2020-09-05: Ambition and Greed Rule...

• Log: Ambition and Greed Rule...
• Cast: Zhang Xiumei, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus, Ganondorf Dragmire, Asgard, Clarissa Arwin, Venetia Vuong, Marivel Armitage, Violet Salazar, Eleanor Klein, Ida Everstead-Rey, Dash Caskett, Ethius Hesiod, Gwen Whitlock, Seraph Clarine, Seraph Boudicca, Zed, Avril Vent Fleur
• Where: Aboard the Warwing Varukias
• Date: September 05, 2020
• Summary: ARMS, with allied Drifters, do battle with Odessa in Warwing Varukias, the flying base of Odessa. Followed by ...While Dogs and Swine Serve.

---

<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.

Warwing Varukias is being invaded.

Using oversized capsule bullets, each mounted with a drill (because Irving Vold Valeria is precisely that sort of person), ARMS and Drifter allies have invaded the flying headquarters of Odessa. Their fight has led them to the room just outside of the bridge of the Varukias. Many of Odessa's finest soldiers -- Slayheim Liberation War veterans and Shevat defectors, under Ptolomea's command -- lay dead. The wounded are few, as the survivors have pulled them back...

...but the situation for Odessa's common soldiers seems grim. After today, if Odessa survives, they will be relying increasingly on Ganondorf Dragmire's forces, the Doppelgangers, and other more supernatural assets.

But the battle is not yet won.

"CLEAR!" someone shouts.

Shaped charges explode all at once. The two armored, reinforced doors that lead into the bridge of the Varukias explode inward with a blast of flame and black smoke. The smoke and fire take a moment to clear. Before they do, a few gunshots whizz out, but don't find any targets. Warning shots, from the people inside. Then, the smoke wafts away, and the inside of the bridge is visible.

It is a two-tiered set-up. The first level has a number of consoles, from the Metal Demon Wars era, though most are abandoned. Some Odessa personnel stand there, firearms in hand and aimed outward. Two stairwells lead up to a terrace, which contains more consoles -- and lead directly to the huge, glass windows forming the nosecone of the Varukias. That provides a commanding view of the Merian countryside below, as the airship begins to make its way away.

Naturally, though, a few armed Odessa technicians are not all that are on the airship's bridge...

<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.

Naturally --

"Those Who Come and Go!"

(((WHOOOOOOOOM)))

They are not all that are on the airship's bridge.

The sound of a blade of pure energy screaming through the air drowns out all else as it screams overhead the encroaching members of ARMS and their Drifter allies. Yet the voice that accompanies it rips through the cacophony with booming effortlessness, as if all the world grew more silent to cater to its announcement.

The voice of a man who has spent a lifetime leading people through wars and worse.

The voice of a man the entire world has heard by now.

And past the belch of black smoke and gouts of flame he stands fearless on the terrace above, like something out of a recruitment poster: his stance unyielding, his great blade the Mad Mountains driven so hard into the metal floorings it has sunk in by an inch that one might foolishly assume a hindrance, his cape flapping behind him grandiosely from the dwindling force of those dual explosions --

Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus is undoubtedly aging past his prime, but here, in this moment, he looks full of life.

In his element, the leader of Odessa does not budge a singular inch.

"To think, I once offered an olive branch to you who saved the world from Mother's threat," he begins, and that deep voice of his is full of denouncement and tightly controlled in its irritation - its fury - as he turns his sharp eyes upon the gathered. "But now I see the truth. You are not guardians of the world. You are protectors of the status quo, feverishly lapping at the grubby fingers of this world's fat masters like all their other dogs," and that gaze drifts towards the members of ARMS, "... so that they might continue to grow evermore bloated off the backs of their betters. You've taken some of my best soldiers, and in their blood you've made your decision."

His hand grips tightly upon that blade, and his stare simply dares them all to approach.

"No more mercy. No more exiles. We'll settle this here and now. One more roadblock on the path to true victory."

DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Martial Artist Ida!
DC: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus switches forms to Regret For The Things One Has Done Can Be Tempered By Time - Regret For The
Things One Has Failed To Do Is Eternal And Inconsolable!
DC: Asgard switches forms to Divine Fortress Asgard!
DC: Marivel Armitage switches forms to Crimson Noble Marivel!
DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Martial Artist Ida!

<Pose Tracker> Ganondorf Dragmire has posed.

Another stands - silent, arms folded into voluminous robes of an almost Galadian style. Creatures like dragons coil across the embroidery, talons clutch a shape like an orb on each circle. His skin is deep and dark, almost mossy in color, offset by shockingly red hair curling around a wide jaw and deep eyes. This man has been seen before, as well, but not frequently.

But the crooked grin curling around his wide mouth makes his intent unequivocal. He is large in every way, looming tremendously tall and stocky-wide like a man who has made war with his every breath.

Like Vinsfeld, perhaps he looks a hair past the prime of his youth. His bulk hangs a bit more in his stomach than his shoulders, his cheeks and eyes creased by lines. But his posture is ramrod straight, and the menace he projects is that of a warrior unparalleled.

"A final battle for your war, Warlord Rhadamanthus?" he says, and steps up beside him - standing like an equal as his hands rest on the twin swords at his waist.

The Man with the Evil Eyes slips both blades from their sheathes, adopting a stance not one person alive has seen before.

"Then I believe I shall join you. I should like another taste of these Drifters' fangs!"

DC: Ganondorf Dragmire switches forms to The Man With the Evil Eyes!

<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
And standing amongst them on the bridge of the Warwing Varukias is one who stands literally head and shoulders above the rest simply in stature, although his presence does not equal that of Vinsfeld and Ganondorf. Obviously a golem at a glance, those familiar with Golems might be taken aback by how similar in design features he is to the renowned Elw Golem, Asgard.
 
However, at more than a cursory glance he appears to be like an artist's reinterpretation of the Elw weapon...
 
...as a Metal Demon.
 
Nearly three sharls high from the tip of his horned helm to his massive feet, even at entirely immobile rest he exudes a sense of menace from simply his design. A dark red trenchcoat that looks brown in certain lights encircles his torso and moves down to his calf, partially obscuring his mechanical mouth.
 
Each bulky hand fits upon this trench coat like a gauntleted weapon. His right possessing a coruscating blue emitter. His left lined with orange and red not unlike superheated magma.
 
His eyes glow yellow, until the proximity of the Drifters alerts him to a potential threat to his masters. Then they briefly flash red, then return back to their previous state like that never happened
 
And that is all the reaction he has to anything in the room. It is eerie, like a portrait with eyes that do not move, yet you have the sensation like they're watching, waiting, following you around the room all the same.
 
That is not an incorrect notion.
 
A beautiful woman with violet hair steps to the side of him with a smile, swathed from the neck down in flowing garb. Some may be familiar with the enigmatic woman known as Melody. "My, such poor form. An inelegant entrance if I've ever witnessed one." Raising a sleeve up to her mouth, she laughs. "Yet I am not displeased that you are here - unlike M'lord Rhadamanthus. For so boorishly spitting on his offer of mercy you have granted me the opportunity to test this magnificent creation, born from the Wisdom of Hyades."
 
Offering an expression utterly devoid of compassion, she points her arm at them and states, "Go - Asgard! Crush them!"
 
His eyes suddenly glow a deep red. And then just like that, his form no longer seems frozen. At her command she lurches forward, taking a single massive step in front of his master.
 
"Prepare to become his data."
 
OOC Note: If your character was active at the end of the Metal Demon Wars on the side of the Metal Demons, it is possible they might recognize him! If your character was, or had a part of them active in more ancient times than the Metal Demon Wars, then please message me.
 
Second OOC Note: For the purposes of this scene, Melody is effectively unattackable. You are welcome to attempt to, but Asgard will intercept it without fail.
 

<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.

Fighting through the depths of Warwing Varukias took a lot out of Clarissa, but she's not about to quit now - not when their goal is so close. With Felius at her back and Strahl Gewehr in hand, she's absolutely confident she can help Marivel and the others see this battle through to the end.

As the door blows in, Clarissa shields her eyes and face from the blast - but only for as long as she needs. She's getting better at keeping her head in these situations and figuring out when she's safe to look up, and by the time the door's open and ready, she's already advancing into the bridge.

As Vinsfeld makes his pronunciation, Clarissa takes a long step forward, her ARM in hand. "No, you're absolutely wrong!" she fires back. "You're so blinded by your own pain that you can't see any other options! Some of us want to change Filgaia for the better, to bring it back to life! That's why I'm not going to let you stand in my way, Commander Vinsfeld - there's no room for tyrants in a Filgaia built on love!"

From behind Clarissa, Felius glances towards Asgard. He tilts his head slightly to one side before shrugging and returning his attention to where his adoptive sister's attention has landed.

For her part, Clarissa's the sort who will give her enemies chances. But it makes no sense here. Vinsfeld will not be stood down without a fight - she knows that much. The shouting really just makes her feel better.

And it makes others feel better, she remembers. She draws herself up again and sweeps her hand towards Vinsfeld, her hair billowing out behind her as she tosses her head. "Then let's settle this, Vinsfeld!" she challenges, her heart soaring in her chest with the honesty of her conviction. "We'll show you that we're far more than you think we are - and we'll do it together, and show you the truth of our belief! That your way isn't the way to change the world!"

There is nothing magical about the words. The power of Clarissa's spoken belief transcends sorcery.

GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Clarissa Arwin with We Can Do It Together!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Seraph Clarine with We Can Do It Together!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Venetia Vuong with We Can Do It Together!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with We Can Do It Together!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Violet Salazar with We Can Do It Together!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has completed her action.
GS: Clarissa Arwin heals Clarissa Arwin! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Clarissa Arwin!
GS: Clarissa Arwin heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Venetia Vuong!
GS: Clarissa Arwin heals Seraph Clarine! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Seraph Clarine!
GS: Clarissa Arwin heals Violet Salazar! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Violet Salazar!

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

 
Venetia Vuong is pleased to see that there were other people here. She had been briefly concerned that there was no other successful boarding party and that they were going to have to seize control of, or sink, this relic vessel themselves.

Venetia is characteristically not showing much external sign of fatigue, her rather broad body having born the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and modest doses of subterranean death karate well enough. She looks windswept - but she had to crawl across the outside of the Warwing; so this is to be expected.

The doors are breached and through them is a room of Control, of Mastery. And within that room is

VINSFELD RHADAMANTHUS! Venetia, of course, recognizes him.

For a moment she quails. She does not answer his words. Her hand tightens round the grip of her butterfly-headed bronze rod; for in this moment she feels small, and tubsome, and ugly. Perhaps she should turn now. And flee, and go back to her hole and await the world's ending BUT, Venetia thinks as the familiar twinge of rage and bull-headed determination reaches her; BUT as she all but tastes taurine in the back of her throat; BUT:

What am I going to do, jump into the ocean? Venetia thinks.

She breathes out.

There are others here beyond those who have sworn to Vinsfeld. There is a towering man, almost a demon in the non-metal form. A figure of heroic stature and villianous intent. And of course, in case none of this was any worse, part of the furniture moves - no, it's not furniture, Venetia thinks as her dark masked eyes turn towards what she had initially taken to be some kind of control-mechanism or miniature Sorcery Globe or SOMETHING -- and which is instead revealed to be -

Oh, yellow, then red, and a beautiful commander. Dedicating herself to Vinsfeld and this creature, Asgard, to crushing them.

Her other hand goes into the hip bag where her Crest Graphs and sundry other odds and ends are kept. "Well, then," Venetia says, "You shall just have to send us to Hell, or to Lunar, or kill us. Once you've killed everyone who disagreed with you, you've won the argument, in a sense."

She reaches deeper into the hip bag and --

BACK IN THE HALLWAYS, AMONGST OTHERS WHO DID NOT HAVE THE PLUCK TO STORM THE DOORS AND ARE PROBABLY KEEPING SOME KIND OF DOPE-ASS TERTIARY UNIT FROM RUNNING UP BEHIND THE DRIFTERS AND PINCER ATTACKING, Jimmy Chan reaches for his pistol in his pants waistband and finds it is gone. "Shit!" Jimmy says.

BUT HERE:

-- Venetia pulls out a gun.

It is a gunsmoke revolver, the sort of thing you could buy at a socially disapproved facility in a half-dozen towns, or more or less openly in Guild Galad. Venetia cocks the hammer with her thumb and takes aim at Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus.

"Of course," she says, before pulling the trigger; BAM! The pistol jerks violently in her one handed rookie grip-- "It's bad form if you change your terms partway through--"

Where will that bullet, THE LITERAL FIRST BULLET VENETIA HAS EVER FIRED IN HER LIFE, go?

"ow," Venetia says, before saying to Clarissa, "It's a pleasure," and that is possibly a farewell: who can say for sure?

GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with h t t p s ://youtu.be/H74mr2KHTX8!
GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
GS: Clarissa Arwin heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a solid hit from Venetia Vuong's h t t p s ://youtu.be/H74mr2KHTX8 for 75 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel, of course, has come along on this venture. Actually is it really an 'of course' situation? She keeps saying she has had to engage in some technical work of some kind...

As usual with Vinsfeld she allows him to speak without interruption. Contrariwise, her irritation is mild at the speechcrafting.

"Yep, that's us." Marivel says. "Slobber slobber lick lick. But I've got a question for you, Vinny." She shrugs both shoulders. "Have you been able to remove even one corrupt head of state, one bloated merchant...without destabilizing an entire country?"

"I'd love to tear out your throat, but it's up to ARMS to defeat you, not me." Marivel says, taking a moment to look at a pocketwatch. "If you want me to bend knee, you have to at least be able to stop ARMS here." She laughs. "Though I suspect you wouldn't want me anyway. I like that quality in a fascist. But today.."

She looks towards Melody, eyes narrowing again upon seeing her.

"You again." She says. "...Do you think you're pretty? You're not even carrying a sword, nor is your hair blue--" Marivel that's pretty superficial! "Also you're doing the laugh... The laugh...!" She covers her hand with her mouth and 'OHO HO HO HO HO's'. "Are you stealing my vibes???"

She turns her head towards--

Her eyes sparkle.

"Asgard!" Marivel brightens. "Just who I was hoping to see."

She looks to Melody. "..."

Then back to Asgard. "...Gahhh....you got reprogrammed? That's so uncool...!"

She sighs. "Well--"

She vanshes in a bwip of light!

--and reappears BEHIND Melody, lashing out with a blood red blade...! "Mayhaps I can nip this in the bud and neaten things up a bit?!"

Alas, it isn't that easy. The blade impacts against a barrier that wholly protects Melody. Marivel slides back and clucks her tongue faintly.

"Well, I should have expected that." Marivel sighs, looking to Asgard.

"Well... don't you worry." Her lips twist into a feral grin. "Once I get you to shut down properlike I'll be sure to fix you properly. Oh my gosh, maybe I can retrofit an Asgard and put an Asgard inside an Asgard...!"

Her eyes sparkle hopefully as she blink-teleports again, striking at Asgard's side with her blade--trying to puncture through that barrier.

GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Asgard with Enhanced Aport Riposte!
GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Enhanced Aport Riposte for 123 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.

Violet hangs back from the others and creeps cautiously towards the bridge. She didn't reach her age by being reckless! A healing aura from Clarissa envelops her, and she nods her thanks, too busy concentrating to respond. Magical healing was SO great! Why couldn't she do it?

She recognizes Vinsfeld and Ganondorf immediately as they stand there, defiant. She feels the need to take Vinsfeld down before he can send her to Spira again!

She hadn't had such a pleasant time there.

"Your way," she intones calmly -- though loudly enough to be heard -- "is not the RIGHT way. Filgaia belongs her all her citizens." Even the despised and the outcast, she muses silently. "SURRENDER NOW!"

She doesn't really expect him to do it. Vinsfeld is one who won't back down without a fight. She readies her ARM and fires. Good thing she stocked up on ammo in Meria!

GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Wildcat Cartridge!
GS: Violet Salazar has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action.
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Violet Salazar's Wildcat Cartridge for 60 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.

Zhang Xiumei rushes onto the bridge.

Model AV gives her eyes that eerie, bright green glow -- almost teal -- and they move between two of the most dangerous eyes that Xiumei has ever met. Her eyes linger on Vinsfeld for a moment, before the fourth daughter of a wealthy company's owner steps forward and shouts. Her beam saber is gripped in one hand. "You're not... not making the world a better place! You're just claiming power for yourself, preying on those who are scared by all that's happened!"

She shouts at him, but she pauses, as she hears a voice in her mind. Varius, which is not unfamiliar, but today, the Zeboim-era Reploid sounds angry--no, worried.

<Asgard!? What is he doing here?>

<No! He... I don't understand! Did they do something to him?> Avile asks, her voice worried.

"You--you both know him?" Xiumei asks, quietly.

She swallows, hard. Then, her eyes turn, and she spots a familiar stance. Ganondorf Dragmire, the so-called King of Evil, with those blades she has seen before but cannot say she knows. Xiumei's world shrinks, then. She remembers a cave on Spira; she remembers standing in front of Eleanor, and not being enough. She looks different than that time, wearing the half-and-half armor of Models A and V. Green and white, with a blade that is a paler green that before.

The energy field crackles, as she raises it across before body. She stands in front of Eleanor, and breathes in, sharply. And then she swings her blade out.

The beam field suddenly lengthens, as it turns into a long, whip-like weapon, and slashes down across Ganondorf with a snap of her wrist.

"Stay behind me, Nora," she says.

GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Pulse Whip - Extend-Slash!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

Warning shots--well, Eleanor considers the warning taken, anyway. It wasn't long ago that this would seem beyond Eleanor... But it feels like it was long ago. Long, long before Operation Mi'ihen, or the many clashes against Odessa's forces. Now, Eleanor is responsible for a number of those dead soldiers herself, and more if one considers the support she's given ARMS in addition to her own shots.

Their mission is not complete.

Moving in with the rear of the group, the elf keeps hold of her large rifle, taking cover at a doorway as she looks up to view the Odessa agents on the bridge. Rhadamanthus himself, naturally. And...

"So it's today," Eleanor murmurs as she thinks of Ganondorf's eyes, and briefly shivers at that look. "You're here again..."

Why is he fixated on her? Eleanor doesn't know. But she knows there's something. And.... "Hm," Eleanor says, first. "Fat masters, is it...?"

She slips out of the doorframe and sets eyes not on Vinsfeld, but on Ganondorf. Xiumei says to stay behind her--

"All right," Eleanor says. "But this--this is where we have to be, Xiu. I've seen it!"

Eleanor stays behind, for the meantime, and she doesn't pull her rifle. Instead, she pulls a bunch of Berries from her bag, holding them in both hands and channeling power through them. "I know it's been a long battle already," Eleanor starts, "But we can do this!"

If her voice is a little unsteady, it might just be the motion of the ship.

"Ganondorf!"

GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Mystic Berry!
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Eleanor Klein with Mystic Berry!
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Mystic Berry!
GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Eleanor Klein assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
GS: Eleanor Klein heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Eleanor Klein heals Zhang Xiumei! She gains 125 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        A second figure steps into the cockpit, not far behind Clarissa. Ida Everstead-Rey is kitted out for war, wearing a hastily-mended armored duster over a suit of Hyadean neonate combat gear. Devil's Due rests comfortably in her hand, and it instinctively finds Vinsfeld's center of mass. Her clothes are stained with faint splotches of crimson and quicksilver.

        Ida's lips peel back as Vinsfeld makes his accusations--they sting harder than they should. "Don't pretend this was ever about them," Ida says. "You offered them a choice, yes--but a choice between dying in some factory and dying to further your ambition! Don't pretend this was never about you, Rhadamanthus!" Clarissa's hope kindles the hope within her own breast, lending an impassioned quality to her words.

        And then a familiar voice speaks, off to Ida's left. Her mouth falls open. She stares at the woman named Melody for a long moment, recognizing her as the woman who pulled Janus Cascade off the field of battle. The woman who looked past her like she was somehow less than garbage. The woman who may well have made Janus into what he is today.

        "Ah," Ida says, a dangerous edge entering her voice. "So kind of you to have found someone I'd meant to have words with." Her right eye tics, though, as she notes Melody's bodyguard. Something roils in the back of her mind.

        ...the prototype? how?

        Memories that are not hers scuttle beneath the surface of Ida's consciousness. Her face twists. She presses a hand to her temple, straining to try and filter out any useful information--but she can't. They're Fafnir's, and not hers.

        how did she--astrid, etiri--how?

        Ida snaps back into focus. She whirls back to Rhadamanthus, and pulls the trigger, sending a slug downrange at the biggest(?) threat on the field--the man who will definitely make an example of her if he can. Gunsmoke boils off the bullet, forming a cloud around Ida that clings to her; the bullet itself is robbed of some velocity, but will definitely make an impact.

        Ida then turns towards Melody, shrouded by smoke, and empties the rest of the magazine in her direction. "Where's Cascade?!" she demands. "Where is Glumzamber?!"

 GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Ebon Devil Cloud!
 GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo!
 GS: Ida Everstead-Rey assumes the Stoic stance!
 GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.

 <Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.
<poem>
The way is opened. Beyond lays what is certainly the decisive battle this day. ARMS has crippled Odessa, should they be forced to bend the knee this day. But if successfull, this victory will resound far and wide. Smoke and debris fly from the blasts in the chamber before. A little clever work has opened the door.

Dash has a few bullet pockmarks on armor, and tranquilizer needles sticking out of punctured holes in places. They looked like they reached what should be skin, but Dash seems wholly unphased. He still picks one or two out as he walks.

"Mega Man..." comes a squeaky voice from below. To anyone unable to understand machine language, it is just eeks and ooks. Data stands near the door, covered in soot and dust. "...Be careful."

"I will. We all will," Dash replies, his voice somewhat muffled by his masking faceplate. "You need to get to--"

Dash looks down to where the voice is. Data is gone.

"...Safety. Well, guess that works out this time, heh heh."

The command room ahead has very few members left. A skeleton crew is present to fly the vessel. Obviously shooting them would be a bad idea, lest the Warwing crash. But there are so few of them, and so many of ARMS. However, there is something to be said about the old saying between quality and quantity.

As the three leftover denizens of this ship radiate a menace beyond measure. Vinsfield's presence is enough to set him at unease. Ganondorf matches a description of an extremely high level target ARMS has wanted, and then there is the third.

"OH. Big fella." emerald eyes are drawn to that emitter, and then the heated gauntlet. Hm. Dash looks down to his Drill Arm. If anyone had a chance to puncture that shell, it might be him, or at least buy his friends time to get in there. "Marivel, you know that guy?" he calls over.

The purple haired lady seems odd as well.

"Well, no time like the present!" Dash says, hand shifting into the Mega Buster. It gets pointed at Asgard, and unlike usual, a high pitch keen is present for a scant moment before a module-enhanced salvo of solar plasma flies toward Asgard!

GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Asgard with Rapid-Fire Buster!
GS: Dash Caskett has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

        Ethius files in with a manner that could be described as 'sheepish.' This is a historic moment in the battle against the emergent Odessa threat, and one would think that he'd rather history remember him for being anything other than 'someone acting like a craven.' He has to roll his shoulder once because he made the mistake of trying to grab hold of Brad's arm as the two of them were about to fall to their death. No amount of corrective wind sorcery can circumvent the consequences of that.
        Vinsfeld's disdain of those gathered is unaddressed. No, Ethius isn't even looking in their direction, as if the rest of the surrounding environs were of more interest. As if, as per habit, he were detaching himself from the theatrics and the resultant consequences of them.
        Those eyes of his shift towards the larged horned golem whose looks do remind him of the shape of something else from some time ago...
        '...opportunity to test this magnificent creation, born from the Wisdom of Hyades.'
        Ethius puts a foot forward and brings a hand to his quarterstaff as their name is called. That's a name assigned to something else - the name of the Golem that destroyed the barrier of the Photosphere. The meaning of that can wait, as Marivel goes in with her own carefree and playful words of what's going on and what she's going to do.
        He doesn't give such announcement. He is a strange man who is currently wearing a middling fancy suit (riddled with bullet holes, but there is a lack of blood or gore for some reason) who has suddenly decided he is part of the proceedings by trying to strike a giant metal man with a stick - swinging once in an uppercut like strike, doing a short hop up and swinging it right back down.
        "Gale Strike!" Ethius calls the name of the technique. It is not a great entry point for offered data, flanking in from Dash's left.

