2020-07-04: Frayed
- Log: Frayed
- Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Dean Stark, Jacqueline Barber, Seraph Boudicca, Seraph Lanval, Claude C. Kenny, Fei Fong Wong, Gwen Whitlock, Zed, Lily Keil, Elhaym van Houten, Avril Vent Fleur, Setanta
- Where: Great Sea
- Date: July 04, 2020
- Summary: With the Primarch of Fray set loose, now the situation becomes steadily more perilous. There is nothing to do but to fight back!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's been less than fifteen minutes since the Drifters' first contact with Polynya and her allies, and everything has gone to hell.
Less than fifteen minutes ago, this chamber held the innermost layer of a massive Elw-forged working--a great seal built to keep the Primarch of Fray imprisoned. Now, it looks like a bomb went off inside it, and not a small one, either.
The great crystalline trees that once formed the crux of the seal are now jagged splinters embedded in the cavern walls. The Elw-carved crystal steles have been charred and warped by impossible heat, and the half-tangible ley-threads connecting them burn like lit fuses. That same heat has scoured the walls, leaving behind eerie silhouettes--anti-shadows left by people and objects within the room. The air reeks of soot and brimstone. The heat is nigh-intolerable.
The light has not faded, not precisely. How could it, when its source is right there, in all its glory?
A massive figure stands in the wreckage of the seal that once bound them. Their body is statuesque, powerfully-built--seemingly wrought from molten magma, it roils and flows as they set both feet on the ground. Their hair blows out behind them, a long mane of spun-obsidian thread. Light and flame roil around them like a nuclear halo.
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.
"...Luisa?" Their voice is deep, bold, proud. Their other eye opens. Both ignite, glowing like beacons within their hard-lined, handsome face. "I knew that you would triumph. To think--! The very force that struck down Demons, felled by their own failing husk..."
Setanta laughs again, and it booms throughout the cavern. They almost sound relieved. Almost. There's no mistaking the mania there, or the uncertainty--as if they don't quite believe their eyes.
Or maybe they do, and are trying to explain away inconsistencies.
Ida Everstead-Rey feels the Primarch's gaze come to rest on her, and a spike of terror arcs down her spine. She shoves herself half-upright, and raises an arm to shield herself as she looks into the fire. Her jaw falls open, begins to tremble. She tries to speak, but no words come out. Visions flash through her mind--memories of Ixqic, of Rahab. Distantly, she hears something scrape against the ground, behind her.
Polynya--or more accurately, Astrid of the Method--begins to stir. Her armor is blistered and blacked from Elly's Etheric assault, and when she cracks open her eyes, something about them appears unfocused. The glow marking Rahab's corruption is entirely gone--in the wake of overwhelming force, it abandoned its host, throwing itself against Setanta's prison and shattering it.
Astrid's mouth falls open at the sight of the freed Primarch, her face mirroring Ida's in shock and horror.
...AND NOW, THE THRILLING CONCLUSION!
GS: Your FP has been set to 50.
DC: Elhaym van Houten switches forms to Aerial Battler Elly!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean was delayed, blocked by a fallen connective thread the size of a redwood trunk. Now, having finally made his way over, he rushes into the place of battle. "Avril! Rebecca! Are you guys okay?! I'm here to--"
He stops up short, initially by an intense heat that's like a physical wall, then not to run into the collected Drifters therein, and finally by the sight of what lies within the now-broken seal.
Warily, Dean edges into a combat stance, Twin Fenrir flashing into hand. "...Guess I got here a little late, huh."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Where is Jacqueline Barber in all this? A dome of stone that wasn't there before, blackened by fire, holds the answer to that. There is a moment and then, as that proud voice speaks, the dome retreats back into the ground. Underneath it is a form covered in a steel-cloth cloak - as well as any others who took shelter beneath it when the seal erupted.
Jacqueline stands. To those perceptive to sorcerous phenomena a faint barrier of energy crackles around her form, originating from her gauntlets - they must be protecting her from some of the harsher side-effects.
"...You must be Setanta. I'll admit, I had hoped we wouldn't meet today." Jacqueline says, studying the Primarch of Fray. "My name is Jacqueline. What are your intentions?"
She studies the Primarch carefully, trying to get a feel for their character and potentials. She can see the power they hold, roiling about them like a halo.
This... isn't going to be easy.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca, the Seraph of Wind, does not feel welcome here. Air feeds flame; here is nothing but flame, to sickly point. Working with Gwen, the two of them managed to free Ida from the seal, but --
-- in the wake of it all --
"This is..." SETANTA, standing tall, and Boudicca steps between their gaze and Ida, a hand thrust back and the other curled to fist at her chest. Her face is drawn all to severe lines, the split lines of her lips where she draws in air and expels heat, heat, the only damnable thing in this place.
She has learned a habit of humanity; it comes quicker, in fear. A little mimicry, to match the whites of her eyes and the grip of her fingers.
But Ida is afraid, too.
Ida is afraid, and so Boudicca addresses Setanta: "Plague us not, infernal Primarch!"
... at least, she thinks as she hears him, Dean is here.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Fire - or rather, Fray - happens, unbound and unleashed. The Molten Scar is a place where rampant Fray energies rule what little amount of 'day' they could access, with the safeguards the Elw put up to contain its source. Now, those safeguards are gone, and a Primarch once again rises from the Ley. It is unbearable, as if there is no force that might stand to try and quench it...
There's some... moisture, in a sense? It's muted, compared to all of this. Then it barrels in, in the form of a familiar long-bearded Seraph with a penchant for drinking and also not wearing shoes, steam roiling off of him as he whirls his drinking gourd from the length of rope attached to it.
"...The seal... it hath failed?!" Lanval booms. There is an intensity in his movement born by necessity, for even as a powerful spirit of water... it is as he admitted to those he came with. This place is so utterly saturated with Fray that - even if by nature he is highly resistant to flame - moving within it is difficult.
He splashes out waves of water to try and beat back the roaring flames, to try and quench the rising temperatures. Anything and everything he can, to stop the mortals present from being incinerated within Setanta's presence - to try and carve out at least some space, some place, where the brave can withstand this heat to make what could be a final stand to stop Filgaia from being turned to ash by the unleashed Primarch.
(There is a momentary humorous image of some horned squirrel-like fellow being swept aside by one such wave of water. He'll... probably be okay?)
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny is officially out of patience. Partly with Ida, partly with her rogue's gallery, partly with this entire poop-filled week, and partly just every aspect of the multi-headed failhydra that is his life. But right now - in this time, in this place - he is mostly out of patience with people who think they're smart but end up doing dumber things than he would ever do. Granted, not many of them have had the benefit of advanced education at an honest-to-goodness space university*, but... Claude tends to assume people are smarter than he is. It's been a good bet, statistically.
All of this may explain why - of all the things Claude could do in response to the giant dude showing up (and giving off huge amounts of radiation, based on what his tricorder is telling him - is to march over to where Astrid is crouched, still smoking, and shove a finger toward her face. "Hi, I'm Claude," he says, his tone angry, "And I'm going to draw you a helpful diagram for the next time you start wondering 'Hey - maybe I should break a thousands-of-years-old seal for reasons' or 'I wonder what happens if I eat a ball of power bigger than my head!'"
Claude draws a circle in the stone under his feet, the tip of Gamgee's sword sparking as he completes the motion. "Bad idea!" Claude shouts. He draws a second circle, slightly overlapping the first. "Bad idea!" he shouts again. Claude starts tapping the intersecting portion of the two circles. "GALACTICALLY STUPID IDEA!" he roars.
It's probably not useful. But it feels really good.
* - The Evil Spacelord List is mandatory reading for all Federation Academy graduates, both because it contains helpful tips to exploit if you end up fighting an evil spacelord (which happens more than you'd think) and also useful tips for general personnel management. 'Shooting is not too good for my enemies' is just generally good advice.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is crouching down by Astrid. He looks like he's seen better days. Id threw everything at his conciousness in order to rip Rahab out of Astrid and right now? It's just Fei.
"Id?" He asks first. But for once, he doesn't hear Id's voice. Not right now. It shouldn't worry him really-but it does all the same.
Sentana feels different from Rahab though. She feels more...human than Rahab. Well, he didn't know Wing to be fair, but...
More troublingly... why he was able to see that vision? MORE troublingly--why was he able to help Astrid with something in HER BRAIN in the first place? Why does the idea feel so frightening?
He thinks of Midori, for a moment, and wonders why. It's weird to miss a child in a moment like this, but nevertheless--he does.
He looks down to Astrid. "Hey um." He sounds embarrassed. "How about...we talk later? I think...Rahab's gone from you now, so...we can be friends, right?"
He stands himself up before sinking back down to one knee, grimacing in pain. He isn't in any condition to fight Sentana.
Fafnir, he thinks, considering what he had done to Luisa's people .... well, it's still hard to not feel sorry for what they could have had. To think that Mother betrayed them.
..Like she betrayed him.
He blinks in confusion at that intrusive thought and shakes his head, stabilizing his focus.
He looks to Sentana again. "Hey," Pause. "We're not at war with the Demons anymore. Um."
He is quiet for a moment and adds, "You seem...a little wild but...somehow...more like a person than the other..." He shakes his head. "Are we going to have to fight? Now that you're out...you can live a peaceful life. If you're willing to not hurt others, this world...it'll be fine, right?"
Claude marches up and Fei says, "Hey."
He snags Claude's finger with his hand.
"She had a Primarch in her head for, like, a thousand years. It's not entirely her fault, so maybe lay off a bit?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
In one moment, Gwen stood before a massive figure, brilliant magma dripping from it like glowing jewels set in jet. Her body freezes in place, as the courier tries to calculate her chances. It was supposed to be a final push, which is why she freely offered up her energy to the Seraph Boudicca, expecting a triumphant result. She couldn't summon up the energy to deal with this being, not with her body still barely recovered from the last time she had used her powers.
His laughter booms in her head, and she flinches back, by instinct.
Just one second out of many, and when it passes, it might has well have been from another timeline.
Her head slumps forward, chin nodding downwards before it jerks back up, as if the redhead had simply nodded off.
She lets out a breath, slowly rolls her eyes from their downward position, up towards Setanta. Her body then seems to align with that look, the axis of thoughts coming in alignment with a new set of stars in her mental firmament.
Glancing out of the corner of one eye towards the arriving Dean, Gwen grins. "Nah, I think you came just in time."
Quietly, the courier stalks towards Setanta, her right hand still bare from when she gave her last bits of free energy to Boudicca's efforts. Curling her hand into a fist, she begins the arduous task of powering up, a task better done when her well of energy was full.
She stops then, in that awkward, audible state of powering up, and considers Setanta as he speaks. She tilts her head, and laughs, a surreal display of gold beginning to seek up the nerves of her face. "Man, you're *way* more talkative than I thought you'd be. I'm surprised!"
Just normal, foolhardy Gwen, approaching a Primarch with no fear whatsoever.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
They had come to put a stop to all of this, to prevent the advent of yet another Primarch into the battered world. It's too bad that the drifters had brought along with them just the thing that was necessary to throw open the gates and open the way for the apocalypse.
Heat roils off the Hyadean, Zed stands between the Primarch and the newly released Metal Dragon. His blade is drawn, held in one hand while the other is poised as if to shield Polynya from the calamitous heat radiating from the giant of fire. "Well," Zed concludes, "This sucks. Looks like we walked right into Rahab's trap after all."
"Setanta! The war's over! It's been over for a while now! Luisa's about as dead as dead can possibly get without actually being dead! She's a ghost, is what I'm saying. But enough of that. What do you and yours even want with Filgaia anymore?" Doom Bringer's razor edge glimmers in the unnatural light, even as strands of Zed's moss-green hair seem to glow orange-gold in the incredible, inconceivable heat--
"Uhhhhh Claude, bud," Zed stage-whispers at his hombre from a different orbit, "Pal, she was kind of mind-controlled? It's cool, we can stab that other guy later."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily pulls the knife free of where she'd placed it to ward off Rahab's influence, blood running down her arm. She is absolutely a part of why this place looks like a bomb went off; the witch has been sending powerful magic making use of the terribly Fray-aspected Ley here, and for a few moments, she thought it might be done. ...Until the seal broke. Of course, it must have, would have--
"Astrid--"
Lily starts to say something to her, but it's too late for that. Her eyes snap back to Elly, in the wake of her spell, and then she focuses on the glowing being ahead, as if made of magma. Lily stares as if she could bore a hole in the being, already preparing herself for an assault on the mind. Her hand curls into a fist.
"Primarch..." Enemy.
Pushing herself up, Lily ignores her injuries for the moment to scan the being before her; she can feel the intense heat; it's as if her hair itself might ignite, that her skin must surely be burning already, though it is not. ...Or maybe that's just the sheer power of Fray present here now in the Primarch's wake.
Mania, uncertainty...
Holy water splashes about her, Lanval's power washing over her. Lily Keil rises to her feet at that, looking up, up, up... To the smouldering eyes of a terror ahead.
"...It's necessary," Lily murmurs, and starts to pull something from her bag--strapping a strange bit of metal to one arm, and to the other, wending one about her waist as a belt. Her eyes are black, solid without iris or sclera. She doesn't pause, as Fei speaks. Bt she considers Astrid. Friends...
She doesn't add her voice to those hoping for peace. Lily just looks to Claude and then back up to Setanta, and waits.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Awareness seeps back into the mind of Elly. She sways for a moment, breathing heavily as her head turns to gaze towards the revealed figure, towering in immensity and strength. A bold voice, a mocking voice, a voice of power.
Elly van Houten wheels round, and now she is between Rahab, Astrid, another person with a number of names, and this contained mockery from the voids adjacent to deep time.
Why did I think of deep time, Elly van Houten thinks, blinking. For a fleeting moment she wonders if this is how Fei feels. Her head lolls forwards as she spreads her arms, struggling for a moment with balance. Something flashes subtly in her eye -
Elly stiffens up for a moment. There is an electric, a literally electric tension in the air as SOMETHING happens. Like lightning's about to strike, but then it fades with a faint shiver over metallic gear, and -- nothing? It seems to be slightly disrupting the flow of air. Strange ringed patterns appear in dust. Readings briefly fall. The bubbles of nothing much linger for a moment, another one quibbling in front of around Elly, and thus, in front of the wounded Metal Dragon. (And Claude.)
"Should we run?" Elly says, thickly, over her shoulder.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny blinks. "Oh," he says suddenly. "Oh, okay. I kind of missed that part."
...
"It's still good advice, thoug," he mutters, rubbing the back of his head.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"It's fine, mind control is kind of a bitch like that. I mean the obvious mind control symbol thing was on the back of her neck and hidden so it's not really like it was plain to see for everyone that she had a devil-fish in her brain," Zed heaves a great big shrug. "It's all good! Just apologize and let her punch you in the face or something."
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"That always makes me feel better," Zed sniffs, "Punchin' things in the face."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"It's ok this is kind of a stressful situation." Fei says, letting his hand drop. "Normally right now I'd be really freaking out but I think I'm kind of all freaked out. I don't think I had this many sad visions since Siegfried--"
He bites his lip and lowers his head.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Avril stands there tensed when Dean comes running in--
--and the reason why is not hard to find. Her gaze remains on the Primarch of Fire alone, her chest rising and falling in deeper breaths than usual. Her exhalations are strange, the water vapor in her breath visible for a brief moment before steaming away under this heat.
A fact that the slow fractal trace of ice at her feet also appears to be giving into, sublimating into the air about her. Only where Lanval's waves of water touch does the ice stay, and continue to grow.
