, she kicks his face - which he swings so she gets his left shoulder instead, but parkours off of him all the same and gets a cleaner shot across that. Spittle escapes between serrated teeth. He overcompensates and backs away from point blank, but Rebecca's got a nice bead on him.
     "Terrifying?" His voice is a bit more muted as he wheezes out more of the aftermath of inhaling some of those Jay-Makes-You-Play-Less-Rough fumes from before. "But I'm in the company of those who defeated Mother...!" He sounds pretty happy about Mother's defeat. He grins a little wider. "...And at least one of the successors of those who fought this... and won..." (Said person is currently in a weird ice prison.)
     Jay does make a point about their methods - the use of any kind of 'sorcery' - theoretically being beyond them. (Also he sees the discarded three-sectioned staff and he kind of wants it but has no clear shot there.) As Zed further screams out the history of how 'Polynya' could know what she does, he grins a bit wider. Thinking of all she must have fought, all of the stories... to be interrupted by Avril's wors.
     "...There's a lot that's been seen... but so much of what has been seen... hasn't been kept..." He replies with a suggestion that maybe he should stop talking and take a moment to breathe, as he addresses Avril's observation... and then watches as both Avril and Jay take a breather and momentarily disengage. "Today... I'll do both!"
     "So come onnnn....!" He snarls, turning to face those two even as Avril signals to Rebecca to combine both of their strengths - as if actually slighted. The horn on his head sparks to life, gathering energy - okay, so it's not as compromised by the ambient high temperature...
     And Gwen disrupts it with a current of electricity that washes out, dispersing the gathered energy harmlessly, preventing Ratatoskr from using what basically is his primary ranged option at all. (This also gives Rebecca more time to reassert the aim of her ARM if she needs to.)
     The question comes out - does Astrid feel like stopping? Walking away? Ending all of this? (Ratatoskr still can't see a clear path to the discarded staff.)
     He leaps forward in a flying knee strike in Gwen's direction to start. He doesn't want to stop. He thinks what he sees of Gwen's ARM arm is neat. He doesn't break Rebecca's aim as he moves in a straight line in a tackling motion in the direction of Avril and Jay alike. Once more he hurls himself into the human wall of peak athleticism, bringing in an elbow and a knee together in a crushing motion. Rebecca's aim is still not challenged.
     At least, not until he snaps out a palm strike in which he shifts some biomass into the length to try and reach just a tiny bit further in which to hit from - but it's not a huge boost to allow him to do it from too far a distance if she's on point.

GS: Ratatoskr has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Fly Into Fray!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Tack On A Tackle!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Tack On A Tackle!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Cracker!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Bit Of A Stretch!
GS: Ratatoskr has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ratatoskr has completed his action.
GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Ratatoskr's Cracker for 79 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Astrid has completed her action.
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a solid hit from Ratatoskr's Bit Of A Stretch for 97 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rebecca Streisand gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Ratatoskr's Tack On A Tackle for 64 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: CRITICAL! Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Ratatoskr's Fly Into Fray for 78 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock's Force Guard activates!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    Astrid glances to either side of her, gauging distance between her allies and herself. "Ragnell! Ratatoskr!" She whips another Crest Graph from her bracer, and flicks it into the air, where it joins the first. Light glints off it, shining like sunbeams reflecting off atmospheric ice. A faint sheen of sparkling dust rains down on Ragnell and Ratatoskr, infusing them with the strength of the Ley. Their own reserves of power flow quicker, and more decisively.

    Lily intervenes before she can offer more support. Astrid raises her fist, and a wall of ice condenses out of the air--but Lily's seen this trick before, and this time, she has the decisive elemental advantage. The first fireball shatters Astrid's defenses. The second slams into her torso, knocking her back. The third traces a burning line down her side.

    "I told you we had much in common, Black Wolf," Astrid says, through gritted teeth. "The Elw lured that creature to my ship--set it upon us like a dog. And when they imprisoned it, we were imprisoned, too--and I watched as it took my soldiers and twisted them. Twisted me. Drove its tendrils into my mind and cursed me with this--" Raw Muse flares from her eyes.

    Ragnell asks if she wants to stop. Astrid barks out laughter, harsh and disbelieving. "I've barely begun!" she shouts. She does not sound at all well.

<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    Elly steps forwards. "Liabelle Emily," Astrid says, putting to words what's flashing through Elly's head. "I don't know why you're both here--" Something strikes her; she presses a hand to her temple, her lips pulling tight in a grimace. Right now, she can only hope this isn't the creature manipulating her vision. "But..."

    'Stop it!'

    It's like slamming into a wall. Astrid digs in her heels, struggling to stay upright in the face of Elly's anger. For a moment, it looks like Elly's headed this off at the pass--Astrid sags, her eyes going unfocused a moment. Fei's fist comes within an inch of her face, but she doesn't so much as move. The martial artist's voice echoes in her head, distorted and exaggerated by Rahab's power

    Mother is dead mother is dead mother is dead Mother is dead motherisdead MOTHER IS DEAD motherisdeadmotherisdeadmotherisdead

    Astrid goes completely, totally still. Zed's words reach her, but it's anyone's guess what she's making of them. The Hyadean's blade comes down, cleaving a bloody gash in her shoulder. Fei's ice wave slams into her, cutting into her armor with a howling screech of metal. Blood drips down her body from minor lacerations. And then, with no warning whatsoever, she whips out, her own hand twisting into an exoskeletal claw--not unlike the clawed gauntlets Ida's so fond of producing.

    "What did you say?" Astrid says, as she looks Fei in the eye. Fei might find the look in her eyes far too familiar. She's teetering on the brink, dangerously close to pitching over into grief-stricken rage.

    Gwen's lightning crawls across Astrid's body. The Hyadean sorceress snarls, and turns to glare at Gwen. "Wait your turn, please," she says, as if Gwen had tried to cut in line.

    The air grows perilously cold as Astrid turns to Zed. "I remember them," she says. "Berserk's victims, his gun-fodder. That you've stayed there for so long is a testament to your endurance." Snow begins to fall, then hailstones, then whole sheets of painfully-cold sleet. Astrid is conjuring down a winter storm in hell itself. "Tell me," says the old veteran. "Is Lee telling the truth?"

    Think carefully, Zed.

GS: Astrid has activated a Boss Action!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    She missed.

    It's not everyday that she misses with that technique, which puts ample precaution into how obscure its actual attack line goes; she's a very good opponent. There's a part of her that feels guilty in enjoying the thrill of all this, even.

    "... for her," Yue nudges her head towards the reporter... though the astute viewer would appreciate the fine camera shot that also includes Avril in the further background, battling Ratatoskr as well.

    Camera Tricks, okay.

    "Seraph--" Yue answers Boudicca, since she doesn't understand. "If there is a greater emergency for you, do it."

    The Veruni turns to look towards Ragnell once more. "We can stand our ground a bit longer."

    There are proclamations; Elly asks about the meaningless of battle, and the scream hits her in the very soul as if it squeaks for a moment and goes 'big mood, really'. But meaningless battles have become part and parcel of her very life.

    "Acacia... do not let her taunt you--"

    Oh, that's more than just a taunt. A Seraphic glyph forms, and that presence is enough for Yue to try to dive out of the way--

    Metal conducts Electricity!

    zzzzzzZZZZZZAPPP

    "... ngh..."

    Live currents are still dancing along the surface of Yue's enormous shackles, moving hitherto where they'd like; the Veruni's grounded herself as a last ditch measure to try to prevent the worst of the attack, but it's for naught against magic of this caliber.

    Still, she rises. She always will. So long as she is willed to do so.

    What comes next is a bit of a shift -- instead of a Lunarian technique, she samples a profile from Filgaia, an arte that those in the modern age would know as hailing from Arctica as she steps closer to Acacia, gathering the inner reserves of her chi--

    "Mend yourself."

    --and with a loud *CLICK* of her heel, her very lifeforce shapes into a blade and exudes out to mend the reporter of her fatigue and reorient her body's very alignment.

    Yes, this is the kind of nansense van Burace gets up to.

