2021-02-27: Rhapsody

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<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

The second battle of Luca has began.

It is a mixed force of Ronso, Warrior Monks, former Crusaders, and otherworlder mercenaries and Drifters that advanced on Luca. Althena's Guard has been pushed to the brink -- some forces from Bevelle have been forced to fall back to the ocean, and were unable to reinforce the city. Word has spread that some Hyland and Rolance forces have fallen back entirely.

The heart of the Guard's command structure is in Luca, not far from the now-deactivated blitzball stadium. This includes what forces they could muster -- large tents, where runners are going to and fro, and a couple of recently constructed fortifications.

Baralai suggested the course of action, with Kelk Ronso agreeing: "Destroy their command center, and we can disrupt them enough to seize Luca and drive the Guard from the city."

And thus, the battle is set.

Shouts echo; cries of battle can be heard nearby, with the clash of steel and the reports of gunshots. A large pavilion has been constructed -- and several guards turn, as they spot them. One widens her eyes, turns, and then calls out.

"Enemies! Incoming! All of you, look alive!"

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3ogOUl3UxI

DC: Yue Rohay switches forms to Lifelong Convict Yue!
DC: Acacia Saitani switches forms to Intrepid Reporter--?!

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

              Some warriors fight with conviction in their heart.
    Some warriors fight with just cause, for home, for country, for family.
      Some warriors fight with refined ideals, shaping them to reality...
                                Then there's...

    "... I shouldn't even be here today..." Yue quietly laments, as a guard calls for them to look alive. She's perched high on one of the stadium seats, leaning back and finishing the last of some extremely nasty snacks that Josephine Lovelace forced on her.

    Also thanks to Josephine Lovelace: A hangover, thanks to some incredibly bad wine. (She's not a drinker.)

                     Some warriors fight for the weekend.

    She was, honestly, hoping that hiding in Spira for the time being would give her some distance from her mother. Her body can't cope with another spin in the Fjolnir armour; the Aura can't cope with another engagement. Disappearing off-world might give her a bit of time--

    Yoo-hoooo!

    "Nooo..." Yue grouses as a hovering tiny crystal starts to echo and emanate around her.

    Be a dear, my dear, and help the Guard out, will you not? bobs the crystal, taking vicious glee.

    "Why? What even is in it for you at this point?" Yue questions.

    Yue, Yue, Yue dear. This is not a matter of 'what'. This is a matter of 'when I say Jump, you say 'how high'. Mmmm? I haven't had my daily dose of pushing you until you scream from the strain alone.

    "......"

    The beleaguered, black-coated Veruni rises from her seat, the chains of her shackles jangling. She leaps, and in one big bound descends towards the front lines, hair whipping in the wind. It's not a bad entrance.

    Too bad about her stomachache. Just what was that awful wine, Josie? 

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    How could things have turned so wrong, so quickly? Bevelle's gates had fallen, and the Yevonites' cowardly leaders had fled to the north rather than face the fury of Althena's Chosen. The Golems should have been a crucial fulcrum--something the Yevonites had no answer to--and yet, somehow, a force of enemy Gears had defended Bevelle, and stopped what could've been an unconditional surrender. Now, the Guard has been pushed back to its last remaining stronghold that isn't Kilika, and everything is in chaos.

    Leo is still in shock. His army has been caught wrong-footed, and if they lose Luca, they lose the war. Worse still, he's heard mixed reports that Hyland and Rolance units have fallen back, or--if certain rumors are to be believed--have begun fighting each other.

    It's ironic. For months, Leo has wanted this war to end... but not like this. Not in a way that will leave him dragging himself back to his Goddess in disgrace. Whomever had corrupted the sealing rods--was this their work, too?

    But Leo can't afford to let any of it show. As the enemy force bears down on the Guard's command, Leo himself takes the field.

    "GUARDS!" Leo roars, his voice carrying over the din. "REMEMBER YOUR GODDESS!"

    Remember the woman who sent you here to die, hisses the treasonous inner voice.

    "REMEMBER THE FALLEN OF MI'IHEN!"

    Remember the people who died because of you. Remember how your ego shattered that chance for peace.

    Leo draws his blade, and holds it high, its edge gleaming in the light. "FORWARD! WE WILL NOT GIVE A SINGLE INCH!"

    His blood-red cloak flaps out behind him, tossed about by a sea breeze.

    "FORWAAAARD!"

    Behind him, the column of Hyland lancers seems less certain.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Liath has posed.

The Prime Lord Liath is something of an anomaly in the command structure of Althena's Guard. Seeming to exist somewhere just outside it, the Seraph has had a tendency to disappear at length, and her participation in the war efforts in Spira have often been sporadic at best. Most recently, her attentions seem to have been in Filgaia.

But for all her presence might be erratic, it's at those critical junctures in the Guard's campaign --

'Enemies! Incoming!'

"Steel yourselves, Guard!"

-- that one can most rely on her presence.

It is her voice that comes first, echoing across the emerging battlefield. The next is the surge of light, ribbons of every possible hue converging to a prismatic singularity at the frontlines. Liquid color coalesces into the asymmetrically armored silhouette of Seraph Liath, her sword drawn and shield brought to bear. Expression stoic, the irregular member of Althena's Guard points the tip of her blade forward, her entire stance honed toward a point as shard as that sword.

"This is the last lineQ Find your reason to fight, even if it is simply survival, and fight for it with all that you have!"

Erratic Liath's presence might be, but at least one can always count on it being felt.

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    Standing guard by the command tent is not, realistically, were Guardswoman Pearl thinks she should be. She should be where the fighting is thickest, she thinks. Fortunately, the strategy of Maester Kelk Ronso and Baralai have fixed that problem. The enemy chooses to take the command tent. And in moments, Pearl will be in the thick of it. This is a warzone after all, it is not? It would be foolhardy to hold anything back, right?

    So why does she feel she should?

    Leo's call to arms shakes her out of whatever headspace she's in. She starts walking forward, as order. Seraph Liath calls to find your reason to fight, and this, at least, Pearl knows. Because that's what she was ordered to do. By multiple leaders. Her claws glint in the sun, and she drops into her stance.

    "I do not intend to yield, heathens." She's calm, and dispassionate. "Let us see whose resolve will last." 

<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

IN THE CENTER OF THE GUARD HELD TERRITORY -

"I knew that these abominable Drifters were a decisive force upon Filgaia, but by what deviltry have they become a decisive force here -- in SPIRA as well!? And have they really managed to gain the power to travel between the worlds?! Like squirrels, for every one of these things we cast aside, a dozen more rise to vex us!" says Veren, master of beasts and one of the leadership of the HOUNDS OF HELL, an eroding mercenary unit.

"..." says Dolly, another of these figures. She resumes putting on heavy white face paint over a port-wine-stained stretch of neck and cheek.

"Veren it's not that I disagree, it's that I have other things on my mind," Margaret says, as distant sounds begin to rise.

"Yes! I know, Mag, I KNOW, you've said this enigmatic nonsense thirteen thousand times except you said it honestly twice first," Veren says with increasing dudgeon. "That does none of us ANY good because if we are chopped up by Yevon or smote by the goddess or killed by Drifters while we sit here, we are equally dead and can do NOTHING."

Margaret, called out, doesn't answer right away. Perhaps this is what they call a 'coup'.

"So what will it BE, then. Do you intend to simply RUN? Then EVERYONE will be against us, and we are already detached from the messenger team, so it is down to TWENTY SEVEN BESIDES US," Veren continues.

"Listen you," Margaret continues, before there is a stamp on the ground from a piece of wood, sufficiently hard to make metal decorations clash. This stops Margaret before she can get a real good head of steam going, and both she and Veren look towards --

Dolly, who says with her face half-covered, "Don't fight."

Neither of the people old enough to know better contest this appraisal.

Dolly continues. "You're wrong. We absolutely should run."

The voice of White Knight Leo rings out, very faint and distant but discernible.

"... because we've lost too many already. I don't think we're going to win," Dolly says, "but I think we can live one way or another. And we're the fast ones, aren't we?"

"So we have an excuse," Margaret answers.

Veren has no smart remarks. But he pulls himself up with a creak of his Spiran-style leather body harness. "... we would never be able to transport our menagerie in these conditions, but as I recall... dense bush to the northwest, eh?"

"Indeed," Margaret says, pulling herself upright. "The message teams will be fine on their own."

AND A MERE FEW MOMENTS LATER...

SUDDENLY, FIENDS! Erupting from a repurposed chocobo stable a half-block from the Luca Stadium comes a cluster of sundry and assorted fiends, mostly somewhat battered and often wearing improvised restraints. They surge through the streets, pursued indifferently by fast moving Guardsmen with bullhooks who are, for the most part, keeping this outrage aligned towards the northwest. A rampaging counter-offensive!

And just behind the fiends:

Margaret is a dramatic presence, clad in purple and flickering with electrical and nebular force as she moves. She shouts commands and instructions to the fiend-drivers. She rattles her chain weapon. You can absolutely hear her from half of Luca.

She is shadowed by a woman in a gray cloak with a white-painted face.

"Now that we're moving I feel much better," Margaret tells Dolly. "You're holding up? You sounded rather poorly."

"I don't like this country," Dolly replies. "But I'll abide." Her grip tightens on her staff.

New Enemy! Fiend Cluster: Bust through the corralled Fiends to reach the commander!
New Commander! Margaret - the Black Pearl of Neo-Vane: Super-sonic and sorcerous.
New Commander Support! Dolly - a Healer with a Grudge!

DC: Ashley Winchester switches forms to Musketeer!

<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Hilde is... tired. It's been a difficult retreat from Bevelle, for many reasons. Having to retreat when there were so close hurt, but far worse was the infighting.

Rolance... though a part of her she tried to suppress couldn't help but feel she expected it from them, but even her countrymen were not immune from whatever madness had taken them. More than once had she had to intervene in a fight.

...What had happened? Could they really fall apart so quickly in the face of adversity, or was there something else at play? It's almost enough to make one despair... but, Hilde has an important role, and her resolve will not allow her to surrender so soon.

She draws from beneath her cloak a standard bearing the symbol of Althena's Guard, planting it into the ground behind her.

"Hold strong! We will drive them back!" Hilde shouts, drawing her sword and shield. "This day will not be lost. Trust in your fellows! We will see this day through!"

It might feel like they're cornered, but... they would not give in so easily. 

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

"Leo,"

Yeah sorry Leo. Things are getting even worse than this. Marivel is suddenly sitting on the wall, an umbrella held over her head though it isn't even raining, and is just looking towards him as if she's expecting to have a sensible conversation at a moment like this.

She hops down to join him, standing next to him. She doesn't SEEM like she's eager for a fight, but then again--this is Marivel. She can go from polite and aristocratic to on your neck in a moment.

"I remember when I first met you. I knew it at once," Marivel says. "'This is a good man', I told myself. And I knew how life can be for good men, particularly when they have responsibility over others--yet not the power to be truly in charge of those same men."

"Life is hard for good men, life is cruel to good men, life makes good men do things that make them feel like they aren't good men. But that feeling, that realization that you don't feel like a good person--that, White Knight Leo, is the sign that there is a good person inside of you."

"I never stopped believing in you, Leo." Marivel says. "Not even when we were fighting. I knew it would take you time to start to see the truth, I knew it would not come easy. Someone like you, with eyes open."

"If you wish to destroy me today, Leo, I would die to a hero. If you wish to fight, I will not play jokes with you. I will not ply illusions. If you destroy me, you will save your Goddess from me. Maybe that will be the better ending to this tale. Sometimes the crimes of the past should stay in the past. The dragonmaster told me that whomever she was before she came to your world...that she is no longer that person."

"Perhaps," Marivel says. "That means I should cast aside my feelings, and simply allow her to do her best with this world. I may find it insufficient, but it is the world she has given you. There is a beautiful potential on Lunar, if you should seize it. However ugly things may seem, this world is not dead yet. It is not on its last gasp, like Filgaia."

"But I cannot cast away those feelings, those doubts, that pain. What she did to me, it is not something I can forgive without seeing her. It is not something I can forget at a distance. Until I scream it out at Pentagulia's highest tower, my pain, I cannot move on. That is how pain is. Sometimes, you have to be irrational and violent and mad. And then when you have finally spent the poison and spit it out of you, then it is finally gone."

"And I have made a promise to Ashley Winchester so I cannot simply step into the Sun. But if you truly wish for my destruction... I trust you, Leo. Whatever your true aim is, I trust you to make the right choices. Not while the cloud is over your eyes, but once you see clearly--Nothing will be able to stop you."

"I have met her. Why you must truly persevere. Not for the Goddess, but for your sister. The one who burned me to ash. I cannot do it. I do not suspect even Hiro can manage it. Only you have that power White Knight..."

"So you must live past today."

She fans back her cloak. "...I am ready. Are you?" 

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"Ivaaaaaan!" Talia calls out. "Here we go!"

She yells it at the top of her lungs as she runs across the ground. Being a faster sort, she bobs, weaves, and rolls a few times. She skids over the ground, tucks down, and ducks into a roll. Then, she comes up. Her eyes widen as she hears a voice; a familiar one, that once shared food at a dinner table and marveled at how bad her (habanero-infused) cheesecake was.

Her eyes widen. "Liath..." she says, softly. She glances at her brother. "Ivan... that's Liath. We have to try to stop her!"

Talia changes her position. She leaps -- jumping up over one of the Althena's Guardspeople that Liath urges on. Her feet slam into their helmet, with a crunch and a loud 'OW!' Then, she rebounds, and comes down for Liath. Mirage is drawn from its hilt in midair, the blade trailing shadow magic after it. She spins the blade around, and then chops it down for Liath as she lands. "Liaaaath!"

She is in the habit of calling out names. "You have to stop this!" Then, she swings the sword up, chopping it straight up at her guard, and trying to pierce it.

GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Liath with Tiger Rage!
GS: Talia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Talia has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

There is another angle from which help comes--one which people would have every right not to expect, considering all that's happened, all that they're busy with. But Lulu upon hearing of the success at Bevelle had something to suggest herself to Yuna...

If they involved themselves, here, perhaps they could make a difference.

So, while Yuna and her Guardians were not part of the discussions on how to retake Luca, they nevertheless are here, arriving just in time from their journey back. For this, though, it's worth it.

Just this instant, Lulu runs first of the group, down the white streets of Luca as she makes her way towards where the fighting seems thickest. "Yuna!" she says, slowing as she sees a sudden surge of Fiends. It is warning as much as anything, and Lulu comes to a stop in front of the fiends. She sees a woman behind, shouting instructions, hears her weapon--and quickly imagines what these fiends might do in the line they're in.

"It would seem that we have company sooner than I thought."

Lulu holds onto the moogle doll under her arm and lets herself focus through it, lifting a hand--and bringing forth great jagged spikes of ice into the fiends' line, casting her spells forward as she presses onward for the group. She won't stay in front, their teamwork is rather better than that, but she can definitely clear space on the way to the woman behind, Margaret.

She spots that electrical force around her and another Fiend is battered away by another spike of ice. Lulu advances through the rising clouds of pyreflies of the fiends she dispatches on her way through.

She trusts the others more than enough to know she won't be alone doing it. 

GS: Lulu has attacked Margaret with Blizzara!
GS: Lulu has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lulu assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Lulu has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Liath takes a glancing hit from Talia's Tiger Rage for 50 hit points!
GS: Slow applied to Seraph Liath!

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

Ashley would have been taking part in this whole business, but you know how things are.

Sometimes you feel like the demon within you is about to burst its fleshy prison like a meat-balloon and unleash utter devastation all across the land.

Sometimes, instead of that, you just come down with a serious case of the flu!

And that's where Ashley Winchester has been for the past few days. And why he wasn't at Bevelle! You can't fight a war with the flu!!

But he's better now. And so he's here, having followed Marivel to the front line like a loyal puppy dog with an oversized gun. "Uh, wow. I didn't expect them to get pushed back so quick," Ashley murmurs, rubbing a sleeve across his nose. "Well... I guess that's what happens when you go to wage war so far away from home. Supply lines can get pretty volatile, right? So."

Ashley Winchester... Readies his Bayonet and picks out a target. "I guess... Let's get this started?

There's some kind of lady martial artist over there. She seems like a good place to start! Surely shooting a monk isn't going to backfire! It's not like she has some kind of supernatural martial art capable of launching deadly shadow fireballs at him or anything, right?

Right.

And that's how Pearl finds herself under fire, as what looks like a soda can soars through the air directly at her face. But it never reaches her face! Instead it bursts well ahead of schedule, exploding into a devastating flash of light and overwhelming cacophony of thunderous noise!! 

GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Pearl with Canister - Thunder Cracker!
GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action.
GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Ashley Winchester's Canister - Thunder Cracker for 63 hit points!
GS: Mute applied to Pearl!
GS: Pearl activates Evade bonus!

<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    "... I shouldn't even be here today..." Acacia mutters to herself with a frown, her hands bunched into fists where she's rammed them into her jacket pockets. She's not so much walking through the assembled throng of Yevon forces as stalking through them, feeling some mild irritation simmer at the back of her mind and trying to stave it off by every-so-often looking out over the sea's horizon.

    Her relationship to Yevon could be charitably described as 'frosty', and much more unpleasant words come immediately to mind - but there are members of ARMS here, and someone's got to watch their backs before one of them tries to save the world again or Marivel lets out another lengthy lecture at the worst possible time or who knows what else.

    Besides, she's a reporter. She's covered wars, you know. And there's a little sixth sense that tells her she should be here to cover this moment too - that the only way to properly mark what feels like a turning point in a literal war between worlds is for her to see it with her own eyes.

    "Like that hasn't gotten me into some pretty shitty trouble in the past," she snorts to her own inner monologue, looking again at the blue waves. She's not really one for escapism, but it's nice to take a moment to appreciate the view on Spira, the water so technicolor that her Guild Galad sensibilities almost don't know how to cope with it.

    "... okay," she decides to herself as the Yevon rallying cry goes up, and she hops twice on her feet to try to loosen herself up before starting forwards in a jog that picks quickly up into a run. Rather than bother with the rank and file, she focuses instead on the figure that announces itself by slamming down from above - at least, that's what the sinking feeling tells her to do.


    She hates that feeling. "Okay--" she starts to say as she forces her way through a Guard, twisting and shifting her mass to throw the tired soldier to one side. She's not even aiming for the ground, so much as getting the poor NPC out of the way. "--I'm thinking we need to put you back in jail. It's the only place you get decent sleep." 

DC: White Knight Leo switches forms to White Knight Leo!

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

It's all Ivan can do to keep track of Talia as she dashes across the battlefield and darts and rolls to and fro in the chaos. To keep eyes on her, Ivan follows in sweeping, fire-powered leaps, using the height to find her again whenever she dissappears.

Ivan... that's Liath. We have to try to stop her!

Ivan blinks. He knew Liath was with the Guard -- he even used a false name with her initially -- but she never made an issue of his status as a deserter. (Or did she really never get it...?)

Unfortunately, they're here to stop the Guard, which means he can't return the favor.

Ivan lands, fire and smoke coming off his boots for a moment before it fades.

He draws his umbrella from the sheath at his side, pointing it at the Seraph, before releasing a knockback pulse of golden energy from the canopy.

"Liath! I'm not sure what brought you to the Guard, but this war is just causing suffering to ordinary people, and it has gone on long enough!" 

GS: Ivan has attacked Seraph Liath with Umbrella Rebuke!
GS: Ivan has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    'Leo.'

    Leo hears that voice, and the ferocious bravado just dissipates in an instant, like mist before the sun. He lowers his blade, ordering the Hyland lancers forward with a thrust of his hand. They look amongst themselves for a moment, and when they move forward, it's with some reluctance.

    Leo kicks himself for showing weakness. He should be able to withstand this. They're just words she's saying, just--

    Just words from someone he has come to respect and care for and consider a friend, despite the fact she said she was here to murder his Goddess.

    "Marivel," Leo says. He's gone stone-faced. He cannot falter any more than he has. "I've sworn to protect her. I swore to protect her until my dying breath, with every drop of blood within me." He closes his eyes, and presses a gauntleted hand to his chest. "She loves us," Leo says.

    How do you know? hisses that treasonous voice.

    "She love us, just as you love the people of the Blue Star. I cannot kill you."

    And Marivel reaffirms that she's not about to let him, even if he wanted to. Something approaching relief flickers through Leo's gaze. And then Marivel mentions Mauri, and alarm crosses the White Knight's features. "Mauri..." he breathes. Tension grips him. He lets out a tight breath. "Of course. On your guard!"

    The White Knight surges forwards, light gleaming off the crescent edge of his blade. He strikes high, a quick, fast slash at Marivel's collarbone, before settling back into a defensive stance. There's a sense of sturdiness to it, but also alertness. It's the signature stance of Waning Crescent.

GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Marivel Armitage with Flash Blade!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 1 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    It might be a surprise for everyone that Althena's Guard, which had been on the verge of winning back in Bevelle, is now pushed so far back so soon after their victory that they're about to lose instead. Of course, given how beat up Bevelle and Luca are, and how its leaders still haven't returned, it might be a pyrrhic victory for Yevon either way.
    
    And while it might not be their battle to fight, it's not like Yuna could just ignore that battle up on the Calm Lands. And after *that*, well... That ended up, surprisingly enough, being the turning point. Now it's just a matter of pushing Althena's Guard out of Luca, and then following them to Kilika. And it's Lulu who suggests that.
    
    Tidus, too, runs through the streets of Luca, Brotherhood in hand as he keeps pace with the black mage of the group. A swarm of fiends surges forward to greet them, chittering and flying and racing and chased by Guardsmen. "Pretty ugly company, too," he quips Lulu's way, and who knows if he means the fiends or the Guards. "C'mon! We can't let these guys slow us down!"
    
    To that effect, Tidus races into the throng, slashing one fiend in the face and using it as a stepping stone to jump up and cut down through another. A nearby Guardsman gets punched with the pommel of his blade, then kicked out of the way as Tidus pushes his way forward. No doubt the rest of Yuna's Guardians, and of course Yuna herself, have his back. 

GS: Tidus has attacked Margaret with Spiral Cut!
GS: Tidus assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Tidus has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    A shot rings out not long after the Veruni convict makes her impressive, intimidating landing on the front lines. The bullet just misses, whizzing past. It's not hard to find where that shot came from, for they make no intention of hiding that much about themselves.
     Even if they are attempting to pass off, poorly, as an Al Bhed. The skin tone is too dark, the hair far too white. The gas mask covers for the final piece of the puzzle that would proclaim this man is not that. From an extended left hand, a machina pistol that still smokes out the nozzle.
     "It appears your foothold has fallen apart." Unmistakably a familiar man's voice, though he has gone to great lengths to ensure almost no one could ever call him 'familiar' despite lingering around the Drifter community for some years now. "I have noticed that Hyland and Rolance are once again given to infighting, their ability to support the war effort crippled. Your Golems were turned aside by the appearance of Sin at the Calm Lands before a decisive victory could have been ascertained. It appears... in absentia of what advantages your kind have given to the Guard, Spira may yet ascertain its course."
     A side-glance over to where Yuna and her entourage are fighting through no small number of Fiends - he had a few close calls getting here. "Whatever course that may be." He keeps closing in on the poor woman with her horrid stomacache - and he's not far off from where Acacia is struggling with whether she should be here but has resolved that putting Yue back into jail is the way to go.
     "I will not be so forward as to claim your removal will be the final piece of the puzzle." There are many, many questions as regards Spira, its isolation, and why several things are where they are - too much to name, as the enigmatic man takes his place not far off from Acacia as he lowers the machina pistol and draws a quarterstaff.
     "But I will not have Spira suffer this particular loose end." 

GS: Marivel Armitage guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Flash Blade for 101 hit points!
GS: Marivel Armitage activates Guard bonus!
GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Lulu's Blizzara for 154 hit points!
GS: Margaret critically guards Tidus's Spiral Cut for 27 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Things are looking up for Xantia's efforts to make up for all misunderstandings she's caused in Luca. Her assistance in protecting the city from the Fire Thief did much to bring her back into the citizenry's good graces. There's just the little matter of the city still being in the hands of the Guard that still needs taking care of. Thankfully, there's a plan for that as well. One would think Xantia'd be a part of that, but oddly she isn't among those advancing on Luca right now.

That would be because... she's already there. She has been for a while. Using the same sewer infiltration route as before, and the goodwill she built up before and after the occupation, Xantia's found her way to the house of a family willing to shelter her until the big assault. Not so much to enact a sneak attack (though her reason for being here certainly includes exactly that) but more because... it just feels more right this way. To position herself between the Guard and the townsfolk. There's where she should be.

And so, not long after the sounds of fighting erupts on the front lines, there's an explosion from behind. Having a Xantia present within the city isn't quite the same as a bomb being planted there, but there are similarities, as some of the rear guard are caught by a massive Ether-charged punch. "It's time to make things right," the armor-clad fist fighter announces as she slams a fist into the opposite palm.

But then something happens that she wasn't expecting. A hand lands on her shoulder, and when she turns her head one of the townspeople who sheltered her stands there, a big smile on her face. "That's right! We're with you, Mystery Crusader X!"

...They're still calling her that. Xantia is nothing short of astonished by an unexpectedly large show of support, as more and more people emerge from their houses, carrying whatever improvised weaponry they could get their hands on. What are they doing?

"But I'm not--", Xantia begins to protest, though as she takes in the sight, her surprised expression soon makes way for a smile. This misunderstanding got her into a big mess... maybe it's only fitting that the same misunderstanding gets people out of a big mess. If this means that she'll need to don the mantle of Hero once more, she'll gladly do so. With a firm nod, she raises a fist to the sky, increasing the volume of her voice as she addresses all who will hear.

"Very well, citizens of Luca! I have heard the voices of your hearts! You wish for freedom! You wish for justice! Together, we can make those wishes come true! Now is the time to make your voices heard loud and clear, and take back what was wrongfully taken from you!"

A cheer goes up from the gathered crowd, and soon everything is thrown into chaos, as the guards defending the gates now find themselves assaulted by an angry mob from behind in addition to the problems in front. Xantia murmurs a 'thank you' as she takes the opportunity to charge through to meet up with the main attacking force, intending to support them from behind. This would never have gone so well without everyone's support, she realizes. She'll have to do all she can to repay their courage. At lightning speed - literally, as she surrounds herself with an aura lightning - she dashes on through, until she comes into sight of a certain Seraph... 

GS: Xantia has attacked Xantia with Mystery Crusader X Coming Through!!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Xantia accepts Xantia's Mystery Crusader X Coming Through! for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick applied to Xantia!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    The guado children are safe.

    This is -- if not THE most important thing -- one of the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS, in the metric of the Seraph named Boudicca. The wounded masses of Bevelle are comprised of a vast network of people just like these, just as complex as these. Two girls who wished to know the truth, and braved a war zone to find it.

    And how many of those tales were interrupted by this war? So many wounded, so many...

    ... a man who raised a chocobo from an egg, and now he isn't a mounted knight any more. Burnt to his bones, he may never hold a sword again.
    ... a boy who has had three mothers, over the course of his life; now an orphan, three times over. He may never speak again. His story is one conveyed through his artworks, and the horror in his eyes.
    ... a woman who tended a garden on the coast, spiting the salty sea breeze and saline soil to grow fruits and vegetables for her village -- until it was all crushed beneath soldier heels. She does not say that those carefully-grown trees were all she had left of her husband, but she is not crying for the young.

    Boudicca could go on. She has heard so much, tending to the aftermath.

    There are hundreds of good reasons for her to press into Luca. Hundreds of good reasons, but not COUNTLESS ones. To say they are countless is to discount the grains of sand which comprise Spira's humanity, tumbling through the hourglass. Falling down and down and down, until some grievous hand flips its poles, and it knows the falling again.

    This and this and this and this and this and this and that are her reasons to fight, more than anything because SPIRA fights, even the ones not yet grown. They fight so much, so hard, Blizzara after Blizzara into a burning building. They are trying and striving and struggling to live, when their world demands otherwise.

    And the world is Lunar, and with Lunar, Althena's Guard. Oh, what they have brought here!

    (But is it new? Is it really new?)

    She steps forward.

    All clad in plate armour, green silk at the edges and orange-speckled cloak behind, a horned helm adding so many more unfair inches to her already considerable height -- this is the Seraph Boudicca, who was aligned with Althena's Guard, in a more Beastlike body. Tonfa clasped in her hands, long, long braids joined by a ribbon trailing behind her, she approaches.

    "Supply lines?" She wonders, to Ashley, and shakes her head. "... I know little of war."

    She focuses in on Pearl, instead; on that word. "Ah," she says, and her stance is not battle-ready, in the way of an artist; back straight, legs too close together. "It was not so long ago... your people called me something much more pleasant. I wonder if I have truly changed so much."

    It's the sort of question which might have been a trick, in someone else's hands, but Boudicca asks it honestly, with a tilt of her head to indicate her goodwill.

    "Regardless," she shakes her head, straightening, "if you will not yield, we must come to blows. Ashley!" She exclaims, extending out a hand, still grasping her sticks. "She seems a martial combatant! Please be cautious!" Boudicca may know little of war, after all, but her best friend does do an awful lot of punches.