Ever so slowly she kneels, plucking blade and Medium from the rocky floor of the cavern, her gaze falling to the still resolutely growing traces of ice which continue to melt at the edges.
In her current state, she lacks the power. She merely stands on the threshold. Does she dare knock?
DC: Setanta switches forms to Setanta - Primarch of Fray!
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
There is nothing that Ida can say to make this situation better. If she lies, she'll be setting everyone up for what Setanta will do when they find out. If she tells the truth, well--she didn't get the whole picture, but it sounded like Setanta and Luisa were friends, after a fashion. At the very least, Setanta thought highly of her. There's clear relief on their face, or something like it. Ida scrabbles back, her mouth working. "I--I," she stammers.
Setanta twists their neck from side to side, making a sound like grinding glass. "Are these your comrades?" they say, their incandescent gaze sweeping across the room. Their nose wrinkles as Lanval bursts in, and as Boudicca steps forwards in defiance. "They feel so..."
Behind Ida, Astrid grits her teeth in the face of Claude's anger, and looks up at Fei. "Later," she says, her voice a raspy creak. "If there is a--"
Setanta's eyes flare in recognition. "...How very disappointing. The so-called 'Guardians' send their lackeys while they--"
'Luisa's about as dead as dead can possibly get without actually being dead!'
For a moment, those blazing eyes focus on Zed, boring through to the Hyadean's soul. "You," they say. They step forward, and the rock begins to melt beneath their feet. "What did--"
"He's telling the truth!" Ida cries. The fear has not left her, but she pushes herself upright, standing shakily between the Primarch and the little cluster of Astrid, Fei, and Claude. "Luisa Rey was my--my ancestor. She's been dead for centuries."
Setanta goes completely silent. Fei speaks to them, confirms that the war is over. "No," Setanta's voice almost breaks. "Rahab. Rahab must be--but--but--" For a moment, and only a moment, fear lights up Setanta's eyes. It's gone, then, smothered entirely in an eruption of rage.
"NO!"
The Primarch's voice echoes off the walls like a thunderclap. Chunks of stone and crystal fall free, clattering to the ground. Ida clamps her hands to her ears and braces as the cavern begins to shake.
"She is dead," Setanta whispers. "She is dead, and all that remains in this fallen age is rabble! Insults! Lackeys of those wretched shades! ON YOUR FEET!" Setanta throws their arms wide, and boiling heat washes out from them. Healing sorceries pour into those around them, infusing injured flesh with a burning, consumptive regenerative power.
"You," Setanta says, pointing at Fei. "And you--" Elly, "And you, and you--!" Avril, Lily. "YOU MAY EXPLAIN THIS FALLEN WORLD AS YOU FIGHT WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE!"
Flame erupts from every crevice in the room, leaping and pirouetting as it seeks out Setanta's foes. The Primarch themself moves with blinding speed in the heart of it, driving a massive palm at Fei Fong Wong. Blue-white light licks along the edges of their hand. Spikes of flame lash out from their body at Elly, before condensing around the Primarch in a tight, roiling aura of destruction. In a single, graceful leap they cross the chamber, their form blurring like a heat-haze as they launch a flurry of punches at Avril. As a seeming afterthought, they drive a backhand strike at Boudicca, their lips twisting in a sneer of disgust--as if even having to touch the Oracle were somehow demeaning.
The blurring assault only dies down as Setanta turns on Lily, Ida, and Astrid. Their hand clenches into a tight fist, glowing white, then blue. Claude's Geiger counter ticks furiously as another burst of radiation wells up around the Primarch's fist. Ida sets her feet and her jaw, armor erupting to try and shield herself. Astrid...
Astrid whips a Crest Graph free out of reflex, grabs Ida's shoulder. "You're not taking her, monster," the Hyadean snarls. The Ley boils up around the two of them as the former Second-in-Command of the Ash Legion taps into a power she can barely control.
Then they're gone. The blue flash erupts a moment later, bathing Lily with radiation.
GS: Setanta has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Burning Devastation Palm! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Disrupt and Jam expired! GS: Setanta has completed her action. GS: Setanta has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Flow Like Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Apocalyptic Omen! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Know Your Place! GS: Setanta enters a Counter stance! GS: Setanta spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Setanta has attacked Lily Keil with Azure Flash! GS: Setanta has gained 2 Combo! GS: Setanta has canceled their attack on Fei Fong Wong. GS: Setanta has canceled their attack on Lily Keil. GS: Setanta has canceled their attack on Avril Vent Fleur. GS: Setanta has canceled their attack on Seraph Boudicca. GS: Setanta has canceled their attack on Elhaym van Houten. GS: Setanta has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Flow Like Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Apocalyptic Omen! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Know Your Place! GS: Setanta enters a Counter stance! GS: Setanta spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Setanta has attacked Lily Keil with Azure Flash! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Setanta has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Burning Devastation Palm! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Setanta's Azure Flash for 144 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Lily Keil! GS: Setanta has activated a Boss Action! GS: Setanta has attacked Dean Stark with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Zed with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Lanval with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Setanta's Flow Like Flame for 148 hit points! GS: Riposte! applied to Setanta! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Setanta's Burning Devastation Palm for 113 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 84 hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber's Force Guard activates! GS: Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Setanta's Know Your Place for 72 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Elhaym van Houten guards a hit from Setanta's Apocalyptic Omen for 77 hit points! GS: Mighty! applied to Setanta! GS: Claude C. Kenny takes a glancing hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 75 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock completely evades a hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters Critical health and gains 25 FP! GS: Gwen Whitlock has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Seraph Lanval takes a solid hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 143 hit points! GS: Setanta has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Setanta has completed their action. GS: Dean Stark critically Guards a hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 29 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a glancing hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 76 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Zed critically Guards a hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 43 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean grins and waves an ARM at Gwen. "Heh, yeah!" He then looks around for Avril and Rebecca--Avril he spots right away, but Rebecca's lost to him somewhere in the crowd. He hurries over to Avril, at least. He'll spot Boudicca and Ida after he's gotten closer, as Ida trembles in terror, shouting that Luisa is her ancestor.
The big guy, Setanta, takes it poorly. He screams a bunch of stuff, and then points at several people and demands they answer for that stuff. Several of those people are people he cares about a lot! "Hey, how about you explain *yourself* before you--"
Flames happen. Flames so hot and fast that, even though he's right next to her, Dean doesn't even have time to try to protect Avril, let alone any of his other friends. It's only with the blessing of Moor Gault, and the crossing of his ARMs' rods, that he's able to withstand it himself.
"Avril!!" he shouts, running over to her side. "Are you okay?! I'll cover you! And you--" He points defiantly up at Setanta. "You cut that out, you big bully!!"
In ordinary circumstances, Dean would follow that up with a whallop with his ARM rods. Setanta is too big and far away to do that to, so instead, he shoots at them with a barrage of bullets from several different angles. Everything is simple when you're Dean in a fight!
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Setanta with Bullet Shower! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny's grounding in the physical sciences is poor, by Federation standards. Around here, however, he's the closest thing to a technical expert the Dawn Chasers have; as such, when his Geiger counter starts clicking like a rusty fidget spinner, he feels that the least he can do is give people a warning. "This guy's attacks aren't just fire!" he shouts. "Nuclear energy!" he adds, pronouncing it incorrectly. He licks his lips nervously; at least two and a half people here will know what that means, and why it's bad. "We need to lock him down! From a distance if we can!"
Easier said than done, Claude admits to himself once the warning is done; most of the Federation's radiation countermeasures involve copious amounts of energy shielding (not an option), pharmaceuticals (ditto) and good old-fashioned lead. That last option seems the most promising to Claude's eyes, as Dean is quick to demonstrate; the Boy from Earth draws his own sidearm - a four-barreled Lancaster pistol - and adds its chorus to Dean's smaller calibre.
GS: Claude C. Kenny has attacked Setanta with Lancaster Pistol! GS: Claude C. Kenny has gained 1 Combo! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action. GS: COUNTER! Setanta counterattacks Claude C. Kennywith Counter Attack! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Lancaster Pistol for 102 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline hears the others conversing nearby, but it's hard to really focus on their conversation through the heat in the room, and with the source of it right in front of her. Lanval's appliance of water helps, at least, but even with his aid it feels like they could all burn away at any moment.
And then the Primarch speaks again. Asking about Luisa... and, when learning of her fate, exploding in rage. ...It looks like it can't be avoided.
Boiling heat emerges in a wave over the area. Jacqueline tries to avoid it, but it washes over her, as well. But, rather than the expected outcome, her body seems to be healing itself... but, the pain only intensifies. Frankly, she feels like she might've been better off without it.
She draws a deep, sharp breath... and prepares herself for the onslaught, as flame erupts from the room itself and rushes toward her.
Quickly, Jacqueline conjures a pillar of stone. It absorbs some of the heat, becoming red and molten, and the rest of the flame passes over Jacqueline herself. She has to take cover behind her cloak to avoid being burned - but even with it, the ambient heat is painful.
But even still Jacqueline rises to her feet.
"...I can't claim to know what happened between you and Luisa. But there are people in this era who are still doing their best for Filgaia, so I'd thank you to not insult them." Jacqueline says, shaking her head. "It's possible your rage is justified. But right now, you're lashing out. Can't we discuss this?"
But she does respond in turn, making a gesture with her right hand. Despite all reason, water begins to bubble up from the floor beneath Setanta before surging upward in a powerful geyser.
It's like trying to put out a raging inferno with an eyedropper, but... they have to start somewhere.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Setanta with Pressure! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Setanta critically Guards a hit from Dean Stark's Bullet Shower for 25 hit points! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly hears voices speak behind her and she relaxes if with a slightly rueful cast as the boys work it out among themselves. (She thinks of it like that; it is a curiously and subtly comfortable idea.) But her attention is towards that figure as they resolve, as they focus. As they speak.
When Fei reveals the truth, Elly's heart fills with sympathy for Setanta. Setanta will regret that shortly. Because it is one thing when a person is cruel or unpleasant upon first acquaintance, or on no acquaintance at all, but Elly has a moment where she feels something soft for Setanta.
And in other moments she might blame herself. But she does not get the chance to do so. The seeds of guilt do not get their chance to take root in the ripe soil of Elly van Houten's heart. She is forming a word with some difficulty when Setanta points at Fei - then her - then Avril and Lily -- and then battle begins, flame surging past and over her, crashing with visible and emphatic bow shock against the magnetic screen she had created without understanding what she did. The second-order forces are enough to stagger her.
But only to stagger.
"No," Elly says to herself.
She straightens up. She says it again, for emphasis. "NO!" She turns to face the blurring figure of the creature and she says with heat in her voice, "You sit in a HOLE for a THOUSAND YEARS and you are FREED and you find out you don't have to FIGHT and you demand that we justify ourselves?? You COMPLAIN immediately, like - like we didn't have your favorite supper on order -"
Elly raises her hands, fingers curling as she actually shakes, just a little. The air around her becomes comfortable.
Contextually, this is a very large drop.
"We don't have to justify our existence to you!!"
Elly's plan had been to make a titanic ice crystal and topple it at Setanta. Even in her extreme level of Ether response (clumsy as it may be due to other injuries), she cannot overcome the ambient heat enough to form it. What comes out is more of the skeleton of an ice crystal, a lattice that could have become something enormous. It is enough; it topples forwards, aiming to surround the entity with jagged ice.
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Setanta with The Ice Cold Rimes of an Extremely Upset Young Lady! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval whirls, the more serious side of his character compromised with how he now balances daintily at the tip of one toe as he takes whatever anatomical equivalent for his kind there is to catch one's breath, drawing his drinking gourd close and slapping a forearm over the top as if protectively as Setanta's rage intensifies. The scream of 'NO!' disorients, to say nothing of the environs collapsing around him.
He bears the earlier label of 'their lackeys' with a certain stoicism, the latter rage-filled 'lackeys of those wretches shades' with a hardening, furrowed brow that is not a whole lot like the cheerful, jolly Lanval they know. When they go 'ON YOUR FEET' and start trying to funnel fiery (curative) energies into those surrounding him, Lanval charges forward.
"Thou shalt not take themmmmmmmmmrrrhghhble..." Lanval draws up a wall of water that is evaporated on the spot like it were nothing, a gout of flame all but impaling him and throwing him back on boiling hot, moisture-slick stone that is rapidly evaporating. This is an entity who has the ear and trust of the very water of this star, who is originally from an ecosystem where his specific kind could keep fire in check.
Fray, at its purest form, embodied within Setanta, makes a compelling argument for why he calls them 'shades.' Lanval is like a discarded, ragged toy before it, and steam rises where he lies motionless for a time.
...'a time' stretches from 'a dramatically reasonable amount of time to be on one's back' to 'reasonable assumption they have been felled in one blow' aside from the lack of dematerialization. What work he did to trying to quell the rising temperatures loses ground.
More gouts of steam rise around the flame, as the rage and fury build higher, the ambient radiation ever more dangerous. There's something iridescent dancing in the thermals. It seems irreverent and strange, as it dances around the battlefield before settling somewhere above Setanta.
Where this shiny, iridescent thing turns out to be a bubble - a bubble that pops and dumps more water directly onto them. There is gentle snoring somewhere in the pile of steam over yonder.
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Setanta with Sleeping Bubble! GS: Seraph Lanval assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Zed winces at the elemental abomination's sudden spike of grief. "Wow," he mutters in a voice that only he can really make out. Really, he's speaking in a relatively normal volume, but the world-scouring heat and the not-so-distant rumble of a living thermonuclear bonfire mutes him somewhat. "I'm ripping off all kinds of bandaids today! Two in an hour, that's like, a new record--"
A wave of heat and light washes into him, the precursor to something much worse. Arcs of skyfire leap across the Hyadean's metal flesh as a burst of charged particles smashes into his epidermis, bouncing electrons into higher orbitals. Pulses of photonic energy crackle and pop across his skin as those electrons plummet back into lower energy bands, sending a flowing aurora scintillating across his body a split second before the nuclear fire crashes into him. Before Zed can even scream--
Ida and Astrid are gone.
He doesn't need to scream anymore.
Instead, he yells. He yells as he drives his sword into the ground. He yells louder as the stuff of the roiling void billows out from the blade and swallows up the thermonuclear particle storm. Zed yells louder still as he rakes the blade up out of the earth and sends an arc of pure power streaking across the space between himself and the Primarch like an alien rainbow. "I said the war is over you jerk! The Guardians have nothing to do with me being here, except that I promised I'd help them with things like you! We're all here for the same reason-- to protect this world!"
GS: Zed has attacked Setanta with Inner Secret - Heaven's Howl! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I mean, she seems to really get around for a dead person and I've had a conversation with her so..." Fei manages. Zed really needs to learn he doesn't have to share the complete truth immediately every time but at least Dean is here. What is Dean going to do about this? Fei doesn't know, but his presence makes the situation a little more bearable all the same.
He looks to Elly for a long moment. He isn't unsympathetic to the nuclear fire beast--which is a phrase Fei never thought he'd think about himself--but he says, "To be honest I like the Guardians okay but I don't really work for them they're kind of mean sometimes."
He nods once to Astrid. The task at hand.
All that remains in this fallen age is rabble'
"That's pretty hurtful." Fei says as Setanta heals his wounds which is unexpected but he stands himself up after. "Um, well, okay, but it's been a while since I talked to Lombardia so don't blame me if I get anything wro--OOF!"