GS: Asgard guards a hit from Dash Caskett's Rapid-Fire Buster for 44 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Asgard's Force Guard activates!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Asgard with Gale Strike!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Asgard takes a glancing hit from Ethius Hesiod's Gale Strike for 48 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam! applied to Asgard!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus critically Guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Ebon Devil Cloud for 17 hit points!
GS: Riposte! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        The conflicts so far have been focused on their specific group, as have the surroundings. Never before did the group feel like they were actively a part of a larger siege, even if, by all accounts, they definitely were, judging by the amount of soldiers running around. Gwen, having come in with a small group of like-minded folks and engaged in the fighting against soldier after soldier, looks over the Odessa troops holding a line of defense against the rest of the fighters here, ARMS and Drifters alike. "We're really doing this..." She blinks. "We're... really gonna defeat Odessa!" Nevermind this is likely not the only means of defense, or the only airship Odessa has at their disposal. There's other forces, as well, like Ganondorf.

        And Janus. And his handler, for lack of a better term, Melody.

        Who just so happens to be there, in fact!

        Where the others may be of more concern, such as Vinsfield, an equally dignified man with two swords, and the Metal Demon(?) beside Melody, Gwen's gaze is fixed on just one point. "So Janus wasn't enough, you had to rope in some other sad sack into this?! WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO HIM?!"

        It's just a matter of getting from the point where she is to the point where Melody is, and if there's something a courier is good at, it's that. There's just a furious-eyed young woman, freckles splattered with blood, dirt, an grease, screaming as she makes her way from one point to the other.

        There's just this one obstacle, a mountain of a presense in her way, but in her mind's eye, it's just another soldier, another general, another man who she'll shove away with her anger and regrets, same as the others. Eleanor and Xiumei seem to be helping her, thankfully!

        She presses forward with a simple punch, attempting to swipe the older warrior with the two swords out of the way, timing her attack with Xiumei's much more skillful one.

        It seems like a lot, for one man.

        Wait.

        Eleanor says a name.

        Wait.

        Gwen looks at the man she's just tried to punch, frowning.

        "... Wait, you're Ganondorf? But the murals..."

        This is the first time Gwen's actually met Ganondorf, face to face.

GS: Eleanor Klein heals Gwen Whitlock! She gains 125 temporary hit points!
GS: Formation! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Special Delivery!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Ganondorf Dragmire takes a glancing hit from Zhang Xiumei's Pulse Whip - Extend-Slash for 75 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Ganondorf Dragmire!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Special Delivery for 81 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ganondorf Dragmire gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

The door blows open, and almost immediately a blade of energy cames screaming through the opening. It is undoubtedly powerful, but stronger still is the voice that pierces through the smoke. The voice of Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus - the leader of ARMS.

Clarine studies him - studies his surroundings. But, while she sees the others, Vinsfeld is a man demanding of one's whole attention. She will simply have to trust in her friends' ability to deal with them.

And so, Clarine approaches, alongside her friends and allies. Clarissa's words buoy her spirit. It is not sorcery - they are simply the words of a woman who believes wholeheartedy, and that means more than any spell ever could. They give Clarine confidence.

"And you, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus, are a man who walks a path steeped in the blood of the innocent. I have seen the actions of your people, your Odessa. Your pretty words are little consolation to those you have terrorized. To the downtrodden people of another world, beset by a terrible fate, you brought only bloodshed and violence." Clarine replies. "You seek only to free the people from their chains so that you can be their sole master. You are a tyrant, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus, and you are not the first with such aspirations. I have seen many of your kind in my years. You are no better than those who came before you."

She doesn't demand his surrender, or ask him to lay down his sword. No - the thought never really even occurs to her, though she knows there is no chance of him even accepting such a thing. Without any further fanfare, she simply gestures in his direction - and at her motion, a beam of searing light descends upon him, as if from the heavens.

GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Limited Ray!
GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

        "Such a quiet man," Boudicca reflects, to herself, as her eyes fall on one Ganondorf Dragmire. "So this is why you held your tongue..."

        It's a pity, she says, with the tone if not in the form of the words.

        This is the entrance she is privileged to make, this woman who seems not so troubled by the ringing in her ears of grenades or bullets whizzing by. No - what troubles her are the people around her, the ones made of blood and bone, and it is because they are blood and they are bone that the weapons in her hands are not bladed at all. Her tonfa are defensive things; they need not be as lethal as a blade buried inches in steel. Her gaze to Vinsfield, and a long, slow blink.

        Vins...

        ... that's what Brad called him.

        "Ida," she says, to her companion, instead, "go forth."

        Why she would encourage her friend to fight alone instead of stepping up beside her --

        That much might be as obvious as the thing hulking head and shoulders above the rest. Marivel, brightly, serves as introduction. "Ah - Asgard, is it?" Boudicca inclines her head, politely. "Forgive me, but I saw it right away... you are not quite a Metal Demon, are you?"

        She steps forward, and gestures, with a hand which nonetheless still holding that polished wood, because this is an invasion and they the invaders. "You see, I noticed this because it is quite a familiar feeling to me... being mistaken for metal."

        She's shaped more like a friend now, of course. She can even save Ethius from a fate worse than wrenching his shoulder out. (... though, she couldn't save him from the simple fact of weight.)

        She can hear Ida's tone, though, and Marivel's realisation, and now she turns to Melody, and the expression first on her face is surprise. "Do you mean to say... there is no life behind that light? This does not look as if a drone. Surely someone lives there?!"

        does boudicca think there's a seraph in the golem

        boudicca might think there's a a seraph in the golem.

        A Seraphic glyph lights up, and a chipper spring breeze curls around a dear friend, as Boudicca asks her: "Marivel, can you illuminate this situation?"

GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Marivel Armitage with Fortifying Tailwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

                             A LITTLE WHILE AGO

"Boy howdy that's the strangest kale bush I ever did see in my whole entire life," says one farmer to another. The second farmer leans down to poke and prod at the patch of green... something sprouting from the ground. He blinks in disbelief as one sprig of greenery seems to twitch at his touch. "Y'all sure it's a kale? Looks more like s'paragus t'me--TarNATION!"

The plant... explodes! Or rather, it bursts out of the ground at a frankly unreasonable speed, having been attached to... A head!? And a body beneath that!! The strange thing says not even a word as it 'nyahahahahaha~s' through the air like a humanoid gyrocopter (or perhaps... a humanoid typhoon...!?)

It flies, arrow-like, toward the great black machine hovering ominously in the distance. One farmer scratches the thinning hair under his hat. The other heaves a great big shrug. "Must'a been one of them weird mandragoras missus Deneb likes t' keep around. Ah well, nothin' fer it...!"

                                    NOW

Warwing Varukias is a veritable flying fortress, its defenses as formidable as any terrestrial citadel... but even it cannot possibly defeat an attack that comes...

...FROM THE VENTILATION DUCTS...!

"-ahahahahahaha!" A duct (that structural engineers were *sure* led straight through multiple industrial-strength turbine fans, and was thought to therefore be impenetrable) explodes! And someone drops out from within, looking... Dusty. But simultaneously shiny? But it can't be... Wasn't this person... Negative Rainbowed!?

Yes.

And then he buried himself underground to rapidly devour necessary minerals to regenerate his damaged flesh, and now... Now...! "I feel fresh like spring breeze! I feel as vibrant as a bamboo grove! My fury burns like an erupting volcano! And my soul is as stalwart as a mountain...!"

"I!" The Metal Demon declares, flexing mightily as his scarf flutters in a dramatic (but nonexistant!?) wind, "Like the legendary Phoenix! HAVE REVIVED!!"

There's a beat as Zed, who has retaken his place on the stage of destiny, stares awkwardly at the thing that looks like Asgard-- and the bluenette behind it. "Heeeeyyyy--" He says, leaping off his makeshift perch on a convenient piece of stage geometry. Zed slashes, launching a barrage of angry, red-orange, comet-shaped projectiles at the golem(?) and its ward, "Don't I know you two from... somewhere...?"

GS: Zed has attacked Asgard with Arcane Edge - Comet Crash!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Zed's Arcane Edge - Comet Crash for 123 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam! applied to Asgard!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus completely evades a hit from Seraph Clarine's Limited Ray!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Asgard has adjusted their boss level for 6 opponents!

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

        Her mind had been made up the moment she had learned that Dean had joined those coming here. But, in the chaos following that battle, where...?

        She had pressed on, then, in the hopes that the chaos had simply separated them and that he has merely gotten ahead of her. Blade in hand, she heads into the bridge after the others. At a glance, one might mistake her expression for determined, grim. But she grips her sword as if life depended upon it.

        Who else is within, but--

        "...Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus. So, we meet again." Her gaze tracks the man for many a minute, slipping from him as he speaks only the once -- when Ganondorf Dragmire makes his own appearance -- but she otherwise says nothing more as he says they have made their decision. In blood, as it were. Look away and one will miss it: the way Avril's sag for an instant, the way she takes a shallow breath, and the way she straightens, just that much, as her eyes stay on him.

        Into this tense moment, Melody makes her appearance.

        She's not alone.

        Avril turns her head to take the both of them in, and there, Avril's attention fixes.
        Or, perhaps it should be clarified: it fixes on Asgard in particular.
        "You... I know you, but--" She shakes her head, vehemently, as if to shrug off the urge to investigate why or, rather, what that might actually mean. Instead, she fixates on another thing that Melody has said.

        "'The Wisdom of Hyades'... What is meant by that?"

        It is entirely possible she will not get a straight answer. Her focus returns to the looming figure as she takes one last glance about herself at her allies for this fight. Taking one breath, Avril steps backwards the once and draws out the Sea Medium. "Lucadia..."

        There is an impression of the sea air. There is the impression of a wall of water, about everyone she pulls into that spell. And then the impression -- but not the protection so granted -- is gone.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Zed with Tidal Wall!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Tidal Wall!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Tidal Wall!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Dash Caskett with Tidal Wall!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Marivel Armitage with Tidal Wall!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Tidal Wall!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Tidal Wall for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Tidal Wall for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Tidal Wall for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Marivel Armitage!
GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield! applied to Marivel Armitage!
GS: Dash Caskett takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Tidal Wall for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Dash Caskett!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Tidal Wall for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Ethius Hesiod!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Tidal Wall for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Zed!

<Pose Tracker> Ganondorf Dragmire has posed.

Somewhere Brad Evans is probably in a really cool fistfight with a bridge tech trying to get access to a control console. It's rad. There are 45 frames of animation related to this topic in the entire episode.

GANONDORF DRAGMIRE, meanwhile, spots Asgard showing up, accompanied by Melody. Ganondorf doesn't even blink. Another doll, in a world of them.

What he's more interested in is the elf. "We meet again," he says, to Eleanor, posture shifting ever so slightly. Xiumei bolts at him with that whip of a blade, and Ganondorf bats the weapon aside with one sword, shifts stance, slices the length of it wrapped around his sword off, causing it to fuzz and the particulate field to scatter harmlessly. Then Gwen bullets in and slugs him, right across the chest, clearly moving like she expects him to be laid out immediately. Instead, Gwen finds her own body twisting, strangely, as Ganondorf's absolutely does not budge.

Then he slams one of his blades into the ground and claps his hand against the side of Gwen's head.

"Did they not capture my grandeur?" he wonders, idly, and then fires a bolt of electricity INTO her.

He drops her presumably-smoking form and shifts stance, presenting a palm toward Eleanor. A bead of light gathers in his hand - magic, though not of any school known - and then blasts rapidly out toward Eleanor, pulsing with power. "I shall be along for you presently," he informs her, before his gazec uts toward Xiumei. "And you...you've changed, haven't you?"

He shifts again, rapid, and recaptures his sword with a smooth movement. Magic burns along his blades as he suddenly surges toward Xiumei, eyes burning with intent. "Let us see the speed of that blade!" he roars, twin swords cutting toward her with blazings peed, leaving tracers of light as he sweeps down with two powerful strikes, then sweeps back, a blaze of darkness erupting on the length of his blade just before he drives it, straight-on, into Xiumei, corrupting, wracking magic passing into her from the strike!

GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Dark Lightning!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Eleanor Klein with Dead Man's Service!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire enters a Counter stance!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Biting Desert Wind!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has launched an attack Link!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Reject the Sacred!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has completed his action.
GS: Eleanor Klein completely evades a hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's Dead Man's Service!
GS: Eleanor Klein's Force Evade activates!
GS: Zhang Xiumei takes a glancing hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's Biting Desert Wind for 61 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Zhang Xiumei takes a glancing hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's Reject the Sacred for 66 hit points!
GS: Cripple! applied to Zhang Xiumei!
GS: Zhang Xiumei's Force Evade activates!
GS: Zhang Xiumei enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's Dark Lightning for 102 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Gwen Whitlock!

<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.

"A final battle for one war," is Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus' answer to his mountainous companion.

"And the start of the next."

His last, goes unsaid.

And in moments like these, one might wonder if Vinsfeld even knows what a world where he is not fighting would even look like.

That steel gaze turns, towards Melody and her trenchcoat-covered creation. His lips thin, but he says nothing.

His attention, his focus, his targets, after all --

Are the ones who had the audacity to storm his bridge in what was meant to be a crowning coup for his cause.

They come at him with words first, of course; one gloved hand abandons the pommel of his sword as the other slides down to grip securely to Mad Mountains' hilt in an ironclad gasp. Even as he subtly readies himself, though, his eyes squeeze shut in the breadth of Marivel's words. He looks old, weary in some strange way. Can someone look fatigued, and unstoppable?

His answer to her question comes immediately, and without hesitation or doubt:

"I suppose we'll see," he says, "after today."

As if it was, in his mind, already a foregone conclusion.

"You're right though. One way or another -- it's not a future you belong in." At least he's very upfront about that. "Besides...

"I think you have something else to worry about."

And then, the others. Their defiance crashes against him like waves upon a rockface, inspiring those aged yet harsh eyes to slit open and level their piercing stare on all of them. Leather groans against his tightening grasp.

"'Love,'" he echoes, slowly. "You call this love? I call it complacency. I call it decay." Guns level. Words inspire. And Vinsfeld's eyes widen, as his voice comes in a booming roar.

"And I am the one who will cut away the rot!"

Mad Mountains RIPS free of the flooring beneath his feet. He is seasoned at this. Experienced. Age might tax the body, but it gifts the mind; Venetia is squeezing the trigger of her ARM for the very first time (to, potentially, inspiring 90s jrock?!) by the time yellow symbols etch the air around the commander of Odessa.

"PROTECTION!"

And her bullet's momentum is just barely compromised by the beginning formation of yellow, hexagonal plates of symbological energy before it pierces past to shoot the old soldier in his shoulder. The bullet ricochets painfully off his armored pauldron; he snaps to his right.

By the time those other bullets are fired, they find a much stronger defense fortifying the rebel of Slayheim. Violet's bullet is robbed of so much of its precious acceleration as it hits that barrier; it not only denies it its lethal force, but provides Vinsfeld the precious time needed for his reflexes to swing his left arm up, to -intercept- that bullet with his forearm.

It is still lodged, smoking, between the metal rings of his bracers as his arm lowers.

"... You call me a tyrant and powermonger. You judge me. Very well; I judge -you-. And I need no self-righteous gods or fangless Guardians to invoke to do it!"

Ida's shot fires off; Clarine's blessing screams across the artificial air in a ray of smiting light; and in the roar of his accusation, Vinsfeld -leaps- off of that balcony, zweihander -yanked- along as he crashes towards slug and magic both.

As if he could make a speech with action just as much as words, he acts. With a single stroke.

And in one motion, the mighty edge of Mad Mountains -cleaves- through something as grandiose as Althena's magical might and something as small as Ida's ARM shell at the same exact moment, as if it could condemn them both equally.

The bullet is cleaved clean in two; half the shell scratches at the ridge of Vinsfeld's cheekbone, leaving a line of angry red in its wake.

The power of Clarine's Ray?

Finds itself cut through at an intrinsic level, as if Mad Mountains could simply unravel the metaphysical underpinnings of the magic behind it if it just swung HARD enough, if its master believed STRONG enough. It's baffling. It's ridiculous.

It's mad.

"You say I've brought nothing but violence to Spira. I say I have not brought -enough- of it to open their eyes to the mad world of fear and stagnation they allow themselves to dwindle in. And that is why you are judged wanting by every voice in Filgaia and Lunar, crying out for something, anything to save them. That is why you will ultimately fail."

And here, he -swings- that sword about. None of them are close.

But it's the raw force of the stroke itself that ripples outward like a blade of air, threatening to carve through -all- of them, no matter -how- far away they are.

"You. Do not. Have. The -will-."

It's a prelude to the way he lets himself be carried by the weight behind his blade, moving like a violent whirlwind of motion as he is ripped off his feet into the air --

--and sent crashing towards Ida, intent to cleave -straight- through her. Personally.

"And you are far too easy to distract."

Because Vinsfeld believes in both extremist rhetoric -and- critical sass.

GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Rage Against The Dying Of The Light!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Rage Against The Dying Of The Light for 0 hit
points!
GS: Hyper and Shield! applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Seraph Clarine with It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen To Question
Authority!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Violet Salazar with It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen To Question
Authority!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Venetia Vuong with It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen To Question
Authority!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Clarissa Arwin with It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen To Question
Authority!
GS: Seraph Clarine critically Guards a hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen
To Question Authority for 30 hit points!
GS: Clarissa Arwin takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen To
Question Authority for 166 hit points!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with A Man's Duty Is To Find The Truth Or - If He Cannot - Take
The Best Possible Human Doctrine And Ride On This Like A Raft Over The Waters of Life!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has completed his action.
GS: Violet Salazar takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen To
Question Authority for 87 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's A Man's Duty Is To Find The Truth Or - If He Cannot -
Take The Best Possible Human Doctrine And Ride On This Like A Raft Over The Waters of Life for 82 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
BGM for MelodyAsgard: Black as Sin, Red as Blood - https:'www.youtube.comwatch?v=a0Mjdglhb_o
 
"How dare you!" Melody swishes her arm, cutting her sleeve like a blade as Marivel speaks to her that way. "You vulgar beast. You know nothing of true beauty." Marivel teleports behind her and her blade is only met with a shimmering blue field. "Oh crass creature, you act as if you know of his technology, yet think you could take his master unaware? Fool."
 
Asgard does not respond to the comment about being reprogrammed, nor Marivel's friendly offer to fix him. What he does do however is respond to the blade. With his barrier being deployed to defend Melody, there is a momentary gap. Sparks fly as it makes contact with his hip, grazing the trenchcoat like armor.
 
And then his hand immediately lashes out to try to grasp Marivel. His greeting for her is coldly gripping her by the wrist. Then pulling her up and over with his tremendous strength, he tries to slam her onto the bridge floor with enough force to cause it to shake.
 
His foot raises up as if to stomp on the Crimson Noble. There was no hesitation in any of these actions.
 
Marivel, Varius and Avile will note there is something different, wrong about the way he fights, and the way he acts. Reprogramming is certainly a good explanation for it!
 
Ida's emptied magazine simply results in the bullets shimmering on a field, like ripples on a pond. Melody only looks at Ida out of the corner of her vision like one might at a gnat. One of those shots strikes near her eye, and she does not so much as bat a lash as it's deflected, "Your destiny is simply an inglorious death, so why should I answer you anything?"
 
Dash's plasma shot strikes the field head on. The energy meeting resistance by the barrier in front of Asgard. It does not dissipate right away, so a swat of Asgard's barrier encased knuckle knocks it away. It rockets to the floor and scours it into a burning stain.
 
However, it does likely prevent Marivel from being stomped on, as he no longer has interest in that. Instead he steps over her. Then towards Dash as a walking juggernaut. Without warning Ethius' quarterstaff strikes it a blue field that forms in front of his eyes, and the strike is deflected.
 
Asgard stops. And pivots towards Ethius. His fist immediately swats him out of the way with bone-crushing force. It does not even need to make direct contact. Something near invisible strikes him in an attempt to send him flying across the bridge.
 
Without any warning he then turns back on Dash and it's like he glides across the floor. Doing the same to him in an attempt to crack his armor like an eggshell.
 
Gwen's statement causes her to roll her eyes. "Goodness my dear. You sound obsessed. Why is it that he could not dispose of a single one of you fools? Your hideous countenance surely proves that it was not sentiment."
 
And then Zed springs at Asgard, launching his barrage of projectiles. Apparently he miscalculates, because his barrier is not up in time. Several of them scour his coat, wisps of smoke flying off of it.
 
Melody simply answers the Metal Demon. "No." In a tone of entirely dry denial. "I'm quite certain that I would remember something as ugly as you - Demon."
 
Asgard immediately charges at Zed, a freight train of a being. His left fist hooks towards Zed, trying to blast through his guard and uppercut him towards the bridge's ceiling.
 
Perhaps he is simply offering him the traditional greeting of his people. How considerate!
 
Magical energy registers as emanating from a certain spot, and concentrating on Marivel. His system takes note of that spot, because immediately he swats the area where Boudicca was standing with his right fist. The motion blasts into Boudicca powerfully with his barrier and likely sends her flying.
 
Seconds before, he did not even know how to register her as a threat. Now though? His systems have learned.
 
"Ah - you wish to know?" Melody replies to Avril's solicitation for information. Perhaps Melody considers her beautiful enough to be worthy of her notice? "Such information is unnecessary for you. However, you're welcome to observe the fruit harvested from this tree. Pay attention closely."
 
Avril's invocation of Lucadia causes his sensors to take note of this energy, and how it empowers the threats to his master. His eyes glow briefly red, before he then turns upon her and attempts to run her down.
 
His left fist hooks her way in an attempt to blast right through that impression of water that protects her, and smash right into her rib cage.
 
"In this case it is his Gemini Circuit - which allows him to learn by Evolutionary Analogism."
 
All of a sudden his eyes flare to that eerie red light again. It is like a warrior pausing to catch their breath and reassess battle strategy. He is entirely inert for an uncomfortable few moments. And then he lifts his arms.
 
And its like his energy levels just rise, causing a terrible feeling of foreboding of what just happened.
 
"Please, by all means continue in your current course. The more you dash yourselves against his fists. The more you hasten the inevitable." Melody notes with a level of smug condescension.
 

GS: Asgard has attacked Marivel Armitage with Iron Grip!
GS: Asgard has attacked Zed with Iron Fist!
GS: Asgard has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Iron Fist!
GS: Asgard has attacked Dash Caskett with Barrier Knuckle!
GS: Asgard has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Barrier Knuckle!
GS: Asgard spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Asgard has attacked Asgard with Optimize Data!
GS: Asgard has launched an attack Link!
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Asgard's Optimize Data for 0 hit points!
GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge! applied to Asgard!
GS: Asgard has attacked Asgard with Fortress of the Gods!
GS: Asgard has completed his action.
GS: Asgard has completed his action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Asgard's Fortress of the Gods for 0 hit points!
GS: Lock State! applied to Asgard!
GS: Cover and Riposte! applied to Asgard!
GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod guards a hit from Asgard's Barrier Knuckle for 66 hit points!
GS: Zed critically Guards a hit from Asgard's Iron Fist for 27 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!