    This is warning coupled with a Seraphic glyph lighting up, the breeze coursing around him to provide buffer and prevailing breeze. "... Fortifying Tailwind!"

GS: Seraph Liath guards a hit from Ivan's Umbrella Rebuke for 81 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Liath gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seraph Liath activates Guard bonus!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ashley Winchester with Fortifying Tailwind!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Aaaaaagh, why is it Acacia?! Well, no, Yue knows why it's Acacia -- because she'll stubbornly go to the ends of the earth to pull her by her ear and then plonk her in a jail cell so she'll rest.

    "L-look, I was trying to find rest this time...!" Yue tries to excuse herself, despite the fact that some part of her probably is just too addicted to working, despite how much grumbling she does to her mother finding her here. I mean, she should probably have found some private cove in Besaid or in the middle of nowhere if she really wanted rest...

    A shot rings out. There's an Al Bhed soldier... hmm, is it? He looks a little familiar... but he begins speaking.

    Yue can't really admit it, but Ethius is giving her a really, really good refresher on a war she's totally missed out on.

    "True..." Yue tries to conserve villain credibility, instead of go, 'Oh, is that what happened?'. "But it is as some of the tired folk say--" she glances towards where Marivel is having a dramatic duel with Leo, where Hilde and Liath are trying to hold the line so folks survive.

    "There is still a reason to fight." (There's no reason to fight.)

    There's breath escaping her lips, then she stoops into a stance. Once again, she's fighting guns... both from Acacia, who'll probably deliver Ether on her, and this man's machina pistol.

    And so, warrior-of-the-weekend Yue Rohay will fight in the way someone who shouldn't even be here will...

    ...

    "<Demon Fang!>"

    By spamming her basic technique over and over and over again. Enormous bolts of violet-blue energy race across the ground, and Yue has to quietly be grateful that it's an impressive-enough looking technique that she doesn't look like she's just spamming (X) because she can't be bothered today. 

GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Majinken - Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Acacia Saitani with Majinken - Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: Ethius Hesiod critically guards Yue Rohay's Majinken - Demon Fang for 24 hit points!
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Majinken - Demon Fang for 117 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    She's been here before.

    Yes, of course. The last time Avril walked these streets, it was in defeat -- Luca had fallen under the Guard's Golems and wounded, she had fled to an alley to recover before making her own escape.
    Her fingers tighten their grip on her hilt. How will it turn, this time? To all appearances, their push has them with the upper hand. But shall it remain so?

    She had entered with Dean and the others via the sewers, taking advantage of the knowledge gleaned by others to find their path through as well as the Guard's current state of distraction. From there, it had simply been a matter of linking with the others -- the organized resistance within the city walls and the rest.

    There is blood again in the city streets she notes, pressing the charge. But whose blood is it?

    Now is not the time for such thinking. On this, she and the thing in the shadows of her mind are in agreement.
    Indeed. She and the thing in the shadows are the very same being.

    Still. Her advance slows and she stands before one of the Althenian knights, pointing her blade at Hilde as if in challenge.

    "Stand down, and I shall permit your passage away from this place," she says to the woman with sword and shield. A stray too-hot gust of wind sends her silvery hair aflutter, if just for a moment. It is replaced by a cool wind, by the scent of the sea.

    Cradled in Avril's left arm is a strange silvery disc. It shines softly with an inward light.

    She does not linger on that thought -- the blood ins the streets. But she has not forgotten it, either. Mercy may not be something she can provide today, but she can at least aim towards it. Perhaps that will be enough. 

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Ocean's Blessing!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Riposte applied to Avril Vent Fleur!

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.


They are indeed here. And despite the gravity of the situation... Rikku's actually been all smiles ever since they decided to come back to Luca. It's not because they're diverting from the pilgrimage either.

She's been to Luca dozens of times. Hundreds of times in her life maybe but Luca just has... new significance for her. Because it's where she met all of them.

When Lulu makes her call, Rikku suddenly darts forward with what's now practiced reflex towards fighting with the rest of them. "Don't worry Tidus! Lulu! I've got just the thing for the ugly brigade!"

And promptly lobs something into the mix of fiends. "Hey fiends! Here's Rikku with Luca weather report!" It looks like a simple grenade. Except it's detonation seems... lackluster for Rikku.

She has explosive standards after all.

And then the first glint of gold passes by. Then many more, as there's a metallic pitter patter of glinting currency, "Cloudy with a hundred percent chance of a moolah shower! So stop the rampage and pay attention to the coinage!"

Her strategy is simple. To distract the fiends long enough for team Guardian to cut her way through them. Though the moment the newest Guardian enters her field of vision, she becomes a real big - or perhaps extra small distraction.

"Now Paine. Just in case you didn't know. Luca is where I met up and started travelling Yunie and the others! But I don't want you to feel left out..."

Rikku just gets this grin, as she raises a hand and points her way in like a teasing salute.

"... because we'll always have the patch of grass in the Calm Lands! Next time we head through - I may even put up a sign. Tidus you'll help me out with that right?"

GS: Rikku has attacked Margaret with Bribe!
GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Rikku has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

"I know." is Marivel's immediate answer to Leo's stone face. To his SWORN PROMISE. To his last breath. "And one should never break their promises lightly. But Leo..."

Marivel raises her head. "She swore to protect us. She promised she'd be there for us. And yet, the moment we needed her most..."

Finally, Marivel confesses the truth, taking a deep breath and exhaling it out slowly.

"She was saving you instead."

In a smooth motion, Marivel draws out Guillotine. The relative peaceful composure vanishes in an instant as Marivel's eyes widen, fangs bared. "So prepare yourself, White Knight Leo! Hero of Althena!"

She throws off her cape, crackling red mist starting to surorund her as she hovers up into the air. Leo gets a clean swipe at her collarbone but the eldricht and demonic energies crackling around the vampire means it simply knocks her backwards as two more sets of crimson eyes appear along her face, all staring at White Knight Leo.

"Today you battle, Red Mist Marivel! Hero of Althena! Of Filgaia! And most of all... of Anastasia!"

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drcHDYTD6c&list=RD4drcHDYTD6c&start_radio=1

She brings the blade high up above her head and swings it down in a wide arc, thick blades of crimson energy coming crashing down towards Leo in a rapid pattern.

"Don't you dare hold back, Leo! Today I'm going to see if the Goddess will save you a second time!" Marivel screams. "If you hold back, even a little, I swear on YOUR Goddess... Keep Your Promise... Or I'll Never Forgive You!" 

GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Rikku's Bribe for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Weaken applied to Margaret!
GS: Margaret has lost 1 Combo from Interrupt!
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked White Knight Leo with Bloody Mari!
GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action.
GS: White Knight Leo critically guards Red Mist Marivel's Bloody Mari for 32 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
<SoundTracker> To Zanarkand - FFX Piano Collection - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLU2xQ4nkk4

Yuna has not returned to Luca since they were driven out of it by the Guard.

"So much has happened since then," she murmurs, in the slightly dreamy, slightly distant tone of someone who doesn't quite realize they've vocalized their inner landscape. Looking across the wartorn, occupied city, it's obvious that she's seeing not only this landscape but myriad other sadnesses... and perhaps some happy memories, too. Hers is a complicated expression...

Tidus knows, now, the significance that it carries, when her footsteps take her to places she never thought she'd see again. Places she's said her last goodbyes to. Places she'd made her peace with.

Even if she survives her journey, it must move her, now, to have an opportunity to make peace in Luca before she departs for the lands beyond -- before there's no turning back.

One thing that's happened since then is that the party has grown. Her gaze lingers on Paine for a long moment, then turns subtly inwards, another expression that her Guardians -- except, perhaps, the newest -- have come to know all too well, as she communes with the small army of souls merged with her own. It is not a shuttered look, but the opposite; a sort of total openness, a terrible vulnerability. There is more than one obscenity to the existence of a summoner, and this one perhaps more obscene to one who values privacy, one who protects themselves with closedness, than the comparable simplicity of human sacrifice.

Lulu calls her out of it, as she so often does. Big dewy doe-eyes that have no place anywhere near a war blink, then blink again, as she spies restraints on the fiends.

A terrible sorrow is the expression that Margaret gets to witness, as though Yuna's just seen something even more horrific than herself.

"When this is over," she promises herself out loud, on purpose this time, and promises them also, the pyreflies blooming like a garden of death all over the city, pyreflies that reflect in her eyes, rendering them, her, luminous, "I will perform the Sending." The inability to do so, in the aftermath of Luca's loss, was undoubtedly a factor in the creation of some of the very fiends they face now.

She lets her Guardians take point on the monsters, as is their job (and sometimes, she actually remembers to let them do it!). Tidus' good cheer softens her mood slightly, like a warm fire on a very cold night. Rikku, too, as she recalls their first meeting, here in this very city.

"Tidus... Rikku. Everyone... remember why we're here!"

To protect.

Everyone gets to feel that warmth in turn as veils of light embrace them in layers, first blue and then golden, warding against both physical and magical assault. Yuna is relieved to protect rather than harm, just now.

In a world filled with so much death and violence, it is an extraordinary privilege to be able to fight in this way, Yuna reflects. This time it stays inside, but the brilliance of her white magic says it for her anyway.

GS: Yuna has attacked Tidus with Protect!! Shell!!!
GS: Yuna has attacked Lulu with Protect!! Shell!!!
GS: Yuna has attacked Rikku with Protect!! Shell!!!
GS: Yuna has attacked Paine with Protect!! Shell!!!
GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yuna has completed her action.
GS: Rikku accepts Yuna's Protect!! Shell!! for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Rikku!
GS: Tidus accepts Yuna's Protect!! Shell!! for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Tidus!
GS: Lulu accepts Yuna's Protect!! Shell!! for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Lulu!
GS: Paine accepts Yuna's Protect!! Shell!! for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield and Surge applied to Paine!
GS: Ashley Winchester accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Ashley Winchester!

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    It should be noted, perhaps, for all the use of heathens, there may have been a lack of conviction in her words. "I can not speak to times long past." Pearl says, matter of factly. "Only on the goddess' most recent words." Again, her conviction is... lacking. She nods as Boudicca says they must come to blows-

    And then Ashley shoots at her with a flashbang, and she tries too late to shield her eyes, and the sound is enough to displease her. But she shows no sign of pain.

    Instead she charges head first for Ashley, even as her ears ring and her eyes have spots in them. She strikes out at him with a wild slash, her claws aiming to tear at him, to brutally rend his flesh. And then she puts her speed to work and she's on the move again, turning towards Boudicca.

    The real test will be of claws against full plate. They are sharp things, but they are not large. Still, Pearl drops into a slide, aiming to cut at her hamstring and pull her leg from under her in one, before moving to roll to her feet. She does not speak further. 

GS: Pearl has attacked Ashley Winchester with Frenzied Claw!
GS: Pearl has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Running Takedown!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Hilde observes as a familiar face approaches. Avril vent Fleur, pointing her sword at her in challenge. This is not their first meeting.

Once, they crossed blades.

Once, they fought together, in an alliance of convenience against a terrible beast. Hilde has not forgotten what she observed that day - the true nature of the Sealing Rods they had been employing.

But even so, despite this, Hilde cannot simply turn her back on those she've sworn to fight alongside.

"I am afraid I cannot, Lady Avril. There are far too many counting on my presence. I have lead far too many here. Would you have me abandon them?" Hilde asks. She shakes her head.

"...I cannot." She repeats. She sounds... tired, and sorrowful, but still she remains firm. "...But if you have come here, there is only one course of action left to us. Prepare yourself."

Hilde lunges forward, then. Her sword trails behind, leading with her shield in a quick, bashing charge in an attempt to create an opening while still allowing her to maintain a defensive stance. 

GS: Hilde has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Shield Bash!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a glancing hit from Pearl's Running Takedown for 63 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Evade bonus and Power Burst!
GS: Ashley Winchester takes a solid hit from Pearl's Frenzied Claw for 141 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Liath has posed.

Situational awareness is paramount on a battlefield, where everything so swiftly devolves into an oftentimes frantic frenzy of weapons and war; one can never be sure where the next blade will fly from, after all.

It's with the keen-eyed stare of someone well-versed in such things, then, that Liath takes in her surroundings. A bright, golden gaze takes in the advance of those forces arrayed against the Guard with a quiet certainty. Upon the Summoner and her entourage. The forces of Yevon. Those from that not-so-distant star...

Her gaze falls if briefly on the exchange that takes place between Marivel and Leo, head tilt. And it is then--

'Liaaaath!'

-- that the next blade flies for her.

Laced in shadow, Liath recognizes the edge of the Mirage well before she sees the one who swings it; the edge of Joyeuse meets the chopping motion of Talia's weapon, the partial parry redirecting the blade's motion to glance more - but not entirely - harmlessly off the pauldron decorating Liath's right shoulder.

"Lady Ta--" begins Liath, wide-eyed, but it is an incomplete pronouncement.

It's a rare thing, after all, that Talia comes to a battle alone.

Liath catches motion from the periphery of her vision. She pivots on her heel as she knocks the Mirage aside.

And it is then that she sees it, unfurling in all its terrible majesty.

"Umbrella--!?"

That foulest of weapons...!

There is a harmonious sound of collision as Ivan's pulse of gold meets the shining surface of Liath's shield. The force is enough to drag the Seraph across the earth viciously as she digs her boot heels in deep to stop her relentless, backward momentum, feeling the force vibrate down to her shoulder before she knocks that shield -upward-, ricocheting the blast towards the heavens.

"Huff," exhales the Seraph.

"... What a dread power, indeed."

In the end, she rises, her shield smoking, her gold gaze steady. She looks once towards Talia, then towards Ivan.

She allows herself a brief moment of something sincerely bittersweet to touch her expression as that gaze shuts.

"... Lady T-- no, Talia. Master Vlad." She'll use his real name one day, reall"It warms my heart so deeply to see you both again."

She sounds like she means it, with every fiber of her being.

But that does not stop the way that sentimentality gives way to steel when her stare focuses on them next.

"... But you are asking something I cannot do. It is not my place nor role to stop a thing already in motion. Nor will I cede my reason to fight so simply. I take no joy in this--"

Her sword lifts once more, gold light painting the sky at its tip.

"-- but today, I stand as your enemy!"

A sigil is forged in the air with every fluid stroke of Liath's blade. Her stance widens. And with each graceful motions, she sees something growing closer in the distance. Something streaked with lightning. Her stare narrows briefly.

              "Power from beyond the veil, banish darkness!"

And whether it be by sheer serendipity or providence or something much more purposeful, when Liath stabs her sword through the center of that sigil, when gold and blue light streams in multi-layered shards of power from its depth --

It's not just Talia and Ivan, but Xantia, racing across the battlefield, that will find themselves potentially caught in its path.

                             "Divine Streak!"

In the aftermath, Liath stands firm, her sword painted in hues of aggressively shimmering rainbow light.

GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Seraph Liath with Radiant Coil!
GS: Seraph Liath assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Seraph Liath accepts Seraph Liath's Radiant Coil for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Seraph Liath!
GS: Seraph Liath has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Seraph Liath spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Xantia with Divine Streak!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Talia with Divine Streak!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Ivan with Divine Streak!
GS: Seraph Liath has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Liath has completed her action.
GS: Xantia takes a glancing hit from Seraph Liath's Divine Streak for 66 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Hilde's Shield Bash for 62 hit points!
GS: Cover applied to Hilde!

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    'She was saving you instead.'

    Leo knows, now, what this means. It feels like absolute heresy, but Marivel knew Althena--had to have known her--as a person, not simply a goddess. "As fire consumed the Blue Star," Leo whispers, "the Goddess gathered her Chosen unto her, and delivered them from certain death." It's part of the Church's catcheism, but now he knows more. He knows about the people she left behind.

    And then, it is Hero against Monster.

    Leo's eyes widen as Marivel transforms, and a prickle of fear races down his spine. He knows better than to question her judgment. She means every word she says. Guillotine falls at him again and again as Marivel presses against his guard. The big Beastman sweeps his blade through a series of blocks that are by now second-nature--block high, to the side, center, low, center again. Marivel's power collides with Leo's blessed blade again and again, erupting in great gouts of blood-red energy. Each impact forces the White Knight back, makes him give ground despite his earlier command to not budge an inch. When it's over, Leo is breathing heavily; a cut on his shoulder bleeds onto the spotless white of his uniform, the result of a blow Leo couldn't quite deflect in its entirety.

    "Such power..." Leo murmurs, because he is not above cliche. He steps to the side, trying to circle Marivel--and in the process, catching sight of Margaret, and the Summoner and Guardians arrayed against her. Yuna. Leo takes his lip between his teeth, and pushes his doubts out of mind. He blurs forwards, at first looking like he's going to charge and cut the Crimson Noble in two...

    But two seconds in, he stops, letting his gathered momemtum loose in a blindingly-fast strike. "DEMON FANG!" Leo roars, and a crescent of white-and-gold energy rips from his blade, rushing through the air towards Marivel!

GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Red Mist Marivel with Demon Fang!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Seraph Liath's Divine Streak for 128 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia nearly spins at the sound of the shot - even with opponents in front of her, she tends to be a bit hair-trigger when it comes to potential danger. But the danger she's watching for isn't necessarily that which is aimed at herself, and she even goes so far as to try to throw a hand up in the path of the shot to try to block it, because guns that shoot projectiles rather than her own cobbled together Ether are somehow, in her mind, Cheating.

    She is not a superhuman. She cannot actually successfully blindly block a bullet with her hand. But damn it, she's allowed to try. Just as she's still going to try taking Yue's attack head-on as if to prove her own resolve. Where she does block, it's more like meeting the Veruni's energy with her Ether - some of the wave's strength is misdirected and dissipated away, but she still grunts as she's sent several steps backwards, and two more to keep her balance.

    At least she's polite enough to wait out Ethius' speech - and even finds herself nodding in some sort of mildly grim satisfaction at the way he sums it up, making some mental notes for her own reporting as well. Honestly, she can get behind the viewpoint - leave Spira to its own devices is pretty tempting, all told, because that means that maybe she can go home. But she very much doubts, after everything with Yevon, that it's going to be that simple.

    "Technically, this is my loose end more than it is Spira's," she does retort afterwards with a noise that might possibly be a bit of a possessive huff, and turns to Yue with a hand on her hip. "And don't get me wrong, I believe you. But I bet you can't say I'm wrong. ... I could always just break your comms device," she suggests brightly as the idea occurs to her. "Plausible deniability, right?"

    Aware that Yue is wise to her tricks, the reporter reaches across herself to finger the grip of her pistol tucked away in her vest pocket - then uses it as something like a feint, instead dropping her head as she forces herself forwards with her arms covering her face. The shuffle covers a surprising amount of distance, after which she's rising with a left hook. 

GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Yue Rohay with Boxout!
GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    Not two seconds later, a cheer erupts from the general direction of the gates. Leo knows what an angry mob of civilians sounds like, and thus the subsequent sounds from that area are quite concerning. They rallied the populace, he realizes, and a dull sinking sensation settles into his stomach.

GS: Yue Rohay fully evades Acacia Saitani's Boxout for 0 hit points!
GS: Red Mist Marivel guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Demon Fang for 104 hit points!
GS: Ivan takes a solid hit from Seraph Liath's Divine Streak for 124 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    The butt of the quarterstaff comes slamming down exactly at the same time that first of the violet-blue energies race into the ground, violently dispersing it with only moderate discomfort of the force that runs up its shaft and through his arm. It is a stark contrast in conviction between the two of them - where Yue is partaking only because circumstance has forced to, this man seems to treat the particulars as something dire that demands his utmost, and then some.
     (It still begs the question why he'd put away an ARM and use a stick, but... whatever?)
     "Your reason is irrelevant," comes the belated answer to Yue's quarter-hearted attempt to live up to being the villain the main has plainly already envisioned. He looks over briefly to Acacia as she calls it her own loose end, wordless. "...Regardless, a loose end to be tied."
     He starts charging through the rest of those Demon Fangs, stumbling once as one glances an ankle... but as he comes close, he takes the staff in both hands.
     "Storm Strike!" he swings it upwards with a speed best described as 'snappy,' fast enough to displace the air in front of him with a 'crack!' Loosened dust and dirt from nearby spray out back against Yue's shins - a singular retort, rather than hitting the X button over and over.
     It is so extremely close to an Air Slash, shy of actual visible chi and more displacing local detritus. 

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Yue Rohay with Storm Strike!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

Ashley has not walked this land as Boudicca has. He doesn't have the connection to its people. He hasn't witnessed their suffering on such a personal level. But even so, he knows the pain that war inflicts on both life and land. After all, Filgaia is a land absolutely riddled with the scars of war and conflict, so much so that the very planet seems as though it's... slowly bleeding out.

"Yeah. You see, the further away the place you're waging war is, the longer it takes for you to send any supplies to your forces. That also means that if circumstances change suddenly, you can't instantly move all the stuff you need to where it needs to be. So this kind of conflict was always weighted against the Guard if you think about it. They needed to secure a rapid victory, because the moment they'd lose a sizable enough chunk of their forces, they'd be put on the back foot in hostile territory far away from any meaningful source of resupply." Ashley sighs and shakes his head. Honestly, this whole campaign... Why did it have to happen? Was it just as simple as being a religious crusade? Was all this suffering worth it?

Maybe to someone.

But those are questions that cannot be answered in this place and time.

...Because there's an angry ninja-monk tearing his chest to ribbons with her claws! "Augh!" Ashley staggers back, blood already painting his shirt dark red. "Flashbangs are supposed to incapacitate people, not let them charge right into you with claws!!"

Clearly, Pearl did not get this memo. Ashley kicks against the ground. Something in his boots goes 'click' and the land abruptly trembles as a shockwave blasts out from underfoot, sending him scooting backwards. But in that moment, before Pearl can pursue...

...There is another canister at her feet.

...Shot there, apparently, in the same moment that Ashley darted away, the sound of the shockwave disguising the gunshot! It bursts a moment later, spreading a sticky, highly flammable goo! And then--

It all goes up in flames.

Ninjas are weak to fire, right? And warcrimes?? 

GS: Ashley Winchester spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Pearl with Canister - Incendiary Round!
GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Mirage and Joyeuse clash. Sparks spray, flashing in Talia's crimson eyes. They're rare, in this part of the world.

Talia does take some pains to keep an eye on her brother. Some of it is training; she is the faster, more agile of the two. Much more of it is that innate sense of protectiveness over her twin, that trumps most other things in her life. She looks at Ivan, eyes on the smoke on his boots, and then they snap back at the Seraph. She hears the cries of Mystery Crusader X -- blinks -- and looks over her shoulder.

She yells back: "You have the wrong beautiful woma--" She spots Xantia. "--oh. Carry on!"

Her head snaps back to Liath. She skids backward, bouncing back from her blade -- and seeing her brother bounce back from his umbrella strike. She looks back at Liath. "But--why? You have to see this isn't right... that these people don't want us here! That--that the soldiers here are following you and everyone else into this...!"

Lightning and radiance explode outward. It blasts through Talia, hurtling her backward. There is a loud POP and then a CRACK when she slams into the flagstones, rolls a couple of times, and then comes up into a three-point stance. She holds Mirage in a reverse grip. Then, she stands, and directs her open palm outward.

A magical circle flashes under her feet; triangular lines form within, and rotating Althenan text -- promising the Goddess's salvation and the Dragons' grace, though reading it isn't easy -- before a large spear of ice takes form. "Freeze Lancer!"

The spear of ice explodes away, hurtling off towards Liath.

GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Liath with Freeze Lancer!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Pearl guards a hit from Ashley Winchester's Canister - Incendiary Round for 84 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Pearl gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Poison applied to Pearl!

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

Paine carries a heavier blade than the two blondes of the party. When she draws it and holds it out to her side, there is a little bob as her arm takes the weight. She lets Rikku and Tidus outpace her for now, staying closer to Yuna, red eyes flickering back and forth to check for fiends that might slip by.

"It's--" she begins, but when she turns to speak to Yuna, she sees the expression on her face, and her voice stills. The skin beneath her eyes creases subtly. She feels a voyeur, suddenly, right out here in the middle of a battle.

Lulu calls Yuna out of her indrawn state, and Paine swings her attention forward as well. By not advancing, Lulu is dropping back in their formation, which provides a sterner defense. But the black mage ought to have defense herself, shouldn't she? Offense is the best defense until it isn't. When the fiends surge at their strongest (and least-blonde'd) point, Paine runs to meet them, dragging her heavy sword through a wide horizontal swing that takes the foremost in the head. It's a slash with the force of a bludgeon, that wrenches the fiend around and drops it to the ground unceremoniously. Taking this position, Paine begins to hew what comes near, sidestepping to block any dastards who may try to slip by. Her stance is unusual, providing so deep a profile it is as though she wishes to hide her sword, which whirls out with graceful brutality when needed.

"How special," Paine drolls back to Rikku. "We'll look for the grenade fragments and shell casings." She stomp-kicks her nearest enemy before continuing, "What should it say?"

Protected by a summoner's magic, Paine seems as reckless with her own safety as she was cautious about Yuna and Lulu's. There is a light in her eyes seen only on the battlefield. 

GS: Paine has attacked Margaret with Gravestone!
GS: Paine has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Paine assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Paine has completed her action.
GS: Margaret guards a hit from Paine's Gravestone for 42 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Slow applied to Margaret!
GS: Seraph Liath takes a glancing hit from Talia's Freeze Lancer for 60 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Liath gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Yue Rohay critically guards Ethius Hesiod's Storm Strike for 17 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yue Rohay gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    "You... could," Yue rather scandalously answers of Acacia's suggestion of breaking the comms device. Some part of her thinks that'll be quite hard, though -- however her mother has synthesized that annoying floating crystal, she's made it pretty hardy and zippy. And... she doesn't tend to like being in the actual field of battle.

    Which makes it all the easier to be treasonous, mind.

    "But why is it your loose end? Are you here for Marivel, for Ashley? You've never been one to take up arms against the Guard." She doesn't really respond to Acacia's call-out; she knows she's right.

    But Acacia soon comes with a feint, and a left hook -- and Yue responds by just not being there, evading a great stride away as she rolls thrice along the ground and lands in a three (four? her hands are cuffed together) point landing.

    It's a slow enough landing that Ethius finds time to snap his quarterstaff and send debris flying against her; a piece of stadium hits her shin, and she's forced to hop back once more, feeling the sting ebb against her leg.

    "Good moves..." Yue remarks to both her opponents. "But no matter what today's outcome is, the war will likely end," Yue remarks. "It is a fire starved of air, which will burn itself out of energy. And yet people are still fighting... come to think of it, why do you fight now, Mister Al Bhed? Why fight for Bevelle?" It's not that she looks down on them for still fighting. But... she's aware of the way people will throw their lives away for an abstract cause that doesn't even have meaning anymore.

    Maybe she's dwelling a lot on futility today. It feels like one theme of the day, to her. And to that end... she continues -- perhaps her mother's voice to 'give it just a BIT more effort, dear' insulting her in the back of her mind, because that's what depressed brains do -- with another Arte--

    "<Double Demon Fang!>"

    Ah, ah, ah, two Demon Fangs for Ethius, two Demon Fangs for Acacia, ah ah ah! That's a total of four. How terrible! 

GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Acacia Saitani with Majinken Souga - Double Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Majinken Souga - Double Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    "Is this what she says?" Boudicca wonders, and wonders again, a nuance to the sentence, that slight gradient of weighted stress and importance, "... what She says... of us."

    There's that sadness, in her eyes, the way their lids close like a veil a hair too long to be called a blink. "I see." Hers is a low alto possessed of its dignity, and she stands too tall for the sadness in her eyes to translate to regret.

    But there is sadness there, and perhaps that is the kindness Ashley offers, distracting her from a story she is embroiled in with the frank practicalities of war. "Oh," she remarks, looking to him. "I had not realised this endeavour was such a risky proposal..."

    Perhaps she would have asked why the Guard would not simply try and resupply in Spira, because Boudicca, again, is not very good at wars, but -- but Pearl has her own piece to say, here, and she is speaking with her claws. Boudicca's legs are protected by greaves, but regardless, she does not wish to test them against weapons so sharp; Pearl slides low and Boudicca leaps up, a gust of wind carrying her unfairly high for a dead-stop spring.

    She lands a little lopsided.

    You see, her greaves end in heels, in the unfair manner of the Seraphim who need not worry about their balance; Pearl's cutting claws may not have snagged her hamstring, but they knocked that piece of herself far away. Anyone who has ever tried to walk in broken heels now knows her dilemma: she's shorter on one side than the other.

    (But she is still very tall.)

    Boudicca shakes her head, those braids spinning about her with the motion and the breeze which is her. "... we are of Althena, but 'tis not the only end we may choose!" This is the conviction she has settled on, regardless of how sad the leaving.

    Pearl has demonstrated the benefits of going low, and Boudicca follows her example, with a little dip-stumble as she figures out how to rebalance her feet. She charges the other woman, and it's her tonfa which lash out -- not claws, not any more -- to strike low at her centre of gravity. She'll try to avoid the fire Ashley spread in her own attack; no matter her kinship with it, the pyre still hurts.

GS: Ethius Hesiod guards a hit from Yue Rohay's Majinken Souga - Double Demon Fang for 69 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Pearl with Rabid Lunge!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Pearl fully evades Seraph Boudicca's Rabid Lunge for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Pearl gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Red Mist Marivel has posed.