The OOF is because he has to bring both his arms up to block a burning palm strike towards his midsection. He is still thrown back from the strike and his arms definitely burn--his ability to adapt to fire with his ether talents is a bit lacking against fire THIS mighty--even if his Moor Gault medium is lending him a hand here with enduring it.
"Well about five hundred years ago, a guy named Lacan and this guy named 'Sigmund' met each other but it was actually Siegfried and he was actually secretly a Metal Demon but Lacan didn't know this until later and uh he painted him I guess? Anyway, they had a falling out and this guy named Grahf showed up--and ughhh just thinking about him makes me so mad--anyway Grahf showed up and was like 'Hey Siegfried I'm gonna go on a murder spree' and Siegfried was like 'Yeah that's cool' and Grahf then rampaged for a while until, uh, someone used a super sword that nearly killed the planet to maybe stop him? Except he came back and it didn't work."
"Them down," He adds to Claude because it's important to respect the pronouns of nuclear fire.
Nevertheless, he looks back to Sentanta and adds, "Um, anyway, we're working real hard to fix things okay?"
He straightens up, looking to Astrid with some brief startlement as she KIDNAPS AN IDA but--that's a problem for future Fei.
Fei naturally tries to punch ice at Sentana with a series ice-bursting punches.
"To be honest I would explain it better but I only get visions when I'm really stressed out and I can't really control them. Anyway, Lacan was probably me in a past life so, uh, sorry about that. Why did Luisa seal you away if you were friends anyway? Is it because of your temper? Cause if so I totally get it. I find what helps me is meditation and the support of my friends and if that's not enoough I go to Dean and just sort of leach off his positive energy like a parasite."
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Setanta with Suikei! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 1 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"Fei!" Zed whines, "Don't parasite positive energy! Don't be a jerk! Everyone knows friendship creates infinite positive energy, you gotta give to receive!!"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily finds herself watching Elly for a few strange moments, seing her struggle with balance--seeing something happen. But she can't say what it is, and in moments, she's about to have concerns of a different nature--Setanta questioning Ida, and Zed giving the truth. It was inevitable, Lily thinks--this is why she'd already started preparing, anyway. But what she didn't expect...
Boiling heat seals Lily's wounds, strangely familiar considering her own method of healing. But it's the rage that's really most familiar of all. Lily adopts a ready stance, as Setanta starts moving... And radiation bursts about Setanta's fist.
"Come on then," Lily answers, "Show me!"
Then she blinks, as Astrid grabs Ida--but she's already committed to it. The Black Wolf stands solid through the flash of blue, its heat and strangeness shearing off parts of her sleeves, revealing reddened skin below. But a pulse of Ether from her accompanies it, before a second; as the blue light fades, there is a sensation of magical gravity towards Lily, as her circuit-like patterns begin to light in all colors. They travel over her arms, her neck, her face across her eyes where they linger as prismatic pupil and iris. "<Limiters released.>" The ancient language escapes Lily's lips as she begins to rise from the ground, wings of multicolored light spreading from her shoulderblades. "<Ether output climbing...>"
Lily suddenly hits a switch on her arm, on the strange device she'd prepared, and speaks in a more modern language, "Secondary reactors, ONLINE!" There is the sound of something like an explosion, and abrubtly the metal about her arms begins to extend, segments moving to surround her arms and legs, to shield her torso. Chrome covers her in moments, building out to great clawed hands and feet, to a terrible draconic face above her head, as her form within shimmers black and circuitlike. "...Challenge accepted," Lily replies, an electronic amplification distorting her voice but not unrecognizeably. "I owed Rahab this much."
"And I have nothing to fear from fire."
Lily's mechanical armor stretches, like a dragon working her muscles, and then she extends a hand, claw and all. She surges forward, suddenly wrapped in pulsing golden flames that are remarkably similar to what the Primarch is using in their way--
Particularly in the way they are not only fire, and the way they explode around Lily as she seeks to swirl around her foe.
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Causation!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Setanta with Path of Ruin! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil takes 27 damage from Poison! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I don't know if that's true." Fei says with a frown, somehow the chill one for once instead of Elly. Maybe he got it out of his system.
GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's The Ice Cold Rimes of an Extremely Upset Young Lady for 93 hit points! GS: Setanta takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Pressure for 57 hit points! GS: Quick! applied to Jacqueline Barber!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Setanta... does not take the passage of time well. It's not entirely unsympathetic, to Boudicca, who often finds herself amazed at the process.
But the way Setanta restores them can hardly be called sympathetic to Boudicca, either; the consumption of flame is not unknown, to her, but still it is consumptive. It will consume her!
"N-no," She finds the breath to deny them, and does not move from her sentinel position before Ida, though she trembles in place. "Time... does not wait! It flows like a river without care for eternity, and this -- this is no fault of time, Primarch..!" The immortal cannot blame mortality for a world shaped to their needs.
But...
To the giants, the humans were small.
And to the gods, the giants were small.
There are large things and then there are large things, and in the shadows cast is Boudicca, and all her bravery goes up in flames as Setanta deigns to strike her. It is not just a metaphor: she is aflame, the steel of her armour red-hot, the silk burning and burning and never quite burning up.
And she tumbles, hits the side of burning rocks, she cannot protect Ida from this, could never protect Ida from this.
But... Ida is gone.
Boudicca can only hope she's safe.
They certainly aren't safe.
But even though Boudicca is burning, and burning, and burning - she just won't burn up. She keeps burning.
She keeps burning, because she knows fire, in her way, too.
A hand to the ground - she does not use her magic here - and she pushes herself up, tremulous. The spark of flame she clicks into existence about her fingers is... not... quite the same as the all-pervasive heat which drowns every inch of this chamber.
And the air which carries it to Dean is warm, not scalding-hot.
"Go!" She calls to her Seer, even as her silks burn.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Dean Stark with Smoke Sigil! GS: Seraph Boudicca assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Dean Stark takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Smoke Sigil for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Her gaze slowly lifts to Setanta -- is she even aware that Dean is here?
Her shoulders tense, her fingers tighten about Absolute Zero's hilt. She bears the Medium still in her left hand, tucked into her elbow and cradled against her body.
On some level, she's begun to realize what's happened. Not just the situation they're in now -- Astrid's possession, the breaking of the seals -- but what Setanta and Luisa were to each other.
Ida's her descendent.
Luisa is dead.
The truth evokes denial from the Primarch.
Then fury.
Then--
"Ah--"
There was ice. There is no more of it now. And then Setanta is simply for her, even as she narrows her profile and twists her body in an attempt to evade...
...what is inescapable.
She's struck not once but twice.
No, three times, total.
She staggers back, stumbling. Falling.
Dean is here. Her gaze rests on him for a moment as she rises. She extends one slender hand for his arm. Even though she wears gloves, even though she rests her hand there for only a moment, it feels as cold as ice.
"Dean," she says, taking a step past him. Her breath is again visible in the air. "It is alright."
BMG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcvwEmhhOdM
Ice crackles in her footsteps, the frost spreading and growing in defiance of the heat, as Avril wrenches open the door.
"This world," says the Ice Queen, "is no longer yours. Begone," she intones, pointing the tip of her blade for the Primarch. A gust seemingly casts the errant fragments of up into a nebula about her. Light, seemingly from nowhere, gathers brilliantly at each quarter quadrent of the storm she has conjured.
And then the whole magical construct erupts in an explosion of shimmering ice and light, streaming for Setanta.
DC: You switch forms to The Ice Queen! DC: Avril Vent Fleur switches forms to The Ice Queen!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Setanta with Grand Halo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 2 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Setanta critically Guards a hit from Zed's Inner Secret - Heaven's Howl for 22 hit points! GS: Setanta's Force Guard activates! GS: Setanta guards a hit from Seraph Lanval's Sleeping Bubble for 84 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Charging, charging...
Like Lily's own charging process, Gwen's takes its glorious time, subtle compared to Lily's own. It's like drawing liquid from a pump that's been dry for months, but when she's overcome that initial inertia. Gwen just watches idly, her left arm snaking over to hold her right. As the lights of yellow gold reach her right eye, she shudders, a sharp intake of breath releasing the initial tension of the act.
A wave of blistering heat comes towards her, and she runs into it, using her short build-up momentum to tumble through.
It's not quite enough, leaving her body to fling through the air.
A metallic claw latches onto the ground when Gwen lands, scratching up black rock as drags her right hand in order to slow herself to a stop.
On the other end of that wave of heat, the courier straightens, clothing charred but intact, light infusing and pulsing the veins of her body, the middle of her chest and back, the iries and sensitive veins of her eyes.
She steps forward, her speed increasing, as Lily and Avril land their attacks, and leaps through the mist of ice and radiation, her ARM's palm open and pointed in front of her.
"Fall back into blessed ignorance, -Ignis Fatuus-!"
A bright scream of energy propells her back against the ground, her blast aimed for the Primarch's face.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Setanta with Ignis Fatuus! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action. GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Path of Ruin for 147 hit points! GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!! GS: Setanta critically Guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Ignis Fatuus for 15 hit points! GS: Setanta guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Suikei for 76 hit points! GS: Setanta's Force Guard activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Setanta guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Grand Halo for 99 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
Claude and Dean respond to Setanta's fury with a hailstorm of lead. The Primarch doesn't even seem to notice at first, but then Claude's slugs slam into their shoulder, rapid-fire. The impact sends ripples through the molten magma of their body, and their lips twist in a grimace. They shift into a defensive stance, setting their heels and crossing their arms before them--a wave of impossible heat washes out, straight-up melting most of Dean's bullets in mid-air. Gobbets of molten lead fly wide, or hit the ground, spitting. Claude's strategy is sound, but Setanta presents a problem in that they are blindingly fast. In the space of a heartbeat, they're up in Claude's face, backhanding him dismissively for having the temerity to actually hit them. Dean, likewise, gets a roundhouse kick to the crown of the skull. Setanta is actually acknowledging the two of them as threats, albeit grudgingly.
Elly presents Setanta with another problem. Multiple problems, really. They whirl away from Claude, looking down at Elly with bared teeth. They're not listening to her, per se--to her very valid complaints about everything that's happening--but they are paying attention to the sorcery she weaves. The ice cracks and crashes against their body, leaving lines of soot in its wake. They shudder, once, and the ice flash-boils, reduced to so much steam. The lingering cold clings to Setanta's skin.
"What are you?" Setanta says, as if Elly hadn't just attacked them. Jay's geyer slams into them, hitting them square between the shoulders--but the water doesn't even make it past Setanta's aura. Superheated steam surrounds the Primarch, clinging to their form. It's enough to cloud lines of sight, a fact that Lanval takes advantage of, knowingly or not. His bubble darts through the air and detonates against the back of Setanta's head; the Primarch whips forwards from the impact, and snarls in annoyance. "Do you think your feeble flailing can harm me, Shade of Muse?!" They swing through the steam, aiming blindly at where Lanval was five seconds ago.
Zed charges. Doom Bringer flashes out. There's a high-pitched clang as it strikes something!
...Setanta's hand. The Primarch grips the blade tightly, staring at Zed from across the cursed weapon. Doom Bringer begins to superheat. "Her stench still clings to you," Setanta growls. "Begone from my sight, abomination!" And then Setanta tries to fling Zed, throwing him for distance across the room--right into the molten remains of several Elw-forged Ley conduits, now a giant pool of sparking magma.
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
Setanta seems to sense Lily's strategy a moment before she hits the switch--they sense her Ether output rising, and genuine intrigue seeps past the arrogant, dismissive anger. "As predicted," they say. As Lily's armor encases her, Setanta watches in rapt attention. They step forward, laughing--all but throwing themselves into the incandescent fury of Lily's assault. Fire floods over fire as the Witch of the Black Wolves gives the Primarch a taste of their own medicine. When it's over, smoke curls off Setanta's frame. "I felt that, they say. "A proper, purging flame, not weak--" They glance back over their shoulder at Dean and Boudicca, their eyes narrowing and burning white-hot. Gwen distracts them before they can strike, flinging herself at them. Setanta's right hand flashes across the distance, gripping Gwen's before it can strike home.
The Primarch studies her for a long moment, like Gwen were a pinned insect they were inspecting with a magnifier. "No," they say. "You--"
Ice spreads across the floor. Setanta's eyes snap open, and they look at Avril, jaw tightening. "What," is all they get out before the ice and light erupt around them, drowning them out in a storm of power. Setanta surges out from within, eyes wild, a manic grin on their features. "More," they demand."MORE! NOTHING LESS THAN PERFECTION! NOTHING LESS!"
And yet, all this time, Fei has been patiently explaining everything to Setanta, and it's only now the Primarch notices him. Ice slams into their body, carving molten rivulets in their burning skin. They look at Fei, puzzled by what they're seeing, what they're hearing. More flame jets out from the cavern walls, twisting into streamers at Setanta wills. Most of it arcs towards Fei, a test of the young man's skill as well as his ability to keep talking while in mortal danger. The rest converges on Boudicca--who feels it eating at her essence--and Avril, as if it could somehow melt the Ice Queen. The rest...
The rest...
Setanta's body begins to roil and distort, as if they magma and fire making them up were bubbling violently. The Primarch's power takes physical shape--violent eruptions of glowing red-orange gas, which settles on the remaining combatants. As it sinks in, power suffuses them--a power that cannot be contained indefinitely by mortal flesh. A power that might just start to warp it.
GS: Setanta has attacked Dean Stark with Implacable Ignition! GS: Setanta has gained 2 Combo! GS: Setanta assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Setanta has attacked Zed with Perfection Unleashed! GS: Setanta has gained 2 Combo! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Lanval with Know Your Place! GS: Setanta enters a Counter stance! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Setanta has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Enkindling Spasm! GS: Setanta has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Enkindling Spasm! GS: Setanta has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Enkindling Spasm! GS: Setanta has attacked Claude C. Kenny with Enkindling Spasm! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Setanta has activated a Boss Action! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Hi-Flame! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Setanta has attacked Lily Keil with Enkindling Spasm! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Setanta's Enkindling Spasm for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Claude C. Kenny gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease and Hyper! applied to Claude C. Kenny! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark guards a hit from Setanta's Implacable Ignition for 148 hit points! GS: Dean Stark's Force Guard activates! GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Setanta's Counter Attack for 75 hit points! GS: Dean Stark used Defend! He takes Setanta's attack on Avril Vent Fleur on himself! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 92 hit points! GS: Dean Stark's Force Guard activates! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Setanta's Perfection Unleashed for 189 hit points! GS: Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from Setanta's Enkindling Spasm for 0 hit points! GS: Lily Keil's Force Guard activates! GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Setanta's Enkindling Spasm for 0 hit points! GS: Disease and Hyper! applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Setanta's Enkindling Spasm for 0 hit points! GS: Disease and Hyper! applied to Gwen Whitlock! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval takes a glancing hit from Setanta's Know Your Place for 85 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Lanval gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Setanta's Enkindling Spasm for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease and Hyper! applied to Elhaym van Houten! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 146 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Setanta's Hi-Flame for 229 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Y-you don't have to leech off me or anything... I'm happy to share my energy with you!" Dean shouts over to Fei, somewhat sheepish.
He double-takes at the spot where Ida was. Wait, where'd she go? He looks away for just one minute...! But then the air carries a different kind of heat to him, one that soothes and strengthens. He meets Boudicca's eyes across the battlefield and gives her a cheerful smile and an affirmative nod. "Thanks!!"
A hand falls on his shoulder. It is freezing. Dean looks over and up at-- "Avril?" he breathes.