<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.

"Oh, you too," Clarissa answers Venetia with a blink and a smile, more confident than she has any right to be. "We should talk later."

She's not sure who the biggest threat on the field is - Ganondorf makes her feel uneasy in a way none of the others do - but Vinsfeld seems the most comprehensible to her right now.

And the most profoundly opposed to who she is and what she stands for. "You don't even understand that there isn't a binary choice between acceptance and hate, do you," she answers him, and there's a note of sadness in her voice and in the way she shakes her head. For just a moment, she lowers her guard, dropping the barrel of Strahl Gewehr towards the ground. "Do you really think that more hate and anger is going to make Filgaia a better place when you're done? Or do you think that-- gh!"

Vinsfeld cuts her off in the middle of her speech. The wave of force catches Clarissa in that moment of vulnerability. With a gasp, she's thrown off her feet and slammed back into the wall of the bridge, not far from the hole blown in the door. As a bolt of pain blazes through her spine, she groans and staggers off the wall, dropping down to one knee.

Right, she reminds herself bitterly. Pity got in the way of the job again. Just like last time.

Pushing her hair away from her cheek, the blonde narrows her eyes a little. "You know what? You're right," she answers as she begins to move to the side, not at a run - at a steady stride.

"I don't have the will to do the things you do.

"To open people's eyes with violence.

"To throw entire nations under the bus of my own pain.

"To think that torturing Filgaia will somehow save it.

Leveling Strahl Gewehr, Clarissa comes to a halt and grips the gun in both hands, scowling across the talonious barrel at the man who would upend the world. Light begins to glow at the weapon's maw. "You know what I have the will to do, though?

"The right thing," Clarissa says, before unloading with a shining blast of blue-white light that screams across the bridge. It washes over and around a console in its way, flooding with full force to test Vinsfeld's defenses.

GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Strahl Gewehr!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has completed her action.
GS: Asgard has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Barrier Knuckle!
GS: Amplify, Burst, and Surge expired!
GS: Asgard has completed his action.
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Clarissa Arwin's Strahl Gewehr for 76 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Dash Caskett completely evades a hit from Asgard's Barrier Knuckle!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Asgard's Barrier Knuckle for 106 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.

<This is all wrong!> Avile's voice shakes in Xiumei's mind. Trembles, even. <He... he wasn't like that at all...>

"I--I don't know," Xiumei answers, somewhere between worried and distracted.

Light swirls around Xiumei, the channeled energy of the berry infusing her. She feels some of the bruises, some of the exhaustion of fighting her way in here begin to alleviate. It clears her mind, and she nods her head once. Her eyes shift, to look at Ganondorf.

"Here?" she repeats to Eleanor. She bites her lip, pensive and thoughtful, but then she nods. "Okay... okay, we can do this."

She hopes.

Gwen charges in, and Xiumei's eyes widen a little. "Gwen! Be careful! He's--" Ganondorf Dragmire, she doesn't finish. He bats her beam whip aside easily, and looses lightning into the courier. Xiumei's breath catches, and her blade retracts down into the more familiar beam saber.

<Bastard's still too damn fast!> Varius snaps a warning to her, as the blades come down. Xiumei ducks into the first strike; it lances across her side, the metal mesh absorbing the blow, before his second strike comes down, wreathed in darkness.

She just meets the blade, her own energy sword catching it. Darkness roils off it, lightning flashing and crackling where sorcery and technology meet. She pushes forward, even as the energy saps at her.

The first strike lashes out for Ganondorf's midsection. The second, then, comes crashing down in a diagonal strike for him. "What do you want with her!?"

There can be little doubt who 'her' is, in this context.

GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Pulse Saber - Double Slash!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Asgard's Iron Fist for 155 hit points!
GS: Marivel Armitage guards a hit from Asgard's Iron Grip for 102 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Venetia Vuong takes a solid hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's It Is The First Responsibility Of Every Citizen To
Question Authority for 168 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

"We do," Eleanor answers Ganondorf, rising up to her full height--still rather shorter than the massive man ahead of them, without even being objectively so small. She can't help but feel some of it, though--that, and... Something else.

"Xiu--Gwen!" She grits her teeth, but shortly has her own problem to contend with. A bead of light gathers in Ganondorf's hand and rapidly shoots towards her. She operates on instinct, her hand gleaming fiercely with magic as she swings her hand back. Impacting the bead of light, Eleanor hits it straight back at her foe, the blast returning to him with a still-brighter pulse of power.

"Gwen, look out!" But she presses her lips together, worrying for a moment-he says he'll be along, though... "Gwen, don't take hm lightly!"

"And as for you--Come at me then, thief!" Eleanor sounds bolder than she feels, even to herself, unsure why the appelation seems right for this terrible enemy. But he goes at Xiumei first, and Eleanor's heart jumps into her throa as she watches. Lighting flashes and crakles--

"Just hang on!" she calls to the others.

GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Light Volley!
GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
GS: COUNTER! Ganondorf Dragmire counterattacks Eleanor Klein with Counter Attack!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire takes a solid hit from Eleanor Klein's Light Volley for 124 hit points!
GS: Eleanor Klein critically Guards a hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's Counter Attack for 24 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Melody's condescension draws a snarl to Ida's lips. Confusion skitters through the back of her mind, a dissonant undertone to the anger in her chest. Both Ida and Fafnir are afraid, though--that much unites them.

        And to make matters worse, Rhadamanthus has called her out. Ida feels the rush of air on her face, and reacts with blinding speed. The Hyadean exoskeleton on both of her arms unfolds, flower-like; Mad Mountains slams into paired shields with a tremendous CLANG. Ida feels the impact in every inch of her body--it rattles her bones, and makes her ears ring. Her feet skid backwards across the deck. Blood seeps from hairline fractures in her armor. For a moment, Ida Everstead-Rey and Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus are locked together.

        'You. Do not. Have. The -will-.'

        "You aren't the first to have told me that," Ida says, and the anger in her eyes sharpens to steely resolve. "But that was before the world became my crucible."

        Ida's lifeforce ignites around her, a visible aura of gold-white encircling a bonfire of red-orange. "Do not presume to know my heart," she growls. The bonfire grows as Ida breathes, stoking the metaphysical flames. Undifferentiated Hyadean tissue pours from beneath her collar, flows up around her chin and neck and forehead and down to form a breastplate, greaves, boots. The neonate's jumpsuit changes, subtly, reshaping itself to form a more suitable under-layer.

        When the change ends, Ida is encased from head to foot in Hyadean exoskeleton, equal parts blue and gold--the colors of her house--and gold, black, and crimson. The former elements are baroque, classically Galadian, and a Valkyrie-like wing graces her right temple. The latter elements are Old War Hyadean, sleek and durable and purpose-built for protection.

        "The people of these worlds cry out!" Ida roars, "but they need only look to one another for salvation--not the likes of you!" The words sort of tumble out, but they're heartfelt. Ida wouldn't be here today if not for the aid and succor of countless brave, caring souls. She's seen what miracles can happen when common folk join hands to stand against wickedness.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell !
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell  for 0
hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Cover! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel says, "Yeah I know him. He's the only person working for Odessa in this room capable of showing genuine respect to something besides themselves." She has a low opinion of Odessa! Which is probably a good thing! Because she's fighting a war against them! But maybe... it isn't quite as low as she implies.Or maybe her opinion of the high houses isn't quite as high as she makes it out to be either. Nevertheless, Marivel certainly would PREFER ARMS to win otherwise she'd be providing tech support for Vinsfeld over t here.

A swirling tidal wall crackles around Marivel and she looks to Avril. "Seems like ol' Asgard made his way around a bit more than I expected."

Boudicca says something that strikes Marivel as strange. "That--" She looks back to Asgard and tilts her head thoughtfully.

Vinsfeld did seem a little more tired today. What will be will be, Marivel supposes.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, annd I've beholded more than most! That makes me an authority!" Marivel says because she's kind of a shit.

Melody taunts her further and she admits, "It's always worth a shot."

Asgard GRABS Marivel's wrist. His handd is pretty big so it's honstly MORE than just the wrist, and Asgard swings her up and SLAAAAAAAAAAAMS her to the ground, even with Avril's AND Boudicca's barriers crackling around her--that STILL lokos like it hurt. Doubly so when Asgard slams his foot down against it. Marivel is able to bring her arms up to block the STOMP but the crackling of that energy field--including a THIRD one from Marivel--suggests that Asgard packs a... punch.

"Asgard isn't technology..." Marivel says. "He's a mysterious and cool warrior...! Way too cool to waste his time working for people who team up with Evil Ashley!" Is she...

...Is she fangirling????

Asgard ends up walking over her rather than ON her, and Marivel flips back to her feet.

"Because your clones aren't quite as good as you think they are!" Does she...

...Does she still think Janus is an Ashley clone???

She turns to Asgard. Something DOES seem to be wrong--but she has to presume her presumption was correct. "That said, I have to admit... your talent with tech is pretty impressive, lady. What did you say you were name was again? First what you've managed to do with Glumzambor, and now this..."

She whistles.

"I'm nnot sure how to make it clearer," She tells Boudicca. "It's Asgard reprogrammed. The coolest golem line ever!"

Her eyes sparkle. "Like... he's wicked! Wicked awesome! His barriers are nigh impenetrable, andd his punching power--it just makes you want to shout: Asgard!! It's Showtime!!" She hops up and down on her feet. "Asgards pack immense defensive power and considerable offensive power! They're the ultimate in super robot tech!! Where's Dean?? He's totally missing out!!" She looks to Avril.

"Is Dean here? He's going to be so jealous of me! Heh heh heh...!"

And with that she twists her hand and sends a flurry of shadows crackling up from underneath Asgard to try and pin him with inky black muck.

"Oh also, I have no idea how to beat him." Marivel adds. "Because who can beat a super cool impossible robot?????? Not me, I wouldn't dream of it."

She's too happy for this. "Maybe I should switch sides... No no no, I want Asgard on our side...! He's too amazing to be a bad guy!"

Yeah Marivel totally came up to this fight entirely so she could harass poor Asgard.

GS: Marivel Armitage spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Asgard with Boogiepop Phantoms!
GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

Vinsfeld's blade tears through her light like it were nothing. Clarine's face registers surprise for a moment, though she quickly regains her previous composure. Whatever she may think of Vinsfeld, whatever sort of man may be, there is one fact that she cannot deny - he is a powerful, dangerous opponent. This is a Vinsfeld past his prime - she cannot imagine the thought of fighting him at his strongest. That fact may yet be what saves them - though they are, of course, far from saved yet.

Vinsfeld swings his blade, and the raw force carves through the air in her direction. In one swift motion Clarine produces a series of silver mirrors. One moves to intercept his attack, and though it manages to prevent it from reaching Clarine, it is sliced in two and shattered for it. The pieces dissipate into motes of light.

"And where does the violence end, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus?" Clarine questions. She starts to drift toward him, and suddenly, she isn't there.

"How much is enough?" Clarine says. Her voice comes from behind - she holds both hands out, and fires a bolt of light toward hin. She shakes her head.

"You say we lack the will." Clarine's voice comes again - from a different direction, a different Clarine, who fires yet another projectile.

"I defy your assertion." A third Clarine says. Three Clarines, each of them firing a volley of light at Vinsfeld from different angles.

If there was anything these people lacked... it certainly wasn't will. If any of them lacked the will, they wouldn't be here. Clarine believed wholeheartedly in that will.

GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Dispersion Feint!
GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.

Violet is pushed right off her feet by Vinsfeld's wave of power; she gets back up, rather painfully, battered and bruised. No telling what kind of damage he could do if he actually made CONTACT with that big two-handed sword! Or what kind of weird powers he might have. In addition to being able to teleport people to Spira, of course. She is still trying to shake her astonishment that he parried her bullet so handily. Perhaps another approach was in order? She fishes several grenades out of her pack, pulls the pins, and haltingly tosses them at Vinsfeld's feet. Her aim is a bit off from her injuries, and he might have a way to shield himself, but all she could do is try.

GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Fire in the Hole!
GS: Violet Salazar has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Boogiepop Phantoms for 51 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disease and Poison! applied to Asgard!

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

 
A palpable hit.

I just shot a man, Venetia thinks as she lowers the gun with a scenic cloud of smoke dissipating around her.

Neat, she concludes a moment before there is a vicious vortex coming straight towards her hand AND: It is lucky for Venetia that she isn't holding the gun right because the gun is snatched up and ripped from her grasp, going flying out into the chaos of melee. (Free gun! It has 3 rounds remaining!)

Had she been holding tighter she would have probably lost her index finger. As it is there are several snaps of joint and bone and she grimaces as she leans forwards, the pain shooting up her forearm. She clutches it to her chest, tries to flex her fingers -- and the moment she takes to shift her bag from one hip to the other may show just how well that went.

I won't scream, Venetia tells herself. I won't.

She passes the rod of authority to that hand and, after some grimacing, gets out a spare strip of cloth and wraps an improvised binding there, forcing the hand to stay clasped round it and lacing through the decoration at the end of the handle. This takes moments longer. Moments that Ida may not survive!

All of this effort to get round an increasingly agonizing injury keep Venetia from contributing any words to the arguments against Vinsfeld Rhadamanth"MUD FLOWER" oh no, there we go: the Crest Graph held in the less wounded hand, the strip of land glistening with moisture before metal remembers rock and rock remembers soil and soil remembers water and a ripple of force smashes forwards, aiming to tangle up the great warrior and fling him against-- against SOMETHING. There's all kinds of shit in here, Venetia thinks; break your head on it, you old coot!

Meanwhile Marivel is talking about reprogrammed golems. Venetia's lips thin into a laser-precise line of dismay.

GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Mud Flower!
GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        "Gh.... Are you CALLIN' ME UG--"

        The pain of Gwen's fist is outmatched by the vexing nature of Melody's words, briefly occupying her mind before Ganondorf directly takes control by clapping a hand to her head, filling her vision with brilliant pain.

        Like yet another doll, Gwen's smoking body falls down, her right ARM twitching uselessly as it sorts through the mix of confusing signals.

        ".... Gh...."

        When Gwen's vision resolves into a possible frame, Gwen's field of vision sees Ganondorf's feet, and past him, Xiumei defending Eleanor, as they both hold their own against... the thief king.

        Did she hear that somewhere else? Or was that demon king? Desert king?

        Smoke still curls from the courier's body as she sits up, her left hand holding her head.

        It may have been a fluke, but Gwen remembers that pendant. If nothing's resembling the murals, then it's clear- they need to make their own legend, instead of looking to the past for lost truths.

        But isn't that the way it's always been?

        Reaching into her boot, Gwen draws a knife, and aims, focusing on a part of Ganondorf's shoulder to embed one of her knives.

        "I'll deal with that woman another time. Duty calls."

GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Letter Rip!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Letter Rip for 63 hit points!
GS: Entangle! applied to Ganondorf Dragmire!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire critically Guards a hit from Zhang Xiumei's Pulse Saber - Double Slash for 28 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: CRITICAL! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Seraph Clarine's Dispersion Feint for 80 hit points!
GS: Riposte! applied to Seraph Clarine!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Force Guard activates!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a solid hit from Violet Salazar's Fire in the Hole for 44 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Venetia Vuong's Mud Flower for 49 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Entangle! applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Force Guard activates!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

        The blue field that forms when Ethius swings throws him entirely off-balance. He watched Ida's and Dash's shots meet a similar fate within a span of time where he could have decided on something different - he has the present presence of mind to have done so - but did not.
        As if an expectation that it might be tuned for things too small going too fast towards it, and not a simpler approach. (He does not recall the precedent for this line of thought - just that it was, in some form, a major thing.) His weapon receives scorch marks from the impact as he catches the lumbering Asgard's backhand preparing to strike. He throws his left forearm inward while slurring syllables together - the gesture he takes when casting that spell of his that lets him take higher tech weapons in absence of proper armor. Avril provides a wispy wall of the feeling of seawater. Two layers of protection.
        The Barrier Knuckle phases through the Tidal Wall like it isn't there.
        Ethius' barrier - naked to the invisible eye but made plain when it activates by loud and bright electrical sparks - does not come to be at all even though he knows he cast the spell correctly... for the Barrier Knuckle out-and-out punches through it like it isn't there either.
        It punches, effortlessly, through two defenses.
        There is an impact that sends him flying clear over a terminal, rolling across the bridge. A successful defense here cannot be measured by the ability to mitigate Asgard's physical strikes, because that is impossible for him.
        It boils down a lot more to luck and happenstance, where he does not bodily collide with any obstruction that could fracture a limb or kill him outright, bleeding out momentum as he tumbles until as such he can catch himself against the side of another terminal in a kneel.
        The strange man continues his campaign of silence and lack of banter as he comes low to the ground in a crawl. Crawling, like a slithering little snake, only a few gestures removed from a craven begging for mercy - some might say. He stays low as he tries to crawl back towards that part of the battle on the bridge, watching foot movements in specific.
        A plan formulates. It may not be possible to defend against the device upon its arm. Ethius thinks as he keeps moving forward. He flexes either of his hands in a few finger-twisting gestures as if to decide which one is better suited for it - his dominant hand (his left) is still feeling sore from a desperate Hot Air Sack ploy. He settles for his right. I am not yet convinced it is a perfect defense.
        'I have no idea how to beat him,' he hears Marivel say. This does not discourage Ethius, he who has relentlessly hunted and destroyed any strange, out-of-place, lost technology that has offended him. 'Because who can beat a super cool impossible robot??????'
        The Surge Bolt... I recall the purpose of its design was to circumvent any available safeguard. Ethius finds what he believes to be the blind spot to rise up and emerge, aggressing on what is - for the fleeting moment - an open angle on Melody as he flexes the fingers of his right hand and chants the appropriate syllables. It's harder to do with his off-hand, but he does this with an unnatural calm given the situation and his recent brushes with death as part of the handful of boarding parties on Warwing Varukias. Sorcerous lights appear through where his suit has been torn as he completes the spell. This is intentional.
        There is a deliberate delay in some of the syllables of the spellcast to try and coax Asgard's Barrier Knuckle arm between himself and Melody. He believes it will make it easier to be certain he can resolve the matter tidily.
        "Surge Bolt!" Ethius calls as he finishes the spellcast, sending an electrical surge he has never known to be halted by any barrier or surge protection prior. For however little Ethius is trusted, he has consistently been able to be a deadly weapon against any technological threat against the Drifter community at large.
        ...and yet...

GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Asgard with Cinematic Surge Bolt!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Asgard guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Cinematic Surge Bolt for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Uhhh are you sure?" Zed asks of this mysterious purple-haired lady. "'Cause, like, I'm pretty sure I've seen the both of you...... somewhere.... before...?"

Zed stares. He stares for a little longer. And then a little bit longer than even that. And then Marivel starts gushing like a giant robot fangirl and Zed immediately feels two things. The first: That he finally has another kindred spirit in his love for big robot things. The second: That he *also* finally knows where he'd heard the name 'Asgard' before...!

"OH MAN! It's like some kind of tiny knockoff of the Earth Golem! That explains it! One created with Hyadean Technology, I guess? I guess that also means that it's my responsibility to--"

There's a giant fist heading right toward his face. It goes *KLONK* right into his face. Zed...

Does not budge?

"You have made a critical error, Super Robot Asgard...!" Zed declares, as his blade ignites, not with an aura of starfire, but with a screaming, light-swallowing aurora of absolute void. "Maybe it's just that you've been brainwashed, but... You should have known! That my head...!"

Zed reaaaars back...!

And does not cut with his sword. Not directly. He places his sword between the golem's fist and his own face, and then slams his forehead directly into the flat back of Doombringer's curved edge...! "Has been made invincible by the cruel fist of Quarter Knight Berserk himself! You cannot penetrate this skull of pure Lunar Zedanium...!!"

(Note: Lunar Zedanium does not exist, and Zed just made that shit up on the fly. Also, he doesn't experience a concussion because this is Zed we're talking about here.)

"If you cannot adapt to a warrior like me... Then that Gemini Circuit of yours is about as useless as a layabout brother-in-law crashing on your couch for the fifth time this week! And as for you..."

Zed looks right at Melody.

"...Nah, don't recognize you. Must not have been very remarkable in my memory, huh..."

GS: Zed has attacked Asgard with Saint Arts - Voidwalker's Resolve!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zed assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Asgard completely evades a hit from Zed's Saint Arts - Voidwalker's Resolve!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

Buster fire spatters across a shield that went unnoticed until now. "Never is that easy, huh," he comments. "Marivel!" Dash calls her way, seeing her in danger. Thankfully that odd fellow, Ethius, is there to distract. "Thank goodness."

"You'll have to tell me about it sometime!" he says back toward Mari. As Dash readies for the next move, he feels soothing mist fall upon him. One might expect a sea mist to rust armor such as is, but it does not! Instead the Volnutt Armor seems to gleam brighter. Perhaps magically fortified. "Thank you! He says toward Avril. A mysterious lady, that one, but certainly helpful if their assault upon the battleship was any indication.

Now there is a more pressing matter. Asgard as elected to close the gap and deal with the boy in blue personally. "Uhhh!" The war machine moves across the floor ina vaguely familiar sense. Meanwhile klaxions sound off in the back of his head.

<ENEMY APPROACHING, EVASIVE MANEUVERS>

Before the fist, or the strange force surrounding it hits, Dash is a blur of motion, flipping and over heel repeatedly backwards, quicker than even the boy himself can understand. The force just barely scrapes a segment of leg armor, the sound it makes as it literally shaves off a tiny layer of metal a testament to the devastating damage that could have been.

The boy lands and has to regain his balance, slightly dizzy from the evasive affair. "Okay, whoch! Fine then, let's try something a bit tougher to punch through that shield! I'll try to make an opening!" he calls toward others in the group.

The Mega Buster is aimed, and the glow i nthe barrel shifts from yellow to a magenta-red, and a trio of giant Buster shots rip out, carrying far more plasma and power than the previous attack. The question is, how tough is that shielding of theirs?

"Lady, I don't know what your problem is, but you need to calm the big guy down before he gets hurt!"

GS: Dash Caskett spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Asgard with Heavy Buster!
GS: Dash Caskett has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.
GS: Asgard critically Guards a hit from Dash Caskett's Heavy Buster for 29 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

        Half the reason Boudicca is so unbothered by all those bullets...

        ... it takes a certain kind of person to see a Seraph.

        They don't seem to notice her, and Boudicca, by this stage, knows well to file that under an unfortunate lack of resonance. (Maybe... it isn't alive? But, lights like that..?!) It's just one of those underlying assumptions about the world which makes her feel more assured of her ability to help everyone --

        Until suddenly one great fist is swatting down, and all a sudden Boudicca needs to hurry to be anywhere else aside from the spot she just was. She might be the wind, but caught unawares, she scrambles just like anyone else; throwing herself to one side, she rolls on the ground until she's free of the shockwave.

        And just kind of lies there for a moment, because... that fist... is very big. And very heavy. Whoof.

        But there's Ida, roaring defiance against the forces of injustice, and Boudicca can't be lying around feeling baffled while she's fighting so hard. So she picks herself up, even though Marivel's explanation, if anything, makes her even more confused.

        "So... Asgard is alive... and cannot be beaten?" She asks, with quizzical expression, as she looks up at the golem. "But how is someone in of themselves, a 'line'..? Ida's ancestors are not Ida, I am quite sure..." She's had the chance to do some study into this, and she can authoritatively say: that's not how humans work!