GS: Astrid has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Parhelia!
GS: Astrid has attacked Ratatoskr with Parhelia!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Acacia Saitani with Fast Draw - Heal Blade!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: Astrid has attacked Zed with Fimbulvinter!
GS: Astrid has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Fimbulvinter!
GS: Astrid has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Fimbulvinter!
GS: Astrid has attacked Lily Keil with Fimbulvinter!
GS: Astrid has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Astrid has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Fimbulvinter!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Astrid's Fimbulvinter for 143 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hyper and Mighty expired!
GS: Astrid has completed her action.
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a glancing hit from Astrid's Fimbulvinter for 99 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Astrid's Fimbulvinter for 152 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Astrid's Fimbulvinter for 109 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Astrid's Fimbulvinter for 115 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    Ida is still pinned to Setanta's prison, covered from neck to foot in a layer of ice that doesn't quite feel cold. Instead, it writhes with more of that horrid, strength-sapping energy--it flows around her, digging grasping tendrils into the Elw-engineered wards. The only mercy is that it's not as intense as what Polynya threw at her earlier, and that might not be much of a mercy after all. With her back pressed against crystalline bark, she can't so much as twitch. All she can do is watch. "Fei," Ida chokes out, with what little breath she can muster. "Zed...!"

    ...Luisa?

    A faint voice echoes in Ida's ears. She recognizes it, and goes as still as a corpse.

    ...Luisa, is that you? Have you returned, at long last?

    Ida feels something roil in the Ley around her. Heat rises up to drive away the cold. Cracks begin to spiderweb across the face of the crystalline trees.

    High above, the obsidian windchimes begin to ring, as if stirred by an intangible breeze. The song they play is arrhythmic, unsettling--a warning.

    The seal is beginning to fail.

GS: Ratatoskr takes a solid hit from Astrid's Parhelia for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Ratatoskr!
GS: Mighty! applied to Astrid!
GS: Yue Rohay heals Acacia Saitani! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Ratatoskr's Tack On A Tackle for 120 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Astrid's Parhelia for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Mighty! applied to Astrid!
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.

Claude C. Kenny flicks his wrists to one side, clearing the length of his blade and sending quicksilver liquid splattering across the floor of the cavern. He draws in a long, slow breath as the obsidian chimes begin to sing their cacophonous song. He licks his lips, tasting the salt of nervous sweat. He doesn't know what those are, but they probably aren't good. Time is running out. Which means he's got to end this quickly. Which means...

"Again with this," Claude groans, shifting his stance and waiting once again. For all his seeming frenzy, there are patterns to be discerned within the chaos that is Ratatoskr's movement. Claude can't see them; he's not that skilled. His mother would no doubt be able to pick them out if she was here (although if his mother was here, she'd probably have uppercutted Ratatoskr through the volcano thirty seconds ago, making the comparison useless). But he knows they're there.

And if you know where someone's going to be, how they get there doesn't matter. So long as you can take the hit.

Ratatoskr flies in again, and Claude is a half-second late with a one handed parry; the Hyadean's knee slams into his left side, his elbow catches Claude on the temple, spinning him around. But the blonde-haired swordsman turns into the impact, using the force of Ratatoskr's own attack to accelerate his own rotation. Blue chi flares as Claude launches a literal dragon punch screaming upward toward the point of Ratatoskr's chin, then staggers back, blooding seeping from a cut on his forehead and into his left eye.

GS: Claude C. Kenny spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Ratatoskr with Dragon's Howl!
GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily can hear Yue and Ragnell talking. She's aware that they're speaking the ancient language, can understand it well. But it's distant from where she is just now. She can hear Fei too, Fei and Elly being confronted with Lee and Liabelle. How can she not notice that? But on the other hand, what can she say about it? Least of all as Fei sounds more like...

Muse flares from her eyes, and that is the answer. Lily listens at least, to Astrid. "So you lost those close to you," Lily says. "...All right. So we do have more in common."

It makes sense, now--how she could cast in that way. But as Astrid goes still, Lily sees danger--and as she calls out, Lily sees opportunity. If--only if--she can weather through the storm. Winter rains down on her, sleet and hail and snow all, and Lily throws the flames around her to block--but this time her wreath of flames cannot deal with all the ice first, and she's forced down to one knee, frost washing over her and turning her black clothes white. She looks as if she should be entirely frozen, for all the ice that remains gathered on her.

"...But the Elw are gone, Astrid. They aren't here for you to take your revenge from." She starts to rise to her feet, and ice cracks as she does. "...But they don't have to be, do they?" she finds. "...No, I won't dissuade you with words, no matter what words I use. We do have a lot in common."

Lily rolls her shoulders, and extends her hand. Power of Fray is still gathered around her, but something breaks into it--a black opening in the world extends from her hand, a blade shaped of nothingness that draws in all light, nearly Lily's own height. She hears--

"Damn," she says. "It's breaking... ZED!" Lily calls. She knows he's been asked a question. She knows just as surely that with what they've seen--there are few others who could unite swords in even comparable fashion.

"With me!"

With that, Lily dashes forward, blade dragging along the ground behind her and cutting precise furrows in stone as it does before she swings it up and then slashes up and across Astrid with it. An explosion of purple-black power announces the hit as Lily's eyes turn from golden to featureless black. "Now!"

GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lily Keil spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Lily Keil has attacked Astrid with Black Wolf's Claw!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    A mystic shine swirls its way about Avril soon after; she glances over in Jay's direction and nods but the once -- in the heat of battle, this will have to suffice.

    She had only been the once in the caverns beneath Wayside. Just the once, but she had learned some of what had happened down there from the ones who ventured hence. About the ship. About the Fereshte, to be clear.

    Bits and pieces about the rest of the story are starting to settle into place.

    Oh. So--

    --so--

    But her focus -- this fight in which she now takes part -- permits her not even the room to properly digest these facts.

    "Is this the direction from which you wish to see history, Ratatoskr?" she asks instead, echoing Rebecca's earlier statement as she cradles the Medium in one hand, bearing her blade in the other. "In fighting for their cause, you may yet destroy what you wish to see. Is this what you wish?" She takes one slow step backwards, blancing herself for the blow she's sure to come.

    It does. Ratatoskr barrels into her with all the force of a runaway locomotive; Avril is sent sprawling backwards and both sword and Medium alike slide from her grasp to rattle against the rocky ground.

    For a moment, it seems that she won't rise again.

    And then Avril stirs, exhaling a single sigh of a breath. She rises to her feet slowly but with intent, each movement sliding into the other so that there is no clear boundary between them.

    As the chimes above ring their warning.

    She glances upwards, slowly.

    "Rebecca," she says, and while she is not truly in that other state, it could be readily said that she stands on its doorstep given that look now in her eyes.

    "Now!"

    She throws out a hand as frost, impossibly, glides outwards about her feet. Ice swirls and rises to her hand, churning inwards to form that glittering crystalline sphere that she casts upwards, to the air above her, where...!

GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Ratatoskr with Overhead Sorcery!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"...I was terrified then, too. Do you think that just because we defeated Mother, that nothing would ever scare us again? That we would never feel threatened, or in danger? Sure, she was more powerful than anything we had ever faced - could even think of facing - but... so many factors joined together to make that possible, and at no point was it certain we would win. Not a single one of us could have done it alone." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head. "So, the idea that there's something, just right there, that, if released, could destroy everything...? That's terrifying."

Ratatoskr claims that he's going to see, and keep what's been seen. Jacqueline frowns.

"...You don't understand anything!" She says, shaking her head. "Stop this, right now!"

Ratatoskr attacks. It's difficult to keep an eye on him as he zips around the room, attacking her allies. In then he comes for her, in a tackle motion. It isn't easy to intercept him - she conjures up a pillar of stone to block, but he manages to crash through it, into her. Jacqueline goes reeling back. She managed to reduce his momentum, but it still hurts...

She reaches into her bags, drawing out a bottle of blue liquid. With a Mystic touch it evaporates into glimmers of light. Once more, it settles over her allies, looking to patch up the injuries Ratatoskr has inflicted on them thus far.

...As she does so, however, she hears the windchimes above begin to ring. It's an ominous song, its unsettling tones sending a chill down her spine. Instinctively, she knows it must be a warning..

"...Everyone, I'm not sure how much time we have left!" Jacqueline warns.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Claude C. Kenny! He gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Claude C. Kenny enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Rebecca Streisand! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Ratatoskr takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Dragon's Howl for 198 hit points!
GS: Mighty! applied to Claude C. Kenny!
GS: Ratatoskr takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Overhead Sorcery for 241 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Elhaym bids them STOP and Boudicca stops; she landed solid blows on Ragnell but she does not pursue the matter, straightening from her crouch. A frown crosses over her face, deep and troubled, as she reflects on Ragnell's missive.

    Does she not trust her buddies..?

    Here's a riddle: does Boudicca look to Yue Rohay because she spoke to her, or did her gaze go that way an instant before?