No. The Ice Queen, Lolithia.
'And when that puppet you care so much about has reduced everything you care for to dust, you'll be with me, too. Dean.'
Dean's expression hardens, and he steps up to stand at the Ice Queen's side, ice and fire standing together.
Setanta comes at him foot-first. Dean whips around to face them and gets cracked on the skull for his efforts--so, fortunately, nowhere important. When they look at him and Boudicca and speak of their flame, he frowns--but it's when they screech at Avril, demanding more and more before laying down flame, does he now jump in the way.
It's a terrible flame. Somehow, he withstands it, but not without a scratch. He grits his teeth and screams, both in pain and defiance. When the flames subside, he pants, the air burning his lungs.
He doesn't have any idea what "nucular" (Claude said it, not him) is, only that it sounds bad. But-- "Is that what all this is? You just want a fight to get it all out of your system?" he shouts at the Primarch. "If we give you that, will you calm down already?!"
However Setanta responds, Dean opens fire with another unrelenting blast of bullets, first from one gun, then the other, then together, twisting and twirling, until he unleashes a mighty blast of brilliant power. Even then, he's not yet done; the rods of his ARMs extend, similarly glowing brilliantly bright. He braces himself on his back foot and CHARGES Setanta, zipping past them and whooshing back to his previous position, railing those rods into them as he goes. Or that's the intent, in any case.
GS: Dean Stark spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Setanta with Twin Fenrir - Finest ARMs! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Setanta takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Finest ARMs for 258 hit points! GS: Shield! applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval's snoring is not born of sleepy leisure, no matter appearances (and the appearances do remain convincing enough to be treated as evidence in a court of law). It is, unto itself, meditative after having taken that blast all the way through him. He stirs and turns in his seeming sleep, rolling towards his right and keeping his current elevation within the chamber.
'Do you think your feeble flailing can harm me,' Lanval keeps his eyes closed through that,
'Shade of Muse?!' There is a swinging limb where he was five seconds ago. Five seconds ago is not quite enough time to clear it. He's not point blank - that's the only mitigating factor as steam continues to rise off of Lanval's manifestation. His eyes shoot open as the rush of superheated air in a shockwave pops him up, where he catches himself on one foot and wobbles while the flames continue to cook away at him. "Shade of... Muse?" Lanval murmurs. He is foolishly standing - existing! - within striking range. There's a lot going on. The temperature starts to fall dramatically, coming from the machinations of a quiet woman who seems to be projecting far more strength right then and there. Evaporating water settles into ice as the ground beneath him turns more brittle. Fearsome visages of an awakened Lily and a Gwen of a different personality fill the space. Lanval's eyes open up again as he takes a sip.
"A Shade of Muse?" He asks, strength returning to his voice. He hasn't moved out of swinging range. "I be but a humble servant to Schturdark, Guardian of Water."
He raises a hand. It is, by his manifestation, a perfectly ordinary hand of a middle-aged man of portly build and an inability to understand that beards should probably be, after a point, trimmed.
He swings it in a backhand, to try and overpower the limb of the Primarch that could still take another swipe at him. Only when Lanval swings that backhand will he see, moments later, the red-orange gas starts to settle on a number of the mortals surrounding them. Lanval's eyes widen, a dimming flash of his aquamarine eyes from shock and fear because he remembers what his team went through - and the horror they saw that took in too much.
"No...! Release them!" This vocal protest is feeble to Setanta's booming voice, for he knows what stands to be lost if they can't withstand it - another of the countless prices that Filgaia cannot pay.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Hey," Fei says. "Cut that out and calm down." to all the insults that Setanta is throwing out but he focuses on Zed since tht seems the most unfair. "Zed's not an abomination. He's a good guy. You can't blame him for being a victim of child abuse. That's not right. And it's not like he even did anything all that bad. I think you should apologize to Zed. He's everybody's favorite metal boy."
Setanta gives him a puzzled look. Fei kind of quirks his head looking puzzled right back at Setanta. "Lucia had a whole family that's still around to this day. Can't you be happy for her? If you just want to fight the demon fist style again, I can do that for you."
He offers Setanta a smile moments before flame erupts from all sides and encases his body.
Fei burns hot. It's more than he can just endure.
He lets out a strangled pained scream.
Before he finally manages to focus up and push the fire away from his body by slamming his hans to the side.
"Oh um--sorry Dean. I just know I can't really give back when you can." He blushes fiercely.
"Anyway Zed fought real hard to save Filgaia. I think you should be thanking him. He sacrificed a lot, you know? Anyway..."
He summons balance into his body as he throwws several quick kicks for Santana before punching forward in a smooth motion--it's not QUITE Demon Fist, but the influence is clear.
"I get that it hurts that someone you love is gone but...that's life, you know? It's supposed to hurt... And we shouldn't let it stop hurting... but that doesn't mean you can take it out on others. It's not Zed's fault. He's everybody's friend. I don't always get him, and I guess we're not close or anything...but I'd trust him at my side any day. And so should you."
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Setanta with Body Of Water! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Setanta with Yin Yang Strike! GS: Fei Fong Wong has gained 2 Combo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Claude C. Kenny has posed.
Claude C. Kenny is a little chagrined at Fei's comment - that was a weird slip of the tongue, considering 104th-century ethics. He's not usually such an anthropomorphocentric bag of di---
Setanta's backhand sends the blonde spaceman wheeling around in a drunken pirouette, crimson liquid spraying from his mouth. Claude comes up spitting blood, his teeth stained as his lips peel back in an angry snarl. Energy bubbles to the surface - white-hot anger at the utter nonsense of the past several minutes, hours, days, months, and years building to a crescendo.
It's a good anger. It's even better when it's focused.
Claude sheathes both his weapons in well-practiced motions, then uses the distance he's gathered - and the separation it provides - to his advantage. A flickering blue light flows across Claude's hands as he drives them down into the rock, lowering his body into a squat. And then he starts to strain, his muscles bulging, face flushing. A vein starts to throb along Claude's temples as he grits his teeth, putting everything he has into it.r
There is a soft popping noise. A second later, a deep crack.
And then suddenly Claude's body surges upward, a vicious tearing sound echoing through the cavern as he rips a section of stone off the floor of the cavern - nearly six inches thick and three or four yards across - and sends it flipping up into the air. Claude sucks in a deep, desperate breath before leaping up after it, lifting his legs up tight to his chest. Another faint flicker of blue chi ripples out from Claude's body as he drops a two-footed kick onto the stone slab from above, sending it crashing down toward Setanta.
And possibly Dean, though he feels bad about that part.
And possibly also Fei, though he feels...... 60 percent bad about that part.
GS: Formation! Claude C. Kenny has attacked Setanta with Rocks Fall, Primarch Dies! GS: Claude C. Kenny has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"You need to get your nose checked," Zed snarls at the elemental monster from behind his white-hot blade. His hand begins to blister and boil, liquid metal bubbling and flowing in ways it probably shouldn't as his grip tightens even so around the hilt of his sword. "I've had more than a few baths between then and now, you know. And besides that, The Mother was never one to give too many hugs. She was really more of a parasite than a parent--" His glove burns through. Doom Bringer's alien steel does not yield to this heat, but Zed's arm is not so resilient. There's a sickening noise as his palm liquefies and the weapon slides into his wrist--
And at that same moment, the Metal Demon is sent flying. He shouts in pain and surprise as his trajectory sends him sailing down, down, down--
Before he disappears with a wet *plop* into a pit of molten magma and liquid ley crystal.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei kind of presses his lips to a frown when Zed, everybody's friend, is now melting in magma.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly doesn't answer Setanta verbally as the ice distorts and flickers. It does not, in the end, crush or demolish the Primarch, because some things can't be done so easily. Perhaps some things can't be rendered easily. She reels backwards, forming her next plan as the topic of flame raises. Water does not prevail; nor, in a single blow, does Fei's magic.
Lily is doing her thing, Elly thinks. That gives her a moment to compose herself. Purging flame, Elly thinks. Radiation. That's what she's using. Elly's eyes narrow as she puts her attention on re-developing that magnetodynamic shield. That, of course, works.
That is not what Setanta was actually going to do to her.
The rupturing release of flame itself, the refined and veritable essence, is what emanates instead. Elly, who had already been halfway leaned forwards, actually lands on her palms, hissing at the sensation as her eyes swim, as something subtle and profound in its wrongness ripples through her. She can feel ten thousand tiny twists. The feeling isn't alien. She can remember -
She -
when? Why -
For a fleeting second past that, Elly feels tiny. Shaky. Despite the fire she feels cold. Her fingers curl in the baked earth that almost hurts her palms to touch. Out there, there are faint cries. Bones and stone cracking. Frail things contending with a far less frail thing. There is the plop of something falling into open magma. There is a scream
and Elly feels something slide out of the ground into her hands. She clasps it, not thinking, and rises upwards with it, or perhaps it rises with her. What is this, Elly thinks, as her eyes struggle to focus; from her perspective, it is in fact pushing her forwards. Is Zed helping me up, somehow? Elly thinks.
Elly finds herself standing. In her hands is a staff of dull elemental iron with a cladding of highly rugose glass and a weighted tip.
She turns it in her hands for a moment.
How, Elly thinks. Her eyes then turn upwards, despite that sea-sick feeling.
Elly stalks forwards, swinging the iron staff backwards as she does. She staggers, and instead of staggering, she runs. At the last moment she leaps, and as she leaps, she swings -- to smash the side of the primarch's head!!
"It isn't easy to start over," Elly says, despite the attack; her tone is dizzy.
"But you aren't alone, unless you want to be."
GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Elhaym van Houten has attacked Setanta with Three-Section Staff! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Body Of Water for 158 hit points! GS: COUNTER! Setanta counterattacks Claude C. Kennywith Counter Attack! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Claude C. Kenny's attack becomes clear! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Claude C. Kenny's Freestyle Combat Arts for 174 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Setanta's Counter Attack for 182 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"They're not the only one who can use nuclear energy," Lily calls down to Claude from up in the air. "It doesn't affect me the same way--I'll get in close!"
But about that plan. A terrible erption of glowing gas settles onto Lily's form, armor and all. She sways, in the air, as she feels something strange from it--but even as it settles over her, something is starting to happen. It begins to warp and bubble black-covered flesh with an awful sound--
The circuit patterns on Lily's form pulse vividly red and the power explodes around her, as if ignited by something nearby. "Gh--" But when the smoke clears, however unpleasant it was, her limbs are smooth and their original shapes again, as if never touched save for the still-intense glow that only fades gradually, becoming a gleam of red, orange, gold, violet, blue again. "Setanta!" Lily calls. "You haven't seen anything yet!"
She should be more worried about the powerful foe before her--or more inclined to try peace like Fei is at least using his words. But there is something intoxicating in the moment, not least the sheer power radiating from Avril now. Avril... No.
"--Zed!" Lily calls in alarm as she sees him disappear into the magma, and she snaps up closer suddenly. As Elly stalks forwards, Lily places her hands in front of herself, focusing power. One hand rises from the mechanical form Lily has adopted, and golden light begins to collect within it.
Perhaps 'flesh' doesn't have to contain that power. Bringing down her hand with a ball of blinding light within it, Lily charges, spinning through the air as a barrier of nuclear fire erupts before her, pointed like a drill.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Setanta with Witness of Glory! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil takes 17 damage from Poison! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline frowns. It seems like attempts at diplomacy aren't going to work here - Setanta has barely even taken notice of her. And they seem to be able to weather her spells just fine.
"...Are your eyes even on the present, Setanta...?" She comments, shaking her head. "Is a fight really your only desire?"
She readies herself for another attack from the Primarch... but it comes from a direction she did not expect. During her journey through the Molten Scar, she had not encountered those vents of glowing gas. As such, she knows not what to anticipate, only that it is nothing good - and that it is rushing at her too quickly for her to avoid breathing any of it in.
Jacqueline's eyes go wide and she lets out a strangled gasp, collapsing to her knees. It takes all her effort to avoid falling completely. This power... Jacqueline has felt the power of Fray before. She's a Crest Sorceress - she knows its power well. But she's never felt it like this - rushing through her body in a pure form. It's overwhelming. It threatens to consume her, body and mind.
But... she can't. She made a promise that she'd come back alright.
Jacqueline takes a deep, stuttering breath, forcing herself to her feet. Her vision is swimming. Her steps are unsteady - she seems to be almost feverish, if fevers came about from being infused with raw power. Her gauntlets visibly crackle with energy - it's hard to tell if they're trying to help contain it, or to expend it.
"I... I-I'm not..." Jacqueline says. She stops herself, shakes her head, and then gestures with her right hand.
Water begins to swirl around Setanta... but, it almost seems to burn, as the energy currently infusing Jacqueline is imparted into the spell, transforming her water into more of a boiling mist that tries to envelop Setanta.
GS: Jacqueline Barber enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Setanta with Raging Mist! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Setanta critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Yin Yang Strike for 25 hit points! GS: Setanta takes a glancing hit from Elhaym van Houten's Three-Section Staff for 63 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Setanta's Force Evade activates!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
'Nuclear', Claude says. It's a word -- even mispronounced that evokes a frission within the young woman, though she knows not why. Heat...? Particles...?
The understanding that he's right about this, somehow, and this is best ended quickly if at all possible.
But she never says this to anyone, not when the Primarch comes out swinging. Not when her motivations in this fight undergo a slight shift. Not when she opens the door to the Lolithia.
Just like that time in the Photosphere. She reaches for him, her hand is like ice. And then, she both is and is not the Avril Vent Fleur he knows.
In the heart of the flames, there is ice. It does not yield to the heat. Avril, herself, continues to stare the Primarch of Fray down, her blade still born before her as if in challenge.
More, Setanta demands.
More.
"Then," the Ice Queen states, "You shall have it."
As the flames roll in.
Angling her blade as if to thereby guard against the inferno, she prepares herself for what is to come--
Dean interposes himself. Blink, and one might miss the expression that unfolds across the Ice Queen's expression. Surprise. Shock.
Then a fury as cold as winter's heart.
"You will regret that," she says, taking one small step forward. Her blade dips low and to the side, as if to trail her as she begins to twist about herself. A spray of frost follows. The spray joins the blade. It is about and of the blade, rising with the sword as the Lolithia completes her pirouette.
And departs the blade.
Is itself a blade, cutting through the air for the Primarch of Fray.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Setanta with Courant Glaciaire! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Setanta critically Guards a hit from Lily Keil's Witness of Glory for 23 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The courier's hand, even in its ascended state, looks like that of an intricately sculpted mechanical doll's, when gripped in the fiery clutch of Sextants own.
As they peer at her, her mouth opens slightly in response, panting. The hint of a smile gracing her chapped, dry lips.
Daring Setanta.
An exchange of blows sends Gwen backwards, her pyrite gold laced body of Gwen lands like doll in the rapidly melting frost from Avril's awakening.
The slights thrown at Zed and his race would have angered Gwen in another place and mind. The power boiling up into her would have scared her, bringing memories of the shambling Reaper she saw on the way here. She would have drawn a feeble sort of hope from Elly.
Gwen would have cried out, like a person wounded, at seeing Zed fall into the lava.
Gwen shudders, her light laughter lifting into the air as red orange gas seeps into her skin.
(BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtwdRsDztGc )
Scarred skin tears as the ARM's inherit shape of memories take over, the plates of it shifting to try to accomodate a large, more proper form. But it is still so severely limited, unable to morph to the same extent as Ida's own abilities. It is a fossil, of something that never was able to hatch. It bulges, then settles back, the energy looking for other avenues to pour through, creating fissues through the right side of Gwen's scarred body.