"That's right. As fire consumed the Blue Star." Marivel says. "But even so... EVEN SO... Luceid, Anastasia, and I. We fought! We fought for our doomed world! And we did it without her! Do you get it yet? Do you GET IT YET, White Knight?"

Marivel still doesn't give what there is to get, however. She just leaves it hanging. Like she expects the Answers to be found on its own.

She doesn't intend to give Leo any easy quarter. The blazing strings of light require Leo's upmost attention. But his upmost attention--incredibly--that is enough. It is enough.

Leo tries to circle around Marivel. The eyes closest towards that side slant towards Leo and she throws herself forward--

But Leo is an exquisitely trained swordsman. He is faser. The DEMON FANG rips into Marivel's aura, tearing it up and slamming it into her body. She sinks to the floor, dropping down into a crouch. She raises her hand to her lips and flashes her hands to the side, splattering black droplets away from her body.

"A true hero... Misled. Misguided. But true."

She stands herself up slowly. Is that it? It seems almost too easy. It can't just be this, can it?

She throws Guillotine for Leo's chest--

"APORT!"

The blade vanishes and appears behind her, continuing it's travel even as Marivel darts in, hands transmogrifying into crimson claws as she slashes at Leo from the other angle, trying to drive him into the blade she just threw.

"When I returned to Filgaia! I saw a world, barely clinging to life! I knew it would survive, however, because of my Promise! So I endured. Thousands of years I endured! But the first years were the hardest. Lumen left me. I had to watch her go. If Althena had been there, I could've gotten her some proper nanotech! I could've saved her! Don't you get it yet?! She would've lived! She'd have been able to see her daughter grow up!"

She snarls, "I built machines to clean the radiation. I had to wear a suit so I wouldn't spread it myself. Sometimes I would find a lifeform, still struggling to survive! Their hair and teeth fallen out, their eyes blinded by burns. Even so they didn't give up! But without your so-called goddess, who could save them?! They slowly drifted away, praying to those that weren't there!"

"The children...! They looked so old. Their hair had gone grey, they were as sick as if they had lived their whole lives already, tiny, small, weak! So many children, so many children dying! I swore to protect the children to come! To teach them. To guide them. To be their friend! That is a promise I've kept! They need not pray to me, they simply must do their best to be brave and true! They could manage it, Leo!"

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awM5G6xBC2I

"The ones who died instantly. The ones who became ash on the rocks. They were the lucky ones, Leo!" 

GS: Red Mist Marivel has attacked White Knight Leo with Enhanced Aport Riposte!
GS: Red Mist Marivel has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Indeed--

    It is not mere happenstance that she makes this offer to Hilde -- it is not driven by any strange sense of guilt awoken by memory and a smear of blood on the streets.
    They have fought both against and alongside one another before.

    But.

    Hilde cannot simply stand down, can she? "...You have your duties. I understand. However, I have duties of my own," Avril tells her, and in this the young woman may as well be a statue for all the emotion she permits rest upon her face. "Yes. It is as you have said. If we must now battle, Lady Hilde... then I am ready."

    Hilde comes in at a lunge, shield leading her charge. Avril draws back in an eyeblink, her blade swung to meet and attempt to deflect that attack; Absolute Zero sings off the aegis as the two clash. Hilde is quick, her aim true: Avril pulls to the side as the knight presses the momentum of her advance and, using the flexibility so granted by her unarmored body, drives in from an angle, blade glinting in the air.

    "I am sorry," she informs Hilde, because she truly is. Sorry for this -- for their mutual inability to stand down. Sorry that this must be, that they must fight.

    But the kindest thing she can do for Hilde is to face her as she is now. 

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Hilde with Innocent Saber!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Hilde takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Innocent Saber for 121 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

An out-sized wolf-shaped Fiend snarls at Lulu and her moogle, this unfortunate Fiend (are there fortunate Fiends?) having been in the vanguard. It lunges forwards just a moment before the spike of ice hits it in the jaw and neck hard enough for it to shudder, shake, and abruptly burst into a shower of Pyreflies. A small cluster of Ice Elements are whacked, like living Blitzballs, approximately towards Lulu by one of the Fiend-drivers.

Lightning takes out two of them and the Fiend-driver puts his bullhook on the ground, canting his head to the side. "That's tricky," he says before--

-- Tidus, hot and fresh from cutting through something that, disturbingly, might have been a baby Chocobo-Eater and was certainly in the realm of 'I don't know what that is, but it's got way too many teeth and way too few limbs to be natural', smashes the last Ice Element and smashes him in the face guard with his pommel. "Guh!!"

The Fiend-driver withdraws coolly.

Another one follows after; this second Fiend-driver dips her billhook to quietly scoop up much of Rikku's discharged wealth. The Fiends that this second driver had been bullying seem momentarily confused, and then bound off down a side street. Towards the outer boundaries of Luca, at least - and away from people's houses! Just the abandoned warehouse district - and the wares are not people.

There is one exception to the second driver's minions, however: a close-shaved Dual Horn, the ursid Fiend's two horns having been capped with iron bracings and its mouth muzzled. The muzzle does little, but the galloping surge would have probably put a horn through someone BUT FOR: Paine's sword cleaving it deeply. The momentum of the Fiend means it keeps trying to move forwards, toppling upwards and then partially DOWN-- Paine has the unique pleasure of seeing the face partially bifuricate before the Fiend loses its integrity, pyreflies erupting prismatically as the horn-reinforcements and muzzle clatter to the Lucan cobblestones.

"At least TRY to hide it," Margaret shouts after the departing drivers, but without much heat. Then her attention turns straight forwards. Because with those Fiends' departure, there is now nothing save space between her and...

A Summoner. THE Summoner, in some ways.

Margaret's eyes narrow. "When this is over," she says. "It's a little forward of you, don't you think? To imagine that this is all just going to be... OVER. That there's going to be a big dividing line and one day you're going to say, oh, that's when it was OVER, and it was DONE."

Dolly speaks from beneath her hood. "Nothing ever ends," she says, and she sounds quietly furious at the concept.

Margaret is paused for a moment and then says: "Exactly so."

She strides forwards, nearer to Yuna. Not a charge, but something emphatic. "... That look on your face... This assertion of yours... all this preposterous do-gooding. If you want to throw yourself into a meat grinder and get turned into sausage, that's between you and your heirs, but -" Margaret pauses for a moment, and seems on momentary tenterhooks.

Dolly does something. It's a spell, but it's aimed on Margaret. It seems to involve wind. Margaret does not notice or react to the spell.

"STOP MAKING THAT FACE!" Margaret abruptly shouts. "Do you know what happens to people who make that face? They DIE! And then the pigs that rule make a nice little statue and laugh at it!!"

"Don't think they'll listen, maam," says Dolly in counterpoint. She moves towards the side of the street.

"... You're right," Margaret sighs.

And then she bursts into screaming light. "But there are other ways to get the message across!" Margaret surges forwards--

It is as if three things happen at once, although they are all closely connected. In order:

* Margaret swings the heavy blunt weight on the end of her kusarigama towards the center mass of Yuna, aiming to move past her. This is backed by towering force, and after the blow is made Margaret lets go of the chain -

* Margaret grasps the sickle and aims what must about about seven slashing blows within the space of one second at Rikku, with the last one aimed to hook into her belts - not to sever but to twist her up in the air. At which point -

* Margaret whips the weight of the chain round towards Paine and her much-grander blade. During this interval Margaret briefly abandons the chain-weapon entirely, instead seeming to twist in bursts of gale-force wind towards Tidus (who is given the springtide gift of a vicious kick at the calf with a steel toed boot, with enough force to knock over a small field wall) and, on the way back, Lulu (towards whom Margaret aims a vicious backhand)

- at which point Margaret seems to stop moving *quite* so fast, at least deliberately. Her cadence is materially quicker even so as she says, "You can thank me later -- when you're alive!" while striving to bring the round Paine and bind her up! Given the sickle on the other end of the chain, that's probably not the place to be.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan feels a familiar wave of nervous guilt when Liath calls him Vlad -- DOES SHE REALLY STILL THINK THAT IS HIS NAME?? HE CAN'T BE SURE.

But now is not the time to get into such matters. They face one another as enemies here, as Liath herself underlines. It would be... asking a lot for her to abandon her allies and her role and identity as a Guardsperson, he understands. Even if he blatantly demanded exactly that of Leo before.

Ivan nods in resignation and understanding. "Then we will stop you with force. I hope we can be fr--" he immediately shies away from the word "...amiable acquaintances again, some other day!"

Liath summons forth a burst of light and electric fury. Already holding his umbrella in front of him, Ivan calls to it for protection, invoking a dome shield of soft golden light. This withstands the initial brunt of the assault, before finally being overwhelmed. Ivan is bathed in the last of the burning radiance, holding his arm in front of his eyes and face and left to endure it as the power washes over him. He keeps on his feet, barely, and as it subsides, he charges skyward on another burst of fire from below his feet and crashes down again for Liath. Though it seems initially like he intends to assault Liath bodily with his umbrella, late in the downward arc the red ring on his hand flashes, and he calls a short sword into his free hand that he drives downward in a gravity-assisted stab. 

GS: Ivan has attacked Seraph Liath with Rocket Boosters!
GS: Ivan has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ivan has completed his action.
GS: Margaret has attacked Yuna with The Chains of War!!
GS: Margaret has attacked Rikku with The Chains of War!!
GS: Margaret has attacked Tidus with The Chains of War!!
GS: Margaret has attacked Lulu with Althena Said Knock You Out!
GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Margaret has attacked Paine with Chain Wrap!
GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Liath takes a glancing hit from Ivan's Rocket Boosters for 72 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Xantia's charge goes unimpeded by the rank and file Guard mostly because of sheer speed and, well, bringing anything metal close to a ball of lightning is not a good idea, and there's a lot of metal involved with most of them. Still, she doesn't get quite as far as she had intended. She doesn't see their source right away, but the shards of light headed her way, she catches those just in time to make a dive for it.

This is where she discovers the down side of her speed - it's not exactly pleasant to make a landing following an evasive leap at that speed. She bounces once upon hitting the ground, then skids across it upon landing the second time. Xantia lies still for a moment after, groaning and wondering if it wouldn't have been less painful to just let whatever that was hit her instead.

She doesn't remain down for long, pushing herself up while electricity yet remains dancing across her body. She soon turns towards the direction that attack came from, and narrows her eyes. Although recognising them, she doesn't know the twins well enough to even know they're twins, but it's clear they're on her side in this fight, at least.

Liath, on the other hand, she has never seen before. And yet, when their eyes meet, Xantia's show instant recognition. "You... you must be the Seraph of Light who supports Althena's Guard, Liath." Even if she hadn't developed an unusually keen sense of identifying Seraphs on sight, it's not hard to put two and two together due to who else she knows. "Clarine told me about you."

This isn't cause to back down or anything, of course. If anything, it makes it more important to strike quickly - she isn't expecting Liath will be wasting any time if she doesn't. And so her next move is to rocket forward, taking advantage of her enhanced speed to launch into a lightning-charged combo, alternating left and right punches at varying angles and speeds, finishing with a kick to the midsection. Talking all the while, no reason why she couldn't do that at the same time.

"Look at all the people back there, fighting for their freedom. The freedom you took from them. Don't you think what you've been told to do here is strange at all?!" 

GS: Rikku takes a glancing hit from Margaret's The Chains of War! for 175 hit points!
GS: Rikku activates Evade bonus!
GS: Xantia has attacked Seraph Liath with Elemental Fury!
GS: Xantia assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: White Knight Leo takes a glancing hit from Red Mist Marivel's Enhanced Aport Riposte for 65 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! White Knight Leo gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo activates Evade bonus!

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    Pearl stares daggers at Ashley. She also looks intently at his mouth, squinting a litle, before shaking her head and deciding it's not worth it, or not posible given her eyes, too, are are playing up. Whatever, it's a handicap she can fight with. She gets ready to charge again, and then oh good there's a canister beneath her feet.

    She tries to stand her ground aginst this one, which is empirically the wrong choice because she is then covered in fire, and she stops, drops and rolls again, to get the worst of it out. The smell of burning hair is unpleasant, as she pats out a flame on her braid. She seems less concerned about the ones on her gi. There simply isn't time at the moment.

    Pearl glances at Boudicca's... lopsidedness, and watches her. And as Boudicca closes, Pearl pulls back, a small controlled movement, no more exertion needed. For all that she may not have conviction in Althena, in the battlefield she is truly in her element.

    Leaning back, she suddenly lets out a howl, and channels energy through her body. She needs to strike at her enemies more fiercely, and that howl seems to enable her to do just that. Suddenly she is a whirl of claws, moving between Ashley and Boudicca, and slice at both of them. It's not careful, or managed, it's just a series of reckless slashes from a warrior who fights surprisingly like an animal. 

GS: Pearl has attacked Pearl with Spirited Howl!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Pearl accepts Pearl's Spirited Howl for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Pearl!
GS: Lulu takes a solid hit from Margaret's Althena Said Knock You Out for 117 hit points!
GS: Pearl enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Pearl has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Whirling Claws!
GS: Pearl has attacked Ashley Winchester with Whirling Claws!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Pearl takes 23 damage from Poison!
GS: Mute expired!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Liath critically guards Xantia's Elemental Fury for 18 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Liath gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mighty applied to Xantia!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Pearl's Whirling Claws for 60 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Boudicca gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Guard bonus and Power Burst!

<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Avril has duties of her own. Hilde nods, at this. She must, after all - this is not a place or situation someone would put themselves in if they did not have a duty to uphold.

"Very well." Hilde says, shutting her eyes for a moment as Avril announces her readiness. She opens them once more, and the fight begins.

Inwardly, Hilde must praise Avril's agility, as she manages to deflect her attack. Hilde attempts to pull back to defend against it but Absolute Zero strikes true, finding a gap in her armor - however small it may be.

"...I am, as well." Hilde admits in response, even as she turns, her blade swinging in a silver arc toward Avril as she moves to prevent further access to the recent wound. 

GS: Hilde has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Silver Arc!
GS: Hilde has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
GS: Paine guards a hit from Margaret's Chain Wrap for 71 hit points!
GS: Cripple applied to Paine!
GS: Paine activates Sufferer!

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

A great deal has happened. Lulu remembers their time in Luca before; she remembers the tournament... meeting Rikku. Meeting these 'Otherworlders'. And a thousand memories she keeps more privately than those still. It was always possible that she wouldn't return to Luca, but she expected to see it again one day. She did not expect to see it with Yuna.

Until they determined that they needed to come.

"That's a good idea," Lulu agrees about the Sending.

Remember--yes. Lulu's mood seems to be as it ever is, hard to read, but the barriers around her tell her something she already knows but understands well in the moment. White magic was never her specialty... But she is far from unfamiliar with it, now.

"Yes, I seem to recall it was quite the encounter," Lulu says to Rikku of meeting--but her attention is on the fiends, and on Margaret beyond. She is not a defensive fighter.

It might seem that the fact that Lulu says nothing as Paine defends her is giving her the cold shoulder--but quite the opposite, as the warrior ahead rushes towards that surge of fiends before her, it's a sign of trust that Lulu feels no need to comment. She may be new to their group in relative terms, but Lulu moves with her as if they were old comrades, shifting to the side for a better vantage point for her next spell.

Lulu looks towards Margaret as the drivers leave, and she watches her carefully--her, and her ally. Lulu looks impassive at first at what she has to say, but then there is a brilliant light, and Lulu watches these things happen all at once. Or rather, she watches some of them happen all at once--the backhand catches her straight in the face, forcing her head to turn with its force and knocking her to the side, though not fully to the ground--her doll, however, falls. She turns, a glint on her painted lips as she regards Margaret suddenly slower--but still fast.

It becomes quickly apparent that her doll didn't just fall though, and even as Lulu rights herself she directs Mog towards Margaret as she seeks to bind Paine. The doll is awash in a cloud of wavering power, before it leaps up and punches one plush arm straight for the woman's midsection, the magic in the doll also carrying a charge that dampens magic in turn.

"I have to disagree," Lulu comments.

"...Everything ends." 

GS: Lulu has attacked Margaret with Silence Attack!
GS: Lulu has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lulu has completed her action.
GS: Margaret takes a glancing hit from Lulu's Silence Attack for 54 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mute applied to Margaret!

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    "You did what any heroes would," Leo says. "What any heroes should." His voice is still tight, even as his focus remains squarely on Marivel. He doesn't let down his guard for an instant, even as she pours her heart out. Even as she compliments him. Even as the unanswered question hangs in the air--why would Althena forsake them?

    Guillotine flies. Leo sweeps his blade up to deflect, but in a heartbeat, the weapon is gone. Leo doesn't even see where it went--Marivel lunges at him instead. The White Knight shifts his weight to his right leg, twists on that foot. The Crimson Noble's first claw strike misses him by less than an inch, cutting through the fabric of his cloak instead. The next glances off his side, tracing lines of blood into his abdomen. More red bleeds onto his white tunic. He feels more than sees Guillotine as it continues on its lethal course; Leo steps wide, momentarily exposing himself to Marivel's third claw strike. Her fingers cut into his chest, but he is spared being impaled by the Crimson Noble's weapon.

    If only he could do the same for what she says.

    "How?" Leo says, his eyes big with grief and pain. "What did this? What killed those children, Marivel? What killed Lumen? What almost killed the Blue Star?!"

    He doesn't strike back. Instead, earthen energy gathers in the ground beneath him, illuminating him from below in brilliant amber light. Althenan glyphs trace themselves on Luca's stony street, and surge upwards to engulf Leo's body. When the light fades, a layer of stone armor clings to his body, merged with his flesh; it's sealed up his injuries, though he still winces a little as he slips into that defensive stance again. "Your people suffered... because of her decision. But why? What poisoned your world?!"

GS: White Knight Leo has attacked White Knight Leo with Earth Prayer!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: White Knight Leo accepts White Knight Leo's Earth Prayer for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Shield applied to White Knight Leo!
GS: Mighty applied to White Knight Leo!
GS: Yuna fully evades Margaret's The Chains of War! for 0 hit points!
GS: Yuna activates Evade bonus!
GS: Ashley Winchester critically guards Pearl's Whirling Claws for 21 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ashley Winchester gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur guards a hit from Hilde's Silver Arc for 78 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur activates Guard bonus!
GS: Tidus takes a glancing hit from Margaret's The Chains of War! for 175 hit points!
GS: Tidus activates Evade bonus and Power Burst!

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    Tidus and Rikku are the speedsters of the group; it's only natural that Paine hang back and remain as a sturdy shield for Yuna. And it's absolutely typical of Rikku to rain gil on monsters. After all, a good fat bribe is a great way to get an enemy off your back peacefully. It's even more typical of her to joke around and tease during battle, though, and Tidus grins when Rikku teases Paine about the Calm Lands incident. "Heh, you know it, Rikku." What should it say, though, Paine wonders? "How about, 'Here's where a stabby misunderstanding was had!'" he jokes. Although it was more of a shooty misunderstanding...
    
    Lest the gathering grow too light-hearted, though, Yuna reminds them all of why they're here and what they must do. Yuna says, when this battle is over, she will perform the Sending. "We've all got your back," he tells her, expression sobering--but the look in his blue eyes as he locks his gaze upon her more says, 'I'll be at your side.'
    
    Luca has special memories for him too. This is where he reunited with Auron... and where he became locked in as one of Yuna's Guardians. Where he started traveling with purpose, rather than going along with whatever was happening at the time. And those memories spur him on as light and warmth spiral up around him and Yuna's power locks in in layers to protect against physical and magical attacks. The ignorant past, the tenuous future--both of them link together in an irrepressible *now*, where they all must do whatever they can--for themselves, for each other, and for this small slice of the world.
    
    Meanwhile, Margaret screams at them. Or really, at Yuna. A whole, whole lot.
    
    "SHUT UP! Stop pretending like you care, lady! It's really obnoxious!!" Tidus shouts right back at her, too incensed to let it lie. Yuna can and will of course speak for herself, and Lulu counters about the ending part, but-- "Yeah, it's messed up to make Summoners sacrifice themselves for everyone else! I hate that Yuna feels like that's what she's got to do to keep the people she loves safe! But if YOUR only solution to that is to bulldoze over an entire country and an entire people until they do what you want, then YOU don't get to take the moral high ground!!" --that doesn't mean he doesn't have his own opinions on the matter.
    
    Of course, there's still also the matter of Margaret's counter-attack. She whips that chain around and sends gale-force winds forward to him, which hit him like a battering ram even as he attempts to roll out of the way to avoid it. He tumbles backwards painfully over the debris until he rolls to a stop. Groaning, he picks himself back up again, then focuses back on the sorceress with a glare.
    
    With a fierce shout, he charges in towards her, grip adjusting and tightening on the hilt of his watersword. The power of a time-warping technique focuses on it, and when he slashes her with the blade, perhaps that power will slow her movements just enough to keep her from being able to land such devastating hits on him and his friends again in the immediate future. 

GS: Tidus has attacked Margaret with Delay Buster!
GS: Tidus has completed his action.
GS: Margaret critically guards Tidus's Delay Buster for 21 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Two waves of energy. Closer to Yue, both of them carry more of the initial force that spawns them, and he errs on the side of caution of an earlier defense to have the quarterstaff absorb the brunt of being struck by both. His arms rattle with the first one. The second one, while similarly defended, throws his arms up and has him staggering back four steps to keep his balance. A far less smooth a defense.
     A Yue that is only putting up a modicum of effort is still enough to stand against a man who is intent to bring all of what he has. He's brought down to a kneel which cancels out the need for him to give at least three steps more space to her.
     Yue's questions are yet to be answered. He listens, in part, to Marivel's declaration and experiences of life before with all the conviction of someone who lived through untold horror. Her presence is impossible to ignore, even to a man who seems keen on throwing away anything going on around him unless directly relevant to... whatever his goals are.
     His right hand goes to his forehead. (Well, to his mask. Mask is in the way.) Something deeply uncomfortable and tangentially familiar stirs, but nothing that ever comes into coherent words, images, or sounds. Just... feelings. It's enough to get him to stand up again, burying them enough to resume that control of his body language.
     "For Bevelle... is that as far as you see?" He at last replies. His next response is total nonsense words being muttered under his breath as he flutters his fingers, because he's casting a spell. Most Symbologists have to stay put and cast. This man is not most Symbologists, breaking into a run towards the left as he comes towards the easier, second half of the incantations and gesticulations before finishing off with a much clearer set of words: "Ashen Veil!"
     His repositioning is for benefit of Acacia (a rare grace in Ethius terms, who is known for doing whatever the hell he pleases regardless of inconvenience for others), as he summons up a wall of visually difficult-to-penetrate dust and soot to launch forth and try to batter Yue anew.
     "It goes further than Bevelle," he adds from within the cloud, if he's trying to convey a grander scale he's... physically making it harder to see. "I will see you and yours take your clutches off of this place... this continent... and all beyond it. It is not just the people of Spira that have suffered." 

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Yue Rohay with Ashen Veil!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Yue Rohay guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Ashen Veil for 62 hit points!
GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!!
GS: Yue Rohay activates Guard bonus!
GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Yue Rohay receives 50 temporary hit points.
GS: Yue Rohay enters CONDITION GREEN!!

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

Ashley does not know of the world before the Blaze of Disaster. He does not know of the verdant paradise that must have existed before the world was cast into the fire that now burns so ardently in his breast. He can feel it, though. He can feel it, even now, slavering greedily at the rising tide of battle-frenzy that Ashley knows he needs to keep down. That he knows he needs to restrain, with all his heart, to keep his cool and not feed the beast.

It is in every way opposite to how Pearl is flailing like a wild beast. Each claw swipe is received and deflected with an expert parry, the immense length and weight of the Bayonet striking aside the worst of the assassin's deadly blows. The sheer exertion of it takes its toll, though. Even someone like Ashley cannot wield the Bayonet so rapidly without severely overtaxing his physique. He needs an out...!

He will have one, if the surging scent of seafoam is any indication. Normally it would not be, but there's a faint cyan glow tracing the motion of his blade, building and building until finally it seems to reach its zenith. Ashley leaps back, jumping out of the way of that last claw swipe. Normally such a thing would leave him painfully open. But he levels his weapon at the assassin, and its barrel is glowing with raw elemental energies. "Boudi!" Ashley yells, as he pulls the trigger. "I have no idea if your elemental cycle works this way, but I hear that WATER MAKES WIND in some circles, so I guess maybe have some??"

A spiralling beam of high-pressure water erupts from the barrel of the Bayonet. It's no super-soaker, no squirt-gun. Rather, the column of water is more like the jet of a CNC machine, capable of cutting through steel as easily as flesh...! 

GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Pearl with Aqua Spiral!
GS: Ashley Winchester has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action.
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Majinken Souga - Double Demon Fang for 128 hit points!
GS: Pearl takes a glancing hit from Ashley Winchester's Aqua Spiral for 84 hit points!
GS: Cover applied to Ashley Winchester!
GS: Ashley Winchester drains Pearl! Ashley Winchester gains 42 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.


Yuna's protections come over her in layers, both blue and gold. Yuna's words give Rikku the impression that her duty weighs heavy on her today, so Rikku instead tries to take on her own self-proclaimed mantle of the Merriest. "I could never forget that Yunie. That's why I'm happy that we're here today."

Even if there is loss in the battle today, she wants to see Luca again with a crowded Blitzball stadium, and bustling streets that don't have the shadow of the Guard hanging over them.

She grins Lulu's way, "Just as memorable as the way I met all of you. And she did it without even having an Oblitzerator!" Rikku says with good humor, taking a shot at herself for her own misdeeds in the past.

Paine then asks what the sign should say, and Rikku's heart seems to grow four sizes as she enthusiastically answers, "I'm so glad you asked! I was thinking-" Tidus offers his own idea for signage, and Rikku laughs, "I like it! Alternative title: 'The Doctor P. Commemorative Meadow: Don't worry about the bullet casings! It all worked out!' That way, the true significance of the place stays a secret between us."

As the Fiends die though, Margaret becomes more apparent. And as she addresses Yuna, Rikku's joins into Tidus' chorus against her, "Hey... don't talk to Yunie that way Midge. I thought we had an understanding." Rikku emphasizes. "Hey! Don't you dare shout at her!"

Which is when the chain starts weaving about and she sees it's weight aimed towards Yuna, "Yunie-!" She's distracted by that long enough that, Rikku almost doesn't see Margaret coming at her with the sickle. She does just in time to avoid the first blow. "Sca-ry!"

Weaving to try and avoid the sevenfold blow in a last minute split second quick footed evasion, she manages to avoid anything deeper than a few long lacerations just beyond her gauntlet and shield arm. And also a few across her legs. "But I'm too fast for-"

Rikku sees one of them hook around her belts just a split second too late, "Wuh-oh. WAH!" Twisted up off her feet, Rikku shouts in alarm as she's twisted up and cast skyward off the ground. "Nononono-!" It's not hard to figure out what happens next. What goes up...

Impact.

Dazed and battered, Rikku rolls over on the ground. "... nice to meet you ground... I'm Rikku."

Rolling over some more, Rikku grabs at her belts to make sure everything on them is still intact, then pulls out an item, "If you're gonna be like that..."

Rikku pulls the pin, and tosses it Margaret's way, "... then you're uninvited to next my birthday party!" Rikku is perhaps counting on the comment being so distracting that Margaret has a tough time with the ordnance.

GS: Rikku has attacked Margaret with Use: Grenade!
GS: Rikku has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Rikku has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Pearl with Fresh Air!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Boudicca can float. Gravity, the force impelling all things towards the Earth, has little say over one who dominates it. The elemental wheel, in this instance, spins in her favour.

    Regardless she proceeds on foot and it is on her feet gravity betrays her; Pearl steps back, and thunk goes Boudicca, all a-roll-roll-roll.

    Big things fall with PASSION and with IMPACT, and Boudicca, broad and tall, is suddenly long against the ground instead. Here she is the perfect tearing platform for Pearl to strike from, and Boudicca is clad all in plate but there are inevitably points that metal joins.

    In those connections there is ample opportunity to slip in claws; in her prone state, it's not even difficult.

    There should be more blood than there is, on the outstroke. Perhaps Boudicca is skinnier than she looks. Or, perhaps...

    Here, let us come back to the question: if Boudicca can float, why didn't she?

    "Hf," she exclaims, as she pushes herself up, but it's a gesture which almost seems extraneous; the wind picks her up, sends her standing again.

    "I see now."

    Boudicca's best friend is Ida, and so she has sat in on an awful lot of practice.

    "You created a small weakness and directed it effortlessly... you are extraordinarily skilled, are you not?" Boudicca dusts off her silks, leans down to pick up her tonfa again. She is reminded in this moment of Corwynt and Leo both, but not, perhaps, for the same reason.

    She is floating, now.

    ... she wanted to know Pearl's story this whole time.

    "I can see why Althena's Guard would value your strength," Boudicca bows her head, politely, in a way entirely unsuited to the battleground. "But I wonder if they honour your ideas just the same? You have given us Althena's words, but I wonder... as to yours."

    The way this woman looks at them... Boudicca would use the word hesitation, were it not so incongruous with how she moves.