        (Asgard is probably not a human.)

        (Probably.)

        She springs back, and positions herself near Avril, now. "Do not worry," she says, though she can't quite say why she feels the need to reassure her. There's something which feels a little off about that woman's line of questioning, something about the way she's moving...

        ... or maybe it's just Boudicca. She does tend to worry an awful lot. Perhaps she's projecting.

        "If Asgard is truly unovercomen," that's not common any more, Boudicca, overcome is used entirely differently in this day and age and it can't just be negated like that, "we will simply have to redouble our efforts."

        And there's another Seraphic glyph - and this time it's Avril who will benefit from that warm breeze, bolstering and revitalising.

GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Air Ascending!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Air Ascending for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Avril Vent Fleur gains 15 extra FP from Seraph Boudicca!

<Pose Tracker> Ganondorf Dragmire has posed.

He is fast, that's certain. He fights like a snake, waiting for long seconds, watching and assessing, before he blurs forward with decisive strikes!

Xiumei's attack, he brings up both swords to block, deflecting both strikes to either side. He swiftly repositions, swinging both blades up at the oncoming mass of energy returning to him from Eleanor. "Ah! So you know the game!" he roars, slamming BOTH blades into it. His footing gives for a moment before he slashes through, forcing the blast back toward Nora a second time.

Which is when Gwen sticks him in the shoulder and he cries out, "GAUGH!"

But he doesn't yield more than that, standing straight even as Gwen hangs off his stuck shoulder. "I need the secrets in her blood," Ganondorf declares to Xiumei. "And I will not be denied!"

He crosses his swords, power roaring out from within him. "I am Ganondorf Dragmire! I have overturned kingdoms and made Gods tremble! But yes, certainly, let us begin at the beginning. With a desert, and its KING!"

He roars, and blurs, striking over and over, ziping between Gwen and Eleanor, to Xiumei, back to Gwen, then to Xiumei again, back to Eleanor...darkness and light tracing him as he roars.

GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Gwen Whitlock with The Thief from the Desert!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Zhang Xiumei with The Thief from the Desert!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Eleanor Klein with The Thief from the Desert!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has completed his action.
GS: Eleanor Klein takes a glancing hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's The Thief from the Desert for 200 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Zhang Xiumei takes a solid hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's The Thief from the Desert for 199 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's The Thief from the Desert for 200 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

        "The fruit harvested from--?" The window for questions is, however, closing rapidly.

        She takes a step back as Asgard descends upon her, twisting her body as if she were about to duck. But the Golem, perhaps, already has an idea of what she's attempting to do-- and understands, quite possibly, the weak points in that incantation she worked.

        He moves quickly, in the same moment she does. The barrier holds as he smashes his fist into it--then gives utterly, slamming into Avril's side. With a cry, she's flung sidelong in a sprawl along the floor, only rising after a moment more. Her hand against her side, she slowly stands to take in again their assailant.

        As Melody explains matters further.

        Evolutionary Analogism. Her eyes widen.

        She's lost so much. But she knows exactly -- precisely -- what that means, as if it were somehow welded to the core of herself.

        It's into this moment that Marivel intrudes. And the moment, then, that Marivel mentions Dean is also the moment that Avril's frozen shell of a facade cracks. "Dean-- have you seen him? I had seen him briefly before the battle outside, but I have not since--"

        Cracks, but does not break. If he is not here, then he is not in the same and very immediate danger that they are all in. Avril closes her eyes and shakes her head the once as if to re-center herself. "Marivel... everyone... do not take Asgard lightly. If what she has said is true..."

        Slowly she takes up a fencer's starting stance, the tip of her blade directed at Asgard. "...then with every attack that we make upon him, he will assess our capabilities and adjust his strategy accordingly. If we are to defeat him, then we must..."

        She frowns, wrinkling her forehead. How does one beat something that is mimicking the adaptability of life in aggregate?

        Do not worry.

        Avril turns her head.

        "Boudicca--" Her blade's tip dips the once in the air before her. "...Yes. You are right. What is that Dean would say in a time like this?" As the warm breeze becomes the wind beneath her (migratory bird) wings, she turns her attention back on Asgard and Melody. "...'You can do anything, as long as you don't give up!'"

        And she darts forward, picking up speed as she approaches her opponent with the wind bouying her however long it might. And drawing upon the Medium, she leaps, her aim to score Asgard from shoulder to hip with her blade.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Asgard with Spirit Saber!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Asgard guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Spirit Saber for 85 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!

<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Unfortunately for Avile, neither Melody nor Asgard seem to be all that communicative about his current state. He certainly looks the same, but he neither acts nor fights the same. He is not as proactive as he they knew him in a battle. The reaction time of his barrier was much faster, and it was used to far more powerful effect.
 
Perhaps his reprogramming is restraining his processing functions?
 
"Only those that truly miss the mark would believe in the subjective nature of beauty." Melody says dismissively of Marivel. "Beauty is something intrinsic. True beauty is not altered by perception. It is objective fact."
 
She looks down at Marivel on the floor as Marivel fangirls. "I have no time for your inane babbling nor the romantic fantasies you are projecting upon him." With a delicate arch of an eyebrow, she does not even address the accusation of clones. Melody does not respond to the accusation of reprogramming him, perhaps because it is true? Or perhaps because Marivel managed to make her wonder if indeed she does know a thing or two about its specifications. "Asgard - capture that one for questioning after the vital signs of the others have ceased." She commands.
 
Marivel's inky black muck isn't even registered as a threat, until it's far too late. Perhaps because it is an energy he hasn't encountered before. Asgard steps into it and it crawls across his boots from the shadows. There's a corrosive hiss, and it's only then that his systems realize the danger.
 
Barriers suddenly coat his feet. Marivel though despite how much she talks him up, might actually get the impression that while this Asgard is very tough, he's definitely not as invincible as she remembers him to be? The evidence is in front of her that he is different from what she remembers, though that could be explained by any number of things.
 
Of course it's hard to see that when he's advancing on Marivel, swatting her out of the way with the barriers she was such a fan of! Perhaps this is fanservice?
 
Gwen's reaction simply gets a haughty laugh, "Ohohohohoho~" And no more. Ethius on the other hand despite crawling on the ground, gets a reaction from the Golem. The swell of electrical energy causes his head to turn, even if Melody's does not. The angle changing subtly on the position of his gauntlet even before the spell fires.
 
The Golem crosses his arms. Electricity crackles across a circular blue disk that erupts outwards from him, skittering across it as it ripples from the force to try to absorb it, and when it fails, to dissipate it.
 
There is a sputtering hiss, like it might succeed, and then the crimson in his eyes flare to life - and his energy output abruptly increases in a terrible surge of power. "My. That was quite terrifying." Melody says, sounding utterly unconcerned about her safety.
 
"Knockoff?" Melody goes cross-eyed at Zed's tone, seeming outraged, but the anger dissipates. "Ah, it seems you fail to understand the position you're in. Poor creature." Zed's headbutt makes contact with his blade as the force of it suddenly snaps it forward at Asgard's fist.
 
And then the blade snaps backward against his head as it is deflected utterly off the barrier back towards him. Asgard just stares at him, as if attempting to learn from this moment - of Zed's invincible skull.
 
And then as if to test that hypothesis, he reaches out with his hand, attempting to clamp down on Zed's head with his incredibly strong fingers, and squeeze. Simultaneously, Dash sends Mega-buster shots at Asgard, as he raises his opposite hand, open palmed he simply intercepts all three buster shots without the use of his barrier. Melody notes to him, "You are the invader here. And yet you seek to lecture me on the harm we cause in our defense? Fool."
 
His hand smokes. The Golem's eyes glow red as it stares at his assailant, then suddenly he hurls Zed straight towards the source of that similar energy that propped up against. Boudicca suddenly might find a Metal Demon flying straight at her.
 
Using the distraction of sending Zed flying, he rushes at Dash and suddenly back-hands him with his barrier encased fist. He then swivels about, and with the pounding of feet, he's rushing at Ethius.
 
Was he attempting to make him complacent? Either way Asgard tries to run him down, striking him with his fist, as he tries to pin him between his hand, his barrier, and the bridge's wall, and crush Ethius' backbone between it.
 
And that is when Avril leaps. At first it seems like the Golem is utterly unaware. Then as she enters into the edge of his periphery at the apex of his leap. He raises a hand. A barrier meets her medium infused blade as sparks dance off of it. And then... the resistance is gone. As her blade plummets down towards his open palm.
 
It looks like her attack succeeded in penetrating her barrier! Except, to her horror she'll realize that is not true, he simply let it in when his hand was in a better position to intercept. And thus position her for an immediate counterattack.
 
He is in fact learning, every time someone sends a blade towards him how to better utilize his barrier. She has the sensation of something wrapping around her, as his barrier encases her in place holding her in mid-air between blue shimmering fields.
 
"What childish nonsense. 'You can do anything as long as you don't give up?' Asgard. Please wake her up to reality."
 
The Golem begins to rear back his fist, as if he were gathering his strength to do just that.
 

GS: Asgard has attacked Marivel Armitage with Barrier Knuckle!
GS: Asgard has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Barrier Knuckle!
GS: Asgard has attacked Dash Caskett with Barrier Knuckle!
GS: Asgard has attacked Zed with Iron Grip!
GS: Asgard has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Iron Grip!
GS: Asgard has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Barrier Bind!
GS: Asgard has attacked Asgard with High Powered Barrier!
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Asgard's High Powered Barrier for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Disease and Poison removed!
GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Asgard!
GS: Mighty! applied to Asgard!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur guards a hit from Asgard's Barrier Bind for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak! applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
GS: Zed guards a hit from Asgard's Iron Grip for 94 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Asgard's Iron Grip for 161 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Asgard's Barrier Knuckle for 89 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ethius Hesiod gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Dash Caskett takes a solid hit from Asgard's Barrier Knuckle for 93 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dash Caskett gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.

'Do not presume to know my heart.'

"I don't," Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus proclaims, his harsh voice ringing out in perfect harmony to the sounds of war that surround it.

"I'm no god. Nor do I want to be. All I know is your actions."

The zweihander exerts tenfold pressure against the surface of those shields, that bulwark that is so very not a human reaction. Perhaps it says much and more about Vinsfeld and his character that it sparks nothing curious or covetous in him, merely inspires him to push Ida back -further-; it is battle data, information to be tabled and potentially used to control the flow of the fight. Simple. Efficient.

Absolutely singular.

Vinsfeld leans his weight into the deadlock until Hyadean exoskeletons encase human flesh -- until that burst of power breaks the stalemate they find themselves in. Vinsfeld stumbles backward several feet, the SLAM of Mad Mountains into the flooring of the bridge stabilizing him for a critical moment. He looks upon her in that new form with a critical eye. Strong. Hybridized. -Dangerous-. He can't see an immediate opening.

"And I see the actions of a merchant princess waving the flag of righteousness in one hand while conveniently shielding her kind with the other. You should feel very happy, Ida Everstead-Rey.

"You make a very radiant poster child, all the better to blind the people to how you and yours pick at their livelihoods like buzzards in the boneyard!"

So he looks to make his own.

The words come with a firebrand's passion, but they're also calculated. If not to hurt, then to enrage. If not to enrage, then to agitate. To bring Ida into a singular focus on that accusation. To create a window.

And it is during this window that he moves. The first is Clarissa, her words reaching his ears. Steel eyes snap in her direction to see the barrel of her weapon pointed his way. His brows knit.

"'The right thing,'" he echoes. He rises back onto his feet, feet braced. "If anything so absolute ever existed, it died in Slayheim and Celest--"

And before he can finish his rhetoric, his world is drowned out in a sea of blue and white.

The beam roars forward, in perfect time with the duplicated assault of the Light Seraph Clarine. Vinsfeld reacts quickly, -sweeping- his blade forward. He deflects beams of light from Clarine's myriad assault, several of them rebounding off the broad edge of Mad Mountains to seemingly scream off in wild, random patterns, some of them screaming dangerously close to Clarine and Clarissa, to force the two of them back, nearer towards Ida; some of them crashing into the second level above them.

The overhang groans ominously.

But Clarine's volley continues, and soon it becomes overwhelming; soon, he is simply attempting, in an ultimately futile effort, to hold Clarine and Clarissa's unified assault at bay with the broad side of his blade. White joins with white in a far greater column of energy together than apart, -knocking- Vinsfeld's weapon back and -engulfing- him in their combined, righteous wrath. It tears the man off his feet; sends him spiraling head over heels.

He lands in a smoking crouch, just in time to see a gaggle of grenades roll to a stop against the toes of his boot.

Vinsfeld frowns.

"Really," is all he manages to get out, deadpanned, before each one goes off in turn with blinding, forceful bursts.

The force rocks him back onto his feet. His arm snaps up, shielding his gaze, a snarl of irritation slipping past his lips as heat and kinetic force ripple across his body.

He snarls. But his eyes are alight. His movements are energetic and swift.

Compared to the weary way of him when they first arrived, this Vinsfeld looks practically like a livewire.

A man doing what he was born to do. And when will it be enough?

The answer is forthcoming with a call of "MUD FLOWER"

Vinsfeld twists himself, just so, at the exact moment that glistening stretch of what was once the very metal floorboards of his ship -crash- into him and -fling- him like the snap of a whip.

He only has the time to brace... and point himself in a very particular direction.

Which is why, when the thusly-called MUD FLOWER sends him flying, Vinsfeld crashes -back- into the upper levels he came from. The support structure is already damaged from the beams of light he had deflected, enough that it protests beneath his ricocheting impact. He rolls to a stop, crouched, head bowed.

When is it enough?

The old warrior lifts up onto his feet.

"... When the last of the men and women who have the audacity to call themselves our masters wholly on the great achievement of 'being born' have bled to the last drop."

And sends his blade crashing down on the very floor beneath him.

And already so damaged, all it takes is that one singular blow to send that great segment of flooring -crashing- downward like an avalanche of shrieking metal --

-- right on top of Ida, Clarine, Clarissa and Violet, all positioned just so beneath it.

"Until every arbitrary line in the sand is washed away by the tide of revolution!"

And there, Vinsfeld all but -surfs- across the tidal wave of destruction that he has created, -springing- off it to land --

-- directly in front of Venetia.

He doesn't attack her, though, as he rises. No. One hand still holds to his blade.

But the other extends out to her. In offering.

"And you could be a part of it."

Because if nothing else, Vinsfeld has grown very adept at seeing the downtrodden.

"No longer be the one trampled underfoot."

GS: Marivel Armitage guards a hit from Asgard's Barrier Knuckle for 69 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Seraph Clarine with Incur My Wrath!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Clarissa Arwin with Incur My Wrath!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Violet Salazar with Incur My Wrath!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Incur My Wrath!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has completed his action.
GS: Clarissa Arwin takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Incur My Wrath for 160 hit points!
GS: Seraph Clarine takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Incur My Wrath for 175 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Clarine gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!!

<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.

<They've really messed him up... poor Asgard. We've gotta--> Avile's worry is cut short with a simple retort from Varius.

<I know. But we gotta get the kid through this fight first, Avile.>

"I'll be okay, Nora," Xiumei answers, breathlessly. She sounds tense, though; it's a nicety, not a kindness. She grits her teeth, her blade in her hand, and she finds she cannot quite get purchase.

"Gh--!"

Xiumei grunts with struggle, exertion, and frustration as her energy blade meets Ganondorf's. The energy field ripples -- and does not break -- before the blade sends her flying back. She slams into the wall, with a crunch, bending some of the Warwing Varukias's wall about her.

"The secrets in her blood? That--" She shakes her head. "I won't let you have them!"

Then, Ganondorf is a blur. He comes in, faster than she can parry, and his blade bites deep into her hip. The armored mesh is cut through; blood wells up, and she hisses, before she looks at him. She stands up.

The gem mounted in her chest armor flashes. The white gem pulses, and then a cone of distortion explodes from it. Where it passes, things freeze in place -- and in time. A bullet here; a fragment from the flooring there.

And, with some luck, Ganondorf too.

GS: Zhang Xiumei has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Timestopper!
GS: Cripple expired!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action.
GS: Violet Salazar takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Incur My Wrath for 175 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey completely evades a hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Incur My Wrath!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Eleanor and Xiumei are right; Ganondorf is no one to take lightly, not even by mistake.

        But this is why Gwen did what she did, because it was clear that if Gwen wanted to stand toe to toe with such powerful foes, she had to take risks.

        It's not a question of being more powerful, but being able to fight back when she was at her lowest point.

        One such point is now, as the king declares his regal status and becomes a flurry of blades, slicing through armor and flesh as if they were one and the same.
        
        With a cry, Gwen is thrown back, the power of the desert king's blades more than enough for any defense she could have mustered on such short notice.

        A king.

        A thief king, Janus had said, an excited light in his eyes. Why didn't she put her foot down then? What could Gwen have done? Of course Janus was going to shoot them all in the back once he got what he wanted, that was just the way he worked, how most people in Little Twister worked. Eat or be eaten.

        Be king, or crushed under the heel of someone else.

        "I'll remind you..." Gwen grunts, pushing herself to one foot, the glowing power of her ARM visible between the cut gaps of her blouse. "You were a king that _no one knew_. When my friend dragged me into this mess, talkin' about a thief king's treasure, I could barely find *anything* about you. That's what the outcome of it all was. The desert claimed all knowledge of you for its own, instead of the other way around. You were _forgotten_, and it might've stayed that way, if..."

        She can't even bring herself to finish her sentence. If not for Janus, if not for her own stupidity, if not for all the mistakes and near successes that didn't matter, in the end, because this man was beyond caring.

        The Mockingbird acts on the sudden rise of anger in Gwen's blood, as well as something else, that threatens to boil over--

        'What is that Dean would say in a time like this?'
        'You can do anything as long as you don't give up?' Asgard. Please wake her up to reality.'

        Dean was always the real deal.

        Gwen closes her eyes, and raises a hand. "You might need more than one hero to strike you down, but us Drifters... _we never give up_. You won't get Eleanor!!"

        From the hand, a diameter of translucent energy stretches out, encompassing the field where the four of them are, then Asgard and Melody's bubble, then Vinsfield's.

        It's not painful, more akin to a static ball in terms of sensation, but what it may do to energy fields and similar methods of defense is all up to the collision of one force against the powers of the fossil embedded in Gwen's ARM.

        And it's just about Gwen's limit, in terms of her strength right now.

        "Xiumei!" Gwen cries out, encouraging her to strike, if she hasn't already.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Zed's black blade is...

DEFLECTED!?

"I-impossible...! No!!" Zed declares in the brief sliver of time before Asgard reaches out and seizes hold of his skull... And squeezes...! Zed opens his mouth to scream--

                                 *SQUEAK~Y*

Is all Zed says instead.

...Asgard squeezes again. Again, a high-pitched *SQUEAK~Y*. Again and again, like some kind of... humanoid... squeaky-toy!?

This lasts for an unusually long time, but even so, Zed's skull is somehow intact, even though his pride PROBABLY IS NOT.

Or maybe it is? Zed is a mysterious creature. Zed is also now a projectile, sailing straight for Searph Boudicca...!

Whereupon he gets... an idea...!

"BOUDICCA!" The Metal Demon yells, "IT'S TIME... FOR *THAT!!*"

What is 'That' you might ask?

Damn good question, because Zed hasn't actually told Boudicca what 'That' is. Is he just leaving it up to her to figure out!? Is he trusting that she will somehow mysteriously *know* what the heck he's talking about!?

DOES ZED HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE?

Find out VERY SOON on Yburnsphere Z...!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Eleanor and Xiumei are right; Ganondorf is no one to take lightly, not even by mistake.

        But this is why Gwen did what she did, because it was clear that if Gwen wanted to stand toe to toe with such powerful foes, she had to take risks.

        It's not a question of being more powerful, but being able to fight back when she was at her lowest point.

        One such point is now, as the king declares his regal status and becomes a flurry of blades, slicing through armor and flesh as if they were one and the same.
        
        With a cry, Gwen is thrown back, the power of the desert king's blades more than enough for any defense she could have mustered on such short notice.

        A king.

        A thief king, Janus had said, an excited light in his eyes. Why didn't she put her foot down then? What could Gwen have done? Of course Janus was going to shoot them all in the back once he got what he wanted, that was just the way he worked, how most people in Little Twister worked. Eat or be eaten.

        Be king, or crushed under the heel of someone else.

        "I'll remind you..." Gwen grunts, pushing herself to one foot, the glowing power of her ARM visible between the cut gaps of her blouse. "You were a king that _no one knew_. When my friend dragged me into this mess, talkin' about a thief king's treasure, I could barely find *anything* about you. That's what the outcome of it all was. The desert claimed all knowledge of you for its own, instead of the other way around. You were _forgotten_, and it might've stayed that way, if..."

        She can't even bring herself to finish her sentence. If not for Janus, if not for her own stupidity, if not for all the mistakes and near successes that didn't matter, in the end, because this man was beyond caring.

        The Mockingbird acts on the sudden rise of anger in Gwen's blood, as well as something else, that threatens to boil over--

        'What is that Dean would say in a time like this?'
        'You can do anything as long as you don't give up?' Asgard. Please wake her up to reality.'

        Dean was always the real deal.

        Gwen closes her eyes, and raises a hand. "You might need more than one hero to strike you down, but us Drifters... _we never give up_. You won't get Eleanor!!"

        From the hand, a diameter of translucent energy stretches out, encompassing the field where the four of them are, then Asgard and Melody's bubble, then Vinsfield's.

        It's not painful, more akin to a static ball in terms of sensation, but what it may do to energy fields and similar methods of defense is all up to the collision of one force against the powers of the fossil embedded in Gwen's ARM.

        And it's just about Gwen's limit, in terms of her strength right now.

        "Xiumei! Eleanor!" Gwen cries out, encouraging them to strike, if they haven't already.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Asgard with St. Elmo's Fire!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

"Okay," the elf answers Xiumei at first--she can hear the tension, of course, still worries, but a battle is a battle. She quickly has conerns, too. Eleanor can't seem to repeat the trick she managed the first time--when the ball of light comes back to her, she can't hit it back, instead swinging into it with a burst of power. Her magic protects her here, a shield of arcane might bursting back against the explosion, the impact still driving her back.

The secrets in her blood? Eleanor doesn't much like the sound of that. "You..." She shakes her head. It's as if there's something on the edge of awareness, but she can't remember seeing it. Maybe... the text...

"What desert is--" Eleanor's words are cut off by the shadowying rushing Ganondorf makes around them. Hit once, twice, more times, Eleanor sees and feels darkness and light tracking around her as she hits the ground, gun clattering against the floor of the deck.

"If you like the desert so much..." Eleanor palms a Crest, the power of Fray twinned on its gilt-inscribed surfaces. She doesn't finish that as a taunt, though. Instead she focuses on her spell, multicolored light gathering around her in sparkling magic. "Principle of consumption, be invoked by my will! Desert of Years!"

Eleanor puts out her hand and a whirlwind of fire erupts forward, a blazing inferno that wears away as much through time as from heat and flame.

"What do you mean, gods tremble?" Eleanor asks in a raised voice as she gets back to her feet, loading her rifle for a followup attack. Gwen's words, paired with Ganondorf, make her wonder--make her think. She can't place it, but--"What gods? What kingdoms? What are you!?"

She looks to Gwen as she, too, defends her--and resolves to be that much stronger for it. "Why do I--"

GS: Eleanor Klein has activated a Force Action!
GS: Eleanor Klein spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Desert of Years!
GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.