Its memories loop into Gwen's own, a program unable to connect to its proper DNA. Setanta's energy erupts from Gwen's shoulder blades, slicing open and cauterizing human flesh as it exits and loops back in. It fills in the mold of the juvenile wings of Metal Dragons of old, unable to stretch to their fullest extent.
Geometric infant wings bulge, and the pulsing woman propels herself forward, her right hand's claws extended.
".... more..."
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Setanta with Trick Orbit! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters a Counter stance! GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Flame converges. Boudicca moves but she is not fast enough, as if all the wind at her heels only serves to feed the monster gaining on her; washing over her.
She is fuel for the fire. She chose that destiny willingly and perhaps it is what saves her as FIRE descends, declarative and strong. Is she a shade of something greater? Certainly there is no room for oxygen as she falls, with a strangled cry.
"No," she insists, as she straightens again. All muscles, no wind. There's only one part of her not burning, now. That green ribbon in her hair...
"You ask too much of them."
Steady, steady, she finds her footing.
"... you, whose perfection lies aeons ago..."
She is afraid but bravery is not the absence of fear, not really, as she takes her tonfa in hand. The wood is hot; somehow, they've survived.
She cannot exist here, there is too much Fray, too much fire, it eats her and eats her and she feels she will disappear with one flutter of her facsimile heart. And yet she persists - and yet she launches herself forward, greaves to ground, charging past Setanta with a sweeping blow of her weapon.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Setanta with Soaring Vortex! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Setanta critically Guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Raging Mist for 23 hit points! GS: Setanta's Force Guard activates! GS: Setanta critically Guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Trick Orbit for 34 hit points! GS: Setanta takes a glancing hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Courant Glaciaire for 86 hit points! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Soaring Vortex for 135 hit points! GS: Entangle! applied to Setanta!
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
'Hey. Cut that out and calm down.'
The look Setanta shoots Fei in response is less arrogant bravado and more... petulence. There's something about the young man that the Primarch can't put their finger on, but they give it their all, regardless. "Schturdark," Setanta spits. "An insult to my dear sib, Rahab. Rahab, whose might freed me--do they yet live?! Or have your Guardians cut them down for the temerity of wanting to exist!" There's vitriol in their voice as they snap back at Lanval.
Setanta wasn't expecting that kind of reaction. The Seraph's backhand slams into the Primarch's face, breaking their nose and cracking their lip open. Flame spews from the open wound. Molten magma pours down their chin like blood. Setanta's expression twists into something equal parts astonished, enraged, and excited. "So you have will, shade!" they shout. They don't get the chance to say anything else. Claude Kenny tears up a chunk of volcanic basalt like he was renovating his basement and didn't like the carpet's color. He hurls it at the Primarch with terrible strength.
Setanta sees it coming. They turn from Lanval, whipping their head forwards and smashing it into the chunk of stone. Rock splinters from the blow, opening up more of those weeping volcanic wounds in Setanta's hide. There's enough follow-through, though, for the Primarch's headbutt to carry through into Claude proper. "Your husk contains promise, the Primarch says, to Claude, magma-blood dripping down their face. "Do stay alive."
Then Fei talks about the man Setanta just threw, and the Primarch frowns. "You wish to speak of abuse, they say. "Of mothers? Then allow me--!" But Fei does not give them the chance, not yet. Setanta matches him, flowing from attack to attack with fluid blocks and elegant counterstrikes--for a few brief seconds, Fei is making the Primarch exert themself, honestly and truly. "That style. Wait--! Recognition glimmers in Setanta's eyes. "You--Lee?!" It's as if they managed to translate a secondhand description into something tangible, something recognizable.
And then Elly comes at them, her staff smashing into the Primarch's forehead. They whip their head to the side, rolling with the strike--but that glimmer of recognition carries over. "Liabelle?"
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
Lily cuts the moment short. She rushes the Primarch, shielded by ancient armor and wielding terrible sorcerous might. Setanta sees her out of the corner of their eye and whirls to face her, their hand closing around the armor's wrist. The jet of nuclear flame roars past their head with mere inches to spare, melting a few strands of spun-obsidian hair. "Good," they say, lips cracking in a manic grin. "Good!" They clench their fist, preparing to strike back with a devastating reprisal--
And then Dean comes tearing out of nowhere, hosing the Primarch down with a seemingly-endless stream of lead. Bullets tear holes in the Setanta's body, splattering magma and molten lead across the cavern floor. The Primarch staggers, letting go of Lily and planting a foot to catch themself before they fall. They grit their teeth. Rage blazes in their eyes. Jay's mist envelops them, eating away at their aura of flame, but that same aura is flaring bright because that boy, that wretched creature, hurt them. Blue-white light blazes around their fists as they prepare to scour Dean Stark from the face of the earth.
Avril does not give them the chance. The line of ice rips through Setanta's body, drawing magma-blood even as it flash-boils. Setanta grunts--all the response they're willing to show, apparently. They're still off-balance, though, and Gwen takes advantage. The courier rushes in, her hand gripping Setanta's shoulder. Claws dig in, but find no purchase in the Primarch's shifting flesh. They draw back a fist--
Boudicca intervenes. Her tonfa are eminently flammable, but she lays in anyway, hemming in Setanta with pinpoint, precision strikes.
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
Setanta snarls. They raise their hand, and whip it out towards Lily. A bright cone of flame rips from their open palm, heralded by a bright blue flash as it washes across the battlefield. It doesn't stop at the sorceress--it keeps right on going, like a tidal wave of nuclear fire. A tidal wave that Setanta themself can command. Gwen, Lanval, Dean, and Boudicca are right in its path!
Right on its heels is a second wave of flame, a roaring eruption that starts in Setanta's cupped hand and rips outwards. It's like what happened when the seal broke, except this time there isn't Elw warding technology there to soak up the blow. The air begins to superheat. Crystalline monoliths groan as they deform even further.
GS: Setanta spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Setanta has attacked Lily Keil with Ash and Poison Endowment! GS: Setanta has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Ash and Poison Endowment! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Lanval with Ash and Poison Endowment! GS: Setanta has attacked Dean Stark with Ash and Poison Endowment! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Ash and Poison Endowment! GS: Setanta has attacked Claude C. Kenny with All Becomes Ash! GS: Setanta has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with All Becomes Ash! GS: Setanta has attacked Jacqueline Barber with All Becomes Ash! GS: Setanta has attacked Elhaym van Houten with All Becomes Ash! GS: Setanta has attacked Fei Fong Wong with All Becomes Ash! GS: Mighty and Riposte expired! GS: Setanta has completed their action. GS: Claude C. Kenny guards a hit from Setanta's All Becomes Ash for 50 hit points! GS: Claude C. Kenny enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Claude C. Kenny has activated a Force Action! GS: Elhaym van Houten critically Guards a hit from Setanta's All Becomes Ash for 84 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo! GS: COUNTER! Gwen Whitlock counterattacks Setantawith Counter Attack! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Setanta's Ash and Poison Endowment for 126 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Setanta! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Setanta's All Becomes Ash for 63 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval completely evades a hit from Setanta's Ash and Poison Endowment! GS: Hyper! applied to Setanta! GS: Seraph Lanval's Force Evade activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Setanta's All Becomes Ash for 140 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a glancing hit from Setanta's All Becomes Ash for 145 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Setanta's Ash and Poison Endowment for 60 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper! applied to Setanta! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Setanta's Ash and Poison Endowment for 141 hit points! GS: Hyper! applied to Setanta! GS: Dean Stark completely evades a hit from Setanta's Ash and Poison Endowment! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper! applied to Setanta! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Counter Attack for 165 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval's outstretched hand is obscured, as if it had disintegrated into steam while faint aquamarine light flickers from the arm that struck Setanta. Lanval once again sneaks a sip from the gourd for that split-second of recentering himself, taking in that taste of anything and everything to do with Filgaia's water and what happens to it.
He can taste that water's very injury - of water so altered and harmed by such a force that nothing could ever live in it again. Even for his nature, he is no safer from oblivion than Boudicca is. And yet, he makes that assertion with the rare direct hand strike, in so much a Seraphim's body is ever 'direct.'
He is unnaturally still after that drink - rooted to the spot in resolve so much as withstanding even the verbal, accusatory wrath of an entity beyond his tender years of five-hundred and sixty-ish. But he is, as Setanta accuses... a 'shade' with will.
"I speak but for the water." Lanval replies. "Thy nature alone... it doth wound it." He draws that steaming hand back. "If thy existence lead to naught but ruin... then what could be one cherishes that one keep?" He doesn't comment on Rahab's well-being.
There is a great cone of flame with a bright blue flash, and Lanval chances the contents of the drinking gourd anew as he swings upwards and produces a great, cleaving wave of water to try and disperse and part the wave coming at him best he can...
As his manifestation surfs right on top of it, flops and tumbles as though he were to be overtaken by said wave, and comes crashing down (almost) harmlessly closer to Gwen and Jay's positions - and not far from Boudicca either, his fellow Oracle.
"Thy power you impart cannot keep within! Thou would burn them to ash in admiration?!" Lanval takes a drink from the gourd again... and swings his arm outward, splashing out clear, crystalline, cleansing waters across Jay and Gwen, who may be boiling alive or even half-dead at this point, to try and extinguish the worst of their influence - it's the best he can do on short notice and he might need to see to them after the fact if there is an after.
"Oracle of Moor Gault!" Lanval calls to Boudicca as he flicks off the last of that water still clinging to his formerly steaming hand to reveal it's still whole, trying to wash away some of the blaze consuming her. "Thou art speaker for flame... but also, by thy nature, food for flame." The Wind Seraphim are kept in check by fire. That is well-knwon among their kind. "Could thou revoke the wind it doth feed upon in which the fell flame spread?"
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Wake Up Splash! GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Wake Up Splash! GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Wake Up Splash! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action. GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disease removed! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disease removed!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei sees Setanta give a petulant look.
"Elly," He says. "Emeralda's a really good girl isn't she?" Is he...comparing Setanta, a powerful monster of elemental and nuclear flame.... to a child? Though to be fair, Emeralda IS older than Setanta. And yes he is.
He quirks his head and adds, "Rahab, I don't know--but if he just wanted to live--well I empathize but...he sort of tried to do that by jumping into our heads and pulling us into giant holes. If he's still around I don't mind, like, working something out with them."
"I... Lee was a long time ago." He says. "What do you remember about him? How did you know him? Us? Agh..."
A wave of flame crashes through the already on fire Fei. He sinks down to a crouch. It's honestly mostly amazing that he's still on his feet.
"Starting to understand Wiseman a bit," He mutters under his breath as he burns.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMqOAwDvA2M
He stands up and walks towards Setanta. Impossibly! IMPOSSIBLY! Even with nuclear flame rolling off of him. It is not being endured, or shrugged off, and thrown off of him. He is gritting his teeth at the sheer agony of it.
"Don't act... like you're the victim... You remind me ... of that other me... getting mad and just hurting all the people around them. I can't stand it!"
He throws a quick series of Demon Fist strikes for Santanta in smooth motions. "How can you act like you're so surprised at being put on time out..."
Electricity crackles around his leg as he swings it up and slams it down for Setanta--following up with a barrage of pink-purple chi blasts in rapid succesion.
"When you're acting like a spoiled brat! You're only a thousand or so years old, aren'tcha?! Stop acting like you know everything! You're still a child!"
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Setanta with Fukei and Kokei! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Wake Up Splash for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Under the Primarch's feet, the ground cracks and splinters. The cataclysmic heat Setanta releases is enough to overwhelm even the hardest stone, and the rapid expansion of air turns the very atmosphere into a pressure-hammer capable of smashing boul--
Wait.
Wait no.
No, that's impossible--!
A few moments ago
Hot.
It's hot.
What an odd sensation, sinking in a sea of magma. The body of a Metal Demon is of such density that even molten stone cannot adequately buoy his weight. And so he sinks like a stone in a pond. Living metal it may be, but subjected to such heat, even Zed's form cannot maintain cohesion. Liquid flame softens his body. He tries to swim, but his limbs are molten ooze. The motion tears his arms free, tethered only by thin, fluid strands.
It's hot.
Too hot.
...
After everything, is this how it ends? No amount of strength matters when your body is pushed so far beyond its limits. Were his boasts... just empty air after all...? He'd promised so many things to so many people. He'll never get to make good on them. The blade in his hand still feels so very heavy. At this rate it'll sink to the heart of the world, forgotten. He won't be able to tell its story. But it was forgotten once, right? It'll be fine-- at least the others know. His friends will be able to spread the legend in his place. His friends... They-- they're strong, right? They'll be okay too. They'll figure it out.
They'll figure everything out. It's fine. It's fine. His people... Will find their own way. They're strong, too. He wanted to be there for them, to help them along too-- but they have Riese, and Noeline, and maybe Ratatoskr too, if he comes around. It'll be fine.
It would have been nice, though, to see with his own eyes a scene like that one his blade had shown him...
That girl... Will she be okay? He still needs to make it up to her...
Aura...
No. Not yet. It can't end like this. It won't! He feels himself liquefying, rapidly turning to useless metal slag, but there is something within that molten form-- something that refuses to melt, refuses to surrender, something that was born to defy the world, its power, and all good sense.
Something...
Which once upon a time, a certain unethical Hyadean scientist implanted into an annoying test subject on a lark.
Something that was created in the twisted hope of turning a weak-minded fool into a true engine of destruction, a method of correcting an error... Which did not turn out the way its creator had intended.
As all things aught to, the device hidden Zed had learned to spite the Quarter Knight Alhazred.
He reaches inward, activating the device with a command that executes at the speed of thought. He braces for the inevitable transformation--
'Wait what--'
(BGM CHANGE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71wG9uLaMLQ)
RIGHT NOW
The cracked earth underneath the Primarch explodes. A column of white-green energy lances up into the cavern, burning away the darkness with eye-obliterating brilliance. A figure rises, a black silhouette set against the searing light. Broad, spiked shoulders with wing-like fins that form an impromptu cape. Something with a crown of horns with a crystalline gem at their center that shines like a star. Something with armor made for war, a body brimming with power, a soul that shines like the stars, a voice that defiantly roars with the pulse of life--
"--PUUUUUUUUUUUNCH!!"
A fist erupts from the pillar of light. A flying, steel fist! It glows like magma as it soars, flakes of molten metal peeling away to reveal black and grey armor beneath! The gold highlights shine like the razor of dawn that cuts at last through the long night! The silhouette follows after, appearing just behind its wayward limb to slam its dislodged back in place at the last moment. The impact force doubles-- no, triples! The power of a single rocket punch is added to the momentum of a soaring, metal giant! More flecks of molten metal peel away like a chrysalis coming apart to reveal...
...
Uh.
Those who have the (mis)fortune to be acquainted with Zed for an extended period of time have probably seen something... Similar to this. For all intents and purposes, it looks as though Zed has turned into some kind of... retro, ten-foot-tall giant robot version of himself. But some things have changed since the last time.
Its armor is... Somewhat more streamlined, for some reason. More robust as well. As if someone had taken the previous design and refined it, somehow. And added more antennae.
...
Regardless. One thing is certain.
"Setanta!" Zed roars, his voice taking on a bassy reverb like it was being projected through a boom-box, "You're going to need to do more than that to kill this Dark Hero! I'm everyone's favorite metal friend, you can't get rid of me so easily! THIS ZED DOES NOT DIE IN MAGMA!"