    Ashley calls over the battlefield, and Boudicca actaully smiles, there, for a brief moment. "I know not what elemental system you speak of, but it is far from mine! The earth lies between us, Ashley! And yet --" she was on fire, and now she's doused.

    "I wonder..."

    That wasn't very helpful to Pearl, surely; Boudicca can see the force of the water as it pours out, even if she has no elemental understanding of it. The wind picks up, around her, with her Seraphic glyph, and spirals out towards Pearl--

    "... how such an expert would withstand this..!"

GS: Margaret critically guards Rikku's Use: Grenade for 30 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Somewhere in the back of her mind, Acacia is idly trying to remember when she last saw anyone use a quarterstaff. It's not like she's got anything against it, sure, it's up to Ethius what he chooses to use, but she can't really feel all that enthused about it either.

    Instead, she makes a face. "Look, I talked about tying Yue up one time, and now the universe just won't let me forget it--" she grouses at mid-air, thanks to Ethius' choice of words. Once upon a time she would have balked at any mention of that, but now she's able to use it offensively, hoping that it might throw Yue off her game enough for the reporter to capitalise on something or other.

    That's technically personal growth, she tells herself.

    She can't really argue with Yue's thoughts about the war and those that are choosing to fight it even now. She can feel it in the air alongside the desperation of this battle, saw it on the faces of the Yevonites and the Guard soldiers as she ran for their front line - the fire and the steam have both run out, leaving only exhaustion behind.

    Still, she thinks, using the space inside her head to disassociate from the pain of pushing through another couple of Demon Fangs. That stubborn, central little core inside of her won't let her do anything less, if she's going to actually manage to drag Yue off somewhere safe.

    "You're not wrong," she admits out loud. "But I'm not going to have a go at someone if they want to try to get it finished just a little faster. I mean-- sure, maybe this fight will prolong the war a little bit longer. But at least it'll be Drifters and weirdos who are dragging it out and beating each other up, and not a bunch of scared farmers."

    Oh, she adds to herself as Ethius continues, suddenly recognizing the extent of his beef with the Veruni. "Uh--" she starts, and is momentarily not sure what exactly to say. Her body makes the decision for her - rather than try to close with Yue, this time she actually does draw her pistol, squinting one eye shut as she fires a pinpoint white line of glowing light.

    There is absolutely no way to succintly and politely go 'it's okay, don't worry about this Veruni in particular'. Especially not when it's a 50/50 chance that Yue would just agree with Ethius anyways. 

GS: Acacia Saitani enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Yue Rohay with Deadline!
GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Red Mist Marivel has posed.

Marivel swings her hand back, catching Guillotine asit flies back. It carries her along its journey back and away from Leo and she drops back down into a crouch, all six of her eyes narrowing faintly as she stares down the White Knight.

"There is an easy answer and a complicated answer to that question." Marivel says. "The easy answer, of course, is Lord Blazer. Our Lord of Calamity you could say." She casually jerks a thumb towards Ashley Winchester as if she was just talking about the guy next door, and in a way--she is.

"But what is a 'Lord of Calamity'? Just a title. I could call myself one if I so desired. If I really wanted to, oh the calamities I could unleash..."

He is protected, she thinks. She could take the moment to empower herself or try to strike through his defenses.

"Booster." Marivel decides, channeling her own power into her. Flecks of red and orange energy crackle around her as she shifts into a crouch. Preparing for... Something.

"But the more complicated answer, of course, is what brought the Lord Blazer to our lands. He didn't just show up. No..."

"He was called to our world by humans. The ones you call the Veruni, they too were part of this civilization, led by a terrifying Ice Queen." She gestures with one hand. "Well, saying that about Avril is a little rude when she's here." That didn't stop you with Ashley, Marivel.

"But I digress. What brought our Lord of Calamity to our world..."

She gestures with one hand towards the battlefield.

"War. Hatred. Cruelty. Under Althena's direction, Anastasia, Luceid, Kamui, and I--Four Heroes--we battled these forces. Occassionally Yue would lend us a hand too, or someone else, or something else. No superpowered malevolence was neccessary to unleash him upon our world. Just these natural feelings were enough. Cruelties compounded upon each other until the demon broke free and gave everyone something to unite against."

She cracks a grin. "As if. They panicked. They unleashed their TF System, they launched nuclear missiles, they'd destroy the entire world except for themselves just to end the creature and so they destroyed each other even as the demon destroyed them. Only the sacrifice of my parents gave us time to save anything."

Her eyes narrow. "The Althena I knew..."

She bares her fangs again. "Even though she abandoned our world, the Althena I knew... DESPISED IT! SHE HATED WAR! She commanded us to stop it! And here I find her... commanding you, commanding all her greatest adherants... to kill civilians, to strike out at others due to offended Pride. To instead of lending a hand to the weak and desperate, to crush them! To conquer them! To exacerbate their pain and play at being saviors...instead of actually helping them! Just because of their cruel masters! Althena didn't love herself so much that she wanted us to destroy a civilization for her! She wanted us to unite them, in peace! In prospertiy!"

"In love!"

"And even so, that Althena, the Althena I knew. She left us behind, Leo. Perhaps that was the day she died as my best friend, and became your Goddess."

"And if that's the case..."

"Althena killed my best friend personally." 

GS: Red Mist Marivel has attacked Red Mist Marivel with Booster!
GS: Red Mist Marivel has completed her action.
GS: Red Mist Marivel accepts Red Mist Marivel's Booster for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield applied to Red Mist Marivel!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Seraph Boudicca's attack becomes clear!
GS: CRITICAL! Pearl takes a glancing hit from Seraph Boudicca's Be Not Afraid for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Dispel! Hyper and Poison removed!
GS: Pearl activates Evade bonus!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Two hundred years ago, a woman wrapped in vines came from across the mountains to soothe the plague.

    She could not.

    Two hundred years later, a Beast made all of empty iron looked into the still-beating heart of a man and took it upon herself to help.

    She could.

    Too much magical healing can overload the body.

    The body needs its own strength to heal.

    There is always something you can do.

    These are the lessons the Seraph Boudicca has learned from her friends, and this is the purity carried in her breeze, a thing which wraps around Pearl and takes with it all the irregularities of battle; her strengths, her weaknesses, all returned to the balance of her body. She IS, herself, entirely and without alteration. It is helpful and hinderance all at once.

    "How will you fight a foe who wishes you to be well?" Boudicca asks Pearl, and her words are so much more incisive than her wind.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Liath has posed.

Why?

Wind whips past Liath's white-tipped hair as she stands off against the twins. Legs spread shoulder-width apart, her stance stern but signified, there are very few openings in the Seraph's defenses. It speaks to who knows how long of a lifetime's experience with battle. It speaks to a certain ease that one only finds when they have truly mastered something.

It is the sight of someone in their element.

There are no openings, even as the steel of her stare softens once more at Ivan's acquiescence. He doesn't say the word, but a smile touches her lips all the same.

"... Another day, I would cherish nothing more deeply than to be your friend, Master Ivan."

She says the word, all the same.

It is a staunch contrast to Talia's question she demands of the Seraph. Even with their offensive redoubling, even with battle waging all around them, Liath still finds the time to look behind her. Towards those fighting. Towards Yevonites, and Guardsmen. Seraphim and Summoners, and Filgaians and Lunarians and past them all. She looks at the land, for the briefest time before she feels that familiar surge of Althena's Blessing, and something inscrutable sings in her expression.

Why?

"... Tell me, Talia: when you look upon our world, do you see something worth truly fighting for?"

It's a question that, perhaps, does not gain an immediate answer, as words are soon joined by action, and fire, and ice. With a call of Freeze Lancer, the air chills, and a spear of frost hurtles across the battlefield. At the same time, a skyward assault, wreathed in fire, descends upon the Seraph from above. She has only seconds to react -- and she does not hesitate for even a fraction of it. With one motion, she flicks her sword fluidly upward, the arc of its prismatic edge sending off a brilliant cerulean wave screaming across the earth. It crashes into Talia's frozen lance, shattering it into so many shards on its potent path towards the sellsword -- but let it not be said that shards, too, cannot be dangerous: those sharpened, shattered pieces splinter painfully across Liath's green-clad form as she twists her way towards Ivan, teeth grit as she is pelt by that biting cold. She fights past it -- and it is without blinking that she -leaps- for the other twin, her rainbow-coated blade blooming with a blue sigil as she seeks to preempt the bulk of the momentum behind Ivan's downward stab. The tip of his summoned shortsword stabs into her left side -- and her blade seeks to stab into his shoulder, planting a small, cerulean seal like a brand upon his body as she soars through the air past him.

Liath lands, a precious handful of seconds later, in a crouch, shielded hand lifting tentatively toward her shoulder.

"... conjured weapons?" she muses, half to herself. "Hm."

But with the call of her name, the Seraph's thoughts are disrupted; gold eyes turn towards Xantia with the flutter of a blink, head cocked toward the right. And despite the situation, her smile is a bright one of recognition fit to light up her entire expression like the fourth of july.

"Ah, you know Clarine?" wonders the Seraph. "There are few better to know! I am Liath, yes. And you must be -- Mystery Crusader X--?"

Yes, she heard all that. Her brows scrunch. If she could, she'd be cupping her chin right now. As it stands, she has to settle for pursing her lips in deepest ponderance.

"... but 'X' is a rather simple and straightforward name. It is but one letter. Where is the mystery...?"

yes, this is deeply troubling for her

But she isn't afforded long to ruminate. Soon, Xantia is upon her; and yet, for all her befuddlement, Liath's reactions are like lightning. It is the surface of the Seraph's shield that meets Xantia's fist, each blow ringing with almost crystal-like harmony as Liath retreats backwards. She guides the momentum of each strike subtly, even as she feels the sheer -force- of every blow numb its way down her limb. Her expression steels with resolve.

"Do you think what you have seen on this land is strange at all, Lady Xantia?"

And with that last kick, she shoves that shield -down-, to slam both foot and shield alike into the earth, gold eyes flashing.

"For I do not think it was the Guard who stripped them of their freedom."

And it is instant, the way she -snaps- up, surging into the air to catch Xantia with the wide, uppercutting sweep of Joyeuse's blade as it crackles with rainbow lightning.

"That deed was done long before Althena's chosen soldiers marched upon their shores!"

GS: Yue Rohay takes a solid hit from Acacia Saitani's Deadline for 124 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yue Rohay gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disease applied to Yue Rohay!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Talia with Azure Edge!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Ivan with Condemnation!
GS: Seraph Liath enters a Counter stance!
GS: Seraph Liath spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Xantia with Lightning Tiger Blade!
GS: Seraph Liath has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    In a sense, it is beautiful: the blade that arcs through the air at Hilde's command is as the crescent moon for an instant--

    Avril scarce has the time to appreciate it, bringing up her own weapon to meet it in midair. It pushes her back, forces her away from the strike she had earlier scored: holding her stance for a moment, then a moment more she is forced to break the clinch, backing away from Hilde, her blade held hip to shoulder in a guard.

    "You fight well," she tells Hilde, gazing at her for that moment so permitted between them. "Your instructor must be pleased."

    Who was it that taught Avril in the blade? She wonders sometimes, the sources behind these things that her body and instincts know that she cannot find the origin for any longer. But perhaps the 'why' does not matter.

    The 'how', on the other hand, shoulders the greater weight.

    She knows there is no sense in telling Hilde why she fights -- there is no sense in trying to argue her own point of view. They will still fight, because their duties will permit no other. Hilde must serve Althena.
    Avril must right the wrong that was inflicted on Luca -- wrought ultimately by the hand of one of her own.

    Though she does not leave the ground, Avril yet flies as she surges to meet Hilde, lashing out with her blade as if it were a deadly wing. 

GS: CRITICAL! Talia takes a glancing hit from Seraph Liath's Azure Edge for 79 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Talia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Riposte applied to Seraph Liath!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Hilde with Seraphic Soul!
GS: Riposte expired!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Hilde critically guards Avril Vent Fleur's Seraphic Soul for 25 hit points!
GS: Hilde activates Guard bonus!

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

Yuna watches Paine's own unusual approach to violence with silent appreciation and a little bit of worry, as to that light in her eyes. But -- unexpectedly addressed by Margaret and Dolly -- her attention snaps their way.

All of their rage -- all of their misery -- all of their lashing out -- turned upon the young empath, all at once -- leads to a result other than that they might have expected from a more innocently righteous opponent.

'It's a little forward of you, don't you think?'

Yuna doesn't argue.

'Nothing ever ends.'

Yuna smiles with no less grief than Dolly's hood-hidden fury. It is indeed the expression of someone who might very well die. But it is also the expression of someone who's heard this story before. Someone for whom it was... her whole life.

"Never futile, but never ending," she says, only she didn't just say it, she is imbued with the tone of quoting someone, someone famous, someone dreadful. Grand Maester Mika, at her own infamous trial. "Or so say those who might have built my statue someday, if things had gone differently..."

No one will make her one now.

And yet -- also perhaps unexpectedly -- she steps INTO Margaret's blow, directly towards the blunt weight -- then past it. Past her opponent, not inhibiting the mercenary's movement, but not allowing it to touch her, either. A decisively forward motion. Her earring beads clattered and crackled from the nearness of the weapon's passing, and added respect, to go with all that terrible compassion, is added to the equation of her maddening face.

Isn't that just like her? Straight towards her fate, unflinching and unafraid...

But then her face changes.

'Everything ends,' Lulu comments.

'SHUT UP!' Tidus shouts.

'Hey! Don't you dare shout at her!' Rikku cries.

Yuna's lips tug to the right, a wry expression more at home on the blondes' faces than her own.

'You can thank me later -- when you're alive.'

"I hear that one a lot," she confesses.

"Even from some of my Guardians..."

Rikku and Yuna didn't just meet in Luca.

Rikku and Yuna met when the former kidnapped the latter in Luca.

And Tidus is gazing at her with the intensity of love everlasting. Of love that doesn't merely outlast death, as Yunalesca and Zaon's was said to, but of love that surpasses it.

"I'm sorry," she tells Margaret and Dolly, with resonant sincerity -- she truly is sorry to have hurt them by being herself.

(Belize and Macalania's fayth both disapprove, but Yuna isn't completely over apologizing for who she is, not yet, not completely.)

"But I can't stop moving forward. And so my path brought me here... to Luca. Bevelle may be Yevon's capital... but Luca... is Spira's heart."

She glances at the darkened blitzball stadium.

"Where all Spira's people come together... to find joy. I can't stop, until that's true again."

She doesn't sound very sorry anymore.

Gesturing with her open hand, healing magic pours through the most wounded of her party -- Rikku, who met the ground. Instead of a single massive burst, it is a continuous, gentle feeling. A marathon instead of a sprint. Exactly what her pilgrimage has become. 

GS: Yuna has attacked Rikku with Regen!
GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yuna assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Yuna has completed her action.
GS: Yuna heals Rikku! She gains 110 temporary hit points!
GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Seraph Liath's Lightning Tiger Blade for 138 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Xantia activates Power Burst!

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    It's difficult. Even when she wants to be half-hearted or even quarter-hearted, it's difficult to completely hold back without looking like you're holding back; muscle memory is what it is, and when your body is used to going all-out, all-out is what you're going to get.

    The Demon Fangs are giving her space, though, which is what she needs; she purses her lips a little, trying to not hear Marivel speak of a time which she was very much there for.

    Her gloved hands ache, and it's for a reason she knows well.

    The man darts into a run and -- that's not Althenan magic, Yue thinks; before she knows what else is up, though, a wall of dust and soot slams into her, and there's a brief moment of coughing and then... nothing.

    It's absolutely something she can't inhale, and practiced control of her breath as granted to her by her myriad schools is what saves her from just being on the ground with too much dust in her lungs.

    "Hmmm. You like to think big, do you not?" Yue answers Ethius. "How far do you wish to go? To the Control Zones? To Lailah Belle? It's good to have ambitions. Just be sure it does not end up crushing you..."

    (Does that sound villainous enough,) Yue thinks to herself.

    "But you know. You're right," Yue remarks. "A long time ago, my people fled the planet rather than try, remotely even try to be good neighbours in a bad situation and salvage what little there is of it."

    "And now, they have come back, finding things better... and they want the world they abandoned back. Is that not the very definition of sour grapes?"

    Acacia's absolutely right on the money that she'll just agree with Ethius, yes. Fortunately, there's that line of light from her gun that she's absolutely garbage at evading, and even with all of her body reacting as fast as it possibly can--

    *ZOT*

    --the Ether lances straight through her coat and draws blood; she's stopped for a good two seconds, grunting.

    "You haven't made good on that promise," Yue teases Acacia on tying her up. The drawback of being confident enough that you want to use it to rattle your opponent is... when your opponent is having to make a decent enough guise of themselves to tease back.

    Inwardsly:

    (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA,) Yue kicks and screams into a pile of mental pillows.

    Fortunately, Yue's great enough at compartmentalising that she can do that while chasing her own shadow to a relatively safe position, such that she can strike at the ground and gather an enormous wellspring of energy--

    "<Fierce Demon Fang!>"

    --nope, it's just another Demon Fang. Bigger, though. She's done Classic, Double Stuff, Family Size... what's next?

    (Oh no, I'm running out of variants,) Yue thinks. 

GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Gou Majinken - Fierce Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Acacia Saitani with Gou Majinken - Fierce Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Gou Majinken - Fierce Demon Fang for 132 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ethius Hesiod gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a glancing hit from Yue Rohay's Gou Majinken - Fierce Demon Fang for 69 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Acacia Saitani gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani activates Evade bonus!

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    Ashley's quick reflexes seem to frustrate Pearl, and she lets out a low growl. But she sees the musketeer ready his next shot, and tries to make distance. She only partially succeeds, caught on the shoulder by the torrent of water but not, conveniently, on anywhere she's still on fire. The burst tears through her undershirt easily, and seems to have caused bleeding under the skin. It's not pleasant, and she's going to feel that bruise in the morning.

    It is unusual for Pearl to be praised by her opponent, and now the flashbang has worn off she can hear it. She looks wary, and takes up a defensive stance, trying to keep both Ashley and Boudicca in sight. For all Boudicca may talk, Ashley might be setting up to, say, napalm her again. She looks slightly taken aback, and her brow furrows. "...I do not understand." She says plainly moving warily. "And I do not have the luxury to comprehend."

    She starts towards Boudicca, only to notice the burst of the wind and try to get out of the way, only to find that she can't.

    Her focus is blown away from her, but so too are the flames. Pearl is.... confused. She stares at Boudicca. "...I do not know why you've done this," she replies, "but I am not at liberty to be soft on my opponents."

    And then she charges straight at Boudicca, releasing an unrelenting storm of slashes, kicks and gouges. It is not an elegant attack. It has no finesse. It is just an attempt to overwhelm and drive through, before Pearl attempts to kick off Boudicca- leaving herself open as she does- to close the distance betwen herself and Ashley, where she tries to bear down on him and get past his guard. It's okay if that occupies both her hands. She doesn't need them for this.

    After all, she's just trying to drive a silver fang into his god damn neck. 

GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action!
GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action!
GS: Pearl spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Pearl has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Overwhelming Assault!
GS: Pearl has attacked Ashley Winchester with Jugular Fang!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.
GS: Ashley Winchester has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ashley Winchester takes a glancing hit from Pearl's Jugular Fang for 91 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ashley Winchester gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Disease applied to Ashley Winchester!
GS: Ashley Winchester activates Evade bonus and Sufferer!
GS: Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Pearl's Overwhelming Assault for 114 hit points!
GS: Disrupt applied to Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer!
GS: Seraph Boudicca enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: CRITICAL! Ivan takes a solid hit from Seraph Liath's Condemnation for 172 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ivan gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia gives Ivan a look. Somehow, with all their experience in fighting, she knows exactly how to given her twin brother a look in the midst of a pitched battle. And make sure he sees it. That look says: 'Really, brother?'

She may still be cross at how he is reluctant to call people friends.

Talia is forced to stare at Liath -- a little disbelieving -- at how armor, shield, sword, and skill all combine to turn aside every blow. Every spell. Everything that the twins and Xantia throw at them. She glances at her brother again, and this time, it with some concern. They might, Talia reflects, have bitten off more than they can chew here.

'... Tell me, Talia: when you look upon our world, do you see something worth truly fighting for?'

Talia's eyes widen. She starts to answer automatically, mouth open, ready to give a remark. But Liath smashes apart the Freeze Lancer, chips of ice flying, and the green-clad Seraph erupts towards them. Talia leaps over the wave of blue light, but it still catches her -- slashes along her legs -- and then she hits the ground in a stumble, as Liath stabs for her brother.

Then moves, so effortlessly, to Xantia. Her eyes widen for a second -- then narrow. Is it a world worth fighting for? "The world... it hasn't done a lot for me, no?" she admits. Her voice is a little quiet. "But... I think of what I used to do. The people I hurt... the looks on the faces of the ones I left behind."

She glances downward, for a second. "...maybe fighting for the world is an excuse. Maybe it's..."

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdRwX3h2zYE

She leaps into reaction. The word isn't said, precisely, but it can be felt. It can be felt in the sudden fury of her stride, as she launches herself at Liath's flank, even as she fights Xantia. It can be felt in the way that Talia jumps off the ground, feet aglow with white light trailing after. She ducks into a midair spin, foot swinging backward.

Light glints off it, chi building. "Demonic Swallow KICK!" she yells, the last word punctuated by a shout and a FLASH, as she ends in a roundhouse aimed at Liath's cheek.

GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Liath with Demonic Swallow Kick!
GS: Talia has gained 3 Combo!
GS: Talia has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    Marivel points at Ashley. Leo risks taking his eyes off her to look at him, and while he's not sure what he was expecting, he's fairly sure it wasn't that. He stares at the young musketeer for an uncomfortable moment, giving Marivel plenty of time to draw upon her own power. "What," he whispers, when his gaze turns back to her. "All I see is a man, Marivel. One of your own soldiers, isn't he?" The Veruni. Leo knows that word. Kaguya--

    His breath catches in his throat--he glances at Avril, but only for a moment, because the moment after he glances about in search of someone else.

    Kaguya. He doesn't see her. Ordinarily, this wouldn't disturb him too much, but not this time.

    Leo is silent for a moment. The two of them haven't so much as tried to strike each other for what feels like an eternity, but Marivel is ripping fresh wounds into him all the same. "I'm sorry," Leo says, meeting Marivel's eyes. "You did what you--"

    Marivel bares her fangs. Leo flinches, visibly, in the face of his friend's anger. Then his face goes stony--he remembers what Marivel told him. "Then don't hold back," Leo breathes.

    "HRAAAAAH--!" the White Knight bellows, raising his blade with both hands. He drives it downwards, into the bloodied paving-stones beneath his feet. Rather than bend or shatter, it flows seamlessly into the earth; there's another pulse of amber light, more of those glyphs etching themselves around Leo's feet. The earth beneath Marivel rises up in an instant, forming a single, massive spike with hundreds of jagged, stony edges. Sweat beads on Leo's brow from the exertion.

GS: White Knight Leo spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Red Mist Marivel with Grand Upheaval!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 1 Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: Red Mist Marivel critically guards White Knight Leo's Grand Upheaval for 37 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    It may be the closest thing to a consistent motive Ethius has ever let on - does the man have something more to do with those who fled Filgaia in times of antiquity and returned so many years later? He isn't one of them. Even under the idea that he's only holding the past five years of his life in clear consciousness, anyone and everyone who has ever encountered the Veruni at anything beyond a passing, unknowing glance would disavow themselves of the notion of standing up to them.
     Kartikeya shot him with hard light and not only did he have the audacity to survive, he's never relented on his stance.
     All the fighting spirit in the world does not stop Yue from asking this pointed question about the scope of how far he will go, and while Ethius is obscured very well from sight... he can still hear all the narration going on between Marivel, her chosen foe, and here. He is only assumed to be motionless because there's no sound of movement from him.
     ... As if something he overheard gave him pause.
     A far greater Demon Fang tears through the veil of ash, tearing it asunder and exposing the 'Al Bhed' right where he stands that he knows he can't stand there and hold fast. He has to leap, dive...
     And doesn't make it, sending him sprawling across the former Blitzball Stadium in the wake of some other parts of the fight. He remains knelt for a little while, as if something else struck him worse than just being thrown away by the bigger Demon Fang. He certainly does look... crushed.
     ...There is a circumstance. I cannot overlook. He reminds himself. It is not what I had first sought. That I know. So long as that circumstance is true... I can't turn a blind eye to it. I cannot back down from the harm they further stand to inflict... whether they are aware of that circumstance or not. But he does not voice it. Does he know the word, or just the feeling?
     It's enough for him to get back up. ...It is not strange that I may be the only one of the mind to believe this. That much was true from the beginning.
     His fingers start to wave again, more complex, standing slowly upright as he regains composure and those lights from the tattoos on his body flash for a completed spell. "Dust Compress!"
     An entire sphere of particulate matter rushes to a specific point - Yue's - as if to try and crush her under a large, fresh layer of loose matter so vulgarly plucked from the air to be utterly conspicuous.
     "I will not be crushed," is his succinct response, as if he knows to be crushed is to invite... something worse. 

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Yue Rohay with Dust Compress!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Yue Rohay takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Dust Compress for 172 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yue Rohay gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Blades clash, and Hilde watches as Avril backs away. It gives her some much-needed time to breathe.

"You honor me, Lady Avril. I can only hope that is the case." Hilde replies with a bow of her head as Avril praises her technique. ...Would her instructor be pleased? She has certainly taken his lessons to heart... but would be approve of the way she is using them? They were not made with war in mind.

"Your talents are quite remarkable, as well... I have fought many, on both worlds, but I have not seen a style quite like your own." Hilde remarks.

Though there may be time for pleasant conversation, this is still a serious fight, with serious ramifications. Avril flies, surging toward her with a graceful but deadly blade. Hilde raises her shield and Absolute Zero crashes against it. The sheer force of the collision sends Hilde skidding back. With a grunt of effort Hilde pushes back to force Avril away and then brings her sword, a blue aura suffusing the blade, down...

...Not at Avril, but at the ground, striking it and slicing straight into the stone floor. This is no mercy, however - where it strikes, blue energy scythes out for anything unfortunate it enough to get caught in its vicinity. 

GS: Hilde spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Hilde has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Stock Break!
GS: Cover expired!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

"I'm glad you two see the fun side of me trying to kill you," Paine tells Tidus and Rikku. "Never let anyone take that away from you. I'm not a doctor, though," she adds. "...I'm the opposite of a doctor."

Paine contributes physically to Yuna's defense, but not verbally the way the other Guardians do. Discussions of morality with the enemy are both above her pay grade and her level of idealism. They will win the argument by winning the battle.

The same chain is reaping its way around the Guardians, sowing chaos in what had been an extremely efficient offensive. Paine is relieved to glance back and see that Yuna dodged it entirely, but Tidus is sent into a roll, and Rikku hits the ground a moment later. When it's her turn to confront the weapon, Paine hauls her great blade Gravestone into its path, slapping it with the flat of her blade in an effort to drive it away. It is not as though she does not see the potential problem with this plan, but if she tries to jump, it's likely to become Lulu's problem in short order.

Gravestone largely takes the impact of the chain, but it whips around and strikes her upper arm. From there wrapping her occurs swiftly, a whistle of increasing pitch audible as the chain grows shorter and more of it is looped around Paine. She ends up with her sword flat against one shoulder, its edge uncomfortably close to her neck.

"Little help?" Paine asks. From her unhurried tone, it is as though she needed someone to pass the salt.

On her way out, Margaret introduces Lulu to the back of her hand, which makes Paine frown. "Now that's now way to treat a Dame," she says, as much to Lulu as Margaret.

The next part is more directly for Margaret.

Stepping back to draw the chain taut, Paine draws her carbine with the arm she still has free. The machina rifle has been bandaged up again to hide its nature. Its weight feels different today, nostalgic, and Paine blinks in a moment's distraction as she experiences it.

She's here as Yuna's Guardian. But wielding her service rifle while allied with the Crusaders is not so many steps removed from what her life was supposed to be.

"Tch," Paine limits her reaction to a stretched corner of her lip. Then, squeezing the trigger, she blows a hole in the rifle's bandaging, tattered ends of the material flinging out with their tips turned to cinders. The recoil knocks her wrist up more than usual, given her inability to take a proper stance, but she was prepared for it.

"Easy aiming at least," she comments. The now-taut chain forms a straight line between her and its origin, after all. 

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

... Another day, I would cherish nothing more deeply than to be your friend, Master Ivan.

"L-let's not go crazy, now!" Ivan stammers in response, with reddened cheeks. Ivan finds friendship quite scandalous, you see. Quite unthinkable to escalate to a state like friendship so lightly. (At least she used his real name. Whew.)

He catches Talia's Look for a moment, and turns away from it with deepening embarrassment.

But the battle continues. And as Ivan maneuvers into position to stab Liath from above, he finds himself facing down her own readied blade.

There is not much room to maneuver without abandoning his own attack, and so he commits to it, the two of them taking mutual damage as he crashes down into her and then pushes off, landing in a roll that takes him a fair distance away from her again, a bit of blood now streaming from his punctured shoulder.

He is unhappily shocked to find that he came away the worse of the two of them from his own attack, feint and all, and makes a frustrated 'tch' sound as his mind races for what to do against someone with such fast reaction times.