    There's not much time to debate that riddle, though: from glyph comes Arte and Boudicca is moving, darting out of the way of it even as it crashes down. It clips her back, sets her cape to dancing; she rolls, she rises, she keeps moving.

    "-- you have my thanks!" She issues to the Veruni in her bindings, because she knows just who she's leaving to her, even if she doesn't quite know who she's leaving Ragnell to.

    She can figure that out later.

    Ida is suffering. The seal is suffering.

    The Ley groans.

    Boudicca is the wind and quickly she picks her way through the marital displays and the magic to find her Seer, pinned to that roiling seal by something not quite ice. The burden of warming that bone-chill --

    "Ida," Boudicca says, tonfa set aside as she rests a hand on her. Yes, it is a tragedy for ancient magic to fall; but there is a reason it is tragedy written, and that reason is every farmhand and milkmaid who falls.

    It's about the people who would suffer.

    It's about Ida.

    The heat was always going to be uncomfortable. Still is uncomfortable, as her fingers click like flint and steel, and the wind which is her catches flame. The orange flecks in her cape glow ember-hot - like the hearthfire warmth at that hand, as it covers the Demon Fist, the other at Ida's opposite shoulder.

    The Seal will not bear the burden of Astrid's absolute magic alone: gently, gently Boudicca tries to put her own between them, to extricate Ida before the entire system can fail. To empower Ida, like and unlike all those times before.

    If she can burn bright enough --

    -- can they avert a fatalistic conclusion?

GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Inspire!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Rekindling Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.


As Rebecca's ARM comes up from her manuever, her finger begins to squeeze down on the trigger. Yet at the same time, he hurls himself forward. And a palm snaps out to strike her. She tries to twist out of the way, but it hits her dead on in the Solar Plexus.

The girl from Capo Bronco starts coughing, putting a hand over her midriff, her aim spoiled as she eases her finger off the trigger, and staggers backwards. "Y-You are so... frustrating!" Jay's crest graph causes a surge of power within her. "Oh it's going to be quick."

Which is fortuitous because, Avril suggests her magic... "You mean that?" Rebecca says, in wonder, as if it were time. Then suddenly she seems to cheer up, as if leaning into the idea. "Right!" She cheers suddenly, as if she were eager to the idea. "Let's do it!"

Avril articulates exactly why she's frustrated with him. And Rebecca just smiles proudly at Avril for articulating that...

... so instead she channels a measure of spite. "Hey Ratatoskr. You remember how you wanted to fight strong mages last time we met?" Rebecca says, feeling a surge of poetic justice in what Avril and her are about to do given his role in wrecking part of a place precious to Eleanor.

Reading herself like someone waiting for a shot from a starting gun, Rebecca squares herself out, and waits until Avril says her name, and her muscles tense, like coiled springs... then... 'Now.'

Rebecca suddenly takes a low stance, planting one foot, the other pivoting in a rapid revolution. As it moves, it traces a line of ley energy creating a perfect circle. "Well get ready-! Because Avril's about to show you one!"

That glimmer of energy shimmers like a star at the toes of her boot. Then it's like she simply launches herself higher in the air than seems acrobatically possible, before she begins a backflip in mid-air, rotating her body end over end into a bicycle like kick.

Until the gleam in her toes strikes the crystalline sphere that Avril just created for her mid-leap.

"SHOOOOOOOOTTTTTTT!"

The gleam in her toes brightens. And the sphere of magical energy that Avril is created is launched, descending down at Ratatoskr like a falling star.

Upon striking, it detonates into a riotous column of energy that might appear to utterly consume whatever is within it.

GS: Rebecca Streisand spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Rebecca Streisand has attacked Ratatoskr with Overhead Sorcery!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
GS: Ratatoskr takes a solid hit from Rebecca Streisand's Overhead Sorcery for 266 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

The look on her face. How could she have not known? Has nobody told her? Zed's gaze snaps toward Ratatoskr for the briefest of moments in absolute disbelief. Mother is dead-- she must have known! How could they have kept that a secret for so long? How could nobody have told her!?

"You..." Zed starts-- a moment before a wave of utterly unnatural cold slams into him. Look at you, Ratatoskr. You were so excited about fighting Winter, and now look! It's right here, fighting alongside you now! You must be so proud of yourself. Ice and snow and driving sleet in equal measure hammer him, chilling the Hyadean swordsman to the very bone. The power of the ley may not be so viciously hostile to his being as it once was, but that doesn't make the Hyadean physique any less vulnerable to such sorcery.

It doesn't help that the sudden rush of grief and shock has seemingly rooted Zed to the ground where he stands.

"You... don't know...?" his voice is barely a whisper above the howling blizzard winds. He barely notices the seal beginning to crack and fail. "Mom-- Mom is..."

Lily calls his name.

Zed's eyes shoot wide open. Against the crushing blizzard, a corona of blue-green sunfire pushes outward. Zed roars, "The Mother is dead, Astrid! She is dead and we are all better off for it! I can't believe you didn't know. I can't believe nobody told you! For that more than anything else, I am so sorry Astrid! She was nothing but a parasite! A monster wearing a goddess' face for a mask! She used us. She used us after she killed Hyades! I know you won't believe words alone. I know. That's why...!"

"Doom Bringer," Zed pleads, his soul connecting with the sword's strange artifact-consciousness. He explodes out of the unforgiving snow, becoming unto a shooting star himself. His blade is held at his side, trailing a massive column of sunfire like the tail of a comet. "I ask a lot of you, but... She needs to know! She needs to see! The only thing that will cut through this grief is the light of that faraway sky!"

Lily strikes from below. Zed roars as he swings from above, unleashing a cataclysm of blue-green-yellow energy. Darkness and light mingle and mix and then explode into a field of infinite oblivion, a field of brilliant stars in miniature forming foreign constellations amidst the gloom. And...

Possibly something else.

"Doom Bringer! Show her! Show her the truth! With your ancient sorrow, cut through the monster smothering her soul! Behold, Astrid...!" An image that resonates with the Hyadean soul. A power which can be made possible only by the impossible alignment of so many circumstances. The last, strongest memory of a man from another star who hated the false goddess so intensely that his ire lived on beyond death--!

"Our Cosmo Memory!!"

GS: Formation! Zed has attacked Astrid with Cosmo Memory!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cripple expired!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Disease, Poison, and Reaper removed!
GS: Reload! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 15 extra FP from Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains a Combo from Inspire!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    If it weren't for Jay's earlier magic buffing Gwen's resistance, it could have been a lot worse than it already was.

    That's the conclusion Gwen makes, as she lies on her back again, dazedly looking up at the ceiling. It's highly irritating, the way her nose itches now, a trail of red blood making its trail down to the ground below her.

    Ratotoskr's pure enthusiasm would be appreciated in any other circumstance. It's pretty amazing, how revisiting the concept of Mother being dead only serving to revitalize him, instead of drag him down. His knee was the thing that made Gwen throw up that very ARM he finds interesting, in an attempt to shield her face. The momentum of his strike led to action of Gwen slamming the back of her upper arm into her face, resulting in the unfortunate act of Gwen giving herself a bloody nose.

    The blood tickling her freckled cheek darkens and turns cold as the air grows as cold as a Kislev blizzard, making Gwen's teeth chatter uncontrollably.

    So that was the state of the stunned, slightly frostbitten Gwen, lying with her back to the ground. This is the reason she notices and fully appreciates Avril and Rebecca's on-the-fly dual tech attack, her mouth opening to gape at the two's use of epic cooperation. This is also the reason she, now looking up at the ceiling, notices the cracks creeping along the crystalline trees.

    "... Jay's, uh, right, shit's happenin'." Super courier Gwen, delivering on an extremely obvious take.

    She gets up, her teeth still chattering in residual fits despite the heat coming to reclaim lost ground. "Damn it... I'm waayyy behind on this stuff." She points at Ratatoskr. "You got Claude's muscle, Jay's resourcefulness, Rebecca n' Avril's super dual magic attack, and now!"

    The light red-headed courier pulls her fist back, willing the energy to collect in her clenching right hand. Static clicks around previously limp curls, glinting off the turquoise earrings that dangle from each earlobe.

    She makes a running start and *leaps* towards the eager Hyadean, fist plunging toward towards his head.

    "N' now, you get my _electric fist_!"