With a quick look to one side, Clarissa sends a wide smile Ida's way. She can feel her companion's heart in her words - the honesty of her sentiments shining through like the light of a blazing fire. Clarissa's hand tightens around Strahl Gewehr with a surge of conviction, as if she needed any more, here at this moment.

Beams scatter down around her, tearing into the floor of the bridge - but the beam eventually lands, and Clarissa holds her fire a moment as Vinsfeld emerges from the fire of the grenades. The man's hurting, she can tell - but not so much that she's out of the woods. Opening her mouth to say something, she's cut off when Vinsfeld swings for the flooring.

The ceiling comes down in a devastating wave. Clarissa's eyes go wide at the sight of so much rubble plummeting towards her.

"CLARISSA," a voice suddenly shouts.

Clarissa yelps with surprise as Felius comes hurtling out of nowhere, tackling her from the side and hurling her out of the worst of the crash zone. The pair hit the deck, and the falling structure lands around her - but not on her. Chunks of metal fly, bouncing off of the pair as they tumble away from the thick of the fall zone. A few shards slash across Clarissa's cheeks and shoulders, leaving a few bloody cuts that drip onto the deck.

Wincing, Clarissa touches Felius's shoulder. "Felius... are you alright...?"

"Don't worry about it." The stoic young man got the worst of it, grimacing in pain as he pushes to a knee. "Bring him down, Clarissa."

Clarissa nods, squeezing Felius's shoulder gently before forcing herself back to her feet. Whipping her hair back with a toss of her head, she draws herself up, a little unsteady on her feet for a second.

Then she draws a breath. She seems to stabilize as she does, her eyes sharpening as she watches Vinsfeld confront Venetia. "Don't forget the part where you're going to draw an arbitrary line that lets you trample whoever you want!" she calls at him. "I mean, we get it! You hate masters! And then you attack us for not doing what you tell us, almost like, gasp, you're exactly like a master too!"

Clasping a hand over her heart, Clarissa sweeps her other arm out. "I know you've been hurt. My brother survived what happened in Slayheim, too! But all you're doing is forcing the world to hurt with you - and so long as that's true, I can't let you continue."

GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Clarissa Arwin with My Most Honest Desire!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has completed her action.
GS: Clarissa Arwin heals Clarissa Arwin! She gains 250 temporary hit points!
GS: Asgard takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam! applied to Asgard!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ganondorf Dragmire gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam! applied to Ganondorf Dragmire!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire guards a hit from Zhang Xiumei's Timestopper for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ganondorf Dragmire gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak! applied to Ganondorf Dragmire!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire takes a solid hit from Eleanor Klein's Desert of Years for 153 hit points!
GS: Disease! applied to Ganondorf Dragmire!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a glancing hit from Gwen Whitlock's St. Elmo's Fire for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Jam! applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

        "... oh!" Boudicca realises, in the wake of Avril's declaration. "I see! The key to this battle is --"

        GETTING A ZED TO THE FACE.

        Boudicca ends up catching him entirely haphazardly, and then the both of them shortly end up crashing into a wall of the Warwing. Luckily - it is lucky, isn't it? - Boudicca is between Zed and the wall, so she can absorb most of the impact. Unluckily, Boudicca's manifestation in this world is still covered in plate armour, and that's not exactly padded.

        "Goodness," she remarks, and she's not breathless but that is in no way a reflection of how forceful their landing was, "he is awfully strong, is he not? Are you all right, Zed..?" He... he squeaked. He definitely... squeaked.

        Whatever occurred to her seems to have been rattled right out of her head, but luckily, Zed cues her in. "I see... so this situation calls for 'that', after all..."

        Boudicca doesn't have glasses. The light glints off of her helm, instead.

        He hasn't explained what 'that' is - but she seems to understand what it is perfectly. She hefts Zed up - FUN FACT, Boudicca is just as strong as her statuesque stature implies - and says: "To still be fighting after that... truly, your skull is made of the finest thickness!"

        Then she pauses.

        A moment ticks by.

        "Er..." That's Boudicca realising that maybe that isn't a compliment.

        "In any case, I will here follow Dean's example," Boudicca moves on with all the smoothness of a shark's skin, "and bid us not give up! Zed! Go forth!"

        The wind is with him, as she FLINGS ZED TOWARDS THE GOLEM, and the wind will buffet Asgard in a harsher fashion than the kindly Spring breezes of yore. But whether that gust can even reach him...

        Well, it at least explains what 'that' is.

        They've done this before.

GS: Formation! Seraph Boudicca has attacked Asgard with Recurrent Air!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Recurrent Air for 87 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

        There is a moment when she -- against all better judgement -- thinks she may have gotten the upper hand on Asgard. As if he hasn't leard too much, yet.
        The moment doesn't last long.
        The moment is followed by one in which she realizes to her horror that she's made a serious miscalculation.

        No. She didn't break the barrier. He let her in.

        "No--"

        Even as she reels back, an all-too-late attempt to elude him, it's already too late. The route outwards and away has been thefted from her: she may not be paralyzed -- here she lifts her blade, as if in a guard -- but she cannot escape.

        That fist draws back, slowly.

        What childish nonsense.

        Dean's... motto.

        "You will not mock him," Avril says, and if there had been terror draped upon her before, it now is cast off for the winds to claim. Leveling a look at the both of them -- Melody, Asgard -- Avril thrusts her sword forward without regard to strategy. It might be a feint.

        "I... believe in Dean!"

        It is a feint.

        The blade vanishes. She hooks her finger around the blade's trigger and pulls with all the force she can muster.

        This is no solid beam. It is like a ribbon of light: it dances as it emerges from the hilt. With most of her range of motion stolen from her, all Avril can do now is to swing that plasma beam whip as if it were a sword. Over and over again, to her heart's content.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Asgard with White Blade!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has launched an attack Link!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Asgard with Absolute Zero - Plasma Arc!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters a Counter stance!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Asgard completely evades a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's White Blade!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Asgard critically Guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Absolute Zero - Plasma Arc for 32 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Asgard's Force Guard activates!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

        For a moment, it looks like everything's going to plan as Asgard steps forth and exposes what seems to be a primary defensive mechanism when they cross their arms. He delayed a few syllables for this reason. He wants it there - that they go the extra mile, he believes, is even better. When the Surge Bolt fires, the interaction of light and lightning is blinding... but, somehow, the Symbologist keeps that stare leveled upon it as it goes through the--
        ...
        --it does not go through the barrier.
        "...What?" The show fizzles out almost immediately. Asgard's defenses mitigate the ever-volatile nature of the Surge Bolt until it becomes compatible enough with it to absorb, and Ethius is struck with disbelief and rooted in the spot. The same Ethius who suggested on-the-spot that his assault team had to go out the airlock as if it were an idea one could casually make even with the ninety-percent chance of plummeting to one's death. He does not restrain his words or thoughts with the discipline that normally sees him as little better than a mannequin. "...Impossible...!"
        It takes the spectacle of others' attempts and theatrics to get himself to stand up, and even then it looks more the appearance of someone caught in the crossfire trying for dear life to get up and run rather than the oddly all-too-composed... whatever he is... but by the time he's on his feet, the Golem is already running him down. A fist plunges into him and there is a pained yell as a terrible force both concussive and electrifying looks to flatten him outright.
        The bridge wall gives out first. That's a miracle - if a consequence of the all-out assault converging upon the location like it did, seeing Ethius fall onto his back to sputter and have crush syndrome keep him pinned down in pain. The whole of it demonstrates a difficult truth aptly:
        Asgard's shield cannot be so casually challenged.
        His breathing grows more labored as he throws a hand up atop one of the terminals to stand for support. He flexes and flutters the fingers of his right hand uselessly, in so much that he verbally trips up the spell he intends to cast thrice.
        As if met with a panic the likes of which happened when he and the Caravan Kinship showed up in worlds unfamiliar to them. As if something has just gone off the script, onto a level of improv he is not well-versed in.
        "...No structural weakness that meets the eye," he's even saying his thoughts out loud. (Well, out murmured.) He can't use his own shield to stop another from being overcome by their barrier-clad fists. Even with what little structural damages are being tallied up over time (he sees some of the wear on their feet), no answer or process comes to mind like it normally would.
        The hand that was casting in vain goes to his forehead. He doesn't know what he can do against it. It is a situation that is novel even beyond the realm of his recollections.
        He is reduced to picking up the quarterstaff he dropped when punched up against the wall and just swing. Swing, swing, swing.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Asgard with Spamming Normal Attack!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Asgard takes a glancing hit from Ethius Hesiod's Spamming Normal Attack for 43 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

"Hmhmhm, worry not, friend Seraph! I wear my thickness like a badge of honor! It was only because I was so thick that I survived the Photosphere. That my spirit was not sundered even by Berserk's most merciless beating. Stubborness is as much a part of me as the blood that runs through my veins!" Indeed! Boudicca may be a big ol' softie, but she is still covered in SO MUCH ARMOR! It isn't a pleasant impact! But it's one Zed endures, for the sake of doing 'That.' "That's right. To defeat an opponent who can predict and adapt to anything... To conquer a creature driven by perfect logic... There's only one answer...!"

And that is, apparently, to be hurled head-first at incredible speeds right back into the immovable object that so recently deflected his assault! But this time... This time he isn't alone. This time, he has the wind in his sails, and Boudicca's formidable throwing arm driving his charge! "Whoever you are, purple-hair-lady, you made a terrible mistake. First, you desecrate Sieg's memory and steal Glumzamber. Next, you corrupt the programming of a totally awesome Hyadean super robot. And finally..."

"You disparage the power of DETERMINATION! Here I go! ZEDDDDEEEEEERRRR!!" Zed roars, kicking off apparently empty air and suddenly breaking the sound-barrier. WITH HIS FACE. To slam right into Asgard's head. WITH HIS FACE!! "IIIIIIMPAAAACT!"

GS: Formation! Zed has attacked Asgard with Zedder Impact!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Zed's attack becomes clear!
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Zed's Ultimate Attack of the Week for 202 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida can't afford to take her eyes off Vinsfeld again, but at the same time, Boudicca and Zed and the others are right over there, locked in mortal combat with a horrible woman's automaton. Focus, she reminds herself. Trust in them. And then Vinsfeld hits below the belt, as Ida was expecting him to. And why wouldn't he? It's a very calculated decision, and she realizes this--he's trying to throw her off, to get her to act recklessly.

        On the other hand: Ida has had an absolutely miserable twenty-four hours or so.

        The heiress lets out a wordless snarl, and shoves back--and in that instant, Vinsfeld slips away. Invective boils up in Ida's throat, and then dies before she can give voice to it. She remembers the promise she made to Cidney, and holds on to it.

        Vinsfeld deflects Clarine's assault, sending rays of light everywhere. One of them whizzes past Ida's head, missing her ear by inches. A second one glances off her right shield. "Every line?" Ida says, her voice low and trembling with rage. "What do you think Solaris will have to say about that?"


There's no time to say any more. The catwalk collapses, rushing down in a tidal wave of twisted metal. Ida reacts with blinding speed--she twists on a heel, tenses, and throws herself forwards. At the apex of her leap, she twists into a tuck-and-roll, giving herself a little extra momentum. It barely works. Shards of armored plate that were once the Varkusias' upper bridge chase her the entire way. Several glance off her exoskeleton. Ida rises to a knee, turns, and--

        Looks at Venetia Vuong, her face unreadable. She's from Void 41, Ida reminds herself. Had family in 47, probably. She has every reason to consider.

        Will she?

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel is still looking at the world through rose colored glasses. Rose colored glasses that are taped up in the middle. For the moment, she is simply wondering if she and her friends are stronger than they look or if maybe Asgard is holding back. Perhaps he is fighting his own programming?! BECAUSE HE HAS A SOUL!?!?!?

"It's not a romantic fantasy." Marivel protests. "It's a romantic reality. Lived in experience we're talking abo----UUUT!'

She's swatted through space with a single backhand. It's almost comical how readily Marivel goes flying though the remains of a crackling barrier indicate that the blow didn't CRUSH her as hard as Melody might've wishedfor.

She drops down into a crouch, gritting her teeth for a moment.

"Woof...! Haha! Asgard's tough and I'm guessing that lady's no slouch either!"

She stands up slowly, stretching her arms from side to side as she limbers up.

"Hm.... Though there's one way to be certain I suppose..."

She suddenly leaps forward, lashing out with a hand as she attempts to smack it into Asgard's body--

--draining a small part of ITS essence to fuel her own. Is she trying to... STEAL HIS WEAPON!?

Of course she is. naturally, the barrierm ight resist it but--if you never try for blue magic, you'll always be blue!

Wait no red magic I said red magic! Red power! Yeah! Red. Not blue.

GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Asgard with Life Drain!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Life Drain for 187 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage drains Asgard! Marivel Armitage gains 50 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

 
Venetia's spell completes and she takes pains to put the Crest Graph away, for it is not a good thing to lose your magic right now. When she looks up -

Well, there he is. And her without her gun.

Venetia's face blanches at the sheer presence but Rhadamanthus is speaking to her. She reviews what he said, and she says to him, after a moment, "You mean forty-seven, of course."

(What? Of course, to Guild Galad locals it is known history, true believers...)

"I see," she says a second later, gazing at him. The lace mask does not hide the shock, the tension in her face, controlled but not at all absent.

"I remember when the foundries were damped," Venetia says, "and our wealth and our hard work was thrown aside, and everything for which we'd worked choked and melted and die beneath our feet."

Venetia takes a deep breath.

"And I will speak with you on the level since you aren't trying to kill me right now," Venetia continues: "If you had been trying to seize Guild Galad I might well take your hand."

"But that isn't what you are doing," Venetia says. Her wounded hand tenses a little. "Is it? You're striving for something. What your group has done seems to have all been chaos and destruction. Visitation of horror. You have this great vessel but you use it to strike here. What I see from your actions is chaos. You did not use the Sorcery Globe to send the Master to Spira, or to force a paradise in the arctican wastes. You used it to hurl however many hundreds of Drifters."

"You might say that this is parochial," Venetia says. "I suppose you'd be right. But a hundred years ago, this machine or whatever you used to built it existed. Meria Boule, Sylvaland, Aveh, Kislev - they were there, if different. There were places then too, that are now gone. But do you know what was not there? Neither Void 41 nor 47, my good fellow."

Venetia then reaches forwards to give Vinsfeld a pat on the shoulder, the same pauldron she touched.

"We have enough ruins," Venetia concludes. "Make the future, don't just slaughter the present."

Venetia then glances at Ida for a moment. Her brow knits.

Solaris? she thinks. It is not said but it is all but visible on her face. (Her other hand also goes back into the Crest Graph pouch, although she apparently used up all of her AP giving that talk.)

GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Mimic Daravon!
GS: Hyper expired!
GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.

Vinsfeld SMASHES Mad Mountains into the second-storey catwalk, breaking it in pieces that rain directly on Violet -- frame, bracing, bits of wiring and consoles. She is buried underneath it. It takes some time -- and no lack of determination -- to dig herself out. Her ARM, thankfully seems undamaged.

Not so Violet herself. Her dress is bloody from scrapes -- and perhaps a cracked rib or two, and she is covered in bruises and a plethora of minor cuts. A long, deep slice along her right outer thigh will need stitching -- or magical healing -- fairly soon. At least it isn't spraying blood! She may have a slight concussion, too. Panting for breath (painfully), Violet aims Jeremiah at Vinsfeld and pulls the trigger. This is one of her armor-piercing cartridges; maybe it'll be enough to go through his defenses.

        Maybe.

GS: Violet Salazar spends 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Finishing Touch!
GS: Hyper expired!
GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Ganondorf Dragmire has posed.

"Yes! You speak true!" Ganondorf declares to Gwen. "They couldn't beat me, so they buried me. That is the way of your gods! Your Hero could not beat me! Your Princess could not beat me! Your Sages could not beat me! And when they begged for salvation, the Gods, what did they do?"

He roars with spiteful laughter, lips turned back in a sneer. "Look at what has become of this world! A dead sea, a dying land! Even the sky grows still! YOUR GODS DESTROYED YOU!!!"

He withers then under Eleanor's spell, groaning as the weight of years lands upon him. He whips his eyes up toward her, blazing, and then jumps OVER Xiumei, landing directly in front of Eleanor. "I am Ganondorf Dragmire. I am the King of the Gerudo, the Thieves in the Desert. And I am the man who invaded the sanctum of the Gods, and claimed their greatest glory as my own!" He slams his fist into her stomach, and an EXPLOSION of energy rips out of the impact, a blast of white-tinged and divine gold light raying outward in every direction. He spins then. "Not one of you has noticed, have you? Ignoring the signs in front of your nose!" he seethes. "Then let an old man educate you! On the fact that Wisdom will always survive the eras!"

He whirls on Xiumei, blades in attack posture. He raises one and it BLAZES with darkness, which he crashes down upon her guard with enough force that the plating below buckles. "That Power will always wait for one who dares to use it!"

Then, for Gwen, he....sheathes both his swords. And marches toward her, his feet slowly gathering speed as darkness gathers in his clenched fist. "That Courage will always be tested!"

He slams it into Gwen and another eruption of power rushes out, puncturing entirely through her and scorching the wall around her, leaving a blast shadow of her silhouette.

        "That for thousands of years, you have missed the hand of the power that shapes the world!"

GS: Ganondorf Dragmire spends 4 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Eleanor Klein with No Gods Or Masters!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire enters a Counter stance!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire's  stance ends. He enters the  stance!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Zhang Xiumei with Warlock Blade!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Warlock Punch!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Disrupt expired!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has completed his action.
GS: Eleanor Klein takes a glancing hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's No Gods Or Masters for 0 hit points!
GS: Poison and Reaper! applied to Eleanor Klein!
GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Eleanor Klein takes an additional 20 damage from Reaper!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

Vinsfeld flies up. Clarine watches him carefully, readying herself to avoid whatever it is he has planned. Surely, with the security provided by being three different targets, she will be able to avoid his next attack...

...Which is about when Vinsfeld elects to collapse the whole darn upper floor onto all of them. Clarine's eyes open wide in shock as she is buried in metal debris.

Normally, this wouldn't be an issue for Clarine. As a Seraph, she can pass through most objects just fine, when she elects to. But, it's the funny thing about Resonance - being able to perceive Seraphim allows you to act upon them, and dropping a floor on one certain counts.

And so it is that Clarine appears to lie unmoving underneath the pile of debris. And then... the rubble shifts. A set of silver mirrors, cracked and damaged by the attack, carefully rise up, and with them, Clarine crawls out of the pile of twisted steel. She's not used to hurting like this, and she looks dissheveled in a way she isn't used to... but, she's still alive.

"...And what lies beyond that, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus...?" Clarine asks. She rises to her feet - and more, as she rises off the ground with her remaining mirrors float about her. And then, once more, she rushes Vinsfeld. But this time, she performs no disappearing act. She meets him head on.

"When you have slain your enemies, what will you do?" She asks of him. Her mirrors move with her and, with a series of commanding gestures, they lash out at Vinsfeld, striking at him like serpents. "How do you intend to repair the world once you have, as you put it, if I recall, 'burned out the rot'? What of the lives caught up and torn part within the crossfire of your grand design? What of the damage to the land your revolution will inevitably cause?"

As she speaks, Clarine rises, until she's above all of them - visible above the violence. She turns toward her friends, then.

"...Hold those feelings close! The desire to endure and fight against such a foe, to stay true to your beliefs even in the face of a man such as him... It is your will that has restored my faith in mortals, and it is that will that I believe in!" Clarine intones. And from her body, she emits a radiant light - a warm, encouraging, protective light that shines over her allies.

GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's Warlock Punch for 138 hit points!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Zhang Xiumei takes a solid hit from Ganondorf Dragmire's Warlock Blade for 154 hit points!
GS: Zhang Xiumei enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Seraph Clarine spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Seraph Clarine enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Solar Ascent!
GS: Seraph Clarine has launched an attack Link!
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Clarissa Arwin with Radiant Horizon!
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Radiant Horizon!
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Venetia Vuong with Radiant Horizon!
GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Violet Salazar with Radiant Horizon!
GS: Seraph Clarine has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action.
GS: Violet Salazar takes a solid hit from Seraph Clarine's Radiant Horizon for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Violet Salazar!
GS: Venetia Vuong takes a solid hit from Seraph Clarine's Radiant Horizon for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Venetia Vuong!

<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

"You attacked us first!" Dash retorts back toward Melody. "There is no good from what you are trying to do!"

His attack does little to affect the barrier, which is highly frustrating. Just what was enforcing it? And what was that odd Circuit he was known to have about? It reminded him of Kamui's special circuit.

Whoever makes these types of items must be very intelligent.

"Careful, cool-scarfed guy!" Dash calls out toward Zed as the fellow goes flying in what looks like some kind of horrific pretzel shape. Previous sightings of terrible body-shape manipulation has taught Dash that he can recover, fortunately.

There is something else to recover from, however. A giant fist looking to slam him through the far wall. "Eep!" The Drill Arm is brought up as a makeshift shield, and the hand impacts and forces the ARM chassis to buckle inward, sending shockwaves through Dash's systems, causing stress on the internals. "Urgh! You sure have been given some muscle!"

The impact forces Dash backward a good ten feet before nearly stumbling over. "Okay, let's try this again!"

The boy waits for the right time after Avril's assault to change the solar frequency on the Buster, riddling the air ahead with near-white buster fire. It has a scintillating effect as it flies, and is quite difficult to look at directly.

But under the cover of the attack, Dash's Jet Skates have revved to full power, and so has the Drill Arm. So much so that it produces a vortex of energy around it. "Ill get through that shield yet!" he calls

And rushes in swiftly, hopefully leaving little time to react!

GS: Dash Caskett spends 2 Combo on Poison and Link!
GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Asgard with Radiant Rain!
GS: Dash Caskett has launched an attack Link!
GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Asgard with Full Burst Drill!
GS: Dash Caskett has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.
GS: Clarissa Arwin takes a solid hit from Seraph Clarine's Radiant Horizon for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Clarissa Arwin!
GS: Clarissa Arwin enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Asgard guards a hit from Dash Caskett's Radiant Rain for 33 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Poison! applied to Asgard!
GS: Asgard's Force Guard activates!
GS: Asgard takes a glancing hit from Dash Caskett's Full Burst Drill for 75 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Asgard's Force Evade activates!
GS: CRITICAL! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Venetia Vuong's Mimic Daravon for 0 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Seraph Clarine's Radiant Horizon for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!

<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
BGM: Get Over the Barrier! - Zero no Kiseki OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-azjB3lsUTU
 
In truth, besides Asgard, Melody is watching Vinsfeld and Ganondorf more than anyone else in the room. Yet she gives little indication of it. She knows that it would be fairly easy to damage their relationship with but a single misspoken word at men such as those.
 
Ethius notes the impossibility of him being unable to overload his systems. Melody responds, "It is only impossible to those ignorant to the beauty of Asgard's systems."
 
Asgard learns an important detail about Zed's invincible skull. It is invincible because it has the consistency of a rubber toy. His systems begin calculating the best way to deal with a being with such a makeup.
 
He is in the midst of being ready to crash his fist into Avril's body when Gwen sends staticky energy his way. It dances around Melody like there is a faraday cage in the air. While Asgard's barrier keeps shifting angle to try to keep up with it. Has she briefly confounded his sensors?
 
Melody simply delicately lifts a sleeve and points Gwen's way. Rings of energy appear around her, and run up and down the length of her body. It offers in return terrible agony for her trouble, like the energy is attacking her on some level she cannot comprehend. It is done with all the consideration of squashing a fly.
 