Well, when he doesn't know what to do, it can be time for only one thing, can't it?

He quickly sheathes the umbrella and vanishes the sword, retrieving three throwing daggers from his jacket, which he balances between his fingers before setting them flying through the air toward Liath. Along the way, they burst with flame, their flickering halos taking the shape of stinging insects.
Yes. It is time for bees. 

GS: Ivan spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Ivan has attacked Seraph Liath with Fire Wasps!
GS: Ivan has completed his action.
GS: Paine spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Paine has attacked Margaret with Ironsights!
GS: Paine has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Paine has completed her action.
GS: Margaret guards a hit from Paine's Ironsights for 66 hit points!
GS: Cripple and Poison applied to Margaret!
GS: Seraph Liath takes a solid hit from Talia's Demonic Swallow Kick for 106 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Liath gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: COUNTER! Seraph Liath counterattacks Ivan with Counter Attack!
GS: Seraph Liath takes a solid hit from Ivan's Fire Wasps for 142 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Liath gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Poison applied to Seraph Liath!
GS: Seraph Liath enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Slow expired!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Hilde's Stock Break for 199 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters CONDITION GREEN!!

<Pose Tracker> Kelk Ronso has posed.

"Come, Maester. The heart of the battle lay ahead."

A few here may know Silas Dee. The former mayor of Burwich Village -- a tall man, powerful yet lean, with long black hair and a well-trimmed goatee and mustache. When they met him two years ago, he wore the simple clothes of a burgermeister; now, he wears plate armor, black as soot and with enamel lined in silver. He carries, too, a greatsword -- and the blade has shadow magic that leaps off it.

He cuts down a lance of flame, hurled from a Neo-Vane mages. It is split in two -- touching neither Silas, nor the man he protects. Kelk Ronso is a blue-furred Ronso, but it has gone grey on his head. He stands so very tall -- and his eyes are sad, as he looks at Luca. He carries a staff in hand, and holds it up.

"Stone upon stone, layer upon layer... grace this land with strength unmoving!"

It glows -- and then rings of stone form around countless Drifters, Ronso, and Yevonites. They flash into nonexistence, but there is a glow from within. A warmth; a steadiness. "STONESKIN!" Kelk bellows.

Then, he lowers his staff, and hits the bottom against the flagstones with a tremendous *CLACK*.

"Althenans!" he shouts, his deep voice echoing over the plaza before the stadium. "It is time that you make your exit! The things that you have done here... yours is a saving we neither asked for, nor need!"

Silas steps up next to him. The middle-aged man rests his unadorned greatsword across his armored shoulder, and looks out with silent, cold red-brown eyes. Nothing shows in his drawn expression; he witnesses, he regards, but he dare not emote anything.

"Leave this place! We shall rise or fall upon our own merits!" Kelk finishes, with a roar that is quite literal.

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

Ashley is one of Marivel's soldiers. He is also more than that, but from Leo's point of view, that's all that he is, and right now that's absolutely fine. Ashley would prefer to be nothing more than a 'soldier' if the alternative is to be the Blaze of Disaster.

Or, you know, a bloodless corpse.

"Bou, uh, not that I'm not in to making friends out of enemies, but..." Ashley frowns, then shakes his head. "...What am I saying. Look, we only want to liberate the city, not kill everyone in our way. If you just... leave, we won't pursue, okay? I promise. Maybe you can stop by and have some real great bread if you want to someti--" And then Pearl resumes the hyperviolence. "--Okay but why though!?"

Because war is hell. Because sometimes retreat is even more unacceptable than defeat. At least the latter does not imply cowardice. Pearl goes to drive a shining, silver fang into his jugular, to tear into his throat like the proverbial wolf. Ashley grits his teeth and lifts his bayonet. Pearl might have the brief impression of charging head-first into a buffalo and its upraised horns. Her dagger skates the flat of the Bayonet-- and at the very last, is turned aside. It digs a long, bloody trench across the length of the musketeer's chest, but rather than tearing through his jugular, it instead simply carves across his ribcage. "Ghhhh-- Sorry, I can't die here!" Ashley replies, slamming another canister into the breach of his heavy ARM. "I have a promise to keep!"

He... Aims down, right at Pearl's feet, and fires.

There's a flash of light, a sound like a crack of thunder roaring across a faraway sky. A beam of pure energy lances into the earth under the assassin's feet...

And blasts upward, a column of sky-blue light that seems to rise high into the sky. It tears the earth apart, scattering a buckshot-cloud of stony shrapnel and white-hot power that flash-cauterizes any wound it might tear open!! 

GS: Ashley Winchester spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Ashley Winchester has attacked Pearl with Rising Nova!
GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield expired!
GS: Ashley Winchester has completed his action.

<Pose Tracker> Red Mist Marivel has posed.

Marivel says, "Yes. It's a little complicated," blandly rather than actually try to explain Ashley Winchester. "He's a good man but nevertheless, Lord Blazer walks with him."

She receives an apology. Her hand twitches around her blade, then grips it tightly. She grits hers her teeth and straightens up again. Her six eyes are crying.

"These are not my tears." Marivel says. "I will not cry until the Day of Promise. These tears..."

She brings the blade back. "They are the tears of the dead!"

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaur4aSNDRo

Marivel casts off the body. Red mist surrounds the form that explodes out from it, black smoke starting to emit out from it to cover even that. Smoke from the light that still remains in thies world.

"And your apology means nothing! Because you are not the one who has to apologize!" The demon screams.

It rips through the jagged stone like butter. If it wounded the vampire, it certainly wasn't an impale--and it certainly hasn't stopped her.

The demon cracks open its jaws. It's like that of a wolf. An impossibly large wolf. No, something that has no true animal equivalent, something from beyond this realm or any reality that follows its rules and laws. It can exist like this because Marivel is the last--and because the Guardians forgave her people for ensuring she'd be the last.

"Do you know what seperates a true hero from a good man, Leo!?"

            "DEATH!" 

GS: Red Mist Marivel has attacked White Knight Leo with Life Drain!
GS: Red Mist Marivel has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Xantia's briefly rattled when Liath identifies her by that name the people of Luca still insist on using, prompting some frantic waving of her hands in protest. "No, no, there's no mystery here - Xantia, it's just Xantia now, okay? I don't do the whole Hero thing anymore!" There, now everything should make sense.

Ultimately, she came here to fight today, so her focus quickly shifts to that. Considering Liath's reputation, she's not surprised to find that this isn't going to be an easy one, finding her blows countered at every turn. She's nothing if not stubborn, so she keeps trying anyway. But the response, physical as well as verbal, catches her off guard, and she finds herself struck by the very same element she used to enhance herself, launching her into the air.

What goes up, must come down - Xantia's descent is anything but gentle, hitting the ground flat on her back. Lightning no longer surrounds her after that, dispersed by the counterstrike. "...ow," is all she manages initially, needing a moment before she can get a proper rebuttal going.

With Talia and Ivan jumping into action, Xantia picks herself back up, not paying any head to pain or injuries. There'll be time for that later. Right now, it's more important to respond. "...I don't like those Yevon people either. But a war doesn't solve anything. It never does."

She assumes a fighting stance again, but doesn't charge immediately. Instead, she calls upon Liath's own favored element, both hands glowing brightly as she brings them together in front of her. "I hope you have something more to say for yourself than 'it's not my place to question the goddess' or whatever. If not, I'll tell you the same thing I've told everyone else who said things like that: You have a mind of your own. Use it!"

If Liath finds conjured weapons notable, she may find the one that's conjured in Xantia's hands of particular note. A sword formed of pure light, its shape so similar to one of Clarine's Prism Swords that it almost can't be coincidence. She charges immediately, banking on surprise to give her an advantage she normally wouldn't have against a more experience sword fighter to get a powerful two-handed swing in.

"RADIANT BLADE!"

She immediately drops into a guard stance following that, and finishes her earlier statement. "If you really believe your goddess wants what's best for everyone, why would she order something that would make so many suffer? You shouldn't just accept things like that! If I were you, I'd be worried that something's wrong!"

It is then that the Ronso Maester of Yevon appears. Even if this technically counts as a notable reinforcement for her side, Xantia clearly meant what she said earlier - she does not look happy to see this man here at all. 

GS: Xantia has attacked Seraph Liath with Radiant Blade!
GS: Xantia enters a Counter stance!
GS: Xantia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

Ashley is one of Marivel's soldiers. He is also more than that, but from Leo's point of view, that's all that he is, and right now that's absolutely fine. Ashley would prefer to be nothing more than a 'soldier' if the alternative is to be the Blaze of Disaster.

Or, you know, a bloodless corpse.

"Bou, uh, not that I'm not in to making friends out of enemies, but..." Ashley frowns, then shakes his head. "...What am I saying. Look, we only want to liberate the city, not kill everyone in our way. If you just... leave, we won't pursue, okay? I promise. Maybe you can stop by and have some real great bread if you want to someti--" And then Pearl resumes the hyperviolence. "--Okay but why though!?"

Because war is hell. Because sometimes retreat is even more unacceptable than defeat. At least the latter does not imply cowardice. Pearl goes to drive a shining, silver fang into his jugular, to tear into his throat like the proverbial wolf. Ashley grits his teeth and lifts his bayonet. Pearl might have the brief impression of charging head-first into a buffalo and its upraised horns. Her charge is deflected halfway by the flat of the Bayonet-- and at the very last, is turned aside. And still she plunges in, her jaw closing not around his jugular, but around his shoulder. She bites in deeply, drawing blood. Blood... that tastes... off? Hot? It's hot. But she is not a vampire, and so it is only the 'hint' of heat that she detects. And more importantly, Ashley... is not bleeding out. "Ghhhh-- Sorry, I can't die here!" Ashley replies, slamming another canister into the breach of his heavy ARM. "I have a promise to keep!"

He... Aims down, right at Pearl's feet, and fires.

There's a flash of light, a sound like a crack of thunder roaring across a faraway sky. A beam of pure energy lances into the earth under the assassin's feet...

And blasts upward, a column of sky-blue light that seems to rise high into the sky. It tears the earth apart, scattering a buckshot-cloud of stony shrapnel and white-hot power that flash-cauterizes any wound it might tear open!!

This might be a problem, given that he's standing right there too. 

GS: White Knight Leo takes a solid hit from Red Mist Marivel's Life Drain for 203 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! White Knight Leo gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Red Mist Marivel drains White Knight Leo! Red Mist Marivel gains 100 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia's own attention is split between fighting Yue and listening to what the odd, taciturn man is saying and doing. Part of her can't help but feel that a cloud of dust is somehow against the rules, as if maybe it's a little unfair even were they fighting a truly hostile Veruni susceptible to the VR syndrome. Like-- like handing an empty plate to a starving person, perhaps.

    (She chides herself for that one immediately afterwards, even as she realizes she's actually dying for a good solid meal.)

    Even her own sense of danger and compartmentalization can't quite ignore what's happening with Marivel; her attention flicks in that direction for just a moment, allowing herself that much before she sucks in a breath, tamps it down, and resolves to think about it later. Maybe much later. Either way.

    Instead, she grimaces at the sight of the oversize Demon Fang coming her way. She's not stupid enough to try to repeat the same trick yet again, not when she's already feeling the fatigue of the other three. Instead, she lunges to one side, hurling herself into a diving roll and then forcing her legs to immediately straighten as she ignores their protests. It almost works - but there's a searing feeling along her side as the energy of the wave, a not-quite-heat, rolls over her.

    Then her brain catches up on what Yue just said, and she gawps openly, having to replay it in the back of her brain a couple of times. "... I'm gonna tell people you said that," she tries to counter, but it's definitely her loss, and she knows it. Maybe when they're not fighting, maybe then she can use it as a sneak attack, but her chances are ruined right now.

    Instead, she tries to rally, wincing again at the gathering dust. "--she's not doing this because she wants to," is definitely giving away too much, but she feels the need to defend Yue at least a little even as she lunges for the Veruni.

    The first thought is getting her out of that cloud of ash. The second is trying to use the dive to pull the other woman along with her and off-balance, then slam her to the ground. Somewhere in the middle of where they intersect is where she ends up, a bullrush to knock the wind out of her and then send the pair of them rolling away. 

GS: Acacia Saitani enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Acacia Saitani has attacked Yue Rohay with Red Tape!
GS: Acacia Saitani has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani has completed her action.
GS: Yue Rohay takes a solid hit from Acacia Saitani's Red Tape for 142 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Yue Rohay gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!!
GS: Slow applied to Yue Rohay!
GS: Seraph Liath fully evades Xantia's Radiant Blade for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Liath gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Pearl has activated a Force Action!
GS: Pearl fully evades Ashley Winchester's Rising Nova for 0 hit points!
GS: Pearl activates Evade bonus!

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    "...He does?" Leo says, and a terrible chill runs down his spine. Existential terror joins the seething knot of emotions in his hert--and as he tries to stuff it into hits proper place, he realizes something:

    Marivel is crying. He feels moisture in his own eyes, too.

    And then Leo sees what lies within Marivel's flesh. His jaw drops; he steps back, raising his blade in anticipation. He swings it forwards in a mighty sweep as the Crimson Noble lunges at him, but her form parts like the mist it resembles. He feels her flowing through him, sinking in ethereal fangs. As Leo's vision begins to dim, he sees streamers of bright, bloody crimson flowing from his body, into her. Is it blood, or is it--

    "No," he chokes out. Mauri. You have to live. You have to live, have to protect her, have to protect your troops. "NO!"

    The crest dangling around Leo's neck glimmers in time with his heartbeat. The pearlescent aura of the White Dragon's power envelops him for just a second, severing the Crimson Noble's link. Leo sinks forward, sucking in air--he feels lightheaded, but his vision returns quickly enough.

    The first thing he hears is the sound of enemy reinforcements. He does not recognize Silas Dee, but he does recognize the regalia of the man with him. That man would look... something like Leo might, if he were decades older. The sorcery he calls upon is so very similar to Leo's own.

    The White Knight brushes a lock of bright blue hair out of his eyes, and in doing so, his fingers touch his horn. Taking his eyes off Marivel is a terrible risk, but he does so, looking across the battlefield at a man who could be his senior, were he born in a different place.

    "We will do NO SUCH THING!" Leo bellows--and like Kelk, it's a literal roar. The younger, traitor-spawned(?) Ronso(?!) bares his fangs. "Tell me, 'Maester'--do you live, or are you yet another of the walking dead?!"

    To Kelk, of course, this may go beyond insolence.

    Then, back to Marivel. The Ronso(?) takes a few steps back, wobbling as he tries to recenter himself. He raises his blade, and sweeps it down through two vicious strikes, each one letting loose with a wave of energy. It's less an attempt to kill her and more an attempt to get her away.

GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Red Mist Marivel with Double Demon Fang!
GS: White Knight Leo has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Mighty expired!
GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
GS: Red Mist Marivel critically guards White Knight Leo's Double Demon Fang for 23 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

"Oh, I'll disagree with you, my little licorice gumdrop," Margaret answers Lulu mid-twisting of the chain. "PEOPLE end - but these THINGS don't. And the GODDESS, OF COURSE -" A moment later she turns her head to look towards Lulu, but she does not perceive the little stuffed moogle running towards her, because she has absolutely no cause to do so.

"Kuh!!" And so it is that Mog gets a cheap shot. Mog 1 - Meg 0.

As she reels from this, Margaret looks towards Tidus. She breathes out and then back in and then may give him an answer with some surprise to it: "Ay - ayegh, yes, understandable - far be it from me to - claim that any of this is RIGHT, laddo, not right - now -"

Tidus surges forwards and his blade carves through time itself, the backwash hitting Margaret -- who sways and shifts to a lower, more stable stance. (By the Goddess, it's like that time I put leaf powder in the wine on a dare, Margaret thinks to herself. Focus up, he's going hotly, hot lad with a sword isn't a good time at all--)

Margaret continues to move strangely. In the afterwash of Tidus's technique it is like she is now moving with slow, gracious movements, sped up like a cheap filmstrip; a subtle difference, mostly academic, from her previous motions, which were more or less 'what you'd expect, but blindingly accelerated'. "What a shame," she answers Rikku, swinging the kusari round and intercepting the grenade with a high POP that sends it flying upwards and showers her with shrapnel, albeit certainly better than having it go off directly underneath, say, her calf.

"But this KIND of thing's not just - your Summoners, Mr. and Mrs. Honey Crisp," continues Margaret, towards both Tidus and Rikku. "I mean... Oh, what's the use, this isn't the best place to have a chat is it -"

And Yuna explains matters.

"What, are you here for the STADIUM?" Margaret says, with a tone of well practiced dudgeon.

Dolly steps towards Yuna with a confidential sort of haste. "Lady Summoner," Dolly says with urgency.

"Dolly! Fraternization!" Margaret says, before complaining in a low voice, "Is she really going to do this, by the Goddess, I thought she was -"

There's a gunshot, which calls Margaret's attention a moment before the weapon is levelled towards her by her captive. Margaret's head snaps to look towards Paine and she can see that Margaret is about to say something along the lines of 'ah, shit' before there is a gunshot and-- she was already moving, and it is impossible to say easily just how much of that is merely the blood of the scalp, but:

Dolly puts on an expression of determined politeness reinforced by the white face-paint she has on as she looks out from under the cloak. Yuna can probably tell the kind of expression even as Dolly tells her with the intensity of desperation, "I'm sorry for all of this. I want to make it up to you all. I don't think I'm going to see Neo-Vane again, and your Sin here took my Jack, so - ah, if you can tell me - I mean to say; I know it's not that easy," Dolly concludes, "but I'll do it for you if you want."

This is when Margaret gets shot in the head. Dolly looks over. "Ah goddess hold on --" The reeling wheel of a horrid cycle, temporarily held in abeyance by brutal violence! That would be a catchy way to put it, but Dolly merely brandishes her staff towards Margaret, reciting a formal prayer under her breath.

There is a ripple of green light:

And Margaret, who had been reaching towards the side of her head with a trembling hand, suddenly regains strength and poise. (Most of the blood quietly disappears too!) "Guhh!!" Margaret says-- at this point, Kelk Ronso speaks.

There is a moment of silence. Margaret absolutely heard everything he said. Margaret's gaze bounces between those who are nearest her (Paine, Tidus), then a bit further (Rikku), then eternal enemies bearing horrid animate plushies (guess who this is) and then back towards whence she came (where there is Dolly and Yuna). The chain round Paine goes fully slack and is whipped free, then drawn up with a spiralling windmill of one arm nearer to Margaret.

"That was a little unambiguous, wasn't it?" Margaret asks, rhetorically. "Be rude of me to ignore it, really. Probably we'll get some kind of a recall order or something in a minute; one way or another. It's unfortunate that I was locked in pitched battle with the elite and charming Guardians of the Summoner Yuna, and in the heat of my glorious, beautiful single combat, I didn't hear a bloody word of it."

At this point Margaret makes an enormous, near-audible wink at Tidus.

A moment later she erupts into violent action again, swinging the blunted end of the chain-sickle round in sweeping arcs that spin fast enough to make peculiar howling noises, where the wind itself is ripped through - like the sound a bottle makes when you blow over it, save in a dozen subtly different keys. She aims to swing low, arcing round towards the legs and feet of Tidus and Paine. Rikku and Lulu get... somewhat more vigorous targetting from the weight, probably for personal reasons.

GS: Margaret has attacked Tidus with Thresh the Field of Foes!
GS: Margaret has attacked Paine with Thresh the Field of Foes!
GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Margaret has attacked Rikku with Thresh the Field of Foes!
GS: Margaret has attacked Lulu with Thresh the Field of Foes!
GS: Margaret takes 24 damage from Poison!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Rikku guards a hit from Margaret's Thresh the Field of Foes for 70 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rikku gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Lulu takes a solid hit from Margaret's Thresh the Field of Foes for 110 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lulu gains 1 additional Combo!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    She does not have the luxury to comprehend.

    There is now another layer to the sorrows in Boudicca's eyes, a dip of her head, an arc of her brow.

    She glances to Marivel, across the battlefield, here. Ashley, Filgaia's 'Lord of Calamity'...

    "Forgive me," she asks forgiveness for her assistance, with another bob of her head as she looks to him. "For more than this, perhaps... there is a time I fear I would have been quite horrendous to you to hear such a thing as the 'Lord of Calamity' applied to your person. Not unlike this woman..." She is as guilty at following Althena's edict as any of them; she left her mountain to put an end to the Destroyer, and it is only the actions of her friends which ensured the Beast did not find Lucia, for all the sorrow which would come of it.

    She trails off, to hear Pearl's words as well as feel her eyes on her, and here, now, she speaks again of liberty she does not have. Her mouth opens, as if she would speak.

    In that moment Pearl closes the distance. Boudicca braces herself and stands firm against the flurry, tonfa raising in front of her to ward away the blows; long gashes through steel plate, and not just steel plate. There, on her left cheek, where her helm offers no protection; four long gashes, open-deep, a trickle of red falling down like tears.

    (And a deep impression in her chestplate, where a fist has impacted and turned it concave from its convex curve; it has not pierced the metal but what is protected there must go somewhere, forced aside.)

    But it is only after she leaves Boudicca's person that she reaches out, that she cries: "Please, do not--!!" In that instant she must trust in Ashley's strength, in the promises he has made; it is still agony, to see him brush with death. "Listen to me!" She bids Pearl, and her voice raises, here, with an edge of nervousness given to her escalating violence.

    She draws in a breath and the breeze stills, as she brings her tonfa back to her chest. "... I am sorry."

    She speaks with honesty and openness, and from the gap flows regret which was not, before. It is what is compelled.

    "I knew not the Goddess I loved would bind you so. No," she decides, as her head bows entire: "I did not wish to know."

    All the signs were there. They could not dance, nor sing, nor drink. They had a correct target, a correct action.

    "But you trespass here, and you must leave! The works of Althena have carved scars too deep into Spira's flesh, and you enact this -- this self-same transgression!" No, it is not elegant. (Slavery could not be, to her eyes.)

    But oh yes, it's deep.

    How deep -- Boudicca doesn't know.

    But the Earth cleaves to her and by the works of Silas Dee it is her companion, clothing her in enhancement. Boudicca lifts her tonfa, and she does not touch the ground, as she charges for Pearl. Hers is a martial Arte which is borne from defence and redirection, made for things larger than her, and certainly stronger; Pearl is at least one of those, which might be why Boudicca rushes in so soon after Ashley looses his attack.

    Three quick strikes from below, and she's trying her best to send Pearl upwards; either way she springs into the air and comes down, with all the spirit of a rock Silas Dee has given her.

    It's a blunt impact, but those still hurt.

GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Pearl with Cerberus Strike!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has launched an attack Link!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Pearl with Soaring Blast!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Disrupt expired!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Paine fully evades Margaret's Thresh the Field of Foes for 0 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Paine gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Paine activates Sufferer!
GS: Pearl takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Cerberus Strike for 157 hit points!
GS: Disrupt applied to Pearl!
GS: Pearl takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Soaring Blast for 63 hit points!
GS: Slow applied to Pearl!
GS: Pearl enters CONDITION GREEN!!

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    She can catch snips and smatters of other things in the chaos.

    Yue is here. This, she knows by the sound of her voice. But on whose side does Yue now fight?

    She cannot afford the attention spent in the other woman's direction, however, even if the woman is her responsibility in a sense. The fight between her and Hilde is deadly even if they are cordial: neither can afford to back down. Certainly not now, with much of their shared recent history -- loses alike -- wrapped up in Luca's fate. Either of them could fall here. Both of them could. And yet, in the depths of her heart, there is no upwell of fear at this fact.

    It has come to this. And so it must be.

    "I would not think that you might have," Avril says, knowing full well the likelihood that anyone else who would know this style is long since dead and gone. Her blade rebounds off of Hilde's shield and she draws back, wary, waiting. That aura-- Avril bears her blade before her, standing ready for what is to come.

    'They unleashed their TF System', says Marivel, close enough enough for Avril to hear.

    'they'd destroy the entire world,'

    Loud enough for Avril to hear.

    Avril cannot help but turn her head, shock etched into her expression. It's only just for an instant.

    Hilde drives her glowing blade into the floor.
    Avril is an instant too late to deal with it. It surges up, rises up; it carries her a distance across to slam solidly into a nearby wall. Avril lies there, slumped against the stone as if she were a cast-aside ragdoll. She breathes but does not -- immediately -- move.

    Get up. As she is so bidden, she rises to her feet. As if in a trance, she takes a slow step forward. Reach inside. Take that power into your hands.
    Permit another crack to decorate the wall.

    "...Thank you," Avril says at last, as around her the forces of Yevon call out. "However, I must decline. This time," she continues, speaking seemingly to no one at all as she blinks slowly, "I must finish this myself."

    The air about her has begun to drop a few critical degrees. Reaching inward -- but not too deep, not this time -- she is soon crackling with it, a nimbus of ice that trails after her as bouyed by the powe of her Medium she leaps into the air.

    This time there is no one else with her to join the magic as she releases it to descend in a shower of bright shattered ice, but this may be permissable. 

GS: 2 Combo gained from Boost!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated a Force Action!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated a Force Action!
GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Hilde with Overhead Sorcery!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Hilde critically guards Avril Vent Fleur's Overhead Sorcery for 46 hit points!
GS: Tidus takes a solid hit from Margaret's Thresh the Field of Foes for 96 hit points!
GS: Tidus activates Power Burst!
GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Tidus receives 50 temporary hit points.
GS: Tidus enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Yue Rohay has activated a Force Action!
GS: Yue Rohay has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Material - Frozen Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Acacia Saitani with Material - Frozen Demon Fang!
GS: Yue Rohay has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Red Mist Marivel has posed.

Marivel endures the Demon Fangs with a kind of mad fury that only the truly desperate can manage. It is not power that allows her to endure those Fangs, it's despair. It's not nobility, it's wrath. She knows her friends are there. She knows they can hear her. There is a moment, perhaps, where she could just devour Leo whole. Failing to keep a vampire's fangs off you is a quick way to die. And yet... Before that can happen...

Marivel pulls back on her own accord into her body. White Knight Leo isn't the only one conflicted and suffering inside, the only one enduring stakes to the heart. The bloody vampire's crouched on the floor, that partial visage of a demon retreating back into a humanoid shell, one still with exposed crimson claws that look at once organic in nature yet composed of strange eldricht energies not of any world.

Marive looks up at Leo as he decries that he will not flee. He will not fail the Goddess again. He pushes against his doubts just like a hero.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8atSheKUd7Y

Marivel has no more words. She slowly stands up, tears still streaming.

"It's been thousands of years, Leo." Marivel walks towards him. "Why do I still see the lifeless eyes of babes before me. Why do I still yearn for my people? I want to live amongst them. There are people I still care about and yet... It never leaves me be. It hounds me. We saved Filgaia but I let them down. I couldn't pick up the pieces on my own, Leo... I couldn't..."

"I couldn't... I couldn't... They died on my watch. I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't clever enough. I could only build machines, I could only fix the damage slowly, I could only plant gardens while my loved ones died, or shattered, under the weight of the world."

"I was able to save the future. But it wasn't my future. My future died that day and even now, my time has stopped. I have not aged, I have not grown. I wait, in this form, for the day that clock ticks once more."

She extends a hand, bringing it up.

"Our ruins are long plundered, long emptied. Even our history bears no meaning to this world anymore. It's just me, Marivel."

"Alone in the world. But not the only one alone."

She extendsShe extends a hand, a surge of darkness coalescing into her limb as she points it towards the White Knight.

"Keep your promises, Leo." Marivel says. "Or forge a new one and live it without shame. The world will continue on all the same, whether you keep it or not. Whether it bears any meaning or not."

The black beam lances outward towards the white knight.

"But they are your promises to revoke or keep. Not hers."

* Keep the Promise
* Forge a New Promise

"Tis yours, Leo. Tis none but your own." 

GS: Red Mist Marivel has attacked White Knight Leo with Erg Phasor!
GS: Red Mist Marivel has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Yue doesn't really know the exact moment where it happened, but she's not so sure how much of her is currently an act and how much of it is true feelings spilling through; she's no longer the master spy she once was, carefully crafting personae and acting to the specifications that would be receptive to her targets.

    She's just tired, now.

    "We're all just tiny little insignificant termites trying to not be crushed by the whimsical movements of the earth," Yue grumbles, which is incredibly fitting because she's about to get crushed by fresh loose dust and soot and soil and who knows whatever else--

    (Uuugh that hurts, that hurts,) Yue finds herself thinking two seconds later. Did she just pass out? Something in her ribs feels so awful. The stomachache hasn't gone away either. She wants to throw up right now.

    She doesn't throw up.

    For a moment, she's entombed; then thin rays cascade, crisscrossing as fissures across the fresh layer of earth-stuff. There's a spike of Ether; Acacia's come to assail her... and also take her out of that prison. It crumbles around her; she's dirty, full of soot, and her eyes are struggling too. She kinda wants to lie down right now.

    She doesn't lie down. Acacia makes her, though.

    Reinforcements arrive; a Ronso, that Yue thinks looks rather elderly and authoritative; creating rings of stone around the Drifters to assist them. And... another man, silent. She doesn't know who Silas Dee is. Kelk roars at them to leave and never return. She'd like to leave right now.