GS: Astrid guards a hit from Lily Keil's Black Wolf's Claw for 109 hit points!
GS: Mighty! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Zed's attack becomes clear!
GS: Astrid completely evades a hit from Zed's Ultimate Attack of the Week!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ratatoskr with Corona Discharge!
GS: Entangle expired!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Ratatoskr takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Corona Discharge for 213 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia is probably the person here who would be most affected by Nimue-like taunting, and sure enough her brows sharpen and furrow at the comment as she huffs out a breath; it means that there's a distinct smirk of humourless relish on her face when Ragnell is sent flying backwards, and she lets out a slow breath as she stands back up.

    And then has to swear, quite loudly, at the sheer size of the thunderous blade that crashes down against her. Given Ragnell's airy nature, it's not something she'd really expected to have happen, and her guard is much too slow to react; she yelps in pain, and though there's no blood there's certainly a searing, prickly pain up her arms as she feels the burns start to set in.

    It means she misses Yue's nod, a bit too busy in grimacing in pain and finding her feet despite the way her legs jolt and try to betray her. There's a core of strength to her, at least, and she pushes herself back up as she forces her way back up to standing, doing her best to bore into Ragnell with a stare for all the good it will do.

    "I know," she grits her teeth again, this time at the sharp relief that comes from the wash of healing that comes over her. Any questions she has over exactly how Yue managed that, she's happy to leave them for later - instead, she grasps Yue's wrist for a moment, nodding in somewhat contrite thanks. "I know, but... argh," she sums up with a sigh.

    She rubs at her mouth again, feeling the pressure of the chamber around them, and forces herself to listen to Yue's advice once more as she deliberately takes a long, slow breath. When she looks up again it's a lot calmer, and she swallows tightly to herself. "I don't know why you're joining in with this. And I'm pretty sure you're never going to own up to why," she mutters, drawing her pistol.

    In any other situation she might yell something about tying Ragnell down, but she's sure that both Yue and Ragnell would treat it as ammunition; instead she furrows her brow and squeezes the trigger. Rather than the white bolt of light, the completely mundane pistol somehow belches a mass of power - rivulets of tight fire that shift and smother, trying to pull the flighty Seraph down to a single point for Yue to run her down.

GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Red Tape!
GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Acacia Saitani's Red Tape for 158 hit points!
GS: Slow! applied to Seraph Ragnell!
GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    'I've barely begun!' Astrid shouts.
    
    With a wide, wry smirk, Ragnell shrugs broadly and shakes her head. "You heard the lady," she tells Boudicca. Then she fixes her with a significant look. "You an' your buddies're gonna have to kick me outta here if you want me gone."
    
    She breathes (so to speak) a little easier when the power of the Ley shimmers down on her and Ratatoskr, courtesy of Astrid. "Much obliged," she calls back to her.
    
    In the same way, Yue bids Boudicca go, and Boudicca goes. Ragnell half-smiles as she watches her fellow Seraph rush over to the woman pasted to the seal and does not pursue. She looks over at Yue, who is healing Acacia, and Acacia, who is muttering about Ragnell, instead. "Looks like it's just us, now," she remarks, just before snapping off a rapid series of lightning bullets on her two remaining opponents.
    
    She does indeed not comment further on why she's helping out. Of course, it helps ("helps") that Acacia opens fire on her with literal fire, something that the Seraph doesn't expect. It cuts off her escape, and for a moment, she's overwhelmed by flame, snarling as it encircles her on all sides, giving Yue an opening.
    
    The obsidian chimes begin to ring. Arms raised in defense, Ragnell looks up, expression grim. She understands what this means. Especially given how poorly Astrid is taking, well, everything. Her eyes narrow as she looks over at the ancient Hyadean. Yeah, she figured this was about how she'd react if she heard Mother was dead. Better for Zed to break the news. At this rate, she might have to drag Astrid out.
    
    Assuming the local Primarch doesn't eat them all first, that is.

GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Yue Rohay with Twin Bullet!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has attacked Acacia Saitani with Twin Bullet!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes 26 damage from Poison!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has completed her action.
GS: Yue Rohay guards a hit from Seraph Ragnell's Twin Bullet for 59 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yue Rohay gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Yue Rohay receives 50 temporary hit points.
GS: Yue Rohay enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Of course, at this point, Fei is kind of trying to get his head back in order. His head is all over the place right now. He looks towards Zed, whose head seems to generally be in the right place, for a source of stability. Sure, he's a huge goof, but Fei knows by now that when the chips are down--the path Zed takes is never really a bad one to follow. Ethically that is.

For a moment it looks like Fei might relax himself.

MEMORY OF A ROOM - EXPLORATION - 4 - WITS - VAULT

You are working on an experiment. Your supervisor is watching you from behind a window. They expect results. The future of humanity can depend on your success here.

You take a needle, you inject it into me and deposit its contents into their bloodstream. You study my pupil dilation and you ask me some questions. I answer in howls and shrieks. I do not struggle against its bonds.

A subject is brought in. Others have been brought in before but they did not survive the experiment. You don't think this one will either. You don't ask for their name. They reach out towards the creature before suddenly crumpling to the floor like a broken doll.

You find yourself grimacing. The experiment is a difficult one.

But when you look back to me, suddenly my eyes are looking straight at you.

I see you

I gurgle at you insistently

You could loosen my bonds but I'd kill you if she doesn't.

So you won't

You have failed this challenge

Fei suddenly lets out a pained scream, grabbing at his head. "Wh...why are you...?" He stumbles away. "No...stop it...!!"

He throws himself backwards, as if he's trying to pull himself away from Polynya--but then, he darts forward again, eyes wide, like his body isn't entirely his own, tears welling up in his eyes, lips twisting into a snarl.

"G...get out of her...head!! I hate you!"

He brings both hands swinging for the sides of Astrid's head, aiming to dig his fingers in.

That connection between Astrid and Rahab?

Something beyond the 'hands' reaches out--trying to tear it to shreds, one kind of 'link' ramming itself like a bludgeon towards the other.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJr3PjFkg4

GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Astrid with Making Contact!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    'Again with this,' indeed. Ratatoskr might tower over almost anyone here when standing straight up, but there is an undoubtedly youthful glee in repeating a thing or sensation enjoyed... even as the very air crackles with a greater urgency, of tainted Fray energies building.
     Astrid casts an icy, sparkling boon around Ratatoskr, who feels his temperatures regulate themselves - it staves off the force of nature that puts a check on his capabilities. Astrid laughs that she's barely begun - but some of the more emotional exchanges are lost in the heat of the moment because, well...
     Claude has learned patience is something of a virtue when dealing with an opponent who is simply not, and in that exchange, Claude endures, works with the inertia, and brings shining blue chi giving his strike a force that can crush even metal, and even his flesh. Quicksilver flits between his teeth and launches him straight up.
     That Avril's coolly stated question from his recent offensive can repeat in his mind when he has been dazed and confused and launched at an altitude of 'really high, might need to super jump or call in someone with an anti-air assist to continue the combo' is something unsettling, unto itself. Is this the direction from which he wishes to see it?
     He was there when he saw the unending sorrow of one of the last to try and stand against Mother as Hyades fell. A weight and emotion that he simply did not have the capacity to hold, left all but stunned from the overstimulation of this unending despair and anger. He may yet destroy what he wishes to see.
     Ice that Avril tosses up rises just past where he is, a seeming near-miss - but no, she has utmost trust in her traveling companion, Rebecca, who expresses her continued frustration with him - and the invitation about how he wants to fight strong mages (he does). Then Rebecca shoots for him with a flying kick-- no!
     Into that crystalline sphere, spiked right back down into him, which explodes into the exactly-as-advertised column of energy that seems so bright that even his silhouette cannot be seen in it. A new crater forms where it impacts.
     A clawed hand doesn't quite slam on the rim of it. But it pushes him up, to hear Jay chiding him. One of his eyes is completely dark - the closest thing to wincing he has. Jay was terrified too then, she says - that he simply does not understand the depth of their terror and how their victory simply isn't a guarantee.
     What could be a greater uncertainty than Mother? (He wasn't able to see Operation Mi'ihen first-hand, but never mind that part.)
     "...So it's happening?" He asks as Jay yells about how much time is left, as Astrid's magic has made it difficult for him to gauge the change in the air, not that the Ley is generally easy for Hyadeans to grasp on a fundamental level. Gwen points at him, and now...
     Just as he comes up out of the small crater, Gwen leaps at him with an electric fist that goes... POW! It's a comparable impact to what Claude put him through that set up the killer juggle into two shared disciplines of sorcery and acrobatics, but this one is horizontal.
     He rolls across ground that is far hotter than what one's shoes has been holding back. Astrid's blessing dissipates as it ruptures against the thrumming Fray energies coursing through the ground - the weakening seal leaking ever more.
     To his chagrin, Gwen just launched him in the furthest direction possible from Elly's dropped staff, finding a grinding, sliding halt as compressed air still within one of his legs expands from the heat absorbed and bursts in a way significantly less messy than it sounds.
     But it looks (...and sounds) just as painful as described, as the obsessive horned squirrel-like Hyadean can only come up to a kneel if he drives a balled-up fist against the ground instead of an open palm.
     "...That was great..." He works up that pained smile. He can't stand back up. Quicksilver dribbles down his face - his body has already knitted up where quicksilver had leaked through his now numbed leg, and for good reason, the stuff ignites and burns when it touches this Fray-tainted hole in the ground. He puts his forearm up near his face to stop more from dripping out.
     "...Are you really afraid...?" He asks, voice strained. "...I don't get it. You're all that strong..."