Perhaps she doesn't want Asgard's systems to reconsider the merits of not crushing Avril immediately.
 
And that is when the same energy his sensors picked up earlier sends the being with the squeaky skull hurtling his way. Zed impacts, and suddenly Asgard for all of his mass is being driven back by the momentum of the Zedder Impact, his large boots scraping against the floor, as his head snaps back from the impact.
 
He has too much mass to be moved very far though, Avril is still well within range. "Who?" Melody asks, as if she's puzzled at Avril's invocation. "I have no idea who you're talking about."
 
The first strike without any strategy strikes the barrier, glancing off of it. But the blade vanishes. And suddenly Asgard senses an intense amount of energy.
 
The whip slashes down at him, and suddenly he's forced to loosen one hand to deflect the energy of it, again. And again. For a creature that looks like it lumbers, he is surprisingly quick, even the lashing light of her whip is struck again and again by his hand.
 
On her final strike, his fingers open and he catches it. The Hyadean alloy he is made of smokes under the strain of holding it.
 
"Determination only moves mountains so far." Melody says, completely unacknowledging of Zed's effort, "It is the ages that grind everything to dust. The beauty of Asgard however, is that he will not decay - no matter what he is exposed to. No matter how many centuries pass. He - is perfect."
 
Dash's scintillating attack momentarily blinds Asgard's sensors, but not for long. He senses the incoming rush and brings up his barrier. The drill arm's bit tip dances off blue light in a dangerous dance like it is attempting to penetrate and having a hard time figuring out how to gain purchase.
 
Eventually it does seem like he's met enough resistance to drive it straight in.
 
Ethius has been swinging at his barrier for some time now. And each time there's a burst of energy preventing it from making direct contact. However, Asgard seems to finally notice the energy drain and looks straight at him. And rears back the hand holding Avril's whip.
 
Marivel makes her move at that moment, and Asgard's barrier gets in the way of it. However, when it was Ethius swinging a staff he only noticed a small energy drain. Now it is a much larger energy drain. And rapid. Suddenly his fist stops before it falls upon Ethius.
 
Red Skill Learned: ?????
 
"Lived reality? Well if you wish to elaborate now, I will hardly stop you. It matters not, as there will be plenty of time later to get to the truth of the matter. I have just the chemicals in mind for your strange constitution."
 
So many attacks have come so quickly, that suddenly his sensors have picked up on their swarm tactics - all of them ganging up so swiftly on him that he can't get a good blow in.
 
His Gemini Circuit decides the best action is a show of overwhelming force. Abruptly he raises his fist like he's going to slam it straight into Marivel.
 
And instead crashes it down into the floor of the bridge. A layer of the floor underneath him ruptures as he sends his barrier down within it. Disintegrating instantly in a shower of debris that rains all around them.
 
The green energy of his barrier immediately floods out of it in an auroral wave of blinding blue-green - attempting to overwhelm all of his foes at once.
 

GS: Asgard has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Eliminate Scanner!
GS: Asgard takes 30 damage from Poison!
GS: Cover, Riposte, and Stagger expired!
GS: Asgard has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Venetia speaks, and Ida listens. The young heiress gives a single, genuine bow, and turns back to Vinsfeld. "There was a time," she adds, "when I, too, would have been tempted." It's a grave admission, delivered with solemnity and no small amount of guilt.

        Then she surges forwards, crossing the distance between herself and Vinsfeld. Golden-white light flows from her fingertips as she clenches them together, the armor around her hands twisting into bladed edges. Ida's footwork changes, becoming more like a twisting, violent dance, quick as lightning--she slashes repeatedly, letting Fafnir take over the violence for a moment.

        This is because Ida, proper, is listening to Ganondorf Dragmire, King of Evil, as he hurls accusations against the gods themselves. As he brings the terrible power to bear against Gwen, Eleanor, and the others. "GWEN!" Ida screams, her voice entirely out of synch with her body

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Venetia speaks, and Ida listens. The young heiress gives a single, genuine bow, and turns back to Vinsfeld. "There was a time," she adds, "when I, too, would have been tempted." It's a grave admission, delivered with solemnity and no small amount of guilt.

        Then she surges forwards, crossing the distance between herself and Vinsfeld. Golden-white light flows from her fingertips as she clenches them together, the armor around her hands twisting into bladed edges. Ida's footwork changes, becoming more like a twisting, violent dance, quick as lightning--she slashes repeatedly, letting Fafnir take over the violence for a moment.

        This is because Ida, proper, is listening to Ganondorf Dragmire, King of Evil, as he hurls accusations against the gods themselves. As he brings the terrible power to bear against Gwen, Eleanor, and the others. "GWEN!" Ida screams, her voice entirely out of synch with her body.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Muscle Memory!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Stoic stance ends.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Asgard has activated a Force Action!

<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.

"I don't know what he is!" Xiumei calls out, a hint of panic in her voice. "Varius and Avile... they've never even heard of him!"

Her eyes turn back, to look at Ganondorf, as he speaks and explains some. A dying land -- and something about their gods. She starts to wonder, then, exactly how old he is. She hasn't heard of the Gerudo, of Ganondorf, or any of the like, and her family trades in the relics of the past.

But, more than that, he closes in on Eleanor. "NORA!" she screams, as he unleashes a blast into her.

He slams his blades down. They strike into her armored body and pitch her back. She flies, ragdolling, and bounces across the ground. The flooring is dented and bent in her passing. She comes up in a three-point stance, blood running down her face from a cut on her forehead and a split lip.

She holds her hand out, a piece of metal shaped like a cross appears. A field of energy appears around it, and she throws it. The weapon spins through the air, lashing out at Ganondorf, even as Xiumei leaps into the air.

She backflips, and doesn't bother to catch the Barrier Cross. Instead, she makes her handcannon appear. She fires a trio of shots down at Ganondorf from above.

"And you think you can find that power, now!?" she shouts down at him.

And then she drops down. The Pulse Saber appears again, its pale green blade of light exploding, and it leaves after images as she cuts down for Ganondorf as she dives at him.

GS: Zhang Xiumei has activated a Force Action!
GS: Zhang Xiumei spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Formation! Zhang Xiumei has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Soaring Cross Strike!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has launched an attack Link!
GS: Zhang Xiumei spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Zhang Xiumei has attacked Asgard with Rushing Pulse Blitz!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action.
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus critically Guards a hit from Violet Salazar's Finishing Touch for 30 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Shield! applied to Violet Salazar!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a glancing hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Muscle Memory for 38 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mighty! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: CRITICAL! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Seraph Clarine's Solar Ascent for 100 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Quick and Shield! applied to Seraph Clarine!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Force Guard activates!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Asgard takes a glancing hit from Zhang Xiumei's Rushing Pulse Blitz for 127 hit points!
GS: Asgard's Force Evade activates!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Asgard spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Asgard has attacked Marivel Armitage with Barrier Flood!
GS: Asgard has attacked Zed with Barrier Flood!
GS: Asgard has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Barrier Flood!
GS: Asgard has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Barrier Flood!
GS: Asgard has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Barrier Flood!
GS: Asgard has attacked Dash Caskett with Barrier Flood!
GS: Asgard takes 25 damage from Poison!
GS: Lock state and Mighty expired!
GS: Asgard has completed his action.
GS: Zed takes a glancing hit from Asgard's Barrier Flood for 95 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Zed gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Asgard's Eliminate Scanner for 70 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Disrupt expired!
GS: Marivel Armitage guards a hit from Asgard's Barrier Flood for 112 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Asgard's Barrier Flood for 196 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: COUNTER! Avril Vent Fleur counterattacks Asgardwith Counter Attack!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Asgard's Barrier Flood for 199 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Dash Caskett takes a solid hit from Asgard's Barrier Flood for 190 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dash Caskett gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Asgard critically Guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Counter Attack for 23 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Asgard's Barrier Flood for 86 hit points!
GS: Zhang Xiumei spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Zhang Xiumei has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Rushing Pulse Blitz!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zhang Xiumei has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

        Impossible, Ethius says, and Boudicca's heart aches for him. How hard must it be, for him to say it out loud? She has never known him to be given to vocalising his thoughts.

        "Our romantic reality..." Boudicca trails off, and the words which echo through her mind here - come from across the battlefield, clear as day by the light Seraph Clarine. What will he do, whence they lie?

        How do they get past that shield? If she knew, she would tell Dash, certainly. She does not know him well, but she knows him to be an upstanding fellow.

        But she doesn't know. She had an idea - and Asgard simply hit her hard enough to empty it out of her skull. Perhaps that's the continuation of the metaphor. He cannot break her bones, and yet...

        This is the beauty of his systems.

        "You are terribly preoccupied with beauty," Boudicca remarks, to Melody. "Is that what is necessary, when your face is the only mask you wear..?"

        Her grey-green gaze levels on her, and Boudicca accuses: "Your heart is not so beautiful, I think." There's real anger there, whether Melody can hear it or not, and perhaps it has something to do with the spell she points towards Gwen Whitlock. Yes, Boudicca can hear her - and she worries for this, too.

        He is perfect, says Melody, and the immortal spirit listens.

        He is perfect, and he swings his fist down.

        The ground trembles. The ground SHATTERS. And Boudicca - Boudicca, who expresses domination over the element she succeeds through dried leaves and polished wood - Boudicca flies over the debris, into the shockwave.

        Her skin ripples. Her steel ripples. It might take a moment to realise the effect - it isn't really rippling at all. It's shimmering, the effect of a being phasing in and out of existence, noncommittal to the prospect of physicality. She leaps into the epicentre and her entire existence yearns to become light, a wisp of light-green air which can carry a ribbon away from harm.

        She doesn't even manage to land particularly close.

        But she isn't flung to the far wall of the Warwing, either.

        "You fool," she says, all landed in a heap, and pain wreathes through her words though her bones are miraculously unbroken. (They ought not be whole. Not in the wake of that.) "You absolute charlatan! Do you think immunity from centuries shields you from the scratches of the world?! Even if you reformed yourself a hundred times - even if you changed your mask each day --"

        Boudicca gets a hand under herself; Boudicca pushes herself standing. Her voice rises up, too. "-- the world is deeper than your skin! And we feel it! Every day we live, WE FEEL IT!"

        A Seraphic glyph below her feet, and the breeze arcs out, again, and it flows past Ethius who calls it impossible, and past Zed who keeps fighting, and past Dash who keeps asking, and past Marivel and her intense curiosity, and past Avril and her sheer unbridled belief --

        -- and it curls past Asgard, too, who still stands whole.

        "Even those of us who cannot die will wither without care and consideration..!"

        That thing which was punched right out of her mind - it was the idea that to win this battle, they would need to be unpredictable. This is the gift of her element, after all.

GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Zed with Pleasant Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Marivel Armitage with Pleasant Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Pleasant Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Pleasant Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Dash Caskett with Pleasant Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Pleasant Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Asgard with Pleasant Breeze!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Seraph Boudicca! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Asgard! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Zed! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Dash Caskett! He gains 100 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

Eleanor stares for a long few moments at Ganondorf as he makes his declaration to Gwen, unable to move her weapon into position to attack. Something about what he's saying makes her uneasy even beyond the power it implies.

"That's not--" Eleanor shouts back at Ganondorf, rising as she casts her spell. The words cut off, though. She knows what she was going to say isn't true. But he lands right in front of her a moment later, and the elf blinks, taking a half-step back. It's not enough; he slams his fist into her stomach and the explosion that rips from the impact knocks her from her feet. Eleanor flies across the deck into the wall, where she impacts it hard and hits the ground, still smoking from whatever that power was. "Aah--I--"

Eleanor holds herself up with her hands, dazed. "Wisdom... Power... Courage," she repeats. "It is--it's from the texts--" Her eyes snap open the rest of the way and she pushes herself up, scrabbling around for her firearm. "The forbidden books..."

She winces, then, power still crackling around her--perhaps strangely, it didn't defeat her on its own. Instead she looks at Ganondorf with new eyes.

"I'm--I'm all right!" she calls at Xiumei. "I can take it!"

For now, anyway. But she looks down to her weapon and starts to lift it again. She can feel her spells seem distant. "...Wisdom will survive," Eleanor says, something firm and fervent in her voice. "Courage will face you!"

Coughing again, Eleanor hefts her rifle, aiming it carefully this time for Ganondorf. Once... Once she couldn't have aimed at a man's heart like this.

"I..." She bites her lip, and adjusts her stance, leaning further down for more stability. "But why do I know...?" She closes her eyes, puts it out of her mind for a moment, and lines up her shot. From her position on the ground, battered and still smoking, Eleanor pulls the trigger.

With a roar the great rifle fires, and Eleanor's next words are quieter. "...But I'm... I'm not the one who's going to defeat you, am I?"

GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Dead Shot!
GS: Eleanor Klein takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Eleanor Klein's Stoic stance ends. She enters the Avenger stance!
GS: Eleanor Klein takes 27 damage from Poison!
GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Ethius Hesiod! He gains 100 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

        Melody's calm demeanor as she explains the perfection of this Asgard unit does little to give the Symbologist among the lot dogpiling the ancient weapon much in the way of satisfactory explanations - he is left desperately swinging. It is a distinctly amateurish approach, of a man who seems to have run out of ideas as to how one might be able to fight this back. To remove it, to...
        Asgard looks to him and rears back a fist, and Ethius' offensive falters as he starts rearing a foot back to try and move back. He likely will not be able to - he has observed it closing distances quickly, to say nothing of their wingspan.
        The fist stops. He's not sure why. (He catches sight of Marivel doing something a ways off but does not immediately attribute it to her.) He does not stop to gawk. He's sucking in breath as he steps back, before Asgard resumes swinging down a crushing fist upon him. He staggers back towards a terminal to rest a hand upon. Winded. He sees that fist raised again for Marivel. There's not much he can do for her (regardless of her tenuous grasp of the concept of mortality).
        His ability to read how to bypass their defenses may not be enough.
        But he can read the motions of the intent - to slam the very ground. He catches the way the energy moves down the fist before it strikes.
        Ethius takes a giant leap of faith from the top of the terminal as a green energy wave erupts from the barrier. He leaps clear over it--
        --but not the debris and destruction it leaves behind, crossing that arm inward again to slurred syllables to re-activate his Symbological shield. The debris that form and fall are often small, pointy, and flying about at dangerous velocities. Instead of impaling him, they deflect off to electrical noises.
        Larger, slower debris still pelt him, and that much is not so easily shrugged off as he flops onto the ground on the other side of the expanding wave. The alternative was 'probable disintegration.' Being pelted by debris and having a rougher landing is... a more preferred outcome. He is not aware of it, but it is through a pleasant warm breeze by Boudicca that he lands in a way that he can actually stand up. (It's sharp down there and all around himself.)
        "Perhaps... you speak the truth," Ethius remarks as he rises. His voice doesn't regain his trademark composure just yet. It is punctuated by heavier breathing. "It would appear that Asgard is, indeed, designed to last. The defenses appear... without flaw."
        He nearly catches a foot in some of the ruptured ground. Almost ironic, he might think.
        "I see no further reason to attempt to overcome what cannot be overcome." It sounds an awful lot like a surrender, but then...
        He slams the butt of the quarterstaff down. It doesn't echo that well across the floor, this time, as he holds out his right hand again and starts to flutter his fingers in small, repetitive patterns... until he's done speaking normal conversation words.
        "It would appear this Asgard is the perfect fortress upon the ground it has been erected, unto that of a fortress."
        He starts chanting syllables and continues with the rest of the gesticulations involved, having shaved off a fraction of effort by leading with the tiny gestures he kept doing over and over until he was ready to continue the spell.
        "Overheat." Ethius finishes the spell - and the very ground underneath Asgard starts to turn molten.
        As if Ethius were content to try and make as deep a hole as he could in the bridge. It might not root Asgard in place, but the idea is there - if he can void the ground underneath and/or force him to mitigate efforts to do /that/, the harder it might be for him to punch back with full force.
        "It can continue to endure the centuries far below."

GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Asgard with Overheat!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Shield expired!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Overheat for 96 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Weaken! applied to Asgard!

<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.

If nothing else, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has an uncanny gift for making someone feel singled out, like a spotlight has been shined down on them. In this moment, all that pitched battle might as well deteriorate away.

There's just a hand, offered out, just waiting to be taken.

To say he is not paying attention, however, would be grievously false. From his peripherals, he sees the others outpacing or even clawing -out- of the destruction he has wrought, slowly but surely. His hand clenches ever-tighter upon his weapon in the subtlest of clenches.

But the steel of the old warrior's gaze is cast wholly on Venetia, waiting for that response.

It's Clarissa's words, first, that cut through the silence. Behind closed lips, the commander of Odessa grinds his teeth.

'-- you're exactly like a master too!'

And that breaks his attention away from Venetia if briefly as the man looks over his shoulder.

He looks as if he has words to say. His lips part as if ready to let Clarissa know just what those words are --

'And I will speak with you on the level since you aren't trying to kill me right now.'

But Venetia's answer stalls him.

The leader of Odessa looks her way. A hand finds its way to his shoulder.

'Make the future, don't just slaughter the present.'

And the hand that had been given in offering snaps up to seize that wrist by its third pat.

"That's unfortunate," he says, slowly. "I thought you'd understand one simple reality: we won't have a future while the present still lives--"

The first is a thin line of translucent energy; he barely sees it from his peripherals. "Dammit--" he begins, and to his credit, the man -snaps- away from Venetia with dizzying reaction times, looking to backstep away from the encroaching assault. But static rules his life with briefest discomfort, the shock racing its disruptive path through his systems. It doesn't hurt -- not nearly, not for someone like him --

-- but it does distract.

The first is Violet's armour-piercing round. Vinsfeld -slams- his sword into the ground beneath him, and then yanks it -forward-. Metal plating rips out of the ground with a hideous shriek, creating an improvised barrier between himself and the fired shot. It pierces through -- but what remains simply does not have the force behind it to pierce through armor. What it -does- to is -crack- into his chest with violent force, sending him staggering backwards, off his footing with a snarl.

"Tch -- you can't 'let' me," he snaps off as he begins to recover. "I didn't come this far to be allowed anything. Things must be -taken- and -earned-. And we will get what we are all owed--"

And then, there is Ida, blitzing into his defenses. Those bladed fists strike out, and to his credit, Vinsfeld manages to parry some of them, even off his footing as he is -- but he is compromised, and soon overwhelmed. A sharpened hand -carves- across his chest. Another cuts a shallow wound across his neck, dangerously close to that most vital artery. A third punctures his side.

"I -- ghn -- know exactly what they will say," he says, defiant through the pain and the blows.

"And I know exactly what our response should, and will, be!"

And with that, his weapon -sweeps- upward, to knock Ida away with great force.

... Which leaves him alone, and open, to the mirror strike of Clarine's blows and words. The floating weapons lash out, crashing into him, every blow parried joined by one that cuts past armor or hammers into bones. He feels his ribs protest and crack.

He presents himself as an icon to his people. He is capable of absurd feats.

But he is still, ultimately, flesh and bone too. Just a man.

And it's in spite of that fact that he -pushes- past the pain, and keeps -fighting-.

In the end of that blitz, Vinsfeld is on one knee, taking slow breaths. His head is bowed. But it's not just Clarine's assault that reaches him. It's her words, and Clarissa's.

'My brother survived what happened in Slayheim, too!'

'When you have slain your enemies, what will you do?'

"..."

Blood and spit are wiped from his lips. He takes in a slow breath.

What lies beyond that...?

<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.

                                              It was once a village.
                                                 Now, it is salt.

                                              The old warrior stands
                                               amongst the wreckage.

                                                He sees the ghosts
                                                 of what once was.

                                              His fingers touch upon
                                               civilization's walls.

                                                And he watches them
                                                crumble to so much


                                                     nothing.


"... You could've seen it for your own eyes, if you wanted."

His weapon -slams- into the ground. He rises.

"If you took my hand. But you didn't."

He drags that weapon around him in a circle. Sparks grow at the tip of Mad Mountains' blade.

"So -- languish with the rest of the specters of history."

And from those sparks comes a flame.

A flame that -expands- from all around Vinsfeld with the violent, forceful SWEEP of his blade, until he has created an ever-growing field of conflagration, set to consume anything in its path.

Vinsfeld does not do subtle with his imagery.

"Unfulfilled, and unknowing of what truly satisfied world looks like!"

But for all his confident rhetoric, to those who have not bought in to the man's words --

-- it's an open question whether he even knows what such a world would look like.

GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has activated a Force Action!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Venetia Vuong with You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead Can Know No
Shame!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Violet Salazar with You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead Can Know No
Shame!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Clarissa Arwin with You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead Can Know No
Shame!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Seraph Clarine with You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead Can Know No
Shame!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead Can Know
No Shame!
GS: Hyper and Shield expired!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has completed his action.
GS: Clarissa Arwin takes a glancing hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead Can
Know No Shame for 89 hit points!
GS: Poison! applied to Clarissa Arwin!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Clarine guards a hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead
Can Know No Shame for 150 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Clarine gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Poison! applied to Seraph Clarine!
GS: Venetia Vuong completely evades a hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead
Can Know No Shame!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Venetia Vuong gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Venetia Vuong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Violet Salazar critically Guards a hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here For The Dead
Can Know No Shame for 36 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Violet Salazar gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        Hero. Princess. Sage. Gods.

        Gwen's not sure what all of this refers to, but Xiumei and Eleanor's bewilderment is expected. Maybe, if Gwen hadn't made that deal of hers, she would have been scared with the little context she *did* possess.

        "It was because of my friend that I came into the possession of one of the pieces he needed to unseal Ganondorf. Three pieces, in total." She puts up three fingers, indicating the three parts of the whole. "In northern Elru, I think, there were murals, depicting a boar monster, and a young el--"

        But Gwen is unable to finish the rest, as her earlier hubris catches up with her. The same hand she held up is now encircled by rings of energy, its source not immediately obvious unless Xiumei and Eleanor look beyond to Melody's lifted sleeve.

        Ganondorf is more than glad to add onto Gwen's lesson, adding a special amount of information Gwen herself couldn't quite fill in. And, by the time he runs towards her, his fist cloaked in darkness, Gwen is unable to throw up a proper defense, her body while wracked with pain from Melody's spell.

        Gwen flies through the air, limply rolling over the metal floor like a stone skipped over a pond, before slowing to a still.

        'Courage will face you!'
        'And you think you can find that power, now!?'

        "Those parts... he's already got them," she softly says beneath her breath. That's why she had to do what she did.

        So she can stand.

        Because she's not that person in the mural. She's not sure who it is, but Ganondorf isn't a boar, so it could all be a lie.

        "I don't believe in asking help from gods..." Gwen says softly as she gets back up, perhaps for the last time, evident from how her body seems to dangle. "... from where I stand, the closest things to gods have been the Guardians, and they have problems of their own, ones they needed help with, and vice versa. I don't know why this planet is the way that it is..."

        "But if you can't see the beauty in its flaws, its wildness, the core parts of it," she pauses, taking a wincing breath, "_you will never come close to understanding it_."

        Red lines begin to infuse the courier's bare skin, as she begins to laugh. "... This is my last card, Xiumei, Eleanor. Make use of it, 'kay? While you still can!"

        With a bright flash, Gwen runs the distance she was thrown, leaping up into the air over the Desert King, her right hand splayed open in front of her.

        "We'll make our own legend!"