    She doesn't leave.

    "I'm allowed to tease you, once in a while," Yue grouses as she looks towards Acacia as she threatens to tattle. "And maybe, that wouldn't be so bad?" she hums to herself, even though she's full of dirt and who knows whatever else right now. Good thing her jacket is pitch-black rather than white.

    For a moment, it seems like that's it; she's pinned to the ground, as they tumble. She feels blood in places it shouldn't be; martial training teaches her that much. But she still looks upset. One of her eyes are bloody; she can't see through it.

    (My body won't respond... there's no other choice,) Yue thinks.

    "When our people came back from their long voyage, they found themselves so changed that the world no longer recognised them. That should've been all the hints they needed they're not welcome here. So what do they do? They force square pegs into round holes, they rail and whip and lash out at everyone that doesn't agree with them."

    There's an angry grimace. "Children, the lot of them." She leverages a defiant grin towards Ethius, as Acacia can see her grasp into something in her coat pocket. It looks like a square slab of stone, with an engraving upon it.

    "Wanna see something good...? I'll let you in on a little impossibility..."

    For a moment, she intuitively feels Avril's presence; then she closes her eye and whispers a dirty word that should do nothing for a Veruni.

    "Material."

    Yue disappears, as one is wont to do in these situations; suddenly, a portion of the stadium grounds is slick and blue, frosted with a mystical ice that crawls from the depths of Lunar's Ley. A fresh, heavy snowfall cascades from above the skies, despite the weather; Mount Gagazet is far and its winds should not reach a place so warm and tropical as Luca.

    Yet the ice and snow are here.

    It's impossible! The Guardians should pay no heed to non-Filgaian species! They reject them, as they did the Metal Demons! Her link should have no sway.

    Yet it DOES--

    Tenuous as it is, on Lunar, on the Old Moon, the Silver Star; a being of pure white ice appears. Humanoid and slender, composed of little more than scales of ice and deep blue rings.

                    It is Aru Sulato, the Guardian of Ice.
         (Why Aru Sulato? Well, Avril lives rent-free in Yue's head.)

    "You don't want to be crushed...?
    Why don't you freeze instead!"

    The Guardian's eyes flash -- and in a single regal sweep, ice crawls rapidly across the ground; a wave builds, and builds, threatening to consume both Drifters in a deluge of frost in a shape...

    Oddly reminiscent of a... 

GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Material - Frozen Demon Fang for 112 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ethius Hesiod gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Acacia Saitani takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Material - Frozen Demon Fang for 115 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Acacia Saitani gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: White Knight Leo critically guards Red Mist Marivel's Erg Phasor for 42 hit points!
GS: White Knight Leo activates Guard bonus!

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    Pearl's near emotionless face gives a flash of anger. "Why would you think I had freedom to leave?" She drives her fang into Ashley's shoulder, but in doing so is lociked with Ashley, and she can do very little to move. It should be an easy shot.

    And then Pearl moves like a blur, retreating from Ashley easily, as the blast goes off where she was standing, skidding to a halt, eyes glinting, blood dripping down her mouth. She spits, and that too is red, the hot substance splashing to the ground. She glares at Ashley, but says nothing more.

    Boudicca bids Pearl listen to her. For whatever reason she listens.

    '...I am sorry.'

    "And what do you think your apology is worth?" Pearl's voice is harder, and she starts to look angry. "Why should you apologize me? What possible purpose is there!?" The fury starts to come through her voice. "Are you claiming responsibility for my fate, when you do not even understand it?" She growls. "An apology means nothing! What are you going to do? Cut me free of my bindings when you do not even know what they are!?" She glares daggers at Boudicca.

    And then Boudicca hits her very hard from below and sends her flying into the air, as intended, before Boudicca drives her handily into the ground. As ever, there is no yelp of pain. She takes a moment, and then performs a kip-up to get back to her feet.

    She hears Kelk Ronso make his declaration, and listens as Leo makes one of his own. "The fighting is to continue." Pearl growls a wolf-like growl. "Good."

    And then she stands still for a few moments more, before suddenly and furiously charging at Boudicca, claws out. She starts with a single clawed strike at Boudicca's neck, darting in with the tips of her fingers. And then she unleashes another of those furious assaults on Boudicca, driving fist and claw against armour, as though she's trying to shatter it with her gloved hands. And then, with one final strike, she tries to drive her claws through, in a perhaps pointless attempt to disembowl Boudicca.

    Ashley is left untouched. Perhaps, in her rage, she has forgotten about him. 

GS: Pearl has become ENRAGED!
GS: Pearl has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Predator's Opening!
GS: Pearl's  stance ends. She enters the Avenger stance!
GS: Pearl spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Pearl has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Overwhelming Assault!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Pearl has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Eviscerator!
GS: Pearl has gained 1 Combo!
GS:  Enrage purges all positive status!
GS: Pearl has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

No, though the Guardians may joke, there is nothing light-hearted about reclaiming Luca. There is nothing of ease about going into this battle, not against Fiends, but against people. ...She doesn't look at Yuna much right now, during this part of the battle--

But she knows where she is, at each moment.

Lulu doesn't have the shouting words Tidus does, and she doesn't have the same sort of energy that Rikku does. She makes her attack, and listens... to Yuna again.

Luca is Spira's heart. Lulu knows that--and perhaps part of her battle here is for Wakka, too, elsewhere in the fight but absolutely present here somewhere.

"...You don't need to be sorry," she says to Yuna as she recalls her moogle. And since Paine has asked for a little help, this is where Lulu moves next.

Though Paine seems to be making use of the position well enough.

...Licorice gumdrop, though. Rarely are there people around frankly old enough to even think of talking to Lulu in such a way, and the black mage lifts an eyebrow--but Mog rather deftly defends her honor. Lulu does not immediately reply. No, she thinks about what Margaret is saying... Including the fact that she seems not to consider this 'right' at all.

But Lulu moves as if to free Paine--but it would seem the Maester's words have helped in a way he would surely not approve.

But the rhetorical question... Yes. Lulu did notice that, of course. Once, a Maester's words would have been very important to her, something to stop and listen to and consider. ...Long years of if not devotion then at least acceptance of Yevon still cause her to listen, at least. But she does not believe Yevon's blessing is meant to include her and her friends, any longer. She considers Maester Kelk Ronso's words more by whether they might cause a retreat than anything.

...Dolly is addressing Yuna. Lulu leaves that matter to her. To Margaret instead, "Hm." She cannot stop to consider the fate of a world; she is bvusy with a nearer fate.

"Justice is not a luxury we have," Lulu says. "...But I must believe it is possible to bring an end."

To what? Well, she doesn't say. Maybe it's obvious.

But the violent action she takes is a retort of its own. The weight swings at her, and Lulu moves to get out of the way--but Margaret is much faster than the black mage, and Lulu is hit hard enough to knock her backwards again, to force her from the stance she'd been in. She doesn't drop the doll this time, though. That's a trick she'll only be able to pull off once, she thinks.

"...Well," she says. "I suppose you'd best not let me bring you down." Lulu reaches up her hand, and the doll hops down this time to mirror her motions as she invokes the power of another element--hoping to counter Margaret's powerful windy weaponry with the weight of gravitic Earth magic, a rippling blast of it bursting in dark force out of a spot in the air and imploding back towards her.

"Either way, it seems we got off to a rocky start."

She doesn't get Margaret, and that makes Margaret that much more dangerous. Despite or maybe in keeping with the quips, Lulu keeps her focus on her. 

GS: Lulu has attacked Margaret with Demi!
GS: Lulu has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Lulu's Avenger stance ends.
GS: Lulu has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Boudicca critically guards Pearl's Predator's Opening for 28 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Power Burst!
GS: Seraph Boudicca guards a hit from Pearl's Overwhelming Assault for 106 hit points!
GS: Disrupt applied to Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer!
GS: Seraph Boudicca enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Pearl's Eviscerator for 172 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca activates Sufferer!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    "That's the joke, Paine," Tidus tells his fellow Guardian dryly, mouth curved in a half-smile for her and Rikku. Once again, he's struck by the thought that Paine is like the grown-up baby of Auron and Lulu. It's still a weird thought, but at least now it's also funny.
    
    Even if Lulu's right, and there's nothing *really* funny about this fight.
    
    "Rikku! You okay?" Tidus calls her way after she eats dirt. Her actual retort to Margaret makes him snort, though, and add, "Somehow, I don't think she was planning on attending in the first place."
    
    But Yuna quotes something from her trial--from all their trials, really, but she was at the heart of it, like she's always been--and as if waving a flag, a Maester appears on the battlefield. Tidus only knows Kelk Ronso from that same trial, so his appearance isn't exactly a *welcome* one, but it's also kind of nice to see that at least some of Yevon's leadership is taking responsibility for this horrible battle instead of relying on the pity and compassion of those they looked down upon. All the same, Tidus shoots the Ronso a wide-eyed look, surprised to see him; then he looks over at Yuna, because he cares VASTLY more about how his appearance might potentially hurt her. She might be the emotionally strongest person he knows, but that doesn't mean she doesn't feel pain--indeed, she's strong precisely because she refuses to stop feeling pain just because it might be easier.
    
    Then Leo yells back a resounding NO, and although it's not like he doesn't have a point in there somewhere, Tidus can only react with a roll of the eyes and a deeply aggravated, "'Uuuggghhhhh'."
    
    More importantly, Margaret acknowledges that there is no rightness in her actions (or at least that's how he hears it), and Tidus double-takes at her. "*What*? If you know that, then why are you doing this?" Though it does make sense--she was there, wasn't she, when the Sealing Rod that would have sealed Leviathan instead broken and loosed a horror. Of course, Leo was there for that too and he's still here refusing to back down--maybe they're all just so up their Goddess's butt that it doesn't matter to them anymore.
    
    But *then* Margaret's friend Dolly over there is apologizing and offering to make up for things, and Tidus hesitates in confusion. "Uhh... okay?" His expression does soften with concern and, perhaps strangely, guilt, when Dolly mentions what Sin has taken from her. "I'm really sorry about that," he says, perhaps foolishly lowering his guard and sword. Then he tilts his head Margaret's way and adds, "Are you sure your friend is on board with that, though?" (Seriously, "Mr. Honey Crisp"? What's she trying to imply?!)
    
    Then Margaret makes it clear she's NOT on board AND gives him a juicy wink right before wheeling that chain around his calves. "JERK," is all Tidus has time to yell before she knocks him off his feet and swings him across the battlefield. WHAM, as he impacts with some rubble; if Margaret hadn't retracted that chain to continue the attack on his friends, he might've had some more of a very bad time. Tidus groans as he rolls over, using his sword to prop himself to his knees. He leans his weight forward, then breaks into a sprint for Margaret--but not directly for her. Instead, he sprints *past* her, lashing his blade to slice her as he passes, *then* skids to a halt and changes direction to pass by her for a near-slash. He does this several more times, until finally he *does* charge her straight-on and aims to hit her armor and *shove* her back and down and possibly off her feet. Possibly right into Lulu's Demi gravity field. 

GS: Tidus has attacked Margaret with Slice and Dice!
GS: Tidus has launched an attack Link!
GS: Tidus has attacked Margaret with Quick Hit!
GS: Tidus has completed his action.
GS: Tidus has completed his action.
GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Lulu's Demi for 164 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Margaret guards a hit from Tidus's Slice and Dice for 119 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Margaret activates Guard bonus!
GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Tidus's Quick Hit for 124 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Delay applied to Margaret!

<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

Hilde hears the many conversations going on, but she lacks the context to truly understand and appreciate what is being said - particularly not when her attention remains focused as it is on Avril.

"Ah, are you self-taught?" Hilde asks. A style that is unlikely for others to know... it's a curious thing. In kinder circumstances, she would have liked to inquire further about it. But now, however, they can only express such things through battle.

Hilde observes as Avril is thrown backward, crashing into a wall. She doesn't capitalize on this opportunity - she waits, watching carefully, for Avril to stand of her own volition.

She is, even now, cornered as she and the rest of the Guard are, a person of honor.

...Of course, even if she were not, a loud, booming voice rings out throughout the stadium, accompanied by the clacking of her staff. Hilde looks up, toward Kelk Ronso and Silas Dee, and a frown streets to creep across her face.

...This situation... it isn't good. They find themselves further and further outmatched here. But Leo responds with fury, insisting that they will not.

...So be it. Then here she will remain - she will not abandon him, or any of the others.

Instead, her attention returns to Avril, as she expresses her determination to finish this herself.

"Very well." Hilde replies.

The air is filled with ice as Avril draws upon her powers. A flurry of ice and magic descends upon her. There is no follow-up... but there does not need to be. Hilde raises her shield as ice impacts it, coating it and her in a layer of ice surrounding her.

Is this it? Has she been frozen to the core?

There is a moment of silence... and then, cracks begins to form in the ice, blue light starting to pour out. And then, it shatters. Hilde stumbles a little as she frees herself - looking winded from the effort, with frost clinging to her hair and her equipment.

"Your sorcery... it is as impressive as your bladework, if not moreso, Lady Avril..." Hilde remarks, exhaling. "Truly, you are one to be feared... A single stumble, and it would be the end of me."

And then, she charges, bringing her shield up defensively. Should the Maester try to bring up any more earth to defend Avril against her wishes, she'll try to smash right through them - with her ultimate goal being Avril herself, in a powerful shield slam with her full weight behind it. 

GS: Hilde has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Dauntless Charge!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated a Force Action!
GS: You have activated the Force Action Accelerate!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Hilde's Dauntless Charge for 192 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cover applied to Hilde!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    As Acacia struggles to convince Ethius about the nature of Yue's character, there may be plenty to be said about one who stands on the side of wrong but is self-aware of it... and one who ostensibly fights for good, but with an unwavering direction that cares not for the finer details beyond the solid understanding that they oppose it.
     Nuances that would make for some great storytellin' on the next paper, maybe.
     As it is, Ethius stands distant from a self-reflecting woman who coyly teases Acacia, one who does not appear ready for further japes or jokes, as the Yevon forces assert their right to take the reins of their land - though the other man, he recalls a long time ago in passing.
     ...Another concern for another time, because Yue's grin is chilling enough he stands straighter. A flinch. What is she doing with...
     A Material, as Yue announces. To his knowledge, the Veruni are not accepted by the Guardians, and that is a Guardian power. He remembers seeing that visage in a statue - Aru Sulato. The invitation to freeze instead of be crushed, and the ice reaches him.
     It shatters, sending hailstones up high as it encases Ethius in cold, and it could be that this will mark the end of it. His body shivers, but otherwise stands motionless for a time as simultaneous blunt and lacerating trauma compound on the freeze... and the ice starts to crack around him.
     "...I do not have... time... for wordplay." His voice does not speak of great strength as he tries to flex back control of his body. It's numbed to some of the mounting pain, and... he moves.
     The man starts to build up speed through the frost and the cold. He is not dressed for that sort of environment, and it shows as he shivers - but he builds up speed. The bits of hail erupting from the shattering ice in the wake of that frozen demon fang do not strike against his noggin, or anywhere else, as gravity brings them back down.
     "It doesn't mater what she wants," he says as an aside to Acacia.
     Power thunders through the battlefield like lightning. So many intimidating sounds, so many errant bursts of power. It is plainly dangerous for him to go in a straight line between where he begins, and where Yue is - but he runs as if he could fly without fear of any of that coming down upon him.
     "...As it is," even when faced with one of the measuring sticks that have helped him gauge... something or another... proving to have been faulty, as it may have been in a few other contexts, "one statement holds true."
     If the sun were behind where Yue stood, he would be staring straight into it unflinchingly. (This may be because he has a mask on, but the man has such a practiced, unrelenting glare that it may well one day endeavor to challenge the flaming ball of fire.)
     "You do not belong here." He declares, as a man who may as well come out of nowhere by anyone's measure, finally closing back in melee range.
     The whole of the run ends with Ethius trying to bowl himself into the haggard, tired Veruni convict, wore down by years upon years of sin and truth as other such feelings erupt both distant and close - for the moment he shakes all of that aside to deliver one single, pinpoint blow.
     The tip of a quarterstaff, straight for about where Yue's liver would be in human anatomy terms.
     "Stinger," he calls the name of it as he tries to lift her up and toss her wherever else she may on the field - choosing to meet anecdote and confession alike with unyielding purpose. 

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 Yue Rohay with Stinger!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Yue Rohay takes a glancing hit from Ethius Hesiod's Stinger for 83 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Rikku has posed.


Rikku's lip is still twitching in suppressed laughter over Tidus telling Paine it's the joke.

"Fine!" Rikku calls back to Tidus to reassure him from her compromised position, "It's not like being here... on the ground... is... unfamiliar to me. Though I appreciate your concern!"

Rikku doesn't get what Yuna means when she says that she hears that a lot, even from her Guardians. Not at first. She's very much more someone who lives in the moment, rather than thinks over the words she heard. But something about it bothers her a little. It's about the time that Yuna's spell starts knitting her flesh together that her lips make an 'O.'

She can say that she didn't yell at Yuna about it, but that's about all she can say given what she did. Acutely aware of her hypocrisy in the moment.

And yet, she doesn't feel ashamed, but feels... proud in the moment. Because... what she regards as a mess up, turned into the best experience of her life. So when Margaret shouts in disbelief that she's here for the stadium... Rikku responds back seriously, "You act like that's a small thing... but what you think are small things can mean a lot to other people. Luca means a lot to me... because it's where I met Yunie, and became her Guardian." She gives Yuna a look out of the corner of her eyes, "So I'm not sorry."

Even if she kidnapped her before that.

Paine asks for help, but Lulu's on it. Already there before Rikku can fully get up and head her way. Yet that doesn't mean she's without response... as she chooses now to keep the joke going even now that Tidus has revealed it is the joke. "By the way - I disagree on your whole opposite of being a doctor thing! If anything that day proved you've got the chiropractic skills to pay the bills - I don't wake up with a crick in my neck anymore!" Rikku motormouths her way, "In fact... depending on how this goes I may need your services again?"

Her joking fades though, when Dolly steps forward and suddenly Rikku hesitates too. "I'm..." Suddenly at a loss for words, because she too has recently known a great deal of loss, Rikku looks at Margaret awkwardly at about the same time as Tidus, "...look... can we just stop this? For the sake of your friend?"

The appearance of the Maester suddenly turns her head abruptly, as she looks in the direction of Kelk's towering voice. As a warmth surrounds her, surprised...

After Seymour and Mika and Kinoc, her opinion on Maesters was pretty low. Now she finds herself reassessing...

... Margaret though, doesn't stop. And Rikku has to rapidly squat down and continually bob her targe to try to block as if she's making wild predictions where that low swinging chain is going to try to connect with her. It batters the side of her targe. Once. Twice. Thrice. And one time it just slips through, the weight grazing her ribs before her shield takes the edge off the impact.

Despite being staggered by it... her hands, just, work. Taking a ice-blue gem. Crushing it down. Dissolving it in some concoction, and then adding a sphere.

Until finally, she tries to make a run for it right towards her as Tidus assaults her over and over. "I don't get it Margaret... after what she just said... it feels like now you're being hot-blooded for reasons we can't understand... but..." And when Tidus shoves her... Rikku's sudden underhand toss looks like it's a phial, that's opaque, save for glittering blue motes rising out of the narrow end.

Mix: Winter Storm

When the phial bursts, there are immediately nine bursts of arctic cold around Margaret, as if were in the middle of the worst natural storm Lake Macalania had ever had. Or at least, that's the way she wants it to go. Her only control is the fact that Tidus shoved her away before Rikku threw it.

"... well. I've been around Lulu long enough to know there's a solution to that!"

GS: Rikku spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Rikku has attacked Rikku with Overdrive: Mix! !
GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Rikku has launched an attack Link!
GS: Rikku's  stance ends. She enters the Avenger stance!
GS: Rikku accepts Rikku's Overdrive: Mix!  for 0 hit points!
GS: Amplify and Hyper applied to Rikku!
GS: Rikku spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Rikku has attacked Margaret with Souped Up Ouch-Ouch Surprise!!
GS: Rikku has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Rikku has completed her action.
GS: Shield and Surge expired!
GS: Rikku has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Like a hot gash the thought through Boudicca's mind, HOW DARE SHE --

    And oh, it hurts. Do you know how much it hurts, to question your creator, whence you came and whose works you defend? Althena did this! Althena has made this woman feel she has no choice, Althena let humanity chain them, Althena, Althena, Althena!

    Her sorrows will drown her, layer over layer in her eyes, as her voice rises, as she tries to reach her.

    But Boudicca has ever been clumsy, in the ways of the heart.

    Boudicca knew little of others for so many years, and she has no intuitive sense of what they need, what they cannot bear. Emotions discomfort her; emotional wounds, she has never known how to heal. She sees some of the shape of Pearl, and yet when her voice hardens, there is incomprehension in Boudicca's sorrow-greyed eyes. A wound, a widening.

    Perhaps her assault is her apology; she has transgressed, too.

    "I meant not to --"

    Slash.

    Here half of her neck is not, all a sudden; it ought to have taken anything she could use to speak, to scream, to say those words which hurt so much. But it is emanation from her, even as she stumbles backwards and her jaw falls slack with her tongue: "I will not--!!"

    She isn't human.

    This much is evident in the wound and those coming; a dozen driving potholes in the armour of her chest, which curves out from the middle to deflect those strikes away from her most vulnerable space. It is well-designed and yet it cannot hope to ward away the assault Pearl brings. Outward curves become inward curves. There is a crunch. (There is supposed to be a crunch.)

    Crunch-squeal-gash, claws come together and pierce, and her eyes widen and her mouth does not, all tilted to her shoulder and back. It doesn't feel quite right. There still isn't enough blood, when that hand comes out.

    When she falls back.

    "... blame y"

    These are words without throat to speak them and they truncate without warning, as she hits the ground. Down and up, with the force of it, and on the uplift she becomes light, pale green which wends about that blood-speckled ribbon and carries it into the air.

    Perhaps it is a kindness, as much as it is desperate attempt to conserve her energy.

    She does not wish for her human friends to see her in such a disassembled state.

<Pose Tracker> Kelk Ronso has posed.

"He is no creature of the night, given unlife," Silas Dee answers Leo. He turns those red-brown eyes on the White Knight, and seems unmoved. "Still your accusations, boy, and listen to your elders."

Kelk looks down at Leo, hand still gripping his staff. "I know not why one of our people is with them... but I see that you and I share the same blood. Would that we shared the same honor," Kelk says. He lowers his head, for a moment, and his eyes close. "Look around you! You need not have grown up on Gagazet's slopes to see that this is folly... that whatever your intentions are, they have been warped!"

GS: Gamble: Very High! Margaret takes a solid hit from Rikku's Souped Up Ouch-Ouch Surprise! for 276 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia finishes her maneuver just as fatigue catches up to her, as well. Her goal was never exactly to win the fight, so much as look after Yue in her rather unique way, and she seems content to collapse to the ground next to the Veruni, craning her head to one side as she feels the nastiest crack in her neck.

    "I'm just astounded you actually pulled that out in the middle of everything," she grumbles, still feeling a little red faced. "I mean, it's not strictly like I mind, or anything, you just caught me by surprise. I guess I'll call it a good sign for how you're doing, at least. Relatively speaking--" she's in the middle of saying that when Yue cuts her off with a tale for Ethius.

    It's not strictly new to her, and some of it she's intuited - but it's one thing to know it and one thing to hear it out loud from someone you never expected, as Yue lets a little of her ire show. The redhead pulls herself up to her elbow - and then scrambles to her feet, as the Veruni blinks out.

    "Oh, shit," Acacia mutters as the air around them starts to flash freeze; she spins quickly, trying to discern where Yue is and which direction the attack is going to come from. Instinct makes her shield her face with her arms in a boxer's stance, setting her feet apart for balance and to steady herself.

    It doesn't really matter, in the end. A Guardian summoning a swathe of ice is not exactly a thing you physically block. The reporter probably does save herself a few cuts and gashes as icicles form and shatter into thin slivers, but it's the cold that cuts through her like a knife most of all, and she's blown off her feet by the wind that accompanies it.

    But as the world reasserts itself, she's still standing afterwards. Only just, and on one knee - but it's enough to push herself back up to standing. There's not a lot of fight left in her, to the point where she drops her fists and heaves out a long sigh, but she owes Yue that much, to keep standing and push forwards when she can.

    "... see, that's the whole point," she mutters, wincing as she feels her body ache. "If she could have everything-- anything she wanted, she wouldn't be here in the first place." Whatever else is behind those words - mild annoyance, tiredness, the desire for an incredibly long hot shower - there's a good deal of trust in her eyes as well.

    And then Ethius rockets in Yue's direction, and she starts in sheer surprise. "--no, wait-- argh!" is all she can get out as the first attempt to lunge in that direction leaves her with a yelp and a flare of pain in one leg. 

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

Ashley gasps, staggering back from the burning pillar of his own creation. He drops to a knee, hand clasping over the gushing wound in his shoulder. Rivulets of blood drip down his arm. This woman-- the way she fights is more than animalistic. He knows that some martial arts are based on the way animals move, but this... This is as if she has, herself become an animal.

As if she has cast aside her humanity, that beautiful spark that dwells within the human heart, for the sake of... This.

It is with that savagery that she turns on Boudicca, her fury, her wrath, all directed at the being that foolishly extended a hand to her, who threw open her arms, and whose only mistake was being careless with her kindness. Ashley goes to move, but he cannot. His body protests against the motion, muscles already strained to their breaking point by the exertion of battle. He gasps, reaching, as Pearl does her worst.

'The fighting is to continue,' she says. 'Good.'

The Yevonites gather their forces. They are poised to descend upon Luca. The Guard will fight to defend it, some even if ordered to retreat. That is the power of their faith, to be willing to throw one's life away for the sake of glorifying their goddess in a baptism of blood.

The fighting is to continue.

                                   Good.

...

......

"No," Ashley Winchester hisses. "No. No this is not going to continue." All around him, the air distorts. It flickers and flashes, a heat haze building as the temperature begins to rise. It leaps catastrophically, surging all at once as a wave of sweltering heat ripples outward from the injured musketeer. The blood pooling on the ground begins to boil. Where his hand grips his shoulder, there is only a fuming red haze. "I can feel him... Slavering. Hungry. He wants this to happen. But I... won't let it."

"I won't. This ends. THIS---"

Ashley Winchester... ignites. His blood BURNS white-blue, a flame that spreads across the fullness of his form. He rises slowly as his failing flesh is replaced by something else. Something stronger. The air grows heavy and hot and it feels as though there is an invisible inferno, towering so high as to lick the very foundations of heaven, there where the burning man now stands.

"ENDS." The flame shatters. It tears itself to shreds and bursts in an expulsion of will-o-wisps. There, where there was once a man named Ashley Winchester, is now...

A Knight.

A Blazer.

It turns its gaze upon the stone. Its eyes flicker as an invisible current of power scythes across the ground, detectable only by the ripple of heat in the air. In an instant, the stone flash-sublimates. The resulting vapor ignites, creating a wall of flame between the two forces and the impending clash. That gaze turns...

And locks upon Pearl.

"...Go." Ashley Winchester-- Knight Blazer-- intones. "This ends here. This ends now. Take your people and leave this place. This is not a war you can win anymore."

"If this continues, no matter who loses..."

The Blazer's eyes flash. The stone underneath him begins to char black. "HE wins." 

DC: Ashley Winchester switches forms to Knight Blazer!

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Liath has posed.

Ivan's cheeks go red as he wards off overtures of friendship like the faithful warding off the unholy advance of a hungry <strikethrough>Marivel</strikethrough> vampire.

Even someone as deeply entrenched in the throes of battle as Liath is must pause to stare upon wide, blinking eyes upon him. She just up and halts her entire advance for a few precious moments so that concern can etch itself writ large upon her features.

"... is friendship considered a sign of madness in contemporary mortal society...?" muses the Seraph, deeply distraught. After all --

"But I have read countless volumes of human literature asserting friendship to be one of the greatest sources of power in the known universe--"

this is very problematic to poor liath

She has very little time to fret over it, however -- not when Talia's words reach her ears. Even as Liath finishes her swift stroke, light-based lightning dancing at Joyeuse's edge in an array of colors from red to violet, that gilded gaze tilts the young woman's way. Talia's words may be quiet, but they carry.

And so, too, does the intent, as she leaps upon Liath not seconds after the Seraph has finished that blow.

    Maybe it's...

It's a narrow opening. It would take Liath scarcely a fraction of a moment to recover from her attack -- but such moments are things Talia has been trained to find, and it is a fraction of a moment that she seizes upon with abrupt rage. The sole of a foot aglow is swinging towards Liath's face by the time she turns to face the flying, former assassin.

It's an inscrutable thing, that look Liath offers Talia, seconds before that kick connects with a C R A C K .

The blow alone is enough to launch Liath off of her feet, snapping her head suddenly to the right and breaking the intensity of that piercing stare resting its uncanny weight upon Talia. She spins through the air just as Ivan looses his daggers. Pyrokinetic bees buzz a burning trail toward the Seraph as she hits ground in a four-point stance, heels kicking dirt up behind her, shield-bearing fingers dragging across stone and dirt and sword -carving- through earth to provide the friction necessary to halt her inertia. She looks up.