GS: Cover, Disrupt, Shieldbreak, and Weaken expired!
GS: Ratatoskr has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"They were afraid," Elly answers Astrid. It's a plaintive tone, lacking that Etheric sonic transduction as before, although it may still have an echo to it. "They were all afraid. Everyone was afraid."

"But - we've travelled the stars... come from nothing... is that the fate of everything? To collapse, in fear, and anger, and despair? To rip ourselves and one another apart? Is everything that makes us stand apart from animals and plants just to be used, as knives and ARMs to hurt ourselves and each other?"

"Can -"

She falters for a moment. How can you explain this? How can you explain this to someone who was once your enemy, when you were someone else? Elly's empty hands clench into purposeless fists.

Lily speaks truth, if the inverse side of what Elly is saying. It's breaking, Elly thinks, and then with a sudden interior stab of horror she realizes that Lily means the Elw ley construct! Is this mission awareness failure? Yes, to an extent, it is, but to be fair to Ms. Van Houten, she has been out of uniform for some time, and she also had a flashback.

Then before her eyes, Fei leaps towards Astrid. Towards her head? Elly's vision flickers for a moment and she raises up one hand with a snap-click motion of her heels, Ether forming abruptly; a quivering shaping of the ground beneath Astrid, bubbling brown stone rising upwards to churn the soil and then throwing up a sudden interlocking cage of - mole's claws? They suggest them, a little, but Elly for her part - her direct, subjective experience - mostly feels a hot throb in the back of the head.

GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Astrid with Terra Charge!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Seraph Ragnell's Twin Bullet for 107 hit points!
GS: Astrid critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Terra Charge for 32 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Fei Fong Wong's attack becomes clear!
GS: Astrid takes a glancing hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ultra Idstinct for 89 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    The news of Mother being dead being news to Astrid is, perhaps, a bit surprising to Yue, who heard about it aaaaaaaall the way in solitary confinement, but... everyone's circumstances are unique. And with the way things have been for that person? She can't be surprised.

    "All right..." Yue whispers as Boudicca gives her thanks and rushes to rescue her Seer, and the Veruni turns more fully, still feeling live electricity dancing throughout her body. It's not the first time she's been exposed to lots and lots of electricity -- tasers are not a weapon unbeknownst to her -- but...

    Acacia opens fire, creating literal fire from her weapon. There's a quiet smile of satisfaction from the prisoner from how far she's come with her weapon and her mastery of Ether.

    "It is just us," Yue answers Ragnell. "But... can you afford to stay here much longer? That seal will not hold..."

    A pause. "Another mistake from the past will rise..."

    She shakes her head. One thing at a time, and right now, she has a fight to conclude -- win or lose.

    From the swelling of all the powers within the room, she feels it--

    That singular sensation of spirits shooting forth like a blaster.

    It's like a switch, snapping into place for the Veruni-- and there's a sensation even as the Ley construct falters as a hazy, chaotic aura surrounds her in her last charge.

    "<This is going to be awkward with no hands....>" Yue murmurs to herself, but perhaps loud enough for Ragnell to answer too. "<... No complaining, Yue.>"

    A glyph erupts underneath her feet as she crosses over the boundary of the fire -- not one fueled by Seraphic might as Ragnell's, but perhaps bearing similar ancestry; each pattern uniquely moulded by her very being, she starts her assault.

    A thrust, two, three, her metallic heel laced with small punctures of light, each noncommittal and probing in nature, until she senses to the best of her ability a weakness in the defence--

    "<Mystic Arte...>"

    --to let loose with a high-angle thrust kick that sends loose an enormous blast of light, punctuated by spectral cuccos.

GS: Yue Rohay spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Yue Rohay with -Over Limit!- Mystic Arte Unlocked!
GS: Yue Rohay has launched an attack Link!
GS: Yue Rohay takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's -Over Limit!- Mystic Arte Unlocked for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst and Hyper! applied to Yue Rohay!
GS: Mighty! applied to Yue Rohay!
GS: Yue Rohay enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Yue Rohay spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Seraph Ragnell with Shouha Rekkosen - Cucco Light Blast!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Ragnell takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Shouha Rekkosen - Cucco Light Blast for 204 hit points!
GS: Seraph Ragnell has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    'Do you think that just because we defeated Mother--'

    motherisdeadmotherisdeadmotherisdead

    Astrid's eyes lock on Zed's. It's as if her whole world has narrowed to just him and his answer. She listens to every word.

    "No," she says. The word is tiny. "No, that can't--that can't--"

    Zed's blade falls, and Astrid meets it with every ounce of strength she can muster. She throws up her spear, catching Doom Bringer on its haft, but the younger Hyadean's strike is inexorable. Steel screams as one weapon struggles against the other, Zed's cosmic strength warring with Astrid's stubborn will. But even as the two are locked in their seeming standoff, Astrid looks into that grand cosmos, and into Doom Bringer's Memory.

    Doom Bringer shows her what it showed Zed, and Lily, and Ida. It shows her the end of the world.

    Astrid goes still as Zed's strike finally--finally--runs out of momentum. Lily's shadow blade comes down, deleting a section of the flesh, clothing, and armor between her collarbone and hip. Blood weeps from the wound, but Astrid doesn't so much as flinch.

    Your Goddess was a lie. Your people are cast adrift on this dying rock, broken and despairing. Your dearest is nothing more than scraps of flesh grafted to a human.

    "No," Astrid chokes out, as her eyes flash bright blue beneath welling tears. "I deny you!" She's not screaming at Zed. She's screaming at someone else, a voice only she can hear. Is it Rahab themself, or simply an extension of their power? "I DENY YOU, CREATURE!"

    Zed is merely the messenger. But Astrid is a warrior caught up in the throes of violence, and every fiber of her being is screaming in grief and rage and anguish. She plants a foot on the ground, pushes off, and seems to hang in the air, her face twisted in a rictus. She moves slightly, subtly, and yet so breathtakingly fast that she leaves smeary afterimages in her wake. As one, Astrid and her after-images plunge their spears at Zed, trying to impale him from half a dozen angles.

<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    That burst of speed doesn't last. Elly's impassioned plea echoes in Astrid's ears, even as her Ether tears up the ground. It catches the Hyadean sorceress before she can do anything else to Zed, knocking her out of the air and sending her sprawling across the ground. What just happened?

    Stop. Rewind.

    Astrid feels that surge of Ether as it wells up, twists away, thrusts her spear forth and digs it deep into the earth. She twists around it like a pivot, flings herself away before it can capture her. It's over in less than a second.

    Fast-forward. Resume.

    Astrid kicks off the ground, and looks at Elly, her face a tear-stained, silver-tinted mess. In this moment, Astrid is less a warrior and more a child, grieving the loss of the only family she'd ever known. Just like Luisa was.

    "They killed him," she whispers. "I didn't even--"

    Fei(?) is on her before she can blink, screaming. He presses his hands to her temples. Astrid screams back, and grips his hands. The raw power of the Contact floods into her consciousness.

    Fell power boils out of Astrid's body. It washes over Fei, over Elly, over everyone nearby--even as Fei tries to burn Rahab's influence out of her, it hits back, as if desperate to defend itself from an inexorable threat to its existence. Tendrils of it jump everywhere--some arcing over to the seal, some firing wildly into the room. Everything they touch becomes enervated, just like Ida is--the one comfort is that the taint isn't strong enough to spread. This may be cold comfort to Lily, though, considering the last time anything Rahab came into contact with her.