"Everyone!" Zed, the ten-foot super robot, yells as he launches another ROCKET FIST. "Pile on! This body... This FORTRESS OF SUPER ALLOY -Z-ED will be your shield!"
DC: Zed switches forms to Zedder Robo Dragon! GS: Zed has attacked Setanta with Rocket Punch! GS: Zed has gained 2 Combo! GS: Zed has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline frowns as Setanta mentions Rahab. It's hard to keep focus... the fever is clouding her mind a little, so it takes her a second to form a response.
"You'll...have to forgive me for... not being more sympathetic. Rahab manipulated and...corrupted the minds of others, and lead to the destruction of an innocent village..." Jacqueline replies, between breaths. "I'd say that counts...as a little more than 'wanting to exist'."
She takes a deep breath, then, forcing her to stand up straight.
"And you... we tried diplomacy... We didn't have to fight." She shakes her head. "You have the right to exist... but it doesn't mean you can hurt whoever you want and get away with it..."
But the fight isn't over yet. Setanta still commands a terrifying power. Jacqueline can feel it building again, even more sharply now. Once more, she brings up a wall of stone and wraps herself in her cloak to weather the blow. The sheer force of it still manages to bowl her over. She crumples to the floor. The overwhelming heat... it's starting to get to be too much. Everyone's voices are melting together.
Once again, though, Jacqueline forces herself to her feet. She can barely stand, barely think... but even still, she turns her eyes toward Setanta.
But then, a large blue blur lands next to her. It speaks in a familiar voice.
"L...Lanval...?" JAcqueline mutters. Suddenly, she finds herself splashed in the face with the clearest, cleanest waters she's ever experienced. Jacqueline backs up, surprised... but, it's cool, and refreshing. The power-induced fever starts to fade, just a little - it becomes easier to focus. "Th-thanks... I needed that."
She turns her attention back to Setanta. She doesn't address them or even ready an attack right away. Instead she takes her glasses from her face and begins to dry them off before putting them back on.
"Look... you Primarchs, if all you want to do is live, to exist... Then that's fine! That's okay!" Jacqueline says, shaking her head. "But you have to follow the some rules we do. That you means you can't go around hurting people and doing whatever you please. If you can't understand that...!"
Jacqueline lowers herself into a stance that some may have seen before - it's a stance that focuses all of one's attention on spellcasting, while leaving themselves vulnerable to attack.
With a gesture of her left hand, Jacqueline issues forth a column of flame - essentially lashing out at Setanta with the very energy they imbued in her. This is immediately followed by a gesture with the right, bringing a crashing, swirling tidal wave down upon the flame in an eruption of steam.
"...Then we'll fight you until you do, or you're not a threat."
GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated a Force Action! GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Setanta with Spellweaver Stance! GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo! GS: Jacqueline Barber has launched an attack Link! GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Setanta with Dualcast - Tidal Flame! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Fei Fong Wong's attack becomes clear! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ultra Idstinct for 173 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong kind of expected something like this to happen so he just nods, throwing up a fist, and shouting, "Go...!! Zeddar Robo Dragon!!"
He then blinks, wondering why he did that.
GS: Setanta takes a glancing hit from Jacqueline Barber's Spellweaver Stance for 34 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Dualcast - Tidal Flame for 157 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison! applied to Setanta! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Zed's Rocket Punch for 175 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disrupt! applied to Setanta! GS: Mighty! applied to Zed!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
As the cone of flame envelopes the part of the battlefield he's on, Dean stands his ground. The nuclear flames whorl at him, and he raises Twin Fenrir and *strikes* the rods down into the center of the flames, deflecting them on either side. The heat is still catastrophic, and he has to grit his teeth and pour everything he's got into cutting the flames--but when their power has passed, he's sweating, he's panting--but he's still standing, too.
I mean there *are* radiactive particles all over the place still but LET'S NOT THINK ABOUT THAT.
"Jay's right," Dean chimes in. "I feel sorry for you, but what you're doing is more than just 'trying to exist'! I'm sad your human friend died--" he is pretty sure that's the core issue here, "--but we don't live all that long compared to other races! If you care about her, you're just gonna have to accept that--because she definitely didn't want you to go on a rampage!!"
A lot of things happen at once. One of them is Giant Robo Zedder, forming a shield so the others can pile on their attacks. "Zed...! Okay!!" Dean breaks into a sprint, the rods of his ARMs superheating. They say you should fight fire with fire, and Setanta seemed to be impressed with the flame of Moor Gault; let's see how they like getting struck with the Guardian's power straight into their body!
GS: Dean Stark spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Setanta with Burning Magazine! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily's arm is caught, the wrist of her armor, and she frowns. Setanta's words bring a smirk to her face, and she starts to bring her other claw to free herself--but she instead is let go, and Lily shoots backward out of immediate range in order to take advantage of the opening Dean gives her. "Thanks," she says to him, and watches Avril's line of ice, and Gwen...
What is happening there? For an instant Lily is almost brought out of her focus--but blood and explosive Ether both pound in her ears, and she must spot Boudicca for now, who is here amidst her bane. Lily frowns--but sees an opening, in that sweeping blow of hers.
To use it, Lily must first contend with the cone of flame and its bright blue flash; still midair, the armored woman banks, nuclear fire washing over her armor but only the edges of it, not the heart of the fire.
The air begins to superheat. Lily can feel it--she can feel how it must surely affect the others shortly, too. This hurrying; Lily moves up, up, upward towards the where the columns had their tops. From here, she extends her limbs, closes her eyes... and begins to channel power. She listens to Fei speaking of age, of spoiling--what he can't stand. The 'other him.'
Lanval speaks of ash, and water. Lily is not exactly at her most natural. And Zed is... alive, that's for sure.
"<Engaging reactor array...>" Lily puts it all out of her mind and brings her will to the fore, filling her mind with heat and with the power of Fray. Her limbs extend, as if forming a star; a ball of light appears at each of five points, head hands and feet. These orbs collapse in on themselves quickly, becoming blindingly brilliant, gathering power, before they begin to rotate and move outward, into an orbit around Lily that goes faster, and faster. "<Targeting...>" Lily's form moves, and she positions herself over Setanta, hovering into place as her magic reaches a fever pitch.
"<Solution found.>"
Abrubtly all motion of Lily's magic stops, going still and silent. The magical circle that now radiates down from beneath her feet vibrates in place. "<FIRE!>" Then, sickly golden light bursts forth, the circle becoming a gigantic tower of nuclear fire slamming straight towards Setanta and prepared to glass the ground beneath their feet.
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Setanta with Perpetual Axis! GS: Lily Keil takes 19 damage from Poison! GS: Poison expired! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Brilliant sprays of glittering yellow gold rip towards and through Setanta in the path of Gwen's earlier attack, the light red-haired woman poised at the end.
It's here that the effects of Setanta's infusion almost seem to come into a certain equilibrium, threatening to boil over at any moment as the Mockingbird ARM pulses brightly.
Even this state is a strain on a human body. A human is not meant to fly, in this way.
Lanval's magic restores a blessed amount of clarity to Gwen, her wings of energy dissipating into shimmering dust, the steady thrum and rhythm of the Mockingbird settling. The yell of a certain green-haired metal demon somehow manages to stab through her haze, commanding Gwen's attention.
".... Zed." It's the second word she's said since entering this state, but this time, it has the chance to be audible.
A peace settles over her face, her eyelids lowering halfway over the glow of her eyes.
......., ....., ....,
The pulsing of her ARM grows ever slower. Lanval's power has granted her time, and may have even grabbed her from the jaws of an inevitable crash.
She needs--
She can't--
Red lines cross her body, a visible warning of her body's impending shutdown in the form of unconsciousness.
With an automatic, instinctual motion, Gwen attempts to take advantage of Zed's onslaught, slipping with hungry speed to Setanta's side, her right palm poised to sink into the magma-hot side of Setanta.
Wait.
Was this, what she wanted to do all along? Was this her focus?
To take this Eye for--
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
An insult to Rahab? This would confuse Elly if she were not so hyperfocused. The words will return to her later. She stares at Setanta with that same intense silence as before, but here too, somehow, she doesn't answer verbally. But there is that moment of affirmation, or at least, the lack of negation.
In that moment Elly swings back the metal rod. She is going to take another crack at the Primarch Pinata, it would seem. But Lily is moving - so is Fei. Elly glances towards Fei and Fei might perhaps be surprised at the intensity in Elly's eyes, but her lips quirk even so.
"She is," Elly murmurs. (Her lips feel like they're cracking open.)
When Setanta erupts in screaming and fire again Elly is struck silent and in that moment she weeps tears that flash to salt in her eyelids because *she won't stop*. Why won't she stop, Elly thinks. I'd stop. Is that why I -
-
- As the fire roars and grows so intense that Elly feels herself nearly pass out, she sees Zed rise, and as he rises, Elly feels heat on her face, and a flashing insight comes to her. A shining thing, feeling crystalline-pure and perfect.
It is an insight difficult to explain to a mind not rigorously drilled in the advanced mathematics of Etheric science, dear reader, and so we shall render it in its approximation. Consider that a magical effect of whatever sort is in a sense the forming and execution of Will and uses, or transforms, a certain amount of Energy. At that point of execution, the 'spell' is complete.
why does it need to stop there? -- or so Elly van Houten thinks, and as Elly's eyes widen, she feels that twisting sensation of the corrupted Ley against her. It hurts to do it. She reaches for it with her mind and she tastes it and then a moment later her arms spread apart, holding the rod above her head.
At that point Elly catches fire.
Not quite: the corona of flame is brief and intense and dissipates with a shaky intensity of orange-red before it coalesces with only a tiny hint of the scent of burned hair, from where Elly's split ends were just outside of where she expected them to be. The flame seems to settle down around Elly's arms, pouring upwards. A flicker of it crosses in front of her eyes, but most of it is resting on that iron staff. Which begins to glow, first cherry red, then orange. The flame surrounding it brightens too. First white, then flickering towards blue.
The iron staff is lowered and held back. Elly sucks in another breath and steps back a pace. This is a wind-up. Thank you, Zed, Elly thinks, as she tilts her head down and then THROWS herself forwards, the incinerating overheat of the tip of the rod flaring gas-flame blue as she aims it at, and perhaps, THROUGH the back of Setanta's knee.
"Stop it," Elly pleads, her breath afire: "We don't have to struggle. There are other worlds than this one. If we - work together - we can -"
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Setanta with Thermo Phoenix! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action. GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Setanta with Yliastrum! GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca is air and there is nothing to permit her here, in this land of Fray. The phrase is 'like a moth to flame' - no one ever talks about what happens when it gets there; fly into fire and one burns, all to cinders.
Boudicca launches herself towards Setanta, in assault, and she may as well be launching herself into the flame. It is MORE hot; MORE consumptive; MORE fuelled.
It is MORE.
With a roar of defiance she charges through the tidal wave of flame, to reach Setanta; but she is air. She is air! She is air and she burns, she is burning, burning burning and a hand goes to her knee as she struggles to keep herself standing.
It's getting hard to think straight.
Except --
Suddenly it is not just fray, not only fire, air feeds the flame but water douses it. Water drips in from the Oracle of Schturdark and the contrast is breathing room, and breathing room is precisely what something made of breath needs. She draws herself up to her full height; her grey-green eyes are bright, now, somehow in defiance of all the light thrown off this place.
"Thy time is past," intones the Oracle of Moor Gault, looking to Setanta. A hand sweeps out - to the hero Zed, to the humble merchant Jay Barber, to her dear Seer. "Behold now the champions of this age - and heed their call!"
Gwen - Gwen...
With fresh anger Boudicca takes Lanval's advice, pointing accusation to the Primarch. "You have fed ENOUGH!"
She is air; it IS her, elementally.
And so, in one moment when they are alone, the air around Setanta...
slips away from Setanta...
... back to the grasping hand of the Seraph, Boudicca.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Setanta with Negative Atmosphere! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Setanta guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Phoenix for 101 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shieldbreak! applied to Setanta! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
The heat intensifies. Even the Ice Queen's field of ice begins to sublimate under the Primarch's power, streamers of steam waving off deformed crystals. It doesn't even have the chance to melt let alone soften.
She is aware--
--of the Elw monuments creaking and groaning.
It's like being in a furnace. No -- it's like being near to ground zero of a detonation. She is not laid low -- she of all people remains upright, leaning into the inferno that would very much like to rip everything to pieces. But she staggers. But she begins to draw shallow breaths, and the tip of her sword dips towards the ground. Sweat glazes her face.
At some point, Avril will reach her limits. This power may be hers but her ability to sustain it -- without her memories, with her but a marionette to the impulse that rules her now -- is simply not present.
But for now, she still stands.
And so does Dean. Dean, who even now, tries to reason with Setanta.
The Queen of the Veruni, now, cares for one thing only.
"Stand down, now," she declares to it, standing tall and directing her blade towards the Primarch in spite of her flagging reserves. "Or you will face the consequences."
The ice about her suddenly surges forward, spinning itself along the rocky floor in a long spiky sheet towards the Primarch, before bursting into a spray of frost that drifts through the air.
Clinging to anything it touches.
"Allow me to demonstrate," says the Ice Queen, and the pressure in the air--
In the same moment that Lily unleashes a gout of golden light.
In the same moment that Elly catches fire and surges forward.
In the same moment that Gwen glides through the air.
That Zed, form changed, throws a mighty fist.
--the ambient frost becomes as a rain of knives. Glittering and terribly, terribly blue, they pour down without sign of ceasing.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Setanta with Jardin de Givre! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has launched an attack Link! GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Setanta with Glace Bleue! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo! GS: You have finished a Link/Follow chain. Remember to +round! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Setanta guards a hit from Dean Stark's Burning Magazine for 66 hit points! GS: Poison! applied to Setanta! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Yliastrum for 124 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock drains Setanta! Gwen Whitlock gains 50 temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Setanta takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Negative Atmosphere for 59 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!! GS: Setanta guards a hit from Lily Keil's Perpetual Axis for 115 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Setanta gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Setanta guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Jardin de Givre for 0 hit points! GS: Dispel! Hyper removed! GS: Disease! applied to Setanta! GS: Setanta guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Glace Bleue for 103 hit points! GS: Setanta has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Setanta has activated a Boss Action!
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
Lanval is still intact, and still talking. This upsets Setanta more than they dare show. "Admiration," they say, lips twisting in a scowl. "You misunderstand. I deign to uplift them, that they may surpass the limits of their crude husks! That they may prove a challenge worthy of one such as I!" That talk of Rahab, though--Setanta snarls at the mention of their sibling's name. They whirl around, glaring at Fei. "As though the Guardians would allow us to be free! They fear us, for they know, in their hearts, that we could replace them!" There's conviction in their voice, but a sort of soul-deep pain that spills out despite their best efforts. For a moment, their guard wavers...
Fei weaves in, hammering the Primarch with fists and feet and words. If there is one entity in this world that can endure punching a being of living flame while on fire, that entity is Fei Fong Wong--and through resolve and martial skill, he begins to turn the tide. Setanta takes that kick straight to the gut, and goes reeling back, despite massing more than three times as much as Fei. Somehow it doesn't hurt nearly as much as Fei's accusations.
"We were MISTAKES!" Setanta roars. The Primarch whirls on Jay, simply tanking the Crest Sorceress' assault; the flame rips into them, disrupting their form even as the wall of water falls on them. "MISTAKES! They MADE US to FIGHT THEIR WAR FOR THEM, and then THREW US AWAY when they realized what we were--!"