She sees

    BEES

And she does the only sane thing, of course:

She flies right at them.

She pays for it, of course, because burning bees are not as kind as regular bees, who are our friends: these bees, however, do not provide friendship, but burning, which simply goes to perhaps further underscore Ivan's deep denial of the Seraph's companionable overtures. AND YET DESPITE THIS TRAVESTY, Liath -hurdles- her way through them, one dagger-borne bee stabbing her just above her thigh, another catching her coattails ablaze, the third searing -just- past her skull. It is painful.

But even all aflame as she is, she nonetheless hurdles through the air with a singular intent to reach Ivan --

--and touch a single, gloved index finger to his shoulder before she darts past.

The sigil left behind by her previous assault will glow all the brighter upon Ivan's person, then, providing him precious little time with which to react before it simply -explodes- in pastel blue light that burns no less despite its pleasantly cool hues. 

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Liath has posed.

And it is here that Liath ultimately lands, flames on her person snuffing out into smoldering tatters of green cloth as she gradually lifts onto her feet once more. Her eyes are closed as Xantia speaks, lips pressed into a thin, thoughtful line.

"No," she admits, after a time. "I do her work, but I am not here for the Goddess.

"I am here for the people she loved enough to shepherd to this star."

That light blooms magnificently; Liath knows the shape and form of it keenly, not simply because it is of her element. It is a form she has seen in use before by someone else -- a form she has used. To her credit, Xantia immediately capitalizes on a moment of surprise.

But there is something to be said for intuitively understanding something, and the advantages it might provide.

That blindingly bright blade bears down on Liath. And Liath -swings- her sword in turn; edge meets edge in a brilliant, beautiful flash, white refracting into a corona of color as the force drags Liath backward against the sheer force of Xantia's blow. But she holds firm.

It's a perfect harmony of force and counter-force. Beautiful in how balanced it is.

And in the heart of that ebbing star of colors, it is a look of unabashed warmth that Liath offers Xantia.

"You've a truly compassionate heart, Lady Xantia," she says, amidst their harmonious clash of blades.

"And I pray you never lose it, no matter what you see."

She dares not risk a second blow, however; as soon as opportunity presents itself, Liath is -leaping- backwards to gain distance between herself and Xantia, just in time for the Maester's forceful arrival. She lands in a spiraling crouch, one leg kicking up dust as it snaps out to her side. She looks upon the Ronso as he weaves his magic of stone.

It is only when the Maester has finished his piece that she looks the White Knight's way.

And in the face of his roar of defiance, or perhaps denial, her brows furrow inward.

"..."

Liath's armored fingers tense briefly around the hilt of her sword.

"... There will be times, Lady Xantia, where people bar in your way fully knowing what side they stand upon." Liath speaks, but she does not quite look her opponents' way. Not yet. Her gold gaze shuts, instead, as she listens to the flow of the battle -- listens to the cacophony, and the words that flow between it, wreathed in rage and desperation and everything in between.

"This world is sometimes cruel, and senselessly so. But I stand for it. I fight for it, in the way I am able. I walk my path, and that path has brought me here, against you today, of my own will, for my own choice. My reasons are my own. Not the Goddess', nor the Guards'. Mine. As are the consequences of it. If you find cause to doubt my resolve..."

Her eyes open, aglow like molten gold as power surges through her.

"... I shall show you the depths of it!"

The battle continues on, by Leo's feverish demand. And Liath responds by bringing that sword up high into the air, blazing with blinding light. It is with two great strokes that she brings great blades of refracting light churning across the battlefield, tearing through earth and stone and anything else in their way on a hellacious path towards Ivan and Talia both. And behind those twin rainbow crescents races Liath, a streak of ribboning colors as she seeks to -dash- into Xantia's defenses, bringing the blazing blade of Joyeuse up in a single, powerful stroke that will send them -both- into the air, high up into it...

... before the downwards stroke sends them both -plummeting- downward into a brilliant explosion of rainbow light, with Liath at its epicenter.

And it is there, crouched, both hands gripped upon her sword, that Liath focuses. Chants.

            "Hear my call, O' thunder that gave birth to life!"

Focuses on that ambient, prismatic energy suffusing the land until it is becoming a swirling wall of magical power. Until the thick clouds are parting under its churning vortex.

           "Unleash your angst, O' great genesis of this land!"

Until a massive pillar of light SPLITS through the parted heavens to CRASH into Liath's upraised blade like a lightning rod, consuming and upraising chunks of rock in its searing resplendence as it overtakes the battlefield, threatening to engulf anyone in its way.

                            "REBIRTH CRUSADER!"

There is no doubt, no hesitation.

In this moment, Liath commits all of herself.

GS: Seraph Liath has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Liath spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Seraph Liath enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Ivan with Final Justice!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Talia with Final Justice!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Xantia with Final Justice!
GS: Seraph Liath has launched an attack Link!
GS: Seraph Liath spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Ivan with Rebirth Crusader!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Talia with Rebirth Crusader!
GS: Seraph Liath has attacked Xantia with Rebirth Crusader!
GS: Seraph Liath takes 28 damage from Poison!
GS: Seraph Liath has completed her action.
GS: Talia takes a glancing hit from Seraph Liath's Final Justice for 92 hit points!
GS: Talia enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Talia takes a glancing hit from Seraph Liath's Rebirth Crusader for 104 hit points!
GS: Talia activates Evade bonus! Talia enters Critical health and gains 25 FP!

<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.

Margaret is spared Yuna's lengthier explanation as to the meaning, the value, of Luca. It's a lot more than just a stadium.

Don't say it isn't worth it.

But Meg is spared this explanation because Dolly intercedes.

Yuna takes a step back -- then another. She is aware of Paine's plight with the chain and the drawing of her war machina; and she is aware, afterwards, of what has happened, and how Dolly intercedes -- again -- to save Margaret's life.

Yuna didn't, because Yuna was just asked by a bereaved widow how to summon so she can die in her place. And now she needs a second. Her mouth opens, then closes. Her eyes open, then open wider. They gleam with moisture.

And then Kelk Ronso speaks.

The power of his voice rolls through her long before any magical power reaches her. She agrees with most of his sentiments, to be sure, despite the fact that he sentenced her to death. But one of them -- the core tenet of Yevon, at that -- no longer resonates per se.

She looks back over at Dolly, after.

"Thank you," Yuna says simply, and gently, so gently. "I am so sorry for the loss of your home," as she intuits Neo-Vane to be, "And of your love. It is the nature of Sin to take too much from us, too soon."

Whatever trouble was born, deep in her gaze -- a fire whose spark was lit by the words of Kelk Ronso -- it flares now.

'We shall rise or fall upon our own merits.'

"And it has nothing to do with merit," she snaps, the truth of this conviction dawning within her even as she's uttering it aloud. One more unwanted, heretical truth. No wonder they would rather kill her than let her become the next High Summoner. Flame becomes a lance of agony, directed inward, as something else she always believed is so obviously wrong. "Or meaning. Sin is not judgement. Sin is cruelty, and atrocity, and grief."

She lifts her chin and spreads her shoulders.

She realizes that she knows this person's name. This person who's in so much pain...

"I can't... allow another to go in my place," she says warmly. "But -- if you want to learn something of summoning..."

Her arms raise, a thousand sakura petals swept upwards into the sky along with them. "Watch closely, Lady Dolly."

She takes a step forward and a Yevonite rune sprouts beneath her feet like a vast blossom. As her gesture widens, so does the sigil, becoming multiple runes, a mandala, set to spinning when she does, her skirt beginning to flare.

Power...

There is so much power in the yielding of Yuna's soul. Her first sacrifice, first and most precious. She is something other than what she was, when she first descended into a Temple driven to become a summoner. Something else. Something wrong, some might say -- there are so many ghosts riding with her now.

But also something more...

Four elemental bursts of light explode from the cardinal runes of her circle, white with intensity but retaining, very faintly, their red and blue and yellow and snow affinities. They look like columns, such is their speed in the butterfly's-wing length of their existence; and then, high above in the clouds, they detonate.

Bahamut, the aeon of Bevelle, is the living symbol of Yevon's might and majesty. After the Maester's appearance, his own would seal the moment's simplicity: the driving back of infidel invaders by the power of the priesthood.

But he isn't who plunges downwards from the sky, wings spreading so widely that -- just for a moment -- they blot out the light.

 <SoundTracker> Birdy - Wings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTXDCh2YiA

Vast, gentle wings...

The scent of peaches, sweet without being saccharine -- refreshing, heady -- drifts across the battlefield.

It wasn't always so, but at Yuna's wedding -- spherecast worldwide -- Valefor became more than the aeon of Besaid. It may not be true for very much longer; and certainly not forever.

But for right now...

...here and now, in this moment...

...she, Yuna's first and most beloved aeon, product of her relationship with her first and closest fayth...

...is the living symbol of rejection of Yevon's law.

And now it is that symbol that soars above Luca, that glorious, feathered symbol of freedom; Yuna's freedom; the freedom from Sin that all Spira deserves...

...on their own terms.

Yuna casts a glance at Kelk Ronso, a battlefield away, as Valefor lets forth a terrific, defiant shriek, monstrously loud as a stadium full of Lucan cheers and yet -- despite the sheer decibel -- a gentle sound, gentle as the girls who united to create her.

She soars above the nearest pack of Althena's Guard soldiers, her wings aflap with sonic power that booms over their heads -- a final warning shot, and invitation for them to retreat.

"But, Lady Dolly," her summoner says quietly, in her own voice but with far more than one gaze staring through her blue-green eyes, "You are deceived... if you are truly sorry, and wish forgiveness from Spira. Forgiveness is not earned. It is... given. Give it to yourself. If penance is what you seek... find it in your kindness to others. But do not seek it... from Sin."

Even as she reassures the other woman, there is something terribly unmoored within the summoner herself. If her pilgrimage isn't penance... what is the true meaning of her journey?

GS: Yuna spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Yuna has attacked Yuna with Grand Summon!
GS: Yuna has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yuna has launched an attack Link!
GS: Yuna accepts Yuna's Grand Summon for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Yuna!
GS: Mighty applied to Yuna!

DC: Yuna switches forms to Valefor!

GS: Yuna has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Red Mist Marivel has posed.

Marivel doesn't even make a quip about being a creature of the night, given unlife, as Silas Dee makes that quip. She just keeps on staring straight at Leo. "Shutup," She tells them. "You betrayed your own Summoner and your soldiers. You don't get to lecture him one iota."

She straightens back up. Ashley transforms into Knight Blazer.

"Neither of you are innocent. Both of your peoples'--"

She gestures to Knight Blazer. "Both of you fed that. And so have I. There is no innocence here. All are guilty."

"Forge a new promise today. Or accept that Lord Blazer--or something worse--is your future. It is no longer in my hands."

"It is in yours. All it takes is to let down your pride. This monster will not be your hero."

She looks to Leo. "Make your choice. While he can still control it." 

GS: COUNTER! Xantia counterattacks Seraph Liath with Counter Attack!
GS: CRITICAL! Xantia takes a solid hit from Seraph Liath's Final Justice for 209 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Xantia activates Power Burst!
GS: Xantia enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Seraph Liath's Rebirth Crusader for 217 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xantia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Xantia has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: CRITICAL! Ivan takes a glancing hit from Seraph Liath's Counter Attack for 98 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ivan gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Ivan critically guards Seraph Liath's Final Justice for 36 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ivan gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Ivan enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Ivan guards a hit from Seraph Liath's Rebirth Crusader for 121 hit points!
GS: Ivan has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!

<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.

    The hideous shape pulls in on itself, taking the form of Marivel once again. Leo knows better than to assume she's done so out of weakness, but she's crouched on the bloody street and sobbing, and there's still a part of him that wants to tell her that everything will be all right.

    And then Marivel tells him that no, everything will not be all right. She pours out her suffering. Leo looks a little steadier now, and shifts back into a defensive stance, bringing his blade up to guard. But the look in his eyes is very different from the one he just shot to Kelk. "You've endured the unthinkable," Leo says. "The loss of your home, your family, your people--and she--" Leo grits his teeth, swallows down his anger. "You deserve answers--"

    Marivel reaches out. A beam of shadow races at him, and Leo reacts with mere heartbeats to spare. He sets his feet, sweeps his sword into the path of the beam. Marivel's sorcerous might strikes blessed steel with a clear, bell-like tone that turns into a discordant wailing as she pours more power into it. Sparks fly. Leo's feet skid back against the cobblestones. The last of the beam's power breaks itself on the White Knight's guard, but it's taken more out of him. He sags again, stumbles, catches himself. Again, he hears someone calling out to him through the din.

    'Boy', Silas calls him. For a moment, more of that white-hot anger boils up within him, but he looks back at Marivel, and then at Kelk, and his jaw begins to tremble. "My sister and I hail from Raculi," he says, as he meets the elder Ronso's eyes. "There were stories--old stories--that our ancestors came from across the sea, long ago." He remembers the heirloom blade that his father kept above the fireplace. There are differences, but it looks very much like the blades carried by the Ronso soldiers. "If we do... If we were once children of Spira... Then I will see you again, Maester." The anger fades. It might sound a little ominous, but it's no threat against Kelk's life.

    And then...

    A wave of heat washes across the battlefield. Leo would dismiss it as sorcery if it weren't sending fiery tendrils of dread through every fiber of his being. Leo's ears flatten. His jaw falls open. He stares, even as the light threatens to sear the sight from his eyes. Marivel's words only serve to underline the horrible sight he's seeing.

    For a moment, words fail him.

    Forge a new promise today.

    "Goddess forgive me," Leo breathes.

    No, says the voice in his heart. You are not in need of her forgiveness.

    The White Knight raises a hand into the air. The light of Althena's Blessing crackles along his fingertips, and then shoots upwards, racing into the sky and erupting in a deep crimson firework. Ashley has blocked off their advance, but also given them an out. "RETREAT!" Leo roars. "LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND!"

    It's funny, how quickly the tide can turn.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"Ivan is not an expert on this subject!" Talia interjects to Liath, her voice shaking a little with indignation.

That only lasts for a moment.

And the next, she is rebounding away from kicking the Seraph in the face. She lands on both feet, knees bent, and skids across the now torn-up flagstones. A pitched battle has left whoever carries the day with a repair job. Talia breathes hard, looking up at Liath. She admits some pride -- even being quite impressed -- at how she throws herself at her brother's fiery bees.

She knows that Maester Kelk has arrived. She knows, too, that a great deal is happening -- that the battlefield is changing. But it's Liath that has her attention. That is necessary, to simply survive -- and then blades of light EXPLODE out towards her. Talia screams, wordlessly, and launches herself between them.

She jumps, as two cascade together. They merge; she leaps ahead, then she throws Mirage down. The blade slams into the ground, and the next just clips her shoulder, burning the skin--

--before her body splits into a half-dozen strands of shadowstuff. They merge together. Her hand is wrapped about the hilt, then, as she looks up. She sees the pillar of light. It comes crashing down, the whole world burning white -- edges of flagstones burning into black dust before her eyes -- and Talia screams again.

Does she believe in the world, like Liath does?
    Not really. A part of her still feels broken.
        But maybe, just maybe, she feels a little less broken.

The pillar of light slams down. Wisps of shadow waft where it struck -- and there isn't a sign of Talia, for a second. But then, Mirage hurls, straight into Liath's shield. It slams in there, catching on the guard with a rain of sparks. Shadowstuff twists together. It reforms, and Talia is in a three-point stance on the great shield.

Blood runs down her face, into her lips. Her hair is sweat-soaked. Her outfit is singed and burnt; half her coat has fallen away.

"I'm trying to keep Ragnell safe. For Ammy," she says. "And that means keeping you safe, too--even if it's from yourself, no?"

The magical circle explodes out from under her feet. At an angle -- the tingle of the Earthpulse's energy and the Goddess's power rolling over Liath, as it forms around her. Circles within circles turn; triangles move; a few Althenan inscriptions are cut off half-way, as they move through her. The air grows colder.

And colder.

And colder still, before a dozen huge icicles explode outward. Solid blocks of ice form off Talia's hand, into Liath's shield -- and all shove, mightily, at the Seraph.

GS: Talia has activated a Force Action!
GS: Talia has activated a Force Action!
GS: Talia spends 4 Combo on Link and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Liath with Mirage Edge!
GS: Talia has launched an attack Link!
GS: Talia spends 1 Combo on Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Talia has attacked Seraph Liath with Blizzaga!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Talia has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Red Mist Marivel has posed.

"Thank you," Marivel says to Leo. 'You deserve answers'. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it's his sensible call. Or maybe it's how he speaks to Kelk without rage despite everything. Marivel isn't going to be that person. It's Leo's job to. Marivel is just here to be the inevitable result of what happens if the heroes of today follow the path of eld. "I'll see you around, my friend."

She straightens up and makes her way towards Ashley Winchester. No, Knight Blazer. She moves slowly, patiently, but it is important that she does this. It is neccessary.

Her gaze, for a time, settles, on the ribbon. She reaches out wiht her hand and catches the bloodstained thing and holds it to her cheek.

And then, gripping it to her cheek like it itself was a loved one.

And then she makes her way up to Ashley.

She extends a hand dramatically--

--and then she smacks him in the back, hard, like one might do in a hazing ritual.

"Nice job Ash! You really spooked the heck out of them! Quacking in their boots! They don't know you're a sweet lil' old dumpling that wouldn't hurt a fly if he could help it! Ga ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

She puts on her biggest trollface. For the unenlightened, some might think this is the true Marivel and not the one that was battling desperately against White Knight Leo moments before.

"You're super cute today, Ash. Loving the digs too. Very stylish and potentially world ending. Deserving of an action figure and it's own theme music, that's for sure."

And then she gives Knight Blazer a big ol' hug.

"...Thank you," She murmurs softly, burying her face into his body. 

<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.

    Pearl tears into Boudicca with fury, forcing her to dissipate. It's not as satisfying as a corpse, but it's a clear sign of victory. But she's moving slower, and she doesn't charge on Ashley immediately, almost like she can't. But her rage is clear in everything about her, and Ashley Winchester is her next target.

    And then she sees him as the air becomes hot, as he burns, enclosed in flame. And then she sees what comes from the shattering flame.

    Once again, Pearl finds herself looking at death. It cuts through her rage like a knife, and stares at Knight Blazer. She doesn't run, she can't quite manage it even if she wanted to. She makes small steps back, as she watches pure, unbound power being released in front of her. It's incredible.

    She watches longer, watches the face of death. A small part of her wonders what she could do... What if she could direct it...

    But that's not now. The order to retreat is given, and Pearl makes slow steps back. She doesn't turn her back on the Blazer for an instant. She has no idea of effective range, until her feet bump into a fallen Guardsman. She stops, her eyes still on this terrifying force. She holds a hand in front of the Guardsman's nose and mouth, to confirm he's still breathing. And wordlessly, she lifts him off the ground, and puts his arm around her shoulders, before she starts moving for the retreat point. 

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"Explaining my issues with friendship would take more time than we have in this situation--" sputters Ivan apologetically. "But maybe another time!!?"

Liath launches a perplexing attack -- a single finger outstretched as she flies toward him. Ivan does not know what is coming, but he is confident he doesn't want it. He tries to dart aside, but the barest graze of her finger awakens the sigil with an explosion of deceptively soft light.

Ivan gasps with surprise and pain, with little recourse for an explosion centered on himself.

It's distracting enough that when Liath's next assault comes, it's already nearly upon him by the time he sees it, and all he can do is endure it, throwing up his hands in a cross-armed block.

The blade of light rips open a path towards him, then hits in a fierce shockwave that burns into him as it lifts him off his feet and throws him backward.

When he lands, it's with a heavy thud, no effort to control the fall. A few beats pass, but he doesn't rise again. 

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "In truth, I do not know," Avril says to the woman against whom she now fights. "I am without the bonds of my past." In other circumstances, perhaps -- maybe -- she may have opted to be more circumspect.

    But she knows this woman's soul, she finds, perhaps as well as -- maybe even better than -- she knows her own. And even should she take a more pragmatic approach, Hilde and the rest of the Guard have likely little reason to trade favors with those who would mean Avril more unkindly. This is the case even with her own people who trade with the Guard: Yue is bound by her own fetters. And with Kaguya...

    She believes what Kaguya had said to her. There is no reason to doubt it.

    No, Hilde she can trust in this--

    Just as she can trust Hilde to strike her down. But of course, as long as Hilde continues to fight, Avril will extend her the same favor.

    Just as the forces of Yevon call out for this to end, those leading the Guard shout out to continue to hold their ground.

    Blood on the pavement. Whose blood?

    She cannot turn back now.

    And so she rises, flecks of ice glittering in the air about her. For a moment -- in that moment after she lands -- it might be simple enough to think that she has struck true with her magic. But Hilde stands tall, freeing herself from her prison. Avril's only action in response is to take a step backwards and pick up her blade from whence it had fallen.

    "I thank you, Lady Hilde. Would that we were not engaged so," she tells her, brandishing again her blade. Her body sings with exhaustion and pain itself: that earlier impact had not been for naught. She must take caution, take care with her next strike. Hilde raises her shield, then, scarce giving Avril the chance to breathe before she charges.

    It would be impossible to pin what happens to any one failure. Avril is exhausted and injured. Hilde is fleet on her feet. There is the chaos, the sounds of the battle about them.

    And there is the way something in her screams, a primal ancient wash up the spinal column.

    She doesn't see Boudicca so struck. She doesn't see Ashley--

    Pain overwhelms the senses. She's flung aside to land heavily on the battle-scarred pavement (whose blood is that now?), her blade slipping out of her grasp. Spasming the once, frost slicks the ground where one hand touches the pavement, where she tries to push herself up, to get back on her feet and

    fight
    him

    "No," she whispers, though her head is all chaos and noise and wild rage. It's not memory -- merely something like memory. Something like...

    "Not here... Lady Hilde, you must go," she manages to call out to her opponent before sinking her head into her hands as if overwhelmed.

    "Before he..." 

GS: Seraph Liath takes a solid hit from Xantia's Counter Attack for 154 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Seraph Liath gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Seraph Liath enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Liath takes a solid hit from Talia's Mirage Edge for 160 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Liath takes a solid hit from Talia's Blizzaga for 227 hit points!
GS: Seraph Liath has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!

<Pose Tracker> Kelk Ronso has posed.

Kelk draws in a soft gasp to see Valefor rise. Perhaps he is an old man, but he remains faithful; a faith unshaken by discovering that his fellow Maesters were abominations, by years of politics, and by the avarice and obsession of Bevelle's leadership. Valefor is an object of faith, for the Yevonites, and it draws his stare.

He sees the way the Aeon rises -- ready to unleash upon some of Althena's Guard. He looks at Yuna -- and then he nods, once, respectfully to her.

He looks at Marivel -- and then away. He doesn't rise to her challenge. He is too practiced to show shame -- or doubt -- or anything else.

Kelk looks instead to Leo. Then, he nods to him. "There have been many of the Ronso people lost to the seas. Perhaps some found their way to distant shores," he says. "We will speak, when different times have come."

He bows his head once.

Silas, besides him, remains silent. He looks on -- and then he turns his blade down. The greatsword is thrust into the stones -- and he looks upward. His eyes squint at the sun. There is an empty look in his eyes. "I find it still burns, when I look upon it."

"Every victory comes with a price," Kelk answers Silas, softly. "And this victory will have one."

But some have to cheer. In the distance, Biran Ronso holds aloft his sword -- and Yenke Ronso follows after, his axe held high. Cheers, whoops, and shouts begin to echo across the city.

<Pose Tracker> Paine has posed.

Lulu seems headed for Paine's aid, but her approach becomes both dangerous and unnecessary as Margaret changes tactics. The 'little help' came from everyone this time, in pressuring Margaret.

"Maybe if you give me a bribe too," Paine tells Rikku, regarding a potential request for Paine's crude medical intervention.

As the whirling chain whistles, it comes for Tidus and Paine at once this time. The physics of them both getting hit is self-evident to Paine; they will be wrapped again, but this time very likely as one bundle.

Sword in one hand, carbine in the other, Paine leaps at once, tucking her knees to her chest tightly to give her more clearance. Her boots hit the ground after the chain has passed.

"Oh no," Paine chides Margaret (and teases Tidus). "I don't think Yuna would have liked that."

That leap took Paine out of her position in front of Lulu and into one behind her, which is a convenient place to be in a moment's time. As Lulu is knocked backwards, Paine holds a forearm out and halts her by letting Lulu's upper back collide with it. It's an unsentimental sort of help, or at least, a professional sort. Her eyes remain forward while she does it.

"Thank Mog for me," she says. After all, a plush punch is what initially distracted Margaret from following up on wrapping Paine in chain. Dropping her arm, Paine advances, but she only makes it a few steps. It is then that the scent of peaches and the sight of sakura petals halts her where she stands. If she looks back, she will see it for the first time. Yuna's Summoning.

Breathing deeply, Paine turns to look back.

Gazing upon the young woman she has sworn to protect, Paine shivers to see the mystic circles beneath her expand, the microcosm of the mandala turning whatever stands at its center into something elemental, fundamental. Paine watches, feeling an ache of sadness in her chest that she lacks the wherewithal to identify right now. Wings descend, gentle yet terrible in size. The Aeon appears, beautiful yet alien.

Unbidden comes a sense of religious awe. Unbidden, and not entirely welcome. She is in the middle of the battle. She needs to... she needs to...

Well. If they are only keeping up appearances, this seems like a good a time as any for Margaret and Dolly to retreat, does it not? Why not give them that opportunity?

On the basis of that entirely un-Paine-like logic, the swordswoman takes another moment to just look, and feel. 

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Honestly, it doesn't go as planned.

    Yue was hoping for the great few seconds that Aru Sulato exists to make her escape; she's at the absolute limits of her body, and understanding that she would get a few precious seconds of noncorporeality to flee...

    Well, it doesn't happen.

    Instead, she reappears, having been stitched forward in time-- and having gone nowhere. Her synchronicity with the Guardian isn't great; it's not surprising. She isn't a Shaman, she isn't even a sorceress and... well, her Ether is very well suppressed, after all, by the very anti-magic manacles on her wrists.

    Things are happening around her.

    *PANG*

    Then she feels a hard spike of a quarterstaff aimed at her liver. Blood forcefully spills on Ethius' quarterstaff, expelled from her mouth.

    'You do not belong here.'

    ... It's the words that she wants to hear least.

    Acacia tries to react, but too slow; she's too wounded. She looks to her for a moment, and then... there's an uncharacteristic look--

    As her body trembles, as the pain flares out from her stomach and she stares back with a wet, tearful, distressed and yet absolutely frustrated look in her eyes.

    "Then where do I belong? Back home with a people that left me to burn to THAT--"

    She points to Knight Blazer.

    "--catastrophe? Back home with a people whose tyrant queen so played with me, and denied me a death that would be a mercy?"

    Why does every one of her stressors have to exist in the same place.

    "Back with a people who turned their backs to the world, such that it rejects them! You are all the same. Five thousand years and nothing has progressed. People openly hate and other each other on the most trivial and hopeless of criteria...! Not even just faith or country... too tall, too small, too fat, too blonde, too much melanin!"

    She feels herself writhing, burning with a disgust finally brought to the fore; all tiredness and exhaustion forgotten, as something, at some pivotal and perhaps most unfortuitous moment twigs her over the limit--

    "No wonder people just decide to become villains."

    And then she is gone.

    Yue... ceases to become, and for a moment--

   a trickle of time
                   a trick of the eye
     aaaah she is colour
      she is emotion
                she is sensation
        bleeding from one
                   lonely silhouette
    through to another
                     one
            two
                      three
                    four
                  five
                     twentysix
            
sixseventytwo
                    it's colour all along
               the spectrum perceivable
             she strikes!
                  she strikes!
            she strikes!
                    she strikes!
                seventwentynine
                        nineseventyone
                she strikes!
        she strikes!
                  she strikes!
               one thousand.

    One thousand little unfolding cranes, their wishes left unfulfilled...

    And... somewhere, in the middle of that attack, no matter what happens... Yue's chosen to go and take Acacia and just book it while the going's good. 

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Honestly, it doesn't go as planned.

    Yue was hoping for the great few seconds that Aru Sulato exists to make her escape; she's at the absolute limits of her body, and understanding that she would get a few precious seconds of noncorporeality to flee...

    Well, it doesn't happen.

    Instead, she reappears, having been stitched forward in time-- and having gone nowhere. Her synchronicity with the Guardian isn't great; it's not surprising. She isn't a Shaman, she isn't even a sorceress and... well, her Ether is very well suppressed, after all, by the very anti-magic manacles on her wrists.

    Things are happening around her.

    *PANG*

    Then she feels a hard spike of a quarterstaff aimed at her liver. Blood forcefully spills on Ethius' quarterstaff, expelled from her mouth.

    'You do not belong here.'

    ... It's the words that she wants to hear least.

    Acacia tries to react, but too slow; she's too wounded. She looks to her for a moment, and then... there's an uncharacteristic look--

    As her body trembles, as the pain flares out from her stomach and she stares back with a wet, tearful, distressed and yet absolutely frustrated look in her eyes.

    "Then where do I belong? Back home with a people that left me to burn to THAT--"

    She points to Knight Blazer.