GS: Astrid spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Astrid has attacked Zed with Third Method - Ten Thousand Spear Tempest!
GS: Astrid has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Astrid has attacked Lily Keil with Touch of The Pale!
GS: Astrid has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Touch of The Pale!
GS: Astrid has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Touch of The Pale!
GS: Astrid has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Touch of The Pale!
GS: Zed guards a hit from Astrid's Third Method - Ten Thousand Spear Tempest for 126 hit points!
GS: Cripple! applied to Zed!
GS: Hyper! applied to Astrid!
GS: Zed enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Astrid's Touch of The Pale for 0 hit points!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Astrid's Touch of The Pale for 0 hit points!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken! applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Astrid's Touch of The Pale for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken! applied to Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Tears of helpless frustration pool in Ida's eyes. She presses both elbows against the seal, and tries to push. It doesn't work--the gelid energy is enfeebling her, sapping her strength. Keeping her out of the way while Astrid hurts her friends right in front of her. With all those awful memories fresh in her mind, placed there by Rahab's foul might--

    It's too much to take.

    Something warm and familiar settles in Ida's heart, and with it, newfound strength. The horrible, clawing anxiety starts to fade. Slowly, Ida begins to push back. The power holding her in place starts to weaken.

    Don't. Luisa--no, after all this time--you wouldn't dare!

    High above, the dissonant ringing of the windchimes grows louder.

GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Astrid's Touch of The Pale for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken! applied to Elhaym van Houten!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline watches Ratatoskr carefully. As much as she'd like to try to rush in and do something about the situation, he's faster than she is - he'd stop her before she could. It's a risk, even when the others have put him into a crater.

"...It might be. That's what it feels like. This rippling in the Ley, and the way it's acting on our surroundings..." Jacqueline replies to Ratatoskr, shaking her head. He's attacked some more, and then she watches him, still on the ground... and as he asks a question.

"...Of course I am." Jacqueline replies with a sigh. "There are some things... that are beyond strength. The Primarchs... they're like that. You can't fight them with conventional means. If this one is released... it doesn't matter how strong we are, if even a single thing goes wrong it could overwhelm us."

She gives him a moment to let that sink before continuing.

"And... there are some things that even the strong are afraid of." Jacqueline frowns, trying to think of a way to put it that he'll understand.

"I'm... not strong like you seem to think I am, but I'm afraid of the thought of what'll happen if this thing gets loose if we can't stop it. How many people will get hurt, or killed... And, I'm afraid of betraying the trust of those that got me to this point. A while back... I thought someone I loved had been killed, and the very idea of it rendered me unable to fight back until I was pulled out of it..." She says, shaking her head.

Above, the windchimes grow louder still. Jacqueline takes a deep, sharp breath.

"Please, Ratatoskr. This won't go the way you think it will. If you really want to see what happens here, and if you want there to be more to see beyond this day... then help us put a stop to it." She requests.

GS: Quick expired!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily remembers that vision well--she remembers the end of a world she never walked, the largely forgotten memories of a largely forgotten being. But Doom Bringer held it within, and now, it brings that misfortune to another.

Lily strikes in time with Zed, but she knows immediately at the lack of reaction that the physical wound she inflicts is not so great as the one with which she grapples now.

She can hear in Astrid's voice that she is speaking to someone else. "Zed, look out--"

Elly's question--Elly's questions, of fate. Lily quiets for an instant, as she has the time to let them roll through her mind, if only for an instant, and she wonders the same. But of course she would be the one to say the inverse. She would have to. "This won't bring back--"

"Fei?" She sees Fei's wild look, and what he's calling for, but, "What are you--"

Lily cuts off mid-word with a shout those tendrils hit her, something that turns into an exclamation of pain as she stumbles back. Her sword winks out in an instant. "No--No--"

"Get.. get out," she starts, falling to one knee. Breathing heavily, obviously struggling, Lily's black eyes show no expression at all, but her face shows something like fear. But on one knee, she, jerkily, moves her hand--and draws her knife.

"I WILL NOT!"

Lily thrusts the weapon into her arm with a spray of red. Her expression clears though she makes a gasp of pain--no, because of the pain.

"Monster," she snarls, and from her position, lifts the hand that had been holding the knife. Red circuitry alights on her hand; she starts to hover partly from the ground, though still on one knee. "I will unmake you," she promises in raw fury, and a red aura begins to suffuse her--not just her, but Fei, and Elly, and Zed and even Boudicca for that matter--and not just them, but multiple places where those tendrils touched. The forceful power of Lily's magic is a bright light, something to hang onto, and it forces health where it touches, burning away impurity.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Ida pushes, and there's something pulling, gentle and insistent and constant. Boudicca knows she can't just rip Ida from her bonds - she can feel the fragility of the seal. She needs to be careful.

    ... it's delicate work, and Boudicca may as well be approaching it with claws instead of hands, for all the familiarity she has with Elw magics. But she's trying, trying to strengthen Ida, trying to strengthen the Seal.

    She certainly can't leave her sentinel position, even when that terrible might roils from Astrid. "Ah--!!" It hits Boudicca between the shoulderblades, and the real damage isn't to the skin turning blue behind that steel and silk; it's the story that chill tells. "T-this cold is..."

    It's the same thing plaguing what's before her.

    There's something dancing through the windchimes, now.

    It is terribly unpleasant and she bears it, works through it, does not even bother to try and fix herself in this moment. Boudicca focuses the connection of their magic through Ida, continues her work without looking up to Astrid and her awful revelations.

    Insistent, she calls, as warmth curls around them: "Hold on, Ida!"

GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Inspire!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Rekindling Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Rekindling Breeze for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 15 extra FP from Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey gains a Combo from Inspire!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily remembers that vision well--she remembers the end of a world she never walked, the largely forgotten memories of a largely forgotten being. But Doom Bringer held it within, and now, it brings that misfortune to another.

Lily strikes in time with Zed, but she knows immediately at the lack of reaction that the physical wound she inflicts is not so great as the one with which she grapples now.

She can hear in Astrid's voice that she is speaking to someone else. "Zed, look out--"

Elly's question--Elly's questions, of fate. Lily quiets for an instant, as she has the time to let them roll through her mind, if only for an instant, and she wonders the same. But of course she would be the one to say the inverse. She would have to. "This won't bring back--"

"Fei?" She sees Fei's wild look, and what he's calling for, but, "What are you--"

Lily cuts off mid-word with a shout those tendrils hit her, something that turns into an exclamation of pain as she stumbles back. Her sword winks out in an instant. "No--No--"

"Get.. get out," she starts, falling to one knee. Breathing heavily, obviously struggling, Lily's black eyes show no expression at all, but her face shows something like fear. But on one knee, she, jerkily, moves her hand--and draws her knife.

"I WILL NOT!"

Lily thrusts the weapon into her arm with a spray of red. Her expression clears though she makes a gasp of pain--no, because of the pain.

"Monster," she snarls, and from her position, lifts the hand that had been holding the knife. Red circuitry alights on her hand; she starts to hover partly from the ground, though still on one knee. "I--Elly!" Lily calls. Fei is cracking; she's cracking. But one person...

 "...I'm counting on you!"

A red aura glows around Elly, purging impurity, forcing health and wellness, and channeling raw power into the other woman.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Red Aura!
GS: Hyper expired!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Lily Keil heals Elhaym van Houten! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Restore! Break, Cripple, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken removed!
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia keeps her pistol out in the aftermath of her blast; the mundane metal is more or less melted into scrag at this point, though that doesn't really seem to matter when it comes to the way in which she uses the gun. She watches, as Ragnell's taunts are met with her fire, and feels her expression harden a little.

    "... I kind of feel sorry for you," she mutters. It's not really meant to be a taunt in Ragnell's direction - it's said much too softly, and it's not aggressive so much as the reporter pinning down the thought that's been rolling around her head for the past few minutes. Maybe it's just that she's coming at it from a very biased angle, but the sheer contrast between the devil-may-care attitude and the heavy weight that Yue has been bearing is all the more pronounced because of that.

    Maybe she's reading way too much into it. Maybe it's simple bravado. But she can't help the way it tugs at her thoughts, nor the way she reads it off the back of that. Once upon a time, she thought she could just live out her peaceful life free of worries and floating past it all, maybe be someone like that herself. Now, she can't imagine what that would possibly look like.

    She holds her ground, only jolting back for a moment as an electric bullet catches her in the bicep; she hisses out a noise at the sensation of the pain, but marshals together what willpower she can to not offer the satisfaction of anything more. Besides, dodging isn't really an option when her legs feel like jelly; 'bring some damn insulation' is another piece of advice to offer her future self, she supposes.