The earth shakes. Setanta has a few spare seconds to look confused and angry before a MASSIVE FIST erupts from beneath them, drilling upwards. Zedder Robo bursts triumphantly from the ground a moment later. The impact sends Setanta sprawling. They trail a smear of molten magma in their wake. When they leap to their feet again, their body looks unsteady--less like a statue and more like a wax statue slowly melting in the heat.
As though they are no exception to the all-consuming nature of their power. "I awoke," Setanta says, "in one of their laboratories. Do you know what I saw, then, when I looked into my creators' eyes!? Fear. Shock. Horror. Disgust. The others--they all saw the same. That same revulsion."
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
"You know NOTHING!" Setanta bellows, as Dean rushes in. Combat rods slam into Setanta's thighs and knees, erupting in clean, pure fire--the flame of Moor Gault. Pain ignites in Setanta's eyes--pain, and betrayal. "That power--no. No, it matters not! Tell your master I WILL REPLACE HIM! I WILL DO WHAT HE CANNOT! I WILL SAVE THIS WORLD FROM--"
'Stop it'.
Setanta was about to grab Dean by the neck. An artful display of Ether puts an end to that plan very quickly. Elly's Thermo Phoenix blows clean through Setanta's knee, sending a spray of magma-blood across the floor. The Primarch wobbles, their entire leg momentarily losing cohesion.
Gwen falls on them while they're struggling, her palm digging deep into their side. Her ARM glows cherry-red as she begins to drink deeply of the Primarch's power. It's like taking a sip from a fire hose. Gwen's ARM has proven itself capable of draining lesser fonts of power dry, but Setanta is an unending well of it. She drains and drains and drains and it seems like there's no end to it, and all the while the Primarch looks at Gwen with a mixture of annoyance and fear. Their eyes flicker and glimmer. With their concentration disrupted, it is child's play for the Ice Queen to send a sheet of rime across the floor, rising up to encase Setanta's legs. The Primarch twists to face her, a roar of rage on their lips. Then the air becomes a tempest of frost and knives--the intolerable furnace-heat becomes a balmy afternoon. For the first time since the fight began, Setanta screams in pain.
They reel back, their head whipping around to focus on Lily. Something approaching fear ignites in the Primarch's eyes.
There is a blinding flash, and a thunderous roar. When the light fades, there is a trail of glassed earth stretching from Lily to the far wall--and a faint smear on it where Setanta absorbed the blast. The Primarch's silhouette has joined the silhouettes of the others, a nuclear shadow created by a mortal sorceress. There's no time to recover. You have fed ENOUGH, Boudicca declares, and Setanta finds themself in the heart of an atmospheric dead zone--a place with no fuel to feed them. Their almost-fear turns to almost-panic.
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
"No," the Primarch chokes out. "It does not end this way--it will not!" Nuclear fire boils up around them as they drink deep of the nature of this place--their domain, infused with their power. It's difficult to do with Boudicca smothering them, but Setanta manages, for now. Their body begins to stabilize, and the aura of flame around them turns a brilliant gas-fire blue. They clasp their hands together.
Their aura tears free from them, exploding into brilliant streamers of fire. It rips across the battlefield, seeking out Lily, Avril, Lanval, and Elly--and should it touch them, it clings like napalm. It's a flame that burns not only the body, but any power contained within it, using that energy to feed itself. The assault doesn't end there. More of that gas erupts from the walls, but this time, Setanta doesn't seem to have willed it into being. Are they trying to break Boudicca's focus by overwhelming her with more of their power? Are they... hesitant to harm Fei? Who can tell, really?
They are less hesitant to harm everyone else. Having bought themself a bit of breathing room, Setanta focuses on two individuals in particular. Nuclear flame engulfs the Primarch's fist. For a moment, it burns like a tiny sun.
Then a column of white-hot light rips free, searing across the room just as Lily's sorcery had less than a minute ago. It's even wilder than Lily's--Setanta is pouring everything they have to try and unmake both Dean and Gwen in a single stroke. Only then--only when that light fades--does Setanta turn to Zed.
They surge forwards, their legs wobbly but still perfectly functional. They clench the fingers of their right hand together, extruding a plane of jagged obsidian from their fingers. With a terrible howl, Setanta drives their knife-hand strike straight for Zed's heart--and through, if possible.
GS: Setanta has attacked Setanta with Unleashed Armageddon Stance! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Setanta's Unleashed Armageddon Stance for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Disease and Entangle removed! GS: Hyper and Lock State! applied to Setanta! GS: Setanta spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Setanta has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Immaculate Cremation! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Lanval with Immaculate Cremation! GS: Setanta has attacked Lily Keil with Immaculate Cremation! GS: Setanta has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Immaculate Cremation! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Setanta has attacked Zed with Unstoppable Flame-Tyrant Spear! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Setanta spends 1 Combo on Inspire! GS: Setanta has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Accelerant Spasm! GS: Setanta has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Accelerant Spasm! GS: Setanta spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Setanta has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Radiant Sun-Fire Dissolution! GS: Setanta has attacked Dean Stark with Radiant Sun-Fire Dissolution! GS: Setanta has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed completely evades a hit from Setanta's Unstoppable Flame-Tyrant Spear! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Elhaym van Houten completely evades a hit from Setanta's Immaculate Cremation! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Elhaym van Houten gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Mighty! applied to Setanta! GS: Elhaym van Houten's Force Evade activates! GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Setanta's Immaculate Cremation for 270 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Mighty! applied to Setanta! GS: Lily Keil has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Setanta's Accelerant Spasm for 0 hit points! GS: Break! applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: Seraph Boudicca gains a Combo from Inspire! GS: CRITICAL! Avril Vent Fleur completely evades a hit from Setanta's Immaculate Cremation! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Mighty! applied to Setanta! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Seraph Lanval has activated a Force Action! GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval completely evades a hit from Setanta's Immaculate Cremation! GS: Hyper and Mighty! applied to Setanta! GS: Seraph Lanval's Force Evade activates! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a glancing hit from Setanta's Radiant Sun-Fire Dissolution for 108 hit points! GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Setanta's Radiant Sun-Fire Dissolution for 137 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Dean Stark's Force Guard activates! GS: Setanta spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Setanta has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Immaculate Cremation! GS: Setanta has gained 2 Combo! GS: Setanta takes 20 damage from Poison! GS: Disrupt and Shieldbreak expired! GS: Setanta has completed their action. GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Setanta's Immaculate Cremation for 161 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Jacqueline Barber gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper and Mighty! applied to Setanta! GS: Jacqueline Barber enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong takes a glancing hit from Setanta's Accelerant Spasm for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Fei Fong Wong gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break! applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Reaction bonus! FP up! GS: Fei Fong Wong gains a Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
They made us.
I awoke in one of their laboratories.
You know NOTHING!
A thought occurs to Elly in the chaos of flame and innovation, even as she steps back for a moment, pulling her rod after her. That aura emanates towards her and Elly swallows and she prays that Emeralda be safe and that Fei live as she pushes outwards and there is a shining blue flame in front of her - the horrid distorted energy falls in -
The two flicker together - freeze - compact into a cube - disappear -
and Elly says, "STOP SCREAMING," while staring with her cracked lips and increasingly soot-streaked face towards the Primarch, "and LISTEN for a moment!"
"Humans only live sixty to eight years," Elly says. "There was a collapse in the world. Vast numbers of people died. Cultures fell. Nations perished, turned to refugees or graveyards. We do not say that we don't know what you're talking about in the sense of your feelings, Setanta! We say that we don't know what you're talking about because there was nobody to tell us! It's a stroke of luck we can even understand your words!"
"You say 'they' - we don't know who 'they' were! We don't know who made you! We don't know WHY! Even our memories are just like old echoes - deja vu - I don't understand that, either. Please! Please, STOP! I can't make you - all I can do is try to stop you, if you try any more to hurt the people I love!"
GS: Elhaym van Houten spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Setanta with Screamer! GS: Elhaym van Houten has gained 1 Combo! GS: Disease and Hyper expired! GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Mistakes. Mistakes, in a laboratory--Lily thinks back immediately to a door with scrolling text, an animated intelligene that spoke to her of its dearest, last remaining wish.
She thinks back to a monstrous machine, spider-limbed and rmed with the sorts of weapons that could--that did--kill friends, end lives, and how it tried even then to cleanse Krosse... by force.
She thinks of a workshop, an engine on blocks even now, and of weaponry.
It is with these thoughts that Lily Keil finally sees the thing that is like fear in Setanta's gaze as she fires her spell, and she looks hard-eyed down at something she can feel a creator's sympathy for. It was not her creation--
But it was theirs. Is it right, now, that it was left? Was there another choice, after all this time? ...Or wasn't there? Lily can't say.
But as she hovers, starting to move around to find another angle of attack, she considers these things that could not be freed, and the approach that they have towards it. She considers Elly's words. Other worlds...
It is a responsibility.
But Setanta's aura turns gas-fire blue, and it tears towards her. This she cannot evade, so she moves to guard against it, conjuring shields of magic around her form. But it clings--the burns to her body are serious, but not intolerable. If that were all, Lily would be able to form the counterattack she plans. But...
It doesn't stop burning. The flames turn golden suddenly, fed by a seemingly unquenchable font of Etheric power. It's terrible to look upon, the armor Lily wears starting to glow faintly in the heat. It builds, and builds--
Something cracks. There is a terrific explosion, and Lily rockets out of it, the armor already retracting as it cools. She slams down into glass that shatters beneath her, practically a shadow before the magic fades and her form reasserts itself as normal--burned, battered, and no longer alight with strange circuitry. But breath mists the biggest shard by her face, and her eyes, golden with fading darkness, flutter open.
"Maybe.... that was the mistake," she murmurs, and then coughs, still on the ground. But she isn't talking about anything done tonight.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval grunts in quiet dismissal of Setanta's clarification - if only for speaking at the length he has to Boudicca, too, took some wind out of him. This is still an oppressive Frey environment... but with Boudicca's help, she can turn the tide and start taking away what fire feeds on. He gives another cursory glance to Jay, and Gwen-- Gwen is trying to feed on the Primarch's power, and his eyes widen again.
He's not in a place where he can yet directly respond to the idea of replacing, the rage about mistakes - because the earth is shaking, and Lanval doesn't do very well when the ground shakes as the re-emergence of Zed(...der Robo) sees him fall on his seat and slide in some of the residual leftover Ice Queen-placed ice. He sort of surfs and rolls around some of the drama as he has another drink while he does so, leaving a nuclear shadow of him drinking.
When Setanta fights past in his desperation, it's a subtle thing that's easy to miss. Their power flares in that brilliant fiery heat, throwing out streamers of fire... but Lanval simply isn't around. It can't find him. Wherever he is, it can't go to him... even if his particular scent and signature should be a tell. It's there, but the streamers just don't reach to it.
"Replace...?" Lanval speaks. He's now behind Setanta, within the atmospheric dead zone. Being this close is uncomfortable and yet, somehow, the safest place for him to be. "A world doth require many facets to merely be. To uplift merely to find comfort in their destruction? Mmm. 'Tis true, thy power is great...!" Lanval laughs, and then...
There are bubbles.
There are bubbles everywhere.
"But like that... thou art unworthy to be a Power That Sustains The World!"
Bubbles. Countless, whirling bubbles, somehow holding on coherently even within the incredible heat. Each one showing a laughing, lumbering, distorted image of that watery wastrel of greater station than first appears, surrounding and closing in upon Setanta as if to stick them in a maze-like realm of bubbles.
"In thy strength, you leave naught but weak, spent, and lost. 'tis not mine to speak on behalf of the flame of Filgaia..." The bubbles close in. Where is Lanval in this? Is he in one of the bubbles? Is one of them real?
He's walking away with a mirthful laugh. "But on behalf of the water... back to sleep with thee! Dream thy impossible dream in peace!"
He wipes his forearm across his mouth and flicks outward. "...Revelry Labyrinth!"
The bubbles all explode in a geyser of watery, bubbly goodness to try and douse Setanta's flame back with the help of Boudicca's suppression - to weaken him enough that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to find some way to seal them.
GS: Seraph Lanval has activated a Force Action! GS: Seraph Lanval spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Setanta with Revelry Labyrinth! GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Man, nobody needs to be replaced." Fei says. "Nothing needs to 'end' either. The Guardians aren't exactly in a position to stop you from going where you want. You've been sealed for a really long time. Why did we have to start with the fighting? Why are you even fighting in the first place? I don't get it! You're free and the first thing you want to do is fight? Don't you want to see the new world? Don't you want to, I don't know, eat a burger?"
For some reason he thinks of Ramses, in this moment and shakes his head to clear his thoughts. Not now, angry sword guy.
"It wasn't right of them. They were desperate and scared, but it doesn't make it right. It...couldn't have been that bad, could it? Otherwise you wouldn't remember me, or ^Elly^, or Luisa right?"
He approaches Setanta. He's still burning. He looks like an absolute nightmare in this moment but somehow he keeps his tone calm, his posture respectful. This pain, this agonizing fury of flame--
--it's somehow everything and nothing at once.
He reaches out for Sentana's shoulder but he does not strike. He just aims to put his hand there. It burns, but he endures this too.
"Look into my eyes, Setanta. Believe me--I understand what it's like...to be seen as a monster."
His eyes burn (metaphorically). "I too am a demon too dangerous to allow live. I too have been seen as nothing but a tool. But Setanta--the people you're trying to kill right now..."
His grip tightens. "They're the ones who can understand what you've gone through the most! So give them a chance. Give Filgaia a chance. You just want to exist?"
"That'd be great." Fei says. "So try coexisting. For your own future."
He tries, tries real hard to tune out the suffering of those he loves most to show this one entity that has seen so much pain some care, for this moment, because it is too terrible not to in his mind. It hurts terribly, too much to pull Setanta in further, but he at least maintains that touch.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Setanta with Absorbed Some Of Her Teachings! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Flames. There's something about flames that evokes a sort of muscle memory of a recollection -- no flicker-flash of familiar images or scenes, no sudden gasp at the emotions so evoked, nothing but the feeling that she's seen or experienced something like this before. And with that realization comes a comprehension of what is now to come--
There is fire, of a sort. The Primarch's mastery of the medium of course means it is not merely flame alone -- factor that the Ice Queen has cottoned to in a flash.
So she moves. It might to some third-party observer seem almost a sort of dance, a well-timed forward-back-forward through the looping ribbons of flame, which spatter about on the floor to either side of her.
It is still a narrow thing. The flames miss her by inches. But she comes through unscathed, and gazes again upon the Primarch.
"That is no longer yours to determine," Avril replies, barely a flicker across her implacable expression as even Lily falls.
--as long as Dean is alive--
"...This world is no longer yours," she says, repeating that very statement from before. "If this destruction is what you would intend, then so be it."
She twists her hand at a particular angle. Absolute Zero's blade vanishes as if it had never been.
Then she takes off running along a stretch of that slick of ice she had created only moments ago -- still holding in spite of the flames and heat cast forth by the Primarch.
But then, as long as she draws breath--
--As long as she remains in this state--
--only the most extreme demonstration of Setanta's power seems able to so much as sublimate these offshoots of her magic.
In her left hand, the Sea Medium begins to shine.
She leaps suddenly, buoyed in the air by a mixture of the powers granted by the Medium and her own magic. For a moment, she there hangs.
And there, before Setanta, she pulls the trigger on Absolute Zero.