    "--catastrophe? Back home with a people whose tyrant queen so played with me, and denied me a death that would be a mercy?"

    Why does every one of her stressors have to exist in the same place.

    "Back with a people who turned their backs to the world, such that it rejects them! You are all the same. Five thousand years and nothing has progressed. People openly hate and other each other on the most trivial and hopeless of criteria...! Not even just faith or country... too tall, too small, too fat, too blonde, too much melanin!"

    She feels herself writhing, burning with a disgust finally brought to the fore; all tiredness and exhaustion forgotten, as something, at some pivotal and perhaps most unfortuitous moment twigs her over the limit--

    "No wonder people just decide to become villains."

    And then she is gone.

    Yue... ceases to become, and for a moment--

   a trickle of time
                   a trick of the eye
     aaaah she is colour
      she is emotion
                she is sensation
        bleeding from one
                   lonely silhouette
    through to another
                     one
                    two
                      three
                    four
                  five
                     twentysix
            
sixseventytwo
                    it's colour all along
               the spectrum perceivable
             she strikes!
                  she strikes!
            she strikes!
                    she strikes!
                seventwentynine
                        nineseventyone
                she strikes!
        she strikes!
                  she strikes!
               one thousand.

    One thousand little unfolding cranes, their wishes left unfulfilled...

    And... somewhere, in the middle of that attack, no matter what happens... Yue's chosen to go and take Acacia and just book it while the going's good. 

GS: Shield and Surge expired!
GS: Paine has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Honestly, it doesn't go as planned.

    Yue was hoping for the great few seconds that Aru Sulato exists to make her escape; she's at the absolute limits of her body, and understanding that she would get a few precious seconds of noncorporeality to flee...

    Well, it doesn't happen.

    Instead, she reappears, having been stitched forward in time-- and having gone nowhere. Her synchronicity with the Guardian isn't great; it's not surprising. She isn't a Shaman, she isn't even a sorceress and... well, her Ether is very well suppressed, after all, by the very anti-magic manacles on her wrists.

    Things are happening around her.

    *PANG*

    Then she feels a hard spike of a quarterstaff aimed at her liver. Blood forcefully spills on Ethius' quarterstaff, expelled from her mouth.

    'You do not belong here.'

    ... It's the words that she wants to hear least.

    Acacia tries to react, but too slow; she's too wounded. She looks to her for a moment, and then... there's an uncharacteristic look--

    As her body trembles, as the pain flares out from her stomach and she stares back with a wet, tearful, distressed and yet absolutely frustrated look in her eyes.

    "Then where do I belong? Back home with a people that left me to burn to THAT--"

    She points to Knight Blazer.

    "--catastrophe? Back home with a people whose tyrant queen so played with me, and denied me a death that would be a mercy?"

    Why does every one of her stressors have to exist in the same place.

    "Back with a people who turned their backs to the world, such that it rejects them! You are all the same. Five thousand years and nothing has progressed. People openly hate and other each other on the most trivial and hopeless of criteria...! Not even just faith or country... too tall, too small, too fat, too blonde, too much melanin!"

    She feels herself writhing, burning with a disgust finally brought to the fore; all tiredness and exhaustion forgotten, as something, at some pivotal and perhaps most unfortuitous moment twigs her over the limit--

    "No wonder people just decide to become villains."

    And then she is gone.

    Yue... ceases to become, and for a moment--

   a trickle of time
                   a trick of the eye
     aaaah she is colour
      she is emotion
                she is sensation
        bleeding from one
                   lonely silhouette
    through to another
                     one
                two
                      three
                    four
                  five
                     twentysix
            
sixseventytwo
                    it's colour all along
               the spectrum perceivable
             she strikes!
                  she strikes!
            she strikes!
                    she strikes!
                seventwentynine
                        nineseventyone
                she strikes!
        she strikes!
                  she strikes!
               one thousand.

    One thousand little unfolding cranes, their wishes left unfulfilled...

    And... somewhere, in the middle of that attack, no matter what happens... Yue's chosen to go and take Acacia and just book it while the going's good. 

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Honestly, it doesn't go as planned.

    Yue was hoping for the great few seconds that Aru Sulato exists to make her escape; she's at the absolute limits of her body, and understanding that she would get a few precious seconds of noncorporeality to flee...

    Well, it doesn't happen.

    Instead, she reappears, having been stitched forward in time-- and having gone nowhere. Her synchronicity with the Guardian isn't great; it's not surprising. She isn't a Shaman, she isn't even a sorceress and... well, her Ether is very well suppressed, after all, by the very anti-magic manacles on her wrists.

    Things are happening around her.

    *PANG*

    Then she feels a hard spike of a quarterstaff aimed at her liver. Blood forcefully spills on Ethius' quarterstaff, expelled from her mouth.

    'You do not belong here.'

    ... It's the words that she wants to hear least.

    Acacia tries to react, but too slow; she's too wounded. She looks to her for a moment, and then... there's an uncharacteristic look--

    As her body trembles, as the pain flares out from her stomach and she stares back with a wet, tearful, distressed and yet absolutely frustrated look in her eyes.

    "Then where do I belong? Back home with a people that left me to burn to THAT--"

    She points to Knight Blazer.

    "--catastrophe? Back home with a people whose tyrant queen so played with me, and denied me a death that would be a mercy?"

    Why does every one of her stressors have to exist in the same place.

    "Back with a people who turned their backs to the world, such that it rejects them! You are all the same. Five thousand years and nothing has progressed. People openly hate and other each other on the most trivial and hopeless of criteria...! Not even just faith or country... too tall, too small, too fat, too blonde, too much melanin!"

    She feels herself writhing, burning with a disgust finally brought to the fore; all tiredness and exhaustion forgotten, as something, at some pivotal and perhaps most unfortuitous moment twigs her over the limit--

    "No wonder people just decide to become villains."

    And then she is gone.

    Yue... ceases to become, and for a moment--

   a trickle of time
                   a trick of the eye
     aaaah she is colour
      she is emotion
                she is sensation
        bleeding from one
                   lonely silhouette
    through to another
                     one
                two
                      three
                    four
                  five
                     twentysix
            
            sixseventytwo
                    it's colour all along
               the spectrum perceivable
             she strikes!
                  she strikes!
            she strikes!
                    she strikes!
                seventwentynine
                        nineseventyone
                she strikes!
        she strikes!
                  she strikes!
               one thousand.

    One thousand little unfolding cranes, their wishes left unfulfilled...

    And... somewhere, in the middle of that attack, no matter what happens... Yue's chosen to go and take Acacia and just book it while the going's good. 

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Honestly, it doesn't go as planned.

    Yue was hoping for the great few seconds that Aru Sulato exists to make her escape; she's at the absolute limits of her body, and understanding that she would get a few precious seconds of noncorporeality to flee...

    Well, it doesn't happen.

    Instead, she reappears, having been stitched forward in time-- and having gone nowhere. Her synchronicity with the Guardian isn't great; it's not surprising. She isn't a Shaman, she isn't even a sorceress and... well, her Ether is very well suppressed, after all, by the very anti-magic manacles on her wrists.

    Things are happening around her.

    *PANG*

    Then she feels a hard spike of a quarterstaff aimed at her liver. Blood forcefully spills on Ethius' quarterstaff, expelled from her mouth.

    'You do not belong here.'

    ... It's the words that she wants to hear least.

    Acacia tries to react, but too slow; she's too wounded. She looks to her for a moment, and then... there's an uncharacteristic look--

    As her body trembles, as the pain flares out from her stomach and she stares back with a wet, tearful, distressed and yet absolutely frustrated look in her eyes.

    "Then where do I belong? Back home with a people that left me to burn to THAT--"

    She points to Knight Blazer.

    "--catastrophe? Back home with a people whose tyrant queen so played with me, and denied me a death that would be a mercy?"

    Why does every one of her stressors have to exist in the same place.

    "Back with a people who turned their backs to the world, such that it rejects them! You are all the same. Five thousand years and nothing has progressed. People openly hate and other each other on the most trivial and hopeless of criteria...! Not even just faith or country... too tall, too small, too fat, too blonde, too much melanin!"

    She feels herself writhing, burning with a disgust finally brought to the fore; all tiredness and exhaustion forgotten, as something, at some pivotal and perhaps most unfortuitous moment twigs her over the limit--

    "No wonder people just decide to become villains."

    And then she is gone.

    Yue... ceases to become, and for a moment--

   a trickle of time
                   a trick of the eye
     aaaah she is colour
      she is emotion
                she is sensation
        bleeding from one
                   lonely silhouette
    through to another
                     one
                two
                      three
                    four
                  five
                     twentysix
            
            sixseventytwo
                    it's colour all along
               the spectrum perceivable
             she strikes!
                  she strikes!
            she strikes!
                    she strikes!
                seventwentynine
                        nineseventyone
                she strikes!
        she strikes!
                  she strikes!
               one thousand.

    One thousand little unfolding cranes, a wish left unfulfilled...

    And... somewhere, in the middle of that attack, no matter what happens... Yue's chosen to go and take Acacia and just book it while the going's good. 

GS: Yue Rohay spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Yue Rohay with -Over Limit!- Mystic Arte Unlocked!
GS: Yue Rohay has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yue Rohay has launched an attack Link!
GS: Yue Rohay accepts Yue Rohay's -Over Limit!- Mystic Arte Unlocked for 0 hit points!
GS: Pray grants a random effect! Amplify, Burst, and Hyper applied to Yue Rohay!
GS: Yue Rohay has activated a Force Action!
GS: Yue Rohay has activated a Force Action!
GS: Yue Rohay spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Yue Rohay enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Fast Draw - Laser Silhouette!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod guards a hit from Yue Rohay's Fast Draw - Laser Silhouette for 154 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Hilde has posed.

The stadium explodes in chaos all around Hilde. But for a moment, Hilde's attention is wholly on Avril.

"Indeed..." Hilde replies with a sorrowful smile as Avril thanks her. It's a shame - it's a shame they must fight.

And Avril falls... but as she does, Leo orders a retreat. So, too, does Avril.

"...'He'... that young man...?" Hilde questions. She doesn't know why... but, she can feel the gravity in her words. She nods, her expression grim and serious.

"...Very well. We will meet again, Lady Avril, for foul or fair. But... I hope it is the latter." Hilde says with a nod. She extends a hand out to her. Another light emits in Avril's direction... but rather than the light of destruction, this one is calm, soothing. It may not help much, but it may at least dull the pain.

And then Hilde steps back, reclaiming her banner from where she planted it earlier, raising it high into the sky. She readies her shield, her body once more suffusing itself with a blue glow.

"Guard, to me!" Hilde shouts. "We must fall back - I shall cover your retreat!"

She stands, shield at the ready. Should anyone attempt to capitalize on the Guard's retreat, she shall be there to defend them.

She is the Knight-Protector - Hyland's steel bulwark against all invaders. While she is capable of drawing breath, she will defend all in her charge. Only once all of the others have fled will she make good on her own retreat. 

GS: Hilde has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Champion's Litany!
GS: Hilde has completed her action.

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

None of that went as Xantia intended. Neither her sword strike, intercepted with what certainly seemed like ease, nor the effect of her words. Isn't this where what she's saying is supposed to be protested against, and she has to desperately tries to convince a misguided person of the error of their ways? But no argument results. The counterpoint is different, one that she's not sure she understands. She doesn't have a response for this one.

Moreover, in the midst of their blade clash, she receives only kindness in return. She has no reason to doubt how genuine the sentiment is. Now she's certain that there's something here that she's fundamentally misunderstood. Why? Why is someone like this helping war to spread? Nothing about this makes sense. She tries to vocalize something, but it gets stuck at "I..."

Xantia is ill-prepared for what happens next. The charge, of course, she was ready for. The instinctive counterstrike comes likely as expected - a single full-force swing, leaving no way to respond to anything that might follow after.

Despite taking the full force of the strike that follows, she too manages to yet land in a crouch afterward. An aura of light, summoned at the last second, seems likely to have had something to do with her being able to absorb at least some of the damage that should have done. But her crouch is not one of someone ready to strike again. She grips her sword only to maintain balance, and that sword soon vanishes into motes of light as she's unable to maintain the focus needed to sustain it, causing her to stumble forward.

"I don't... doubt you," she chokes out, forcing a smile. "I hope to... learn your reasons... one day."

The pillar of light washes over Xantia. She has no way to escape that. All she can do was weather it, depending on her elemental aura for protection. This ends poorly, of course. Xantia had lost most of her resolve following the verbal exchange, and couldn't hope to stand up to something like this. When the light clears, Xantia is face-down, unconscious. She's still smiling. 

GS: Hilde heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 100 temporary hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.

Lulu's spell ripples out and around Margaret, who is bound to the surface of this planet like so many others, freed only by the temporary accidents of hills and trees and stairs. The defensive posture she is in while whipping her chain around means she is forced into an even deeper crouch, grinding her teeth as joints pop, the chain forced to the ground by the abrupt mass increase.

Which means -

"Good question, Mr. Honeycrisp," Margaret says.

- She has room to talk.

"We had blood in our eyes, from Azado. And we thought we would be heroes. Saving a distant land. We thought it might be nothing here at all, or huddled hunters inland from Sin. I don't know what they expected. I was hoping you'd have trains," Margaret says, "but I suppose those are a Filgaia thing, aren't they." Her head rolls back, her face pulled taut by Lulu's gravity. "... and then, we had to make the blood we shed be not in vain."

Which leads us over to Dolly -

Whose composure seems to be melting as she turns back to Yuna. Her face contorts in half-unlocked grief enough to crack the facepaint, which smears under tears. She struggles to reply, and at the invitation, she says, "Ah, uh," and then she takes a great step back.

She (and, the Guardians might notice, Margaret) attends to what Yuna says, and towards whom. Devils rise and angels fall - not close, not right here, but hardly in the distance either. "It's hard," she answers Yuna, as the scent of peach blooms rises in the air. "It's so hard. Each day."

That is about what she can manage.

- which leads us back to Margaret, in time to be moving in synch with Tidus, or at least in response to him. The kama's grip is reversed and she is able to clash with him on his first pass, and she tosses her head back, her hair moving abnormally in the increasingly complex space-time environment around her. It does not look as cool as she thinks. Then Tidus snaps back, carving a gash in her armor: she raises the weapon to clash against Tidus while rising upwards, aiming to hit him before the point of maximum power of his slash--

Which overbalances her, sending her toppling backwards beneath the force of redoubled gravity, and smashing to the pavement! Her head stays proudly up, but this is not a good place to be. She rocks back as if to kip upwards-- and this is where the ninefold bursts of mixed and thoroughly blended ice smash downwards upon her in rapid, vigorous succession. "Ngh! Gh! Damng - gah! Ff-"

She raises the kama as if to guard from a strike from Paine. It would likely not be enough but perhaps--

--

-- The strike doesn't come. A heartbeat later, Margaret smiles, lopsidedly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dRF_ofpXCA

"You know," Margaret says through slightly chattering teeth, still on the ground, "I don't think I have it in me to be like all of you. I never really did. But by the goddess, I see why people admire them."

The kama slides out of her hands, as does the chain affixed to it. Disarmed, Margaret extends a hand with a ring upon it towards the general direction of Yuna and Dolly.

"I won't ask you for a hand up," Margaret says, lifting her head to look specifically at Lulu and say, "Particularly you--" Is she addressing LULU or MOG there? "-- but I'll thank you. I think it's all coming undone now, but maybe..."

The thought doesn't finish, because the ring flashes green and Margaret suddenly jerks forwards, pulled forwards abruptly. She stumbles a step from reorienting herself, but she comes up behind Dolly, on the other side of her, relative to Yuna. Margaret clasps Dolly's shoulder with one hand.

"Train's leaving," Margaret says. "Are you coming?"

Dolly takes a breath that could contain the world and answers, finally, "yah."

The hand on the shoulder turns to a half-cradled embrace.

Margaret says, to Yuna, "Thank you. I don't know what your game is, but I hope you win it." Her head turns towards -- not the street, but the sky. "Really, I owe you one - all of you - so: I'm heading west; if you need anything..."

And that thought is left hanging too as she raises up the hand with the ring and hikes up her grasp of Dolly.

"It won't be so bad," she says, somehow relaxed - maybe it was the shot in the head? "Worst case is bandits, really," Margaret says, as the ring gleams. "I've been one of those before."

And then comes a chain of rising skip-step dashes, upwards, over where she had been standing, towards the curiously-not-nearly-as-destroyed as-probably-feared-given-everything buildings lining the street where this fateful encounter was held. "Ta ta!" Margaret calls towards the Guardians, and true to her word, she is heading approximately towards the west.

GS: Margaret spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Margaret has attacked Yuna with Premonition of Air!
GS: Margaret has launched an attack Link!
GS: Delay expired!
GS: Margaret has attacked Paine with A Dream of Flight!
GS: Margaret has attacked Tidus with A Dream of Flight!
GS: Margaret has attacked Rikku with A Dream of Flight!
GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Margaret takes 26 damage from Poison!
GS: Slow and Weaken expired!
GS: Margaret has completed her action.
GS: Yuna accepts Margaret's Premonition of Air for 0 hit points!
GS: Burst applied to Yuna!
GS: Rikku accepts Margaret's A Dream of Flight for 0 hit points!
GS: Paine accepts Margaret's A Dream of Flight for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Cripple removed!

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

The living apocalypse that is Knight Blazer stares Pearl down as she pulls slowly, cautiously, away. It never blinks, its eyes are twin stars set against a tapestry of black. At any moment, those eyes might flash again, unleash that terrible, world-scourging flame.

They do not. They simply watch until she is finally out of sight. The roar of retreat fills the air, and Ashley-- the Blazer-- just... sags. The weight of the world seems to press down upon his shoulders. Everything... it was all so close to becoming so much worse. But why did it have to get to this point to begin with...?

Marivel sneaks up behind him, raises a hand, and--

SMACK!!

Marivel! Is there. The Blazer glances back at her, peering over his hunched over shoulders like the depressed comic relief friend who always ends up accidentally being the cause-- and solution-- of all life's problems. "I... I'm not sure..."

Marivel gives him a big ol' hug.

There's another surge of heat... But this time, it's retreating. It draws in, collapsing back into the Knight's flickering form.

"...If ducks should really be going to war. You know...?" He stops, shoulders trembling. "...I didn't want it to keep going. I could tell he was... hungry for it," the baker whispers, hesitantly, choking back the tears and the memory of that awful, awful feeling. "It had to stop, before it got worse. I'm sorry, this... I shouldn't be using this power so... frivolously. But I had to stop it. I'm sorry." 

GS: Tidus accepts Margaret's A Dream of Flight for 0 hit points!

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Events happen. The air grows hot, Lord Blazer arrives - and the sudden chill to heat is draining on the masked Symbologist, who stands before an exasperated woman who has volunteered so much in... trust? To get some weight off her chest? To someone who seems eager for anything but a middle ground, an understanding.
     The blood does not slow him down, shocking and visceral a strike as it is. The man has never shown much distaste for the realities of violence. (They closest they've gotten is the scent of chocobos.)
     'Then where do I belong?' Those words start. There is an energy, a palpable strength in Yue's aching words that the relentless man dares not lower his guard to cast again - but because something feels...
     ...all too familiar.
     Yue ceases to be, up until a moment of impact.
     A great clash. A single sound that is a lie, it is a thousand.
     For an instant, a mere instant, Ethius is looking Yue face to face - rather literally, for the Al Bhed mask has been sliced in twain, leaving his bare face to look her in the eyes. Only she gets to see his expression. (All can see he has been growing a beard. It's not a bad look on him.)
     He stands upright for that instant the two of them are there, staring. Her fury and frustration with her lack of place in life, his...

     SO LONG AGO
     "...What is the likes of you doing here?!" Shouts the voice of another like himself, but one he never would have said to be like himself, eyes set on someone tall, heavy set, full of hair. The only one there, he felt, whose words held meaning to him - even before numerous others that looked a lot more like himself.
     He called that name, in joy, but his was the only vocalization that could be construed as that.
     'Your kind would ask,' a... Beastfolk? Said, as they turned their head, as so many others prevented himself from seeing them. The voice was deep and soothing. The words defied the latter descriptor. 'After what had transpired?'
     The words that followed. The voice could never be tarnished in the recesses of his mind. They could never be forgotten in their severity. They faced away, as more prevented him from ever seeing him.
     He never saw him again, but he heard a few more words.
     'Leave.'
     'You do not belong here. You do not belong among us.'

     NOW

     He doesn't have an answer for her. Nothing sympathetic, nothing aggressive. He has nothing, other than a numbing echo of... something.
     Just as she commits to disengage and take Acacia with her, he, too, wastes little time loosing a Powder Grenade in which to make his own exit. The wounds catch up to him moments later as his body parses one thousand strikes in one instant - too numerous to give respect to every little laceration that adds up. The forces of the Guard are pulling back - the White Knight's voice is loud and clear on that front. There is nothing more to be gained.
     Nothing more to be said.
     They don't really have a satisfying answer for one another. 

<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.

    Acacia isn't exactly sure where she is, or what way up she's being held. A little too disoriented to pick out those answers, she focuses on the things she can feel and sense - the familiar rattle of chains, the feel of Yue holding onto her, the movement of air. Those things tell enough of a story that she lets her shoulders finally relax, and gives her mind some time to play back the last few seconds.

    A cacophony of light and sound, directed towards Ethius. She'd already felt her own pang of ire start to curl around her stomach, the flaring anger of it creeping up her throat as she rose to Yue's defence, but she hadn't been fast enough. Instead, it felt almost like something had dislodged from the Veruni's throat - an outpour who knows how many decades or centuries in the making.

    Grimly, part of her brain wonders if the chance to let it out is something that Yue's needed for a very long time. But personal experience tells her that's a really, really cold comfort.

    She trusts herself to Yue's hold, sagging a little as she does her best to relax. Thoughts still swirling around her head, she does the best thing she can right now - seeking a fold of Yue's shirt, she grips it tightly in her fist, tugging just enough to let the Veruni be aware that she's conscious. It's a silent apology, a commiseration, and a lot more things she hasn't said out loud just yet. 

<Pose Tracker> Lulu has posed.

Lulu is stopped by Paine's arm, and it would be different if there were some moment about it, some commentary--like one of the others might make. But that is not what happens. Instead, Lulu simply inclines her head and says, "Of course."

...What happens next is not at all of course. Lulu is focused on her battle with Margaret, on the woman who chose to kept fighting, but she can hear Yuna's words, too. She hears that truth--of merit. Of meaning.

Sin... What it is. What it isn't. Not for the first time Lulu wonders at the woman Yuna has become, the things she can do that Lulu can only try to keep up with. Perhaps some truths are like that, too.

Valefor comes, and Lulu sees her. She hears Yuna's words of penance, but...

Margaret stops. Paine does not strike her. And instead she talks to them. She won't ask her--or Mog--for a hand up. Lulu does not smile, but she does her the courtesy of watching her talk.

She watches her go. She watches the battle come to an end, still under the watchful eye of Valefor. ..She watches Kelk Ronso, and wonders distantly what he is thinking.

"...Perhaps we'll see each other again," Lulu says to Margaret as she goes, and she really doesn't know if it's true.

But she looks up to Valefor again, and then to Yuna, and nods.

"...I think that's a good answer," she says, and that is all she says for a while. She does not move to stop any who might retreat. Instead she looks at Paine, too, for a moment, as if taking stock of something about her, and turns her back on the cheers in the distance.

...She may yet see Luca's stadium in use again. 

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Liath has posed.

"I hope one day to hear it, Master Ivan. Sincerely."

It's a haze of blue and yellows that the Seraph of Light rises up in the center of. They fluctuate, turning towards greens, violets, aquamarines and so many more as she presses her gloved, shield-bearing arm against her right shoulder. That pauldron has been sundered, split from Xantia's blow to leave a gaping wound in the metal, the edges of which dissolve in little motes of light as she grimaces. With such an opening in that asymmetric armor, the damage done is clear -- the wound of that full-force swing has rendered Liath's sword arm all but useless.

She still grips onto Joyeuse with fingers as firm in their grip as possible, as if its weight had as much or more value than her life.

Her gold gaze turns towards Xantia. The unassailable grip of her resolve loosens for something fonder, for someone she has only just met.

"... I hope for that, too," she murmurs, all but under her breath.

And that is when her gaze affixes on the Knight Blazer.

Near the beginning of this invasion upon Spira, Liath had cause to fight Ashley Winchester. She drove through the spirit of him. And within, she saw...

... the thing that now burns so blistering hot. She stands there, amid the fallen, her armored fingers twitching at the hilt of her sword, a thoughtful frown at her lips. She takes a step forward --

--and then pauses, as Marivel expertly Marivels the matter.

Liath blinks. And despite herself --

"snrt"

... the warforged Prime Lord finds cause to stifle a giggle, the gloved hand of her shield arm lifting briefly towards her face in a way that, well, shields it, and all her amusement, from the world.

Her laughter is a very real, if short-lived thing. And one that abruptly ends, as she looks towards where Talia -should- be -- and finds nothing but empty space. Her brows furrow.

And it is not a second later that the tip of the Mirage kisses the surface of Liath's shield in a short spurt of sparks, strands of shadow twisting together into --

-- a bloodied, battered and burnt Talia.

Still standing.

Still fighting. Still...

            ... that means keeping you safe, too--
            even if it's from yourself, no?

... defying the expected.

Liath's eyes widen.

And for that moment, as the Mirage digs in against Liath's shield, a myriad of emotions knot at the Seraph's expression in a way terribly difficult to untangle. She looks surprised. Confused. Happy.

Sorrowful.

    Resigned.

"... You are kinder than you think you are, Talia. And certainly stronger."

Everything grows colder and colder. Liath can feel the shift of the Earthpulse beneath her feet, through her veins, in the very air. But she doesn't move. Doesn't budge an inch.

She just offers a little, bittersweet smile that fits the frost slowly clinging at the whites of her hair so perfectly.

"There is only so much I can do, so much I can say. But... if nothing else, please take this to heart."

Icicles ripple forward, bursting from Talia's hand. They collide into Liath's shield, splintering off it, ripping -through- it.

"--It is never too late to see the things that make this world worth fighting for--"

... and shoving through the Seraph of Light as she bleeds away into so many different colors.

By the time that little blizzard has finished, only Liath's words linger.

<Pose Tracker> Red Mist Marivel has posed.

"I meant quaking but it's been a day." Marivel says to Ashley. "No, Ash. Don't apologize. You did good. They needed to know. They needed to know." She's back down to two eyes now, looking over to Liath. She seems relieved that the Seraph of Light is--

--oh, well, maybe not okay after all. Ice grips Marivel's heart, for a moment, before she reminds herself that--she's probably fine. She's a Seraph. It happens all the time. Even if she seems a little strange compared to the average Seraph which, lets face it, the average Seraph is already pretty strange.

She looks to Ash and she smiles, placing a hand on his cheek, drying his tears with a finger.

"I can't wait for the day we meet." Marivel tells him. "And I can just...be your friend, properly. I hope you.. ah..."

She lets her hand drop. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I know I've been feeding him myself. I know it. And I'm sorry."

"...To both of you." 

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"I don't know about all of that, no?" Talia says, with a crooked smile. "But... maybe sometimes, on my good days. I--"

She sees the ice rip through Liath's shield. Through her -- and she bleeds away into so many colors, little motes of light hanging in the air around her. Talia falls down, then, to her knees. She breathes hard, sweat and blood running down her face.

"That... make the world worth fighting for?" she repeats, softly. Her eyes blink a couple of times, uncertainty in them. Then, she smiles. "Maybe..."

She looks back, over her shoulder -- at where her brother fell. "Ah... Vanya," she says, before she stumbles up. What makes the world worth fighting for?

She winces, with pain, but takes one step, then another closer to her brother.

<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.

    Valefor alights on the battlefield, but does not attack. Leo takes Kelk's words to heart, and sounds a retreat. And Margaret and her friend thank Tidus and his friends, and move to retreat also.
    
    "...Hey, if this means you're not going to be keeping this war up anymore, I'm fine with whatever you do," Tidus tells her, sheathing his sword. He nods to her and Dolly in turn, then adds, "Take care out there, okay?"
    
    He's not really sure what the significance of the train is, but if they're good with how all this panned out, so is he. He's content to head back to Yuna and offer her a hand to hold.
    
    Paine and Rikku and even Lulu can tease all they want over it, even. 

<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.

Sympathy for the devil...? If it wasn't from Marivel, it would have sounded hollow. Instead, Ashley just... Sinks into her hug and lets the stress out.

How can a body describe what it's like to be so keenly aware of just... all the bloodlust, all the rage. The terror. The regret. Everything boiling just beneath the surface of all the people whose lives have been ruined by war. Musketeers are soldiers, they are made to fight wars, to win wars, to represent the best of Meria's best.

But War...

War is not Hell.

Hell only hurts the people who deserve it. War just doesn't care. And all of that pain-- to be keenly aware of it, to have something within that hungers for it, that treats it as an absolute inevitability...

It's indescribable.

And Ashley doesn't describe it.

His tearstained eyes say all that needs to be said. "...Thank you, Marivel. It's... it's okay. I think... People can't help but to have those things inside them. But... Thank you. I don't think you realize just how much of what you do -doesn't- feed him. For all of that, thank you."

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