    Fortunately, Yue is there, and Acacia lets out a breath as she watches the spectacle of the Veruni letting herself loose. There's some pride in her gaze, she's sure, and also some awe, and-- it's not exactly relief, but she's quietly thankful that she has the chance to sink to the floor for a few moments and try to gather herself, even as her mind starts to race over what the hell else they have to do here - what else they could possibly do.

    For what feels like the first time, she has the time to focus on the rest of the fight. And ends up staring numbly at it.

<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.


Jay's healing power washes over her in a way that brings feelings of gratitude. And Rebecca lands on the ground dramatically, with a simultaneous tap of heels and her arms spread open wide. Because of course someone who wants to be a circus performer gets a bit theatrical.

Jay's statement though strikes home. And as she looks at Ratatoskr, his body tortured and burnt, smiling painfully. Jay engages him eloquently. Rebecca looks at him like she's seeing a new side to him.

Like a child, that doesn't realize the truth behind the facades of adulthood. "People don't stop being afraid just because they overcame one challenge. They just get better at managing the fear. It's a part of growing up." Rebecca might sound like a pretty cool customer right now but...

"I'm scared all the time. Doesn't matter how strong I become - I'll probably keep being scared."

Watching as Astrid calls forth an existential threat, she pales a shade or three. "I... what..."

The mere sight of it, and the fury of Lily in response shocks her to the core. It's like staring into a nightmare.

That she wants to wake up from.

Rebecca tries to keep her feelings in check, tries not to panic. But if Avril said the word right now for them to go right now - to break first, before Rebecca, so she wouldn't have to keep up any pretense of strength...

...she would be forever grateful.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Seeing the distraught Astrid and the bleeding Ratatoskr, Gwen steps back.

    Is she afraid?

    She is afraid, of seeing how Astrid's influence is twisting her friends. That is the spark that finally infuses her with something cold, where the threat of death, or fates worse than death seems blunted.

    "... One tortured mind tuning me to fit his ends is enough." The courier shows the Hyadean a smile, framing clenched teeth. "I don't need another."

    If she meant that an answer to Ratatoskr's question, or her just announcing her thoughts, she doesn't let on, but his words brought a visible element of alarm to her expression, as she steps back with a sharp breath.

    As Gwen runs away from the battle, she gives Jay, Rebecca, and Avril a nod, hoping her direction will signal to them all her intention: she's going to help free Ida.

    Coming up to the prison, Gwen waves a hand towards where Ida and Boudicca are. "Boudicca, is there any way I can help you?! I'd punch the ice but I'm not sure that'd really help what you're tryin' to do here!"

    Turning back, Gwen sees a spark of inspiration, as Lily imparts her own strength towards Elly.

    Gwen could...

    She offers up a hand to Boudicca- her ARM. It would be fitting, in a way, if it worked. "My ARM can take in energy, but if I get it right, it can work the other direction. Maybe you, as a Seraph... I dunno, but I've done it before!"

    It was to Riesenlied, in fact. But how would it work with a Seraph?

GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

There was no way that kind of psycho-spiritual injury would result in anything but some kind of mental breakdown. But he had to tell her. He had to tell her. To dispel the illusion, to rip the bandaid off as quickly as he could, to kill the pain...

He was the messenger, and it's only by sheer resilience that she doesn't kill him outright.

Doom Bringer is but a single sword, and Zed but a single swordsman. But for a split second, when he is beset on all sides by a dozen spears at once, he manages to make the impossible... possible.

And for a brief instant, he is blocking from a dozen directions at once.

It's not enough to stop them all. Not enough to keep a half-dozen lances from burying themselves in his body, but at the end of it, he is not dead. He is not. And for all he's suffering, somehow the fact that Rahab is suffering even more terribly bolsters his spirit. "Astrid--" Zed murmurs through what would be a half-dozen fatal wounds for an ordinary swordsman. He struggles through, his sword a makeshift crutch. "I'm sorry that you had to find out this way. I am. Truly."

"But..." The starlight burns bright once more. Light that pierces even the blackest night. Even as Rahab's spiritual corruption bleeds into the world, even as Lily cries out in defiance, Zed focuses that indomitable, unwavering will of his... "I won't... I won't let you suffer any more! If nothing else, I'll try everything I can to break you free! Take this, you clammy blue bastard! My love!" Zed clenches his fist...! "My anger!" It glows... with an awesome power...! "And all of my sorrow!"

He draws back a punch...

And throws it into empty air.

...Unleashing a blast of starlight that arcs through the air like the arm of a spiral galaxy. A current of something that Filgaian martial artists might have called 'Chi.' A power that Zed calls all his own...!

GS: Zed has attacked Astrid with Inner Secret - Heaven's Howl!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

The struggling Astrid thrashes with Fei, struggles. Elly tightens her hands for a moment. They're empty, she thinks. She glances towards Lily for a moment and then there is a sweeping sense of something tainted and it feels

COLD,

it feels WRONG it feels like her eyes are being pulled open and expanding and turning like a vast yawning portal over everything she's done in her 20-and-more years of life and the vision seems huge and dark and Elly feels her gut tighten and bile rise and the heat leave her limbs as she sags to one knee and even the purifying trust of Lily washes over her and -
this hurts so much.
for a few moments
i just want to split apart.
Elly doesn't really do anything at all.
i failed. i'll always fail.

The purification washes through her. Injuries fade. Pain fades. The psychic toll of having been thrown directly into that strange taint, however sterile and faint it might be, clings - but in the great silence of a stilled and healed body...
please don't make me. please don't
She can hear someone cry out. Someone with a voice she knows. A voice she cherishes.

MOOD INSERT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9XMSQFOVVU

save him!
Elly's eyes come back into focus on Astrid.
space crowded, subterranean...

She pushes herself upright, stumbling but only a little. After all, nothing in her body hurts right now, and there is, perhaps, nobody to feel the pain.
please don't, oh please
building probability space matrix...

"-I won't let you hurt him,-" Elly mumbles in a foreign language. Her shoulders sway, and then she stands bolt upright!
solution found! execute!

The Ether patterns form outwards, forming ten thousand subtle curlicues that can't be seen with the naked eye, only with the soul. They interlace around Astrid, forming a glassy knot if you view them in a certain vision, but even they do not intersect her body... or at least, not her head and torso. The portions of the body essential to life. The entity Rahab may sense them.

Elly stares ahead.
is this me? is this me?

There is a momentary tightening in the air and then Something happens; something enormous and sacred and horrifying. An incinerating force, like the immense sparks that poured into the crucible forges of the early days of Zeboim, whose methods are but dully echoed in this latter day, fills those invisible glass labyrinths. The air within them is superheated into a demi-solar plasma, immediately and gloriously radiating out heat; the network tightens, aiming to interlace the enemy and confine - plumes spread outwards, a space of crushing swooning heat.

How well can it get controlled?

Don't ask Elly! She tried this trick in arrogance - but it seems to have suited the moment.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Astrid with Thermo Phoenix!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Astrid takes a solid hit from Zed's Inner Secret - Heaven's Howl for 128 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Astrid gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mute! applied to Astrid!
GS: Astrid takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Phoenix for 175 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! applied to Astrid!
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    It gets intense - desperate - watching things happen to and about Astrid, in the middle of a nervous breakdown over learning something she didn't know happen. In a way, wasn't it something like that with him, too, once it was clear how Mother was to usher an indisputable End to everything? Even when he had that notion about what would come next, after the fighting was finally over.
     "...I don't understand," Ratatoskr confirms one of the (many) complaints as having water when he confirms he straight up doesn't understand. He doesn't understand how Jay can act so humble and mousey at times but then still show up and make history, how she considers herself 'not strong like how he thinks she is.' She's one of the modern day war heroes of Filgaia and beyond!
     Rebecca says people don't stop being afraid just because they overcame one challenge - they just get better at managing it - she's scared all the time, doesn't matter how strong she'll become.
     "...You say it doesn't matter how strong... but you keep..." He can't finish it, as Gwen says that one tortured mind tuning her to fit their ends is enough. She doesn't need another. Who? He might be yelling that but it's lost to some of the ambient noises as Gwen moves away to give the others a helping hand.
     Jay beseeched him to help - but he is far too wounded from the recent, well-deserved beatings. On the other hand, just being here - he's getting everything he wants, isn't he? He's watching them fight.
     Watching something beyond glory and valor - the filtering of the military culture still sticking with Ratatoskr even now freed of its trappings - is equal parts intoxicating and frightening to comprehend in his moment of weakness.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    Yue makes contact with Ragnell with the power of light and a thousand spectral cuccos. It's too much, honestly, in all senses of the phrase. At some point, you have to know when to admit defeat.
    