        A bright blast of pyrite yellow, a pillar of gold, comes from the courier, as the red cracks further crack through her skin, further echoed by the warning light red along her ARM.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's You Shall Lay Your Bones Down Here
For The Dead Can Know No Shame for 51 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Quasar Palm!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has launched an attack Link!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Ganondorf Dragmire with Corona Discharge!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

The Drill screams against the barrier-- it was made for stone and steel, not hardlight surfaces. But Dash knows how shields work like this from his own-- surface tension, just like on a bubble, works the same. Stress on a single point is far more effective. And, after a time, it does purchase through! "Yes! Wait--"

It isn't long enough to do any real damage to Asgard. "Perhaps I should have thought this through more--" is all he gets out, as a wave of barrier energy and debris rocks the command room. Dash gets sent sailing across the room and collides with the opposite wall, crumpling to thr ground.

It takes a few seconds for him to get up from that. Dents and tears are prevalent on his armor's back, though a soft glow coming from them indicate it is already starting to try and repair.

Repair quickly enough to make a difference? Not likely. It takes a long time for repairs to happen. Often Roll has to do a patch job until the self-repair is finished so Dash can continue digging.

That doesn't mean outside sources can't speed the process, as evident in a soothing wind, causing several metal pops to come from his armor, as plates and fasteners are suddenly corrected.' He gives a thumbs up toward Boudicca, the only person i nthe room the source makes sense coming from. "Thanks a bunch!"

A sigh escapes from under the mask. "Okay, Drill isn't the tool needed." The Drill Arm is removed and secured to his back, and in a swift motion, the Blade Arm comes out and is attached to the forearm that was vacant. A pinkish-magenta energy blade springs to life from it.

Ethius gets to using his strange magic, and melts the floor around Asgard. A good opening reveals itself! "Nice! I'll take that opportunity right there!"

Jet Skates come aline, and propel Dash forward, before he takes a jump and tries to bring the blade down on Asgard! Perhaps the shield was expended when he did that attack, but if a new one arrives, it may still be weak enough to shatter if he is lucky!

"You would think constructs can last the test of time?" he calls toward Melody? "Trust me lady, they don't! I know in more ways than one, whether it be by friend or occupation."

GS: Dash Caskett has attacked Asgard with Refractive Edge!
GS: Shield expired!
GS: Dash Caskett has completed his action.
GS: Asgard guards a hit from Dash Caskett's Refractive Edge for 35 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Shieldbreak! applied to Asgard!
GS: Asgard's Force Guard activates!

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Does Zed's head have the consistency of rubber? Or does it simply have the consistency of whatever material is most likely to induce the greatest amount of comedy at any given time...!?

Incredibly, inexplicably, it is that impossible skull that manages to move Asgard more than a few feet. In that instant, Zed locks eyes with Asgard's amber orbs. In that moment, there is a connection forged, indelible and inexpressible, between the two foes. Zed stares into Asgard's eyes, and in that singular moment, he allows his own to close, and his breath to escape in a long, tired sigh.

He sails into the distance. Asgard follows up with a massive expansion of his own barrier, a blast that may threaten to take the Warwing out of the sky on its own power. Zed hits the ground and skids across the floor, flipping back over himself before arresting his own terrific momentum in a three-point stance. The destructive wave-front approaches. Zed...

Leaps.

He hits the shield.

He begins... running across the hemispherical dome. Chunks of rubble and bits of broken airship ceiling rain down, smashing into him and tearing gashes into his battle-suit. The wind flows around him, cradles him, shields his body and salves his soul. He is silent as he charges, and only speaks when he goes to strike.

"I pity you," he says to the Hyadean Super Robot-- to the warrior with eyes as empty as a cloudless sky. "To have been made 'perfect,' something without peer and equal. A weapon unparalleled... We're of the same flesh, but! Look at you! Look at your 'perfection--!' Zed swings at the thinly stretched shield's narrowest point, and carves himself a breach. He's no longer playing, no longer fooling. His blade-- Doom Bringer-- is a crescent of inverted space, a razor of utter darkness which swallows all light, its edge is the boundary of an event horizon. "You and I are made of the same stuff! But! Even when we were serving the mother, even when we didn't know anything else-- at least we could still enjoy a fight! Your body may be perfect, your Gemini Circuit may be able to adapt to anything we throw at you, but... To be a 'Hyadean' and not feel the thrill of battle is the most pitiful thing I can think of! Come on 'Asgard!' Don't tell me you can't feel it, the racing pulse, the heat of the fight, the tightness of uncertainty in your chest as you struggle to keep up-- but grow with each passing moment to meet the enormity of the challenge! Even if you *are* this woman's slave, even if your soul is shackled, surely you understand!"

"Prove it! Prove that you're really 'Hyadean!' Even our war-machines love to fight! Even those of us who hate violence love the thrill of it, whether their battle is in the kitchen or on the killing fields!" Zed strikes again and again and again, his pace quickening, growing beyond its previous apparent limit and reaching ever swifter speeds. "'Perfection...' Your master throws that word around like it's something good! No! To be 'perfect' means there's no more reason to strive! No more reason to learn! But you're not like that, are you big guy? Show me...!" Zed roars, his sword igniting with a flare of tremendous un-light, swallowing even the atmosphere as air screams into the endless abyss of that terrible blade! He darts forward, under the golem's guard... And swings for the fences! The void expands, its ravenous hunger capable of stripping even metal flesh from steel bones...! "Throw away this limit called 'perfection,' stop trying to kill me, and start trying to FIGHT me!"

GS: Zed spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Zed enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Zed has attacked Asgard with RayBlade - Zed Saber!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Asgard takes a glancing hit from Zed's RayBlade - Zed Saber for 74 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 100 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

        Melody says she doesn't understand who Avril is talking about.

        But the look in Avril's eyes suggests this does not, in any way, deter her from the point she has reached.

        And it is indeed a point. It would be an easy, almost reflexive thing to wriggle herself into that widening crack within herself and clasp hands with what dwells beyond it. To pull it out into the light. To let that power take her. But even in this situation now, caught like a fly in a web and staring down that fist...

        Avril opts to fight as she is, and not who she was or might yet be.

        When she swings the blade, over and over again, it's a blade of light.

        And then even that is caught.

        Absolute Zero has its limits. It is a powerful singular piece of ancient craftsmanship, but even it cannot pour forth energy unto infinity. When Asgard catches it, she's left further trapped in place. It's all she can do to keep her hand -- both hands, with the reintroduction of the Medium to a safer place -- on Absolute Zero's hilt. It threatens to pull her from her feet.

        Of course there's an easy solution. Release the trigger, kill the power. But then that would leave her without even this and no recourse left but to--

        A puppet that he cared about.

        She doesn't kill the power. She doesn't let go. She doesn't move from her spot.
        Not even when he raises his fist to slam it into the floor. She sees that wave of debris rising and she simply closes her eyes and holds on tight.

        If she screams when the energy wave slams into her, that may be understandable. She convulses, her entire world white-hot with pain. But she doesn't fall and doesn't let go.
        She jerks the hilt sharply once the moment the pain ceases to consume her, as if in an attempt to get Asgard to release the beam.

        And whether or not that works--

        She should have collapsed at this point, shouldn't she? There are limits, at least, to what she can attain 'as herself'. She should have collapsed or surrendered herself. But she hasn't.. Head bowed, she seemingly just stands there, her finger still over the trigger.
        Her lips are moving.

        "...As long as you don't give up," she murmurs, more audibly.

        That wind curls about her then.

        Avril straightens, her hands still clutching firmly the other end of that ribbon of light. "You can do anything, as long as you don't give up," she says, lifting her head. "...You can do anything, as long as you don't give up!"

        Ethius may be aiming below. Avril's intention is to aim high, to try to keep Asgard from realizing what he's trying to do.

        Lifting the hilt high, beam still billowing brightly and born before her, she lets out a scream as she rushes at Asgard.

        Or perhaps, it might be a warcry.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated a Force Action!

<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.

Clarissa closes her eyes for just a moment, releasing a breath of relief as Clarine's light shines across her. When she opens her eyes once more, they flicker with intent, focusing on Vinsfeld.

With Felius hanging back, it's up to Clarissa to press the fight on - and to face the flames Vinsfeld calls forth. "That's right, I can't let you," she fires back at him. "And what you're owed is--"

She breaks off as Ida starts pounding on the man. Darting to the side, she tries to position herself to take advantage of the pugilist's attack - but by the time she gets into position, Vinsfeld calls forth the flames of wrath.

Fire burns towards them. Instinctively Clarissa clutches Strahl Gewehr in both hands, one on the grip, the other on the body of the gun, holding it almost like a shield. As the wave crashes towards her, she ducks and rolls, trying to get behind a piece of the floor Vinsfeld brought down just moments ago.

The fire washes across her anyway. Hunching into the shadow of the debris as best she can, she grits her teeth and braces herself against the burning pain. Squeezing her eyes closed, she strains to try and bear the scorching feeling along her cheeks and shoulders. A groan slips through clenched teeth, her shoulders rising and tensing.

Only when the flame passes does Clarissa draw a breath. Her body throbs with the ache of the punishment Vinsfeld has poured out, the burns stinging enough that just moving feels like an ordeal.

She has to keep moving. The force of her desire will allow no less.

"I know what a truly satisfied world would look like, Commander Vinsfeld," she says, her voice hoarse but firm with determination. "It's the dream I've worked my entire life for. A green and beautiful and peaceful world - a world of life and happiness! Not a world of spectres! Not a world of dead bodies you've left behind you!"

The words are more than words. Clarissa's blood races; her heart thuds with conviction. Surging out from behind her protective perch, she dives to her right and rolls, trying to come up to one side of Vinsfeld in a flanking position. She comes out of the roll on one knee, Strahl Gewehr leveled in both hands.

But what she sends his way is not, immediately, a blast. It is a sad smile.

"I wish your pain would let you take my hand."

Strahl Gewehr howls with the force of Clarissa's emotions. The strange ARM's blast is wide and blazing, dazzlingly blue-white. It's as if heaven itself has opened up as Clarissa pours her soul into the assault, fueling the blast's intense fury.

GS: Clarissa Arwin spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Clarissa Arwin with Courageous Heart!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has launched an attack Link!
GS: Clarissa Arwin takes a solid hit from Clarissa Arwin's Courageous Heart for 0 hit points!
GS: Surge! applied to Clarissa Arwin!
GS: Mighty and Riposte! applied to Clarissa Arwin!
GS: Clarissa Arwin spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Soul Survivor!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Clarissa Arwin takes 22 damage from Poison!
GS: Clarissa Arwin has completed her action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Asgard with Spiral Edge!
GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak expired!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.

Protective magic radiates out from Seraph Clarine to Violet, and she murmurs her thanks to the Seraph. She sees Vinsfeld's conflagration coming and ducks right back into the debris she just spent so much effort climbing out of. It protects her from the worst of the flames, though she has some first-degree burns along her back. She hopes her companions have found shelter, too. She resurfaces, pained and outraged. "What kind of world are you going to build, that brings this much suffering?" she inquires. These weren't metaphorical birth-pangs, the midwife-turned-Drifter reflected: these were sheer, meaningless torture. And, if anything, the outcast and disenfranchised were tormented the most under this would-be regime. Shakily, with the last of her strength, she shoots at Vinsfeld once more time. He obviously wasn't going to listen to any opposing views, no matter what. A man like him understood only one thing -- violence.

GS: Violet Salazar has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Hot Blooded!
GS: Violet Salazar has completed her action.
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Spiral Edge for 115 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

"Yeah!" Marivel says. "Skin care is important! That's why I always wear SPF 10,000 sunscreen when I go out during the day!"

But Asgard is still here nad is still kicking ass and taking names. Except not really taking names because it isn't asking for any names. It's just clobbering. Marivel spends too much time in doors watching anime, playing video games, and eating junk food to understand this level of devotion to beauty. She knows for a fact that Anastasia has had pimples! She could try to hide them, but she KNEW.

They don't teach this in the Granas religion though.

"I mean in a zillion years or whatever the sun will explode if we're being really technical here." Marivel say before Asgard's fist is positioned--

--into the ground! The floor vanishes. Marivel vavnishes too because the barrier energy crackles through her and she's subsumed by its light.

But it isn't SUN light so Marivel is only SINGED not DUSTED.

She frowns as she consideres Asgard. Fangirling can only go so far.

"Why are you obsessed with beauty when you've got something better than beauty anyway?" Marivel asks.

She keeps whatever she drew from Asgard to herself for the moment as she instead snaps her fingers and points it to Asgard.

She chants as her hair lifts up, fluttering behind her. "You Are Doing Thy Best, Aren't Thee?" Marivel chants. "But is thy time to rest, Asgard, and be healed...!"

It's a little unclear how waves of darkness followed by an obliterating burst of megatonic energy heals people, but the fact of the matter is...

...Marivel can't be sure that even THAT would be enough. Asgards can take and take and take--

--and they only rest, truly, when their work is done.

GS: Marivel Armitage spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Asgard with I Carry The Hopes Of My People Within Me And Sing The Song Of The Extinct
- Armageddon!
GS: Marivel Armitage has launched an attack Link!
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Asgard with Small Hopes Shall Slice Thy Destiny To Ribbons - Split The Atom MEGATON!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
GS: Asgard takes a glancing hit from Marivel Armitage's I Carry The Hopes Of My People Within Me And Sing The Song Of
The Extinct - Armageddon for 94 hit points!
GS: Asgard's Force Evade activates!
GS: Asgard takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's Small Hopes Shall Slice Thy Destiny To Ribbons - Split The Atom
MEGATON for 169 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Asgard gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire takes a solid hit from Zhang Xiumei's Soaring Cross Strike for 200 hit points!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire takes a solid hit from Zhang Xiumei's Rushing Pulse Blitz for 256 hit points!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire guards a hit from Eleanor Klein's Dead Shot for 79 hit points!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire's Force Guard activates!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Quasar Palm for 0 hit points!
GS: Jam! applied to Ganondorf Dragmire!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
GS: CRITICAL! Ganondorf Dragmire guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Corona Discharge for 124 hit points!
GS: Jam! applied to Ganondorf Dragmire!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Ganondorf Dragmire has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

 
Holy light shines over Venetia Vuong along with an inspiration to hold fast to her sentiments.

Oh, Venetia thinks. Right. This guy is a criminal. Maybe I should like... put him in a joint lock? but my hand's all messed up. I could have reversed it. Hm.

Yeah, Venetia thinks as her wrist gets grabbed. She stares ahead at Vinsfeld. "We?" she answers him, and it was going somewhere, maybe, but there are some other people in this conversation and they are pressing their arguments with the ultimate tool of state-craft: Violence! Venetia is able to wriggle loose, breathing out as she reels. Her eyes flick round for a moment at the place. Is there some kind of wheel? she thinks hesitantly.

Part of her wants to call on the others to stop. To let the man speak. Parley or treat. Is that not what civilized people would do? she thinks.

The thought stops her from a counterstrike, but not a counterspell. During Vinsfeld's statement she says with great haste "Pillar" as marble stone appears in front of her, erupting from the ground just in time for the burst of fire and flame to smash into it, vaporizing the sorcerously-manifested geology; the stone cracks, bursts, shedding steam as the embedded molecules of water are heated to the point of breaking down. The stone topples forwards for a moment before BURSTING with a loud pop and a scatter of smouldering pebbles. The shockwave washes over Venetia, who howls.

She staggers; she falls to one side, heavily. She struggles for breath. There is ripping in the fabric on her Vinsfeld-ward side; scrapes; and the lace of her mask is gone entirely, revealing, mostly, that she has dark circles under her eyes.

Venetia feels her face for a moment, sensing the tiny drops of blood and -

She seems electrified by this.

"As a scholar and a gentlewoman of learning," Venetia says in a low thrummingly tight tone, "I understand that you will hold your perspectives and that my own assertion of mine will not intrinsically change this. Rhetoric is not magic, but our words are what make us human."

The tightness cracks. "And as a human being,"

"Who in THE NAME OF DINOGINOS SAYS YOU GET TO DECIDE THAT??"

Venetia's face both reddens and contorts as she gets upwards, twisted into fury. "You think we're going to be happy with you?? You telling us join you or else be on the other side and we're gonna get chopped up into roast by your big ass chopping ARM there? You think you have the RIGHT? You may have the POWER but you gonna act like you have the damned RIGHT?? Eat shit, uncle!"

Venetia raises her rod aloft and holds up a Crest Graph. "Eat shit -" Violet light begins to crackle round her, the bronze tile glowing as its inscription shines with luminous force. "AND DIE!" The violet shades into something and there is a scent like a day at the beach, but with an iron undertone...

"Olivine Wind!!"

There is a howling now, a wind that comes from nowhere, driven forwards. And as the wind rolls grains of sand appear. A silly thing except that in seconds a few grains have become a handful, then a bucketload, then enough, almost, to make for quite a credible beach, driven in a tight rat's nest of idiosyncratic eddies and micro-cyclones into flesh-abrading, metal-scoring force. The wind shrieks forwards, coming down with trembling, furious intensity upon Vinsfeld, contracting and then relaxing with peristaltic intensity.

"You want to make this force against force?! I'm not gonna go down crying like these overdwellers! I'll pave my walkway with your bones!!" Venetia continues, which is, perhaps, not quite in harmony with the blessing Clarine gave her, but then, we all have our own ways of expressing our feelings.

GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Deepest Art: Olivine Wind!
GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

Clarine sees the way Vinsfeld traces a circle around himself. She isn't sure what's coming, but she knows it isn't good. She recalls her mirrors to herself, and it is then that the sparks from his sword burst into a flame, a flame that blossoms into a raging, all-consuming inferno. She is, presently, up in the air - which, unfortunately, means there is nowhere for her to run or hide. Though the mirrors try to form a protective wall, it is not long before they are all swept up in Vinsfeld's flames and consumed - and Clarine, soon, along with them. Her burning form falls from the air, crashing to the floor below.

To a mortal, this would be a death sentence. To a Seraph, it is excuciatingly painful. But... slowly, weakly, and still burning, she rises to her feet. Her mirrors have all but consumed.

All except one.

"...So, you refuse to answer my question. I confess myself disappointed, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus." Clarine replies. "Is it truly as you say, that you do not wish the unworthy a look into your glorious future...? ...Or, is it that you do not truly know what it is yourself?"

With a gesture, another mirror appears in Clarine's hands, wholly different from the ones before. This one is a mirror of dull black - a Devil's Arm.

"I have my own assumptions. Look, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus, upon the consequences of your actions." She raises it, pointing its face directly at him.

It is the mirror that shows the viewer the present not as it is, but at its worst, darkest possibility - the culmination of one's actions and their affect on the themself if they had gone terribly wrong.

She is, in a way, lying - Clarine knows that what the mirror shows is not the ultimate truth. But she is unsure whether or not Vinsfeld knows that, and even if he dismisses it as trickery or chooses not to look, it really is ultimately just a distraction.

A distraction to make him look into the ray of blinding light that she emits from the mirror's surface.

GS: Seraph Clarine has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Blinding Flash!
GS: Seraph Clarine takes 27 damage from Poison!
GS: Hyper expired!
GS: Seraph Clarine has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida catches that strike with her right buckler, barely. The force of it sends her reeling back, her feet scrabbling for purchase. "Are you prepared, then?" she says, her voice low and dangerous. "Are you prepared to break them? Because I've seen them, and I know, we are not mere slaves to them. We are livestock. Lambs. Creatures that only exist because they are cared for by a loving shepherd--so who could deny them the odd lamb chop, the occasional leg of mutton?"

        Ida wishes she had Clarissa's optimism. But what she does have is a pragmatic streak that's proved its worth more than once.

        Vinsfeld sweeps his blade around, and makes his proclamation.

        "No," Ida says.

        She raises her hands to guard her face as the wave of flame slams into her. Her exoskeleton blackens, warping under the onslaught; her eyes are closed, but she can feel the agony washing over her like the tide. She grits her teeth, fights through it--as Vinsfeld's sorcery tears into her, she stands her ground. Fresh tissue wells up within her burn wounds, patching the damage. It's a contest between Ida's armor and regeneration and the Odessa commander's raw might.

        It ends in a stalemate. Ida coughs up smoke, and sags slightly; more tendrils of smoke curl up from her body. But she's still up, and still focused. "My master," she chokes out, "taught me a lesson. Freedom's Lie." Clarissa's words and Clarine's sorcery lend her the strength she needs to recall the words without grimacing in pain. "So long as others have greater force of arms, you will never be free. I do not pretend to understand what lies within."

        Ida takes a breath. The energy of the world pours into her lungs, suffuses her being, stokes her inner flame. In a heartbeat, Devil's Due is pointed at Vinsfeld's center of mass. "But I daresay I understand it better then you. Take your 'perfect world' to your grave."

        Ida pulls the trigger. A tongue of Dragonflame erupts from the ARM, stoked to blue-white intensity by Ida's lifeforce. It superheats Venetia's abrasive wind, causing droplets of molten glass to rain at Vinsfeld from every direction. The flame itself takes on a shape--it grows wings, a hooked beak, talons. The phantom likeness of Moor Gault stares down at Vinsfeld for a split-second--

        And then it flings itself at him, erupting in a firestorm of cataclysmic proportions.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Inhalation!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has launched an attack Link!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Inhalation for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 3 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus with Breath Of The Fire Dragon!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Riposte expired!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Clarissa Arwin's Soul Survivor for 98 hit points!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus's Force Guard activates!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus takes a solid hit from Violet Salazar's Hot Blooded for 148 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Venetia Vuong's Deepest Art: Olivine Wind for 94 hit points!
GS: Hex and Jam! applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!
GS: Reaction bonus! FP up!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Breath Of The Fire Dragon for 106 hit points!
GS: Poison! applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!
GS: Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus guards a hit from Seraph Clarine's Blinding Flash for 0 hit points!
GS: Cripple and Jam! applied to Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus!

<Pose Tracker> Ganondorf Dragmire has posed.

Ganondorf releases such phenomenal powers against these heroes-to-be, and they weather it admirably. He chuckles, low. "Honestly. For knowledge of even the Triforce to vanish from the world...has even Nayru abandoned you?"

"I will find the Princess. I will claim the Triforce of Wisdom. And I will open the sealed gate. And not one of you will stop me," he declares, boldly, readying his posture.

Then they come at him. Gwen comes screaming at him, unbelievable power flaring off that ARM of hers. "I understand far more than you think, girl," he says, coldly, holding calm even as she levels that blast at him. It slams into his swords, blasts scattering this way and that from the impact. With a roar of exertion he shatters the assault.

That's when Eleanor shoots him. Bang, bang, gang, he stumbles one, two, three steps. A normal man would die from that.

The bullets tumble to the ground. The King of Evil doesn't even stop to wipe his lip. "No," he tells her, firmly. "You are not."

Xiumei comes at him last and best. Each strike, he strugglest o parry; one, two, three movements, four and five, then going up rapidly as he repels first the barrier cross, then the shots from the handcannon pepper into him. That forces him off-balance enough that Xiumei's final strike cuts clean through him.

He roars in pain, staggering back into a console with a ragged gasp. "...three," he rasps. "So this is my limit, as I am now...? I can't accept that..."

He struggles upright. "Not until this world blooms again can I stop."

He turns again, to Eleanor, piercing with his gaze.

"I will find you again," he tells her, firmly, and then fades into shadow.

<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.

"Nora--"

Xiumei's voice is thick with worry, as she hears Eleanor ask why she knows these things. She cannot call that more frightening than fighting the King of Evil, but it ranks closely with it. With a shudder, she looks at Gwen, and stares for a second. A boar monster? It dawns on her, then, that this is no strange warlord.

This is something that was sealed in the ancient past.

She shakes her head, to clear it, and then she nods at Gwen. She sees the brilliant blast of gold that explodes from Gwen's ARM.