There is light, there is light, there is light, and there is light--
She lays into the Primarch again and again, without cruelty or mercy, for as long as she is able to there remain.
GS: That attack doesn't exist. [] GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Setanta with Absolute Zero - Celestial Flash! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Screamer for 0 hit points! GS: Disrupt! applied to Setanta! GS: Setanta has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Zed... Has heard the anguish in the hellfire's voice before. It resonates in a way that has tingles unpleasantly in his shoulders and at the back of his brain. "Setanta, you..." Light and heat pour off the Primarch like the fatal solar wind of a star collapsing into nova. Lily is sent hurtling away, smoldering with cancerous flame. Except to briefly glance in her direction, only to see that she's still alive and thus will be totally(tm) fine(c), Zedder Robo Dragon does not look away... Mostly because he has apparently evolved some kind of anti-shock, anti-blindness lens that can slide down across his eyes in case of emergencies. But also because he is trying to have a conversation with a creature that...
...Honestly, a creature that more than a small part of him resonates with.
"The Mother. The Demon Mother. It made us to be weapons, too," Zed says, his booming voice quiet before the unfolding nuclear holocaust. "But... You do not need to satisfy your parents. You do not need to be the weapon they made you to be! You can choose a different path, you can choose to be better than that! I understand being desperate to prove you deserve to exist! I understand having to fight every single day to try and show that your life has meaning! To feel as though everything you are is being squeezed into a box that you don't fit into. I understand! I get it--"
A hand, burning like an exploding sun, drives inexorably for Zed's own thermonuclear heart. It's an unstoppable force. A cosmic ray burst writ into a knife-hand thrust.
Zed does not stop it.
Setanta would feel a hand touch at his wrist--
--And use it as leverage to dodge aside, before launching an unbalancing shoulder-check into the elemental's side. "Ha-ha! How do you like my SPACE CQC-- uh, ahem. Setanta! I know you don't like hearing it from a Demon, but... I can understand! What it's like to be rejected by the people who created you! To be pushed aside when all you want is their approval! And when you look like you might turn out different, to be cast aside and forgotten for a thousand years...!""I understand. I understand, so...!"
Zedder Robo... Begins to glow. Alien energies blaze to life around him, twisting and swirling in a spiral galaxy of power, drawing in toward the machine-man at its center. It begins as a deep green, brightening as the moments pass, until all color is swept away in a blinding white bonfire of light. "I recognize you, Setanta of the Consuming Flame! Fight! Struggle! Burn your anger to ash and embers! And when it's all spent, we'll talk and maybe we can be friends! But not yet. I know that feeling too well. Anger that tortures the soul. Sorrow that overflows with tears that you just can't shed! A scream you can't give voice to, so it just gets tighter and tighter until you feel like you might burst! It won't let you settle down with mere words, especially not when they're coming from a guy like me. So... I won't hold back either."
"Everyone," Zedder Robo says, "My light will cut a path through the ley. Let's show him... The power of our <bonds>! Here I go! Zedder Rays are at 100%! Time to put the pedal to the metal! Behold... The power of this..."
He looks, meaningfully, toward Fei Fong Wong, "Zedder Robo... Dragon...!"
The blazing bonfire that is Zed leaps into the air. It hangs there for a single moment. "Zedder Shine...!" The light doubles! Triples again! "Shine...!" It flashes-- and Zed shoots forward! He becomes a comet, cutting through the fire and the poison light alike! "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARKKKH!"
GS: Zed spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Formation! Zed has attacked Setanta with SHINE SPAAAAAAAAARK!! GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo! GS: Zed has completed his action. GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Revelry Labyrinth for 178 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca's concentration...
Air is sharp and reactive and precise, in many ways. The heat plumes in but she keeps her eyes on Setanta, even as she listens.
"They see you," she says, in a voice which manages to hold firm midst the heat. "That is not nothing, Primarch."
And there is air to meet Zed, sparking forward; air to fuel his approach, to fuel his reentry, his impact.
GS: Formation! Seraph Boudicca has attacked Setanta with Recurrent Air! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Setanta whirls upon her. Jacqueline flinches, but stays her ground as the Primarch roars - roars as to how their master created them and then discarded them.
"...I'm sorry. I can't imagine how that must feel." She says, shaking her head. "That hurt doesn't excuse everything... but I can understand, at least."
The Primarch continues to lash out. She might sympthise with it a little, but the Primarch still fights with terrible flames. Jacqueline tries to defend herself again, but this time the flame bursts through her defenses, crashing into her and sending her on a crash course to the ground. It's... immensely painful. It takes a second to be able to gather the mental focus to prepare a spell to extinguish herself. She rises, still slightly smoldering. She meets Lanval's eyes when he looks toward her, and offers him a reassuring and thankful nod before looking back toward Setanta.
This needs to end now... she's not sure how much more of this she can take. She lowers once more into that spellcasting stance...
...but then stops, as Fei actually approaches the Primarch. She holds her attack, to see what she has to say to them. In the end, her stance relaxes somewhat - ready to fight back if the Primarch turns violent, but for now holding her attack.
"...I don't think there's anything left for me to say that they haven't already said." Jacqueline says, gesturing between Lanval, Fei, and Elly. "...And I'm not the sort of person who speaks through a sword, either."
She's probably referring to Zed, here.
"But...this day doesn't have to end in further tragedy. That's all I can say now." She concludes, shaking her head. "...But, in the end, that's up to you."
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
It was desperation, a Need. Unlike a tablet medium, there is no end to this source, but Gwen only needs enough.
And so she keeps there, sustaining herself, fire running through her veins. It feels...
Glorious.
The look of annoyance is manageable, expected even, from a being like Setanta. But seeing the fear mixed in there, in Setanta's eyes, Gwen's own sharpen, for a moment.
Words pierce her haze, from Elly, from Fei. Lanval, Zed. Each bringing some element of her reasoning back.
".... you... are not, above us. You are not a god. Power--" She pauses, the edge in her voice dissipating with a hiccup in her voice as she tries to find words, "--does not make you superior."
Something shines in Gwen's eyes, like tears. The Mockingbird burns red hot, each beat of her mechanical heart pumping more and more of that heat into her body.
But she can't let go. She refuses to, because she's--
"Because we're the same, in the end. We're--"
--Hungry.
"And now, Setanta, look at me. A small part of your power is in me now, too." She discreetly wets her cracked lips, sweat collecting on her brow. Her lips turn up in a small, awkward, shaky smile. "And in that, now, I am a monster too. Will that... make you feel... less alone? Fei, he's right."
Setanta's swiveling throws Gwen aside like the gnat she is, disrupting her drinking of that fiery well. It's as much a defensive measure as an unintentional gift, as Gwen is dislodged, free from the attacks placed on Setanta from Zed and Avril.
She looks at them, falling back into her haze as she lays there where she landed.
They look so different. Did something happen?
GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Zed's SHINE SPAAAAAAAAARK! for 261 hit points! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Absolute Zero - Celestial Flash for 197 hit points! GS: Setanta has Fallen! They is no longer able to fight! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Recurrent Air for 126 hit points! GS: Setanta has Fallen! They is no longer able to fight! GS: Setanta takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Absorbed Some Of Her Teachings for 0 hit points! GS: Setanta has Fallen! They is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
Setanta sags visibly after that last assault, magma dripping and flowing like molten wax. "This vile prison--weakened me more than--" they choke out, eyes narrowing in focus. It's taking effort just to keep their corpus together. The last time they were pressed this hard was when--no. No. Impossible. They could never replace what was lost. They could never--
Lanval is behind them Lanval is laughing. Lanval calls them unworthy.
Setanta lunges, blindly, and immediately falls into Lanval's trap. Bubbles surround them, reflecting their face in a thousand thousand watery mirrors. They see their wounds, the blood seeping from where Lanval backhanded them earlier. Somehow this stings even more than the eruption of the geyser. It washes over them; in a hiss of steam, the lava making them up starts to cool into volcanic glass.
'This world is no longer yours.' Setanta twists their head to look at Avril, cracks spiderwebbing across their form. They are not the Primarch of Geo; cool, hard stone is not an ideal container for their essence. "You have no right--!" Setanta chokes out, and then the Ice Queen falls on them. Absolute Zero carves a half-dozen new rents in their form in the space of a few heartbeats. Plumes of Fray-aspected light rip free from their injuries as their body shudders, violently. They look into thir attacker's eyes, and see the Ice Queen's true resolve.
Setanta told themself that they'd forgotten what it meant to feel fear. Avril reminds them.
"Do not think we are the SAME, DEMON!" Setanta cries, as if they could drown out Zed's compassion simply by shouting loud enough. As if they could strike the hand extended to them. Something strange and extremely uncomfortable ignites in Setanta's chest--the same thing they'd felt after Luisa told them she regretted what had happened to them.
Impossible, the Primarch thinks. These--these pale imitations...? Their face twists.
Zed's power erupts, lancing through Setanta's body. A good third of the Primarch's chest vanishes in an instant, atomized by Zed's power. They look past Zed, at Boudicca, as if expecting the champion of Moor Gault to start gloating at the fall of her adversary.
Boudicca doesn't. Setanta doesn't understand why. They fall to their knees, then to all fours.
<Pose Tracker> Setanta has posed.
<poem>
Fei sets a hand on Setanta's shoulder. By now, the Primarch has cooled enough that touching them is merely unpleasant, and not agonizing. They look into Fei's eyes. Elly has killed what momentum they had left, and somehow, her spelling out the human condition makes everything both more understandable and more hopeless. "The Elw," Setanta chokes out. "I know not why. If they call us abominations, then why--why did they--" Setanta clenches both fists and slams them into the ground. The hardening stone of their body shatters on impact--the Primarch is quite suddenly left with ragged stumps in place of hands. They look at Jay, then at Gwen, the latter of whom freely admits to siphoning off his power.
Setanta is speechless. They can feel their form crumbling around them. Any second, now, it'll lose cohesion entirely--
"Setanta." A voice splits the air. Blue-white energy flickers, condensing into a familiar shape--the Ley-phantom of Luisa Rey. She looks rather haggard, as if the damage to the seals had been reflected on her manifestation. Grief and regret line her face.
"Luisa," Setanta says. Their voice breaks. Their eyes dim as they inspect the shade, and see her true nature. "Or--what remains. Memories impressed upon the Ley. Not even a soul--"
"Sixty to eighty years, remember?" Luisa says. "There were times I wasn't sure I would live to see thirty, much less ninety. I had to move on. But I wasn't about to leave you..."
"Then--" Cracks trace their way up Setanta's arms, flowing up their neck and down what's left of their chest. "Goodbye, my adversary." Their voice begins to trail off. "My only friend." Their fading eyes fix on the Drifters behind Luisa--the people who brought them low. "As for you... I expect the same greatness from you when we meet again."
The Primarch's form crumbles. Ember-like sparks flick upwards, even as their essence falls downwards, sucked into the endless pulse of the Ley. With the wards broken, there is nothing to keep the Primarch imprisoned--and the oppressive force of Fray begins to fade.
"You... you did good," Luisa's shade says. Worry flickers through her eyes as she realizes something. "...Where's Ida?"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I'm sorry, it's not fair, and they aren't here. The only one I know of that remains is a kind one." Fei says to Setanta. "To be honest, I think we're better off, which I know isn't a kind thing to say, but I think they maybe learned some of the worst from humanity whereas we have to relearn how to be cruel again and again."
The fire fades from Fei gradually. As if all o n its own. He doesn't even do kung fu.
He doesn't remove his hand until the Primarch crumbles away. What is there to come?
Luisa asks an important question.
"Astrid escaped with her." Pause. "Who...was Fafnir's lover--as close as they got at the time, anyway." another pause. "And your arm thing that came from him is fully integrated with her body now."
He pauses for a long moment.
"I'm ... I'm sure it's fine. I mean, it'd be...pretty crazy...if we had to fight her except as a dragon this time because... I'm really tired of fighting."
He lowers his head. He looks towards Lanval for a long moment. "I'm tired of fighting."
He turns to him. "...I know you're defending our world and that you're a good guy. But when you talk like that..."
He closes his eyes for momet and adds, as if talking to a child once more--for everyone is a child--"Don't forget empathy for your enemy, or you'll become one someday."
He then makes his way to Lily to check on her, crouches down--
--and effortlessly uses that Federation Medical Tricorder on her to treat her wounds. If it is Fei right now. But whomever it is, at least they're being helpful.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily doesn't move from her space on the glassy ruin of what was the floor of this part of the cavern, save to lift her head again and watch Setanta fading. The familiar shape of the Ley-Phantom coalesces, and Lily watches the exchange.
"Not bad..." She looks to where Setanta was, for a while longer. "What does it mean, to 'make' something? ...What does it mean, to create...?"
Her musing is interrupted by the realization of the phantom's question. Her hands don't move. "She..." Fei explains it. Fei more than explains it; he kneels down and starts treating her wounds, which is a very necessary maneuver, frankly. "You..."
Is it him? "...Thanks," she says, and then looks forward to the phantom. "We'll... take care of her."
It's an exercise to the listener to decide which 'her' she means this time.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Even as attacks fall upon them, the Primarch continues to rage... but with their magma body frozen into stone, it's only a matter of time.
As Setanta chokes out question, Jacqueline's gaze falls to the floor. ...She can't answer that question. But, before she can say as much, there's a familiar voice. She recognises it, from the spirit they encountered on the way in here.
Luisa Rey.
Jacqueline remains quiet as she and Setanta share a few words, and when Setanta looks back at them, she nods.
"...Right. Take care, okay?" She replies, and then looks toward Luisa.
"...Was it really alright? To let them go like that...?" She wonders quietly, then shakes her head. "...Well, we'll deal with that when the time comes. Maybe they'll carry our feelings onto the other Primarchs..."
As for Ida...
"...Yes, I'm sorry. But... we'll see to it that she's okay."
Jacqueline's in better shape than she could've been, thanks to Lanval's support. He headed it off before it could cause anything serious.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval remains with his back turned to the erupting chaos. Of about all of them, his words were the harshest towards one who - according to the plaque warning anyone of approaching the seal too closely - had no real control over the circumstances of their birth and their nature. Only what would happen were they to be released. As they were, as they professed, they were a threat.
Things play out as they do, as the Primarch crumbles's form crumbles and the Fray energies lessen. He knows Gwen over there decided to sup further on the Frey and he might need to see to her health most of all before long. He doesn't want what happened to that thing that exploded with Fray energy (a Wels, he couldn't see the actual Wels behind the Ley energy) to happen to her - or anyone, for that matter.
He's not even looking towards Fei when Fei looks towards him. There's something about Fei you just notice when he is looking at you. Some mortals are kind of like that - but Fei is on a whole another level. He's tired of fighting.
Lanval parts from looking from Gwen's direction when Fei turns to him.
He is compelled to look away - to Fei - even with the building worry about what might happen to Gwen at this rate.
'Don't forget empathy for your enemy, or you'll become one someday.'
Lanval is quieter there. He's seen Fei - his psyche - at his most vulnerable and intimate no more than about a year ago. He's not being talked to by a young man, he's being talked to a truly ancient being with a fragmented but otherwise continuous timeline of multiple lifetimes of experiences who has probably lived through so many conflicts of this severity that seemed avoidable were it not for sheer stubbornness and inflexibility. One who has had to face, and deal with, and be dealt with by, countless entities that could be called enemies.
The concept of really having 'enemies' is kind of new, isn't it?
He's not very good at having them. Is that something one can, or should practice?