    When the stream of light fades, Ragnell isn't there. However, there is an orb of golden light from which her voice resonates. "Good work, ladies. You kicked me out." It zips over and across the battlefield to where Astrid is. At a convenient break in the fighting/attempting to brute-force Rahab out of Astrid's mind and body, Ragnell briefly rematerializes, one hand clutching her wounds. "Astrid, this is as far as I go... If you survive, I'll see you later."
    
    A beat. "An' if you want to survive, I really strongly urge you to run," she adds. "You can't get revenge if you're dead."
    
    Then she dematerializes, zips up through the roof of the cavern, and is gone.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei is not exactly being gentle here, but really kicking Rahab out of Astrid here is probably going to be to everybody's benefit.

Even so, he is struggling. Whatever power this mess of a man is calling upon--or channeling--he does not know what it is. He doesn't really understand it. All he knows is that it had some effect and as mishapen his psyche is right now--the only defense fei has is that there is something already there. Any backlash he has to survive all on his own.

He screams, blood dripping from his nose and ears as Rahab's tendrils tear back at him. It all feels so...

...familiar...

FEI PSYCHO 98

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to-u6XCDWrY

He screams again, clawing at his face. "GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUUUUUT!!!"

Everybody who tried to make contact through him...

...They shattered, like broken puppets

He killed them.

He killed them

He killed them.

One by one by one by one by one by one.

FEI PSYCHO 99

He darts forward, tearing apart tendrils with the strength of a feral animal, teeth bared as he keeps pressing pressing against Rahab's influence, refusing to let up or back down, not even for personal safety.

And then--

....A presence...

The girl.

No Elly. The Elly. She'll...

...she'll protect...

She'll...

Elly...

Elly...!

ELLY....

"Let her go llet her go let her go let her go!!"

FEI PSYCHO 100

100 PERCENT SYMPATHY

His body calms. He stands, peacefully, along the ground.

"I've lost people important to me too." Fei says to Astrid. "I've.. I feel like I know what it's like...to see those who I look up to and love...fail me, treat me like..."

He shakes his head as he goes for one more tendril, desperate to free this woman who, for all her actions now and then--deserves to be free to make her own future.

"I'm just...a tool. So please, Astrid. Can't we just..."

"Talk about this? It'd be nice if we could be friends."

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Astrid with Tenbu!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

It doesn't look like Ratatoskr is in any condition to help - but at the same time, he's at least not in any condition to hinder them, either. She looks toward Rebecca, nodding as she explains how she's already scared, and that'll probably never change. It's the same for her, too. She looks back toward Ratatoskr then, as he speaks.

'He doesn't understand', he says. Jacqueline shakes her head.

"...You don't have to understand just yet. Just think about what we said, okay?" Jacqueline says. "We might be fighting... but it's not because we want to. It's because we have to. If possible...we'd rather not, you know?"

...But, there may yet be more fighting for them today, in the end...

GS: Astrid takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Tenbu for 144 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    Astrid is in no position to fight back, even if she had the presence of mind to do so. Rahab's power boils out of her--something ignites beneath her collar, glowing the same color as the tendrils. It's a stylized eye, and looking at it feels wrong. It's a brand on her flesh, and on her soul. At the moment, she is nothing more than a container for the Primarch's power, and she is overflowing.

    Blistering heat fills the air, warring with Rahab's gelid might. The physical pain of searing flame merges with the psychic pain of the struggle inside her--smoke rises from Astrid's body, and her armor begins to blister and melt. Zed's fist slams into her jaw. Under normal circumstances, taking that kind of blow while unguarded would send Astrid sprawling, but instead, her body rocks with the motion before snapping back into place. Fei keeps tearing at the tendrils, even as he pleads with her.

    "Lee," Astrid chokes out, between ragged gasps. "I--"

    There's a sound like a transformer overloading. Astrid's body jerks. Her eyes roll back in her head. The brand on her neck flares like a tiny sun--

    A massive bolt of Ley-power arcs from Astrid's body, slamming into the entwined trees that form the seal. Chunks of crystal spray everywhere; Ida looks up in horror, braces, and shoves with all her might.

    Astrid falls to the ground like a puppet with the strings cut. Her spear tumbles from her hand, clattering across the floor. Before the link cuts, Fei sees something--

    "I'm thinking," Fafnir says, as he stares out the viewport at the endless tundra beyond. "When this is over, I want the two of us to... stay partners. Find some place to live that's not too loud and not too quiet, and just... be together. Would you like that?" He turns to Astrid, and smiles a warm, shy smile.

    It's all Astrid can do to stay professional. This is dangerously close to fraternization. Nevertheless, her heart flutters a little at the thought of it, and she tells herself that this is just dear affection for a dear friend. "I'd like that," Astrid says.

    The glow at her neck fades away to nothingness.

<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    Astrid is in no position to fight back, even if she had the presence of mind to do so. Rahab's power boils out of her--something ignites beneath her collar, glowing the same color as the tendrils. It's a stylized eye, and looking at it feels wrong. It's a brand on her flesh, and on her soul. At the moment, she is nothing more than a container for the Primarch's power, and she is overflowing.

    Blistering heat fills the air, warring with Rahab's gelid might. The physical pain of searing flame merges with the psychic pain of the struggle inside her--smoke rises from Astrid's body, and her armor begins to blister and melt. Zed's fist slams into her jaw. Under normal circumstances, taking that kind of blow while unguarded would send Astrid sprawling, but instead, her body rocks with the motion before snapping back into place. Fei keeps tearing at the tendrils, even as he pleads with her.

    "Lee," Astrid chokes out, between ragged gasps. "I--"

    There's a sound like a transformer overloading. Astrid's body jerks. Her eyes roll back in her head. The brand on her neck flares like a tiny sun--

    A massive bolt of Ley-power arcs from Astrid's body, slamming into the entwined trees that form the seal. Chunks of crystal spray everywhere; Ida looks up in horror, braces, and shoves with all her might.

    Astrid falls to the ground like a puppet with the strings cut. Her spear tumbles from her hand, clattering across the floor. Before the link cuts, Fei sees something--

    "I'm thinking," Fafnir says, as he stares out the viewport at the endless tundra beyond. "When this is over, I want the two of us to... stay partners. Find some place to live that's not too loud and not too quiet, and just... be together. Would you like that?" He turns to Astrid, and smiles a warm, shy smile.

    It's all Astrid can do to stay professional. This is dangerously close to fraternization. Nevertheless, her heart flutters a little at the thought of it, and she tells herself that this is just dear affection for a dear friend. "I'd like that," Astrid says.

    The glow at her neck fades away to nothingness.

<Pose Tracker> Astrid has posed.

    A tremor shakes the floor. The cracks running across the seal split even wider. With one final shove--aided by Boudicca and Gwen--Ida tears herself free. Rahab's fel power dissolves into motes of gelid light as she falls to the floor, nearly pitching over from the impact. Behind her, brilliant flame jets out of the ruptured seal.

    "Shit," Ida whispers.

    "LUISA!" This time, the voice is audible to everyone, not just Ida. "Have you finally come to your senses?! Have you--" The voice trails off. The seal shudders, again--fire boils inside it, spewing from every crack in its surface. It has an opening, and all it has to do is widen it...

    In the canopy, the dissonance of the chimes reaches a fever pitch, and then cuts out entirely.

    The great trees fall with a sound like the world ending. Fire floods into the room, blinding in its brilliance. It scours the walls, blackens the Elw obelisks, rips the Ley-threads free, throws chunks of crystal every which way. Ida presses herself flat against the ground, and shields her head with her arms.

    The light does not fade, not precisely. How could it, when its source is right there, in all its glory?

    Standing in the twisted wreckage of the seal is a massive figure. Easily twelve feet tall, they blaze with the same radiance Lily calls upon in some of her most powerful sorceries--a flame that scours the land, leaving nothing but ash and poison in its wake. Their body seems to be wrought from half-molten magma, which roils turbulently in the wake of their emergence. A long mane of spun-obsidian thread hangs from their head. Their build is nothing short of statuesque.

    One eye cracks open. They look down at the gathered Drifters, and--for the first time in a thousand years--Setanta, Primarch of Fray, laughs.

    ===TO=BE=CONTINUED==>