"The princess? What--" Xiumei doesn't finish that thought. Ganondorf steps back into the shadow. He vanishes, his terrible promise lingering -- and the battle isn't done. Xiumei trembles, arms and legs shaking with exhaustion. There isn't room for exhaustion. She looks, first, at Asgard. Varius and Avile were so concerned...

And then at Vinsfeld. They could finish this here. They could end Odessa, here and now, leave them without their leader to rally them back into existence--

And then the whole of Warwing /Varukias/ quakes.

Something from outside impacts it, towards its left side. There is a colossal explosion, which rolls through the floor, and the entirety of the airship begins to list to the side. An unlucky Odessa tech screams as he goes tumbling, smashing unceremoniously into a console on the side of the bridge. The glass on it shatters, bursting apart into so many shards of glass.

And, now at a strange angle, the source of the assault is clear through the bridge's viewports. Two white-hulled Solarian airships float out there, smoke trailing from their missile tubes -- which they had just unleashed into the Varukias. The efforts of ARMS have driven Odessa's forces back, left the ship's defenses unmanned, and the vultures have come.

Warwing Varukias lists and is helpless for what is to come.

There is a brilliant FLASH from one of the Solarian ships. A beam of searing white light explodes out of it, and then slams into the bridge. It slices in at the third mark -- narrowly scrapes by Asgard, then almost hits Dash -- before slicing into the Varukias. Explosions sound; the great metal frame of the ancient aerial warship creaks.

It groans.

And it begins to split in two. Gravity takes hold, but 'down' starts being a very different direction than where it had been a moment ago. The wreckage begins to crumble, as the airship starts crumbling to pieces under their very feet.

Xiumei stumbles, as one piece of the ship falls away, and her hope of ending Vinsfeld with it -- and then she leaps, grabbing onto some railing, and hauling herself up. She turns her head, and looks about, before she shouts: "We need to leave! Now!"

<Pose Tracker> Asgard has posed.

 
Melody bristles at Boudicca's speech, apparently she is something that can recognize the being in the room even if Asgard can not. "You seek to lecture me when you know not even the horrors of mortality?" If looks could kill, then a thousand blades of Melody's hatred would be piercing Boudicca this very moment, "Oh the hubris. Spare me your self-righteous platitudes from one who knows nothing of true suffering."
 
Asgard stands on solid ground, assessing who did and did not survive his destruction. All of them. He knows nothing of surprise. Their survival means only switching tactics.
 
Asgard encounters Boudicca's healing energy as he His barrier intercepts it as a threat, yet it turns out not to be. Instead it simply absorbs it, and his barriers rise fractionally as Boudicca replaces part of the energy lost from Marivel's drain of his systems.
 
The word Fortress is within Asgard's databanks, and Ethius is regarded by the yellowed sensors of his eyes.
 
Melody too scrutinizes Ethius, as it did not escape her notice. Perhaps his silence was obscuring some mystery. "Who precisely are you?"
 
The heat boils beneath Asgard, and he tries to step out of the way, but suddenly it melts and he falls into the crevice that he created into the bridge.
 
There is momentary silence.
 
And then massive fingertips of one hand grip the side of twisted and torn metal, grinding it as it buckles under his weight. Then another. He pulls himself out of it. His feet digging into the sides of the Warwing Varukias' floor. There is no effort to him pulling himself out of it. He does not slow, or fumble. His systems are utterly relentless to overcome whatever is put before him. The Gemini Circuit responding and adapting to whatever challenge is placed in his path.
 
"My. Not a bad strategem. Trying to drop him out of this fortress might have terribly inconvenienced him."
 
Dash brings down his blade on Asgard's Barrier. And a strange ripple flashes across the surface. The energy sparks, and Asgard's systems evaluate that bringing down his shields briefly is the best way to handle it. Bringing up his hand he palm slaps the blade the moment that his barrier drops.
 
"You know nothing of the perfection born from the Wisdom of Hyades. If you did - you would reevaluate everything you know."
 
Zed though starts to speak to Asgard. And at first it seems like Asgard does not even hear him. And then his heard slowly turns, his eyes flashing a deep red. That change had always been strikingly brief before, but now it is long and deep. And yet... nothing.
 
There is no emotion in how he regards Zed. Just a machine coldness. All of his words are but data stored away.
 
His barrier raises to take strike after strike, each one subtly deflecting his blade, and those eyes remain so...
        ...very...
                ...red.
 
Until the last burst of his barrier seems to deflect Zed's blade enough to briefly halt his flurry of attacks.
 
"Such a wasted effort. Trying to squeeze feeling out of a stone."
 
Avril though, does not give up. And at her scream, Asgard turns to meet her charge. His barriers flash into play. And then perhaps, due to Dash's efforts earlier. The moment her blade strikes...
 
... they ever so briefly fail. Just for a split second.
 
And a small gash is cut into his armored trench coat.
 
Melody's eyes narrow, before she grants Marivel a dark look.
 
"Because it is not, yet, enough." She answers, with an edge of razor anger still lingering from Boudicca and now perhaps being projected on Marivel.
 
Waves of darkness suddenly envelop Asgard, and he vanishes right before Avril's eyes. The oblitering burst of Megaton energy follows, a contrast of blindingly bright nuclear power. As the dust settles from the area on which he stood being obliterated, there is still the outline of a massive being inside. Two yellow orbs appear in that outline, and abruptly turn red.
 
"Asgard. Increase the response time on your auto-defender to Maximum allowable efficiency." Melody commands. "Threat level: Red."
 
Whatever command issued, Asgard immediately obliges. Everyone fighting Asgard is seized by a horrible sensation, of being gripped by fields of purple and black, that lift them up in the air and hold them in place.
 
And begin to painfully constrict them from all sides into a much smaller space.
 
The moment this happens however...
 
There is a flash from elsewhere. "What!?" Asgard responds to this searing flash that emanates from the Solarian warships by dropping everyone being crushed all at once. "I see. So they're acting." Melody is suddenly not there, but beside Asgard. "All of you shall die in obscurity. But fear not..."
 
Everyone gets a glimpse of Asgard, who is stained in various places by scars and burns from everyone's efforts. And a single gash... where his barrier was well and truly penetrated for a single moment.
 
"... some small part of you will be immortalized in his data. A more beautiful fate than insignificant creatures such as you deserve."
 
Both Asgard and Melody appear as if they are losing dimensions, as they both appear flat, then a single line of white as the two teleport away from the crumbling fortress.
 

<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.

"A boar monster? A young elf?" Eleanor starts to ask it of Gwen. But Gwen said something under her breath that Eleanor finds herself hearing, nevertheless. She calls out, "No, he doesn't! Not the ones he wants!"

But Ganondorf identifies something--Eleanor blinks, that word making her eyes sharpen, the edge of her awareness prickle. But Gwen is already charging forward, and Eleanor shoots to try to help her. "Gwen, don't--"

But her shots don't stop him, and Ganondorf confirms what she thought. "I... I'm not..."

But Xiumei charges in, and Eleanor feels her heart in her throat as she watches them clash. Until he disappears, that final gaze of his briefly rooting the elf to the spot.

"...I know," she murmurs after a moment, once he's gone. She still doesn't know all of her answers. She knows far too few of them. But there are some that she thinks she has, now...

Her reverie is broken by the impact of the ground quaking. "What--" Eleanor stumbles and falls backward again, impacting hard aginst the wall again with a wince. Then, she can see the viewports. "Oh-Oh, no-"

She looks around, "XIU!"

She sees her climbing, hauling herself back up. With a swallow, Eleanor stows her rifle, gripping her bag and looking for where to go. She looks to even Asgard disappearing--

All that matters for this moment is taking Xiumei's hand. She can think of the rest after. And maybe see to Gwen, too...

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel says, "Mm...." in response to Melody's dark look. She seems... kind of sad about it really. Melody--annd whatever her associates are--are clearly intelligent but, well, apparently that isn't enough. Marivel can't say she doesn't understand that feeling.

"Yes, we should get going." Marivel says. "And in fact! I especially need to get going..." She rubs her neck. "Because I didn't actually finish my work back down at the Chateau!" She cracks a small grin to Boudicca.

"By the by, Boudi... I should ask you something, when we're all good to go--but right now..." She shakes her head. "...I've satisfied myself enough today. For now, though, I must work for you."

And with that, Marivel vanishes in a flash of light.

...Why didn't she take everybody with her?

Time travelers.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

        'Who precisely are you?' Ethius is asked. It is a question he is asked a lot. Whether he is truly aware of the weight of the words he has spoken is... as much of a theory-spawning thing as the matter of who or what he is. Visually, he is a darker-skinned fellow with neatly trimmed (...as of the Summit) white hair, a completely wrecked middling-quality rental suit, dress gloves that were woefully inadequate a number of times throughout for a mission within an Odessa stronghold, and... a lack of answer to that question.
        He has historically claimed to have amnesia. He might not know that answer for sure.
        He looks taken aback when his ploy to dump Asgard right out of the Warwing /Varukias/ meets the snag that Asgard can both stand and take it, because doing that is a material risk to many of them here too and if he doesn't get Asgard down and out of there... well, he might not like the trade.
        Avril gets a gash in there, for she doesn't give up - even if he can't rationalize how she fully managed to land it. 'It is not, yet, enough,' he hears those taunting words.
        He gets ensnared. Crushed, legs dangling in the air... and then a flash of light, which drops him anew. He overcompensates for scrambling away from where he sees the light happening that he misses their escape, running to grab hold of a railing as he feels his footing start to slant.
        He exhales once, closes his eyes, and tries to center himself over how many things have gone wrong today, to a whole of 'wrong' that still continues to rattle out of reach even when he sometimes gets to scrape it with his fingers.
        For now, all he can do is survive.

<Pose Tracker> Dash Caskett has posed.

It punctured through! Wait no-- it was an intentional maneuver! "Gah!" is his response as he arm equipped with the energy blade is smacked, hard ehough that it feels like ripping off. "You just don't make this easy, do you?"

And it only gets harder. In response to the increased power the group is putting out, Melody and Asgard in turn increase power. So much so that Asgard grips everyone in some kind of gravitational power! "Oh... this is... lovely!" Dash struggles to say. His armor growning under the sudden pressure from all sides.

He has seen powers like this before. A truly devastating style of attack.

Alarms begin to go off within. "Yes, I am very aware that I am in danger, thank you!" he says aloud, mostly to himself. In dealing with the gravity effect, he doesn't even notice the initial missil blasts that rock the giant vessel they were on. "We can--"

It becomes evident rapidly that Asgard's shackling attack isn't what the energy building warnings were for. "GUH!"

A cutting beam, inches from Dash's face, bisects the room. The boy is promptly dropped, most likely due to the shock of what just happened. "Hooooo man that was TOO CLOSE," he says, scrambling to his feet. The entire ship begins to list to the side. The bridge is starting to fall apart. "We gotta get out of here!"

Dash quickly runs toward the rest of ARMS. "How are we gonna get off?! I'm not sure the Flutter can get us, those white ships might shoot it down! Maybe there are escape pods or something?"

Maybe Valeria strapped retro-rockets on those drill shells. Eh, probably not. "We best find a way out of here, fast!"

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

It's probably a good thing Zed is briefly trapped inside a force cage, because by the time he's released, he has already turned his sword into some kind of strange cosmic antipodal blade made specifically to cut faces and take names.

And by that point, Asgard and his master are already being pulled away... But not before a familiar energy weapon rakes the outside of the Warwing. Zed's head perks like a dog that just heard someone open a bag of bacon bits and he immediately leaps for the nearest ventilation duct.

Not to escape, no.

Zed has business with these Solarian airships. Business that involves... His sword... and their fuselage...!

<Pose Tracker> Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has posed.

Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus strides with purpose through the fire he has started.

He has lost much with this gambit. Men and women explicitly loyal to him. His teeth grit as he considers.

Cocytus is still intact, but forces on the ground will need to be replenished. That will take time he does not have.

And the only other option is...

Through the flickering flames, he looks towards Ganondorf, Melody and Asgard in the midst of their battles, and his frown grows.

They're considerations shelved for later, because the man is nothing if not certain in his vision and the fact that he -will- carry it through. It shows in the resolve in his expression as he turns his attention towards the recovering members of ARMS, and the Drifters beside, holding his great weapon off to his side with the slow lift of his brow.

'What kind of world are you going to build, that brings this much suffering?'

"A mighty one--"

It's Venetia's violent tirade and even more violent show of force combine with Ida's in a roaring wind of flame and superheated glass until the great figure of Moor Gault comes surging towards the man.

Vinsfeld turns to stare at it. And, to his credit, he does exactly what he said he'd do:

He sees a god.

        He cleaves a god.

Or its iconoclastic imagery. Either way, tomayto, tomahto the end result is still the same:

Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus brings his mighty sword to bear against the tempest of wind and flame that Moor Gault has become.

And he carves right into the firestorm.

Tongues of flame ripple all around him, burning at his flesh, melting at his armor, singing at his hair. Molten glass splatters at his skin, cooler, harder chunks cutting through his skin, lodging in his flesh. Cuts instantly cauterize. Heat boils any hope of moisture away.

He still carves.

A single stroke that splits the image of a god in twain.

He stands in the aftermath, body smoking, bent forward, Mad Mountains dug into the molten ground.

"Ne--"

        BANG

"--xt--?"

This would be the sound of Violet Salazar's final shot, piercing past the leader of Odessa's now very molten, very weak armor to shoot him straight through the back, just a miraculous inch or two away from his spine. It shoots clean through, blood splattering the hot floor beneath him. He blinks. Looks down.

The next cleaving blow is coming for Violet, and lost in the song of chaos, he doesn't see Clarissa's sad smile, her words a distant ringing --

-- which might say much of the unpassable gulf between them, as much as it explains how he does not see Clarissa's attack until the blazing light of what must be paradise itself hammers into his injured midsection -- and then consumes him entirely.

And even through the blaze, his roar of defiance can still be heard in a way that hearkens to the very heart of a warzone.

As it passes, he is on his knees, hands grasped to his hilt, his gloves partially melted into the grip. His head bowed, his teeth grit, the old warrior turns his gaze up.

"... Still... not enough. Let's end this, shall we--"

And then he sees it.

The black mirror.

And his reflection within it.

For a moment, he pauses, frozen.

And for the first time in as long as he can remember, Vinsfeld's eyes widen in dawning horror at whatever it is he sees within.

Such is his raw, stubborn will that he manages to bring his arm up to his face to shield. "NO!" But it provides an opening that the others might have been able to capitalize on --

-- if it weren't for the sudden assault that smashes into the Warwing /Varukias/ and sends it trembling perilously.

Vinsfeld spills to his right, catching himself with his left palm. His gaze snaps towards the gaping wound as air pressure sucks outward, ripping technicians away into the open air. Vinsfeld resists the pull as his gaze falls on it.

Solarian airships.

His eyes widen, and then narrow.

"--No," he hisses. "Now's not the time. Dammit all. We were so close--"

He looks at the Drifters and those assembled still. Ganondorf is gone. The prophet and her toy, gone. He looks back towards the open wound in the ship.

And where others see ruin, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus sees opportunity.

'We need to leave! Now!'

"No."

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE--THOOM

This is the sound of one mighty swing of Vinsfeld's blade CARVING through the bridge. It cleaves through the main control console of the Warwing. Through the center of the chamber.

Straight through the entrances until the blasted doors are scattered with debris that clot them both liberally.

Blocking them out.

It's nothing that these people can't deal with, of course.

But it costs them precious time.

Precious time, on a crashing ship.

"Let this vessel be your grave, and the grave of Filgaia's last failure of a summit."

Without having the benefits of teleporters, which Vinsfeld very generously makes everyone aware -he- has as light starts to tug every atom of him away from the dangers of his once-great ship.

"What was it you were saying, before? Right."

Because, if nothing else, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus is an opportunist, with an established record of stranding people in places about to cataclysmically explode. Because no matter what his reasons or how much pain he's endured --

"'Eat shit.'"

--Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus is kind of a huge dick.

<Pose Tracker> Zhang Xiumei has posed.

"I've got you!" Xiumei calls out, as she leaps. She spares a glance for Gwen -- for the others -- but in the end, her focus is on Eleanor. She jumps over a broken console, as the part of ship that they stand on begins to have part of the wall as the floor.

She reaches her gloved hand out, fingers clad in that metallic mesh reaching out. Then, she clutches hold of Eleanor's hand, even as she hears what Vinsfeld says:

'No.'

She turns her head -- staring back at him, as he shreds his way through the teleporters. Explosions sound; her breath catches in the wake of their devastation. She looks after him for a moment. Her jaw works, but words don't come. She looks at Eleanor, then nods.

And then she starts to run, back into the ship itself.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

        The leap is graceful enough, but the landing is far less so, with Gwen landing in a crumpled heap, one last look towards the leaving Ganondorf before he disappears, and lasers tear through the ship, knocking the courier further askew.

        One hand clamps onto a bit of railing nearby Eleanor and Xiumei, and Gwen rises, looking visibly weakened and equally unperturbed by it. "..." If anyone were to touch Gwen's skin right now, it would be feverish to the touch.

        And Vinsfeld seals their exits.

        .... well.

        "This..." Gwen laughs, a smidge on the delirious side as she follows behind Xiumei and Eleanor, "this sucks."

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

        A thousand blades of hatred might even kill Boudicca - were that hatred fouled to Malevolence.

        But that all depends on how you define death, doesn't it?

        The death of personality which comes from the recreation of an eternal thing into something larger than itself...

        "Do you think we are so different?" Boudicca asks, and does not press the question. It is a lesson she could impart, just as it was given to her; but she is angry, too, and more than anger is the weariness of existence.

        Sometimes healing doesn't have to fix broken bones, or beating hearts.

        Sometimes it's about the story we tell ourselves.

        And of all the stories they tell Asgard, of all the tales he files dispassionately into his databanks...

        ... Boudicca hopes he remembers that one.

        She hopes he remembers the flawed ideal of perfection Zed outlines; the flaws in his perfection which Avril illustrates.

        She hopes, because Clarine isn't the only one humanity has served to restore, either.

        But it's not enough. It's not enough, and they're not enough, and there's something about trapping a Seraph which is particularly cruel. They demonstrated quite soundly - how they could phase through obstacles as if ghosts. Yet here and now Asgard grips the wind and tightens, and Boudicca --

        -- Boudicca has thrown so much against him. She is so tired. She flickers, again, and it only serves to help his grip tighten as she forces herself back into existence. There's less space for her. There's less space and she gasps, she of all people, she who is air, breathlessly.

        It's not a sensation which lasts for more than a moment. It lasted for eternity.

        And then she's falling, and they're all falling, because the SHIP is falling, THEY ARE ATTACKING THE SHIP. Boudicca shakes her head as she rights herself, only to find herself by Marivel again. Her grin is returned with a smile of relief, despite it all. "Marivel..!" She can't be worried about a project right now, can she?!

        (Boudicca is glad she is. Marivel is still Marivel, even as they fall out of the sky.)

        That relief turns to surprise, though, as Marivel keeps - being Marivel, but in rather a baffling way. "Eh..?" Boudicca asks, but before she can formulate a proper question, Marivel is the one who's become light.

        Looking up, she puffs out a breath. "Then, I'll put my faith in you, Marivel..."

        And she looks to the others - and pours the last of her energy into corrective air. It buoys them; it helps keep them from falling onto debris or shrapnel. Floating is a most convenient spell.

        She might not be able to do much more than this, as she helps them out.

        But if she can catch someone...

        ... it's always worth it to catch someone.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

        Just for a moment, those barriers fail.

        Just for a moment, and long enough to let her through. A small cut is rent across Asgard's clothing.

        And here Avril's finger eases off the trigger and she reels for a moment, the light from Absolute Zero finally fading. But she doesn't collapse. Not yet. Her gaze is still upon him as he is consumed first by darkness and then by radioactive fire.

        'Increase the response time on your auto-defender to Maximum allowable efficiency."

        That seems to break through the haze. Avril's eyes widen in shock. "Wait, you cannot--"

        Before she's caught, wound up in a field not unlike -- but simultaneously far different -- from the one that had gripped her before. This one, however, seems far more bent on her destruction. Letting out a pained gasp, she struggles in vain. Is this how it is? Must she then reach inwards for--

        And the Warwing is rocked by missile fire from without. Landing heavily on the floor once Asgard releases his grip on them all, she rises on one arm for a moment, her gaze...

        On Asgard. Asgard, rather than the rapidly listing aerial fortress or indeed the others here.

        Asgard, who is vanishing away. "Wait--" Avril starts, getting up onto her knees and reaching out a hand. "Wait!"

        He's gone. They're gone.

        And they that remain have a rapidly collapsing ship with which to contend.

<Pose Tracker> Violet Salazar has posed.

The Warwing is crashing, is crashing, and Violet can only focus on one thing -- finding a safe way out, quickly. Several of her foes and Marivel teleport away, but that's not an option for her. She looks around desperately for escape pods, and if she doesn't find any, sees only one course of action available: to invade the attacking Solarian ships. Precious seconds are ticking away!

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

 
As the world begins to crack and split apart and her dread foreshadowings come to pass, Venetia reaches for another Graph. And yet Vinsfeld, for all of her insults, is a wily and canny foe. Worthy perhaps of a respect given to an adversary, even if there is no reason to endorse his views.

The ship is dying.

The wreckage falls.

Vinsfeld will get to see Venetia's bare face contort with utter, consuming, whites-of-the-eyes fury a moment before he disappears. (Marivel misses this because she left a moment ago, alone!)

Afterwards, Venetia blinks and looks round for a moment, and then out through the gap she had INTERPRETED as another of Clarine or somebody's lethal rays.

"Do you know them?" Venetia asks Ida, possibly on autopilot.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

Clarine sees that look of horror on Vinsfeld's face, and she has to admit... she finds it pleasing. ...But, that look came from a Malevolent artifact. Should she really be so pleased with herself...? She is conflicted, but she doesn't let it show in her face or her bearing.

So focused is Clarine on Vinsfeld and her feelings that the only thing that shakes her from the fight is the ship suddenly quaking. It does not throw her off balance, exactly, due to hovering just above the ground, but it does put everything at a strange angle. She sees outside the ships - and she sees the searing beams cleave right through the ship.

And then, it begins to fall.

And before they can escape... Vinsfeld tears through his own ship, trapping them in the bridge. Clarine frowns.

"...You are a fool if you think this is enough to end us, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus. We will endure this. And we will come for you." She says.

...By that point he's probably already gone, but it makes her feel better saying it.

With that, she shakes her head.

"...Everyone, do not falter! Please maintain a cool head... we will survive this!" Clarine pleads. ...It's a notable change in demeanor, now that she's not fighting an enemy.

But what can they do...?

...Well, they'll think of something. They have to.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        This is not even the first time Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus has cut a god. Ida feels a brief flicker of envy, and but it's gone when she breathes out. It's obvious, though, that she's running on fumes. If Vinsfeld has more left in the tank than they do, he might actually get to end this--

        Clarine holds up that mirror.

        Ida does not see what Vinsfeld sees. She does see the dawning horror, the denial in his eyes--and she smiles at it.

        Then a brilliant bloom of fire and light rips into the ship's hull. Ida's eyes go wide as saucers as she stares through the sucking wound in Odessa's flying fortress. Rage flares up in her heart--she warned him about this, she WARNED HIM and he DIDN'T LISTEN--

        And with a violent act and a few choice parting words, Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus is gone.

        "Fuck," Ida snarls. Venetia asks her if she knows who they are. "Bloody Solarian dogs. There was no way they wouldn't do this, got to--"

        Once again, it is Seraph Clarine's words that cool the fire. "Yes," Ida says. "First we need to get off this bloody ship."